"Yeah," Justin said. "Why don't we?"

But neither boy stepped forward. They stayed put, out of sight in the tree line as the tall man turned his back to Fred Hagen and cast those impossibly long arms of his high into the air. His fingers began to wiggle. Then his hands dropped down and so did the black tarp covering the flatbed truck he and Hagen stood before.

"How'd he-"

"Look at that!" Justin said, both boys staring in wide-eyed amazement at the cages lining the flatbed trailer. A woman in one cage, a young boy in another. The woman was gripping the bars; her face was pressed against them. There was sorrow on that face, extreme dismay in her eyes-even from his spot in the tree line, Justin could see that. The boy was on his knees, praying, Justin thought. And barely visible, in the corner of the cage at the rear of the trailer...

"Jesus," Reardon said. "Look at that guy; he ain't got no arms... or legs!"

"Wow," said Justin.

And now the conversation was quite animated. Angry, even. Fred Hagen sure looked angry. Probably because of what he'd seen housed in those cages. But the tall man just smiled down at him as if he were a complaining child. Then out came the corncob pipe, and Justin's eyes grew even wider, but not so wide as his friend's, maybe. Certainly not as wide as Freddy Hagen's when fire sparked between the tall man's thumb and forefinger, and he touched that blazing digit to the bowl of his pipe. Then came a sudden shift in temperature-the icy chill racing up Justin's spine as an impossibly perfect, three-foot-round smoke ring hung frozen in front of Deputy Hagen's face, the edges around it thin as a picture frame. And something was in that ring of smoke, too-what, Justin didn't know; he couldn't tell. But whatever it was sure put a look of fear on Fred Hagen's face, which seemed to go suddenly gaunt, and then slack, as the tall man waved his hand and the smoke ring moved forward, across, almost through Hagen's face, before lifting slowly away, rising higher and higher, changing as it rose, from a thin, wide circle to a mirror image of the stovepipe hat that rested upon the tall man's head.

Up, up, and up it went, rising into the clear blue sky, that white frame of a top hat perfectly visible no matter how high it rose.

"Geez," Justin said.

"No s.h.i.t," said Mickey Reardon, as the image climbed higher and higher... higher still, until it disappeared into a cloud, and the cloud-one that a moment ago had looked to Justin like the caboose of a train-began to change. To mold and meld, to twist and turn until it too took on the shape of the thing that had entered it.

"Look at that!" Reardon said, as the cloud, which had been drifting slowly across the horizon, suddenly stood frozen in place. Slowly, a blemish began to form at its base, a small black dot that began to branch out in either direction, until a thin line was racing off, out and around, around and up, and the narrow black line, having traced a perfect outline of that stovepipe hat, finally came together at its peak. This event, this coming together of lines, seemed to fire off a chain reaction that set the wispy white, gossamer-like body of the cloud to churning. Roiling and boiling, the black edge of it began seeping like an oil spill, creeping ever inward from all sides until it came together in a dark ululating ma.s.s, a swirling sea of ebon waves. A gigantic black cloud in the shape of the tall man's stovepipe hat, framed by the clear blue sky surrounding it. Frozen in place for all to see.

"Look at that," Reardon said.

"I know," said Justin, his wide eyes still turned toward the sky.

"No, man," Reardon said. "That!"

Justin turned. His eyes, still wide, now seemed as if they might pop right out of his skull. The tall man, in his top hat and tails, stood in the middle of the clearing, those long arms stretched out at his sides, palms up, fingers fully extended. Slowly, ever so slowly, his hands began to rise, and as they rose, so rose the tent the workers had stretched across the ground. Like the circle of smoke: up, up, and up it went, until before them stood a fully erect carnival tent. And out of that tent, which moments ago had been an empty sheet of weather-beaten canvas lying flat on the ground, people began to emerge: a fat woman with curly black hair, a short man, who wore a straw hat and a red and white striped sports jacket. Out came a young girl in a skin-tight halter top, with blonde hair and gigantic b.r.e.a.s.t.s-"Look at *em!" Reardon said. "Look at her t.i.ts!"

Behind her came a midget dressed in a multicolored jester's costume. The pointed shoes he wore looked like they'd stepped straight out of One Thousand And One Arabian Nights. He walked hand-in-hand with a peg-legged woman; she was thin, not much taller than he was. Dark red hair spilled over her shoulders in ringlets and curls. She was smiling, moving quite gracefully on her wooden leg. Two more men followed-one, short and fat, bald on top with a black goatee on his chin. The other man, tall and thin with curly brown hair, wore a white t-shirt striped with horizontal blue lines. He had a ring in his ear and one in his nose. Out they came, all of them, into the clearing, smiling and laughing and nodding to the tall man, who now had an arm around Fred Hagen's shoulder.

