“God almighty,” he said.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
HARTNUP’S TRANSITION ESTATE
Desdemona Fox stood at the edge of the lawn and watched hell itself unfold before her. She knew that the impossibility of the day had now become its defining characteristic, and that all hopes of normalcy had been consumed in a red banquet of unnatural hunger.
“God…” she breathed. A soft whisper, not a prayer.
The state police cars were scattered around, parked on the lawn and in the roundabout, interspersed with county cruisers, emergency apparatus, and unmarked cars. Thirty, forty vehicles. Three news vans. Two of the vehicles were burning, the smashed windows coughing black oil smoke into the still air. Most of the vehicles were pocked with bullet holes or peppered by shotgun pellets.
There was blood everywhere.
On the lawn, splashed high on the front wall of the mortuary, glistening on the driveway gravel. Everywhere.
“They’re dead,” murmured JT in a voice every bit as wooden and lifeless as hers. “They’re all … dead. ”
Dez could only nod.
They were all dead.
She knew, though, that JT did not mean the bodies that lay scattered around, their eyes wide, skulls punched in by small arms fire, or skulls smashed by shotgun stocks. He was not speaking about those lifeless corpses molded into the crimson landscape.
No, JT spoke of the others—the black-mouthed, empty-eyed, shambling hulks who had all stopped what they were doing and turned toward them as JT and Dez had gotten out of their car. Their mouths opened and closed like gasping fish, or as if they were practicing chewing a meal that was not yet theirs.
They were on all sides of them, the closest about twenty yards away. Dez recognized that one. Not a statie. Paul Scott, the forensics officer. He only had one eye and patches of his scalp had been torn away. Over to his right, standing half-obscured by the smoke of a burning cruiser was Natalie Shanahan, her Kevlar vest hanging open, her blouse torn, and gaping holes where her breasts should have been. There were others. Sheldon Higdon stood by the open mortuary door, his chest marked with a line of bullet holes. There were four people—a civilian, two cops, and a trooper—with their hands cuffed behind their backs, but their faces were just as empty and pale as the others.
A sound made Dez turn and, closer than all of them, moving slowly out from behind an ambulance, was Chief Goss. One half of his face was gone, exposing the sharp angles of bare white bone and stringy muscle laced with yellow fat. The chief reached for her and she could see that most of the fingers were missing from his right hand. Bitten off, leaving a palm and one fat pinkie.
“Dead,” echoed JT.
Dez felt her arm move and she looked down to see her right hand rise. She was not aware of any conscious choice or deliberate intent. The hand rose, and the arm with it. The gun was a thousand-pound weight in her fist.
I could end it now, she thought. Under the chin, against the temple, or maybe just suck on the barrel and go meet Jesus. Ask that fucker for an explanation. Say good-bye to this shit. This isn’t right. This isn’t how the world’s supposed to be. I can’t live in a world like this.
The chief was ten feet away. Three shuffling steps and he would have her.
I can’t.
The gun rose.
Goss stepped closer. She could smell him. Open bowels and an outhouse stench.
Just do it! screamed her inner voice. Just one trigger pull and a wake up in the big hereafter. If they weren’t lying in Sunday school then it was a ticket to heaven. Mom and Dad would be there. If it was all a lie, then there was nothing at all. Even that option was better than this shit.
The chief’s half of a face wrinkled in a snarl of predatory lust. Hunger flickered like matchstick flames in his eyes as he stepped so close that he could touch her. The fingerless hand pawed at her, leaving smears of red on her vest. The other hand scrabbled to grab her shoulder, to pull her close as his mouth opened wide.
Chin, temple, or mouth. Do it!
She chose the temple.
The barrel pressed in against the skin until it stopped against the hardness of bone.
“Daddy,” she whispered. “Help me…”
And pulled the trigger.
The blast was huge. The bullet punched a big red hole through two walls of bone and blew brain matter twenty feet across the lawn.