Liam’s head was throbbing, and his jaw was sore from where it had struck the floor. He couldn’t believe that Bobby Lee Ross of all people had blindsided him. He couldn’t believe that his good friend had struck him with a goddamn clock, either.
What in the world have you gotten yourself into, Bobby? What in the fuck have you done to yourself?
It wasn’t anger that he felt, but something close to it.
At least he knew where the man was going.
Liam pulled up to the stop light and was surprised to see a woman flag him down.
“What the hell?” he rolled down his window. “Sylvie? You alright?”
The woman didn’t look right at all. She had dark circles around both eyes, and her hair was pulled back in a loose bun.
“Sheriff, I’m sorry about what happened yesterday, it—”
Liam held up a hand.
“Don’t worry about it. Last night was messed up, and I should have never—”
Sylvie straightened.
“I acted wholly unprofessional, and I regret it.”
Liam scrunched his nose, which he immediately regretted; it only made his headache worse
“It’s fine, Sylvie. Really.”
The woman nodded.
“Are you okay?” she pointed at his forehead, just below the brim of his hat. “Your head, it’s bleeding.”
“I’ll live. Keep handing out the flyers, Sylvie. Then give Stevie a hand at the school. He’s probably losing his mind right about now.”
Sylvie nodded.
“Is this…” her sentence trailed off, and Liam finished it for her.
“Fucked up? Crazy? Insane? Making no sense?”
Sylvie looked up.
“I meant, is this almost over.”
Liam smirked.
“No, not yet. But it will be.”
She turned to look at him a final time.
“Bobby Lee sped off in that direction not more than a half-hour ago,” she informed him.
Liam turned his eyes to the road.
“Yeah, I know,” he replied as he jammed his foot against the gas pedal. “And it’s going to be over for him soon, too, Sylvie. And when it ends, make sure you remember whose side you’re on.”
Chapter 55
“Just listen to me, please,” Dwight begged. The girls were moving too slowly; they weren’t understanding the gravity of the situation.
Sherry and the younger girl Justine were safely behind him, but Miriam and the other whose names he didn’t know were just staring at him as if he had three heads.
“Please, just hurry.”
Behind the girls in nightgowns, the black-eyed children were still coming out of the water. He counted at least ten of them, but there could be more.
It was only then, after one of the girls asked for the hundredth time what was going on, did he hear their chant. It was like a drum roll, quiet but incessant.
Perpetual, even.
“Mater est, matrem omnium, mater est, matrem omnium, mater est, matrem omnium.”
Thinking that the sound was coming from all around him, Dwight’s eyes shot about the swamp.
He didn’t see any of the children, but there appeared to be a series of strange stick figures, made of twigs and dried seaweed, suspended from the trees, resting up against the rocks.
What the—
Justine started to turn, to face the swamp.
“No!” Dwight yelled. “Don’t turn around, just come to me! Don’t turn around!”
But the girl didn’t listen.
Justine continued to swivel, and when she caught a glimpse of the children walking out of the water, she screamed and instantly dropped to her knees.
Dwight sprung to action, reaching for a third girl and roughly tossing her behind him with the other two. When he grabbed Justine and tried to pull, she rooted her knees in the mud.
“Please, sweetie, we have to go,” he begged.
“Who are they? Are they mother?”
Dwight turned his head skyward and swore, then he leveled his gaze at the figures that were striding from the water. The nearest was only ankle deep now. He squinted, and then, impossibly, he thought he recognized the child.
It was Stacey Weller, the girl that Hugh had brought to the police station what felt like a decade ago. He shook his head, trying to fight the dizziness that threatened to overcome him.
This isn’t possible.
Dwight tightened his grip on Justine’s arm, squeezing so hard now that his fingers started to ache.
“If you want to live, you’ll come with me now.”
And yet, the girl continued to resist. When Dwight tried to forcibly yank her to her feet, she slowly turned her head to look at him.
“Mother gave me life,” she said in an airy voice that didn’t fit her youthful appearance. “And you took me away from her. You took us all away from her, and now you’ll pay.”
Dwight recoiled so quickly that he fell on his ass, which immediately suctioned in the mud.
The children in the swamp seemed to be moving more quickly now, closing the distance between them.
“Run!” he yelled over his shoulder at Miriam and Shelly. “Run!”
He heard movement behind him, but it wasn’t the frantic scurrying that he expected. There was no time, however, to even look over his shoulder; even if there was, he wasn’t sure that he could look away from the black-eyed children.
From mother.
“Listen,” he hissed, transitioning onto all fours, “this isn’t you, this isn’t your fight. Get the fuck up and get out of here. You’re just a kid, you don’t belong here.”
Justine’s face broke into a terrifying sneer and she opened her mouth to speak. Before she could get the words out, however, a shout filled the air.
“Hey, you children of the corn motherfuckers, I’m over here!”
Hugh Freeman suddenly stepped out from behind a large oak tree.
“Hugh! What the hell are you doing!”
