The Return

by Bentley Little

  Christiansen Divine was the implausible name of the man for whom he was looking. He'd been tipped off to Divine by Ryan Ladd, a ranger who used to work at Chaco, but was now stationed at Tuzigoot. In a convoluted series of circumstances, Ryan had been visiting his brother-in-law at Walnut Canyon when Pace decided to stop by at the last minute. Pace had laid out what he was doing and what he was looking for, and it turned out that a friend of Ryan's from Albuquerque knew a part-time roofer who'd found an Indian mummy while digging a well on his property. The mummy had supposedly cured the roofer's daughter of spina bifida. Ryan had thought nothing of it, thought his friend was probably exaggerating to make the tale interesting, but after hearing Pace's story, he wasn't so sure. Using his brother-in-law's phone, Ryan called his friend, got the roofer's name, and gave it to Pace. "Might be nothing," he warned. "I'd call first, if I was you."

  Pace had called. Or tried to call. But the number was out of service, and while that might mean that the man had simply not paid his bill last month, Pace's mind was conjuring up far more sinister scenarios, and he'd immediately said good-bye and headed out.

  He had an address, but he didn't need it. The name DIVINE was written in block letters on the side of a backward-leaning mailbox at the foot of a narrow dirt drive. The drive seemed more suited to a bicycle than a pickup truck, but he turned onto the dusty trail and headed up the slight incline toward an old trailer home whose once-white roof was glinting in the sun.

  Pace pulled to a stop next to a black greasy motorcycle at the rounded end of the drive. The trailer home looked abandoned. Situated amidst dried brown weeds as tall as a man, it was dirty and dented, windows blocked from the inside by yellowed newspaper taped to the glass. A lone oak, scraggly and half dead, listed over what looked like an outhouse. On the other side of the outhouse was a primered van on blocks--not one of the new vans, the family kind, but an old one, with a single portal window, the kind used by teenage boys to go to rock concerts and pork babes.

  Pace got out of the pickup and walked up a narrow dirt footpath to the trailer. Locusts leaped through the weeds in front of him. A weathered wooden pallet served as a step up to the raised doorway, and Pace stood on the rickety boards and knocked on the metal door. There was no noise from inside--no voices, no radio, no television--and he knocked again. "Anybody home?" he called out.

  He didn't expect an answer, was planning to walk around the property looking for someone, but suddenly the door flew open, and a small wizened man in a dirty sleeveless T-shirt peered out at him from a gloomy interior. "Yeah? Whatcha want?"

  Pace was nearly bowled over by the smell coming from inside the trailer, a rancid odor of rotted food and bodily waste, but he recovered quickly and even managed what he hoped was a disarmingly friendly smile. "Mr. Divine? My name's Pace Henry. I'm sorry to barge in on you like this. I tried to call but your phone's apparently out--"

  "Whadda you want? You sellin' somethin'?"

  "No, no. I'm a professor of anthropology working at the Chaco Culture National Historical Park--"

  Understanding shone in the man's eyes. "You want to see it."

  Pace smiled. "Yes."

  The old man nodded, stepped aside. "Come on. I'll let ya look at it. I'm not sellin' it, though. You can't have it."

  "I just want to see."

  The living room seemed to take up most of the trailer home. In fact, when his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Pace could see lines on floor and wall and ceiling, remnant ridges indicating where kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom partitions had been torn out. There was very little furniture: doorless refrigerator, listing chifforobe, overflowing wastebasket, television with shattered picture tube. An unrolled sleeping bag was stretched out in the middle of the floor amidst empty milk cartons, old whiskey bottles, and greasy fast-food sacks. There was a toilet, shower stall, and small sink against the front wall. Next to a door at the far end that appeared to lead into another room, Pace saw an old-fashioned wooden crib. In it was a dirty naked girl of about nine or ten, curled up and sucking her thumb.

  Was that the spina bifida girl?

