Davey ran back to the car, dodging gasoline flows, got in, shot at the petrol, drove away.
A roar of fire went up behind him.
He lit three more stations in quick succession, nearly ringing the town.
By the time he heard he first fire engine siren, the wind was already helping.
Kevin was halfway down the hill leading into town when he heard a whump.
The sky brightened on the far side of New Polk. There was a second explosion, more decisive. A dart of pumpkin-colored flame rose, fell back.
A dim orange glow capped an area near the university. It didn't diminish. Soon, it grew.
"Jesus," Kevin said.
Another whump sounded, east of the first. A ball of fire was thrown into the air, settled back, drew toward the first. Firelight began to overtake moonlight.
Kevin started to run down the hillside.
In the distance, he heard screams.
Another whump. A half-circle of fire wrapped the outskirts of New Polk, moved inward with the wind. Kevin felt a shimmer of distant heat on his face. Another explosion sounded, nearly completing the fire circle of the town.
"My God," Kevin said, watching in awe as the conflagration, fed by wind and oxygen, built to a firestorm.
A lone siren went off, stopped in mid-wail.
Not many would escape. No one in this foolish town could possibly know the workings of a firestorm, the terrible, quick, inescapable trap.
He had seen enough firestorms, of course; in Germany, in Japan. Once, in Tokyo, in the days just before the atomic bomb, he had watched, inhabiting the body of a young Japanese girl, as Curtis LeMay's planes completely missed their targets. Most of their incendiary bombs fell harmlessly into the water. But he had, with the help of the girl's body, placed a few well-set fires into the wind, then watched those paper-like houses go up, feed on one another. Before it was over, a half-mile section of the city had burned to ashes.
Those were not good days, the war. They killed so many of themselves he had felt deprived. So, for a time, he had played one of his other games, riding a single human for years at a time to dissolution. Sometimes he used drugs, sometimes alcohol, or sex. For a while he enjoyed watching the depths to which a human being could be driven: bestiality, necrophilia. As with that Japanese girl . . .
Of course, he had, riding humans, traveled everywhere, done it all before: in ancient Greece, in Rome; and in early Britain, when the Celts had made him a god, and later, when they had transmogrified and merely feared him. He thought of the devil worshipers he had ridden, been among; only the mad ones paid homage to him, now. . . .
He smelled burning leaves, burning oak wood, and a fresh rage filled him. The Celts had burned oak for him. He hadn't realized how much he missed true godhood.
Perhaps he could have it again.
He had one final task before he could climb the hills outside New Polk and enjoy his Druidic bonfire. Driving fast, avoiding cars filled with panicking drivers, he screeched to a halt in front of the huge, open garage doors of the firehouse. Its siren, mounted on a high pole outside, screamed.
He got out of the car, walked to the open doorway, looked in. Men in black slickers were loading their trucks frantically with equipment. The hook-and-ladder driver was already mounted. He leaned from the window of his cab, yelled impatiently for his fellows to finish their work.
Two firemen hopped onto the rear of the truck, signaled their readiness. The driver in the cab put the diesel into roaring life, threw the truck into gear.
He saw Davey blocking the truck, braked, leaned out of the window.
"Get the hell out of the way! Are you crazy!" he yelled. Davey walked to the fire truck, hoisted himself up on the running board.
The fireman put his arm out, pointing. "Move that goddamn car—"
Davey shoved the shotgun into his neck and fired.
Two firemen jumped down from the back of the truck, walked forward. Davey stepped off the running board, shot one of them. The man went down, holding his thigh. The other ran.
Davey calmly reloaded. He walked to the back of the fire truck, found the large, silver-colored gas-tank cover, twisted it open. It fell off, hanging on its chain. He tore strips of cloth from his shirt, tied them end to end. He led one end deep into the fuel tank and pulled it out, soaked. He led in the other end of the strip.
"Don't, man!"
The fireman he had shot in the thigh stared at him from the floor. Davey raised the shotgun, fired. The man was silent. Davey walked to the body, searched the pockets, came up with a book of matches.
Appropriate.
