Nathan floored the accelerator, trying to make up ground before the murdering son of a bitch did something crazy, like kill one of the boys.
* * *
Pitch took the sharp turn on May Street on two wheels, raced down to Dingess and on up to High Street, where he glanced down at his watch, which read: Eleven-twenty-nine.
“Hurry,” he said. “You’ve got to hurry.”
He screeched to a stop in front a tricycle that lay in the yard of a yellow-trimmed house, grabbed his knife and stumbled from the car, and then staggered across the yard. Delirious, close to losing consciousness, he climbed the front porch steps and pounded on the door.
“Help!” he wailed. “Please, help me! I need a doctor!”
The ruckus Pitch made brought Kerry James jolting upright in his bed, grabbing his wife, whose feet were already touching the hardwood floor.
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
He ran through the living room and opened the door, gasping at the white-haired specter who stood before him holding a ragged and bleeding stump of meat close to his body, his sallow face the color of candle wax.
“My God,” Kerry said. “Are you all right?”
William Pitch, pale as a ghost, smiled at the Samaritan.
“Yes,” he said. “I think I’ll be all right… now!”
His hand came up, burying and ripping the blade across Kerry’s chest as he stepped inside, shoving Kerry to the floor and hurrying through the living room, where he collided with a young woman who seemed to have come out of nowhere, dislodging Pitch’s knife as he stumbled and fell.
She ran for the door, but he tripped her, sending the frightened woman tumbling onto the hardwood floor. Seconds later, the knife back in his hand, Pitch stabbed her, and kept on stabbing until she lay motionless beneath him.
He struggled to his knees, up to his feet, as a tiny little voice said, “Mommy?”
She stood three feet away, a frightened little girl looking down at her mother, while Pitch pounced, a lion’s snarl filling the room as the knife swept down and her chest was opened… the hand went in and the heart came out, and a ritual as old as time itself beckoned this wide-eyed lunatic, who looked down at his watch, which read eleven-forty-six.
“My God!” he said. “I’ve got to hurry!”
Pitch produced the velvet sack, and crammed the heart inside it. Then he stumbled over the fallen woman, stepped across her dead husband’s back, and headed for the car, down the stairs and across the yard.
Three feet from his Cadillac, he finally heard it: “Stop right there!”
Two doors down, a man in a housecoat had been screaming and yelling, pointing a pistol at Pitch. Soon the whole neighborhood would be after him.
“I said stop, you son of a—”
Pitch stepped into the glaring streetlight, drawing a gasp from the pistol-wielding neighbor, who stood before a blood-drenched man with a raw-red pulp of a stub where a hand should have been.
He tossed the sack through the window and gripped the door handle, ignoring the shouting neighbor as the door came open and three shots rang out, one bullet ripping through his shoulder, bringing the already unbearable pain to an even higher level while Pitch jumped into the car, slamming the door as three more shots tore through the Cadillac’s roof, one bullet smacking the dashboard while another hit the gear-shift, and yet another ripped through Pitch’s ear, shattering the windshield as Pitch screamed and stomped the accelerator, tires screeching as he flew up High Street, headed for the most important meeting of his life.
* * *
Newton Hayes was getting close. He could feel it. Once he crossed the mountain he’d be free. Free of Nathan and free of Pitch. Free of the three little shits in the backseat, and free of the law. Free, with enough money to live out his life like a king. Free to do as he pleased. And he pleased to keep right on doing just what he’d been doing since William Pitch had taken him under his wing. He looked at the faint glow of headlights in his rearview mirror. A few turns back his rear tire had slipped over the edge. Without realizing it, he’d slowed down, acting instinctively to preserve his safety. Now he was in danger of being caught. He jammed his foot on the gas pedal.
“Fuck you, motherfuckers!” he screamed, gravel flying and tires screeching, the howling engine drowning out the screaming children as he raced toward the mountain’s peak.
