by Ray Garton
Another nod.
George patted Robby's back and the boy hurried to his sister and led her out of the street toward the house. Once they were inside, George looked around again, this time looking for nothing in particular… except, perhaps, for something to say to them, something that might get through to them. He spotted Alana and got an idea.
After jumping up on the pickup's hood, George shouted. "Hey, everybody, listen to me."
Silence. Shadowed faces looked up at him.
"What you're thinking of doing," he said, "is wrong. I understand how you feel, but it won't work. See these people over here?" He pointed at Alana and Will. "Well, they're reporters and they've got a television camera. If you torch that house with these people inside, it'll be on videotape. You’ll be on videotape.”
Alana stepped forward and said loudly, "The camera is rolling now. We have all of this on tape. Would anyone care to comment?"
There was a sudden stir as Mrs. LaBianco plowed through the crowd growling, "Aaarre yooouu stiilll heeere?" She shot out of the crowd with both enormous, flabby arms outstretched and -
– Alana screamed as Mrs. LaBianco threw herself on her and -
– that was the beginning of the bloodshed.
Chapter 24
Mob
With no moon or stars in the thickly clouded sky, the neighborhood was shrouded in a darkness so dense it appeared artificial, as if the entire neighborhood were nothing more than a set on a Hollywood sound stage with false fronts and rolled-out lawns, plastic hedges and empty car bodies parked in the driveways. The scene was made even more surreal by the small crown of people standing in the street, sending up a loud chorus of approval as Betty LaBianco threw herself on Alana Carson, knocked her to the pavement and began to beat her relentlessly with fleshy white fists.
Alana's screams rose above the voices of the neighborhood's residents as she kicked and hit at the fat woman who straddled her and pummeled her face and chest.
Will lowered his camera immediately, rushed forward, hooked his left arm around Betty's neck and began heaving backward to pull her off Alana, shouting, "Help me, somebody help me!"
George was already on his way. He grabbed one of Betty's arms and pulled along with Will, but she continued to hit Alana with her free fist, now slick with blood, and growled through clenched teeth, "Fucking reporters can't find your keep your fucking noses out of -"
She stopped long enough to swing her fist up and punch George in the groin.
He doubled over and hit the ground hard with both hands clutching his groin. He gagged as he rolled over the pavement, his eyes stinging with tears, stomach burning as if it were tearing open.
"Stop, Betty!" Pastor Quillerman shouted in a hoarse voice. "Please stop, Betty!" He struggled to get to his feet, but the spinning in his head kept sending him back to the ground. Frustrated, his face streaked with blood, Quillerman looked up to see four men break away from the crowd and rush toward the scuffle. Quillerman leaned back against the pickup, relieved that the reporter was going to get some help, but -
– each of the four men took hold of Will, pulled him off of Betty and slammed him to the ground. His camera crunched and chittered as it slid over the pavement, scattering broken pieces in every direction. The men hunched over Will and began to beat him with their fists and their flashlights, to kick him and stomp him.
As he kicked Will, Mr. Weyland spat, "Fucking reporters've ruined this whole fucking country is what they've done!"
George rose to his hands and knees, teeth still clenched so hard that his jaw throbbed. He recognized Weyland's voice, although it sounded distorted and foul, and he looked up to see the men hammering their fists and kicking wildly. As he watched helplessly, the deep burning ache that radiated from his testicles into his abdomen was joined by a sickening fear that crept all the way up into his throat. Something was happening around him. The texture of the night was changing. The very air was suddenly charged with a malignant electricity that stiffened the hairs on the back of George's neck and made his skin crawl. Groaning at his pain and nausea, he got up and staggered to find his balance as -
– Betty LaBianco rolled off of Alana Carson's still, sprawled body and stood. Her muumuu was stiff and dark now, and glistened wetly in the glow of the flashlights and lanterns. She slapped her blood-slicked hands together as if she were dusting them off and turned to the four men as -
– they stood and backed away from their victim, whose blood was splattered all over them and was spreading over the pavement in a growing pool. They exchanged looks with one another, then with Betty, then they turned to the crowd.
