Sean did not reply. He was staring down at the road that led from Saunders Mountain to the center of Beckskill. "Son of a bitch," he muttered.
"What?"
"Son of a bitch!" He jumped back into the driver's seat of the jeep and gunned the engine.
"Hey!" Clayton yelled. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I'm gonna get that son of a bitch, that's where," he yelled back.
"Damn it, Sean, we've had enough trouble for one night, okay? And you're still too fucked up on the acid to know what . . ." It was too late. Sean was driving down the long dirt driveway toward the road. "Hey! Come back here with my car!"
Sean pushed his foot down on the accelerator and the jeep sped down the bumpy dirt road. He was not as familiar with the terrain as Clayton was, and thus did not avoid the holes and gullies that abounded all the way down to the paved highway. He bounced up and down in the seat, hitting his head on the roof a few times and almost slamming his mouth into the steering wheel, but he managed to reach Route 42 in one piece.
He saw traces of red taillights ahead of him and he increased his speed even more. He was not certain that the car ahead of him was Alex's . . . indeed, it might have been the police . . . but he wanted to get close enough to see and, if it was his quarry, to overtake him and stop him. He saw the snowdrifts along the roadside being illuminated by the headlights of the other car, and in a moment he was able to identify it. "Son of a bitch," he muttered again, and floored the accelerator. He overtook Alex, moved to run alongside him, and then swerved to the right and ran him off the road.
Alex slammed his foot against the brake pedal, steered clear of a tree, and plowed into a snowdrift. He jumped out of his car, shouting, "What's the matter with you? You crazy?" He did not immediately recognize the jeep or its driver, and as he ran over to the side of the other vehicle Sean threw open the door and struck Alex with it. Alex fell to the ground, stunned, and Sean was on him in an instant, kicking him viciously and pummeling him with his fists. When Alex realized who his assailant was, his fury overcame his pain and fear, and he managed to land a kick in Sean's face. As the younger man staggered back and tried to regain his balance Alex lunged forward with his fist and struck him in the face again. Sean reeled back into a snowdrift and Alex came after him, his eyes blazing with murderous fury. Sean was able to collect himself enough to duck the poorly aimed punch that Alex threw at him. Alex drew back to throw another, but before he could, Sean kicked him in the stomach and then brought his fist up into Alex's down-turned face. As the impact of the blow caused him to straighten up, Sean punched him again in the mouth and sent him flying back onto the ground. The snow began to grow red with blood.
Sean stood above the crumpled form, breathing hard as he wiped blood and mucus from his nose and mouth. "You listen to me, old man," he said angrily. "You ever try to screw us like you tried to tonight, I'll slit your goddamn fucking throat, you hear me?"
"You bastard," Alex said weakly.
"You shut the fuck up. I'm sick and tired of you, Alex. You mind your own fucking business or I'll kill you, you hear me? I ain't kidding, man. I'll kill you, I swear to God!" He kicked the older man hard in the side and Alex felt a rib crack. He screamed in pain as Sean went back to the jeep and drove away.
Alex lay in the snow for awhile, trying to muster up the energy to rise. One of his eyes was closed by swelling flesh and the other stared vacantly off into space. He rolled over onto his hands and knees and then stood up slowly, gasping at the stabbing pain in his side. He stumbled over to his car, crawled into the front seat, and then sat motionless for a few moments. Blood was pouring from his mouth, his clothing was ripped and wet, and the flesh of his face was growing purple from the beating.
"I kill you, you scum," he muttered.
He started the car and began to drive back to his bar, where he intended to clean and bandage his wounds, and then load his shotgun.
The sound of his engine was loud in the cold winter darkness as he drove back to Beckskill, as loud as the engine of the jeep as Sean drove back to the trailer. It was for this reason that neither of them heard the maniacal laughter echoing through the woods from the mouth of the distant cave.
