Growth (23 page)

Sandy wished she had her latex gloves but the box was back in the cruiser. She thought back to that night when Meredith had called 911 on Kurt Einhorn. Albert had been bitten or something. Sandy tried to remember. He'd said it was a possum. She'd been worried about rabies, but now she wondered if it had something to do with the fungus.

She didn't touch anything and backed out of the bathroom. At the end of the short hall, there was one door left. It was closed, of course. It had to be Meredith and Albert's bedroom. Suddenly, she didn't want to open it. Didn't care what was on the other side. She wanted to run downstairs and find the phone in the kitchen and call in the county boys. But they'd ask her if she'd checked the whole house and she didn't want to have to tell them that she'd lost her nerve.

So she opened the door. Slow and careful.

The room was almost completely dark. Heavy curtains covered the windows. She couldn't quite tell in the dim light, but it almost looked like they had been duct-taped to the window frame. The door continued to swing open, spilling more light into the room.

There was a circular pile of bodies on the bed. She realized it wasn't bodies, not exactly. A tangle of children's arms and legs were wrapped around a central gray mound. For some reason, the mound seemed fragile, like the crown of a jellyfish. It was nearly three feet across and fluttered with the slight wave of air that came as the door swung open.

Surrounding it, the arms and legs intertwined each other in a horrible, frozen wreath. Sandy looked closer and knew why she hadn't seen a dog or cat in the house; their legs intermingled with the humans'. The whole thing was like looking at some rotten pustule skulking in a badly infected wound. Even after trying to make sense of the thing for several seconds, she still couldn't see any heads. Instead, it was just limbs wrapped around a strangely raw, unfinished center that was covered with a thin gray membrane, like some half-cooked rotten egg, sunny-side up.

Sandy couldn't tell if the number of arms and legs accounted for all the children or not. She tried to get a rough count, but it was impossible. They were far too tangled, twisted around each other in shapes that could never be achieved when they were alive. She doubted anybody would know how many of the family had been absorbed into this huge mound until they performed a careful autopsy. She knew that this was something they would be studying for years.

She stopped. Did that arm move? She watched it a while, but it was still.

This was definitely above her pay scale. It was time to call somebody.

The door flew at her, knocking her back into the doorframe. Meredith popped into view from behind it with wild eyes, swinging a fire extinguisher across her body, like an amateur swinging a tennis racket. The bottom rim caught Sandy in the shoulder and slammed her into the wall. With a speed only possessed by the truly disturbed, Meredith raised the tank over her head and brought it down like a sledgehammer.

If Sandy hadn't gotten her arm up, it would have crushed her skull. As it was, it damn near broke the two bones in her forearm, and drove her to the floor.

Meredith shrieked, “They are going to heaven. They have been saved!”

At the sound of her voice, the twisted mosaic of limbs shivered and twitched. A fragment peeled away from the rough circle, and a number of children's arms and legs unfurled from a central gray tentacle, like a palm frond that had decided to reach out and go exploring. When the gray, pulpy mass that ran along the center of the branch could no longer support the weight of the tiny limbs, it drifted down to the floor and the arms and legs grabbed hold of the shag carpet and pulled the tentacle forward. It rippled awkwardly along, searching for the voice.

“No, no, not Mommy,” Meredith said sweetly, and gave the crawling thing a quick blast from the fire extinguisher. “Over there. I brought you some food. To give you strength to reach heaven, my darlings.” The tendril shrank away from the puff of frost.

More branches were starting to unfold from the center mass, crawling off the bed, using the children's arms and legs to propel the tendrils in the same way Sandy had seen the centipede creatures in the Einhorn basement use insect legs. The bigger ones down there had worked the same way, growing into individual fingers and toes and making them dance, connecting two long chains of human fingers and toes and rat and squirrel legs that scurried along in ragged waves, alternating sides as to snake along for prey in S-shaped patterns.

Eight or nine tendrils pulled themselves away from the jelly-like mass and came after Meredith. She gave Sandy a kick and slammed the door, preventing Sandy from getting out. She jumped back to the first corner of the bed and gave the crawling tentacles quick flashes from the extinguisher, directing them at the door and Sandy.

