Jim and Brother Elias moved forward slowly, gripping the rope tightly.
They waded through a sea of tiny bodies, all snapping and clawing at their legs and feet, but the creatures seemed to have no effect on them. The sheriff looked down. He could not see the gravel for the bodies. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the tiny infants were swarming on top of each other. He could see little hands grasping at air, little mouths snapping at nothing. His feet stepped on the bodies as he moved forward. They felt soft, squishy. He could feel small bones snapping as his legs sank deep into the sea of flesh.
Before them, the figure of Father Selway was slowly backing up. It was no longer smiling. A look of hatred--fear?--crossed its features.
"In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, we command you to recognize the power of the Word," Brother Elias chanted. "In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, we command you to bow down before the power of God."
The figure was not moving but was now standing stock-still. It appeared trapped, though Jim was not sure why. They had done nothing.
Was it the prayers?
They walked on either side of the figure and circled twice, pulling the rope tight. The rope sank deep into the black flesh--so deeply that it was no longer visible--but held nonetheless. The figure said nothing, made no sound, and Jim had the feeling that whatever power had been animating the body, whatever had inhabited the burnt form, had left, leaving only a lifeless husk.
Instantly, the form became animate. A hand lashed out and struck Brother Elias full in the face. The preacher fell, letting go of the rope, blood streaming from his nose. The black face grinned, the features filled with an evil intelligence.
"Grab the rope!" Jim screamed, whipping his head around. But both Gordon and the priest were struggling with the now jet figure of Brad, and he knew neither of them could pick up the slack without letting Brad escape.
Brother Elias struggled to his feet, shaking his head as if to clear it. He reached down and grabbed the rope with both hands. Blood was pouring from his nose, which had been crushed. One eye was starting to swell.
"I am very impressed with the power of the Lord," the figure said in its grating voice. A black arm swung out again, but Brother Elias ducked successfully.
"Pull!" the preacher yelled. He leaned backward, using all of his weight to drag the bound figure toward him. Jim pulled as well, putting his strength into it. The black form was heavy, much heavier than its size would indicate.
"Pull!" the preacher yelled again. His eye was now swollen shut.
"Pull hard!"
With one quick yank, they pulled the figure over the line of white Bibles. The body stiffened noticeably, and Jim felt all of the power drain out of it. A look of agonized rage cemented itself onto the burnt features. The Bibles on the ground blackened and burst into flame. A terrible scream of primal pain erupted simultaneously from the thousands of tiny mouths surrounding them. The sound was deafening.
"Drag it to the fire!" Brother Elias yelled. "It can't hurt us now!"
He looked toward Gordon and the priest. "Bring him to the fire, too!"
Behind Jim, Gordon was struggling alone to keep Brad pinned to the ground. Father Andrews' pitchfork was sunk deep in Brad's chest, but the priest himself was rolling on the ground in agony, holding tightly onto his arm. Blood was pouring out from between his fingers. Dozens of little fetuses were swarming around the priest, but they seemed not to notice him. They were squirming blindly, panicked, and the sheriff realized that they were now lost, leaderless. They did not know what to do. A few of them bit into the skin of Father Andrews' arm, causing him to scream in pain, but it was the random biting of dumb mindlessness and not the concentrated frenzy of a few moments before.
"Get him up!" the sheriff called to Gordon. He was running out of breath as he tugged the inert form of Father Selway toward the fire.
"You .. . have to bring .. . Brad to ... the fire!"
"He's hurt!" Gordon said.
"Then you bring him by yourself!"
Gordon looked at the crazed hellish figure struggling beneath him. "I
can't! I'm not strong enough!"
"We'll get it," Brother Elias said. His voice was slurred. He spat blood. He pulled hard on the rigid form of Father Selway . They were almost to the fire now. The flames were still burning bright.
