Damn her. If I’d known I could have faced it. Somehow. No wonder Dad left her.
“Mom, no. How could you? What about Dad?”
She nodded. “Your father? He was easy. I called him at the lodge to tell him his brother had died in an accident. Then when he got home a few days later, I pretended I was frantic, that you’d gone off riding your bike that afternoon and hadn’t come home. No one knew what had happened. What Paul had done.”
She blinked away desperate tears. “Every day I went out to the lab to check on you. The slime got bigger and bigger, then one evening there you were, wet and blinking up at me. I couldn’t tell you! All I could do was save you. Let you be found and rescued, let it all be okay again.”
He leaned over her even as two deputies grasped her arms. “But you threw the other kids away. Even after you killed Paul, you threw the other kids away like garbage and left me to suffer with your secrets. And this time, when you knew what he was, when you knew kids were dying, you did
nothing
!” He turned and walked away, toward his own car.
“Because everyone would know about you!” she screamed after him. “I tried to protect
you
!”
All the other kids! They could have been found, saving their families two freaking decades of grief and pain. The toxic mess could have been cleaned up, back then twenty years ago.
He turned back, glaring. “No. You tried to protect yourself. You’d have to explain what you’d done back then how you chose to spore me but not the others. You should have come forward as soon as you found out Paul came back, and you should have saved the other dead kids!”
“But they were dirty! Rotted and slimy and filthy!” Crying, she struggled to break free from the deputies and reach for him. “Sean, please. Try to understand. I wanted to help them, but I couldn’t wash their rotted filth! I had to run the truck through the super-scrub car wash five times before I could park it in the driveway, how could I stand to put lotion on their rotted flesh? I tried but I couldn’t! It was so awful, I still scrub my hands, scrub everything, to get their stink off me. I did the best I could. I saved and protected
you
.”
None of this would have happened. Not the spores, not the sickness, not Steffie. None of it. It’s all her fault.
“This was never about me. It’s always been about you. You had two chances to make things right, and both times you took the cowardly way. I’m done talking to you.” He resumed walking away, hands clenched at his sides.
“Sean! Please! I even killed Evie before you could ask her about the lab. You have to understand that I only did it to protect you! I’ve done everything to protect you, to save you!”
He heard a scuffle but kept walking.
“Let me go!” she screeched. “I have to help my son!”
A detective stopped Sean. “Can I have a moment?”
“Sure.” He glanced over at his bawling mother being stuffed into the back of a cruiser and found he felt only disgust and lingering pity. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to ask you about your dog.”
Sean tilted his head, confused. “We don’t have a dog. I can’t stand dogs.”
Now I know why. Thanks for that, too, Mom.
“You see, Mr. Casey, all of our victims have been…”
“Their legs and feet chewed up? Yeah, I heard. I still don’t see why you’re asking me. We
really
don’t have a dog.”
“Your uncle had one somewhere. Any ideas where he might have stashed it?”
Beyond the police cruisers and ambulances, Earl Simmons and his wife scooted out their front door, pulling Peaches behind them on a muzzle and leash.
Sean pointed. “Paul spent a lot of time with them, said they helped him hunt and kill the kids. They have a mean dog. Talk to them.”
The detective nodded his thanks then trotted toward the couple as they threw luggage into the back of their minivan.
Earl noticed the approaching detective, dropped his overnight bag, and ran. Two young deputies pursued while Earl’s wife fell to her knees and put her hands on her head.
A news crew caught the incident on camera then while the deputies tossed Earl onto the ground beside his prone wife and snarling dog, a reporter stepped in front of Sean. “Mr. Casey! Excitement has found you again. Care to make a statement?”
She seemed familiar, surely a reporter he’d talked to before, but he was in no mood to indulge her agenda tonight. “No. I have no comment,” he muttered, stepping around her.
“But Mr. Casey, these events have unfolded here, at your home in Pinell. Surely—“
He turned, glaring, and snapped, “I have no fucking comment. Now get off my lawn.”
While she stood there, he slammed himself into his car and fumbled out his keys.
My whole body hurts. I’m furious, exhausted, and grieving. No idea how I’m going to get out of here with all the mess, but I have to. Somehow. Or I’ll go mad.
He’d just slammed the key into the ignition when he heard a light tap on his window.
What now?
He ground his teeth and glared at Rog and Chuck, the two zombie hunters.
Oh, it’s just you.
He managed a tired nod as he cranked down the window. “Hey guys.”
Chuck grinned at the madness. “Dude, this is intense!”
Rog nudged him in the ribs. “Knock it off.” He gave Sean a worried smile. “You all right?”
