Hell in Heaven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When Matt was ten years old, his father had taken him to a travelling carnival where he'd spent two hours and uncountable quarters trying to land a set of plastic rings over a bunch of milk bottles. When he'd finally won – or when the carny behind the counter had gotten sick of seeing his face and declared him the winner – he was granted his prize: a plastic pencil sharpener in the shape of a cartoon bear. When the carny handed it to him, Matt had burst into tears. He couldn't believe that so much time and effort – not to mention so much of his father's money – had earned him such a pathetic prize.

If he'd believed the little girl about the whole town being his, he might have felt the same way about today's prize.

He spent a long chunk of his expected lifespan meeting what he assumed was the town's entire population, shaking hands and exchanging rough embraces with an endless stream of well-wishers. He tried to attach names to people, and family members to each other, but after a couple of minutes all the hardscrabble hands and weathered faces began to blur together.

What he did notice is that most of the people from the town shared one of two last names. There were probably eighty men, women and children who introduced themselves as Something Vetch, and another seventy or so who were Gilhoolies. The rest of the population seemed to belong either to the Runcible family or clan Hoggins. Matt couldn't be sure, because everyone kept moving around and there were no clear lines, but it seemed to him that the Vetches and the Runcibles stayed on one side of the street while the Gilhoolies and Hogginses clustered together on the other.

After what felt like an eternity of meeting and greeting, Matt found himself facing Orfamay Vetch again. "Supper's at six tonight," she snarled at him. "It's going to be at the Grange. You'll be needing someplace to stay. The old Delaney place is yours by right."

The thought of stepping foot back in that house sent a shudder of horror through him. "I'll pass," he said.

"Then you can take my place for as long as you need it," she said. A confession extracted through torture might have sounded more gracious. "Need someone to show you the way, or can you handle simple directions?"

"I'll take him, Orfamay." It was the little girl, who had showed up at his side again.

"That's very generous," Matt said. "But I don't need to throw you out of your home. I just need to get back to the highway."

"Mouse will show you around," Orfamay said. She turned back to the crowd of Vetches and Gilhoolies, Runcibles and Hogginses. "You going to stand around staring like a bunch of dead sheep? There's work to do preparing for tonight."

She clapped her hands sharply and the crowd immediately started to dissipate. "Six o'clock sharp," she said, and Matt couldn't tell if she was addressing the little girl or him. "We're punctual in these parts."

Orfamay Vetch gave Matt one last, penetrating look and then marched off with the rest of the crowd. The girl slipped her hand into his and pulled him toward a side street.

"I'm so glad you're here," she said. "I knew you'd come if I summ – if I prayed hard enough."

"I can't stay," Matt said. "But thank you. Did she call you Mouse?"

The girl smiled happily at the sound of her name coming from his lips. "My real name is Mary Elizabeth Gilhoolie, but my brother Vern, he's called me Mouse since forever, because I'm little and I can creep around without anyone hearing me. We're going this way."

The road she led him toward ran out of asphalt about six feet from the main street. It was pocked with small, dark, crumbling houses lurking behind rotting picket fences. Between them chicken coops and hog wallows sent clouds of foul dust into the hot air. Matt had grown up in one of the Northwest's dying lumber towns, but he'd never seen any place that looked as poor and miserable as this.

"You prayed for me to come," Matt said, giving into the questions that had been pounding at his brain. "How did you know my name?"

"I dreamed it," she said proudly. "You came to me riding that motorcycle and told me your name was Matt and that you were coming to save us."

Again, Matt flashed on that Frazetta image of himself as King Conan. He tried to laugh it out of his head, but it wouldn't go. Maybe he had been brought back to be some kind of hero.

"Do you often have dreams like that?" Matt said.

"The Book tells me how -" she broke off again.

"The Book?"

"The Good Book," Mouse said quickly, a flush coming to her cheeks. "That's what my mother used to call the Bible. It tells me how to pray."

There was a quaver in her voice, and Matt thought she was hiding something. But it didn't seem worth calling her a liar simply to discover the deepest secrets of an eleven-year-old girl. If he'd known how many deaths he might have prevented if he'd pushed her, no doubt he would have. There was something else she'd said that seemed more important at the moment.

"You say she used to call it the Good Book," Matt said. "Is she

…?"

"Dead," Mouse said. "Pa, too. My brother Vern looks after me now. He's the leader of all the Gilhoolies. Hoggninses, too."

"I'm sorry about your parents," Matt said. "Was it Joan?"

"Before Joan came," Mouse said. "That was why I -"

A scream came from behind one of the houses. It was filled with pain and terror. And then it stopped, drowned in a bubbling of blood.