"Now," he whispered. "We see your true face, demon. Week after week you sat in my church, laughing at me, proud of your deception."
Rita tried to shake her head.
"No more," Zachary said in a sweet tone. "You've been revealed in all your wickedness." He nodded. "Take her away."
As they dragged her toward the back, Roger stepped back, confident that Stuart could handle it. The pews started to empty as everyone followed them outside. Roger looked at his hands and hung his head.
The Reverend touched his shoulder. "Do not fear, my son. You did the right thing bringing your concerns to me. You were right about her. That is no longer your wife. She's lost..."
Roger blinked away a tear. "Isn't there anything...?"
Zachary slowly shook his head. "Nothing to do now but give the demon an example of our retribution."
Roger's eyes brightened. "It will suffer?"
"Oh yes."
"For what it did to my Rita?"
Zachary squeezed his shoulder. "I assure you it will. Now, come and see this through to the end. It is important."
At the back of the church Stan slumped against the wall as the Harris family madly pushed him aside in their haste to follow the evacuating masses. He blinked away the cobwebs of disbelief and tried to locate his wife. Her seat was empty. He assumed she was out on the lawn with the rest. She was probably one of the first.
Don't go out there, his inner voice warned. But Stan's feet started to move. He suddenly felt like the tie around his neck was coiling, attempting to choke him. Beyond the thick line feeding outside, he saw Mary and Theresa, huddled close to each other, caught in the crowd, pushed inexorably forward despite their attempts to turn around.
It took another two minutes until Stan made it outside, and he was still stuck behind a mob of people. He cursed his parents for giving him small genes; he'd never be able to see.
He put his hat back on and starting pushing through. He had to see. Why? Because you're the sheriff and you're going to stop it?
That thought gave him pause. Could he? Was he that strong? Could he speak as the voice of reason if whatever was happening up there was something as horrible as he imagined? He kept seeing the Reverend's eyes blazing with fiery determination. He saw that reflected in every face now; it was a contagious madness, a plague spreading through these people. They were all infected, he realized. All of them – except himself, and Rita, and the Angettis, and that librarian.
Oh God, he thought, pushing through another layer of people. What was happening here?
A woman screamed up ahead, a scream of absolute pain.
He heard a heavy THUD, and then another scream.
Stan cursed and wished he'd brought his gun. If only–
John Frakes was in front of him, the last body before the clearing. John's boy, Timmy was hiding his face in his father's side. "Don't look, son," his father was saying. "You don't need to see this just yet."
Stan noticed something in John's hand. Heavy and solid.
A rock.
He recoiled, and looked around at the others in the first row.
Not a hand was empty. From palm-sized stones to thicker and heftier shapes, rocks were held in tight grips; some people even held one in each hand. Stan peered over John's shoulder and saw that the people had formed a large ring around the grassy patch. Rita lay in the middle, on one knee, hands in the air, attempting to ward off the next throw. Her forehead was split, blood rushing into her eyes. She seemed dazed and off balance. Stan noticed heaps of rocks set in regular intervals around the inside of the ring, to which the churchgoers in the first few rows greedily helped themselves.
Dear Lord, no. Stan backed up just as John lifted the rock. Others followed suit. It looked like a scene from the history books where the British soldiers alternately loaded their muskets, waited, and fired simultaneously, like robots.
Stan wanted to reach out and knock the rock out of John's hand, and stand in front of Rita and just shout what the hell are you all doing? A stoning? Here in the twentieth century?
Stan opened his mouth. He thought he could swat the huge rock from John's hands – but at the last moment he saw something that froze him to the spot.
Standing a little ahead of the crowd was Roger. He took a step toward his pleading, trembling wife.
And he held the biggest stone of all.
Stan turned, feeling the acids burn their way up his throat; his stomach lurched again and his legs drained of strength. A nightmare, it had to be. He had to wake up. Any minute now he'd sit up in bed, and after a nice hot cup of coffee the world would fall back into its neat and ordered condition.
