Suckers (29 page)

Monday came. The sun sparkled off a dusting of snow. Bare trees gave the woods an empty, open feeling, and the three of them—Dan, Ray, and Jane—needed to get out of the house, breathe fresh air. Ray bundled her up, and they tromped through dead leaves, throwing sticks, spotting squirrels.

“We have to be back before dark,” Jane said, for the tenth time since they’d left.

“We certainly will, shortcake.” Ray squeezed her small hand.

“We have to be back before it even
starts
to get dark,” she said.

“We’ll be back way before dark,” Dan said. “Uncle Ray said he’s cooking dinner tonight, and you know how long that takes him.”

“Are you making burgers?” She picked her way up the hill in her pink corduroys and bulky blue coat. She was buried in it, a wisp of dark hair poking from under the furred hood.

“Chili,” Ray said.

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like chili.”

“I’m making a special chili on the side, just for you. I promise you’ll like it.”

“Can you make a face on it, like you do with burgers?” She liked the pickle-chip eyes and a ketchup smile…then she’d take off the pickles and give them to Ray.

“I’ll see what I can do.” They crested the hill, coming to a flattened area, the spot where they’d lit campfires as teenagers, coming out there with beer they shouldn’t have had, Ray’s endless cigarettes, and all their plans for their future. They’d wanted to make music on their terms—
Fuck it if it doesn’t make us rich
, Ray’d said. It hadn’t done them too bad. If they’d cared, they could have bought houses by now, reliable cars. They didn’t even chase after equipment much these days; they liked what they had. They knew how to get the sounds they were after out of it.

“What’s for dessert?” Jane asked. Faye’d made the mistake of bringing pies home the first week or two—until the grocery store got ugly. No attacks, just a lot of fear and mistrust. Now one of the guys went to the store with her, and it was in and out, fast as possible. Dan couldn’t tell if the half-stocked shelves made that easier or slowed the process down with Faye and Sarah’s frustration.

Ray said, “A magnificent, tasty apple.”

Jane sighed. “Can it be a candy apple?” She stooped for a stick, her big blue coat canting out in the back.

“Do you want to have any teeth left when you grow up?” Ray asked.

Dan leaned against a tree, looking off into the distance, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Trying to empty his head, clear out the images that had plagued his sleep—gunfire and panic and the night sky full of black creatures.

When Ray walked up, Dan said, “When this is over, you should find someone who can put up with you and have kids.”

“Nah. I’m good with being Uncle Ray.”

“Danny,” Jane said, drawing in the dirt with her stick, “you should tell him you want a candy apple for dessert.”

“Nope. I’m holding on to my teeth as long as I can.”

She hummed. After a while, she started gathering sticks, piling them around her drawing.

More memories of being in these woods came as shadows moved to the other side of the trees. Kindling popping in fire. Ray telling him about the day he’d come home from school—sixth grade—and his mother didn’t exist anymore. Buddy’d found her when he’d snuck back to the apartment that morning, playing hooky from high school. By the time Ray’d walked in the apartment with his book bag, the body and the rope she’d used were gone.

He’d tossed a pinecone in the fire that night and said to Dan, “We’re gonna do this.”

“Don’t go out of sight,” Ray said to Jane. “Otherwise we won’t be able to find you when it’s time to go back.”

“Before
dark
,” she said.

“Well before dark.”

When she was out of earshot, Dan said, “What if they don’t figure it out?” Because he’d checked the news while Ray was getting her ready. Because it didn’t look good. Because there were curfews along the entire East Coast, and Congress was talking about a national curfew, and people were attacking each other—either because they were infected or because they were afraid the other person was. Hospitals were jammed with people who’d been attacked, people who thought they’d been attacked, and people who were in such a panic they were breaking down in other ways. The Red Cross pleaded for donations. People on the internet wondered how long it’d be before donations were mandatory, like the draft. The infected being treated by whatever means doctors could come up with were dying, and some morons were going out at night on purpose,
trying
to get attacked—people believing they were voluntarily becoming a part of the aliens. Or joining God’s Army. Or who the fuck knew what.

He and Ray watched bare treetops sway against the flat steel sky until it was time to gather Jane and head back.

† † †

“Sorry,” Sarah said as she eased herself into her chair at the dining table.

“Look.” Jane pointed with her spoon. “My chili has a face.”

“When I was pregnant with Dan,” Faye said, “I couldn’t go ten feet from the bathroom the first few months.”

Buddy shook hot sauce over his chili as he said, “Yeah, and he’s been making girls sick ever since. Also, ketchup on kidney beans, Ray?”

Ray shrugged. “She likes it.”

“I
like
it,” Jane said. “Can I sing the first song tonight?”

“Is it going to be the spider song again?” Dan asked.

“Yes!”

“Lauren didn’t show up for work today,” Faye said as she spooned chili onto a slice of bread. “Harry called her and she said she was packing up for California.”

“Does she have family out there?” Sarah asked.

“She must,” Faye said. “I wouldn’t want to drive three thousand miles with those things out there. What if her car breaks down in the middle of Nebraska? I think her feeling is that they’re not out
there
yet. But she’s always been flighty.”

“We’re having problem keeping staff too.” Sarah nudged her bowl of chili away with the back of her hand. “Two nurses called in sick today, but three patients didn’t show for their appointments anyway. I’m glad it’s a surgical center and not a hospital. We’d really be hurting. At least no one we know’s been affected yet. Just a lot of panic and circle-running.”

“You should eat some bread at least,” Faye said. “Before you start feeling nauseous from
not
eating.”

