Ruthie sat up abruptly. "Samson, there's somethin' I shoulda told you. I did tell you a while back that I'd been seein' dead people -"
"Yeah, yeah." The waist-high (on most people) door to the Management apartment had been standing open; the carny boss shut the outer door behind him, and hurried in for a closer look at Ben. "What's that got to do with Hawkins bein' on the floor, an' blood all over?"
"Lodz tried to strangle Ben. He took possession o' me. An' Ben's wound reopened when he rolled off the bed."
Samson let out an oath. Then he asked sharply, "How'd you know it was Lodz, an' not someone else?"
Ben decided he'd better speak up, weak as he was, to prevent the story's becoming unnecessarily long. "His eyes. I came to when someone was chokin' me, an' I could see it was Lodz's eyes in Ruthie's face."
"Christ. Like we ain't got enough on our plate." Samson gave the new bandage a once-over, and nodded in acknowledgment of Ruthie's having done a good job. "Are you gonna be okay, Hawkins?"
"Yeah." Maybe. Eventually. "I'm jus' weak right now."
"Well, I need to talk to you anyway." Samson didn't sound particularly sympathetic. "Glad you're finally conscious. But first we gotta get you back on that bed."
"No, please..."
But Samson, unlike Ruthie, wasn't willing to take no for an answer. "Can't have you layin' in all that blood. There ain't none on the bed, an' we can cut some o' your bloody shirt off. C'mon, Ruthie!"
To Ben's amazement, the two of them managed to lift him onto the bed without intensifying the throbbing pain of his wound. Samson, who had to be under four feet tall, proved remarkably strong for his size.
The bed wasn't much more comfortable than the floor, but Ben remembered his manners and said, "Thank you. An' thank you, Samson, for gettin' me outta New Canaan."
"Forget about that. Sit down, Ruthie." Samson gestured to her to take the one chair in the Management cubby, then went outside and brought in his own suitably-sized desk chair. He plunked himself down at Ben's bedside - Ruthie, from necessity, moving her own chair farther away.
Samson demanded, "Tell me what happened back there, Hawkins."
"What...happened?" Don't you know? "I killed Brother Justin, like I was supposed to..." And then Ben winced, as he remembered the part Samson might not know. "But Sofie's dead. At least, when Justin thought he was gonna be able to kill me, he told me she was 'waitin' for me.' Meanin' she was already dead. He didn't have no reason to lie about it."
Samson was frowning. "He told you Sofie was dead. What did you do then?"
" 'Do'?" Ben couldn't understand the grilling. "I got the drop on him an' killed him!" Why do you look as if you don't believe me? "Ruthie said I didn't bleed to death 'cause I was layin' on top o' him, so at least some o' the carnies musta seen his body."
"That's right," Ruthie chimed in. "Samson, you were there. You saw Justin's body. An' it was clear Ben had been unconscious since the fight. If you're thinkin' he shoulda done more to try to find Sofie or Jonesy -"
"Jonesy?" Ben somehow got his head up, and struggled to raise himself on his uninjured right elbow so he could look at her. "Somethin's happened to Jonesy?"
"We lost both Sofie an' Jonesy," Samson said grimly. "Didn't find bodies - but Jonesy had gone missin', an' we had to leave without him. Iris Crowe wanted the carnival to be on its way before anyone called the cops. She had the only phone, but after the things people had seen, she couldn't stall much beyond daybreak. Did you send Jonesy somewhere?"
"No! I ain't seen him since he went to put the Crowes on Colossus!"
"Then he musta gone off on his own, tryin' to rescue Sofie. Which means he's likely as dead as she is."
"Damn!" Ben fell back on the bed - and couldn't stop tears from coming.
Why do I feel worse about Jonesy than about Sofie? That ain't right!
Yeah, it is. Sofie was there 'cause she'd fallen for Justin's line, joined up with his followers of her own free will. I woulda risked my life to save her, but the fact is, she'd made her own bed.
Jonesy was different. He was only there 'cause o' me, helpin' with a job that was rightly mine.
An' I'd saved his life just a few days ago. There was no way I coulda passed him an' Libby by. But stoppin' to help them kept me from savin' my father, for Christ's sake! An' it was all for nothin'? Jonesy's dead anyway, killed tryin' an' failin'to save someone else?
"I'm sorry, Samson," he murmured.
"Sorry ain't gonna cut it. What else did you do back there?"
"What else? Nothin'!" By now he was exasperated. "How could I have fitted in anythin' else? You saw me run outta the healin' tent an' into the cornfield. I fought Justin in that cornfield, an' you know I was still out cold when you found me."
"Yeah," Samson said harshly. "But I also know you got scary powers. Maybe even when you seem to be out cold. Why do you think we're stopped right now?"
"I dunno. Should I?"
"Maybe. Osgood an' me had the radio on in the lead truck, an' when we heard the news, Osgood slammed the brake on so hard that half the vehicles in the convoy rammed into others. Can't say I blame him.
"Remember, Hawkins, what you said about the possibility o' Sofie bein' dead?"
Confused, Ben thought for a few seconds. Jeez, my head aches. Then he confessed, "No, I don't."
