Swan Song

by Robert R. McCammon

  Roland’s eyes widened momentarily behind the goggles.

  Perhaps forty seconds crept by. “Open up!” Brother Norman announced in a merry voice.

  Roland opened his mouth, slowly stuck his tongue out and watched the other man’s face for a reaction.

  “Guess what,” Brother Norman said. He took the crucifix from Roland’s tongue and held it up. It was still bright silver. “You passed! The Savior will see you now.”

  Brother Edward gave Roland’s skull a final shove for good measure, and Roland followed Brother Norman into the stockroom. Sweat was trickling down Roland’s sides, but his mind was calm and detached.

  Illuminated by lamplight, a man with brushed-back, wavy gray hair sat in a chair before a table, being attended to by another man and a young woman. There were two or three other people in the room, all standing back beyond the light’s edge.

  “Hello, Roland,” the gray-haired man in the chair said gently, a smile twisting the left side of his mouth; he was holding his head very still, and Roland could only see his left profile—a high, aristocratic forehead, a strong and hawklike nose, a straight gray brow over a clear azure eye, clean-shaven cheek and jaw and a chin as powerful as a mallet. Roland thought he was probably in his late fifties, but the Savior seemed in robust health, and his face was unmarred. He was wearing a pin-striped suit with a vest and a blue tie, and he looked ready to preach before the cameras on one of his cable TV telecasts—but on closer observation Roland saw well-worn patches here and there at stress points on the coat, and leather pads had been sewn onto the knees. The Savior was wearing hiking boots. Around his neck, dangling down in front of his vest, were maybe twelve or fifteen silver and gold crucifixes on chains, some of them studded with precious stones. The Savior’s sturdy hands were decorated with half a dozen glittering diamond rings.

  The man and young woman attending him were working on his face with pencils and powder applicators. Roland saw an open make-up case on the table.

  The Savior lifted his head slightly so the woman could powder his neck. “I’m going before my people in about five minutes, Roland. They’re singing for me right now. They have voices like angels, don’t they?” Roland didn’t answer, and the Savior smiled faintly. “How long has it been since you’ve heard music?”

  “I make my own,” Roland replied.

  The Savior tilted his head to the right as the man penciled his eyebrow. “I like to look my best,” he said. “There’s no excuse for a shabby appearance, not even in this day and age. I like for my people to look at me and see confidence. And confidence is a good thing, isn’t it? It means you’re strong, and you can deal with the traps Satan lays for you. Oh, Satan’s very busy these days, Roland—yes, he is!” He folded his hands in his lap. “Of course, Satan has many faces, many names—and one of those names might be Roland. Is it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, Satan’s a liar, so what did I expect?” He laughed, and the others laughed, too. When he was through laughing, he let the woman rub rouge onto his left cheek. “All right, Satan—I mean, Roland—tell me what you want. And tell me why you and your army of demons have been following us for the last two days, and why you’ve now encircled us. If I knew anything about military tactics, I might think you were about to lay siege. I wouldn’t like to think that. It might disturb me, thinking of all the poor demons who were about to die for their Master. Speak, Satan!” His voice snapped like a whip, and everybody in the room jumped but Roland.

  “I’m Captain Roland Croninger of the Army of Excellence. Colonel James Macklin is my superior officer. We want your gasoline, oil, food and weapons. If you give those to us within six hours, we’ll withdraw and leave you in peace.”

  “You mean leave us in pieces, don’t you?” The Savior grinned and almost turned his face toward Roland, but the woman was powdering his forehead. “The Army of Excellence. I think I’ve heard of you. I thought you were in Colorado.”

  “We moved.”

  “Well, I guess that’s what armies do, isn’t it? Oh, we’ve met ‘armies’ before,” he said, slurring the word with disgust. “Some of them wore little uniforms and had little pop-guns, and all of them crumpled like paper dolls. No army can stand before the Savior, Roland. You go back and tell your ‘superior officer’ that. Tell him I’ll say a prayer for both your souls.”

