Night Of The Beast (13 page)

"Maggie, I..."

"We'll have to talk," she purred. "I've never met a songwriter. I play semi-pro tennis, myself. Perhaps we could have a game sometime."

He winced. "I'm awful. Would you believe football?"

She clapped her hands. "I'm a born jock, Rourke," she chuckled. "We'll debate who was better, Marshall Faulk, Simpson, Eric Dickerson or Gayle Sayers. Just name the time and place."

Peter nodded as if coming to a momentous decision. "You and me, Maggie," he intoned, "are going to get along."

Monday raced to the car and sat patiently by the passenger door until Rourke let him hop inside. The shepherd barked again, excited to be returning to the mountains.

"Let me get settled," Rourke called. "I'll drop by. Maybe Mr. Urich over at the drug store will sell us a quarter lemonade."

"I doubt it. Inflation."

"We'll see. He still was doing it six years ago, when I came up here for my birthday."

He slid into the car and began to drive away. Maggie waved, then went off to resume digging in Agatha's garden. Rourke scratched Monday on the neck and studied Maggie's shapely behind in the rear view mirror.
Very nice. Maybe you can go home again, after all.

Gladys Pierson pulled her bulky body up and out of bed, her stomach demanding bananas and milk with brown sugar. Damn her friend Edith and that stupid ouija board. Out so late, feeling so foolish; sitting there in that dark room, waiting for some fool piece of wood to move on its own. Lord, how two silly old women can carry on.

"It might be the end of the world, Gladys," Edith had said. "We can learn all about it, too. I've read books." Foolishness, all of it, but what are friends for? Besides, suppose something really did happen some night.

Gladys decided that she would need a big breakfast to keep up her strength. Her routine had been the same for more than twenty years, and she found it a comfort.

A blue jay called from its perch in the tree right outside her bedroom window. The harsh grating laughter rolled up and down two octaves. The racket pleased her. Why, that jay must be as old as I am!

Gladys wrapped a giant green terrycloth bathrobe around her obese frame and padded into the kitchen, cooing to her houseplants. She opened her back door. Five large cats were waiting on the steps.

"Good day."

A sudden sound, like gravel spraying down onto a tin roof. Purring. Gladys opened a box of dry food and poured each animal a neat little pile of kibble. She didn't care for the odor of a cat box, so she rarely allowed the amiable little creatures inside. If only they didn't need to "go."

Pity.

Gladys Pierson: a lonely, chubby old woman, talking and giving comfort where she could. Gladys never made herself a burden, never sought company with that hidden desperation that so often only ends up driving other people away. She was well-respected, always friendly. A born gossip.

Gladys was the nearest thing Two Trees, which was an impossibly anachronistic town, had to a telephone and telegraph company. Once seated at her tiny switchboard, she could patch one caller through to another with easy familiarity. One long ring for the Polsons over at the hotel; two for Sheriff Bates. Three shorts for Anthony Martoni. Two longs and one short for young Peter Rourke, now that he was around again. Just like the old days; the late forties and fifties of her youth.

Every year or two, a dapper gentleman or lady would come through Two Trees offering Gladys modern dialing equipment, new-fangled cable modems, internet setups and all kinds of other gizmos for her telephone office. She always rejected the upgrades, saying the town had little need for the items and no money. That was partly true, of course, but the real reason was personal.

No one would have needed her, then.

Gladys Pierson would have become obsolete, been lost without all the trivial little conversations that gave her an existence outside of herself. No, the old ways were best. At least this way Gladys was thought of, talked to — and she could still listen in, just a bit, now and then. Not enough to do any harm, of course. Out of curiosity.

Gladys turned on her old color television set and adjusted the rabbit ears. A tired-looking man in a neat, grey business suit was talking about news from San Francisco. They cut away to a piece of film taken by helicopter. Somebody had committed suicide, jumped off one end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Gladys made a cup of instant coffee and lowered herself into a kitchen chair. So much had changed in the world, and so little of it for the better. She turned the television off with a sigh.

When the big highway had passed by Two Trees and the town had begun to shrink and disappear, she had been glad. It meant less interference from the outside. Fewer strange faces. With the whole country going to hell in a handbasket, Gladys felt downright grateful for that. It's just those of us who live here, she thought. As it should be. My little family; passing each other on the street, occasionally calling one another on the party line.

Gladys guarded the information she obtained by eavesdropping with admirable restraint. If a person had trouble, the secret was safe with her. But oh, back in the old days! If someone was getting married then, or having a baby, the gossip would spread through her network almost as quickly as it reached the intended listener.

Good news should travel fast
, Gladys figured.
There is too much bad news in the world already.

She poured milk over her bananas and brown sugar. In her own way, she considered this a vegetarian diet. It was designed to help her lose the surplus eighty pounds she had been carrying for more than twenty years now. The fact that each day generally began with an entirely different "diet" never occurred to her. There were times when Gladys decided she could eat nothing but ice cream and still lose weight, but by dinner she'd switch to steak and potatoes.

Gladys finished her breakfast and dressed for work. She pulled a baggy, black and white polka-dot dress over her head, then wrapped the bright beads she had bought at the Woolworth's in Reno around her wrists and neck.

