Rand saw his quivering flesh, felt pity. He moved closer to Conn and held him. The action didn't feel strange or uncomfortable, it felt human. Conn rested his head on Rand's shoulder.
"I can love you, can't I, Rand? I can love you?"
"Yes," Rand said. And Conn's shivering slowed.
"It means something doesn't it?"
"Yes," he answered again.
Conn remained silent, then opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again and said, "Georgie died, you know that? I made a friend in Winnipeg and he died. I gave him the needle, Rand, I gave him the needle and he put it in his arm and he died in the street. In Winnipeg. Dead."
"It'll be O.K, Conn."
"I have to tell you this. I found my dad. I got his name through the foster home. He was living in Winnipeg. He didn't even know who I was, or care. He was just a drunk. He said mom was dead. And get this, Rand. He was white. I wanted him to be something new. Different. Instead I'm halfway between nothing." He started to shake uncontrollably.
"It'll be O.K.," Rand said, "tomorrow everything will be O.K."
Conn shook his head. "It won't. Everything ends tonight."
"What do you mean?"
"Swallower's coming. He's almost here."
"Who?"
"Swallower. The god beneath the ground. He's almost here."
Stephen Haydes! He means Stephen Haydes. Or whatever he's become. The realization burst over Rand's thoughts.
"He's been feeding off us. Off Kinniwaw. Eating our pain, our anger. Raw. Making it into flesh. He's been here before, a long time ago. I think he was a man once. I sometimes see part of his memories, they just sort of leak into my mind and it's like they become mine. He said Kinniwaw poisoned him, Kinniwaw poisoned him."
Rand realized that he and Bumpa and Kari had somehow made a mistake. Stephen Haydes had died on September 24th. That maybe the coroners were wrong.
"And the son I think his name was Angel, at least I hear him whisper that. He his an angel with an ax. Then he shot himself. But Swallower didn't die, he could still see somehow. Even after he was dead. He lay there for days and he saw when the campers found him and he watched as the men buried him. His eyes stayed open, no one could close them. They buried him there because no one wanted him in a graveyard. I think the men who buried him knew he was different because one of them came back and put the stones across his grave so he couldn't get up. But I moved them, Rand. I moved the stones. You can't bury yourself, Rand. It always comes back up. And Tyler...oh...poor Tyler." Conn sat up.
"What about Tyler?"
"Tell him they want Tanya. The innocent. Haydes wants Tanya. He knows she's strong." Conn got up. "I have to stop him. Tyler's my friend isn't he? Friend. Once a long time ago. He was my...friend." He hobbled towards the door. He made it about halfway, then his legs collapsed and he crumpled to the ground. Rand went to his side.
"Don't move. Don't worry."
"I have to stop him. I have to. Tanya's really good isn't she? Good. Like Bumpa. I have to save her."
He tried to get up, but Rand held him down. He felt, suddenly, in control. Empowered. As if the announcement of Tanya's peril had unlocked something secret inside him. "We'll do it together," he said. "Whatever you have to do. We'll do it together." Conn nodded and Rand got him a blanket.
Rand phoned Kari, woke up her mother. Kari came to the phone.
"I'm going to come and get you."
"Why," she said, sleepy.
"We made a mistake, tonight is the night Stephen Haydes died." He hung up and at once the phone rang.
Rand picked it up. It was Bumpa on the other line.
13.
Kari stood on the steps of her house as Rand pulled up in his Mustang. She felt a threatening urgency sweeping in with Rand, over him, past him. She wanted to run, to run away from Rand, from the night, to go away from Kinniwaw. Instead she waited as Rand stopped the car. She walked slowly towards it. Rand stuck his head out the window. "Come on!" he said.
Kari jogged to the car, got in. She looked in the back seat and it took her a moment to realize that the figure with wild hair and sunken eyes was Conn. "I never meant to," he said, his voice even, "but God bit me."
And she knew then, with certainty, that the night was mad. She was thrown to the left as Rand swooped onto the main road. Kari quickly put on her seatbelt. They drove for fifteen minutes in silence.
"Stop," Conn said, he grabbed Rand's shoulder. "Stop!"
