Devil’s Wake Read online

  Vern tilted his head and shook a Camel out of its wrinkled pack. He didn’t smoke in front of Molly, his wife and the camp nurse. Not that she didn’t know he smoked. It was just a little game they played. “Forty.”

  “Forty-five.”

  “Deal. Net sixty?”

  “Works for me. See you brought some strong backs to help out.” Now he looked at Piranha, who was busy cleaning his fingernails with a toothpick, studying the results as if they were far more important than anything Sally might have on his mind.

  “Anyway… let’s get to it.” He leveraged himself up from the desk and headed with them back down the stairs. The market was bustling, and would be for another three hours until the shops closed for the day, and only the restaurants would stay open. Terry was wondering when he’d have time to grab that doughnut. Those doughnuts, actually. If he didn’t bring back a half dozen, he’d catch holy hell from the Twins.

  In glass display cases, rows of dead fish gaped into the great beyond, glassy eyes staring at the customers. There was an odd sense of surprise in that expression. As if to say: A net? It was a net? How did that happen?

  The room beyond the display cases was an ice cave, a kind of dry cold that felt exactly like walking into a refrigerator, which it was. “The red stack,” Sally said, pointing out a flat loaded to the ceiling with red boxes.

  “I’m going back up. Get us some coffee for the drive back,” Vern said. Then the cousins went back upstairs and left them in the cold. Piranha took the first dolly, and pushed it out through the double doors and down the sidewalk.

  Terry took the second, a stack of six boxes packed with ice and fish, and levered back on the handle. Had to weigh two hundred pounds, but he managed to find the balance point, and was strong enough to steer.

  He and Piranha stacked the fish into the van, came back, made another run while Vern loafed about in Sally’s office and smoked Camels.

  On their fourth run, Terry guessed that they were almost done. He was just thinking about those buttermilk bars again, savoring the first spongy bite, when he heard the first scream.

  It was high, wavering. Disbelieving. A woman’s voice. Pain.

  Terry and Piranha looked at each other. Piranha acted like he didn’t give a damn about anything, but Terry knew different. He’d watched the way the big guy had picked up the little girl who broke her toe in the Friday-night talent show a month back. Carried her as gently as a glass doll. He acted hard, but Terry suspected it was just that—an act.

  A woman was running along Pike Street, one hand clasped to the side of her neck, or perhaps at the juncture of neck and shoulder, as if trying to hold something in place. She was a thin woman, a “whisper,” as Terry’s dad used to say, wearing a T-shirt that said HODAD’S OPEN 24 HOURS!

  That shirt, gold letters against black, was stained red. And red leaked between the fingers pressed to her neck. Piranha had taken a few steps in her direction when there was another scream, and then another, and people were running in all directions.

  “Holy—” Terry didn’t get the rest of the thought out, because something was coming down Pike Street, and it was, as Terry’s father had often said, bigger than a butterfly and hotter than hell.

  The guy was the size of a pro fullback but dressed like a cop. Terry had never actually seen a pro fullback, except on TV, but his chest and back swelled out of his torn blue uniform. The face above the muscular chest was distorted with rage, or pain, or… something.

  His eyes were crimson. And by that, Terry didn’t mean like his old man after a night down at the Lancelot. No, it was as if those eyes were bleeding. The big cop was grabbing people as they ran, pulling them close—

  And then taking a bite. Just one bite. Arm, face—people were stunned, fleeing in all directions. Terry saw Vern rumble down the stairs carrying a big silver thermos—curious, not alarmed, just wondering what all the fuss was about—and turn the corner, coming face-to-face with the big man with the bloody eyes.

  Vern’s back was to him, but he imagined that his black eyes must have gone wide.

  “Mr. Stoffer!” Piranha screamed, running now, and damn, he was fast, flying, even though he really didn’t care much for Stoffer, and not at all for his redneck cousin. But it didn’t matter. Before the big kid was even halfway there, the cop had his hands on Stoffer’s arm, and yanked him around. Now he could see Stoffer’s face, and the expression was such pure shock, such what-the-hell that it was almost comical. The cop stared at him, red eyes to black eyes, and then those bloody teeth snapped forward, tearing at the upper arm.

