That’s why I didn’t hear it when someone came up and grabbed me.
It took me by the arm with a snarl and a hiss like a big cat would make, but it had hands like a person—and it probably was a person, once. Now its skin was so white I could actually see it in spite of the starless night. I couldn’t see it real clear, but there was a pale oval for a face, and white spiders for fingers, gripping me hard and trying to throw me to the ground.
I kicked for all I was worth, and twisted my body to wrench free from the white thing’s grip, and it worked—but it also threw me free from the wall, and then I was floating again, a balloon cut loose from the string. I scrambled away, backward, then on all fours, and then up on two feet because it was faster. And that thing was coming, and it was yelling at me. I heard the yelling despite the booming sound, louder than thunder, because the thing behind me wasn’t alone.
I heard more of them—this time, I heard them before I saw them, swooping around the building I’d used for shelter, coming from at least one other direction, too. They homed in on me, and all I could see were those bobbing white spots where their faces ought to be. Were they wearing robes? I remembered the sea of dark robes and gloves the times I’d been forced to visit before, but I couldn’t tell—I was so confused, so turned around.
All I could do was dodge them, one at a time, and soon I wouldn’t be able to do that anymore. They were herding me the way a dog herds sheep. They were chasing me back toward the main building, I could sense it—or I could fear it. That meant I needed to go the other way, but it was blocked by more bobbing, weaving shadows hissing like somebody’d done let the air out of them.
I shoved one in the face, and elbowed another in the belly. I wondered if I knew them. I wondered if I was hitting my mother, or my father—no, probably not him. I’d feel more satisfaction than terror if I’d cracked him in the nose. Even if I couldn’t see his face and didn’t know for certain who it was—my gut would tell me.
I spun around, waiting for the next one, trying to stay light on my feet and keep moving so they couldn’t grab me; I squinted into the bleak, flat nothing and, lo and behold, I saw the trees. Just outlines, barely sketches . . . like chalk marks that hadn’t been erased all the way. But they got brighter as I watched, and I wondered what I was seeing.
Then I realized there was light coming up behind me.
I turned to look and saw a ball of glowing yellow headed my way. At first I thought it was a ghost—something like Father Coyle. But then I thought it might be something bad—like Reverend Davis. Then I realized I was wrong both ways, because it was a woman holding a lantern.
And something else.
It was Miss Andrew. I mean, Lizbeth. I was so surprised I stopped moving, and that meant something grabbed me right away. I went to shake it off, but this one held on tight and I couldn’t wriggle loose. The thing got its hand all tangled up in my hair and it hurt like hell, so I started screaming. Why not? They already knew where I was, didn’t they? There was no more sense in playing quiet and waiting to get killed.
Round and round I went, so I only saw Lizbeth in flashes. She dropped the lantern she was carrying and then two-fisted whatever she’d been holding in the other hand—and that’s when I saw it better: She was holding an axe.
Weird. Where would she get an axe? And why would she know how to use it like that? These were the thoughts going through my mind—in between screaming and wondering how I was going to get loose of this creature that had such a hold on me.
Another thing took me by the foot and swept me off my feet.
I dropped to the ground on my back, knocking the wind out of me—but the pain on my head kept me from giving up yet. I kicked like a madwoman, and my hair started to rip, tear, and break. It stung like crazy, but I kept on struggling because I only had to hold them off another minute or two. Lizbeth was coming. Sure, she was old enough to be my momma (even my grandma, I think), but she was coming—armed with an axe, no less—and I felt good about that. It was the first hint of hope I’d had all day, and I held on to it as firmly as I’d held on to the building while I ran in the dark.
Lizbeth moved a whole lot faster than anyone expected. She swung that axe harder than any lumberjack I ever heard of, and she caught one of the shadowed figures square in the chest. I gasped in surprise—that was murder, right there. Wasn’t it? No, never mind—I don’t think so, because, like I said, they weren’t human anymore, no how. You can’t murder something that’s not a person.
Another one ran up close to her—not even slowing down, just flinging itself at her, to knock her flat, I guess—but she wasn’t having it. She clocked it upside the head with the dull end of the axe head as she swung it back around from clipping another one.
The axe snared on a piece of fabric, one of those robes (if they were robes, and yes, I think they were). She yanked it free in time to catch a man’s face, right up under the chin. It shocked me to see such violence, but I don’t know why. I’d seen enough in my time, blood from myself and other people, broken noses and broken bones; and I didn’t know exactly what the Chapelwood men and women were capable of, but I wouldn’t have put anything past them.
They were definitely trying to kill me, one way or another.
They were definitely trying to kill Lizbeth, one way or another.
Neither one of us was having it. I wrenched a leg free and used it to kick somebody hard in the jaw—I’m not even sure how I did it, but I felt the heel of my shoe hit against bone, and the grip on my other leg slipped. I got my feet up underneath me, and even though it hurt—oh God, it hurt where the bastard had hold of my hair—I turned around and swung my leg up to where the fork of somebody’s crotch ought to be. And that’s how I found out they were still a little human, maybe. The creature grunted and let go—thank heaven I’d found the right off switch.
