Rain alternated with snow flurries as the Army of Excellence climbed past dead Hillsboro, Mill Point, Seebert, Buckeye and Marlington. A supply truck ran out of gas twelve feet from a rusted green sign that said Entering Pocahontas County, and the vehicle was pushed into a ravine to let the others pass.
The column was stopped three miles over the county line by a storm of black rain and hail that made driving impossible. Another truck went into the ravine, and a tractor-trailer rig choked on its last swallow of gasoline.
As the rain and hail battered down on the Airstream trailer’s roof Roland Croninger awakened. He’d been flung into a corner of the room like a sack of laundry, and his first realization was that he’d messed his britches.
The second was that what looked like lumps of clay and torn, grimy bandages lay on the floor around his head.
He was still wearing the goggles. They felt very tight. His face and head throbbed, gorged with blood, and his mouth felt funny—kind of twisted.
My ... face, he thought. My face ... has changed.
He sat up. A lantern glowed on the desk nearby. The trailer shuddered under the storm.
And suddenly Friend knelt down in front of him, and a pale, handsome mask with close-cropped blond hair and ebony eyes peered curiously at him.
“Hi there,” Friend said, with a gentle smile. “Have a nice sleep?”
“I ... hurt,” Roland answered. The sound of his voice made his skin creep; it had been a diseased rattle.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You’ve been sleeping for quite some time. We’re just a few miles away from that town Brother Timothy told us about. Yes, you really got your beauty sleep, didn’t you?”
Roland started to lift his hands to touch his new face, and his heartbeat deafened him.
“Let me,” Friend said—and he held up one hand. In it was a broken piece of mirror.
Roland saw and his head jerked away. Friend’s other hand shot out, cupping the back of Roland’s neck. “Oh, don’t be bashful,” the monster whispered. “Take a good, long look.”
Roland screamed.
Internal pressure had buckled the bones into hideous, protruding ridges and collapsed gullies. The flesh was sickly yellow, cracked and pitted like an atomic battleground. Red-edged craters had opened in his forehead and his right cheek, exposing the chalky bone. His hair had receded far back on his head and was coarse and white, and his lower jaw jutted forward as if it had been brutally yanked from its sockets. But the most terrible thing, the thing that made Roland begin to wail and gibber, was that his face had been twisted so that it was almost on the side of his head, as if his features had melted and dried hideously askew. In his mouth, the teeth had been ground down to stubs.
He flailed at Friend’s hand, knocked the glass aside and scurried into the corner. Friend sat back on his haunches and laughed, while Roland gripped the goggles with both hands and tried to pull them off. The flesh tore around them, and blood ran down to his chin. The pain was too much; the goggles had grown into his skin.
Roland shrieked, and Friend shrieked with him in unholy harmony.
Finally, Friend snorted and stood up—but Roland grasped his legs and clung to him, sobbing.
“I’m a King’s Knight,” he gibbered. “King’s Knight. Sir Roland. King’s Knight ... King’s Knight ...”
Friend bent down again. The young man was wasted, but he still had talent. He was actually a wonderful organizer of the last gasoline supplies and the food, and he’d made Brother Timothy sing like a castrato. Friend ran a hand through Roland’s old-man hair.
“King’s Knight,” Roland whispered, burrowing his head into Friend’s shoulder. Tumbling through his mind were scenes of Earth House, the amputation of Macklin’s hand, the crawl through the tunnel to freedom, the dirtwart land, the murder of Freddie Kempka and on and on in a vicious panorama. “I’ll serve you,” he whimpered. “I’ll serve the King. Call me Sir Roland. Yes, sir! I showed him, I showed him how a King’s Knight gets even, yes, sir, yes, sir!”
“Shhhhh,” Friend said, almost crooning. “Hush, now. Hush.”
Finally, Roland’s sobbing ceased. He spoke drowsily: “Do you ... do you love me?”
“Like a mirror,” Friend answered. And the young man said no more.
The storm slacked off within an hour. The Army of Excellence struggled onward again, through the deepening twilight.