  Stoffer screeched and tried to yank his arm away, and his cousin Sally jumped with astonishing agility, hitting the big guy from the side. The cop staggered, but didn’t go down. Then Piranha was there, and he saw the grappling and tussling and the blood and seemed uninterested in joining the mob. Instead, he picked up a mop someone had been using to wipe up a spreading stain of melting ice, and smashed it across the big man’s neck.

  Then Terry was there, and managed to get ahold of one of the muscular arms. Damn he was strong! Sucker had three guys on him, but the cop was still almost upright, as if he was on crack or meth. For a moment his leg buckled, and it seemed as if he was going down, then he turned his face to Terry, and at this range he could clearly see the thread of little red veins… more like little vines, really… all over the whites of his eyes.

  Then the man convulsed, throwing them off, and got up. He seemed to be distracted, disoriented, as if uncertain where… or even who… he was.

  The cop staggered out into the middle of Pike Street just as a car speeding the other way, slewing to avoid one of the fleeing pedestrians, slammed into him, sending him cartwheeling into that Great Doughnut Shop in the sky.

  “Jesus. Jesus…” Vern moaned, holding his arm, and looking up at them through the shock. And then, just as if the third time was the charm, he added another fervent “Jesus.”

  Cousin Sally was blubbering, his hands covered with blood. “What the hell—get him out of here!” People were still running in all directions. There was another disturbance about fifty feet away, more people screaming, and Terry didn’t need another invitation. They got Vern to the van, buckled in, and took off as sirens began to howl from the other direction.

  Terry drove fast. Without the tie-downs, the flats of frozen fish in the back of the van bounced and swayed in response to the road. Vern sat in the back, holding his arm, as Piranha did a pretty decent job of sponging out the semicircle of nasty bite dimples. It was bleeding, but not rapidly. No arteries, then. “Damn it! Damn it,” Vern murmured, laying his head back against the seat. “I want to get back, clean this up, hit the sack. Then first thing, Molly’s a nurse. She can take care of me.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sleepy. Tired.” He closed his eyes.

  Piranha nudged him with his elbow. “You stay awake until Molly says it’s all right for you to sleep. Deal?”

  “Tomorrow. We got to get the fish back,” Vern moaned. “Damn.”

  Piranha and Terry exchanged a dubious glance. “I don’t know, but maybe you’ve got a little concussion or something,” Piranha said. “Have some coffee,” and offered him a drink from the thermos.

  “I’m scared,” Vern said quietly. “Something’s wrong. I feel it.”

  Vern drank coffee the whole way back, and Piranha kept him talking. They were listening to the radio, and the usual rants against socialist liberals were being interrupted by news broadcasts suggesting that while Pike Street had been terrible, there were at least ten other incidents across the city and south to SeaTac, involving at least twenty bug-nuts biters. It was suggested that anyone bitten should seek medical attention.

  Well, Terry supposed first thing in the morning would be good enough. And Vern said to see a doctor within the next couple of days, maybe get a tetanus shot. And after all, Molly was a nurse. All in all, heading back to Meadows sounded like a fine idea to Terry.

  He cursed to himself.

  Dammit! He�
��d forgotten the doughnuts.

  FOUR

  7:35 p.m. Longview, Washington

  I have to write this down because Mr. Kaplan says writers should capture the moments in our lives, good and bad, and this is a day in history like 9/11, but worse, because it happened right in front of me.

  I’m writing this in my room. The door downstairs is locked but there is shooting outside. I smell smoke from houses only a few streets away. My hand is shaking so much I can barely write this, but I’m afraid NOT to write this because somebody has to. People are going crazy. At first we thought it was just in L.A., and then just in Portland, but on the news they’re saying it’s happening all over the country and nobody knows why.

  I had to stop and take a nap. They’re saying not to let bit people go to sleep, but I wasn’t bit. Hope it’s all right if I just curl up and let the world go away for a while. When I’m awake, I only cry or stare at the ceiling. No appetite, and Mom thinks if I keep writing I might not be so scared and depressed like the people on the radio talking about Portland General. Or maybe I should say Portland in general. The country in general.