Rita's screams cut through his heart, shattering his delusions. He could hear every sickening thud, every bone shattering. Mercifully her screams diminished, then cut off abruptly after several wet-sounding impacts hit at once. Her cries were replaced by the howls and cheers of the congregation.
Stan did not want to see the result; he could imagine her body, pristinely clothed, lying in a twisted heap under a mound of bloody rocks.
Finally he made it to the back of the crowd, mostly by shoving through anyone in his path. These weren't people anymore. They weren't his friends and neighbors. They were a pack of wild things. They had the scent of blood now.
Where would it end?
Over the clamoring voices and screaming chants the Reverend tried to make himself heard.
"My children! We have done well. But it is only the first strike!"
Outside of the crowd, the air was thinner, the oxygen richer. The sunlight a little purer. He could breathe again. He wanted to escape, but he couldn't think of it yet. He knew he had to stick around, if only to see how far the madness would take them.
"There is another in our midst, another snake!"
Stan gasped and fell against the church wall. He knows. Oh God he knows. Stan searched the crowd until he found Stuart. He was coming this way–
But in a flash, Stan understood that he was not, could not be the target. He knew all along whom they were after. Everyone did.
He checked the other side of the crowd. There, just pushing free of the throng. Mary and Theresa, looking scared, horrified.
Go. Stan urged. Run like the wind. Stuart was coming closer, five yards from Stan, preparing to walk right by on his way to apprehend the girl.
Stan looked in their direction. His eyes met those of the mother, and an intimate message was passed. Help us. He knew she saw him immediately as a source of aid – the only source they could count on. He couldn't let them down.
Stuart closed the distance, walking briskly, face determined. As he drew alongside Stan, the Sheriff moved forward and thrust his leg out, also giving a slight shove. Stuart tripped and fell flat on his face.
Stan glanced at Mary. They were a good ten yards from the nearest people. Holding hands and jogging. Not fast enough, though, Stan realized.
Grumbling, Stuart got to his knees, rubbing his nose, which might have been broken. He gave Stan an angry look.
"Sorry," Stan muttered, "Wasn't watchin' where I was going in all the excitement." He moved forward and entered the crowd. Come on ladies, run. Through a crack in the congregation Stan got a glimpse of the Reverend, and saw he was pointing again, over people's heads. His face was a mask of pure rage.
"They're escaping! Get the girl, get the devil child!"
Stan was nearly trampled in the rush to comply with the Reverend. Desperately he clung to passing bodies, dragging them down, restraining those he could.
Oh please God no…
He dropped to his knees and covered his eyes. Someone knocked him onto his stomach. And when he struggled back up, he saw five men dragging Mary Angetti back into the clearing.
Reverend Zachary strode to her. "Where is the child?"
Mary was too horrified to answer. She kept shaking her head over and over until the Reverend slapped her across the face. "Where is she?" he asked of the crowd.
John Frakes moved
forward. "Some of the guys are chasing her. She ran into the church and the mother... Mary blocked the doorway and tried to fight us off while the girl fled. Probably out the front. We'll get her."
Zachary fumed. He fixed Mary with a maddening stare. "I thought you would resist this evil, Mary. I had such high hopes. But now you're gone too."
She said nothing. Didn't even struggle against her captors. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be murmuring something under her breath, some kind of prayer.
Zachary nodded to one of the men who held her and she was immediately flung into the center of the clearing, next to Rita. People milled around again, this time gathering rocks without being told.
The Reverend walked through the crowd, toward the church. The people parted for his passage. "Begin," he commanded when he was halfway through.
And the deadly rocks whistled through the air as the sun beat down in scorching waves upon the hill.
Stan shut out the sounds and again pushed his way out of the crowd. He stooped over and caught his breath, gradually aware that someone was watching him. Slowly he looked up. In the corner of his eye he saw the silver hair, the black garb.
