Breathers (38 page)

“Hey, Jerry?” I say.

“What's wrong?” asks Rita.

On the ground, a third shadow joins those belonging to Rita and me. I start to turn around, expecting to see Jerry sneaking up on us. Instead, someone slams into me, separating my hand from Rita's. The next instant I'm hitting the ground, pinned beneath a huge, sweaty body.

“Get his hands!” a male voice hisses above me. “Get his hands! Get his hands!”

“Hold on!” says another voice. “Stay away from his mouth!”

I can't move and I can't breathe. I try to shout out but the weight pressing down on my chest is crushing my lungs. The next thing I know, my ankles are bound with zip ties, then the same is done to my wrists behind my back.

I don't hear Rita at all.

“Okay, okay,” says a voice. “He's good. Let's go.”

Before I can snap my teeth and bite into human flesh, the weight lifts off of me and I can finally breathe, but I still don't have enough air to shout out. So I growl.

“Shut him up!” someone whispers.

A boot kicks me in the back, then another in the kidneys. I roll over and try to curl up into a ball to block the blows,
which is when I see Rita on the ground just a few feet away, unconscious. Two figures stand between us.

“Come on,” says the one who'd been kicking me, stepping away. He's short with blond hair and he's holding a baseball bat. “Let's finish this and get out of here.”

“Hold on,” says another one, wearing a knit beanie and army fatigues. He leans over Rita and reaches down and grabs her left ear. A few seconds later, he's holding something in his hand and Rita's earlobe is ragged and bleeding.

That's when I smell the gasoline.

A guy the size of Martha Stewart's ego approaches us with a three-gallon can of unleaded in one hand and what looks like an unlit emergency flare in the other.

I'm beginning to think that World Death Tours aren't such a good idea.

The other two back away as the big guy reaches Rita, puts the flare in his pocket, and unscrews the gasoline cap. I try to get up, try to let out a cry for help, try to do anything to stop him, but I'm tied up and can't catch my breath.

Somehow I manage to get to my knees, but before I can lunge forward and try to bite anyone, the blond kid takes a swing at me with the baseball bat, catching me along the side of my head. I fall to the ground, the world momentarily blacking out. When I blink my eyes open, Martha Stewart's ego is standing above Rita, pouring gasoline over her.

I hear the sound of approaching footsteps in the grass, fast and determined.

The big guy looks up.

“Shit …”

Jerry hits him high and hard before he can react, knocking Martha off his feet. The gas can falls to the ground a few feet away, spilling its contents out on the grass.

“Fuck!” shouts the kid with the bat.

The one in the army fatigues turns in circles, searching the darkness, his eyes wide. “Nick, let's get out of here!”

He turns and runs off.

“Fuck!” says Nick again.

Martha Stewart is screaming.

Jerry has Martha on the ground, biting at his throat, but the big guy is putting up a fight, pushing Jerry away. I'm not sure, but I think Jerry is laughing.

Instead of running away, Nick starts walking toward Jerry, the bat held out in front of him. I want to warn Jerry but I can only watch as Nick creeps up behind Jerry and cocks the bat over his right shoulder, his hands shaking. Just as he's about to take a swing, Jerry turns around, his cheeks and chin covered with gore, glistening in the moonlight.

Nick freezes.

“Jesus,” he gasps.

“Sorry, dude,” says Jerry, standing up, leaving Martha gasping and groaning on the ground. “He couldn't make it.”

The smell of blood and gasoline fills the air.

Jerry steps forward but instead of swinging the bat, Nick starts to back away, then turns to run and trips over the gas can and goes sprawling, the bat tumbling from his hands.

Jerry laughs. Not in a mean or malicious way. He just thinks it's funny and starts laughing, like he's out in the cemetery clowning around with his buddies.

Nick scrambles to his feet and turns around, looking for the bat, but the nearest weapon is the gas can, so he picks it up and shakes it at Jerry, which only makes Jerry laugh harder. So Nick throws the gas can at Jerry, who's still laughing when the can hits him in the head and splashes gasoline in his face before falling to the ground at his feet.

“Oww! Shit, dude,” says Jerry, wiping at his eyes. “That's not cool.”

But that's the extent of Nick's courage. After throwing the gas can, he turns and flees, racing off in the direction of his accomplice, leaving his other friend to die.

I roll over to check on Rita. She's still unconscious, her face and hair wet with gasoline t hat glistens in the moonlight. Next to her, Martha Stewart lies on his back, barely moving, though he appears to be fumbling w it h some thing. It takes me a few seconds before I realize he's got the emergency flare in his hand and he's twisting off the plastic cap.

