Wormfood (30 page)

I straightened, rifle in my hands.

Junior yanked on the cord and the saw started with a hungry roar. Misty backed slowly along the crest of the roof, still cradling her left hand with her right. Junior hit the trigger a couple of times and the sound of the revving engine echoed back across the floodwater.

Junior made his move and the rifle found my shoulder.

As he scrambled up the roof, chainsaw screaming, I settled, zeroing in on the saw, and fired. Junior was seven feet from Misty when his chainsaw exploded in a quick burst of fire and sparks. The bullet had found its way into the gas tank, just as I had hoped. I hadn’t wanted to take a chance on missing his head, and if I hit him in the upper body, Iwas scared that it might not even slow him down, not with Pearl’s symbols carved all over his chest. So I figured I’d take out his weapon first, give Misty a fighting chance.

The small explosion knocked Junior sideways into the roof. The chain broke loose, flipped up and over, and wrapped around Junior’s forearm, burying itself deep. He slammed into the smoking shingles, blood spraying from his arm, and slid headfirst down the roof. I thought he was just going to slip right over the edge, but he caught himself with his good arm, slid around, and started creeping back up the slope.

I found a nice sweet spot at the back of his head between the iron sights, whispered, “Fucking A plus you little cocksuckers,” and gently squeezed the trigger.

A dry click; the gun was empty. I had forgotten that there was only one bullet left after shooting at the squirrels yesterday.

Junior kept going, dragging himself up the roof toward Misty with his one arm. The other arm, the one that now looked as if it had suddenly grown a deep black tattoo, flopped helplessly next to him, leaving a trail of blood. Misty dropped to her haunches and kicked out, slamming her boot into the top of his head. All that did was piss off Junior even more. His good hand lashed out and grabbed Misty’s ankle.

I ducked back to the broken window and jerked the .270 Anschütz out of the gun rack. I jerked the bolt back, wanting to check how many shells were left, and stupidly flung a fresh shell out into the air. It hit the top of the cab and bounced off, landing somewhere out in the water. At least the clip held three more shells. I just prayed Junior couldn’t handle three bullets.

I pivoted, pulling the rifle up to my shoulder, slamming the bolt home. Through the scope, smoke from the burning roof leapt into instant, crisp clarity. I swung the rifle to the left, just in time to watch Junior jerk Misty down next to him. He grabbed her hair and rolled, pulling her on top of him.

I slid my finger anxiously around the trigger, but I couldn’t fire. Junior was using Misty as a shield. He wrapped his ruined forearm around her throat, and I could see where the teeth of the chain had bitten deep, right down to the bone. Blood surged out of the gash, washing across Misty’s chest. Junior’s eyes found mine from behind Misty’s blond hair.

I let the rifle roam down their bodies, looking for something vital, anything to shoot. I realized that being on fire was the least of Junior’s problems. He’d been in the water too long. The worms had been feasting. His charbroiled skin, from the waistband of his tight, ripped jeans, through his chest, up into his neck and across his face, rippled and bulged as countless worms writhed through the flesh underneath.

Misty, laying flat on her back on top of Junior, spread her legs, flattened her boots, and whipped her head back into Junior’s face, cracking the back of her skull into Junior’s nose. I hoped she’d broken his nose again; that would be the third time in twenty-four hours. It didn’t slow Junior down a whole lot, but it was time enough to plant the cross hairs right at the bottom zipper of his jeans. If nothing else, I figured blowing his nuts off would make me feel better.

I fired but saw only a small pop in the shingles, an inch beneath Junior’s crotch, realizing too late that the rifle had been sighted in for Misty’s eyes, not mine. “Oh, shit,” I whispered. Two bullets left.

Junior knew that I had taken a shot. He kept his bleeding arm around Misty’s neck and sat up, still hiding behind her. I saw the knife. He gripped it with his good hand, brought it over and down, sinking it into the roof between Misty’s thighs. He twisted the blade and pulled it tight to Misty’s crotch.

I got the message. If I shot him, then Misty would slide into the blade.

Misty bared her teeth, prepared to hit him again with the back of her head. But Junior was ready. He clamped his teeth together around Misty’s right ear, biting down hard. She froze. Junior let go of her, bobbed his head down, grinning at me from behind Misty’s bloody right ear. A bloody ball of snot appeared in his left nostril and sliddown his upper lip as the head of a worm appeared. It tested the air, then oozed out of Junior’s nose about an inch. Junior ignored it and grabbed her hip with his free hand and forced her pelvis down against the sloping roof, against the knife.

The worm slid out of his nose even farther, exploring his cheek. It pulled itself away from his face, probing at Misty’s ear.

You sonofabitch
, I thought.
Just brush it away, get it away from her
.

But Junior didn’t move. His eyes, huge in the crosshairs of the scope, flickered down, watching the worm. His grin got wider. The worm must have smelled the blood, because it suddenly darted forward and started wriggling into her ear. I could tell Misty felt it; she flinched, but whether she thought it was a worm or Junior’s tongue, I didn’t know.

I slid the crosshairs up to Junior’s forehead and pulled the trigger, imposing my will on the universe.

The bullet struck Junior just under his nose, neatly popping the worm in half. His head twisted against the shingle with an ugly spasm. The Anschutz left an inconspicuous hole near one nostril and a slackened face and that was all. I fired again, just to make sure. Nobody in the Sawyer family died quick enough for me. This time, his head was rolled back, face upturned to the clouds, so the bullet slammed into the soft part of his neck, just under the chin, and exited through the top of his head. Junior went limp, as if someone had suddenly cut the strings to a puppet, and he collapsed against the roof. Misty rolled off Junior, away from the knife, slapping at the severed worm twisting in her ear.

