Forever Never Ends (29 page)

"Now do you believe?" DeWalt asked from the backseat. Emerland nodded.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Chester said.

Chester didn't even have to threaten him with the shotgun this time.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Bill hung up the cell phone. He had dialed Nettie's number for the fourth time. No answer at the church, either. She wasn't in her apartment when he drove there to meet her at eleven o'clock. She had stood him up.

After
today
. After all they’d been through and shared. After Bill had bent his principles. After the sin that didn’t feel at all like a sin.

After he’d said that word
love
, the clumsiest word that ever passed his lips.

He gripped the steering wheel and looked through the truck’s windshield. The Blossomfest booths were silent, draped with vinyl and canvas and waiting for tomorrow’s crowds. The brick faces of downtown were asleep, the streets black and empty. A police car threaded up the street between the stalls, its headlights washing over the plywood signs and stacked boxes and rigged backdrops.

Bill studied the peeling white of the Haynes House, which would soon be filled with laughing children, and polyester-clad tourists, frowzy-headed college students, and the locals in their overalls and starched pink dresses.

Bill looked at the stage where Sammy Ray Hawkins would be playing tomorrow for the adoring crowds. Bill’s ex-wife would sit smugly at the foot of the stage and search the crowd for Bill's face. Her mouth would be thick with cherry lipstick, her hair cut in a style she had seen in some recent magazine. She would be wearing a poppy red blouse with a plunging vee front, the better to show off her unhindered chest. Her hair would dance across her laughing face, blown by the breeze that always seemed to follow her.

And Bill knew he would lust after her, if only for a moment. But maybe if he prepared himself now, if he prayed for strength, the desire would dissolve along with his hatred. And the scars on his heart where the Lord had healed him would not reopen and bleed fresh pain. It was strange to be thinking of her now when he had Nettie filling him, crowding his skin and mind and memory, filling his inner ear with her soft musical voice, but roots ran deep and vows lingered even when broken.

He only hoped Nettie wasn't regretting the afternoon. He didn't think so, but why hadn't she been at her apartment waiting to meet him as planned?

Bill’s stomach knotted. He was sure that, somewhere down in those orange flickering pits, the devil was laughing at him. What a great joke the devil had played. Gotten Bill to turn away from God and answer the human call of his weak heart. Convinced Bill to commit sin with a virtuous woman, an act that condemned
her
to damnation as well. He could practically hear the Prince of Lies licking his dry lips in anticipation of torturing Nettie for an eternity.

But, damnit—-excuse me, Lord—it hadn't felt wrong or dirty. It had felt real and right and joyful, there on the blanket in the meadow under the eye of God. It felt like love, something that had its own kind of glory, something that no Red-tailed Son-of-a-So-and-So Fallen Angel could taint and twist into something foul. And God damn—excuse me, Lord—any demon or human that tries to come between me and my newfound soul mate.

But the shadow of a doubt crossed his mind. Satan was tricky. Satan could make Nettie pretend that she loved him when she really didn't. Satan could induce her to unbutton her blouse and offer her flesh to him as some kind of ritual sacrifice. Satan could use Nettie to siphon his spirit away.

Why couldn't Satan content himself with Bill's ex-wife instead of seeking to convert the pure? But perhaps that was so much sweeter, a seduction of the innocent, as much a lure to the Damned One as cake frosting was to a child.

And now Nettie could be hiding under her white bedspread in her tiny room, crying in shame at being used. Nettie's stomach could be in knots, she might be praying for forgiveness. Nettie might be nothing more than a helpless pawn of that brimstone-breathing bastard who hoped to rule the world. Or at least hoped to spread a little misery along the golden road that led to eternal salvation.

But if the devil had hurt Nettie, there would be hell to pay. Because Bill would crawl under the earth and grab the goat-faced freak by the throat and wring his sorry neck. Because
nobody
was going to hurt Nettie as long as he had a breath and a prayer.

Excuse me, Lord. I get a little worked up when it comes to Nettie, in case you haven't noticed. But if it's Your will, I'd like You to bring us together. For our good and Your greater glory.

He looked down Main Street. The town looked dead as four o'clock. He hated to break his word, but he couldn't sit on his rear end, not knowing how Nettie was feeling about this afternoon. The police could watch over things here. He couldn’t wait any longer.