Sandy got mad and rolled to her knees, raised the Taser. Fired. The barbs grabbed hold of Meredith's right hip and breast and dropped her like a dead tree in a tornado.

A tip of tendril bumped into the bedroom door, rebounded, and then curled up toward her. The tip was a misshapen child's fist. Too many little fingers unfurled from the center and grabbed at her.

Sandy exhaled, and knew the trick was to keep moving. But two other tendrils joined the first, the floor between the bed and wall bristling with irregular lines of children's limbs.

She went with her first motion and lunged for the closet. She ripped it open with her left hand and yanked out the pepper spray with her right. The tentacles didn't like when she blasted them; the fingers curled back together, and the tendrils shrunk into themselves, each pulling back into itself like a firefighter's collapsible ladder. The space between each of the children's arms and legs grew shorter and shorter until the limbs slapped against other, back against the main bubble on the bed.

They were still for a moment, as if the center was tasting the pepper spray. Different tentacles crawled off the bed and came for her.

Sandy jumped inside the closet and pulled the door shut. She backed into long dresses and sweaters. The thin strip of light at the bottom broke apart as the things came closer. She held onto the door handle just in case those chubby digits could open doors and heard Meredith whimper.

Sandy knew it wouldn't be long before Meredith simply walked over and opened the closet to let her family inside.

But Meredith said, “Oh babies. Oh no. No. Please. Not this. Over there.” Her voice took on a pleading, strident tone. “Please. Not me. Babies. Please.”

Sandy let go of the door with her right hand and patted her belt. She replaced the pepper spray and found the flashlight. She splashed it around the closet for a second, and was slightly disappointed to see a double-barreled .12 gauge leaning against the back wall. She'd been hoping for an assault rifle or something equally indicative of a family with a healthy fear of God's wrath. Still, she wasn't going to complain as she shut off the light and checked if it was loaded by feel. It was.

Sandy, as the police chief of Parker's Mill, felt a momentary reflexive pang of anger at Meredith and Albert for keeping a loaded gun in an unlocked closet in a houseful of children. She checked for more ammo and found none.

Meredith started to scream.

Sandy knew it might be her only chance to get out of the closet. She made sure the safety was off and opened the door. A few of the tendrils were still agitated and exploring her side of the bed, but most seemed to be concentrating mostly on Meredith's head, leaving her body to flop around. Sandy couldn't quite see what exactly the tendrils were doing to Meredith because her upper half was hidden behind the bed, but she realized she was fine with that. She didn't want to know.

She shouldered the shotgun, found the closest tentacle and squeezed the trigger. The cloud of lead balls blasted the tiny fingers into a gray mist and left greasy strings flopping from the ragged end. There was no blood. Sandy wanted to put the second round into the center mass, but she was worried it might release spores or God knew what, and didn't think she should be breathing in the same room. So she fired at another tentacle creeping closer and went through the door. She slammed it shut behind her.

At the top of the stairs, she glanced back at the bedroom door to make sure the tentacles weren't flowing down the hall at her. It was still closed. Meredith wasn't screaming as loud anymore.

Sandy ran downstairs and in the kitchen found a phone from her youth with buttons in the handset and a fifteen-foot spiral cord to the base. She grabbed it and went through the sliding glass door. Slammed it behind her in case any tendrils came downstairs. She dialed 911.

“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”

“This is Chief Chisel. I need—”

“Oh, hello Chief Chisel. Sheriff Hoyt told us all about what you need. If you insist on wasting our time at the dispatch center, we were instructed to inform you that charges will be filed. Thank you.” A click and the line went dead.

Sandy looked at the phone in disbelief. “Motherfucking BITCH!” She tried dialing the FBI. Job protocol made her memorize the number, along with a dozen others. This time, she couldn't even get a dial tone. She tried the CDC. The phone was out.

Sandy found the keys to the Suburban and was about to leave when she looked up at the ceiling. The thought of what was happening upstairs, how the entire family had been consumed, transformed,
swallowed
, made her nauseous. She'd be damned if she let it continue. Even if she had no power as chief anymore, she couldn't let it go.

