"I don't understand."
"You're not supposed to." The line went silent.
Addison slowly replaced the receiver, then stood by his desk for a few moments, mulling over what Wilder had said. There had been no fear in Wilder's voice as he spoke of Balon, but there had been respect. Addison decided he would leave Balon alone.
The office was filthy, stinking of urine and defecation. The musky odor of sex hung heavy in the room.
In the rear of the building, in the cell area, a prisoner—a transient—lay dead and rotting on a cell floor. The prisoner had been tortured, beaten, starved, and sexually assaulted. The man had been dead for days. Rats, their eyes beady and evil, roamed close to the bite-pocked body.
The sheriff's secretary entered the office. She glanced at Addison, hiked up her skirt, and bent over a desk. Walter sodomized her as a deputy looked on, his eyes dead. When Addison finished, the deputy took his turn.
In another part of town, a mother caressed her teenage son while the father made violent incestuous love with his teenage daughter.
A middle-aged man beat his bed-ridden mother to death with a club while his wife looked on, urging him to strike the woman harder, laughing as the blood splattered the walls of the bedroom.
Brothers and sisters fornicated to the amusement of their parents, and then changed partners.
A teenage boy pushed his younger brother off the roof of the garage where they had been playing, smiling as the boy screamed on his way down. A short scream. The screaming ceased abruptly as the boy hit the concrete parking area. The teenager climbed down, dragged the broken body into a tool shed, and stuffed the battered carcass into a burlap bag.
"Willie!" his mother squalled from the house. "Come on in, now, you've chores to do. What was that noise a minute ago?"
The boy picked up a claw hammer from his father's workbench and walked to the house. His smile was evil, eyes shining banefully. His smile turned to laughter when he saw his mother bending over the sink. She looked around just in time to see, very briefly, the hammer swinging. Her skull popped like an overripe melon and she slid in a sprawl to the kitchen floor, legs jerking as she died.
Willie walked into the living room, where his father sat listening to a ball game on the radio. The teenager buried the hammer head in his father's skull.
"It's a home run!" the announcer shouted.
"Screw you!" Willie said, turning off the radio. "I hate baseball."
Willie walked back into the kitchen, stepping nonchalantly over his mother's cooling body. He fixed a sandwich and sat down at the table, chewing slowly. The kitchen smelled of fried liver. His mother should not have fixed liver. Willie had told her time after time he did not like liver.
His mother's dead eyes stared at her son as he ate his sandwich. The eyes seemed fixed on the medallion hanging about his neck.
Willie wondered if the earth Master, Dr. Wilder, would be angry with him for doing this. He decided he would not.
He stood up, gazing out the window at the little girl playing in the meadow behind the house. He felt an erection build, his breathing quickening. He slipped quietly out of the house, walking toward the young girl in the meadow, playing gently among the summer flowers.
After a time, the prairie winds blew her dress across the meadow, a splash of color amid the flowers.
Otto's wild laughter rang through the house as he swung the leather belt. His wife's screaming as the belt struck bare flesh drove him on. The medallion caught the late afternoon sun streaming through the window, casting golden flashes around the bedroom.
Stockman dropped to his knees beside the woman. "Now you'll accept him?" he questioned.
"No!" the woman sobbed. "NO!"
"Oh, yes," Otto smiled, caressing her bruised flesh. "Yes, you will." He brutally mounted her, enjoying her screaming.
At dusk, Herman Alario, horse trainer at Little River ranch, watched the foreman through curious and suspicious eyes. Where was Slim? he mused. Why hadn't the sheriff been notified of his disappearance? Something was sure as hell funny around this place, and Herman knew damn well Slim didn't just take off. Something bad had happened to him.
The actions of the men puzzled Herman as well. And the boss, Ray Zagone—he was acting strange. Herman retreated further into the darkness of the north side of the barn, squatting down, thinking, his back to the barn.
