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  Yordon felt gooseflesh ripple up his arms. This was not the work of wind. Who could have done this? The telephone pole next to Claude’s convenience store lay across the sidewalk. He stepped over it.

  Smither’s Saloon was even worse off. The collapsed steps left a three-foot rise to the gaping door frame. The town’s only bench had been reduced to matchsticks along the gravel walk.

  Surely they wouldn’t have trashed the church. Yordon was about to plunge ahead when he saw yellow light flicker in the bar’s window.

  Someone was inside at this hour?

  He ran to the saloon, jumped onto the trashed landing, and shoved the dangling door aside. He stepped in and scanned the interior of Smither’s Saloon.

  A small fire at the center of the room spewed white smoke to the ceiling and for a moment Yordon thought the saloon was ablaze, but then he saw it was a campfire of sorts, fed by broken table legs that formed a teepee over the flames. The bar lay chopped to kindling; the broken glass of a hundred bottles covered the floor. Only one table remained standing. And around the table sat three chairs, sagging under the weight of three figures, sitting like ghosts by the fire.

  Yordon stepped over the rubble. Two men and a boy—resembling Claude Bowers, Chris Ingles, and Claude’s boy, Peter, respectively—all leaned on the table, clutching bottles of booze, looking at him through drooping eyes. A toppled can of beer fed a pool of liquid that glistened in the flames.

  They saw him and then returned their focus on the spilt malt. Dirt matted their hair; ash streaked their faces; something had torn their clothing to shreds. Chris Ingles wore a sling on his right arm.

  “Hi, Stanley,” Chris said without looking at him.

  At first Yordon couldn’t find the voice to respond. Hi, Stanley? What was he supposed to say? Oh, hi, Chris. Having a bad day are we? I see you have a nice fire going. Do you mind if I join you?

  What Chris needed was a good palm to the cheek. A thundering crash upside his right ear.Wake up, boy! What do you think you’re doing?

  But Claude was the leader here. Yordon could see it in his face, below all that crud. “Claude, what are you doing?”

  The big Swede turned his head and stared at him. The flames’ reflection danced in his glassy eyes. “Hi, Stan.”

  He looked back at the table. Peter glanced his way for a second, took a swig from the bottle in his hand, and turned back to the reflection of flames in the spilt beer.

  Yordon walked up to the table and gave it a good shove. “What’s wrong with you guys? Wake up, for crying out loud! You’re going to burn this place down!”

  The amber liquid spilled over their laps as the table tipped. Claude’s eyes snapped wide, as if an electrode had just hit the muscle controlling his eyelids, and Yordon immediately knew that he might be in a spot of trouble.

  Claude stared at the table, aghast. He stood abruptly, sending his chair flying across the room.

  Yordon stepped back.

  The others came to their feet as well, gawking in disbelief at the table. “Wha . . . what happened?” Chris stammered.

  The stupidity of the question shoved Yordon into an offensive gear. The best defense is sometimes a good offense. Sometimes, like when your opponent is a drooling fool wondering why his hands are on his arms.

  “What have you done to the town? Look at this place, you’ve trashed it!”

  All three of their stares turned to him. “We didn’t do this,” Peter said.

  “Then who did?”

  “Black did it,” Peter said. “He told us to do it.”

  Black? How was that possible? How could anyone turn men so quickly?

  “He’s just a traveling salesman,” Yordon said. “He couldn’t do this.”

  “He’s a salesman and he’s selling a lot.” Claude grinned. “You think we care about your lousy church? You should go look at it now. I don’t think you’re gonna be preaching too much there anymore.”

  Claude’s son snickered.

  He could see it in his mind’s eye—the pews hacked up like these tables, the carpet peeled back in long maroon strips, the cross blazing on the wall like at one of those KKK meetings.

  Yordon launched himself at the three figures, and he knew with his first step that he was about to experience a great deal of pain.

  Yordon never actually reached them. Claude’s fist reached his forehead first, like a sledgehammer.

  Wham!

