Two kids who weren’t going to make it.
Jimmy Pritchard stood up and ran past him, and Johnny Porter delivered a forearm to the side of Newton’s head, sending the psychotic twin crashing to the floor while a dislodged pistol skittered along the concrete between him and Nathan, who dove for it while Newton scrambled up to his feet.
Billy, feeling somebody gaining on them, could already have been on his way up the stairs if he had left Junior to fend for himself—and Junior had told him to go. But he couldn’t leave him. And now two hooded figures would be on them way before they had a chance to reach the steps.
Billy glanced back, and a hand reached out to grab him.
He tugged at Junior, trying to increase their pace, but it was no use.
A shot rang out and something crashed into Billy’s legs. On his way to the floor, two more shots exploded behind him, and Billy turned to see Clyde Barlow grabbing his chest, falling on top of another hooded figure, while across the basement, the remaining disciples converged on Mickey’s Clubhouse.
Three more shots and three more dark robes crashed to the floor, and Billy helped Junior to his feet. Something touched his foot, and he turned to see Barlow reaching out his hand, smiling at them with bloody teeth.
“Help me,” he said, his voice weak and rasping as he fell over onto his back, and Junior stared down at him.
“Oh, God,” Billy said, pointing at a group of men descending the stairs.
The boys turned to see Pitch’s group taking control of the sheriff and his men, and Jimmy running across the basement, turned back to the steps as a waistline, then the butt of a shotgun came into view.
“Run, Billy!” Junior cried out, and then pushed him away, falling to his knees as Billy raced across the basement.
* * *
Nathan got the gun, rolled and jumped to his feet, firing three shots at the ghouls chasing Junior and Billy, amazed when the hooded figures actually crashed to the floor. Whirling, he leveled the pistol at Newton, but his brother was gone. When he turned back around, Pitch’s followers were upon them. He looked for Pitch, but didn’t see him, emptied the gun into the crowd and three more dropped screaming to the floor. Nathan lowered his shoulder to take out the two closest to him, but could only tackle one. A paralyzing pain in his side rolled him off Charles Hadley; a boot to the side of his head left him staring up at a star-filled sky.
When his senses returned, he glanced to his right, at Walt, who sat with his back to the outer wall of Mickey’s Playhouse, his face pale, blood spreading out from the scalpel still lodged in his chest. Doc Fletcher and someone he couldn’t make out held Donnie’s arms behind him. Johnny lay on the floor with his eyes shut.
Somebody helped Nathan to his feet, and then slammed him against the wall.
“Nice try, Sheriff,” Pitch said, grinning at him. “Yes, nice try, but in the end, you’ll go back to Mickey’s, and I’ll still rip the heart out of that little nigger baby. And you know what?”
Nathan stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge Pitch’s presence.
“There’s not a goddamn thing you can do abou—”
A thunderous blast echoed through the basement, and Pitch, flinching, looked up to see Judge Harvey Lain, Willem and Jerry Mays, Jim Harris and Carver Pitts, standing at the bottom of the stairs, all of them holding shotguns.
Front and center beside Harvey Lain, was Pops Burgess.
Pitch turned to his remaining disciples to tell them to attack, but before he could say a word, Nathan grabbed him, slamming him head-first into the wall as Harvey Lain and his posse crossed the basement floor.
“All right,” Harvey Lain said. “Pull off those friggin’ Halloween costumes and line your asses against the wall.”
“Oh, my God,” Jim Harris gasped when he saw who was beneath the robes: Doc Fletcher and Charles Hadley, Damon Henry and Frannie Mitchell, the eighty-seven year old owner of The Dime Store.
“Miss Frannie,” Carver Pitts said. “You baby-sat that poor little boy went missin’ back in forty-two,”
“Fuck you,” she coldly replied.
There was Reverend Carter, Sid Haines and his two boys, Sam and Sid Jr.
Pops Burgess, walking up alongside Donnie and Nathan, said, “Where’s your brother?”
