Showdown (48 page)

At first he couldn't see that anything had happened. Then he squinted and he saw it. The sun was out. And the black clouds were moving.

Boiling, rolling, flying up and back and away, as if a huge vacuum cleaner was sucking them into deep space. Behind it all was blue sky.

And a brilliant afternoon sun.

Black still had his hand on Steve's shoulder. He twisted his head toward the entrance to town. Nothing there. What was happening?

It was hot. Hazy hot. Midafternoon-on-a-hot-summer-day hot. And so bright.

But nothing else.

Black's face beaded with sweat. Steve followed his gaze again. Nothing but shimmering heat above the flattened buildings. What was happening?

And then Steve saw a distortion in the haze. Something was moving toward them, walking down the middle of Main Street in the distance. A small figure obscured by the heat.

The boy?

Black's hand began to tremble on his shoulder. His arm twitched. Two fingers still raised to strike.

As for Steve, the nausea had passed. Beyond that he didn't know what to feel.

The boy walked toward the edge of town, arms loose at his sides, small and frail, hardly more than an apparition distorted by heat waves. He didn't have a shirt on, and his skin was covered in dried blood, but he was definitely alive. And looking right at them.

Then the child entered Paradise, and the buildings began to rise from the dust.

JOHNNY JUMPED to his feet and stared at the clearing sky. Something was happening! He'd watched Black walk up to Steve and slap him around, but now both of them were still.

Something was happening; he could feel it in the air. Not just the clouds, not just the sun, not just the sudden heat. Something bigger.

He scrambled to the edge of the rocks and strained for a better view. Black still hadn't moved. For a while nothing moved.

And then the old theater began to move.

Johnny crouched, disbelieving what his eyes were seeing. The old theater was rising from the ground, rebuilding itself layer by layer, quicker than he could keep track of, like one of those demolitions he'd seen on the television, only in reverse.

And not just the old theater, but all the buildings around it. Paradise was being rebuilt from the ground up.

Johnny blinked, then blinked again. The Starlight Theater, Smither's Saloon, Claude's convenience store, Katie's Nails and Tan. Houses. How could . . .

He saw the boy then, walking down the middle of Main Street. A snapshot of Marsuvees Black walking into town the same way seven days earlier filled his mind for a second, and then was gone.

This wasn't Black.

This was Samuel!

Johnny tore down the mountain.

STEVE COULDN'T process what was happening around him at first. Things were going backward, rising and flying and moving at impossible angles.

The town was rising from the ashes.

And the small boy was walking straight toward them, right past the buildings as if they weren't rising from the ground miraculously. His eyes were fixed on Steve.

Black cursed once under his breath. He dropped his hand from Steve's shoulder and cursed again, a long string of hushed, vile words punctuated by spittle. His tirade ended midsentence, and in a fit of fury he slugged Steve in the gut, hard enough to break some ribs. Steve gasped and doubled over.

From the corner of his eyes Steve watched as Black grabbed his own coat, spun once, and vanished into the folds of cloth.

Black's clothing collapsed to the ground over his boots. His broad-brimmed hat bounced once, rolled to one side, and came to rest three feet from the pile of clothes.

Steve couldn't
breathe. Where had Black gone? What was happening?

But he knew. This boy was happening.

When he managed to stand straight again, he saw two things: he saw that the town was the way it had been a week ago, before any of this had happened, except the leaves were still gone from the trees and sand still dusted the streets. And he saw that the boy had stopped ten feet from him and was staring up at him with soft, round eyes.

He felt dizzy. Hadn't he killed this boy? There was no hole in his side where Steve stuck the stake, but there was caked blood all over. Black had told him to kill the boy and he had done it, done it good.

Others came out of their houses and stared at the town in awe.

Was this a test? Was this how he could keep Black from taking his eyes?

Should he take the stake in his hand and kill Samuel again? Maybe that's what Black wanted him to do.

“Look at me, Steve,” the boy said.

JOHNNY SPRINTED past the old theater, which now stood in mint condition, or at least in as mint condition as it had been seven days ago, which was pretty tattered but mint, sweet mint, to Johnny.

He ran right into town, briefly glancing at several dozen people who were staring at Samuel and Steve. Claude and Chris stood with Peter and Roland, immobilized by the sudden change. Paula stood on her porch, eyes fixed on Johnny as he ran.

What did I tell you? Huh, what did I tell you?

His eyes searched for his mother. She was standing between their house and the next, watching Samuel.

What did I tell you! Now this, this is the truth. Black was from the pit of
hell, but God has sent us a hero. A superhero.

Johnny slid to a stop to the left and behind Samuel.

“Look at me, Steve,” Samuel said.

Samuel was naked except for his shorts and shoes. Blood had dried on his body. But Johnny had to hold himself back from throwing his arms around Samuel's chest.

Steve looked at Samuel. His eyes widened and his lips softened. Samuel was showing him love, and Steve wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

What did I tell you all? What did I say?
Johnny felt like his chest would explode.

Samuel looked at Johnny. The boy didn't smile; he didn't say anything; he just winked. Then he turned his gaze back to Steve.

The man stood dazed. His hands and clothes were streaked with blood, and he smelled like he'd rolled in a pile of compost. But the glassy look in his eyes faded away, and his mouth opened in dumb wonderment.

“Grace and hope are dead without love, Steve,” Samuel said. Just those words. Johnny felt a lump rise into his throat.

“Love, Steve. Do you want me to love you?”

Steve's face wrinkled under the words. He dropped the stake in his right hand. “Yes?” It was more a question than an answer, but that was evidently fine by Samuel.

The air brightened with a white light. A strobe had gone off. A strobe from Samuel.

