Dean Koontz - Strange Highways

It was P.J. He was wearing the same black boots, beige cords, and red cable-knit sweater that he had been wearing earlier in the evening, back at the house, at dinner, and later in the car when he had argued the merits of forgetfulness and brotherly bonds. Since then he had put on a black ski jacket.

This was not the P.J. Shannon whose novels always found a home on the best-seller lists, not the New-Age Kerouac who had crossed the country uncounted times in various vans, motor homes, and cars. This P.J. was still shy of his twenty-fourth birthday, a recent graduate of Notre Dame, home from his new job in New York publishing.

He wasn't carrying the rifle with which he'd shot the Bimmers, and he didn't seem to think he needed it. He stood in the archway, feet planted wide, hands empty at his sides, smiling.

Until now, Joey had forgotten the extreme confidence of P.J. at that age, the tremendous power that he radiated, the sheer intensity of his presence. The word "charismatic" had been overused even in 1975; by 1995, it was employed by journalists and critics to describe every new politician who had not yet been caught stealing, every new rap singer who thought "hate" rhymed with "rape," every young actor with more smoldering in his eyes than in his brain. But whether in 1995 or 1975, the word seemed to have been invented for P.J. Shannon. He had all the charisma of an Old Testament prophet without the beard and robes, commanding attention sheerly by his presence, so magnetic that he seemed to exert an influence upon even inanimate objects, realigning all things around him until even the lines of the church's architecture subtly focused attention toward him.

Meeting Joey's eyes across the length of the church, P.J. said, "Joey, you surprise me."

With one sleeve, Joey blotted the sweat on his face, but he didn't reply.

"I thought we had a bargain," said P.J.

Joey put one hand on his shotgun, which lay on the presbytery floor beside him. But he didn't pick it up. P.J. could dodge out of the archway and back into the narthex before Joey would be able to raise the gun and pump off a round. Besides, at that distance, mortal damage probably couldn't be done with a shotgun even if P.J. failed to get out of the line of fire fast enough.

"All you had to do was go back to college like a good boy, back to your job at the supermarket, lose yourself in the daily struggle of life, the gray grinding boredom that you were born for. But you had to stick your nose in this."

"You wanted me to follow you here," Joey said.

"Well, true enough, little brother. But I was never sure you'd actually do it. You're just a little priest-loving, rosary-kissing altar boy. Why should I expect you to have any guts? I thought you might even go back to college and make yourself accept my cockamamie story about the mountain man up on Pine Ridge."

"I did."

"What?"

"Once," Joey said. "But not this time."

P.J. was clearly baffled. This was the first and only time that he would ever live through this strange night. Joey had been through a variation of it once before, and only Joey had been given a second chance to do it right.

From the floor beside him, Joey scooped up the thirty dollars and, still half sheltered behind the balustrade, threw it at P.J. Although wadded in a ball the paper currency sailed only as far as the end of the choir enclosure and fell short of the sanctuary railing. "Take back your silver."

For a moment P.J. seemed stunned, but then he said, "What an odd thing to say, little brother."

"When did you make your bargain?" Joey asked, hoping that he was right about P.J.'s psychotic fantasy and was playing into it in a way that would shake him out of his smug complacency.

"Bargain?" P.J. asked.

"When did you sell your soul?"

Shifting his attention to Celeste, P.J. said, "You must have helped him puzzle it out. His mind doesn't have a dark bent that would let him see the truth on his own. Certainly not in the couple of hours since he opened my car trunk. You're an interesting young lady. Who are you?"

Celeste didn't answer him.

"The girl by the road," P.J. said. "I know that much. I would hat had you by now if Joey hadn't interfered. But who else are you?"

Secret identities. Dual identities. Conspiracies. P.J. was indeed operating in the complex and melodramatic world of a paranoid psychotic with religious delusions, and he evidently believed that he saw in Celeste some otherworldly presence.

She remained silent. Crouching by the balustrade. One hand on hey shotgun, which lay on the presbytery floor.

Joey hoped she wouldn't use the weapon. They needed either to lure P.J. farther into the church, within range — or they needed to convince him that they didn't need guns at all and felt confident about trusting in the power of the holy ground on which they stood.

"Know where the thirty bucks came from, Joey?" P.J. asked. "From Beverly Korshak's purse. Now I'll have to gather it up and put it its your pocket again later. Preserve the evidence."

At last Joey understood what role P.J. had in mind for him. was expected to take the fall for everything his brother had done — and would do — this night. No doubt his own murder would have been made to look like suicide: Priest-loving, rosary-kissing altar flips out, kills twelve in Satanic ceremony, takes own life, film al eleven.

He had escaped that fate twenty years ago when he had failed to follow P.J. onto Coal Valley Road — but he'd taken a turn into another destiny that had been nearly as bad. This time, he had to avoid both those options.

"You asked when I sold my soul," P.J. said, still lingering in the narthex archway. "I was thirteen, you were ten. I got hold of the books about Satanism, the Black Mass — neat stuff. I was ripe for them Joey. Held my funny little ceremonies in the woods. Small animals on my little altar in the woods. I was ready to slit your throat, kiddo, and cut your heart out if nothing else had worked. But it didn't come to that. It was so much easier than that. I'm not even sure the ceremonies were necessary, you know? I think all that was necessary was to want it badly enough. Wanting it with every fiber of my being, with all my heart, wanting it so badly that I hurt with wanting it — that's what opened the door and let him in."

"Him?" Joey said.

"Satan, Scratch, the devil, spooky old Beelzebub," said P.J. in a jokey and theatrical tone of voice. "Boy, he's not at all like that, Joey. He's actually a warm, fuzzy old beast — at least to those who embrace him."

Though Celeste remained crouched behind the balustrade, Joey rose to his full height.

"That's right, kiddo," P.J. encouraged. "Don't be afraid. Your big brother won't spout green fire out his nose or sprout leathery wings."

Desert-dry heat was still coming through the floor.

Like ectoplasmic faces pressed to the glass, condensation began to form on some of the windows.

"Why did you do it, P.J.?" Joey asked, pretending to believe in such things as souls and bargains with the devil.

"Oh, kiddo, even then I was sick to death of being poor, afraid of growing up to be a useless piece of shit like our old man. Wanted money in my pocket, cool cars when I got old enough for them, my pick of the girls. And there was no way that was ever going to happen to me like I was, not when I was just one of the Shannon boys, living in a room next to the furnace. But after I made the deal — well, look what happened. Football star. Top grades in my class. Most popular boy in school. Girls couldn't wait to spread their legs for me — and even after I'd dump one of them, she'd still love me, moon over me, never say a word against me. Then a full scholarship to a Catholic university, and how's that for irony"