Dividing Earth: A Novel of Dark Fantasy (9 page)

Chapter Ten: Three Pots of Coffee

1

Robert Lieber spent all Thursday undergoing an exhaustive battery of tests. Doctor Matt checked on him at lunchtime. They ate at a diner local to the Cancer Center.

Robert was insatiable. He’d weighed in this morning, a weekly habit, and had been light six pounds. Last week he’d been two pounds south of his normal one hundred sixty. To compensate he put away two sandwiches, three bags of chips and two defiantly non-diet sodas while Matt pretended not to notice. They left the diner together and the doctor promised to contact him when the results came in.

The nurses, techs, and doctors were finished with him by six. He drove home in a daze, aching from the needles and patches and the disturbing feeling that he was already a corpse, a ghost perhaps, and that he’d been surrounded all day by angels in white, seraphim readying him for transfer from one plane to the next.

Surprisingly, Veronica wasn’t home yet. He checked with his next door neighbor in case she’d left Jennifer with her, but the old woman just shook her head. He nervously crossed the lawn and took the stairs to Jenn’s room. He heard her voice and pushed the door open. “Hey, baby.”

Jenn was on her bed, surrounded by dolls. It was if she was holding court with old friends. “Hey Daddy,” she said, scooting off her mattress. She grabbed a couple of dolls, carried them to her toy chest.

“You okay, honey?”

She kept her back to him, continuing to clean up. “Yup.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“She said she’d be right back.”

“When was that?”

“I dunno. After she picked me up from school.”

Robert stepped back. Had she dropped Jenn off at three and left her here alone? He wiped his palms on his pants, went to his daughter and knelt in front of her. He took her hand. “You hungry?” She nodded and he scooped her up. Against his chest, her face was inches from his. Her breath was sweet: she’d already done her after-dinner brushing. He carried her downstairs, set her on the kitchen counter. “What’s your pleasure?”

“Hot dogs.”

“Hot dogs?”he asked, sifting through the contents of the fridge. “You don’t want tacos, or hamburgers?”

“Hot dogs.”

“How many?”

“Ten!” she screamed, leaping from the counter.

* * * * *

Veronica came home just before The Tonight Show aired.

“Where’ve you been?” asked Robert, staring at the muted television.

She tossed her purse on the chair next to the couch. “Thinking.”

“You left our daughter home alone.”

“Is she alright?” asked Veronica, a little too nonchalantly for Robert’s taste.

He rose. Veronica’s eyes were wide. She had no makeup on. Her hair was up in a clip. “That’s not the point and you know it. What’s going on?”

There was a purple smudge, or bruise, beneath her left eye. “Rough day,” she told him.

“Where were you?”

“I told you, thinking.”

“About what?” he asked, but she didn’t say. After a moment, he pointed the remote at the television, Jay Leno made a joke, and from the corner of his eye he watched her walk away and go upstairs.

Shortly after Conan O’Brian he fell asleep on the couch, drifted away, falling deeper into the world that had yet to find him in daylight.

* * * * *

In the belly of the island, he sees a clearing. Bark and leaves separate him from it. Then he’s there. Rock monoliths and stones—some skyward and some jagged and some streaked with mud like bloody teeth—sprout from the earth like the vertebrae of a great, buried beast. On a grassy peak, a man is silhouetted by the red dawn.

* * * * *

Robert weighed himself first thing Friday morning. He was one hundred fifty-two pounds. This reminded him of Billy Halleck from Stephen King’s
Thinner
and the chapter headings that gave Billy’s quickly diminishing weight.

He tried to shake it off, but on the drive to campus he noticed he was squinting to read the road signs. His eyes ached. He wondered if his problems might not be stress-related.

By the time he entered the teacher’s parking lot the world was blurry. His situation was not improved by blinking, nor by his attempt to clean sleep from his eyes. Fearful that he might hit another car, he parked in the back.

