It was the first time Goat saw Homer lose control. It was brief, but it was there. The car swayed and for a moment the look of Homer’s face wasn’t that of a killer or a monster; it was the lost and desperate look of a child.
Goat knew the story. He’d been in the courtroom during testimony by prison psychiatrists and social workers. After Gibbon’s heroin-addicted mother had given him up for adoption, Homer went through one foster home after another. In a couple of them the child had endured horrific sexual and physical abuse. One of those former foster parents was later arrested in connection with the abuse of another child, and investigators found hundreds of photos stored on the man’s computer. Photos of him and various girlfriends and drinking buddies, doing things to children—boys and girls ranging in age from five to twelve—that sickened everyone in the courtroom. Billy Trout had gone outside and thrown up in a trash can. Goat tried to look at the poster-board-sized reproductions of those photos as clinically as he could, pretending in his mind that these were movie props; but the bitter and raw truth of them gouged marks on his soul.
The photos were presented as part of Homer’s defense, claiming that any crimes he’d committed were direct results of permanent emotional and psychological disfigurement inflicted upon him as a child. Disfigurement. That was the word one psychologist used and it stuck for the duration of the trial, becoming a catchphrase. It was a word Goat had never before heard used in that context, and he could not shake the ugly awareness of all it implied.
The defense was thorough and exhaustive in an attempt to cultivate sympathy through horror, but rather than any sympathetic reaction the effect was to emotionally numb the jury. They disengaged from the evidence, and Goat watched that happen. It’s how he would have filmed the scene. As far as he saw it, the defense lost the case more than the prosecution won it, and it did so by an overuse of the most compelling argument.
The expression that flitted across Homer’s face now was tied to those memories, and Goat was absolutely sure that in that moment, Homer felt rude hands on him and cringed at the thought of how, once again, his body and his world would be plundered.
When Homer spoke, his voice was quiet, filled with a false calm that was as fragile as spun glass. “There’s a couple of people I wouldn’t mind saying hello to. People I never got around to thanking.”
“Thanking?”
Homer turned to him and the smile that formed on his lips was inhuman, repulsive. Vile.
“For opening the Black Eye and teaching me how to speak with the Red Mouth.”
Goat didn’t dare reply to that.
Homer gestured to Goat’s equipment. “Shouldn’t you be taping this shit?”
“Yes,” said Goat quickly, realizing that this was gold and that it was his lifeline. He unzipped his bag, removed the camera, plugged it into his laptop and adjusted the settings. He turned the dome light on because otherwise it was far too dark, but the yellow light chased only some of the shadows away. There still seemed to be too many bits of darkness hiding in the cab, waiting to pounce.
Goat found some small steadying comfort in the process of handling the tools of his trade. It returned to him a measure of personal power.
“Okay, we’re good to go.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’ll do a quick introduction and then you could just talk,” suggested Goat. “Tell your side of it.”
“My ‘side’?”
“Tell the truth as you see it. Or would you rather I ask questions?”
“I don’t know. Set it up and let’s see what happens. But don’t say where we are, okay?”
“No problem.”
He hit Record, then turned the camera on himself, gave his name and his affiliation with Regional Satellite News. Then he pointed the camera at Homer and introduced him. Homer gave the camera a few glances that were almost shy.
People and cameras, thought Goat. Weird.
As Goat checked the feed on his laptop, he loaded Foursquare and tried to connect the locator app to a GPS app, but there was no Wi-Fi signal.
“You want this on the Net, right?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then once we tape some stuff, we have to get to someplace where I can pick up a signal. Anyplace with free Wi-Fi.”
Homer thought about that then nodded. “Sure.”
“Are you ready?” asked Goat. Part of his mind seemed to stand at a distance and watch all of this with slack-jawed amazement. They were both flash-burned, filthy, bloody, and on the run from murders and some kind of catastrophic military action, and here he was talking to a Homer like they were ready to talk about the Daffodil Festival or a Little League game. It worried Goat that he could sound so normal, act so normal, when normal was something as dead as yesterday’s news.
He heard his voice speak with every appearance of calm control as set up the video. “We’re on the road—I can’t say where. Stebbins County has been—or is in the process of being—destroyed. You’ve heard some of the field reports by Billy Trout about what happened. All of it is real. However I have a different part of the story to share and it’s one everyone is going to want to hear. This is a side of the story that will help everyone understand the man who stands at the center of this storm. A man most people in the world believe was executed two days ago at Rockview Prison here in Pennsylvania. A man who is now beyond death as anyone knows it—and that statement is neither an exaggeration nor a joke. The next voice you’ll hear, the next face you’ll see, is that of Homer Gibbon.”
He turned the camera and switched on the top-mounted light for extra effect. He wanted the image to transform from the murky yellow shadows to something brighter and harsher, something that would show the bright red blood. In the stark light Homer was every bit the true monster. All sharp angles and brutality, but with a bestial intelligence glittering in his dark eyes.
Homer did not speak immediately, and his lack of certainty and clear discomfort kept the dead silence from being empty. This was great theater, thought Goat. This was fucking great.
