Dead of Eve (7 page)

“No. Nothing like that. When she got sick…” His eyes dropped. He kicked at the loose grit that dusted the driveway. “I would’ve noticed something like that.”

Eugene thundered around the corner, “Gah damn, Evie girl. You’re tougher than woodpecker lips. Just like your ol’ man.”

Just like my father. I shuddered at the thought of finding his body in the light of day. I forced a smile for Eugene.

Spread out, we called “all-clear” from each room. Then we unloaded the supplies from the jeep. That done, Eugene and Steve loitered by the front door. A kind of reluctant good-bye. I gave Joel a short nod.

“Would you fellows like to stay?”

Their lips floated up in relief.

I cleaned weapons while they secured the house. I dissembled the carbine and wiped down the bolt assembly. Joel’s voice was like a jingle in my head.
Take care of your gun and it will take care of you
. I asked him once why he took my training to such extremes. Martial arts. Tactical drills. Knife throwing. Target Shooting. He responded, “I only need to be right once to justify the preparation.”

Hammering from the other room lowered my blood pressure as I pushed a bore brush into the carbine’s barrel headspace. I imagined the kind of booby traps and homemade security devices they’d install. In addition to gun dealing, Joel was a security consultant for the federal government. While it lent a certain practicality to our situation, it made him paranoid.

An hour later, the four of us settled in the family room with a few bottles of my dad’s homegrown wine. My dad claimed to have made the best in the county. That night, I agreed.

Eugene shared what he knew of Hermitage and the surrounding area. The town collapsed then quieted within two weeks of the outbreak. Joel and I told them everything we knew and everything we speculated. Our friends couldn’t validate or deny any of it. We were the first survivors they’d seen in weeks.

“What about Evie?” Eugene asked.

When Joel narrowed his eyes, Eugene said, “Why ain’t she turned into one of them things?”

“Her immunity,” Joel said, “we suspect, has something to do with testosterone.”

Excess testosterone would explain my sex drive.

“Oh, right.” Steve jumped up with unexpected excitement. “I have an idea. Let’s try something.” He knelt before me, and held up his hand with fingers together and pointing to the ceiling. “Do this.”

Curious, I mimicked him. He traced the tips from index finger to ring finger. “No way. Do you see this?”

“Um…no?”

He sat back on his ankles. “Ever heard of digit ratio?”

I shook my head and Eugene said, “Ol’ Steve here is just a well o’ useless information, aren’t ya, boy?”

“This one might come in handy, Pop.” Then Steve said to me, “I heard this theory at school. There’s a correlation between testosterone in your mother’s womb and the length of your ring finger compared to your index finger.” He turned to Joel and Eugene. “Are your ring fingers longer or shorter than your index fingers?”

They examined their hands and said in chorus, “Longer.”

Steve returned to me, eyes tapered under his black mop. “Your ring finger is longer too, Evie. Thing is, girls’ fingers are supposed to be the same length. The study claimed only men have longer ring fingers. Higher testosterone.”

I flipped my hand to and fro in front of me, stretching the fingers in an attempt to modify their length. “What are you suggesting, Steve? That I’m not a woman?”

He choked on a laugh. His cheeks reddened against a pale complexion. “Uh no. Um…I think it could just mean you have high testosterone for a girl. Could explain why you survived.”

I met Joel’s eyes.

Then I dropped my hand and stood. “Okee dokee. I think I’ve had all the fun I can stand tonight.” I turned to Steve, whose face slacked with a culpable look. “Hey man, thanks for the insight on the finger theory. It’s the closest thing I’ve had to an explanation.”

Curled around a pillow in my father’s overstuffed bed, I thought about other known side effects of high testosterone. Years prior, I had laser hair removal on my entire body. I had the money. Why not? I didn’t have excessive hair then, but too late to prove it. What about other symptoms like increased energy, aggression, muscle mass, extreme emotions? Anger. Anxiety. Yeah, all those rang true.

Muffled laughter bounced down the hall from the living room. It wasn’t long before my eyelids drooped.

I swayed in the center of the Hurlin Ranch corral. The rot of the stallions surrounded me. My stomach cramped and I plugged my nose. The taste of decay was like rancid milk on my tongue. A breeze drifted from a pathway down the hill. And the hum of Annie’s voice.

I lifted my chin and climbed two bodies. Offal slipped between my fingers. The leathery hide tore away from the bones underneath. I rolled off the last horse. Saliva thickened. I left the contents of my stomach in the dirt. Annie’s song…

The lake before me, I lunged down the path. Prickly locust trees canopied the trail. I froze at a small foot bridge that stretched over a shallow ravine. Near the bridge, a man’s pale body lay on the rocky bed. Loose brush covered his head. Annie’s voice grew louder.

