She nodded and let my shoulder go. We went down a few more steps.
“Hey, Lost Girl!” I said. My voice sounded like it was in a tin can. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Brittney,” came the answer from below. The acoustics told me she was in a small room that had some form of sound proofing in it. That baby could probably be crying its eyes out down here and no one would hear a peep above if the cabinet were closed.
We emerged at the bottom of the stairs into a decent-sized space, about the size of half my bedroom back home. I’d heard of panic rooms and safe houses before, but this one was something else. There was a cot in the center of the room and three walls were lined with shelves full of food. The back wall was a door. Brittney sat on the cot, nursing her baby.
“Daaaamn,” said Winky, letting out a low whistle. “Do you see all that food?”
Brittney had every conceivable canned good, lined up in rows on the shelves. She had only cleaned out a couple of them, but had plenty more.
“What’s behind that door?” I asked, pointing at the far end of her hideout.
Brittney shrugged nonchalantly, looking out into space. Her baby’s pale-white, delicate, tiny hand was resting on her breast. My heart spasmed painfully to see it. It’s so perfect and itty bitty and … not demon-like. How could she possibly even consider killing it?
“Go ahead and look if you want,” she said emotionlessly.
I wanted to do that, but the vision of this baby right here in front of me almost close enough to touch had me frozen in place. Winky moved around me and walked over to the door, her soft moccasins padding along the concrete floor.
“Wait!” I said as her hand reached for the doorknob. “Is there anything that could hurt Winky behind that door?”
Brittney frowned. “What’s a Winky?”
“I’m a Winky, stupid.”
“Oh. That’s a dumb name.”
“And Brittney’s oh so interesting and original,” mocked Winky. “Can I go in the room without getting killed or what?”
“Sure.”
My eyes widened as Winky slowly opened the door. I think we were both waiting for an explosion or something, because she flinched a little, and I grabbed the railing near the last stair where I was still standing.
Nothing happened. Winky stuck her head in a second later and said, “It’s too dark in here. I can’t see anything.”
“Turn on the light, stupid,” said Brittney.
Winky whipped around, mimicking her. “Turn on the light, stupid. Hey … crazy bitch! … Just in case you haven’t noticed, there are no lights anymore.”
“Light switch. Left side,” said Brittney. “And don’t call me crazy.”
Winky turned back around and ran her hand on the inside wall of the room. I heard a click and an interior light went on, illuminating the space.
“Holy shit-on-a-stick, Bryn. You’ve got to come see this.”
I stopped worrying about Brittney sneak-attacking us since she was so busy feeding her baby, and strode across the room to stand at Winky’s side. My eyes were seeing things inside the room but my brain just didn’t want to let me believe it.
“Is that …?”
Winky nodded. “Yeah. It is. Food, water, a sink, a toilet, electricity … ”
I continued the list. “…Candles, handguns, rifles, machine guns, bullets, knives, axes …” I turned back and looked at Brittney. “Was your dad a doomsday freak or what?”
“He believed in being prepared. He always says, Luck is where opportunity meets preparation. And I plan for us to be very, very lucky.’” She laughed bitterly. “None of us came out on that end of the deal, I’m afraid.” She looked down at her baby but continued speaking to me. “So, do you want to know where the German boy is, or not? You can use any weapon in there you want on this thing. I don’t care. Just so long as you take it away from me when you’re done. I don’t even want to look at it.” She smiled absently as she toyed with the baby’s tiny fingers.
I shook my head at the vision. Creepy level, ten out of ten.
I reached deep inside me for the courage I needed to get this all over with, leaving Winky in the other room and sitting down on the cot next to Brittney. I was unable to stop my hand from reaching out to touch the baby’s little one. It was soft, covered with the finest fuzzy down, and the delicate skin gave with just the slightest pressure. I could feel its teeny bone structure beneath.
“Why on earth would you ever want any harm to come to this little thing?” I asked. I’d never had the opportunity to hold a baby before, but I really wanted to now. Part of me was curious what it would be like, and another part of me was worried she was going to injure it.
She frowned. “It’s not a baby. I told you that,” she said, sounding angry again.
“It cries like one. It eats like one. It sure feels like one.”
“Well it’s not.”
“What is she using for diapers?” asked Winky from the other room. “There are no diapers in this place. It’s like … the only thing missing.”
I frowned, sniffing the air near the baby. I didn’t smell anything but very dirty hair, and that was coming from Brittney, not the infant.
“I use cloth diapers. The demon’s father found them. I wash them every day, every day, every day.” She smiled bitterly and then sighed. “Demons need diapers.” She squeezed the baby hard and it let out a pitiful, mewling cry.
Her words and reaction chilled me. I held my hands out. “Can I hold him? Please?”
She stuck her finger down by the baby’s mouth and removed it from her breast, handing the bundle over to me casually … carelessly, even.
I juggled him uncomfortably for a couple of nerve-wracking seconds, trying to get a good grip on his wobbly form. He burped and smiled at me.
“How old is he?” I asked, once I had him situated, finding it impossible not to grin at his goofy face. He looked up at me with chocolate-brown eyes that reminded me of Paci. I thrust the image of him immediately out of my mind.
