by Muriel Gray
Beyond the building lay the still, dark, naked fields that stretched to the edge of the hills, their dew-soaked grass making ready to catch the first rays of light. But as Josh stood openly before it, unafraid of being detected, his gun hand by his side, the idyll was further undermined by the stench that had started to fill the air.
There was no room in its foulness for the bright, sharp smells of morning. There was only decay and disease and throat-catching tendrils of burning flesh. It was as bad as it had ever been but it felt keener, closer. It felt more real. Josh steeled himself for a glimpse of its hideous form, waited for a moment, then quickly cancelled the physical reactions his automatic response to fear had kick-started.
Its failure to appear was a viscous tease in itself, but there was little time to contemplate the demon’s last taunting. It was time to find Griffin.
The central section was an open stage, brightly lit, with nowhere to hide. She was in one of the washrooms. That was it. One or the other. And whichever it was, he would tear it apart until he found her. He walked calmly to the glass doors and entered. The ladies’ room was to his left, the men’s to his right. Josh didn’t even hesitate as he chose the men’s. Griffin, he suspected, would have done the same.
He pushed the wooden door open slowly, unsurprised to find the room in darkness. The door was on a spring and it nudged back against his shoulder in its effort to close again. Josh lifted a leg and kicked it, a rage behind the force that not only severed the flimsy spring from its fixings but bent the hinge on the door, leaving it leaning from its frame at an angle. There was a mirror nailed to the end wall opposite the door above two sinks, and he saw himself silhouetted in the door frame. That was good. If he’d made a mistake and chosen the wrong washroom, he’d see her in the mirror as she dived from the door behind him.
“Can you smell its breath, Griffin?” He didn’t shout, but his voice was loud and startling in the silence of the room.
“Huh? You feel it comin’?”
He took a step into the room, his boot crunching on the broken glass of the smashed overhead light.
“I can feel it real close. But then, I guess now you know what it’s like to feel your executioner so close you feel him breathe. ‘Cos I’m right here, Griffin. Can you taste my breath?”
He took another step. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, taking in the two urinals on the wall to his left, and the more important fact that the three toilet stalls on his right were closed. Slowly he crouched down and through the gap beneath the stalls scanned the floor. There were no feet. He straightened up, senses on hyper-alert.
“Maybe you still remember what it tastes like.”
Josh kicked the first stall with the same fury he’d unleashed on the door. It banged open and smashed against the wall, before slamming back again and coming to rest half open. The stall was empty.
“Sweet, wasn’t it?”
He stepped in front of the second stall with another crunch of glass, glancing once at the mirror for movement outside, the gun held level with his chest.
“Never thought when we fucked that we were goin’ to kill each other. Crazy, huh? Ain’t exactly what I call safe sex.”
He hesitated, leaving a beat between his words and his next action. Josh took two quick steps forward and smashed his foot into the second stall door. It banged twice in protest and revealed its emptiness. His eyes flicked to the last stall, and as he looked, the door swung slowly inwards by an inch or two.
Turning slowly and crouching low, he inched back towards the swinging door, both hands gripping the gun.
It was the right hand, the one cradling the trigger that took the knife as he pushed forward into the stall. Griffin brought the blade down with a scream, impaling the steel in the soft skin and muscle between Josh’s thumb and forefinger. The gun fell from his hand and he cried out as Griffin let go of the hooded sweatshirt hanging on the door’s hook that she’d clung to, legs tucked up in a crouch, since he entered. Josh’s eyes were closed with the pain, but he grunted and squirmed against her as he felt her slip past him, bending to retrieve it.
And then Griffin was outside the stall and he felt the barrel of the gun sticking in his ribs.
“Come out of there, you shit-faced loser.”
She was panting so hard, her words were spoken on both the incoming and outgoing breath.
Josh stared at her, unblinking now in the half light as he held his wounded hand against his chest, the knife still up to its hilt in muscle. She stepped back, the gun raised towards his chest, and gestured with her head, giving herself time to regain her composure.
