Risen: A Supernatural Thriller

by Jan Strnad

  Clark scowled at Franz Klempner's body and sighed. Converting Franz was supposed to be Irma's job. He was just there to keep out the curious and the well-wishers. He wondered what went wrong and decided he'd better drive up to the house and see, but he couldn't spend much more time out here. He had things to do.

  They would be needing him at the roadblock.

  ***

  Doc Milford knocked softly on the door to Annie's hospital room.

  Peg looked up and smiled a sad, pretty smile. She was stroking Annie's hand, playing with the tiny fingers.

  "I trimmed her nails this morning," Peg said. "Her hair is next." She brushed the bangs out of Annie's eyes. "I used to let my bangs grow when I was her age, and I'd scream bloody murder when my mother tried to cut them. She'd say, 'I want to see your pretty face.' Now I know how she felt. I could sit here for hours just looking at Annie's face."

  "'A hundred years should go to praise thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze,'" Doc quoted as he entered. "'Had we but world enough, and time.'"

  "That's a poem of seduction. We studied it in school."

  "Love is love, though, isn't it? There's a physicality to it that's part of being human. Cooing and cuddling, stroking, caressing. We've known for fifty years that babies fail to thrive without touch. But look at us now, what we've become. Grade school teachers, afraid to hug a pupil. The old baby-on-a-bearskin-rug photo will land you in jail. I counseled a father the other week who felt guilty holding his four-year-old daughter in his lap."

  "What did you tell him?"

  Doc sighed as he pulled up a plastic chair. "Oh, some blather. No, it isn't child abuse to stroke your child's hair. You aren't a pervert for loving the scent of your baby or the feel of his skin when you rub lotion on his bottom. There are lines you don't cross. But intimacy is part of raising a child, isn't it? You would know better than I, Peg."

  "You had a child once. A boy."

  Doc nodded. "So briefly. These days they could've saved him, but back then...well. I guess in more ways than one, he was just born too soon."

  "It's the hardest thing, losing a child," Peg said.

  "Nothing harder," Doc agreed.

  They watched Annie, asleep in her tangle of tubes and wires. Minutes ticked by in which neither of them spoke.

  Finally Doc said, "You were at the service this morning."

  "Uhm-hm."

  "Quite something."

  "Uhm."

  "Peg"

  "Don't say it." Peg held up a hand. "I've been sitting here all day thinking about it. It's all I can think about. If John Duffy can rise, and Irma Klempner...Galen Ganger, for Chris'sakes...!"

  "Then why not Annie? I know. I thought the same thing at church this morning."

  "I want her back, Doc. A tear escaped down her cheek. She brushed it away with a quick swipe of her hand, like someone shooing an insect. "These people who've come back...it isn't right. I don't care what Reverend Small says about miracles. I want to believe him but I don't. People are supposed to die and if there's something beyond death then they move on. They make the journey. They don't come back. That's how things are supposed to be."

  "Isn't that Reverend Small's department? You and I turn to"

  Peg interrupted. "But that's just it, Doc, it doesn't matter to me. I don't care if it's right or wrong. I'd sell my soul to get my little girl back."

  "You think these miracles are the work of the Devil?"

  "I don't know! I don't know what they are! I don't know who's behind them, but don't you see? Nothing is more important to me than Annie, absolutely nothing. I'll do anything. It's just...."

  Peg took a deep breath and swallowed the lump in her throat. She raised her eyes to look at Doc and found him staring at her, not from his usual paternal distance but right there, hanging on her every word as if weighing each syllable for hidden portent. The intensity took her aback.

  She looked away, shaking her head.

  Doc leaned forward.

  "It's just what?" he asked.

  Peg wrapped her hands around Annie's. She leaned down and kissed Annie's hand, lifted it gently and brushed it against her cheek. "Before she can rise, she has to die," Peg said. "I have to withdraw the life support. I have to lose her. What if it doesn't happen for her? What if she doesn't come back? I'll have killed...."

  The tears were running freely as Peg turned to look at Doc Milford, her eyes pleading.

  "What should I do, Doc?"

  Doc took a deep breath and blew it out slowly through puffed-out cheeks. He shook his head.

