“That’s not what I meant. You can stay. You can stick around and bother me, I don’t mind.” And even my disclaimer didn’t come out like I meant it.
He grinned.
Pardon me, he said to the girls. But I’m leaving and I think you should probably come with me. I’ll take you where you need to go. Bye, Eden, he added.
Then there was a light behind him so bright that the reflection in the mirror made my head hurt, and it blinded me to everything else in the room. Everything was eaten up by that sharp, brilliant beam of white—and there was silver around the edges, I thought. Silver and something else, something shining on the other side of the room-eating glow.
There was a noise, too—a buzzing, white noise so loud that it erased everything else and all that remained was quiet. And I was there, blinded and deafened by the light and the sound.
I put my hands over my eyes as if it mattered, and I slipped down the wall to sit with my head in my arms, my arms on my knees, and my feet sideways on the ground.
Nothing held me up anymore.
I closed my eyes and buried my face against my thighs; I drew my legs up close and squeezed them.
There was something like falling—a vibration like heavy things dropping, nearby. And pounding things like footsteps. But I didn’t hear them, I only felt them beneath me, coming up from underneath.
Coming up from under the floor like everything else.
20
In the End
The Read House was quarantined; and though I tried to tell everyone it wasn’t necessary, authorities are trying to round up and isolate everyone who was inside when the place was breached by the creeping dead.
I understand the concern. I’ve seen plenty of movies, too. But all this precaution isn’t called for. None of us are tainted from being there; or if we are, it’s only the upper respiratory crud you might expect from people who’ve spent too many days being soaked to the bone.
When they found me in Caroline’s room, I was unresponsive—but it wasn’t because I was sick or injured. I fell asleep, right there. Eyes closed. Ears ringing and muffled from the unearthly noise. I was exhausted. And regardless of whatever the rest of the world thought, I knew I was safe.
If I’d had the good sense or strength to make it all the way to the bed, I don’t think the paramedics would have been so worried. If I hadn’t argued with them so hard, they might not have crammed me into the back of the ambulance on a board with the straps holding my head and neck straight.
If my phone hadn’t been so thoroughly dead, I could have called Lu and Dave. Harry called them for me.
They made it to the hospital before I did. I’d been flown to Erlanger’s branch over at the foot of Signal Mountain, mostly by coincidence, and partly because that’s where they were triag-ing everybody brought in from the hotel.
I ended up on a gurney in a hallway crowded with other gur-neys, and doctors and nurses and various hospital personnel in scrubs coming and going all around me. I was so tired that I slept there anyway. I slept until Lu and Dave were able to track me down and paw me awake.
It was good to see them.
They took me home and tried to put me to bed, but I smelled like hundred-year-old corpses, body odor, and clothes that had been marinated in the river—which was basically a broth of dead fish, rats, and birds. I wasn’t climbing into bed like that, not when I’d scored a whole couple of hours of sleep at the hospital.
That was the best goddamn shower of my life.
I used up all the hot water in the house, and we’ve got a huge heater. I scrubbed like crazy, ruining two washcloths and mangling a perfectly good loofah in the process. Three rounds of shampoo took the worst of the trash and sweat out of my hair.
I wrapped it up in a towel, and wrapped the rest of myself up in a towel. I went back to bed and stayed there for I don’t know how long. The damp towel wore a groove on my pillow and it didn’t matter at all.
It was dark when I woke up. I hadn’t closed my bedroom curtains, so I could see outside into the night on the mountain. The mountain was dry except where the sky had dumped rain all over it. It could have been storming like a hurricane and I still would have thought of it as dry. No flooding here. Not so high as this.
I lay in bed and listened for rain but there wasn’t any, for the first time in days. I heard the television though, tuned low in the living room. Sounded like local news. Was definitely local news—I’d know Nick’s voice anywhere.
I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he was back at work, doing his thing. I hoped he’d taken a moment or two to sleep. He needed it as badly as I did.
I thought about kissing him and remembered that it was nice, and I was glad he was all right—but really, I’d never had any doubt. He was Nick, and somewhat invincible. I liked that about him. I liked that I didn’t have to worry about him, and that—generally speaking—I could trust him to take care of himself. In a pinch, it turned out, he could take care of me, too.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I’m not the sort of woman who typically needs a whole lot of rescuing.
