The Great And Secret Show Part 28

"Grillo!" she yelled. "Get in the car!" The pale army heard her, and picked up its speed. "The car, Grillo, get in the f.u.c.king car!" She saw him fumble for the door, barely in control of his responses. Some of the smaller beasts at the head of the tide were already scuttling towards the vehicle at speed, leaving their larger brethren to come after the boy. There were enough, more than enough, to take all three of them apart joint by joint, and the car too. Despite their multiplicity (no two alike, it seemed) there was the same blank-eyed, relentless intention in every one. They were destroyers.

She leaned down and took hold of the boy's arm, avoiding the racheting limbs of the parasite as best she could. Its hold on him was too intimate to be undone, she saw. Any attempt to separate them would only invite reprisals. "Get up," she told him. "We can make it."

"You go," he murmured. He was utterly wasted.

"No," she said. "We both go. No heroics. We both go." She glanced back at the car. Grillo was in the act of slamming the door as the army's foot-runners came at the car, hopping up on to the roof and hood. One, the size of a baboon, began to throw its body against the windshield repeatedly.

The others tore at the door handle and worked their barbs between the windows and their frames.

"It's me they want," the boy said.

"If we go, they follow?" Tesla said.

He nodded. Hauling him to his feet, and turning his right arm (the hand badly injured, she saw) over her shoulder, she fired one shot into the approaching ma.s.s-which hit one of the larger beasts but didn't slow it a beat-then turned her back on it and began to haul them both away.

He had directions to give.

"Down the Hill," he said.

"Why?"

"The Mall..."

Again: "Why?"

"My father...is there."

She didn't argue. She just hoped father, whoever he was, had some help to offer, because if they succeeded in outrunning the army they were going to be in no fit state to defend themselves at the end of the race.

As she turned the next corner, the boy offering muttered instructions, she heard the car's windshield shatter.

A short distance from the drama just played out, the Jaff and Tommy-Ray, with Jo-Beth in tow, watched Grillo fumbling for the ignition, succeeding-after some effort-in getting the car started, and driving off, throwing from the hood the terata that had shattered the windshield.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said Tommy-Ray.

"It doesn't matter," the Jaff said. "There's plenty more where he came from. You wait 'til the party tomorrow. Such pickings."

The creature was not quite dead; it let out a thin whine of complaint.

"What do we do with it?" Tommy-Ray wondered.

"Leave it there."

"Some roadkill," came the boy's reply. "People are going to notice."

"It won't survive the night," the Jaff replied. '"By the time the scavengers have got to it n.o.body'll know what the h.e.l.l it was."

"What the f.u.c.k's going to eat that?" Tommy-Ray asked.

"Anything hungry enough," came the Jaff's reply. "And there's always something hungry enough. Isn't that right, Jo-Beth?" The girl said nothing. She'd given up weeping and talking. All she did was watch her brother with pitiful confusion on her face.

"Where's Katz going?" the Jaff wondered aloud.

"Down to the Mall," Tommy-Ray informed him.

"Fletcher's calling him."

"Yeah?"

"Just as I hoped. Wherever the son ends up, that's where we'll find the father."

"Unless the terata get him first."

"They won't. They have their instructions."

"What about the woman with him?"

"Wasn't that too perfect? What a Samaritan. She's going to die, of course, but what a great way to go, full of how big-f.u.c.king-hearted you are."

The remark elicited a response from the girl.

"Isn't there anything touches you?" she said.

The Jaff studied her. "Too much," he said. "Too much touches me. The look on your face. The look on his." He glanced at Tommy-Ray, who grinned, then back at Jo-Beth. "All I want to do is see clearly. Past the feelings, to the reasons. "

"And this is how? Killing Howie? Destroying the Grove?"

"Tommy-Ray learned to understand, after his fashion. You can do the same if you'll give me time to explain. It's a long story. But trust me when I say that Fletcher's our enemy, and his son our enemy too. They'd kill me if they could-"

"Not Howie."

"Oh yes. He's his father's son even if he doesn't know it. There's a prize to be won soon, Jo-Beth. It's called the Art. And when I have it, I'll share it-"

"I don't want anything from you."

"I'll show you an island-"

"No."

"-and a sh.o.r.e-"

He reached to her, stroking her cheek. Against her better judgment his words soothed her. It was not the fetus-head she saw in front of her, but a face that had seen hardship; had been plowed by it, and perhaps had wisdom planted.

"Later," he said. "We'll have plenty of time to talk. On that island, the day never ends."

--------------ii--------------

''Why don't they overtake us?" Tesla said to Howie.

Twice the pursuing forces had seemed certain to overtake and overwhelm them, and twice their ranks had slowed at the very moment they were able to realize their ambition. The suspicion was growing on her that the chase was being ch.o.r.eographed. If so, she fretted, by whom? And what was their intention?

The boy-he'd muttered his name, Howie, several streets back-was heavier by the yard. The last quarter mile to the Mall stretched before her like a Marine a.s.sault course. Where was Grillo when she needed him? Lost in the maze of crescents and cul-de-sacs which made this town such a trial to traverse, or a victim of the creatures that had a.s.saulted the car?