"Okay," Weyland said, "let's go get the cunt who started all this!"
"Wait!" a man shouted. "Our son is in that house!"
"Then you've already lost him," Weyland replied.
Quillerman cried, "No, that's not true!"
Weyland turned to Quillerman and began walking toward him slowly.
"Those people are not lost" Quillerman went on. "But you will be if you do this! You're allowing her to bring out the worst in you, the evil in you!"
Weyland towered over the pastor, fists clenched, and said in a low, gravelly voice, "We're doing god's work -" He spat the last word. " – pastor!" Then he pulled his foot back and kicked Pastor Quillerman in the face.
Blood spurted from the pastor's nose and mouth as his head snapped back and cracked against the side of the pickup. He slid sideways until he hit the ground, unconscious.
Weyland turned as George stumbled in front of him and gripped his shoulder. "I'm telling you," he said, "Don't do this! My wife is in that house! And your daughter's -"
"My daughter's chosen to be in there," Weyland growled, pushing George away from him. "And as far as I'm concerned, that means my daughter's just as much a godless whore as that bitch she's with, who just might be a murderer if she had anything to do with what happened to the Garrys, and I don't know about you but I think she did!"
"Then call the police."
Weyland laughed, then turned to the crowd and shouted, "Shall we call the police or take care of this bitch ourselves?"
Their voices rose in an incoherent but unmistakably positive cry. The cry became a long, wild cheer, flashlights were clenched in fists and punched straight up into the air. The crowd began to move as a single entity away from the pickup toward Lorelle's house, all except for Weyland, who turned and jogged toward his own house.
George watched him go, then looked at Pastor Quillerman who was still unconscious on the ground. He turned to the moving crowd, felt suddenly alone and isolated and weary enough to lie down and close his eyes. Shut everything out, forget all of it, including his wife and children. But he couldn't, wouldn't, and hurried after the crowd instead. His pain had faded little and he still limped, but the knowledge that Karen was in that house and was in danger – along with everyone else who had joined Lorelle there – strengthened him and helped deaden the pain.
He followed, a small distance behind the crowd, but didn't worry about his lack of speed because he knew he'd catch up soon enough. But the prospect of catching up with them was not a comforting one because -
– George's neighbors, young and old, had become a tribe of screaming, snarling savages, more animal than human, with veins that flowed with cold, black hatred. Their eyes seemed to show more white than pupil and their lips were torn back over their teeth in hellish, skull-like grins as they ran toward Lorelle's house like a group of mad schoolchildren running for a playground at recess.
George ran after them.
* * * *
Robby stood at the window and watched it all. Jen stood beside him, clinging to his arm as if for life. He could feel her heart pounding against his elbow. They still wore their jackets.
"What're they doing?" she asked, her voice weak with fright.
Robby didn't answer. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"Look," Jen said, pointing at a single figure running across the street, well beh
ind their father.
"Mr. Weyland."
"He's… carrying something."
Chips of ice rolled through Robby's veins when he recognized the object Mr. Weyland was carrying. He pulled away from Jen and hurried toward the door. When she followed him, he spun around and said, "Stay here."
"I'm not staying here by myself."
"But what if Mom comes back and nobody's here?"
Her shoulders sagged and she looked at him sadly as she shook her head and said, "Robby, you know Mom's not coming back on her own. Lorelle won't let her. Lorelle's got her, or Mom wouldn't be over there in the first place."
He couldn't argue with her because he knew she was right, so he didn't protest when she followed him out the front door.
* * * *
George watched the crowd attack Lorelle's house. Broken glass crunched under stomping feet. The gardenia bushes in front of the house were trampled and the rectangular black mailbox on the wall by the front door was ripped off and thrown down the porch steps. The front door was pounded and kicked and angry voices clashed together as they shouted for their children, spouses and, loudest of all, for Lorelle.
