by Strnad, Jan
Josh beat on Brant's side with the empty pistol, cursing and screaming. In another moment Tom was in the room. He pried the gun out of Josh's hand and Brant rolled over and grabbed the boy's arms and pinned them behind his back. Josh kept screaming until Tom had had enough and slapped him hard across the mouth.
Josh glared at Tom with savage hatred.
"You can't win!" Josh cried. "They'll get you tonight! You'll be sorry you hit me when Seth finds out!"
Seth. Brant and Tom locked eyes. So it was true. The demon of Eloise was back.
"What will Seth do, Josh?" Brant asked.
"He'll punish you! He'll let you die and stay dead if you don't do what he says!"
"How do you know that?"
"I know!"
"Did you meet Seth?" Tom asked.
Josh nodded.
Brant and Tom exchanged a quick look.
"Is it Reverend Small? Is he Seth?" Brant asked.
Josh clamped his mouth shut and stared back at Brant defiantly. He'd hit a nerve, something Josh had been warned against.
"Tell me, Josh!"
Tom shook Josh by the shoulders. "Tell him!" he insisted, and Josh shook his head. For one instant, something like terror flitted through his eyes, but fear of what? It certainly wasn't Tom.
Tom threatened to hit him again and Brant told him to leave the kid alone and for a few minutes they played good cop/bad cop. Still Josh resisted all efforts to intimidate or cajole him into betrayal of Seth. Maybe they could wear him down, in time, but time was running out. And Brant knew it was pointless. The deeper he peered into Josh's eyes, the blacker became the abyss he saw there. Tom and Brant exchanged exasperated looks.
"We don't have time for this," Tom said.
"Just a minute."
Brant turned Josh around to speak to him face to face. He waited for their eyes to meet, and when they did, a chill went up Brant's spine at the deadness he saw there.
"Josh, tell me one thing. Just tell me why. Why does Seth want you to kill?"
"You have to die to know Seth," Josh said impatiently, as if trying to explain the obvious to the stupidest person on Earth.
"And everybody has to know Seth, is that it?"
"Yes!"
"Why?"
"Because!" Josh snapped. "That's how it is!"
"Why is that how it is? Because Seth says so?"
"Because, that's all!"
"Brant, forget it," Tom said. "He doesn't know. Come on. We have to find my mom."
Brant stood. He kept a tight grip on Josh's shoulder. Tom couldn't tell if that was grip was holding Josh Lunger in place, or Brant. He couldn't tell exactly what it was, but something inside Brant had cracked. Was this how Brant looked the day he packed his bags and fled from the mob?
"Did you get her on the phone?"
"No. There wasn't any answer at home. I could call the hospital...."
"No! You'd have to go through the switchboard. So far they don't know where we're headed and I'd like to keep it that way."
Tom nodded toward Josh.
"So, what do we do with him?"
"We can't just leave him."
Brant reached down and picked up the pistol. He began loading the magazine with fresh rounds.
"Technically, he's dead already," he said as he clicked the rounds into place. "Somebody killed him, his parents probably."
Brant aimed the pistol at Josh Lunger's head. His finger tightened on the trigger. Another ounce of pressure and the Lunger kid would be history. Again.
"He's just a kid," Tom said.
"A minute ago he was trying to kill us both, and coming pretty damn close. He'll call the Sheriff."
Josh grinned. "Go ahead and kill me. I'll just come back."
"I'll get something to tie him up. We'll get my mom and be out of here before he gets loose."
"Pussy," Josh said.
"Things have changed, Tom. The world's a meaner place than it was a few days ago."
"I'll use this electrical cord. That'll hold him, right?"
"We can't play by the old rules and win. Death doesn't mean what it used to."
"You can't get away! They'll kill you both dead!"
Tom was turning with the light cord in his hand when he heard the gun bark. Josh Lunger's head snapped back and he fell to the floor with a thud. Blood pooled under his head where the back of his skull had been.
