Forever never ends

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Bill hung up the cell phone. He had dialed Nettie's number for the fourth time. No answer at the church, either. She wasn't in her apartment when he drove there to meet her at eleven o'clock. She had stood him up.

After today. After all they’d been through and shared. After Bill had bent his principles. After the sin that didn’t feel at all like a sin.

After he’d said that word love, the clumsiest word that ever passed his lips.

He gripped the steering wheel and looked through the truck’s windshield. The Blossomfest booths were silent, draped with vinyl and canvas and waiting for tomorrow’s crowds. The brick faces of downtown were asleep, the streets black and empty. A police car threaded up the street between the stalls, its headlights washing over the plywood signs and stacked boxes and rigged backdrops.

Bill studied the peeling white of the Haynes House, which would soon be filled with laughing children, and polyester-clad tourists, frowzy-headed college students, and the locals in their overalls and starched pink dresses.

Bill looked at the stage where Sammy Ray Hawkins would be playing tomorrow for the adoring crowds. Bill’s ex-wife would sit smugly at the foot of the stage and search the crowd for Bill's face. Her mouth would be thick with cherry lipstick, her hair cut in a style she had seen in some recent magazine. She would be wearing a poppy red blouse with a plunging vee front, the better to show off her unhindered chest. Her hair would dance across her laughing face, blown by the breeze that always seemed to follow her.

And Bill knew he would lust after her, if only for a moment. But maybe if he prepared himself now, if he prayed for strength, the desire would dissolve along with his hatred. And the scars on his heart where the Lord had healed him would not reopen and bleed fresh pain. It was strange to be thinking of her now when he had Nettie filling him, crowding his skin and mind and memory, filling his inner ear with her soft musical voice, but roots ran deep and vows lingered even when broken.

He only hoped Nettie wasn't regretting the afternoon. He didn't think so, but why hadn't she been at her apartment waiting to meet him as planned?

Bill’s stomach knotted. He was sure that, somewhere down in those orange flickering pits, the devil was laughing at him. What a great joke the devil had played. Gotten Bill to turn away from God and answer the human call of his weak heart. Convinced Bill to commit sin with a virtuous woman, an act that condemned her to damnation as well. He could practically hear the Prince of Lies licking his dry lips in anticipation of torturing Nettie for an eternity.

But, damnit-excuse me, Lord-it hadn't felt wrong or dirty. It had felt real and right and joyful, there on the blanket in the meadow under the eye of God. It felt like love, something that had its own kind of glory, something that no Red-tailed Son-of-a-So-and-So Fallen Angel could taint and twist into something foul. And God damn-excuse me, Lord-any demon or human that tries to come between me and my newfound soul mate.

But the shadow of a doubt crossed his mind. Satan was tricky. Satan could make Nettie pretend that she loved him when she really didn't. Satan could induce her to unbutton her blouse and offer her flesh to him as some kind of ritual sacrifice. Satan could use Nettie to siphon his spirit away.

Why couldn't Satan content himself with Bill's ex-wife instead of seeking to convert the pure? But perhaps that was so much sweeter, a seduction of the innocent, as much a lure to the Damned One as cake frosting was to a child.

And now Nettie could be hiding under her white bedspread in her tiny room, crying in shame at being used. Nettie's stomach could be in knots, she might be praying for forgiveness. Nettie might be nothing more than a helpless pawn of that brimstone-breathing bastard who hoped to rule the world. Or at least hoped to spread a little misery along the golden road that led to eternal salvation.

But if the devil had hurt Nettie, there would be hell to pay. Because Bill would crawl under the earth and grab the goat-faced freak by the throat and wring his sorry neck. Because nobody was going to hurt Nettie as long as he had a breath and a prayer.

Excuse me, Lord. I get a little worked up when it comes to Nettie, in case you haven't noticed. But if it's Your will, I'd like You to bring us together. For our good and Your greater glory.

He looked down Main Street. The town looked dead as four o'clock. He hated to break his word, but he couldn't sit on his rear end, not knowing how Nettie was feeling about this afternoon. The police could watch over things here. He couldn’t wait any longer.

Bill decided to try the church in case Nettie had worked late for some reason. It was a busy time, he knew, with Easter coming. But even the dedicated had to sleep sometime. And Nettie would have called him if she'd had to miss their date. Wouldn't she?

