Risen (42 page)

"We'd better get out of this light," Tom said, nodding toward the security light that had come on at their arrival. "Come on." He moved to a shadowed space between the fence and a detached garage and motioned Cindy over. She looked up at the security light and scooted out of its beam and a few feet closer to Tom. He smiled what he hoped was an engaging, non-threatening sort of smile, then dropped it when she didn't smile back.

"Do you know Seth?" she asked.

Tom nodded. "I know what's going on, if that's what you mean."

"But you're not converted. You're not one of...them."

He shook his head. "Not yet," he said, "but it isn't for lack of some people trying."

Cindy's eyes darted about.

"I don't know who to trust," she said. "They have this code phrase, 'Do you know Seth?' They use it to identify one another. If you say 'yes' it means you've been converted. That's what they call it. Conversion."

"How do you know all this?"

"I overheard my parents talking."

So that was it. She was running from her parents. There was no telling how they'd died or who'd done the "converting," but something had set off her suspicions.

"What else do you know about Seth?"

"Nothing. I don't understand any of this. I know something strange is going on but I don't know what. I know people are coming back, and not just John Duffy and that old woman and Galen. There's more. Lots more. They're killing everybody who isn't converted already."

"What were you doing with Hank?"

"Trying to get out. He saw me running through the alley. He was avoiding the streets himself, he said. I thought he was trying to leave town, too, but he wasn't. He was looking for runaways like me. Cruising the alleys."

Tom consulted his watch. Eleven o'clock. They had to get moving.

"Tom," Cindy said, "I killed him. I killed Hank Ellerby. He grabbed me and I fought him, but I couldn't get loose. I had that knife, the one my brother bought in Tijuana. I stabbed him with it."

"People don't die of a single stab wound, not unless you hit a vital organ," Tom said. "You probably just surprised him into running into that tree."

"I'd like to think that."

"We don't have much time," Tom said, getting to his feet. "We have to put some miles between us and Anderson before all of these corpses start coming back."

Her eyes pleaded with him. "Take me with you," she said.

"Of course! But we have to hurry!"

She grabbed his arm. "I mean far away! I know why you broke up with me, and you're wrong! You think you know me but you don't!"

"Cindy…." Tom said.

"You think I'm just another boring  little townie who wants to settle down and have babies and…all that! But I'm not! I won't hold you back! I have dreams, too!"

"Cindy…."

"I want to climb Machu Picchu! And swim naked in the ocean and…and have sex in art museums!"

She pulled him close and kissed him. When he pulled away she clung to him all that much tighter. Her face was wet with tears.

"Take me far away," she said, "far, far away…."

She buried her face in his shoulder. Tom held her, feeling like God's own idiot bastard son.

***

Brant kept Hank covered with the pistol until he was sure he was dead.

Hank's chest was wet with blood. The wound was low. If the angle was right, a knife blade could've entered at that spot and gone up under the ribs and straight into his heart.

A hunting rifle sat on the floor, canted up against the seat. It was Hank's new Winchester. Brant didn't know beans about rifles, but he knew from the Saturday morning talk at Ma's that Hank was fatherly proud of his new gun. Nobody went hunting at ten-thirty at night, not around these parts, anyway. Brant wondered if the new rifle had been drafted into service to Seth. Maybe Seth was on patrol for people like Brant and Tom and Cindy Robertson. Or maybe Hank was running for his life when he made the mistake of stopping to pick up a teenaged girl who was not what she seemed.

Brant felt a sudden chill. If Seth was actively hunting the living, he and Tom had even less time than they'd imagined. If Cindy was Risen, Tom would be easy prey.

***

Cindy's lips against his felt so good, Tom wondered how he'd ever had the strength to break up with her. Maybe it wasn't strength at all, but sheer stupidity. She felt so right in his arms, he must have been seriously mixed up in the head to think he was better off without her.

The one impediment to their love had been removed, thanks to the Risen. Anderson held no sway over Cindy anymore. They were headed in the same direction, she and him, away from their little town and out into the real world.

Over Cindy's shoulder, Tom saw headlights appear at the end of the alley. Brant, probably. The car drove slowly, searching. The headlights winked off and on and then winked again. Brant was looking for him.

Tom gently eased himself out of Cindy's embrace.

"There's our ride," he said. He felt her pull away, and when he looked at her, her eyes were wide. She glanced at the approaching car. Her hands went to her face. There was blood on her cheek. She touched it and then examined her fingertips, stepping away from him.

"No," she said.

Tom looked down. There was blood on his shirt, splattered there from the killing of Josh Lunger. He knew what she must be thinking, that he'd been killed somehow and was Risen. He couldn't summon up words to explain the blood.
It isn't mine, it's just Josh Lunger's, from when Brant shot him in the head.
His tongue became a piece of raw meat in his mouth.

"It isn't what you think!" he said. And yet, it was close enough, and he couldn't think of a convincing lie, not in the split second before the Tijuana switchblade went
snik
in Cindy's hand and the blade shot out to its full length. Tom jumped back instinctively.

Cindy swiped the knife through the air and Tom leaped back, out of striking distance.

"Wait!" he said.

The Saab skidded to a halt behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Brant leap out of the car. When he looked back, Cindy was running down the alley. He started after her but Brant was in the air behind him, bringing him to the ground with a full body tackle.

"She killed Hank Ellerby!" Brant said.

"I know! Get the fuck off me, goddammit!"

Brant lay on Tom with his full weight, pinned his shoulders to the ground.

"We don't have time for this!"

