Wolf Flow (18 page)

    
Won't hurt
, he'd figured. To check up on them. Plus there wasn't anything else to do.

    The bike's engine sputtered to silence. He got off and unhooked the bungee cord from around the sack of groceries. Carrying it in the crook of one arm, he brushed past the 'Vette's tapered snout.

    The dark inside the building wrapped around him as he let the boards fall back over the door. He could make out somebody sleeping, wrapped in the blankets on the floor. Blonde hair in a dust-specked ribbon of light-it was the girl Lindy. When he walked closer, he saw that she was by herself.

    He set the bag down beside her and prodded her bare shoulder. "Hey."

    Her eyes opened groggily, taking a few seconds to focus on him.

    "Where's Mike?" Doot stood back up, looking around the lobby. "Where'd he go?"

    Lindy gazed up at him in puzzlement, her hair tousled across one side of her face. Then she realized what he was talking about. She bolted upright, sweeping her hand across the rumpled blanket next to her.

    "Mike?" Her voice echoed against the walls.

    She scrambled to her feet, throwing the blankets aside.

    "Mike, where are you?" she shouted, her voice harsh with alarm.

    Both of them turned about, scanning across the empty lobby.

    "I didn't see him outside."

    They stood still, their breathing the only sound in the building's trapped air. Then, far away, the quick note of water dripping into water, each drop followed by silence.

    Behind him, Doot heard her calling the name again, as he ran down the ground-floor corridor. Past the doors on either side, toward the burned-out section with its charred timbers crossed over daylight.

    He halted, gripping the sides of the last door frame. Turning his head, he shouted back to Lindy, "Here he is."

    Black, oily-looking water lapped at the bottom step. Doot splashed across the floor, the water coming up to his ankles. He reached the stone basin, water streaming in a sheet from its edge, and gripped the unconscious figure under the arms. Mike's head lolled backward.

    He heard more splashing, then Lindy was beside him. The water had soaked up to the knees of her jeans. She helped him pull Mike from the basin. Mike's skin was slick, tinged with the inky water, the bandage around his ribs pink from the blood underneath. Doot had to get the man's weight onto his own shoulders before he could wrestle him out, arms flopping to either side.

    A wet trail showed in the dust of the lobby floor. Doot slid Mike down onto the blankets. He stepped back, panting for breath, as Lindy knelt down, bending close over Mike.

    The guy was still alive-he'd felt him breathing as he'd dragged him down the corridor-but he looked as if he'd almost drowned. Hair wet, plastered to his skull, skin streaked with the water trickling off.

    "Is he going to be all right?"

    "Quick." Lindy looked over her shoulder at him. "Get me something to dry him off with. Anything."

    He scanned across the lobby for a second, then ran over to the nearest window and tore off the curtain hanging at its side. Dust exploded around him.

    Lindy rubbed the wadded-up curtain over Mike's chest and arms. The cloth turned black, the water smearing into the dirt. Her face curdled as the sulfur smell rose up.

    Doot saw Mike's arm moving, where it lay flopped on the blanket. Lindy didn't notice it; she was mopping the water from Mike's face. The arm rose, bending from the elbow.

    Doot opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. For a moment, he couldn't figure out what was wrong, what was different. Then he realized.
He couldn't move that arm before
. Doot watched as the fingers curled.
That was the one he couldn't move
…

    Mike suddenly sat up, wrapping both arms around Lindy's waist. She gasped in surprise, a little scream cut short by Mike's pulling her tight against himself. His eyes had snapped open, a smile breaking across his face.

    She pushed against his shoulders so that she could breathe. "Mike…" The same realization hit her. She looked down at his grasp encircling her. "Mike, your arm…"

    Doot watched as Mike got to his feet, pulling Lindy up with him. His smile grew wider. He let go, stepping back from her. A pool of water collected around his feet as he flexed his arms. The one that had been paralyzed was still stiff, the fingers curling slower than on the other. He watched his own hands working into fists, then releasing. He held the right arm out to the side, awkwardly, like a bird's broken wing; the paralysis hadn't completely ebbed away.

