Consumption (21 page)

Star walked through Them without harm. There was no explanation for it. They were all around her, those people like her father, but not one of them bothered her. It was as if she were invisible. Once, she thought she saw a woman walking beside her, a woman in a white dress who looked a little like her mother, but when Star turned there was no one there.

She wouldn't have cared if there was. Whatever calm she'd found in the prayer was gone. Or maybe not gone, but changed. Star finally understood that, for better or worse, it was over. There wasn't a purpose to it anymore. There was no point to staying alive. She'd left her father, who was now, she had no doubt, dead. Her mother was dead. Her friend was no more—the fact that her earthly body still walked didn't matter. And as for Star? She was nothing. Less than nothing. At any moment, she could become one of those things feeding on one another that she'd seen back in the church. She could become like her father, like Mabel. Better, then, just to die.

Star walked on. Cavus was a familiar town to her. Although her family lived a few miles outside of it, beyond the new factory, they often came here to visit Mabel and her family or just to take a drive into the town where her father worked. She could have gone to school here, but her father'd wanted her to go somewhere bigger; he'd had such dreams for her. Thinking of her father as he'd been before pushed a sliver of feeling back into Star, and she trained her thoughts elsewhere.

The town. Cavus. It was a pretty town; even now, in its madness, it was still pretty. The evening's summer sun shot through the trees lining Main Street, trees that weren't native but that made the town look like something out of an East Coast picture book instead of a place in the middle of the northern plains. The houses, each of them well kept and modestly painted in blues, whites, and grays, stood as they'd always stood, on either side of the road. To her right was an older house, a plastic red tricycle sitting in its grass. Yes, all was peaceful, only the Festival tents changed the town from its usual appearance, but even these were familiar, out every year, as they had been since the summer of 1941. All the same. The sky overhead, soaking up the sun's arms of orange, wrapping them in its blue silk. All the same.

Except, of course, for the people. As far as Star could tell, the once mostly homogenous group of townspeople had separated themselves very neatly into two groups. The ones killing and the ones being killed. To her left, Star saw the familiar shape of the mayor, the bald old fat-ass that she and Mabel had liked to make fun of at the high school football games they'd sometimes attended together.

The mayor, the brown suit that he'd worn to the Service now a torn mess, ran with his head thrown back to the sky, his glasses knocked askew and hanging on by one flimsy wire earpiece. Half of his tie was missing, torn off, and he loped along at an alarmingly fast pace. In front of him a woman ran. She still wore her Sunday-best polka-dot dress for the Feast, but she no longer wore any shoes. She was running, and she was screaming. She didn't have a chance.

Star watched
dispassionately
as the mayor, a man who'd hired her father and who'd once shared a dinner at Star's kitchen table, who'd even brought a tray of brownies, took the woman down and began to feed. Around Star, in the streets, similar scenes played themselves out. The world, in this pretty setting of Cavus, Montana, had gone mad.

Yet it was all around her and not of her. Although she walked through it, they paid her no attention. Why? What else could she do? It was like they couldn't see her or something. All she wanted was to die. To change. To anything. She just didn't want to be Star anymore. She couldn't take so much pain, so much loss.

Run, Star Bear
. Her father's voice, a weak enjoinder to flee.

“Sorry, Daddy. Not this time.”

There would be no more running. No more anything. She was just too tired.

Why had she even bothered to escape from the church? She should have just let them come then. Let them take her. Now it was harder than she might have thought.

Star stepped next to the mayor, his head buried in the now silent woman's belly. Kneeling, Star gently tapped his shoulder and prepared herself. He turned almost immediately, and stared at her.

He looked exactly as he always had, same eyes, same face, same lack of hair, blood smeared around his mouth, yes, but otherwise…the same. Except not. Not quite. Those eyes. Something behind the eyes that would not focus, something entirely and completely evil.

Star stood and waited.

The mayor stared at her, stood, and then a blank look of confusion fell across his face. His eyes wavered, looking from side to side, glancing over Star, glancing beside her, around her,
but
not seeing her
. If Star could have seen through the mayor's eyes, she would have seen not herself, but only a shadow, a shimmering shadow that glowed a barely perceptible silver-white.

The mayor raised his head to the sky and let out a long, low howl. It wasn't the kind of howl Star had heard in the horror movies she'd made her mom watch with her, not one of those cheesy wolf howls. No. It was an actual form of communication, this howl. It was also completely and totally human. Human but soulless. It said both
I am here
and
I come.

The mayor lowered his head, tried once again to look at Star, and failed. Then he ran down the dirty street, dodging between the other Feeders.

In desperation, Star turned the other way and began to walk again. Soon, someone had to see her. They had to. It was only a matter of time until this would all end.

