She picked up the five-gallon can and carried it into a small clearing where the others were talking and resting. She instinctively shut off her third ear and listened to their words instead of their brainwaves. She didn't know if she could handle all of their thoughts at once.
She didn't want to try.
"Oh, my God. Daddy! "
Nettie heard Sarah screaming from the open door, at the same moment that the porch lights exploded into brightness, at the same moment she felt the slick arms and leafy hands tearing her away from Bill.
The Painters loomed near Nettie, throwing their shadows over her face. Sandy Henning, the church organist, had joined them, and her nimble fingers flexed like turgid vine roots. Nettie looked past them at Bill and saw him fighting off the thing that Preacher Blevins had become. Bill’s big fist disappeared into Amanda's leering maw. The preacher's mouth was inches from Bill's, but Bill thrust a forearm up and blocked the assault.
The preacher turned toward his own screaming daughter and his impossible smile got larger and more putrid, foul swamp sludge dribbling from his melon pink gums. Then Nettie's attention was ripped in half by an orange flare of pain shooting through her leg. One of the creatures had clamped its viscous jaws on her ankle, sucking at her sweat and salt and skin cells.
Then Ann Painter’s face covered her own and she tasted the hellfire heart of carbon and the tangy artichoke air and the deep secret undergrowth of cellulose and the acid of aspen and ash as the tannic vaults and crypts of life's mysteries unlocked themselves and she was and she was and she was pulled free again and found herself in Bill's arms and he pushed her into the parsonage and pulled the flash-frozen Sarah by her pajama sleeve out of the reach of her own scabrous father.
Bill kicked the door closed and the arm of one of the demons caught against the jamb with a thick, glutinous sound. Bill dropped Nettie onto the carpet and she watched with distant eyes as he slammed his shoulder against the door and the arm split like a rotted weed stalk. It bounced off the welcome mat and rolled to a rest beside Nettie. She looked at its dark purple veins still pumping dews, the forefinger still undulating, beckoning, urging her to follow.
She was pollen. She floated on its breeze. Toward forever.
Armfield was lost in his ecstasy, drunk on the holiest of waters. All his life had been a fruitless search, small rituals and sacraments and blessings bestowed. All his life he had walked in darkness, tossing prayers to an invisible and unfelt God.
All his life his soul had been a battleground for the stern Jesus and the understanding and encouraging Satan. And now the human soul had slipped away, danced free of dust and stigmata and beast-numbers and psalms.
Now, beyond life, he had found his true life's work. The true salvation and mercy and light. The one true master that demanded and deserved an eternal servitude. The kingdom and power and glory of shu-shaaa, forever and ever, amen.
But still there was an ache, an empty human ache that he knew was part of that old and pitiful fleshly life. An unfulfilled knot in his Jack-in-the-Pulpit chest, a hunger in his brimming mouth and hands, a nutrient throbbing in his gelatin organs. The family must be united, the circle must be unbroken.
"Sha-raaa," he sprayed to the deep night.
His wife was at his side, her mascara sliding from her face along with the congealing strips of her skin. She raised the stump of her left arm to the heavens, spilling her milky effluence onto the red tiles of the porch.
All in praise to shu-shaaa. Armfield had never felt so connected, so close to his congregation as he now did. They shared the same vision and mind and crusade. They were truly one in the eyes of their newfound god.
And, like any god, this one demanded converts.
They launched their soggy meat against the door.
"Nettie, are you okay?"
Bill gingerly sat her up and leaned her against the sofa. She didn't look hurt, except for her ankle, and she was smiling, a small, pink, dreamy smile.
Her eyes were pressed into tiny crescents and her eyelashes twitched like monarchs on sprigs of white clover. He had seen that monster blowing its rancid wind into her throat. Bill swallowed and prayed harder than he had in his entire life.
Oh, please, Lord, let her be all right. Because I need her more than anything on Your earth. And I don't know what plague You've loosed upon the world, but please spare Nettie from it. You can take me, I know I'm not the best catch there is, but I promise to serve to the best of my ability, I know I sing off-key but practice might make perfect if I have forever to work into the choir.
I know she'll make a heck of an angel, but please just let me have her for one lifetime, and I swear we'll serve you for a thousand times a thousand.
I know You are merciful, I've felt Your goodness in my heart ever since I asked You in, ever since You gave me the hope and strength and wisdom. But please tell me that You're listening. Please give me a sign.
There was a crash of glass at the front of the house and the door groaned on its hinges, the thick wood panels warped from the stress of weight.
Bill looked up from Nettie's blank face to the frightened mask of Sarah. She trembled in her pajamas, her arms wrapped around her chest, her eyes bulging with the memory of impossible sights.
"Sarah,” he said.
She stared deeper, farther.
"Sarah!"
He stood and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her until her eyes met his. "Come on, you've got to help me. We've got to get Nettie to a doctor."
"D-doctor?" Her lower lip quivered. She shook her head, denying her senses.
"Something's happened. Something's wrong with the people."
"M-mom and Dad?"
"I'm sorry, Sarah. I wish I knew what was going on. But I don't. I only know that they've changed somehow."
Sarah bit her thumbnail, the rims of her eyes red from fear and shock. The door splintered and she glanced over at it.
"We don't have much time,” Bill said. “You call the police, I don't know what to tell them, just get them out here. Then we're going to have to make a run for it. If we can reach my truck, we'll be okay. We can’t stay here much longer."
Sarah nodded, suddenly grim and determined, as if awakening in a hospital bed and realizing she'd have to fight for her life. She padded barefoot across the carpet as the pounding on the door grew louder.
Bill laid his hand on her arm. "We can pray for their souls. That's all we can do. The rest is up to the Lord."
She looked at him coldly. "What kind of Lord would do something like this?"
He had no answer. Sarah went down the hall and took the telephone off the wall.
Bill looked out the window. More black shapes emerged from the forest, as if the trees themselves had come to life. He knelt to Nettie and lifted her again. She seemed lighter somehow, as if a vital part of her was missing.
She was still smiling.
CHAPTER TWENTY
"We're about in its territory," Chester said, scratching idly in the dirt with a stick. "See how the woods is getting weirder? Them roots running through yonder like sick snakes?"
He didn't like the way the trees looked, dark skeletons with sharp dead arms. Small animals, either alive or else dead and green eyed, chittered among the crisp foliage. The spring leaves shimmered in the moonlight, starchy and shiny and curling like needy claws. And if he held his head just so, he could hear the faint, raw wind that blew from the Earth Mouth.
"How much farther, Chester?" DeWalt asked, breathing heavily. The California Yankee was about tuckered out. They all were, except Tamara.