by Hank Early
* * *
The road was deserted when I pulled up alongside the water tower. I parked in the same place Mary and I had parked several nights before, and once again I was flooded with memories from that evening: the sounds in the corn, the light we saw in the water tower, the moment I let her out of my sight.
I crossed the road with the hammer I’d grabbed at my house in hand. Once beneath the water tower, I found the leg with the cord and pried the nails free. I dropped the rope ladder and climbed up and inside. A quick scan of the basin revealed that little had changed since Rufus and I had come in the last time.
I skirted the hole in the bottom and walked over and picked up the binoculars. I raised them to my eyes and leaned against the side of the tower, inserting them in the small open space. This time, I didn’t even try to look at the cornfield, but instead pointed the binoculars up toward the peak of Summer Mountain. I moved them slowly along the ridgeline, noting several large houses and a row of blackberry bushes. Just past the blackberry bushes, everything changed. Suddenly, I was seeing the cornfield, except from above. It didn’t seem possible. It was as if the world had flipped over on itself.
Looking without the binoculars, I saw exactly what I’d suspected. Near the top of Summer Mountain were several large concave mirrors. To the naked eye, they could have been satellite dishes or windows, but with the high-powered binoculars, they revealed what amounted to an aerial view of the cornfield.
Lifting the binoculars back to my eyes, I held them steady on one of the mirrors. It was disorienting at first, making it difficult to determine anything about the cornfield, but the more I looked, the more my brain seemed to adjust to what I was seeing and make sense out of it.
What had seemed disordered while I was inside the cornfield was actually a complex, intricate design. I counted five straight paths, or spokes, that branched out from the center of the cornfield. In the center was a wide, circular clearing, so the effect taken as a whole appeared to be a great bicycle wheel. To make it to the center, you’d have to find one of the spokes, which in theory seemed like it would be easy, but they were so far apart, you’d almost have to be lucky to find one. Of course, as you journeyed closer to the center of the field, toward the hub of the wheel, so to speak, the spokes drew closer together.
Amazed by this discovery, I studied it for as long as I could before my arm began to shake from holding the binoculars. I put them down and called Sheriff Patterson’s direct line. This was the answer. I’d get him to look at the field with the binoculars, and then we’d go out together—with some deputies—for a better look at what was in the center. That could be where the bunker was. Once he saw that, I could tell him about Jeb Walsh in the bathroom, and the mayor, and everything else. He’d have to look into it, and he’d see that I’d been right all along.
* * *
“Earl Marcus,” he said. “I figured you must have skipped town.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Oh let’s see … where should I start? You and Ronnie broke into a warehouse up on Summer Mountain. You apparently attacked Frank Bentley in his home, which I might have found hard to believe if, well, I hadn’t already walked in on you doing the same thing to Lane Jefferson. And—ain’t this a hell of a note?—apparently, you pissed on a kid we later found dead out near the cornfield.”
“I didn’t piss on anybody.”
Patterson laughed. “That’s all you’ve got to say for yourself?”
“Pretty much, but I do have something I want to show you.”
He sighed. “I hope it’s not somebody else you’ve assaulted.”
“It’s something that might help us find Mary. I’m at the cornfield. The old water tower across the road. Do you know it?”
“I know it.”
“Good. Meet me here, but come alone, and leave your gun in the car.”
“Earl…”
“Do you want to solve this case, Sheriff?”
“Well, of course I do.”
“Then you’re gonna want to see this.”
He was silent for a moment.
“You there?”
“I’m here. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“How some people just don’t stop.”
“Why would I stop?”
He was silent.
“Sheriff?”
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth.
“Remember,” I said, “come alone. Leave your weapon in the car. Any shenanigans, and I’m gone.”
“I got it. Jesus.”
43
I spent the next thirty minutes looking at the cornfield, trying to estimate the place where we should enter once he saw the field and understood it had been designed so most people would get lost while a select few would know their way around. From there, I’d explain about the films and the rally. And the full moon. Which was tomorrow night. He’d agree to go in with some deputies today. He’d have to.
When I climbed down from the water tower, I walked straight for Susan’s Accord and turned on the engine. I put my pistol on the passenger’s seat beside me and waited.
I looked up at the cloudless sky. So different from a year before when I’d confronted another great evil: my father. Rain, thunder, and lightning. High winds. Storms compared to this … peace. That was the only word that made sense. It was peaceful out, but somewhere beneath the peace was an evil, growing a little bolder every day. And now that it had taken Mary, the peace had become barren and false, like one of those old movie sets where everything just looked real until you got close enough to see the truth.
The truth for me was that I’d believed I’d turned a corner after my father’s death. I had believed I’d never have to face a monster like him again. But now I saw that the world never ran out of monsters. They were relentless and inventive, and sometimes the worst thing about them was that you couldn’t reliably tell the difference between a monster and a man. Maybe there wasn’t any difference after all.
