"Why would your brother be involved?"
He sighed, his temper rising. "He's been supplying Ben with crack for a long while. The boy's too stupid to come up with a plan on his own, so he must've told Ray what he wanted to do. I reckon Ray just took the reins from him, figuring he'd cash in. Still, I'd never thought he'd pull anything like this."
"Looks like you were —" Courtney's voice failed as a gray shape flashed in front of the windshield and the vehicle slammed into something solid. Her head flew forward and struck the dashboard, and then she was hurled back in her seat as Dwayne spun the wheel wildly, trying to keep the vehicle from careening into the trees. Something heavy rammed the driver's side, and the Land Rover slid sideways across the road, coming to a halt only when the passenger side smashed into a massive beech tree, blocking the doors. The engine sputtered, clanked a few times, and died with a whimper. Then the headlights went out.
"What the fuck?" Dwayne's voice rang out of the near-total darkness. "What the fuck was that?"
In the backseat, Jan moaned and slowly sat up, leaning toward the front. "What did we hit?"
"Look," Courtney said, pointing through the windshield as something began to materialize a few yards ahead.
A pale, spindly shape, almost like a giant spider, seemed to be unfolding in the darkness, and she saw one long, jointed appendage spring forward and slam down into the mud with the sound of a huge sledgehammer. A tall, skull-like shape, its features indistinct, slowly swam toward them like a bizarre fish in an ocean of black ink. Its half-seen, hollow eyes regarded them for several moments, and Courtney could feel a scream building deep in her lungs.
"Oh, Jesus!" Dwayne whispered, his eyes bulging half out of their sockets. Finally, he turned to Jan in the backseat. "There's a shotgun back behind the seat. I need you to grab it for me."
Jan twisted around to search for the gun, but something like a cannon round smashed into the left front fender, pitching her into the floor behind the front seat. The driver's window imploded, and something that looked like a giant pitchfork burst inside, its tines slowly closing over Dwayne's head. He thrashed wildly for only a moment, and then the ghastly arm jerked his body through the window as if he weighed no more than a child.
The scream in Courtney's lungs now erupted as a fountain of blood sprayed in through the window to paint her face and clothes.
In the back, Jan pulled herself up onto the seat, looked at Courtney with wild, bulging eyes, and then began to laugh like an insane banshee.
Chapter 16
The thing was gone.
Courtney's lungs were empty and her chest felt ready to collapse, but she could not draw a breath. Behind her, Jan's mad wailing had given way to a soft cooing, and soon it dwindled to silence. Courtney could move only her eyes, so she turned them to the mirror and saw Jan sitting rigid in the backseat, her face frozen in a mindless grin. The pain in her chest grew until, finally, her muscles reacted, and with a yelping sound, she gulped a lungful of air. The paralysis left her, and she brought her hands to her face to wipe away Dwayne's cooling blood. Some dribbled onto her lip.
"The Monarch won't get me, I've been good," Jan said in a singsong voice. "The Monarch won't get me, I've been good."
With excruciating caution, Courtney slid over to the driver's seat, brushing glass out of the way with a glistening red hand. Trembling with electric terror, she reached for the key in the ignition, grasped it in two slick fingers, and twisted it.
A click and silence.
The Land Rover, as dead as its owner. They sat there for a time, buried in near-pitch darkness, probably miles deep in the place called Owen Swamp.
During their run, David had pointed out the general area where Arlene's family had lived. If this rutted track led back to Winfall Road, she might be able to get her bearings. But there was no telling how far they were from the Blackburn house.
Where the hell was the Monarch now? Why hadn't it finished the job?
"Jan," she said. "Do you know this road?"
"The Monarch won't get me."
"Do you know where this road leads? Does it go back to Winfall?"
In the mirror, Jan's eyes, bright with hysteria, rolled to meet hers. After a time, they dulled slowly to lucidity. Her breathing became labored as her mind struggled to grasp their situation.
"What?" she whispered. "What are you asking?"
