“Erica?”
She didn’t let go, but turned her dark eyes on Will. He didn’t know what he was seeing, but Will could feel she’d brought back some of the abyss with her. “I’m all right,” she said after a little while. “My head’s reeling with all of this, but I’m okay.” She looked at the floor, “I’m better than I would have been, anyway. I had a dream when I was down there all cocooned up. Think it was more than a dream, really. I saw that wasp man, thing, whatever the hell it is. It wanted to use me, my body to make more things like it. It was going to,” she trailed off remembering that obscene stinger jabbing the air, dripping. She looked up at Will and had he been standing he might have taken a step back. “We have to kill it.”
“Agreed,” Will said. “But I don’t get the notion we can do that the same way we did with its zombie buddies.”
George took a deep breath. “Will, I think we need to call in some help. Sheriff Ward and his boys can be down here in, what, an hour, two at most? We don’t have to do this by ourselves.”
“Yeah,” Will said. “We do. Listen, we can’t just stand outside the mine with twenty of Tommy’s guys and wait for The Pompiliad to come. Even if we flanked out with the Staties there’d never be enough of us. We can’t beat this thing with boots and guns, man.” Will took off his baseball cap and ran a hand through is hair. “Try to imagine it, okay? We end up backing down into—Jesus jumped up Christ, I’m gonna say it—the dragon’s lair, then what? Tommy and his boys get one look at Dampf, or shit even just lil’ old Yïn, and they’ll freak right the fuck on out.”
Erica pulled away from George and put a hand on his chest. “I know cops,” she said. “They’ll unload with everything they have.”
“And Dampf,” Will finished, “will kill them.”
George walked away from them and looked out the window—just dark, no movement. “What keeps it from killing us, Two-Bears?”
“It called on us, man. It’s asked for our help. You stood in front of the damn thing yourself. It didn’t kill you then. And, hell, Yïn could’ve wasted any one of us whenever it wanted to. Aside from some basic mind-fuckery, it actually saved our asses a couple of times.”
George turned around. He was a big man, but right now he was reminding Will very much of a little kid about to hold his breath to get his way. “If the bug and the lizard are so hardcore, what do they need us for? Seems to me like we’d just be getting in the way.”
Will sighed. “George, I just don’t know. You act like I know more than you do in all this, but I haven’t seen or done anything you haven’t seen or done. Why’s this all hit me so different than it hits you?”
“Cuz I’m scared, you half-breed dipshit!”
Erica looked at Will, but he was still.
George went on. “This hits me different because I’ve got more to lose than you. I’ve finally found someone. I could sell the house and leave tomorrow if I had the chance. You’d be happy to stay here forever, wouldn’t you? You’d just sit back and re-read some novel another forty-five thousand times. Don’t you get it, Will? You can leave, too, man.” In two steps George towered down from the other side of the desk. “You don’t have to keep paying back the universe for some imagined slight by staying in purgatory. You’re a smart man. You could go anywhere you want and start a real life instead of this bullshit in-between crap.”
Will stared at his friend, felt his anger and his love. With what he was about to say, he worried about the placement of the gun on the desk between them. “A new life.” He nodded at Erica, “An amazing woman, someone to love and who loves you. I would never, ever stand in the way of you having these things, George Rhodes. But to get this prize you have to pay first. You have to do this, whether you’re afraid or not. You have to go out there and into the ground. You have to fight and you have to win, or Erica and your new life, wherever it may be, are going to die.”
George stood back and opened his mouth.
Will surged up behind the desk and cut him off. “No, Georgie. No. You listen to me now. This thing, this Pompiliad isn’t some bad man. It’s a demon or something worse. If you leave and it gets past Dampf and Yïn, it’ll open some kind of seal and more of its kind will come through. They’ll crawl all over the world and soon enough,” he stabbed the air between them with his finger, “no matter where...you...go…one of them will come and destroy everything. You think you’re getting out of Shard? You think you’re bugging out of a dead town for greener pastures? Yeah, for a little while, maybe. But eventually it’ll all look like Shard, including the poor dead fuckers walking around being eaten from the inside out.” Will closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a long, deep breath. “If you’re lucky, you might even get to watch Erica’s body get used like some kind of breeding factory as you die.”
