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“Los muertos?” demanded Alethea. “Wild men?”
“I don’t know. Alice is in trouble. Help me.”
“Move out of the way,” Alethea said, shoving Gutsy to one side as she lashed out with her own kick. And still the door held. She kicked again, and again.
Gutsy snatched up a rocking chair and hurled it through the window, smashing the glass and tearing the curtains off their rods. She used the blunt side of the machete blade to knock the last jagged fragments out of the frame, and Alethea laced her fingers so Gutsy could step up and jump inside. Gutsy immediately turned the lock on the door and opened it for her friend. The living room was weirdly neat and pristine except for the broken glass. The two girls ran down the hall to the largest bedroom, near the kitchen. The door was open, and there were cries and moans and thumps of a kind Gutsy knew too well.
She paused for an awful moment in the doorway, staring at the horrific scene.
The room was in shambles, with the mattress overturned and bloody sheets cast on the floor. The bedside table had been knocked over, taking the sturdy lantern with it. The flame was still lit, though, and cast everything in the room in a shadowy yellow glow.
Alice, holding a broken chair as a shield, cowered in a corner. Pawing and clawing at the chair was her mother.
What had been her mother.
Mrs. Chung wore a torn nightgown. Her black hair hung in sweaty strands, and she growled like some feral thing.
“No!” cried Gutsy, and the growl stopped as the dead woman slowly turned toward the two girls in the doorway. The face—which had looked so much like Alice’s—hung slack and rubbery; her dark eyes were dull and faded to a dusty gray. Mrs. Chung opened her mouth and uttered a moan of endless, aching hunger as her twisted, broken fingers reached for Gutsy and Alethea.
Into that tableau, Alice screamed out three words. A demand, a plea, filled with such raw emotion that it punched Gutsy in the heart.
“Don’t hurt her!”
Those words were like a chain that jerked Gutsy backward in time to her own bedroom two weeks ago. To waking into horror as Mama reached for her to kill her. It had been too big to deal with, too broken to fix, too wrong to ever understand. Now Alice was going through the same nightmare.
Mrs. Chung staggered forward, snarling with need. Gutsy raised her machete.
“Noooo!” Alice flung the chair away and came up off the floor, driving forward with the intensity of the unhinged. Not at the monster in the room but at Gutsy. She tried to wrench the machete away even as the creature pawed Gutsy’s shirt and hair.
Suddenly Alethea grabbed Mrs. Chung by the arm, swung her violently around, and sent her flying toward the bed. The dead woman struck the footboard and crashed over onto her face. Then Alethea spun and tore Alice away from Gutsy.
“Sorry about this,” she said, then released her grip and punched Alice in the stomach with all of the strength she owned. The punch lifted Alice onto her toes, drove every bit of breath out of her lungs, and dropped her. Alice collapsed into a fetal ball and turned red and then purple.
Gutsy whirled as Mrs. Chung climbed to her feet and came at her again. The machete was in Gutsy’s hand. One stroke and the fight would be won. But what would witnessing that strike do to Alice? Could she bear that? Silencing Mama had nearly broken Gutsy, and that had been with a spike, not a brutal machete.
So Gutsy dropped her machete and stepped into the dead woman’s charge, parrying the reaching arms hard enough to spin Mrs. Chung off balance and then kicking the back of her knees. The sudden bend made the woman sag and fall, and Gutsy took the weight and spun her back. Mrs. Chung crashed down onto the floor. Gutsy jumped on top of her and pressed her face into the area rug.
Alethea, too experienced to stand and gawp, snatched up a pillow and pulled it over Mrs. Chung’s head, with the pillow against her face and the back of the pi
llowcase pulled down behind her head. It was a common technique in New Alamo, something everyone learned. While Gutsy held her down, Alethea took the two corners of the case, pulled them back, and tied a tight knot at the base of the woman’s skull.
Then she yanked a second pillow off the bed, tore the case off, spun the cloth into a rope, and handed it to Gutsy, who bound Mrs. Chung’s hands behind her back. Gutsy cut the remainder off and similarly bound her ankles. When that was done, Alethea sat down with a thud against the dresser while Gutsy crawled over to Alice.
Mrs. Chung thrashed and moaned, but was otherwise helpless.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, brushing hair from Alice’s face.
Alice was breathing, but in gasps and coughs. Her face was filled with pain, and her eyes and nose were streaming. Gutsy reached for her, needing to hold her, to try and comfort her.
Alice resisted her pull. Fought her. Shoved her back. She spat ugly words and screamed for her mother. But Gutsy gathered her up anyway. Endured the words that stuck like knives and held Alice with all her strength.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as Alice’s struggles slowly disintegrated into awful sobs. “I’m sorry.”
73
GUNFIRE ERUPTED TO SHATTER THE moment.
Alethea and Gutsy turned to each other.