I scooted into the ravine. Bent over the body. Pulled away the foliage. A scream stuck in my throat. Large yellow-green eyes stared at me from my father’s taut face.

A red ropelike shape wormed away from his body. I yanked at the remaining underbrush that clung to him.

I fell back, hand over my mouth. My father’s bowels crawled from a gaping hole in his stomach. I followed the intestines up the ravine to the shade under the bridge. A tiny foot poked out from the shadow and wiggled in pink mary-janes with a red jeweled buckle.

The air felt thin. I gulped for more. Annie sat in a puddle of innards. Bracelets of dark viscera wrapped her wrists. She drew circles in the blood. Six lines spread out from every circle.

R-E-D, Red. R-E-D, Red.

That spells Red. That spells Red.

Ouchies are Red. Ladybugs are too.

R-E-D. R-E-D.

She sang to the tune of Frere Jacques and blinked glassy alabaster eyes.

I shook my head. Scrambled to my feet. Slipped on blood-slick pebbles. Landed on my back. My back teeth ground together. I tried to sit up, but failed. Tried to wake up, but failed as well.

The entrails slithered and twined over my neck. They constricted. I clawed at my throat, my shrieks shallow.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart,

O God, you will not despise.

The Holy Bible, Psalm 51:17

I jerked against the hands restraining my feet and wrists. Joel lay across my body and pinned me to the mattress. His cheek rested against mine. “Evie. Evie. Wake up. Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Steve hovered above my head holding down my arms. His spooked eyes met mine and he averted them. Eugene struggled to catch his breath at my feet. Joel’s face floated inches from mine, his eyes dark.

What had I done in my sleep to put those looks on their faces? My throat scratched. “You can let go of me now.”

Joel sat up and caught my wrists in his hands. He held them in front of me. Fresh blood dirtied the nail beds. When he released me, I touched my throat. Traced deep scratches in the skin. My shirt stuck to my chest, warm and wet with bile. The slaughterhouse stench burrowed in my taste buds.

My father’s eyes, open and waiting, fractured something inside me. Pain seared behind my forehead. Common-sense splintered away. I looked at Eugene. “Do you know how to get to the ravine at ol’ Paul Hurlin’s place?”

“I know it. Empties into the lake at marker L2. Good walleye catchin’ there.”

“Will you take me? I won’t find it on my own.”

We left for the ranch in my father’s boat before dawn. By the time the sun crested the skyline, we found my father.

Rigor mortis came and went weeks earlier. Sun-broiled skin hung on his body, stretched by the inflation of abdominal gases.

We rolled his body onto a gas soaked wood pile. Despite the decomposition, I knew it was him. His St. Francis medal still hung from his neck.

I stood over him, my muscles straining under the weight of my artillery and vest. My eyes burned and I willed the tears to come. But they wouldn’t. Just emptiness bubbling from my chest, forming a lump in my throat.

He told me once if forced to choose between his family and his god, God wins. My mother left before my sixth birthday. I never blamed him for putting her second to his god. After all, she left me too.

Eugene’s big hand squeezed my shoulder. “You gonna say somethin’, Evie girl?”

“I’m not a priest. He’d consider it blasphemous.”

He blew out a breath. “Your dad was a stubborn son o’bitch. But he loved you.”

I gave him a small smile, a bitter taste on my tongue. I wanted to feel grief. But hate consumed me. Hate for the religion that stole him from me.

In Catholic school, I questioned everything. My insubordination was dealt with by way of large doses of quality time with Father Mike Kempker and his flock of narrow minded nuns. Countless prayer candles were lit on my behalf. But the disconnect between my father and I didn’t ignite until high school. At eighteen, I received an ultimatum: participate in his Vatican regimen or face banishment. I chose the latter.

After my A’s were born, we began visiting my father at the lake. He never turned us away.

I couldn’t unearth his religious holdfast, but I glimpsed the contrition behind his weary eyes. It was enough. During those visits, we spent most of our time with Eugene. My time with him brought me the closest I would ever get to the paternal relationship I longed for.

Eugene’s hug brought me back to my father’s disfigured face. Petrified in peace. His woolly beard, made thicker by all the blood, hid his Aryan features. Everyone always said I looked like him. I knew it was our eyes.

I spun the thumb-wheel on my father’s zippo.
“Vater, ich hoffe euer Gott ist alles was sie wollen.”
I flicked the lighter into the pyre. “Good-bye, dad.”