Violet Eyes (21 page)

She rushed to get through a couple chapters of reading, and then closed the book and said she had to go. Nobody begged her to keep going. Instead, the group all creaked to their feet. Even Mr. Everett’s hugs were only half there.

“See you next week,” she said.

“Next week,” they repeated. But as she watched Mrs. Moskowicz limp and slap her way down the long hallway, Susan wondered just what she would find here next week.

She grabbed a couple empty Krystal’s bags, crumpled them up quickly and stuffed them into her bag. She didn’t even look to see if she was getting grease or ketchup on her things. And she didn’t look for the head nurse as she normally did before she hurried down the short hall and into the outer foyer.

For the first time in the five years since her father’s death, Susan couldn’t wait to leave the old folks’ home. It was creeping her out.

Part Two

Eyes Revealed

Swarm behavior in insects is often related to an important biological impetus in the species’ life cycle. Sometimes the collective movement of a species can be related to the season—a migration to a warmer climate preserves the health of the hive. But sometimes swarm behavior relates to a key biological change in the organism—it is the visible indication of impending physiological change.

—“Stigmergy Understood”
Insect Intelligence
, 

Volume 23, Issue 5, (2003) page 93-99.

The largest organized army in the world exists right beneath our feet. It is immense and able to act in a coordinated fashion without concern for individual loss of life. Insects serve the hive first. If we can harness the power of this army and use it to further the goals of democracy.

— Excerpt from the “Engagement Letter” between the U.S. Department of Special Forces and Innovative Industries, dated July 9, 2008.

Chapter Thirty-One

Friday, May 17. 8:21 p.m.

Genny was pretty sure that this was going to be the first time. It was Friday night, and they could stay out late. And there was just something in the air. Or in her heart. They had been easing up to it for weeks now, and she could feel a difference, a tension between them today. A
good
tension. Here, in their special “secret place”, tucked just inside the wilds beyond the tree line, it could be perfect. They came here often after school, slipping off the sun-beaten sidewalks to stroll inside the cooler moist air of the swampy forest. Tonight they had met up to go out after dinner, but instead of going downtown to get ice cream or see a movie, Todd had asked her if she wanted to take a walk.

A “walk” meant more than walking to them. A walk meant hands beneath shirts and inside pants. A walk meant Todd’s tongue between her lips, and sometimes on the sensitive tips of her breasts. They could pick up the walking trail that led into the depths of the Everglades just a couple blocks from their houses, right behind the baseball diamond. Genny loved holding Todd’s hand as they walked at first slowly, and then faster. Their hands grew sweaty, whether it was from the exertion or nervousness, she didn’t know. But their feet always moved faster and faster the farther they got from home, and the shelter of the trees closed over their heads.

They always stepped off the normal walking trail in the same place. Near the large gray rock and the fallen old pine trunk. It was a perfect make-out spot—just a little ways down the walking trail and not far from the neighborhood, but seemingly miles from another living soul…unless you counted the crocodiles and snakes. And the steady drone of insects in the air. She found the quiet living sound of the swamp strangely comforting, and to be there with Todd? Well, she couldn’t describe the feeling, really, but it made something in her just want to pop.

Todd’s fingers kept slipping up and down her spine, circling each smooth knob of her vertebrae. Then they slipped under the back strap of her bra, and traced the skin that the strap hid before fingering the hook clasps. He had been teasing that area for several minutes now, touching the strap, and then moving away. She couldn’t tell if he was waiting to see if she would say no, or if he really just couldn’t figure out how to release the bra.

Genny pulled him closer to her, opening her mouth wider to his tongue, as if to say, “Here, I’m yours, I’m open.”

He responded with a more urgent hand along her bra that then slipped down her spine to move under the waistband of her shorts and her underwear. She shifted so he could explore more, and his hand cupped her buttock and kneaded in time to the motions of his mouth. Genny could feel her thighs flush, and the space between…she was suddenly dying of the Florida heat, desperate to throw all of her clothes off to breathe free…and open herself completely to accept Todd’s advances.

