Forever never ends Read online

  A siren flared in the distance and faded slowly across the dark hills. Sirens always made him think of his loved ones, especially when they might be the cause of the emergency.

  He lit another cigarette and listened to the wind and other things sighing in the low branches of the forest. A winged creature flew low, brushed against the eaves of the house, and flitted back into the darkness beyond the yard.

  Something pricked the back of his hand and he held it up to the square of the kitchen window light. A spider twitched on wiry legs, its plump body seeming to soak up light and cast it back like the glow-in-the-dark stars on Ginger’s ceiling. He shook his hand and the spider fell to the porch. He crushed the arachnid with his shoe and studied the spot where he’d been bitten. The wound was raw and jagged, a small chunk of flesh peeled back as if the spider had fangs.

  Tamara should have known it wouldn't be so easy. Did they expect the shu-shaaa would just let them walk up to its temporary home and fill it with dynamite and chemical poisons and then just blow a little kiss good-bye as they blasted it to smithereens?

  Tamara sensed its awareness of them just as the green light fully came into view, just as they were heading down the soft-sloping ridge, just as she was stealing DeWalt's absurd thought. He was humming "When Iris Eyes are Smiling" to himself.

  She sensed the white roots thickening under their feet, turning into snakes and cables and lanyards. She heard the trees bending low, cracking their knuckles and knee bones, felt the conspiracy of laurels and fern. The forest came alive, armed with lances and clubs.

  "Look out!" she yelled, ducking under a swiftly descending oak branch. DeWalt grunted as a dense limb dropped on him from the night sky. Chester ran toward the source of the glow, his bony shoulders stooped against the leaves that slapped at him.

  Emerland ran, too, holding up his sack of fungicide to protect his face, pale roots licking at his feet. The two men reached the dead area around the Earth Mouth, where the trees stood like bleached skeletons.

  Tamara’s mind went out to DeWalt and she felt the bright spark of his pain and the black, swirling cloud of his panic. Then her mind was swallowed by shu-shaaa and its frozen, grinning fog. She fought it off and helped DeWalt stand.

  "It's stronger," he said, his face pale and wide in the moonlight.

  She nodded. "We'd better hurry," she whispered, not knowing why she was whispering. Because shu-shaaa already knew. Everything and more. It had probed their minds and souls, plumbed the depths of their hearts, stolen the secret symbols of their hopes and dreams.

  And though it didn’t understand, it knew enough to be afraid.

  It sent a thick root out of the ground and up her leg. The root probed like a maggot under her skirt before wrapping around her bare thigh. She slammed the can of Roundup against it, bruising herself with the effort. The root twisted, trying to pull her to the soil within reach of its brethren. Struggling to stay upright, she twisted the can's cap and pulled the plastic safety rings free, then splashed the concentrated poison on the base of the root. It writhed and shrank back and then flopped to earth.

  The shotgun exploded, both barrels, the thunderclap rumbling through the thickets and echoing off the ridge. Chester stood near shu-shaaa, looking like a paper doll cut from black construction paper, gunsmoke silhouetted against the glow. Emerland hunched behind him like a rabbit. Tree limbs swatted stiffly at DeWalt, hickory and birch and wild cherry animated into action.

  Her own psychic powers pulsed, charged with energy. She fought through shu-shaaa’s fog, pushed her psyche like a butter knife through cheese, bluntly shoved her mind into Emerland’s, feeling his fear and revulsion and hopelessness and his deep desire to lie in the soil and cover his ears and clamp shut his eyes.

  "Stand up," she ordered him silently. Emerland looked around as if trying to figure out where her voice was coming from. He stood, trembling, the Sevin in his arms. Briars grabbed at his pants.

  "Follow Chester," she thought at him. He nodded, and in the foul radiance, she could see the tears sliding down his cheeks. He was thinking of the voices, of devils and angels and madnesses, each of them the same in his mind.