Rand slammed on the brakes and Kari leaned forward as they skidded to a halt. Fields and wire fences on either side of them, visible in the headlights.
"I have to get out," Conn threw off the blanket. "Open the door, Kari, and let me out."
Kari didn't move. She didn't understand what was going on.
"Where are you going?" Rand asked.
Conn ignored him. He pushed on Kari's seat, Kari felt her seatbelt tighten around her as she was shoved ahead. The door opened and Conn slid out. He leaned back in the car. "Don't go to Tyler's. It's too late. Go where we camped, Rand. You came there with me once. In that dream." Then he turned and ran into the ditch, jumped the fence, and sped naked though the fields. Darkness took him, bit by bit.
A short time later Rand and Kari pulled into Bumpa's. Bumpa was waiting outside on the steps, a big shotgun in his hand. He approached. Kari got out and slipped into the back seat. There was a clattering noise as Bumpa tossed two knives and an ax down. He sat in the passenger seat, the shotgun held between his legs, pointing at the roof. He handed the ax to Kari. "Just in case," he said.
Kari felt the thick wood of the small ax in her hands. She was scared to hold it, it meant violence and she didn't like that.
"Thor's dead," Bumpa whispered.
"I know," Rand answered. He pressed lightly on the gas, turned out onto the road. A few minutes later they came to a grid road. Rand turned right, heading north.
They sped over hills and deeper into the trees. The night painted everything in varying shades of darkness and Kari was happy she couldn't see very much from the back seat. Finally, they passed through the gates of Minnow Park. No one was in the toll booth, it had been closed for two weeks now. No lights shone in the cluster of buildings down by the man-made lake. They went up the gravel road, by the store/restaurant that sat atop the chalet hill. The place was completely empty. "Do you think they're down here?" Rand asked.
"They're up there," Bumpa answered, pointing at a road to their left.
"That's where Stephen Haydes once lived. If they're anywhere, they're up there."
Rand turned and headed up the road Bumpa had pointed at. It was an older road, really nothing more than two tracks and a bit of gravel. The car whined as the angle of the road steepened. They came to the top of one hill, went down a little, then started up another. As they drove higher, Kari felt a pressure growing in her mind.
"Do you feel that?" she asked when it became strong enough to be a buzzing.
"Yes," Bumpa nodded.
"It's like something pressing against the top of my mind, trying to get in," Kari said. She clutched the ax tighter.
"Take that road," Bumpa said and Rand turned up the road.
They drove farther upwards, the road twisted through the trees. Finally they pulled up to a dead end and stopped. "Looks like we walk from here," Bumpa said then he opened his door.
14.
Tyler's father was hanging from the tractor's bucket, both arms spread wide and bound with twine. There was dirt all over his face, in his mouth, his nostrils. His nose had been running, leaving streaks down his lips. Straw protruded out of his bloody shirt, below his arms, his sleeves and the bottom of his pants, so that he looked like a scarecrow. His feet, one foot clad in a grey wool sock, the other in a tan workboot, dangled only a short distance from the ground. A patch as dark as oil was on the ground.
"Dad," Tyler said, knowing he was dead, that he couldn't hear. Would never hear.
Charles opened his eyes to slits. His body convulsed with
a cough. He looked down, slowly, the movement of his eyes as imperceptible as the movement of a clock's second hand. "Tyler," he whispered then he coughed hard, dirt and spittle spilled out of his mouth. "Your mother...Tanya," the fingers of his left hand tried to point towards the house. He coughed again. Tyler moved closer. "Go," Charles rasped.
Tyler stared for a moment at his father, fear twisting in his heart, then he turned and dashed towards the house. The door was ajar, wrenched open. He ran up the steps, through the door into his house. He looked left, then right. The living room was clean, as his mother always kept it. There was no sign of a struggle. He walked ahead, slowly now, every sense in his body heightened. He passed the stairs, thought briefly of going up them to Tanya's room. To find her.
But he saw a chair upside down at the table and he heard a noise in the kitchen. The squeak of the oven opening.
He ran, kicked open the door.
