I tried to bail faster.
The dark shape got closer. It was big. Several other shapes joined the first. They swam in wide, slow circles, always creeping upward. I kept trying to hurl water from the sinking craft. One of the thing’s backs finally broke the surface, right under my hands. The skin was rotting. I could see the remains of scales, but these were peeling away, revealing spongy, infected flesh.
Another shape rolled through the water nearby. It rose up and sluggishly slid along the surface long enough for me to catch a quick glimpse of a huge, puckered mouth with many, many small teeth, then dove into the depths and vanished.
The rain came down even harder, driving the small boat deeper into the warm ocean. The horizon tilted drunkenly to the left, and I desperately tried to climb up onto the right side. For a second, this helped to balance the craft, until the entire rowboat cracked in half.
And just as I pitched headfirst into the dark, silent water, the alarm went off.
SUNDAY
CHAPTER 23
I was up and moving quickly despite my lack of sleep and the bruises that left me stiff and sore, slogging through wet fields in a straight path to Fat Ernst’s restaurant. I sure as hell didn’t want to be late, not on a morning when I was supposed to get my paycheck. But I had another reason for getting to work earlier, one that had nothing to do with getting paid. I didn’t want Fat Ernst around for what I had to do.
The wind screamed up out of the valley, driving rain into the foothills and whipping the drops past my face almost horizontally. One field to go. I just had to climb a fence, hike across a flooded pasture, then scoot down the highway a few hundred yards. I had put Grandpa’s boot on the bottom strand of barbed wire and slung my other leg over the top of the fence when I heard the sound of screeching, sliding tires behind me.
My first thought was that the Sawyer brothers had found me again, right in this precarious position with my balls suspended a few inches over angry barbed wire. I saw who really was behind me and almost wished it had been Junior and Bert.
A pickup slid to a stop next to me in a flurry of splattered mud. Slim stared out of the window with sunken eyes. His face was pale, drawn. He stared at me for a few quiet seconds, and from the expression on his face I wasn’t sure if he was going to drive away or shoot me on the spot.
Finally he spoke. “That’s private property, boy.” He sounded like he’d swallowed a fistful of dry fertilizer.
I didn’t know if I should climb off the fence or not, so I kind of froze there. “Um, just heading to work,” I said.
“Work.” He coughed and brought his ever-present handkerchief up to his mouth. He automatically checked the contents, stowed it safely back in the pocket of jeans. He swallowed, grimacing as he did so, and turned back to me. “What’s going on in that goddamn kitchen?”
“What? I don’t know …”
“I haven’t felt right since eating that cheeseburger yesterday. My guts are burnin’ up. Feel like I gotta shit, but nothin’s comin’ out.” With a quivering arm, he slid the gearshift into PARK. “So I want to know what the hell is going on. Where’d Ernst get that meat?”
I damn near slipped off the barbed wire fence but managed to grab the steel post just in time. “I, uh, don’t exactly know where he got it. Costco, maybe?”
Slim coughed again. “Bullshit.” He sniffed. “I know my meat, boy. Hell, I eat a steak, I can tell you how old the steer was, just how long ago it was killed, whether it had been frozen, what the animal had been eating, whether it was corn, or grain … Didn’t realize it at the time, not with Heck gettin’ sick and everything, but that cheeseburger wasn’t any”—he broke down in a fit of hacking coughs, gasping for breath between each cough that made his whole body shudder—“goddamn good.”
“Maybe you ought to see a doctor about that,” I said in as much of a helpful tone as I could manage.
Slim finally got his coughing under control and hawked a large brown ball of phlegm into the mud. He pulled the handkerchief backout and blew his nose forcefully. It seemed like he’d forgotten I was there. He wiped his nose and again automatically checked what he’d deposited on the stiff blue cloth.
Slim flung the handkerchief out the window and wiped his hand frantically on the front of his shirt, biting off quick gasps of air. He fumbled with the gearshift, finally pulled it down into drive, and stomped on the gas pedal. The pickup lurched forward, fishtailing out of the weeds and onto the asphalt. I ducked down as globs of sticky mud flew all around me like shrapnel. A few drops stuck in my hair, my shirt, but at least I didn’t get any in my eyes. Slim’s pickup headed into the foothills.
Then I saw the handkerchief at the edge of the weeds.
I should have left it. I should have just climbed off the damn fence and walked off into the wet pasture. But curiosity got the better of me and I climbed down and pushed through the weeds to the side of the road. The handkerchief looked harmless enough as I crouched down on my haunches next to it. Still, I didn’t want to touch it, so I found a small twig in the weeds and stuck one end under the closest corner of the handkerchief and lifted the flap.
Three tiny gray worms squirmed over each other in a slimy smear of snot and blood.
I jumped back and flung the twig away. I wanted to climb the fence and run though the flooded pasture and leave this behind. Instead, I froze. What if these goddamn worms wriggled their way into the mud here in the weeds? God knows what might happen if they made it to the pasture; it was covered in at least three, four inches of water. They could go anywhere. I gritted my teeth and brought the heel of Grandpa’s boot down on the handkerchief, grinding the worms and the snot and blood into the asphalt. When I pulled my foot back, I could see there wasn’t much left of the worms. That made me feel a little better. But then I realized Slim was still out there, still infested with more of the worms. I jumped the fence and took off on a run across the pasture, splashing my way to work. I’d be goddamned if anybody else ate that meat.
I got lucky. The place was empty. Fat Ernst was in the bathroom once again when I slipped through the front door. I crossed the floor hastily, not worrying about the mud from my boots, and went into the kitchen. Fat Ernst had already started the stove. I yanked the fridge open and there they were, waiting on the top shelf in the sickly yellow light like two malignant tumors, the white Smirnoff boxes. A crinkled sheet of aluminum foil rested within each box, covering the contents.
I didn’t want to touch the boxes with my bare hands, but I didn’t have much choice. I had to do this quick and quiet. I slipped my fingers underneath the box on the right and slid it out toward me. There was no way I was going to stick my hand in there. For all I knew, those worms could be waiting underneath the thin sheet of aluminum foil, having eaten all of the hamburger meat, and were hungry for some more. Some more fresh meat. So I didn’t hook my fingers over the side, nothing. I lifted it gently out of the fridge, set it on the stove, and grabbed the second box. I carefully put the second box on top of the first and picked them up, carrying them out in front of me like a bomb that might explode if I made any sudden movements.