“I can believe it,” Jim muttered. He chose a twelve-gauge shotgun for himself and noticed that Jay and Eric chose the same model and type.
“Let’s take three-oh-eight rifles,” Eric suggested. “That way all our ammo will be interchangeable.”
“Take all the ammunition,” Jay said. “There won’t be any more of it to be had.”
Amy’s face was pale as she stood back and watched the men pick and choose weapons. She started to cry and Jim walked to her. She looked up at him. “I don’t want to die, Jim! Let’s get all the guns and get in the cars and run!”
“We went over that in the car, Amy. I showed you how we’re being followed. Dickens Road is blocked. So is Henderson Street. And so is – ”
“The highway isn’t blocked!” she screamed. “And neither is old Clute Road.”
“Amy.” Jim was patient. “I showed you the people following us. Oh, we might get as far as the Clute house. But they’d stop us.”
“Then call your friends in the troopers to come in here and get us out!”
“How, Amy? I don’t have a radio in my personal car. We can’t get any outside calls through. Face it, Amy. We’re stuck. We’re going to have to fight this out as best we can. Now accept that.”
She walked, her back stiff, into the bedroom with Deva. Their voices were muted as they talked.
The men gathered up guns and ammo and carried the loads out to the car, through the thick murk that now contained a very foul smell.
Eric made another trip into the house, coming out carrying an armload of weapons and several sacks of ammo. “I believe in being prepared for any eventuality,” he explained.
Deva and Amy joined them, standing in the foul-smelling, evil denseness.
“I really hope it doesn’t come to gunfire,” Jim said. They looked at him as he drily added, “You have no idea of the amount of paperwork that is involved when you shoot somebody.”
* * *
The remainder of Jenny’s gang of kids had been sitting on the steps of the house when Piper and the others arrived. They had made their apologies to Kelly – everyone except Jenny. Those two weren’t speaking.
After a light supper, General Douglas clicked on the TV in the living room. He looked at the program, a nighttime soap, and snorted. “The whole goddamned world around us is perfectly normal. I just feel . . . so helpless. I just want to scream out, Hey! Somebody! Anybody! We’re in trouble here in Victory. We’re facing some sort of... unknown. Help us!”
“There is one person we can ask for help,” Father Pat spoke up.
“Sure won’t hurt,” Jim said, bowing his head.
* * *
“Jay.” General Douglas shook him awake. “Ange is back. She’s being looked after by Piper and Deva and Amy.”
Jay looked at the clock on the nightstand. Four-thirty. The general had volunteered to take the last watch of the night. The dog watch, he’d called it.
Dressing, Jay asked, “How is she?”
“Raped.” The general walked out of the room, an angry set to his face.
The door to Deva and Kelly’s room was closed, so with nothing left to do, Jay made coffee and waited with the others.
“That damnable stinking murk finally dissipated,” General Douglas said, looking out the front window. He shook his head. “That poor girl is just about eleven years old. What type of human being rapes a child?”
No one answered. Deva came out and faced them in the living room. “She’ll live. But she’s very lucky none of them were abnormally large.”
“Who raped her?” Jay asked.
“Parnell, Aaron, Gordy, Hec, Roper, and Ellis Fletcher.”
“Oh, my God!” Jay closed his eyes.
“In a church, Jay! The Madison Street Church; where we used to go as kids. They moved the pulpit out of the way, hung a cross upside down... and the preacher, Reverend Freemond, conducted the black mass. Can you believe it. In the same church we were baptized in!”
“That’s how they got away with it all these long years,” Eric said. “But you two.” He looked at Deva and Jay. “You two stopped going as a child. And I’ll make a wager that neither of you paid a bit of attention to what was being said when you did go.”
“Well . . . it’s nothing to brag about,” Jay said. “But you’re right.”
“That doesn’t explain Amy,” Father Pat said.
“But you never went to school here in Victory,” Deva said quickly.
A little too quickly? Jay silently questioned. Maybe. Or am I just getting paranoid?