Chapter Seventeen
January 12, 1969 (continued)
At just before three o'clock in the morning, the battered old body of the yogi Ashvarinda Patanjali breathed its last breath; but the psychic link that he had forged with such effort and maintained with such vigilance for so many years had already snapped, and the dying man's eyes had gazed up with sorrow and dread at the malevolent face that loomed over him. The small eyes of Vernon Sweet had begun to burn with an unearthly intelligence, and the long fingers had stroked the dying man's forehead almost lovingly as soft words in the ancient Sanskrit language of India had issued forth from the twisted, grinning mouth; and the last thing the old Hindu heard as he sank into the cold darkness of death was a cry of triumphant, hateful joy.
Grogo the Goblin now laughed as he stared down at the lifeless body of Ashvarinda Patanjali. "Oh, child of Vishnu, how clever you were, how clever you were!"
All those years you bound me and you deceived me and you blinded me to my own being. But now you have died, and now the chains are broken and the veil is lifted, and now again I know, I know.
He walked out of the cave and stared up at the stars that twinkled in the dark vault of the sky. "The veil is lifted,' he whispered aloud.
I am death, the destroyer of worlds.
For how many kalpas did I dance the tandava in the ether of eternity? How many years, thousands of years, yes, millions of years, yes, for how many eons did my bloodstained hands whip through the emptiness of non-existence? Had I consciousness then? Had I form and substance, or was my being but a thought in the great long dream of the god Purusha? And is the universe itself but Purusha's dream?
Purusha's dream. Illusion, yes, illusion. Maya, maya. All is illusion, and reality is but a stirring in the great sleep of Purusha, a ripple in the endless river of eternal nothingness. There is no reality. Only I am real, only death is real. Life is the shadow of a dream. Only I, of all beings, truly live, for I am death, the destroyer of worlds.
I am the eternal carnivore, devouring all, for all is food. I am misery and pain and sorrow. I am grief and rage and terror. I am Shiva, I am Shiva, yes, the great cosmic glutton, yes, Shiva, Shiva.
Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, Shiva the Destroyer. Thus do they call upon the powers in the land of the Ganges. But all which is created is created to die. All which is preserved is preserved only to suffer death. I am all, I am all, Shiva, Shiva, yes.
He walked forward into the forest and smiled as he approached a snow-laden evergreen tree. Then he reached out and touched it with his long, delicate fingers. The green needles grew brown on the instant, the tree withered and rotted and collapsed onto the forest floor. He laughed and walked on.
I become that which I consume, as all things become that which they consume. The aged priests of the Ganges, they knew not what they had brought into being by their prayers to me, by their prayers to Shiva, for I became flesh and dwelt among them, even as Vishnu took flesh as Krishna, yes. They fled from me, the old priests, they fled from me when first I appeared in their midst, for I am hideous to behold, yes, I am awesome in my monstrous, inhuman ugliness, yes, Shiva, Shiva. I killed the old priest Ramamurti, I consumed him, I burrowed into his skull with my great fangs and devoured his brain, and then my shape changed, my form shifted, and I became Ramamurti, I was Ramamurti, I was the old priest, down to the last tiny wrinkle on his ancient face, down to the last thought in his wise old mind, down to the last memory of his long life, I was he, and yet I was Shiva, still Shiva, always Shiva.
And I prowled the temples from the Ganges to the Indus, from the warm waters of the Tamil Island to the roof of the world, and I killed and I consumed and I was worshiped for the majesty of my terrible, impassive brutality. And the centuries rolled on in unending joy for me an
d in unending terror for those men who were given the honor of being my victims.
And when Alexander came with his proud, foolish armies, I devoured solider after soldier, brain after brain, and became each soldier, yes, I took each form and each memory and each mind, and became each man whose life I consumed, for I am Shiva, and I followed the proud Hellenes back from the Indus, through Persia and Phrygia, into Hellas, and there I consumed lives and took the forms of many people, and still I was Shiva, yes, ever Shiva, always Shiva.
And when the northern barbarians with their dragon ships did make war upon the Romans in Constantinopolis, then did I drink Norse lives and eat Norse brains and walk as a Norseman among the unwashed barbarians, and still I was Shiva.
And when the Norsemen did sail from Nor-Way to Ice-Land, I was there. And when Erik called the Red did sail from Ice-Land to Green-Land, I was there. And when Leif Eric's-son did sail from Green-Land to Vin-Land the Good, I was there. I was Ruolf and Lars and Jan. I was Karl and Fjorni and Sigurd. I was always there, devouring brains, consuming lives, shapeshifting, shapechanging, still Shiva, always Shiva.
