buried itself in his brain.
This is the part he likes. This is what he's waited for. The farmer has toppled like a dying tree and now lies sprawled lifeless at his feet, blood soaking into the dusty floor of the barn. Grasping an arm, the Old One turns the body over onto its back, then watches raptly as the thing that was the farmwife climbs naked astride the farmer and, crouching there, places her open mouth directly over his. A minute passes.
Suddenly an old wound opens in her throat; her body crumples and goes limp, sagging in upon itself just as the corpse's eyes flash open. With an impatient swipe of its arm the thing that was the farmer shoves aside her stiffening body and gets to its feet. Blood continues flowing down its head from the gaping red crack in its skull. It looks at the Old One and smiles. . The man returns its smile. What a moment this has been! The being itself remains hidden from view – it's been more than a hundred years since he's seen it – but he's sensed the thing's presence tonight and has charted its progress as it made its blind way from mouth to mouth. He has seen the farmwife's cheeks bulge, then grow slack; he has seen the wriggling at the farmer's throat. It is lodged there now, just beneath the flesh, already accustoming itself to its new home. He still cannot see it, but he knows it is there, nearly close enough to touch: the one thing left alive after the Master's death; the part he'd left unburned; the organ with no clear human analogue, but corresponding roughly to a phallus, instrument of regeneration; the black thing, undying and unkillable; the Dhol.
Silence within the darkened barn. Beneath the smell of straw, a faint whiff of decay. He grasps the farmwife's body by the ankles.
'I'm good at hiding bodies,' he says, dragging the thing away from the truck. 'You have your own work to do tonight.'
The corpse, heavy, comes to a stop at the doorway. He tugs on the ankles. Slowly it begins to move, then stops again.
He gets a better grip and is about to pull further when the figure of the farmer steps forward, bends stiffly toward the floor, and picks up the corpse as if it weighed nothing. Slinging it roughly over one shoulder like a sack of grain, it strides into the night.
It feels strong now. It flexes its great hands, heaves its massive shoulders, gazes down with pleasure at its lean, untiring form. The burden it carries is a minor one, so light that it might well be made of straw.
Shortly before dawn a tall, shambling figure, the head still bloody from some recent injury, wanders along the borders of the property with the already stiffening carcass of a naked female slung carelessly over its shoulder, the black hair hanging almost to the ground. Making at last for the line of pine trees on the far side of the brook, it strides briskly downhill and, without pausing, steps into the shallow water, scattering the frogs. As if it were walking on dry land, it starts across.
Just beyond the center of the stream, it comes to a sudden halt and stands immobile, the frigid water swirling unnoticed over shoes and ankles. Finally, after nearly a minute in the water, the figure turns and strides back onto the land, heading toward the old abandoned smokehouse by the edge of the woods.
Unmindful of a few unsleeping wasps that still circle the building and are already stirred up, the figure yanks the sagging wooden door open wide and clumsily thrusts its burden into the darkness. Wasps, like bees, go for the eyes. Unlike bees, they can sting many times without dying. Maddened by the intrusion, insects circle the figure's head like attacking warplanes, dealing sting after death-dealing sting.
But venom, however deadly, has no effect on things already dead. The hulking figure feels no pain, no more than it feels from the split down the center of its skull. Heedless of the tiny swarm and the needle-sharp spears that pierce the flesh of its face, the figure grasps the carcass by the legs and shoves it upward into the round hole in the smokehouse ceiling, as if to jam the thing into the tiny attic. But the body cannot fit; the legs wedge tightly in the hole, ridges of flesh bulging up around them. The body hangs head downward like a slaughtered animal, the long black hair swinging like Spanish moss.
Dawn approaches. Leaving the carcass dangling behind it, the thing shambles toward the truck.
Freirs stirred and woke at the sound of the engine, in time to see the broad, dark shape of Poroth's truck roll past the outbuilding and head out to the road. Dimly he could make out Poroth at the wheel. Without his glasses Freirs could not be sure, but the farmer appeared to be wearing a red skullcap. Rosie's bed, he noticed, was empty. Seconds later Rosie entered, wiping his hands and smiling. 'Had to obey the call of nature!' he said, winking.
'Where's Sarr gone off to? That was him in the truck.'
Rosie shrugged. 'You got me, partner. He said something about keeping an appointment.'
The moon stares down as the truck pulls up at the foot of the grassy slope, just down the road from the little stone bridge. Heavily a tall, ungainly figure drops from the cab and lumbers up the slope toward the cottage, heedless of the darkness, trampling upon a bed of flowers as if they weren't there. Thorns tear at its clothing, but it doesn't slow; clumsily it blunders into the beehives standing on the lawn, knocking one of them over.
The insects emerge in an angry swarm and attack the face and eyes. The shambling figure pays them no mind as it moves up the hill toward the house.
At last it turns its shattered face toward the door. Clenching its huge fist, it knocks three times, the noise echoing hollowly in the night.
'Mother,' it calls hoarsely. 'Mother… '
July Thirty-first
Ten a.m. now. Woke up feeling weak amp; disoriented. Dead spider floating in my water glass. Rosie was already awake amp; bustling energetically about, humming some tuneless little song. Said he'd be making Carol amp; me breakfast, as it's Sunday (I'd totally forgotten) and the Poroths have already gone to worship…
But the Poroths were not at the worship that morning, and their absence excited much comment. 'I can't understand it,' muttered Amos Reid, waiting for the opening prayers to begin. 'For Brother Sarr not to be here at a time like this… ' He shook his head despairingly.
Joram Sturtevant and his family were not there either – they were home, all five of them, in the sprawling white farmhouse over on the next hill – but at least they had a good excuse: Lotte Sturtevant had gone into labor this morning.
Lise Verdock, too, was absent; yet in another sense her presence was felt deeply by everyone in attendance. The worship was being held in her front yard, in fact, right beneath her window. It was a memorial service in her honor. She had died during the night.
She had slipped away just after midnight without ever having regained consciousness, watched over by her grieving husband and daughter. In testament to the high regard with which she'd been held in the town, this morning's worship, originally scheduled for the home of Frederick and Hildegarde Troet, just across the road, had been hastily reconvened here at the Verdocks' dairy farm, where, in a moment or two, Jacob van Meer would be leading them all in a prayer.
'It just ain't like Sarr,' muttered Amos. 'That woman of his, now, I wouldn't go countin' on her, but for Sarr to be late when it's his own poor aunt we're honorin'… it don't make sense.' He looked around. 'And where the blazes is his ma?'
Matthew Geisel was standing next to him, thinking sadly of the departed woman while gazing with unconscious envy at the tall, newly painted cattle barn to their left, the lush fields and rich pasturage, and, in the distance ahead of them, the broad, imposing vista of the Sturtevant homestead.
'Well,' he said, scratching his chin, 'maybe they're all over at Fred Troet's right now, lookin' for the rest of us.'
A low burst of laughter came from Rupert Lindt, standing with folded arms behind them. 'That would probably suit 'em just fine,' he said. 'I don't know as those three ever had much use for the rest of us.'
'I'm sure there's a good reason,' said Amos, half to himself. He stared down at his clasped hands as, with a burst of Jeremiah, the service began.
'Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all… '
It wasn't till all the prayers were over and the Brethren were deep into the hymn-singing that Amos, nudged by Matthew Geisel, looked up and saw what many others there on the lawn had already noticed: the thin black tentacle of smoke twisting toward the sky from the Sturtevant back yard.
The egg in Rosie's hand was large, smooth, glistening white; and if it was a trifle heavier than any normal egg of that size had a right to be, no one was the wiser. Eyes twinkling with the contentment of a mother who