"This road. Where does it go?"
"Where are we?"
Damn it. Jan was still in shock, and with the physical abuse she had suffered, her chances of getting out of here on foot were slim, at best. But if they remained here, either the last two Surbers or the Monarch were bound to return and finish them. No matter how bleak the outlook, they had no choice but to try to make their way out of this dismal pit.
"Jan, can you walk? I need you to be able to walk."
"I can walk."
Courtney looked down at her own shoeless feet, her ruined skirt, her torn hose, and the idea of having to trek through pitch-dark swampland nearly sent her swooning. What if they did wait here for Ray and Ben to return? How much worse could that be?
In Dwayne's wrecked truck, a spray of blood being all that remained of him?
She shoved open the driver's door and lowered herself to the ground, her feet squishing into cool mud, her hand automatically holding onto her skirt to keep it from pulling up, which ultimately struck her as silly. She tugged open the back door and leaned in to appraise Jan's condition, hoping to God she could somehow get her on her feet and keep her that way, at least until they could reach a real road.
"The ledger," Jan said in a low, distressed voice. "The ledger's back at the cabin."
"Forget the damned thing."
"How did Ray get it? It was locked away in Dad's old office."
"Who knows? Don't worry about it now. Come on, we have to get out of here."
Jan grasped her shoulder, and Courtney held her hand as she eased herself through the door and onto the ground. She wobbled a little, but managed to remain upright. She waved away Courtney's hand and nodded to indicate she was coming back to herself. "I can make it. Hurts like hell, but I can make it."
"Do you know where we are?"
"Sort of. I think this road comes out at the end of Winfall. Then it's about two miles back home."
"Long way."
"No choice."
"No."
Jan gazed into the dark woods. The calls of night birds rang eerily from its depths. "No lights anywhere. Not even any haze from town. That doesn't help."
Courtney clambered back inside the Land Rover and opened the glove compartment, where she found a high-powered flashlight and a box of 12-gauge shotgun shells. Then she got into the back and reached behind the seat for Dwayne's shotgun. She found it and lifted the heavy weapon awkwardly, wondering if she could possibly load and use the thing.
"Can you handle that?" Jan asked.
"I'm going to have to."
"Better let me. At least I know how to shoot." She took the shotgun and ammo from Courtney, the gun's weight nearly dragging her to the ground, but she managed to steady herself. It was an expensive-looking Remington, and she pumped it assuredly. "You mind the light, I'll mind the gun."
Courtney nodded, leery of entrusting such a weapon to her, but she knew that Jan's experience with guns gave her an advantage. She shone the flashlight beam up and down the road, dreading what she might see, but only gnarled trees and thick clusters of reeds and underbrush eyed them from either side of the rutted road.
Then she looked up.
Just beyond the truck, a pair of legs dangled out of the darkness, black blood still dripping from one of them.
"God!" she cried, turning away from obscene sight, fixing her eyes on the road leading away from the wrecked truck.
Jan didn't even bother to look back.
At first, they moved quickly, anxious to escape the scene of death. Jan wobbled a bit on her feet, but she was holding up better than Courtney would have ex
pected, especially after having been in such deep shock only a short time before. Her eyes and the flashlight beam roved constantly, searching every shadowy pool, every dark thicket. Her neck began to ache from her head's constant swiveling as she kept watch behind them for an inhuman pursuer.
"The Surbers could come back anytime," she said. "We've got to be prepared to get off the road and hide in the trees."
Jan's eyes turned to steel. "If they come back, I'm going to kill them."
A stab of fear made Courtney falter because she knew Jan meant it. She also knew that Jan would dismiss any suggestion of showing restraint.
And, she had to admit to herself, no matter how badly Jan's family had wronged the Surbers, as far as she was concerned, anyone who would do what they had done to Jan deserved nothing less than death.
Of them all, Dwayne had been the only one who didn't deserve such an awful fate.
