Jeff Kendrick’s Mercedes screeched into a space in the parking lot in front of Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Harrelton, Ohio, and he leapt out and raced into the building.
“Theresa Washington,” he told the woman at the information desk, got the room number and stood anxiously on one foot and then the other, waiting for the elevator to take him to the third floor. He paused in front of the room to calm himself, then eased inside. Theresa lay on the bed—asleep or unconscious. She had bandages on her right hand and the side of her neck and smaller reddened wounds on her arms and face. The sight of them sent Jeff into an inarticulate rage.
Rats! Rats!
He didn’t notice Becca sitting in the chair at the foot of the bed until she rose and put her finger to her lips. She led him outside into the hallway.
“Tell me what happened!” he demanded, his voice too loud, but he couldn’t seem to get it under control. “How could rats have—?”
Becca looked around at the heads that had turned their way, grabbed his arm and shoved him toward a door a few feet away marked “Waiting Room.” As soon as they were alone, Jeff let go.
He wasn’t even aware that he was yelling until he saw Becca flinch backward from him, and instantly all the steam whooshed out of him. Fragile little Becca and he was shouting at her.
Get a grip, man.
Jeff clamped hold of his emotions and forced himself to speak calmly—well, in a quieter voice, at least—to find out what had happened. He grew more and more horrified at every grizzly detail—the image of Theresa on the floor with a swarm of rats attacking her was almost more than his mind could take in.
“How could they have gotten in—so many—and why—?”
“You know very well why,” Becca told him.
Her words stopped his breath. He stood frozen, gawking at her.
“She warned us something like this could happen, would happen. Don’t go looking for some logical explanation because there isn’t one.”
“That house,” Jeff sputtered. “I’ll hire a crew of exterminators to stop up every opening, make the place secure—”
“You still don’t get it, do you, Jeff? No place is secure. We’re at war. You’re not safe either, you know. You get tangled up with us and there’ll be a target on your chest, too.”
Jeff was there when Theresa woke up about an hour later. She came awake in a sudden jolt and cried out, batting at remembered rats, trying to get up and run away.
He grabbed her hands. “Theresa, look at me. You’re in the hospital. You’re safe. The rats are gone.”
The wild-eyed terror receded from her eyes and he felt her arms relax. He let go of them but continued to hold her hand.
“They’s gone?” Her voice was raw.
“They won’t be back!” Jeff declared. “I’ve hired exterminators. When they’re finished—”
“Exterminators ain’t gone help with rats like these,” she said, echoing what Becca had already told him. She pulled her hand free of his to feel around on her body, to find the bites and the bandages. Then she rolled over on her side, facing the wall, refused to respond to Jeff or Becca, and wouldn’t eat when food was brought to her. Finally, the doctor arrived, said she’d been too traumatized for company and that they were going to give her a powerful sedative. She wouldn’t be lucid until morning.
“Rats?”
Jack bleated the word so loud several customers turned to look at him. Sudden unease darkened the faces of the others at his table.
Jack, Daniel, Crock and Andi were eating a late dinner at the best eatery Bradford’s Ridge had to offer. It was called Boca on Bond Street, which sounded considerably better than “Mouth” on Bond Street, which was how the word translated.
When Jack and Daniel were children, it had been just a storefront, a mom-and-pop operation called simply “Restaurant” that served down-home cooking—country style. It still was that. The three men and Andi sat at a table with bowls piled high with mashed potatoes, Southern-style green beans cooked with ham hock, fried okra, fried squash and, of course, fried chicken or fried fish.
“Sit still in this place for long and somebody’s likely to pour batter over your head and plop you into a pan of hot grease,” Crock observed. “My cholesterol’s spiking from the smell alone.”
The men made it through double helpings of almost everything on the table. Andi merely pushed her food around on her plate. Every now and then, she would reach up and touch the Band-Aids on the scratches Ossy’s claws had inflicted.
Daniel managed to coax her into sampling a slice of lemon pie made with real lemons and Eagle Brand milk, topped with meringue that towered a full five inches off the filling—just as it had when they were kids. But she’d only taken a bite or two when Jack’s cell phone rang and the look on his face took everybody’s appetite away.
“Say it again, Becca, slowly. Let me make sure—” He listened and his jaw clenched. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He waited, listening. “I’m glad you called him, but I’m still coming home, won’t get there until—” He paused and listened. “Even if the doctor won’t let me see her until morning, I’m coming home now. Tonight.” He paused. “Are you all right?”
When he hung up, everyone looked at him with dread stapled on their faces.
