“What the hell is happening?” the doctor demanded, but nobody had any answers. Instead they each stopped moving and listened to the sounds coming through the empty window. The screeching of car horns. Gunshots. And screams. Lots and lots of screams.
The door opened and a nurse rushed in, her face smeared with blood, clothes littered with glass fragments, eyes wild. She had one hand pressed to her throat. “Doctor! Oh my God…they…they…” Then she sank to her knees and fell forward, her hand slipping away to release an arterial spray.
Behind her in the half-lit corridors, it was sheer pandemonium as patients and nurses and doctors staggered through the shadows, most of them bleeding from the shattered windows.
Jonatha tore the wadded tissues out of Newton’s hand, but as she bent to press it to the nurse’s throat the artery pumped a last feeble splash and then stopped.
“What the hell is going on?” she screamed, turning toward Mike. “What’s going on?”
Mike looked out the window. There was more light spilling into the room from the fires out there than from the emergency lights. “It’s what I was trying to tell you,” he said. “This is what Griswold and Vic have been planning all these years. The Red Wave.”
“But what is it? What does he want? Just to kill us?”
Mike turned. “Don’t you get it? This isn’t about us. It’s never been about us, not really. We’re just in his way. You said it yourself—Griswold is a psychic vampire. Every time someone is killed by those things he created, every time someone dies in pain and terror, he feeds on it. Every death makes him stronger. He’s been getting stronger and stronger all these years, and now with this…” He waved at the window. “With this, he’ll be strong enough.”
“Strong enough to do what?” demanded Val, rising.
Mike’s fiery eyes burned in the darkness.
“Strong enough to rise from the grave. That’s what this is all about. He’s using all this raw power to remake himself. He wants to come back, not as a ghost or as a psychic vampire, but with a new body.”
Weinstock stared at him, then looked out the window at the inferno that was Pine Deep. “What kind of body can he make by feeding on pain and death?”
Mike shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s never been anything like this. The Bone Man was sure of that, and I know it. Just like I’m the first of whatever I am…when Griswold rises he’ll be the first of what he is. Something really powerful.” He paused as if listening to voices in his head. “I think he wants to be a god.”
The others just looked at him, not getting it.
“This isn’t just about Pine Deep, either, any more than it’s been about us. The Red Wave is going to break Griswold out of the grave, but it’s also going to spread outward. The Bone Man told me that there are a lot of things that make Pine Deep what it is, and it’s what drew Griswold here in the first place. This place is like a battery for storing spiritual energy. I don’t really understand it, but it’s something about its geography. The Bone Man called it geo-something.”
“Geomancy?” Jonatha ventured.
“Yeah. Pine Deep’s surrounded on all sides by running water. That keeps the spiritual energy here in town, concentrated, and over time that energy just builds on itself. Griswold’s drawing on that just as he’s drawing on a release of energy from everyone who gets killed. When he rises, though, he’ll have enough power to cross the water boundaries and take all that energy with him because all of it will be him. The Red Wave is not another plague, it’s more like a tsunami, and when he rises everywhere he goes that power is going to be unstoppable.” Mike closed his eyes. “Griswold is going to destroy the world and we’re too late to do anything about it.”
“No…” Val said, touching her stomach.
Mike opened his eyes and laughed. “Welcome to the apocalypse.”
Chapter 40
(1)
Missy, Crow’s old Impala, rocketed down the black road at seventy miles an hour. Crow was hunched over the wheel, his face set in a grim mask, his eyes intent on the road. Beads of sweat were scattered across his brow. Beside him, LaMastra was as rigid as stone. Only his big fist moved, pounding down repeatedly on his thigh as he muttered, “Go! Go!”
All Crow heard was Val’s name echoing in his head. He wanted to scream.
Several more explosions blew bright red holes in the night. Thunderous echoes buffeted the car as it crested another hill. Crow cried out and jammed on the brakes; the wheels screeched and the car slewed and fishtailed before finally coming to a stop at the top of the last hill before they reached the town proper. Crow and LaMastra felt their minds freezing with shock as they stared at the road and the town. Cars by the hundreds clogged the road, crowding both lanes, clawing along the shoulders as they fled from the town. Behind the mad exodus the town itself was ablaze. Fires whooshed upward from dozens of spots, and the undersides of the clouds writhed with red snakes of reflected fire. Buildings and trees burned vigorously; telephone poles flamed like torches all along Corn Hill.
“Who’s doing all this?” LaMastra punched the dashboard. “This can’t all be Vic Wingate. I mean—these are vampires we’re dealing with! Vampires don’t blow shit up. Do they?”
The flaming debris was raining down onto the rooftops of the houses near the elementary school. Already some of the houses were burning. “They do now,” Crow said in a drum-tight voice. “I guess they do whatever serves their purpose?”
“Purpose? Purpose? What purpose? I mean, why blow shit up if you just want to drink blood? I don’t get it.”
A line of cars three abreast were heading right for them, horns blaring, high beams flashing on and off. “Hold on,” Crow said as he spun the wheel. “This is going to get tricky.” Missy left the road and crunched along on the outside edge of the shoulder, at times clinging to the edge of the drainage ditch that ran parallel to the verge. He reached the line of cars and shot past; the drivers cursed at him and shot him the finger, but Crow spun the wheel back and shot back onto the road, accelerating into an open slot, racing into the burning town.
(2)
Ruger had kill zones set up at each of the big event areas that made up the Festival, using the handy tourist brochures so thoughtfully provided by the borough to locate the right spots. One of them was the Dead-End Drive-In, and that was already a slaughterhouse; another was the Hayride. He had teams hitting the college campus, the two movie theaters, the high school gymnasium, and the banquet hall of the Harvestman—everywhere tourists were gathering in large numbers with some possibility of containment. Vic’s fireworks were keeping things hopping. The bridges were gone, which meant that no one was getting out of Pine Deep. If they fled into the farms and state forest, then that would be a happy hunting ground for later on. By the time anyone on the outside figured out what was happening—if that was even possible—and mobilized any kind of police or military response, it would be way too late. The Man would be up by then.
(3)
Brinke Stevens flashed a bright smile as she handed the signed 8x10 studio portrait of her in a seductive pose. The young man she’d signed it for was blushing so hard he couldn’t speak.
“Don’t forget your candy,” she called, and the guy reached out a sweaty, trembling hand to take the bag of Pine Deep Authentic Candy Corn. Everyone who got a picture got some candy. The fan pressed the picture to his chest and sort of scuttled away, already tearing open the plastic bag.