During his stroll to the English Department he made out a figure sitting Indian-style in the courtyard, a man that might have been staring right at him. He neared the railing that overlooked the courtyard, pretended to look out over the campus. The man was clad in a tattered pair of jeans, a T-shirt sporting Rob Zombie and a Confederate flag bandana. He wore a long, gray beard. He’d never seen a person on campus who appeared so obviously out of place, but to his left students circled the courtyard on sidewalks. None of them appeared to notice him. He shook his head, hoping his eyes would clear so he could get a better look. It didn’t improve, so he moved on, figuring there was nothing to do. What if the guy was just a student dressed out for drama club?

Still, the man remained in his thoughts all day.

* * * * *

Saturday morning Matt phoned. They agreed to meet at Mel’s Diner around noon. When Robert arrived the breakfast crowd had thinned and he was shown to the back. Approaching Matt, his knees shook and he rubbed his palms across his trousers. He felt weak, thin and altogether unmanly. Matt looked up, tried a commiserating smile while Robert slid into the booth. The waitress came and both men ordered coffee, then Robert took a deep breath and fisted his hands, pumping them like a heart. Gradually, he stopped shaking. Matt kept glancing around the restaurant, his eyes shifting to and from him. Robert took a full-chested breath as he nervously picked apart a napkin. “Matt,” he said. “Lay it out.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Cut the shit. How sick am I?” His eyes were clouded. He blinked madly. He clenched his fists. He wasn’t going any fucking place. Not yet.

“Very,” said Matt, staring at the table top. He drew in a deep breath. His cheeks puffed, then he blew it out and continued. “In fact, I can’t believe you’re sitting across from me, still breathing. I can’t believe you haven’t lost thirty pounds, haven’t suffered massive night sweats and incredible pain. Your appearance isn’t doesn’t remotely correspond with what’s going on inside you.”

Robert slumped back, looked out the window, found an obese woman wobbling back to her Benz. “I have cancer,” he said.

“It must have started in your prostate, then metastasized like crazy. I’ve never seen anything like your test results and we’re not even done with all of them. I haven’t seen this much tissue and organ damage in corpses. I don’t understand how you’re functioning. Frankly, it’s the closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever seen.”

Robert leaned forward. “Do me a favor.”

Matt nodded. “Anything.”

He raised a finger and his voice trembled with anger. “Don’t talk to me about the miraculous. Fuck God.”

“Robert, don’t.”

“If you even breathe a word about how this is God’s plan, you’ll be joining me in the dirt sooner than you’d like.” Robert’s gaze dropped to the Formica tabletop. He clasped his hands. Sweat beaded on his brow. “Go away,” he said. Matt didn’t dawdle. But as the doctor scooted out, Robert grabbed his hand, asking, “Chemo?”

Matt shook his head. “It would kill you quicker. That’s all.”

“Any bright ideas?”

“Just one,” said Matt.

“What’s that?”

“Pray.”

Robert went blank. Hadn’t he just warned the asshole? But he only let go of Matt’s hand and watched him leave, wondering if he’d ever see him again.

He drank three pots of coffee that afternoon. Unable to move, barely capable of a thought, he was reduced to one function: pouring java. At first the waitress made a stab at small talk, but soon gave up. By late afternoon his head—if not his sight—cleared enough for him to consider returning home. He realized that Veronica and Jennifer had long ago returned from their Saturday antiquing. He inched from his booth, laid a crisp ten dollar bill on the table and tried not to stumble on his way out.

He took the back roads. Outside his home, he heard laughter. He inserted the key and it stopped.

They were on the living room couch, his girls, and they looked up from a game of Checkers. The instant they saw him their smiles vanished. Veronica dropped a captured piece on the floor and stood.

Chapter Eleven: On the Steps of the Inn

1

Nathaniel Durham burst through the batwing doors of Cheney’s Saloon at just after nine that morning. William followed as the preacher screamed for John. Durham was looking up at the second floor, where, the innkeeper had overheard more than once, a few of the friendlier tenement girls might be found after dark.

