Mr. Shivers (24 page)

“You!” she said. “You’re the drifter-man. You ain’t supposed to be out here.”

“Go back to bed,” said Connelly.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” she whispered. “Dead and gone.”

“Don’t you… Don’t you cry out or damn you, I’ll beat you raw,” Connelly said.

She smiled. “You wouldn’t. You ain’t the sort of person to hit a girl.”

“I would.”

“No you wouldn’t. You’re just a big softy. Just a big old softy.”

Connelly stood up to his full height. “Don’t you do nothing,” he said quietly, “or I swear… I swear to God…”

“Swear what? That you’ll kill me?” She laughed. An angelic sound. “You ain’t the type. Why, I bet I could open my mouth right
now and holler bloody murder and they’d come running, wouldn’t they?”

Connelly did not move.

“Sure they would. And you wouldn’t do nothing. They’d find you and cut you to ribbons,” she said, and smiled wide.

Cold green button eyes, mean and merciless. Flat and shallow like a muddy pool.

“Watch,” said the girl, and took a deep breath.

The shovel bit deep into her skull under her right eye and the force of the blow sent the eye flying out, spiraling away and
down onto her cheek. A gout of blood poured from her mouth and nose and she fell to the ground and began madly twitching and
a ribbon of black began seeping from her exposed sinus. In the moonlight her crumpled head made her look far from human, some
twisted, mindless inversion, and Connelly stood over her and brought the shovel down again and again on her neck. Soon she
stopped twitching and he was glad. It was as though in decapitating her he made her human and recognizable again.

He stood over the slain girl and dumped the kerosene out and lit a match and tossed it behind him. Then he started to run.

Exactly when it happened he could not say. He saw the firelight flickering on the trees ahead and felt the heat on his back,
but it was not until he heard the guttural burp and the shrieking roar that he knew it had really caught. He turned and backpedaled
and saw jets of fire shooting into the night. Twin blazes were on his left and right and he knew somewhere Hammond and Pike
were making for the woods.

He ran into the hills of the mountain and climbed a ways. Then he heard the screams. Maybe a man, maybe a woman. A child,
perhaps. Then more. He turned and looked out on the inferno he had left in his wake, the crumbling cottages and the blackening
church, the thick pillar of black smoke that reached up into the sky. He tried to silence the dreadful part of his heart that
sang and danced joyfully at the sight of his hellish wreckage but found he could not.

“Look at that,” said a voice.

He turned back around. Roosevelt was sitting on a stone, smiling at the fire.

“You made the sun come up, Connelly,” he said. “You made the sun come up.”

Mr. Shivers

They headed for the farm and on the way there they came upon Pike and Hammond struggling through the brush. Hammond grinned
at him wickedly, his face sooty and mad.

“Show those bastards,” he panted. “Show those bastards how to do a burning.”

“Roosevelt?” said Pike. “Where have you been?”

“Walking,” Rosie said. “Walking and seeing.”

Pike looked at him mistrustfully and Connelly knew they shared the same thought.

“If we’re going we need to go,” said Hammond. He looked behind at the column of smoke. “The whole place can’t burn. Whoever’s
left is going to lay hands on guns quick.”

“How long do we have until dawn?” Connelly asked as they started their way up.

“Three hours,” said Pike. “More.”

“Let’s make use of it, then.”

The slope became nearly vertical. They wrapped their hands in rags from their shirts and gripped roots and stones to hoist
themselves up the damp hills. The stink of the fire was still in their nostrils but as they mounted the air became thin and
clean. They found a ravine and crawled when they had to and leapt to solid ground when they could.

Roosevelt no longer needed to be led. He seemed to have an easier time of it than the others. He jumped to one stone and smiled
down at it, pleased. “La,” he said, and laughed.

Connelly and Pike glanced at each other and continued climbing.

They came to a small landing in the hills. Cedars and furs dotted it in rings and they crept their way through the little
maze, guns drawn. Then Hammond held up a hand and whispered, “Look.”

They saw the roof of the farmhouse a few hundred yards away. Weeds rose up higher than the waist and shielded part of it from
view. They worked their way around and farther up the slope so as to get a better angle.

It was an old place, all the color and darkness of the wood long since washed away from years of rain. It seemed to be made
of nothing but splinters, everything cracked and white and leaning, all the angles askew. The windows were dark and Connelly
imagined black eyes watching them from behind each misplaced board. The house was paired with another barn, queerly placed
in the small stretch of barely usable pasture. Decaying fenceposts ran along the slope. To their eyes each segment resembled
the shattered spine of some long-decayed creature lying askew in the field.

They watched for any motion. They saw none. They checked the rounds in their guns and moved down through the weeds and over
the fence and up to the porch, leaving Roosevelt sitting behind in the trees.

