Swan Song

by Robert R. McCammon

  In her sleep, though, Sister kept the leather satchel with the glass ring inside locked between her hands, and even Josh couldn’t loosen her grip. Paul knew she’d come too far with the glass ring, had watched over it and protected it from harm for too long; she wasn’t yet ready to give it up.

  Paul had presumed that finding Swan meant the end of the dreamwalk path. But in the morning he’d watched Sister peer into the depths of the glass, just as she had done before they’d reached Mary’s Rest. He’d seen the lights glitter in her eyes, and he knew her stare: The ring had taken her away again, and she was dreamwalking somewhere beyond Paul’s realm of senses and imagination. Afterward, when Sister had come back—and it was over in about fifteen or twenty seconds—she shook her head and wouldn’t talk about it. She had returned the glass circle to the satchel and hadn’t looked into it again. But Paul had seen that Sister was troubled, and he knew that this time the dreamwalk path had taken a dark turn.

  “How is she?”

  Swan was standing a few feet behind him, and how long she’d been there he didn’t know. “About the same,” he said. “As hot as a four-alarm fire.”

  Swan approached the bed. She was familiar by now with the symptoms. In the two days since Sylvester Moody had brought his gift of apples, she and Josh had seen eight other people with Job’s Mask who’d drifted into feverish, comalike sleep. When the growths had cracked open from the faces of seven of them, their skin was unmarked, their faces back to—or better than—what they’d been before. But the eighth one had been different.

  It was a man named DeLauren, who lived alone in a small shed on the eastern edge of Mary’s Rest. Josh and Swan had been summoned by a neighbor, who’d found DeLauren lying on the shed’s dirty floor, unconscious and feverish. Josh had picked the man up and carried him across the shed to his mattress—and Josh’s weight had popped open a floorboard. As Josh knelt to press the board back, he’d smelled the odor of decaying flesh and seen something wet and gleaming down in the gloom. He’d reached into the hole and brought up a severed human hand with most of the fingers gnawed away.

  And at that moment DeLauren’s face had cracked open, revealing something black and reptilian underneath. The man had sat up, screaming, and as he’d realized his hoard of food had been discovered he’d crawled across the floor, snapping at Josh with sharp little fangs. Swan had looked away before the rest of the man’s Job’s Mask had cracked apart, but Josh had grabbed him by the back of his neck and flung him head first through the door. Their last sight of DeLauren was as he fled toward the woods, clutching his hands to his face.

  There was no way to tell how many bodies had been torn apart and hidden under the shed’s floorboards, or who the people had been. DeLauren’s shocked neighbor said he’d always been a quiet, soft-spoken man who wouldn’t have hurt a fly. At Swan’s suggestion, Josh had set fire to the shed and burned it to the ground. On returning to Glory’s shack, Josh had spent the better part of an hour scrubbing his hands until he got the slime of DeLauren off his skin.

  Swan touched the Job’s Mask that covered the lower half of Sister’s face and clung to her skull. It, too, was hot with fever. “What do you think she looks like, deep inside?” Swan asked Paul.

  “Huh?”

  “Her real face is about to show through,” Swan said, and her dark blue eyes with their glints of many colors met his own. “That’s what’s underneath the Job’s Mask. The face of a person’s soul.”

  Paul scratched his beard. He didn’t know what she was talking about, but when she spoke he listened to her, just like everybody else did. Her voice was gentle, but it conveyed a power of thought and command that was far older than her years. Yesterday he’d worked out in the field with some of the others, helping to dig holes and watching Swan plant the apple cores she’d gathered after the big apple-eating festival. She’d explained carefully exactly how deep the holes should be, and how far apart; then, as Josh had followed along behind her with a wheelbarrow full of apple cores, Swan had picked up handfuls of dirt, spat into them, and rubbed the dirt all over each core before placing them in the ground and covering them. And the crazy thing about it was that Swan’s presence had made Paul want to work, though digging holes in the cold ground was not his idea of how to spend the day. She’d made him want to dig each hole as precisely as possible, and a single word of praise from her put energy in him like a charge into a weakening battery. He’d watched the others, too, and seen that she had the same effect on them. He believed that she could grow apple trees from each seed-filled core that went into the ground, and he was proud to dig holes for her until Gideon’s trumpet blared New Orleans jazz. He believed in her, and if she said that Sister’s real face was about to show through, he believed that, too.

