Days of Little Texas (28 page)

Just like that, she—
it
—looks like the real Lucy again. She’s holding out her arms to me.

“That’s all right,” she says. “Come here, baby. Won’t you touch me? Come here and touch me like you did before. You know how bad you want to.”

“Lucy never talked like that,” I say, clenching my jaw. “What have you done with her?”

The thing touches the blue dress it’s wearing, like she did before.
Lucy’s blue dress
. Presses a hand over its heart.
Lucy’s heart
.

“She’s here,” it says. “Lucy is with
me
. We are in here
together. We will always be … together. This is where she wants to be, with me. That’s why she tricked you. Got you to come here. So you can be with both of us, Little Texas. And then we will all always be together.”

“I don’t—I don’t believe you,” I say. “She would never be a part of you. She’s—she’s …
good
.”

It pulls its arms back. “Is that the best you can do? Lucy is
good?
I’m supposed to be afraid of that?”

“What do you want from me?”

“Well, you
do
have a gift. You’re absolutely
stuffed
with light—together … we could do so
much
. I can offer you many things, Ronald Earl. How about… say …
eternal life?
”

“Go to hell.”

“I’m sure I would fit right in, if such a place existed. But I have to tell you, Little Texas, there is only
this
place.” It flings Lucy’s thin arms around. “This
world
. It’s all that has ever existed. Or will exist. So how about it?”

“I don’t believe you. You’re evil.”

It sighs. “This has been so much fun. But it’s time we got on with it. Didn’t I tell you? You’re here to perform a
healing
.”

Drawing the word out, all sneering and slow.

“Heal what? Heal
you?
” I say. “I don’t think anybody could do that. The Lord could, if He wanted. I’m not Him.”

“Oh, let’s pretend. That’s what you’ve been doing all along, isn’t it? Pretending to be the Lord.”

“You shut your mouth.”

“Oh. Listen to the big man. What are you going to do,
save
me? All right, you get to be the Lord. Right now. This is your last chance to play.
Heal them
.”

There’s a skittery kind of noise somewhere in the dark; I pick up the flashlight and turn my head just in time to see something at the edge of the beam. It clambers across one of the roots on its fingernails and drops at my feet.

I jump back, aiming the light. Whatever it is, it’s all hunched over and gnarled up.

Oh my Lord
.

It
is
—it’s a little man with bluish skin and close-cropped hair. Muscles stringy and knotted, face all tendons and bones. Big, square teeth like a horse. His feet are bare. His back is crooked over so far, he’s practically looking straight at the ground. But he’s not. The little man is watching me.

We stand there studying each other, me in shock, him
quiet but coiled up, ready. He paces this way and that in the little space. Then without warning, he springs at me and fixes his teeth on my arm. I holler out, knocking him back with the flashlight. I can feel the flashlight hitting bone.

The blue man splays himself against the tree root, then lunges at me again, digging into my arm with his broken fingernails and hissing like a hognose snake. I beat at him furiously with the flashlight, smashing at his face, knocking him to the dirt. He lays still a minute, but I can see his chest rising and falling. Both of us wait like that, breathing hard.

Another little blue creature slips over the root. I jerk the flashlight around. It’s a woman this time, with long, rabbity hair and eyes red as dogwood berries.

She comes at me with her teeth and fingernails, ripping a hole in my shirt and slashing at my chest. I smash her with the flashlight, sending her screeching. Another creature drops over the root. Another. Another. They’re coming so fast, I can’t think, can only smash at them with the light.
Can’t let them get me. I can’t
. I swing the flashlight again and again, but there are more and more of them.

Too many!
They start getting their hands on me, biting, pulling, tearing with their nails. I swing for their skulls with the light, but they’re pulling me down between the roots, pinning me to the earth. The light sprays around, wild. I see shattered teeth, crooked fingers, pus-colored eyes.

They’re trying to speak, but it comes out in a spitting, screechy growl. The rasping sound of their fury hedges up around me as they close in further and further.

The mush that was Pastor Hallmark’s Bible is under my back, grinding into my shoulder blades through my shirt.

But then the bluish people fall back, giving me room to breathe. I see its face over the big root again, looking down into the flashlight beam.

“‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’” I manage to say.

It genuinely laughs this time.

“You really believe in him, don’t you?” it says. “Almost more than the other one.”

The little blue faces bob in and out of the light, square teeth gnashing, mouths shaking with pure rage. It waves at them.

“You think they’re mine, but they’re not. They’re
yours
. Don’t you recognize your own?”

My own
.

Own
. I nearly choke on the word. “Souls in amber,” it called them.

The bluish people aren’t devils or demons. This is what they’ve become in centuries of pain and misery.

The slaves of Vanderloo Plantation
.

The rusty chains clank in the branches, telling me,
Yes, yes
.

The slaves begin to jostle and snap at each other, spreading their sharp fingers.

“See how energetic you make them?” it says. “That’s good. I’m hungry.
I’m always hungry
.”

“I won’t listen to any more of this,” I say.

“That’s all right,” it says, waving an arm. “You see, they get hungry, too.

