At the peak of Mount Hope.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
For a second there, Micki thought she heard a motorcycle in the distance: the shrill whine of an overrevved engine, the shriek of skidding tires. Then it was gone, and she was left with the sounds on the wind.
The sounds of the death of the world.
“It wasn’t him,” she said, anticipating the question, unable to screen out the inconsolable weight of Gwen’s fear. Something slithered across the windowpane outside. She couldn’t do much about that, either.
Gwen stopped painting for a second, leaned her head into her hands. She was pulling it together pretty well now, under the circumstances; but Micki’d had to admit to herself that Gwen was not all there anymore. She had to walk on eggshells if she didn’t want to watch her fold.
“He isn’t coming, is he?” Gwen moaned, tears pooling in her eyes again.
“Yes he is.” Gentle. Tense. The forced voice of calm. “Of course he is. Bobba said so. Now come on, we gotta hurry.”
It was a lie, of course. Bobba didn’t have a clue how Gary was. At this point, Micki couldn’t even think about it. She had left a spirit doorway in the outer circle. It would open for Gary’s soul alone. Beyond that, there was nothing she could do.
In the world beyond the outer circle, survival was no longer an option. There were things out there she could hear and smell that she did not want to see. Their howls of triumphant carnage were the music on the wind. Their stench rode the mist.
She could dimly see dark shapes amassing on the perimeter; but so far, the outer circle seemed to be keeping them there. Micki took this as a very good sign. It suggested the magick could hold its own, even hopelessly outgunned, in the face of environmental Armageddon.
But you can’t run from the devil in your own back pocket, nattered a nasty little voice in her head. It was right. You couldn’t keep out what was already in, and that covered a lot of ground.
When the deluge came, it had not been selective; it fell on the virtuous as well as the wicked. It fell on either side of the line. The ring of lawn between the circle and the house had soaked up a lot of rain.
That rain had borne fruit.
Now the exterior of the house was crawling with vines. They writhed serpentine on the walls, blindly scraped splintering furrows in the wood, dragged their thorns across the sweating glass. Every second that ticked by brought them that much closer to entry, underscored the barbed-wire knot of panic coiling through her gut.
She had tried to protect the whole house; abiding by ritual, moving clockwise and frantically anointing every aperture and inlet with a mixture of salt and spring water. No fucking way. Every creaking door and rattling window, leaking faucet and drizzling drain, every single crack in every corner of every room beckoned her, demanding attention. All of them needed to be mystically sealed.
It was just too huge.
And she was running out of time.
From that point on, her life had been measured in minutes. Four spent helping Gwen up to the nursery, getting her situated. Another five tearing the place apart until it coughed up the supplies she needed: a box of scented bathroom candles, matches, a pair of heavy quilts, canned food and bottled water, can and bottle openers, a pot of adequate bedpan size, a butcher knife, duct tape, some sandalwood incense, and a little tin of McCormick sage. Some of the things were needed for the ritual. The rest were merely practical. She had no idea how long they might have to stay in there.
All the paint they needed was already there.
Micki had spent the last seven minutes preparing the one room she could actually defend. In this, she had finally gotten some help; for Gwen, it was perfect therapy. By three twenty-five, they had completed the ten-foot pentacle that covered the nursery floor. Now it was a matter of touching up the perimeter: taping floorboard cracks that intersected the circle, plugging the leaks in the spirit armor…
Something went pok at the window. Micki’s lungs crawled up into her throat. There was a BB-sized star in the glass, with a thorn poking through it. The thorn, ever so slowly, withdrew.
Gwen started to whimper. Micki knew what she meant. So far, they’d been astonishingly lucky, but she sensed those days were about to end. The thorn popped loose and dragged, skreeeting away like a glass-cutter.
Another dozen took its place.
“Gwen,” she whispered. There was no more time to wait. “Light the candles.”
“But what about Gary?” Too loud.
Micki winced. “Shhhh,” she hissed; then, softly, “I’ll leave him a way in. I promise.”
