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He doesn’t worry about what they’ll find in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
But then, there’s the matter of Paimon, and what happens after.
Paimon is only here because he doesn’t want to be bored.
Right?
Yet, he doesn’t seem to mind these quieter moments, as the radio statics in and out with centuries-old Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen.
When it’s still morning, they enter the narrow streets of a historic downtown district full of square brick buildings. A collection of bars and antique stores. Even a comic book store and a ballet studio. The ghosts of half-memories flood him, of walking down the streets, four feet tall and in elementary school, holding a hand.
They get out and as Daisy sniffs, she points farther north, deep into the mountains.
After another thirty minutes or so, they wind through a county road lined with junked trucks and broken down mobiles homes and houses, now streaked green and yellow with weeds and half-dead wildflowers. Crows stipple the power lines and squawk. More than once, he has to maneuver around a fallen branch. The world smells of smoke and dew, and there’s a decline in reanimated persons.
The wooden pens that might’ve once held sheep, cows, and horses are empty of anything but high grass, snaking between the planks. The homes begin to be spread more apart, but deeper, as the trees tower higher and higher, they start to come across houses that are a little less cluttered, with the lawns mowed.
Curious. A chill goes through him. Somehow, the prospect that there are people in this small part of the woods doesn’t soothe him, after their experiences in Terminus.
Anthony could be here. They could be within twenty-four hours, maybe less, of killing him.
To orient themselves and see where Daisy thinks they should go, they park at a square brick building with an unreadable green, wooden sign above the front door, an abandoned general store, all alone.
Well, not entirely alone.
Across from it, there’s a church that might’ve once been painted white, now gray with moss creeping up the sides. It sits atop a hill, and apparently, there’s a service because there are people, some dressed in white and black, eyeing them from askew picnic tables. Smoke billows from a gray chimney stack. They do see others, too, wearing leather and bulletproof vests and loaded to the brim with assault rifles and hunting knives. Their faces are long and white as ghosts.
That doesn’t do much to assuage him that they aren’t being watched. However, despite his apprehension, these people don’t entirely worry him with Paimon at his side.
There’s something else, someone else. A tug at his heart. He thinks back at the diner and looks around. The woods surrounding the abandoned store and church leer back but give no answers.
He smells the air. Behind the church, someone’s having a barbecue. The meat is pungent like pork, but milder.
Lauren?iu can’t help but feel a hint of alarm when a woman crosses the street to greet them, her dainty heels side-stepping a dead possum.
Her hair is a river of mercury silver, like Lauren?iu’s, and her dress is floral and seashell-pink, primly buttoned. Her heels and knee-high socks are pink, too, as is her coat with a golden cross pinned on the left breast pocket, right above a sequined butterfly. Her blue eyes shine like snake venom.
She clasps her white-gloved hands together and offers a sugary grin. Her teeth are mostly clean, albeit coffee-stained. “Why, hello, boys, it’s been a long time since we’ve had newcomers come into our little holler.”
“Holler,” Paimon repeats. “What is this place called?”
“Devil’s Holler,” the woman says, waving, “because of all the illegal moonshine.”
Paimon shares a warm smile with her. “Oh, well, nice to meet you in this lovely little Devil’s den.”
They shake hands as Lauren?iu, too, offers a pleasant smile and extends a hand for the woman to grip. Her thin fingers are strong, her varicose veins like flesh-rivers. She smells of sweet perfume, coffee, and gamey barbecue smoke.
Paimon tells the woman, “We’re just passing through, with our dog here.” Sitting on her haunches, stoic as a guardian of the gates to the Underworld, Daisy glowers at the woman. “We’re leaving the state, but we might need somewhere to stay.”
“Oh, there are plenty of campgrounds and abandoned cabins. And if you ever want to come to one of our services or barbecues, we’re more than happy to have new people over for lunch.”
Her words are so kind that he almost trusts her, but he’s used to stopping himself before he makes that too-common mistake.
Paimon says to the woman, “Pardon me, ma’am. Do you have a cig?”
She has a rose-dappled belt where a pouch hangs. That, and a holstered gun. She opens the pouch and takes a cigarette out of a pack.
She gives him a cigarette and lights it; she struggles a little, her firm hand trembling. Above them, a crow caws, and on the power line across the street, another answers.
