No Peace in Quiet by Keli Rueth

Author:Keli Rueth [Rueth, Keli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

27

Johnny

Thurston said, “You better go get her. She’s a nurse for God’s sake. Pills are her bread and butter. It looked bad before. It looks worse now. You have any idea where the parents of Marissa got that Cetatab? If it’s anywhere near WCH pharmacy, I don’t need to tell you how bad it is.”

“I know, you don’t think I know?” Johnny said, kneading his earlobe with one hand, his other, white-knuckled around the phone handset.

He slammed the phone down and jammed his knee against the coffee table. The Life is Good cup full of sludge careened across dark brown carpet. The mess would wait. He slung his jacket over his shoulder, patted his pockets for his keys, and slipped on his boots.

A blast of sunshine assaulted his retinas. Pristine blue sky soared to the tips of the hemlocks that flanked his home. Air thick with clematis hailed the afternoon. A fine coating of pollen covered the Mustang.

The engine tore into the quiet. The Vuarnets hid his scowl as he trolled the neighborhood. Everything was peachy keen in Quiet, North Carolina, except some crazy person had tainted the proverbial well.

Still, no one knew. There was a new billboard going up on the side of 107. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to write BEWARE: CETATAB WILL KILL YOU in big red letters.

No one could be sure the poisonings were confined to the area, or the state, or even the whole country. Cetatab was as ubiquitous as grass. Most people didn’t even know where it came from. They just picked it up and popped it down their throats.

His head exerted pressure at the temples, a tight band around his forehead. Cori had said something this morning (was it only this morning?) about how to reach her clan of people, but he had either been too taken with watching her, or worried about her, or some other thing to pay attention. Then he remembered.

The library. Dewey had said that she visited his library.

The door to the library stood open, an invitation, as if Dewey knew Johnny would be arriving soon. Dried leaves danced through the open doorway. Johnny hopped the three steps to the porch, striding straight in. His eyes adjusted to the dim to find the library in complete order. Where there had been stacks of books on every surface, a table and chairs stood, polished, gleaming. Books that had been resting open on the floor were instead lining shelves neatly labeled. Though he had only been in the library twice before, the organization struck him as very wrong. He crept along the wall leading to the kitchen.

Dewey’s voice sounded from the kitchen. “Is that you, Johnny Walker?”

He sounded fit and fine. Johnny answered, “I need your help.”

Dewey stepped neatly into view. Johnny blinked, but the vision before him would not right itself. He tried to utter a benign pleasantry, like you look nice, or maybe I like your steel-toed shit kickers. Instead, a smattering of syllables hanging together loosely dribbled from his mouth.

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