“You can do that?” Gwen’s red eyes spoke volumes. Her voice rose to match them, inching out of control. “You’re sure…?”
“I already explained this to you.” Micki glanced at the window, held on tight to her temper.
“But what if something happens…?”
“Gwen.” Gritting her teeth. “Nothing’s going to happen…”
“But…”
“GWEN!”
Gwen was shocked into stasis. Her tears overflowed. Micki took a deep breath.
And the windowpane shattered.
Micki screamed. She couldn’t help it. Every inch of control, every last watt of power dispersed, blew apart in the shower of glass. In that moment, she was emptied of thought, personality, hope. Nothing left but the horror.
The sightless thing that entered the room commandeered her complete attention.
Its skin was closer to bark than it was to shell or skin, but there all resemblance to ordinary plant life terminated abruptly. Its leaves were tonguelike, moist and thick; its thorns canine incisors. It left a steaming slime trail as it moved along the wall, raked inch-deep drywall trenches in its wake.
“Light the candles.” A toneless drone, through a mouth that barely moved. “Gwen. Please…”
Nothing happened. Gwen was frozen in place. Micki dry-swallowed terror and forced her own hand to snake out slowly for the box of matches.
The monster stopped dead.
“Oh, no,” Micki croaked, her hand freezing in place. The vine probed at the air, like a menacing antenna. When she stopped, it had nothing to go on. It wavered, deaf as well, and then went back to tracing and gouging the wall.
It was ten feet away now and closing.
Fuck the candles, Bob-Ramtha said. You don’t have time.
Cast the circle now.
And he was right, she knew he was right, there was nothing else and no other way, if the circle was flawed or the ritual sloppy or her will too depleted, then those were the breaks. Inaction meant certain death, and they were down to the very last ticks of the clock. One way or another, it had to be now.
She made her decision.
And acted it out.
“Sky-people,” she said, addressing the east and forcing her voice to be strong. It was just a slight turn of the head, but the monster tuned into it instantly. She fought down a shudder, cleared dry phlegm from her throat. “I welcome you into our circle of light.”
Then, turning to the south, a slight upper-torso pivot. It put the blunted nonhead of the thing behind her.
There were more coming in through the window.
“Brothers of fire,” she croaked, the voice barely clearing her larynx. “We need you. Please come to our side.”
There were five of them now, eeling in through the hole. They fanned out across the walls ceiling floor. Behind her, Gwen mewled and went fetal in the second Micki spun full around, facing west.
“WATER S-S-SISTERS!” she blurted out, panicking. She could hear them slithering, scraping, clawing. Could feel their graceless, unstoppable approach. “PLEASE!” she screamed, howling gaze and voice northward. “OH EARTH MOTHER PLEASE…!”
And she could see it coming, the first one in, the one with the rabid teeth and tongues that foamed as the fat misshapen vine undulated, thundered across the floorboards, sliding the last remaining foot to the lip of her magickal circle…
…an
d suddenly she could feel Them: there with her, a presence and quasi-electrical charge that stood all her short hairs on end, plucked her flesh into goose bumps, sucked the air from her chest. Her spine felt liquid hot and burning with violent primal coursing power, the power of Goddess Herself, the power that spun the earth on its axis and breathed Spark into all that lived…
…and the vine-thing stopped when it hit the line. Just stopped.
And could go no farther.
It smushed up against something unseen, its features flattening like a face pressed against a pane of glass. Then it slumped to the floor.
And began to trace the circle.
“Huh,” Micki exclaimed. “Huh huh huh…”
The laughter came, then, spilling out in a rapidly escalating cadence as shock turned to amazement turned to frantic joyous victory. “F-FUCK YOU, YOU SPINY LITTLE SHITS!” she cried. “FUCK YOU!”
The vines hissed, responding to the air pressure and the emotion behind it. The magick was strong. The magick would hold.