Maybe we were all just vessels, waiting to be filled with something, be it good or evil, whichever found us first.
Looking at the clear sky made me think of something else. Something curious. Something that raised the hackles on the back of my neck.
After Mary had first gone missing, Sheriff Patterson told me they’d flown a helicopter over the cornfield in hopes of spotting Mary. Surely, he already knew of the wheel and spokes then. Or was it possible whoever had been in the helicopter didn’t notice it?
That seemed unlikely.
Or maybe no one from the helicopter had relayed the information to him?
My thoughts were cut short when I checked the rearview and saw Patterson’s cruiser coming down the road. He pulled over onto the left shoulder and parked. I eased the gearshift into drive, ready to punch it if he made any move to arrest me, but he stepped out of the vehicle, holding his hands up in the air.
“No guns, nobody but me,” I heard him say through my closed window. I opened the window enough to hear him talk.
“Good.”
He started over, but I shook my head. “Just stay there. We can talk like this.”
He stopped. “Fine. What you got?”
“Well, while I was sitting here waiting on you, I remembered you probably already know all about it.”
“All about what?”
“The cornfield. What it looks like from above.”
He glanced to his left and then to his right, as if he were thinking of crossing the road, but he stayed put.
“What are you talking about, Marcus?”
“Didn’t you tell me you took the helicopter up?”
“Sure. Well, I wasn’t in it. But I had a deputy ride along.”
“And that deputy didn’t say nothing about the design in the cornfield?”
“Design?”
He looked to his left again, out at the cornfield on my side of the road. I followed his eyes. Just corn, blowing
in the dry breeze. In my mind, I saw a match being struck and tossed out into the field. I saw the fire roll across the land, disintegrating everything in its path to ashes. Except the corn silk. That would rise and dive after the fire was gone. When it was reborn, it would have Mary’s shape, and she’d walk with me again, the corn maiden lost and finally found.
Patterson spat on the road, breaking the daydream. He was still waiting for my response. I studied him carefully, trying to read something that might or might not be there.
“Hell, it’s shaped like a damned wheel.” “Spokes and all,” I said, “but surely you already know this.”
He made a face. It was a curious expression, one I’d seen before. A half smile with no involvement from the eyes, it was the expression of a man who knew more than you did but didn’t want you to know it. I’d seen him wear that expression before. I was sure of it. I just couldn’t place when or what it had been about.
His eyes darted to the field again, where the wind seemed to be rippling the tassels more violently, and lower still there was an undertow of something—or someone—moving in this direction. I picked up my gun and turned back to Patterson.
He wasn’t there.
And then I had the memory, cold and bright, and it felt like a knife, sharper and more painful than the one that had cut a slice out of my hip. The face was the same face he’d made just before tossing the skull off the ridge on the first day I’d met him, the day Mary and I had found the cave not too far from my home and called him out to have a look.
He’d never let me hold the skull. Just showed it to me before tossing it casually over the ridge.
He was back in his car now, and I watched him, my hand flexing, ready to aim and shoot if he went for a weapon, but to my surprise, he cranked the cruiser and floored it, fishtailing into the road.
Shocked by his behavior, I was about to follow him when something flew from the field on my right.
At first, I thought it was a bat. Then I was sure it was an owl, big and gray.
When it hit the windshield, and a hand reached through the crack in my driver’s side window and grabbed my face, I knew it was something different.
The thing on my windshield, the thing trying to gouge out my eyeballs was a man. Or at least I had once believed it was.
Now, I wasn’t sure what to believe. What kind of man hurled himself at a car with such abandon? What kind of man wore a mask like that?
I got the gun up and fired a wild shot that shattered glass. He still had his huge hand over my face, and I fired again and again before he finally let go. I blinked hard, trying to focus, and the first thing I saw the knife hooking in a short arc through the still open driver’s side window. The knife sliced through the seatback, but missed me. I remembered—almost too late—that I was in a car and the engine was running, and threw it in drive. Just as I did, Old Nathaniel slammed the knife at me again and plunged it through the collar of my shirt, pinning it to the seatback. I shoved his shoulders hard, and he flew back, taking the knife with him. I stomped on the brakes, and put the Accord in reverse, cutting the wheel. Once I had the car pointing at him, I pushed the gearshift into drive and floored it.
Old Nathaniel was too quick. He sidestepped the car at the last second. I blew past him, and that’s when I saw something else I’d missed before—a man, stationed in the corn, holding a camera. I tried to make out who he was, but it was no use. He’d already disappeared back into the corn.
That was when I heard the gunfire behind me.
It was Old Nathaniel, standing in the middle of the road, holding what looked like a .45. A bullet blew out Susan’s back windshield, and I decided it was time to get out while I still could.
I pushed the Honda as fast it would go, back toward Riley. I only looked in the rearview once, and what I saw didn’t surprise me in the least. The road was empty, almost as if I’d dreamed the whole encounter.
