“Jesus Christ!” she snapped.
“What? What?”
She had no chance to tell him.
“It’s time to go, children,” Susan said behind them.
Lupé whirled, tried to get to her feet and fell while Stan giggled at her. A glare shut him up.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“About what?” Stan asked.
She stood above them, little more than a silhouette against the sky.
Lupé shivered.
“It’s time to go.”
* * * *
2
In the automobile cave there was no music, no instructions, no talk at all except one more, “It’s time to go.”
They kept to the two-lane road, winding through the hills, the landscape a smear of no color, no shapes, the sun dying behind them.
Lupé sat as still as she could, thinking of the mountains she had left behind. Maybe she missed them, maybe she didn’t, probably they belonged to the memory of a woman who didn’t exist anymore and for whom no one mourned, no one ever said, whatever happened to..., no one dreamt about when the wind took the road down through the canyons to scour through the city and leave it behind.
She heard Stan say, “How far?”
She heard Susan answer, “To the end.”
She looked into the corner at the bundle huddled there and looked away.
Not thinking.
Not Wondering.
“I’m hungry,” Stan whined softly.
“You’ll feed,” Susan answered.
Lupé wiped a hand across her stomach, up over her breasts to her throat, where it stayed, pulling idly at the skin there, massaging, drifting away. He used to touch her here, the goddamn gringo; he used to touch her here, with his lips.
The bundle giggled.
Lupé frowned. “What do you know?”—in a soft voice.
“Everything.”
Lupé grinned. “Yeah, right.”
“More than you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t have to if I don’t want to.”
“And you don’t want to, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Hush,” Susan said gently without turning around.
The sun began to fade.
“Hey,” said Stan, leaning forward, pointing. “Be damned, it’s a cloud. Two of them. No, three. You think we’ll get some rain?”
Susan glanced at him, and he started, pushed against the door and stared out the window.
Lupé knew what he had seen.
Vampires and werewolves.
* * * *
3
Lupé’s eyelids began to flutter, her head to nod, lulled by the rhythmic sound the car made on the road.
It was mostly concrete, or cement, she never could tell the difference, and its sections had been repaired over the years by thick ribbons of tar. The wheels hit them quickly, two and two, thump and thump.
Thumpandthump.
It took her a few minutes, but she finally put a memory to the rhythm and the sound.
Hoofbeats.
It was hoofbeats.
* * * *
4
1
H
e told them in a voice he didn’t recognize as his to leave him alone. And they did. Without protest.
Then he brushed angrily, nearly snarling, at the dust the dead moths had left on his shirt and pants, swiped at the feel of it on his cheeks as he went inside and closed the doors. More out of obligation than conviction he checked the bell tower, not at all surprised to find no one there; oddly hopeful when he saw clouds building over the low mountains he could see out there in Pennsylvania.
If nothing else, there might be rain.
No one in the church.
No one in his office.
The wise thing would be to leave. Clean up. Use the water and its thunder to give him time to think. Get some distance between himself and whatever the hell was going on. Get hold of his fraying temper. Only then would he speak to the others.
The problem was, God help him, he didn’t know what he would say.
So he sat by the aisle in the first pew on the left, legs extended, ankles crossed, left hand in his pocket. He had pulled the cross out of his shirt, fingered it thoughtfully while he stared at the one on the altar.
“Something’s happening,” he said far more calmly than he felt, and closed his eyes briefly at a quick chill in his lungs. He cleared his throat, did it again. “You want to let me know what it is?”
Fading sunlight did not dull the brass’s gleam.
“I have to tell You, Lord, whatever it is, I really think You’ve picked the wrong guy here.” He shifted uncomfortably. Expelled a long, loud breath. “Let’s face it, I haven’t been thinking much quicker than Moss’s old beagle in this miserable heat. That doesn’t take any genius to figure out.
“I waited too long to do something about poor Cora, I’m messing things up pretty fierce with Helen and hurting Kay, and I...” He shook his head, shifted his gaze to the toes of his boots. “They used to call it hubris. I’m not fool enough not to see it. So full of myself, I figured I got this town under my wing, nothing’s going to hurt them they don’t do to themselves.” He shook his head again, once and slowly. “Walking the streets like some damn gunfighter marshal. Lord, what a fool. I don’t know why You just don’t send the lightning and be done with it, teach me a lesson, except probably I’m probably too thick to learn it.