Justin looked up at the sky, at the black cloud frozen in its middle, and knew that something had changed-like a change in the weather, he could feel it.

Something dark and dangerous had come to Pottsboro, South Carolina.

Darker even than the motionless cloud that looked down upon them all.

Chapter Five.

Ritchie Scovul was in the den when it happened. Leaning back in his La-Z-Boy chair, feet in the air, his fat a.s.s sunk into the plush leather cushions. It had been a long, hard week at the plant. There was a bug going around the place; some kind of stomach virus had chased half his shift away from the a.s.sembly line, leaving Ritchie stuck in his very own private h.e.l.l, one that had stretched his normal ten hour workday to sixteen. Ten hours a day four days a week sounded pretty darn good back when the plant changed its scheduling format. Friday's off, even better. And it was great. Of course, back in the beginning, those two extra hours had taken a little getting used to. After ten years of seven-to-four, it had felt a bit weird walking out of the place at six o'clock in the evening, especially in the winter time, when it was dark when he left his house and dark when he finally returned. Yep, all that took a little getting used to. But in the long run, it had been well worth the adjustment. Sleeping late on Friday, he would have pretty much the entire day to go fishing, to grab his shotgun and traipse off to the woods. Or kick around town, maybe. Hang out at the Wagon Wheel, or even haul a.s.s over to Columbia if he felt like it.

Friday, his very own personal play-day.

But not this Friday. Not yesterday, when he trudged off to work feeling like a downtrodden slave. Sure, the overtime was nice-great, actually. But enough was enough, and this morning, Ritchie Scovul had finally had enough. So when the alarm clock shattered his sleep, he rolled over and shut it off, picked up the telephone and relayed a little message to Bob Roberts, the asininely-named shop foreman who never seemed to leave the place-seriously, what was his name, Robert Roberts?

"Sorry, Bob," he'd told him. "But that G.o.dd.a.m.n flu bug's done gone and latched itself right onto my a.s.s. And I ain't coming in to work today."

Then he hung up the phone and rolled his two-hundred and sixty pound frame up in his sheets, and went right on back to sleep. By the time he climbed out of bed it was one o'clock in the afternoon. He showered and shaved, brushed his teeth and threw on some underwear. Grabbed a beer from the fridge and went down the hallway to the living room, where he snapped on the TV and plopped down in his easy chair. It wasn't Friday, but it d.a.m.n sure felt good to be away from the h.e.l.l hole that plant had become, felt great knowing he could do whatever he wanted with his day.

He was stretched out in his La-Z-Boy chair when it happened, watching *the old ball coach' on television. The Gators were over in Columbia today, and though the wily old coach wouldn't come right out and say it, Ritchie could read between the lines. This was the year they'd finally send those p.r.i.c.ks back to Florida with their tails dragging between their legs, tears in their eyes and sorrow in their hearts. Coach sure thought so; Ritchie could see it written all over that smug little face of his.

He was tipping back his beer when he felt it. A stirring deep within, a tingling of the spine, and, yes, gooseflesh, scurrying across his flesh like an army of c.o.c.kroaches. He'd felt this way plenty of times in his life. It had been a while, but he'd felt it, all right. Down in the princ.i.p.al's office, lo those many years ago. The time the old man caught him and his brother with a six pack and told Ritchie to go cut a G.o.dd.a.m.n switch. Sitting in the cell after that first DWI, wondering if they'd find the bag of pot he'd stashed between the seats when the siren went off and those blue lights went to strobing, how many years he'd be gone if they did find it.

And now here it was again.

And something else. The temperature in the house had changed, grown suddenly cool, cold on his bare skin as he sat in his La-Z-Boy in nothing but his underwear. He couldn't hear the television anymore, either, could not register what the old ball coach was saying. Didn't care if he ever heard the silly p.r.i.c.k speak ever again, for that matter.

Something was happening here. What, he didn't know, and wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

Ritchie didn't want to get up and go outside, did not want to leave his chair. Something was waiting for him out there, something he didn't want to see. He didn't want to get up, but he did, and before he knew it he was padding barefoot across the hardwood floor... through the front door and out onto the porch, down the stairs and into the yard.