She lifted the range on the stovetop and blew out the pilot light, then cranked all the burners on. The slight hiss and telltale odor of natural gas filled the kitchen. Under the sink she found an aerosol can of Raid. It was full. She shook it up and put it in the microwave, punched in thirty minutes, and turned it on. The metal started sparking immediately.

Sandy shut the door behind her, got in the Suburban, and took off for town.

When the combine hit the old pickup, Puffing Bill went berserk. He'd been whining and pulling back on his leash as the massive harvester grew closer and closer up the street, and when it finally crashed to a stop, he dug his three feet into the grass and whipped his head back and forth to pull away from the leash.

All it took was for Kevin to move toward him. Instead of backing away, trying to wriggle out of his collar, he turned and began to pull the boy forward, as if he was trying to drag Kevin across the park.

“Maybe he has to go to the bathroom,” Patty said. It was clear that she wanted nothing to do with that particular act and preferred that it happened far, far away from her. “Go. Go.”

Kevin knew this wasn't Puffing Bill trying to tell him that he needed to go take a shit. The dog wasn't shy, and would do his business wherever he felt like it, as long as he was outside. This was something close to panic, and it scared Kevin. He held on to the leash and allowed Puffing Bill to lead him wherever the dog wanted to go. They raced through the park and across the street and down through the residential streets.

Kevin thought he could hear something happening back at the parade, but they were blocks away before Puffing Bill slowed down. Despite this, the dog was still uneasy, whining and constantly keeping his head moving. His ears flicked at the rustle of every leaf, the creak of branches rubbing in the breeze.

Tuned to the quiet of the street, Kevin eventually realized he couldn't hear any birds. No squirrels chasing each other around. In fact, no dogs barked. It was like the town had been emptied of anything that moved on its own when no one was looking.

He stopped on a corner and realized that he was across the street from the high school. The place filled him with a vague unease, as if the halls were filled with students like Jerm, all looking for someone weak. Although, Kevin reflected, Jerm himself would never be swaggering through these halls. He didn't know how that made him feel, and he briefly touched the bandage on the back of his head. Part of him knew that Jerm had been sick, that something was wrong, and therefore didn't blame him, but the other part, the part he didn't want to acknowledge, was glad Jerm was gone.

He started down the narrow access street that ran between the school and the administrative parking lot, cutting between the buildings and a row of a dozen or so school buses. It felt good to walk through the shadow cast by the gym and get out of the heat of the day. He thought they could hang out in the coolness under the baseball stands again, give Puffing Bill a chance to calm down, then go back to Elliot and his parents before the end of the parade.

Puffing Bill growled. Kevin couldn't see anything. Just the empty street, the silent buses, the side of the gym. School was closed for the holiday. There was no one around. “What?” he asked the dog. “What is it?”

Puffing Bill growled again and pulled away from the shadow cast by the gym. He backed up to the buses, barking at the side of the building. Kevin didn't understand. He couldn't see anything. He dropped Puffing Bill's leash and took two steps toward the side of the gym. The dog didn't run, but his barking grew louder, more insistent.

Kevin couldn't hear anything over the barking, but movement caught his eye. He'd been keeping an eye on the double doors to the gym and had missed it at first. Down in the old leaves that coated the three or four storm drains that stretched along the gutter, he caught a flash of something. Something like a snake, maybe? Whatever it was, something was moving underneath the leaves.

When it came crawling out of the storm drain, Kevin thought it was some kind of big furry spider. Then it kept coming, endless rows of scrabbling small legs, scurrying at them with surprising speed. Kevin froze. He thought he could see the legs of cats, some small dogs, raccoons, and others that he couldn't identify, as if some sadistic taxidermist had sewed them into two long rows on either side of a long gray tube.

Another one squirmed out of the next storm drain farther down.

Puffing Bill turned and was now barking at the other side of the street. More of the things were climbing out of those drains. The tendrils stayed low, moving from side to side the same way a sidewinder skims across sand, keeping to the shadows.

