Coven (34 page)

Silence unfurled. The three cops stared.
Wade sighed.

“
Murdered?” White
blabbed.

“
Yes,” Nina McCulloch
whispered. “And I recognized the killer.”

“
Who was it?”

“
It was Jervis Phillips,
and he was with a woman in black.”

—

CHAPTER 29

“
It’s a cult of some kind,
I think,” Wade speculated from the backseat of White’s cruiser.
Porker sat heavily beside him. White drove, and Peerce rode
shotgun. They sped down Route 13, toward the agro site.

“
A cult?” White
questioned.

“
Yeah. It must be like one
of those satanic gangs. Ritual murder, black mass, cannibalism,
that sort of shit. All the members wear upside down crosses.
And whoever their leader is, they call him the Supremate. I figure
there’re seven of them, not including this Supremate guy. Four of
them are girls, and I mean the freakiest looking girls you’ve
ever seen. They wear black capes, and they all have”
—
Should I really say
this?
— “fangs.”

Peerce swore. White smacked the wheel and
glared at Wade. “I suppose you’re gonna tell me they’re vampires,
right?”

“
You said it, I didn’t. But
there’s this thing out at the grove that looks like a coffin on
end. And Besser told me that these girls—sisters, he called
them—can’t live in sunlight.”

Peerce had a frown baked into his face.
“He’s pullin’ our dicks, Chief. There ain’t no grove or no cults.
He’s lyin’.”

“
Besser?” White
backtracked.
“Besser
told you this?”

“
That’s right. He’s part of
it, and so are Jervis and Winnifred Saltenstall. They’re all
members of the cult.”

“
I don’t know what kind of
drugs you been smokin’, St. John, but you gotta be crazy to think
I’ll believe two respected faculty members belong to some
satanic
cult
. I
don’t believe in vampires, and I don’t believe in the fuckin’
devil, so just shut yer yap.”

“
If you think I’m nuts, how
come you’re going to the grove?”

“’
Cause I got two
eyewitnesses that link Jervis Phillips to several murders, and you
say he might be at this goddamn grove of yours, so that’s where
we’re goin’!”

Fine,
Wade thought. In a few more minutes, they were there. White
groaned as his loaded cruiser rolled through the logging track,
branches scraping the paint. He parked in the junk heaped
clearing. “Check your heat,” he ordered. White checked his
fourteen shot Browning. Porker checked his AMT .45. Peerce
checked his giant Ruger Blackhawk. Then they checked their backup
pieces.

“
Hey, fellas,” Wade asked.
“Don’t I get a gun?”

“
Don’t make me laugh,”
White answered. “Peerce, bring the gasser too. If Phillips is
hidin’ in these here woods, we’ll gas him out.”

Peerce loaded a 37mm CM 55 tear gas
gun. Then Porker doled out flashlights and they all got out.
“Christ!” Peerce complained. “Damn place smells worse than a
Georgia hoghouse!”

You ought to know,
Wade thought. “Take a look over here.”

“
Graves,” Porker
muttered.

Wade grazed his light over the mounds.
“Someone’s been here in the last few hours. There were only two
graves earlier.”

“
Now there’s four.” Peerce
demonstrated the ability to count.

“
And look—” Wade shined his
light over by the shovel. “Empty Kirin bottles. Jervis drinks
Kirin.”

“
Porker, you see that
shovel?” White said.

“
Yeah.”

“
Get to work.”

Porker whitened. “Aw, Chief, come on. I
don’t wanna—”

“
Dig them up later,” Wade
interrupted. “First we have to—”

“
St. John” —now it was
White’s turn to interrupt— “so far all I see is a couple of piles
of dirt and some beer bottles. I don’t see no cult, and I don’t see
no vampires.”

Peerce slapped the back of Wade’s head. “And
what about the coffin, St. John? You said there’s a coffin out
here.” Next he gave Wade’s ear a twist. Wade yelped.

Hands on hips, White asked, “Where’s Jervis
Phillips?”

