The only thing that had gone right that night was that Ruger had underestimated Crow. Ruger was a big man, two hundred pounds of sinewy muscle packed onto a wiry six-foot frame. He had incredibly fast hands and he had never lost a fight in his life because there was nothing in his psychological makeup that could accept any reality except one in which he dominated. When Crow stepped out of his car, what Ruger saw was a short, thin man who looked about as threatening as a shopkeeper, which what Crow currently was. What he did not see were the years upon years of jujutsu training; what he did not see were the years on the Pine Deep police force as one its most decorated officers—all of that in the past, but not long past. Ruger made one of the worst mistakes anyone can make in a fight: he underestimated his opponent, and it had cost him.
They fought in the rain and the mud and it was the most vicious fight of Crow’s life. No mercy, no rules, no hesitation. It was eye-gouging and groin-kicking and throat-crushing. It was a life-or-death back-alley brawl between two men who had to win. Quitting or surrender were impossible concepts for both of them because to lose the fight was to lose absolutely everything.
In the end, Crow had won the fight, though he looked like he’d been trampled by horses. He was bloodied, winded, nearly blind with pain, but he was on his feet and Ruger was down. Which is when Crow had made his mistake, and it was every bit as foolish and dangerous as Ruger’s. Crow had not finished Ruger off. He left him there, down and apparently unconscious, and had run straight to Val to see if she was okay. It was around that time that the first patrol car had arrived, with Jerry Head at the wheel and a young local cop, Rhoda Thomas, riding shotgun. Head had gone into the house to check on Mark and Connie, Rhoda stayed in the yard to help Crow and Val. No one paid enough attention to Ruger. No one saw him struggle to his knees, no one saw him fish in the mud for the gun Crow had dropped at the beginning of the fight, no one saw him wash it clean in the heavy downpour. Only luck, or perhaps a little bone thrown to them by providence, gave Crow just enough warning to react when Ruger opened fire. Rhoda went down with a bullet in her shoulder and Crow was grazed by two bullets, one on each side of his torso, as he scrambled to pull Rhoda’s sidearm. He returned fire and emptied the Glock’s entire magazine into Ruger, watching as the bullets knocked the man into a weird puppet dance. Head appeared on the porch and added his fire and Ruger went down in a storm of bullets.
Val went down a moment later, the damage to her throat blending with shock and dragging her down into darkness. Crow tried to stay conscious, but after the beating he had taken, and the two bullet wounds, he had nothing left. He dropped.
His next memory was of waking up in the hospital, with Terry Wolfe telling him that Henry was dead but Val was alive. Mark and Connie were deeply hurt, both physically and psychologically, by Ruger’s sick games. Rhoda was in surgery, but was expected to make it. And Karl Ruger…well, somehow, with all the commotion as cops and paramedics flooded the place, he crawled off and vanished. A dozen bullets in him, Crow was sure of that, and yet he crawled away and simply dropped off the face of the world.
That should have been it. Crow assumed that it was it, that Ruger’s bones would one day be found out there in the woods beyond the Guthrie farm. Yeah, we all know about assumptions. Ruger was far from dead. Last night—could it be just a few hours ago?—just shy of midnight, Karl Ruger broke into the hospital. He attacked and nearly killed the facilities engineer, shut down the main and backup generators—plunging the hospital into total darkness—and while everyone was screaming and staggering in blind panic, the killer made his way to Crow’s room, beat the shit out of Crow’s police guard, and attacked Crow again, looking for serious payback. Val had been with Crow in the room, and Ruger struck her a terrible blow to the head, fracturing the bone above her eye socket.
Crow was sewn together with stitches and badly bruised from their last fight, but even with all that he should have been able to defeat Ruger a second time because Ruger should have been a short step away from dead, but Ruger was not a shambling hulk, he was not dying on his feet. Instead he faster than before, and far stronger. Unnaturally strong, like nothing Crow had ever seen. He threw Crow from one end of the room to the other and was a heartbeat away from crushing his throat when Val—dazed and bleeding—crawled over and got the pistol from the fallen officer’s duty belt. She opened fire, and that gave Crow a tiny window of opportunity to scuttle over and grab the small throwdown strapped to the cop’s ankle holster. From point-blank range they emptied both guns into Ruger, and this time there was no doubt—every shot went home.
