The Dead Man: Hell in Heaven (4 page)

And I awoke and found me here on this cold hill’s side.

The words, dragged up from some high school English class, flashed through his mind before he could open his eyes and realize where he was. Then came the pain. It shot through his body, every muscle screaming as he pulled himself back into consciousness.

The ground was hard under his back. Small rocks dug into his skin. In his rush to get away from Heaven, he hadn’t bothered with his helmet, and it was a miracle that the stone that left the goose egg on his head hadn’t split his skull open.

Whatever had happened to his body was nothing to compare with the damage to his bike. The sun was just cresting the mountains as Matt managed to force his eyes open, and in the gentle, golden light of dawn the roadway twinkled like a sea of stars. It was tiny shards of metal that had once been a motorcycle now reflecting the new day.

Matt pulled himself to his feet and staggered down the berm to the road, staring at the wreckage and realizing what would have happened to him if he’d been a second slower. Did the driver even stop? Or had he decided that what he’d hit had been just one more bug to smear his grillwork?

Where the hell did that thing come from
? Matt wondered.
This road isn’t long enough for a truck to build up that much speed
.

Except, he realized, he had no idea how long the road was or where it went. The person who’d told him it ended right after the Heaven town limit had been Joan. It hardly seemed like the most egregious of the untruths she had told him.

There were scraps of metal and plastic scattered along the roadway over the length of three football fields. That was what was left of the Blast, which had gone out in a way that suited its name. A shred of nylon told him his pack had met the same fate.

How far was it back to the highway? Matt tried to remember how long the ride had taken him. He hadn’t been paying attention as he enjoyed the scenery, but it had been hours, certainly. Even if he’d been taking the curves as slowly as thirty miles per, walking back would take days. Days without food, water and shelter. All his supplies had been in his pack; now they were atoms.

And that was days of walking if he was in perfect shape. But as Matt took the step from the berm onto the asphalt, every inch of his body screamed out in pain. He’d twisted his right ankle severely—at least he hoped it was only a twist. His left wrist throbbed where he had slammed it into a rock on his landing. And he was pretty sure he’d cracked a couple of ribs.

He could start walking—limping, really—and hope for a ride, of course. Somebody could come along.

But the truck that had smashed his bike had been the only vehicle he’d seen on this road. Even if there were other loggers heading to the highway, if they drove like this one, they’d never stop to pick up a hitchhiker.

He couldn’t fault them. If he had to drive through Heaven, Washington, on a regular basis, he’d go as fast as his wheels would take him, too.

If Matt tried to walk back to the highway, he might well die on the way. Even if he made it, he’d be so hungry and thirsty and freezing by the time he got there he wouldn’t be able to do anything more than pray someone would pick him up and drop him off at the next motel. But Labor Day was long gone, and traffic was thin through the mountains. He might make it to the intersection only to die there.

That left him only one choice.

One terrible, hateful choice.

The sun broke free of the mountain and as it poured its light on the road, Matt could see it burning back up even more brightly. He staggered down the tarmac and kicked away a piece of fender. His axe lay underneath, astonishingly untouched by the crash. There was still some black ooze on the edge of the blade, but the rest of the head shone brightly in the new day’s sun.

Matt picked up the axe and hefted it in his hand. Then he turned around. A hundred yards in front of him he could see the first houses that marked Heaven’s boundary. And the bright, cheery banner that hung over Main Street:

Welcome home, Matt.

The main street was as deserted as it had been when he’d ridden in yesterday. Matt stood in the middle of the road, the axe dangling from one hand, and wondered what he should do next.

He didn’t have to wait long. The front door of the general store cracked open and a pair of dark eyes peered out. Then it was flung open. The same little girl who had led the procession the day before ran out into the street.

“It’s Matt!” she shouted, twirling in a circle to make sure her voice penetrated the buildings on both sides of the street. “He’s back.”

Matt stared at the little girl, as if hoping to see through her skin and learn if there were tumors there waiting to take her over. The axe was comfortable in his hand, but he would have used it on himself before he could raise it against a child.

“You know me?” he said.

“Know you?” she squealed. “I’ve been
praying
for you to come.” She turned back to the general store, to the door that had swung closed after her. “Everybody come out! It’s Matt! He’s come, just like I dreamed he would!”

The general store’s door fluttered as if it was trying to make up its mind. Then it opened slowly. An old woman appeared in the doorway. She was dressed like one of the town’s men, dirty jeans and a flannel shirt, but she wore a faded calico bonnet over her gray hair. Her skin was sun-browned and leathered; Matt thought she looked like a walnut in a hat. But her eyes were coal-black and diamond hard, and as she stepped out into the center of the street she never took them off his face.

