Twenty-six
Connie shook Rex Hogan awake to complete darkness
somewhere in the middle of the night. "Lights are out," she whispered.
"There's no water pressure in the sink."
Rex rolled over and stared into the blackness.
Connie lay against him, trembling. "Stay close to the apartment from now
on," he said.
"I will."
"Tuck that twenty-two pistol of yours in your pants.
Don't be afraid to use it if you have to."
It took Connie a moment to agree. She hated guns,
but the need for self-defense was clear. "What's going to happen now?"
she whispered, afraid of raising her voice in the darkness.
Rex worried about nearby Pittsburgh. The city would
be filled with the caterpillars. The entire infrastructure of the city
would have collapsed by now. How long could a city of that size hold out
against a food shortage?
An old memory came to mind. As a boy of ten, he had
watched a dilapidated shack two doors away be torn down following the
death of an old women. A back-hoe had reduced the ramshackle dwelling to
ruin within seconds. Immediately afterwards, a wall of darkness had
spread through the grass toward him, a veritable shockwave moving out in
all directions like a spreading stain. Only when they swarmed over his
shoes and up his legs did he realize that they were cockroaches by the
thousands driven from their ruined abode.
It would be the same with any large city. He hated
to compare human beings to roaches, but a panicky populace would explode
outward into the surrounding countryside in the same manner, for the same
reason, and with the same desperation. Brighton Hollow wasn't so far away
that it wouldn't be affected. Sooner or later, desperate outsiders would
be visiting their isolated community.
Connie kept him awake for a time, hoping to spark a
bit of early morning passion to take the edge from her tension. He was
awake just before dawn when Caitlin softly called his name from somewhere
outside.
Rex's eyes flew open to chilled darkness. Connie
clutched at his arm when he rose in the dim gray light. "Don't you dare,
Rex Hogan."
Connie had no way of knowing that there was far more
to fear than just the competition Caitlin posed as a woman. He had never
told her about the circumstances of Leon Biggs' death. She knew about the
caterpillars. She did not know that Caitlin was part of the nightmare
surrounding Brighton Hollow.
Rex rose and pulled on his pants. He reached for his
revolver on the nightstand, checked each chamber and cocked it.
"Why do you need a gun?" Connie whispered harshly.
"I don't want you to fuck her, but I never asked you to shoot her."
"Stay out of sight," Rex said.
Whatever happened, he was on his own. He went down
the stairs and spotted Caitlin standing barefoot on the lawn adjacent to
the meat shop and its overhead apartment. For a moment, he didn't think
it was Caitlin after all. She stood taller than he remembered in the
early dawn light. Her body filled out the simple shift she wore.
"Rex, help me," she said.
Rex drew closer and stopped when he saw the desperate
look on her face. "I don't know if I can, Caitlin."
"You're not afraid of me, are you? You know I would
never hurt you."
Rex dared not move too far from the apartment's
downstairs door. "Do you have one of those bugs, Caitlin?"
She gestured with a nod to indicate a spot in the
darkness somewhere over her shoulder. "It's over there. I won't let it
hurt you."
"Get rid of it," he said. "Doc and I will do
anything we can to help."
She gave him a twisted smile and shook her head. "I
don't think you understand how it is."
"Doc wants to understand," Rex said, trying to keep
his wits about him.
"I like Dr. Kaufman." Caitlin gazed at him. Her
lovely face smoothed over. Her complexion, Rex noticed, was radiant, and
flawless. "I love you, Rex. I'm so lonesome. Can you please be my
friend?"
Despite the conflict of emotion inside him and the
extent of a fear so overpowering that he could smell it, Caitlin was still
a terrible temptation. With Leon Biggs gone, he had an opportunity and
every excuse and reason to succumb to it. She had been so close, and now
that she was within reach, he dared not succumb.
He knew the danger the caterpillar posed to him. He
couldn't help but remember what Moresey had said about the hosts.
"They don't stay sane for long, you know."
"We can walk together in the hills," Caitlin said.
"Just you and me."
"Doc has a lot of questions he wanted to ask about
you and the caterpillar," Rex said, deflecting the conversation from
personal matters to Brighton Hollow’s desperate need for more
information about the caterpillars.
Caitlin put her hands behind her back. She rocked to
and fro on her heels and smiled at him. "Okay."
"I'll find out what Doc wants to know," Rex said.
"I'll make a list of questions and then we can talk."
"Come with me now?" Caitlin said eagerly. "We don't
have to talk. There are other things we can do."
It was then that Rex's courage failed him completely,
thinking about what he would do with Caitlin out in the woods in the cool
morning with a caterpillar crawling nearby in the shadows. "Not now,
Caitlin. It's dark. I wouldn't be comfortable."
"I won't let my caterpillar hurt you."
"I've seen what they can do," Rex said, unable to
keep a tone of revulsion from his voice.
"It wasn't my fault," Caitlin said sternly. "I told
you about the green shooting stars and you wouldn't believe me. I was
going to tell you about the shell I found, but you wouldn't have believed
me about that either. And I surely told you about Leon bothering me. Did
you think I was lying about that, too?"
"No. I knew you weren't lying."
"You never tried to help me! You never tried!"
His heart raced wildly in his chest. "Caitlin, Leon
would have fired me and thrown me out of the county. He didn't want me to
even talk to you."
"You could have done anything that you wanted to, Rex
Logan. I wouldn’t have tattled. I knew you liked me. It could have been
so wonderful between us. If you had been my boyfriend, the Rather
brothers would never have bothered me. And Leon, too."
It suddenly occurred to him that Connie would be
eavesdropping from an overhead window. Rex brushed at the tears in his
eyes, wrought with tension and confused by his own conflicting emotions
tearing every which way at him. Connie was listening to everything, and
most of what Caitlin said was true. Despite Leon and everything he had
ever considered decent and moral, he had always wanted Caitlin. Only his
cowardice had kept him from taking advantage of what she had offered day
in and day out, year after year. How in God's name had he ever managed to
resist her for so long?
"It's not too late," Caitlin said fearfully. "I'll
tell you everything you want to know about my caterpillar. It's not my
fault, you know."
"I know it's not your fault," Rex said so softly that
he wasn't certain she had heard.
"I won't let my caterpillar hurt good people, Rex. I
promise."
Rex became suddenly aware of the gun in his hand.
She was suffering, and he had the means to put an end to it. Would he be
doing her a favor if he raised his arm and fired? She'd be dead in an
instant. Without her, her caterpillar would be helpless.
"I see her, Rex Logan!" Caitlin called out suddenly.
"I see that bitch in the window listening to us!"
Connie had a gun of her own, and with a start of
panic, Rex feared what might happen in the next moment. But Caitlin
sensed the danger as well and ducked into the shadows with superhuman
reflexes.
Caitlin called out, her voice echoing among the trees.
"She's a worm, Rex Logan, and she doesn't love you like I do!"
Rex scanned the brush bordering the lawn, searching
for the caterpillar undulating its way in the gloom. If he had a clear
shot, he'd take it.
"Find out what Doc wants to know!" Caitlin
cried.
Rex could no longer see her in the dim morning
light.
"I'll tell you everything so that you won't be
afraid of me! I can be better than her! I'll prove it to you!"
A few moments later, Rex sensed that he was alone in
the early dawn light. The danger had passed, and still another
opportunity to reach out to Caitlin and take what she had offered.
If this ever happened again, he was going to lose her
forever.
