Gone (Gone 1)

“Oh, God, I need some more pills!” Cookie howled.

“Shut up!” Dahra shouted. She put her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. “Everyone shut up.”

Bette was on the table now, whispering, “I’m sorry.” It came out, “Mm shrree.”

“I didn’t mean you, Bette,” Dahra apologized. “Just lie back.” Dahra looked at her face and said to Elwood, “Get the book.”

She propped the Physicians’ Desk Reference open on Bette’s stomach and began thumbing quickly through the index.

“Mm het hur,” Bette said. She raised her good arm to touch the bloody lump on the side of her head.

“Did someone hit you, Bette?” Elwood asked.

Bette seemed confused by the question. She frowned as if the question made no sense. She moaned in pain.

“One side of her body isn’t working right,” Dahra said. “Look at the way her mouth is drooping. And her eyes. They don’t match.”

“Mmm het hur bad,” Bette moaned.

“I think she’s saying her head hurts,” Mary said. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know, how about if I just cut open her head and see if I can fix it?” Dahra was shrill. “Then I’ll just do some quick surgery on Cookie. No problem. I mean, I have this stupid book.” She snatched the book up and threw it across the room. It skidded across the polished linoleum floor.

Dahra tried taking several deep breaths. The little girl, Ashley, was crying. Mary was looking at Dahra like she had lost her mind. Cookie was alternating between crying for pills and crying that he needed to pee.

“Ta care mm buh er,” Bette said. She grabbed Mary’s arm. “Mmm il buh.”

Bette’s face contorted in pain. And then her features relaxed.

“Bette,” Dahra said.

“Bette. Uh-uh, don’t do this, Bette.”

“Bette,” Dahra whispered.

She placed two fingers against Bette’s throat.

“What did she say?” Elwood asked.

Mary answered. “I think she was asking us to take care of her brother.”

Dahra lifted her fingers from Bette’s neck. She stroked the girl’s face once, a lingering good-bye.

“Is she…” Mary couldn’t finish the question.

“Yes,” Dahra whispered. “There was probably bleeding inside her head, not just outside. Whoever hit her in the head killed her. Elwood, go find Edilio at the firehouse. Tell him we have to bury Bette.”

“She’s with God now,” Mary said.

“I’m not sure there is a God in the FAYZ,” Dahra said.

Th

ey buried Bette next to the firestarter in the plaza at one o’clock in the morning. There was no place to keep dead bodies, and no way to prepare the bodies for the grave.

Edilio dug the hole with his backhoe. The sound of it, the straining of the engine, the sudden jerks of the shovel, seemed horribly loud and horribly out of place.

Sam was there, along with Astrid and Little Pete; Mary; Albert, who came over from the McDonald’s; Elwood, standing in for Dahra, who had to stay with Cookie; and the twins Anna and Emma. Bette’s little brother was there too, nine years old, sobbing with Mary’s arm around him. Quinn opted not to attend.