Gina’s breath was shallow, but there. He dropped to his knees and put two fingers to her wrist like he was taught to do in health class. Her pulse, already a fast throbbing thing alive in her veins, began to slow. The black coagulating blood seeped out of her like tree sap.
Dylan pulled Gina’s cell phone from his pocket and tried to call out. No signal. He didn’t want to leave her again, not down here with those two bits of snake still moving and twitching. He grabbed a rag from a box close by and pressed it to her wound.
“Gina, hold this, please. Gina, I have to get outside and call… Gina? GINA! Can you hear me? HEY! Don’t you die on me!”
“Oh my God, Gina!” Linda ran down the steps with a small flashlight on her key ring, keys clattering as she descended. “I called 9-1-1 from a payphone, I assumed the worst, they’re sending an ambulance and––” She nearly fainted when she saw Jared’s body slumped and twisted on the floor. “Is that…”
Her words faded away. There were no words to be said. As sirens approached––not warning sirens, but those signaling help was on the way––Dylan watched his sister fading away. Blood vessels had burst in her eyes, the blue irises now surrounded by a sea of scarlet. Dylan kept the rag tightly on Gina’s neck until paramedics arrived, but by then, air no longer passed from her lips.
16
Michelle Pearson watched the clock on her nightstand. It was well past midnight now, and her husband hadn’t come home yet. He had said he was going into Durden for some pain medicine. His rotator cuff had a small tear in it that gave him trouble sometime––he was too stubborn to see his doctor and she gave him hell for that––but Ellis had been gone for hours. Maybe he ran into someone he knew. Maybe a former student or perhaps a current one he actually liked and had stopped to have a friendly chat.
But that wasn’t like Ellis. If he saw a student in town, he’d turn and go the other way, even if they were a member of his hall-pass police.
She hadn’t heard anything out of Duke tonight. Perhaps he was still sleeping, recuperating. He normally came down for dinner even if he was sick, but maybe his appetite just hadn’t returned yet.
The front door opened. She sat up in bed and listened to the footfalls on the hardwoods. She went downstairs and saw the front door standing wide open.
“Ellis? Is that you, honey?” Michelle peered into the darkness of the living room, groping for the light switch.
“It’s just me, Mom.” Duke was silhouetted in the doorway.
“What are you doing there in the dark?”
“Look, Mom. Look what I can do now.”
Her eyes slowly adjusted, her mind and heart racing as she watched the floor come to life and roll towards her. She screamed, her blood plummeted from her brain and she fainted, falling to the floor with the glassy whites of her eyes fixed on the ceiling. The army of snakes pressed on. Slimy, shadowy ropes wriggled past Michelle’s limp body and across the hardwoods as Duke led them into the house.
CHAPTER TEN: LOOSE ENDS
1
The media came to Hemming in droves, dozens of news vans zoomed all over town, pointing their cameras and microphones at anything and everything because sensational stories were in abundance. Arlo County had experienced a rather impressive series of disasters over the past twenty-four hours. There had been a very serious outbreak of severe weather, which had obliterated thirty homes and businesses and had damaged countless others. A photo of the Billy Burger sign lying in the middle of the highway appeared on the front page of the Hemming Herald. The burger joint, which had been there since the early-eighties, was far beyond repair.
The Red Cross showed up the next day to help with the local clean-up efforts. Their first stop was the Starkweather farm.
The house had lost most of its shingles and some of its side panels, but the worst damage was to the front porch. A massive maple tree had fallen over and tore the awning and wraparound porch into pieces. A shutter that had once been attached outside Dylan’s bedroom window now lay near the mailbox. Debris peppered the yard: a plastic mop bucket, an eight-foot piece of plywood of unknown origin, books, dinnerware, a child’s pack-and-play.
A lady from the Hemming Herald was taking photos when Linda Starkweather drove up in a hail-battered Buick.
Dylan got out of the car and propped an arm on the door. “It’s like a bad dream.”
His mother nodded slowly, surveying the damage in broad, revealing daylight. “Maybe this is the end.”
“End of what?”
Linda walked around to the back door of the Buick and said “The reaping season. The nightmare. Everything. I hope this is over.”
Dylan nodded, believing it to be true. It was in the air, something whispered calmly in his ear and said everything would be normal from now on. On the way home from the hospital, Bobby Billings had given a rather shocking account of the past twenty-four hours and the deaths that had occurred within them. From what Dylan could understand, all parties involved in the Keeper mythos were now dead, including those who had unfortunately met their end as a result of it.
