Kornwolf (28 page)

Now here was an all too familiar scene …

His desk had been scrubbed with cleaning solvents. On top lay a letter from Timothy Kegel—a letter announcing Owen's dismissal. His “services” were no longer needed at the paper.

Owen called to one of the typists. “What the hell is this?”

Bess turned around. Her expression was flat. “What's the problem?” she asked.

“Where's Jarvik?” he snapped.

She spoke in a flat-line monotone. “Mr. Jarvik was hit by an automobile last night.”

Owen stared.

She continued: “As I understand it, he's in stable condition. But he won't be back for a while.”

At this, a barely discernible grin broke the otherwise stony veneer of her countenance.

Owen might have gone after her—might have demanded an explanation, then cursed her—had it not been for a nagging suspicion that what she had claimed was, at least in part, true. What else would explain this? Kegel would never have gotten this far with Jarvik around. Something had happened.

But what? he wondered.

And more importantly,
how
.

Once again, Owen thought of the moon.

In the meantime, in less uncertain terms were his future and gainful employ at the paper. Indeed, the only thing standing between him and instant ejection had been the old man.

It might have been nice to stick around for the rest of the afternoon, waiting on Kegel. It might have been nice to land a good hook to his body, or right on the point of the chin.

In all likelihood, that was the reason why no one was here, in the newsroom: the staff was squeamish. Kegel had probably given them leave until Owen had come and gone from the building.

The chickenshits.

This was the
fourth
time Owen had been dismissed in fifteen months, and on every occasion, without exception—even in Gorbach, where, normally, no one had held back from verbally telling him off—the firing party had left him a letter, too spineless to deal with him face to face. Which, in itself, was unsurprising—and, for the most part, acceptably bearable.

But this time, he had been fired by Kegel—the native, the Stepford Anus incarnate. And Kegel would not only bury The Kornwolf, the slate would be cleansed of Owen entirely.

This situation was all too Stepford.

At least he had landed another job.

The Crossbills seated throughout the drug and alcohol counseling session room—Isaac, Gideon, Samuel and Colin—hadn't laid eyes on Ephraim in days. In fact, none of their friends or neighbors had seen him. He hadn't been home for a week. He hadn't attended these sessions, either. The four of them hadn't known what to think.

On Monday, he'd shown up at Gideon's barn after midnight—appearing as though in a dream—to announce a “masquerade ball” at the Schlabach Farm to be held on Saturday night. For the rest of the week, they'd been spreading the word, as ordered, to gang members all through The Basin. But when doing so, discretion was in order—as, recently, many young Plain Folk were finding it next to impossible to travel the roads. A majority of them, in fact, had been confined to the homes of their parents after dark. Others, like Isaac and Samuel, who lived on their own, had been subject to close surveillance. On three occasions, all after midnight, their trailer had been surrounded by Orderlies. And twice, the young men hadn't been home—so, naturally, both were under suspicion. As were the rest of the Crossbills, Colin and Gideon, as usual, in particular—as Colin owned a car that resembled a vehicle recently involved in the hit-and-run of an English portable toilet, and Gideon, only the evening before, had been picked up by township policemen for walking the roads of Paradise after “curfew.”

Indeed, the Crossbills were proving themselves the bane of The Order, if not The Basin, the prototypes of exactly how
not
to raise your children—and none more unnervingly so, or with lesser assurance of actual fact, than Ephraim.

Between his recent disappearance, the traffic incident two weeks earlier and, now, as discovered that morning, an attack on his father's house (windows shattered, the gutters ripped down, the walls streaked with paint), Ephraim had managed to dominate much of the local Order's imagination. Fueled by rumors of family madness and bygone events of a generation—shady, bizarre events that could never be verified—speculation had raged.

And to look at him now, seated to the rear of the drug and alcohol counseling session—staring absently into space, dressed in what looked like a stolen jump suit, his pallor drained and the weeping abrasions about his neck more grievous than ever—would only have fanned the burgeoning flames of conjecture. His ghastly appearance invited it.

The session director could barely look at him.

The English, on the other hand, couldn't look away. Torn between fascination and disgust, they rubbernecked, marveling all through the session. The city kids, too, could only stare—along with the pair of Beachies from Intercourse, both of whom kept a wary distance.

