Hangman, page 10
William nodded. “I do,” he said.
*
Warren hoped he could live up to the blind faith, the trust, the sudden love, in the boy’s bright young eyes.
But faith was what was needed, wasn’t it?
“Faith,” said Warren, uncomfortable talking about such things to a small child, but sometimes there was no way except to forge ahead through the tough things. “Faith’s what we need.”
“We don’t need to just, you know, clean it off?”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s the intention that matters. The faith. It’s not about the ... blood. We just have to mean it. Like the people who did this, they’re evil. You know what that means?”
“Of course,” said William.
Warren nodded. Of course he did. Even the young had some concept of evil, if only from cartoons and make-believe. If they were lucky, they didn’t know what the word truly meant, but William’s knowledge, after all he’d seen this day, was better than most.
Once again, Warren marveled at the boy’s strength. He’d seen his mother murdered, his father mortally wounded. He’d seen the corpses strung up in the church, and the severed heads that had adorned the altar like some grim, dark sacrifice.
And yet he looked up at Warren with complete, implicit trust.
“You know how to pray?” Warren asked, disarmed in the face of William’s sincerity.
“I’ve never done it,” said William. “On your knees, though, with your hands together.”
Warren thought to tell him that this didn’t matter either, but sometimes it helped to focus on something.
“Yes,” he said. “Like that.”
“Will it fix Daddy?”
Warren wanted to deny it, but couldn’t, not in the face of the purity in the boy’s eyes.
“Maybe,” he lied, because it was one thing to tell a child the truth, but sometimes lies were for the best.
*
The door to the church opened inward, but now a pew stood in front of it.
“You think that will hold them?” said Sam.
“Don’t know,” said John, sucking his teeth. They looked like his own teeth to Sam. She imagined he’d have a good smile, with his own teeth, yellow with nicotine or not, and that bushy gray beard. He would have made a good character in a book, she thought, then kicked herself. Thinking like she wasn’t going to make it out of this alive. She knew thinking like that’d get her killed.
She wanted to live.
In this insane fucking village, where everyone was trying to kill the five of them. Crazy fucking newsagents, maids, a church from nightmares even her darkest thoughts wouldn’t have been able to dredge up. Even now the blood stained the old pews, and the iron hooks that had been used to hang the bodies were still present, rusted and bloodied and clinking gently in some unfelt breeze.
“How many shells have you got for that thing?”
John felt around in his pocket. “Don’t know,” he said. “Ten?”
“You think that’ll be enough?”
“Nope.”
“Thanks for the reassurance.”
John laughed. “You’re pretty resilient. Doesn’t this freak you out?”
“Of course it does,” said Sam. “I’m shitting myself.”
John laughed again. “Me, too.”
“What’s going on in this town, John?”
He shook his head. “Something strange, something bad. Been going on a while. Whatever happens,” he said, “I think it’s going to end soon.”
“Are you a good shot?”
John patted the stock of the shotgun. “With this? Pretty good, but I figure close up with a shotgun, it doesn’t really matter. Young lady—”
“Sam, please.”
“Sam, will you do something for me?”
“Why not? Final hour, right? Got to have a last request.”
John nodded, smiled, but didn’t laugh. Sam noted he did have a good smile. Full of character, and his long old teeth did look good, poking out beneath his bushy mustache.
“If I fall ... well ... pick up this old shotgun and take a few of them with you, okay?”
“I don’t know if I can kill someone.”
John shook his head. Ignored her. He patted his right coat pocket. “Shells are in here,” he said. “Got to be realistic about this thing, okay? Miss ... Sam—there’s a whole village out there. I don’t know how many have gone over to him, but enough. I’m not the only one with a gun, you understand that? I’m not the only one. This whole village, hell, there’s probably fifty shotguns rattling around out there. It’s the country, not the inner city. Probably there’s more guns per square mile in the country than in the roughest city. Got to be realistic.”
“I still don’t know if I could shoot someone—”
“Don’t be daft,” said John. “If you have to, you will. You’ve got the boy to think of now, too.”
She thought for a second to say no she didn’t, but of course, she did, didn’t she? His mother was dead. His father was dying. Bad people were coming. She couldn’t avoid it. The old man, Warren Johns, and her—they all had to protect the boy.
She felt it. Felt it in her soul. There was something special about the boy, and it wasn’t a choice she had. She was here. He was here, and the bad people were coming. Something bad lurked in the night, and even though she’d never been around children, something primal in her knew she’d keep the boy safe.
No matter what.
“Show me how the gun works,” she told John.
*
32.
The monkey and the teddy bear that was something more than a teddy bear led the procession of the damned.
The gone, the bereft, those that could not fight it anymore. The tired and hungry, the depressed, the angry ... there was a way into so many people’s hearts, for one who knew where to look.
The monkey brought a new religion to the town of Frampton, became a dark messiah, preaching the word of his lord: the Hangman, the one to come.