In a bizarre encore of the night before Ruger went down, almost immediately followed by Val.
And still it wasn’t over. In the brief period between Val’s collapse and the arrival of doctors, nurses, and a lot of cops, there had been a moment of complete insanity when something impossible happened, and no one but Crow had witnessed it. He had bent to reach across Ruger’s dead body toward Val when Ruger opened his eyes and grabbed Crow’s wrist with unbelievable force, pulling him close long enough to whisper five words. Just five, but they had punched holes in Crow’s mind.
“Ubel Griswold sends his regards.”
Then Ruger had laughed the coldest laugh Crow had ever heard, the light went out of his eyes, and he sank back to the floor. Dead for sure this time.
From that moment to this those words kept echoing through his mind. All through the process of being stitched, bandaged, moved to another room, Crow kept hearing that icy voice.
There was no way Karl Ruger could have known that name, Crow was sure of that. Griswold was thirty years dead, killed by the Bone Man and left to rot down in the wormy swamps of Dark Hollow. No one in Pine Deep even mentioned his name anymore, and yet Karl Ruger had used his dying breath to speak the name of the only person to have shed more blood, done more harm, destroyed more lives, than Ruger himself had.
Ubel Griswold sends his regards.
Jerry Head said, “No, after all that shit, what else could happen?” He laid his magazine on his thighs. On the cover Eva Longoria was wearing next to nothing and looking happy about it. Crow nodded and they both sat there for a moment watching the second hand on the wall clock tick its way around from 5:54 to 5:55.
“Jerry? Are they sure Ruger’s dead?”
“You kidding me?” Head asked, grinning; then he saw that Crow wasn’t kidding. “Yeah, that evil son of a bitch is dead for sure. You and your lady popped enough caps in him to kill him five times over.”
“You’re sure? I mean really sure?”
“Man, if he ain’t then I’m going to get myself a hammer and pound a stake through his heart.” There must have seen something in Crow’s face—in his lack of a responding smile—because he spread his hands and said, “Just kidding, man. You want me to go ask a doctor to double-check on Ruger, be more than happy.”
“No…no,” Crow said, letting it go. “No, it’s cool, man. I guess after everything that’s happened I’m just paranoid, you know?”
The cop looked at Crow for a moment, the nodded, and smiled a bit more gently. “Yeah, I guess you are. I been on the job eleven years and I never had a run-in with anyone like Ruger. Met some pretty bad dudes, but this Ruger guy was somethin’ else—and you had to take him down twice. Must have scared the living shit out of you.”
You have no idea, Crow thought. He said, “Guess I’m still a bit twitchy.”
“Shit, you got every right to be. I know a lot of tough guys—and I’m no pussy myself—but I don’t know anyone could have taken Ruger down like you did.”
“Hooray for me,” Crow said dryly and twirled one finger over his head.
“No, I’m serious, man. Some guys go their whole life never knowing what it’s like to really be tough, but you know, man. No one can take that away from you.”
However, in Crow’s mind Ruger’s voice whispered Ubel Griswold sends his regards, and there was no part of him that felt either heroic or tough.
“Thanks
, Jerry. That means a lot.”
“Look…why don’t you try to get some sleep.”
Sleep was an unappetizing concept, but Crow faked a yawn anyway. “You’re right, Jerry…I’m roadkill. Let me see if I can catch a few hours.” He closed his eyes and turned away and pretended to fall asleep. After a few minutes he could hear the officer shift uncomfortably in his chair, sigh heavily, and then begin turning the pages of his magazine. The minutes crawled by as Crow lay there, eyes shut, staring at the inner walls of his brain, trying not to see Karl Ruger’s face grinning at him. Ubel Griswold sends his regards. By the time Head went off shift and a stone-faced Tow-Truck Eddie Oswald took up the post in the guest chair, Crow was feeling like he wanted to rip out his IV and go screaming down the halls.
Crow opened his eyes to bare slits and saw that the hulking part-time police officer was hunched over with his elbows on his knees reading the Bible, his lips moving and his face alight. Crow didn’t feel like a sermon from the village religious nut, so he closed his eyes and really tried to sleep. That didn’t work. So to pass the time he tried to catalog the damage to his body without actually moving. He could feel the stitches in his mouth, and by probing with his tongue he could feel three loose molars. The two bullet grazes on his sides—improbably one on each love handle—itched more than they hurt, but the rest of his body made up for it by hurting quite a lot. He felt like he’d been run over by a trolley.
