Resurrection (84 page)

Chrissy stepped farther into the room with Alona at her side. Maybe it was time to test the waters. What he was saying was private and that made it all that much more creepy to hear. But she was beyond Grimshanks’ little games by that point. Sure, he was evil and wicked and demented, but he was one-dimensional. He liked to get a rise out of you. Liked to piss you off and scare you. He seemed to feed off the negative emotions he created. When you let him get to you, he got louder; when you ignored him, he seemed to shrink away.

Chrissy thought maybe it was time to get him louder, that might cover the sound of what Albert was doing.

“Chrissy, I want you to give me a handjob! Oh, pretty, pretty please, you hot little cunt! And when I come, oh hee hee, I’ll make you suck me off! I’ll shoot my wormy jizz right down your fucking throat! Isn’t that a lark? Isn’t that a funny? Isn’t that a silly game for us to play?”

“Just leave me alone!” Chrissy shouted at the door.

Grimshanks cackled.
“But I won’t! I won’t! I won’t won’t won’t! And you can’t make me! I’ll get you, Chrissy-pissy, fingers in her pie, teased the boys and made them cry! I’ll get you! I’ll have you! I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll bleed, you little snatch! Grimshanks will shove his rotten prick in you and hump you, hump you, hump you! Just like Deke wants to! Hump! Hump! Hump! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! And when I’m done, I’ll shoot my happy stuff in you and you’ll get pregnant! You’ll have my baby! I’ll plant my seeds in your hotbox! I’ll sink my eggs into your sweet soil like a wasp injecting its eggs into a spider! Oh, and when my baby is born, it’ll eat you from the inside out! Ha ha ha! Ho ho ho! Little Chrissy, gimme a blow!”

Chrissy was set to open her mouth and scream at him, but Alona stepped in front of her. “You ain’t got any lead in your pencil, you little faggot! You forget that?” she railed at him. “You’re nothing but a little queer-boy, ain’t nothing but a little queer-boy!”

Something thudded into the door out there and Grimshanks growled low and bestial like a rabid dog.
“You shut up, biker cunt! You don’t know anything!”

“But I do! We all do! You told us, you told us all about it!”

“I did? Oh yes, I did, didn’t I? Ha, ha, ha!”

“That’s why we know you’re nothing but a little queer-boy! You like boys and you probably always liked boys! Who did it to you, Grimshanks? Who fucked you the first time? Your daddy? Your mommy? Your uncle, your brother

”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, you cunt!”
he shrieked out there, scratching at the door like maybe he didn’t have fingernails now, but roofing nails.
“You better shut your whoring fucking head up or I’ll come in there! I’ll come in there and get you!”

“Then come and get me!” Alona shouted at him. “You won’t because you’re afraid, you little queer-boy! You’re afraid of women! You’re just a little faggot who got so sick of the pervert he was, that he hanged himself! Just like a little pussy queer-boy!”

Grimshanks was roaring like a beast now, howling and chattering his teeth and pounding the door. Dust fell from the ceiling and plaster fell from the walls.
“CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! DIRTY FUCKING BIKER CUNT! I’LL KILL YOU! KILL YOU! KILLLLL YOOOOUUUUU!”

And then there was nothing but silence out there.

Grimshanks was gone.

There was no doubt of that. He was gone and Chrissy could feel his absence. The stink, the invasive malevolence, the stupid childish hatred…gone and gone. Chrissy knew he was no longer out there, same way you knew when a garbage can full of rotting fish had been removed…by the smell. Alona had scared him away or pissed him off so bad he had to leave before he did something he knew he wasn’t supposed to.

But what was it all about?

All Chrissy knew is what the clown bragged about. That there was going to be a party tonight, a festival celebrating the death of Witcham, and that they

all of them in the pit

were going to be used as party favors. No, Grimshanks had not said they would be dismembered and eaten, but then he didn’t have to.

Albert got his pipe behind the lower board and gently eased it away from the window. There was a creak and a groan, but not much else. He pulled it off and handed it to Alona.

“Can you see where we are?” Chrissy asked him.

“No…not really.”