Three more pulls on the rope and they were there. Brother Elias stopped. "We'll have to push!" he said. He dropped his end of the rope and moved next to the sheriff. He grabbed Jim's arm, leading him behind the unmoving form. This close, Jim could smell a faint sulfurous odor underneath the powerful scent of burned flesh.
"Push!" the preacher said.
The body was soft, like raw dough. Jim felt his hands sink deep into the black form. The squishy flesh pressing against his skin was cold.
It felt as though his hands and arms were being absorbed by the body.
He pushed as hard as he could without meeting anything solid, anything substantial, but the push must have been enough. The black figure toppled forward into the fire.
"Stand back!" Brother Elias ordered.
The charred blackness melted off the figure, and inside Jim saw something white and shiny and vaguely translucent. The body disappeared in a long, sustained flash of red, and the entire fire suddenly turned the color of blood. A shock wave of foul-smelling heat rolled outward from the blaze.
Fifteen feet away, Brad's struggling body suddenly went limp. Gordon held the pitchfork in place for a moment, but when the figure did not move again he let up. Jim came running over, and both of them picked up the body, carrying it to the fire and throwing it in. There was another flash of light, this one not as long, and the body was gone.
Blood was still streaming down Brother Elias' face from his crushed nose and eye, dripping down onto his suit. The preacher was standing before the blaze, hands outstretched, speaking loudly in his alien tongue. The red flames lent an unearthly tint to his features, highlighting the liquid redness of the blood on his face. The flames flared suddenly then died down to nothing. The fire devolved to its original smoking embers, and the burning ring of blood surrounding it went out completely. A thick wave of oppressive black smoke poured out from the now dormant woodpile.
Gordon looked down at the camera around his neck and saw that it had been broken. The lens was smashed, and light was leaking into the camera through a crack in the body, ruining the film. None of his pictures would come out.
The smoke was spreading upward, carried by an unfelt wind, blocking out the rays of the morning sun, covering the sky. Though the fire had died and there was nothing left to burn, the smoke continued to pour forth in great gusts. Gordon looked up and saw that the tip of the smoke cloud had formed a clawed hand.
Brother Elias picked up the box with the remaining jars of blood.
"There's more to do," he said. "It's not over yet." He carried the box to the car. "Come on. We must go."
"To Milk Ranch Point," the sheriff said.
"To Milk Ranch Point," Brother Elias agreed.
Gordon moved toward them, supporting a weakened Father Andrews on his arm. "One of them jumped up and attacked him," Gordon explained.
Brother Elias grabbed the priest's arm and squeezed it tightly. Father Andrews screamed, but when the preacher removed his hand the bleeding had stopped. "You must be strong," Brother Elias said. "God needs you now,"
The four of them walked back to the trucks.
"We'll all go in the same truck," Jim said. "It'll be a little tight, but we can't afford any accidents."
Brother Elias nodded. As the other three piled into the cab of Gordon's truck, the preacher picked a stray piece of paper off the ground, took out his lighter, and set the paper on fire. He dropped it on the ground. It spread to another piece of paper and then to a dried tree branch. He got into the truck and Jim started the engine.
"Are you just going to let that burn?" Gordon asked.
The preacher nodded.
"Rangers will spot the fire when it has done its work. They will put it out."
The fire reached the body of a mindlessly squirming infant and engulfed it.
The truck backed out, tires squishing bodies beneath them, small bones breaking. None of them even winced at the terrible sounds or at the bumpy feel of the truck as it drove over the tiny bodies on the way out of the landfill.
Before they reached the highway, they heard a massive explosion as the flames reached Brad Nicholson's Pepsi truck.
Marina searched frantically through the bathroom, looking for a weapon. She opened the medicine chest and quickly pawed through its contents, throwing the discarded and rejected items onto the floor. She held the can of Right Guard deodorant for a moment. She had seen a character in a movie once use an aerosol spray can as a flame thrower, holding a lighted match in front of the spray. But she had no match, no flame whatsoever. She threw the can onto the floor. A small pair of scissors was lying in the top drawer under the sink, amidst various makeup containers and old curlers. She picked up the scissors, but rejected the idea immediately. Too small.
