Lucky's Girl (34 page)

Thud!

“Yeah, footsteps.”

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

“The fuck does that mean, Kenny?”

“The Second Coming, by some poet. The Rev used to quote it, saying that the Devil wants to take over the hearts of men.”

Thud!

“And this, these footsteps…
Lucky
is the Devil?”

“No, this is something else. This is what gives Lucky the ability to
be
Lucky. One of the last times we spoke…”

Kenny trailed off.

“Don’t go out on me, Kenny, finish what you’re saying.”

Kenny spat out another bloody wad, closing his eyes.

“He said he was going to show me
the secret paths
, and that I could be lucky too, that he knew magic.”

Thud!

They both turned to the crazed faces pressing up against the glass of the front doors.

Kenny continued. “He said that nobody is as lucky as he is,
nobody
. Not without help. Help has to come from somewhere.”

Thud
!

Jerry whispered. “Or some
thing
.”

***

Thud!

Lucky heard the sound above the screaming chant of the Faithful, even above the frenzied growling and whining of the Pack writhing in the dirt before the Big Tree. He could even hear it above the sonorous creaking bass emanating from the trunk of the ancient white pine.

Wen-ta-cho! Wen-ta-cho! Wen-ta-cho!

The Most Faithful and Blackie were now gathered in a circle with Fat Sally at the apex and Blackie at the base. They were naked, muscles rigid and veins protruding, mouths open wide in a frozen snarl, eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. They were hyperventilating as the power of Grove Island, of the Big Tree, increased and coursed through their bodies.

Thud!

Lucky gasped. In seconds his true father would be with them…

Thud!

The Faithful screamed:

Ket-mat-na-roz, keh-pi-uh, ja-quey, tae-lae, bas-nef-tek.

Wen-ta-cho! Wen-ta-cho! Wen-ta-cho!

Lucky plunged his knife into Fat Sally, sinking it up to the hilt, sawing through thick yellow fat and bloody fiber, back and forth from left to right. She shrieked, choking out blood. Shit poured out from behind her, falling into the puddle of blood. Finally her bladder let go, pouring out yellow liquid, and then red.

He reached inside, up to his elbows, holding aside the thick, veiny fat. He stabbed deeper to pierce the abdominal wall, tearing the muscle aside to reach her entrails. He pulled out loops of intestine, visceral fat, and the big bag of her stomach. Only after reaching far up inside to pull out a lung did her thrashings cease.

He knelt in the blood before the corpse-heavy tree, holding up the pile of entrails to the sky.

Thud!

And there was a sound as of a great inhalation.

The Big Tree breathed. The big wooden bole above Sally’s head opened to reveal a lidded eye. The Wendigo was now looking into the world of men with a physical eye for the first time in thousands of years. Grey, with four irises, and large, about the size of a dinner plate, it cast its gaze first upon Lucky, holding high the sacrifice and the way of Knowing.

The eye then cast about to the Women Most Faithful, standing frozen in rigid muscle lock. They screamed as the change came.

Knowing became Words, and Words became Flesh.

Skin twisted and bones creaked, faces elongated, teeth grew long and sharp and true, fur sprouting long over their whole bodies.

The Faithful came forward bearing a tribute to the transformed Women Most Faithful; a terribly burned but still living man. Their transformation done, they fell upon him, tearing into crisped and bloody flesh. His terror and agony were complete, as was the unity of man and his animal nature. The Most Faithful were the Word Made Flesh. The promise that Lucky had made, to end the separation of man and nature, had been fulfilled.

Finally the eye cast its gaze upon Blackie.

She felt a twisting inside her loins and knew the quickening had begun. The Wendigo, the Big Tree, Her God had fulfilled his promise. She had a pack, she was alpha, and now life was growing within. She was complete and whole. She stood, giving a challenging howl to the entire world, joined by wolf and man, and that which was now somewhere in between.

***

The last thing Mom had told him was to take care of his dad and sister, because he was her little big man. She’d always called him that because he took so much after his grandfather. He prided himself on being different from the other kids. He didn’t automatically ask for instructions or permission, he figured things out for himself.

He loved his action figures and video games, but his favorite toys were in his grandfather’s workshop. They
made
things in the workshop. Real things. Furniture. Model airplanes which flew. Remote control cars that went faster than he could run.

Grandpa had an old-timey car and he would help while Grandpa was under the hood by fetching tools for him. And he was good at it too. Sometimes he knew what Grandpa was gonna need before he’d even asked for it, and when he got it right, Grandpa let him turn the valve or tighten down the lug nut.

Grandpa had told him that a real man was his own man. A real man thinks for himself and makes his own way in the world. He has a firm handshake, looks you in the eye when he’s talking to you. He tells you what unit he served in the Corps before college. A real man judges another man by what he’s done, not by what he says…

Jake couldn’t believe he was thinking it, but he was beginning to have doubts about Lucky. It didn’t feel right when he doubted, he felt like he was turning green and having an asthma attack like a wimpy kid. It was hard to do, like a math problem without a pencil and paper, like his own mind was pushing back.

Lucky was the awesomest! Like a Jedi master and Fonzie from Nickelodeon. First he’d saved them from the wolves, his bungling dad and his pants-pissing pal too. Then he’d saved Dad from himself when he was stupid drunk waving a gun around while people were getting the Baptism of Fear. That crowd was gonna beat him to death—and he’d really asked for it—but Lucky had talked them down.

There was no doubt about it, Lucky was going to turn this dump of a town around, and set these people straight. Jake knew these people needed a man like Lucky, because they were pathetic, no doubt about that.

Lucky was a gosh-darn hero and a Prophet of the True God.

