Lord of the Mountain
Page 28
Pitch stared across the cave at the old man, who seemed to be leering back at him.
He looked back at the demon, sighed and shook his head.
Scratch, howling with laughter, his booming voice shaking the floor beneath him, tossed the tiny organ into his mouth. Then he was gnashing it to bloody little bits, his long, jagged teeth chewing until nothing was left but tiny flecks of it. Blood washing over his chin dripped onto the dirt as his muscles rippled and his enormous chest swelled, and his clawed hand swept over the sack, transforming an empty velvet bag into one filled with gleaming jewels, which were tossed at the feet of his wicked servant, who snatched up the sack and ran screaming from the cave.
Chapter Fifty
Earl opened his eyes to find the side of a bare foot touching his cheek. Sunlight streaked through the living room windows as he winced, shielding his eyes as he looked up at Vonda, who was sitting on the couch, humming and thumbing through a magazine. Head throbbing, he struggled to his knees, grabbed the couch and hoisted himself onto it.
Without taking her eyes off the magazine, Vonda said, “Are you all right?”
Earl closed his eyes, and felt himself falling into a bottomless pit of death and despair, where one bloody scene after another spun through his mind: burning flesh and splattered pieces of gore; Missy’s bruised and battered body lying on the mountainside; Jason’s bloody intestines coiled in his lap; the gory crater that had been Katie Lynn’s face; Marty Donlan’s wife and kids; gunshots and creaking tree limbs—Alvie Ross, following his guts to the blood-splattered pavement.
He opened his eyes and grabbed Vonda by the throat, his powerful hand closing as she clawed at him, raking with her fingernails as his grip tightened and the telephone rang, rang again and he ignored it.
Vonda turned red, then purple, eyes bulging, pounding Earl’s face as the telephone rang… gasping, rasping and wheezing, until his grip relaxed and she fell writhing to the floor, crawling away while he snatched up the handset and held it to his ear, whimpering as his face went slack and his eyes glazed over, the floor tilted and the ceiling pressed in, the shifting walls slid slowly toward him… and the Devil’s voice slithered like sewer water through the telephone line.