Over Your Dead Body (2 page)

“Quality Feed and Fertilizer,” said Brooke. “Q and R. And over there’s an S, T, U … V. Video Rental. They still rent videos in this town? Did we hitchhike into the past?”

“Looks closed,” I said. We’d had a place like that in Clayton—it rode the home DVD boom, then crumbled when the Internet made their business obsolete. They’d closed a few years ago, and nothing had moved into the building. Looked like the same story here.

“At least they left the sign up,” said Brooke. “I’m glad
somebody
in this town was thinking about my needs.” She grimaced, and looked at me. “What’s it called again?”

“The town?” I asked. She might have just switched personalities again; a lot of ideas transferred from one to the next, but some didn’t, and she tried to hide the transitions by faking a poor memory. “Baker,” I told her. “We’re here to look for The Spirit of Light Collective.”

“Yashodh,” said Brooke, nodding. “We’re going to kill him.”

I felt the old, familiar pull of death. “Or he’ll kill us.”

“You say that every time.”

“One of these days it’ll be true.”

The truck was slowing, probably looking for a good place to drop us off. I grabbed the strap of my backpack, getting ready to jump out, but saw that Brooke was ignoring hers, staring instead at the buildings we were driving past: tall brick storefronts with ornate, peaked facades on the second story. Some of them were painted, some were covered with wooden or vinyl siding, others were bare brick or bore the residue of old-timey signs too weathered to read. A barber shop. An antique store. A pizza place that looked way more modern than the rest of the street. I wondered if we could beg any food from the back door.

The truck pulled to the side of the road, by a bright green lawn in some kind of town plaza—city hall probably—and I was already over the side and reaching back for Brooke’s bag when the driver rolled down his window. “This good? I could take you a few more blocks if you want.”

“This is perfect,” I said. A few more blocks would have been nice, through the town and out the other side where we could infiltrate at our own pace, but it never helped to ask the drivers for extras. Always make them feel generous, not put upon—like they would have done more if they could, instead of wishing they’d done less. Instead I pointed at the tailgate. “Do you mind if I open the back to get the dog out?”

“No problem,” said the driver. He didn’t offer to help, which meant I was probably right to refuse the extra ride. He was already forgetting us, free of his hitchhiker burden with his mind a mile down the road. I dropped the tailgate and lifted Boy Dog out, smelling the strong scent of dirt and hound. He needed a bath as much as I did. He sat on the sidewalk where I left him, scratching his ear with his stubby front leg, and I offered Brooke my hand. She seemed lost in some kind of reverie again, all too common for her, and I said her name to get her attention.

“Brooke?”

She turned to look at me, but her eyes showed no recognition. “Who?”

“Lucinda.” I said, remembering. There was no response, so I tried another. “Kveta?”

“I’m…” She paused. “I’m so sorry, John.”

The warning signs were all over her face—the disorientation, the downcast eyes, the subtle whine in her voice. I put on my biggest smile and grabbed her hand, knowing that physical contact was one of the best ways of bringing her out of a mood swing. “We got here early,” I said, “everything’s great.”

“I don’t want to be this way,” she said, not moving. I tugged gently on her hand, trying not to glance at the driver for signs of impatience. If he yelled at her to hurry, it would only make her worse.

She remembered the lives of a hundred thousand girls, and she remembered dying as every single one of them. Suicide was as natural to Brooke as breathing.

“You want some pizza for dinner?” I asked. “I saw a good place about a block back.”

“We can’t afford pizza.”

“We can splurge,” I said, and pulled on her again. “Come on, let’s go take a look. What do you think they have here, deep dish or New York style?”

She didn’t respond to the conversational bait, but another gentle tug on her arm finally prompted her to climb down from the truck bed. She dusted herself off with a grimace, showing far more emotion than the dirt seemed to merit. I risked letting go of her for three precious seconds, closing the tailgate and shouting a thank you to the driver. He drove off without a word, and Boy Dog barked irritably at the cloud of exhaust that puffed into his face.

