‘We have … to get … out,’ she said.
He made no sign that he’d even heard her voice, but moved past her towards the open door.
‘Decker …’ she said, ‘… it was Decker.’
He still offered no reply.
‘Talk to me, Boone.’
He murmured something –
‘He could still be here,’ she said. ‘We have to hurry.’
– but he was already stepping inside to view the carnage at closer quarters. She had no desire to look again. Instead she returned to the adjacent room to finish her hurried packing. As she went about it she heard Boone moving around the room next door, his breathing almost pained. Afraid of leaving him on his own for any time she gave up on trying to collect all but the most telling items – the photographs and an address book chief amongst them – and that done went out into the corridor.
The din of police sirens was there to meet her, their panic fuelling hers. Though the cars were still some way off she couldn’t doubt their destination. Louder with every whoop, they were coming to the Sweetgrass, hot for the guilty.
She called for Boone.
‘I’m finished!’ she said. ‘Let’s get going!’
There was no reply from the room.
‘Boone?’
She went to the door trying to keep her eyes off the bodies. Boone was on the far side of the room, silhouetted against the curtains. His breath was no longer audible.
‘Do you hear me?’ she said.
He didn’t move a muscle. She could read no expression on his face – it was too dark – but she could see that he’d taken the sunglasses off.
‘We haven’t got much time,’ she said. ‘Will you come on?’
As she spoke, he exhaled. It was no normal breath; she knew that even before the smoke started from his throat. As it came he raised his hands to his mouth as if to stop it, but at his chin they halted and began to convulse.
‘Get out,’ he said, on the same breath that brought the smoke.
She couldn’t move, or even take her eyes off him. The murk was not so thick she couldn’t see the change coming, his face re-ordering itself behind the veil, light burning in his arms and climbing his neck in waves to melt the bones of his head.
‘I don’t want you to see,’ he begged her, his voice deteriorating.
Too late. She’d seen the man with fire in his flesh at Midian; and the dog-headed painter, and more besides: Boone had all their diseases in his system, undoing his humanity before her eyes. He was the stuff of nightmares. No wonder he howled, head thrown back as his face was forfeited.
The sound was almost cancelled by the sirens, however. They could be no more than a minute from the door. If she went now she might still outpace them.
In front of her, Boone was done, or undone, entirely. He lowered his head, remnants of smoke evaporating around him. Then he began to move, his new sinews bearing him lightly, like an athlete.
Even now she hoped he understood his jeopardy and was coming to the door to be saved. But no. It was to the dead he moved, where the ménage à trois still lay, and before she had the wit to look away one of his clawed hands was reaching down and claiming a body from the heap, drawing it up towards his mouth.
‘No, Boone!’ she shrieked. ‘No!’
Her voice found him, or a part that was still Boone, lost in the chaos of this monster. He let the meat drop a little and looked up at her. He still had his blue eyes, and they were full of tears.
She started towards him.
‘Don’t,’ she begged.
For an instant he seemed to weigh up love and appetite. Then he forgot her, and lifted the human meat to his lips. She didn’t watch his jaws close on it, but the sound reached her, and it was all she could do to stay conscious, hearing him tear and chew.
From below, brakes screeching, doors slamming. In moments they’d have the building surrounded, blocking any hope of escape; moments later they’d be coming up the stairs. She had no choice but to leave the beast to its hunger. Boone was lost to her.
She elected not to return the way they’d come, but to take the back stairs. The decision was well made; even as she turned the corner of the upper corridor she heard the police at the other end, rapping on doors. Almost immediately afterwards she heard the sound of forced entry from above, and exclamations of disgust. This couldn’t be on finding Boone; he wasn’t behind a locked door. Clearly they’d discovered something else on the upper corridor. She didn’t need to hear the morning news to know what. Her instinct told her loud and strong how thorough Decker had been the night before. There was a dog alive somewhere in the building, and he’d overlooked a baby in his heat, but the rest he’d taken. He’d just come straight back from his failure at Midian and killed every living soul in the place.
Above and below the investigating officers were discovering that very fact, and the shock of it made them incompetent. She had no difficulty slipping out of the building and away into the scrub at the back. Only as she reached the cover of the trees did one of the cops appear round the corner of the building, but even he had other business than the search. Once out of sight of his colleagues he threw up his breakfast in the dirt, then scrupulously wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and went back to the job in hand.
Secure that they wouldn’t start a search of the exterior until they’d finished inside, she waited. What would they do to Boone when they found him? Shoot him down, most likely. There was nothing she could think of to prevent it. But the minutes passed, and though there were shouts from within, there was no sound of gunfire. They must have found him by now. Maybe she’d get a better grasp of what had happened from the front of the building.
The Inn was shielded on three sides by shrubbery and trees. It wasn’t difficult to make her way through the undergrowth to the flank, her movement countered by an influx of rifle-bearing cops from the front, to take up stations at the rear exit. Two more patrol cars were arriving at the scene. The first contained further armed troopers; the second a selection of interested parties. Two ambulance vans followed.
