The world was silent, and that seemed strange. He could hear the snickering of his shoes on the sand, the ticking of the Jeep's engine cooling down, but that was it. Ordinarily, the cries of nocturnal animals from owls to coyotes sounded in these canyons, but tonight all was still, and Henry found that extremely disconcerting.
He wished he'd brought his shotgun.
But he knew a gun wouldn't do any good against what was out here.
He stood next to the Jeep.
Waited.
Watched.
And then he saw them. Shadows on the canyon floor, two shadows moving in tandem across the moonlit sand, and Henry's heart accelerated from its usual laconic tom-tom to the rat-a-tat-tat of a high-powered assault rifle. They were not hiding as they had been earlier in the day, not confining themselves to the edges of his vision, but sliding directly toward him in full view, defiant, proud, threatening. He realized as they moved closer that they were upright. Not only were the shadows autonomous, unattached to any concrete form or object; they were not, as he had originally thought, projected onto the ground. That was an optical illusion fostered by distance. They were flat and one-dimensional, but they stood like people, feet to the sand, head in the air, and though they glided rather than walked, they were human figures.
He was frightened but excited, and made no effort to escape. The shadows reached him, began slowly and sensuously swirling about his body. He saw silhouetted nipples, outlines of perfect vaginal clefts. He was aroused as he had never been before, and he reached down, half-hypnotized, and unfastened his jeans, pulling down his briefs, freeing himself, letting the pants fall around his ankles. The shadows bent before him, appeared to be kissing his quivering erection, and although there was no sensation of touch and he could feel nothing, the sight was too much for him, and he began spurting, thrusting uselessly into the air as his seed spilled onto the sand below.
The shadows rushed over to where the thick drops congealed on the ground, and began licking them up.
The semen disappeared.
It was impossible, it made no sense, but Henry did not question it, was not even surprised. His penis had finished, was now starting to shrink, but he took it in his hand and milked a few last drops, watching as the semen fell onto the sand and the twins' shadows gobbled it up.
Were the shadows more solid now, less ephemeral? He thought so, but he could not be sure.
The dark flat figures continued to swirl about him, and there was a hunger evident in their movements, a craving he sensed and felt and that frightened him to the core.
He turned and fled.
It was an instinctive reaction and a stupid one. He'd been close by the Jeep and the only place to go was away from it, but that meant he was abandoning his only hope of getting out of the canyon and back to the real world. It didn't make any difference, though. The shadows refused to follow him, and when he looked back, he saw them retreating the way they'd come, looking like two predators on the prowl.
Where were they going now?
The seductive sensuality they'd exhibited around him was gone, and once again their purposeful glide seemed menacing, predacious. He waited until their dark forms had blended with the blackness of the canyon before he ran back to the Jeep, jumping in and driving out of there as fast as he could go.
What had happened? What had he done? He was filled with the unshakable certainty that he had helped them, had given them strength. Whatever occurred from here on in, he was part of it; he was involved. He thought of Laurie, of the dead woman in the workroom. In his mind Henry saw once again the sickening spectacle of the shadows hungrily devouring his semen. He felt tired, drained, frustrated, scared and, most of all, used. And as the Jeep bumped over the rounded sandstone he had to blink back tears so he could see the way back to the road.
Nine
The Keep, Missouri
It was long after midnight, but Hank Gifford lay awake, his eyes on an infomercial promoting some type of kitchen gadget, his mind on the mud pits out back. Next to him, Arlene snored loudly in her sleep, drooling on the edge of his pillow. He would have pushed her back to her own side of the bed, but that might wake her up, and the last thing he wanted to do was listen to her meaningless talk in the middle of the night.
The mud pits had him worried because he wasn't there to watch them. It was unavoidable. He couldn't monitor the situation twenty-four hours a day. But what if one of them got out when he wasn't looking, when he was asleep? He imagined a spindly shriveled form slinking along the trails of the garden, sneaking into the museum, working its way up to the house.
Of course, if he saw one of them out, he'd shoot it and stuff it. That would be a great addition to The Keep.
Except ... what if he didn't see it? What if he was asleep when it got into the house? What if he awoke with the sulfur smell of the pits in his nostrils to see a skeletal figure climbing atop Arlene, ripping her face off and turning toward him with a terrible grin of malicious glee?
That's what worried him; that's what kept him up.
Hank picked up the remote control from the nightstand and pressed the mute button, listening. The house was silent. Good. He turned the sound back up a little. He was tempted to go out and check on the mud pits, but while he'd gone there with his flashlight at night many times before, he was afraid to do so now.
They're rising again.
He'd been telling that to the customers, and it was true. He didn't know how he knew it, but he did. They were rising, all of the heathens and unbelievers who had been fed to the pits. He had no idea how many of them were down there, their bodies sunk in the muck-no records had been kept of such things-but his daddy had told him all those years ago that every last one of them had been taken care of by the men of the towns, that after the purges none had been left in this part of Missouri.
That could mean ten.
It could mean a hundred.
He'd always known they would rise again. His daddy had told him that, too. One of the infidels had apparently sworn it with his last breath-at least that's how the story went-and the men of the towns had believed him. Even as good Christians they'd recognized the truth behind the heathen curse, and-
The bedroom's south wall exploded as though hit with a battering ram.
Arlene awoke screaming, and Hank scrambled out from under the blanket, off the bed. The right leg of his pajama bottom got stuck on the stray wire that stuck out from the side of the box springs, but he pulled hard, ripping the material, and continued his frantic escape. They're out, he thought wildly. They're attacking. Debris was flying all about; dust was everywhere. A piece of brick zoomed by his head, smashing the mirror on the dresser. He hazarded a look back, beheld a gigantic black form larger than the house. It wasn't them, he saw. It was a train. Even through the cloud of dust, he could make out the headlight on the front of the locomotive, the slanting grille that protruded through the hole in their wall. Only ...