Devil's Heart Read online

  The screaming would gradually change into a madness-induced moan, then into a low sob. And then silence. And then one by one the torches would cease their flickering fiery quiver, and the area known as The Digging would become as black as the Devil’s heart.

  And as still as a musty grave.

  Dear Mom and Dad:

  Sure is a change from the sand hills where I grew up, but I love it here at Nelson College. And guess what?: I’m rooming with a guy whose name is Sam B. Williams.

  I wonder what the B stands for?” Jane Ann asked.

  I don’t give a damn what it stands for,” Tony said. Just read the damn letter.”

  Sam B. (he’s called Black) has a really super-fine sister; she’s going to school at Carrington College—that’s just upriver from us. Black is going to fix me up with her soon; said he told her all about me and she’s really anxious to meet me.

  I wonder what her name is?” Jane Ann asked. The name Black had triggered an old alarm within her.

  Tony wished she would just toss the letter in the garbage and shut her fucking mouth.

  I’m going home with them over the Thanksgiving holiday to meet their parents. They live up in Canada, right on the edge of Province Park—really wild and beautiful. Black said it’s miles from any neighbors. I’m really looking forward to it. Black and I have a lot in common: we both spent three years in the military. He was in some Canadian outfit, paratroop-commando, and, of course, you all remember me: Ranger Sam. Black and I have done some skydiving together, and we’ve talked about a long camp-out this spring. Maybe his good-looking sister will go along, keep me warm? (Just a joke, Mom.)

  Got to go. Will call later.

  Love,

  Sam

  Tony stood up. Very interesting letter. I have to go, Jane Ann.”

  I want to know who this Black fellow is,” Jane Ann said. And I’d like to know more about his sister.”

  I’m not going to sit here and argue with you, Janey. I don’t give a damn what you do.”

  I’ve realized that for a number of years, Tony. What did you mean about us being the youngest of the survivors?”

  He shrugged. Well . . . Miles and Doris, Wade and Anita . . . they’re all in their sixties—all retired. Neither man is in good health. And for the last few weeks . . . neither Wade nor Miles has acted . . . well, friendly toward me.”

  Since the hot wind began blowing?”

  Yeah, if you just have to connect it that way.”

  Across town a phone rang. Wade Thomas quickly silenced the jangling. All right, Doris. Sure, I can come over. I know, I’ll be careful. Miles wants to build a what? What the hell is a golem? Are you serious! Okay, I’ll be right over.” He hung up, his face holding an odd look.

  What’s wrong with Miles?” Anita asked.

  Doris says he’s cracked. Says the old momzer’s nuts.”

  What’s a momzer?”

  I have no idea. But I’ll bet you it isn’t complimentary.”

  Well, what’s a golem?”

  Ah ... well, Doris says it’s a kind of monster made out of clay, endowed with life. A protector, sort of.”

  The man and wife exchanged glances. Anita shrugged.

  Wade came to her, putting his arm around her shoulders. Honey ... ?”

  No, Wade.” She was firm. I don’t believe it’s happening. Not again. I will not leave our home.”

  It is happening, Anita. And you know it.”

  You go see Miles. I’ll be all right.”

  Tony lit a cigarette, ignoring Jane Ann’s shocked look. Tony, you haven’t smoked in years!”

  Well, I started again. It’s my business, not yours.”

  How is your practice, Tony?”

  He shrugged. You’ve been seeing a lot of Wade and Anita lately, haven’t you. And that damned ol’ Jew.”

  And with that remark about Miles, she knew all pretense had been ripped away. You want me to leave this house, Tony?”

  I don’t give a damn what you do.”

  I see.”

  Look, Janey . . .”

  Don’t say another word, Tony.” The warning was softly spoken, but it held firm conviction.

  I may or may not return this evening,”

  Your choice, Tony. But I think you’ve already made the most important choice.”

  He looked at her, his eyes hooded and evil. He nodded his head and walked out into the night.

