Lincoln, Fox and the Bad Dog

by D Roland Hess

  His arms stopped being useful.

  He saw it coming, and the look in his eyes…

  I raised it. And stopped.

  Stopped.

  I could see the dog in my peripheral vision, could smell the burned hair and meat. She wasn’t moving any longer, thank God.

  And she would be back. This wasn’t May. This wasn’t my family. Babd was going to be back. I wasn’t going to bludgeon a man to death for this. That wasn’t me. I lowered the bat.

  My head was still pounding, but the numbness had receded.

  He started to get up, groaning.

  “Don’t you fucking move,” I said and shakily pointed the bat at him.

  He laid back down.

  I looked around as quickly as I could manage without getting sick and found Fox a couple of feet away. I carefully knelt down and picked it up.

  “Fox, kinetic force wide spread.”

  I pointed the gun at him.

  His eyes went wide with terror. I pulled the trigger.

  It pushed him back into the ground a bit. He was going to have some serious problems tomorrow.

  What else was going on? I doubted I’d be in any kind of shape to help, but who knows?

  I looked around, and the field was littered with bodies. Dead? Unconscious? Holy shit, this was terrible. At least there didn’t seem to be as many around as they had started with. More people must have pulled a vanishing act when things got nasty than the few I’d already noticed. Good for them. I mean, that’s a hell of an undisciplined strike force for an evil wizard to have, but what are you going to do?

  I didn’t see Gwen, so maybe she’d made it out too.

  That was something.

  Dan.

  Behind me now. I’d completely lost any sense of orientation.

  Brigit was on the ground, her body rigid and shaking like it was being shocked.

  Sweat or blood got in my eyes, and I blinked. The blink lasted longer than a blink should. I think I was out on my feet for a second or more.

  Dan was hurt, somehow. It looked like his left arm was just flopping around when he moved, and he wasn’t moving much because some roots held his foot to a single place in the ground. But he wasn’t out of it. He was facing off against Guster and two of his remaining goons, a man and a woman. They both had the same blond hair and facial features and some part of my brain instantly tagged them as siblings.

  They kept trying to get in on him, but he wielded the kris like a demon.

  The brother got a little too close, and all of the sudden he didn’t have a right hand. He cried out, and his sister immediately seemed to lose her fight. She caught him as he started to collapse.

  I rescanned the area, making my head swim, but I needed to make sure no one was sneaking up on me again. It had happened twice now. A couple of people seemed to be getting to their feet, but anyone who was moving was heading away from us, not toward us.

  When I put my attention back on Dan and Guster, the siblings were backing off too. Guster looked like he was saying something to them, trying to get them to stay, but I was maybe thirty feet away and the ocean was playing loudly in my ears.

  I started shambling toward Dan and Guster. They were both keeping their distance from each other.

  “Fox, kinetic force default,” I said. My voice was hoarse. I raised the gun at Guster and kept approaching.

  I waited until I’d gone a few more feet and he’d noticed me.

  “You’re going to leave us alone,” I said, as loudly and menacingly as I could.

  “What?” he said, a look of genuine puzzlement on his face.

  “Link, it’s no good,” said Dan. “You can’t reason with him.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “We’re going to try. This has gone way past far enough.” I was still walking toward them.

  “Careful man,” said Dan.

  Guster’s hands were being pulled through some kind of motion, and his lips were moving. Maybe a Praecant can tell what kind of spell another one is whipping up just by looking, but I sure can’t.

  “Shoot him,” said Dan.

  “Guster,” I said, “stop the spell right now. We need to talk.”

  I was focused on Guster, but off to the side, I saw Dan start to go wobbly. He was down on one knee.

  Through my glasses, I saw magic start to envelop Guster’s hands. It wasn’t anything massive, which is why it was working at all, and it looked deep and subtle.

  “Kill him,” said Dan.

  “Dan SHUT UP.”