* * *
“We’re right on his ass now!” Donnie cried out, checking the chamber of the .38 Pops had tossed him, and finding it to be full. “C’mon, step on it!”
Nathan thought of all the terrible things he’d learned in the last week. Secrets. Some best left untold, but now they were out. Vonda Peters and what she’d done to her own husband. Charles Hadley, the fucking mayor, for Christ’s sake. He’d given his first-born son over to that monster, and then watched the son of a bitch murder him—for money. Clyde Barlow, Reverend Carter, Doc Fletcher, Clark Jacobs, Sid Haines and his two boys. Thirteen slaves. Slaves to a hundred-and-six year old man who had stopped aging long ago.
Secrets best left untold.
He thought of Annie Bridges and Jeb Davis, and how mild mannered Barney Linton had been forced into the bank, forced to take his own life.
Pitch… Billy Dillon… Pitch… Barney Linton… Pitch… Daddy… Pitch… Pitch!
Tears welled in his eyes as he thought about the father who had told him something didn’t feel right, and he was right. It wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
Killed by his own son, Nathan’s own brother.
The twin he had mourned for the last twenty-six years… Pitch!
Nathan’s eyes narrowed. Twenty or so yards in the distance, the Fairlane roared toward the mountain’s crest. This time he would kill him, his own brother.
Then he’d deal with Pitch.
“You see that?” Donnie cried out, a mixture of fright and excited disbelief lacing his voice.
“Jesus Christ!” Nathan said, the car fishtailing in the gravel, tires howling as he swerved back onto the asphalt.
* * *
Pitch raced up High Street until the asphalt tapered off into a dirt road, the dirt road into a narrow dirt path barely able to accommodate a jeep, much less the big luxury vehicle he was driving. He passed the last house on the left, and looked at the time: Eleven-fifty.
“I’m going to make it!” he yelled. “I’m going to make it!”
Nothing could stop him now, nothing and nobody.
Tree branches and bushes scraped the car and windows as he bounced his way along the trail, squealing and squeaking like chalk on a blackboard, or fingernails clawing the inside of a pine casket. Twice his front tire left the narrow roadway, but he didn’t even slow down. He didn’t dare.
He glanced into the mirror.
He looked bad.
Blood-spattered white hair lay plastered against a thin skull draped by pale skin, yellow as puss, as if a corpse were driving the Cadillac. His shoulder ached; the bloody stub at the end of his wrist screaming with white-hot pain. Every beat of his heart sent a searing throb of agony through the jagged remains of his mangled ear.
But he was there.
A heartbeat away.
The Cadillac dropped into a deep hole and its frame ground to a halt, and Pitch grabbed the sack and staggered from the car. Ten yards ahead stood the old farmhouse, where the smell of fried chicken had wafted through the air, sixty-five years ago almost to this very minute.
“I’m there!” he cried out, as he started up the narrow dirt road toward the invisible cave, where salvation waited.
“I’m there! I’ve made it!” he shouted, laughing wildly, insanely.
* * *
Something was happening. Someone, or some thing, was coming. All week long she had felt the presence of evil, and now it was scratching and clawing its way up the old mountain road.
Maudie closed her bible. “Help me, Lord,” she said. “Show me what you want. Tell me what to do. A sign… give m
e a sign.” She stood up and walked to the window, parted the curtains and looked down the road.
She could feel him closing in.
He was happy.
He’d won.
Maudie walked over to the mantle, stood in front of the fireplace and picked up the old photograph of John Henry Mason, the only man she had ever loved.
“I’ll be seeing you real soon, John Henry,” she said. “I can feel it now, feel it in my weary old bones.”
She walked over to her grandmother’s old oak rocker and sat down, held John Henry’s picture to her heart, and then placed it in her lap. Tears clouded her eyes as she thought of her dearly departed husband, whose very presence filled the air around her. He was here. She could feel him, feel his spirit watching over her. She set the old photograph by the lamp, got down on her knees, and started the Lord’s Prayer.