  I’ll write about what happened at the hospital one day, but my hand starts shaking every time I think about it, so I’ll start with how we got the hell away from there.

  Mom had to drive because Dad hurt his ankle. The bite’s just a scratch, a nothing nick through his sock, but he said his foot felt like it was getting numb and he was sleepy, just like they’re saying on the radio. “You need a hospital, Dev,” Mom said. We just gave her a look, and almost laughed. Almost. We could only go home.

  On the road, people were driving like they were drunk, and the radio was babbling about how crankheads were biting people. Maybe twenty cases across Portland, and hundreds of cases across the country. I heard the word “terrorist” fifty times in thirty minutes. Somebody else said something about the flu shot. (Thank you, God, for saving me from that shot. I’m not a psychic, but I knew I shouldn’t get it.) The radio was all dueling doctors, this expert talking over that expert, and nobody sure of anything. Some guy with a southern accent said that it wasn’t the flu shot, blaming that yahanna mushroom diet. Bottles of the stuff had been found in the houses of lots of the biters. Yahanna was that mushroom that kills your appetite. Chubbies love it. Cheaper than tummy staples, and safe as baby aspirin. Yeah, right.

  Mom’s all over the theories, already appointing herself an expert: “What if it’s both? What if this is only happening to people who take both?”

  The I-5 was belly-to-butt all the way back up to Longview. I saw two people wrestling around on the side of the road. At least… I think they were just fighting. I hope.

  We got home and locked the door. And the windows. Mom dressed Daddy’s ankle and talked about taking him to the clinic, but after what happened in Portland, I think they’re afraid to leave the house. I didn’t get bitten, but I’m tired just like Dad. All I want to do is sleep. Writing this down has helped. Some. Not enough. But some.

  I smell smoke outside. Someone is screaming and the air is filled with sirens. Please, God. Help me. Someone help us. I’m so scared.

  Daddy says it’s time to go to the basement. He says no matter what Mom thinks, he has to go to sleep.

  FIVE

  8:10 p.m.

  Camp Round Meadows Summer Camp

  Olympic Forest Area, Washington

  It was dark by the time Terry Whittaker glimpsed the rectangular blue sign marked ROUND MEADOWS. He’d nearly driven off the dirt road a dozen times. He hadn’t thought about how handy streetlamps were until he realized there weren’t any, not a single one, in the woods. He had cramps in his ankle and fingers from his steady pressure on the accelerator and his death grip on the steering wheel.

  Jolly Molly Stoffer met them at the turnaround, her plump face bright with alarm. “Are you all right, babykins?” she said to her husband, Vern, pulling open the back door.

  “… just… really tired.” His face sagged like a melting Mr. Potato Head.

  Really tired. Total understatement. For the last hour Piranha had fought to keep Vern’s eyes open. He might have even slapped Vern once.

  “Wish you coulda seen a doctor. You were right near the best hospitals!” Molly scolded him, but Terry wasn’t sure Vern heard her, the way his head rocked.

  “No way we wanted to stay in Seattle,” Piranha said. His real name was Charlie Cawthone, and his skill at coin matching and three-card monte had brought him to the attention of the Seattle juvenile justice system. Hacking his stepdad’s office computer had been the frosting on the cookie. Like the rest of the Round Meadows Five, he’d been sentenced to a summer of chopping nettles and herding brats. That was bad enough, but this afternoon’s chaos at Pike Place Market was just the pickle on the turd sandwich Terry currently called his life.

  Molly sighed, tugging at Vern’s eyelids to try to see his eyes. “Yeah, there was a ruckus down at the hospital in Portland, so maybe it’s for the best. Let’s get you under the light,” she said. “Take a look at that head. You hit it?”

  Vern yawned, a cavern. “No. Just that goddamn bite. Itches like hell.”

  Molly half-gasped, more shocked by his language than his condition. “Well, let’s take care of you and get you to sleep. God had nothing to do with that bite.”

  That’s for sure, Terry thought, remembering the crazed cop who had attacked Vern at the marketplace during their run to pick up fish from Vern’s cousin. At least the guy had been dressed like a cop when he started chomping everyone around him. Damn.

