Swan Song

Swan Song Page 12

"Keep moving. and smile."

"Go back, you filth!" a second man, wearing the remnants of an air Force uniform and a coat stained with dried blood, shouted; he had a revolver, and he came within twenty feet of them. "You graverobbers!" he shouted. "You dirty, lice-ridden... heathen!"

Macklin didn't worry about him; he was a young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, and his eyes kept sneaking toward Sheila Fontana. He wasn't going to do anything. Other people approached them, shouting and jeering, brandishing guns and rifles, knives and even a bayonet. Rocks, bottles and cans were thrown, and though they came dangerously close, none of them connected. "Don't you bring your diseases in here!" a middle-aged man in a brown raincoat and woolen cap hollered. He was holding an axe. "I'll kill you if you take another goddamned step!"

Macklin wasn't worried about him, either. The men were puzzled by Sheila Fontana's presence, but he recognized the lust on their faces as they surged around, hollering threats. He saw a thin young woman with stringy brown hair, her body engulfed in a yellow raincoat and her sunken eyes fixed on Sheila with deadly intent. She was carrying a butcher knife, fingering the blade. Macklin did feel a pang of worry about her, and he guided Sheila away from the young woman. an empty can hit him in the side of the head and glanced off. Someone came close enough to spit on Roland. "Keep going, keep going," Macklin said quietly, his eyes narrowed and ticking back and forth.

Roland heard shouts and taunting laughter behind them, and he glanced over his shoulder. Back in the dirtwart land, about thirty or forty dirtwarts had crawled from their holes and were jumping up and down, screaming like animals in expectation of a slaughter.

Macklin smelled salt water. Before him, through the misting rain and beyond the encampment, the Great Salt Lake stretched to the far horizon; it smelled antiseptic, like the halls of a hospital. The stump of Macklin's wrist burned and seethed with infection, and he longed to plunge it into the healing water, to baptize himself in cleansing agony.

a burly, bearded red-haired man in a leather jacket and dungarees, a bandage plastered to his forehead, stepped in front of Sheila. He aimed a double-barreled shotgun at Macklin's head. "That's as far as you go."

Sheila stopped, her eyes wide. She waved the pair of panties in front of his face. "Hey, don't shoot! We don't want any trouble!"

"He won't shoot," Macklin said easily, smiling at the bearded man. "See, my friend, I've got a gun pointed at the young lady's back. If you blow my head off - and if any of you dumb fucks shoot either me or the boy - my finger's going to twitch on this trigger and sever her spine. Look at her, fellas! Just look! Not a burn on her! Not a burn anywhere! Oh, yeah, fill your eyes full, but don't touch! Isn't she somethingi"

Sheila had the impulse to pull her T-shirt up and give the gawkers a tit show; if the war hero had ever decided to give pimping a try, he'd have racked up. But this whole experience was so unreal, it was almost like flying on a tab of LSD, and she found herself grinning, about to laugh. The filthy men who stood around her with their guns and knives just stared, and further behind them was a collection of skinny, dirty women who watched her with absolute hatred.

Macklin saw they were about fifty feet from the airstream trailer. "We want to see the Fat Man," he told the guy with the beard.

"Sure!" The other man hadn't lowered his shotgun yet. His mouth curled sarcastically. "He sees dirtwarts all the time! Serves 'em champagne and caviar!" He snorted. "Who the fuck do you think you are, misteri"

"My name is Colonel James B. Macklin. I served in Vietnam as a pilot, and I was shot down and spent one year in a hole that makes this place look like the Ritz-Carlton. I'm a military man, you dumb bastard!" Macklin's face was reddening. Discipline and control, he told himself. Discipline and control makes the man. He took a couple of deep breaths; around him several people jeered at him, and someone's spit landed on his right cheek. "We want to see the Fat Man. He's the leader here, isn't hei He's the one with the most food and gunsi"

"Run 'em out!" a stocky, curly-haired woman shouted, brandishing a long barbecue fork. "We don't want their damned diseases!"

Roland heard a pistol being cocked, and he knew someone was holding a gun just behind his head. He flinched, but then he turned slowly around, grinning rigidly. a blond-haired boy about his age, wearing a bulky plaid jacket, was aiming a .38 right between his eyes. "You stink," the blond-haired kid said, his dead brown eyes challenging Roland to make a move. Roland stood very still, his heart going like a jackhammer.

"I said we want to see the Fat Man," Macklin repeated. "Do you take us, or whati"

The bearded man laughed harshly. "You've got a lot of guts for a dirtwart!" His eyes flickered toward Sheila Fontana, lingered on her body and breasts, then went back to the pistol Macklin held.

Roland slowly lifted his hand in front of the blond kid's face, then just as slowly brought his hand down and reached into the pocket of his trousers. The blond boy's finger was on the trigger. Roland's hand found what he was after, and he began to draw it out.

"You can leave the woman and we won't kill you," the bearded man told Macklin. "Just walk out and go back to your hole. We'll forget that you even - "

a little plastic bottle hit the ground in front of his left boot.

"Go ahead," Roland told him. "Pick it up. Take a sniff."

The man hesitated, glanced around at the others who were still shouting and jeering and eating Sheila Fontana alive with their eyes. Then he knelt down, picked up the bottle Roland had tossed over, uncapped it and sniffed. "What the hell - !"

"Want me to kill him, Mr. Lawryi" the blond kid asked hopefully.

"No! Put that damned gun down!" Lawry sniffed the contents of the bottle again, and his wide blue eyes began to water. "Put the gun down!" he snapped, and the boy obeyed reluctantly.

"You going to take us to the Fat Mani" Macklin asked. "I think he'd like to get a sniff, don't youi"

"Where'd you get this shiti"

"The Fat Man. Now."

Lawry capped the vial. He looked around at the others, looked back at the airstream trailer and paused, trying to make up his mind. He blinked, and Roland could tell the man didn't exactly have a mainframe computer between his ears. "Okay." He motioned with the shotgun. "Move ass."

"Kill 'em!" the stocky woman shrieked. "Don't let 'em contaminate us!"

"Now listen, all of you!" Lawry held the shotgun at his side and kept the plastic vial gripped tightly in his other hand. "They're not burned or anything! I mean... they're just dirty! They're not like the other dirtwarts! I'll take responsibility for them!"

