Wormwood (13 page)

“Why?” she wanted to know, swaying as if caught in an oncoming current, a slow wall of mud. 
“Why?”

He gathered up four-year-old Zack, now a loose-jointed bundle of limbs, and looked at her.  “Let me put him to bed first,” he told her, “then I’ll come back and explain everything to you.”

When he returned, however, Irene was in the kitchen, pawing though the drawer beside the stove as if it were losing its focus or cohesion.  She gasped when she saw him and snatched up a paring knife, obviously not the one she’d been looking for, but all she had now that time had run out.

“You stay right there!” she warned, holding the knife out in front of her, its tip wavering, scratching tiny holes in the air.

“Irene,” Don said, holding out his hands.  “Let me explain.

“What did you do to them back there?” she pleaded, looking helplessly past his shoulder, growing more detached herself, the pills in her bloodstream knitting an insulating layer around her.  “What did you do to my babies?”

“I haven’t done anything to them,” he told her, glancing away in the midst of this assertion as if it weren’t quite the truth; that there was, in fact, a great deal more to tell.  More than he could possibly explain before the tranquillizers swept her away.  “You’re just going to have to trust me,” he said.

“Trust you to do
what
?”  The knife in her hand was getting heavier, drooping toward the floor.

“The right thing,” he assured her, taking a cautious step forward, wanting to catch her if she fell.

“Is this what you talked about…” she squinted, willing him back into focus, “is this what you decided at your meeting?  To get us all out of the way?”

“No, I decided this on my own.”  He took another step.  “Irene, listen to me… try to understand.  This disease that’s coming, it’s going to be a terrible thing.  I’ve been watching it on TV and it’s the most
awful
thing imaginable.”  His voice rose, struggling to contain the horror of it.  “We can’t possibly fight it!  It’s too
big
!  It’s going to wash over us like a tidal wave, like a
thousand
nuclear warheads!”  His hands had curled themselves into knotted fists; they trembled at his sides.  “In a few days, a
week
, nothing’s going to be the same!  Everything we know is going to be swept away!”

He took a deep breath and relaxed his hands.

“I just want us to be asleep when it gets here,” he told her gently, his voice an anguished whisper.

Irene lowered the knife, struggling to speak, to make her point before the pills closed around her.

“It’s your medication,” she told him.  “The doctor said it might make you suicidal.”  She started to sob and he caught her in his arms as she staggered forward.  The knife clattered to the floor, sliding underneath the table where their last meal had been eaten.

“It’s not my medication,” he assured her, holding her tight as she went limp, kissing her softly as he lowered her to the floor.

He touched her cheek, stroked her hair.

“This thing is coming,” he whispered.  “I saw it on television.”

3

Death came quietly to the house on Quail Street, with little noise or fanfare.  It slipped into Don’s shoes and socks and walked from room to room with a pillow in its hands, thrusting out its arms and pressing itself insistently into their faces, starting with the baby and working its way down the hall toward Irene.  Not knocking, but entering each room quietly.

The baby was hungry, its screams almost lost beneath the foam rubber.  The boys tensed and moaned, as if struggling against quicksand.  Irene waited in candlelight in her best nightgown, as beautiful as the day Don had married her.

One by one, he put them to sleep.

And when he’d finished, when they were all safe and secure, Don turned out the lights and locked the front door.  He drew a glass of water from the kitchen tap and stopped by the bathroom to empty his bladder and brush his teeth.  The remainder of the tranquillizers were in a prescription bottle in the medicine cabinet and he tipped them into his mouth, half a dozen at a time, chasing them with water and swallowing until the bottle was empty.

He looked at his face in the bathroom mirror.

His eyes gazed back at him: not the eyes of a murderer, but those of a father, bloodshot and tired.

He felt the weight of his responsibilities slipping from his shoulders, falling by the wayside.

He washed his hands and turned out the light, satisfied.

Death was calling from the next room, stretched out in bed…

It wouldn’t do to keep her waiting.

4

For ten days they slept, dreamless while the neighborhood tossed in nightmares around them.

Gunshots were fired, tears were shed, and changes were wrought…

But inside the house all was still.  Muted sunlight gave way to night and then returned again, lighting the rooms in soft shadows and slowly settling dust, as if it would always be this way.

On the dawn of the tenth day, a hazy yellow wind came down from the northeast.

And the first thing it did was wake them up.

