Authors: Jonathan Maberry
“Say ten minutes. If he’s heading out to one of the farms you should have no problem finding him.”
“I’m on it,” he said and hung up.
Michael Sweeney. Covered in blood.
The image was so delicious that tears filled his eyes.
In his mind it was as if a series of relays clicked into place and a current of pure cognitive energy flowed uninterrupted for the first time in weeks. Of course it was Michael Sweeney. Vic Wingate’s stepson. Eddie had even
seen
the boy at the garage once or twice. So why had it been so hard to identify him at Crow’s shop? A devil’s mind trick, that had to be. The Beast was, after all, the Father of Lies…it wasn’t so hard to assume those lies could have been more subtle than words. Hadn’t the air shimmered like heat vapors from hell? That was all part of a glamour put on him by the Beast. He hadn’t seen it then, hadn’t grasped it fully, but now everything made sense. Now everything was crystal clear.
Michael Sweeney was the Beast and he was out there now, soaked in blood, probably laughing as he fled into the farmlands. The soulless bastard!
No wonder God had sickened of him and turned His back. How could He not when His son was so weak that the Beast could thwart him with such a simple conjuring trick.
“Forgive me, Father, for I am most heartily sorry for my sins.” He recited a dozen different prayers of humility and confession, then threw his car into gear and headed out of town.
(4)
Vic Wingate chain-lit his eighth cigarette and between puffs probed experimentally at his nose and ear. A plastic bag of ice cubes lay on the floor by his feet. He saw Polk’s stare. “What?” he snarled.
They were alone in the living room. Lois was upstairs, and the neighbors had been shooed unceremoniously back to their houses. Polk had taken the call alone, making very sure that no other deputies set foot in Wingate’s house. That would lead to all sorts of complications. He perched on the edge of Vic’s overstuffed wing chair and jiggled his uniform cap in his hands.
Polk cleared his throat. “How bad is this going to be for us?”
Bitterly, Vic said, “Dumb bitch helped him get away. She showed herself to him.”
Polk’s eyes went wide. “She…showed her…? I don’t get it, if she’s one of
them
why’d she help him?”
“She ain’t gone over to
Him
, yet. Bitch has been living on neighborhood dogs and beef blood from the butcher’s. Still got her frigging
soul
, as if that matters to her. Shit, she never used it before.”
Polk swallowed the rock in his throat.
The door banged open and Polk leapt to his feet as Ruger walked in from the kitchen carrying the limp body of a teenage girl in his arms. The sight of him made Polk’s balls climb up into his body.
“Hey hey, welcome to the funhouse, Polkie.”
Polk couldn’t answer. He was staring at what Ruger held in his arms—a teenage girl, head lolling, eyes closed, her face and throat smeared with bright blood.
“Oh, Jesus,” Polk whispered and almost—
almost
—crossed himself.
Ruger ignored Polk and glanced up the stairs. “She still acting out?”
Vic took a drag, eyes narrow and hard, said nothing. Smoke leaked out of his nostrils. Ruger snorted. The girl he carried could not have been more than thirteen. Her T-shirt was torn, exposing one cup of a functional white bra. Her blond hair hung over Ruger’s arm and nearly to the floor. He hefted her like she weighed nothing. “Well, maybe we can whet her appetite.” He put one foot on the bottom step and glanced back at Vic. “Your face looks like shit.”
“Blow me.”
“Maybe the kid’s turning into something like his old man after all.”
Vic picked a fleck of dried blood from his nostril and wiped it on the arm of his chair. “Yeah,” he said, “maybe. Maybe that’s the only way a pussy like him’d ever get a sly one in on me.”
“Good thing you didn’t cut him,” Ruger said, nodding to the knife on the coffee table. “If Lois hadn’t stepped in…”
“I wasn’t going to kill him, asshole…I was just going to carve my initials on his balls. Maybe take an ear off, or a finger. I wasn’t going to kill the little shit.”
“The Man’s going to really be pissed.” He gave Vic a wink and carried the girl upstairs. Vic and Polk stared at the ceiling for a long time. They could hear Ruger’s muffled voice and Lois’s scream, high and shrill. Polk cut his eyes toward Vic and saw an expression he didn’t expect to see: hurt. When Vic caught him watching he put on a poker-face scowl.
“We have to find the kid,” Vic said, “before Halloween.”
“I put Tow-Truck Eddie on it. He’ll catch him.”
Upstairs Lois gave another long scream, and this time it rose like a banshee wail, filled with such horror that Polk lowered his head and pressed his palms to his ears until it stopped. The scream rose and rose and then suddenly cut off. For a long while there was no sound at all except the vague creaking of the timbers and the twilight wind outside whispering through the slits in the shutters.
