Pete?
She shook her head fiercely at the thought. No. No way. The Pete she had known could never have done the things someone had done in here. Then a memory surfaced, searing her psyche—
the ice pick in her hand, punching through the slender girl’s neck and then into her eye…
She trembled and leaned into Helga. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“You and me both. I…guess your man did this.”
“Yeah.”
“I wonder where he is.”
Megan was shaking even harder now. “I’m not sure I want to know anymore.”
Her mind was reeling. Her thoughts and feelings were jumbled and far removed from anything remotely rational. Helga didn’t have as much of a personal stake here, but she had to be just as overwhelmed by the grisly scene before her. It was something Megan would think about a lot later when she wondered how they could have been so distracted that they didn’t hear the careful approach of footsteps from behind.
Helga let out a pained gasp and squeezed Megan’s hand harder.
Megan looked at her. “Helga?”
Helga’s mouth was open wide and her head and shoulders were shaking. She looked at Megan and tried to say something. Then she let go of Megan’s hand and fell to the floor, where she landed facedown. Megan saw the small red slit in her bare back and frowned. Then she turned slowly around and saw Val standing there with a switchblade knife in her hand. The blade was red with Helga’s blood.
Megan shook her head. “No.”
Val smiled. “Yes.”
She seized Megan by a wrist and dragged her screaming from the house. They went out the front entrance, and Megan saw the big Harley parked near Carl’s Porsche. She tried to twist out of Val’s grip as she was dragged across the yard, but the woman was too strong. Val stood her against the Harley and slapped her across the face several times, a rap of knuckles following the sting of
her palm each time. Then she wrapped a hand around Megan’s throat and said, “Listen up. You’re gonna get on this bike and ride out of here with me, and you’re not gonna put up any more fight. Understand?”
Megan put the back of a hand to her mouth, wiped away blood.
She nodded.
What else could she do?
She was no match for Val and couldn’t hope to resist her will. The thought filled her with despair.
Val was talking again. “You’re mine now, baby. All mine. I’ve got a nice cage waiting for you in my cellar. You’re gonna spend the rest of your life in there.”
Val laughed and slapped her again.
And again.
Megan stood there and took it as tears filled her eyes.
She heard Val’s gasp and the shot in seemingly the same instant. She wiped tears from her eyes and saw the woman’s body hit the ground. There was a ragged, bloody hole in her chest. Her eyes were blank and unmoving. She had been dead before she hit the ground. Megan frowned.
Then she looked up and turned her head toward the house.
Helga was standing in the open front door, leaning against the frame. The 9 mm was in her hand. She saw Megan and managed a pained smile. Then what was left of her strength ebbed and she dropped to her knees. Megan hurried across the yard and climbed the steps to the porch. She drew Helga into her arms and held her.
She pressed her lips against the limp woman’s ear and whispered,“Thank you.”
Then she looked to the sky as a new sound began to obscure the howling of the dogs. At first there was nothing, but then she saw them—a closely grouped set
of black helicopters moving across the sky. Something about them unsettled her, but she had other things to worry about now. And other things to do.
And no time to waste.
So she got started.
Garner had one last task to attend to before attempting the transference of his consciousness into the vessel, but he put it off a while longer to savor the moment. The time he’d prepared for was finally at hand. Everything was perfect. The work ahead could keep while he allowed himself a last few moments to reflect. The man called Hoke was stretched out on the sofa in the living room of the house once occupied by a family called the Prathers. Garner had killed them fifty years earlier and claimed the property for himself. He wasn’t bothered by the similarity between this act and what had been done to his family so long ago. The distant past no longer concerned him. Human notions of right and wrong had become alien to him. Besides, his family had been well avenged. It was time to move on.
Indeed.
He turned away from Hoke and smiled at the handful of Kinchers cowering near an archway. One of them was a big man in overalls. He had a double-barreled shotgun propped over one shoulder. And he had a grotesquely deformed nose that somewhat resembled an elephant’s trunk. The man’s pupils dilated as Garner stared at him. He was shaking. Garner laughed. The man lifted the
shotgun off his shoulder and wedged it under his chin. There was an explosion, and the front of his head blew apart, spraying blood and bone fragments on the ceiling. The big body toppled backward through the archway and landed with a heavy thud in the hallway beyond.
Garner laughed again.
The others were crying now. But there was no shock evident in their twisted features. Many of them had suspected this day would come. One of the younger Kinchers fell to his knees and clasped his hands in front of him. He bowed his head and began to mumble a prayer.
