The Devil's Alphabet (16 page)

“Yeah, I know that.” Though he’d never understood exactly what the word meant: sex without sex, he supposed. “I just thought that the beta women—some of them, right?—had already had sex before the Changes, and that they’d stored up the sperm. Or the eggs. Later they released them when—what?”

The doctor was shaking her head. “Nobody’s thought that for years. They had to toss out that theory with the first guaranteed
virgin birth. There was a girl who was eight when she changed, with no evidence of previous sexual activity. She had twins when she was thirteen. Definitely no sperm involved.”

“But there are male betas,” Pax said.

“There are no ‘male’ betas, not really. Only men who contracted TDS-B during the Changes. Males who caught the B strain died at much higher rates than females. The men who survived, chemically and hormonally are practically female. TDS didn’t make them grow ovaries, but it halted their sperm production completely. Penises shriveled, testicles receded. They’re sterile and impotent.”

“Jesus,” Pax said. He felt a twinge of sympathy for Tommy Shields. “Okay, no male betas, but there’s sex with other people—”

“What other people?”

“The other clades,” he said. “Or, uh, skipped people.”

He felt his face flush. The doctor looked at him oddly. “Clades can’t breed with the unchanged, Pax. And they can’t interbreed either. We’ve known this for a decade. Charlies breed with charlies, and argos—well, we’re not sure what’s happening there.”

“But if there’s no sperm at all, then how are they—how does it work? And don’t say, ‘When a beta loves herself very, very much …’”

The doctor didn’t laugh. “No one knows. All women are born with all the eggs they’re ever going to have. The Changes allowed beta women to fertilize those eggs somehow. Or maybe they’re like aphids, born pregnant. Parthenogenesis happens in sharks and lizards and who knows how many other species, but nobody knows how it works exactly. It’s just a Greek word for ‘We don’t know what the hell is happening.’”

Paxton sat back, rubbed a hand across his face.

She said, “You look … lost.”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” He stood, thinking of Jo’s daughters. For some reason he was disappointed. When he was sent away from Switchcreek, Pax had thought that the girls were his, or maybe Deke’s, or maybe both of theirs. And later, when people on the news started talking about parthenogenesis, he’d held on to the theory that maybe, just maybe, he was still the father. It was stupid, he knew.

He said, “I better get back to bed.”

Dr. Fraelich tapped the pen against the desk. “We’ll do one final checkup in the morning, but I think you’re good enough to go home. I’ll call the Chief and tell him you’re ready for pick-up.”

“Wait a minute—Chief?”

“Deke. I’ll call Deke.”

“Oh, right.” He had a dim memory of someone else calling Deke the Chief. “Try to get some sleep, Doc.”

The next morning Pax heard a deep argo voice vibrating through the walls, and thought, Deke. He sat up quickly, and his eyes blurred with tears. Jesus, tears? What was that about?

He quickly got dressed and made his way to the reception area. He felt stronger than yesterday but still shaky. He’d finally eaten, finishing off a granola bar and a bottle of orange juice that Dr. Fraelich had brought him.

In the reception area Deke leaned on the counter talking to the doctor, a collection of orange prescription bottles on the surface between them. Doreen, the charlie girl who’d bathed him, sat at a desk behind the doctor, staring down at an open
magazine, pretending to ignore the conversation. She looked up as Pax entered and quickly looked down again, embarrassed.

Deke abruptly stopped whatever he was saying to the doctor and said to Pax, “Hey there, sleepyhead.”

Pax smiled faintly. “Howdy, Chief.”

Dr. Fraelich seemed upset, the blotches on her face angrier. She picked up the bottles and put them into a plastic bag.

Pax said, “Do you need my insurance or something? I remember signing a lot of papers.”

Deke looked at Dr. Fraelich, and she said, “You’re covered. Courtesy of Aunt Rhonda.”

“Really?” Pax said.

“Just drink plenty of water,” Dr. Fraelich said to him. Whatever familiarity they’d developed last night had been packed away.

“That’s it?” Pax said. “Three days of drug-induced coma and all I get is water?”

“A coma would have been a lot quieter and a lot easier on all of us,” she said. “You’re detoxing. Eat some fruit if you want. Just stay away from male charlies of a certain age.” She took the plastic bag of medicine and walked away before he could respond. Doreen kept her head down.