  "There are no guarantees, Peg. Do you want my promise that Annie will come back? I can't give it. I don't know any more about what's going on in Anderson than you do. But for whatever reason--divine intervention or the alignment of the planets and stars or God knows what--Death is on holiday in our little town. And holidays don't last forever. Maybe it's over already and Duffy and Irma and the Ganger boy were the last ones to come back. Maybe there will be more. But if it were my decision, I wouldn't wait. Whatever you decide, you should decide soon. Today."

  Peg nodded. She snuffled and Doc handed her a tissue. She blew her nose and sat there with the wet tissue balled in her fist. She stared at Annie, at the tubes and wires, and listened to the rhythmic sigh of the respirator.

  "Nobody told me it would be this hard," Peg said. "You imagine having a baby and think that once you get through childbirth, the pain is over. But it isn't."

  "People shouldn't have to make decisions like this," Doc said. "Maybe some day they won't. If this miracle keeps up, if it spreads through the rest of the world, you might be the last mother who ever has to decide such a terrible thing."

  After a few moments of silence Doc moved as if to leave. Peg said, "Wait," and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  "Thanks, Doc," she said, working up a faint smile. He smiled back at her, patted her hand and left.

  As he walked down the hospital corridor, he wondered if his pitch had been too soft. Maybe he should have been more adamant. But then, Peg had a stubborn streak. If she thought she was being pushed too hard in one direction, she'd dig in her heels. No, he'd done what he could.

  He wondered why it was so important to Seth that Peg make the decision about Annie. Doc could convert them both this evening with no trouble at all. If Peg didn't terminate Annie before midnight, Doc would do it himself, and then he'd convert Peg.

  Well, maybe it would come to that and maybe it wouldn't. It wasn't something Doc had to stew about. Seth's will be done, he thought, and he walked back to his office to feed the fish. It had come back, as he knew it would.

  Twenty-Two

  Brant's neck was so knotted, it felt like a piece of lumber. He swiveled it and listened to the crunch.

  "What do you think?" Tom asked him.

  They sat in the dark on the shoulder of the road and stared at the flashing lights. Shotgun wielding silhouettes milled around the roadblock. One of them was unmistakably Deputy Haws.

  "We could try the county road on the other side of town," Brant offered, "but they probably have that blocked, too."

  "What if we ditched the car and hiked in? We could enter from the woods, then cross Miller's field to the co-op. We could follow the railroad tracks...what?"

  Brant's mouth was tight, he was shaking his head.

  "Nobody walks anymore. We'd stick out like a sore thumb. We've got to figure that most of the people in town are Risen, otherwise they wouldn't be making such a blatant move. They'll be watching for us and anybody who isn't one of them. I'm guessing that once the town is secure, it'll be open season."

  "We have to get Mom out of there!"

  "Yeah, and we can't waste any more time doing it." Brant twisted the key and started the Toyota. He turned on the headlights and pulled slowly back onto the highway. "They'll give us some bullshit reason for the roadblock. Pretend to swallow it and we'll try to bluff our way in. We'll find Peg and get the hell out of town."

  "She won't leave
Annie."

  "If she's arranged to move her, we move her. Otherwise, we can't wait."

  "Mom won't leave her behind. She just won't."

  "She'll have to."

  "What about Seth?"

  "What about him?"

  "Killing Seth is the only way to break the cycle. You heard Pritchett."

  "Pritchett's a nut case. Maybe he's right about Seth and maybe he's had too many jolts to the brain. Even if it's true, Seth is somebody else's business. The police, the FBI...."

  "Like they'll believe us. We're the ones who know. If we don't do it...."

  "We don't even know who he is!"

  "It's Small, it has to be! This whole thing started when he came to town. And right from the first he's been saying, 'Oh, it's a miracle...it's wonderful....' Of course it's him!"

  "He'll be surrounded ten-deep by his handiwork, too, you can bet on that. Jesus, Tom, this isn't a comic book. I'm no Batman and you aren't the goddamn Boy Wonder!"

  Tom pounded his fist against the side window. "Shit!" he said.

  Brant took a deep breath. Someone at the roadblock was waving a flashlight at them.