That’s when his best friend hit him.
Erica didn’t make a sound. She sensed this drama needed to play out. The cavemen had to hit each other with rocks until they understood one another.
Will sat down hard in his chair and rubbed his jaw. George had pulled his punch at the last second or he wouldn’t still be conscious. “Hope you broke your paw, dickhead.”
George flexed his hand, “Nope.”
“You gonna hit me again?”
“Nope.”
“You gonna cowboy up?”
“Well, I have to, now, don’t I?”
“Yup.”
“Your jaw hurt much?”
Will smirked. “You kidding? I thought a fly landed on me.”
Erica rolled her eyes.
“You sat down pretty fast. Must’a been a big old horsefly.”
“Nah, it was nothing,” Will said. “Course you do it again, I’ll shoot you.”
“My gun’s bigger.”
Erica shouted, “Oh, for the love of God!”
The phone rang.
They silenced. All three of them huddled around the desk. The blinking light on the phone winked on and off like an eye. They all knew who it was. It rang for a full minute before anyone spoke.
George said, “It’s for you, Will.”
“I’m not here.”
Erica shook her head and picked up the base of the phone, careful not to the let the handset fall. She turned it over and popped the cord. The phone stopped ringing. Three sets of shoulders fell at the same time. “See?” she said, setting the phone back down on Will’s desk. “That wasn’t such a big thing.”
The phone started ringing again.
Erica leapt back as if it would shock her. “Madre de dios.”
“Yeah, doubt it,” Will said. “Fuck this.” He picked up Smaug just to have it in his hand and then answered the phone. “Joe’s pizza.” He winced. Not at the voice, but at the silence. If a black hole could make a sound, or a lack thereof, it was in his ear now. It was a thousand nails on a thousand chalkboards, a million bites of tin foil and the instant after his mother’s last breath.
“The sow and her piglet already rot.”
Will began to tremble, not just shake but really boogie. One bitter winter about five years back he’d edged out onto some rotten ice over the creek. A big old dopey mutt had fallen halfway through in a misadventurous rabbit hunt and Constable Will had risen to the occasion. Will had fallen through, too, of course, and both of them had to be rescued by the dog’s owner. He was an older man with the presence of mind to extend a long branch over the ice instead of his life. Will had shuddered under a blanket the rest of that afternoon. The dead cold the phone exuded was worse. It made his bones feel thin.
“The sow tried to run, but we caught her. We stung her. Our maggots feast.”
Will’s eyes grew heavy at the sound of that ancient, ageless voice. There was no dramatic tone, no emotion, just depth. It was like being spoken to by the Marianas Trench. A growing part of him wanted to lie down on the desk, close his eyes and let the cold flow over him like that thick creek water. The Pompiliad could have George and Erica. It could have Will. It could
have Shard. He just wanted to cease.
His shoulders slumped and his gun hand dropped against his leg. Will felt the heat from the metal. It was only ambient room temperature, but it was warmth, life. It flowed up his arm, a branch extended from the shore, and pulled him back. He blinked away a blurry rime of frost from his corneas. He looked at George and Erica. They were holding hands.
“I don’t believe you,” Will said. “I think they’re still around, and I don’t think you have them yet. You don’t have us yet either. If you did, you wouldn’t be calling and fucking with me.” Will squared his shoulders. “What do you want?”
Silence from the line.
“Know what?” Will said and dropped the phone. He leveled Smaug and purred, “I’ve always wanted to do this.” George and Erica moved away and covered their ears. The metal dragon roared and the phone exploded in a satisfying spray of plastic shrapnel. George’s mouth hung open in an O. Erica was laughing. Will deadpanned. “Goddamn telemarketers.”
“What did it want?” George asked.
“To mess with us. Said it had killed the ‘sow and her piglet’.”
“Loraine and Kiddo?”
“That’s my guess.”
“But,” Erica said. “You don’t believe it.”
