Everett dropped the hammer. Now it was he who backed away, whimpering.
Ruth saw the reflection of the cross on Everett’s face and realized it had immobilized him. Grabbing the little graven image with thumb and forefinger, she got to her feet. “You…you tremble before God, prince of liars! Before the power of the cross of Jesus!”
As she advanced with the cross thrust out, Everett withered, fell to his back, and covered his face.
“That’s right, you foul demon! You have no power over the righteous! You have no power over me!”
She raised the pistol with her right hand, thrusting the cross pendant till its clasp dug into the back of her neck. “I cast thee into the lake of fire!”
Everett rose and turned, trying to run away. Ruth fired, emptying her last three rounds into his back, as she bellowed, “In Jesus’s holy precious name, I rebuke ye, Satan!”
He fell to all fours, crawling away from her. She raised the pistol for the coup de grâce. “There shall be no escape from His wrath!”
She fired—but the hammer clicked dry. “Oh, Holy Spirit.” She reached into her bag and withdrew the box of shells to reload. “Guide my hand.” She snapped the cylinder home and raised the gun.
Everett tried to struggle to his feet.
Ruth shot him once more in the back, sending him sprawling headlong into the wall of flames.
She lowered the weapon, watching the flames consume him, pleased by his helplessness, as he crawled further into his own destruction.
“Don’t you ever come back, Lucifer! For I vanquish ye to the lake of fire forever! In the name of Jesus!”
* * * *
McGlazer ran up the hill, picking up speed at the sound of gunshots.
He opened the door to the sanctuary, finding it dark and quiet. “Stella?” he called. “Where are you?”
Heading to the back entry from the sanctuary into the hallway, he heard Stella’s harried cry: “Leave me alone!”
McGlazer flipped on the hallway lights—no sign of her. He opened the nearest classroom door. “Stella?”
He tried the door to his side, but it would move only a few inches. He reached in to click on the light and was met with a blood-freezing scream—and a blast of pepper spray.
McGlazer stumbled back, smashing into the wall.
“Leave me alone!” Stella emerged, pepper spray held ready for another burst.
“Stella! It’s me!” McGlazer called.
“Reverend?” Her voice was hoarse, shaking. “Oh, thank God!” She lowered the pepper spray. “I’ve been scared to death.” She hugged his arm. “I’m so sorry!”
“Get me a wet towel or something!” said the blinded minister.
“The…presence is back, Reverend!” Stella exclaimed, as she walked him to the restroom a few doors away. “I know how it sounds. I swear something is here! I’m not just—”
“No time, Stella. Dennis is badly hurt. He’s down on the street. We’ll call for help, and then get your gear. We’ll have to run. The roads are blocked.”
* * * *
Down on the street, Ruth scanned for any more pockets of wickedness the Lord might need her assistance in eradicating. Toward the church, she spotted DeShaun, Stuart, and Candace working their way through the cemetery, and her righteous anger rocketed. “Vandals!”
She checked the pistol’s chamber, running toward the kids with the gun outstretched. “You will not defile the house of God!” She squeezed off a round.
The bullet pinged off a tombstone six feet from the kids, stinging their faces with flying bits of marble. Candace squealed as she pulled the boys to the ground.
Taking a quick glance toward Ruth, Candace rose, dragging the boys by their collars. “Come on!”
They crawled behind a wide gravestone, off which another round sparked with a loud whine.
Ruth stormed through the front gate, flames raging behind her in the town square. “Face your judgment, ye demon-filled monsters!” She fired again.
* * * *
McGlazer and Stella stopped, almost at the door. “I hear shooting,” Stella whispered.
“Right outside,” McGlazer said, dabbing his eyes with the towel.
He squinted toward the fire exit door, and Stella went to it, opening it an inch or so.
She saw forms hiding behind a grave marker. Then she spied a lithe figure coming up the drive, loading shells into a gleaming revolver. “There are kids out there,” she said in low tones, “and the shooter’s coming this way!”