Kevin unclipped the leash from Puffing Bill so it wouldn't catch on anything. They both turned and ran.

 

 

Sandy stopped at the police station on the outskirts of town and tried the front door. It was locked. She pulled out her keys, then saw the chain wrapped around the push bars on the inside. Same thing for the back door. She knew Liz would have had a fit, and hoped she was smart enough to not get in too much trouble with Sheriff Hoyt.

She thought about trying to break a window, see if she could trigger the alarm, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth it. It wouldn't help her get inside. She climbed back into the Suburban and drove a few blocks to her house.

Kevin was not there.

She sat in the kitchen for a while, trying to think. She got back in the Suburban and drove out to Highway 67 and turned north, stopping at the Korner Kafe.

The CLOSED sign was up in the window. She was surprised; she couldn't ever remember a time when it wasn't open during the day. Her dad used to bring her here for the lunches. He'd get a BLT, and she'd get the mac and cheese. For some reason, she always remembered coming here with him during the winter, when the farmers had too much time on their hands. He must have brought her here during the summer, when there was no snow, but the only images that came to her were sitting at the counter while the winter winds howled outside, sheeting the big windows in intricate spiderwebs of ice.

Sandy tried the front door. It was unlocked, which didn't make much sense. She went around the register and set the phone on the counter. She tried calling the FBI and CDC one more time, but got the same hollow, echoing message that told her the call could not be completed at this time. She called Randy and Patty. Their answering machine picked up and she hung up without saying anything. Just for the hell of it, she tried to call her house. It went through and rang until the answering machine picked up. “Kevin, if you get this, stay there and wait for me. I will find you.”

She dug around under the counter and found the phone book, turned the pages until her finger stopped at the Fitzgimmon number. She dialed it and waited as it rang a long time.

Finally, a woman with some kind of accent answered. “Yes?”

“I need to speak with Purcell. Immediately.”

The woman put the phone down for a moment. When she came back, she asked, “Who is calling, please?”

“This is Sandy Chisel.”

Again, the phone went quiet. Sandy could hear low talking in the background. A man picked it up. “Yeah?”

“Purcell?”

“What do you need, Chief? Kinda busy right now.”

“I know you have at least four firearms registered with the county. I need you and your boys to meet me in the Korner Kafe parking lot right away and bring as many shotguns to as you can.”

Purcell took a moment, asked, “Why?”

“It'll be easier if I show you.” Inside, Sandy was praying that she was wrong, that the sick fear that gripped her when Sheriff Hoyt had mentioned a situation in town had nothing to do with the fungus.

He was quiet again, so she said, “I wouldn't ask if it wasn't an emergency. I need help to get to my son.”

This time, she waited through the silence.

Finally, he spoke. “Do you want me to bring those guns I registered or do you want me to bring as many shotguns as I can?”

“I want you to bring as many shotguns as you can.”

“See you in a few.” He hung up.

 

 

The door to the church basement was stronger than Sandy expected. She'd known it would be locked, but figured it was a simple door to the basement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not Fort Knox. She figured a well-placed kick would be enough to crack either the doorframe or the door itself. So far, she'd given it three or four kicks, but it held fast. She looked around for something she could use, but found nothing but a well-manicured lawn and tasteful landscaping surrounding the church.

She ran back to the empty parking lot to check the back of the Suburban. She didn't think there was a lot of room in the back because of all the rows of seats, but maybe Albert had a toolbox or something back there. She didn't see a toolbox, but found something better.

A goddamn chainsaw.

It wasn't huge, just a 38cc orange Husqvarna with a sixteen-inch bar. She checked the gas. It was full. She started it on the run back to the door and it burst into life with a terrific, mean little purr. Even better, Albert had taken off the tip protector, so she could plunge the entire bar straight into the door.

Sandy was tired of wasting time and simply sawed the entire door in half and kicked the bottom half down the basement stairs. She ducked under and hit the lights. As she went down the stairs, she went to kill the engine, but remembered the basement in the Einhorn house. She decided to keep the engine idling for now, at least until she got back into the Suburban.