Brant stared at the body. His mouth was a hard line and he was unsteady on his feet. Slowly he lowered the gun to his side. He knelt and began gathering up live rounds and putting them in his pocket. He moved as if in a trance, like someone going through motions by habit. There was no doubt about it: Something had gone dead inside him. Something had broken.
Tom thought, Who the hell is this man?
He wondered if Seth hadn't won already.
***
A quick check of the house turned up no bodies, living or dead or anything in between. The garage held a late model Saab and Brant found a spare set of keys hanging on a peg by the front door. The car was a blessing, meaning that the hospital was now only a few minutes away and they would attract far less attention than they would have on foot.
"Where do you suppose they are, the Lungers?" Tom asked.
"Church," Brant said, thinking of the gathering they'd seen that morning on their way out of town.
"And they left their kid home alone, with a loaded pistol."
"Why not? What could happen...he might shoot somebody?"
"Why didn't they take him with them?"
"Maybe it was past his bed time," Brant said dryly. The comment prompted Tom and Brant to check their watches.
"Ten-twenty," Tom said.
"Time enough. Did you find any more guns in the house?"
"No."
Brant handed him the pistol. "Take this. Open the garage door and let's get going."
Brant eased the Saab out of the garage and Tom closed the door behind them. Tom looked back at the Lunger house as they drove away, thinking about Old Man Lunger and the ghosts of murdered children, and he thought of Josh Lunger lying dead in an upstairs bedroom, whose last comment before they snuffed out his young life was that they would never get out of town alive.
***
The road through the Lungers' orchard became a street and soon Tom and Brant were gliding silently through Anderson proper.
At first glance the town seemed quiet, but, like a pornographic painting that reveals its obscenities under scrutiny, the quiet streets and familiar houses let slip their secrets by degrees.
Too many lights glowed in too many windows. The occasional gunshot popped and echoed like a Fourth of July firework and died unremarked. Dogs were silent in their yards, alleys were devoid of prowling cats.
As they drove, Brant and Tom became aware of the not-so-subtle evidence of Seth's influence.
Bob Walker knelt by the curb, vomiting from the death angel mushrooms his wife Julie had cooked in his morning omelet.
Night nurse Claudia White's father lay on the front yard where he'd fallen when the quinidine in his gin and tonic stopped his heart.
Matt and Gina Saunders sat slumped in their car in front of their house, suitcases in the trunk and clothes thrown any old way in the back seat. Each had been shot through the skull.
Jerry James carried his new wife, Amber, in his arms, taking her back home. She'd made it six blocks before Jerry was able to chase her down and finish crushing her throat.
Jerry nodded to Tom as he passed, and Tom nodded back.
"Jesus," he whispered to Brant. "The town's gone crazy."
"Just like Eloise."
Brant's voice was distant. He couldn't stop thinking about Josh Lunger's eyes and the evil he'd seen in their depths. Deputy Haws hadn't had that look, or John Duffy. But Haws and Duffy were grownups, and grownups were used to hiding their innermost selves. They smiled when their feet hurt and hid their amusement when someone else slipped on the ice. Kids were transparent. It's what made their joy so i
nfectious and their hurt so intolerable. It's why Brant could peer into Josh Lunger's eyes and see straight through his empty soul and into the dark reaches beyond.
Brant thought about Josh Lunger and he thought about Annie Culler and he thought about Seth, and he knew that leaving town was not enough for a man to do in the face of such ancient and deep-abiding evil. He'd known it before he pulled the trigger on Josh Lunger. Just before.
Such were his thoughts when Hank Ellerby's Jeep Cherokee ran a stop sign and cut across his path, swerving from side to side as if the driver was drunk. Tom spotted Cindy Robertson in the passenger seat, her eyes wide. He gave a shout.
The Jeep bounced over a curb and flattened a speed limit sign and buried its nose in the trunk of an oak. Brant turned the corner and drove toward the accident. Cindy jumped out of the car and saw Brant and Tom heading her way. A splash of light from a street lamp caught her terrified face, and then she turned and ran.
Twenty-Three
When Tom saw Cindy leap out of Hank's Jeep and run into the alley, he had no choice but to go after her. He left the pistol with Brant, who was going to check on Hank.
