Diego, sitting next to her, slid closer and put his arm around her to comfort her, but she saw a strange look come over his face.
2
Diego
Diego felt something from touching her, a sucking, like a fire in a house sucking all the air into itself. Or a vacuum cleaner.
“You’ve got so much power in you.” He tried to hide the astonishment in his voice. Nothing should astonish you anymore, Diego. Yet this does.
His arthritis flared a little along his wrist and fingers where he’d felt the pull from her. “I’ve only seen it once before, in a shaman in the mountains in Chihuahua. He took herbs and homegrown narcotics to keep from being in a constant state of pain—human nerves, he told me, could be played raw by the healing gift. You’re on medication?”
Nessie chimed in. “Until last night she was stoned, since, what, Queenie—oops, I mean Stella—1960 or so? But when she’s on, she’s like a generator that can light up the desert. I felt it.”
Stella, still shaking from whatever she had seen, seemed embarrassed. She swallowed, wiping her hand across her mouth as she spoke. “I threw the last pill out this morning. God, I wish I had something.”
“Maybe it’s just as well you don’t,” Diego said. He reached over and patted her back—the pulling feeling was gone. “My friend the shaman was narcotic-free when it was time for one of his grand rituals. Apparently the pain was a necessary part of releasing his energies.”
Charlie had been fairly quiet as he drove, and Diego had just been wondering what he was thinking about when he said, “We’re almost here. You guys ever wonder what we’re gonna do when we get inside there?”
Nessie patted her purse. “We’re going to stop her. And then we’re all going to my place for some whiskey.”
3
Stella glanced out the window. She noticed that the moon had come out from behind the clouds, and a veiled white light spread from its shine across the bumpy land.
“Charlie,” she began to say, but realized that it might be smarter to say nothing because Nessie was sitting next to him in the front seat.
It was something she noticed, something that seemed to be getting stronger the closer they got to the caves.
She smelled that animal odor, the one she’d smelled on him when she’d healed him. It got out again. Because she’s stronger here. She’s stronger than she’s ever been. And now we don’t even have the athame to protect ourselves. Nessie with her gun in her purse—as if that’s going to help any of us against the Lamia.
4
Peter
Skulls smeared with the glowing amber of demon juice up to the mouth of the cave.
Peter hadn’t seen that juice for a long time, and he wondered if, spread across the bone like that, it was somehow alive, or if it had been merely touched by the Lamia.
The cave was still covered over with rubble and rocks, and he remembered carrying Alison out, thinking he would come back for Than, who was still there, with Wendy...Charlie had already run off with the athame...her heart was within each of them...and then the vibrations began, and something was following behind him. So long ago, all of this, but as if it had just happened: Something was moving with the earth toward him as he crouched down, listening to Alison’s moans in his ear, and Than screeching, “OH GOD, ITS COMING FOR ME, PETER, DON’T LEAVE ME, DON’T LET ME DIE! OH GOD!” And the beams of wood that buttressed some parts of the old mine cracked and began falling. Some stones hit him on the head, and he went blind for the longest second before he realized it was blood dripping across his eyes, and he wiped it away. Almost to the outside, he’d thought. He’d whispered to Alison, “It’s okay, we’re out,” and then it was the truth as he pulled her out of the caves, and then heard a final scream from Than Campusky as the vibrations turned into an earthquake and the mouth of the cave collapsed, and he ran with her in his arms to what he thought was safety.
But it was only a stay of execution.
To face her.
There was a gap in the rocks that formed the only entrance in to the cave. It was big enough for a child to squeeze through. Peter scraped away at other rocks and brushed pebbles off to the side.
He began shivering like he’d been locked into a walk-in freezer and knew he would not be able to get out. He leaned down, squeezing his head and part of his shoulder through the opening. The air was dusty and damp. Like an old cave, he thought, swallowing the urge to laugh. He felt beneath him for solid ground, and then pulled himself through the rest of the way.
