Judging by the look on Gibbs’ face he’d seen the same movies.
‘Maybe you should call up some help,’ he said. ‘Just in case.’
Lori’s thoughts spoke hurriedly to the child.
You must warn Rachel. Tell her what we’ve seen.
They know already, came the child’s reply.
Tell them anyway. Forget me! Tell them, Babette, before it’s too late.
I don’t want to leave you.
I can’t help you Babette. I don’t belong with you. I’m –
She tried to prevent the thought coming, but it was too late.
– I’m normal. The sun won’t kill me the way it’ll kill you. I’m alive. I’m human. I don’t belong with you.
She had no opportunity to qualify this hurried response. Contact was broken instantly – the view from Babette’s eyes disappearing – and Lori found herself standing on the threshold of the kitchen.
The sound of flies was loud in her head. Their buzzing was no echo of Midian, but the real thing. They were circling the room ahead of her. She knew all too well what scent had brought them here, egg-laden and hungry; and she knew with equal certainty that after all she’d seen in Midian she couldn’t bear to take another step towards the corpse on the floor. There was too much death in her world, inside her head and out. If she didn’t escape it she’d go mad. She had to get back into the open air, where she could breathe freely. Maybe find some unremarkable shop girl to talk to about the weather, about the price of sanitary towels; anything as long as it was banal, predictable.
But the flies wanted to buzz in her ears. She tried to swat them away. Still they came at her and at her, their wings buttered with death, their feet red with it.
‘Let me alone,’ she sobbed. But her excitement drew them in larger and still larger numbers, rising at the sound of her voice from their dining table out of sight behind the ovens. Her mind struggled to take hold of the reality she’d been thrown back into, her body to turn and leave the kitchen.
Both failed, mind and body. The cloud of flies came at her, their numbers now so large they were a darkness unto themselves. Dimly she realized that such a multiplicity was impossible and that her mind was creating this terror in its confusion. But the thought was too far from her to keep the madness at bay; her reason reached for it, and reached, but the cloud was upon her now. She felt their feet on her arms and face, leaving trails of whatever they’d been dabbling in: Sheryl’s blood, Sheryl’s bile, Sheryl’s sweat and tears. There were so many of them they could not all find flesh to occupy, so they began to force their way between her lips, and crawl up her nostrils and across her eyes.
Once, in a dream of Midian, hadn’t the dead come as dust, from all four corners of the world? And hadn’t she stood in the middle of the storm – caressed, eroded – and been happy to know that the dead were on the wind? Now came the companion dream: horror to the splendour of the first. A world of flies to match that world of dust; a world of incomprehension and blindness, of the dead without burial, and without a wind to carry them away. Only flies to feast on them, to lay in them and make more flies.
And matching dust against flies, she knew which she favoured; knew, as consciousness went out of her completely, that if Midian died – and she let it – if Pettine and Gibbs and their friends dug up the Night-breed’s refuge, then she, dust herself one day, and touched by Midian’s condition – would have nowhere to be carried, and would belong, body and soul, to the flies.
Then she hit the tiles.
XVIII
The Wrath of the Righteous
1
For Eigerman bright ideas and excretion were inextricably linked; he did all his best thinking with his trousers around his ankles. More than once, in his cups, he’d explained to any who’d listen that world peace and a cure for cancer could be achieved overnight if the wise and the good would just sit down and take a crap together.
Sober, the thought of sharing that most private of functions would have appalled him. The can was a place for solitary endeavour, where those weighed down by high office could snatch a little time to sit and meditate upon their burdens.
He studied the graffiti on the door in front of him. There was nothing new amongst the obscenities, which was reassuring. Just the same old itches, needing to be scratched. It gave him courage in the face of his problems.
Which were essentially twofold. First, he had a dead man in custody. That, like the graffiti, was an old story. But zombies belonged in the late movie, like sodomy on a lavatory wall. They had no place in the real world. Which brought him onto the second problem: the panicked call from Tommy Caan, reporting that something bad was going down in Midian. To those two, on reflection, he now added a third: Doctor Decker. He wore a fine suit, and he talked fine talk, but there was something unwholesome about him. Eigerman hadn’t admitted the suspicion to himself until now, sitting on the crapper, but it was plain as his dick once he thought about it. The bastard knew more than he was telling: not just about Dead Man Boone, but about Midian and whatever was going on there. If he was setting Shere Neck’s finest up for a fall then there’d come a reckoning time, sure as shit, and he’d regret it.
Meanwhile the Chief had to make some decisions. He’d begun the day as a hero, leading the arrest of the Calgary Killer, but instinct told him events could very quickly get out of hand. There were so many imponderables in all of this; so many questions to which he had no answers. There was an easy way out, of course. He could call up his superiors in Edmonton and pass the whole fuck-up along to them to deal with. But if he gave away the problem he also gave the glory. The alternative was to act now – before nightfall, Tommy had kept saying, and how far was that? three, four hours – to root out the abominations of Midian. If he succeeded he’d double his helping of accolades. In one day he’d not only have brought a human evil to justice but scoured the cess-pit in which it had found succour: an appealing notion.