They’ll need more, she thought grimly. A lot more.
Though the congregation of so many cars and armed men had attracted an audience of passers by, the scene at the front was subdued, even casual. There were as many men standing and staring at the building as moving to enter and explore it. They grasped the point now. The place was a two storey coffin. More people had probably been murdered here in one night than had died by violence in Shere Neck over its entire life. Anyone here this bright morning was part of history. The knowledge hushed them.
Her attention went from the witnesses to a knot of people standing around the lead car. A break in the circle of debaters allowed for a glimpse of the man at its centre. Sober-suited, polished spectacles glinting in the sun. Decker held court. What was he arguing for: a chance to coax his patient out into the open air? If that was his pitch he was being overruled by the only member of the circle in uniform, Shere Neck’s Police Chief presumably, who dismissed his appeal with a wave of the hand, then stepped out of the argument entirely. From a distance it was impossible to read Decker’s response, but he seemed perfectly in control of himself, leaning to speak into the ear of one of the others, who nodded sagely at the whispered remark.
Last night Lori had seen Decker the madman unmasked. Now she wanted to unmask him again. Strip away this façade of civilized concern. But how? If she stepped out of hiding and challenged him – tried to begin to explain all that she’d seen and experienced in the last twenty four hours – they’d be measuring her up for a strait-jacket before she’d taken a second breath.
He was the one in the well cut suit, with the doctorate and the friends in high places; he was the man, the voice of reason and analysis, while she – a mere woman! – what credentials did she have? – lover of a lunatic and a sometime beast? Decker’s midnight face was quite secure.
There was a sudden eruption of shouts from inside the building. On an
order from their chief the troopers outside levelled their weapons at the front door; the rest retired a few yards. Two cops, pistols aimed at someone inside, backed out of the door. A beat later, Boone, his hands cuffed in front of him, was pushed into the light. It near blinded him. He tried to turn from its brilliance, back into the shadows, but there were two armed men following, who pressed him forward.
There was no sign remaining of the creature Lori had seen him become, but there was ample reminder of his hunger. Blood glued his tee shirt to his chest, and spattered his face and arms.
There was some applause from the audience, uniformed and otherwise, at the sight of the killer chained. Decker joined it, nodding and smiling, as Boone was led away, head averted from the sun, and put into the back of one of the cars.
Lori watched the scene with so many feelings grappling for her attention. Relief that Boone had not been shot on sight, mingled with horror at what she now knew he was; rage at Decker’s performance, and disgust at those who were taken in by it.
So many masks. Was she the only one who had no secret life; no other self in marrow or mind? If not, then perhaps she had no place in this game of appearances; perhaps Boone and Decker were the true lovers here, swapping blows and faces but necessary to each other.
And she’d hugged this man, demanded he embrace her, put her lips to his face. She could never do that again, knowing what lay in wait behind his lips, behind his eyes. She could never kiss the beast.
So why did the thought make her heart hammer?
XVI
Now or Never
1
‘What are you telling me? That there’s more of these people involved? Some kind of cult?’
Decker drew breath to deliver his warning about Midian over again. The troopers called their Chief everything but his name behind his back. Five minutes in his presence and Decker knew why; ten and he was plotting the man’s dismemberment. But not today. The day he needed Irwin Eigerman: and Eigerman, did he but know it, needed him. While daylight lasted Midian was vulnerable, but they had to be swift. It was already one o’clock. Nightfall might still be a good distance away, but so was Midian. To get a task force out there to uproot the place was the work of several hours; and every minute lost to argument was a minute lost to action.
‘Beneath the cemetery,’ Decker said, beginning again at the place he’d begun half an hour before.
Eigerman scarcely made a pretence of listening. His euphoria had increased in direct proportion to the number of bodies brought out of the Sweetgrass Inn, a count which presently stood at sixteen. He had hopes for more. The only human survivor was a year-old baby found in a tumble of blood-soaked sheets. He’d taken her out of the building himself, for the benefit of the cameras. Tomorrow the country would know his name.
None of this would have been possible without Decker’s tip off, of course, which was why he was humouring the man, though at this stage in proceedings, with interviewers and flashlights calling, he was damned if he was going to go after a few freaks who liked corpses for company, which was what Decker was suggesting he do.
He took out his comb and began to rake over his thinning crop, in the hope of fooling the cameras. He was no beauty, he knew. Should it ever slip his mind he had Annie to remind him. You look like a sow, she was fond of remarking, usually before bedtime on a Saturday night. But then people saw what they wanted to see. After today, he’d look like a hero.
‘Are you listening?’ Decker said.
‘I hear you. There’s folks grave robbing. I hear you.’
‘Not grave robbing. Not folks.’
‘Freaks,’ Eigerman said. ‘I seen ’em.’
‘Not the likes of these.’
‘You’re not saying any of them were at the Sweetgrass are you?’
