If God gave you a gift, you were supposed to use it.
She reached, trying to get a connection, but something was cutting in, static or a stronger signal. Had shu-shaaa gained power from just that little burst of sunrise?
Then she realized it was Ginger, asleep but with a vibrant mind, a mental radar dish looking for information. And she sensed what Ginger was sensing, that two creatures, the bad people, were emerging from the forest behind the house. And Robert was…
She saw now through his eyes, tasted his acrid cigarette, smelled the dew on the grass, felt the rough grain of the porch rail under his elbows, the throbbing raw ache in the back of his hand where he had been tainted and infected.
She felt the strong urge that tugged him toward the forest, heard the strange voice that called him to go among those leaves and meet the things that would welcome him fully into the fold.
Tamara jolted Ginger, telling her to wake up and bring Daddy in, telling her to hurry hurry hurry because there wasn't much time and the orange daybreak jumped a little higher in the sky and the two creatures twitched with new hunger and they sensed Robert's bioenergy and hurry Ginger hurry.
The connection died, cutting off like a phone line in an electrical storm.
Because the Earth moved.
Nettie was floating floating floating heart of feathers in Bill's arms only his arms were skin, strange skin.
Why did she feel like she wanted to sleep but something wouldn't let her and why oh why was her throat so dry, had been ever since Ann Painter the Savior no the shu-shaaa had planted that kiss that drowned both body and soul — and what was that light? — oh, Bill, you better put me down because now I want to kiss you and then you'll be like us everything must be us and my mouth can't tell you to put me down and save yourself but how foolish it all was, once was blind but now I see, how easy it is to surrender when nothing matters except the feeding and growing and changing and the harvest and then the end of everything.
Only now, my love, you said open your heart so let me in let us all in I told you there was room for forgiving it's a big room let me open the door and oh the glory.
Yes, your breath is sweet and close and I'm sorry it has to end like this but I want to give.
I can't
I love you Bill shu-shaaa wants
But I can't your light and heat forgive me a time to embrace forgive me my trespasses and a time to refrain from embracing
I love you Bill
I love you shu-shaaa
I have sinned so I cannot save you
I love you too much, Bill to make you like me good-bye
She opened her eyes and Bill saw the green glow flickering in her retinas, something inside her trying to swell and explode. She twitched in his arms, tossed her frantic hands around his neck, drawing his head down for a final kiss. Bill yielded, helpless against the power she held over him.
Bill knew she was already gone, already infected, already like the monsters that milled outside the house. But still she lived, somehow, even without a heartbeat. And Bill couldn't resist her suddenly too-red mouth.
Many things sparkled in her eyes, things beyond his simple understanding, but all were beckoning and tempting. Their lips nearly touched, but at the last moment she stiffened and pushed him away.
Bill held Nettie against his chest as the warmth faded from her body. He pressed his face near her mouth, hoping to feel the vapor of her breathing. But all he felt was the mist of his own tears as her flesh wilted in his arms.
"Bill, come on!" Sarah was at the back door, looking through the peephole. "Those things… whatever they are, they're not back here."
"Nettie," he said to Sarah, softly. He was holding Nettie as if she were a rag doll whose threads were unraveling.
"We've got to go now, Bill," Sarah said, coming to him and tugging at his elbow. The preacher and his congregation still battered at the front door. Sarah glanced into the living room, then shut her eyes against her own remembered horrors. "My parents-I know how you feel. But we can't give up. You wouldn’t let me, and now I’m not going to let you. We've got to try to live… for them."
Bill looked at Sarah, then back down to Nettie.
"She's dead, Bill,” Sarah said. “I'm sorry, but that won't bring her back. She's with God now."
Bill wasn't so sure about that. Whatever those monsters had planted inside her, whatever they had done to her "Let's go," Bill said through gritted teeth.
Sarah threw open the door and they ran across the side yard, Bill carrying Nettie. He felt naked under the moonlight, exposed to God, raw. His truck was in the parking lot, its engine still running. Whatever the creatures were, their hands seemed too clumsy to use keys. He thanked the Lord for that small blessing.
Sirens flared down the narrow street and red lights strobed across the tops of trees. Bill slipped once and saw a fluid movement out of the corner of his eye, but he regained his footing and ran without looking back. They reached the truck just as a police car skidded to a stop beside the graveyard.
"You drive," Bill yelled at Sarah. He gently lifted Nettie into the truck seat as Sarah slid behind the steering wheel.
"Take her out of here," Bill said.
Arnie McFall, the town patrolman, jumped out of the police car and ran toward Bill. Sarah backed up the truck, throwing broken asphalt as the big tires spun. Bill watched until the truck was out of sight, then turned toward the graveyard.
Arnie had his gun out and was shining a spotlight at the figures wafting among the tombstones and the cemetery trees.
"What in the holy hell are they?" Arnie asked Bill, not knowing whether to shoot or jump back into his cruiser and speed away.
"Hell's people," Bill said, just before the ground rumbled and the grave markers toppled and the night fell in.
The alien absorbed the vibrations through its altered cells. The chaotic waves emanating from the approaching specimens disrupted its feeding, disturbed its healing, scattered its focus. It signaled the outlying roots and spore-infected units, commanding them to withdraw, centralizing its energy in the heart-brain.
The symbols swarmed, broke loose, and spilled through the soup of its senses:
Tah-mah-raaa-kish.
Eyez-gwine-see.
Luv-yoo-bill.
No-fuk-eeeng-eee-vil.
Hells-pee-pull.
Gwine-see.
Sun-uv-a-hooor.
Tee-in-tee.
Poy-zun.
Poy-zun.
Kish-poy-zun.
Tah-mah-raaa.
Poy-zun.
The shock of the dark energy sent ripples through the alien, stunning it, compelling it to contract around its center. Driven by instinct into self-preservation, it huddled itself into its birth position.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Robert felt the tremor. It was slight, just enough to knock the ash off his cigarette. There were few earthquakes in the Appalachians, and the upheavals and tectonic distress that had pushed the mountains out of the crust were eons past. He wondered if the construction crews were blasting over at Sugarfoot again. It seemed too early for them to be creating such a public disturbance.
And he wondered why he wanted to go out into the woods, with his hand throbbing and his head splitting open in pain, his thoughts not quite fitting together.
The screen door creaked open, the loose glass rattling. Ginger held the door open with a small hand. Her eyes were wide and Robert looked into them. Then he shook his head. For a moment, they had looked exactly like Tamara's.
"Come in, Daddy," she said, with no sleep in her voice.
"Another bad dream, sweetheart?" Robert said, grinding his smoke into the ashtray and staring into the forest.
"No, Daddy. Mommy says come in."