Page 56 of The End of the World As We Know It

“You’ve got the flu,” Baker murmured.

Dedaker snorted. “Shit. This is just allergies. I get ’em every—” He exploded in a messy sneeze, his saliva stippling the dik-dik’s fur.

Something in Baker ached.

Dedaker dragged a hand over his nose. “Even if I do have it, I ain’t gonna be like Frankie and the others. They haven’t invented a bug yet whose ass I can’t kick.” A sly wink. “Don’t you fret about me, Bake. I’m right as rain.”

Uh-huh, Baker thought.

He took stock of himself. The news wasn’t good. Ankles trussed with nylon rope. Wrists, too, the latter so fucking taut he had nofeeling in his hands. But at least they rested in his lap rather than behind his back. That was something.

The dik-dik almost slipped through Dedaker’s grasp before he hauled her down and cinched her in a body lock. “Easy there, darling.Easy. You leave now, you’ll miss the fun.”

Baker opened his mouth to speak, but the unhinging of his jaw drove a railroad spike through his temple.

“Je-sus, Bake,” Dedaker muttered. “You look like dog shit.” He put his lips next to the dik-dik’s ear. “Wanna hear about Baker Ludlow? Everything he touches dies.”

“Let her go,” Baker said.

Dedaker grinned, his whiskery face satanic in the waning daylight. “Care about her, do you?” He stroked the animal without finesse, the poor girl quivering harder and harder. A nod at Baker. “This loser had himself a good woman, name of Annie. I tried to court her, but by the time ol’ Ed came on the scene, she was already in love with this sad sack.” He reached over and patted a picture frame, the one photograph Baker still had of his wife. It was age-spotted and curled from being in his wallet, but it displayed him and Annie at a cookout, her in his lap, him looking like he’d always felt—bemused that such a remarkable woman should choose him, but grateful for his good fortune all the same.

Baker tightened. “Don’t touch that.”

Dedaker chuckled, but it dissolved into a ragged coughing fit. Baker bucked until his back was propped against the sofa.

“Dude used to have it all,” Dedaker said in a musing voice. “Wife, couple of urchins, pretty new house. But you know what he didn’t have?” He leaned toward the dik-dik. “A working smoke detector!”

It went through Baker like a spear.

“Near as anyone can tell,” Dedaker went on, “when he woke up, the house was already full of smoke. Fire started downstairs, where his kids were. One of them probably set it.”

Baker’s throat tingled. The dik-dik whimpered and writhed in Dedaker’s grip.

“Stairs were an inferno, so Bake and Annie tried a window. They got out, all right. Bake landed in the bushes, but poor Annie smacked the porch.” Dedaker made a clicking sound. “Broken neck.”

“Enough,” Baker said.

Dedaker scratched the animal between the ears. She flinched at his touch. “According to the papers, Bake tried the front door—no go, too hot—then attempted to climb through his daughter’s window. That’s why his hands look like Freddy fucking Krueger’s.”

A tear leaked down Baker’s face. He drew up his knees, and as he did he noticed something he hadn’t before: the rope around his ankles wasn’t completely snug.

“When the fire trucks arrived, he was half-dead. Kept askin’ where Annie was.” Dedaker brayed laughter, but that set off a fusillade of sneezes.

Baker began to work his feet back and forth.

“Jesus,” Dedaker muttered, and wiped his nose. “Isn’t that hilarious, darlin’? Dumbshit thought he’d saved her, but she was lyin’ on the porch, dead as a hammer.” The dik-dik strove to wriggle away, but Dedaker vised her tiny body to his chest. “Know what this freak did then? He took the insurance money and rebuilt the same exact house.”

“Please stop,” Baker said.

“Rumor has it he furnished it with all the same shit his family had before.” Dedaker looked around. “Spookier than a wax museum.”

The dik-dik began to squeak, the sound shrill and birdlike: “Zeewuh!Zeewuh!”

“Still don’t fancy me, darlin’?” Dedaker asked. “After all this time?”

Her cries became frantic: “Zeewuh!Zeewuh!”

“Nowstopthat,” Dedaker snapped. “You know how that noise pisses me off.”