Right now, he found himself wanting that more than ever; wanting the mutton-chopped loudmouth to come running out in an escape attempt, only to be floored by Stuart’s magnificent Stan Hansen-style clothesline, followed by a “Macho Man” Randy Savage top rope elbow drop courtesy of DeShaun. Then Bravo would chomp down on his nuts for the coup de grace.
That would be the best.
The Toppers did not seem to share the boys’ bravado. They stood on their front stoop in baggy pastel sweat suits, poised to haltingly dash inside at the first sign of trouble.
Yoshida emerged, his gaze narrowed and distant. “She’s not here,” he called.
The boys hopped out, bringing Bravo by his leash. “What now?” asked Stuart.
Yoshida handed the key back to Mr. Topper and put his hand on Stuart’s shoulder. It was more comforting than Stuart would have expected. “Now we find her.”
Chapter 20
Within the Darkness
With a burlap sack full of essentials clenched in her teeth, Matilda eased herself feet-first through the triangle she had cut at the corner of the barn’s plywood flooring with the bonesaw. She needed a few seconds to let her pain ease, to meditate and renew her precious reserves of energy before she began a crawling trek in the foot or so clearance between the barn floor and the ground.
She had gained a few yards when a scent sent her mind and heart reeling with agony. The bikers were cooking meat.
Her goats.
Matilda trembled with despair, but refused to give it release, letting it feed the flames of her fury. She would need the energy of her grief, if she could contain it long enough, for the ritual ahead. She chanted blessings to Pan, focusing on her love for the goats and projecting it to her patron deity, as much to focus her mind as to maintain her vitality.
* * * *
Well, I’m probably about to get my ass kicked, Stuart thought, as he stood at the front door clenching and unclenching his fists. But not without leaving my autograph.
* * * *
Dennis had promised about fifty different people he would not drive while drunk; he would just park somewhere, get his fill and come home when he woke up—or more likely, got dropped off by Hudson, or some other deputy. But the hell with it. What was another broken promise? That’s what his whole life was.
Hell, maybe his dad had stayed a little too long under that thresher just to keep from having to see his oldest boy going to hell in a hatbox before his very eyes.
He was running out of parking lots and unused roads where he could park, drink and pass out. When Bert Gilly had started mowing corn early that morning, he must have surely seen the hearse. Out of respect for the deceased elder Barcroft or whatever, he hadn’t rousted Dennis and hadn’t called the sheriff. Hell, he’d probably even saved the section near where the hearse was parked for last. But Gilly’s work had to be done just like every other farmer’s, and when he had gotten around to harvesting near Dennis’s spot, the whiskey buzz had not been quite strong enough to keep him comatose through the noise.
So Dennis had headed home in light traffic, oblivious that the local school system’s early dismissal time had come and gone.
Promises broken and snoot quite full, Dennis Barcroft pulled his hearse in at an ugly angle against the curb by his yard and stumbled out, stopping to steady himself when the world spun hard to his left.
He was hopeful that Ma—bless her deluded heart—wasn’t home or was busy in the basement with laundry and wouldn’t come out to see him fall on his face in the yard, en route to falling on his face inside.
The front door opened. Ma would be in his grill any second, crying her eyes out, making him feel worse than he already did. Good thing he wouldn’t remember.
Nah, it was Stuart.
After school already? Well good. He could lean on his little buddy till he got—
Stuart loaded up as he got a running start, landing a solid overhand right hook on Dennis’s cheek.
Dennis took a hard step back, all the cool gone from his eyes for once. “Aah…what the hell?”
Stuart threw the same punch, landed it again and sent Dennis stumbling back against the hearse. “Stuart? What are you…?”
Stuart went to the well again, lunging to throw the same right. This time Dennis raised both hands and blocked, then shoved Stuart back, making him almost slide into a split in the slick grass. Stuart regained his footing and came at Dennis again, this time firing a left to the gut. Dennis grunted from the impact.
