Risen (32 page)

"If we knew who all those cars belonged to," Brant said, "I'll bet we'd have the beginnings of a list of Risen. They're gathering."

"But for what?" Tom asked. For some reason he thought of the crows massing on the jungle gym in the Hitchcock movie.

"Maybe we should stay and find out."

Tom shook his head "no."

"Let's do this newspaper thing," he said. "It's all just guess and speculation until we get some facts. Find out who Eloise is, or was. See if there's any record of this kind of thing happening around here before. Anything we can use to convince Mom to move Annie."

Brant told Tom about his alternate plan, to lure Peg into the car under false pretenses and drive her out of town.

"Wouldn't work," Tom said. "Mom would jump out of a speeding car for Annie."

Brant noticed the bitterness underlying Tom's remark.

"She spends a lot of time with Annie, doesn't she?" Brant said. "Too much, maybe."

"It's her obsession. It's like, if she's awake and she isn't at work or with Annie, she thinks she's doing something wrong. As if it was her fault Annie's in a coma."

"Not that I'm any expert on the female psyche," Brant said, "but it seems like some of them have a special gland for producing guilt. Peg's probably played the 'if' game so much about the accident that she feels responsible. You know 'If I hadn't divorced Rod, this never would've happened.' 'If I'd gone to pick her up instead of letting Rod drive her....'"

"Right, right. I keep telling her, 'Mom, it's not your fault.' But she won't listen."

"She's got the gland, for sure. It doesn't make her a bad person, though."

"I didn't say she was. It just gets frustrating, that's all."

"Tell me about it. I tried for months to get a free day out of her. In a way, you lost both parents in that wreck. She's as much a victim as your dad was, only she has to go on living and deal with the aftermath. It's tough as hell."

"I guess so. I never thought of it like that."

They didn't talk for the next few miles. When they hit the highway and passed the sign telling them Junction City, 62 miles, Tom picked up the conversation again.

"I love my little sister," he said. "I always did. But the way she is now, it's like she's dead but some part of her brain didn't get the message. Do you think she's got a chance?"

"There's always a chance. Very small, of course."

"You read about people coming out of comas after years."

"You read about them because they're news. They're the exceptions. You read about people who win the lottery but nothing about the thousands of losers. That's what the news is all about, life as it isn't. A reporter in the city spends all his time looking for the hook, the angle, the sensation. You can start to feel like a charlatan after awhile."

"The mob didn't think you were a charlatan."

Brant shrugged. "That's the problem with reporting anything consequential. There are, you know, consequences."

"That why you started the
Times
?"

"I probably romanticized it. I thought it'd be spiritual somehow, immersing myself in births and deaths and farm sales and hail damage and high school graduations. There's just one problem with reporting life on that scale."

"What's that?"

"It's real damn boring."

Tom let out a short laugh. "Yeah, that's Anderson."

"I have to admit, this 'Risen' thing had me fired up as a reporter. For a time."

"What about now?"

"Now?" Brant considered the question. "Now it's like the mob's on my ass again and I just want to get out of it alive."

"I thought that was the problem."

Brant gave Tom a questioning look.

"An excess of life," Tom explained. "The wrong life. Like a cancer or a virus."

Brant glanced over at Tom. "Jesus," he said, "you put your finger on it. The Risen are like a virus, some kind of strange thing that isn't living or dead but capable of taking over living cells. You know, viruses can lie dormant for years. Then they find a suitable host, start reproducing, and all hell breaks loose."

"You think this is a virus?"

"Not in the strictest sense, no. But metaphysically, maybe. Maybe that's not a bad way of thinking about it. I mean, what do the Risen want, the ones we know about?"

"Nothing," Tom said, "except maybe...."

"Except to make more Risen. Maybe that's all that matters to them."

"Shit," Tom said. He thought again of the ripples that didn't die out, that got stronger and spread wider and farther, never stopping. "Shit," he said again. "It'd be like a virus that nobody was immune to. It could mean the end of the world."

"Yes, it could," Brant said.

***

The church was packed. Even people who hadn't attended Sunday's service were gathering to hear about the latest miracles. The parking lot was full and people were parking along the street for several blocks in either direction. As Peg hurried toward the church she fell into step with Bernice Tompkins and her husband, Carl.

"Can you believe something like this is happening in Anderson?" Bernice asked. "I think everybody in town's here. I told Doris when she called that if I got Carl to come to church, it'd be another miracle. But here he is!"

"Biggest thing that's ever happened in this town," Carl said.

"You don't think it's a little creepy?" Peg asked.

"Creepy!" Bernice laughed. "I guess you could call it that, but I suppose the people who saw Lazarus rise from the tomb thought that was pretty creepy, too."

"Biggest thing to happen in the whole state," said Carl. "You watch. It won't be long before the TV networks pick this up. They'll all be here. NBC. CNN. You just watch."

"I imagine you're right," Peg said.

"ABC. Fox."

"The shows, too," Bernice agreed. "What's that one...
Hardline
?"

"They'll be here, soon as the word gets out and people realize it isn't some kind of hoax."

"I just hope they don't make us all look foolish the way they do."

"There's nothing foolish about coming back from the dead. I expect they'll treat it like a joke at first, but once they see that it's on the level...you watch. It'll be big."

By the time Peg reached it, the sanctuary was standing room only. She looked around and spotted John and Madge Duffy in the pews. Madge sat with her back as straight as a wall, and Peg knew that she was beaming with pride. As a murderess, she had been shunned by polite society; John's rise had granted her a kind of "social pardon," but at the cost of identifying herself with an oddity, acknowledged by the mainstream, perhaps, but separate from it. Now she and her husband were at the forefront of an apparent movement, and their social coin had soared in value.