He started in on the other board. It was looser than the first one. He worked it carefully with his strong hands and it started coming away from the window. Except, of course, there was no window there, just an empty frame where one had been kicked out years before.

Though Chrissy and Albert were too preoccupied to pay attention to Ed Watts, Alona had just been waiting for him to try something. And then, as that second board was almost off, he did. He sprang at the door. “Grimshanks! Grimshanks! Grimsh

”

But there was a meaty thud as the board in Alona’s hands caught him on top of the head and he hit the ground, out cold.

“That’s one worm down,” she said, looking around. “Any you other shitbags want to step up to bat?”

22

It was a sign of faith.

It was a sign of trust.

That’s what Harry Teal was thinking as he waited on that rooftop with Wanda, the girls, and Chuck Bittner. Tommy and Mitch were gone now and Deke had went with them. They had seen an overturned rowboat float by and Tommy had dove right in after it. Then Mitch went. And finally Deke. They got it righted after some moments and paddled it back to the roof. They were going after Chrissy. They were certain that the clown could have taken her only one place: the Bleeding Heart Catholic Orphanage, which, according to Tommy, was pretty much abandoned and the mother of all spookhouses now. A grim and desolate place atop a hill. Deke went with them. The gentle current was carrying everything downtown, in the general direction of the orphanage.

They had left Tommy’s four-ten, some shells, one of the lanterns, a bag of salt, and all the blankets.

It was a sign of trust, that’s what it was.

They trusted him enough, apparently, to leave him in charge of two girls, a young boy, and an old lady, a feisty one, but an old lady all the same. Jesus, if Harry had been in their shoes, he wasn’t sure he would have made the same choice, him being a convict and all. But they seemed to trust him, seemed to know he was no danger whatsoever.

And they were right.

He would not betray their trust.

He kept hearing helicopters from time to time. Probably the National Guard out plucking people from wreckage and rooftops. He hoped they’d come for them soon. For it would be dark in less than two hours.

Christ, he hoped they’d hurry.

“Harry?” Rita Zirblanski said. “Are we going to be all right?”

He went over there, put an arm around her. “Of course we’re going to be all right. I wouldn’t have it any other way, honey.”

Wanda looked over at him and winked.

Mr. Cheese, Deke’s cat, meowed.

Chuck Bittner just nodded. “Don’t worry, girls, they won’t show up…unless they want to die again.”

23

“Those look like bodies,” Deke said in a very nervous voice.

“Goddamn, I think you’re right,” Tommy said. “Give the man a big cigar.”

“I’m just saying is all,” Deke said, water running down his face.

Ahead, there were lots of things floating. Pieces of wood and siding, a Rubbermaid bin and a garbage can lid, the wishing well from somebody’s front yard. Lots of unknown rubbish coated in yellow leaves and, yes, bodies. About a dozen of them caught in some kind of crazy daisy-chain like paper dolls. Only these dolls were swollen with gas and gray as rainy concrete. Some kind of weird magnetism had welded them together and maybe it was just decomposition.

Mitch had his Remington Auto-loader balanced across his knees, the bag of salt held on the seat between his legs. Sure, those looked like just your average dead bodies, waterlogged and bloated up, a veil of flies over them…but you could never tell in Witcham these days, you just couldn’t tell.

Deke and Tommy were rowing with slats of wood that had drifted by. Mitch was in the bow. They were making progress, but this was not a good development. In order to keep going, they’d have to try and row around the corpses or cut right through them.

Mitch knew it was his call.

He wrinkled his nose against the stink, said, “Keep rowing, we’ll just have to slice our way through.”

“Through…through that?” Deke said.

“You heard the man,” Tommy said. “Jesus Christ.”

For some reason, Tommy had been at Deke ever since they hopped into the rowboat. He didn’t even know the kid…yet he had taken a dislike to him or maybe it was just that he had had enough and he needed someone to strike out at.

Deke licked his lips. “I was just thinking maybe we should go around. The way the dead are these days, you know.”

“Nobody told you to think,” Tommy said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Deke said.

Tommy scowled. “You mouth off to me again, punk, and you go overboard.”

“Go ahead, you think you’re up to it.”

“All right,” Mitch said. “Take it easy, the both of you.”

