The red church (17 page)

"Let us begin," echoed twenty voices.

"Let us begin," Ronnie whispered.

"Why are you saying that?" Tim said, still crouched behind the Trooper.

"Didn't you hear?"

"Hear
what?"

"The Second Son."

"What about it?"

Tim wouldn't understand. All he cared about was cartoons and comic books and miniature action fig-ures and sweets. Preacher Staymore hadn't made Tim get saved yet. Tim didn't know the warm feeling of something moving into your heart. And this warmth—spreading from this preacher's voice straight into Ronnie's blood—was better than any-thing Ronnie had ever known. This time he was saved for real. Ronnie felt light, as if made of cotton candy. Even his broken nose, which had been throbbing with every beat of his heart, was forgotten in the rush of purest love. And love was what was between the preacher's words, love was what filled the wooden cavity of the church, love was what emanated like a welcoming fog from the red church and crept out across the hills of Whispering Pines. Love was more numbing than the pain pills.

"Let's go in," Ronnie said.

"Are you crazy?"

"It needs us." Ronnie started around the front of the Trooper. Tim grabbed his shirt from behind and pulled him backward. They fell on the ground, and Tim's flailing hand struck Ronnie's nose. Pain flashed behind Ronnie's eyes in streaks of bright pur-ple and electric lime green. He yelped in agony.

"You dork." He grunted at Tim between clenched teeth. He pushed Tim away and rolled to his knees. He put a hand to his nose and felt something warm and wet.

The people inside the church had started singing again, but Ronnie scarcely heard it. He shivered and realized the night was chilly. The warmth of love had left him, as if he'd been asleep and someone had yanked the winter quilts off his body. An empty ache filled his chest. Something had been taken, and he couldn't remember what it was.

"You ain't going in there," Tim said, his eyes wide behind his glasses. The moon gave Tim's eyes a feral, eager quality.

"Now why in the heck would I want to go in there?"

"You just had a funny look in your eye."

"Shh.
Listen."

The singing stopped. A silence settled over the mountains. The wind waited in the tops of the trees. Not an insect stirred. Even the river seemed to pause in its twisting bed.

Then, a soft sound.

A scratching, fluttering sound.

Not inside the church.

Above.

In the steeple.

A shadow moved, a lesser gray against the church bell.

"Holy crud." Tim gasped.

Ronnie swallowed hard, and some of the blood from his nosebleed snaked down his throat.
It smells the blood. The thing with wings and claws and livers for eyes
. . .

"Run!" he shouted at Tim, but his little brother was already a step ahead of him. They dashed be-tween the cars and hit the gravel road, rocks flying as they scampered away from the red church. They were exposed, vulnerable in the open, but Ronnie didn't dare head into the forest. The pounding in Ronnie's ears almost sounded like laughter, but he didn't stop to listen.

Instead he ran into the night, hunching his shoul-ders against the monster that swept down from the blackness.

ELEVEN

Ronnie ducked low, sensing the cold shadow sweeping down over him and blocking out the moon. Ahead, Tim stumbled in the gravel and veered to-ward the ditch that ran along the edge of the road. Tim looked back at his older brother, his mouth a round well of fear. Ronnie saw a fluttering shape re-flected in Tim's glasses.

Then Tim hurdled the ditch and headed into the trees.

No, no, no, not the forest,
Ronnie silently screamed.

But Tim was already out of sight, lost amid thrash-ing branches. Ronnie followed, sizing up the dark gaps between the trees, each like a door to nowhere. Something brushed his shoulder, and he bit back a shout. His body was electrified, sweat thick around his ankles and armpits and trickling down the ladder of his spine.

The monster is going to get me.

Ronnie thought of Boonie Houck, eyeless and mu-tilated and groping for a handhold to drag himself back to the ordinary, sane world.

Going to get me get me get me.

He held his breath and jumped the black ditch. A pine branch whacked him across the face, and he yelped in pain, then fell to his knees. Blood was flow-ing steadily from his nose. It made a warm rope down his chin.

