Virtual American Gothic - Third Season Season Finale - Episode Seventeen EVERYBODY DIES By Queribus <wrussell@polarnet.com> NOT TO BE ARCHIVED TO A WEB PAGE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S PRIOR CONSENT. Special Guest Stars: Brent Spiner Alan Arkin ********************************************** The siren wailed like a banshee in the night, its swirling lights illuminating the twisted wreck that was the Trinity Bridge. The chains on the crane used for dragging squealed and shuddered. "Can you see him?" "I can't see anything in this muck!" *** Silence. Silence and white fluffy clouds. For as far as you could see. Buck was god damned tired of the view. Silence and white fluffy clouds. It was enough to make you go nuts. *** The ambulance screetched into its spot behind Fulton County General. Matt Crower was in it before the back doors had completely flung open. "Status!" "He's bagged, but he's far from stable." The Emergency Tech indicated the portable respirator breathing for the body on the gurney. "We're still doing heart massage but can't get a steady rhythm." Matt glanced at the little boy squeezed in next to the still figure, breathing solemnly in time with the respirator as if that might help. "Let's get him into intensive care. How long was he under water?" "Too long. Almost ten minutes." "My daddy's not dead." They hauled the gurney out and raced in up to IC. Caleb running to keep up. "You should wait here," Matt gasped, trying to hold the boy back as they flopped the body next to a glittering array of monitors and equipment. "I'll do everything I can. I promise." "Not alone, Doctor Matt," The boy shrugged Crower's gentle hand off, "I left my sister alone once. That ain't happening again." *** The fluffy white clouds didn't even move. Because there was no wind. Nothing. "Where the Hell is everybody?!!" Buck shouted. He looked up. Bland white skyscape. Down. There was something between the clouds. Something burning. It was the spire on Trinity's main church. "That's MY town you're trashing!" The flames twisted brighter. Like someone or thing was flipping him off. *** The pattern on the heart monitor started destabilising again. Stacey put some gel on the electrical paddles and looked at Matt. "Should we try again?" "His chest is near fried as it is." Matt wiped the sweat off his face, it was hotter than hell in here. Just call it, he thought, time of death 11:59 pm. Caleb reached in and touched the deathly still hand again. What was it Loris said had happened to the boy the last time his father was . . .near death? Something demonic? Matt looked carefully at the boy's face streaming with tears. He didn't think demons cried. "Give me a hypo of adrenaline." He held his breath as the long needle reached its way deep into the one organ most people in Trinity were doubtful the Sheriff actually possessed. *** The clouds over burning Trinity closed up again leaving the Sheriff with that same serene bloody maddening awful view. "Ok, people!! What kinda afterlife you running here?" Buck stomped through the clouds as hard as he could. " Lucas Buck -- Everybody's favorite Monster is Dead!!! Doesn't anybody give a damn!" Apparently nobody did. The clouds weren't overly impressed. "Oh Hell!" Buck screwed up his face in utter disgust, the veins on his forehead popping. "Judith!! Judith Temple! Help me!" He nearly spit the last word out. "Please!" *** The heart monitor lit up like a christmas tree. Bright sharp even points of rhythm. Not very strong, but regular enough. Buck's eyes popped open. "Do you know who you are?" Matt said loud and clear, " What's your name?" "I'm Lucas Buck," Buck's voice was barely audible. "How many fingers am I holding up?" "Count em yourself, Harvard." Buck closed his eyes again and sighed. His hand tight around his son's small fingers. *** ACT ONE Early morning light filtered feebly through the blinds in the Sheriff's office. Ben was trying to read some police reports in the dim shadows. "It's a wonder Buck isn't blind." He turned on the tensor light, but most of that was glare and the rest got swallowed up by the hungry shadows. The door to the hall opened. Merly peeked in. "What're you doin in here? Gettin used to the view?" "There ain't no view. And I might have to get used to it. Lucas nearly croaked last night and I hear he ain't all that better this morning." "Men born to be hanged don't drown. He'll wriggle out, you watch." "Merly, everybody dies. Even. . . I tell you, I ain't digging him up this time." "So you say." She leaned over to brush her lips across Ben's forehead. "You didn't come home at all last night." "You want know why?" Ben leaned back. "First, the entire senior class at Trinity High decided to go joyriding and piled up their daddy's cars on the waterfront. Smashed up Oscar's fishstick stand. Nearly took out a pier. Then, Hickey Reynolds? He never had a clue that he even had sexual parts. Busted into three different women's bedrooms with romance in mind and finally got shot by Molly Davis's cracker boyfriend. Molly's in the hospital with the hives and Floyd had to pick buckshot out of Hickey's butt over at the lock-up. Oh, don't laugh." "It is funny." "Seventeen assaults and ten attempted arson's. There's no place left in the jail to stack the perpetrators." "You know what's goin on, don't you?" "State-wide criminal convention booked in town?" "No. . . Lucas Buck's under the weather." "Oh Lord, where's Caleb?" "He's fine. Loris and I got him to bed around two am. I sat up with him for an hour until he finally wore himself out and went to sleep. That's when I went home." "Sheriff!" Floyd's voice sounded slightly worried from the front office. "Handle it, Floyd." Ben called back. "Merly, you think that . . .that, uh, Thing that took Caleb over might do it again?" "I think It might do something worse this time." "The minute he starts wearing suits, you let me know." Horns were blatting, tires squealing, and Floyd was shrieking. Ben leaned out of Buck's office to remind his deputy that he was only acting Sheriff, when the Ford Fairlane ploughed through the front glass door and smashed into the counter. "Jesus Christ!" Floyd was two inches from being an special at The Pancake Palace. Curtis Z Webb lurched out of the driver's seat, drunk as a lord. Three goats jumped out of the front seat with him. "I am delivering my official resignation, Sheriff Healy." "I ain't the Sheriff, Webb. But you're arrested anyway, you damn fool." The goats were relieving themselves all over the linoleum. "Go ahead, Ben, I am unnecessary baggage in this town. Nobody's dying in Trinity no matter how terminal they get. Nobody but the star attraction. And I don't EVER want to do that autopsy!" Webb gestured dramatically and collapsed on the floor, dead drunk. *** Loris Holt-Crower looked in at the little boy restlessly turning on his big bed. She closed the window silently hoping to keep the stink of tragedy out of Caleb's bedroom. Let him sleep while he can, she thought, looking at every twitch of those crooked eyebrows for signs of the Buck he had become. The last time his father --- left. The death-throes of the town were increasing. She could feel them racking her own bones. Loris felt old. "I'm in my Grandmother's skin." She whispered to herself. Time to lie down herself and get whatever rest she could because there would be no rest soon enough. Loris closed Caleb's door softly. The boy opened his eyes the minute he was alone. They were dark and unreadable. *** Merly sat down at the front desk in the sheriff's office and pushed away a stack of books, Crosswords, Find-a-Word, Boost your Vocabulary. Floyd had dug in. The phone took a '9' to get an outside line. There was a lot of static. "Who're you trying to call?" Ben wanted to know. "Selena." The phone kept ringing and ringing, giving Merly chills. "There's no answer." "The phones have been in and out this morning." "I haven't been able to get ahold of her all day. " "You try the school?" "Yes. She never showed up. Well, neither did I, for that matter. I'm worried, Ben. Drive me by her house?" "When I get the time." He pointed out some more goat refuse for Floyd to clean up. "Make the time. She could be in dire straits. Hell, I'll walk there." Ben was shocked, he'd never heard Merly swear. "It's too dangerous. Call the hospital. I'll bet she's there. I'll bet everything's just fine." "I've been calling the hospital.They either don't pick up the phone at all or it's busy. I told her I'd be there FOR her, Ben! I promised!" "Well, Caleb and Loris needed you last night. And, Merly, I need you today. Selena is just gonna have to wait." "Babies don't wait, Ben." "You're not going to that hospital. You're not going anywhere out of my sight. I have to protect what's mine." Merly just stared at him. *** The room was tiny and dark and dirty and Selena had been lying in it since midnight when the paramedics brought her in. She'd spent most of the time trying not to scream. But that resolve was wearing thin now. All she'd seen was one little nurse's aide and an intern who looked younger than Boone since she'd been dumped on this hard bed. It was sweat-soaked and bloody now. She pushed the call button again, but without much hope. It was probably broken. "Damn Lucas Buck and damn Matt Crower, and damn every man I have ever slept with or hoped to sleep with!" Another contraction rushed over her. She almost blacked out they were so strong and coming every five minutes, more regular than an Timex. "Takes a lickin, keeps on tickin. Oh God, damn Trinity too." One moment's peace as the contraction subsided."Merlyn Ann Temple, you'd better be right. We had better be survivors-- all three of us! Please Merly, find me and help me." "Is some one in here?" The door opened a crack. Nurse Stacey Johnson peeped around the corner, squinting to see. "Thank God." Selena couldn't remember using the Lord's name so much since she was in Sunday school and all the boys were trying to peep up her dress. "I need a doctor to check on my baby. I've been in labor all night." "Oh." The nurse's voice was dreamy and disconnected. "You know, there are eight mommas-to-be, no, wait a minute, I think maybe ten . . . no, probably eight is the closest number. Anyway, they've been in labor all night too. Nobody seems to be dilating at all. Isn't that funny? I wonder if you're dilating either?" "Is there anybody who could check, preferably a doctor? Is Matt Crower on duty?" "I think so but he's soooo busy. One minute he's in the the emergency, one minute he's checking on the Sheriff. He's dying you know. Such a handsome man." Stacey probed a bit between Selena's legs. "You aren't very dilated either. Maybe a centimeter, no more. Don't you push now, you could hurt yourself." "We wouldn't want me to get hurt." Selena muttered between her teeth. She stared daggers at Stacey. The nurse's pupils were smaller than pinpoints. That explained a lot. She didn't say Lucas was dying, did she? "Nobody ever uses this room any more." Stacey said dreamily as she smoothed Selena's filthy gown over her legs. " I thought it was a closet. I wonder why the techs put you in here?" "The room was my choice." Selena said. Oh God, even a junkie nurse was better than nothing. " Please, could I ask you one favor?" "All right." "Could you call Merlyn Temple and let her know I'm here?" "Certainly, Miss Coombs. I'll do that right away." It was only after Nurse Johnson was gone that Selena realized she'd used Merly's real name. That nurse was probably using a ouija board to contact Caleb's dead sister. Selena started to laugh when another contraction hit. She was afraid she knew why her friend couldn't reach her. The baby was a curse after all and this was Hell. *** Matt sat next to Buck's hospital bed and toyed with his chart. The beep of the monitors was distracting. "I hope you don't think I enjoy doing this, Sheriff." "Oh, I would never think that, Harvard. You lack the capacity for enjoyment in so many areas of life." Crower gritted his teeth. The problem wasn't how to tell the patient the truth; the problem was how to tell it to a sonofabitch. "I just want you to understand the situation. Your heart is. . .well. . ." "What?" Lucas grinned. "Broken? That'd be some kind of joke." "If it is, it's in very poor taste." "My favorite kind." "Broken will do. Your heart doesn't work like it used to." "You can use big words if you need to, Harvard. I graduated high school, you know." "With honors, I checked." Matt flipped through his chart. "You have rapidly advancing Degenerative Heart Failure. There's no cure." "Hell, there's no future either." Buck fingered the tubes leading into his nose, glancing at the tanks they were attached to. Danger No Smoking signs in big red letters. "Don't obstruct the airway, that's. ." "The only thing keeping me alive? My heart won't pump enough oxygen through on its own, will it?" "No, and you have to keep sitting up, because if you lay down flat, well, you'll drown." "I understand drown. You tell any of this to Caleb?" "Not yet." "Not ever." He gave Matt a Buck look, it might work. "It's my life, my death. Give the kid a break." "He's at home, right now." Buck looked at him askance. "Home?" Making it sound like an obscenity. "The boarding house." "Uh huh." "I could send him over later." "Don't bother." "It's no bother, Sheriff. Look, you're losing heart muscle rapidly, by the hour. Caleb would want to be here." "He's my son. He'll come to me. I don't need your help to get him here." "I don't think you understand the situation in Trinity today. There have been shootings and muggings and car crashes. It's not safe out there for Caleb alone." Stacey popped her head in to tell Crower they needed him in Emergency. "Not again!" "Five car pile-up right across from City Hall." She was smiling as if describing a Pick-Me-Up bouquet. Crower bustled out with the promise to come back when he could. Lucas poked at his artificial scrambled eggs. Hospital food, reason enough to end it all. "You're the one who doesn't understand the situation in Trinity today, Doctor." *** ACT TWO "Lay down. You're supposed to rest." Rose wiped her hands on her apron and sighed. World weary. Somewhere a car squealed and raced. There was a crash. "How can I rest through that?" Caleb struggled to sit up again, to take a bite of the pancakes Rosa held out to him. "Ugh! These are burnt." He flopped back onto his pillow. "Do I look like Margaret Stewart to you? This is the best I can do. They ain't paying me enough to take cookin classes, ya know." "They don't pay you at all." "Besides my momma says this is God's judgment coming down on Trinity." Rose poured herself a cup of coffee and winced as she drank it. "And if we'd all got saved the last time the Holy Rollers came through this would never have happened." "Holy Rollers ain't gonna fix breakfast. Burnt is burnt." He waved off the coffee. "I got to go in and see my Daddy." "If Lucas Buck had just accepted Jesus in his heart this'd all be over." Rose shrugged off Caleb's shocked expression. "Don't blame me, I'm just quoting the Reverend." "My family's all Catholic. Least the women are." "So? It didn't do your cousin Gail much good." "Nothin did my cousin Gail much good." *** Rita Barber thought she might repot some geraniums since she quit the hospital. It was a nice spring day even if there was a hint of rain in the air. If they thought she was going to wait for a suspension hearing just cause she was AT Juniper House when it blew up! She kept telling them she didn't know where she got those keys. Goddamn Lucas Buck! Even when he tried to help you, he hurt you. "We don't want to point fingers at a fine member of the nursing community, but there are questions that have to be asked. And you don't seem to have any answers." Only answer they were going to get was good-bye and good-riddance. The unemployment checks were enough to last her till she got out of this hellhole once and for all. She winced as a siren went by. The flowers came apart in her hands. At least it wasn't an ambulance. She dug out the broken roots, the soft dirt sinking deep in her fingernails. Lotta scrubbing to get those hands sterile again. Damn it! She wasn't really good at anything except being a nurse! It's all she really ever wanted to be and now. . . Rita burst into tears as another yodeling screech went by. It was an ambulance this time. *** He tried to sleep but the sirens kept waking him up. More than the sirens, the fear and the violence savaging his people, driving them this way and that like pawns in a crazy game. It wasn't fair. It was just plain stupid. Besides, that was HIS job. " I can't even die in peace!" Oh Hell. All Trinity needed was a touch of the old Buck attitude. One more time for the road. He threw back the bedclothes and looked at the floor. It was a long way down. He fingered the remains of his ring, the shattered stone cut through the skin. "How hard could it be?" His foot hit the floor sideways on that bad leg and the room slid away. As close to black out as a man could get. One hand held on to the bed railings. Just say the key word, one of those phrases that always let the power loose. "The things I do for my people." Jelly, his lower body was nothing but jelly. For the first time in his life there was no dark reserve of rage to call upon. Heart jumping and dancing in his chest. It took every ounce of strength he had to pull his worthless leg back onto the bed. "I can't do it." Screwed his eyes tight as the pillows slipped and his head fell flat. "WHY CAN'T I DO IT!?" The fluid started choking his lungs and the room clouded over as if he were still on that river bottom looking up at tons of water. He clawed his way to the bed controls and cranked his head up as high as it could go. "I am not living like this!" *** Caleb wobbled on his bike, not quite sure who he was actually crying for, all his dead relatives, his daddy, or himself. The old woman across the street was hitting the mailman with her broom. "Junk mail! Nothing but Junk mail!! Why won't you bring me my tax refund?" Guess Miz Broomley got up on the wrong side of the bed. Caleb wiped his eyes and stood up on the pedals to put on some speed. An arrow flew through the spokes of his front wheel. The bike nearly flipped ass over teacup. Caleb skidded along the asphalt, tearing his jeans. "Who did that?" Boone came out of the bushes another arrow nocked into his bow. Hey, you got me good." Caleb smiled. " But I can't go boar hunting this morning." "You are the boar." "Whut?" "My daddy got fired last night, Momma left home this morning cause the bank's foreclosin. I ain't got no parents nor maybe no house to go home to. Everybody says it's your daddy's fault." "Maybe it is, what's that got to do with me?" "You're a Buck ain't you?" Boone aimed and pulled his bowstring tight. Another arrow flew into the ground next to Caleb's arm. "Boone, you're crazy." "The last thing this town needs is another damn Buck!" Lucilla Buck tossed her satchel at Boone's scrawny back. Whatever was in it was heavy enough to fold him up like a jackknife. He hit his head on the pavement on the way down. "Did you kill him?" Caleb had gotten used to family popping up out of nowhere. Lucilla hobbled over to poke at the slim blonde boy with her foot. "He ain't dead, you want him dead?" "No, I don't think so. He was my friend, yesterday." Caleb grabbed Boone under his arms and Mama Lucy managed his feet. The boy didn't weigh very much. Nobody looked to be in at the Connolly place. They lugged Boone up onto the front porch and propped him up on the swing. "Looks like a mild concussion to me." Lucilla dug around in her satchel and pulled out a small yellow bottle. She poured it into Boone and let him lay back on the swing. "Leave him alone, he'll be alright. C'mon, sit down on the stoop here and let's talk." "Is the whole town crazy? Or just people I know?" "I would estimate three-quarter's of Trinity is insane or about to be. Course you know the reason for that?" "My Daddy." " Uh huh." Mama Lucy reached inside a few layers of clothing and scratched some wayward itch. "My boy Lucas give you a lot of lessons, you listen to any of them?" "Some." "Any of them make any sense?" She unbuttoned the top of her shirtwaist and flapped her camisole a bit. It was unseasonably hot. Muggy. "Some." "Well, you listen to your Granny." Lucilla sucked