The soldiers who stood around the two men parted to make way for Colonel Macklin. He stood face to face with the prisoner who refused to fall in defeat, even though the man’s knees were shredded and he had a bullet wound in his left shoulder. “What’s your name?” Macklin asked him.
The man closed his eyes. “The Savior is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters, He restoreth my—”
Macklin interrupted him with a swipe of the nail-studded palm across the side of his face.
The man dropped to his knees, his slashed face lowered to the ground.
Macklin prodded the second man in the side with his boot. “You. Up.”
“My legs. Please. Oh, God ... my legs.”
“Get up!”
The prisoner struggled to his feet. Blood streamed down both his legs. He looked at Macklin through horrified, dazed eyes. “Please,” he begged. “Give me something for the pain ... please ...”
“You give me information first. What’s your name?”
The man blinked. “Brother Gary,” he said. “Gary Cates.”
“That’s good, Gary.” Macklin patted his shoulder with his left hand. “Now: Where were you going?”
“Don’t tell him anything!” the man on the ground shouted. “Don’t tell the heathen!”
“You want to be a good boy, don’t you, Gary?” Macklin asked, his masked face about four inches away from Cates’s. “You want something to take your mind off the pain, don’t you? Tell me what I want to know.”
“Don’t ... don’t ...” the other man sobbed.
“It’s over for you,” Macklin stated. “It’s finished. There’s no need to make things more difficult than they have to be. Isn’t that right, Gary? I’ll ask you once more: Where were you going?”
Cates hunched his shoulders, as if afraid he might be struck down from above. He shivered, and then he said, “We were ... trying to catch up with them. Brother Ray got shot. He couldn’t make it on his own. I didn’t want to leave him. Brother Nick’s eyes were burned, and he was blind. The Savior says to leave the wounded ... but they were my friends.”
“The Savior? Who’s that?”
“Him. The Savior. The true Lord and Master. He leads the American Allegiance. That’s who we were trying to catch up with.”
“No ...” the other man said. “Please ... don’t tell ...”
“The American Allegiance,” Macklin repeated. He’d heard of them before, from wanderers who’d joined the AOE’s fold. They were led, as he understood it, by an ex-minister from California who had had a cable television program. Macklin had been looking forward to meeting him. “So he calls himself the Savior? How many are traveling with him, and where are they headed?”
The fallen man sat up on his knees and began shrieking crazily, “The Savior is my shepherd, I shall not want! He maketh me to lie down in green pas—” He heard the click of Roland’s .45 as its barrel pressed against his skull.
Roland did not hesitate. He squeezed the trigger.
The noise of the gun made Sheila jump. The man toppled over.
“Gary?” Macklin asked. Cates was staring down at the corpse, his eyes wide and one corner of his mouth twitching in a hysterical grin. “How many are traveling with the Savior, and where are they headed?”
“Uh ... uh ... uh,” Cates stammered. “Uh ... uh ... three thousand,” he managed to say. “Maybe four. I don’t know for sure.”
“They have armored vehicles?” Roland inquired. “Automatic weapons? Grenades?”
“All those. We found an Army supply center up in South Dakota. There were trucks, armored cars, machine guns, flamethrowers, grenades ... everything, for the taking. Even ... six tanks and crates of heavy ammunition.”
Colonel Macklin and Roland looked at each other. The same thought flashed through their minds: Six tanks and crates of heavy ammunition.
“What kind of tanks?” The blood was pounding through Macklin’s veins.
“I don’t know. Big tanks, with big guns. But one of them wouldn’t run right from the first. We left three others, because they broke down and the mechanics couldn’t get them started again.”
“So they’ve still got two?”
Cates nodded. He lowered his head in shame, could feel the Savior’s eyes burning on the back of his neck. The Savior had three commandments: Disobey and Die; To Kill Is Merciful; and Love Me.
“All right, Gary.” Macklin traced the other man’s jawline with his finger. “Where are they going?” Cates mumbled something, and Macklin wrenched his head up. “I didn’t hear you.”
