FIVE

There was no need to worry about being caught breaking curfew—when Billy and Theo and Phoenix arrived at her mother’s soovie, about a dozen people had surrounded it. Some carried lanterns, casting eerie shadows on the other soovies in line up and down the row.

“No!” Phoenix wailed. “He’s there already!”

She pulled Billy to the back of the crowd.

Billy was taller than anyone and, over the heads of the crowd, saw through the windows of Phoenix’s soovie. Her mother had earned money as a prostitute; she could afford glass windows. Inside, the silhouette of a crouched figure.

The death doctor?

“Phoenix,” Billy said. Billy felt Theo close at his side. “Are you sure you understand why he’s there?”

“Yeah,” Theo said. His neck was skinny and made his head look big. The heavy glasses that were wider than his face added to the illusion. “People just don’t let other people die.”

In Appalachia, anyone who was sick got help from a doctor. Phoenix, half crying, had told them her mother was too sick, and now the doctor was supposed to kill her.

Phoenix tugged on the shirt of a man in front of them. He turned around, his face a scowl. He was middle-aged, a pattern of shadows from the lanterns across a balding forehead. “I was here before you.”

But he backed away slightly, seeing Billy’s size.

“Tell Billy,” Phoenix said, instructing the man. “The death doctor is here to make my mother die, right?”

“Leave me alone.” He tried to melt back into the crowd.

Billy was so aware of his bulk that he hated to even raise his voice. Yet Phoenix was more important than self-consciousness. He reached with his right hand and grabbed the middle-aged man by the shoulder and spun him back.

“Tell me about the death doctor.” Billy squeezed his fingers on the man’s shoulder. “Is Phoenix right?”

“Hey!” The man clutched uselessly at Billy’s hand, trying to pull it loose. “This ain’t fair. I’m going to bring this to Vore. He’ll fix you for getting in the way.”

“What is the doctor doing in there?” Billy asked. Other people had turned to watch them. “Why is everybody here after curfew?”

Having others take notice of the conversation seemed to take some of the fear out of the man. “Think we’re here for fresh air? Her things are going to be divided up. And don’t try to change the order of the line. I was here before you. So you’re going to have to wait till I’ve had a good look at what she’s got.”

Billy was constantly afraid he misunderstood people. It’s why he was usually slow to reply in conversation and why, he knew, people thought he was stupid. If they didn’t say something directly, he’d puzzle over the words until he was satisfied that he knew whether they were using an expression or being sarcastic.

Billy didn’t have time for that now. He wanted a clear answer. “Is the doctor going to kill her?”

The man screamed, drawing more attention. Billy realized that in his frustration he’d squeezed too hard. He released his grip slightly, and the man jerked away.

“He can’t kill her soon enough,” the man said, looking around him for support. “And don’t think Vore is going to let you get away with pushing us around.”

Billy was already knocking his way through the crowd, ignoring cries of complaint. He was aware that Theo and Phoenix had followed.

At the soovie, Billy knocked on the window. The figure inside was holding an extended needle.

“She’s not dead yet,” the doctor snarled, his voice clear through the closed glass windows. “Give her some respect at least.”

“Mommy!” Phoenix cried. “Mommy!”

Whimpering from the woman.

“Leave her alone,” Billy said, his face close to the glass.

“You’re kidding, right? Or are you an idiot?”

“Open the door.”

“Go away.”

Howls of protest came from behind Billy. He didn’t care. He opened the door and reached inside. Clutched at the doctor’s arm. Succeeded in yanking away the arm with the needle. He didn’t let go and started to pull the man out of the soovie.

“Here comes Vore!” someone shouted.

Billy kept pulling. He reached in with his second hand to get better traction. He turned the doctor sideways and managed to get the doctor’s head and part of his shoulders out of the soovie. Billy felt a pinprick of pain, but ignored it. Until he realized there was a needle in his forearm. Billy dropped his second hand and snapped the needle off at the base.

He resumed pulling. Without anger. He simply needed this man away from Phoenix’s mother. Once this fight was finished, he’d turn to the next fight. Even if that meant Vore.

“Billy! Billy! Billy!” It was Theo, with rapid pulls at Billy’s shirt. “This is serious.”

The silence of the crowd behind him told Billy that something had changed. He still didn’t quit until he’d managed to pull the doctor out completely.

