Ralph reached for Steve's shoulder, saw the blood there, and settled for gripping his arm high on the bicep. "I couldn't," he said. "I wanted to, but I couldn't. After the first two rounds I was afraid of hitting you instead of it. When you finally got turned around so I could make a side-shot, Marinville was there."
"It's okay," Steve said. "All's well that ends well."
"I owed it to him," the writer said with a winning-quarterback expansiveness Cynthia found rather nauseating. "If it hadn't been for me, he wouldn't have been here in the--"
"Get over here!" Mary said, her voice cracking. "Jesus Christ, oh man, he's bleeding so bad!"
The four of them gathered around Mary and Billingsley. She had gotten him onto his back, and Cynthia winced at what she saw. One of the old geezer's hands was mostly gone--all the fingers but the pinky chewed to stubs--but that wasn't the worst. His lower neck and shoulder had been flayed open. Blood was spilling out in freshets. Yet he was awake, his eyes bright and aware.
"Skirt," he whispered hoarsely. "Skirt."
"Don't try to talk, oldtimer," Marinville said. He bent, scooped up the flashlight, and trained it on Billingsley. It made what had looked bad enough in the shadows even worse. There was a pond of blood beside the old guy's head; Cynthia didn't understand how he could still be alive.
"I need a compress," Mary said. "Don't just stand there, help me, he's going to die if we don't stop the bleeding right now!"
Too late, babe, Cynthia thought but didn't say.
Steve saw what looked like a rag in one of the sinks and grabbed it. It turned out to be a very old shirt with Joe Camel on it. He folded the shirt twice, then handed it to Mary. She nodded, folded it once more, then pressed it against the side of Billingsley's neck.
"Come on," Cynthia said, taking Steve's arm. "Back on stage. If there's nothing else, I can at least wash those out with water from the bar. There's plenty on the bottom sh--"
"No," the old man whispered. "Stay! Got to ... hear this."
"You can't talk," Mary said. She pushed harder on the side of his neck with the makeshift compress. The shirt was already darkening. "You'll never stop bleeding if you talk."
He rolled his eyes toward Mary. "Too late ... f'doctorin." His voice was hoarse. "Dyin."
"No you're not, that's ridiculous."
"Dyin," he repeated, and moved violently beneath her hands. His torn back squelched on the tiles, a sound that made Cynthia feel nauseated. "Get down here ... all of you, close ... and listen to me."
Steve glanced at Cynthia. She shrugged, then the two of them knelt beside the old man's leg, Cynthia shoulder to shoulder with Mary Jackson. Marinville and Carver leaned in from the sides.
"He shouldn't talk," Mary said, but she sounded doubtful.
"Let him say what he needs to," Marinville said. "What is it, Tom?"
"Too short for business," Billingsley whispered. He was looking up at them, begging them with his eyes to understand.
Steve shook his head. "I'm not getting you."
Billingsley wet his lips. "Only seen her once before in a dress. That's why it took me too long to figure out ... what was wrong."
A startled expression had come over Mary's face. "That's right, she said she had a meeting with the comptroller! He comes all the way from Phoenix to hear her report on something important, something that means big bucks, and she puts on a dress so short she'll be flashing her pants at him every time she crosses her legs? I don't think so."
Beads of sweat ran down Billingsley's pale, stubbly cheeks like tears. "Feel so stupid," he wheezed. "Not all my fault, though. Nope. Didn't know her to talk to. Wasn't there the one time she came into the office to pick up more liniment. Always saw her at a distance, and out here women mostly wear jeans. But I had it. I did. Had it and then got drinking and lost track of it again." He looked at Mary. "The dress would have been all right ... when she put it on. Do you see? Do you understand?"
"What's he talking about?" Ralph asked. "How could it be all right when she put it on and too short for a business meeting later?"
"Taller," the old man whispered.
Marinville looked at Steve. "What was that? It sounded like he said--"
"Taller," Billingsley said. He enunciated the word carefully, then began to cough. The folded shirt Mary held against his neck and shoulder was now soaked. His eyes rolled back and forth among them. He turned his head to one side, spat out a mouthful of blood, and the coughing fit eased.