“No one gave you permission to leave the store, girl,” the woman said in a voice as weathered as her skin. “Get back in. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.”

“But he’s
here
,” the girl said. “He left with Joan and he came back whole. You know what that means.”

“Could mean a lot of things,” the woman said, her eyes still fixed on Matt’s face. “Could mean he had a night of whoopee with that thing and came here to help out with the dirty work. Could be the bitch queen’s found herself a stud.”

That settled one question in Matt’s mind. They knew about Joan. Knew what she’d planned for him. And they let him go with her anyway. Because they were scared? Or because they’d rather see her take a stranger than one of their own?

“It could,” Matt said. “But it doesn’t.”

The old woman’s eyes had never left his face, but somehow they seemed to intensify their glare. “And I’m supposed to believe your word, just like that?” she said. “Because someone—some
thing
—that’s going to join up and do what she does, he’s not going to scruple a lie or two on the way.”

“I don’t care what you believe,” Matt said. “I just want to get back to the highway.”

“Look at his axe, Orfamay,” the little girl squealed. “Look at his axe.”

The old woman pulled her eyes away from his face and glanced down at the blade. Then took a step closer, bent forward and ran a finger through the black slime on its edge. Her eyes shot back to his face, then she allowed them a second to examine the ichor she now rubbed between her fingers.

“That’s from her, Orfamay,” the girl said. “You know it is.”

Still keeping her eyes locked on Matt, the old woman smeared the slime off onto her jeans. “That true what the little one says?” she said.

“Go out and look for yourself,” Matt said.

“Don’t be so tetchy, boy,” the woman said, the faintest hint of a smile curling her lip.

“You been through what these good folks have endured, you’d be a little cautious, too.”

“Is that what you call it when you let an innocent man go off with a monster to save your own asses?” Matt said. “Cautious?”

“We wanted to warn you, Matt,” the little girl said, her eyes filled with terror at the thought he might leave again. “We wanted to. But she showed up right behind you. There was nothing anyone could do.”

Matt thought back to his arrival. The people of the town had clustered around him, and then drawn back when he’d taken off his helmet. He’d assumed it was because they saw he wasn’t the one they’d been waiting for. But Joan had spoken in his ear seconds afterward. Was it possible that it was her arrival that had caused them to back away from him?

“We lived with that thing for a long time,” the old woman said unapologetically. “We knew her rules, and we knew what would happen if we violated them.”

“And we knew you were the one who was going to free us,” the girl added. “We knew you were our hero.”

“I’m no one’s hero,” Matt said.

But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he began to wonder if that was true. He had been wandering, lost, through his life since he’d been brought back from the dead, searching for his purpose. And while he’d had no idea of what he’d been doing, every step he took had brought him one step closer to Heaven. What had made him buy that motorcycle, head out on that particular highway? What had impelled him to take the exit that led him to this cursed town? Was it possible that this was the reason he’d been reborn?

Standing in the middle of the street, muscles aching, ribs cracked, head pounding, he’d never felt less like a hero. But they’d known he was coming. Known when he hadn’t. They’d been waiting for him to liberate them. And he’d done it.

The old woman spat on the street. “Call yourself what you want,” she said. “You got the job done, I figure you we owe you.”

“I told you,” the little girl said. “I told you he’d come.”

Ignoring her, the old woman turned back to the open door of the general store. “Time to stop hiding and come on out,” she barked. “All of you, come out. The time for cowering’s over.” She turned back to Matt. “This town owes you. You’ll see we repay our debts.”

Matt had a vision of himself seated on a golden throne, still clutching his axe, like Conan the Barbarian crowned king on one of those Frank Frazetta paperback covers. It was so absurd he had to suppress a smile.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Matt said.

“Orfamay Vetch knows something about debts,” the old woman said. “This town’s books balance. Always have, and as long as I’m in charge, always will. We owe you, and we will repay you.”

Behind Orfamay, the street was beginning to fill with people. They all kept their distance, but Matt could see they all had the same expression in their eyes. It was a look of awe.

“All I want is a ride back to the highway,” Matt said.

“A ride?” Orfamay said. “The Pingree mule died last winter. Not much here to ride on since it hit the stew pot.”

“I was thinking about maybe a car,” Matt said, looking for any sign she had been joking.

“A truck would be fine. I’m not fussy.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “A car?” she said. “A
private
car?”

“I don’t really care who owns it,” Matt said. “I just need a ride.”

“You must think we’re all Carnegies around here,” she said. “You come to supper tonight, and we’ll talk about what we owe you.”

Before Matt could say anything, she turned and walked back to the crowd that was still assembling down the street. As he watched her go, baffled, he felt a tugging at his hand.

“Don’t worry about her, Matt.” It was the little girl, and she was staring up at him with unabashed worship. “Whatever you need, you’ll get. The whole town is yours now.”