"Don't let them in!" another woman shouted. "They don't belong!"

"Move," Lawry told Macklin, "You try anything funny, and I swear to God you'll be one headless motherfucker. Got iti"

Macklin didn't answer. He pushed Sheila forward, and Roland followed him toward the large silver trailer. a pack of people stalked at their heels, including the trigger-happy kid with the .38 revolver.

Lawry ordered them to stop when they'd gotten ten feet from the trailer. He walked up a few bricks that had been set up as steps to the trailer's door and knocked on it with the butt of his shotgun. a high, thin voice from inside asked, "Who is iti"

"Lawry, Mr. Kempka. I've got something you need to see."

There was no reply for a moment or so. Then the whole trailer seemed to tremble, to creak over a few degrees as Kempka - the Fat Man who, Macklin had learned from another dirtwart, was the leader of the lake shore encampment - approached the door. a couple of bolts snapped back. The door opened, but Macklin was unable to see who had opened it. Lawry told Macklin to wait where he was, then he entered the trailer. The door shut. as soon as he was gone, the curses and jeers got louder, and again bottles and cans were flung.

"You're crazy, war hero," Sheila said. "You'll never get out of here alive."

"If we go, so do you."

She turned on him, disregarding the pistol, and her eyes flashed with anger. "So kill me, war hero. as soon as you pull that trigger, these horny bastards'll take you apart piece by piece. and who said you could use my stash, huhi That's high-grade Colombian sugar you're throwing around, man!"

Macklin smiled thinly. "You like to take chances, don't youi" He didn't wait for the answer, because he already knew it. "You want food and wateri You want to sleep with a roof over your head and not expect somebody to kill you in the nighti You want to be able to wash and not squat in your own shiti I want those things, too, and so does Roland. We don't belong out there with the dirtwarts; we belong here, and this is a chance we've got to take."

She shook her head, and though she was infuriated at losing her stash, she knew he was right. The kid had shown real smarts in suggesting it. "You're crazy."

"We'll see."

The trailer's door opened. Lawry stuck his head out. "Okay. Come on up. But you give me the gun first."

"No deal. The gun stays with me."

"You heard what I said, mister!"

"I heard. The gun stays with me."

Lawry looked over his shoulder at the man inside the trailer. Then: "Okay. Come on - and be quick about it!"

They went up the steps into the trailer, and Lawry closed the door behind Roland, sealing off the shouts of the mob. Lawry swung his shotgun up at Macklin's head.

a blob wearing a food-stained T-shirt and overalls was sitting at a table on the other side of the trailer. His hair was dyed orange and stood up in inch-high spikes on his scalp, and he had a beard streaked with red and green food coloring. His head looked too small for his chest and massive belly, and he had four chins. His eyes were beady black holes in a pallid, flabby face. Scattered around the trailer were cases of canned food, bottled Cokes and Pepsis, bottled water and about a hundred six-packs of Budweiser stacked up against one wall. Behind him was a storehouse of weapons: a rack of seven rifles, one with a sniperscope, an old Thompson submachine gun, a bazooka, and a variety of pistols hanging on hooks. Before him on the table, he had sifted a small mound of cocaine from the plastic vial and was rubbing some of it between his fleshy fingers. Within reach of his right hand was a Luger, its muzzle pointed in the direction of his visitors. He lifted some of the cocaine to his nostrils and sniffed delicately, as if testing French perfume. "Do you have namesi" he asked, in a voice that was almost girlish.

"My name is Macklin. Colonel James B. Macklin, ex-United States air Force. This is Roland Croninger and Sheila Fontana."

Kempka picked up another bit of cocaine and let it drift back down. "Where did this come from, Colonel Macklini"

"My stash," Sheila said. She thought she'd seen all the repulsive things in the world, but even in the low yellow light of the two lamps that illuminated the trailer, she could hardly bear the Fat Man. He looked like a circus freak, and from each of his long, fat earlobes hung diamond-studded earrings.

"and this is the extent of that 'stash'i"

"No," Macklin replied. "Not nearly all. There's plenty more cocaine, and all kinds of pills, too."

"Pills," Kempka repeated. His black eyes aimed at Macklin. "What kind of pillsi"

"all kinds. LSD. PCP. Painkillers. Tranquilizers. Uppers and downers."

Sheila snorted. "War hero, you don't know shit about goodies, do youi" She took a step toward Kempka, and the Fat Man's hand rested on the Luger's butt. "Black Beauties, Yellowjackets, Blue angels, bennies, poppers, and Red Stingers. all high-quality floats."

"Is that soi Were you in the business, young ladyi"

"Yeah, I guess so." She looked around at the messy, cluttered trailer. "What kind of business were you ini Pig farmingi"

Kempka stared at her. Then, slowly, his belly began to wobble, followed by his chins. His entire face shook like a plateful of Jell-O, and a high, feminine laugh squeaked between his lips. "Hee hee!" he said, his cheeks reddening. "Hee hee! Pig farming. Hee hee!" He waved a fat hand at Lawry, who forced a nervous laugh as well. When he'd stopped laughing, Kempka said, "No, dear one, it was not pig farming. I owned a gun shop in Rancho Cordova, just east of Sacramento. Fortunately, I had time to pack up some of my stock and get out when the bombs hit the Bay area. I also had the presence of mind to visit a little grocery store on the way east. Mr. Lawry was a clerk at my store, and we found a place to hide for a while in the Eldorado National Forest. The road brought us here, and other people started arriving. Soon we had a little community. Most of the people came to soak themselves in the lake. There's a belief that bathing in the salt water washes off the radiation and makes you immune." He shrugged his fleshy shoulders. "Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. In any case, I kind of enjoy playing King of the Hill and the Godfather. If someone doesn't do as I say, I simply banish them to the dirtwart land... or I kill them." He giggled again, his black eyes sparkling merrily. "You see, I make the laws here. Me, Freddie Kempka, lately of Kempka's Shootist Supermarket, Incorporated. Oh, I'm having a real ball!"

"Good for you," Sheila muttered.

"Yes. Good for me." He rubbed cocaine between his fingers and sniffed a bit up each nostril. "My, my! That is a potent dust, isn't iti" He licked his fingers clean, and then he looked at Roland Croninger. "What are you supposed to be, a space cadeti"

Roland didn't answer. I'll zap your big fat ass, he thought.

