Forever Never Ends (32 page)

No wonder, Oh Lodge Brother. Whose side do you think they're on, anyway
?

You're too xenophobic, Mr. Chairman. Maybe that's why you won't let anyone else join the Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts.

Two hands, two balls. A balanced arrangement
.

And what if I defect to that other club?

Which club would that be, Oh Brother
?

Greenpeace's evil twin. The Royal Order of Shu-shaaa. The Earth Mouth. The God seed.

You haven't got the nerve. You wouldn't be here now if you weren't even more afraid of showing your true color. Yellow
.

I object, Mr. Chairman.

Why do you think you were driven to make piles of money? Why you dodged Vietnam but didn’t give a damn about the peace movement? Why your marriage didn’t work because you could never give enough of yourself? Why you had it all but never enough? Why you always had to start over
?

No fair. You're hitting below the belt.

It's your FEAR, Brother. Oh, not of death. A fear of being ridiculed. Of being found out. A fear of having lived. A fear of being caught giving a damn
.

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

This meeting of the Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts is now adjourned
.

DeWalt looked at the shadowy forms of Chester and Emerland twenty feet ahead. He hoped Chester knew where they were going, because DeWalt was as lost as a preacher at a strip joint. Woodsmanship and sense of direction couldn't be ordered out of an LL Bean catalog. And other things also had no price.

His shoulder ached from the sack of fungicide he carried. The dust of its pungent poison wafted from beneath the tucked paper flaps. He had given the shotgun back to Chester, glad to be free of its power. But the dynamite bulged in his pockets, as heavy as the weight of responsibility. The detonator switch and blasting cap were in his vest pockets.

He hoped he would be able to rig the cap. Chester would never let him hear the end of it if he failed. If he remembered correctly, the detonator sent an electrical charge to the cap, and the heat caused a chain reaction in the cap that set off the rest of the TNT.

But how do you expect to remember that, Oh Lodge Brother? Do you trust your memories after your long fling with free love and sex and every sort of mythical motherlode mindmuck known to the human race? Do you trust the ravings of those kitchen-sink radicals you used to swap bedbugs with?

Those were decent people, Chairman.

Quoting chapter and verse from
The Anarchist Cookbook
?

Well . . . times were different then.

Yes. You hadn't developed your itch yet. Whatever happened to promoting change within the system
?

Viva la revolucion
, comrade. Times were different then, but times are different
now
, too.

You're out of order, Brother
.

Yeah, and for everything, there is a season. You know, what the hippies sang, back when we thought the world was worth changing, let alone saving. We couldn’t even change our own damned minds.

He heard Tamara behind him. The can she was carrying sloshed as she changed hands again. The handle had to be biting into her palm, and her arms were probably numb by now. But she was faring better than the rest of them, urging them up the trail.

The moon had started its descent in the sky. Dawn was only a few hours away. Hadn't Tamara said something about the zombiemaker Earth Mouth thing getting stronger under the sun?

***

Yes, I did
, Tamara thought.

Wait a second.

What did DeWalt say
?

He didn't say anything. You heard him. In your head. Turn, turn, turn.

Nonsense. Clairvoyance is one thing. Telepathy is quite another.

And maybe you're getting delirious from fatigue and hunger and lack of sleep. And maybe, maybe, maybe you can chase arguments around your head like a dog chasing its tail until your brain collapses into a useless heap.

But LISTEN.

And she shut the flap of her own clamoring inner voice, closed up shop and concentrated. She heard DeWalt thinking something about lodge brothers and how the moon looked like a bad rind of cheese and how that reminded him of when he and his friends used to camp in the backyard up in Oregon and how he wished he were a child again so he could live his life all over—

Then she was out of him, her mind swimming with those extra thoughts.

She stopped walking and set the can of Roundup on the damp leaves.

"You okay, Tamara?" DeWalt asked from under the shadows ahead.

"Fine," she replied, thinking she would never be fine again. "Just resting for a sec. Be right along."

"Chester and Emerland are taking a breather, too. Chester says we're nearly there."