There was a man there, shorter than Tyler. His hair spiky and dark, his face handsome. The man looked blankly up at Tyler, a red apple in his hand.
He was working on Helen.
She was on the table, her eyes wide in fear. There was a cord around her neck and a gag in her mouth. She was lying on her side, her hands and legs tied together so that her knees were drawn up against her chest. The man had arranged her on a serving dish only a quarter of her size. Fresh lettuce stuck out from underneath her. The man was trying to put the apple in her mouth.
The oven across from them was open. The racks had been pulled out and were lying on the floor.
Tyler and the man stared at each other, the man holding the apple up in the air like the dot on a question mark.
A rattling noise came from the closet behind the man and he glanced towards it.
Tyler screamed and jumped through the air.
The man stepped, quick as a cat, out of the way. Tyler landed, spun around to face the man who was now standing at the cupboard. The man looked at Tyler's face, then the blade taped to the end of Tyler's left arm, then back to Tyler's face. "You're beautiful," he whispered.
Tyler, all rage, moved towards him.
The man jerked open the closet door and Tanya rolled out in front of his feet. She was tied, gagged. Her eyes darted back and forth. With one hand the man yanked her into the air, pulled her close to him. There was a flick and a blade appeared in his hand. He held it to Tanya's throat. His face was still emotionless, then, as if he realized the situation, he smiled. His white teeth glittered.
Tyler froze. "Let her go," he whispered.
The man shook his head and backed away from Tyler, still smiling. He bumped open the back door, stood poised for a moment, then disappeared into the night.
Tyler ran to the door but the shadows had swallowed the man. The night was dark, the moon a dull half crescent.
He looked back at his mother struggling with her bonds. He went to her, undid the gag and the cord. Helped her sit up. She coughed lightly and as soon as he was sure she was alright, he said, "Go to dad. He's tied to the tractore." Tyler ran out into the backyard.
He caught a glimpse of something moving, black on black, and he ran after it.
He ran for a long time, hours it seemed, never seeming to get close to his target, not even sure if he was chasing anything at all. He ignored the pains he felt in his body, the tiredness. Like a long distance runner he reached deep inside himself for the will to push forward, to breath, to put one foot after another running.
He crossed fences. Fields. The land sloped upwards, became hills. And still he was no closer to the man. He ran up one hill, down another, knowing if he stopped, even for a moment, he would never start again. Trees slowly surrounded him. He forgot what he was running for. He knew only the running.
Then, in the distance ahead of him, he saw a dim flashing of lights. He heard a cry. He pressed on towards it.
15.
Conn too was running.
He had gone a long ways and he was tired now, very tired. His energy wasn't endless like before, a universe inside him, it was only a dim galaxy lit by his heart, a dying star.
When he was in the car with Rand and Kari he had known Wayne had evaded Tyler. Because from the moment Conn had caught the lightning he had jacked into another way of seeing, become a part of the pattern, and even now, he could feel what was going on. And he knew Tyler would need his help, somehow.
He was tired, but he struggled on through the trees, his feet bloody from the rough forest floor. His heart had slowed now, its every beat could be measured in a length of long seconds. Pulsing in and out. In and out. A red tide of life.
But Conn was close. He wanted to stop, but he was close to the grove, to the place where he had been reborn. To Swallower.
He had no idea what he was doing back, the lightning had come and gone and he was only a husk, not even warm enough to smoke.
He saw a movement ahead of him and he felt a bit of his old power pulse through him. New and different. Swallower hadn't given him everything. Some of it had been his. He charged forward, through the trees.
Wayne was there carrying Tanya in his arms, his eyes dull.
Conn sheared through the air and hit Wayne. He fell, dropped Tanya, rolled, stood, and faced Conn. He blinked, smiled. Advanced towards his brother.
Colors glowed in front of Conn's eyes. He motioned with his hands, little bolts of electricity shot from his fingernails. "Come here!" he screamed.
And they fought, sparking. The killing god and the lightning boy. Blades flashing, hands blurring. They fought.
16.
