“I’m going to report everything I hear and see around here,” Mille said.
“Have at it, darling,” Lou said. “You’ll never see the touch. You won’t be able to prove a thing.”
“The what?” Mille asked.
“The hit. The kill. The burn,” Lou told her.
“How grotesque!”
“I don’t believe it,” Doctor Goodson said. “That only happens in the movies.”
“That’s what you think, Doc,” Lou said. “It don’t happen everyday; but it sure as hell happens.” He looked at Bennett. “It’s gonna be a long night, Doc. Pass out the bennies.”
Bennett nodded and went into his lab. He returned in a moment with a large bottle of white pills, handing the bottle to Lou.
Lou shook out a handful of the powerful amphetamines and began passing them out.
Captain Taylor recoiled in horror. “I most certainly will not take dope.”
“Don’t be a jerk, goody-two-shoes,” Lou told him. “We’re all gonna need all the help we can get staying alert tonight and in the morning. These are government issue tabs.” He looked at his watch. “These will kick your butt for about eight hours. Don’t wait until you’re down before taking the second one. When you feel this one wearing off, pop another.”
“Good Lord!” Taylor complained. “And I’ve been preaching against dope for twenty years.” He grimaced as Lou put two pills in his hand.
Lou grinned. “Just think of yourself as an old hippie, Captain.”
“I can’t think of anything more disgusting,” the captain said, swallowing the pill. “I don’t feel anything,” he said with a smug smile. “Probably won’t work on me.”
Lou just laughed. “Oh, but when it does, man, you’re gonna be a sight to see.”
“Never,” the captain said grimly.
Dan said, “Captain, get on the horn and pull as many troopers in here as possible. We’re running the show now. Have your men beef up the roadblocks. Have the rest of them join us.”
Taylor nodded and walked off toward a Virginia Highway Patrol car.
“Your people ready to go, Lou?” Dan asked.
“Sure.” Lou slapped the sheriff on the arm. “I told you we’d be allies before all this was over, didn’t I, buddy-boy?” He waved to his people. “Let’s go, boys and girls. Time to round up the hants and spooks.”
Dan just shook his head and stared as the man yelled for his people to get moving. He thought: Lou may be the world’s biggest maniac, but he was long on courage and so were his people. They knew, to a person, the risks they were taking, walking headfirst into the unknown.
“He’s a complicated man,” Denier said, watching Lou leave the area.
“That would not be my way of describing him,” Dan said. “I wonder if he knows what he’s getting into, or if this is just a game to him.”
“He knows,” the priest said quietly.
Chuck walked up to Dan’s side. “We found breaks in the fence. Looks like that’s where Bowie and the engineer got out.”
“Pass the word to all units, county and state, to shoot them on sight and bring the bodies back here. They’ve got to go up with the others.”
Chuck sighed. A hard choice for Dan to make; rough to put it into words. Bowie had been well-liked by everybody.
“I know,” Dan said softly. “But it has to be. I just wonder where he’s—they’ve—gone.”
The men turned as Goodson walked up, a glass tube in one hand, flashlight in the other. “Look at this,” he said.
“It looks like a great big maggot,” Dan said, reluctant to even touch the glass containing the squirming, ugly worm.
“What is it?” Chuck asked.
“Bennett says his resident entomologist has never seen anything like it. It’s a brand new species. But this one appears to be dying. So they have a very short life-cycle. About twenty-four hours.”
“What can kill them?”
“Fire,” Goodson replied. “Crushing them. Nothing else seems to faze them.”
“Wonderful,” Taylor said, catching the last bit. “On top of everything else.”
The men noticed that Goodson kept shaking the tube. Chuck asked him why he was doing that.
“To keep it from eating through the top. They’ll eat anything except glass and metal.”
Taylor looked at the ugly worm and shook his head in disgust. He walked off to join his troopers.
And outside the terminal complex, someone began screaming, the faint sounds drifting over the night air.