Samson gave a disbelieving snort. "It went somethin' like this. 'If she's dead, then God help them all in this valley. Every single last one o' them.' " His eyes met Ben's and held them. "You wanna know what we heard on the news?" His voice was rising with every word. "After we left, all Justin's followers in that valley collapsed an' died! Seventeen thousand people, you bastard!"
Ben only half heard Ruthie's gasp. Up on his elbow again, he echoed, "Seventeen thousand people? Collapsed an' died? That's impossible!"
"Is it? Did you - what's the word from the Bible? Did you smite them, somehow?"
"No!" Ben yelled, horrified. "I don't know how to 'smite' no one. I was unconscious, dammit!"
"You know who's babblin' to the newshounds about it? Justin! Your goddamn Usher, alive an' well!"
Ben fell back on the bed, closing his eyes in an attempt at escape. This ain't real. I'm unconscious now, that's it! Havin' a nightmare.
But he couldn't shut out Samson's voice. "Look at me, you freak!"
Ruthie protested, "Leave him alone, Samson! You wanna kill him? Can't you see he was as shocked as you?"
Reluctantly, Ben opened his eyes.
"Justin's dead," he insisted. "You both saw his body, right? How can he be talkin' to reporters?"
Samson said bitterly, "He was dead, but he sure ain't now. An' he ain't admittin' he ever was dead - if he even knows it.
"Guess what he's tellin' them reporters? He's been screamin' an' carryin' on, claimin' his flock was murdered by the Antichrist. A healer name o' Benjamin St. John, who's travelin' with a carnival!"
"No!" That horrified denial came from Ben and Ruthie simultaneously.
"Yes! He says you vowed revenge after he denounced your powers as comin' from the devil."
"You know that ain't true, Samson." By now Ben had managed to sit up. Ruthie came to sit beside him on the bed, and slipped a protective arm around him.
"Not like he's tellin' it, o' course not," Samson acknowledged. "But I also know you threatened to do somethin' to all them people if Sofie was dead."
"Whatever I said, it was just talk! I don't even remember it!"
But...is there any possibility...any chance at all...that my just sayin' it coulda made it so? My God...
"There's no way I woulda restored Justin to life," he argued. "The whole point o' goin' there was to kill him."
Am I tryin' to convince Samson, or myself?
"Justin's supposed to represent Evil, right?" Samson was glowering at him. "Seems to me your sinnin' big time - killin' seventeen thousand people - coulda strengthened the power of Evil in the world, an' brought him back."
"No! I didn't kill no seventeen thousand people. This is insane. I killed Justin, dammit, no one else!"
But the doubt had been planted in his mind, and his denial sounded false, even to him.
"The cops are gonna be after us," Samson pointed out. "No one can prove how them people died. I could just deny the whole thing, since we ain't been advertisin' no healer.
"But I dunno how we can explain you bein' here, wounded, an' havin' this damn blue blood. We may have time to clean up the mess we got now, but what if more of it comes out on the bandage while they're lookin' at you?"
Thinking aloud, Ben said, "I can keep them from seein' me. If they come in the trailer, I can make 'em look at this section of it an' just see a wall. An' the wall will seem to be in the right place, so the size o' the inside o' the rig will match the outside."
Then he realized both Samson and Ruthie were staring at him. Even Ruthie seemed frightened by his new acceptance of his powers; she edged away from him.
Freak, he told himself. Samson was right...that's what I am now, a goddamn freak.
An' maybe a mass murderer?
Suddenly, someone pounded on the trailer door. "Samson! You in there?"
"Osgood?" Samson yelled. "Yeah, c'mon in."
The young roustie let himself in - looking scared. He left the trailer door open, as if preparing to bolt. After he spotted Ben he never took his eyes off him, even though he seemed to be addressing Samson.
"You'll never believe this. Seein' as we're stopped, Bert went pokin' in the last truck in the convoy, lookin' for some o' his an' Sabina's stuff. An' guess who he found, passed out in the back o' the truck? Sofie!"
"What?" came from three throats at once. Samson and Ruthie sprang to their feet.
"She's okay," Osgood said quickly. "She came to when Bert shook her. Says she ran an' caught the last truck as we were leavin', passed out from exhaustion before she could let the driver know she was there."
Ben felt ill.
I don't believe I killed all them people. I don't!
But if I killed them...
My God. Did I kill seventeen thousand people, an' restore Justin to life, for Sofie's sake, when she ain't even dead?
Osgood shifted uncomfortably. "But she says Jonesy really is dead. He rescued her, but that bald-headed guy - Stroud? - was shootin' at them, an' Jonesy was killed."
Samson dropped back into his chair, muttering, "Damn."
Ben buried his face in his hands.
And then, through the open door, they heard a blood-curdling scream.
Ruthie started for the door. "Oh my God -"
"Sit down, Ruthie," Samson said bleakly. "You ain't needed. The right people are there."
"Who -? What -?"
The carny boss looked up, gray-faced. "The nearest car is the Dreifusses'," he explained.
"Sounds like Libby just got the bad news."
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The End
