James slipped into an alley, hoping the creatures hadn’t noticed him. They hadn’t.
They were too busy with the harvest.
###
Tamara looked into the dark maw of the shu-shaaa. A thick gurgling, what might have been a chuckle, arose from deep within the alien’s bowels. Then she was inside DeWalt's head, attending the latest meeting of the Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts.
Mr. Chairman, I've failed. Again.
Because you went beyond your capabilities, Oh Brother. You tried to make a difference. You tried to give a damn.
I thought . . . maybe just once—
You'd do something for somebody besides yourself? Oh Brother of mine, Oh Bleeding Heart, pardon my laughter. After fifty-plus years of doing nothing, you thought you'd tie on a Superman cape and save the world? That's rich, Brother.
But at least I tried. I tried.
And failed, as usual. And do I detect an itch?
“It's okay, Herbert. It's not your fault.”
“Tamara?” DeWalt wasn’t sure if he’d hear her voice or imagined it.
“Yes.”
In here? How—?
“I don't know. I don't know a lot of things. But I know it's better to try. To care. It's what makes us human. It's what separates us from the thing we're trying to kill.”
Look here, lady. I don't know what you're doing breaking into this meeting—this is a private club, and this meeting is members only—but the Lodge Brother is happier when he DOESN’T care.
Mr. Chairman, she has power. She knows about the alien. About you.
Oh Brother, nothing's as alien as your own inner self. That's the truly frightening thing.
“No, Herbert, that's not the worst thing. Numbness is. Emptiness. Coldness. Being dead with no hope or memory of life.”
Hey, you. Get out of here. The Brother's mine.
“Herbert, I'm going to show you . . . let you feel what shu-shaaa wants for us, for everything. This is its memory of how the universe was before. And how shu-shaaa wants it to be again.”
Uh . . . too black . . . don’t let me suffocate.
Bullshit, Brother. It's one of her tricks.
“See, Herbert? That's worse than anything. And that's the same thing your Chairman wants, only on a lesser scale. Nothingness.”
Tamara, how can we—
“I don't know. But we can't surrender. To this Earth Mouth or our fear.”
But that TNT was our only hope.
“No. Hope is our only hope.”
Brother, don't listen to her. Better safe than sorry. Mr. Chairman? Brother?
“Herbert, what are you—”
Mr. Chairman, I would like to turn in my resignation to the Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts, effective immediately.
“No, Herbert, not that.”
Yes, Tamara. It's the only way. And 'tis a far, far better thing, blah blah blah.
Brother! Hands back to balls at once.
Sorry. Meeting adjourned.
“Herbert, don't!”
Brother—
Shut the hell up, Mr. Chairman.
###
The alien shivered in the heat of its pulsing heart-brain. The confusing symbols raced through its pulpy flesh, sparking contractions among its tendrils.
Bleee-deeeng.
Haaart.
Tah-mah-raaa-kish.
Dee-waaalt.
Maz-zah-sun-uv-aaa.
Che-sher-sun-uv-aaa.
Sun-uv-aaa.
Ohp.
Aaar-on-lee-ohp.
Ohp-is-aaar-on-lee-ohp.
Tah-mah-raa.
###
“Our only hope,” Tamara thought. “Hope is our only hope.”
DeWalt is going to do it, and maybe I shouldn’t try to stop him.
Because su-shaaa kish and the shu-shaaa was afraid and shu-shaaa was beautiful and loved her loved her loved her—
She put her hands over her ears but still the alien loved her.
###
Chester wasn't sure what was happening. First DeWalt had frozen over the dynamite, staring at the detonator switch in his hand. Tamara was looking at DeWalt strangely, as if seeing the back of his eyelids. Emerland was gaping over the ledge at the rancid pulsing throat of the alien sonovawhore.
Another tremor shook the stones loose, and after the dead trees stopped swaying, DeWalt stood up. He ripped the shotgun from Chester’s hands.
"Don't do it, DeWalt," Tamara said.