Mare dying, Mom off to jail, Steffie and other dead kids sporing beneath my bedroom? Oh, and I’m a spore, too. I’m fanfuckingtastic.
“Yeah, I’ll live. What’s up?”
“We heard you fighting in there. Hope it was okay we called the cops.”
“It was. Thank you.” He extended his hand and both Rog and Chuck shook it. “Can you do me one little favor?”
“Anything, dude!”
“Can you clear a path so I can get out of here? I really want to get back to the hospital, back to Mare.”
“Sure thing,” Rog said, then tapped the roof of Sean’s car as he turned to walk down the drive. “Backing up now,” he hollered, shooing people out of the way. “Make room.”
Sean managed to back onto the road and maneuver around the sheriff’s cruisers. A few minutes later, he yawned as he pulled onto the highway toward Boone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Todd lay in his undershorts on an examination table and winced as a bleary-eyed doctor poked and prodded the bullet hole in his thigh. A knock rapped on the doorframe and Todd reached for his gun, his gaze darting to Mindy dozing on the chair in the corner. Her own wounds had already been tended by the same doctor, and she held Hailey cuddled close and sleeping on her lap.
They’re fine, and by God they’re going to stay that way.
He wrapped his hand around the gun and drew it close to his belly. “Come on in.”
The sheriff entered. “How are you feeling?”
Todd released the gun, but kept his hand close.
How much did you know about the cover-up of Mindy’s accident, boss? Shot one deputy for hurting my girls, why not a sheriff, too? I’ll be investigated, either way.
“Great. Nothing like having a pair of new holes to ooze blood out of. What brings you here to check on a poor lowly deputy, sir?”
“Just wanted to tell you we caught the guy. The creeper.”
Mindy lifted her head and stared at the sheriff while holding Hailey a little closer.
‘
Bout damned time.
“I’ve already read your statement on what happened tonight. Good job. State police have apprehended her husband.” He glanced at Mindy before returning his gaze to Todd. “We’ll give you a full briefing on the creeper tomorrow.”
“You can give it to me now,” Todd said, pointing at his leg. “Planning on taking a couple of days off. Workman’s comp injury.”
“When you come back then,” the sheriff said.
He turned to go, but stopped when Mindy asked, “Who was it?”
“Paul Casey. Uncle of the guy that took you in. But we have him and his accomplices in custody. They’d killed a neighbor, girl, though. Poor kid.”
“Steffie?” Mindy whispered, curling around Hailey again. “Oh my God.”
Todd swallowed down the rancid taste of bile. Sean had claimed his uncle was involved and insisted the slimes beneath his bedroom were kids. He’d ignored him, thinking it was just another one of Sean’s irrational fears.
Crap.
“Sir?” The sheriff paused in the doorway and turned. “Did you find kids in the cellar?”
“One. Sean Casey saved her and the others still growing, including the neighbor girl the suspect had already buried. If you want to know more, be at the briefing in the morning.”
No idea how to do that while guarding Mindy, but okay.
Todd laid his head on his arm as the doctor probed the front of his thigh.
Thank the good Lord for narcotics or I’d be screaming my head off about now.
“Yes, sir. In the morning, sir.”
“Um, wait,” Mindy asked and the sheriff paused again. “Are Sean and Mare all right? Where are they staying?”
“I don’t know. I was informed he left the scene despite the instructions of the EMT and she was not present at the incident.”
He left and Mindy murmured, “I hope they’re all right.”
Me, too. And the poor kids.
Todd gave her a hopeful smile then winced as the doctor pulled out a blood-soaked swab. “How’s it looking, Doc? Didn’t seem so bad to me, all things considered.”
“It missed the femur and major blood vessels, so you lucked out there.” The doctor walked to the cabinets and unlocked them. “But there’s considerable muscle damage, especially near the exit wound, as well as a great deal of debris and what smells like gasoline. You didn’t immediately wrap it, did you?”
“No, I was rather preoccupied with trying to stop the bad guy from killing the three of us. You know, minor distractions.”
“Ha ha. Cops. Always with the jokes.” The doctor returned to the table with various bottles, syringes, and suturing implements. “I’ll get it cleaned up, and after a few stitches and some antibiotics, you can be on your way.”
‘
Bout damned time.
Todd tried to relax while the doctor stitched him up. Three stitches in front, five in back. Not so bad. After the doctor finished then left, Todd sat and reached for his stiff, bloody jeans. Mindy still cradled Hailey, who slept on, innocent and oblivious. Todd managed to wrangle his bad leg into his pants. “Did you want to go to a hotel?”