  Roland was about to be dismissed. He decided to try another tactic. “Who are you going to pray to? The god on top of Warwick Mountain?”

  There was silence. The two make-up artists froze, and both of them looked at Roland. He could hear the Savior’s breathing in the quiet.

  “Brother Gary’s joined us,” Roland continued calmly. “He’s told us everything—where you’re going and why.” Under Roland’s persuasion in the black trailer, Gary Cates had repeated his tale of God living atop Warwick Mountain, West Virginia, and something about a black box and a silver key that could decide whether the earth lived or died. Even the grinding wheel hadn’t changed the man’s story. True to his word, Macklin had spared Brother Gary’s life, and Brother Gary had been skinned and hung by his ankles from a flagpole in front of Sutton’s post office.

  The silence stretched. Finally, the Savior said softly, “I don’t know any Brother Gary.”

  “He knows you. He told us how many soldiers you have. He told us about the two tanks. I’ve seen one of them, and I guess the other is around back somewhere. Brother Gary’s a real fountain of information! He told us about Brother Timothy leading you to Warwick Mountain to find God.” Roland smiled, showing bad teeth between the folds of his bandages. “But God’s closer than West Virginia. Much closer. He’s right out there, and he’s going to blast you to Hell in six hours if we don’t get what we want.”

  The Savior was sitting very still. Roland saw him tremble. Saw the left side of his mouth twitch and his left eye begin to bulge, as if shoved forward by a volcanic pressure.

  The Savior shoved the two make-up artists aside. His head swiveled toward Roland—and Roland saw both sides of his face.

  The left side was perfect, brightened by rouge and smoothed with powder. The right side was a nightmare of scar tissue, the flesh gouged out by a terrible wound and the eye white and dead as a river pebble.

  The Savior’s living eye fixed on Roland like Judgment Hour, and as he stood up he grabbed the chair and flung it across the room. He advanced on Roland, the little crucifixes jingling around his neck, and lifted his fist.

  Roland stood his ground.

  They stared at each other, and there was a great, empty silence like that before the clash of an irresistible force and an immovable object.

  “Savior?” a voice spoke. “He’s a fool, and he’s trying to bait you.”

  The Savior wavered. His eye blinked, and Roland could see the wheels turning in his head, trying to connect and make sense of things again.

  A figure stepped out of the gloom to Roland’s right. It was a tall, frail-looking man in his late twenties with slicked-back black hair and wire-rimmed glasses over deep-socketed brown eyes. A burn scar zigzagged like a lightning bolt from his forehead to the back of his skull, and along its route the hair had turned white. “Don’t touch him, Savior,” the man urged quietly. “They have Brother Kenneth.”

  “Brother Kenneth?” The Savior shook his head, uncomprehending.

  “You sent Brother Kenneth as a trade for this man. Brother Kenneth is a good mechanic. We don’t want him harmed, do we?”

  “Brother Kenneth,” the Savior repeated. “A good mechanic. Yes. He’s a good mechanic.”

  “It’s almost time for you to go on,” the man said. “They’re singing for you.”

  “Yes. Singing. For me.” The Savior looked up at his fist, hanging in the air; he opened it and let his arm fall back to his side. Then he stood staring at the floor, the left corner of his mouth twitching in an on-again, off-again grin.

  “Dear me, dear me!” Brother Norman fretted. “Let’s finish the job now, kiddies! He’s on
presently, and we want him to look confident!”

  A couple of other people emerged from the shadows, took the Savior’s arms and turned him around like a marionette so the make-up artists could finish.

  “You’re a foolish, stupid heathen,” the man with the eyeglasses said to Roland. “You must want to die very much.”

  “We’ll see who lives and dies when six hours are up.”

  “God is on Warwick Mountain. He lives up near the top, where the coal mines are. I’ve seen him. I’ve touched him. My name is Brother Timothy.”

  “Good for you.”

  “You can go with us, if you like. You can join us and go to find God and learn how the wicked will die at the final hour. He’ll still be there, waiting for us. I know he will.”

  “When’s the final hour going to be?”

