“The darkness.”
“Please … please no. God. No more.”
“It is a fine line between fear and defiance,” Brikker told him. “I trust you know which edge of the razor you’re holding.”
Brikker moved to the console and pressed a yellow button. Somewhere in this cavernous place there was a small electrical sound of a cathode ray tube springing to life, ensued by a muted hum. The black-and-white monitor, suspended just left of the projected image, flickered at first, offering little more than dizzying patches of snow. Only when Brikker pressed another button did the screen settle to a useable image. It remained quite grainy, as if the signal had come from very far off, its clarity degraded by distance and weather. A live feed.
Ronald Jacobsen could only choke on his horror; could only tremble at the sight of his three children, gagged and bound on their living room sofa. Terror filled their tiny faces. They sat silently, perfectly still, the way children do when they have misbehaved or are truly frightened. Betty Jacobsen sat in his favorite chair, the one his father would sit in at Christmastime, the chair where the old man would tell stories of ghosts to his grandchildren. Her eyes were big balls of fright, staring impossibly at her husband. As if she could see him.
“No harm has come to them,” Brikker said. “That is up to you now.”
He could almost hear the man’s heart break. If only he could record that.
“Do you know where the man in the photograph is?”
No.
“After the magic … did he head north? South?”
North.
“Did he say where?”
Minnesota.
“Did you see the mist?”
No. Just that redhead. Maybe some others.
“What did you see in the darkness?”
Ronald Jacobsen said nothing … and then shrank from the monitor for the first time since it had come on. He looked deathly ill. He held the sullen expression of someone who has finally accepted that Armageddon was at hand, that the world was coming to an end. The question had not only terrified him, it had struck a deep and powerful chord within him. His life had taken a far darker turn on that rainy October night than most could have dared imagine; he had experienced something that could only be described as living inside a mind. A black place filled with terrors and truths that could not be denied, no matter how many drinks, how many pills, you took, no matter how many times you stuck the barrel of your trusty Winchester into your mouth and just couldn’t pull that trigger. No matter how many times you woke up in a silent scream soaked in sweat, no matter how many times you lied to yourself that it just wasn’t so, it couldn’t possibly be. That it was just a bad dream. Or maybe God doling out some hell your way, you know, for spending one too many lonely nights on the road and cheating on your wife that one stupid, stupid time. The loving wife you saw tied up in your favorite chair—in your lying, lying, mind—over and over and over, months before you saw it on some grainy television screen in some dank, black hell-pit. It just … couldn’t … be.
Ah, but it can, Brikker thought, piercing the man’s heart, draining its darkest secret. You have touched the darker side of the Turn … you have touched the Coming.
He would waste no more time with the woman. He would rip every tooth and every nail from her for her defiance, and then he would kill her. Had she slept with Richards? No. He was certain of that now. True, there could be others; in time he would discover them. But that was a worry for the future. In this time, this now, he felt his confidence rising, new life for the chase. He had been so painfully close in Florida. He had had Richards in his grasp and had let him slip through his fingers. But not again. Not this time.
North, he pondered. Minnesota.
No doubt this wretch from Missouri harbored a boundless treasure of information; the man’s Sense was most impressive. He had tapped a bulging vein here. And now he would sink his fangs into it, suck it dry like a vampire.
The Doctor stepped into the smoky light. Leaned indecently close to the man in the chair. The man who would soon watch his precious wife be beaten and raped and his children shot, once the questions had been served, every avenue explored and splayed open.
Only then would Brikker cut out his brain.
“Now tell me,” he whispered, as cold as death. “What … did you see.”
~ 4
The world was still turning. The great Midwest heat wave was in its third grueling month with no signs of abating, but in a universe removed, politicians were still wrangling with the Port of New York Authority over construction of a pair of twin towers that promised to be the grandest, tallest structures in the world, symbols of unchallenged American supremacy; Jackie Robinson was inducted into baseball’s hall, and the Yankees were halfway to a showdown with the Giants; the American military presence in Vietnam had surpassed the population of a small town, and in Fort Worth, Texas, a horrific plane crash had claimed thirty-nine souls. Among the victims was a family of three, the father a troubled young man named Lee Harvey Oswald.
