The Revelation (6 page)

none of the nearby residents had seen or heard a thing, and they'd had to spend another four hours sifting through the piles of broken glass and combing every inch of each church, trying to gather what clues they could. Judson Weiss and Pete King were working night shift, and when Jim's brain finally became too tired to function properly, he left everything in their hands and went home to get some much needed sleep.

He'd been up for almost twenty-four hours.

Jim had prayed before falling asleep that somehow, miraculously, Judson and Pete would solve everything in his absence and that the two murders, the disappearances, the vandalism, and the livestock mutilations would all be neatly tied up into one package and written into a typed, doublespaced report that would be placed on his desk for him to read and sign.

No such luck.

A call to the station upon waking revealed that no progress had been made in any of the cases. There were still no leads and nothing to go on.

He hung up the phone, feeling a headache coming on. A bad one. He massaged his temples with his fingers, feeling the rhythmic pounding of blood beneath the thin layer of skin. He just wasn't cut out for this shit. This was for the big-city cops and the motion-picture sheriffs, not him. Already he felt way out of his league, and he wondered vaguely if he shouldn't call for some help on this.

But who would he call?

He pulled on a robe and lumbered into the bathroom, his bare feet sticking to the green tile floor as he walked. He pulled back the shower curtain and turned on the water in the shower, adjusting the two faucets by feel. Why the hell had he been born in Randall instead of one of the hundreds of other small towns scattered throughout Northern Arizona? Why wasn't he sheriff in Sedona or Heber? He climbed into the shower, wincing as the water hit his skin. This was going to make national news for sure-if not television then at least the wire services. People were going to be watching him closely. He'd better not fuck it up.

A note on the refrigerator said that Justin andSuzonne were at the movies with Ralph Pittman and his mother. A second note, held up by a TweetyBird magnet, told him that Annette was at the grocery store. Jim left his own note in reply and grabbed a donut before taking off. He said in the note that he'd be back for dinner, but he knew that was probably just wishful thinking. In all likelihood he'd be coming home late. He had a feeling there were going to be a lot of missed meals over the next couple of weeks.

The child was waiting in his office when he arrived.

The sight threw him for a second, but he did not let the surprise register on his face. He threw his hat on the rack next to his desk, as always, and sat down. CarlChmura was sitting next to the boy on the low vinyl couch against the far wall, and he stood up when Jim entered the room. "Howdy, Sheriff."

"What's up, Carl?"

The deputy walked across the carpeted floor toward the sheriff and nodded his head toward the boy. "This kid here came in around noon today, maybe a little earlier. Said he had something important to tell you. He wouldn't talk to anyone else. I told him you probably wouldn't be coming in for a while, but he wanted to wait. Said it was real important."

Jim looked at the boy. He was small and pale and couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve. He looked as though he had not been out of the house all summer. He was wearing an ill-fitting shirt that looked like it had probably been his father's or grandfather's and a pair of ripped Levi's faded almost white. His hair was thin and greasy and too long, and it curled around his shoulders in matted tangles. He was clenching and unclenching his hands nervously.

But it was the boy's face that captured his attention.

His face was filled with fear.

Jim stood up and smiled kindly at the boy, not wishing to frighten or intimidate him. "What's your name, son?"

"Don Wilson." The boy's voice was timid and uncertain.

Jim motioned Carl to the door with his eyes. "Thanks a lot, Carl.

I'll call you if I need you." The deputy nodded, understanding, and closed the door behind him as he left.

Jim sat on the corner edge of the desk facing the boy. He put on his allpurpose concerned-father expression and bent forward, placing his hands on his knees. "So, Don," he said. "What did you want to talk to me about?" The boy's frightened face looked first toward the door then toward the window--in human approximation of a cornered rabbit checking out its options for escape. He looked immediately sorry that he'd come, and Jim thought for a second he was going to bolt. The sheriff smiled understandingly. "It's okay, Don," he said. "You can talk to me."

"I know where the Selways are!" the boy blurted out. "I know how to find their bodies!"

Jim's smile of patient understanding froze on his face. He stared at the pale scared youth before him, his mouth suddenly dry, his hands holding on to his knees with a vice like grip. Adrenaline flushed into his system.

Their bodies.

Jim snapped his head toward the door, his sheriff's instinct taking over.

"Carl!" he called. "Carl!"

The deputy rushed in instantly. His head did a one-eighty as he quickly scanned the room. His eyes stopped on Jim, baffled, but Jim had already turned back toward the boy. "Why the hell didn't you say something about this earlier? Why didn't you tell DeputyChmura ?"

The boy was still cowering, and under the sheriff's verbal onslaught he appeared to almost visibly shrink, but he held his ground. "I can only tell you," he said. His voice was scared, shaky.

"Where are they?" Jim demanded.

The boy looked from the sheriff to the deputy and shook his head.

"All right!" Jim yelled. "Carl, get out of here for a minute!" The deputy retreated, confused, and closed the door behind him. Jim swiveled his gaze back to the boy. "Okay. Where the hell are they?"

The boy licked his lips. "I had this dream a few nights ago--"

"Where the hell are they?"

"Let me finish my story!" The boy looked as though he was about to cry. His shaking hands were balled into fists, and frustration and fear were battling it out for supremacy on his face. A hank of hair fell across his forehead and he angrily nipped it back. Jim took a deep breath and nodded. It wasn't the kid's fault; the boy was doing the best he could.

"All right," the sheriff said quietly. "Tell me what happened."

The boy looked at him for a moment, not sure he wanted to tell him. "I had this dream a few nights ago," he said finally. "And I saw the Selwaysbeing murdered."

