Daryl Gregory - The Devil's Alphabet

Deke leaned back in the pew. Whenever Rhonda told him what he shouldn’t do, he started checking the locks.

“What would make me vote for it, Aunt Rhonda?”

She smiled. “If I were you, I’d want some of that high school money to set up a fund, a fertility assistance fund. Just for argos.”

“Really.”

“If argos don’t have children, why should they pay for a school? I don’t blame them. That’s why every argo couple who wants to ought to be able to go to the fertility clinic at the university.”

“Some of us are already doing that,” Deke said.

Rhonda didn’t pretend ignorance. “And it’s expensive, isn’t it? I don’t have all the numbers, but I figure you’re spending twenty, thirty thousand every time you try to fertilize an egg, none of it covered by insurance. Is that right?”

“You’re in the ballpark.”

“We’re a poor little town,” Rhonda said. “That’s a lot of money even for someone with their own business, and most of your people aren’t even working. Tell them they have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars, you might as well tell them to build a rocket ship while they’re at it. No, they need assistance.”

“This fund. Now that is illegal.”

“Well, it wouldn’t hold up to an audit, that’s for sure. It would have to be unofficial. When we build the school, we’d go through Alpha Furniture for part of the construction, on account of you’re a local, minority-owned business, then we’d-”

“We’re not minorities, Rhonda.”

“Handicapped, then.” She grinned. “Certainly a class of people oppressed by prejudice and bias-whatever the government wants to hear. Work with me, hon.”

Deke laughed. “Jesus, Rhonda…”

“That money goes to Alpha, but a significant amount is for the fertility fund. I can show you how to set this up. The important thing is that you are the administrator of the fund. People trust you, Deke. You’re the Chief. They know you’ll divide up the money fair and square.”

“I know what embezzlement is, Rhonda. And fraud.”

“Pah! We’re talking about a higher law. I’m only suggesting this-and the only way the reverend would go along with it-because you’re an honest man. That’s the only way this would work. We trust you to do the right thing, especially for your people.” She held out a hand. “Now, pull me up.”

Deke helped her to her feet and walked her to the front door. “I’ll come back around to hear your decision,” she said.

“You can hear it now,” Deke said, and Rhonda held up a hand.

“No,” she said. “You go home and think about it. Talk to Donna.” Everett hopped out to open the car door for her. “Oh, one more thing,” Rhonda said. “Paxton tried to climb over the wall to the Home last night.”

“Come again?”

“One of my boys almost shot him. They had to pull him down, and he went wild. Clete had to knock him down a peg.”

“Jesus, Rhonda, Clete?” The boy was a moron and a thug. “What did he do to him?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Paxton’s a little roughed up, but he’s fine.”

“I told you last week,” Deke said. “You can take care of Harlan, God knows he needs it, but Paxton is off limits.”

“Paxton put himself on limits when he tried to break into the Home. I chewed Clete out when I heard what happened. But honestly, Paxton’s acting like a drug addict. Next time he tries something like that they’ll shoot him dead. Besides, there’s no reason for him to break in.” She opened the car door. “His daddy’s gone dry again.”

“Really.”

“Hasn’t produced a drop since we brought him home from the church.”

“Maybe he’s recharging. He was sure gushing that night.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I think it’s something else. Something between fathers and sons. You know how ugly that can get.”

His gut tightened as if she’d jabbed a two-by-four under his ribs. Goddamn her. She was talking about Willie and Donald Flint. As if he could ever forget what happened, what she held over him.

She tapped the top of the car. “You think about that fund, Deke. While you make your beautiful furniture.”

There were four of them who found Willie that day, but it was Deke who’d led the way into the house, an ancient cabin that didn’t even have an indoor toilet. He practically knocked down the door getting in. Rhonda came in behind him, followed by Barron Truckle and Jo Lynn.

It was Jo who’d come to Deke with the news of the charlie parties, the rumors of a new drug and bad things happening up in the woods. She’d convinced him they had to do something about it, and not only that, but since Willie and Donald were charlies, they had to bring Aunt Rhonda with them. Rhonda wasn’t mayor then, but Jo said she was the leader of her clade. It was the first time he’d heard that word.

Donald Flint, Willie’s youngest son, was in the front room, sitting on the couch with a half-naked charlie girl on his lap, facing him. Another charlie girl lay on a pile of blankets on the floor; she’d been jolted awake by the sudden noise. The place was a sty, beer cans everywhere.

Donald looked at them stupidly, then decided he should be offended. He pushed the girl off him and started to get up. Deke yelled something-he didn’t remember what-but it made Donald stick to his spot on the couch.

Rhonda kicked the girl on the floor, told both of them to get home. She knew their families, and they knew she knew them. The girls scrambled for shirts and jeans and hustled out. Half a minute later they’d started up one of the six cars in the gravel driveway and peeled out.

Deke told Barron to watch Donald, and then he followed Jo down the hallway. She marched straight to Willie’s bedroom as if she’d been there before. Or perhaps she was only following the smell. When that back bedroom door opened the stench rolled out in a wave: shit and rot and a strange sickly-sweet odor he didn’t recognize. It would be months before Deke would be able to name it as the smell of stale vintage.

The old man’s corpse lay sprawled sideways across a pair of double beds that had been pushed together. He was wider than any human being he’d seen to that point. Willie’s body seemed to have collapsed in on itself like a rotted pumpkin, and his skin was pocked and cratered by infection and his son Donald’s inept needlework.

Someone gasped, and Deke looked down and behind him. Rhonda had come into the room and burst into tears. He’d always thought that was just a phrase, but the tears were coming out of her like a cloudburst, a flood, making her cheeks gleam.

Then just as suddenly the tears stopped. Her face went rigid and somehow she willed herself to regain control of her body. Later, Deke thought that this was the moment she became mayor of Switchcreek.

I see now, Rhonda said. Or at least that’s what he thought she said. I see now.

Rhonda turned and strode back down the hallway. Deke hurried after her, shoulders scraping the ceiling.

In the living room, Donald was off the couch and barking into Barron’s face like a furious child. The boy was naked except for a pair of sweatpants hanging low on his hips. Two years before he’d been a skinny kid, and then the Changes had made him into a plump, round-faced charlie. Over the past few months, however, he’d transformed again, turning into a cartoonish mass of muscles: biceps too big for sleeves, shoulders swallowing his neck. A bodybuilder who’d been eating other bodybuilders.

Rhonda reached the boy in two strides and turned his head sideways with a slap.

Donald blinked, touched his cheek. Rhonda shouted something-Deke thought it was something dramatic like, You killed him , but perhaps it was only a string of curse words-and then she hit him again, this time with her closed fist.