The Pink Gorilla, of course, honed in.

Still rankled by events in the previous session—the speaking in tongues bit, the open defiance—the Pink Gorilla had seemed intent on payback right from the start of the class.

Toward the end, he gestured to Ephraim. “Man.” He pinched his nose. “Did something
die
in here?”

A wave of snickering fizzled as Ephraim failed to react. He didn't move. His gaze remained locked on the desk in front of him.

Discouraged, the Pink Gorilla resumed. “Your mother's a bitch in heat,” he whispered.

More laughter, yet still no response. The Gorilla shifted, appearing somewhat embarrassed.

His third attempt was no more successful.

Ephraim appeared to be in a coma.

The Gorilla thumped the back of his head with a pencil.

At last, he began to stir.

Distracted, the session director, whose back had been turned to the class, looked around.

Nobody moved.

Facing the board again, he kept talking.

The Pink Gorilla resumed by jamming his pen cap into Ephraim's ear. This time, Ephraim reacted, flinching. He looked around sharply. Colin and Samuel cast him an uppity, vigilant look. He waved them off. Thumbing his ear, he settled a glare on the Pink Gorilla.

The Beaver Street kid who had sold him the watch interjected: “Are you gonna sit there and take that?”

While most of the Crossbills squirmed uncomfortably, Ephraim turned back around in his seat. His knuckles, flexing white, wrapped over the edge of the desk. His expression was rigid.

For the next few minutes, the Pink Gorilla would work at the nerve he had managed to tweak. Over and over, he poked and prodded Ephraim's ears with the end of his pen. Seething, Ephraim did nothing to stop it. He sat there, gripping the edge of his desk.

Samuel and Colin were crazed with frustration.

For two months, Ephraim had risen in rank—from an addled, outwardly sullen mute to a terror of men—within their gang. He had deified sowing the wild oats.

So watching him hedge from the Pink Gorilla, as such, was more than they knew how to bear. With four of his strongest companions on hand to assist him, if needed, it didn't make sense. The English, even and especially the big ones, were flabby and slow. Their valves were bloated. They wouldn't have lasted a day in the fields.

Yet Ephraim did nothing to halt the mistreatment. He sat there, taking it, taking it, taking it …

Even as the session director, with a glance at his watch, indicated the class's end, Ephraim stood for dismissal without ever looking over.

Why
was he doing this?

Out in the hallway, Colin and Samuel attempted to step in and cover his back. But Ephraim himself veered away from them, seeming intent on remaining an open target.

He was limping, they noticed: plodding along in discomfort, favoring one of his legs.

The Pink Gorilla closed in from behind. “That's right.” He breathed down Ephraim's neck, reeking of grease. “Just keep on walking.”

Someone, a Redcoat beside him, said, “Get on him, Gary!”

And another one: “Kick his ass!”

Ephraim was shoved from behind. He stumbled.

“Oh, yeah,” said the Pink Gorilla.

Laughter.

Once in the stairwell, Ephraim was blindsided—punched in the face. He fell to the landing.

The Gorilla stood over him, taunting and slapping and pushing. “Come on, then, Dutch! What's the matter?”

A roar went up from the mob overhead. Bodies jostled for better positioning. Ephraim, still waving the Crossbills off, got up and continued down the stairs. His expression was blank. He looked hurt, but uninjured …

Once on the ground floor, he walked (to avoid being shoved) out the door, with the mob at his heels, to the half-empty lot behind the building. Bordered by thickets, a creek and fields, blocked from the road with no cameras in sight and the guards on the opposite end of the building, the half-acre plot of cement was unmonitored. No one remained to stand in the way.

The Pink Gorilla was bigger than Ephraim. He must have outweighed him by ninety pounds. He was brawnier, taller, wider
and seemed to be able to throw his weight around. On appearance, it looked like a massacre waiting to happen. As happen it would, directly.

