A Long December

by Richard Chizmar

  So, when Warner offered close to seven figures for the motion picture rights to The Prey, no one was particularly surprised; and, despite his reservations about the book’s graphic nature, the offer proved too much for Drake to resist. He signed the contracts, kept his fingers crossed…and waited anxiously for the movie’s premiere.

  The film was a disaster, bearing little, if any, semblance to its source material. Warner’s final creation was a tasteless 98-minute, new-wave-director-on-speed’s version of hell on earth, a thumbnail away from an NC-17 rating. The film was overly violent and obscene and grossly erotic. Pornography for a mass audience, the angry reviews shouted.

  Concerned citizens protested the movie’s showing in dozens of cities. The critics hated it, the public hated it, and Drake hated it.

  And an underground group of fanatics who called themselves Mother Earth branded the movie “filthy” and “evil”—and hated it enough to kill.

  5

  One of them was gone.

  Drake leaned closer to the window and frantically scanned the yard. Christ, he could only see three of them. They were standing next to the van, watching the cabin, talking low. Drake squinted, trying to focus on their features. Too dark.

  The fire had eventually weakened, thanks to a limited supply of books. They must’ve bought out a dozen stores, he’d thought, watching them dump the last load. Drake had suspected that, with the book burning nearly complete, they’d make a move for the cabin soon. So, he’d left the window momentarily and hurried back to the nightstand, grabbed a full box of ammunition, and then returned. The process couldn’t have taken more than five or six seconds, but they must’ve known all along where he was watching from and taken advantage of his mistake.

  He finger-tipped a flannel shirt from the chair near the window and slipped it on. Then he emptied the box of bullets into the pocket over his heart. Again, he considered opening fire from the window, surprising them, and hopefully taking advantage of the confusion. He tensed. It just might work…no! Damn it! Drake thought. It would just force their hand that much quicker, show them that he wasn’t going to surrender so easily. Damn it! He thought he’d be ready for this. Ready for anything after what had happened back at home.

  The roof creaked and Drake flinched, almost dropping the gun. He imagined one of them standing directly above him, motioning to the others and laughing. Then lowering his weapon and drilling machine gun fire through the roof.

  The second-floor windows were unprotected, but the doors and windows downstairs were heavily boarded from the inside. They wouldn’t withstand constant battering, but they’d prevent a quick and easy entrance and allow Drake the time to defend the breach. He’d begun transforming the cabin into a fortress during the second day, feeling, at times, both paranoid and silly. Now, he knew he’d been right.

  Suddenly, he heard a crack of breaking glass and wood downstairs. Den window. Side of the house. Another crack followed.

  Drake glanced out the window again, a chill tracking his spine. Only one of them remained by the van now; the others had disappeared. Another board cracked. Louder this time. Closer. He sprinted for the stairs.

  6

  Mother Earth’s reign of terror had started two months earlier with a two-page letter to Warner Studios. The group had determined that The Prey was an “evil movie; a deranged portrayal of America’s youth,” and condemned the movie studio for making the film and blamed the book’s author for producing such trash.

  Over the course of several weeks, Warner and Putnam forwarded a total of twenty-three letters to Drake from the organization. None of the letters listed a return address, and the postmarks on the envelopes were from various states.

  Shortly after, similar letters began arriving at Drake’s post office box, an address he’d been certain only business associates were aware of. Finally, they began showing up at the house.

  All the letters were written in the same handwriting and all carried essentially the same warning: If you don’t stop the paperback release of The Prey, withdraw from your upcoming signing tour, and seek redemption for your sins we will have no choice but to punish you. And each letter was always signed the same: The faithful disciples of Mother Earth: Jessie. Carl. Randy. Willie.

  No one Drake spoke with had ever heard of the group and considering the apparent size of its membership, he wasn’t surprised. His publisher ran a check through the research department and even checked with the F.B.I., but nothing turned up on either’s computer files. The postal service tried but couldn’t help, and the police claimed that they needed more to go on than a stack of crazy letters. Their only advice: just ignore the freaks and they’ll eventually forget all about you.