Star marked a new figure, in the distance, advancing. It was a boy. He wore a black jacket, a white T-shirt under it. The shirt was splattered with blood, as was his face.

In his hand was an ax, and when he looked up his eyes, firmly and finally, met hers.

Thank you, Lord,
Star prayed.
Thank you, thank you.

The boy stopped and then walked toward her, hefting the ax. There was no question that he saw her.

Javier ran his hand along the ax's handle. Maybe he wasn't ready to die just yet. He thought he'd like to kill a few more of the bastards.

Ahead of him, he saw the girl coming toward him.

When she saw him, she smiled, and Javier gripped the ax tighter. He would not be fooled again.

Around him, the light streamed from the setting sun, shifting from orange to red, and lighting up the boy and girl on the now empty street like two figures in a silhouette.

She was pretty, he saw. Very pretty. Which didn't mean a damn thing. Mabel'd been pretty, too. Javier walked forward and when he was a few feet from her, he raised the ax. Behind her, he saw the rusted truck with the man, girl, and older woman in its back pull into a driveway.

The girl did not move. All he had to do was bring the ax down. Just bring it down. Why was he waiting? She was only another one of Them, dammit!
Just do it.
His muscles flinched.

“Kill me,” she said.

He froze.

“What?”

“Kill me.”

The sun sank lower, and for an instant, the red of it lit up her face, and he saw not a stranger, but his sister, as she would have looked if she'd been able to grow up. The ax fell from his hand and clattered to the street.

He sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “I can't! Ah, fuck, I can't.
Mi hermana. Mi amor
. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't.” The words stuttered forth from his bruised throat and he could not stop them any more than he could stop that vise from clenching around his chest each time he allowed his sister's name to creep unbidden into his head.

He waited for the girl to kill him, but instead she sank down beside him. “It's okay,” she whispered. “Everything will be okay.”

“We can't let them in. What if they're one of those…things?”

The group stood huddled behind the door of Bunny's house, arguing amongst themselves. On the doorstep stood a boy and girl. The boy shouted, “Please! I saw your truck. I know you're here. Please let us in. I saw the man and the little girl. Sir? Are you in there?”

Patrick Riley hardly heard the boy. He was busy telling himself a story. He told himself the story over and over again. One minute Sharon had been beside him and Izzy, and then she'd been underneath the two men. He'd turned back toward her, had thought to grab for his pistol, but then Izzy was in the middle of it.

“Riley!” Erma was shaking him. He turned to her. “What is it?”

“Did you see them? The boy said he saw a man with a little girl. Did you see him? Should we let him in?”

“I…” Could he have helped her? Could he have saved Sharon, or did he do all that he could? If he had have pulled the gun out, maybe, but it had all happened so fast.

“Riley!”

He looked at Erma, at all of them huddled there, Izzy standing beside him, her thumb in her mouth, a habit he'd thought they'd broken her of but which she'd obviously reverted to in this time of stress.

Izzy saw him looking and removed the thumb. “Daddy, don't let 'em hurt me. Pwease, Daddy?” The words came in a lisp around her sweet baby teeth, the teeth he'd missed seeing come in because Sharon had stolen her away from him.

Riley's face hardened. It didn't matter what had happened with Sharon. All that mattered now was Izzy. He had to keep her safe. Which meant he couldn't take any chances. He thought of the boy he'd seen in the streets, the boy hefting his ax to kill one of the Feeders. He'd recognized him immediately, though Javier Martinez obviously hadn't recognized Riley out of uniform. “No,” he said. “I didn't see him. I didn't see anybody.”

“There!” said Bunny. “See! They're Feeders. They're trying to trick us.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Erma. “I'm letting them in. If they're Feeders then we'll…we'll kill them if we have to.”

“You can't tell,” said Pill. “Not until they're dead or have been one for a long time. Feeders can look and act just like us at first.”

But Erma was already moving toward the door. “They're just
kids,
dammit!”

Riley watched as Bunny stepped between Erma and the door. “Don't you dare. I'm not letting you put us at risk just because you have some misguided idea of being a savior, or—”

John took a step toward Bunny. “Let her by,” he said. Maxie followed him, and it was the dog that drove Bunny from the door. She jumped away, defeated, as it approached.

“Do something, Patrick,” she said, turning toward her nephew. “Do you want your daughter to get killed?”

“No!” Izzy squealed. “No, Daddy! I don't want to be killeded! No!”

Riley scooped his daughter up and drew his gun from his holster. He saw that the old man was doing the same, his gun pointed toward the door.

The girl's hair fell in lank, sweat-dampened tendrils across her face. She raised an arm to wipe it away, and on its underside Riley saw a bear.

“It's her,” he said, turning to find Erma. “It's Star Williams, Erma!”

Riley felt ashamed of himself. What if that had been Izzy on the other side?

