He belched, smiled at her with toothless gums. The red birthmark all but covered one side of his face.
Brakes squealed as a car whooshed sand at the gin mill. The woman charged out of the car.
“Hi, Doris.”
“You okay?”
Hastily, she began trying to explain the situation. When she got as far as the little girl, Doris drew her aside. “So what do you want to do? You want to check on this kid? I’ve got my first-aid kit in the car.”
“The child may need help,” she whispered, nodding to the men who slouched a few feet away. “I haven’t been able to get anything out of anybody. But if we go to someone’s home, I mean really get in, maybe they’ll talk more freely.”
Manny seemed to go falling-down drunk all at once. Wincing at the smell, they helped him into the backseat while Wes stood watching. “Yeah, the two a you do ’im,” Wes said with approval. “That’s right.” He waved a grease black hand. “You both do ’im.”
She slammed the back door and went up front to sit with Doris. A deer rifle leaned across the front seat.
“Is it this way?” Doris looked back at where Manny sprawled. Barely conscious, he smiled, nodding, and Doris turned furiously to Athena. “Do you smell him? Christ, I’m going to have to fumigate. Hey, fella, my upholstery isn’t getting your clothes dirty, is it? Damn it, ’Thena! You were supposed to wait for me.”
She didn’t respond, held silent by the sight of the rifle.
“Why the hell can’t you do what I tell you? I specifically…Yeah? What the hell are you mousing around about back there? This way? Good, rosebud, you can pass out again now. Oh Christ, what a stink! What did he do, die back there?” She wrestled with the wheel, the car rolling too fast across lumpy sand. “You think you’re going to get information from him? Go ahead. Question him. This I’ve got to hear.”
Athena stared at her a moment, then turned around in her seat. “The night Lonny got killed, you remember? The night of the storm? Did you see anything at all unusual?”
By now, his face slack, Manny didn’t appear even to realize he was being spoken to.
Doris snorted. “We want to find a monster, so what do we do? We open a taxi service for the sobriety impaired. Makes perfect sense. You suppose this is the direction he meant? Ask chatterbox. Is this the way?”
Leek snored. The road had become little more than a rough trail, then vanished altogether, and the car bounced across the littered, overgrown field.
“This shit is for the birds.” The car took an especially bad bump. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Doris…”
“That’s got to be it.” She stopped the car. “No telling what’s in those weeds. I’d hate to get stuck out here. Better walk the rest of the way. Or we’ll walk. He’ll stagger. Christ, look at that place. Hard to believe people live in it.”
From the house, Matthew watched as Pam danced around the shed. She’d forgotten about him.
Coarse weeds lashed at her ankles, leaving faint pink lines on her plump flesh, but she didn’t seem to notice. The silver bracelet she’d taken from Athena’s room clinked with every step. With the plastic barrettes left off for once, her hair blew in a blonde tangle about her face, nearly concealing the angry-looking blemish. She held a short knife.
The dry remnant of a distant storm stirred the heavy summer air, and wildflowers bent before it. She called out, her voice a gentle clucking full of terms of endearment. Soft white feathers ruffling in the wind, the hen fled through the sharp grass.
Pam lunged for it and missed, going down on one knee, clutching earth. The chicken flapped in panic as it weaved toward the gently swaying woods.
Inside, the shack reeked, and ancient, soiled newspapers covered the floor. “Best ins’lation inna world,” claimed Manny. The half-dozen children stared at them like silent savages.
The pregnant woman never spoke either, just glared at Manny, and the sight of her stunned Athena. She looked as though she’d never been out in the sun, the knotted lips and grub-colored flesh nearly translucent and shadowed with blue. Her face sported the characteristic Munro’s Furnace birthmark, the tissue swollen with blood. In the bad light, her eyes appeared a deep pink.
Even the flies had stopped moving in the heat.
“What do you think?” Doris whispered, nodding toward the children. “Hookworm?”
“Dis Molly over here,” said Manny, waving at something in the farthest corner, near a potbellied stove. As he staggered toward a wooden crate, the woman suddenly tried to head him off. Casually, he struck her across the face with his fist, and she clawed at him. Without giving her another look, he got a jar from under the crate and drank from it. Athena couldn’t look away, convinced the woman would hurl herself on his back like a wildcat.
“’Smy booze.”
He ignored her.
Doris cursed under her breath, and Athena moved toward her, then recoiled slightly from the stench. Doris waved her away, trying to keep her from the dark corner. “See if you can prop that door open with something. Get some air in here. And some light. That lamp’s empty.”
The other children still gaped, and the tallest boy bolted out the door as she approached.
She returned to Doris and gasped. The child on the soiled cot had a head bloated to twice normal size. “What…? Oh God. What sort of spider bite…?”
The face turned toward the voice, almost, and she realized the child’s deformity: there were no eyes, nor any place for eyes. Sounds came from writhing lips, sounds that formed no words. Quietly, Athena began to tremble, feeling ashamed in front of Doris.
She hacked the head off the still-twitching bird, and crimson spurted down the feathers.
Brown leaves leaped from the pile she’d made and skittered across the yard. With red hands, Pam smeared blood on her forehead and drew marks on the ground.
She chanted in a whining monotone, and the wind blew her words away. She had a hard time lighting the kitchen matches because the striker got sticky, but at last one sputtered into silent flame. Leaves shriveled. Her hair got in her eyes as smoke swirled up. Faster and faster, she swayed, barefoot, loosening her clothing.
“…witch…the man and blood on his hand…love, it said…hear me…”
Bitter smoke rode the wind back to the house, and Dooley sniffed excitedly at the screen, then growled a little. Lying beside the dog, Matty sprawled in the doorway.
The boy’s body shook with a seizure. “…n…nn…nnnn…” He raised one hand and clawed at the screen. “St- Stop!” He stared with eyes that no longer saw the woman who faced the pines with open arms.
“Your name’s Molly? That’s a pretty name, that is. My name is Doris. I just want to look at your arm now. That a girl.” She turned to Athena. “Watch this cat, honey.”
From under the cot came a rabid yowling, and Doris held herself warily, ready to leap away. On the floor by the bed, a pile of unlicked kittens squirmed blindly on an old shirt. Athena’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. A couple of the kittens looked stiff, but one of them lifted a trembling head to hiss, exposing tiny, sharp milk teeth. From across the room, the Leek woman stared with passive malignity.
Manny approached, gesturing with the whiskey jar. “Cat don’t wanna nurse ’em. Born wi’ teeth.”
“You’re blocking the light.” Shaking her head, Doris got up from the cot. “Excuse me, honey.” She brushed past Athena and approached the child’s mother as Manny sprawled into the only intact chair and instantly appeared to become insensible, though his eyes remained open. “Any vomiting? Shortness of breath?”
Her expression full of spite and almost animal shyness, the woman didn’t respond.
“I’ll try one more time,” Doris muttered. “Has the child ever been to a doctor?”
Visibly calculating, the woman watched Doris for a long moment. “Saw doctor wonst. Said we hadda keep ’er. Kin you get ’er inna place?”
Athena stood over the cot, one hand outstretched as though to stroke the drowsing girl.
“That’s it. I give up. There’s nothing we can do here, honey.”
“But…”
