Risen (41 page)

Lights were on and he could see down the length of the hallway. Nothing seemed unusual, from the new carpet and wallpaper to the family photos lining the walls. Brant glanced at the pictures as he passed: baby Joshua in Carol's arms, Joshua in his Little League outfit, Joshua and the dog, Joshua and Mark proudly displaying a fish that should have been thrown back.

None of the photos were of the boy that had glared at Brant from behind the banister. The body was the same, and the face. But the boy in the pictures was warm and lively and his eyes held the spark of benign deviltry that was the hallmark of boyhood. The eyes of the boy on the stairs were cold and dead, eyes that saw but did not feel, a killer's eyes.

The doors to all the upstairs rooms were shut. Josh would be behind one of them, calmly (as Brant imagined it) loading shells into the twenty-two. Behind one of them, perhaps, were the bodies of Mark and Carol Lunger, murdered in their sleep by their son.

Brant slowly twisted the knob on the first door he came to. The door opened silently into a darkened room. Brant reached up and found the switch and flipped it. There was the roar of an exhaust fan—the bathroom. He found the second switch and flooded the room with light, crouching as he swung the door wide.

This is insane,
he thought
, you don't have a plan, why are you doing this?

Because I have to know!

He had to confront the boy and find out what was going on. He had to know what in the hell were they up against.

The bathroom was empty. No one behind the door, no one behind the shower curtain.

Brant eased into the hallway. Three more doors to try, two with light spilling through the cracks, one dark. If he were lying in wait for someone, he would turn off the room lights. Josh was probably in the darkened room. Then again, maybe that's what Josh wanted him to think. Josh was only a kid, but kids these days knew more about shooting people than many adults. Between television and the computer games....

Brant crept silently down the hallway and paused in front of the first lighted door. His sweaty palm was twisting the knob when he heard a footstep on the stairs behind him. He whirled, gripping the butcher knife hard, and moved toward the stairs just as three shots rang out and bullets ripped through the hollow wooden door behind him.

Tom called out from the stairs as Brant flattened himself against the wall. It was Tom's footstep that had alarmed him, and it had saved his life. Brant reached around and rattled the doorknob and five more explosions sent five more bullets crashing through the door.

Brant threw the door open and saw Josh Lunger crouched beside his parents' bed frantically dropping spent shells from the .22. A box of live rounds sat on the floor beside him. He looked up at Brant as if he'd just been caught stealing quarters from his father's pockets. Josh reached for the box of ammunition but Brant crossed the room in a second and threw himself at the boy. He landed on him with all his weight, flattening him to the ground. Josh's legs kicked out and rounds of ammo skittered across the floor.

Josh beat on Brant's side with the empty pistol, cursing and screaming. In another moment Tom was in the room. He pried the gun out of Josh's hand and Brant rolled over and grabbed the boy's arms and pinned them behind his back. Josh kept screaming until Tom had had enough and slapped him hard across the mouth.

Josh glared at Tom with savage hatred.

"You can't win!" Josh cried. "They'll get you tonight! You'll be sorry you hit me when Seth finds out!"

Seth. Brant and Tom locked eyes. So it was true. The demon of Eloise was back.

"What will Seth do, Josh?" Brant asked.

"He'll punish you! He'll let you die and stay dead if you don't do what he says!"

"How do you know that?"

"I know!"

"Did you meet Seth?" Tom asked.

Josh nodded.

Brant and Tom exchanged a quick look.

"Is it Reverend Small? Is he Seth?" Brant asked.

Josh clamped his mouth shut and stared back at Brant defiantly. He'd hit a nerve, something Josh had been warned against.

"Tell me, Josh!"

Tom shook Josh by the shoulders. "Tell him!" he insisted, and Josh shook his head. For one instant, something like terror flitted through his eyes, but fear of what? It certainly wasn't Tom.

Tom threatened to hit him again and Brant told him to leave the kid alone and for a few minutes they played good cop/bad cop. Still Josh resisted all efforts to intimidate or cajole him into betrayal of Seth. Maybe they could wear him down, in time, but time was running out. And Brant knew it was pointless. The deeper he peered into Josh's eyes, the blacker became the abyss he saw there. Tom and Brant exchanged exasperated looks.

"We don't have time for this," Tom said.

"Just a minute."

Brant turned Josh around to speak to him face to face. He waited for their eyes to meet, and when they did, a chill went up Brant's spine at the deadness he saw there.

"Josh, tell me one thing. Just tell me why.  Why does Seth want you to kill?"

"You have to die to know Seth," Josh said impatiently, as if trying to explain the obvious to the stupidest person on Earth.

"And everybody has to know Seth, is that it?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"Because!" Josh snapped. "That's how it is!"

"Why is that how it is? Because Seth says so?"

"Because, that's all!"

"Brant, forget it," Tom said. "He doesn't know. Come on. We have to find my mom."

Brant stood. He kept a tight grip on Josh's shoulder. Tom couldn't tell if that was grip was holding Josh Lunger in place, or Brant. He couldn't tell exactly what it was, but something inside Brant had cracked. Was this how Brant looked the day he packed his bags and fled from the mob?

"Did you get her on the phone?"

"No. There wasn't any answer at home. I could call the hospital...."

"No! You'd have to go through the switchboard. So far they don't know where we're headed and I'd like to keep it that way."

Tom nodded toward Josh.

"So, what do we do with him?"

"We can't just leave him."

Brant reached down and picked up the pistol. He began loading the magazine with fresh rounds.

"Technically, he's dead already," he said as he clicked the rounds into place. "Somebody killed him, his parents probably."

Brant aimed the pistol at Josh Lunger's head. His finger tightened on the trigger. Another ounce of pressure and the Lunger kid would be history. Again.

