Dust by Joan Frances Turner

Author:Joan Frances Turner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-07-25T22:00:00+00:00

12

Back at the park I could smell agitation and anger in the air, thick and heavy as grease. Since when did we need Billy’s permission to scupper? I bared my teeth for another fight as he staggered up to us, Sam and Mags tight-lipped and tense behind him. Joe was nowhere in sight.

“So where the hell have you three been?” Billy demanded. “Did you do it? No, what the hell am I saying, Saint Linc would never prank like that. Ben’s gone,” he said, waving his gas-puffed hands. “Gone.”

“He disintegrated? Already?”

“No, Madam Curie, I said he’s gone. He was just lying there, stone dead, and now he’s not and there’s no trace of him anywhere, ash or otherwise, and if someone—something—carried him off, we’ve got no clue where.” He grinned, a wet tarry smear of fury. “Goddamned Sam, falling asleep at the—”

“Don’t you start on me,” Sam snarled, hands curled into bony fists. “If you’re too busy stuffing your face to pay attention to what’s in front of you—”

“What’s in front of me? You fell asleep right next to him, you senile bag of maggots, and you just let them take him!” Billy let out a rumbling, swampy belch and cobra-spat at Sam. “Hears nothing, sees nothing, as much good on watch as a deer skeleton—”

“Boys, boys,” Mags cut in, mechanically weary; this must have been going on for hours. “Jessie, we’ve been looking and looking, and not even a smear of ash. Sam didn’t hear anything, and Billy and I were off hunting.”

“Where’s Joe?”

“Off searching the woods—he thinks maybe Ben was just stunned, woke up and wandered off. Now, I know doornaildead when I smell it, but your boy’s an optimist.”

Off searching the woods, I thought, remembering the tarry disintegrating mess of Ben’s arm, or tracking Ben to kill him, like those cornfield hoos, kill what was left of him for his own good? The mere thought of trekking all over the park or back to the cornfield to try to find out made me sway with exhaustion, but as my father used to say about med school, fortune favors the sleepless. “I’ll go help him look,” I said.

Mags shook her head. “No, you’re tired, dear heart—you can stay. Stay and explain why you’ve been acting so innocent face-to-face and then sneaking around talking to hoo-scientists, kissing up to the Rat, behind our backs like a little pissant ’maldie bitch.” Her hand clutched the back of a wrought-iron bench, twisting it into new designs. “Or like Teresa.”

I smiled, the bright sunny smile we always flashed before fights. I couldn’t take another fight, I’d collapse and Mags knew it. “Guess Joe’s been telling you some stories.”

“Joe’s got nothing for anyone but a shitload of stories,” said Linc, trying to angle himself between me and Mags like he could shield me. “He never did. You’re a fool if you listen to—”

“Joe said you knew something about what Teresa and them were up to, and were keeping it to yourself.” Sam’s voice was dry and punctilious, his expression sympathetic.

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