And they came, in their multitudes. Maybe a hundred people, following the monkey and the teddy bear and the trash cart through the fog and the deepening night, the fog pushed aside for those who came to be reborn in blood.
The butcher, Mrs. Allinson, the Hunter twins, the baker, George and his partner Stephan, a man with a cane, an old lady in a wheelchair, David Pope, who’d once been arrested and served time for molesting Katherine Reed when she was thirteen years old, Katherine Reed and her parents, Josephine Cartwright from the post office—all walked in silence.
They carried rolling pins and frying pans. Saws, axes, screwdrivers, hammers, knives. A few carried shotguns. The old lady in the wheelchair rested a long gun across her lap, something from before time that probably would blow her own head off if she tried to use it.
All manner of weapons, all manner of people, and they all had one thing in common: they had taken sacrament.
The blind and the stupid in the town watched their televisions, the dark procession hidden from them in the all-enveloping fog. The blind ate their evening meals in peace, unaware of the darkness in the town. Some thought it strange that their cars would not start, that their phones would not work. Some, too, thought the fog eerie and otherworldly. They did not venture forth to walk dogs, or go to the small shop that sold milk and butter and bread ... they went without, thinking they could not be bothered. It was too damn cold ... too dangerous in the fog.
Maybe fewer than half stayed in. Maybe more than half walked through the fog with all manner of weapons.
Not the whole town, but enough. Enough to carry the night.
*
33.
“Pray, William. Pray,” said Warren.
“What should I pray for?” said the little boy.
“Just pray for what you need, pray for all of us, for yourself. Praise the Lord and raise your voice. Let him hear, let him know he is loved in this place.”
“I’m not religious.”
“Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care. People think he does, but he cares for love, William. Not for worship. Show him love.”
William put his head down so that his chin rested on his chest, and clasped his hands before him, on his knees.
“Dear God,” he began.
Something thumped against the windows and he heard Sam gasp behind him, but both sounds were distant.
“Carry on, William,” said the big man. William felt safe with the big man.
Someone was banging on the door, but it was a long way away, like when his mum banged on his door in the morning and his head was fuzzy with sleep and dreams ... so many dreams, dreams he never remembered the moment after waking, but tried to hold on to, nonetheless.
William didn’t know where to go from “Dear God,” but suddenly the words came to him, and he began to speak, his voice gaining strength, gaining volume, almost like he was just rambling, playing at praying, but he let the words come and fall from his mouth into the hollow, cold air of the church, and as he spoke the air began to feel warmer.
William squeezed his eyes shut and talked to God. He figured it didn't matter if God couldn't talk back.
*
Sam looked up at the things thumping on the high windows and thought, wasn’t sure, but thought, that someone outside was throwing heads at the window.
“John—”
“I know,” he said.
“Is that loaded now?”
“Yep.”
“You going to shoot?”
John nodded his head. He had a kind face, thought Sam, and as she thought it she imagined his beard drenched in blood. She didn’t like her imagination sometimes. She wanted him to live. She wanted to live.
She could hear William praying, his voice rising to the heavens, practically roaring his prayer in that childish way of shouting, not deep enough yet to rattle, but all treble.
She could hear the steady thumping of the heads bouncing against the windows. There was a shotgun blast, and one of the high windows blew in.
Then the knocking began. Knock, knock, knock, on the door to the church.
Knock, knock, knock.
And she knew that if it was the last thing she did, she never wanted to answer that knock. She’d shoot herself with John’s gun before it came to that.
“John—”
“I know. But no,” he said, “I won’t shoot you. You’ve got the boy to look after, remember?”
“We’re not going to make it—”
“You are,” said John, and Sam marveled at his confidence and kindness. She almost believed him.
*
“Dear God,” said William, beginning again.
“I love my mummy. I love my daddy. Warren and Sam have been nice to me, too. The old man, I don’t remember his name, he’s trying to look after Daddy and me. I’m sad—”
He paused for a moment, trying to think of what to say next, and remembered what Warren had told him.
He looked over his shoulder at his daddy, on the cold stone floor, blood all around him like a belly's halo, about to go to sleep, his eyes drifting shut ... drifting open.
William remembered his mummy. She wasn’t in the church. She couldn’t find the way in. Probably because it was so dirty, and she couldn’t see God. Warren said the church was dirty, and all the blood...the bodies...
He remembered the way her eyes, too, had drifted shut as she fell to the floor and he cracked his knee on the cold lino in the mad chef’s kitchen.
Both, the focus of his young world, gone.
William thought about his friends at school, and his teachers, and his grandparents, and his parents’ friends. Thought about all the people that loved him.
Thought about how these people in here were willing to fight against evil, and no matter what Warren thought, William understood evil perfectly well.
William thought about all those things and knew what he needed to pray for. It wasn’t for his daddy’s life, or his mummy back, or even for the lives of his friends here in this church. He heard a shotgun go off, and heard the terrible knocking, and all the while he’d been praying, shouting, screaming, without even realizing it.