Kempka giggled. "How come you to be out in the dirtwart land, Coloneli"

Macklin told him the whole story, how Earth House had collapsed and how he and the boy had gotten out. Macklin made no mention of the Shadow Soldier, because he knew the Shadow Soldier didn't like to be talked about to strangers.

"I see," Kempka said when he'd finished. "Well, like they say: The best-laid plans often go shitty, don't theyi Now, I suppose you came here and brought this potent dust for a purpose. What is iti"

"We want to move into the encampment. We want a tent, and we want a supply of food."

"The only tents that are here were brought on people's backs. They're all filled up. No room in the inn, Colonel."

"Make room. We get a tent and some food and you get a weekly ration of cocaine and pills. Call it rent."

"What would I do with drugs, siri"

Roland laughed, and Kempka regarded him through hooded eyes. "Come on, mister!" Roland stepped forward. "You know you can sell those drugs for whatever you want! You can buy people's minds with that stuff, because everybody'll pay to forget. They'll pay anything you ask: food, guns, gasoline - anything."

"I already have those things."

"Maybe you do," Roland agreed. "But are you sure you've got enough of themi What if somebody in a bigger trailer comes into the encampment tomorrowi What if they've got more guns than you doi What if they're stronger and meaneri Those people out there" - he nodded toward the door - "are just waiting for somebody strong to tell them what to do. They want to be commanded. They don't want to have to think for themselves. Here's a way to put their minds in your pocket." He motioned to the snowy mound.

Kempka and Roland stared at each other for a silent moment, and Roland had the sensation of looking at a giant slug. Kempka's black eyes bored into Roland's, and finally a little smile flickered across his wet mouth. "Would these drugs," he said, "buy me a sweet young space cadeti"

Roland didn't know what to say. He was stunned, and it must've shown on his face because Kempka snorted and laughed. When his laughter was spent, the Fat Man said to Macklin, "What's to keep me from killing you right now and taking your precious drugs, Coloneli"

"One simple thing: the drugs are buried out in the dirtwart land. Roland's the only one who knows where they are. He'll go out and bring you a ration once a week, but if anybody follows him or tries to interfere, they get their brains blown out."

Kempka tapped his fingers on the tabletop, looking from the mound of cocaine to Macklin and Roland - contemptuously dismissing the girl - and then back to the Colombian sugar.

"We could use that stuff, Mr. Kempka," Lawry offered. "Fella came in yesterday with a gas heater that sure would warm this trailer up. another guy's got some whiskey he lugged along in a tow sack. We're gonna need tires for the truck, too. I would've already taken that heater and the bottles of Jack Daniel's, but both of those new arrivals are armed to the teeth. Might be a good idea to trade the drugs for their guns, too."

"I'll decide what's a good idea and what's not." Kempka's face folded up as he frowned thoughtfully. He drew a long breath and exhaled it like a bellows. "Find them a tent. Close to the trailer. and spread the word that if anybody touches them, they answer to Freddie Kempka." He smiled broadly at Macklin. "Colonel, I believe you and your friends are going to be very interesting additions to our little family. I guess we could call you pharmacists, couldn't wei"

"I guess so." Macklin waited until Lawry had lowered his shotgun, and then he in turn lowered the automatic.

"There. Now we're all happy, aren't wei" and his black, ravenous eyes found Roland Croninger.

Lawry took them to a small tent staked down about thirty yards from the airstream trailer. It was occupied by a young man and a woman who held an infant with bandaged legs. Lawry stuck the shotgun in the young man's face and said, "Get out."

The man, drawn and gaunt, hollow-eyed with fatigue, scrabbled under his sleeping bag. His hand came up with a hunting knife, but Lawry stepped forward and caught the man's thin wrist beneath his boot. Lawry put all his weight down, and Roland watched his eyes as he broke the man's bones: they were empty, registering no emotion even when the snapping noise began. Lawry was simply doing what he'd been told. The infant started crying, and the woman was screaming, but the man just hugged his broken wrist and stared numbly up at Lawry.

"Out." Lawry put the shotgun's barrel to the young man's skull. "are you deaf, you dumb bastardi"

The man and woman wearily got to their feet. He paused to gather up their sleeping bags and a knapsack with his uninjured hand, but Lawry grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him out, throwing him to the ground. The woman sobbed and cringed at her husband's side. a crowd was gathering to watch, and the woman shrieked, "You animals! You dirty animals! That's our tent! It belongs to us!"

"Not anymore." Lawry motioned with the shotgun toward the dirtwart land. "Start walking."

"It's not fair! Not fair!" the woman sobbed. She looked around imploringly at the people who were gathering. Roland, Macklin and Sheila did, too, and they all saw the same thing in those faces: an impassive, uninvolved curiosity, as if they were watching television violence. Though there were faint expressions of disgust and pity here and there, the majority of the onlookers had already been shocked devoid of all emotion.

"Help us!" the woman begged. "Please... somebody help us!"

Several of the people had guns, but none of them intervened. Macklin understood why: It was the survival of the fittest. Freddie Kempka was the emperor here, and Lawry was his lieutenant - probably one of many lieutenants Kempka used as his eyes and ears.

"Get out," Lawry told the couple. The woman kept shrieking and crying, but finally the man stood up and, his eyes dead and defeated, began to trudge slowly toward the grim land of car hulks and decaying corpses. Her expression turned to hatred; she stood up with the wailing infant in her arms and shouted to the crowd, "It'll happen to you! You'll see! They'll take everything you have! They'll come and drag you out of - "

Lawry struck out with the stock of the shotgun. It crunched into the infant's skull, the force of the blow knocking the young woman to the ground.

The infant's crying abruptly stopped.

She looked down into her child's face and made a weak choking sound.

Sheila Fontana couldn't believe what she'd just witnessed; she wanted to turn away, but the scene had a dark hold on her. Her stomach churned with revulsion, and she could still hear the infant's cry, echoing over and over in her mind. She put her hand over her mouth and pressed.

The young man, a corpse in clothes, was walking on across the plain, not even bothering to look back.

Finally, with a shuddering gasp, the woman rose to her feet, the silent infant clasped to her chest. Her hideous, hollowed-out eyes met Sheila's and lingered. Sheila felt as if her soul had been burned to a cinder. If... only the baby had stopped crying, Sheila thought. If only...

