Thunderbird Falls

CHAPTER 27

Billy called ahead to let Mel and the kids know I was coming. I stopped for loot on the way over and pulled up their driveway in the borrowed patrol car. I got out and pushed the gate—an actual white picket fence—open and wended my way through the overgrown herb garden that made up the Holliday front yard. It was almost cool under the shade of a couple of enormous birch trees that filtered sunlight down to the ground.

The two oldest kids, Robert and Clara, met me at the front door with serious expressions. I put my bag of loot down on the porch and ruffled Rob’s hair. At eleven, he was starting to have distinct opinions about his own dignity, so when he didn’t duck out from under my hand, I knew things were dire indeed. “Hey, guys. How’s your Mom?”

“Grumpy.” Clara hooked her arm around my hips and leaned on me. “She doesn’t like staying in bed.”

“Me either. Where’s Jacquie and Erik?”

“Taking a nap,” Robert reported. “I told ‘em they had to be extra good ’cause Mom’s sick. Is she gonna be okay, Joanne?”

“Yeah.” I pulled Robert over to my other hip to hug him. “And I’m here to sit on you guys and make sure everybody’s good and take care of your mom if she needs it, okay?”

“We’rebeing good,” Clara insisted. “It’s awful hot. Can we go get some ice cream?”

“Maybe later. How about a drink now? Lemonade?” The kids were so assured it made me feel better.

“Can’t,” Robert said. “There’s a thing in the kitchen.”

So much for feeling better. “A thing?”

“A Thing,” Clara repeated, imbuing the word with a capital letter. “We didn’t want to tell Mom.”

“The doctor said she had to stay in bed,” Robert explained. I smiled a bit.

“Yeah, and a Thing would probably make her get up. You guys are good kids.”

“Yeah,” Robert agreed. I grinned more broadly.

“Modest, too. Okay. Let me go say hi to your mom, and then I’ll come look at this Thing, okay?”

Robert and Clara exchanged glances, considering the proposal, then nodded. “Okay,” Robert said. “Can we set up the water slide on the lawn?”

I pursed my lips. “Let me see if your mom’s up to all that noise, okay? I’ll help you if she is. Otherwise it’ll be Parcheesi or something. Something quiet.” I inevitably lost at Parcheesi, Monopoly, and pretty much every other board game ever played. I blamed it on never learning the rules properly as a child. On the other hand, I could identify more vehicles at a glance than most people could in a lifetime, which was enough of a party trick for me.

The kids exchanged glances again. “You’ve never played Parcheesi with us, have you?” Clara asked. “It’s not quiet.”

I grinned. “We’ll have to make do. Tiptoe in and check on your little brother and sister while I check on your mom.”

“Okay!” They ran off, sounding less like a herd of elephants than I’d ever heard them before. I kicked my sandals off before going to visit Melinda.

The Hollidays’ house was the kind of place I’d always wanted to live in and never had the foggiest idea why I should. It was in a better part of the North Precinct, far enough north that when Billy’d bought it, it’d been unfashionable and comparatively inexpensive. It’d started with four bedrooms and had expanded to six, with hardwood floors scarred from kids and dogs running rampant over them. The backyard was enormous and usually had a croquet set and a badminton net set up. It looked exactly like the kind of place a person would want to raise a herd of children. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do with it, but I coveted it anyway.

The stairs up to the bedrooms squeaked as I took them two at a time. Somehow the kids always ran them without making them squeak, although it didn’t do a thing for silencing their approaches or departures. Melinda heard me coming and called, “Joanne? Is that you?”

“Yeah.” I appeared in her doorway, smiling. “I squeak too much to be the kids, huh?” Clara was right: Mom was grumpy. Her color was off and for once she didn’t look perfect. Her hair was up in a tangled pony tail and she was wearing an orange shirt that I recognized as Billy’s, soft and comforting but a bad color for her. Her eyebrows were pulled down and her mouth was turned in a frown.

“Come on in. Thanks for coming over.” The frown fled into a grateful smile. I padded in and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Not a problem. Are you about to die of boredom?”

“Yes. And I’ve only been here three hours.”

I laughed. “I’m surprised you’ve stayed still that long. I brought you some stuff.”

“If it’s knitting, I’m going to poke your eyes out with the needles,” Melinda warned, then shook her head. “I couldn’t get up if I wanted to. All I have to do is remember how scared Bill looked and I don’t even want to move.” She pulled her lower lip into her mouth and frowned out the window. I touched her arm.

“Hey. It’s okay, huh? You don’t have to be tough if you don’t want to. I won’t tell anybody.” My heart hurt for her. “It’s gonna be fine, Mel. You just take it easy. Anyway, I brought trashy romance novels, not knitting, and a pint of chocolate fudge brownie delight ice cream.”

“That’s my favorite!”

I grinned. “Yeah, Billy told me. He thought maybe if you were stuck in bed for a while he could get you to gain some weight instead of him.”