Reverend Zachary, before reaching the church, had stopped and noted his reaction. He met Stan's eyes for the briefest of moments before Stan turned and stumbled back into the bloodthirsty crowd.
In those eternal seconds, Stan experienced his soul being torn apart, and felt the Reverend's pale hand reaching deep inside to clench and squash that last remaining shred of sanity.
Theresa ran like her mother had told her, ran as hard and as fast as she had in her dream. The dogs were after her, she realized. They were howling and snarling, gnashing their fangs as they relentlessly followed her.
But she made it into the forest while they were still halfway down the hill. She had to run and not look back. And she wouldn't be safe just by climbing a tree. She had to hide, had to disappear.
Deeper and deeper into the woods she ran. With each step she desperately tried to shut out the thoughts of her mother and what might be happening to her. She wouldn't let herself think of such things. Her mother had given herself so that Theresa could escape. She had to make it, for her mother.
And if she lost her pursuers, what then? Who could she turn to? No one in Silver Springs had shown her an ounce of kindness, since–
But there was one. That man – that stranger in the store who had offered her the Tootsie Roll. He had been nice, not like the others. Where did he live?
Theresa wasn't sure, but she knew she had to find him.
With renewed purpose, she felt a greater energy fill her tiny shell. She dodged branches and hurtled logs with ease, slipping around trunks and running through creeks, stumbling down hills until finally, resting behind a great oak, she listened and couldn't hear the sounds of the pursuers.
She saw a small area where the ground below a hill had given way, forming a natural cave, shielded by several thick trees and littered with leaves. She crawled inside and pulled branches and leaves over herself. She would wait here, she decided, until she was sure the searchers had passed. Then she would carefully make her way to the lake, and from there decide how to reach the unknown man.
In the meantime, as she snuggled deeper into the alcove, she imagined she would grieve.
The sobs she could control, but the tears were unstoppable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Silver Springs
9:30 a.m.
In the hands of Carl Bates, the rented Volvo S80 handled like a sports car, weaving in and out of two-way traffic at speeds surpassing ninety miles an hour. At times the vehicle had seemed on the verge of shaking apart from the stress, but Carl reined it in skillfully, dodging oncoming trucks and merging back into the lane without flinching. Eric rode shotgun and attempted to play DJ on the fifteen minute ride (that should have taken at least a half hour). Both twins had donned their Ray-Bans.
Evelyn West sat in the back, her long legs cramped against the back of Eric's chair. She wore a blue floral skirt and a white pull-over sweater embroidered with a large W over the right breast. Their bags were in the trunk or she would have changed into something much cooler. When she had left Hartford last night the air was cool and the wind brisk. Once they landed, the heat was brutal, and she imagined that she had just stepped into the waiting room for Hell. She pulled at her turtleneck and leaned toward the middle of the seat, in line with the air conditioner vents.
While trying to cool down, she recalled the flight from Hartford. Eric and Carl had both assisted the pilot in the cockpit, leaving Evelyn alone in the back to grapple with her fears and to stare headlong into her guilt. It was a long seven hours in the air. But by the end of the trip, Evelyn felt her feet had never been so firmly rooted in the ground. The transition was complete. As east coast metamorphosed into west, Evelyn changed just as drastically. And for the first time in years, she gave in to the moral voice that had been nagging at a remote, sheltered portion of her heart.
And now, as they sped with full resolution to Silver Springs, Evelyn was prepared to make good on her promise.
"We're going to save my nephew," she told the Bates twins. If he's still alive.
Eric shifted in his seat, fixed her with a serious gaze, then looked at his brother. "Looks like we've got to haul that kid out of trouble again."
Carl grinned and tramped on the accelerator, hauling past a speeding pickup truck. "He always was a bad-luck kid, Ms. West." Carl opened his suit coat and reached in the pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He appeared uncomfortable to be so dressed up; this wasn't the Bates' style. He glanced at the Senator's reflection in the mirror. "You sure you don't want to just disinherit him or something?"