“Theresa was…attacked by rats.”
“Rats!” Daniel exclaimed. Andi gasped and put both hands up over her mouth.
Jack told them what Becca had said to him on the phone. Even repeating it, he still had trouble believing it.
“We’re going back to Cincinnati,” Daniel said, and began to scoot his chair away from the table as if he intended to leap up and run out the door.
“That’s what I said, but Becca said the doctors ordered them out—said Theresa was too upset for company, that she won’t be allowed visitors until tomorrow.”
“Them?” Daniel asked.
“Becca and Jeff Kendrick.” Jack watched Daniel’s face tighten, not that he could blame him.
“What’s he doing there?”
“Becca called him. We weren’t around and she knew he’d want to know.” Jack paused, knew Daniel wouldn’t want to hear it but said it anyway. “She said he was very helpful.”
Jack considered. “I want to go on back to Cincinnati tonight so I can be at the hospital first thing in the morning.”
“She doesn’t need a whole herd of us descending on her,” Crock said. “I think I’ll stick here, nose around a little.”
“Andi and I will come with you, Jack,” Daniel said.
“I think one of us needs to stay here”—Jack nodded at Crock—“to explain the lay of the land to the greenhorn here.” Then he gave Daniel a knowing look. “And given who’s likely to be hanging around Theresa—and how popular I am here in my hometown—I think I should go and you should stay.”
He could see that Daniel understood—didn’t like it one bit, but understood. He reluctantly agreed.
“I’m going to see Miss Theresa,” Andi said, her voice soft. It wasn’t an ask-permission statement. Jack had tried to edit what he told them about what’d happened so as not to upset Andi. But it was what it was, no getting around it.
Before her father had a chance to respond to her un-request, she spoke again, even softer this time.
“Miss Theresa needs me.”
Jack and Daniel exchanged a glance over her head. The child was probably right.
“I’ll look after Andi,” Jack said. “We’ll stay at your house so she can sleep in her own bed.” Jack leaned over and said to her in a stage whisper, “I’ll take you to McDonald’s if you want, but we won’t tell Daddy.”
A ghost of a smile skittered across her solemn features. Her face was way too mature. She’d seen too much for it to be anything else, but Jack mourned the childhood the little girl had left behind.
“When will you be back?” Crock asked.
“Maybe tomorrow afternoon, but probably Sunday morning. That’s if Theresa’s all right. If not—”
“If not, you’ll stay in Cincinnati with her until she is all right,” Daniel said. He turned to Crock. “We won’t be sitting on our hands here.”
Jack noted how pale and drawn Crock was and felt yet again a pang of regret for dragging him into all this.
I warned you.
Jeff walked Becca down the hall, through the lobby and out to his car in the parking lot. She had ridden in the ambulance to the hospital with Theresa and he’d offered her a ride home.
How had she managed to fight off an army of crazed rats? She must be made of sterner stuff than what he could see—a delicate woman, so frail she looked like the weight of sunlight alone might topple her over. Her face bore the shadow of great beauty worn away, and there was a haunted look in her eyes he didn’t dare engage.
When she smiled, though, which she seldom did, she lit up like a candle in a dark room. Her lips were full and red, her smile heart-shaped and her eyes were the dark blue of still, deep water.
He suddenly felt an overwhelming need to protect her.
“I said I’d give you a ride, but I didn’t mean back to that house.”
“I live there,” she said.
“You’re coming home with me.” He realized how that sounded—had it actually been a Freudian slip?—and amended quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—I’ll get you a hotel room. You can’t go back to Theresa’s.”
“Biscuit’s there and he’s hurt. The rats bit him, too, but I didn’t have time to help him before the ambulance came. He needs—”
“Whatever he needs, he’ll get. We’ll pick him up and you can take him with you.” When she started to protest, he said quietly, “Do you really want to go back in there with dead rats on the floor?” She looked horror stricken. “There are crews that clean up crime scenes. I’ll have one at Theresa’s first thing in the morning.”
Nodding, she got into the Mercedes beside him.
She didn’t even notice the car—a subdued “Mars red” because a Mercedes was far too dignified for anything as garish as candy-apple red. Or perhaps she noticed and wasn’t impressed by it. Jeff couldn’t decide whether he was glad or upset that she wasn’t. It occurred to him with a jolt that he’d spent most of his life relating to women by impressing them—with his charm, his good looks, his charisma, his money. Emily hadn’t cared about superficial things, of course. The stab of pain in his chest at the thought of her took his breath away. Clearly, Becca didn’t care about any of that, either.