The alley was dark but for the occasional security light that came on as Cindy ran past. Tom called to her once but she didn't even slow down. Obviously she'd learned not to trust anyone, and Tom wasn't going to win her confidence by yelling at her while chasing her down. He concentrated on overtaking her. Once she saw that he wasn't going to hurt her, maybe he could convince her to come with them.
He gained on her steadily. Cindy turned to look over her shoulder at him and her foot came down wrong. She cried out and fell. She saw Tom gaining on her and pressed herself against a rough redwood fence. The terror in her eyes caused Tom to slow as he drew nearer.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. He tried to make his voice sound calm and reassuring but he was out of breath from the running. To his own ears, he sounded like a telephone breather. He opted for a few moments of silence while he caught his breath and Cindy hauled herself to a more comfortable position against the fence.
"We'd better get out of this light," Tom said, nodding toward the security light that had come on at their arrival. "Come on." He moved to a shadowed space between the fence and a detached garage and motioned Cindy over. She looked up at the security light and scooted out of its beam and a few feet closer to Tom. He smiled what he hoped was an engaging, non-threatening sort of smile, then dropped it when she didn't smile back.
"Do you know Seth?" she asked.
Tom nodded. "I know what's going on, if that's what you mean."
"But you're not converted. You're not one of...them."
He shook his head. "Not yet," he said, "but it isn't for lack of some people trying."
Cindy's eyes darted about.
"I don't know who to trust," she said. "They have this code phrase, 'Do you know Seth?' They use it to identify one another. If you say 'yes' it means you've been converted. That's what they call it. Conversion."
"How do you know all this?"
"I overheard my parents talking."
So that was it. She was running from her parents. There was no telling how they'd died or who'd done the "converting," but something had set off her suspicions.
"What else do you know about Seth?"
"Nothing. I don't understand any of this. I know something strange is going on but I don't know what. I know people are coming back, and not just John Duffy and that old woman and Galen. There's more. Lots more. They're killing everybody who isn't converted already."
"What were you doing with Hank?"
"Trying to get out. He saw me running through the alley. He was avoiding the streets himself, he said. I thought he was trying to leave town, too, but he wasn't. He was looking for runaways like me. Cruising the alleys."
Tom consulted his watch. Eleven o'clock. They had to get moving.
"Tom," Cindy said, "I killed him. I killed Hank Ellerby. He grabbed me and I fought him, but I couldn't get loose. I had that knife, the one my brother bought in Tijuana. I stabbed him with it."
"People don't die of a single stab wound, not unless you hit a vital organ," Tom said. "You probably just surprised him into running into that tree."
"I'd like to think that."
"We don't have much time," Tom said, getting to his feet. "We have to put some miles between us and Anderson before all of these corpses start coming back."
Her eyes pleaded with him. "Take me with you," she said.
"Of course! But we have to hurry!"
She grabbed his arm. "I mean far away! I know why you broke up with me, and you're wrong! You think you know me but you don't!"
"Cindy…." Tom said.
"You think I'm just another boring little townie who wants to settle down and have babies and…all that! But I'm not! I won't hold you back! I have dreams, too!"
"Cindy…."
"I want to climb Machu Picchu! And swim naked in the ocean and…and have sex in art museums!"
She pulled him close and kissed him. When he pulled away she clung to him all that much tighter. Her face was wet with tears.
"Take me far away," she said, "far, far away…."
She buried her face in his shoulder. Tom held her, feeling like God's own idiot bastard son.
***
Brant kept Hank covered with the pistol until he was sure he was dead.
Hank's chest was wet with blood. The wound was low. If the angle was right, a knife blade could've entered at that spot and gone up under the ribs and straight into his heart.
A hunting rifle sat on the floor, canted up against the seat. It was Hank's new Winchester. Brant didn't know beans about rifles, but he knew from the Saturday morning talk at Ma's that Hank was fatherly proud of his new gun. Nobody went hunting at ten-thirty at night, not around these parts, anyway. Brant wondered if the new rifle had been drafted into service to Seth. Maybe Seth was on patrol for people like Brant and Tom and Cindy Robertson. Or maybe Hank was running for his life when he made the mistake of stopping to pick up a teenaged girl who was not what she seemed.