Chester didn't know what she was talking about. DeWalt had fucked up the dynamite in typical California Yankee fashion, or else Emerland had screwed it up by being a goddamned cheapskate who bought lousy equipment for his demo crews. It wasn’t Chester’s fault, no matter what. Hell, maybe it was nobody’s fault but God’s to make such a thing and then drop it right here on land that had been in the Mull property since the Revolutionary War.
He was tired and grouchy and way too sober. "Damned shotgun won't do diddly against that thing," he said to DeWalt.
"Maybe not by itself. But close enough, it might—"
"Trigger the blasting cap," Tamara said. "With enough heat and pressure. But that would be too close—"
"To survive? I thought of that."
“I know,” Tamara said.
Chester thought they were both crazy, as addled as that monstrous creature that had embedded itself in the mountainside. Tamara stepped forward, raising her hand to stop DeWalt, the sickly alien light pulsing off her face. DeWalt leveled the shotgun at them.
"I suggest you folks head for the hills," DeWalt said. "Because like Bobby Zimmerman said, way back in better days, a hard rain’s gonna fall."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bill was out of ammunition. One of the things stepped toward him and he gripped the hot barrel of the shotgun and was about to swing the heavy wooden butt into its face. The face belonged to Fred Painter, fellow member of the Windshake Baptist Board of Deacons.
No, Bill told himself. It’s not Fred anymore. Now it's one of THEM.
Old Fred had switched sides. Fred was among the armies of the Antichrist. The enemy. Evil.
"Onward, Christian soldiers," Bill yelled, swinging the gunstock into the bloated face. It exploded like a bag of soup.
Arnie shook the empty shell casings from his revolver and reloaded behind the open door of the cruiser. Now that day was breaking, Bill could see how badly Arnie trembled. Wet corpses littered the edge of the parking lot, limbs still writhing.
"Come on, Bill," Arnie yelled. "Let's get the hell out of here. There's too many of them."
Bill stepped toward a gap in the hedges.
"Bill!"
He turned and waved. God had given him a mission. He struggled through the bushes into the graveyard. He would take back the church.
Bill asked God to give him strength. Not the strength to resist the devil, but the strength to send the devil back to hell. Leaves and moist things shimmered at the corners of his vision, but he fixed his eyes on the bronze cross that caught the sunlight above the roof of the church. Golden rays poured around the cross, a sign from heaven if there ever was one.
Hope is our only hope. The thought came from nowhere. Bill smiled. That was exactly the type of message God would send in a dark moment.
“Hope is our only hope,” he said aloud. He’d have to remember that one.
Bill headed for the open vestry door. Hallelujahs spilled from his lips.
###
James shook Mayzie, trying to wake her. She wouldn't open her eyes. She was stiff and cold.
Dead.
He was supposed to protect her. He had failed. One little job, one little purpose on earth, and he'd messed it up. How could he ever face his mother? How could he ever look in the mirror again?
He sat on the edge of the bed and the mattress springs groaned. His aunt's body shifted slightly. As he looked out the window, as he listened to the faint screams and distant sirens, he watched a honeybee lighting on a damp Easter lily.
He hated flowers.
There was a noise on the windowsill.
The glistening mailman stumbled into the flower bed outside the window. James jumped back as the creature slapped a palm against the glass. The mailman grinned, drooling fluorescent nectar. James was sickened by the sight.
This must be the monster that had ended Mayzie's life. This sludge-faced mutant had taken away the woman who'd given him nothing but love, even when James was thinking only of his own problems. This thing was to blame for the great ache in his chest.
James lifted the window, his head dark with rage. The trembling creature reached for James as if it bore special delivery mail. Its green eyes flashed in joy. The sun was higher now, hot and red, and James wondered which side the sun would take in the coming battle.
###
Robert held Ginger on his lap. She'd finally fallen asleep, but Robert was afraid he'd never sleep again. Because Ginger had told him everything her mom had seen, about something called shu-shaaa and how it ate the trees and came from the sky and all kinds of cosmic things that weren't part of Ginger's vocabulary.
