Chapter Four

The cobwebs were slow to leave Grant's mind as he plodded through the pre-dawn behind Beigh Shabley. The man could have at least offered to carry his medicine bag for him, considering how heavy it was. Cabot Grant was not a weak man, but his back had been troubling him for the better part of a year now, as Shabley well knew.

Grant had a lot of experience with Shabley and his lot. They were an energetic young group of alcoholics, and he had treated them for everything from being kicked by a horse to getting a knife rammed into the guts.

Whatever the trouble was, he was certain that it would not be dull.

But Shabley was being uncharacteristically terse. He had simply told him that he would not want to miss this. Grant had a feeling he was right.

Nevertheless, he stopped in the middle of the street and dropped the bag. Shabley rushed on for half a dozen paces before he finally stopped and came back.

"Take my satchel. And give me that bottle." Shabley obliged, and he took a long, slow pull on the bottle before he waved Shabley on. The warm, clean sharpness of potato juice lingered on his tongue and warmed his belly nicely as he finished the short trek to Kenly Bent's house. It was always Bent's house; he was the only one of the three without a wife to give him grief.

His first sight of Bent was shocking. The man had aged twenty years in the week since Grant had seen him last. His hair was streaked through with white and his face was gaunt. And he was more drunk than Grant had ever seen him before. This was Guller drunk. Or Shabley, if they let him smoke the moss after he'd been drinking.

"Put my bag on the floor. But not by his feet. We're going to have to make him sick, so you better fetch him the rat kettle. But if there are any turds in it, dump them out first."

With anybody else, he wouldn't have to add the last part, but he knew from experience that with Beigh Shabley he did. How the man could live with five women and learn nothing of personal cleanliness was boggling.

Bent gave him a bleary glare that he knew well. "Not me, fool. Guller. Kitchen."

Fool, was he? At least he didn't stink of fresh piss and bile. Upon closer inspection, Grant saw that Kenly had already been sick this night, and he was so covered in it that his clothes were back to being a uniform color.

Grant shrugged. If he was not here for a little mild alcohol poisoning, then what could it be? And why were these grown men acting like wobbly-skirts?

"Well come on, then." He heard the man's chair scrape back as he pushed past Shabley into the kitchen. He had only meant for Beigh to bring in his bag, but it seemed like Bent had a little sack juice left after all.

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"Holy fuckin' shit!" It was not exactly a professional diagnosis, but it was definitely the appropriate response. The man had no face!

"Well here's your problem. His face is off." Numbly he shuffled forward to where Lazarus Guller sat at Kenly's kitchen table. He took the seat next to him and peered intently into the cavity where the man's nose had been. So that was what it looked like at the back. He had always wondered.

"Well obviously his face is gone. You think we don't fucking know that?"

"How should I know? All you said was, 'Guller's in the kitchen,' and when I get here you have him propped up at the table like some kind of sick joke. You should have put a cup of tea at his elbow, that would have made it perfect."

"We tried that, actually. But he can't really drink like that."

Grant turned to regard Kenly. Judging by his haggard look, he was being dead serious. And Shabley wasn't breaking character either, which was a statistical impossibility. What was going on here?

When he turned back, Guller's head had somehow turned until it was pointed in his direction. At first Grant thought the jaw was falling off, but incredibly, it moved up and down with a clacking sound. A dry, horrid version of Guller's voice came from deep within his throat.

"Is it pretty bad, doc? They won't let me see."

He cleared his throat several times. He tried to speak, but it was two or three good pulls on Shabley's bottle before he could croak, "Bad? No, not bad at all. You're going to be fine, just fine."

What was he saying? He was just babbling, or perhaps someone else was speaking with his voice, from his lips. Because Guller was not going to be fine. There was no chance of him ever being fine again.

"So what should we do?" Shabley asked. "Or I guess I mean how."

"How?" He didn't turn, because he couldn't look away. It was amazing how much life skin could add to a face. He felt like he was staring at a corpse.

"Yeah, how do we kill him?"

That did it. Together, he and Guller turned to stare at Shabley. "What?" The question was such a rasp that Grant had no idea if he had said it, or Guller.

Shabley shrugged helplessly. "We can't just leave him like this. That would be cruel."

"No it wouldn't," Guller protested. "Honest. It doesn't even hurt any more. It's just itchy, really. And I can live with that."

Shabley looked regretful. "No, no I'm sorry Laz. But you're a monster now."

"You said it wasn't that bad! Can't I just wear a hat or something?"

Grant finally snapped. "A hat? A hat. Yes, that should do it. Guller, where the fuck is your face? Your whole head has no skin! How did this happen? How the dip-diddly-shit are you even alive?"

"I told you, doc. He's a monster now. So how do we kill him?"

He looked from Kenly to Beigh and back again, no clue how to respond. He was a doctor, and a man of science. This was definitely not a scientific issue.

Oh no. "You are going to have to go see Murk. But before you do anything else, you better take him to Little Bear. I'm sure he's going to want lock him up for now."

Guller wasn't too happy to hear any of this. He had a hang-dog cast to his shoulders that was distinctly Guller. But Grant knew how quicky Lazarus Guller could go from despondent to enraged.

That couldn't be allowed to happen here, because Shabley was right. Guller could very well already be developing his supernatural powers.

He couldn't wait until this was Little Bear's problem.