  Vern moved so unsteadily that Piranha and Terry each took an arm to lead him out of the van, but his eyes were only on Molly. “I’m sleepy, but…” Vern swallowed. “Not just that. I closed my eyes, and got scared. Really, really scared, Molly. Like…” He ran out of words for it.

  “You poor old bear,” she said.

  “Need help getting him inside?” Terry said. He hoped she’d say no. Terry wanted to be far away from Vern and his troubles. He wanted to start telling the story, embellishing with enough jokes to siphon some of the acid out of his veins. McGruff the crime dog says Seattle’s found a new way to take a bite out of crime!

  “No, you boys have done enough,” Molly said. “Thanks, but it’s all right. If I need anything, I’ll let you know.”

  She put an arm around Vern’s wide waist and led him up the half-dozen wooden steps to the weathered wood-frame main house, which they called the Palace. Their dog, Hipshot, a friendly and territorial black retriever mix, approached Vern with a feverishly wagging tail. At first. But instead of doing his happy dance and pawing Vern’s thigh, Hippy whined and backed away, his tail curled between his legs.

  Weird. So weird, in fact, that Terry and Piranha exchanged a look. That dog worshipped Vern. Would drink his piss out of a Dixie cup. What did Hipshot know that the rest of them didn’t?

  If only they’d had a clue.

  The staff lounge was drab wood-plank walls except for its picture windows; the walls were decorated with huge mounted fish someone had caught, or bought, over the years. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were piping from the old CD player; not Terry’s favorite group, but he’d take any music over the news. The room smelled like mildewed carpet and simmering soup. Home sweet home.

  Terry never thought he’d get sick of pine trees, fresh air, and sunshine, but sometimes prison only looked like paradise. Round Meadows—or as Terry liked to call it, Alcatraz North—was a tiny chunk of the six-hundred-thousand-acre Olympic wilderness area, flat land between two jagged hemlock-and-red-cedar-covered ridges near Mount Washington. It was federal land, leased to the state and rented to church and youth groups for summer camp. Nursemaiding brats at summer camp was the last way Terry wanted to spend the summer before senior year in high school. And if he hadn’t used the nail gun on stepdad Marty, he wouldn’t be in this jam—that and a couple of other incidents where he had given people who desperately needed a black eye or busted lip their heart’s secret desire. It was
n’t his fault: his fist was merely the instrument of their deliverance.

  Terry had almost chosen juvie over summer camp duty, but his sister had begged him not to punish himself for what Marty had done to her. Lisa had been through enough. Between his sister’s pleas and the promise of fresh air, he’d signed up. In the old days, guys went to war to avoid jail. Terry figured this wasn’t much better.

  The Indian Twins, Dean Kitsap and Darius Phillips, were back from whatever gentler errands they’d been assigned, sitting with their feet up on the ends of the sagging couch, as they always did. They weren’t really twins, or brothers at all; actually, they were distant cousins. And Dean didn’t even have to be in Round Meadows—he just hung around to amuse himself. Both Darius and Dean were Suquamish Indians, but Darius’s mother had left Bainbridge Island as a teenager and married a Red Lobster crew chief over in Seattle.

  One day, car-thieving Darius had gone to the trading post in Sequim to buy supplies and ran into his doppelgänger. The way they looked, everyone assumed they were brothers, so they let campers and parents believe it. Dean had hung around so much, and had such a wide cross-section of useful skills, that Vern had hired him for the summer. Their olive skin and long black hair reinforced the image they liked to project: Plains warriors trapped in the wrong century. They both loved cherry-red motorcycles: Dean’s was a Honda Interceptor, Darius’s a Kawasaki Ninja 250R, and the brrrr of the engines could be heard around the camp at the oddest places and hours. Brothers from other mothers.

  Sonia Petansu was also lounging, doing a Sudoku puzzle at the wobbly pinewood table. She was the only female in their group, tallish with a sinewy body, straight black hair with a streak of white, and a fondness for shoplifting. She’d taken her cooking rotation last night, and despite her abundance of attitude, actually served a mean marinara. Tonight, Darius was making some kind of stew.