Part 42 (2/2)

He lowered his hand and said, ”You don't understand.”

”Then tell me what it is I don't understand, Martin. I see you're trying to corrupt our son with your witchcraft. I hear you claim he's going to be some kind of G.o.d among men, but I can't think you actually believe that. You'd have to be insane to believe that. Are you, Martin? Are you really that f.u.c.king crazy?”

He regarded her with a cold intensity that made Paul's bowels quiver.

”You don't understand, Carol. You won't ever understand. Not fully. But I can show you.”

He bent down, grabbed her by the hair at the back of her neck, and dragged her into the living room.

Once again Paul fought back the urge to intervene. But he knew that would be pointless, maybe even impossible. Whatever was about to happen had already happened twelve years ago. He couldn't change the past. And besides, he was being shown this for a reason.

His father dropped his mother onto the floor next to one of his stick lattices.

”You can close your eyes if you want. It don't matter. You'll still see.”

He grabbed Paul's mother by the arm with one hand and placed his other on the stick lattice.

”Watch,” he said, and focused on opening the doorway that led into the visionary landscape Paul had seen when he made his lattice.

Paul could feel a rush of energy swirling around him, moving through him, filling him up with its power and giving him a high like endorphins coursing through his veins. His father was feeling it, too. His eyes were closed, his head thrown back, his mouth open in ecstasy.

And then the world fell away and they were standing in a rubble-strewn street in the middle of a ruined city. Whole city blocks had crumbled into heaps of concrete and dust. Those buildings that still stood had been reduced to their frames. The sky above them was a swollen, unhealthy red that was filled with windblown ash. Towering columns of oily smoke rose all around him. The columns entered the sky and trailed away into black shoestring clouds. Everywhere about them, scared, dirty people scattered like mice for shelter.

Paul didn't recognize the city, but he knew that didn't matter. What he was seeing was happening all over the world. It was the same lowering sky over every living thing.

Strange, keening moans filled the air.

Paul turned toward the approaching moans. On top of a tabled slab of concrete not far away he saw a much older version of himself, scarred and bent-backed, but still obviously him, chanting, arms raised high over his head as an army of the dead poured into the streets. They came from every direction at once, rooting through the rubble, pulling the screaming people from their hiding places, devouring everything they touched. This was the end here. This was the turning point his father had promised him, the new world devouring the old.

Screams filled his ears.

Paul wanted to vomit. Beside him, his mother was covering her eyes with her hands. But Paul knew it wasn't making any difference. Eyes shut or eyes open, she saw it all just the same.

She was sobbing helplessly, and when she spoke, her voice was so shaken Paul could barely understand her.

”Why?” she said. ”Why would you want something like this?”

When the scene cleared Paul realized he was crying. Could he really be responsible for what he had just seen? Even if he was only some sort of conduit for the power his father wors.h.i.+pped, it was still unacceptable. Even now he could smell the smoke and the ash in his nostrils and he hated it. He spit on the floor, and he gagged on the oily taste of his own saliva.

He was standing in the darkened living room of his old house, his father on his knees in front of a stick lattice, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself.

Somebody was banging on the screen door in the kitchen.

Martin Henninger rose to his feet and walked to the door. A pair of Comal County Deputies were standing there at the foot of the concrete stairs, Paul's mother between them. She looked utterly defeated. She was barefoot, wearing an old yellow housedress that accentuated the thin frailty of her body. She looked as unhealthy as an old used up crack wh.o.r.e.

Paul's heart went out to her. The vision his father had shown them had sickened her to her soul. It had sickened Paul, too, but it had affected her even more. It had sickened her so thoroughly that she had left Paul alone with his father, despite her promise to never give him up. Looking at her, he sensed that that was why she felt defeated. She had drawn a line for herself that she said she would never cross, a low to which she would never sink, and she had promptly sunk below it.

”We found her walking along County Road 131,” one of the deputies said.

”Yeah?” said Martin Henninger. ”So what?”

”She looks like she's had a pretty good scare, Martin. Anything you want to tell me about that? You guys have a fight?”

”She's f.u.c.king nuts,” Martin said. ”She wanders off sometimes and ain't got a clue what planet she's on. What the h.e.l.l you want me to do about it?”

The two deputies looked at each other. The one who had spoken first, a white-haired, big-bellied man with a walrus mustache said, ”We brung her back to you, Martin. How about you take her inside and get her some water or something? You could make her comfortable. That'd be the decent thing to do?”

”f.u.c.k that,” Martin said. ”Leave her dumb a.s.s there. She'll be all right.” And then he walked back inside, letting the screen door slam behind him.

An awkward moment pa.s.sed. The fat deputy whistled. His partner put his hands in his pockets. Paul's mother never moved. She just stood there, sobbing quietly.

The fat deputy said, ”Ma'am, you gonna be all right if we leave you here?”

She didn't answer.

”Ma'am?”

The cop in Paul knew what the deputies were thinking. He'd been there himself. It was a bad situation. She didn't have any obvious injuries, and she wasn't saying anything to help them help her. All they had was a woman who appeared to be off her rocker and a husband with a reputation for being a first rate p.r.i.c.k. But there were no obvious signs of family violence, and it wasn't a crime to be an a.s.shole. They had no choice but to leave her here with this guy. There was nothing else they could do.

The fat deputy muttered something about calling them if she needed anything, and then the two men walked away, leaving her there in the dark.

Paul watched them get in their car and drive away.

He said, ”Momma, how come you didn't tell them? You could have taken us both away.”

But she gave no indication that she knew he was there.

His father swung open the screen door then and said, ”You need to get yourself inside, Carol. I'm about ready and I don't want you hanging around out here. I want you up in the front room where you can't cause any trouble.”

She looked up at Martin, her eyes vacant, like the eyes of the dead.

”Go on. Get inside.”

”I don't wanna,” she said, and the sudden, country girl tw.a.n.g in her voice surprised Paul.

Martin's voice was hard, but he hadn't started to yell yet. He said, ”I don't care what you want. What you're gonna do is get your a.s.s inside.”

For a moment, her eyes cleared. Paul's father must have seen it, too, because he sprang forward and grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her inside.

”You wanna give me s.h.i.+t?” he said. ”You think you can give me s.h.i.+t?”

He yanked her off her feet.

One leg went sprawling and hit a chair and knocked it over.

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