Nova 4

TOM REAMY Beyond the Cleft

I'm not quite sure why I find it fascinating that the author of this story has been a movie usher, projectionist, art director, assistant director, bank teller, finance company collector, technical illustrator and dispatcher for a concrete plant. Is it a search for any common denominator that would identify the nascent writer? Another author in this volume was also a dispatcher. Should novice authors get dispatching fobs? I'll carry this idiot reasoning no further. Read this story; it is a fine, grim one.

A Cataclysm in seventeen scenes, two interludes, and a prologue

It was born; though "born" is perhaps not the right word.

At 2:17 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, Danny Sizemore killed and ate the Reverend Mr. Jarvis in the basement of the Church of the Nazarene in the township of Morgan's Cleft, North Carolina. Danny was fifteen years old and incapable of speech. He washed the blood from his face and hands the best he could in the rain barrel behind the parsonage. There was little he could do about the mess on his shirt and it worried him. If there was one thing the Reverend Mr. Jarvis had drilled into Danny's mist-enshrouded brain, it was cleanliness and neatness.

Still wiping at his sodden shirt, Danny started home, now and then pausing to chunk a rock in the creek. He scooted his bare feet along the road because he liked the velvety feel of the dust. He had just stopped, balancing clumsily on one leg to pluck a grass burr from his big toe, when his stomach began to churn. He leaned against the split rail fence and threw up. He stood for a moment in confusion, pink saliva running down his chin, feeling the hollowness in him and the tingling in his puffy face.

Then he thought of the quarter and took it from his pocket to look at it. The Reverend Mr. Jarvis gave him one every week for cleaning up around the church. A quarter a week wasn't much money, even in Morgan's Cleft but, at that, Danny was overpaid. The Reverend Mr. Jarvis used the hypothetical job as an excuse for charity even though he was reasonably sure the boy's mother wound up with the money.

His mind blank of everything but the shiny coin, Danny continued home. When he passed the Morgan's Cleft school he ignored, or perhaps was unaware of, the screams and running children.

At 2:17 p.m. that Thursday afternoon, the entire first, second and third grades, under the tutelage of Miss Amelia Proxmire, a sour-faced warper of young minds, arose from their desks and devoured her.

Mrs. Edith Beatty (fourth, fifth and sixth grades) heard Miss Proxmire's gurgling screams from her adjoining classroom. She lifted her copious bulk and waddled rapidly to investigate, but her way was blocked by Mandy Pritchard, age ten. Mrs. Beatty reached out her arm to gently remove the child from her path, but Mandy grabbed the arm and bit a bleeding chunk from it.

Mrs. Beatty, momentarily immobilized by shock, was dimly aware that some of the children in her classroom were attacking the others. She watched in fascination as Mandy bared her pink teeth for another bite. But she had had enough of this nonsense. She pulled her bleeding arm away and kicked Mandy in the shin with her heavy walking oxford. Mandy's legs flew from under her, sending her sprawling. Mrs. Beatty kicked her again, in the head, opening a gash in her scalp and catapulting her underneath the front row of desks.

She waded into the mass of screaming children, pulling them apart, but she could see that little was being accomplished. As soon as she released one, the child would attack again. She calmly removed her shoe and, holding it by the toe, went to each child who seemed to be the aggressor and bashed it in the head.

There were only five of them, counting Mandy. Six of the remaining seven were hysterical and Bobby MacDonald seemed to be dead. His throat was torn open. The six still on their feet were bleeding from numerous bites and scratches. Mrs. Beatty tried to calm them but the bedlam in the hall made it impossible.

Miss Proxmire's class had erupted from her room looking for plumper prey. They found Mrs. Agnes Bledsoe (junior high) and Miss Clarissa Ogiivy (high school), accompanied by their students, on their way to Miss Proxmire's room. They attacked like wolves and gained a momentary advantage because of the stunned inaction of the older children.

Their attack was tenacious but not suicidal. Some of the children fought back and some of them fled. Mrs. Beatty's class had had enough and evacuated the building quickly. The entire melee rapidly moved outside with children scattering in every direction and dozens of townspeople converging on the school. The battle was brief. The three surviving teachers and the remaining children found themselves standing in the playground, numb with shock, and no one left to fight. Miss Ogilvy leaned against the johnny-stride and then slipped slowly down the pole in a faint.

There were three casualties at the school: Miss Proxmire, Bobby MacDonald and Eloise Harper whose ill-advised flight led her down Sandy Lane. She was overtaken by six of them.

Mrs. Beatty returned to her room to find it empty. Mandy and the four others had gone, taking Bobby MacDonald's body with them. Mrs. Beatty felt very tired and weary. Her arm hurt fiercely but she was too exhausted to do anything but clutch at it. She sat at her desk and leaned back in the chair.

At 2:17 that afternoon, Betty Whitman was nursing her thirteen-month-old son. She sat rocking gently, dreamily reading of Jean Harlow in a movie magazine. She jerked and gasped when the baby bit her. He had teethed early and it was happening too often. She promised herself this was the last breast-feeding and went back to her magazine.

The second time he bit her she cried out. She pulled his mouth away and watched the blood gush down her side. She put the baby on the floor and stood up. She took three steps with her hand clutched to her breast and fainted. The baby looked at her a moment and began toddling toward her.

