Forever never ends

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

James looked hopefully out the window as the heavy moon sagged over the horizon, its gravity towing the night along with it. The orange and red flames of dawn licked at the retreating darkness.

Maybe now he would be safe. Now he could warn people, in the daring daylight when sanity wasn't as suspect. He hadn't seen any more of them in the last couple of hours, and the hand had dissolved to a spoonful of flakes.

He'd heard no slogging or snapping, only the drumming of his beaten heart and the occasional wail of sirens. He went to check on Aunt Mayzie. He knocked on her door, softly at first. No answer.

He opened the door a crack, peered in, and saw her still form on the bed. She would be safer there than coming with him. He let her sleep.

James went outside, smelling the air with its fragrant blossoms and lawn grass and faint trace of decomposition. It was an air he was almost afraid to breathe, a spring freshness that he'd never again be able to trust. He looked around, at the shadows of the trees and shrubs, at the fence covered with honeysuckle vines. Nothing moved along the street, as if even the wind was still in bed. He jogged toward town, his head up.

The first of the vendors were out uncovering their display tables and draping their banners. They worked like automatons, Styrofoam coffee cups steaming at their elbows as they arranged their wooden ducks and woven baskets and birdhouses and handmade quilts. Most of them were craft gypsies, in town for a fast buck and a ticket to the next one. The woman at the Petal Pushers’s booth barely gave him a glance as he passed her.

A couple of long-haired men in shorts, tank tops, and big boots were running wires to the performers’ stage, troubleshooting the sound system. A blonde-haired woman sat behind the mixing board, arching her back as she swept her hair behind her. One of the sound men walked over to her and planted a greasy kiss on her lips. The other roadie climbed onto the stage and started speaking into a microphone.

"Testing, testing, one-two-three," his voice boomed out of the speaker stacks. A few heads turned from the booths.

James kept moving toward the stage, the dew thick under his Nikes. If he could get to the microphone, maybe he could warn them.

"Testing, testing… this is only a test," the roadie said.

Something stumbled from the shrubs at the edge of the Haynes House and reached for the source of the noise. James saw its dripping jaws and the unmistakable hunger in its eyes. Its green eyes.

The roadie at the microphone didn't notice that the band had attracted a new groupie. He kept on with his sound check, trying to draw the attention of the snuggling couple behind the mixing board. "Had this been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed.. "

James shouted at the roadie, but the man couldn't hear over his own amplified voice. The watery monster fell onto the stage and slid on its belly like a mutated and overgrown infant.

"… uh, where to tune… blah, blah, blah. Hey, Mick, is that all right, man?"

But Mick was too busy with the tongue of the blonde to respond.

James waved his arms at the roadie and pointed to the creature.

The roadie ignored James, experienced in dealing with crazed fans and overdose cases. "Yo, Mick? That loud enough?"

The marsh-creature fell against the drum kit, knocking over a cymbal stand. Its pale skin glistened under the early sun. The roadie turned and saw the horror that was only a few feet from his ankles. A scream pealed from somewhere down the block and a table full of handmade pottery clattered onto the street.

Somebody ran behind the stage, too fast to be one of the creatures, and James heard another scream. He wouldn't have to warn them after all. Seeing was believing. Even if you weren't sure what you were looking at.

The roadie kicked at the marsh-creature and his boot stuck in the jelly of its neck. The creature reached with thorny hands and clamped onto the man's shin. His scream ripped through the microphone and across the upset morning.

"Help me, Mick-iiiiieeeee." The roadie whimpered from fear as he fell. Mick started around the mixing board, but then got a better look at the thing that was attached to his buddy. He slowly backed away, his eyes like cameras taking horror stills.

The blonde screamed and ran toward the Haynes House. She was up the steps and headed for the door when the nearby haystack erupted. One of the creatures fell onto her, chaff clinging to its wet skin as it hugged. It pulled her into the hay and gurgled contentedly as it sucked her face.

James jumped onto the stage and grabbed the mic cable and pulled the stand toward him. The marsh-creature crawled over the roadie, leaving a slimy trail across the man's skin. James lifted the mic stand and swung the heavy cast iron base into the creature's back. Raw, milky fluids oozed from the wound, but the creature kept on with its mission. It pressed its wide mouth against the man's face, muffling his final scream.

James looked down from the stage and saw that a half dozen of the things had come out of the alleys and backstreets and woods.

"Run, you stupid bastards!" James yelled into the microphone. The roadie sprawled and relaxed, staring at the sun, a stupid smile of joy crossing his face as the creature slid off of him. The roadie rolled toward James, the beginning of an unhealthy glow in the dead, eager eyes.

James jumped from the stage and ran toward Mayzie’s house. He wondered what he’d hoped to accomplish in the first place. He’d seen Night of the Living Dead. They shot the niggers no matter what. If there was a riot, the best place to be was out of sight and out of mind.

Along Main Street, the vendors fell over one another as they tried to escape. Two elderly women were pressed against the locked door of a drugstore. A bearded man with glasses gathered up leather goods that had spilled from his table, mindless of the horror in his pursuit of commerce. James ran past him, kicked in the glass of the drugstore’s door, and helped the women inside.

“Hide way back in the dark,” he said, then left them heading down the aisles.

A man in a sweater vest and headphones was tangled in electronic equipment and cords. A vinyl banner that read WRNC 1220 AM was draped across the front of his table.

