Lucky's Girl (26 page)

“Do the meds I’m on cause hallucinations, Pete?”

Pete crinkled up his forehead. “Jerry, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Jerry exhaled and rocked back on his heels. The first smoke in days will make your head spin, and your heart pound. He was seeing sparks. He gulped a big mouthful of air while Pete grabbed his arm to steady him.

“Pete, did someone come visit me last night… or the night before? I can’t remember, but I think someone came and said some really awful shit to me.”

“Jerry, we should get you back to your room.”

Jerry shook his head and staggered to the bench near the ambulance parked in front of the ER. Pete followed close.

“Pete, was Mason James in my room? Was he at the hospital?”

Pete shook his head. Jerry was in bad shape but Jerry was going to leave either way. And he believed Mason James had been in his bedroom saying nasty things to him. As far as Pete could remember, Mason James was a good kid with some bad luck even though his nickname was Lucky. Some crazy jealous woman had killed his girlfriend, then she’d killed her parents and then…

Ted Tellefsen’s daughter. Beautiful girl. Apparently crazier than a shithouse rat because she’d turned a girl inside out and had killed her parents with a meat cleaver.

Jerry had shot her.

Mason James had been so overwhelmed with grief he’d left town, never to come back. The whole topic was a black hole no one fully understood and no one asked about. It had destroyed the little bit that Elton had left because Ted Tellefsen had owned the sawmill. After he’d died it had closed down and never reopened.

Jerry had shot that girl in the head, and it had eaten him like cancer for twenty years, so now he was hearing Mason James’ voice in his head. Pete knew guilt could do strange things, and wondered if Jerry might’ve had a stroke too. But he’d need an MRI of Jerry’s head and there was no money for that sort of thing. All he knew was Jerry shouldn’t be leaving the hospital but Jerry would discharge himself anyway.

CHAPTER 3

She could feel it in every cell and taste it in every breath. Her time had come. She was the alpha, the undisputed queen of every pack for many horizons. She had tasted her triumph in the blood of the females who had driven her away, killed her spirit and had left her barren. No pack, no pups, nothing.

The Big Tree gave her everything, fulfilled every instinctive need, every instinctive hope and care. And now The Big Tree showed her there could be even more.

She could have pups.

All she had to do was to follow the will of the Big Tree. It would guide her step by step, across forest and field and through the territory of men.

She lifted her head, leaping to her feet at the base of the Big Tree. It was still daylight, not their time, but day and night meant nothing now.

Both were now her domain!

She snarled and barked, letting out a screaming howl of terror and death to all who opposed her.
Awake! Awake my pack! We go! We go now to do the bidding of the Big Tree! We shall tear and rend and devour any and all that oppose us! Rise! Rise!

Follow me!

***

“Kenny, goddamit, wait for me!” Errol doubled over coughing. He loved Marlboros but he’d also smoked a lot of pot from his clandestine marijuana cultivation program. And tobacco. But mostly weed. He was in one of the very few places where a public employee could get away with it because Iron County didn’t have the money to drug test. They’d reserved the right to do it, but it just never happened.

Errol loved smoking weed.

Only three people in town knew about The Grow, but Jerry wasn’t one of them. Just Frankie, Wally Weed and Fat Sally.

As the unpaid mayor of Elton Township he received money from the state to spend on keeping up the small post office and police station, the mail jeep and Jerry’s police cruiser. But it wasn’t enough. For almost twenty years Elton Township’s civic functions had been subsidized with marijuana money.

Errol stood up, gasping for air, “Kenny! Please, I can’t do this.”

Kenny was a different story, though. Younger, much healthier. He was an underwater welder who looked like he could run a marathon.

They were running through the woods on the far side of Lake Elton now, after having run all the way around from old Frank’s Cabin. Kenny walked back to him, hands tugging at his short hair.

“Jake, Jake, he doesn’t know these woods, he’s… he’s… he’s…”

Errol nodded and put a hand on Kenny’s shoulder. “He’s gonna be fine, Kenny. Look, he’s just mad, and confused… but he’ll come running back as soon as he gets hungry.”

“Hungry? Hungry? He’s not a fucking dog, he’s a little boy! My boy. My son!” He burst into tears again, burying his face in his hands.

Errol put his arms around him and closed his eyes. Kenny was a good father. He’d just been run over by life. His wife, his daughter,
everything
wrecked. He broke under the pressure and hit his son. That’s all. It wasn’t right, but it wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened either.

They heard a loud crunching snap in the woods to their left, followed by a soft coughing and crying.

It was Jake: he hadn’t gone far. They couldn’t tell exactly where because sounds carried a long distance in quiet woods, but he wasn’t far. They also knew he wouldn’t call out either. He was a tough, stubborn little boy and wasn’t done with being mad.

But then they heard
them
too.

***

The sound of a pack moving through a forest is unmistakable, but only after they’ve found their quarry. Up until that point there would be nothing but a rustle of leaves, at best the soft soughing of the wind. But after they’d found the weak, solitary, injured or lost, the woods would come alive with their chorus. They would talk, yelping and whining and barking, a constant chatter of excitement and hunger. It served a purpose too. They’d give away their location to the herd, corralling their prey in a specific direction.