Robert had no choice but to believe. Because he'd heard Tamara briefly in his head himself, gotten a flash-frozen bolt of the black nothingness that shu-shaaa stored in the bowels of its long memory.
He looked out the window at the sun spilling onto the tops of the trees and sending the shadows of night fleeing toward the west. He imagined the slime-skinned people wandering through the undergrowth, foraging, digging up roots and grubs and berries, shopping for meat.
Maybe it was time to have a little faith. He couldn't pray, that would be too corny. But he could have faith in his wife. Not that he'd proven to be faithful himself, but at least she had courage. A courage that came from the family, from her belief in his love, from the foundation of the home.
The courage to hope.
And if she could somehow pick up on his thoughts, maybe it would help her in some way to know that he was behind her. That he loved her. That she was the only thing he wanted to believe in. That he'd help her make the sacrifice.
He just hoped her sacrifice wasn't the ultimate kind.
###
Bill found Preacher Blevins at the pulpit, standing under the vaulted ceiling. The preacher was a blasphemy, the devil, even if he was more milk white than red. The preacher was gnawing on the wooden cross that had hung from the back wall of the sanctuary. Ripe goo dribbled from his ruined lips.
Bill walked down the aisle, his feet hushed by the carpet. The thing that had once been his preacher, the leader of Windshake's flock, the living vessel of God's word, was now a slobbering hell spawn. Blevins had walked after strange gods. And those gods had delivered him unto evil.
The preacher looked up, his green eyes piercing into Bill like twenty-penny nails through flesh. Bill kept walking.
"For God so loved the world,” Bill said, summoning his courage, feeling the anger settle deep inside him and give way to calmness.
The sun streamed through the plate glass, throwing beams of blue and red and yellow across his path.
"He gave his only begotten Son, so that whosoever should believeth in Him . . ."
The preacher dropped the cross onto the dais and lifted his rotten arms.
". . . shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
Bill tossed the slime-covered shotgun into the pews and it clattered across oak. The Lord's love would be his weapon. Hope was his sword, faith was his shield. He stepped onto the dais.
###
DeWalt reeled in the hundred-foot fuse with one hand, stepping on the slack with each tug, pointing the shotgun with his other hand. Tamara screamed into his mind, but he was too distracted to listen, too busy toting up the plusses and minuses of his life. He wouldn’t let her stop him, he wouldn’t let the throbbing alien scare him away. Then he had the blasting cap in his grasp, wired inside three sticks of TNT.
"So long, Chester, Tamara. Emerland. You, too, Mr. Chairman," he said.
Tamara will understand, and maybe after it’s all over, she’ll be able to explain to the others.
"Better run," DeWalt said to them, stepping around the rocks to the edge of the Earth Mouth. Emerland was the first to move, taking a hesitant step, then another. Tamara started to speak, and DeWalt waved the shotgun at her.
She tried once more to get inside his head, but he begged her to stay away. She followed the developer down the trail, because she knew how serious he was about not letting anyone stop him.
Chester paused to toast DeWalt with the last of his moonshine. “I guess you’re not a gutless California Yankee after all.”
“Screw a blue goose, Chester.”
“I’ll do that, partner.” Chester chucked his empty liquor jar into the Earth Mouth, nodded farewell, and followed the others. Just before he turned, DeWalt saw a glint in the old man’s rheumy eyes that just might have been tears.
As DeWalt watched them go, he tried to calculate the force of the coming explosion. The sun was rising fast now, its golden eye peering over the far ridges. He forced his aching knees over the lip of the putrid hole, and the creature’s aroma of decomposition and decay rose around him like an otherwordly smog.
Tamara looked back once, but she was too far away for their eyes to meet. But not their minds.
"Hope is our only hope," he thought at her as he slid inside the Earth Mouth.
