1987 - Swan Song v4

by Robert McCammon

  “Let me have him,” Roland said.

  There was a moment of silence. Macklin stared into Gary Cates’s eyes and then drew his right hand away. Little dots of blood were rising from the man’s cheek.

  “I’ll take good care of him.” Roland holstered his .45. “I’ll make him forget that pain in his legs. Then we’ll have a nice talk.”

  “Yes.” Macklin nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  “Unshackle him,” Roland told the soldiers. They obeyed at once. His eyes gleamed with excitement behind the goggles. He was a happy young man. It was a hard life, yes, and sometimes he wished for a Pepsi and a Baby Ruth candy bar, or he craved a hot shower and then a good late-night war movie on TV—but those were all things that belonged to a past life. He was Sir Roland now, and he lived to serve the King in this never-ending game of King’s Knight. He missed his computer, though; that was the only really bad thing about not having electricity. And sometimes he had a strange dream in which he seemed to be in an underground maze, at the King’s side, and in that maze there were two tunnel trolls—a man and a woman—who had familiar faces. Their faces disturbed him and always brought him awake in a cold sweat. But those faces were not real; they were just dreams, and Roland was always able to go back to sleep again. He could sleep like the dead when his mind was clear.

  “Help him walk,” Roland ordered two of the soldiers. “This way,” he said, and he led them in the direction of the black trailer.

  Macklin prodded the corpse at his feet. “Clean it up,” he told one of the guards, and then he stood facing the eastern horizon. The American Allegiance couldn’t be very far ahead of them—maybe only twenty or thirty miles. They’d be loaded down with supplies from what had been a thriving community at Sutton. And they had plenty of guns, ammunition—and two tanks.

  We can catch them, Macklin thought. We can catch them and take what they have. And I’ll grind the Savior’s face under my boot. Because nothing can stand before the Army of Excellence, and nothing can stop the grand scheme.

  “God lives on Warwick Mountain,” the man had said. “God showed him the black box and the silver key and told him how the world will end.”

  The crazy religious fanatics had to be destroyed. There was no room for their kind in the grand scheme.

  He turned back toward the trailer. Sheila Fontana was standing in the doorway, and suddenly Macklin realized that all this excitement had given him an erection. It was a good erection, too. It promised to stay around awhile. He walked up the carved staircase with its bannister of demon faces, entered the trailer and shut the door.

  Sixty-eight

  The Job’s Mask cracked

  “Sister! Sister, wake up!”

  She opened her eyes and saw a figure standing over her. For a few seconds she didn’t know where she was, and she instinctively tightened her grip around the leather satchel. Then she remembered: She was in Glory Bowen’s shack, and she’d dozed off in the warmth of the stove. The last thing she recalled was listening to someone playing a flute at the bonfire outside.

  Glory had awakened her. “Josh wants you!” she told Sister in a frightened voice. “Hurry! Somethin’s happenin’ to Swan!”

  Sister stood up. Nearby, Paul had heard and was getting to his feet where he’d been sleeping on the floor. They followed Glory into the next room, where they saw Josh leaning over Swan. Aaron stood watching, wide-eyed, and holding onto the dowsing rod.

  “What is it?” Sister asked.

  “Her fever! She’s burning up!” Josh took a cloth from a pail of melted snow and wrung it out. He began to rub the cold cloth over Swan’s neck and arms, and he could swear he saw steam swirling up through the golden lamplight. He was afraid her entire body might suddenly hit the point of ignition and explode. “We’ve got to get her fever down!”

  Paul touched Swan’s arm and quickly drew his hand back as if he’d placed it against the stove’s grate. “My God! How long’s she been like this?”

  “I don’t know. She had a fever when I checked her about an hour ago, but it wasn’t nearly this high!” He put the cloth into the cold water again, and this time he applied it to Swan’s flesh without wringing it out. Swan trembled violently; her head thrashed back and forth, and she made a low, terrible moaning.

  “She’s dyin’, Josh!” Aaron yelled. There were tears in his eyes. “Don’t let her die!”

  Josh put his hands into the cold water and rubbed it over Swan’s burning skin. She was so hot inside, so terribly hot. He didn’t know what to do, and he looked up at Sister. “Please,” he said. “Help me save her!”

