F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 (48 page)

“You lied to me,
Vanduyne,” was all he said before he pulled the trigger.

But nothing happened. Through a
haze of agony John saw Snake’s index finger pulling the trigger over and
over, heard the hammer falling, but no shots. He kicked at Snake’s legs
and knocked him off balance, but only for an instant. Snake leaped forward and
smashed the useless pistol against John’s head. As John fought to remain
conscious, Snake straddled him and wrapped his fingers around John’s throat.

“I’ve wanted to do this
since I first saw you,” Snake whispered as his thumbs pressed on
John’s trachea. “You and Poppy. Because of you two…”

John flailed at him with his left
hand but the room was spinning and his vision was blurred and he had no
strength and he needed air, oh God he needed air.

And just as his vision was fading
he saw a shadow behind Snake, saw something moving, and then an amber liquid
halo suddenly bloomed around Snake’s head. The fingers around
John’s throat loosened as Snake stiffened and his one eye went wide, so
wide, and his jaw dropped open and he sagged to his left and dropped from John’s
view.

Taking his place was a young woman
with very short, very black hair, a chalk-white face, blood-caked cyanotic
lips, and the remains of Lester’s ceramic jug dangling from her fingers.
The rest of the jug lay in pieces on Snake’s inert form. She teetered
left and right like a drunk, then dropped to her knees and stared at him. Her
mouth moved but no words came.

Dimly, John heard Lester’s
voice in the background.

“You got’im, Poppy! You
got’im good!”

Poppy wanted to ask about Katie but
she didn’t have any more air. She felt like she was drowning, like her
chest was going to explode, and her legs wouldn’t hold her up. Her vision
had narrowed to a tunnel through a black fog, and to her left, at the end of
the tunnel, she saw Katie. She tried to move toward her but fell flat on her
belly. As she crawled her way, the black fog increased, pushing in, narrowing
the tunnel. She reached out. She needed to touch her… one more
time… just once more before the black fog took everything…

After Poppy toppled forward, John
struggled to sit up. He gasped in agony and his vision filled with bright
spheres. He was pushing up with his left arm, but each increment of movement
jostled the bone fragments in his right shoulder and it was like being shot again.

Finally when he was upright,
cradling his right arm with his left, he saw the woman Lester had called Poppy
crawling toward Katie, reaching for her.

“Aw, Poppy,” he heard
Lester say. “What he do to you? What he do to your back?” And then
John saw the bloodred bubbles clustered at the hole in her back, moving up and
down with her increasingly shallow breaths.

Dear God… a sucking chest
wound. Where had she been? How on earth had she managed to get here with that?
The room swam about him as John struggled toward her on his knees.

Poppy… she’d saved his
life just now, and saved Katie’s many times, and now… what was she
doing now?

John was close enough to see
Poppy’s glazed eyes, fixed straight ahead on Katie as she reached for
her.

She knows she’s dying, he
thought. And there was nothing he could do for her—not here, not in this
place, even with two good arms. Nothing.

No—maybe there was.

He swiveled and ignored the
screaming burst of agony as he let go of his right arm and reached for
Katie’s hand with his left. He got hold of her fingers and pulled them
toward Poppy’s outstretched hand, then curled Poppy’s fingers
around Katie’s. He watched Poppy’s face and thought he saw her
smile as the light faded from her eyes and the bubbles around the hole in her
back broke and no new ones took their place…

Though John had never met her, had
only spoken to her three times, he was almost overwhelmed by a terrible sense
of loss, as if a rough gem had been swallowed by the earth.

And then he felt himself fading. The
pain, the blood loss… he knew his blood pressure was heading for the
cellar. He inched back and… the room began to fade…to blur…
he wasn’t sure but he thought he saw a huge man come in and drop to
Poppy’s side… thought he heard Lester speak to him, call him Levon
and tell him to do something… thought he saw the big man grab Snake by
his feet and drag him outside.

And then everything faded to gray.

He awakened to find the tiny room
filled with people and babbling voices. He became vaguely aware of Gerry Canney
asking him about Snake, what had happened here, where he’d gone…

“Go?” He started to say
something about Snake not “going” anywhere, but caught Lester
giving him a sharp look from across the room.

“Like I told you, Mr.
Government Man,” Lester said, “he came to and stumbled back outta
here!”

John didn’t get it but knew
from Lester’s glare that he should go along, so he mumbled something
barely coherent about not knowing anything about Snake’s whereabouts.

“I want him!” Luke
Mulliner said, kneeling teary eyed over Poppy’s sheet-draped body.
“I want to find him first!”