Someone on the other side grabbed his arms and helped him.
5
Stella
“You keep patting your purse,” Charlie said when he pulled the car along the thin path between the nocks that led to the entrance of the cave. The station wagon was parked several yards away. Peter had left the headlights on. The Scottie sat up as if just been waiting for them to arrive. Nessie called out the dog’s name and the dog leapt out the window, landing with surprising agility on the ground and running toward her.
“Gonna run my battery down, damn it.” Nessie reached for the door handle to get out, but Charlie tugged on the sleeve of her sweater.
“You got a weapon in that purse?”
“My papa’s gun; I been using it since I was twelve.”
Charlie grabbed the purse from Nessie’s lap. Stella leaned forward, reaching over to Charlie, but Charlie lunged against his door, opening it and getting out quickly before she touched him.
He leaned back into the car. “Uh-uh, lady, you ain’t gonna do it twice in this life, I been locked up for too long. I know what your miracles do.” It was the snarling voice of Deadrats coming through Charlie’s mouth. Foam bubbled up from between his lips. “No old farts’re gonna try to get to my Wendy, no fuckin’ way.” He reached into the purse, tossing out Kleenex and lipstick, until finally he found the gun. It was a small pistol. It would do the trick. He withdrew it, letting the purse drop. “I’m not so good myself at target practice, Nessie, so I’m afraid I’m gonna have to take you each out at point-blank range. Say hey to the return of Deadrats.”
Gretchen sensed danger, or else she smelled what was inside the man, and she darted toward him barking and yipping.
6
Peter
The cave walls were smeared with the glowing light. Demon fire, Peter thought, like firefly butts mixed with Day-Glo. A dark figure stood before him, holding him at the shoulders.
“You remember me?”
Peter said, “Who are you?”
When the man opened his mouth it was like an old refrigerator opening, and inside, rotten meat, “I was the fat pig boy before I died,” he sniggered. “Remember?”
Peter felt it in him, and he wanted to cry out, not now, not now, but it was the call, her call, coining through, what had been passed to him in a dark ritual. The sacrament.
His temperature was rising rapidly. He knew it, he could feel himself go hot and cold suddenly, the salty taste of sweat across his lips.
Behind the dark figure, shadows flickered and danced against the glowing light of demon fire.
“Welcome home, son,” his father said in the sweetest tones he remembered him ever using. “Good to see you, Peter.”
“You’re one of us now,” the dark figure said the creature that had stolen Alison from their apartment, fat pig boy.
Than Campusky.
“Help me, Jesus. Please help me.” Peter’s limbs felt like they were about to bust through his skin.
“Help me,” Than Campusky imitated his impassioned voice. “You’re good at this, Peter, let me tell you. Help me. The fat pig boy spent several hours saying that.”
And then his old friend, and the other dark ones, fell upon him.
7
Alison
Alison was barely conscious where she lay, but she tried opening her eyes when she felt the vibrations in the earth, and heard the sounds, whatifwhatifivhatif, moving in a wave with the vibration toward her.
; Then she thought she heard her older brother, Ed Junior, say, “Scissors cut paper, scissors cut paper.”
And she could not scream, for when she tried to part her lips, something covered them tightly.
The fear that crawled within her made the pain more intense, and now she felt them—like tiny cactus needles pricking her face and her shoulders, some beneath the earth where she was partially buried. It might’ve been her circulation, and it might’ve even been the fire ants stinging her, but she knew it was something else, knew it because her nerve endings began sending electrical signals to her brain.
Her skin was shedding from her, and she imagined herself for one horrible moment as a snake giving up its old scales, and beneath it...what?
8
Peter
He saw their faces, half in the pulsating yellow-green light, and he recognized none of them, although they had all lived in Palmetto. They dragged him across rocks, and he felt the knifelike pains of their fingers in his flesh. Phantoms? Could the dead rise with demon fire along their bodies? Of course they could. He had always known that one day he would be back among those the demon had taken. He was one of them, after all.