Or had she decided that someone who had already been in a failed marriage was damaged goods? Or that Bill was a serpent-tongued hypocrite out to serve his own desires instead of the Lord’s?

He started his truck. Who could hope to understand the ways of God or Woman?

Crosley eased his cruiser through the trailer park, its tires crunching on the gravel drive. Someone had called in to report a prowler, and Crosley had taken the dispatch himself.

Probably just another fly-blown drunk staggering home late, but at least it gave him something to do besides look for people who might not want to be found. For all he knew, Emerland was dipping his wick in that Leon woman right now, and the Mull fellow was sleeping off a drunk in a whorehouse somewhere. He'd rather deal with something simple and solvable, like a wino to shake down and maybe lock up, or a teenager caught puffing on a joint.

No Incredible Melting Man to deal with, no big mysteries. He didn't blame the mayor for not believing the story. Hell, he didn't half believe it himself, and he'd been there.

He rubbed his belly and thought about pulling another Black Label from under the seat. But he was close to the legal limit already. And he had the feeling that the Virgin Queen was just waiting for a good excuse to bounce his fat ass out of the Police Chief chair. Drunken driving on duty wasn't exactly kosher for a man who upheld the public trust.

But just look at my public. Scraggly-assed white trash who would dry up and blow away-just like the Incredible Melting Man-if it weren't for their welfare checks. Only a third of the handout actually went to buy food. The rest went to moonshine and speed and pot and whatever else would give them a few hours of amnesia.

One of his own uncles lived out here, and that made him sick to his stomach. The catch of it was, what really burned his ass, was that the white trash couldn't stop breeding like maggots.

No matter how many rubbers they gave out at the Pickett Health Clinic, no matter how many birth control lectures they gave to those doughy rednecks, they still manufactured an endless stream of yard monkeys. All with the same vacant eyes and slack mouth and growling belly and an inborn craving to get higher than a Chinese kite.

Crosley cruised past the silent, dark trailers, wondering about the tin-boxed lives of the people inside. Probably dreaming about their next handout. Hope none of them come down to fuck up Blossomfest. Maybe they'll hang out here all weekend, swapping out wives and spark plugs.

He didn't see any prowlers. Nothing worth stealing back here anyway. He decided to pop around the corner to the GasNGo and get himself a Snickers bar and a Penthouse. Then he'd park somewhere and finish off the Black Label before the sun came up.

He had almost completed the trailer park loop when he saw movement in the bushes that bordered the lot. A dirt trail led into the woods, and lights from the gas station blinked through the trees. The rednecks probably walked through there to buy their two-dollar wine and disposable diapers. He put the cruiser in "park" and heaved himself out from behind the wheel.

Crosley walked up the trail, his hand on the revolver that swung from his hip. No need for caution. Subtlety was lost on these bastards. He stomped around in the bushes as if trying to flush a covey of quail. "Come on out. I know you're in there."

A rustle of sprung grass and bent twigs answered him. He unsnapped his pistol strap and lifted his revolver.

"D-don't shoot me, Mister Policeman,” came a small, sniffling voice.

One of the yard monkeys. What's he doing out this time of night?

"I won't hurt you, son," Crosley said in his calm cop voice. "Just come on out into the light where I can see you."

A boy, maybe eight or nine years old, stepped from beneath the low branches. Moonlit tears streaked his dirty face. Crosley knelt to the boy, hoping he wouldn't catch lice. "What's your name, son?"

"Mackey Mull, sir. They call me Little Mack.” The boy sucked what sounded like a half pound of snot back up one nostril.

"Little Mack, huh? Well, what in the world are you doing out here in the middle of the night, Little Mack?"

The boy looked down at his feet. "You sure you ain't going to shoot me?"

Crosley realized he was still holding the pistol. He smiled and slid it back into its holster. He almost patted the boy on the head but decided against it.

"I wouldn't hurt you for a thousand dollars." Unless it was tax-free.

"I been hiding,” the boy said. “Since way yesterday."

"Now, little man, what are you hiding from? " Crosley hoped it wasn't a child abuse case. Domestic problems were a hell of a lot of paperwork, and the legal system never changed a goddamned thing. For all he knew, this brat deserved a slap across the lips once in a while. Most of them did.

