He sat and stared and tried to weep. He strained to force out a single tear.
“Come on, you fucker,” he yelled, as if Volker was right there in the room. “Give me that much. Let me still be human enough for that.”
He felt a tingle at the corner of his eye, and with great relief he touched his fingers there, needing to see the ordinary glistening wetness of that tear. The world began spinning around him. The drop of liquid on his fingertips was as black as the Black Eye. Tiny worms wriggled in it.
Homer Gibbon screamed. And this time the scream was real, full and charged with all of the power of his hate and rage.
He screamed and screamed. He jumped to his feet and raged through the house, tearing it apart. Be damned to the pain in his muscles; he took that pain and fed it in like fuel to his fury. He shattered windows and threw chairs across the rooms. His hands swept pictures from the walls and his feet kicked side tables to kindling. He overturned the sofa and slashed at the curtains with fingernails and teeth and then with knives from the kitchen.
And then he stopped dead in his tracks.
Aunt Selma stood in the doorway to the dining room. Her face was a death mask of exposed bone and empty eye sockets. Her clothes hung in stained tatters exposing wrinkled, bloodless skin. Some of her fingers were broken and bitten.
“Auntie?”
Selma raised her hands toward him and moaned. A deep, aching moan of blind and unbearable hunger. Homer stared at her, watching as she shuffled toward him. Even from ten feet away he could see the black goo leaking from between the exposed teeth, and inside the goo … the worms.
It was then, in a grand leap of understanding, that everything Volker had told him about Project Lucifer, the
Over the years, in the service of the Red Mouth, Homer had used every kind of tool. Knives, saws, drills, pliers, hatchets, clubs, forks, and even dentist tools. Each of them had opened red mouths in the people whom he sacrificed to his inner gods. But now …
He ran his fingers over his teeth, feeling each one. Shape and size and sharpness. Ordinary teeth, but not really. Not anymore. He could feel the worms wriggling beneath the flesh of his gums and within the meat of his tongue and the walls of his mouth.
There was a soft thump from the cellar and a low moan, and Homer knew that the church lady was trying to climb the stairs. He knew that without having to look. It all made sense now. Everything was clear.
The state had captured him and chained him; Doctor Volker had tried to transform him into the living embodiment of suffering. But a higher, grander purpose was at work in Homer’s life; and now he understood the purpose of that power. Like a grub that turns into a wasp, it was all about transformation.
Just as Aunt Selma had transformed from living meat to a servant of the Red Mouth, Homer Gibbon understood that he was no longer Homer Gibbon.
He
“God!” he said aloud, meaning himself.
He felt the hunger inside. In the same instant he felt all doubt and confusion decay and die.
He opened the door and let Aunt Selma stagger out into the rain.
Then he looked through the debris until he found the keys to the church lady’s car. With them in hand he stepped out onto the porch, smiling. Filled with purpose.
He remembered a snatch of an old poem that one of the older cons in Rockview used to repeat. Standing on the top step, he said it aloud.
“This is how the world ends,” he whispered to the rain.
“This is how the world ends,” he said to the wind.
“This is how the world ends,” he shouted to the storm.
Not with a bang.
But a bite.
PART THREE
THE DEAD LAND
No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
“This is Magic Marti at the mike and we’ve been informed that Pennsylvania Governor Harbison is going to make an announcement. Okay, we’re going live to the state capitol in Harrisburg.”
“My fellow citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” said the governor in a deep, somber voice, “as of seven p.m. tonight, I am declaring a state of emergency for Stebbins County and a state of high alert for the following counties: Beaver, Allegheny, Washington, Greene, Armstrong, Indiana, Westmoreland, Fayette, Somerset, and Cambria. We have been offered — and I have accepted — assistance from the federal government and FEMA. I have mobilized the National Guard to shore up flood-affected areas and to assist with evacuations and other rescue operations.”
A pause.
“However, the storm is not our only concern. With police, rescue, and fire departments taxed to their limits, we have been receiving a number of accounts of looting and violence. So far most of this has been concentrated in Stebbins County, which is also being hit hardest by the storm. For that reason I have authorized the National Guard to place Stebbins under temporary martial law. A curfew has been imposed and Guardsmen will work with local law enforcement to restore order.
“It is a sad thing when a corrupt few take advantage of the many, especially during a time of crisis. We saw similar acts of cowardly opportunism during Hurricane Katrina and in the wake of the earthquakes in Haiti.
“However I am convinced — and will remain convinced — that the overwhelming majority of the people of this glorious commonwealth are working shoulder to shoulder with their neighbors to save lives, protect property, and do what is necessary for everyone to survive. The many will not be tainted by the heinous acts of the few, and I can promise that order will be restored in a timely and efficient manner.
“If you are in one of the affected areas, please follow the instructions provided by the police, emergency agencies, and the news services. Stay at home, stay safe, and pray for those in peril. Together we will weather this crisis and see our way to the other end of this storm. Thank you and God bless the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