But right now, here, just outside of Spencer, Iowa, it was Sunday morning, the last day of June. It had been a week since the monster home run, and Kain had seen neither hide nor hair of Ryan Bishop. He had managed to hold up his end of their tenuous bargain by staying, but with each passing day that voice in his head kept growing, spreading, like a cancer. He needed to move on; he wanted to stay … endless circles in his brain. The letter to Lynn, that oh-how-sweet note, still sat in his knapsack, but he had promised himself he would tell her when the time came. He kept it only as reminder, of how not to say goodbye.
School was out. Lee-Anne had managed to pass all of her subjects, including math (albeit with a D, thanks to those stupid Greeks), and Ryan, despite his suspension, had managed to squeak into his final year, with a strong recommendation from Pritchum Tate that the boy attend the Preachin’ Principal’s sermon every Sunday. Oddly enough, it was Ryan who had taken the role of the Little Ghost, vanishing nearly every afternoon with Ben Caldwell and returning in the wee hours. For the most part his chores had gone undone, and to pick up the slack, Kain had chipped in when he could.
The drifter glanced out the window. Fortunately, Lynn was at work; Lee was spending the weekend with her grandparents. He fully expected things to go south quickly, and they didn’t need to see it.
A half hour passed before Ryan emerged and headed down the steps. Kain followed the boy’s lead and met him halfway to the farmhouse. Sporting a baseball cap, brown shorts, and a well-worn T-shirt, the teen spoke first.
“Don’t get any ideas,” he said, and if Kain had had even a single one, it would have been to turn round, shoulder his knapsack and hit the road. If Lynn hadn’t asked him to try again (he had finally told her of their “agreement” over a cup of coffee on the veranda last night), he might have done just that.
“I’m not gettin’ back on the team.”
“Your Mom’s trying to help you, Ryan.”
“Look … we can play your little game for her sake, but I’m not g—hey—what’s wrong?”
A sledgehammer pounded in Kain’s head. He closed his eyes and held them shut, steeling himself against this sudden, and throbbing, ache. He staggered a bit, then set the tips of his fingers to his temples and rubbed them. He thought he might scream.
He opened his eyes. The pain had ebbed, but whoever was wielding the sledge was teasing him now, gently tapping the head of the spike it had driven so deeply into his brain. Now if only the goddamn static would stop.
“You look like hell.”
The drifter managed a nod. “Thanks.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Dizzy. Just the heat.”
“Gettin’ old,” Ryan told him. “This shouldn’t take too long after all.” The kid grinned a grin that begged to be slapped off his face.
Kain turned without a word and headed to the barn. He returned with the equipment, setting it all down with a bucket of balls in a patch of parched grass halfwa
y between the mound and the guesthouse. Along with the bat, there were two gloves, one of them Ryan’s, the other a well-oiled pitcher’s glove he had borrowed from Jimmy. Reluctantly, Ryan joined him, rolling his eyes at the faded, but legible, J. Long scribbled on the leather.
The boy went for his glove, but Kain snatched it.
“Not so fast.” He tossed the glove behind him. Gave Ryan a look that meant business.
“What’s the problem.”
“First off … well, this was going to be my second point, but since you asked … you’re the problem.”
The boy started, but Kain raised a hand.
“You’ve made it clear you don’t want me around. Fine. But we dealt with that and you lost, Ryan. Be a man and deal with that.”
“Who the hell do you think you are? You can’t talk to me like—”
Kain raised his voice. “Second—now listen up—we don’t start with pitching and hitting.”
“What’re we gonna do, dance?” Ryan folded his arms.
Static blared from all directions. It sent Kain reeling. It was as if he were in the middle of some sprawling field, surrounded by giant transmitters bombarding him with a hundred thousand signals at once. News, weather, and sports from around the world in every language, all of them mistuned and overlapping. For a moment—the briefest, the longest—he wanted Brikker. Wanted an injection. Wanted to know what it felt like to have a clear mind again. It had been so long.
“Calisthenics,” he said. He was having a good deal of trouble holding it all together; suddenly he was burning up with a fever. “We start with that.”
Ryan chuckled. “I don’t think so.”
“You can lie to yourself and pretend you don’t care about any of this,” Kain said. “But the fact is, you do. You wouldn’t be out here if you didn’t. Your Mom couldn’t make you do this any more than I could. You want to be out here.” He pointed east, toward the Little Sioux. “You want to be out there.”
