Tracy met my gaze over Emily"s small form. Once again, we were on the same wavelength. We not only had to leave this place, we had to draw our circle even tighter. I wasn"t sure if Tracy meant we had to cut Martin and Wesley loose, but I knew instinctively that we could no longer trust strangers. As much as Alex had been an innocent victim, he"d led the primitives and the G.o.d of the New World directly to our steps. I had a feeling that if we"d killed him the moment he set foot on our property, we would not have attracted the G.o.d"s attention. It had possessed Naomi, whom we visited and killed-surely she had to be one of the undead hordes of primitives now burning outside. That was all it needed to get our scent.
But if this disease, this virus that flipped the DNA strand, was communicable, then Alex obviously had it.
And he"d probably pa.s.sed it on to one of us.
"Lori turned," I said quietly. "Martin and I shot her outside."
"That thing on the bed was Heather," Tracy said.
"Yeah," I confirmed. "It was Heather."
Tracy sighed. Still cradling our daughter, she summed everything up quickly. "If it can reanimate the dead it can tap into all the emotions we all carry inside. That"s how it found us, through Heather. It used the hatred she had toward us."
"Why isn"t this affecting us, though?" I asked. "Why hasn"t it taken over us the way it did with Alex and Naomi?"
Tracy was silent for a moment. Emily"s sobs were growing quieter. She looked up at Tracy, her eyes wide and worried. "Mommy?"
"You"re safe," Tracy whispered. She brushed a strand of Emily"s hair back and kissed her. "Go to sleep, honey."
Emily turned her head so that she was looking at me. Her eyes focused on me and she smiled. "Daddy!"
I managed a smile. "Hey pumpkin, how you feeling?"
"Better." Her expression seemed to suggest she was bottling her recent trauma up to deal with at another time. I reached out and took her hand, rubbing her fingers. "It"s still trying to get in."
"What"s still trying to get in?"
"The devil."
"What do you mean, baby?" Tracy asked.
I was now one hundred percent convinced Emily was gifted-or cursed-with some kind of extra-sensory ability. Her predictions of Alex this morning had been dead on.
"It got into Heather and used her," Emily said. "But Heather got too broke up. Like when Eric tore apart one of my dolls that one time and I couldn"t play with her anymore. Remember that Mommy?"
"I remember that," Tracy said. I nodded. I remembered that incident well. One of Eric"s obsessions as an autistic child was taking things apart-toys, CD Jewel cases, fountain pens-basically anything he could get his hands on. He"d taken Emily"s toys apart numerous times to the point that she started getting used to it. Hearing this from Emily confirmed my own theory on how Hanbi took possession of us and how it was able to manipulate the living and the dead.
"So...that thing is trying to get inside us?" I asked gently.
Emily nodded. "It"s trying to find other openings, but it can"t. It"s very angry."
"Do you think it can get into us?" I asked.
Emily looked at me for a moment and appeared to think about this. Finally, she shook her head. "No. It can"t. I don"t know why but...it can"t. And it doesn"t like that."
Tracy and I traded a glance over Emily"s head. "Emily, why was it able to get into Alex? You said earlier that he was a nice guy. It got into him, too."
"He was open," Emily said. "He and his wife were way open, she more than him. That"s who it gets into."
"What do you mean by open?" Tracy asked.
"I don"t know!" Emily sounded frustrated. Whatever she was feeling, she was simply describing it the best way she knew how.
"Are Martin and Wesley open?" I asked.
Emily shook her head emphatically. "No. Especially not Martin." She paused, her lips turning downcast as if she was about to cry again. "But Lori...Lori was open a little bit." She looked up at Tracy. "It got her, didn"t it?"
Tracy glanced at me quickly, then nodded. "Yes, honey. It got her."
Emily sniffed back her tears and wiped her cheeks. Once again, she suddenly seemed very grown-up to me for a brief instant. "I was afraid that might happen."
Another glance between Tracy and me. How much does Emily know about this thing?
I wondered what Emily meant by being open. Did she mean open to spiritual belief? If that was the case, why hadn"t it affected me? Despite my self-proclaimed agnostic beliefs, I always felt there was something out there. I"d always felt the spiritual world was too great for us mere mortals to understand. And what of Tracy, who, in her own terms had a belief in G.o.d but, in her words, wasn"t a big admirer of His fan club. She was still a believer. So why weren"t we affected? "So if everybody here isn"t open," I began, thinking aloud, "then we"re okay?"
