She ran, the bag of trash scattered on the ground. A wail of painful joy and triumphant fear pursued her.
Evening poured across the landscape, flowing strong and dense until it filled the world. The shadows beneath the porch melted and spread, merging. She reached the house.
“Chabwok.” Calmly, the child sat at the table and toyed with the white stones, while his mother stood gasping in the doorway.
“Chabwok’s dead!” she cried. “It’s over!”
“Ain’t dead.”
“I saw him die!”
The cry rolled again, louder now. The boy played with the pebbles, and his eyes, when he looked up, burned like living cinders.
Slammed the door, she bolted it. “It’s all right.” She backed away. “It’s going to be all right, Matthew.” She stumbled to the phone. “I’m going to call Steve.” Hands trembling, she began to dial. “They’ll just have to come and kill him again.” Even her voice shook.
A stone struck the wall by her head.
“Matthew!” She spun around. Another stone hit the dial of the phone, produced a broken ringing. The boy seemed not to have moved.
From outside, the muffled cry penetrated the walls. And suddenly the air was full of objects.
The phone pulled from her hand, yanked to the end of its cord, then slammed back and struck her on the side of the neck. As she yelled, stones flew and the table overturned. “No!” Dishes shattered all around the room. “What’s happening?” She cringed against the wall. “This can’t be happening!” The sugar bowl smashed against the sink, and she watched in disbelief as the pipes of the old stove began to shudder. Black dust dribbled down.
As though battered by invisible fists, the stovepipe wrenched away from the wall, and a century’s accumulation of soot cascaded, filling the kitchen, choking away the light.
“Matthew!” As the worst of the cloud settled, she saw the black dirt—still pouring from the ruptured pipe—slowly cover the boy’s body where it writhed and convulsed on the floor.
Saturday, August 15
“You the one? The bitch that’s been makin’ all the trouble?” His face went a deep purple, the mouth very wet and red inside his beard. “Everbody look at ’er! She’s the one ’at killed a whole town!” His hands clutched into gnarled fists.
“All right now, that’ll do.” Out of simple habit, Steve forced authority into his voice. “Leave the lady alone.” Keeping one hand on the old man’s shoulder, he didn’t exactly push the shuddering frame but firmly held him down on the bench.
Though subdued, the grumbling continued. “You know what the price a meat is now the jackin’s over with round here? Ain’t no damn deers left. Place crawlin’ with stateys and everything else. Man can’t even make a living.”
A ceiling fan turned with infinite slowness, and strips of flypaper swayed in the corner of the Hobbston General Store. Candy and potato chips and a sparse selection of canned goods were ranged up and down the small aisles. A couple of barefoot kids lurked furtively in the back, while a group of elderly men hung close around the immensely fat woman at the cash register.
In a voice that strained after a reasonable tone, Athena tried to continue. “All we wanted to ask you about was…”
The old man’s one eye held a steady glower like a watery flame, and Steve could see he would start shouting again in a minute. “Athena, why don’t you go outside and check if the boy’s all right?”
“But I just wanted to…”
“I think that would be best.” He motioned her toward the door, keeping his voice low. “’Thena, this is pointless—he’s antagonistic toward you.” To quell her objections, he went on rapidly. “I can calm this guy down and question him, but I can’t do it if he’s yelling at you. Okay?”
“All right. Yes.” She glanced over at the pineys, knowing she’d made a mess of things again. The old man’s friends all muttered, and the fat woman looked miserable about having a cop in the store at all. “Get, uh, get some cookies or something for Matthew.” She began to fish in her pockets for money.
He patted her arm. “I’ll get something. You go on outside and keep him company.” She smiled and nodded, putting on her sunglasses.
He knew that the circles under her eyes meant she hadn’t slept again, and as she went through the door into the bright daylight, he sighed. Her behavior wasn’t hard to understand: simple hysteria, brought on by exhaustion, the aftereffect of all she’d been through, all they’d both been through. That’s all it was. She’d get over it. In the meantime, he was stuck with questioning this geezer.
