The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE

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After the pale man shot Clay Reese he pocketed the gun and then forced the others out of the house and against the burden of the rolling, mounting drifts of snow. Loretta had lusted after Clay's blood, but did not question the master's decision to leave without drinking of him. She could only savor the taste of it in her mind.

After they had struggled through the snow for only a short while they began to grumble. Jack and the child at first and then even Loretta though she did not feel as cold as the other two. But despite this fact the snow proved just as difficult to maneuver in for her as it was for them.

The monster halted after listening to this for a few minutes and called all of them to his attention. They turned around to him their bodies besieged by weariness and fear. "Silence!" He growled at them all. He looked at the child now near helpless in the snow that almost engulfed her. "Child come to me!" he said pointing to her.

She shivered and cried softly looking to her mother for comfort. But she got no sympathy from her mother and so she reluctantly went to the pale man. When she was close he reached down and grabbed her by the exposed strands of her golden hair. She cried out in pain as he did this. He lifted her up then and held her under his right arm as if she was a sack of potatoes. He looked angrily through his glasses at the others now. Now he set out once more through the lay of the snow. Though it would be rough going the stone beckoned to him with an urgency born on a distant shore. The group went on then, the child now the only one who whimpered any distress.

Though it was still dark Sheriff Beauregard Harper and his deputy Skeeter Branch made ready to take off for the Rankin residence. Looking at the clock Harper soon anticipated the sunrise. If the killers were at the Rankin place he wished that he and his deputy to greet them at first light. They bundled themselves up and left the office of Chief Townsend. The others remained behind to busy themselves on the telephone and other duties to prepare for the search for the malicious entities.

It had been a long day for Sheriff Harper and his deputy and neither had expected it would extend into the early hours of the next day full of snow and blood and crushing weariness that now weighed them down as if they were beasts of burden.

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Harper had little expected this when he had volunteered to give Skeeter a ride from the office. But no sooner had he reached Skeeter's room at the boarding house in Belfast did he hear of murder and the worsening weather.

He ordered Skeeter back on duty and they went by Orville Townsend's office. And after arriving there they were soon on their way to the scene of the bus and the mayhem and carnage that had taken place there. Once there Townsend was given custody the waitress who was babbling madly and assured her he would keep her safe back at his office.  And so he left Harper and Skeeter who would eventually join the Highway Patrolmen at the Crawford Town eatery.

The duo presently now entered the red Jeep and after coaxing it to start they set out for the Rankin home. They got it out of the municipal parking lot and onto Main Street. They moved down this block past the front of the Municipal Building through the slush and ice and drifts of snow, which blanketed the street. The few vehicles still on the street sat like solitary animal carcasses abandoned to die and be buried by snow.

It was difficult at first, but they were determined and despite the conditions as he adjusted to the driving it became easier for Harper to negotiate the street. Turning left on Dublin Street, which had been much less traveled since the arrival of the snow they could see that moving on would be far more difficult though it was apparent that someone had attempted to make the effort. If it hadn't been for these tracks they could see as well trees and homes on either side of the unlit traverse one would not have known where they were to drive. At this hour the contrast of the black sky against the bright white snow and the reflection of the Jeep's lights on it lent an eerie quality to the scene.