Cates’s gaze skittered to the .45 Roland was holding, then back to the black-masked face with its single, cold blue eye. “To West Virginia,” he said. “They’re going to West Virginia. A place called Warwick Mountain. I don’t know exactly where it is.”
“West Virginia? Why there?”
“Because—” He trembled; he could feel the man with the bandaged face and the .45 just aching to kill him. “If I tell you, will you let me live?” he asked Macklin.
“We won’t kill you,” the colonel promised. “Tell me, Gary. Tell me.”
“They’re going to West Virginia ... because God lives there,” the other man said, and his face folded with agony at betraying the Savior. “God lives on top of Warwick Mountain. Brother Timothy saw God up there, a long time ago. God showed him the black box and the silver key and told him how the world will end. And now Brother Timothy’s leading the Savior to find God.”
Macklin paused for a few seconds. Then he laughed out loud, its sound like the grunting of an animal. When he’d stopped laughing, he grasped the collar of Cates’s shirt with his left hand and pressed the nails of his right against the man’s cheek. “You’re not among crazy religious fanatics now, my friend. You’re among warriors. So stop the bullshitting and tell me the truth. Now.”
“I swear it! I swear it!” Tears rolled from Cates’s eyes and through the grime on his face. “God lives on Warwick Mountain! Brother Timothy’s leading the Savior to find him! I swear it!”
“Let me have him,” Roland said.
There was a moment of silence. Macklin stared into Gary Cates’s eyes and then drew his right hand away. Little dots of blood were rising from the man’s cheek.
“I’ll take good care of him.” Roland holstered his .45. “I’ll make him forget that pain in his legs. Then we’ll have a nice talk.”
“Yes.” Macklin nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“Unshackle him,” Roland told the soldiers. They obeyed at once. His eyes gleamed with excitement behind the goggles. He was a happy young man. It was a hard life, yes, and sometimes he wished for a Pepsi and a Baby Ruth candy bar, or he craved a hot shower and then a good late-night war movie on TV—but those were all things that belonged to a past life. He was Sir Roland now, and he lived to serve the King in this never-ending game of King’s Knight. He missed his computer, though; that was the only really bad thing about not having electricity. And sometimes he had a strange dream in which he seemed to be in an underground maze, at the King’s side, and in that maze there were two tunnel trolls—a man and a woman—who had familiar faces. Their faces disturbed him and always brought him awake in a cold sweat. But those faces were not real; they were just dreams, and Roland was always able to go back to sleep again. He could sleep like the dead when his mind was clear.
“Help him walk,” Roland ordered two of the soldiers. “This way,” he said, and he led them in the direction of the black trailer.
Macklin prodded the corpse at his feet. “Clean it up,” he told one of the guards, and then he stood facing the eastern horizon. The American Allegiance couldn’t be very far ahead of them—maybe only twenty or thirty miles. They’d be loaded down with supplies from what had been a thriving community at Sutton. And they had plenty of guns, ammunition—and two tanks.
We can catch them, Macklin thought. We can catch them and take wha
t they have. And I’ll grind the Savior’s face under my boot. Because nothing can stand before the Army of Excellence, and nothing can stop the grand scheme.
“God lives on Warwick Mountain,” the man had said. “God showed him the black box and the silver key and told him how the world will end.”
The crazy religious fanatics had to be destroyed. There was no room for their kind in the grand scheme.
He turned back toward the trailer. Sheila Fontana was standing in the doorway, and suddenly Macklin realized that all this excitement had given him an erection. It was a good erection, too. It promised to stay around awhile. He walked up the carved staircase with its bannister of demon faces, entered the trailer and shut the door.
68
“SISTER! SISTER, WAKE UP!”
She opened her eyes and saw a figure standing over her. For a few seconds she didn’t know where she was, and she instinctively tightened her grip around the leather satchel. Then she remembered: She was in Glory Bowen’s shack, and she’d dozed off in the warmth of the stove. The last thing she recalled was listening to someone playing a flute at the bonfire outside.