Everything creaked, leaving no chance of stealth if the fire had left any. There was no inch of the farmhouse that was solid.
Each time the wind blew the house filled with a chorus of groans. Pike and Hammond checked the windows and shook their heads
and Connelly looked in the door. The front hall stretched away, roof bulging down and the walls awry. He squinted into the
dark and waved in and they entered.

It was as though they were in the belly of some monster. The house muttered and squalled and some parts of it dripped. They
could hear the scutter of insects and rodents from somewhere in its walls. A strange scent was in the air.

“Something’s dead here,” whispered Hammond.

“Yeah,” Connelly said.

They found nothing in the house. The kitchen and living room were filled with the scattered remains of old furniture. A child’s
chair. A soiled rag that had once been a linen tablecloth. They paced through it and exited on the other side. There the previous
owners had once kept a playground of sorts. A ragged swing hung from an ancient tree and shattered glass and old toys glittered
in the weeds. Some sort of foundation was on the ground, cracked and broken, shards rising from the turf like a rocky shore
among the sea.

Pike pointed. There was a stone shed on the side of the house. Bricks and stones were missing from its entry and its front
passageway was far longer than they had expected. They walked to it and looked in and though it was dark they knew they faced
a tomb.

The reek was worse here, pungent and sour. Connelly remembered the house from long, long ago, the winding stairs that had
led down to the basement, the wave of flies and the stench of decay. He knew the sensation of walking where the dead had once
lain, but something far worse waited inside. He did not know and did not want to know what the gray man had kept in that place,
but there in his hallowed ground he surely kept something special, something that went beyond any sickness mere men could
ever know.

What was in there? What did the passageway hold? Connelly had turned away before and refused that grim knowledge, but he was
not sure if he could do so again.

The wind blew across the mouth of the shed and it moaned. Hammond took a step forward, almost hypnotized. Connelly awoke and
threw his arm out to stop him and whispered, “No. No.”

Hammond glanced at him, perplexed, and they struggled. Hammond tried to push past to enter but Connelly refused to let him
go.

Then Pike held up a hand and motioned toward the barn. “There,” he hissed. “There, you damn fools. There.”

There was movement in the barn. They turned away from the shed and crouched down around the corner of the house and waited.
Pike cocked his gun, then Hammond did the same. As the creature in the barn came out into the weeds a ray of moonlight broke
through the clouds and fell upon the small field, illuminating it until it was a translucent silver.

It was a bull, enormous and white. How it had gotten up so far in the mountains they could not say, but there it was. It would
have been a stately animal had it been cared for, but one horn was cracked and its coat was ragged and its backside spattered
with dried shit. Flies buzzed around it in a thick cloud and it lowed as it made its way toward the center of the field.

Movement came from the opposite end. The leafless trees twitched and rustled and then the gray man emerged, shuffling out,
his eyes fixed on the bull. He stood at the edge of the grass and he looked more tired and worn than they had ever seen him
before, like he barely had the energy to lift his head. Yet when he stepped into the light he straightened, almost growing
taller, and he breathed deep and opened his eyes. He flexed his limbs, testing them. Stretched his back and took a firm step
forward. Then he looked down on the bull across from him like a king examining his subjects. The bull lifted its head at his
arrival and stepped forward.

Connelly and the others did not fire. They did not shout or attack. Instead they sat frozen, aware that they were witnessing
some ancient rite, a thing so old it had no name. It preceded language. Preceded any knowledge of the world at all save that
those who watched it turn around them were fading from it even as they looked on.

The gray man and the bull circled each other. The animal dipped its head and swung its broken horns but the gray man did not
flinch. It dug one hoof into the mottled earth and lifted its head and lowed again, warning him, yet the gray man still took
no notice. Instead he reached inside his coat and took out a small silver knife. It glittered greedily in the moonlight. He
breathed out, a cloud of frost forming and evaporating. Then the bull charged.

It was a short space but the animal’s speed was still immense. The gray man flickered away, dodging like he could walk on
air, and the bull flew by him harmlessly. He scored a mark in the bull’s side as it passed, tongues of blood running down
its white coat, and it lowed again and whipped its head but the gray man was already moving away, dancing over the ragged
grass. They both turned at the perimeter of the small field, facing one another again, judging their weaknesses and strengths
and waiting for the next strike.

The bull charged again. This time the gray man stood perfectly still, hands at his side as he looked down on the animal barreling
toward him. When the bull neared he leaned to one side and his hand flicked out and grabbed hold of the horn. He spun himself
around onto the bull’s side and put his knee into the back of its neck. It collapsed and slid to a halt, its massive legs
lashing out and gouging lines in the grass. The gray man held his knife high and plunged it into the side of the animal’s
neck. It bellowed in anger and blood sprayed from its throat, dotting the head and shoulders of the gray man and soaking the
ground around it.

