Dead Things (26 page)

“What’s this other paper?” Burt asks, pointing to Wright’s timeline.

“Just working on a theory,” Wright says. “Technically,
your
theory.”

Wright modifies her timeline. She crosses through drought, plague, and war, replacing each word with “Comet.” She has more questions for Anne. “What is it called when a comet approaches the sun?”

Wright focuses on those orbits between twenty and a hundred years, narrowing her list down to Brorsen-Metcalf, Halley, and Tempel-Tuttle. She then works backwards, documenting the orbital periods, noting those perihelions by year if they occurred within a dozen years or so of a vampiric incident or epidemic.

Coronado/Zuni Indian attacks, New Mexico, 1540

Tadhq O’Carroll, Ireland, 1552

Cormac McCarthy, Ireland, 1601

Istria vampire epidemic, 1642

Croatia (Giure Grando), 1672

Rohr accounts (“
De Maticatione Mortnorum,” or “On the Chewing Dead”), 1679

Hungary vampire epidemic, 1692-1699

East Prussia (a.k.a. Northern Poland) vampire hysteria, 1710

Haidamack, Hungary (Count of Cabreras), 1715

East Prussia II, 1721

Hungary II, 1725-1734

Austria Serbia, 1730-1734

East Prussia III, 1750

Silesia/Olmutz incident, 1755

Wallachia, 1756

Russia, 1772

Cologne, Germany, 1790

Tillinghast, 1796

Rose family, Rhode Island, 1874

New England (Mercy Brown), 1892

Manchester, England (Hillgate sighting), 1969

Malawi (Governor Eric Chawaya), 2002-2003

Romania (Toma Petre), 2004

Tempel-Tuttle seems a prime candidate. Almost. Unfortunately, five of the epidemics occurred just prior to its perihelion. More importantly, three of the most significant outbreaks—Hungary 1692-1699, Hungary 1725-1734, and Austrian Serbia 1730-1734—although ending post-perihelion, began three to seven years prior.

“Shit,” Wright whispers. Perhaps it isn’t Tempel-Tuttle at all. Perhaps it’s not even a comet.

“But that doesn’t matter,” Anne explains, confronted by Wright’s concerns. Meteor storms follow a comet’s pass near the sun because the gases, dust, and ice are superheated. But they also can occur as the comet approaches the sun. Comets start expelling vapor and rock years before reaching perihelion.

“Years?” Wrights asks, almost begs, for confirmation.

“Sure,” Anne says. There are dozens of accounts of the Leonid meteors—those meteors created by Tempel-Tuttle—preceding perihelion by ten or more years. “Think of a comet like an ice cream cone. What’s your favorite?”

Anne frowns a bit. “Right, comets. Imagine you have a cone of mint chocolate chip—do you like cones or would you rather have it in a cup?”

“Anne,” Wright growls.

“Cone it is,” Anne declares. “Mint chocolate chip ice cream in a sugar cone. Well, as soon as you buy that ice cream, it starts to melt, right? It melts down the side of the cone. You can lick most of it before it drips, but some always does. That always happens a little before you go out into the sun. But, if it’s a summer day, and you walk outside with it, suddenly, the ice cream melts even faster. It’s going to run down your fingers and drip on the ground and make a big mess, right?” She smiles.

Ice cream. An odd but effective metaphor that all but seals Wright’s conclusion. Tempel-Tuttle has been killing, in drips, for years. As meteors melted and slid from the comet like trickles from a scoop on a cone, they fell, millions slamming the Earth at speeds more than 150,000 miles per hour. They carried with them the seeds of epidemics past and present, becoming more virulent each pass as the sun’s rays deconstructed and rearranged the invader’s genetic material.

Perhaps the church was right in one regard.

Perhaps it truly is the end.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Head Off (or a
Dog’s Tale)

The next morning, the residents pull Wright from the cage. They offered Creedy the traditional last request. He asked to see Wright one last time.

They lead her to him, past a swarm of inmates busily making plans, busily readying themselves for their departure. They are packing and fueling a bus. Wright sniggers. It is a diesel. With all that noise, they’ll bring every ghoul in the county to them. They may as well ring a dinner bell. A gong. They won’t make it twenty miles.

“You know,” Creedy says as they slip the noose around his neck. “I never told you what Franklin’s ships were called.”

“Sir John Franklin?” Wright asks, tearing.

Creedy nods, and smiles lightly as they tighten the knot. “One was the
Terror
. The other was the
Erebus
.”

The inmates spin him round. He faces the sky and miles of land.

“The
Erebus
?” Wright poses.

“Yes,” he says over his shoulder. “Erebus. It’s the name of the mouth to Hell.” The mutineers prepare to push him from the tower.

“It’s a comet,” Wright calls quickly. “The comet is Tempel-Tuttle.”

“Tempel-Tuttle,” he says to himself. She cannot see his wide grin.

He steps from the ledge before he can be shoved, before Wright can thank him. The rope whirs as it un-spools. She watches it slipping away, uncoiling like some massive frightened snake. She watches it disappear, yard by yard, until it snaps taut.