Chester tossed the sack on his shoulder, then staggered for a moment until he got the load balanced. He wouldn’t be able to take a drink with both hands occupied, but the corn liquor hadn’t done him much good anyway. He’d gotten more sober as the night wore on, no matter how many sips he’d taken. He’d mostly been drinking out of habit anyway, taking comfort in the familiar way it burned his throat.
“What’s that?” DeWalt asked when Chester stepped out of the shed.
“Sevin. Fungicide. What you put on the tomato plants to kill off mold and such.”
DeWalt’s mouth fell open and Tamara smiled. Chester liked her smile. If he were thirty years younger . . . hell, she’d be thirty years younger, too.
“I know the shu-shaaa thing looks like some kind of plant-creature,” DeWalt said. “But how do we know if its chemistry resembles that of earth vegetation?”
“I think it adopts some of the host’s chemistry as part of its mimicking,” Tamara said. “Like the old saying, ‘You are what you eat.’ Maybe in the thing’s natural state, it’s invincible. But I think it’s vulnerable right now, at least compared to what it’s going to be. If it gets smarter by absorbing from the environment, maybe it absorbs some weaknesses, too.”
“Just the way it adopted the language of humans after it, uh, converted them?” DeWalt said.
“Yeah. And shu-shaaa also speaks the language of plants and rocks and dirt and water. Remember that strange music you heard?”
“Mushy shit,” Chester said. “Like what old Don Oscar was saying. The thing fucks big time with their brains, that’s for sure.”
“Besides, what do we have to lose?” DeWalt said.
“They’s some more stuff in here,” Chester said. “If y’all are up to toting it.”
DeWalt and Tamara walked up to the shed. Emerland followed with his head down. The developer had removed his tie and didn’t seem worried that his fancy shoes would never serve in high society again. But the rules of society had changed, even a rock head like Emerland could see that, and the Earth Mouth didn’t give a rat’s ass how much money a man had. It would gobble him up and use his shoulderbone as a toothpick.
Emerland looks like a man who’s had the truth slapped upside his head. Like a man finding out the kids he’d brought up had been made by somebody else. Or that cancer is eating away his guts and there’s not a damn thing to be done but pass blood and pray. Or that God didn’t give two shits about the human race, or else He wouldn’t let such bad things happen to it. A truth that ought not to be, but is.
Tamara went into the shed, then DeWalt followed. “Hey, here’s a five-gallon can of Roundup,” Tamara called to Chester.
“That would kick like a damned donkey, all right, but that’ll get mighty heavy mighty fast,” Chester said, his words gurgling around his chaw. He spat and gummed rapidly, excited despite feeling every single one of his sixty-seven years. Or was it sixty-eight now? Or a hundred-and-sixty-eight?
“I can handle it, Chester,” she said. “I know what’s at stake more than anybody.”
Chester figured this wasn’t a good time to haggle about equal rights and that other uppity horseshit he’d heard about. That was big-city worry, as far as he was concerned. In Windshake, women knew their place, for the most part. Didn’t stir up trouble. Still, she was probably in better shape than him and DeWalt put together.
If she really could read the alien zombiemaker’s mind—and Chester found himself believing all kinds of things that he used to laugh at when he saw them on the magazine covers in the grocery checkout line—then he might be wise to trust her judgment.
“Have a go at it, then,” he said. “That’s some Acrobat M-Z in the brown sack, DeWalt. Experimental stuff that’s supposed to kill blue mold on tobacco. Got to have a permit to buy it.” He laughed, choked on tobacco juice, spat, and continued. “But not to steal it, I reckon.”
“It’s concentrated poison,” DeWalt said. “It says on the directions that one tablespoon of this stuff makes a gallon of fungicide. Making this bag about a thousand gallons worth.”
“Maybe we can volunteer Emerland to bring it along, seeing as how your hands are full with that dynamite rig and the shotgun. What say, Emerland?”
Emerland stared vacantly ahead, then nodded as if he were a dummy on the knee of a stoned ventriloquist. He shambled into the shed, doing a pretty fair imitation of one of the mushbrains.