This was the last thing he needed. Tommy just couldn’t stop picking at the kid. Maybe it was his shaven head or the red braided King Tut beard he wore. But that was fashion, that was window-trimming, inside, Deke was okay. Mitch knew that or he wouldn’t be with Chrissy. Tommy couldn’t stop, though. He was acting like some redneck who found himself a hippie to torment. It was not like Tommy. He might have been a lot of things, but he wasn’t some intolerant redneck.

“Listen, Mr. Barron,” Deke said. “I just came to help. I know this guy is your friend, but this is getting old, man.”

“You’re right, it is,” Mitch said.

Tommy looked like he’d been slapped. “Christ, Mitch, you’re siding with this fucking punk against me?”

“I’m not siding with anyone.”

But Tommy didn’t seem to believe that. “Lookit this guy, Mitch! Fucking head shaved like one of faggot gangbangers, that silly-ass beard…damn. You think he’s up to what we have to do? What might be waiting for us? He’s wet behind the ears. He don’t have the balls for this.”

“I think he does.”

“I do,” Deke said. “You think I haven’t seen the same shit you have, dude? You think you’re the only one whose seen dead people walking around or had them try to kill you? Well, guess again. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. I know it. So don’t you judge me, because you don’t know shit.”

Tommy looked like he was ready to swing.

Just great.

Out in a rowboat in a flooded city full of dead people that wanted nothing better than to yank out your guts and eat them raw and they were going to fight. Oh, it was about as ludicrous as ludicrous got. Tommy was an old toughie; no doubt about that. He knew how to handle himself, he had the experience. But Deke had fifty pounds on him, muscle and stamina. He played football, was a defensive tackle, and had a black belt in karate. The odds didn’t sound too good and what sounded even worse, in Mitch’s opinion, was that if they started any of that happy horseshit, the boat would tip and back into the water they’d all go.

“So are you our resident zombie-killer?” Tommy said. “Is that what you’re selling, kid?”

“I’m not selling anything, you fucking hayseed. I’ve seen shit you couldn’t handle.”

Tommy laughed, swatting flies away from his face. “No shit? This I gotta hear.”

“Knock it off,” Mitch said to the both of them. “I won’t have it. I won’t have any of this. Both of you, act your fucking ages or I’ll throw both of you overboard. You hearing me on this?”

They both fell silent, so he figured they got it, all right.

Mitch didn’t have time for it. None of it. Lily was dead and maybe Chrissy, too, and he wasn’t going on much here, his batteries were dry and his heart was split wide open and bleeding, and he did not have time for anything that did not get them to that fucking orphanage.

“Row,” he told them. “Row.”

They did.

The boat surged forward through that oily, leaf-congested water and the bow sliced right into those bodies and the stink was instantaneous and sickening, enough to make you vomit your stomach out. A week ago, Mitch would have done just that. But now…well, he was almost used to it and wasn’t that a horrible thing to realize? That you could really get used to something like that?

Deke was gagging.

Tommy was, too, but he was holding it in. “Just don’t puke on me,” he said.

“If I did,” Deke gasped, “it would be purely out of respect.”

Tommy stared at him and burst out laughing. Then Mitch followed suit and Deke, too, letting out a blast of air. It was insane. Insane that anything could be funny in such a situation, yet it was. And maybe the laughter was a necessary thing. Maybe they needed it. Needed to let out some steam.

But the humor died pretty quickly.

As the boat nosed through the daisy-chain, Deke said, “That one…that one just moved.”

And Mitch was going to say, sure, we’re knocking ‘em aside, son…but this was something else. The bodies were
all
moving. They were gyrating, trembling, then thrashing. It looked like maybe they were all going to wake up, but that wasn’t it at all. For the bodies were just camouflage of a sort for what lived beneath them.

Children.

Six of seven them, boys and girls, white and pulpy, their faces the color of newly-risen moons. They slid out of the water, scrambling atop their corpse-floats. Their eyes were black and translucent, windows looking into some dead-end cellar of nonexistence and non-entity. Several of them pointed at the men in the boat, hissing and screaming, vomiting out clods of river mud. Gray water ran from their puckered, fish-like mouths and sunken nostrils.