Phil led the doctor down the hall to the infirmary without speaking.
He opened the infirmary door, turned on the light .. . and saw that the baby was gone.
"What the--"
He ran over to the spot where he'd lain the dead infant. The bloodied blanket was thrown onto the floor next to the counter, but there was no sign of the baby. The doctor strode up behind him. "Is this where you left the infant?"
Phil nodded. "I don't know who would ... I can't understand why anyone would want to .. ." He swallowed hard as he thought of the newborn girl's deformed face and horribly twisted limbs. He looked at the doctor. "It must have been one of the patients." He started going over a mental list of the more emotionally unbalanced residents of the nursing home. "It had to be one of the patients."
The doctor was bending over, looking down at the linoleum floor.
"Maybe," he said quietly. "Maybe not." He stood up and pointed at the top of the steel counter, at the small pool of blood left by the baby.
Claw marks were clearly outlined in the blood.
And the faint imprint of tiny feet could be seen on the floor next to the discarded blanket.
"It woulda scared the shit out of me, too." Brad loaded the last case of Pepsi onto the truck and pulled down the metal door, closing it.
"I'd sue the bastards if I were you."
Gordon shook his head. "I wouldn't know who to sue. Besides, there's nothing really to sue over. The tests said Marina's okay. Even if she was exposed to something there's no way we could prove it." He picked up his hat from the table and put it on. He jumped off the concrete rim of the loading dock and got into the passenger seat of the cab.
Brad finished locking up the warehouse, then came around to the front of the truck and got in. Gordon lifted up the visor of his hat and scratched his head. "As if that wasn't enough, I had a real mother of a nightmare last night."
"That's understandable."
"I can't remember all of it exactly, but it had something to do with my cousins and a huge monster spider."
Brad grinned at him. "You know what that means, don't you? It means you're a fag."
Gordon laughed.
The truck pulled out of the warehouse driveway onto Cedar, then turned from Cedar onto Main. The turn was sharp, and the left rear tires dipped into the ditch as they rounded the corner. Gordon braced himself for the sound of tires popping--a sound he knew was inevitable--but the truck, against all odds, made the turn safely on to the paved street. He looked at Brad and smiled. "I thought for sure we'd eat it that time."
"Are you kidding? Take a lot more than that to cripple this baby."
Brad pounded the steering wheel affectionately and the horn bleated. A
small car, a Toyota, passing them in the left lane, heard the sound and honked back. Brad leaned on the horn, sending out a long sustained blast, and stuck his middle finger out the window. "We weren't even honking at you! Asshole!"
The truck turned onto the highway and headed toward the south end of town. Today they would be covering the gas stations, liquor stores and fast food places within Randall. And, as always, they would work from south to north, then from east to west, big streets to little streets.
Brad pulled into the Whiting Bros, gas station at the southern tip of town. "You say that's what happened to Julie Campbell's baby, huh?
Something to do with the water?"
Gordon shrugged. "Near as we can figure."
Brad shook his head. "Fuckers." The truck pulled to a stop in front of the ornamental wooden hitching post before the door to the gas station office, and he yanked hard on the emergency brake. The Whiting Bros, station was on the downward end of the hill sloping into town, but it was still on a considerable slant, and once before, when he had forgotten to put on the brake, the truck had started rolling on them.
He always made sure the emergency brake was on now. "I used to go out with Julie's sister," he said, getting out of the cab.
"June?" Gordon raised his eyebrows. "I didn't know that."
"Well, it was a long time ago. Before me and Connie met." He grabbed the back door handle and stood for a moment without opening it, staring at the red, white, and blue Pepsi logo painted on the metal. "Took her to my senior prom. Fucked her brains out in the car afterward. First piece of ass I ever got. I still have the picture somewhere."
"Of you fucking her brains out?" Gordon grinned. "That must be a sight to see."
"No, dick meat Our prom picture."
"Whatever happened to June? I've heard Julie talk about her, but I don't think I've ever seen her. Is she still around here somewhere?"
Brad pulled up on the door handle, pushing it upward toward the roof of the truck. "Married some redneck, I think. Some construction worker up in Prescott or something." He looked at Gordon, and the expression on his face said that the topic was closed. "They always take at least a case of regular Pepsi here. You bring that on in, and I'll see what else these jokers need."
Gordon watched Brad's back as he walked into the gas station office. So Brad still had a soft spot for Julie Campbell's sister. He'd have to tell Marina about that one. She'd get a big kick out of it.
He grabbed a case of Pepsi and, grunting, carried it into the gas station office.
After delivering cases of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Pepsi Light to the other gas stations on the south end of town and to Marty's Liquor, they drove back to the warehouse, loaded up again and then headed back onto the highway to finish the job. Brad pulled to a stop in front of Char Clifton's station. He looked at Gordon. "Is your insurance going to cover the cost of the doctors?"
"I'll probably have to fight like hell for it, but I was looking over our policy last night and it should cover most of it. Of course there is a two hundred dollar deductible. I'll have to scrape that together somehow."
Brad pulled on his beard and nodded. "Tell you what," he said. "I'm going to give you a hundred dollar bonus this month. To help out."
Gordon stared at him in surprise. "Really?"
Brad opened the door and got out, not looking at him. "Yeah. What the hell. This is our busy season. We've made quite a bit this summer from all the tourists coming up to the lakes and all. And you've done a damn good job. Done the work of two men this summer."
"I don't know what to say."
"Don't say nothing," Brad growled. "Just grab a goddamn case and bring it in." He stomped hard on the rubber cable that rang the gas station's bell and started walking toward the office, taking out his order pad. "Shit. Maybe I can get some kind of raise for you too. To help out with the expenses. Kids cost a lot these days."
Gordon just stared at him.
He heard about Mrs. Perry's baby in Pete's Diner.
It was a fifth- or sixth-hand retelling of the story by one customer to another, but at the sound of the words "baby" and "born dead" Gordon had put down his load and stopped to listen. The two customers were seated at the counter, drinking coffee and eatingfrench fries soaked in ketchup. The man who was telling the story looked like a regular, one of those retired men who hang out at diners and coffee shops to talk to others like themselves. He was nearly bald and wearing jeans and a faded work shirt. A straw cowboy hat occupied the vinyl seat next to him. The other man was around Gordon's age and was wearing a greasy mechanic's uniform.
Brad, too, stopped work for a few moments to hear the story, following Gordon's lead.
"She was damn near ninety or ninety-five," the old man said. "They're not even sure how she got pregnant. But there she was. Woke up the whole damn place with her screaming, and by the time anyone got there she'd already had the baby. Guy who told me about it said the thing crawled out on its own."
"But I thought it was born dead," the other man said.