Humping away at Julie, he’d kept seeing her features change. Face after face appeared there on her shoulders—the same parade, over and over again. All those people he’d screwed over . . .
He pushed himself away from the wall.
Screw it. He was going to get a drink, that was what he was going to do. He was going to get so shit-eyed drunk that he couldn’t see his own hands held out in front of him, let alone hallucinate.
Trailing a hand along the wall of the building as though he were already drunk, he headed for the nearest bar.
14
WHEN THE CREATURE started to turn toward Cathy, Jack saw Janet Rowe’s features in its ravaged face. Cathy, her scream still burning up her throat, saw Beth Green. The music pierced their eardrums, a shrieking wail that stopped them where they stood. The creature floated up from the street. Airborne, it swept down at Cathy, breathing its fire.
The blast lifted Cathy to her feet, cutting off her scream. For one long, horrifying moment Jack stared at her, the flesh burning from her face. A skull screamed silently atop her flaming body, then she crumpled and fell to the pavement.
(too late)
Jack ran toward the creature, his .38 leveled.
(always too fucking late)
He emptied the weapon into the creature. As it staggered, then fell under the onslaught, he threw the empty weapon aside and grabbed a loose piece of pavement. The creature turned toward him, the tongues in its throat writhing. Jack brought the pavement down against its skull. Bone shattered under the blow. He leapt on top of the creature and continued to batter away, until he’d made pulp of its head. Then he began to work on the body. The chunk of pavement rising in the air, smashing down. Rising again.
The music died as he continued to batter the creature. He was splattered with its blood and gore. He thought about Janet Rowe. About Cathy . . .
(too late)
He brought his makeshift weapon down again and again, until it finally shattered against the stone under the creature’s body. Bent over it, he gulped in lungfuls of air, his stomach churning at the rancid stench that rose from the creature’s battered remains. The stink of burning flesh was still strong in the air.
Wearily he lifted his head to look at Cathy’s corpse, but it was gone. Back to the real world. Just like Coffey’s and Paige’s and . . . Christ. . .
(too late)
He heard the humming buzz of insects and looked down at the creature’s body. It was turning into bugs. Cockroaches skittered away. Flies arose in swarms. Every bit of flesh was transformed into an insect and fleeing. In moments there was only the smear of blood on the pavement—all that remained of the monstrous thing he’d killed.
Slowly he pushed himself to his feet. Janet Rowe, some hellish angel—whatever it had been, it was finally dead. He walked over to where he’d thrown his gun and replaced it in its shoulder holster. There was a dent in the barrel—it was going to need some work. He looked over to where Cathy’s corpse had lain. Unlike the blood smear showing where the creature had been, there was no remnant of her left at all.
A bleakness settled inside him—as complete as the desolation of the ruined city around him.
Go home, he told himself. Go home and wake up.
He turned, and it was there again.
The angel.
No, she was a fury now, wasn’t she?
Untouched by bullets or the battering he’d given it. The flesh perfect. Showgirl’s body and angel’s face. As he gazed at her, he watched graffiti in the shape of tattoos appear on her skin.
“Jesus . . .”
His voice was a hoarse whisper. His gun was empty. Probably wasn’t even functional from the fall it had taken when he’d thrown it aside. He didn’t even bother to try to pick up another slab of pavement. The bleakness inside him had scraped away everything he cared about. This time he was really—
(too late)
“All that’s left,” the creature said, “is a killing time.”
The transformation from angel to monstrosity was almost instantaneous this time. He stared at the tongues wriggling up from the back of its throat. Listened to the music build.
(too late)
As the fiery blast hit him, only one thing rose to mind. One care he could never lose. He prayed to a God that he’d forgotten since he’d attended Sunday School as a toddler that the fury wouldn’t take Anna too.
15
WALT HAWKINS HAD just finished a solitary dinner when the two uniformed policemen came to his door. He heard them out; told them, sure, if Beth was to come back to him, he’d take her in, no questions asked, but he’d learned his lesson about trying to force her to come back; asked them, did they want to look around?
Calling what they supposed was his bluff, they had a quick look around the one-story bungalow, checked the basement, then left with apologies “for disturbing your evening, Mr. Hawkins. Thanks for your cooperation.”
You stupid fucks, he wanted to tell them as he closed the door. You think I’d be sitting here with the little wifey, just waiting for you to show up?
He watched them leave through the picture window, then got on the phone and dialed the number of the cottage out near Ashton where Ted was baby-sitting the cause of all this official concern.
“So what’s up?” Ted wanted to know.
“The Man was here.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I let them in, showed them around. They just left, calling me Mr. Hawkins and apologizing for bothering me.”
“Toldja.”
“Yeah. You did all right by me, Ted. How’s the little lady?”
“Just like she was when we dropped you off. Does whatcha tell her, sits like a lump unless you give her something to do. I think she fell asleep a little while ago.”
“I’m coming up.”
“You sure that’s such a good—”
“Hey. They’ve been and gone—right? Why would they come back?”
“Okay. People next door showed up, though. Probably just for the night.”