Garner’s nostrils flared as he focused his will. The air in the room became charged as he began to gather what remained of the supernatural energy available to him. He could feel it crackling under his skin like electricity flowing through his veins. He flexed his fingers and snarled as he felt the power there. The texture of his flesh changed, and he knew they weren’t really seeing him now, except as a black blur, a shifting distortion of air and energy.
Then that blur came at them, and they screamed.
Garner slaughtered them.
He ripped arms from sockets and flung them across the room. He twisted heads off shoulders and crushed them like ripe melons in his powerful hands. He opened soft bellies and pulled out organs and dripping viscera. Some of this he ate to feed the energy buzzing inside him. Then it was done. Seven Kinchers torn to pieces in a matter of moments. Blood was everywhere. But it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough until they were all dead. He went outside and found more of them. Adults and children. They weren’t trying to hide. They knew it was useless. Some screamed and cried as he waded into them, but others closed their eyes and accepted their fates with surprising stoicism. Garner killed them all. He ripped
skin from a child’s face and broke its back over a knee. He tore a pregnant woman’s stomach open and pulled the tiny fetus from her womb. He ate it in a single gulp before crushing the woman’s head. He opened a fat man’s protruding belly and devoured diseased innards. When he was done with the ones in the yard, he went into the barn and found more cowering in stalls and behind bales of hay. He spared none of them, and when he was finished, every last member of the Kincher clan was dead and in pieces.
Except one.
Garner went back into the house and down the hall to the room where he’d kept Gladys for so many years. She squealed at the sight of him and reached for one of the windows, smashing the glass out with her oversize fingers. Shards of glass lacerated her skin, and blood poured in thick streams down her flabby arms.
Garner smiled. “No way out. Not for the likes of you.”
He gathered his will again and sent it in a devastating burst toward her heart. It blew apart and she was dead in an instant. Killing her so fast was a kind of mercy, although mercy was not his motivation. He had only a small amount of energy left to him, and he would require every bit of that for the transference spell. He stripped the sustaining magic from the big corpse, and it began to instantly decay, turning black and shriveling to a much smaller size before crumbling to ash.
Garner walked out of the room and back down the hallway to the living room. He found a chair and set it next to the sofa. Then he sat down and stared at the vessel. The man was physically fit and relatively young. He was also handsome, an asset that should serve him well in the coming years, at least until he was ready to move on to another vessel. The body was clean now,
having been washed by the Kinchers after Gladys had sated herself with him. They had fetched his clothes from the barn and dressed him.
He was ready.
The time had come.
Garner clasped hands with the unconscious man and drew in the last bit of demonic will he was able to tap as he began to recite the simple incantation taught to him by that New Orleans witch doctor in the nineteenth century. As he uttered the last line, his body became rigid and everything went black. It was as if he simply ceased to exist for an indefinable time. There was nothing. He was nothing. Then he was sucking in air as consciousness returned. He opened his eyes and stared from the sofa at the vacated body sitting on the chair. The demonic energy gone, it began a rapid decay process similar to what he had seen happen to Gladys. So strange a thing to see one’s own body dissolve to a heap of ash. Strange, but gratifying. It was a symbol of transition. The thing he’d devoted his existence to was finished, a part of the past. And now it was time to move into the future. He sat up and stared at his hands, flexing his fingers. And here was another strange thing. The enormous power he’d been able to draw upon in the hellfire-enhanced old body was gone. And it would never be available to him again. But that was okay. It had nearly been burned out anyway. He didn’t miss it. He was human again. And that was better. He wasn’t a freak anymore. He could go back into the larger world and lead a life that was almost normal. Which was all he wanted. He didn’t crave power or aim to subject another group of unfortunates. He just wanted to live and experience all the simple human pleasures he’d missed for so long. And with careful planning and a succession of vessels, he would be able to do just that practically forever.
He got up and walked out of the house with a broad smile on his face.
He walked through the yard and into the woods, not sure where he was going but content to allow instinct to steer him. Soon he would be able to look into the dormant consciousness of the man whose body he’d stolen and know everything he’d known. And feel everything he’d ever felt. But that would take time. He was, however, able to glimpse a visual record of the man’s recent memories, and that was enough to know he was going the right way. He continued through the woods with hands shoved lazily into the pockets of his khaki shorts,whistling a pleasant melody he did not know, a sign of an already growing ability to read the consciousness he’d deposed. Soon he came to a clearing and saw a car. The clearing was actually the dead end of a dirt road. The car was old. A red convertible with the top down. The trunk was standing open. He experienced a mild shock of recognition and knew the car had belonged to his vessel. Seeing it made him smile again. Garner had never driven a car, but he felt confident he would be able to tap enough of Hoke’s knowledge to make a competent effort. This machine would carry him to…Nashville. Yes. To Nashville. And to his new life there.