“I’ll have to draw fire. You get them in the side door!” McGlazer ordered, blinking at her.
“Are you crazy? It’s not much safer in here.” Stella’s tone was hard with conviction.
“Just get to Dennis somehow. He’s in front of the Grand Illusion.” McGlazer stepped out, running toward the assailant, waving his arms. “Hey! Up here! Leave them alone!”
Ruth turned, raising the pistol. Recognition formed on her face as McGlazer came closer. “Reverend?”
Through the residual fog of the mace, recognition dawned on McGlazer’s face as well. “Ruth! What are you doing?”
Ruth giggled, eager to caption the horrific tableau behind her. “I’m cleansing Ember Hollow, Reverend!” she said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Chapter 42
“Go time, boys!” As the crowd surged toward them, Hudson and the rockers tightened their ranks like Spartans. The crazed parade-goers snarled and slavered. “It’s these monsters! They’re cooking us!” came a cry from deep in the roiling brood of madness.
“Man, they’re multiplying like rabbits,” Pedro noted.
“Or rabid rats,” added Hudson.
Jill roared, a lioness ready to protect her fallen mate.
* * * *
“Ruth?” McGlazer came close to her, obstructing her view. “My God. What has happened to you?”
“I’ve been anointed!” She spoke with breathless exhilaration. “Now I need you to move aside so I can exterminate some godless vermin.”
From the side door, Stella waved to get the attention of the terrified youngsters.
“You can’t shoot them!” McGlazer shouted. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No, Reverend McGlazer.” She stabbed an index finger at her crucifix. “I’ve gained my soul.” She raised the pistol to his face. “Now step aside. And repent.”
“I can’t let you, Ruth. This has to stop now.”
Ruth caught sight of the fugitives running for the church behind McGlazer, and this renewed her righteous rage. She shrieked as she raised the pistol, trying to aim around McGlazer. He maneuvered in front of her and held out his arms. “No!”
The kids dashed inside. “They’re in!” Stella screamed. “Come on, Reverend!”
McGlazer turned and dashed for the door, praying he wouldn’t take a bullet in the spine before he could make it.
“I warned you!” shouted Ruth.
McGlazer dashed past Stella—who took a second to flip off Ruth just as she slammed the door shut.
* * * *
“It’s okay!” In the darkness, Stella hugged the kids like they were her own, watching McGlazer with desperation.
“You can’t risk trying to get to Dennis,“ he told her. “Take the kids and hide.”
“What about you?”
McGlazer took a heavy copper cross from a corner display behind the choir pews. “I’ll stop her.”
* * * *
Brushing at his suit, Kerwin half rose from behind an overturned papier-mâché clown.
Most of the crazed parade-goers had surged toward The Grand Illusion to attack the Outlines, far off to his right. He crept in the opposite direction, keeping his focus on a handful of straggling maniacs across the street. They were rolling on the ground and moaning in puddles left from the burst hydra
nt.
Approaching an alley on his left, he did not see the figure emerging to smash him in the face, sending him onto his flesh-padded ass.
Kerwin found Cordelia standing over him, scratched and dirty, her tailored clothes torn, fury in her fire-lit face.
“You used me as a bloody shield, you sodding little coward!” Her accent carried a good deal more Cockney now.
“No! I was just…” Kerwin’s capacity for quick lies failed him, as the enraged executive loomed over him. All that came to him was “My suit!”
Out on the street, at the edge of the fire, a smoldering figure rose, shrugging off remnants of a charred heavy red, still clad in the protective black cape beneath it.
“Then you left me there and ran away to hide!” Cordelia accused.
“I…I thought…thought…”
“You thought you could save your own worthless skin, you sleazy wanker!”
“It’s not my fault!”
She kicked him, each blow emphasizing a word. “You…can…forget…about your band…ever…getting…signed!”