  Across the street, at the Cleveland home, eyes watched his movements, then lifted to the woman standing in the door. In her mid-forties, Jane Ann was still a very beautiful and shapely woman, with the ability to turn men’s heads as she walked past.

  Jane Ann lifted her eyes as the feeling of being watched touched her. The Cleveland family—father, mother, and three children—stood behind the huge picture window, all of them staring at her. She stepped quickly back into the house, picked up Balon’s old Bible and returned to the porch. She held up the Bible, the dull gold cross on the leather shining in the glow of streetlights.

  The Cleveland family pulled the drapes.

  Jane Ann stood for a moment on the steps, the hot winds blowing around her. I won’t run,” she whispered, clutching the Word of God to her breast. I won’t run, and you can’t make me run.”

  The wind sighed around her. And had she looked closely at the invisible wind, she could have seen a light mist forming where the wind touched the corner of the house.

  Miles, this is foolish,” Wade pleaded with the man. It’s . . . folklore; myths. Hell, man, you haven’t been in a synagogue in fifty years! You sure haven’t been kosher in all the years I’ve known you.”

  I’m a Jew,” Miles said stubbornly. My God will not forsake me.”

  Bubbemysah!” Doris said.

  Wade looked up. What?”

  Old wives’ tale,” Miles translated. It is not. Just ask the people of Prague.”

  Ask the people of Prague,” Doris said sarcastically. What ask? That happened—supposedly—in the sixteenth century. I’m sure there are thousands still around who witnessed it.”

  It happened,” Miles insisted, looking at her. I know, my grandfather was a cabalist. He told me it did.”

  Your grandfather was a meshuggener,” she replied. All this foolish stuff. I’ll go make coffee.”

  Miles shook his head and grinned. She just called my grandfather a crazy old man. Wade, my God won’t let me down. I know it.”

  Seems like He did a pretty good job of it at Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz. To mention but a few.”

  Don’t blaspheme, Wade. Now is not the time. Ah . . . who am I trying to kid? Me! that’s who. I’m talking in one breath about something I was taught not to believe in, and in the next breath talking about being a Jew. Then I talk about a golem. Used to listen to my grandfather talk about golems. Ah,” he sighed heavily, takes a rabbi to build one anyway. I think. I’m an old man, Wade. Sixty-eight next month. You wanna know what I think, Wade—I’ll tell you: I think it’s too late. That’s what I think. For all of us. We should have left this place that summer . . . after we . . . did it.” He thumped the arm of his chair. Pulled out. But no, we were full of piss and courage . . . so we stayed. Like fools. Well, whatever it was, it’s back. And you know it. I’m glad our kids have all gone away.” He waved a hand, thin and heavily veined. But I’m just too old to run. Wade, you go back and get Anita. The two of you, get Jane Ann . . . and run.”

  Anita won’t run, Miles. I can’t convince her it’s happening all over again. And Jane Ann is beginning to suspect more each day. She told me she wasn’t running.”

  Sam is not here to protect us now, Wade. And I don’t mean no slight against you in saying that.”

  I know you don’t. Miles . . . I believe Sam is here.” He told him about the letter.

  My old rabbi should hear this story. He’d crap on himself. May I be forgiven for saying that. Yeah, Sam was a wild one. If there was a way back, he’d find it. I hope he’s here. Oh, Wade! What are we saying? Foolishnes
s. Sam is dead. So let’s have some coffee and cakes and talk about all the good times.”

  An hour later, Wade stepped out of the Lansky house. The hot winds still blew. He walked to his car, pausing with his hand on the door. He looked up. Sam, Jane Ann is not going to run. But if we stay here, they’ll kill us, and do much worse to Jane Ann before she dies.”

  But the wind still blew hot, and Wade received no reply to his statement.

  And the clay that Miles had painfully, slowly dug from the banks of a river—several hundred pounds of it—and had carefully shaped into the form of a man, with arms and legs and a featureless face, lay in the basement, in a huge packing crate.

  It appeared lifeless.

  It was in the summer of 1958 the horror finally surfaced, erupting like a too-long festering boil, spewing its corruption over all those near it. Specifically, the town of Whitfield and part of Fork County.