  Brother Timothy smiled. “That only God knows. But he showed me how the fire will rain from Heaven, and in that rain even Noah’s Ark would drown. In the final hour all the imperfection and wickedness will be washed clean, and the world will be fresh and new again.”

  “Right,” Roland said.

  “Yes. It is right. I stayed with God for seven days and seven nights, up on Warwick Mountain, and he taught me the prayer that he will speak at the final hour.” Brother Timothy closed his eyes, smiling beatifically, and began to recite: “Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, the lady of situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, and here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, which is blank, is something he carries on his back which I am forbidden to see. I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.” And when he opened his eyes they glistened with tears.

  “Get that Satan out of here!” the Savior croaked. “Get him out!”

  “Six hours,” Roland said, but in his mind the prayer for the final hour echoed like the memory of a funeral bell.

  “Get thee behind me, Satan; get thee behind me, Satan; get thee behind me, Sa—” the Savior intoned, and then Roland was taken out of the stockroom and delivered to Brother Edward again for the return trip.

  Roland impressed everything he saw on his mind to report back to Colonel Macklin. He’d discovered no obviously weak areas, but once he sat down to draw a map of what he’d seen, maybe one would become apparent.

  The ritual of the headlights was repeated. Roland was returned to the Jeep, and again he and Brother Kenneth passed without looking at each other. Then he was in the Jeep and breathing easily once more as Judd Lawry drove toward the fires of the AOE’s camp.

  “Have fun?” Lawry asked him.

  “Yeah. Get me to the Command Center fast.” I do not find The Hanged Man, Roland thought. God’s prayer for the final hour was somehow familiar to him—but it wasn’t a prayer. No. It was ... it was ...

  There was some kind of activity around the colonel’s trailer. The guards were out of formation, and one of them was hammering at the door with the butt of his rifle. Roland leaped out of the Jeep as it slowed down, and he ran toward the trailer. “What’s going on?”

  One of the guards hastily saluted. “The colonel’s locked himself in, sir! We can’t get the door open, and ... well, you’d better hear it for yourself!”

  Roland went up the steps, pushed the other guard aside and listened.

  The sound of breaking furniture and shattering glass came through the Airstream’s metal door. Then there was a barely human wailing that sent a shiver creeping up even Roland Croninger’s spine.

  “Jesus!” Lawry said, blanching. “There’s some kind of animal in there with him!”

  The last time Roland had seen him, the colonel was immobile on his cot and burning up with fever. “Somebody was supposed to be with him at all times!” Roland snapped. “What happened?”

  “I just stepped out for about five minutes to have a smoke!” the other guard said, and in his eyes was the fearful knowledge that he would have to pay dearly for that cigarette. “It was just five minutes, sir!”

  Roland hammered on the door with his fist. “Colonel! Open up! It’s Roland!”

  The noise became a guttural grunting that sounded like a bestial equivalent of sobs. Something else shattered—and then there was silence.

  Roland beat on the door again, stepped back and told the guard to get it open if he had to blast it off its hinges.

  But someone else walked calmly up the steps, and a hand gripping a thin-bladed knife slid toward the door’s lock.

  “Mind if I give it a try, Captain?” Air whistled through the hole where Alvin Mangrim’s nose had been.

  Roland detested the sight of him, and also of that damned ugly dwarf who stood jumping up and down a few feet away. But it was worth a shot, and Roland said, “Go ahead.”

  Mangrim inserted the blade into the door’s keyhole. He began to twist the knife back and forth, a hair at a time. “If he’s got the bolts thrown, this won’t do much good,” he said. “We’ll see.”

  “Just do what you can.”

  “Knives know my name, Captain. They speak to me and tell me what to do. This one’s talking to me right now. It says, ‘Easy, Alvin, real easy does the trick.’” He gently swiveled the blade, and there was a click! as the lock popped open. “See?”

  The bolts had not been thrown, and the door opened.

  Roland entered the darkened trailer, with Lawry and Mangrim right behind him. “We need some light!” Roland shouted, and the guard who’d sneaked a cigarette popped the flame up on his lighter and gave it to him.