“Dear God! Dear God!” he had been shouting, over and over and over, shouting over the cries of the damned and the fire of shotguns and the wrenching of the door against the heavy pew, shouting all the time, because it wasn’t about the words, it was about the intent and that was all that mattered, all that had ever mattered.
*
34.
Knock, knock, knock.
The crowd outside the door fell silent, though William’s shouting was a cacophony, echoing around the frozen church, bouncing back from the stonewalls and the high, vaulted ceiling.
Then the door began to open. The heavy pew in front of it swung back, too, the old wood grating against the smooth flagstones, slivers of ice bunching against the pew.
Of course it was never going to hold them back, never could. The best part of a village, the weight of numbers ...
They were always going to get in.
“Whatever you’re doing, Warren, you’d better get on with it,” shouted Sam over the cries of the child praying.
“Let’s give them a little time, shall we?” said John. They walked toward the door, slowly opening, and John pushed the shotgun out toward the night and opened up with both barrels.
The noise was astounding. Sam’s eardrums felt like they were going to explode, both from the blast and the terrible scream that came from outside. Another shotgun replied, and a knife sailed through the opening door, narrowly missing John’s head. The old man reloaded calmly, and suddenly, inexplicably, instead of panicking, Sam felt calm descend on her, too. She walked over to where the knife had landed and picked it up.
It was just a paring knife, maybe with a three-inch blade. But it was better than nothing.
John unleashed both barrels of the shotgun again, and while he was reloading, Sam slashed at a hand that crept round the door, rewarded with a cry of pain.
For some reason she was smiling. She didn’t like the feel of that smile, but it stayed, no matter how hard she tried to shift it.
John raised the gun again.
*
Warren closed both eyes. He could hear the thumping of heads against the windows—too high for people, but not so high that the gone couldn’t hurl severed heads against the glass, trying to break it, let the night in.
It was full dark now; almost pitch in the church but for an eerie glow from the fog in the night outside.
He couldn’t see a way out, but the boy continued to shout his beautiful and simple litany and then something happened. A light began to grow in the rear of the church. It was an ethereal light, something from another realm. Warren understood it for what it was. He was a walker. He saw things others did not, and in that light he saw salvation.
Not for him. No. Not for him.
He checked William and saw that the boy was in the throes of some kind of religious ecstasy, his words a howl that filled the church from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. William’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut, his fists clenched in front of him. Like he was crying out his anger and his sorrow for God to hear.
Who knows, thought Warren. Maybe God would hear. Maybe the strange light at the rear of the church was something of God. Maybe a priest would know, but Warren wasn’t a priest. He was a walker.
The door to the church was opening. He heard the shotgun blasts. He heard Sam scream, but it was all somewhere distant.
He was a walker now, not a fighter. Salvation waited at the end of that light.
He left Sam, and John, and William. Left them screaming and fighting and walked to the rear of the church and followed the light down.
*
35.
He followed that beautiful light down, down beneath the church, and he understood. He could feel it: the way out.
Beneath the church there was a long passageway. Musty air cooled on his skin; the motes of dust floated around him. He put his foot on the first stone step leading down. It was slippery with damp and moss. The air was fetid, but this wasn’t a crypt. He felt no dead down here, just age and disuse. He couldn’t imagine the last time the passage had been used. The light stayed long enough for him to see the passageway, then it faded to nothing. His sight was remarkable, but he couldn’t see in the pitch dark.
Maybe that other dark servant would be able to see down here, but Warren could not. Did the servant know of this place?
No.
If he did, the gone would have flooded into the church from below, and wouldn’t have wasted themselves falling against the door and the bite of John’s shotgun. No. That other didn’t know. Only Warren.
He could just walk out, right now. Leave them behind.
He smiled to himself and turned back around. Because he had a job to do in this village, and it wasn’t in his nature to run. He understood why he had been shown the passage.
It wasn’t for him, but for them.
All of them? he wondered.
No. Of course not. William’s father would not be leaving. But the boy must. The boy must survive, because he was something special. What, Warren did not understand, but the boy had been sent to the village of Frampton as surely as he himself had, by a hand greater than his own.
He strode through the church, past the shouting boy, past Grant Bridges, slowly bleeding out, his eyes closed and his face peaceful. Warren spared him a glance, but Grant Bridges was no longer his work.
The boy was all that mattered now.
His long legs carried him over the icy flagstones with a sure-footed grace toward the entrance, where Sam and John fought side by side, and he joined the fray.
*
Grant opened his eyes one final time, looked up at the ceiling of the church. He saw light there, beautiful light, and wondered why more people didn’t die in church.
His eyes slipped closed, death running its course, as the door to the church finally burst all the way open and the faithless came running in, screaming, roaring for blood, but Grant Bridges had none left to give.
