I got the idea he was on his best behavior. It was kind of nice to half-wake in the middle of the night and hear someone breathing, though. Like I was in a hotel room with Dad. I would half-smile and roll over, and I slept pretty okay.
By the third day I was sick of the house and in a state of nervous tension that had me working the heavy bag in the garage, shivering as sweat steamed on my skin and I popped punches like a boxer, shuffling, and did my katas. It hurt, but I was used to that, working through the flinches as my muscles reminded me I’d mistreated them.
The tai chi helped a little bit. The breathing and the quiet movements—full moon rising over the water, single whip, play the guitar—cleared out the inside of my head. It was the only time I wasn’t chewing myself into little mental bits. The problem was, as soon as I stopped, listening to the broken garage door bend and flex as the wind plucked at it, all the problems started crowding back inside my skull again.
At least while I worked out I could sometimes hear Dad’s voice in my head. Better than nothing. But I didn’t touch the weight bench in the corner. Dad was always picking up cheap barbells at garage sales, since it didn’t make sense to tote them around the entire continent with us. The bench itself was a remnant from two cities ago, and one of the first things I’d pitch if I was packing to leave.
Except I kept thinking Dad would stamp out into the garage, growl a greeting, and expect me to spot him for a set or two.
I worried about the truck outside in this kind of weather, I worried about finding the damn truck so I could get out of town, and I most especially worried about whatever had turned Dad into a zombie.
The snow had blown itself out, and the weather report said it would be clear and chilly the next few days. School was set to open up, and Graves had a bad case of cabin fever as well. He was getting tired of wearing Dad’s clothes, since they were all pretty much too baggy for him. I washed his jeans and he even condescended to compliment my long-sleeve Disco Duck T-shirt. We watched cable until I could hum along with all the advertising jingles again. We could agree on old sci-fi B movies, but he didn’t want to watch the horror flicks.
I didn’t blame him. So we stuck mostly to cartoons.
The fourth day turned over into the quiet cold before dawn, and I woke up in my bed with Graves leaning over me in only his tighty-whities, shaking me with a clammy-cold hand. “Someone’s at the door,” he whispered, and I bolted out of bed so fast we almost cracked skulls.
“Who is it?” I grabbed a sweater and struggled into it, hearing the knocking—dull thuds muffled by the acoustics of snow—that hadn’t managed to dent my dreamless sleep.
Or had I dreamed? I couldn’t be sure.
I made it halfway downstairs just as the thudding stopped. Graves bumbled along behind me until I turned around and gave him a glare, putting a finger to my lips. He froze in the act of opening his mouth, scratching at the lower curve of his ribs on the right.
Three more thuds, each very distinct. I froze, my skin going cold and prickling, every hair on my body standing straight up and doing its best to escape my skin.
I knew that feeling. Gran had called it the singing willies. Dad called it the tingles.
I called it something nasty on the other side of that door.
And me without a gun or anything.
It tasted like old sludge and rust, the tang of iron against the back of my palate in that special place ordinary people don’t have. Dad said he always knew when I was getting the tingles by the look on my face, and it must have been true, because Graves went white as milk under his coloring, his nostrils flaring and his messy hair quivering as he shook like a dog caught between cowardice and outright peeing itself with fear.
I caught something shifting over the surface of the door, a ripple like blue lines, just caught out of peripheral vision. The bolt of pain searing through my head caught me unaware, and I let out a hard, whistling breath.
I snapped a quick glance at the entrance to the living room. Stopped myself—the blinds were up, I hadn’t pulled them before bed. No cover. There were weapons up in my room. I’d have grabbed one on the way out, but if a cop was at the door—or another adult authority figure—I would have gotten myself in trouble.
This is getting ridiculous.
One last knock on the door, a playful tap. Little pig, little pig, let me in.
I let out a soft, shallow breath, just a sip of air. Pointed at Graves, pointed upstairs, and made a gun with my forefinger and thumb. Raised my eyebrows meaningfully.