“Every little bit helps,” said DeWalt. “Or hurts, if you want to look at it that way.”
Emerland showed surprising energy in lifting the forty-pound sack onto his shoulder. Chester figured he probably worked out in one of those fitness clubs, with wires and weights hanging from metal bars and sweat seeped into the carpet. Probably hadn’t done an honest day’s work in his entire life, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, in Chester’s opinion. Emerland’s jaw clenched and his eyes shone with either grim determination or madness.
They gathered outside the shed, all looking silently toward the faint green glow on the far ridge. An owl hooted in the barn, lonely and brooding in the high wooden rafters. A wind tried to stir the brown leaves from the corners of the fence but gave up, too tired after a long winter’s work. A dog barked, followed by another’s, and the sound echoing off the cold mountains reminded Chester of old Boomer.
Tamara broke the peace of the waiting night. “Chester, can I use the telephone real quick?”
Chester looked up at the deep sky, at the gorgeous bright lights jabbed in the roof of forever, like holes put there so the world could breathe. He found himself wondering how many more of these Earth Mouth bastards were up there, riding the black wind on their way to wherever such as those were meant to be. He hated trying to look at the Big Picture, or worrying over the fuck-all Why. That was for preachers and college boys. Some things were just too big for a broken-down dirt farmer to understand.
“Power’s out. Phone might be out, too. Tree musta fell on the lines,” Chester said.
“I have to try,” Tamara said. “My husband’s probably worried sick by now.”
“Better let me come with you. Might break your neck in that mess.”
He laid the sack of Sevin across the Roundup can and led Tamara across the yard, wondering if all the chickens had turned by now, whether they were sitting with their stupid heads under their wings, their green eyes shut against the world. Probably dreaming of laying tiny rotten plums in their nests, come morning.
Chester wondered what might hatch out of those tainted eggs.
Or if he’d still be here when the sun pissed its yellow light down on the world again.
###
Little Mack crawled deeper under the trailer, his face pressed in the dry dirt. He was scared.
He could hear voices, only they weren’t making words. Just wet sounds. And he sort of recognized his mom’s voice. He wondered if she was one of them now.
Because he’d seen them fall out of the trailer, slide out of the door while he’d still been hiding in the bushes, just as the sun went down and he’d first started really getting lonely.
Jimmy, the mean one he’d seen lying naked on top of his mom that time, had walked like a drunk man across the yard and went into the Wellborns’ trailer, and Mack had heard screaming and yelling inside, then the Wellborns were walking like drunks, too, Sue and Grady and their little girl Anita, as they scattered and stumbled into the woods.
Anita had lifted her dress one time and showed him her panties when he’d given her a nickel, and she said for a dime that she’d take her panties off. But Little Mack never had a whole dime, that was a lot of money. Now he didn’t think he wanted to see under her dress even for free. Because her skin was slimy looking and her eyes glowed like Jimmy’s. And Jimmy was so slimy looking when he came out of the Wellborns’ trailer that he looked like he was dripping.
Mack held his breath as a familiar pair of boots appeared on the trailer step. Mack knew those boots inside and out. They had thick brown heels and smel
led like old baseball gloves, and Mack had once hidden yucky oatmeal in them. Those were Daddy’s boots.
Daddy was home and would make everything all right, just like that stupid pig cop had promised, only the stupid pig had let Old One-Eye kiss him on the lips, so he must be what Junior called a “queer.”
Daddy would beat up that ugly Jimmy and then they would all be happy and maybe Mom would slice up some wieners to put in the macaroni and cheese the way she sometimes did on special occasions. And maybe even Junior would come home, but this was Friday night, and Junior never came home on Friday nights.
At least Daddy was here, and maybe he’d even killed something and would be in a good mood. Sometimes he’d tack an old squirrel skin or raccoon fur to a board and give it to Mack, and Mack would rub it and sniff it and dream about playing out in the woods. Except now the woods scared him because it was full of the slimy people.