I am death, the destroyer of worlds.
And I left the dragon ship and dwelt among the Skrellings in the great green forests of Vin-Land the Good, and I stayed long after the Norsemen departed. The Mohawks did I know, and the Cayuga, and the Onondaga, and the Seneca, and I led them to the massacre of the Huron, yes, to the great war of extermination, to the blood and the wails of pain and misery and the death, and the death, the death.
His eyes burned with demonic glee and his small mouth twisted into a terrible smile as he walked out of the woods onto the River Road. He looked left and right, and then began walking aimlessly, reveling in the sensation of self-knowledge, rejoicing in the newly awakened awareness of power.
And then the white man came, yes, the white man, as the Skrellings called him. And the white man's weapons were loud and fierce, and his stockades were high, and the Skrellings fled from him, and I followed the Skrellings and stayed with the men of the green forests. And soon I abandoned the habitations of men, for three thousand years of shapeshifting had made me weak and tired, though yet I was Shiva, still Shiva, always Shiva.
And I waited, yes, I waited. I dwelt in the forests, in the mountains. I consumed the brains of animals, and I became animals, the rat and the hawk, the serpent and the deer, and I waited. I waited because I was weary of drifting from form to form, from flesh to flesh. I waited for a final home, for a shape which would be my dwelling place for all time and until the end of time.
I waited for the body whose shape would cry out to me, saying, Lord Shiva, Lord Shiva, behold a fitting habitation for your inexpressible, horrible majesty. I waited for the body whose ugliness would engender hatred and fear, and I bided my time, and I waited patiently and hastened not, for I am death, and being death, I am the only true immortal.
And the years passed, and the centuries passed, and I was in the form of a serpent when I saw him, the twisted little man sitting in the cage, and though my serpent mind saw only food, my divine spirit cried out, Yes, yes, this is he, this is he! This is the form I will take, this the shape I will always resume, for such ugliness is a fitting form for one such as I. And I slithered forward and I consumed his brain, I burrowed into the skull of Vernon Sweet, and I became Vernon Sweet, and I remain Vernon Sweet, and I wept for joy at the aware-ness of my own hideous ugliness.
As he walked along the River Road he spied a doe and her fawn that had quickly and cautiously bounded across the pavement to the river to drink. Chuckling darkly, he crept toward them silently, for death creeps upon life always unexpected and unseen until that instant when the grave looms large and the taste of dust is in the mouth. He leaped upon the doe and tore through the back of her head with his burrowing fangs, and the fawn bolted and ran. He laughed again as his hands and feet grew long and narrow, as his fingers melted together into hooves and his skin became lustrous and furry. The doe-thing ran along the roadside, leaving the shuddering body of the deer to pour its blood out onto the snow. He ran for miles, through the empty main street of the town of Beckskill, and when he was once again away from human habitation, he shapeshifted and dwindled down into the twisted form of the sideshow geek.
This I have decreed, he thought, this did I decide on that day when I first saw Vernon Sweet. This body, this form, shall be my eternal dwelling place. I shall drift from shape to shape as I devour life after life, but always shall I return to Grogo the Goblin.
He walked on, muttering and laughing softly, until he came to another road. He wandered up it aimlessly, rejoicing in the power so long dormant, in the knowledge so long hidden, in the inhuman vindictiveness so long asleep.
And all would have been well, he thought, were it not for you, child of Vishnu, my oldest friend and my most dire enemy. Was it Vishnu's working, then? Did my brother from the eternal void arrange for you to be there, Ashvarinda Patanjali? Was it happenstance that I found my desired home in the presence of one who could understand what I was, who could devise the prayers to trap me and make me forget, whose mental disciplines were powerful enough to control me through all those years?
"So clever you were," he whispered. "So wise and powerful, Ashvarinda."
But now I am free! Now I am again what I have always been, and I know, and I know!
I am death, the destroyer of worlds.
He stopped walking and looked across the road to his left, and he smiled at what he saw.
The cemetery.