Mavis Sizemore was a slatternly woman of indeterminate age who managed a tenuous existence by washing and ironing for other people. Her small house, connected to the town by a narrow foot bridge across Indian Creek, was as weary and woebegone as she. The back yard contained a small vegetable garden, an outhouse, a pen of disreputable-looking chickens, two scrawny pigs and several clothes lines partially filled with drying clothes. Two black cast-iron washpots sat on kindling fires, each nearly filled with boiling water. Into one Mavis poured a can of lye and a syrup pail of cracklings left over from lard-making. She stirred the mixture with a wooden paddle and then wiped at her pewter-colored, sparrow's nest hair with the back of her hand.

She moved wearily to a galvanized washtub and drew soapy clothes from it, scrubbed them on a rub board and then transferred them to the other boiling pot. She punched at them with a cut-off broom handle, long ago bleached white and fuzzy, to make sure they were submerged. She left the clothes to boil and returned to the first pot, testing the contents with a chicken feather. The feather emerged blackened and curled. She added more cracklings and again stirred the thickening mixture. Her face was red and sweaty from the heat and her hands were mottled from too much lye soap and stained with bluing.

Mavis had faulty genes and in her hazy lifetime had produced eight stillbirths and Danny. She had never been married. Danny shuffled across the footbridge and came around the side of the house still lovingly engrossed with his quarter.

Her suet-colored lips began moving, making sounds at Danny. He heard them vaguely, but they meant nothing. He had long ago stopped trying to make sense of the sounds or of the woman. This was only where he went when he was sleepy or hungry. She knocked the quarter from his hand and slapped his face.

Her flesh was like putty and tasted of soap.

Not far from Asheville, North Carolina, an unpaved road leaves the state highway and wanders upward into the Blue Ridge. The road follows the path of least resistance; around hillsides of rhododendron; over ridges of white pine, yellow pine and spruce; through valleys of hemlock, laurel and dogwood. For the most part it follows Indian Creek, a wild mountain stream, which eventually flows into the French Broad. It crosses the stream numerous times on trestle bridges of ancient timber, and then will stray away when the path of least resistance leads elsewhere.

The road passes through a few scattered villages and skirts an occasional farm or logging camp. There is less and less traffic as it penetrates deeper into the mountains. Those who live there have little reason to leave, and outsiders have even less reason to enter. The road rejoins Indian Creek near the logging town of Utley and becomes even more tentative as it passes through the village.

From there it rises sharply for some twenty miles to pass, with the creek, through a gap in the mountain called Morgan's Cleft. The pass and the village beyond were named for Cleatus Morgan, leader of the original settlers in the high valley. Once through the gap, the road and the stream straighten and follow the approximate center of the wide valley to the township.

Past the Church of the Nazarene, the road dwindles to little more than a pair of wheel ruts separated by grass and wild flowers. It divides many times along the fifteen-mile length of the valley; each division ending at a lonely farm.

The Colonials who settled here had intended to go on to Tennessee but found themselves at a dead end. After a brief consultation with the other families, Cleatus Morgan decided this rich and fertile valley, though practically insulated from the outside world, was a definite windfall. So they settled in and prospered by their own standards. Indian Creek, which ran pure and bright and teemed with fish, provided power for a gristmill; the valley and surrounding heights were thick with Virginia deer, wild turkeys, dove and quail. Little was needed from the outside.

Orvie Morgan, direct descendant of Cleatus Morgan and heir to the choicest farm in the valley, drove toward town with his five-year-old son at his side. The shiny black Model A Ford, one of only five automobiles in the valley—not counting the Mercantile's Model T truck—clattered and bounced in the wheel ruts. The tufted tops of the wild grasses in the center flicked against the axles with small unheard sounds. The time was 2:17 p.m. on Thursday afternoon.

Little Cleatus Morgan, this generation's proud bearer of the ancestral name, took his father's arm in his small hands.^ Orvie turned his head and smiled fondly at his son. The smile became a grimace of consternation when Little Cleatus's tiny sharp teeth sank in. Orvie's arm was hard muscled but the bite still brought blood.

Orvie pushed the child away with a sharp, puzzled exclamation. Little Cleatus returned with single-minded ferocity and clamped his teeth on his father's shoulder. Orvie twisted in the seat to disengage the child. His foot pressed harder on the accelerator. The narrow tire on the front wheel struck a stone in the rut and cut sharply into the high grass. The car careened through a low growth of dogwood, flushing a flock of doves which filled the air with gray blurs and whistling wings.

Orvie pinioned his son to the seat with his bleeding arm and fought the steering wheel with one hand. But it was too late. The left front wheel spun on air. The car tipped over with maddening slowness, and slid down the embankment on its roof. The glass shattered in the windshield. The car tipped again, rolled onto its wheels, then toppled once more to land upside down in Indian Creek.

Orvie's head twisted loosely with the movement of the water, his hair flowing like dark sea grass. Red flumes stretched farther and farther, leaving his head, shoulder and arm and exiting through the empty windshield frame.

Little Cleatus fought like a trapped rat, tearing at his father's arm, clawing with his fingernails. Bubbles oozed from his nostrils and from between his clenched teeth. But he could not break Orvie's protective grip. Orvie drowned and, with love, took his would-be murderer with him.