He crawled on his hands and knees to the front of the trailer and was about to call out when he saw that Daddy was drunk, too, only Daddy didn’t drink, even though Papaw Mull did and Junior did and Mom did and One-Eye did and Jimmy did and everybody. But not Daddy. So why couldn’t Daddy walk straight?
Then Mack saw that Daddy’s jeans were damp, as if he’d peed in his pants. Except the wetness was slimy, like motor oil or syrup. Which meant . . .
Which meant that Mack better not make a sound.
Which meant if he was going to cry, he’d better let the tears slide soft down into the dust. He couldn’t break into a bawling fit. Junior said Mack was just an old bawl-baby, anyway. And maybe he was, but he was scared, scared enough to wet his pants, and it was dark and Daddy was slimy.
His mom came out of the trailer.
She stood in the yard and tried to call. “Muh . . . aaaaaaaahck.”
She was naked in the moonlight and covered with milky snot. He bit his tongue and didn’t answer.
###
The alien pulsed, its glutinous sap coursing through its root system. Its spores were still spreading, but with the lack of solar radiation, its cellular activity had slowed. It took advantage of the rest to analyze the other symbols it had collected.
May-zee. Mush. Muh-aaack. Kish.
Jeesh-ush. Ahhm-feeel.
Chesh-urrr.
And those it had gathered before: shu-shaaa, maz-zuh, nig-urrr, peg-heee, eyezzz, chreez.
And the one its heart-brain kept returning to, the one which glowed deep in the furnace of its metabolism: tah-mah-raaa.
The symbol must have meaning. The alien had dissected many different kinds of patterns in its trip across the cosmos. Solving this one was only a matter of time. And it had forever.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tamara followed Chester into what she thought must be his kitchen. She saw only the outlines of things, lesser shadows in the blackness. An old wood cook stove lurked heavily in the corner. The bones of broken furniture protruded from heaps on the floor. She smelled the damp soot of the chimney, the sweet odor of liquor and decaying fabric, and the thick whang of rancid bacon grease. The cool March air seemed cloying in here, pressing against her like a second skin.
“This way, darling,” Chester said to her. She bumped into his back as he stopped suddenly.
I can see into the future, but I can’t see in the dark.
The random syllables skittered across her mind, as elusive as wet rats: shu-shaaa, maz-zah, muh-aack. The green glow radiating from the ridge was the visual equivalent of those sick psychic signals she was receiving, its dim pulse growing stronger in the forest beyond the door. As they’d driven past her Toyota on the way to Chester’s farm, the signals had been more intense, direct, personal.
“There’s a tone,” Chester said, and she felt his leathery hand and cold plastic pressing against her arm. She took the phone and squinted at the old-fashioned rotary dial. She counted the holes with her fingers and rang her home number.
Robert answered before the first ring had died away. “Tam?” he said, breathless.
“Yes, sweetheart. It’s me.”
He sighed in either relief or anger. “Where the hell—I mean, I’m sorry, I’ve been worried sick—where are you, honey? Are you okay?”
She nodded, fighting the tears and laughter that wanted to mix themselves together. “Yeah, I’m fine. God, I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. What’s going on?”
“It’s a long story. You know the Gloomies?”
“Um—”
“They’re here. It’s here.”
“What?”
“And it’s bigger than I thought. Are the kids safe?”
“Sure. They’re sleeping. Now what the hell—”
“Keep them inside, no matter what. I’ve got to go, honey. I just wanted to let you know I was okay. I’ll be home soon.”
I hope. God, to be back in my warm bed right now, my flannel nightgown on and Robert snoring, with no Gloomies dancing and no visions painting themselves inside my head. No shu-shaaa and peg-heee and all this other random madness. Just plain old ordinary problems.
“Don’t go,” Robert said.
“I have to. Take care of the kids.”
“Tam, Ginger has it, too,” he burst out before she could hang up.
“What?”
“Seeing things. You know. She said something about the people with green eyes. Honey, does that have anything to do with your Gloomies?”
“Yes. Oh, God, Robert. Don’t let anything happen to them.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“No. It’s better this way. I love you,” she said, and this time she couldn’t stop the tears.
