Anathema (22 page)

A collective murmur of relief rippled through the group as they lined up behind the orderly. Then, like chicks following a hen, they marched down the hall, heading for sanctuary.

On the third floor of the main building, Nurse Carmen unlocked Stevens's door and found the room empty. She shined the flashlight into the room and followed the beam across the wall until it rested on the bed. The linens had been stripped from the stained mattress and small strips of cloth were scattered near the foot of the upturned bed frame.

Somehow, Stevens managed to dislodge the bars and punch out the windowpanes. One end of the crude rope, fashioned from the bed linens, was tied to the short length of iron rod that stuck out of the concrete sill. The rest of the rope disappeared through the breached window.

Nurse Carmen padded into the room and poked her flashlight into the opening. The puny light was unable to pierce the strange darkness, but from what she was able to see, the hospital grounds looked deserted.

The nurse pursed her lips. A furrow of wrinkles etched her forehead.
Damn him. He escaped again.
That man was becoming more and more of a nuisance. When the police brought him back this time, she'd make sure he was heavily medicated and stayed that way for a long, long time. She'd give the injections herself, just to make sure they were done right.

Carmen turned, walked out of the room, and headed to the Rec Center to join the rest of the staff and patients. Hopefully, those moron orderlies hadn't riled up the patients anymore than they already were.

She trotted down the hall to the stairwell, her footfalls echoing in the quiet hallway.

Outside, the rope brushed against the side of the building like a cat's tail as the ground began to tremble.

Chapter 32

Lost.

The simple four-letter word punched Jim in the gut like a lead ball on the business end of a wreaking crane.

How could this be possible? Timothy had been so sure he knew the way. But he did mention something about the cave being bigger than before. How could that be? Caves just didn't grow like that. But then, this wasn't just an ordinary cave.

Jim looked at the last homemade bomb he held in his hand, and his stomach tied in knots. When he roughed out the plan in his mind, he'd assumed they'd go right to the entity's lair, do whatever hocus-pocus was needed, and hightail the hell out of Dodge before the first explosion. Getting lost threw off the time increments. If they didn't find the right way right now, they'd be right in the middle of the explosions. They needed a miracle.

"What do we do now?” Jim asked. His voice wasn't much more than a whisper.

"I don't know,” Timothy replied. “How much time do we have before we have no time at all?"

"Not much.” Jim laughed, nervously. “A minute. Maybe two."

The clergyman nodded and closed his eyes. In the humid darkness, he asked for guidance.

And the miracle came.

It came in the form of two red-haired specters. They shimmered from the rock in a twinkling of warm, white light.

"Rusty and Ronald,” Jarvis whispered. “The McCormick twins."

Jim had no idea who these twins were, but as soon as Jarvis mumbled their names, he knew. These were casualties of those that came before.

In an instant, Jim was transported back to 1983. He was an outsider looking down upon a group of rag-tag warriors who were gazing into the depths of hell. An eerie green light pulsed from a hole as the preacher mumbled something above it. They were all running, running to save their souls. Jim saw it all in glorious gory color, and for the first time, he truly understood what they were up against. For the first time, he realized what the others already knew in their hearts: this mission was like trying to staunch the bleeding from a severed limb with a Band-Aid. But he also realized this was his destiny.

Jarvis had told him he was drawn to this town by a supernatural force. Hew said that his decision to buy the old Miller place hadn't been of his own free will. While that was true, there was another force at work here as well. The power of Goodness. He had been chosen as part of this quartet. He had become one of the Elders, and he'd lost his entire family to fulfill the prophecy. There was no way he could allow himself to fail.

Jim reached out and gave Jarvis a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. “I understand now."

Jarvis nodded. “I knew you would."

The twins glided forward and reached out their arms. Without hesitation, Timothy took their hands. Yellow sparks bounced between their palms as they entwined fingers, and the iridescent auras of the spirits cocooned the men in a fuzzy blanket of warmth and enlightenment.

Linked to the twins, they understood they were not far from the lair. And, yes, the evil had grown stronger over the years, so had the cave. They understood Darkness had come to Prairie Rest, and there was so little precious time left.