There was nothing she could do.
She sat down on the toilet once again. She had panicked at first, crying uncontrollably and screaming at whatever was outside the door.
Then she had forced herself to adjust to the situation, forced herself to calm down and think rationally. The creatures outside the door had taunted her. Something large had been thrown against the door. Small rocks had been thrown against the shuttered window from the outside.
Marina stared at her face in the bathroom mirror. Her hair was disheveled; mascara ran down her cheeks in twin rivulets. Her lips were dry and cracked. She buried her face in her hands.
Outside the door, something small chuckled evilly to itself. Other voices joined in.
"Get the hell out of here!" Marina screamed.
The bathroom door rattled as something tried to turn it. Marina held her stomach protectively, acutely aware of the defenseless baby within her. She knew that whatever was out there was only toying with her, playing games with her. They would tire of her soon, and then she would find out what was really in store.
Several small voices, in and around the house, outside, on the roof, babbled crazily in unison, and were suddenly silent. She held her breath.
Five minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen.
Marina stood up, pressing her ear to the door, listening.
Nothing.
She moved over to the shuttered window.
Nothing.
Slowly, cautiously, she opened the wooden shutter. Several shards of broken glass fell into the bathroom. She peeked outside, but there was nothing, no one, no sign of life. She walked back across the bathroom and carefully opened the door. The hallway was littered with broken glass and china. Two chairs had been dragged out from the kitchen and were overturned next to the bedroom door. An antique porcelain lamp, given to her by her grandmother, had been smashed against the wall.
But there was no sign of life.
Marina opened the door wider. She saw nothing and moved slowly out into the hall. The china cracked under her feet. She stepped over an overturned chair. She moved toward the kitchen and stepped through the kitchen door.
Something pink, moving at lightning speed, dashed out from under the table and knocked her backward to the floor. Her head hit hard against a smashed plate. Small fingers grabbed her arms and legs and spread them wide.
Marina screamed as the point of an ice pick was driven through her right hand. Her head whipped around and she saw two small malformed infants pressing the pick through her hand into the tile floor. She screamed again as steak knives impaled her other hand and her feet, but though she felt dizzy and weak she did not pass out.
Scores of tiny infants, all hideously deformed, were moving around the floor of the kitchen, cackling to themselves.
She closed her eyes in pain and disbelief. She opened her eyes to see a large evil-looking baby clutching in its hand her good carving knife.
The creature smiled. Morning sunlight glinted off the polished metal of the knife, and Marina realized that the knife was going to be used to cut her open and kill her unborn daughter.
Screaming, she blacked out.
The truck moved slowly up the winding highway that switch backed up the face of the Rim. From this vantage point, they could see the forest below them. Jim saw that the clouds of billowing black smoke were still spreading upward from the landfill, now augmented by the more natural gray smoke of a forest fire. Farther south, the morning sunlight glinted off the buildings of Randall, a small whitish patch in the sea of green trees.
Jim wondered what was happening back in town. He should have given Pete more explicit instructions. He should have brought along some type of two-way radio so he could communicate with the office and find out what was happening. He shook his head. There were a lot of things he should have done.
At least Annette and the kids had gotten out safely.
He looked at Gordon and felt immediately guilty. He should have allowed Gordon to check on his wife. It would have only taken an extra ten minutes or so. She was the one who was really in danger, anyway.
He should have overridden Brother Elias and allowed Gordon to drive by his house. It was very stupid of him not to. What if something happened to her? Gordon met his gaze, and Jim glanced guiltily away, concentrating his attention on the j road.
"We need to go faster," Brother Elias said, "or we will be too | late.
The adversary knows now that we are here. He knows we are f coming for him and he will be prepared."
