The Revelation (36 page)

And the creatures opposing the power seemed suddenly so weak, so insignificant.

"BOW DOWN BEFORE YOUR NEW GOD."

The voice was so powerful, so awesome, that both Gordon and the sheriff turned to look. Even the monstrous babies crawling out of the fissured ground stalled for a second in their movements.

"I COMMAND YOU TO BOW DOWN BEFORE ME."

The voice was clearly that of Father Andrews, and it was obviously coming out of the priest's slack open mouth, but it was amplified beyond all possibility.

Brother Elias lunged forward and grabbed the priest's shoulders, holding tight. He shoved his face right next to the priest's. At the top of his lungs, he screamed the alien words of the Ritual of Banishment, but even his powerful voice sounded small and impotent next to that of Father Andrews.

The priest's horrible laugh drowned out his chanting words. The noise was deafening, echoing across the hills and into the blackened sky.

"YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME."

Brother Elias spoke faster, the strange words tumbling out, as if he had only a certain amount of time in which to speak and that time was almost gone. "... The Lord our God," he screamed clearly in English, and then he was thrown away from the priest, his body tumbling back over itself until it landed against a large gray stone twenty feet away. He stood up, shook his head to clear it and immediately began chanting again, the inhuman words rushing out of his mouth at an auctioneer's pace. He walked toward the priest, hands and arms extended, his fingers tracing symbolic outlines in the air.

And Father Andrews began to change.

His body expanded outward, bloating, the skin pulling taut across his face and hands, his clothes ripping open.

"No!" Brother Elias screamed, and there was panic in his voice.

The hair on Father Andrews' head began streaming out, growing at the rate of several feet per second, reaching the ground. At first it was brownish blond, the color of the priest's natural hair, but it instantly darkened into jet. A distorted fist of bone punched its way through the priest's stomach. Two huge black eyes pushed the old eyes out, sending them sliding slimily down the taut fat cheeks. The priest's hands jerked off in a spray of blood, and two red whipcord arteries protruded through the newly made openings, thrashing blindly around. The legs split, divided, multiplied.

Brother Elias, still chanting madly, ran forward and grabbed the four gold

crucifixes

that

were

embedded

in

the

ground

before

the

metamorphosing body of Father Andrews.

The priest's body began to split down the center, streams of inky liquid blackness escaping through the torn opening.

"I AM GOD," a new voice said through Father Andrews' mouth as the head began to split apart.

And Brother Elias shoved the first crucifix into the center of what was left of the priest's body.

Pain and a sudden loss of vital energy. Awareness of a power equal to or greater than its own.

Comprehension.

Fear.

There was an audible rush of air as the cross withered and blackened.

Father Andrews screamed in rage and agony, and both Jim and Gordon put their hands over their ears to block out the terrible noise.

The preacher shoved another cross into Father Andrews' distorted body, this one through the forehead. The body fell to the ground. Repeating over and over again the final words of the ritual, Brother Elias shoved the last two crucifixes into the priest's abdomen.

The power retreated back from whence it had come, its knowledge suddenly gone, its ambitions forgotten, its seemingly endless strength rapidly depleting. It pulled into itself. All that mattered now was survival.

Bolts of black energy erupted outward from the crosses, draining color from the surrounding earth and air. The crucifixes melted, their metal twisting into whirling spirals. The bolts of energy, growing increasingly weak, dissipated into the dark clouds above.

Two of the oversized infants were still moving, and Jim fired several rounds into each of them, killing them both. The bodies dissolved into the ground, leaving only a grayish slimy mulch.

The hot wind tapered off to nothing, and Gordon and the sheriff looked at each other, breathing deeply, their hearts pounding wildly in their chests. They said nothing as they moved across the broken ground toward the spot where Brother Elias lay unmoving in the dirt.

Screaming crazily, the black figure of Dr. Waterston burst into flames. The charred skin flaked off, and in the second before the figure was engulfed entirely, Marina saw something shiny and white and wormlike.

The flame disappeared as quickly as it had come, and the fetus between her legs dropped the knife it was holding. It fell to its knees, as though it had suddenly lost what coordination it had.

All of the creatures in the kitchen were suddenly crawling around in dumb mindlessness, and Marina realized that, though she still could not move, she was safe.

She began to cry.

Brother Elias was just sitting up groggily as Jim and Gordon reached him. They helped him to his feet, each holding onto an arm as he stood unsteadily. The preacher smiled at them, a real smile, an open smile.

"You did well," he said. "You both did well."

His smile faded as he stooped to look at the remains of Father Andrews.

The hideous mutations that had torn apart the priest's body at the end had disappeared, reversing themselves, and the bloody remains, though mutilated,

were

undeniably

human.

The

crosses

had

disintegrated

completely. "If we had been here sooner, he would not have died," the preacher said. He gestured toward the bloody form before him. "We will carry his body to the truck and wrap it safely in the tarp," he said. "We will give him a Christian burial."

"Is that it?" Gordon asked. "Is it over?"

Brother Elias nodded. "It is over," he said. "This time."

Gordon looked around at the ground of Milk Ranch Point. Trees had been uprooted, grass and weeds flattened, rocks overturned. There were huge holes in the gaping earth. Only a few of the white crosses were still standing. Everything was covered with a sickly pale mulch. Gordon looked at his arm. There was no sign of any of the cuts. He could still taste a disgusting musty dryness in his mouth, however, and he spit. He looked over at the sheriff, and both of them smiled.

