The Hell Season (18 page)

“Nope, can’t say that I do.”

“Still got that feeling?”

“Oh, sure, I got all kinds of feelings. And since that fucking
worm
showed up… And seeing how those things inside of it look like they just might be ready to hatch sometime soon… Those feelings have been getting a whole lot worse lately.”

They spent the next several hours cruising around town, visiting deserted strip malls and other, smaller buildings. The Wal-Mart they were currently using was, unfortunately, the only store of its kind located within the perimeter of the invisible barrier. There were a couple of grocery stores they figured would do the trick, one in particular that was right up against the barrier, as far away from the hole and the worm as they could hope to get. They’d have to move a bunch of supplies over, not to mention the generators, the beds and other furniture. There was a U-Haul store nearby with a couple of large trucks parked out front which would make the whole process a lot easier.

“We should call a meeting as soon as we get back,” said Ron as he pulled out onto the road in front of the U-Haul store. “Tell them our plans. See who wants to come with us. I would hope most everybody, if not all of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Reborns—” It was the word he’d started using to describe Gerald and his resurrected friends. “—wanted to stay behind, be near the hole that they find so alluring. We’ll have to start the move tomorrow morning. I think that whatever’s about to go down is gonna happen real soon so we don’t have any time to waste.”

Thomas shared this sentiment and looked forward to making the move as immediately as possible now that it was a realistic plan in his mind.

Night was falling when Ron and Thomas called the meeting. It was held up front near the checkout lanes, people standing in a large semicircle with Ron and Thomas at the focal point. The sound of the generators humming outside could be heard as Thomas expressed his and Ron’s concerns and told those assembled of their plans to move away from the Wal-Mart. Thomas was surprised at how easy it was to persuade his listeners. Within half-an-hour of the meeting’s commencement everyone was in agreement with the move. Everyone, that is, except Gerald and his fellow Reborns.

“We have to stay,” said Gerald, stepping forward and approaching the place where Thomas stood. “The others who recently passed away, who succumbed to the disease from which you, thankfully, recovered might still be coming back. In fact, I’m convinced of it. As are we all.” By then the others who had gone through the process of death and resurrection had also stepped forward. They all nodded in unison. There was something creepy about the synchronization of the gesture. “We have to be here if and when they return. They’re going to need us.”

“Why am I not surprised to hear that?” said Ron. It was the first time he had spoken throughout the meeting. Apparently, he’d decided that Thomas had been doing a good enough job of speaking for both of them.

Gerald only smiled. “I am aware of your suspicions,” he said good naturedly. “Completely unfounded, I assure you. But it’s obvious I cannot convince you of this. Too bad. We will be staying, though, whether you like it or not. Trust me, our motivations are far from nefarious. In fact, they are quite the opposite. I only hope that you will not interfere with what we feel we must do.”

Ron waved a hand dismissively. “No, not at all. Do whatever you want. Actually, I kind of like the idea of putting a little distance between us.” With that, he turned and headed off toward the part of the store where the comatose patients were located, Tanya still among them.

“Ron…” said Thomas as the other man walked away. Ron didn’t stop. Thomas sighed, turned back to Gerald and those standing near him. “You know I don’t share his feelings. If you change your mind, feel free to join us.”

An hour or so later found Thomas standing near the beds where more than a dozen patients still lay dormant within the grip of coma. Dana stood at his side and he held her hand. Her fingers curled tightly around his, urgently, as if she was trying to tell him something through the contact of their flesh that her voice was unable to convey. Ron was nearby, sitting in a chair next to Tanya’s bed. He was leaning forward, a book in his hands—some techno-thriller he’d found in the store’s book section—his eyes straying away from the words on the pages over to Tanya’s motionless and gaunt form. She was so thin, the many days of being fed nothing but the clear fluid entering her body intravenously taking its toll. Thomas glanced toward Dana, saw the way the clothes hung on her body, the way the coma had sapped the pounds and the strength from her too. Although, with the way she’d been eating since returning to the waking world, it was clear she planned on regaining the weight she had lost as rapidly as possible. If only there was an equally simple process that would help her regain her voice. How Thomas longed to hear her speak, to convey to him what she was feeling, to unburden herself of whatever was responsible for the haunted look in her eyes and truly return to him and the world around her. Those eyes that turned to look up at him even now, ringed with the fatigue of her recent ordeal. Her fingers squeezed even tighter, almost painfully so.

Almost simultaneously, all of the comatose patients awoke. One moment they were lying there, perfectly still, heart monitors beeping their slow and steady cadences. The next moment they were sitting up, the disparate beeping sounds gaining tempo and rhythmically clashing even more so than before. Ron dropped his book to the floor as he sprang to his feet.

“Tanya?” he said. “Tanya, can you hear me?” He placed a hand on her bony shoulder. She raised her eyes to look at him. “Can you hear me?” asked Ron again. This time she nodded her head in the affirmative and Ron said, “Thank God,” and sat down on the bed beside her, took her hand in his, held it close to his chest.

Soon Angie and her helpers were there moving from patient to patient, checking vital signs, shining penlights into eyes to evaluate pupil dilation, pinching fingertips and the ends of toes while asking, “Can you feel this?” and “How about this?”

Thomas stood there next to Dana at the periphery of the medical area watching the activity for a while. Eventually Dana pulled on his hand indicating that she wished to lead him somewhere. They walked toward the front of the store where people were standing in small groups, talking about what was happening with the patients and their sudden, simultaneous revival. Thomas caught snippets of conversation as he went by, heard terms like “miracle” and “omen” being bandied about. Then he was opening one of the doors that led outside, the sound of the nearby generators a steady and comforting monotone. Night had fallen but the darkness, as always, brought little relief from the heat. The air was a thick and cloying blanket, like the air in a sauna, slightly difficult to breathe. Thomas walked next to and slightly behind Dana, her hand still in his, letting her lead the way.

