Mindy watched Mare after Sean walked away and she said, “Can I ask a favor?”
“Sure, anything,” Mare said, smiling patiently at her.
“I need something to do. I need underwear. My own shampoo. Maybe a magazine to read. I need
money
. I’m never gonna make Jeff pay for what he did to me without money.” She took a breath and straightened her shoulders. “Do you know of anyplace that might hire someone without identification?”
Mare stood, her brow furrowing. “Actually, I do. The nursing home I work at has several, um, undocumented workers in housekeeping and the kitchen. Pretty sure they get paid cash, under the table, but I’ve never asked.”
Cash would mean no tax records, but it’s a start.
“I can clean or cook, sure. Plenty of experience in that. Do you think they’d hire me?”
“Maybe. With all the folks calling in sick lately, they’re pretty desperate for warm bodies. I can run you over there tomorrow, if you want, and talk to HR.”
Mindy thanked her and dodged past as Sean returned. Hopeful, she returned to her room and lay in bed a long time (door locked, just in case), staring at the ceiling as Sean and Mare quietly argued, then made up, then made love, the sounds muffled by the thin walls. She thought about the past two days, and how neither Mare nor Sean had said one word to anyone about her being a fungaloid.
Or a spore,
she thought, rubbing goose-pimples off her arms.
Sean calls us spores. And Paul didn’t seem to recognize me, but I sure recognized him.
She thought of the others in the police van, the other spores. All had been dead far longer than her; the closest was the old farmer who last remembered the harvest of 2009. Ten years back, fifteen, twenty for Sean’s uncle, more than thirty for Evelyn. Would they even comprehend the new phones? The computers? iPads? Twitter? Facebook? All of the ways people didn’t communicate back in the eighties, or, hell, any time during the twentieth century. Who could rightfully speak for them?
She tried to sleep but couldn’t. Her mind kept gnawing on the same nugget in the back recesses of her brain.
Modern communication equals technology. Spores are being treated as freaks, and they have no grasp of technology, no way to get their word out. Who will speak for them?
Sean’s trying, but he doesn’t really know how bad it is being a non-person,
she thought, sitting up.
He just thinks we’re second-chance miracles.
“But I can speak,” she whispered aloud. “I can tweet. And tumblr. And blog. Whatever.” She took a breath and stood.
If I don’t know it, I can learn it, because I’m still new, still modern. I still know the technology.
Mouth set tight, she walked to Sean’s studio and turned on the Mac.
This time, instead of merely reading her own Facebook page, she posted. And tweeted.
Then she started a blog.
Chapter Fifteen
Sean hurried across town on a sweltering Wednesday afternoon, a week later. Much of the media attention had faded as worries over tainted water moved downstream, but a few picketers and desperate people with their urns and dead pets remained. Betsy the smooshed dog had spored, slimy but otherwise fine, much to the delight of her grieving family. A few other animals had spored as well, but Sean didn’t understand why anyone would bury their pets in a stranger’s yard without permission or leaving a way to contact the owners. Some of the anonymous pets had run into the tree farm and disappeared, but he’d taken others to the humane society. Mindy had become infatuated with a spored cat, a slinky black purring thing, so three spores now lived in the house.
Sean took a deep breath and waved at a neighbor mowing his yard. His nightmares had been horrid of course, endless tortures of missing feet and devoured entrails, but he’d completed the drawings for Ghoulie’s last issue. Only the publisher’s sign off, some inking, and all of the digital coloring remained. Easy peasy. Plus, with Paul installing siding and shacking up most nights with random women he’d dug up somewhere—complete with disgusting play-by-play replays when he came home—the whole household had settled into a crowded routine.
Their tight finances had eased since Mindy had taken a job in the nursing home kitchen, working the same shift as Mare. It paid less than minimum wage in cash, but every night she gave Mare a few bucks to help cover room, board, and transportation. The three of them had even picked up a RedBox movie and a take-and-bake pizza Friday night to celebrate Ghoulie’s pencils being finished. If not for his increasingly vicious nightmares, life would be pretty grand.