Bill decided to try the church in case Nettie had worked late for some reason. It was a busy time, he knew, with Easter coming. But even the dedicated had to sleep sometime. And Nettie would have called him if she'd had to miss their date. Wouldn't she?

Or had she decided that someone who had already been in a failed marriage was damaged goods? Or that Bill was a serpent-tongued hypocrite out to serve his own desires instead of the Lord’s?

He started his truck. Who could hope to understand the ways of God or Woman?

***

Crosley eased his cruiser through the trailer park, its tires crunching on the gravel drive. Someone had called in to report a prowler, and Crosley had taken the dispatch himself.

Probably just another fly-blown drunk staggering home late, but at least it gave him something to do besides look for people who might not want to be found. For all he knew, Emerland was dipping his wick in that Leon woman right now, and the Mull fellow was sleeping off a drunk in a whorehouse somewhere. He'd rather deal with something simple and solvable, like a wino to shake down and maybe lock up, or a teenager caught puffing on a joint.

No Incredible Melting Man to deal with, no big mysteries. He didn't blame the mayor for not believing the story. Hell, he didn't half believe it himself, and he'd
been
there.

He rubbed his belly and thought about pulling another Black Label from under the seat. But he was close to the legal limit already. And he had the feeling that the Virgin Queen was just waiting for a good excuse to bounce his fat ass out of the Police Chief chair. Drunken driving on duty wasn't exactly kosher for a man who upheld the public trust.

But just look at my public. Scraggly-assed white trash who would dry up and blow away—just like the Incredible Melting Man—if it weren't for their welfare checks. Only a third of the handout actually went to buy food. The rest went to moonshine and speed and pot and whatever else would give them a few hours of amnesia.

One of his own uncles lived out here, and that made him sick to his stomach. The catch of it was, what really burned his ass, was that the white trash couldn't stop breeding like maggots.

No matter how many rubbers they gave out at the Pickett Health Clinic, no matter how many birth control lectures they gave to those doughy rednecks, they still manufactured an endless stream of yard monkeys. All with the same vacant eyes and slack mouth and growling belly and an inborn craving to get higher than a Chinese kite.

Crosley cruised past the silent, dark trailers, wondering about the tin-boxed lives of the people inside.
Probably dreaming about their next handout. Hope none of them come down to fuck up Blossomfest. Maybe they'll hang out here all weekend, swapping out wives and spark plugs.

He didn't see any prowlers. Nothing worth stealing back here anyway. He decided to pop around the corner to the GasNGo and get himself a Snickers bar and a
Penthouse
. Then he'd park somewhere and finish off the Black Label before the sun came up.

He had almost completed the trailer park loop when he saw movement in the bushes that bordered the lot. A dirt trail led into the woods, and lights from the gas station blinked through the trees. The rednecks probably walked through there to buy their two-dollar wine and disposable diapers. He put the cruiser in "park" and heaved himself out from behind the wheel.

Crosley walked up the trail, his hand on the revolver that swung from his hip. No need for caution. Subtlety was lost on these bastards. He stomped around in the bushes as if trying to flush a covey of quail. "Come on out. I know you're in there."

A rustle of sprung grass and bent twigs answered him. He unsnapped his pistol strap and lifted his revolver.

"D—don't shoot me, Mister Policeman,” came a small, sniffling voice.

One of the yard monkeys. What's he doing out this time of night?

"I won't hurt you, son," Crosley said in his calm cop voice. "Just come on out into the light where I can see you."

A boy, maybe eight or nine years old, stepped from beneath the low branches. Moonlit tears streaked his dirty face. Crosley knelt to the boy, hoping he wouldn't catch lice. "What's your name, son?"

"Mackey Mull, sir. They call me Little Mack.” The boy sucked what sounded like a half pound of snot back up one nostril.

"Little Mack, huh? Well, what in the world are you doing out here in the middle of the night, Little Mack?"

The boy looked down at his feet. "You sure you ain't going to shoot me?"

Crosley realized he was still holding the pistol. He smiled and slid it back into its holster. He almost patted the boy on the head but decided against it.

