Jonathan Maberry: Dead of Night

The cold was gone now. The darkness closed over him, shutting out all light. Even the trembling vision faded into nothingness. Hartnup could feel himself die.

He knew that he was dead.

And that terrified him more than anything. More than the man on the gurney. More than when that man had opened his eyes. More than that first terrible bite. More than the cold and the darkness. More than the knowledge that he was being eaten.

He knew that he was dead.

He knew .

God almighty.

How could he be dead … and know ? He should be a corpse. Just that. Empty of life, devoid of all awareness and sensation.

This was something he had never imagined, never dreamed. The wrongness of it howled in his head.

He waited in the darkness for the nothingness to come. It would be a release.

He waited.

He prayed.

He screamed in a voiceless voice.

But he did not become a corpse.

He became a hollow man instead.

“This is Magic Marti at the mike on a crisp, clear November morning. Coming at you live from both sides of the line, here on WNOW and streaming live from the Net. Your source for news, sports, weather, traffic, and tunes. The news is coming up at half past the hour, so let’s take a look out the window and see what Mother Nature’s cooking up … and darn if she isn’t cranky today. Looks like we can wave good-bye to the sunshine, because there’s a whopper of a storm front rolling in from Ohio. It parked itself over Pittsburgh last night and the Three Rivers got pounded by two inches of rain. Ah … getting pounded by two inches makes me think of my first husband.”

Sound of a rim shot and cymbal.

“This is a slow-moving storm, so we can expect to see the first drops later today. This storm is clocking sustained winds of thirty miles per hour with gusts up to fifty. Button up, kids, this is going to be a bad one.”

Some days have that “it’s only going to get worse” feel, right from the moment you swing your feet out of bed and step flat-footed into a pile of cold vomit. Even then, feeling the viscous wrongness of that, you know that the day can get worse.

Desdemona Fox knew that it was going to be that kind of day. She was an expert on them, and this one promised to be a classic.

The vomit belonged to the long-haired, lean-bodied, totally gorgeous piece of brainless trailer trash who lay sprawled on the floor with one tanned leg hooked over the edge of the bed. Dez sat up and stared down at him. By dawn’s early and unforgiving light he still looked ripped and hunky; but the stubble, the puke, and the used condom stuck to his left thigh let the air out of last night’s image of him as Eros, god of love. The only upside was that he’d thrown up on his own discarded jeans instead of the carpet.

“Fuck it,” she said and it came out as a hoarse croak. She coughed, cleared her throat, and tried it again. It was louder the second time, a bit less phlegmy, but it carried no enthusiasm or authority.

Dez picked up her foot, fighting the urge to toss her own cookies, and looked around for something that wasn’t hers that she could wipe it on. There was nothing within reach, so she wiped it on Love God’s hip.

“Fuck it.”

Sounded better that time.

She got up and walked on one foot and one heel to keep any residual gunk off the carpet. She rented the double-wide and didn’t feel like losing her security deposit to that prick Rempel over a stained carpet. She made it to the bathroom, turned on the shower, set the temperature to something that would boil a pot full of stone crabs, and stripped off the T-shirt that she’d slept in. It was vintage Pearl Jam that had seen better decades. Dez took a breath and held it while she stepped under the spray, but her balance was blown and she barked her shin on the edge of the stall.

She was cursing while she stood under the steaming blast and kept cursing while she lathered her hair with shampoo. She was still cursing when the hot water ran out.

She cursed a lot louder and with real bile as she danced under the icy spray trying to rinse her hair. Rempel had sworn to her — sworn on his own children — that he had fixed that water tank. Dez hated him most days, but today she was pretty sure that she could put a bullet into his brainpan without a flicker of regret.

As she toweled off, Dez tried to remember the name of the beefcake sprawled on her floor.

Billy? Bart? Brad?

Something with a B .

Not Brad, though. Brad was the guitar player she’d nailed last week. Played with a cover band. Retro stuff. Green Day and Nirvana. Lousy band. Guitar player had a face like Channing Tatum and a body like—

The phone rang. Not the house phone. Her cell.

“Damn it,” she growled and wrapped the towel around her as she ran back to the bedroom. What’shisname — Burt? Brian? She was sure it started with a B —had rolled onto his side and his right cheek was in the puke. Charming. Her whole life in a single memorable picture.

Dez dove onto the bed but mistimed her momentum so that her outstretched hand hit the phone instead of grabbing it, and the cell, the clock, her badge case, and her holstered Glock fell off of the night table onto the far side of the bed.

“Shit!”

She hung over the bed and fished for the cell underneath, then punched the button with her thumbnail.

“What?” she snarled.

“And good morning to you, Miss Sunshine.”

Sergeant JT Hammond. He was her partner on the eight-to-four, her longtime friend, and a frequent addition to the list of people she was sure that right now she could shoot while laughing about it. Though, admittedly, she would feel bad about it afterward. JT was the closest thing to family she had, and the only one she didn’t seem able to scare off.

“Fuck you,” she said, but without venom.

“Rough night, Dez?”

“And the horse you rode in on.”

JT chuckled softly.

“Why the hell are you calling me so goddamn early?” grumbled Dez.

“Two reasons,” he said brightly. “Work and—”

“We’re not on until eight o’clock.”

“—and it’s not as early as you think. My watch says that it’s eight-oh-two.”

“Oh … shitballs.”

“We didn’t set out clock last night, did we? Little much to dri—”

Dez hung up.

She lay there, hanging over the edge of the bed, her ass in the air, her weight resting on one elbow.

“Oh, man!” said a slurry voice behind her. “Now that’s something to wake up to.”

Dez didn’t move, didn’t turn around.

“Here’s the morning news, dickhead,” she said very loudly and clearly. “You’re going to grab your shit and be out of here in ten seconds, or I’m going to kick your nuts up between your shoulder blades.”

“Damn … you wake up on the wrong side of—”

“Ten. Three . Two…”

“I’m out.”

There was a scuffling sound as Brandon or Blake or whoever the hell he was snatched up his stuff. Then the screen door opened and banged shut. An engine roared and the wheels of a Harley kicked gravel against the aluminum skin of the trailer.

Dez shimmied back onto the bed, turned over, and sat up. The room took a seasick sideways turn and then settled down. She looked around at her bedroom. Stark, cheerless, undecorated, and sparsely furnished. So much of it reminded her of herself. She closed her eyes. Insights like that she didn’t need on her best days. Today it was just mean.