Chester took the phone from her. “Your wife’s in good hands, mister. Don’t you worry none.”
Then Tamara heard Chester draw a sharp breath. The phone dropped to the floor. Wet, oozing hands clutched her shoulders. The Earth Mouth must have overwhelmed her senses, because she hadn’t registered the creature sloughing up behind her. Now, at the contact, her mind sparked and she was connected, for a fleeting moment, with the thing that had once been called Junior Mull.
His scrambled synapses shot her a broken jumble of symbols, fishfuck moonshine taxismoke shu-shaaa cheshur cheshur cheshur chesssh—
She twisted to escape, but he—it—was only pushing her aside, as if she were standing in the way of its dead heart’s desire. Its green eyes were locked onto Chester, glowing like radioactive gemstones in the coal mine of the room.
“So, come to claim the family keep, huh?” Chester said, with more than just a touch of mania in his voice.
The thing stepped past Tamara, leaving a slick trail on her shoulders where its limpid fingers had clutched. It closed on Chester, panting in a moist expiration that passed for its breath. Tamara realized the creature’s instinct had brought it here as if reeled in by some ancestral fishing line.
Her clairvoyance had been slow in picking up what Chester had instantly understood. Because Chester recognized the dripping, waxen hulk of swampmeat that reached its limbs toward him.
“Junior, just get the fuck on back. You ain’t right no more. Don’t you see that, boy?” Chester shuffled slowly backward across the wooden floor.
“Shu-shaaa . . . shay . . . home . . .,” it said, gurgling as if its wide, wet mouth was full of snuff. “Shay . . . kish . . . chesher . . .”
The green eyes cut a path like flashlights, and Tamara saw the rictus of Chester’s face in their glow. She felt along the kitchen counter as the Junior-creature closed on Chester. The old man had his hands up in front of him as if to offer peace, but the creature’s peace was more insistent, more urgent, more compelling.
Tamara’s fingers brushed across some dishes and felt the rim of the sink. A jar tumbled, throwing a silver glint before shattering on the floor. Then her fingers closed on greasy metal and she lifted, finding comfort in the weight that filled her fist. She stepped forward quickly and swung with all her strength. The iron skillet smacked flush against the thing’s skull with a s
ound like someone stomping grapes.
Milky luminescent fluid burst from the pulpskin and oozed down the stem of the creature’s neck. The thing turned to Tamara, flashing a toothless smile made bright by the iridescent scarlet-red pistils dangling in its deep throat. A throat that was the lily of her dream, the throat that was a smaller replica of the Earth Mouth, as if the creature and the shu-shaaa Gloomies shared a common hunger.
Pupil and master.
Acolyte and high priest.
The seeker and the enlightened.
The pollen mote and the God seed.
The yield and the harvest.
She swiped sideways with the skillet and it axed into the soft neck. The creature’s head canted to one side like a cornstalk hit by a hailstorm. She chopped again, her hand slick with the thing’s leakage, and the head rolled off, hitting the floor like a blob of wet dough. The decapitated body swayed for a moment, then regained its balance and took a juddering step forward.
Something gripped her elbow and she almost swung the clot-soaked skillet again. But she saw Chester’s too-wide shining eyes and stopped herself. Through his touch, she could sense his fear and revulsion, she could feel his hatred of the thing that had brought such horrors. His anger smelled like stale sweat and shorted-out copper wires.
Chester tugged at her, leading her out of the house, his thin fingers pressing her flesh like iron bands.
“Who was it, Chester?” she said, once they were on the porch, panting in the safety of moonlight.
“Guh—grandson.” Chester gasped. “Just like fucking chickens, these things is—they come home to roost.”
Tamara tossed the skillet off the porch and rubbed the creature’s oily juice onto her skirt. DeWalt must have heard the struggle, because he ran toward the porch steps, his hands clenched around the shotgun.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Family reunion,” Chester said, looking over the hills. “Now let’s go blow this alien sonavawhore back to Kingdom Come.”
Scott Nicholson Library Vol 2 Page 24