That made Tamara curious. Could she?

She opened her mind and sent her new telepathic ears tenderly into the night, swiveled her psychic antenna.

And she touched Chester's mind briefly, shared his thought that he was sure going to miss old Don Oscar's moonshine, but he was going to enjoy it while it lasted. She absorbed his bright fear, felt the raw spot where the overall strap’s buckle dug into his shoulder, tasted the sting of corn liquor, and smelled sweat-stained long johns. Then she pulled back.

She was either reading minds or else she'd finally shattered into a thousand schizophrenic splinters. It had to be
shu-shaaa
, the pulsing alien that had brought her Gloomies back from their hibernation. The creature had amplified her sensitivity, maybe from an overload of its own hot cosmic power spilling over, maybe from some undiscovered wavelength that operated beyond the scope of human understanding, maybe a final boon granted by an omnipotent conqueror to the ants it was about to crush. Who could know such things?

A stray thread of thought spiraled up from her crowded subconsciousness, in Chester's thin brain-voice, a sound byte that had probably slipped in randomly during the telepathic exchange.

"Curiosity killed the cat and never did no good for the mouse, neither."

Maybe it was best not to understand. All Tamara knew was that her head was full, brimming with not only her own fears and worries, not only the
shu-shaaa
blaring its presence in a bright invisible beacon, not only the Gloomies making a comeback that would rival that of John Travolta's, but now she had other brains to wonder and worry and ache over.

She picked up the five-gallon can and carried it into a small clearing where the others were talking and resting. She instinctively shut off her third ear and listened to their words instead of their brainwaves. She didn't know if she could handle all of their thoughts at once.

She didn't want to try.

***

"Oh, my God.
Daddy!
"

Nettie heard Sarah screaming from the open door, at the same moment that the porch lights exploded into brightness, at the same moment she felt the slick arms and leafy hands tearing her away from Bill.

The Painters loomed near Nettie, throwing their shadows over her face. Sandy Henning, the church organist, had joined them, and her nimble fingers flexed like turgid vine roots. Nettie looked past them at Bill and saw him fighting off the thing that Preacher Blevins had become. Bill’s big fist disappeared into Amanda's leering maw. The preacher's mouth was inches from Bill's, but Bill thrust a forearm up and blocked the assault.

The preacher turned toward his own screaming daughter and his impossible smile got larger and more putrid, foul swamp sludge dribbling from his melon pink gums. Then Nettie's attention was ripped in half by an orange flare of pain shooting through her leg. One of the creatures had clamped its viscous jaws on her ankle, sucking at her sweat and salt and skin cells.

Then Ann Painter’s face covered her own and she tasted the hellfire heart of carbon and the tangy artichoke air and the deep secret undergrowth of cellulose and the acid of aspen and ash as the tannic vaults and crypts of life's mysteries unlocked themselves and she was and she was and she was pulled free again and found herself in Bill's arms and he pushed her into the parsonage and pulled the flash-frozen Sarah by her pajama sleeve out of the reach of her own scabrous father.

Bill kicked the door closed and the arm of one of the demons caught against the jamb with a thick, glutinous sound. Bill dropped Nettie onto the carpet and she watched with distant eyes as he slammed his shoulder against the door and the arm split like a rotted weed stalk. It bounced off the welcome mat and rolled to a rest beside Nettie. She looked at its dark purple veins still pumping dews, the forefinger still undulating, beckoning, urging her to follow.

She was pollen. She floated on its breeze. Toward forever.

***

Armfield was lost in his ecstasy, drunk on the holiest of waters. All his life had been a fruitless search, small rituals and sacraments and blessings bestowed. All his life he had walked in darkness, tossing prayers to an invisible and unfelt God.

All his life his soul had been a battleground for the stern Jesus and the understanding and encouraging Satan. And now the human soul had slipped away, danced free of dust and stigmata and beast-numbers and psalms.

Now, beyond life, he had found his true life's work. The true salvation and mercy and light. The one true master that demanded and deserved an eternal servitude. The kingdom and power and glory of
shu-shaaa
, forever and ever, amen.