Meridee Callahan put her hands to the small of her back and stretched. The nagging ache under her fingers eased slightly but resumed when she relaxed. She sighed and looked at her swollen abdomen. Only one more month, she thought and smiled. "I can take it if you can/' she said out loud and patted her stomach.

She smoothed the chenille bedspread where she had taken a nap and looked at the clock. It was almost two and she had a lot of work still undone. Robbie had wanted old Ludie Morgan to help her out now that her time was drawing close. But, as much as Meridee hated to admit it, she simply didn't get along with her Grand-aunt Ludie. The old woman meant well, she supposed, but she was bossy, meddling, gossipy, righteous and had enough superstitions to do the whole valley.

Meridee lifted the cuptowel and checked the bread she had put on the back of the Sunshine stove to rise. She nodded with satisfaction. She opened the door of the firebox and stirred the coals, added shavings and kindling, let it catch, and added wood. She moved the bread pans to the kitchen cabinet away from the heat. She took a mixing bowl and a pan of string beans she had picked that morning and went to sit in the shade on the front porch.

She was snapping beans when Danny Sizemore passed on his way to the church. She watched him idly and then went back inside. She dipped water from the stove reservoir into a stewer and added the beans. The stove was hot enough so she put the bread pans in the oven, then wiped the perspiration dewing her upper lip with the cuptowel. She rolled up the door of the high closet and took a chicken leg to nibble while waiting on the bread.

Seeing Danny reminded her she should go to Mavis's and check on her washing and ironing. She knew it was only an excuse to take a walk and get out of the hot kitchen, because Mavis would bring them around when she finished. That was one thing Robbie had insisted upon. She argued she was still capable of doing her own laundry, but rather gratefully gave in when he put his foot down.

Screams of terror drifted in the kitchen window from the direction of the school.

Robbie Callahan was the constable of Morgan's Cleft. There wasn't much for a constable to do in the valley: an occasional lost child or lost cow, a little too much corn liquor on Saturday night, an infrequent territorial dispute between farmers, a boyish prank gotten out of hand. The people were hard-working, self-reliant and Cod-fearing. They didn't really need a constable. Besides, everyone knew everyone else and it was virtually impossible to get away with anything. But they needed and wanted a figure of authority: someone to organize when organization was necessary, someone to collect taxes, someone to preside at town meetings, someone to help when help was wanted.

Robbie was only twenty-six, but he had broad shoulders, long legs, sandy hair, an easy grin and could lick practically anybody who gave him trouble. He was well-liked and trusted and had married Meridee Morgan three years earlier. His connection with the Morgans hadn't hurt him at election time.

But, as there wasn't much for a constable to do, and because the job only paid ten dollars a month, Robbie worked at Watson's Mercantile. He kept the accounts, went to Utley twice a week in the truck for the mail and ice and anything else needed from the outside. For all practical purposes, Robbie had been in charge of the store since old Calvin Watson began failing six years before.

The Mercantile smelled of coffee beans, licorice, cheese, dill and leather—especially leather. He opened another crate of harness, entering it in his inventory as he hung it up: bridles, lines, traces, pads, back and hip straps, breeching, breast straps, martingales, hames, spread straps.

Frances Pritchard, who clerked for Robbie, was showing yard goods to her mother at the front of the store. Mrs. Pritch-ard always found it necessary to unroll every other bolt before she made up her mind. She fingered ivory silk crepe with one hand and mais chiffon mull with the other, but Frances knew her mother was only daydreaming.

"I can't make up my mind," Mrs. Pritchard said with a whine. "Which do you like best, Frances, dear?"

Frances smiled tolerantly. "The crepe is very nice, mother, and it's two ninety-eight a yard. The mull is fifty-five and," she pushed two other bolts forward, "the chambray is nine cents a yard and the calico is ten." She cocked an eyebrow at her mother. Mrs. Pritchard sighed in resignation.

They heard a commotion from the direction of the school.

Edith Beatty sat at her desk looking at the huge smear of blood where Bobby MacDonald's body had been. Other smears led to the window where the body had been removed. Her brain felt like cotton. She couldn't think or reason. Her arm was numb. She held it tightly to stop the bleeding. She felt light-headed and her ears rang.

Several people came into the room. She recognized Mrs. Bledsoe and Robbie Callahan but the others were back in the deep shadows. Strange there should be so many shadows in the middle of the afternoon. Robbie leaned over her, talking to her, but she couldn't understand what he was saying. The shadows had overtaken Mrs. Bledsoe, covering her like greasy black fog. Robbie was doing something to her arm but she couldn't tell what because of the shadows.

Meridee watched Morgan's Cleft through the kitchen window as she cut away the burned crust of the bread. The inside would be fine for making bread pudding, she decided. She wrapped it in a cuptowel and put it m the high closet of the stove. Not tonight; she would make the pudding tomorrow. It was nearly sundown but the street was filled with milling, confused, sometimes hysterical people. Robbie would be home soon, hungry as a bear.

She made biscuits and put them in the oven and warmed up the leftover chicken. Even with the beans it didn't seem like much so she fried bacon and eggs.

She had gone to the schoolhouse with everyone else. It had all seemed unreal, like she was reading a storybook. No one could explain what happened. Everyone stood around while the stunned children told what had taken place, trying to make sense of it all. Mrs, Beatty had passed out and was carried to Doctor Morgan's office. The bite on her arm seemed already infected. The parents of the missing children had gone into the woods after them, and weren't all back yet.