on her front teeth and her eyes went deep in her head. Like she was seeing things no mortal ever should. "There's two kinds of people in this world, people who DO and people who get done to. Your daddy was always somebody who did. He stopped-- now he's not only done to, he's done for." "I don't want him to die." "That's baby talk. Everybody dies. Hell, I'm gonna die today." "I won't let you." "You can't stop me when my time's up. No more than you can stop being a Buck. I just want you to start thinking about what kind of person you are cause that's what you'll be for the rest of your life." "You want me to be bad?" His tone was non-judgemental, just inquisitive. "Have I mentioned bad or good? I don't care." The boy nodded, following her argument. "Your Doctor Matt, he's one of those who's a Do-er-- too much, probably-- trying to save your daddy's life right now, damn fool. You think he's bad?" "No." "Matt Crower has the power to heal. Power is supposed to be used, not locked away, given away, or thrown away. You remember that." "I'll remember." *** When Lucas opened his eyes, his deputy was standing at the foot of the bed. "Well, hello there, stranger." He moved his eyes rather than his head, it took less energy. All of a sudden that mattered. "Sorry I haven't been in, Lucas, but the town's in a mess." "You trying to fix it up?" "Best I can." He watched Buck's smirk grow. "You don't think I'm up to it, do you?" "I think you're pathetic, Ben, no offense." "Pathetic. . ." Ben looked out the window at the chaos crowding in on Trinity. "I heard you were suicidal." "There's worse things than dying." "That's a fact." "There's living all your life wanting to get back at someone for some little misdemeanor, think about slicing his face in, killing him maybe, but never having the guts to do a damned thing but whine. That's way worse than dying. That's never being alive at all." "You still think I'm a coward for not turning you in over Merly." "You called it, Benji." Ben looked over the array of machines hooked up to Lucas, watched the erratic progress of his heart beats. "Why don't we end it here?" "Sure," Buck laughed, "go for it, big shot." "I got enough reasons." Ben's eyes went soft, meditative." Every mind game you ever pulled on me, made me feel like I was nothing." "Pretty simple job really." "And then, everything you did to Merly, and Rita, god, poor Rita. Everything you made Selena do to me. But most of all," He ran his hand over the oxygen tank, tubes coiling up to Buck's nose, "most of all, I resent what happened with Barbara Joy. She was nothin but an innocent bystander. Never deserve to be dragged into this mess of yours. Never deserved to die." "BJ? Christ, I had nothing to do with BJ." "Yeah, Kane blew her up, or had Waylon blow her up. I guess you might even be innocent, mightn't you?" "I am innocent." "I can see that. But isn't possible that," Ben squeezed a little on the oxygen tube, enough to cut off the pressure. " your perception of innocence and my perception of innocence. . ." Buck opened his mouth to gulp in the air but there just wasn't enough of it. His heart started flailing in his chest. ". . .might differ." Buck's eyes rounded watching his deputy kill him with no more than a ounce of pressure on plastic tubing. Ben looked at the blue color suffusing the Sheriff's face. And let go. "Like you say. Pretty simple job.You want to die so much, pull that tube outta your nose." Lucas's head fell back on the stack of pillows exhausted, letting the blessed air flow in. "Who's pathetic now?" Ben said as he closed the door. Caleb was standing behind it. *** The tinkle of the little bell over the door of Perkins' Dry Goods, made Dalton Hanks turn around. He never dropped the little gun pointed at Cecil's chest though. Dora Bentley froze. "You just stay calm, old lady, and nobody will get hurt." Dalton poked his gun at Cecil to get him to empty his till faster. Dora pursed her lips and reached imperceptibly behind her to where Cecil kept the gardening equipment. The blow, when it came, was as close to a dull thud as one would expect. Dalton dropped to the floor poleaxed. "I hope I didn't put a dent in it." Dora said. "He's still breathing, if that's what you mean." "I was referring to the shovel, Cecil." "Oh, no, that's fine quality merchandise, it can take a little wear." From further up the street shots rang out followed by a siren yodelling by in the street. They both looked at each other. "Dora Bentley, the town's going to hell." "In the proverbial handbasket, Cecil." Dora picked up the wire cutters and duct tape she'd been after. Laid them on the counter. "And I don't think we can look to the Sheriff's office to bail us out of this one." "Huh! Never could." Cecil restacked the tens and twenties in his cash drawer. "That'd be $10.95. You can forget the tax this time." "You're a gentleman, Mr Perkins." Dora smiled, "We need a citizen's patrol. There's a few people left in Trinity still sober and sane at the same time. You up for it?" "Well," Cecil thought a moment. "There's Reverend Beasely from the African Methodists . ." "And Rabbi Stone from Beth Shalom. That ought to take care of divine assistance. We also need a working fire department." " I can organize downtown if you'll take care of the quality, uptown." Dora stuck out her hand. "As a mutual. . .friend of ours might say, you got yourself a deal." *** "You really want to die?" Caleb asked his father. "Everybody dies." "Why don't you fight back?" "I don't want to." Lucas shrugged. There were few things in this life he would miss. Arguing with the brat was one of them. "It's just no fun anymore, Caleb." "Life isn't supposed to be fun." The boy went over the various machines, rubbed his hand along the tubing. Buck waited for him to play with cutting off the air himself. Caleb straightened out every kink, made sure the oxygen ran sure and free. "It's not in you, is It?" "Nope." Caleb traced his father's faltering heartbeat on the monitor. "Ain't nothing in me but me. I'm my own man." "You always were." Quiet voice. *** Another ambulance tore up to Fulton County General. The gurneys rushed through the dingy halls and into the trauma center. Two cars playing chicken on Main Street. After taunting each other with pointedly vile and possibly accurate accusations. Camille Benton, a well-preserved 65, Chairwoman of the Daughters of the Confederacy five years running, had plowed into Edna Crane, 70 if she was a day and looking every hour of it, Hereditary President of the First Methodist's Altar Guild. Cadillacs and Buick's make a helluva mess when they collide. Matt Crower triaged the lot. The righteous women of Trinity had dragged their vice-presidents and the rest of the family along to egg them on. The matriarchs were stable but both front-seat passengers were vieing for which could bleed out the faster. The Hospital was running out of IV's and blood. It was worse than the Plague. Because who on earth would call any outside help into Trinity NOW? It'd be a death sentence. Nurse Johnson ambled around, adjusting heperin locks and smiling benignly. Matt knew she had gotten into the Dilaudid again but what could he do? They were already short handed. Helen Crane, Edna's middle-aged daughter-in-law spouted a mighty bleeder and matters were taken out of his hands. "I need a clamp and sutures and some HELP here, people!" Loris reached her hand in and applied pressure. It was gloved up and she had found a spare gown. "Tell me what to do, and I'll do it." "You're not licensed or. . .Hell, just press hard!" "Her BP's dropping." Stacey said mildly, smile plastered to her face. "What does it matter? She won't die. None of them die." Matt was nearly crazy with stress. "Stack her up in intensive care with the rest of them." "I don't think we have any more beds." Stacey mused. "Of course we don't have any more beds in intensive care. Half the town is in there and the other half is putting them there! See if we can get a Life Flight helicopter in to airlift some people out." "Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful. I've never seen a helicopter." Loris pulled her husband away before he could slap Nurse Johnson silly. "You have to take a break before this breaks you." "I can't." "Have you eaten, have you slept since yesterday?" "Later, I can sleep later." "You're not God, Matt Crower, you can't save the world." "God can't either! We're in hell, Loris, the fires keep burning us up but we can't die." She held her husband tight. He was shaking from fatigue and anger. Someone pulled the two of them over to sit on a bench. Matt was almost in tears but struggling to get back to the trauma victims. "Somebody has to do the work." He insisted. "They're being taken care of." Loris said. "By whom, Nurse Feel Good?" Matt looked up to see Rita Barber corking bleeders and setting up IV's crisp and fast. She had a tray of hypos-- Atropine, Adrenaline, all the start-em-back-up drugs-- primed and ready on a little tray. She even had Stacey acting like she was conscious. "Now, I know my credentials were suspended, but I figure what the board don't know won't hurt them." She snapped at Matt. "Angels don't need credentials." He was finally smiling, those shoulders were starting to relax. "Flatterer!" Rita rolled Helen Crane off and started on a prominent Daughter of the Confederacy. She needed a neck brace and a spleen removed. "We got any surgeons?" "Two. And they're backed up for hours." Matt said. "Did Stacey call LifeFlight?" "No, but I did." Rita said. "There's a storm coming. They can't take the chance." She was already prepping for an emergency splenectomy. Matt looked at Loris. "The storm's already here." **** ACT THREE Caleb walked from the hospital to the nearest church. Father Tilden's church, his momma could maybe hear him better in church. Help him talk some sense into his daddy. Make him fight back and live instead of just giving up.The inside was dank and musty. Purple hangings shrouded most of the altars. He lit a candle at the altar with the pretty lady on it. Not as pretty as his mother, but kind, gentle-looking. Lilies surrounded her. Outside, the sirens were almost constant now. "Mamma, could