And heard it.
From somewhere up the mountain came a deep-throated roar as loud as a thunderclap. As if the mountain itself was outraged, demanding payment on something long overdue.
A THUMP!
And a car door slamming.
A voice crying out, “I’m there… I’m there… I’ve made it!”
Pitch’s insane laugh echoing through the night, as Maudie stood up, crossed the room and placed the picture on the mantle.
“Thank you, God,” she said. “I asked for a sign, and you gave me John Henry’s picture. Blessed be thy name.”
She placed a stool in front of the fireplace and held onto the mantle, steadied herself and climbed onto the stool. Then, stretching an arm as far as she could, she gripped the old double-barreled shotgun and pulled it off the rack, found her way back to the floor and carried the shotgun to the front door.
She opened the door and stepped onto the porch, and saw it, something coming up the old dirt road, moving fast, a man, moving quickly along the old trail, a bag dangling from his right hand, his left hand… missing.
Maudie cocked both barrels, and hefted a shotgun that hadn’t been fired for more than eighty-five years.
“Thy will be done,” she said, and then lined the sights on the specter from her nightmares, which now stood right in front of her.
And Maudie finally understood why God had kept her alive all these years. It was up to her to stop him, to stop it, once and for all.
Maudie pulled the trigger but the shotgun didn’t fire.
“Fuck you, you dried up old bitch!” Pitch called out, laughing the laugh of the insane as Maudie lined him up one more time, pulled the last remaining trigger… and missed.
* * *
Newton Hayes tasted freedom, and, just like his mentor, he was laughing, screaming insanely as he looked ahead to the mountain’s crest, to redemption… to renewal.
Billy held Little Johnny close to his chest, terrified as he looked into the baby’s calm face. For the last few minutes, their captor had been babbling a maniacal string of nonsense Billy couldn’t understand, and now he was really going bananas. Billy looked over at Jimmy, who was staring straight ahead as if he didn’t even know he was there, while Billy, clutching little Johnny to his breast, looked up at the headlights in the rearview mirror.
Please, God, he prayed. Help us!
Little Johnny Porter winked at him, and then giggled, and Billy thought he must be going as crazy as Newton Hayes. He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt a hand on his chest as warm and tender as his own mother’s. Billy looked to his left and felt his jaw drop all the way to China. Sitting calmly between him and Jimmy was a shimmering form with long flowing hair, dressed in a white gown that billowed in the wind blowing through the open window. Almost completely transparent, her white hair waved about her head as if floating on water. And she was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Billy looked through her shimmering gown, and saw a wide-eyed Jimmy Pritchard staring back at him.
“Brace yourself,” she whispered. “It’s almost over.” Keeping a hand on each of their chests, she smiled down at the infant. “Isn’t it, little one?”
“What? Huh?” Newton looked into the mirror and the car started to drift. He too had seen the beautiful woman—sitting in the backseat, glaring at him.
“The fuck,” he said.
He looked back at the road and regained control of the car, looked into the mirror, and saw Missy Thomas as she actually looked lying in her grave at the cemetery. This can’t be real! he thought, and then turned his head toward her, the putrid stench of thirty-nine years in the grave flooding into the front seat, gagging Newton as Missy grabbed his face and kissed him, savagely thrusting a rancid and rotted tongue into his mouth, easily parting his clenched teeth, driving him out of what was left of his deranged mind as he screamed and jerked the wheel, sending the careening Ford Fairlane headlong into an old oak tree, the engine exploding as Newton Hayes flew through the windshield, shattered glass raining down on the old country road while the howling maniac skidded face first across the asphalt.
Billy, looking at the beautiful woman, whose gentle hand remained on his chest, felt as calm and controlled as little Johnny Porter, who lay in Billy’s arms, laughing and cooing like a baby pigeon.