He lifted a hand mic and said, “This is Melvin Patterson live at Blossomfest, and you won’t believe this-I see it and I still don’t believe it-live from WRNC, brought to you by your good friends at Bryson Feed Supply-”

A slick creature in khaki rags rose up from behind the table and clamped a hand on the announcer’s shoulder. The man continued speaking into the mic: “Something’s going on and it seems like a stampede of customers, so round up the family and get down here before all the good stuff’s gone.”

The creature yanked at the man, spun him, and the mic dropped to the ground. James ran to the table to help, but the creature had already swallowed the man’s tongue and groped at his eyes with fibrous fingers.

James slipped into an alley, hoping the creatures hadn’t noticed him. They hadn’t.

They were too busy with the harvest.

Tamara looked into the dark maw of the shu-shaaa. A thick gurgling, what might have been a chuckle, arose from deep within the alien’s bowels. Then she was inside DeWalt's head, attending the latest meeting of the Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts.

Mr. Chairman, I've failed. Again.

Because you went beyond your capabilities, Oh Brother. You tried to make a difference. You tried to give a damn.

I thought… maybe just once You'd do something for somebody besides yourself? Oh Brother of mine, Oh Bleeding Heart, pardon my laughter. After fifty-plus years of doing nothing, you thought you'd tie on a Superman cape and save the world? That's rich, Brother.

But at least I tried. I tried.

And failed, as usual. And do I detect an itch?

“It's okay, Herbert. It's not your fault.”

“Tamara?” DeWalt wasn’t sure if he’d hear her voice or imagined it.

“Yes.”

In here? How-?

“I don't know. I don't know a lot of things. But I know it's better to try. To care. It's what makes us human. It's what separates us from the thing we're trying to kill.”

Look here, lady. I don't know what you're doing breaking into this meeting-this is a private club, and this meeting is members only-but the Lodge Brother is happier when he DOESN’T care.

Mr. Chairman, she has power. She knows about the alien. About you.

Oh Brother, nothing's as alien as your own inner self. That's the truly frightening thing.

“No, Herbert, that's not the worst thing. Numbness is. Emptiness. Coldness. Being dead with no hope or memory of life.”

Hey, you. Get out of here. The Brother's mine.

“Herbert, I'm going to show you… let you feel what shu-shaaa wants for us, for everything. This is its memory of how the universe was before. And how shu-shaaa wants it to be again.”

Uh… too black… don’t let me suffocate.

Bullshit, Brother. It's one of her tricks.

“See, Herbert? That's worse than anything. And that's the same thing your Chairman wants, only on a lesser scale. Nothingness.”

Tamara, how can we “I don't know. But we can't surrender. To this Earth Mouth or our fear.”

But that TNT was our only hope.

“No. Hope is our only hope.”

Brother, don't listen to her. Better safe than sorry. Mr. Chairman? Brother?

“Herbert, what are you-”

Mr. Chairman, I would like to turn in my resignation to the Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts, effective immediately.

“ No, Herbert, not that.”

Yes, Tamara. It's the only way. And 'tis a far, far better thing, blah blah blah.

Brother! Hands back to balls at once.

Sorry. Meeting adjourned.

“Herbert, don't!”

Brother -

Shut the hell up, Mr. Chairman.

The alien shivered in the heat of its pulsing heart-brain. The confusing symbols raced through its pulpy flesh, sparking contractions among its tendrils.

Bleee-deeeng.

Haaart.

Tah-mah-raaa-kish.

Dee-waaalt.

Maz-zah-sun-uv-aaa.

Che-sher-sun-uv-aaa.

Sun-uv-aaa.

Ohp.

Aaar-on-lee-ohp.

Ohp-is-aaar-on-lee-ohp.

Tah-mah-raa.

“Our only hope,” Tamara thought. “Hope is our only hope.”

DeWalt is going to do it, and maybe I shouldn’t try to stop him.

Because su-shaaa kish and the shu-shaaa was afraid and shu-shaaa was beautiful and loved her loved her loved her She put her hands over her ears but still the alien loved her.

Chester wasn't sure what was happening. First DeWalt had frozen over the dynamite, staring at the detonator switch in his hand. Tamara was looking at DeWalt strangely, as if seeing the back of his eyelids. Emerland was gaping over the ledge at the rancid pulsing throat of the alien sonovawhore.

Another tremor shook the stones loose, and after the dead trees stopped swaying, DeWalt stood up. He ripped the shotgun from Chester’s hands.

"Don't do it, DeWalt," Tamara said.

Chester didn't know what she was talking about. DeWalt had fucked up the dynamite in typical California Yankee fashion, or else Emerland had screwed it up by being a goddamned cheapskate who bought lousy equipment for his demo crews. It wasn’t Chester’s fault, no matter what. Hell, maybe it was nobody’s fault but God’s to make such a thing and then drop it right here on land that had been in the Mull property since the Revolutionary War.

He was tired and grouchy and way too sober. "Damned shotgun won't do diddly against that thing," he said to DeWalt.

"Maybe not by itself. But close enough, it might-"

"Trigger the blasting cap," Tamara said. "With enough heat and pressure. But that would be too close-"

"To survive? I thought of that."

“I know,” Tamara said.

Chester thought they were both crazy, as addled as that monstrous creature that had embedded itself in the mountainside. Tamara stepped forward, raising her hand to stop DeWalt, the sickly alien light pulsing off her face. DeWalt leveled the shotgun at them.

"I suggest you folks head for the hills," DeWalt said. "Because like Bobby Zimmerman said, way back in better days, a hard rain’s gonna fall."