“Let me see the kids,” Jay said, getting out of the car.
The colonel walked with him, leaving Shari in the car.
“I don’t know the girl. The boy is called Andy.”
They drove on, stopping at the sight of several bloody little things in the road. The FBI, the state police, and the sheriffs deputies could not believe their eyes.
“Get a bag,” the colonel said. “No! No. They’re... human beings. I don’t know what they are. But treat them with . . . dignity.”
The dead little people were rubber-bagged.
They rolled on, with Jay pointing the way. They rolled onto the hospital complex. A naked, deformed creature leaped onto the hood of the colonel’s car.
“Jesus Christ!” the colonel squalled.
The grotesque being drove its fist through the windshield and managed to grab the colonel’s tie before a cop blew it off the hood with a shotgun blast.
Badly shaken, the colonel stood for a moment by his car. “Excuse me,” he said, then walked stiffly off toward a row of shrubs. He returned, zipping up his pants.
An FBI agent walked out of the main building of the complex, straight up to an inspector with the Bureau. “I was told to do this,” he said, his voice containing a dead quality. He pulled out his sidearm and blew a hole in the inspector’s head.
A sheriffs deputy put the butt of a shotgun to the agent’s head, and the screaming agent was cuffed.
“I warned you about this place,” Jay told the colonel. “I told you to stay out.”
The colonel glared at Jay for a moment. “Seal it off! Nobody goes in there.” He turned to a uniform major of state police. “Get the governor on the horn. He’s got to see this personally. We hold right here. No one goes any further.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked at Jay. “This . . . Old One you spoke of. You’ve seen it ... and lived?”
“Yes. At least I think I saw it. And I was told it can change shape and form.”
The colonel nodded. “That . . . thing that jumped on the hood.” He looked at the blanket-covered creature. “A product of generations of incest?”
“That’s the way I see it.”
“Incredible!” The colonel walked off, shaking his head.
* * *
A state police helicopter hammered in, landing just outside the walled hospital complex. As the big blades whistled still, the governor stepped out.
The chief executive of the state and the head of state police and the FBI huddled in whispered conference for a few moments. The governor was heard to utter a few words he would never utter on a campaign swing. He occasionally looked at Jay and Shari. Once, the governor jumped up and down and flapped his arms like he was preparing for takeoff.
Governor Brewer finally broke away from the group of lawmen and walked to Jay and Shari. “What do you suggest we do, Mr. Clute?”
“I don’t know exactly what can be done, sir.”
The TV station’s news director had walked up and stood beside Shari. His face was pale, and he had lost all of his bluster from seeing the bloody sights.
Brewer looked at him. “I can’t stop you from reporting on this . . . tragedy. But I urge you to give it a lot of thought.”
“Yes, sir,” the news director mumbled. “I’m going to report something, but damned if I know what without creating a panic.”
“Exactly my point.” The governor waved at the knot of lawmen. “Let’s go see what the town looks like.”
* * *
Jay looked at the colonel’s name tag. Martin. “Colonel Martin?”
They were rolling slowly toward Victory. “Yes, Mr. Clute?”
“Could I be armed, please?”
“Of course. Thirty-eight under the seat. Box of ammo in the glove compartment. What do you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like if this . . . situation is to end, I’m the one who has to do it. Does that make any sense to you, sir?”
“Nothing about this lash-up makes any sense to me, Jay.” He stopped at a working traffic light and watched as Jay swung open the cylinder and checked the loads in the Colt Diamondback. Jay filled a shirt pocket with extra loads and tucked the pistol behind his waistband.
The light changed. “Is there no one alive in this town?” Martin complained.
“I hope not,” Jay said quietly. “Turn left here. Stoner should be in the front yard of that house.” He pointed. “There he is.”
The doctor was still in the same position as Jay had last seen him, his face pressed against the earth, the bloody spear end protruding out of his back.
“Film it,” Colonel Martin ordered a state police cameraman.
“A couple of blocks over,” Jay said, “is where the mob dumped the bodies of Eric, Father Pat, and General Douglas in the street.”
“Check it,” Martin said, his voice soft.
A couple of minutes later, the colonel’s walkie-talkie crackled.
“Just like Clute said, sir.”
“Sir! Man and woman coming out of the house,” a deputy called.
“Watch this. And get it on film.” Jay walked up the sidewalk to the porch and faced the man and woman. He looked at the couple and knew they were hollow. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, sir,” the man said. “How are you? That’s good. Nice to see you, Jay. Been a long time. Staying long? That’s nice. We have to go now. See you around.”
“Wait a minute! Aren’t you going to shake hands with me?” Jay asked.
“Why, of course. How forgetful of me.” The man extended his hand.
Jay took the hand and jerked as hard as he could. The arm popped off.
“Oh, my!” the man said. “There’s been an accident.”
Jay walked up to the governor and held out the arm to him. The governor recoiled as if he’d been handed a live, squirming cottonmouth.
“I don’t want that thing!”
Jay tossed the arm to the lawn. The fingers began digging into the earth, the arm crawling around the yard. The men looked on, horror in their eyes.