  “What do you think she looks like, deep inside?” Swan asked him again.

  “I don’t know,” he finally replied. “I never met anyone with as much courage. She’s one hell of a woman. A lady,” he said.

  “Yes, she is.” Swan looked at the knotty surface of the Job’s Mask. Soon, she thought. Very soon. “She’ll be all right,” she said. “Do you need to get some rest?”

  “No, I’m going to stay here with her. If I get sleepy, I can stretch out on the floor. Everybody else asleep?”

  “Yes. It’s late.”

  “I guess so. You’d better get some sleep yourself.”

  “I will. But when it happens, I’d like to see her.”

  “I’ll call you,” Paul promised, and then he thought he heard Sister say something again, and he leaned forward to hear. Her head slowly moved back and forth, but she made no other sounds, and she lay still again. When Paul looked up, Swan had gone.

  Swan was too keyed-up to sleep. She felt like a child again on the night before Christmas. She went through the front room, where the others slept on the floor around the stove, and then opened the door. Cold wind swept in, fanning the stove’s coals. Swan quickly stepped out, hugging her coat around her shoulders, and closed the door behind her.

  “Mighty late for you to be up,” Anna McClay said. She was sitting on the porch steps next to an ex-Pittsburgh steelworker named Polowsky, and both of them were wearing heavy coats, caps and gloves and armed with rifles. At dawn, another pair of guards would take over for a few hours, and the rotating shifts continued all day and night. “How’s Sister doin’?”

  “No change yet.” Swan looked at the bonfire that burned in the middle of the road. The wind whipped through it, and a shower of red sparks wheeled into the sky. About twenty people were sleeping around the bonfire, and several more were sitting up, staring into the flames or talking to one another to pass the night. Until she knew where the man with the scarlet eye was, Sister had demanded that the shack be guarded at all times, a demand to which Josh and the others had readily agreed. The volunteers also stayed around the bonfires in the field all night, watching the cornstalks and the new area where the apple cores had been planted.

  Swan had told Josh and Sister about facing the man with the scarlet eye in the crowd that day, and she thought that maybe—just a little bit—she understood why he struck out to cause such suffering in human beings. She knew also that he’d almost taken the apple, but at the last second his unthinking rage and pride had won. And she’d seen that he hated her and hated himself for wanting to take a step beyond what he was; but he’d been afraid of her, too, and as she’d watched him stagger away Swan had realized that forgiveness crippled evil, drew the poison from it like lancing a boil. What might have happened if he’d taken the apple she didn’t know, but the moment was gone. Still, she didn’t fear the man with the scarlet eye as she had before, and since that day she hadn’t been looking over her shoulder to see who was coming up from behind.

  She walked to the corner of the porch, where Mule was hitched to the support post. The horse was kept warm by several blankets, and there was a pail of spring water for him to drink from. Finding food for him was a problem, but Swan had saved him a dozen apple
cores and was feeding him those, as well as roots and some straw that had been stuffed inside Mr. Polowsky’s mattress. He liked horses and had offered to help feed and water Mule. The horse didn’t generally take to strangers, but he seemed to accept Mr. Polowsky’s attention with a minimum of crankiness.

  Mule’s head had been drooping, but his nose twitched as he caught Swan’s aroma, and instantly his head came up, his eyes open and alert. She scratched between his eyes and then down at the soft, velvety skin of his muzzle, and Mule nibbled at her fingers with unabashed delight.

  Swan suddenly looked over toward the fire and saw him standing there, silhouetted by flames and sparks. She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel him staring at her. Her skin broke out in goose bumps under her patchwork coat, and she quickly looked away, concentrating only on rubbing Mule’s muzzle. But her eyes slid back toward Robin, who had come a few feet closer to the porch’s edge. Her heart boomed like a kettle drum, and again she looked away. From the corner of her eye, she watched him approach, then stop and pretend to be examining something on the ground with the toe of his boot.

