'What in the holy hell are they?' Arnie asked Bill, not knowing whether to shoot or jump back into his cruiser and speed away.
'Hell's people,' Bill said, just before the ground rumbled and the grave markers toppled and the night fell in.
The alien absorbed the vibrations through its altered cells. The chaotic waves emanating from the approaching specimens disrupted its feeding, disturbed its healing, scattered its focus. It signaled the outlying roots and spore-infected units, commanding them to withdraw, centralizing its energy in the heart-brain.
The symbols swarmed, broke loose, and spilled through the soup of its senses:
Tah-mah-raaa-kish.
Eyez-gwine-see.
Luv-yoo-bill.
No-fuk-eeeng-eee-vil.
Hells-pee-pull.
Gwine-see.
Sun-uv-a-hooor.
Tee-in-tee.
Poy-zun.
Poy-zun.
Kish-poy-zun.
Tah-mah-raaa.
Poy-zun.
The shock of the dark energy sent ripples through the alien, stunning it, compelling it to contract around its center. Driven by instinct into self-preservation, it huddled itself into its birth position.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Robert felt the tremor. It was slight, just enough to knock the ash off his cigarette. There were few earthquakes in the Appalachians, and the upheavals and tectonic distress that had pushed the mountains out of the crust were eons past. He wondered if the construction crews were blasting over at Sugarfoot again. It seemed too early for them to be creating such a public disturbance.
And he wondered why he wanted to go out into the woods, with his hand throbbing and his head splitting open in pain, his thoughts not quite fitting together.
The screen door creaked open, the loose glass rattling. Ginger held the door open with a small hand. Her eyes were wide and Robert looked into them. Then he shook his head. For a moment, they had looked exactly like Tamara's.
'Come in, Daddy,' she said, with no sleep in her voice.
'Another bad dream, sweetheart?' Robert said, grinding his smoke into the ashtray and staring into the forest.
'No, Daddy. Mommy says come in.'
Her face was so solemn that Robert almost laughed. Almost. 'What is it, Ginger?'
'Mommy says the shu… shu — something'-Ginger scrunched up her face in concentration-'the bad people are coming. Out of the woods.'
'Who?' Tamara couldn't have called, or else Robert would have heard the phone ring. Ginger must have had a bad dream. And why did his head hurt so much?
'Please come in, Daddy,' Ginger said, and then she was a six-year-old again, pleading and confused. 'They speak for the trees.'
'Like the Lorax in Dr. Seuss.'
'No, not like him.'
'Okay, honey. I'm coming.'
Robert looked around and saw nothing but the dim outlines of trees whisking faintly in the stale dawn breeze. But he stepped inside and closed the door, then locked it. He knelt and hugged Ginger. 'We'll be safe now.'
'Mommy thinks she hopes so.'
Robert wiped at his eyes. Must have been the lack of sleep that made him confused, made him want to go under the trees and lie down in the leaves. Maybe he was dreaming right now, and had brought Ginger into it to keep away the loneliness.
“They speak for the trees,” Ginger repeated.
'Mr. Sun is coming up, and he makes the boogeymen go away.'
'Sometimes. But not all the times.'
Her eyes were too earnest, too wise and knowledgeable for a child's. He loved her so much. He hoped that she wouldn't be cursed all her life with the Gloomies.
'I don't think so,' she said, in answer to his thoughts.
Virginia Speerhorn felt the tremor in her sleep, and it woke her up without her knowing why. She thought it was the excitement of her big day that had caused her insomnia.
She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock. It was already five. Time for her to get up anyway. She wanted to take a shower and spend a half hour on her makeup. Then a quick breakfast and she'd be downtown before most of the tourists crawled out from between the sheets at the Holiday Inn.
She turned the bathroom faucet until the water was steaming hot, then stood under the shower head. As she vigorously lathered her skin, she rehearsed the speech she was going to give on the stage before Sammy Ray Hawkins played. She believed that visualization was the key to success. She saw the moment as if it were on film.
And she was at the microphone, looking out over a sea of tourists and voters and big spenders and community leaders and movers and shakers, and they all looked up up up at her, every head tilted, every eye fixed on their queen-no, mayor — waiting for her to bestow her seal of approval on the festivities. She would be in her lavender linen dress with the padded shoulders.
Virginia pictured herself addressing the crowd in her strong, amplified voice, moving the jut-jawed farmers and the tie-choked realtors with equal ease. Children would not be distracted by the smells of cotton candy and the bright balloons that bobbed on the ends of a thousand strings. The women would be unable to hide their natural jealousy. Sammy Ray himself would yield to her celebrity. Even the birds would quit their senseless chirping.
All attention would be hers. It was her favorite moment of the year, even better than when the Town Council annually approved the budget she insisted upon, even better than sitting in the lead car during the Fourth of July parade, even better than being declared the winner and still-reigning champ of the Windshake mayoral elections.
She stepped out of the shower and toweled off, running the fabric luxuriantly over her skin. The phone rang, but she knew it would stop before she had time to reach it. Then she heard the thumping at the front door. She had a reputation as an early riser, but no one would dare be so presumptuous at this hour. She slipped into her robe, shivering as she walked down the hall to the door.
Virginia turned on the porch light and squinted through the peephole, expecting either Chief Crosley with news about Emerland or one of the Blossomfest committee members with an eleventh-hour problem.
At first, she wasn't sure what she was seeing. Her breath fogged the peephole glass like Vaseline over the eye of a camera. She looked again at the wide distorted froggish face and the quivering flesh, at those familiar freckled cheekbones that were so much like her own. She saw the son she had raised and treasured and diapered and suckled, the boy with those deep green eyes-no, Reggie had brown eyes.
And he was supposed to be in bed. Confused, she opened the door. Her baby was hurt or sick… her son was… Reggie was home.
He fell into his mother's arms as the earth shook again.