He nodded, the pink scars on his shoulder standing out vividly against pale skin. His undies had ridden up into the crack of his narrow ass, of which I was treated to a full view as he turned and tried to go as quietly as possible up the stairs.
I settled down into a crouch, watching the door, my entire skin alive and alert to every sound I could possibly pick up. Whoever it was, they were on the front porch, waiting. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. It’s like being able to see the heat shimmer off pavement on a summer day, the disturbance created by something weird standing in the normal world. The blue lines trembled on the edge of being visible, the house’s space rejecting something inimical.
Every place we lived, I usually snuck out of my room the first night and traced the windows and outer doors with the wand Gran left, feeling my will bleed through the rowan wood and into the fabric of the walls themselves. She called it “wardin’” or “closin’ up the house.” Dad called it “that old Appalachia foolishness,” but never very loudly, and he never stopped me.
Too much of what Gran taught me was useful. He just made a token protest, that was all. I never pointed out that the protest was ridiculous, considering his line of work. It was just one of those things.
Sometimes I almost saw those thin blue lines running like lightning over the physical texture of the walls and windows. This time, it seemed like they were getting stronger, the lightning crackling together and concentrating, repelling something.
Holy shit.
The stairs creaked. The house responded, singing its almost-morning song under a blanket of snow. Yesterday the front yard had been a carpet of white, only barely broken by nubs where the picket fence stood guard, buried under a drift.
The front door did not creak. It just stood there, radiating the secret of something behind it, running with blue light I could almost, almost see. My palms had gone slick with sweat, my mouth cotton-dry and tasting funny, like morning and rust all swilled together.
That’s not rust, Dru. That’s blood. The voice of instinct announced it quite calmly. It’s something weird and it smells like blood. It’s on your front porch, maybe looking at the dead plants in plastic pots you never bothered to move. If you look out the window in the living room, what do you want to bet you’ll see it grinning back at you?
A faint rattling, scratching noise touched the door. I began to feel woozy, thinking of Dad’s bone-scraped fingers screaking against glass.
Little pig, little pig, let me in.
There’s a lot of things in the Real World that can’t cross a threshold without an invitation. Zombies aren’t one of them—but maybe this thing was, and maybe the old ritual of closing up the house Gran had taught me was doing some good.
Maybe? No, definitely. “Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin,” I mouthed, as Graves tried to move quietly down the stairs behind me. A board groaned sharply under his weight, and he let out a breath and froze.
The sense of presence leached away, like oily water sliding down a drain. I heard a thin sound that might have been a chuckle or a scream, depending on how far away it was.
I sat down hard on the stairs because my legs wouldn’t hold me up. They were shaking too bad, and weak as wet noodles.
Graves handed me the gun over my shoulder. I took it, not having the heart to tell him the thing at the door was gone. My legs jittered like I’d had a jolt of pure caffeine laced with terror.
Well, I certainly had the terror
. It spilled through me, dark as wine and tasting of ash and metal.
“It smells bad,” Graves whispered. “What is it?”
I don’t know enough to even guess. Except just one thing—it’s bad. Really, really bad. I swallowed four or five times, my throat dry as silicon chips. “You can smell that?”
“Yeah. It smells nasty. Something rusting.” His nostrils spread slightly as he inhaled, taking in a gulp of air that flared his rib cage. Muscle stood out in his neck and shoulders. He was shaking, too.
“That’s not rust. It’s blood.” We both let out the breath at the same time, me at the end of my sentence, him as if he’d been waiting for me to exhale. “Are you psychic?”
“Me? No. I can’t even get a date.” He gave me a glance, and his eyes burned sickly phosphorescent green. Against his deadly paleness, the ethnic coloring of his skin drained away to stark white, the glow of his eyes was an insult. “It’s gone, isn’t it.”
