Forever Never Ends (35 page)

And he was supposed to be in bed. Confused, she opened the door. Her baby was hurt or sick . . . her son was . . . Reggie was home.

He fell into his mother's arms as the earth shook again.

***

Rocks and dirt clods showered down on the group and the boulders wiggled like loose teeth. Bits of soil and thick rot spewed from the Earth Mouth.

"Sonuvawhore!" Chester shouted, falling backward and dropping his shotgun. It clattered against stone and slid to the ground.

Chester rolled over onto his hands and knees and scrabbled to the edge of the granite face that shielded them from the Earth Mouth.

"Dee-double-damn you. We're going to blow you back to hell," Chester yelled, shaking his fist in the air. The tremor eased and Chester looked back to see DeWalt sweating over the dynamite. Tamara was watching DeWalt, too, but her eyes seemed focused beyond the paper-wrapped sticks.

"I wonder how stable that stuff is," Emerland said, grinning like a doped-up court jester. Chester figured Emerland was touched in the head, two pecks shy of a full bushel, nuttier than a Payday bar. Hell, they
all
were, every single goddamn thing in the ass-end-up universe.

"Don't know if we ought to wait around for the next little hiccup," Chester said.

Tamara finally spoke. "Gentlemen, I think it's time. Is the detonator ready, Herbert?"

DeWalt nodded. "As far as I can tell. May as well put the rest of the TNT into the thing. I just have to push this button. The explosion of this batch will set off the rest of it."

Tamara lifted the can of Roundup from where it had fallen on its side. She carried it to the ledge, removed the cap, and tilted the can, letting the thick concentrate glug down into the deep alien hole. The wormy tendrils inside the throat shriveled and writhed and the white roots along the stream bank began turning to jelly. Tamara tossed the empty can into the dark opening.

"Drink up, you old bastard," Chester said. He lifted the sack of Acrobat M-Z and tore the flap, ripping at the paper with his aching fingers. He tossed it over the side in a white dust storm, then emptied his pockets of the dynamite and rolled the sticks gently into the hole. Emerland followed suit with the Sevin after breaking the bag open against an edge of sharp stone.

"Attaway to go, Emerland." Chester slapped the developer on the back. Chester was starting to like him a little, now that both of them had dirty knees and money didn’t matter. He wondered if maybe they were all the same under the skin after all, that rich or poor or sinner or saint, they were all equal in the eyes of God when they faced a common enemy.

Naw,
he thought.
Don't reckon so
.

He chomped into his tobacco and rolled it around in his mouth to collect some juice, then spat into the Earth Mouth. He watched with satisfaction as powdery molds fell from the roof of the cave. He noticed for the first time that the light of dawn was now brighter than the neon radiance of the hole.

The ground shook again, frantically but with less force. Chester hoped that the poison was slowing it down, making it weaker. Tamara had said something about the alien becoming part of what it ate, and if it was part of the earth now, then a generous helping of earthly poison ought to put a twist in its innards.

"Do it. The sun,” he heard Tamara saying to DeWalt.

"Can't.”

Chester turned and saw the tears in DeWalt's eyes.

DeWalt pushed the button again. "Must be the battery. Dead."

They looked at each other. "Then so the fuck are we," Chester said.

The Earth Mouth rumbled as if in agreement.

***

"Ginger? Honey? What did you—" Robert stopped. Then he tried an experiment.

"No, Daddy, I don't want any chocolate milk. That's only for nice times, not now," Ginger said.

"Can you—?"

"Hear Mommy? Sometimes her words just come in my head. She thinks it’s sort of silly. But she's scared, too."

Anxiety ground Robert's guts between its molars. "Can you take me to Mommy?"

"No, she doesn't want me to. She wants us to stay here. Until they blow up the monster . . ."

"
They?
"

"Emerland and Chester and Herbert DeWalt. That's funny, DeWalt has a bleeding heart."

"Tell me about them."

She did.

***

Bill felt empty, aching from loneliness, as if his heart had been ripped out and replaced with straw. Yet he also burned with rage at the things that had killed Nettie. He turned away from the graveyard and looked at the patrolman.

