CHAPTER 4
The Vanagon had seen
better days, Justice thought, eyeing the vehicle as it limped to
the side of the road. From his vantage point on the bluff, he had a
bird’s-eye view of the narrow lanes snaking below.
Volkswagen had stopped making them
sometime in the ’90s or early 2000s, a more modern rendition of the
Volkswagen bus, but they, too, had disappeared from the showrooms,
replaced by Touaregs and Jettas and Passats and others. In his
younger years Justice Turnbull had been interested in all makes of
cars. It had been a passion. But that was before his mission was
revealed and he talked to God, who asked him—ordered him—to annihilate the armies of Satan, armies
being incubated in the wombs of the whores who’d been spit from the
depths of hell and who pretended their innocence. Whores. Every
one. Satan’s profligates.
They were locked inside a prison of
their own making, one they believed was a sanctuary. Fools!
Sick-minded, stench-riddled fools. Siren Song. With its
wrought-iron fencing and gates. It could be breached. It could. It
was only a matter of planning. And timing. He smiled to himself as
he thought of those inside and what he would do to them. Theirs,
each and every one, would be a slow, torturous death. Each of the
witches would learn what it meant to turn on him; they would feel
his pain. . . . They would burn. . . .
In time.
One at a time.
His nostrils flared, and he felt a
little curdle of recognition that things weren’t as they should be.
Not all of them were “safe” inside the walls surrounding Siren
Song. Despite Catherine’s vain attempts at locking them away, a few
of the more stubborn and curious ones had escaped. They, women who
straddled two worlds and elected to stay outside, would have to be
taken care of first, before the onslaught he would wreak on their
filthy prison, where they huddled, feeling smug and secure. Oh, how
wrong they were.
Killing them all would be
simple.
Like shooting fish in a
barrel.
Who had said that? Old Mad Maddie
herself. His upper lip trembled at a blurry memory that wouldn’t
quite come into focus as he thought of her. Palm reader? Visionary?
Fraud!
Eyes narrowing, he decided that the
Vanagon wasn’t going anywhere soon. It seemed disabled, a flat
tire, at the very least. Was this his sign from God? Was this his
path?
He scented the air, his nostrils
quivering. Their odor was like a pulse that he alone could smell.
It came to him in waves, the scent of rotting meat. He felt almost
faint with his last intake of breath; then he opened his eyes and
gazed at the lights of the marooned Vanagon again.
Time to go.
As daylight waned, he moved carefully,
near silently, down the hillside and through the gnarled pines and
berry vines rooted in the soil. His mind settled upon the filthy
witches he’d been asked to annihilate. He’d almost lost track of
them during his incarceration because he’d been drugged and held
inside a windowless tomb. And the concrete walls had made it
difficult for him to track them. He couldn’t see them. He couldn’t
even smell them at first.
Now, though . . .
They were easiest to smell when they
were pregnant, and he’d caught the scent of those who’d lain with
the devil and carried Lucifer’s spawn within their wombs several
times in spite of the hole they’d tried to throw him
into.
But they couldn’t contain him forever.
He was sent to do God’s bidding. And God wanted the devil’s issue
burned in the fires of hell. This was Justice’s
mission.
In a dream, a vision of sorts that had
occurred while he was in the hospital, he’d seen himself faking an
illness in order to escape the prison walls. It had come to him
late at night, awakening him with a start, the remembered odor
lingering in his nostrils. He didn’t doubt that it was the word of
God for a second and had followed the instructions he’d heard
during a fragmented sequence of vignettes, images of exactly how he
was to escape from the moment he’d arisen. His body had been
covered in sweat, as if he’d actually done the deeds within the
dream, and he never faltered.
It had almost been too easy. Dr.
Zellman, that pompous idiot, had wanted to believe he understood
him and the inner workings of his mind.
But Zellman had never suspected
Justice’s innate intelligence. Nor had Zellman, the egomaniac,
understood Justice’s intellect, his ability to read the doctor’s
motivations. More telling, Zellman hadn’t counted on Justice’s raw
animal instincts, his prowess as a predator, his keen awareness of
how to lure in his prey before viscerally attacking.
Justice, knowing Zellman’s weaknesses,
had pretended, and the idiot with his esteemed degree had bought
it.
One less obstacle to worry
about.