“Nope. Know what I do believe?” Will paused for a second, remembered that cold, that moment when he wanted to give up. “I believe The Pompiliad will get in here sooner rather than later and that we need to get our collective asses in gear. This thing’s too bad-assed for a couple of swingin’ dicks and their lawyer.”
George asked, “What do you want to do, Sheriff?”
“I think we need to get ourselves underground. And one day you’ll stop calling me Sheriff.” Will smiled at Erica and dialed up his drawl. He was going for charm but had the opposite effect. “Y’all feel like meetin’ a real Kentucky dragon?”
Chapter 37
Erica peeked through the steel mesh covering the windows. Deep night rushed up against the glass. “I don’t see anyone,” she said. “I think we can just walk to the jeep.” She passed a second in silence. “It’s weird. Shouldn’t there be like a zillion crickets singing? They’ve been keeping me up half the night since I got here, but I don’t hear any now.”
George walked over and stood next to her, head cocked. “Yeah, that is weird. Will, can you think of a single summer night in this town when the bugs didn’t make a huge racket?” Will didn’t say anything. George turned around to find his friend stifling laughter. “What’s with you, injun boy?”
“I just think it’s funny that out of a wasp demon, a giant spider and a dragon, what’s gettin’ you is quiet crickets.” Will shook his head. “Who the fuck cares why the crickets aren’t singing? Maybe Yïn ate them all, what do I know?”
Erica looked at George. George put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “You okay, man?”
Will covered his friend’s hand with his own. “No, Georgie. Not even a little, but I’m going to cowboy up and do this anyway.” Will nodded his head and walked over to the window. “Okay, so I want you two in the jeep. About a minute later, I’m going to hop on my bike and follow you. Those walkers—if they’re around—don’t hoof too fast, but don’t let ‘em box you in either.”
Erica said, “We’ve all seen Night of the Living Dead, Constable.”
Will smiled. “Keep this one, George. I like her a helluva lot.”
“Where’re we headed? That shaft?”
“Yeah, we’re going to see Dampf. This thing started with the dragon and I’ve got a pretty solid feeling it’s going to end there, too.”
“What do we do if we get there and a bunch of those fucking things are guardin’ the gate? What if the Pompiliad’s there?” George shuddered. “Jeez, it creeps me out just saying the name.”
“If there’s walkers, you blow their freakin’ heads off. Don’t forget to zap the wasp while you’re doing it. They stay down when you kill both the horse and the rider.”
Erica looked at him. “Horse and rider?”
“Yeah, I get the idea that the bodies are just that, bodies. The wasps are doing all the thinking, what little thinking they seem capable of.” Will changed gears. “Now, the climbing gear’s still in the back of the jeep from when we went on our little spelunk the other day, Georgie boy. You remember where we tied off, right?”
George nodded.
“Erica,” Will faced her. “You okay with sliding down about three stories worth of rope? Cuz’ you’re going to have to be.”
“Climbing wall.”
“Huh?”
“There’s a climbing wall at my gym. It’s not three stories high, but it’s big and you have to repel down. I do it three times a week.” She smiled. “After cardio.”
Will took her hand. “Marry me?”
George took her hand from Will’s. “Mine.”
“Right, right. Okay, so you guys get there and get into the cave. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Why aren’t you just coming with us?” Erica asked.
“Because,” George said, “he knows that if we split up there’s a better chance of getting it done. Whatever ‘it’ turns out to be. If we’re together and the Pompiliad blows up the jeep or turns us to stone or whatever, it’s over. That about right, Constable?”
“Yeah. That’s right. But if it makes you feel any better, I’m the one who’s going to be all ass out in the wind. By contrast, you too are riding around in an armored car. I don’t even have my helmet here. It’s at home.”
“Are you pouting, Sheriff?” George pinched the air with his fingers. “Just pouting maybe a little bit?”
“Guys?” Erica said. She was staring out the window again. “I think if we’re going to do this, we need to do it now. There’s a bunch of a really unhealthy looking people coming up the street.”
Will squeezed in next to her. Sure enough, about six or seven of the Pompiliad’s puppets were slouching and shambling up the street toward the jail. They were far enough away that Two-Bears couldn’t make out their faces, which was just fine by him. He knew well enough that these things weren’t the people they once were, but it still hurt shooting his neighbors in the face. “Erica’s right. We need to do this. Lemme’ go grab those clothes for you.”