  “Get her outside!” Sister was already reaching for Swan to help carry her. “We can cover her with snow!”

  Josh put his arms underneath Swan and started to lift her. Swan thrashed, and her rebandaged hands clawed at the air. He got her up in his arms and supported her head against his shoulder. The heat radiating through her Job’s Mask almost seared his skin.

  He’d taken two strides when Swan cried out, shuddered and went limp.

  Josh felt the fever break. Felt the terrible heat leave her body as if someone had opened the door of an oven right in his face. Felt it rise like a shroud of steam and cling to the ceiling a foot above his head.

  She lay motionless in his arms, and Sister thought, She’s dead. Oh, my God… Swan is dead.

  Josh’s knees almost buckled. “Swan!” he said, and his voice cracked. Her long, frail body was cooling. A tear almost burned him blind, and he released a sob that shook his bones.

  Carefully, tenderly, he laid her down on the bed again. She lay like a crushed flower, her arms and legs asprawl.

  Josh was afraid to pick up her wrist and feel for a pulse. Afraid that this time the spark of life would be gone. But he did. Couldn’t feel anything. He lowered his head for a few seconds. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, no. I think she’s—”

  There was a faint tremor beneath his fingers.

  And another. Then a third and a fourth—getting stronger.

  He looked up at Swan’s face. Her body shivered—and then there was an eerie noise that sounded like hard, dried clay cracking apart.

  “Her… face,” Paul whispered, standing at the foot of the bed.

  A hairline crack crept along the Job’s Mask.

  It ran across where her forehead would be, zigzagging back over the nose, then down along the left cheek to the jawline. The single crack began to widen, became a fissure that gave birth to more cracks. Parts of the Job’s Mask began to peel and flake off, like pieces of a huge scab that had finally healed over a deep and hideous wound.

  Swan’s pulse was wild. Josh let go of her wrist and stepped back, his eye so wide it looked about to burst from the surface of his own mask.

  Sister said, “Oh—”

  “—Lord,” Glory finished. She grabbed Aaron, hugging him against her hip and putting a hand over his face to shield his eyes. He brushed it away.

  The Job’s Mask continued to break apart with quick little popping and crackling noises. Swan lay still except for the rapid rise and fall of her breathing. Josh started to touch her again but did not—because the Job’s Mask suddenly cracked into two halves and fell away from Swan’s face.

  No one moved. Paul released his breath. Sister was too stunned to do anything but stare.

  Swan was still breathing. Josh reached up, took the lantern from its wall hook and held it over Swan’s head.

  She had no face. Down amid the cracked, clayey fragments of Job’s Mask, Swan’s features had been wiped white and smooth as candle wax, except for two small nostril holes and a slit over her mouth. With a trembling hand, Josh ran his fingers across where her right cheek should be. They came away coated with a slick, whitish substance that had the consistency of petroleum jelly. And underneath the jellylike stuff was a glimpse of pale, faintly pink flesh.

  “Sister,” he said quickly, “will you hold this?” He gave her the lantern, and she saw what was in the cavity and almos
t swooned. “Hold it steady, now,” he said as he took the cloth from the bucket of snow water. Then, slowly and carefully, he began to clean the jelly away.

  “My God!” Josh’s voice shook. “Look at this! Look!”

  Glory and Paul came forward to see, and Aaron stood on his tiptoes.

  Sister saw. She picked aside a fragment of the Job’s Mask and touched a lock of Swan’s hair. It was darkened by the slick jelly that covered it, but it shone with deep gold and red highlights. It was the most beautiful hair she’d ever seen, and it was growing strong and thick from Swan’s scalp.

  “Aaron!” Josh said. “Go get Anna and Gene! Hurry!” The boy darted out. As Josh continued to clean the film away Swan’s features began to emerge.

  And then he looked down at her face and touched her forehead. Her fever was gone, and her temperature felt near normal. Her eyes were still closed, but she was breathing just fine, and Josh decided to let her sleep.

  “What the hell’s the ruckus?” Anna McClay asked as she came in.

  “This,” Josh said softly, and he stepped back so Anna could see.

  She stopped as if she’d hit a wall, and the eyes in her tough old face filled with tears.

