Black Bird of the Gallows(86)

A sound comes from behind me. Reece is across the street, standing inside a house that has the front ripped off. Smoke wafts from the wreckage. I can see his head and shoulders above the jagged opening, in what was probably the living room. I open my mouth to call out, warn him to get out of there. It looks horribly unsafe. Smoldering beams teeter above him, where a roof used to be. They could fall any minute, but I hold my tongue. The way he’s standing there is so strange. Still and placid, like a meditating monk.

“Reece!” I call out. He doesn’t so much as twitch, and that alarms me. It’s not like my voice is competing with any other noise. I splash my way over to him, but when I reach him, he’s still zoned out. And then I see why.

There’s two dead people in there. A young couple, is my impression, and that’s based on the clothes. I can’t look away. Blood is everywhere. The shallow water he’s standing in is oily dark with it. I glimpse twisted limbs and a severed arm, floating. Fingers curled slightly. An open mouth. Eyes wide open, staring at the sky. My gaze swings and holds on living, breathing Reece. Red-black eyes are fixed on the gruesome scene before him. He breathes through his teeth. A wild flush darkens his cheeks as he absorbs the fleeting, lingering energy of the semi-recent dead. That’s definitely what he’s doing. I shudder and turn away, feeling oddly embarrassed, as if I am witnessing a private act. It’s so easy, sometimes, to forget that Reece is different. That he’s not quite human, and all this horror is not quite as horrible for him.

“Reece.” I touch his arm, tentatively.

He turns abruptly, and I snatch my hand back. He’s searing hot again.

He blinks at me slowly, but I’m not sure he sees me.

“What are you doing?” I ask, like I don’t know. Like I’m trying to be polite or something. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He rakes shaky fingers through his hair. “These were…there’s so much energy here—way more than I need right now—it’s overwhelming.”

I put a hand over my mouth and stifle a gag. My voice is a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know how you can—”

“I wish I could explain it to you, Angie,” he says. “It’s like being ultra alive and completely dead at the same time.” He grabs my sleeve and tugs it with a weird urgency. “We have to stay together. Whatever happens from now on, we can’t be separated.”

“Okay, okay.” I pry his hand off my sleeve and twine my fingers with his. His grip is almost painful. “So don’t go running off to every dead person you come across.” There’re bound to be more of them. I sneak another quick peek at the deceased couple—or what’s left of them under the collapsed section of their attic—and bear down on another wave of nausea. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yes. How far is it to the school? I’m getting you on the first heli—” He breaks off, gaze narrowing on something beyond my shoulder.

“What is it?” I whip around, and I see. “Oh no.”

Across the street and two houses down, a man stands on the peak of a roof. His posture is easy, completely unconcerned with falling. His head swivels slowly, scanning the street. It’s Rafette. I recognize the hat. That puffy coat I’ve grown to hate.

Reece grabs my jacket and yanks me down, below the shattered window frame and hopefully out of sight. His hand burns against my spine. “Don’t move.”

“Do you think he saw us?” My heart pounds so loud, every living thing within two miles must hear it.

“Don’t think so.” He lifts his head to peek out. “We have to go before he does.”

A crow suddenly cries out, and five dark birds streak over the rooftops. They fly low and make noise. Rafette turns away, watching the birds.

Reece whispers a thank-you to his family for the distraction and tugs me forward. We slip out of the gaping opening in the front of the house and move to the rear, flattening ourselves against vinyl siding. It’s hard to move in water and not make splashy sounds, but we’re not the only things disturbing the water. All sorts of things float around, liberated from peoples’ homes. A child’s plastic Big Wheels. Half-empty gallons of paint. The bloating corpse of a cat.

We hug the side of the house and slip through the rear neighbor’s backyard. We sneak up another few streets, moving from house to house. Reece ducks into someone’s open garage and pulls me in behind him. We press against the wall.

“Have we lost him?”

He puts a finger to his lips and points to the garage window. The view shows a sliver of the street we were just on, between two homes. Rafette turns his head back and forth with clear frustration, then heads up the street. Away from us, again. We wait until he’s out of sight before sinking to the floor.

A wave of dizziness forces me to drop my head to my knees until it passes.

“Are you sick?” he asks.

“No.” Frightened out of my mind, hungry, hurting, yes.

Reece rubs absent circles on my back. There’s a frown in his voice. “How far are we from the school?” He asked me this before.

“Not far,” I say. “About a quarter mile east of here.” Not in the same direction Rafette went, but not the opposite, either.

He rubs his eyes with a frown. A light sweat gleams on his forehead. “How bad do I look?”