Scorpion Shards (15 page)

They looked at each other's faces, for the first time seeing the ravages of the infestation for what they really were. The creature that hid within Lourdes crushed life out of others and turned it into fat. The one clinging to Tory could turn flesh rancid from disease. The one in Winston paralyzed anything it touched and was stealing Winston's life away years at a time. And everyone knew what Michael's did.

“Why us?” said Winston, shaking his head, still not wanting to believe.

“Because we're star-shards,” answered Tory. “It's like that elephant and the giant tapeworm; these monsters can only live and grow inside of
us
.” Tory tried to feel the creature within her, but all she could feel was the pain in her face and her joints. “We might have the world's biggest souls . . . but they've become infested by the blackest parasites that ever existed.”

“Could be that everyone's got them,” suggested Lourdes. “. . . It's just that ours have grown a few million times bigger than normal.”

Winston shivered. “Cosmic Killer Leeches,” he said. “I wish my father were alive—he could have pulled a cure right out of his pharmacy.”

“Yeah,” said Michael. “Shampoo twice a day, and drink lots of sulfuric acid.” They all laughed at that, and found it strange that they could laugh at all. Perhaps they weren't as hopeless and helpless as they thought.

“We gotta figure out a way to destroy them,” said Tory, “before they destroy us.”

“Or worse,” said Lourdes.

Tory looked at Lourdes, wondering what could possibly be worse than having an invisible parasite rout your soul . . . and then she looked at the central card that Bayless had dealt to them, and shivered.
The torn world . . .

How powerful were these creatures? How many people in this world could they destroy if they had the chance—and what if the kids lost complete control and gave themselves over to the will of these dark beasts, choosing to feed them by visiting their horrors upon others? To paralyze them. To disease them. To crush them. To devour their souls.

If any one of them chose that path rather than bear the suffering, the devastation left behind would be unimaginable. It would be like tearing the world in half.

They looked at each other, four souls, thinking a single thought.

“My God!”
said Tory.
“We have to find the other two!”

D
ILLON DREAMED HE WAS RIDING ON THE BACK OF A PANTHER
—a great, dark beast bounding into a wild unknown. The power he felt in the dream made the rest of humanity seem small and unimportant, and as he rode he saw the weak, guilt-ridden boy he was before trampled beneath the beast's pounding feet. Dillon awoke from the dream exhilarated, out of breath, and knowing that it was not entirely a dream. He wondered why he had resisted for so long.

His wrecking-hunger had evolved. Now it felt like a creature, burning with primal fury, yet acutely intelligent . . . and Dillon had learned that riding this beast was far better than letting it ride him.

He imagined Deanna there beside him, riding her own creature—a powerful pale horse—a terror-mare. Together he and Deanna would charge their beasts into the wind, and no one would stop them as they sped down paths of greater and greater destruction.

Where are you taking me?
Dillon would silently ask it, and although it never answered, Dillon knew that it had a glorious purpose that he would soon understand.

Deanna, on the other hand, was no longer so entranced by her situation.

She had watched Dillon change from a teary-eyed boy, crushed by the weight of his own terrible actions, to a young man who was getting far too sure of himself.

Yet in spite of that, Deanna knew that he still needed her.
Who else but Deanna could look deep into his eyes and find something inside that, even now, was still good and worthy of love? And if her capacity for love were greater than her capacity for fear, perhaps it would save her in spite of the destruction. Perhaps it would save them both.

Dillon gratefully accepted her love, and, in turn, she accepted his wisdom.

“Forget about the ‘Other' ones,” he had told her. “They'll only bring us trouble.” If Deanna didn't accept this, she would have to face the alternative, and so Deanna pushed The Others out of her mind as they raced headlong into the great northwest.

“We're the strong ones,” Dillon had said. “Those Others are nothing compared to us.” And it was true. She and Dillon were stronger than all The Others combined.

Then why did she feel so weak?

Dillon had said he was like her good luck charm, but she wasn't exactly wearing him around her neck; it was more like she had climbed into his pocket and hidden there.