“Somebody shoot it!” Colonel Martin yelled.
A dozen pistols cracked, the slugs smashing the moving arm to dust. One trooper missed it. Colonel Martin glared at him.
The woman walked from the porch and jumped onto Martin’s back, her fingers digging at his throat. The top trooper whirled, slinging the woman from him. The form crashed to the ground and broke in a dozen parts. But the hands were still at the man’s throat. Jay ran to the trooper and began breaking off the fingers. tossing them to the ground. The fingers crawled about like large white worms.
The one-armed man ran toward Governor Brewer, his one arm extended. A dozen pistols barked, stopping the hollow man in mid-stride, turning the form to dust and plaster. The governor was hustled to a car and placed in safety.
Martin rubbed his bruised throat. He turned to the county sheriff. “Seal off the town. Call your reserves out. No one without a badge comes in here, and no civilian goes out.” He looked at Jay. “And you lived with this for almost a week!”
“Yeah. It wasn’t much fun.”
Martin walked to the governor’s car and tapped on the window. Brewer lowered it. The man’s face was sweaty and pale. “Awaiting your orders, sir.”
Brewer sighed and shook his head. “I ... haven’t had much experience in dealing with the supernatural, Colonel.”
“May I make a suggestion?” Jay called.
“Right now,” Brewer said, “I’d take suggestions from a drunken, syphilitic aborigine.” He paused.
“Get some medical people in here,” Jay said. “Start giving blood tests. When they find a ... hollow person, destroy it.”
“Jesus Christ, man!” the governor blurted. “How do you destroy these things?”
“Fire,” Jay told him. He turned and walked up the sidewalk, toward the town proper.
“Where are you going?” Martin yelled.
“I have some things to do,” Jay
called over his shoulder.
Martin waved at two shotgun-carrying deputies and troopers. “Go with him. I’ll catch up.”
Shari joined Jay on the sidewalk. He looked at her. “You sure about this?” he asked.
“I’m sure.”
Jay looked back at the cops. “You might have to kill some kids. Can you do it?”
The cops replied honestly. “I just don’t know, Mr. Clute.”
Leaning against a tree, smirking at them, stood a young man whom Jay recognized from Gibson’s bunch. Jay raised the Diamondback and shot the young man between the eyes. His eyes were wide open and staring as he slumped to the ground.
“Jesus Christ!” a deputy muttered.
Jay replaced the spent brass and walked on.
“How do you know who is what?” a trooper asked.
“We know,” Shari told him.
A boy, no more than ten or eleven, ran out from a house. He carried a bloody machete. He ran straight for the cops, screaming and cursing.
“Stay back!” a deputy warned him. “Hey, boy, drop that knife.”
The boy took a vicious swing at the deputy, just missing.
A trooper sidestepped the boy, not wanting to shoot him. With a scream, the boy jumped at the cop, splitting his skull with the machete.
A shot boomed. The boy’s head swelled like a balloon, blood pouring out of the hole in his head. Colonel Martin stood, a smoking pistol in his hand.
“I am not liking this assignment,” Martin said. “I am not liking this one little bit.”
10
“That’s Deva Menard.” Jay pointed to the stiffening form of the woman with the arrow sticking out of her stomach. “Stoner put the arrow in her. And right over there, in that burned-out building, is where the souls were taken and placed in doll form . . .”
One of the deputies crossed himself.
All about them lay the bloody little once human doll people.
“And where the kiddy porn films were shot.”
“Devil worship and porn films,” Colonel Martin said. “That’s the way it’s going down, Miss Shari.”
“Is that an order, Colonel?” she asked.
“Just a suggestion, ma’am.”
Jay was standing over Deva’s body; already the maggots had gathered, crawling in and out of her open mouth.
“I was in love with her in high school. I guess even then she was a part of it. I’ll never know for sure.”
He looked away from the body. “Can any of your people handle a fire truck and hoses and all that, Colonel?”
“I’m sure we could manage, Jay. Why?”
“Because I’ve got to set some people free, and the Clute house is filled with dolls. Boxes and boxes of them.”
“You say they were shipped all over the country, the world?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have some men start going over the place, looking for addresses.”
Shots echoed around the town, the sounds drifting to the group in the park.
“You know, Colonel . . .” Jay’s voice was flat. “That there cannot be any survivors from this?”
“Neither I nor my men are executioners, Mr. Clute.”
“Then it will not be wiped out, Colonel.”
“What do you want from me, boy? You want me to give you permission to kill everybody still alive in this town? Is that it?”
“That’s the only way, Colonel.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I could. I think. Jay, I’ll forget about you shooting that punk back a block or so. But that’s the end of it for you. It’s over.” He held out his hand. “Give me the pistol.”
Jay handed the Diamondback to the cop. “Those you find, Colonel. What are you going to charge them with?”
“I don’t know, Jay. I’ve never worked a case like this. I . . . just don’t know.”
“I’ve told you what to do, Colonel. If you won’t do it ...”
“I can’t do it!” the colonel roared.
“Then the evil will not die here.”
A half dozen troopers walked up to Colonel Martin.
“Sir, what are we going to do with those . . . those things out at the hospital?”
