Suckers (34 page)

After a while, the house went silent.

† † †

When he woke, he was on his stomach, hugging his pillow. He moved his eyes toward the door just as it eased open a crack—something he sensed more than saw in the pitch-blackness.

A body bumped the doorjamb, and he pictured Ray misjudging the distance as he tried to slip through in the dark.

The door clicked softly shut. A belt buckle jingled quickly, the soft sweep of leather sliding over denim.

“Hey,” Dan whispered.

“Sorry. I was trying to not to wake you.”

He pushed onto his elbows. “I was awake anyway.”

The sounds were so familiar—Ray toe-heeling a boot off, then nudging it out of the way. He sat on the mattress on the floor to pull the other one off. Cigarette smoke wafted off his clothes.

“What happened when you went to get Jamie?” Dan asked.

“I had to do a little running around to find him.”

“Let me guess: it wasn’t the good part of town you found him in.”

“Is there a good part of town? Jesus, I’m bushed. I was gonna take a shower, but I don’t think I can stay up that long.”

Dan stretched on his side, his cheek against the pillow.

The blankets on the floor rustled as Ray got under them.

“Feel better?” Dan asked.

“Being in bed? Fuck yeah.”

“I mean after getting Jamie.”

It took a little time, but a “Yeah” finally came. Another stretch of minutes passed, Dan listening to Ray breathe. Listening to his hand scrub his face.

“We’ve been through a lot together,” Ray said finally, and Dan didn’t know if he meant the two of them or if he was talking about Jamie—or all of them. “I’ve always been glad I met you, you know,” he said.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Who knew freshman football would have paid off?”

Dan smiled.

“Man, I was shit at it,” Ray said. “I hated getting fucking tackled, everyone piling on me over a ball.”

“I know. Everyone could see the whites in your eyes when you were running up the field.”

After a moment of quiet, Ray said, “We had a good run.”

“I don’t hear the fat lady singing yet.”

Ray rolled over. When he said, “’Night,” his voice was pointing toward the bookshelf.

Dan closed his thumb in his fist to keep from chewing the nail down to bleeding. At least his headache was backing off.
See? People get headaches.
It hadn’t come with any buzzing or crazy thoughts. He was just worried as shit about the possibility that everything had suddenly taken a sharp turn for the worse. “You’d tell me if you got bit, right?” he said.

Ray mumbled something and pulled the blanket over his shoulder.

Dan thought about the zombie apocalypse. And how at first light he’d slip out to Ray’s car to make sure buying a gun hadn’t been part of what had taken him so long to get back.

Just in case.

Dan startled awake. A thin crack of light crept along the edge of the plywood nailed over his window. When the engine outside cranked to life, he realized what had woken him: the shutting of a car door.

“Shit.”

His feet thumped the floor. He struggled into his jeans as the car backed up.

That he couldn’t even look out the fucking window drove him crazy.

Barefoot, he pounded down the stairs and out the front door in time to catch the glint of Ray’s bumper as it disappeared around the curve.

“
Fuck
.”

Back inside, Jane swung her heel against the leg of a kitchen chair, scooping an oversized spoonful of Cheerios into her mouth.

“Ray gone?” his mom asked, pouring a cup of coffee.

“Did he say where he was going?” Dan asked.

“To pick up supplies.”

“Did anyone go with him?” He hoped Ray had taken Rich. Heck, he even hoped he’d taken Jamie. Taking
anyone
meant he wasn’t doing what Dan thought he was doing.

“Rich headed out fishing. Buddy’s getting ready for work. And Jamie, I believe, is still sleeping. Coffee?”

“No. I’m gonna see if I can catch up to him.”

“Honey, if he’d wanted you to go…”

“No shit, but I’m going anyway. How’d he seem this morning?”

Her spoon clinked the side of her mug as she stirred. “He seemed all right. Gave me a nice hug before he left.”

“Shit, Mom.” He jogged down the hallway. Yesterday’s t-shirt, boots yanked over bare feet. His keys confounded him. Not in his pocket, not in his jacket, not on the nightstand. He checked his dresser, the kitchen counter, even the workbench in the garage in case he’d set them down on his way in last time he’d gone anywhere.

Sarah and Buddy were upstairs by the time he accepted the fact that Ray had taken his goddamned keys with him. “Mom, can I borrow your car?”

“Something wrong with yours?” Buddy asked.

“Honey, you don’t even know where he was going.”

“Who?” Buddy asked. “Jamie?”

“Ray.”

Faye said, “He told me he saw a place while he was out yesterday that might have some food. But that could be anywhere.”

“
He’s not going to get fucking food
.”

The room went silent.

He wished everyone staring at him looked more like they got it and less like he’d lost it.

“What’s going on?” said a lazy voice from behind him.

Dan spun.

Jamie, scratching his rumpled hair, yawned in the doorway.

“What happened yesterday?” Dan said. “When did Ray finally meet up with you?”

It took forever for that fucking yawn to pass. When it did, Jamie’s voice was still thick from sleep. “I don’t know. I wasn’t looking at the clock.”

Dan grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him out of the doorway. Tempting as it was to keep shoving until he tripped down the stairs, he made a sharp turn with him instead, slamming his shoulders against the wall. “Was it after fucking
dark
?”

“It was starting to get dark maybe, yeah.”

“Did you see any bats?”

“No. But I was trying to get in the car. He’d pulled right up to the steps.”

“He didn’t get out?”

Jamie shook his head.

“Okay, good.” He kept hold of Jamie’s shoulders, staring down at nothing while he thought. When he looked back up, he said, “How long had it been getting dark?”

