The earthquake did not just touch the grounds of the Lancaster estate. It also struck the town of Good Hope. Several homes were badly damaged, among them Doctor Baldwin’s and Doctor Benning’s.
“That’s the way it has to go down,” Captain Larry Rogers said. “No one would believe anything else.”
“What about Kowalski?” Jerry asked.
“He died in the earthquake,” Captain Rogers replied. “And that’s firm.”
“Voyles’s arm wound?” Bob asked.
“It isn’t serious,” Jerry said. “No one ever has to know about it.”
The group stood at the end of Main Street, not far from the Lancaster house. No one knew how they got there. Bob looked at the day/date of his watch. He paled as the blood rushed from his face.
“Don’t say it,” Jerry warned. “I know. We lost some days.”
The radio in Voyles’s car crackled.
“How in the hell did the goddamn car get back to this spot?” he questioned.
“I don’t think anyone could answer that?” Maryruth said.
“One person could,” Father Danjou said.
They all looked at him.
“God,” the priest said.
Voyles talked for several minutes via radio, and then returned to the group. “There isn’t a one of you gonna believe this,” he said.
“Hand it to me, Dick,” Larry said.
“I have been informed that Patrolman—excuse me—Patrolperson Hammel and I are to drop everything and assist the local police and sheriffs office. We have some kids missing. Also several families.”
“Let me guess,” Larry said dryly.
“You know it, Captain. The Anderson house and the Thomas house were turned into slaughter pens. Father, mother, all the kids missing.” He looked at Heather and Marc sitting on the curb out of earshot. “Well, we can account for two of them.”
Jerry took Maryruth’s hand. He said, “I think they’ll be all right. I know they’ll have a good home.”
“What do I tell the sheriff?” Bob said.
“That’s something you’ll have to work out with your own conscience,” Larry said. “But I’d let these go down as unsolved murders.”
“We ought to start up a club,” the deputy said glumly. “Meet once a year and reminisce.”
“I’d just as soon forget it,” Janet said.
“Something didn’t work out,” Jerry said. “Bud told me the kids were going to be the ones to stop the Manitou. I can’t believe he was wrong about that. But I guess he was.”
“It isn’t over,” Heather said quietly from her spot on the curb.
“What do you mean, honey?” Jerry asked. “It isn’t over? What isn’t over?”
“I—we,” she said, pointing at Marc, “haven’t worked it out yet. But it isn’t over.”
“Honey,” Maryruth said, sitting down beside the young pair, do either of you want to talk about your . . . parents?”
“No,” the girl answered for both of them. Marc nodded his head in agreement. “Someday, maybe. But not right now.”
“Are you afraid the Manitou will be back?”
“I guess,” Heather said. “But he will be back. He hasn’t gone, not entirely, ma’am.”
“What do you mean?”
“Doctor Baldwin will soon find that out for himself,” the girl replied in a very mysterious way.
“Right,” Marc spoke.
“You kids are giving me the spooks,” Bob said.
Heather and Marc looked at the man, a very odd glint in their young eyes.
Bob took a step backward.
13
The residents of Good Hope slowly became normal. They stepped out of their homes, stretching and yawning as if awakening from a long sleep. They looked around them, bewildered, not fully cognizant that nature had bestowed an earthquake on them.
They were unaware that they had lost several days; they could remember nothing about the lethargic days when they’d operated semiautonomously. They simply picked up their normal living patterns as if nothing had happened. Indeed, to them, nothing had.
Most clucked their tongues and shook their heads in sympathy over the losses of Doctors Baldwin and Benning, but they soon got on with their lives.
People went back to work and the daily pattern of Good Hope returned to normal.
Of course there was a lot of discussion about the terrible thing that happened to the Anderson and Thomas families and about the kids who disappeared. Most folks thought their bodies would be never be found; they assumed they’d been swallowed up by the earthquake.
The sheriff and the chief of police worked with Voyles, Vickie, and Captain Rogers, but they never did come up with any solid clues as to what had happened to all those people.
Voyles and Vickie and Captain Rogers left the county and returned to their other duties. But Jerry and Maryruth knew Voyles would be back—because he’d placed a rather large diamond on Janet’s ring finger.
Jerry reopened his office. His first four patients were young teenage girls. They were all pregnant. Anne, Sheri, Holly, and Tanya. One girl was fifteen. One was sixteen. Two were seventeen.
Jerry had asked, “Who is the father?”
They didn’t know or they wouldn’t say.
But from what Bud and Leo had told Jerry concerning the Manitou’s sexual appetites, Jerry thought he knew.
“But God, Jerry,” Maryruth said. “What kind of monsters will they be?”
“I’m not sure even God knows that,” Jerry replied. “But I do know this: I’ve got to convince those girls, and their parents, to have the fetuses aborted.”
However, he could not do that.
While two of the parents agreed to it, all the girls threatened to run away from home if their parents tried to force them to undergo abortions.
“Heather said the Manitou hadn’t really left us, remember?” Father Danjou reminded Jerry, over coffee at Jerry and Maryruth’s new home. The doctors had been married three days after their ordeal had ended. Heather and Marc now lived with them; the state had given the doctors temporary custody.
