The Hysteria: Book 4, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (20 page)

“My ass.” She took her gun out. I couldn’t blame her.

Before I could reach for the door, it opened toward us. I had my palm on the handle when I heard a familiar voice.

“Hands up.”

Megan Turner was armed with some kind of assault rifle. So were the three ski-masked people with her.

“I hope you’re right,” Manetti said.

Megan studied her partner for a long moment. Looked her up and down. Then she turned back to me.

“I told you not to look for me.”

Megan knew where to find our earpieces. She took them off and handed them to one of the men behind her. He stepped out into the rain and melted into the parking lot.

“Inside.”

She’d disarmed us already. The lobby was dark. There was a light on somewhere behind the counter where people used to get their skates and pay. Dusty arcade machines hunkered in the corner.

The place smelled like old sweat and musty leather. I couldn’t see anybody else but I knew we weren’t alone. That sixth sense we all have was firing on all cylinders. There were people in here, hiding.

“Stop.”

We stopped.

Three more armed guards showed up. They wore camos, like Mia had early this morning when she and her sister had paid me a visit. Was that really just this morning? It felt like a week ago.

Everybody except Megan was wearing a ski mask. Four of the guards circled Manetti and led her away.

“Hold on, where are you taking her?” I said.

“With me, McCloskey.” Megan nodded in the opposite direction to the small cafe. Two of her guards nudged me along. I went. They had the guns, they had the power.

And I held onto the small glimmer of hope that I was right: Megan’s people, the gunners, only killed in self-defense.

“Here.” Megan pointed to a booth. Her two guards forced me to sit down. They didn’t have to try too hard.

“Where are you taking Manetti?” I said.

“How did you find us?” Megan asked.

“Little bit of reasoning, little bit of luck.” I looked around. I could feel so many other people in the rink but I couldn’t see them. “If I can find you they can find you too.”

I leaned on that word for more reasons than one. To let her know I understood the ball game. But to also let her know where I stood in the us vs. them hypothetical.

“Where’s Pater?” she asked.

“In a van down the road.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“Scout’s honor.”

She brought up a walkie-talkie. “Check the road again.”

“How many people do you have here?”

“Who else with Pater?”

“Eamon. How many people are here?”

“Where’s Riehl?”

“He turned. The wrong way.”

She looked like her father. I wondered if she knew he was dead, that I’d killed him. And how she would take that.

I assumed blood was thicker than disease.

“What’s going on in town?” she said.

“Chaos. The police department is trying to keep it all together. They’re searching—”

“Parks, I hope.”

“Yeah. They’re doing the best they can.”

“Not too many people playing frisbee in this.” She looked over my shoulder a moment. “How many people know where you are?”

“Pater, Eamon, Manetti. How did you get them to come here? It’s outside town limits.”

“When did you last see my father?”

I looked at the guards. They’d given us a little space and had their rifles pointed away. But they were hanging on my every word.

“Few hours ago.”

“How was he?”             

“Sick.”

She nodded. “Strongbow?”

“Sick also.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the hospital.”

“He was one of them.”

“How does it work? How do you know when someone’s affected? Is there a latent period while the disease builds inside? Once you have it, do you always have it? Is it seasonal, is it dormant…what the fuck is it?”

“Us versus them.”

“Come again.”

She folded her hands on the table. I could barely see her in the darkness. The dull glow of a single bulb well behind us cast a weak glow.

“Us versus them, Eddie. Best I can figure, the sickness or the disease or whatever you want to call it, it plays on that primordial urge deep inside.” She tapped her chest. “We all have it. We try to train it out of ourselves but you can’t make yourself unhuman.”

“You sound like you’re condoning it.”

“It’s a force of nature. It’s elemental. I can’t argue with a hurricane.”

“But you can do something about it.”

She raised both arms. “Exactly why we’re here. I don’t want to kill anybody. I don’t want anybody to be killed. So I found as many as I could and brought them here. Others, they just came without needing to be told.”

“Emergence.”

“Yes.”

“Leonard told me about that.”

“Where is my father now?”

Oh boy.

She jumped all over my hesitation. “What happened?”

“I killed him.”

For a moment she was still. Not even breathing. Her palms flattened against the table. One of the guards stood, but Megan raised a hand and he stayed where he was.

I said, “Self-defense. He was going to gut me.”

She nodded twice. It took her a long time.

“We went there to get info out of him. The situation went left. It was him or me.”

She nodded again.

“I chose me.”

Her voice was thick when she spoke next. “Who was with you?”

“Manetti. Pater and Eamon showed up at the end.”

“Was he laughing?”

The question threw me for a loop. “Yes…he started laughing when…”

Megan leaned forward. She was letting me put it together.

“When Manetti showed up.” I stared at her in disbelief. “Your old man laughed around people like him?”

It explained why I never saw him around Strongbow.

“Agnes may or may not know it yet, but she is one of them.”

“That’s impossible. She passed the gun and knife test.”

“You made her hold each.”

“Yes.”

