Lucky's Girl (33 page)

She’d held the joint out to him.

His knuckles had caught her square in the nose, causing her head to jerk back. She’d fallen off the tailgate with the exhaust pipe blowing smoke on her. He’d put his knees on her shoulders, pinning her down. She’d finally managed to breathe again, coughing out a big streamer of blood and snot. The next punch had caught her in the eye, had felt the bones in her cheek go
crack
.

And then she was here.

CHAPTER 11

Doc Pete washed the blood off his hands. This guy Kenny really should be in a hospital. He was sitting up now, drinking water. He winced and spat it out on the jail cell floor, red and full of blackish clots. This man had gotten the living shit beat out of him.

Luckily he’d been out cold for the stitches under his eye and his lips. Those were bad, and he’d need antibiotics after this. The doc had washed dirt out of the many abrasions on his body. He’d been knocked to the ground and stomped. A lot. There were dozens of boot prints all over his clothes, lots of boot-shaped bruises and scratches.

“So this Lucky called off the mob on this guy, I guess he can’t be all bad?”

Jerry shook his tired head. “I don’t think goodness had anything to do with it. He wants Kenny alive.”

“Why is that, Jerry?”

“Me and Errol, and Kenny’s uncle, we’re the ones who stood up to him. We stopped him. Kenny was starting to understand, he wasn’t Lucky’s yes man anymore. I think I’m alive too because he wants it that way. He wants us to watch him do this. If not we’d be fucking dead.”

Doc Pete sat back and exhaled hard. “Okay, what’s this Lucky doing? You say he wants you to see him ‘doing this,’ but what is he doing?”

Jerry cleared his throat, lighting a cig. His eyes registered the question, but there was a hesitation to answer it. “You bring any whiskey, Doc?”

The old doctor laughed. “Why no, Jerry, I didn’t bring any whiskey for this little house call, why do you ask?”

“I’m gonna need a drink to get this out there.”

“No such luck, spit it out.”

Jerry nodded. “Okay, I don’t believe what I believe now. Does that make sense?”

Doc Pete shrugged. “We got people out on a dry lakebed doing the hokey pokey around a big bonfire. They’re nude and I think they’re covered in shit. Part of it involves getting huggy with a wolf. This ain’t like any tent revival I’ve ever heard of. If you’ve got a theory, I’d love to hear it.”

“Okay, Doc, here goes. Lucky’s a devil worshipper, he does black magic and that’s why he can control people’s minds.”

“Jerry, that’s just plain stupid.”

“He used to go out to Grove Island and cut open animals while they were still alive. He pulled out their guts and mushed them around in his hands. That’s what we arrested him for, way back then. It was when he was in here, in this very cell, that that Tellefsen girl went on her killing spree.”

“He pulled out their guts and mushed them around in his hands?”

“Yep.”

“That’s called haruspex. It’s divination using animal entrails. A lot of primitive cultures did it. The Romans, the Egyptians, Druids, Picts, a lot of them did that.”

“So there’s a word for it. What does that change? And why was he doing it?”

“It doesn’t change anything really, I guess, and why was he doing that? Because he’s a sociopath.”

“That island, Grove Island, specifically the Big Tree on it. The Indians say it’s got bad mojo or something. Then that archaeologist drained the lake and the wolves showed up and then Lucky.”

“Elton’s always been fucked up, Jerry.”

“I’ll admit I’ve got a mixed bag of bullshit. But it’s the best I’ve got. What about you? What’s that happening out on the lake?”

Doc Pete sat back, closing his tired eyes. He rubbed his skin, feeling the growth of stubble on his cheeks.

“I got nothing, Jerry. I can’t explain it. Mass hysteria caused by mass hypnosis? It doesn’t even come close. Question is what are we gonna do about it?”

“I’m pretty sure if I step out that door I’m gonna get killed, and I’m not ready to start blasting people. I know, or rather,
knew
these townsfolk.”

“So what do I do?”

“You go get the cops in the surrounding towns. You tell them how fucking delicate this situation is. You tell them to come here, and you tell them not to start shooting. A lot of these people will die if they don’t understand that.”

“How do you know you’ll still be alive by the time the cavalry arrives?”

“Like I said, Lucky wants me and Kenny to see what he’s doing, we gotta be alive for that.”

***

Lucky
knew.
That’s who Lucky was. He didn’t have to look in a mirror and tell himself. He just knew, that’s what made him different from weaker men. They had to ask themselves ridiculous questions like “What do I really think?” or “How do I really feel?”

They actually had to try to decide what to think or feel instead of just Knowing. It was a fundamental weakness adopted out of deference to the System. In Lucky’s world the System wasn’t a socio-economic concept, but an interpersonal one designed to keep sheep bleating about right and wrong, that somehow it would all get better one day if you trusted Jesus and loved your neighbor. And voted. And took your vitamins. And got an education. Dance like a marionette and tell yourself that you can’t feel the strings jerking you around.

Pigs fucking sheep.

Sheep fucking pigs.

Sacks of shit fucking other sacks of shit.

He knew that the time was almost upon them. Soon his father would come into this world to walk amongst Men and Animal in the flesh. His own flesh shuddered and ached at the terrible splendor of that thought.

He looked at the Pack.

They Knew, they didn’t doubt themselves, they lived by pure instinct and will.

