1987 - Swan Song v4

by Robert McCammon

  “I guess so. A doctor friend of ours calls it ‘Job’s Mask.’ He thinks what’s in the air causes some people’s skin to crust over. Damned if I can figure out why it just screws up the face and head, though.” She reached out and touched the girl’s forehead, then quickly jerked her hand back. Under the Job’s Mask, Swan was running a fever that had almost scorched Sister’s fingers. “Does it hurt?” Sister asked.

  “Yes. It didn’t used to hurt so much, but now… it’s all the time.”

  “Yeah, mine, too. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen. Josh keeps track of my birthday for me. How old are you?”

  “I’m—” She couldn’t recall. She hadn’t kept up with her birthdays. “Let’s see, I think I was in my forties on the seventeenth of July. I guess I might be in my fifties now. Early fifties, that is. I feel like I’m gaining on eighty.”

  “Josh said… you came a long way to see me.” Swan’s head was heavy, and she was getting very tired again. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sister admitted. “But we’ve been looking for you for seven years, because of this,” And she held the glowing ring with its single remaining spire up before Swan’s face.

  Swan’s skin prickled. She sensed a bright light beating at her sealed-up eyeholes. “What is it?”

  “I think… it’s a lot of things, all rolled up into a circle of beautiful glass and filled with jewels. I found it on the seventeenth of July, in New York City. I think it’s a ring of miracles, Swan. I think it’s a gift… like a magic survival kit. Or a life ring. Maybe anybody could’ve found it, maybe I’m the only one who could have. I don’t know. But I do know that it led Paul and me to you. I wish I knew why. All I can say is that… I think you’re someone very special, Swan. I saw the corn growing out in that field, where nothing ought to be alive. I looked into this glass ring and I saw a tree in bloom, with your name burned into the wood.” She leaned forward, her heart pounding. “I think there’s work ahead of you. Very important work, enough to fill up a lifetime. After seeing that corn growing out there… I think I know what it is.”

  Swan was listening carefully. She didn’t feel very special; she just felt weary, and the fever was pulling at her again, trying to drag her back to that awful place where the bloody scythe reaped a human field. And then what Sister had said dawned on her: “A ring of miracles… all rolled up into a circle of beautiful glass and filled with jewels.”

  She thought of the magic mirror and the figure she’d seen bearing a ring of light. That figure, she knew, had been the woman who now stood at her bedside, and what she’d been carrying had finally arrived.

  Swan held out both hands toward the light. “May I… hold it?”

  Sister glanced at Josh. He was standing behind Paul, and Glory had come from the other room. Josh didn’t know what was going on, and all this ring of miracles talk was beyond him—but he trusted the woman, and he let himself nod.

  “Here.” Sister put it into Swan’s hands.

  Her fingers curled around the glass. There was heat in it, a heat that began to spread into her hands, through her wrists and forearms. Under the bandages, the raw skin of her hands had begun itching and stinging. “Oh,” she said, more in surprise than in pain.

  “Swan?” Josh stepped forward, alarmed at the sound. The glass circle was getting brighter and pulsating faster. “Are you o—”

  The ring flared like a golden nova. All of them were blinded for a few seconds as the room was lit up as if by the flaring of a million candles. The memory of the white-hot blast in front of PawPaw’s grocery streaked through Josh’s mind.

  Now a searing pain coursed in Swan’s hands, and her fingers seemed locked to the glass. The pain rippled through her bones and she started to cry out, but in the next instant the anguish had passed, and left in her mind were scenes beautiful beyond dreams: fields of golden corn and wheat, orchards where trees bent under the weight of fruit, meadows of flowers and verdant green forests stirred by a breeze. The images poured forth as if from a cornucopia, so vivid that Swan smelled the aromas of barley, apples, plums and cherry trees in full bloom. She beheld dandelions blowing in the wind, forests of oaks dripping acorns into the moss, maples running sap and sunflowers thrusting up from the earth.

  Yes, Swan thought as the images continued to flood through her mind in brilliant patterns of color and light. My work.

  I know what my work is now.

