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  “She probably told you to come talk to me because I can’t play, but you did it to make her like you. Not because you wanted to. Right?”

  Lizzie gave another push, harder still.

  “You know how much Miss Randall likes me, don’t you, Lizzie Dayton? Everybody likes me. But I can’t think of a single person who likes you.”

  The chains squealed like angry rats.

  “Think about it. You’re out here alone every day at recess. Miss Randall has never asked me or anybody else to keep you company. Has she?”

  Hester laughed as she swung upward, her legs outstretched before her as she swung even higher than before, arms hugging the chains. When she spoke again, her voice was firm and even a little frightened.

  “Hey, don’t push so hard!” she snapped.

  Lizzie knew she should stop; the anger in Hester’s voice almost frightened her into stopping. It was the fear in her voice that made Lizzie want to push harder. Making Hester angry took no effort at all; it happened every day without provocation. But to make Hester Thorne afraid was something else altogether. Something like victory …

  As Hester swung backward, Lizzie stepped back, raised her arms, pressed her palms flat against Hester’s back, and shoved so hard she grunted with exertion.

  “I’m getting dizzy!” Hester cried with a small tremble in her voice. “Stop!”

  Lizzie felt her own lips, salty with tears, curl into a smile that she knew she should be ashamed of—mustn’t hate them—but she could not fight it. When Hester swung back—

  —“I’ll tell!”—

  —Lizzie readied herself—

  —“I swear I’ll tell!”—

  —and pushed.

  “Noooo!” Hester shouted, but the shout quickly became a whimper as she rose up higher and higher, stopping at a height almost level with the top of the swing. On her way back down, Hester babbled, “You’re gonna get into so much trouble for this, Lizzie Dayton—”

  Lizzie took a deep breath—

  “—so much trouble!”—

  —gave another powerful shove—

  —and Hester was airborne.

  She flew from the swing and, as if in a slow-motion dream, floated silently through the chilly air, her limbs splayed helplessly in four directions. She seemed to take forever to land and during that long instant, Lizzie’s mouth dropped open and she sucked in a gasp of air and noticed, oddly, that the dark clouds overhead were moving along at a normal pace and everyone on the playground was playing and shouting as they were just an instant before. Only this—this one particular event in this corner of the playground—had slowed to a sort of underwater ballet in Lizzie’s eyes and she knew why. …

  Lizzie knew that when Hester Thorne hit the ground, Lizzie was going to be in so … much … trouble. …

  Hester landed with a thud, a whoosh of knocked-out breath, and a scattering of pebbles.

  Lizzie froze.

  The empty swing bobbed and swayed in Hester’s wake, the chains chattering like gossiping metal teeth. Distant thunder stomped through the clouds. Lizzie waited for Hester to cry, to scream for Miss Randall. To do something.

  But she lay still as sleep on the ground.

  “Hen … Hester?” Lizzie breathed, moving slowly around the swing. “I’m … I’m sorry, Hester.” She stopped two feet away from the girl and looked around, expecting to see teachers and students rushing across the playground toward her, hurrying to see what had happened to Hester …

  … to see what the fat girl had done to their little Hester.

  No one was coming; no one had noticed.

  “Hester?” she whispered again, stepping forward and bending over her. “Hester, I didn’t mean—”

  Hester’s body suddenly erupted in a fit of convulsions. Her arms and legs began to flop like fish on land; her back stiffened and her pelvis jutted upward again and again. With eyes bulging and her mouth a yawning O, Hester began to gag. Her head tilted back and foamy saliva began to gather at the corners of her mouth.

  “Hester!” Lizzie cried, kneeling down and reaching for her but afraid to touch her. “Oh no, Hester, stop!” Glancing over her shoulder, Lizzie realized that they were still unnoticed by the others on the playground. She feared the trouble she knew would come if she called for Miss Randall, but she feared even more that Hester was dying. She filled her lungs with air to cry for help, but Hester’s convulsions suddenly stopped.