“So I’ll drive up, sleep there, and be ready to start her on her lessons first thing in the morning.”
“Okey-dokey, Walt. You’re the boss. Bring some beer, wouldja? I’m just about out.”
“What’re you drinking?”
“Nothing foreign. I’m going to lock her in the back room and catch me some shut-eye. I’ll leave the door unlocked for you.”
“If she gets away . . .”
“Where’s she gonna go, Walt?”
“You said there were people next door—”
“Hey, I’m locking her in the back room, okay? Lighten the fuck up. And don’t forget the beer.”
He hung up before Walt could say anything else. Lighten up. Right. Easy to say when it wasn’t his wife playing him for a fool.
Wife. The little whore.
He smacked a fist against a palm. There was going to be some serious disciplining, come tomorrow morning, he thought as he fetched a windbreaker and the car keys. He got a hard-on just thinking about it.
FOUR
1
BETH HADN’T PROTESTED when her ex took her from the house and led her out to Ted Rimmer’s van. She got in the back like he told her to and took his perfunctory slaps— hard enough to rock her head and leave red marks on her cheeks—with a dull-eyed acceptance. When the back door was locked and Walt joined his friend in the front, she huddled in a corner of the van, knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around her legs. There was just no fight left in her.
What was the point?
Nothing changed. Every time she started to believe that there really might be a way out of the misery that was her life, things just got worse instead.
From Daddy to Mr. Gregoire.
To Jody and Kirk.
To Walt.
Walt was the end of the road—she could see that now. No matter how far she might try to run, he’d always be there to take her back—
(to that dark place fi
lled with pain)
Walt, who took a perverse pleasure in hurting her—
(his leather belt slashing across her chest)
—and in the scars left by wounds that others had inflicted upon her. Daddy burning her with his cigarettes.
(“I don’t want to hurt you, honey, but you can’t tell me you’re going to talk to Mommy about our special times. It just makes me mad. You don’t want your daddy to be mad, now do you?”)
No. She wanted him dead.
Mommy pretending she couldn’t see the bruises and burns.
Dead.
Mr. Gregoire’s grinning face, his hand clamped across her mouth as he grunted and thrust between her legs.
Dead.
She wanted to burn away their features so that there was no trace of them left to haunt her. To hurt her.
Jody and Kirk. The looks she got in school from the other kids, the knowing smirks. And Cassie . . .
She wanted them all dead. She wanted the power she’d felt in her dream to be real. She wanted to be able to float in the air, to fly away from the pain. She wanted to pay them all back for everything they’d done to her. For everything that anyone had ever done to others just like her. Everybody had to pay.
Except she didn’t have any power.
Instead of being in control, she was locked in a tiny cottage bedroom, out in the country somewhere. Watched over by one of her ex-husband’s greasy friends. Feeling the pain. Waiting for Walt. Waiting for the pain that was still to come. For the return—
(to that dark place)
—of everything she thought she had escaped.
Through waves of misery she looked around, every motion setting up a new flare of pain.
The window of her prison was tiny and set high up in the wall. Too high for her to look through. The walls were paneled with fake wood. There was a bed with a lumpy mattress. A night table with a Bible and a Readers Digest collection on it. A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, the switch by the door. The locked door. Beyond it, the little man who’d tricked her into opening the door so that Wait could grab her.
“I’ll be back,” Walt had said as he’d pushed her into the room.
She fell to the floor and lay limp, but that wasn’t enough for him. It had never been enough.
He stepped into the room after her and kicked her where she lay.
I won’t cry out, she promised herself. I won’t give him that much.
But her silence infuriated him. As it always did. He kicked her again, then dragged her up into a sitting position against the wall and rained blows against her face and chest until she couldn’t stop herself from moaning.
Finally satisfied, he stepped back and let her slide limply to the floor.
“Go ahead,” he told her. “Play your little feel-sorry-for-me game. But there’s no one coming to help you now. All that’s coming is a little lesson in what happens to whores who try to run out on their husbands. To have and to hold, baby. Till death do us part. Think about it.”
The thin walls of the room shook as he slammed the door.
Through the ocean of her pain, she heard him talk to his friend, then heard him drive off. But he’d be back. Walt Hawkins always kept his promises.
“How do you stop this, Anna?” she breathed into the mattress. It hurt to talk, hurt even to move. “How do you stop being a victim when that’s ail you really are?”
All she’d ever wanted was to stop being hurt. Was that too much to ask for? If she could get away, if she was in—
(that Other Place)
—she’d stop them from hurting her. From hurting anyone.
Except that place wasn’t real. It was just a dream.
This place was real.
Walt was real.
Pain was real.
When she heard the door unlock, all she could do was lie there and stare. Through swollen eyes she saw Walt’s friend open the door a crack to look in on her, then he closed it again. Locked it. She continued to lie there. She let her eyes close. She tried to pretend that she was just lying down to go to sleep. That none of this was happening. That it couldn’t be real. That she was somewhere else, just having a bad dream—
(about that dark place filled with pain)
—until the pain took her away into something very much like sleep, where she could dream.