“Yes,” she whispered, as his finger traced the cleft of her ass and slipped into the wet. She shifted to give him more room to explore, and he kissed her neck and shoulder. Then his mouth touched her earlobe and he whispered, “I love you.”

Genny could hardly breathe. She turned her face to meet his lips and pushed herself forward, nearly toppling him in her eagerness. Her tongue pressed past his own and his eyes widened as he saw the look in hers.

He realized that this was the time; that she was giving him the green light. She could see the things that passed in his eyes in that moment. Sudden fear, then excitement, then fear, then longing. They had been dating now for six months, and had flirted with this moment many times. But today, here among the trees outside of the park—before the sun had even set—today felt right. They had waited long enough.

Genny pushed back from him for a moment and slipped her thumbs beneath her T-shirt. Then she pulled upwards and slipped it over her chest and head. Her bra was exposed to the dusk of the swamp, and to the instant warmth of Todd’s hands. He didn’t bother to undo the clasp behind, instead he pressed the cups down and leaned in to take the pink of her exposed right nipple between his lips. It grew instantly thick beneath his lips and tongue, and Genny moaned at the sensations of
wet
and
warm
on the tingling nerves that seemed to be straining to leap out of her breast. She put a hand on the rough bark of the tree and began to roll back on the mossy earth. Her fingers moved around the bark of the tree, and as they did, they grabbed four other fingers. She rubbed her forefinger around the hand, and gave it a squeeze. She wanted to encourage Todd, to let him take the lead. She was giving herself to him. Part of her felt like he should be the one to make the moves.

The fingers did not squeeze her back. They were cold.

And Todd’s hands were otherwise engaged. One on her back and one on her thigh.
He couldn’t be holding her hand around the tree…

Genny jolted upright again, banging her forehead into Todd’s with a smack.

“Wha…” he gasped as he fell back. But he never finished the sentence. Because a second after Genny jumped up, she screamed. A blood-curdling, “save me from the monster” kind of high-pitched scream.

Genny pushed herself away from Todd and the tree and settled on her knees a couple feet away. She pointed at the tree next to where they had been making out, and struggled to tell Todd what the matter was. Her voice came in stutters and hitches and that only made her point harder and faster with her hand. “Th’ th’ there is a ha’ ha’ hand b-b-b-by th—”

Todd started to move around the tree to see what had upset her so much and that only sent another bolt of fear through Genny’s chest. The fear for him overpowered her own and she pulled out of her paralysis to grab Todd by the shoulder.

“Don’t!” she warned.

But he did. And in doing so, he pulled her with him.

She saw the hand she’d just touched. It was white and small. It could never have been Todd’s; she couldn’t believe she’d been fooled for a second. The palm leaned against the tree as its fingers extended out from the trunk in a frozen gesture. As Todd peered around the side, Genny clutched her arms around him. She was afraid of what he’d see…and afraid to let him see it alone.

When they saw the owner of the hand, they sucked in air as one.

“Oh my God,” Todd said in a whisper.

“I touched her,” Genny said. Her voice was just one notch below hysteria.

Lying on the ground, hugged up to the back of the tree they had been making out next to, was the body of a girl.

The only reason Genny knew she was a girl was because she was wearing a pink bra. And her toenails were painted pink. Nothing else about her gave too much of a clue, because above the pink bra, there was not much left of her besides a skull and a mat of hair.

Her face was completely eaten away.

Genny stared at the red gristle and dark sockets where the girl’s eyes must have been and the blue-white fingers that she saw now were frozen beyond any hope of salvation. She had touched those…she kept saying that over and over in her head as she took in the body.

As her eyes took in more and more of the body, she realized that there were spider webs anchoring the dead girl to the ground. The girl’s ankles were almost covered in cotton, and thin silken strands stretched all along the bra to attach to the dark moss of the ground and the bark of the tree. Spider webs anchored the body to the ground like the strands of Lilliput.

The ghostly silk seemed to cover much of her bare legs, and Genny was reminded of nothing so much as a cocoon. But she knew that this silk was different. There were small shapes moving all around on the webs. Spiders eager to feed.