Soon the scout Jeep came back along the mountain road, and the soldiers reported to General Friend that there were clapboard buildings about a mile ahead. On one of those buildings was a faded sign that read Slatyfork General Store.
91
THEY CAME AT FIRST light. Josh was awakened by the banging of a rifle butt on the truck’s rear door, and he got up off the metal floor, his bones aching, to move back with Robin and Brother Timothy.
The door was unbolted and rolled up on its casters.
A blond man with ebony eyes stood looking in, flanked by two soldiers with rifles. He wore an Army of Excellence uniform with epaulets and what appeared to be Nazi medals and insignia on his chest. “Good morning, all!” he said cheerfully, and as soon as he spoke both Josh and Robin knew who he was. “How did we sleep last night?”
“Cold,” Josh answered tersely.
“We’ll have a heater for you on the plantation, Sambo.” His gaze shifted. “Brother Timothy? Come out, please.” He crooked an inviting finger.
Brother Timothy cringed, and the two soldiers came in to haul him out. Josh started to jump one of them, but a rifle barrel was thrust at him and the moment passed. He saw two Jeeps parked nearby, their engines rumbling. In one of them were three people: a driver, Colonel Macklin and a soldier with a machine gun; in the other was also a driver, another armed soldier, a slumped-over figure wearing a heavy coat and hood—and Swan and Sister, both thin and wan-looking.
“Swan!” Robin shouted, stepping toward the opening.
She saw him, too, and cried out, “Robin!” as she rose from her seat. The soldier grabbed her arm and pulled her down again.
One of the guards shoved Robin back. He rushed at the man, his face contorted with rage, and the soldier lifted his rifle butt to smash Robin’s skull. Josh suddenly lunged out and caught the boy, holding him as he thrashed. The soldier spat on the floor, and when he stepped down from the truck the rear door was slid into place and bolted once more.
“Hey, you bastard!” Josh shouted, peering through one of the thirty-seven punctures. “Hey! I’m talking to you, creep-show!” He realized he was bellowing in his old wrestler’s voice.
Friend shoved Brother Timothy toward the first Jeep and then turned regally.
“What do you need Swan and Sister for? Where are you taking them?”
“We’re all going up Warwick Mountain to meet God,” he answered. “The road’s not good enough for anything heavier than the Jeeps. That satisfy the old negroid curiosity?”
“You don’t need them! Why don’t you leave them here?”
Friend smiled vacantly and strolled closer. “Oh, they’re too valuable for that. Suppose some crafty old fox decided he wanted a little more power and snatched them away while we were gone? That wouldn’t do.” He started to return to the Jeep.
“Hey! Wait!” Josh called, but the man with the scarlet eye was already getting into the Jeep beside Brother Timothy. The two vehicles moved away and out of sight.
“Now what?” Robin asked him, still seething. “Do we just sit here?”
Josh didn’t answer. He was thinking of something Brother Timothy had said: “The last of the Good must die with the Evil. Must die, so the world can be reborn. You must die. And you. And me. And even Swan.”
“Swan won’t come back,” Robin said tonelessly. “Neither will Sister. You know that, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.” “He’ll pray to the machine that calls down the talons of Heaven,” he remembered Brother Timothy saying. “Prepare yourselves for the final hour.”
“I love her, Josh,” Robin sa
id. He grasped Josh’s arm tightly. “We’ve got to get out of here! We’ve got to stop ... whatever it is that’s going to happen!”
Josh pulled free. He walked to the far corner of the cell and looked down.
On the floor beside Brother Timothy’s bucket was the tin cup, with its sharp metal handle.
He picked it up and touched the ragged edge.
It was too small and awkward to use as a weapon, and Josh had already dismissed that possibility. But he was thinking of an old wrestling trick, something that was done with a hidden razor when the promoter wanted more “juice.” It was a common practice, and it always made the violence look more real.
Now it might give the illusion of something else, as well.
He started to work.
