Showdown (9 page)

“Paula,” Black said slowly, staring at her. “Katie, Nancy,Mary. I really do like those names. Suck up a little grace-juice, ladies.”

His eyes shifted to Steve. “You hear me, Steve? And you, Claude. All of you. Trip with me, baby. Breathe deep and let it go where it wants to. If you let me, I'll show you. I'll show you all.”

Yordon caught sight of the man's eyes from the side. Bloodshot.

When Black spoke again, his voice was low and biting. “You have a choice to make. When I come to you, you better not run scared. You just choose the real thing and maybe things will work out for you.”

Yordon forced his eyes around the room. To a head they were glued on Black.

“You're going to have to decide,” Black said, voice swelling. His trembling had subsided.“Are you going to follow me, the man God sent to Paradise with a new message of grace and hope? Hmm? Or are you going to follow
his
way?”

Yordon jerked his head to the pulpit. This time Black left no room for interpretation. This time, standing alone up on the platform, he stabbed his finger at Stanley.

For the first time since Marsuvees Black's entrance, the flock turned its attention back to Yordon. A sea of eyes gazed at him—some quizzical, some glaring, most big and round.

Johnny Drake stood in the foyer behind them all, hiding behind the door frame, staring directly at him. Yordon held his breath and looked back at the pulpit. Black had dropped his finger, thank God. He peeked out at the crowd again. They had returned their stares to the preacher.

“So you listen and you watch and you prepare your heart for a little change. And if you're lucky, you'll live to tell of the day that Paradise found grace and hope.”

Black turned and strode from the podium without the slightest acknowledgment of Yordon. He walked off the stage and through the baptismal door. Twenty minutes after it had started, the service was over.

Yordon began to wonder how foolish he looked up there by himself. But they weren't looking at him. Not paying him the least bit of attention. And why should they?

There was a new preacher in town.

“YOU DRINK it?” Johnny asked.

“No,” Roland Smither said. “You?”

“Are you kidding?”

They sat in Johnny's room, Johnny still stunned by what they'd both seen with their own eyes at the church half an hour earlier; Roland toggling the controller for Johnny's PlayStation, throwing tricks in Snowboard Madness.

Johnny couldn't quite bring himself to tell his friend about Black walking into town and killing Cecil. He hated the fact that his mother was still gone.

Roland tossed the control on the bed. “He's a fake. I've seen better stuff on magic shows.”

“This isn't a show.”

“How do you know? David Copperfield could make an elephant disappear on stage, so why couldn't this guy make a snake appear?”

“Could Copperfield grow a wart on someone's tongue?”

“Course he could, if Chris was in on it. Come on, don't be such a sucker.”

What could he say? Maybe the eye thing with Cecil was a trick too. But Cecil was dead.

“You ever hear a preacher talk that way? ‘Suck up some grace-juice'? This isn't just some magician on the road. You see the way he was shaking?”

The smile faded from Roland's face. “That's part of his gig, man. Lighten up, you're talking like an idiot.”

Johnny stood and walked to his window. The leaves whipped by nearly horizontal. Such a strong wind for the middle of summer. “He put something in the drink.”

“Course he did,” Roland said. “Part of the show. Pretty cool too, if you ask me. He isn't afraid of Yordon, that's for sure.”

Johnny faced his friend. “What if I'm right? What if he's dangerous?”

“My dad's got a gun. And before he used it, he'd call the cops.” Roland sighed. “You really have to lighten up, Johnny.”

The phone on his desk chirped. Johnny crossed the room and snatched it up. “Hello?”

“Hi, Johnny.”

Relief swept over him. “Hey, Mom.”

“You okay?”

“Well. Actually I don't know . . .”

“What do you mean? Something happen?”

“The preacher freaked everyone out at the service.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . .” Running through the string of magic tricks felt stupid. Johnny condensed. “Like turning an apple into a snake. But it was the way he was talking. He threatened the whole town if they didn't listen to him.”

“It'll be fine, Johnny. Listen, it's raining cats and dogs here. I wanted to get to the mall but ran out of time. I was hoping I could stay over and pick up some things in the morning.”