  "Shit is right," Brant hissed. "We're up to our necks in it and I'm getting Peg out of town. If you want to run off and play Rambo, that's your choice, but I'd rather we stuck together."

  "Brant, read my lips. Mom won't leave Annie," Tom said. "We can't run away from it because Mom won't go."

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, here comes Haws."

  Haws sauntered into the Toyota's headlights. His revolver, normally holstered, was in his hand. He carried it casually, his arm hanging loose and swinging freely, but he carried it, and that bothered Tom.

  "He's got his gun out," Tom said.

  "I noticed."

  Tom tried to peer into the glare of the revolving red and blue lights. John Duffy was there and he had a shotgun. He'd been hanging back, but now he moved slowly, easing himself around to the Toyota's flank.

  "There's Duffy."

  "Where?"

  "On the right, moving like a cat stalking a wounded bird."

  "Got him. Anybody else?"

  Tom shielded his eyes and tried to discern faces on the shadowy figures.

  "Merle Tippert. Oh, Christ! It's Carl Tompkins!"

  "Shit. He sells shotguns, hunting rifles, even a few handguns. If he's opened up the store to the cause, he could supply a small army."

  Haws was getting closer. He held up a hand to shield his eyes from the headlights and squinted in the glare.

  Then he stopped.

  "What's he doing? Why's he just standing there?" Tom asked.

  Brant turned to look at Tom and saw John Duffy raising a shotgun to his shoulder.

  "Get down!" Brant yelled and he mashed the accelerator to the floor. Tires squealed on the asphalt and the Toyota surged forward. The window glass behind Tom exploded, showering the back seat with glass and buckshot. Pellets of safety glass pelted the back of Tom's head and lodged in his hair. He looked back to see Duffy running behind the car, clutching his shotgun to his chest like a commando, then looked up in time to see Deputy Haws frozen in shock, eyes wide, while Brant bore down on him with no thought of stopping or swerving to the side. There was a crunch of bone as Brant's bumper met Haws' legs just under the knees and then a thump as Haws jackknifed onto the hood. He lay there until Brant smashed into the police vehicle blocking the road, crushing Haws' legs between the cars and flopping his body upright like a figure in a child's pop-up book.

  Haws collapsed screaming to the ground as Brant slammed the Toyota into reverse and pulled away. He twisted the wheel, spinning the car ninety degrees to make a short, fast, three-cornered turn on the narrow road. He saw Duffy running up to them. Duffy paused and raised the shotgun and Brant screamed for Tom to duck and then ducked under the wheel himself, the Toyota aimed at John Duffy and the accelerator pushed to the floor.

  The windshield exploded over their heads and glass pellets rained down on them. Brant raised his head to peer over the steering wheel. Duffy leaped out of the way and Brant headed for the highway. There was another blast from the shotgun and a back tire blew. Brant heard it flubbing on the asphalt. The car was in bad shape, the rear tire ruined and the radiator leaking fluid from the collision with Haws' police vehicle. All hope of driving anywhere to get help died.

  Brant made it to the highway and turned right. The engine lasted long enough to get them beyond the reach of the flashing lights and under the cover of darkness, then it clattered and froze and the Toyota coasted to the shoulder.

  "Somebody's coming!" Tom yelled. Brant glanced down the highway to see a pair of headlights float along the access road and then turn right onto the highway, heading their way.

  "Come on!" he said. He yanked open the door and he and Tom dashed for the cover of the woods. They hadn't gone more than a few steps before Brant felt Tom's fingers grab his arm. In a flash of panic he thought it was Haws or Duffy and his heart nearly stopped in his chest.

  "The other way!" Tom said. "They'll search the woods!"

  The kid was right. The Toyota was pointed toward the woods outside of town. It would be natural for anyone trying to reach Anderson to head that direction. By crossing the highway and running the opposite way, they might throw their pursuers off the track. Unless they had dogs, of course, in which case Brant and Tom were royally screwed.

  The headlights were closing fast as they dashed across the highway and dived into the ditch between the shoulder and a stretch of dusty wheat field. The headlights solidified into John Duffy's rattletrap Ford that skidded to a halt in back of Brant's Toyota. Long moments passed.