I try to warn Jerry, but all that comes out is a gasp.

In the darkness I hear Naomi's and Tom's voices, but I can't tell where they are.

Martha has the cap off, exposing the igniter button.

Jerry is still facing away from me, trying to rub the gasoline out of his eyes. He's standing right next to the gas can in a puddle of regular unleaded.

A few feet from me, Martha has rolled over onto his side and ignited the flare.

“Jerry,” I finally manage to say.

Jerry turns around, still rubbing his eyes, then opens them just as Martha tosses the ignited flare onto the grass.

“Dude.”

The flare hits the ground. An instant later, Rita is on fire. Before Jerry can move, the flames race across the gasoline-soaked grass until they reach the gas can, which explodes directly beneath him.

Jerry staggers away, engulfed in flames, then falls to the ground and rolls around, trying to put out the fire, all the while screaming in pain, screaming in fear, screaming for someone to help him. A few feet from me, her pale face no
longer visible behind the flames, Rita burns in silence. I can smell her hair burning, her flesh cooking, melting from the bone. I open my mouth to call her name, but all that comes out is a sob.

I struggle to free my hands but it's no use. I can't move. I can't call out for help. I can't even cover my eyes. All I can do is watch and cry as Jerry and Rita and my unborn child burn to death, two in silence and one in agony. In the end, it's more than I can bear, so I close my eyes and listen to Jerry's screams.

'm in the back of Helen's minivan sitting next to Rita's charred remains. I keep trying to hold her hand, but I can't find anything that looks familiar so I just cry harder. What was left of Jerry is wrapped up in Naomi's leather jacket on the floor behind us.

When the others showed up, Jerry had stopped screaming and moving but he was still on fire, so they used Naomi's leather jacket to put him out. Rita, who never regained consciousness, laid smoldering until Carl threw his overcoat on top of her.

We hoped Rita and Jerry could be force fed enough to reverse the damage, but all that was left of them was flesh melted to bone. Even if they could have reanimated, their mouths and throats were gone, so there was no way for either of them to consume any Breather.

My own face is blistered, my eyebrows and hair singed. At some point, I crawled over to Rita while she was still burning and laid down next to her. I don't remember doing it. I just remember opening my eyes and seeing Rita less than a foot away, an indistinguishable, black lump in a scorched bed of grass.

I can still see her face, her pale flesh and dark eyes and sweet lips adorned in one of her dozens of colors. It doesn't seem possible that she's gone, that she's been destroyed beyond all recognition. But then I look down and see this mass of bone and melted tissue and I'm flooded with an anger that can't be denied.

There was no sign of either of the two attackers who ran off, and by the time we got to him, Martha Stewart had died from his injuries, so we couldn't find out where they came from. Then I remembered how the one in the fatigues had torn something from Rita's earlobe. The letters on Martha Stewart's T-shirt confirmed my suspicions.

Nobody has said a word since we left the cemetery. We've just been driving in silence, none of us wanting to talk about what happened but all of us knowing what has to be done.

First we have to take Rita and Jerry's remains someplace safe. We'd prefer to bury them ourselves, take them to a spot out in the woods and give them a proper sendoff, but that's not possible. We don't have the time. Not tonight. And I don't know if there will be a tomorrow.

Once we drop off their bodies, we'll swing by my place to see if Zack and Luke want to come along. I wouldn't hold it against them if they didn't, but I'm pretty sure they'd want to make that choice for themselves.

After that, there's only one more stop.

rick or treat!”

True, we're two months late, but it's the spirit that counts.

The member of Sigma Chi who answers the door stands in the doorway with a beer in his hand and looks at us as if he's trying to figure out the punch line.

“Who are you?”

“We're friends of Nick,” I say, then grab him by the shirt and shove him against the door before biting into his throat. He's still twitching when I let him go and he falls to the floor, blood pooling around him in the doorway, his beer still clutched in one hand.

Two young co-eds standing in the foyer near the foot of the stairs scream and drop their drinks, then run upstairs. Zack and Luke take off after them like greyhounds, then the rest of us storm inside and lock the front door.

The winter quarter doesn't begin until Tuesday and it's nearly two in the morning so we didn't expect a full house, but the music's still thumping and the booze is still flowing so chances are we're going to be busy. Which is good. Dad always said, “Idle hands are the devil's tools.”

Helen and Carl take the downstairs, while I follow Zack and Luke's lead to the bedrooms upstairs. Tom and Naomi remain inside at the front door to prevent anyone from leaving. It's admittedly indiscriminate and a few innocent people might end up paying for the actions of the three who attacked us tonight, but we've had enough.