Tree limbs snapped above and behind him in the dark.

The trees had arms, would hug him and hold him. The trees were part of the nightmare. He scrambled to his feet, throwing damp leaves and dirt as he regained his balance. He ran ten steps, twenty steps, blind, his arm raised over his face to fend off the branches. His heart spasmed like a trapped animal in his chest.

Ronnie didn't know where the road was, and couldn't hear Tim above the noise of his own passing. He dodged between the trees, unaware of his feet.

Run, dingle-dork.

Maybe if the Bell Monster follows me, you can get away. If the thing's not too hungry, maybe one boy will
be enough for it.

Shards of moonlight cut into the forest canopy in places, creating a mad strobe as he ran from darkness to light, darkness to light. Then all was dark as he moved under the thicker canopy of old oak and hick-ory, and the branches were higher, no longer beating at his sides.

He was going downhill now, skidding in the mud. He stepped on a flat rock and fell on his rear, sliding and then rolling back to his feet.

A damp chill overlaid his sweat, and he knew he was near the river. Though his nose was blocked, he carried the river's fishy and muddy smell in his mem-ory. The rushing water roared faintly in his ears.
Follow me, but not
too
close,
Ronnie silently willed the Bell Monster. The trees opened and he reached the river. Moon-light glinted off the black water. The froth of waterfalls sparkled like ten million eyes. The air was colder here, fresh and heavy in Ronnie's gasping lungs. The earth vibrated under his feet as he dodged among the gray rocks along the riverbank. He huddled in a gap between two boulders, peer-ing back up the slope. The tops of the trees moved, all big black creatures, live things, hostile and bris-tling and in league with the Bell Monster. Ronnie didn't know how long he had been run-ning, but it felt like years. He breathed with his mouth open, his throat sore. His nose had stopped bleeding. He wiped his chin with his hand.
If the thing smells blood . . .

Ronnie crawled along the rocks until he reached the water. He stuck his hand in the current and a frigid shock ran up his arm. But he cupped his palm and brought the water to his face, wiping, then re-peating the process until he thought his face was clean.

The front of his jacket was wet. He drew himself into a ball and waited for the Bell Monster to find him. Waited.

Waited.

The river roared on, sweeping down below him past the red church and under the bridge into the valley. A few thin clouds drifted across the sky, made sil-ver-gray by the moonlight.
Did Tim make it? Or did the Bell Monster lose track of me and go after him?

Ronnie suddenly felt ashamed, remembering how he ran away when they'd found Boonie Houck. He'd left Tim behind to face the red, raw horror alone. And now he was abandoning him again. Big brothers were supposed to take care of little brothers. Even if little brothers were dorks. Dad was gone, and Mom was at that weird meeting in the red church. Tim had nobody to help him. Except Ronnie.

"Danged rocks are getting cold anyway," he whis-pered to himself. He stood on trembling legs, his bones aching and stiff. The trees around him were still, their leaves wet and heavy. He eased his way from behind the boulders, his back to the river. If he went upstream he would even-tually come to Buckhorn Mountain, where a series of creeks ran together. If he went downstream he'd reach the bridge near the red church. If he went back into the woods, he would have to climb a hill to see where he was.

The river wasn't too deep to cross, only waist-high in most places, but he was already nearly frozen. Be-sides, Tim wouldn't dare cross the river. Tim had fallen into it once, and had been scared of deep water ever since.

Ronnie hunched low and headed back the way he thought he had come. His nose was not hurting much but, like the river, pulsed steadily under the bandages. He moved quietly through the trees, the way he did when he was playing Indian scout. He kept his palms up to push the branches from his face. Once away from the river, he found an old hunting trail. A little moonlight splashed along the clearing, and he paused to listen for Tim. The Bell Monster probably hadn't found Tim yet, or screams would be shattering the night silence.