Arnie swung his two-handed grip on the gun from side to side, tracking the slow, swarming movements among the trees and monuments. His eyes were wide with fear and shock. "Do I shoot them, or what? Where the hell is the chief when a body needs him?"

Bill figured they didn't teach this situation at the police academy. "It's no sin to kill what’s already dead," Bill said. “Or at least ought to be.”

"Are you drunk or something?"

"No. Was blind but now I see.”

Sandy Henning fell through the hedge ten feet away from them and looked up with her deep alien eyes. She ran the broadleaf of her tongue over her swollen lips. She sprayed something toward the sky, her sagging face quivering. Arnie pulled the trigger twice, and the thing that had been Sandy Henning exploded into a slick pool of miasma.

"They're juicy," Bill said. "Miracles never stop ceasing. Behold. He turns the water into wine."

"Bill?"

Bill looked at the stars and the fading moon, trying to see the face of his cruel God.

"Bill?" Arnie asked again, and Bill could actually hear the patrolman gulp.

"Yes, Arnie?" Bill smiled. His smile scared himself almost as much as it did Arnie.

"Got a shotgun in the car, if you're up to helping."

Bill followed Arnie to the cruiser, its lights oscillating against his face in a steady panic. Arnie tossed Bill the shotgun, a short-barrel pump-action. Then he reached under the dash and pulled out his radio mic. "Unit Six here, you copy, Base?"

Static squawked into the air. The hedges were coming to life, teeming with the creatures who had turned their affections toward Bill and Arnie. Bill pumped the shotgun and the clack was pure metal authority.

"10-4, Unit Six, I copy,” the radio sputtered. “What's your 10-20?"

"Responding to that 10-36 at Windshake Baptist. I've got a 10-44, or, uh, a 10—hell, I don't know if this situation's even
got
a damned number."

"Come again?"

"10-33. Send backup. On the double. Got some creepers here."

"10-9, Unit Six?"

"Screw it.” Arnie tossed the mic onto the seat. He turned and fired his revolver at the nearest moist hunk of plantmeat. Bill raised the shotgun and pressed the butt against his shoulder.

"We will come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves," Bill sang in a barely recognizable melody, before sending a handful of pellets screaming into the night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

James looked hopefully out the window as the heavy moon sagged over the horizon, its gravity towing the night along with it. The orange and red flames of dawn licked at the retreating darkness.

Maybe now he would be safe. Now he could warn people, in the daring daylight when sanity wasn't as suspect. He hadn't seen any more of them in the last couple of hours, and the hand had dissolved to a spoonful of flakes.

He'd heard no slogging or snapping, only the drumming of his beaten heart and the occasional wail of sirens. He went to check on Aunt Mayzie. He knocked on her door, softly at first. No answer.

He opened the door a crack, peered in, and saw her still form on the bed. She would be safer there than coming with him. He let her sleep.

James went outside, smelling the air with its fragrant blossoms and lawn grass and faint trace of decomposition. It was an air he was almost afraid to breathe, a spring freshness that he'd never again be able to trust. He looked around, at the shadows of the trees and shrubs, at the fence covered with honeysuckle vines. Nothing moved along the street, as if even the wind was still in bed. He jogged toward town, his head up.

The first of the vendors were out uncovering their display tables and draping their banners. They worked like automatons, Styrofoam coffee cups steaming at their elbows as they arranged their wooden ducks and woven baskets and birdhouses and handmade quilts. Most of them were craft gypsies, in town for a fast buck and a ticket to the next one. The woman at the Petal Pushers’s booth barely gave him a glance as he passed her.

A couple of long-haired men in shorts, tank tops, and big boots were running wires to the performers’ stage, troubleshooting the sound system. A blonde-haired woman sat behind the mixing board, arching her back as she swept her hair behind her. One of the sound men walked over to her and planted a greasy kiss on her lips. The other roadie climbed onto the stage and started speaking into a microphone.

"Testing, testing, one-two-three," his voice boomed out of the speaker stacks. A few heads turned from the booths.

James kept moving toward the stage, the dew thick under his Nikes. If he could get to the microphone, maybe he could warn them.

"Testing, testing . . . this is only a test," the roadie said.

