The Dead Town

Chapter 55

Deucalion conveyed a third group of children to Erika’s place, bringing the number of refugees sheltering there to forty-two, which seemed beyond the maximum the house could handle. She insisted she could accept even more, and Addison Hawk agreed that together they could manage half again as many if they set down dormitory rules. They had enough food for the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours, and in the meantime, Deucalion could bring supplies.

When the fourth group proved to number thirty-four, however, the decision had to be made to take the kids elsewhere. With Carson’s and Michael’s help, Deucalion got them lined up on the benches along the walls of the cargo box and in two facing rows on the floor, crowding them together to a degree that would have been intolerable if the trip hadn’t been just two minutes long. They were trying to be brave, a few crying but quietly, others actually excited by the adventurous nature of this sudden nighttime excursion.

Because every point in the world lay as close to the Samples house as Erika’s place, Deucalion drove out of the driveway, turned left, and pulled into the parking lot at St. Bartholomew’s Abbey, high in the great mountains of northern California. In addition to the abbey with its guest wing and church, the seven-acre property included St. Bartholomew’s School, which was an educational facility and orphanage for children with physical and developmental disabilities. The monks oversaw the abbey and church, and Benedictine nuns, under the guidance of their mother superior, Sister Angela, operated the school.

Deucalion had lived here, in the guest wing, for over two years, while considering whether to become a postulant. Over the centuries, he dwelt for extended periods in the monasteries of different faiths, where he was never considered a freak, always a brother, and to his surprise sometimes served as a mentor to those he thought were wiser than he was.

He had left St. Bart’s less than twenty-four hours earlier, drawn first to New Orleans, then to the sprawling landfill in which the original Victor perished, and then to Carson and Michael in San Francisco, compelled by the sudden certainty that Victor was alive again and engaged in the pursuit of his utopia, which like all utopias was a kind of hell.

As he got out of the truck, he blew the horn twice, hoping to summon help. He went to the back of the truck, opened the door, and said, “We’re here. You’re going to like this place. You’ll be here only a little while, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

The children clambered out of the truck, amazed to discover they were somewhere they had never seen before, not more than two minutes after they set out on this trip. In early October in these mountains, no snow had yet fallen and stuck. The night was cold but clear, a sea of stars overhead, the blizzard magically undone.

As the last of the kids disembarked and as Deucalion closed and bolted the cargo-box door, a monk arrived. The giant was not surprised that of all the confreres, the first to respond to the horn happened to be Brother Salvatore, also known as Brother Knuckles. He was Deucalion’s best friend at St. Bart’s, the only one who knew exactly who he was and would, therefore, be quickest to understand where these children came from and why they were in flight.

This was a day of omens, of which Brother Knuckles was one of the smallest, a day of events suggesting hour by hour that those who would stand against Victor were not standing alone, that regardless of how many died in Rainbow Falls, the world would not be allowed to become a graveyard from pole to pole. Deucalion believed that as the night progressed, events would turn ever more rapidly against Victor — as long as those who resisted him remained willing to join the fight, refused to flee, and were prepared to die for what they knew was right. Miracles were not given, they were earned.

Father Abbot came soon after Knuckles, and without question led the children toward the guesthouse, where the bedrooms and public chambers would accommodate them. They were too young to remain in the grip of fear when the threat was no longer imminent. Resilient in their innocence, they gave themselves to wonder, and their excited voices, clear and sweet, brought a kind of music to the High Sierra night.

Alone with Brother Knuckles, Deucalion said, “There’s a terrible situation in Montana, a town called Rainbow Falls. It probably hasn’t reached the national news yet, but the story’s getting out. It’ll seem too bizarre for most in the media to believe at first, but proof will overwhelm their disbelief. I haven’t time to tell you, so turn on your recreation-room TV and steel yourself for the coming horror of it.”

Brother Knuckles considered the truck and said, “How long it take you gettin’ here from there?”

“No time at all.”

“I’d love to take a ride like that.”

“Maybe we’ll do it someday.”

Brother Knuckles studied him for a moment. “If I was still the man I used to be, bustin’ heads and bettin’ ponies, I think maybe I wouldn’t put a bunch of money on the chance any such ride will ever come to pass. Are we gonna see you here one day again? Ever?”

Deucalion looked at the sky, the eternity of stars, and said, “Snow will be coming soon. Nine nights from now, about seven in the evening. When it’s done, you’ll have a foot of fresh powder.”