The kid raised his bloody face to Matt’s, and Matt saw that it was Cole Reece, Cole who was only thirteen and lived right next door. Matt hadn’t even recognized him before.
Cole’s mouth was wide open in horror now, and his eyes were bulging out of his head with terror and sorrow, and tears and snot were streaming down his face.
“He made me eat Toby,” he started in a whisper that became a scream. “He made me eat my guinea pig! He made me — why why why did he do that? I ATE TOBY!”
He threw up all over Matt’s shoes. Blood-red vomit.
Merciful death for the animal. Quick, Matt thought. But this was the hardest thing he’d ever tried to do. How to do it — a hard stomp on the creature’s head? He couldn’t. He had to try something else first.
Matt peeled off a Post-It Note and put it, trying not to look, on the fur. And just like that it was over. The guinea pig went slack. The spell had undone whatever had been keeping it alive up to this point.
There was blood and puke on Matt’s hands, but he made himself turn to Cole.
Cole had his eyes shut tight and little choking sounds came from him.
Something in Matt snapped.
“You want some of this?” he shouted, holding out the Post-it pad as if it were the revolver he’d left with Mrs. Flowers. He whirled again, shouting, “You want some?
How about you? You, Josh?” He was recognizing faces now. “You, Madison? How
’bout you, Bryn? Bring it on! You all bring it on! BRING IT—” Something touched his shoulder. He spun, Post-it Note ready. Then he stopped short and relief bubbled up in him like Evian water at some fancy restaurant. He was staring right into the face of Dr. Alpert, Fell’s Church’s own country doctor. She had her SUV parked beside his car, in the middle of the street. Behind her, protecting her back, was Tyrone, who was going to be next year’s quarterback at Robert E. Lee High. His sister, a sophomore-to-be, was trying to get out of the SUV too, but she stopped when Tyrone saw her.
“Jayneela!” he roared in a voice only the Tyre-minator could produce. “You get back in and buckle up! You know what Mom said! You do it now!”
Matt found himself clutching at Dr. Alpert’s chocolate brown hands. He knew she was a good woman, and a good caretaker, who had adopted her daughter’s young children when their divorced mother had died of cancer. Maybe she would help him, too. He began babbling. “Oh, God, I’ve gotta get my mom out. My mom lives here alone. And I have to get her away from here.” He knew he was sweating. He hoped he wasn’t crying.
“Okay, Matt,” the doctor said in her husky voice. “I’m getting my own family out this afternoon. We’re going to stay with relatives in West Virginia. She’s welcome to come.”
It couldn’t be this easy. Matt knew he had tears in his eyes now. He refused to blink, though, and let them come down. “I don’t know what to say — but if you would — you’re an adult, you see. She won’t listen to me. She will listen to you. This whole block is infected. This kid Cole—” He couldn’t go on. But Dr. Alpert saw it all in a flash — the animal, the boy with blood on his teeth and his mouth, still retching.
Dr. Alpert didn’t react. She just had Jayneela throw her a packet of Wet Wipes from the SUV and held the heaving kid with one hand, while vigorously scrubbing his face clean. “Go home,” she told him sternly.
“You have to let the infected ones go,” she said to Matt, with a terrible look in her eyes. “Cruel as it seems, they only pass it on to the few who’re still well.” Matt started to tell her about the effectiveness of the Post-it Note amulets, but she was already calling, “Tyrone! Come over here and you boys bury this poor animal. Then you be ready to move Mrs. Honeycutt’s things into the van. Jayneela, you do what your brother says. I’m going in for a little talk with Mrs. Honeycutt right now.”
She didn’t raise her voice much. She didn’t need to. The Tyre-minator was obeying, backing up to Matt, watching the last of the creeping children that Matt’s explosion hadn’t scattered.
He’s quick, Matt realized. Quicker than me. It’s like a game. As long as you watch them they can’t move.
They took turns being the watcher and handling the shovel. The earth here was hard as rock, heavy with weeds. But somehow they got a hole dug and the work helped them mentally. They buried Toby, and Matt walked around like some footdragging monster, trying to get the vomit off his shoes in the grass.
Suddenly beside them there was the noise of a door banging open and Matt ran, ran to his mother, who was trying to heft a huge suitcase, much too heavy for her, through the door.
Matt took it from her and felt himself encompassed in her hug even though she had to stand on tip-toes to do it. “Matt, I can’t just leave you—”
“He’ll be one of those to get the town out of this mess,” Dr. Alpert said, overriding her. “He’ll clean it up. Now we’ve got to get out so we don’t drag him down. Matt, just so you know, I heard that the McCulloughs are getting out too. Mr. and Mrs.
Sulez don’t seem to be going yet, and neither do the Gilbert-Maxwells.” She said the last two words with a distinct emphasis.
The Gilbert-Maxwells were Elena’s aunt Judith, her husband Robert Maxwell, and Elena’s little sister, Margaret. There was no real reason to mention them. But Matt knew why Dr. Alpert had. She remembered seeing Elena when this whole mess had started. Despite Elena’s purification of the woods where Dr. Alpert had been standing, the doctor remembered.
“I’ll tell — Meredith,” Matt said, and looking her in the eyes, he nodded a little, as if to say, I’ll tell Elena, too.
“Anything else to carry?” Tyrone asked. He was encumbered by a canary birdcage, with the little bird frantically beating its wings inside, and a smaller suitcase.
“No, but how can I thank you?” Mrs. Honeycutt said.
“Thanks later — now, everybody in,” said Dr. Alpert. “We are taking off.”
Matt hugged his mother and gave her a little push toward the SUV, which had already swallowed the birdcage and small suitcase.
“Good-bye!” everyone was yelling. Tyrone stuck his head out of the window to say, “Call me whenever! I want to help!”
And then they were gone.
Matt could hardly believe it was over; it had happened so fast. He ran inside the open door of his house and got his other pair of running shoes, just in case Mrs.
Flowers couldn’t fix the smell of the ones he was wearing.
When he burst out of the house again he had to blink. Instead of the white SUV there was a different white car parked beside his. He looked around the block. No children. None at all.
And the birdsong had come back.
There were two men in the car. One was white and one was black and they both were around the age to be concerned fathers. Anyway they had him cut off, the way their car was parked. He had no choice but to go up to them. As soon as he did they both got out of the car, watching him as if he was as dangerous as a kitsune.
The instant they did that, Matt knew he’d made a mistake.
“You’re Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt?”
Matt had no choice but to nod.
“Say yes or no, please.”
“Yes.” Matt could see inside the white car now. It was a stealth police car, one of those with lights inside, all ready to be fixed outside if the officers wanted to let you in on the secret.
“Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt, you are under arrest for assault and battery upon Caroline Beula Forbes. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up this right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”
“Didn’t you see those kids?” Matt was shouting. “You had to have seen one or two of them! Didn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Lean over and put your hands on the front of the car.”
“It’s going to destroy the whole town! You’re helping it!”
“Do you understand these rights—?”
“Do you understand what is going on in Fell’s Church?”