Robin’s eyes widened. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Be quiet,” Josh cautioned. “Just get ready to start yelling when I say so.”
The two Jeeps were about a quarter mile away, slowly climbing a winding, snow-and rain-slick mountain road. At one time the road had been paved, but the concrete had cracked and slid apart, and underneath was a layer of mud. The Jeeps’ tires slipped, and the vehicles fishtailed as the engines roared for traction. In the second Jeep, Sister gripped Swan’s hand. The hooded figure sitting in the front suddenly turned his head toward them—and they had a heart-stopping glimpse of his deathly yellow, cratered face. The goggled eyes lingered on Swan.
The drivers fought for every foot. To the right stood a low steel guard rail, and just beyond it was a rocky drop-off that fell seventy feet into a wooded ravine. Still the road ascended as the broken plates of concrete shifted beneath the Jeeps’ wheels.
The road curved to the left and was blocked by an eight-foot-high chain link fence and gate. On the gate was a metal sign, surprisingly free of corrosion: WARWICK COAL MINING COMPANY, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. Ten feet beyond the fence was a brick enclosure where a guard might once have stood duty. A sturdy-looking chain and padlock secured the gate, and Friend said, “Get that thing open” to the soldier with the machine gun. The man got out, walked to the gate and reached out to test the padlock before he blasted it off.
There was a sizzling like fat being fried in a pan. The soldier’s legs began to boogie, with his hand sealed to the chain and his face bleached and grimacing. The machine gun chattered on its own, spraying bullets into the ground. His clothes and hair smoked, his face taking on a blue cast; then the muscle tension snapped the soldier backward, and he fell, still jerking and writhing, to the ground.
The smell of scorched flesh and electricity wafted through the air. Friend whirled around and clamped his hand to Brother Timothy’s throat. “Why didn’t you say it was an electric fence?” he bellowed.
“I ... I didn’t know! It was broken open the last time! God must’ve fixed it!”
Friend almost set him afire, but he could see that Brother Timothy was telling the truth. The electrified fence also told him that the power source, wherever it was, was still active. He released the man, got out of the Jeep and strode to the gate.
He reached through the chain link mesh and grasped the padlock. His fingers worked at it, trying to break it open. Both Swan and Sister saw his sleeve beginning to smoke, the flesh of his hand getting as soft as used chewing gum. The padlock resisted him, and he could feel the little bitch watching and sucking all the strength out of him. In a rage, he gripped the mesh with the fingers of both hands and wrenched at the gate like a child trying to break into a locked playground. Sparks popped and flew. For an instant he was outlined in an electric-blue glow, his Army of Excellence uniform smoking and charring, the shoulder epaulets bursting into flame. Then the gate’s hinges gave way, and Friend hurled the gate aside.
“Didn’t think I could, did you?” he shouted at Swan. His face had gone waxy, most of his hair and his eyebrows singed away. Her expression remained placid, and he knew it was a good thing she was going to a prison camp, because the bitch would have to be broken under a whip before she learned respect.
He had to concentrate harder than usual to get his oozing hands solid again. His epaulets were still burning, and he tore them away before he retrieved the dead soldier’s machine gun and returned to the first Jeep. “Let’s go,” he ordered. Two fingers on his right hand remained scorched and twisted, and they would not re-form.
The two Jeeps moved through the opening and continued up the mountain road, winding between dense stands of lifeless pines and hardwood trees.
They came to a second brick guard’s station, where a rusted sign commanded Present Identification. Atop the structure was what appeared to be a small videotape camera.
“They had pretty tight security up here for a coal mine,” Sister observed, and Roland Croninger growled, “No talking!”
The road emerged from the forest into a clearing; there was a paved parking lot, empty of cars, and beyond it stood a complex of one-story brick buildings and a larger, aluminum-roofed structure built right into the mountainside. Warwick Mountain continued upward about another two hundred feet, covered with dead trees and boulders, and at its peak Sister saw three rusted towers—antennas, she realized—that disappeared in the swirling gray clouds.