Polk rubbed his eyes. “This is getting to be too much,” he said. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”
Taking a long drag, Vic squinted at him through the blue smoke that filled the living room. “Yeah, well…it’ll all be over soon,” he said.
Those words tightened around Polk’s heart like a vise.
(5)
Iron Mike Sweeney was the Enemy of Evil.
At least, that was how he had once thought of himself, back when his inner fantasy life was a safe and exciting escape hatch from the real world. That was before, when evil was an abstract concept from comic books and TV and movies—granted a concept enhanced by the hard hands of his stepfather, but still abstract. That was before evil had become an actual thing, a presence, a force, a reality that chased him through the gloom of the cold October afternoon and the darkness of his cold, shrieking thoughts.
Now evil was a thing that drew a knife and came at him with burning eyes and a whispering voice. Now evil was a thing that roared at him with his mother’s mouth and a monster’s voice. Now evil was more than just real, it was unreal. Titanic, overwhelming, impossible—and he fled before it.
He tore along the roads, not aiming for any particular place. Just away. Away from town. Away from Vic. Away from
home
and from what that word no longer meant, and what it now meant.
The farthest away he had ever been by himself was the dark stretch of A-32, and so he went that way. Not because he chose to, but because the path was programmed into him and his mind was a small cringing thing that hid from conscious thought. Inside him the chrysalis writhed. Cracks appeared in the cocoon that was wrapped around his transforming soul.
Behind him, Mike felt the vastness of nowhere to go; back there was everything he had ever known and nowhere that he wanted to be. A sudden realization blindsided him with the force of a runaway train and he skidded and slewed his bike to a stop on the verge, kicking up gravel and a plume of dust.
He could never go home again.
Never.
Not just because of Vic, but because of Mom. Tears fell like hot rain and he bent forward over the pain, buried his face in his arms as he hunched down over the handlebars. His lips tried to speak, but they were twisted with weeping, streaked with phlegm. He managed only one word, but he said it over and over again, trying to rediscover its lost meaning.
“Mom!”
The gathering twilight painted him and the surrounding fields in shades of bloody red. He was still crying, oblivious to the rest of the world, when the police cruiser crested the hill behind him.
(1)
He still had his face buried in his arms, so Mike did not even know he was in mortal danger until the cruiser leapt over the crest of the hill and hurtled at him.
Then he heard it: a fierce and immediate bellow as the police car’s heavy engine revved to a screeching pitch. Mike jerked his head up and twisted around to see the white dragon’s eyes of the headlights not twenty yards away; the lights flared to high-beam brightness, piercing him like lasers.
“No,” Mike breathed. “Not now.”
The cruiser came barreling at him, and even though it was not the monstrous wrecker, Mike knew full well who it was. He instantly leapt off his bike and jumped down into the drainage gully, dragging the bike with him as the cruiser struck the empty air where he’d been—with such force that the vacuum sucked Mike off balance. He was showered with gravel and dirt as he fell into a heap at the bottom of the ditch.
Eddie slammed on the brakes, but it took fifty yards for the car to fishtail to a stop. He threw it into reverse, accelerated back to where the boy was scrambling up onto the field side of the ditch, skidded to a stop, slammed it into park, and was out of the car in an instant. He raced around the car and leapt the ditch. The boy was out of the ditch and running hard for the cornfield beyond. Eddie considered drawing his sidearm, but didn’t. Though the road was empty now, tourist cars would certainly be coming. Besides, it would be more holy to do this by hand. With the voice of God shouting in his head with every step, he ran after the boy.
Deep inside the cornfield Mike slowed from a run to a walk and then stopped, keeping his labored breathing as quiet as possible while he listened to the sounds. He could hear Tow-Truck Eddie crashing through the stalks about forty yards from him, going in the wrong direction. Despite everything Mike grinned. “Asshole.”
He crept back the way he came, shortening the route to try and find the path to the road. Halfway there he saw something up ahead that made him smile even more. There was a rusted red wheelbarrow standing in a lane between the rows. Inside was a spool of chicken wire, a pair of wire cutters, and four three-foot lengths of pine used for supporting damaged cornstalks.
Mike stuffed the cutters into his back pocket and hefted one of the staves. Not as long or as strong as the
bokken
, but better than nothing. He started to turn away when something—some instinct—made him turn back and take the spool of wire. It was the size of a big apple and fit into his jacket pocket.
Feeling marginally more confident, he started once more toward the road, trying not to do a comparison between his makeshift arsenal and the weapons the big man would have. Gun, nightstick, maybe a Taser. And about a hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and mass more than he had. Holding the stick like a sword, he crept back toward the road.
Eddie slowed to a stop and listened, straining his senses forward through the field to try and locate the Beast, but there was nothing, no sound.