Before Jamie could give him another line of bullshit about clocks, he cut him off with, “How long had it been since you felt like, ‘Shit, I need to get inside?’”

Jamie’s eyes cut away.

“
How fucking dark was it?
”

Dan shoved him. The pictures on the wall jumped—third-grade class portrait, a photo of his dad grinning in wading boots, Dan in his marching band uniform with the hat’s strap digging under his chin. He let go of Jamie and stalked into the kitchen. “I need your keys, Mom.”

“I’ll need to move the truck,” Buddy said as Faye pushed back her chair.

“I really don’t care if I have to drive across the fucking yard to get out.”

“You think he’s been bitten?” Buddy said.

“I just about
know
he’s been bitten.”

“Stupid fucking asshole. Come on.” Buddy hauled his coat on. “We’ll take the truck.”

Buddy slowed. The neighborhood was dead, everyone huddled in their apartments or long gone for points west. A soccer ball lay abandoned in the dirt at the edge of a sidewalk. Curtains rippled in a window, someone clutching them back to watch the truck creep by. The corner of Ray’s driveway appeared beyond Buddy’s weather-beaten fence. Buddy turned in, tires crunching loose pebbles. After ten feet, the asphalt fell apart. Dan held his breath as Buddy pulled around the corner of the building to the parking area.

But he knew even before they rounded it that Ray’s car wouldn’t be there.

“He might have broke down somewhere and walked,” Buddy said.

The Ford’s engine rumbled.

A shopping bag kicked up from the dirt and swept across to catch in the straggle of dead weeds between the parking area and Buddy’s back yard.

“Maybe he’s getting supplies like he said,” Buddy offered.

Dan shook his head. “Go to Sound Block.” It was the one other place he knew Ray had a key to.

Buddy put the truck in reverse and did a three-point turn. “All right. Where’s it at?”

“Out by the airport.”

The truck spit pebbles as Buddy gunned it out of the driveway.

At a traffic light on South Willow, Dan stared at the BatteriesPlus building. Sun glinted off the windows, save one that looked like a missing tooth—black with jagged edges around it. A man appeared, framed in it, the collar of his hunting jacket turned up. He threw a few stuffed shopping bags out before he hauled himself through, white clouds of breath leading the way in the cold.

Buddy punched it, and they sped through the intersection.

When they came around the corner for Sound Block, the site of the Fury made Dan go rubbery inside. Had they found him too late?

Buddy cranked the truck into the lot and braked sharply. It was still rocking back when Dan threw open the door and jumped out. He grabbed the door handle and jerked. Pain shot up his arm.
Shit
. He reached for his keys—and stopped, swearing, when he remembered he didn’t
have
them.

“What’s up?” Buddy asked.

Dan kicked the door—not that Ray would hear, tucked deep in the building. “God
damn
it.”

None of the rehearsal rooms had windows. The only two on the building were the grimed-over pair at the office.

“Just a sec.” Buddy climbed over the tailgate, his boots thunking on the bed. The slam of the toolbox lid hitting the back of the cab echoed in the empty lot. He jumped down with a hammer, stuffing a pair of leather work gloves in his back pocket. Dan followed him to the corner of the building.

“Cover your eyes.”

Dan turned and crouched, his arm across his face.

Glass shattered. He spun back around. The jagged hole wasn’t big enough to climb through. Buddy pulled the gloves on and started yanking shards from the frame. They cracked as he tossed them on the ground, the sounds thin and sharp.

“Step up.” Buddy locked his fingers at knee level. Dan put one foot in there, the toe of the other against the wall, and pulled himself through as Buddy boosted him.

He tumbled the last bit, landing folded between a desk chair and a trashcan. He picked himself up and headed for the door as Buddy’s boots scrabbled against the side of the building. The door came open easier than he was expecting, banging him in the shoulder. He took off through the hall, footfalls echoing the length of it.

If Ray didn’t open the heavy wood door for him when he got to it, this whole plan was fucked.

He grabbed the handle to stop his momentum, and to verify that, yeah, it was fucking locked. He slapped the door with the palm of his hand. “Ray! Open up. It’s me.”

In the corner of his eye, he caught Buddy coming up the hall.

He pounded the door with the side of his fist. As Buddy neared, Dan put his mouth right up to it. “If you don’t open up, I’m going to bang on it till my fucking knuckles break.”

“Ray,” Buddy called, “stop playing around. Open the fucking door.”

Please don’t be dead in there already.
A tight, hot sensation pulled through him, making his eyes squeeze shut.
Please do not be fucking
dead
already.
“You can’t leave us like this,” he said, his voice thick in his throat.

Buddy jerked a look toward him.

“You didn’t even fucking say
goodbye
!” He grasped the handle and tried to force the lock.

“Ray, open the fuck up,” Buddy said. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

“Open the fucking door, Ray. It’s me and Buddy. We’re the only ones out here. Open the goddamned door.” He smelled cigarette smoke. Fresh, or not? “I know you’re in there, you asshole. Don’t tell me you’re gonna off yourself with me standing right here.”

“Don’t even fucking talk like that,” Buddy said lowly—and louder: “Ray, goddamnit!”

Dan pushed his forehead against it. “What if you fuck it up? How’m I gonna finish it for you if I’m locked out here?”

“Jesus,” Buddy said. “You fucking talk about that shit? You talk about killing yourselves after what happened to our mom?”

The knob shifted. Dan let go like it was on fire. The door opened inward. A cigarette jutted from Ray’s mouth. His tired eyes squinted through smoke.