“I was sent away to a very private and very expensive girl’s school in northern Missouri,” Amy told them. “But why?”
“Perhaps back then your father still had a spark of decency in him.” Father Pat tried to comfort the young woman.
She looked at him. “Good try, Father. But no. You see, my dad tried to abuse me as a child, but I fought him off. When he tried again, I kicked and screamed and raised such a fuss, he never tried again. That’s why he shipped me off.”
“Your brothers and sisters?” Deva asked.
“We’ve never been close. I was always gone. But Daddy was always very . . . close to Helen. Now I know why.”
“It’s all so hideously perfect,” Jim said. “No open ceremonies; no calling out of demons; no overt signs of satanism. It all flies in the face of established modes of black magic. The Lord’s Day is one that most devil worshippers shun in fear. But not here. Why?”
Eric put a hand on the priest’s shoulder. “We were wrong, Pat.”
“You mean I was wrong, Eric. But yes, you’re right.”
“Wrong about what, Father?” Jay asked.
“One of you asked if the devil was here in Victory. No, he isn’t. But someone or something very close to him is. Something very old and very evil. Something that feeds on souls. And it’s alive, and hungry.”
5
Amy answered the knocking on the door. Breakfast was over, the dishes washing in the dishwasher. The young woman stood for a moment, speechless, staring at her father.
“Good morning, Amy!” Ellis said brightly. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”
“Uh ... yeah.” his daughter finally found her voice. “Just dandy,” she added with a cutting edge to her voice.
“May I come in?”
“Sure. Why not. We sure can’t go anywhere.”
“What a strange thing to say, girl.” Ellis stepped into the foyer. Jay and the others had gathered around. “Why can’t you go anywhere?” He left the door open.
“You got a lot of nerve, Ellis!” Jay told him.
“Oh, not really, Jay. No more than I ever had. I just thought I’d stop by and say good-bye to all of you.”
“Are we going somewhere?” General Douglas asked.
“If you want to.” Ellis grinned.
Jim looked outside, wary of a trap.
Ellis laughed at him. “Everything is quite normal, young man. Would you like to use the phone to call your headquarters and report, ah, anything?”
“What about Ange, Dad?” Amy challenged him. “What about that poor little girl?”
“Ange? Ange. Oh, yes. Jenny’s little friend. What about her?”
“Are you serious, Dad?”
“Quite. What about her?”
“You and the others raped her. Last night. In the Madison Street Church!”
Ellis looked confused. “Amy, what in the world are you talking about? Are you ill, sweetheart?”
He put out a hand to touch her face and she slapped it away. “Keep your filthy hands off me!”
“What kind of game are you playing, Ellis?” Jay asked him.
Jim sat down on the stairs. “It’s an old game, Jay. It’s called Prove It.”
Ellis smiled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. State Trooper.”
Jim only grunted. “Sweet and neat and all wrapped up, huh, Fletcher. There was no meeting at the church last night, was there?”
“Not
that I’m aware of. I was home with my wife and family. As a matter of fact, we were going to cook out, but that fog obscured things so we fixed our steaks inside. Oh, Amy . . . you missed such a good meal.”
“Thanks, Dad. But I never cared much for what you have to offer.”
Ellis slapped her, rocking her back. Jim was off the steps and had decked the man before anyone else could move. His punch knocked Ellis clear out of the foyer and onto the front porch. He landed in a sprawl, his mouth bloody.
The screen door banged closed, the spring broken.
Jay and Eric grabbed the trooper before he could kick the man’s face in; and by the look on his face, that was what he had in mind.
Ellis slowly crawled to his knees; then, using the railing for support, climbed to his feet. His blood was dripping down, staining his white shirt and pale-blue tie. “You’re all fools,” he spoke, his words mushy from busted lips. “It’s over. Stay here for a hundred years, it will never surface.”
“What will never surface, Ellis?” Deva asked.