He didn't feel the twigs digging into his feet as he crossed the lawn, the rocks or the pebbles either, nor the cool breeze blowing across his bare skin. Just a slow sinking feeling when he suddenly stopped, tilted back his head and looked up at the sky, a feeling of utter dread that started in the pit of his stomach and spread quickly throughout him.

Chapter Six.

Tricia Reardon was worried about her son, worried he might find out why his father had left them, where he'd gone and why. It wasn't her fault Rick Reardon had been a lying, cheating dirt-bag, a piece of s.h.i.t who couldn't keep his pants up or his zipper fastened. Wasn't her fault whoring around town with his worthless friends meant more to him than his own family. But Mickey wouldn't see it that way. h.e.l.l, Tricia's mother didn't see it that way. Her own mother, who one fine Sunday morning looked her daughter dead in the eye, and told her, *Maybe if you wore a little more makeup, honey. Give him what he wants-you know-whatever he needs, in bed'.

Yeah, right. Whatever that perverted son of a b.i.t.c.h wanted was far more than Tricia was willing to give him, much more than she would ever be willing to put up with. So off he went to the drunkards and derelicts, the dopers and the wh.o.r.es. Off he went, and good f.u.c.king riddance, as far as Tricia was concerned. Only she couldn't tell Mickey-she didn't dare. He wouldn't understand. Never in a million years would he understand. He was just too young. h.e.l.l, she wasn't sure she understood it herself.

Growing up, Tricia had been a fairly bright girl. Not college material, maybe, but clever enough to steer free of trouble. She'd been a cheerleader, a straight-laced student with higher marks than most. A good girl, with the right kind of friends, a girl who, in one wild and bizarre night, had taken up with the rebel from the wrong side of the tracks. He was different from the boys she'd dated, from the boys she'd been used to. Long brown hair and muscles, tattoos on his arms and one on his neck-a Chinese symbol of lines and dashes that, translated, meant: Rule The Day. A cool dude who smoked and drank, and played his guitar in a rock and roll band, he was the exact opposite of every boy she'd ever known.

She was a little tipsy the night they met. It had been an exciting game of lead changes and swings of momentum, one that finally saw her team ram the pigskin across the goal line for that last-second victory, leaving Tricia and her fellow cheerleaders in the parking lot hoisting a couple of celebratory beers. She didn't think a few hits off the joint Rick showed her was such a big deal. After all, it wasn't the first time she'd smoked the stuff-many a time she and her friends had partied. She was a good girl, but she wasn't a nun, for chrissakes. But she sure wasn't prepared for whatever Rick Reardon showed up with that night, wasn't prepared for the chemical aftertaste, or the way her body began shutting down. First came the slurring of her speech. Then came the lightheadedness, the rubbery legs that refused to allow her to walk away. It was hot, and it was sweaty, and before she knew it he was all over her, pressing against her. On her, in her.

And then it was over.

Something she'd hung onto for seventeen years, gone in one frenzied moment of sweltering madness. A one night stand with a boy who, although he was cool, she could never have been serious about, and most definitely would never have wanted to see again. But she had to see him again. Not because he'd rung her bell-she didn't even know she'd had a bell to ring. h.e.l.l, she didn't even know how he'd felt inside her, couldn't remember much past raising that thinly-rolled joint to her lips. Her first s.e.xual encounter, that special event she had planned on pressing between her life's pages, forever remembering giving herself over on her wedding night to her once in a lifetime soul mate, had become a vague memory seen only through the drug-induced haze that had sp.a.w.ned it. And now she could hardly remember it at all. Her first s.e.xual encounter, and she barely even knew it had happened.

If not for the life growing within her, she would have put it out of her thoughts entirely. And it didn't take long to figure that life was rising deep within her. A few weeks went by. Time pa.s.sed and, much to her horror, nothing happened. Late for what she now realized was the most important event of her young life, a terrifying realization began to settle over her. She didn't know what to do, where to go or who to turn to, and pretty soon it was too late to do anything at all. Except tell the truth when her condition could no longer be kept secret. Gone were her hopes and dreams, along with whatever plans she had been formulating these last few years: meet a wonderful young man who would wine her and dine her, and sweep her off her feet. He'd have a good job, one to be proud of. They'd marry and have children. A house would soon follow, a happy home to shelter them from the world outside. A nice car, clothes, good friends who would come over during the day while their husbands were hard at work.