“I don’t know, Powell.”
“Sir,” a second trooper asked. “We’ve cornered a whole bunch of young kids in a house. They’re all armed. And all real young. What are we going to do with them?”
“Drop some gas in on them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir, there’s a whole gang of those . . . hollow people all gathered up over yonder.” The trooper waved his hand. “What are we... ?”
“Take them alive . . . ah ... as they are, Dennison.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What are you going to do with them, Colonel?” Shari asked.
The colonel’s eyes mirrored his inner feelings. “I don’t know, miss. I don’t know.”
* * *
With a promise from Jay that he would not go around blowing people away, Colonel Martin gave the Diamondback to Jay. He and Shari, in a car he found with the keys in the ignition, searched the rest of that day for Kelly and Jenny. None of the little gang could be found.
By the middle of the afternoon, the town of Victory was swarming with FBI people. The porn films had been reviewed by a team of cops, and the FBI was called in on that. Also, the hospital had misused federal funds; so the Bureau was in on it full steam ahead.
In the last few hours of daylight, Colonel Martin found Jay. And the man was angry.
“I oughtta put you in jail, Clute!”
“Something wrong, Colonel?”
“I could put your butt in jail, Clute. And you know it.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t play cute. Neither one of you mentioned a thing about your daughter being tied up in all of this!”
“I could say it was an oversight on my part.”
“And you’d be lyin’ through your teeth. I’ve been questioning some of the kids. They mentioned your daughter.”
“I’ve got to find her, Colonel. It’s something I have to do.”
“And do what, Jay? Kill her?”
“Yes.”
Martin jerked the Diamondback out of Jay’s belt. “Not in my state, you won’t.”
“You don’t understand, Colonel. She’s evil. Just like her mother. Evil. She has to be destroyed.”
“How could you, man, she’s your daughter!”
“She’s the daughter of the devil!”
“I don’t intend to argue with you about it, Jay. Now I’m going to tell you how it is.”
“This ought to be good,” Shari muttered.
“You can forget your tapes, miss. We have some of them, the Bureau has some of them. We’ll use them to prosecute any still alive that were involved in satanic rites or kiddy porn. Then they’ll be destroyed.”
“The little people?” Jay asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jay.” Martin stood his ground like a bulldog. “We are going to notify everybody who ever purchased a doll or toy from this place that for health reasons, the toy should be destroyed. Burned.”
“That’s a good move.” Jay was thinking of all his wife’s dolls and soldiers and clowns, now set free in the apartment in New York City.
“Thank you. We thought so. Jay, Shari, we can’t have a statewide panic. We just can’t allow it. Do you both agree with that?”
They did.
“The state is sending in medical people to take over the hospital complex and to see to the needs of those . . . unfortunate people . . . ah, the creatures... I don’t know what else to call them.”
“The Old One?”
“If there is such a ... being, Jay, we didn’t find him, it, whatever.”
“He slipped out.”
“Possibly. Probably. I don’t know. I’m so tired I can’t think straight.”
“How are you going to explain what happened to the hundreds of people in this town, Colonel?”
> “You ever heard of Jonestown?”
“Certainly.”
The colonel left it at that, turned around, and walked off. He was not terribly happy about the situation; but there was little he could do about it. Just a good cop caught up in a hard bind.
“Colonel!” Jay called.
Martin stopped and looked around.
“Are we free to leave?”
“Oh, yes. Both of you. FBI has gone over the books at the bank. You owned it, you know. They haven’t even scratched the surface yet, but you’re worth millions and millions of dollars, Jay.”
“I didn’t know it was that much.”
“Take a vacation, Jay. You and Miss Shari.
’Way you two are makin’ moo-eyes at each other, I’d say you need some time alone.”
“Millions and millions, huh, Colonel?”
“That’s what the Bureau says.”
“Tell me something, Colonel.”
“If I can.”
“How’s all that money going to protect us from the devil?”
Something invisible and cold and ugly touched the top trooper. He shuddered and shook his head. He walked away. He stopped and looked back at Jay and Shari.
“Colonel Martin!” The shout reached him.
“Owens! What is it?”
“Gang of kids just killed the county sheriff. Hacked him to death with knives and axes.”
“Dear God in heaven,” Martin whispered.
“Kill them, Colonel!” Jay told him. “Kill them all.”
Martin walked to face Jay. “Clute,” he whispered. “Just get in some vehicle, I don’t care which one, use mine, and get out of here. You and Miss Shari. If we need your testimony, I’ll find you.”
“You got a Watts line to hell, Colonel?”
11
In St. Louis, Shari handed in her resignation. While she packed at her apartment, Jay bought new clothing. He then arranged air transportation to Hawaii. At the airport, he dropped the Hawaiian tickets in the garbage and rented a car he could drop off.
On Interstate 55, heading south, Shari asked, “Where are we going, Jay?”
“I don’t know. Away. But I know this: It isn’t over. They’ll follow us, they’ll find us, and they’ll do their best to kill us.”
“They?”
You came too easy, Jay thought. And I don’t trust you. Not at all.
Toy Cemetery Page 27