Above them, the sky was clearing. Silently, Brother Elias picked up Father Andrews' arms. Without being told, Jim and Gordon each grabbed one of his feet.

They started down the hill toward the truck.

Gordon stood with Brother Elias in the crowded lumberyard of the sawmill, watching as teams of men shoveled the tiny dead bodies of hundreds of fetuses into the furnace of the smelter. It was late afternoon, but the sun was still high in the western sky. The men worked hard, using large flat sawdust shovels to remove the fetuses from the pickup trucks. The sheriff was standing on the stump of a log, coordinating the effort, telling the men exactly what to do.

Several regular posse members as well as firemen and workers from the mill were helping to dispose of the bodies. Keith Beck stood nearby, taking photos for the newspaper and talking to various people, writing down their quotes in a small notebook.

He wondered what Beck would write.

Several dozen people stood outside the chain link fence of the sawmill, staring in. Many of the parents had taken their children home, not wanting them to view the horrible scene. Gordon looked out at the crowd. He could see Char Clifton pressed against the fence, and, next to him, Elsie Cavanaugh from the drugstore. Just like he had in his dream.

He looked over at Brother Elias. The preacher's face was bandaged, but he did not look tired or worn out. There was a strange gleam in his eye. He fixed Gordon with his black gaze. '"Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the close of the age.

The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire." Matthew 13:40."

Gordon shivered and turned back to the smelter. Black foul smelling smoke billowed out of the single stack. Many of the workers were wearing surgical masks to protect themselves from the effects. Gordon glanced into the sky, half expecting the smoke to have coalesced into some type of coherent shape, but the black cloud was formless.

He looked at the pickup trucks filled with tiny bodies. He still did not know where all of the fetuses had come from. There seemed to be thousands of them. He found himself wondering how long it would take before all this happened again, and whether anyone then would remember this day. He watched the workers throwing the bodies into the fire, the sheriff shouting orders.

Toward evening, the smoke became so thick that all of the workers were forced to wear masks. Those who had no masks and all of the bystanders had to go home.

The sunset could not be seen for the smoke.

The black smoke hung over Randall for three days, like fog, until a longoverdue rainstorm washed it away.

It was another three days before all of the soot was cleaned off the streets.

Fall was coming. Temperatures were beginning to drop, and leaves on some of the trees were already starting to change color. Staring out the office window, Jim could see a small patch of orange and yellow on one of the trees lining Main Street. Farther to the north, near the sawmill, several trees were starting to change. The sheriff stared out at the town,

thinking

silently.

It

looked

remarkably

normal,

amazingly

untouched. There were no demolished buildings, no flattened homes.

There was a large chunk of forest at the base of the Rim where the old landfill used to be that was now scorched and burned, but on the whole, the damage had been much less severe than he had expected. Most of Randall, in fact, had been cleaned up within a few days.

Of course, who knew what the long-range consequences would be?

Jim moved over to his desk and sat down heavily. He picked up the newspaper and threw it into the metal waste can near his feet.

Eighty-five. The final death toll was eighty-five, counting theSel way family and the first two farmers. A lot of those had been self induced or the result of panic, but a goodly chunk of them were not attributable to anything so rational.Deke Chandler had been torn apart, portions of his body switched. Three ranchers had been drowned in the blood of their farm animals. The coroner had found their lungs suffused with blood. Jeff Tilton and old ladyPeltzer had been brutally stabbed to death. Tilton's face had been stabbed so repeatedly that it was unrecognizable.

He and the coroner had agreed to list the deaths as accidental.

Surprisingly, the TV stations in Phoenix and Flagstaff had mentioned the incidents only briefly. There had been a more thorough article in The Arizona Republic, but even that newspaper had glossed over the facts, instead laying its faith in a bizarre theory put forth by an uninvolved member of the state police. Only the Randall paper had told the real story, had gone into it with any depth. There had even been photos of the burnings on the front page.

The rumor was that Beck was trying to sell the story to the National Enquirer.

Jim smiled. He'd probably sell it. Those people ate up that shit.

Through the open window, the sheriff heard the pealing of the church bells, calling people for the noontime Sunday services. The staggered ringing carried clearly through the still, fresh air, and the sound was pleasant music to the sheriff's ears. He listened carefully, but he could not hear the tones of the Episcopal church bell.

Apparently, the bishop had not yet appointed another replacement.

The phone on his desk buzzed, and Jim picked up the receiver, punching the lighted button for line one. "Hello," he said. "Weldon speaking."

"Jim."

He softened at the sound of his wife's voice. "Hi, honey. What's up?"

"I was wondering if you were coming home for lunch. Thekids're at Timmy Wharton's house, and we could have a nice private little get-together. Just me and you."

He smiled. "Sounds romantic."

"When will you be home?"

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

"Okay," she said. She paused. "I love you."

"I love you, too. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

He hung up the phone, and his eye fell on the empty holster on the hat rack. Carl's. He would have to start advertising for a replacement soon. And replacements for Pete and Judson. Both had given him their notices. Both had also agreed to stay on until he could find new men.

Pete, he knew, was planning to apply for a job at the post office. He wasn't sure what Judson had planned.

Jim stood up and grabbed his hat from the rack. He put it on and stepped out of his office, walking down the hall toward the front desk.

He smiled and nodded at Rita, operating the switchboard. "Hold all my calls this afternoon, will you? I'm going to be gone the rest of the day."