“I know I should’ve talked to Arlo right away, look what happened when I didn’t. A man’s dead, a killer’s on the loose, people around here talking this and that and making things out that...”
He covered his eyes with his free hand.
Had he not feared what it would loosen, he would have let himself sob.
“He wasn’t dead,” he finally whispered, and the chill touched him again. “That second there, when I touched him ... he wasn’t dead, was he.”
The trembling began somewhere around his stomach, spread and intensified until he had to hug himself so tightly he thought he would scream. Big man shaking like a child waking from a nightmare; big man wishing his momma were still alive; big man sitting in a little backwater church, terrified his own shadow would rise up and bite him.
He drew his feet back sharply and leaned forward, arms still wrapped around his stomach, pressing hard, rocking now, watching the floor come at him and slip away, watching the toe of his left boot beat some indefinable time, looking up and watching the cross for a sign.
Big man.
Stained glass darkening.
He felt the heat.
A single strand of hair tickling his brow above his eye.
Like the wing of a moth.
The trembling passed; still he rocked.
Slowly. Slower. Until he unfolded his arms and sat back, stretched out his legs again, and said, with a faint lopsided smile that held no humor at all, “I can’t read minds, you know. Especially not Yours. If I’m supposed to be fixin’ to do something, I really have to have a hint.”
This is my church, he had told it.
Whatever it was.
You will not keep me out.
Whatever it was.
Yet the wind had flown the moths and the church bell had rung and the bees had fled and that man more char than flesh ... that dead man ...
He felt the anger.
Being played with, being nudged this way and that.
Suddenly he shoved himself to his feet with a decisive grunt and walked up the aisle, lightly slapping the back of each pew as he went, not looking back when he entered the vestibule, not looking anywhere when he closed and locked the doors behind him and walked down the street.
If they were watching, he couldn’t feel them; if they were whispering, he couldn’t hear them.
All there was, was the sun, directly in his eyes, turning everything black-and-white and setting fire to his eyes.
When he reached the rectory he kicked the gate open, ignoring the scream of the snapped rusted hinges.
On the porch he tore off his clothes, and naked he flung them as far away as he could.
In the shower he let the waterfall do its work, refusing to check what might be gathering at the drain. Twice he soaped himself and twice he rinsed, three times he washed his hair and let the water pound his scalp.
Once, he nearly fell when he thought he heard the bell.
He paid no attention to the time he spent there, nor to the time he took to dry himself without looking at the reflection in the misted mirror.
There was no thought; he didn’t need it. There had been too much of that already. What he did need, what he wanted, was to look at things without wondering or analyzing or turning this way and that. If he found answers he could understand in light of what he knew, then so be it; and if there were answers that made no sense but were true, then maybe, just maybe, he would know what to do.
He sat on the bed, black jeans in his hands, staring at them, getting angry again, finally tossing them aside with a grunt, and rummaging in the dresser’s bottom drawer until he found a pair of blue ones, faded and loose, a tiny rip in the thigh. In the closet he shoved aside all the black shirts and pulled out one he hadn’t worn in months—a red-and-dark-green hunter’s plaid. Helen had given it to him last Christmas, telling him he shouldn’t always have to wear the uniform, colors were not a true abomination; he could see still the creases where the shirt had been folded into its box. Tan boots so scuffed they were nearly white across the toes.
The cross he left in a silver tray atop the dresser.
A chair he dragged out onto the porch, where he sat and watched the last of Friday’s sun spear whitely through the last of the trees.
The only time he smiled was when he saw a picture of himself, sitting on the porch, feet on the rail, chair tipped back, country squire, country fool.
No more, he decided; damnit, no more.
The only time he moved was when Todd stood at the gate, staring at it, frowning, making up his mind whether to come along or not—Casey folded his hands and put them to his lips, to hide the grin. It was a wonder any one of them had been able to last this long.
He supposed that was one of the many reasons why he loved them.
He knew it was one of the reasons why he was so afraid.
* * * *
2
Eventually Todd chose to walk through the shattered gate, scuffing his feet on the flagstones, taking the steps as he nodded, dropping onto the top one, his back against the post, so obviously uncomfortable that Casey had to smile again. “Nobody bites here, Todd.”
His friend didn’t return the smile. He sat with one leg up, hand draped over his knees. “Case ...” He stopped, sniffed, rubbed a finger under his nose. “Case, I’d guess this is more your territory than mine, but we have to talk about what’s going on here. I mean, there’s people out there, they’re ready to set up a shrine or something, you know what I mean?”