The young mother turned and began to follow her husband into the mist.

The onlookers drifted away. Lawry wiped the stock of his shotgun on the ground and motioned toward the tent. "Looks like we just got a vacancy, Colonel."

"Did you... have to do thati" Sheila asked. Inside she was trembling and sick, but her face showed no sign of it, her eyes cold and flinty.

"Every once in a while they forget who makes the rules. Welli Do you want the tent or noti"

"We do," Macklin said.

"There you go, then. Even got a couple of sleeping bags and some food in there. Cozy as home, huhi"

Macklin and Roland entered the tent. "Where am I supposed to livei" Sheila asked Lawry.

He smiled, examined her up and down. "Well, I've got an extra sleeping bag over in the trailer. See, I bunk with Mr. Kempka, but I'm not funny. He likes young boys, couldn't give a shit about women. What do you sayi"

She smelled his body odor and couldn't decide whose was worse, his or the war hero's. "Forget it," she said. "I'll stay here."

"Suit yourself. I'll get you, sooner or later."

"When Hell freezes."

He licked a finger and held it up to catch the wind. "It's getting pretty frosty, darlin'." Then he laughed and sauntered off toward the trailer.

Sheila watched him go. She looked in the direction of the dirtwart land, and she saw the vague outlines of the young couple heading into the mist, into the unknown that lay beyond it. Those two wouldn't have spit's chance out there, she thought. But maybe they already knew that. The baby would've died anyway, she told herself. Sure. The kid was half dead already.

But that incident had knocked her off her tracks more than anything ever had before, and she couldn't help thinking that a few minutes before there was a living person where a ghost was now. and it had happened because of her drugs, because she'd come in there with the war hero and the punk playing big shots.

The young couple disappeared into the gray rain.

as Rudy said, you cover your own ass. and in this day and time, those were words to live by.

Sheila turned her back on the dirtwart land and slipped into the tent.  

Thirty-nine

"Light!" Josh shouted, pointing into the distance. "Look at that! There's light ahead!"

They'd been following a highway over gently rolling country, and now they saw the light that Josh pointed toward: a bluish-white illumination reflecting off low-lying, turbulent clouds.

"That's Matheson," Leona said, from her bareback perch atop Mule. "Lord a'mighty! They've got the 'lectricity on in Matheson!"

"How many people live therei" Josh asked her, speaking loudly over the rush and pull of the wind.

"Thirteen, fourteen thousand. It's a regular city!"

"Thank God! They must've fixed their power lines! We're going to have hot meals tonight! Thank God!" He started shoving the wheelbarrow with new-found energy, as if his heels had sprouted wings. Swan followed him, carrying the dowsing rod and her small bag, and Leona kicked her heels into Mule's sides to urge the horse onward. Mule obeyed without hesitation, glad to be of use again. Behind them, the little terrier sniffed the air and growled quietly but followed nevertheless.

Flickers of lightning shot through the cloud cover over Matheson, and the wind brought the rumble of thunder. They'd left the Jaspin farm early that morning, had walked all day along the narrow highway. Josh had tried to put a saddle and bridle on Mule, but though the horse stood docilely, Josh couldn't get the damned things on right. The saddle kept slipping, and he couldn't figure out how to get the bridle on at all. Every time Mule had even grumbled, Josh had jumped back out of the way, expecting the animal to buck and rear, and finally he gave the job up as a lost cause. Still, the horse accepted Leona's weight without complaint; he had also borne Swan for a few miles. The horse seemed content to follow Swan, almost like a puppy. and off in the darkness, the terrier yapped every once in a while to let them know he was still around.

Josh's heart was hammering. That was one of the most beautiful lights he'd ever seen, next to the glorious flashlight beam that had speared through the basement. Oh, Lord! he thought. a hot meal, a warm place to sleep, and - glory of glories! - maybe even a real toilet again! He smelled ozone in the air. a thunderstorm was approaching, but he didn't care. They were going to rest in the lap of luxury tonight!

Josh turned his face toward Swan and Leona. "Lord God, we made it back to civilization!" He let out a loud whoop that put the wind to shame and even made Mule jump.

But the smile froze on Leona's face. Slowly, it began to slide off. Her fingers curled through Mule's coarse black mane.

She wasn't sure what she'd seen, wasn't sure at all. It had been a trick of the light, she told herself. a trick of the light. Yes. That's all.

Leona thought she'd seen a skull where Josh Hutchins's face had been.

But it had been so fast - there and then gone in an eye-blink.

She stared at the back of Swan's head. Oh, God, Leona thought, what'll I do if the child's face is like that, tooi

It took her a while to gather her courage, and then she said, "Swani" in a thin, scared voice.

Swan glanced back. "Ma'ami"

Leona was holding her breath.

"Ma'ami" Swan repeated.

Leona found a smile. "Oh... nothin'," she said, and she shrugged. The vision of a skull beneath the skin was not there. "I... just wanted to see your face," Leona told her.

"My facei Whyi"

"Oh, I was just thinkin'... how pretty you must've been." She stammered at her own error. "I mean, how pretty you're gonna be again, once your skin heals up. and it will, too. Skin's a real tough thing, y'know. Sure is! It'll heal up pretty as a picture!"

Swan didn't answer; she remembered the horror that had stared back at her from the bathroom mirror. "I don't think my face'll ever heal up," she said matter-of-factly. a sudden awful thought struck her. "You don't think..." She paused, unable to spit it out. Then: "You don't think... I'll scare people in Matheson, do youi"

"Of course not! and don't you even think such a thing!" In truth, Leona hadn't considered that before, but now she could envision residents of Matheson cringing away from Josh and Swan. "Your skin'll heal up soon enough," Leona assured her. "Besides, that's just your outside face."

"My outside facei"

"Yep. Everybody's got two faces, child - the outside face and the inside face. The outside face is how the world sees you, but the inside face is what you really look like. It's your true face, and if it was flipped to the outside you'd show the world what kind of person you are."