  DeWalt pushed at the leaves that pattered against him like moths.

  "I think I can make it," DeWalt said, rubbing his shoulder. Tamara hooked her arm in his, glancing warily at the carpet of leaves, wondering what might lie beneath it. Her skin itched where the root had rasped against it.

  "I wasn't going to leave you," she said.

  "What a noble woman."

  "You've got the detonator, after all."

  “It’s nice to be needed for a change.” He tried to laugh but coughed instead, and they stumbled toward the light, kicking at the tentacles that waved at their feet. Nearer the Earth Mouth, all the organic matter had died, its energy sapped and its bones sucked clean, plants and trees grayer than deep winter.

  Tamara helped DeWalt into the ashen ring of death. They caught up with Chester and Emerland, who were hiding behind a cold outcrop of granite.

  The odor of fungus and rot hung in the air. The Earth Mouth throbbed, shaking the earth around the group. Neon pulses of light vomited from the alien throat: lime, then crimson, then indigo.

  Tamara whispered loudly enough to be heard over the low rumbling wind, "It knows why we're here."

  "I don't even need to read minds to know that the alien sonuvabitch is mighty pissed," Chester said. He reloaded the shotgun with trembling fingers.

  "Wh-what do we do now?" Emerland’s head swiveled rapidly back and forth as if he were watching a Ping-Pong match from the front row.

  Chester and DeWalt looked to Tamara, silently acknowledging that she was the leader now that Chester had brought them through the woods.

  "First the fungicide, then the TNT,” she said. “Maybe the explosion will spread the poison to the far reaches of the thing. It's trying to dig its way to the water table. If it gets there…”

  "And didn't you say something about sunup?" Chester looked up through the inert trees. The night was losing its grip and the moon had fallen low and weak in the sky. Dawn pinked the top of Antler Ridge in the distance.

  "Wire the TNT together, just a few sticks should be enough to set off the whole batch," Tamara said, pulling the sticks from her pocket and placing them on the ground before DeWalt. She had known nothing about explosives before, but now she at least had DeWalt's vague knowledge, thanks to her invasion of his mind.

  As he worked with the wires, running the electrical fuse into the blasting cap, Tamara leaned against a boulder. She tried to block shu-shaaa out of her mind, but now she was picking up the entire collective, the parts of the whole that were screaming across the galaxy, crunching matter and sucking the juice from stars as they grazed their way back to the beginning of time.

  She wondered if she was strong enough. She closed down and focused, shutting off the Gloomies, turning down the whine that jammed the frequencies of her mind. Then, she reached, not across light-years but miles. To Robert.

  As her mind swept out, past DeWalt's concentration and Chester's rage and Emerland's fear, she found Robert. She tried to tell him everything would be okay, that she would be home soon. And maybe since she was temporarily telepathic, she might just dig through his psyche and see what was bothering him. Maybe she could take advantage of this brief gift and find out his true feelings.

  If God gave you a gift, you were supposed to use it.

  She reached, trying to get a connection, but something was cutting in, static or a stronger signal. Had shu-shaaa gained power from just that little burst of sunrise?

  Then she realized it was Ginger, asleep but with a vibrant mind, a mental radar dish looking for information. And she sensed what Ginger was sensing, that two creatures, the bad people, were emerging from the forest behind the house. And Robert was…

  She saw now through his eyes, tasted his acrid cigarette, smelled the dew on the grass, felt the rough grain of the porch rail under his elbows, the throbb
ing raw ache in the back of his hand where he had been tainted and infected.

  She felt the strong urge that tugged him toward the forest, heard the strange voice that called him to go among those leaves and meet the things that would welcome him fully into the fold.

  Tamara jolted Ginger, telling her to wake up and bring Daddy in, telling her to hurry hurry hurry because there wasn't much time and the orange daybreak jumped a little higher in the sky and the two creatures twitched with new hunger and they sensed Robert's bioenergy and hurry Ginger hurry.