“That was … weird,” Pax said. He felt like everyone was moving at double speed, flashing signals he couldn’t detect.

“Come on, man,” Deke said. “Let’s get you home.”

Home. Which was where, exactly? Sure as hell not Chicago. He knew now that it had never been his home. He’d spent ten years marking time.

Pax followed Deke outside. It was midmorning and humid as a greenhouse. Gray clouds hid the top of Mount Clyburn, promising rain.

“You look whupped,” Deke said. “You need help getting in? You’re walking like an old man.”

“I got it. I’ve just been smacked upside the limbic system.” Pax pulled open the door and after a false start managed to hoist himself into the cab. He fell back in the high bucket seat and gazed up through the roll bars at the gray clouds.

“Thank you, man,” Pax said. “For coming to get me. For everything.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, seriously. Thank you. You’ve always been—you and Jo—you were the only people I …” His voice trailed off.

“It’s okay,” Deke said. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“I was inside his head, Deke.”

“Whose head?”

“At the church. I was next to him in the water, and I saw what he saw. He was hallucinating about the church, the way it used to be. I could see it.”

“You were doing some hallucinating yourself, P.K.”

“I don’t regret it happening, though. Okay, the hangover is hell, but I’m glad it happened.” He rolled his neck to look up at the man. “My father loves me, Deke.”

“Of course he does. He’s your father.” A strange thing for him to say, Pax thought, considering what an asshole Deke’s father had been.

“You don’t understand,” Pax said. “I
know
he does. I could feel it. I felt what he felt.”

“You’re still high,” Deke said. “Just a second.” He reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a cell phone pinched between thumb and index finger. It was a bulky, old-fashioned thing that looked tiny in his hands. He held it in front of him, not even trying to fit it to his ear. “This is Deke.”

A deep argo voice buzzed from the phone’s speakers. “Deke, this is Amos. I think we’ve got some tourists over at the Whitehall place. I just saw someone pull in. Nobody from around here.”

“You sure it’s not the police?” Deke asked.

“It ain’t that kind of car,” the voice said.

Deke looked over at Pax. “You got a minute for a detour?”

“My day is wide open,” Pax said.

D
EKE DIDN’T TURN
on a siren or flip on a light, but the drivers in town seemed to recognize that he was on business and stayed out of his way. Once Deke cleared the curve at the elementary school and turned onto Creek Road he hit the gas. Mount Clyburn rose up ahead, shrouded in mist. They seemed to be driving straight into it.

“So you’re chief of what, exactly?” Pax said.

“Pardon?”

Pax raised his voice over the wind. “Police? Fire? The Cherokee tribe?”

Deke shrugged. “It’s just a nickname.”

“Right.”

“I helped set up the VFD, the volunteer fire department. Plus I do other, uh, community stuff. Keeping the peace.”

“You mean cop stuff.”

“County cops don’t like to patrol here. People don’t like the cops much either. They need somebody local to step in and help out sometimes.”

At least that explained the police scanner. “So do you get paid for this?”

Deke laughed. “It’s more of a barter system.”

“Sure. Chickens, goats, that kind of thing. Do you have a gun?”

“Hell no.”

“Deke, it’s Tennessee! Every hillbilly out here has a gun.”

“That’s a stereotype, man.” Pax laughed, and after a few beats, Deke said, “But yeah, everybody’s got a shotgun in the closet, and that’s why I make sure everybody knows I don’t carry. You see a twelve-foot mother walking up to your house it’s bad enough, but carrying a shotgun to boot? Last thing I need is some drunk chub so shit-scared he
has
to shoot me. Any more questions?”

“Yeah,” Pax said. “What do you do in this thing when it rains?”

“Rain is not allowed to enter this vehicle. I’m the fucking Chief.”

They reached Jo’s house and turned onto the steep, curved drive. Deke parked in front of the house. Tucked around the side of the house, as if trying to hide, was the back end of a light blue Prius.

“Amos was right,” Pax said. As if he had any idea who Amos was besides a voice on the phone. “The cops would never drive a hybrid.”

Deke stepped out of the Jeep and said, “Why don’t you stay here a second while I talk to these folks.”

He walked toward the car in the slumped stroll of the argos, long arms swinging slowly. He bent to look inside the back window of the vehicle, then stepped around the corner of the house and out of sight.