Was her soul so frail that all she could do was follow him, borrowing his will for her own? She had been a hostage of her fears, and Dillon had freed her . . . . Did that make her
his
hostage now? She didn't know—but she did know that she would follow him to the ends of the earth . . . which was exactly where she suspected they were headed as they crossed from Wyoming into Idaho.

T
HE STREETS OF
I
DAHO
Falls were gilded with a million orange leaves. The tall oaks of Blackburn Street had begun to shed summer, day by day, but still kept a dense cloak of yellowing foliage.

Dillon and Deanna arrived late in the afternoon, his arms
around her waist, and her hand wedged in his back pocket, holding each other the way people in love often do. They stood there, in the middle of the quaint residential street, staring at the old homes on either side. Dillon looked at the homes one by one, then turned his head, as if sniffing the air.

“What are you doing?” asked Deanna.

“Getting to know the neighborhood,” he answered. “Looking for a place to eat.”

Deanna didn't like the sound of that. “Promise me you won't do anything bad here.”

Dillon turned to her blinking, as if he didn't know what she meant. “I promise that I won't do anything that isn't absolutely necessary,” he said.

A young boy breezed past them on his bike, stopping at the second house on the right. A small license plate on the back of the bike said “Joey.” Dillon slipped his hand from Deanna's waist, and he approached the boy, with Deanna following in his wake.

The boy hopped off his bike and strolled toward his front door.

“Hey, Joey,” shouted Dillon. “Your brother around?”

Joey turned to look at Dillon, studied him for a moment, then said. “Naah, Jason's still at practice. He'll be home soon, though . . . . You friends of his?”

“Yeah,” said Dillon. “I was on the team with him last year.”

The boy looked at Dillon doubtfully.

“Jason tells me you're almost as fast as him now,” said Dillon. “Hell, you even walk like him!”

Joey beamed at that, but tried to hide it. Any hesitation the boy had was now gone. “You can wait inside if you like.”

Deanna turned to Dillon as they neared the porch. “How'd you know he had a brother?” she whispered.

“It was obvious,” Dillon whispered back. “He walks like he's copying someone, but not someone who's grown up . . . . He wears hand-me-downs, even though he can afford those brand-new running shoes . . . . He rode up to the house like he's competing in a race . . . . It's all part of a pattern that says he's some jock's kid brother.”

Deanna stared at Dillon in amazement, and he just smiled. “C'mon,” he said, almost blushing behind his boyish freckles. “You know me pretty well—this stuff shouldn't impress you anymore.”

Joey led them into the house. Dillon noted how the boy used keys instead of knocking, how he glanced up the stairs, and how quietly he closed the front door. Dillon took a sniff of the air, and said, “How's your grandfather doing?”

Joey shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Better, now that he's back from the hospital.”

Dillon turned to Deanna and winked. Deanna just shook her head. What a show-off!

“Jason'll be back soon, you can wait for him here.” Joey left them alone in the kitchen and went back out to fiddle with the chain on his bike. Once Joey was gone, Dillon got down to work. He began to search through drawers and cabinets—he didn't take anything, he just let his eyes pore over everything he saw, observing . . . cataloguing . . . filing the information away.

Deanna had seen him do this the day before, at the farmhouse they had stopped at. Dillon had secretly rifled through the drawers, closets—even under sofa cushions. Deanna had asked what he was searching for. “Clues,” he said softly.

Now his hands were moving quickly through the kitchen, his mind working with such force that Deanna could swear that she could feel it pulsating like a high-tension wire. He was fascinating to watch.

“Tell me what you're thinking,” said Deanna. “I want to know what you know—I want to see what you see.”

“Okay,” said Dillon. “Five people live here. Parents, two sons, and a grandfather. Mother smokes, father quit. Kids do okay in school.” He pointed to a picture on the refrigerator. “This is the older brother and his girlfriend, right? But something's not right there—look at his smile; he's not smiling
for
the picture—he's smiling
at
the person taking the picture.”

