Coven (29 page)

Mother of God,
he thought.

The moon swept grove stood like an
alien lake. Greenish fog lay flat, motionless, and beneath its
surface lay hundreds more swollen carcasses. Trees in the wood line
had grown fat and twisted, limbs tipped heavy by weird brush. From
the woods came an incessant dripping, unearthly foliage sweating
mucoid moisture. Lobes of leaves exuded slowly depending cords of
fluids; flower stamens glistened, pistils disgorging further lines
on slime.

The grove had
mutated,
had
changed
into something it
couldn’t be. Wade stepped forward. The pale fog, a foot deep,
dissipated along his course. Things were growing from the
carcasses. Buds sprouted, boring roots into putrifying meat. Things
worse than maggots burrowed through dead animal flesh—white
grublike things with ringed mouths, pulsing. Wade backstepped
against a tree; its warm bark felt like an old person’s skin.
Clinging bagworms showed faceless from hairy sheaths, some as large
as loaves of bread. All this teeming life could not possibly be of
Wade’s world. Scarlet slugs chewed bark from shuddering trunks.
Gilled snakes coursed about beneath the fog. Even more unnerving
were the shining snotlike threads webbed between low
branches—spiderwebs. Some of the spiders were as big as apples, but
covered with moist hair and squashed, twitching faces.

What have I walked
into?
he thought.

—
Wade! You’re here with
us!

Wade’s heart could’ve exploded in his chest.
Betwixt a pair of oozing trees, a young girl stood. Her bright
white face grinned from within a drooping hood. Her mouth looked
wet. She wore sunglasses and was dressed completely in black.

Wade found he could make no sound at
all.

—
We want to eat,
please!
the young girl
exclaimed.

««—»»

Where the hell did he
go?
Lydia thought. It was time to leave.
She’d seen too many things which defied explanation. All these dead
animals, their heads all pointing south. She remembered her first
trip to the agro site. The animals’ heads all faced the same
direction, even the few cows in the field.

But the mounds were what interested her
most. Should she dig them up now? And what the hell was that
sump?

But she had to find Wade. This expedition
was over. When the keepers of this place returned, Lydia did not
want to be around.

She marched back across the
dell. If she stepped on one more dead animal, she would
scream.
He went this way, didn’t he?
Toward that path.
She passed the sump
again, and the mounds. She knew Sladder was under there, and
probably that Penelope chick too. She stopped midstride and stared.
Was the second mound
moving?

She aimed the SL, stooping. Suddenly an arm,
or something like an arm, pushed out of the mounded dirt.

“
Jesus Christ!”
she shrieked.

In the hole, a misshapen face appeared. Its
jawless mouth blubbered, the flaccid arm reaching out.

“
H h helup helup help me!” the stretched
face blabbered through spittle. Lopsided eyes like hard boiled
eggs beseeched her from the sagging sack of flesh that was a face.
The big rubbery mouth chewed on words: “They ate my baby! They took
out my b b bones!”

—

CHAPTER 23

Jervis awoke in graven dark. He struggled to
his feet, head tingling. In slabs of sound and image, he
remembered:

Besser. Winnifred. And the hammer.

Jervis stood up straight. It all came back
to him like a rushing tide. He’d been changed—for the
Supremate.

—
JERVIS. MY NEW SON.
WELCOME.

At once, Jervis
knew…
everything.
He knew what he was now, and what he was to do.

—
WHAT YOU WANT MORE THAN
ANYTHING YOU SHALL HAVE VERY SOON.

“
Revenge!” He glanced
frantically to the window, where he’d seen his love rubbed in his
face like shit.
Yes! Revenge!

He could sense his new
master’s smile, the trust of the promise, and the
truth.
That’s all he’d
ever wanted anyway. The truth.

And now he had it. The
Supremate had made him a veritable
reaper
of truth.
And, oh, how I will reap,
he
thought.