The Duffys sat next to Frank and Doris Gunnarsen. Frank Gunnarsen, John Duffy, Carl Tompkins...the room was filled with husbands who generally chose the sports section of the Sunday newspaper over the word of the Lord. As Peg scanned the crowd she located quite a number of newcomers. Merle Tippert, who never missed a chance to disparage organized religion, was there, as was Deputy Haws' reclusive sister, Lucy, and that salesman who breezed through town every so often. Others, too, who Peg knew by name or only by face, swelled the ranks.

Doc Milford worked the center aisle, smiling and shaking hands like a politician. This was his moment of vindication. Everyone who'd seen the bodies of Irma Klempner and the Ganger boy knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that these two people were as dead as a pair of roasted game hens. If they'd risen the way Doris Gunnarsen and the grapevine said, it couldn't be because an aging dipsomaniac who should have retired from medicine ten years ago had forgotten to feel for a pulse.

Sheriff Clark and Deputy Haws handled crowd control. The rules about maximum occupancy and fire aisles had flown out the window as more people crowded their way in. The sanctuary began to resemble an overloaded ferry boat headed for disaster, people were wedged in so tightly, until Clark and Haws moved some of them outside while Jimmy Troost hooked up a makeshift speaker system so the latecomers on the lawn could hear the Reverend's address.

The place roared with conversation. Gone was the reverential silence of the sanctuary, the hushed tones and breathy whispers, replaced by a clamor as pounding and energetic and incomprehensible as the din of an engine room. People wore jeans and t-shirts, baseball caps, boots and sneakers, khaki pants and slacks and house dresses and work uniforms. They jostled and angled for position. They joked and scoffed and fretted and proclaimed.

It seemed to Peg as if the entire town had been resurrected. A few days ago, Anderson had been a sleepy little town massaged by the humdrum into a state of relaxation so deep it could have been mistaken for a coma. Now it was alive and buzzing. Peg's heart was beating fast as Reverend Small led Franz Klempner and the Ganger boy's mother in from the sacristy.

Franz looked like hell. His eyes were dark and he moved slowly and stiffly, as if every joint and muscle in his body ached, which they probably did. He seemed to have no strength as Small helped him to sit down in the front pew where spaces had been reserved for the two of them. Franz, even in his so-called "declining" years, had shown the vigor of a much younger man, but this morning he looked his age and more. The shock of the accident on his body was taking its toll, as was the shock to his spirit upon learning of his wife's rise.

Janis Ganger appeared shaken. She wore the same dress she'd worn to church the day before, and even from the back of the sanctuary Peg could tell that she was not quite there, as if she were watching herself from some hidden corner and operating her body by remote control. Awakened in the early morning hours to find that her son was back from the dead, then rushing to the funeral home to witness the miracle herself, then hours spent wide awake in her living room smoking cigarettes and nipping at a bottle of Gilbey's gin while Galen lay in bed asleep, all of it had left her feeling dissociated from the events playing out around her. It was all happening without her, had nothing to do with her except for the accident of birth that linked her and one of the morning's celebrities. So complete was her estrangement from her son that coping with his death had been easier than this, his unexpected and (yes, why not admit it?) unwelcome re-entry into her life. Yesterday had been a day of closure. Today was a day of riddles and uncertainties and doubts, and she had to fake her way through it in front of the whole town, nursing a hangover and draped in a day-old dress.

Reverend Small stepped to the pulpit and waited for the crowd to quiet down. He spoke a few words to test the sound system, made sure the people on the lawn could hear, and began his speech.

"Just over twenty-four hours ago," he began. "I stood at this pulpit and addressed a similar group—many of you were among them—concerning a miracle. It was the miracle of John Duffy's rise from the grave.

"Today, that miracle has been repeated twice over. Killed in a tragic automobile accident, their bodies burned beyond recognition, there could be no doubt but that the spirits of Irma Klempner and Galen Ganger departed their physical bodies to join the Holy Father in Heaven.

"For reasons unknown and perhaps unknowable to mortal man and woman, the Good Lord saw fit to return those spirits, those souls, to Earth. The bodies that had housed them were ravaged beyond the skill of any surgeon to repair. But God is no ordinary physician. He healed those bodies as you or I would rebuild a house or, more appropriately, a temple, for the body is the temple of the soul, and it is well within the power of the Lord to restore that temple to its former glory, whatever violence it has suffered.

"It is normal to fear that which is beyond our comprehension. From the time when our earliest ancestors huddled in caves, terrified of the thunder, fear has been the curse of humankind, for there are so many, many things even to this day that we do not understand. But the Lord gave us courage, also, and even more importantly, he gave us the faith to accept these things as part of His grand scheme for the universe, to accept them and their goodness as His work.

"I urge you, in God's name, to cast your fears aside and to welcome Irma Klempner and Galen Ganger into your hearts. Welcome them for what they are, the work of our heavenly Lord and Father from whom all good things must come. Welcome them as living testaments to the faith that you nurture in your breast. Welcome them as you would a newborn child, for they truly are reborn. Welcome them as Irma's husband, Franz, and Galen's mother, Janis, welcome them. Welcome them as the true miracles they are. Welcome them now."

Peg had not noticed Ruth Smart at the organ, but now the strains of "Holy, Holy, Holy" filled the sanctuary and Reverend Small turned toward the sacristy door. The door opened and Galen Ganger stepped through followed by Irma Klempner.

Galen's hair was trimmed, washed, and neatly arranged. Peg wondered what barber or stylist had been summoned in the middle of the night to tidy the boy up, and then she remembered that one of Jed Grimm's talents was preparing corpses for public viewing. He was probably a pretty fair hand with a pair of scissors. Galen wore a button-front shirt instead of his usual ragged tee, and slacks that Peg could not imagine were his own, probably borrowed for the occasion from Reverend Small, who was about Galen's height.