Chapter 18
Donna exhaled slowly and deeply, just as she had been instructed—and curls of gray smoke drifted from her nostrils. Dr. Patrick
mewled in the darkness. Little Rock lunged for the door, yanked at the handle. It wouldn’t open.
“Where are you going?” Mr. Francis asked.
“Get help!”
“For chrissake, resume your post,” Mr. Francis said. “No one is going anywhere till we get the power back. Those locks are
electric.”
Joe Valentine hugged his clipboard to his chest, staring over it with wide, fascinated eyes. Only of course that wasn’t his
true name. His true name was Norman Barclay, and somehow Colin had found it out and whispered it to King Sorrow. His name
and forty-two others.
“Your Grace,” Norman Barclay gasped. “Your Majesty. I’m honored.”
“Is that how you’d describe it? I would’ve said you were pissing yourself,” King Sorrow said through Donna.
“Mother of God,” whined Little Rock. “I gotta get out of here.”
“Shut him up,” Francis ordered Salem.
Salem slipped his nightstick out of the loop on his belt and came around with it, driving it into the stomach of the pale-eyed
boy. Little Rock said oof, doubled over, and sank to his knees.
Valentine paid no mind. He was watching Donna. They were all watching Donna. Her eyes were shut. Smoke trickled from her lips
and nostrils.
“You have pledged to kill forty-three members of our staff on Easter morning. Is that right? Why were some chosen and others spared?”
“No one will be spared. Those who see me and survive will dream of me the rest of their lives. We will meet again, often,
in the Long Dark, where they will scream and grovel before me and weep and be torn apart. You see, those I slay in the weak
light of actuality only have to die once . . . which makes you one of the lucky ones, Norm.”
Little Rock, who was still kneeling on the floor, opened his mouth, took a deep breath as if to offer an opinion, and vomited
a thick stream of brownish slime.
“Jesus Christ,” Lansing whispered, and he gripped Van’s forearm. It took Van a moment to realize he had clasped his arm for
comfort.
“This is the wealthiest and most powerful country the world has ever known,” Barclay said. “Whatever you’re getting now, to
serve Shiner and the McBrides, we can give you so much more. Whatever you want, to spare our lives—we can give it to you.
I have been delegated to speak for several multinational corporations, companies with billions in assets, and the federal
government of the United States. They have indicated they are ready to pay a tribute for your services. Anything within reason.”
“How about Nebraska?” King Sorrow asked.
Van didn’t think he had ever seen Valentine recoil. He had been young, bright, agile, and sunny three months ago. Now, in
the gloom of the emergency lights, Van could see how he would look when he was old. Then Van remembered he was never going
to grow old.
“Give me Nebraska. Your army will fence it in. If anyone tries to leave, they will be shot—no exceptions. I will have the electrical grid shut off. I will blight the fields to create mass starvation. I will keep fires burning, so the sky remains black with soot and the sun is never seen. I will ask for ninety-nine virgins a year and I will insist their deaths be broadcast on national TV in prime time. We will have our own Major League Baseball team, but they will only play home games, and at the end of every match the losing pitcher will be beheaded on the mound. I will poison the waters with my tears and allow only two beverages to the citizenry: Diet Dr Pepper and Schlitz.”
“I don’t think we can give you Nebraska,” Valentine said, and he shot a questioning glance at Francis.
Francis gave his head a little shake. “Yeah, Nebraska is off the table.”
“And you said I could have anything. Kiss me, you big tease.” And Donna puckered her lips and made smacking noises.
“Is there some other way we can . . . serve you?” Valentine asked.
“Your nation already serves me. It was serving me in My Lai, where American soldiers shot old women and raped children. It
was serving me when your people butchered the village of No Gun Ri in North Korea. You served me every day you offered your
money and your intelligence to Augusto Pinochet while he disappeared his enemies—seizing them and taking them to places much
like this, to force information out of them, and then dispose of them. You offer me your allegiance, but I already have it.”
“Let me live,” said Valentine. “Please. Let me offer someone in my place. I can offer a whole bunch of someones if necessary.
I’m not ready to die. I’m doing important work!”
“How many someones? Five?”
Valentine nodded.
“Five then,” King Sorrow said from Donna’s mouth. “But their names must remain between the two of us. I don’t want your Mr.
Francis to hear. Or the microphone. Come close and I’ll whisper them to you.”
Valentine rose like one in a trance, swaying a little, and Van thought, You dumb ass, don’t do that, but suddenly he couldn’t find his voice. Valentine took a step next to Donna’s reclining seat and began to lean forward.
“The fuck you doing?” Francis asked, getting up himself. “Grab him! Stop him!”