  Josh was first to recover from the glare. He saw that Swan’s hands were engulfed by golden fire, the flames licking up along her arms. She’s burning up! he realized and, horrified, he shoved Sister aside and grabbed the fiery ring to pull it away from Swan.

  But as soon as his fingertips touched the glass, he was flung backward with such force that he left his feet before crashing into the wall, narrowly missing breaking most of the bones in Paul’s body. The air was forced from his lungs with a noise like a ruptured steam pipe, and he crumpled to the floor, dazed from the worst knock he’d taken since Haystacks Muldoon had thrown him from the wrestling ring in Winston-Salem eleven years before. Damn thing repelled me, he thought, when thinking was possible again. He tried to struggle up and realized that the flaming ring had been cool under his fingers.

  Still half blinded, Sister saw the strange fire, too, saw it crawling up Swan’s arms; it snapped like the uncoiling of a whip and began to wrap itself around the girl’s head.

  The fire—noiseless and without heat—had shrouded Swan’s face and head before Josh could get up from the floor. Swan made no sound and lay motionless, but she could hear a sizzling over the wonderful scenes that kept swirling through her mind.

  Sister was about to grasp the ring herself, but as she reached for it Josh charged toward the cot again, almost flung her through the wall, braced his legs and got ready to withstand the jolt as he clenched his fingers around the ring.

  This time it came smoothly free from Swan’s hands. As he turned to smash it against the wall he heard Sister scream “No!” and she was on him like a wildcat.

  “Wait!” Paul shouted. “Look at her!”

  Josh held Sister at arm’s length and swiveled his head toward Swan.

  The golden flames that covered her hands were going out. The bandages had turned black.

  As they watched they saw the fire—or what had appeared to be fire—being drawn into the Job’s Mask like liquid into a dry sponge. The flames rippled, flared, and then disappeared.

  Sister wrenched the ring from him and backed out of his reach. He went to Swan’s side, put his arms beneath her shoulders and lifted her up, supporting her head with one hand. “Swan!” His voice was frantic. “Swan, answer me!”

  She was silent.

  “You’ve killed her!” Glory shouted at Sister. “God A’mighty, you’ve killed her with that damned thing!” She rushed to the bedside, while Sister retreated against the far wall. Her mind was reeling, and the explosion of light still burned behind her eyes.

  But Josh could feel Swan’s heart beating like the wings of a captured bird against a cage. He rocked the girl in his arms, praying that this shock wouldn’t be the final burden. He looked up fiercely at Sister and Paul. “Get them out of here!” he told Glory. “Call Anna! Tell her to lock them away somewhere! Get them out before I kill them my—”

  Swan’s hand drifted up, touched Josh’s lips to silence him.

  Sister stared at the glass ring; its colors had paled, and some of the trapped jewels had turned ebony, like little burned-up pieces of charcoal. But the colors were getting stronger again, as if drawing power from her own body. Glory grasped her arm to pull her from the room, but Sister jerked free. Then Glory ran out to summon Anna McClay, who came with the rifle, ready for business.

  “Get them out!” Josh shouted. “And get that thing away from her!”

  Anna started to reach for the ring. Sister’s fist was faster; she struck the other woman with a noise like a hammer whacking a board, and Anna McClay went down with a bloody nose. Anna strug
gled to her feet and aimed the rifle point-blank at Sister’s head.

  “Stop it!” Swan said suddenly, her voice frail. She’d heard the shouts, the scuffling and the sound of the blow. The majestic scenes that had so ignited her imagination began to fade. “Stop it,” she repeated. Strength was returning to her voice. “No more fighting.”

  “They tried to kill you with that thing!” Josh said.

  “No, we didn’t!” Paul protested. “We came here to see her, that’s all! We weren’t trying to hurt her!”

  Josh ignored him. “Are you all right?” he asked Swan.

  “Yes. Just tired. But Josh… when I held it… I saw wonderful things. Wonderful things.”

  “What things?”

  “Things… that could be,” she replied. “If I want them to be, if I work hard enough.”

  “Josh?” Anna was itching to put a bullet through the scraggly old woman who’d decked her. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “You want me to lock ’em up somewhere?”