The voice of God in his head hissed in inarticulate rage and Eddie could almost feel himself being spun around by invisible hands.
Back!
The single word was shouted in his head. The voice of God, so long absent, now roared at him, warning him of another mistake. Tow-Truck Eddie realized that he had been underestimating the Beast.
“The Father of Lies,” he murmured, and he ran back toward the road.
Mike was nearly to the edge of the field when he jolted to a stop, realizing with horror that he could no longer hear the distant thrashing of Tow-Truck Eddie deeper in the field.
Where was he?
He turned in a slow circle, peering between the tightly planted rows of corn, but with the light breeze the stalks were constantly moving, the sun was just about to set, and the whole field was dissolving from red-gold sunset to the featureless purple of twilight.
Mike felt a hand close around his shoulder—he let out a shriek and spun around, swinging wildly with the stick—but there was no one there.
A shiver of dread passed through him. Mike could still feel the residual imprint of those fingers—icy and strong.
Then Tow-Truck Eddie stepped out of the corn, grinning.
“What’s wrong with you?” Mike screamed. “Why are you doing this?”
Eddie’s smile brightened into one of terrible joy. “Into my hands is delivered the Beast!” Mike had no idea what that meant and he tightened his grip on the stick, ready to fight.
“Leave me alone. I didn’t do anything!”
Eddie craned his head forward. “You
exist
! You are an abomination in the eyes of God.”
There was such a crushing weight of certainty in the cop’s voice that Mike took a single stunned step backward. It was everything he had ever feared, every doubt that had ever burned the inside of his mind put into words. The ugly secrets that Mr. Morse had told him flooded back into his consciousness and the weight of them almost buckled his knees.
“No…” he said, but his protest sounded weak and empty even to his own ears; the big man, hearing that single word, raised his hands to heaven.
“And through the lies of the Beast shall we know his face and know the truth! Praise God.”
“It’s not my fault,” Mike protested, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. “I didn’t mean to—”
Then a voice, as disembodied as the unseen hand, whispered a single word in his ear: “
Run!”
It was as good as a slap in the face. Without understanding what ghostly hand had made him turn or who had spoken to him, Mike nonetheless spun and raced for the road.
Howling with glory, Tow-Truck Eddie ran after him.
(2)
The Bone Man stood in the cornfield and watched Tow-Truck Eddie, that monster of a man, one of the men who had beaten him to death all those years ago, chase down Mike Sweeney. Time was running out for them all, the Bone Man knew, just as he knew that this day was going to end badly.
(3)
Mike thought he was going to make it, that he was yards ahead, but just as he started to leap for the ditch Eddie’s hand closed around his jacket hem and jerked him violently backward. He hit the big man’s chest and it was like smashing into brick. Eddie spun him around and backhanded him to the ground. It wasn’t a hard blow—Mike was already moving away from it—but it brought him to his knees.
Mike didn’t wait for a harder blow. He rammed the stick backward into Eddie’s gut and was rewarded by a deep grunt of pain. Mike spun fast and brought the end of the stick around in a hard, tight arc like a soldier would do with the stock of his rifle and he caught Eddie under the chin. Blood sprayed from Eddie’s chin as he reeled back and went down hard on his rump.
Run!
Again the voice screamed in Mike’s ear, but Mike didn’t run. Instead he stepped forward, and taking the stick in a two-handed grip, he swung it like a baseball bat, aiming for Eddie’s temple. All the fear from his fight with Vic, all the terrible awareness of what his mother had become, all of his own confusion and sense of abandonment by the whole world went into that swing and it was a killing blow.
But Eddie was just too damn quick. Despite the stars in his eyes, he brought up his hands and caught the stick in two callused palms. The abrupt stop to the swing sent shock waves up Mike’s arms and his hands spasmed open. Mike staggered sideways and went down to one knee.
With blood dripping freely onto his uniform shirt, Eddie got to his feet and loomed over Mike, hands clenching and reclenching, rehearsing the murder he ached to perform.
“I am the Sword of God,” he said in a voice that was eerily calm. He took the stick and broke it over his knee and tossed the jagged ends behind him.
He started to close in for the necessary kill when he saw something that jerked him to a stop as surely as his grab had stopped the boy a few seconds before. The boy was staring at him and as Eddie watched the child’s eyes
changed
. The pure and innocent blue darkened as red specks appeared and then instantly blossomed so that within the space of a few heartbeats those eyes were completely red. As red as hellfire and Satan himself glared out at Eddie through veils of blood.
Eddie gasped and any last shreds of doubt that had clung like cobwebs in his mind were blown clear. “You are the Beast of the Apocalypse!”
“Whatever,” Mike said and with one smooth movement he pulled the wire spool from his pocket and hurled it right at Eddie’s face; it struck square in the middle of his forehead and Eddie dropped like a felled oak.