“It is.” I wished my legs would stop shaking. “I don’t know what it was.” But I can guess, can’t I? It pretty much means one thing—something so bad even Dad would turn tail and run hard from it.
I just hope I’m wrong.
Dawn came up clear and cold, snow throwing back thin sunlight under an aching-blue sky brushed with high white horsetail clouds. I put on Dad’s Army sweater and his surplus coat, threw on a pair of jeans, stepped into my boots and stamped downstairs. I squinted at the ammo box, which was better than staring at the grease-dusty stain on the carpet.
Did I want to go around armed in broad daylight? It was looking more and more like a good idea. But still, the thought of getting caught with a firearm, no good ID, and no good explanation why I was packing heat was daunting.
To say the least.
“I still think I should go with you,” Graves said. He leaned against the door to the living room, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets.
I shook my head, my braid bumping my shoulder. I’d drenched my hair in conditioner and braided it back, wanting it out of the way. “Dad would kill me if I dragged a civilian into this.” I winced inwardly as soon as I said it, soldiered on. “Best thing for you to do is forget you ever saw any of this and go back to getting through high school.” Since something hinky is knocking at my front door and I can’t blow town unless I have the truck. You’re already too involved.
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged, thin shoulders rising and dropping. “Fat chance. What are you going to do, anyway?”
I cast another longing look at the ammo crate and picked up my backpack. The glare of snow outside made the bare walls even whiter, the bullet holes next to Graves standing out in sharp relief. “I’m going to make a phone call.”
“Who you calling? Ghostbusters?”
I suppose you had to make that joke sooner or later. I mentally reviewed everything in my backpack, ran over how much money I had again. “I don’t know yet.”
“You don’t know who you’re calling?” His unibrow peaked on either side, forehead wrinkling as he mulled this over. “Jesus.”
“Look, I’ve been doing this most of my life. I can do without the editorial.” I thought about it for a few more moments, then strode over to the smaller weapons crate and dug for a few seconds, coming up with a switchblade. I pressed the button and was rewarded with a snick! as the suicide spring unleashed the stiletto. I studied the silver coating along the flat.
Silver doesn’t belong on the edge where it can be sharpened off. If you load a blade along the flat, it might disturb the balance, but it stops a lot of things cold. And I could explain a military-surplus stiletto-style switchblade a lot easier than a firearm. I was pretty sure I could even talk myself out of getting detained if all I had on me was a blade.
I pressed the button and used the top of the weapons crate to close the knife, stuffed it in my jacket pocket.
Graves shrugged and peeled himself away from the wall. “I’m going with you.”
“Look—” But he was already gone. I heard him take the stairs two at a time and guessed he was heading for his coat.
What could I say? He’d already been bitten. Once the Real World gets its teeth in you, it’s hard to go back to nine-to-five and Happy Meals.
And . . . well, I listened to him moving around upstairs and could almost pretend he was Dad.
My conscience pinched me, hard, right in the middle of my chest. Dru, you can’t let him in on this. He’s already been banged around and bitten. He might get worse if he gets mixed up further.
But I was a kid too, and on my own. I wanted some help and he was looking like the best help I was going to get.
It wasn’t fair.
But I’d gotten him bit—I wasn’t naïve enough to think the burning dog and the werwulf had just been in the neighborhood and wanted an Orange Julius after closing hours. Not with something tapping at my door before dawn, too. Something the blue lines of Gran’s warding—which seemed much stronger now than ever before—had sat up and taken notice of.
It wouldn’t be decent of me to drag him along any further. He’d just end up getting hurt—he didn’t have any experience at all.
I swallowed, hard. Slid my bag’s strap over my head, pulled on a stocking cap, and yanked my gloves on. It looked bastard cold out there. When I stepped out the front door the air was like a dry suckerpunch to the lungs; I gasped and started shivering immediately, hunching my shoulders and wrapping a scratchy wool Army-surplus scarf around my neck. Jesus. This isn’t people weather. It’s Popsicle weather.