They’d spent all morning searching for him, banging on the doors of shacks and asking questions, Athena reasoning that if anyone could explain what was going on, the oldest living resident of Munro’s Furnace should be able to. However, like so many of his neighbors, old Dan had already vanished. Finally, they’d traced him to a nearby town. Preparing to interview him, Steve shook his head and sighed. When would Athena realize it was over? He blamed the books he’d showed her when Barry died. He must have been near the breaking point himself to bring such madness into their lives.
She considered moving the car into the shade, then realized Steve had the keys. She didn’t want to go back into the store for them, didn’t want to interrupt his interrogation of the old man, even though she knew he was only doing it to humor her.
She looked around. By the door to the shop stood a rusting Coke machine that obviously hadn’t worked in years. Trying to make out the words of a nearby sign, where yellow letters flaked and curled from a mildewed background, she finally deciphered kerosene. Pure heat seeped into the car, actually making it hard to breathe, and she leaned out the window. The little town looked deserted, drowned by the impossibly bright sunlight. But these days, even at noon, she could still feel the approaching night.
Across the seat from her, Matty hung out the window. She watched him. Since his…seizure…the previous evening, he’d been almost comatose, barely mumbling to himself. Up until that point, he’d been doing so well, so really well, even beginning to talk to her. She couldn’t bear it.
The boy’s T-shirt had hiked up, exposing the tanned small of his back. Halfway out the window, he stared down at the sand, waving his fingers vaguely. He glanced up, his face lighting with wonder as a red bird flashed above the square.
He continued to stare upward, squinting hard at the shapes of tumbling clouds. This one looked like a dog, just like Dooley—he could see the open mouth and the tail. And this one was…this one was…
His face darkened with recognition as he saw the lumpish mimicry of great leathery wings. He shut his eyes before he had to see its face.
“You need two things to go out in them woods these days—a automatic weapon and a damn good reason.” Steve could feel his headache returning as old Dan rambled, repeating himself, contradicting himself, one minute insisting there was nothing in the woods, the next swearing he’d seen the monster. The few yellow butts of his teeth looked soft, like kernels of corn. “She’s the one to see, all right, like I said.”
“Could you repeat that last part? Who is this now?” “What’s the matter? Don’t you hear good? Mother Jenks, I’m talking about. She got a shack about a quarter mile or two south a Munro’s Hole.” He grinned at his buddies. “That’s what us old-timers calls it.”
“And who is this woman again?”
“I told you wunst already. Midwife—been working these parts more’n eighty year, they say. Hell, she’s older’n me even.” At this, he chuckled and rubbed his rheumy eyes with a crooked knuckle. “She knows everything about everybody round here. Brought most of them into the world. Maybe she’ll tell you what you wanna know. Maybe and maybe not too. You and that bitch—no offense—but if it hadn’t been for her, Lonny’d still be alive. I knowed him since he was a little boy. And Wally too. You better watch yourself.” He nudged the fat woman. “Yeah, Mother Jenks’ll answer you. Course you liable to be sorry you asked. I can remember…”
/> His words were suddenly drowned out. From outside came violent bellowing, a dull pounding. Steve’s mouth dropped open; then he ran for the door.
Doubled fists hammered at the car windows. The big man’s face twisted with rage as he belched out an incoherent stream of filth.
“Hey, you!” Steve yelled, barreling out of the store. “What the devil…?”
The man leaped up on the car, ran across the hood. Jumping down, he raced across the town square without looking back. In the mummifying heat, Steve began to give chase, then stopped, panting, and ran back to the car.
“Athena! Are you all right?” The doors were locked, the windows rolled tight. Inside, she hugged the boy. “’Thena?” He called again and rapped on the window. Behind the dark glasses, her eyes might have been closed. He dug the car keys out of his pocket. “Who was he?” As he leaned in, the wave of escaping heat struck him like a blow.
Without releasing her hold on the child, she looked up. “His name is Al Spencer,” she told him in a strangely calm voice.
“You mean he’s the guy…?”
“Yes. He owns the gin mill where they killed that man, where Lonny lived.”
“But what happened here?”