After Cochran had panicked over his own gas mask being removed, he'd explained that the fungus could infect you with spores that floated in the air. She'd immediately thought about how she'd helped Troop 2957 with their disaster drill and knew where she could find at least a dozen gas masks. She still had no idea why the church needed them, and had never wanted to deliberately make waves by asking.

Luckily, they hadn't moved the gas masks. They were still in a green Army duffel bag hanging in the walk-in utility closet.

She slung the duffel bag over her shoulder and charged back up the stairs into the sunlight. On the lawn, walking to the Suburban, she finally relaxed enough to turn off the chainsaw. It made her feel better, though; the gas masks went into the backseat and the chainsaw went on the front passenger seat so she could keep it close.

As she pulled out of the parking lot, she couldn't understand why no one had come out of the church itself or the connected offices to check on the noise. The parade should have been finished a while ago. Where was everybody?

 

 

Purcell was waiting with folded arms while his three sons stood in the back of the pickup. They were parked in the Korner Kafe lot. No shotguns were visible. She pulled in next to Purcell's pickup, got out, and opened the back door. She tossed the duffel bag into the back of the pickup.

Charlie unzipped it and pulled out one of the gas masks. “We going to some kinda weird sex party?” he asked, spinning the mask on his index finger.

“Aw yeah,” Axel said. “Count me in, baby.”

Edgar gave a little uncontrollable dance, like a toddler that had to take a leak.

“Gotta admit,” Purcell said, staring at Sandy. “You got me a little curious here, with guns and gas masks.”

“You bring your guns?” Sandy asked.

Purcell smiled. “Guess that all depends on what you mean. If you're talking about those coupla guns I registered just to make the political fuckers happy, then . . . not so much. Those are family heirlooms. They belong above the fireplace, so we can pass the stories down from generation to generation. When these boys have families of their own, they will explain to their children why these guns are important to us.” He gave her a grin. “If you're talking about simple firepower, well then . . .”

He pulled a shotgun off the front seat. The stock and forestock were built of black plastic and from a distance, it looked like a standard military semiautomatic .12 gauge. Purcell had a look that echoed the same joy that boys across the world experience when blowing shit up. “This,” he said with a grand air, “is an AA-12, a fully automatic shotgun.”

He brandished a circular magazine; it reminded her of one of the clips that Al Capone and his gang had used for their .45 caliber Thompson submachine guns. “Twenty rounds. You'll go through this in less time it takes to blink. Guaranteed to turn anything in front of you into a bad dream.”

Despite herself, Sandy was impressed. She'd been hoping for a few sawed-off .12 gauges that held seven or eight goose rounds, not this machine gun that sprayed shotgun shells like a fire hose. She didn't know what to say. “I'm not sure that's legal,” she finally managed.

Everybody laughed like she'd made a hell of a joke.

Purcell said, “Of course it isn't. Are you kidding me? Of course it isn't legal. We have three.”

“Good,” Sandy heard herself say.

He threw the AA-12 into the back of the truck; Charlie caught it. Edgar and Axel proudly held up each of their own. “And just in case,” Purcell said, “we brought a couple of SPAS-15s. They don't make 'em anymore, but I couldn't resist.” Purcell brought out another shotgun that resembled a machine gun. “This one isn't fully automatic, but it'll fuck shit up, no question.” He racked the pump back and smiled at her. “Whether you use it as a pump shotgun or as a semiauto, either way you're a happy camper.”

“You can drive,” Sandy said. She reached into the Suburban and pulled out the chainsaw. At this, the Fitzgimmons could hardly contain their glee. Purcell raised his hands as if he was surrendering. “Damn, Chief. I'd hate to get on your bad side.”

Sandy hopped into the passenger seat, leaving the sons to ride in the back.

Purcell went around the front of his pickup and climbed in behind the wheel. He put his hand on the keys but didn't start the engine. “I appreciate you bringing the boys home on Saturday night and letting me deal with 'em first. That's the only damn reason I'm here. That said, you get us into some kind of trouble in town, get our dicks in a wringer, you ain't gonna like
my
bad side.”

“Okay. I'll explain. On the way.”