The Final Rule (15 page)

“I am not going to stand here and watch him choke you to death.”

“It’s not his fault. It’s inside him.”

“It doesn’t matter, Ellis. I still won’t let it happen.”

The shirt inched up to Ellis’s right hand and he pulled it free. The maniacal grin on Jon’s face expanded. Ellis searched the area around him to find leverage. His hand knocked against the bedside table. He grabbed the leg and jerked it away from the wall. The lamp toppled over and a sheet of paper fluttered to the floor. Ellis only caught a glimpse of the picture Rudy had drawn: a heart with a tracing of his hand over it.

The wound left behind by the loss of his brother, reopened.

Who else would fall victim to the evil infecting the town? How far would it spread? How many lives would it claim?

It’s afraid of the light.

The strange calm Ellis had felt at the prison and outside the Grove awakened inside him. He met Jon’s gaze, but it was
The Big and Terrible
that stared back.

“You hate me because you fear me.” Terror glimmered in the blackness of Jon’s gaze. He tightened his hand around Ellis’s throat, but the strength in his grip was gone.

Ellis pushed himself up and Jon scurried back until his shoulders hit the wall.

“Move back.” Ellis waved a hand at George.

“He’ll hurt you.”

“Not anymore.”

Ellis crawled toward Jon.

“Get away from me.”

Ellis straddled Jon’s legs. “Let him go.”

He tried to look away but Ellis gripped his face. A tremor ran down Jon’s body and something dark and worm-like slithered under his skin.

“I’m not asking you, I am commanding you. Let Jon go.”

Jon opened his mouth so wide his jaw cracked. The gurgling hiss rising in his throat followed by a high-pitched scream.

A glass bowl on the dresser shattered and pictures on the walls cracked. Streams of sheet rock dust rained from the ceiling.

Jon clawed at Ellis’s hands.

“I will not let you have him, you bastard.”

Jon’s muscles tightened until his back bowed. A crackle of energy traveled down Ellis’s arms and heat flared under his hands.

“Come back to me,” Ellis said. “I love you and I need you to come back to me.”

For a moment the glistening black swelling in Jon’s eyes cleared and it was Jon who stared at Ellis.

“Fight it.”

Red blotches stained Jon’s skin and the cords in his neck drew sharp lines. Through the swirl of emotion rolling from
The Big and Terrible
, flashes of static flickered with thoughts from Jon.

The whites of Jon’s eyes clouded with burst capillaries as the very thing that made him who he was clawed its way back to the surface.

Jon jerked and his head smacked against the wall.

Ellis wrapped his arms around Jon. “I’ve got you. “He kissed Jon’s temple. “I’m not going to let it take you. I’m not. I swear I’m not.”

Everywhere Ellis touched Jon a feverish heat rose from his skin.

“Ellis…”

“Shhh—it will be okay.”

“Ellis, please…” Spasms wracked Jon’s body. “Please run.”

“I can’t do that.”

“It wants me to kill you.”

“Never.”

“George.”

“I’m here, Jon.”

“Kill me.”

Ellis threw a panicked look at George. “Don’t.”

“Please. I don’t want to hurt him—” Jon’s muscles contracted so hard he nearly jerked from Ellis’s hold. “I’ll kill him. Unless you stop me I’ll kill Ellis.”

George raised the shotgun and Ellis moved in the way. “Put it down.”

“Ellis…”

“I will not let you shoot him. That’s what it wants you to do. If it can’t use Jon, it will kill him, just like it did Louis and Russell.”

Jon whimpered. “Please, Ellis. Please get away from me.”

“You can beat it.”

“I can’t.” Jon petted Ellis and at the same time tried to push him away.

“Yes you can.” Jon shook his head and Ellis held him tighter. “You can because I love you and you promised you wouldn’t leave me.”

“It hurts.” Jon’s expression crumbled.

“Where?”

Jon gestured to his chest and Ellis laid his hand near Jon’s sternum. Rage throbbed under Ellis’s fingertips.

The Big and Terrible
writhed in pain.

Rudy’s drawing had shown a hand over a heart.

Could it be that simple?

Ellis put his hand over Jon’s heart.

A surge of fear knocked the wind out of Ellis. The muscles spasms in Jon’s body turned into convulsions and Ellis was knocked off.

