An occasional bird screamed in the distance, but apart from that and the slamming of hoof-like feet in deep mud, silence reigned in the night, and never in her life had she felt so isolated from the world of humankind — its sounds, its movement, its lights. Geographically, she must be only a few miles from town and the family that had claimed her, yet this was a vast, primeval, alien world, set apart in time, so removed from her experience that it might have been the darkest, most desolate corner of the globe.
She felt more lonely than afraid. Death had already touched her tonight, and it seemed a distant ally, a friend waiting to greet her at the end of an unexpected journey. Already, she had accepted that she would never see another dawn, and although anything resembling hope had long since fled, something within her lingered, sustaining her.
Knowledge. The knowledge that the Monarch could and would have destroyed her already if that had been its desire. It carried her with a purpose, and its fulfillment of that purpose might yet reveal the answers she still craved, regardless of her final fate.
That laughter she had heard. A cruel intimation of the truth behind the Monarch.
Had old Martha actually been present somewhere nearby, or had her voice traversed countless miles by some arcane channel? If not directly responsible, that frail, shrunken thing with her secrets and her cryptic talk was somehow in league with the entity. Of the two, though, which was the master and which was the servant? Or might such trite, human terms be altogether irrelevant?
The thing slowed its pace, which served to refocus her awareness on the signals from her body. Her feet still ached, but only dully, and her upper body had gone mostly numb. Her lungs drew only short, shallow breaths, and the back of her skull felt like a timpani occasionally struck by a hammer. Very slowly, she shifted her position in the crook of the thing's arm, trying to coax the circulation back into her limbs without reminding her captor of her presence. The sky seemed to have brightened a little, for the branches stood out in stark relief here, but she knew it could not yet be dawn. As the Monarch moved toward a clearing in the trees, she lifted her head to see better, straining her eyes in the darkness, and when she began to make out the shapes hanging from the trees at the boundaries of the hollow, her stomach lurched dangerously.
They were the bodies of men who might have been alive before the last sunset, impaled on spear-like limbs. Skeletons dangling like wind chimes from towering boughs. Blackened rags tangled in claw-like branches, the last evidence of corpses that had fallen back to earth. Some of the bones rattled like maracas as a low breeze whispered through the clearing.
To her right, one of the figures wore clothes she recognized. Ben Surber.
No way.
The Monarch had killed Ben and vanished into the swamp only minutes before reappearing to abduct her. It had taken many times that for the thing to bring her this far. How could it have carried Ben's body here and emerged again in such a brief time?
One of the other nearby figures, suspended from a gnarled, forked branch just above her head, also appeared familiar. George Tillery, whom she had left behind in Ben's demolished truck. Perhaps Johnny Spencer and even Dwayne Surber also hung like macabre monuments in this haven for the impossible.
Her mind must have snapped, she thought. If she were still sane, then the universe itself had come unglued and caught her up in its collapsing fragments.
The Monarch strode toward the center of the hollow, and in the dim, midnight blue light, she made out the twisted, charred-looking trunks of innumerable trees jutting like frozen snakes from shallow pools of black water, and the awful sensation of having been here before crept over her. At first, the vague impression made no sense — until she remembered having seen these very images in a number of David's paintings.
She should have known. He was a part of all this.
The monster shifted the arm that supported her, and she feared she was going to fall until the massive, talon-like fingers of its other hand closed around her torso again. This time, the pressure quickly became unbearable, cutting off her breath, and, as if she were a disembodied observer, she watched in helpless shock as the thing lifted her, held her up to its cold, alien eyes to study her for several seconds, and then released her. She felt herself flailing as she plummeted ten feet and splashed into a black, oily pool, which swallowed her as if it were a greedy, gaping mouth. Her feet bored into deep, yielding slime beneath the surface of the water, but the impact still sent her head snapping fiercely backward. The mud tried to pull her down into its embrace, but she kicked and clawed her way back up until her head broke free and she could suck in a lungful of air. As she wiped the viscous, foul-smelling water out of her face, she saw the abomination that had carried her here turning to stomp back into the endless darkness, leaving her alone again beneath a glowering, alien sky.
She half-paddled, half-staggered toward a bracken-ringed mound, where the ground appeared solid. She pulled herself onto an island of moist but relatively firm earth and collapsed on her back, exhausted, struggling to keep her mind from slipping into senselessness. Her body had taken all it could take. Every joint, every muscle blazed with pain. The skin of her back felt as if it had been flayed by metal hooks, and her ribs ached where the Monarch's arm had crushed her to its bony thorax. She lay there listening to the night's dead silence, wondering whether she cared in the least what might eventually happen to her.
Sometime later, a faint sound crept to her ears, and she sat up with a groan, scarcely daring to believe what she was hearing: the melodious ringing and grumbling of a distant train, barely audible, soon joined by the mournful wail of its whistle. Her eyes fell on a rampart of broken trees several yards away, and she saw beyond them only an endless curtain of impenetrable black. But the faint reminder that, somewhere, many miles away, life went on for others as it had for countless years sent of pang of longing burning in her heart, and she knew that, deep inside, she did still care.