By the time Tyler arrived, the battle was long over. Tyler saw only vapors rising up from the leafy ground and a crumpled body steaming in the cool air. He stepped closer, turned the body over.
It was Conn, naked and dead. His eyes wide open.
Tyler knelt down, closed Conn's eyes. He stood silently and heard the sound of movement in the night. He followed the sound.
17.
Rand and Kari followed Bumpa out of the car. Bumpa stood, holding the shotgun pointed up. He looked for like an old hunter. Rand glanced at him. Bumpa didn't look seventy eight at all, he looked a healthy sixty years old. Rand felt strengthened.
"I know which way to go," Rand said and he headed into the trees, the knife held tightly in his hand as if someone were going to leap out and try to twist it away from him. The knife lent him confidence, it shone in the moonlight and its solidity seemed to flow into him. He looked at the trees around him, knowing instinctively where to go. He had been here before, in a dream, and all the land was familiar. He moved in a quick jog, Bumpa and Kari only a few steps behind.
The trees hung like specters around him, but the path was easy, as familiar as the veins on the back of his hands. Rand ran not for a place in front of him, but more for a place in his mind. He instinctively missed all the fallen branches that on any normal night would have tripped him.
But as strong as Rand felt with the knife in his hand and Kari and Bumpa right behind him, he also felt a thick fear churning below the surface of every thought, as if no matter how strong he felt, no matter how prepared they were, they would fail. It was stupid and futile even to try. Each step the fear grew stronger.
Angel like pain I feel now die!
The voice quickened in his mind, the fear filled him, clutching at his stomach, making his heart race.
The three stopped suddenly, drew up as if they had hit a wall. Before them, lit by the moonlight, was the crumbled shack and the grave. Haydes' place was in complete stasis. Tanya was lying across the mound, her head resting on a stone. Directly behind her, kneeling on one knee, his eyes set like a wolf's, was a stranger. His face was bruised and his hair burnt in one spot as if he'd received an electrical shock. He glowed dimly fluorescent, the air around him crackling and static as if a charge were slowly building.
Rand knew at once that this was the serial killer who had come up from the states. He felt fear, but he also felt a sense of wonder as if he were looking
at the work of an artist, something patiently and carefully crafted, not a living breathing man. Wayne blinked, watching.
Tyler appeared in the trees behind Wayne. He was pale and drenched in sweat, his left arm bent and pointing upwards. The blade of the knife flashed with light as it swayed back and forth.
Wayne looked back slowly, turning his head with the ease of an eagle. Tyler stepped forward.
Bumpa raised the shotgun.
Rand saw the flicker of the barrel rising and thought, Bumpa can't really—
Before the gun was fully raised Wayne flicked his arm and a knife flew threw the air. Bumpa yelled and fell backwards, both barrels of the shotgun exploded into the sky. The sound boomed in Rand's ears, deafening him. He fell forward as if pushed by the sound and dropped his knife. He got up at once, grabbing for the knife instinctively. He looked up.
Tyler and Wayne were staring at each other, squared off like duelists. Tyler took a step and Wayne, pulling another knife from his boot, jumped down and flicked the knife towards Tanya's throat. Tanya's eyes widened and she twisted to the side. The knife slit the side of her jaw along the bone. Blood streamed out, hissing and steaming as it hit the ground.
Tyler roared like a bull, jumping through the air, instinctively tucking in one foot and extending the other. Wayne turned in time, dodged his flying kick and lost his footing.
Tyler was on him at once, striking his face with his right hand, breaking Wayne's nose. Tyler then kicked him in the chest and Wayne fell backwards, rolled onto one knee. He held up his hands, stared dumbly at his own blood. "Pretty," he whispered, the words bubbling the blood in his mouth, "pretty."
Rand dashed to Tanya, knelt down and cut at the tight knots around her wrists. The ground was soft and he felt as if he were sinking. A new sound grew in his ears as the oak tree waved back and forth, moaning and creaking. Tanya was bleeding, her neck washed in red. Her eyes were filled, not with fear as he expected, but a sort of determination. Rand heard more hissing as drops of blood touched the ground and turned into sparks of light. He cut the last knot and picked Tanya up.
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