Sarah slipped from his grasp as he lowered her to the floor. Too scared to complain, she curled up against the wall, shivering.
The still figures of his wife and daughter huddled on the far side of the bed, both facing away from him.
On the side of the mattress closest to him, a large lump twitched violently under the covers. With each spasm, the shape crept closer to Lauren and Becky.
With a cry, Jack leapt across the room and tore back the sheets.
There, under the covers, was Buddy, or what was left of him.
The dog’s rear legs were mangled and useless, almost impossible to recognize as part of his body. A gashing wound was open across his side, deep enough to expose bits of bone. The blankets were drenched with blood. The dog’s head hung at a strange angle, the jaw shifted ninety degrees to the side.
Buddy turned toward his master, a single wild eye able to function. A gurgling noise came from the dog’s throat as he tried to whine for help.
Jack’s eyes moved over to Lauren and his little girl. Everything was in slow motion. A strobe-light world of sequential snapshots.
He walked around to the other side of the bed so he could see their faces. They stared back at him, wide eyed, mouths open.
Jack dropped to his knees and covered his mouth to block his screaming. The bodies were covered with black, oozing sores. Every one ringed by purple flesh. Dead. His baby. His wife. Dead.
There was movement on the other side of the bodies. Buddy was still alive.
Got to put the poor animal out of its misery.
Jack stood, nodding at the thought. His body was numb, feeling as dead as the corpses on the bed in front of him. He crossed back to the other side of the bed, back to the bleeding, whining lump that twitched on the bed. He raised the bat over his head.
Got to put the poor animal out of its misery.
The thought sounded strange to him. The voice was wrong.
The dog is suffering. You have to do it. End its suffering. Then the same for Lauren and Becky. Just in case they were in pain too. You have to end their suffering.
It wasn’t his voice, but it didn’t matter. The voice was right. He had to put the dog out of its misery. Then take care of Lauren and Becky. Bury their poor bodies. It was all clear to him. He knew what he had to do. Then, afterward, after he’d done it all, he’d get Sarah out of there. Take her far away.
Yes, take Sarah away. You know where.
Jack twisted his hands on the bat to get a better grip, flexed his arms to prepare for the downward swing.
Then a different voice roared up from deep within his mind.
“Stop, Jack! Don’t listen to him. Wake up!”
Jack rocked back at the sound. He fought to make sense of it all. No, he knew what he had to do. He took a step forward, the bat poised to strike.
“Daddy, no!”
“Jack. JACK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
He froze. The voices. It was Lauren and Becky. Not dead, but alive. It didn’t make sense. He’d seen their bodies. How was it possible?
The bedroom lights flashed on. Lauren sat upright in bed. Becky was beside her, pressed up against her mom for protection. Jack looked down on the bed where he had aimed the bat. Buddy was there. Rolled over on his back in submission. There was no injury. There was no blood.
Jack dropped the bat on the floor and staggered away from the bed. He collapsed on the floor and sat with his back against the wall.
The voice rose up in his mind, like a wave crashing over him, pounding at him. It was in his head, it was everywhere, shouting at him, laughing at him. Jack recognized the voice.
Nate Huckley.
The words came across as clear as if Huckley was crouched next to him, whispering in his ear.
I’ll be back for you, Jack. You can count on it.
Then the crash and roar of the wave disappeared and the voice was gone. The only sounds left were Becky crying and Lauren’s voice saying that everything was all right. Jack heard the voice like it was coming from an echo-chamber. “Daddy’s O.K. now. Daddy’s O.K.”
Jack turned to look at Sarah, still crouched against the wall on the opposite side of the room from him. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. He stared and tried to force a reassuring smile. Sarah leaned forward and whispered just loud enough for him to hear, “That voice. It was the bad man again, wasn’t it?”
Jack crawled over to his little girl and wrapped his arms around her. It was her next words that sent shivers through his body.
“Is he really going to come back like he said, Daddy? Is he really?”
Jack squeezed his eyes shut. It was too much. He didn’t understand what was going on. He just wanted it all to stop. As he sat there and rocked Sarah in his arms the same thought ran over and over in his mind, like an old scratched 45 record stuck on the same lyric, “What if I hadn’t snapped out of it? What would I have done next?”
One look at Lauren and Jack knew he wasn’t the only one trying to deal with that thought.
THIRTY-TWO
The party was tomorrow night. Cathy Moran couldn’t think of anything worse than if she couldn’t go. Well maybe. If she went and somehow everyone saw the dark spots covering her chest and shoulders it would be catastrophically uncool.
She could go and just wear a turtleneck. It was cold enough. But if she went she risked an even worse scenario. Bobby Mazingo might be there. Then, if Bobby did try something, which Cathy hoped he would, she would have to say no. While this turn of events would make her dad the happiest man in Prescott City, ‘no’ was not the word Cathy wanted to use. And she felt pretty certain that if it came to that then she could kiss Bobby Mazingo goodbye, and not in the sense she was hoping to.
Cathy stood in front of her bathroom mirror and tenderly rubbed the discolored skin, probing with her fingers for any sore spots. That was the strangest thing about it, nothing hurt. The whole area around her breasts, neck and shoulders looked like she’d been used as a punching bag. The skin between these freakish oversized pox marks was a dead gray, flaking with dry skin. Like freezer burn on meat. The unexpected thought made a chill pass through Cathy’s body.
She opened the cabinet under the sink. Neat piles of fresh towels filled the space, folded to exacting Martha Stewart standards. At least her dad’s new trophy wife was a good housekeeper, although Cathy would never give her that compliment to her face. Barbara, or Barbie as Cathy preferred to call her, was a regular Martha friggin’ Stewart. But with a great rack, courtesy of the best boob surgeon her dad could find.
The day of the wedding set the tone for the relationship with her new mom. The ceremony was an hour late getting started since the maid-of-honor, a position grudging offered to Cathy to begin with, showed up an hour late with a surprise for everyone. Little sixteen-year old Cathy Moran staggered down the aisle drunk as a factory worker on payday, waving happily at the assembled guests with a silly grin pasted on her face. Adding to the spectacle, her dad got to see her new jewelry for the first time as she drew nearer. A thick band of silver hung from her nose, still swollen from the piercing only hours before.
The more witty guests would later comment at the reception that the wedding was a success as it had ensured job security for the groom. His daughter alone could keep Scott Moran’s psychology practice going for years.
Cathy pushed aside the towels. Way in the back, behind the bottle of Scope and Liquid Plummer, was a small ceramic jar with a cork lid. She pulled this out. The jar felt cool in her hands. She pried open the tight fitting lid. Inside was a Zip-loc baggy. And inside that was exactly what the doctor ordered. Bud directly from Humbolt County in Northern California, or so Nikki Tomlinson had promised when she’d sold it to her. Whether Nikki was telling the truth or whether she was full of shit, it was the best weed Cathy had ever smoked. And in the last year she had become somewhat of a connoisseur.