Flashlight beams crossed like swords as they cut through the darkness. Occasionally, light flashed into one of the broken windows and fell on pale bare flesh and long grinning faces. Mocking laughter came from inside the house.
George spun around to see Weyland moving toward the house with a blue ten-gallon polyurethane kerosene can, its cap dangling by a thin chain from the two-inch spout.
"No, stop!" George shouted, throwing himself toward the man.
Weyland lifted the can before him and George slammed into it. The fluid splashed sloshed inside and splashed up out of the spout, slapping onto George's left cheek and shoulder, dribbling down his neck and stinging his skin. George staggered backward, coughing and sputtering.
Weyland grinned. "You want some more, Pritchard?"
"Please… please don't."
"Then stop me!" He stepped around George, shouting into the crowd, "Okay, who's gotta light?"
George winced at the biting odor and sting of the kerosene that had spilled on him, but -
– it did not smell like kerosene.
George ran after Weyland, shouting his name. He grabbed the man's arm and spun him around. "That's gasoline, you idiot!" he snapped. "You're gonna kill yoursel -"
Weyland's fist struck George's jaw, clacked his teeth together and knocked him to the glass-strewn lawn. Turning his back on George, Weyland was swallowed by the crowd.
George sat up slowly, rubbing his jaw. How could Weyland not know that the can carried gasoline and not kerosene? Perhaps he knew, but wasn’t aware of the difference between the two – that, unlike kerosene, gasoline fumes were flammable and could detonate the very air around a fire. But George doubted that. He didn't have time to figure out why Weyland would endanger his own life and the lives of everyone outside Lorelle's house. He had to get Karen. He stood and rushed back to the window, crying, "Karen, where are you? Karen come out here noowww!"
She popped up from beneath the window, naked and grinning, and said "Boo!" Her eyes were half-closed and she laughed drunkenly at her little joke as she swayed back and forth.
"Karen, get out of there now!"
"But I don't have a thing to wear," she giggled. She waved a hand back and forth in front of her face and wrinkled her nose. "You stink."
"Karen, you've got to get out of there! They're gonna torch this place and everyone in it and -"
"It won't matter," said a voice from behind her.
George moved the flashlight until its beam fell on Lorelle. She was naked… and beautiful. Her former pale, sickly appearance was gone. She had a healthy, lustful glow.
"Nothing really matters anymore, does it, George?" she asked.
Or had she spoken at all? Suddenly, George was uncertain if the words had come from her or had floated silently through his head.
"Your family is no more, George," Lorelle went on – definitely out loud now – in a low, throaty voice. "It's finished. You've lost your wife – or should I say you’ve lost another wife – and your children will inevitably follow when they see what a failure you were in saving their mother."
The furious voices around him, the sounds of the front door cracking under the battering it was getting from the savage crowd, and the thick crunch of chunks of the house being broken away all faded as George listened to Lorelle. His pain was forgotten and he felt a growing tightness in his pants which, after a few hazy moments, he realized was due to his arousal at the very sound of Lorelle's voice.
"Why don't you come inside, George?" she purred, her voice the only sound in the world. "Come inside… relax… with your wife… and me… the three of us, George… together… "
It wouldn't be too difficult to climb through the window. He'd just have to avoid the spikes of glass stuck up in places. Then he'd be inside… he’d be a part of the comforting darkness that surrounded Lorelle and Karen… and all of the horrible things that had been happening would be over… all the confusion and anxiety and anger and pain would end… but -
– he smelled the gasoline again and jerked his head back with a gasp as the mad voices and sounds of destruction rushed in on him once again. He turned from Lorelle to Karen again, held out his hand and pleaded with her, "Come with me, Karen, please, the kids need you, I need you, please Karen, I love you and I'm not gonna leave you here, now come out the window right now Karen, right now right -
He stopped because he saw her eyes brighten for a moment. They opened wider and the dull, drunken look left them and she looked at the pieces of glass sticking up along the bottom of the window and said, "But I… I’ll cut m-myself." Her voice was weak but clear and, suddenly, afraid.
