Creatures of the Storm (14 page)

“Goddamn it, Sheriff, if
you don’t mention it at tonight’s town meeting,
I will
.”

Even the thought of that
made him go cold. “I’d advise against that, Doctor. I’d advise
against you attending at all. You don’t have any connection with
the children, after all, do you? I mean, it’s not like you’re
a
parent
…”
you pathetic old gone-to-seed bull dyke
you.
“…and your interest in the children
might be seen as…I don’t know, unhealthy?
Suspicious?”
Peck could hear
the shock in her voice.

“My…what?
What
did you say?
”

“Why don’t you sleep on it,
Doctor?” he said smoothly. “We’ll talk tomorrow…
if
there’s anything to talk about.”
He tapped off the phone and stopped short of throwing it as hard as
he could against the windshield.

“Son of a bitch,” he said
under his breath. “Son
of a fucking
bit—
”

Something big and wet and
glassy
splopped
against his windshield, and Peck jumped back in
surprise.

“What the—”

It looked like a rain-soaked piece of
plastic, wrinkled and soggy. It nearly covered the entire window.
The wind made it ripple and twitch like it was moving on its
own.

Peck grunted under his
breath.
Can’t drive with that fucking
thing in my way
. He took a deep breath and
popped open the door. The rain slapped him hard, a face full of wet
towel. He levered himself out into the storm, cursing under his
breath, and pawed at the thing that was blocking the–

“SHIT!” He snatched his hand back in
surprise.

That fucking thing STUNG
me,
he thought, astonished.
No, it—it BIT me.
He
squinted through the downpour at his finger and saw it was intact
but swelling, as if he’d jammed it in a door. At least it hadn’t
broken the skin.

“What the fuck is–”

The thing flew off the
windshield and came right at him. Peck dodged to the right, halfway
back into the car, and the sheet of silvery translucent …
stuff …
flew past him,
almost as if it was flapping its wings. It disappeared into the
storm in an instant.

Peck stared at his
throbbing finger for a second longer, then pulled himself back into
the cruiser and slammed the door. He was embarrassed at the racing
of his own heart.
Don’t be a pussy,
he ordered himself. It was simply a piece of
cellophane with…acid or something on it. That’s all.

The two-way radio at his
shoulder HONKED and a blurred, ugly, barely female voice brayed out
of it.
“HQ TO PECK. HQ TO PECK. CHECK IN,
PLEASE.”

He suppressed a burst of
rage and thumbed the call button. “Peck here.
Get Jimmy and Bo and anybody else you can find over to the
Conference Center, ASAP. We’re going to have a sit-down before the
meeting tonight, about the kids and the rain and …
everything.”

“Roger that, Sheriff.” There was another
blast of static and she cut off.

Things used to be so much
simpler
, he thought as he activated the
Christmas tree of lights on the roof of the cruiser. Lightning
struck to his right, then to his left, then right in front of him
as he mounted Highway 181 headed south. One of the bolts struck a
billboard for Coca-Cola not twenty feet away and blew it to smoking
bits.

Donald Peck didn’t even flinch. He really
couldn’t care less.

Lucy
wanted to snap the cell phone in half, fling the pieces against the
wall, then stomp on the shattered remnants with her thickest boots,
over and over –

“Lucy?”

– and
over
and –

“
Dr. Armbruster?
”

She looked up, still half-blind with rage.
Rebecca Falmouth-Hanson was regarding her with an odd mixture of
concern, caution, and the sort of wariness reserved for street
people who talk to themselves.

“That idiot,” Lucy said.

“Sheriff Peck,” Rebecca filled in.

“That two-bit, tin-horn,
fuck-brained, stiff-necked, strutting, arrogant
asshole
!”

Rebecca knit beautifully
sculpted brows. “I’m so
sorry
,” she said. “What can I
do?”

“Kill him!” Lucy raved.
“Get a big ugly gun and
shoot
his ass, because I swear to Christ, Rebecca, that
is
exactly
what
he’s doing to the people in this town. Putting a gun right to their
temples and
pow,
just like that.”

Those lovely dark eyes grew
even bigger. “Is it that
bad?”

“YES! It’s WORSE! It’s –
it’s
–”

Shut up
,
said a voice in her head.
Frannie’s voice, firm and absolutely solid. Lucy heard it so
clearly she stopped in mid-rant, and realized that she was
terrifying the poor girl in front of her.

“I—I’m sorry,” she said.
She touched Rebecca’s slim upper arm. “Really, Rebecca. I’m sorry.
It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t be yelling at
you
…”

Rebecca looked down at her shoes and blushed
deeply. It gave her mocha skin a flawless rose under-color that was
positively charming, even to Lucy “It’s okay,” Rebecca said, and
chanced an upward glance. “You’re upset, I can see that.”

“Yeah, but still…” She
shook it off. “Look, you know as well as I do what’s going to
happen here.” She tapped an unmanicured fingernail at one of the
satellite photos of the Valle. The crater ridge looked like a pale
gray oval drawn on a deeper gray background. “This place is like a
poorly made bowl with one little tiny crack. It slopes down
naturally, north to south, about five hundred feet over two miles,
until you get to the VeriSil campus at the lowest point, right
under The Two Brothers. They built there on purpose; it’s also the
coolest, least arid spot in the crater.” She moved her finger a bit
to the right, to a black scratch in the ridge wall near the blurred
squares that represented VeriSil’s structures. “There’s only one
break in the wall, right here, the Arroyo del Roja, But it’s
tiny
,
Rebecca.
Not more than ten feet across at its widest point. And that’s the
only natural drainage channel in the southern half of the Valle.
There’s never been enough water here to erode a larger canyon.
There’s no way it can act as a drain for a flood this size. It
can’t possibly accommodate this volume of water, assuming it isn’t
already blocked by debris or mudslides. And the soil can only
absorb so much liquid before it locks up. That happened, what, an
hour after the rain started? Tops. Now it’s building up. And up.
And
up.
” Lucy
shook her head and pressed her lips together in disgust. “We’re
done here.”