Something stumbled from the shrubs at the edge of the Haynes House and reached for the source of the noise. James saw its dripping jaws and the unmistakable hunger in its eyes. Its
green
eyes.

The roadie at the microphone didn't notice that the band had attracted a new groupie. He kept on with his sound check, trying to draw the attention of the snuggling couple behind the mixing board. "Had this been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed . . ."

James shouted at the roadie, but the man couldn't hear over his own amplified voice. The watery monster fell onto the stage and slid on its belly like a mutated and overgrown infant.

". . . uh, where to tune . . . blah, blah, blah. Hey, Mick, is that all right, man?"

But Mick was too busy with the tongue of the blonde to respond.

James waved his arms at the roadie and pointed to the creature.

The roadie ignored James, experienced in dealing with crazed fans and overdose cases. "Yo, Mick? That loud enough?"

The marsh-creature fell against the drum kit, knocking over a cymbal stand. Its pale skin glistened under the early sun. The roadie turned and saw the horror that was only a few feet from his ankles. A scream pealed from somewhere down the block and a table full of handmade pottery clattered onto the street.

Somebody ran behind the stage, too fast to be one of the creatures, and James heard another scream. He wouldn't have to warn them after all. Seeing was believing. Even if you weren't sure what you were looking at.

The roadie kicked at the marsh-creature and his boot stuck in the jelly of its neck. The creature reached with thorny hands and clamped onto the man's shin. His scream ripped through the microphone and across the upset morning.

"Help me, Mick—iiiiieeeee." The roadie whimpered from fear as he fell. Mick started around the mixing board, but then got a better look at the thing that was attached to his buddy. He slowly backed away, his eyes like cameras taking horror stills.

The blonde screamed and ran toward the Haynes House. She was up the steps and headed for the door when the nearby haystack erupted. One of the creatures fell onto her, chaff clinging to its wet skin as it hugged. It pulled her into the hay and gurgled contentedly as it sucked her face.

James jumped onto the stage and grabbed the mic cable and pulled the stand toward him. The marsh-creature crawled over the roadie, leaving a slimy trail across the man's skin. James lifted the mic stand and swung the heavy cast iron base into the creature's back. Raw, milky fluids oozed from the wound, but the creature kept on with its mission. It pressed its wide mouth against the man's face, muffling his final scream.

James looked down from the stage and saw that a half dozen of the things had come out of the alleys and backstreets and woods.

"Run, you stupid bastards!" James yelled into the microphone. The roadie sprawled and relaxed, staring at the sun, a stupid smile of joy crossing his face as the creature slid off of him. The roadie rolled toward James, the beginning of an unhealthy glow in the dead, eager eyes.

James jumped from the stage and ran toward Mayzie’s house. He wondered what he’d hoped to accomplish in the first place. He’d seen
Night of the Living Dead
. They shot the niggers no matter what. If there was a riot, the best place to be was out of sight and out of mind.

Along Main Street, the vendors fell over one another as they tried to escape. Two elderly women were pressed against the locked door of a drugstore. A bearded man with glasses gathered up leather goods that had spilled from his table, mindless of the horror in his pursuit of commerce. James ran past him, kicked in the glass of the drugstore’s door, and helped the women inside.

“Hide way back in the dark,” he said, then left them heading down the aisles.

A man in a sweater vest and headphones was tangled in electronic equipment and cords. A vinyl banner that read WRNC 1220 AM was draped across the front of his table.

He lifted a hand mic and said, “This is Melvin Patterson live at Blossomfest, and you won’t believe this—I
see
it and I still don’t believe it—live from WRNC, brought to you by your good friends at Bryson Feed Supply—”

A slick creature in khaki rags rose up from behind the table and clamped a hand on the announcer’s shoulder. The man continued speaking into the mic: “Something’s going on and it seems like a stampede of customers, so round up the family and get down here before all the good stuff’s gone.”

The creature yanked at the man, spun him, and the mic dropped to the ground. James ran to the table to help, but the creature had already swallowed the man’s tongue and groped at his eyes with fibrous fingers.

James slipped into an alley, hoping the creatures hadn’t noticed him. They hadn’t.

They were too busy with the harvest.