When they collided with the tree, Billy and Jimmy and little Johnny didn’t feel a thing. They didn’t move an inch. When Nathan and Donnie pulled up behind them, Billy looked back and smiled, waving to let them know he was all right. When he turned back, as quickly as their savoir had appeared, she was gone.
Donnie and Nathan saw the shimmering form of the woman in the backseat, and thought they were going crazy. By the time Nathan regained control of the car, Newton was farther away. Nathan floored the gas, and the distance began to close, and Donnie, realizing he would never be able to chance a shot with his son sitting in the car, reluctantly put his weapon away. They rounded the curve just in time to see Newton plow headlong into what was probably the oldest and biggest oak tree on Seeker’s Mountain, their hearts sinking as Newton exploded through the windshield.
Screeching up behind Newton’s car, they didn’t look in Billy’s direction.
They were too frightened of what they might see.
Nathan walked past the Ford to his dying brother, while Donnie ran to the Fairlane. Hot, steamy smoke poured from the radiator at the front of the ruined engine, which was pushed all the way into the front seat. Shattered glass was everywhere, on the seats and on the floorboards, on the crumpled hood and on his son, who sat quietly beside Jimmy Pritchard, holding Johnny Porter’s baby in his lap, not a scratch on either child as, Donnie, excitement building, adrenaline pumping, turned to Nathan.
Motionless on the asphalt, his face nearly gone, Newton Hayes stared up at the sky, a shredded flap of skin hanging from his cheek while blood running down his face formed a puddle under his chin. He knew he was dying, and wondered why he didn’t care. He looked up to see his brother walk toward him, and then shake his head and walk away.
It was like slow motion, like in the movies.
Nathan stood with his big hands covering his face. He didn’t see his dying twinwho by now didn’t resemble Nathan or any other human beingstanding behind him on unsteady legs, moonlight glinting off the pistol he held. Donnie tried to cry out, but there wasn’t enough time.
Jagged bones poked through one of Newton’s legs as he pushed himself to his knees, but he kept moving until he was on his feet, standing in a puddle of blood that bathed the road around him.
I’m going to hell, he thought, but you’re going with me.
He hefted the pistol and pointed the barrel at Nathan, pulled the trigger and a flash of light blinded him.
* * *
Pops arrived at the empty police station at eight-thirty. Ironically, the first person he called was the mayor, but he was already at Pitch Place. He called Nathan’s home and introduced himself as a police officer from Charleston, and found that Nathan and his deputies hadn’t come home last night. He asked Sharon Hayes for the name of the one person in town she could trust. An hour later, Harvey Lain and his p
osse of coal miners walked into the police station.
Now it was almost over.
Pops heard the explosive sound of steel colliding with sturdy oak as raced up the mountain. Gravel flying, tires screeching, he came upon a faceless horror standing in the middle of the road, pointing a gun at Nathan’s back. He flashed his headlights to bright as a shot rang out, and Nathan dove to the ground.
Newton Hayes never knew what hit him.
Pops jammed his foot on the accelerator, plowing into the crazed psychopath, the rear end jumping as he slammed on his brakes, skidding down the highway with Newton pinned beneath his tires.
Donnie took little Johnny in his arms, and pulled Jimmy and Billy onto the road.
Walking toward Nathan, he heard Billy cry out, “Dad, Uncle Nathan! Up there!”
Nathan and Donnie looked to the top of Seeker’s Mountain, and saw a beautiful woman staring back at them, her gossamer gown billowing in the breeze as she floated to the mountain’s crest.
Billy chased Jimmy to the top of the mountain.
By the time Nathan and Donnie reached them, Missy Thomas was already halfway down Seeker’s Mountain, turning into the foggy mountain mist that a few hours later would roll down into the valley below.
* * *
When Maudie pointed John Henry’s old shotgun at him, Pitch thought, Oh yeah, I’ll be right back for your little ass.
When the shotgun clicked on an empty chamber, he cackled and cursed her.
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