Dan looked in the general direction of the scream. “Someone didn’t follow orders and left his house.”
“It’s probably gonna get worse,” Chuck said.
No one had looked in on Wally, lying in the hospital trailer. Wally had begun a hideous metamorphosis. What was left of his shattered leg had blackened with stinking rot. The darkness had wrinkled and spread, now covering most of his body. He jerked in agony as the mutation spread to his neck, up his head. His face contorted and altered, becoming wrinkled and dark. He rolled from the bed, tumbling to the floor. No one heard the noise.
He lay for a moment, the pain gradually subsiding. Dragging his shattered, half eaten leg, Wally found the side door of the trailer and slipped out, unnoticed. Keeping to the dark shadows, he followed the fence line, seeking escape.
* * *
“Even if we were to kill the priest,” Anya mused aloud. “I do not believe that alone would be the answer. Something is very right here, and something is very wrong. I believe the Garrett person is the key to it all.”
Pet sat by the girl’s feet, listening, the cold eyes unblinking.
Both knew the woods around their location were filling with humans. But neither knew the why of it. They both knew the Old Ones were free of their entrapment. They both knew that at dawn they must make their move. They had twelve hours to complete what they were created to do. Dawn to dusk. They had been birthed to be worshipped and to serve the Dark One. The thrust of their existence was to deliver evil, to spread it wherever they might roam, to recruit souls for Satan, to cause pain and suffering and disease.
And they had twelve hours to establish a firm foothold here. If they could dominate for twelve hours, no power in heaven or earth could dislodge them.
But they had never been able to complete that task. Not since the religious base in the desert had been destroyed.
But now? ...
Perhaps.
And they both knew it was all a game. Nothing more. Just a game. Good on one side, Evil on the other. It was a game their Master always started, but seldom won in any great numbers of souls. But the Dark One was winning, little by little, slowly but surely, and in the strangest of ways and places and people.
This new dawning, only a few hours away, could bring the greatest coup in recent memory. And if Anya and Pet could see it through, they would have eternal life. They would be immortal.
But Anya knew something was wrong. She did not think He was interfering—not directly. But as was usually His way, He was working quietly, remaining unseen and gently manipulating lives and events. And as usually occurred, that damnable, meddling Michael was sticking his nose in affairs that did not concern him. God’s warrior. God’s mercenary was a better way of putting it.
Anya had been told that earlier that evening. She had also been ordered not to fail.
That was that. One simply does not disobey the Master.
And not too far away from where Anya and Pet waited for the first rays of dawn, Bowie staggered toward the Garrett house.
8
The crew chief of the power crew stared at Sheriff Garrett in utter disbelief. Finally, he blurted, “Jumpin’ Jesus Christ, Sheriff! Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do?”
“I am perfectly aware of what I am requesting,” Dan said.
The man shook his head. “The devil caused this weather, huh?”
“That is correct.”
“Sheriff,” the crew ch
ief said. “Let me get this straight. You want me and my boys to divert all the power from those high lines,” he pointed, “and feed it into a metal grid your people are laying down?”
“That is correct.”
“Sheriff, are you aware of just how many volts are running through those lines?”
“Not really. But it’s ample, I’m sure.”
“Ample!” the man yelled. “Ample! The man says ample. Oh, yeah, yeah, it’s ample all right. Sheriff, when all that juice hits that wire, I don’t want to be within ten miles of this place. It’s gonna look like the Fourth of July. It’s gonna fry that wire. It’s gonna . . .”
“Calm down,” Dan told him. “It isn’t a question of whether you like it or not. It isn’t even a question of whether you’re going to do it. If it can be done, you are going to do it. The question is: can you do it?”
Just think, the crew chief thought—I voted for this nutso! “Oh, yeah, Sheriff. Yeah, we can do it. But what if we refuse? What if we decide to take your threat of jail instead?”
“Then I’ll have it blown down,” Dan told him. “I have the people to do it, and the explosives are right over there.” He pointed.