Brant felt a sudden chill. If Seth was actively hunting the living, he and Tom had even less time than they'd imagined. If Cindy was Risen, Tom would be easy prey.
***
Cindy's lips against his felt so good, Tom wondered how he'd ever had the strength to break up with her. Maybe it wasn't strength at all, but sheer stupidity. She felt so right in his arms, he must have been seriously mixed up in the head to think he was better off without her.
The one impediment to their love had been removed, thanks to the Risen. Anderson held no sway over Cindy anymore. They were headed in the same direction, she and him, away from their little town and out into the real world.
Over Cindy's shoulder, Tom saw headlights appear at the end of the alley. Brant, probably. The car drove slowly, searching. The headlights winked off and on and then winked again. Brant was looking for him.
Tom gently eased himself out of Cindy's embrace.
"There's our ride," he said. He felt her pull away, and when he looked at her, her eyes were wide. She glanced at the approaching car. Her hands went to her face. There was blood on her cheek. She touched it and then examined her fingertips, stepping away from him.
"No," she said.
Tom looked down. There was blood on his shirt, splattered there from the killing of Josh Lunger. He knew what she must be thinking, that he'd been killed somehow and was Risen. He couldn't summon up words to explain the blood. It isn't mine, it's just Josh Lunger's, from when Brant shot him in the head. His tongue became a piece of raw meat in his mouth.
"It isn't what you think!" he said. And yet, it was close enough, and he couldn't think of a convincing lie, not in the split second before the Tijuana switchblade went snik in Cindy's hand and the blade shot out to its full length. Tom jumped back instinctively.
Cindy swiped the knife through the air and Tom leaped back, out of striking distance.
"Wait!"
he said.
The Saab skidded to a halt behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Brant leap out of the car. When he looked back, Cindy was running down the alley. He started after her but Brant was in the air behind him, bringing him to the ground with a full body tackle.
"She killed Hank Ellerby!" Brant said.
"I know! Get the fuck off me, goddammit!"
Brant lay on Tom with his full weight, pinned his shoulders to the ground.
"We don't have time for this!"
Tom bucked Brant loose and managed to plant an elbow into the side of his head. He squirmed free but was down again, Brant's arms locked around his legs, before he could escape. They tossed and scrabbled in the dirt, Brant pleading his case and Tom pelting Brant with every obscenity he could conceive.
"If she's Risen, it's too late!" Brant said. "If not, the best thing we can do for her is to find Seth and put an end to all this!"
"Motherfucker! Let me go! Goddammit!"
Eventually Tom pulled free. He took a few exhausted steps down the dark alley but it was too late. Cindy was gone. She could be anywhere.
"We could spend the next two hours looking for her," Brant said, "Or…"
"Shut the fuck up!"
Tom marched to the car and yanked open the door. Brant got to his feet and walked toward the driver's side. Tom noticed with some satisfaction that Brant was limping and winded.
They took their seats and slammed the doors shut. Brant cranked the ignition key and the Saab purred to life.
"Tom, I just had to…."
"Shut up and drive."
***
Tom and Brant's thoughts were running deep. Neither spoke as the Saab navigated the dark streets. Occasionally Brant spotted another pair of headlights and casually turned the corner, then he watched the rear view mirror for any sign that they were being followed, his heart racing and his fingers drumming on Hank Ellerby's Winchester.
He kept thinking of Josh Lunger's eyes, mentally flipping back and forth between the dead, otherworldly boy he'd killed and the exuberant child of the hallway photographs. What Seth had done to Josh was worse than murder. Seth had taken a lovely and loving child and ripped out his soul and twisted what was left into an abomination. Josh was as dead as any corpse in Wildwood Cemetery. What walked the earth in his guise was a thing neither living nor dead, soulless as the devil and with a demon's taste for blood.