The gray man kept the knife in place until the bull lay still, its sides heaving with breath, and then he dipped his head
down to the wound. What he did there they could not see but when he lifted his head it was smeared with blood, black-red and
glistening. He shut his eyes and moaned softly as though pained, then brought his hands to his face, trembling. He touched
the red on his forehead and rubbed madly at it like it either pained or exhilarated him. He pushed his fingers into his mouth
and then when he seemed on the verge of tears he spread his arms wide and lifted his face to the sky and screamed, long and
loud.

They had never heard a scream like it. There was fury in it, terrifying rage, a cry of dominance and power that could not
be ignored. But there was also sadness in it, a sense of futility, like he was a lone man screaming his curses at a sky that
would not listen. His scars appeared to open wide until they were no longer a disfigurement but instead were a part of his
enormous mouth, a jaw that stretched to such a size that it could swallow the world. He held out his hands as though beckoning
the stars to come and hear his plea. For a second Connelly believed there were invisible strings that ran from the ends of
his fingers to every star, and though he felt there was a great tension there he could not tell who was pulling whom.

The gray man howled again, holding his bloody hands before him, and then dropped them to his sides. A cloud passed over the
moon and the field darkened again, like a curtain covering a stage. He stood still for a moment, drawing his strength. Then
he snapped his head around and stared right at them. Connelly felt that the man’s eyes were for him alone but before he could
be sure the gray man turned and sprinted into the trees with a speed they never knew he had.

The spell broke. “Goddamn it all,” said Hammond, and they began trudging through the field after him, no longer sure why they
had sat still at all.

As they entered the scrub Connelly heard a snap somewhere and something buzzed by him. He leapt and tackled Pike and Hammond
and dragged them to the ground. Hammond began to curse him but Connelly held his hand over his mouth.

There was another crack and something whizzed through the tall grass. Connelly motioned across the clearing toward the barn
and pointed at the black smoke from the town burning below. Pike and Hammond looked back across the scrap of pasture. Someone
was moving in the far trees.

Connelly pointed at himself and Pike, then at the path of the gray man. He pointed at Hammond and then pointed to the trees
and mimed firing. Hammond nodded. They got to a crouch and silently counted one, two, three.

Connelly and Pike raced up the hill while Hammond opened up on the moving shadows on the side of the clearing. No more than
three shots, carefully placed, then he turned and began running as well.

“You sons of bitches!” screamed an anguished voice. “You goddamn sons of bitches!”

Crystal-white flashes lit up across from them and shot and bullets rained here and there. Connelly and Pike threw themselves
behind a large outcropping and Hammond knelt down behind a tree, arm carefully poised, his aim steady. Their surroundings
snapped and popped and whined but they did not move.

There was a gap in the shots and one man awkwardly stumbled out of the treeline and made for the cover of the barn. Hammond
squeezed the trigger and the man spun around and fell. More furious screams from the trees. Another hail of shots. Hammond
smiled grimly as he reloaded and sucked his fingers when they burned.

Pike took out his revolver and took aim. Connelly counted again, one, two, three, and he and Hammond scrambled up the rocks
while Pike fired across the field.

“How many do you think are there?” said Hammond as they ran.

“Five or six,” said Connelly. “Few rifles, one or two pistols. One shotgun, from what I heard.”

Hammond laughed harshly and took cover behind a boulder. “Goddamn townies,” he said.

A shot whined by and Connelly felt a heat in his shoulder. He ignored it until Hammond said, “You’ve been hit.”

“What?” he said.

“They hit you.”

He looked at his shoulder and at the spreading blotch of red. He pushed the torn clothing apart and saw a nick on the mass
of his shoulder, about an inch long. He clucked his tongue and rolled his sleeve up to stanch the bleeding.

“You good?” said Hammond.

“Yeah,” Connelly said.

By the time they protected Pike’s retreat they were well up the hill. The mountain started honestly a little over a quarter
mile away. Connelly and Pike climbed up over the bluff and Connelly called to Hammond to come on. He emptied his pistol and
turned and began to follow, grabbing stones and heaving himself up.

Behind him the townspeople broke cover and began to run after them. Pike raised his gun and squeezed off three shots, hitting
one in the neck. His target clapped a hand to his collarbone but his partner took a knee and fired.

Hammond cried out from below. Connelly moved to look. He saw Hammond leaning against the rock face, a dark red patch growing
just beside his spine. He pawed at it uselessly, unable to bend his shoulder. Someone whooped happily and Pike fired his gun
empty and began to reload.

“Shot!” cried Hammond. “I’ve been shot! Goddamn… goddamn townies sh-shot me.” He choked and made a sob, rolled over to look
at his wound. “Connelly?”

“I’m here,” he said.

“They shot me.”

“I know.”

“Right in the back.”

“I know.”

Pike began firing again, letting shots fly wherever. They rained on the pasture and one of them found a home in the back of
the dead bull.