For all his supposed drinking and fighting— and that was exaggerated—Herman was, at heart, a believer in God, although he seldom went to church more than twice a year. He had been raised in the church by strict parents, in Arizona, and Herman didn't like all the talk he'd been hearing in the bunkhouse. Talk he was not supposed to hear. Talk of black masses and devil worship and orgies of the most disgusting kind. Men with men, women with women, and something about kissing the red ass of the devil.
Sickening!
"Where's Alario?" he heard the foreman, Lou Parker ask.
"Don't know," a cowboy said. "He was around here a half hour ago."
"Is he still wearing that damned cross around his neck?"
"Yeah."
"Then we can't waste any more time on him. If he doesn't come around to us tonight, we'll have to dispose of him. He should have come around by now."
DISPOSE OF HIM! Herman almost panicked. Him is me! Jesus God—they're talking about me!
He remained rock-still by the side of the barn, only his eyes moving in the darkness, shifting from side to side, searching the night for any person who might be coming to harm him. And he knew, now, that every man and woman on this ranch was against him. What he couldn't figure out was: Why?
The high, shrill laughter of a woman reached him in the night. Pat Zagone. "More, more!" she screamed. "Right there!" she grunted.
A guttural moaning drifted to Herman. The gruntings of men and women together.
Dear God, the cowboy thought. What is happening around here?
He remembered what Slim had told him. That something was out of kilter on the L-R, and they both had talked of pulling out. Slim had said, "There's a . . . force . . . or something that ain't right around here. You been seein' all them medallions on folks? And everybody cuts out on Friday nights. All the whisperin,' too. I don't like it, Herman. It's—I don't know—evil, I think. I don't know."
And then Slim disappeared.
Herman watched two cowboys, Pip and Mack, meet on the lighted front porch of the ranch house, talk for a moment, then split up.
Here they come, Herman thought. He waited. There was no place to run.
Five minutes passed in silence. Hermen longed for a chew of tobacco, but was afraid to move, afraid to reach for the pouch in his back pocket. He heard movement to his right. "Pip?"
"Yeah?"
"He's gotta be around here—close to the barn. Maybe in it."
"Right. Don't let him git to his truck."
"Won't do him no good. I jerked all the wires."
Damn!
"You be careful. He's cat-quick in a fight."
Herman heard the sound of a round being chambered into a rifle. A lever action. Probably a .30-30, he thought. His own rifle was on a rack in his pickup; his pistol in a trunk in the bunkhouse. But he had a sheath knife on his belt.
Don't pull it yet, he cautioned. Light could reflect off the blade and give me away.
Why are they hunting me? his mind worked feverishly. Why do I sense something evil all around me?
Pat's high shrilling reached Herman. Pat's daughter, Jean, joined in the laughter. Obscenity spewed from her young mouth, the oaths floating through the soft air of early night on the prairie. She called out the foreman's name, over and over.
Herman slowly shook his head in disgust. Ray and Pat were watching the foreman screw their daughter. Sick, sick!
Herman crossed himself without thinking.
"Something moved on the north side!" Pip called.
Herman reached for his knife. Too late. The men were on him, pinning him to the ground. A boot ca
ught him on the side of the head, stunning him. He drifted into unconsciousness.
When he came out of his daze, Herman was on the now darkened porch of the ranch house, his hands tied behind his back. He was naked from the waist down.
Pat crouched between his legs. She was naked, her woman's breasts swinging free, the nipples enlarged. She smiled at him, the smile seeming cruel and evil—yet enticing to the cowboy. A medallion hung between her breasts, the gold gleaming at him. The woman touched his bare belly, the hand slipping down to grasp his manhood.
"Nice," she muttered, stroking him. "Very nice." She bent her head to kiss his cheek, her tongue licking him like a cat. "Don't be afraid, Herman," her words were soothing. "There is nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all. Just let us pleasure you. We've waited so long."
Herman nodded, thinking, I'll play their game until I get a chance to run, then I'll cut out.
With that, he doomed himself forever.
Pat's daughter, Jean, joined the group on the porch. The fifteen-year-old was naked. Herman, despite his earlier feelings of disgust, felt himself thicken at the sight of the teenager. Pat's hand increased her stroking of his maleness.