Jake suddenly burst out of the woods in wild animal terror. When the Pack is behind you, there would be mere seconds before they descended upon you. Every living animal knew this instinctively. He ran straight to Errol, wrapping his arms around his leg.

He hadn’t run to his own father.

Then the Pack was upon them. Just a few feet away, surrounding them instantly. Some bared their fangs with deep hell-born growls. Others shuffled back and forth, growling and whining in terrible anticipation, waiting for a signal, for the alpha to lead them in this kill.

Blackie
. Jet black with blue eyes. The wolves parted silently as she appraised her prey, a dreadful, rumbling growl coming from deep within her chest.

Tears poured down Errol’s cheeks. “Blackie, oh god, oh sweet Jesus we’re gonna die!” Yellow piss poured down his legs, a thick meaty stench arising as shit bubbled through the fabric of his trousers.

Jake broke down and whimpered. “Mommy, help me please…”

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for Our God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you!”

The voice was strong and clear. Firm, yet happy and musical. It was accompanied by the sound of many feet and just as many horrified gasps. A group was coming up through the woods behind them, arriving just seconds after the Pack.

There was a low and ravenous rumble from the wolves.

No men were going to interrupt their feast.

The Voice however wasn’t frightened. “
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If our God is for us, who can be against us?”

The Voice continued.
“We’re all going to be tested, so are we going to be men of fear or men of faith?”

Eyes wide in primitive terror, Kenny and Errol slowly turned to the group behind them, and the speaker leading them.

It was his best friend, the man he hadn’t seen since his new life had begun and ended.

“Tonto,
I swear
. What kind of trouble have you got yourself into? And more importantly; do you have faith that Our God will see you through? I know you’ve seen some hard times, but do you really think Our God would let it end like this?”

For the first time in twenty something years, Kenny’s best friend was speaking to him, just as he and his son were about to get eaten by wolves. Mason James was asking questions he had no answers to because he was about to die.

Slowly his head turned back to the wolves before him.

“Kenny,
I’m serious
. Our God holds you in the palm of his hand. All you have to do is let him love you. Just open your heart to Our God. Open your heart to his love and you’ll be one with him, with
everything
… it’s so beautiful.”

Blackie’s merciless blue eyes poured ice over everything. Kenny wanted to scream, wanted to run, wanted to hold his son just once more before the end, but the end had come first.

He whispered, “I’m sorry, Jake.”

He heard a loud exhaled sigh from behind him, as if Lucky was disappointed or just plain bored. He heard footsteps accompanied by another chorus of horrified gasps from the search party.

Lucky walked up from behind him, walked past, stood in front of him and then sat down.

Nose to nose with
Blackie.

He raised his arms and smiled.

“In the name of Our God, I command you.”

All of the wolves sat down, and then lay down as one.

CHAPTER 4

The biggest crowd ever at the church had been for the Rev’s funeral – until
today
. Everybody knew within a few hours that Mason James had performed a miracle.

The search party had gone looking for the out-of-towner—a guy who’d lived in Elton twenty-odd years ago—and his little boy. Apparently the guy had punched his kid, and the kid had run off, but Mason had put together a search party to find them.

Well, he did that but the Pack had surrounded them. Then Mason had done the bravest thing anyone had ever seen. He’d just walked up to Blackie like Moses at the Red Sea, raised his hands and commanded her to lie down.

And she had!

He’d then given a sermon to the people
and the wolves
. He’d talked to the wolves just as if they’d been people. He’d blessed the wolves, telling them not to fear people, and had told the people not to fear the wolves anymore. All they needed was faith. God had brought him back to Elton to show them.

Our God.

That’s the way you’re supposed to say it. Because he’s a God you know, who knows you, and is going to take care of you. He belongs to you and you belong to him.

Our God.

And then he’d talked about his Mission. He was going to bring the New Covenant.

Our God is Here.

Our God is Now.

Not some abstraction. And if you served him, if you had faith, you would become one with him. His Mission was to bring people closer to God, to remove the boundaries the System puts between us and him, us and the world, us and each other.

And if Mason James could do that, he could heal people too, I’ll bet.

The crowd was stirring. The pews were packed, parents had kids in laps to make room, and the aisles were standing-room only. Out in the parking lot there was another throng. The drunks who had never been able to get sober, most of them with meth and oxy problems too. The worst of the worst. The ones the Rev had tried and failed with, and the ones who had never tried at all. Most were standing next to their cars or behind the wheel. Most were drinking. But they were
here
,
even if they didn’t have the nerve to walk through the doors. They were here.

Even in their benighted world, the message had hit home; Mason James was
different
. The Rev was a saint, no one had resented him, but his son was something else.

He was a Prophet.

Or maybe something even more than that.

Abby was sitting alone at the side of the dais, the chair next to her empty. The Rev’s chair. The choir were standing on the other side, in disarray. They didn’t have their robes, there was no set list, and no one was there to lead them.