Pax looked up. The oak loomed over the house.

He unbuckled his seat belt and stepped down out of the Jeep, his knees a bit wobbly. Of course tourists would come
here, he thought. In your tour of Monster Town, why not visit the place where the tragic blank girl lived, the tree where she died? He took a few steps toward the side of the house and then the front door banged open.

A white man in a T-shirt and cargo shorts burst through the doorway and leaped off the steps. He landed awkwardly, and a palm-sized chunk of silver flew out of his hand and landed in the grass. He looked up at Pax with a shocked expression, then sprang to his feet and ran pell-mell for the Toyota.

Pax looked back at the house, expecting Deke to come charging out the door, but the big man was nowhere to be seen. “Deke?” Pax called. “You okay?”

The Prius backed up, then swung around so that the nose was pointing at the Jeep. Pax thought about stepping into its path, then thought better of it. He moved to the driver’s side of the Jeep, leaned over the door, and pressed on the horn.

The Prius lurched forward, passed the Jeep, and headed down to the driveway. Pax looked back at the house just as Deke rounded the corner. He was bent over, legs and long arms churning, running like a huge gorilla. The motion looked much more natural than his usual gait. Graceful. Right.

“Car!” Pax said, and pointed down the road. A stupid gesture; Deke could see the car as easily as he could. The Prius slid around the first curve, spitting gravel.

Deke jerked left and launched himself down the hill, into the trees, on a path that cut through the S of the road like the slash in a dollar sign.

Pax had never seen anyone move so fast.

He opened the Jeep door with some vague idea of following, but then looked down at the pedals six feet from the driver’s seat and realized—or rather, remembered again—that
he’d never be able to drive this thing. Plus, Deke had taken the keys. Maybe he should chase them down the gravel driveway? Before he could make up his mind he heard the shattering of glass and the scrape of tires locking up on loose gravel.

A minute later Deke appeared, walking upright back up the hill with the man slung over one shoulder like a deer carcass.

“He’s not dead, is he?” Pax asked.

“You’re hurting me!” the man said.

Deke strode up to the house, dropped the man onto his feet. “Inside,” Deke ordered him, argo voice set to Full Rumble.

Pax started to follow, then turned back to the yard. He looked around for a minute, then found the thing the man had dropped—a camera. By the time Pax got into the house the man was sitting on a couch, looking sour. Deke sat across from him, crouching to fit under the low ceiling.

The atmosphere was close, hotter than outside. And even without Deke’s huge body the room would have felt small. Bookshelves of varying heights lined the walls like battlements. Crowded into the center of the room were the couch and an easy chair in matching brown and blue plaid, worn but not worn out. Along one wall, a plank spanned two bookshelves, forming a long homemade desk. Three wooden chairs, a different colored pillow tied to each seat, were lined up along the desk. He pictured Jo and the two girls sitting in a row, doing homework.

“You smashed in my window,” the man said. He was a little younger than Pax, with a head shaped like a candy corn: a brush of bleached hair, a broad forehead, and cheekbones that narrowed to an elfin chin, a dark soul patch under his lower lip like the dot in an exclamation mark. Something about the hair and the deliberate counter-culture look said that he came from money.

“Next time you’ll stop,” Deke said. “Now, empty your pockets.”

“I didn’t steal anything!” he said. “I’m a journalist.”

“Really,” Pax said. He swung the camera on its nylon lanyard. “For who?”

The man didn’t answer. Deke grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Pax said, “I think you should answer our questions.”

“Fuck you,” the man said.

Deke grabbed him by his face, his fist completely engulfing his head, and the man screamed into it. Deke’s face was rigid with anger. His white arm trembled, as if he were on the verge of cracking his skull like an egg.

“Deke! Shit, Deke!”

Deke held the man for several seconds. Then the trembling stopped, and Deke released him. He felt to the floor, gasping.

“Your pockets,” Deke said.

According to his driver’s license he was Andrew Weygand, twenty-three years old, from Wheeling, West Virginia, and an organ donor. He said he ran a website called TheOpenSwitch.com. “TOS does investigative articles, opinion pieces—”

“Jesus, he’s a blogger,” Pax said. “Arrest him, Deke.”

“You’re a cop?” the man said. Pax couldn’t tell if he was alarmed or relieved.