Sand Mountain Church had been reduced to ash and most of its congregation were found scattered among the smoldering structure, or what was left of it. One body still remained unidentified, and if Garrett had indeed been responsible for sending those shakers to hell, Dylan supposed that could have been him. Garrett hadn’t answered his phone this morning.
Ellis Pearson, Alan Blair, Jared Kemper, and those who’d been killed at the county fair, well, Prescott Funeral Home would be a very busy place over the next few days. Luckily everyone still had their closet full of black for the occasion.
After wrapping up the carnage in Arlo County, Bobby Billings went on to say that Ned Robertson would be stepping down as County Sheriff effective immediately. Deputy Cooley was appointed by the county as his replacement, and an official statement from the Sheriff’s office would be given sometime later this afternoon.
Linda opened the back door of the Buick and Gina stepped out carefully. She looked out at the damage and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
“I’m sure gonna miss my bed,” she said, walking around the car to Dylan.
“Better than the one at the hospital, I’m sure. Then again, the one at the Bartleby might not be so bad.” Dylan picked through the debris and smiled, tossing aside a large piece of wallpapered sheetrock. He picked up the straw fedora and brushed it off. It was still wet from the rain, but it was unharmed.
He handed it to her. “You still have this.”
Gina took it and turned it over in her hand. She looked back at her brother and grinned, dropping it over his red moppy hair.
“I think it suits you,” she said. “What do you think, Mom?”
Linda nodded. “You look so much like your father right now, it’s scary.”
“I think we’ve had enough of ‘scary’ for the time being.” Dylan adjusted the hat and stretched. “What happens now?”
Linda and her children walked past the woman from the Herald and the community volunteers. Charlie Douglas came past them with a wheelbarrow full of rubble. “Hiya, Gina. Glad to see you’re better!”
As they surveyed their farm house in ruin, Linda said “We fix everything. I mean everything. And not just the house.” She put an arm around each of them and squeezed. “We move on.”
Before they went over to the Red Cross tent, Dylan said “This time next year, we should take a vacation. To the beach, maybe.”
Linda nodded, exhausted. “I’d say that’s a wonderful idea.”
Had her cell phone had power left in it––it still lay dead in the floorboard of the Buick––she would have known that her brother had been bitten to death by a reaper snake sometime after she’d left the county jail the night before.
2
At dawn, Dolly Faber trudged across the white sand in front of her condo. The heat index would spike above a hundred degrees by eleven o'clock, so she thought it would be best to venture out early enough t
o avoid heat stroke. The beach was relatively barren except for a fisherman or two and a middle-aged runner trying to maintain her preferred weight.
Between the Faber sisters there had been three divorces, one stroke, two triple bypass surgeries, one mastectomy, and countless bouts with skin cancer, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, and non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
A necrotic ulcer on Evelyn's foot appeared last fall. Doctors had amputated it four days later. After the funeral, Dolly brought her ashes home and had scattered them above the ocean.
Her sister had been dead one year today. Dolly had found her in the floor of their Skokie motel room during the Patsy Cline convention, but that seemed so long ago…
Liquid jade spilled over her feet. It was cold. The wind whistled in her ears. The she saw something moving towards her.
It came at her fast, rolling toward her like a tumbleweed and finally caught on a beach chair––a straw fedora with a dark red satin ribbon. Overjoyed, she picked the hat up and took it home. About a year ago, she had spoken to a girl at a diner somewhere in Tennessee who had one just like it.
Less than two hundred yards down the coast, Dylan Starkweather lay face down in the sand.
3
Police located Linda Starkweather at the Pearl Beachside Hotel along with Dylan’s girlfriend who had come on vacation with them. Heather Meeks later told authorities she and Dylan had been walking the beach around midnight, sharing a six pack of tallboys they had bought with a fake ID. Heather felt sick and had gone back to the room at the hotel. She said Dylan wanted to walk some more since it was their last night on the beach. That was the last time she'd seen him alive.
Edward Mullenbrau, the Cooper County Coroner, nearly dropped out of his chair and turned on his heels when he saw the toxicology report––four hundred and fifty milligrams of snake venom, a dose lethal enough to kill five strong men.
Dylan’s sister, Gina, briefly abandoned her studies at Gunter College and flew in for the funeral.
After police had revived Linda Starkweather upon hearing the report, she knew the reaping season had begun again.
But this bad mother, this terrible mother…
She was paid up in full.
4
Duke Pearson got home just shortly after midnight. He parked his pickup and went upstairs to shower after that long haul down to the sunshine state for this year’s first reaping. He’d been practicing, preparing in secret since his mother believed she had been dreaming when she saw all those snakes in her house the year before.