But again the answered questions raised their heads, and they weren’t pretty. If the doctors who’d examined Boone and reports coming out of Midian were to be trusted then things he’d only heard in stories were true today. Did he really want to pit his wits against dead men who walked, and beasts that sunlight killed?
He sat, and crapped, and weighed up the alternatives. It took him half an hour, but he finally came to a decision. As usual, once the sweat was over, it looked very simple. Perhaps today the world was not quite the way it had been yesterday. Tomorrow, God willing, it would be its old self: dead men dead, and sodomy on the walls where it belonged. If he didn’t seize his chance to become a man of destiny there wouldn’t be another, at least not till he was too old to do more than tend his haemorrhoids. This was a God given opportunity to show his mettle. He couldn’t afford to ignore it.
With new conviction in his gut he wiped his ass, hauled up his pants, flushed the crapper and went out to meet the challenge head-on.
2
‘I want volunteers, Cormack, who’ll come out to Midian with me and get digging.’
‘How soon do you need them?’
‘Now. We don’t have much time. Start with the bars. Take Holliday with you.’
‘What are we telling them it’s for?’
Eigerman mused on this a moment: what to tell.
‘Say we’re looking for grave-robbers. That’ll get a sizeable turnout. Anyone with a gun and a shovel’s eligible. I want ’em mustered in an hour. Less if you can do it.’
Decker smiled as Cormack went on his way.
‘You happy now?’ Eigerman said.
‘I’m pleased to see you’ve taken my advice.’
‘Your advice, shit.’
Decker just smiled.
‘Get the fuck out of here,’ Eigerman said. ‘I’ve got work to do. Come back when you’ve found yourself a gun.’
‘I just might do that.’
Eigerman watched him leave, then picked up the phone. There was a number he’d been thinking about dialling since
he’d made up his mind to go into Midian; a number he hadn’t had reason to call in a long time. He dialled it now. In seconds, Father Ashbery was on the line.
‘You sound breathless, Father.’
Ashbery knew who his caller was without need of prompting.
‘Eigerman.’
‘Got it in one. What have you been up to?’
‘I’ve been out running.’
‘Good idea. Sweat out the dirty thoughts.’
‘What do you want?’
‘What do you think I want? A priest.’
‘I’ve done nothing.’
‘That’s not what I hear.’
‘I’m not paying, Eigerman. God forgave me my sins.’
‘Not in question.’
‘So leave me alone.’
‘Don’t hang up!’
Ashbery was quick to detect the sudden anxiety in Eigerman’s voice.
‘Well, well,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You’ve got a problem.’
‘Maybe both of us do.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I want you here real quick, with whatever you’ve got in the way of crucifixes and Holy Water.’
‘What for?’
‘Trust me.’
Ashbery laughed.
‘I’m not at your beck and call any longer, Eigerman. I’ve got a flock to tend.’
‘So do it for them.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You preach the Day of Judgement, right? Well they’re warming up for it, over in Midian.’
‘Who are?’
‘I don’t know who and I don’t know why. All I know is, we need a little holiness on our side, and you’re the only priest I’ve got.’
‘You’re on your own, Eigerman.’
‘I don’t think you’re listening. I’m talking serious shit here.’
‘I’m not playing any of your damn fool games.’
‘I mean it, Ashbery. If you don’t come of your own accord, I’ll make you.’
‘I burned the negatives, Eigerman. I’m a free man.’
‘I kept copies.’
There was a silence from the Father. Then:
‘You swore.’
‘I lied,’ came the reply.
‘You’re a bastard, Eigerman.’
‘And you wear lacy underwear. So how soon can you be here?’
Silence.
‘Ashbery. I asked a question.’
‘Give me an hour.’
‘You’ve got forty-five minutes.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘That’s what I like: a God-fearing lady.’
3
Must be the hot weather, Eigerman thought when he saw how many men Cormack and Holliday had rounded up in the space of sixty minutes. Hot weather always got folks itchy: for fornication maybe, or killing. And Shere Neck being what it was, and fornication not being so easy to get just whenever you wanted it, the hunger to do some shooting was well up today. There were twenty men gathered outside in the sun, and three or four women coming along for the ride; plus Ashbery and his Holy Water.
There’d been two more calls from Midian in that hour. One from Tommy, who was ordered back into the cemetery to help Pettine contain the enemy until reinforcements arrived, the second from Pettine himself, informing Eigerman that there’d been an escape bid made by one of Midian’s occupants. He’d slipped away through the main gate while accomplices created a diversion. The nature of this diversion not only explained Pettine’s choking as he delivered his report, but also why they’d failed to give chase. Somebody had ignited the tyres of the cars. The conflagration was quickly consuming the vehicles, including the radio upon which the report was being made. Pettine was in the process of explaining that there would be no further bulletins when the airwaves went dead.
Eigerman kept this information to himself, for fear it cooled anyone’s appetite for the adventure ahead. Killing was all very fine, but he wasn’t so sure there’d be quite so many ready to roll now if it was common knowledge that some of the bastards were ready to fight back.