"Flipped to the outsidei Howi"

Leona smiled. "Well, God hasn't figured a way to do that yet. But He will. Sometimes you can see a person's inside face - but only for a second or two - if you look close and hard enough. The eyes give away the inside face, and likely as not it's a whole lot different than the mask that's stuck on the outside." She nodded, looking toward the lights of Matheson. "Oh, I've met some mighty handsome people who had monstrous ugly faces on the inside. and I've met some homely folks with buck teeth and big noses and the light of Heaven in their eyes, and you know that if you saw their inside faces the beauty would knock you right to your knees. I kind of figure it might be like that for your inside face, child. and Josh's as well. So what does it matter about your outside facei"

Swan pondered for a moment. "I'd like to believe that."

"Then take it as true," Leona said, and Swan was quiet.

The light beckoned them onward. The highway climbed over one more hill, then began to curve gently down toward the town. Lightning jumped across the horizon. Beneath Leona, Mule snorted and whinnied.

Swan heard a nervous note in the horse's whinny. Mule's excited because we're going to find more people, she thought. But no, no - that hadn't been a sound of excitement; Swan had heard it as distrust, edginess. She began to pick up the horse's nervousness, to feel a little wary herself, like the time she'd been strolling across a wide golden field and a farmer in a red cap had yelled, "Hey, little girl! Watch out for rattlers in them weeds!"

Not that she was afraid of snakes - far from it. Once, when she was five years old, she'd picked up a colorful snake right out of the grass, run her fingers across the beautiful diamonds on its back and the bony-looking ridges on its tail. Then she'd set the snake down and watched as it crawled unhurriedly away. It was only later, when she'd told her mama and gotten a rear-blistering whipping in return, that Swan had realized she was supposed to be afraid.

Mule made a whickering sound and tossed his head. The road flattened out as it approached the outskirts of town, where a green sign proclaimed, Welcome to Matheson, Kansas! We're Strong, Proud and Growing!

Josh stopped, and Swan almost bumped into him.

"What is iti" Leona asked him.

"Look." Josh motioned toward the town.

The houses and buildings were dark; no light came from their windows or front porches. There were no streetlights, no headlights of cars, no traffic lights. The glow that reflected up off the low clouds was coming from deeper within the town, beyond the dead, dark structures that were scattered on both sides of the main highway. There was no sound but the shrill whine of the wind. "I think that light's coming from the center of town," he told Swan and Leona. "But if the electricity's back on, why aren't there lights in the house windows, tooi"

"Maybe everybody's in one place," Leona offered. "Like at the auditorium, or City Hall or somewhere."

Josh nodded. "There ought to be cars," he decided. "Ought to be traffic lights working. I don't see any."

"Maybe they're savin' the 'lectricity. Maybe the wires aren't too strong yet."

"Maybe," Josh replied, but there was something spooky about Matheson; why were there no lights in the windows, yet something at the center of Matheson ablaze with lighti and everything was so still, so very still. He had the feeling that they should turn back, but the wind was cold and they had come so far; there had to be people here! Sure! They're all in one place, like Leona had suggested. Maybe they're having a town meeting or something! In any case, there was no turning back. He started pushing the wheelbarrow again. Swan followed him, and the horse that bore Leona followed Swan, and off to the left the terrier kept to the tall weeds and ran ahead.

another roadside sign advertised the Matheson Motel - Swimming Pool! Cable TV! - and a third sign said the best coffee and steaks in town could be found at the Hightower Restaurant on Caviner Street. They followed the road between plowed fields and passed a dark softball diamond and a public pool where the lounge chairs and umbrellas were blown into a chain-link fence. a final roadside sign announced the July Firecracker Sale at the K-Mart on Billups Street, and then they entered Matheson.

It had been a pretty town, Josh thought as they walked along the center line. The buildings were either made of stones or logs, meant to resemble a frontier town. The houses were made of brick, most of them one story, nothing fancy, but nice enough. a statue of somebody on his knees, one hand covering what might've been a Bible and the other extended toward the sky, stood atop a pedestal in a district of small shops and stores that reminded Josh of that Mayberry show with andy Griffith. a canopy flapped over a store with a barber pole in front of it, and the windows of the Matheson First Citizen's Bank were broken out. Furniture had been dragged out of a furniture store, piled in a heap in the street and set afire. Nearby was an overturned police car, also burned to a hulk. Josh did not look inside. Thunder growled overhead, and lightning danced across the sky.

Further on, they found a used car lot. Trade at Uncle Roy's! the sign urged. Under rows of flapping multicolored banners were six dusty cars. Josh began to check them all, one by one, as Swan and Leona waited behind and Mule grumbled uneasily. Two of them were sitting on flat tires, and a third's windshield and windows were shattered. The other three - an Impala, a Ford Fairlane and a red pickup truck - seemed in pretty good shape. Josh walked to the small office building, found the door wide open, and with the light of the bull's-eye lantern located the keys to all three vehicles on a pegboard. He took the keys out to the lot and methodically tried them. The Impala wouldn't make a sound, the pickup truck was dead, and the Fairlane's engine popped and stuttered, made a noise like a chain being dragged along gravel and then went silent. Josh opened the Fairlane's hood and found that the engine had been attacked with what might've been an axe, the wiring, belts and cables hacked apart. "Damn it!" Josh swore, and then his lantern revealed something written in dried grease on the inside of the hood: aLL SHaLL PRaISE LORD aLVIN.

He stared at the scrawled writing, remembering that he'd seen the same thing - though written in a different hand and in a different substance - at the Jaspin farmhouse the night before. He walked back to Swan and Leona, and he said, "Those cars are shot. I think somebody wrecked them on purpose." He looked toward the light, which was much closer now. "Well," he said finally, "I guess we go find out what that is, righti"

Leona glanced at him, then quickly away; she wasn't sure that she hadn't seen the skull again, but in this strange light she couldn't tell. Her heart had begun to pump harder, and she didn't know what to do or say.

Josh pushed the wheelbarrow forward. Off in the distance, they heard the terrier bark a few times, then silence. They continued along the main street, passing more stores with broken windows, more overturned and burned vehicles. The light pulled them onward, and though they all had their private concerns they were drawn to that light like moths to a candle.

On a corner was a small sign that pointed to the right and said Pathway Institute, 2 mi. Josh looked in that direction and saw nothing but darkness.

"That's the asylum," Leona said.

"The asylumi" The word lanced him. "What asylumi"

"The crazy house. You know, where they put folks who go off their rockers. That one's famous all over the state. Full of people too crazy to go to prison."