Kerwin cowered in fetal position, never seeing the smoking figure creeping up behind Cordelia. “I’ll see to it that you never…ever—”
She stopped, midkick. A muffled giggling came from behind her. She tried to turn, but couldn’t. A smoking gloved hand was tangled in the top of her hair.
Struggling to butt-scoot away, Kerwin could not see the figure behind her. But he saw the assailant’s other hand come up, the one that held a thin carving knife. Cordelia scratched at the iron-like claw in her hair, her false nails popping off and skittering on the wet concrete.
The knife pierced the side of Cordelia’s neck, through to the other side.
Cordelia’s eyes flew wide and then rolled to white, her twitching fingers dabbing at the horrible point dripping her blood.
Everett sliced forward, cutting through Cordelia’s larynx and spraying a shower of blood onto the trembling Kerwin, coating his beloved suit in slick gore.
Cordelia fell to her knees with a distorted scream.
Kerwin, whimpering, turned over to crawl away.
Everett followed him. The charred psycho was only a step away, giving off a cloying odor of burned meat and melting polyester, something like sulfur.
Kerwin turned to face the stalker, whose visage, a plastic devil mask melted around a painful-looking grin, left him breathless. By sheer instinct, he resorted to his second greatest talent—coercing, lying, begging. “Listen, fella! I can help you! I can set you up for life, my friend!”
Kerwin’s back met a cold brick wall. He was cornered—but the devil man didn’t make any motions to attack. Instead, he dropped the carving knife into his trick-or-treat bag, which he set to the side.
“Yeah! That’s a good…uh, burned guy!” Kerwin encouraged. “Look, whatever you’re on, I can get you much, much more!” he promised.
Everett reached into his back pocket to get his new favorite toy: the claw hammer. The motion was casual enough that Kerwin did not grow alarmed until Everett raised the tool over his head.
Kerwin opened his mouth to scream, just as the hammer descended claw end first, tearing off his bottom jaw and sending it clattering onto the sidewalk.
Kerwin didn’t have the release of a scream. A sickening gurgle would have to do, and that continued even after he lost consciousness.
Everett liked the way this man celebrated Halloween, but he didn’t like the man himself. He was somehow like those men from church, the ones who had hurt him.
From up on the hill at the end of the street came the sound of the wicked rag doll’s screaming. She ruined the parade. She hurt him. She made a big mess of Halloween! He would teach her, though. He would show her trick and treat.
* * * *
“Ruth! Stop and think about this!” McGlazer shouted, as he moved a heavy oak pew against the inner foyer door and leaned his weight into it. “Ask God for guidance!” This was a stalling tactic at best. Ruth had keys to every door.
He heard Ruth growl—a near-demonic sound. The outer foyer door slammed open. The inner foyer doorknob rattled. Then—the cocking of the big pistol’s hammer. McGlazer dove to the floor as a shot rang out. Splinters sprayed above him.
Ruth shoved her way inside and stopped in a slab of moonlight that revealed her demented countenance, made worse by her smeared doll-face makeup.
She raised the pistol as McGlazer came to his feet. He threw the brass crucifix at her but, his focus still blurred, missed. The cross flew through the foyer and skidded out onto the front step.
Ruth lunged to retrieve the cross, lifting it as quickly as she could. “Oh, I’m so sorry, precious Lord.” She stroked it. “I swear I will be thy vengeance for that blasphemy!”
She eased it down against the entryway wall, then charged and scrambled over the pew—only to be tackled by McGlazer. The pistol fell from her grip and slid out of reach.
She screamed as she did battle with the minister, yanking away the Summerisle wig—and a sizable hunk of his hair.
McGlazer dropped her with a punch to the forehead, enjoying the satisfying thud as he scrambled for the gun.
Ruth grabbed a vase of flowers from the high dais holding the sign-in book and smashed it over his back, then dragged him out of the way by his foot so she could crawl under the pew to get the pistol.