The answer was neither. Trusting that Tesla's wit would keep her ahead of the horde long enough for him to muster help, he drove like a wild man, first to a public telephone, then on to the address he found in it. Though his limbs felt like lead, and his teeth still chattered, his mental processes seemed to him quite clear, though he knew-from the months after the debacle, which he'd spent in a more or less constant alcoholic stupor-that such clarity could be self-deception. How many screeds had he written under the influence, which had seemed lucidity in ink but read like Finnegans Wake once he was sober? Perhaps that was the case now, and he was wasting valuable time when he should have been knocking on the first door he found and rousing help. His instinct told him he'd get none. The appearance of an unshaven individual talking monsters would earn a quick dismissal on any doorstep but that of Hotchkiss.

The man was at home, and awake.

"Grillo? Jesus, man, what the h.e.l.l's wrong with you?"

Hotchkiss had no right to boast; he looked as used up as Grillo felt. He had a beer in his hand and several of its brothers in his eyes.

"Just come with me," Grillo said, "I'll explain as we go."

"Where?"

"Have you got guns?"

"I've got a handgun, yeah."

"Get it."

"Wait, I need-"

"No talk," Grillo said. "I don't know which way they've gone, and we-"

"Listen," Hotchkiss said.

"What?"

"Alarms. I hear alarms."

They'd begun to ring in the supermarket the moment Fletcher began to smash the windows. They rang in Marvin's Food and Drug, just as loudly, and in the pet store-the din here swelled by the animals woken from their sleep. He encouraged their chorus. The sooner the Grove shook off its lethargy the better, and he knew no surer way of stirring it than a.s.saulting its commercial heart. The summons begun, he raided two of the six stores for props. The drama he had planned would need perfect timing if he was to touch the minds of those who came to watch. If he failed, at least he would not see the consequences of that failure. He'd had too much grief in his life, and too few friends to help him bear it. Of them all he'd perhaps been closest to Raul. Where was he now? Dead, most likely, his ghost haunting the ruins of the Mision de Santa Catrina.

Picturing the place, Fletcher stopped in his tracks. What about the Nuncio? Was it possible the remains of the Great Work, as Jaffe had liked to call it, was still there on the cliff-top? If so, and some innocent ever stumbled upon it, the whole sorry story might repeat itself. The self-invited martyrdom he was presently orchestrating would be rendered worthless. That was another task to charge Howard with, before they were parted forever.

Alarms seldom rang for long in the Grove; and certainly never so many at the same time. Their cacophony floated through the town from the wooded perimeter of Deerdell to the widow Vance's house, on the top of the Hill. Though it was too early for the adults of the Grove to be asleep, most of them-whether touched by the Jaff or not-were feeling oddly dislocated. They talked with their partners in whispers, when they spoke at all; they stood in doorways or in the middle of their dining rooms having forgotten why they'd first risen from the comfort of their armchairs. If asked, many might have stumbled over their own names.

But the alarms commanded their attention, confirming what their animal instincts had known from daybreak: that things were not good tonight; not normal, not rational. The only place of safety was behind doors locked and locked again.

Not everyone was so pa.s.sive however. Some drew blinds aside to see if anyone in the neighborhood was on the street; others got as far as going to the front door (husbands or wives calling them back, telling them there was no need to step outside; that there was nothing to see that couldn't be seen on the television). It only took one individual to venture out, however, before others followed.

"Clever," said the Jaff.

"What's he up to?" Tommy-Ray wanted to know. "Why the noise?"

"He wants people to see the terata," the Jaff said. "Maybe he's hoping they'll rise up in revolution against us. He's tried this before."

"When?"

"On our travels across America. There was no revolution then and there won't be now. People don't have the faith; don't have the dreams. And he needs both. This is sheer desperation. He's defeated and he knows it." He turned to Jo-Beth. "You'll be pleased to know I'm calling the hounds off Katz's heels. We know where Fletcher is now. And where he is his son's going to be."

"They stopped following us," Tesla said.

The horde had indeed halted.

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

Her burden didn't reply. He could barely raise his head. But when he did it was towards the supermarket, which was one of several stores in the Mall whose windows had been smashed.

"We're going shopping?" she said.

He grunted.

"Whatever you say."

Inside the store, Fletcher raised his head from his labors. The boy was within sight of him. He was not alone. A woman bore him up, half-carrying him across the lot towards the litter of shattered gla.s.s. Fletcher left off his preparations and went to the window.

"Howard?" he called.

It was Tesla who looked up; Howie didn't waste valuable energy in the attempt. The man she saw emerging from the store didn't look like a vandal. Nor did he look anything like the boy's father; but then she'd never been very good with family resemblances. He was a tall, sallow individual, who to judge by his ragged gait was in as wretched a condition as his offspring. His clothes were drenched, she saw. Her stinging sinuses identified the fluid as gasoline. He left a trail of it as he walked. She suddenly feared the chase had taken them into the grasp of a lunatic.

"Keep away," she said.

"I have to speak with Howard, before the Jaff arrives."

"The who?"

"You led him here. He and his army."

"It couldn't be helped. Howie's real sick. This thing on his back-"

"Let me see-"

"No naked flames," Tesla warned, "or I'm out of here."

"I understand," said the man, raising his palms like a magician to prove them empty of tricks. Tesla nodded, and let him approach.

"Lay him down," the man instructed.

She did so, her muscles buzzing with grat.i.tude. No sooner was Howie on the ground than his father took a two-handed grip of the parasite. It immediately began to thrash wildly, its limbs tightening around its victim. Barely conscious, Howie began to gasp for breath.

"It's killing him!" Tesla yelled.

"Take hold of its head!"