A strange, rhythmic thudding noise above her head drew her attention to the tops of the trees surrounding the hollow. At first, she saw only the mocking stars above the spidery canopy, but then something big and dark passed overhead, briefly blocking the starlight. And she understood: the strange mantle on the Monarch's back had been a pair of wings, folded like a huge moth's.
That was how it had taken Ben Surber's body and returned for her so quickly.
Then the thing was gone. She felt a deep certainty it would not be returning; not soon, anyway. Another long silence followed, and her wracked consciousness was just beginning to fade when a new sound dragged her back to full alertness: a faint crunch-splash, repeated several times, somewhere in the distance. Impossible to tell which direction it came from — as if direction meant anything to her in the amphitheater-like hollow — but when the noise came again, it was distinctly nearer.
Footsteps.
Human.
Her heart beginning to race again, she rolled onto her stomach and lifted her head to peer in the direction of the sounds, for the first time considering that she was completely naked, her body covered head to toe in black mud.
The interloper might never even see her.
The longer she stared, the denser and more maddening the darkness became, as if she were peering through a series of lowering veils. She detected a hint of movement a short distance to her right, and she pressed herself close against the earth, hoping to make herself less visible to any searching eyes, certain that anyone entering this particular ring of hell could not possibly have her best interests in mind. The footsteps were steady and assured. Then they stopped, only a few yards away.
"I see you."
She had known it would be him. It had to be him. That he was here, and that he must surely know what she had been through tonight, struck her as unforgivable, horrible. Yet he was the only person in whom she felt she could still place an ounce of trust.
She slowly rose to face him.
In the darkness, she could just make out his face, a doz
en feet away. He was smiling his inevitable wry smile, but his eyes were full of fear.
Chapter 20
Neither approached the other for a time. David stood at the edge of the mound, taking in the sight of her. He wore a denim shirt, mud-splattered jeans, and heavy work boots, now half-sunk in the mud.
"Did you come to help me or to finish me?" Courtney asked.
"If we don't get out of here, we're both finished."
"Martha?"
He nodded. "I think I convinced her not to have you killed. Which was easier than convincing her not to have Jan killed. No guarantees, though."
"Why would she do such a thing?"
"Jan displeased her. Long story."
"I think I've gotten a good portion of it. Where is Jan?"
"Elsewhere."
"She's alive?"
"Yes." He stared at the wounds on her abdomen for a moment, then took off his shirt and used it wipe away the dripping blood. She barely felt any pain from the gashes. The worst of the agony was in her feet. He wrapped the shirt around her midsection and tied the tails in back to make a crude bandage.
"Thank you," she said, her voice flat.
He looked around at the woods, eyes still nervous. "We should go."
"Where the hell are we?"
"Right in the middle of its territory." He held out a hand to her, and she took a tentative step toward him. Pain shot up her legs, and she stumbled.
"Damn it," she groaned. "I won't make it very far."
"We'll make do."
She took his hand, and he pulled her to him, the relief in his eyes so deep that she knew, whatever he had done, whatever he might be, she need have no fear of him. His arms encircled her body, his warmth helping dispel the chill in her bones. She must barely look human, she thought, covered in so much mud and tangled foliage.
His eyes scanned the clearing again, as well as the starry sky. She could detect no movement or other sign of the Monarch. "It left a while ago," she said. "Are you afraid of it?"
"Let's say I don't care to spend time in its favorite summer place."
"How far do we have to go?"
"Not as far as you've already come." He drew her left arm around his shoulders and wrapped his right arm around her waist, so that he could support most of her weight. "I can get us out easily enough — as long as nothing interferes."
"Why would it? Your aunt controls the thing, doesn't she?"
He snorted. "At best, she can influence it. If she didn't know how to raise barriers against it, that thing would just as happily tear her limb from limb. It's beyond any human being's control. Still, it comes when she calls it. And then it goes away."
"What in God's name is it?"
"Something very old. You see the charred trees? Martha says that, a long, long time ago, it came up from Hell, and left those in its wake. They've stood that way for hundreds of years. So I'm told."
He began leading her along a relatively dry path between the tall cedar and black gum trees, picking his footing carefully, his strong arms warding away any fear of falling. "Do you believe that?" she asked. "About Hell?"
"I wouldn't know. It's as likely from outer space. Or other space. But that's irrelevant. The thing exists."
She stared into the trees ahead. "Hell. What if there is such a place? Reserved for people who kill, maybe."
"You sound afraid."
"I killed Ray Surber."
He didn't break his stride, but he turned his head to look at her with questioning eyes. Then he gave her a nod of understanding. "There's killing and there's murder. They're not necessarily the same thing."