Then there was one face among them, which, when they set him down, was so familiar and yet so foreign for a moment.
“Dad,” he gasped.
Joe Chandler stood there, his eyeless face grinning. “Peter, where you been all these years?”
“Don’t cry. You’re the one who killed him. But the demon brought him back,” Than Campusky said, glancing at the glowing figure of Peter’s father.
Than pulled the hood down from his sweatshirt to show Peter the face that had emerged from beneath his first face.
“Jesus, Than,” Peter whimpered, “what—”
“My name is Nathaniel, and I am the Angel of the Desolation. Fat pig boy is gone. Fat pig boy got left behind and you went to rescue your girlfriend. The pig boy screamed until he had no more voice left, and then he saw a light coming for him, and he thought it was his best friend coming back just like he told him he would, or even another rescue party, but it was something else, Peter. Can you guess what it was? What’s green and yellow and slides down a well? Do you know? Huh? Time’s up, Petesy. You lose. It was the blood of the demon, it has a mind of its own, you see, it feels every movement of life and seeks it out, and it slid like, oh, what shall I say? Boogers, I think. Slimy boogers flowing down the stones, but flashing white light so I could see it coming. But Pete, I’d already had me some demon juice, remember? I drank some of Old Bonyface’s stash, so the demon and me were friends. It spat across my face, and then, like a thousand tiny inchworms, measured the space across my nostrils and then crept into them, up into my head. Up through my BRAIN, MOTHERFUCKER!” His voice echoed down the passage. When he calmed down, he began again. “It was—oh, how do I put this delicately—it was like a tickling at first, my nose hairs, and then it hurt a little but I couldn’t scream because I was having trouble breathing. But no blood was spilled, no, not a drop, for the little boogers drank it as they punctured each membrane, as they flowed up through the passageways, melting bone to their liking as they went, and then into the oatmeal that my brain had become at that point. Imagine hearing chewing in your head, like a bee had crawled into your ear and was buzzing so loud—you know that feeling? It’s what it was like—the demon was eating out my brain to build a little nest there. You see, the Lamia had picked our town, our little home area, Peter, because it had a tough time surviving for the past three thousand years on this hostile planet. The air is difficult for it to breathe, and the cells it invades normally die—animal cells, especially. Tissue becomes unglued for the most part. That is, unless the animal and the demon have mated, and then the offspring, say five out of fifty million times, can live, at least for a period. But this demon has spent the past thousand years moving like, well, molasses, if you will. It kept mostly to the less demanding life forms, more perfectly made than human flesh, the wild grasses, the worms that fed upon those grasses, and then, when it had spread sufficiently, it grew into the sap of a tree that was rested upon by a flea and through that flea and its descendants, passed throughout an entire continent, oh, near nine hundred years ago. And then humans became more the raw material, for Lamia taught them how she – yes, an ‘it’ became a ‘she’ -- could be extracted and injected or swallowed—passed, if you will. Seducing teenaged boys in the middle of nothingness was easy. She came back here to spawn. This is her breeding ground. Here, in this wasteland, she was born again, and the incarnation held. She is wisdom beyond knowing.” He breathed in through his nostrils. “She taught me how to absorb life, how blood was the wine of gods. She can make the dead come alive, and transform dying tissue into the most beautiful, wondrous...”
Peter’s delirium made him giggle, and he thought: I’m finally insane, and even this, around me, may not be happening. My brain is leaking. I’m turning. I’m more demon now. His father, face sliding halfway off the skull, leaned near him and began stroking his hair.
“Alison lived. She fucked the eternal, Peter, and she lived. Do you know how few people ever do that?”
“Shut up.”
“She lived longer than other flesh has with the demon inside it.