  “No!” Swan said. “Leave them alone. They weren’t trying to hurt me.”

  “Well, this bitch sure hurt me! I think my damned schnozz is busted!”

  Josh eased Swan’s head down onto the pillow. His face felt strange—itching and burning—where Swan’s fingers had touched. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “I don’t want you to be—” And then he glanced at one of her hands, and his voice trailed off. “Don’t try to hide it if… you’re…”

  The bandages, black and oily-looking, had come loose. Josh could see a glimpse of pink flesh.

  He took her hand gently in his own and began to unwind the bandages. The cloth was stiff and started coming apart with little crackling sounds. Sister pushed the rifle barrel out of her face and walked past Anna to the side of the cot. Anna made no move to stop her, because she came forward to see as well.

  With nervous fingers, Josh carefully peeled part of the black bandage away. It came off with some of Swan’s injured skin adhered to it, and revealed underneath was bright pink, healing flesh.

  “What is it?” Swan asked, breaking the silence. “What’s wrong?”

  He cracked part of the other bandage off. It crumbled like ashes between his fingers, and he saw pink, clean, unscarred skin across a section of Swan’s palm. He knew that it should have taken at least a week for Swan’s hands to scab over, and maybe a month for them to heal. He’d been most worried about her wounds getting infected, that maybe her hands would be scarred and ruined for the rest of her life. But now…

  Josh pressed his finger against her pink palm, “Ow!” she said, pulling her hand away from him. “That’s sore!” Her hands were stinging and tingling and as warm as if they’d been deeply sunburned. Josh was afraid to peel any more of the bandages off, not wanting to expose the tender skin. He looked up at Glory, who stood beside him, then over at Sister. His gaze fell to the gleaming glass ring in her protective grip.

  A ring of miracles, she’d said.

  And Josh believed it.

  He stood up. “I think we’ve got a lot to talk about,” he said.

  “Yes,” Sister agreed. “I believe we do.”

  Sixty-seven

  It’s a man’s world

  The shout of the Lord shook the trailer’s walls, and the woman who lay on a bare mattress with a coarse blanket wrapped around her moaned in her tortured sleep. Rudy was crawling into her bed again, and he held an infant with a crushed head; she kicked at him, but his rotting mouth grinned. “Come on, Ssssheila,” he chided her, his voice hissing through the blue-edged slash across his throat. “Is that how you treat an old friend?”

  “Get away!” she screamed. “Get away… get away!”

  But he was sliding up against her with slimy skin. His eyes had rolled back into his head, and decayed holes cratered his face. “Awwww,” he said, “don’t be like that, Sheila. We got high and happy too many times for you to kick me out of your bed. You let everybody else in these days, don’t you?” He offered her the blue-skinned infant. “See?” he said. “I brought you a present.”

  And then the tiny mouth opened in that battered head and a wail came from it that made Sheila Fontana go rigid, her hands clamped to her ears and tears streaming from her wide-open, staring eyes.

  The ghosts fragmented and whirled away, and Sheila was left with her own scream echoing within the filthy trailer.

  But the shout of the Lord continued, this time pounding on the trailer’s door. A voice from outside yelled, “Shut up, you crazy fool! You tryin’ to wake up the fucking dead?”

  Tears ran down her face, and she felt sick to her stomach; the trailer already smelled of vomit and stale cigarette smoke, and there was a bucket next to her mattress where she relieved herself during the night. She couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. She fumbled for the bottle of vodka that she knew was there on the floor beside her bed, but she couldn’t find it, and she wailed again with frustration.

  “Come on, open the damned door!” It was Judd Lawry’s voice, and he hammered at the door with the butt of his rifle. “He wants you!”

  She froze, her fingers finally locked on the neck of the half-full bottle. He wants me, she thought. Her heart kicked. He wants me!

  “You hear what I said? He sent me to get you. Come on, get your ass moving!”

  She crawled out of bed and stood with the bottle in one hand and the blanket in the other. The trailer was cold, and red light came from a bonfire blazing outside.

  “Speak, if you can understand English!” Lawry said.

