Showdown (13 page)

“You stop this talk right now, Billy!” Darcy whispered harshly. “You've lost your senses. Talk like this will get you thrown out of here.”

“Talk like this got me to the subterranean levels. And I found the most wonderful halls imaginable there, filled with images and powers that took my breath away and left me shaking.”

“But what of the third rule of writing?” Paul asked.

The simpleton was still too shocked to take any of this seriously.

Paul continued.“How can any of this lead to love, or to the Creator? It's all in the third rule, remember? Like Samuel said in class yesterday.”

Billy's snarl surprised even him. “Forget Samuel! Samuel's a dope!”He sat back and took a breath. “If you understand that we create our stories, then technically we
do
abide by the third rule because we
are
creators. We discover love by discovering ourselves.”

There, he'd said it. He'd repeated the theory that someone left in his locker, encouraging him to descend into the tunnels.

They stared at him, blinking.

“And Raul is right. Stories without proper conflicts are boring. In the real world, the story of life starts with conflict. I could challenge the prevailing rules here and win with my arguments. Maybe I will.”

They didn't respond to that. How could they, blinded by denial?

“So when did you go below?” Darcy asked, glancing around nervously.

“Last two nights.”

“Two times?”

“I had to, Darcy. The dungeons call. It's as if they know my name and call to me. None of the halls up here speaks to me like the dungeons. None of them calls me.”

“Dungeons?”

“Figure of speech. Tunnels. Subterranean halls. I've found a study that contains hundreds of books to be read. I'm telling you, take the enjoyment of reading or writing or eating or anything you do up here, and down there it's ten times better. Try it once and you'll see.”

“If you think Paul or I would go down there, you've lost your mind. Proof positive that the ‘dungeons,' as you appropriately call them, have rotted your mind.”

Billy just grinned.

“What you're doing isn't only prohibited, it sounds nasty, and I for one will have no part in it.” Darcy scooted her chair back and stood.

Paul followed her lead. “Sorry, Billy. I do believe she's right.”

“Well, don't either of you forget what I said. We have no boundaries, so don't go and flap your jaws about this. I'm entitled to do whatever I choose.” He caught Darcy's eye. “I'll be waiting for you.”

Billy watched them go, past the tray table toward the entry.
Idiots. Stupid
fools.
And yet he had resisted the impulse at first, hadn't he, just like Darcy and Paul were doing now.

A voice spoke behind him. “Good morning, Billy.” Billy twisted to face Samuel. The last student eating across the cafeteria while he'd spouted off about Samuel being a dope had been none other than Samuel himself.

Billy turned back to the table and clenched his eyes for a moment, hoping that Samuel hadn't been listening.

“Morning, Samuel.”

Samuel stepped around the table and sat down. “You
okay, Billy?”

“Sure, Samuel. I'm just fine. And you?”

“I'm good. Are you sure you're okay? You've seemed a bit upset lately.”

Upset? And when had he looked upset? Billy's face grew a little hotter. “Well, I haven't been upset.”

“You're struggling with something, Billy. It's written all over you. Part of me wants to tell you to snap out of it. Quit licking the floor and stand up.” He paused. “But most of me just wants to tell you that we all go through struggles. We can help each other.”

“What do you care, Samuel? What difference does it make to you?”

A few seconds passed before the answer came. “Everything each of us does affects the others. None of us lives in a vacuum. We're simply children on a quest to gain the highest forms of wisdom without being compromised in the process. But when one is compromised, the others are compromised. You see that, don't you?”

Billy waved his fork at the blond boy. “Each of us can do whatever he or she wants. You can't take that away.”

“You're right. But do you think there aren't consequences to what you say or do?”

“And what would the consequence be if I told you to shut up, Samuel?”

Samuel just looked at him. There was something in his eyes, a look Billy could have identified a week ago, but which now just looked vague. Maybe it was hurt.

Billy thought of the halls below, running with worm gel. He had to get back.

“Just shut up,” he said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

PARADISE

Thursday afternoon

JOHNNY'S PREDICAMENT had gone from bad to worse.