The mother licked Herman's ear, whispering, "Look at her, Herman. Isn't she lovely, beautiful?" The mother reached out and up to fondle her daughter's pudendum. The girl moaned, kneeling beside her mother and the prostrate cowboy. The girl kissed him on the mouth, wetting his lips with her tongue.
"Isn't that nice, Herman?" Pat asked him, her breath hot on his face. "Aren't her lips soft?"
The woman and the girl touched the cowboy, stroking him, caressing him. Herman groaned, his penis hot and hard in the woman's soft hand.
"I'm going to have Pip untie you, Herman," Pat said, as Jean swung one leg over his waist, her slim hand guiding him into her wet softness. Herman's hands, free, drifted about the girl's waist, gripping young bare flesh as she settled into a moaning, sweaty rhythm, moving on his hardness, working him deeper.
As Pat's lips touched his mouth, Herman felt something leave him. The mother's mouth on his, the daughter's silkiness trapping him, Herman listened as the departing thing left his body and mind, winging away. As lips worked on his, a darkness overtook him, and the evil that is in all humankind rose to the surface, driving out the goodness that is in all humankind, but not buried so deeply as the evil.
Herman screamed in the darkness as an almost unbearable wave of pleasure/pain gripped him. Soon, the pain was gone, leaving only pleasure.
"One more," he heard the woman say. "We have one more for you, Master."
And Herman began laughing, his voice sounding savage pushing past his lips.
The girl jammed him full inside her, yelling her pleasure to the ever-moving winds of Fork County, the cry blending with the night.
Twelve
Sam parked several blocks from Glower's Funeral Home and walked the remaining distance to the buildings, on the outskirts of town. His followers of that afternoon were gone, as if they had been deliberately pulled away from watching him. He walked toward the building, the weight of the .45 a comfort against his belly.
The business was dark as he slipped around the building, all his senses working, alert for any human sound. Cautiously, his hand found the door knob in the rear of the establishment. Unlocked. He slipped into the dimly lit funeral home, quietly shutting the door behind him. The sweet odor of death hit him as he walked the dark length of the hall, checking each small room. There was no one in the building; at least, no one alive, that is.
Sam found the room containing the body of John Benton, the chief of police resting in a satin-lined coffin. Sam took a small pocket knife, opened the blade, and, lifting Benton's right hand, made a small cut on the wrist. Blood leaked from the wrist.
Intent upon his work, Sam did not see Benton's eyelids flutter.
"Not embalmed," Sam muttered, placing the hand inside the casket.
Sam slipped from room to room in the funeral home, until he was satisfied that no one had been embalmed in this place of business for a long time. There was not one drop of zinc chloride, arsenic, or mercuric chloride to be found. The workroom equipment was stiff from disuse.
"The Undead," Sam murmured, walking down the darkened hall, letting himself out the back door.
Had he but looked around, he would have seen John Benton staring at him from the office window, eyes wild and red, tongue thick and dark, teeth grown into fangs.
Nine o'clock when Sam reached the area known as Tyson's Lake. It was far out in the Bad Lands, and Sam felt completely alone.
No, he corrected his thinking. I'm not alone. I have God.
Sam had changed into dark twill trousers, a long sleeve shirt, sturdy lace-up Jump Boots from his days in the army, and he had slipped on leather gloves. The .45 was hooked onto a web belt, extra clips in pouches. A big-bladed Bowie knife hung in its leather sheath on his left side.
He had bounced along gravel roads, then dirt roads before reaching his destination. He had, of course, heard of the lake, from Wade and others, but had never been out here. People he had asked to take him had been most reluctant to oblige.
Well, Sam thought, getting out of the truck, let's do it, Balon.
He glanced up at the sky. Clouds covered the moon and stars. An aura of foreboding hung over the land.
Sam stood for a moment by the side of the road. Get yourself under control, he cautioned. Push your anger aside; push Michelle out of your mind; forget the sight of John Benton. Get all your senses working properly.
Jane Ann slid gracefully into his thoughts. Jane Ann of the soft hands and gentle eyes.
"Go on home, Janey," he muttered. "You don't want to be out here. Not on this night."