Eric laughed and said to Evelyn, "You know, he did rat on you. And lied to us..."
"He did lie," Carl echoed, pulling out a cigarette and rolling it along the fingers of his right hands. "He told me he took up smoking."
"Maybe," said Eric, we didn't teach him well enough when we were young'uns."
They both grinned while the Senator, shaking her head, resumed staring out the window.
"Don't worry," Carl finally said. "We'll do whatever you say."
"But," Eric said under his breath, "I'd rather beat the punk senseless." He pushed in the cigarette lighter for his brother. And on they sped into Silver Springs.
"It looks empty," Evelyn said, peering over Eric's shoulder. They were at the first stop sign at the bottom of the valley. "No one outside. Not a sound. Where could they all be?"
Carl shrugged and flicked some ashes on the mat under his feet. "Still asleep?" he suggested. "This is Sunday morning."
"Yeah," Eric muttered. "This looks like a real happening place. They must've done a real fast job of removing all the kegs from the streets."
"Where do we go?" Carl asked, still parked at the stop sign.
Evelyn noticed some movement in the distance, beyond several blocks of small homes and up a modest hill, near the edge of the forest. "Look!" she said, pointing. "There are people up there."
Carl lowered his sunglasses and squinted. He was getting old, he admitted. He couldn't make out more than a few smudges next to the big white shape with the cross on it. He turned the wheel to the left and gradually accelerated. "Let's check it out," he said.
Eric rolled down the window and let his arm rest on the side of the door. The inside of his left arm he lovingly pressed against the shoulder holster and the butt of the .45mm.
Suddenly chilled, he turned the air conditioning off.
"Do you think Stielman is here?"
Evelyn started to fidget.
"Don't know," Carl replied. "Unless that gathering up there is to view the mutilated remains of a certain body, then I think old Stielie hasn't found our boy yet."
"Nickie always could hide well." They were getting closer, climbing a slight grade, following a curve around pastel-colored homes and neatly trimmed lawns.
"Yeah," Carl agreed. "But not t
hat well. We always caught the little tyke."
"And roughed the shit out of him. But hey, it was fun. Kids bounce back from stuff like that."
A laugh from the back seat. Carl looked in the mirror, fearful that he had upset the Senator. But she was smirking to herself, still gazing out the window.
"Hey!" Eric said. "They're moving." He peered closer as they cleared the last string of houses and started up the drive to the church.
Carl began to slow the car. "What the hell? Are they having some kind of picnic? Playin' games or something? A whole group just took off into the woods like they were chasing an escaped dog."
Evelyn leaned between the twins. "What are the rest of them doing?"
Eric reached across and gripped his brother's arm.
"They're running," he said. "At us."
"Don't be silly." Carl's eyes scanned the approaching mass. He saw men and women of all shapes and sizes. Children, grandmothers. Well-dressed people going to or leaving church. "They're probably just eager to greet visitors."
"Then why?" Evelyn asked timidly, the color rushing from her cheeks, "Are they carrying rocks?"
Eric started to roll up his window. "Uh… Carl. Get us the fuck out of here."
His brother slammed on the brakes and Evelyn was wrenched forward, jarring her shoulder before rocking back. Carl stood on the clutch and threw it into reverse.
The car stalled. It coughed and sputtered and Carl tried to save it by punching it back into neutral, but it died all the same.
"Come on!" Eric hissed, slapping Carl's arm. "Start it!"
Evelyn's jaw hung open in disbelief as she watched the approaching mob break into a sprint – as if they sensed the visitors' helplessness. In the center of the crowd she thought she could see someone dressed in black who looked like a preacher, making his way down the hill in slow, determined strides.
The engine whined and gave a tortured, apologetic howl before choking into silence again. Carl swore and drove his fist into the dashboard.
Crescent Lake Page 20