    He turned his head, still smiling, looking from Lindy over to Doot. Then he laughed, head thrown back, his chest straining against the bandages. The laughter bounced, echoing from the lobby's ceiling.

    

    

    The guy stood outside on the building's verandah, hands on his hips, drinking in the air, looking out across the weeds and the reaches of the sun-battered landscape as though he were a king surveying his domain.

    Doot slid out of the doorway and circled around behind him. He was still amazed at the change.

    "How… how're you feeling?"

    Mike glanced over his shoulder. He smiled and nodded his head. "I've never felt better." His gaze traveled back out to the mountains. "Never," he murmured, "in my whole life…"

    This was even spookier than when the guy had looked like he was going to die. The way he was bouncing around the place, and talking and smiling with that nut gleam in his eye-Doot watched him, keeping a careful distance. One end of the bandages wrapped around his chest had come loose, dangling in a ribbon at his hip, but he didn't seem to have noticed.

    The guy suddenly turned, looking straight at Doot. "You're still around, huh? How come?"

    Doot shrugged. The guy's voice snapping out at him like that made him nervous. "I don't know. Just… curious, I guess."

    "Yeah, well, tell you what." Mike tilted his head to one side. "You stick around, and I think I'll be able to find something for you to do." The smile widened. "You know… I think you can be real useful to me." The voice softened as he turned his gaze away. "Real useful…"

    

    

    Mike strode across the empty lobby. He didn't see Lindy anywhere around; she was probably off somewhere, doing whatever girls did by themselves. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except the sensation that welled up inside his chest and spread across the muscles of his arms and legs. Like blood pumping to every cell, strong and hard.

    In the lobby's dim light, his foot clipped the edge of the suitcase Lindy had brought with her. Something rattled inside it. He stopped, knelt down, and threw the case's lid back.

    All the good things were in there. The things that used to be so good. He ran his hand gently over the hypodermics and glass vials, the containers of orange plastic with white caps, with the brighter-colored things inside.

    He suddenly scooped up a double handful, then laughed as he turned and threw them. The tiny objects, the small rattling things, scattered across the floor.

    

    

    The water had drained away, leaving its dark, slick residue on the tiled floor. At the head of the basin, a drop formed at the spigot, then fell, wetting the stone surface beneath.

    He sat on his haunches for a moment, watching as another drop oozed out. Its smooth surface was a mirror; he could see his face, distorted by the curve, eyes fastened on the dark liquid.

    That drop fell, and another formed. He touched it, and the bit of water dampened his fingertip. He put it in his mouth, the sulfur taste biting sharp on his tongue.

    He reached out and turned the spigot handle. Water trickled, then ran in a steady stream. A dark pool formed at the drain underneath. He gripped the basin's edge and leaned over. The water's mirror was bigger there, but rippling and surging back and forth; the reflection of his face broke into dancing fragments.

    It was warm in his palms as he cupped his hands under the spigot. It trickled down his wrists to his elbows as he brought his hands up and splashed it into his face. The water ran down his neck, its tendrils slowing over his chest. He took his hands a few inches away from his face, then licked the water from them.

    

    

    Doot stood out in the corridor, watching through the doorway. The guy was so into his own wavelength-some weird place in his head-that it'd been easy to creep along after him and check out what he was doing.

    Which was
super
weird. This whole bit with that rotten-smelling water… The guy had flopped down on his knees at the side of the stone basin, like he was worshiping it or something. Looking at the little drops of water, more like drops of ink, for a long time. As though they'd hypnotized the guy. Doot had held his breath and waited to see what Mike was going to do next.