  It’s time to go back in now, she told herself. Time to check on Sister again.

  But her legs didn’t want to move. Robin was coming nearer, and then he stopped again and peered out beyond the fire as if something else had taken his attention. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, seemed to be trying to decide whether to return to the bonfire’s warmth or not. Swan didn’t know if she wanted him to come closer or go away, and she felt as jumpy as a grasshopper on a hot rock.

  Then he took another step forward. His mind was made up.

  But Swan’s nerve broke, and she started to turn away and go back inside.

  Mule decided the issue by choosing that instant to playfully clamp his teeth on Swan’s fingers, holding her prisoner for the few seconds it took Robin to reach her.

  “I think your horse must be hungry,” he said.

  Swan pulled her fingers free. She started to turn away again, her heart pounding so strongly that she was certain he must hear it, like distant thunder over the horizon.

  “Don’t go.” Robin’s voice softened. “Please.”

  Swan stopped. She thought he didn’t resemble at all the movie stars in the magazines her mother used to read, because there was nothing clean-cut and Hollywood-handsome about him; he looked nothing like the well-scrubbed teen-age boys in the soap operas Darleen Prescott had watched. His face, for all its hard lines and angles, was young, but his eyes were old. They were the color of ashes but looked capable of fire. She met his gaze, saw that he’d loosened his mask of toughness. His eyes were soft—maybe even tender—as he stared up at her.

  “Hey!” Anna McClay said. “You go on about your business. Swan doesn’t have time for you.”

  His tough mask tightened again. “Who made you her keeper?”

  “Not keeper, smartass. Protector. Now, why don’t you just be a good little boy and go on—”

  “No,” Swan interrupted. “I don’t need a keeper, or a protector. Thank you for being concerned about me, Anna, but I can take care of myself.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I just thought he was botherin’ you again.”

  “He’s not bothering me. It’s all right. Really.”

  “You sure? I used to see his type strollin’ the midway, lookin’ for pockets to pick.”

  “I’m sure,” Swan replied. Anna gave Robin another warning glare, then returned to her conversation with Mr. Polowsky.

  “That’s telling her,” Robin said, smiling gratefully. “It’s about time she got her butt kicked.”

  “No, it’s not. You might not like Anna, and she sure doesn’t like you, but she’s doing what she thinks is best for me, and I appreciate that. If you were bothering me, I would let her run you off.”

  Robin’s smile faded. “So you think you’re better than everybody else?”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that.” Swan felt flustered and nervous, and her tongue was getting tangled between her thoughts and her words. “I just meant ... Anna is right to be careful.”

  “Uh-huh. So am I bothering you by being friendly?”

  “You were a little too friendly when you came into the shack and ... and woke me up that way,” she replied crisply. She could feel her face reddening, and she wanted to go back to the beginning and start the conversation all over again, but it was out of control now, and she was half scared and half angry. “And I wasn’t offering you that apple the other day, either!”

  “Oh, I get it. Well, my feet are on solid ground. They’re not up on a pedestal like some people’s are. And maybe I couldn’t help it that I kissed you, and maybe when I saw you standing there with an apple in your hand and your eyes big and wide I couldn’t help but take it, either. When I first saw you, I thought you were okay; I didn’t know you were a stuck-up little princess!”

  “I’m not!”

  “No? Well, you act like one. Listen, I’ve been around! I’ve met a lot of girls! I know stuck-up when I see it!”

  “And—” Stop! she thought. Stop right now! But she couldn’t, because she was scared inside, and she didn’t dare let him know how much. “And I know a crude, loudmouthed ... fool when I see one!”

  “Yeah, I’m a fool, all right!” He shook his head and laughed without humor. “I’m sure a fool for thinking I might like to get to know the ice princess better, huh?” He stalked away before she could reply.

  All she could think to say was, “Don’t bother me again!” Instantly she felt a pang of pain that sliced her open from head to toe. She clenched her teeth to keep from calling him. If he was going to act like a fool, then he was one! He was a baby with a bad temper, and she wanted nothing more to do with him.

