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“I love you, Valerie Guthrie. I love your strength and I love your practical mind. Those are great ideas. ”
“Great ideas, but not practical,” she said. “Getting the equipment down there will take some doing…but before we go in and bust everything up I think someone needs to go back to Griswold’s house and search it from top to bottom. If he’s buried there, then we can bury him with the rituals Jonatha talked about. If he’s not, maybe there’s something else of use. Evidence, books, I don’t know what, but we should find out. ”
“Roaches?”
She waved a hand. “Insects can be dealt with, that’s not the main problem, Crow. Man power is. Literally man power. I can’t do it right now—between my head and the baby I wouldn’t be any use. Newt’s…well, he’s Newt, and I don’t think he should go down there again. I doubt Jonatha would go, and Weinstock’s not the backwoods type. ”
“Who’s that leave other than me?”
Val shrugged. “I think it’s time we called the cops. ”
5
The trees grew close and blocked the sunlight, keeping the Hollow in shadows. Not that it mattered. Only a few of them were vulnerable to sunlight, and any one of those would have gladly, gleefully ignited himself if he asked it of them.
All through the morning and into the afternoon they came to him. Creeping through the forest, picking their way through sticker bush and vines, hurrying to be in his presence. They clustered around the swamp in a loose circle, each one dropping to his or her knees as they came close, their eyes fluttering closed with ecstasy as he called them and whispered to them. There was a long, continuous moan as the faithful flocked to their master, and in ranks they swayed back and forth like cornstalks in the wind.
There were hundreds of them now.
Hundreds.
Ruger walked among them, his face protected from the direct sunlight by a broad-brimmed hat, his long white fingers snugged into leather gloves. The sun caused him pain but no damage. He was smiling as he walked the inner circle of the first ring of worshippers. He could feel their passion, could taste their bloody intensity on the air, and his own heart lifted in glory.
A murmur of delight suddenly went up and Ruger turned to see the surface of the swamp bulge upward, methane bubbles bursting, steam rising from the muck as the Man moved. Ruger was well pleased. He had worked hard for this, had made sure everything was done just right.
With every kill the Man’s army got stronger, but more than that—far, far more than that—with every kill the Man himself got stronger. The release of energy from fear and despair and the horror of death—all of that was channeled along unseen energy lines to this Hollow. As each of the faithful killed and fed on blood or flesh, the Man fed on the psychic energy, growing stronger minute by minute, forming, taking shape.
Becoming.
Ruger turned and surveyed the masses. “The Red Wave!” he yelled, and they screamed it back to him.
“The Red Wave!” Louder, his voice shaking the withered leaves on the trees.
They chorused it back to him, their voices shivering the bark from the trees.
He went on yelling it and they kept replying in the litany of the damned. Each time those words pummeled the clearing the great, shifting mass that was Ubel Griswold trembled with red joy.
It was near sunset on October 29. In two days the Red Wave would wash the town of Pine Deep in blood. In two days Ubel Griswold would rise. Pine Deep would die. The world would scream.
Chapter 22
1
He picked up the phone on the second ring. “Ferro. ”
“Frank? It’s…Saul. ”
Ferro murmured distractedly. “Saul…who?” He held the phone in left hand and with his right he was ticking off items on an elaborate expense account that was due in an hour.
“Saul Weinstock. ”
“Mm-hmm,” Ferro said absently, underlining an item he thought might be disallowed.
“From Pine Deep,” said the voice on the phone.
Ferro paused, smiling as he recognized the voice. “Hey! Saul, how are you?”
Instead of answ