“My name is Pearl,” said Brooke. “Pearly, they called me, and my father said I was the jewel of his life. I had a dozen suitors, and the finest horse in the county. We won all the races that year, but they let me win. I don’t know why. I was horrible, and if I’d lived to know them better they’d have seen me for what I was—”

“I’m starving,” I said, cutting her off instantly at the mention of death. I had one of her hands clasped in mine, and brought up the other quickly, looking closely at her eyes, not talking her out of it because that never worked, but talking around it. Distracting her from it. “My favorite pizza topping is mushrooms,” I said. “I know a lot of people don’t like them, but I think they’re delicious—soft, savory, full of this incredible flavor. When you put them on a pizza they get roasted right there in the oven, hot and fresh, and they go perfectly with the tomato sauce. Do you like mushrooms?”

“I threw myself off of that horse,” said Pearl. “I … don’t even remember his name. He’s not the one that killed me, anyway, it was the ones behind me. No one could swerve in time, and they trampled me right there in front of everybody.”

“What about pepperoni?” I asked. “Everybody likes pepperoni. And that red pepper stuff you can shake on top—you think this place has that? Let’s go check it out.”

“Will you stop it!” she yelled. “I know what you’re doing, and I hate it! You always treat me like this!”

I took a deep breath, trying not to look too worried—this wasn’t exactly a bustling street, but if she attracted too much attention it could be disastrous. Even without a suicide attempt, there were people looking for us—people and things. Things we desperately didn’t want to be found by. If she started fighting me, the police would get involved and we might be trapped for good. I spoke softly, rubbing her fingers with my thumb.

“You’re tired,” I said. “You’re probably exhausted, and starving, and uncomfortable, and that’s all my fault, and I’m sorry.”

“Shut up!” She tried to yank her hands away, but I held tight.

“You need to rest,” I continued, “and get some food, and change your clothes. And maybe we can sleep in a real motel tonight. Does that sound good?”

“You don’t want to stay with me,” she said, swinging in half a heartbeat from hating me to blaming herself. “I’m horrible. I screw everything up. You could be doing this so much better without me—”

“I couldn’t be doing this at all without you,” I said. “We’re a team, remember? You’re the brains and I’m the hands. Partners to the end. The only deadweight is Boy Dog.” I cringed immediately after saying it, cursing whatever neural pathway had brought out the word “deadweight,” but she didn’t react. She stayed still, looking at the ground, and I looked up as a semi rumbled past, spitting gravel at us from under the tires. Boy Dog barked again, a short, halfhearted yelp. I changed tactics, and pointed at the receding truck. “Weller Shipping; there’s your W. All we need now is an X, and there’s bound to be a … saxophone shop around here somewhere, right? Axle repair? A pet store that specializes in oxes and foxes?”

I stepped toward the sidewalk, trying to pull her toward somewhere, anywhere, that she could sit down and eat and get some water, but she slipped out of my hand and ran toward the middle of the street—

—straight into the path of another semi. I spun on my heel and reached for her, missing her trailing fingers by half an inch. The truck blared its horn in angry warning, slamming on its brakes, and Brooke planted herself in front of it, spreading her arms and closing her eyes. I ran toward her, watching from the corner of my eye as the truck swerved, hoping I could get Brooke out of its way without even knowing what its new way was. I collided with her in a football tackle, pushing her toward the side of the road, stumbling and scrambling to stay on my feet, until finally we collapsed in the gutter on the far side, bouncing off a rusted fender as we fell between two cars. The semi roared past, correcting its course, avoiding a crash by the width of an eyelash. Brooke was sobbing, and I checked her quickly for injuries—scrapes on her arms, a tear in her jeans, but no broken bones or cuts that I could see. My own right arm was a mass of blood and gravel, which I brushed away gingerly.

“You okay?” asked a passing pedestrian. He looked down at us from over an armload of brown cardboard boxes.

“We’re fine,” I said, though my arm felt like it was on fire.

“You ought to get that looked at,” he added, then hesitated, and continued walking.

Somebody else’s problem.

Brooke was still crying, curled up in the gutter. I rested my hand on her arm, looking around to see who else, if anyone, had noticed our near miss. If anyone had, they weren’t coming out of their shops to mention it. I wanted to scream at them, to rage against the entire world for allowing this scrawny, broken girl to be so coldly forgotten and ignored. I wanted to kill them all. But being ignored was the best thing we could hope for, and I couldn’t risk making a scene. I turned back to Brooke. “It’s okay,” I said softly. “It’s okay.”