"He's just a kid," Tom said.

"A minute ago he was trying to kill us both, and coming pretty damn close. He'll call the Sheriff."

Josh grinned. "Go ahead and kill me. I'll just come back."

"I'll get something to tie him up. We'll get my mom and be out of here before he gets loose."

"Pussy," Josh said.

"Things have changed, Tom. The world's a meaner place than it was a few days ago."

"I'll use this electrical cord. That'll hold him, right?"

"We can't play by the old rules and win. Death doesn't mean what it used to."

"You can't get away! They'll kill you both dead!"

Tom was turning with the light cord in his hand when he heard the gun bark. Josh Lunger's head snapped back and he fell to the floor with a thud. Blood pooled under his head where the back of his skull had been.

Brant stared at the body. His mouth was a hard line and he was unsteady on his feet. Slowly he lowered the gun to his side. He knelt and began gathering up live rounds and putting them in his pocket. He moved as if in a trance, like someone going through motions by habit. There was no doubt about it: Something had gone dead inside him. Something had broken.

Tom thought,
Who the hell is this man?

He wondered if Seth hadn't won already.

***

A quick check of the house turned up no bodies, living or dead or anything in between. The garage held a late model Saab and Brant found a spare set of keys hanging on a peg by the front door. The car was a blessing, meaning that the hospital was now only a few minutes away and they would attract far less attention than they would have on foot.

"Where do you suppose they are, the Lungers?" Tom asked.

"Church," Brant said, thinking of the gathering they'd seen that morning on their way out of town.

"And they left their kid home alone, with a loaded pistol."

"Why not? What could happen...he might shoot somebody?"

"Why didn't they take him with them?"

"Maybe it was past his bed time," Brant said dryly. The comment prompted Tom and Brant to check their watches.

"Ten-twenty," Tom said.

"Time enough. Did you find any more guns in the house?"

"No."

Brant handed him the pistol. "Take this. Open the garage door and let's get going."

Brant eased the Saab out of the garage and Tom closed the door behind them. Tom looked back at the Lunger house as they drove away, thinking about Old Man Lunger and the ghosts of murdered children, and he thought of Josh Lunger lying dead in an upstairs bedroom, whose last comment before they snuffed out his young life was that they would never get out of town alive.

***

The road through the Lungers' orchard became a street and soon Tom and Brant were gliding silently through Anderson proper.

At first glance the town seemed quiet, but, like a pornographic painting that reveals its obscenities under scrutiny, the quiet streets and familiar houses let slip their secrets by degrees.

Too many lights glowed in too many windows. The occasional gunshot popped and echoed like a Fourth of July firework and died unremarked. Dogs were silent in their yards, alleys were devoid of prowling cats.

As they drove, Brant and Tom became aware of the not-so-subtle evidence of Seth's influence.

Bob Walker knelt by the curb, vomiting from the death angel mushrooms his wife Julie had cooked in his morning omelet.

Night nurse Claudia White's father lay on the front yard where he'd fallen when the quinidine in his gin and tonic stopped his heart.

Matt and Gina Saunders sat slumped in their car in front of their house, suitcases in the trunk and clothes thrown any old way in the back seat. Each had been shot through the skull.

Jerry James carried his new wife, Amber, in his arms, taking her back home. She'd made it six blocks before Jerry was able to chase her down and finish crushing her throat.

Jerry nodded to Tom as he passed, and Tom nodded back.

"Jesus," he whispered to Brant. "The town's gone crazy."

"Just like Eloise."

Brant's voice was distant. He couldn't stop thinking about Josh Lunger's eyes and the evil he'd seen in their depths. Deputy Haws hadn't had that look, or John Duffy. But Haws and Duffy were grownups, and grownups were used to hiding their innermost selves. They smiled when their feet hurt and hid their amusement when someone else slipped on the ice. Kids were transparent. It's what made their joy so infectious and their hurt so intolerable. It's why Brant could peer into Josh Lunger's eyes and see straight through his empty soul and into the dark reaches beyond.

Brant thought about Josh Lunger and he thought about Annie Culler and he thought about Seth, and he knew that leaving town was not enough for a man to do in the face of such ancient and deep-abiding evil. He'd known it before he pulled the trigger on Josh Lunger. Just before.

Such were his thoughts when Hank Ellerby's Jeep Cherokee ran a stop sign and cut across his path, swerving from side to side as if the driver was drunk. Tom spotted Cindy Robertson in the passenger seat, her eyes wide. He gave a shout.

The Jeep bounced over a curb and flattened a speed limit sign and buried its nose in the trunk of an oak. Brant turned the corner and drove toward the accident. Cindy jumped out of the car and saw Brant and Tom heading her way. A splash of light from a street lamp caught her terrified face, and then she turned and ran.

When Tom saw Cindy leap out of Hank's Jeep and run into the alley, he had no choice but to go after her. He left the pistol with Brant, who was going to check on Hank.

The alley was dark but for the occasional security light that came on as Cindy ran past. Tom called to her once but she didn't even slow down. Obviously she'd learned not to trust anyone, and Tom wasn't going to win her confidence by yelling at her while chasing her down. He concentrated on overtaking her. Once she saw that he wasn't going to hurt her, maybe he could convince her to come with them.

He gained on her steadily. Cindy turned to look over her shoulder at him and her foot came down wrong. She cried out and fell. She saw Tom gaining on her and pressed herself against a rough redwood fence. The terror in her eyes caused Tom to slow as he drew nearer.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. He tried to make his voice sound calm and reassuring but he was out of breath from the running. To his own ears, he sounded like a telephone breather. He opted for a few moments of silence while he caught his breath and Cindy hauled herself to a more comfortable position against the fence.