you take a minute out to help me please? I know you're busy in heaven and all." "Caleb. .." "You sound so awful far away. Momma. Come closer." "I think you'd better come to me, dear, this time." "Huh?" He turned around and saw the lovely golden glow that was his momma standing in the foyer, peeking through the big double doors. He ran to her. "What you doing out there?" "I'm more. . . comfortable out here." Caleb threw his arms around her. She could smell his warm body. Nothing like the scent of your own child, it sticks in your soul. "I don't want my daddy to die." "I know that, dear." "You're going to tell me he's done terrible things and I know he has." The tears flooded him once they started. "But I . . ." "You love him." "I guess." "Odd, isn't it?" She kissed her son's head, tickled her chin on his short hair. "Is he going soon, Momma?" "Very soon, I'm afraid." "Would you stay with me while it happens, so I don't, you know, go nuts or hurt somebody or something-- like last time?" Judith faded a little and stepped away from her son. "You won't need me, Caleb. Last time won't ever happen again. I'm going with him, Caleb." "That don't make no sense at all." "I won't be able to stay. I won't have the power to do it." "Why not? Don't you love me, Mamma?" Why did her children keep asking her if she loved them, Hadn't she given up. . .? "I came here to make you safe and you are safe, you and Merly both. I've always loved you. I'm so proud of you I could. . ." "But you're going with Buck!" "Yes." "Goddamn it!" The church shook with his shouting. "Everybody dies! Everybody leaves me alone with nothing but gravestones for company, and I'm sick of it." "I just want you to be free to live a normal life." "I ain't never had a normal life before don't see why I should want one now. I'm Lucas Buck's son. You think that's normal, Momma, well, do you? I don't want you to go. Bad enough to lose my Daddy, he ain't taking you with him." "I want to go with him and. . ." She was transparent now. "I won't let him take you, Momma." "I haven't got anyplace else to go." The aftermath of light but no substance. "Momma! You could stay with me!" An man's hand fell on his shoulders. Caleb jumped. "Are you Lucas Buck's son?" "What if I am?" "I think you should help me, child." The priest that had replaced Father Tilden leaned over the boy and led him into the church. "Just what do you want me to do?" Caleb kept looking over his shoulder to catch sight of his mother, but he was afraid she wouldn't or couldn't follow him into the church. "I'd like to light all the candles. A church should be a place of quiet and prayer. A light of hope. A beacon to God, don't you think?" "I never thought about it one way or the other." He lit one or two candles he could reach. "Church oughta make you feel better about bad things that're happening to you, that's all I know." "And if bad things happen to the church itself?" Caleb reached up to light that big candle by the side of the altar. His mother's face shone through the flame. "Churches are not safe now. Leave, darling, please leave." She looked like she was on fire. Caleb turned around to see if the priest was seeing this too, and flames were climbing up Father Patrick's white robes. "What are you doing?" "This place should have burned a long time ago. Like a beacon to heaven. It's more honest this way, Caleb Buck." "My name's Temple!" Rough hands picked Caleb off his feet and thrust him into the arms of a woman who smelled like flowers, very expensive flowers. Dora Bentley ordered some ambulance techs in to take care of the priest as she hustled Caleb outside. "My momma's in there, I can't leave her in there." "Your mother is dead, child." "I know that." "I see." Dora thought about the problem for a minute. "Well, dead or alive, your mother had more sense than to stay in a burning building. I wouldn't worry, Caleb." "I expect that's right. Thank you, Ma'am." "It may be a little wild out here today, but it's still Trinity. And we still take care of our own." *** Judith helped Lucas sit up a little higher so the air could get to his lungs easier. Another chunk of heart had conked out. "You're the one who brought her back, aren't you?" He spaced his sentences carefully so he could take deep breaths in between. "What is it, Lucas?" "Your daughter, Merly. She was too beat down to do it for herself. Wouldn't have had the guts anyway." Judith looked at him blandly. "Nobody shot that Madison bitch. You grabbed her life out of her body and sent it to Merly. Clean as a whistle. No more ghost, just a living girl." "The fall must have been debilitating." "But not fatal." Buck coughed for a bit and took a sip of water from Judith's hand. "You're as ruthless as I am." "Maybe I am." the woman of light said, staring out the window into the savage city beneath her. The church of the Immaculate Conception was still burning. But her son was well and truly safe. "In my own way." "You're not offering me heaven, are you?" He stared at the locket she'd given him, the strange picture inside. Judith looked at him, not a lie on her face, just those fine lines that compassion and a hard life had put there. "You'd be awfully bored there, dear." He wouldn't insult her by telling her he loved her. But he'd never wanted anybody more, nor gotten less of them. "Come here." He ordered, softly, holding out a thin arm that couldn't strangle a kitten. "Not that I'm much use now." "Not that you ever were." She cradled his head on her breast so he could try to sleep without drowning. *** A familiar figure walked into Selena's room. Ice-cream suit, straw boater, his goatee neatly shaved, his eyes gleaming. "Guess who?" Kane glimmered for a moment as if he was underwater. I have the strangest dreams, Selena thought. Out loud she murmured. "I have passed into the realm of hallucinations." "Dear Selena," there was no mistaking that smooth and charming voice, "you have passed into the realm of truth." No mistaking the steel that underlay it. "And here I thought Caleb made french fries out of you." "Is that the way he tells it?" Kane brushed off a chair and perched near the bed. "You didn't use to blindly believe all Bucks. Your looking glasses need resilvering. " "I was certainly blind enough to you. For God's sake don't bleed on me this time." "Ah, always the perfect lady." He leaned over her in one swift movement. There was an afterglow to his movements like a vapor trail. "Be that as it may, if you would like that baby out, I can oblige you." Selena edged away from him, but it was a very narrow bed. "You never obliged me in my life except when it suited your own ends. Everybody seems to want this baby and guess what, it isn't yours, hotshot." The contraction hit her like a kahuna wave at Maui. Light darkened around the edges of her vision. She couldn't take too many more of these. The pleasure she had wrapped up into pain was diminishing. "It isn't Buck's either and that's what really counts." Kane watched Selena's agony dispassionately. His hand finally hovering around her middle. Almost . . . touching. . . Selena could sense the opening in her cervix expanding a little. She could almost picture it. "I got you out of jail, didn't I, this isn't that much different." She took the last bit of agony from the contraction and kicked her leg at Kane's vitals. "I don't want your help and all that goes with it." It was like slapping at smoke. "No body, no pain, dear wife." "It's MISS Coombs. You Son of a Bitch! I never said I do." "You still have time." He pinned her arms to the side of her head and kissed her chastely on the forehead. She screamed and watched his face melt to a featureless mass and his body join the shapeless goo. There was nothing left of him but the viscous formless liquid flowing off her hands. When she wiped the horrible trace of his lips from her forehead, her fingers were faintly stained with blood. *** Lucas Buck lay in the dimmed room, the lights on the monitor the brightest sparks of life. His head tipped three-quarters off the high pile of pillows and his hand was flung off into space, fingers tightly curled around a golden oval. Small fingertips pryed at the sleeper's hand. It clutched tighter. That had to be his momma's locket and Caleb wanted it back. "You can wait till I'm dead just like everybody else." Lucas swallowed in a mouthful of air and opened his eyes on his son. He snatched his hand away. It took every bit of strength he had. "I don't understand why you're just givin up." Caleb insisted. "You got people who need you." "Weak people. So what?" "You could help them if you wanted to! Like you did at the asylum. I was proud of you then!" "Pride's a sin, you know." Lucas closed his eyes. "Daddy, the whole town's hurtin." "I don't care." "You should care." A smug smile crossed Lucas's face. He peeked at his son out of the corner of his eye. "Think you're man enough to make me?" Caleb's round chin tipped up as he walked out of the room disgusted. The door sliding closed behind him. All by itself. *** After waiting all day for Ben to find some time for her, Merly finally walked to the hospital. There was no Miss Coombs listed at the front desk as a patient, but Merly had a feeling. She wandered the halls learning a lot of things about the Sheriff's condition she would rather not have heard until she ran into Nurse Stacey Johnson. "Coombs? Coombs?" Stacey drifted off down a dim corridor. "Somewhere. . ." She waved her arm, "somewhere down there, I think. Maybe." Maybe took Merly to a narrow door with no number on it. And a hunch that this was the end of the line. She knocked. There was no answer. Peered around the door cautiously to see her friend's face wide-eyed in horror. "Merly? You're here!" Selena's panic broke into nearly hysterical laughter. Merly tried to crack a smile. She had never seen a darker, gloomier dungeon, since she left the Temple home. "God, I hope it's better late than never." "Oh it is! It is." Selena's condition fit the room. She was literally soaked with sweat, her hair plastered to her head like a wet dog. Her eyes swollen from crying. Lips chapped and cracking. "Have you got any water?" Merly asked. "God knows, and we aren't on