Emily thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. "It will find others that are close by. And it"ll use what it got from Heather and come back to find us here."
That told me all I needed to know. There would definitely be more of them.
"Do you know when this might happen, honey?" Tracy asked.
Emily said nothing again; she had a blank stare, as if she were in a trance. As suddenly as she went into it, she was out of it. "Soon," she said.
"So we should leave now?"
Emily nodded.
That decided it for me. I got up. "Get some things together. I"m going to tell Martin and Wesley and help them gather essentials. We should leave inside the next hour."
Tracy nodded and then Wesley"s voice interrupted us.
"We got a radio broadcast! David, come down!"
Tracy gestured at me to go and I left the room to join Wesley.
Twenty Two Through all the excitement and the adrenaline rush, my injured arm had gone to sleep. Now it was awake and screaming as I tore down the stairs and made my way to the radio room.
As I crossed the threshold I saw Wesley seated at the console. Martin wasn"t anywhere to be seen. "Where"s Martin?"
"Outside standing guard," Wesley said. He turned a k.n.o.b on the control board. "Listen to this."
The pain in my upper left arm was growing enormous now. I gritted my teeth. "Let me take care of my arm first." I hustled out of the room.
"You okay?" Wesley asked. I could hear a voice coming over the radio, but I couldn"t make out what was being said. It definitely wasn"t Stuart"s. Wesley followed me out. "Need help?"
"I just want to patch this up," I said. I made my way into the kitchen. The lights were still off and the kitchen was dark. I turned on a battery-powered flashlight and found the first aid kit. As I rummaged through it, Wesley got a look at my arm. I heard him draw in a breath. "One of them bit me," I explained.
"No s.h.i.t," Wesley said. "This one looks worse than the one from earlier." Great, just what I needed to hear.
With his help, I got my chambray shirt off and Wesley helped me tend to the wound. By the light of the flashlight I saw that it was pretty d.a.m.n ugly. Using the pail of water Tracy had drawn earlier, Wesley cleaned the wound with a washcloth. It stung, and the area around the wound felt hot. I hoped it wasn"t infected. "You"re gonna need st.i.tches, David."
"I"ll get Tracy to st.i.tch me up later," I said. "Right now, I really think the first order of business is to pull up stakes and get the h.e.l.l out of here."
"I agree, but you"ve got to hear what this guy is saying." Wesley poured some peroxide onto a clean compress and prepared to wash the bite wound with it. "Okay, hold steady. This is gonna hurt worse than a motherf.u.c.k."
When he applied the compress it felt like firecrackers were exploding in the wound. I hissed, almost cried out. I forced myself to stay where I was and not move as Wesley applied the compress on my arm. "f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k!"
"I know," Wesley said. His features looked grim. "But bite wounds from normal humans are nasty enough. No telling what kind of diseases these primitives are carrying. It wasn"t a dead one that bit you, was it?"
"No," I said, the incident of the primitive barreling into me flashing before my eyes. "It wasn"t."
"This thing has to be sewn up," Wesley said again. He withdrew the compress and rummaged in the first aid kit for a bandage. He found a large one, got it out of its packaging and applied it. "Does it hurt a lot when you move your arm?"
"It does now."
"This guy broadcasting," Wesley said as he applied the bandage. "It isn"t Stuart, and he isn"t broadcasting Stuart"s call sign. He did give his location, though. He"s in Chicago, top floor of a high rise. I think he"s commandeered a really big radio or television station from the sound of it. There"s at least two, maybe three other people with him."
"What"s he saying?"
For the first time Wesley"s eyes held a glimmer of hope. "He"s calling this thing by the same G.o.dd.a.m.ned name you called it, David. Hanbi. That was the exact words he used. I don"t know how he made the connection, but he did. Or the people he"s with made the connection. Whatever...get this. He"s saying that Hanbi represents the father of various demons from ancient civilizations and that he"s probably the oldest deity known to mankind. He has a theory that Hanbi was worshipped by primitive man well before the written word, during the Stone Age, and that the tradition was pa.s.sed orally through the years. Anyway...he says he believes that as man advanced, belief in Hanbi died. This is pretty f.u.c.king obvious from what little you found in those books you brought back, but get this." Wesley leaned close to me and his hope was now obvious. It even lit a spark within me. "This guy is saying that when we reverted back to our primitive state it reawakened belief in Hanbi again. And because there"s more primitives-the human population of primitive man is greater now than it has ever been before in the history of the World-Hanbi is stronger than he"s ever been. And it"s the primitives collective belief in Hanbi that has not only made him this strong, but is sustaining him."