“You’re really serious!”
“Yes, I am.”
The crew chief sighed. “For the record, you are ordering me to do this, knowing I am opposed to it?”
“That is correct. I will take full responsibility.”
“Along with the state police,” Captain Taylor said.
“Okay, Sheriff. Do we get hazardous duty pay for this?”
“Free sandwiches and all the coffee you can drink.”
“And then you’ll tell us what’s going on in the county? Really going on?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“Wonderful. I can tell my boss the devil made me do it. Come on, Sheriff!”
“You’ll see. If we all live through it.”
The man paled. “See what?”
“Let me put it this way, chief. What would happen if several million volts of electricity were to hit . . . well, atomic matter?”
“I don’t know! I’m a lineman, not a scientist. Probably blow up, I guess. How much atomic matter are we talking about?”
“I don’t know,” Dan admitted.
“Oh, that’s just great. Wonderful.” The crew chief removed his hard hat and wiped the sweat away. “The devil is in Ruger County? This place belongs to Satan? We got monsters crawling around the county? Little bugs that eat people? Zombies? You know what I think, Sheriff? I think you’re nuts!”
“Think what you like. Just get to work. Before I lose patience and blow that tower down.”
“Yes, sir!” The lineman saluted. “Right now, General.” He yelled to his men. “Call the plant in Valentine. Tell ’em to stand by for a shut-down. Get that cherry-picker right over there. Adjust those spotlights.” He looked back at the Sheriff, Captain Taylor, and Father Denier. “Sheriff, you know this is going to knock power out all over the place.”
“I know. But only for a short time. When you’re finished with the bypass the power can be restored until we need it, right?”
The crew chief sighed. “It’s not quite that simple, Sheriff. I still think you’re nuts.”
He turned and walked away.
“Perhaps we are,” Denier muttered.
“Why do you say that, Father?” Taylor asked.
“Mere mortals doing battle with Satan.” He looked at Dan, a strange glint in his eyes. Almost as if he could see something about the man that Dan did not know.
It made Dan uncomfortable. He said, “You’re a mortal, Father. And you’ve fought him before.”
“Not on this scale.”
“Are you a betting man, Father?”
“I have been known to dabble from time to time.”
“How would you put the odds in this?”
Denier shrugged in the deep night. “Oh, fifty/ fifty.”
“That good, huh?” Taylor smiled.
When the new troopers arrived, Taylor assigned them out, putting most of them helping to lay the many rolls of wire, most of it four and five foot fencing. About an hour after Lou and his people had pulled out, Captain Taylor stood straight up and looked around him, his eyes large.
“Holy cow!” he said.
“What’s the matter, Captain?” one of his men asked.
“Nothing!” Taylor said. He blinked his eyes and rubbed his hands together. “Get to work, men! Time’s a-wasting. Work, work, work!” He began walking rapidly around the compound, yelling orders, unable to stand still or keep his mouth shut.
Denier watched the captain’s antics for a moment, then asked, “Is the man ill?”
“Naw, Father,” Kenny said, an amused look on his face. “He’s just speedin’ his butt off, that’s all.”
* * *
Bowie stood by a bedroom window of the Garrett house. He had walked through hundreds of cats on his way to the home. None had bothered him. They were all answering to the same silent call. The hot winds carrying dark voices. Bowie looked through the wire covering the screen and window. He could see that the window was unlocked. Carrie and Linda were asleep on the double bed. The faint glow of a digital clock was the only illumination. The hum of the central air conditioning would cover any slight noise he might make. He stared. The girls were dressed only in bras and panties.
Bowie licked his now thick lips, the lust in him rising, the now-wild blood surged through his veins.
He fumbled for his pocket knife and tried to open it, his animal fingers, gnarled and clawed, clumsy with the blade. He dropped the knife several times. Growling low in frustration, he used a long, thick, curved fingernail to quietly rip the chicken wire and screen. His wild eyes on the girls, drool leaked from his mouth, the thick ropy drool staining his shirt. He reached for the window. One of the girls stirred restlessly in her sleep. Bowie froze until she settled down. Carrie abruptly sat up in bed.
