Jenny Pox (The Paranormals, Book 1) (43 page)

More heads nodded, and there were murmurs of agreement.

“The girls tell me,” Dr. Goodling said. “There was great witchery again today at Barrett House, because of Easter.  They have their own kind of Easter ritual, you see.”  He turned to look at Cassie and Neesha, evaluating them for a moment. “Cassiopeia,” he said. “Did Ashleigh tell you about seeing any black magic today?”

Cassie looked around nervously as hundreds of faces turned toward her.

“Yes,” she said.  She cleared her throat. “Um, yes, Dr. Goodling.  That’s why they did it, for their Easter ritual.  Because, uh, you see, the devil, they celebrate a different Easter.  Right?  So, they need to...I’m sorry, this is hard to say.  They need to sacrifice a virgin.”

The entire crowd gasped.  Even Dr. Goodling looked surprised.

“Yep, sacrifice a virgin,” Cassie said. “They knew Ashleigh was a virgin, right?  So they lured her in.  I mean, Ashleigh is a major get for Satan, right?  Only she escaped.  And she made it all the way to church.  And so…here she was, and then.  Well, and then…” Cassie glanced at Jenny. “Then Jenny and Seth came to chase her.  That’s why they’re here.”

Then Cassie buried her face in both her hands.  She looked like she was sobbing, but Jenny believed she was hiding laughter.

“Scripture is very clear,” Dr. Goodling’s voice boomed.  “‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Exodus…well, Exodus.”

Jenny watched this unfold.  Her mind was completely numb.  Had Ashleigh really planned everything?

“However,” Dr. Goodling said. “Did you know that black magic, witchcraft, and devilry are not felonies in South Carolina?”
The crowd murmured, surprised and mystified by this.

“
It’s not illegal,” Dr. Goodling said. “On account of…it’s freedom of religion.”

Many an outraged cry went up from the crowd.

“On the other hand,” Dr. Goodling said. “We have God’s law.  We have the Book.  And it tells us, ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’  Say it with me, folks.”

They said it with him.

“That’s from the Bible, folks,” Dr. Goodling said. “Now, we all know my daughter Ashleigh.  She’s about as close to an angel as I can imagine.  And to think, what they did, and tried to do.  Of course the Lord will give us a sign.  Of course the Lord will send an angel to strike the first witch, to show us what to do.  The signs are here.  This is a test of faith.

“
We are way out beyond human justice,” Dr. Goodling said. “Ain’t that right, Chief Lintner?”

The police chief looked at Jenny, then at Dr. Goodling, and nodded his head.

“Tonight, we have to rip the evil from this town, root and branch,” Dr. Goodling said. “Tonight, we’re going back to the Old Testament, and the original law.  Tonight, we are gonna see God’s justice.”

Shouts went up from the crowd.

“Traditionally,” Dr. Goodling said, “Witches are killed in two ways: by hanging, and by burning.  I recommend we start with one and finish with the other.  Hang the girl-witch.  Burn both bodies and bury them in unmarked graves on unblessed ground.  And, uh, cover the graves with salt!”

Many voices rose in support of this.

Dr. Goodling walked to the cab of Dave’s truck, leaned against it, and waited.

Gradually, people came together, a thick nylon rope was found, a lynching party picked out, including Everett Lawson, Deputy Guntley, Larry DuShoun, and a fat guy in a denim jacket named Arbie Blackfield, who owned an old gas station on the south side of town, and had just come from drinking at McCronkin’s.  His eight-year-old daughter had allegedly been hurt in the accident with Dave Trenton.

Jenny watched all of this in disbelief.  Then she happened to catch a look between Dr. Goodling and Cassie.  Cassie raised her eyebrows, and Dr. Goodling winked at her.  Jenny realized this wasn’t all one big, intricate plot arranged by Ashleigh.  They were adapting.  Dr. Goodling’s carnie-booth con man instincts kept the show going his way, and obviously Cassie had learned a few tricks from the Goodling family.

They were improvising.

Jenny needed to improvise, or they were going to kill her.  Arbie was twirling up a nylon  noose.  Why did they want to kill her?