  Those who survived the terror remember it as the summer of The Digging. And not many of the town’s 2,500 residents did survive. Only a few. A few believers. More than a few unbelievers.

  Whitfield was destroyed. At the end of that week of devil-induced terror, the town was a broken, burned-out, still-smoking ruin.

  An archaeological team (they said) had come to Whitfield, ostensibly to investigate a huge stone circle, its interior barren of life. But what they were really doing was searching for a stone tablet. Satan’s tablet, upon which were carved these words: HE WALKS AMONG YOU. THE MARK OF THE BEAST IS PLAIN. BELIEVE IN HIM. ONCE TOUCHED, FOREVER HIS. THE KISS OF LIFE AND DEATH.

  And the tablet had been found.

  After that, the town’s fall into the blackest depths of sin and depravity had been swift, with only a few resisting: the minister, Sam Balon, whose own wife, Michelle, was part of the Devil’s team, as old and as evil as time. Father Dubois, a Catholic priest, had driven a stake into her heart, then stood by the bed with Sam, watching her metamorphosis through centuries of evil, and finally, her death.

  The old priest was killed a short time later. Then the horror unfolded in Fork County.

  The Undead walking. The Beasts of the devil prowling.

  Sam Balon had pulled together a handful of people, true believers in the Lord God. They fought the horror with everything they could find and with every ounce of strength and faith they possessed. Sam had acted as the right hand of God.

  It was a week of mind-tearing horror and days and nights of fear; of seeking out and killing those who worshiped the Devil. Finally, to save the few friends who remained, and to save his new wife, Jane Ann, Sam agreed to fight off the advances of Mephistopheles’ witch, Nydia, a beautiful woman whose soul had been given to the Prince of Filth centuries before, in return for everlasting youth and unbelievable beauty.

  Sam Balon had sent the Devil’s agent, Black Wilder, tumbling back to Hell with a stake through his dark heart. All part of the bargain. Then the witch, Nydia, took Balon into the spinning darkness of trackless time. And the man of God and the Witch of Hell fought for Sam’s seed of life. In the end, Nydia beat him and Balon was killed, his naked body found by the survivors. Cut into the earth beside the body, this message: HE MET ME—AND I DO RESPECT COURAGE.

  It was signed by Satan.

  The young doctor, Tony King, took Jane Ann as his wife, and the son of Sam Balon would not learn of his true father’s fate for years—until it was almost too late.

  TWO

  We’ll leave the main highway at St. Gervais,” Black said. Then drive northeast until we come to where mother owns some property. We’ll pick up a four-wheel drive there; sometimes you can’t even make it to the house in a four-wheel. It can get rough.”

  Sam nodded, not really paying much attention to the words of his friend and soon-to-be-host. Since the moment he and Black had picked up Black’s sister, Nydia, Sam had sat in a near state of shock, overwhelmed by her beauty. He did not believe he had ever seen a more beautiful woman, and when she told him that no, she didn’t have a steady boyfriend, and that really she hardly dated at all, Sam began counting his lucky stars.

  Nydia was five feet seven, she told him. She did not volunteer her weight, and Sam tactfully didn’t ask. But whatever her weight, it was distributed in a most delightful manner. Her hair was as black as the darkest night, her eyes a deep blue. Her skin was flawless, with just a hint of the long-ago Mediterranean ancestry. Her designer jeans were filled out perfectly (Sam could only guess at her shapely legs, and his guesses would later prove one hundred percent accurate), and her breasts were full.

  Nydia was as taken with Sam as he with her, looking him over very carefully, and liking everything she saw. Sam was well over six feet and muscular, with big shoulders and arms, a narrow waist. He had his late father’s unruly mop of thick, dark-brown hair, and since leaving the army, had allowed it to grow a bit longer than the service likes. Sam’s handsomeness was not of the pretty-boy type, Nydia concluded. He was . . . rugged-looking, with a solid, square jaw. And she had never before in her life been so drawn to a member of the opposite sex. She did not—at least up until now—believe in love at first sight. Now she was not so sure.

