Daryl Gregory - The Devil's Alphabet

He looked at the freezer door, then opened it. On the top rack were two old vials and the six fresh ones he’d extracted this morning-the most he’d ever had at one time. The father load.

Pax tucked one of the plastic tubes into his front pocket, and left the house before he decided to open it.

IT WAS NOT yet ten, but the night was already pitch-black, the moon snuffed by clouds, and Piney Road was a ribbon of lesser black winding through the trees. Pax hoped the Guard didn’t have curfew patrols out on the smaller, interior roads. Or if they did, that they were already busy chasing Tommy.

Pax turned south onto Sparks Hollow Road. A hundred yards before the T intersection with Creek Road he stopped and cut his headlights. He reached for the flashlight and turned it on.

He eased the car forward, driving with his head out the window, playing the feeble light of the flashlight across the road ahead of him. A few feet from the intersection he turned off the flashlight and nosed ahead. To his right was a dim glow that had to be the guard shack or the interior lights of some vehicle. Did Humvees have dome lights?

The western checkpoint was only a quarter mile down Creek Road to his right, a straight shot. The guards would see headlights as soon as he pulled out, and then as he drove away his taillights would be glowing like fox eyes.

But he had to go east only five hundred, six hundred yards before the road bent again and he’d be out of their sight. He could drive blind for a couple football fields, right? And if he drove into a ditch, so be it. It was only a fucking Ford Tempo.

He turned the wheel left and gently tapped the gas. He could see nothing; the windshield was a black canvas. At any moment he expected to bang into a tree or tilt off the road into the ditch. He leaned over the wheel, ears straining, eyes wide.

Thirty seconds passed and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He touched the brake-and the red glow lit up behind him. Shit! He’d forgotten about the brake lights!

Fuck it, he thought. He switched on the parking lights and accelerated. The faint yellow glow barely illuminated the pavement in front of him, but he thought he could make out theedges of the road.

Thirty seconds later he almost drove into the side of the mountain as the road hooked a hard right. He cranked the wheel, then flicked on the headlights to full and gunned it. He rifled through the single-lane bridge at fifty miles per hour and swung through the next big curve with wheels squealing.

No headlights appeared in his rearview mirror, no small-arms fire shattered his back window.

Jo’s mailbox appeared faster than he expected. He braked hard, swung onto the driveway, and snaked up the drive. The little house was dark, the patch of gravel out front empty of cars.

He shut off the Ford and got out, his heart still beating fast. He walked quickly to the edge of the slope, where he could look down on the stretch of shadow where the road lay. No headlights, no sirens. The only sound was the rattle of leaves in the chill breeze. His right hand shook along with the invisible leaves.

He patted the vial of vintage in his pocket but didn’t take it out.

All right, then.

He walked back to the house, calling, “Sandra! Rainy!”

He went from room to room through the dark, using only the flashlight because the house lights might attract Tommy or the Guardsmen. The girls weren’t inside, but he’d guessed that-known it-as soon as he’d entered.

He went out to the back door and flicked the light across the backyard. The tree seemed to jump out at him, gray bark materializing out of the night. He raised the beam of light until he saw the bit of frayed rope still dangling from the tree limb. It would take a strong man to hoist someone up into the tree. An iron grip to hold on while he slipped the rope around her neck.

Paxton walked to the edge of the lawn where the forest began. “Rainy! Sandra! It’s me, Paxton.” He walked into the trees. “Girls? You can come out now.” He stumbled against a root, stumbled again, and aimed the light up into the canopy. “Tommy’s gone-he’s already checked the house. Come inside. I’ll make you some soup.

“I have Sal-tee-eens,” he sang out.

He swung the light across the ground. A dirt path ran up into the trees, climbing the side of Mount Clyburn. He followed it with the light-and froze.

A small black figure hung from a tree branch, legs slowly twisting.

He shouted wordlessly, and the next moment the silhouette became a girl hanging by her arm. She let go and dropped to the ground, landing easily. She straightened and smiled into the glare of his light: a bald, dark-skinned girl dressed in jeans with a torn knee.

“Rainy?”

She ran down the path to him, her huge backpack bouncing, and threw her arms around him. “Paxton! We missed you!” Her hug nearly drove the breath from his lungs.

“You scared the hell out of me!” he said.

She laughed-he’d forgotten how she could laugh.

“Where’s Sandra?” he asked.

“She’s coming.”

They walked up to meet her halfway. She looked like an old woman: she wore a blanket draped over her shoulders, and below that was a long dress and furry boots. The path was steep so that when they reached each other her head was above his. She leaned down to him from her hips, embracing him at the shoulders like a grown-up. She seemed years older.

“You look cold, Sandra. Come on, let’s get you in the house. I brought food.” Then quickly: “Don’t worry, Tommy’s not there. He’s already checked the house and left.”

The girls didn’t answer. He’d have to decide how much to tell them, and how quickly. First, he thought, food.

They searched for another flashlight, and when they couldn’t find one they decided that it would be safe enough if they pulled all the drapes and set one or two lamps on the floor-no overhead lights. He warmed up the cans of soup on the stove-Rainy said, “Of course it’s soup, it’s the only thing you know how to cook”-while Sandra, wearing the blanket like a poncho, sat at the table making hors d’oeuvres of Saltines and peanut butter. “I should have brought popcorn,” Pax said. “This is like a sleepover.”

“We’ve never had a sleepover,” Sandra said.

“What, never?”

“When we lived here, nobody was allowed to come over,” Rainy said. “And when we lived at the Co-op, everyone was already there.”

Sandra kept apologizing for not bringing the laptop and for not coming to see him, even though it wasn’t her fault or Rainy’s: Tommy had grounded both of them the night of the town meeting. “We were watched all the time,” Sandra said. “Either Tommy or the white-scarf girls.”

“What’s with those scarves?” Pax asked. “Do you get them when you reach thirteen or something?”

Sandra laughed. Rainy looked at him with those flat eyes. “No.”

“How am I supposed to know?” he asked.

“That isn’t a Co-op thing-not the Co-op Mom started,” Rainy said. “Some girls just started wearing them.”

“To show they’re pure,” Sandra said. She leaned across the table, gave Rainy a peanut butter-smeared cracker, and Rainy placed it in Paxton’s mouth.

“You need to eat more than us,” Rainy said. Then: “They’re not beta enough. Older women, like Mom and the reverend, they’re tainted.”

He made a questioning noise and tried to swallow the cracker.

“You know…” Sandra said.

“You mean sex?” Pax asked.

“Sex with men,” Sandra said.

Rainy shook her head. “The white-scarf girls think it’s something special that they went through the Changes before they went through puberty,” she said. “Like a hat’ll make them closer to natural-born.”