“I could go for some McDonald’s,” Peter said. “I have the biggest craving for it lately. That, and I can’t stop jonesing for ice cream on a stick.”
“You too? Man, that’s weird. I never liked ice cream before, but now I wanna fucking bathe in that shit. Let’s eat.”
They got back in the Hummer. Alan waited for traffic to clear, pulled onto the road and headed north, looking for the golden arches.
GO SOUTH, YOUNG MAN
Take some lumpy shit from horses, the smelly kind that’s peppered with half-digested hay. Mix that with gravel. The jagged kind. Now cover it all in kerosene and light it on fire.
That’s what it felt like inside Dew Phillips’s skull. He’d slept on the floor of the computer room, right after Baum and Milner convinced him it would be funny to put a passed-out Perry Dawsey on the autopsy trolley.
Well, that was kind of funny.
A headache like that and a hyperactive Perry Dawsey jabbering a mile a minute? A match made in hell.
“Perry, you gotta talk slower,” Dew said. “Seriously, my head.”
“Yeah, mine too,” Perry said.
“There’s a difference. You and Baum and Milner, you’re all young. I’m old enough to know what will happen if I drink that much, which means I’m old enough to know better.”
“You seemed to be down with it last night.”
Dew nodded and instantly regretted doing so. “Last night I was awash in the glory of victory. And now that it’s morning, my head feels like ass, and you’re telling me that victory was no victory at all?”
“She’s talking to me,” Perry said. “She says she’s gonna kill me.”
“Where is she?”
Perry shrugged. “South.”
“How far south?”
“I don’t know,” Perry said. “Could be Ohio, could be Indiana, fucking Kentucky for all I can nail it down.”
“So how do we find her?”
“Like before, I guess,” Perry said. “We start driving south till I feel it getting stronger, then we go in that direction. The signal is fucked up, though. I feel something moving south, something big, and something even stronger beyond that. We should start driving right now.”
Dew thought that over. It would work, it had before, but how long would it take?
“I don’t know if we have that much time,” he said. “Now that the jamming is gone, now that you feel something, you can focus on the hatchlings. Maybe we’ll find out exactly where this thing is.”
Perry thought for a second, then nodded. “It’s worth a shot.”
“So will you go in there and talk to them again?”
Perry took a deep breath, then let it out long and slow. “I don’t want to. She’s so strong, Dew. She might be stronger coming through the hatchlings, I really don’t know.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Dew said. “Will you or will you not go talk to them again? I’ll be right there with you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Perry said.
Dew smiled. “We’ll do it just like the shooting range, okay? I’ll have a gun at your back. You get silly, I’ll put you out of your misery.”
Perry chewed his lip for a second. “Okay. I’ll do it. But Dew, you better not be lying about shooting me in the back. If I have to die, I have to die, but… I couldn’t handle it if I hurt you.”
Hard to believe this was the same kid who had butchered a family only eight days ago. But people couldn’t change that much in that short of a time. This version of Perry had always been there, waiting for a reason to come out.
Pride swelled in Dew’s chest—once again Perry Dawsey was going to stand face-to-face with his nightmare.
MOMMY IS A BIG BABY
Chelsea Jewell sat at the Winnebago’s back end, in the couch that faced the front. Her small body made the couch look like a giant throne. She had a little blood in her hair. A hatchling sat on her lap. She’d named it Fluffy. Chelsea slowly petted Fluffy, feeling the nice texture of his stiff, triangular body. Fluffy’s eyes stayed mostly closed, and when they opened, they opened only a little bit.
Chelsea wanted to stay calm, but General Ogden was making her so angry.
“Chelsea,” the general said, “we should just leave him alone.”
She said nothing. He stood there, waiting for her to speak. The plastic on the Winnebago’s floor was torn in places, kicked aside in others. Covered with tacky blood, it still crinkled under General Ogden’s feet. Little bloody tentacle tracks lined the walls and the burnt-orange fabric on the seats and couches.
I want the boogeyman dead.
“Can’t you block him? Like Chauncey did?”
I’m trying, but it’s hard. I don’t know how yet. He could come for me before I figure it out.
“The gate will be done in about three hours,” he said. “We don’t have to show our hand. Even with the rest of the men driving down from Gaylord, we have too few soldiers for a real fight.”
She just stared at him. What did he know, anyway? He was just the general. Chelsea was in charge. If she said they had enough soldiers, they had enough soldiers, and that was that.
What about the other soldiers back home? The ones you left to deal with Whiskey Company?
“That’s just eighteen men, Chelsea,” Ogden said. “They have to go up against a hundred twenty men and do enough damage to take Whiskey Company out of the picture.”
Well, if you have eighteen, then—
A voice called from outside the Winnebago, stopping Chelsea in midsentence.
The strange, deep new voice of Mommy.
“Chelsea! May I please talk to you?”
Mommy used her mouth, not her thoughts, which meant she was upset, confused.
Chelsea sighed. She would have to get up and walk outside. Mommy was already having trouble fitting through the Winnebago’s door. Chelsea lifted Fluffy and set him down on the couch.
“You stay, Fluffy. Stay!”
She didn’t have to speak out loud to Fluffy, but it was more fun. That’s how you talked to puppies, in the special voice so they knew you loved them.
Come with me, General.
Chelsea walked out of the Winnebago’s side door and into the building’s cold winter air. Ogden followed her. They both looked at Mommy.
Mommy seemed sad.
“Hello, Mommy.”
“Chelsea, honey,” Mommy said. “Something’s wrong. Wrong with me. Maybe with my crawlers?”
Chelsea shook her head. “No, Mommy. Nothing is wrong.”
Mommy started to cry a little. She was such a baby.
“But… look at me,” she said. “It hurts. I’m not pretty anymore. It hurts so bad.”
“Pain brings you closer to God, Mommy. Don’t you want to be closer to me?”
Mommy nodded. “Of course, but baby, just look at Mommy for a second. If this keeps going, Mommy is going to… to…”
“You’ll serve God, Mommy,” Chelsea said. “You’ll see, it will be so cool. Bye-bye now, Mommy. Bye-bye.”
Mommy turned, slowly, and walked away.
Chelsea turned to stare up at General Ogden. “You don’t know anything,” she said. “You’re just a general. I’m the boss of you. I want you to kill the boogeyman. I want it!”
“But Chelsea… most of our men are already on their way here.”
Then take some of the eighteen you left back home and send them to kill the boogeyman. And tell them to rescue my hatchlings, too—we can’t make those anymore.