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shirt was dark with sweat.
“Abby?” Dave asked. “Abba-Doo? Are you all right?”
“Yes, but don’t call me that.” She drew in air and let it out in another long sigh. “God, that was
intense.” She looked at her father. “I didn’t drop the f-bomb, Daddy, that was one of them. I think it
was the crow. He’s the leader of the ones who are coming.”
Dan sat down beside Abra on the couch. “Sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. Now. But I never want to touch that glove again. They’re not like us. They look like people
and I think they used to be people, but now they have lizardy thoughts.”
“You said Barry has measles. Do you remember that?”
“Barry, yes. The one they call the Chink. I remember everything. I’m so thirsty.”
“I’ll get you water,” John said.
“No, something with sugar in it. Please.”
“There are Cokes in the fridge,” Dave said. He stroked Abra’s hair, then the side of her face, then
the back of her neck. As if to reassure himself that she was still there.
They waited until John came back with a can of Coke. Abra seized it, drank greedily, then belched.
“Sorry,” she said, and giggled.
Dan had never been so happy to hear a giggle in his life. “John. Measles are more serious in adults,
yes?”
“You bet. It can lead to pneumonia, even blindness, due to corneal scarring.”
“Death?”
“Sure, but it’s rare.”
“It’s different for them,” Abra said, “because I don’t think they usually get sick. Only Barry is.
They’re going to stop and get a package. It must be medicine for him. The kind you give in shots.”
“What did you mean about cycling?” Dave asked.
“I don’t know.”
“If Barry’s sick, will that stop them?” John asked. “Will they maybe turn around and go back to
wherever they came from?”
“I don’t think so. They might already be sick from Barry, and they know it. They have nothing to
lose and everything to gain, that’s what Crow says.” She drank more Coke, holding the can in both
hands, then looked around at each of the three men in turn, ending with her father. “They know my
street. And they might know my name, after all. They might even have a picture. I’m not sure. Barry’s
mind is all messed up. But they think . . . they think if I can’t catch the measles . . .”
“Then your essence might be able to cure them,” Dan said. “Or at least inoculate the others.”
“They don’t call it essence,” Abra said. “They call it steam.”
Dave clapped his hands once, briskly. “That’s it. I’m calling the police. We’ll have these people
arrested.”
“You can’t.” Abra spoke in the dull voice of a depressed fifty-year-old woman. Do what you want,
that voice said. I’m only telling you.
He had taken his cell out of his pocket, but instead of opening it, he held it. “Why not?”
“They’ll have a good story for why they’re traveling to New Hampshire and lots of good identity
things. Also, they’re rich. Really rich, the way banks and oil companies and Walmart are rich. They
might go away, but they’ll come back. They always come back for what they want. They kill people
who get in their way, and people who try to tell on them, and if they need to buy their way out of
trouble, that’s what they do.” She put her Coke down on the coffee table and put her arms around her
father. “Please, Daddy, don’t tell anybody. I’d rather go with them than have them hurt Mom or you.”
Dan said, “But right now there are only four or five of them.”
“Yes.”