Tommy Nightmare (Jenny Pox #2) (7 page)

BY U.S. GOVERNMENT ORDER:

All residents and visitors in Fallen Oak must
report to the Fallen Oak High School gymnasium within the next 96
hours for emergency medical screening. Participation is mandatory.
Screening facility will be open continuously for the next 96
hours.

Due to the quarantine, emergency supplies of
canned food, prepackaged meals and water will also be distributed
at the school to Fallen Oak residents.

Jenny ran inside. Seth was eating a hot dog
topped with baked beans and mustard, a ghoulish invention he called
a “bean dog.” They’d raided Seth’s house for food while they were
out. Since it was within the quarantine zone, nobody had stopped
them, but Jenny was uncomfortable with how many National Guard and
other official vehicles were out on the roads, and how few of
anybody else. The bigger the situation grew, the smaller she
felt.

“We have to do this.” Jenny put the flyer in
front of him.

“Are you kidding?”

“We’ll go late at night,” Jenny said. “When
there aren’t many people.”

“Why, Jenny?” Seth said. “You know we don’t
have anything. We never get sick.”

“I have something,” Jenny said.

“Are you still talking about handing yourself
over to them?” Seth asked. “That’s a really, really bad idea. What
do you think they’ll find?”

“Maybe they’ll find the Jenny pox,” she said.
“And a cure for it. Or an immunization. Or something. If somebody
put some real science into understanding it, maybe I could figure
out how to control it better.”

“But that’s not what will happen,” Seth said.
“I bet they try to make a weapon out of it.”

Jenny had a flash of memory from the time
when she was dead, tangled in weeds at the bottom of Ashleigh’s
duck pond. She’d glimpsed one of her past lives, riding in a
galley, dressed in a hooded cloak against the freezing sea air, on
her way to cripple a foreign city with a plague. She was doing it
for somebody else, some king or emperor. It was her job.

“Maybe,” she whispered. “But they might
help.”

“And didn’t all those pregnant girls see you
drown in Ashleigh’s pond?” Seth asked. “As far as anybody knows,
you’re dead.”

“You, too,” Jenny said. “Oh, wait. Everybody
who saw you die is…gone now.”

“But everyone will flip out when they see
you,” Seth said. “I’m sure the girls told everyone you’re
dead.”

“While we’ve been holed up here for two
days.” Jenny looked out the window, to the hilly woods behind her
house. “What will they think?”

“The same thing they’ve thought about us for
months,” Seth said. “Ever since I saved your dad in that tractor
accident. Witchcraft, Satanism and that book from the
Evil
Dead
movies.”

“The
Necronomicon?
” Jenny said. “What
does that have to do with anything?”

Seth shrugged. “Those are cool movies. We
should have grabbed the DVDs at my house.”

“Anyway, Ashleigh and Dr. Goodling aren’t
around to whip up that witchcraft bullshit anymore,” Jenny
said.

“But it’s what people were saying,” Seth
said. “Those girls and their families all went to Fallen Oak
Baptist. They’ve been hearing this stuff from Dr. Goodling.”

“You think they’ll tell the government that?”
Jenny asked.

“Who knows? This is a batshit crazy town.”
Seth chewed his lip. “And that’s something else I’ve been needing
to talk to you about.”

“That Fallen Oak is crazy? I figured it out a
long time ago, thanks.”

“I mean in the fall,” Seth said. “My dad
wants me to go to College of Charleston now, because he donated a
bunch of money to some new international business school there.
It’s not so far from here, an hour or two. That’s close enough to
visit your dad. Or come have Christmas with my parents.”

“Why are you even worrying about college
right now?”

“Because I have to move to the city,” Seth
said. “And I want you to come with me.”

“Seth, I can’t even go out in public in my
own town.”

“But we can start over in Charleston,” Seth
said. “Nobody knows us there.”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s a big city,
Seth.” Jenny pulled her arms tight around herself, as if walking
through a crowded store, trying to avoid touching anyone. “All
those people. There must be a million people.”

“A
million
?” Seth rolled his eyes. “In
Charleston? Are you kidding?”

“A lot, anyway.”

“Come on, it’ll be great. We can go pick out
an apartment this summer. We’ll get a place near the ocean. With a
balcony. And your own room just for your pottery stuff. And we
can—”

“Stop it,” Jenny said. “I can’t think about
it right now. We have real problems, you know?”

