“Let them in,” said the Preacher at my side.
I glanced at him, and then nodded to Vance. With a lot of muttering and cursing, he fumbled with the keys and got the locks off the chains. We shook open the makeshift, sagging gates far enough to let them slip inside, then sealed them up again with twists and braids of rusty chain.
When they got inside, we eyed one another with suspicion for a second, and then the Preacher broke the mood by offering his hand to the new arrivals. We all shook hands around in a circle. The familiar act of trust relieved some of the tension, but not all of it.
“Welcome back,” said the Preacher, smiling and locking eyes with each of them in turn. “It’s hard not to be suspicious of one another on this dark day. We must try to remember our humanity, and to forgive. Everyone loses their way, at times, but it is never too late.”
I could see the words had some impact on Wilton, and even the Captain wasn’t immune and aloof to the sentiment. His words made me think of my secret burden. It was odd how easy it was to forget about it. In fact, I found it easy to pretend my hand didn’t have black talons that threatened to tear apart my pocket. Had I lost my way?
I thought of all the movies I’d seen where people had changed into monsters. They always tried to hide it. They always felt shame and gave angry denials. It was so strange to be the monster. I felt like the good man who commits a crime accidentally, and who is then forced to live a lie, sure that at any moment someone would figure it out, that everyone would learn of his secret shame. They had to figure it out eventually. Who was I to try and judge these others with their own failings? What had Wilton or the Captain done that I hadn’t?
“I think I’ll wash up,” I heard myself say, and I marveled at my normal tone of voice. I was becoming good at covering. “Make sure you try some of Nick Hackler’s cooking, he’s quite proud of it.”
They laughed and I left them out there in the parking lot. I had been driven away by self-doubt, I knew. In a way it was a relief, I wanted the Preacher to take over leadership and manage our defenses. When tonight came, I would fight on the side of the humanity. But I kept having another thought, a dark thought about pulling out of here. I might be able to survive better if I just left, if I struck out on my own. What stopped me was the thought of everyone I cared for. I thought of them in turn, Monika and Holly Nelson and my younger brother Vance, who even now excitedly told whoever would listen about his traps and where he’d found the barbed wire bails and a dozen other things. I couldn’t leave them.
As if she had divined my thoughts, Mrs. Hatchell caught me in the lobby next to the sausage stand. Nick was off somewhere, perhaps concocting a lunch out of changeling corpses.
“Gannon,” she said, grabbing my arm. “I need to talk to you.”
“What is it?”
“Whatever you are thinking, you need to stay here tonight,” she told me, still holding onto my arm.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You wander quite a bit, boy. But not tonight, okay?”
“But why are you so concerned?”
“Because we need you,” said Monika, appearing behind me. I hadn’t heard her approach. She always moved quietly.
I reached out my good hand to her and she reached hers to meet mine. Mrs. Hatchell watched our fingers entwine and smiled. I’m sure she now approved of our closeness-now that it fit in with her plans.
“It’s the Preacher,” hissed Mrs. Hatchell. She leaned uncomfortably close to us. “It’s that thing he’s got, on his belt. He was gone for weeks, even longer than you were, and last night he comes back with an enchanted artifact, saying it’s a gift from one of them. He’s never without it. He’ll put his Bible down, but not that thing.”
She said this last with clenched teeth. She let go of my arm and leaned her skinny butt back against the table.
“So you don’t trust him?” I asked.
“We don’t,” Monika chimed in. I turned back to her, surprised. I trusted her judgment more than I did the counselor’s.
“Listen, ladies,” I whispered back to both of them. “First of all, I’m not leaving. Secondly, the Preacher, I believe, is the most trustworthy of all of us. I trust him more than I do myself.”
They both blinked at me. I looked from one face to the next.
“What’s with your hand?” asked Mrs. Hatchell. She looked pointedly at the abomination I kept jammed in my pocket.
“I injured it,” I said smoothly. I had practiced the lie, and it came out sounding very natural. I wondered how long I could keep it concealed. Perhaps, just long enough for me to prove myself to the rest of them.
“Gannon,” said Monika. Her face had that scared-kid look I found most endearing. “What if he decides that we aren’t good enough?”
I looked back at her for a moment. Her eyes flicked down to my hidden hand, and then back to my face. She knew. Mrs. H. was only starting to suspect, but Monika knew. I had noticed hints before, but now I was sure. She knew my hand had gone bad, and she knew the Preacher wouldn’t like it, and now she didn’t like him, because he was a threat to me.
“You two are so sappy,” Hatchell said suddenly, misinterpreting our close, wordless exchange. She shook her head and tsked. “This office romance would be enjoyable, if we weren’t all about to get butchered. Promise me that if you have a spat, neither of you tries to leave until we survive this storm and the trick-or-treaters I’m expecting to see tonight.”
“There aren’t going to be any trick-or-treaters,” said Holly, walking in our conversation. Her eyes were hard, but there was a touch of a lost look on her too-young face. I felt bad for her. “Not ever again.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said.
She came closer and I saw she had a Bowie knife in her hands. She thunked it tip-first into the table that still had a few cold sausages on it. “Tonight, I’m going to stand by you, whatever happens.”
I nodded and smiled. I knew she meant it. She couldn’t have weighed eighty pounds yet, but I knew she would fight, no matter what happened. She wasn’t a kid anymore. Others might freeze up or run, but not her. She would fight, and that made her valuable.
“I’ll be glad to have you there,” I told her, and I meant it.
Wilton came in then, followed by the rest of them. The Preacher came in last. Wilton set the lantern, with my coat still over it, on the big, low kids’ coloring table that occupied one corner of the lobby. I had always liked that corner as a child. It had bead-puzzles and blocks and the fish tank in it, along with some heavily-eared magazines and books. I’d played there, what now seemed like a century ago.
The lantern was heavy, and I was amazed Wilton had carried it so far. She half slumped over it now, and even though she had put it down, she kept at least one hand resting on top of it. It’s got her fixated, I thought to myself. I knew that power it had very well.
Vance came over to me and handed me a shotgun, or at least he tried to. I thought it must have been the one from the police cruiser, but I refused it with a wave. “I’ll stick to my sword.”
He shook his head, “Brother, if these guys are right about what is coming tonight, you’ll need it. This is one of our last shotguns, most of the rest burned up over at Billson’s ages ago.”
Our one hunting shop in town had died an early death. Someone followed by two loping monsters had run in there, no doubt seeking some personal protection. Somehow, in the following battle, everyone inside had died, including the changelings. But the place had caught fire and burned, removing most of our ammunition and weapons from the town.
Just the same, I knew I could never work a shotgun with one hand, and I didn’t want to even try to work it with my warped hand.
“Have you got a pistol?” I asked.