To my relief, she laughed. “Isn’t that just like a man. Always thinking of himself.” Her eyes brightened and she looked away again. I busied myself hauling stuff out of plastic bags until she cleared her throat and said, “Thanks.”

“No problem.” I looked up again with a smile. “Rob wanted to know if they could put the water slide out on the back lawn. It’s that or Parcheesi. What’s your vote?”

“The water slide is okay. I didn’t want them to get the lawn all soaked because of the party tonight, but—”

“Oh, crap, right.”

Melinda gave me a dirty look. “You’d forgotten, hadn’t you.” Then she frowned. “Joanne, have you been tanning?”

I groaned, half-laughing. “Sort of. It’s a long story.”

“I may be stuck here a while,” she said dryly. I lifted up my hands and she gawked, grabbing my left wrist so she could turn my injured palm up. “What happened?”

“…part of the same long story. I’ll tell you about it,” I said hastily. “I promise. Let me get the kids going with the water slide first, okay? We’ll come play Parcheesi in here this afternoon so you’re not trapped in the twilight zone alone all day, and I’ll call to let people know the party’s canceled.”

She let go of my wrist reluctantly. “I guess so. Unless you’ve got a ‘get out of bed free’ pass handy?”

For an instant I hoped the power inside me would rise to the challenge, but it didn’t so much as stir. I shook my head and pasted on a rueful grin. “‘Fraid not. Just tell me where to find the guest list.”

“How organized she thinks I am,” Mel said to the ceiling. “Guest list, dias mia. Bill’s telling the guys at the precinct, and I think I can give you the rest of the names.”

“Okay.” I produced a plastic spoon and the pint of ice cream from the plastic bag. “Eat, gain, and be merry. I shall return anon, once the kids are settled outside.” And once I was done dealing with the Thing in the kitchen. I stood, saluted smartly, and left Melinda smiling behind me.

I helped the two older kids set up the slide, which is to say I set it up while they got their younger siblings and everyone, including the two-year-old, stood around telling me what I was doing wrong. Despite my incompetence, they seemed pleased with the results, and I left them alone, shrieking and sliding across the plastic mat in freezing cold hose water. Then I went to investigate the Thing in the kitchen.

I felt it when I got to the dining room. I could even see it, a malevolent silver glow that bled through the walls. My steps slowed until I felt like Cinderella stuck in the pitch. I had to look at my feet to realize that I was not, in fact, moving forward anymore. No wonder the kids hadn’t wanted to go into the kitchen. I lifted my chin and kept going, feeling like I was trying to walk through a marshmallow. The air pressed back at me, soft and sticky and thick. I breathed through my nose, deliberate deep breaths, and pushed through it. When I reached the kitchen door, the thickness shattered like a soap bubble and I was able to draw in one normal breath.

It seemed like a long time before I took the next one. There was more than a Thing in the kitchen; the Thing had filled the kitchen almost entirely. Enormous silver coils piled on the counters and stuffed the corners of the room. A shadow of my own reflection bounced across glittering white scales that weren’t quite solid enough yet to make a true reflection. A heavy head lifted out of the coils and flat white eyes stared down at me.

It was smaller than it had been in the Dead Zone. Its head was only the length of my body. When it opened its mouth, hissing silently with the gray-white tongue flicking out to taste the air, its fangs were only half my size. As I watched, though, it…popped. Cartilage and muscle bulged with audible cracking sounds, expanding a few inches in every direction. The spires along its back snapped and pulsed to a larger size, and its skull jerked out, stretching skin that suddenly didn’t fit it anymore. The scales shattered and reformed, larger now to accommodate the new size. The fangs were a hand’s-length longer when it hissed again.

It was very nearly solid already. Whatever was keeping most of the spirits from realizing their bodies wasn’t affecting the serpent. Maybe it had more strength of will or more conscious awareness. It sure as hell knew I was there, gaping up at it. It all but smiled, lowering its flat nose to within centimeters of my face. Then it opened its mouth and snapped its jaws shut over me.

Agony cramped my hamstrings, dropping me to my knees with a gurgle that wanted to be a howl. I fell through the not-quite-solid serpent’s mouth, feelings its jaws scrape up my bones, and lay curled with my forehead on the floor, shuddering. The serpent seemed to chuckle above me, and I thought I felt its tongue lash along my backbone. I curled my hands into fists and whispered, “Houston, we have a problem.”

I’d thought I could vanquish the Thing in the kitchen. I hadn’t been real clear on how the vanquishing would work; I’d had vague ideas of playing maiden-and-unicorn and leading the Thing outside. The minor detail that I wasn’t a maiden hadn’t seemed relevant, since it’d seemed unlikely that the Thing would be a unicorn. I didn’t think kids would call a unicorn a Thing. Then again, I’d never met a unicorn. They could be very Thing-like, for all I knew.

I admired how my brain was trying to derail me. It didn’t want to think about the Thing being semisolid. It didn’t want to think about the Thing growing larger even as I watched. It certainly didn’t want to think about the Thing being the Dead Zone serpent with a particular vendetta against me. Well. Vendetta might be a little strong. It wanted to eat me. I had, in fact, agreed to let it, too. It just wanted what I’d promised.