44
But I hadn’t dreamed it. All of it had been real. There was a shock and frustration in that realization. Patterson. Hell, how had I been so easily fooled? Suddenly, I remembered what Ronnie had told me a week ago, standing in my yard: “The new sheriff ain’t no better than the last.”
He’d seen it, but I’d missed it. Why? Maybe I just couldn’t accept that the world was that far gone. Sure, one crooked sheriff seemed like just a bad guy, a rotten apple, but two? And two in a row? That was the kind of thing that could make a man disappointed in the world. The kind of thing that could make a man lose what little faith he had.
I called Rufus. He answered on the second ring.
“Any news?” he said.
“Don’t trust Patterson,” I said.
“What?”
“He’s a part of it. He just set me up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Hell, yes, I’m sure. I nearly died because of that bastard. Does he know where you or the kids are?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good. Stay put. This should be over soon.”
“You know I got the counterprotest tomorrow night.”
“Maybe you should think about taking a pass on this one.”
“I’ve got to be there. I’ve got to stand up to these assholes.”
“I get that, but seriously, it’s not a good idea.”
“Well, I’m going anyway,” he said, his voice blunt and his tone almost daring me to argue with him.
“That’s a fool thing to do,” I said.
“Well, I reckon you’d know all about why some folks do foolish things, wouldn’t you?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. He was right. Of course he was.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to a party tonight at the filmmaker’s house. I’ll check in with you after that. If you don’t hear from me…” I took a deep breath and saw the black water rising toward me as I fell. “If you don’t hear from me tonight, you’ve got to get in touch with somebody who can help, somebody outside of this county.”
“I’ll do it, but you’re going to call tonight.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said. Then, shaking my head so hard it hurt, I added, “What’s wrong with this place, Rufus? How can one little county in the mountains be so crooked?”
“Well,” Rufus said, “your daddy would have blamed it on the devil in the valley.”
“Come again?”
“That was his way, you know. If he was in the mountains, that was where God must be too. That meant anything that went wrong was because of the devil down in the valley.”
“That’s the way a lot of folks think, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
I was silent for a minute. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, and flecks of glass fell from my beard. “If the devil’s not in the valley,” I said, “where is he?”
Rufus laughed. “He’s in us. Every last one of us. Most of all, the ones who think they’re free of him.”
It makes sense to me, I thought long after I’d ended the call. The devil is in us all, and some people are able to control it and some aren’t. But that didn’t take into account what I’d seen back there in the cornfield. That made me think somehow the devil had gotten loose.
* * *
I went home, slowing down as I climbed the mountain, to keep my eyes peeled for someone who might be following me or—worse—lying in ambush for me. I made it home without incident, showered, checked my hip, and was pleased to see it didn’t look infected and was no longer bleeding. I pressed the bandage back in place and grabbed some heavy-duty duct tape to hold it tight. After that, I stood naked in front of my closet, wishing, probably for the first time in my adult life, I’d paid more attention to fashion. I settled on the nicest clothing I owned, a pair of brown slacks and a button-down shirt Mary said made me look “hip.” I left my Braves hat on the kitchen table and made a frozen pizza. I ate it at the table, with my yellow notepad, while Goose watched me closely.
I waited until nine fifteen before sayin
g goodbye to Goose and heading to the Accord. Shit, the broken windows weren’t going to help me get in. I’d definitely need to come up with an explanation for that.
I grabbed a broom and some cleaning supplies and worked for half an hour or more sweeping out glass and scrubbing dried blood from the seats and floorboards before heading out. As I started down the mountain, I glanced in the rearview mirror in hopes of seeing Goose. He wasn’t there. Instead, I could have sworn I saw my father, standing just outside the house, holding a serpent in his hands.
The devil had made it to the mountains after all. Hell, he’d been here for years.
45
I was relieved to see that the guard was not the same one from a couple of nights earlier. This was an older, white-haired man, likely the one who’d been on the other end of the call about the sticker. He’d told the younger guard that entry with a sticker wasn’t an option anymore. I’d have to do a hell of an acting job to get in this time.
“Evening,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “Heading up for Taggart Monroe’s party.”
The old man looked at me through thick glasses, frowning.
“What happened to your car?”
“Oh, this?” I smiled brightly, trying to be everything I wasn’t—effusive, charismatic, the kind of man that could make you believe the world was about to end and still sell you a front row seat to watch it all go down. “It’s our stunt car.”
“What’s that?”
“Stunt car. You know. I’m an actor. We’re having a cast party tonight. I thought Tag would get a kick if I showed up in it.”
He rolled his eyes and cleared his throat, which told me he had bought it.
“Name?”
“Neal. Should be on the list.”
He scanned the list slowly. I waited, the night air growing heavy, my heart beginning to pound against my chest.
“Last name?”
Shit, the invitation didn’t have a last name on it.
“Uh, I don’t really use a last name.”
