Tommy Nightmare(12)

“We’re still counting, but it looks like about two hundred. All of them right here. No suspected cases so far—just all these confirmed ones. Nobody alive to talk. Old lady found them early this morning.” He nodded toward a shop with a big, hand-painted sign: Miss Gertie’s Five and Dime. “She had no symptoms, but we took blood samples to send to Atlanta for analysis.”

“So what happened?” Heather asked. “All these people came down to the courthouse, and they died all at once?”

“We don’t know what happened,” Schwartzman said. “We don’t know what kind of pathogen we’re facing. But answers are on the way.”

“They are?”

“Yes,” Schwartzman said. “Because I just pulled my best epidemiologist out of Haiti to find them.”

Heather sighed and shook her head.





Chapter Six


Jenny awoke gradually, with a pounding headache. She was sore and hurting all over, inside and out. Her lungs still felt raw from drowning to death in Ashleigh's pond.

She'd thrown herself into the water because her body was already dying from her wounds and her massive-scale use of her curse, the Jenny pox. When that memory hit her, Jenny's eyes flew open.

It was twilight—she wasn't even sure what day. She was in her room at home, sprawled on her bed. Seth lay beside her, sleeping like a corpse. They still wore the tattered remnants of their Easter clothes.

A swirl of images flashed across her brain. How she'd run into the crowd, spreading the pox everywhere, watching people she'd known all her life die horribly, as spasms twisted their bodies and sores ruptured open all over them. Chasing them down, even when they’d given up trying to lynch her and started running for their lives.

She ran to the bathroom and puked. She and Seth had eaten everything in her house when they got home—frozen pizza, canned peas—and now whatever her body hadn't absorbed came burbling up.

Jenny sat on the worn tile floor and leaned her head against the cabinet door under the sink.

There was one rule, one absolute law that her father had taught her since she was little: never touch people. Because when she touched people, they got sick. And it didn't take long for them to die.

Seth was lucky. He was the opposite—when he touched people, he healed them. He'd even brought Jenny back from the dead. He didn't have to avoid people like she did, or obsess over how much of his skin was exposed where other people could touch it. He couldn't just flip out and slaughter a whole crowd of people.

All those people, Jenny thought. She could see their faces, from Mayor Winder and Coach Humbee and even people like Shannon McNare, who weren't really so bad, just caught in Ashleigh's spell.

Jenny stood on shaking legs. The weight of what she'd done pressed down on her like a million tons of darkness. There was no fixing this, no going back and undoing the damage.

She went back to her room and sat on the edge of the bed.

“What's happening?” Seth asked through a yawn. “Where are we?”

“My room.”

“Oh.” Seth sat up. “Don't let your dad catch me here.”

“Who cares?”

“He might.”

“Seth!” Jenny said. “I think we have bigger problems.”

“Like what?”

“Like I'm a mass murderer! All those people.”

“So? They tried to kill us first. They did kill us.” Seth sat up and stretched. “What's for breakfast?”

“Are you kidding?” Jenny put her face in her hands. “I can't believe I...I...” She started crying. Seth hugged her, but she stiffened against him. “You don't know what it feels like.”

“No, you're right,” he said. “But remember what we saw when we were dead? This isn't anything compared to the past—”

“Oh, right. I was a mass murderer in hundreds of other lives, too. Thanks for reminding me.” Jenny had a few broken memories of the time between when she'd been dead, before Seth brought her back with his healing power. She'd seen herself spreading plagues in ancient times, in medieval times, usually in the service of some king or emperor. “We're evil, Seth. I am, anyway.”

“You're not evil. You were defending yourself.”

“Maybe at first,” Jenny said. “But then something came over me. All the evil inside came out. I wouldn't let anyone escape. It's like I was a different person. But that's who I really am, isn’t it? A demon.”

“That's a pretty strong word—”

“I should die for what I did,” Jenny said. “I wish I could infect myself with Jenny pox.”

“Don't do that.” He kissed her cheek. “I love you, Jenny. We're not what we used to be. We're more human. We're learning, lifetime by lifetime—”