Page 36 of Confessions of the Dead

“You best take him up to North Hollow yourself,” Sally replied. “I’ve been trying to get through to them all morning, and I’m getting nothing but busy signals and disconnects. We got two heart attacks, a stabbing out at the Lecassa house, broken leg from a hit-and-run on Mountain View, two dog bites … God knows what else. Every time someone manages to get through to me, the list gets longer, and that’s just the medicals. I’ve taken three calls for fights, someone vandalized the elementary school—spray-painted Nazi whatnot all over the auditorium … Henry Wilburt said someone broke into his pharmacy and cleared half his shelves—didn’t take anything, mind you, just dumped everything on the floor, broke what could be broke. Want me to keep going? ’Cause there’s more. I got walk-ins, too. People who couldn’t get through on the phone coming through the door. Don’t got a single empty seat out in the lobby, and half those people are out there arguing. I had to pull Dave Prath off Lou Passani about ten minutes ago over some bullshit about Lou parking his work truck in the street in front of Dave Prath’s house overnight. Crossed the property line by three inches and set him off. On a public street, mind you. Like Prath just wanted a reason to bitch.”

Ellie tried to wrap her head around all that. The list Sally rattled off was longer than all the incidents they’d had in the Bend over the last year, maybe the last two. They’d never had much crime. None of this made sense. “What are you seeing on the wire? Is this happening everywhere?”

“Wire system’s been down all morning, crashed with the phones. Cable’s out, too.”

Phones, television, internet … those services all came from a company called BroadNet. They maintained the cell tower, too; maybe they had some central hub down.

“Is Buck out on Main clearing out the dead birds? He might know how to get us back up.”

“Haven’t seen or heard from Buck, and not for lack of trying, believe you me.” She huffed.

Ellie blinked her eyes a few times. Most of the pain was gone, but her left eye still burned. “Okay, has Matt—”

“Are you listening to me?” Sally barked angrily. “I can’t get through to anyone! No hospital. No ambulance. No you. No Matt. The fact that we’re talking at all is some kind of fluke. You need to get that man to the hospital yourself, then get back here. Matt, too. This town is coming apart, and it feels like I’m here all alone in the thick of it!”

Arwa Gilmore started to come to. She let out a soft groan, rolled her head, and studied the zip ties Ellie had used to fasten her to the chair before finding her across the room. “You need to let me go, Sheriff. I’ve got work to do.”

“You need to sit tight,” Ellie replied.

“Sit tight?!? How about I take the rest of the day off? How would you like that?!”Sally shouted back her.

“I was talking to Ms. Gilmore, Sally, not you. I would never—”

“You start shitting on me too, and I’ll walk. Don’t think I won’t.”

Ellie was seriously beginning to regret getting out of bed today. “Okay, I’ll run Mr. Newton up to North Hollow, then I’ll head to the station. If you manage to reach Matt, tell him to come in, too. We’ll regroup and figure this thing out. Think you can hold down the fort until then?”

There was a long silence, then: “Tell the med center to send at least three ambulances back with you. We need help.”

Ellie went to reply and realized Sally had either hung up or the line had disconnected. She told herself it was the latter. Even when she was aggravated, she’d never known Sally to shirk her duties.

She took Newton by the arm and started leading him toward the door. “Let’s get you some help.”

“Hey! You can’t leave me like this!” Gilmore shouted. She yanked her arms up against the ties hard enough to rock the chair.

Ellie reached down to the pile of books soaked in lighter fluid, plucked out one of the Dr. Seuss titles, and tossed it into the woman’s lap. “Read that till I get back.”

27

Hannah

A SPLIT SECOND AFTERthe window shattered and the hole appeared in Danny’s forehead, Hannah heard the gunshot. A thinpop!—nothing like in the movies or on television. More like a firecracker or kid’s toy, and that’s what she wanted it to be—in that milli-second she tried to convince herself what she heard wasn’t the blast of a gun, the hole in Danny’s head wasn’t real, and this was all some kind of elaborate prank. For that millisecond, everything moved in slow motion. She waited for the half smile on Danny’s face to complete, for him to laugh, for him to tell her,I got you!

Danny didn’t, though. Instead, he fell forward, his head cracked hard against her temple, and he went still.

“Danny?”

Hannah managed the single word, but nothing else came out. There was nothing but her shallow breathing and Ed Sheeran singing “Bad Habits” from the tinny speakers of Danny’s Ford. No sound came from Danny, and that’s when she realized it was real.

“Oh my God, Danny!”

Hannah tried to sit up, get out from under him, but he weighed too much and dead—

Please don’t let him be dead!

—or not, she wasn’t about to roll him off the seat to the floor. The sound of that, that thump, would be too much.

“Danny, baby, please wake up!”

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