Joe Schreiber: Chasing the dead

It's a large wicker basket, the size of a washtub. And it's right there, so close, well inside her headlights but engulfed in snow. If she hadn't stopped when she did, she might have run it right over.

She opens the door and jumps down, reaching the basket in three steps, and yanks the lid off. Inside, staring straight up at her, looking very small and very still, is the body of her daughter.

Veda isn't crying.

Veda isn't moving.

Veda is blue.

Sue clasps the lifeless form in her arms, holding her to her chest, rocking her in her arms. The discolored skin of her daughter's face feels as cold as museum marble, hardly yielding to Sue's touch. The eyes continue to stare, endlessly.

Leaving Sue to think: No. This can't be right. Not when I've come this far. You can take everything. Just not this. Never this. The thoughts aren't conscious thoughts, just fragments, and she croons to her daughter, supporting Veda's head, singing the first song that comes to mind, "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider."

"The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout…" Behind her she hears a steel latch clank and she's dimly aware of the thing climbing out of the back of the Expedition, freeing itself now that the ride is over. And she knows now that it'salways been able to free itself, that the facade of hope has always been nothing more than that, just another facade. Another joke to get her here.

"Down came the rain and washed the spider out…" Sue Young lies down in the snow with her daughter cradled in her arms. The snow doesn't feel cold. It doesn't feel like much of anything. It could easily be her grave, and maybe it will be before long, what difference does it make? "Out came the sun and dried up all the rain." Sue's eyes are dry, and they fasten on to her daughter's; she doesn't want to look at anything else, ever again. "And the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again…"

So much stillness, all around.

"I love you," she whispers. "I love you, Veda."

Then as the snow pushes against her, she feels a mild twitch against her chest, Veda curling toward her. And in that second Sue stops breathing. Her breath is…gone. Her daughter lifts her head and looks at Sue, recognition flooding her eyes. As Sue looks back at her, Veda draws in a deep breath; her mouth opens in a wide, dark oval and she begins to cry.

"Oh honey" is all Sue gets out, as she bursts into tears with her. Veda clutches her tighter, burying her head in Sue's neck, and Sue feels so much weight, sheer metric tonnage levitating from her shoulders that for a moment she's sure that she can lift right off the skin of this miserable planet and leave it all behind. Just her and her daughter, floating.

Please be true. Please don't be another trick.

Even as she thinks this, hugging her daughter, kissing Veda's head and holding her, Sue is terribly sure that a trick isexactly what it is. At the moment it's much easier to fear the worst than hope for the best. What if something happened to Veda, what if those-things did something to her? What if her little girl is really dead and this is some unspeakable, route-resurrected version of her daughter, the killing blow to sanity?

But as Veda howls and digs her fingers into Sue's sweatshirt, her face turning pink again, Sue begins to think otherwise. Except for the possible hypothermia from lying in the basket, Veda doesn't appear to be hurt, and her behavior is exactly as Sue remembers. She's just-she's herdaughter, that's all, and this morning there is a God who has been watching out for both of them throughout this unthinkably cruel errand.

Sue, thinking these things as she calms her daughter, promising her that it's over and everything will be all right, sees the front door of one of the little houses open up, and Marilyn and Jeff Tatum shamble out into the snow. They both have those large, shimmering black eyes now, not so much the eyes of a shark, as Sue thought before, but more like a giant squid, great and round and moist. Covered in blood, the two corpses swivel and start moving toward her. They speak as one, in the same voice.

"Ialways keep my promises, Susan."

Sue turns and starts back toward the Expedition. A few feet beyond it she can see Phillip's corpse standing there, head cocked in her direction, not moving. She swings the door open and puts Veda in back, as far as possible from the broken passenger window. Sue jumps in behind her, stretching over the backseat to slam the hatch down before hitting the locks.

They are outside, looking in at her.Three of them, plus the Engineer, wherever he is. She scans the street, down to the square, and picks up the cell phone, dialing 911.I've got my daughter back now, you bastard, and there's nothing in the world that's going to stop me from calling in every cop from here to Springfield.

The 911 operator picks up on the second ring. "Nine-one-one, police services, what is the nature of your emergency?"

"I'm being attacked," Sue says, her voice steady. Next to her, Veda has stopped crying and sits watching her with the gimlet-eyed fascination that children bring to the moments when they somehow know that everything's at stake. "My daughter and I are in White's Cove, and we're inside a blue Ford Expedition. There are at least three-"

Threewhat? She pauses, struggling with the words, looking out at Jeff and Marilyn and into the rearview at Phillip, their black eyes fixed on her.

"…assailants right outside my vehicle. We can't get out."

"We'll dispatch a unit immediately," the operator says. "What did you say your location was?"

"White's Cove."

"Excuse me?"

"White's Cove. It's north of Boston. It's the old historic village. It's north of Boston," she says again. "Just look on a map, for God's sake, you can't miss it."

"Do you know the name of the street you're on?"

"I can't-there are no street signs that I can see, it's just-" Sue stares out the window. Jeff and Marilyn have started to move again, walking steadily toward her. She checks the mirror. Phillip isn't there. She doesn't see him anywhere. Next to her Veda is staring through the windshield, making fast, urgent sounds, pointing at Marilyn. "Min!" she cries."Min! Min!" She thrusts her hand at Marilyn excitedly, recognizing her nanny despite the fact that Marilyn's eyes are gleaming black and the front of her shirt is layered in blood.

Marilyn and Jeff are only ten feet in front of her now, clutching each other as if sharing in some private joke. They come closer. Sue reaches over and pulls Veda's seat belt over her small shoulder, then puts the Expedition into drive.

"Ma'am?" the operator is asking. "Are you still there? You need to tell us where you are, any sort of physical description of the streets, the-"

"White's Cove-center of town. Just send someone." Sue floors the gas. The Expedition shoots forward, ramming Marilyn and plowing Jeff underneath its front tires. Marilyn's body flops up onto the hood, her face plastered against the glass just inches from Sue's own, her squid-eyes swimming, mouth still grinning as her cheek smears sideways on a streak of blood. Veda stops sayingMin! and sits straight upright, blinking, speechless, in shock.

"Don't look, sweetie." Sue hits the brakes, throws it into reverse, and whips backward, Marilyn sliding off the hood. There's a crunch that she assumes is Jeff, then the Expedition gets stuck and doesn't go any farther. Sue puts it in drive, reverse, and then drive again, but she's high-centered on one of the drifts at the top of the street, the wheels gouging out snow until they're screaming off of nothing. She feels the Expedition tilting, the nose angling into gravity, suspended here on a single lump of snow beneath the undercarriage.

In front of her another door on one of the small, old-fashioned houses opens, and Sue sees something coming out-a smaller shape, its form so mangled, so badly decayed that at first she doesn't even recognize it as human.