“Stop,” Friend said. The driver obeyed, and a second later the other Jeep halted. He sat looking around the complex for a moment, his eyes narrowed and his senses questing. There was no movement, no life as far as he could see. The chilly wind blew across the parking lot, and thunder rumbled in the clouds. A black drizzle began to fall again. Friend said, “Get out” to Brother Timothy.
“What?”
“Get out,” Friend repeated. “Walk ahead of us, and start calling him. Go on!”
Brother Timothy climbed out of the Jeep and started walking across the parking lot through the black rain. “God!” he shouted, and his voice echoed off the walls of the large metal-roofed building. “It’s Timothy! I’ve come back to you!”
Friend got out and followed behind him a few yards, the machine gun resting on his hip.
“God! Where are you? I’ve come back!”
“Keep going,” Friend told him, and the other man walked forward with the rain beating in his face.
Sister had been waiting for the right moment. Everyone’s attention was fixed on the two men. The woods lay about thirty yards away, and if she could keep the rest of them busy, Swan might have a chance to make it; they wouldn’t kill her, and if she could reach the woods, Swan might be able to escape. She squeezed Swan’s hand, whispered, “Get ready” and tensed to slam her fist into the face of the guard at her side.
Brother Timothy shouted joyously, “There he is!”
She looked up. High above, a figure stood on the sloping aluminum roof.
Brother Timothy fell to his knees, his hands upraised and his face torn between terror and rapture. “God!” he called. “It’s the final hour! Evil’s won! Cleanse the world, God! Call down the talons of Hea—”
Machine gun bullets ripped across his back. He fell forward, his body still kneeling in an attitude of prayer.
Friend swung the smoking barrel up toward the roof. “Come down!” he ordered.
The figure stood motionlessly but for the billowing of a long, ragged coat around his thin body.
“I’ll tell you once more,” Friend warned, “and then we’ll see what color God’s blood is.”
Still the figure hesitated. Swan thought the man with the scarlet eye was going to shoot—but then the figure on the roof walked over near the edge, lifted a hatch and began to descend a metal-runged ladder bolted to the building’s wall.
He reached the ground and walked to Brother Timothy, where he bent to examine the dead man’s features. Friend heard him mutter something, and ‘God’ shook his gray-maned head in disgust. Then he stood up again, approached Friend and stopped about two feet away. Above the dirty, tangled mat of his gray beard, the man’s eyes were sunken deep in purple craters, his flesh ivory and covered with intersecting cracks and w
rinkles. A brown-ridged scar sliced across his right cheek, narrowly missing the eye, cutting through the thick eyebrow and up into the hairline, where it divided into a network of scars. His left hand, dangling from the folds of his overcoat, was brown and withered to the size of a child’s.
“You bastard,” he said, and with his right hand he slapped Friend across the face.
“Help!” Robin Oakes was shouting. “Somebody help! He’s killing himself!”
Sergeant Shitpants emerged from a nearby trailer, cocked his .45 automatic and ran through the rain to the truck. Another guard with a rifle came from a different direction, and a third soldier followed.
“Hurry!” Robin yelled frantically, looking through one of the punctures. “Somebody help him!”
Sergeant Shitpants thrust the pistol’s barrel up at Robin’s face. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Josh! He’s trying to kill himself! Open the door!”
“Right! Fuck that!”
“He’s cut his wrists, you dumb-ass!” Robin told him. “He’s bleeding all over the floor in here!”
“That trick was old in silent movies, you little prick!”
Robin pushed three fingers through one of the holes, and Sergeant Shitpants saw the crimson smear of blood all over them.
“He’s slashed his wrists with a cup’s handle!” Robin said. “If you don’t help him, he’s going to bleed to death!”
“Let the nigger die, then!” the guard with the rifle said.
“Shut up!” Sergeant Shitpants was trying to figure out what he should do. He knew the consequences if anything happened to the prisoners. Colonel Macklin and Captain Croninger were bad enough, but the new commander would cut off his balls and use them as hood ornaments.
Swan Song Page 87