But still there was an ache, an empty human ache that he knew was part of that old and pitiful fleshly life. An unfulfilled knot in his Jack-in-the-Pulpit chest, a hunger in his brimming mouth and hands, a nutrient throbbing in his gelatin organs. The family must be united, the circle must be unbroken.

"Sha-raaa," he sprayed to the deep night.

His wife was at his side, her mascara sliding from her face along with the congealing strips of her skin. She raised the stump of her left arm to the heavens, spilling her milky effluence onto the red tiles of the porch.

All in praise to
shu-shaaa
. Armfield had never felt so connected, so close to his congregation as he now did. They shared the same vision and mind and crusade. They were truly one in the eyes of their newfound god.

And, like any god, this one demanded converts.

They launched their soggy meat against the door.

***

"Nettie, are you okay?"

Bill gingerly sat her up and leaned her against the sofa. She didn't look hurt, except for her ankle, and she was smiling, a small, pink, dreamy smile.

Her eyes were pressed into tiny crescents and her eyelashes twitched like monarchs on sprigs of white clover. He had seen that monster blowing its rancid wind into her throat. Bill swallowed and prayed harder than he had in his entire life.

Oh, please, Lord, let her be all right. Because I need her more than anything on Your earth. And I don't know what plague You've loosed upon the world, but please spare Nettie from it. You can take me, I know I'm not the best catch there is, but I promise to serve to the best of my ability, I know I sing off-key but practice might make perfect if I have forever to work into the choir.

I know she'll make a heck of an angel, but please just let me have her for one lifetime, and I swear we'll serve you for a thousand times a thousand.

I know You are merciful, I've felt Your goodness in my heart ever since I asked You in, ever since You gave me the hope and strength and wisdom. But please tell me that You're listening. Please give me a sign.

There was a crash of glass at the front of the house and the door groaned on its hinges, the thick wood panels warped from the stress of weight.

Bill looked up from Nettie's blank face to the frightened mask of Sarah. She trembled in her pajamas, her arms wrapped around her chest, her eyes bulging with the memory of impossible sights.

"Sarah,” he said.

She stared deeper, farther.

"Sarah!"

He stood and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her until her eyes met his. "Come on, you've got to help me. We've got to get Nettie to a doctor."

"D—doctor?" Her lower lip quivered. She shook her head, denying her senses.

"Something's happened. Something's wrong with the people."

"M-mom and Dad?"

"I'm sorry, Sarah. I wish I knew what was going on. But I don't. I only know that they've changed somehow."

Sarah bit her thumbnail, the rims of her eyes red from fear and shock. The door splintered and she glanced over at it.

"We don't have much time,” Bill said. “You call the police, I don't know what to tell them, just get them out here. Then we're going to have to make a run for it. If we can reach my truck, we'll be okay. We can’t stay here much longer."

Sarah nodded, suddenly grim and determined, as if awakening in a hospital bed and realizing she'd have to fight for her life. She padded barefoot across the carpet as the pounding on the door grew louder.

Bill laid his hand on her arm. "We can pray for their souls. That's all we can do. The rest is up to the Lord."

She looked at him coldly. "What kind of Lord would do something like this?"

He had no answer. Sarah went down the hall and took the telephone off the wall.

Bill looked out the window. More black shapes emerged from the forest, as if the trees themselves had come to life. He knelt to Nettie and lifted her again. She seemed lighter somehow, as if a vital part of her was missing.

She was still smiling.

CHAPTER TWENTY

"We're about in its territory," Chester said, scratching idly in the dirt with a stick. "See how the woods is getting weirder? Them roots running through yonder like sick snakes?"

He didn't like the way the trees looked, dark skeletons with sharp dead arms. Small animals, either alive or else dead and green eyed, chittered among the crisp foliage. The spring leaves shimmered in the moonlight, starchy and shiny and curling like needy claws. And if he held his head just
so,
he could hear the faint, raw wind that blew from the Earth Mouth.