Crow lay there in bed, in the false darkness of closed eyes, and relived all that Ruger had done. So much wreckage, so much harm. He heard a faint rustle as Tow-Truck Eddie turned the page of his Bible. Ubel Griswold sends his regards. Dear God, Crow thought.
(2)
Tow-Truck Eddie read and reread the same page and not one word registered. None of the elegant and symbolically complex phrases of St. John’s Revelations made a lick of sense to him even though he’d read every one of those pages over and over again to the point that his lips formed the words before his eyes even scanned them, but his conscious mind was not dwelling on the End Times or the opening of the Seals. Instead of Bible or page or word, what he saw was the face of the Beast. Not as he first saw it in a holy vision—disguised as it was in a costume of flesh with curly red hair and freckled apple-red cheeks and a child’s body—nor as he had seen it the other night on the road, a figure in hooded sweatshirt and jeans pedaling a bicycle along the black curves of Route A-32. No, the image that swam before Eddie’s eyes was the image he had seen just yesterday, right there in Pinelands Hospital, walking bold as the devil—and why should he not be as bold as that?—right out of the front doors just as Eddie and his partner, Norris Shanks, were coming in to sit a guard shift. The Beast had walked right past him, within reach, within arm’s length. Eddie could have killed him right there. Should have killed him.
I am the Sword of God, he thought, and was it not the very truth? Yet he had not done anything, had not acting out his own holy purpose because God Himself had spoken in his head and stayed his hand. Wait! Wait until you are alone! And he had stayed his hand, though it burned him that the end of his most sacred mission had been right there. What did it matter that there were other people around? Surely once the Beast had been killed his true nature and face would be revealed to all. Wasn’t that the point? To reveal the Beast so that the righteous would see and understand?
He wanted to drop to his knees while Malcolm Crow slept and beat his head on the floor seven times, to beg his Father to explain why his hand had been stayed. Could he risk it? Tow-Truck Eddie looked at the man in the bed and wondered if he was really asleep. A few minutes ago he had moved, but that could have just been shifting in his sleep. He was supposed to be drugged. Surely, he wouldn’t wake if Eddie went to his knees to pray. The nurse had already done her rounds and wouldn’t be back for an hour. He’d only need a few minutes, just a simple abasement and then his prayers.
There was the sound of footsteps and then a voice spoke in greeting just outside the door followed by a response. A conversation started, muffled by the closed door, but it was right outside. No, he thought, don’t risk it, too dangerous. Just wait, just wait, Father will speak to me. He will make His will known. Wait. You were told to wait. Be a good son. Wait. Wait. Then, like the taste of water on a parched tongue he heard his Father’s voice.
You are my son and in you I am well pleased.
Tow-Truck Eddie nearly cried aloud. He wanted so much to throw himself down on his face and weep, to tear at his clothes and hair, to beg forgiveness for his weakness and failure. His hands trembled and he almost dropped his Bible. “Father…” he whispered in his softest voice. “Forgive a sinner his transgressions.”
You are my beloved son. The voice rang in his head. You are my faithful servant, and you are my holy instrument on Earth. Do you know this? It was part of their litany and he knew it so well that tears filled his eyes.
“I—failed you, my Lord, my Father…”
You are the Sword of God. Do you know this? The words hit his brain as if the fist of God had punched right through his skull. Eddie had to bite his tongue to stifle the cry that rose like a boiling bubble in his chest. He dropped the Bible on his lap and clamped both hands over his mouth, staring at Crow, who stirred briefly and then settled. After a long minute while he watched to see that Crow was going to remain asleep and as the searing agony of God’s displeasure ebbed away like a reluctant tide, Eddie remained frozen there on the edge of his chair.
More gently now, God said, You are the Sword of God. Do you know this?
“Yes…yes, my Lord!” Eddie said in the tiniest of whispers.
When the Hand of Righteousness beholds the Beast, what is thy holy purpose?
“To destroy him, my Lord! I am the servant of God!”
And to this holy purpose do you dedicate yourself?