He saw the TNT scattered among the slick, wet stalagmites and fuzzy molds and wavering tendrils that licked at his skin, and he was overwhelmed with the unthinkable depth and power of shu-shaaa, and for the first time he thought of the alien as it really was: just another creature following its natural instinct.
Like him, it was just another parasite.
His mind connected to the shu-shaaa, and in that split-second link, the thing’s intelligence washed over him, warm as south seas, and he could feel the alien trying to assimilate him, understand him; their minds swapped thoughts like a reflection bouncing between two mirrors, on and on to infinity.
Then he saw what he instantly knew was the heart-brain of the alien. It was a slick sac, throbbing in time to some cosmic clock, lavender colored and veined with liquid roots. The heart-brain sang to him, sending its lullabies into his tired mind, serenading him into what would be a long, endless sleep. The alien was beautiful. He loved it, loved it, as he had loved nothing on this earth.
How could he ever have wanted to destroy this wondrous miracle?
The thing tried to slide a word into his skull, a word picked from the dark depths of his brain: Bruuu . . .thuuuuur. Oh bruuu-ther.
Then Tamara was in his head again and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to pull the trigger because he only wanted to join the deep blackness the sweet nothing the dark lovely emptiness but then he knew he couldn't kill it how could he ever have wanted to kill the lovely but Tamara pulled him back with her thoughts back to Herbert the Bleeding Heart and even the Chairman was on his side and he was Herbert fucking Webster DeWalt the Third, goddammit, and before the alien could love him and lick him into oblivion again he was wondering if the percussion from the shotgun would be enough to detonate the blasting cap that he held in his left hand.
It was.
###
It wasn't enough.
Tamara sensed it, even as she felt Herbert dying, tuned in as his mind screamed red and yellow pain. She felt the quick white burning in his guts, felt something sliding out into the distant night as his thoughts fell into themselves like black holes, as he became pure light then peace then chaos. Then Herbert was out among the stars, far-flung and wide and never to be reassembled.
That microsecond became frozen like an ice crystal, its many facets glistening, each facet a different possibility. Tamara searched the long corridors: there, the heart-brain, demanding and winning her devotion.
“Tah-mah-raaa.”
It was learning. Learning to love her. Learning to let her love it.
So easy. As easy as falling
into a warm pool.
Just go under.
But the other facets . . .
Her love.
Kevin. Ginger. Robert.
Robert?
Yes, I'm here, honey.
Robert?
Here with you. It's beautiful . . .
No.
I can't, not alone, it's too strong.
You're not alone. Never alone.
But you see how wonderful it is, Tam. What joy. Oh, what peace.
But we can’t all live. Not with that thing. It will eat us all.
I want to live.
We all want to live.
WE ALL WANT TO LIVE.
###
Bill tugged at the hooked briars that dug into his neck. Hot blood trickled under his shirt as he fought the preacher. He remembered some of the words that Nettie had read to him, her lively eyes flicking across the pages, her voice like music, her skin as sweet as meadows. He heard the words in his head as if she were saying them now: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
Bill grabbed the preacher's lambent head and lifted it over the dais. Fogs leaked from the preacher's gums. Bill lost his grip on the slick, sodden skull, and the wide mouth came forward.
"So he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me."
The preacher, Satan in wet flesh, grew suddenly stronger. Bill was pushed backward, the preacher's hands sawing at the meat in his neck.
"I am the bread of life. He that eateth this bread shall live forever."
The preacher's head bent low and Bill was tilted over the pulpit. The devil was winning. Just as the disciple Thomas had done two millennia before, Bill suffered a moment of doubt.
The preacher's raw lips pressed against his own and the first whispers of eternal hellfire licked at the base of his brain. Satan murmured tenderly, lovingly, his saliva hot on Bill's cheek.
The pulpit toppled and Satan crawled onto Bill’s struggling form. Bill was trying to roll over and run, flee from the church door and away from salvation and damnation and trials and tribulations and temptations. But the devil was loathe to let him.
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