Salem began to move forward, but he had to make his way around the recliner, and by then Valentine was leaning toward Donna’s
lips. He had turned his good ear to her mouth.
Van saw her eyes snap open and they were yellow, stained with poisonous, jagged bands of red, and her pupils slit like a snake’s.
Her jaw fell open. They somehow seemed to come unhinged, her chin dropping too far, almost falling to her breastbone, and King Sorrow’s great green claw leapt out of her open mouth
and peeled Valentine’s good left ear off the side of his head, and some of his cheek too. He raked off half of Valentine’s
face in one swipe. Valentine howled. His knees buckled. He dropped his clipboard. The ear was still impaled on the claw when
it was yanked back down Donna’s throat. Her mouth snapped shut . . . but only for an instant.
“Johnny,” she muttered, in King Sorrow’s voice. “John Leonard Boone. If you want to live, get off your knees and kill Valentine. Beat him to death with that club on your belt. Do it now and I will
spare your sorry, pointless life. Kill him for me and you’ll live to see your fiancée again.”
Boone—the big boy Van had always known as Little Rock—lifted his head and stared across the room at Valentine.
“Don’t listen to him,” Francis told him. “He’s lying to you.”
Valentine collapsed. He writhed on the floor, screaming. Dr. Patrick dropped to one knee beside him, got a hand under his
head.
“Sweet Jesus,” she said. “He’s bleeding like a stuck cow. I need something to put pressure on this. Lansing? Lansing!”
Lansing had stiffened, a thin whining sound coming out of his pursed lips, his fingernails digging into Van’s arm.
Boone gazed at Valentine like a man in a trance, his face slack.
“In the name of Christ,” Mr. Francis said. “Don’t do it, Boone.”
Boone unholstered his nightstick. His eyes were wide and unseeing. He came heavily to his feet and began to stagger toward
Valentine, stepping around Van’s recliner.
“Shoot him!” Mr. Francis shouted.
Boone made it three steps before Salem began firing from the far side of the room.
In the enclosed space of the examination room, the gun stunned Van’s eardrums into near deafness.
Salem’s first shots missed Little Rock entirely and whapped into the picture window facing the hallway.
The glass fissured into a thousand blue pebbles with an audible crackling.
The window collapsed a moment later, raining to the floor in a loud clatter.
Nurse Lansing threw himself across Van’s body, getting low.
“Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me, you assholes, I’m a valuable US asset!” Van screamed. He could hardly hear his own voice
over the ringing in his ears.
A bullet struck the boy John Boone in the neck and tore it open. He kept coming. Another bullet hit him in the shoulder and
half spun him. He went on. He was lifting his nightstick to club Valentine in the skull when Valentine himself lashed out
with one foot, kicking Boone’s leg from under him. Boone went down on one knee and a bullet struck him in the center of the
forehead, snapped his head back.
“Hold your fire!” Mr. Francis yelled. Salem was walking forward, lowering his gun to point it at the body on the floor, the
muzzle flashing as it went off again and again. “Stop shooting! Stop stop STOP!”
Salem stopped and stood over Little Rock’s body, studying it impassively. The air was hazy with propellant, the smell of gunfire,
and the coppery zing of blood. Nurse Lansing stayed where he was, lying across Van’s chest, his arms around him.
“Thank you, man,” Van said. “Thank you. You can get up now.”
Nurse Lansing didn’t move. Van’s chest was wet, and he wondered if Nurse Lansing was having himself a little cry.
Valentine kicked and twisted on the floor, screeching hysterically, one hand clapped over an ear that was still very much
there. Of course it was still there. It wasn’t Easter yet. They had all seen King Sorrow yank the ear off the side of his
face, but only in a kind of shared dream, one of King Sorrow’s powerful suggestions . . . a preview of coming attractions.
“Hey,” Van said, in a louder voice. “Nurse Lansing. Valentine is okay. He’s still got his ears on. More or less.”
Nurse Lansing still didn’t reply. Van was conscious of something sticky drooling down his left arm. He began to get a bad
feeling.
Donna rolled her head on her neck. Her eyes were still those of a serpent. Her voice was still his voice.
“Oops,” King Sorrow said.
The lights spasmed and flickered back on as the generator roared to life. Donna blinked and her eyes were her own again. Under
the glare of the fluorescents, it was easier to see the wet red mess of Nurse Lansing’s hair. The electric bolts slammed open
and the door crashed in. Men in polo shirts spilled through. Donovan fixed his gaze on the ceiling, didn’t look while men
lifted Nurse Lansing off him.
“If someone could get a washcloth,” Van said, “I think I’ve got brains running down my arm.”