Monster Nation(14)

No words passed between them. She was pretty sure the policeman would not have understood if she spoke to him. Still, a kind of communion was possible. He could see her dark energy as well as she could see his, she knew that without questioning how she knew it. They shared an awareness. She sensed his mood, his hunger, his confusion. He moved closer to her, half a step, but then sat back on his haunches. He radiated indifference at her. Irrelevance. She was neither food nor threat. He turned around and headed back to the corpse of the nurse.

Nilla sat very still, holding her head with both hands, and watched as they feasted. She saw the moment when the nurse's energy changed, the golden fullness dimming out like a dying candle, shifting through a last flaring shade of blue. Her flame went out and dark smoke billowed up inside her.

The horribly mutilated woman sat up with a wet tearing noise as she unstuck herself from the floor tiles. She looked around for a minute and then pushed the two policemen away. They had lost interest in her the moment her energy changed anyway. Rising on legs of slaughtered meat and gnawed bone the nurse slumped against a wall and started walking, leaning against the wall for support, dragging a blood stain along the plaster. The cops followed close behind. Where they were headed Nilla didn't know. She didn't get up to follow them.

Instead--reluctantly, afraid of what she would discover, but needing to find out anyway, she circled one hand with the fingers of the other and pressed her index finger against the vein in her wrist, trying to find a pulse.





Monster Nation





Chapter Nine


'He's crawling toward me' no, on his arms, his legs don't seem to work anymore, listen, I don't have time'oh my God'his eyes'his eyes'please! Please tell them to hurry!' [911 Emergency Response System call,Gabbs,NV , 3/20/05]

In the shadows of the spruces and the firs Dick and Bleu Skye (her legal name, she assured him) crunched through the snow that would linger nine months of the year at that altitude.

'I suppose that some people would call us freaks,' Bleu said, the words distorted by her lip wound but he could at least understand her now. Not that he was really listening. Her voice was a rough melody in harmony with the scrunching down of snow and the squeak of pine needles he made with every step. 'And I suppose I don't mind so much, we were trying to build something, is all. A quiet life in a pretty noisy world. Me and Tony, that was my husband, and our boy Stormy.'

Dick's feet were numb with the cold. His brain was numb with implications, meanings, ramifications. He'd just participated in the butchering of another human being. Oh, it had been self defense, sure, and oh, Dick was no peacenik. He owned guns, just like half ofColorado . A couple of target pistols and a hunting rifle and yes, he had used it to kill. To kill white-tailed deer. The idea of hurting a human being intentionally, of true violence, of murder' that he'd never even contemplated before.

'That was nigh on twenty years ago, back when Stormy was just a passenger, you know, when I was carrying him. We built all this with our hands and we loved it, just loved it, no matter if we were hungry. No matter if we didn't know how to do something'we could learn. And all we had to do was walk outside and look up and we knew why we came up here and why we didn't want to go back.'

A half-visible path, a little more clear of snow than the surrounding terrain, went snaking through the trees and they followed it. Dick was lost on that path as he followed Bleu and he couldn't let go of the ice axe. It was like a talisman, some proof that he wasn't an evil man, that he wasn't a killer. Exhibit A in the trial going on in his head. Bleu's voice was just the soundtrack to that groundbreaking bit of courtroom drama and when she started sobbing it was just another instrument in the orchestra. On some level he realized that he wasn't thinking straight.

'I always worried that I couldn't teach Stormy enough. I worried he wouldn't know enough to make it in this life and now' oh God, now''

She stopped, and so did Dick. They'd reached their destination, a wooden structure that had to be a century old. Just a shack really, with one wall open to the elements. Inside the trail lead downward, into the earth. An old abandoned mine entrance. The mountains were riddled with them, leftovers from the gold rush. The wind tore out of it, colder than the outside air, and it made a hollow sound. Dick stepped closer and Bleu took his arm, holding him back. There was something moving down there.

'He died quick. My son died quick. Tony took his time about it. And now' I guess maybe' maybe you should just look. Here.' She handed him a flashlight. He clicked it on and peered down into the darkness.