“I am the instrument of the Lord and His will is as my own. With my body, my heart, and my immortal soul shall I serve the will of the Lord.”
Then in my servant I am well pleased. But be ever vigilant for the Beast is clever and the Beast is quick, and to destroy him will be a test and a trial to you. Be not overconfident, be not complacent even in your power. The Sword of God is patient and he is strong.
“I will be patient as well as powerful, my Lord.”
The servants of the Beast are many and they are strong. Be silent, be secret. Be patient, and do not be deceived. The Beast may wear a child’s flesh but it is the Son of Perdition. There was a pause and Eddie tensed, certain that some great truth was about to be imparted. It is not death, not blood that will destroy the Beast. It is ritual.
Joy blossomed in Eddie’s chest as he finally, completely understood. Now he knew why God had stayed his hand yesterday. He could have killed the skin-suit the Beast wore, but unless he performed a blood ritual then the Beast’s spirit would simply find a new host. He closed his eyes against the welling of his joyful tears, nodding as understanding rose like a new sun in his heart. No, he had to take the Beast to some quiet place and then perform the ritual to its utmost conclusion, to the point where he tore the Eucharist from the Beast’s chest and tasted it, sealing the Final Covenant.
God whispered silkily into his mind. You are the Sword of God, and in you I am well pleased. Gratitude flooded through Eddie and he wept silently, his face in his hands.
(3)
Crow kept his eyes closed and listened to the faint mumblings as Tow-Truck Eddie spoke to himself. Is he praying? Of course he is, he told himself.
Then a few minutes later he thought, Is he crying? He listened and after a while he could clearly make out Eddie’s nearly silent sobs. Oh, that’s just peachy, Crow thought.
(4)
Mike Sweeney was fourteen years old. In eighty-eight days, on December 28, he would be fifteen, but he wasn’t entirely sure he would ever live that long. Until recently Mike seldom thought about the future because the future had always seemed like an impossible concept—the future was something that people got to if the
y had a sane life. There was nothing about Mike Sweeney’s life that was sane. Or safe.
He wasn’t a handsome kid, though others thought he would grow into it. He had the makings. Curly red hair that was garish now but would darken to reddish-brown if he lived into his twenties, good bones, a splash of freckles, blue eyes. Those eyes were his best point, and certainly the thing that Anna Marie Hellinger, who was in his English class, thought made him look brooding and mysterious. She wasn’t wrong. Mike knew a thing or two about brooding. He did it well, he did it often, and he had reason.
When Mike was still in diapers, his father, Big John Sweeney, had gone sailing through the guardrail up on Shandy’s Curve and had been cooked in his car at the bottom of the ravine. Before grass had started to grow on Big John’s grave, Mike’s mom, Lois, had let local mechanic Vic Wingate move in, and shortly after that they were married. Though Mike was never aware of it, this was a major town scandal. Big John was well liked and there was always a little suspicion surrounding the crash—the official report was that he had fallen asleep at the worst possible place on Route A-32, but the expression “Oh, horseshit!” was thrown in the face of almost anyone who said that, especially if it was said over beers at the Harvestman Inn, where Sweeney’s friends still hung. Suspicion even fell briefly on Vic Wingate, but that was something folks kept to themselves, even at the Harvestman, because Vic was not the kind of guy you made comments about, not unless you wanted to eat puréed food through a wired jaw. Vic Wingate, you see, was a hitter.
Vic was forty-seven years old and except for his eyes—he had the cold and patient eyes of an old crocodile—he could have passed for a fit thirty-five. He was rawboned and flat-bellied, with arms and shoulders that held a promise of quick and ugly power though not bulky muscles like Tow-Truck Eddie, nor the sculpted physique of Terry Wolfe, the town’s charismatic and handsome mayor. Vic Wingate had wrestler’s muscles and boxer’s hands. Vic was battlefield tough and would take a bad hit just to land a crippling blow, though very few hits ever got past him. Vic chose his fights with care, he hit first and hardest, and knew where to hit. Since Mike was four Vic had used him to practice the art of hitting, flicking out with apparent laziness to knock Mike sprawling, or rapping him hard enough on the top of the head to drop him to his knees. If Mike had a dime for every time he’d felt Vic’s hand he could have saved all the struggling farms in the borough of Pine Deep.
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