“He was just walking up to the store. Then he saw us.” She tightened her grip on the boy, whose expression registered nothing, neither alarm nor particular awareness. “It looked like he just went mad, screaming like that. He almost grabbed Matthew. If I hadn’t pulled him back…”
Wincing at the brightness, Steve stared across the square. His shirt stuck to his chest and back, and the heated air seared his nostrils, throat, lungs. Yet he realized the man had been wearing a flannel jacket. That was pretty crazy, he decided, almost as crazy as looking for a monster. He thought about that while walking around to the other side of the car.
“Move over.” He got behind the wheel. “I’m going to drop you home. You look exhausted. I’ve got some phone calls to make. I’ll put out a report on this Spencer character. Then there’s an errand I want to run. Okay?”
“You found out something in there? A lead?”
“I don’t know.” He rolled down the window. “Maybe.” Starting the engine, he glanced around at the town square again, empty save for the faces at the store window.
“Steve? I wouldn’t blame you if you just left us,” she said softly, turning away as the boy squirmed against her. “You probably should.”
“My head is splitting.” He put the car in gear. “Let’s not talk about it anymore right now.”
“Last night. That howl.”
“’Thena, please.”
“It was just…announcing itself.”
“Stop this.”
“Letting me know. Letting me know it would be coming for him. For Matthew. It wants him. Don’t you feel that? For some reason, he’s always been the center, the focus. And me. It wants me too.”
This is the last, the last thing, and then it has to stop. He’d left the Volkswagen about a half mile back. Insane to be out here in this heat. His shirt was glued to his back. A howling in the woods. He hiked through the pines in what he hoped was the direction of Mother Jenks’s. Every dog for miles dead, and she says she heard… He trudged on, feeling foolish. The man who did the killing is dead. If danger remains, it’s back at that house. But how to tell Athena? And what kind of future could they have together under these conditions? They must get help for the boy. Perhaps she’d consider sending him someplace, just for a time. Just until they can figure out what’s wrong with him. He picked up the pace. Lord, the mess in that kitchen. She’d told him the dog had torn the place up, but that hadn’t seemed likely. And that bruise on her neck. That really bothered him the most.
It had all been too much for her. Finding her brother-in-law’s body that way, then Barry’s death, then seeing that poor son of a bitch blown away right in front of her the other day. Too much for anyone. She’s not thinking clearly. Yes, the boy must have professional help, and he’d make her see that.
And then perhaps they’d have some time for themselves.
He walked through the drugged quiet of the woods, trying to stay on the all-but-invisible trail. This has to be the path the old guy meant. He’d stick with it another five or ten minutes; then, if he still hadn’t found the house, he’d turn back.
The ground grew rougher, and clumps of brownish moss scratched the soles of his shoes. Stumbling through a shallow depression, he kicked up a piece of brick burned black on one side. He chose a suitable walking stick from the dry litter of the forest floor. Five more minutes, then I’ll head back.
But the woods drew him on.
He passed a small area of swampy ground, but even that looked dry, and many of the pines seemed lifeless, their branches ending in sharp brown clusters. Sand crunched softly underfoot, almost the only sound. Beginning to imagine that eyes followed him, he looked around. Matted vines, dried stiff, curved and knotted through the thicket, forming dense caves of vegetation all along the trail. The sensation of being watched intensified, and he spun around.
In the trees, darkness moved. A large crow stared from the pines, pointing with its beak. And another. Huge birds, silent and iridescent. Everywhere. Easily dozens of them watched him, some the size of small dogs. A few yards away, one clumsily glided down to the trail. It hopped toward him.
Lousy carrion birds. He turned away, and now they were in front of him as well. He stomped forward, waving the stick. In a glossy explosion, one cawed heavily away as he approached, beating its wings fiercely yet scarcely clearing the ground.
Ruined looking even from a distance, the shack stood well off the trail. Yet he knew this must be it. There didn’t seem to be any easy approach. As he left the path, the footing grew onerous with slime and creepers and brambles, thorned vines perversely clutching at him. Spiked tentacles slashed at his face as he forced his way through. He stumbled into a ditch, rank with rotted leaves, and found himself ankle-deep in muck. Heaving against the shell of a tree, he boosted himself out of the gully, sand-scoured bark crumbling beneath his fingers.