As the convoy moved off he looked at his watch. They had maybe two and a half hours of good light left before dusk began to settle in. Three quarters of an hour to Midian, which left an hour and three quarters to get these fuckers dealt with before the enemy had night on its side. That was long enough, if they were organized about it. Best to treat it like a regular shakedown, Eigerman supposed. Drive the bastards out into the light and see what happened. If they came apart at the seams, the way piss pants Tommy had kept saying, then that was all the proof a Judge would need that these creatures were unholy as hell. If not – if Decker was lying, Pettine on dope again, and all this a fool’s errand – he’d find someone to shoot, so it wasn’t all a wasted journey. Might just turn around and put a bullet through the zombie in Cell Five; the man with no pulse and blood on his face.
Either way, he wouldn’t let the day end without tears.
PART FIVE
THE GOOD NIGHT
‘No sword shall touch you. Unless it be mine’
Lover’s Oath
(Anon)
XIX
A Friendless Face
1
Why did she have to wake? Why did there have to be a coming to? Couldn’t she just sink and sink, further into the nowhere she’d taken refuge in? But it didn’t want her. She rose from it, unwillingly, and into the old pain of living and dying.
The flies had gone. That at least was something. She got to her feet, her body cumbersome; an embarrassment. As she made an attempt to dust the dirt from her clothes she heard the voice calling her name. She hadn’t woken of her own accord, it seemed. Someone had called her. For a ghastly moment, she thought the voice was Sheryl’s; that the flies had succeeded in their ambition, and driven her to lunacy. But when it came a second time she put another name to it: Babette. The child was calling her. Turning her back on the kitchen she picked up her bag and started through the debris towards the street. The light had changed since she’d made the first crossing; hours had passed while she’d debated with sleep. Her watch, broken in the fall, refused to tell how many.
It was still balmy on the street, but the heat of noon had long passed. The afternoon was winding down. It could not be long until dusk.
She began to walk, not once looking back at the restaurant. Whatever crisis of reality had overcome her there, Babette’s voice had called her from it, and she felt oddly buoyant, as though something about the way the world worked had come clear.
She knew what it was, without having to think too hard. Some vital part of her, heart or head or both, had made its peace with Midian and all it contained. Nothing in the chambers had been as agonizing as what she’d confronted in the burnt out building: the loneliness of Sheryl’s body, the stench of creeping decay, the inevitability of it all. Against that the monsters of Midian – transforming, re-arranging, ambassadors of tomorrow’s flesh and reminders of yesterday’s – seemed full of possibilities. Weren’t there, amongst those creatures, faculties she envied? The power to fly; to be transformed; to know the condition of beasts; to defy death?
All that she’d coveted or envied in others of her species now seemed valueless. Dreams of the perfected anatomy – the soap opera face, the centrefold body – had distracted her with promises of true happiness. Empty promises. Flesh could not keep its glamour, nor eyes their sheen. They would go to nothing soon.
But the monsters were forever. Part of her forbidden self. Her dark, transforming midnight self. She longed to be numbered amongst them.
There was still much she had to come to terms with; not least their appetite for human flesh, which she’d witnessed first-hand at the Sweetgrass Inn. But she could learn to understand. In a real sense she had no choice. She’d been touched by a knowledge that had changed her inner landscape out of all recognition. There was no way back to the bland pastures of adolescence and early womanhood. She had to go forward. And tonight that
meant along this empty street, to see what the coming night had in store.
The idling engine of a car on the opposite side of the road drew her attention. She glanced across at it. Its windows were all wound up – despite the warmth of the air – which struck her as odd. She could not see the driver; both windows and windshield were too thick with grime. But an uncomfortable suspicion was growing in her. Clearly the occupant was waiting for someone. And given that there was nobody else on the street, that someone was most likely her.
If so, the driver could only be one man, for only one knew that she had a reason to be here: Decker.
She started to run.
The engine revved. She glanced behind her. The car was moving off from its parking place, slowly. He had no reason to hurry. There was no sign of life along the street. No doubt there was help to be had, if only she knew which direction to run. But the car had already halved the distance between them. Though she knew she couldn’t outrun it, she ran anyway, the engine louder and louder behind her. She heard the tyre walls squeal against the sidewalk. Then the car appeared at her side, keeping pace with her yard for yard.
The door opened. She ran on. The car kept its companion pace, the door scraping the concrete.
Then, from within, the invitation.
‘Get in.’
Bastard, to be so calm.
‘Get in, will you, before we’re arrested.’
It wasn’t Decker. The realization was not a slow burn but a sudden comprehension: it wasn’t Decker speaking from the car. She stopped running, her whole body heaving with the effort of catching her breath.
The car also stopped.
‘Get in,’ the driver said again.
‘Who … ?’ she tried to say, but her lungs were too jealous of her breath to provide the words.
The answer came anyway.
‘Friend of Boone’s.’
Still she hung back from the open door.
‘Babette told me how to find you,’ the man went on.