Except Michael had already left the threshold of the Southern West Virginia Coal office, shutting the door behind him and traveling toward the side entrance of the church.
“Hey,” he whispered.
Michael lay his fingers on the church doorknob: he hadn’t been in a church in years, not since it had been one of Ron’s this-will-definitely-fix-my-life ideas.
He crossed the threshold, rifle in his hand.
“Hell—” he said, and the green smell hit the back of his mouth.
Ahhhh no.
The first thing he saw: the Bellow. A man, dead-eyed, wearing a blue coal-mining jumpsuit and gas mask and utility belt, secured by a rope to the raised wooden altar of the tiny house of worship. Michael stopped a couple feet outside of the Bellow’s reach, then whirled.
People were clustered in the pews, watching the Bellow, as if awaiting the announcement of its deadly sermon.
Michael immediately felt his blood, but before he could stop his thoughts: Why are these people looking at this?
Because they weren’t people.
The “people” stood utterly still, without breath, without flinch. The worshippers were mannequins. Their arms, reaching for the sky, were posed. In the eye sockets, shards of mirror glimmered and flashed: they looked like disciples eternally paused in the brilliance of an epiphany.
The imitation of life, of safety, was somehow hideous—like biting into a hamburger that was fine on the outside, but in the crescent of your bite, maggots squirmed.
“Stupid,” he said. His own voice sounded shaky.
Fine—it’s fine, he told himself. Things are still going well. Hope is just getting some good laughs at me today, that’s all.
“Stttuuuuupiiiiiddd!” said the muffled, bound Bellow.
And out of the corner of his eye, Michael saw the Bellow lunge. For one incredible moment, the enormous altar the Bellow was tethered to tilted forward; the nails anchoring it to the ground screamed.
The Bellow’s clawed fingers flew out and scraped the side of Michael’s neck.
Michael recoiled at the frozen touch. He staggered back, nearly falling over a pew. He felt a sting that was mostly surprise. His hand went to his neck. The skin was tender, hot, and wet.
Freaking thing scratched me, Michael thought, in something like wonder. I let it scratch me.
He gulped twice, trying to regain control of himself, to push away the coppery adrenaline. He looked into the eyes of the Bellow that was attempting to lunge again from the moonlit altar—actually, just “eye,” he corrected himself. One eye was the normal all-black, but from the other socket, an eye hung from its stalk like a deflated water balloon.
“STUUUUUUUPIIII—”
And redness surged through Michael’s head.
He raised his rifle . . . and swung the stock of it at the Bellow, cracking the creature in the side of the skull. A sound like a sweet spot–hit baseball. Its brain ruined, the Bellow collapsed.
Didn’t ask you, Michael thought.
Not bothering to shut the church up behind him, he went back to the office, chained the door.
Michael felt shaky. Frakking hell, you know what “something” would help him? Getting out of this crap-hole in the morning.
He thought of waking Patrick, just to tell jokes or something.
He crouched down, reaching out to touch Patrick’s shoulder. But he stopped his hand. Brain-crud coated his fingers: his whole sleeve, in fact.
Can’t even hug my brother, he thought.
You know what, Game? Sometimes I am so sick of you. Sometimes I just want to qui—
But don’t think about that.
Michael sat in his hard chair, feeling his blood slam in his temples.
The Game Master arrived immediately.
CHAPTER FIVE
“There’s someone outside.”
Michael twitched, murmuring. He turned onto his other hip, pulling the sleeping bag up to his armpits. Good Lordy, did the cold suck: his bones felt hard and thick, like the cement floor underneath him. He swam slowly out from under sleep, his closed eyelids glowing a soft red. Day twenty-two, plus one day, equals—
“Michael, there’s someone outside.”
Michael’s eyes burst open.
The burn of daylight through the semi-boarded windows hid his brother’s expression. Michael automatically locked his own emotions down, too.
“Huh?” Michael whispered back calmly.
It’s probably not people, he told himself. Probably Bellows who couldn’t find someplace to hide when the sun came up. Bub’s just confused. Michael remembered another confusing wake-up, the one that had come only a couple days before Halloween. Patrick had shaken Michael awake, saying, What’s a “impatient picnic”? The fist-sized bruises on Michael’s arms were still spectacular that morning: even in the confusion of waking, he hid them under the cover from Patrick. Patrick continued: Daddy came back. He said, “Patrick’s goin’ back to the impatient