The Library at Mount Char Read online

  “What about the lions?”

  “Leave them. They’re disposable. Just get indoors.”

  Steve lurched inside, shutting the door behind him. “I’m in.”

  “OK, you’re safe. Which house are you in?”

  “Uhh…the outside is white brick?”

  “Perfect. There’s food, water, and medical supplies in the living room. Stay there. You’ll be safe inside. I’ll get you out of there as soon as I can, but it may be a day or two.” She hung up.

  III

  “Shit,” Carolyn said in Pelapi as she hung up the phone. She, Jennifer, David, Margaret, Rachel, and Peter were sitting around Mrs. McGillicutty’s kitchen table.

  The others could tell from her tone that things had gone bad, but none of them understood more than a smattering of English.

  “What happened?” David rumbled.

  “He ducked in to one of the houses.” She stood and walked over to the wall, where the phone’s cradle hung. When she seated the phone she also unplugged the jack. No one noticed. The librarians weren’t much good with technology, nor was Mrs. McGillicutty. Nor was she, for that matter, but she’d had time to read up on telephones. The other phone jacks in the house were already unplugged.

  “Well,” David said reflectively, “I suppose it was going to be one of the two. Margaret, which do you think would be worse? Ripped apart by dogs, or gummed to death by the dead ones?” He tickled her. She giggled and squirmed, unsettling a small cloud of flies. “You’d know, wouldn’t you?” She giggled again.

  Jennifer slapped her forehead. “Oh, no! Didn’t you warn him? Are you going to want him back, Carolyn? Because that’s going to be a real mess.” The dead ones would be friendly to strangers they encountered outside their houses, if somewhat odd. But on the rare occasion that some unfortunate soul from the outside world made it indoors, they fell on him with teeth, hands, clubs, kitchen tools, whatever was handy. Unless someone intervened quickly, there usually wasn’t much left.

  Carolyn shrugged. “He’s disposable. If we get in there in the next little bit, maybe. Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned he can stay dead.”

  “So…new plan?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think the basic plan is solid. The problem was that he didn’t ignore the sentries.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He spoke to Thane, almost first thing.”

  Jennifer winced.

  Carolyn felt her index finger about to tremble. “It never occurred to me to warn him.” This was plausible. Most of the librarians had a horror of the neighborhood dogs that dated back to childhood. Even Michael tended to keep his distance. But Americans, for some reason, seemed to love the furry little bastards. It was one of their unfathomable quirks.

  “So, what then?”

  “Unless anybody can think of something better, I guess I’ll go out and see if I can round up another American,” she lied. “David? Does that suit you?”

  David, perhaps thinking of the bloodbath at the jail, blessed this with a shallow nod.

  “When will you go?” Jennifer asked.

  Carolyn thought about it. “Now, I suppose.”

  “Want to wait a bit? There will be food soon.” Mrs. McGillicutty was bustling in the kitchen.

  Carolyn groaned. “No! I’ve already eaten twice today. And I may have to do bar snacks. Has anyone seen those boots I had on? And the blue duffel bag with all the green paper? I’ll need it as bait.”

  Carolyn collected her things and emerged into the afternoon sunshine. That went rather well, she thought. Mission accomplished, and Steve is in a safe place. It was true that the dead ones were fierce defenders of their quarters. It had to be that way. Their private lives could not bear much inspection. But there were exceptions. The librarians could come and go as they pleased, as could others who had been resurrected.

  Steve would be fine.

  The others did not know this, of course.

  IV

  Steve gave the interior of the house a quick glance—weirdly empty—and turned to the door. It had one of those little peephole things that gave a fish-eye view of the outside. The two lions were about five yards from the porch, backing up slowly.

  It wasn’t hard to see why. Now there were at least a hundred dogs in the street of all sizes and description—Dobermans; Jack Russell terriers; poodles both large and small; German shepherds; Labs of the chocolate, yellow, and black variety; dozens of other breeds. They were advancing on the lions.

  The big male looked back and forth over the assembled dogs and gave a full-throated roar. The sound echoed down the street, bouncing off the houses of Garrison Oaks. The female looked over her shoulder at the door. Her gaze seemed to bore into Steve.

