Dust by Joan Frances Turner Read Free Book Online

help you? Billy, get over here.”
    Billy sauntered over, grinning; if New Thing was gonna be such a bitch, he was exactly what she deserved. I eased out the eyecaps with my fingertips, Billy pretending to help hold her head but mostly just enjoying the show. New Thing shook and whimpered and blinked, big blue-gray eyes screwed up in terror and agony in the failing light. She was tensed to run, not realizing she’d never run again, but that immobilized mouth kept its placid candy smile.
    Mags grabbed New Thing’s chin and poked at her lips. “Looks like a wire job—you sure you can get in there, Jess?”
    “Sure. Have to break a few teeth to do it, but—”
    That did it. New Thing screeched from behind her mouthpiece, donkey-kicking until I wrapped my arm around her knees and lifted her straight off her feet. “Listen up.” I gripped tighter, silent warning I’d break her legs if she pushed it. “That thing in your mouth’s held in by wire. It’s sealing your jaw shut. That means I have to crack teeth to get it out—and if I don’t, you’ll starve to death. You wanna starve? Huh? You wanna starve?”
    She shook her head, moaning between sealed teeth and trying to squeeze her eyes shut; the torn-away lid gave her a permanent wink. Ben laughed quietly, then reached up and plucked the dangling wig of soft blond hair right off her head, twirling it on one finger. She groped one-handed at her skull, feeling the huge spots of nothing where pretty silky curls had been, and started crying in earnest. ’Maldies. Jesus Christ. I just can’t believe hoos still pony up for embalming; if you know your best beloveds might be tunneling up again, it’s okay they die of flesh-hunger as long as they look pretty? But of course, I forget that nobody’s own best beloved will ever, ever become one of them, one of those. I know how that sort of thinking works. I know it right from the source.
    I parted her lips, running a finger over posthumously lengthened teeth, and finally spotted the little glint of silvery wire snaking through her gums. Targeted the spot next to it, one, two—
    The three teeth bordering the wire broke off so hard and quick they flew into the grass. The ’maldie screamed out loud, plain old pain this time and not panic, and I groped around calmly in that tiny little space until I got my fingers on the wire and snapped it in two. I dropped it in the grass, next to the broken teeth, and she let out a hard, ragged sound, figuring out the worst was over. As she tried to open her lips wider I saw the hard plastic former shoved in behind her teeth, shaping her mouth and jaw into eternal pursed-up bliss; a few hard tugs, and it was out. She doubled over coughing and heaving, then retched up chunks of gauze, wads of cotton that stuck like wet toilet paper to her lips.
    When we let her go she staggered and looked around in amazement, her flute notes coming high and fast and nervous. I remember that feeling. “So, what’s your name?” I asked.
    “Renee,” she croaked, rubbing her head. “Renee Anderson.”
    Whatever. Last names don’t matter. Ben folded his arms. “So? Let’s hear it.”
    When she frowned in confusion he leaned into her face, shouting low and slow like she was brain damaged: “How—did—you—die?”
    She didn’t flinch like most ’maldies do, seeing honest un-embalmed rot like that up close. “Oh. I think . . . I was in a hospital.” She nodded. “Yeah, I was. I remember the lights. And my head, it just . . . exploded, from the inside.”
    Aneurysm? Maybe. Florian died of that too, or maybe a stroke, but New Thing looked young, sixteen or seventeen at most. Like me when I tunneled up. She felt her skull again, the crisscross of surgical staples glinting between unshaven tufts of blond hair, and seemed surprised her whole head was there. If you looked closely you could see her clean new brain pulsating slow and steady beneath her scalp, a giant fontanelle.
    Ben laughed. “Well, no