Page 24 of The Dead of Summer

Ollie-baby?

Wake up. It’s me. Where are you?

Are you looking for me?

Something has gone wrong inside my bones.

Ollie-baby? I can’t breathe.

I awaken beside the organ, curled against the window, my forehead pressed to the paper of the glass.

The dream fades, but the heartache doesn’t.

I had a dream about Gracie. She was calling to me.

Why did the dream bring me here? The paper has peeled back.

Through the gap I glimpse what’s become of the world outside the library, and I wonder, How could anyone survive this nightmare?

Clouds of fog twenty feet high drift down Main Street.

Rashes of corals wrap the edges of buildings, street signs, and cars, throbbing with luminous pastel light.

Barnacles bubble across the sidewalk like cobblestones.

Several weepers are right where Wendy shot them down on the lawn, but their colors are dull now.

A few other weepers sway over them as though curious, or in mourning, but their faces are looking up at the library, captivated by the lit tower.

I can’t help but look into each of their faces, searching their wide, unblinking stares for any sign of the people they used to be. Does the coral take everything? Can it infect a person’s soul?

I pull myself away. I’m ready to go back to bed when, steps from the window, I freeze. I rush back, peeling paper away until I can see more of downtown. My hands shake. Sometime in the last few hours, the winds have changed, and now the fog is drifting away from the rooftops.

In a solitary moonbeam I can see the topmost edge of Singing House.

And in the top-floor window, in our tiny apartment, a lantern has been lit.

I stare at the signal, not believing what I’m seeing.

I expect the fog to swallow the town up again, but the wind stiffens until it’s howling through the gaps in the windows.

The library creaks below the oncoming storm.

A single glance at the sky—no stars, just a sheet of gray through which the moonlight barely drips—and I know that this storm is our chance to leave the library. Maybe our only chance.

I race to the teen room and silently shake the others awake. I show them the view of town cleared of fog.

“If we’re going to get that radio for Wendy, we need to go now or never,” I whisper. “It’s shine time.”

Elisa nods. Sam nods. Bash holds his own hand, and I think he’s going to vanish into himself again.

“Won’t Willy be mad?” he asks.

“Willy will be mad, but Wendy would be proud. She can’t keep this place afloat with the power of pretend much longer. We need a way to call for help,” I say.

Bash nods. Now we’re all in. We dress silently but hold our shoes in our hands as we sneak through the stacks and down the back stairwell.

At the last step, we lace up our shoes, tighten our bandannas across our faces, and pull our goggles down over our eyes.

When we’re ready, we ease open the door.

The night is a perfect square of darkness beyond, smelling of salt and rain.

Hand in hand, we dive in.

The door to Scuttlebutt’s hangs on bent hinges, like a kicked-in tooth.

“Any other ideas?” Sam whispers as we examine the wreckage.

We could go back to the maritime museum, or search through a few of the vintage stores.

The wharf is a risk, but not far, and of course we’ve considered hiking all the way to the boating supply store.

All those would cost us precious time. No one wants to split up.

We don’t know how long the ocean breeze will last, and none of us want to find out what happens if the prickle of rain turns into a drizzle.

Selfishly, I want to get to Singing House. If we get the radio quickly, then I’m sure I can beg the others into a detour back to the library. They saw the light in Singing House, too. If it was their mom, they’d do the same, right?

This is why I step into Scuttlebutt’s first, making the decision for all of us.

“Hello?” I whisper. If there are people hiding here, I don’t want them taking any shots at us.

I hear nothing in response except the wind gushing through the empty wreckage of the restaurant, flapping up flyers and strewn napkins.

Plates of festered food sit on the few tables that haven’t been thrown sideways.

The floor is sticky, but with the blessed stickiness of spilled cocktails and beer.

I risk a long, deep breath, smelling for the marine rot of the coral, but all I can detect is the oversweet tang of gone-bad orange juice.

We ease through the dining room, toward the club in the back.

Wendy has it designed like the hull of a wooden ship, with curved boards bending the walls around a spacious, glitter-stained floor that normally shines with disco light.

Like painted angels, figureheads from old ships hang over us, dripping strings of plastic beads and paper decorations left over from the Fourth of July.

The air is denser. Sour. But the stillness is a relief.