  The look in her eyes reminded Steve of something, but he couldn’t quite think what.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. What do I do here? The lions had saved him. But, y’know, they’re fucking lions. Still, he had been down for the count, barely conscious as the dogs tore into him.

  That reminds me—he looked down. He was dripping blood on the floor, but not actually spraying it, as far as he could tell. That was probably good. And Carolyn had said there were medical supplies. “Medical supplies?” That’s suspiciously convenient. Then, God, I hate her. A lot.

  Outside the door a low rumble was building, the sound of a hundred dogs growling at once. Over that, the lawn mower. The female lion stood in the old man’s path, teeth bared, fur up. He just steered around her. He didn’t seem to notice the dogs at all.

  The male lion took another half-step back. Thane advanced two steps, the rest of the dogs close behind him. One of the Rottweilers barked mechanically, over and over, spraying flecks of white foam. The yard was a sea of wrinkled muzzles, fangs, savage eyes.

  Yeah, they’re fucked. Even if the lions had somewhere to run, which they didn’t—they had cornered themselves covering Steve’s retreat—he had no doubt that at least some of the dogs could outrun them. And there were so many. Steve pounded the wall. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  He thought about dialing Carolyn back, but there wasn’t time. The big lion took another step back, roared again. The Rottweiler charged him and he swatted it, sent it flying into the crowd. The female looked over her shoulder again. Steve would have sworn he saw reproach in those eyes. Wasn’t there a thing on YouTube a couple of years back about lions and some English dudes buddying up? Steve thought hysterically. Ah, fuck it.

  He opened the door.

  The female lion looked at him. Possibly he was kidding himself, but he thought she looked grateful. “Get in here! What are you waiting for?”

  She tried to bound, but her hind leg wasn’t quite up to it. She did a belly flop onto the brick porch steps, then scrambled up. The male wasn’t wounded, but he waited for her to get inside. Some of the dogs were just inches from him. He held them at bay with swipes of his paw and, Steve thought, the force of his personality.

  “Come on!”

  The male spun and was through the door in two quick leaps. Steve, standing behind the door, tried to slam it shut, but was thwarted by the dogs. Two of them, both greyhounds, were pinned neck-deep between the door and the jamb. They snarled, snapped. Steve kicked at their heads with his good leg, holding himself up with the door. He kicked the top greyhound unconscious, or possibly to death. When he let the pressure off the door the other one backed out. He was able to shut the door then; there were a lot of dogs outside, but for whatever reason only a couple of them had come onto the porch. They scrabbled ineffectually against the door with their toenails.

  He made extra-special sure that the latch caught, then released the handle. He locked it, then threw the deadbolt for good measure. The dogs outside clambered at the door, barking. Steve leaned against the wall and turned to see if the lions would eat him now.

  They didn’t. They ignored him completely, actually. The female had collapsed in the living room. She had a biggish chunk missing from her left rear leg. Blood wasn’t spurting from the
wound, but it oozed out in a steady stream. A red trail led from the foyer to where she lay.

  Right, Steve thought. Medical supplies. Carefully, keeping one eye on the lions, he limped into the living room. It was still bright outside, but in the house it felt like twilight. Thick curtains hung over all the windows, and there were no lights on. He fumbled around on the wall until he found a row of switches and flipped them at random until one worked. A single anemic bulb came on overhead, its dull ochre glow further diluted by the husks of dead insects in the fixture.

  “Whoa,” Steve said.

  The living room was flat, empty space about the size of a two-car garage. All the furniture was heaped in the corner—couch standing on one end, squished lamp shade poking out from a splintered bookcase, end-table legs jutting up like skeletal fingers. The ghost of the couch lingered as a cleaner spot on filthy carpet.

  The framed photographs and art were in the pile as well, but the room was not undecorated. Most of the wall space was covered with crude paintings that looked like the work of a talented kindergartener. No, Steve thought. That’s not quite right. They look like cave paintings.