Lord, no wonder the crows are here. One wall and the roof had gone entirely, and in a corner lay the twisted black mass. Place could have burned weeks ago. He gazed into the ruins, amazed that he felt no horror and no surprise. The old lady might’ve already been dead when it happened. Soft as charred honeycombs, sticks of wood crumbled underfoot. She might’ve been. No telling. And if he hadn’t been looking for a corpse, he might never have seen it, burrowed there into the ash, nestled like an animal. Place might have been struck by lightning during that last big storm. A leg bone as small as a child’s was exposed. Nearby an iron pot lay on its side by what had been a rough fireplace. Or a cooking accident maybe. But he knew Athena would never accept this. Better look around.
He walked behind the shack. His shoes squished as mud gripped his heels. The walking stick sank deeply and pulled out of his hand, as he sank to the calves in warm, vomitous muck, his legs disappearing into too-soft mud and sawgrass. He clawed at the trees, some of which had also partially burned, their blackened forms twisted as though with death agonies. He clawed at the stiff rushes, screaming through the surge of bile in his throat.
Catching at a thick root, he dragged himself out and hung against a trunk for a moment, waiting for his heart to slow.
The bog began to quake, and ripples spread in shivering circles across the surface as he stared. An earth tremor? Or did some huge creature stir in the depths of the quicksand? He peered around at the woods as if seeing them for the first time. A feeling of presence penetrated him, a sense of the pines: malignant, sentient, lethal.
The troopers only killed a man. This had not died. This could not die. He felt no breeze now, yet an animal moan stirred from the trees.
There on the ground before him, the moss looked squashed down. As he watched, it began to spring back. A few yards away, he saw more faint imprints. Freshly made. He recognized them for what they were immediately, having r
ead their description a dozen times. Humanlike. Humanlike tracks surrounded him, bare footprints with slime just seeping in.
The woods grew dim and gray around him, color bleeding away with the rasping of his breath and the throbbing in his chest. And he grew aware of something more, a sense of…ripeness. It was ready now, no longer hiding, the pines now too dry to nurture it.
He took a step, then another. He began to run.
Sunday, August 16
“No!”
“’Thena, please, just one chance, that’s all I ask.”
“Can’t you see? All you have to do is look at him.” She wiped the boy’s forehead with a damp cloth. He’d been uncontrollable all day, thrashing, convulsing, screaming wildly whenever they’d tried to move him. Finally they’d given up, afraid to touch him. At last, he seemed calmer.
Steve’s gaze drifted to the boy, and he shuddered, recognizing the sickly gathering lump in his stomach as fear. All along, she’d been right, he knew. It was the boy. Somehow he’d always been the center of it.
Matty’s face looked pallid and swollen, and the thick-lidded eyes seemed to stare inward. Perspiration oozed down him, and he shivered, periodically calling out in short, chattering sentences. “…coming…hurt-dark…”
“Help me throw some things in a suitcase. Or don’t you believe me?” She confronted him. “Even now, don’t you believe it’s out there? Don’t you believe it’s coming here to night?”
“I believe. That’s why I’m asking you to let me do this.”
“We have to go now. Leave the house.” Determinedly, she marched across the room, then suddenly looked around instead, all her urgency bleeding away in small irresolute gestures. “Did I ever tell you how I met Wallace?”
He tried to smile for her. “No.”
“My senior year at City College, my scholarship didn’t cover everything, and I had to work after school on campus, and I was running late one night, so I cut through the park, running for my train. And there he was, looking lost, and so handsome in that uniform.” She never turned toward him, but spoke as though to the room itself, to the house. “He was stationed at Fort Dix then. He and his friends had come into the city on leave.” She laughed. “He’d gotten separated from them, had no idea where he was. I swear, we stared right in each other’s eyes, and of course I dropped all my books. He helped me pick them up, and then I didn’t care that I was late. He looked so shy, that smile. A natural gentleman, my grandmother would have said. My aunt practically screamed the place down because he was white. I left that night.”
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