It had been hours since Micki Bridges had allowed herself the luxury of laughing, or crying. She did both now, secure in the knowledge that, at least for the moment, they were safe.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, turning to Gwen. “It’s okay.” In reality, virtually no sound came out. She was mouthing the words to a platitude that had suddenly transcended cliche, become the truest sentiment she owned.
But Gwen couldn’t take her eyes off the thorned serpents. They circled and swayed and probed the perimeter. They were looking for holes, for flaws in the barrier. Looking for ways through the light. Looking for a way to break the circle.
But there was only one way in, and it was reserved for Gary alone.
If he ever came…
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Mount Hope was a hump of heavily wooded rock on the eastern edge of the county, part of a long-lost finger of the Appalachian Trail. At twelve hundred feet above sea level, it was the county’s highest natural elevation.
The WPAL broadcast tower had been erected there on a cleared right-of-way. From a distance, it looked like a sleek silver needle, rising fifteen hundred feet straight into the sky. Like the thread of life itself, gossamer-thin and delicate.
Up close, though, the sheer magnitude of its existence was apparent, etched in massive beams and inch-thick high-tension wire. It jutted upward, in utter defiance of gravity and physics and Nature herself.
At the moment, it was holding its own against gravity and physics.
Nature was another story.
At the base of the tower stood a small corrugated steel shed, the padlocked hasp open and dangling. Inside, Kirk sat amongst the cluttered shelves of tools and test gear, his leg propped on a stray cable spool.
His leg was bad: broken at midcalf and swelling like a blood sausage. They’d splinted it with an aluminum bracket and strips ripped from the acetate shell of his jacket, but it wasn’t set and wouldn’t be anytime soon. Every transgression of air pressure sent agonizing shockwaves buffeting through his nervous system.
On the bright side, it took his mind off of his teeth, and that was something. The swelling in his lips had gone down dramatically as well, at least enough to talk without sounding like he had a mouthful of wet washrags. As blessings went, they were pretty skimpy, but he took what he could get.
A stiff bitter gale wind blew off the river, whipping the mountain ruthlessly on its way to the firestorm. Thick strands of twisted steel whickered and thrummed like so many old rubber bands. And Kirk took every snap personally.
PEMA evacuation manuals and a walkie-talkie sat bunched on his good leg. He pored over them, trying to get a basic grasp of the material. The battered action-cam was perched on a tripod, lens aimed at his head; on the workbench, a test monitor faced him, already generating bars and tone.
“Ow, shit!” he muttered as the radio transceiver slipped off his lap and thudded onto the floor. He struggled painfully to scoop it up. “Are you sure we can do this?”
“Don’t know.” Gary shrugged and unreeled more coaxial cable. “The station went down because the micro wave only runs at thirteen gigawatts, and this soot could block out a bottom-feeder like that, no problem.
“But the transmitter’s still hot, which ain’t bad. And if this thing breaks the storm ceiling”—he gestured to the tower overhead—“I think we’ll be in business.”
Gary finished splicing an end on the cable with his knife. He hunched down behind the monitor, laboring fiercely, the clock in his head banging away as he tightened the cable down.
“Okay,” he said. “Here goes nothing.”
The screen glitched, and Kirk’s face came up: bloody, bruised, and badly lit. “Jesus,” he gasped. “I look like shit.” He grabbed the tail of his shirt, tried to wipe off some of the dried blood from his forehead gash. Gary moved around the monitor as Kirk struggled to his feet.
“Okay, listen up,” Gary said, concentrating on the work at hand. “Basically, you’re set. I rigged this so that you just hit ‘record’ and you’re on the air. Think you can handle it?”
Kirk nodded; Gary took it as gospel. Kirk hobbled around, checking the wiring and the only available light, a jerry-rigged clip-on spot with a hundred-watt bulb in it. He clicked it on; its glow seemed feeble against the encroaching dark. Hard to believe it was only three thirty in the afternoon.
Outside, the wind hammered on the corrugated metal walls, making them sound both sharp and flimsy. Cables whipped the air high above their heads.