  Lizzie’s voice caught in her throat; she was certain Hester was dead, that her last push had somehow killed Hester, that—

  Hester rose up.

  She did not sit up. She did not pull herself up. It was as if an invisible arm had lifted the top half of Hester’s body into a sitting position, bringing her face less than an inch from Lizzie’s.

  Lizzie suddenly felt helplessly off balance and found herself groping fearfully for something to hold onto, as if she were teetering on the very edge of a pit, as if …

  … as if she might fall into Hester’s no longer smiling eyes.

  Hester slapped her hands to each side of Lizzie’s skull and held it in an iron grip as the playground seemed to fade around them and Lizzie tried to scream but could not find her voice and—

  —when she looked over Hester’s shoulder, she could not find the playground.

  The moment Hester’s hands began to squeeze Lizzie’s head, the playground and school buildings melted away like boiling wax and they were suddenly someplace else, someplace dark and cold in spite of the flames that were spitting from gaping craters all around them. The fire shot upward forty or fifty feet to lick the soot-black sky, rising nearly the height of the buildings around them, skeletal buildings with supports and girders jutting like splintered bones from enormous holes torn into the walls.

  The sickening-sweet reek of burning meat cut through the icy air and distant screaming voices rose to the sky with the belching flames.

  Other craters shot fire in the distance and one of them—far beyond the patch of land that, a moment ago, was the grassy playing field—was surrounded by a circle of people in tattered white robes streaked with soot, their hands lifted upward. Although her vision was blurred, either by tears or by the heat from the fire—

  —Or because this is a dream, she thought, that’s all, I’m still in bed having a nightmare—

  —she saw one of the robed figures step forward holding something bundled in a blanket. The blanket was peeled away ceremoniously and tossed aside and a flesh-pink lump with four struggling limbs was lifted above the figure’s head.

  Lizzie squinted, struggling to see better.

  No, no …

  A baby.

  Chanting voices murmured like ghosts on the breeze and with them came the frail, distant cries of the infant.

  Lizzie took a breath to cry out but the child was already tumbling through the air, head over feet, swallowed by the fire before it even began its descent.

  Cries of agony came from every direction, piercing the darkness in which vague shapes writhed and shifted, and there was an odd sound from overhead, a sound like wings flapping, very big wings. Lizzie looked up at the thick, greasy darkness, but saw nothing. When she lowered her eyes, they fell on something in the darkness to her left. It looked like … could it be … a pile of bodies! She looked closer, squinting and—

  —Lizzie screamed, a keening wail, uncontrollable, clutching at her lungs like rat’s claws and she looked into Hester’s dead eyes again and—

  —the two girls began to rise, leaving the corpses below them, lifting weightlessly on the black air and hovering over the fire-breathing craters, unnoticed by those below, some of whom ran for cover, always looking upward, while others fought, beating one another with spiked clubs and heavy chains, while still others walked through the darkness slowly and at ease, the hems of their dirty white robes slapping gently
at their feet.

  Dim lights glowed in the windows of battered houses while black smoke billowed from others.

  Cries of pain and death rose toward them in voices young and old.

  They began to move faster and faster until all below them was a dark, muddy blur and Lizzie managed to stop her screaming, lower it to a few deep, gripping sobs, and when she looked down again, they were slowing, descending over a mountain topped with red-streaked snow and on the other side of the mountain was—

  —a house.

  It was a pretty house, a big white U, filled with light, but it made Lizzie want to vomit because—

  —the light was black. It was not real light, not good light, not the light Lizzie knew, that you could read by or warm to, but a light that was made of darkness, a cancerous light, thick and smothering, and as they drew closer to the house Lizzie began to cry harder, on the verge of screaming again, because coming from the house, she heard—

  —laughter.

  But it was not happy laughter.

