Deluge: The Conqueror Worms II

CHAPTER 25

Kevin was dead but the rain kept falling. Sarah hated the rain’s indifference. She hated how it remained steady and constant even as the rest of the world fell apart around her. She loathed the feel of it on her body and in her hair. She cringed when she felt it in her lungs as she breathed or tasted it on her tongue when she spoke.

Sarah stood in front of the ranger station’s huge window, looking outside but not really seeing. She felt drunk, even though she wasn’t. Her ears and eyes burned, and her vision was blurry. She swayed back and forth, unable to keep her balance. She’d had the presence of mind to strip out of her wet clothing, but lacked the strength or desire to put on something dry. Naked, she shivered. When she raised a hand and touched the window, she noticed that her hand was trembling—but not from the cold.

“I like you, Mr. Window. We’ve got a lot in common, you and me.”

The window didn’t answer, but she hadn’t really expected it to. Sarah giggled. The sound was very small inside the large circular room. Using her index finger, she drew a smiley face on the glass. She frowned, remembering Carl Seaton doing the same thing in Teddy Garnett’s kitchen just a few days ago. Sighing, Sarah drew a bullet hole in the smiley face’s forehead. Then, as an afterthought, she drew several squiggly lines around it—worms with cheerful expressions. Choking off another round of laughter, Sarah stepped back and admired her handiwork.

The glass was fogged. So was her brain.

The glass was damp with rain. Her cheeks were damp with tears.

The glass was strong and unbroken. She was… she didn’t know what she was anymore, but she certainly wasn’t unbroken. People who were hole and complete and balanced and unbroken didn’t leave friends behind—especially when those friends were kindly, gentle old men under attack from giant, carnivorous worms. People who were whole and unbroken didn’t shoot their only remaining friend in the head, either. Nor did they try to burn the friend’s remains, or set fire to the utility shed where the friend’s remains lay, or get pissed off and scream at the sky when the rain kept putting the fires out.

What had happened to her? Who was this new Sarah and where had she come from? Had she always been this way, or was this simply a reaction to everything she’d been through over the last few months?

Until now, Sarah had only felt guilty over one thing in life. When she was younger, she’d kissed Erin Godfrey in the high school auditorium. They’d both had bit parts in the Senior musical—Annie Get Your Gun. They’d been backstage. The lights were out and no one was around. One thing had led to another, and they kissed. It was the first time Sarah had ever kissed a girl, and the experience was scary and exciting and right. For the first time in her life, she’d felt like she belonged. Felt safe.

Then a bunch of jocks who’d been drinking behind an unused bit of scenery leftover from the school play had laughed and taunted them—calling the dykes and lesbians and shouting out crude suggestions of what they should do next. Terrified, Sarah had fled, leaving Erin to stand there alone. Tears in her eyes, she’d run out into the parking lot, hopped in her car, and driven out to the lake, where she spent the night curled up in her backseat, her stomach a ball of dread.

For the rest of the school year, whenever she was asked about it, Sarah had denied that the kiss was reciprocal. She insisted that she’d been minding her own business and that Erin had forced herself on her, and that she’d then pushed her away. She avoided Erin in the halls. And when Erin’s hurt and reproachful eyes got to be too much, Sarah changed classes just to get away.

She’d always felt guilty about that. Years later, she’d even tried to track Erin down and apologize to her. But Erin didn’t want to be found. Sarah had always held out hope that they’d meet again at their high school reunion, and she’d be able to make things right. In the fantasy, they’d kiss again, but this time there would be no fear or shame.

Except that there would never be a high school reunion. There would be no reunions of any kind. Not with Erin. Not with any of her other girlfriends. Not with her family or friends. Not with Teddy and Carl. And now, not with Kevin.

She hadn’t intended to kill him. That hadn’t been her plan. Sarah had been sure that she could amputate the infected limb and cauterize the wound before the white fuzz spread any farther. But when she’d spoken to Kevin, looked him in the eyes and heard his voice—and saw the fungus moving on its own—instinct had taken over

Instinct.

It was instinct that had kept her alive so far. Instinct that had allowed her to survive the slide from civil unrest into total anarchy that had accompanied the early flooding. It was instinct that had led her to the Marriott hotel—one of the highest points in Baltimore. It was instinct that had allowed her to survive Leviathan’s attack of the building, and to escape in the raft with Kevin and Salty. Instinct had kept her sane when they were captured by the cultists in Greenbank, and had allowed her to escape once more. Instinct had helped her survive the helicopter crash, attacks from both Earl and Behemoth, and the long trek from Teddy’s home to here.

Now it had helped her survive again, and all she’d had to do was murder her friend. She was alive, and all it had cost her was death.

“I’m alone now,” she whispered. “It’s just you an me, Mr. Window. Just you and me and the little mouse I saw running around in here earlier. And sooner or later, I’ll probably have to kill him too, because although there’s a lot of food in this tower, it can’t last forever, right?”

She stared at the window. Her condensation doodle was already fading as the glass fogged again.

“No. Nothing lasts forever. Except me. I can’t seem to fucking die, even though I want to. I couldn’t even shoot myself. I wanted to, Mr. Window. As soon as I pulled the trigger on Kevin, I wanted nothing more than to pull it on myself. But I couldn’t. Something inside of me just wouldn’t let me do it. And now I’m alone.”

Exhausted, Sarah crossed the floor and sagged into one of the chairs. She eyed the forest ranger uniforms, all clean and dry and neatly folded. She considered putting one on, but then decided not to bother. Maybe she’d catch pneumonia and die from that, since she couldn’t seem to kill herself any other way. And besides, it wasn’t like there was anyone else to see her in the nude.

“All alone,” she repeated. “All alone.”

Sarah leaned back in the chair, closed her eyes, and began humming The Church’s ‘Under the Milky Way Tonight’. In year’s past, the song had always brought her peace.

And that was when she heard footsteps pounding up the metal staircase outside. Seconds later, the doorknob rattled.