Now Justice approached the Vanagon
quietly, ever watchful. Its owners apparently liked the psychedelic
lifestyle most often associated with the Volkswagen bus and the
’60s, as its sides were embellished with hand-painted peace signs,
rainbows, and images of girls with long hair that turned into vines
and became twigs for doves to roost upon. Justice had once had a
small replica of a VW bus in his toy car collection, but it had not
sported the artistic detail this vehicle did. The Vanagon’s colors
had faded over time, but it still flaunted its homage to the hippie
culture.
As Justice appeared from the scrub
pines at the side of the road, a long-haired dude with a headband
and John Lennon glasses straightened from his perusal of the left
rear tire.
“Hey, man,” he drawled in greeting. The
van was parked in a small turnoff, and there wasn’t a lot of room
for maneuvering unless you wanted to get a wheel in the ditch. The
guy himself was smoking a joint and seemed to be considering his
bald, deflated tire. He held out the joint to Justice, who simply
said, “Marijuana.”
“Yeah. Weed, man. Good
stuff.”
“No, thank you.” The sickeningly sweet
herb stench clouded Justice’s sense of smell.
“Jesus, damn,” the guy said, gesturing
in the direction of Justice’s prison and squinting behind his
glasses as he let out a puff of smoke. “Did you see? The whole damn
county sheriff’s department went flying by thataway!” He hitched a
thumb and shook his head. “Not one stopped, y’know.” Then, as if
considering the consequences if a cop had stopped and found his
weed, he added, “Maybe that was a good thing.” He took another long
drag.
“Which way are you going?” Justice
asked, talk of police making him anxious.
The dude pointed the opposite
direction, west, toward the coast, and after a few seconds exhaled
a pent-up cloud of smoke. “Where’d you come from?” he
rasped.
Justice gestured in the general
direction of the steep hill to the north. It was flat-topped, a
mesa, basically, since clear-cutting had taken off its timbered
top. He’d driven the hospital van up a muddy track along its
eastern side, over sticks and small boulders. He’d nosed the van
through a forgotten chain gate that had been there since the
beginning of the decade and broke with little resistance as he’d
gunned the engine. He knew the area and had planned where to go
when he escaped, and so he’d driven straight to the hilltop and
then partially down the back side, parking the hospital van on the
edge of a cliff side. Climbing out, he’d grabbed the jacket the
orderly had left, with its Ocean Park Hospital patch on the sleeve;
then he put the vehicle in neutral, got behind it, and
pushed.
The van had shot straight down into a
gully, snapping off small trees on its way, crashing and
blundering, splashing into a small stream at its bottom and turning
onto its side. It made a horrendous amount of screeching noise—tree
limbs grabbing at it—but it had made it all the way down and the
whole noisy melee was over in the space of two minutes. Wary, ears
straining, Justice had waited at the top of the mesa, squatting in
the underbrush, hoping the van’s noisy crash was a distant rending
for anyone within earshot. He’d then seen the line of police
vehicles fly by far below, lights flashing in the early darkness,
sirens screaming. He’d watched them disappear, and he’d sat down on
the top of the mesa and waited, unsure of what form God’s next
message might be.
Then, as if God Himself had answered,
this psychedelic relic of a Vanagon had staggered to the side of
the road. Without doubting for an instant that this was his
destiny, Justice had trekked rapidly down.
“Can I get a ride?” Justice asked,
trying not to cough at the vile smoke, a sense of urgency running
through him. He couldn’t leave himself exposed, not for any length
of time, even though darkness was approaching.
“Can ya help me fix my tire?” the dude
asked hopefully.
“Gotta pump?”
“Yeah, but there’s a hole,
man.”
“Got a spare?”
“Nah . . . not one that works . .
.”
“Get me the pump,” Justice ordered. He
heard the sound of a car’s engine whining closer and fought the
urge to scramble back into the bushes.
“Uh, okay.” The guy looked him over
again, and then, as if deciding Justice was just a little tightly
wound, he shrugged and opened the rear of the van, rattling around
through a bunch of baby gear—a Big Wheels, a Pak ’n Play, some kind
of circular bouncing device with brightly colored knobs—until he
found a toolbox and the pump.
The car’s engine was louder, and
Justice, pretending to be looking over the axle, hid on the far
side just as the car, a rattling old Toyota, cruised past. He
caught a glimpse of the driver, a red-haired teenager, a girl, who
didn’t so much as glance at the disabled Vanagon as she drove
lead-footed toward the next town.