    
Another
whole creepy bit. Drinking the water from his hands-the thought made Doot's stomach flip-and throwing his head back. Trembling, for Christ's sake, as though it were a hit too good to be believed. Scooping more and more of it from the stream coming out of the spigot, and faster, until there were rivulets running down the guy's shoulder blades.

    And the creepiest thing-the guy looked
bigger
. The light wasn't too good, just what came bouncing down the corridor from the burned-out section, but Doot could have sworn it was happening. Like the guy had plugged into some sort of instant steroid action, getting pumped up, the muscles across his upper back swelling and tightening the skin. Fucking
weird
.

    The guy had stopped with the drinking routine. He was still leaning over the side of the basin, head close to the stream of water. His shoulders rose and fell, gradually slowing as he caught his breath.

    Doot stepped back against the corridor's wall. He didn't want Mike to catch him snooping. Especially not the way the guy was all charged up.

    Mike was standing, pushing himself upright with a hand against the basin.

    Time to split-Doot scooted down the corridor, toward the charred timbers at the end. He could pop out that way, where the big gaps in the walls were, and circle back around to the front of the building.

    
Too weird
, he thought as he ducked under one blackened timber. But… interesting. He had to admit that much.

    

    

    "Mike-maybe you should take it easy…"

    Lindy grabbed him by the arm as he strode across the lobby. Gently-but unstoppably-he peeled her grasp from him and set her aside. Smiling as he did it. Then he was heading for the door again.

    At the edge of the empty swimming pool-he'd brought the pipe length with him from the room inside the building-he planted himself in front of the valves and cocked the pipe over his shoulder like a baseball bat.

    The sharp clang of metal against metal drifted, echoing into the hills. He lifted the pipe for another blow.

    A half dozen more, and the broken chains looped in a tangle at the valves' base. He dropped the pipe length and took the closest wheel in both hands, his arm muscles tightening as he strained to turn it.

    He heard the sudden gush of water, and smelled it. Sulfur, and the other scent, the living one, that mixed with it. He stepped to the edge of the pool and saw the dark fluid spurting from a hole a foot or so down from the last row of tile. The water fell and splashed onto the wood and trash at the bottom.

    His heart grew inside him at the sight. He nodded, satisfied, then turned and gazed up at the hills.

    

    

    The stick prodded at the spider. The tiny creature scuttled in a different direction, trying to avoid the sharp point thrust at it.

    Nelder sat on a rock beside his shack, the stick held loosely in one hand. He poked the stick at the spider again, keeping it trapped in a small space of dust.

    A shadow fell across the ground. Nelder glanced up at the figure standing a few feet away. The spider scurried around the stick, dragging a line in the dirt, and escaped into the pebbles and larger rocks.

    Mike looked down at him and smiled.

    A little spark of recognition, of knowing everything, passed between them. From the black lenses of Nelder's glasses to the other's narrowed gaze-a mirror set in front of another.

    The old man nodded. "Now you know," he said quietly.

    One corner of Mike's smile lifted. "Now I know."

    The two men looked at each other, sharing the secret between them.

    In the dark spaces of the earth, shaded from the sun, other eyes watched them. Sharp muzzles lifted from the cool soil of the dens and tasted the odor of sweat, and the other, drifting in the air.

    

    

    That spooky Mike guy had gone striding up into the hills, off on Christ knew what kind of errand. Doot had peeked around the corner of the clinic building and watched him go. Something wild was going on around here-the guy sure wasn't all fucked up and half paralyzed
now
. He went up the hillside, even the steep parts, as though he were on rails.

    Before that, the guy had busted off the chains around the control valves and sent the rotten-smelling inky water spilling into the swimming pool. That had been weird, too-the guy had stood there with his hands on his hips, looking all pleased with himself, like he'd discovered a gusher of oil instead of a bunch of stuff that looked like something had died in it. Doot had been able to watch the guy from his spy point at the building's front. He'd snapped his head back out of sight when Mike had turned and looked around, just in time to avoid being spotted.