“But she still won’t fully explain what she meant by that,” Maryruth said. “And I don’t want to press her.”
“Marc?” the priest asked.
“Just as mum as Heather.”
“They’ll speak when they’re ready,” Father Danjou told the newly married couple. “When they think it’s time.”
Heather and Marc sat outside their new home, on the back steps.
“They’re talking about us,” Marc said.
“I know. But I can’t tell them what they want to know.”
“Yeah. Neither can I. How can we tell them something we’re not sure of ourselves?”
“That’s the problem.”
“You been back in your . . . old house?”
The girl shuddered. “I don’t ever want to go back there.”
“Yeah. Me, neither. I think it was a good idea—Jerry and Maryruth buying us all new clothes, don’t you?”
She smiled. “Especially letting up pick them out ourselves.”
“The Manitou isn’t gone,” Marc said. “I can feel him.”
“So can I. And he’s close, too.”
Marc looked around him. “Yeah.”
“So like the kids, Father,” Jerry asked, “you don’t believe it’s over, right?”
“No, I don’t, Doctor. And there have been more mysterious sightings of that creature stumbling and lurching about at night. That thing with a blanket over its head.”
“Arlene? Heather’s mother? My God, you don’t suppose? . . .” Maryruth was unable to finish the hideous question.
Father Danjou shrugged. “Who knows? Certainly not I. But it fits the description, does it not?”
“Almost too well,” Jerry said.
“Is the light still there?” Maryruth asked.
“Yes. Brighter than ever. Now it isn’t as shy as before. It seems to have some fresh power within it.�
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“I’m sure it does,” Jerry said grimly.
“How can we warn anyone of the danger the light contains?” Maryruth asked.
“We can’t,” Jerry said. “Because we don’t know if it does represent any danger. Like so many other things, human and animal, the Manitou probably used it for his own gain and then discarded it. What I can’t understand is what happened to the bodies of the people we killed at the Lancaster house?”
“And are they dead?” the priest asked. “Really dead? Believe me, I have given that many hours of thought.”
“And? . . .” Maryruth prompted him.
But the priest could only shrug his shoulders.
“Then we are all playing a waiting game,” Maryruth said. “Just a horrible ugly waiting game. With our lives hanging in the balance.”
“Yes,” Jerry spoke. “The Manitou said he’d be back. And I believe him. The question is: When?”
They looked at each other, unspoken horror in their
They looked at each other, unspoken horror in their eyes.
Outside, Heather looked at Marc. “That thing, Marc. Sanjaman. He’s coming back.”
“Yeah,” the boy said. “I feel it. I just don’t know when.”
EPILOGUE
Across the Mississippi River from Good Hope, in Tennessee, lay Reelfoot Lake, a large body of water created by the massive earthquakes of 1811 and 1812. At the southwesternmost foot of the lake, the water suddenly began to hiss and boil. Slowly, the Manitou rose from the roiling, heated waters. He rose like an angry Phoenix, ready to begin another life cycle.
When he spotted a small boat slowly making its way toward him, Sanjaman quickly sank beneath the surface.
“I tell you, Andy, I saw steam rising from the lake, just ahead. Right there!” The man pointed.
“Nothing unusual about steam rising from a body of water,” his friend said.
“This was more than ordinary steam,” Burt said. “This was dark and, kinda ugly.”
“Say, ol’ buddy. Ain’t it kind of early for you to be hittin’ the beer?”
“Very funny, Andy. Ha-ha. Right there. Slow it down. Cut your engine and coast in. We’re over the spot.”
“What the hell is that smell?” Andy said, his nose wrinkling.
“Don’t know. Bad, ain’t it?”
Their bass boat suddenly capsized, hurling the men into the water. They knew only a second of very intense pain as their necks were snapped.
The Manitou pulled the dead men onto the shore and then went back into the water. He dragged the heavy boat deep, lodging it firmly between rocks, and securing the rods and reels and ice chest under the craft. There would be no trace of the men for months, if ever.
The Manitou squatted naked between the dead men and ate them, pulling flesh from bone, then cracking the bones and sucking out the marrow.
When he had appeased his ravenous hunger, the Manitou gathered up all the damning evidence—yards and yards of gray intestines, bits of flesh, and broken bones—and once more went into the lake, swimming effortlessly deep underwater to the mouth of the cave from which he had made his exit after being plummeted and battered about underground, after the earthquake had swallowed him. There, he hid the remains of the fishermen.
Now that his hunger for food had been satisfied; the Manitou craved women. Not just to satisfy a sexual urge; there was a much more pressing reason for his quest.
Sanjaman broke through the water close to the shore, then he stayed hidden, always swimming just under the surface until he came to a fishing camp. He carefully surveyed the camp. The men were gone, leaving their women behind.
The Manitou waited until one of the women ventured close to the water’s edge. He raped her brutally and left her unconscious by the water. Then he ran into the cabin and ripped the clothing from the other woman. Flinging her to the floor, the Manitou bulled his way into her, laughing at her pitiful screams of agony.
