Risen (45 page)

Time and caffeine were having their effect on Peg. She sat attentively as Tom told her about his and Brant's research in Junction City, about Eloise and Seth and Donald Pritchett, about their encounters at the roadblock and with Josh Lunger and Cindy Robertson. The flood of reanimated souls outside the diner window slowed to a trickle. Tom started to tell Peg about Reverend Small, but he stopped when she shook her head.

"It isn't Small," she said. "Seth is no stranger."

"But everything started happening when Small moved to town. Before that—"

Peg interrupted with a voice flat with resignation. "They moved the cemetery more than two years ago, before construction ever began on the nuclear plant."

Tom's stomach did a flip-flop.

"Jesus," he said, turning the new fact over in his head. Seth had been loose for two years. He'd been biding his time, studying the town, planning this night for two years. For one wild moment Tom suspected Brant. He'd shown up in Anderson two years ago. Who better to study a town than a reporter? But no, it didn't make any sense. If Brant were Seth, he'd have killed Tom long ago, when Tom first came to him with his fears. He tried to think of other newcomers, but Tom was sixteen years old two years ago, more keenly aware of the comings and goings of baseball players, rock musicians and super-heroes than of the adult population of his home town.

"Who else could it be?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter," Peg replied.

Tom stared at her incredulously, thinking that the tranquilizer hadn't worn off completely. She still wasn't thinking straight, didn't understand any of what he'd told her.

"Mom, listen to me. Seth is the key to everything. We have to kill Seth to put an end to this nightmare!"

"There's no end. One nightmare or another, that's all. Take your choice."

"You're not making sense."

"I don't think you and I would choose the same nightmare."

"It's the drugs. They're still messing you up."

"What was that?"

Peg turned, alert. Tom froze, listening hard.

"Something at the back door," Peg whispered.

Tom went to investigate. He put his ear to the door for long seconds but heard nothing.

"Probably just a cat," he said to the darkness. Then a bell tinkled and Tom turned to see Peg throwing the front door of the diner wide. He called after her as she ran for the street, toward two figures standing silently in the middle of the road. Brant and Annie. Tom spat an oath and gave chase, the shotgun in his hand.

Annie ran to her mother and launched herself into Peg's arms. Mother and daughter held each other tight. Peg peppered Annie with kisses and murmured her name over and over. Tears from Peg's eyes dampened Annie's face and Annie said, "You're getting me all wet!" and Peg laughed and said she couldn't help it, she was just so glad to have her back.

Tom glared at Brant and ordered him to step away, aiming the shotgun at his head. Brant only smiled and shook his head.

"You know the gun doesn't intimidate me," Brant said. "Besides, I'm not here to convert anyone. Not you, not even Peg. If Seth had wanted to convert your mom, he could have done it long ago."

"So you're one of them."

"They converted me before I could reach Reverend Small, and now I'm glad they did. But none of that matters anymore, Tom. I'm not here as an enemy." Brant put his arm around Peg. He drew her and Annie to his side.

"I want to heal, not destroy," Brant continued. "Your family is broken. You know how nothing's been the same since the accident. Your father's dead and, unfortunately, there's nothing I or Seth or anyone can do about that. I know that I can't take his place, not completely. But I can be here for you and for Peg and Annie. We can be a family, Tom, whole and strong again, living in a wonderful little town. You don't even have to be converted, not if you don't want to."

"Bullshit. Seth is a cancer. Cancer doesn't make deals."

"Come with us to the church. Come and see for yourself. There's no evil at work here. The church is overflowing. Everybody's there. They're singing hymns...you can almost hear them from here. The town's come together like never before. Anderson will be a better place to live than ever, because we're united in our devotion to Seth. We're of one mind."

"Everybody thinking the same, believing the same."

"Exactly!"

"Sounds like hell to me," Tom stated. "I'll keep my own mind, thank you."

Brant sighed.

"I know," he said. "I know how strange it sounds. I was skeptical myself, you'll remember. I fought against Seth, but I'm glad I lost. Seth is the way, Tom. Seth is the answer."

Tom stepped forward, keeping the shotgun trained on Brant's chest.

"Let go of my mom. She and Annie are coming with me."

Annie squeezed Peg tighter.

"No," Annie said, defiant and afraid.

Peg shot a reproving look at Tom and said, "You're scaring Annie."

Annie scares me, Tom thought, and he said, "She isn't Annie, Mom. She's a thing back from the grave. She's a walking corpse."

Peg shook her head angrily as Annie started to cry.

"I won't let you ruin things for us, Tom! Annie's back! I don't care how or why!" Tom started to protest but Peg cut him off. "I said I don't care!"

Brant took a step forward.

"If you won't listen to us," he said, "maybe you'll listen to your friends."

Tom heard a footstep behind him. He whirled to see Galen Ganger's fist fly toward his face. The punch connected and Tom staggered back. He tried to raise the shotgun but Galen's hand clamped over the barrel as his knee dug into Tom's diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him. Galen yanked the gun from Tom's hands. He swung the stock around and connected with the side of Tom's head.

Tom stumbled dizzily. He lifted his eyes to see his other friends circling around him. Darren, Kent, Buzzy...they closed in, hands hardened into fists. Shock dulled the feeling of the blows they hammered on his body and head. He was aware of Galen shoving the others aside to pummel him with short, hard jabs to the stomach, to raise a knee into Tom's groin. Tom tried to fight back but his arms refused to lift. He had gone numb, unable to fend off the punches that came at him from every side.

His knees buckled and Tom fell to the ground. Through swelling eyelids he glimpsed his mom and Annie, Peg turning away, Annie watching his beating with emotionless fascination. He saw Brant lead them off.

