Dust Page 4

  Joe, unflinching, folded his arms. “So where have you been the last few nights?” he said. He glanced at New Thing. “Besides digging up worthless ’maldies for the fold—”

  Teresa bristled. “We need new members, at least you’re always whining that we do—and now that they’re cremating nine-tenths of them the second they kick I can’t be fussy about who I take. If she can’t hunt, we’ll just kill her.” New Thing trembled. “And I had business elsewhere, that’s all you need to know. So where’s my meat?”

  Joe shrugged. “Tell us the business, and we’ll give you a meal.”

  She wrapped her bony fingers around his neck and lifted him straight off his feet, her tarnished silver rings sinking into his throat. “Your precious was first hunter last night,” she said, not raising her voice. She never needs to. “Her job is to make sure my share got put aside. So why didn’t she?”

  Joe just hung there, oozing smothered fury. Teresa turned to me and smiled. “Get over here.”

  I got. The studs of Teresa’s leather jacket glinted as she raised Joe higher; a nicer jacket than Joe’s, the black leather less cracked and worn, but it wasn’t hers. She and Mags got it off a hoo years before my time. Joe was buried in his. His second skin.

  “It’s nice and simple,” she said, staring daggers. Her arm didn’t even tremble. “Any hunt, first rights on half the meat is mine. And you were first hunter, and responsible for my share, so why’d you go and eat my share? And don’t tell me”—a singsong falsetto—“‘Oh, Teweesah, I was so hungwy.’ If you’re smart.”

  First hunter. Jesus, did she really think we had nothing better to do than play carcass cop with each other, wagging fingers over meat she had no right to touch? I just shrugged. “I got nothing, Teresa.”

  “You got nothing.”

  “I’m just saying, maybe you don’t wanna hear it, but we wanted it, we ate it, we didn’t feel like leaving you any.” The truth is never a good idea around Teresa, but I was tired and my bullshit tank was down to fumes. “And there was no point anyway, because that was last night and here you are, half a day later? And you weren’t anywhere in sight when we left or came back? Even if we’d left you the whole damned deer you couldn’t have eaten it, the meat’s too old. Ruined.”

  And what the hell’s wrong with the bitch that I even have to say this? We can’t eat stale kills, nothing over an hour dead’s even digestible, so what kind of crazy power trip is she on to want tributes of rotten carcass that hasn’t had a heartbeat in hours, days? Eat your damned fist if you need dead flesh that badly. Hell, make a hoo-barbecue and cook it, if you really want to make us all puke. That’s the one thing about my appetites that hasn’t changed since I died: There’s just nothing out there nastier than cooked meat.

  Joe shook violently, toes dangling, insects flying off his skin into the grass. Teresa hoisted him higher. “You didn’t feel like it—well, I guess you think it’s some kind of noble gesture, admitting it. So what do I do now?” She’d trotted out her weary voice, an all-giving mother faced with a rotten kiddie brat; the grunts and moans of it were like the spasms of a dying engine. “Tear off your other arm? But you’d probably like that, no more hunting duties at all. Give you a nice skin slip? Put you on permanent day-watch duty, so I never have to see your sorry face? But then what do I do about the rest of you—”

  “Just where the hell have you been, Teresa?” Ben spat the words, scraps of his old black fedora flapping like wagging fingers. “You find some little nest of hoos too stupid to move to town and decide to keep it to yourself, ’cause God forbid the rest of us ever get a crack at some good meat—”

  “You nearly broke my goddamned neck getting to the shitty meat last night, Mighty Hunter,” Mags shot back, scratching doglike at her shoulder until a cluster of wasps and hide beetles flew up around her ear. She and Ben have always had it in for each other. “Only the nine of us on fifteen hundred acres and Monsieur still can’t find any food that suits him? No wonder you can’t figure out how to just follow the damned highway until you find an unguarded hoo-city, if you’re that stupid right from the get-go—”

  Ben growled, raising his good fist; Sam put a hand on his arm, coaxing, and Ben fell silent. Mags was right, of course, we weren’t exactly tussling for scraps out here and even in the populated areas, where you’d be fighting the likes of the Rat Patrol and the Way of All Flesh for the hoo-goodies, there’s always more than enough to go round—the old north-county steel towns, the unincorporated unguarded bits of what used to be a dozen different suburbs, that’s a full larder by any measure. Ben, Billy, Mags, Joe, they all go hoo-hunting up there now and again. Never have myself, never tasted human flesh—yeah, it happens, and more than you’d think! Joe keeps trying to drag me along, keeps threatening never to come back from one of his meat runs, but he always does. They all do. It’s quieter here. Mostly. There’s nothing wrong with liking things quiet.