"You mean... the criminally insanei"

"Yeah, that's right."

"Great," Josh said. The sooner they were out of this town, the better! He didn't like being even two miles from an asylum full of lunatic murderers. He peered off into the darkness where the Pathway Institute was, and he felt the flesh ripple all up and down his backbone.

and then they went through another area of silent houses, passing the dark Matheson Motel and the Hightower Restaurant, and they entered a huge paved parking lot.

Before them, every light illuminated and blazing, was a K-Mart and, next to it, a similarly lit Food Giant supermarket.

"God almighty!" Josh breathed. "a shopping center!"

Swan and Leona just stared, as if they'd never seen such light or huge stores before. Dark-sensitive photon lamps cast a yellow glow over the parking lot, which held perhaps fifty or sixty cars, campers, and pickup trucks, all covered with Kansas dust. Josh was completely stunned and had to catch his balance before the wind knocked him over. It was running through his head that if the electricity was on, then the freezers in the supermarket would be operating, too, and inside would be steaks, ice cream, cold beer, eggs, bacon, ham, and God only knew what else. He looked at the brilliantly lit K-Mart, his brain reeling. What sort of treasures would be in therei Radios and batteries, flashlights and lanterns, guns, gloves, kerosene heaters, raincoats! He didn't know whether to laugh or sob with joy, but he pushed the wheelbarrow aside and started walking toward the K-Mart as if in a delirious daze.

"Wait!" Leona called. She got down off Mule and hobbled after Josh. "Hold up a minute!"

Swan set her bag down but kept hold of Crybaby and followed Leona. Behind her, Mule plodded along. The terrier barked a couple of times, then slipped under an abandoned Volkswagen and stayed there, watching the humans moving across the parking lot.

"Wait!" Leona called again, but she couldn't keep pace with him, and he was heading for the K-Mart like a steam engine. Swan said, "Josh! Wait for us!" and she hurried to catch him.

Some of the windows were broken out of the K-Mart, but Josh figured the wind had done that. He had no idea why the lights were on there and nowhere else. The K-Mart and the supermarket next to it were akin to waterholes in a burning desert. His heart was about to blast through his chest. Candy bars! he thought wildly. Cookies! Glazed doughnuts! He feared his legs would collapse before he reached the K-Mart, or that the entire vision would tremble and dissolve as he went through one of the front doors. But it didn't, and he did, and there he stood inside the huge store with the treasures of the world on racks and displays before him, the magic phrases Snacks and Candy and Sporting Goods and automotives and Housewares on wooden arrows pointing to various sections of the store.

"My God," Josh said, half drunk with ecstasy. "Oh, my God!"

Swan came in, then Leona. as the door was swinging shut a blurred form darted in, and the terrier shot past Josh and vanished along the center aisle. Then the door shut, and they stood together in the glare while Mule whinnied and pawed the concrete outside.

Josh strode past a display of outdoor grills and bags of charcoal to a counter full of candy bars, his desire for chocolate fanned to a fever. He sucked three Milky Ways right out of their wrappers and started on a half-pound bag of M&Ms. Leona went to a table piled with thick athletic socks. Swan wandered amid the counters, dazzled by the amount of merchandise and the brightness of the lights. His mouth crammed with gooey chocolate, Josh turned to a display of cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco; he chose a pack of Hav-a-Tampa Jewels, found some matches nearby, stuck one of the cigars between his teeth and lit it, inhaling deeply. He felt as if he'd stepped into paradise, and the pleasures of the supermarket were yet to be experienced. From far back in the store, the terrier yapped several times in rapid succession. Swan looked back along the aisle but couldn't see the dog. She didn't like the sound of that barking, though; it carried a warning, and as the terrier began to bark again she heard it yip as if it had been kicked. a barrage of barking followed.

"Joshi" Swan called. a cocoon of cigar smoke obscured his head.

He puffed on the stogie and chewed more candy bars. His mouth was so full he couldn't even answer Swan; he just waved to her.

Swan walked slowly toward the back of the store as the terrier continued to bark. She came to three mannequins, all wearing suits. The one in the middle had on a blue baseball cap, and Swan thought it didn't go at all with the suit, but it might be made to fit her own head. She reached up and plucked it off.

The entire waxen-fleshed head toppled from the mannequin's shoulders, right out of the stiff white shirt collar, and fell to the floor at Swan's feet with a sound like a hammer whacking a watermelon.

Swan stared, wide-eyed, the baseball cap in one hand and Crybaby in the other. The head had thinning gray hair and dark-socketed eyes that had rolled upward, and on its cheeks and chin was a stubble of gray whiskers. Now she could see the dried red matter and the yellow nub of bone where it had been hacked off the human neck.

She blinked and looked up at the other two mannequins. One of them had the head of a teenage boy, his mouth slack and tongue lolling, both eyeballs turned to the ceiling and a crust of blood at the nostrils. The third one's head was that of an elderly man, his face heavily lined and the color of chalk.

Swan stepped back across the aisle - and hit a fourth and fifth mannequin, dressed in women's clothes. The severed heads of a middle-aged woman and a little girl with red hair fell out of the collars and thumped to the floor on either side of her; the little girl's face was directed up at Swan, the awful blood-drained mouth open in a soundless cry of terror.

Swan screamed. Screamed long and loud and couldn't stop screaming. She backpedaled away from the human heads, still screaming, and as she spun around she saw another mannequin nearby, and another and another, some of the heads beaten and battered and the others painted and prettied with makeup to give them false and obscene smiles. She thought that if she couldn't stop screaming her lungs would burst, and as she ran for Josh and Leona the scream died because all her air was gone. She pulled in breath and raced away from the grisly heads, and over Josh's shouts she heard the terrier give a yipe-yipe-yipe of pain from the rear of the K-Mart.

"Swan!" Josh yelled, spitting out half-chewed candy. He saw her coming toward him, her face as yellow as the Kansas dust and tears streaming down her cheeks. "What is - "

"Blue Light Special!" a merry voice sang over the K-Mart's intercom system. "attention, shoppers! Blue Light Special! Three new arrivals at the front! Hurry for the best bargains!"

They heard the rough roar of a motorcycle's engine firing. Josh scooped Swan up as a motorcycle hurtled at them along the center aisle, its driver dressed like a traffic cop except for his Indian headdress.