"The bad men. With the shiny green eyes." The boy sobbed, small shoulders shaking. "I think they got my mommy."

"Your mommy? What bad men?"

"The bad men. Like in the scary movies."

"Look, son. Don't you worry. Mister Policeman will fix everything right up, now."

"My brother Junior says policemen are pigs. Are you a pig?"

Yep. No person alive could resist the temptation to backhand this particular mucous midget.

"No, son, we're just plain folks working hard to make the town safer for everybody. You live here in the trailer park?"

"Yeah. Over there." He waved his hand.

"Okay. Just lead me to your trailer, and I'll make things all better."

"What about the bad men?"

Crosley chuckled. "I'll take care of the bad men," he said, but noticed that he was rubbing his stomach. Something the brat had said about green eyes made him think of the Incredible Melting Man.

The chief followed the yard monkey back down the trail. They were almost into the open gap of worn yards and gravel when he heard limbs snapping. He turned just in time to see his uncle, his military clothes torn and stained. The old bastard usually took pride in his appearance, especially when he was wearing the uniform.

“Uncle Paul,” Crosley said. “What you doing out this time of night?”

Uncle Paul took a staggering step forward and lifted his arms. His one eye was shining like a lime lighthouse. Crosley looked into the eye and saw empty carnival nightmares as the wrinkled and slick face pressed toward his own.

“See, it’s one of them, ” the brat shrieked beside him.

Crosley ordered his hand to lift the revolver, but his muscles went AWOL. Uncle Paul’s rancid stench swarmed his senses and snaked into his nostrils. Then their faces pressed together and Crosley tasted bitter sap. The spores hit his tongue, flooded him, broke and burned him. His mind was already turning, already joining, already halfway there.

"See?” Crosley heard the brat squeal, just before he slid into the blissful fog. "See? I told you there were bad men. Stupid pig."

Then Crosley was overwhelmed by his uncle's moist slobbering, by the rotten rind of a mouth that kissed him hello and good-bye. As the brat’s footsteps receded into darkness, Crosley entered a different kind of darkness, one that never ended, one he never wanted to end.

Nettie crawled across the patio of the parsonage, her belly cold against the flat tiles. Her arms ached, her ankle was swollen, her knees were rubbed raw, and her head throbbed with bright metal pain. But she was alive.

She might be the last person on earth, but she was alive. She heard the noises from the church as those creatures blew their bubbly praises to the rafters, sang their unintelligible hymns and blasphemed all that was good and holy with the very fact of their existence. If it weren’t for those hellish visions described in the Bible, Nettie would have thought herself insane. A visionary shouldn’t suffer doubt, and this was a sure vision of hell.

She had seen the preacher's wife sliding across the vestry. She had seen the snake-eyed preacher complete his conversion. She had seen the overripe parishioners crossing sacred ground on their trembling stumps of legs like lepers to a healing. She had witnessed and believed.

Nettie raised herself to a sitting position, pulled open the storm door, and tried the knob. Locked. Nettie hoped Sarah was home. It was her only chance. She gripped the doorknob with both hands and hauled herself to her knees. Then she rapped on the glass window.

No one answered.

A light was on in one wing of the house. Maybe it was Sarah's bedroom. Nettie didn't think she could crawl another inch. She banged again, louder. Her ankle throbbed like a crumbling tooth.

She was about to knock again when she saw the long shadows of the ones who stood in the distant church door. Those who had turned. Against nature. Against God. Against the light and toward her.

They shuffled down the church stairs under the quiet stars. The preacher led the way as the creatures crossed the graveyard, his thin twigs of arms upraised in rejoicing. Amanda followed, once again a chastened wife, only now she had the power of a demon. The Painters followed, meek and marshy and jubilant. The unidentifiable dripping stalk that had once been a person brought up the rear, one arm missing.

Nettie pounded louder and began yelling. The preacher was close enough so that she could see his lightbulb head, now lit with a neon green filament. He smiled at her as if she were a lamb that had hopped between the fence poles of the slaughterhouse holding pen. The musk of the others drifted across the dewy night, a stench of sun-split melons and swamp rot.

She was about to offer a final prayer for mercy, that she might die before she went to living hell, when a light blinked on in a far window of the parsonage. At the same instant, truck headlights swept up the road and across the parking lot, flashing over the marble teeth of the cemetery.