“S’wrong?” Linda muttered.
“Bathroom,” Carrie said softly. “Go back to sleep.” She padded from the room, leaving the door open.
The cats gathered around Bowie’s ankles, rubbing against him, restless, sensing prey was imminent. Their low purring a menacing soft buzz in the hot night.
Bowie opened the window and leaped into the room. He hit Linda on the jaw with a hard fist, grabbed her, and tossed her out the window, to land heavily on the ground. He jumped out of the bedroom, picking up the stunned and bruised girl, and ran off, across the road.
The cats leaped into the house through the open window. They filled the room, sitting on the bed, the dresser, covering the floor. One of the cats brushed against the door, the jar closing the door. It closed with a soft click. The cats waited.
Returning from the bathroom, Carrie stopped in the hall. The door to her bedroom was closed, and she distinctly remembered leaving it open a bit.
Maybe the wind blew it shut?
No, the window was closed; Dad’s orders. Besides, there was no wind.
Maybe Linda had closed the door?
Not likely. She was sound asleep before Carrie had left the room.
Then ... what?
Carrie put her ear to the door. She could hear something, but couldn’t quite identify the sound. Fear gripped her as she stood, undecided as to what to do.
She ran up the hall to her mother’s room. Vonne sat up the instant the door opened.
“Something’s wrong!” Carrie whispered. “Come on.
Vonne woke Carl and Mike, as they pulled on jeans, Carrie told them about the door.
“Let’s go,” Carl said, leading the way. At the bedroom door, he held up his hand for silence and put an ear to the door.
Purring.
He looked at his mother and motioned them all back down the hall. At the archway, he said, “The room is full of cats. I can hear them purring.”
“But how did they get in?” Carrie asked, close to tears. “I was only out of the room for about a
minute. And the window was closed!”
“Settle down. I don’t know. But I don’t understand why Linda didn’t scream.”
“Maybe she ...” Carrie swallowed hard. “Maybe she didn’t have time to ... before the cats, I mean, got her!” She began crying softly.
Vonne pulled the girl close and held her.
“I don’t think the cats got her,” Mike said. “She would have yelled, knocked over something-anything. But we’ve got to find out. Maybe somebody opened the window and grabbed her. Carl, you game to cracking the door a bit?”
“Yeah. I don’t see that we have a choice. How are we gonna handle it?”
“Well, I guess the cats are back outside, too. Obviously, we can’t go outside. We’ll ...”
Carrie broke away from her mother and ran down the hall to her bedroom door. “Linda! ” she screamed. “Answer me, Linda. Are you in there?”
Low menacing purring greeted her question.
“Linda!”
Vonne grabbed her daughter by the shoulders and literally dragged her back down the hall. She pushed her into her bedroom and looked back at the boys. “Do you best, boys. And please be careful.”
“Let’s put on boots,” Mike said. “And get what’s left of that chicken wire. It’s on the back porch. Get enough for four or five layers. We’ll take down a closet door and cut a hole in it, nail the wire on both sides for extra protection. When you open the bedroom door, I’ll hold the other door in place while we barricade it shut, or nail it, or some goddamned thing. We’ll look through the wire. How’s that sound to you?”
“Let’s go!”
* * *
Bowie ripped the panty and bra from the girl and held her to the ground, opening her legs. Twice he was forced to stop his crazed assault and beat the girl into submission. Unhappy with the position, Bowie twisted the girl to her hands and knees, mounting her from behind, like the animal he had become.
Finished, he pulled up his trousers and stood over the sobbing and bruised girl. He threw back his head and howled at the dark sky, the howling echoing through the hot, sticky darkness.
Bowie used his belt to tie her wrists together and secure the other end to a small tree. Then he growled and trotted off into the night.
* * *
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