"Dear God," Ralph said. "She's like Entragian? Is that what you're saying, that she's like the cop?"
"Yes ... no," Billingsley whispered. "Don't know for sure. Would have ... seen that right away ... but . . ."
"Mr. Billingsley, do you think she might have caught a milder dose of whatever the cop has?" Mary asked.
He looked at her gratefully and squeezed her hand.
Marinville said, "She's sure not bleeding out like the cop."
"Or not where we can see it," Ralph said. "Not yet, anyway."
Billingsley looked past Mary's shoulder. "Where ... where . . ."
He began coughing again and wasn't able to finish, but he didn't need to. A startled look passed among them, and Cynthia turned around. Audrey wasn't there.
Neither was David Carver.
CHAPTER 4
1
The thing which had been Ellen Carver, taller now, still wearing the badge but not the Sam Browne belt, stood on the steps of the Municipal Building, staring north along the sand-drifted street, past the dancing blinker-light. It couldn't see the movie theater, but knew where it was. More, it knew what was going on inside the movie theater. Not all, but enough to anger it. The cougar hadn't been able to shut the drunk up in time, but at least she had drawn the rest of them away from the boy. That would have been fine, except the boy had eluded its other emissary as well, at least temporarily.
Where had he gone? It didn't know, couldn't see, and that was the source of its anger and fear. He was the source. David Carver. The goddamned shitting prayboy. It should have killed him when it had been inside the cop and had had the chance--should have shot him right on the steps of his own damned motor home and left him for the buzzards. But it hadn't, and it knew why it hadn't. There was a blankness about Master Carver, a shielded quality. That was what had saved Little Prayboy earlier.
Its hands clenched at its sides. The wind gusted, blowing Ellen Carver's short, red-gold hair out like a flag. Why is he even here, someone like him? Is it an accident? Or was he sent?
Why are you here? Are you an accident? Were you sent?
Such questions were useless. It knew its purpose, tak ah lah, and that was enough. It closed its Ellen-eyes, focusing inward at first, but only for a second--it was unpleasant. This body had already begun to fail. It wasn't a matter of decay so much as intensity; the force inside it--can de lach, heart of the unformed--was literally pounding it to pieces ... and its replacements had escaped the pantry.
Because of Prayboy.
Shitting Prayboy.
It turned its gaze outward, not wanting to think about the blood trickling down this body's thighs, or the way its throat had begun to throb, or the way that, when it scratched Ellen's head, large clumps of Ellen's red hair had begun to come away under its nails.
It sent its gaze into the theater instead.
What it saw, it perceived in overlapping, sometimes contradictory images, all fragmentary. It was like watching multiple TV screens reflected in a heap of broken glass. Primarily the eyes of the infiltrating spiders were what it was looking through, but there were also flies, cockroaches, rats peering out of holes in the plaster, and bats hanging from the auditorium's high ceiling. These latter were projecting strange cool images that were actually echoes.
It saw the man from the truck, the one who had come into town on his own, and his skinny little girlfriend leading the others back to the stage. The father was shouting for the boy, but the boy wasn't answering. The writer walked to the edge of the stage, cu
pped his hands around his mouth, and screamed Audrey's name. And Audrey, where was she? No way of telling for sure. It couldn't see through her eyes as it saw through the eyes of the lesser creatures. She'd gone after the boy, certainly. Or had she already found him? It thought not. Not yet, anyway. That it would have sensed.
It pounded one hand against Ellen's thigh in anxiety and frustration, leaving an instant bruise like a rotten place on the skin of an apple, then shifted focus once more. No, it saw, they were not all onstage; the prismatic quality of what it was seeing had misled it.
Mary was still with old Tom. If Ellen could get to her while the others were preoccupied with Audrey and David, it might solve all sorts of problems later on. It didn't need her now, this current body was still serviceable and would continue so for awhile, but it wouldn't do to have it fail at a crucial moment. It would be better, safer, if . . .
The image that came was of a spiderweb with many silk-wrapped flies dangling from it. Flies that were drugged but not dead.
"Emergency rations," the old one whispered in Ellen Carver's voice, in Ellen Carver's language. "Knick-knack paddywhack, give the dog a bone."