“Son of a bitch,” Nathan said. “He was here a second ago. I shot them two chasing those kids and—”
A child screamed, and Nathan said, “C’mon, Cuz!”, and he and Donnie took off running, Pops pulling his pistol and chasing after them as they hurried across the floor toward the first row of torches, whose faint light revealed Newton Hayes standing on the platform behind Billy and Jimmy, a fist full of hair in each of his hands as he pulled them past a demonic-looking statue, to the back of the slab, Billy holding little Johnny Porter in his arms as he stumbled backwards.
“Come any closer and I’ll kill all three of ‘em!” Newton called out, as they disappeared behind the statue.
Nathan and Donnie, running hard, jumped onto the slab and hurried past the statue, but Newton and the boys were gone.
“Son of a bitch,” Donnie growled. “The fuck did they go?”
“Must be some kind of secret opening,” Pops said, gasping for breath as he came up behind them.
“C’mon, Cuz!” Nathan shouted, and then took off running for the stairs, Donnie right at his heels, grabbing Pop’s pistol as he ran by him.
Newton pushed the boys up the dark passageway. Pitch had always thought the hidden stairway to be his little secret, but he’d known about it for a long time now. The very first time he saw Pitch appear on the slab, he knew something wasn’t right. Pitch said magic, and even though he smiled up at him with wide-eyed wonder, Newton knew it was bullshit. The first time he was left alone in the house, he went straight to the slab and looked for a button, a switch or something that might activate a sliding door or panel. It took him an hour to find and figure out how to operate the rectangle in the dragon’s chest, but it was an hour well spent, and he never let Pitch know what he’d found.
Using their hair as a reign, Newton pulled the whining children to a stop. Then, releasing Jimmy, he said “Kid, take off and I’ll kill the both of ‘em.”
Something clicked, and a door swung open, revealing a closet full of coats and umbrellas.
“Didn’t know about this, huh?” Newton grabbed another handful of hair and rushed them to the front door, and went straight to the garage to grab the white Ford, the car keys of which were stashed in his front pocket. As well as a pistol that had been hidden beneath the front seat.
Nathan and Donnie made it up the stairs and through the kitchen, through the parlor and out the front door, just in time to see the Ford’s taillights disappear down the driveway.
They were lucky.
They found keys in the ignition of the first car they checked.
* * *
Harvey Lain walked up to his brother-in-law. “Well, look at this. Guess now we know how a friggin’ bum like you got to be mayor. Know somethin’, I liked you better when you were a bartender.”
Hadley gave him a cold look, and turned away.
“The fuck’s this?” Harvey said. He walked over to Doc Fletcher, grabbed a piece of his shirt and pulled him stumbling to Walt Davis. “Can you save him?”
Fletcher shook his head, no.
Harvey pulled a pistol from beneath his jacket, and pressed its barrel against Fletcher’s forehead. “He dies, you die.”
“Oh, fuck you, Harvey,” Hadley sneered. “Fuck him, Doc. He ain’t gonna kill nobody.”
Harvey Lain walked up to Charles Hadley, put the gun in his face.
“Fuck you, Harve—”
And splattered the side of his head against the wall.
Then he pointed the gun back at Fletcher. “Doc?”
“Get his shirt off and let’s see how bad it is.”
Johnny Porter stood up, and leaned against the wall. “Judge,” he said. “Where’s my baby?”
“Nathan and Donnie’s gone after him,” Jerry Mays said. “He’ll be all right,”
Harvey Lain noticed E.L. and Junior bending over Jackie, trying to wake him.
“Willem,” he said. “Go over there and help them boys.” He nodded at Jackie and E.L. “Take ‘em upstairs.” Harvey put his hand on Fletcher’s shoulder. “How about it, Doc?”
Fletcher looked up, flinching at the hate-filled eyes staring down at him. “He’ll be all right,” he said. “Just let the blade stay where it is ‘til we get him to the hospital.”
