One of Us by Craig DiLouie

Author:Craig DiLouie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2018-07-17T07:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Seven

Sheriff Burton left Enoch Bryant in the holding cells. Beth, the big no-nonsense woman he called the sheriff behind the sheriff, gave him the stink-eye as he entered the office. She hung up the phone, which started ringing again. Behind her, the switchboard was lit up.

“Am I supposed to get it dinner and supper?” she said.

“Yup,” Burton said.

“What does it eat?”

“He’s a he, not an it. And I reckon he eats what we eat, or he can go ahead and starve.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “The phone is ringing off the hook.”

“Townsfolk pitchin’ a hissy fit, I reckon. Word must be getting around.”

“The Augusta Chronicle called, too.”

“Hell’s bells, that was fast. What you tell them?”

“I told that man to call the mayor.”

“Good girl,” the sheriff said.

“Who by the way also called. And your wife.”

“I’ll call her back later. The mayor, too. I’m heading over to the coroner.”

“What about me?” Deputy Sikes said. “Half these calls are reports of feral kids in the woods. We don’t have the manpower to check out every one.”

“They’re all hooey,” the sheriff said. “You might stick around until the doc shows up to look at the prisoner. I’ll be back by then, and we can figure out what’s next.”

Burton plucked his hat from its hook and left the office. He got in his car and sat still for a while just thinking. None of it added up. He wondered if the kid was crazy. Sally Albod’s chest had been torn to ribbons. No birdshot did that.

The kid did it with his claws.

But to run back to the farm in a lather and make up a story like that? It beggared belief. If he tore up Sally, why stick around after? Why run and tell Albod that Gaines shot her, thinking it’d stick?

Maybe the kid had delusions.

It worried him. First Ray Bowie, now a week later a child gets murdered. Burton wondered if the plague kids suffered from a dual nature. One a normal human being, the other a thing that thought and acted like a beast. The two sides warring in their tragic souls. Maybe sometimes the beast won and took command.

Or maybe the kids were fine. The Colonel’s discipline and the Home’s social conditioning kept their bestial natures in check. They were all well-behaved kids, while Enoch Bryant just happened to be touched in the head. A bad apple. He snapped and killed Sally and then convinced himself he hadn’t done it.

Over the years, Burton had heard crime’s every excuse. If the human mind was capable of delusions, who knew what the monster mind could come up with. The plague children remained an unknown. That they were different on the outside was plain to see. How they might be different on the inside was anybody’s guess.

The whole thing made him uneasy for a mess of reasons.

Burton started the car and drove to the coroner’s office. He walked into the examination room as Dr. Rose Tipton unzipped the white bag to expose Sally Albod’s lifeless form on the steel slab.

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