“Enid.”
Todd nodded.
Casey took a deep breath, let it out in spurts.
“She’ll do what she has to do. Petyr will take care of her.”
“Pete’s gone. Took his car and left as soon as she started.”
This time it was Helen he spotted on the road. She didn’t bother to come as far as the gate; she cut across the driveway and lawn.
Casey grinned. “You call a meeting or what?”
This time Todd grinned back. “It’s either here or be up on the Crest, listening to that idiot.’’
“She’s in the middle of the street, for God’s sake,” Helen complained. She went inside, fetched another chair from the table, and set it beside Todd. “Standing there yelling Bible stuff at the top of her voice.” Her face was taut, her eyes puffed and faintly red. “And there are people listening to her. Casey. Maybe a dozen, I don’t know. It’s spooky. It’s really spooky.”
“Name of the game these days,’’ Todd said.
The backfire of a truck buried whatever she answered. Micah parked on the far side of the road, took his time climbing out of the cab with two others, took his time crossing, glancing around as though he expected something to leap out and yell, “Boo!” His captain’s cap was in one hand, an unlit cigarette between his lips. He sat on the bench swing while Mel in his shirtsleeves sat below Todd, his back to them all. Tessa took the swing.
She sneezed.
Casey blessed her.
She wore jeans now and an untucked white shirt, sockless in tennis shoes. “Mabel’s got Moss doing something in the hardware. Big secret. He’s got the door locked. Beagle’s whining on the bench, driving the place huts.”
“Aliens,” Mel told her with disgust. “She wants him to rig some spotlights she can put in the meadow so the aliens will know where to land.”
“And he’s doing it?” Helen said.
“Sometimes,” Casey said, “love doesn’t make you blind, it makes you stupid.”
“But aliens?”
“What do I know? I’m just a poor preacher trying to do his job.”
“In those clothes?” Todd said, his expression a sudden realization of what Casey wore.
Tessa giggled and Helen allowed a smile, although she wouldn’t stop fiddling with the buttons of her shirt.
“Looks like it’s going to get cooler,” Casey allowed with an exaggerated drawl, a languid gesture toward the river. “Have you noticed the clouds?”
“About time,” Micah said. “You think maybe it’s over?”
Mel pointed west at the treeline. Clouds rimmed in silver and gold, bottomed in dark grey. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Micah growled, “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, that’s what I think.”
Loud voices on the road.
Reed and Cora, arms and hands in waving debate.
“Talk about love making you stupid,” Todd muttered.
“Oh, don’t be so hard on them,” Helen chided. “They don’t know it yet. They’ll work it out sooner or later.”
Rina was behind them, staying well out of the argument, kicking at pebbles, looking so miserable Casey wanted to leap up and hug her. The trio faltered when they saw who was on the porch, but Reed marched forward anyway, greeting everyone with a sharp nod, taking a position on the railing at the end of the porch, to Casey’s right.
Casey looked over his shoulder. “Rina, where’s Nate?”
“I don’t know.” Her hair was braided and pulled over one shoulder. She fussed with it, refused to look up. “At work, I guess.”
“Work?” Micah almost rose from the swing. “Work? Who the hell can work? For that matter, who can do anything around here anymore? After what happened, we’re lucky the place isn’t deserted.”
Casey finally scraped his chair back until he could see all of them without effort. “What happened?” he asked mildly.
“What do you think happened?”
No one answered right away.
The Landing suddenly felt very large and very cold.
It took a moment for him to realize they were waiting for Todd to say something. Somehow they had managed to appoint him their spokesman, and Casey felt for him because he knew what the man had to say.
The creak of the swing’s chains, the creak of the boards as Tessa planted her feet to stop the swinging.
“Case.” Todd’s right hand wouldn’t stay still until Mel reached around and stilled it. He thanked him with a look, and cleared his throat. “Casey, we’ve got explanations for everything, right? Explanations up the wazoo, and I don’t mean that real-estate crap with Arlo.”
Casey nodded.
“But they don’t mean jack, and you know it. What’s been going on around here for I don’t know how long isn’t natural. It isn’t right. Doc here can talk about muscle stuff this and postmortem that, and Cora there, she’s been telling poor Dimmy the birds have gone because there’s no food here any
more, and you can tell me until you’re blue in the face that those bees took off because we made too much noise, but damnit, Case, I don’t believe it anymore. Not after today.”
Symphony - [Millennium Quartet 01] Page 22