A team and wagon had ripped and rattled into town. The horses had been wild with panic, rearing and screaming, their eyes round and shining, bloody froth on the bits. The wagon was empty except for sacks of oats in the bed and blood on the seat.

Robbie had sent her home when Caroline Walker ran the two miles into town carrying the body of her five-year-old Pretty. Caroline's arms were covered with bites and she screamed she had killed Pretty. They couldn't get her to say anything else. She just repeated it over and over and fought them when they tried to take Pretty from her. Then she fainted and they took her to Doc.

Meridee ate the bacon and eggs because she was so hungry and fried more for Robbie.

Pauly Williams felt sick to his stomach. He had a bite on his chest and another on his arm. Both throbbed and itched. Doc Morgan had swabbed them with something that stung and bandaged them. Pauly was embarrassed and ashamed. Delton Reeves was only ten years old and Pauly was twelve, but he hadn't been able to fend off Delton's ferocious attack, hadn't been able to keep Delton from biting him twice. He had never been so grateful for anything in his life as he had been when Mrs. Beatty clobbered Delton on the head with her shoe.

He scratched at the bandage on his chest, but his mother pulled his hand away. The skin around the bandage was red and the inflammation seemed to be spreading. She felt his forehead. It was hot. He had taken a fever. She pulled the covers around Pauly's neck and told him to go to sleep. She turned the lamp low, making sure the wick didn't smoke.

She went onto the front porch and looked through the moonlight toward the road that skirted the corn field. She wished Joe Bob would get home. The chickens hadn't been fed, the eggs hadn't been gathered and the milk still sat in the smokehouse unseparated. She had half a mind to take the lantern and do all three, but Joe Bob had told her to stay in the house with the door locked while he and the other men looked for the children.

It was hard to believe that Wayne was out there in the dark. He was only seven and had never been very strong. Pauly was the strong one. Wayne was the smart one. Thunder-heads were building on the west ridge. She hoped it wouldn't rain; Wayne was sure to catch cold if it did.

She had been watching the movements of the cornstalks for several minutes before she realized what she was seeing. The tops would sway slightly as something brushed against them lower down. It was only a small area of movement. It had started at the road and crept across the field toward the creek.

She became consciously aware of it when it shifted directions and started toward the house. If we didn't have enough problems already, she thought. Now the fence is down somewhere and the deer have gotten in. They loved the young corn and could mess up a field in nothing flat. But she didn't know what she could do about it. Joe Bob had forbidden her to leave the house.

The movement drew closer and paused as it reached the fence. She leaned against the porch railing and strained her eyes to see what was there, but it was too dark. She thought she saw something crawl through the fence but she wasn't sure. Yes, she had seen something. There was another one. It wasn't deer. Deer couldn't crawl through the fence like that. Besides, it was too small.

She could see nothing but dark shapes close to the ground. There must be a dozen of them, she thought. They could be bear cubs, but she didn't think there would be so many together.

She backed toward the door, beginning to be afraid. They moved toward her with such determination and purpose. She reached behind her, feeling for the handle of the screen door. One of the shapes grew suddenly taller and moved alone toward the porch. The others waited motionlessly. She pulled open the screen and went inside.

The single moving shape stepped into the rectangle of light cast through the open door.

"Wayne!" she cried and ran across the porch toward him. The screen door slammed behind her like a rifle shot. She stood at the top of the porch steps. She gave a little moan. He looked up at her, his clothes torn and dirty, his hair mussed, scratches on little face and hands. She hurried down and knelt before him, throwing her arms around him, pulling him against her breast.

She saw dried blood on his neck. She pushed him from her and held him at arm's length. Dried blood flaked from his face and stained the front of his shirt. She became aware of the other children; that they had stood up; that they were surrounding her. She rose suddenly with a frightened whimper and backed toward the porch, pulling Wayne with her.

She knew these children. She knew all of them.

Her heel caught on the edge of the step and she fell. A fierce pain shot through her elbow, numbing her whole arm. She screamed. The silent children rushed to her, covering her.

She screamed again and again. She seemed to stand outside herself watching something she couldn't believe. There was a noise like the screen door slamming. She couldn't be sure she heard it because the screams were so loud.

Delton Reeves jerked and the side of his head flew off with a little red explosion. He fell over and twisted like a rag doll. Barbara Ann Morgan clutched her hands to the front of her bloody dress, but the blood wasn't dried. It was wet and shiny.

The children ran away, scattering through the darkness like silent phantoms. A small puff of dust erupted at Wayne's feet as he ran. She pulled herself around on the steps and looked up at the porch. Pauly stood there with Joe Bob's deer rifle.

He had a satisfied look on his face.

Danny Sizemore walked slowly across the footbridge, looking around carefully. He had stayed inside all evening crouched at the window, watching the people running around the street. He had never seen so many in town at one time and it frightened him. So many horses and wagons and automobiles, leaving and coming back and leaving again, rattling the boards on the big bridge by the mill. People crying and yelling. Dogs barking and whining because they didn't understand what the commotion was about. And that big fire they built in the school yard. But no one had crossed the footbridge. No one had come near all evening as he huddled and watched.

Now the street was empty and only a few of the houses still showed lights. And he was hungry. There had been no supper though he had sat at the table and waited. The woman had never brought it.