  He collapsed, belly down on the table, his arms draping limply over the edges. Pain swelled through his head.

  “He’s on our table,” Chris said from a great distance.

  “What should we do with him?”

  “Let’s get rid of him,” Claude said.

  They pulled him from the table and hauled him like a sack of onions. They heaved him into a hole. He crumpled to the floor. A door slammed. A latch was locked.

  They’ve thrown you into a grave.

  His brain crawled through the haze.

  You belong in a grave, buried with the rest of your indiscretions. Your secrets.

  Yordon opened his eyes. A cool, damp breeze ran across his face. The smell of fresh dirt filled his nostrils, the kind of dirt found six feet under. But the space around him wasn’t the two-by-seven of a casket, it was more like ten-by-ten. A sliver of light penetrated some boards above him.

  They had dropped him in the saloon’s root cellar.

  He laid his head on the earthen floor and closed his eyes against a throbbing headache. Dear God, what have I done?

  CHAPTER TWENTY - SEVEN

  THE MONASTERY

  Sunday morning

  BILLY OPENED the ink jar, dabbed the quill into the liquid, and sent his mind to Paradise. Except for the torch that popped and licked at the ancient walls, only his breathing sounded in the chamber. The quill hovered a centimeter above the blank page. Perspiration beaded his forehead and he brought his left wrist across his brow.

  The idea of his sweat falling to the page seemed profane, which in turn struck him as ridiculous, considering where he was. He’d written a thousand stories above, where he was taught to write, encouraged to write. But down here, the writing was different. In fact, it was the writing that drew him now more than the worms. The monk was right, the writing attracted them all.

  He focused on a minute droplet of red ink glistening on the pen’s very tip. He lowered the tip to the page, watching the gap between it and the paper close. His breathing came to a ragged halt.

  He swallowed and pressed down. The pen made contact with the paper, and Billy’s world seemed to erupt with light, like a strobe in a pitch-dark cell. A tone hummed through his mind.

  Hmmmmmm.

  As if the pen had struck a tuning fork in his skull.

  A window in his mind blew open. He grinned at the thought of the preacher sitting in the root cellar. Now how do you like your Paradise? What do you think of your little church now?

  The red words on the page before him glistened, and he blew across the paper to speed their drying. He dipped the quill in the ink jar again.

  Easy, bringing the preacher to his knees on the cellar floor, cold and damp, shivering in the darkness.

  It had been the monk’s idea to write a story about Paradise. And why not? He had heard a little of the nearby town, and what he didn’t know, the monk told him. Details of the setting, names of characters. A basic plot that suggested a kind of story Billy had never explored before.

  A story of evil, loosed.

  The story was like nothing he’d ever written, and Billy figured it was because of the worm salve. When he wrote, he actually felt like he was in the story with real characters who had minds of their own, like all really good stories, only much better.

  How many times had he written something, paused, realized that the character didn’t want to do it that way, written again and again until finally he got it right and the character did things his way?

  Or was it the character’s way?

  This was the most
realistic story he could ever imagine.

  Billy laid the tip to the paper.

  What do you want, Stanley?

  I want what I had.

  And what did you have, Stan, that you don’t have now?

  Warmth. A bed. Light.

  More, Stan. What do you really want?

  Power.

  Grace and hope, Stan. How about grace and hope?

  Yes, grace and hope.

  But Black brought you grace and hope and you rejected him, deep down there in your heart where no one knew.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have.

  Well, if you stand up right now and cry like a baby and beat your head on the wall until it’s bloody, I’ll give you some power.

  Billy chuckled. He brought his free hand to his neck and scratched.

  He could fully imagine Stan’s situation at this very moment. He could smell the musty dirt and see the darkness. He was inside Stan the man’s mind. Of course he was, Stan was his character.

  But right now, Stan didn’t want to stand up and hit his head against the wall. He was considering it, but this wasn’t where the character wanted to go.

  Billy wrote again.

  Then instead lay there and sulk, you stuffed-up fool.

  I am in a very bad way. I’ll lay here for a while.