Josh stepped out, allowing her enough space to move behind him and press the gun to the small of his back.
“Pull the knife out and drop it on the floor.”
“Fuck off.”
“Do it.”
Josh paused, concentrating on getting his breathing steady again. His head was pounding, the searing pain from his hand making him nauseous. Without taking his eyes from hers, he tentatively touched the handle of the knife with his left hand. Even the tiny movement was agonizing, Josh gritted his teeth, then quickly pulled on it. The cry that left his lips, despite being muffled by the acoustics of a small room, was a bellow, and the knife clattered to the floor. He gasped with pain as he heard Griffin bend quickly behind him and pick it up.
She gave a small, ugly laugh. “Think that was sore. Just wait, Josh.”
The laugh again.
“Now move.”
The gun poked at him and he turned to look at her with an expression that made her break the rod of their locked gaze. She flicked her eyes to his forehead and motioned again with a shake of the head. With as much dignity as he could muster, he walked out of the washroom into the light.
Josh’s voice was croaky. “Why you think I’ll do what you say just ‘cos you got the gun? Maybe I want to get shot.”
She opened up the distance between them now that they were in a bigger space and gestured towards the swing door.
“Yeah? Maybe you do. But I figure you’re still hoping for the cavalry to come. You want to see me die, don’t you? And pulling a dumb move’ll only make me shoot you. I reckon part of you thinks all this is make-believe. That demons don’t exist and maybe you’re going to live. It’s the human spirit, Josh. Hope. I’m counting on it to increase the pleasure of seeing you die.”
He walked to the door and pushed it open with his hip, then hesitated and looked back. “Why outside?”
She smiled like a reptile and pointed a thumb backwards to the line of hills behind her through the other wall of glass. The sun’s rays, if not the orb itself, were now clearly visible.
“It’s going to get a little crowded in here in a minute.”
They walked around the building and ended up in a patchy area of grass behind it, invisible to the parking lot, nothing now but the dewy fields between them and the hills. Griffin stood back from him, pointed the gun squarely at his chest, her head cocked to one side in amusement.
“Well? Got something for me?”
Josh glared at her, nursing his hand.
“No? No book to give me? No map or box of matches? Not even a packet of candy?” She laughed at his silence. “Aw, come on now, Josh. While the sun is still on the other side of that hill, you still got the chance to pass me that little piece of skin I’m sure you’ve got hidden somewhere very special indeed.”
The ugly sarcasm in her young voice made Josh almost as nauseous as the pain from his hand.
“Why’d you do this, Griffin?”
The smile left her. “I do what I please.”
“Murder pleases you?”
“Power pleases me.”
Josh snorted a laugh. “You’re nothin’ but a dumb little kid with a gun. You got as much power as my farts.”
Griffin straightened up from her coquettish stance and thunder rolled behind her eyes. “You know nothing, do you?”
Josh made a mock-thinking expression. “Eh, le
t’s see now. Your daddy screwed your baby ass, your mama killed your daddy, your mama’s gone as crazy as a shark in a toilet, an’ you reckon you goin’ to run the world or somethin’. In other words, you’re one sad fuck-up. How’d I do?”
Griffin’s mouth contorted into a slit of hate and as she put two hands on the gun she looked for a moment as though she would shoot him. Then something broke in her face and she softened again.
“Good, Josh. Real funny. But I got a little secret for you. Want to hear it?”
“Sure.”
“He’s coming now. You’re right to say you can feel his breath. And you know how we can command dumb brutes as ancient and evil as Asmodeanus?”
“You cut up your babies.”
Josh had made himself sound bored. The ire in Griffin’s eyes told him his tone had worked, but as he watched she replaced the petulant anger with a more adult mask of authority. It made her attractive again, that juxtaposition of effortless beauty and the earnestness of a young girl trying to be taken seriously.
Taking a step back, she let her weight rest on one leg, her hips pushed provocatively out at an angle, and the girl he’d picked up and laid was almost visible again. Almost but not quite.