“Jill got kidnapped, you asshole!” Stuart screamed, throwing haymakers that mostly landed on Dennis’s forearms.
“Wh…Whut?” Dennis slurred.
Stuart’s dad had taught him enough about fighting to know when it was time to switch to straight punches. He popped Dennis with two in a row, right on the mouth—and it felt satisfying as hell.
Then Dennis tackled him to the ground and Stuart knew he was boned, just like every other jackass who had ever pushed Dennis too far.
Dennis pinned Stuart’s throat with his left as his right fist rose like a wrecking ball—and froze. “What the hell did you just say?”
“Jill!” Stuart began, grateful that he had brought her up before losing his advantage. “She got taken, you drunk bastard!”
Blood dripped on Stuart’s nose from Dennis’s. Through tears, Stuart saw that the tattooed fist remained poised for destruction.
“You remember the chick you swore to protect till the day you die!?” Stuart screamed the final words, hoping they could puncture the drunken exterior and find the Dennis he knew.
The fist slowly lowered. The furrows of Dennis’s face deepened with regret. “Tell me what happened, Stuart.”
“She’s missing.” Stuart couldn’t punch Dennis anymore, but his cracking, accusing voice was as good as a fist. “Somebody got her.”
“Tell me what the hell you’re talking about!?” Dennis was crying just like Stuart. Tears rained on Stuart like the first drops of a catastrophic deluge.
Stuart pushed Dennis’s left hand away. “Some hairbag got her because you weren’t there!”
Dogs barked. Neighbors stepped away from their routines to watch and murmur about the poor drunk punk and all the pain he was causing.
Dennis pushed himself up and pulled Stuart to his feet. “Tell me you’re joking.”
The despair and guilt in his brother’s face broke Stuart. He couldn’t stay angry; not any more than he could understand drinking or voting or driving a hundred miles, or hell, even going to bed without the fear of pissing the sheets.
Dennis sank to his knees, just as Ma came to the door. “Boys? What’s happening?”
Stuart didn’t want her to see Dennis like this. He hugged Dennis and hid him with his little frame. He tried to bring Dennis to a stand, tried with all his might, and just when it seemed he wasn’t strong enough, his brother became buoyant in his arms; a helpless soul in need of a stronger one, even if only a little bit stronger.
“Boys?” Ma called.
“Come on, Big Bro,” Stuart said, leading Dennis toward the door. “Let’s fix this goddamn mess.”
Chapter 21
The Hatchling
“The parade easily pays three months of my overhead,” said Albin Bogan, owner and proprietor of The Gas Giant, a sprawling ten-pump facility just inside the county line that had become a tourist trap in itself, offering costumes, handmade Halloween decorations, baked goods and, for photo ops, two seven-foot resin statues: Universal’s Frankenstein Monster and a generic and rather chintzy gorilla for which Albin had nonetheless had a “King Kong” sign professionally carved.
Out-of-towners heading to the parade either knew to stop there or were delighted to find the one stop pre-parade pit stop. It made a killing.
“No parade, I might have to shut down for who knows how long.”
T
he other business owners who crowded the reception area lacked Bogan’s influence individually, but more than equaled it as a group—and that group was growing by the day.
“Either way, we need to know now,” called Patty Chenoweth of Main Street’s Patty Cakes.
“I appreciate your position, folks. We’re all feeling the continuing strain from last year’s unforeseeable tragedy.” Though the crowd, like villagers gathering to hunt down a wayward monster, had been put together on the fly, Mayor Stuyvesant’s response was already well-rehearsed. “It’s important to use this as an opportunity to strengthen our self-reliance, our sense of community and our commitment to patriotic values. American jobs for American workers has long been my—”
“Can we not go there right now?” Albin Bogan closed his eyes and held up both hands in a defensive posture. “Main thing we wanna know is—is the parade a go, or not?”
“It’s too late in the game for waffling, Mayor,” said Patty Chenoweth.