“You saved me,” said Brooke.

“Every time,” I said. “You know I always will.”

“You shouldn’t,” she said. “I’m not worth it.”

“Don’t say that.” The sky was growing darker; we needed to find shelter and a shower, now more than ever, and probably some antiseptic for my arm. I couldn’t risk the clinic, though—they’d ask too many questions, and try to pry out information we couldn’t give. A pharmacy, maybe. Even a little town like this ought to have one somewhere
. And the sign will have an RX on it
, I thought.
Maybe that will cheer her up.
I stood slowly, reaching for her with my good arm, but she caught me and pulled me back down to the curb, clutching me in a sad, desperate hug.

She sat up, wiping the tears and dirt from her face. “I love you, John,” she said.

“I know you do.” I tried to say it back—I always tried to say it back—but I couldn’t make the words come out. I’d only ever loved one person, but Nobody had possessed Marci and killed her before moving on to Brooke, now almost two years ago. The monster had come for her, and I was one victim too late to save her. At least I’d saved Brooke.

And guessed I was going to keep saving her until the day I died.

2

I woke up with Boy Dog’s back in my face, warm and itchy. His body expanded slowly as he breathed in, pressing against my nose, driving the little hairs into my skin. I rolled over, feeling a stiff ache in my muscles and a sudden sense of disorientation at the hard, flat ground beneath me. Where were the bumps and the roots and the…? I opened my eyes wider. I was shrouded in darkness with, somehow, a perfectly vertical line of bright light off to the side. I focused on it and remembered the curtains. We were in a motel. The curtains were closed. I sat up and Boy Dog twitched, his stubby legs moving three times and then falling still again. We were on the floor.

I looked at the bed and saw Brooke, the covers kicked off her body but twisted around one leg. Her chest rose and fell, just like Boy Dog’s. How much nicer, I thought, to have woken up with that pressed against me instead?

I corrected myself immediately: with
her
pressed against me. And then I corrected myself again: I couldn’t touch her at all. She thought she loved me, but I couldn’t love her back. I had broken her before, by failing to catch the demon called Nobody, and now it was all I could do to keep her from breaking again. She was my responsibility, not my girlfriend.

I saw the shape of her body under her clothes, the hint of pale skin at her waist.

I went to the bathroom, keeping the light off, and washed my face in the dark. The towels were thin, like dishrags. I stared at my silhouette in the mirror, a dark outline barely separate from the dark room behind it. The corner of the glass was cracked and the mirrored surface was flaking away.

Brooke and I had been on the road for seven months now, hunting monsters. I had always called them demons, but they called themselves Withered or Gifted, depending on whether they saw their lives as a curse or a blessing. I’d killed the first one on my own, almost four years ago now. And while I’d tried to keep the rest of the world out of it, this dark, hidden underworld had started pulling others in, killing or corrupting everyone I knew. Everything I touched. My mother had died, and Marci, and Brooke had been saved but only by the barest definition. I sometimes wondered if she would have been better off dead.

I saw the shape of her body again like an afterimage in my mind, so still and silent in the bed.

I sat down on the old chair in the corner of the room, pulling on my shoes as the wood creaked softly with each tiny movement. I’d been sleeping in front of the door—Brooke sometimes walked in her sleep—so Boy Dog was there now as well, blocking me from opening it more than a foot. I undid the chain and tried to slip through, but Boy Dog woke up and scrambled to his feet, shaking and rattling his collar. I hushed him, putting my hand on his neck, and he followed me outside. The light seemed blinding, but as my eyes adjusted I saw that it was still early morning, the whole world bathed in predawn blue. I stretched and rubbed my arms. Across the parking lot someone was throwing a fat white bag in a garbage can.
The
garbage can, I supposed. That’s how they thought of it, the people who lived here: it was their garbage can. Their home. To me it was just another place, just another parking lot, just another stop on the highway that was taking us … somewhere, I guess. We had no specific plans. We were hunting Withered and we went where they did, and whoever—or whatever—was hunting us came after. We had to stay one step ahead, or more if we could manage it. I honestly had no idea how many steps behind us they might be; if you run fast enough, you’re so far ahead you have no idea who’s chasing you.