  I was about six feet from Guster now. Well within lunging distance. If he tried anything, he was going down. As best as I could with my aching joints, foggy head and screwed up balance, I took a stance and covered his chest with Fox. I probably looked far more ragged and beaten up than badass, but you do what you can.

  “It’s time to talk,” I said.

  Guster looked scared. And, strangely, puzzled. That same look again.

  I felt something touch my neck, and I didn’t have time to jump. In fact, I found that I couldn’t jump. I couldn’t do anything.

  “Fine,” said a voice in my ear. “I’ll do it myself.”

  Dan limped in front of me, his foot freed from the roots. He had paralyzed me with a touch. I stood there, rigid in my Weaver stance.

  Fox! I thought, but I hadn’t hooked up that tech yet. The AI couldn’t hear me.

  I fought for any kind of movement but nothing worked. Dan worked his way toward Guster, who was now starting to back away from us.

  “You’re about to die, asshole,” said Dan.

  Feeling in my fingers. Just a little.

  Guster was saying something, but I was concentrating on contracting my trigger finger. Dan was in front of me, and if I could fire, the kinetic force might take them both down.

  It twitched.

  Dan switched his grip on the kris.

  My finger moved a centimeter, then another, then

  Click.

  The magically generated force shot out of the gun, bowled Dan over and continued right into Guster. But something went wrong. The spell Guster had cast must have been some kind of defensive thing, like a force trampoline. It bounced back in my direction and flattened me.

  I lay on the ground on my side, frozen in my shooting stance, not able to move anything but my finger. I hurt all over. I think I blacked out again for a second or two.

  Where I fell, I could at least see what was going on, and the defensive spell hadn’t protected Guster completely. He was flat on his ass and looked stunned.

  Dan was back up and kind of half-limping, half-dragging himself toward Guster.

  “Do you like him?” he said. “You like my Black Knight?”

  Guster wasn’t speaking.

  “Yeah, you weren’t counting on that. You and twenty of your Whole Foods interns. What a joke. Where’d you even get those guns?”

  Still holding the kris in his good hand, Dan swung his arm forward and punched Guster flat in the face. Guster went over. Dan straddled him, pinning his arms to the ground.

  “That’s right. Lincoln’s pretty awesome, huh? Say Hi to Carol for me. And Stoneface. You bunch of dumb shits.”

  Guster started to squirm, until Dan pressed the tip of the kris against the hollow of his throat. A sound escaped from Guster’s lips like a wounded animal.

  “This city is worth so much, and you all ran it like a hippy commune. You wasted it. Well, now it’s mine.”

  Panic. Something was clicking into place inside me. Things that hadn’t quite made sense or that I’d seen but had been too frantic or hurt to contextualize at the time.

  These people hadn’t been stalking us.

  Dan had been stalking them.

  “Hey Guster,” said Dan, “I have a surprise for you…” and his voice segued into the low tones of magic. It only lasted about five seconds, but as he did it the kris blade began to change color. It got angry. Red, then yellow, then white.

  Guster started kicking his legs madly, wrig
gling under Dan, but he couldn’t escape. A scream erupted.

  Dan was slowly driving the white hot blade into his throat.

  The scream was stopped with a wet choking noise, but Guster continued to flail, even more frantic now.

  And then he just-

  Exploded. Like a body dropped from an airliner that hits a city street.

  He liquified at velocity right in front of my eyes.

  I was still paralyzed, and every piece of me was screaming inside. A shock wave hit me. I could feel what had been Guster dripping down my face, over my eyes and into my open mouth.

  It was everywhere.

  Dan, completely covered, was pushing himself to his feet. He slipped in the gore, couldn’t catch himself and fell over.

  He lay on the ground for a minute and just laughed and laughed.

  “I guess I deserved that,” he finally said.

  Then, he carefully got to his feet and limped over to me.

  He gently patted my cheek, and each time his hand clung to the sticky wetness on my face. I tried with all of my will to push myself away from him and managed to twitch my finger again.