As Sean walked up the sidewalk to Hap’s Place, he smiled. All in all, it had been a good week. Hectic, yes, and sleep-deprived, but manageable. Paul was rarely home, Mare was getting used to living in a crowded house, and Ghoulie was on schedule!
“Hey, Sean,” Phyllis, the elderly daytime barkeep, said as he entered. “Still have the crazies at your house, I see.”
“Getting used to it,” he replied as he went into the kitchen to clock in. He took a quick glance in the fridge—ham, chicken salad, sandwich veggies, condiments, and white or wheat bread, easy enough to make—then returned to the bar as the juke switched over to Roy Orbison.
Phyllis had dragged cases of canned beer and pop behind the bar to stock the fridge and was just settling herself onto her knees. “I can do that,” Sean said, reaching out to help her stand.
She batted away his hand. “I’m not so old I can’t fill a danged fridge.”
“You’re seventy-two!” a regular muttered from the table in the corner. If they weren’t planting or harvesting, ten or twelve men spent their afternoons slowly pickling their livers and playing cribbage. A few, most bachelors, sometimes stayed ‘til well after dark.
“You got room to talk, you old fart,” Phyllis replied as she opened the fridge door and started stuffing in Pepsi cans.
Sean checked the kegs, noting Miller Lite was getting low, and that the well was about to run out of vodka. “Stubby? You drinking gin sevens or screwdrivers today?” he asked.
Stubby raised his glass, the clear liquid easily seen from beyond his mangled and chopped-off fingers. “Sours in honor of Willard. Passed away last night. Cancer got him.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Sean said. “Thought he was in remission?”
“Apparently not,” Stubby said, returning to his game.
“I already put a bottle of Monarch over by the cash register,” Phyllis said, standing easily. “Same for the Jack. Only a shot or so left in the bottle, but don’t worry about it. These bozos are just wells and beer. Doubt we’ll get any big spenders.” She bent at the waist and plucked the empty pop cases from the floor as if her back and knees had never pained her at all.
“Thanks.” Sean watched her scurry to the kitchen. She never scurried anywhere, usually preferring a slow, steady shuffle.
One of the card-playing regulars brought up his empty glass and Sean refilled it with Michelob, stepping aside so the tap wouldn’t splatter him. “Bag of those Frito-bandito chips, too?” Ol’ Mort asked, usually milky eyes twinkling.
Sean obliged and, as he handed it over, asked, “You finally get those cataracts taken care of?”
“No, why?” Ol’ Mort glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was touching his peg.
Sean shrugged and added the beer and chips to Mort’s tab. “The eyes’re just looking good today.”
Mort rubbed the left one as if it itched. “Yeah, I can just ‘bout see clear again. It’s all Catherine’s fault,” he said, leaning close to whisper. “She started on some new vitamins or something, and she’s ‘bout wearing me out, almost like we was still newlyweds.” He winked. “Think I should tell the doc ‘bout her miracle cure?”
Sean definitely approved of Mare’s miracle cure. He chuckled and stepped aside as Phyllis huffed by with a rack of beer glasses. “Couldn’t hurt.”
Mort laughed at that and said, “If it hurts, you’re doing it wrong, kiddo,” then strode back to his game.
Sean blinked. Mort used a cane, had for years. Hip injury.
The front door opened and a massive man blocked the encroaching sunlight. Phyllis looked over and, frowning, grabbed a bar towel and stepped closer to Sean.
The cribbage players kept playing, but a few nodded hello.
“Fellas,” the guy said as the door swung closed.
“Howdy,” someone at the table nearest to the door replied. Stubby glanced over and scrubbed his mangled fingers on his shirt as if scratching an itch he couldn’t quite reach.
