He’d tried to help Henry Guthrie’s family, but he certainly failed at that. On the other hand he’d stood between Crow and the roaches that day and maybe that had saved his life.
Yeah, he mused, I could step out of this ball game and sleep.
With Vic dead, the Bone Man knew that all he had to do was want it bad enough and he’d be gone. Leave the living to fight the dead, even though that fight was probably lost anyway.
I could go…but what if I stayed?
The climbers were nearly down to the floor of the Hollow. The end game was about to start, win or lose. It wasn’t his fight anymore. He’d already saved the town once, and died for it. Been damned for it.
This ain’t my fight no more.
Overhead, invisible against the sky, the crows were circling, circling.
The Bone Man looked at Mike, who was trying hard not to scream, trying hard not to run from this because who on earth would want to go forward and embrace that kind of heritage. And yet he kept going.
He looked at LaMastra, who had already lost a friend and who would probably be haunted by this every day of his life. It wasn’t even his town, and yet he kept going.
He looked at Val, who had the most to lose of any of them because of that little babe that was just starting to grow in her belly. She should leave, she most of all should just turn around and find some way out of this town. She’d already lost too much, and yet she kept going.
Then he looked at Crow, who had been tortured by this since Griswold had killed his brother and then tried to kill him. Crow had been in and out of the bottle, had wrestled with enough personal demons. Maybe he had the biggest stake in this because he always believed that the evil had never gone away. Even so, he could have left; he should have packed Val and maybe Mike into a car and driven out of town after they discovered who and what Boyd was. He knew that he was on a suicide mission, that there was no foreseeable way that the four of them could stand against all those monsters, let alone against Griswold and what he was about to become. He should leave, and yet he kept going.
They reached the bottom of the pitch and stood facing down the long corridor of twisted trees. The sounds of shrieks and laughter from the Hollow filled the air, even from this distance. The Bone Man, invisible, stood behind them and watched them brace themselves, check their weapons, exchange handshakes or hugs, and then head down the road toward death.
The Bone Man was done here, he had no reason to even stand and watch, let alone follow. He was nearly powerless, and he was free. And yet he kept going.
Chapter 48
(1)
They stopped at a point a hundred yards back from the cleared space around the swamp, squatting down behind a clump of wild rosebushes. Beyond was a sight out of Hell itself.
Hundreds of vampires writhed together in a perverse orgy of unbound passion and violent ecstasy, throwing themselves at each other, sometimes biting, sometimes kissing. They dragged each other to the ground and fed on the stolen blood in each other’s veins; they did unspeakable things to each other and enticed others to do the same or worse to them. It was a celebration of their strength, of their powers to do and take harm, of their supernatural endurance, of their vampire nature. If any human had been a part of that press or caught in those acts of fervent cruelty, he would have died within the first few moments,
LaMastra clutched at Crow’s sleeve. “There’s too many of them!”
“I know.” He nudged Mike. “Do you see Griswold? Has he risen yet?”
“No,” the boy answered in a tight whisper. “We still have a few minutes. I didn’t even think we’d be in time. It’ll happen soon, though. I can feel it.”
LaMastra made a noise. “What is it, a disturbance in the Force?”
“Vince,” Val said.
“Sorry.”
Crow closed his eyes and tried to picture the landscape as he remembered it during the day. “I have an idea,” he said and outlined it quickly. Val gasped, but she kept her comments in check.
“As plans go,” LaMastra sighed, “that really sucks.”
Mike said, “It’s the best we got.”
“Right.” Crow looked at Val. “I…don’t know what to…”
Her eyes glittered like polished onyx. “Say ‘I love you, Val Guthrie,’ and then get your ass in gear, Mr. Crow.”
He grinned. “I love you, Val Guthrie.”
“I love you, too.”
She turned away from him and focused her attention down on the writhing mass of undead bodies. Crow lingered for a moment longer, staring at her profile, then he rose, nodded to LaMastra and Mike. “Give me five minutes.”
“I don’t know if we have that much time.”
“Then give me what you can.”
Mike rose and walked the first few yards with him. “Crow,” he said quietly, “if I don’t get a chance later…I just wanted to say thanks.”
“For what?”
“For being there for me when no one else was. I mean before all this happened. You were always cool, you always treated me like a person, like I was worth something.”
“You are.”
“You were the only one who acted like I was. I’ll never forget it, man.” Awkwardly, he extended his hand. Smiling, Crow took it, but then pulled the boy close and gave him a hug.
Before he let him go, Crow whispered, “Iron Mike Sweeney, the Enemy of Evil.”
Then Crow turned away and melted into the shadows.
(2)
On the floor of the Hollow, Ruger and Lois were swaying together as they watched the bodies, moving as if to the pulsing of tribal drums, but the only music was made by the cries and screams and moans of the vampires. The level of agitation in the crowd was at a fever pitch and still it climbed higher with every moment, carving out new levels of passionate intensity. Ruger could hardly bear to just watch; his craving was so acute it was physically painful. Suddenly one scream rose higher than all the others. It was a shrill, piercing cry that stabbed upward from the press with such naked power that the revelers were shocked to an abrupt silence, and the scream exploded outward from the center of the press. Shock waves of force rolled outward, buffeting the bodies roughly backward.
Ruger crouched in a shocked silence, Sarah’s limp wrist momentarily forgotten in his grip. He looked at Lois, whose face was wild like animal excitement.
In the center of the crowd a space appeared occupied by only one of the vampires. Ruger frowned at the vampire, trying to understand what he was seeing. The creature in the center of the clearing was standing straight, his body stretched, his legs wide, feet arched so that only the tips of his shoes touched the muddy ground. What Ruger couldn’t understand was how the man was standing at alclass="underline" the contact his toes made with the ground was only tenuous, and his body shook and trembled, but did not fall. The vampire’s head was thrown back in such a demonstration of total ecstasy that the corner of his mouth had begun to tear; his scream was constant and droplets of blood shot upward from his rupturing lungs, seeding the air above the Hollow with a fine red mist.
The revelers lay or stood or crouched or sat in postures of awe, their ears deafened by the shriek, their eyes filled with the glory of the event. They knew that this was some signal, the trumpet blast of something wonderful to come. The screaming went on and on, tearing apart the throat of the screamer, ripping loose the vocal chords, shattering the larynx. Blood ran in lines from the wide staring eyes of the revenant; blood dripped from both nostrils and from both ears; blood spurted from around each black fingernail and it flowed from his penis and anus and soaked his trousers, it filled his shoes and overflowed to drip onto the ground. The skin of his face seemed to ripple and roll and then blood burst from every pore, showering the supplicants, who surged forward to taste it as it fell. The screaming went higher and higher and then faded as the throat filled with blood. A fountain of gore erupted from the upturned mouth and shot upward with great force. The body continued to shake and tremble with ever greater agitation as the force within it built to critical mass—and then it exploded. The vampire’s body literally flew apart as if a stick of dynamite had detonated in its chest. Limbs and parts of limbs, bits of shredded flesh, indefinable chunks of viscera smashed like a grisly hail onto the vampires, and they gasped in shock and then screamed in exultant joy.