So how did he relate to her?
He felt pretense loosen, then slide off, a Jell-O mold letting go, freeing the trembling contents. Real felt odd, vulnerable. But good, too, in a way he was too befuddled by then to understand.
“You love that old woman, don’t you?” he said as he pulled out onto the parkway and headed east.
“Like she was my own mother. She was, actually. The only one I ever knew. My mother died when I was little.”
Jeff had met her father and couldn’t help the flashing thought that the man’s wife was better off dead than with him. But she had left a fragile little girl behind.
“Tell me about her, what you remember from when you were a kid.”
Becca talked then and Jeff listened. Her voice was deeper than he remembered it, maybe hoarse from screaming, and she selected her words carefully and articulately. He said very little, prompting with a question here and there, until they were at Theresa’s house. She started to open her door.
“I’ll get the dog,” he said.
Biscuit was waiting at the front door and bounded out as soon as Jeff unlocked it. Obviously, the dog had no more desire to be in that house than he or Becca did. There was dried blood all over the dog’s coat and his snout was crusted with it. There was no way to tell what was rat blood and what was Biscuit’s because the dog had open wounds on his ears, paws and sides.
Jeff opened the door to the backseat and the bloody dog bounded up onto the plush leather. When Jeff slid in beside Becca, he told her, “Biscuit’s hurt worse than I thought he’d be. He needs more than a little antiseptic—he needs a veterinarian.”
The dog was admitted to the veterinary hospital for an overnight stay. It was almost sunup when Jeff handed Becca her room key in the lobby of the Sheraton.
“Basic toiletries are in the room—toothbrush, toothpaste, all that kind of stuff.” He pointed down a hallway. “The manager said the hotel shop is still open. Get anything else you might need, whatever you want, and charge it to your room.”
Becca was grateful, but not gushingly so. She appreciated his generosity but, again, she wasn’t impressed by it. Was that what he was doing—trying to impress her with what a fine dude he was? No, he wasn’t. This time, he really wasn’t.
“Get some rest and I’ll be back later to take you to the hospital. I’m sure they won’t have the house cleaned up until after lunch.”
She put her hand on his arm and looked up into his face.
“Thank you, Jeff.” Simple and sincere.
Then she turned and headed down the hallway toward the hotel shop. He watched her go until she was out of sight. He looked at his Rolex and saw that he had time to go home and change before his weekly Saturday-morning racquetball match with Geoffrey Taylor, one of the senior partners in his firm. Maybe he should cancel. He was exhausted.
Jeff hadn’t gone directly home from Theresa’s house after the Wednesday night gathering there, where otherwise sane, rational people talked about demons and possessions as matter-of-factly as they’d discuss Notre Dame football or the recipe for clam chowder. He’d driven around for hours afterward trying to—what was it Jack Carpenter’d said?—“Make reality fit into the shape of his personal belief system.” He’d gotten only a couple of hours of sleep that night and precious little more the next, tossing and turning, jarred awake by strange nightmares of flames and a pillar of smoke. And he hadn’t gone to bed at all last night. He sighed. Well, he let Geoffrey win about half the time anyway and today Jeff was so tired the man might actually beat him.
The doctor come in and talked to Theresa about infection and antibiotics and pain medicine. Might as well have saved his breath. She wasn’t listenin’, didn’t hear nothin’ he said but the part about how all the bites was shallow. That many rats could have…
Maximum pain, minimum damage. She knew why.
He talked about post-traumatic stress disorder, too, how what’d happened to her had been so awful she’d likely have flashbacks and such for a time—’til she was all healed up and maybe even after that. He told her he wanted her to rest, said a nurse would give her a shot to make her sleep. Then he patted her arm and told her everything was gone be all right. She’d be fine.
Fool.
She was grateful when he quit chatterin’ and went away and left her alone in the quiet, with no sound but the drip, drip, drip of that stuff on the pole into the plastic thing that led to a needle in her arm, and the swish-swish-swish of nurses’ footsteps outside the door. They was a heart monitor—she supposed that was what it was—with a wavy green line going across it like some video game screen, but they’d turned the beep off after they give her the shot so’s it’d be quiet and she could go to sleep.
Sleep. Right. She’d get right on that sleepin’ thing soon’s she could. It was up there near the top of her to-do list, sleeping was way above gettin’ her teeth cleaned and takin’ her best Sunday dress to the cleaners to get out that spaghetti sauce you couldn’t hardly see ’cause the dress was black.
