Mockingbird

Read Mockingbird Online

Authors: Chuck Wendig

Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Supernatural, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Urban, #Suspense

BOOK: Mockingbird
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Praise for
CHUCK WENDIG
 
"Trailer-park tension, horrified hilarity, and sheer terror mixed with deft characterization and razor plotting. I literally could not put it down."
LILITH SAINTCROW, AUTHOR OF
NIGHT SHIFT
AND
WORKING FOR THE DEVIL
 
"
Blackbirds
is a horror story, a traveling story, a story of loss and what it takes to make things right. It's a story about fate and how sometimes, if we wrestle with it hard enough, maybe we can change it.
Blackbirds
is the kind of book that doesn't let go even after you've put it down and nobody else could have made it shine like Chuck Wendig."
STEPHEN BLACKMOORE, AUTHOR OF
CITY OF THE LOST
AND
DEAD THINGS
 
"Mean, moody and mysterious,
Blackbirds
is a noir joyride peppered with black humour, wry observation, and visceral action. Fans of Chuck Wendig will not be disap-pointed."
ADAM CHRISTOPHER, AUTHOR OF
EMPIRE STATE
 
"A gleefully dark, twisted road trip for everyone who thought
Fight Club
was too warm and fuzzy. If you enjoy this book, you're probably deeply wrong in the head. I loved it, and will be seeking professional help as soon as Chuck lets me out of his basement."
JAMES MORAN,
SEVERANCE
,
DOCTOR WHO
AND
TORCHWOOD
SCREENWRITER
 
 
 
Also by Chuck Wendig
 
Blackbirds
Double Dead
Dinocalypse Now
Irregular Creatures (short stories)
Shotgun Gravy (novella)
 
 
Non-Fiction
250 Things You Should Know About Writing
500 Ways to be a Better Writer
500 More Ways to be a Better Writer
Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey
Revenge of the Penmonkey
 
 
CHUCK WENDIG
 
 
Mockingbird
 
 
 

 
 
Contents
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PART ONE
 
 
 
The Cage-Trained Girl
 
She's only a bird in a gilded cage,
  A beautiful sight to see.
  You may think she's happy and free from care,
  She's not, though she seems to be.
  'Tis sad when you think of her wasted life
  For youth cannot mate with age;
  And her beauty was sold for an old man's gold,
  She's a bird in a gilded cage.
 
Bird in a Gilded Cage,
Arthur J. Lamb, Harry Von Tilzer
ONE
Ship Bottom
 
Boop.
  Suntan lotion.
  Boop.
  Pecan sandies.
  Boop.
  Tampons, beach towel, postcards, and, mysteriously, a can of green beans.
  Miriam grabs each item with a black-gloved hand. Runs the item over the scanner. Sometimes she looks down and stares into the winking red laser. She's not supposed to do that. But she does it anyway, a meager act of rebellion in her brand new life. Maybe, she thinks, the ruby beam will burn away that part of her brain that makes her who she is. Turn her into a mulekicked window-licker, happy in oblivion, pressed up against the walls of her Plexiglas enclosure.
  "Miss?"
  The word drags her out of the mind's eye theater and back to checkout.
  "Jesus, what?" she asks.
  "Well, are you going to scan that?"
  Miriam looks down. Sees she's still holding the can of green beans. Del Monte. She idly considers braining the woman standing there in her beachy muumuu, the worn pattern of hibiscus flowers barely covering a sludgy bosom that's half lobster red and half woodgrub white. Two halves marked by the Rubicon of a terrible tan line.
  Instead, Miriam swipes the can across the scanner with a too-sweet smile.
  
Boop.
  "Is something wrong with your hands?" the woman asks. She sounds concerned.
  Miriam waggles one finger – a jumping inchworm dance. The black leather creaks and squeaks.
  "Oh, these? I have to wear these. You know how women at restaurants have to wear hairnets? For public health safety? I gotta wear these gloves if I'm going to work here. Rules and regulations. Last thing I want to do is cause a hepatitis outbreak, am I right? I got Hep A, B, C, and the really bad one, X."
  Then, just to sell it, Miriam holds up her hand for a high-five.
  The woman does not seize the high-five opportunity.
  Rather, the blood drains from her face, her sunburned skin gone swiftly pale.
  Miriam wonders what would happen if she told the truth:
Oh, it's no big deal, but when I touch people this little psychic movie plays in my head and I witness how and when they're going to die. So I've been wearing these gloves so I don't have to see that kind of crazy shit anymore.
  Or the deeper truth behind even that:
I wear them
because Louis wants me to wear them.
  Not that the gloves provide perfect protection against the visions. Nobody but Louis is touching her anywhere else, though. She keeps covered up. Even in the heat.
  Behind the woman is a line seven, eight-people deep. They all hear what Miriam says. She's not quiet. Two of the customers – a doughy gentleman in a parrot-laden shirt and a young girl with an ill-contained rack of softball-sized fake tits – shimmy out of the queue and leave their goods on the empty checkout two rows down.
  Still, the woman hangs tough. With a sour face, she pulls a credit card out of nowhere – Miriam imagines she withdraws it from her sand-encrusted vagina – and flips it onto the counter like it's a hot potato.
  Miriam's about to grab it and scan it when a hand falls on her shoulder.
  She already knows to whom the hand belongs.
  She wheels on Peggy, manager here at Ship Bottom Sundries in Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Peggy, whose nose must possess powerful gravity given the way it looks like the rest of her face is being dragged toward it. Peggy, whose giant sunglasses call to mind the eyes of a praying mantis. Peggy with her gray hair dyed orange and left in a curly, clumsy tangle.
  Fucking Peggy.
  "You mind telling me what you're doing?" The way Peggy begins every conversation, it seems. All in that Joisey accent.
Ya mind tellin' me what y'doin'?
The lost Rs, the dropped Gs,
wooter
instead of
water
,
caw-fee
instead of
coffee
.
  "Helping this fine citizen check out of our fine establishment." Miriam thinks but does not say,
Ship Bottom Sundries, where you can buy a pack of hotdogs, a pack of generic-brand tampons, or a handful of squirming hermit crabs for your screaming shit-bird children.
  "Sounds like you're giving her trouble."
  Miriam offers a strained smile. "Was I? Not my intention."
  Totally her intention.
  "You know, I hired you as a favor."
  "I do know that. Because you remind me frequently."
  "Well, it's true."
  "Yes. We
just
established that."
  Peggy's puckered eyes tighten to fleshy slits. "You got a smart mouth."
  "Some might argue my mouth is actually quite foolish."
  By now, the line is building up. The woman in the floral muumuu is holding the green beans to her chest, as though the can will protect her from the awkwardness that has been thrust upon her day. The other customers watch with wide eyes and uncomfortable scowls.
  "You think you're funny," Peggy says.
  Miriam doesn't hesitate. "I really do."
  "Well, I don't."
  "Agree to disagree?"
  Peggy's face twists up like a rag about to be wrung out. It takes a moment for Miriam to realize that this is Peggy's happy face.
  "You're fired," Peggy says. Mouth twisted up at the corners in some crass facsimile of a human smile.
  "Oh, fuck you," Miriam says. "You're not going to fire me." It occurs to her too late that saying
fuck you
is not the best way to retain one's job, but frankly, the horse is already out of the stable on that one.
  "Fuck me?" Peggy asks. "Fuck
you
. You bring me nothing but grief. Come in here day after day, moping about like someone pissed in your Wheaties–"

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