After a few thoughtful seconds, Homer said, “Everyone thinks I’m a monster.”
“What do you think?” asked Goat.
Nearly a mile passed before Homer answered. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe that’s what I am now. A monster. I guess now more than ever.”
Homer shook his head and Goat wondered if there was a flicker of regret in the killer’s voice, or was he filtering this through his filmmaker’s ear.
“People use that word,” Homer went on. “Monster. They like to throw words like that around the way a monkey tosses his shit, hoping it’ll stick to the walls. They don’t understand anything about what goes on in a person’s head, just like they don’t understand what it means to be something different. Something bigger.” He laughed. “It’s like witches.”
“I’m sorry … witches?”
“Sure. In prison you got nothing to do but read books, and I read this one book, Witch Hunts: A History of the Burning Times—it had a lot of pictures in it, like a comic book but it’s not superhero stuff. This was about real stuff that happened. What do you call a book like that?”
“A graphic novel?”
“Yeah, that was it. This one was about the history of witches and the things people used to do to them because everyone had some stupid idea that witches were giving blow jobs to the Devil or some shit. Goofy stuff like that. What it really was, was that people—men, mostly—were afraid of the witches because of what the witches knew. And what they called witches were just women who knew some important shit. Medicine and like that. Natural healing and all that sort of thing. Herbs and liniments and potions. There wasn’t anything with the Devil. It wasn’t about that. You know why those men killed those women?”
“Tell me,” said Goat.
“It was because those women knew something the men didn’t. They had secret knowledge, and that knowledge didn’t come from the men. The men didn’t own it and they couldn??
?t control it. Those women were out there using this secret knowledge and they didn’t need jack squat from the men, and that really scared the men. You only got power if someone needs something from you and you have a leash on it. You understand?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Those men … they knew that the women weren’t fucking around with the Devil or any of that shit. That’s not why they got mad. They got mad because the secrets the women had were starting to matter to the people. The common folk. Those men saw their stranglehold over everyone starting to slip, and that meant they’d lose money and they’d lose power. And they couldn’t have that. So they said that those women, those witches, were monsters. And since most people are just dumb fucks, they went along with it and soon they were burning chicks at the stake and drowning them and crushing them under rocks. That’s how the men kept their power. It’s how scared people always keep their power. That’s why they killed Jesus. That’s why they killed that little Indian guy, Gandhi.” He pronounced it Gan-dee. “It’s probably why they killed John Lennon, too, ’cause that sonofabitch definitely knew some of the real secrets.” Homer nodded to himself. “He sings to me in my head sometimes, did you know that?”
“No. What does he sing?”
“I don’t know the names of the songs. New stuff that he wrote after he died.”
“Oh,” said Goat, and felt vaguely disappointed. He couldn’t quite understand why.
“My point,” continued Homer, “is that people throw out the word ‘monster’ before they know what something is. And it’s stupid, it’s an insult, because that word is so … so small, and sometimes what they’re trying to describe is way bigger than they know, bigger than they can even imagine.”
“And you feel that the way in which they used it to describe you is the same kind of error? The same kind of small thinking? That it’s them being—what? Blind or simply unable to understand what they are seeing?”
Homer took a long time with that, and as he drove he kept looking at Goat, as if reappraising him. He nodded a few times to himself.
“Now I’m wondering,” he said slowly, “whether you’re one of those smart-ass fellows who know how to feed someone enough of a line of bullshit so he can save his own ass.”
Goat said nothing.
“Or if maybe you’re starting to see what the Black Eye wants you to see. And maybe hear what the Red Mouth is whispering. Tell me, son … which is it?”
There was no way to know how to respond, because Goat could imagine how either response might spark something nasty. If he admitted that he was stringing Homer along, then the killer might simply pull over and finish what he almost started back at Starbucks. On the other hand, if Goat came off like a willing convert, would there be a price to pay to join Homer’s church?
In the end he told Homer a version of the truth. And he meant every word.
“I don’t know what to believe,” he admitted, “but I’m sitting here with you and that means I am twenty inches away from the biggest and most important story any reporter has ever heard. This is the kind of story that will change the world. You know that already, Homer. I know it, too. Who knows, maybe I really will start hearing what the Red Mouth says. I probably will, because I think I’m starting to get you, to see things the way you see them. However, right now, at this moment, I’m trying to understand the whole story. That’s what I want from you, Homer. I want you to tell me everything so I can report the biggest story in history. That’s the truth, Homer. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
It was five whole miles before Homer spoke.
Up ahead, barely visible in the rain, was a 7-Eleven with its lights on. Homer drummed his fingers on the knobbed leather of the steering wheel.
“You want to understand me, son? Fine, that makes sense to me. You saw some of my truth back there at the Starbucks. Now bear witness to more of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the Red Mouth is hungry and it will not be denied.” Homer pulled the Escalade off the road and slid into a slot. There were two cars outside. One was a beat-up old Chevy, the other was a Lexus SUV.
“What? I mean … Jesus, are you … are you…?”
Homer laughed.
