Jo-Beth wasn't downstairs, so he headed up, throwing each door open along the landing: first Jo-Beth's, then Momma's. Finally, his own. His room was as he'd left it. The bed unmade, the wardrobe open, his towel on the floor. Standing at the door he realized he was looking at the belongings of a boy who was as good as dead. The Tommy-Ray who'd lain in that bed, sweated, jerked off, slept and dreamed of Zuma and Topanga, had gone forever. The grime on the towel and the hairs on the pillow were the last of him. He wouldn't be remembered well.
Tears started to run down his cheeks. How had it happened that half a week ago he'd been alive and going about his business and now be so changed he did not belong here, nor could ever belong here again? What had he wanted so badly it had taken him from himself? Nothing that he'd got. It was useless being the Death-Boy: only fear and shining bones. And knowing his father: what use was that? The Jaff had treated him well at the beginning, but it had been a trick to make a slave of him. Only Jo-Beth loved him. Jo-Beth had come after him, tried to heal him, tried to tell him what he hadn't wanted to hear. Only she could make things good again. Make sense of him. Save him.
"Where is she?" he demanded.
Momma was at the bottom of the stairs. Her hands were clasped in front of her as she looked up at him. More prayers. Always prayers.
"Where is she, Momma? I have to see her. "
"She's not yours," Momma said.
"Katz!"Tommy-Ray yelled, starting down towards her. "Katz has got her!"
"Jesus said...I am the resurrection, and the life..."
"Tell me where they are or I won't be responsible—"
"He that believeth in me..."
"Momma!"
"...though he were dead..."
She'd left the front door open, and dust had begun to blow over the threshold, insignificant amounts at first, but growing. He knew what it signalled. The ghost-train was getting up steam. Momma looked towards the door, and the gusty darkness beyond. She seemed to grasp that fatal business was at hand. Her eyes, when they settled on her son again, were filling up with tears.
"Why did it have to be this way?" she said softly.
"I didn't mean it to be."
"You were so beautiful, son. I thought sometimes that'd save you."
"I'm still beautiful," he said.
She shook her head. The tears, dislodged from the rims of her eyes, ran down her cheeks. He looked back towards the door, which the wind had begun to throw back and forth.
"Stay out," he told it.
"What's out there?" Momma said. "Is it your father?"
"You don't want to know," he told her.
He hurried down the stairs to try to close the door, but the wind was gathering strength, gusting into the house. The lamps started to swing. Ornaments flew from their places along the shelves. As he got to the bottom of the flight windows shattered at the front of the house and back.
"Stay out!" he yelled again, but the phantoms had waited long enough. The door flew off its hinges, thrown down the length of the hallway to smash against the mirror. The ghosts came howling after. Momma screamed at the sight of them, their faces drawn and hungry, smears of need in the storm.
Gaping sockets, gaping maws. Hearing the Christian woman scream, they turned their venom in her direction. Tommy-Ray yelled a warning to her but dusty fingers tore the words to nonsense, then flew past him to Momma's throat. He reached back towards her but the storm had hold of him, and threw him round towards the door. The ghosts were still flying in. He was pitched through their speeding faces, against the tide, and across the threshold. Behind him he heard Momma let out another shriek, as with one shattering every window left unbroken in the house burst outwards. Glass showered around him. He fled the rain, but didn't escape unscathed.
It was little harm, however, compared with the damage the house and its occupant were sustaining. When he stumbled to the safety of the sidewalk and looked back he saw the storm weaving in and out of every window and door like a demented ghost-ride. The structure was not the equal of the assault. Cracks were gaping in the walls, the ground at the front of the house opening up as the riders got into the basement and wreaked havoc there. He looked towards the car, half-fearing they'd destroyed that in their impatience. But it was still intact. He fled towards it as the house began to growl, its roof thrown up in surrender, its walls bowing out. Even if Momma had been alive to call after him, she could not have been heard over the din, nor seen in the confusion.
He got into the car, sobbing. There were words on his lips he didn't even realize he was saying until he began to drive:
"...I am the resurrection and the life..."
In the rear-view mirror he saw the house give up entirely, as the vortex in its guts threw it outwards. Bricks, slate, beams and dirt burst in all directions.
"...he that believeth in me...my God, Momma, Momma...he that believeth in me..."
Brick shards flew against the back window, shattering it, and fell on the roof in rattling percussion. He put his foot down and drove, half blind with tears of sorrow and terror.
He'd tried to outrun them once, and failed. Still he hoped he might succeed a second time, racing through the town by the most circuitous route he knew, praying he'd confound them. The streets were not entirely empty. He passed two limos, both black stretches, cruising the streets like sharks. And then, on the edge of Oakwood, staggering into the middle of the street, someone he knew. Loath as he was to stop, he needed the comfort of a familiar face more than he'd ever needed anything, even if it was William Witt. He slowed.
"Witt?"
William took a little time to recognize him. When he did Tommy-Ray expected him to retreat. Their last meeting, up at the house on Wild Cherry Glade, had ended with Tommy-Ray in the pool, wrestling Martine Nesbitt's terata, and Witt running for his sanity. But the intervening period had taken as much toll on William as it had on Tommy-Ray. He looked like a hobo, unshaven, clothes stained and in disarray, a stare of complete despair on his face.
"Where are they?" was his first question.
"Who?" Tommy-Ray wanted to know.
William reached through the window and stroked Tommy-Ray's face. His palm was clammy. His breath smelt of bourbon.
"Have you got them?" he asked.
"Who?" Tommy-Ray wanted to know.
"My...visitors," William said. "My...dreams."
"Sorry," Tommy-Ray said. "You want a ride?"
"Where are you going?"
"Getting the fuck out of here," Tommy-Ray said.
"Yeah. I want a ride."
Witt got in. As he slammed the door Tommy-Ray saw a familiar sight in the mirror. The storm was following. He looked across at William.
"It's no good," he said.
"What isn't?" Witt asked, his eyes barely focusing on Tommy-Ray.
"They're going to come after me wherever I go. There's no stopping them. They'll come and come."
William glanced over his shoulder at the wall of dust advancing down the street towards the car.
"Is that your father?" he said. "Is he in there somewhere?"
"No."
"What is, then?"
"Something worse."
"Your momma—" Witt said "—I talked with her. She said he was the Devil."
"I wish it were the Devil," Tommy-Ray said. "You can cheat the Devil."
The storm was gaining on the car.
"I have to go back up the Hill," Tommy-Ray said, as much to himself as Witt.
He swung the wheel round and started in the direction of Windbluff.