Part 40 (1/2)
He walked down the village street. The sun still rode high in the sky. The place looked deserted. A ghost town.
Then he saw the cause of the road closure. A truck stood in the middle of the street.
White powder had spilled from the back of it all across the blacktop creating an arctic-white scene. A lone workman attempted to clear the roadspill, working away with a long handled broom. But he made little headway. In fact, he seemed to make matters worse.
John walked by the dazzling white blanket of powder.
”I'll be d.a.m.ned,” he said to himself, pausing. This was no accidental roadspill. This was deliberate. Walking into the road, grains of white crunched like snow beneath his soles. He reached down, touched the grains, then licked his finger.
Salt. The frightened people of Skelbrooke were using the oldest protection against evil in the book. Salt scattered all over the d.a.m.ned place. Salt for the Devil's eye.
The workman wasn't sweeping up. He was spreading it.
Ahead, he saw a girl that seemed familiar. Black hair, dark, Latino eyes. The face clicked in his memory. Miranda Bloom. She was back home? Why? Why, when her mother had sent her away in a panic after receiving the letters, why had Miranda returned?
Miranda had seen him. Straightaway, she ran across the salt covered street.
”Mr. Newton?”
He nodded and saw that she'd been crying.
”I heard about Paul's accident,” she said. ”How is he?”
”It's serious,” he said, suspecting he was on the brink of finding out a truth he was frightened to know. ”He's in a coma. The doctors say the next few hours will be crucial.” He didn't sugar coat this bitter pill. ”They don't know whether he'll live or not.”
As if he were carrying some infection she fell back from him as he pa.s.sed. Ahead stood The Swan Inn. Not a soul was in sight. But he knew the villagers would be in there. Sheltering together for some imagined protection. Waiting for this particular storm to pa.s.s.
Once more he walked across the blanket of salt. The workman watched him. Said nothing. And continued sweeping salt out in a gleaming wash across the blacktop.
He intended walking straight into the bar as he'd done before, then challenging those frightened sheep in human clothing to tell him everything they knew.
John Newton never reached the pub door.
An old man walked out of the building to meet him halfway across the street. They stood in the blazing sun, watching each other for a moment. The old man's white hair shone as bright as the salt beneath his feet.
”John Newton,” he said. ”You don't know me. I've lived all my life in this village. My name is Joseph Fitzgerald. I'm ninety-two years old.”
John tilted his head to one side, his expression grim. He didn't speak but waited for the old man to say more.
Fitzgerald looked levelly at John. ”I was a colleague of Mr. Kelly seventy years ago when he received his letter. Now I'm here to tell you your duty.”
3.
Chance echoed the image of two gunfighters facing each other along the street of a town from the Old West. The roadway, even if it was salt, not Texan dust, played its part.
Sun reflected from the white road narrowed the old man's eyes to slits.
”Mr. Newton. There's no easy way. But you must do it.”
”Do what?”
Instead of answering, Fitzgerald said, ”Seventy years ago Mr. Kelly at the Water Mill received a series of letters. People down here in the village received similar ones. They asked for trifles-chocolate, beer. Nothing much. Then Mr. Kelly received a demand from-”
”Baby Bones?”
”From something that's had different names down the years. This last letter demanded he leave his daughter in the cemetery on a given night.”
”I know,” John said levelly. ”I've read the copies Kelly made.”
”Mr. Kelly fought it. He delayed taking Mary Kelly to the cemetery. He refused to accept responsibility for the consequences. There was an outbreak of influenza in the village. A lot of people died.”
”Herbert Kelly was a strong man, Mr. Fitzgerald.”
”He was obstinate. Dangerously obstinate.”
”Heroic, I'd call him.”
”I was a junior member of his teaching staff. I believed he thought highly of me, and people here figured I could persuade him of his responsibilities to his neighbors.”
”I hope he ignored you.” A dangerous anger was spilling through John now. He knew what was coming.
”He did ignore me. And as I returned home on my motorcycle I blacked out and the machine ran under a tractor. I paid the price for Mr. Kelly's obstinacy.” He raised an arm. The sleeve slipped back to reveal a forearm with no hand, merely a shriveled stump. ”Mr. Kelly was an intelligent man. He believed his intelligence would allow him to beat something that had been here five thousand years or more.”
”And what is that something exactly?”
”No one can say. Anymore than you can detail the anatomy of G.o.d. But it can make demands of us periodically. And it can punish if we don't comply.”
”Well, your filthy little monster isn't going to dictate s.h.i.+t to me!”
”Mr. Newtona John. I am sorry. I truly am. But the last letter's come to you. It has demanded your youngest child, hasn't it?”
”You know a lot, don't you?” John clenched his fists in fury.
”Believe me, John. I would willingly take her place. But It demands what it demands. There's no escaping it. You must do what is best for the village. You musta”
”No.”
”You don't have the luxury of choice. There has been an outbreak of meningitis in the neighborhood. Ten children are in the hospital. Now their lives hang in the balance. They will recover if you meet the demands of the letter. If you don't the children will die. They will be followed by more. You and your family will not be spared. This has all happened before. You can not break the cycle.”
”Oh, but I can. Do you know something, Mr. Fitzgerald? Stan Pricea you might have heard of him? Old, senile Stan Price fought hard to get his wits together again, and he came up to see me at the Water Mill. He brought me doc.u.ments that prove Kelly was fighting the monstera with this.” John stabbed a finger at his own head. ”He fought the monster with his own brain, Mr. Fitzgerald. Now I intend to do the same!”
”No, John. He tried. He tried hard. But in the end he had to admit defeat. He took his daughter to the graveyard at midnight and left her there.”