"I have to use low gears here," Jim explained. "We'll be able to go a lot faster once we get to the top."
Brother Elias said nothing, staring silently out the front windshield.
Gordon turned to look at Father Andrews, leaning against the door. The priest was forced into an uncomfortably tight position, but his eyes were closed and he was sleeping. He was exhausted.
The pickup finally reached the top of the Rim, and Jim shifted the truck into third, flooring the gas pedal. The vehicle shot forward.
The road wound through the forest, following the lay of the land. The two-lane blacktop skirted especially thick stands of tall trees and wound through gullies, finding the easiest route through the rough terrain.
Ahead, Jim saw the small brown Forest Service sign that marked the turnoff to Aspen Lake and he slowed down. He rolled up the truck's window and turned onto the dirt road. Once again, he sped up, and soon the pickup was flying over the innumerable bumps in the road, sailing past the close-growing trees.
Fifteen minutes later, the pines began to be replaced by aspens, and he could see the blue of the lake through the trees. "We're almost there," he announced.
He slowed down as they reached the lake, searching for the old dirt path that led to Milk Ranch Point.
"There it is," Brother Elias said, pointing.
Jim followed the preacher's finger. Several newly cut aspens were piled across the path, barring the truck access.
"Something doesn't want us back there," Gordon said.
Brother Elias nodded. "We'll have to walk."
The truck braked to a stop, and Father Andrews blinked open his eyes.
"Are we there?" he asked.
"Yeah," Jim said. He opened the door and got out, stretching his tired muscles. Above, the sky was darkening, gray rain clouds from the north intermingling with the heavy black smoke still streaming up from the landfill below the Rim. A warm wind had sprung up from somewhere, and it brought to his nostrils the odor of burning flesh.
Brother Elias stepped out of the cab, carrying the box with the last two jars of blood. He moved to the back of the truck and put the box down on the ground at his feet. He drew from the rear of the pickup a small canvas bag containing the four crosses he had requested, and he dropped the bag into the box.
He pulled out one of the rifles and a box of ammunition.
"Does
everyone know how to use one of these?" the preacher asked.
Gordon looked at Father Andrews, and both men shook their heads.
"You won't need one," Brother Elias said to the priest. He looked at Gordon. "You will." He handed Gordon the rifle and threw another one to the sheriff. "Show him how to use it," he said.
Father Andrews watched as Gordon and Jim walked to the front of the truck, grasping their rifles. He turned his attention to Brother Elias, who was staring at him with that black unflinching gaze. "Come," the preacher said. He put a strong arm around Father Andrews' shoulders and led him to the makeshift barrier that was blocking the trail to Milk Ranch Point. This close, the priest could see that the felled aspens had not been chopped down. They had been gnawed on. By tiny teeth. He felt suddenly cold.
"How strong are your ties to your church?" Brother Elias asked.
The priest stared at him. "Why?"
"What I will ask you to do goes against everything you have ever been taught. It runs contrary to the very tenets of your faith." Father Andrews smiled slightly. "So what else is new?"
"This you will not be able to rationalize. What I will ask you to do is specifically prohibited in the Bible. It is considered blasphemous before the eyes of God." He paused for a moment, his gaze focusing upward on the gray clouds and black smoke creeping across the sky above them. The air was hot, humid, uncomfortable. "Good and evil are not abstract concepts," he said finally. "They exist and they have always existed."
The priest frowned. "I have always thought so."
"They exist outside and independent of any religion. Religions, all religions, are merely crude attempts to explain their existence.
Religions are created to label and categorize powers they do not understand."
Father Andrews looked at the preacher. He could feel the evil of this place. It suffused the trees, the bushes, the very ground they stood upon. Corruption thickened the air they breathed, and he felt almost overwhelmed by nausea as the evil pressed in upon his senses. He felt his arm, now healed, and that too seemed wrong somehow. His eyes met those of Brother Elias, and he looked away, frightened.
The Revelation Page 24