Erma yanked open the door, and the boy and girl fell through, leaning against each other.

“Thank you,” Javier said. “I didn't know where else to go. We saw your truck and—”

“Star!” Erma said, moving toward the girl. Star took a step back, looking at the woman as if she were crazy, and Erma's hands fell to her sides.

“You okay?” Riley asked.

Star nodded.

He had found her, after all, Riley thought. And though it wasn't the way he'd intended, he was glad she was safe. A small victory in the midst of a nightmare.

“I'm glad you're here,” Riley said. “What happened? Where's your dad?”

“We don't have time for this,” Pill interrupted. “If you saw us come in here, then They probably did, too. Which means that we don't have a lot of time.”

“What do you want us to do?” Erma asked. She gathered herself up in a straight line and faced Pill, leaving Star to hide behind Javier.

“I've already tried calling the station,” said Riley, pulling the two-way he kept on him at all times out of his pocket. “There wasn't any answer on the walkie, and my cell's not getting reception.”

“Mine either,” said Erma.

“That can't be,” said Bunny. She walked briskly across the kitchen to the landline phone. “Obviously there has to be some of them working. We have to call for help—you can't shut an entire town down.” She picked up the phone, and it was evident from her face that there wasn't any dial tone. “Not an entire town,” she repeated. “It's just crazy.”

“It isn't crazy, it's true,” said Pill. “It's the first thing they did the last time it happened. Only they didn't have to do as much then because there weren't any computers or cell phones or all that nonsense. But Cavus is just as cut off now from the rest of the world as it's ever been.”

“What do you mean ‘the last time'?” asked Erma.

“That's what I'm trying to tell you,” said Pill. “My wife, she wrote it all down. She was here for it. She survived.”

“He's lying!” Bunny yelled, and Riley saw that his aunt was near tears. “There wasn't any last time. This is just a sickness. People are sick, and we need to get help. That's all.”

At the sight of her weeping, John turned and exploded on her. “Jesus, woman, will you shut the fuck up!”

Riley felt his dislike for the man rise. “You want to watch yourself, mister,” he said. “That's my aunt.”

“I'm sorry,” John said. “It's just—”

“It's okay,” said Erma. “We're all a little rattled, is all.”

Riley felt a tug on his shirt, and he looked down to see Izzy smiling at him. “I'm hugwy, Daddy. Can you take me out? We can get a Happy Meal?”

“Soon, Izzy. I promise. Hang in there.” He needed to focus. To start thinking like a cop, for God's sake. What was the first thing he'd do if this were a normal case, just another fucked-up druggie loose or a normal human on a killing spree? He shut his eyes and wrinkled his forehead.
Think. What would he do on a regular case?

Information. He'd get information.

“You say you know what's going on?” Riley asked, shifting Izzy from one hip to another. She was much too big to be held, but he wasn't planning on setting her down anytime soon.

Pill nodded. “As much as anyone does.”

“Then I vote we hear him out. There isn't much else we can do, is there? Unless anyone else has another idea?”

The room remained silent. Outside, there was the sound of breaking glass and a scream.

“Then let's get to it, old man,” said Riley.

“First let's find as many supplies as we can,” Pill said, and Riley kicked himself for not thinking of that. Information and supplies. Of course.

“You got any guns?” he asked Bunny.

“My husband keeps one,” she said. “In our bedroom. I don't know if it's still there, though. He might have taken it with him.”

“Taken it where?” Riley asked. “Jesus, Aunt Bunny. Where is Uncle Bob? In all this mess I'd completely forgotten about him.”

“That's not important right now,” John said.

“Don't you tell me what is or isn't important,” Riley said. “That was my uncle.”

“He's right,” Bunny said, tugging at his arm. She met his eyes and then looked meaningfully down at Izzy. “Let's just focus on keeping who we do have here safe.”

Riley nodded, and Bunny dropped her hand. “I'll go look for the gun,” she said. “The rest of you can get the flashlights out of the cupboard over there and check for anything else that might be useful.”

Everybody moved in silence to accomplish their chores, Erma and John pulling flashlights, candles, and matches out of the cupboards, and Star sticking as close as a shadow to the boy. Riley stood near the door, keeping a watch out the windows. He held Izzy close to him and felt her body grow heavier as she drifted off to sleep. He was all she had now, he thought, kissing the warm curls on her head and inhaling that sweet dirt smell that only children have. And she was all he had. He wouldn't lose her, wouldn't let anyone take her from him. Not ever again.

Bunny left the room quickly, trying not to let the others see her face. But as soon as she was around the corner and out of sight, she couldn't hide it any longer. Her face broke into a wide grin. He was here! Javier Martinez was actually and truly in her house! She knew it was crazy to think about love at a time like this, knew that if the others could see her, they'd count her a loony, but she couldn't help it. From the kitchen, she could hear the muffled voices, the fear, the arguing, but here, she let the full joy she felt spread across her face as she remembered. The rest of the world melted away, and there was only Javier. Javier Martinez.

