Risen (46 page)

***

Tom floated over the heads of the congregation on a sea of hands. He stared up at open beams and stained glass windows dark with the night, his head spinning, while many hands conveyed his body like a slab of meat down the length of the sanctuary.

Voices droned in his ears along with an industrial pounding like a great machine, but it was only blood pumping through damaged vessels to a brain knocked senseless and slowly, by painful degrees, groaning back to life. The smell of too many bodies in too small a space was suffocating. His stomach churned and sent bile traveling up his throat to burn bitterly on his tongue. He swallowed, fought down the nausea.

He arrived at the back of the sanctuary. A chorus of voices from outside rose like the roar of hungry animals. He thought for a moment that he would be tossed outside, thrown to the lions and devoured, but the hands spun him around. They grabbed his shirt, tore at it as he passed, ripped it off his body as they propelled him toward the pulpit where Reverend Small shouted and gestured and banged his fist and called for blood.

His head lolled and he saw, upside down, the faces watching his nightmare journey. Galen and Brant waited for him. They grabbed his arms as he came to them over the sea of hands. They held him tight, arms twisted behind his back, kept him on his feet as the swelter and the voices and—he was sure of it now—the drugs dizzied his head and weakened his knees.

With great effort Tom lifted his chin and gazed out over the assemblage. His eyes swam in and out of focus. By ones and twos the faces came and went in the hallucinatory fog. Doc Milford. Deputy Haws. Old Merle Tippert. Clyde Dunwiddey, alarmingly sober. Franz and Irma Klempner, holding hands. Josh Lunger, who had tried to kill him, standing between his parents. Darren and Kent and Buzzy. Cindy….

Cindy, at one with the crowd, her clothes stained with blood. Someone had gotten to her. Tom felt the blood go cold in his veins.

He scanned the less familiar faces. One of them had hovered behind him and whispered into his ear a story of premature burial and lives corrupted and souls destroyed. Which one was the whisperer from behind? Which one was Seth, the resurrector? Which one had infiltrated and murdered his town?

The preacher's voice thundered and the congregation echoed its response. Isolated words penetrated Tom's consciousness.

Glory.

Dominion.

Seth.

Blood.

Flesh.

Sacrifice.

Blood.

Seth.

Blood.

Blood.

Blood.

A knife appeared in the preacher's hand. It gleamed in the spotlight. A name was called and a figure pulled itself from the mass and stepped forward. Tom focused on the figure as the knife passed from hand to hand.

Peg.

She turned her head to look at him, tears streaming from her eyes. She looked over her shoulder and the gathered mass shouted its encouragement. Her eyes remained long on a single face. Tom followed her gaze and discovered Annie. Sweet Annie, standing on the pew at the front of the sanctuary, her voice joined with the chorus, chanting, calling for Tom's blood.

The world shifted and Tom closed his eyes to the swirl of faces. He opened them again to see Peg approaching with the knife clutched in her hand, borne on a wave of chanting voices. He saw Annie in the front pew, and beside her was Doc Milford, and on the other side, moving closer to fill the space left by Peg, was Jed Grimm.

Grimm smiled at him.

Grimm. Grimm had come to town...when?

Two years ago, give or take.

Two years.

"You," Tom said too softly to be heard, his eyes locked onto Grimm's.

Grimm winked.

Then Peg was standing in front of him, blocking his view. Her breath was on his face, her lips brushed his cheek.

"Mom," Tom said, "Don't." He looked deeply into her eyes and she into his, soul searching for soul.

The smallest of motions—Peg shook her head.

The knife glistened, flashed, and struck like a snake.

***

"For the common person, nothing is more terrifying than death."

Reverend Small spoke to a standing room only crowd in the sanctuary. His voice was translated over wires to loudspeakers outside the church where believers had gathered on the lawn. Peg, as guest of honor, sat in the front row of pews with Annie and Doc Milford.

"For those of us who have made the farthest journey," Small continued, "death is a viper without fangs. Death holds no terror for the children of Seth.

"For we have seen the terrible dark plain. We have heard the shuffle of the great beasts. We have endured the cries of the damned.

"And we have been delivered by the power and the blessing of Seth back into the world of light and warmth, back into the world of life!

"Seth is our savior! Praise his glory and his name! Hallelujah!"

"Hallelujah!" the congregation replied.

"Hal'lujah!" Annie cried. Peg started at the enthusiasm behind Annie's cry. Annie had always been such a wiggle-worm in church.

"What are we to do with this blessing? Is it ours to keep secret, to withhold from those unblessed and unknowing of Seth's love?

"No!" Small banged his fist on the pulpit. "No! It is not a treasure to be hoarded by the few! It is a treasure to be shared with all, for the more who share in Seth's blessing, the greater it becomes!"

There was a collective gasp. Peg's heart stopped in her chest as Tom was led out, supported on one side by Brant, on the other by the Ganger boy. He showed the marks of his beating, and he looked drugged.

"Behold, the infidel!" Small announced. He gestured toward Tom. "Behold one who would reject Seth's glory! One who would thwart the dominion of Seth! Behold one who would consign you to death everlasting!"

Peg wished she could seal her ears against the chorus of jeers that issued from the congregation. They leaped to their feet, booing and hissing, reaching for Tom. They don't know I'm not one of them! Peg thought. A reptilian hiss sounded in her ear, and she realized that it was Annie. The voice and the empty eyes were parts of the same dark creature. Peg was less sure, studying the fresh, hissing face, that this creature was her daughter.

Peg closed her eyes. The heat, the sweat, the lack of oxygen made everything seem so unreal.

Of course the creature was Annie. It was the flesh of her flesh. It was....

When did she stop thinking of Annie as "she," and start thinking of her as "it?"