Downstairs bore none of the scars of a long night. The tables were clean, the chairs overturned atop them, their legs shooting into the air. The floor looked to have been swept. Stools rested seat-down on the bar top.

William followed Durham’s eyes. The preacher had been in opposition to a bar operating in Tempest. He’d wailed Sunday after Sunday, and on that Holy Day the town’s people shouted their solidarity. But on Monday, things always changed. After a long day’s labor, the citizens cried out for a saloon; the same folks who sang ‘Amen!’ on Sundays wailed for whiskey on Mondays.

The Reverend screamed for John again and this time the floorboards began to creak. Soon, John Cheney appeared over the railing that enclosed the second floor. He was shirtless; he wore only a pair of riveted Levi’s. He yawned, leaned over the whitewashed railing and asked, “And what can I do for you so early in the morning?”

“Taylor’s cattle are dead,” said Nathaniel.

The consternation on Chaney’s face changed to concern. He waited for more.

“William checked in a family of strangers last night. They asked about Daniel.”

“And what does Daniel have to do with dead cattle over at Taylor’s?”

“Gather some men and bring them to the church,” said Durham. He glanced back at William, who followed him out.

* * * * *

Although the front doors stood open, the church was stifling. Forty or more men pressed together in the pews. All stared up at the pulpit, behind which stood Reverend Nathaniel Durham.

His every mannerism, vocal or otherwise, served to create a rhythm. He used his voice and body language as either a sledgehammer or a scalpel, shifting his attack in response to attitudes: When faces grew pallid, he drove harder, pounding his fist into his open palm, raising his voice an octave; when brows gathered he stepped from behind the pulpit and searched the faces for doubt. He didn’t wish to stir intellects, but a collection of fears as old as the dawn of time. He spoke of witches and demons and ancient curses of the blood, and when he finished the men leapt up, shouting, pumping their fists into the fetid air above them.

Durham watched. And smiled.

* * * * *

They marched on Main Street, stopping before the inn. As one, they looked toward the second floor, screamed for the strangers to show themselves, to come down to give an account of last night.

Durham laid a hand on William’s shoulder. “Let’s part this sea,” he said. To the innkeeper’s amazement the men stepped aside without a word from either of them. None turned, none even seemed to notice, they simply moved.

Soon he and the preacher stood at their front. Durham lifted his arms, and everyone fell silent. “We know who you are!” he shouted. “Come down!”

2

Sarah parted the drapes. “Ma! Pa!”

Papa moved her out of the way and looked down. He turned. Sarah’s parents said nothing. Then Papa nodded and started for the door, slowly, his arms flattened by his side.

As Sarah watched him leave, her eye began to twitch.

3

When the man appeared in the inn’s doorway, William leaned toward Durham, whispering, “That’s him.” His action reminded him for a moment of Judas kissing Jesus’s cheek.

Durham stepped forward, lifted his foot, set it on the steps, claiming ground. “You look tired, man,” he shouted, seemingly more for the benefit of the crowd behind him. The farmers and shopkeepers held axes and shotguns. A nervous laughter spread among them.

The man nodded.

“Tired and nervous,” said Durham.

Again, the man nodded.

“You must have had a very busy evening,” the preacher said, and the men tittered.

In a weak voice, the man answered, “My family and I traveled heavily yesterday. But we slept last night.”

“Are you sure you didn’t visit Daniel?”

“Have I done something wrong, sir?” asked the man, then he turned his attention to the crowd and stepped forward, looking over the preacher. “Have I? Have you come here to accuse me?”

The mob waited.

Nathaniel stepped forward. “Get your family down here and do it now.”

The man back up, clenched his teeth. “I will not,” he said.

4

Sarah took off for the door. Her mother grabbed her, pulled her close. “Hush now,” she whispered. “There’s nothing to do.”

“Let go of me!” she screamed, her eye twitching, the spastic muscle pulling at her cheek.

