Read Online Dust by Joan Frances Turner - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Joan Frances Turner
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sweat was beads of tree sap, and she stared at us without fear or any other human look in her eyes. Nothing human about her smell, the chemical stink pouring from her skin, and nothing undead either, nothing I could call hoo or not-hoo and I shivered, smelling it.
“Hey!” Florian shouted, waving his skeleton arms, baring his yellowed teeth to try to scare her off. “We know you. This ain’t no camping ground, you better get out of here. There’s lots more of us and the rest won’t help you. You understand?”
She just stood there. “You understand me? Those old park bums ain’t your friends either. Get out!”
Of course everything we said was so much hrruhhh ugggh muhhhhh to anyone but us, but if she hadn’t got the gist she really was too stoned to live. I snarled at her, spitting a mouthful of black blood, and when it spattered her bare feet she gazed up at me in something like wonder. Her eyes were glassy and smudged and shadowy like she had cataracts, marbles smeared with greasy fingerprints, and as I stared back something about the angles of her face, the tilt of her chin flowed into a falsely familiar shape, some strange foreign substance poured into a well-worn mold; then the shape melted away and left only her, nobody and nothing, standing there gripping the bark for dear life. Why are you looking at me like that? I don’t know you. I’m not your friend.
“No . . . camping ground,” she repeated, in a croak, holding the words in her lips like little bits of sugar. Not the way humans said them, but the way we did. “The old bums . . .”
Imitating, I thought, as the chords pounded fast and feverish through my brain, she didn’t understand us, hoos couldn’t understand anything we said. Like a babbling baby. The old bums. Maybe she’d just learned the hard way they weren’t her friends.
“What about ’em?” I gave her a shove, making myself go gentle because a hard push would snap her shoulder. If she really were the hoo she looked like. “What do I care for some old bums, some dead-meat eaters? You like ’em so much, go—”
She moaned, a high, scared horse’s whinnying, and her little sob sounded so much like Renee’s hunger pangs that I grabbed for Florian’s hand. Her chin lolled back and she swayed, seizing the linden bark harder, and reached one shaking arm up to where a squirrel was splayed frozen and praying to be invisible. He went crazy, thrashing and biting in her grip, and she bit down. Her head jerked left, right, trying to pull off a piece, and he let out a horrible shrill scream of terrified pain and held it and held it until her teeth found his neck and wrenched it apart.
Mesmerized, we watched her. Her teeth seemed long for a hoo’s but they were white and squarish like any human’s, and just as bad at tearing through hide and thick bones. She gnawed at the little bit of meat she could get, licked fresh blood from her hands, and then I heard a gurgling sound and she was looking up at me trembling in fright, dark bubbles of spume oozing from her ash-colored lips. She stared down at the torn-apart thing in her hands, warm and dripping blood and viscera and tufts of gray fur, and let out another moan, not of starvation but shame and horror; meat and bile rocketed back up, splattering the linden tree and the soil below, and she sank to her knees and doubled over, shaking and shriveling into a wracked little ball. Florian, forever too soft-hearted, must have decided she was one of us after all because he reached down and touched her hair.
“Squirrel ain’t no good,” he said, conciliatory. “Always hated it. If you come with us, we’ll find a duck or two, some deer—”
She howled, fists drumming on the linden bark until her knuckles split and bled. Her body arched, jerked backward, and she made horrible gasping sounds pulling in air she could no longer breathe; her fingers loosened and she almost fluttered back to the ground, curling gentle and womblike around
“Hey!” Florian shouted, waving his skeleton arms, baring his yellowed teeth to try to scare her off. “We know you. This ain’t no camping ground, you better get out of here. There’s lots more of us and the rest won’t help you. You understand?”
She just stood there. “You understand me? Those old park bums ain’t your friends either. Get out!”
Of course everything we said was so much hrruhhh ugggh muhhhhh to anyone but us, but if she hadn’t got the gist she really was too stoned to live. I snarled at her, spitting a mouthful of black blood, and when it spattered her bare feet she gazed up at me in something like wonder. Her eyes were glassy and smudged and shadowy like she had cataracts, marbles smeared with greasy fingerprints, and as I stared back something about the angles of her face, the tilt of her chin flowed into a falsely familiar shape, some strange foreign substance poured into a well-worn mold; then the shape melted away and left only her, nobody and nothing, standing there gripping the bark for dear life. Why are you looking at me like that? I don’t know you. I’m not your friend.
“No . . . camping ground,” she repeated, in a croak, holding the words in her lips like little bits of sugar. Not the way humans said them, but the way we did. “The old bums . . .”
Imitating, I thought, as the chords pounded fast and feverish through my brain, she didn’t understand us, hoos couldn’t understand anything we said. Like a babbling baby. The old bums. Maybe she’d just learned the hard way they weren’t her friends.
“What about ’em?” I gave her a shove, making myself go gentle because a hard push would snap her shoulder. If she really were the hoo she looked like. “What do I care for some old bums, some dead-meat eaters? You like ’em so much, go—”
She moaned, a high, scared horse’s whinnying, and her little sob sounded so much like Renee’s hunger pangs that I grabbed for Florian’s hand. Her chin lolled back and she swayed, seizing the linden bark harder, and reached one shaking arm up to where a squirrel was splayed frozen and praying to be invisible. He went crazy, thrashing and biting in her grip, and she bit down. Her head jerked left, right, trying to pull off a piece, and he let out a horrible shrill scream of terrified pain and held it and held it until her teeth found his neck and wrenched it apart.
Mesmerized, we watched her. Her teeth seemed long for a hoo’s but they were white and squarish like any human’s, and just as bad at tearing through hide and thick bones. She gnawed at the little bit of meat she could get, licked fresh blood from her hands, and then I heard a gurgling sound and she was looking up at me trembling in fright, dark bubbles of spume oozing from her ash-colored lips. She stared down at the torn-apart thing in her hands, warm and dripping blood and viscera and tufts of gray fur, and let out another moan, not of starvation but shame and horror; meat and bile rocketed back up, splattering the linden tree and the soil below, and she sank to her knees and doubled over, shaking and shriveling into a wracked little ball. Florian, forever too soft-hearted, must have decided she was one of us after all because he reached down and touched her hair.
“Squirrel ain’t no good,” he said, conciliatory. “Always hated it. If you come with us, we’ll find a duck or two, some deer—”
She howled, fists drumming on the linden bark until her knuckles split and bled. Her body arched, jerked backward, and she made horrible gasping sounds pulling in air she could no longer breathe; her fingers loosened and she almost fluttered back to the ground, curling gentle and womblike around
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