He went to the other fire truck, uncovered the gas tank, soaked another length of cloth. He lit a match, touched it to the soaked rag, walked to the hook and ladder, repeated the operation.
He went back to the street, got into the car, pulled out. A half block away, as he headed for the hole in the bottleneck that had become hell in New Polk, he heard the firehouse siren go mute.
There was a booming explosion in the center of New Polk. Standing on the road in front of the farm stand, Kevin was blinded. Waves of heat flowed out at him. A wall of fire rode the wind like a hinge, was slamming the town shut.
A single car tore out of the closing flames, its rear edged in fire. It skidded on the road, hit the far curb as the gas tank exploded. The automobile was engulfed in flames.
Kevin ran toward the car. A second explosion sounded, under the front hood. The engine blew free, landed twisting on the roadway. Screams within were silenced.
Kevin approached, saw a feeble arm in the front seat stop moving, covered in fire, turn black. A face fell toward the open window, dead, burning—Raymond Fillet.
“Jesus."
The rear windows blew out, pushing fire out at Kevin, the scent of roasting flesh. There was a final scream, and Kevin saw the visage of Charles Steadman push out of the window, seeking oxygen, before collapsing dead into the blazing interior.
A sound. Kevin turned. Another car roared through the flames, untouched. Behind it, the door shut, walls of fire climbing up one another in greeting, fusing into a solid barricade.
The car thundered past, braked thirty yards beyond in a slicing skid. It reversed, slowly backed toward Kevin.
The dog's ears went back. It tensed on its haunches, growled angrily.
The car stopped ten yards away, the door opened. Davey Putnam got out.
"Davey!" Kevin cried.
The dog barked savagely.
Kevin said to the dog, "It's Davey!"
"Yes, it's me, Rusty," Davey said.
The dog ran forward, leaped as Davey drew his shotgun from behind his back.
As the dog struck, Davey fired.
The shot took Rusty in the hind legs. His angry growl turned to a wail of pain.
Howling with rage and hurt, the dog tore at Davey Putnam's neck. Davey beat at the dog with his fists, tried to pull it off by the back of the head. He tried to angle the shotgun up but could not. He dropped the gun and put both hands on the dog's head, tried to twist it away from his neck.
The dog held on as Kevin approached. Blood poured from the dog's leg wounds, running down Davey Putnam's front. Davey tore at the dog's face, pulled its mouth apart, angled his thumbs at the dog's eyes. Still the dog persisted.
A wheezing sound began in the back of Davey Putnam's throat. His hands tightened convulsively on the dog's head, ripped it away from his throat.
The dog fell to the ground, panting, paws limp.
Davey Putnam's eyes glazed. Blood roared from his neck. His hands dropped to his sides. He lay back against the side of the car, wheezing through his torn windpipe.
The dog was silent, eyes ruined.
Kevin went to it and bent down.
The dog looked blindly at Kevin, huffed wanly, tried to lift its head.
"Take it easy, boy," Kevin said. He put his hand on the dog's head, moved it to scratch him affectionately behind the ears.
"Y—" Davey Putn
am said.
Kevin turned as Davey Putnam's hand fell hard on him, taking him in an unbreakable grip, pulling him down.
"Y—You," Davey Putnam's ruined mouth whispered. “Y—“
"Let me go!"
Davey's grip hardened. He pulled Kevin down toward him, forced him over onto his back. Davey moved on top of Kevin's struggling body, held him down, pressed his hands into Kevin's neck. He moved them to the sides of Kevin's head and squeezed.
Kevin watched Davey's face, frozen, dead looking, eyes flat as stone, lower toward his own. A weak, mewling sound came from behind the tightly closed lips.
Suddenly, for the merest instant, Davey's eyes cleared, filled in with life. "Don't . . . let him!" Davey's real, ragged voice shouted.
The light left the eyes. Slowly, Davey's face moved up over him, turned to the side. Kevin watched the open, bleeding neck wound lower toward his mouth.
"No!" Kevin screamed.
Something small moved in the ruined, pulpy, bloody flesh of Davey's neck, pulled itself out of the wound.