When Matt was ten years old, his father had taken him to a travelling carnival where he’d spent two hours and uncountable quarters trying to land a set of plastic rings over a bunch of milk bottles. When he’d finally won—or when the carny behind the counter had gotten sick of seeing his face and declared him the winner—he was granted his prize: a plastic pencil sharpener in the shape of a cartoon bear. When the carny handed it to him, Matt had burst into tears. He couldn’t believe that so much time and effort—not to mention so much of his father’s money—had earned him such a pathetic prize.

If he’d believed the little girl about the whole town being his, he might have felt the same way about today’s prize.

He spent a long chunk of his expected lifespan meeting what he assumed was the town’s entire population, shaking hands and exchanging rough embraces with an endless stream of well-wishers. He tried to attach names to people, and family members to each other, but after a couple of minutes all the hardscrabble hands and weathered faces began to blur together.

What he did notice is that most of the people from the town shared one of two last names. There were probably eighty men, women and children who introduced themselves as Something Vetch, and another seventy or so who were Gilhoolies. The rest of the population seemed to belong either to the Runcible family or clan Hoggins. Matt couldn’t be sure, because everyone kept moving around and there were no clear lines, but it seemed to him that the Vetches and the Runcibles stayed on one side of the street while the Gilhoolies and Hogginses clustered together on the other.

After what felt like an eternity of meeting and greeting, Matt found himself facing Orfamay Vetch again. “Supper’s at six tonight,” she snarled at him. “It’s going to be at the Grange. You’ll be needing someplace to stay. The old Delaney place is yours by right.”

The thought of stepping foot back in that house sent a shudder of horror through him. “I’ll pass,” he said.

“Then you can take my place for as long as you need it,” she said. A confession extracted through torture might have sounded more gracious. “Need someone to show you the way, or can you handle simple directions?”

“I’ll take him, Orfamay.” It was the little girl, who had showed up at his side again.

“That’s very generous,” Matt said. “But I don’t need to throw you out of your home. I just need to get back to the highway.”

“Mouse will show you around,” Orfamay said. She turned back to the crowd of Vetches and Gilhoolies, Runcibles and Hogginses. “You going to stand around staring like a bunch of dead sheep? There’s work to do preparing for tonight.”

She clapped her hands sharply and the crowd immediately started to dissipate. “Six o’clock sharp,” she said, and Matt couldn’t tell if she was addressing the little girl or him. “We’re punctual in these parts.”

Orfamay Vetch gave Matt one last, penetrating look and then marched off with the rest of the crowd. The girl slipped her hand into his and pulled him toward a side street.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I knew you’d come if I summ—if I prayed hard enough.”

“I can’t stay,” Matt said. “But thank you. Did she call you Mouse?”

The girl smiled happily at the sound of her name coming from his lips. “My real name is Mary Elizabeth Gilhoolie, but my brother Vern, he’s called me Mouse since forever, because I’m little and I can creep around without anyone hearing me. We’re going this way.”

The road she led him toward ran out of asphalt about six feet from the main street. It was pocked with small, dark, crumbling houses lurking behind rotting picket fences. Between them chicken coops and hog wallows sent clouds of foul dust into the hot air. Matt had grown up in one of the Northwest’s dying lumber towns, but he’d never seen any place that looked as poor and miserable as this.

“You prayed for me to come,” Matt said, giving into the questions that had been pounding at his brain. “How did you know my name?”

“I dreamed it,” she said proudly. “You came to me riding that motorcycle and told me your name was Matt and that you were coming to save us.”

Again, Matt flashed on that Frazetta image of himself as King Conan. He tried to laugh it out of his head, but it wouldn’t go. Maybe he had been brought back to be some kind of hero.

“Do you often have dreams like that?” Matt said.

“The Book tells me how—” she broke off again.

“The Book?”

“The Good Book,” Mouse said quickly, a flush coming to her cheeks. “That’s what my mother used to call the Bible. It tells me how to pray.”

There was a quaver in her voice, and Matt thought she was hiding something. But it didn’t seem worth calling her a liar simply to discover the deepest secrets of an eleven-year-old girl. If he’d known how many deaths he might have prevented if he’d pushed her, no doubt he would have. There was something else she’d said that seemed more important at the moment.

“You say she used to call it the Good Book,” Matt said. “Is she …?”

“Dead,” Mouse said. “Pa, too. My brother Vern looks after me now. He’s the leader of all the Gilhoolies. Hogginses, too.”

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Matt said. “Was it Joan?”

“Before Joan came,” Mouse said. “That was why I—”

A scream came from behind one of the houses. It was filled with pain and terror. And then it stopped, drowned in a bubbling of blood.