Part Five:

The Dead

1

Keith Sturling could see the dead man from the narrow slat of his bathroom window and each day he wondered how long until decay and the man’s own weight would drop him back to earth.  By night, with the power gone, the TV and the radio worthless, he imagined he could hear him creaking out there, turning slowly on the arm of the streetlamp, whispering a single word over and over in the dark.  By day, the placard became legible again and there was no need to whisper, except perhaps to the plump black crows that perched on his shoulders and tore away any semblance of a face.

Then, on the morning of May 1
^st
, there came an abrupt chorus of squawks and the crows all flew away at once, as if startled at something the man had said after so many days of stoic silence.

Keith slid open the tiny window, surprisingly attuned to such things now that the electricity was gone and the house was quiet, and saw the “Thief” kicking limply at the end of his bright orange cord.

Walking outside in his bathrobe and bare feet, Keith stared up at the struggling scarecrow, his heart beating very rapidly in his chest.

My God
, he realized,
it’s happening.  It’s really happening
.

Though the man’s eyes were long gone, his nose and ears chipped down to ragged holes, he seemed to sense that someone was there; close by, though just out of reach.  This fact seemed to infuriate him.  His struggles, which had been listless and tepid until now, became suddenly frantic.

A terrible moan issued from its throat, the strangulated sound chilling Keith to the marrow.  Its tortured head jerked within the noose, seeking out that thing it wanted.  That thing it so desperately desired.

The awful cry was taken up by another, every bit as insistent, and Keith turned to see the “Transgressor” swinging back and forth over Kennedy Street, trying to free its arms from the knots fastened at its wrists.

Shoot them
, a voice suggested, assessing the situation from calmer quarters. 
Go back inside and get your rifle and shoot them dead.

“But they’re
already
dead,” he argued, his lips moving in a numb whisper.

Then kill them again
, the voice retorted. 
Keep doing it until you get it
right.

Keith started to move, his bare feet backpedaling reluctantly against the asphalt, his eyes still staring upwards.

Mashburn
, he reminded himself.  The man’s name had been Greg Mashburn, though until this morning he had been doing his best to forget that.

A high scream tore his attention away.  He turned toward the house and saw his wife framed in the doorway, her mouth a perfect “O”.  Mike Dawley was running down the street with a shotgun cradled in his arms while Helen Iverson stood on her front doorstep, one hand clutching her throat, as motionless as a statue.

“Sweet Jesus,” Mike swore as he arrived at Keith’s side, fumbling with the safety on the shotgun.  He looked up at Mashburn’s ruined face and all the color drained from him, just like that, as if the shock of seeing the man thrashing about overhead was one nightmare too many.  He lifted the barrel of the gun, swallowed something that went down with difficulty, and fired.

Mashburn jerked, the placard around his neck flew up in the air, then both dropped back against their tethers.  Spatters of something that looked like rust (but smelled infinitely worse) began to rain down, followed by a gentler mist, and Keith suggested they take a cautious step back.

The sound of the shotgun brought the rest of Quail Street out to their doorsteps and driveways.  Rudy Cheng was hurrying toward them with his rifle, his wife Aimee still in her robe, holding back their young son.

Mike reloaded the shotgun and pointed it up at the still-struggling Mashburn.

“Aim for its head!” Keith advised, taking several steps back, his ears already ringing.

The shotgun sang its one-note song and Mashburn clicked his heels at the end of his cord.

“Its
head
!” Keith shouted, to which Mike testily replied he
had
aimed at its head, but the thing’s legs and body kept getting in the way.  “We need a rifle,” he said, plucking out the spent and smoking shell.

Rudy ground to a halt, huffing and puffing, holding his brand-new rifle.  He looked up at the thief through the round rims of his glasses as if he’d long suspected such a thing could happen.  It was not a confirmation that brought him any joy, but he accepted it for what it was: a truth.

Keith turned to him and pointed up.  “Can you hit its head with that rifle?”

Rudy swallowed, his expression uncertain.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “I haven’t had much practice.”  He started to hand the rifle to Keith, but Keith shook his head.

“These are all tied up; chances are the next ones
won’t
be.  They’re likely gonna be running down the street and pounding at your door.  I can’t think of a better time to practice than
right now
.”

Rudy nodded, accepting this simple truth as well.  He glanced back at his home, wishing Aimee would take his son back inside.  This was not something he needed to witness: his father shooting at another man’s head.  Still, this was what the world had become and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Find yourself a good angle,” Keith advised, “and get a bead on its head.”

The thing above them thrashed and snarled as if their intentions had been overheard.

“After you plug this one,” Keith went on, nodding toward Kennedy, “There are three more for you to practice on.”