Bentley Little - The Revelation

"Which dump was this at?"

"The one off the control road. By Geronimo Wells."

Jim nodded. "Go on."

The boy's eyes focused on a point far away, in his mind. "They . the monsters .. . played with Mrs.Selway's head for a while, throwing it around and kicking it. Her eyes opened and closed as it flew through the air. There were a lot of them around, but I still couldn't see them. They were in the shadows. But I could see Mrs.Selway's head real good. And I could see Father Selway perfectly. He was just standing there, staring. Then one of them reached over and turned Father Selway toward the fire."

"What fire?" Jim asked.

"The one where they burn all the wood and paper."

"It was night?"

"Yeah. They made him look at the fire and said ..." Don looked down, his hands now trembling badly. He clamped his hands between his legs to hold them still. His face, framed by the long greasy hair, was taut and serious, the muscles pulled tight. "They said, "Worship your new God' or "Bow down before your new God' or something like that. And then .. . something .. . started to come out of the fire. It was huge.

It was big and black and looked like it had two horns." He looked at Jim. "It looked like the devil."

Jim reached over and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Was that all?" he asked.

"No." Don shook his head. "All of a sudden, the fire went out and Father Selway and the devil were gone and the other monsters shoved Mrs.Selway's body into a big hole. Then they threw her head in a little hole and threw the kids in another hole and covered them all up."

"Where? What part of the dump?"

"Under the garbage, by the big tree next to the cliff. Right next to a tractor."

Jim jumped up. "Carl!" he called. The deputy pushed the door immediately open. "Get the posse together. We're going to search for The Selways’ bodies."

"But I thought--"

"Never mind what you thought. Get everyone together. Tell them we'll meet out at the Geronimo Wells landfill. Now!"

Carl ran down the hall toward the switchboard out front, his boots clicking loudly on the tile.

Jim turned back toward the boy. He looked even smaller and paler than he had before. His hands, between his legs, were clasped together, and sweat was running in twin lines down both sides of his face from beneath his hair. Jim looked at the boy and tried to smile reassuringly. He didn't know why he believed the kid, but he did.

Jesus, he thought. His mind really was going. Not just scared of his own dreams, but believing others' as well. "Why did you wait 'til now to tell us?" he asked Don.

"I thought it was just a nightmare. I didn't know it was real. I didn't know anything had happened." His lower lip started to tremble.

His hand intercepted a tear sneaking down his cheek. "I just found out that the Selways were missing this morning. I didn't know."

Jim patted the boy's shoulder. "It's okay, son." The boy wiped away another tear. "But how come you wouldn't tell anyone except me?"

"You were in the dream. I knew you'd understand. I knew you'd know I

didn't do it. I knew you'd know I wasn't really there, I didn't really see anything."

A bolt of fear--wild, irrational--shot through Jim's body, causing his heart to trip-hammer crazily. A wave of cold washed over him. He stared at the boy. He had never seen this kid before in his life; he did not look even vaguely familiar.

But he had automatically believed his story.

And, he realized, something about the boy's dream seemednaggingly , disturbingly true. It had seemed right. As if this were knowledge he'd already had but just could not bring to consciousness. As if the boy had simply put known facts together in a new way; a way he understood intuitively, on a gut level, but could not reason out.

The boy was right, he knew. He had been in that dream somehow, although he could remember none of it. He turned back to Don. His voice was not as assured as he would have liked, but he forced himself to speak anyway. "What was I doing in your dream?"

"You were just standing there watching. Like me." The boy licked his lips. "Like everyone else."

The cold intensified. "Who else?"

"I don't know. You were the only one I recognized. But I'd know them if I saw them."

Carl poked his head in the door. "Car's ready, Sheriff. I called the posse and they're going to meet us there."

Jim put on his hat and grabbed his holster. "Okay." He strapped on the belt and looked at Don. "You coming?"

"Do I have to?"

Jim shook his head.

"Then no, I'd rather not."

"Okay." He looked into the boy's face and saw underneath the childish features a maturity; maturity that had been forced upon him and for which he was not exactly ready but which he was able to cope with. The kid had handled himself well, he thought. Better than a lot of adults would have under similar circumstances. He wished this could be the end of it, the boy could just go home and forget about everything, letting the sheriff's office handle the situation, his civic duty done.

But there was a lot more to come. It would be tough on the kid. "We have some more talking to do," he said. "Leave your name and address with Rita out at the front desk. I'll get in touch with you later."

Don stood up, wiping sweaty palms on his faded jeans. "Do you have to tell my parents about it?"

Jim thought for a moment. Tell his parents what? That they'd decided to look for bodies at the dump because of their son's nightmares? That Don had had some type of psychic experience?

"No," he said. "I don't have to tell your parents if you don't want me to."

The boy looked relieved.

Jim lightly punched Don's arm. "I'll see you later," he said. "I have to go." He strode quickly down the hall and out the front doors, waving without looking back. Carl was waiting in a patrol car, the engine running. Jim got into the car, flipped on the roof lights and told his deputy to take off.

The car pulled onto the highway, tires squealing. "What happened?"

Carl asked. "What'd the kid tell you?"

"He told me where the bodies are buried." Carl whistled. "Did he actually see anything?" Jim stared out the windshield as they sped north through town. "Yes," he said. "Yes he did."

The sky was covered with blackened monsoon clouds by the time they turned off on the control road, twenty minutes later. The dark thunderheads were backlit periodically by the strobe flashes of lightning, although there was no rain yet. "Goddamn it," the sheriff said. "Does it have to rain every fucking day? We're going to be out there digging in a downpour."

They had to go a little slower here than they had on the highway. The control road was narrow, barely one lane, and the campers, hikers, hunters, and fishermen who drove their pickups down the dirt road usually assumed no one would be coming toward them. They invariably sped around the hairpin turns as though they were the only ones on the road. Usually they would be. The control road, winding as it did through the forest along the base of the Rim, was so rough and rutted that it was absolute hell for anyone without a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

The convoy encountered no other traffic on their trip to Geronimo Wells, however, and they pulled into the landfill just as the rain started. Jim got out of the car and walked back to tell the other members of the posse that they could either wait in their cars and trucks for the rain to stop--which might take several hours-or they could start digging now. "Me and Carl are going to dig," he said. "The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get out of here."

He looked around the landfill as Carl took the shovels out of the trunk. The dump did not look as familiar to him as it should have. He had been out here before, of course, and he knew that scrap metal was dropped off near the large pile just to the north of the cars, that wood went on the pile of combustibles to the left of that, and that regular garbage was dumped over the small dirt cliff just beyond the woodpile and buried. But it looked like only a dump to him; it did not look like the scene of ritualistic killings. He had no intuitive flashes about the landfill, no psychic revelations. He did not even feel any bad vibrations. The dump seemed to him the same as it always had. He had nothing to go on but the kid's testimony.