Concentrate. Get Bodo’s location and get the hell out of Cannerville. Nothing else matters. I said the words to myself, but this baby looked up at me and it was so innocent, so beautiful … I just knew I wasn’t going to be able to walk away, let alone kill it.
“I don’t know how old it is.”
“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” I said softly, smiling at the baby still, using softer tones so as not to frighten it. “You have to have a general idea.”
Winky spoke up. “There was a girl here. A Native American girl named Celia. Did you know her?”
Brittney shook her head. “I knew no one. I stayed here.”
“You never looked out the window? Never looked down by the pool or the pool house?” pressed Winky, now standing in front of Brittney, hands on her hips.
“Maybe. Sometimes.”
“Did you see Celia? She had an arm taken off. Did you see that?”
Winky was getting mad. I shot her warning looks that she ignored.
“She’s our friend you know. And all those kids that were in that house? They’re at our house now. Being taken care of … fed. You could have done that, you know. You have all that food in there.”
Brittney shook her head slowly, staring off into space again. “No. I couldn’t do anything. But I saw the girl. She climbed a tree. She was stronger than the others.”
“How old was your baby when she climbed the tree?” I asked.
Brittney shrugged. “A month? Two? Three? A hundred? Don’t ask me. Ask the demon’s father. He’s the time keeper. He’s the keeper of the children. He’s the keeper of me.”
I couldn’t stop the shiver that spasmed through my body. I felt like it was her I should be killing. She was suffering, that was certain.
“Where’s Bodo?” asked Winky. “I’ll kill your damn baby for you. Just tell us.”
Brittney perked up immediately, her expression ecstatic. “Really?! You’ll do it?” She stood up and grabbed Winky by the upper arms, jumping up and down a few times before pulling her into a crazed hug. “I knew you would. I knew you were a good person as soon as I saw you. The indian kids were always nice to me when I saw them in town.”
“Native Americans,” corrected Winky, looking at her with wary caution in her eyes.
“Winky, you’re not …” I started.
Winky gave me a stern look and coughed the words: shut up at me. Then she turned her attention to Brittney who’d raced into the adjoining room and was talking from within.
“Come in here and pick your weapon! We have so many to choose from. I think the axe would be best, don’t you?” She stuck her head out. “Come on, silly! I told you, your friend doesn’t have much time. There’s going to be a ceremony, you know! As soon as the moon is highest.” She grinned and then disappeared again.
Winky mouthed, A ceremony? at me, before turning to join Brittney. She made it to the entrance, before I heard her say, “Whoa, wow, hold on a second there, looney bird.” Winky was backing up out of the room, Brittney in front of her holding up a shiny and very lethal-looking axe.
Brittney was smiling like she was posing for a pageant photograph. “How about this one? It’s reeeaally sharp. You can cut off its head with one chop!” She moved the axe in a slight downward motion, giggling before lifting it back up and gazing at its sharp edge above her head.
Winky and I exchanged a look. The girl is certifiable. We had to get this baby out of here and let her think we’d killed it. It was the only way to get out and find Bodo.
“Here, let me take that bad boy from you,” said Winky, reaching up to take the axe.
Brittney pulled it against her chest, getting suddenly angry and suspicious. “Wait a minute. Not so fast. How do I know you’re really going to do it?”
Winky shrugged. “You can watch if you want.” She was deliberately acting casual about it; I could tell from her posture and expression. I was hoping Winky was right that this mother, even though she was obviously very far gone, didn’t have the stomach to watch her offspring be decapitated. There’d be no way to fake that gruesome task.
“No, no. That’s okay. I don’t need you to do it here. You can do it outside. Let’s keep this room and my parents’ room niiiiiice and clean. When they come back they will have an absolute fit if their carpet is dirty.” She smiled and giggled for a second. “Man, are they ever uptight about that stuff.” She rolled her eyes and gave us a look that said, Parents, right?
Winky nodded, her eyes bugged out and her voice deceptively calm. “Yeeeah, let’s make sure we keep the parents happy. I’ll go kill the baby out on the front lawn so we don’t mess up the carpet.”
“It’s not a baby. It’s a demon,” said Brittney looking at Winky closely, squinting her eyes a little.
Winky stared her down, first shaking her head, then nodding it. “Yeah. Of course. It’s a demon, all the way. Nasty little canner demon. I’m going to go kill it right now. You can tell Bryn about Bodo and then we’ll just be on our way. Okay?”
Brittney smiled. “Okay! You go kill the demon. And as soon as you bring me back its head, I’ll tell you about the ceremony and the Amazons and the garden of Eden and aaaall of that fun stuff!” She looked back and forth between Winky and me. “Okay? Do we have a deal?”
I nodded, not knowing what else to do, lost in the insanity.
Brittney’s voice took on a business-like tone. “Give her the demon, Bryn. She’s gonna go chop its head off for us. Then we’ll do some girl talk. Gossip and stuff.” She flounced down on the cot beside me, crossing her legs and folding her hands over her knee.