They pressed onward, the cold, muddy earth constantly sucking at their feet, wearing them down with seemingly deliberate glee. Occasionally, broken twigs or thorny vines would cut into their flesh, and once Courtney stepped on something slick that wriggled away, which nearly sent her into a panicked frenzy. The virtually nonexistent road seemed to go on and on, and she could see Jan beginning to droop from exertion. Despite the terrible secret her friend had been hiding, Courtney found herself feeling increasingly sympathetic toward her, even admiring her resolve, which was keeping her going in spite of her acute pain.
After a time, Jan drew up short. "I saw something," she said. "Turn off the light, will you?"
She did, and after her eyes adjusted to the sudden fall of darkness, she could see a pinpoint of light somewhere far ahead through the trees. It vanished and reappeared a couple of times, but she couldn't tell whether it was actually moving.
"Is that a car?"
"Can't tell," Jan said. "I don't hear anything."
Courtney stood still for ages, holding her breath, her ears keen for any sound, but finally the light vanished and no vehicle approached. She began to breathe a little easier, though now she was reluctant to turn the flashlight back on, fearing that questing, hostile eyes might see it. However, attempting to navigate the overbearing darkness without it was an invitation to serious injury or worse, so she switched it back on, both blessing and cursing its hot, piercing beam.
"Could that light have been from a house?" she asked.
"Looks like we'd still see it. Maybe, though. The trees are so dense."
"Who would live out this far?"
"There are still some old-timers who've been here forever and probably won't ever move."
"How you holding up?"
"Barely."
"It must still be a long way. No end in sight."
No sooner had she spoken than they came to a fork in the road, the right one branching into what appeared to be even deeper woods, the left one leading into an ocean of tall reeds, with few trees visible nearby.
"Great," Jan said. "I don't know this place."
"What do you think?"
She gazed at the sky through the break in the trees. "We're heading roughly south. Left, I guess."
"But you're not sure?"
"No."
"Oh." By now, fatigue had begun to overpower her fear, and she felt the early twinges of rekindling anger. She wasn't far from hoping the Surbers would return soon and that Jan was an excellent shot. "You want to rest a little before we go on?"
Jan nodded. "Yeah Just give me a couple of minutes."
Courtney sagged to the ground, the tear in her skirt widening. Her feet ached from pounding the uneven ground, and her legs stung from the underbrush's lashings. She breathed slowly and deeply for a time, trying to replenish oxygen and energy. It wouldn't do to stay down very long, though, or she might not be able to pull herself back to her feet.
"I'm surprised they haven't come back by now," Courtney said. "I doubt they intended to leave us out there forever."
"If they delivered the news to David personally, he probably gave them some trouble."
"What do you think he'd do?"
Jan's eyes shone in the darkness. "He'd be inclined to kill them. But not knowing where we are, maybe he won't go that far."
Courtney was silent for a few minutes, trying to work up the nerve to ask. Finally, she said, "Jan, you've denied the Monarch's existence from the start. But it's out there. You've known all along it's out there. Tell me what the hell it is."
She shook her head. "I don't know what the damn thing is. You know who knows? Martha. She's the only one."
"But you were aware of it."
Jan sighed. "No. I never thought it was anything more than some crazy tale of hers. You know, I really believed David had killed Hank Surber. Why do you think I've been so upset? He's got it in him to do that, you know."
"So do you. Now."
"If only they'd taken David's original offer. None of this would have happened."
"I guess." She swallowed hard. "Jan, tell me. Did the Monarch kill your fiancé?"
"Why would you think that?"
"Because Martha was there."
"Doesn't mean anything."
"She was there when your parents died, too."
Jan said nothing, but shook her head. One of her fists began to clench and unclench. After a couple of minutes, she gave Courtney a cool stare. "We'd better get going."
Courtney nodded, and when she rose, her calves and thighs felt as if hot steel spikes had been driven into them. She could only imagine Jan's agony, but her friend dug the butt of the shotgun into the ground and pulled herself up by its barrel.
"Well. I guess we go left."
"To the left."
