Chapter 11
Michael watched from the shelter of his porch as the newcomers' vehicles pulled up along the curb in front of his house. The house was old, a hundred years at least; a big brick foursquare with numerous battle scars but a welcoming face nonetheless, a house that rolled with the punches of whatever Nature and the supernatural threw at it and then landed again sturdily on its feet.
Anxiety came before the cars in hot, choppy waves. It prickled across Michael's mind, and he pitied the people inside the cars before he even saw them. He could see them now: a middle-age man and woman emerged from the first, pale of skin and slight of build. A somewhat younger couple came out of the second, followed by a short, slender youth in his early twenties and an elementary school-age little boy. They must be our Romulus and Remus, Michael guessed. The third car produced a single young woman, also early twentyish. She fell in line a few paces behind the others, but the young man nudged her ahead of him and took the rear position himself, looking cautiously down both sides of the street and around the neighbors' yards.
This one's the family's protector. The two other men are older and heavier but they rely on this one; they all rely on him. As they came up the sidewalk the older men and women formed a phalanx around the little boy, almost obscuring him from view. They looked at the big, solid house desperately, and then they looked at Michael.
He adjusted his tie and held out his hand.
"Please, come in."
Jordy liked this house. He liked the bedroom that he and his parents would share, and the tiny little closets, and the bathroom with the weird shower that looked like a birdcage. There was a staircase with a bannister that you could slide down the way kids did on old movies; Mr. Wight said he didn't mind Jordy sliding down it if Jordy's parents didn't mind. (Mr. Wight also said that he slid down it a couple of times right after he bought the house and moved in.)
The best thing was the Christmas tree. It was the strangest one that Jordy had ever seen; not green but silver, with needles made out of aluminum foil stuff and branches that ended in big flowery pompoms. Mr. Wight had found it in the attic a long time ago and said that it was as old as he was. You didn't put light strings on it because of all the metal sticking out, but that was okay because Mr. Wight had something even better: a lamp that you set on the floor, with a plastic plate in front that was green and yellow and blue and red and turned in a circle, and that made the tree look green and yellow and blue and red. Your hand turned all those colors when you held it in front of the lamp, too.
There were some new boxes of glass balls, and a dancing Santa doll who wore sunglasses like Danny's, and an angel chime that ran on little candles. Mom told Mr. Wight that he shouldn't have gone to all that trouble, and Mr. Wight said that it wasn't any trouble; he had gotten them On Clearance. "Will this tree do?" He had asked Jordy. Jordy had answered, "YEAH! I love silver!" and Mom and Mr. Wight had gotten real strange looks on their faces when he said that. Then Mr. Wight said that Jordy could put the Santa doll and his mom's manger set anywhere he wanted, and that in a couple of days it would be New Year's Eve, and Santa Claus always visited lots of houses then ("He goes all over Russia on New Year's, and Scotland too, I think.")
Jordy didn't really believe in Santa Claus anymore, but there were lots of things that not everybody believed in, and it didn't mean that those things weren't around somewhere. There was a poem book at home, one with neat drawings of ships and birds and crazy old men, and one of the drawings had a verse under it that Jordy liked to read when he wanted to scare himself. It was the picture that had scared him at first - a guy staring bug-eyed at a bunch of sailor ghosts - but as he got older and learned more and more words, the verse began to be spooky, too:
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
"Go away, Poem." Jordy didn't want to scare himself right now. There was enough scary around already - he knew that Rita and her friends had snuck away from the police somehow - ESCAPED PRISONERS! - and he had heard his parents and aunt and uncle whispering that the escaped prisoners had the same thing that he and Danny had ("lycanthropy"; it sounded like "cancer" but they'd assured him that it wasn't), and it meant that when the moon was full they'd be super strong and grow claws and fangs and be a-
I DON'T WANT TO BE A WEREWOLF!
He pushed the thought out of his head. This was an okay place to live until the police caught the Escaped Prisoners again. Jordy began to hum as he arranged the decorations on the tree, and he wondered what Santa Claus would bring him.
Michael turned on the television to prevent the child from hearing what he didn't need to hear, and joined the other adults at the dining room table. Take-out chicken and mashed potatoes lay mostly untouched on their plates. Maureen moved fretfully from her chair to the living room door and back, trying to watch Jordy and keep up with the discussion at the same time.
"I told the police here about what's happened, and what kind of weapons they'll need. They didn't argue. Phoenix law enforcement is a different story, of course, but whoever picks them up should be safe until January 24th, unless they decide to bite..." Michael looked over at the young blonde woman, the one who'd run away from her sister. "Have they ever done anything like that? Bitten someone out of spite or anger?"
Elsie D had taken a seat at the far end of the table, trying, it seemed, to keep out of the way. She swallowed hard and looked uncertain.
"I don't know. I don't think so. They never tried to bite me."
"Actually...I think they have." Oz worked his fork slowly back and forth between his fingers. "I don't mean they've bitten you; I mean they may have killed. A human. A guy was found murdered outside of Phoenix in one of the same locations where I tracked Jordy and your family. He was pretty chewed up."
Elsie D's face turned ashen, and she winced and gripped her stomach. Oz's father and mother exchanged a glance. They were not without sympathy for the girl - God knew this thing was hell to live with - but...
"Miss...we appreciate what you did for our nephew, but you understand that if there's only one way left to stop your sister - if she attacks..."