  But they didn’t forget him.

  They sent more letters. Then packages. Cardboard boxes full of black ash and charred copies of The Prey: burned, they claimed, to symbolize their contempt for the novel’s author.

  Mutilated publicity photos of Drake.

  Mangled baby dolls, signifying the author’s ill effect on the country’s youth.

  Then, during the signing tour that Putnam had arranged, he’d begun noticing the same face in the crowd in different cities. A tall, raven-haired woman. Thin and very attractive. Well-dressed. Intense. Always closely watching him.

  He initially spotted her during a book signing, staring at him through the store window. Then…sitting alone at a corner table in a Detroit restaurant, walking in a Houston airport terminal, and in the passing crowd at several other signings. Only her professional appearance had kept Drake’s suspicions to a minimum. Perhaps she’s a stewardess, he thought. Curious and strangely attracted, he twice tried to follow her, but both times, she’d vanished.

  The woman finally confronted him during a signing at a Midwest Kroch’s & Brentano’s. She waited her turn in line, unnoticed by the author, then while Drake scribbled a signature, she leaned over and quietly introduced herself as Jessie from the organization Mother Earth.

  The words froze Drake and instead of grabbing the woman—as he would later wish he’d done—he was too terrified to even look up. After a moment, he dropped the pen and slowly lifted his head. The tall woman’s red lips spread into a smile, and he immediately recognized her as the woman he’d been seeing in the crowd.

  Before he could react, she doused the book-covered table with a container of clear fluid and set it afire. The crowd panicked and scrambled, and Drake knocked over two rows of paperback racks trying to escape the small fire. The woman disappeared in the ensuing commotion.

  The woman did not appear again, but there were six more book burnings. Each time hundreds of copies of The Prey were set afire on the sidewalk in front of the bookstore in which Drake was appearing. And each time the culprits escaped without a trace. Witnesses in each city reported that there were four persons involved: three men and a woman.

  Finally, after a bomb threat was phoned into a Washington D.C. mall bookstore, the tour was cut short and Drake was granted an early vacation.

  He returned to Baltimore, where the county sheriff’s office agreed to give him protection outside his home. But after a week passed uneventfully, the police left.

  Then, the phone calls began…

  The first call came late on a Sunday night, during the local weather broadcast on the eleven o’clock news. Drake had called it an early night and was reading an old Dean Koontz paperback in bed—half-listening to the news—when the phone rang. He picked it up after the first ring, startled and annoyed by the shrill interruption.

  “Hello.”

  “Is this Thomas Drake?” A woman’s voice.

  He immediately knew who it was on the other end. He shivered and stared at the closed bedroom door, the drape-shrouded window. His number was unlisted. Always had been. Only his agent, two editors at Putnam, and a few relatives and friends had the number. He couldn’t believe that they’d found it. He went to hang up the receiver, and then changed his mind. Just play it cool. Play their game.

&nbs
p; “Yes, this is Thomas Drake. And who is this?”

  “I think you know who this is. And I suggest that you listen very carefully to what I have to say.”

  “And if I don’t?” He got up from the bed and began pacing the carpet.

  “We are a very powerful organization, Mr. Drake. With resources beyond your comprehension. Trust me, we will find a way to make you listen. We always have in the past.”

  “You mean…Christ, you mean you’re done this before? I’m not the first person you’ve—”

  She laughed; an angry, ugly sound. “Oh, yes. There have been others. None as popular as you, of course, but there have been others.” She waited, then said. “Alex Forrester wouldn’t listen either. Do you remember him?”

  Jesus, he remembered. It had been in all the newspapers. Alex Forrester. Rock and roll musician. Heavy metal. Accused of headlining a satanic movement; using his music to recruit devil worshipers. Paralyzed last year in a highly publicized automobile accident. Brakes failed. Oh my God.