He was so proud of himself. That shit-freckled fuck finally got his and he felt no remorse. He felt alive.
He was feared.
Duke gathered his things and went out again with his bag, listening to those sweet sounds––the rattling and hissing.
And now there was a new Keeper of Serpents, a reaper not in a shroud of black but a heavy canvas duster over a Durden High letterman jacket, out there in the night, charged to the max with supernatural voltage in his muscles and in his lungs, another black heart beating out a ghastly rhythm as Duke Pearson sings his next deadsong.
5
Lilly Cunningham would be starting a new line of work tomorrow. She’d hung up her unflattering dance attire one and for all. A brand new pantsuit, pressed and starched, lay across her bed. On the dresser, a plastic pin with her name engraved on it. Below her name said TELLER. Hemming Savings and Loan called her an hour ago to congratulate her a second time. Lilly couldn’t wait to tell Stan when he got home. He needed to hear some good news.
They had both been down and out over the past year, ever since she miscarried what would have been her second child. The massive hemorrhaging she experienced at Durden Memorial had been so severe it nearly killed her. To top off the cake with more delightful news, after Lilly recovered, she had been diagnosed with endometriosis. Her doctor told her the chances of getting pregnant now were far less than before. The former stripper knew her mold had been broken once and for all.
Stan wanted a boy more than anything, and Lilly wanted to give him one, no matter what the cost. She prayed every night while she was pregnant, but she decided God had other plans once that didn’t pan out.
Lilly pulled up a chair next to her little munchkin. “Mommy’s got carrots for Kayla!”
Kayla grinned, showing off two white chompers which had just broken through her gum line. Mommy shoveled a glob of orange goo into her mouth. She closed her pouty lips around the spoon and some of the stuff oozed down her chin and into her lap. Lilly leaned over to wipe the child’s mouth when the door bell rang.
“Who do you think that is, cupcake?”
Kayla shoved a stubby hand into the carrot puree, pulled it out, and licked her palm.
The doorbell rang again.
Lilly got up and peered through the peephole. Salesman?
She opened the door. The man was wearing a three-piece pin-striped suit, a leather satchel gripped in his right hand. He was older, and his hair was thin but carefully combed back against his scalp. His personal presentation was immaculate, and Lilly found him oddly enchanting.
“Good afternoon, ma’am!” the man said, bearing a mouthful of glossy teeth. “I was wonderin if you could spare a moment or two to let me share some wonderful news that might be of interest to you.”
Lilly normally would’ve slammed the door in this fellow’s face. Hell, she never even opened the door for salesmen, period. She would usually duck behind the couch until a salesman went away and strolled on to the next house. But there was something about this one…
“What is it you’re selling?” She asked, folding her arms but never taking her eyes off his. They were unusually dark, but she thought nothing of it.
“Well, I’d rather discuss that in privacy if you don’t mind. What’s your business is your business and I’m obliged to keep it that way.”
He seemed harmless enough. He had the demeanor and charm of a southern gentleman. Lilly liked him a great deal already.
“Is your husband home?”
“He isn’t,” Lilly said, a little afraid the stranger would reconsider and go on his way. “But I handle the finances.”
“Well, that’s a mighty fine thing, indeed. Migh-tee fine,” the man said, smiling.
Lilly licked her lips and did what her instincts told her not to do.
“Would you like to come in?”
Leaves danced around his feet and rode a gust of wind high up in the air, carrying them over the Cunningham’s charming singlewide. Before Samuel Thade accepted Lilly’s invitation, he straightened, brushed invisible dirt off the shoulder of his suit coat, and thought how nice it was to be back in business.
“I believe I will, thank you.”
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS
CHAPTER TWO: CONNECTIONS
CHAPTER THREE: FLOYD WIGGINS
CHAPTER FOUR: THE CALLING
CHAPTER FIVE: SAND MOUNTAIN
CHAPTER SIX: MAN NAMED THADE
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE FAIR
CHAPTER EIGHT: GETTING OUT
CHAPTER NINE: DEAD OF THE STORM
CHAPTER TEN: LOOSE ENDS
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS
CHAPTER TWO: CONNECTIONS
CHAPTER THREE: FLOYD WIGGINS
CHAPTER FOUR: THE CALLING
CHAPTER FIVE: SAND MOUNTAIN
CHAPTER SIX: MAN NAMED THADE
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE FAIR
CHAPTER EIGHT: GETTING OUT
CHAPTER NINE: DEAD OF THE STORM
CHAPTER TEN: LOOSE ENDS
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The Deadsong Page 17