"Hold on just a second," Chester said.

Tamara and DeWalt gathered around him like oversized scarecrows, their faces pale in the moonlight. Emerland stood by the Mercedes, arms folded. They were back at the Mull farm, about to head up into the dark woods. Chester hoped the other three were as scared as he was, because fear provided the kind of shock absorber that still worked even when corn liquor didn’t.

Chester gave DeWalt the shotgun and nodded toward Emerland. "I don't reckon he'll be going anywhere, but just in case. Be back in a minute. I just thought of something."

"Chester? I think we'd better hurry.” Tamara’s hands were on her bulging pockets, where dynamite sticks poked out of the cloth like fat brown licorice.

"This might be worth waiting for, darling. We're gonna need all the help we can get."

He walked across the barnyard to the collapsing shed. He kicked open the door, hoping the wildlife was put to bed. Stale dust and powdery chicken shit filled his nostrils. A shaft of moonlight pierced the blackness where a few boards had fallen off the side of the shed. Stacks of feed, fertilizer, and other bags were piled by the door, cobwebs catching silver light among the moldering paper.

Concrete statues and birdbaths leaned against one wall like sentries sleeping at their posts. Plastic buckets holding dry dirt and the skeletons of shrubs formed a dead forest behind the feed sacks.

Enough junk here to open a lawn and garden store. I'm glad I never got around to making Johnny Mack get rid of this mess. Like anybody around here-besides Hattie, God rest her soul-ever gave a damn about keeping the place up. And she would have had a fit if she knew her youngest boy had been packing away stolen goods. I ain't all that proud of having a sorry thieving no-account for a son, but right now I guess I can forgive him.

Every time Sylvester drove his Bryson Feed Supply truck up to the farm, back before he’d moved out for good, Johnny Mack had swiped some of whatever happened to be in the truck bed. Johnny Mack didn't give a damn whether the products had any earthly purpose or not. He stole for the same reason a rooster crowed, just to celebrate the fact that the sun had come up again.

The rats had torn at the sacks of sorghum grain and the chickens had worked through the open holes until the meal had gotten so stale even the vermin wouldn't forage in it. But the other bags were mostly intact, covered with thick dust. Chester knelt to a pallet covered by smaller bags, his arthritic joints laughing pain at him and calling him a foolish old sonuvabitch. He'd have time to ache later. Or else he wouldn't give a damn one way or the other.

Chester glanced back through the door at the others. They seemed glad for the delay. Nobody looked overly anxious to go into the woods where the Earth Mouth gaped and the mushbrains crept around like mildewed snails, even though the three people paced impatiently. DeWalt held the shotgun down beside his waist like a city slicker, but Emerland didn't seem interested in making a run for it. He'd been quiet ever since that mushbrain had pressed itself against the fence back at the construction compound.

Chester wiped the grime away from one of the labels. "Screw a blue goose," he muttered. "Shoulda thought of this right off."

He lifted the sack, sending dust rising in the moonbeams like floating worms. He wasn't sure he could carry the twenty-pound sack through two miles of dense woods, but he had a feeling he had no choice. If they were trying to exterminate something that had come from God-only-knows-where, they'd better throw everything at it they could get their hands on.

Chester tossed the sack on his shoulder, then staggered for a moment until he got the load balanced. He wouldn't be able to take a drink with both hands occupied, but the corn liquor hadn't done him much good anyway. He’d gotten more sober as the night wore on, no matter how many sips he’d taken. He'd mostly been drinking out of habit anyway, taking comfort in the familiar way it burned his throat.

"What's that?" DeWalt asked when Chester stepped out of the shed.

"Sevin. Fungicide. What you put on the tomato plants to kill off mold and such."

DeWalt's mouth fell open and Tamara smiled. Chester liked her smile. If he were thirty years younger… hell, she'd be thirty years younger, too.

"I know the shu-shaaa thing looks like some kind of plant-creature," DeWalt said. "But how do we know if its chemistry resembles that of earth vegetation?"

"I think it adopts some of the host's chemistry as part of its mimicking," Tamara said. "Like the old saying, ‘You are what you eat.’ Maybe in the thing’s natural state, it’s invincible. But I think it's vulnerable right now, at least compared to what it's going to be. If it gets smarter by absorbing from the environment, maybe it absorbs some weaknesses, too."