"Look out!" Leona shouted, and Josh leaped across a counter full of ice cube trays with Swan in his arms, the motorcycle skidding past them into a display of transistor radios. More figures were running toward them along the other aisles, and there was an ungodly whooping and hollering that drowned out the "Blue Light Special!" being repeated over the intercom.

Here came a mountainous, black-bearded man pushing a gnarled dwarf in a shopping cart, followed by other men of all ages and descriptions, wearing all kinds of clothing from suits to bathrobes, some of them with streaks of warpaint on their faces, others daubed white with powder. Josh realized - sickeningly - that most of them were carrying weapons: axes, picks, hoes, garden shears, pistols and rifles, knives and chains. The aisles were acrawl with them, and they jumped over the counters grinning and yelling. Josh, Swan and Leona were driven together and ringed by a shouting mob of forty or more men.

Protect the child! Josh thought, and as one of the men darted in to grab Swan's arm Josh delivered a kick to his ribs that snapped bones and sent him flying back into the rabble. The move brought more gleeful cheers. The gnarled dwarf in the shopping cart, whose wrinkled face was decorated with orange lightning bolts, crowed, "Fresh meat! Fresh meat!"

The others took up the shout. an emaciated man plucked at Leona's hair, and someone else grabbed her arm to pull her into the crowd. She became a wildcat, kicking and biting, driving her tormentors back. a heavy body landed on Josh's shoulders, raking at his eyes, but he misted and flung the man off into the sea of leering faces. Swan struck out with Crybaby, hit one of those ugly faces in the nose and saw it pop open.

"Fresh meat!" the dwarf yelled. "Come get your fresh meat!" The black-bearded man began to clap his hands and dance.

Josh hit someone square in the mouth, and two teeth flew like dice in a crap game. "Get away!" he roared. "Get away from us!" But they were closing in now, and there were just too many. Three men were pulling Leona into the throng, and Josh caught a glimpse of her terrified face; a fist rose and fell, and Leona's legs buckled. Damn it! Josh raged, kicking the nearest maniac in the kneecap. Protect the child! I've got to protect the -

a fist struck him in the kidneys. His legs were kicked out from under him, and he lost his grip on Swan as he fell. Fingers gouged at his eyes, a fist crashed into his jaw, shoes and boots pummeled his sides and back and the whole world seemed to be in violent motion. "Swan!" he shouted, trying to get up. Men clung to him like rats.

He looked up through a red haze of pain and saw a man with bulging, fishlike eyes standing over him, lifting an axe. He flung his arm up in an ineffectual gesture to ward it off, but he knew the axe was about to fall, and that would be the end of it. Oh, damn! he thought as blood trickled from his mouth. What a way to go! He braced for the blow, hoping that he could stand up with his last strength and knock the bastard's brains out.

The axe reached its zenith, poised to fall.

and a booming voice shouted over the tumult: "Cease!"

The effect was like a bullwhip being cracked over the heads of wild animals. almost to a man, they flinched and drew back. The fish-eyed man lowered the axe, and the others released Josh. He sat up, saw Swan a few feet away and drew her to him; she was still holding onto Crybaby, her eyes swimming with shock. Leona was on her knees nearby, blood oozing from a cut above her left eye and a purple swelling coming up on her cheekbone.

The mob backed away, opened to make passage for someone. a heavyset, fleshy, bald-headed man in overalls and cowboy boots, his chest bare and his muscular arms decorated with weird multicolored designs, walked into the circle. He was carrying an electric bullhorn, and he looked down at Josh with dark eyes beneath a protruding Neanderthal brow.

Oh, shit! Josh thought. The guy was at least as big as some of the heavyweight wrestlers he'd grappled. But then behind the bald-headed Neanderthal came two other men with painted faces, supporting a toilet between them, hoisted up on their shoulders. and on that toilet sat a man draped in a deep purple robe, his hair a blond, shoulder-length mane of loose curls. He had a downy beard of fine blond hair covering a gaunt, narrow face, and under thick blond brows his eyes were murky olive-green. The color reminded Josh of the water of a swimming hole near his childhood home where two young boys had drowned on a summer morning. It was said, he recalled, that monsters lay coiled in wait at the bottom of that cloudy green water.

The young man, who might have been anywhere from twenty to twenty-five, wore white gloves, blue jeans, adidas sneakers and a red plaid shirt. On his forehead was a green dollar sign; on his left cheekbone was a red crucifix, and on his right was a black devil's pitchfork.

The Neanderthal lifted the bullhorn to his mouth and roared, "all shall praise Lord alvin!"  

Forty

Macklin had heard the siren song of screaming in the night, and now he knew it was time.

He eased out of his sleeping bag, careful not to jostle Roland or Sheila; he didn't want either of them to go with him. He was afraid of the pain, and he didn't want them to see him weak.

Macklin walked out of the tent into the cold, sweeping wind. He began to head in the direction of the lake. Torches and campfires flickered all around him, and the wind tugged at the greenish-black bandages that trailed off the stump of Macklin's right wrist. He could smell the sickly odor of his own infection, and for days the wound had been oozing gray fluid. He put his left palm over the handle of the knife in the waistband of his trousers. He was going to have to open the wound again and expose the flesh to the healing agony of the Great Salt Lake.

Behind him, Roland Croninger had sat up as soon as Macklin left the tent. The .45 was gripped in his hand. He always slept with it, even kept hold of it when Sheila Fontana let him do the dirty thing to her. He liked to watch, also, when Sheila took the King on. In turn, they fed Sheila and protected her from the other men. They were becoming a very close trio. But now he knew where the King was going, and why. The King's wound had been smelling very bad lately. Soon there would be another scream in the night, like the others they heard when the encampment got quiet. He was a King's Knight, and he thought he should be at the King's side to help him, but this was something the King wanted to do alone. Roland lay back down, the pistol resting on his chest. Sheila muttered something and flinched in her sleep. Roland listened for the cry of the King's rebirth.

Macklin passed other tents, cardboard box shelters and cars that housed whole families. The smell of the salt lake stung his nostrils, promised a pain and a cleansing beyond anything Macklin had ever experienced. The land began to slope slightly downward toward the water's edge, and lying on the ground around him were blood-caked clothes, rags, crutches and bandages torn off and discarded by other supplicants before him.