I finished what Wesley was about to say. "So diminishing Hanbi"s power means killing as many primitives as possible."
"Well...yeah." That spark died down a bit as the implications of trying to accomplish something this grand became obvious. Wesley stepped back.
I quickly stood up, favoring my left arm a bit. "I want to hear what he has to say," I said.
Wesley led me to the radio room. As we crossed the threshold, I heard the guy"s transmission. "-kill them whenever you see them. The more you kill, the more you lessen Hanbi"s power."
I nodded at the console. "Can we reach this guy?"
Wesley nodded and slid behind the console. He thumbed a switch and spoke into the mike. "I read you loud and clear, brother."
The guy stopped in mid-sentence. "Who do I have here?"
"Wesley, broadcasting from Montana."
I mouthed, is it a good idea to give away our location? Wesley nodded, gave me a thumbs up sign, but that didn"t make me any calmer. For all I knew this guy could be a fraud.
"Wesley from Montana, this is Tim from Chicago. Good to make your acquaintance."
A second voice chimed in. Female. "This is Lynn from Ma.s.sachusetts."
A third voice, a kid"s from the sound of it, probably no more than fifteen, male. "I"m Justin, from Maryland."
Other voices chimed in. Male. Female. Young. Old. It became obvious these people had been on this guy"s frequency for some time and had formed some kind of community here in radio-land. I lost track of the names, but there were roughly a dozen people, from all over the country. There were even a few from different countries; Australia, India, Germany, Brazil, Great Britain. As quickly as the introductions were made, Tim regained control. "We have several people broadcasting on different frequencies that are members of law enforcement and government. They"re in secure locations I won"t divulge. Some of them are working at establishing better communications with people overseas."
I felt a great relief come over me. I slumped down in a chair, my heart thudding. Was it really happening? Was this some attempt at trying to restore order?
"There was a guy named Stuart broadcasting with the WB3 call sign," Wesley said. "I think he was turned. He told me about...a traveling band of people who were killing people and taking hostages-"
"That group is being monitored," Tim said. "Trust me, we"re aware of them."
I suddenly had a thousand questions. But where to start?
"We just suffered casualties on our end," Wesley continued. "A bunch of primitives attacked us at our location and killed one of our people. They also...we believe, that is...that Hanbi raised them back from the dead."
"Hanbi has the power to do that," One of the people said. This was a woman, older by the sound of her voice. Educated. "Hanbi is Satan, you know."
"No, I don"t know," Wesley said. "I"m flying along with this whole Hanbi ancient G.o.d bulls.h.i.t theory by the seat of my a.s.s, lady. This thing is f.u.c.king real, it"s not some f.u.c.king supernatural boogeyman that"s-"
"You listen to me, Wesley," the woman said. The tone of her voice was direct. Commanding. In a past life she sounded like she could have been a schoolteacher and a firm disciplinarian. "This is not the devil of the pitchfork and h.e.l.lfire and brimstone that Christianity teaches. This is a creature that was alive hundreds of thousands of years ago when primitive man first walked the earth. He was strong then, and their faith in him now has increased because there are so many more of them. When primitive man came back, his belief systems came back. Therefore, Hanbi returned."
"So Hanbi was real to them back then?" I ventured. "If that"s the case, how come there"s no archeological record?"
"There wasn"t any because primitive man had no way of recording his belief system," the woman said. "The only hint we have of Hanbi is from ancient a.s.syrian writings." I felt a glimmer of vindication there at my earlier readings from the books I"d pilfered. "And as for physical records like engravings or remains, the record is scant. But let me tell you something. There are thousands of records and artifacts we"ve found that we have no explanation for, artifacts that date back to the early Paleolithic era that are simply filed away in museum bas.e.m.e.nts because we don"t know what they are."
"What are you, an anthropologist?
I detected the hint of a smile on the woman"s lips. "As a matter of fact, I am. I"m Wendy Campbell, professor of Anthropology at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. My specialty is ancient civilizations and prehistoric man."