She was changed when she became aware of her surroundings. She was strong when she stood up from the moldering bed, the pain gone, the bruises and swelling vanished. She looked around. The wood paneling was cracked and peeling. She pushed at the door and the rotted wood gave away.
The cottage was empty. Deserted. A ruin. She paced slowly through the refuse until she was outside. Under the yellow skies, she looked around. There were the remains of other cottages—ramshackle buildings falling in on themselves. Miles of dead forest surrounded them. There was a lake behind her, thick with algae and rotted plants. Dead fish, floating with their white bellies up, lay thick around the shoreline. The swampy smells in the air were tinged with something metallic.
Beth spread her arms wide. She was back. Here she could do anything. She could fly. She could be in control.
She let herself rise and drifted slowly through the thick air.
I can do anything, she thought.
In this place she really could.
She could stop the pain forever.
She floated in a slow circle around the cottage. And then she heard something from the building. She let herself sink until her feet touched the yellowed grass. Her footsteps were silent as she closed the distance between herself and the cottage. She could feel a thickness in her throat. Her jaws ached and seemed to be swelling.
She stepped into the doorway and saw Walt’s friend standing there in the middle of the cottage. His eyes bulged in their sockets when he caught sight of her. He slowly backed away until a wall rose up behind him and there was nowhere else to
go-He was part of the pain, she thought as she stepped over the threshold. A festering sore.
A flash of memory touched her—her mother lancing a boil. Heating up the needle with fire. To cleanse it.
Fire.
Cleansing fire.
She could feel a heat in her chest. There was something moving in her throat. Wriggling. Power building up, crackling along her nerve endings. A fire in her lungs.
Fire.
Walt’s greasy friend was holding out his hands to fend off her approach.
I did that, she thought. Lots of times. I begged and pleaded, but no one ever stopped.
The heat was almost painful now. If she didn’t let it loose, it was going to consume her. But she wasn’t the one who needed its scouring touch.
Fire.
She felt her jaws widen still farther, farther than should have been possible, but she was beyond reasoning out what could be real in this place and what not.
All she knew was that she was finally in control.
She could stop the pain.
She stepped right up to him, until there was nowhere he could go. The man beat at her chest, but she couldn’t feel the blows. They were futile. As so many times her own had been. But she didn’t feel the sense of pleasure that was always there in—
(her daddy’s, Mr. Gregoire’s, Jody’s and Kirk’s, Walt’s)
—their eyes. She was lancing a boil, that was all. Healing a hurt.
She gripped him, one strong hand on each of his shoulders. A sense of kinship arose inside her, and she felt as though all the victims that ever had been were sitting in her mind. Looking through her eyes. Readying the heat in her chest that burned hot as a furnace.
Leaning in close, she—
(they all)
—breathed on the man—
(a cleansing fire)
—and watched him burn.
2
THE BARTENDER IN the Lafayette watched Hardass Boucher drink, and shook his head. Whiskey and beer chasers— enough to put a man down forever, never mind for the afternoon.
&
nbsp; Any other customer and he’d have tossed the guy out a long time ago. But this was a cop, and you didn’t go throwing out cops, no matter how drunk they got, no matter how abusive. Not if you wanted to stay in business without being hassled by him and his buddies from now until hell froze over.
At least he’d quieted down now. He’d stopped shouting at the other customers—driving half of them away—and was sitting in the corner, watching the TV but not seeing it, head drooping until it lay on his arms.
Yeah, you just go to sleep, the bartender thought. Have yourself a little nappy-poo.
He shook his head again. Hardass Boucher, the man called himself. More like Asshole Boucher, if you asked him.
He went to pull a draft for another customer. When he next looked over to the corner where Boucher had been sleeping, the man was gone.
Hit the can to take a leak, the bartender thought, but Boucher never came out.
After a while the bartender went to check the washroom, just to make sure the asshole hadn’t passed out in a urinal, but the small room was empty. Must have left the bar under his own steam.
As he went back to cleaning glasses the bartender wished that all his problems could be solved as easily.
3
HARDASS BOUCHER’S PROBLEMS were just beginning.
He’d nodded off in the bar but snapped awake just moments later. Trouble was, when he woke, the bar was gone. Or at least the bar he’d fallen asleep in was gone. The place he was sitting in now wasn’t fit for a wino.
He remembered being so drunk that he couldn’t stand, but he was sober now.
All too sober.
Rising from his seat, he crossed the deserted bar and stepped out onto an equally deserted street.
Man, oh man, what the fuck was going on, anyway?
Where the hell was he?
He recognized the Market street he was looking down, but the place looked like it was a war zone. Graffiti was sprayed on the walls of the buildings that still stood. The rusted hulks of delivery trucks and cars littered the street. The sky was the color of yellow vomit. There was an acidic sting in the air that hurt his lungs.
He needed some help, was what it was, Hardass realized. He’d stepped over the line—way over the line—and he needed someone to help bring him back. Because this was insanity. This. Just. Couldn’t. Exist.
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