“Where are we going?” he asked her as they made their way across the parking lot. “Where are you taking me?”

Dana guided him toward the yawning hole in the Earth from which the monstrous worm had emerged. The floodlights had been activated and Thomas could see that a crowd had gathered there. The Reborn, undoubtedly, beginning their nightly vigil. They were early, though, Thomas knew. It was usually well past midnight before they assembled near that gateway to whatever dread underworld lurked in the impenetrable darkness below. Gerald stood near the edge of the great maw, recognizable to Thomas even with his back turned. A good twenty feet from the hole, Dana released Thomas’s hand, refusing to go any further.

Thomas said nothing. He had a pretty good idea as to what was about to happen. Tendrils of steam drifted lazily up and out of the abyss. There was an electricity in the air, a sense that something momentous was about to take place. As if to further heighten the tension of the moment, a jagged bolt of lightning cut the night sky in the distance. Thomas counted to six Mississippi—a habit he had picked up as a child—before the sound of thunder reached his ears.

“Quite an evening,” said Gerald. “First, the sleepers awake. And now… this!”

Thomas detected movement near his feet. The Reborn all around him gave out a collective sigh, as if they had all been holding their breath. Then they surged forward and began helping the people who were now climbing out of the hole, naked and bewildered. These were the plague victims who had succumbed to the sickness, the ones who had been dead for days, some for more than a week. And now they had returned.

The numbers of the Reborn were growing. What could it mean? Thomas knew what Ron would say, what Ron was
going
to say:

No good can come of it. The sooner we get away the better
…

As those newly arrived were offered robes and shoes and water, Thomas turned and walked back to where Dana was waiting for him. Again she took his hand as they walked back toward the Wal-Mart. Neither one of them said a word along the way. Lightning cut through the darkness once more. This time Thomas counted to five before the rumble of thunder rolled over him. His heart beat heavier and faster as he wondered what it was the storm and the darkness and the following day might bring.

CHAPTER 8

Sunday, July 18 to Monday, July 19

The storm raged through the night. It came on with hurricane strength and furiously battered the building until the sun climbed into the sky, red and malevolent behind a veil of tattered crimson clouds. As the rain picked up in intensity during the early parts of the storm, the generators were pulled into the store’s entrance, left up against the doors which were opened enough to allow the fumes and exhaust to escape. There was never any shortage of power, one good thing that could be said about that long and trying night.

Thomas stood near the doors and the generators, watching the storm go about its business, inflicting its wrath upon the empty world outside. When the lightning flashed, jagged bolts that lit up the whole dome of the black sky, the great worm came into view out there in the wide road beyond the parking lot. It lay there, motionless, seemingly unaffected by the brutal tempest that lashed its increasingly transparent hide. Those things growing inside of it… those demons… immersed in the watery innards of the giant creature... Were they aware of the storm assaulting the world just beyond the liquid and flesh of the womb that enclosed them? Were they awakened by the pounding of the rain on the worm’s hide, the roaring of the thunder which undoubtedly reverberated throughout the bowels of the great beast? Were they planning, even now, to use those clawed hands, the fangs that Thomas imagined grew within their mouths to tear and chew their way through the skin that enclosed them, to make their way out into the world of humanity, ready to inflict still greater torments upon those few men and women who remained in the world? Easy enough to envision such a scenario. Or was there a different plan at work here, something altogether more sinister? There were too many omens afoot, too many portents. The awakening of the comatose… The return of the dead… The arrival of the storm… The worm and her thirteen unborn children, out there in the darkness…

Something truly wicked this way comes
, Thomas told himself. Even the least superstitious among them could see that. And as the night progressed, Thomas found himself wishing that whatever it was would hurry up and get there because the suspense of it all, the omnipresent fear and uncertainty that seemed to have most everyone held tightly in its grip, was its own form of torture, one which Thomas prayed—when did he become a praying man?—would soon end.

Ron came over and stood next to Thomas as the storm raged on. “Hope this lets up by morning,” he said, his expression grave. “Getting a bad feeling about things. The sooner we can get this move underway, the better.”
Thomas just stared out into the rain and the sudden flashes of light. His mind was filled with too many thoughts, his heart with too many emotions. Julia was there in his mind, of course. And the kids. Would he ever see them again?
Yes!
he told himself with more vigor than conviction.
Of course I will see them again
. If only hoping for it badly enough could make it so.

He thought about Dana and the haunted look in her eyes and her continued silence. And Tanya who, on the other hand, was recovering quite well from her illness. She had spoken of her time in the coma as nothing more than a long period of darkness, a much different experience, it seemed, than what Dana had suffered through. He also thought about Gerald and the Reborn and Ron’s feelings toward them, feelings Thomas might share on some level if he was being perfectly honest with himself. There was something not quite right about Gerald and his friends, he had to admit, something subtle that he could not put his finger on, something he felt more and more strongly as time went by. So far the Reborn had not given Thomas or anyone else—including Ron, no matter what he might say—any solid reason, be it through words or actions, to not trust them. Ron might argue otherwise but the bottom line was that his feelings toward the Reborn were nothing more than that: feelings. So why had Thomas found himself walking around the store on two separate occasions now, was contemplating a third trip, just to see with his own two eyes that nothing foul was afoot, that no one was acting strangely—at least no more strangely than usual?