Fire (57 page)

No. That couldn’t be her. Could it?

She turned to him. Nodded. And he saw her face. And saw that it was her, the same oriental woman he loved who followed him up out of the tunnels below the Korean DMZ.

She was wearing a full suit of armor.

Armor like a knight’s armor, at least in spirit. In detail it was modern and sleek; black-painted steel and high-impact plastic from a technophile’s dream.

She raised her sword above her head, and lightning struck it, and it glowed. And she told him to follow her up into hell.

That presence again. The same dark, invisible presence he’d felt when this portion of the dream first started.

The presence that he recognized.

Just out of sight in every direction; silent but just on the verge of speaking.

Bill focused himself as he followed his one true love, tried to peel the confused half-memories away from one another, tried to figure out just how it was he recognized that presence —

Did it have anything to do with the reason the boy was screaming, why night had fallen so suddenly all around them? He didn’t think so —

And that was when he recognized it.

Recognized him.

The dead policeman. The presence was the dead policeman.

And it wasn’t the threat; the dead policeman’s aura was like a love that protected them from the cold and harshness of the night.

They were almost at the crest of the hill. A step; another. One more and they saw over the rise, saw the boy. . . .

Oh dear God. Bill saw the boy. Saw the thing that menaced him. And horrible as that thing was Bill knew that it was real, because it was too terrible to be anything his own imagination could have made. He knew his limits; knew his faults and his propensities. Nothing Bill would ever imagine would look like that. Never — not even if he lived for a million years.

It had ten heads, each of them fully formed and alive. Reptilian heads, every one viler and hungrier-looking than the one beside it. And from the topmost center of each head there was a horn like the horn of a rhinoceros. Mouths like lions’ maws. More than anything else, the creature reminded Bill of a massive, grey-pelted leopard. Those lower legs, those feet, they were the feet of a bear. And it had hands, too — but they were more like the hands of a monkey than they were like a man’s.

One of those hands held the boy high in the air by the neck of his t-shirt; dangled him above the hungry sets of jaws as though he were some tasty bit of food —

“The Beast!” his lover shouted. “We have to kill it while still we can!”

And she charged the foul, foul thing, leading with her sword —

And the Beast from Revelation laughed. All ten heads rising toward the moon, baring their throats to the edge of her blade as though it were only inconsequential danger. And his love charged close, drew back her sword to cut —

Before her blade could begin its forward arc the Abomination grabbed her the wrist of her sword arm, and lifted her, and Bill heard the sound of shattering bone.

And he leapt at the thing himself, armed with nothing but his bare hands, armored by nothing but a t-shirt and denim slacks. He dove for its waist which would have been an underbelly if the damned thing hadn’t been erect on its hind legs — trying to push it to the ground where the woman and the boy would have the leverage of their feet to defend themselves. Bill might just as well have been trying to tackle a tree or a concrete lamppost, for all the difference he made; the Abomination wasn’t even shaken, and the impact was so bad it’d like to break Bill’s neck, and in an instant there were jaws as large and strong as a bear trap clamped into his scalp, trying to crush his skull —

And just as sudden as day had turned to night, Bill was falling to the ground and was the boy and was the woman who he loved, and where the Abomination had been rock and metal against his body there was nothing at all but the ground rushing up to meet him.

There was something else above him now; and Bill looked up to see it.

“Get away, Herman. You haven’t got any business here. Not now, and not ever in a place like this.” And there in the air where Beast had been was an oval portal like a door into another world, and the Beast was drifting away, evaporating into wisps of vapor thinner than fog.

Bill looked up, into the portal — and found himself staring eye-to-eye with the President he’d murdered.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I killed you,” Bill said. “What are you doing here? Have you come back to haunt me or something?”

There was a twinkle in the man’s eye that wasn’t like anything in any picture of President Paul Green that Bill had ever got a look at. It looked unnatural on him — kind of like Boris Badinov from the Bullwinkle cartoons dressed up in a Santa Claus suit. Bill thought that maybe it wouldn’t have seemed quite that way if he hadn’t seen so many pictures of the guy acting like a raving lunatic.