She blinked, and the meaning of Dr. Goodling’s speech clicked into place.  She’d spent a lot of time thinking like Ashleigh, for her own defense.  That meant she knew at least a little about how Dr. Goodling worked, too.

Jenny stood up, and many people quieted, looking at her.

“
Can’t you see what he’s doing?” Jenny asked. “He’s just trying to protect his daughter.  Ashleigh Goodling is a murderer.  She killed Seth.  And now he wants all of you to share her guilt.  He wants you to burn our bodies?  Think about it.  You’ll be part of both crimes.”

There was angry muttering and some unfriendly shouting.

“If you do what he says,” Jenny shouted, “You’re all guilty!  Don’t you understand?  He’s a con artist.  Like his daughter.” 

This brought a lot of angry shouting, and the crowd surged toward her.  Dr. Goodling stood upright in the pickup bed again.

“Be mindful of the devil’s deceptions,” Dr. Goodling said. “Is there any here among you who would defy God?  Is there any here who would speak on behalf of this girl, who has brought only curses and evil upon us through her witching?  Think of all the innocent girls who suffered, all the strange pregnancies.  The horror and death we’ve seen today.  Who wants it to continue?  Who speaks for the child of hell?”

Jenny looked out on the silent crowd.

“Please,” Jenny said. “Somebody?”

There was whispering, and Jenny thought she heard hissing.  But nobody spoke up in her defense.

Dr. Goodling said a special blessing over the four members of the lynching party.  They  walked up the courthouse steps together, towards where Jenny stood by Seth’s body.  Seth’s blood coated her dress, her gloves, her face.  It was already starting to cool.  She could smell it everywhere.

Deputy Guntley dangled the noose.

“Y’all hold her,” he said as they approached.  He smiled around his buck teeth. “I’ll rope her.”

Everett seized her left hand and Albie Blackfield grabbed her right, both of them insulated by Jenny’s long gloves.  Larry DuShoun got behind Jenny and clapped his hands to the front of her hips, which just seemed unnecessarily perverted to her.

“You just hold still,” Deputy Guntley said.  He raised the noose over head.  Jenny watched his fat, jiggling forearm moved into striking distance.  “Hold still…”

Jenny lunged her head forward and sank her teeth deep into the deputy’s arm.  Guntley screamed and tried to pull free, but Jenny bit down with all her strength.  A dark red rash spread up his arm and into his sleeve.  It appeared again on his neck, then spread across his face like kudzu overtaking a tree.  His whole body shivered, and ropy saliva sputtered from his mouth.

Jenny opened her mouth and pulled away, and thick strings of dissolving flesh came with her, clinging to her lips like hot mozzarella.  She left a mouth-sized hole in his forearm, open all the way to the bone.  Guntley collapsed as seizures racked his body.

Jenny tried to pull her hands free.  Everett was quick and clamped down tight, but Arbie Blackfield was not as quick, and he only managed to catch the fingers of her glove.  She pulled her right hand free.  She wouldn’t be needing the glove, anyway.

She clapped her hand onto the back of Arbie’s and pressed down, willing the Jenny pox to spread.  Arbie’s hand dried and cracked, weeping blood.  The same happened to his bristly, unshaven face, the skin shriveling and breaking to scales and flakes like mud drying in the sun.  Arbie hyperventilated, then fell to his knees and puked up blood and bile.

Jenny slapped her free hand against Everett’s face, and it immediately broke into the flaky scales, with blood leaking out between the cracks.  More blood seeped from his nose, his ears, and his eyes.  He fell aside, dead by the time he toppled down the steps.

Larry DuShoun wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his hips.  It really felt like he was dry humping her, trying to get one last nut before he died.

Jenny twisted around in his arms, her face uplifted as if she expected him to kiss her.  She put her hand under his chin and gripped his pimply jaw.  Larry’s acne began swelling and bursting, with a sound like popcorn, and Larry howled in pain.  The burst pimples opened into ragged holes, which revealed rotting face muscles beneath his skin.

She shoved him back into one of the courthouse’s big front columns.  Larry bounced off, leaving red smudges all over it.  Then he fell on his face, and he never moved again.