  He didn't want to ask and didn't want to stare, so he simply followed Divine through the living room, stepping over and around the trash, keeping his eyes on the floor as they passed the crib and entered the next room.

  Here, it was even darker. If there were any windows, they were completely covered and not just with newspaper. No light appeared to get in, but when Divine said, "Jesse, Absalom," Pace was able to see two shadowy forms detach themselves from the blackness and fall in step with the old man.

  The dark dissolved as a back door was opened, and Pace blinked back tears, his eyes assaulted by the brightness. Through a watery haze, he glimpsed both the interior of the room, which was bare save for a pair of rusty grappling hooks on a bloodstained piece of plywood, and his new companions: a male dwarf and a middle-aged woman with only one arm.

  There was no stair outside the back door, not even a box. The old man jumped down, landing hard and almost stumbling. He turned around and helped the woman, grabbing her one arm. The dwarf leaped on his own, rolling in the weeds as he hit the ground. Pace stepped out carefully, holding on to the edge of the door frame so he wouldn't fall. He didn't like being alone out here with these people, felt uncomfortable with their silence and, as politically incorrect as it was, with their deformities. He wished he'd told someone where he was going, wished someone else knew where he was and could come after him if he failed to return.

  "This way," Divine said.

  Pace followed him through the high dry weeds toward a makeshift lean-to, aware at some point that the dwarf was no longer in front of him but behind him, sandwiching him in.

  Why? In case he tried to back out? In case he wanted to leave?

  He was liking this less and less, but Pace had driven all this way and he was determined to see the mummy.

  The four of them reached the lean-to: a rickety plywood roof set atop used four-by-fours propped against a boulder the size of a Volkswagen. There were no walls, unless the boulder counted as one, but the space beneath the roof was dark, and Pace did not see the mummy until he was almost on top of it. They had dressed it in women's clothes. Or, more specifically, women's lingerie. A white-triangled thong covered the ancient pubic area, and a lacy bra was strapped tightly across a flat sunken chest. There was no indication that the figure was female, but neither did it look male. It seemed more monkey than man, all stoop shouldered with black leathery skin, but its face was horrible and unlike either ape or human; there was no nose, deep-set eyes, a toothless mouth frozen in a sneer, and on the top of the rounded head orange stubble. The individual elements were not that frightening, but they came together in a way that inspired dread. He was reminded of the figure painted on the center wall of the storehouse in Chaco Canyon.

  Why was the mummy dressed in lingerie, though?

  Pace heard a high-pitched cackle from the old man beside him, and a warning bell went off in his head. He knew he should get the hell out of there, but he continued to act as though nothing was wrong. He was about to ask where the mummy had been found and whether he could examine the surrounding ground, when pain exploded in his legs as a baseball bat slammed into the backs of his calves.

  "Worship her!" Divine hissed. "On your knees!"

  He fell to the ground, tears flooding his eyes. A sharp cry of pain escaped his lips, and then a filthy hand was clamped over his mouth, shutting him up. He tasted dirt and spoiled milk and fecal matter. He gagged, vomited, and was forced to swallow it back down.

  "Don't show her no disrespect, Professor. She cured my little girl."

  Was it his imagination, or had the mummy shifted position? It was hard to see through his tears, hard to think through the pain. Were his legs broken? He couldn't tell, but every time he tried to flex his foot muscles, tried to test his legs, a newly energized jolt of agony shot up through his body. He had no idea how he was going to get out of this--if he was going to get out of this-
-and he hoped to Christ that Ryan Ladd would put two and two together and steer the cops over to these psychos if . . .

  If what?

  If he disappeared, if he never came back.

  "She keeps growin' hair," Divine said. "I shave her head ever' day, but ever' night it grows back." He bent down, leaned forward, and Pace could smell the old man's rancid breath. "It's the hair that does the curin'."

  Pace gagged again, almost puked, but managed to keep his gorge down, afraid that he might choke on his own vomit. Being on his knees was agonizing, and he felt as though he was about to fall forward, when suddenly Divine's hand was taken away from his mouth and strong hands reached under his armpits to lift him in the air. He started crying, and he hated himself for that. He should be screaming for help, trying to get away. Instead, he was sobbing, able only to express the tremendous physical pain in his legs.