Mindy raised her head to blink at him and he saw a glimmer of a sweet smile. “That’s a little forward, don’t you think?”
He felt himself blush as he zipped up and found his shoes. “No, not like that. Since Sean’s house is a crime scene, you can’t stay there. With that in mind, is there somewhere else you want to go, or would you rather go to a hotel?”
“She wants to go home with us,” Hailey murmured around a yawn before nuzzling in again. “I like her.”
It’ll probably cost me my job, but I like her, too.
“Shh. Sleep.” Mindy stroked Hailey’s hair and laid her cheek on Hailey’s head, watching Todd all the while. “I don’t know what I want,” she whispered.
Todd wrestled on his shoes and limped to her. “Me either,” he admitted. “But the department will spring for a hotel room. Or…”
“Or?”
“We have a guest room. It’s not very big, but we have plen—“
Hailey opened one eye and glared at him as she squeezed Mindy. “She’s staying with us.”
Mindy chuckled and stood, still holding Hailey as if she’d been doing it forever. She met Todd’s gaze. Her coffee-brown eyes were warm, depthless. Confident. The same, yet so different from the timid doe eyes she’d had when she’d first come out of the trees. Again, she smiled at him, nearly making his knees buckle. “Guess we’ve been told, eh?”
Todd fell in beside her as they left the examination room. He couldn’t help but smile as he draped a protective arm around his girls.
Yeah, I guess we have.
Sean limped into Mare’s room with dread pounding in his heart, but he let out a sigh of relief when he approached the bed. She slept, illuminated only by a dim side light. Her breath came even and relaxed, and, when he leaned over to kiss her forehead, she felt warm and alive.
Thankful and exhausted, he sat beside her, grasped her hand, and stretched out his legs, hoping that sleep would find him.
He’d barely closed his eyes when he heard her exclaim, “What the hell happened?”
He blinked, squinting at the bright window.
Urgh. What time is it?
He yawned and rubbed his face awake, then immediately yanked his hands away.
Holy crap, that hurts.
She frowned and gingerly reached out to touch his face. “You’re a mess. What happened?”
The morning light hurt and he forced himself to his feet—
Pain! Ohshit! Holyfuckinghell! Holyfuckinggoddamnhellonastick!
—and staggered to the window to lower the shade. “Paul kicked my ass, then I kicked his. Cops have him and I’m here, so I guess I won.” Sean’s eyes ached a little less, but everything else continued to complain, so he shuffled back to his chair and sat. “And, oh, I saved a little girl. Luchie. Nice kid. Grateful parents. Yadda yadda yadda.”
He leaned back in the chair and let out a pained sigh. “I really need some morphine. Or tequila. Hell, at this point, I’ll take ibuprofen and BenGay.”
A woman bustled in with a breakfast tray, giving Sean a worried glance and a wide berth to set it on Mare’s beside table.
“You’re not gonna get off that easy,” Mare said as she lifted the lid. Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and juice. “Wanna share?”
“No, you go ahead,” Sean said. The way his cheek felt, surely eating would be worse.
Mare sipped her juice. “You all right?”
Sean leaned back and closed his eyes. “Yeah, just sore. I’ll be fine.”
As Mare ate he told her what had happened, from the two zombie hunters on the steps to his mother being stuffed into a sheriff’s cruiser.
Mare said little during the tale. When he finished, he opened one eye to watch her as she lay back upon the pillows.
Don’t leave me, babe. Not because you’re sick, and not because I’m a spore.
“Sorry about your mom,” she said, grasping his hand.
His heart clenched for a moment, then resumed its usual rhythm. “She did some pretty bad things.”
Mare sat upright and leaned over to run her hand through his hair and caress his unbroken cheek. “Maybe so, but she brought you back. I can forgive pretty much everything for that. Even years of treating me like crap.” She smiled into his eyes and stretched to kiss him. “I don’t know what I’d do if I’d never met you.”
“Same here,” he said, savoring her kiss. “Have you heard anything about your…” He swallowed, hating the taste of the words. “Your condition?”
“Nothing.” She relaxed into her pillows and squeezed his hand. “I have no idea what’s going on. But as soon as we find out, as soon as we make a decision, whatever it might be, you need to get looked at. Get antibiotics at least.”
And some pain killers.
“Deal.”
He dozed while she watched TV, some Sunday morning news show discussing the latest riot reports coming out of St. Louis, Cairo, and London. Both looked over when a man in scrubs walked in, skimming the file he carried.