  These images had the same crude style, but they were not of animals. Well, mostly not. He saw a few four-legged beasties here and there, possibly dogs. But mostly these cave paintings were of modern things—he recognized the square brown of a UPS truck, a small car with a sign on the roof, a stick-figure man bearing pizza beside it. A mail truck. A basketball hoop. A bicycle. But among the recognizable and commonplace stuff of American life, there were inexplicable things as well—a black pyramid, a yellow bull standing in a fire, angry calamari bobbing in green waves.

  He found the supplies Carolyn had mentioned stacked neatly in the corner opposite the furniture—two cases of Dasani water, a case of Johnson & Johnson sterile gauze, two industrial-sized boxes of Band-Aids, a plastic bag full of beef jerky, what looked like a tackle box with a red cross stenciled on it. A plain white box held a collection of less-familiar things, neatly wrapped in an old wedding dress; three clay pots, a Styrofoam tray of glass ampoules, tiny bowls of powder. This stuff’s fresh, looks like. It’s been here a day or two at most. Steve walked over and spun the cap off a Dasani, guzzled it. He opened a Band-Aid box, peeled one, and stuck it over a small bite mark on his finger. Another box said AMOXICILLIN. He opened it and found a dozen syringes.

  “Oh, hello!”

  Steve started, spun around. It was an older woman, mid-sixties, in a flower-print skirt-and-pants combo, mostly purple. She herself was very pale, her lips a cyanotic blue. “How lovely to see you! Won’t you come in? May I take your coat?”

  “Oh…hi. I didn’t realize anyone was here. I’m sorry to break in. Really. There are dogs—”

  “Won’t you come in?”

  “I don’t—” He stopped, squinted at her. He thought of how the mower guy kept pantomiming deafness, pointing at the mower over and over like it was the first time. His wife, maybe? They’re perfect for each other.

  “Won’t you come in?” she said again. “How lovely to see you.” The lion walked over, sniffed her. She looked down at the four-hundred-pound cat bleeding in her foyer and patted his thick, dusty mane. “May I take your coat?”

  The lion looked over his shoulder at Steve and gave a dubious rumble.

  Steve shook his head. “Beats the shit out of me, man.”

  The big cat swished his tail at Steve’s words, agreeably enough, as if he understood—maybe not the words, but the gist of his thoughts, the sentiment. For some reason this struck Steve as funny. When the sound of his chuckle prompted the woman to ask again if she might take his coat, he laughed long and loud.

  Maybe he was getting the hang of this weird-ass day.

  Chapter 8

  Cold Home

  I

  The secretary was a middle-aged black lady with a friendly face and eyes like ice. She’d tracked Erwin’s approach the way a panther might watch a goat sidle up to a water hole. Behind her, a tall window overlooked a perfectly manicured garden. Erwin looked out that window with real longing. It was clear and sunny, cool but not chilly, maybe the best day of the fall. Erwin wanted to be out hiking in the woods, kicking his way through crunchy leaves.

  Instead he walked up and laid his visitor’s badge on her desk. “I’m Erwin,” he said. He jerked a thumb at the curved door to his right. “Got a call that he wants to see me.”

  “Erwin what?” the secretary said, running her finger down a printed list of names. Erwin didn’t answer. His last name was on the badge. She was just being a bitch.

  “Ma’am, that is Erwin Leffington,” said a voice behind him. “The Erwin Leffington.”

  Erwin turned. A fit-looking middle-aged man in an Army general’s uniform sat on the couch behind him. In his briefcase Erwin saw a number of file folders with black borders. Hmmm. He was aware that such classifications existed, but he’d never been in the room with one before.

  “Ah,” the secretary said, thwarted. “I see. You’re connected with…the emergency?”

  “I guess,” Erwin said.

  The secretary pursed her lips. She consulted a different, shorter list, gave a curt nod. “He is expecting you,” she admitted. “Have a seat, please.”

  Erwin nodded in return.

  Behind him, the general had gathered up the papers he was looking at and put them away in a briefcase cuffed to his wrist. Then he stood, smiling broadly, and walked over to greet Erwin. “I’m Dan Thorpe,” he said, holding out his hand to shake. “It’s a real honor to meet you, Sergeant.”