  Through his tears, he saw that Divine was supporting his left side, the dwarf his right. He could not see the woman, who must have been behind them.

  They were carrying him around the side of the lean-to. The weeds had been cleared from a small section of earth, and in the center of this space was a squarish hole framed by two-by-fours.

  The well, he thought. This was where they'd found the mummy.

  "I guess this is it," Divine said. "Thanks for stoppin' by, Professor."

  He was thrown/pushed forward, and in the brief second before he started falling, he saw a large white object in the black dirt at the bottom of the pit. It was the skull. Maybe not the same skull Al's workers had brought over from Bower, but something damn close to it.

  Then he was spinning through space, head and legs smashing into hardpacked dirt and rock on the way down. He landed hard on the bottom, and while it knocked the wind out of him and his already hurt legs shrieked in pain, he was not knocked out.

  From above, he heard voices.

  "He didn't break," the woman said, and there was both surprise and fear in her voice.

  "He's still alive!" The dwarf.

  They were silent for a moment. Pace managed to open his eyes and saw next to him at the bottom of the well, in addition to the skull, what looked like broken pieces of porcelain statues.

  "We'll leave him there," Divine said. "See what happens."

  Pace closed his eyes, surrendering to the pain.

  The old man's voice faded, became fainter and more muffled as they moved away from the top of the well. The last thing Pace heard before the voices disappeared completely was the woman saying, "Maybe it wants him alive."

  3

  Why in Christ's name had he ever run for mayor?

  It wasn't the first time Mike Manders had had that thought, but it was the first time he really meant it.

  He directed Ted Peters to park the U-Haul in the Burger King parking lot and begin unloading rocks. The sun was starting to sink--his shadow was already lengthening and stretching east--and they needed to finish this barricade before sundown.

  That's when the monsters would come.

  They'd lost sixteen people in the last raid: four men, ten women, and two children--a boy and a girl. The adults had been gutted and left for dead. The boy and girl had been carried off. That was not going to happen again. Not on his watch.

  The barricade was looking strong. This was the last street to be secured, and they'd been working on it all day. Once the rocks were put into place, the militia would take up position. No monster was going to be able to get through.

  Mike climbed into his Corvette. "Keep it up, boys!" he yelled. "I'll be back in ten!"

  He swung around, out of the parking lot and back down Main to city hall. He'd been hoping they'd finished, but the lobby was still filled with writhing naked bodies. The entire room smelled of musk and sweat and sperm. Janet, his secretary, was squatting over the personnel director's face. Around her shoulders she wore the skin of a dog she'd caught and killed this morning. Down below, blood trailed down her leg. She was having her period.

  Mike reached out, grabbed her hair, and dragged her off the personnel director. She screamed in uncomprehending animal frustration, and he slapped her hard across the face. "You're still on the city's clock," he informed her. "Now take a message."

  They walked back to his office, and he tired to ignore her swinging pendulous breasts, the trickle of blood on her white thigh. He shoved her into her swivel chair, causing it to spin partway around before he stopped it. "Call up that e-mail we sent to Springerville," he said, pointing at her computer. "I want to rewrite it and send it off to John Eggars, the town manager over at Bower. We might need reinforcements if we survive the next attack."

  She looked up at him, eyes wide. "If?"

  "They're monsters," he said simply.

  Janet was all business now. She printed out a copy of the old e-mail and Mike made the necessary changes in pen, then handed the paper back. "Redo it and send it. Then get on the phone to the police chief and remind him that we need all men--all men--out in front of the high school in half an hour. Call Remy at Fire, too. Don't talk to Northrop."

  "Okay."

  Mike grabbed both his cell phone and walkie-talkie off the desk.

  "Where are you going?" she asked as he started out the door.