Johnny gasped and stepped back. White light smothered Steve's face. He threw his hands wide and began to wail.

The light spread out from Samuel in a growing circle. It hit Father Yordon, who'd come out on the church steps. The man staggered under its power. It hit a man who stood under the trees by the church, and the man put a hand on a trunk to steady himself.

Johnny began to cry. He couldn't help it. He just began to shake with sobs.

I believe
.
I believe
.

“You are loved, Steve,” Samuel said.

“Oh, God!” Steve groaned. “Oh my God, what have I done?”

Johnny was going to burst. “I believe,” he whispered.

“Louder, Johnny,” Samuel said. “Say it louder.”

Samuel was looking at Steve but speaking to Johnny. He felt unraveled, like a frayed hemp rope. Steve was trembling now, but so was Johnny.

“I believe,” Johnny said as loud as his constricted throat would allow him. Then he screamed it at the top of his lungs. “I believe!”

The light hit him with a force that seared his mind, paralyzed his spine, and left him dazed and warm.

Johnny sat hard, dumbstruck. This was love.

Time seemed to slow. He might have been down for only a minute, lost to the world, but it felt like an hour.

The sound of sobbing pulled him back into Paradise. He lifted his head. Steve was on his knees, bawling like a baby. Samuel was holding his head, chin lifted to the sky. Tears streamed down his cheeks. His lips were moving, but Johnny couldn't make out the words.

The sound of wailing smothered him. From the corner of his eyes he saw Claude flat on his belly, shaking with sorrow. Paula was walking toward them, one hand outstretched, weeping.

Father Yordon lay in a ball on the church steps.

Johnny pushed himself to his feet and watched Samuel, straining to catch the boy's words. But he didn't need to strain because Samuel's words suddenly rang out clearly for all of them to hear.

“Father,” he sobbed. He drew a breath. “Father, we have done it.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

THE MONASTERY

Thursday

THE BOOKS were gone. All of them.

Two days had passed since Samuel's death. One and a half days since he'd awakened in the creek bed and walked into Paradise. He'd told the story a hundred times. How he'd been beaten and killed and then left to rot. How his father had brought him back to life and healed Paradise.

“I still can't believe it all happened,” Johnny said, staring down at Paradise from the ledge.“How did it feel?” Billy and Darcy looked at Samuel.

The four children had come together for the first time since the story ended. Like the rest of the children in the monastery, Billy and Darcy were healed almost immediately and were eager to renew their acquaintance with the boy who had resisted their writings.

“How did what feel, the dying or the living?” Samuel asked.

Johnny hesitated, unsure he wanted an answer. “Either,” he said.

Samuel shuddered. “The dying . . . I'm not sure I can describe how terrible it felt. But I kept telling myself that my father could save me. I had to believe that.”

Darcy stared out at the blue sky. She wasn't the same girl Johnny had met in the dungeons. The whole experience seemed to have knocked the wind out of her.

“If you don't mind, can we talk about something more uplifting?” Billy asked. “Considering it was Darcy and I who were responsible.”

“Were you?” Samuel asked. “They didn't have to listen to you. Johnny didn't.”

Billy shrugged. “And I didn't have to listen to Black. But I did.”

Thinking of Billy as his brother was a mighty strange thing. Half brother, actually. Johnny and Billy had different fathers, but they had both been born to Sally, his mother, and that was weird. Samuel's father had taken Billy in as the thirty-seventh orphan when he learned that Stanley Yordon was forcing Sally to put him up for adoption.

In a strange way, Billy's writing had been an act of unwitting vengeance on the town that abandoned him. Maybe it was this wrongdoing that made them so receptive to Billy's writing. Maybe not.

“Where is Black?” Johnny asked.

“You mean the real Black? Dead,” Billy said.“My Black killed
him.”

“In a week the other teachers will be gone too,” Samuel said.

“Your father's abandoning the monastery?”

“Burying it. The books are gone, and without the books, there is no project.”

“What will you do?”

“My father's going back to Harvard. Andrew and Raul are setting up an orphanage in New Jersey for any of the kids who want to stay with them. Some want to go back to their home countries. You guys decide yet?”

Billy and Darcy shook their heads. Johnny felt sorry for them. All they knew was up in that monastery, about to be buried.

“Maybe you could live with me and my father,” Samuel said.

“Maybe.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“The thing I can't get out of my mind is Black,” Billy said. “The one I wrote.”

“Yeah, Black,” Darcy agreed.

“Anyone really know what happened to him?”

Samuel pulled the stalk of grass he'd been nibbling on from his mouth. “Hopefully he vanished with the books.”

“Hopefully?”

“That's the thing—my dad isn't sure about Black. The books are gone, the monastery is being buried, the town is back to normal, even the people down there are getting back to normal life, right, Johnny?”

“I wouldn't call it normal. They spend a lot of time in the church. Hardly anyone wants to talk about Black, if that's what you mean.”

“He's gotta be gone.”

“Even if he isn't,” Billy said, “I was the one pulling his strings, right? So without the books, he's powerless.”

“He had a book,” Johnny said. “I saw it on the church podium once.”

“A blank book?” Billy asked. “You sure?”

“Looked exactly like the ones you wrote in.”

“But it must have disappeared too,” Samuel said. “Had to have. Right?”

“Right,” Darcy said.

“Then Black's history,” Samuel said.

“Probably,” Darcy said.

“Probably,” Billy agreed.

“And we're not,” Johnny said.

They all looked at him. A slow smile formed on Billy's mouth. “Yeah, I guess that's the whole point, isn't it. Black's history and we're not.”

“Thanks to Samuel,” Darcy said.

“Thanks to Samuel,” Billy said.

“Thanks to Samuel,” Johnny said.

And then no one said anything for a while.