A minute later, George and Erica were piling into the jeep. Will didn’t burn any precious time repeating instructions. He gave his best friend a look that said what he needed it to then nodded at Erica. She leaned through the window and planted a kiss on his cheek. “For luck.”
“Star Wars,” he said.
“Star Wars?”
Will smiled. She wasn’t perfect after all. “We’ll work on it.”
George’s eyes widened. “Shit, Will, you better…”
Two-Bears started moving before he even turned around. He would not a waste a second looking over his shoulder at what George saw. He jogged around the front of the jeep and threw a leg over his motorcycle. The Jeep roared into life. Will shouted, “Go!” over his shoulder as he kick-started the bike. The Indian threw a welcome growl as Will twisted the throttle and spun a trick turn-around. His headlight illuminated Meg Tooley and his heart broke. Her skin was gray and tissue-paper thin, her eyes yokeless eggs. Her once shaking hands clawed the air in slow, steady rakes. The others were still a good block away. Now that he knew how to time it Will could wait for her jaw to crack open, for that gray tongue to slide out with its rider. He reached down for his gun and let his hand fall away. “I’m sorry Meg,” he whispered and rode off toward the woods.
* * *
George rolled up the windows as soon as they were out of the parking lot. He felt the pull of the rear view mirror like there were magnetic chips in his pupils, but kept his eyes on the road. He wasn’t about to fuck everything up over something stupid and right now it was taking everything he had to keep his panic behind his teeth. If anyone had a drink, now would be a terrific time to share. Really great. He took a corner at Main and S. Mine Streets, headed for the
border woods and the old gravel track that lead to the shaft. “Did you see him,” he asked Erica?
“Yeah, he got on his bike and fish-tailed it around like Evil Knievel or something.”
“Show off,” George said, talking more now to himself. “He’ll probably go around the long way. Take Hill Avenue to the woods road and then go down one of the branches back to the shaft.” He grew quiet a moment. “No one knows these roads better than Will Two-Bears.”
Erica got an image of Will bouncing along the paths and mining roads under the black silhouettes of vaulted trees—a knight errant on his white horse, galloping toward the dragon. But where was the other; where was that black knight? George slewed around another turn and they rocketed toward the woods, only two blocks over from the old movie theatre. Outside, a raked-out black chopper stood at the ready, waiting for its rider. No kickstand kept it from falling over, the bike balanced like a dime on its edge, impossible and perfect.
* * *
T.R.’s bleeding had slowed to a trickle. What that witch had left of his poor eye dangled on his cheek and itched like a line of busy ants. He rocked in and out of consciousness, shock acting like waves of anesthesia. He knew there was pain; it was just happening to someone else. The constant hum of wasps in his head had even grown distant. Everything had been destroyed. His great plans to ride out of Shard and into the world at the right hand of its conqueror. His dreaming grasp of becoming the dark prince of all he surveyed. In the dank gloom of the theatre he laughed at himself, a sound like old syrup over rocks. This is why adults so often think teenagers are daffy, this grand sense of melodrama. That’s what happened when you were all emotion and no logic, no brain to cool things out. The joke was that it took a stroll through a corner of hell to turn Tommy Ray Dalton into a grown-up. Fuck, man, most guys just went to college and got a job.
“I still have a job for you.”
T.R. tilted his head up as the movie screen glowed into life. A silent, old-timey street scene juttered in browns and whites across the mildew-stained canvass. But instead of women in their frilly Sunday best or men in pressed overalls and suits, the street was peopled with walkers. Their clothes were filthy and ragged, feet dragged and arms swayed. The flickering camera zoomed in on the marquee over the theatre where drooping, crooked letters proclaimed a double feature: THE LAZARUS BOY and LOVE NEVER DIES. The point-of-view swam through the front doors, past a dead man slumped over the candy counter and through the swinging door into the theatre proper. The screen showed a theatre with empty seats save one, and a screen that showed a theatre with empty seats save one—on and on like facing mirrors, creating a tunnel to infinity.