A dream?

Jim felt his heart begin to pound in his ears, but he forced himself to remain calm. "By who?" he asked.

Don looked at the floor, his feet shuffling nervously, crossing and crisscrossing his legs. He did not look up. "I ... I can't tell you,"

he said.

"Yes you can."

"No, I can't. You won't believe me."

"Yes I will." His voice softened. "Tell me," he said.

The boy looked up at him. "Monsters," he said. "It was too dark to see what they looked like, but they were monsters." He looked at Jim, to make sure he wouldn't laugh.

But Jim did not feel like laughing.

"There were a whole bunch of them," the boy continued, again staring at the ground. "They broke into The Selways’ house and took them off to the dump." His legs were doing nervous figure eights on the carpet.

"They .. . they killed the little baby first. They tore her apart and ate her. Then they tore the other kids apart, ripping open their skin.

There were hundreds of them. Then they .. . they .. . ripped off Mrs.

Selway'shead while she stood there and made Father Selway watch." He looked up at Jim, his eyes shiny with remembered terror. "Her body just sort of crumpled to the ground, like in slow motion, and I could see all the veins and muscles and things popping out of her neck and squirming around. Blood was everywhere. It was squirting up like a fountain."

"Which dump was this at?"

"The one off the control road. By Geronimo Wells."

Jim nodded. "Go on."

The boy's eyes focused on a point far away, in his mind. "They . the monsters .. . played with Mrs.Selway's head for a while, throwing it around and kicking it. Her eyes opened and closed as it flew through the air. There were a lot of them around, but I still couldn't see them. They were in the shadows. But I could see Mrs.Selway's head real good. And I could see Father Selway perfectly. He was just standing there, staring. Then one of them reached over and turned Father Selway toward the fire."

"What fire?" Jim asked.

"The one where they burn all the wood and paper."

"It was night?"

"Yeah. They made him look at the fire and said ..." Don looked down, his hands now trembling badly. He clamped his hands between his legs to hold them still. His face, framed by the long greasy hair, was taut and serious, the muscles pulled tight. "They said, "Worship your new God' or

"Bow down before your new God' or something like that. And then .. . something .. . started to come out of the fire. It was huge.

It was big and black and looked like it had two horns." He looked at Jim.

"It looked like the devil."

Jim reached over and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Was that all?" he asked.

"No." Don shook his head. "All of a sudden, the fire went out and Father Selway and the devil were gone and the other monsters shoved Mrs.Selway's body into a big hole. Then they threw her head in a little hole and threw the kids in another hole and covered them all up."

"Where? What part of the dump?"

"Under the garbage, by the big tree next to the cliff. Right next to a tractor."

Jim jumped up. "Carl!" he called. The deputy pushed the door immediately open. "Get the posse together. We're going to search for The Selways’

bodies."

"But I thought--"

"Never mind what you thought. Get everyone together. Tell them we'll meet out at the Geronimo Wells landfill. Now!"

Carl ran down the hall toward the switchboard out front, his boots clicking loudly on the tile.

Jim turned back toward the boy. He looked even smaller and paler than he had before. His hands, between his legs, were clasped together, and sweat was running in twin lines down both sides of his face from beneath his hair. Jim looked at the boy and tried to smile reassuringly. He didn't know why he believed the kid, but he did.

Jesus, he thought. His mind really was going. Not just scared of his own dreams, but believing others' as well. "Why did you wait 'til now to tell us?" he asked Don.

"I thought it was just a nightmare. I didn't know it was real. I didn't know anything had happened." His lower lip started to tremble.

His hand intercepted a tear sneaking down his cheek. "I just found out that the Selways were missing this morning. I didn't know."

Jim patted the boy's shoulder. "It's okay, son." The boy wiped away another tear. "But how come you wouldn't tell anyone except me?"

"You were in the dream. I knew you'd understand. I knew you'd know I

didn't do it. I knew you'd know I wasn't really there, I didn't really see anything."

A bolt of fear--wild, irrational--shot through Jim's body, causing his heart to trip-hammer crazily. A wave of cold washed over him. He stared at the boy. He had never seen this kid before in his life; he did not look even vaguely familiar.

But he had automatically believed his story.

And, he realized, something about the boy's dream seemednaggingly , disturbingly true. It had seemed right. As if this were knowledge he'd already had but just could not bring to consciousness. As if the boy had simply put known facts together in a new way; a way he understood intuitively, on a gut level, but could not reason out.

The boy was right, he knew. He had been in that dream somehow, although he could remember none of it. He turned back to Don. His voice was not as assured as he would have liked, but he forced himself to speak anyway.

"What was I doing in your dream?"

"You were just standing there watching. Like me." The boy licked his lips. "Like everyone else."

The cold intensified. "Who else?"

"I don't know. You were the only one I recognized. But I'd know them if I saw them."

Carl poked his head in the door. "Car's ready, Sheriff. I called the posse and they're going to meet us there."

Jim put on his hat and grabbed his holster. "Okay." He strapped on the belt and looked at Don. "You coming?"

"Do I have to?"

Jim shook his head.

"Then no, I'd rather not."

"Okay." He looked into the boy's face and saw underneath the childish features a maturity; maturity that had been forced upon him and for which he was not exactly ready but which he was able to cope with. The kid had handled himself well, he thought. Better than a lot of adults would have under similar circumstances. He wished this could be the end of it, the boy could just go home and forget about everything, letting the sheriff's office handle the situation, his civic duty done.

But there was a lot more to come. It would be tough on the kid. "We have some more talking to do," he said. "Leave your name and address with Rita out at the front desk. I'll get in touch with you later."