“Okay?”
“Okay. I’ll get some clothes together, some other essentials…”
“And we’ll pick you up at your place.”
“I’ll drive myself. I’ll meet you downtown by the gas station. A half hour?”
“Sounds good.”
There was a pause. “Are there any…red flowers around Dave and Lita’s?”
“Millions of them. And they all have faces.”
“Just making sure. I’ll meet you by the gas station. Love you,” she told him.
It was the first time either of them had said it, but it sounded natural, sounded right, and, just as easily, he replied, “Love you, too.”
Hanging up, Ross looked around the room, quickly deciding what to take and what to leave. There was a chance he might come back for the rest of his stuff later, but for the moment he was assuming that he would never return. So he only needed the essentials. And those were? Laptop and clothes. He packed a small box of CDs for the trip as well, but left everything else, since all of it was easily replaceable.
Dashing as quickly as he could over the flowers, he packed his laptop and suitcase in the trunk, put the CD box on the floor between the two front seats, and ran over to the Big House, where Lita and Dave were ready to go. He hadn’t told them yet that he was leaving for good and decided to have that conversation on the road. They shouldn’t come back either, but it would waste time to have that discussion here and now, and he figured he’d be in a better position to argue his point once they were away from the ranch.
“I called Jackass,” Dave was saying. “He’ll take care of the animals and bees for us, feed Mickey while we’re gone.”
“Okay,” Lita said. She was crying again.
“Let’s go, then,” Ross suggested. “Before…” He trailed off.
Before what?
He didn’t know. But he was gripped by the strong feeling—the certainty—that if they did not leave quickly, they would not be able to leave at all. Irrational, he knew, but what wasn’t these days?
He could tell from their grimaces that Lita and Dave were both as repelled by the sensation of walking over the flowers as he was, but they made it to the car, put their suitcase and toiletries in the trunk, and got in, Dave riding shotgun, Lita in the back. No one said a word as Ross started the engine and circled around the head of the drive before setting out for the road, rolling over the densely growing flowers. He half-expected to hear screaming, cries of pain as the plants were crushed beneath the wheels, but there was only that maddening song, only the whistling, and luckily the closed windows and the sound of the car’s engine kept its intrusiveness to a minimum.
He drove slowly at first, almost gingerly, as though the tires were going over glass or nails and might pop at any second, but gradually he grew used to the sensation, and while he couldn’t see the road, he knew where it was, and by the time they approached the downtown, the car was humming along at a good forty miles an hour.
There were no red flowers here. He was not sure where they had stopped, if they had gradually thinned out or if there’d been a line of demarcation, but by the time they passed the empty beauty salon, the road was clear. And not just the road. The yards, the vacant lots, the open areas of dirt were all free from those terrible blooms.
Maybe, he thought, the further they moved away from Holt’s ranch and the monster in the smokehouse, the fewer the flowers. But Jill’s house was on the other side of the town, past this point, and she said that the plants had popped up in her area, so obviously that theory was completely wrong.
It didn’t make any sense.
None of this made any sense.
Looking to the right before turning left onto the main street, he saw that the chimney-shaped mountain, the one with the M, was almost entirely red.
Jill had said that she’d meet them at the gas station in a half-hour. It had already been twenty minutes, but when Ross drove into the grocery store parking lot, there was no sign of her. He glanced down at the gas gauge. He had a third of a tank, enough to get them to Willcox, maybe Deming, but definitely not as far as Las Cruces. Pulling next to one of the two pumps, he decided to fill up for the trip while waiting for Jill to arrive. There was no one in the cashier’s booth, however, and the pumps were so old that they had no automated card readers, so he could not charge the purchase. He was about to go into the store to find out if someone could help him, when he noticed a crowd gathering in the street.
And coming toward the gas station.
He probably shouldn’t have been as concerned as he was; for all he knew, they were also worried about what was happening and were coming over in an effort to find some answers. But his gut told him something different, and he backed against the car, opening the driver’s door, ready at a second’s notice to get in and take off.
A good twenty people, mostly men but several women as well, were approaching the parking lot from the direction of the church. Others were emerging from buildings along the way to join the crowd.
Where the hell was Jill?
“That’s Vern,” Dave announced from within the car.
“It is!” Lita said.
“Who’s— ” Ross began.
“The one with the knife.”
In the front line of the advancing crowd, a hard-looking, hatchet-faced man was holding a long knife in his right hand. Ross got quickly back into the car, locking the door and turning on the engine.
Goddamn it, Jill!
The group of locals, now numbering closer to thirty, stopped to the left of the car, next to the cashier’s booth. Ross scanned the gathering for other weapons—in his mind, the Magdalenans were horrorshow villagers carrying rifles, pitchforks, shovels, ropes, staffs—but Vern’s knife seemed to be the only one in evidence.
“I think we’d better go,” Dave said.
Ross nodded, but made no effort to leave. He was waiting for Jill, and while she was no doubt smart enough to find them if they waited by the side of the road outside of town, he was worried that something might have happened and that he might need to go after her. He considered calling her cell, but at the moment driving might require her full attention. Besides, cell phones usually didn’t work around here these days.