Hugh held a finger out to him, but didn’t take his eyes away from the girls who had fully emerged from the water and were starting to make their way through the mud.
“Take them and get out of here, Dwight. I’ll take care of this.”
To Dwight’s surprise, the children with the black eyes turned to Hugh and started in his direction.
Dwight yanked Justine from the mud, then he slapped her across the face.
“Go. Get the fuck out of here, walk back to the road and keep on walking. No matter what, don’t stop. Got it?”
Her eyes started to gloss over, and Dwight slapped her again.
“Go!”
Chapter 56
Liam was surprised to see Bobby Lee’s car parked in the open, directly behind Dwight’s. Taking no chances this time, he drew his gun as he left his vehicle. As he passed the row of cars, first Bobby’s BMW, then Tommy’s Porsche, he peered through their windows.
Both had keys still in the ignition, despite the cars being off.
Yeah, well, if they get by me, they aren’t going to get far, he thought as he opened first Tommy Ray’s door, then Bobby Lee’s, taking both of their keys and pocketing them.
Then Liam hurried up the muddy drive toward the site where this had all begun.
There were fresh footsteps in the mud—large, deep impressions that could only be made by one man.
Bobby Lee Ross, you bastard.
Liam wasn’t sure what pissed him off more, the fact that his friend was tangled up in a heroin distribution ring, or that he cared more about the drugs than his late son.
The scene was slightly different from before, on account of the bodies no longer being present. Dr. Larringer and Susan Bauer had done a good job cleaning up the mess. But there was something different about the layout, something off. The area that the firemen had cordoned off seemed disturbed as if something heavy had collapsed through the weakened floorboards.
A strangled groan filled the air, and Liam hurried toward the bu
rnt remains of the house. Just as his attention was drawn to the disturbed area, several shrieks filtered to him through the woods.
Liam spun in that direction, leading with his service revolver.
“What the fuck?” he gasped.
Four women dressed in a strange litany of pajamas and nightgowns all streaked with mud, came stumbling from behind a burnt oak tree.
Liam recognized the lead girl as Shelly Draper, Thomas’s daughter.
Relief washed over to him, and he hurried toward them. Their necks were all craned over their shoulders, looking backward, and they never even saw him until they nearly collided.
“Shelly! Girls!”
Their heads whipped around, confusion washing over their faces.
“Sheriff Lancaster?” Shelly asked.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, embracing her tightly. Not truly believing that they were okay, that all four of them were alright, safe and sound, he breathed deeply.
She certainly smelled as if she were real.
As if she were alive.
He let her go.
“Is Bobby Lee in there?” Liam asked, pointing toward the row of trees from which they had emerged.
The confused looks remained plastered on their faces.
“Bobby Lee… the mayor?” Shelly asked. “No… but Dwight is and… and… these girls.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed.
Dwight was in there with… the girls?
“Stacey? Stacey Weller? You mean a little blond girl about ye high?”
Shelly shook her head.
“Maybe, I dunno. There are ten of them, maybe more, and they all have these,” she shuddered, “these black eyes…”
Liam shuttled the pajama-clad teenagers behind him.
“Go, keep walking. Don’t stop until either Dwight or I come for you, got it?”
The girls nodded and, confident that they wouldn’t change their mind, Liam sprinted toward the woods.
***
Even though it was closing in on midday, the sun couldn’t quite reach Liam in the swamp. He moved quickly, but quietly, keeping his eyes open for anything that seemed out of the ordinary.
It didn’t take long for him to find it.
Breathing deeply, Liam tucked behind a tree, only peeking out occasionally to make sure that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.
It appeared as if Hugh and Dwight were standing inside a ring of young girls, who looked just as they were described in the book that Stevie had brought back from the library.
Mater est, matrem omnium.
His back pressed against the thick oak tree, Liam breathed deeply in through his nose and then blew it out his mouth in a tight stream just short of a whistle.
Then he peered out again.
“I don’t know what you want, but I… I know I don’t want to hurt you,” Dwight said, arms out in front of him. “I’m not sure what the hell is going on here, but I can help. I’m a police officer.”
“That’s not going to work,” Hugh spat between gritted teeth.
Liam couldn’t be certain at this distance, but he thought that the girls’ eyes were dark, black even. The rest of the swamp was poorly illuminated, but this… this wasn’t the absence of light so much as it is was the absence of life.
They looked dead to him. Truly and unequivocally dead.
This isn’t happening.
Liam was at a crossroads; he had drawn his gun, but he couldn’t rightly stride forward with it raised at a bunch of first graders, no matter what his gut was telling him.
“Mater est, matrem omnium,” the girls hissed in unison.
Liam closed his eyes, trying to ignore the sound.
He couldn’t aim the gun at the children, but he couldn’t just stand there, either. Not when Dwight and Hugh were in danger.
Finally making up his mind, he took a deep breath and then stepped out from behind the tree. As he did, he noticed a third man in the distance.
Who the hell is—
Before he could even finish the thought, the man strode from the shadows with purpose. It was abundantly clear that he didn’t share the Sheriff’s hesitations when it came to the gun clutched in his own pale hand.