Sarah, not thinking at all anymore, spotted a patch of skin, sunk her teeth into it and her mother yelled, her grip softening just enough for Sarah to squirm out of her arms. She flashed out of the room before her mother could recapture her, sprinted down the hall, her bare feet slapping on the wood.

Later, after it all had happened, she would think back and this would be her last memory before the darkness.

5

“Bring them down or we will go up and get them,” repeated Durham.

The man didn’t budge. “You will kill me before you do.”

“Oh yes,” said the preacher, capturing another step. “’We will.”

Just then a girl burst out the door behind the man. She faced Nathaniel Durham. “Leave us be!” she shrieked, and there was something about her voice that moved the mob to shuffle back.

William Pennerey watched her, both fascinated and frightened. She was a pretty thing, perhaps a bit tall for her age, but she moved extraordinarily well. And not only did she seem in exquisite control of her young body, but her presence had taken temporary control of the proceedings.
Temporary
because he’d never seen anyone challenge the preacher’s will and get very far. And people had tried. Yet he had to give her credit: her anger—white-hot, deep and indignant—had thrown the men off balance.

“Go home,” she said, her body tense as a coil. Everything about her was a command. “All of you.”

Still, her eye twitched.

6

He didn’t move to collect his daughter. In minutes, he wouldn’t be able to anyway. She was losing control. They hadn’t reached Daniel in time.

“I said,” Sarah continued. “Go home.”

He backed up until he could feel the inn at his back. There was nothing to do. Glancing into the hotel, he wondered where the hotel woman was. She couldn’t be waiting for a better moment.

7

She wasn’t waiting. Seconds after Sarah had escaped, the innkeeper’s wife had made an appearance with the family shotgun, and corralled Sarah’s mother back into the room. The hotel woman stood there silent now, the gun cradled over her arms like a newborn. Sarah’s mother wondered if this woman and the innkeeper had been unable to bear children. Something about the way she held the gun and the plump dissatisfaction of her figure suggested her incompleteness.

“Why are you holding me?” she asked.

The fat woman’s face pinched. Her eyes nearly vanished. Sweat lined her brow. “Bill’s with the preacher. Has been all night. The preacher thinks you’re a danger to Tempest, so I’m doin’ my part.”

“And how could we be a danger?”

“Well, you see, there was trouble over at Taylor’s . . .”

But she had stopped listening. She’d been on this earth nearly two hundred years, and there had always been more than enough stupid people to go around. Couldn’t reason with them, but throw a touch of the fear they enjoyed instilling in others back at them . . .

She smacked her palms into the mattress she sat on, rocking back and forth, her head down, her hair cascading over her face. They had fled Salem, then The Five Points, and they’d only just arrived here. She was done running.

The woman stepped back, her hands tightening on the long barrel of the gun.

Then she opened her mouth. Her stringy hair shook around her face like a collection of beads.

The woman tightened her fingers around the trigger.

Her head snapped to. Hair striped her face as she shook.

“Stop it, I’m telling you, I’ll take off your—“

She snapped her jaws. The woman let out a yell as the gun was ripped from her hands. For a second it was suspended in midair, then it took off like a bullet itself, smashing into the ceiling. The woman watched it a moment, then looked toward the open doorway. She started for it. But Sarah’s mother followed her with her eyes. Untouched, the woman doubled over, the air whooshing from her, and she crumpled to the floor. The gun wobbled against the ceiling, as if deciding whether or not to stay, then dropped beside her with a hollow clatter.

8

Not only was Sarah’s eye twitching, but she was beginning to shake.

At this point the man heading up the mob said something and then her father did, but she couldn’t make out the words. It was only noise, as threatening and indecipherable as growls. She slapped her hands onto the side of her head, hoping to still her body, but the pressure continued to build, her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her toes, and a sound like a locomotive began to smash into her skull.

9

The girl was convulsing uncontrollably.

William had heard this type of thing described as demon possession and it was getting worse by the second—a bubbling stream of foam, like curdled milk, ran from her mouth now and her head was shaking so violently he could no longer make out her features.

