Бентли Литтл - The Disappearance

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking around.

“I’ll explain later. We have to go.” She glanced over her shoulder, and a man and woman were there. “Mark, Rebekah, come on!”

His hand had dropped immediately to the knife when he saw the couple, but apparently Joan knew them and they wanted to escape as well. Holding Joan’s hand tightly, not willing to let her go for a second, Gary moved back into the corridor, where Reyn and Brian stood, confused.

“What are you doing?” Joan said, shocked.

She was looking at Brian, whose arm was wrapped around their hostage’s neck while he pressed a knife against the man’s back. “He’s our insurance policy,” Brian said.

“Gary?” He could hear the fear and confusion in her voice.

“We’ll talk about it later.”

They were moving back the way they had come. “Does anyone know a quick way out of here?” Reyn asked. He moved next to the couple behind Joan. “Can you lead the way?”

The man—Mark?—nodded. “Follow me.”

“The sheriff should be here any second,” Gary said hopefully. “We left Stacy in the car and she was supposed to call for help.”

But he wasn’t sure that was what had happened. They’d been in here for a while now, and at the very least, the two men Stewart had ordered to watch the Home should have been kicking ass and taking names.

Maybe they’d been captured.

Maybe Stacy had.

No doubt Reyn had had the same thought, but neither of them dared say it aloud. They followed Mark back into the huge rustic room—what Gary thought of as the lobby, as though they were in some resort hotel— and turned left into the nearest hallway. Isaac began to chatter away in that weird language, obviously directing his speech to Mark, but Brian did something that made him cry out and shut up.

They entered a storeroom of some sort and passed through it, exiting through a doorway on the opposite side into another room filled with low cots and cribs. The room was empty, but there was something eerie about it, and Gary was happy that they passed through quickly and entered another corridor.

“Where are we going?” Joan asked.

“The Farm. It’s closest,” Mark said.

The corridor curved—

And there was Father.

Gary knew who he was immediately. There’d been no mug shots of Father in the sheriff’s file because lawyers had gotten them removed when the case was dismissed, but his framed visage had been displayed on the walls of every photographed room. He’d appeared grim and forbidding in the pictures, but he looked far more frightening in person, and the dark eyes of the tall, stern man who stood in the center of the hallway, white beard hanging down to the center of his chest, blazed with an anger so strong that Gary completely understood why his followers were afraid of him.

Behind Father in the corridor, standing, sitting, crawling, rolling wheelchairs and pushing carts, were men, women and children, fifteen or twenty of them, all horribly malformed. Gary saw a woman with only one arm, no legs and a few strands of iron gray hair combed over the top of her otherwise bald head, being pushed in a modified stroller by a broad-shouldered man no taller than a child. A skinny, pasty-looking teenager who did not seem to be able to close his mouth was drooling into a thick rag tied around his neck. A figure of indeterminate gender lay atop a table equipped with wheels, laughing toothlessly.

“What the fuck ?” Brian said.

“The Children!” Joan exclaimed, and there was fear in her voice.

“Yes, Ruth, the Children,” Father said. He had a strong, deep voice, the type suited for oratory, and his piercing, angry eyes took all of them in. What Gary saw there frightened him, and for the first time he thought they might not make it out of there alive. He used his right hand to withdraw the knife from his belt, still holding protectively on to Joan with his left.

If he thought there would be talk, discussion, negotiation, he was wrong. With a rigid finger, Father pointed at them and shouted an order in that strange language.

Rebekah screamed.

Joan clutched his hand even tighter.

The Children swarmed. As Father stood untouched and unmoving amid the sea of running, rolling, crawling humanity, Gary, holding tight to Joan’s hand, turned to run. He had a knife in his hand, as did Brian, but neither of them were killers, and though they might have wielded the weapons for protection, their reflexes were too slow, impeded by conscience and morality, and by the time they’d made the determination that to attack was their only choice, it was too late. Gary’s wrist was grabbed, the weapon jerked from his hand. All of the words coming at him were in that alien language, and hands were clawing at him, claws were handling him. He saw faces so distorted they looked more animal than human, more monster than animal, feeling soft, squishy flesh and hard, reptilian skin. Trying to fight back, he went down under a horde of hideous assailants. “Joan!” he cried as they were wrenched apart.

Punched in the gut so hard he couldn’t breathe, Gary knew he was going to die, and at that precise second someone shouted out, “Stop right there!”

The voice was not only normal but familiar. Sheriff Stewart.

The assault continued, but it grew weaker, and shouts in English overrode the alien screams as law enforcement officers broke up the melee. Gary kicked one of his attackers and managed to pull free from a long-legged man who was tugging on his right arm. He stood, looking frantically about for Joan. Batons raised, Stewart and four deputies he didn’t recognize were yanking people up, shoving them against the wall and shouting for compliance. Joan and Reyn were free and standing just behind the sheriff. Brian was still fighting with a man who had hold of his neck.

Face hurting, eyes watering, Gary lurched to the right, staggered around the edge of the fray and embraced Joan. “Are you okay?” he managed to get out.

She nodded, but her body was tense, and the expression on her face was anxious and agitated. He was about to tell her that everything was all right, the cavalry had arrived, they were safe, when he saw where she was looking. He suddenly understood her worry, and he glanced around, searching in every direction. His eyes moved over the combatants, up and down the corridor, did the same thing again, but the result did not change.

Father was gone.

Joan stood with Gary and their friends next to the sheriff’s car as two deputies brought out a line of stumbling, mushroom-impaired Residents tied together with plastic restraints. They were placed in front of the Home, in the shade of the wall, next to the fifty or so others who had already been taken out.

All of the law enforcement officers in Bitterweed, on duty and off, had been called in, as had the six extra posse members who usually helped out in the event of an emergency, but they were still overwhelmed by the sheer number of people they had to round up. Other agents from other jurisdictions had been summoned to handle the overflow, but it would be a while before any of them got here, and until then local law enforcement had to subdue and restrain the entire population of the Home by themselves. Not all of the Residents and Penitents would be charged and arrested, of course, but all of them had to be interviewed, once they were sober, and after that the determination of what to do with them would be made.

There were deputies stationed all around the Home, at every entrance, in case someone should try to get away, and Joan still had hopes that Father would be captured, but as one hour passed by, and then another, such an outcome seemed increasingly unlikely. The sheriff had told them they didn’t have to wait around, they could go back to town, but she wanted to stay. She wanted to see what they found, who they found, what happened.