“
Look, I only said he might
be here,” Wade protested. “But I’m telling you, once you see the
grove yourselves—”

“
You mean this ain’t
it?”

Wade smiled darkly. “I mean
the
other
grove.”

White bit into a cigar. “All right. Lead the
way.”

Wade led the way, with pleasure, past the
tires and junk, to the trail. “Watch your step, boys. This isn’t
exactly the red carpet treatment.”

Porker moaned.

Peerce yelled “Christ!” repeatedly, as they
all began to crunch over the rot soft possums.

“
They’re all over the
place!” White complained.

“
This is nothing, Chief.
Wait’ll you see the rest.”

They grimly followed the trail of carcasses.
Porker asked “If Phillips is out here, what do we do?”

“
What’choo think we do?”
Peerce contributed.

“
We kill him,” White said.
“He’s a killer so we kill him.”

“
Killing Jervis isn’t going
to be easy,” Wade pointed out.

“
Why?”

Wade smiled. “Because he’s already
dead.”

“
Goddamn it, St. John!”
White flared. “I
knew
this was a crock of shit! Now you’re tellin’ us Phillips is
dead?”

“
Well, yeah, sort of. Dead
as in…the walking dead.”

Peerce slammed Wade against a tree, his ham
fist hovering. “I’m beggin’ ya, Chief! Lemme pop him! He’s makin’
damn fools of all of us.”

Then Porker screamed.

He’d strayed to the end of the trail. White
and Peerce rushed to see what he was screaming about. Wade, of
course, already knew.

The grove’s perversions had thickened, even
in the few hours since he and Lydia had been here. Agape, the three
cops clung to each other as they stared into the impossible morass.
The green fog was darker now, a milky stew. Dense, unearthly
foliage glimmered in the low moonlight. Every branch, every swollen
leaf, pod, and flower hung thickly with ropes of slime. Things like
cattails sprouted tall from the lake of fog, bowed by the weight of
strange fruit and pulsating seed sacks. In the middle of the
clearing, atop the risen hillock, stood the bizarre oblong box.

“
You hayseed motherfuckers
believe me now?” Wade asked.

The slack jawed police made no
response. Everything was shifting, growing in minute increments,
joints of weeds and eldritch tree limbs lengthening in crunching
movements as if in pain. Fist sized bugs crawled up sweating
tree trunks, scoring the fleshlike bark. Clusters of faced
mushrooms shuddered, breathing, and lumps of fungus glowed in the
dark.

“
P Porker,” White
ordered.

“
Yuh yuh yeah,
Chief?”

“
Get out there. Check it
out.”

“
Yuh yuh you
gotta be crazy, Chief.”

“
Get out there, you big
creamcake!” White kicked Porker in his tremendous rump. “Check it
out!”

“
I wouldn’t send anyone out
there,” Wade advised.

“
Shut up! Peerce, get out
there! This fat baby’s got no balls. Let’s see if you
do!”

Peerce stood unsteadily, looking at the
green fog, then back to White. He took a breath and stepped
out.

“
There’s things in that
fog,” Wade warned.

“
Things?” Peerce queried,
looking back. He waded out. It was like a green swamp; the fog had
risen to midthigh now. Black cane stalks swayed to and fro, acrawl
with noxious bugs. From some of the plants hung fattened seedpods
with drooling—and distressingly
human
—lips
.
“Things,” Peerce muttered again.
Now he was ten yards out. “I think I can see ’em.”

Yes, they all could. The grove’s wildlife,
no doubt, had taken note of them. Wade spotted ghost shapes of
things roving beneath the surface—fog vermin. Scuttling
parasites feasted on dead possum bellies, and waddling things like
groundhogs, lacking heads, scampered about, raising trails of mist.
But worst of all were the gilled snake things, which seemed to
swim vigorously beneath the fogtop.

“
Bring him back, you
idiot,” Wade said. “Those things bite.”

White smirked, then yelped as one of the fat
pinch faced spiders lowered itself on a line of snot. It tried
to bite White on the nose. Wade batted it away, laughing.

Then Peerce began to howl.