Now he wasn't sure what he'd seen yesterday. Actually he was sure—he'd seen Black kill Cecil, but he wasn't sure why he'd seen it. Didn't feel right, but it was possible that Black's explanation in the bar was the truth. The others were swallowing it, hook, line, and sinker. Didn't feel right, but that was supposedly Black's point.

Maybe he'd misjudged the man. His ways were strange to be sure, but again, that was his point. He didn't smell right, look right, or talk right. But he did look and talk more normal this morning than he had yesterday.

And all of that was his point.

Johnny's mother still hadn't returned from Junction. No surprise there. She'd be home this afternoon. She hadn't taken any of the stuff Black was handing out. Her exposure, like his own, was limited to whatever the preacher had put in the water supply. She'd be able to tell him what was up.

And maybe Roland and Fred would be straight in the mind. He'd know in a few minutes when they met behind the old theater.

Johnny glanced at the clock. Time to go. He was dressed in a blue Nike T-shirt with a faded brown button-down shirt hanging unbuttoned and tails out over his thin frame. Good to go.

The minute the door slammed shut behind him, he reconsidered taking the trek down Main Street to the Starlight, which loomed two hundred yards off. He'd been so eager to get home from the bar that he hadn't noticed just how odd the town looked.

For starters it was deserted. Not a soul.

Somewhere a screen door was banging in the wind. Wind-blown silt smothered the town in a dull gray-brown haze. Leaves danced by.

Bang, bang, bang.
Whose door was that? Across the street stood the church. Closed. No cars in front of Smither's Saloon or All Right Convenience. Didn't mean no one was at either place, just no visitors.

Johnny walked deliberately, ignoring his throbbing leg. Off the sidewalk, under the large maple that shaded their house, down the side of Main Street. He crossed it.

When he reached the middle, at the point Black had turned toward him and Cecil yesterday, he again thought that the alley would have been a better choice. He was alone out here. Stranded. The wind tore at his hair and the dust whipped his pants and he was sure that at any moment something impossible would happen.

Paradise had become the town of impossibilities.

That was yesterday. That was the preacher's point
.

Johnny picked up his pace, staring straight ahead, and then ran the last few steps along the old theater's wall. He rounded the back corner and pulled up in front of Roland, Fred Mars, and Peter Bowers, all sitting in a circle, protected from the wind by the large building.

They stared at him as if he'd come out of a snowstorm.

“Hey,” he said.

They wore blue jeans and ratty T-shirts, except Fred, who wore a sun-bleached plaid farmer's shirt that looked like it had been found on a rocky riverbank.

“Hey,” Roland said.

Johnny walked forward.

“Hey, Johnny,” Peter said. The Bowers boy was big, like his father, Claude.

Johnny stopped. There was something out of whack with Fred and Peter. Dark circles under their eyes. Tired faces, as if they hadn't slept a wink last night.

“You gonna sit down?” Fred asked.

“You get any sleep last night, Fred?”

He shrugged. “Sure.” But he didn't look so sure.

“What do you think about the preacher?” Fred asked.

Johnny settled to the ground next to Roland.

“I think . . .” Johnny stopped. Actually, he didn't know what to think anymore. “He's pretty weird, that's for sure.” No one disagreed.

The mood was gloomy, which was strange because Johnny figured they'd find a way to rip the preacher to shreds with feeble attempts at humor.

“They say Chris was dying before the preacher healed him,” Fred said. “Nothing like that's ever happened around here. The preacher's probably pretty close to God. Like Moses. That's what my parents think, anyway.”

“Moses?” Peter said. “Moses was a prophet, not some preacher who walked into town growing warts in people's mouths.”

“What do you call the plagues?”

“It doesn't matter anyway,” Roland said. “Just because someone does something great doesn't make them a great person. Look at Hitler. Everybody liked him in Germany at one time, and look what he did to the Jews.”

“What do you mean everybody liked Hitler?” Fred demanded, face red. “Nobody liked Hitler.”