"You'll have to kill her." Elsie looked up at Mr. Osbourne quietly. "You'll likely have to kill them all."
He nodded. "I'm sorry."
Elsie nodded too, dismally. After a moment Michael cleared his throat and continued. "If they can follow a scent as well as Daniel was able to, it's very possible that they'll turn up here, but we'll be ready for them. We've got at least four people who can take a werewolf on hand-to-hand, another on the way, and two who can fight with their minds. And most of us have pretty decent aim with firearms."
Jordy appeared in the doorway. "There's a car parking across the street."
The adults all jumped simultaneously. Oz darted to the window, and then let out a breath of relief. "It's all right. Cavalry."
The sound of car doors slamming filtered through the window glass, then a yelp and a "Wait a minute, Man! It's hung." Footsteps clattered on the porch. The front door popped open to reveal Thu Khiem, Fred Burkle, Charles Gunn, and Spike, who was struggling with a large black umbrella.
"Bloody collapsibles. Think they'd make a brolly that just opened and closed, without all this spidery business." Spike shook the flapping contraption in frustration, and then dropped it on the floor. Gunn shook his head.
"Hey, I said you shoulda gone with the little lavender parasol." He strode into the dining room and set a shoebox down beside the fried chicken bucket. "We got some old nappy silverplate melted down into shot. Dilip's on the phone with some of his relatives tryin' to see what kind of anti-wolf mojo'll be safest; we don't wanna accidentally give some of you guys hives or anything. Hi, Little Man." Gunn smiled down at Jordy and held a hand out to him. Jordy took it, and his own pale, tiny hand was swallowed up by Gunn's massive one as they shook solemnly.
Thu held up a large shopping bag. "I brought more decorations. Oh, cool! Your whole tree's made out of tinsel!" She scurried to the sofa with Jordy at her heels, and the two began unloading the sack.
"That ought to keep him busy for a good long while," Oz's mother smiled a little. "It looks like there's everything but the kitchen sink in that bag."
"I'm not sure I wanna know what's in the bag," Gunn said ruefully. He turned to Michael. "You know those Hell's Weebles that invaded your house last summer? She strung 'em into a garland and hung it on the wreath on her front door."
Spike perched his rear on the windowsill overlooking the porch and surveyed the refugees. "All's well so far, then? No sign of the Boxcar Children?"
"Not yet." Oz roused himself from thought. "...You said there's a demon in town who dimension-hops. Could she take my folks to her world to hide?"
"Only as a last resort. Chupacabra Land's got some dodgy gasses in its atmosphere; not the healthiest stuff to breathe. Slayers can handle it, but it makes ordinary humans sick. Not sure what it'd do to wolf-humans. You'd need oxygen tanks, air hoses, that sort of thing."
"Don't worry," Fred soothed. "We've fought lots worse than a few werewolves. It'll be okay."
"Do you have anything that belongs to your sister or her friends?" Michael asked Elsie D suddenly.
"Her - her TV's in my car."
"Do you have the remote?"
"Yeah...?"
"Bring it in here. I'll see if I can get a vision of them with it."
Elsie D rose obediently and went out the front door. When she returned, she gave the remote to Michael and went back to her seat at the other end of the table. The seer closed his eyes and held the instrument loosely in his hands. He slid his fingertips over it; traced the buttons, the smooth back. Without being told, Fred quietly closed the dining room door.
Flashes. Images. Dry, cold dust and sniffling noises. Scents of jism and of whiskey, and a metallic smell whose origin he could only guess at. Yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow blink and you'll miss one...
It's the divider stripes on the highway. I'm seeing them from over a dashboard - over a steering wheel. Is there a logo on the wheel?
Too late, the image shifted. The past accordioned forward over the present, and all he could see now was an assembly line with factory workers putting together hundreds of television remote controls, all identical to the one in his hand. Michael gave up and opened his eyes. Nine faces were looking at him expectantly.
"Nothing much. They're somewhere on the road. Driving something big; a van, or a pickup with monster truck wheels. I'll have to try again later."
From behind the door to the living room, Thu Khiem called out, "Can someone tall come help us with the high-up stuff?"
She and Jordy had transformed the room into a gaudy wonderland. Blue and gold tinsel garlands were taped to the walls, mixtures of real and artificial evergreens were arranged in clusters and stuffed into any opening that would support them, strings of twinkle lights blinked within a few inches of all the available electrical sockets, and red bows were twist-tied onto everything. The two had topped off their creation by flinging mylar icicles everywhere. Only a few plastic popcorn and cranberry strands remained in their arms. Thu caught the end of hers as it began to slide to the floor. "We can't reach the top of the curtains."
"Oh, Honey!" Maureen gave a little laughing gasp at the sight of her son. Michael smiled unconcernedly and took one of the strands to drape across the top of a window. Jordy beamed with pride.
"How does it look?"
"Very cool." Oz nodded approval. "Kind of an eclectic thing going. It's what I'd envision if Rankin/Bass threw up."
"Look." Jordy pushed the switch on the dancing Santa, and the toy swayed its hips hula-style as the electronic music box inside it played "Jingle Bell Rock." A pleased smile came over the boy's face, and he began unconsciously to sway his own hips from side to side in imitation. Thu scooped up a handful of icicles and tossed them into the air. She watched them settle on the heads of Spike and Gunn, and sighed with contentment.
"Righteous."
Author's Note: The poem referred to in this chapter is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798.