Ash Wednesday (29 page)

Pastor Craven turned from the pulpit and sat in the high-backed chair with the cross carved in its center. Forgive me, he thought, his eyes locked on the deep redness of the carpet at his feet.

Forgive me, God. Forgive me.

It looked as if a night of dark intent

Was coming, and not only a night, an age.

—Robert Frost, "Once by the Pacific"

For a time, the events in Merridale were all that were talked about in the western hemisphere, Europe, and much of Asia. The Soviet bloc countries paid little attention to the phenomenon publicly, but privately sent a team of four scientists to study it. The American government, finding their own people could not quickly solve the riddle, graciously allowed the Russians in. They learned, as did the other chemists, physicists, and biologists who had arrived that first weekend, that there was nothing to study but optics, and the findings in that discipline were useless. The wavelengths of the blue light were all between 4,000 and 7,000 angstroms. The president was uncommonly taciturn on the subject as the weeks passed, saying only that he hoped a solution to the mystery would soon be found.

Both European and American antinuclear groups were quick to take advantage of the near proximity of Merridale to the Thorn Hill Nuclear Station, and portrayed on placards and celebrated in chants what they felt to be the newest horror of rampant radiation. Both power and chemical executives (who were also catching flak from environmentalists) sent their own representatives to Merridale in an effort to discover the true cause and clear themselves, or, if the fault
were
theirs, find some way to reverse the phenomenon and/or cover up their involvement in it.

The media, entranced at first, slowly began to retreat from Merridale coverage as the weeks passed. In those first few weeks, however, it got its money's worth out of the situation. Every network ran a special the first week, ABC and CBS had fifteen-minute updates at 11:00 every evening, and even
60 Minutes
did a surprisingly tame and inconclusive segment investigating the Thom Hill tie-in. Merridale and its residents made the covers of
Newsweek
,
People
, and
TIME
, the last in a surrealistic painting that drew an angry letter from Mayor Markley, carping about insensitivity of the media. He received no apology.

But the problem with the media's coverage of the Ghost Town was that nothing happened. There were no hostages to be freed as in the Iranian crisis, no blame to be placed as there was at Three Mile Island, no threats to health as in Centralia or Love Canal. There were only scientists unsure of what they were searching for, apparitions whose purposes were unknown and
unguessed
, and residents, to whom the apparitions and scientists alike were becoming more commonplace every day.

There had been a fair amount of drama at first—the small number of heart attacks and strokes and cases of hysteria brought on by the first sight of the manifestations, the promises that the finding of an answer was momentary (this from Clyde Thornton, who quickly learned that the longer he stayed in Merridale the better), and the interviews with those who fled and those who remained. Hundreds of people in the town were interviewed, and even Eddie Karl was to be the subject of a five minute feature, after a reporter from NBC heard more than one person mention his purported foreknowledge of the
spectres
. But the reporter found him "so weird, creepy, and unable to say two sentences without saying
shit
," as she told her superiors, that the segment was scratched even before it was edited.

Still, all these events made for flashy journalism and highly entertaining television. But after a while nothing happened. The town, now set up as a fortified camp, strictly barring those who had no business there, held only the grim reality of the corpses, now guardedly accepted. The president's visit was over; so too were the visits of the senators, the congressmen, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, the PBS documentary crew. Only the scientists from eight different countries remained, with less to say each day.

Finally ABC brought its people out, and relieved NBC and CBS brass soon followed suit. They would report any changes or related stories, but an unanswered riddle of mortality was considered too grim for the audience to handle every night. The news was already grim enough.

~*~

Bradley Meyers sitting on the floor, hearing the whirring sound inside again, battering his muscles with short, downward jerks of his neck, trying to pull his head into his shell, and Old Black Joe watching the wall behind him.

Bradley Meyers, face to face with Old Black Joe, eyes inches from rheumy blue-yellow eyes, you found me, you found me, over and over again.

Bradley Meyers, sunk crotch-deep in a thick beer-dream of remembrance, white eyes, dark skin gleaming in fire glow, and redness dripping from a half-seen chin, eat it, eat it, it's the only way yes, eat the dink's heart.

Bradley Meyers, taking the knife and tossing it, flying away like a metal whirlwind into the vines, black and red and black soaring away, chopper blades of God flying out, leaving him alone, all alone.

Bradley Meyers together with them, one of them one of them now
I have tasted the flesh I have drunk the blood and it is life and life is all is everything Home Don't think about Home Don't think Stop Taste the Life
.

Old Joe Old Joe that's why you're here, so I wouldn't forget couldn't forgive But I had to had to, had to live, had to come Home, no don't think of Home, no Home now, don't deserve Home, but you give and you give and you want Home, and you'll do anything for Home, even that, even all that you will do to come Home, even taste the flesh, drink the blood.

For Home.

Brad Meyers's eyes opened. He was lying on the couch, the TV screen just so much white fuzz. Joe stood in his usual place, his blue light dim in contrast to the strings of bulbs that hugged the Christmas tree in the corner.