“No!” Liam shouted, but he was too late.
The man leveled his pistol at the closest girl’s head and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 57
It was as if Liam was in some sort of void; neither Hugh nor Dwight reacted as viscerally as he did when the girl, who could be no more than six years of age, staggered, then collapsed to the mud.
Half of her head had been blown off and the mud around her had been painted with a red mist.
And yet Liam, who was suddenly shaking all over, was the only one to shout. Dwight recoiled from the sound of the gunshot, but he failed to react to the fallen child.
Stranger still, was the fact that no one turned to face him as he sprinted toward the now broken circle.
“Get away from them!” he screamed in a shrill voice. He waved his gun in front of him, making sure that it was seen by all. “Get the fuck away from the kids!”
Now Dwight turned, a look of sheer wonderment on his face.
“Liam? What the hell—”
In the background, the man who had fired the first shot stepped toward another of the girls.
“No!” Liam screamed as he pinched off a shot of his own.
He missed, but it wasn’t clear even to himself if he intended it as a warning shot or if exhaustion had sapped him of his aim.
Now all eyes were on him, including the black pits embedded in the girls’ pale faces.
“What the fuck is going on here? Dwight, get away from them! Hugh! Get out of there!”
But it was as if the men were in a trance; neither of them so much as blinked, let alone moved.
The only person who was still ambulatory, it appeared, was the stranger that Liam had just shot at. He seemed unburdened by what had happened and raised the pistol again.
“Drop the gun in the mud or I swear to god the next bullet will be in your brain.”
The man hesitated.
“They’re not… they’re not alive, Liam,” Dwight said out of nowhere.
“What?” Liam demanded.
“They’re… they’re already dead.”
While he was distracted, the bastard on the other side of the circle fired another shot. This time, he blew out the back of a girl’s head, sending her eyes and upper jaw flying into the mud not three feet from Dwight’s dejected form.
“No!” Liam screamed again. Through tear streaked vision, he strode forward, this time taking aim at the man’s center mass through the opening that had been made in the circle.
And then he emptied his clip, screaming the entire time.
Liam kept squeezing the trigger even after the only sound his service revolver made was an empty click-click-click.
He wasn’t sure if he’d struck the man, but when his vision cleared, Liam could no longer see him.
“Where’d he go? Dwight, pull your gun and get him.”
But Dwight didn’t pull his gun. Instead, he just stared at Liam with a dumb expression on his fat face.
Liam continued forward, reaching the nearest girl, who had her back to him as if nothing had happened. He wiped his nose with the back of the hand and reached for her.
“You okay, sweetie? I’m going to take you—”
And then Liam saw the impossible.
One of the downed girls started to rise from the mud.
The left side of her face was missing, revealing a near hollow shell like a smashed watermelon. Mud covered the other half and caked the entire left side of her body.
Liam blinked rapidly, trying to force the hallucination away.
But every time light flashed on his retinas, he saw the same image: a girl with half a head rising to her feet as if waking from an afternoon nap. A strange thought occurred to him then, a memory of his childhood, of a chicken running around after its head had b
een lopped off.
Something about the autonomic nervous system continuing to fire even without a brain.
Yeah, that’s it, just sheer impulse, twitching, she’s not really still alive, the rational part of Liam’s brain told him.
The rational part died when the second girl rose from the mud.
This girl had no face at all, just a ragged hole.
She barely had a head.
“No—” Liam moaned, and then he vomited all over himself. Not having eaten for at least a day now, his puke was almost all bile and it burned his throat, lips, and chin.
For the second time that day, Liam felt his consciousness begin to leak out of him like a thin gruel. Only this time, two tiny hands grabbed his face and drew him back from the brink.
It took Liam a second to realize that these weren’t comforting hands, but desperate things; desperate claws that scratched at his eyes and nose. Pinched and pulled his lips.
The shock that engulfed Liam was so great, that he didn’t even resist when the full weight of the girl struck him in the chest and he fell backward into the mud.
“Get off him!” A familiar voice shouted.
A ragged thumbnail drove into his left eye, sending a brief flash of light across his vision, followed quickly by sheer darkness.
Liam didn’t even cry out.
Large hands, adult hands this time, came down on the girl’s shoulders and threw her off him. Only then did Liam react, shrieking at the top of his lungs and scrambling to a seated position.
That was when he saw Dwight, all two-hundred-and-fifty odd pounds of him.
The circle of girls, or whatever the fuck they were, had closed in on him rapidly, and as Liam watched, they all pounced on him at the same time.
Liam instinctively tried to stand, to go to his friend, to help him, but someone grabbed him from behind before he could gain any traction.
“Let go of me!” he bellowed, but his struggle was futile.
The girls started tearing at Dwight, their tiny hands working at a feverish pace as they yanked at his hair, his face, his limbs.
For a brief second, they cleared from Dwight’s face, giving Liam a clear view.
“I’m sorry!” Liam yelled.
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