Davey Putnam's thumbs forced Kevin's mouth open.
Davey Putnam's neck lowered to Kevin's mouth. Kevin felt the claw of something on his lip, over his tongue, moving back, a pinch up at the back of his throat
Kevin felt himself pushed inward, compacted away from his extremities, taken away from himself . . .
Yes! He found new purchase; instantly, he saw that all would be well. A good body, young, more than acceptable. His ride out of New Polk. On to . . . Michigan?
Yes! He saw already what he would do. Kevin Michaels would leave New Polk unscathed. Lucky survivor! And . . . he had been on his way to leaving, anyway. Excellent! A new home in academia, Northwestern University, a teaching position, perhaps. Sidney Weiss would help him. A scholar! Devotee of Eileen Connel!
The same Kevin Michaels who spurned Eileen Conners daughter, Lydia!
How . . . apt!
He was becoming comfortable already. He would ride this one for a while. He had rather enjoyed his last travel, across the country on foot. Perhaps he would make Kevin Michaels walk also, see the United States before settling down in Michigan. There would be no boredom along the way—a traveling academic could get away with plenty without detection. Kevin Michaels was clean-cut, respectable, hardly a suspect.
But how to handle his role as only survivor of the New Polk conflagration? Ah. Perhaps an exhausted rest in the field next to the farm stand. The scenario: The neighboring towns, who would soon respond, would find the sole survivor weeping tears of loss, wailing over the horror he has witnessed, his town burned to ashes, the bones of his friends mixed with the earth, turned to fertilizer, gone. An excellent mind, this Kevin Michaels! He would enjoy this; perhaps he would return to a quieter existence, ride this body to ruin, draw pleasure from the slow extinction of Kevin Michaels.
Yes! And here a perfect place to rest. Off the highway, in the shadow of the lonely farm stand, a furrow of picked pumpkins.
Lay thee down, Kevin Michaels, to rest amidst the severed stems of your dreams—
Kevin felt something like a dentist's drill go through him, finding a hidden nerve in his sleep, waking him up. He was yanked instantly from foggy nothingness, looked out momentarily through his own eyes again. The smell of burning leaves, burning oak. New Polk, burning.
He felt pain. How did he get hurt? In his battle with Davey Putnam? Where was Davey Putnam?
He looked down, saw empty folds of clothing, a spill of white dust.
It's inside me.
The thing in his limbs, crowning his mind like a spider, said to him, Yes. I just want to look you over.
He cried out, but it didn't reach his lips. He felt himself being pushed back to numbness again, receding from his own hands and legs. From his own mind. The pain was receding, too.
"No!"
He held on to the pain, magnified it, bathed in it. He pushed the pain into every corner of his body until he heard himself scream.
He willed his hand to move, searched along the back of his own leg, found the source of the pain. The mouth of the dog was clamped to him.
He looked down at the dog. It was barely breathing, eyes glazed, holding desperately on.
"Good . . ." Kevin said.
He dug his finger past the dog's straining teeth, down into his own open wound.
He screamed aloud, felt himself flood back to the edges of his being.
Me.
He sat up, felt the thing in his mouth clawing desperately within, trying to keep hold. The dog lay dead beside him in the furrow, blinded eyes turned upward.
Good dog.
The thing in his mouth scrambled, held his tongue in its pincers, pulled itself back toward the back of his throat—
What is this!
The dog again. He saw it from the corner of Kevin Michaels's eye as Michaels wrenched control from him. The jolt of anguish through him, he had been foolish, had not gained control, had stopped to revel in victory, instead of boring all the way in. Fool! Now he lost contact, was thrown into the front of Kevin Michaels's mouth.
Quickly! He turned himself, dug in, pulled himself back. But now he was being fought, and he screamed—
Kevin opened his mouth. The thing in his throat lost grip, hit the roof of his mouth, scraped along it to hit his teeth. Tiny pincers tapped them like metal.