I lifted myself up out of the bed and the towel came untied from my head. It stuck to the pillow, which had soaked up enough of the water from my hair to be clammy and cool. With the back of my hand I pushed it off the bed. I shook my head and my hair popped to life, not quite dry, but prepared to commence its regular tactics.
I didn’t care. I let it fly.
I checked the alarm clock beside the bed. Blue LED lights told me it was 3:46 A.M., and I believed them, but I wondered what day they meant.
Without turning on the light, I found my bathrobe on the floor in front of the closet. I shrugged it on for modesty’s sake and felt around for the doorknob.
In the hall, the main overhead was switched off, but there was plenty of glow coming from television and a side table lamp in the living room. Dave and Lu were both asleep there, sharing the couch and a fleece throw like a couple of kids having a sleepover. Out cold, the pair of them. Some other reporter was on the TV then, and I didn’t recognize her. But it wasn’t Nick so I wasn’t interested.
I tiptoed to the kitchen and nearly blinded myself by opening the refrigerator; its illuminated interior the flashlight of God in the semi-darkness.
I squinted against it and ran my palm around until I found a half gallon of milk, which I drank straight from the jug. Until I downed the milk, I’d thought I was hungry. No, just thirsty; or the milk had enough heft to stifle the hunger. I took the jug with me. I picked up the cordless kitchen phone’s receiver and took it with me too, back into my bedroom. I shut the door and crawled into bed, retrieving a dry pillow and shoving it behind my back.
I still hadn’t turned on the lamp. The green-glowing keypad was plenty to see by for dialing.
I hesitated, and took the moment to down another swallow of two percent.
I leaned my head back against the headboard and closed my eyes, letting the jug settle onto the covers beside my leg and letting the hand holding the phone drop to my lap.
I didn’t quite dream, but I wasn’t quite remembering.
It was weird, being pulled from the room where I’d last seen Malachi. It was strange, being wrestled onto the neck brace and seeing myself in the mirror at the foot of the bed. And on the floor, where the medics had covered her with a blanket or a sheet—something white—the gruesome body of Julene had finally settled too, down to the carpet in the rich old hotel. I knew it was her, like I knew the other stack—the pile of things also covered with hotel linens, blocking the doors except where they’d been pushed aside. I knew those remains too.
Wrong place, wrong time—like all the best victims. Unrelated to any conflict or quarrel, simply present at a place where the conflicts and quarrels came together. It may have been an evening service or a choir practice that brought them there on the night Caroline made her impulsive claim. It may have been a study group, or even someone else’s wedding—no one knew or remembered now, and I didn’t think anyone was left to tell me about it, even if I knew where to ask.
Most of them left when they died; they only came back because she made them—and even then, it was only their bodies she forced to walk. Whoever they were, they had found their peace years before she found hers.
But she did find hers, and it was partly thanks to Malachi, who had saved the day twice. My chest tightened thinking about it, and about him, and I wondered how much was left of him. Would it be enough to bury? Or, when the streets were eventually opened and excavated, would they find only a crushed pile of wet ash and bone?
I never gave him the credit he deserved. I should’ve answered the phone more. I should’ve invited him to supper sooner. I should’ve gone down to visit.
I should’ve.
I could play that game all night, but there was little point.
I set the milk jug on my nightstand, where condensation from its chill left a foggy little puddle beside my alarm clock. I lifted the phone again and started to dial Nick’s number. . . then stopped.
My thumb pressed the button to disconnect before the call went through.
Again I started to dial, not Nick but Harry. But I stopped. I could tell him where he could find Malachi later. I could ask him later, if he’d make some kind of arrangements for him. Maybe Eliza should get her way after all. I had no idea what my brother’s last wishes might have been, but at least one person wanted him to come home, and it was a wish I could conceivably honor.
And where else could I take him? What else could I do but send him home?
What the hell. Heaven was watching, and the rest, well. . . call it water under the bridge. I didn’t have the energy to float all that hatred anymore.
I hit the lime-colored button again and let the line die. There was no rush. God only knew when the authorities would get around to finding the rest of the bodies.
Through the door and down the hall the television was still rattling off local news, twenty-four hours a day—which, given the circumstances, wasn’t so surprising. It was still that female anchor I didn’t recognize, she was the one doing all the talking.