He rushed to the bathroom,
flicked on the light. Despite the new gift of knowledge and power,
there were still a few things he wasn’t clear on. His mirror image
looked…well, pale. Dark bruises showed under his eyes. Around his
neck hung his amulet, and his transceptionrod could be seen just
past his hairline.
What?
he slowly thought.
What
am…

He touched his throat. It felt cold. He
pressed a finger under his jaw. Nothing. Then his wrist…

Nothing,
he thought.
No heat. No
pulse.

Jervis stared. What faced him in the mirror
was a corpse.

“
Holy shit,” he muttered.
“I’m dead.”

««—»»

—
But we’re not going to
eat you, Wade. You’re special!

“
Who are you?” Wade half
gasped.

—
I’m your new sister,
and…look!
She pointed into the perverted
grove. A bare hillock rose from the fog, and upon it sat a black
oblong box, like a coffin on end.

—
Your new home,
Wade!
the girl in black said.

“
My home’s Connecticut,
kid, and that’s where I’m heading right now.”

Concern toned down the
brightness of the girl’s face.
—Oh, but
you can’t leave. The Supremate needs you. We have to take you to
him.

Now Wade saw what the
little freak meant by
we.
Three more figures surrounded him. They all looked
the same, in the same black capes and hoods, grinning identical
grins from identical bright white faces. Their only difference was
size. The young one stood less than five feet, the second five
five, the third perhaps five eleven. The fourth one stood well over
six feet tall.

From one of the snotlike webs, the little
girl plucked an unruly, moist spider about the size of a golf
ball.

“
Aw, Jesus, kid,” Wade
implored. “Don’t do that—”

The girl popped the spider into her mouth
and ate it. It crunched like pretzels. Another was biting into a
twitching gourd, sucking black mush and seeds from its case. The
tallest woman fished one of the gilled snakes from the fog and
swallowed it whole.

Wade threw up. Then he bolted.

The sisters bolted after him. They giggled
like demented whores. Things whinnied and crunched as Wade dashed
through the lake of fog. He sprinted into the perverted woods,
slimy webs spreading across his face. Small monstrosities tittered
at him from clustered nests amid the leaves. The giggling of the
four cloaked women rose and fell, and followed him through the
woods. What would happen when they caught him?

Wade tripped and fell. His hand landed in a
big, swollen mushroom with a face, which spat at him. Moist beetles
crawled up his shirt, leaving syrupy trails.

“
Liiiiiiiideeeeaahhhhhhhhhh!” he screamed.

The six footer had outrun the others.
Her grinning face loomed over him, big and bright as a headlamp.
Her cloak had come apart, showing perfectly formed yet nippleless
breasts. Blue chalklike veins traced faintly beneath her white
abdomen.

—
I caught you!
she celebrated.

Wade fired Lydia’s O.P. six times at the
freak woman’s face. She flinched, waving her hand. Nothing
happened.

—
I wish we could make
love,
she told him.

“
I sure as shit don’t!” he
answered, crawling back against a stout, sweating tree. The white
pillars of her legs strode over him, and the hooded face leaned
closer.

—
I’m going to kiss you
now, Wade.

Wade jerked aside. Something blurred past
his ear, and a wailing whistled up. What had happened? He dragged
himself away through forest muck and shined his flashlight
back.

A long, pink positor stretched from the
woman’s mouth. The needled bulb at its end was stuck in the bark of
the flexing tree. She pulled, trying to disengage it, as the
whistling wail continued. But it wasn’t the girl who wailed. It was
the tree.

Out of here,
Wade thought. He ran deeper into the
woods.

—
He’s getting away!
a tiny voice protested behind him.

—
There he is!
shrieked another.

Wade realized they saw his light. He dropped
it and continued through the smothering darkness. Only remnants of
instinct propelled him back to the first clearing.

He ran straight into Lydia, toppling them
both.

“
We gotta get out of here!”
he bellowed. He picked her up and dragged her toward the Vette.
“They’re right behind me!”

“
Who?” Lydia
yelled.