“You’ll find
him,” Lester said softly. “You may not be first, but don’t
you worry, Luke. You’ll find him.”

As Agent Geary fitted a makeshift
sling around John’s right shoulder, Bob Decker stepped up, cradling a
blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms. He knelt and showed him Katie’s face;
her eyes were open but she looked dazed.

“Katie!” God, how he
wanted to hold her, but his right arm was useless and he barely had the
strength to lift his left. “Katie, you’re safe now.” She only
nodded vaguely. She was still shocky. Would she ever get over this?

And then he was being helped to his
feet. Canney draped John’s left arm over his shoulders and grabbed him
around the waist.

“Agent Canney,” John
said. “And I thought you didn’t like me.”

Canney’s grin was tight.
“You’re a royal pain in the ass. Doc, and I’m just moving you
out of here—as fast as I can. I figure now that you’ve got Katie
back, you won’t be getting in my way anymore.”

“You figure that right.”
He hobbled outside on Canney’s shoulder and looked at the sky. The storm
had moved on. The rain had stopped and the sky was lighter now, hinting that
the setting sun might peek through before it dipped below the horizon.

And then he looked around and saw
them. The Appletons—the too short and the too tall, the straight and the
crooked, the too pale and the mottled, the smooth and the lumpy—they
stood about the clearing in front of their house, staring at the strangers
who’d invaded their domain. A silent, eerie sendoff.

“Christ, this is a
weird-looking bunch,” Canney whispered. “Gives me the
creeps.”

“Recessive traits,”
John said.

“What?”

“Inbreeding. Brings all sorts
of faulty genes out of the closet.”

We make a pretty odd sight
ourselves, John thought as he looked around at their little procession. Matt
Mulliner led the way down the slope, followed by Luke carrying Poppy’s
sheet-wrapped body, then Geary, and Decker with Katie. Over his shoulder John
saw Levon carrying Lester as easily as Decker was carrying Katie.

“As soon as we get you three
to a hospital,” Canney said, “we’re coming back full force
for Snake. We don’t have to worry about keeping a low profile
anymore.”

“If you’re
talkin‘ ’bout that fella with the eyepatch,” Lester said from
behind, “I doubt that’ll be necessary.”

“We’re sure as hell not
going to forget about him.”

“Don’t mean you should.
I’m just saying the pines has a way of takin‘ care of his
sort.”

John glanced back at Lester and caught
the old man’s wink. What was he up to?

He got his answer a few minutes
later when they reached the clearing and found Snake facedown in a puddle.
Geary ran up to him, gun drawn, but it was obvious he was long dead.

“Must’ve tripped and
fell,” Lester said.

Geary and Matt Mulliner had a hard
time lifting the body because Snake’s face was sunk so deep in the muck
at the bottom of the puddle. Finally it came free with a sucking pop.

“He must have ‘tripped
and fell’ pretty damn hard,” Canney said, giving Lester a hard
look.

John wondered if Canney had noticed
Levon’s muddy hands, or the churned-up mud around Snake’s hands and
feet, as if he’d been kicking and clawing…

But Lester was unruffled.
“Like I said, the pines has a way of takin‘ care of his
sort.” And suddenly John realized that Snake’s death closed the
circle.

It’s over, he thought, and
with that he felt himself fading again. He had to lean on Canney a little more
heavily until they got him into the back seat of the Roadmaster. He was already
riding the ragged edge of unconsciousness and the grinding pain of the transfer
all but pushed him over, but he hung on because Decker was slipping Katie in
next to him. John wrapped his good arm around her and snuggled her close.

At last, at last, at last, she was
safe and back where she belonged. He kissed her cool forehead and felt as if he
were going to explode with gratitude. Decker, Canney, the Mulliners, even the
Appletons, but most of all…

He watched Luke seat himself on the
passenger side of the pick-up, still clutching Poppy’s sheet-wrapped
body. He didn’t seem to be able to let go of her.

Thank you, Poppy Mulliner, John
said in his mind, from his heart, from his soul. Wherever you are, thank you.

As Decker, Geary, and Matt lifted
Snake’s body, John heard the bearded brother tell them to toss it into
the back of the pickup— “with the rest of the trash.”

“Katie, Katie, Katie,”
John whispered, squeezing her tighter, barely able to hold back the tears,
“it’s so good to have you back again.” She looked up at him.
She seemed more alert now.

She gave him a little smile, then
closed her eyes again.

She whispered a single word.
“Poppy.” John wished she’d said Daddy, but he’d take
Poppy— he’d take anything. Just hearing her voice was enough.

The End