My children, he thought, my sons and daughters, my best beloved ones.
Grogo the Goblin walked slowly forward, thrusting the cemetery gates open with a flick of his finger, and then stood in the middle of the abode of the dead, in the midst of those who had already felt the fatal brush of the cold lips of death upon their own.
And I shall play a great trick upon you, my brothers Brahma and Vishnu? You create, Brahma, and you, Vishnu, you preserve, but is it just that I, Shiva, can but destroy? No, my brothers, for what I have taken away I can return, that which I have clutched to my bosom I can restore. "Shiva the Creator," he cried laughing. "Shiva the Preserver!" Do you find the idea amusing, my brothers? Do not laugh too loudly, lest you awaken Purusha the sleeping god, and we all dissolve into nothingness, we and all else, the phantoms in his eternal dream.
"Sleep on, Purusha," he whispered. —The cosmic game goes on."
He moved his gaze from right to left, smiling at the graves, at the graves of Paula Riasanovsky Brown and Doris Ostlich and her daughter Sarah, at the graves of Michael Imhof's father and Frank Bruno's mother, grave after grave after grave after grave. . . .
He held his arms wide apart as if inviting an embrace, and his voice was high and shrill in the darkness. "I am death," he cried out. "I am your father, my children. I am death, the destroyer of worlds! Come forth to me, my best beloved ones, that I may give to you my blessing! Come forth, all my dead children, come forth! And receive the kiss of life from the lips of death itself!"
There was a long silence in the small rural cemetery.
And then the ground began to tremble, and the tombstones began to move.
Chapter Eighteen
January 12, 1969 (continued)
"I'm cold, Artie." Deirdre Duell blew into her cupped hands and shivered in the backseat of the Volkswagen Beetle. "Can't we turn on the heat?"
Artie Winston shook his head. "No, it isn't safe. You can't turn on the heat without turning on the car, and I don't trust Russell's muffler. Thing looks like a tomato can."
"I don't understand."
"I'm afraid that if we turn on the car and just sit here, we'll die from the carbon monoxide."
"But I'm freezing to death now!"
He wrapped his arms more tightly around her. "Does that help?"
"Don't help me worth shit," Nancy O'Hara grumbled in the front seat. "Where the hell are those guys, anyway?"
"They'll be back soon, I'm sure of it," Artie replied.
"Peter said the gas station was only two miles away, and—"
"So how long can it take to walk two miles there and two miles back, for Christ's sake? They've been gone almost three hours."
"Takes a while when you're rolling a tire along with you," Deirdre pointed out.
"Stupid asshole," Nancy muttered.
"I beg your pardon!"
"Not you, Deirdre. Russell. How could he be stupid enough to make a long drive like this without even checking to see if his spare tire had any air in it?"
"He isn't the most well-organized person in the world, that's for sure," Artie agreed.
"Hey," Deirdre said, squinting out the front win-dow. "Is that them?"
Artie and Nancy followed her gaze. It was not quite sunrise, but the light of the impending dawn was sufficient for them to be able to identify the approaching figures. Artie said, "Thank God" as he pushed the driver's seat forward, opened the driver's-side door, and climbed out into the cold dawn. "Was the station open?" he called out.
"No," Russell called back, "but the air pump was. Tire's full now."
"Yeah, and heavy," Peter complained. He was walking stooped over as he rolled the tire along the icy road beside him. "My back is never gonna get over this."
They reached the car and Peter allowed the tire to roll off into a snowbank as he straightened up painfully. "Oh, Jesus, what an ache!"
"Stop complaining," Russell said as he opened the hood and took out the jack. "I rolled it there, you rolled it back. Fair's fair."
"That doesn't help my back."
"Yeah, life's a bitch," Russell snapped. He prepared to slip the brace of the jack under the rear of the car frame, but paused to say impatiently, "You girls want to get out of the car?"
"Oh, yeah," Nancy said. "Sorry." She and Deirdre stepped out into the cold wind and then stood with Peter and Artie, watching as Russell jacked up the car and removed the flat tire. "Check your spare next time, will you?" Nancy offered needlessly. "I mean, this has been like one fucked-up end to one fucked-up weekend, you know?"
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