  “You…you were responsible for that accident—”

  “Do you know why we chose Mother Earth as our title?” she asked, ignoring the question. “Because we live by nature’s laws. There was a time when this earth was free of darkness and evil; it was pure. It is our mission to make this country pure again; to cleanse it of all filth.”

  “You’re crazy,” Drake whispered. “Absolutely crazy.” He’d known from the start that this woman and her Mother Earth followers were a bunch of lunatics. But until now, the real danger of the situation had failed to sink in.

  “The choice is yours to make,” she said, her voice rising. She was enjoying it now, taking pleasure from the control she held over him. “You still have time to seek redemption for your sins.”

  “What sins? Have you even read my book? I haven’t done anything. I’m not responsible for what ended up on the screen.”

  “Of course you are, you miserable man. The film is simply an extension of your vision. It is your message that must be stopped. Do you think the people see anyone else’s name on the movie credits? No, of course not. Only yours. And yours is the only name on the book cover. It is you who is responsible.”

  “No, that’s not true. Why are you doing this to me? You have no good reason to—”

  “NO GOOD REASON!” She was shouting into the phone now, her voice trembling with rage. “I have a fourteen-year-old daughter, lying comatose in a hospital room because of…of filth like you.”

  My God, he thought, she was crying.

  “My baby was once an innocent child, a pure person, Mr. Drake. But she was too trusting, too easily swayed. I didn’t see the warnings. I failed her. Her group of peers were evil; they read the filthy books, watched the filthy movies, and they acted as characters from those evil worlds. They lied to their parents. They drank and partied and dressed like sluts. They did things with boys. My baby was high on drugs when the car she was a passenger in went over an embankment. Now, she just lays there in that horrible hospital.”

  “What is it that you want from—”

  “The predators in this world,” she continued, “the spreaders of evil like you, think they are powerful and strong, but under nature’s laws, we know that evil breeds only weakness and purity offers eternal strength. Remember that, Mr. Drake. Remember that.”

  Drake sighed. “Just tell me what it is that you want me to do? We cut the signing tour in half. The paperback release is a week away. I couldn’t stop that even if I wanted to.”

  “You must repent for your sins. Speak with your public, to your readers. Warn them. Tell them you have repented. Tell them that the book is wrong, full of filth and lies and evil messages—”

  “I’m hanging up, lady. I can’t listen to this anymore. And don’t try to call back, because I’ll have the police put a tap on the phone and—”

  “Come now, Mr. Drake. We both know that the police will be of no help to you. They went through the motions for seven days and now you are all alone.”

  Drake shivered again and walked to the window, parting the white curtains with a finger. The side yard and street were empty.

  “Besides, if you keep calling, the police will just think the whole thing is a publicity stunt for the book. They didn’t believe Alex Forrester when he called, you know?” She was under control again, teasing him now, taunting. “Trust me, the police will be of no help. We are much stronger than you think.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Such harsh words.” She laughed. “The oldest rule of nature is that the strong shall survive and the weak shall perish. Don’t be weak anymore, Mr. Drake. For your own sake, don’t be weak.”

  He hung up, silencing the awful voice, and called his agent and told him of the latest incident. He didn’t call the police. Afterward, he left the phone off the hook.

  The next morning, Drake drove into town and bought an answering machine. He installed it that same morning and screened his calls the rest of the week. He counted over a hundred hang-ups before deciding to disconnect the line completely.

  Things went downhill fast after that night.

  Six days ago, on the exact day of The Prey’s paperback release, Mother Earth went over the edge and took Drake with them. He found the dog on his way to fetch the morning paper. The black Labrador was sprawled on its back, legs stiff, mouth open, and definitely dead. A smear of blood on the walk revealed that it had been killed in the grass—single bullet to the head—then dragged onto the concrete front porch. Stuffed between the dog’s teeth was a ball of glossy, colored paper—a wrinkled book cover.