speaking terms." She rubbed her hands over her face and tried to smooth back her hair. Glancing for a moment at her fingers, no, no blood, the bastard took that with him. Merly fetched up a pitcher from the next room over and filled it to the brim. She held the glass to Selena's lips as she drank, half of it spilled down her chin. "I'm sorry." "Don't be, I need a bath." Miss Coombs' eyes twinkled with a bit of her old spirit. "Who'd have thought it would come to this?" She clutched Merly's hand as the girl sat on the edge of the bed. "It isn't too early for the baby, I hope." "Truth be told, I'm probably way overdue, but that's just between you and me." Merly glanced around. "Ground floor and no windows." "Now that's what I like, a woman who doesn't need it all spelled out for her." "Sheriff Buck isn't much of a threat anymore." "He's not the only act in town." Selena's eyes got real round and her hand tightened around Merly's palm. The contraction built like a volcano that wanted to burst, was aching to burst, but couldn't. The schoolteacher's head arched back and rubbed along the wet sheets, her mouth contorted, pleading for an end, a conclusion to the seizing driving pain. "What can I do?" "Nothing, nothing, nothing!" A huge breath and her fingernails let loose of Merly's hand. "Be here, I guess. That train runs through me every five minutes." "What do the doctors say?" "Haven't seen one." Merly got up, ready to drag Matt Crower down here by force if necessary. "Don't!" Selena warned her. " There's not a mother in this hospital delivering. At least not normal children. An LVN told me they tried an emergency caesarian and the child was born without a brain. Breathing normally, good pulse, nothing could kill it, but nothing could make it have a real life either. That will not happen to my daughter." "It's all because of Lucas!" "Is he really dying?" "So they say." "Who stuck the pick in his head this time?" "Nobody. They say his heart is failing him." "Ha! Use it or lose it!" Selena's eyes narrowed and the dark line around her iris widened. "Is he suffering?" "Some." Merly watched her friend turn away to hide her emotion. "Not that he'll show it. I'm only guessing from what others say, I don't think I'm at the top of Lucas's guest list." "He should suffer. I wish I was there to cheer him on. But. . . It was hard enough to go through once." A tear rolled down Selena's cheek just as another contraction hit her. A milder one this time. Merly let her crush her hand again until it was through. "Guess I got plenty to think about on my own plate this time." Selena tightened the grip on her friend's hand. Her look was unreadable. Frightening. "I need you to help me." "If I can." "I'm not waiting around for Lucas to decide to pass over." She glanced at the slim briefcase lying on the floor. " There's a bottle in there. From my Grandmother. Lucilla Buck." Merly did the subtlest double take on record. "Would you mind getting it for me? I don't think I got enough juice in these legs to make it that far. Merly opened the black case. A slim blue bottle lay right on top. "Is this poison?" "Damned if I know. The old bitch said it would help me. Maybe she meant help me into the next world. Maybe not. My choices are narrowing." Merly slipped the ambiguous potion into Selena's slim grasp, her hands tight around her friend's fingers, her face tense. "You don't have to worry. I'll do anything to save Diane." Her eyes closed in relief as Merly let go. "I'll stay with you until the baby comes." "No, you can't." Selena sat bolt upright. "Not if Lucas is dying! Caleb needs you now. This is his most dangerous time and you know it. You should be with him. Maybe get Ben to help you." She paused a moment, thinking. "Oh! What if that thing raging around the town gets into him?" She said, almost to herself. Merlyn blanched. "I was watching Caleb for hours last night, Selena -- he's different, but not like last time. I'll never forget last time." Selena gasped through another avalanche of pain and then fixed Merlyn with a serious look. "Not Caleb," she hissed. "BEN." She lay back again. "It WOULD be Ben, wouldn't it. . . Damn you, Lucas Buck, you set him up for this. Hell, so did I." Merly was startled. She started to shake her head at the notion. "He's just been under stress with everything, maybe a little possessive. . ." Ben's face and his words 'I have to protect what's mine' played over and over in her mind. "He was at the hospital today." Selena told her. "Prowling around." Merly paled. "But he wouldn't even bring me to help you. . . How do you know?" "We do know things in my family. Something out there has an interest in only helping Bucks OUT of this world." "Ben is not BAD!" In this dark room, Merly's vision tunneled down to one lifeline. There wouldn't be any life without Ben. Selena held her friend's hands, they were shaking. "I know he's not, Merly, but something bad could USE him. If you don't protect him." "What am I going to do? I can't leave you like this." She looked around at the utterly bleak setting. No place for life to come into the world. "Oh my God, Merly, I'm only being selfish. This little girl inside me has the family blood, but she's my baby, my only one. I can't tell you she's going to be an angel, but she won't be evil. I won't let her. Please help me keep her alive. Another thing like Buck would stomp me out like. . .like. . ." "Like Caleb did to Gail's baby." "Precisely." Merly threw her arms around Selena. "I won't let Ben be used for that. He's a good man and I won't ever let anything take that away." "You could do one other thing." Selena stroked Merly's soft hair, like petting a cat, it relaxed her. "Would you mind praying for me, Merly? Nobody else ever will." The slim girl knelt down by her friend's bed, Selena's hands clasped in hers, their heads bowed together over the child that wanted so much to be born. So much to pray for. So many lives on the edge. *** "I remember sitting in my cell in Juniper House hearing that Buck was dead. It was like being released. I was exhilarated. Then word spread that Dr Peele had found him alive in his grave and I thought, Damn you, why'd you dig him up to begin with? Couldn't you leave well enough alone?" "You wouldn't have saved him?" Loris said. They were sitting in the hospital cafeteria grabbing a moment away from the blood and carnage. Loris was trying to get some food down her husband. "I don't know." Matt said, he sipped some coffee, turned his sandwich around and looked at it. "Do you know what I have in my office?" "No." "A needle loaded with Potassium. Enough to kill about ten men. Think it might kill Buck?" "In his present state, looking at it might kill him." "I just think about what it would be like to depress that plunger and put an end to it, once and for all." "You can't do it." "No, I can't. And I wish to hell I could." "You look at what's happening to Trinity as Buck fades?" Loris asked. "All I see are the victims filling up the emergency rooms." "Ever wonder what it would be like to live with that violence locked up inside of you? Taming and controlling it everyday." "Maybe he got off on it, like cocaine." "I don't think that Lucas Buck ever knew what real pleasure was. For all his women and his deals there was a strange-- asceticism in that man." Matt looked very sceptical at her words. "He didn't trust anything that he couldn't control. And why am I talking about him in the past tense?" "It'll be apropro soon enough." Matt said. Took one small bite of ham. "That ring he has on his finger came from my family-- a long long time ago." "Really? Was it valuable?" "Not in ordinary terms." Loris sipped her tea, wondering just how much her husband would allow himself to believe. "Let me tell you a story, Matt. "In the darkest corner of my attic, our attic, Caleb's attic, now, I suppose. There is a small dark box. What's in it is older than me-- older than my whole family. Maybe older than Buck, or whatever drives Buck. I've never seen inside that box myself. Never wanted to, except once. When Lucas was not much older than Caleb, my daddy wanted to open up that box and stop him from ever growing any older. My mother cried like a baby and he let the impulse pass. Later years, Lucas's power grew, my grandmother almost pulled that box out of the shadows and unleashed that thing inside it. But she didn't. She died wishing she had." "You mentioned something about this when Buck was trying to take our house away." "My temptation came when that man killed Caleb's sister, Merlyn. Snuffed her out like she was nothing. I thought 'go into the darkness, Loris, and take hold of the power, snuff him out like your daddy and your granma wanted to.' But I couldn't. In the dark, all things blend together-- you can't tell what's Holt and what's Buck. What's right and wrong. What's sin and what's salvation. I let it lay there, hidden where it's always been. Some powers weren't meant to be used." Matt reached out and held his wife's hand. Caleb sat still as a mouse a table away. He'd heard every word. "Not locked away, given away, or thrown away. You were right, Granma." ***** ACT FOUR Merly was set to walk back to the Sheriff's office when she saw Ben pull up. In Lucas's Crown Vic! He parked the car at a slant that blocked the fire zone and got out as if that sleek blue machine had always been his. "And what else is yours now, Ben Healy?" Merly asked herself. She waited for her lover, her partner, her husband-to-be to saunter up the hospital steps. His stride was easy, wide, almost sensous. "Well, hi there, Miss Muir." Ben's smile was tight and crooked, sharing the secret between them. "What's the jail time for Grand Theft Auto, these days?" "Aw, Lucas always kept a spare set of keys in his office. I don't think he's gonna want to take a little drive tonight, do you?" "I think you're out of your mind." "Loosen up, Merly, I'm driving the car." Ben grinned. "And it's a fine automobile, I can tell you that." "This isn't your first visit to the hospital." "Did I say it was?" "You came here this morning. You tried to kill Buck." "Who told you that? Besides, he's still alive isn't he?" Ben didn't have that conscienceless thing down