She'd “woken up,” which was how she thought of it, when she saw Javier Martinez for the first time. She wasn't paying attention to the paperboy that first Saturday Javier was on duty. Instead, she was busy cleaning out her closet. What she saw depressed her. Almost everything she owned was a neutral tone. A black, or a brown, or a beige. There was no excitement in her life. She remembered, as a little girl, receiving a red party dress one Christmas and wearing it so often that it had fallen to pieces. When had she stopped wearing colors? When had she decided that she had no right to these things, that she was a woman doomed to shadows and background pieces?

Not even her husband paid attention to her anymore. Bob was always gone, seeming to find more and more reasons to stay at work. When he did come home he barely glanced at her before shoving down whatever meal she'd carefully prepared and then falling into bed. Bunny was lonely. The kids were grown and gone and Bunny didn't have a lot of friends. Correction. She didn't have any friends. She'd started watching a lot of
television—reality
shows, mostly, trying to escape into someone else's life, to forget, for a while, that hers existed.

She had actually just been fixing herself a cup of coffee with lots of cream to go watch one of these shows and take a break from the closet cleaning when she saw Javier for the first time. He was riding a bike that was much too big for him, the paper-satchel swung nonchalantly over one shoulder, and he did it all with such grace that it took her breath away. But mostly, it was the color that threw her. He was full of so much color.

The bike he rode was a bright red, and its paint caught the sunshine perfectly, lighting it up like fire beneath him. He wore a yellow shirt, a color that none of the local boys with their button-up cowboy shirts or ragtag tees would ever have dared to wear. And his hair. It was beautiful. What other people might have seen as black, Bunny knew was in all actuality a rare and startling midnight blue. He was perfection. She actually had to set her full coffee mug down on the counter when she saw him, because her hands were shaking.

In that moment he looked up at her and, seeing her watching from the widow, waved. With a trembling hand, she waved back. And that was that for Bunny. She was in love.

That very night, she got online and used the birthday money she'd received from her mother, money she usually put into her and Bob's retirement fund, on a bright blue dress she found online. She bought more and more rainbow-colored outfits, got her hair colored a brighter hue, and began to smile more. She only waited a week to tell Bob that she was leaving him.

So when he disappeared a few days later, she didn't worry about it. She assumed he'd simply left to shack up with one of his buddies from the plant. What she did do was focus all her energy on Javier Martinez. She'd be damned if she'd found the color in her life only to watch it seep out again.

Bunny drove by Javier's house at least once a day after she found out where he lived. Sometimes he'd be in the yard talking to his landlord, or sometimes he'd be inside. Once, she saw him outside alone, and she'd thought he looked up at her, so she had to put her foot on the gas fast before he could see her.

She watched every show on television that she could think of about how to look younger. She even bought a bikini waxing kit and tried to take all the hair off herself, from her happy trail on down, but it had only left a big, red rash. Still, she had to try. It was what all today's women were doing, that's what the shows said.

Javier was sixteen. Bunny knew this.
Intellectually,
she knew this. But it never entered her mind that liking him might be wrong. If she were a man and he a little girl, yes, of course. But she'd been watching a lot of television, and everybody today knew that having sex with an older woman was like a rite of passage for a teenage boy. Older women now were considered a catch.
Cougars,
they called them. She watched a show about cougars in her free time, and she imagined herself one of them. She imagined Javier riding by her house, bringing her the paper, she'd ask him in…

They were just dreams. Probably. But maybe not. After the Festival she was planning to finally ask him to come in, finally confront him. She'd decided. She'd make her feelings known to Javier. Whatever else happened, he had let her see the colors again, he'd brought her back to life.

But now…Now he was here. In her very own kitchen, he was here, and maybe the world was ending, but finally Javier was in her house. She would tell him. Sometime, during all of this mess, she would find a quiet moment and tell him.

Bunny returned to the kitchen with Bob's gun. Javier stood by the counter, watching her, and Bunny felt the smile coming on again. Quickly, she opened the refrigerator door and hid her head inside. From the back, she gathered bottles of water into her arms, and pulled them forward. As she shut the door and turned around, she felt the bottles slipping, and just as she was about to drop them, a hand reached out to grab one of the six-packs from her.

“Let me,” Javier said, taking another batch of bottles from her, and as he did, his skin, warm and alive, touched hers. Bunny shivered, and now she couldn't stop the smile from spreading across her face. And miracle of miracles, Javier smiled back. Outside, a scream sounded, distant but strong. Bunny's smile widened. She thought she'd never felt so happy in her life.