Ronnie gulped at that thought. What if the thing had gotten Tim while Ronnie was cowering by the water? What if the Bell Monster had come aknocking on Tim's rib cage? What if the thing with wings and claws and livers for eyes was even now scooping out Tim's guts and having a late-night snack?

No. Think happy thoughts.

When you have one of those waking nightmares, when you think bad things in the dark and can't
go to sleep, you think happy thoughts. Cartoon dogs, fat clowns, things like that. Except sometimes
the cartoon dogs bite and the fat clowns grow sharp smiles.

Happy thoughts.

Ronnie kept walking, using those words as a man-tra, falling into their rhythm.
Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts. . . .
He tried to picture those stupid yellow smiley faces, but the faces kept turning into Preacher Stay-more from Sunday School, lips pursed and asking,
Can you hear Him aknocking?

Ronnie staggered on, tripping over roots and stones, mentally clinging to his happy-thoughts man-tra. He was nearly on his hundredth repetition when he first heard the twigs snapping. He froze.

Whatever had been following him rustled some low bushes to his left.

A whisper of wings.

A soft clicking, like that of claws meeting in antici-pation.

A wet flutter, like that made by liverish eyes open-ing and closing.

Ronnie's limbs turned wooden, his feet grew roots, he was part of the dark soil he would die on. As the bushes exploded with movement, Ronnie's last thought was that maybe Tim got away. And then the monster had him, in a fury of tooth and wing and razor hatred.

The monster had smelled his blood in the dark.

The monster embraced him, eager and sharp-fingered.

The monster—

Ronnie kicked and screamed, flailing his elbows. He pressed his eyes closed, not wanting to watch the thing open his insides and pull out his dripping wet heart.

Ronnie balled his fists.

The creature growled in his ear.

"Ronnie, it's
me."

Dad?

Yes, it was. Ronnie imagined Dad's smell, all after-shave and sawdust and boot leather. He relaxed in his dad's strong arms, finally open-ing his eyes. Dad's face was pale in the weak wash of moonlight.

"The . . . the thing," Ronnie said, fighting back tears.

"Shh," Dad said. "It's okay now. Nothing's going to get you." Ronnie shivered against his Dad, burrowing close for warmth. Ronnie was relieved to note that Dad had a gun with him. He suddenly pushed away. "Tim. Where's Tim?"

"Right here." Tim came out from the shadow of the trees.

"Did you see it?"

Tim's glasses flashed as he nodded.

"What
is
it, Dad?" Ronnie asked.

"I'll tell you later. Right now, let's get to the house." Dad put an arm around each boy and led them up the hill.

"Is Mom going to be okay?"

"I hope so, son. I hope so."

They walked past midnight and into safety.

* * *

Midnight.

Linda was lifted by invisible loving arms. The sing-ing, the sermon, the pure love of her fellow worship-ers, all flowed through her like the charged juice of her blood. Every cell of her body glowed in the warmth of Archer's glory. Her mouth was flooded with the sweetness of the communion they had taken. She felt as if she had returned from a long sleep. But it
had
been a long sleep, years and years and years of religious tyranny, licking at the pierced feet of David's foolish Jesus. But now Archer was back, and everything would be the way it was before.

She would belong again.

She looked to her right, to the owner of the hand she was holding. Sheriff Littlefield. Of course. The Littlefields were one of the old families. They, like the Greggs, Mathesons, Potters, and others, had at-tended the church back in Wendell McFall's day. Now the families were reuniting, answering a call that was deeper than flesh and blood.

Archer McFall leaned over the lectern, spent from his rampaging sermon. His eyelids fluttered and the muscles in his shoulders twitched. He lifted his head and smiled. The sweat on his face glistened in the candlelight. He reached out with a trembling hand and caressed the broken wooden cross that jutted from the top of the lectern.

"He has found us worthy," Archer said, in a drained voice that had none of its earlier thunder.

"Amen," echoed the parishioners.