“Done?” Rebecca echoed.

“Time for everybody to pack up and go,” she
said grimly, “and don’t plan on coming back.”

She saw the expression of
pure horror on the lovely girl’s face and cursed herself all over
again.
As always, Lucy
,
t
he
perfect words at the perfect time
.
You’re an idiot.
“I’m
sorry. That was crude. I could be completely wrong about this, I
could—”

“No, you’re not wrong,”
Rebecca said. “And you know it.” Then she did the most amazing
thing, at least as far as Lucy was concerned. She
smiled
.

“Thank you, Lucy,” she said, looking deeply
into her eyes. “Really. I know this is hard for you. Thank you for
being honest with me.”

Lucy cleared her throat and looked away,
embarrassed and alarmed at the sudden upwelling of emotion.
“Uh…look,” she said. “It’s going to keep raining, but you have a
little time. Will you do me a favor? I need to pull stuff together
for this dumb-ass meeting at the Conference Center. Would you walk
across the road here and check on Fender before you go home?”

“Is he okay?” Rebecca still had hold of
Lucy’s hand. Lucy didn’t know how to get it back without making
things worse, so she let it stay where it was.

“Yeah, he …he cut himself when we were going
into his trailer. I got him all patched up, but, you know, good
neighbor policy and all. I only want to be sure that his Airstream
hasn’t been picked up by a tornado and taken to Oz or
anything.”

Rebecca finally,
finally
let her hand go
and gave her a dazzling smile. “I’d be glad to,” she said. “I’ll
just pay him a quick visit, then go home to do a little packing. I
should be back here by the time you finish that town
meeting.”

Lucy found herself hugely relieved and
suddenly apprehensive all over again. She was glad Rebecca was
taking herself out of harm’s way, but the prospect of spending the
night at the Ag Station with her – even fully clothed, even with
Cindy and that nutbar Steinberg around – stirred up a surprising
and not entirely unpleasant range of emotions.

She shoved them aside yet
again.
Later
, she
told herself.
Later
. Right now there was plenty to deal with that had nothing to
do with her loins.

“Good,” she said, trying to sound
businesslike again. “I know you’ll make Fender feel like somebody
actually cares. You’re good at that.”

Rebecca positively
beamed
. Lucy had a
sudden realization of what she’d said, what it
meant
, and felt a new rush of heat
to her face. She hid it by turning away. “Thanks,” she said
gruffly. “Cindy? Cindy, I need to talk to you!”

She saw Rebecca out of the corner of her eye,
moving to the coat closet, pulling on a forest-green parka,
cinching the hood. She felt the blast of wet air and heard the rush
of the water behind her as Rebecca opened the front door and
slipped out into the gathering gloom. She didn’t turn around to
look at her. She was too embarrassed and confused.

That last look – that
last
not-
look,
really – bothered Lucy Armbruster until the day she died. She liked
that young woman; she actually cared for her, more than she was
willing to admit. That moment in the hall, that glimpse out of the
corner of her eye, was the last time she would ever see Rebecca
Falmouth-Hansen.

Lucy found the
receptionist, Cindy Bergstrom, making herself a late afternoon
snack in the break room. Normally that would have made her angry
all by itself. It was already well past 4:00, and the woman would
usually be going home in a matter of minutes. She really didn’t
need to dawdle away half an hour microwaving a Cup O’ Soup. Today,
however, it didn’t bother Lucy at all.
Knock yourself out
, she thought
bitterly.
That might be your last decent
meal for a few days.
Not that Cindy’s
muffin shape couldn’t stand a few missed meals.

“Hey there,” she said, acutely aware of the
acid conversation they’d had earlier in the day. Cindy turned and
gave her the sunniest smile she could muster, as if nothing had
happened.

“Well, hey there!” she said. “Ready to start
building that ark?”

Lucy sketched out a laugh.
It didn’t sound very convincing. “Heh. Um…look, I’ve been checking
the figures and all,” she said. “I really think – no, actually,
I’m
sure
– that
there’s going to be some serious flood damage in the southern parts
of town, maybe as far north as your neighborhood.”

Maybe my ass. By noon tomorrow, you won’t be
able to get into your bedroom without scuba gear.

Cindy made big eyes. “Really?” she said.

“Truly,” Lucy told her. “I told Rebecca the
same thing. You might want to go home, pack up a few bags of
clothes and stuff you want to be sure to keep – family heirlooms
and the like– and bring them back here. Kind of camp out here for
the duration of the storm.”

Cindy grinned at her and her eyebrows hopped
up and down. “Well! As it happens, I was already thinking
that!”

Lucy was surprised all over again.
“Really?”

“Sure. I’ve been talking to Mindy, my sister?
At the Sheriff’s Station?”

Like you don’t talk to her
ten times a day anyway
.
On my dime, too.
“Yes?”
Lucy said aloud.

“…and she tells me things
are
really
bad
out there and getting worse, and ol’ Deputy Duck – excuse
me,
Sheriff Peck
– isn’t dealing with it at
all
.”

“So…you’re getting out of
town?” Lucy felt as if Cindy Bergstrom –
Cindy Bergstrom
, of all people – was
two steps ahead of her, and she didn’t like the feeling very
much.

“What,” Cindy said, almost
chuckling, “and miss all this?
Heck
no. Mindy is going to go by the house, pick up a
few things, and store them at the Sheriff’s Station. I think I
might spend the night here, if you can
stand
me.”