Working Stiff

McCallister was right behind her, silent and solid. He was the only thing that gave her the necessary strength to keep going.

The bedroom door was shut, and Bryn touched the knob gingerly first, as if it might be hot. Instinct, trying to stop her from doing this. Seeing this.

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

The noise exploded in an angry buzz, and flies whizzed past her, heading out into the open air. She ducked. So did McCallister. He coughed and put his hand over his mouth; it was the first sign of weakness she’d seen from him.

Bryn stepped into hell.

The first thing she saw was the dead man, sitting in a deep armchair at the end of the bed. There was a bullet hole in one temple, and a giant exit wound on the opposite side. The gun still lay on the carpet next to his feet.

He’d been gone for days.

The woman lying on the bed wasn’t much of a human being anymore. She was covered in a moving blanket of flies, wriggling pale maggots popping through the slipping, discolored stretch of skin, and ants busily carrying away pieces for the good of the colony.

Her eyes were open. Clouded, discolored, decomposed, but alive.

Oh, God, still alive. They moved, very slightly, toward Bryn. The lipless mouth moved, but there was no sound, could be none. The phone receiver lay on the pillow next to her, and one desiccated finger was still resting on the redial button.

“Mother of God,” McCallister whispered behind her. He sounded shaken, stunned, more human than he’d ever seemed. Bryn, on the other hand, felt … remote. Unte-thered. That was shock, she guessed. Useful thing, shock, at moments like these.

“Give her the shot,” she said.

“Bryn—it won’t work.”

“Give her the shot.”

He shook his head, but he opened his bag and took out the syringe. She saw him hesitate, trying to find enough muscle to inject, and watched as he did his best.

The liquid oozed back out through her skin and soaked into the bedding.

They waited for long moments, and Bryn finally turned to McCallister.

“She’s too far gone,” he whispered. “End stages. The drug won’t help.”

Then there was only one thing to do.

Bryn dropped her canvas bag, opened it, and took out a gown, a mask, surgical gloves. She handed those to McCallister, then took a second set for herself. They dressed in silence. The mask didn’t block the eye-watering stench. There were ants crawling on her feet, over her legs, but Bryn didn’t think about that. Couldn’t think about that.

She took out a surgical saw.

McCallister took a step back. “What are you—”

Bryn didn’t answer, because she couldn’t. Talking required some kind of cognition she didn’t think she was capable of at this point. There was only one thing that was important, one thing that had to be done.

She had to stop the woman’s pain. There was no walking away from this, no choice. It had to be done.

She had to be the one to do it.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to what was left of Violetta Sammons, and stared into those clouded, desperate, terrified eyes for a second before she put one hand on the mandible of her jaw, pushed up, and exposed the rotten column of her throat.

It didn’t take more than three strokes. The saw was very sharp. As the head rolled free, Bryn saw the life desperately continue in those filmed eyes, and then dim … and then, finally, mercifully, depart.

Byrne dropped the saw, staggered, and put her back against the wall.

That’s me. That’s me on the bed. That’s me.

Not yet, but it was coming, as inevitable as death itself.

Across the bed, Patrick McCallister stood frozen, watching her. He finally reached down and grabbed the canvas bag, retrieved the saw, and took her arm. “Out,” he said. “Come on.”

Leaving that room was like walking out of a grave, and Bryn ripped the mask away from her face and gulped in deep breaths. She’d thought the air out here tainted before, but it smelled sweet now. Sweet as roses.

Her legs had gone numb, but McCallister helped her down the steps, past the line of ants, past the silent living room with its TV still playing, Scotch waiting.

Outside, into the clean breeze, and the sun.

Bryn collapsed against him, put her arms around his neck, and wept as if her heart were breaking. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, my God. I had to do it; I had to. I had to.”

And Patrick McCallister held on just as fiercely. “I know,” he whispered back. “It’s all right. It’s over.”

“No.” She gasped, and fisted her hands in the collar of his suit. “That was me. Going to be me.”

“No. Bryn, you’re alive; hear me? And I won’t let that happen to you. I won‘t. I swear it.”

“What if—”

“Don’t.”

“You saw; she could still feel—”

His voice turned fierce. “I won’t let it happen. I will never let you suffer, Bryn. Believe that, even if you never believe anything else about me.”

She did believe him. She believed that if he had to, Patrick McCallister would take up that saw and end things for her, once and for all. He had the strength of will.

She’d never thought she did. Not until the moment when she’d had to choose.

That terrified her, the fact that something like that was hiding inside her—something so strong, so cold, so capable. She didn’t want to know that about herself.

She didn’t want to know what it was going to be like in the end, either. She’d looked into her future, into the ruined, screaming eyes of Violetta Sammons.

McCallister held her until his security team arrived to sanitize the scene of the crime, and she was glad he did.

Fifteen minutes after they’d started the … removal proceedings, McCallister stepped back into the house. He donned an extra pair of coveralls stored in Bryn’s go bag, a ball cap, a thin Windbreaker that had the Fairview Mortuary logo on the front, and said, “I’m going with you. You shouldn’t be alone.” His team had their orders. They also had come in disguise as renovation workers, with their own van, tools, coveralls—they even put a sign out by the curb. Anyone looking out would see nothing but normal life, although what was going on was far, far from sanity in there. “We need to get the van out of here. It’ll raise questions.”

The Fairview logo was small and discreet, but he was right; it was visible to anybody who really looked. Bryn, who’d finally gotten feeling back in her arms and legs, started to unlock the driver’s-side door.

McCallister took the keys from her. “No. I’m driving.” She didn’t feel able to argue the point. It felt good to let someone else take charge, at least for the moment. Maybe the protocols are kicking in again. But she didn’t think so. It was just shock, and the drugged exhaustion that followed extreme emotional stress.

“Is it safe for you to do this?” she asked in a remote, tired voice as he piloted the van back toward Fairview. “What if he’s watching?”

“He probably is. And yes, it’s risky. But you go through staff quickly at the assistant level, so new faces aren’t unusual. I’ll keep my head down.” He glanced her way. “You still with me, Bryn?”

“Yes.” She could hardly keep her eyes open, but when she tried to let them drift closed, she saw jolts of images. Ants. Maggots. Flesh. Eyes. “I think I need a drink.”

He laughed softly, and a little shakily. “That, Miss Davis, is a vast understatement. There has never been a single moment in my life when I more needed a drink, and I wasn’t the one—” Holding the saw, Bryn finished silently. He let it go. “I heard your sister is staying with you.”

“I thought you’d be angry.”

“I was. It seems a little beside the point right now.”