  “So what do I do now?” Teresa repeated, eyes back on me. Her fingers clenched suddenly, crushing the beetles on Joe’s throat with a thousand small crunches. “I still don’t know. But since you all just throw away what’s mine, not a second thought, maybe I should do the same for you.”

  She pulled her arm back, grunting, and Joe flew from her grasp, hurtled sideways and crashed into a cluster of wrought-iron benches. Under shouts and the clatter of falling metal came a gunshot crack and I stumbled toward him, my stomach a stone—she’d broken his back, she’d broken his neck, he was crippled and he’d be stomped in the skull for everyone’s good and I wouldn’t allow it, I’d bring him food and kill her to get it—while Teresa just stood there and laughed. New Thing, long since forgotten, moaned quietly on the gazebo steps. Her chemical stink was everywhere, perfuming the trees.

  Joe lay curled on the upended benches, stunned but unhurt; the cracking sound was a tree branch he took down as he fell. Linc came stumbling up, offering him an unwanted helping hand; Joe shoved us both aside, wrenched himself to his feet and stalked into the woods without looking back. Teresa jerked her head toward me, then the ’maldie.

  “Cal Memorial’s vomited up another one,” she said. “Take care of your little neighbor for me, I don’t have the patience.”

  Lucky me. Mags, Ben and I went and yanked New Thing off the steps. I couldn’t do this one-handed.

  Ever read how they used to put pennies on dead people’s eyes, to weight them shut? Florian had those. Nowadays, though, they use eyecaps: big plastic lenses with tiny tent-pole spikes on the outside, covering the whole eyeball and keeping the lids anchored like awnings. There’s no way to get them out except to hold the ’maldie down, peel the eyelids back and pry them out, hoping you don’t accidentally gouge out an eye. And we haven’t gotten to the really fun part yet—the mouthpiece. It’s always so tempting just to leave their whiny lips sealed shut. With every touch, New Thing flinched like I’d punched her.

  “I’m gonna open your eyes,” I said. “They’re sealed shut, that’s why you can’t open them. Okay? You understand?”

  No answer. As Mags and Ben gripped her arms, I pried gently at one eyelid; not sewed shut, good. Much easier. I gave the eyecap a little tap, got a grip on it—

  —and tore her eyelid in two when she wrenched away and let out a muffled banshee-shriek of panic. I grabbed her hair, and her scalp slid sideways; a wig, I should have guessed. Mags slapped her hard, bellowing, “Stay still!”

  She thrashed harder, back arching, and Ben kicked her. “For God’s sake, Jessie, are you gonna help us hold her down?”

  “I’ve got one hand, moron, how can I do this and help you? Billy, get over here.”

  Billy sauntered over, grinning; if New Thing was gonna be such a bitch, he was exactly what she deserved. I eased out the eyecaps with my fingertips, Billy pretending to help hold her head but mostly just enjoying the show. New Thing shook and whimpered and blinked, big blue-gray eyes screwed up in terror and agony in the failing light. She was tensed to run, not realizing she’d never
run again, but that immobilized mouth kept its placid candy smile.

  Mags grabbed New Thing’s chin and poked at her lips. “Looks like a wire job—you sure you can get in there, Jess?”

  “Sure. Have to break a few teeth to do it, but—”

  That did it. New Thing screeched from behind her mouthpiece, donkey-kicking until I wrapped my arm around her knees and lifted her straight off her feet. “Listen up.” I gripped tighter, silent warning I’d break her legs if she pushed it. “That thing in your mouth’s held in by wire. It’s sealing your jaw shut. That means I have to crack teeth to get it out—and if I don’t, you’ll starve to death. You wanna starve? Huh? You wanna starve?”

  She shook her head, moaning between sealed teeth and trying to squeeze her eyes shut; the torn-away lid gave her a permanent wink. Ben laughed quietly, then reached up and plucked the dangling wig of soft blond hair right off her head, twirling it on one finger. She groped one-handed at her skull, feeling the huge spots of nothing where pretty silky curls had been, and started crying in earnest. ’Maldies. Jesus Christ. I just can’t believe hoos still pony up for embalming; if you know your best beloveds might be tunneling up again, it’s okay they die of flesh-hunger as long as they look pretty? But of course, I forget that nobody’s own best beloved will ever, ever become one of them, one of those. I know how that sort of thinking works. I know it right from the source.