  But she knew also that a kind word might call him back. One kind word, that was all. And was that so hard? He’d misunderstood her, and maybe she’d misunderstood him as well. She felt Anna and Mr. Polowsky watching her, and she sensed that Anna might be wearing a faint, knowing smile. Mule rumbled and exhaled steam into Swan’s face. Swan pushed aside her swollen pride and started to call Robin, and as she opened her mouth the shack’s door opened and Paul Thorson said excitedly, “Swan! It’s happening!”

  She watched Robin walking toward the bonfire. And then she followed Paul into the shack.

  Robin stood at the edge of the fire. Slowly, he balled up a fist and placed it against his forehead. “Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb!” he said as he hit himself in the head. He still didn’t know what had happened; he just knew he’d been scared to death even speaking to someone as beautiful as Swan. He’d wanted to impress her, but now he felt like he’d just walked barefoot through a cow pasture. “Dumb, dumb, dumb!” he kept repeating. Of course, he hadn’t met a lot of girls; in fact, he hardly had met any girls. He didn’t know how to act around them. They were like creatures from another planet. How did you talk to them without ... yeah, without coming off like a loudmouthed fool—which was exactly what he knew he was.

  Well, he told himself, everything’s sure messed up now! He was still shaking inside, and he felt sick down in the pit of his stomach. And when he shut his eyes he could still see Swan standing before him, as radiant as the most wonderful dream he’d ever known. Since the first day he’d seen her, lying asleep on the bed, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind.

  I love her, he thought. He’d heard about love, but he’d had no idea love made you feel giddy and sick and shaky all at the same time. I love her. And he didn’t know whether to shout or cry, so he just stood staring into the flames and seeing nothing but Swan’s face.

  “I believe I just heard two arrows hit a couple of rear ends,” Anna told Mr. Polowsky, and they looked at each other and laughed.

  73

  THE MAN WITH A face like a skull stood up in his Jeep and lifted an electric bullhorn. His jagged teeth parted, and he bellowed, “Kill them! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  Macklin’s roar mingled with the shout of engines firing and was
finally drowned out by the thunder of machinery as more than six hundred armored cars, trucks, Jeeps and vans began to move across the parking lot toward the Savior’s fortress. Dawn’s gray light was further dirtied by banners of drifting smoke, and fires burned on the parking lot, consuming the two hundred vehicles that had been wrecked or destroyed during the first two assault waves. The broken bodies of AOE soldiers lay dead or dying on the cracked concrete, and there were new screams of agony as the wheels of the third wave rolled over the wounded.

  “Kill them! Kill them all!” Macklin continued to shout through the bullhorn, waving the monster machines on with his black-gloved right hand. The nails protruding from its palm glinted with the fires of destruction.

  Hundreds of soldiers, armed with rifles, pistols and Molotov cocktails, moved on foot behind the advancing vehicles. And in a semicircle around the shopping mall, three densely packed rows of American Allegiance trucks, cars and vans awaited the onslaught, just as they’d waited for and repulsed the previous two. But piles of Allegiance dead littered the parking lot as well, and many of their vehicles blazed, still exploding as the gas tanks ruptured.

  Flames leaped, and bitter smoke filled the air. But Macklin looked toward the Savior’s fortress and grinned, because he knew the Allegiance could not stand before the might of the Army of Excellence. They would fall—if not in the third attack, then in the fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or seventh. The battle was winnable, Macklin knew. Today he would be the victor, and he would make the Savior kneel and kiss his boot before he smashed the Savior’s face.

  “Closer!” Macklin shouted to his driver, and Judd Lawry flinched. Lawry couldn’t stand to look at Macklin’s face, and as he drove the Jeep nearer to the advancing line of vehicles he didn’t know whom he feared most: the leering, ranting thing that Colonel Macklin had become, or the American Allegiance sharpshooters.

  “Onward! Onward! Keep moving!” Macklin commanded the soldiers, his eyes sweeping the ranks, watching for any signs of hesitation. “They’re about to break!” he shouted. “Onward! Keep going!”