The boy looked at him gravely. Looked away.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t.”
“Yeah, well, if you know me so good, what’s the answer, smart guy?”
“The answer’s in here,” Kain said, tapping his chest. “You’ve got the talent, Ryan. You just need the brains.”
“Screw you.”
“Tell me you don’t want to play ball again. Tell me you don’t want to blow three strikes past that sap, Jones.”
Ryan stirred. Flinched a bit.
“Say it.”
“I’m not playing this game.”
He started to turn, and Kain snared him by the arm. The young man whirled, but the drifter didn’t flinch. Still, there was burning in those rabid eyes, and he felt their fire.
“Take your hands off me, Ghost.”
Kain let him go. He shouldn’t have grabbed the boy, of course, but the kid’s attitude, coupled with his rapidly worsening condition, had simply gotten the better of him.
“Smart man,” Ryan said. “Smart as they come.”
The drifter faded back. The static was duking it out with the sledgehammer again, the pain growing like the mushroom cloud of a hydrogen bomb.
“I just want to help, Ryan.”
The teenager regarded Jimmy Long’s glove. He shook his head in disgust, and then he kicked the bucket of hardballs over.
“We’re done for today … Coach.” The boy snickered as he headed back to the house. Twenty minutes later, he gave the guesthouse the finger as a certain shortstop’s pickup sped past in a whirlwind of dust.
They never heard the Little Ghost scream.
But he did. By God, he screamed, and when he hit the floor in a lifeless heap, the world was still turning. Only this time, it was turning black.
~ 5
They came on foot. They came on bikes. They came in cars and they came in trucks. They even came in boats and canoes, and even one came on a home-made raft. Whatever their choice of conveyance, nearly seven hundred hardy Iowans had braved the scorching heat, coming out to the Little Sioux for the Independence Day festivities. The riverfront midway, an annual staple in these parts, bustled with games and rides, clowns and sounds. Canoes raced. Booths burst with arts and crafts and sweaty bodies. Music, in tune and out, rose and fell. The tempting mix of caramel and popcorn hung heavy in the swelter, you could almost taste it, it was syrupy thick. Puffy wads of white gave the illusion of walking Cotton Candyheads. Balloons were bought. Balloons were lost. People got dunked in the Dunking Machine. People got sick on the Tilt-A-Whirl. People fell in love on the Ferris Wheel. As always, a handful of rookies threw up at the pie-eating contest, and, as always, a few veterans did, veterans who were quick to point out with a slap on the back that that was the price you paid, Junior, if you wanted that ribbon. For one harrowing hour (it just wouldn’t have felt like July 4 around here otherwise), a little girl had been lost, then found, lost, then found. Still, despite the on-again, off-again searches, the large gathering was in good holiday spirits, and as evening fell and the first stars began to appear, folks started to settle along the river, laying out blankets and setting up cots and chairs in anticipation of the coming fireworks.
Kain had not wanted to come. His blackout—only four days ago, though it seemed much longer—had exacted a heavy toll. Unconscious for nearly an hour, upon coming out of it, he had cried out in terror. It had been as if he were a child again, staying with his grandparents while his parents were away, cowering in that unfamiliar bed in that unfamiliar room, the covers clutched tight to his face, watching the closet door with eyes as big as marbles and waiting for it to sprawl open. And when it did, when one of hell’s children finally came for him, he would scream bloody murder, and when the screaming wouldn’t stop, Gramps would come, all scruffy and wide-eyed and barefoot in pajamas with that musty old nightcap, always stubbing his toe on the end of his bed and making him giggle. He would slip down next to him in the dark, swing that big warm arm around him, calming him, telling him there was nothing in the blackness that could harm him. And when it was time, when the tears had stemmed and the heart had found courage, the old wizard would work his white magic and cross that cold floor, all the way to the door. Standing there in the darkness, he would defy the demons and splay it wide, click on the light inside, show him it was all right, there was nothing in there but some clothes and some hangers—show him it was all just a dream. Then he would smile and turn off the light, close the hell-door and tell him a funny story, and it would be all right. The old man never told him that he stubbed his toe on purpose. Never told him that the things he saw were things that might come to be.