“I’m Cosmo,” the dude said, as if he’d
just realized he’d never introduced himself. He dropped the toolbox
at Justice’s feet. “You?”
“Bob.”
Cosmo frowned. “Your name tag says . .
.”
“Yeah, I know.” Justice waved off the
question and bent down to the box. If the guy got too suspicious,
he’d have to take a hammer from the box and . . . His fingers
curled over the smooth wood handle as he explained, “Had to borrow
my buddy’s today. Left mine in my car. Sometimes I’m a damned
fool!”
“Well, Bob, if you can fix this thing,
I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go,” Cosmo declared with an easy
smile that showed a row of slightly crooked teeth. If he had any
doubts about “Bob,” they were lost in a fog of pot.
“You got any gum?” Justice asked,
trying not to show his anxiety as he pushed the hammer aside and
studied the rest of the contents of the box. Wrench, screwdriver,
box cutter . . . all weapons he could use.
“Uh . . .” Cosmo ran his hands through
a few pockets and pulled out a pack. “Bubble gum.”
“I can pump the tire full of air, put
some gum on the leak.” Justice palmed the box cutter with its
razor’s head and stealthily slipped it into his pocket before he
straightened again, his shadow lengthening over Cosmo. “Good for a
few miles, I think. But you’ll have to get it fixed in
Tillamook.”
“I can do that.” Cosmo was nodding, a
little more comfortable. “Sure you don’t wanna toke? Or a beer?
They’re not cold. I had to leave my woman and the kids for a while.
Big fight. Big, big fight. Got any kids? Babies.” He shook his
head, long tresses beneath his headband shivering. “All they do is
cry.”
Justice thought of babies. Of
pregnancy. Of the unborns. But he didn’t respond as he bent down
and pumped up the tire while Cosmo finished his joint, then chewed
up some gum.
All the while he thought of time
ticking by, the cops. . . . Oh, God, had they reached the hospital
and now were returning? His stomach tightened, and he told himself
to relax, try to stay cool.
Gingerly taking the slick pink wad from
the other man’s fingers, Justice had discerned where the nail was
and he stuck the gum over it in a thin and messy line. Might help.
Might not. All he wanted was to get off this stretch of road and
fast. Before the cops returned.
“Nice, man,” Cosmo said, grinning
widely as he surveyed the near-bald tire with its pink
patch.
Justice knew cars. Engines. Boats. He
knew about babies, too. The devil’s spawn. His nose suddenly filled
with the sweet, rotting scent of betrayal and deceit, a smell that
was only growing stronger. One of them was nearby. The one that
could hear him and shut him out! They all were cursed with some
ability, and this one . . . she was close. His skin crawled and the
back of his mind went dry as he tried to call up her image. . .
.
He snapped back quickly.
Hurry! You’re wasting
time!
Cosmo was saying, “My old lady, she got
really pissed at me ’cause I said, ‘Can’t you shut him up?’ which
was kinda mean, for sure, but she just went nutso. Threw all my
clothes out the door. So I took the van and all this kid stuff and
just fuckin’ took off. I love her, man. And the kids. But it was a
bummer. You a hospital employee?”
The patch on the jacket again. Damn.
Justice gave a quick nod. “I’m an EMT.”
“Yeah? Like the guy whose jacket you’re
wearing? Huh.”
Justice tensed up. Cosmo was putting
two and two together. “Yeah, we work for the same
company.”
“So . . . what’re you doin’ out
here?”
“Hitchhiking. Got my own problems with
a woman,” he improvised again, hoping to strike a chord with the
man.
“Ahh . . .” He seemed to try and think
that one over, but Cosmo wasn’t really tracking all that
well.
Justice glanced at the tire. “Won’t
last long.”
“But long enough to get to
Tillamook?”
“Depends on how fast the leak
is.”
“Well, get in, man,” Cosmo said
suddenly, as if he’d told himself not to look a gift horse in the
mouth—another one of Maddie’s old sayings. God, why was
she coming to mind today? Cosmo threw the
toolbox in the back of the Vanagon and slammed the door. “We’re
losin’ daylight. Let’s roll.” He walked to the front of the
Volkswagen and slid behind the steering wheel.
As Justice climbed into the passenger
seat and cracked the window against the thick scent of marijuana,
Cosmo fired up the engine of this less than discreet getaway
vehicle.