  Good enough. Time to move on to another character.

  “Darcy?”

  The girl beside him didn’t turn from her writing. Billy rubbed his fingers into his shirt. The annoying infections were chronic, a rash of systemic boils. He’d tried bandages, but they wouldn’t stick to his oily skin. Washing the area only seemed to keep the flesh clean for an hour. Only the worms’ ointment held the sores at bay. And then only as long as he managed to avoid scratching, which proved almost impossible.

  The other students suffered the same already, in less than a day. The disease overtook them much faster. This as much as the writing would keep them in the dungeons where they could access a ready supply of the ointment.

  They ventured upstairs to the dining hall for short raiding trips only, before returning to the great library the monk had shown Billy. There they hunkered down under Paul’s supervision. At least his version of supervision, which was really a kind of chaos.

  “You’ve already ruined the tables,” Billy observed after Paul and the others occupied the great library for only a few hours.

  “We don’t like the tables,” Paul answered. “They’re too wet and slimy.”

  “They’re wet and slimy because you’ve spread that worm stuff all over them.”

  “Yes, well, we don’t like them anymore.”

  Billy gave up. “Just don’t let any of the others come to my hall. Keep them here.”

  “Sure. How many worms do you think you have in that tunnel?”

  “I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

  “We have 338 in our hall alone,” Paul said. “But I think they all want to be here. With us. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re wasting your time thinking about these stupid worms instead of writing our story!”

  He left Paul standing in the hall just outside the library. That was last night. It was the last time he’d seen him.

  Billy looked around the study. Apart from sludge stains all over the carpet and sofa, his study had survived the brats. Now only he and Darcy used the study.

  Darcy grunted and brought her fingernails to her neck. Billy watched, revolted, as she scratched a wide swath of skin away, oblivious to any pain or blood. She resumed her writing, smiling. She smeared a large streak of blood along the margin of her page without noticing. She was writing some of the women. Women could be quite engrossing.

  Billy closed his eyes and thought about Stanley again. Stan the man. You should have run, Stan the man. Now you’re in the can without a plan. He bent over the desk and began to write again, this time in more developed prose.

  He wrote for an hour, lost in the valley below, his senses dulled to everything but the story that he brought to life in his mind. And then he took a short walk through the hall to stretch.

  His mind drifted back to the debate that he’d won so easily. Seemed like a week ago. Technically, if he remembered right, he could now do whatever he wanted upstairs. Funny thing, though, he didn’t care about what happened upstairs anymore. As long as they left him alone to write down here, the monkeys upstairs could do whatever they wanted.

  Billy padded lightly on the cold stone, warm and dazed. An image of Paul smiling at the entrance of the larger library popped into his mind. Do you know how many worms you have?

  Billy shoved his hand into his pocket. It was slightly mushy but for the most part empty. Restocking worm gel would be a good idea. He held his torch to the wall and dipped his hand into a thick layer of the ointment.

  Billy was stuffing his pockets when it occurred to him that there were no worms within the circle of light cast by his flame. He turned and walked along the wall, expecting a slug to appear in the light. But none did.

  Gone?

  Billy began to run. Where were they? They couldn’t have just left! Slug slime still crisscrossed the walls, but it would eventually run out. Maybe even dry up, leaving nothing but crusty trails. He and Darcy needed the worms. He ran a full hundred meters beyond the study, but the walls were vacant.

  Near panic now, Billy sprinted for the study. He had to get Darcy! Maybe they should find buckets and fill them with what ointment still clung to the walls. Store it in a cool damp corner, hidden from the others. Yes, they should do at least that. Maybe barricade their tunnel to keep the others out altogether.

  Then he and Darcy could write in peace surrounded by buckets of worm gel. Finish their story. But then how would they get out to eat? The moment they left, the others would break in. Better to barricade them in their stinking tunnel!

  When Billy raced through the entrance to the study, his torch slammed into the arch and flew from his hand in a shower of sparks.