Yes. Four days ago; he had screamed. God, yes. The nightmares … the memories … the visions he had felt and seen. Things he’d known; things he could neither explain nor hope to understand. Awesome things. Frightening things. He had run a wild fever. He had been deathly cold, had struggled just to rise to his knees, able only to claw into bed, crippled and aching; only the iron-bar beatings from Brikker’s thugs had crippled him more. Worse still, the killer headache that had taken him down had hung on well into the following afternoon, clinging to him like some desperate animal, its claws stuck in him. He had craved a smoke so badly he might have killed for one. His nose had bled a river, something that hadn’t happened since the days of the Project. The vomiting had finally stopped after his fourth trip; the true hell had come in hours of agonizing dry heaves. And in the bathroom mirror, staring back at him in all its decay, he had seen that horrifying face, the real Little Ghost: drawn, white, and damned.
When Lynn had come around eight he had pretended to be asleep, but she had been insistent with her knocking. He had looked like death and had deflected her concern with a lie, telling her he hadn’t had much sleep the night before. She hadn’t bought it, no ice for this Inuit, but at least she had not pursued it. When she had pressed him about today’s outing (sinking to batting her baby blues and oh please oh please won’t you come), he caved. And yet, in spite of the heat
, in spite of the intimidating throng and the lingering questions of just what the hell was wrong with him, he had to admit, he was having a good time. Even Georgia seemed to be enjoying herself.
“Come on, cowboy,” Lynn said brightly. Dressed in comfortable white shorts and a red short-sleeved top, the small red flower in her hair was a perfectly sexy accoutrement. “It’ll be fun.”
“Oh, I gotta see this,” Big Al said, grabbing hold of the cane he’d set beside him. He wriggled free from the snug confines of his sagging folding chair, his ample frame filling it and then some. He relied on the cane as he started to rise.
“Allan Jefferson Hembruff, you’ll do no such thing.”
“Cripes, woman, stop tryin’ to bury me before my time. Now help me up.”
Georgia rose from her chair and steadied him. “You’re such a stubborn old mule.”
“You coming, Mom?”
“Waitin’ for the ‘works,” Georgia said. “Reverend Tate told me Sunday he heard right from Sid Plummer there’ll be Lady Liberty with Roman Candles.” At that she smiled knowingly, and then the good woman eased into her chair and began to fan herself, looking perfectly content to miss out on the chills and the spills of what Georgia Hembruff had always professed a waste of time and a game for the foolhardy. The annual Three-Legged Race.
A wide area had been cleared for the event. A yellow ribbon marked the finish fifty yards down field, and above it, a big red banner granted credit to Henderson Lumber, proudly boasting its tenth straight year as Official Event Sponsor. Scores surrounded the course, and at least a dozen pairs of contestants were either ready to go or still preparing to. A teenager let out a girlish shriek as she toppled onto her boyfriend. Marge Bonner was pinning a big black 6 on her big left breast, and her partner, a young man of no more than eighteen, watched with big wide eyes. When she finished she pinned another 6 on him, but upside down, and then laughed as she swatted him on the rear. A couple in their thirties looked entirely lost over which legs to knot, the husband switching sides with his wife at least a half dozen times; she was quite rotund and their legs just didn’t seem to fit. One pairing’s rope kept coming undone, and now the husband was standing there scratching his head, rope in hand, wife in impatience. A middle-aged woman, looking completely out of place with no partner, scanned the crowd for her better half and found him chatting up a pretty young thing near the sidelines; it would be safe to say she had other ideas for the rope in her hand as she marched after him. Four young men, each sporting shirts and caps graciously supplied by the sponsor (“You’ve Got A Friend At Henderson!” boasted their bold red shirts), were completing their task of hanging a long string of lamps along the sidelines. A wide podium had been erected for the occasion, and the mayor of Spencer, Randolph B. Tate (no relation to the good preacher man, Pritchum), traded practiced waves with the crowd, sitting front and center along a row of equally schmoozing councilmen. A pair of tall loudspeakers marked the stage corners, and Sid Plumber, sporting not a poorly fitting coach’s uniform, but rather a dull gray shirt and black trousers too short for his chubby legs, stood between them rambling into a microphone, Testing, One, Two, Three, Testing, One, Two, Three, Is this thing on.
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