  “Couldn’t have done it without you,” he said. “Thanks buddy. You da man.”

  He stepped over me, and I couldn’t see him. Feeling was coming back into my hand, but that was all. I needed some more time.

  I could hear him shuffling away.

  Two minutes went by.

  Three.

  Everything was quiet, and finally, I started to be able to hear traffic again. Whatever they’d done to cut us off from the rest of the world was going away. Or maybe it hadn’t been them. Maybe it had been Dan.

  Laying there in the dirt and grass, covered with blood and bits of person, everything started to turn abstract. The pain wasn’t in charge, even though it was running the front office. I was somewhere else. In the alley on break. The blades of grass weren’t blades of grass now. They were a pattern of receding, crossing edges, translucent green made opaque with blackening liquid like a cubist painting.

  I noticed an ant, crawling, its feelers working the ground in front of it. It navigated across my field of vision, then out of it.

  At some point, feeling came back to me, about the same time I started to notice the smell. Some weird part of me tried to say that it was possible I was just lying near an overfull port-a-john at a summer barbecue.

  I wondered vaguely if this is what things had looked like when they had found me in the park those years ago. Bodies and parts and blood everywhere.

  Feet came into view, walking by me, but they didn’t disturb the grass. I gave a long, slow blink to clear the horror out of my eyes. My family was walking by. All of them. May too.

  Hey guys.

  How you doing?

  They didn’t notice me. I couldn’t hear them talking.

  They moved on.

  I heard real voices and tried to sit up.

  The voices got closer. Two people, it sounded like. Men. I didn’t recognize them.

  Even with the magical paralysis fading, I could barely move. Waves of nausea and dizziness assaulted me any time I tried to do anything faster than a slow crawl.

  Hands grabbed me.

  “He’s alive,” someone said.

  “Take him,” said the other.

  “Careful, don’t slip.”

  “God. Jesus Christ this is horrible.”

  I heard something else, and my head floated in the direction of the sound of its own volition.

  A wolf.

  An honest to God one-hundred-percent legit wolf was charging out of the woods, straight for us. She was looking past me though, at the owners of the four rough hands that were dragging me.

  The last thing I remember is her leaping and the pain of a shotgun discharging right beside my ear.

  Chapter 10

  How’s it going?

  Not so great. I think. It’s hard to tell, actually. Things seem a bit weird.

  You see a Zoro.

  Okay, so after the Zoro started chasing me? What next?

  Right.

  The woods.

  I’m running through the woods, down the hill. It’s after me.

  Concentrating on making it down the slope in the twilight without tripping on a root, slipping in the scrabble or slamming into a tree, because if that happens I figure I’m dead. Focused straight ahead, and on moving faster so I don’t slow down.

  After a while, I realize that I don’t hear it behind me. Where is it?

  I stop. Listen.

  Nothing.

  Well, just the normal sounds.

  I start moving again, downhill, toward the car. Slow or fast? If I stay slow, I can still hear and be more quiet. If I go fast, I get to the car more quickly.

  I start slow but get faster. Running again. I can’t help it. Something’s after me.

  I breach the edge of the trees, and it’s maybe twenty yards to the road and the car. I’m really moving.

  And there it is. The Zoro, like a giant coyote with weird eyes on its shoulders. It’s waiting for me on the other side of the car by the driver’s door.

  I’m running, and it’s tracking me with it’s eyes. I figure it’s getting ready to spring.

  Some memory clicks, and instead of scrambling to a stop and running away, I keep moving forward but try to throw some back and forth serpentine into it. Maybe it will miss me, or maybe it’s waiting until I run around to the driver’s side to try to get in. Does it think I can’t see it?

  The passenger window is open in front, and I do probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’m scared out of my mind, which may have something to do with it.

  I don’t slow down and dive head first at the car. There are a million things that can go wrong, but for once in my life, they don’t. The universe owes me.