‘No.’
‘We’ve got the man responsible right here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Under lock and key.’
‘Yes. But there are others in Midian.’
‘Murderers?’
‘Probably.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘Just get some of your people out there.’
‘What’s the hurry?’
‘If I told you once I told you a dozen times.’
‘So tell me again.’
‘They have to be rounded up by daylight.’
‘What are they? Some kind of bloodsuckers?’ He chuckled to himself. ‘That what they are?’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Decker replied.
‘Well, in a manner of speaking I gotta tell you, it’s gonna have to wait. I got people want to interview me, doctor. Can’t leave them begging. It’s not polite.’
‘Fuck polite. You’ve got deputies, haven’t you? Or is this a one cop town?’
Eigerman clearly bridled at this.
‘I’ve got deputies.’
‘Then may I suggest you dispatch some of them to Midian?’
‘To do what?’
‘Dig around.’
‘That’s probably consecrated ground, mister,’ Eigerman replied. ‘That’s holy.’
‘What’s under it isn’t,’ Decker replied, with a gravity that had Eigerman silenced. ‘You trusted me once, Irwin,’ he said. ‘And you caught a killer. Trust me again. You have to turn Midian upside down.’
2
There had been terrors, yes, but the old imperatives remained the same: the body had to eat, had to sleep. After leaving the Sweetgrass Inn Lori satisfied the first of these, wandering the streets until she found a suitably anonymous and busy store, then buying a collection of instant gratification foods: doughnuts, custard filled and dutch apple, chocolate milk, cheese. Then she sat in the sun and ate, her numbed mind unable to think much beyond the simple business of biting, chewing and swallowing. The food made her so sleepy she couldn’t have denied her lids falling if she’d tried. When she woke her side of the street, which had been bathed in sunshine, was in shadow. The stone step was chilly, and her body ached. But the food and the rest, however primitive, had done her some good. Her thought processes were a little more in order.
She had little cause for optimism, that was certain, but the situation had been bleaker when she’d first come through this town, on her way to find the spot where Boone had fallen. Then she’d believed the man she loved was dead; it had been a widow’s pilgrimage. Now at least he was alive, though God alone knew what horror, contracted in the tombs of Midian, possessed him. Given that fact, it was perhaps good that he was safe in the hands of the law, the slow process of which would give her time to think their problems through. Most urgent of those, a way to unmask Decker. No-one could kill so many without leaving some trace of evidence. Perhaps back at the restaurant, where he’d murdered Sheryl. She doubted he’d lead the police there as he’d led them to the Inn. It would seem too like complicity with the accused, knowing all the murder sites. He’d wait for the other corpse to be found by accident, knowing the crime would be ascribed to Boone. Which meant – perhaps – the site was untouched, and she might still find some clue that would incriminate him; or at very least open a crack in that pristine face of his.
Returning to where Sheryl had died, and where she’d endured Decker’s provocations, would be no picnic, but it was the only alternative to defeat she had.
She went quickly. By daylight, she had a hope of getting up the courage to step through that burnt out door. By night it would be another matter.
3
Decker watched as Eigerman briefed his deputies, four men who shared with their Chief the looks of bullies made good.
‘Now I trust our source,’ he said magnanimously, throwing a look back at Decker, ‘and if he tells me something bad’s going down in Midian, then I think that’s worth listening to. I want you to dig around a little. See what you can see.’
‘What exactly are we looking for?’ one of the number wanted to know. His name was Pettine. A forty-year-old with the wide, empty face of a comedian’s foil; and a voice too loud, a
nd a belly too big.
‘Anything weird,’ Eigerman told him.
‘Like people been messing with the dead?’ the youngest of the four said.
‘Could be, Tommy,’ Eigerman said.
‘It’s more than that,’ Decker put in. ‘I believe Boone’s got friends in the cemetery.’
‘A fuckwit like that has friends?’ Pettine said. ‘Sure as shit wanna know what they look like.’
‘Well you bring ’em back, boys.’
‘And if they won’t come?’
‘What are you asking, Tommy?’
‘Do we use force?’
‘Do unto others, boy, before they do unto you.’
‘They’re good men,’ Eigerman told Decker, when the quartet had been dispatched. ‘If there’s anything to find there, they’ll find it.’
‘Good enough.’
‘I’m going to see the prisoner. You want to come?’
‘I’ve seen as much of Boone as I ever want to see.’
‘No problem,’ Eigerman said, and left Decker to his calculations.
He’d almost elected to go with the troopers to Midian but there was too much work to do here preparing the ground for the revelations ahead. There would be revelations. Though so far Boone had declined to respond to even the simplest enquiries, he’d break his silence eventually, and when he did Decker would have questions asked of him. There was no chance any of Boone’s accusations could stick – the man had been found with human meat in his mouth, bloodied from head to foot – but there were elements of recent events that confounded even Decker, and until every variable in the scenario had been pinned down and understood he would fret.