Chapter Two
Jessie Stevens sat beside the rapidly decomposing body of her little brother, watching men move around her apartment, opening drawers, closets, and boxes. They spoke in low tones and left nothing uninspected in the home she had shared with Joshua.
A hot breeze blew through the broken window where Dr. Tyrone had fallen. More people arrived, and they spoke of cleaning up the remains on the street, in the apartment, and on the rooftop. She watched and listened, not quite able to connect with what was happening.
They questioned her, but she couldn’t answer, staring past them at the young man she’d practically raised on her own.
The worn, gaunt aspect of Joshua’s face still remained, though now the circles beneath his eyes were not gray. They were purple. His chestnut brown hair, the exact color of her own, lay sprinkled around his head with only a few strands remaining on his scalp.
Blackish-red goo oozed from his mouth and several teeth littered the floor.
“What’s your name?” a man asked, and Jessie remembered hearing the question at least three times.
Someone said something else, but she couldn’t bring herself to look up. Her entire world, all that ever mattered to her, was gone. The person she loved most lay beside her dead.
“Look at me.” The low voice was melodic and dreamy. The sound of it made Jessie relax. Something about it made her want to curl up and hide deep in the folds of the rich, accented sound.
But even so, she could not look away from Joshua. Barely eighteen and dead. She’d promised her mother she’d raise him up to adulthood.
An ironic chuckle broke in Jessie’s throat. “Barely a man.”
Someone touched her chin. The gentle touch drew her attention from Joshua. She looked up at a man who squatted beside them.
“Jessica, right?” His fingers opened to curve around the nape of her neck in the most tender caress she could remember feeling. “That’s your name.” He nodded.
His eyes, though dark as night, were blue.
“Blue, so very blue.” Jessie heard her voice and knew she sounded crazy, like some babbling nut, but that didn’t stop her tongue.
She shook her head. “No. Purple. A deep violet.”
He smiled, and that drew her attention to his mouth.
“A moustache.” Without thinking, she raised her hand to touch the perfectly manscaped moustache outlining his mouth and descending into a goatee. “Soft.”
“It is quite possible you’re putting it on a bit too heavy,” another man said.
“I’ll say. Ricard, are you trying to melt her brain?” a third voice asked.
“No, but she wasn’t responding before. I had to do something,” the man with the moustache and the beautiful eyes said.
His voice was accented. Spanish, he was Spanish.
“I like tacos,” Jessie said, then let her fingers trail from his moustache to his goatee down his neck to the soft cotton shirt. Sliding her hands beneath his leather jacket to rest on his chest, she searched for a heartbeat.
After all she’d heard about over these last many months, in spite of having very foggy thoughts, she knew to make sure he had a beating heart.
She opened her hand and pressed it to the muscle directly above his heart. A steady beat pounded, and she smiled.
“You’re alive.”
“Yes, I am,” he said.
“Oh, boy,” a man said.
Behind her, Jessie heard a couple male laughs. Oddly, it did not bother her to think of strange men in her apartment, laughing about something. At the moment she had not a care in the world.
Instead, she felt safe. Here touching this man with the moustache and the perfect eyes, the one with the deep, accented voice, she felt like her whole world was right.
“You smell of cloves and incense.” She sighed.
“We can’t leave her,” the mustached man said. “Tyrone may be gone, but Rollins will be back for her. He’s not left any family intact once he’s struck.”
“Don’t leave me,” Jessie replied.
“No. Of course, not.” He took her hand from his heart and helped her to her feet. “It’s not safe for you here.”
Jessie shook her head. She knew this. Clearly, there was nothing safe about Central City. People were dropping like flies. Why, just two nights ago her neighbor from across the street had gone missing. Four days ago Mr. Rantsmack from down the hall reported his wife missing. “But she came back.”
“Who?” the man asked.
That dreadful night Jessie and Joshua woke to the sounds of Mrs. Rantsmack screaming. “Screaming bloody murder,” Jessie whispered.
The memory of that night would haunt her for as long as she lived.
“The blood. So much blood.” She pulled her hand from his and curled inward.
That was the night that changed Jessie’s life forever.
“She killed him. We tried to save him. We heard her screaming and…”
The events of what occurred raced through Jessie’s mind as if someone was running a newsreel on high speed. One by one the scenes of gore and horror whizzed by as if they were happening again. Finding Mr. Rantsmack on the floor of his apartment with his throat ripped out. Blood gurgling as he breathed his last. Seeing his wife dancing and laughing in the street one minute, then howling in agony at what she’d done the next.
Then the worst of all of it. Seeing Joshua follow her away as if seduced by some evil spirit.
There’d been nothing Jessie could say or do to stop him. Before the authorities arrived Mrs. Rantsmack had relayed a twisted tale of opportunity and promise of physical redemption to Joshua that had the boy seeing past the heinous crime that lay at his feet.
“All his life he suffered. He was a good boy, but not well. First tuberculosis. Then, polio. Then the MS.” Tears ran down Jessie’s face. “How could I blame him for wanting relief?”
When Jessie looked down where Joshua lay, she screamed. The sight was more than she could bear. His body had disintegrated into a black, bubbling, steaming glob. “Joshua!”