“I’m telling you, it’s over. It’s appeased. Look around you. See what a lovely little town we have here? Children playing, riding their bikes. Women and men working and living normally – ”
“The toys are alive, Ellis!” Jay yelled at him. “I saw them!”
“Prove it, Jay. You too, Jim. Call your state police in; alert the reporters from the Dispatch and the Star. Tell them. You know what they’ll find? Nothing. Nothing at all. You’ll all look like fools!”
He turned and went stomping down the steps. He got in his car and drove away.
The squeaking of Milton’s rocking chair reached them. “Goddammit, Milton,” Jay yelled. “Don’t say it!”
The old man rocked and squeaked and laughed and laughed. “You assholes!” he hollered.
* * *
They sat in the living room. Ange had joined them. Her face was pale and her eyes dead looking, but she was putting on a brave front.
“Now what?” General Douglas tossed the question out. “Ellis was right, you know?”
Ange shuddered at the mention of his name.
“Yeah,” the trooper admitted. “I know he’s right. They’ve covered their tracks. But if we left, the kids couldn’t go with us.”
“I ain’t stayin’ here!” Andy blurted. The others quickly agreed.
All but Jenny. She said nothing.
“With her tender organs, her tenderness now is no more,” Ange said, her voice a monotone. “And the day is not far off when the living dead shall walk.”
Ange rose from her chair and walked outside, to sit alone, on the porch.
“What was all that about?” Amy asked.
“Part of the black mass,” Father Pat said. “God only knows what else she remembers.”
The priest stood up. “Come, Eric. I know it’s a waste of time, but let’s go see the area ministers. I want to sound them out.”
The priest and his companion gone, Deva looked at Jay. “What are we going to do?”
“Visit the old Clute house, I guess.”
“Then you’re not going to leave?”
Jay looked at Piper. She smiled at him. “I couldn’t live with myself knowing we left these kids behind.”
General Douglas stood up. “Let’s go.”
* * *
They stood in a group in the weed-grown front yard of the old home. No one had made any attempt to stop them as they drove out of Victory.
And there was no sign of the young guards the kids had cautioned them about.
“I don’t understand none of this.” Andy looked around him. “Every time we came out here, those kids was guardin’ this place.” He turned at the sounds of motors. “Mom and Dad,” he said glumly.
The motorcade stopped in the driveway, the parents of the kids getting out. They were all smiling.
One man walked straight up to Jay and stuck out his hand. “Hi, Jay! Long time no see, boy. How you been doin’?”
Jay shook the hand. “Ah ... Jimmy Wilson! Yeah. How you been, Jimmy?”
“Fine, fine. We want to thank you all for takin’ care of the kids while we were out of town, Jay. You, too, Deva, Amy. It was real nice of y’all. Well, come along, kids. Time to go home.”
Carla looked at Jim, a panicked look in her eyes. “You don’t mind if the kids come over to Jay’s this evening, do you?” the trooper asked the man. “We were planning on cooking out.”
“Sure. That’d be fine,” Robert’s dad said. He punched Jay lightly on the shoulder. “Good to see you, boy. That was some fog last night, wasn’t it?”
“Uh ... yeah! Sure was. Well, kids, we’ll see you back over at the house this afternoon.”
“They’ll sure be there,” Ange’s mother said, smiling. “We’ll personally see to it, Jay. Y’all have fun out here, now.”
Then they were gone, backing out of the drive and heading to town, leaving some very confused people standing in the littered yard.
“That’s the greatest bunch of actors I’ve ever seen,” General Douglas said.
“I don’t think they’re acting.” Jay watched the motorcade fade out of sight. “I don’t think they remember anything.”
“I agree,” Jim said. “But we did the only legal thing. We couldn’t have stopped them from taking their children.”
Jay turned, gazing at the huge old house.
“Where did you find that little dog, Jay?” Jim asked him.
“Right over there.” Jay pointed. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
The trooper followed Jay and squatted down. He had inspected the object Jay had pulled from the dead animal, and agreed it was a spear. And they all knew where it came from.
