Burning Paradise

“Exploits them for what purpose?”

“Reproducing itself,” the monster said.

Symbiosis, she thought. In this context, the word was an obscenity. She had seen how that alleged mutual benefit actually worked.

It was Nerissa who had discovered the bodies of her sister and brother-in-law back in the autumn of ’07. She remembered the front door of their small Forest Park home standing ajar. She remembered the bullet holes in the floral living-room wallpaper Evelyn had loved (and Nerissa had hated: they had conducted countless amiable arguments over it). She remembered the sour, coppery smell of blood, thick enough to taste, and she remembered the blood spattered on her sister’s collection of Hummel figurines, the porcelain milk maids and shepherd boys smiling through crimson masks.

Evelyn, whom Nerissa had always called Evie, had been shot twice through the torso and once through the head. She hadn’t had time to get up from the sofa. Her husband Bob lay on the floor a few feet in front of her. He had also been shot through the body and had received a final killing shot to the head. Both their faces had been unspeakably distorted by their wounds.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, just past four o’clock. Nerissa had been trying to get in touch with her younger sister since noon and had finally decided to drive to Forest Park in hopes of catching her at home. She wanted to tell Evie about the disturbing telephone call she had received from Ethan, about a wave of killings ru

She almost screamed when she heard footsteps at the door. They’ve come back, was her first panicked thought. But no. It wasn’t the killers. A small voice called out, “Hello?”

Cassie.

Oh, God. Cassie.

Nerissa found her legs and turned. Of course, Cassie had come home. And Thomas… Thomas must be upstairs in his crib, must have slept through the murders or fallen asleep after the gunshots, or was he (no, this was unthinkable) also dead? But Cassie at twelve was old enough to walk the several blocks from Forest Park Elementary by herself. Cassie was an orphan but didn’t know it yet. And she must not be allowed to find out, not this way, not by discovering her parents lying in the antic postures of their awful deaths. Hurry, Nerissa thought, keep her away, push her out the door if necessary—but the girl had already come too far. She was standing in the tiled hall just outside the living room. She had dropped her book bag on the floor. She squinted into the darkened room as if it had filled with a searing light. Her mouth hung open, anticipating a scream that somehow never began.

It had taken all of Nerissa’s strength to pull the girl away, to kneel and to turn Cassie’s head against her own shoulder, to accept the weight of her tears.

That’s your fucking symbiosis, she thought, staring at the human-shaped thing in Ethan’s cellar.

“Why are you admitting this?”

“I’m not admitting anything,” the monster said. “I’m not the entity that committed the murders of 2007, if that’s what you’re thinking. Mrs. Iverson, when you look at the night sky, does it seem lifeless to you? It isn’t. Every star is an oasis in a desert—a warm place, rich with nutrients and complex chemistry. Many organisms compete for access to those riches. Their struggles are ethereal, protracted, and largely invisible to beings such as yourself. But the battles are as relentless and deadly as anything that happens in a forest or under the sea.”

“Even if that’s true, so what?”

The simulacrum glanced at Ethan, who was shifting his feet impatiently. “The organism of which I am a part has infected the hypercolony and taken control of its reproductive mechanisms.”

“What, like a virus or some kind of parasite?”

“Approximately. But the process isn’t finished. The hypercolony is still trying to reclaim itself. A struggle is underway.”

“We’re wasting time,” Ethan said.

Nerissa was inclined to agree. All this cosmic Manichaeism wasn’t getting them anywhere. “You said something about my niece, is that correct?”

“Before long the outcome of the struggle will be decided. One side would like to exploit what remains of the Correspondence Society as a weapon against the other. Your niece is being manipulated. And she’s not the only one.”

Nerissa leaned toward the sim and let her hatred show. “What, specifically, do you know about Cassie?”

“I can help you protect her.”

“If you have anything to say—” Nerissa felt Ethan’s hand on her shoulder. “What? And what’s that god-awful noise?”

“The alarm,” Ethan said. “Someone’s on the property.”

“Cut me loose,” the monster said.

Ethan told the monster to go to hell. But he didn’t kill it, Nerissa noticed. He kept his pistol at his side and hurried up the stairs.

9

CASSIE TOOK THE LAST SHIFT BEHIND THE wheel and drove until she spotted a Designated State Campground marker where a side road cut into the piney wilderness north of Decatur, Illinois. There was a chain across the road and a wooden sign hanging from it—FACILITIES CLOSED SEPT 20 TO MAY 30—but Leo kept a bolt cutter in the trunk, so that wasn’t a problem.

The campground was a clearing in the forest dotted with stone-lined fire pits. The night was too chilly for open-air camping, but Beth spotted a cabin set back among the pines, and the padlock on the door yielded to a second application of Leo’s bolt cutter. The cabin barely qualified as shelter—inside, they found a yellow mattress askew on an ancient box spring, a sofa pocked with cigarette burns, and patches of black mold like Rorschach blots on the bare board walls—but it kept out the wind.

Cassie’s first order of business was getting Thomas settled. She was increasingly worried about her brother. He had slept in the car, he was groggy now, and he closed his eyes as soon as she tucked him into his sleeping bag. His face was moist, his thatch of blond hair tangled and greasy—he needed a bath, badly, but there was no ru

Beth surprised Cassie by fetching a spare pillow from the car. “Here, use this,” she said. “He’ll be quieter if he’s comfortable.” As if she needed an excuse for an act of kindness. (And not even a plausible excuse: Thomas had been nothing but quiet for hours now.) Cassie thanked her and arranged the pillow under Thomas’s head. He opened his eyes once, blinked, then sighed back to sleep.