But another compulsion overrode the hunger, forced it deep into the mists of Danny's mind. He walked: through town and down the road deeper into the valley. He didn't know where he was going but he never hesitated at a juncture of the road. When the road didn't go where he had to go, he crashed through the brush, scratching his arms on the dogwood branches, flushing startled quail, never veering from his unknown destination.

Danny's lungs burned and his puffy body trembled with fatigue. He had walked for hours but his legs kept moving. Then he was slipping and scrambling down the embankment into the creek bed. He went another hundred yards keeping his footing with difficulty on the round smooth stones.

He saw them up ahead, working silently in the moonlight. They seemed to be excavating the high creek bank. Even the smallest among them carried rocks and armloads of dirt.

Probably for the first time in his dim existence, Danny felt. The feeling swelled in him, choking him, stretching his doughy flesh. He began running toward them, making a happy gurgling sound deep in his throat.

The children stopped their activity and turned to watch him silently. One of them reached down and plucked a smooth river rock from the stream. He threw it at Danny. The rock rattled on other rocks at his feet but Danny didn't notice. Others began throwing stones. Danny became gradually aware of the sharp pains growing on his body and stopped in bewilderment. The stones continued to pelt him. His arms came slowly up to protect his face.

He stood for a moment watching the children, the feeling inside him changing to a hurt far worse than any made by a stone. Then he turned and walked away. The children returned to their work. Danny looked back at them once, great tears rolling down his cheeks, but the children ignored him.

He tripped while climbing the embankment and didn't bother to get up. He lay with his face buried in the grass, choking on his sobs. It was the first time he had ever cried.

Meridee Callahan lay in the darkness beside her husband, feeling the warmth of his body. She couldn't sleep and thought from the sound of Robbie's breathing he couldn't either. She put her hand lightly on his bare chest. He turned facing her and put his arms around her, pulling her to him. She snuggled against him and felt his breath in her hair.

"You all right, Hon?" he asked softly.

"Mmm-huh„ I just can't go to sleep."

"Me too." His hand slid down her arm and rested gently on her stomach. She felt his face move against hers as he smiled. "I think I felt him move."

She chuckled against his neck. "It's probably gas."

"Don't say that." Robbie sat up and put his cheek against her swollen abdomen. "Hey, you in there, my son," he whispered. "If you don't hurry up and come outa there, your old man is gonna hafta pay a visit to Mavis Sizemore."

Meridee grunted and hit him on the shoulder with her small fist. He laughed and buried his face between her breasts. Her arms went around his neck squeezing him tightly to her. They lay like that for a while, her face against his hair which smelled of pine. He slid his hand under her gown and cupped her breast, rubbing his thumb across the nipple. She ran her fingernails lightly down his spine and the muscles on his back trembled. She stopped when she felt a warm hardness against her hip.

"Robbie?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you think . . . what happened to ... to the children . . . do you think anything has happened to our baby?"

He raised himself and looked into her face. "You shouldn't upset yourself with thoughts like that, Meri. Our baby will be the finest baby in the valley."

"But, how do you know? . . ."

He put his fingers on her lips. "Now stop it," he said gently. "You're gonna worry yourself into a nervous fit about nothing. You hear me?"

She nodded. He slid his fingers to her cheek and touched his lips lightly to hers. "Now, go to sleep," he said and cuddled her in his arms.

But she didn't—not for a long time.

The Church of the Nazarene was packed. The pews were full and people stood three-deep around the sides. Even then, they weren't all inside. Others stood in the churchyard by the open windows where they could hear and still keep watch with the rifles and shotguns they held.

There was none of the running and playing that usually accompanied a town meeting. No children under the age of eleven were present, and most of those were in the parsonage which had been converted into a makeshift hospital. All who had been bitten were running high temperatures with frequent bouts of vomiting.

Robbie stood beside the lectern with papers in his hands. The silent, pinched faces stared back at him colored with hope, despair, fear and confusion. Robbie shuffled the paper and cleared his throat. He looked tired and kept running his fingers through his tousled hair.

"Yesterday evening and this morning," he began slowly, "we contacted everybody in the valley, to tell them about this meeting and to get a head count so we would know how many people have... died and how many are missing. I have it here. Do you want me to read it or pin it up on the board?"

He lifted his eyes and surveyed the people pressed into the church, but there was no response. Doc Morgan, sitting in the front pew, looked around and said quietly, "Why don't you read it, Robbie."

Robbie nodded, "Okay. These are the known dead. Or-vie and Little Cleatus. They drowned when Orvie's car ran off the road into the creek." A woman began weeping softly somewhere in the rear of the room. Robbie looked up briefly and then continued. "Uh . . . Edith Beatty, Caroline Walker and Joe Bob's wife died this morning from infected wounds. Everyone bitten is sick but only those three have died. Doc can answer your questions about that. The Reverend Jarvis, Mavis Sizemore, Miss Proxmire, Betty Whitman, Bobby MacDonald were . . . killed by the children yesterday. We found the Whitman baby in the woods this morning. He had gone nearly a mile up the valley but was dead when we found him. We also found Danny Sizemore hanging from a rafter at Mavis's place. He seems to have killed himself."