I wanted Professor Campbell to confirm to me my theory of Pazuzu and Hanbi, my crazy theory that Hanbi was possessing the minds and bodies of the primitives at will, either alive or dead. I blurted this out and a couple of the people in our frequency chimed in to report they"d seen similar instances of possession. For a while we traded stories. Wesley related Stuart"s story, when he witnessed the strange worship/ritual in downtown Philly and how the sacrificed primitive had been resurrected and how one of them began physically changing into an entirely different creature, a miniature version of what we were now freely calling Hanbi. "There"s been long debate in my field as to whether Neanderthals held deep spiritual beliefs, much less performed sacrifices," Wendy said. "We just didn"t know because we didn"t have the evidence. I think it"s safe to say those belief systems existed."
"But this thing," Wesley said, leaning over the console. "How can it manifest itself into a flesh and blood thing and have such tremendous power?"
"And how can it change people physically?" I asked.
"It isn"t flesh and blood, but it sure seems that it is," Wendy agreed. She was silent for a moment. I was about to interject something else when she resumed. "Stigmata occurred in our former world. Devout Catholics would often manifest the wounds Jesus received when he was crucified. There are dozens of doc.u.mented cases on it. Sometimes the stigmata would appear unbidden, with no outward will of the penitent. Demonic possession itself continued to be a hotly debated topic in the Roman Church. The advent of modern psychiatry had a lot to do with its eventual relegation to the closet, but the Catholic Church continued to investigate cases of demonic possession up through the early years of this current century. And what of speaking in tongues? That language is said to be of the heavens, of the very angels themselves, is said to overwhelm those of strong religious faith during times of spiritual fervor?"
I was wondering when she would evoke walking over burning rocks, self-mutilation for appeas.e.m.e.nt to various deities, or images of the Virgin Mary appearing in toast or the bark of a tree. She beat me to that last one. "And if you"re expecting an explanation for images of the Virgin Mary appearing in a slice of pizza, then forget it. I don"t take hallucinations seriously."
I grinned. "So...Hanbi...or the manifestation of Hanbi, is the result of the collective will and belief of millions of people who have suddenly reverted to mankind"s most primitive state?"
"How is something like that possible?" Wesley intoned. "I mean...millions of people believed in an old dude who lived in the sky and had a long white beard and wore a long robe! How come he never physically materialized to clap his hands right before a f.u.c.king earthquake or tsunami or something?"
"People believed in G.o.d," Wendy explained. "And they probably had that image as you described, thanks to Michelangelo"s portrait on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But I think it"s very safe to say that believers of all Abrahamic belief systems did not believe that G.o.d would physically manifest in the flesh in our world. And even when the theory was put forth in fiction, G.o.d came in the form of George Burns or Alanis Morrisette. Or a Polar Bear. Even when G.o.d was portrayed as the old man with the long white hair and beard holding a staff, n.o.body seriously believed he looked like that. That image was carefully cultivated and refined over thousands of years. Likewise for other G.o.d-like figures. Christ, for instance. As much as various religious sects wanted to believe Christ would return to earth and whisk the saved to heaven before the end times, as many times as the tribulations were predicted by various sects, that failed to happen because I believe, deep down, buried in our subconscious, those who held such beliefs never really expected them to happen."
"So why would this be any different?" I asked.
"How much history do you know?" Wendy asked.
"Quite a bit," I said. Wesley echoed this. Others chimed in their ignorance or knowledge of various historical events.
"Think back five hundred years ago, to the Spanish Inquisition. To the Salem Witch Trials," Wendy continued. "The belief in witchcraft and devil worship was widespread. The belief in demonic possession was as common as you or I believing in the science of gravity. Likewise, the belief that a person could be cursed with lycanthropy or vampirism was equally widespread. There are more cases of lycanthropy between the fifteenth and early nineteenth century than at any other time in recorded human history. Peter Stubbe is a well-doc.u.mented lycanthrope. He was burned at the stake for being a werewolf in fifteenth century Germany. He"s only one of many."
"Stubbe was what we"d call a serial killer today," I said. I was well aware of the Stubbe case from a volume on true crime I had at my old house, in a time that seemed far away from me now.
"True," Wendy observed. "But that doesn"t explain the hundreds of cases I"ve unearthed in my graduate studies of medieval times. Witness accounts on record actually told of men-and women-physically changing into werewolves. Likewise, Church doc.u.ments describe in great detail the physical changes that overcomes those who become possessed by demons or the devil himself."