And Mary's disappearance would demoralize the rest, take away any confidence they might have gained from escaping, finding shelter, and killing the cougar. It had thought they might manage that last; they were armed, after all, and the cougar was a physical being, sarx and soma and pneuma, not some goblin from the metaphysical wastes. But who could have imagined that pretentious old windbag doing it?
He called the other one on a phone he had. You didn't guess that, either. You didn't know until the yellow truck came.
Yes, and missing the phone had been a lapse, something right in the front of Marinville's mind that it should have picked up easily, but it didn't hold that against itself. At that point its main goals had been to get the old fool jugged and replace Entragian's body before it could fall apart completely. It had been sorry to lose Entragian, too. Entragian had been strong.
If it meant to take Mary, there would never be a better time than now. And perhaps while it did that, Audrey would find the boy and kill him. That would be wonderful. No worries then. No sneaking around. It could replace Ellen with Mary and pick the rest off at its leisure.
And later? When its current (and limited) supply of bodies ran out? Snatch more travellers from the highway? Perhaps. And when people, curious people, came to town to see what the hell was going on in Desperation, what then? It would cross that bridge when it got to the river; it had little memory and even less interest in the future. For now, getting Mary up to China Pit would be enough.
Tak went down the steps of the Municipal Building, glanced at the police-car, then crossed the street on foot. No driving, not for this errand. Once it reached the far sidewalk, it began to run in long strides, sand spurting up from beneath sneakers which had been sprung out to the sides by feet which were now too big for them.
2
Onstage, Audrey could hear them still calling David's name ... and hers. Soon they would spread out and begin to search. They had guns, which made them dangerous. The idea of being killed didn't bother her--not much, anyway, not as it had at first--but the idea that it might happen before she was able to kill the boy did. To the cougar, the voice of the thing from the earth had been like a fishhook; in Audrey Wyler's mind it was like an acid-coated snake, winding its way into her, melting the personality of the woman who had been here before it even as it enfolded her. This melting sensation was extremely pleasant, like eating some sweet soft food. It hadn't been at first, at first it had been dismaying, like being overwhelmed by a fever, but as she collected more of the can tahs (like a child participating in a scavenger hunt), that feeling had passed. Now she only cared about finding the boy. Tak, the unformed one, did not dare approach him, so she must do it in Tak's place.
At the top of the stairs, the woman who had been five-feet-seven on the day Tom Billingsley had first glimpsed her stopped, looking around. She should have been able to see nothing--there was only one window, and the only light that fell through its filthy panes came from the blinker and a single weak streetlamp in front of Bud's Suds--but her vision had improved greatly with each can tah she had found or been given. Now she had almost the vision of a cat, and the littered hallway was no mystery to her.
The people who had hung out in this part of the building had been far less neatness-minded than Billingsley and his crew. They had smashed their bottles in the corners instead of collecting them, and instead of fantasy fish or smoke-breathing horses, the walls were decorated with broad Magic Marker pictographs. One of these, as primitive as any cave-drawing, showed a horned and misshapen child hanging from a gigantic breast. Beneath it was scrawled a little couplet: LITTLE BITTY BABY SMITTY, I SEEN YOU BITE YOUR MOMMY'S TITTY. Paper trash--fast--food sacks, candy wrappers, potato-chip bags, empty cigarette packs and condom envelopes--had drifted along both sides of the hall. A used rubber hung from the knob of the door marked MANAGER, pasted there in its own long-dried fluids like a dead snail.
The door to the manager's office was on her right. Across from it was one marked JANITOR. Up ahead on the left was another door, this one unmarked, and then an arch with a word written on it in ancient black paint half flaked away. Even her eyes couldn't make out what the word was, at least from this distance, but a step or two closer and it came clear: BALCONY. The archway had been boarded up, but at some point the boards had been pulled away and heaped to either side of it. Hanging from the top of the arch was a mostly deflated sex-doll with blond Arnel hair, a red-ringed hole of a mouth, and a bald rudimentary vagina. There was a noose around its neck, the coils dark with age. Also around its neck, hanging against the doll's sagging plastic bosom, was a hand-lettered sign which looked as if it might have been made by a hardworking first-grader. It was decorated with a red-eyed skull and crossbones at the top. DONT COME OUT HERE, it said. REDY TO FALL DOWN. IM SERIAS. Across from the balcony was an alcove which had once probably held a snackbar. At the far end of the hall were more steps going up into darkness. To the projectionist's booth, she assumed.