“No,” the President said. “I wouldn’t hurt you.” and he looked genuinely wounded. Not like a put-on at all, but like Bill’s question really had hurt him. Still, Bill was suspicious of the man. Even if he was dead, and dead for good by all accounts. Even if he had saved them from the Abomination from the Book of Revelation. Even if he was acting like some kind of a fairy godfather.

“Then why’re you here?”

The President sighed. Patiently.

The boy was on his feet, examining the place where the portal into some other world met the air in this one. “He’s here to save us from that thing,” Jerry said. In a tone of voice that suggested it was a matter of indisputable fact. “Aren’t you, Mr. President?”

“No. Herman couldn’t have done you any real harm. Not here. No matter how real he seemed, he’s got less claim here than he does on the land of the living.”

Made no sense at all to Bill. Not one bit.

Jerry harrumphed.

The woman stood. Her clothes were silk now — nothing but fine, dark cloth. She looked Paul Green carefully in the eye, scrutinizing him.

“Then why are you here?” she asked. Her tone of voice was pleasanter than Bill’s had been, but it still wasn’t exactly friendly.

“Because there’s someplace you must be. All four of you who’re with me now. And that place is far, far away from here, and you’ve little time to get there.”

“Is that so?” Bill asked. “Well, I’ll tell you something, Mister —”

The President held up his hand, to silence Bill. And damned if Bill didn’t shut up.

“There isn’t time,” he said, “to argue. You must wake now. And find a plane. And fly it east, to Kansas. To the Lake of Fire, in Cheyenne County, in the west part of the state.”

Behind him, now, was a woman who looked older than time. A dirty woman, dressed in rags. She glowered at the President impatiently. He turned to her, said “Yes, I know, I’m leaving now.” Turned back to Bill and the woman and the boy. Smiled, nodded, and vanished into thin air and his portal with him.

For a moment it was day again in that hilly, grassy place — and then they were waking. On the bed of a dirty truck that moved along a dirt road faster than anything ought ever to have moved.

The Major was there. Major Carver. And the boy, and the Oriental woman, and the dead policeman — those three lying on the dirty flatbed along with Bill. Joey and the Major’s other assistant, the lieutenant fresh from Annapolis. The only one missing was the private or corporal or whatever he was — the Major’s gofer. Chances were, Bill thought, that he was out chasing after something now.

The Oriental woman lay beside Bill, holding his hand.

He looked over at her, saw her watching him, and there was a question in her eyes that Bill couldn’t answer, because all he had was a question of his own.

“Corporal Roe,” the Major said. She cleared her throat. “Do you always talk in your sleep, Corporal Roe?”

What? Bill blinked, tried to clear his head. “Pardon me, Major? Talk in my sleep?”

“That’s what I asked you.”

“No ma’am. Not so far as I know. Can’t say I’m ever awake to hear it, though.”

“And you, young woman? And you, child?” She nodded at the Oriental woman. At the boy.

“No,” she said. She sat up to face the Major, let go of Bill’s hand.

The boy shook his head.

The Major sighed, and her sigh sounded exactly like the President’s sigh.

“It doesn’t matter. Much as I wish it could, what I saw here the last two hours can’t have had anything to do with talking in sleep.”

“What’s that, Major Carver, ma’am? What’d you see?” It was the boy who asked the question. Bill wasn’t any too sure that he wanted to hear the answer to it.

“I saw you healed,” she said. “I’d expected that. You, young man, had a fractured skull; I all but saw it mending.” She pointed at the woman. “Two bullets smashed your spine. The third one broke your neck.” Pointed at Bill. “Seizures. At least two dozen of them, and every one stopped your heart.” She waved her hand to encompass the three of them. “And all through that, dead and alive, the three of you were talking. Talking to each other. And responding.” She looked at Bill. “I checked your pulse, damn you. And there wasn’t any. You weren’t even breathing, but you drew a breath to answer her.”

She paused as if she expected one or another of them to say something. None of them did.

“Then, not five minutes ago, Officer Rodriguez over there started speaking. Officer Rodriguez, whose pupils don’t even dilate in the dark. Speaking in a voice I couldn’t help but recognize. And I think you know what he said.”

