Charlie screeched. The shotgun boomed.
Something crashed through the windshield above Micah. The dome light dimmed. Next something was inside the cab with them. Micah felt its weight, heavy as several anvils, pressing down on the steering wheel. It poured itself through the shattered glass, thick and black and alive with horrifying industry. In Micah’s fractured view, it resembled nothing more than a ball of parts: the most dangerous and vile bits of every beast and bird and reptile that had once inhabited these woods. Teeth and claws and fangs dripping venom—and eyes. Oh Christ, all the eyes. Some of those eyes spotted Micah. Parts of the thing’s lunatic anatomy oriented on him, hissing and rasping, darting down. But he was under the steering wheel, which provided a barrier; he could see things squirming around the wheel, their mouths inches from his face. One of the thing’s limbs hit the horn; it blatted on and on, a high curious note.
The thing was more interested in Otis. He’d stopped screaming, now face-to-face with it. Otis’s lips trembled as he called out, oh so weakly, for his God.
Then the thing attacked. Otis might as well have walked into a garbage disposal. His face was shredded, legs jittering crazily as he was torn to bits. Blood burst forth and sheeted down, a veritable waterfall of the red stuff splattering Micah’s face.
Micah heeled himself across the foot well toward the passenger door. He heard Charlie scream as he pumped the shotgun.
Nonononono—
BOOM.
The cab filled with noise and light and smoke. Micah’s hearing cut out from the blast; his skull filled with a tinny ringing. The thing attacking Otis jerked as the buckshot riddled it, but it didn’t stop. It hardly mattered. It had torn the first three inches off Otis’s head, which now stopped at his ears: a clean cliff of red meat and cartilage, his jaw hanging cockeyed on a strip of sinew.
Charlie fired again. The thing squalled and retreated, shimmying out of the hole in the windshield. Micah levered himself out of the cab and staggered back, slumping into Charlie.
The thing that had killed Otis was sprawled across the truck’s hood. Twelve feet long, thick around as a trash can. It scuttled backward, its movement more insectoid than animal, claws screaming on the hood.
Micah grabbed the shotgun from Charlie and fired. The first shot blew a hole in the thing’s face. The next shot went into its chest. The thing slumped off the hood, still thrashing and not even close to dead.
Micah turned and started back toward Little Heaven—then tripped over Terry Redhill’s corpse where it slumped against the truck. He went down, snuffled dirt, and spotted the gun tucked in Redhill’s waistband. He grabbed it and gave it to Charlie.
“Go.”
Charlie was staring at Otis. At his friend’s dripping carcass.
“He is dead, Charlie. Now, or we are dead, too.”
Dazedly, Charlie followed. Micah pulled shells from his pocket and thumbed them into the shotgun. The truck’s horn blared on and on. He and Charlie staggered away from the wreck. Its taillights winked in the dark. Micah noted the rip in his shirt. A five-inch slit across his ribs, the meat flayed open.
The two of them scrambled up the slope to the main road. Little Heaven was five hundred yards off. They hadn’t even made it half a mile.
Charlie stumbled. Micah grabbed his hand. Charlie was in shock. Even having glimpsed those things the other night, Charlie could not wrap his head around what they had done to Terry Redhill and his dear friend Otis.
Partner, it is happening, Micah thought as he hauled Charlie on.
The road peeled away from the trees, bathed in creamy moonlight. The night bristled with sounds, but they had dimmed to a low and satisfied purr.
“Otis,” Charlie mumbled. “Oh no, oh no, Otis—”
Something streaked out of a dogwood thicket behind them—a liquid ripple of movement. It passed behind Micah almost soundlessly, an enormous bird zipping low across the earth. He tried to look at it, but a warning klaxon went off in his brain—Danger, Will Robinson!—that kept his head from making the necessary revolution.
Charlie grunted like a man who’d been punched in the gut. His hand—no, his whole arm—dropped three feet. He’d fallen again.
“Come on, Charlie,” Micah said.
Charlie wouldn’t get up this time. Micah had to haul Charlie across the ground. Charlie’s fingers tightened and cut off Micah’s circulation.
“I got you.”
Charlie wasn’t so hard to pull now. Light as a feather, in fact. Must be the adrenaline kicking in. Little Heaven was getting closer. Micah would haul Charlie back and make new plans. A daylight run when they could see the fuckers coming.
Charlie’s fingers began to relax. Micah clenched his own and pulled him another five feet before Charlie’s belt got hung up on a root or some other snag.
“Jesus, Charlie. Help me.”
Micah turned to look. Charlie wasn’t there—the bottom half, anyway. His body had been torn apart at the hips. His legs were gone; Micah couldn’t see them anywhere. Charlie’s guts spilled out of his chest cavity, long ropes with a whitish-blue sheen that trailed ten yards behind him until they blended into the gloom. His face was set in an expression of awestruck shock: eyes wide open, lips peeled back from his teeth.
“Come on,” Micah said stupidly. “It will be okay.” He pulled until Charlie’s halved body became unstuck from the snag. He kept hauling Charlie mindlessly, his brain stuck in a time warp where Charlie was still alive. Charlie’s remains made a graceless burping sound as another knot of intestines drooled out and unraveled across the cracked earth.
Micah’s strength was deserting him; he was now using the shotgun as a cane. “Okay… we are going to be okay, Charlie…”
Let him go, Micah. He is dead.
With a moan, Micah did. Charlie’s arm flopped to the ground. Micah staggered on. Fuck the things that had killed these men. Micah would murder them all and burn their carcasses until the air went black with their smoke.
A DOZEN OR SO PEOPLE were clustered at the gates of Little Heaven. The truck’s horn continued to blare. Seeing Micah alone, Maude Redhill let loose a desolate wail. She was joined by Charlie’s wife; Charlie’s son only stared at Micah openmouthed, not yet gripping what had happened—he was too young to understand that, yes, everything really could go to shit just this quickly.
The gates closed once Micah had shuffled through. His face was wet with blood—Otis’s or Terry’s or Charlie’s, he had no clue. He crumpled to his knees as two dozen eyes stared at him, waiting on some kind of explanation.
“It is death out there” was all he could manage.
Maude Redhill flung herself on him. She grabbed double handfuls of hair and yanked viciously, snapping his head side to side. Micah let her do it, too tired to fight back and feeling that she deserved her wrath.
“Bastard!” she screamed. “What did you do to them? What did you do to my Terryyyyyyyy!”
Somebody finally pulled her off. Maude Redhill’s sobs spiraled up into the night.
God did not hear her. Or if He did, He kept His peace.
The devil had come to Little Heaven.
PART FIVE
JOURNEY TO THE BLACK ROCK
1980
