He looked down at her. She'd wept away most of the kohl, and without it she looked a lot younger than he'd thought. Fifteen, maybe? Fourteen?
"You believe me, right?" she asked.
"Of course," he lied.
But as the two of them tramped through the tall, wet grass, he wasn't at all sure that her confidence in him wasn't just as misplaced.
In the washroom he'd been possessed with a weird certainty: he had to come to her aid; there'd been no question in his mind about it, and once he'd committed to doing so, the solution to every problem after that had appeared to him clearly, larger than life, in three dimensions. It was like how George Brett described his tunnel vision during his hitting streak with the 1980 Kansas City Royals: every pitch looked like a beach ball rolling towards him in slow motion.
Matt wondered if his confidence in the washroom, his quick thinking, were at all related to his accident. He'd been in a few bar fights in the past, mainly with drunks-some friends, some not-who'd been too dumb to know when to quit, and he'd done okay. He'd even done some light boxing at the gym-just sparring, messing around. But he'd never felt so alive, so hyperaware, as in the moments after he'd seen the girl being dragged down the hall on the monitor. Maybe it's my function, he thought. What I'm meant to do. Why I came back.
Or not. Because out in the chilly, vaporous fog, his certainty, his confidence, was quickly ebbing away. Should they-like Dindren-escape through the meditation path, or double back to the parking lot, and so avoid the woods, but risk running into the night shift?
He didn't know. They were probably screwed either way.
Fuck it: head into the woods. Especially since, as they passed the Admin Building, he saw a dark shape in the FA's window, staring out at them. Matt stared back. Something was odd about the shape of its head. Wearing a hat? Who the hell knew. But it turned to watch them pass.
Not good.
"C'mon," he said, picking up the pace.
"Cold out here," she said, rubbing her arms as she ran. And then: "Where are you taking me?"
"Away."
Hooh-ooh, ooh-HOOH.
Hooh-ooh, ooh-HOOH.
Soon enough they reached the flagstone path that led into the woods. There was a concrete birdbath on one side of the trail, and from it hung a poster-board sign, which said in puffy letters,
Carthage MHC Proudly Presents
Forest Friends:
Willy Willow and Betty Birch Meet the Head Tree!
Bottom of the Netflix queue for that one, Matt thought as he pulled the girl into the woods. The path grew soft with pine needles, and with less fog to reflect the light, it became darker. Here and there pale shrouds of moonlight shafted between the trunks, leaving jagged shadows on the forest floor.
"I think someone's following us," the girl said in a strangled voice.
Matt looked over his shoulder. For a split second he saw two coin-sized glimmers, like the reflecting eyes of a cat, then one, then none.
Had they passed behind a tree?
Had they been there at all?
Off to his right he heard a knocking sound, like a woodpecker at work. But did they do that at night? He hadn't thought so.
"Oh my God…" Her voice was so high he almost couldn't hear it. He looked where she was looking. To the left, moving behind a deadfall, was someone moving on all fours. Or some thing.
"About that precognition…," he said.
"It's not as well developed as my disruption of electrical systems," she whispered.
He had several responses to that. He didn't say any of them.
Footsteps behind them, fast and light. Matt sped up, dragging the girl by the hand. They rounded a boulder covered in black moss and came to a small clearing containing an amphitheater of cut stone. But between them and the amphitheater was something unexpected: a glowing oak. Someone had strung white Christmas lights all along its thick trunk and low-hanging branches.
The girl began to scream uncontrollably.
Matt almost joined her.
The oak: it wasn't Willy Willow or Betty Birch. It was definitely the Head Tree.
Why?
Because it was hung with heads.
Every bough seemed to have one. Matt recognized the silver-bearded facility administrator, eyes rolled back into his skull, slack jawed, black tongued, bloody chinned. And the dark-skinned CMO with the white mustache, now a lot less dignified than in his portrait in Admin. And the head nurse, her brow still furrowed, her mouth a dismayed slash, her neck hanging in strips from her jaw like the tentacles of a jellyfish. And there were a dozen more dangling from the tree's glowing limbs, garish ornaments for a holiday in hell.
A pattering sound: one of the heads was new, was still dripping.
Matt spotted it, recognized the one dark eye, the slanting teeth, the bee-stung lips…
"Dindren," Matt whispered.
Above him, a flapping sound.
Looked up.
Wings outspread… glowing eyes…
No time!
Impact.
Darkness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Matt blinked painfully.
Drew a breath.
Tried to put his hands on his face-and couldn't.
Opened his eyes against the fluorescent glare.
He was in a white room, strapped to a white bed.
Only it wasn't a bed. But it did have a pillow.
And straps.
Five straps, to be exact. Two pinned his ankles, two pinned his wrists, and one was wrapped around his waist. Next to the thing he was on was a large steel console on rollers. It was covered in dials and switches. Behind it was a woman.
"Well, well," growled the short, toad-faced wreck. "Looks like Lover Boy's joined the land of the living-just in time to leave it."
"Hirotachi," he croaked. His throat was dry. Head ached. Had he ever been this thirsty before? Impossible. "Where is…" He tried to remember her name. Then he had it: Annica.
Toad-Face grinned. "Your little girlfriend? She's out back, all set for the show."
"Show?"
"Oh yeah. Don't worry, you won't miss it. But since it's not the witching hour yet, and since you seem to have some seriously antisocial tendencies, we thought we'd give you a little treatment- on the house. Maloria? Let's get this show on the road."
Matt stared in disbelief as the fat lady he'd spent the afternoon with waddled up to the console and-avoiding all eye contact-picked up a handful of red and yellow wires and a roll of tape. Her lips were clamped in a tight line as she walked to the side of the bed, squeezed some gel out of a bottle with a farting sound, and spread it on his head.
"Maloria?!" he said.
She just kept spreading the gel. It was cold and slick.
"Maloria, what are you doing? Maloria?!"
"Save your strength," Hirotachi chuckled. "She's a little more obedient when the night shift's on duty. Aren'tcha, Fatty?"
No answer. Maloria's big eyes had narrowed to slits, and her lower lip covered her upper as she attached the wires to his forehead with duct tape. She backed away quickly.
Matt looked back to Hirotachi. "Whatever you think you're-"
The words died in his throat, along with every thought in his head, as a current of electricity shot through his body, making his back arch and his teeth snap together.
It ended. He collapsed back against the table with a gasp.
"Well, whaddaya know?" Hirotachi said, patting the console. "It still works! This is an old, old system. We've got a newer one, but it's pretty painless. I like the vintage systems myself. Reminds me of the old days, you know? Gives me a real"-again she flipped a switch-"charge."
More juice this time: held cruciform, he lunged upwards, going nowhere, teeth clamped, fingernails digging into his palms, vision shot with fire in alternating patterns of
RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK RED BLACK
A cool, wet breeze.