He looked to the left.
The crowd was getting ugly.
So to speak.
For some of the people in the rear of the crowd seemed to have…changed. The individuals were moving, shifting, but here he saw a pig nose, there some teeth that looked like tusks. Overlarge eyes bored into him from within a face covered by far too much hair.
It was not only the people in the back, though. Ben Stanard, the old man from the market, was now not so old. He was meaner looking than he had been before, but appeared years younger. And the big-breasted bimbo married to the internet guy was no longer so big-breasted. Her formerly pretty face was haggard and drawn, and her chest was as flat as a boy’s. She was standing not next to her husband but next to the mushroom lady from the farmer’s market, whose red face was twisted with rage.
Everyone seemed angry, though not at anything in particular. It was the type of mob, Ross thought, that would require only one incendiary word to graduate to a riot.
They needed to get out of here. Now. If only…
He saw Jill’s van turn on to the street.
Filled with relief, Ross put the car in gear, honked his horn and swerved around the growing mob. Jill had seen him, and instead of pulling into the gas station, she remained on the street, waiting. She motioned for him to pull in front of her, and he did so, turning right, heading out of town.
There were still no red flowers, but there were people on the street, and he drove slowly so as not to hit them, Jill’s van following closely behind. Many of those they passed ignored the vehicles, but some individuals stared, openly hostile. Ross thought of Jill’s painting depicting a line of armed and angry men with long animal shadows, the street littered with bodies of mutilated women.
And
of course that painting of a monster looming over the smoldering ruins of Magdalena was never far from his mind.
He wondered what the thing in Cameron Holt’s smokehouse looked like right now.
Ross slowed the car as they reached the end of town. Standing forlornly in front of an empty adobe house, looking lost, was Father Ramos. The priest stood next to an overturned red tricycle, his collar open and partially ripped, a dark bruise on his cheek. Ross pulled over, concerned. Stopping before the house, he got out, shooting Jill a look through the van’s windshield as he moved around to open the back door of the car. “Hop in, Father.”
The priest stared at him blankly. “They won’t listen to me,” he said, perplexed. “I tried to get them to stop, but…” His voice trailed off.
Ross felt a chill caress his spine. “Stop what?”
The priest shook his head. “It all got away from me.”
“Get in the car,” Ross said gently. “We’re leaving. We’re getting out of here. We’ll take you with us.”
Father Ramos hesitated. “This is my flock. I’m responsible—”
“Not any more, Father. And you know it. You need to come with us. We need to get out of here. It’s dangerous to stay.”
It was obvious that the priest didn’t want to leave, but while he’d probably be wracked with guilt later, he was dazed enough to be pliable, and, at the urging of all of them, he reluctantly got in the back seat of the car next to Lita.
Apparently, they were not the only ones to feel that it was time to leave, because other vehicles were also on the road heading in the same direction. It was a virtual caravan out of town, and Ross was glad to see it. The more people who left Magdalena, the better. They’d be safe.
But the ones who remained…
He didn’t know what would happen to them and tried not to think about it.
When the monster hatched…
He really didn’t want to think about that.
Father Ramos, atypically, did not seem to be in the mood to talk, and none of them pressed him. He looked as though he’d gotten into a fight, and Ross wondered what had happened, but unless and until the priest wanted to share, neither he, Lita nor Dave had any right to demand answers.
“I think it’s time we told someone about this,” Dave said as they were travelling toward the highway. “Sheriff, National Guard…someone.”
Ross looked over at him. “You think they’ll believe that—”
“We tell them there’s been looting, a riot, civil unrest. Magdalena has no police force. They’ll have to come out to investigate.”
“Not a bad plan,” Ross said admiringly.
“And when they go out there, they’ll find…what they find.”
“I’m going to tell the diocese.”
They were all surprised to hear Father Ramos’ voice—Ross had not even been sure he’d been paying attention to the conversation—and not only was it a relief to discover that the priest was alert and aware of what was going on, but it was reassuring to think that the Catholic church would be getting involved. As heathenish as he might be, deep down Ross thought that Jill was right: this was something that might require a religious solution.
“It is not an angel,” Father Ramos said. “I know that now.”
“What is it?” Lita asked.
“That is what we need to discover.”
There were lineups at nearly all of the gas stations in Willcox, mostly Magdalena refugees. While Ross filled up at a Shell, Lita and Dave got out to talk to some of their friends and acquaintances and compare notes. Jill had pulled up to the pump behind them, and Ross set the clip on his gas nozzle and walked over to her. They hadn’t spoken since their short conversation on the phone this morning, and the first thing he said was, “Are you all right?”
She nodded, smiling tiredly.
“Did you have any trouble?”
“Not getting out. It took me awhile to pack everything I needed, but that was no big deal. Last night, though…” She exhaled deeply.
“What happened?” Ross heard his nozzle click as the gas tank filled up, but he made no effort to take it out.
“There was that storm?”
“Yeah, it woke me up.”
“Well, I was already up, and I was baking cookies. I thought I’d make angel cookies.” She smiled wryly. “It seemed appropriate. Anyway, my cookies…came alive. I don’t know any other way to describe it. They were in the oven, and they were trying to get out, and I had to burn them up.”