But Jenny was too young just now. Maybe after she’d graduated high-school and Lucky had met their grandparents it would be okay, but that hadn’t happened yet. He was sure that after Grandpa had met Lucky he’d see what a fantastic guy he was, but still, Jenny was too young.

And it sounded like Lucky wanted to marry Jenny in just a few
days
.

And then they’d be doing what Lucky was doing with the Women Most Faithful. Now, most of the time people weren’t supposed to do that, but it was different with Lucky. This was a way for them to prove themselves and become one with Their God at the same time.

It just seemed like Jenny was too young for that. All her bruises were gone from becoming part of the Faithful—all of their physical infirmities would heal with time, even cripples and retarded kids, but she looked happy enough, everyone was happy around Lucky. And she deserved it. Lucky had always said that. “You are a child of Our God and you deserve to be happy.” She was so happy with him, and he’d seen them holding hands, one time holding her up to him and kissing like grownups do. She seemed really happy about that too….

Jake shook his head. Something wasn’t right even though he’d never been happier in his life. His mom was dead and Jenny had gotten raped by gangbangers and his dad had lost his marbles and had run away like a retarded kid. And he’d taken them along for the ride.

But they’d met Lucky. He’d said that His God had meant for this to happen so they could be together. He’d be Jake’s new daddy and he’d be Jenny’s daddy and husband.

But he’d never heard of anything like that. How could Lucky be Jenny’s daddy
and
husband? Daddies don’t do the grownup thing with their daughters, and if they got married they’d be doing the grownup thing.

He shook his head again.

Something was really wrong.

CHAPTER 13

Since they’d killed his entire flock they’d been
fucking
with him. And he wasn’t one to be fucked with, least of all by a pack of glorified dogs. They’d come all the way up on his porch, letting out a howl, then had sprinted around the backside of the house to do the same thing to make him spin in circles and scream at the walls.

And he’d done enough of that. So as soon as they’d started playing games he’d run out the front door with his Ranch Rifle and opened up.

On the first night they’d just run off howling in all directions, but since then they’d escalated the game. It was always the males, but he knew Blackie was watching the hunt from the shadows, appraising every move, looking for weaknesses.

Truth was, old Colson welcomed this fight. The Upper Peninsula was an old dying place and he was an old dying man. Time and the taxman had taken everything, and those sheep were the last thing he’d had. If Blackie wanted to play this game until the very end he’d be happy to oblige. Nailing a few of those bastards before checking out would put a big smile on his face. Maybe he’d make him a nice new coat out of his old gal Blackie, tip one back, then put the barrel in his mouth and they could go to the dirt together.

Yep. That would suit him just fucking fine.

So he sat back and waited, drinking to good ol’ Elton Township.

And soon enough, paws were running across his porch, then the one out back. He sat stone-still in his recliner, looking at the sweaty glass of Canadian in his hand. Half-f. The cubes clinked as he tilted it back and swallowed.

He set it back down on the table with a tiny tap.

The sound of paws and a murmured growl on the front porch.

A panting at the back.

Paws running back and forth under the windows.

And now, above…

They were on the holy fucking shit roof!

He smiled and giggled.
I suppose it’s conceivable
. There’s a tree next to the house they could have climbed, but he’d never heard of a dog, much less a wolf, climbing a tree.

But who the fuck cares? First the Rev dies, then the sheep get massacred, then the Rev’s homo son Lucky shows up, after which people had started acting like they’d eaten the same mushrooms as those folks who’d written the Twilight Zone.

So wolves climb trees. So fucking what? That’s not gonna stop the world from spinning or this whiskey going down nice and hard.

A loud, clear wolf call tore through the night air. He’d heard this one before, on the night his sheep had been killed. Blackie, out in the pasture, telling him exactly where she was, to come on down, it’s time to tango. He looked at the skin from the big male which started this little fight with Blackie. It was stretched out covering almost the whole wall from floor to ceiling. He took another gulp, feeling the warmth in his blood and his brain.

She’s there, maybe seventy-five feet beyond the front door. Others out back, some running circles around the house, right under the windows. Some of them are on the fucking roof.

He jumped out of the chair as fast as his old bones would take him and racked the Ranch Rifle. “Fuck you, you stupid fucking mutt!”

Colson picked up the bottle, screwing the cap off between his teeth.

“Is that you, God? It’s me, Colson. Remember me? Of course not you stupid asshole!”

He walked to the door, flipped the lock, turned the knob and walked out into the night with his rifle trained on the darkness. Wolves ran from shadow to shadow, flashing through the light and disappearing into the dark.

As surely as his cynical bravado had come, it left again, replaced by an alien dread. It wasn’t just wolves out here. It wasn’t merely death. Something else was walking the dark places of the world tonight, something which had learned to walk when it ought to be crawling. A deep growl emanated from every point around him. To the front and sides and back, from above and below. The very air and earth sang, rumbling. Deep, growling with fury but also groaning, moaning with pleasure. A gurgling current ran through the wall of hunger sounding almost like words. Almost like a language his brain knew but his mind couldn’t register.

Older than houses and guns and whiskey and ranchers.

Old, far older than skin, and fur, and fang and claw.

Older than dirt.

But here, nonetheless.

“I’m very sorry, God, I didn’t mean that…”

He reached behind, turned the knob and squeezed back through the door. He locked it, breathing in and out, his heart beating so hard and fast it hurt.

But the air was wrong. He turned, seeing the back fucking door was open! In the seconds since he’d walked out of the house they’d gotten in through the back door. But they couldn’t open doors! It didn’t matter because this wasn’t just wolves… this was something else.