George saw that as a good sign and moved forward quickly using the butt of his flashlight to knock the pieces of glass out of the way.
He put an arm on the ledge and prepared to hoist himself up through the window so he could bring Karen out, but -
– Lorelle grinned and hissed, "Yes, George, come in. Come inside with us."
He froze, watching her as she took a few steps to stand behind Karen. She wrapped both arms around Karen's midriff, placed one hand over her groin, the other over one breast, and smiled at George over Karen's shoulder. But that wasn't the worst of it.
Karen smiled, too, then threw back her head and laughed hard.
George slid away from the window, horrified and sick. He felt as if the center of him had been hollowed out. In a heartbeat, all the events of the past days ran through his memory and he thought about what he'd done to Karen, about his infidelity and cruelty, his hateful thoughts toward her, and he felt crippled with regret. Suddenly, it didn't matter that Karen had been guilty of some of the same things. In fact, it didn't even occur to George.
“Please, Karen," he said, his throat thick with gathering tears. "I'm sorry for the things I've done and I promise that if you just come with me, I'll make up for all of it. We'll be fine. I swear. Please, we need you, honey, we -"
"I couldn't bear to look at your ugly cock one more time," she sneered.
George's words crumbled into a small, pathetic sound in his throat as he stared in open-mouthed horror at his wife.
"Dad! Dad!"
He heard Robby's voice but didn't turn. He couldn’t. He knew he was looking at Karen for the last time… and she was laughing.
The smell of gasoline was thick in the air and George glanced to his right and saw Weyland walking toward him along the front of the house, splashing gasoline onto the front wall.
"Dad," Robby shouted, grabbing George's arm, "we've gotta get outta -"
"Mom!" Jen cried, hurrying past George toward the window, but -
– George swung an arm out and pulled her to him.
"Let me go!" she snapped. "Mom! Mommy, what're you doing in there, you've gotta come out right now you've gotta -"
All three of them were shoved out of the w
ay by arms that snaked out of the small mob like tentacles. George and Robby fell to the ground, but Jen just stumbled backward, still calling for her mother.
"Everybody back!" Weyland shouted.
Lorelle began to laugh and her laughter rose above the manic voices.
The crowd backed away from the house and George got to his feet with Robby. "Run back to the house!" he shouted.
Robby hesitated.
"I said run!" Once the boy was running, George looked for Jen. She had disappeared in the crowd. He spotted her shouldering her way through to get to the house, still calling for Karen, who was now gone. The window was dark and empty. "Jen! Jennifer!" he screamed.
She ignored him.
George drove forward, knocking people aside, and wrapped his arms around her from behind. He lifted her from the ground and turned to carry her away from the house when -
– someone threw a lighted kerosene lantern at Lorelle's house and -
– the lantern smacked against the wall beneath a window as -
– George dragged Jen away from the house, shoving people aside again, horrified to see that they were grinning in anticipation, and Jen began to shriek as -
– a bone-cracking whump lit the night a bright orange and what sounded like the screams of hell rose around them as -
– the crowd of people was blown apart by a powerful rushing wall of burning air. Bodies burst into flames as they were thrown to the ground. George realized he was screaming, too, as he and Jen went down because -
– flames had burst from the left side of his face and his shoulder, and the sound of his own skin sizzling drowned out the cries of the burning people around him. He pushed his face into the damp grass beneath him and rolled his head back and forth, still screaming, but the searing pain that spread over his jaw and neck and over his shoulder as the fire burned quickly through his jacket was unbearable and his mind shut down. George lost consciousness.
* * * *