Phoenix jumped up and crawled inside. “Mommy. Mommy.”

More whimpering, but the sounds changed to comfort. Phoenix pulled the door shut.

Billy turned away from the soovie. Coming through the crowd was a man his size, but with a huge belly. Shaved bald. With five men, nearly as big, in formation behind him, like geese in flight, except much more ponderous and deliberate.

“Lock it,” Billy said to Phoenix. “Don’t let anyone back in.”

Billy shut the soovie door and turned to Vore.

“I’ve been wondering when you’d try something,” Vore said. He held up his hand, commanding his gang to stop. “Guys like you join a soovie park, and sooner or later you think you can take the top position.”

Theo stepped forward, between Vore and Billy. “He’s just helping the woman.”

Vore snorted. “You’re the kid who walks around talking to himself all day. How about you get out of here before I snap you like a chicken bone.”

“Just listen,” Theo said. “He’s not here to run a gang. The little girl came to us because—”

Vore slapped at Theo, knocking him down like a mosquito. “Shut up.”

Billy reacted. Didn’t try to think it through like usual. Just reacted. He took the half step to cover the distance to Vore. He brought his hand back to punch.

Vore smiled. Almost a leer.

Theo wobbled to his feet. He jumped on Billy’s arm. Hung on it.

“Don’t,” Theo said, gasping. “They’ll kill us.”

At least that’s what Billy thought Theo was saying. Theo’s voice sounded hollow.

Billy’s arm was a solid rock, unwavering with Theo’s weight on it.

“Billy,” Theo said. “I lost my glasses. But don’t worry. I’m not hurt. Don’t fight.”

Which to Billy was a lie. Theo was hurt. His nose was sideways, red with gore. Billy lowered his arm. He was blinking, trying to figure out what to do. All of this had happened so fast. He was all right with what might happen to him next. He’d been hurt before and wasn’t afraid of pain. But it wasn’t right that Theo might suffer.

The other five had taken advantage of the distraction to surround them.

“Hey, Vore!” the man Phoenix had first asked to explain the death doctor to Billy was shouting. “Kill them! We get to divide their stuff too, right?”

Vore swung his head sideways and silenced the man simply by staring.

Billy squinted. It actually looked like a second Vore was standing in front of him. A dull roar seemed to fill his ears.

Vore, both of them in his vision, tilted slightly.

Billy realized he was on his knees.

Theo was trying to hold him upright.

The needle, in Billy’s forearm. He remembered feeling it earlier. But it was difficult to put that thought into words. Whatever the doctor had been ready to inject into Phoenix’s mother was now in Billy.

“Knife out their eyes,” Vore instructed his men. “They’ll still be able to work for us.”

“Won’t matter to me,” Theo said defiantly. He was fighting to keep Billy upright. “I can hardly see anyway.”

“No,” Billy said. The noise came from his mouth like a slow vibration. He felt himself sway.

Vore grinned. To Billy, the movement on Vore’s face seemed to shimmer.

Without warning, an immense panic overwhelmed Billy. So sharp and powerful that he lurched to his feet again despite the drugs washing through his body. Something terrible! Nearby! Monsters! Danger!

He began to flail.

Theo jumped away screaming. Only for a split second. There was a blue arc, striking Theo like a horizontal lightning bolt.

Theo wasn’t the only one who had screamed. The five men surrounding them had first crouched, then bolted with yells of fear. Vore too screamed. He had spun around, lurching away from them, trampling anyone in his way. The crowd had become fluid in mass hysteria, scattering in all directions.

Something horrible was happening. But Billy couldn’t leave Phoenix behind. Or Theo.

Billy fought his panic and the death drugs that had been injected into him. He picked Theo up and held him under an arm. Billy dragged himself back toward the soovie, Theo limp in his grasp.

Billy’s tongue was dead. He tried to call Phoenix’s name but couldn’t make a sound, paralyzed by the overwhelming sense of panic he could not shake.

Billy managed to get his fingers on the door handle. He tore at it, and his hand popped loose. He realized he’d pulled the handle off the door.

Billy tried to pull the door from the frame, but the steel was unyielding. The effort drained him, and he found himself on his knees with the roaring in his ears now so loud he couldn’t hear Phoenix anymore.

Then, as his consciousness darkened, came nothing.