I was fairly sure Graves would lock up on his way out, so I crunched carefully down the porch steps. I was miserably unsurprised to see the snow in the front yard was still pristine. Whatever had knocked at the front door hadn’t left any footprints.
Great.
I was already caked with snow up to my knees by the time I made it onto the street. The plows had come by again that morning, so the going was treacherous but not impossible. Dru Anderson, Fearless Teen Hunter of the Weird, slipping and sliding on crusted ice. But Jesus, if I had to stay home I’d start chewing on the walls.
And who was to say that something wouldn’t come back once the sun went down, and bring someone with it that the warding wouldn’t stop? My best chance was to try to make contact with someone now.
“Dru!” Graves yelled.
I didn’t hunch my shoulders, just kept going. My boots had some good traction, but I couldn’t go faster than a sort of skating crawl.
“Dru! Wait up!”
Kept going. Once I hit the cross-street I could hook down and get to the bus shelter, and hopefully the buses were still running on time. Maybe he’d get tired of yelling once I made it clear I wasn’t listening.
Crunching sounded behind me, a fast light patter that sounded wrong. Then Graves all but plowed into me from behind, grabbed my shoulder, and we almost went down in a heap on the frozen roadway. I grabbed at his wrist, locked it, and found some solid footing, almost spinning him in a half-circle before he jerked his arm away much harder than he should have been able to.
I stared at him; he stared at me. His mouth was half-open, short light breaths puffing vapor into the chill. His cheeks were already raw and reddened, and his hair was even wilder than usual, almost standing straight up and spitting sparks. The effect was startling. He looked like a cat rubbed the wrong way with a balloon.
“Jesus,” I gasped. “What the hell?”
“I’m going with you,” he announced. Like I was stupid. “For Christ’s sake, Dru.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed. And maybe get me killed too. Let go!” And Jesus, how did you run like that? A nasty supposition halfway rose in the back of my head, but I killed it. I had enough problems. I yanked my arm free.
He set his jaw stubbornly, and the breeze turned knife-sharp. My hair felt like it was freezing to my head, and the layers I was wearing weren’t helping as much as I’d thought they would inside the house.
“You got me into this.” His hand d
ropped to his side, and he squared his shoulders. “I got bit by something that shouldn’t be real. None of this should be fucking real. And you’re telling me to be a good little boy and run along home. No dice. I told you the first one’s free, Dru, but this ain’t the first one. This one you’re paying for, and you’re taking me with you. You owe me.”
“I don’t owe you anything.” I knew it wasn’t true even as I said it. If I hadn’t been hiding in the goddamn mall, would the burning dog-thing have come to the house? Good luck getting the thing off my back then. He’d saved my life—and even if he didn’t know it because he was a babe in the woods, I did.
Andersons pay their debts, Dad always said. And quick, before they mount up.
But what about the thing knocking on the front door? Someone knew where I lived now.
Someone—or something.
My stomach turned hard and sour. Graves stared at me like he was trying to will a hole in my forehead. Little ice crystals touched his hair, and his cheeks weren’t just red now, but flaming. We were both shivering.
He didn’t even have a scarf. For a native of this place, he seemed woefully unprepared.
I didn’t even know what to do; I was just making it up halfass as I went along. “My dad is dead.” The tone I used—flat, normal, as if I was talking about dinner—surprised me. Snow muffled the words; they plopped down exhausted as soon as they left my lips. “I’m sorry I got you into this. Do me a favor and go home so you don’t get any further in.”
“Hey, I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t have a picket fence and fireplace to go back to. I’m on my own like you are, and for longer, too.” He hunched his shoulders, already looking miserably cold. “I could’ve just left you sitting there in the mall. I got involved because I wanted to, and now I’m in it. So can we get moving before I freeze to death, or is that too much to ask?”