Man-eating goats.
That was about as loopy an idea as, say, a dead boy crying for help. He shivered and ascended the stairs, stepping as carefully as he could, though even missing a shoe his footfalls sounded like the beating of a kettledrum. Or maybe the noise was his pulse pounding through his temples. He leaned against the wall for balance, not trusting the skinny, cockeyed railing. His hand brushed cloth and a dusty snuff of dried straw and chicken manure assailed his nostrils. He fought off a sneeze, eased up another few steps, and his hand struck cold metal. He ran his hand along the smooth length and came to wood, then back up into a sharp edge. Some type of cutting tool. Mark lifted it free of its support and checked its weight. It was a long scythe, the kind the Grim Reaper carried in cartoons. The curve of the blade made it awkward to handle in the confined space, but gave Mark a sense of security.
At the top of the stairs, the blood had pooled on a short landing, as if whatever-or whoever-was injured had struggled to open the door that must lead to the hayloft. The blood gave off a bright, warm smell that reminded Mark of seawater. He tried the latch, and his hand came away slick and moist. He wiped his hand on his slacks and eased the latch up. The door swung open with a slow groan of hinges.
The hayloft access was open on the far side of the barn, and the first glimmers of moonlight cast the pastures and surrounding hills in silver, as if the scene had been electroplated. The air was rich with chaff and the sweet smell of an early dew. Mark was tempted to call out for Jett, but what if someone was holding her prisoner? The scarecrow thing, or whatever?
Mark hefted the scythe and held the blade in front of him, taking careful steps forward. Something could be hiding in the hay bales to either side of him, and he couldn't swivel the scythe fast enough if he was jumped. Light from the gaps in the boards threw lustrous stripes across the floor, giving the illusion of prison bars. Mark was in the middle of the hayloft when he glanced out the window and saw Gordon's Chevy Tahoe parked up on the hill. The truck appeared to have been driven through a section of fence, because barbed wire curled around it and a broken fence post lay across the hood. The truck's driver's-side door was open, and the cab appeared empty. Mark was edging toward the window for a closer look when he heard a whisper of movement behind him, the soft rattling of corn husks or the stirring of a rodent. He spun, the scythe causing him to lose his balance.
Silhouetted against the silver spill of moonlight was a man in a hat.
The one Jett had told him about.
Mark squinted, trying to pool enough light in his pupils to make out the face. It appeared to be covered by a rough, grainy cloth. The rest of the clothing was ragged, with frayed strips fluttering in the breeze that carried the smell of autumnal decay from the valley outside.
"Where's Jett?" Mark said, his voice thick from dust.
The man didn't move.
The man in the black hat, Jett had said. But as his eyes adjusted, Mark saw that the hat wasn't black. It was a straw planter's hat, dented and torn, with stray sprigs of reeds sticking out at odd angles.
Mark took two steps forward, then went weightless, and he pushed the scythe across his chest as he realized he was falling. A square was cut in the floor, wide enough to drop through a bale of hay {or a man, he thought), and his rib cage banged, and then his chin, as he kicked to keep himself upright. The floor couldn't be more than twenty feet below, but it was hard ground, packed by the hooves of generations of animals.
And as Mark struggled to keep a grip on the scythe, fighting to keep his elbows on the long wooden handle, he was suddenly sure that goats-carnivorous goats-were milling down below him, as silent as sharks cruising a chum-stained sea.
He pushed his legs out, swinging like a drunken gymnast in a surreal Olympics, then lifted himself until his belly was across the scythe handle. He reached one hand and found the hayloft floor, his index finger ripped by a protruding nail head. Blood trickled down bis finger to the pad of his hand, where it fell to the barn floor below. The unseen movement beneath him increased in intensity, and hooves padded softly in the dirt. But that didn't matter, because he had his balance and then his other hand was gripping a floorboard and he pulled himself forward, forward, and then he had a knee on the scythe handle and he was going to make it-He looked up to see the scarecrow standing over him, a crescent moon of metal arced above its straw hat. Mark couldn't be sure, but the stitched face seemed to be grinning. Then the sickle swept down, slicing into Mark's left wrist all the way to the bone. The whole arm went numb, but he kept a grip with his right hand, even though his blood pressure plummeted and his skin grew cold as he went into shock. As the sickle reaped its sick harvest a second time, Mark let go, and as he fell to his death, he concentrated on Jett's face but all he saw was the long, endless tunnel of a final failure.
Chapter Thirty-two
Katy pushed the Subaru a little fast for the winding road that followed the river, but she was in a hurry to get as far away from Solom as possible. She switched on the headlights as they passed the general store, noting that the store's porch light wasn't on. Usually, its deep yellow glow flooded the valley, drawing insects from the riverbanks and reflecting off the plate-glass window of the post office. All the buildings were dark, even the True Light Tabernacle, the squat brick building with the teepeelike steeple.
"Looks like Solom shut down for the night," Katy said over the sweet, aching strains of Westerberg's "Runaway Wind."
"What?" Jett cupped a hand to her ear, and Katy turned down the volume a little.
"Solom," she said. "Something weird's going on."
"Hey, not our problem, Mom."
"Got your cell phone?"
"Yeah, but it's about as useful as frog's wings in this valley. Where's an ugly cell tower when you need one?"
"I thought we might call your dad."
Jett's grin flashed in the green glow of the dashboard lights. "Are we going there?"
"No, I just thought we ought to tell him. He should be back in Charlotte by now."
"Damn, Mom. This is an emergency. Forget about your pride for a sec, okay?"
Katy eased up on the gas pedal. "There's a lot you don't know, honey, and a lot that you don't need to worry about."
"Come on, I saw the way you guys were looking at each other this morning. There's still a spark, just like Paul says in this song." She reached over and cranked the volume as Westerberg plowed through a chorus fraught with romantic desperation, and then she turned it down again. "I never saw any spark between you and Gordon. Not even hatred. Just a pair of flat-out fucking zombies."
"No cussing, honey," Katy said automatically, but was thinking: out of the mouths of babes. Jett had seen what Katy refused to see. But Katy had larger issues to consider than sparks, happiness, or love. She had to make good she had to provide Jett stability, she had to make up for a failed marriage by making the second one work. She had to have a happy family whether she wanted one or not.
Except that perfect plan hadn't exactly worked out, had it? She'd ended up playing second fiddle to a woman who couldn't even hold an instrument.
She glanced into the rearview mirror, wanting to see the outline of Solom vanishing into the past, one more wrong turn on the road to wherever she was meant to wind up. The full moon had risen and segued with the setting sun so that full darkness had never touched the sky. It had gone from deep purple to milky silver, though the hills lay beneath it like black sleeping beasts. A few wisps of ragged clouds spread themselves across the dust of the Milky Way. Katy had never noticed how few streetlights there were in Solom, and how the stars stood out by contrast, even while fighting the dominant glow of the full moon.