  But she was certain of one thing: she was going to get to know Sam B. King very well. Just about as well as any woman can know a man.

  And that shocked her, for she was a virgin in an age of overt promiscuity.

  How do you get out if you can’t use a four-wheel drive?” Sam asked.

  Oh ... snowmobiles, helicopters. We have them all at Falcon House,” Black replied with the ease of a person born into great wealth.

  Must be nice,” Sam mused. How did your father get his name?” he asked Nydia. I’ve never heard of a person named Falcon.”

  His name is really Falkner,” she replied, her voice touching Sam in some very intimate places, producing some uplifting results. Uncomfortable if one is wearing jeans. And he isn’t really our father. Our real father is, well . . . either dead or gone someplace; we don’t know, since mother refuses to discuss him. The only time she ever mentioned him she flew into a rage.”

  We don’t have to hang dirty linen in public, dear,” Black said. Besides, you are digressing from the question.”

  Forgive me, brother dear,” Nydia said, her eyes narrowing in sudden anger.

  Quick temper, Sam noted, filling that away in the back of his mind.

  Falkner means,” she continued, or so I’m told, Falcon hunter. His father began calling him Falcon when he was just a baby. It’s been Falcon ever since. Truth or fiction, it’s an interesting story.”

  Your mother’s name?”

  Black smiled, the smile not going unnoticed by Sam, who chose to ignore it, but he filed that away, too. The smile had seemed . . . odd.

  Roma,” Nydia said. Means the wanderer. My mother has . . . seen most of the world during her life. But despite her age—which by the way, she will not reveal—she is still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

  Even more beautiful than you?” Sam said, the words popping from his mouth.

  Black laughed and so did his sister. Thank you,” she said. But in answer to your question: yes, she is. You’ll see. Roma is beautiful.”

  Falcon and Roma,” Sam mused. Fascinating names.”

  We are an unusual family,” she replied. I believe after you’ve spent some time with us you’ll agree with that.”

  More than you realize, sister, Black thought. And soon it will be time for you to know just who you are. And what you were born to do—and become.

  The trio had flown into Montreal, picked up one of the family’s fleet of cars, and now, at St. Gervais, they all helped transfer the gear, then clamored noisily into the four-wheel for the eighty-mile trip into what Black called Canada’s near outback.

  A thought popped into Sam’s brain, the thought becoming vocal before he knew why he said it, You guys go to church?”

  No,” Black said, trying to keep his reply from being too short. We were taught to believe in God ... and especially,” he
fought a smile, the Devil. But we practice no form of . . . popularly organized religion.”

  I’ve gone to a church several times since I’ve been at Carrington,” Nydia said. I found it most interesting. I plan to keep on attending.”

  Black almost lost the big four-wheel. He wanted to scream at his sister, but instead bit his lip so hard he brought a drop of blood. Stupid bitch! he silently cursed her.

  Do you go to church, Sam?” she asked.

  Not as often as I should. I kind of got away from it in the service. I’ve got to start back, though. Nydia? How come you didn’t go on to college when you got out of high school? I mean, I don’t mean to be nosy; you can tell me to go to hell if you want.”

  Precisely where you are going, Sam, Black thought. In time.

  Again, that lovely laughter from the backseat. Don’t be silly, Sam. No, mother asked if I wanted to go straight to school, or see the world with her and wait for Black to complete his stint in the service. Mother wanted him to go into the military. A real tough branch of the service. Said in the years to come, the training would do him a lot of good. She said she once knew a man whom she admired greatly; she wanted Black to be like him in some ways. I think she said this man was a guerrilla fighter of some type; Special Forces, maybe.”

  Sounds like my dad,” Sam said, gazing out the window.

  If the communiques could have been heard by human ears, they would have sounded like the rolling of enormous thunder splitting the heavens.

  How about it, Mighty One?” the dark voice ripped through the heavens. A wager, perhaps?”