The spirits turned, and as gracefully as figure skaters, floated down the corridor. The others followed.

Unaffected by the aura and following at a safe distance, were the pair of golden eyes.

Darkness had taken over. There was no sun, or moon, or stars. Darkness had swallowed them all. Green and gold lightning flashed in the belly of Darkness, lighting up the artificial night with a vision of a grinning, victorious skull.

The walking dead shuffled down Main Street.

Somewhere in the distance, came the sound of a shotgun blast and the crazed laughter of a madman.

A dirty-blond-haired kid with a face full of angry, red acne sat with his gang on the brick wall that surrounded three sides of Cal's Gas-n-Go.

"Things are really fucked up,” Razor wheezed. He wore a torn green T-shirt with “You're A Perfect Excuse For An Abortion” stenciled across its front. A pack of cigarettes was rolled in the sleeve.

"It's the end of the world, dudes,” Jake said. His eyes were bloodshot and as flat as mirrors. He stank of sour sweat and burnt pot.

"Shit, I'll show you the end of the fucking world. Follow me.” The pimple-faced kid jumped off the wall. He walked across the parking lot toward the gas pumps.

The others followed like obedient dogs.

Pimples took the gas nozzle from one of the pumps and squeezed the trigger. Only a few drops of gasoline dribbled from the spout.

"Hey,” Pimples said to Razor, “go inside and turn on the pumps."

"But, dude, the pumps won't run without any power.” Jake said.

"I know that. That's why you're gonna go in back and start the generator."

"Why do I hafta go? Why don't cha make Razor do it?"

Pimples got in his face. “Because Razor's gonna turn on the pumps, that's why."

Grumbling, Jake walked around to the back. Grasshoppers sprung from ankle-high grass, landed on his pant legs, and hopped off. Mice scurried through the overgrown turf. A small, black and gold snake parted the grass in front of his feet. Cicada chirped angrily at the intruder. Butterflies flitted from wildflower to wildflower, sucking nectar with their long proboscises. It was like a meadow back here.

Parallel to the building, a ditch was filled with an oily, dark liquid. As hot as it's been the last two weeks, the ditch should've been dry, which led Jake to believe maybe the liquid was something more than just stagnant water.

Something rippled the liquid's surface, and a stench that smelled like a combination of rotted fish and animal feces roiled from the ditch.

Jake clapped his hand over his mouth and nose. He thought he was going to puke. “Let's get this over with,” he mumbled to himself.

The generator stood on a concrete slab next to the rear door. Painted bright yellow, its color popped against the dirty, brown brick of the Gas-n-Go.

Jake stepped up to the platform, gripped the rubber T of the starter cord, and gave it a pull. The genny coughed and wheezed, and belched a rich plume of exhaust as it chattered to life.

Inside the Gas-n-Go, the fluorescents snapped on, spilling light out the windows and creating rectangles of brilliance on the tarmac.

That done, Razor searched the parking lot and found a stone that was about the size of a softball. He picked it up, and hurled it through the plate glass door.

Being careful not to cut himself on the shards of glass, Razor stepped through the frame and walked to the counter. Beneath the cash register, under the fake wood counter, was a gray metal plate. On the plate were a series of eight switches. He tipped the toggles.

Outside, the gas pumps hummed into life.

"Aw right,” Pimples shouted. A strand of greasy hair dangled across his forehead. “Now, get your ass out of there."

He squeezed the trigger again, and rosy liquid gushed from the end of the nozzle. He locked the trigger open and dropped the hose to the pavement. Like a snake pinned by its tail, the hose slithered back and forth, venom vomiting from its mouth.

Pimples moved to the next pump.

Understanding what Pimples meant to do, Razor and Jake strolled to the other pump island and did the same thing.

With eight pumps belching gasoline from their bellies, it took no time for the rosy liquid to spread across the tarmac. It flowed in cracks and depressions of the asphalt, forming little rivers and ponds. It flooded the parking lot to the front of the Gas-n-Go, then flowed around the slab on which the store stood. Gasoline spread into the meadow behind the store, ebbed into the drainage ditch and floated on top of the strange liquid there.