  “Darcy!” He retreated quickly to snatch up his torch then jumped back into the study and faced a glassy-eyed Darcy, pen still cocked in her right hand.

  “The worms are gone!”

  She was overdosed on writing. He leaned forward and yelled again. “You hear me? The worms are gone!”

  She blinked and set her pen down. “Worms?”

  “Come on, snap out of it. Yes, worms.” He snaked his hand through the air in a slithering motion. “The worms on the walls are gone.”

  She stood, snatched the other torch from the wall, and ran past Billy into the tunnel. He turned and followed, leaving the study dark behind him. Darcy waved her torch about the cavern and followed the orange splash of light with her head.

  “Gone?” she asked in a thin voice. “You sure?”

  “You see them? They look gone to me.”

  “You check up that way?” She motioned toward the black hole Billy had just searched.

  “Yes.”

  “Come on!” Darcy ran the opposite way, toward the main entrance, and Billy ran right on her heels. The slapping of their feet echoed down the tunnel. Their flames whooshed over their heads.

  Darcy pulled up just before the tunnel ended, and Billy had to swerve to avoid her. His foot hooked under the tail of a massive worm and he found himself diving headlong.

  Three distinct thoughts crashed through his mind as his body flew through the air. The first was one of self-preservation,Heavens, I hope I don’t break my neck. Maybe I should curl up and roll when I land.

  In that instant the second thought materialized. The worm had recoiled when his foot struck its soft flesh. It had compressed like an accordion and raised its head into the air. Maybe it would strike at him like a cobra while he lay on the floor with a broken neck.

  But the third thought superseded even this danger. His flame washed across the tunnel and Billy thought, Jiminy Cricket, there’s a boy dragging that worm!

  Billy landed with a terrible grunt and rolled to his feet. A
boy did indeed stand at the worm’s opposite end, gripping a rope tied around it. Paul! Paul was dragging one of their worms from their tunnel! “What are you doing?” Billy demanded. But he knew what worm-boy was doing. Worm-boy was stealing one of their worms.

  “Uh, nothing.” Paul stepped backward, tugging at the rope. The worm slid easily on its smooth belly.

  “What do you mean nothing?” Darcy snapped. “That doesn’t look like nothing to me. Looks to me like you’re dragging a worm. One of our worms.”

  Paul stopped his tugging and stared at them as though he were having difficulty placing their faces. After a moment he resumed his haul of the giant worm. Billy glanced at the ground and saw dozens of long mucus streaks running along the floor. This wasn’t the first worm dragged down the corridor recently.

  “Wake up, boy! You hear Darcy? What in heaven’s name are you doing, dragging our worms out of our tunnel?”

  Paul leaned into the rope, ignoring Billy’s charge. He trudged down the hall like an ox pulling a heavy sled.

  Billy dove for the worm’s tail end. His fingers slipped through a thin layer of mucus and dug into the soft body flesh.

  The worm slithered on, probably completely unaware of the failed assault. Billy fell to his rear with a grunt. Paul tugged the worm, their last one maybe, through the tunnel’s gaping mouth and around the bend toward his own hall.

  “Come on,” Darcy said, pulling Billy to his feet. “That fool has no right to steal our worms.”

  Billy felt the throbbing pain of his disturbed boils aching to the bone and grimaced. “You’d think he has enough of his own.”

  He shoved a hand into his hip pocket, withdrew a palm full of worm salve, and slapped it along the forearm hit hardest by the first fall. “Man, this hurts!”

  “Don’t worry, Billy. We’ll get our worms back. Sooner than he might think too, assuming he still has the ability to think. You see his eyes? That boy’s lost it. He’s out there in worm land.”

  “Come on,” Billy said. “Let’s find some ropes. No way we can haul those slugs without ropes.”

  “Yeah.”

  Twenty minutes later Billy and Darcy slipped into the far tunnel, laden with ropes they’d found in the study. They’d formed a plan of sorts, though it amounted to no more than sneak-in-and-steal-our-worms-back. And if any kid gets in the way, smack them on the neck where their sores hurt most.