But it would never happen, because it was over. Gone were her friends, who were no longer allowed to a.s.sociate with her. Her reputation, which up to that point had been d.a.m.ned near una.s.sailable-that was gone too, along with the trust her parents had always afforded her. Gone, like everything else, replaced by Rick Reardon, a drunken lout, who in their first three years of marriage had as many jobs as he'd had haircuts. And, Tricia would eventually come to find out, twice as many affairs and one night stands.

The years dragged on, leaving Tricia to deal with one unhappy event after another. Sleepless nights, waiting for Rick to come home. Voices in the night from anonymous callers, whispered taunts from soft-spoken, sultry voices, who laughed and giggled, and asked Tricia if she knew where her husband was. The years dragged on, and so did the heartache, those brief flashes of normal every day life he would allow her to experience giving way to one gut wrenching episode after another, a horrendous string of humiliations that threatened to tear her apart, until she finally began to wonder if she had much of a heart left at all. Or much of a life that was worth living.

The only constant in this sad and depressing existence was her loving son, this innocent being, who wanted only that his mother and father get along, and love each other as much as he loved the two of them. The only constant was her beautiful boy, and the wh.o.r.es her faithless husband couldn't seem to stay away from. Well, they could have his sorry a.s.s now. If they could find it.

These were the thoughts running through her head as she sat at the bar inside the Wagon Wheel lounge at three o'clock that Sat.u.r.day afternoon, a bottle of beer in front of her, a shot of Jim Beam beside it. That was what her life came down to these days. A shot and a beer in her favorite watering hole. Anything to get away from her sad and lonely house, and the memories of what had occurred there.

She downed the shot-her first of many that would come that afternoon-downed the shot and placed the gla.s.s on the bar, picked up the beer and took a swig, returned the bottle to the counter and looked across the bar, at her reflection in the mirror. There were a lot of miles on Tricia now. A lot of water had flowed under the bridge. But she wasn't used up; she wasn't done yet. Long blonde hair flowed across her narrow shoulders. The worry and strife, having taken her appet.i.te from her years ago, had kept the fat off her. Her eyes may have lost a little of their spark over the years, they may have dulled a bit, but they were as blue as the sky above, and they could still captivate a man if they wanted to-if she wanted them to. Which now days, she didn't much care one way or another. Of course, she still wanted someone in her life, that special someone who would place her up on that pedestal. If not for her, then for Mickey, who surely deserved to have a man in his life. And on a good day, before the whiskey took her, she thought maybe there was a man out there for her-for them. Someone who would come into their lives and make a difference. Someone to set things right again.

She was reaching for her beer when Ziggy Bowers leaned across the bar. Good old Ziggy, who with his light green eyes and skin the color of tea, claimed to be half Indian. But his hair gave him away, the texture of it. Everybody around Pottsboro knew that his fair-haired mother, having slept with a black man, many years ago, had been sent off to New Orleans, and then come back a year later with her light brown bundle of joy in tow. Why Ziggy kept up the charade was a mystery to Tricia. But he did, and she figured that was his business, not hers. And as long as he kept the drinks coming, that was all that mattered anyway.

"Another shot, Trish?" he said.

She was about to say yes, when from behind her came, "Yeah, Zigster. Give her another. On me."

Tricia turned to see Jack Everett smiling over her shoulder. Long and lean, and thirty years her senior, he was a soft touch, one who figured a drink or two, a meal and a night on the town to be enough to get into Tricia's pants. So far, he'd been right. But not tonight. Not yet, anyway.

"Well thanks, Jack," she said, smiling as he plopped down on the stool beside her. He was tall and thin-a little too thin, maybe. His hair was grey; his sparkling eyes a darker shade of it. He owned a saw mill on the far edge of Pottsboro and several other enterprises in and around the county. A direct descendant of one of the founders of their fair town, he had a finger in d.a.m.n near every pie being produced in the place. He was a man used to being listened to, a man used to getting his way.

"The usual for me, Ziggy," he said. And to Tricia, "Why so sad, b.u.t.tercup?"

"Who says I'm sad?"

"The look on your face?"

"Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving."

"So they say."

"Yeah," Tricia said. "Don't they."

Ziggy came back carrying their drinks, a Heineken for Jack, another shot for Tricia. He set them on the bar, and said, "On the tab, Jack?"

"You betcha," Jack told him.

Ziggy turned and walked away, and Jack said, "So... What're you up to tonight?"

"You see it."

"Same old same old, huh?"

"You know how it is."

"Indeed I do."

Jack picked up his beer, tipped back the bottle and took a nice long drink, returned the bottle to the bar, and said, "Old man still ain't back, huh?"