Robbie wiped the moisture from his upper lip with the side of his hand. "Pete and Prissy Morgan had been . . . were dead when we went by there this morning. They had six little kids—three of them not in school yet. Barbara Ann and Delton Reeves were killed when they attacked Joe Bob's wife last night. The bodies weren't there this morning but Pauly is sure they were dead. Pretty Walker was killed when she tried to kill Caroline. The Ellis baby died after falling from her crib. She apparently tried to climb out. That's eighteen we know for sure are dead." His voice was low and without emotion.

Robbie shuffled the papers without looking up. "As for the missing ... the best we can figure thirty-seven children were . . . affected. Two of those are eleven and the rest are ten or younger. Except for the five known dead, they've all disappeared. Seven of them are under two years old; one even younger than the Ellis baby. We don't know how they managed.

"Agnes Bledsoe and her husband went by his brother's farm last night and didn't find anyone there. Calvin Watson was gone this morning. Somebody had broken in. There was no one at my ... my sister's place this morning. And no one at Oss Morgan's. Oss's team came into town yesterday. There was blood on the wagon. Eloise Harper hasn't been seen since she left the schoolhouse. Able Pritchard, Will and Pansy Reeves, Gil MacDonald, Sonny Morgan and Carroll Gilmore didn't come back last night after going to look for their kids. Counting the children, over fifty people are missing."

"What about the Sullivans?" someone asked.

Doc snorted and Robbie shook his head. "I don't know. We went up to the Hollow this morning but they wouldn't let us."

"Took a shot at us!" Doc said with indignation.

"Must be a lotta kids up there," the same man said.

"Usta be." Doc grimaced. "Them Sullivans been inbreedin' up there in the Hollow like a bunch of pigs ever since old Hiram Sullivan had a fallin' out with Cleatus Morgan nearly two hundred years ago. I don't know how many of 'em survived the diphtheria that went through there in twenty-seven. I tried to vaccinate 'em but they took a shot at me then too."

"We can't worry about the Sullivans," Leo Whitman said bitterly. "I lost my wife and baby. Nearly everybody here lost somebody. We gotta figure out what to do about it. Robbie's been pussyfootin' around, not sayin' what needs to be said. Our kids have turned into wild animals, murderin' and eatin' human flesh. We need to go in and exterminate all of 'em. Like we would a pack of wolves!"

A murmur swelled from the crowd. "I don't believe what I'm hearing!" Mrs. Pritchard's voice carried over the other sounds. "You're talking about murdering our little children! My Mandy!"

"They killed your husband," Leo pointed out.

"We don't know that Able is dead!" she cried. Frances took her mother's arm and tried to calm her. Doc stood and held up his hands. When they quieted he said, "Maybe Leo's right and maybe not. That's why we're havin' this meetin'— to decide what to do. We need to find out what's going on. Maybe it will pass. Maybe it will pass and they'll come home."

"Could you shoot one of your grandkids, Doc?"

Doc looked at the floor for a moment and then shook his head. "I don't know. Joe Bob's wife wouldn't have been able to."

"We need to keep anything like that from happening again," Robbie said. "Some of you live pretty far out. You have to take care of your fields and your stock. They've already wiped out three families."

'I'll keep my shotgun with me."

"The ones who didn't come back last night had guns."

"What are we supposed to do? Lock ourselves in our houses?"

"I don't know." Robbie leaned against the lectern and wished he could sit down. He had been on horseback since dawn. "Everybody has to be aware of the situation so we can come up with something."

"I think the first thing we have to do," Doc said quietly, "is capture one of them. Ask them why they're doing this. Ask them what has happened to them."

"Capture?"

"You're talkin' about 'em as if they were animals!"

"No," Doc shook his head. "They're not animals. Animals don't think and plan. Animals can't open doors and windows and pretend to be your children so they can get close enough to kill you. If we can't stop thinking of them as our children, we may not have a chance."

Ludie Morgan put more wood in the stove and checked the gauge on the pressure cooker. She scalded Mason jars and sliced cucumbers to soak in lime water, humming to herself all the time.

Meridee sat at the kitchen table watching her. "You don't need to do all this Aunt Ludie," she said with considerable awe.

"Gotta get your cannin' done. Don't want to let the garden go to waste. When these green beans and pickles are done, I'll pick a bunch of those nice green tomatoes and make chow-chow."

"I wasn't really planning to can this year. I've got enough left over from last year to feed the whole town."

"Then why plant a garden?"

"Force of habit, I guess." She looked out the window but couldn't see the church from where she sat. "How long do you think the meeting will last?"

"Lord knows. Folks get to jawin', never know when to quit. I coulda told 'em bad trouble was a comin'."

Meridee knew she shouldn't say anything, but she did. "How did you know?"

Ludie moved air across her shiny face with a paper fan. "I know the signs. I didn't just come to town on a wagonload of watermelons. Only last week I heard a goatsucker two nights runnin'. I even found a crow's feather on my front stoop. And for the last three nights the lightnin' bugs have been so thick you could sew by the light. Them two old dogs of mine been layin' in the yard pantin' like lizards and the weather barely warm."

"What do your dogs have to do with it?"

"They could feel the evil in the air pressin' in on 'em, that's what. It's the Devil's work. You notice how the Reverend Mr. Jarvis was one of the first to go. I know the signs."

Meridee sighed but didn't argue. She looked at the pot of chicken and dumplings keeping warm on the back of the stove. She was starving. Ever since yesterday afternoon she couldn't seem to get enough to eat.

