'It wasn't sticking in you, dear.'
'True. Thank God.'
Linda said, 'I don't know what's been the matter with me lately.. I sleep so soundly … even when I lie down just to nap. I've never done that before . . . sleep so much, I mean.'
'It's the cold clean air,' Sam suggested.
Linda solemnly shook her head. 'No, Sam. It's much more than that. And I think you two know it. This place is weird! No offense, Nydia, but it's true—it is. I'd like to go back to Carrington. Would one of you take me?'
Sam sighed, cutting his eyes to Nydia. She shrugged. 'Sit down, Linda,' he said. 'I guess we'd better talk.'
Jane Ann stood at her picture window, gazing out at the quiet street. It was ominously silent in Whitfield. For a time there had been the faint sounds of hammering. Now that was gone.
Jane Ann looked down at her hands and was reminded of a TV commercial: Hands of a twenty year old, she smiled. But not for long. That hammering was meant for me. They wanted me to hear it. She again looked at her hands. It's going to hurt when they drive the nails.
The mist that was Balon hovered silently, watching Jane Ann, knowing every thought in her mind and unable to help, for what she was thinking was true. And if a being from the Other Side could sigh, Balon did, knowing she would have to endure almost unbearable pain for a time … before he could step in to end it. She would be humiliated, sexually assaulted, tortured … tested. Only then could he end it. And after Balon did that, He would really end it, and Whitfield would be no more.
Miles and Doris, Wade and Anita sat in the growing darkness of the living room, discussing the Bible. They knew they should turn on some lights, but they did not want to break the feeling of closeness they were sharing.
'Let's pray for Jane Ann,' Wade suggested.
The Clay Man sat motionless on the porch steps, knowing his short time in a form resembling human conformation was ticking away. The golem knew degrees of the human emotion, picking them up from osmosis. He rather liked these humans he protected, but he had no desire to be like them. He did wonder what would happen to him when it was his time to return to the earth. Would he still be aware of his surroundings? He didn't know. Then, that thought was pushed from him with such swiftness the golem was not aware of ever possessing it.
You are all things, he was told. And will always be such.
And the Clay Man was at peace with himself, feeling new strength enter his form.
Just outside of town, the Beasts had gathered to feast on the bodies of those who had died in Whitfield. They snarled and growled and ripped the dead meat from the bones, stuffing their fanged mouths as the drool dripped from their jaws, leaking in slimy ribbons to foul the ground. The males found a human female among the piles of bodies, a female who had only pretended to be dead, who was suffering from only minor injuries. And as was their custom, they dragged her screaming to the oldest male among them, the leader.
Her shrieks as they tore the clothing from her changed to wails of pure terror as the big male pushed her to her bare knees and mounted her under the cool moonlight of western fall. When the oldest male had finished, the other males, according to age and rank in the pecking order of things, took their turn with the woman, each biting her on the neck as they lunged deep within her.
Within hours her body would be covered with thick, course hair, her face would change, the jaw enlarging, and she would be as them. She would be able only to mumble and snarl and growl, and the Beasts would understand her, and she them. She would not remember worshiping of the God she thought she was deceiving as she prayed and lied.
And she would be happy in her new form.
In another part of Fork County, Jake rubbed his crotch and thought of Jane Ann. Jean had told him, since he was largest of the men, in one particular department, certainly not mentally, he could have Jane Ann first—in any fashion Jake chose. Just make the prissy little bitch holler. Jake grinned. He figured he could damn sure do that, all right.
Jean came to him in the night, opening her shirt so he could fondle her breasts, pinch the nipples in play- pain.
'You want me to suck you off, Jake?'
'Yeah,' he dropped his filth-encrusted jeans to the ground, around his boots. 'Yeah, you do that.'
And she kneeled between his naked legs.
Nothing came close to Whitfield; no cars or trucks traveled the single ribbon of highway to or from the small damned community. There were no birds, except for the scavenger and carrion type, which wheeled and circled and called. Any animal that could leave the area, had left, a precognition in their tiny brains telling them to stay would mean death.
It was as if the physical elements that made up the town of Whitfield: the brick, the stone, the mortar, the timber, had but one single thought: they were going to be destroyed.
Soon.
'Black magic? Devil worship? Roma and Mr. Falcon are witch and warlock?' Linda looked first at Sam, then Nydia. 'Vampires? You're both putting me on—right?'
'No,' Sam insisted. 'It's all true.'
'Your … real father left you a letter? You've been in communication with the … spirit world?'
'That is correct, Linda,' Nydia said. 'I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. Believe it.'
She looked at the pair for a long moment. Finally a slow smile began pulling at her mouth. 'Now I get it! Oh,