Peg opened her eyes to find Tom gone. No, there he was, floating over the congregation like a supine Christ. Reverend Small was preaching about blood. The blood of the lamb. The weakness of flesh. The need for sacrifice. He read from the Bible. Ezekiel.

"'I will drench the land even to the mountains with your flowing blood!'" he proclaimed. He seized the Bible in one hand and waved it aloft. "So spake God to Pharaoh! But Seth is not a vengeful God! His bloodletting is not an act of retribution, but an act of love! To spill the blood of the infidel is to embrace him! It is to open our hearts to him and say to him, 'Welcome, brother! Through your blood shall you know Seth and taste his glory and his greatness!'

"Open wide the mortal vein! Rend the impermanent flesh! Let flow the blood that numbers our days and condemns our souls to the eternal void! Cast out the life that fails and admit life everlasting through the blessing of Seth!"

The words struck Peg like stones. She knew what was required of her, and she did have faith in Seth. Tom would be restored as all the others had been. She was surrounded by the proof of Seth's power. Reverend Small's speech had her heart pounding, but had it given her the strength she needed to carry out his will?

The millipede hands of the congregation transported Tom in her direction. She watched him approach, arms spread, head drooping, his eyes black with delirium. He didn't know what was going on, he couldn't or he would have fought it. Tom would never go gently. Seth could convert the entire town but Tom would resist to his last breath if he thought Seth was wrong. Peg herself had taught him that a hundred people doing something wrong didn't make it right.

But Seth was right. Annie was the living proof.

Peg rose as Tom approached. She stretched out her hands to support him. His eyes did not meet hers, and she wondered if he would recognize her touch. Of course not, not in a mass like this. It was pure romanticism to think otherwise.

Brant and the Ganger boy stepped forward to receive Tom. They stood him on his feet and held him there. Peg started as hands wrapped around her neck, but it was only Annie, beaming, her mouth stretched into a wide grin. She gave Peg a hug.

Peg turned and buried her face in Annie's hair. She'd always loved the way Annie smelled, even when she'd been playing hard. It was an intimate scent, a blood scent that united mother and daughter on the most primitive level. Peg drew on that scent now to give her strength.

But the scent was wrong. It was cool and distant, and sterile somehow, not antiseptic like the hospital, but lifeless the way Peg imagined the North Pole must smell, or the peak of Mt. Everest or the sands of Mars.

Peg drew back and Annie asked her what was wrong. Peg forced a smile and said, "Nothing, sweetie." She heard Reverend Small mention her name but she couldn't take her eyes off Annie's face, that perfect little-girl face, suddenly grown-up solemn and concerned. Annie looked over Peg's shoulder, toward the pulpit, and her eyes widened with delight.

"Look, Mommy!" Annie exclaimed, pointing. Peg turned around and lifted her eyes to see Reverend Small holding a long, thin knife, the blade ceremonially curved, inscribed with symbols Peg could not decipher.

She had not been listening to the words, but she knew what was expected. Doc Milford nudged her, and the voices of the congregation lifted her to her feet and moved her toward the pulpit. She glanced at Tom. He seemed to be struggling to comprehend what was going on. The knife caught a beam of light and reflected it onto his face. He winced but did not look away. He focused on the knife and the curved blade and the hands that offered and received it. Then his eyes met Peg's and Peg felt the tears pouring out and streaming down her cheeks.

She gripped the knife hard. She looked over her shoulder at the congregation, then to Annie. Dear Annie. Angel. She stood on the pew between the doctor and the mortician, chanting along with the crowd a single word that, through repetition, had become a thought-paralyzing mantra.

"Blood, blood, blood...."

Peg stepped toward Tom, sustained and propelled by the chanting. Tom's eyes were closed as she approached, for which blessing she was thankful. They opened lazily as she drew near, but their gaze washed over her like a searchlight on an empty yard. When they stopped, Peg knew he was looking at Annie. She wondered what he saw—his little sister, or the thing she had become? Tom opened his mouth to speak. His lips formed a word that emerged almost soundlessly.

"You," he said, but not to Peg. To the person behind her shoulder. To Annie?

Peg planted her feet directly before Tom and leaned close and kissed him on the cheek. She fastened her eyes on his, waiting for the moment of contact, resolving on the spot that there must be connection. She would not insulate herself from his shock or his pain or his terror. She would spare herself nothing.

She tried to tell herself that it would be fine once he came back, but then she thought of Annie. Her newborn doubts crept in and nibbled at her resolve. Annie was changed, she was, there was no denying it. Tom would be changed, too.

The moment came and Tom's eyes locked with Peg's. She gripped the knife harder and let the crowd's voice flow into her arm for strength. She pressed the knife against Tom's skin, aimed the point at his heart.

"Mom, don't," he whispered. The words shattered Peg's determination. Cracked and weakened by doubt, it flew into a thousand pieces. She shook her head.

No.

No, she wouldn't.

Fuck Seth.

The knife flashed and bit deeply into the Ganger boy's side. The boy cried out and let go of Tom and staggered toward the pulpit. Peg felt the knife slip from her fingers but she did not hear it hit the floor. A man screamed and she saw that it was Brant and he was bleeding and Tom held onto the knife that dripped blood. Then Tom knocked her aside and she fell to the floor. When she looked up, she saw Tom sinking under an onslaught of bodies, the center of a whirlpool of screaming faces and pummeling fists.

Then the horror began.

***

The instant that Galen's grip on his arm relaxed, Tom saw as if in a vision what he needed to do.

He caught the knife as it fell from Peg's hand and twisted sharply, muscling into Brant. Brant's half-nelson hold on Tom's arm tightened but Tom reached around with the knife and cut a gash into Brant's forearm. Brant yelled and Tom squirmed free. He shoved Peg aside and dove into the pews, squarely at the disbelieving face of Jed Grimm.