"I wouldn't hurt you for a thousand dollars."
Unless it was tax-free
.

"I been hiding,” the boy said. “Since way yesterday."

"Now, little man, what are you hiding
from?
" Crosley hoped it wasn't a child abuse case. Domestic problems were a hell of a lot of paperwork, and the legal system never changed a goddamned thing. For all he knew, this brat deserved a slap across the lips once in a while. Most of them did.

"The bad men. With the shiny green eyes." The boy sobbed, small shoulders shaking. "I think they got my mommy."

"Your mommy? What bad men?"

"The bad men. Like in the scary movies."

"Look, son. Don't you worry. Mister Policeman will fix everything right up, now."

"My brother Junior says policemen are pigs. Are you a pig?"

Yep. No person alive could resist the temptation to backhand this particular mucous midget.

"No, son, we're just plain folks working hard to make the town safer for everybody. You live here in the trailer park?"

"Yeah. Over there." He waved his hand.

"Okay. Just lead me to your trailer, and I'll make things all better."

"What about the bad men?"

Crosley chuckled. "I'll take care of the bad men," he said, but noticed that he was rubbing his stomach. Something the brat had said about green eyes made him think of the Incredible Melting Man.

The chief followed the yard monkey back down the trail. They were almost into the open gap of worn yards and gravel when he heard limbs snapping. He turned just in time to see his uncle, his military clothes torn and stained. The old bastard usually took pride in his appearance, especially when he was wearing the uniform.

“Uncle Paul,” Crosley said. “What you doing out this time of night?”

Uncle Paul took a staggering step forward and lifted his arms. His one eye was shining like a lime lighthouse. Crosley looked into the eye and saw empty carnival nightmares as the wrinkled and slick face pressed toward his own.

“See, it’s one of
them,
” the brat shrieked beside him.

Crosley ordered his hand to lift the revolver, but his muscles went AWOL. Uncle Paul’s rancid stench swarmed his senses and snaked into his nostrils. Then their faces pressed together and Crosley tasted bitter sap. The spores hit his tongue, flooded him, broke and burned him. His mind was already turning, already joining, already halfway there.

"See?” Crosley heard the brat squeal, just before he slid into the blissful fog. "See? I
told
you there were bad men. Stupid pig."

Then Crosley was overwhelmed by his uncle's moist slobbering, by the rotten rind of a mouth that kissed him hello and good-bye. As the brat’s footsteps receded into darkness, Crosley entered a different kind of darkness, one that never ended, one he never wanted to end.

***

Nettie crawled across the patio of the parsonage, her belly cold against the flat tiles. Her arms ached, her ankle was swollen, her knees were rubbed raw, and her head throbbed with bright metal pain. But she was alive.

She might be the last person on earth, but she was alive. She heard the noises from the church as those creatures blew their bubbly praises to the rafters, sang their unintelligible hymns and blasphemed all that was good and holy with the very fact of their existence. If it weren’t for those hellish visions described in the Bible, Nettie would have thought herself insane. A visionary shouldn’t suffer doubt, and this was a sure vision of hell.

She had
seen
the preacher's wife sliding across the vestry. She had
seen
the snake-eyed preacher complete his conversion. She had
seen
the overripe parishioners crossing sacred ground on their trembling stumps of legs like lepers to a healing. She had witnessed and believed.

Nettie raised herself to a sitting position, pulled open the storm door, and tried the knob. Locked. Nettie hoped Sarah was home. It was her only chance. She gripped the doorknob with both hands and hauled herself to her knees. Then she rapped on the glass window.

No one answered.

A light was on in one wing of the house. Maybe it was Sarah's bedroom. Nettie didn't think she could crawl another inch. She banged again, louder. Her ankle throbbed like a crumbling tooth.

She was about to knock again when she saw the long shadows of the ones who stood in the distant church door. Those who had turned. Against nature. Against God. Against the light and toward her.

They shuffled down the church stairs under the quiet stars. The preacher led the way as the creatures crossed the graveyard, his thin twigs of arms upraised in rejoicing. Amanda followed, once again a chastened wife, only now she had the power of a demon. The Painters followed, meek and marshy and jubilant. The unidentifiable dripping stalk that had once been a person brought up the rear, one arm missing.