“Damon? It’s Jube. You okay, podna?”
Damon snored, causing Jubal to jump back and Fiona to emit a frightened squeal.
“Dead,” Damon said. “All dead-dead-dead.”
Jubal stepped closer to the couch and the smell hit him. It was the same fetid odor of rot that?lled Fiona’s house. It was the scent of Renee Spencer as she died and rose again.
Jubal turned on the lamp next to the couch.
Damon Ortega was covered with oozing pustules. The smell was coming from the yellowish?uid that leaked from the blisters.
“Aw, God.”
“Wha-Suze? That you?” Damon’s eyes?uttered open. Susan had been his wife. When Damon was still in high school she ran off with an economics professor from the community college in Carlsbad. Damon had never remarried. “I was too dumb for her,” Damon once told him. “You need to roust a drunk, I’m your man. But I wouldn’t know a?oating exchange rate if it jumped up and bit me on the pecker.”
“It’s me, boss.” Jubal couldn’t halt the tremor in his voice.
“J-Jubal?”
“Yeah. Fiona’s here, too.”
“Hot in here. Is the goddamn furnace on?”
Fiona moved next to Jubal, getting her?rst good look at the sheriff. She began to sob.
Damon squinted against the light.
”What’s wrong with her?”
“Oh. Well, it’s, uh, her time of the month, you know?” He tried to put a cheerful note in his voice, but he was afraid his attempt fell?at.
“Oh, I know,” Damon said. “Lock ’em outside and toss ’em some chocolate, that’s what my old man always said.” Damon started coughing. Jubal closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the color and thickness of the liquid that ran from the lips of the older man.
“What’s wrong, kid? Am I uglier than usual?”
Jubal opened his eyes. Damon was no longer squinting. The older man’s eyes were shot through with streaks of red and the whites were now yellow. He owed this man, this second father, nothing less than the truth. But as he stared into that diseased face he saw that the knowledge was already there, streaked with crimson.
“Naw,” Jubal said. “Just the usual level of ugly. Sometimes it still shocks me, that’s all.”
Damon chuckled-without expelling any?uids this time, thankfully. “How’s that woman you found at the car wash?”
Jubal could only stare at him.
“Don’t look so shocked, squirt. I’m still the sheriff and I still got contacts. My feelers are everywhere.”
The sickness momentarily forgotten, Jubal crossed his arms over his chest. “Who was it? Taylor or Red?”
“Pops Perez,” Damon said.
Jubal hadn’t even seen Pops out in the street. He wasn’t surprised, though. As much as the old-timer liked to gossip, he could also be as sly and quiet as a cat sneaking up on a bird.
“How much he tell you?”
“All of it, I reckon. She had blisters all over her face.” Damon ran his?ngers over his own face, feeling the pustules like a blind man reading Braille. “He said she was babbling some crazy talk, too.”
“Yeah,” Jubal said. “What about you, boss? You were doing a little talking when we came in. Do you remember?”
Damon looked away from his deputy, and Jubal was grateful that he didn’t have to see those yellow and red eyes.
“Just a dream I was having.”
“About what?”
Damon sighed. “Something was chasing me. It was a bunch of fellas, only they weren’t quite men.”
“What do you mean?” Jubal could feel his pulse throb in his temples.
“Well, they were shaped awful funny. Their heads were too narrow and long. Their arms were long, too. And…”
“What?”
“They were all tore up, like they had been killed by an animal or something. And some of them had parts of their faces torn off or big holes in their stomachs.” Damon met Jubal’s eyes again. “Some crazy shit, huh?”
“Yeah. Crazy shit.” Fiona walked back toward the front door. He couldn’t tell if she were still crying.
“So how is she?”
“Fiona?” Jubal said.
“The sick woman. Where’d you take her anyway?”
“Oh. To Fiona’s.”
Damon’s yellow eyes didn’t blink. “And?”
Looking his boss in the eyes as he spoke his next words was possibly the most dif?cult thing Jubal had ever done.
“Fine, Damon. She’s really coming along.”
Damon closed his eyes and rested his head against a pillow. If he recognized the lie, he didn’t show it. Perhaps he was even grateful for it. It wasn’t long before he began snoring again.
Jubal decided to let the sheriff rest. Maybe the old dog was strong enough to whip this thing. If anyone could do it, Damon could. After all, Jubal felt?ne. He would?gure this mess out on his own. He had no choice, really.
“Let’s go check on my ma,” he whispered to Fiona.
Growths covered his mother’s face like bumps on a blackberry. She?oated in and out of consciousness and was barely coherent. Each wheezing breath was like another painful needle in Jubal’s heart. This woman, his best friend really-whom he had loved all his life-was dying.
Jubal turned away, unable to look any longer, hiding his?owing tears from his?ancee.
Fiona stepped up behind him and laid her hand gently on his shuddering back.
“We have to get help for her, Jubal.”
Jubal sniffed hard and nodded his head. “Let’s get her into the car. We’re going to save her, Fee.”
“Sure we are, babe,” Fiona said.
They soon had Jubal’s mother in the back seat of the police cruiser…
Just like Renee.
…and were on their way out of town, heading north towards Carlsbad. The sky to the east showed a lighter darkness. Soon it would be dawn.
“She’s such a good woman, Fee. She’s always been a best friend to me.”
“I know, Jubal. We’ll do whatever we can.”
Jubal pressed down on the accelerator. He glanced at the gauge and saw he was going nearly 100 miles per hour. He’d have activated his siren if he thought it would do any good, but state highway 285 heading north was barren.
“This is damn spooky,” Jubal said.
“What?”
“The highway. It’s still early, but there should be at least some semis on the road.”
“There’s plenty of oncoming traf?c.”
“Yeah, weird.”
Some of the people in the oncoming cars waved their arms out their windows, but Jubal was moving too fast to understand what they wanted. He was in too much of a damned hurry to care.
“Why complain? The less traf?c heading north, the faster we get help for your mother.”
Jubal glanced into the back seat. His mother didn’t appear to be moving, but it was hard to tell anything driving this fast.
“Keep your eyes on the road, please, Mr. Deputy Sheriff,” Fiona said. “I’ll check on her for you.”
Jubal drove while Fiona leaned over the back seat. Soon she was sitting back down and fastening her seat belt.
