He stood there for a long time, with his hands held up to shield his face from the heat. The flame roared and crackled and then burned down, and there seemed to be nothing left of the cab at all. He stepped closer and saw a thin rod of white amidst all the black char, knew it was bone, and fell to his knees and vomited in the grass.
He was down there on his hands and his knees when he heard the voice. Not the scream from Claire that he’d been fearing, but a whisper that now felt familiar.
You brought me home. Been a long time coming. Too many years I was gone. But you brought me home.
He jerked up and stared at the smoldering truck and saw nothing inside, just all that ash and heat and thin black smoke, and then his eyes rose and he saw Campbell Bradford standing just beyond, close enough to the truck that he could touch it but unaffected by the flames.
Think that would kill me? You don’t understand the first thing about me, about what I am. I’m strong here, stronger than you can believe, stronger than you can stop. I don’t die. Not like your wife.
Eric staggered backward, up to the road. Campbell smiled and ducked his head and then crawled through the burning cab and out onto the other side, following. Eric turned and ran.
There was another car parked beside the Oldsmobile now. A heavyset guy in an Indianapolis Colts baseball cap was climbing down out of a large Chevy truck.
“Buddy, you okay? Shit, did that tornado get it? Man, there ain’t nothing left of it, is there. You see what happened? Was anyone inside?”
Eric stumbled past him and around the open door of Danny Hastings’s Oldsmobile and got into the driver’s seat. The guy was following him, and over his shoulder, Campbell Bradford walked leisurely down the road.
“Buddy… you need to wait for help. I’ve called the fire department. You can’t drive, man, not after something like this.”
Eric slammed the door and put the car in reverse and backed up, feeling the jar when the right-side wheels popped back onto the surface of the road. He kept it in reverse as the heavyset guy closed in and Campbell Bradford walked toward them in the middle of the road. The stranger was talking and just a few feet away, but now Eric couldn’t hear his voice. He could only hear Campbell’s.
She’s dead, and I’m still here. Forever. Thought you could control me, contain me, defeat me? She’s dead and I’m still here.
Eric backed up all the way to the intersection beside Wesley Chapel. The old white church was still standing, oblivious to the two tornadoes that had snaked through on either side of it today. He cut the wheel then and swung the front of the car around so it was pointing south. He looked in the rearview mirror as he accelerated down the road and saw Campbell just behind, strolling along but somehow keeping pace with the car. Eric dropped his eyes and hit the gas pedal, tore up the road. Ahead he could see police lights flashing, maybe a half mile away. He ignored them and banged a left turn back into the gravel lane, drove all the way to the end, and parked the car beside its dead owner’s body. He got out and leaned over and placed the keys in the dead man’s hand. This time he did not recoil at the touch or the sight of the wound.
You’ve left people dead all over today, haven’t you? Campbell said. He was no more than five feet behind Eric now. How many have died today? I can hardly keep the tally. We’ve got this one, Josiah, your wife…
There were flashing lights through the trees now, back toward the road, and a police car blew past and continued on toward the wrecked Ford Ranger. Eric watched it go, and the lights set off a blinding pain in his skull, a single burst like all of the headaches of the past days combined into one extravagant stroke of agony. He gasped and dropped to his knees in the wet, bloody grass.
So many dead people, Campbell said. So many. But guess what? You’re still here, and so am I. So am I.
Eric looked up at him, into the horrible shadowed face beneath the bowler hat, and thought, He is right. The blood is on me, Claire’s is, at least. She came for me, came to help me, to save me, and I left her behind. Went out into the storm in search of that spring and left her behind.
It was all gone now, everything he’d ever needed and loved was lost because he was too selfish, too stupid, to know what he needed or how to love.
Only Campbell remained with him now.
The muscle tremors in his hands had worked into his forearms, and his left eyelid was fluttering constantly. His skull ached as if someone were piping in additional air pressure; it was hard to walk in a straight line once he got back to his feet and pointed toward the trail, Campbell following him with a strange whispering laugh.
The hell with it—let him follow. All that mattered had been lost; all that was left did not matter.