“Help me.” Ellis grabbed Jon’s arm. George and Eleanor helped Ellis hold Jon down.

Ellis straddled Jon’s chest and pressed both hands over his heart.

“Whatever the hell you’re doing, Ellis, hurry up,” George said.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” But whatever it was it hurt
The Big and Terrible
. If Ellis could hurt it enough maybe it would leave Jon.

The muscles in Jon’s arms bulged and the seizure bowed his back off the floor.

“C’mon, Jon.” Tears blurred Ellis’s vision. “C’mon, please, please…”

“I don’t think it’s working,” George said.

“It will.” It had to.

“You said yourself you don’t even know what you’re doing.”

“It will work.”

“Ellis.”

“It will work. Just shut up and hold him.” Ellis had to beat
The Big and Terrible
. For Rudy, and most of all for Jon.

Jon collapsed and the sudden silence rang in Ellis’s ears.

George looked at his wife and then Ellis. “Is that it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to have some idea.”

Ellis didn’t and it terrified him.

The silence was interrupted by Jon’s moan. “Ellis…”

“Right here.” He stroked Jon’s cheek. “I’m right here.”

Jon opened his eyes and there was only him. To George and Eleanor, Ellis said, “You can let go.”

“You sure about that, son?”

“I’m sure.” They stepped back.

Jon’s gaze flicked around the room. Recognition replaced the confusion in his expression.

A tear slipped down Ellis’s cheek and Jon wiped it away. His features pinched.

“What’s wrong?” Ellis said.

Jon tried to sit up.

“Just lay still.”

“I feel really nauseous. Please, I need to stand up.”

Ellis helped Jon to his feet and he leaned against the wall.

“Maybe you should lie back down?”

“No…I…” Jon made a stumbling dash for the bathroom and vomited a wash of black ooze all over the floor.

Then he collapsed next to the tub, no longer breathing.

Rule number four, Jon. It has to happen.

Rule number five. It happens for a reason.

Jon stood in the Grove surrounded by the massive pecan trees rocking with the flow of the wind. The creaks and groans they emanated was the only sound in the emptiness.

Overhead the gray sky churned with clouds born from nothing.

Rudy stood beyond the shadows of the trees.

As Jon walked, thick grass coiled around at his feet. The force it took to break free left his legs aching and his breathing short.

Just like before, when Jon saw Rudy, his usual childish expression had been replaced by an older, wiser version.

“Where am I?” Jon said.

“Where do you think you are?”

“The Grove.”

“This isn’t just the Grove, Jon. This is its nest. This is where it breeds. Just like the house, it’s not only a house. It holds its heart.”

“What is it?”

“
The Big and Terrible
.”

“No, I mean what is it? Where did it come from? What does it want?”

“It’s castoffs from the birth of the universe, a creature born of dark matter and anti-space. It has no conscience and it’s incapable of remorse.” Rudy stared at the horizon with a blank expression. “It only knows how to destroy. And that’s what it wants, Jon. Complete destruction.”

“So, are you saying that thing came here from outer space?”

“No.” Rudy smiled. “
The Big and Terrible
has always been here. A cancer infecting the very existence of everything. Growing stronger, getting bigger.”

Wind cut lines through the grass all the way to where the field met with the horizon.

“Lenny’s father wanted to use me to spread it.”

“He’s been looking for someone like you for a very long time.”

“Why?”

“You’re strong, and the stronger the will, the stronger the soul, the better carrier they make. The more people they can help it infect. And it plans on infecting everyone.”

“You said it’s always been here.”

Rudy nodded.

“Then why has it waited until now to try and destroy everything?”

“And what makes you think it hasn’t tried before? Hate and fear, Jon. That’s what this thing breeds. How many lives have been lost, wars have been fought, and people have been destroyed because of those two elements.”

There were just too many to count. “So you’re saying this thing is responsible for every instance of violence?”

“No. People are responsible. While they have within them a vast well of good they are also born with the smallest grain of evil. Choices feed that evil. Sometimes it grows only a small amount. Sometimes it grows into a monster. But in the presence of
The Big and Terrible
, it simply grows. And as it grows hearts wither, remorse rots, conscience dies.”