“Think about it later.” Seth pulled her
close, and she looked up into his blue eyes. They were almost the
same color as her own, she thought. “Think about it when you’re
thinking about turning yourself in. We could have a life together.
We could have a future. And all you have to do is let everybody
think you’re dead, until this blows over.”

Seth kissed her. Jenny was tense, but she
relaxed after a moment, and kissed him back.

The school gym was transformed into a
makeshift clinic, divided into little cubes by dark green curtain
walls. Heather worked one of the cubes, taking mouth swabs along
with hair and blood samples from those who responded to the flyers.
She also carried out basic physicals to look for anything
anomalous. She could have excused herself from this part of the
work, but it was the easiest way to talk with locals about the
event, and she was desperate for any kind of input at this
point.

The first several people she tested were
extremely tight-lipped, though, and offered no real information.
Nobody seemed to know what had happened at the courthouse, or at
least they didn’t want to admit knowing anything. Heather also had
to structure her questions in a way that didn’t give out
information to people, which made things difficult.

Then a chubby teenage girl with mousey hair
and thick glasses came into Heather’s cube. She was very full
around the middle, under her loose sundress.

“Hi,” Heather said. “I’m Dr. Reynard. What’s
your name?”

“Darcy Metcalf,” the girl said.

Heather looked her up on the laptop. Homeland
Security had provided a database of all residents and their
addresses. Heather and the other medical staff noted each person
they examined on the shared database, along with any
observations.

She found Darcy’s listing. A nurse had
pre-examined her, entering Darcy’s height, weight, and age:
eighteen. The file also noted that she had elevated blood pressure.
And she was pregnant.

“Okay,” Heather said. She took a tongue
depressor from a jar. “Open up and say ‘ah.’” She liked to start
with this because it gave people the sense that it was a regular
visit to the doctor’s office.

The girl did as she was told, her eyes
rolling nervously while Heather looked into her throat. No
swelling, no pustules, no symptoms matching those of the outbreak.
This girl was pale and sweating, clearly scared.

She asked if Darcy had experienced specific
symptoms, and listed the symptoms associated with the bodies on the
green, without mentioning the event itself. Darcy shook her head to
all symptoms.

“Do you have any special medical conditions?”
Heather asked.

“I’m pregnant.”

“How far along?”

“Sixteen weeks.”

“You know,” Heather said, “You’re the fourth
pregnant girl I’ve met today, your age and younger. I see a lot of
others in line out there. Doesn’t it seem like a lot to you?”

Darcy shrugged. “I don’t know. Yeah.” She
looked around, as if expecting somebody else to be watching
them.

“Why do you think that is?”

“I…I’m not sure,” Darcy said. “All I know is,
I went on a date with Bret Daniels when I should have been studying
for finals. And God punished me.”

“Oh, no, sweetie,” Heather said. “It’s not a
punishment. It’s natural. It happens. Don’t think of it like
that.”

“It shouldn’t happen if you’re not
married.”

“The important thing is to take care of
yourself now,” Heather said. “Are you seeing an Ob/Gyn?”

Darcy hesitated, then nodded. She kept
looking back at the green curtain door.

“Are you all right?” Heather asked.

Darcy bit her lip.

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Well,” Darcy whispered. “I don’t know who
else to tell. But listen…” Her voice dropped to an even lower
whisper. “Jenny Mittens is
alive
. She is. I saw her riding
in Seth’s convertible.”

“Who?”

“Jenny Mittens. Morton. Jenny Morton.
Everyone saw her go into the pond at Ashleigh’s house. People were
there for like an hour after, and she never came back out. And
people were watching, too, to see if her body floated up. But it
never did.”

“Jenny…Morton? How do you spell it?”

“Like the salt.”

Heather looked it up. A Jenny Morton, and her
father Darrell, were listed at a Fallen Oak address. Neither of
them had come in for a screening, according to the database.

“She hasn’t been in,” Heather said, not sure
why she was sharing that information.

“She won’t be, I bet,” Darcy said.

“Why not?”

Darcy frowned.

“You say she drowned in a pond?”

“At Ashleigh Goodling’s house.” Darcy nodded.
She was actually shaking with fear now. “I should go.”