The girl was not some caterpillar, ready to transmute into a butterfly. The truth was far more base than that—she wasn’t transmuting into something beautiful beneath the “cocoon”. She was being covered in spider’s silk for one purpose—to serve as food.

And as Genny realized that, she also saw that the small but numerous spiders were moving about the girl’s head. She could see them filing in a double line along the girl’s forehead to a place right in the middle of her skull. The place Genny’s mom had always called “the soft spot”. As in, “Be careful when you hold the baby, honey, don’t jiggle its head. There’s a soft spot.” That place where the skull joined, and was still working on joining in an infant.

The spiders had opened that join in the dead girl. As she stared, Genny saw the spiders were running in and out of a gory hole in the top of the girl’s skull. She could also see the resulting gray and brown slop pooled around the body’s head on the ground. The spiders had eaten the girl’s head right through until her brain pooled out on the muddy earth.

“Todd,” she finally was able to whisper. “I’m scared.”

He nodded, and didn’t say a word as he reached down, grabbed and handed back her T-shirt to pull back on. Without a word, Genny slipped it over her head and pulled it down tight. Any thought of really making love with her boyfriend was gone now. Her only thought was that she had clasped the fingers of a dead girl.

A dead and half-eaten girl.

“We have to tell somebody,” Todd said. “We have to get the police.”

Together, they stood up from the ground, and backed up one step. And then another. The buzz of the swamp seemed to grow louder. There was something about looking at a faceless corpse covered in spider webs, and skittering, darting spiders, that made it impossible to turn around as they backed away step by step.

But when they reached the next tree, an ancient, four-foot-wide granddaddy cypress right along the main walking path, Genny didn’t feel frozen in place anymore. Her feet suddenly swiveled and aimed towards home. And Todd’s did the same.

Together, holding hands, they ran from the place that for the past few weeks had been like their dearest friend. The secret refuge of their love.

Something in Genny knew it would never be the same for them again.

Behind them, the buzz of the swamp continued to grow as small flies suddenly rose from the foliage in a black-and-purple wave. A swarm. They began to move towards the warmth that had invaded the swamp, but they were too late.

The teenagers had broken into a run that didn’t slow until they were steps from their homes.

They had escaped.

For the moment.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Saturday, May 17. 7:38 a.m.

“Nobody has called about Feral,” Eric said. Rachel took the opportunity to spoon another bit of breakfast cereal into her mouth before answering. Chewing gave her time to figure out what she was going to say. How did you break it to a kid that, more often than not, the things you like most in life washed away long before you were ready for them to be gone. The best things in life were usually killed by ignorance, ambivalence, age, wisdom and sometimes, outright malevolence. Whatever the reasons, the things you loved most always seemed to die long before you were ready to let them go.

This was not a lesson Rachel wanted to try to teach over a bowl of Rice Krispies. Especially on a morning when she had been asked to work overtime and needed to leave in ten minutes. She hated the idea of working on a Saturday, but God knows, she needed the money.

“I know,” she finally said. “But it’s only been a day. They might not have seen our signs yet. There are actually a lot of lost dog signs on the lampposts around here. You have to be patient.”

Eric did not look patient at all. He looked about to cry. “Can we drive around to look for him again today after you get home from work?”

Rachel swallowed. Driving around the neighborhood was not going to find the dachshund. If he was alive at all, someone had found him and taken him in.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Hopefully I’ll only have to work a half day today. So I’ll photocopy a ton of our signs, and then we’ll drive around this afternoon and take them up to all the houses we can. If he’s staying at someone’s house in the neighborhood…they’re gonna get a flyer with his picture and our phone number on them!”

Eric’s face brightened. Rachel wished she could have felt that positive. Inside, she was trying to figure out how she was going to comfort Eric when he finally realized that Feral wasn’t coming home. The thought already made her feel empty and aching, and they’d only had the puppy a few days. It was just the kind of emotional torpedo she really, absolutely did
not
need right now. All she could think of as she hugged her forlorn son goodbye and watched him walk up the sidewalk to Jeremy’s house was that, after the past couple months, shouldn’t she deserve a pass? Wasn’t it time for something good to happen?