Jason Frost - Badlands

"Some. Dad used to read him to us sometimes. For every movie we went to see we had to read one book."

"Admirable. Perhaps you'd like to read some of the books I have?"

Tim backed off a few steps. "Why are you being nice to me now?"

"For the same reason I do everything. It suits me. And it's time you stopped peering at every rock and tree thinking your dad will pop out to take you back. If by some chance he isn't dead, he will be soon enough. Besides, he has a new woman and they'll start a new family. One that won't include you. He probably can't even remember what you look like. I'm the only who'll take care of you, Tim. And I will teach you everything you need to know. More than he did. You're my son from now on. Get used to it."

Tim thought it over for a few minutes, watching Fallows's craggy face, the bristly white hair like a field of snow-covered shrubs. When Tim spoke, his voice was cold and passionless. "I will kill you someday."

Fallows smiled. "Good. At least you have a goal. Not like a lot of kids these days."

He lead Tim back toward the camp, confident that within weeks the kid would be his. His alone.

"Colonel!" one of his men yelled from the camp. "Up there! Look!"

Fallows shaded his eyes with one hand and looked up into the sky. When he saw it, he just nodded. "Jesus Christ."

Tracy hobbled toward the house, her makeshift crutches spearing yellow flyers as she walked. She stopped ten feet from the open doorway and shook one of the flyers loose from her right crutch. The big red letters exclaiming EVACUATE caught her eye and she felt her skin ice over. What if Eric was wrong? What if they really were going to drop those chemicals here today? But as she neared the house, the bitter, rotting smell smothered all other thoughts.

Except one. Why had Eric's bow been fired?

"Hey, Eric."

The answer came from somewhere inside the house. "Yeah?"

"How about I wait out here? Leg's a little weak. Not to mention the stomach." If he hesitated, or told her to come in anyway, she'd know he was in trouble. What would she do then? "OK with you?"

"Sure," he said. Tracy sighed with relief. "It's pretty gruesome in here anyway."

"I'll be right in."

Tracy negotiated the three steps in a hurry, knocking aside the front door with a crutch. Inside, the smell was even worse. She brought her hand with the gun up to cup over her nose. The scent of gun oil helped kill the harsher odor a little. Not enough.

The living room was as modest as the outside of the house. Home-made curtains, an old but well-tended sofa with doilies on each arm. A large studio photograph of a middle-aged couple and their teen-aged sons with their mother's pronounced overbite hung over the brick fireplace. Next to the fireplace was a pile of boards with nails still poking through the splintered wood where it had been torn apart. A thin layer of dust and ashes covered everything.

"Where are you?" Tracy asked.

"Bedroom. Just follow the flies."

"Flies? I thought they were crows." She waved a fat black one out of her face and leaned one crutch up against the wall. Resting her weight on the left crutch, she raised her.357 and limped forward to find Eric.

The flies were everywhere now, buzzing throughout the house like a crowd of gossiping crones. They flicked from room to room in hungry swarms with no fear of Tracy. She brushed them out of her face and off her hair as she followed Eric's voice down the narrow hallway into the far bedroom. By the time she reached it, she was gagging on the horrid smell. She tugged her shirt up over her nose..

"God almighty, Eric."

Eric nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I know."

His red kerchief was tied around his face like a bandit. The number of flies was staggering, huge, black clouds drifting around the room, humming like a chain saw, raining down plump, black flies onto the bed. And the man lying on it. At least she thought it was a man.

Next to the bed in a puddle of fresh blood with a crossbow bolt sticking out its chest, sprawled a gray German shepherd, his teeth bared and flecked with chunks of flesh. Clamped in his stiff, dead mouth was half a human foot, torn loose from the corpse on the bed. Eric planted his foot on the chest of the dog and yanked his arrow free, wiping the blood on the bedspread.

"This is probably the dog that made those tracks," Eric said. "He'd just started his meal when I came in. His name's Ralph."

"The man?"

"No, the dog." He bent over the dog and showed her the collar. MY NAME'S RALPH. CALL (213) 456-9080. "That's a Malibu prefix. He's come a long way."

Tracy hated knowing the dog's name. "Did you have to kill him?"

Eric gave her a look. "He didn't even bother dropping that foot when he came at me. It's going to be hard to keep these animals happy with Gainesburgers anymore."

Tracy turned back to the corpse on the bed. Missing half a foot was the least of his losses. The right side of the face had been chewed off. She could still see the teeth marks where the flesh had been ripped off. He was also missing a leg and both arms, though their removal seemed neater, like the bodies back in Santa Carlotta. Flies dove at the open wound of his face, feasted, then flew away to be replaced by other flies. Tracy waved them all away with a pillow from the floor. But when she looked back at the face she saw the wound was moving. She looked closer. Clumps of tiny, white maggots squirmed inside the man's face. A couple crawled across what was left of his eyeballs.

Eric put an arm around her shoulder. "Looks like our friends from Santa Carlotta were here. Managed to take a leg and two arms."

"Christ, you make it sound like they were out shopping. Wings and thighs, extra crispy."

"Well, they were. I think they scavenge the bodies, eating what they can and carrying some back to the others."

She fought the tightening at her throat, the heaving in her stomach. "You mean, they killed him and then butchered him?"

"They didn't kill him. He was already dead."

Tracy looked at the body again. Of course. She'd sat through enough trials back when she sketched them for a living to notice there was almost no blood on the bed. Therefore the wounds had occurred after death.

"Then what happened?"

Eric shrugged. "I'm only guessing. But look at the hair. He's practically bald."

"So? A lot of men are."

"Yeah, but his is wispy here and there. Notice that photograph over the fireplace? This is the father. He's got all his hair there and the picture's dated two years ago."

"Maybe he had cancer."

"Maybe. But there are three graves out back that suggest his family died of something else. Problem is, the graves have been dug up. They're empty. Come on." He lead her back down the hallway to the living room. He squatted next to the fireplace, examining the half-burned boards among the ashes. Brushing his hands on the thighs of his jeans, Eric stood up and shook his head. "Arsenic poisoning."

"Pardon me, Inspector Ravensmith of Scotland Yard. Are you saying someone poisoned him or he poisoned his family and then himself?"

"Neither. It's the wood." He grabbed a board from the pile next to the fireplace and showed it to Tracy. "They probably scavenged this wood from some other home somewhere, maybe one that was destroyed in the quake. Been burning it for months now, using it for warmth and light and cooking."

"So?"

"So most lumber for outdoor use is treated with a preservative, chromate copper arsenate. When you burn it, you get fumes, smoke, and ashes loaded with arsenic, plus chromium and copper. That combination will eventually kill you. But not before you lose your hair, get muscle cramps, diarrhea, headaches, earaches, and bronchitis."

Tracy tossed the wood back onto the pile of lumber. "Let's get out of here, OK?"