James jumped onto the stage and grabbed the mic cable and pulled the stand toward him. The marsh-creature crawled over the roadie, leaving a slimy trail across the man's skin. James lifted the mic stand and swung the heavy cast iron base into the creature's back. Raw, milky fluids oozed from the wound, but the creature kept on with its mission. It pressed its wide mouth against the man's face, muffling his final scream.
James looked down from the stage and saw that a half dozen of the things had come out of the alleys and backstreets and woods.
"Run, you stupid bastards!" James yelled into the microphone. The roadie sprawled and relaxed, staring at the sun, a stupid smile of joy crossing his face as the creature slid off of him. The roadie rolled toward James, the beginning of an unhealthy glow in the dead, eager eyes.
James jumped from the stage and ran toward Mayzie’s house. He wondered what he’d hoped to accomplish in the first place. He’d seen Night of the Living Dead. They shot the niggers no matter what. If there was a riot, the best place to be was out of sight and out of mind.
Along Main Street, the vendors fell over one another as they tried to escape. Two elderly women were pressed against the locked door of a drugstore. A bearded man with glasses gathered up leather goods that had spilled from his table, mindless of the horror in his pursuit of commerce. James ran past him, kicked in the glass of the drugstore’s door, and helped the women inside.
“Hide way back in the dark,” he said, then left them heading down the aisles.
A man in a sweater vest and headphones was tangled in electronic equipment and cords. A vinyl banner that read WRNC 1220 AM was draped across the front of his table.
He lifted a hand mic and said, “This is Melvin Patterson live at Blossomfest, and you won’t believe this-I see it and I still don’t believe it-live from WRNC, brought to you by your good friends at Bryson Feed Supply-”
A slick creature in khaki rags rose up from behind the table and clamped a hand on the announcer’s shoulder. The man continued speaking into the mic: “Something’s going on and it seems like a stampede of customers, so round up the family and get down here before all the good stuff’s gone.”
The creature yanked at the man, spun him, and the mic dropped to the ground. James ran to the table to help, but the creature had already swallowed the man’s tongue and groped at his eyes with fibrous fingers.
James slipped into an alley, hoping the creatures hadn’t noticed him. They hadn’t.
They were too busy with the harvest.
Tamara looked into the dark maw of the shu-shaaa. A thick gurgling, what might have been a chuckle, arose from deep within the alien’s bowels. Then she was inside DeWalt's head, attending the latest meeting of the Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts.
Mr. Chairman, I've failed. Again.
Because you went beyond your capabilities, Oh Brother. You tried to make a difference. You tried to give a damn.
I thought… maybe just once You'd do something for somebody besides yourself? Oh Brother of mine, Oh Bleeding Heart, pardon my laughter. After fifty-plus years of doing nothing, you thought you'd tie on a Superman cape and save the world? That's rich, Brother.
But at least I tried. I tried.
And failed, as usual. And do I detect an itch?
“It's okay, Herbert. It's not your fault.”
“Tamara?” DeWalt wasn’t sure if he’d hear her voice or imagined it.
“Yes.”
In here? How-?
“I don't know. I don't know a lot of things. But I know it's better to try. To care. It's what makes us human. It's what separates us from the thing we're trying to kill.”
Look here, lady. I don't know what you're doing breaking into this meeting-this is a private club, and this meeting is members only-but the Lodge Brother is happier when he DOESN’T care.
Mr. Chairman, she has power. She knows about the alien. About you.
Oh Brother, nothing's as alien as your own inner self. That's the truly frightening thing.
“No, Herbert, that's not the worst thing. Numbness is. Emptiness. Coldness. Being dead with no hope or memory of life.”
Hey, you. Get out of here. The Brother's mine.
“Herbert, I'm going to show you… let you feel what shu-shaaa wants for us, for everything. This is its memory of how the universe was before. And how shu-shaaa wants it to be again.”
Uh… too black… don’t let me suffocate.
Bullshit, Brother. It's one of her tricks.
“See, Herbert? That's worse than anything. And that's the same thing your Chairman wants, only on a lesser scale. Nothingness.”
Tamara, how can we “I don't know. But we can't surrender. To this Earth Mouth or our fear.”
But that TNT was our only hope.
“No. Hope is our only hope.”
Brother, don't listen to her. Better safe than sorry. Mr. Chairman? Brother?
“Herbert, what are you-”
Mr. Chairman, I would like to turn in my resignation to the Royal Order of the Bleeding Hearts, effective immediately.
“ No, Herbert, not that.”
Yes, Tamara. It's the only way. And 'tis a far, far better thing, blah blah blah.
Brother! Hands back to balls at once.
Sorry. Meeting adjourned.
“Herbert, don't!”
Brother -
Shut the hell up, Mr. Chairman.
The alien shivered in the heat of its pulsing heart-brain. The confusing symbols raced through its pulpy flesh, sparking contractions among its tendrils.
Bleee-deeeng.
Haaart.
Tah-mah-raaa-kish.
Dee-waaalt.
Maz-zah-sun-uv-aaa.
Che-sher-sun-uv-aaa.
Sun-uv-aaa.
Ohp.
Aaar-on-lee-ohp.
Ohp-is-aaar-on-lee-ohp.
Tah-mah-raa.
“Our only hope,” Tamara thought. “Hope is our only hope.”
DeWalt is going to do it, and maybe I shouldn’t try to stop him.
Because su-shaaa kish and the shu-shaaa was afraid and shu-shaaa was beautiful and loved her loved her loved her She put her hands over her ears but still the alien loved her.
Chester wasn't sure what was happening. First DeWalt had frozen over the dynamite, staring at the detonator switch in his hand. Tamara was looking at DeWalt strangely, as if seeing the back of his eyelids. Emerland was gaping over the ledge at the rancid pulsing throat of the alien sonovawhore.
Another tremor shook the stones loose, and after the dead trees stopped swaying, DeWalt stood up. He ripped the shotgun from Chester’s hands.
"Don't do it, DeWalt," Tamara said.
Chester didn't know what she was talking about. DeWalt had fucked up the dynamite in typical California Yankee fashion, or else Emerland had screwed it up by being a goddamned cheapskate who bought lousy equipment for his demo crews. It wasn’t Chester’s fault, no matter what. Hell, maybe it was nobody’s fault but God’s to make such a thing and then drop it right here on land that had been in the Mull property since the Revolutionary War.
He was tired and grouchy and way too sober. "Damned shotgun won't do diddly against that thing," he said to DeWalt.
"Maybe not by itself. But close enough, it might-"
"Trigger the blasting cap," Tamara said. "With enough heat and pressure. But that would be too close-"
"To survive? I thought of that."
“I know,” Tamara said.
Chester thought they were both crazy, as addled as that monstrous creature that had embedded itself in the mountainside. Tamara stepped forward, raising her hand to stop DeWalt, the sickly alien light pulsing off her face. DeWalt leveled the shotgun at them.
"I suggest you folks head for the hills," DeWalt said. "Because like Bobby Zimmerman said, way back in better days, a hard rain’s gonna fall."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bill was out of ammunition. One of the things stepped toward him and he gripped the hot barrel of the shotgun and was about to swing the heavy wooden butt into its face. The face belonged to Fred Painter, fellow member of the Windshake Baptist Board of Deacons.