Consumption (18 page)

Erma, Bunny, and Riley arrived at the church at the same time as another group of latecomers—a couple and their little girl. Only apparently it wasn't
their
little girl. Not entirely.

“What the
fuck
!” Riley pulled Erma and Bunny up short. “Sharon? What the hell are you doing here? What's Izzy doing here?”

Erma took a step forward and laid a hand on Riley's shoulder. “Everything okay?”

“No.
No,
everything is absolutely not okay.” He shook her off, and Erma saw a red flush creeping up the man's rather large neck. The church doors were just closing, the last of the people from the Festival trickling in, lights pouring out of its stained-glass windows. In front of Erma, the woman with the frosted blond hair crossed her arms over her chest and scowled.

“What's your problem?” she asked, affecting anger, but Erma thought her words sounded defensive.

The little girl, evidently fully taking in Riley's presence for the first time, ran toward him and flung herself around his legs. “Daddy!”

Riley's expression softened, and his anger seemed to momentarily abate as he looked down at Izzy. “Hey, baby!” He scooped the little girl up in his arms. “How are you?”

“She's fine,” the mother said.

“That's good to hear,” said Riley, speaking through clenched teeth. “Although I'm still wondering, Sharon, what it is exactly you're doing
here
with her.” Now, for the first time, Riley directed his attention to the man standing behind his ex-wife.

“And
Sam
. Why are you with Sharon and Izzy?”

“Listen, Sheriff…”

Erma watched as the young blond man bumbled about. He was tall and good-looking in an easygoing, surfer-boy sort of way. He was upset. So upset that he was actually ringing his hands, something Erma hadn't ever seen anyone do in real life before. “I'm so sorry. I had no idea. They never mentioned…” He squeezed his hands together more tightly, his eyes puppy-dog wide. “That is, Sharon never told me who she was. That she was
the
Sharon. I just thought she was a woman visiting her relatives, or something.”

“Daddy!” The little girl in Riley's arm tugged at her father, trying to get his attention. Riley looked down.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“Why don't you just leave us alone?” Sharon asked.

“Leave
you
alone? What the hell are you even doing here?”

“Riley, I think maybe we should just leave it be for now.” Bunny said, stepping forward and coolly placing herself between her nephew and his ex to assume a position of authority. “Why don't you just let little Izzy stay with her mother and we can figure all this out after church? We're already late.”

“Riley, please,” said Sam, walking toward his boss. He looked sorry, Erma thought again, but there was something else hidden behind his sympathy. “Gosh, I had no idea,” Sam said.

Riley took a step back, clutching Izzy to him. “Sorry? Sorry? I hardly think sorry covers it, Sam.”

“But Sheriff, I didn't
know,
” said Sam. “I met her at a bar in Billings—you know I always go there on my Thursdays off for pool
league—remember,
I showed you the new stick I ordered from Vermont? Anyway, I met Sharon there, and we just hit it off.”

“I'll just bet you did,” said Riley. “Didn't happen to mention you were a cop, did you?”

Sam bowed his head and kept silent. He was ashamed, all right, but from where Erma stood, she could see the bottom of his face, whereas Riley couldn't. And was that a
smile
lurking at the corner of his lips? Yes, she thought it most certainly was.

“Uncle Sam's our friend!” Izzy said gleefully, bouncing up and down in Riley's arms. “We stayeded the night with him!”

Riley's face lost all its expression. “
Uncle
Sam. You stayed the night
?
Is that true, Sharon?”

The woman shrugged. Erma continued to watch Sam, and she was sure of it now. His smile grew wider, and he had to lift his hand to cover it.

“Answer me, dammit!”

Izzy pulled back at her father's anger.

“Don't you yell around our daughter!” said Sharon. “And I don't have to tell you where I've been or what I'm doing here.”

“Oh, you sure as hell do,” said Riley.

“Patrick,” said Bunny, still standing between them. “It is doing us no good to argue. Let's just be sensible and—”

“Sensible!” Riley exploded, his face beet red. “When my daughter, my daughter who I think's fifteen hundred miles away, is staying in the same town as me. Don't you tell me to be sensible, dammit!”

Spittle flew from his lips and hit his aunt on her prim cheek, just above the red stripe of her lipstick. She reached a hand up to wipe it away right when Izzy began to sob in Riley's arms. “I want doooown!” she wailed. “PUTTED ME DOWN!”