“Take him
.”

They slam against me. Several clap their filthy hands over my face; my mouth is full of nasty fingers digging their way inside, clawing at my tongue. I bite down hard, making them scream.

Biting, clawing, hitting. Their nails sting like nettles on my arms, tearing at my sleeves, raking my skin. I scream the words out:

“‘O Lord
God
, remember me.’ … ‘My times are in thy hand….’”

They are raining blows on me now, cutting me to pieces. My shirt is wet with my blood.

I feel as if I’m sinking into the earth.

I’m sorry
.

Sorry I didn’t do better. Sorry I lost my faith. Sorry I failed to help them.

I’m sorry, Lucy
.

I fight as hard as I know how, but I’m getting dizzy, starting to feel like I’m dropping away.
Is this what it feels like to die?

Certain Certain’s face swims up in my head. I’ll never see him again, he’ll never know what happened to me. But…

Wait.
Wait
.

Even as I’m getting swarmed under, even as they are tearing at my clothes, my flesh, I realize something.
They
are
mine. They’re all of ours
. And I remember. I remember.

“Lucy!
” I yell. “I’m ready! I’m ready! I know what you want! I’ll do it!
I’ll do it
.”

The blue people scream like they’ve been stabbed with an ice pick; their bodies slink away. I gulp in a huge breath, let it out again. It takes all the air I have just to speak. I shove myself up to a sitting position, spitting and coughing. Finally I’m able to stand, clutching at the big root for support.

Its voice is a snarl, impatient. “What is it? What do you want?”

I touch my cheek, feeling the claw marks there, the warm, wet blood. “Anything can be hurt,” Lucy said once. I hang on to that picture of her. The true Lucy.

“I want… I want to be with you,” I say, taking in long,
gasping breaths. “I know that now. You’re what I’ve always wanted.”

It licks its lips and pulls me over the root as if I were a baby. Takes my bleeding hand and puts it on its breast.

“This is the real strength, isn’t it, Ronald Earl? The strength of the body.
The flesh
. There is no such thing as sin. No such thing as evil. Only energy and what you do with it.”

It starts to take me in its arms.

Think of that. Think of her body
, I tell myself.
Think of nothing else. You have to think of nothing else. Think of the white room. Taking Lucy there…

Make it
flesh,
oh Lord… make it flesh…
.

I lean in close to its body, my fingers closing over the rawhide cord around my neck.

I jerk the cord loose and slam Certain Certain’s slave tag into the thing’s forehead.

“Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee!
”

The thing shrieks in rage and pain. Instantly I feel a blazing heat sear my fingers, but I keep pushing and pushing till I can feel the slave tag charring its way into its flesh—I hold it there, flat against the thing’s forehead, forcing it to scorch its way deeper and deeper into its skin.

My arm flares with a pain like I’ve never felt before, so fierce the inside of my head bursts with lights. But I keep pressing the slave tag harder and harder, wanting to drive my arm inside its head.

Lord, let me see this great fire … let it take all of me… take
me out of the earth … make me a sanctuary … let me go over, I pray thee, and take off its head…
.

I keep pushing harder and harder, the pain becoming an impossible agony, the skin broiling off my hand, the muscles, tendons starting to burn away.

The thing rocks backward, but I clutch even harder with my free hand, shoving the bones of my fingers deeper and deeper into its wound—it’s screaming now, and I’m screaming, too, and our screams join somewhere in the branches of the tree.

And let me die the death of the righteous…
.

It stumbles back away from me and sits down hard. I fall on top of it. My burning hand pulls free of the wound in its head.

The thing groans and starts to lift itself up on its elbows, tearing at the burning square of flame on its forehead—

I slam into it with all my weight, throwing my arms around its body. Screaming the only words I have left. Those old words from the Song of Solomon. The ones that freed Lucy the first time.

“‘LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH’!

“‘LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH’!

“‘LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH’!”

I scream the words into its chest, again and again and again. It rocks and struggles under me, trying to buck me off. I keep screaming the words over and over.

“‘LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH’!

“‘LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH’!

“‘LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH’!”

I don’t know how long I shout it. How many times. I don’t know.

Its body bows up beneath me, back bending, skinny arms taut as ropes. It shakes all over, and a big gust of breath pours from its mouth, sounding like wind.

The thing makes a terrible rattling noise deep in its throat, and its body settles under me, easing itself down, down, down, till all the strength is gone out of it. And there is nothing left but weakness, then the weakness goes, too. It is still.

I slump to the ground, falling over on my side, weeping.

When I open my eyes, the flashlight is reflecting off the white bark of the trouble tree. I lift myself up on one hand and hold my burnt arm up to the light—it’s
whole
. Some of the pain is still there, but even that is bleeding away.

I look….

The small body in the leaves begins to shift and change.

I watch it happen, breathing shallow. Watch the anger, the fear in its face, drain away.

It’s getting smaller
.

The body sinks slowly, slowly into the leaf mold. As it sinks, a low sigh slips away on the wind. Then there is nothing but the leaves rattling in the branches of the trouble tree.

It’s gone.