Kevin pushed out with his tongue, felt the thing fighting to take hold. The thing dropped to his tongue, scrabbled back—
Kevin's mind clouded, cleared, clouded again. He felt himself torn between two worlds. He felt the thing snaring him, digging into his head, trying to compact him. He looked down, saw the hard furrows, his own shoes, the world pulling down away as if he had been shot up in a rocket—
His mind clouded.
"Rrrrrrrraaaaa, " he heard his mouth say from a distance. "Rrrrraaaaaaaa."
He could not even speak his own screams.
Me!
He whirled, willed his legs to work. Far off, the back of his leg ached. He willed his hand down to the spot, dug his fingers like claws into the wound.
He screamed, became himself again. He saw he was at the back of Packer's Farm stand.
Now, he thought.
"Rrrrraaaa, rrrraaaa."
He opened his mouth wide, forced his shaking fingers up, moved them in and back. He began to gag. His fingers brushed something hard, moving. For a moment he went blind, then suddenly his mind cleared completely. He was flooded with pain and sensibility, making him scream his own screams of joy—
This is what she meant!
Me!
No more!
An alarm went off, telling him to give up. This had happened before. There was not enough contact in Kevin Michaels's head. There was too much chance of danger. His sense of self-preservation set in.
He dropped from the back of Kevin Michaels's throat, slid out over the tongue and through the screaming mouth, fell to the ground, began to dig.
Another day . . .
A shame it could not ride Kevin Michaels, watch him suffer.
Another day . . .
He would return. Kevin Michaels would know his revenge, as Eileen Connel had. It was time to move on, now. But, someday, he would ride back . . .
Through a haze of joy, Kevin Michaels saw the thing tumble to the ground, begin to bore voraciously into the earth.
ME!
Kevin fell to his knees, overwhelmed. He felt himself burst like fire to the very limits of himself. His fingertips, his eyes, his tongue, the dermal layers of his skin, burned with life.
Me!
He gasped. He felt more alive than he ever imagined he could, as if he had been thrown at this instant, fully sensate, into the world. He trembled with aliveness; a tingle spread out through him, electric, life itself.
ME!
His eye caught movement in the dirt below him. The thing, the evil thing, was boring down into the earth.
Kevin dug his fingers (My fingers! Feel them! Feel
their wonderful life!) into the hole after it.
It squirmed down, away from him.
Get it.
He stood, unsteady on his legs, still gasping, and looked around himself. At the back of the farmstand was a rack of tools, a shovel. He stumbled to it, knocking into a cartful of apples, artfully arranged.
Apples (smell them! Their beautiful odor! The world, the whole world, alive!) spilled to the ground.
Dig! Kevin Michaels told himself.
Bearing the shovel, feeling the smooth wood through his fingers (my fingers! Feel them!), he staggered back to the thing's hole, angled the shovel into it, pushed in the blade—
Hurry! Now he must dig deep into the earth, the mother, where he would rest. A fearful rage went through him. How dare Kevin Michaels! A hate, purer than any he had ever felt, coursed through him. He would make Kevin Michaels pay, would make all these humans pay. Suddenly he had decided: All of them must die. The humans were too much a plague. He would brush them clean from the earth. He could risk them no more. Everything they had ascribed to him, godhood, satanic majesty, awe, fear—all of it was gone. That could not happen! And when he did away with them all, he would make sure the human race knew Kevin Michaels was the cause. A phone call from the president, the button pushed, twisting the man's insides, making him weep, say, "It was you, Kevin, it was you . . ."
The earth would abide. He would abide. He could even see himself playing with any survivors, torturing the mutations he had created, a whole new race of his own making.
Yes!
He dug, hungrily.
Dig.
The only thing that mattered was digging. Kevin's arms ached beautifully—deep throbs down in the muscles below his chilled flesh. He felt each sensation, each movement, each pump of blood. The back of his leg was painfully afire. He relished it.
Dig.
The hole deepened. He spaded another rush of black loam onto his shovel and lifted it high above his head, dropping it out of the hole. The smell of pungent earth mixed with burning leaves and oak wood snaked into his nostrils, a beautiful, full sensation
Me!
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