  “Yes,” she told him. “I hear you. He wants me.” She was shaking, and she dropped the blanket to take the top off the vodka bottle.

  “Well, come on then! And he says for you to put on some perfume this time!”

  “Yes. He wants me. He wants me.” She drank from the bottle again, capped it and searched for her lantern and matches. She found them, got the lantern lit and placed it on her dressing table, next to the cracked mirror that hung on the wall. Atop the dresser was a forest of dried-up make-up bottles, lipsticks, bottles of scent that had long ago gone skunky, jars of cream and mascara applicators. Taped to the mirror were yellowed pictures of fresh-faced models clipped from ancient copies of Glamour and Mademoiselle.

  She placed the vodka bottle next to the lantern and sat down in her chair. The mirror caught her face.

  Her eyes resembled dull bits of glass sunken into a sickly, heavily lined ruin. Much of her hair had turned from black to a yellowish gray, and at her crown the scalp was beginning to show. Her mouth was tight and etched with deep lines, as if she’d been holding back a scream that she dared not release.

  She peered into the eyes that looked back. Make-up, she decided. Sure. I need to use a little make-up. And she opened one of the bottles to smear the stuff on her face like a healing balm, her hands unsteady because she wanted to look pretty for the colonel. He’d been nice to her lately, had called for her several times, had even given her a few bottles of precious alcohol from a deserted liquor store. He wants me, she told herself as she scrawled lipstick across her mouth. The colonel used to prefer the other two women who’d lived in the trailer with Sheila, but Kathy had moved in with a captain and Gina had taken a .45 to bed one night. Which meant that Sheila was on her own in driving the pickup truck that hauled the trailer and earning enough gasoline, food and water to keep both the truck and herself going. She knew most of the other RLs—Recreation Ladies—who followed the Army of Excellence in their own convoy of trucks, cars and trailers; a lot of the women had diseases, some were young girls with ancient eyes, a few enjoyed their work, and most were searching for the “golden dream”—being taken in by an AOE officer who had plenty of supplies and a decent bed.

  It’s a man’s world, Sheila thought. That had never been as true as it was now.

  But she was happy, because being summoned to the colonel’s trailer meant she wouldn’t have to sleep alone and, for a few hours at least, Rudy couldn�
�t come crawling into her bed with his grisly gift.

  Rudy had been a kick in life. But in death he was a real drag.

  “Hurry it up!” Lawry shouted. “It’s cold out here!”

  She finished her make-up and ran a brush through her hair. She didn’t like to do that, though, because so much of her hair was falling out. Then she searched the many bottles of perfume for the right scent. Most of their labels had come off, but she found the distinctive bottle she wanted and sprayed perfume on her throat. She remembered an ad she’d seen in a Cosmo magazine a long time ago: “Every man alive loves Chanel Number 5.”

  She hurriedly pulled a dark red sweater over her sagging breasts, squeezed herself into a pair of jeans and put on her boots. It was too late to do anything about her fingernails; anyhow, they were all but bitten away. She shrugged into a fur coat that had belonged to Gina. One more peek in the mirror to check her make-up. He wants me! she thought, and then she blew the lantern out, went to the door, unbolted and opened it.

  Judd Lawry, his beard cropped close to his jawline and a bandanna wrapped around his forehead, glared at her and laughed. “Jeez!” he said. “You ever heard of a movie called The Bride of Frankenstein?”

  She knew not to answer him as she dug a key out of the fur coat and locked her door. He was always picking at her, and she hated his guts. Whenever she looked at him she heard the wail of a baby and the sound of a rifle butt striking innocent flesh. She walked right past him, in the direction of Colonel Macklin’s silver Airstream command center on the western edge of what had been Sutton, Nebraska.

  “You sure do smell nice,” Lawry said as he followed her between the parked trailers, trucks, cars and pitched tents of the Army of Excellence. Firelight glinted off the barrel of the M-16 slung over his shoulder. “You smell like an open sore. When’s the last time you took a bath?”

  She couldn’t remember. Bathing used up water, and she didn’t have a lot of that to spare.