Violet didn’t bother trying to hide the gun she’d plucked from the grip of a murdered policeman. She started west, past the post office, toward the funeral home. “It’s too late for Alfie. But I’ll be damned if I let that boy die.”
Malcolm nodded at Jennie. She raced off, head swiveling in search of a stealable car. Several people had come out into the street. A man about Malcolm’s age shouted at Jennie, demanding to know what had happened. Were those gunshots they’d all heard? Malcolm watched as Jennie tried to ignore him, but the man had been staring at the boy over her shoulder, trying to make sense of it. Now he tried to grab her arm, so she backhanded him across the face, and he staggered backward. No one else tried to stop her.
Good thing it’s a small town, Malcolm thought.
Jennie would take care of herself, he knew. She always had. As he raced after Violet, Malcolm considered how much simpler life would have been if he’d cremated his mother.
“I found Elias and the rest,” Violet said as he caught up to her. “I followed Benjy. They’re vulnerable now, Malcolm. We could take these guns—or better yet, gas cans and fire—and kill them. They can’t follow us then.”
“There are going to be others, I think,” Malcolm said. “I’m sure they’re holed up in various places, camped out to avoid the sun, but as soon as it’s dark, they’ll be moving again. Headed our way.”
“You can’t know that.”
“The odds are against us,” he said. “These are the first to reach us, but we know there have to be more. Anyway, we can’t risk trying to destroy them and failing. If we die now, it’s all over. Better to take whatever head start the remainder of the day will give us.”
The wind gusted, soaking them with rain. It was still daytime,but the storm had turned the sky so gray that lamps burned inside homes and businesses. Violet saw the light on in the funeral home’s front room and ran for the front steps.
“Do you think Alfie is dead?” she asked as they hurried up those steps.
Malcolm felt sick. He’d liked Alfie a great deal and wished things had been different. He and Violet had both put bullets into that man.
“If he’s not dead, he probably doesn’t have long,” Malcolm said.
Violet reached for the doorbell and hesitated, then turned the knob. The door swung open. She paused before entering, gun still clutched in her right hand.
“Maybe that’s for the best.”
They entered the funeral home, surrounded by the scent of dying flowers.
34
Get up, you worthless meat.
Alfie’s eyes shot open. A wave of searing pain crashed over him, but it began to recede almost immediately. Those words lingered in his mind as he pushed himself up, sliding through the puddle of his own blood to prop his back against the wall. His breathing evened out, slowing along with his heart as he discovered that his wounds had begun to clot. He’d pressed a hand against one of the leaking holes in his body and somehow managed to keep the pressure there when he’d passed out.
“That’s a lotta blood,” he murmured, as if he’d needed someone to say it aloud.
Get up, the voice came again.
In his head.
He didn’t have the strength to ask if that was some sort of joke. There would be no getting up. Shot three times, bleeding, he’d be lucky if he ever managed to get up again. Odds were he’d be dead before sunset, maybe even before the next time the town’s church bells rang.
Worthless nothing. You heard me—
“Shut your mouth,” Alfie rasped.
The voice might be in his head, but he recognized it anyway. Root, of course. The name felt ironic now. The creature had planted its roots deep inside him, in his brain and bones. With so much blood lost and so little strength to act, he found himself thinkingmore clearly, yet the monster’s influence still drove him. Even now, his muscles wanted to obey.
Up!
Alfie felt the command yank him up like a marionette. As he slid himself up the wall, dragged to his feet by something unseen, the exertion pumped fresh bubbles of blood from his wounds. Sweat beaded on his face, and he felt nauseous. Despite his fury and disgust, his legs moved, then promptly collapsed beneath him.
He slid down the wall again, whimpering. Alfie had once mocked his twin brother, Joe, for the noises he’d made after the one time Joe had been shot. Now he understood, and he’d taken not one but three bullets.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he rasped.
In his mind, he felt Root release him.Useless trash.