Dread passed through his gut.

“Johnny? He died from a heart attack, Johnny. Okay? The doctor here all but confirmed it. There's no sign of any trauma to Cecil's eyes—I made sure of that, just for you. He's an illusionist or something, end of story.” She paused.“Maybe Roland could spend the night with you.”

“Roland's here.” He looked at his friend, who'd returned to the video game, and felt some comfort.

“Ask him.”

Johnny covered the phone and asked. Roland nodded. “Sure.”

“He says he can do that.”

“Okay. I'll be home about noon tomorrow. Lock the doors and make sure you get to bed by midnight. You'll be okay, Johnny. There's plenty to eat in the fridge. I'm at the Super Eight in Junction if you need me, okay? I love you, Johnny.”

“I love you too.”

He hung up the phone and suppressed an urge to cry.
Easy, Johnny.
They're right. You're letting your imagination go wild
.

Roland scrambled from the bed. “I'll call my mom.”

Five minutes later it was all settled. Roland was spending the night. They raided the refrigerator and hauled Cheez-Its, four Snickers bars, Planters peanuts, and two tall glasses of milk back to Johnny's room.

“Score,” Roland said. “We still hanging out with Fred and Peter at the Starlight tomorrow?”

In the afternoon's excitement Johnny had forgotten about their customary summer gathering at the old theater. “I guess.”

Roland jerked his head up. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

Roland stood slowly. “Was that an earthquake?”

They waited. Nothing.

Johnny was about to ask his friend to elaborate when the floor under his feet shifted, ever so slightly.

“Whoa!” He jumped onto the bed. “You feel that?”

Roland looked at him. His lips formed a twisted grin.“No. I didn't feel it the first time either. You see what I mean? Now you're feeling things.”

Johnny blinked. He could have sworn . . .

Roland laughed and grabbed the peanuts. “You gotta lighten up, man.”

It took Johnny an hour to fall asleep after they turned the lights off at midnight. When he finally drifted off, he dreamed of Marsuvees Black.

A nightmare.

THE TOWN of Paradise slipped into a deep slumber.

Before that, and after the service, the Malones went to Steve and Paula's house for coffee. They were divided on Black's theatrics. None of them could say they were real or an illusion, at least not definitively. Neither could they agree on the intent of his harsh talk. But in the end even Paula agreed that the man was captivating. Maybe too captivating, she said. Steve said she was overstating things, which earned him a glare.

They'd all sipped from the communion goblet, which earned a chuckle from Steve in retrospect. What people would do in the heat of religious fervor. No doubt about it, Black could handle a crowd. As far as Steve was concerned, Paradise could use some excitement.

Steve fell asleep easily enough, at about eleven, and drifted through a dreamless night.

The clock read eight when Steve jolted upright in his bed, wide awake, soaked with sweat, breathing heavily. A loud ringing filled his ears, a buzzing with a high-pitched whine that made him shake his head. He blinked in the morning light and gazed about the room, lost for a moment.

Paula was gone.

He swung his legs from the bed, thinking he should throw on a robe.

“Paula?”

No response.

Steve shuffled from the bedroom into the living room.

“Paula!”

Nothing.

She might be in the small garden she'd planted behind the house. Cost twice as much to grow tomatoes as purchase them at this altitude, but she found the hobby relaxing.

He headed for the back door. Morning light streamed through the windows. A beautiful day. He felt as contented as he could remember feeling. It was going to be a good day in Paradise.

Steve grabbed the doorknob and twisted. The air was perfectly calm and the grass was perfectly green and the sky was perfectly blue.

And Paradise was perfectly quiet.

“Paula?”

The garden was deserted. She was probably over talking someone's ear off about Black. Steve paused, thinking through yesterday's events. Had all that really happened? Sure it had. Chris had grown a wart, then lost it, then grown it, then lost it. The apple had become a snake, the snake had become a cross, the cross had become an apple. And more than half the town had tasted the sweet juice from that apple.

Including him.

A nervous excitement fluttered through his gut. Black sure knew how to get the heart moving.

A giggle turned his attention toward the tool shed. He studied the shed. Was that Paula's voice?