"He ain't coming back."

"Well, he's a G.o.dd.a.m.n fool..."

Tricia picked up her shot gla.s.s. "You got that right," she said, and then downed the whiskey and returned the gla.s.s to the bar. It felt good going down, better when it hit bottom, and that comforting warm feeling started rippling through her. Maybe if she had enough of them, pairing off with good old Jack wouldn't make her feel like taking a swan dive off the water tower.

"... leaving a fine-looking woman like you. Not to mention poor old Mick-"

"Jack, really... " Tricia smiled. Jack was an important man around these parts, a good friend to have if you needed one, and G.o.d only knew with Rick gone, Tricia needed all the friends she could get. But the last thing she wanted to talk about right now was the worthless jacka.s.s who had so completely ruined her life. "Let's just have a good time."

"Now you're talking," Jack said, then, "I was thinking: why don't I grab a bottle and meet up with you back here a little later on tonight? Or I could come by your house."

"And what, exactly, would I tell my son, Jack?"

"What, you're supposed to be a member of the Order now that your old man's took off? What do you tell him now?"

Tricia picked up her beer, tipped back the bottle and took a good long swig. Holding the bottle against her thigh, she said, "He's thirteen years old, and Rick's all he thinks about. I tell him his daddy and I had a falling out. I don't know where he went, but I'm sure he'll get in touch with him sooner or later."

"Maybe he will."

Tricia, snorting out a laugh, said, "Yeah, well, I'll believe it when I see it."

"In the meantime, why don't I swing by your place, pick you up and show you a sweet old time?"

"What's all this my place bulls.h.i.t, you afraid Velma's gonna find out you're down here sniffin' out somebody else's scent?"

"Velma don't run me. I run me, go where I want and do what I wanta do, and go home when I please. Or not at all, if I don't feel like it."

She turned away from Jack, holding her nearly empty bottle up to Ziggy, who was wiping down a spot at the opposite end of the bar.

"So what do you think?" Jack said. "Wanta get together and... "

"What?" Tricia said, turning back to Jack, who had stopped midway through his sentence, and was now sitting slack-jawed on his stool, staring up at the ceiling; nothing, absolutely nothing in those cold, grey eyes of his. Nothing behind them either, as far as Tricia could tell. He mumbled something, but Tricia didn't understand what he'd said.

Then he got off his stool and started slowly toward the door.

"What the h.e.l.l?"

Tricia turned to see Ziggy staring across the barroom in utter disbelief, as one by one every male patron filed out into the street.

She swiveled around on her stool. Across the dimly lit room, Sheila McCrea sat alone at her table, hands held in front of her in a questioning pose, palms up, shaking her head as if she-like Ziggy and Tricia-didn't understand what was going on. She'd been sitting with her husband when Tricia first stepped into the Wagon Wheel. Tricia wondered if Jerry McCrea had, like Jack Everett and everybody else, just shuffled off like a bunch of stoned-out zombies, across the bar and out the door. A few stools down was Becka Turner. Tricia hadn't noticed her before because several guys had occupied the stools between them, one of them being Jack Everett. Now those stools were empty.

The door to the Ladies room popped open and out stepped Liz Fennel. "The f.u.c.k?" she said. "Somebody fart?" She stood there, staring at the door as Tricia hopped off her stool and Ziggy stepped around the bar and followed her across the room, where she opened the door and stepped outside, stumbling sideways when she tripped over an old discarded beer bottle.

Quickly righting herself, she looked over at Jack Everett and a whole host of others, all of them lined up in the middle of the street, staring up at the sky. Above them, a dark cloud, black as the Ace of spades, sat perfectly still, while another set of fluffy white clouds rolled slowly across the horizon. Shaped like a perfectly constructed top hat, this cloud-this dark abnormality-stood framed on all sides by the clear blue sky. The sun, like the unblinking bright eye of some mysterious tribal G.o.d, sat directly above it.

"The h.e.l.l is that?" Tricia said.

"f.u.c.k if I know," said Ziggy, as Sheila McCrea came up behind them, and said, "Look, over there."

Across the street, Jim Kreigle and another man stood in front of the general store, eyes locked on the skyline. Up the block a car sat in the middle of the road, the driver's door left wide open while the owner stood still as a tombstone beside it.

"Jack?" Tricia said.

She punched his shoulder.

"Jack," she said. "Jack!"

But he didn't answer, just stared up at the sky as if he were standing alone in the middle of an alien landscape, oblivious to all around him.