yet. He blushed right up to his sandy hair. "Yes, he's alive, but it's not him I'm worried about." They were talking in an alcove of the lobby while doctors and patients milled around them. "Something's getting under your skin that isn't you. I can't love a killer, Ben. You have to fight this thing that's ravaging the town." "I got an idea! Why don't I just use it, Merly?" Ben's eyes lit up, bright deep brown with beautiful glints them. Strong, vital and Selena was right, just too Lucas Buck for words. "I've never felt less. . .less of a . . .worm than I do right now. I feel like I could take this place over. For real this time. Do what Buck did -- in a way -- but do it right. To help people, not hurt them!" "I thought I could help people with that ring on." Merly's face was adamant, her voice sounded shrill-- to Ben anyway. " You remember how I helped that engineer last fall? You remember his screams when I killed him?" "Dammit, Merly, I don't want to hear that." Ben backed her up to the wall under the vaccination mural. His voice hardening. Merly reached out for his face, "Ben, you have to listen to somebody." He caught her wrist, held her arms down."I been listening to too many people all my life." "You want to be Buck," the girl said, grimly, "you gotta go for the throat." "I can do that, too." A small voice broke Ben's concentration. "I don't think so." Caleb reached out and took Ben's hands off his sister. His grip was strong for a little boy. "Is that what my daddy did, go for your throat, Merly?" "Caleb, I. . ." Ben interjected, "Yes he did, son, he broke her pretty little neck. I saw every last sickening bit of it. Down to the crunch and the snap." "That was two years ago." Caleb snapped at him. " And I ain't your son." Ben flinched. "What'd you do about it, Deputy? I don't remember you speaking up!" "I'll grant you that I was afraid then," Ben said, his voice steady and strong. "But I am not afraid anymore." "How about you?" Caleb stared at Merly. "You got a reason for not speaking up, too?" His eyes pinning her to the past and all those times she could have told him the truth. To hear this, now, after everything that had happened, seemed like a betrayal. "I never wanted you to know, Caleb." "Guess you didn't." He said starkly. "Guess angels lie all the time." "Revenge can eat you up, Caleb, it almost ate me to pieces. You saw how far down vengeance took me." Her eyes, for a moment shone with that awful green glint they had when she was wearing Buck's ring. Caleb stepped back. "Thank God, that's over and gone now." "Nothing's over!" the boy insisted. He looked at the people rushing about him, between panic and terror. "No, it isn't, Caleb. And the guilty party's not gone. Not yet!" Ben's thumbs hooked into his belt, pulling himself up straight. "I can still make things right." Caleb grabbed Ben's gun out of his holster. "You wanta do it with this?" The boy ran off into the crowd. *** "Sheriff Buck?" The man was small in body and spirit, broke down by a lifetime of work. Olan McCready, a dirt scrabbler from across the river. "Nobody here by that name." Lucas murmured. "Shoot, I know you, Sheriff, you helped my eldest boy finish school." "Yeah, hi Olan." I helped him get arrested for breakin and entering six months later, he thought, you forget that? "My wife has cancer-- in her lungs." "We're a tobacco county, those are the breaks." "She's suffering something terrible." "What ya want, Olan?" "I'll give you anything to help her." "Help her how, kill her or cure her?" A meek voice replied. "Whichever you think is best, Sheriff." Lucas thought about it. "I'm not rightly sure which IS best when you get right down to it." Gritted his teeth so he could get a sentence out without choking. "And you got nothing at all to offer me, if I did think up a deal. Which is just as well, since there ain't a damn thing I need right now." "I could pray for you." "Hell, you think anybody's gonna listen to you?" Too much talking. Lucas started coughing and couldn't catch his breath. Deep racking coughs as though his heart, what was left of it, might fly out his mouth. Olan walked over to the oxygen and turned up the valve. Guess lunger families learned their way around oxy tanks pretty fast. Buck took a big breath of the pure air. It wasn't enough. "Tell you what?. . . You get me . . .an eclair. . . . and a Yoohoo . . .and I'll see. . . what I. . . can do." *** Outside the hospital, slackers and drunks had gathered on the lawn to watch the to and fro of ambulances in the twilight. Closest thing any of them would get to DisneyWorld's Electric Parade. Everybody knew which room on the upper floor was Buck's. It was darker than the rest, with glints of tiny lights. "Ghost fire!" Arlen Stoakes ventured, pulling the tab on his Bud. The pile of empties around him and his cronies was growing pretty high. "Naah," Noah Cracken insisted. "That's Hellfire. Or Brimstone. One of the two." "It aint! That's not anyways near bright enough for hell." Arly whined. Everything in life had so far disappointed him, he expected better special effects for his afterlife. "There's a little demon coming for you right now, Arly!" Noah cracked, watching his friend jump when Caleb Temple ran down the hospital steps with a big revolver in his hand. Caleb took one baleful look at the Buckmobile blocking the turn around. Cocked Ben's pistol. Closed one eye and let er rip. The pull wasn't too bad. And the Crown Vic's back tire was shredded. Ben hustled down the stairs in his slightly bowlegged gait. "What the Hell are you doing?" "Loyalty counts, Ben!" It took two more shots to take out the right front tire. Caleb ran around to the other side, holding the pistol up in a safe and professional manner. "It always has!" Another front tire gone. "And it always will." Two more shots. The car sunk down on its rims. Caleb clicked the gun several times to make sure it was empty. "Somebody could have got hurt." Ben was fuming, The GoatTown regulars having a kegger on the hospital lawn were cheering and applauding the Sheriff's son's shooting spree. "Next time you get a brainstorm, don't take a joyride in my Daddy's vehicle." The boy said in crisp controlled anger. "And never raise your hands gainst my family. We take care of our own." Caleb threw the gun down, grabbed his bike and cycled off. ***** ACT FIVE Rabbi Jacob Stone said the prayers as the Holy Sabbath of Passover was ending. Including all of the souls of Trinity in his request for mercy. Soon the first star would shine in the sky and the passage of the Angel of Death would be completed. He held his family close within the walls of Beth Shalom and listened to the growling without. It rattled the doors. It sent its foul stench into the sanctuary. But the protection on the synagogue held. Rabbi Stone did not know whether Lucas Buck was alive or dead. But the Sheriff had kept faith with him. Even though something worse than Death was passing. "If the storm comes first we won't be able to see the stars?" His grandson was worried. "Maybe the Angel of Death won't know to go home?" "God can always see the stars, Moishe, even if we can't." *** There was light in the sky but it wasn't stars. A red infernal glow hovered over the town of Trinity as Caleb cycled home through the smoke and the melee. Cars were parked up on the sidewalks and lawns, their hoods open, sparks and oil fumes coming out of the machinery. The drivers wandered the streets aimlessly or sat on the curb cursing. People who walked by looked either twitchy as rats or itching for a fight-- any pretex to harm or maim. . . or kill. There was a kind of blaze you could see shining around the heads of the fighters-- battering at their brains, trying to get in somewhere. Least Caleb could see it. It lit his way home. The sirens were dying down as the night closed in. Thunder rolled closer offshore. Dogs large and small began to howl. *** Ben sat in the passenger seat of the immobilized Crown Vic and looked at his grey gun. "I make a lousy Buck." "Thank God." "Merly!" She was leaning in the window. Ben didn't know what to say or how to say it. Sentences were starting to hurt him the same way they hurt Lucas. Heartache will do that to you. "I didn't mean to hurt you." "You didn't hurt anybody." Merly climbed into the car and held her man. "I don't think you really know how, Ben Healy." "I'm sorry I took his car." "Least you weren't the one to wreck it." "He won't see it that way." "He won't see anything for long." Ben looked up at Merly, his eyes filling with tears."I just want.. . ." Sirens and gunshots and fire was all that was left of Trinity. The sky glowered as the thunderheads gathered and rumbled. They were two small people against the malevolence of the universe. "I just want to make all this right, somehow." Merly leaned against her love, holding him safe to her heart. "That's in other hands, now." "Whose?" Ben's eyes got very wide. *** Two small hands moved aside the book of Holt family secrets. The one that told you how to release the dead. The attic of the Boarding House was steeply angled. The open airy parts held summer clothes, and winter quilts. An old wicker chair sat in a corner next to tattered and treasured books with stories of gods and heroes, the pictures all colored in with bright careful crayola hues. The narrow steepled corners held mystery. Caleb balanced on a box of 78 rpms and leaned onto the top shelf. The one that looked so dark you were scared to really stare at it for long. Caleb had stared at a lot of scarey things. Some of them had been almost as dark as this. He didn't waver. His arms reached back. There was something there. Down in the good parlor, the chair with a old blind doll in it started slowly rocking. Caleb balanced himself on a lower shelf and hauled himself up higher so he could look at what was in the dark -- eye to eye. A grey molded figure, too worn to have any shape at all but head and arms stood guard. The boy nodded at it, as if acknowledging the guardian. "I got need for what's back there now. Gonna take it. If you think I shouldn't, I guess now's the time to stop me." He grasped the clay figure and moved carefully to the side. In the rocking chair, the