The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER SIXTY NINE

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Loretta pulled her reluctant daughter into the living room looking like a ball in her thick heavy clothing. Even though the child was confused and uncertain of what was happening she was still terribly afraid and well aware that some evil was at hand. She was tearful and quite upset. "Mommy where are we going?" She asked her mother. But Loretta seemed not to hear her; her attention and reasoning were all directed to the pale man who was now her master. "Give me that weapon." The creature ordered her. She removed the small caliber weapon from her own coat, which she had donned while dressing her daughter. He took the thing from her and held it there in his hand looking at it as if trying to resolve the workings of the strange mechanical device. Then he eyed Clay Reese through the guard of his dark glasses.

Clay became aware of this and could readily see how the pale man had grown so suspicious and distrustful of him that he now virtually despised him. And he was also alert to the fact that Clay viewed him with the same regard. The beast sneered at Clay sensing his one time rescuer's disgust growing by the second. "How does this thing work?" He asked no one in particular. But then he pointed the barrel directly at Clay's chest. "Like this?" He asked now. And then he pulled the trigger. The gun exploded and Clay Reese collapsed where he stood. The pain thumped in his chest and with each beat of his heart he could see his blood as it poured forth from the wound.

He felt removed from the scene as if he was someone who was in the theatre watching a movie. But he wasn't as frightened as one would think he should be, he was in a broader sense more relieved than anything else. All this time he had been expecting to die and the waiting was unnerving to the point of being unbearable. Perhaps it would not be so bad. Regardless of how he felt he knew that was certainly preferable to being a slave to this malicious beast he now served.

He expected the monster and his new slave to come forth and lift him up to drain his precious blood and though through the haze of his pain and ultimate death he could see the hunger growing in the woman it did not take place. Instead the monster directed them all ahead of him out of the house. They left the door ajar upon their departure. Clay could almost hear the cold as it encroached upon the house.

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The monster and his new entourage now trudged through the drifts of snow pushing up the road that was obscured by the massive winter fall. The beast was determined to make his way to the swamp and the vessel that held his kin before the day was long into its existence.

Clay had so wanted to defeat the creature and save the others, save humanity he thought. That was a tall order for a man who considered himself an abject failure at such an early age and probably too much to ask of him. But now he was confronted with the fact that he'd failed at this too. And so he welcomed his coming death. He would not have to be a witness to man's demise. He was grateful to be dying and looked forward to the caress of death like the kiss of a mistress.

As he lay there before the hearth of the fireplace he contemplated what his life had come to and how he had so fouled it up. Why it had been so he did not know? He had never been someone to believe in fate, but now as his body grew weak and death hovered nearby he thought perhaps it had all been destined and he had had no real choice in the matter. Perhaps some distant and disinterested god had deemed it thusly for a purpose he would never discover or perhaps allowed for his own amusement. Whatever it was he knew now he would never be made privy to the answers to all these questions. And so he decided to just lie there and await the arrival of almighty death.

He stared at the ceiling and for a moment wondered what he could see in the room from his position on the floor. He was struck that he did not see the usual amenities of a typical household. He had not seen a television or even a radio, or even a Christmas tree in the place. That was a damn shame considering a child was in residence. Every child should have access to a television to watch not only the good of it, but also the bad. Vast Wasteland indeed as McGwen said it was, the world was also a wasteland with no choice of it.