A dark hat broke the shed's vertical corner line. A man. But that hadn't been a man's voice giggling.

Steve was about to call out when the laughter came again, shrill this time.

The man stepped backward into Steve's line of sight.

Black.

Steve couldn't see who the preacher was holding behind the shed wall, but Black was turning to face him . . . had turned . . . was staring right at Steve, wearing a grin that Steve couldn't quite interpret.

“Hello, Steve.”

Black's low and gravelly voice, hardly more than a whisper, carried clearly in the morning stillness.

“Good morning, Rev—”

“Do you know what I have back here, Steve?”His right arm was still hidden from view.

Paula?
Steve's mind began to spin. No, that was ridiculous.

Marsuvees Black withdrew his arm. He gripped a wooden stake, about two feet in length and roughly three inches in diameter.

“Do you know what this is, Steve?” Still grinning. Another giggle behind the shed. Steve barely heard it, having fixed his mind on that stake in Black's hand.

He swallowed. “No.”

“This is pleasure on a stick, Steve. This is what you skewer meat with before you eat it. This is what you stick apples on before dipping them in caramel. Can you fathom that, my friend?”

Black touched his lips to the stake's sharp point, kissed it, and sighed.

“This is grace and hope in Paradise,” Black said.

Saliva had pooled under Steve's tongue. He swallowed it. The stick looked smooth, lovely, well shaped, beautiful.

But it was just a stick. What was Black's point?

The stake's point is his point, you idiot
.

“And do you know what
this
is?” Black asked. He'd reached behind the shed and yanked a woman out by her hair.

Paula.

Black looked into Paula's eyes and jerked her head back. “Do you want your grace-juice, baby?”

She laughed shrilly.

“She's been a naughty wife, Steve.”

Black leaned over Paula and kissed her on the lips. She returned his kiss.

“A very naughty wife.”

Rage swelled in Steve's chest. He sucked at the still air but couldn't seem to get enough oxygen into his lungs.

“What do we do to naughty wives?” Black demanded. “We stick them like caramel apples, that's what we do.”

The reverend whirled Paula around so that her back faced Steve. It occurred to him that Paula's shrill laugh wasn't a laugh anymore. It was a scream. Or was it?

Steve clenched his hands. “Get away from her!” He took a step forward.

Paula threw her head back, cocked it at an odd angle, like a bent paper clip. She laughed hysterically. No scream at all, just this frenzied expression of delight. Her eyes opened and she drilled him with a mocking stare. He could see her neck, white in the sunlight. Smooth. Her hair fell to her shoulders.

The last thread of reason that moored Steve's mind snapped. He felt himself drift into a sea of incoherent fury.

“What do we do, Steve?” Black asked, still grinning.

Steve hesitated, confused by Black's question.

The preacher repeated himself, yelling this time. “What do we do?”

“Stake them?”

His wife's shrill laughter ceased. For a moment Paradise was still again.

Then she howled with horror. It was a scream now for sure. No laughter for Paula. But fact was, she deserved it. He would do . . .

You don't mean that, Steve.

. . . it himself if he was a little closer. Maybe he still could . . .

What on earth are you thinking?

. . . do it, teach her to . . .

Stop this! Stop this right now!

The preacher winked at Steve and thrust the stick forward.

Steve lunged up, gasping. It was dark. A fan swished slowly overhead.

He was in bed?

Rumpled bed sheets covered his legs. He grasped the covers on his left and felt his wife's sleeping form. She grunted. No harm.

Steve looked at the clock. Midnight. Steve exhaled and dropped back to his pillow. A nightmare.

Something
was in his right hand. He lifted his arm.

A bloody stake.

MARSUVEES BLACK stood on the cliff overlooking Paradise, boots planted on the rock like two sledgehammers. Most of Paradise had slipped into dreams.

A hot wind blew into his face, but he didn't blink, did not feel the urge to blink. He stood with his arms cocked on his hips, his trench coat flying back in the breeze so that if Katie were to wake and peer up the mountain she might think a huge bat had landed on the cliff. But Katie wasn't waking up, not tonight, not with all that euphoria in her blood.