Bill looked away from the Major. He felt violated; as though he’d found someone eavesdropping on something so private that it was almost sacred.

“What do you want from us?” The Oriental woman asked her. “Why did you listen?”

Bill looked up in time to see the Major scowl. “What did you expect me to do, sew my ears shut? Don’t be impertinent, Ms. Park.”

“What do you want from us?” Her tone was plainly hostile, now.

The Major stood, furious. Her fist clenched.

“What in the Hell do you think I’m going to do? Where do you think we’re going?” She stamped her left foot, and Bill felt the thunder of it on the flat bed through his rump and thighs. “I’m putting you on a plane. All four of you. And sending you to Kansas.”

She didn’t bother telling any of them about the tiny tracer bugs she’d planted underneath the skin of their arms.

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Chapter Thirty-Nine

ST. CHARLES, MISSOURI

Again! The boy had gone and disappeared again. And he’d chosen the worst possible moment to do it, too. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn! Luke should have known — shouldn’t have let that boy out of his sight, not even for an instant. Shouldn’t even have let him travel with them. Should have found a nice, suburban neighborhood to drop him off in, someplace quiet and safe, and let him find his own way home.

There wasn’t time to go searching for him. Wasn’t the first damned moment to spare. But for all the promises Luke had made to himself when the boy had first turned up, for all that he’d promised himself that if the boy made trouble for himself, he’d leave him to it — in spite of all of that Luke didn’t even consider leaving without him.

Christine was still sitting in the car, half awake, eyes not quite open.

“Did you see which way he went?”

“Uh — ? Who went? Andy, you mean?”

“Yeah. He’s disappeared.” Luke looked around, tried to spot the boy. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as all that; maybe he’d only gone to the men’s room. No, there he was — out in that field. Sixty yards away already, and still heading out.

“Christ.” This was going to take more time than they had. Long enough that he couldn’t just leave the car here and go chasing after the boy; he couldn’t leave the Dodge blocking the pumps for as long as it’d take to bring Andy back. Luke got into the driver’s seat, started the car, moved it to the edge of the gas station’s lot. “You want to wait here — watch the car — or. . . ?”

“No,” Christine said. “I’d better come with you.”

Whatever the hell that meant.

“All right — if that’s what you want. We’ve got to hurry. Are you awake enough to run?”

“I’ll manage.”

Andy was wandering away from the interstate, into a field of tall, dry grass beside the state road that the gas station was on. In the distance there were railroad tracks — elevated tracks on a bulwark of earth.

Andy was making a beeline for the train that was stalled on those tracks. Getting farther and farther away from them, even though it didn’t look as though he were running.

And there was no time at all for chasing after him. Not a single moment to spare. Luke knew it with his gut, knew it with a deep conviction. And he was right.

He took off running across that field with Christine beside him, running for all he was worth and stumbling over stones and ruts because the grass was too tall and too thick and he was in too much of a hurry to pay attention to where he was going.

Andy was climbing up onto the mound of earth now. Climbing up onto the train tracks and over them. Disappearing from sight.

That was when Luke stumbled into the worst rut in the entire field, a deep, narrow rut dug by rainwater from the palisade off to the left of the field. A rut just wide enough for his foot to stumble into, but too narrow to let it out, and Luke went down, slammed face-first into the grass and the stones and the hard dirt. Christine stopped and reached down to help him up, and Luke got to his feet right away, of course. But it was hard running so shaken up and with his ankle screaming at him the way it was, and even though he ran on it he ran slowly.

Out, across the field. Up onto the railroad mound, and over the tracks. Paused to try to sight the boy — and almost missed him altogether, because he was only a dozen yards away. Standing beside an empty freight car, looking in through the open door.

“C’mon, Mister Luke Munsen,” he said. “C’mon over here and see this — you got to see.”

“See what? Andy Harrison, you little pain in the —” Luke stopped himself “— We’ve got to get out of here. Got to get back on the road right now, right now —” He was marching along the edge of the tracks, between the train and the sheer drop on the other side of it. He was going to grab the boy, grab him and lift him up on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and he was going to haul him back to the car, and get all three of them the hell out of there —