  The connection died, cutting off like a phone line in an electrical storm.

  Because the Earth moved.

  Nettie was floating floating floating heart of feathers in Bill's arms only his arms were skin, strange skin.

  Why did she feel like she wanted to sleep but something wouldn't let her and why oh why was her throat so dry, had been ever since Ann Painter the Savior no the shu-shaaa had planted that kiss that drowned both body and soul — and what was that light? — oh, Bill, you better put me down because now I want to kiss you and then you'll be like us everything must be us and my mouth can't tell you to put me down and save yourself but how foolish it all was, once was blind but now I see, how easy it is to surrender when nothing matters except the feeding and growing and changing and the harvest and then the end of everything.

  Only now, my love, you said open your heart so let me in let us all in I told you there was room for forgiving it's a big room let me open the door and oh the glory.

  Yes, your breath is sweet and close and I'm sorry it has to end like this but I want to give.

  I can't

  I love you Bill shu-shaaa wants

  But I can't your light and heat forgive me a time to embrace forgive me my trespasses and a time to refrain from embracing

  I love you Bill

  I love you shu-shaaa

  I have sinned so I cannot save you

  I love you too much, Bill to make you like me good-bye

  She opened her eyes and Bill saw the green glow flickering in her retinas, something inside her trying to swell and explode. She twitched in his arms, tossed her frantic hands around his neck, drawing his head down for a final kiss. Bill yielded, helpless against the power she held over him.

  Bill knew she was already gone, already infected, already like the monsters that milled outside the house. But still she lived, somehow, even without a heartbeat. And Bill couldn't resist her suddenly too-red mouth.

  Many things sparkled in her eyes, things beyond his simple understanding, but all were beckoning and tempting. Their lips nearly touched, but at the last moment she stiffened and pushed him away.

  Bill held Nettie against his chest as the warmth faded from her body. He pressed his face near her mouth, hoping to feel the vapor of her breathing. But all he felt was the mist of his own tears as her flesh wilted in his arms.

  "Bill, come on!" Sarah was at the back door, looking through the peephole. "Those things… whatever they are, they're not back here."

  "Nettie," he said to Sarah, softly. He was holding Nettie as if she were a rag doll whose threads were unraveling.

  "We've got to go now, Bill," Sarah said, coming to him and tugging at his elbow. The preacher and his congregation still battered at the front door. Sarah glanced into the living room, then shut her eyes against her own remembered horrors. "My parents-I know how you feel. But we can't give up. You wouldn’t let me, and now I’m not going to let you. We've got to try to live… for them."

  Bill looked at Sarah, then back down to Nettie.

  "She's dead, Bill,” Sarah said. “I'm sorry, but that won't bring her back. She's with God now."

  Bill wasn't so sure about that. Whatever those monsters had planted inside her, whatever they had done to her "Let's go," Bill said through gritted teeth.

  Sarah threw open the door and they ran across the side yard, Bill carrying Nettie. He felt naked under the moonlight, exposed to God, raw. His truck was in the parking lot, its engine still running. Whatever the creatures were, their hands seemed too clumsy to use keys. He thanked the Lord for that small blessing.

  Sirens flared down the narrow street and red lights strobed across the tops of trees. Bill slipped once and saw a fluid movement out of the corner of his eye, but he regained his footing and ran without looking back. They reached the truck just as a police car skidded to a stop beside the graveyard.

  "You drive," Bill yelled at Sarah. He gently lifted Nettie into the truck seat as Sarah slid behind the steering wheel.

  "Take her out of here," Bill said.

  Arnie McFall, the town patrolman, jumped out of the police car and ran toward Bill. Sarah backed up the truck, throwing broken asphalt as the big tires spun. Bill watched until the truck was out of sight, then turned toward the graveyard.

  Arnie had his gun out and was shining a spotlight at the figures wafting among the tombstones and the cemetery trees.

  "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."

  "Momm
y 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.