Brad looked at his watch. It was 1:30. Standing up, he walked toward the bedroom, shaking his head to toss away the images that still remained. At least he didn't have to go to work in the morning, even though it was Friday. Thank God, he thought, for Christmas vacation.

"Chris?" he said softly as he entered the bedroom. "Christine?"

There was no answer. The bed was empty. What had she said? "I'm going out with some of the girls."

"Who?"

"Oh, Barb and Pat, maybe Ronnie."

"Where?"

"Oh, they talked about going out drinking, but we'll probably just stay at Barb's."

“When you coming back?"

"I won't be late. Don't wait up for me if you're tired, though."

Sure. "Don't wait up." This was the third time this month she'd told him that. And each time she had come home at three or so in the morning. He hadn't pushed her, hadn't asked why she'd stayed out so late. He really didn't care that much. But tonight was different. He felt strange tonight. Mean. He wanted to catch her in a lie.

He got Barb Kelso's number from Christine's phone directory and dialed it. After nine rings there was an answer, a woman's voice, thick with sleep. Brad hung up without speaking. Then he opened the door to Wally's room. "Hey," he called until the boy stirred and finally answered.

"Your mommy's a whore."

"What, Uncle Brad?"

"Your mommy's a whore. You can ask her what it means in the morning. Just make sure you remember. Whore. Now go back to sleep."

Then he went back into the living room, pulled the plug on the tree lights, changed the channel to an old William
Gargan
movie, and waited for Chris to come home.

~*~

At that moment, coming home was the farthest thing from Christine Grimes's mind. She was trying with all her might to bring forth a sexual climax from the partly flaccid organ that was doing its best to penetrate her. The heavyset trucker on top of her was one drink away from drunkenness and two away from unconsciousness.

She had not been happy with the match-up, but she felt as if she would do anything to sleep again in a town
unhaunted
by specters. So, since a twenty-dollar motel bill would be noticed by Brad's penurious budgeting system, she had driven ten miles to Needham Springs, gone into a roadhouse across from a motel, and had succeeded in picking up the man who now gave a sharp yap, as if his puny orgasm had hurt him, and collapsed loosely on top of her.

"How
was't
?" he asked, nuzzling her neck with his whiskery mouth.

"Fine, just fine," she lied, putting her arms around him, feeling her own orgasm drift away untouched into the night, thinking that at least she could sleep now. Perhaps he hadn't been so bad at that. He cared enough to ask, after all, which was more than her first partner had done, although she had come with him. The second she preferred to forget, a cruel man, tall and thin, who had wanted some of the more disgusting things that Brad sometimes made her do. But she had done them, had thought she'd have done anything, just to have a night away from Merridale.

Sometime later she awoke and looked at her watch: 4:00. What she should do, she thought, was get up, get dressed, and go home. But the thought of driving through those dark streets deserted by all but those grim sentinels frightened her more than the image of Brad waiting for her when she returned.
Fuck him
, she thought savagely as she burrowed closer to the man sleeping beside her, who now seemed not nearly as fat and as sour-smelling as she had first imagined. But even though the nearest specter was a good ten miles away, she found that she could not go back to sleep.

~*~

"A whore," Brad told Wally again the next morning. He stood in front of the TV screen, blocking the boy's view of Mighty Mouse. They were both in the living room. Wally, with a child's casual acceptance, had grown used to the sight of Old Joe, and had even gotten to the point where he could not understand his mother's constant revulsion. It was like a poster, that was all. Like the Mickey Mouse poster Uncle Brad had bought for him last Christmas.

"W-h-o-r-e," Brad spelled out. "But you don't know your letters anyway, do you?"

Wally shook his head no. He
did
know his letters, had learned them from
Sesame Street
, and numbers too. But no one had ever asked him if he knew them or tried to help him read or count. Mommy used to, but that was just a game. He didn't really
learn
from that, like he did from TV. But he wouldn't tell Uncle Brad he knew them, especially since that would have meant telling Uncle Brad he was wrong. So he shook his head no.

"Now, you tell her when she gets home, won't you?”

“Yeah." Wally twisted his head to the right, trying to see past Brad.

"You listening to me?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, then," Brad said, not moving. "If Mommy's a whore, then what does that make
you?
"

"I
dunno
."

"It's simple. A
son
of a whore. Right?"

"Yeah."

Brad moved away from the TV then, his rage toward Christine escaping just enough that he cuffed the boy roughly on the side of the head.

Wally gasped, and his own temper broke
suicidally
. "I didn't do nothing!" he cried.

"Sometimes being
born's
enough, sweetmeat," Brad said softly.
Frankie didn't do anything. I didn't do anything
. "Sometimes you just get
whomped
for the hell of it."

The door opened. They both turned and saw Christine standing there, her black hair hanging long and only partially combed. Her makeup seemed cemented on, and her coat was hanging open, so that the tight sweater beneath seemed to Brad like nothing more than a walking come-on. He felt both angry and aroused.