The Dead Man: Hell in Heaven by Lee Goldberg, William Rabkin Page B

how we were delivered from evil by the arrival of this young man. You lived through it, you suffered the same pain we all did, now it’s over. The bitch queen is dead. I sent Percy and Ranulph out to the house to confirm it, and there’s no one there besides a rotting pile of goo on the ground.”
    The crowd erupted in cheers and applause. Orfamay let it go for a few seconds, then cleared her throat again. Somehow that awful sound cut through the celebration, and everybody settled back down.
    “You’re happy about this, and you’ve got the right to be,” Orfamay continued. “You know how it was with Joan, you’re glad it’s over. But you know what it was like before Joan was here, and that wasn’t any better. We’ve got a chance to start over a third time now, but that doesn’t mean it’s all posies and kittens yet. There are costs to everything. Before the food comes and we all make fools of ourselves on meat and shine, let’s hear what we’re going to be paying this time.”
    Matt didn’t know what that meant, but there was an ominous tone that made him want to get out of Heaven even faster. He was trying to figure out if there was a way to slip out unobserved from his place of honor when he realized that Orfamay had stopped speaking and was now staring directly at him.
    “Me?” he whispered to her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “You’ve got to tell these people how it’s going to work around here,” Orfamay whispered back. “You owe them that much.”
    She sat down, never taking her eyes off him. Matt felt the gaze of hundreds of people burning into him.
    “I can’t even begin to imagine what all of you went through while Joan was here,” he said, searching for words as he went. “I mean, I can begin—and I’ve got to leave it there. Because what I saw was pretty horrible. If I’d come across anything like that a year ago, I think I would have dropped dead of a heart attack.”
    There was a spatter of appreciative laughter from the crowd.
    “The fact that you were all able to survive this horror tells me how strong you must be,” Matt said. “I’m sure it won’t be long until everything goes back to normal around here. So, um, welcome back to the real world. I think you’re going to like it.”
    Now there was applause from the two tables. But it died away quickly when Orfamay cleared her throat again.
    “You’ve got the pretty words,” she said. “But we’re still not hearing what you expect from this town?”
    “I don’t expect anything,” Matt said. “There is one thing I’d really like, and that’s a ride back to the—”
    His words were cut off by a scream coming from outside the barn door. And this was no sow choking on the blood from the slit in its throat. This came from a woman, and it was filled with pain and fear.
    No one moved. They didn’t even swivel their heads away from Matthew.
    “Didn’t you hear that?” Matt said. “There’s a woman out there. She’s hurt.”
    Still, no one moved. Matt tried to push away from the table, but the throne must have weighed half a ton. It wouldn’t budge.
    Matt grabbed the edge of the table and was about to flip it over to free himself when there was a blur of pink motion and a pale form tumbled onto the floor in front of him. Before he could make sense of what was happening, a grizzled man in denim overalls without a shirt stalked in and grabbed the thing he had just hurled through the door.
    It was a girl. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old, as lovely a young woman as Matt had ever seen. Her hair was blonde and her eyes blue. She had a narrow waist and small breasts that ended in pale nipples; her pubic hair was so pale as to be practically invisible.
    Matt could see this all because, aside from the bruise she wore on her right cheek, the girl was naked.
    And there was blood running down her legs.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    The girl didn’t let out a sound as the overalled man