minerals.
So what the hell was it?
There had to be some common denominator, something that linked Julie Campbell, Joni Cooper, Susan Stratford and possibly even old Mrs.
Perry. But what could it be? The water was out. Chances of it being some type of food were slim to none. Could they have been exposed to hazardous waste being transported through Randall? It was possible.
Though it was a much longer route, many trucks preferred to pass through Randall when transporting goods from Phoenix to either Prescott or Flagstaff in order to avoid the weigh and inspection stations on Black Canyon Highway And who knew what those trucks carried? Who knew what sort of substances they were transporting?
Waterston took another swig from his flask. He realized that he was grasping for straws. If there had been any unfamiliar chemicals in any of the women's bloodstreams they would have shown up on the blood tests. There didn't seem to be anything physiologically wrong with any of the women, with the possible exception of Mrs. Perry. But something obviously was wrong. Dreadfully wrong.
He had to admit it: he was baffled.
But at least something good had come out of all this--the chances that something would go wrong with Marina Lewis' pregnancy had been whittled down to almost nothing.
Waterston pulled open his desk drawer and drew out the photographs he had taken of the miscarried babies before the autopsies. On the top of the stack, the half-formed mucilaginous eyes of Julie Campbell's fetus stared blindly up at him. In the next picture, the premature infant's reptilian hands were clenched into permanent fists.
Waterston put the photos down and took another swig of whiskey. He needed courage. He would have to call each of the women and tell them what he had found. Or what he had not found.
He shuffled quickly through the photos, and his eye was caught by the horrible face of Joni Cooper's infant. The smooth bald forehead was wrinkled into a frown, and the toothless mouth was twisted into a hideous grimace. The eyes, pure white, with neither irises nor pupils, bored into his own and caused him to shudder. He dropped the stack of pictures on the desk. It was impossible, but the tiny infant looked angry, furious.
Waterston picked up the phone and started dialing.
Joni Cooper stared into the blackness of the living room, letting the phone ring without picking it up. From the bedroom, Stan called out angrily, 'Are you going to get that or what?' She did not answer him.
'Fuck it, then!'
The phone rang three more times, then stopped. Joni sat unmoving. The drapes in the room were all closed, and the lights were off. She could see nothing. But she stared into the blackness, listening, thinking.
She could hear Stan thrashing around in the bedroom, taking his aggression out on whatever inanimate object was closest to hand. They had had another fight tonight, or, rather, another battle in their ongoing fight. She knew she should be upset, but for some reason she just didn't seem to care.
She sat, staring, thinking, and after a while Stan shut off the television. Soon she heard his even, regular breathing--the breathing of sleep--loud in the silent empty house.
A year. It had been almost an entire year since she had lost the baby.
Though she knew there was something wrong with her, she had never gotten over the loss of her baby. It was affecting her still. She thought about it constantly, brooded about it, lamented it. She realized that her preoccupation with the incident was taking its toll on her marriage, her job, her friendships, but there didn't seem to be anything she could do about it. She had no control over the situation.
She was losing her grip on everything.
It was stupid, she knew. Women had abortions all the time. It wasn't the end of the world. And she could always have another child. There was nothing physically wrong with either her or Stan. Theoretically, they could have a whole bunch of kids.
But she couldn't let this child go. Stan Jr.' she thought. They would have named him Stan Jr.
She even imagined sometimes, in the middle of the night, staring into the darkness, that she could hear the baby crying, crying.
From the bedroom came the sound of something heavy being knocked over.
A lamp. She heard the shattering of glass, followed by a loud hard thump. What was Stan doing in there, tearing the place apart? She knew she should get up to investigate, but she couldn't bring herself to move. Instead, she sat still, staring into nothingness, listening.
There was a muffled yelp.
And a baby's cry.
Joni stood up, her heart racing. The sound came again, and she hurried down the hall toward the bedroom. The lamp had been knocked over. The room was dark. The only light was the diffused glow of the bathroom overhead. She peeked into the room. 'Stan?' she called softly.
Something small and soft nuzzled against her leg, and she felt a thrill of excited anticipation rush through her. She bent down on one knee and reached forward with both hands. Her fingers touched skin that was cold and slightly slimy. In the half-light, she saw something pinkish press toward her. Stan Jr.? She reached for it and instinctively pulled it toward her, cuddling it blindly against her breast.
Searing pain lashed through her as tiny teeth bit down and tiny claws dug in. She tried to push the small creature away from her, but it held tightly onto her breast, ripping open the skin. She fell forward, screaming, feeling the blood spurting from the open wound. Another pair of jaws bit into the exposed skin of her calf.
Her last thought, before the pain obliterated everything, was disjointedly coherent: We're too far from town. No one will hear us die.
The truck turned from Main Street to Old Mesa Road, cases of Pepsi sliding slightly across the metal floor in the back and bumping gently against the side as Brad pulled the wheel hard, trying to lessen the impact of the curve. The truck straightened out and they headed past the park toward the markets at the north end of town. Suddenly Brad bent forward and stared through the dirty windshield, squinting against the morning sun. 'What in fuck's name is that?'
He pulled the truck to a stop in front of the parking lot next to the Valley National Bank building. A crowd of people had gathered in the parking lot and were standing in a tight group, facing the building, those in back pressing close against those in front and craning their necks as though trying to see something. Gordon looked over at Brad.
'Why'd you stop? You want to get out and see what it is?'
Brad took off his Pepsi hat, threw it down on the seat next to him and ran a hand through his hair in a rough effort to comb it down. 'Don't see something like this every day,' he said in answer.
'Must be fifty, sixty people out there.'
They hopped out of the truck and started walking across the pavement toward the crowd. They could hear the clear tones of a public orator, loud even without amplification. The crowd pressed forward, listening, trying to catch a glimpse of the speaker.
'Satan preys upon the young because they are WEAK! They do not KNOW they are doing his bidding, they simply do notunderSTAND ! They are INNOCENT! And innocence is NEITHER good nor evil! It is the absence of BOTH! THIS is why innocence is so easily corruptible, why the innocent so often become the wicked! We must not be innocent OR ignorant if we expect to do battle with Satan! We must be ARMED! Armed with the ammunition of RIGHT! With the Holy Word of God!'
Brad stopped walking before they were even halfway across the parking lot. He listened for a moment to the voice, then laughed loudly. A few heads on the periphery of the crowd turned to look at him. 'I thought this was something important,' he said. 'It's just some preacher trying to drum up business. He's probably planning to have a tent meeting tonight and tell everyone about the evils of sex and drugs and rock and roll.' He spit on the asphalt then nodded back toward the truck. 'Come on. Let's get going. I don't want to hear this crap, and we have a lot to do today.'
Gordon held up his hand. 'Wait,' he said. He was already walking forward. 'I want to see something first.'