They emerged from the trees under a waning crescent moon. The rutted road went into the vast expanse of reeds and low brush, edged by the deep woods some distance to the left. If the Surbers came back this way, there wasn't much place to hide. Which left them only one option.
They walked on beneath a cloudless, starry sky, a soft breeze blowing in their faces, carrying the rank, dead fish odor to their nostrils. Courtney kept a sharp eye out for any lights, but saw none. She could only wonder about the one they had glimpsed earlier. Had it been a car on a road, somewhere not so far away?
As they went deeper and deeper into the broad marsh, Courtney realized her arms and legs were cold. That terrible, inner chill she had been feeling virtually since her arrival in Fearing.
Then she heard it — the distinct sound of a rough-running motor, very slowly gaining in volume.
A minute or so later, the headlights appeared, perhaps a quarter mile ahead, some distance to the right, but closing steadily.
They both stopped in their tracks. And Jan raised the shotgun, her body and her aim rock-steady.
Chapter 17
"Is it them?" Courtney asked, moving off the road into the tall reeds. Her feet sank in six inches of muck.
"It's a pickup truck."
Somehow, after all they had been through, only now did the prospect of death, miserable and ignominious, begin to seem real to her. There could be as many as four men, and any or all of them might be armed. Could Jan take them all out before one cut her down? If a single one managed to gain an advantage, the end would not be long coming.
For a few seconds, she thought about how Sheila, her little girl, must have felt in those last moments, when her own father came to end her young life.
My God, such horror.
She looked around for something she might use as a weapon. Rocks. A sharp stick. Anything. But the reeds and deep mud offered nothing of value. She should have searched Dwayne's vehicle more thoroughly, she thought. There might have been a handgun or a hunting knife tucked away somewhere. Too late to rue their haste now.
"If we can get out of sight, they'll pass us by," she said, giving Jan a hopeful look. "It'd buy us some time."
"So we have to face them again when they come back — after they've found Dwayne? They'll really be out for blood then."
<
br /> She knew Jan was right. Not much for her but to lay low near Jan and be ready to take up the shotgun if the worst happened. She knelt down in the clinging ooze, trying not to think about its cool, organic grip, like something alive trying to pull her to its bosom. She realized her pale blue blouse would stand out in the truck's headlights, so she gritted her teeth and began slapping dark mud over her torso, limbs, and finally her face, camouflaging herself with the swamp's own lifeblood.
The headlights had closed to about a hundred yards, and the engine sound rumbled toward them like the growling of a huge animal. Jan stood fast in the middle of the road, the gun's muzzle tracking the vehicle without wavering. They'd see her any second now. The truck was moving slowly, its driver obviously unhurried, the occupants hardly suspecting that circumstances had changed drastically since their leaving the cabin this afternoon.
Fifty yards, and the headlights were shining right in Courtney's face. They must see Jan now! Indeed, for the brakes groaned, and the truck lurched, throwing up a spray of mud that briefly dimmed the headlights. Then the shotgun roared, glass shattered, and someone was screaming. The cab doors flew open, and she saw a figure dive into the reeds to the right. Jan fired again, and mud and foliage exploded where the man had just vanished. A male voice yelled something, and another figure appeared next to the truck, this one moving to the left. The shotgun bellowed a third time, and a headlight went out. Somewhere nearby, something went boom, which Courtney at first thought was another gunshot. But it came again, and again, and then she realized what was coming.
In the glare of the truck's remaining headlight, an array of writhing shadows, a tangled mass of insubstantial serpents, melded into something gigantic: a towering figure that stood on two trunk-like legs, its upper portion blending into the deep darkness above. One huge, hoof-like foot lifted, cascading mud, and crashed down only a few feet from Courtney's face, the vibrations crawling over her skin like a horde of ants. Like a monstrous blackbird, an arm of shadow soared over her head, and with a resounding crash, the remaining headlight vanished, leaving her blind inside a living, pulsating dome of darkness.
Monarchs Page 19