  "What's he doing?" Tom hissed, and Brant shushed him. He was about to raise his head when a bright beam of light passed over the ditch and the field behind them. Brant raised his eyes above ground level. Duffy was busy inside the car, doing who-knows-what, then the door flew open and Duffy leaped out with a shotgun in one hand and a flashlight in the other. The flashlight was new and heavy with five D-cells fresh from Carl Tompkins' hardware store. Its powerful beam cut through the darkness with a cold, alien intensity.

  Brant ducked as Duffy walked toward them. The light played over the field, illuminating stubble and dirt. Brant and Tom held their breath, hearts pounding in their chests, and Brant found himself praying to a God he didn't believe in that Duffy continued to overlook the obvious.

  Duffy's footsteps moved away from the ditch. Dark seconds passed and Brant ventured another look. He saw the light receding into the woods.

  "He's searching the woods," Brant said.

  Tom raised his head to look. He nodded toward Duffy's Ford and said, "There's our ride."

  "Suppose he took the keys."

  "Who needs keys?" Tom said, and he heaved himself out of the ditch and ran for the car. Brant followed.

  Tom yanked open the door and said, "Shit." He jerked his head toward the steering column. The Club jeered at him like an upraised middle finger.

  "Can you get it off?" Brant asked.

  "If you've got the saw."

  They looked toward the woods. Other lights were joining John Duffy's, sparkling like fireflies among the trees. The word was out--Brant and Tom were officially hunted men.

  "We have to skirt the woods," Brant said. "Which means we hug the ditches and work our way around town and come in where they aren't expecting us."

  "That'll take time."

  "You've got a better idea?"

  They both jumped as a rifle shot cracked in the distance.

  Back at the roadblock, Carl Tompkins had just put Deputy Haws out of his misery.

  ***

  Under the new moon, away from the city lights, Tom and Brant couldn't see squat. On the other hand, they were themselves invisible as long as no cars were near. Most of the headlights were passers-through with no interest in Anderson or any of the small towns along the way, and Tom considered trying to flag one of them down. He wouldn't tell them the trut
h, of course, since they'd instantly write him off as a psycho, but if he and Brant could get a lift to Isaac, they could....

  They couldn't do anything. Nobody would believe them, and his mom would still be trapped in Anderson.

  They'd have to hijack the car, run the roadblock, pick up Peg and get out again. Of course, with no way to tell which cars held strangers--who were now, in this new bass-ackwards world, more trustworthy than the people he'd grown up with--they couldn't risk being seen by anyone at all. At the first sight of headlights, he and Brant headed for the ditches.

  "What we need is a truck," Brant said as they walked along in the darkness. "A semi. We'd know it didn't come from Anderson, and it'd plow through the roadblock like a son of a bitch."

  "Trucks take the Interstate," Tom said.

  "You never know. If one does come by, I'm going to wave it down."

  "Fine by me."

  No truck came.

  The woods quickly gave way to more dry, autumn fields. Brant and Tom kept to the highway until they were out of flashlight range of anyone searching the woods, then climbed over the barbed wire fence and headed across the field. They picked their way over the wheat stubble, walked down the plowed rows, stumbling and cursing silently and taking, it seemed, forever to make any headway at all.

  It was the perfect time for Tom to slip into the Blacklands. Instead, he realized, he was charged with energy, his mind racing a mile a minute. Peering into the darkness ahead, turning to regard the darkness behind, surrounded on every side by deep country dark, the Blacklands had come to Tom. They had become manifest, swallowing him physically as the horror radiated from its evil center and spread, ripple upon ripple, engulfing everything he knew and (he was only now, this very minute, realizing) all that he loved. Suddenly the little town that had constrained him, that pinched and chafed with his every movement, seemed precious beyond all belief, precious and lost and irrecoverable.

  It would take everything he had to hang on to the vestiges that remained.

  He had to cross the Blacklands and see what lay beyond.

  ***

  For the first time in his life, Brant regretted his lack of military service. He could've used some basic training right now, or better yet, experience as a Green Beret stalking Charlie through the jungles of the 'Nam.