“I don’t think I understand.”
“We’re pretty sure the handprint happened long before the Cherenkov effect, and we don’t think they’re connected. It’s just that the print was missed before. But what it means is, someone in Sorrow Falls knows more than they’re saying. I needed to find out who that person was. I still do, because right now the ship is creating zombies. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but I think whoever made that print does.”
Annie sat back and considered that point.
“All right. So how do you know the ship is making zombies?”
“Who else? You think it’s really likely the one place the dead are rising is the one place with a spaceship?”
“I agree; that’s unlikely. How do you know there aren’t other towns with a zombie problem?”
He smiled. “That’s a really good point. First thing tomorrow, I’ll call Washington and ask them for an update on zombies in other regions. Maybe something will come up.”
“No you won’t.”
“No I won’t, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good point.”
The waitress arrived with their plates of greasy food. Discussions about the undead did nothing to dampen Annie’s appetite, so she dug in.
“All right, assuming it’s Shippie’s fault.”
“Shippie?”
“Sorry, that’s what Violet and I always called it. Assuming the spaceship is doing it, how is it doing it? Shouldn’t one of those government gadgets be catching this?”
“Sure, or your friends at the trailers. Although they didn’t notice the drones, it sounds like, and nobody caught the Cherenkov radiation burst.”
“They noticed the ship is breathing, that’s something.”
“Right.” Ed rolled his eyes. He didn’t consider the ship breathing a particularly respectable discovery. “But all of our gadgets are only good for things we know to test for. The ship was built by beings that mastered interstellar travel. They’re bound to have a way to do something we can’t detect.”
“Magic, then.”
“I definitely didn’t say that.”
“So why’s it doing this? What possible use could a spaceship have for a bunch of zombies?”
“I have no idea. But I’m guessing the person who touched the ship knows something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Annie, I have to find them first. But I’m pretty sure they’re the key to all of this. The sooner I figure out who they are the better off we’re all going to be.”
Annie threw a French fry at Ed’s face. It glanced off the side of his head, causing no long-term damage.
“What was that for?”
“You still aren’t telling me everything, Edgar. Why is all of this so very important right now? Stop dropping ominous hints all over the place, it’s annoying.”
“I don’t have any particulars to share, but let’s just say the government has a few plans for what to do with this town and that ship if the report I turn in makes them unhappy.”
“Well that’s super. Then turn in a report that makes them happy.”
“I can’t really fabricate something here. There’s too much at stake. Look, all I need to do is find out who made that handprint.”
“Right, but you better have a backup plan is all I’m saying.”
“I’m sure that person is still in this town somewhere, and somebody knows who it is.”
“Yes, you’re right about all of that, but I’m saying don’t expect much from them.”
“You know who it is.”
She sighed grandly.
“I know they don’t have the answers you’re looking for, let’s say.”
“How can you know that? Let me talk to them and find out.”
“You’re talking to them now, Ed. I’m the one who touched the ship. Three years ago. And I have no answers for you.”
16
THE NIGHT THE SKY FELL ON ANNIE
Annie had been crying.
Her face was a mess. The eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks were all puffy, as if swollen after absorbing moisture from her tears. She sort of wondered what would happen if she pinched one of them: would water come out of the pores?
Anyone looking at her would know what she’d been doing, so it was a good thing she was alone in her bedroom, because it wasn’t something she wanted anybody to know about. Not even her parents, not even when her parents knew why she was crying and that she was probably supposed to be crying. She refused to do it in front of them, even though it was their fault.
Not fair. Cancer isn’t anyone’s fault.
That wasn’t always true, though. Some cancers really were the fault of someone. Like the tobacco industry. They could give people cancer. So maybe that was what it was: someone had given her mother cancer and they were the person Annie should be mad at.
Except according to mom, it wasn’t that kind of cancer. It wasn’t because of the way her mom lived her life: not in anything she ate or drank or smoked or wore or breathed. It was just something happening in her mom’s body, and that was who to blame. Not her mom; her mom’s body.
This didn’t work either.
Blaming her father showed a lot of promise, initially. He was away more and more, and if he’d been away less instead, he could have stopped the cancer from getting to mom, like a rancher with a shotgun guarding cattle from poachers. It was an impossible thought, but these were impossible times. Annie just learned she was going to be motherless by the time she turned twenty, and dammit if there weren’t people who should be held responsible for that.
This isn’t your fault, Annie was one of the things her mother said, so of course Annie had to at least consider blaming herself. She couldn’t imagine how it could be her fault, and the entire line sounded more like something you said to your child after informing her of an impending divorce—which was honestly what she thought the serious conversation she’d been sat down for earlier was going to be about. But maybe there was only one playbook parents had for when they delivered bad news to their kids, and the line came from there. Either way, Annie couldn’t imagine how it was her fault, couldn’t conceive of any way in which she either caused cancer in her mother or stood aside as the cancer was allowed in. She could sort of imagine her mother standing bravely in front of Annie and shielding her from it, as if cancer were something fired from a gun, but that notion dissipated quickly.
She could blame God.
Annie left the mirror, which hung on the back of the door to her bedroom, to sit on the bed. The bed was near the window. From it she could see a good portion of the valley and a whole lot of sky, because there weren’t any houses across the street and they lived on the crest of a bowl canyon that bottomed out at the river several miles down the hill. Her room was on the second floor directly above the front door/porch entrance, and the view from the window right over the porch roof was routinely spectacular. On nights in which she hadn’t been notified of her future orphan status, she liked to sit on the roof and look at the stars. Sometimes she was especially lucky, and a clear night and a meteor shower would coincide. That happened the prior year with the Perseids, which were coming up again in a few days. She hoped to have another good view, and also hoped she cared enough to watch.
Annie didn’t think she believed in God, or if she did, the idea she had of what God must be like didn’t correspond with anyone else’s. It was incredibly annoying in a time like this, because He (or She) would be an excellent being to pin the blame for her mother’s cancer on. She could yell at Him for it instead, and then maybe go through the steps of doubting Him, wondering if He existed at all, working out for herself whether it was worth it to even continue using upper case letters when thinking about Him. She had to believe in Him/Her (or him/her) before questioning that belief, though, and that seemed like a lot of effort.