“What can I get you?” Phyllis asked as Todd Anderson, in civilian attire, settled his heft onto a barstool.
Smiling, Todd took in the bar. “Kitchen still open?”
Phyllis rattled off their short sandwich and snack food menu. Todd ordered and, as Phyllis scurried to make his sandwich, Sean filled a glass with ice and plucked a Coke out of the fridge.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in here before,” Todd said, fishing out his wallet. “Not a bad little place.”
“Your basic small town bar.” Sean filled Todd’s glass. “Beer, sandwiches, guys playing cards. We even clean the bathrooms.” He pushed the cash back toward Todd. “My treat. I told you if you came in I’d buy you a sandwich and a drink.”
“Yeah, but I kinda need a receipt today.” Todd pushed the cash toward Sean. “Just in case the boss asks why I was here. Stopping here for a quick supper is one thing. Stopping for a quick conversation is something else.”
Great.
Sean scooped up the cash and rang Todd’s order. “I’m guessing you’re not here to talk to Phyllis.”
She returned with Todd’s food—a sandwich, pickle, and heaping handful of potato chips—and set it before him.
“As much as I’d love to converse with such a delightful young lady—“
“Oh, save it for someone your own age.” Phyllis untied her apron and wadded it in her hand. “You flirts are all alike.”
Todd raised his sandwich and grinned at her. “Who said I was flirting?”
“Been tending bar almost fifty years. I know a flirt when I see one.” Still clutching her apron, Phyllis waved good night to Sean and the regulars before scooting out the door.
“Why’s she in such a hurry?” Todd asked before taking a bite of his sandwich.
“No idea,” Sean lied as he filled another beer for a regular. Todd did not need to know that Phyllis’s heroin-addicted son lived at home, and she could smell a cop blindfolded from halfway across town.
Todd chewed and contemplated Sean, finally shrugging before taking a sip of his Coke. “This is off the record. Okay?” he said, barely loud enough for Sean to hear over Willie Nelson.
Sean leaned his forearms on the bar and gave a single nod.
“Your friend Melinda Howard is causing a bit of a problem.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Uh huh,” Todd said around another bite of sandwich. “Her blog’s sign-on IP has been traced to your house and she’s been positively identified by those same deputies who sit out front to keep your fans from fighting each other. Heck, I’ve seen her twice myself. We know she’s there.”
Sean said nothing.
“It’s a helluva blog and it’s pushing some really powerful buttons. Banking. Insurance. Civil rights. We’re getting pressure from the governor to bring her in and question her. But the attorney general is balking because there’s no precedent on how to legally approach the fungaloid issue. Especially when the fungaloid in question is a young, pretty, articulate white woman hollering about fraud, civil rights, and murder.”
“Spores. Fungaloid’s like nigger. It’s degrading.”
“Fine. Spores. But she’s demanding reinstatement of full citizenship, as well as reversals of judgments surrounding her death and prosecuting her ex for attempted murder. The governor isn’t happy about that, lemme tell you, especially now that she’s getting a legion of pissed off online followers. They’re making a helluva stink in the statehouse.”
He grinned as he sipped his cola. “As much as I hate to admit it, she’s too pretty and feisty for her own good.”
And you’ve always been a sucker for that combination.
Sean refilled another beer. “So her blog’s not protected under free speech?”
“That’s the rub,” Todd said around another bite. “Is she a citizen or is she not? No one knows what to do with her.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Sean asked.
“Because it’s not just her. We have seventeen funga…
spores
that we know about. Three were murder victims, kids missing from twenty some years ago who walked out of a strip of woods near Fraser a few days back, and at least one of your spores has been killed since coming back. Several have been assaulted, and one… He disappeared yesterday and no one’s seen him since. With all that’s been happening lately, we’re…concerned.”
“Again,” Sean said, “Why are you telling me all this?”