“Wait!” Heather said. “Please. Just one
minute.” She searched for the surname Goodling, and found three
people listed at a Fallen Oak address. Father, mother, one child.
Ashleigh was the child. None of them had been in for testing,
either.

“Are we done?” Darcy asked.

“I still have to take a few little things.”
Heather brought out a test tube. “I need to clip a hair
sample.”

Darcy sighed.

“Don’t worry, I won’t mess up your style.”
Heather clipped samples from the back of Darcy’s head. Then she
swabbed the inside of Darcy’s cheek. She dabbed Darcy’s fingertip
with alcohol. “This will only hurt for a second,” Heather said, and
Darcy hissed as Heather pulled blood from her. Heather applied a
small bandage to Darcy’s finger.

“One more question,” Heather said. “Why did
you think it was so important to tell me about this Jenny
girl?”

“Because she’s at the middle of everything,”
Darcy said.

“At the middle of what, specifically?”

“All this!” Darcy pointed at the green
curtains around them. “The terrible things happening around
here.”

“How is she at the middle of them?”

Darcy gave her a long, scrutinizing look.
Then she spoke in a low whisper again: “Because she’s into
witchcraft.”

“I can barely hear you. Did you say
‘witchcraft’?”

“Yes!”

“What does that mean?”

“You know.” Darcy made clawing motions in the
air with her hands, and gave an exaggerated scowl. “Witchy. Witchy
witchcraft. Her boyfriend Seth, too. They’re both in league with
Satan. People know. Ashleigh knew.”

“Okay.” Heather smiled a little. “And she
casts spells, or what?”

“Oh, sure. Of course.”

“What kind of spells?”

“I don’t know,” Darcy said. “Like all the
girls getting pregnant. That was maybe one of Jenny’s black magic
spells.”

“You said it was because you went on a date
with a boy.”

Darcy hung her head. “And I drank.”

“This happens to a lot of people,” Heather
said. “It’s very normal. The thing to do is focus on your future
decisions. Nobody controls you with witchcraft, Darcy. You’re in
charge of your own life.”

“Don’t tell my dad I drank, okay? He’d get so
P.O.’d.”

“I won’t. Everything you tell me is
confidential, Darcy. In fact...” Heather gave Darcy one of her
cards. She had plenty of them, in case she found chatty townsfolk
who might actually help her investigation. “You give me a call if
you think of anything else. Or just want to talk. I’ll be in town
for a while. I know the phones around here aren’t working too well,
but the Homeland Security guys say that should be fixed in a few
days.”

“Why aren’t the phones working, anyway?”
Darcy asked.

“I’m not sure,” Heather said.

“Whoa,” Darcy said, reading Heather’s card.
“‘M.D.’ ‘Epidemiologist.’ That’s awesome. I thought about being a
doctor, before I blew my GPA and got pregnant.”

“I’m sorry,” Heather said. “But it looks like
you’re in good health. I’m sure things will get better for you.
Life does get easier as you get older.”

Darcy slouched as she shuffled out through
the curtain.

Heather watched the girl join her father, an
obese man in a wheelchair, who looked like he was missing a foot.
Maybe it was an injury, but from his inflated size, Heather
wouldn’t be surprised if he’d lost it to diabetes.

“Hurry up!” Darcy’s father barked, while
Darcy pushed his wheelchair. “Jog that big ass of yours!”

On the database, Heather added an extra
notation to Darcy’s listing: “Possible psych. issues related to
religion, parents.”

Heather sterilized the area, changed out her
disposable rubber gloves for new ones, and greeted the next
subject.

Her name was Brenda Purcell, seventeen years
old, five months pregnant.

Tommy roared along the highway. He had
ditched the old lady’s piece-of-crap Chrysler in Alabama, walked
three miles to a biker bar, and picked out a machine he liked. He
wanted something fast, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off one
particular Harley-Davidson with a stylized, devilish red gargoyle
painted on the side.

He didn’t know how to hotwire a motorcycle,
so he’d waited in the shadows of the abandoned gas station next
door. Eventually, the machine’s owner came out, staggering and
drunk, a balding man with a long mullet and a long goatee. He was
short but very stout. In Tommy’s experience, you had to watch out
for the short guys—they were the most eager to fight, as if they
had something to prove.