Robbie sat on the davenport looking up at the quilting frame suspended just below the ceiling. Meridee started on it five months ago, but hadn't worked on it lately. "My belly gets in the way," she had said. There were about a dozen people in the parlor: a few of his relatives but mostly assorted Morgans. Some were sitting anxiously and some paced nervously while others talked quietly. He hadn't been listening until he heard his name.

"What?"

"I asked how many it is now," said his seventeen-year-old cousin Travis.

"How many what?"

"Were killed." It wasn't necessary to explain who "they" were.

"Oh. Uh ... forty-two, I think, known dead and missing."

Travis turned back to Meridee's father. "That's almost a fifth of the population."

Robbie was amazed at how calmly it was discussed now after the hysteria of those first few days. He stood up and rubbed his palms on his thighs. Doc had been in there for an hour. He went to the window, protected by bars made from wheel rims by the blacksmith, and looked out. There must be fifty people in the yard, he thought.

They had been gathering since Meridee went into labor. Her worries about the baby had spread. The entire valley wanted to know if the baby would be normal or like "them."

"Only way we could do it," Meridee's father said. "We work in groups of at least ten and half of 'em do nothin' but stand guard. It works out pretty good, but while you're helpin' someone else, your own crops ruin in the fields and they kill and eat your animals. There just aren't enough people to go around. Nearly half the farms are abandoned now, with relatives movin' in with each other for protection."

"Leo thinks the only way is to hunt 'em down and kill 'em."

"I agree, but there aren't enough men to do that and the work too. Besides, he's been out half a dozen times and hasn't seen a thing."

"They found those burrows in the creek bank."

"Yeah, but they didn't find any kids. They tried to smoke 'em out and nothin' happened. Even sent one of the dogs in but the burrow collapsed and smothered him. Doc thinks they musta moved somewhere else. What beats me is how they can eat so much."

Robbie went to the bedroom door and listened but could hear nothing. He fidgeted for a moment, then went to the kitchen for a drink of water. He had thought several times of suggesting they seek outside help, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. The people in the valley had been self-sufficient for two hundred years. It would never occur to them that they couldn't handle this alone. Also, there was a certain shame involved. How could they admit to outsiders that they were unable to handle their own little children?

Robbie stepped back into the parlor when he heard the bedroom door open. Ludie stood in the doorway, her face gray. She kept rubbing her arms and not looking at him. Everyone in the room was tensely silent.

He ran into the bedroom. Doc leaned against the bassinet. He turned to Robbie and shook his head. The sheet was pulled over Meridee's face. Robbie felt the bottom of his stomach drop away. He walked slowly to the bassinet and looked in.

His daughter looked back at him and bared her teeth.

Leo Whitman hunkered down behind the mill wheel watching the creek. He held the deer rifle lightly across his knees. He particularly watched a clump of hemlock hugging the water on the opposite side. He thought he saw a movement there a few minutes ago but he wasn't sure. His eyes burned from too many hours of trying to see in the dark. He wanted to point out the movement to the others, but he was afraid to make a sound.

He shifted his position slightly to keep his leg from going to sleep again and then had to move a stone that dug into his hip.

There it was again: a less dark flicker among the hemlock branches. Leo raised the rifle to his shoulder and sighted on the bush. After several minutes his vision began to blur. He lowered the rifle slightly and blinked his eyes.

Then one of them stepped from behind the hemlock and into the water. It was naked but he couldn't tell from this distance whether it was a boy or girl. It began wading slowly across the stream, looking around as if smelling the air. It stopped in mid-stream, the water up to its chest, and stood motionless. Did it suspect it was walking into a trap?

Leo sighted on the figure and hoped none of the others would go off half-cocked. Then the child moved forward again. Others slipped silently into the water. God, Leo thought, how quietly they move. He counted eight of them, all naked. Okay, everybody, he said under his breath, wait until they all reach the bank.

But someone didn't. A rifle shot rattled through the night as the first one stepped out of the water. It was a boy, he could see now. The naked child jerked and flopped in the grass. Leo sighted on another and fired. It threshed in the water, then floated face down. Other shots peppered the water with little geysers, but there was nothing to shoot at. The children had vanished; submerged in the creek and invisible.

"Damn!" Leo yelled and ran toward the stream. He waded into the water and hurriedly dragged out the floating corpse. The others joined him. They carried the two dead children quickly away from the creek, looking anxiously over their shoulders. But there was nothing to see, not a vagrant ripple where the children had been.

"Hurry up," Leo growled. "I don't trust 'em."

They ran down the dark street toward Doc's office. They could see him standing in the lighted window watching for them. He had the door open when they got there. Doc slammed the door and lowered the bar across it as they crowded in.

"How many did you get?" Doc asked quickly.

"Two," Leo grimaced. "Some idiot fired too soon and the rest of them clucked under water and disappeared."

"Put 'em on the table." Doc carried the lamp and held it over the bodies. There was a stunned silence as the men got their first clear look. Water puddled on the table, then seeped through the cracks to drip on the floor with soft thumps.

"My God," someone whispered.

"It's Mandy Pritchard and Wayne Williams," Leo said with a dull voice. "I'm glad Joe Bob isn't here."

"Is she . . .?"

"Yes," Doc said slowly.