It had taken less than thirty seconds to kill the four of them.  Jenny looked out at the crowd.  Some were screaming, but most just stared in shock and horror.

She leaned down to touch Seth’s face one last time.  He was already getting cold and stiff, the memory of life leaving his body.  That boosted her anger.  She stood up and faced the crowd.  She lifted the ruffled skirt of her bloody Easter dress as she started down the steps, one bare foot at a time.

“
You’re murderers,” she told the stunned crowd. “You killed him.  He was a miracle, and you killed him.  Now you’ve just got me.  And I’m a curse.”

The crowd eased back as she took one slow step down after another, keeping her eyes on them.  She’d tolerated these people long enough.  They had always made her life hell.  And tonight they’d taken her only love from her, the only one she could ever love.  Then they’d tried to kill her.

And so they were all going to die.  Every last one of them.

One of the middle-aged hunters, Gus Lotrie, who worked the meat department at the Piggly Wiggly, raised his deer rifle and fired.  The shot tore through her left side, just below her heart, tearing out a lot of meat.  She stumbled and fell to her knees.  She caught her balance on the step with her hands, but she slumped forward anyway.  She wanted them to think the one shot was fatal.  It certainly felt fatal.  It felt like someone had poured burning gasoline down the left side of her body.

She pictured the swarm of black flies in her gut, always eager to escape and spread the pox.  She imagined them sprouting big, sturdy dragonfly wings.  She told them they were attracted to human flesh.  She told them they were hungry for it.

Jenny pushed herself to her feet, slowly raising her head.  The crowd muttered and whispered, trying to figure out what to do.

It felt like a large, invisible hand reached into her back and squeezed her lungs.  Her nose and throat swelled. Then coughs racked her body, and she hacked out what felt like a lungful of sand.  Grainy black spores spewed out of her and expanded into a cloud, which drifted down to the armed men at the front of the mob.  Jenny watched in amazement.  She’d never known she could do that, but she seemed to have an instinctive understanding of her powers when survival was at stake.

She’d created airborne Jenny pox.

The men dropped their weapons as coughing fits ripped through them.  They sneezed out blood and little gray flecks of brain.  One football player, the junior with the flattop who’d made fun of Jenny’s “pancakes” and pretended he was trying to lick his own nipples, way back on the first day of school, looked up at her through bloody eyes.  His jaw dropped open, and it kept dropping, the bone splintering away from the rotten skull, the decaying flesh of his face ripping open all the way to his ears.

His jaw bounced off his chest and landed between his shoes.  Gurgling, gagging sounds escaped his open throat hole.  Then his blood-rimmed eyes rolled back into his head, and he toppled to the ground, his arms and legs kicking out at random.

Jenny had infected the row of armed men at the front, plus several people behind them.  These included Police Chief Lintner, the school receptionist Mrs. Langford, and a man in a matching kitten sweater who had to be her husband.  All of them lay in a heap, jerking and twisting as the Jenny pox ate through their muscles and nerves, looking like a clump of ants drenched in a good dose of Raid.

Mayor Winder had been near the front with the police, but now walked backward through the crowd along with Mrs. Winder and Cassie.  Dr. Goodling still stood in the pickup truck bed, his eyes wide in horror.  Clearly, his theological studies had not prepared him for this.

The whole crowd was creeping backward, but nobody wanted to be the first to break and run.  All eyes were on Jenny.  She snarled back at them.

Jenny reached both her hands behind her neck and found the zipper tab for her Easter dress.  She pushed it down as far as she could reach.  Then she grabbed both sides of the dress and pulled them out, ripping the dress all the way open.  She pushed the torn dress down off her hips, and it puddled on the stairs around her.

She eased her right foot down to the next step, then her left.  Only her underwear and bra remained, all of it originally white, but now stained dark red with Seth’s blood.  If anyone else tried to grab her, they would die.

She raised her arms high above her head and extended her fingers, as if surrendering.  Then she turned her palms inward to face each other, following her instincts, and suddenly she knew this pose was ancient, it had been engraved somewhere on Babylonian clay or Egyptian stone thousands of years ago.