“Yeah,” he said, “that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. How’s that for a big news story?”
He got out and took the keys with him, then leaned in through the open door.
“Make sure you film it, too. Every damn bit of it.”
Homer slammed the door and headed toward the store.
Goat did not try to run. He never even opened the door. Instead he raised the camera, adjusted the zoom, rolled down the window, and filmed everything as Homer Gibbon opened the front door of the convenience store, strode in, and showed everyone what the Black Eye saw, and let them hear the secrets whispered by the Red Mouth.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
STEBBINS LITTLE SCHOOL
STEBBINS, PENNSYLVANIA
Dez laid it out for them. The military’s withdrawal, the fuel-air bombs, the burned dead, and the vulnerability of the school.
“If we stay, we risk a siege,” she concluded. “God only knows how many of these things there are, and I sure as shit don’t want to find out. We need to get out now while we still have a chance.”
“How do you propose to do it?” asked Piper, following a cue Trout had given him.
Dez pointed over their heads. “Buses. There are more than enough school buses to get us all out of here. We need to clear out any bodies, hose the insides down to prevent infection, and then load the kids and as many supplies as we can take.”
“And go where?” asked one of the parents.
“Pittsburgh,” said Dez. “Or Philadelphia. Any of the big cities. Anywhere we can get the right kind of help and protection.”
“But those things are out there,” said Clark.
“Sure. Some of them. At last check there were eighteen that we could see. We have enough weapons to take them out.”
The crowd murmured at that. Taking them out sounded easy when stated in flat and antiseptic words, but every one of the people outside was a neighbor. Or a relative.
“We can’t just … kill them,” said a thin woman with watery eyes.
Dez walked over and put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Dottie … those people are already dead. You know that. We all know that. The kids in here are alive. We’re alive, and if we want to stay that way then we have to square this all in our heads. This isn’t a bunch of people with the flu. They’re dead. They’re infected by something that makes them move, but they’re dead.” She paused. “Besides, considering what’s happened to them, putting them down would be a mercy.”
“Amen,” said Uriah Piper.
A few of the others murmured agreement. Dez patted Dottie and then turned to the rest of the crowd. She explained what she wanted done and separated people into teams. Not everyone liked the idea. The strongest objections came from Clark, the teacher who’d mouthed off earlier. He wanted them all to stay right there in the school. His logic was that if there was a problem like flooded roads or military roadblocks, some might get out rather than all being stopped.
“No,” said Dez firmly, “we all go together.”
“And what if we don’t want to go anywhere?” demanded Clark.
“You can stay, Clark,” said Dez, leaning on that word. “Doesn’t matter to me. But the kids are coming with me and I need enough adults to drive buses and handle guns.”
Most of the crowd looked uncertain, but there were murmurs and nods, a few clear votes of support. However, Clark stood his ground.
“Who are you, of all people, to say what happens with the kids?”
She got up in his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Clark stood his ground. “Let’s face it, Officer Fox, you’re not exactly a role model. How many times have I seen you staggering drunk, coming out of one shithole bar or another? How many times have you been reprimanded
for excessive force? Yeah, I know about that stuff. My sister, Bitsy, was on the town council. I know all about you. You’re a loudmouth and—what do they call it in the movies? A loose cannon? That’s it. Exactly why is it we’re supposed to listen to you or follow your orders?”
Trout saw the dangerous red climb up Dez’s throat and bloom on her cheeks.
“That’s enough, Clark,” he said.
Clark wheeled on him. “Oh, right, and we should listen to you, too. Mr. Live From the Apocalypse. Mr. Give Me a Pulitzer Because I Have Innocent Blood on my Polo Shirt. Fuck you. You turned this whole thing into a story because like all reporters if it bleeds it leads, right? I’ll bet that when all those bullets were flying and the kids were screaming, you probably had a hard-on just thinking about how big a story this was. Well excuse me all to hell, Billy, but I don’t think you have a real stake in this. You don’t have any kids here. We do. Or we’re charged with taking care of these kids. They’re only a story to you. Besides, everyone in town knows that you’re been banging Dez Fox since high school, so this is the two of you in cahoots.”
Billy Trout snarled like a dog and swung a skull-cracker of a punch at the point of Clark’s jaw.
Clark leaned back with the ease of a trained boxer and let the punch pass, then he hooked Trout in the gut with a fist that he buried deep in belly flesh above Trout’s belt buckle. Clark pivoted and clopped Trout behind the ear with a right that put him flat on the floor. Trout was so shocked and hurt that he couldn’t even break his fall. He fell flat on his chest. And threw up.
There was a click and a blur of movement and then Clark was against the wall with Dez’s pistol barrel screwed into the soft pallet under his chin.
“You miserable cocksucker,” she hissed, “I’m going to blow your shit all over the—”
“No.”
The word was snapped out, sharp and full of cold command.
Then Uriah Piper moved into Dez’s peripheral vision. His face was hard as stone. “Put the gun down,” he said.
Dez and he locked eyes.
“Now,” said Piper.
On the floor, Trout make a sound like a strangling cat.