Aside from Linda’s fresh-dead body, the lobby was clear. Ollie must’ve been searching the rooms for her. If Vern was quick, she could escape. She barreled forward toward the double doors and pushed them open with the force of her body.
Ollie hadn’t come alone.
Flanked in formation around the parking lot, twenty men—soldiers—stood with guns at the ready. “Fire!” a voice shouted, and they obeyed.
Vern’s exoskeleton popped out on instinct, curling in front of her to deflect the ammunition. It wasn’t bullets that bounced off the shield of bone flimsily, but tranquilizer darts. Girded by her exoskeleton, Vern stepped forward, impenetrable. The world around her had never seemed so insignificant. Her body was an entire armory.
Vern unfurled, leaving her front exposed. This was what it was to feel untouchable. Sherman, Eamon, Lucy’s daddy—had this same rush of ecstasy surged through them when they imposed their rule?
Vern halted her forward assault when a set of small sticky fingers slid around her legs. Overtaken by sense memory, she looked down, fully expecting to see Howling or Feral at her feet.
It was Violet-Grace, her wispy blond hair blowing in the still-harsh wind. To the left was Michelle, lying on the concrete. She must’ve come out to help. Now she was stuck with a dose of drugs. Her fate would be no different than Linda’s.
Hauntings weaved between the armed soldiers. Forward they marched, an army of the dead desperate for Vern to hear their unfinished business.
“Queen,” a voice called. Vern shifted her eyes toward the voice. Ollie lingered at the edges of the formation. Wearing a flannel shirt and faded blue jeans, she stood out easily among the soldiers.
Queen emerged from the back of an armored van. When she didn’t immediately run toward Vern, Ollie gave her a shock. Her scream buried the sound of the whistling wind. Vern stumbled backward, the child at her foot clinging to her tightly. Queen trod toward Vern slowly, back hunched under the weight of her exoskeleton. She moved like a praying mantis.
The wind glided across Vern’s face, blew the coarse, straw-like strands of her wig in front of her eyes, scratching her nose.
Vern shook her leg, but Violet-Grace held on. “Violet-Grace,” said Vern. “I need you to go back inside.”
“No,” said Violet-Grace.
Vern reached into her pocket, pulling out a couple dollars. She held them to the girl. “Get me some chips and yourself a chocolate bar, okay? Eat it in there, and when I’m all done, I’ll come in to get my potato chips, okay?”
Violet-Grace considered the offer on the table and reached her hand up. She snatched the dollar bills and ran inside. Linda’s body was still draped over the front desk. Violet-Grace was short. She might not see. She could go do her cartwheels and somersaults on the dirty carpet after finishing her chocolate.
Queen approached methodically. She could’ve lunged at Vern, pounced and tackled her. She didn’t. She was under Ollie’s influence, but her mind was still her own. Vern tested her exoskeleton. She moved it experimentally, feeling its boundaries and contours. Queen did the same, copying. She was met with another shock that sent her reeling, her screams so piercing two of the soldiers forgot themselves and dropped their weapons to cover their ears.
Eyes steady on Vern, Queen stilled before entering Vern’s mind with a picture of a girl, eleven or twelve, blowing puffs of dandelion as she smiled. The unbridled cheer of the haunting disarmed Vern.
“I don’t understand,” Vern cried out.
Queen unhunched and spread her exoskeleton out yet farther in an explosion of movement, the complex, webbed network of her bone rearranging. A cloud of fine mist leached from Queen’s exoskeleton. It filled Vern’s nostrils and mouth, a fragrance akin to woodsmoke and dirt. She swallowed the scent gladly, let it fill her lungs.
The soldiers coughed at the intrusion to their lungs, then dropped their dart guns to the ground, then each removed a gun from his holster. Reflexively, Vern moved her carapace to guard herself, but the soldiers did not aim the guns at her. They brought them up to their own temples and fired. Blood sprayed from each of their brains like fireworks.
Queen laughed, the sound of it startlingly human. It was the laugh of an auntie teasing a nephew about his sweetheart at a Sunday picnic. She was cracking up, her palm pressed to her belly and the other over her lips. “They didn’t see that shit coming, did they? Pop. Pop. Splat,” she said, and pressed her finger to her temple. “It’s easy, Vern, you try,” she said, giddy. “Think about spreading it, and you spread it. Try it, Vern. Go ahead. You’ll like it.”