He looked to the Most Faithful. They didn’t doubt either. They’d given up on the poisonous rationalizations of the System and had fully embraced the true Knowing. He looked to Jenny and Jake, who had rejected Kenny and his traitorous stupidity and weakness.

He reached out with his mind to all of them, sharing the vision given to him by the Big Tree, avatar of Their God.

Grove Island vibrated with power. Earth and rocks moved beneath their feet. Every tree apart from the Big one had been uprooted and fallen over. Grove Island had spat them out. The Faithful had chopped them into kindling to light the way for the coming of their God.

How would it happen?

He didn’t know exactly, but as he sat beneath the Big Tree, the earth and the stars spoke to him.

He saw into the dim past, to a time when all of North America was forest primordial. Before the Sumerians or the Egyptians, Great Kings of the Native Americans had built towering ziggurats of earth and logs to praise their Gods and exalt themselves. The Kings had signed treaties, and had forged agreements ending the time of war. They had grown soft and petty, had begun to worship weakness and exalt stupidity, calling it mercy and justice.

But one tribe stayed true, one who had venerated the wolf. They had lived with them, emulating their ways. They had come from the far north and had slain all who had opposed them. They’d then built their own ziggurat, making sacrifice to bring Their God to walk the earth, to be with them in the flesh. A God they could see, a God who wouldn’t reject their animal nature, a God who would revel in it. And their God had walked with them through the forests, showing them the way of blood and truth.

They hadn’t rejected their instincts, instead they had celebrated them, not fearing life but embracing it.

But even amongst the ancient Indians, the System had lived.

The most powerful King had sent an army, but their screams of death had filled the night and they’d known they were defeated. So the King consulted a witch doctor who’d instructed him to surround the wolf tribe’s ziggurat with water, thus restraining the power of the True God. The army of the King was then able to slay every member of the wolf tribe.

CHAPTER 12

Kenny felt the vibrations in the stitches patching his face together. It was the sound of a deep thunderous impact, muffled, like it was coming from far away. But it still felt very close at the same time. It was followed by another one and yet another, each gaining in intensity, exactly like the slow-motion steps of a giant man or animal; but no being large enough to create that vibration had walked the earth in millions of years.

Maybe it was just his nerves, his head and ears ringing from the boots which had stomped him over and over even after he’d stopped moving. His fingers traced the wounds on his face. It felt like his left eyelid and cheek were being held in place by stitches, as was his right ear. They must have been nearly torn off. He was grateful that unconsciousness had taken him halfway through the beating.

Jerry and the Doc managed to sit him up on the bench, but he hadn’t tried to stand yet. He wasn’t ready for that. His tongue had traced the outline of his teeth, to find some had broken off or were gone altogether.

The sound came again, the stitches vibrating like a cat’s whiskers.

It was almost audible, but he didn’t know if his hearing was being affected by the general swelling of his head. The doctor had made him swallow several Tylenol, telling Jerry that he needed to be in the hospital, but being told in turn they’d never make it out of the parking lot. Lucky wanted him alive, he wanted him here. Not in a hospital in a different town.

The glass front doors opened and Jerry slipped back in, locking up behind him. He walked over to the coffeemaker, poured two, then came back into the cell and locked that door. This cell was probably the safest place in Elton right now.

Jerry sat down next to Kenny, exhaling hard. He reached over and proffered a cup of coffee. “Aren’t you glad you came back to good old Elton?”

Kenny didn’t laugh. The coffee burned the jagged holes where teeth had been. “It’s my punishment for being a shit dad.”

His words were slurred and juicy-sounding from his misshapen face and the blood leaking into his mouth.

Jerry lit a smoke, blowing out a carcinogenic cloud. Kenny coughed.

“You mind if I smoke, Kenny?”

“I think we’re in here for the long haul, I’ll just have to live with it.”

“Yeah, Probably.”

Another deep reverberation echoed, with some kind of acknowledgement crossing Jerry’s face, a curious little scowl. But it passed. One more weird noise in the Elton night would be just another of many. The distant chanting of the Faithful out on the dry lakebed could be heard clearly.

But then another came, and this time it was undeniable. Kenny had felt it in the stitches holding his face together, and they saw it pass through the cloud of cigarette smoke.

Jerry’s face screwed up into a question. “Did you see…”

But another, more recognizable noise came to them from out of the night, from the direction of the highway. The sound of brakes squealing, vehicles colliding, followed by the unmistakable sound of a car rolling, ending with the cracking whoosh of a gas tank exploding.

Jerry was on his feet unlocking the cell, “Holy fucking shit… Kenny… oh fuck… Doc Pete… no…”

Another deep impact.
Thud
.

Jerry turned to Kenny. “That… was probably Doc Pete.”

Kenny just looked at him. He couldn’t stand, much less make any kind of facial expression.

Thud.

Kenny spat out a bloody wad and took another burning sip of coffee.

“There’s nothing you can do, Jerry.”

Insane faces pressed against the glass front door. They were vacant, they were mindless, grinning in horrible mockery.

Jerry’s hand went to his holster and he pointed his pistol at the faces behind the glass.

“Jerry, they didn’t do it, even if they did.
Lucky
did it.”

Thud!

Jerry’s focus didn’t change, his pistol remained trained on the front door, but his other hand pulled the keys out of the lock on the cell gate. They were going to stay in here after all.

“Kenny, that sound, it’s…”

“Footsteps. Walking this way. To Grove Island.”