In a few seconds, they were out on the
road, bumping along as the vehicle’s shocks were shot, too. Justice
was counting off the seconds in his head. How long before the
sheriff’s department started circling back? They had to realize
which way he’d traveled after he turned out of Halo Valley’s long
drive to the two-lane highway that connected the Willamette Valley
to the coast. He knew he had only a small window of time in which
to disappear. He would have headed east, toward Salem, if he’d
known the area better, but Justice was most familiar with the ins
and outs of the Oregon coastline. The land was rugged here, steep,
craggy cliffs rising above the pounding surf. Hundreds of acres of
old-growth timber. Hidden coves that the Pacific had carved at the
shoreline.
Lots of places to hide.
And, more importantly, that was where
she was.
As they traveled, he sensed the change
. . . the slight shifting of the world . . . the moment when he
slid inside himself and let his senses take over, the slipping of
this outer skin to open to his true self.
There are many of them.
So many.
“You cannot kill them
all,” the old woman warned me, and I nearly strangled the life from
her right then for not believing in me!
“I can. I will,” I told
her.
“God will save them. .
. .”
But they do not listen
to God. Their master is from the dark realm of hell. Satan is their
soul mate. Their lover. Father to their children. Father to
them!
I cannot wait to do
God’s bidding and fulfill my mission in this
world.
First, there are those
outside of the walls. One is nearby . . . and near to the old woman
as well, who has survived against all odds. It is my duty to end
her torment. Dear, dear, mother.
“Hey, man.” Cosmo’s voice sounded
liquid and wavy. From a long distance away.
Justice opened his eyes and saw lights
ahead as they approached the town of Tillamook. He felt the uneven
roll of the Vanagon’s wheels, smelled the familiar scent of cattle
from the surrounding dairy farms. Located on the south end of
Tillamook Bay, the town was actually inland from the ocean. Still,
he was closer, felt more alive, his nerve endings
snapping.
“You took a nap, but like with your
eyes open. Creepy.” Cosmo glanced his way and grinned.
Justice was glad for the dope, which
had obviously slowed down Cosmo’s perception.
“We made it,” Cosmo added. “But I think
the tire’s really shot now. I’m gonna have to hit some kind of
service station. God, maybe I should call the old lady. It’s kind
of a pisser.”
“Don’t call her.”
Cosmo turned the Vanagon south onto
Highway 101, the road that ran straight through Tillamook’s gut.
Though Justice wanted to head north, he wasn’t quite ready
yet.
“Man, are you giving me relationship
advice?” Cosmo turned his way again, his Lennon glasses winking in
the streetlights.
Justice thought a moment, his skin
tingling as he mentally slipped it back on over his naked soul. His
camouflage. He already knew he was going to have to kill Cosmo and
hide the body so that when his van was discovered, there would be
no trace to Justice. Mentally, he ran over what he’d touched. The
pump. The left rear tire. The passenger door handle, the toolbox,
the hammer . . .
“Keep going,” Justice said as Cosmo
glanced toward a service station that looked half-deserted on the
south end of town. Its bank of fluorescent lights flickered, and
the red stripe painted on the extension over the pumps had dulled
and chipped away.
“We ain’t gonna make it much further,”
Cosmo said, ignoring him.
They pulled into the service station,
and Cosmo rolled down his window under the weird, unsteady lights.
After what seemed a millennium the teenager who seemed like the
only one on duty stepped out of the office to look at them. “You
gettin’ gas?” he yelled, his face screwing up as if he couldn’t see
well.
“Gotta patch a tire,” Cosmo yelled
back.
“Can’t help ya unless you want
gas.”
“Shit.”
“Go on down the road,” Justice said
quietly, though his nerves were jumping. “I’ll pump it up
again.”
“Might as well get out and pump it up
now.”
“No.”
“What’s up, man?” Cosmo gave him a
searching look.
Justice wondered if maybe he wasn’t
quite as stoned as he’d made out. Either way, it sealed his fate.
“Go on down the road,” he said again, and after a moment, and with
a shrug, Cosmo pulled onto Highway 101 south and the dark road that
cut through the farmland. There were plenty of little nothing roads
both east and west of the main highway, lanes really, that wound
through fields and brush and the Coast Range foothills, scarcely
traveled byways where a vehicle could be hidden
indefinitely.
Perfect.
“Just keep driving.” Almost reverently,
he fingered the box cutter he’d slipped into his
pocket.
“It’s your funeral,” Cosmo said,
unaware of the irony in his words.