"Just the way it adopted the language of humans after it, uh, converted them?" DeWalt said.

"Yeah. And shu-shaaa also speaks the language of plants and rocks and dirt and water. Remember that strange music you heard?”

“Mushy shit,” Chester said. “Like what old Don Oscar was saying. The thing fucks big time with their brains, that’s for sure.”

“Besides, what do we have to lose?" DeWalt said.

"They's some more stuff in here," Chester said. "If y’all are up to toting it."

DeWalt and Tamara walked up to the shed. Emerland followed with his head down. The developer had removed his tie and didn't seem worried that his fancy shoes would never serve in high society again. But the rules of society had changed, even a rock head like Emerland could see that, and the Earth Mouth didn't give a rat's ass how much money a man had. It would gobble him up and use his shoulderbone as a toothpick.

Emerland looks like a man who's had the truth slapped upside his head. Like a man finding out the kids he'd brought up had been made by somebody else. Or that cancer is eating away his guts and there's not a damn thing to be done but pass blood and pray. Or that God didn't give two shits about the human race, or else He wouldn't let such bad things happen to it. A truth that ought not to be, but is.

Tamara went into the shed, then DeWalt followed. "Hey, here's a five-gallon can of Roundup," Tamara called to Chester.

"That would kick like a damned donkey, all right, but that'll get mighty heavy mighty fast," Chester said, his words gurgling around his chaw. He spat and gummed rapidly, excited despite feeling every single one of his sixty-seven years. Or was it sixty-eight now? Or a hundred — and-sixty-eight?

"I can handle it, Chester," she said. "I know what's at stake more than anybody."

Chester figured this wasn't a good time to haggle about equal rights and that other uppity horseshit he'd heard about. That was big-city worry, as far as he was concerned. In Windshake, women knew their place, for the most part. Didn't stir up trouble. Still, she was probably in better shape than him and DeWalt put together.

If she really could read the alien zombiemaker’s mind-and Chester found himself believing all kinds of things that he used to laugh at when he saw them on the magazine covers in the grocery checkout line-then he might be wise to trust her judgment.

"Have a go at it, then,” he said. “That's some Acrobat M-Z in the brown sack, DeWalt. Experimental stuff that's supposed to kill blue mold on tobacco. Got to have a permit to buy it.” He laughed, choked on tobacco juice, spat, and continued. “But not to steal it, I reckon."

"It's concentrated poison," DeWalt said. "It says on the directions that one tablespoon of this stuff makes a gallon of fungicide. Making this bag about a thousand gallons worth."

"Maybe we can volunteer Emerland to bring it along, seeing as how your hands are full with that dynamite rig and the shotgun. What say, Emerland?"

Emerland stared vacantly ahead, then nodded as if he were a dummy on the knee of a stoned ventriloquist. He shambled into the shed, doing a pretty fair imitation of one of the mushbrains.

"Every little bit helps," said DeWalt. "Or hurts, if you want to look at it that way."

Emerland showed surprising energy in lifting the forty-pound sack onto his shoulder. Chester figured he probably worked out in one of those fitness clubs, with wires and weights hanging from metal bars and sweat seeped into the carpet. Probably hadn’t done an honest day’s work in his entire life, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, in Chester’s opinion. Emerland's jaw clenched and his eyes shone with either grim determination or madness.

They gathered outside the shed, all looking silently toward the faint green glow on the far ridge. An owl hooted in the barn, lonely and brooding in the high wooden rafters. A wind tried to stir the brown leaves from the corners of the fence but gave up, too tired after a long winter's work. A dog barked, followed by another’s, and the sound echoing off the cold mountains reminded Chester of old Boomer.

Tamara broke the peace of the waiting night. "Chester, can I use the telephone real quick?"

Chester looked up at the deep sky, at the gorgeous bright lights jabbed in the roof of forever, like holes put there so the world could breathe. He found himself wondering how many more of these Earth Mouth bastards were up there, riding the black wind on their way to wherever such as those were meant to be. He hated trying to look at the Big Picture, or worrying over the fuck-all Why. That was for preachers and college boys. Some things were just too big for a broken-down dirt farmer to understand.