“Settle down,” Peter said. “What gives, man?”

“If Roland wouldn't be so stupid—”

“I'm not being stupid! I'm just saying that Moses wasn't Hitler. And that maybe this guy isn't Moses either. He could be, I'm just saying he might not be.”

Watching Fred, Johnny felt uneasy. He spoke as much to stop their bickering as to fill them in.

“I saw him this morning.” They looked at him. “He was in the bar with the others.”

Roland pushed. “And?”

“And he was . . . different. He said that he put something in the drinking water to make us all loopy. And that everything he did was just a trick.”

“He said that?” Fred's eyes widened. “Why would he do that?”

“Loopy?” Peter Bowers said. He pulled a bottle from his pants. “You mean this?”

It
was the bottle that Black had showed them in the bar, only now it was empty. Peter was grinning.

Johnny reached for it. “Where'd you get that?”

“My mom.”He snatched it out of Johnny's reach, twirled off the lid, and lifted the bottle to his nose. “She said it was some good stuff.”

“Good stuff? She tell you it came from Black?”

“Course she did. Why, does that scare you?”He stuck his tongue into the narrow neck and made a show of trying to lick the inside, but his tongue was too fat for the bottle.

“That's the stuff?” Roland asked.

Peter pulled the bottle off his tongue and licked his lips. “Tastes like toe sludge.”

“Sick!”
Fred grabbed the bottle from Peter's hand and shoved it up to his nose. “Doesn't smell bad. You taste this?”

“Course I did. It tastes like toe sludge.”

“Yeah, right.” Fred put his finger into the bottle, withdrew some of the residue, and touched it to his tongue. Satisfied it wasn't as disgusting as his friend had insisted, he licked his finger clean.

“Tastes like nothing.”

“Let me see,” Roland said, reaching for the bottle.

“I wouldn't,” Johnny said.

“Come on, Johnny, don't be such a wimp. It's probably just water.”

Peter dove for the bottle, but Fred rolled out of his way, laughing. He came to his feet and jumped back, sticking his finger in for another sample.

“Knock it off!” Peter yelled. By the looks of the vein sticking out of his neck, he wasn't too happy. He stood, brushing dust from his shirt. “Give it back.”

“What for?”

They faced off, Fred taunting, Peter scowling. But in a flash, that changed. For no apparent reason, both Fred and Peter spun toward the theater's back wall and stared at it wide-eyed.

Their mouths dropped open.

“What?” Roland said, looking at the wall with Johnny. Weathered, once white boards ran vertically in bad need of fresh paint, but nothing seemed out of place.

“Holy . . .” Peter was whispering. He took a step back and Fred followed suit.

“What is it?” Roland demanded again.

Peter's mouth twisted, formed a grin. He stared at the wall. “Wow . . .”

“Wow,” Fred echoed.

Johnny scrambled to his feet.
It's the bottle. Black was right, the stuff in the
bottle makes people see things. That's what was . . .

Peter was yelling in terror. He stumbled backward.

Fred screamed, white-faced. He whirled and ran. Straight into Peter. The boys crashed to the ground with grunts and yells. But both were too distracted by whatever they had seen to make anything of the collision. They scrambled to their feet, cast a quick glance at the wall, and ran for the corner, where they disappeared behind the theater.

They weren't screaming anymore. They were just running. The wind swallowed the sound of their feet.

Roland looked at Johnny, then back at the wall. “You see anything?”

“I'm telling you, it was the stuff in that bottle. What did I say? It makes people loopy.”

Roland grinned crooked and walked to the wall. He put his hand on the boards. “What do you think they saw?”

Johnny kicked at the bare dirt behind the Starlight. He didn't want to be here and he didn't want to go home alone. Black might be good, Black might be bad, but whatever was happening in this town was officially terrifying.

“The preacher talked about helping people see another reality. Maybe they saw . . .” A thought occurred to him.“Maybe we should leave.”

Roland turned back. “What? Like a ghost or something?”

“I don't know. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. I think we should go.”