  "Inspection," he said. "I need to make sure the fronts are all secure."

  "What if they're not?"

  He looked out his office window at the sinking sun. "I don't know. It's too late to fix 'em now."

  Mike sat inside Burger King with the police chief and the city's tacticians, looking out at their people. The employees from city hall had shown, although most of them had not bothered to put on clothes. The high school football team stood next to the Elks and Masons, all of them dressed in animals skins and wearing homemade masks. The police and the militia were properly attired for battle, and if some of them sported attachments to their headgear, horns and whatnot, well, they were entitled.

  God, he wished this responsibility wasn't his.

  Mike stood up from the table, adjusted his flak jacket. "Well, gentlemen, I think it's time." There were glum nods all around, and he walked out the door, the others following.

  A hook-and-ladder truck was parked sideways next to the barricade, and Mike strode up to it. The police chief handed him a battery-operated megaphone, and Mike got in the bucket. At his signal, the fire engine operator raised him high, over the blockade, over the buildings, over the trees.

  He'd been hoping not to see anything but open desert, hoping the cops and computer geeks were wrong and the monsters wouldn't be returning tonight, but there they were, in massed formation. He could see them already, even without the binoculars, several miles away. Their vehicles were raising a dust cloud that stretched like a wall of sand over the dry lake bed.

  Vehicles?

  Since when did monsters drive vehicles?

  He had no time to ponder that question, no time to do anything but gird for attack. The monsters were moving fast, and though they were still a ways away, they'd be here soon. Judging by the speed at which they traveled, about ten minutes.

  He had never been so scared in his life, but Mike swiveled to face his people. He turned on the megaphone, held it to his lips. Below him, before him, the warriors of his town waited expectantly.

  "They're coming," he announced. "Get ready."

  They weren't monsters after all. The rumors and reports had been wrong. They were people, debauched and crazy, smeared with mud and blood and shit and paint, wearing rags and skins and cardboard and rope. They drove up in their dirt-streaked cars and dented trucks before jumping out and trying to scale the barricade. They were carrying weapons, but it was hard for them to use the weapons and climb at the same time, and Mike was proud of his sharpshooters, who picked off row after row of attackers.

  The intruders still kept coming. There were hundreds of them, an entire town's worth, it seemed, and they quickly began to overwhelm the barricade with their sheer numbers. Plus, they had their own sharpshooters, wh
o had gotten into place and started firing, providing cover, and Mike ordered all but the most essential policemen to step down.

  Down Main Street, behind Burger King, more people were showing up, ordinary citizens dressed in costumes of their own making, wielding household tools converted into weapons. Mike was heartened to see such civic support. And in such strong numbers. There might be a townful of attackers out there, but they had an even bigger townful of defenders in here, and in the bloody battle to come, there was no doubt as to who would be the victor.

  The last three sharpshooters backed off, Cliff Davis leaping from the top of the barricade, Gene Lazaro and Lee Simpson climbing down. Seconds later, the first of the intruders came over the top.

  And the war was on.

  In the thick of things: Elks swinging hatchets at elkhorned men naked and painted white; Janet and her friend Niki, laughing, with borrowed shotguns blowing the heads off teenagers; hand-to-hand combat between the football team and what looked like a bunch of Hell's Angels, with the football team getting the worst of it until a band of teachers charged from behind with studded baseball bats; a line of housewives with shaved heads and war-painted faces manning antique machine guns and mowing down wave after wave of stupidly advancing old men dressed in costumes of dried human skin.

  When the frenzy died down and most of the screaming had stopped, Mike found himself knee deep in corpses, yanking up handfuls of hair and using a machete to whack off the tops of heads. Several were hanging from his belt already.

  What was he doing collecting scalps? What the hell had gotten into him? He was a real estate agent, for Christ's sake. He didn't even like to hunt. How did he end up here? Try as he might, he could not retrace the thought processes that had led him to this point, could not think of how he had gone from a mild-mannered businessman and part-time mayor to a machete-wielding scalper.