"Power's out. Phone might be out, too. Tree musta fell on the lines," Chester said.

"I have to try," Tamara said. “My husband’s probably worried sick by now.”

"Better let me come with you. Might break your neck in that mess.”

He laid the sack of Sevin across the Roundup can and led Tamara across the yard, wondering if all the chickens had turned by now, whether they were sitting with their stupid heads under their wings, their green eyes shut against the world. Probably dreaming of laying tiny rotten plums in their nests, come morning.

Chester wondered what might hatch out of those tainted eggs.

Or if he'd still be here when the sun pissed its yellow light down on the world again.

Little Mack crawled deeper under the trailer, his face pressed in the dry dirt. He was scared.

He could hear voices, only they weren't making words. Just wet sounds. And he sort of recognized his mom's voice. He wondered if she was one of them now.

Because he'd seen them fall out of the trailer, slide out of the door while he'd still been hiding in the bushes, just as the sun went down and he'd first started really getting lonely.

Jimmy, the mean one he'd seen lying naked on top of his mom that time, had walked like a drunk man across the yard and went into the Wellborns' trailer, and Mack had heard screaming and yelling inside, then the Wellborns were walking like drunks, too, Sue and Grady and their little girl Anita, as they scattered and stumbled into the woods.

Anita had lifted her dress one time and showed him her panties when he'd given her a nickel, and she said for a dime that she'd take her panties off. But Little Mack never had a whole dime, that was a lot of money. Now he didn't think he wanted to see under her dress even for free. Because her skin was slimy looking and her eyes glowed like Jimmy's. And Jimmy was so slimy looking when he came out of the Wellborns' trailer that he looked like he was dripping.

Mack held his breath as a familiar pair of boots appeared on the trailer step. Mack knew those boots inside and out. They had thick brown heels and smelled like old baseball gloves, and Mack had once hidden yucky oatmeal in them. Those were Daddy's boots.

Daddy was home and would make everything all right, just like that stupid pig cop had promised, only the stupid pig had let Old One-Eye kiss him on the lips, so he must be what Junior called a “queer.”

Daddy would beat up that ugly Jimmy and then they would all be happy and maybe Mom would slice up some wieners to put in the macaroni and cheese the way she sometimes did on special occasions. And maybe even Junior would come home, but this was Friday night, and Junior never came home on Friday nights.

At least Daddy was here, and maybe he'd even killed something and would be in a good mood. Sometimes he'd tack an old squirrel skin or raccoon fur to a board and give it to Mack, and Mack would rub it and sniff it and dream about playing out in the woods. Except now the woods scared him because it was full of the slimy people.

He crawled on his hands and knees to the front of the trailer and was about to call out when he saw that Daddy was drunk, too, only Daddy didn't drink, even though Papaw Mull did and Junior did and Mom did and One-Eye did and Jimmy did and everybody. But not Daddy. So why couldn't Daddy walk straight?

Then Mack saw that Daddy's jeans were damp, as if he'd peed in his pants. Except the wetness was slimy, like motor oil or syrup. Which meant…

Which meant that Mack better not make a sound.

Which meant if he was going to cry, he'd better let the tears slide soft down into the dust. He couldn’t break into a bawling fit. Junior said Mack was just an old bawl-baby, anyway. And maybe he was, but he was scared, scared enough to wet his pants, and it was dark and Daddy was slimy.

His mom came out of the trailer.

She stood in the yard and tried to call. "Muh… aaaaaaaahck."

She was naked in the moonlight and covered with milky snot. He bit his tongue and didn’t answer.

The alien pulsed, its glutinous sap coursing through its root system. Its spores were still spreading, but with the lack of solar radiation, its cellular activity had slowed. It took advantage of the rest to analyze the other symbols it had collected.

May-zee. Mush. Muh-aaack. Kish.

Jeesh-ush. Ahhm-feeel.

Chesh-urrr.

And those it had gathered before: shu-shaaa, maz-zuh, nig-urrr, peg-heee, eyezzz, chreez.

And the one its heart-brain kept returning to, the one which glowed deep in the furnace of its metabolism: tah-mah-raaa.

The symbol must have meaning. The alien had dissected many different kinds of patterns in its trip across the cosmos. Solving this one was only a matter of time. And it had forever.