The trio walked across the parking lot back to the brick wall. Pimples picked up a piece of paper from the ground and twisted it into a cylinder. He reached in his pocket and took out a disposable lighter. It was orange—the color of fire.

He sparked the lighter and touched the flame to the end of the cylinder.

At first, the flame was small, but as it licked at the newsprint, it blossomed into a beautiful flower.

"Listen up,” Pimples said to his two followers. “When I throw this mother, run like hell."

Pimples tossed the flaming cylinder toward the parking lot; the three boys ran.

The cylinder's non-burning end landed at the edge of the gasoline pond, and the flame threatened to extinguish itself. But the old newsprint was like a sponge, sucking the fluid into it. The diminishing fire tasted the rich gasoline and grew stronger with every bite. Suddenly, the paper burst into brilliant red-orange. Less than a second later, the Gas-n-Go exploded into a huge orange fireball.

The fire reached a hundred feet into the bleak sky, making it look like a sunset on the last days of summer. Flaming debris was hurled through the air, peppering the town like a Biblical curse.

Three blocks away, a burning shingle landed on the roof of the Stumble Inn. The fire liked the taste of the ancient roof, and in a matter of moments, the tavern was engulfed in flames.

Another piece landed on the front yard of Taft's reality. In an instant, the dried grass burst into a carpet of orange.

Fire consumed the meadow and lapped at the ditch behind the station, transforming it into a wall of flames.

The blast of the explosion was so great that Pimples, Razor, and Jake were thrown through the air. Hairs on the back of their necks and heads fried from the intense heat. They felt the skin on their shoulders and back blister; smelled the aroma of cooked flesh.

They landed in an overgrown field fifty yards away. Scrabbling to their feet, they watched the destruction across the road.

Plumes of sooty smoke rolled off the fire like angry storm clouds. The asphalt parking lot bubbled, melting like black candle wax. The sidewalk cracked and buckled. Shrubbery and trees became charred, burning masses. Heat ghosts rose into the sky, dancing like tortured prisoners of hell.

A second explosion caused by the explosives Cal kept in the basement of the station caused a second fireball to mushroom into the sky. More flaming debris was hurled into the air.

Chunks of melted, twisted metal landed at Razor's feet, and he kicked it away with a quick movement of his shoe. Behind them, the metal Gas-n-Go sign crashed to the ground. If Jake would've been standing two feet back, the sign would've decapitated him.

A sudden breeze blew in from the west and pushed the fire toward town. It wouldn't be long before Prairie Rest was turned into a blazing inferno.

"Fuck,” Pimples mumbled. It was the only thing he could manage to say.

Down and down and down.

The twins took them down an incline that simultaneously brought them further into the cave and deeper into the ground. And contrary to the norm, the further down they went, the hotter it became.

That's because you're closer to hell,
a voice taunted inside Jim's head. Even here, the wicked voices wouldn't leave him alone.

None of them had any knowledge of the explosion at Cal's; they were too far underground to hear anything.

Jim looked nervously at the bomb he held and thought about the others he'd already placed and activated. This was going on too long. Pastor Timothy was right. They should've been there already. They wouldn't have enough time to escape.

You'll have plenty of time,
a twins’ voice, Ronald's Jim thought, echoed in his mind.
Trust us.

The twins led the group a few more paces, then stopped. In front of them, the corridor forked again. One tunnel twisted right; the other angled left. The right tunnel looked dark and foreboding. From the other, came a faint, pulsing glow that seemed to pull at them.

The specters turned and faced the men. “We cannot go any further.” They spoke in perfect unison. “That is not permissible. But you know the way from here. You'll find it at the end of the tunnel."

Ronald and Rusty reached out and touched Timothy. One by one, the aura that surrounded them slowly diminished until it was no more. Then, smiling, the twins shimmered into a rocky wall.

The ground trembled beneath their feet, causing stone to loosen from the walls and ceiling. They covered their heads with their arms and hands, hoping to protect themselves from the rain of rocks. Now a shriek vibrated throughout the cave. It came from nowhere, yet surrounded them like a fog.