Tom bucked Brant loose and managed to plant an elbow into the side of his head. He squirmed free but was down again, Brant's arms locked around his legs, before he could escape. They tossed and scrabbled in the dirt, Brant pleading his case and Tom pelting Brant with every obscenity he could conceive.

"If she's Risen, it's too late!" Brant said. "If not, the best thing we can do for her is to find Seth and put an end to all this!"

"Motherfucker! Let me go! Goddammit!"

Eventually Tom pulled free. He took a few exhausted steps down the dark alley but it was too late. Cindy was gone. She could be anywhere.

"We could spend the next two hours looking for her," Brant said, "Or…"

"Shut the fuck up!"

Tom marched to the car and yanked open the door. Brant got to his feet and walked toward the driver's side. Tom noticed with some satisfaction that Brant was limping and winded.

They took their seats and slammed the doors shut. Brant cranked the ignition key and the Saab purred to life.

"Tom, I just had to…."

"Shut up and drive."

***

Tom and Brant's thoughts were running deep. Neither spoke as the Saab navigated the dark streets. Occasionally Brant spotted another pair of headlights and casually turned the corner, then he watched the rear view mirror for any sign that they were being followed, his heart racing and his fingers drumming on Hank Ellerby's Winchester.

He kept thinking of Josh Lunger's eyes, mentally flipping back and forth between the dead, otherworldly boy he'd killed and the exuberant child of the hallway photographs. What Seth had done to Josh was worse than murder. Seth had taken a lovely and loving child and ripped out his soul and twisted what was left into an abomination. Josh was as dead as any corpse in Wildwood Cemetery. What walked the earth in his guise was a thing neither living nor dead, soulless as the devil and with a demon's taste for blood.

How many children lived in Anderson? How many had already received Seth's "blessing?" How many more would be murdered and resurrected if another midnight passed and Seth's crusade were allowed to continue unopposed?

Tom's thoughts were at least as black. Only now, knowing that Cindy was out there alone, did Tom realize how much she'd meant to him. What a fuckhead he was. He'd turned his back on the best thing that had ever happened to him. He'd shut her out of his life, not because of what she was, but because of what she stood for in his screwed up, twisted, bullshit-befuddled mind. Who knows what might have been if they'd gotten out of Anderson together, traveled, seen the world?

Tears welled in his eyes. The pressure in his chest demanded release, but he was not going to break down, damn it, he was not going to break down in front of Brant. He was going to see this thing through like a man. Whatever rewards life had in store for him, they lay beyond this terrible, black night. He had to muscle his way through it or die trying.

With the delays, the waiting with the headlights off while a car passed, with the circuitous route they were forced to take, it was past eleven-thirty by the time Brant and Tom reached the hospital. Peg's car was in the parking lot. Brant pulled into the empty space beside it but did not turn off the engine.

He swiveled in the seat to face Tom. "I'm not going with you," he said. "You'll have to convince her yourself. Tell her the truth, lie to her, do whatever you have to do but get it done before midnight in case...." Brant knew what he had to do, had known it for the last half hour, but speaking the words aloud made it too real.

"In case what?"

"In case I don't get to Reverend Small in time. I have to go after him, Tom. I can't let this go on. Even if we get out of it for now, it'll catch up to us."

"Like ripples, getting wider and wider. I know. Maybe you should get Mom and I should go after Small."

"No, getting her away from Annie...I don't think a stranger could do that."

"You're not exactly a stranger."

"But I'm not family, either. You're her son. If she'll do it for anybody, it'll be for you."

"I don't know. We've been at each other's throats a lot lately."

"Tom, believe me. She loves you. She might not leave Annie for her own sake, but she'll do it for yours. Tell her you aren't leaving without her. Force her to choose."

"Suppose she chooses Annie."

"Then drag her out by the heels. Take her car, meet me at that diner in Junction City, the place across from the newspaper office."

Tom nodded. He opened the door and slid out. He stuffed the pistol in the small of his back and headed toward the hospital. He heard the Saab back out of the parking stall and he turned to watch Brant drive off.

If Brant didn't eliminate Small before midnight, the town would be crawling with Risen. Deputy Haws, Hank Ellerby and who-knows-how-many others. He might be able to bluff his way out, but he wasn't going to count on it. He figured he had ten, maybe fifteen minutes to make his case and get him and his mom out of the hospital. They'd have to drive straight to the highway, maybe shoot their way through the roadblock. If they made it that far, they'd have a chance.

He walked into the hospital and felt Claudia White's hostile eyes on him as he passed the nurse's station. The net was closing around him. He'd waited too long.

Pulling this off would take a miracle.

***

Peg, too, was praying for a miracle.

The room was silent but for the rushing of blood in her ears, a side effect, probably, of the sedative Doc had given her. She hadn't wanted the shot at first, but as the minutes ticked ever slower toward midnight and then seemed to just stop and hang in the air, and as the panic rose in her throat until she thought she would scream, she'd asked for a little something to calm her nerves. Doc had said it would take the edge off and it certainly did that. It could have been the stress or the fact that she'd eaten dinner out of a vending machine, but the tranquilizer was hitting her harder than she'd expected. Had Doc miscalculated the dose? Her head was spinning.

She leaned forward and massaged her temples. It was strange not to hear the hiss of the respirator. She'd called for Doc around eleven and signed the forms consenting to withdrawal of Annie's life support, then watched the proceedings from a million miles away. Claudia White drew out Annie's breathing tube and wheeled the respirator away.
Why remove the machine?
Peg had wondered.
So I can't change my mind?
The remaining nurse worked quickly and precisely, removing the feeding tube and the IV. Soon, according to the monitors, it was done. Her little girl was gone.