  He buried his companion in the back yard, then showered and packed a single bag. He didn’t consider, even for a moment, calling the police.

  After a trip to the grocery store for supplies and food, he drove downtown to a pawn shop and picked up a brand new—at least that’s what the owner claimed—.38 caliber pistol and a dozen boxes of ammunition. Then he loaded the car and headed for the cabin.

  An hour later, he stopped at a crossroads convenience store and phoned Colin at the office. But instead of hearing Colin’s ever cheerful voice, Drake found himself speaking with one of Colin’s literary partners. “I’m afraid I have some tragic news to pass on to you, my dear Thomas.”

  Drake immediately knew what had happened.

  “The police were here this morning. It seems that poor Colin was…was shot to death in his apartment late last night. A foiled robbery attempt, the police suggested. There were signs of a struggle and the lock was damaged.

  “There was something strange, though. It seems that the killer tried to burn down Colin’s apartment by setting a pile of books afire atop his magnificent Persian rug. Now that makes perfect sense: the police think that the murderer was simply trying to cover his tracks. But what is so puzzling is that every single book on the pile was one of yours. I wonder where they all came from? Don’t you find that queer? It’s just so terrible—”

  Drake hung up, cutting him off in mid-sentence. He felt nauseous and sat inside the parked car for almost an hour before his head felt clear enough to continue.

  He arrived at the cabin late in the afternoon, an emotional mess. Anger. Fear. Disbelief.

  He was sure they would search for him; they’d gone too far now to turn back. The disciples of Mother Earth. He didn’t know who or what in the hell they were, but he was sure of one thing: they’d look for him and eventually find him.

  And he prayed he’d be ready.

  7

  Drake cleared the stairway in two strides and ran for the den window. He could hear the wooden boards groaning, surrendering under pressure. He crossed the kitchen and walked right up on the man who was climbing, legs first, into the cabin. The man’s blue-jeans were pushed up above his shins, exposing thick, hairy ankles. He wore no socks, but a leather holster holding a small pistol was strapped to his right ankle. The man was obviously stuck—probably caught on a jagged piece of board or a nail—and was grunting with effort.

>   Drake stopped short of the den carpet, hoping the man hadn’t heard his approach. Close range. In the back. He raised the .38, his arms shaking wildly, and took aim. Steele would never do it, he thought in a flash of sanity.

  He lowered the gun. Steele would just knock the bastard unconscious and tie him up.

  Drake looked up at the man again, at the gun hanging from his leg, and wondered if the same gun had been used to end his agent and longtime friend’s life. He imagined the man breaking into Colin’s apartment and pressing the gun barrel to Colin’s bald head and firing. He imagined the man stuffing the tattered remains of a book cover into his dog’s lifeless mouth, and…

  …Drake raised the .38 and pulled the trigger twice in a quick, jerky motion. The man spasmed, his legs kicking at empty air, and a pair of red mouths opened near the center of his back. He went limp.

  The adrenaline rush was overpowering and, for a moment, Drake felt as though he might faint. He steadied himself against the back of the sofa and brought the gun to eye level, as if he were unsure if he’d actually pulled the trigger.

  A loud crash and a sudden flash of light in the next room snapped him back. He moved cautiously through the kitchen, searching the shadows for movement, turned the corner and froze at the base of the stairs. A pile of broken boards lay at his feet, and the bay window stood wide open, the van’s headlights shining bright white into the cabin.

  The lights were blinding, but Drake leveled the gun and forced himself closer to the window. Holding his breath, he leaned over the windowsill and peered around the right side. Nothing. Then, to his left. Again nothing.

  He backed away from the window, shading his eyes with his gun hand. He was about to return upstairs when a long, silver canister flew through the window and exploded with a loud pop as it hit the floor. A second can followed, landing with an identical pop. A cloud of white smoke erupted with a hiss.