But there was no body to hug. What remained of Matt was a broken and twisted lump of bloody, almost gelatinous, flesh. There was no sign of head or hands or feet or anything recognizable. It looked as though his body had been torn apart, then turned inside out, then completely restructured. Only a tiny scrap of cloth remained of his clothing, and it was glued by blood to the tree trunk.
Tim looked away, staring down at his feet instead. He wanted to cry, but he could not. He was too horrified. For some reason, he could not conjure up Matt's image in his brain. When he tried to picture his son, only the bloody lump of flesh came to mind. He tried to force his brain to concentrate on Matt's good points, to remember the times they had had together, to somehow recover those moments that had been lost and would open the floodgates to his grief, but his senses were too shocked, his mind too numb.
From far off, behind him, he heard someone gagging, then retching.
His eye caught on a small footprint next to his foot. He stared at it. What the hell could it be? It looked almost like a baby's footprint. He looked closer, and saw that there were many such footprints in the open mud around the tree. Quite a few of the footprints had been either obscured or obliterated by the constant rainfall, but the deeper ones had remained and stood out sharply.
Ralph walked up behind him and clapped a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Sorry," he said. His voice was filled with genuine hurt, genuine understanding. He glanced toward Matt's body and looked instantly away.
Tim touched his arm and pointed at the footprints. "Look at that," he said.
There was a rustling movement in the ferns off to the right. Both men watched as something small scurried away from them, pushing ferns and grasses aside as it moved. Around them, other rustling noises sounded.
Tim felt an instinctual fear supersede his pain and disgust. The rain became suddenly heavier, its loudness drowning out the rustling noises in the underbrush. He turned to Ralph. "What do you think it is?" he asked.
Something grabbed his legs from behind and jerked, sending him sprawling. In the split second before his eyes were clawed out, he saw Ralph fall as well. Small creatures, creatures brown with mud, were hanging onto Ralph's legs and pulling him down. Others were darting out from under the ferns, babbling and cackling in some high-pitched alien tongue.
Then his eyes were gone and he was fighting blindly against his unseen attackers. His hands found flesh, soft flesh, and punched, grabbed, squeezed. Others were upon him now, small claws ripping and tearing, small mouths biting. He screamed in agony as he felt his legs being torn apart, the pain shooting up through his spinal cord and bolting through his brain in one shock-inducing instant.
Where were the other searchers? Couldn't they see what was happening?
The last thing he heard, before he lost consciousness for the last time, was the sound of other men screaming.
The rain had abated and the lightning had stopped while Gordon had been in the sheriff's office, but there was still a light mist in the air and the sky was darkly overcast. He pulled out of the parking lot and onto Main. Ahead of him, above the road, across a telephone line, two rain coated workers were stringing a large banner. He slowed down.
Through the wet windshield he could read the purple words written on the white cloth: "Thirtieth Annual Randall Rodeo Sept. 1, 2, 3."
The rodeo. He had forgotten that it was coming up. He and Marina had been planning to go this year. Gordon stared at the two men wrestling with the banner, both standing on the top rungs of twin tall ladders, as he passed between them. He wondered how many other people had forgotten about the rodeo this year.
The whole town's on edge, the sheriff had told him before he'd left.
Gordon passed the Valley National Bank building, now closed, and sped up as he passed the Circle K. By the time he hit the ravine on the other side of Gray's Meadow, he was doing well over sixty. He knew for a fact that the sheriff wasn't hiding behind bushes trying to catch speeders, and he had a feeling that handing out tickets wasn't high on his deputies' list of priorities right now either. Rounding a curve, he swerved to miss a small boulder that had fallen from the adjacent cliff onto the road during the storm.
"Shit," he said, turning the wheel sharply. He slowed down. He didn't want to kill himself.
By the time he pulled off on the small dirt road that led to their house, it was almost dark. He could see the warm comforting yellow lights of home through the irregularly spaced black shadows of the trees. He pulled to a stop and Marina, peeking out of the living room window, unlocked the front door. She met him on the porch. "So what happened?" she asked.
He looked down at her big brown eyes and put a hand protectively over her stomach. He wasn't sure he should tell her. Well, he should tell her, but he wasn't sure he wanted to. He didn't want to worry her unnecessarily. Though he didn't know if he believed everything Brother Elias had said, both the preacher and his theory scared the living hell out of him.
"Nothing," he said.
She looked up at him, forcing him to meet her eyes. "You're lying. I
can tell. What happened?"
"Nothing," he said.
"Bullshit."
Gordon smiled. "I never could fool you, could I?" He kissed her, but she pushed him away.
"Don't try to change the subject," she said.
Gordon assumed a look of unhappy resignation. "The sheriff doesn't think we have much of a case against Brother Elias," he lied. "He might do thirty days at the most, then walk." He met her eyes, feeling like a prick for not leveling with her, for not even being honest about his real reason for meeting with the sheriff.
Marina was outraged. "The man's crazy!" she exclaimed. "What does he have to do, kill me before he can be put away?" She shook her head in disbelief. "Jesus, I used to think the conservatives were idiots when they said our judicial system's gone to hell."
"I know," Gordon said sympathetically.
"That Weldon's an incompetent jerk. God, I hate that man."
Gordon said nothing. He held her close, kneading the muscles in her shoulders until he felt some of the tension drain out of them.
Marina pulled away from him. "Come on," she said. "Let's eat.
Dinner's been ready for a while now. I thought you'd be home sooner."
She led the way into the house. "You'd better enjoy these home-cooked meals while you can, you know. School's starting in a few weeks, and you're going to have to start helping around here again."
He followed her into the kitchen and sat down at the table while she pulled a casserole from the oven. She turned the oven off and used a spatula to dish out two equal portions of the casserole. "I don't know how that man ever rose past patrolman," she said, grabbing two wine glasses from the cupboard. "He doesn't know what the hell he's doing."
"Oh, he's all right," Gordon said halfheartedly.
She sat down at the table next to him. "How did you two get to be such bosom buddies? Our cat gets torn apart in our own kitchen, and he sits on his butt all day and does nothing."
"He caught Brother Elias," Gordon pointed out.
"And now he's going to let him go." She looked at Gordon. "You know, they say that reporters who cover the police beat become more like cops than reporters if they stay there too long."
He made a face at her. "Very funny."
"Oh. I almost forgot." She stood up and opened the refrigerator, bringing out a tray of sliced carrots and cucumbers.
Gordon looked down at the tray and grinned. "Phallic vegetables," he said. "Are you trying to tell me something?"