Mandy's body lay loosely on its back. The bullet had destroyed one of her breasts, but the other was large and full. Her hair was matted and grimy and showed a bald spot where Mrs. Beatty had kicked her. Her skin was darkly tanned and her abdomen swelled hugely.

"But, she's only . . . What? Ten?" Leo asked.

"By our reckoning, she is," Doc answered peering close, "but I doubt if that's valid anymore. You'll notice they both have a full growth of pubic hair."

"That's not all. Wayne's got a full growth of," someone sniggered. "Most full-grown men wouldn't be ashamed of a pecker like that."

Doc fingered the boy's genitals. "He's fully developed all right."

"You think he's the father?"

"I don't know. He could easily be." Doc ran his hand over Wayne's stomach, pinching the cool damp skin. Then he felt Mandy's leg. "Feel their skin. It's as tough as leather. And look at their bodies. There's been a subtle change. They aren't the bodies of children anymore—and Wayne seems taller, don't you think?"

There was a murmur of assent. "Now we know why they needed so much food," Doc continued.

"Why?"

"Because their bodies have been undergoing tremendous changes. Tremendous and rapid. They needed a lot of fuel for all that cell activity." He put his hand on Mandy's stomach. "I'd say she was very close to delivery."

"That's impossible," Leo blurted. "It's only been three months."

"No more impossible than the rest of it," Doc answered calmly. "But it's logical when you consider the acceleration of everything else, I imagine the baby would have been even more developed than Meri's. Probably able to take care of itself in a few weeks—maybe less."

"Then," Leo said dazed, "there'll be hundreds of them in a couple of years. In three months we've only managed to kill four. They've killed . . . What? Fifty or sixty of us?"

"I think that number can be increased considerably," Doc said, turning away from the bodies. "A bunch of us went by the Hollow this morning. There wasn't a soul around, nor any stock. Looked as if it had been deserted over a month. And the bluffs around the Hollow were riddled with burrows. We got outta there in a hurry."

"Do you think it's hopeless, Doc?"

"I can give you a better answer in seven and a half months."

"What?"

"Frances Pritchard is pregnant. She's the first I know of to conceive after that day."

"But Frances isn't married. Who . . .?"

"She moved in with Robbie after Meri died. There was no one to marry them and, I don't know, it didn't seem to matter."

Not far from Asheville, North Carolina, a road leaves the state highway and wanders upward into the Blue Ridge. It's paved now and has been since the middle fifties. It still follows the path of least resistance although the square turns have been rounded off and the more treacherous twists have been straightened. The many bridges across Indian Creek are new —made of steel and concrete rather than splintering timbers.

There has been much change in forty years. The logging camps are gone. Camp grounds and motels with cable television have sprung up with increasing frequency. The road enjoys a great deal of traffic because it eventually ends up in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The villages along the way have revived with surprising vigor after the near death of the Depression. They were quick to discover that tourists pay much better than cows, pigs, crops or logs. They found, rather astonishingly, the very things they were eager to cast off after the coming of electricity, television and stereophonic sound, were just as eagerly sought by the tourists.

With dumbfounded gladness they would accept money for their old polished oak iceboxes; enough money to buy new frost-free refrigerators with automatic icemakers. Money for black cast-iron washpots bought new automatic washing machines. Homemade quilts were too valuable to put on beds. Tourists bought the quilts and the villagers happily slept under electric blankets from J.C. Penney.

The city people called it Folk Art. The villagers called it Free Enterprise.

At Utley the highway makes an unexpected turn to the south-west, going nowhere near Morgan's Cleft. The old unpaved road still goes toward the pass, following Indian Creek, to a few summer cabins and outlying farms. If you tried to follow it to Morgan's Cleft, you would find yourself in the lane to the Crenshaw farm. If you backed up and tried again, you might find it—if you looked closely. The bushes are not quite as thick, the trees are shorter, the ground is more level and an occasional grading is still visible.

Some of the older people in Utley still remember those who fled the high valley nearly forty years ago. There weren't many—only a dozen or so—coming down the mountain in wagons and some on foot, scattered over several months. Some were hurt and died quickly from infected wounds. Those who lived moved on hastily without explanation, but the folk beyond the Cleft always were a strange lot.

Hollis Middleton had been to the bank that day discussing a loan. He owned a piece of very choice property that stretched from the highway to Indian Creek just in the edge of Utley. A motel there should do very nicely. But it wouldn't be just another motel. He would build a fishing veranda over the creek; the guests could fish and the motel kitchen would do the cleaning and cooking. He smiled at the idea and turned on the television set.

He yelled up the stairs for his youngest girl to turn her stereo down so he could hear the TV. He thought he detected a barely perceptible drop in the volume. He adjusted the color so Raymond Burr wouldn't look dipped in purple dye, and sat down to relax.

He groaned when he heard the dishwasher go on in the kitchen and little silver speckles began dancing across the screen. He bore his affluence with stoicism.

He heard a scream and a clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen. He arose with a sigh and went out there without too much hurry. His wife was a great screamer. She was rolling on the floor amid several pieces of her new waterless cook-ware. Their four-year-old grandson was wrestling with her.

Hollis shook his head and laughed. "You two sure do play rough." His grandson looked up quickly at the sound of his voice. The boy had a mouthful of flesh. Blood dribbled off his chin.

It grew.

Slowly and carefully, without haste or impetuosity, it grew. It had all the time in the world.