“To answer one of your earlier questions, you’re sick before you know it. The disease is latent and the symptoms do not manifest themselves right away.”

“You can tell just by looking at her?”

She nodded.

“How?”             

“I can’t explain it to you, but you will soon see for yourself.”

“What?”

“Because, Eddie, you’re one of us.”

***

It all made sense. Or rather, it made as much sense as it was going to.

“Dorothy Young…she said as much when we visited her.”

Megan leaned back and folded her arms. She was letting me get there on my own.

“That’s why she trusted me and why she didn’t trust Riehl. She shot him and in the scuffle I picked up a pair of shears…it confused her.”

Megan said nothing.

I said, “You can tell just by looking at me?”             

“Yes.”

“How?”

“There is no how. I just know.”

“How does it work? You have to explain it to me.”

“None of this will make sense, but here goes. The sickness affects everybody differently. Some people can spot others very easily, some cannot. My father’s people,
them
, they can tell us a lot earlier than we can tell them. We’re in great danger.”

“The three guys yesterday. They followed me out of the bakery. They could tell.”             

“So did Jamie.”

I nodded. “Hold on, what are you doing to Manetti?”

“Tying her up. We only kill in self-defense, unlike them.”

“I want to see her.”

“In a minute. First I want you to tell me why Pater isn’t here.”

“He is. He’s in the van outside.”

Megan Turner shook her head and I knew we were in fucking trouble. “We haven’t seen a van.”

“Hold on, he passed the gun and knife test too.”

“So did Manetti.”             

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know she’s sick yet.”

“The disease process accelerates the farther along it gets.”

“Megan, this was thirty minutes ago, max.”

“We think there is a period where they know they’re sick but can still handle firearms.”

“Quick. I’ll call him.”

“I don’t want you to call him.”

I shook my head. “I mean the cop, Detective Quick.”

“I don’t want you to call him either.”

“But you’re not going to stop me.”

She said nothing.

Before I could take out my phone, the front doors kicked open. For a moment, I heard the thunderous downpour. Then the doors slammed shut and all I could hear were footsteps and someone being forced toward us.

Megan’s guards stood and formed a wall in front of us. I turned and saw two men dragging a scared-looking Eamon Moriarty toward the cafe.

“Tell her,” one of the guards said.

They pushed Eamon forward. He looked from me to Megan.

“Megan, I’m glad we found you, but you’re in serious danger.”

Megan asked, “Where’s Patterson?”

“He’s one of them. And he knows you’re here.”             

***

Megan snapped her fingers and a few seconds later, the track lights around the skating rink came on. The lights pulsed and moved around but there was no music.

Megan said, “Okay, everybody, this is the real deal. Let’s get warmed up.”

They came out of the woodwork. Young, old, middle-aged, meek, proud, male, female. They filtered into the rink and partnered up. Many had guns strapped to themselves. A few skated solo. They did laps, slowly, deliberately.

I watched them dance.

“How…”

“We don’t know how. Some of these people couldn’t skate to save their lives before all this. Now they’re suddenly experts.”

They were all graceful, even the one heavyset dude who had to be tipping the scales at three hundred pounds.

“Can they all shoot?” I asked.

She held up her hand, palm pointed at the floor, and made the so-so gesture.

I pointed at Eamon. “What about him? Is he us or them?”

Megan studied him. She frowned. “Neither.”

“That about sums you up.” I turned to him. “Never really belonged to anything.”

“Fuck you, Eddie. I didn’t have to come here. I was out of the van and could have escaped. I came here instead. I chose to risk my life to help.”

Megan’s guards had to restrain me.

I said, “Right. Pater was probably trying to shoot you and you knew this was the only place you could find protection.”

“Eddie, take it—”

“Megan, take this fucking kid wherever you have Manetti and tie his ass up. He can’t be trusted.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“You can’t trust him!”

“We need all the help we can get right now. And I know he’s not with them.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s with us.”

“You heard him. He could have run. He didn’t. That makes him okay in my book.”

“You’re taking his word for it.”

Megan nodded. “I’ve worked with him. He’s loyal.”

“His loyalty, if he has any, lies with Pater.” I glared at Eamon. “Even if he’s not one of them, he could be here for Patterson.”

“We need him.”

“He doesn’t get a gun.”

Eamon said, “You want me to use harsh language? These people are coming to kill us. All of us.”

I ignored him. “You give him a gun and I walk. Your choice. Do you want him or me shooting?”

“Whether you stay has nothing to do with Eamon and we both know it.” Megan smiled a grim smile. “Besides, it’s all academic. We already don’t have enough guns to go around.”

I took out my cell.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m calling Quick. He can bring home the cavalry.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Nobody stopped me. I brought Quick’s number up and hit SEND.

Nothing happened.

I went through the routine again. Still nothing happened. I got an error message on the second try about there being no signal.

“Give me a fucking break,” I said.

Megan came over and checked the phone. She took hers out and glanced at the screen.

“Nobody’s making any calls, Eddie.” Megan folded her arms.

Then I remembered. “Patterson has a cell phone jammer.”