Theresa wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. She wanted to pray, too, but she couldn’t do that, either. She lay in the dark on sheets so clean they was stiff and felt all the places on her where she hurt. She hadn’t even counted how many, the boils of pain on her legs, her back, her arms and neck where them…
She shut the door in the face of those memories and shuddered. She felt a hot tear slide down her cheek. Then another. She wasn’t cryin’, but that tear come slipping down her cheek same as if she was bawlin’ her eyes out. Could a body be crying and not even know it? The tear ran down the side of her face and down her neck and began to soak into a bandage covering…
Where that rat had bit her!
The door she’d closed on them memories didn’t just open. The images knocked it off its hinges, splintered the wood and roared into her mind on custom Harleys.
That big, black stinking rat, with the little feet and the eyes—them eyes. They glowed in the dark, little black marbles. And the stink of it—of what was in it, controllin’ it—filled her nostrils again as if that creature was right here in the room, standin’ on its hind legs on the foot of the bed, leerin’ at her.
Why’d you let that happen, God? Where was you at when I’s crying out for help, beggin’ you to save me?
Had she cried out to God? Maybe she hadn’t, didn’t turn toward God because so many of her prayers had bumped they heads on the ceiling ever since Bishop died.
Maybe I didn’t ask for help. Is that it? You didn’t help me ’cause I didn’t ask? Like maybe you didn’t notice, was busy causin’ a tornado somewhere or an earthquake or something like that, had too much to do to notice that poor old Theresa Washington was locked in her room—
The door’d been locked. She’d tried to run, tried to get away, but the door was locked and she’d tried to get to the key, but she was covered in rats! Demon-possessed rats!
What’s the matter with you, God? They was rats all over me, eatin’ me alive and you didn’t do nothing ’bout it.
They’d come running up her body like she was a tree they was climbin’ and her screaming, fallin’ out of bed right into the middle of the whole pack of them, crawlin’ toward that key in her underwear drawer. And them rats a’wriggling on her, fightin’ and squeakin’, bitin’ each other. And bitin’ her.
Rage suddenly welled up inside her and exploded, like the top of that mountain in Washington had blown up into the sky with a mighty roar and sent clouds of smoke and ash so thick it come night right there in the middle of the day. And then the molten lava had flowed out—red and black and so hot it burned up everything it touched.
Where was you, God? Huh? On vacation? Catchin’ some rays on a beach in the Bahamas? I was bein’ eat up by rats and you just sat there and let it happen.
Maybe you was leaned back all comfortable in some easy chair in heaven with a bowl of popcorn in your lap, watchin’ the show. Whoa—look at that, the big brown one tore a hunk of skin right outa her back. Hey, that one bit her hand and is still hangin’ there, just a danglin’—can you beat that!
You invite the angels, didja? Gabriel and Michael, maybe? Had a big ole party watchin’ the fat woman get eat alive, you all laughing and carryin’ on. Bet you ain’t had such a rockin’ party since you watched Jesus a’hangin’—
The thought stopped her so totally in her tracks all the other thoughts behind it rammed into the back, slamming one into the other like the cars of a train crashing into a stalled engine. Then them thoughts all bunched up together, fell over on they sides beside the track, derailed, with nowhere to go and nothin’ to pull them along.
She did cry, then. Not hysterical crying, but sobbing into her pillow, a little kid whose world had collapsed around her. All beat up and bunged up and hurtin’ all over, cryin’ from physical pain and psychological pain and spiritual pain. The hurtin’ of it all run out of her in hot tears that slathered her cheeks and dripped down her neck and chest under the bandages. The salt in them made the rat bites sting.
Theresa cried for a long time. Soft, not making any noise except snifflin’ as her nose ran. She cried until it hurt. The sobbin’ became a stabbing agony in her chest and sides, worse than the molten fire in bandaged spots all over her body. The tears continued to flow, though, even when she stopped cryin’ outright. Just ran down her cheeks in a river, though she squeezed her eyes up tight to try to stop it.
“I’m done, God,” she said aloud, her voice rasping, ragged from screaming. “I can’t do this—it’s too much. I ain’t strong enough. With Bishop here, I coulda…but you took him from me and he was my strength. I’m worn out, ain’t got no fight left. It’s over—you gone have to find somebody else to do this.” She drew in a breath, then said the rest in a soft voice made out of steel. “I quit.”
She closed her eyes, let the tears flow, didn’t fight the darkness anymore, and allowed the drugs to take her away somewhere that was soft and dark and didn’t nothin’ hurt nowhere.