Dark Advent by Brian Hodge Page B

making the rounds in the neighborhood in mid-morning. Travis had slept through his alarm, then the phone calls from work when he didn’t show up. The doorbell finally cut through, and he shuffled to the front door, barely awake, swearing under his breath at whoever was out there.
    And when he swung the door open to reveal himself…heavily muscled, cruel-eyed, burned face, and singed hair, wearing a dark T-shirt that still smelled faintly of smoke…the investigators knew they had someone who warranted more than a routine questioning.
    And Travis, who wasn’t yet wholly awake and thinking clearly until the July sun started to clear his mind, knew he’d screwed up.

10
    After Erika Jennings fled that shabby theater, choking back tears, she knew it didn’t matter where she went, what she did, how anonymous she made herself feel. Fact was, she’d never be just like everybody else. She’d always be set apart. A misfit. A mutant.
    She drove to the riverfront and parked near the Gateway Arch, that silver-skinned monolith that reminded her of an enormous croquet wicket. She always felt humbled in its presence, maybe because she was such a tiny speck beneath it, and she wandered around its base.
    On the drive below, a group of late-hour revelers had walked down from one of the bars up at Laclede’s Landing. One stumbled, they all laughed. They took no notice of her.
    “You guys are so blissfully ignorant,” she whispered toward them. “You belong with the rest of them in the movie.”
    Because something bad was on the wind, she knew it now, something utterly wrong. Something so bad that, if it had a face, it could send you into gales of lunacy just for gazing upon it. She understood, she felt…she knew.
    And so she walked.
    * *
    “How long has it been since you’ve worked?”
    “Hmmm?” Erika had heard her mom plainly enough. But if you could stall for time, there’s always the chance something else would come up.
    Her mother, Gloria, paused as she sliced fat from cubes of stew beef. “I asked how long it’s been since you’ve worked.”
    “About a week, I guess. About that.” Not since after I woke up scared enough to wet the bed again after all these years.
    “I didn’t realize you’d put yourself on vacation again.” She scraped the last of the beef from the cutting board onto the vegetables in the crock-pot.
    Erika tried out a disarming smile but didn’t think it did much good. When her mom got ticked, she got that way to stay, as if getting her money’s worth. “That’s just part of the job, Mom.”
    “Think again. You can work whenever you darn well please.”
    She’s got you there, might as well fess up. Erika worked as a Kelly girl, filling in for sick or vacationing office employees, and she could work as often as she wanted. That was the only thing that had drawn her toward this job in the first place, the safety net of knowing she could take a few days’ respite to reassemble her head when needed.
    “You know, I’ve been wondering if this has something to do with that night last week when you didn’t come home ’til after daylight.”
    Erika loudly scraped a plateful of carrot shavings into the trash. Let that do her talking for her.
    Gloria tapped her on the arm, pecking with her fingers like a bird. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” And that face of hers…so maternally suspicious, wary.
    Erika almost had to laugh. Are you in some kind of trouble? Come on, let’s skip the watered-down version. Let’s cut through the crap and get down to the real questions.
    “You mean am I pregnant?” Erika asked sweetly. “You mean have I been screwing around again? Is there dust on my Tampax box?”
    Gloria eyed her with distaste. “You don’t have to speak about it like a sailor.”
    Erika sighed. “To answer your question, no, I’m not in any trouble. You know as well as I do that I’ve been a lone wolf for quite a while.” And now she’ll start in on me about how I spend too much