  I parted her lips, running a finger over posthumously lengthened teeth, and finally spotted the little glint of silvery wire snaking through her gums. Targeted the spot next to it, one, two—

  The three teeth bordering the wire broke off so hard and quick they flew into the grass. The ’maldie screamed out loud, plain old pain this time and not panic, and I groped around calmly in that tiny little space until I got my fingers on the wire and snapped it in two. I dropped it in the grass, next to the broken teeth, and she let out a hard, ragged sound, figuring out the worst was over. As she tried to open her lips wider I saw the hard plastic former shoved in behind her teeth, shaping her mouth and jaw into eternal pursed-up bliss; a few hard tugs, and it was out. She doubled over coughing and heaving, then retched up chunks of gauze, wads of cotton that stuck like wet toilet paper to her lips.

  When we let her go she staggered and looked around in amazement, her flute notes coming high and fast and nervous. I remember that feeling. “So, what’s your name?” I asked.

  “Renee,” she croaked, rubbing her head. “Renee Anderson.”

  Whatever. Last names don’t matter. Ben folded his arms. “So? Let’s hear it.”

  When she frowned in confusion he leaned into her face, shouting low and slow like she was brain damaged: “How—did—you—die?”

  She didn’t flinch like most ’maldies do, seeing honest un-embalmed rot like that up close. “Oh. I think . . . I was in a hospital.” She nodded. “Yeah, I was. I remember the lights. And my head, it just . . . exploded, from the inside.”

  Aneurysm? Maybe. Florian died of that too, or maybe a stroke, but New Thing looked young, sixteen or seventeen at most. Like me when I tunneled up. She felt her skull again, the crisscross of surgical staples glinting between unshaven tufts of blond hair, and seemed surprised her whole head was there. If you looked closely you could see her clean new brain pulsating slow and steady beneath her scalp, a giant fontanelle.

  Ben laughed. “Well, no kidding. My head exploded too—with a little help from a cracker-ass sheriff and some of his friends. See this?” He brandished his right arm, a blackened stump with the stubby memory of fingers flaking off at the ends. “They shot me, then tried cooking me extra-crispy. Lucky I woke up before my head melted. That’s the last thing I heard ’em say: ‘ There’s another one for the fire.’ Nice, huh? So you gonna be like all the other ’maldies? The little pickled hoo-lovers who think they’re God’s special babies because they start going rotten in six months instead of three? You wanna tell me if that’s fair, princess? Huh? Is that fair?”

  Her eyes widened. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “Sorry?” Ben snorted. “Here’s sorry.”

  He hit her hard, and she went flying. Her gang baptism, no different than mine, but unlike Peachy Perfect I didn’t sprawl on the ground and wail. Mags sauntered up, shoving me aside. “Oh, poor baby—he’s awful mean, isn’t he? Let me help you.”

  Slam, crash, facedown in the dry powdery dirt. Ben yanked her to her feet, giving Mags another crack, and even Florian and Linc didn’t step in to help. Tradition is tradition. The new girl gave me a desperate glance, and I just shrugged. Kids today. “So, you gonna run off and cry, or are you staying?”

  She panted, sagging in Ben’s grip. “You mean with you guys?”

  Unreal. “Yes, with us. Would you like—to stay—with us?”

  She nodded, unhappy but also resigned. Where the hell else did she have to go? Teresa walked over and leaned in close.

  “Thing is, you’ll have to learn, if you want to stick around.” She jabbed a finger in Renee’s face, silver rings rattling. “First is hunting. You hungry?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she whispered, miserable and pathetically eager. I remember that too.

  Teresa snickered. “Oh, yeah? Well, you get last rations until you can make a good kill yourself. If there’s no meat left when it’s your turn, tough. Second, I run this gang.” Nice long pause, and a sudden throat grab that made Renee squeal and choke. “I run this gang. Understand? You eat when I say so. You sleep, talk, think when and how I say so, you kiss my bony flyblown ass twenty-nine times a day if I tell you to, and if you’re too good for that you can piss off right now. And everyone else here is better than you, including that asshole I threw into the bushes. You’re a piece of hoo shit.” Her grip loosened. “Well? Say it.”