He bore down by driving his elbow into the back of Ephraim's head from behind. Ephraim dropped to the ground and rolled. Gripping his skull, he flopped to a halt. The Pink Gorilla lost his balance. Ephraim struggled to get to his feet. Weaving, he made for Samuel's buggy, tied to a pole across the lot. He managed to clear more than half of the distance before the Gorilla was on him again. He was seized upon, spun around, picked up and head-butted.

Then he was dropped.

His head hit the pavement.

Again, the English howled with laughter.

Colin, Samuel, Isaac and Gideon watched in powerless mortification as Ephraim, grimacing, rolled to his side and spat out a tooth on the lawn.

They screamed.

He nodded his head, coughing hoarsely.

Isaac, reaching his limit, stepped forward.

Still coughing, Ephraim waved him off. “
Get back!
” He glared in terse refusal.

His order was heeded, however reluctantly.

Ephraim got up, shook off and turned, regaining his stance. The Pink Gorilla shoved him against a custom van. He rolled with the impact, leaving a streak of blood on the siding. Again, he was punched in the face. He went down.

The Redcoats cheered.

The Gorilla added a kick for good measure. Then he turned to a round of praise …

Gawking, the devastated Crossbills watched them gather around and congratulate him. Most of the Beaver Street League, disappointed at not having witnessed more back and forth—and not really up for expanding the cast while outnumbered four to one—walked off.

From out of the building, the session director appeared. On the way to his car, he caught sight of the crowd and stopped. He was spotted at once, and as quickly, the mob began to disperse—the Redcoats turning to walk to their cars in a huddle, the city kids panning out and the Orderlies standing behind, near their buggies, angrily calling after the English.

Ephraim was lying inert on the pavement behind the van, concealed from view. He didn't move until the session director was gone, and in doing so, quietly, slowly. Nobody saw him get up. Nobody spotted him hobbling over the pavement. The first one to notice him routing around in the trunk of Samuel's buggy was Colin. Gradually, the others turned to see. He lifted a portable stereo out of the buggy. He placed it on top of the seat and, with trembling fingers, inserted a tape.

The moment the leader began to roll, he turned to them flashing a crooked grin. Caught unawares, they could only gawk. As the chain saws commenced, he took off bounding.

The Pink Gorilla, along with the rest of his gang, heard the sound of a trash can lid being struck with a hammer, and froze in his tracks. Before he could turn, he was slammed from behind.

His cohorts leapt and scattered around him.

Peeling himself from the asphalt, he whirled around, stammering, wide-eyed, incredulous. “
What?
”

Ephraim was standing there, leering indulgently. One of his teeth had been chipped in half. It was bared as a jagged, oozing fang. His tongue curled over it, flickering wetly. His lips were a bluer shade of gray.

The sound of a fan belt slapping against an engine hood blared out of the stereo.

The Gorilla landed another punch. Ephraim's head snapped back with the impact. He swiveled, then came around laughing, his smile giving way to a fiendish, wavering cackle. His eyeballs protruded. A vein divided his forehead, meeting just over the brow.

“
Verdammis!
” he hissed, dribbling blood through the gap in his teeth.

The Gorilla stepped back. The circle of English widened around them.

“Get on him, Zeke!” hollered one of the Beaver Street kids.

The rest of them came back to see. There were no other people in sight, no cops.

The vocals approaching: 3, 2, 1 …

Even while cocking back to strike, there was fear in the eyes of the Pink Gorilla. His punch was sloppy, an off combination of pulling and reckless overcommitment. At first, it appeared to have packed enough wallop to cave in the front of Ephraim's head—it seemed to have planted,
embedded
itself in his face with a hollow, sickening crunch … But then came the screaming—both from the music, of ten thousand demons plummeting hell-bound, and the Gorilla, flailing about like an open nerve on the end of a string. A moment of disbelief washed over the mob, Crossbills and English alike. The Beaver Street kids, from the edge of the gathering, craned their heads for a better look. The English were already screaming for help, as the blood had already begun to flow when they saw what was happening, front and center: the Pink Gorilla's knuckles were jammed in Ephraim's teeth. His punch had been
caught
. His fist had been
eaten
in mid-extension … He screamed in agony—kicking and flapping, his face a deeper shade of crimson, with tears streaming down it, his jugular bulging—while Ephraim continued to maul his hand …