Erma saw Riley's face crumple as he pulled the little girl into him, burying her face into his chest and tucking her head under his chin. “Shh. It's okay, sweetheart. I'm sorry. Daddy's sorry.”

Erma, unable to escape her social worker tendencies, tore her eyes away from Sam and stepped forward, extending her hand.

“I'm Erma. Erma Scott.”

“Hi.” Sharon didn't offer her own hand.

“It seems like you guys have a lot of stuff to figure out here…”

“Damn right!” said Riley.

“And I don't want to intrude, but maybe all of this would be better left for another time? As far as I can tell, everybody is safe, and the little girl's with her parents.”

“Erma, I know you mean well, but you're missing the point,” said Riley. Gently, he set Izzy down. “I only get to see my little girl a few times a year because she”—here he turned and pointed an accusatory finger at
Sharon—“decided
that she just couldn't live in Montana anymore and had to take my daughter back to Louisiana, which may as well be a million miles away.”

“I didn't see you moving,” Sharon said.

“Not the point,” said Riley.

“How come you never did move with 'em?” asked Sam.

Erma finalized her dislike for the man with those words. She wished John would get here already, and maybe they'd leave tonight after all. Cavus was producing just a little too much drama for her taste.

“Sam, you'd better shut your goddamned mouth, or I'll shut it for you,” said Riley

“Patrick!” Bunny grabbed her nephew's arm. “That's enough! All of you. We have to think of the child.”

Erma watched as Riley shut his eyes and began to take deep breath after deep breath. “You're right. I'm sorry. I just don't understand what you're doing here, Sharon! Spying on me?”

“No!”

“And what are you doing with my deputy? Didn't you
know
he worked for me?”

“I might have, but—”

“But
what
!”

Erma's eyes glided back toward Sam, and she noticed a funny thing. He'd dropped his hand from his mouth and now he was smiling, fully and completely smiling. No,
grinning.
The bastard was grinning…and she'd be damned if he wasn't missing three or four teeth right there at the front.

His smile jack-o'-lantered its way directly at her, and unable to help herself, Erma moved toward him, the argument between Riley and his ex white noise around her. Why the fuck was Sam
grinning
at her?

“It hasn't been easy for me, Riley,” Sharon said. “You can just go on with your life like nothing's happened, and I…”

A new sound, like a growl, finally pulled Erma out of her fascinated observation; it was a loud sound, huge, and then it clicked into place. An engine.

As one, the little group turned toward the noise and saw a large, rusted pickup gunning its way down Main Street.

John and Maxie ran through the empty streets of Cavus, toward the sound of church bells. Maxie, although usually a jubilant dog, did not bark at the wind in the grass nor waver from her master's side. Things were not as they should be, and the part of her as old as the dogs who'd hunted in return for shelter in man's cave pushed to the forefront. They were a team, she and her master, and whatever was needed she would do. Besides all that, she could smell the fear on the man charging beside her, and she knew that the fear smell could mean danger. She was wary and watchful, running beside him as much to protect him as to display her obedience.

John didn't say anything. He thought now and again to call out to people, to yell for help, but something stopped him.

He had to get to Erma. The thought repeated itself with a new intensity. Erma.
Erma.
What if the man went to the church? What if he was set to perform some kind of larger-scale attack? Because something was definitely wrong with the man. He hadn't even looked human, running at him like that.
Scuttling,
for God's sake, like a goddamned insect.

John's heart beat in rhythm to his footsteps as he maneuvered through the white tents, empty now. He looked behind him to check on Maxie. She wasn't a young dog, and he hated to push her like this to keep up with him. He stopped, hands on his legs. He wasn't young either.

“Hang in there, old girl,” he said, motioning for Maxie as he started running again. The wind picked up, whispering its song through the trees that lined the main street and tickling the colored flags on the tents to life.

The spire jutted ahead of him, the church just around the corner. As he rounded it, he saw a small cluster of people, Erma among them.

He stopped, panting, to catch his breath. She was fine. He need only get her and together they would leave.

As he stood there, preparing to jog the remainder of the distance, a new sound filled the air. The noise was loud and low, a buzzing kind of growl, and when he looked to the right he saw a rusted-out pickup truck appear at the opposite end of Main Street.