"I was defending myself. I had to defend myself." No. She could have stopped short of butchering him. If not for the rage…
"It wasn't murder," David said with assurance.
At the end, light had blazed all around her. A terrible, white light. The memory jolted her. "Chief Flythe. He was there. He saw the Monarch. He saw it."
"It's nothing for you to worry about."
"He saw what I did."
David squeezed her waist gently. "It's going to be all right."
"What are we going to do, David? What's going to happen to me? To us?"
His expression darkened. "She wants to see you."
"Martha? Martha, who would just as soon see me dead?"
"I told you. That's no longer a concern."
She stumbled, and David stopped, his arms keeping her upright. The trees were as thick as ever here, but she could see a faint golden glimmer to the left, which meant that dawn was near. They were walking roughly south-southeast. "I don't think I can go any farther," she said, holding onto his shoulder. Her soles felt as if she had been walking on broken glass, her ankles lacerated and swollen.
David cast a nervous glance backward. "We'll rest here for a couple of minutes. Then I'll carry you."
"Never happen," she said, sinking to her haunches and then to a sitting position, her back against a tree. "You'll fall and kill us both."
He sat down next to her. "It's not as far as you think. My car is near here."
"You drove in?"
"There's an old utility road off the rear of the property that goes out to Owen Swamp Road. Dad used to use it to get to one of the worksites. There's another spur that leads partway out here."
"Good God. That road must be the one Jan was looking for when the Surbers ran us down."
He nodded. "That's where I found her car. Not a hundred yards from the turn."
"You came out looking for us?"
"When you didn't come back home and I couldn't get Jan on the phone, I went driving out that way. It wasn't until later that I learned what Martha had been up to."
"What's her story? How does she do what she does? Why?"
"Why does anyone do anything? Power. She learned most of what she knows from Arlene's kin."
"Arlene!"
"I'm afraid we weren't exactly forthright with you about certain things. Arlene's not bound to us because of my parents. But because Martha's father owned her ancestors. Before the Civil War."
"Her father? That's not possible."
"How old would you say Martha is?"
"I don't know. Eighty-something, maybe?"
David chuckled darkly. "Double that and then some."
A cold blade sliced through the nerves in her back. "What?"
"It's true."
"It can't be. It can't."
"You say that even after all you've experienced tonight?"
For a time, she had no more words. Only hours earlier, she would have denied that anything that had happened tonight could ever happen. "What about Arlene?" she finally asked.
"She stays with us because Martha wills it. And I guess you'd say Arlene is the closest thing to a friend Martha has."
Courtney shook her head in dismay. "I would never have taken her to be Martha's friend. She seems so good-hearted."
"She is good-hearted. She likes you, too."
"She seems so genuine. But if she knows these things, these terrible secrets —"
"If she wasn't open with you, it was to protect you. Just like Jan and I tried to protect you."
"Is that what you call it?"
"We tried to divert you from learning what you shouldn't learn at every turn. But you'd have none of it. We didn't do it very well, I guess."
She glared at him. "I should hate you. I'm not sure I don't."
"Well, I'm sorry about that. I know all this is a lot to process. But I need you to trust me."
"Trust you?" She practically spat at him. "I didn't much trust anyone before I came here. And now…."
"Try." He glanced back the way they had come, rose to his feet, and held out a hand to her. "We'd better get moving."
She struggled upright and waved him away. "I will walk."
"I think you'd better let me —"
"I will walk."
He gave her a long, dubious look before nodding. "All right."
They had just started out, he
r legs and lower back again screaming at her in anger, when the first distant thumping sounds came creeping from the darkness.
"It's on its way back," he said, his eyes widening with apprehension.
"It brought me here for a reason," Courtney said. "Why should it harm us now?"
"Have you listened to what I've told you? If Aunt Martha's focus has wavered…if she's had to go piss and isn't paying attention to what she's doing…then that thing is going to seek out the first living soul it can find and take it back as a trophy. That's what it does. Its only true purpose is to destroy."
"Is it so easy for her to lose control?"
"Why do you think she loads herself up on sugar and caffeine? When she's made that thing active, she can't lose focus for a minute."
With renewed terror, she pressed on, unsure with each step whether her legs would buckle and she would fall headlong. But damned if she would have David carry her, not after having been carried by that thing. Her strength was almost gone, so she reluctantly allowed him to support her again, his arm around her waist, hers around his shoulder. For a full minute or so, the beating sounds in the air softened and died, but then they began again, somewhere behind them, clearly drawing nearer — and she felt certain the monstrous thing was going to overtake them, and that would be the end of everything. Then the sounds diminished again, and she wondered whether the thing intended to wait until they believed they had reached safety and then drop on them, like a cruel predator toying with its prey.
"How far?" she asked.
"Maybe a quarter mile."
"Jesus."
"Let's just keep up the pace, and we can do it in five minutes. Can you handle that?"
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