“Jesus.”
“I stayed awake all night after that. So I’m really tired. But after that, and once I saw those red flowers—” She shivered at the recollection. “—I knew it was time to get out.”
The hose was between them, but he stepped over it and gave her a hug.
“What do you think’s going to happen back there?” Jill asked.
“Dave had a good idea. We’re going to call the county sheriff, maybe the national guard, tell them there’s civil unrest in Magdalena. Riots. They’ll go out to investigate. And Father Ramos is going straight to the leaders of the diocese…”
“What do you think is going to happen?” she repeated.
He met her gaze. “I don’t know.”
Jill’s pump clicked off, and while she attended to that, he returned to his own car, withdrawing the nozzle and placing it back on the hook. Father Ramos had walked over to visit with some of his parishioners in other cars, and he returned to inform Ross that one of the families had offered to take him to Tucson, where he intended to inform officials of the church about what was going on. “I should have done this immediately, on New Year’s Day,” he said. “It’s my fault that I did not.”
“You’re doing it now,” Ross told him. “That counts for something.”
“Thank you for the ride.” The priest took Ross’ right hand in both of his, clasping it with genuine warmth. “Bless you.”
Lita and Dave returned. “I talked to Armando Rascon,” Dave said. “He was already planning to go to the sheriff and tell him what’s going on in Magdalena. I convinced Jed and Marla Weaver to go there, too. We can’t afford to get bogged down, so instead of going with them, I’ll just call 911 on the way. I don’t know why I didn’t do it already. Stupid!” Lita put a hand on his shoulder. He patted it. “Anyway, the law should be heading over there pretty soon. I’m going to tell them about New Year’s Eve. They won’t believe me, but when I tell them there’s a dead body in Cameron Holt’s smokehouse, they’ll have to check it out.”
“What do you think will happen?” Ross asked. In his mind, he saw a group of sheriff’s deputies kneeling before the smokehouse in prayer or eaten by pig people or overwhelmed by a mob of villagers.
Dave shrugged. “All we can do is hope for the best.”
“Father!” a man’s voice shouted from two islands over. “Are you ready?”
“I’m coming!” Father Ramos called out.
Lita turned to face him. “Are you leaving us?”
“I must. I am going to Tucson.”
Bursting into tears, Lita threw her arms around the priest, giving him a big hug.
“I will pray for your mother,” he said gently. “And for all of you.”
Lita would not let him go, but sobbed into his shoulder. Dave had to pull her away, and he nodded at Father Ramos. “If I ever did go to church,” he said, “I’d go to yours.”
The priest smiled wryly. “You might be the only one there now.”
“What did happen back in Magdalena?” Ross asked.
Father Ramos shook his head, a dark look passing over his face. It was clear that he still wasn’t ready to talk about it, and Ross backed off.
“Goodbye,” the priest said. “And God bless you. I pray that we will meet again under happier circumstances.” Waving, he headed between cars toward a white SUV.
Ross felt a hand on his.
“So where are you going from here?” Jill asked.
“Albuquerque. Lita has to m
ake the arrangements.”
“I’m thinking I’ll go back to Mesa, to my mom’s.”
Ross nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“Meet me when you’re done in Albuquerque?”
“I plan to.”
They worked out the arrangements while Lita and Dave got back in the car, and he agreed to call her tonight, from wherever he ended up.
“No matter how late,” she told him.
“No matter how late,” he promised.
She kissed him on one cheek, on the other, on the forehead, on the mouth. “Be careful,” she said.
THIRTY TWO
It had been a long time since Ross had seen his Aunt Kate, and she looked older than he remembered. Her body had been cleaned up after the accident for easier identification, but even though she was dead, he could tell that she had aged a lot since he had last seen her. He was reminded that this was his mom’s younger sister, and the thought made him depressed. How much time, he wondered, did his mom have left?
Ross hadn’t wanted to see the body at all, but Lita had insisted. He was family, and she wanted him there, so he did it for her sake. In the back of his mind—and in the back of hers, no doubt—was the idea that her mother’s death was connected to that thing in Magdalena. Lita’s luck had changed, as had so many other people’s, and though he still had no idea how the chrysalis-enveloped body of a monster that had been shot out of the sky could enact such widespread and far-reaching damage, he did not doubt that it was possible.
But why?
Revenge?
That seemed plausible, and he marveled at how far his worldview had shifted, and how quickly and easily he had adjusted.
They were staying in adjoining rooms at a Holiday Inn on the western outskirts of Albuquerque. They’d driven nonstop and had checked in after midnight, grabbing a quick five hours of sleep before going to the hospital. After identifying the body, they headed over to a Denny’s for breakfast, where they sat around the table, drinking coffee and orange juice as Lita tried to decide what sort of funeral her mother should have. As far as she knew, her mom did not have a will, but she didn’t yet feel strong enough to go over to the house and start looking through her mom’s belongings. Lita’s dad had also been notified, but apparently he had not arrived yet, even though he lived in Farmington, which was a good deal closer than Magdalena. Left unspoken was the thought that something might have happened to him, too.
The Influence Page 27