He shoved her in the car, gunned the engine,
and snapped on the headlights. “That’s who!” he bellowed,
pointing.

The four figures stared at them from the
edge of the woods. They were all grinning, their mouths full of
crystalline fangs.

—
Don’t leave, Wade! We can
give you everything!

Wade floored the Vette and didn’t look
back.

—

CHAPTER 24

The Erblings had drained well. Jervis tapped
them as they hung from the lividityharnesses, punching an
eductionlance into each of their feet. The bone sludge oozed out
thickly as frozen custard. He milked each soft foot like a big
teat.

This had been his first
assignment in the labyrinth. He lit a Carlton and looked up at the
now deboned fissionizationvessels. The Erblings had been two
of the prettiest girls on campus. Now they were just quivering
flesh sacks.
Too bad,
Jervis thought.

Transfection was positive;
new life was already swelling in their radiophaseshifttriionized
wombs. Jervis appraised Stella’s shiny bloated belly.
Logarithmic-dissolvedoxygencarbonsourceoptimization effected full
gestation in less than twenty four hours.
That’s some serious baby making,
Jervis considered, impressed.

He took them down and
packed them neatly into their incubreedcatalyzationcapsules, then
activated the final exponentialcellularfissionsequence on the
functionplate.
Easy as pi.
Next he grabbed the sludge jugs and
extromitted from the germinationwarren. He left through
pointaccessmain#l.

The Dodge Colt was waiting.
He drove away from the labyrinth through the green, settled fog.
Unseen things crunched as he drove over them. Veined plants with
bulbs large as human heads collapsed under the bumper, and filmy
eyes viewed him from ripples in the fog. The entire grove teemed in
low moonlight. When he pulled into the secreted graveyard, Roxy’s
version of “In the Midnight Hour” came on the radio.
What a great song to dig graves to!

Humming, he emptied the
sludge jugs into the sump. Then he spied the second
mound.
Well, I’ll be!
Penelope’s arms and flabby head had emerged. The rubber limbs
flapped vainly against the dirt. Jervis jammed the shovel handle
into her face and shoved her back down the hole. She mewled in
protest. “Oh, don’t be such a baby,” he quipped Monty Python. He
filled in the little tunnel she’d dug, then stomped on it. The
woods shuddered. He could hear her howling underneath.

He dug two more graves, smiling to himself.
Digging graves in the middle of the night had a certain charm. He
dragged the two big garbage bags from the car. The first contained
David “Do-Horse” Willet, or what was left of him. Mostly sinewy
bones, an emptied skull, and intestines. Jervis buried the bag in
the first grave.

The second bag contained—

“
Mr. Czanek!” Jervis
exclaimed. “I never forget a face, not even a split one! How’s
business, buddy?”

Czanek lay in two clean pieces, bifurcated.
Tom had done an impressive job with the hewer—right down the
middle, perfect.

He buried Czanek in the second grave. Four
mounds now stood in the silent clearing. He wondered how many more
there would be when they left.

Jervis, who was more
self aware than the average reanimated corpse, paused for
reflection.
My Existenz has found
me,
he pondered.
I’m the right hand of destiny. Pure selfhood for a higher
meaning. I am the ultimate existential man.

He wiped off his hands and got back in the
Dodge. Now that the dirty work was done, the real fun could
begin.

««—»»

The Supremate smiled over them all, his
children.

He watched from dozens of
different places at once, heard, saw and felt all that his children
did. The one called Besser was drawing up the departure
assignments, which were vital to the Supremate. The stasisfield
grew low; soon the labyrinth would become vulnerable. According to
the dataprobe that had been sent long ago, the ruling classes here
might now have the technological capabilities to break the
labyrinth during a weakened charge. Such calamities were rare, but
they’d happened. One labyrinth, several thousand years ago, had
never made it off its targetobjective. The natives had not been
friendly: The duty supremate had been executed, its daughters
slaughtered. Fissionizationvessels had been raped
en masse,
and holotypes
had been burned as fuel or dissected for research.