He was jumping, struggling. One of the
fog snakes had affixed its flat sucker mouth to Peerce’s
crotch. He tore it off, along with his zipper, and then another
snake latched onto his ass.

“
Help me!” he
pleaded.

“
Porker! Get out there and
help Peerce!”

“
Fuh fuh fuck
you, Chief,” Porker stammered.

“
St. John! Get out
there!”

“
Eat my shorts, Chief. He’s
your man,
you
get
out there.”

Peerce tore off another eel, then tried to
run back. Suddenly he tripped and sank completely beneath the fog,
screaming.

Jesus Christ.
Wade dashed out. Glimpses of things approached,
and he kicked them as best he could, or stepped on them. One of the
fog snakes swam near, a big one, but Wade stepped on its head
just in time. Then something like a fanged toad, the size of a
softball, hopped forward. Wade stomped down hard. The toad burst
under his shoe like a Baggie full of pudding.

Wade saw the fog churning. A hand surfaced.
He grabbed it, pulled, and hauled Peerce back to the trail.

Green mist blew from
Peerce’s nostrils. “Chief, those things were tryin’ to eat me!”
White gave him a look that said,
Better
you than me.
They spent the next five
minutes picking slugs and horned insects off of Peerce. His clothes
hung in tatters.

“
What is this place, St.
John?” White asked grimly.

“
I don’t know,” Wade
said.

Porker pointed shakily. “And what’s that
black box?”

Before Wade could hazard a guess, they heard
a car.

“
Turn your lights out!”
Wade instructed. They huddled down. Across the dell, a car entered
the morass. The submerged headlights projected luminous green
plumes. It was a Dodge Colt.

“
It’s Phillips,” White
whispered. The cops drew their guns.

The car faltered through the grove, knocking
down tall stalks of perverted plants. The fog came up to the Colt’s
windows. Unseen monstrosities howled as Jervis drove over them.

Then the car rose out of the fog, parked on
the hillock. Jervis got out and lit a cigarette. Then he hoisted
something out of the trunk. Even at this distance they could see
that it was a girl, unconscious or dead. Jervis, the body over his
shoulder, stood before the black box and…disappeared.

He’d disappeared
into
it.

Then another, smaller figure emerged from
the car, a black, hooded figure. It knelt daintily before the
hideous, bulbed plant.

“
That’s one of the
sisters,” Wade whispered.

Now the sister was plucking things from the
plant.

“
What the fuck’s she
doin’?’ White asked, squinting.

“
Eating bugs. Those bitches
eat anything.”

“
We gotta find out what’s
goin’ on here.”

“
Chief,” Wade implored. “I
can’t put it any more eloquently than this: We have to get our
swingin’ dicks the fuck out of this gore hole before those
walking meat grinders realize we’re here.”

“
Not yet,” White said. “I
want Phillips’ ass.”

Wade rolled his eyes. “Hey,
cement head. I just got done telling you he’s already dead.
You can’t kill him.”

“
Shut up, St. John. Go get
the binocs out of the cruiser.”

Wade crunched back to the
first clearing. He found the binoculars in the console and smiled
when he noticed the key in the ignition.
Even I’m not big enough a prick to leave them
here.

Or was he?

It didn’t matter. A burst of yelling blared
from the grove, then gunshots.

Then: “St. John! Start the car! We’re comin’
out!”

The shit’s flying
now.
Wade turned the engine over and popped
open the doors. He scoped down the trail with the
binoculars.

Holy, holy shit,
he thought.

At least a dozen sisters had converged on
the police. Flashes popped, guns were firing right and left. It
looked like Custer’s last stand—only Custer, in this case, was
White, and he and his men were faring about as well. They emptied
their guns as fast as they could fire them, reloaded and fired some
more, all for nothing. Hooded sisters fell on them from all angles.
Vicious, liquid giggles rose like surf within the grove.

—
New pigs!

—
Fat, juicy
pigs!

Two sisters held Porker up, while another
eviscerated him in place. Pale hands delved like cleavers into the
tremendous stomach, parting slabs of fat to expose the succulent
organs.