  The front room was a shambles, the map table overthrown and the chair broken to pieces, the rifles pulled off the wall rack and used to shatter lanterns and more furniture. Roland went into the bedroom, which was equally wrecked. Colonel Macklin was not there, but the lighter’s flame showed what looked at first like fragments of gray pottery lying all over the sweat-damp pillow. He picked one up and examined it, couldn’t quite figure out what it was; but some kind of white jellylike stuff got on his fingers, and Roland flung the thing aside.

  “He’s not back here!” Lawry yelled from the other end of the trailer.

  “He’s got to be somewhere!” Roland shouted back, and when his voice faded away he heard something.

  The sound of whimpering.

  Coming from the bedroom closet.

  “Colonel?” The whimpering stopped, but Roland could still hear rapid, frightened breathing.

  Roland walked to the closet, put his hand on the knob and started to turn it.

  “Go away, damn you!” a voice thundered from behind the door.

  Roland froze. That voice was a nightmarish mockery of Colonel Macklin’s. It sounded as if he’d been gargling with razor blades. “I ... have to open the door, Colonel.”

  “No ... no ... please go away!” Then there was that guttural grunting again, and Roland realized he was crying.

  Roland’s spine stiffened. He hated it when the King sounded weak. It wasn’t the proper way for a king to behave. A king should never show weakness, never! He twisted the doorknob and pulled the closet door open, holding the lighter up to see what was inside.

  Roland saw and screamed.

  He backpedaled, still screaming, as the beast within the closet— the beast wearing Colonel Macklin’s uniform and even the nail-studded hand—crawled out and, grinning crazily, began to stand up.

  The crust of growths was gone from the colonel’s face and head, and as Roland retreated across the room he realized the cracked pieces of it were lying over on the pillow.

  Macklin’s face had turned inside out. The flesh was bone-white, the nose had collapsed inward; the veins, muscles and knots of cartilage ran on the surface of his face, twitching and quivering as he opened those awful jaws to laugh with a shriek like fingernails on a chalkboard. His teeth had curved into jagged fangs, and his gums were mottled and yellow. The veins on his face were as thick as worms, lacing and intertwining across his bony cheeks, beneath the sockets of his stunned and staring ice-blue eyes, across his forehead and back into his th
ick, newly grown mat of graying hair. It looked as if the entire outer layer of facial flesh had either been peeled back or rotted away, and exposed was something as close to a living skull as Roland had ever seen.

  He was laughing, and the hideously exposed jaw muscles jerked and quivered. The veins writhed as the pressure of blood filled them up. But as he laughed his eyes swam with tears, and he began to slam his nail-studded hand against the wall again and again, dragging the nails down through the cheap paneling.

  Lawry and Mangrim had entered the room. Lawry stopped short when he saw the monster in Colonel Macklin’s clothes, and he reached for his .38, but Roland grabbed his wrist.

  Mangrim just smiled. “Far out, man!”

  72

  SISTER WAS DREAMING OF the sun. It burned hot in a dazzling blue sky, and she could actually see her shadow again. The sun’s royal heat played on her face, settled into the lines and cracks and seeped down through her skin into her bones. Oh, Lord! she thought. It feels so good not to be cold anymore, and to see the blue sky, and your own shadow looking up at you! The summer day promised to be a scorcher, and Sister’s face was already sweating, but that was all right, too. To see the sky no longer somber and overcast was one of the happiest moments of her life, and if she had to die she asked God to let it be in sunshine.

  She stretched her arms up toward the sun and cried aloud with joy because the long, terrible winter was finally over.

  Sitting in a chair next to the bed, Paul Thorson thought he heard Sister say something—just a drowsy whisper. He leaned forward, listening, but Sister was silent. The air around her seemed to ripple with heat, though the wind was shrilling outside the shack’s walls and the temperature had fallen to well below zero just after dark. That morning, Sister had told Paul that she’d felt weak, but she’d kept going all day until the fever finally struck her down; she’d collapsed on the porch and had been sleeping, fading in and out of delirium, for about six hours.