  Sixty-nine

  The kiss

  “Here y’go, fellas! Breakfast time!”

  Robin Oakes snorted with disinterest as Anna McClay brought a pot of soup and some bowls out on the front porch. He and the three other young highwaymen had spent the night sleeping by the bonfire, along with six or seven other people who were keeping watch on Glory’s shack. It was another dark, cold morning, and small flakes of snow were whirling before the wind.

  “Well, come on!” Anna urged. “You want breakfast or not?”

  Robin stood up, his muscles stiff, and walked past the horse that was tied to the porch’s support post. Two blankets were laid across Mule’s back and shoulders, and he was close enough to the warmth of the bonfire that he was in no danger of frostbite. The other boys followed Robin, and a few other people stirred and came over to be fed as well.

  Anna ladled the soup out into a bowl for him. He wrinkled his nose. “This junk again? Didn’t we have this for dinner?”

  “Sure did. You’ll have it for lunch, too, so you’d better like it.”

  Robin restrained the urge to throw the stuff out on the ground. He knew it was made of boiled roots, with a few shreds of good old wholesome rat meat. Now even the food in the orphanage cafeteria seemed like it had been manna from Heaven, and he would have walked to China if he knew he could get a Burger King Whopper there. He moved out of the chow line so the next person could get his dose, tilted the bowl to his mouth and drank. He’d had a miserable night, jumpy and restless, and had finally grabbed a few hours of sleep in spite of an old man who’d sat by the fire playing a flute. Robin would have thrown a boot at him, but some of the others seemed to actually enjoy that dumb music, and Robin had seen the old man’s face glow in the firelight as he trilled notes into the air. Robin remembered what heavy metal had used to sound like: crashing, strutting guitar chords and a thunder of drums as if the world was about to blow up. That used to be his kind of music—but it dawned on him that the world really had blown up. Maybe it was time for peace now, he thought. Peace in action, words and music, too.

  Damn! he told himself. I must be getting old!

  He had awakened once, sometime in the night. He’d sat up, stiff and cranky, to find a warmer place, when he’d seen the man standing over on the other side of the fire. Just standing there, his dirty coat sweeping around him in the wind, and staring at Glory’s shack. Robin didn’t remember what the man’s face had looked like, but the man had prowled slowly through the sleeping figures, approaching to within twenty feet of the shack’s porch. Anna and Gene sat on the steps, armed with rifles and guarding the door, but they were talking to each other and didn’t pay any attention. Robin recalled that Gene had shivered and drawn his collar up around his neck, and Anna had blown into her hands as if caught by a sudden, sneaking chill.

  The man had turned and walked purposefully away. It was the stride of a man who had things to do and places to go. And maybe that was why Robin remembered him. But then Robin had shifted his position, laid his head back down and slept until awakened by cold bits of snow on his eyelids.

  “When do we get our guns back?” he asked her.

  “Not until Josh says so.”

  “Listen, lady! Nobody takes my gun away from me! I want it back!”

  She smiled at him indulgently. “You’ll get it. When Josh says so.”

  “Hey, Anna!” Aaron called from a little further down the road. He was playing with Crybaby. “Can you come see the magic now?”

  “Later!” she replied, and she went back to ladling out the root and rat meat concoction. She even began to whistle as she worked—one of her favorite tunes, “Bali Ha’i” from South Pacific.

  Robin knew there was no way to get his rifle back except to storm the shack. Neither he nor the other boys had been allowed inside since they’d gotten there, and Robin was getting pissed. “What the hell are you so happy about?” he snapped.

  “Because,” she answered, “this is a great and glorious morning. So glorious that not even a punk like you can get under my skin. See?” And she flashed him a quick grin that showed all of her front teeth.

  “What’s so great and glorious about it?” He flung out the rest of his soup. “Looks about the same to me—dark and cold.” But he’d noted that her eyes were different; they were clear and excited. “What’s going on?”

  Sister came outside, with the leather satchel that never left her. She drew in a breath of cold air to clear her head, because she’d been up and watching over Swan, along with the others, since well before dawn. “Can I help you?” she asked Anna.