doll's eyes flew open. Right in the middle of the shelf was a small dark box. Didn't look like nothing much. Nothing much at all. Fact was if you weren't looking for it, if you couldn't feel it lying there, waiting for you, you might not have thought there was anything on that shelf at all. Caleb took it in both hands. It was a lot heavier than it looked. The rocking chair in the parlor tilted back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster. He waited till he had climbed back down to the solid floor beneath him. Then he opened the box. It had a top that slid along slick grooves, made of no material he knew, a glassy stone you could almost see yourself in. A cloth, too old to count the years it had laid there, was wrapped loosely around a spherical object. Small enough to hold easily in the palm of your hand. Caleb lay his palm across the top of it, not touching, just feeling the air around it. There was a thrill of sensation. Icey hot. Just a trace. The doll flew out of the rocker and hit the floor. Her head cracked, her eyes fell back in her sockets, back to the bottom of the porcelain skull. Two dark orbits remained where Loris' doll once saw just fine. *** Loris was steadying Larry Priven, while Matt stitched him up. One of the homeless men at his shelter had taken a butcher knife to him. Just missed an artery. "I can't understand it. Tom was such a gentle man." "He may be again if we ever get back to normal." Loris took the scissors from Matt as he bandaged the wound. The shock of something rupturing went through her without warning. "Don't do it!" She cried. Matt dropped the bandage. It rolled across the floor like a white ribbon. Loris held the scissors like a blade, her fist tightening her arm ready to plunge them into. . . Her husband caught her wrist before it descended to cut open the wound he'd just sutured shut. *** Caleb slid the box close. This is what he came for. He didn't need to actually hold it. "I see you found the Road less travelled by, dear." Victoria Madison sat in the wicker chair, her slim body clothed in Merly's old dress, dripping black evil all over the children's books. *** "Were you trying to stab Larry or yourself?" "I don't know," Loris couldn't make her eyes focus. " I went dizzy. Something walking. . . over my grave." "Stacey, find my wife someplace to lay down. And a light sedative." *** "I need that box, Caleb." Miss Vicki was everything he had ever dreamt her to be in his most secret dreams. Her voice seemed to be coming from inside his head. It tasted like honey if you didn't let it lay on your tongue too long. "I know you want to give it to me. I know you need to give it to me." When it laid on your tongue too long you could taste something bitter underneath. "You're dead." "Not any more than your sister was." She smiled and moved towards him. The stairs down lay behind her. "We switched. I suppose I'm kin now." Her eyes gave you tunnel vision if you looked too long into them. He didn't. "You tried to kill me." "I was misled. Kane tortured me, lied to me. He forced me to hurt you. When all the time, all the time, I loved you so much. . ." Her hands, longer than he remembered, whiter than he remembered, reached out for him. "You must forgive me, Caleb. I never meant to harm a hair on your head." He could feel her fingers before they touched him. "Don't nobody do nothing they don't really want to do in the first place." Vicki stopped like stone. Cold hard stone. All the softness ran out of her face. Murder was the only thing left there. "Here's what you're really after." Caleb lifted the box. Vicki's eyes locked on it. "You want it. Take it." Before her hands could descend on the container, Caleb slid the box open and pushed the cloth back. There was nothing in there but a small dull black stone. Vicki screamed, her hands burning with blue fire. Caleb ran around her and down the narrow attic stairs. Never turning till he reached the bottom. The box tight in his hands. What was left of Miss Madison was melting into blue horror at the top of the stairs. Snakes of blue light tried to swim down the steps to reach him but burned out too late. She didn't really have a face anymore, just scraps of features dancing in the ghostlight. He watched her with fascination and no small amount of pride. That was his first mistake. His second was ignoring the shadow of a little girl that left the disintegrating woman and came carefully cheerfully down the stairs towards him. He'd never seen little Marie Celare. He didn't see her now. Carrying Miss Holt's broken blind doll. Her touch would have killed him without resistance if he hadn't been snatched back by two claw like hands. "Blonde Women will be the death of Bucks!" Lucilla Mae muttered. "Vicki wasn't as old as the stone." Marie murmured, "But I am, and it won't destroy me." "You're guessing." Lucy pushed Caleb back, keeping her own old body between him and that little dead girl. "Let me have it and you can keep your house and your witchy ways. We can co-exist, Lucilla." "In a pigs eye!" The old lady rushed the tiny figure, scooping her up in her arms. It was like holding Hiroshima. The face that engulfed Lucy Buck was huge and hungry and its flames leapt on the foreheads of every raging creature in Trinity that night. She knew It, she'd slept alongside It night after night when the judge was drunk and wild. Given birth to It and kept It alive in her only son. Held her grandson when he was a boy, fighting to throw It off and longing to master Its power. It didn't think much of women, but she knew a few of Its secrets. It ate up her life force like a glutton, ate the poison she'd ingested earlier that day, just in case. Hell, she'd brewed so many potions in the same pot as dinner, poison ran in her blood like hemoglobin. The Thing spewed her out, and little Marie with her. The Thing rose up and fled the source of that much distastfulness. Marie fell to various decaying pieces in her arms. Lucy knew how she felt. "Take It," Marie said through lips turning to dust. "If It doesn't find a host, a great power will pass from this world." "Whatsa matter, don't Mr Kane want to rule in Trinity?" "Kane," The dust laughed. " Kane is. . ." And like dust, it scattered in its laughter. "Ashes to ashes, just like me." Lucy fell back against the attic steps her eyes starting to cloud over. "You stop that, you're not going to die." Caleb rushed to hold up his great-grandmother. "There's more stuff up in the attic, you want me to get it?" "Hell, no, I don't want no fancy hoodoo. Let me die in peace. I'm a heroine, I deserve that much." "I don't think so." Caleb gave her a Buck look, a real one. "I made up my mind, Mamma Lucy, I'm somebody who does things. And I'm going to do this for you." "I don't have to live if I don't want to." Caleb stroked the cut deep in the old woman's palm. "Don't talk like Daddy. You kept me alive." "Shoot, you don't owe me nothing. I'm the reason part of your family's dead." Her lips were starting to turn blue. "You made Buck kill my sister?" Caleb was rummaging through Lucilla's valise trying to find some potion that might help her. "Naw, that was his own idea, might have been a mercy killing, who knows." She shook her head over a red bottle, "That'd kill a horse, several horses with what I got in me. But, oh Caleb, that mama of yours! She kept putting the wrong ideas in his head. Still is, I figure. He fought taking care of her down to the bitter end." "He killed my momma too?" The boy's heart sunk. "Don't ever fall in love, Caleb, it wreaks havoc on a Buck constitution." A plain brown bottle caught her eye. "Death ain't all that important, anyway, it sure as hell ain't an end to nothing." "Then it ain't an end to you. You're staying alive till I tell you you can die. If I ever do!" He poured the contents of the brown bottle down his grannies' throat. Whether it was the potion or the boy's will, Lucy felt better. "You're a Buck all right. I never thought you would be, but you are. You go help your father give it up. You know what that thing can do to him?" "I know what it CAN do-- I ain't got no idea what it will do." Lightening lit up the Boarding House's interior followed by very close thunder. Caleb settled Lucilla on the couch in the living room and glanced at the approaching storm he had to ride through. "I'm just taking care of my own." *** Reverend Coombs arrived at his daughter's house soaked to the skin. He walked the whole way, part of it high on morphine and maudlin with the drama of it all. But the storm had driven that out of him. The storm and whatever roamed the streets of Trinity had purged Hezekiah of a great many prisons of righteousness. So this is where his daughter lived. It was not the brothel he had feared in his fantasies. The front door was wide open, wet and wind dragging leaves and trash inside. "Selena." He called out, not very loud, partly from exhaustion and partly from fear. Now that he was actually here, what could he say after so many years? There was no answer. And he was relieved. She had gone, she'd gotten out of this place. He didn't have to face her after all. When he walked into the bedroom he saw the mass of blood and fluid congealing on the sheets and dropped to his knees. His hands clasped together over his daughter's bed, Hezekiah Coombs prayed like his soul depended on it. It did. "Oh my God, I beg you, wherever my baby girl is, take care of her now. Keep her safe, oh Lord, keep her alive so I can see her again and tell her I love her and hold my granddaughter in my arms before I die." He ended his prayer in heartfelt tears, burying his face in his hands. A thin hunched body reflected in the mirror that hung over Selena Coombs' bed. *** Caleb couldn't get any wetter as he pedaled the little bike back on the rain-drenched streets. The colored stripes on his shirt were running together. Lightening flashed all the way down to the ground right in front of him. He dodged the strike and kept on going. The little box lying next to his skin inside his underwear. Maybe that was what was drawing the lightening. Or maybe something was just pissed at him. *** She could hear the thunder like kettle drums coming for her. Her