I try to tell myself the dark is our friend, that it means the coral likely hasn’t rooted itself in here.

Bash and I head behind the bar to grab whatever water bottles we can find, but it looks like someone has already had this idea.

There is, however, a large jug labeled LEMON JUICE . Bash holds it up. Victory!

“Guys!” Elisa whispers. “Look!”

Sam’s got Elisa hoisted up on his shoulders so that she can reach the shelves above the DJ booth. She’s pulled down one of the many radios. A newer-looking one toward the top that lacks the charm of the antiques, but almost certainly still works.

“Look for the power supply,” Bash whispers. “It should be with it. A little black box.”

Elisa feels around for a few more seconds and then shows Bash what she’s found.

“Does it work?” Bash whispers. Elisa wrestles the cords into the socket, and the radio lights blink on. She reaches for the dial.

“Wait—” Sam says, but he’s too late. Elisa cranks a knob on the device and a static cry stabs through the silence.

She drops the radio in surprise, and Sam nearly drops her.

There’s a scramble as they duck behind the DJ booth to find it, and somewhere in the chaos someone must bump something. The disco lights come on.

“Turn it off,” I whisper, but what’s the point? The radio is yelling something— “Commencing forensic operation” —and then it finally goes dead, the power cord wrenched from the socket by Sam.

We hold our breath, willing the silence to re-form, but from the door comes a gurgling hiccup.

I scramble over the bar and close off the passage leading to the way we came in.

In silent unanimity Bash, Elisa, and I agree on the back door.

We used to prop it open (much to Wendy Pretendy’s annoyance) to make for an easy escape from Scuttlebutt’s on nights we snuck in.

Now it will save our lives. We run toward it, but then Sam shouts, “Ollie, behind you!”

I duck just as a web of slime cascades over my head.

A body, heavy with momentum yet utterly silent, twists after me.

In disco light I catch only a glimpse of its mutilation—twitching urchin spines puncturing through spongy skin, all down the weeper’s bare back.

More spines wrestle from their yawning mouth, sending a sticky lace of slime in my direction.

I duck again, crawling backward across the floor.

I try to get my goggles back on and only manage to rip them off.

“The lights, hit the lights!” Elisa cries.

Sam drags his hands over the controls on the soundboard.

First, all the lights come up, and I briefly glimpse the wet maroon carnage that has infested the back walls of the dance floor.

In response to the burst of light, a pulse heaves through the monstrous growth, and several human shapes shiver awake.

Sam hits the board again, and the lights strobe a thrashing white.

FLASH.

FLASH.

FLASH.

“Back door!” I shout, pointing. “Go! Now!”

Before us, the weepers appear to jump through the light, teleporting through the flashes until they’re looming over us.

A woman this time, her eyes smoothed over by a quivering bulb of jelly.

She retches violently and a fleck of spit hits my cheek.

I drop to the floor, scraping the substance away from my mouth and nose, fighting not to breathe even though my pulse is a greedy hammer in my veins.

There’s no time to wonder if I’m dead. The weepers multiply, awakening one another.

FLASH.

Three weepers.

FLASH.

Seven weepers.

FLASH.

Too many slime-slick bodies to count, and now I can’t find my friends.

It’s a dance break in slow motion, and unless I move fast I’m about to be twirling among them.

Ahead, I glimpse the back door swing open with a bang.

The weepers twitch toward the loud sound.

I try to see who makes it out, but the crowd is thick now.

All I hear is a scream—Elisa. I can’t get to her.

Even a step toward the exit puts me in range of a weeper with long frill-like tendrils growing from their lips, whisking the air like tongues.

I duck into the DJ booth, landing atop a warm body.

“It’s me! It’s Sam!”

I grab his arm. “We have to do something!” But I’m pleading like a child.

We’re the ones who are trapped. I reach up and bash my hand over the controls, searching for a way to douse the strobe light.

Will it even work? Or once the weepers awaken, is it too late?

I find a bank of sliding buttons and I pry them all the way down.

The room sinks into black, finally, and the weepers slow in their shuffling.

“You did it,” Sam whispers. He’s shaking beneath me. Not crying, but full-body shakes that rattle his teeth.

“Did they get you?” I whisper.

“I don’t think so. You?”