“Do you think it’s true about those things breaking through windows?” Buddy said.

Ray looked up.

Sarah said, “Please don’t tell me that’s true.”

“I heard it on the radio on the way home. There’s so much being reported, you can’t even tell what’s true and what’s panic anymore.”

They had the curtains pulled shut throughout the house, the lights off in any room they weren’t in. Those things were out there, smacking the windows all night long.

“I hate this,” Sarah said quietly.

“I think we have some plywood in the garage,” Faye said. “Leaned up against the front wall. Paul was planning to do something with it, I don’t remember what. We can use that.”

† † †

Dan lay in the pitch black of his bedroom, plywood nailed over both windows. The sweet smell of fresh-cut wood lingered. The house was quiet, everyone in bed, lying awake, thinking about the latest news reports.

Christmas Eve, the federal government put everyone back on daylight saving time. More day to the day, supposedly, though really it was the same amount of daylight, just shuffled around. Dan guessed they had to look like they were doing
something
.

For Christmas they had a ham—Faye’d thought ahead during one of those early trips to the grocery store. With that and Jane’s excitement, they were able to pretend—for a few hours—they were together that day on purpose, even if gifts were sparse: a mended shirt, a door rehung so it would stay open, some old Matchbox cars Faye had dug out of the attic. Dan spent half the morning building a car wash and garage to go with them, hanging tinsel in the car wash bay to mimic the mitter curtain of a real car wash. Jane drove cars in and out all afternoon, collecting a penny for each wash, and taking the job very seriously.

By Christmas night, the boards were back on the living-room windows. The limbs on the tree drooped. Crumpled bits of tinsel gave the place the look of a strip club after the girls had gone home.

The next night, Sarah’s cellphone rang while she carried a fresh pitcher of water to the table. They all looked up in surprise. Sometimes the cell towers were so jammed up all you got was a fast busy signal—they’d halfway started to think of that as the norm.

She dragged the phone out of the pocket of her sweater. “Hey, Dad. Everything all right?”

Ray handed the bag of corn chips across to Buddy.

Jane scooped up the second-to-last bite of hot dogs and beans and shoved it in her mouth, the backs of her legs swinging against the chair.

Dan refilled his mom’s glass, and Sarah sat suddenly, the phone to her face. She clutched the edge of the table. “What? Dad, slow down.”

Everyone looked in her direction.

“Is that Grandpa?” Jane said.

“Are you sure? When did it happen?”

Buddy clenched his spoon, watching her.

“Are you okay? Besides that, I mean. Did you get hurt?” Her fingers moved to her sweater as she listened, tugging at a button. “I don’t know. I don’t know if you should go now or wait till morning. What does the news say to do?”

“Has he been bitten?” Ray said.

“Jane.” Dan’s mom took her hand. “Janie, why don’t we go pick out something to watch tonight?”

“All right,” Sarah said. “Which hospital are you going to?”

Dan shot his chair back, flattening his hand on the table. “Tell him not to go to the hospital.”

Buddy and Ray’s heads swiveled.

“Yes…I…Dad, I really don’t know. If you don’t feel well, you should definitely go once it gets light.”

“
Don’t go to the hospital
,” Dan said.

Sarah raised her eyes. The tinny, faraway sound of her dad’s voice came through the speaker.

“Don’t let him go to the hospital.”

“Dad, hold on.” She put her hand over the phone.

“We can take care of him here,” Dan said. “Better than they can.” They’d brought the needles, the tubing. Alcohol, swabs, Band-Aids. They hadn’t even asked each other if they should.
Of course
they should have that stuff on hand.

“What are you talking about?” Buddy said.

“Tell him to come here. We have enough people. We can get him through this.”

His mom had come to the doorway, her fingers at her throat. “Dan, what are talking about?”

He glanced her way before looking back to Sarah. They hadn’t said a word about what they’d been through—why worry them? Save that card till they needed it.

They needed it now. He said, “Ray and I can do it. We’ve been through it already. I got bit at the end of our tour. I’m fine now.”

“You were attacked?” his mother said.

“We know how to deal with it,” he said to Sarah.

“Dad, let me call you back. Don’t go anywhere until you hear back from me, okay? Keep your phone close. Love you too.” She clutched the phone between her hands like a pocket Bible and looked at Dan.

His mom said, “You were attacked and you didn’t say a word?”

“It was kinda—”

“You were attacked and you didn’t say a word, and you let me worry my head off about you being sick? That time you came over here for dinner and you could barely walk a straight line—was that this?”

She was exaggerating—or he thought she was exaggerating. It wasn’t the time to argue it either way. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Mom, I’ve kinda started drinking blood, and I just look like shit because I’m running a little low right now?’”

“You could have said something!”

With one hand on her belly, Sarah leaned forward. “Tell me what you can do for him that the hospital can’t.” Her eyes searched his.

He wasn’t sure they
could
do anything the hospital couldn’t; all he could promise was that here her father wouldn’t run the risk of being a guinea pig—and he’d have blood. With five adults, they should be able to get him through this. “We have the supplies, and Ray can draw blood.”

“Since when do you know how to draw blood?” Buddy asked.

“Since my crash course after our tour.” Ray slipped Jane’s plate onto his, started gathering silverware.

“Moss taught him,” Dan said. “Ray did most of the blood drawing when we went around getting donations.”

“Sarah can draw the blood,” Buddy said.

“Now hold on,” Sarah said. “We need to think this through.” But her eyes went right back to Dan’s, looking for something there. Something that could assure her that this was the better choice.