When he was sure he had planted seed in each woman, the Manitou went back into the water. Swimming down until he reached the bottom, he made his way back to his cave where he stretched out on the rocky floor and slept.
In the morning he would change his location to the other side of the lake. He must impregnate as many women as possible with his seed, thus insuring the birth of many offspring; offspring that would follow his call when it was his time to strike. Some might be born as monsters—a chance he had to take—but most would appear to be normal human babies. They would be birthed within three to five months. After that, their growth pattern would be spectacularly rapid—a medical marvel, he was sure the doctors would call it.
In only a year they would be ready to answer his call.
Sanjaman laughed softly in his sleep.
Then those who had dared to interfere would know the full fury of a Manitou at the zenith of his strength and power.
The Manitou did not know why that other God had interfered; He never had before.
In his sleep, quite unlike that of humans, Sanjaman went over his plans.
The priest would be the first to die. Of that, he was certain. He wanted the minds of the doctors and the children, and he would have them . . . the next time he visited Good Hope—which would be soon. A year, perhaps. During that time he would plan very carefully; he would make no rash moves. He frowned in his sleep. He reluctantly admitted he had been overconfident this time . . . and he had been very, very lucky.
Now he had a year to plan his actions. The next time there would be no mistakes. Sanjaman had people in Good Hope still; he had held them in reserve. He would contact them, tell them to begin speaking quietly to those who were weak; to those who craved power but did not deserve it; to those who craved women and riches and would do anything to attain them.
Those types were found everywhere.
He had a year to plan. The next time he would not fail.
He was certain of that.
He slept deeply.
As twilight gathered in dark pockets around the town of Good Hope, something awful lurched out of the mist that had suddenly encircled the town. The creature stumbled and waved in the darkness, peering headlessly, sightlessly into the lighted windows of homes. The creature was dressed in dark velvet, a gold-colored cord tied about its waist.
It seemed to be searching for someone. But it was in no hurry. It had a year to search. It wasn’t afraid; nothing could hurt it.
It stopped its restless wanderings when it came to the home of Doctor Jerry Baldwin. It squatted in the darkness for a time; then it vanished, the only sign it had ever been there a pair of bloody footprints in the grass. They would soon fade. But as the blood faded, the cold clutch of fear seized many residents of Good Hope. It was an unexplainable fear that seemed to come and go at will.
And at the dig site, the earth shifted just a bit. Then a bit more. Something rose from the mound of earth, a cold, savage look in her dark eyes. She stood up, a stone knife in one hand. The woman’s head had been horribly mangled; the whiteness of her jawbone glistened wetly in the moonlight.
Claire Bolling walked from the mound of earth toward the light glowing faintly in the distance. As she walked, other forms and shapes joined her. They, too, walked toward the light, blood marking each step of their journey.
They could walk only at night, always toward the healing power of the light.
And if one dared to come to the place of the light and listen very carefully—and if one lived through the experience—the faint sound of a slow drumbeat could be heard—its beat a slow, steady rhythm . . . much like a heartbeat pulsing.
But this was an evil pulsing.
It would grow stronger. Slowly, ever so slowly.
Just before daybreak, the pulsing would cease, the mangled forms would trudge back toward the dig site, the mist would disappear. Then the sun would rise.
And the town would be safe for another day.
Until nightfall.
Then the slow, evil beat would begin again.
Soon, very small groups of people would gather in homes around the town. They would talk quietly of lost hopes and dreams, of plans that had never materialized. They would be assured of achieving all the things they ever wanted—if only they would believe and accept.
Most did.
“When may we expect these promises to be fulfilled?” some would ask.
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“One year.”
And the pulsing would beat in the night, assuring them that the Manitou lived and would return to Good Hope. They waited.
ASHES
by William W. Johnstone
OUT OF THE ASHES
(1137, $3.50)
Ben Raines hadn’t looked forward to the War, but he knew it was coming. After the balloons went up, Ben was one of the survivors, fighting his way across the country, searching for his family, and leading a band of new pioneers attempting to bring America OUT OF THE ASHES.
FIRE IN THE ASHES
(1310, $3.50)
It’s 1999 and the world as we know it no longer exists. Ben Raines, leader of the Resistance, must regroup his rebels and prep them for bloody guerilla war. But are they ready to face an even fiercer foe—the human mutants threatening to overpower the world!
ANARCHY IN THE ASHES
(1387, $3.50)
Out of the smoldering nuclear wreckage of World War III, Ben Raines has emerged as the strong leader the Resistance needs. When Sam Hartline, the mercenary, joins forces with an invading army of Russians, Ben and his people raise a bloody banner of defiance to defend earth’s last bastion of freedom.
BLOOD IN THE ASHES
(1537, $3.50)
As Raines and his ragged band of followers search for land that has escaped radiation, the insidious group known as The Ninth Order rises up to destroy them. In a savage battle to the death, it is the fate of America itself that hangs in the balance!
Sweet Dreams Page 30