  Renee choked, coughed. “Piece’f hoosht,” she mumbled.

  “What was that?” Teresa shook her until her teeth snapped and rattled. “What was that? What did you say, ’maldie?”

  “Hoo shit! I’m a piece of hoo shit!”

  “What are you? Huh?”

  “Hoo shit!”

  Amid the chorus of jeers, Teresa nodded. “That’s the second rule.” Her finger traced Renee’s ripped eyelid, delicate as a spider walking its web. “You already know the third.”

  Renee went down like a cement sack, gasping as Teresa’s foot sank into her gut, and when she rolled on her side Billy grabbed her legs and tossed her flat on her back. I was feeling charitable, so I just pulled a few fistfuls of patchy blond hair and left her to Ben and Mags. They tore strips of flesh off her arms, her face.

  “Easy now,” Florian said, still sitting and watching, but he didn’t try to rescue her. Gotta happen. Toughen them up. Linc frowned, took a step forward, but when Florian shook his head Linc didn’t push it. Renee, now crawling trying to get away, flung herself recklessly at Sam’s feet and nearly got her cheekbones kicked in for the trouble. Someone could’ve fed her first, at least, but it wasn’t gonna be me.

  Mags poked her fingers at Renee’s eyes, getting within millimeters so Renee kept whipping her head back and forth to escape them; that let Billy get in punches on her left side, Ben on her right. Jab, whap. Jab, smack. Florian and Sam and Linc sat in a cross-legged choral row, just watching. Teresa turned to me, all hostility vanished. “Why don’t you go have some fun?” she said, motioning toward them. “The little squirt’ll thank you in the long run, for giving her a spine.”

  Run along and play, kiddie. No thanks. I shrugged, watching Renee get beaten, watching the watchers, remembering the meaty smack of fists and crack of bone when Joe and I first met. This little bitch wasn’t even trying to defend herself, what the hell did Fearless Leader want with something so useless? Maybe just some fun. I closed my eyes, taking in the odors of dry musty tree bark and old possum tracks and peeling rain-softened paint, and that’s when I caught it.

  The smell, that strange chemical smell that I’d sniffed in the air earlier and thought was Renee. I could smell Renee too, the stench
of formaldehyde and dyes and fixatives and cosmetics smeared over and shot through dead skin, but this was something different: just as sterile and alien but without a pedigree of its own, an orphan smell I couldn’t place but knew was from nowhere in nature. It was coming from Teresa, emanating from her skin as she lolled under the rotting gazebo roof, and over the dull patina of her decay was a layer of soft, shiny dampness, marinating her in a pungent little sweat bath. Not rain, it’d been dry for days. Sap, it looked like, beads of it oozing up from freshly cut wood. I listened, not knowing what I thought I’d hear from her, but got only the same everyday brain music and wordless hum of thought I heard from everyone else. She was perfectly normal, except she wasn’t. The more I stared the more she stank, of vinegar and varnish. Nothing dying, and nothing ever alive.

  Teresa caught me looking. She just smiled.

  Dizzy and punch-drunk, Billy reared back and let fly, intestines playing a symphony of farts, gurgles and sickening wet explosions like air ripping out of a balloon. Clouds of pure stink welled up from his gas-bloated guts, making us groan with laughter and shout “How’d you like it, little Renee, how’d you like that,” but our new baby sister had long since passed out.

  4

  The small, stifled sobs grew louder and harsher until they crested into a single sorrowing wail. The thud of a fist followed, and Joe’s voice snarling, “Goddammit, bitch, go to sleep!”

  So much for his sulk in the woods doing him any good. I winced as Florian and I crossed the footbridge and headed across the open park field. I wasn’t feeling so good today, off-kilter and fuzzy-headed like a hoo catching a cold—Billy threw all my sleep right off, tooting Teresa’s triumphant homecoming—but still more than glad to be on watch and getting out of earshot. They should’ve fed Renee first: It was the hunger pangs killing her, not any memories of Mommy and Daddy, but everyone had decided they were too tired to throw her a bone. I’d bring her back something, a rabbit or two. Florian was off in his own world as usual, humming some century-old song to himself as we went past the sugaring shack, crossed the second footbridge and another, handkerchief-sized parking lot and reached the welcome shadiness of the overgrown nature trails.