John watched, helplessly, as the truck began to pick up speed. It flew forward, closing the distance between it and Erma's group even as John registered the truck's intent—it meant to run them down.

“Erma!” He shouted her name, rushing forward, but it was too late, he would never make it in time.

Maxie, faster than her master, bounded ahead, and in an impossible burst of speed brought herself between the humans and the truck, throwing herself squarely in front of it.

The truck careened sideways, but even as it did, John saw the man leaning out of it, the long shape of a gun extending from his arm.

It was the goddamned dog that decided him.

Pill entered Cavus with one thought on his mind, and one thought only. He had to blow up the church. He had to blow it up while everyone was inside it. But everyone, apparently, was not inside. Including the dog. Pill saw the people first, a group of them who hadn't gone in. He'd have to shoot them, he guessed. Shoot them and blow up the church. But then along came the dog.

He saw the creature only out of the corner of his eye. Pill's hand was busy with the gun when the cussed dog ran right out in front of him! Right out!

“Dammit!” Pill cursed, dropping his left hand from the gun and using it to grab the wheel that he'd been steering with his knee. “Move, darn you!”

Even the babies, Pill.
Jessi's voice came to him.
Even the babies.

The dog rushed ahead, throwing itself in between the group of people and the truck, barking furiously.
Even the babies, yeah, Jessi.
He knew. The fur came closer and closer, the dog's eyes looking up to meet his, their gold and brown irises steady, unflinching. The dog, just a dumb, mute creature, was ready and willing to make the sacrifice of its own flesh to save those humans. Except of course it couldn't save them. Pill could run the truck right over it. Right over it and it would be nothing more than a bump, would barely make the truck waver. But the damned dog didn't know that.

“Move!” Pill yelled out the window, pushing aside the air with his gun. “Move, dammit!” The dog didn't budge.

The group of people saw him coming now, and one of the two men, a tall blond fellow, used the opportunity of Pill's approach as a distraction. Pill saw him squat low, focus in on the blond woman, and tense his muscles. A Feeder. Pill knew it immediately, even though it was the first one he'd ever actually seen and not just read about. But it was a Feeder, all right, and it was ready to spring.

The truck's tires were no more than three feet from the dog. “Hell!” Pill swung himself fully back into the truck from where he'd been hanging out the window. He grabbed the wheel and spun the vehicle to the left and around the dog.

He was thinking about Ring as he did it. Ring, his old border collie who'd been so good to him and who'd been just as much of a child to Jessie and him as if they'd actually had one. He'd cried when the vet put Ring down, and the way he'd felt stroking the dog's head that day and watching the life seep out of him was the real reason Pill never got another animal. He didn't think he could go through that pain. Not again. So now he swerved, and he allowed himself the thought of Ring because he couldn't
not
do so, but in a split second, Ring was erased as he remembered the Feeder he'd just seen who'd been ready to attack. Pill maneuvered the truck back toward the group in front of the church.

The blond man had moved from all fours and into the air. With a speed he hadn't thought himself capable of, Pill moved himself and the gun back out the window and fired. The shot hit true.

The man's head burst into a spray, hues of red prettily flecking the sky. The woman the man had been jumping for screamed, unaware that Pill had just saved her life.

From the church, a small stream began to trickle out. If he didn't hurry, it would be too late. They'd scatter. But if he went now, he'd kill these people, too. Which had been his original plan, but the small group in front of him…

They might be Feeders, Pill. You can't know.
They might. Then again, they might not. He looked at the little girl standing forgotten on the sidewalk, where her mother had left her to run to the Feeder Pill'd just shot. She was a beautiful thing, all pretty blond curls and dimples.

If he saved these people, he'd lose his chance at the church.

The little girl looked toward the truck, its motor still gunning but standing still as Pill mulled over his decision. Run them down and blow up the church, or save them. Run them down. It was what needed to happen. The little girl sat in the middle of the sidewalk and bowed her head. It was almost as if she knew his thoughts, almost as if she was preparing herself for the end. Pill pushed at the gas pedal with his foot and felt the motor hum beneath him. All he had to do was lift his other foot from the brake.

He couldn't do it. If it hadn't been for the dog, he might have been able to, but he couldn't do it now. With a trembling hand, he reached up and turned the key over, killing the motor.

And just like that, he'd decided. The explosives sat unused behind the seat, their fuses dry, as the destruction of humanity stepped through the church's doors.

And all for a dog.