heart was keeping time with the cracks and booms and so were the contractions. "This is it. You know this is it." Selena told herself as she opened the blue bottle and sniffed it. Vile, of course. "I don't care if it kills me, but it'd better not kill my daughter or Trinity is going to think every other ghost that visited was Santa Claus in disguise." She downed the potion, stroking her neck and holding her breath to keep it down. It hit her like lightning from inside. The pain hit her as her cervix dilated all at once and the baby's head pushed through it. *** Caleb ran up the hospital steps. They were dry. The storm was circling Trinity like a tiger ready for the kill, looking for the heart so the death would be clean and final. The hospital was in the storm's eye, hearing the tumult but spared as yet the maelstrom. The halls were almost clear, just a few patients standing in the doors of their rooms. Dead souls, hoping to lie down and rest. Caleb ran up the stairs to his daddy's room. His father lay still and alone, breath hardly raising his chest, the slow erratic beep of the monitor the only sound. In his left hand, his ring hand, clutched to his failing heart, was that gold locket. Caleb pulled the box from under his shirt and opened it carefully. He heard his father's breath falter, as if air was being forced though something thick, something that wouldn't let go. Caleb took the stone out of the box, careful to only hold it by the fraying cloth. His father's mouth opened, gulping in air and then letting it flow out of his body in a sound half a moan half a liquid sigh. His hand dropped to his side and the fingers slowly let loose of their precious contents. Caleb reached for the chain on the locket and dragged it out of Lucas's frail fingertips. Then as the old cloth began to tear and disintegrate, he dropped the bare stone into his father's palm. Lucas closed his hand around it. "No more running, Daddy!" Caleb opened the locket. The picture within shocked him. His mother was holding him in her arms, his father standing beside them. Peaceful, loving. A family that never was, never could be. Lucas's hand was resting tenderly on his tiny head. Caleb had felt that hand, in this life. "This is what you were dying for? Why didn't you never say you loved me? Would it have killed you?" Buck's monitors all began to screetch at once. Flatlines in blue and red and green all across the screen. The sky was white with lightening and almost instaneous thunder. A deluge of water dumped out of the sky. The tiger leapt for the heart. *** Selena felt her baby's head push through her pelvic opening, like a tidal wave, Diane was cresting towards her birth. She couldn't scream, she was swimming in the same bloody undertow her daughter was fighting through to be born. *** The door slammed open and Matt and Rita rushed in. Stacey was pushing a crash cart. "Buck is No Code, doctor," Rita was insisting. "It's on his chart, he wrote it there himself." "Shut up, Rita, and clear!" There was one good jolt of electricity forced into Lucas's chest and the lights on the monitor flickered and went dead. So did all the rest of the lights in the hospital. Lightening danced across a darkened Trinity. "Where's the generator?" Matt shouted. " It should be kicking in." "If it didn't blow too." *** Selena didn't even notice the darkness, nobody had bothered to turn on the lights in her room anyway. She pulled her daughter out of her by feel, reaching between her legs for the umbilical cord, searching her child's neck to make sure it was free of any tangles. There was no knife or scissors. She put the thick cord between her teeth. It was a lot tougher to bite through than cheap novels made it seem. Hurt more too. She caught her breath for a moment. Waiting, waiting for the cry that meant Diane was alive. *** "We got a hand crank cart in the basement." Rita said in the dark, shouting to be heard over the thunder. "Go get it." "I'll need you to help me." "I can't leave him, Rita." "I'm not getting the cart for Buck, Matt! He's dead!" Doctor Crower looked dazed, as if the nurse's words made no sense. "If you won't call it, I will! 11:59! All vital signs ceased." Matt looked at the body of his nemesis. It didn't seem possible. "Everybody dies, even Lucas Buck. Now, cmon, Matt. Let's save some people who really need it." "All right! All right!" As Rita was pushing him out the door he turned, distraught. "I'm sorry Caleb, I tried." The boy wasn't looking at him, he was watching the window and his mother's silhouette forming over Buck's body.The rain and wind battered against the glass behind her. "It's too soon," she said, "he needed to choose this for himself." Buck's hand flinched. Involuntary muscle spasms, still lingering after electrocardial shock. His fist clenched around the black stone. "He's choosing, Momma, he's choosing right now." A line of electric power ran up Buck's arm like a neon sign. The battered ring melted and reformed itself, simpler, starker, the center stone matte black. The locket hanging from Caleb's hands started to revolve on its chain, the gold flaking, burning off. The catch snapped open and the picture inside caught fire, curling into ashes. The fire rose to the metal itself. Caleb tried to hang on to the chain but it grew too hot. In a flash it was gone, only a chunk of melted potmetal landing on the floor with a tinny chink. Merly rushed through the door as the storm threw itself against the window again. You could see the glass bulge. Buck lay still and cold and dead. Except for the ring, nothing else had changed about him. That's when the lightening struck. Through the glass, right into Judith's body, light into light. "Momma!!" Caleb cried out, echoing his sister. Merly's arms wrapped around him to protect him. The window shattered into knives of glass, tearing through Judith's image. Her fingers reached out for help where there was none to find, touching the ends of Buck's hair, merging with the lightening that flowed through her into him and out again. A river of light from Judith into Lucas's flesh. His body spasmed with each flash of the lightening that broke Judith Temple into as many pieces as the window had glass. Merly grabbed Caleb around the waist and pulled him into a corner so he'd be safe. The wind stopped suddenly, leaving the air with that strange clean smell that a storm will give it. Caleb dashed out of his sister's arms. One piece of glass was lying on the floor sparkling bright yellow. Gold as his mother's hair. Caleb picked it up. It was more than glass. It was the only thing left of her, unless. . . The lights in the room flickered back on. Strong healthy heart beat pinging out of the chest monitors. Lucas opened his eyes and watched his son. "That'd make a good ring." *** Diane screamed as healthy as any baby could, big and fat, her little arms waving around. "You go ahead and yell, honey, you got alot to yell about, and I'll make sure everybody hears you, every single word. My own little girl." The closer the child came to Selena's heart the quieter it got until she lay nearly asleep on her mother's breast. Locked in that first and best love that nothing can ever really break. "Dear Billy, you were no match for Lucas Buck, but you surely did make a beautiful baby." *** Caleb was curled up in the chair in his father's room, staring at the night. It was crammed with stars. The gold shard of glass clasped in his hand, warm like a piece of flesh. He was his father's son now. Now that both of them had killed Judith Temple. There was nobody free enough to take him home this time, even if they knew which home to send him to. Everybody was too busy seeing to the rush of dying and being born that started happening the minute the Sheriff went stable. Buck lay on his bed watching the fires go out all over the town. He'd tried to get the boy to sleep. He would when he'd cried himself out. Time took care of alot of things. Like dismantling those damn citizen committees and shrinking Ben's hat size. Lucas closed his eyes and scanned the hospital. Lot of troublemakers dead, McCready's wife in remission-- for a coupla months--not too bad a day's work. He peered at all the babies in the nursery, but the face he needed to see wasn't there. Breathe deep and focus. Where Selena lay sleeping, exhausted, her hair slick with sweat, her baby girl in her arms. Peele's little bastard. Light like the darker side of pewter, metallic, slick, oozed over her. Buck clenched his ring hand instinctively. Kane's spirit reached through her mother's tight grasp, seeking the baby. "My perfect little girl, open up for daddy." Diane's eyes opened wide, the pupils tightening in focus on the utterly blank face. THE END Author's Afterword: While I wrote almost every word of this episode, that doesn't mean it wasn't a group project-- if you want to kill Lucas, you'd better not do it alone. I owe so much to everybody on the writing team for seeing this finale from it's much debated beginnings to completion. First, I owe Gayle for the Judith thread which I hope I've carried to a successful conclusion. Without Judith there would be no finale as we see it. Next, thank you to Rogue who said-- open the darn thing up, we need to see the whole town in the grip of the Rage. See where that took me! Thank you to Rosebuck for characters who put the finishing touches on it all-- Dora and that little creepy Marie. And thanks again, RB and the RogueMeister, for helping me worry over Selena and Merly and Ben until they came out right. And, thank you, Dana, for polishing up Rose's cooking. Last but not least, it couldn't have happened at all without Robyn's duel to the death at the bridge and her input on Selena's horrendous labor. Finally, I thank all you readers for sticking with us this far. It's been a heck of a ride. Queri DISCLAIMER: Any story/episode appearing that states it is part of Virtual AG-Season Three is based upon the Television show, "American Gothic", which is the property of Shaun Cassidy, Renaissance Productions, and CBS apparently). The characters added to support this concept, and the torylines, are the property of the writers acknowledged as such. PLEASE, DON'T SUE US!!