“I know, I know,” Todd said, his voice lowering further. “Why am I talking to you? Because you’re the face of this phenomenon, the truth of it anyway. And, frankly, you’re not threatening my job if I don’t round up all the funga-spore-whatever-they-ares and put them someplace dark and quiet.”
“Is that what you’re intending to do?” Sean asked, hands balling as he stood straight. “Lock them up?”
“Not me,” Todd said, holding Sean’s gaze. “I think you’re right. They’re people. Weird, freaky people who have no logical reason to be here, but people just the same.”
“What changed your mind?” Sean asked.
Todd set down his sandwich. “Evelyn Fischer.”
“Her? Why?” Sean asked, perplexed.
“She was murdered the night after you’d found her, before anyone knew about your spores. It took us until yesterday to figure out who she was. She had no identification, no money, no anything, just a dead woman in an alley. Her DNA had no hits in the database, nothing on her fingerprints. A real Jane Doe.”
“I don’t understand,” Sean said. “How does her death—“
“She, and your friend Melinda, were the last two women we hadn’t found and I had a hunch, okay? Just check their dental records against our Jane Doe. Sure enough, same lower jaw, same everything, except this Evelyn had perfect teeth, not a single filling in her head.
“Her autopsy and DNA came back completely human, nothing weird or out of the ordinary at all other than she was in apparently
perfect
health. No calcifications, no scars, nothing but an utterly healthy forty-two-year-old woman with her skull bashed almost flat. We’ve already taken a swab sample from her brother and I’d bet my house it’ll show they’re siblings.”
He paused. “You’re right. They’re the same people who died, just like you said, every one a victim of an accident or injury, none from disease. The exact same people, right down to their DNA, memories, and fingerprints. But I’m a county deputy, a government employee. If I speak up publicly, if I refuse to follow orders, I’ll lose my job, maybe go to jail, which won’t do anyone any good. You, though, and your friend Melinda, have the attention of the media and internet.”
“I don’t know how I can be any clearer than I already am and they already think I’m crazy,” Sean said. “I don’t know what more I can do.”
“You have to find a way, because it’s spreading,” Todd whispered. “There are reports of weird fungi in streams and ponds as far south as Quincy, and fish and bird populations are exploding all over the river basin. I can’t talk about what’s happening in cemeteries, but I know you’ve seen it first hand.”
He paused to take a slow breath. “Think about it, Sean. The Des Moines River empties into the Mississippi and DNR tests show the fungus isn’t diluting as it flows south. People and critters will keep sporing all the way down to the gulf, and no telling what will happen when this crap hits the ocean or leaves our local water table. Before we know it, we’ll be up to our elbows in spores. I took an oath to protect lives. I can’t let scared politicians round them all up like cattle for slaughter or start pointing fingers and making them enemies of the state. Which is exactly what will happen if the politicians aren’t stopped. Soon.”
Todd removed a business card from his wallet and tucked it under his plate. “My sister’s become a trial lawyer,” he said, tapping the card twice, “a damn good one, in Des Moines. She does pro-bono work and knows how to manipulate a sound bite. Call her. Cover your ass, and do what you can to help these poor people.”
Sean eyed the card but didn’t pick it up. He wasn’t sure he’d need a lawyer, but Mindy might. “Has anyone figured out what’s causing this?”
“Yeah. Toxic spill from some chemical manufacturer, back in the seventies or eighties. We found unmarked barrels, more than one, buried in a gully north of town. Most were corroded and leaking. Our problem is, six or seven companies used the facilities out there. One would go bankrupt and close shop, then another would move in to make their own potions or solvents. We don’t even know who made what since most of the records are just gone.”
He munched a few chips. “EPA regulations weren’t as stringent back then and there’s no telling what crap just got dumped or discarded before anyone knew any better. I don’t know what they found, but I do know it’s a chemical mess up there. Maybe that’s what did it. A little of this solvent, a little of that chemical… It could have mutated a common fungus, which then went nuts and made your spores. We really don’t know yet.”