Thirty-nine
Brighton Hollow awoke two days later to an unexpected
dusting of snow and frost and temperatures that had fallen into the
twenties. Not all the trees in the surrounding hills had finished
dropping their canopies of leaves in the onrush of a premature winter.
Entire canopies of frost-bitten and wilting green leaves stood against the
white landscape.
Rex Logan fetched two cups of coffee from the
community kitchen at the fire station and delivered them to Doc's house.
He found Doc in his office, dressed in a winter coat, gloves, and a knit
ski cap pulled over his ears. "I thought you were going to light the
kerosene heater," Rex said casually, setting the still steaming coffee
before the man.
"The fumes may be worse for me than the cold," Doc
said. He sipped his coffee. "Sit down and visit."
Rex sat. "Did Wallace die?"
"This morning. I couldn't do anything for him."
Wallace had been a middle-aged truck farmer who had
taken a bullet through a lung during the raid on Derek's camp. Rex had
risked the lives of his men, Wallace included, to save Caitlin's life.
Once she had been freed, however, she had single-handedly decimated what
was left of the camp, just as Rex had guessed would happen.
"I noticed you had the road blocks removed," Doc
said.
"I'm moving them on through, what's left of them."
"How many are you going to let stay?"
Rex shrugged, hoping Doc wouldn't make him reconsider
his decision. "We've had twenty or thirty requests for asylum. We're
accepting those that were taken prisoner along the way. We don't have
food for even those few, but we can't just ignore what they've been
through. I was thinking that some of the women and kids wouldn't be too
much of a burden."
Doc shook his head sorrowfully. "Your decision may
come back to haunt you later this winter."
"So be it."
Doc grinned. "We make a good team, you and I, your
compassion and my pragmatism."
"Take your vitamins and stay warm," Rex said.
Doc studied him in silence. "What's got you so
upset? Caitlin again?"
"She's out there somewhere, wandering barefoot in the
snow dressed in a fucking evening gown. I swear to God she's not even
human anymore. Have you seen the size of her?"
"It's a pituitary and hormonal disturbance," Doc
said. "The caterpillar's venom has an effect on the host similar to
growth hormones, but much broader in scope.”
"She's like a goddess with that thing riding on her
neck. Why do those caterpillars have to feed so much?"
"I've only gotten that one news bulletin from
Culverton," Doc said. "The insects store certain kinds of cellular
material in almost solid form. Nobody is guessing why."
"She's alone out there, Doc. I don't think a human
being has ever been so alone."
"It's possible that her size is intended to
demoralize us," Doc said. "Her health is certainly intended to maximize
the sheer quantity of humanity she can kill."
"And this godforsaken weather? Are they doing that,
too?"
"It's hard to see these record low temperatures as a
coincidence on top of everything else, but it might be just that, except
that it’s a phenomena on an astronomical scale. The stars are
disappearing."
Rex stared at the man.
“Check it out for yourself some night. It’s as if
the sun is moving into an opaque cloud of dust or gas. The aurora
borealis is brighter, I’ve heard.”
“It’s been cloudy so often, I haven’t noticed,” Rex
said. "I'm not sure if I have resources left to give a damn."
Rex rose restlessly to his feet. His visits were
frequent, but never long.
"Don't go after her, son. There's nothing you can
do."
"I would go after her, but I'm scared to death of her,
Doc. I was scared of her when she was a fourteen-year-old vixen trying to
get into my pants. I never seem to give the poor girl a break."
"If you had? What would have happened?"
"Leon would have fired me, prosecuted me, maybe.
Maybe I’d have gone to jail. But we would have made a go of it, Caitlin
and I. I think Caitlin was supposed to have been my life. I seriously
think I blew it."
Rex returned to the apartment to find Connie huddled
alongside the heater in the kitchen. He rushed across the room and shut
it off. "I told you we need the kerosene for this winter. Why are you
burning it now?"
"I don't care about this winter," Connie said
listlessly. “I’m cold now. Besides, we're out of wood."
Rex took his ax and walked to the edge of town. He
began chopping at the trees that had been felled by a chain saw. Too few
of the townspeople spend the hours in the hills needed to store an
adequate supply of firewood. Caitlin was out there somewhere, and the
town was terrified of her. She had assured Brighton Hollow that she would
defend the town against others like herself, but the sheer carnage she had
wrought had worked against her image as a protector. Rex had less fear of
her than in the past, but he had a growing obsession to contend with and
feelings of remorse.
He spent most of the day working off his excess
energy, then sent out a team with a sled to bring in the wood he had cut.
He stood at the apartment window watching the men in the distance
hurriedly fill a make-shift trailer and return to town.
Connie came up beside him. Rex could smell alcohol
on her breath. "You're still moping over that mutant bitch," she said
venomously.
"It's not her fault."
"You're in love with her," Connie said.
"Around and around we go."
"I hate you, Rex Logan."
"I hate you, too, Connie."
"She's going to come around again, you know. And
when she does, I'm going to kill her."
"That's why I let you keep the gun. I’m confident
you won’t use it on me, or yourself, until you've taken your crack at
her."
She wailed her frustration at his apathy and swung
away.
Rex scanned the face of the hills, haunted by the
thought of Caitlin roaming the wilderness in her black evening gown.
She'd not survive in the long run, but who in Brighton Hollow would be
left alive to gloat? There was prey for her caterpillar out in the
hills. When it was gone, where could she go but back to Brighton Hollow
to feed?
He had been aware of the consequences when he had
freed her. He had knowingly sacrificed Bright Hollow's long term security
for the short term benefit Caitlin had provided, although Brighton
Hollow's eventual extinction was a forgone conclusion in any case. The
caterpillars and the deadly cold winter went hand in hand. It didn't seem
likely the town could survive either, but out of morbid curiosity, he
intended to ride the nightmare out to the very end just to see where it
would go.
