“I’ll help you get the gasoline down there,” he said. “Then you do what you want. You’re going to need help with the gasoline if you want to move quickly.”
Kimble thought about it, then nodded. “Fine. Show me.”
44
THERE WAS A STEADY but soundless wind that made the leafless trees sway in a gentle, hypnotic motion, and the moon was high and nearly full, snowflakes spitting against the windshield, as Nathan Shipley drove Roy along the winding roads that led west to Blade Ridge.
“I knew I wasn’t crazy,” Shipley said. “I knew I saw that kid, but how do you say something like that? How do you point to a living, breathing, uninjured human being and tell someone that you are positive he should be dead? I couldn’t say that.”
“Not to an ordinary audience,” Roy said as they sped away from sparkling Christmas lights on the edge of town and into the darkness beyond. “But at this point, Kimble and I are not the ordinary audience.”
“There have been ten others? Ten like him?”
“At least.”
“And they not only healed up, but they killed people. You really believe that.”
“It’s not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of reality,” Roy said. “The easy question is how nobody noticed. But those accidents, those deaths, those killings, they were spread out over decades. Years would pass between them.”
“Of course,” Shipley said. “Think about it—that place is as isolated a pocket of the world as you’ll find east of the Mississippi. It doesn’t get a lot of traffic.”
“That probably disappoints him,” Roy said.
“Who?”
“Vesey. The ghost. The devil. Whatever he is. He came when the bridge was going up and prospects were high at Blade Ridge. The mines went belly-up fast, though. Poor yield. Then time and money moved everything to other places, and Blade Ridge was left empty and forgotten.”
They hit a four-way intersection, and Shipley banged the right turn, Roy slid against the door, and then they were on County Road 200, almost there.
Audrey led Kimble to the storage barn where the carts and two tractors were kept. The gasoline for them was stacked neatly on fresh shelves that still smelled of sawdust, Wesley’s final bit of handiwork before the new preserve had opened.
“Those four are gasoline,” she said. “The other two are for the chainsaw, and they’re a mixture of gas and oil.”
“It’ll all burn,” Kimble said, and then he began to load the cans into one of the carts. Four twelve-gallon cans and two five-gallon. Fifty-eight gallons of fuel in all, and although it seemed the wrong question, Audrey asked if he actually thought it could do the job.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve seen house fires started with a lot less. But that thing hasn’t stood for more than a century by accident. It’s strong.”
“I hope it works,” Audrey said, and she saw Kimble look at her in surprise.
“Do you?”
She gazed back at him, looking beyond the bloodstain on his cheek and into his eyes, and nodded.
“I don’t know if I believe what you’ve said, but I believe something is wrong here. And it took my husband. So yes, I hope it works.”
“I’ll do my best,” Kimble said. “And you do yours. Give me time enough to get it started. That’s all I ask.”
He looked at Dustin. “I’m going to go down there and soak those old planks in this gasoline, and when every drop is out, I’ll put a match to it. By the time that happens, I want you both gone.”
Dustin nodded. He hadn’t spoken since they left the trailer. He was oddly self-possessed, though, exhibiting none of the fear that the situation seemed to dictate. He was braver than Audrey had thought he would be, but how did you ever know? How could you anticipate a situation that called for true bravery?
“What about my cats?” she said.
“What about them?”
“You’re starting a fire. What if it gets into the woods and comes toward my cats?”
Kimble shook his head. “There’s a good stretch of rock between that trestle and the woods. Even with a strong wind blowing, it couldn’t make the woods.”
He waved the gun at Dustin. “Sit down.”
Dustin sat on the passenger side of the little cart. Kimble turned to Audrey and offered a bloodstained hand.
“Good luck,” he said.
“You, too.”
He got behind the wheel then, and the little motor bubbled to life, and then they were out of the barn and driving off into the night, down toward the trestle. Dustin didn’t even look back at her.