Junior slowly slid sideways down the roof. His left foot got caught in the rusted gutter and hung there for a moment, long enough for him to slip off the edge headfirst. He hit the front steps, landing hard on his head. The impact snapped his neck with a satisfying, brittle crack. The rest of his body remained curiously stiff, toppling over into the water. The pointed toes of Junior’s cowboy boots hit first, and then the rest of his body slapped the surface. I hoped the splash got the worms’ attention. He twitched once and I jerked the rifle back up, even though itwas empty, but that was all. He lay still, arms outstretched, head twisted at an unnatural angle, as if he’d tripped going up the steps.

It was done. He was dead.

Up on the roof, Misty had spent a while stomping on the worm, then caught her breath. She turned, watched me for a moment, and gave me a small wave. I set the rifle in the back of the pickup and jumped into the water, not caring about the worms. I stuck my hand down into the mud blindly, felt around for a few seconds, and managed to grab the keys. I opened the driver’s door and hopped in. A worm inched up my boots and I crushed it against the speaker in the door. The truck started right up, but either the brakes didn’t work underwater or I didn’t jump on the pedal in time, because I hit the restaurant with a dull crunch. Misty inched down the roof, through the billowing smoke and light rain, sat at the edge for a moment, then jumped onto the hood.

I leaned over and was about to open the passenger door when Bert stumbled out of the smoke onto Fat Ernst’s Cadillac.

He didn’t look too good. I could barely see his eyes, hiding back in deep, sunken hollows in his gray face. Fresh blood rolled down his left arm from the knotted rags at his shoulder. He swayed unsteadily on his feet, watching Misty.

“Bert. Hurt,” was all he said.

Misty climbed down onto the Cadillac and took Bert’s hand. He looked down at her hand, then back up at her face.

“Bert. Hurt,” he repeated.

I wasn’t sure whether Misty was going to give him a hug or just push him off the car into the water, into the worms. She kept hold of Bert’s hand, pulled him over to her pickup, and helped him climb in the back. He followed her lead silently, like a lost and confused old man who was trying to hide his fear. Misty helped him sit down, leaning against the back of the cab.

I slid over into the passenger seat as Misty climbed behind the wheel. She backed away from the restaurant about twenty feet andstopped. Neither one of us said anything, and I got worried she might not ever speak to me again, after everything that had happened. I figured she probably hated me and I’d be lucky if she didn’t just leave me here, waiting for help in the back of the Sawyers’ truck.

Instead, she reached over with her good hand and took mine. It was enough. I gently curled my bloody fingers around hers, and we sat quietly for a moment, watching the flames leap and dance. She let go for a moment, reached under her seat, and pulled out a bottle. I think it was whiskey. Whatever it was, it tasted better than the stuff I’d tasted in the truck on the way to the pit.

I twisted around to face Misty. “Listen, I—”

“Shhh,” she said, squeezing my hand.

She took another drink, then dropped the gearshift into reverse, and took my hand again as we drove away from what was left of Fat Ernst’s Bar and Grill. I turned and watched through the broken back window as the place folded in on itself in a haze of smoke. Most of the building was now nothing but broken, burning timbers, sinking slowly into the muddy water. The flames reached nearly fifteen feet high. A twisting column of smoke, swollen and almost completely black, billowed up into the wet, dark afternoon sky like a slow-moving tornado, where it blended into the angry storm clouds, spread out, and disappeared.

Misty drove straight to the nearest emergency room, nearly forty miles away down in Redding, where they spent a few hours straightening out her fingers. I got some blood. The doctors couldn’t quite figure out exactly what was wrong with Bert and wanted to run all kinds of tests on him, but he slipped away when the National Guard guys were busy watching Misty bounce up the hospital corridor, all smiles and giggles after her pain medication had kicked in. I told them we’d picked Bert up along the side of the highway and had no idea who the hell he was.

Everybody was too preoccupied with the flood to worry about much else anyway.

A few days later, when the rain had finally stopped and the floodwater had settled into nothing but miles of mudflats, somebody finally figured out that Fat Ernst’s restaurant had burned down. I don’t think many people were all that concerned, but with Ray’s police cruiser, the Sawyers’ truck, and especially Slim’s pickup scattered out in the parking lot, somebody had to take a look. Then they started finding bones. It took a week, but several skulls got unearthed. Two of them had a couple of large bullet holes. Somebody jumped to the conclusion that Junior and Slim had killed each other, and that goddamn idiot Ray had made things worse. Heck and Pearl got caught in the cross fire. That suited me fine.

The county made some half-assed attempt at an official investigation, but everybody assumed that either the flood or the fire had killed whoever had been there when Slim and Junior started shooting at each other. The flood had washed pretty much all of the evidence away. Nobody asked me and Misty anything, and we didn’t exactly volunteer any information.

A few days later, they found another skull out by the ditch. It was Grandma. They identified her back molars. I spent a day sifting through the mud and charred timbers, wearing Grandpa’s boots in case any worms were left, and eventually found her walker and the shotgun. The next day I buried Grandma’s skull next to Grandpa. Her skull looked lonely in the casket, so I put her walker and Browning .10 gauge in with it.

Nobody ever found the buckle. Or the worms.

I figure that most of the worms got washed down into the wide, flat fields of the Sacramento Valley and once the rain stopped and the floodwaters receded, they buried themselves in the mud, escaping the warm, dry rays of the sun.

I’m careful. I only drink bottled water. I don’t fish anymore. I wear Grandpa’s heavy boots all the time.

And I’ll never eat meat again.

One more moment

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