  They passed over the clean white roof of the house until they were floating over dense, dark green woods, falling lower and lower until—

  —they were below the high tops of the trees, darting back and forth to avoid them, lower and lower until—

  —they were just inches above the ground and ahead of them, Lizzie saw—

  —a cave filled with blackness, and they shot through the opening, plunging deep into the darkness until—

  —Lizzie saw a faint blue glow ahead of them that grew brighter as they shot deeper into the cave and the light made her ill, made her tremble because, like the light in the house, it was wrong, it was unnatural, and she began to scream as she turned and looked into Hester’s eyes, lifeless flat eyes with something lurking behind them, something that slithered and settled, waiting patiently and—

  —through Hester’s mouth, it spoke:

  “The child is mine, and through her I will bring about what is to be. Let … her … alone!”

  Hester released Lizzie’s head and Lizzie fell back in the gravel, limp as a springless puppet.

  The playground was suddenly as it had been an instant before.

  Children were playing.

  A gentle rain began to fall.

  Lizzie Dayton wet her pants. …

  From the Redding Dispatch, July 1972—

  REDDING MAN STABS MOTHER INSTEAD OF WIFE

  Dispatch staff reporter

  In an apparent attempt to murder his wife, Michael Lumley accidentally stabbed his mother yesterday, putting her in critical condition in Redding’s Memorial Hospital.

  According to Redding police officer Keith Muldoon, Lumley had been waiting for his wife, Hester, and handicapped son, Benjamin, to return from a drive, intending to kill them both. When Lumley’s mother let herself into the darkened house, Lumley mistook her for Hester and stabbed her four times.

  68-year-old Beverly Walton was walking her dog by the house when the stabbing occurred and, after hearing Dolores Lumley’s scream, notified the police.

  “Mr. Lumley’s been hysterical since we got to him,” Officer Muldoon said. “He’s been screaming, over and over, ‘I’m sorry Momma, I thought you were Hester, I meant to kill them, kill ’em both, I’m sorry Momma,’ stuff like that.”

  Dolores Lumley is suffering from a punctured lung and kidney and, although critical, is in stable condition.

  Michael Lumley is in Memorial’s psychiatric ward, where he remains heavily sedated.

  When asked if he knew why Lumley wanted to kill his wife and son, Muldoon said, “He kept saying they were evil, that they weren’t human, something like that.”

  Hester Lumley was unavailable for comment.

  ANDERSON, CALIFORNIA

  JANUARY 17, 1993

  The yellow glow of sodium lights bled through sheets of pouring rain, bathing the Peach Tree Motel parking lot in a glaring mist. The splash of the windblown raindrops rose two inches from the flooded pavement, creating the illusion of a ground fog.

  Eight cars were parked in the lot, and light glowed through the closed curtains of three motel rooms. A holly wreath framed the number on each door and, in the window of the office, multicolored lights blinked on the branches of a small Christmas tree that stood crookedly on its stand, weary after the long holiday season. An empty white Pontiac idled in front of the office, its wipers sweeping futilely over the windshield.

  Interstate 5 ran behind the motel and was busy with late-night travelers, but the road in front of it was deserted. Even the shopping center across the way seemed empty in spite of the bright twenty-four-hour Safeway.

  The night seemed defeated by the storm, cowed by the beating rain. Distant lightning occasionally flashed in the western sky, as if on the look-out for some form of resistance, some hint of rebellion from its battle-weary captive.

  The office door opened with a jangle of sleigh bells and Harvey Bolton rushed to his car, got inside and parked it in front of one of the darkened rooms. The curb was painted red with white stenciled letters that warned NO PARKING UNLOADING ONLY. Harvey backed the car under one of the sodium lights, then splashed across the lot, clutching a briefcase under his left arm. The wind whipped the hem of his coat madly around his legs and slicked his hair against his skull. By the time he got to his room, the shoulders of his tan overcoat were soaked through.

  Inside, he groped for a light switch, flicked it, and light oozed through a gaudy gold-colored lampshade that hung by a chain from the ceiling. Beneath it was a round table with two chairs that matched neither one another nor the rest of the garage-sale furniture in the room.