Wasn’t that what
The Big and Terrible
had done to Jon? Taken a single dark thought, one he would have never acted on and turned it into a fever he could not beat?

The wind snapped Jon’s shirt. “Can it be killed?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me how.”

“It takes someone who doesn’t have that grain of darkness inside them. Someone who doesn’t fear love or giving it. Someone who can heal the heart.”

A tightness filled Jon’s chest. “Ellis.”

“I don’t need to tell you how rare someone like that is.”

He didn’t. “If there have been others who could kill it then why is it still here?”

“In the past
The Big and Terrible
has always found that person before they were ready to face it. The ability to love in the capacity to carry the light leaves no part of the heart guarded. So there is nowhere for the light to hide. People like that shine. They shine so bright that
The Big and Terrible
is drawn to them like a moth to a flame. It’s always found them before they were ready to face it.”

“What’s stopped it from spreading?”

Rudy watched the horizon. “Fire cleanses, but it does not cure.”

“Ellis said the Grove was burned because of smallpox outbreak. But it wasn’t smallpox, was it? “

“A young girl, who carried the light, was born to a field worker. She was killed at the age of five by a guest of the landowner. He’d brought
The Big and Terrible
with him when he traveled through Europe.”

“They burned the Grove to try and kill it?”

“They did.”

“What about the rest of the town? Ellis said it burned too.”

“Sometimes the body is damaged by the fever trying to cure it.”

“But it came back.”

“With only the fire and without the cure, it was left to burrow into the ground. There it waited for the infected people it left behind to feed it the chaos it needed to grow. It slept, it healed, and it grew strong. Then it woke up.”

At the edge of the sky, lightning danced from cloud to cloud. The streaks were too white and too perfect to be made by nature.

“If the other people who carried this light were found, why wasn’t Ellis?”

“The first safeguard was to make sure he was never around other people long enough for them to figure out he was different. The second safeguard was to make sure he wasn’t born carrying the light.” Rudy’s gaze hardened with the intelligence and cunning of a predator. “It was hidden by the crumbling ruins of a damaged mind. And when Ellis was ready I gave it to him.”

“How?”

“It entered through the wound. A cut so deep it tears open the soul. A wound that can only be created by great suffering and pain. That’s why I had to die. It was the only way for the wound to be made.”

“That’s what you meant by rule number four.”

“And rule number five: Everything happens for a reason. Just like your brother dying. It had to happen and it happened for a reason.”

Jon clenched his fists and looked away. “And what possible reason could that be?”

“Ellis needed a staff to his spear.”

A cold chill ran down Jon’s back. “That’s what
The Big and Terrible
called me. It said I was his staff. He claimed he brought me to Gilford.”

“You came because they were both here. If Ellis had been somewhere else, you would have had to choose. This way, he was waiting for you.”

“And who would I have chosen if he hadn’t been?” Why did Jon even want to know? He didn’t have an explanation, he only knew he needed to hear the answer. He waited. “Tell me.”

Rudy looked away. “Suffering weakens the will and makes the heart easy to infect.”

“Then how…” But Jon knew. Had known. “Ellis kept that from happening, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

How did a man repay someone for protecting their soul?

Rudy put a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Ellis needed you just as much. He needed someone to hold him up when he fell. You did that, Jon. Without you Ellis would have bled to death from the wound. You suffered for him as much as he did for you.”

Yet it didn’t feel like enough. “How is Ellis supposed to kill this thing?”

“He goes to the heart of it.”

Which meant what? Because it couldn’t possibly be what Jon thought it was. It couldn’t—

Rudy looked at Jon.

“That thing will kill him.” Jon waited for Rudy to argue. He hoped the man would argue because if he didn’t it meant that’s exactly what would happen. Jon scrubbed his hand over his mouth. This was madness. “No. I won’t let him. Do you hear me? I won’t.” Even when Jon screamed, the only echo was from the continuous groan from the pecan trees.

“It’s why he’s here, Jon.”

“So he can walk into the arms of a monster?”

“We are all given a purpose to fulfill. Sometimes we have to die to fulfill it.”

It seemed like that day in the barn had led Jon down a path where there was nothing but death. “The day Danny killed himself. He said ‘I have to do this and one day you will understand why.’ Are you telling me that was his purpose?”