Mayor Stuyvesant’s nervous glance at Hollis had the assistant stepping in front of her like a bodyguard. “Mayor Stuyvesant is stretched to the limit right now trying to salvage the parade. We appreciate everyone coming out but please call and make an appointment if we haven’t addressed your specific concerns.”
There was more grumbling, even shouting, but the townies shuffled out and dispersed within ten minutes—except for one man.
Guillermo Trujillo, whose landscaping operation serviced many of the frustrated business people now making their way back to their homes and shops, stood outside the reception door, peering in from the side.
Stuyvesant had already retreated to her office, but Hollis saw the greensman and his earnest face and waved him in.
* * * *
Matilda knew her strength, fueled by vengeance, would be a fast and hot fire, and there was still so much work to do. She thanked Pan that it was close to Samhain, the peak of a pagan’s power. Her confidence and commitment as a black witch were at peak, free of the regretful misgivings she had borne for decades.
The question of whether this magic—technically baneful—was also beneficent could be argued by her estranged colleagues. As far as she was concerned, ridding the world of Nico’s gang would be good for all mankind, even if it was a mere byproduct of her burning vengeance.
As for the ceremony, without her grimoire she would have to fill in some gaps, as with the revivification spell. But that had worked well enough. She had some of the goats’ hair scrounged from her sweater and a white gold toe-ring, but these felt like paltry offerings. She would make up the difference with the pure passion of rage.
She stumbled to the massive prize pumpkin she had been growing for Winchell and patted it. Its purpose would have to change.
Unaware of the time—the umber cloud cover gave little clue—Matilda gathered sticks, dried hay and hickory leaves. She took from the burlap bag a small copper cauldron meant as a decoration but perfectly functional in a pinch, and hung it over the kindling.
Allowing herself to feel enough sadness and anger for the loss of her beloved little horned kids to renew her fury, Matilda lit the fire, and began the ritual. She mumbled ancient words she had never spoken before; hoping intention and blood would make up for clumsy enunciation.
Smoke rose from bold flames that stabbed at the air. Matilda cast in the offerings.
Blending with the firelight, the setting sun cast the fields and forest—and Matilda’s own flesh—in an eldritch hue somehow both gray and luminous.
She created a triangle of sigils in the dirt, then carved these into the pumpkin rind with her athame.
She swiped her hands through the sticky wet patches of her wounds, snarling at the pain, and patted bloody palm-prints on the massive fruit, willing her vengeance into it as she called to The Horned One.
Matilda praised and seduced The Trickster with her words, then begged his consideration. Herb-tinctured sweat stung her wounds, as she spun around and around, whispering all the while.
“Praise ye, beast and god
Blessings and beauty in thy path
Spend thy kindness upon me
Take my blood as wine
Deliver me an agent
A vessel for my wrath.”
The candles grew brighter.
She raised her hands as high as pain would allow, as high as hate could force them.
Decades of discipline held drumskin-tight. The chant, the willed vision, the intention rose. When the air was dense with a malignant ether, Matilda drew the athame from her sweater pocket, and released her tears.
She gave voice to the heartache of her loss, the shame of her humiliation. She continued to chant, to desire, to know the bloody future without doubt.
Chanting louder and faster, foregoing notions of breathing and comfort, Matilda forced herself to envision what the Fireheads had done to Amos and Argyle, what she knew they had done to others. She spoke aloud these crimes with fury and outrage. She growled and screamed and spun counter clockwise until she felt disembodied.
She fell to the ground and rolled, still to the left. She abandoned the chant for stream-of-consciousness commanding wails. “O Pan! See my hatred! Let it be a seed and grow! Bring me an avenging demon! An unholy destroyer! Great God of Tricks and Terror, please fill this gourd with your deviance, and my hatred! Let us birth the purest of punishers! The most unforgiving of angels!”
Did the ground rumble? Or was it the sky?