I decided that from the point of view of the one who was going to be eaten, that was enough like a vendetta. Then I bonked my forehead on the floor and set my teeth together. Focus, Joanne.

I wasn’t going to be able to get the serpent out of here by playing maiden-and-unicorn. I wasn’t at all sure the damned thing would fit through the door. I heard it pop through another growth spurt above me, and revised that upward: it wouldn’t fit through the door. Then again, in its semisolid state, that might not matter; doors might be irrelevant. I began to crawl backward, whispering, “Heeeere, snakey snakey snake. C’mere, snake.” I heard it rustle upward, the sound more in the backs of my ear bones than in my ears, and dared to peek up.

Only then did I realize my vision was completely inverted, the sunlight through the window spilling in black and making patches of shadow against the serpent. I’d adapted. Funny what a body can get used to. I wondered if Melinda’s shirt was really orange, or if I’d lost my color vision before that.

The serpent, staring down at me, didn’t look inclined to move. I whispered, “Here, snakey snake,” again and backed up a few more inches. It followed me with its gaze, stopping when its head came up against the doorjamb. It would fit, if only just. The damned thing’s head was three feet wide. The spires on its back might not fit at all. I bit my lip and backed up some more. “C’mon, master serpent. I owe you one, don’t I? Why don’t we go outside where you can eat me.”

It flicked its tongue out, looking amused, and settled back down in its coils. I swore and hit the floor with my fist. “Look, goddamn it, you’re going to be stuck in here anyway, if you don’t come with me. This room’s not big enough for you. Just come on already.” I sat back on my heels and glared at it. It flicked its tongue complacently and shivered a few of its spires before the whole creature cracked and popped and enlarged again. I watched it fill another six square inches of the kitchen, and understood.

It didn’t need to fit into the room. The room would fit it, eventually. The bigger and more solid it got, the less the building structure would be able to accommodate it. The serpent would destroy Billy and Mel’s house unless I could get it out of there. I got to my feet. “It’s not going to be this easy,” I warned it. It blinked lidless eyes at me and hissed, as close to a laugh as I ever wanted to hear from a snake. I shook my head and nerved myself up to turning my back on it.

I had a plan.

Mel looked more cheerful with a half pint of ice cream in her, but her expression darkened as I came into the bedroom. “What’s wrong? Are the kids okay?”

“The kids are fine.” I sat on the edge of the bed. “What time’s Billy get off work tonight?”

“Seven, if there aren’t any crises. Why?” Melinda tightened her fingers around her plastic spoon like she’d use it as a weapon against me. I twisted my mouth, studying her and trying to judge how much truth I should impart. “Dammit, Joanne,” she said, “stop looking at me like that. I’m a cop’s wife. I can handle it. What the hell is wrong?”

“There’s a monster in your kitchen.” I winced as the words came out. Mel’s eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch.

“You mean besides my terminally hungry eleven-year-old son?”

I smiled a little. “Yeah, besides that. There’s, um… Crap. Before you got assigned to bed, did you see, like, weird animals and things around?”

Melinda exhaled, her shoulders dropping. “Of course I did. The last two days, everything’s been nasty. The weather’s too hot and everyone’s crabby, like they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. My grandma was a bruja, Joanne. Me and Bill met at a paranormal events convention fifteen years ago. Oh, and don’t give me that tight-mouthed look. You think I don’t know what’s been going on with you? Even if you hadn’t gone tearing off from the equinox dinner like your tail was on fire, Bill tells me everything anyway.”

“Yeah?” I smiled weakly. “Did he caper around you saying, ‘I told her so’?”

“Yeah, some.” Melinda grinned, but it fell away almost immediately. “So what’s in the kitchen?”

“A serpent. I mean, not just a serpent, but a sea-serpent. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s huge. I want to call in some backup and see if we can get rid of it. I’d rather have you and the kids out of the house, but I’m not sure we’ve got that much time.”

Melinda started to sit up farther. I put my hand on her shoulder, shaking my head. “No way, no how, sweetheart. You’re staying in bed. When Billy comes home he can pick you up and carry you out of here, but you’re not walking around, young lady. And I honestly don’t think there’s any immediate danger.”

Mel eyed me skeptically. “Honest,” I repeated. “I’m gonna cancel the solstice party and get my friends to come over. With any luck we’ll get this thing out of here before Billy even comes home, and I think that’ll make you feel better. Meantime I’ll keep an eye on it and the kids and you. If anything starts to look worse, we’ll figure out a plan B, okay?”

Melinda sucked her cheeks in and glared at me. “All right,” she said. “All right, but you’ve got to keep me in the loop, Joanne. It’s the only way to make it work.”

I grinned lopsidedly as I stood up. “Is that police procedure, or relationship advice?”

Melinda’s eyebrows quirked again. “Some of both.” She nodded at the door. “Go on. Get that Thing out of my house.”