Gladys Pierson left her house at exactly seven-thirty for the brief walk to her office. She passed Hi and Louise Polson's adobe hotel and looked up to find Louise waving at her from the top floor window. Gladys returned the cheerful greeting.

Spats Rafferty, town handyman and resident drunk, doggedly began to sweep the front porch. Oh dear, Gladys thought. That looks like another hangover.

"Mornin'," he croaked.

She passed him with a knowing smile.

Two Trees seemed old. Gladys had been noticing it more and more lately. Main Street was cracking, yet nobody ever thought to have the pavement repaired. But then, who would they go to? The town didn't even have a Mayor. The only authority left was Glenn Bates, and no one would have dared to confront him with something so trivial.

It didn't make her sad. This seemed the natural way of things. After all, Gladys Pierson was old. Why shouldn't her town be too?

She opened the door to her little office with its antique switchboard. Cool night air, trapped inside, flowed past. It made her aware that she had already begun to perspire.

Gonna be a hot day, she thought. Real hot.

Jason screamed and clutched his face. The birthmark writhed beneath his

stiffening fingers. Pain had flared suddenly, without warning, as if in response to that one passing car. He dropped the insects he'd collected and stumbled out of the cave to sink to his knees in the blistering sand. Harsh sun blinded him; endless motes of dust, prancing down strands of spun gold.

The agony lessened. Sobbing with relief, Jason blinked back tears and fought to slow

his pounding heart.

White had arrived.

There is still time
, he told himself, it is not too late to run. I could pack and leave this

place forever. Dog need not know of my treachery. I am still in control. His inner eye had shown an enemy who was still feeble and undisciplined. White was riddled with self-doubt. But such power slept within him!
This man must never be allowed to awaken
, Jason thought.
I should kill him now, despite Dog's orders.

He stumbled towards a skeletal clump of blue-green sage and sat on a low pile of rocks.

It was bewildering to find himself intimidated by such a pathetic, guilty man.

What did you expect? He is your eternal enemy.

"Dog?"

The sage burst into flame and crackled orange in the afternoon air. Acrid rings of

smoke rose upward. Jason felt ashamed. Terrified.

"But ... But I did not summon you."

Fool, I appear when I choose. Betray me, and you will suffer beyond imagining. I rule

you. Thus it has always been and ever shall be.

LOOK, PUPPY!

Humbled, he lowered his head. "Master, I did not know."

Do not think to escape me, puppy. You are mine, as you have always been. You wear my mark.

"I did not know. I am sorry."

The revelation had been breathtaking, black and glorious.
I am not insane, I am the Chosen One!
Stunned, Jason Smith panted more apologies. He wrung his hands and chanted for forgiveness.

And The Beast said: You have always been my favored son. Always. Remember that this patch of dirt, destined to become The Gate, gave birth to White. Have no fear, but pay him his proper respect.

"What should I do?"

Dog said: Train new soldiers at once. Find fresh converts, helpers from the world of men. Torment their dreams until they join us.

I go now.

"But..."

The fire went out. The untouched bush wriggled sensuously in the breeze. Silence fell like a knitted quilt.
A few must be nearer the edge than others
, Jason thought.
I will begin at once.

Dog had commanded, he dared not disobey.
I will not wait for the Night of Nights, as originally planned. I will find fresh offerings. And I will torment them, I promise you. They will turn towards the dark with a vengeance.

Bates. See him? Just last night, all alone in the dark:

There he was, the sheriff of Two Trees, seated in his police car: Spine ramrod straight and shoulders back. Thinning closely cropped hair, well-polished badge gleaming a toothy grin in the gloom. Glenn Bates watched its reflection, green from the dashboard lights, dance along the windshield. He was cleaning his pistol.

Bates loaded all six chambers and looked out at the uncaring stars. He began to sob; raised the gun and slid the long, icy barrel past his lips. As it filled his mouth, he felt the blunt sight scratch the tender flesh of his throat. He cocked the hammer.
One squeeze, bubba — BOOM! Grey mud and pink froth all over the car. Curtains.

Bates started to tremble. After a moment, he lowered the revolver and gently eased his thumb down to disarm it. You're drunk, he thought miserably. Worn ragged from lack of sleep. You need some rest, that's all.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head on the steering wheel. He knew exactly what would happen if he let go. He'd end up right back there, just like before; smelling, feeling and tasting it. Living the war again, as if time had slipped a gear. The dreams were that real, that scary. They sent him into the past and left him stranded with a lot of nasty, unfinished business.

Bates was afraid to fall asleep. But staying awake for too long could also drive a man crazy. He'd seen that, been through it once in 'Nam. Hallucinated, heard things, gradually lost track of reality. Weird shit, to say the least.

You probably shouldn't be fighting it so hard
, he thought.
Maybe you're making things worse by trying to keep the lid on. The shrinks said to give it a little air now and then
.

Nothing could be as bad as the dreams. And they had been so much worse of late.

Glenn Bates had always liked his liquor, but the Big Green had turned him into a drunk. Anybody in his right mind was scared to death of the bush; stepping into that confusing maze of jungle, booby traps and foul-smelling rice paddies. Bates had started to carry scotch in a spare canteen after he watched a draftee die horribly, legs neatly sheared away by a buried mine. A trip wire had been stretched across the trail. One false step and the kid was wasted; a rare steak, screaming for morphine and mother.