Daryl Gregory: The Devil's Alphabet

“Not really,” Deke said.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry,” Pax said, then realized he’d said “shit” in church and felt doubly embarrassed. There was no such thing as a pregnant argo, no such thing as an argo baby. “I didn’t mean-”

Deke held up a hand: Don’t worry about it.

Donna said. “We want to feed you supper, then of course you have to stay at the house.”

“No, really, that’s okay-”

“We’ve got plenty of room. Unless you’re staying with your father?”

“No.” He said it too quickly. “I thought I’d just stay at the Motel Six in Lambert.”

Deke said, “Have you talked to him lately?”

Pax started to say, Twelve years, give or take -but then the two argos looked over his head. Pax turned. Tommy Shields walked toward them, the twin girls trailing behind him.

Tommy had been tall before the Changes, but he’d lost several inches of his height. His face was hairless, without even eyebrows, and his skin had turned a light brown that was splotched with dark across his cheeks and forehead. But he was still first-generation beta, with a broad jaw and too much muscle in the shoulders, and the old Tommy was still recognizable under the new skin.

His voice, however, was utterly different. “You’re Paxton,” he said softly. His lips barely moved, and the sound seemed to start and stop a few inches from his thin lips. “Jo Lynn’s friend.” He extended a hand, and Pax shook it and released without squeezing.

Pax couldn’t think what to say, and finally came up with, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Girls,” Tommy said, “this man was a good friend of your mother’s.”

The girls stepped forward. Heat flared in Paxton’s chest, an ache of something like embarrassment or fear. They were the same height, their heads coming up to just past Tommy’s elbow. They had to be almost twelve now.

Tommy didn’t seem to notice Paxton’s discomfort. “This is Sandra,” Tommy said, indicating the girl on his left, “and this is Rainy.” They were second-generation betas-the firstborn of that generation-and their wine-colored faces were expressionless as buttons.

“Hi,” Pax said. He coughed to clear his throat. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He knew their names from decade-old letters. Jo had rejected twin-ish stunt-names. No alliteration, no groaners like Hope and Joy. The only thing notable was that Rainy-Lorraine-was named after his mother. “Your mom was-”

He blinked at them, trying to think of some anecdote, but suddenly his mind was empty. He couldn’t even picture Jo Lynn’s face.

No one spoke.

“She was a great person,” Pax said finally. “I could tell you stories.”

The girls stared at him.

“I bet they’d like to hear those,” Tommy said. “Come by the Co-op and we can talk about her. Before you leave.”

Pax hesitated. Co-op? “I’d like that,” he said. “I’m not sure if I can, though-I have to see how my father’s doing. But if I can get away…”

Tommy looked at him. “If you can spare the time,” he said in that soft voice. He smiled tightly and turned away. The girls regarded Paxton for a long moment and then followed Tommy across the room.

Pax exhaled heavily. “Man,” he said.

Donna said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just those girls.” He shook his head. “I know Jo loved them. She did, right?” Before they could answer he said, “Never mind, stupid question. It’s just that I can’t believe she’d leave them.”

There was an awkward silence, and he looked up at the argos. Deke was frowning, and Donna wore a strangely fierce expression.

“She wouldn’t,” Donna said.

He looked from Donna to Deke, back again. He could see it in their faces. “You don’t think she killed herself?”

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Deke shook his head. “It’s just a feeling,” he said.

“Show me,” Pax said to him. “Show me where it happened.”

THEY WALKED INTO the midday heat, and Pax said, “My car or yours?”

Deke looked down at him.

“Oh. Right.”

Deke led him across the gravel parking lot. One of the satellite trucks had left, and the other had its rear doors open. A young man in a blue suit jacket sat on the back fender, smoking a cigarette. He looked like he was going to ask them something, but a look from Deke made him put the cigarette back in his mouth and glance away.

“I wouldn’t let ’em in the church,” Deke said. For good reason, Pax thought. The media had been no friend to the town. The summer of the outbreak they’d been invaded, squads of masked reporters shoving cameras in their faces. The quarantine had forced the newspeople out, but the phone calls for interviews had kept coming, and the people of Switchcreek could see on TV what the world thought of them. Then came the Lambert riots, and the Stonecipher murders, and the feeding frenzy continued. A few betas had tried to go grocery shopping in Lambert, and the town went nuts. That’s when the drive-bys started, rednecks roaring through Switchcreek to knock down mailboxes and shoot up the stop signs. A barn burned, and the state police finally started patrolling the streets. A few weeks after that, the Stonecipher brothers were found beside the road, shot dead. They were argos, big old boys and a little wild. The killers were never found.

The spotlight eventually moved on to the next hurricane or celebrity overdose, but Pax still saw Switchcreek popping up on TV every once in awhile, mostly for some science or health update. A couple times some website would run rumors about other outbreaks, in other countries, but they were never substantiated. Mostly Switchcreek was ignored. A normal death in the town probably wouldn’t go further than a mention on local news, but a suicide or murder might be worth a few seconds on the cable news networks.

Deke opened the door of a green Jeep Cherokee with the canvas top rolled back. The back bench had been removed, and the front seats had been pushed back and raised. They climbed into the cab. Deke’s long arms and legs easily reached the oversized steering wheel and foot pedals.

Paxton’s legs dangled from the passenger seat. He felt like a kid in a car seat.

Deke followed Piney Road back to the highway, then turned south toward town, driving with one arm resting on the roll bar in front of him. His curved spine gave him the appearance of hunching over the wheel. The car speakers squawked with static, then went silent. Nestled into the dash was an elaborate black receiver.

“CB?” Pax asked.

“Police scanner.”

Pax thought a moment. “You must have been one of the first to hear, then.”

Deke sighed, a slow sound like a freight train coming to rest. “I heard when the dispatcher called for the ambulance, but by then it was way too late.”

“Jesus,” Pax said. “I’m sorry, man.”

They crossed the two-lane bridge and then slowed as they entered downtown. They passed the Gas-n-Go, the Power Rental, the Icee Freeze. Each building looked more run-down than Pax remembered, slope-shouldered and tired. Only the old one-room schoolhouse, which had been falling down when he was a kid, looked like it had been refurbished. The walls wore a fresh coat of red paint, and a new sign out front declared it to be the Switchcreek Welcome Center.

Right. Welcome to Monster Town.

Nobody had figured out what had turned the residents into freaks. Transcription Divergence Syndrome was just a fancy description of the damage, not an explanation. No strange microbe had been found skulking in their bloodstream. The water and air and dirt were radiation free, and no more poisoned with toxins than any other poor mountain town. The most common theory was that it was a new retrovirus, whatever that was, but if there’d been any kind of virus in the air it was gone now.