“You do understand,” Gary said, “that as of now, I’m out of here.”
“Uh-huh,” Kirk said, busily repositioning the light.
“And when I leave,” Gary continued, “you’re effectively stranded.” He chose his words carefully; there was no way to skirt the naked truth. “I can’t be coming back for you.”
It felt like he was sentencing Kirk to death; and though a half hour ago that would have seemed like a great idea, Gary’s blood lust had long since been spent. He half-expected Kirk to back down now, half-hoped that he was right.
But Kirk only cocked his head quizzically, a strange calm coming over his face.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m serious…”
“So am I.” Kirk’s look was direct, and utterly clear. “I’m gonna ride this out from here, man. Don’t worry about me.”
Gary took a good hard look at Kirk, as if seeing him through new eyes. Or maybe it was Kirk who’d changed, grown up somehow. Kinda hard to say. “Last chance…” he began, scarcely believing his own ears. Kirk flipped him a wink, with just a flicker of wince.
“What?” he said. “And give up showbiz?”
Gary rolled his eyes, and Kirk hobbled toward him, making for his seat. Gary came over and helped him onto the chair. There was nothing left to say. It didn’t matter to Kirk if he lived another twenty years or another twenty minutes, just so long as they got this last broadcast on the air. It was something he had to do—the best thing he could possibly do, under the circumstances.
And that was really all there was to it.
Across the valley, more storage vessels went up at Paradise Waste, feeding fresh waves of deathlight and sound into the serpentine pillar of flame. The rumbling wind reached out for them across thirteen miles, slammed the walls of the shed like an angry fist. Glass cracked, from a pane high overhead. The two men flinched, but nothing followed.
Then Kirk turned his attention back to the camera, and Gary nodded once before turning to open the door. For a moment, the roar of the world filled the shed; and Kirk could see him hesitate, for one long second’s time, before stepping out into evernight.
And closing the door behind him.
Kirk held off for a minute, listening to the girders that creaked overhead while he waited for the Harley to fire. When it did, he sighed relief, listening almost wistfully to the echoing sounds of its departure.
Only
when it was lost in that howling sea of sound did he turn back to the camera, take a deep breath, and hit “record.”
The red light winked on.
And the real show—The Kirk Bogarde Show—went on the air at last.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Down in the newsroom, Laura had established a ritual all her own. She, too, had locked herself in, padlocking the front double doors, sealing every conceivable entrance, holing herself up in the basement. Holding down the fort.
And praying that the cavalry would come.
Outside, things were moving; she could hear the thuds and screams, the shrieking sirens, the distant and not-so-distant report of explosions and gunfire.
Worse, she could hear the other sounds, like nothing she’d ever heard before, grinding and slithering and slashing and withering everything in their paths. She winced as what sounded like a pickup truck roared by, followed seconds later by something that whistled and whined like a hundred dentists’ drills grinding into a whole roomful of teeth. They screeched around the corner, off King Street and onto Market, and blazed away.
The crash, when it came, was dull and wet, and seemed to last forever.
Laura blocked it out and pressed on: checking the scanners, checking the monitors, checking the phones, over and over and over. At the head of each cycle she spent a solid minute on the radio, trying to raise the tower. As rituals went it was short on style and long on utility, but it helped her keep her sanity.
“WPAL to tower, this is WPAL calling tower, do you copy? Kirk, do you copy?”
There was no response.
“This is WPAL, calling tower. Come in, please…”
Nothing.
She dropped the transceiver, leaned over the scanners as their LED’s strobed off, one by one: garbled cries becoming garbled hiss becoming nothing but garble at all, the lights cycling an endless flatline of silence.
Laura looked up: the monitors displayed an electronic winter wonderland of snow and static and white white noise. The newsroom was barren. Desolate. Irrelevant.
She picked up the phone and hit the speed-dialer for home. There was no answer. Of course no one was there, she reasoned to herself. How could they be? They’re in Philly at the game.
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