Daryl Gregory - The Devil's Alphabet

“Oh, Paxton,” his father said. He looked disappointed-that particular frown that could wound Pax so effortlessly. “Every drunk thinks he’s found truth in a bottle.” He held up a big hand before Paxton could object. “Look at yourself, Son. You’re half-starved.”

“I’m fine. I admit I’m not eating all the fried crap I used to eat, but-”

“I want you to stop coming,” his father said. “Starting now. And when the quarantine is over, or whenever you can, I want you to go back home to Chicago.”

“You’re not doing this to me again,” Pax said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on.” He couldn’t stand it when Harlan played dumb. “You sent me away once. I’m not going to let you do it again.”

“I did that for your own good-I’m doing this for your own good.”

“You did it for yourself, Dad. You were petrified people would talk and you’d lose your church. You were ashamed.”

Harlan’s face reddened. “That didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. Do you even remember what you were like? You were the one who was-where are you going?”

“This isn’t happening,” Pax said, meaning the day’s vintage. He picked up his shirt that he’d laid over the chair back. “I’ll come back in the morning.”

“Sit your ass down.”

His father never swore, and he’d done it twice in ten seconds. Paxton put his hands in pockets but didn’t sit. He kept his face neutral and waited.

“Please,” Harlan said.

Pax breathed for a moment, thinking, and then pulled the chair over a few feet so that they could sit opposite each other.

“You were special,” his father said. The sun was in his face; he squinted and looked at the floor next to Paxton’s feet. “You’d been passed over. God had plans for you beyond this town. Nobody knew if the Changes would start again, or if they’d quarantine us again. Either way, if you didn’t leave here you’d be trapped.

“I was trying to save your life, Paxton. Your mother wanted you to go to college, get married to a nice girl, have children. You couldn’t have any of that here. And if the Changes came back and killed you, or turned you into something…”

Harlan shook his head, and looked up. Tears glittered in his eyes. Paxton sighed.

Somehow his father had recast everything from that year. It wasn’t his anger at Jo Lynn’s pregnancy, or his fear that his only son might be some kind of triple pervert who was fucking both Jo and Deke, or his dread that the whole town would find out and drive him out of his church… No, it was purely for the love of his son.

“I was only trying to spare you,” his father said. “All this… disease. This death.”

Pax leaned back. “Well,” he said quietly. “That didn’t quite work, did it?”

Jo had died anyway. Deke had died anyway. It didn’t matter if Pax was in Switchcreek or Chicago or halfway around the planet. His presence couldn’t protect them, and distance couldn’t protect him.

He was alone. The sole surviving member of the Switchcreek Orphan Society. Hell, he was the fucking president.

“You have to understand,” his father said, the words slurring. “Nobody knew. I was only trying, trying to…” The smell of vintage charged the air.

“I know, Dad,” Pax said. He stood and walked to retrieve the extraction kit.

When he finally heard the banging at the front door he thought the soldiers had returned. It was 9:30, a half hour past the official curfew. Pax put down the mallet and scraper and turned off the radio. The hallway was a mess; the carpet had come up cleanly enough, but the ancient rubber backing had disintegrated into something like tar and had glued itself to the wood. It had taken him hours to scrape the living room, chipping away at piece after piece. He’d slowed as he tired, and so the hallway was taking as long as the front room.

He walked to the living room, rubbing his palms on his jeans. The banging stopped, and suddenly the front door pushed open.

“Jesus Christ, Tommy, Pax said. The beta man stood in the doorway, holding the handle. “It’s after curfew. You nearly gave me-”

“Where are they?” Tommy said.

“Where’s who?” Pax said, though he knew perfectly well who he meant. “And what the hell are you doing barging into my house?”

Tommy walked across the room, put his head through the kitchen door. “Sandra! Rainy!”

He turned, marched toward Paxton. “Are they in the bedrooms? They better not be in the bedrooms.”

“The girls aren’t here,” Pax said, and stepped aside as Tommy went past him. “I haven’t seen them in weeks, not since the town meeting.” He realized that he hadn’t seen them at Deke’s funeral either, though they might have been there. Much of the day had been a blur.

Tommy opened his father’s bedroom door, then the guest room. When he reached for Paxton’s childhood bedroom Pax grabbed his arm. “That’s enough, Tommy.”

Tommy spun and seized Pax by the throat. His grip was incredibly strong, much stronger than those thin beta arms suggested. His lips pulled back to reveal small white teeth. Then he began to march Pax backward down the hall.

Pax backpedaled, prying at the man’s fingers, and then he stumbled over the radio and Tommy thrust him away, sent him sprawling to the floor.

“You have no idea what it’s like,” Tommy said, breathing hard. “To love them this much. To feel as helpless as this.”

Pax sat up, coughing.

“I feel sorry for you,” Tommy said. “When I was like you, I felt nothing for anybody else. I couldn’t even see the point of feeling anything.” He bent, picked up the mallet at his feet. It was a big chunk of metal on a wood handle that Paxton’s grandfather had owned, a tool too primitive to wear out. “Becoming a beta saved me. Becoming a father saved me. Suddenly I could see the future-it became real. Generations of grandchildren stretching out in an unbroken line, clear as day. More real than you are.”

“The girls aren’t here,” Pax said. “I don’t know where they are.”

“Tell the truth.”

“Search the fucking house! I told you, I haven’t seen them since the meeting.”

“They weren’t at Jo’s house,” Tommy said. “This is the only other place they’d go.”

“Then maybe you don’t know them as well as you think you do.”

Tommy stared down at him. The mallet twitched in his hand. Then he crouched and leaned in so that their foreheads almost touched. Even this close, inches away, his eyes were empty, his face as indifferent as a wall.

“You won’t be seeing them again, Paxton,” he said quietly. “You won’t be able to find them. You won’t be allowed to even look for them. There’s too much that depends on them. If you even got within the same state, I’d be forced to kill you. Without a second thought.”

Tommy rose to his feet, the mallet still in his hand. “I wanted to warn you. I owe the twins that much.”

He walked to the living room. Pax sat very still.

A moment later he heard a double clunk-the mallet dropping to the floor-and then a few seconds after that the sound of Tommy’s Bronco starting.

He waited a short while longer, and then Paxton pushed himself to his feet. He went into the kitchen, opened the junk drawer, and found the flashlight. Dead, of course. He shook out the corroded batteries and replaced them with the D-cells from the radio; a few shakes and the light came on.

He grabbed his car keys, walked to the front door, then turned back to the kitchen. The bag Weygand had left for him was still on the kitchen table. He picked it up, then quickly added to it a couple cans of soup, a box of Saltines, and a small plastic jar of Peter Pan peanut butter.