Mike didn’t wait to see how badly the big son of a bitch was hurt; he just turned and ran.
(4)
Newton took Jonatha out to dinner, leaving the others behind in Weinstock’s office. For a while Weinstock himself went out, wanting to go down to the ICU to check on Terry. When he came back he was frowning deeply.
“I’m not sure if we should be happy about this or sad,” he said, “but the residents in ICU are all but throwing a party because of how well Terry’s doing. He’s still in a coma, but his bones are setting and his surgical scars are healing—all at remarkable rates.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Crow asked. “I mean…isn’t that some kind of sign that the bad times are passing.”
Val turned and stared at him. “Sometimes you’re even too much of a romantic fool for me, honeybunch.”
“What?”
“She’s right,” Weinstock agreed sourly. “Believe me when I say this, Crow, nobody heals that fast. Nobody. I ordered a full set of X-rays this morning and they show that his bones are nearly knitted. The femur, which was a compound fracture, looks like the tail-end of a healed hairline fracture. Two of the doctors are so pumped by this that they want to do a paper on it. They think this is an episode of
House
, but let me tell you, anyone who heals that fast is not doing so in a way covered by known science. End of story.”
Val touched her cross and closed her eyes.
After a moment, Crow said, “Sarah told you that she thought Terry was going to attack her. Then he throws himself out the window. Okay, benefit of the doubt, maybe Terry realized what was happening to him and tried to kill himself to save Sarah.”
“I can believe that,” Val said. “Terry loves her very much. Her and the kids.”
“Point is, Val, we have a victim of a you-know-what who has been having dreams of becoming a you-know-what who is now healing at an
unnatural
rate.”
“Then what do we do, Saul?” Val asked.
“I…” he hesitated. “Actually, I don’t know. He’s still in a coma, so we can’t mess with him too much or we could kill him. Comas are tricky.”
Crow looked past Saul at the door as if he could see all the way to the ICU. “What about when he wakes up?”
Weinstock shook his head. “As for that…I’m no longer sure that’s what I’m hoping for.”
(5)
Later Crow tried several times to get Mike on the phone. He called the store and got his own answering machine, then called a friend who had a shop near his, but was told that the Crow’s Nest had been closed all day. Strange. Finally Crow called Mike’s house, hoping to get the boy or, at worst, his mom, but Vic Wingate answered.
“Yeah.”
“Vic?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“It’s Crow. I’m looking for Mike. Just wanted to see if he was coming in to work tonight.”
“How the hell should I know?” Vic said, and hung up.
“Prick,” Crow mumbled. His next call was to BK to check on the security for the Festival.
“Everything’s fine, Crow,” BK assured him. “Stop acting like my Aunt Tessie. We got the whole thing under control.”
“Good…but listen to me for a minute here, okay? There’s a very, very remote chance that there might be some trouble this weekend. Not sure what, exactly, but tell your boys to stay on their toes. No one goofs off, no one slacks. Eyes open and combat ready.”
“Jeez, Crow, you getting twitchy in your old age or have you heard something?”
“Just a heads-up from local law enforcement,” Crow lied. “Been some sketchy characters in the area. You know how it is when there’s tourists.”
“Yep, it always draws the goon squad, too. Okay, chief, we’re on it. I got enough tough guys out there to kick any ass that needs kicking.”
“What I want to hear. Look, man, there’s one more thing. Big favor. I was supposed to host a dinner for the celebs, but with Val and all…. Can you and Billy cover for me?”
“Let me think…you got two gorgeous scream queens, movie stars, free food, and an open bar. Yeah, brother, I think things’ll go just fine. I’ll play host to them, but Billy’s gonna want a table all to himself with that Brinke Stevens and the other babe. He’s been talking about it all day.”
“Well, good luck to him. Just because they lose their clothes in the movies doesn’t mean they’re easy targets.”
“Have you
met
Billy? He could charm the britches off the Queen of England.”
“And on that truly, truly appalling thought, I’ll say goodbye.”
(6)
Mike Sweeney stood up from the weeds and scanned the road. No cars.
As soon as he’d fled from where he left Tow-Truck Eddie, he took a risk and went off the on the far side of the road just over the hill; it was lined with gravel and he would leave no tracks. There was a big Halloween display made from hay bales and a pair of scarecrows—male and female—holding a sign for the Haunted Hayride. Mike dragged his bike behind the bales and then flattened down to wait.
The cruiser came past slowly a few minutes later but didn’t even pause. Mike wasn’t fooled, though; he waited ten minutes and during that time the cruiser came past twice more. Finally it vanished over the hill and was gone, heading farther along A-32 toward the Black Marsh Bridge.