I was free for a second or two, but more creatures were coming—so I ran toward Lizbeth, and I think I was crying the whole time, just from plain old relief. She screamed at me, “Get down!” and I didn’t question it at all, I just dropped like a stone as she came forward and swung that axe over my head. It hit something hard but wet, and one of those things called out in pain.
Lizbeth took my hand and ran back to the lantern, still sitting on the ground. I couldn’t believe nothing had thought to take it and put it out, but these things were pretty single-minded, you might say. They had a goal, and that goal was me. Everything else was just part of the background.
“Where are we going?” I gasped. Until I gasped, I hadn’t realized how tired I was. My scalp was pulsing under my hair, and my legs ached from being pulled or from kicking anything within reach, and the tips of my fingers were starting to ache where I’d squeezed the building so hard.
“First, to the car.”
“There’s a car?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Just over there. Simon might be there—he’s supposed to meet us, if he can.”
“Where did he go?”
“Downstairs, without me. To the . . . Holiest of Holies—that’s what the reverend called it.”
My stomach twisted itself up into a ball and I almost stumbled, but caught myself at the last second. I was trying to keep up with Lizbeth, but she was so much faster than she looked. I tripped behind her, recovered, and tripped some more. I was doing more tripping than running.
She was right. There was a car—and I was so thrilled I could’ve thrown up right then and there.
Lizbeth stopped dragging me along behind her. She held the lantern up, looked around, and said the only swearword I ever heard her utter: “Well, goddamn. Where is he?”
She looked at me, then back at Chapelwood. She looked at the courtyard, and saw it littered with lumps of black fabric with snow-white hands and faces, like piles of laundry. How many had she hit with that axe? How many of them were dead? How many were only hurt? I just couldn’t make
myself care, not even when I thought about the police, and a trial, and prison for either one of us. To hell with all that. None of that mattered now.
“We could hide, and wait for him.”
“No. We made a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
She gave me a real hard stare, or maybe it only looked hard because of the shadows around her eyes and the pitch-dark night behind her. “A deal to get you safe, above all else. We’re leaving, right now. You and I. He’ll be along behind us, as soon as he’s able. Don’t worry about him. We don’t have time.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling slightly deflated. “Do you know how to drive?”
“No, and Simon has the keys anyway. You and I are going to run for the main road.”
“And then what?”
She didn’t answer right away. She scanned the yard with the lantern, spotted the entry driveway, and shuttered the lantern until we were almost in that perfect dark again. “We have to go now. More are coming—do you hear them?”
“Over that other noise?” My teeth were chattering, and I hated it. “I can’t hardly hear a thing, except for you.”
I barely saw it, but she frowned at me like I wasn’t making any sense. “I don’t hear it anymore,” she confessed. “Not at all.”
I chose not to think too hard about that. I deliberately didn’t think about it all the way to the edge of the woods, where we found the naked patch that ran between the trees, and we started stumbling down it like our lives depended on it—because, well, they surely did.
“More are coming, yes. I can hear them, even if you can’t. We just have to outrun them for a little while—we just have to make it to the road—” She wheezed as she said it, and I got the very bad feeling she was trying to convince us both.
“Why? What’s waiting at the road?”
“Chief Eagan will be, along with the last decent men in Birmingham,” she whispered.
It gave me hope to hear it, even if I didn’t know I could believe it.
The lantern swung back and forth in her hand, and the whole forest bent around it, leaning over us, backing away from us, and not helping us one damn bit.
Behind us, a car was coming. We saw its lights bouncing up and down as the tires went over the holes and ruts, and neither of us knew if we should flag it down or run away—it might be the inspector, or someone from Chapelwood sent to catch us.
Lizbeth handed me her axe. “Take this!” she said as she shielded the lantern with her body, then shuttered it completely and took me by the hand to drag me off the beaten path.
I couldn’t see where I was going again, and I hated how familiar that feeling had become, but at least I wasn’t by myself. I let her draw me back a few feet, into the trees, and then down into a crouch as the car approached. She was wearing a dark dress, but mine was light enough I was afraid I might be spotted—so she pushed me behind her, and traded me the axe for her lantern again.
The car rumbled slowly toward us, and when it was almost even with our hiding spot, it pulled up to a stop. Even in the dark, with just the car’s lights pushing forward, and everything else backlit into blackness . . . I could see that it wasn’t the inspector’s car from the clearing. This was a truck instead, with a short, flat bed behind it. I saw movement in that bed, and spotted three or four of the robed and hooded monsters.
The driver had his hood down, and enough light made it through the truck’s windscreen for me to see that it was Nathaniel Barrett. He parked the truck but left it running. His door opened with a low groan and then a squeak as it bounced back onto its hinges, and he stepped out onto the running board. He leaned on that door and it complained a little more. He gazed out at the woods, as far as the lights would show him.
I didn’t think he’d see us. I thought we were low enough to the ground and hidden well enough that he’d think we’d gotten away. But I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll be wrong again before my last breath . . .
“Come out, come out . . . wherever you are,” he shouted. Little did he know we were right in his line of sight.