He approached the car and reached for the handle on the driver’s-side door. His fingers were curling under it when he heard a voice calling out to him.
“Hoke. Hey, Hoke!”
Garner turned his head and saw a woman coming down the road. Quite an attractive woman, actually. Blonde and slender with a pretty face. He felt his groin stir. And what a marvelous sensation it was. He was so happy to be human again. He couldn’t wait to experience all the things denied to him during his twilight existence as a demon hybrid. Sex was high on his list of things to savor again. This
woman would be a good first partner. He stared at her shapely body and knew he would have her, one way or another. He would take her by force if necessary.
Jessica.
The name came to him unbidden.
So Hoke had known her.
A friend, perhaps?
But as she got closer a tingle of fear went through his body. He wasn’t sure why. She surely did not look like a threat. He tried to peer deeper into Hoke’s memories for some insight into this reaction. There was an image. Jessica on a floor, looking up at him as he thrust into her. This was curious. Why should Hoke fear a lover?
She was very close now.
A dozen yards away.
Closer.
She was raising her arm.
There was something in her hand.
It was pointed at his face.
Garner couldn’t understand this. Frustration gripped him as he struggled to tap Hoke’s memories again. She was so close. The gun was in his face now. He was shaking. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t what he’d planned at all. He opened his mouth to say something. Perhaps he could ward her off somehow. Surely there was some kind of misunderstanding.
“Hey, sugar. Let’s talk this over. You don’t wanna—”
Jessica stared at the body on the ground and felt only a tired relief. The sense of righteous justice she might have felt earlier in the day wasn’t there. Maybe she’d feel some of that later when she had time to reflect, but right now there was only a numb gratitude that the man whose heinous act had set her down this nightmare path was gone.
“Finally.”
She spat on him. Saliva splashed the hole in his forehead.
“Rot in hell, you fucking rapist piece of shit.”
Someone coughed behind her.
She turned and saw one of the men her father had sent. He was a slim man dressed in black and wearing a lot of army gear. There were more men behind him. They had probably come running when they heard the shot.
She smiled. “I told you guys you could go. I’ll be okay.”
A corner of the lead man’s mouth twitched. “I’m reluctant to let you out of my sight until you’re safely beyond the perimeter of our operations here.” He glanced at the body, and his mouth twitched again. “Someone you know?”
“He raped me this morning.”
The man nodded. “No one will ever know what happened to him. You don’t have to worry.”
Jessica reached into a pocket and dug out the key that had been there all day. She moved to the rear of the Falcon and flipped the heavy trunk lid shut. Then she faced the squad leader again and flashed the key at him. “Okay, I’m gonna go, guys. Thank you for your concern and for everything you’ve done for me tonight. I appreciate it. But now I need to get gone from here, and I won’t be needing an escort.” She smiled sweetly. “Okay?”
The squad leader sighed. “Your father wouldn’t like it.”
“And I love my daddy, but he doesn’t get to make all the decisions. And definitely not this one. Good-bye, guys.”
She didn’t wait for him to protest again. She moved away from the trunk and stepped over Hoke’s body. Then she was in the car again and seated behind that big red
steering wheel for the first time since that morning. She slid the key into the ignition slot and turned it, enjoying the way the big V-8 engine roared to life. She pumped the gas pedal a few times and smiled again. She loved that loud rev. She reached for the gearshift behind the wheel and wrenched it over to D. Then she let the Falcon roll forward several feet before cranking the wheel to turn in a big, looping circle to get herself facing the road again.
She waved to the soldiers and blew them a kiss as she drove past them.
The poor guys.
They had a long night ahead of them. By morning the news would be trumpeting the exposure of a homegrown terror cell in Hopkins Bend. The very same group, it would be said, who successfully detonated the small dirty bomb in nearby Dandridge. A lot of people were going to die in Hopkins Bend before sunrise in the name of keeping the country safe. The media and some segments of the public would be dubious, but Jessica knew it didn’t matter. It was like her daddy said. They were gullible sheep. And in the end they would swallow the lies their government told them. Business as usual.
Jessica sped down Old Fork Road and after some trial and error found her way back to the interstate. She hit the blacktop at seventy MPH and kept the pedal down until she was going almost ninety. The wind whipped her hair about as the engine roared. She turned the radio on and found that gospel station again. She kept one hand high on the big steering wheel and scrunched down a little in her seat, getting comfortable.
She drank it all in.
The roar of the engine.
The hiss of tires beneath her.
The cool air on her face.
The night.
The beautiful, clear night.
The endless miles of wide-open highway ahead of her.
She’d never felt freer.