“Know what? It’s crazy, but I never really got out of Furnace much. It was hard. You know? We didn’t mix much. But I used to watch the trucks go by on the interstate. Used to climb up onto the ridge and see them move along in line. You do that, you guys, don’t you? You stick together.”
Josh said nothing. His hand was swelling into a puffy mess.
“I guess that’s ‘cos you’re all just kids, huh? You feel big up there, high in your seat, looking down on the rest of the world like you were real men.”
She laughed and shook her head.
Josh spoke quietly. “What you did to Eddie. You’re goin’ to die for that if nothin’ else.”
Griffin regarded him for a moment, then did a mock shiver. “Help. Save me.”
Josh looked down, anywhere to get away from that face contorted with delight in its own primitive sarcasm. Griffin was silent for a moment, then spoke in a different voice. A softer voice, but more genuinely menacing for it.
“Who told you I passed the runes? Who sent you after me?”
Josh replied to his feet like he didn’t care. “Pace.”
She smiled. “Then I guess he’s already dead.”
Josh looked up and winced internally. He reckoned she was right. “So tell me your secret.”
Griffin continued to smile, pleased to have his attention back, and sighed theatrically. “It’s tricky, you now. The seventh baby’s the powerful one, the one that counts. My mother got around that, after… after she lost me as a sacrifice.” She hesitated, looked at the ground, then looked back up with renewed vigour. “She’s not well, my mother. If she was just a housewife, you know, a regular aproned mom? I guess she’d be hiding the Valium in the linen cupboard. But as it is she just keeps making gold. Crates and crates of fucking useless, unspendable, dangerous gold. If she keeps on she’s going to get us caught.” Griffin looked distant and angry for a moment, then returned to her theme. “But that’s nothing to do with us. Is it, Josh?”
She grinned and adjusted her grip on the gun.
“You’ve seen plenty of country hicks. Have babies like they jar pickles. Dumber than dirt and eager to please when they know the company my mother keeps. You see, my second eldest brother died when he was twelve. Since I survived, that makes every baby she has, and kills, the seventh child. She simply surrogates. Neat, huh? But you see, Josh, I can’t wait around to have six ugly, squalling brats before I get the one I need. You, of all people, given your current situation with what’s her name, Elizabeth? You understand that.”
“You’re so fuckin’ sick.”
She ignored the genuine hatred in his voice. “So I’ve been sharing eggs around. Without Mom knowing, of course. Donated six healthy eggs over the last two years, and what do you know? Six healthy babies are growing and shitting for their proud parents somewhere in this fine state.”
Josh remained silent. It seemed to disappoint her.
“The seventh, Josh. Don’t you want to know where it’s coming from?”
His eyes flicked to the mountains behind her. The rim was beginning to shimmer.
“Your ass?”
Griffin did an astonishing thing for a woman holding a gun to a six-foot man. She walked across to Josh and slapped him hard across the face. She moved back quickly as his bloody hand came up, but it merely went to his cheek, where the blow had fallen.
She watched him for a moment, unsettled by her careless display of temper, and composed herself before she spoke again. When she did, it was in a patient, teacherly manner, studied and calm. “There’s good news, Josh. You see, you’ll live on. At least for seven short days. I slept with you because everything was just right. My cycle, my temperature, everything. Unless you shoot blanks, which as we both know is not the case, then your baby is going to make me considerably more powerful than my dear mother.”
She patted her belly in a mockery of proud motherhood. Josh stared at her, struggling to contain his horror. The saliva was drying in his mouth, but he kept his voice as calm as hers, although his heart was bursting in his chest.
“Big deal. It won’t be seven days old on the first of May.”
Griffin looked delighted. “No. You’re right. It won’t. What a scholar you are for a dumb fuck of a trucker. But that’s the gift my mother unwittingly gave me. You see, I’m the seventh child. I was seven days old on the first of May. Read any shabby tome on the lowly art of witchcraft and you’ll see that my power allows me, unlike my very ordinary mother, to sacrifice any time I want.”