  I sail right through the window and hit a bunch of stuff on the inside. My legs are sticking out the window from the knees down, and I turn into a frantic ball of flailing limbs trying to get myself completely inside.

  The Zoro starts slamming its head into the driver’s side window.

  WHAM

  keys keys keys

  WHAM

  I have to use both hands to put the keys in the ignition because they are shaking so badly. I’ve never felt adrenaline like this before.

  WHAM

  Going… I’m going. The speed limit here is 25, but I’m trying to break 60. A cycler yells something at me as I blow past.

  The Zoro doesn’t start falling behind until I hit 40, so I make sure not to go any slower than that the rest of the way home.

  I break some laws.

  I’m outside my apartment, sitting in the car. It’s permit parking only here, and I don’t have one yet, but the space is right in front of the door. I don’t want to have to walk any further outside than I have to. I’m just sitting there shaking. I know I have to go inside, but I don’t want to leave the protection of the car. It’s only a few feet of concrete sidewalk between me and building, but it looks like a hundred yards.

  I’m trying to do some mental math to tell myself that there is no possible way the Zoro could be here now.

  I climb over to the passenger seat and plan to get out that side anyway. There’s no one around, and I open the door. I make it across the sidewalk, and that feeling you get when you’re going up the basement stairs with the lights off keeps getting stronger and stronger. But I know if I run, it’ll just get worse.

  So I walk. Fit the key into the door and unbolt, then unlock.

  I go in.

  Close the door.

  Nothing.

  What the hell just happened to me?

  What. The. Hell.

  One second I’m lying in the grass thinking thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking, and the next, I’m running for my life from a giant, extra-eyed coyote.

  I don’t keep booze at the place for the obvious reasons, but I really wish I had some now.

  All of the morose and horrible
thoughts that held me just an hour ago are completely gone. I wish that if I texted my Dad, he would text me back, and wouldn’t be dead. Maybe I should text Gwen. She seemed worried.

  There’s a weird feeling behind me, so I turn around.

  A feeling?

  Yes, a feeling. Like someone blew on my neck.

  The Zoro comes through the wall. It doesn’t smash it down or leave a mark. It’s just there in the living room, out of the wall.

  I try to run backwards, around the kitchenette counter, reaching out behind me to try to keep from running into things.

  The Zoro vaults the futon and comes straight for me.

  I don’t even know what to think. I have no context for this, so I’m not even trying to make sense of it. And it doesn’t make sense that this thing even exists, let alone that it chased me in the woods and attacked my car and somehow just materialized in my living room. All I can do is get away from it. There’s a door open to my right. Is it the bathroom or bedroom? I have no idea how far back I’ve stumbled.

  I kind of toss myself through the door, and the Zoro careens past me. I hear it hit the closet door at the end of the hallway, and it sounds like a lot of things break.

  Where am I?

  Bedroom.

  That’s good.

  Nightstand, which is a milk crate.

  The gun I was glad that I didn’t have earlier? It’s here.

  Military-spec Springfield 1911 in .45, of course. It was my dad’s.

  When the Zoro comes through the bedroom wall, I give it eight of the ten rounds in the magazine.

  Apparently monsters bleed.

  Momentum carries it forward, and it drops to the floor right in front of me.

  It looks up, and I can tell by the look on its face that it’s smarter than a wild animal. There’s really something behind the eyes, and more than anything else that night, looking at it cuts through me and makes me almost want to turn the gun on myself. I can feel its look stirring something horrible inside me, like some kind of creeping anti-life even stronger than what I had been thinking about earlier.

  Instead, I level the 1911 at its head and let the last two rounds fly. The black light in its eyes goes out.

  Why didn’t the police come?

  They did.

  Why is there no record?

  Give me a minute.

  I call Gwen. I’m freaking out. I know that she’s into voodoo/wicca/whatever, and that if anyone will have some kind of idea of what just happened it will be her. She says that she’ll be right over, and she’s going to grab someone who can help.