Glory had awakened her. “Josh wants you!” she told Sister in a frightened voice. “Hurry! Somethin’s happenin’ to Swan!”
Sister stood up. Nearby, Paul had heard and was getting to his feet where he’d been sleeping on the floor. They followed Glory into the next room, where they saw Josh leaning over Swan. Aaron stood watching, wide-eyed, and holding onto the dowsing rod.
“What is it?” Sister asked.
“Her fever! She’s burning up!” Josh rook a cloth from a pail of melted snow and wrung it out. He began to rub the cold cloth over Swan’s neck and arms, and he could swear he saw steam swirling up through the golden lamplight. He was afraid her entire body might suddenly hit the point of ignition and explode. “We’ve got to get her fever down!”
Paul touched Swan’s arm and quickly drew his hand back as if he’d placed it against the stove’s grate. “My God! How long’s she been like this?”
“I don’t know. She had a fever when I checked her about an hour ago, but it wasn’t nearly this high!” He put the cloth into the cold water again, and this time he applied it to Swan’s flesh without wringing it out. Swan trembled violently; her head thrashed back and forth, and she made a low, terrible moaning.
“She’s dyin’, Josh!” Aaron yelled. There were tears in his eyes. “Don’t let her die!”
Josh put his hands into the cold water and rubbed it over Swan’s burning skin. She was so hot inside, so terribly hot. He didn’t know what to do, and he looked up at Sister. “Please,” he said. “Help me save her!”
“Get her outside!” Sister was already reaching for Swan to help carry her. “We can cover her with snow!”
Josh put his arms underneath Swan and started to lift her. Swan thrashed, and her rebandaged hands clawed at the air. He got her up in his arms and supported her head against his shoulder. The heat radiating through her Job’s Mask almost seared his skin.
He’d taken two strides when Swan cried out, shuddered and went limp.
Josh felt the fever break. Felt the terrible heat leave her body as if someone had opened the door of an oven right in his face. Felt it rise like a shroud of steam and cling to the ceiling a foot above his head.
She lay motionless in his arms, and Sister thought, She’s dead. Oh, my God ... Swan is dead.
Josh’s knees almost buckled. “Swan!” he said, and his voice cracked. Her long, frail body was cooling. A tear almost burned him blind, and he released a sob that shook his bones.
Carefully, tenderly, he laid her down on the bed again. She lay like a crushed flower, her arms and legs asprawl.
Josh was afraid to pick up her wrist and feel for a pulse. Afraid that this time the spark of life would be gone.
But he did. Couldn’t feel anything. He lowered his head for a few seconds. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, no. I think she’s—”
There was a faint tremor beneath his fingers.
And another. Then a third and a fourth—getting stronger.
He looked up at Swan’s face. Her body shivered—and then there was an eerie noise that sounded like hard, dried clay cracking apart.
“Her ... face,” Paul whispered, standing at the foot of the bed.
A hairline crack crept along the Job’s Mask.
It ran across where her forehead would be, zigzagging back over the nose, then down along the left cheek to the jawline. The single crack began to widen, became a fissure that gave birth to more cracks. Parts of the Job’s Mask began to peel and flake off, like pieces of a huge scab that had finally healed over a deep and hideous wound.
Swan’s pulse was wild. Josh let go of her wrist and stepped back, his eye so wide it looked about to burst from the surface of his own mask.
Sister said, “Oh—”
“—Lord,” Glory finished. She grabbed Aaron, hugging him against her hip and putting a hand over his face to shield his eyes. He brushed it away.
The Job’s Mask continued to break apart with quick little popping and crackling noises. Swan lay still except for the rapid rise and fall of her breathing. Josh started to touch her again but did not—because the Job’s Mask suddenly cracked into two halves and fell away from Swan’s face.
No one moved. Paul released his breath. Sister was too stunned to do anything but stare.
Swan was still breathing. Josh reached up, took the lantern from its wall hook and held it over Swan’s head.