She grinned like a madwoman and Josh tried to sound like he cared little about this new and nauseating nightmare.
“A witch, huh? Neat.”
She ignored his irony. “Witch? There are no witches, Josh. None with any power. Oh, the logbook and the phone? Like I said, that’s standard witchcraft that comes with the spell. Kids’ stuff. But I’m no witch. I’m a Philosopher. The highest form of alchemist. And now I get the driver’s seat.”
Josh looked hard at Griffin for a moment, letting his eyes take in the elegant curves of her cheek, the sheen of her hair lit gently from behind by the brightening sky, then leaned back against the wall and slumped down the rough wood, pulling his T-shirt up to his armpits. He lowered his head and spoke wearily into his bent knees.
“You don’t get jackshit, Griffin.”
He held his head with his uninjured hand, and continued in a voice that was close to tears, talking as if to himself. “Sweet Jesus, there’s been so much killin’ already. Can’t make myself proud of this.”
She stared at the top of his head, then spoke with a nervous laugh. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He looked up at her and blinked. “Willingly but unknowingly.”
The rim of the mountains started to glow with a piercing line of orange. Griffin glanced behind her and then back at him. “You’re a dead man. You’re not scaring me.”
Josh slumped even lower, his body a weight he felt he could no longer support. He gestured lazily with his good hand, but it was weary rather than casual. “Look in the gun, Griffin. In the bullet chamber.”
In the near distance a wail of sirens oscillated in the morning air, and Griffin, her mouth open and panting, looked left and right quickly as though they were already upon her. Josh prayed silently that Eddie had stayed with the game.
“You’re lying.”
Her voice was two octaves higher than normal. Josh looked back at her with agonized eyes and shook his head with a minimum of movement. Griffin’s hand began to tremble uncontrollably and she steadied it with the other as she started to walk backwards, putting a new distance between them. Her foot caught a stone and she fell back, dropping to one knee. A panicked glance at Josh, still sitting motionless, his back to the wall, confirmed that he had no inten
tion of using the moment, and the implication of that made her start to whimper.
“No.”
It was a tiny word, spoken in a small voice.
She glanced down at the weapon in her trembling hand, and with her gaze dividing itself among it, Josh and the burning rim of light behind her, she broke the gun open.
The chamber was empty. Empty, that is, of bullets. But in one of the six dark cylindrical chambers there was something else.
Rolled tightly, as tightly as a thin cigarette, was Josh’s returned gift. Seven inches of dried human skin, marked in blood with symbols of power that were older than man.
With her mouth open, a small circle of terror, Griffin’s eyes were darting back and forth from the gun’s chamber to Josh’s face. One trembling hand extended slowly towards Josh and a thick noise escaped from the back of her throat as she struggled to speak.
“Take it back.”
Josh bent his head and shook it slowly above his knees, not so much as a denial of the order they both knew had been spoken pointlessly, but in black despair for them both.
There was a high-pitched whining, and as Josh looked up, Griffin’s mouth, the source of the one-note noise, became a down-turned grimace from which unchecked spittle dribbled to her chin. The gun fell from her hand, and like a broken watch spring the sickly roll unravelled from the bullet chamber, fluttered once, then blew along the ground out towards the darkened fields on a wind Josh could not feel. They both watched it go, still, like listening animals, the string of spit hanging from Griffin’s contorted mouth glistening in the growing light like a dewy web. Her whine became a bestial pant, then she tottered for a moment, turned and ran floundering after the tumbling strip.
As he watched her stagger away, arms flapping as though broken, for one breathless moment Josh believed the whole thing was a lie. A great, big, messy, inexplicable lie, a tangle of madness with nothing to ground it except the belief of those like himself, falling into the trap with their faith in the implied unseen. There was no demon coming, no alchemists misled to do business with uncontrollable forces. There was only the mess of death. Real death, at the hands of real human beings, and his own insanity.
