Pitch
Page 28
Then the remaining barrel fired, and the sack exploded in his hands, sending its grisly contents disintegrating into the cold Halloween night.
“No!” Pitch cried out. “Nooooo!”
He took two steps toward Maudie’s house, stopped and turned and looked up the trail, to what would have been his salvation. He felt himself weakening, his willpower spilling out like water down a drain as he staggered up the trail, desperately hoping Scratch might have mercy on him, make him whole again… save him.
He needs me. He’ll understand. Gotta hurry. Can’t be late. Gotta hur…
Pitch dropped to his knees and they splintered beneath him. But he wouldn’t stop. He crawled on all threes, shrieking and dragging his filthy and bleeding stump through the hard-packed dirt, pain screaming through his brain so loud he could barely remember why he had to keep going. Seconds later, he collapsed face first into the rock-studded hard-pack, his nose shattering as his cheekbone disintegrated beneath him.
He looked to his left and saw the moon reflected in the face of his watch.
It was 12:04.
Pitch closed his eyes, and felt pain like no human being had ever felt before. His imploding organs crumbled like baked clay, slipping and sliding away until nothing was left of them. His blood froze into a congealed mass that quickly began to evaporate. He looked at his one good hand, at the leathery skin withering before his eyes like a sun-dried grape. Screaming long and loud, he mustered all the strength he had left and rose up on his one good arm, and saw the full moon leering down at him.
He stayed liked that for a moment, and then collapsed onto his back, his fluttering eyelids closing as his skin shriveled, his hair and nails sprouting like magical vines as his life leaked slowly from him.
The recoil knocked Maudie flat on her back, shattering her shoulder as she crashed onto the floor. She didn’t know whether she had hit him or not. Lying on the porch, staring up at the full moon, she felt no pain from her injury.
She heard the specter cry out, “Nooooo!” and a blood-curdling scream.
“Trigger treat, you son of Hell!” she called out to him, and then struggled up and leaned back against the wall. She was looking out at the dirt road, when the man, trying to crawl away, fell forward against the old rock-filled path. When he rose up on one arm, and looked at the moon, Maudie gasped at what the pale light revealed. Half his face was missing. Right before her eyes, he changed. In a manner of moments, what lay before her withered like a flower tossed onto a burning ember, from young to old, to ancient. Seconds later, resembling something someone had dug up from a grave.
Maudie prayed that he wouldn’t come after her.
“Let it end,” she whispered, until what was left of this monstrosity fell onto its back, and Maudie closed her eyes, and drifted slowly away.
* * *
Tom Joiner heard a shotgun blast, and a man screaming bloody murder. On the two-way radio, he told Henry Walker gunfire had erupted down at Maudie’s place. Minutes later he pulled his jeep up to the old front porch, jumped out and ran to her side, and saw the shotgun lying beside her.
Maudie, groaning, opened her eyes.
“Hey, Tommy,” she said. “Looks like I done gone and busted up my shoulder.”
Tom knelt beside her. “Maudie,” he said. “What’s goin’ on here? What’d you do with that old shotgun? I didn’t even think it worked.”
Maudie laughed, and looked him in the eye.
“Tommy,” she said. “I shot the Devil tonight.”
“You what?”
“I shot him, Tommy. Seen him comin’ up the road, and I let him have it. Won’t no more kids go missin’ ‘round here.”
“Maudie, we’ve got to get you down to the hospital.”
“Don’t believe I’m goin’ to no hospital, Tommy.”
“C’mon, Maudie, you’re hurt pretty bad. You need to be looked at by a doctor.”
Maudie held out a wrinkled hand, and when Tom Joiner gently closed his big hand over it, she looked up and smiled. “Now, Tommy, I’m not goin’ off my mountain.” She struggled to get up, but she could barely move. “Help me to my bed, Tommy.”
Tom bent over and, gently scooping Maudie into his arms, he carried her inside and laid her carefully on the bed. When he turned to leave, Maudie spoke softly.
“Tommy, would you go and get me John Henry’s picture? It’s on the mantle over the fireplace.”
Tom handed Maudie the picture, and went out to the road to see if someone really had been shot. He stood in the middle of the narrow dirt path looking down at his feet, at a bloody shirt and a suit-jacket, a watch and a ring and a blood-soaked pair of pants, at a pair of shoes and two black socks that lay beside them. He picked up the pants and a handful of dust trickled from the legs. In the right front pocket was a roll of hundred dollar bills. In the back, an expensive leather wallet with a gold P stamped on its front.
He looked up the road but didn’t see anything, looked down the road and nothing was there. “What in the hell happened here tonight?” he said, and then walked inside to check on Maudie.
Too late, though, because moments after he handed her the old faded photograph, Maudie Mason closed her eyes, and slipped quietly over to the other side.
Epilogue
Earl Butler stood in the middle of the woods. He knew his old man was dead, and he sure as hell didn’t want to go to jail. He wondered if anyone would recognize him. The man in the cave told him no one would.
Earl hoped he was right.
He sure seemed to know what he was talking about.
With a New York Yankees baseball cap in one hand and the velvet sack Scratch had given him in the other, he looked down and saw… his bare feet.
“Oh well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as he walked off down the path. “One name is as good as another, I guess.”