Inside Mickey’s Playhouse, Johnny found Norval’s holster and belt. He removed the handcuffs, fished the key out of his pocket and opened them. Back outside, he told Jim Harris, “This son of a bitch is dangerous. Help me drag him over to that table.”
They grabbed Pitch and drug him to the table by the walk-in freezer. Johnny snapped a cuff around Pitch’s hand, and then slipped the other cuff through a hole on the side of an anvil, anchored to the table by four thick bolts, locked in place by decades of rust.
“This ought to hold him,” Johnny said.
“Carver,” Judge Lain said. “You and Jim get Walt here up to my truck, and let Willem run him and them three boys over to the hospital. Get him up to my truck and come on back down here.”
“What’re we gonna do with them?” Jerry asked, his wide eyes looking like they could pop out of his head at any moment.
“Tell you the truth, I don’t know what we should do with these sons of bitches.”
Carver and Jim returned to the basement to find Doc Fletcher and his comrades lined up against Mickey’s Clubhouse under the watchful eye of Johnny Porter and Jerry Mays, who stood glaring at them.
Judge Harvey Lain was nowhere to be found.
“Where’s the judge?”
“Checking out the room,” Johnny said. “There’s fourteen dead bodies in there. Norval’s in there, Timmy Butler, too, and all the little boys that ever got snatched.”
Harvey Lain stormed out of Mickey’s Clubhouse, joining Johnny and Jerry, Jim Harris and Carver Pitts as he picked up his shotgun and walked up to Pitch’s group, hatred blazing in his eyes as he stood before them.
“Now, Harve,” Fletcher said. “Don’t do anything hasty.”
Harvey cocked both barrels, and stared directly into Fletcher’s eyes.
“Wait, Harve. For God’s sake, wait a minute!”
“A while ago you were singing your praises to, what’d you call him, The Dark Master?” Johnny Porter said. “Now you can tell him how much you love him in person.”
Johnny leveled his shotgun.
“Harve, for God’s sake! You’re a man of the law!”
Harvey Lain smiled grimly. “That’s right, Doc,” he said. “I’m a judge, and twelve little jurors just sentenced your sorry asses to death.”
“Wait, Harve, wait!”
Harvey Lain closed his eyes, and thought of the innocent children lying dead in Mickey’s Clubhouse, and fired both barrels, cutting Doc Fletcher in half as a deafening roar filled the basement and his deputies followed suit, firing and pumping, and firing again, pumping and firing, firing and pumping, until not a soul who had stood before them could draw a single breath.
When it was over, and Pitch’s disciples lay dead on the blood-soaked floor, Harvey said, “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
“What about him?” Jim Harris said, nodding at the still unconscious Pitch.
“Leave him. We’ll let Johnny and Nathan decide what happens to that piece of shit.”
Harvey Lain led them up the stairs and through the house, past James Hastie, who lay in a heap on the sofa, splattered chunks of brain painting the wall behind him, a forty-five lying in a pool of blood by his feet.
“At least that son of a bitch did the right thing,” Harvey said.
* * *
Pitch woke up handcuffed to an anvil, his face bruised, his arm numb. He looked around, expecting to find the sheriff and his army of toothless coal miners, and was surprised to find himself alone in the basement. They had chained him to the anvil and removed all the tools from the bench.
Pitch looked beneath the table and saw a hammer, a screwdriver and a meat cleaver. The hammer and screwdriver were too far away, but if he stretched out as far as he could, he might be able to get his foot on the cleaver. He looked at his watch, and then down at the cleaver, remembering the last thing old Judge Croft had said to him, all those years ago.
We’ll be waiting for you, Pitch!
“No!” he shouted. “Hell no! It’s not going to end like this!”
He looked at the cleaver again, then back at his hand. Checked his watch again. It was eleven o’clock. He had two hearts in the velvet sack, but he needed one more. He had to get loose, and he had to get another heart for that fucking demon. He didn’t dare go up there empty handed. Once again he glanced down at the cleaver. Stretching his leg out, he touched the tip of his shoe to the cleaver’s handle, and slid it back to him. Then, kneeling down and grabbing the handle, he rose slowly to his feet.
