Eugene’s nose ceased to bleed after half an hour or so, but he didn’t notice. He was dragging, pulling, cajoling Lucy towards Welcome. He wanted to hear no explanations from the slut, even though her voice was babbling ceaselessly. He could only hear the sound of the monsters’ churning tones, and Aaron’s repeated call of ‘Papa’, that was answered by a house-wrecking limb.
Eugene knew he had been conspired against, though even in his most tortured imaginings he could not grasp the whole truth.
Aaron was mad, he knew that much. And somehow his wife, his ripe-bodied Lucy, who had been such a beauty and such a comfort, was instrumental in both the boy’s insanity and his own grief.
She’d sold the boy: that was his half-formed belief. In some unspeakable way she had bargained with these things from the underworld, and had exchanged the life and sanity of his only son for some kind of gift. What had she gained, for this payment? Some trinket or other that she kept buried in her shack? My God, she would suffer for it. But before he made her suffer, before he wrenched her hair from its holes, and tarred her flashing breasts with pitch, she would confess. He’d make her confess; not to him but to the people of Welcome — the men and women who scoffed at his drunken ramblings, laughed when he wept into his beer. They would hear, from Lucy’s own lips, the truth behind the nightmares he had endured, and learn, to their horror, that demons he talked about were real. Then he would be exonerated, utterly, and the town would take him back into its bosom asking for his forgiveness, while the feathered body of his bitch-wife swung from a telephone pole outside the town’s limits.
They were two miles outside Welcome when Eugene stopped.
“Something’s coming.”
A cloud of dust, and at its swirling heart a multitude of burning eyes.
He feared the worst.
“My Christ!”
He loosed his wife. Were they coming to fetch her too? Yes, that was probably another part of the bargain she’d made.
“They’ve taken the town,” he said. The air was full of their voices; it was too much to bear.
They were coming at him down the road in a whining horde, driving straight at him — Eugene turned to run, letting the slut go. They could have her, as long as they left him alone; Lucy was smiling into the dust.
“It’s Packard,” she said.
Eugene glanced back along the road and narrowed his eyes. The cloud of divils was resolving itself. The eyes at its heart were headlights, the voices were sirens; there was an army of cars and motorcycles, led by Packard’s howling vehicle, careering down the road from Welcome.
Eugene was confounded. What was this, a mass exodus? Lucy, for the first time that glorious day, felt a twinge of doubt.
As it approached, the convoy slowed, and came to a halt; the dust settled, revealing the extent of Packard’s kamikaze squad. There were about a dozen cars and half a dozen bikes, all of them loaded with police and weapons.
A smattering of Welcome citizens made up the army, among them Eleanor Kooker. An impressive array of mean-minded, well-armed people.
Packard leant out of his car, spat, and spoke.
“Got problems, Eugene?” he asked.
“I’m no fool, Packard,” said Eugene.
“Not saying you are.”
“I seen these things. Lucy’ll tell you.”
“I know you have, Eugene; I know you have. There’s no denying that there’s divils in them hills, sure as shit. What’d you think I’ve got this posse together for, if it ain’t divils?”
Packard grinned across to Jebediah at the wheel. “Sure as shit,” he said again. “We’re going to blow them all to Kingdom Come.”
From the back of the car, Miss Kooker leaned out the window; she was smoking a cigar.
“Seems we owe you an apology, Gene,” she said, offering an apology for a smile. He’s still a sot, she thought; marrying that fat-bottomed whore was the death of him. What a waste of a man.
Eugene’s face tightened with satisfaction.
“Seems you do.”
“Get in one of them cars behind,” said Packard, “you and Lucy both; and we’ll fetch them out of their holes like snakes —”