As darkness deep as the Blacklands closed around him, Tom knew where they were going.

They were going to church.

***

He was neither dead nor undead, and he felt like hell. The pain when he tried to open his eyes was excruciating, so he left them closed. His arms and legs did not want to move, so he quit trying. He lay on a cold floor with the smell of linoleum and sanctity in his nose and knew where they'd taken him, that they hadn't killed him yet, that something special and terrible lay in store.

A voice whispered into Tom's ear, a snakelike hiss.

"I know you can hear me. You know my name and you know my work. You nearly found me out, you and Brant. You got so close, thanks to your visit to the madhouse. I should've taken care of Donald Pritchett when I had the chance, but I didn't want to do him the favor. I wanted him to suffer for what he did to me."

Tom did not, could not answer. His brain couldn't deal with the onslaught of sensation and thought and fear and confusion and outrage flooding through it. Maybe Doc Milford had given him a shot. It was all Tom could do to listen and try to understand the words. He could not identify the hiss of a voice, was not even sure whether it came from outside his head or in. He felt the world spinning beneath his prone body on the cool, cool tile.

"Can you imagine what it was like, waking every midnight in that too-short box? Imagine your legs healing and breaking, shattered by confinement, your lungs aching for air that had staled ages before. Every night you wake to the darkness and the damp, to the encroaching earth, your eyes and ears and mouth filled with vermin and decay. Every night the same suffocating death and a moment's respite, then another terrible wakening as the nights and years course by in breathless succession. Can you imagine the never-ending pain, the horror?

"That's what Donald Pritchett did to me, and that's why I let him live. I'll never admit him to my congregation, never. Never."

The world continued to spin, swirling the whispered words around inside Tom's head.

"I've had fun in your little town," the voice continued. "Madge Duffy, the long-suffering murderess, driven to follow in her mother's footsteps. Bernice Tompkins' hands around the throats of her beloved felines. Your own mother, pulling the plug on the object of her obsession. I love women, I honestly do. Men are so easy and uncomplicated and dull. It's the women who give life its color and texture, who make it all worthwhile.

"You and your mother are the last. Your time will come soon, and hers will follow. You're my last indulgence before the next leg of my campaign.

"Listen. The congregation is singing. Do you recognize the hymn? I love the way it sounds, issuing from so many solemn throats, like a dirge."

The voice sang huskily into Tom's ear.

"Come, come, come, come...."

A wave washed through Tom from his toes to his head and deluged his brain. The voice was drowned in the crashing surf. Tom fell into the darkness, fearing where he would emerge.

***

Brant took Peg's hands in his and told her what to expect.

"He'll be sedated. He won't feel anything. Reverend Small will call you forward and place the knife in your hands. One thrust, right here, up into the heart, and it'll be over."

Peg shook her head.

"I can't do it. I won't."

"You have to. They need this. Seth needs it. It's an act of faith. It demonstrates your good will."

"I can't kill my own son, Brant!"

"You aren't killing anyone. Seth will bring him back. Tom has to be converted, as I was, as Annie was, as we all were except you. How can Seth trust you if you don't trust Seth?"

"It's impossible. I can't."

"You have to stop thinking of it as killing. It's like when you were a kid and you became blood brothers with someone. You pricked your fingers to let blood. It's a ritual, nothing more. Seth will watch over Tom. Seth will restore him. He won't feel a thing, I promise. Doc's seen to that. We can't trust Tom. He isn't one of us. He will be converted, Peg, with or without you."

"Why doesn't Seth just kill me, too, and get it over with?"

"It isn't our place to question Seth's will. He has reasons that we can't comprehend. Fulfillment lies in doing his bidding, and this is what he has commanded. I don't understand it, I don't pretend to. But I don't have to understand to know that it's the right thing to do."

"Do it, Mommy."

Annie had sidled up. She stood on the chair next to Peg's and put her arm around Peg's shoulder.

"You have to do what Seth says," Annie said.

Peg felt the tiny fingers on the back of her neck, stroking her gently. Seth had worked this miracle. What further proof could she need? Her little girl was standing beside her as big as life, playing with her hair the way she always did. Her skin was pale from her long convalescence. It made her eyes seem so dark.

"I believe what you tell me," Peg said, "that Seth will bring him back. I just don't think I can do it. He's my son. Even if he weren't, the thought of taking a knife and...and...."

A door opened and the voices of the congregation, joined in a hymn, flowed in. Peg looked up. Reverend Small had entered, walked over to her. He picked up Annie and sat beside Peg, Annie on his lap.

"She doesn't think she can go through with it, Reverend," Brant said.

"But you must," Small said to Peg. "I know it's difficult. It's almost too much to ask. But Seth never asks more of his followers than they are able to give. You'll find the strength."

"But why? I don't understand!"

"Nor did Abraham when God required him to sacrifice a son. Seth asks far less. Tom will be returned to you. It's just a ritual, a step in a passage from one state of being to a higher state. You're helping Tom, actually. He's in pain now. He suffers from many inner demons. It's within your power to banish those demons, Peg. I know it feels strange. I myself converted many of the people who sit outside this room, and every one has thanked me for it. You have to trust Seth implicitly. Trust him with your life, with your children's lives."

He looked at Annie, smiled, and she smiled back. The sight brought grateful tears to Peg's eyes.

Peg and Brant and Reverend Small spoke for several minutes while the congregation intoned their hymn, concluded it and began another.

There's a church in the valley by the wildwood....

"Come," Small said. He stood and extended his hands. Peg reached out for them, and Small gently lifted her to her feet.

The voices behind the door chanted.

Come, come, come, come....