  “Naw, I got it. That’s the last one.” She ladled soup into the final bowl. All but Robin had returned to the bonfire to eat their meals. “How is she?”

  “Still the same.” Sister stretched and heard her old joints pop and click. “She’s breathing fine, and her fever’s gone—but she’s still the same.”

  “What’s going on?” Robin demanded.

  Anna took his empty bowl from him and dropped it into the pot. “When Josh wants you to know, he’ll tell you. And everybody else, too.”

  Robin looked at Sister. “What’s wrong with Swan?” he asked in a quieter voice.

  Sister glanced quickly at Anna, then back to the young man. He was awaiting an answer, and she thought he deserved one. “She’s… changed.”

  “Changed? Into what? A frog?” He smiled, but Sister didn’t return it, and he let the smile slip away. “Why don’t I get to see her? I’m not going to attack her or anything. Besides, I’m the one who saw her and the big dude in that glass thing. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here. Doesn’t that make me rate anything?”

  Anna said, “When Josh says you—”

  “I’m not talking to you, Big Mama!” Robin interrupted, and his cool, level gaze bored right into her skull. She flinched just a fraction, then returned his stare full-force. “I don’t give a damn what Josh says or wants,” he continued, unshaken. “I should be able to see Swan.” He motioned to the leather satchel. “I know you believe that glass ring guided you here,” he told Sister. “Well, did you ever stop to think that maybe it guided me here, too?”

  That idea gave her food for thought. He might be right. Besides herself, he was the only person who’d seen a vision of Swan in the depths of the glass circle.

  “How about it?” he asked.

  “All right,” she decided. “Come on.”

  “Hey! Don’t you think we ought to ask Josh first?”

  “No. It’s okay.” She went to the door and opened it.

  “Why don’t you comb that hair?” Anna told him as he came up the steps. “It looks like a freakin’ bird’s nest!”

  He smiled sourly at her. “Why don’t you grow some hair? Like on your face.” And then he wal
ked past Sister and into the shack.

  Before she went in, Sister asked Anna if Gene and Zachial had found the cripple in the child’s red wagon. Anna said they hadn’t reported back yet, that they’d been gone for about two hours and that she was getting worried about them. “What do you want with him?” she asked. “He’s crazy in the head, is all.”

  “Maybe so. And maybe he’s crazy like a fox, too.” And then Sister entered the shack while the other woman went to collect the empty soup bowls.

  “Hey, Anna!” Aaron called. “Will you come see the magic now?”

  Inside the shack, Paul had shown an interest in the printing press and had taken some of it apart, and he and Glory were cleaning the gears and rollers with ashes. She looked warily at Robin as he walked to the stove and warmed his hands, but Paul said, “He’s all right,” and she returned to work.

  Sister motioned for Robin to follow. They started into the next room, but Josh’s bulk suddenly blocked the doorway. “What’s he doing in here?”

  “I invited him. I told him he could see Swan.”

  “She’s still asleep. Either she was awfully exhausted, or… there’s something still wrong with her.” He angled his head so his eye was aimed at Robin. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to go in.”

  “Come on, man! What’s the big mystery? I just want to see what she looks like, that’s all!”

  Josh ignored him but did not move from the doorway. He turned his attention to Sister. “Aren’t Gene and Zachial back yet?”

  “No. Anna says she’s getting worried. I am, too.”

  Josh grunted. He, too, was deeply concerned. Sister had told him about the man with the flaming hand in the Forty-second Street theater, and about her meeting with Doyle Halland in New Jersey. She’d told him about the man who was bicycling on the Pennsylvania highway with a pack of wolves jogging at his heels, and who’d just missed her at the rescue station of Homewood. He could change his face and his body, too, she’d said. He could appear to be anyone, even a cripple. That would be a good disguise, she’d told Josh, because who would expect that a crippled man was as dangerous as a mad dog among sheep? What she couldn’t figure out, though, was how he’d tracked her down. Had he decided to settle here and been waiting for her or for somebody who might have seen the glass ring? Anna had said that Mr. Welcome had only been there a couple of days, but then again he could have been living in Mary’s Rest in any number of disguises. However and whenever he’d arrived, Mr. Welcome had to be found, and Gene and Zachial had gone looking for him armed to the teeth.