Mare’s hand tightened in Sean’s. He felt her fear slam against him in waves and he held fast, intending to be her rock. Her bruised, battered, and partially broken rock, but her rock nonetheless.
“Morning,” the fellow said, glancing up at them before returning his attention to the file. “Rosemary Knudsen?”
Mare’s voice sounded dry. Lost. “That’s me.”
The man peered at Sean. “And you are?”
“Sean Casey. Her fiancé.”
“I know that name,” he mumbled as he pulled a chair from the corner. “I’m sure I do.”
Sean shrugged.
Almost everyone does.
“Who are you, and what can you tell us about Mare?”
“Neil Hathstone,” he said, extending his hand to each of them. His handshake felt friendly and confident. “I’m an OB-Gyn specialist from Iowa City, and the local powers that be have decided to give you to me, or me to you. However you want to look at it. I’d hoped to talk with you earlier, but it’s been a heckuva morning. Four births since I got here at six AM, including a vaginal breech and a preemie by C-section. Busy, busy day. But a good one, so far at least. Happy moms, happy babies. Can’t ask for much more than that!”
He sat, took another look at the file then snapped it closed. “So! How are we feeling this morning?”
“I’m scared out of my wits and Sean kicked the shit out of a pedophile. How do you think we’re feeling?”
Hathstone laughed. “Ah, feisty, I like that!” He tsk-tsked and shook a finger at Sean. “And you, the biggest news story in the country sitting there being all coy.”
“I don’t really care about the news. I care about Mare.”
“Understandable. Both of you.” He leaned forward to contemplate them. “I’ve been over all of your sonograms, your history, and the results of your pap. What part do you want first? The good news, or the bad?”
Sean moistened his lips and Mare’s hand in his twitched. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she said.
“All right. When you acquired the systemic replicating fungal infection, or the spore fungus as it’s commonly called, it replaced your missing uterus.” He pulled a pen out of his pocket and drew a tubular shape on the back of the folder. “Let’s say this is your vagina. The fungus regrew your cervix first.”
While he drew a plumpish donut shape on the folder, Sean reached over to wrap Mare in his arm. She shook and he smelled her fear.
Hathstone continued to draw as he talked. “The fungus happily moved on and created your uterus, from the bottom up—very fascinating stuff—then outward with fallopian tubes, then a pair of lovely little ovaries.”
He paused in his drawing to glance up at them. “You with me so far?”
Both nodded.
“All right,” he said, returning to the folder. “The problem is your original ovary.” He drew a second oval partly over the left side ovary. “They’re fighting for space. That’s the abdominal discomfort you’ve been having.”
Sean and Mare looked at each other. “That’s it?” she asked. “I have an extra ovary?”
“Yes,” Hathstone said as he opened the folder. “It’s uncommon, but not unheard of for women to have oddly shaped uteruses with three, even four sets of fallopian tubes and ovaries, they can even have vaginas that split into two separate paths leading to two separate uterine systems. Your new uterus, however, is plain and typical, rounded with two fallopian tubes. It’s quite lovely, really. The issue at hand is the extra ovary.”
He paused to look each of them in the eye. “Plenty of women are born with three ovaries, but it’s unnatural for
you
and we’re just not sure what the hormones will do, or if you’ll feel any adverse effects at all. Also, the two on the left are vying for the same space and fallopian tube. This may, or may not, impact your fertility.”
Sean’s heart quickened.
Fertility?
Mare gaped, her eyes wide. “You’re telling me I can get
pregnant
?”
Hathstone glanced into the folder. “I don’t see why not. Everything looks great, it’s in the right place and, to be perfectly honest, the two new ovaries look like they belong to an exceptionally healthy thirteen-year-old, not a woman a year or so shy of thirty.” He grinned. “They are chock full of eggs. Great for making babies, not so great when you’re looking at menopause when you’re in your late sixties or early seventies.”
Mare stared at the doctor, unable to speak and Sean, too, found himself tongue tied.
“So, congratulations on getting your first period, but be ready for all the normal pubescent changes that teenagers deal with. Mood swings, acne, sore breasts.” He grinned at Sean and said, “No guarantees they’ll get bigger. They might, they might not. We’re stepping into uncharted territory here.”
“Uh, sure,” Sean said, still shocked at the news.
“How… How is this bad?” Mare asked.
“It’s bad because we just don’t know how you’re going to manage three times your previous hormones, if the hormone levels will self-regulate on their own, or if you might have a greater risk of ectopic pregnancy.
We don’t know.
That’s the problem, this is all new science.”
“Sure, okay,” Mare said, nodding.
Sean sighed his relief.
I don’t think it sounds bad at all.