LITMIR.BIZ

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trouble.”

      “Aye? What’s on?”

      The man pushed through the crowd, his bright orange hair—spray-painted, it looked like—glowing as the last rays of sunlight hit it. Seeing it reminded Chess that the sun had almost set, and with that realization came another, an unpleasant one: The crowd around them had grown, and at the end of the street, mist rolled off the bay and started inching toward them.

      The man stopped in front of Terrible. Ribs showed through holes in his thin T-shirt like the bones had cut the fabric, and his ashy ankles protruded from the bottom of tight, gaudy striped pants. He wore mismatched flip-flops on his feet. “Mine friend, him taken the speed. Bangin it. Him gone all fluffcutty, ain’t won’t leave him room, screamin them after he, screamin on ghosts in him head.”

      “Aye? Maybe him oughten quit the bangin a day or two, get he some sleepin.”

      “Nay, ain’t like it. Ain’t like it. Him …” The man glanced around, took a step closer to Terrible. “Him done gone out on the morn, come back with blood on he. All wet blood. Fucked in crazy, him bein. Talkin to he, ain’t like he, ain’t in he eyes. Then him come back, start screamin. Then go all silent on the again.”

      Terrible looked at Chess, then at the street. The mist had advanced another quarter block or so; it had almost reached them, and the streets darkened by the second.

      The crowd grew closer by the second, too. Chess took a step closer to Terrible—easy, because he was moving closer to her—before realizing the crowd wasn’t looking at her. They were looking at the body on the street, and she did not want to know what they had planned for it.

      “Just keep he locked in, dig? He sobers up, he be right then, aye?”

      The man shook his head again, his eyes huge in his dark face. “Been like this three days gone. Please comin have you a see. Be the speed, gotta be. Got he a bad batch, thinkin.”

      Another glance at her. Another glance at the mist, at the fading glow of the sun dying behind the buildings. “Come back on morrow, dig? I come down see he—”

      The scream, so loud and shrill, so full of darkness and horror that it made Chess cringe, cut Terrible off—cut everything off. For a long minute, all there was in the world was that horrible banshee-like shriek, tinged with madness and death and unholy glee.

      They all turned—everyone—to see the figure emerge from one of the intact buildings a few doors down and start running toward them.

      He was naked. At least from the waist down. A tattered T-shirt stretched across his chest, stained with ever-darkening sweat-rings of gray, like gathering storm clouds. Black shoes covered his feet. The crowd parted; shit, she was looking at a man even Downside dock-dwellers were afraid of.

      He stopped screaming. The silence slapped her, made her body sigh in relief for a split second before he started again.

      The closer he got, the weirder he was. Before Terrible stepped in front of her she could see the man’s body crisscrossed with scratches and marks, all up and down his skinny legs and arms. Track marks, some of them, but not all of them.

      He kept wailing, his voice cutting in and out as it cracked. He stumbled in a pothole and fell; when he stood, blood ran down his knees.

      For a second she thought maybe he’d keep running, that he’d be just another freaky-ass thing to see near the docks, but no such luck. He fell again, with an ugly crack. Had he broken a bone? He didn’t seem to be in any particular pain, but she had a distinct feeling that he wasn’t exactly dealing with reality at that moment.

      Terrible’s hand closed over her arm; she could feel him wanting to drag her back to the Chevelle and throw her in. No fucking way. She let him stay in front of her though, so she was partially hidden by his broad frame but still able to see. The man remained on his hands and knees on the street, wretched hoarse sobs coming from his throat.

      “Please,” he said. “Please, don’ lettem get me. Don’ lettem get me.”

      “Be my friend,” the man with the orange hair murmured. “Told you, he fucked in crazy.”

      Terrible glanced down the street from where the man had appeared. Chess did, too. Emptiness. No one chasing him. Hell, no one even followed him, at least not that Chess could see.

      But he kept turning back, his eyes wide and terrified. “Look. Look, they coming.”

      “Ain’t nobody there.”

      “I see em.” He tried to stand up. Oh, fuck, he tried to stand, and he’d snapped his leg. When he stood the bone broke the skin, popping out of his shin like a flipped lever. He tumbled back to the pavement.

      Terrible’s hand touched hers in warning, and he took a step forward. “Nobody comin. None there.”

      “Be the truth, Creaseman,” said the orange-haired man. “Be me here, be DV. You friend DV, aye? Nobody comin, nobody there, you—”

      “They see me.” Creaseman kept dragging himself along the street, leaving a trail of blood behind him. His voice shook; it was barely a whisper. “They see me.”

      He moved his hand to pull himself farther along and collapsed.

      It took Chess a second to realize what was happening. At first she thought maybe he was crying, but then she realized his entire body was shaking and horrible foam started dripping from his open mouth. A seizure.

      She jerked forward. Terrible’s hand stopped her. Right. Nothing she could do, really, and who knew what he might do to her if she got near him. No point in trying to help. She knew that.

      It still made her feel sick, though, as he kept seizing. It didn’t last long, she didn’t think; thirty seconds, tops. But long enough for the image to embed itself in her brain and join the other horrible things in there. Another member for the club, something else to taunt her in her dreams.

      He stopped. Started again. Stopped. His hands stretched over his head. He flipped onto his back.

      And died.

      Chapter Seven

      You must always look beneath the surface. The real solutions are always hidden. So are the real mysteries.

      —The Example Is You, the guidebook for Church employees

      Without realizing it, she’d been pressing herself against Terrible, fisting his shirt. His arm slid around her and gave her a quick squeeze before releasing her. Right. She ought to let go, needed to let go, because they weren’t alone on the street, and while she wasn’t the only woman grabbing the nearest man—or vice versa—even by the docks it wouldn’t be a good idea to look too comfortable touching him like that.

      Terrible took a few cautious steps forward, his knife still ready. Chess grabbed hers, too. Not so much because she thought she’d need it—although it certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility—but because she felt safer with it. That man was dead. She knew he was dead. She knew it because she’d seen him die, and she knew it because when she glanced up she saw the bird swooping overhead, limned in the last rays of sun. The psychopomp taking his soul.

      “Somethin in him hand.” Without taking his eyes off the man, Terrible waved her forward. He crouched beside the body, reached out—

      And fell.

      Thankfully he was only a couple of feet away; she’d already been approaching him. Still it seemed to take forever to reach him. She threw herself to her knees, ignoring the pain streaking up her thighs, and clutched at him. He was so fucking heavy. What had he touched, what the hell was—

      A little plastic packet was what he’d touched. It lay on the dead man’s palm, still half in it, with Terrible’s fingers barely making contact.

      She grabbed his hand, pulled it away from the packet. Pulled his head into her lap. He’d come around

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