“So who took the picture?”

“Isn't it obvious?” said Dillon. “The angle, the background, the way the girl's gloating to have snagged the track star? Her
sister
took the picture, and good ol' Jason would rather be dating
her
!”

Deanna just shook her head, marveling.

“Let's check out the parents,” said Dillon. He glanced around, until setting his sights on a high knickknack shelf. Then he pulled down a small bronze Statue of Liberty pencil sharpener and held it out for Deanna to examine.

“The parents honeymooned in New York—but look—there's no dust on it, even though there's dust on the rest of the shelf . . . that means someone's taken Miss Liberty down recently, and has been thinking about it. Smells like dishwashing soap. The mother took it down—either she's nostalgic, or she's worried about the marriage for some reason. Let's see what the doorknobs have to say.”

“Doorknobs?”

Dillon opened the back door and touched the outside and inside doorknobs, then smelled his hands.

“Men's cologne going out, women's perfume coming in—not his wife's, because I can smell that everywhere else. The husband is seeing another woman. Good chance his wife knows, and divorce is in the air. Will they break up? Let's find out!”

Dillon opened the refrigerator. “He keeps his beer on the same shelf as the milk and the soda—not in the door all by itself.” Dillon opened the hallway closet. “Everything in this house is neatly arranged—these people love order and tranquility, right down to giving their sons sound-alike names.
But
Dad's coats are mixed in with Mom's, instead of on their own side: their order is tightly intertwined.” Dillon turned and glanced at the back door again. “And his dirty work boots—” he said. “They're inside the house, on a mat; he's considerate enough not to leave them on the wood floor, and she's accepting enough not to make him put them outside.”

“So?”

“So if we leave this little family-stew to cook, I can tell that dear old Dad gives up the other woman, and the marriage is saved. Ninety-six percent probability.”

“You're incredible!” said Deanna. “Sherlock Holmes couldn't be that exact!”

Dillon shrugged. “It's like looking at a work of art,” explained Dillon. “It's just a bunch of paint, but when you look at it, you see the Mona Lisa, right? Well, when I look at all of these things, I see a picture, too. I see who these people were, who they are, and who they're probably going to be.”

“What do you see when you look at me?” asked Deanna.

Dillon didn't even try—he just shook his head. “You're like me,” he said. “Too complex to figure out.”

She smiled at him, and he took her hand. “C'mon,” he said, “I know all I need to know about this family . . . let's move on.”

As they left, Deanna noticed the way he rolled his neck, and the way sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead.

“The wrecking-hunger . . . it's back again, isn't it?”

“I try not to think about it,” he said, and tugged on her arm a little more urgently. “C'mon.”

Out back, they saw a man in the next yard patching up a hole in a boat.

“Hi! We're Joey and Jason's cousins,” said Dillon to the man.

“Josh and Jennifer,” added Deanna with a smirk.

The neighbor nodded a quiet hello. Dillon noticed the circles beneath his eyes, and the ghost of a missing wedding ring on his tan left hand. Dillon listened to the way in which a dog inside the house yowled.

“Sorry to hear about your wife's passing,” said Dillon . . .

O
N THEY WENT
, weaving in and out of homes and yards, pretending to be people they weren't—and no one doubted them because Dillon was so very good at the game. He knew the exact things to say that would make people open up their homes, and their hearts, telling him things they would never usually tell a stranger. It was as if they were hypnotized and didn't know it.

All the while Dillon's sweats had gotten worse, his breath had gotten shorter, and his face was becoming flushed.

In the last home, a woman had offered them iced tea and looked at Dillon with worry in her eyes.

“You sure you don't want me to call a doctor?” she asked, but Dillon shook his head and stumbled into the street.

“He'll be okay,” said Deanna, covering. “Asthma—his medicine's back in our cousin's house.” Deanna left the house and hurried after Dillon, feeling her own worry explode into fear. More than just fear . . . terror. Her own familiar brand of terror.