McGlazer recovered enough to pull the pew down across the back of her legs. Her striped hose recalled the Wicked Witch of the West, her kicks and screeches adding to the effect.
But she had the gun, and she was able to twist just enough to fire three rounds through the upturned pew. The third punctured McGlazer’s side.
He fell to his back, clutching the wound.
She struggled out from under the bench and stood over McGlazer, snarling like a jackal. She yanked her wig off and hurled it at the floor. “I knew you were hopelessly backslidden.” She dropped to straddle the Reverend’s chest. “But I can’t let you hinder my holy works!” She smashed the butt of the pistol into his face.
Chapter 43
Ruth caught her breath as she glowered down on McGlazer’s unconscious form.
The man who was such a part of her life, the one who never insulted or hurt her. She became sorrowful, touching his cheek. “Oh, Reverend. I once dared to think you could…want me. That we could be together, saving Ember Hollow and the world. Sometimes, I daydreamed of having you lay hands on me. Healing me down below. I would be a virgin again. And then I could give my blood to you.”
She licked his blood from her finger.
McGlazer moaned as he stirred—sending Ruth back to wild-eyed rage. “No!”
She smashed him again with the gun. “You’re too late!”
She stood, straightening her clothes. “Maybe in heaven,” she offered, and headed into the church.
* * * *
Stella gathered the kids against her, hiding under McGlazer’s desk.
“What do we do if she finds us?” Stuart asked.
When Stella offered no answer, DeShaun filled the breathy silence. “Man, I’ve never been this scared.”
Candace stared at the office door with dread.
The desk shook.
“What the hell is that?” asked Stuart, recoiling.
Stella scooted back against the wall. “Oh, God. It’s the ghost! It’s going to bring her right to us!”
“Ghost?” DeShaun said in a hoarse falsetto. “There’s a ghost now?”
The desk bucked like a bull. The wall cracked. Pictures and certificates fell to shatter on the floor, one just missing Stella.
Suppressing a scream, she rose and pulled the kids after her. They all rushed through the office door, just as the ancient wall crumbled in on the room, a bursting dam of masonry and darkness.
* * * *
Hudson po
unded rushing attackers to the ground, hoping Pedro and Jill were at least half as effective in neutralizing the crazed townies. The wild flailing of pale tattooed arms in his periphery was promising—as was was the sound of Jill’s cries, like a Valkyrie gone blood-crazy. She kicked a two-hundred-pound man, and he crumpled like an accordion, falling face forward.
The crowd surged, multiple hands clutching and tearing at them, driving them back.
Hudson gritted his teeth, terrified he would have to kill one of the townies, or that they would kill him and the rockers. He thought of his family, as he checked up the street to see if, by some miracle, reinforcements were coming and spotted the Ember Hollow Fire Department’s parade display—their biggest engine, soap-painted rather artlessly with monster faces. Hudson had a hallelujah moment. “Pedro! Can you guys keep ’em busy for a minute?”
“A minute would be stretching it!” answered the bassist, as he snatched an attacker by his neck and pants, pressed him over his head, and threw him like a sack into three on-rushers, sending them all to their backs.
Hudson shoved an on-rusher back into her fellow crazoids hard enough to knock down four of them, then turned and knelt to check on Dennis. The rocker didn’t look good, his face pale against the black patch of blood-muddy grass beneath him.
Jill’s studded boot halted the advance of crazed town councilman Randall Trotter.
Hudson was grateful when Pedro flew over him to intercept the latex-garbed dominatrix whose studded paddle was arcing toward his head. The deputy took the opening and bolted toward the fire truck.
* * * *
Ruth burst into the hallway. “I’m coming for you, hellspawn! I’m coming to exterminate every last God damned one of you! In Jesus’ precious name!”
In the darkened gymnasium, Stella eased shut the door from the walkway, whispering, “Stay quiet, kids.”
The heavy wooden gym doors cracked and splintered, shaking in their frames—and robbing Stella of hope.
“Shit!” DeShaun whispered.
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