He closed his eyes, and his entire life raced by as if he were watching a movie, all the good and all the bad things he’d done over the course of the last one hundred-and-six years. Was he ready for it to end now, and if it did, where would he end up? Pitch shuddered at the thought. He opened his eyes and looked at his watch. Ten minutes had gone by, a stretch of time that had felt like mere seconds. He raised the cleaver high above his head, and then brought the blade down on the handcuff chain, producing a sound of steel on steel that reverberated through the great hall as a slivered piece of blade splintered into the air.
Pitch looked down and saw a corner of the blade missing, and knew it was hopeless. The chain was too strong, and he dared not try again lest the blade shatter into pieces. He looked at the cleaver and looked at his hand.
Can I do it? he wondered. And if I don’t?
He knew the answer to that. He’d be dead by 12:13, a pile of dust by 12:14.
I can do it. I can do anything, take any kind of pain, and once I get to the cave I’ll be made whole again. He’ll see to that. If I die there’s no telling how long he’ll have to wait for another to come along. I’m just lucky that fool of a sheriff left me here alone.
Pitch raised the cleaver, closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. Then, opening them to make sure he wouldn’t miss, he brought the cleaver down as hard as he could, howling like a wild animal when blade found bone and blood sprayed from a wrist that shattered but did not sever from his hand. Screaming and growling and hurling epithets at God, he raised the cleaver one more time, and brought it down on the ruined limb with all his might. There was a loud whack, the cracking of bones as the blade sliced all the way through his mangled wrist, and Pitch howled like a wolf caught in a steel trap, blood spurting from the butchered wrist as he ran over and grabbed a piece of the leather he had used to tie down Gary Harbus. Using his right hand and teeth to fashion a knot around his wrist, he pulled the knot as tight as he could, and almost passed out.
He grabbed the edge of the table, and looked at his watch. Pain screaming through his body, he took off for the slab, and found the velvet sack beneath the altar. When Scratch handed it to him sixty-five years ago, it had been full of diamonds. Now there were two bloody little hearts in it, withered and grey. He stuffed the sack under his shirt, grabbed his ceremonial knife and raced up the steps.
Through the house he went, barely noticing James Hastie’s dead body as he ran for the front door, through the door and down the walkway, where he scrambled into his new Cadillac, started the engine and pushed the pedal to the floor, and took off like a rocket down his driveway.
Blood leaked from his throbbing stub as he roared down the mountainside; the searing pain of it pushing him to the brink of madness as he looked into the mirror, gasping at the blood on his shirt, on his face and his neck, his face as white as the under-belly of a fish. Outside, the moon shone down on the mountain across the way. He wou
ld be there soon, and then all would be right in the world.
* * *
Newton Hayes hauled ass up Seeker’s Mountain as fast as he dared, every curve he came to drawing him closer to the edge, while in the backseat Billy Belcher held little Johnny Porter gently to his breast, praying to God that his dad and the sheriff would catch up with them.
Newton looked in the mirror and grinned.
“Why don’t you just pull over and let us go?” Billy cried out. “They’ll stop and get us and you can get away.”
“I can’t, I need y’all. Don’t worry, it’ll be all right,” Newton said, touching the lump on the back of his head where the chair had smacked him, eyes narrowing as he raced up the old mountain road.
* * *
“I can’t believe I didn’t shoot that son of a bitch!” Nathan yelled on his way up the mountain. He knew he’d done right by saving Billy and Junior. Still, if he had used his first bullet on Newton, the crazy son of a bitch wouldn’t have his best friend’s son, and an innocent baby. Not to mention little Jimmy Pritchard, the brave little seven-year-old who had survived three nights in that house of horrors, and had saved all their lives.
Donnie stared straight ahead, unable to speak. Only a miracle could save his son’s life now. Halfway up the mountain, the Ford fishtailed off the road and slammed into the guardrail, righted itself and continued up the mountain. “There they are, Nathan,” he said. “Up there!”
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