“Choke closed the conduits of goodness! Of forgiveness! Of redemption!”
She willed herself to a stand, and so mote it be. She coiled her body to draw venom from the earth into her feet, through her guts, and to project it through her fingertips into the great gourd.
Black lightning sizzled, darkening the twilight to full midnight, tracing the pattern she had carved, entering the pumpkin.
“Take whatever piece of me ye wish! Tear it away to create destruction and destroy creation! Make them pay! Make the Fireheads suffer, I beg of ye!” Matilda ran at the pumpkin and smashed her body into it, snarling as she bit the rind, rubbing her face along its edges, raping it with pure intention. “I command thee!”
Spent of all her fires of rage and visions of violence, she fell toward oblivion for a third time that day, as her own bitter sobs came to her ears with the vibration of a distant bell’s tolling.
Then the pumpkin rumbled, startling her. She scooted back.
The spell fire flared high, billowing like a miniature hydrogen bomb.
The pumpkin rocked and pulsed in time with Matilda’s unsteady breath. She wondered if what hatched from the fleshy egg would even be compatible with her worldly senses.
A crack.
An inch-wide split appeared in the rind, starting at its sapling-thick stem, plunging to its base.
Brown-orange fluid streamed out, carrying pumpkin seeds in streams of placental goo.
Matilda stood up on her quaking legs and stepped back, terrible expectancy blossoming in her breast. Yet she still mumble-chanted her will toward the thing, conscious enough to target it with her exhilarated fear and fury. Her hand went numb from her death-grip on the athame.
The split widened another few inches, onto utter blackness. The rind shifted and pulsed like maggot-infested corpse flesh.
Something like a hoarse whisper fluttered to Matilda’s ears, made them tingle and burn.
More seeds flowed out from the bottom like chunky lava.
Trembling pale fingers emerged to grasp the edge of the broken rind.
Matilda took two steps to help the hatchling and stopped. This wave of energy was more unnerving than even Nico’s.
It was all she could do, even exhausted as she was, to keep from breaking into a run, to gain as much distance between herself and—
The other hand appeared on the left side. Blue veins pulsed over spider-
leg knuckles, the bones beneath stretching the ghastly skin.
A high-pitched straining sound emerged, and the pumpkin’s child peeked an eye through the abyss.
Something familiar.
With another straining effort, the rind cracked and broke with the robust sound of a toppling oak. The pumpkin’s huge halves fell to the sides.
A tall, gaunt figure—human, technically—stood naked and glistening in the firelight. He regarded Matilda with an expression of singular joy.
More than ever, Matilda wanted to run. Instead she fell to her knees, beholding the Christ of Killers in worshipful despair.
“Happy Halloween!” croaked the reborn Trick or Treat Terror, Everett Geelens, his gaze brightening as it fell upon the gleaming athame in Matilda’s trembling hand.
* * * *
“What do we do if they start slugging?” Yoshida asked Hudson, as Dennis pulled the hearse up outside the Lott house, just behind Hud’s battle-scarred Blazer. Pedro walked to meet him there in the street.
“Call the National Guard,” Hudson answered, doffing his jacket in preparation of trying to get between two angrier-than-usual punk rockers.
Hopping out of the passenger side, Stuart threw a wary nod at Pedro, and visibly relaxed when it was returned.
Pedro stepped well within Dennis’s personal space. Dennis took off his sunglasses and met his bandmate’s gaze.
“You sober or what, bro?” asked Pedro.
“Right now,” Dennis answered. “Yeah.”
“What now?”
“Try to make things right.”
“What things d’ya mean, Dennis?”
“Everything I broke.” Dennis reached into his jacket pocket for a packet of cigarettes. “All right?”
“You, man,” Pedro said, as he grasped the cig pack. “You gotta fix you. Right?”
Dennis glared at the cigs they both held in trembling grips.
Yoshida almost took a step toward them, until Hudson mumbled, “Not yet.”
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