Then a block down Main Street, a sign hanging from a tin awning moved The chains it hung from trembled. The mobs gaze divided—some looking down the street, others keeping their eyes on the scene before them, still others turning their heads in both direction, not sure which strange attraction merited their attention more.

The chain snapped and the sign toppled face-first into the manure and mud. Rivulets flew skyward. This confused the men to no end—their heads snapped to and from the duel distractions until the preacher finally spoke. “She is possessed!” he screamed. “Take them both!”

William moved to speak against this, but the men swept forward.

10

Her anger had started it and her father knew that a fallen sign wouldn’t be the end of it. Sure enough, the chandelier in the inn’s lobby began to tremble. He moved to the door, looking back. The fixture contained kerosene lights and several hundred crystal beads. Then the men were on him. They took his arms. He shoved one back, but another quickly took his place and suddenly he couldn’t move. He yelled for his wife, for his daughter, but he couldn’t see over the heads of the mob. And that’s when they took his hands, yanking them behind his back. Something popped, sending a flash of pain through his shoulder, and then someone struck him, sent him toppling face-first, like the sign, into the boards. He smashed his nose and blood poured out. He could smell it, taste it, and he gagged.

11

In getting to the man, they all gave the girl a wide berth. Some eyed her warily as they passed, and William thought he saw doubt, or even guilt, on some of their faces.

But in less than a minute her father was belly-down on the inn’s porch, hog-tied, and shouting a woman’s name.

12

No one had a chance to investigate the chandelier before the inn itself began to tremble. There was a rumbling; the earth shook. Main Street’s mud bubbled, slopped around, and spit up. The boards of several of the storefronts cracked.

Meanwhile, the porch under the girl shook, the boards splitting. Many of the men jumped over the railing, leaving the girl and her father surrounded by only three men. Not one of them took a single step toward the girl as she stood convulsing and foaming at the mouth. Instead, they looked to the preacher for direction. “Boys,” he said, smiling, strangely pleased by it all. “You’re going to have to knock her out.”

They glanced around unsurely and William wasn’t sure any of them would do it. But then the biggest of the bunch—a fat, quiet farmer named Jake—stepped forward. He wound his massive hand back and William gasped. But Jake didn’t hit her with his full weight. Nevertheless, the blow knocked her off her feet and she lay there on the boards, breathing hollowly. Still she twitched, the foam spilling from her lips, milking onto the wood. Then her eyes drifted up and her body slowly came to rest.

Everyone was still. William looked down Main, at the mud and shit running toward them in a river, at the huge sign for Hillary’s Beauty Supplies being carried forth, and at his own establishment, with its shingles and boards hanging precariously from the building like broken teeth, and he thought,
And neither of them touched it with their hands
.

13

She stepped quickly over the remains of the chandelier and burst outside. Her husband was lying on his stomach, tied up, Sarah lay a few feet away, and three men faced her on the deck. She took a step back, snapped her teeth, clenched her fists and an enormous man who must have stood nearly seven feet tall flew back as if kicked by a horse. Bones popped and he screamed as he bounced down the steps. From the corner of her eye, she saw another man swinging a pickaxe, and she pivoted as the blade sliced the air beside her. As the arc of the swing ended she whispered old words and the man shrieked. The pickaxe plunged itself into his chest. Blood jumped into the silvery daylight, coppery and curved above the dead body that had yet to fall.

Then she turned to the last man standing, but he had chosen flight over fight, leaping over the railing, and tearing off down Main Street, screaming. He was followed only by the preacher’s voice.

14

William said nothing when he saw Chuck Vagon—a good, reliable farmhand, father of five—raise his rifle. This whole thing was beyond him; probably had been from the start. When the shot rang out he followed the bullet’s course from the barrel of the rifle to the woman who, for all he knew, had led an unblemished life. Her face exploded. A great gout of tissue, blood and marrow flew in all directions. Some of it landed squarely on the preacher’s face.