“I’m alive. Jesus, even you’re alive.” Than smiled. “Wendy’s alive. Again. With you here.” Than Campusky leaned over and whispered in his ear, “All flesh dies. Even you, Peter, even here. Show me your pain of dying, Peter, and I’ll always be your closest friend. There are others who have been waiting here for you, too, Peter. They want to share your death; will you do that for them? Will you let them watch? And after you die, Peter, oh, you will be reborn as the most beautiful creature the world has ever seen, and your number shall be the number of Man.”
“Oh, my boy,” Peter’s father murmured, “I forgive you for killing me. You showed me the light, Peter. You showed me how blood and the stink of death are pleasure. You showed me good.”
9
Diego
Charlie began laughing as the Scottie came at him with its teeth bared. He grasped it by the scruff of its neck and shook it. “I hate little yappy dogs,” he said, putting the gun up to the back of the Scottie’s head.
“Oh, you just put that poor dog down,” Nessie warned, her arms crossed in front of her. “Imagine, someone as big as you threatening a dog.”
“Nessie,” Stella whispered. “It’s in him again. It’s not Charlie.”
“You’re darn tootin’ oh great mother of us all,” Charlie said sarcastically. He dropped the dog, which squealed and then leapt up into Nessie’s lap. Nessie held Gretchen tightly to her bosom. “And now there ain’t no way you’re gonna cure me, and Correa, you should’ve done some of those drugs with your shaman buddy, might’ve saved your ass from coming here. Hate to knock you off, I enjoyed reading the lies the Urquart kid gave you back then for your book. Wish I’d been a free rat then, you would’ve gotten the whole enchilada. I think I killed about ten or twelve of my closest friends and relatives before the old bitch sent me back into the fuckin’ braincave.”
‘‘How did you get out?” Diego asked. “I thought she locked you up for good.”
“Oh, yeah right, man, like I’m really gonna tell you so you can just put me back there. Well, it ain’t fuckin’ gonna happen. Old Widow Electrolux here ain’t coming within five feet of me.”
Diego thought of that sensation of touching Stella when he’d put his arm around her. Why does a vacuum seem right? That sucking wind—what is it, what is it about a healing, or a casting out? He snuck his hand over to Stella and rested it on her knee. Again, he felt it. It was a vibration, a movement. He had seen countless medicine men and shaman, and very few of them had actually generated this kind of power. A generator. That’s what Nessie had called it. She called Stella a generator. A power source. But what could be done to turn that power on when it was needed? And then he knew.
It had to be switched on. There had to be a switch. Somethi
ng that could release the healing energy and cast Deadrats out of Charlie. Diego tried to think hard about this as he cautiously stepped out of the ear. The barrel of the handgun never left any of them; Deadrats turned it from one to the other every second as if he would shoot at random with any sudden movement.
“What we’re gonna play,” Deadrats said as he lined them all up, side by side, “is called Slow Death. I’m gonna shoot each one of you in, oh, let’s say the leg, and then I’m gonna shoot one of you in the shoulder and another in the stomach, and maybe you, old man, in the bails. Hey, death is where you’ll be in the next four, five years anyway, right? Your lives are over, so this ain’t really gonna be a sin, now is it? I want to make sure you go with a bang. Get it? A bang? How come none of you’s laughing?”
“Because it’s not funny,” Nessie said, clutching Gretchen up under her chin; the dog nuzzled and whined. “It’s okay, Gretch, don’t you worry about a thing.”
Deadrats spoke with a delicious quiver, “You seem pretty fuckin’ relaxed for someone so close to death.”
“I am,” Nessie stated, looking him in the eye.
And then, Diego turned to Stella and whispered, “You need to let it go. Push it out.”
Deadrats took aim and fired the first bullet into Diego’s left leg, and the old man fell to the ground, holding his knee.
It caused less pain than he’d expected: it was like an electric shock, and then just an ice-cold feeling. If Diego hadn’t seen the blood dripping through his fingers as he held his hand over his knee, he wouldn’t have even been sure the bullet had gone in.
Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set Page 68