He jacked a round in the .45, then eased the hammer down, replacing the big automatic in the military flap-type holster. Ignoring the many No Trespassing—Danger—Keep Out signs, Sam climbed the high fence, dropping to the other side. A small scrap of material was securely caught in the fence. Sam pulled it free, fingering the cloth. Denim, he thought.
"Sheriff, she was wearing a western shirt, tennis shoes, and jeans," Joan's mother had told Addison that day as Sam stood listening. "Brand new jeans, too. I just got them from J C Penney that day. Come in the mail."
This is new denim, Sam thought. He put the piece of cloth in his pocket, then walked on through the darkness.
At the bottom of the hill, Sam paused, looking around, getting his bearings. A small stand of timber by a small lake, the water gleaming dully in the night, matching the dull shine of the cross around Sam's neck. The timber was foreboding-looking. He looked to the east, toward the Dig site, a few miles away. Not one light shone in the darkness.
"Must be early sleepers," he said, knowing they were not asleep—sensing it. He sensed something else, too: Evil.
The man's gaze swept all directions. Not one light shone. No birds sang. The wind sighed for a moment, then was still, as if God's breath were warning the minister with the .45 strapped around his waist.
Sam walked toward the lake, then stopped for another look. He had driven around the area, looking for Lucas's car, then gave up the search. These were Bad Lands, and Lucas had lived here for many years; he would know dozens of hiding places.
Sam touched the flashlight in his back pocket, then moved forward. At the edge of the water, he paused. Standing very still, Sam looked around, all senses working overtime. A fish jumped into the lake, hitting the water with a smacking sound. To his right, in the dark timber, something stepped on a branch, breaking it. A snarl followed.
Sam spun around, in a crouch, right hand on the butt of the .45. His heart picked up in tempo, thudding in his chest. Another growl, an answering growl to the first. This one came from Sam's left, in that part of the timber that gently curved around the small body of water. Whatever was in the timber—man or Beast—there were two of them, at least. The knowledge was not at all comforting to Sam.
Sam stood with his back to the lak
e, the body of water no more than five or six acres at most. The wind suddenly picked up, blowing from east to west, bringing with it a faint chant.
A chantl Out here? No one lived within miles of this place. Of course! Sam remembered the caravan he had seen; they worship at the Dig site. Again, the chanting drifted to him, faint, but unmistakable. He could not make out the words, but for some reason, they sounded like a warning. But for whom? Or what?
Abruptly as it had begun, the chanting ceased, leaving the night with an eerie silence.
More than that, Sam thought. Not just silence, but evil. I can feel it; sense it all around me, like a foul-smelling assassin draped in a dark cloak.
Sam looked toward the timber. He knew—and the knowledge was not easy to take—he would have to enter that stand of timber. It went against his training. A wise man does not fight the enemy on his own ground, unless you have the element of surprise with you, and he did not have that. They were waiting for him.
The wind shifted, bringing with it a horrible stench. A smell unlike anything Sam had ever smelled. His nose wrinkled in disgust.
Sam took a step forward, the light off the lake reflecting from the cross around his neck. The growling in the timber intensified, the—whatever they were—seemed to sense the power of the cross. And resent it.
Sam felt the things moving closer to the timber line. He could feel their anger, their frustration, their hatred. It was as if they knew, somehow, that Sam Balon had come to harm them.
From the timber came a horrible snarling, a growling, a snap of heavy jaws, followed by a puff of putrid air, assailing Sam's nostrils. For the first time in many years, Sam felt a tinge of fear in his belly.
He moved closer to the timber. "Lucas!" he called. "Are you in there?"
The things roared at him, a non-human howling of rage and hate.
Sam felt them watching him. He could dimly make out their shapes in the timber. Huge shapes; misshapen in all their bulk. He could smell the unGodly stench of them.
He heard a human moan. A cry of pain.
Lucas? It had to be.
Whoever it was suddenly screamed in pain. "Oh, my God, help me, help me!" It was Lucas. "Lord, my God, give me strength to—" His words cut off abruptly in a choking cry of pain.
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