  Out of habit, Erwin skimmed Thorpe’s decorations—an Airborne patch, the crossed arrows of Special Operations, a whole bunch of campaign ribbons. He knew the Joint Special Operations commander by reputation, though they had never met. Supposedly he was a pretty good guy. Erwin shook his hand. “Meetcha,” he said. “Sir.”

  “Captain Tanaka said to say hello,” Thorpe said. “He wanted to come himself but he’s…otherwise occupied. Mission planning. He insisted that I bring you down for a beer when all this is over.”

  Erwin warmed a little. “Yeah? You know Yo?” He and Yoshitaka had served together in Iraq. “Didn’t realize he was with you guys.”

  “For about a year now. How come you never came out for selection?” Thorpe asked. “I know Clint invited—”

  “The president will see you now,” the secretary said. She stood up and walked over to the oddly shaped door and opened it for them.

  The door wasn’t very wide. Erwin, who’d retired as a command sergeant major, deferred to General Thorpe’s rank, letting him go through first, then followed him into the Oval Office.

  II

  It was Erwin’s first time in the sanctum sanctorum. He’d been to the White House before, once as part of a tour group and once when he and a couple of other guys swung by to pick up some Distinguished Service Crosses. Erwin, who gave no fucks about medals, had come close to skipping that last. At the time, though, he’d been remodeling his house. He was curious to see how the carpenters handled the baseboards and crown molding on the curved walls of the Oval Office. But it kinda sucked. The ceremony had been in the Rose Garden, not the Oval Office, and the president—not this guy, the one before last—turned out to be a douche. He showed up drunk and spent most of his time drooling over the niece of a Marine pilot. As soon as she made it clear she didn’t love her country in that way, Scotchy McPolitics disappeared. Also he got the pilot’s name wrong during the ceremony.

  Anyway, nine years and two presidents later, here he was in the Room itself. It wasn’t small, but it wasn’t quite as big as he would have expected. But…really nice job on the baseboards. Perfectly molded plinth blocks, good clean shoe molding, and nearly invisible joins on the scalloping up above. He looked around. The rest of the room was fancy too. Regal blue carpeting, alternating gold-and-cream stripe pattern on the walls. His eye lingered on the president’s desk, an elaborately carved teak thing that depicted some sort of naval battle
. Nice detailing, he thought. And can you even get teak anymore? He considered. Probably it’s a antique or some shit.

  “—nd this is Erwin Leffington,” Thorpe was saying. “Formerly with the Eighty-Second, now a special investigator with Homeland Security.”

  Erwin looked up. In front of the desk two gold couches faced each other, a coffee table between them. The president and a bunch of guys he vaguely recognized from the news were sprawled out on them. They looked tense. Mentally, Erwin rolled his eyes. Here we go.

  “Why is he here?” asked an older woman, looking down at him over the top of her glasses. A classified-documents folder lay open in her lap. Another black border, Erwin saw. La-di-da. The label inside the jacket read COLD HOME.

  “A number of reasons, Madam Secretary,” Thorpe said. “Sergeant—sorry, Special Agent Leffington has proven to be well ahead of the curve on this one. Prior to yesterday’s, ah, events, he was conducting an investigation of a related crime, a bank robbery. Leffington was also interrogating the escapee at the time of his prison break. He’s the only person known to have seen the operatives and lived.”

  “It was just the one guy.”

  “Beg pardon?” said the lady in glasses.

  Erwin jerked a thumb at Thorpe. “He said ‘operatives.’ But it was just the one guy. That I saw, anyway.”

  “Just one? What about the one who escaped custody?” He rustled papers in his black bordered folder. “Steve, ah…Hodgson? The one you were interviewing?”

  “I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘escaped custody,’ ” Erwin said. “Looked more like ‘kidnapped out of custody’ to me.”

  “How so?”

  Erwin shrugged. “Well, he was surprised as shit when the guy in the tutu showed up. We all were. Our jaws was all hanging open like we was morons.” Erwin especially relished that last phrase. ‘Like we was morons.’ He only trotted it out on special occasions. “Plus the guy in the tutu had to knock the fuck out of Hodgson to get him to stop squirmin’.”