Audrey went to the door marked MANAGER, grasped the knob, and leaned her brow against the wood. Outside, the wind moaned like a dying thing.
"David?" she asked gently. She paused, listened. "David, do you hear me? It's Audrey, David. Audrey Wyler. I want to help you."
No answer. She opened the door and saw an empty room with an ancient poster for Bonnie and Clyde on the wall and a torn mattress on the floor. In the same Magic Marker, someone had written I'M A MIDNIGHT CREEPER, ALL-DAY SLEEPER below the poster.
She tried the janitor's cubby next. It wasn't much bigger than a closet and completely empty. The unmarked door gave on a room that had probably once been a supply closet. Her nose (keener now, like her eyesight) picked up the aroma of long-ago popcorn. There were a lot of dead flies and a fair scattering of mouseshit, but nothing else.
She went to the archway, swept aside the dangling dolly with her forearm, and peered out. She couldn't see the stage from back here, just the top half of the screen. The skinny girl was still yelling for David, but the others were silent. That might not mean anything, but she didn't like not knowing where they were.
Audrey decided that the sign around the dolly's neck was probably a true warning. The seats had been taken out, making it easy to see the way the balcony floor heaved and twisted; it made her think of a poem she'd read in college, something about a painted ship on a painted ocean. If the brat wasn't out on the balcony, he was somewhere else. Somewhere close. He couldn't have gone far. And he wasn't on the balcony, that much was for sure. With the seats gone, there was nowhere to hide, not so much as a drape or a velvet swag on the wall.
Audrey dropped the arm which had been holding the half-deflated doll aside. It swung back and forth, the noose around its neck making a slow rubbing sound. Its blank eyes stared at Audrey. Its hole of a mouth, a mouth with only one purpose, seemed to leer at her, to laugh at
her. Look at what you're doing, Frieda Fuckdolly seemed to be saying. You were going to become the most highly paid woman geologist in the country, own your own consulting firm by the time you were thirty-five, maybe win the Nobel Prize by the time you were fifty ... weren't those the dreams? The Devonian Era scholar, the summa cum laude whose paper on tectonic plates was published in Geology Review, is chasing after little boys in crumbling old movie theaters. And no ordinary little boy, either. He's special, the way you always assumed you were special. And if you do find him, Aud, what then? He's strong.
She grabbed the hangman's noose and yanked hard, snapping the old rope and pulling out a pretty country-fair bunch of Arnel hair at the same time. The doll landed face-down at Audrey's feet, and she drop-kicked it onto the balcony. It floated high, then settled. Not stronger than Tak, she thought. I don't care what he is, he's not stronger than Tak. Not stronger than the can tahs, either. It's our town, now. Never mind the past and the dreams of the past; this is the present, and it's sweet. Sweet to kill, to take, to own. Sweet to rule, even in the desert. The boy is just a boy. The others are only food. Tak is here now, and he speaks with the voice of the older age; with the voice of the unformed.
She looked up the hall toward the stairs. She nodded, her right hand slipping into the pocket of her dress to touch the things that were there, to fondle them against her thigh. He was in the projection booth. There was a big padlock hanging on the door which led into the basement, so where else could he be?
"Him en tow, " she whispered, starting forward. Her eyes were wide, the fingers of her right hand moving ceaselessly in the pocket of her dress. From beneath them came small, stony clicking sounds.
3
The kids who partied hearty upstairs in The American West until the fire escape fell down had been slobs, but they had mostly used the hall and the manager's office for their revels; the other rooms were relatively untouched, and the projectionist's little suite--the booth, the office cubicle, the closet-sized toilet-stall-was almost exactly as it had been on the day in 1979 when five cigarette-smoking men from Nevada Sunlite Entertainment had come in, dismantled the carbon-filament projectors, and taken them to Reno, where they still languished, in a warehouse filled with similar equipment, like fallen idols.