She had no face. Down amid the cracked, clayey fragments of Job’s Mask, Swan’s features had been wiped white and smooth as candle wax, except for two small nostril holes and a slit over her mouth. With a trembling hand, Josh ran his fingers across where her right cheek should be. They came away coated with a slick, whitish substance that had the consistency of petroleum jelly. And underneath the jellylike stuff was a glimpse of pale, faintly pink flesh.
“Sister,” he said quickly, “will you hold this?” He gave her the lantern, and she saw what was in the cavity and almost swooned. “Hold it steady, now,” he said as he took the cloth from the bucket of snow water. Then, slowly and carefully, he began to clean the jelly away.
“My God!” Josh’s voice shook. “Look at this! Look!”
Glory and Paul came forward to see, and Aaron stood on his tiptoes.
Sister saw. She picked aside a fragment of the Job’s Mask and touched a lock of Swan’s hair. It was darkened by the slick jelly that covered it, but it shone with deep gold and red highlights. It was the most beautiful hair she’d ever seen, and it was growing strong and thick from Swan’s scalp.
“Aaron!” Josh said. “Go get Anna and Gene! Hurry!” The boy darted out. As Josh continued to clean the film away Swan’s features began to emerge.
And then he looked down at her face and touched her forehead. Her fever was gone, and her temperature felt near normal. Her eyes were still closed, but she was breathing just fine, and Josh decided to let her sleep.
“What the hell’s the ruckus?” Anna McClay asked as she came in.
“This,” Josh said softly, and he stepped back so Anna could see.
She stopped as if she’d hit a wall, and the eyes in her tough old face filled with tears.
69
“HERE Y’GO FELLAS! Breakfast time!”
Robin Oakes snorted with disinterest as Anna McClay brought a pot of soup and some bowls out on the front porch. He and the three other young highwaymen had spent the night sleeping by the bonfire, along with six or seven other people who were keeping watch on Glory’s shack. It was another dark, cold morning, and small flakes of snow were whirling before the wind.
“Well, come on!” Anna urged. “You want breakfast or not?”
Robin stood up, his muscles stiff, and walked past the horse that was tied to the porch’s support post. Two blankets were laid across Mule’s back and shoulders, and he was close enough to the warmth of the bonfire that he was in no dange
r of frostbite. The other boys followed Robin, and a few other people stirred and came over to be fed as well.
Anna ladled the soup out into a bowl for him. He wrinkled his nose. “This junk again? Didn’t we have this for dinner?”
“Sure did. You’ll have it for lunch, too, so you’d better like it.”
Robin restrained the urge to throw the stuff out on the ground. He knew it was made of boiled roots, with a few shreds of good old wholesome rat meat. Now even the food in the orphanage cafeteria seemed like it had been manna from Heaven, and he would have walked to China if he knew he could get a Burger King Whopper there. He moved out of the chow line so the next person could get his dose, tilted the bowl to his mouth and drank. He’d had a miserable night, jumpy and restless, and had finally grabbed a few hours of sleep in spite of an old man who’d sat by the fire playing a flute. Robin would have thrown a boot at him, but some of the others seemed to actually enjoy that dumb music, and Robin had seen the old man’s face glow in the firelight as he trilled notes into the air. Robin remembered what heavy metal had used to sound like: crashing, strutting guitar chords and a thunder of drums as if the world was about to blow up. That used to be his kind of music—but it dawned on him that the world really had blown up. Maybe it was time for peace now, he thought. Peace in action, words and music, too.
Damn! he told himself. I must be getting old!
He had awakened once, sometime in the night. He’d sat up, stiff and cranky, to find a warmer place, when he’d seen the man standing over on the other side of the fire. Just standing there, his dirty coat sweeping around him in the wind, and staring at Glory’s shack. Robin didn’t remember what the man’s face had looked like, but the man had prowled slowly through the sleeping figures, approaching to within twenty feet of the shack’s porch. Anna and Gene sat on the steps, armed with rifles and guarding the door, but they were talking to each other and didn’t pay any attention. Robin recalled that Gene had shivered and drawn his collar up around his neck, and Anna had blown into her hands as if caught by a sudden, sneaking chill.
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