He remembered the screams he'd heard in the night, and his nerve faltered. He stopped less than twenty feet from where the lake rippled up over the rocky shore. His phantom hand was itching, and the stump throbbed painfully with his heartbeat. I can't take it, he thought. Oh, dear God, I can't!

"Discipline and control, mister," a voice said, off to his right. The Shadow Soldier was standing there, white, bony hands on hips, the moonlike face streaked with commando greasepaint under the helmet's rim. "You lose those, and what have you goti"

Macklin didn't answer. The lapping of the water on the shore was both seductive and terrifying.

"Your nerve going bye-bye, Jimmy boyi" the Shadow Soldier asked, and Macklin thought that the voice was similar to his father's. It carried the same note of taunting disgust. "Well, I'm not surprised," the Shadow Soldier continued. "You sure pulled a royal fuckup at Earth House, didn't youi Oh, you really did a fine job!"

"No!" Macklin shook his head. "It wasn't my fault!" The Shadow Soldier laughed quietly. "You knew, Jimmy boy. You knew something was wrong in Earth House, and you kept packing the suckers in because you smelled the green of the ausley cash, didn't youi Man, you killed all those poor chumps! You buried 'em under a few hundred tons of rock and saved your own ass, didn't youi"

Now Macklin thought it really was his father's voice, and he thought that the Shadow Soldier's face was beginning to resemble the fleshy, hawk-nosed face of his long-dead father as well. "I had to save myself," Macklin replied, his voice weak. "What was I supposed to do, lie down and diei"

"Shit, that kid's got more sense and guts than you do, Jimmy boy! He's the one who got you out! He kept you moving, and he found food to keep your ass alive! If it wasn't for that kid, you wouldn't be standing here right now shaking in your shoes because you're afraid of a little pain! That kid knows the meaning of discipline and control, Jimmy boy! You're just a tired old cripple who ought to go out in that lake, duck your head under and take a quick snort like they did." The Shadow Soldier nodded toward the lake, where the bloated bodies of suicides floated in the brine. "You used to think being head honcho at Earth House was the bottom of the barrel. But this is the bottom, Jimmy boy. Right here. You're not worth a shit, and you've lost your nerve."

"No I haven't!" Macklin said. "I... haven't."

a hand gestured toward the Great Salt Lake. "Prove it."

Roland sensed someone outside the tent. He sat up, clicking the safety off the automatic. Sometimes the men came around at night, sniffing for Sheila, and they had to be scared off.

a flashlight shone in his face, and he aimed the pistol at the figure who held it.

"Hold it," the man said. "I don't want any trouble."

Sheila cried out and sat bolt upright, her eyes wild. She drew herself away from the man with the light. She'd been having that nightmare again, of Rudy shambling to the tent, his face bleached of blood and the wound at his throat gaping like a hideous mouth, and from between his purple lips came a rattling voice that asked, "Killed any babies lately, Sheila darlin'i"

"You'll get trouble if you don't back off." Roland's eyes were fierce behind the goggles. He held the pistol steady, his finger poised on the trigger.

"It's me. Judd Lawry." He shone the flashlight on his own face. "Seei"

"What do you wanti"

Lawry pointed the light at Macklin's empty sleeping bag. "Where'd the Colonel goi"

"Out. What do you wanti"

"Mr. Kempka wants to talk to you."

"What abouti I delivered the ration last night."

"He wants to talk," Lawry said. "He says he's got a deal for you."

"a deali What kind of deali"

"a business proposal. I don't know the details. You'll have to see him."

"I don't have to do anything," Roland told him. "and whatever it is can wait until daylight."

"Mr. Kempka," Lawry said firmly, "wants to do business right now. It's not important that Macklin be there. Mr. Kempka wants to deal with you. He thinks you've got a good head on your shoulders. So are you coming or noti"

"Not."

Lawry shrugged. "Okay, then, I guess I'll tell him you're not interested." He started to back out of the tent, then stopped. "Oh, yeah: He wanted me to give you this." and he dropped a boxful of Hershey bars on the ground in front of Roland. "He's got plenty of stuff like that over in the trailer."

"Jesus!" Sheila's hand darted into the box and plucked out some of the chocolate bars. "Man, it's been a long time since I've had one of these!"

"I'll tell him what you said," Lawry told Roland, and again he started to leave the tent.

"Wait a minute!" Roland blurted out. "What kind of deal does he want to talk abouti" "Like I say, you'll have to see him to find out." Roland hesitated, but he figured whatever it was couldn't hurt. "I don't go anywhere without the gun," he said. "Sure, why noti"

Roland got out of his sleeping bag and stood up. Sheila, already finishing one of the chocolate bars, said, "Hey, hold on! What about mei" "Mr. Kempka just wants the boy." "Kiss my ass! I'm not staying out here alone!" Lawry shrugged the strap of his shotgun off his shoulder and handed it to her. "Here. and don't blow your head off by accident."

She took it, realizing too late that it was the same weapon he'd used to kill the infant. Still, she wouldn't dare be left out there alone without a gun. Then she turned her attention to the box of Hershey bars, and Roland followed Judd Lawry to the airstream trailer, where yellow lantern light crept through the slats of the drawn window blinds.

On the edge of the lake, Macklin took off his black overcoat and the filthy, bloodstained T-shirt he wore. Then he began to unwrap the bandages from the stump of his wrist as the Shadow Soldier watched in silence. When he was done, he let the bandages fall. The wound was not pretty to look at, and the Shadow Soldier whistled at the sight.

"Discipline and control, mister," the Shadow Soldier said. "That's what makes a man."

Those were the exact words of Macklin's father. He had grown up bearing them pounded into his head, had fashioned them into a motto to live by. Now, though, to make himself walk into that salty water and do what had to be done was going to take every ounce of discipline and control he could summon.

The shadow Soldier said in a sing-song voice, "Hup two three four, hup two three four! Get it in gear, mister!"

Oh, Jesus, Macklin breathed. He stood with his eyes tightly shut for a few seconds. His entire body shook with the cold wind and his own dread. Then he took the knife from his waistband and walked down toward the chuckling water.

"Sit down, Roland," the Fat Man said as Lawry escorted Roland into the trailer. a chair had been pulled up in front of the table that Kempka sat behind. "Shut the door."