But knowing it and being able to prove it to a group of outsiders was quite another matter.
Even General Douglas remained skeptical of little toys that come alive.
Jenny and Kelly sat together on a box under one of the huge trees in the front yard.
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” Jenny said without looking at the girl.
“Smart enough to know what you are.”
“Like they say, Miss Prissy, prove it.”
“You won’t get away with it.”
“Who’s gonna stop me? You? Don’t bet on doing that.”
Kelly laughed soundlessly. “I’m stronger than you, and I can whip you easy.”
“When it gets time, city girl, you’re gonna be in for a surprise.”
“You can’t win. Father Pat is on my side.”
Jenny rose and walked away, leaving Kelly to sit alone on the box.
“Whore!” Kelly hissed at her, but not loud enough for the adults to hear.
“Bitch!” Jenny called her.
* * *
“The kids seem to be getting along better,” General Douglas remarked.
“Thank God for small favors.” Deva tried a smile; but there was something hidden behind her eyes. Something that Jay picked up on. He said nothing about it.
General Douglas looked down at the base of the house. He let out a yelp and jumped back.
“Take a look at that!” he yelled, pointing.
Jenny and Kelly ran to join the adults.
All looked, following the pointing finger of General Douglas.
A little man stood under the house, grinning up at them. His face was disfigured, making him appear evil. He waved and darted away, into the darkness under the home.
“So you found them,” Jenny said. “Big deal. Bring some outsiders out here, and they’ll just be toys. Believe it.”
“Shut up, Jenny,” her mother told her.
Jay and Jim exchanged questioning glances. The trooper lifted his shoulders. He cut his eyes to the field on the north side of the house. “We’re being watched, people. Teenagers in the field.”
“Told you all there were guards. And they’re armed, too,” Jenny said smugly.
“How many?” Jay asked, not looking toward the field.
�
�I count eight. They’re carrying machetes.”
General Douglas smiled grimly. Lifting his shirt, which he was wearing outside his trousers, he exposed the butt of an old army issue .45 autoloader. “I got two extra clips in my back pocket that says I’m better than those damned long knives. You carrying, Jim?”
“I got my pants on,” the trooper replied.
One older and bigger kid left the group in the field and walked toward the house.
Jim pulled his .357 from leather.
“He’s just a kid,” Piper said.
“So was Lizzie Borden,” General Douglas told her.
The teenager saw the drawn gun in Jim’s hand. He stopped, grinned at them, and returned to his group. They vanished.
“What the hell!” Jay blinked his eyes.
“They can do that,” Jenny said. “They got paths cut in the tall weeds.”
“Leave or die!” the shouted words came out of the field. “This is none of your concern. Get out and leave us be.”
“We’re staying!” Jay shouted to the seemingly empty field.
“Then you’ll die!” The young voice ripped at them.
“Missouri Highway Patrol!” Jim shouted at the field. “Don’t threaten me, you punk!”
“If you had any proof of anything this place would be swarmin’ with cops.” A nasty laugh followed.
“Smart-mouthed little monster!” Jim muttered.
“All die! All die! All die!” The chant rose out of the field.
“It seems that the kids don’t pay much attention to the adults,” Amy noted. “My father says it’s all over, but the kids want to push it.”
“Power play?” Jay asked.
No one replied. And the field lay silent before them.
“I’m for going inside,” General Douglas said.
“Let’s do it. Let’s see if that front door does its thing again.”
“This I gotta see,” Douglas muttered.
They climbed the steps and faced the screen door. Jay put out his hand. The door slashed open. Jay jerked his hand back just in time.
Amy stared in horror. “Oh, Lord!”
Jim stepped to one side. “Try it again, Jay. I’ll grab it.”
Jay extended his hand. The screen door trembled in its frame, then suddenly sprang open. Jim grabbed the door, bracing his feet on the porch. “Help me, Jay!”
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