“Okay, I get it. And your point is well taken. Notice, we are in here without the rest of them. We have not told any of the others. We don’t plan to do you harm.”
“What do you plan, then?”
I told her that we had chosen exile. I even discussed the other possibilities with her, which we had rejected.
“Logical,” she said. “Flawlessly logical… Except that I’m not a threat!”
I shook my head. “I don’t think we can take the chance. We’d be remiss in our responsibilities. There have been so many mistakes already.”
“And you are making another one! But very well, I’ll go then. I’ll take a lantern and a bag of food, if you will allow me that!”
“Of course,” I said.
Without further ceremony, she pushed past me and made for the door. Her limp seemed more pronounced than ever. She walked with a peculiar gait, as if one leg was shorter than the other.
She came close to the Captain, who didn’t budge from his position in front of the door. The Captain gave me a look with raised eyebrows.
I sighed. “We have to see it, Wilton.”
She whirled on me and stood there, clutching her lantern. Her hands trembled. “Why?” she asked, her voice almost pleading.
“I have to see something. We have to know.”
She paused a moment, her eyes pleading with both of us. She saw no mercy in them. With laborious slowness, she bent down and pushed at her boot. The boot seemed too small or her foot too thick. I could tell as she pushed it off that it pained her.
“You should have let me shoot myself, Gannon,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, “when I had the courage.”
Somehow I was surprised when I saw it, even though I should not have been. There, at the end of her leg, thick course hair sprouted in a mix of brown and white about half way down her calf. At the terminus, where there should have been a foot, there was now a gray hoof.
The hoof was cloven and had three thick points to it.
Twenty-One
Wilton got her boot jammed back on and gathered up the lantern and a paper sack of canned goods as we’d promised her. It was dusk when we got outside. I thought about offering her to stay the night, but it seemed like a mistake. I knew somehow it would be that much harder to get this over with in the morning.
We almost got her out the door without anyone noticing. Vance, of course, being blessed with a prairie dog’s acuity of senses, knew something was up and appeared suspiciously to waylay us.
“Where’s the Doc going?” Vance asked as we helped the old lady with a limp out the front door.
“She’s going,” I said simply. I took hold of one of Wilton’s elbows to guide her over the rubble, but she shook me off and tottered out into the parking lot on her own.
“What do you mean she’s going?” Vance demanded very loudly. A few other heads poked out into the lobby to see what was going on.
Carlene Mitts was among them. Her face was stitched in worry. She went outside and accosted Doctor Wilton in the parking lot.
“I don’t know what’s going on, Doc,” she said, “But I’m worried about my little Nancy. She cried all last night because she’s getting sick. She’s got a cough.”
“Children get sick all the time, she’ll be fine.”
“She’s got a fever.”
There was kindness in Wilton when she turned to her. I saw it in her eyes and it made me feel guilty.
“Take the antibiotic marked amoxicillin,” Wilton told her. “A red plastic bottle you’ll find in the dentist office. They always keep a supply on hand for people who get root canals. She’s not allergic to penicillin derivatives, is she?”
Carlene shook her head, “I don’t know, I don’t think so.”
“Good, open up the capsules and mix them into her juice. One half a capsule three times a day should do it. Don’t overdose her, she’ll get diarrhea. If she gets hives, stop feeding it to her and give her an antihistamine.”
“Doctor, why are you leaving?” Carlene asked. “This is your office now, for crying out loud. We are all your guests, really. Maybe it is all of us who should leave.”
“I can’t stay, my dear. This place is only for the pure,” she said with a dark venomous glance at me.
More people were coming out now. Holly Nelson was there, and Monika. Even Mr. Nelson had managed to get his wheelchair to the entrance and gazed out at the drama unfolding in the parking lot. News travels fast in a small village.
“This is crazy,” said Vance, putting up his hands to beseech us all to come to our senses. “Whatever the fight was about, we can get over it. There’s no need to break up now. We can put it together, trust me.”
“You don’t understand, Vance,” I told him. I tried to catch his eye and signal to him to shut up. As usual, this had no effect.
“Don’t understand? Oh, I think I understand. You guys are pissed at each other because we’ve had some rough times and just buried two of our people in an atrium.”
Mrs. Hatchell showed up then, and I groaned inwardly. She nodded in smug, full knowledge of the situation. She believed she’d taken it all in with one instant glance.
“Everyone,” she began, “I’m sure mistakes were made, but I’m even more certain that you people are all having a good time with your pissing contest. We however, the lowly citizens such as Mrs. Mitts and I, have an unfortunate need of all of you. It’s time for everyone to get over this and play nice.”
I rubbed my face and sighed. My fantasy of a quiet resolution had exploded in my face. I noticed the Captain seemed disinterested in the whole affair. He was over at the tree again, toeing it and poking it with his rifle.
Wilton glared at each of us in turn, but saved her last look for Vance. “Just can’t let anything go, can you boy?”
Vance blinked, surprised at the attack.
“I’m going to set up house at my old pharmacy down on frontage road, the one near the beach. If you need something, come look me up there and I’ll see what I can do for you. Some of you might even want to join me, as time goes on,” she added with a dark grin, as if speaking of a private joke.
Carlene pleaded with her one last time. “But why, Doc?”
It took her a couple of grunting attempts, but she managed to kick off her boot. There was no foot holding it there, and I imagine it had been close to sliding off all the time anyway.
Everyone recoiled in horror to see her hoof, which looked all the more odd in the open light of day. There were gasps and cries and sobs from the crowd.
“No Doc!”
“Dear Lord!”
“She’s one of them.”
This last came from Jimmy Vanton. Wilton spun on her hoof to face him. The new appendage seemed to serve quite well for this pivoting maneuver.
“That’s almost right,” she told Vanton. “I’ve been touched by the shift, it’s true. But we all have. Some of you know it, some of you will learn it soon. We’re all going to change, at least a little.”
With that, she turned and left us. No one tried to stop her now. No one argued. She walked slowly across the parking lot, we watched her odd, hobbling gait until only her lantern was visible down the street.
I watched until finally she turned a corner and even the lantern winked out. What was it that the Preacher had called her kind? Shadows, my mind answered back.
The night closed over us, and we went back inside.
Vance was on me as soon as we had a spare moment alone. “You let her just leave?” he demanded incredulously.
“You’re the one who thought I was crazy to push her out.”
“Yeah, sure, but that was before I knew she was the guy with the hooves! What the hell was she doing out at that wreck, and at our cabin that night?”
I shook my head. “Wasn’t her.”
“You’re sure? That looked like the perfect shape to make that track.”
“Yes, but she has one normal foot still. She couldn’t have made the tracks at the cabin. You saw the tracks. There were clearly two hooves.”