  It had been the only motel along the interstate with a vacancy, so he couldn’t complain. Decor was the last thing on Harvey’s mind, anyway.

  His eyes had spent half their time on the rearview mirror all the way back from Grover. He suspected—he hoped—it was just a mild case of paranoia brought on by the distinct sense of unwelcome he’d felt while he was there, but there had been the van.

  It was gray, no windows except in the front, and the glass was tinted so he wasn’t able to see the driver or passenger, if any. Four times he’d noticed it parked across the street from him, or down the block. He was positive it was the same van. Everywhere he looked, it seemed, there it stood, parked with the engine off. It might have been empty. But then again …

  Whether or not his suspicions were valid, he was taking no chances. He knew he might very well have annoyed someone with his questions. The Universal Enlightened Alliance wasn’t exactly the Rotary Club. It was a very big, very powerful organization. So he’d kept an eye to the rear all the way, and had felt uncomfortable—no, vulnerable was the word—when he pulled over to a rest stop to remove the chains from his tires.

  There had been no van in sight the whole trip, but even so, he was happy to be nestled securely in a motel room, however garish its decor might be.

  Still … he couldn’t shake that feeling of being observed.

  He dropped the briefcase and his room key on the table and peeled off his coat, tossing it to the bed with a weary sigh. He quickly seated himself at the table, opened the case, took out a manila folder fat with papers and hunched over it, shuffling through the papers urgently.

  The papers were covered with his hurried scribbling, notes written quickly during interviews with people who were reluctant to speak, perhaps even afraid to speak if Harvey’s suspicions were correct. There were more papers stuffed in the glove compartment of his rented car, but the ones before him now were the most recent. These were filled with information gathered in the last twenty-four hours.

  Harvey stopped scanning his notes long enough to remove a micro cassette recorder from the case. He placed it in the center of the table and punched PLAY. Pinched, metallic voices began to speak through the tiny speaker as Harvey’s eyes returned to his sloppy
writing. They were the voices of the people he’d interviewed in Grover earlier that day and the day before, cautious voices speaking well-chosen words. …

  A young woman standing behind her front screen door, a baby in her arms, another in her swollen belly: “I’d really rather not talk about it. Really. I’ve, um, got to take care of the kids.” Then, quietly, she added, “They don’t much like being talked about, you know.”

  A bartender with dark bushy eyebrows, leaning on his bar: “Some of my best customers belong to that woman’s group. What I think about ’em ain’t important. Now, pal, the first one’s on the house if you’ll turn off that damned recorder.”

  An enormous rosy-cheeked woman in a drugstore: “Does she know you’re writing about them? That woman?”

  That woman.

  Her.

  The leader.

  Most of the people he talked to knew of her—all of them, in fact—but none of them spoke her name. A coincidence, perhaps, but it could mean something. Harvey wondered if the people of Grover were afraid of the Universal Enlightened Alliance or of the woman who’d founded and now led the organization.

  Only two people appeared perfectly comfortable talking to Harvey about the Alliance. One was Joan Maher, a waitress in the Lemurian Diner. She smiled at his questions and said, “If you’re looking for muck, I’m the wrong person to ask. I used to be a member. I’m not now, but I’m very happy. My life is better than it’s ever been and a lot of the credit for that goes to the Alliance. What’s your question?”

  “Well, are they honest? Is it an … ethical organization?”

  “Is it ethical?” She shook her head, took a deep breath and sighed, “You know, for years, televangelists have been falling right and left. Whoremongering, misuse of funds, hidden homosexuality, you name it. But nobody raises an eyebrow any more, it’s just another story on the news. Now, I admit that I no longer believe in a lot of the mumbo-jumbo that goes along with the Alliance, but they’re good, sincere, well-meaning people who have done wonders for me, who have made me a better person. So if you’re looking for a scandal, why don’t you go investigate the Reverend Barry Hallway, huh?”