One by one, the things in the back of the truck spilled over the sides—they oozed, toppled, and landed on the ground on all fours, some of them. I’d been wrong about how many there were—I wouldn’t have thought so many would fit.
Lizbeth had that hard stare again, aimed at Barrett at first, but then she turned it on me. “I told you, Simon and I made a promise. We had a plan.”
I whispered back, “What do we do? Do you think Mr. Wolf is coming?”
“Not soon enough.” She stood up. I tugged at her dress, but she shrugged me off with a twitch of her hip. She adjusted her hold on the axe, and said, real quiet, “When I engage him, you take the light and make for the road. Whatever happens, don’t stop. Keep running, and pray to anyone you think is listening.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll hold them off until Simon gets here.”
“But—”
She didn’t give me a chance to argue. Before I could say anything, she stepped out into the truck’s light, square in the center of the road, without so much as a glance back in my direction.
All I knew was, there was a plan—and I needed to run.
But I froze up. I was afraid to make a sound. The creatures were milling around the truck—either they couldn’t see me, or they were waiting to see what happened with the little old lady wielding an axe.
Once they were talking, I crept away—far smarter than running. I held the lantern up close to my breasts, and it was so hot it almost burned me through my dress. I tiptoed between the trees even farther back, farther away, just a few feet at a time.
I pointed myself in the direction of the road, and told myself I’d make a straight line.
“Give us the girl,” I heard Barrett say to Lizbeth.
“It’s too late. She’s gone already.”
“You wouldn’t leave her. Not when you’ve gone to all this trouble.”
“You’re right—I wouldn’t. I told her to leave me. I’m old and slow, and she’s young and quick. She’s better off running without me.”
“She’s lying,” he said over his shoulder. “Search the trees, and bring her to me.”
“You’re wasting your time, and theirs.” She was cooler than an electric fan, not flinching or sounding desperate at all. She was so calm, so certain, that the robed things hesitated—waiting to see if their boss believed her or not.
“And tell me, madam: Why have you wasted yours? This has never been any business of yours. Why come to Birmingham? Why come to Chapelwood? The numbers tell us you’re more than you appear, but how much more?”
“My business is my own, and if your numbers know so much, they can fill you in later. If you survive this meeting.”
He laughed at her, but she didn’t care. “Are you a spiritualist? A medium, like Ruth? Has some corpse summoned you to Alabama?”
“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?”
“And you’ve answered me with one more. Disciples . . . ,” he said with a wave of his hand, giving them some sort of directions I didn’t understand, but definitely didn’t like. They stopped milling around and drifted away from the truck, toward the tree line.
She saw them, and spoke a little too fast. “Then I’ll tell you the truth. Or more of the truth, if you prefer.”
“Always. I’ve never sought anything else.”
“I’m not here for Chapelwood, or for Ruth Gussman,” she told him. “Not for her father, either, or for the priest he murdered. I don’t care about your cult, and I don’t care about your God—I don’t even care if He, or It, or whatever we’re speaking of . . . I honestly don’t care if you bring about the end of the world.”
“Then, pray tell, what did bring you here?”
“A woman, missing for thirty years, and the prospect of answers, if not hope. I was
looking for a resolution, even if that resolution was something abhorrent. I only wanted to know.”
“And do you? Did you find what you were looking for?”
She let out a shaky sigh, the first sign of weakness she’d offered up yet. “I’ve learned only that I’ve lost her to some in-between space, where the dead and the living both might linger. Whether I can ever reach her or not . . . there is no answer, and likely there will never be one. But I can live with that now,” she added fast, since it looked like he was about to interrupt her with another question. “Because I couldn’t save her, my Nance. In the end, I failed her. I’m the reason she’s gone, or changed, or vanished—whatever eventually became of her, she’s beyond help now, and that’s on my head. All I can do to redeem myself, to make Nance’s loss mean something . . . is save Ruth.”
“Who is this Nance?”
“The gray lady,” she said. “I believe you know of her.”
He shook his head. “I believe I don’t. But you present this as if it were a trade of some kind—like you wish to trade one life for another?”
Her eyes narrowed. Maybe it was only the light of the truck bearing down on her, or maybe she was as steely and angry as she looked. “You say you don’t know her?”
“I assure you, I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
She struggled with this for a moment. Then: “It doesn’t matter now. She’s gone—and yes, I’ll trade all of our lives for Ruth’s. Mine, yours, theirs. None of it’s a fair trade, but it’s all I’ve got to offer.”
Whether he believed her or not, he’d gotten his reply. He stepped down off the truck’s running board, and then climbed right onto the hood and stood up straight. The engine wiggled beneath his feet, making it look like he was shaking really softly. Holding still but not holding still. Human but not human.
More human than the rest of them, though.
I knew it for sure when something off to Lizbeth’s left snarled, then leaped.
It moved like a dog under a blanket, low to the ground and billowing—its robe and hood dangling low and moving in swift waves. It went for her at thigh level—but that was a bad choice. Lizbeth swung without hardly looking at the thing, and caught it up against the head, hard enough to send it falling away—and fast enough to raise the axe again when the next one swooped into the light to take its chances.