Creatures of Want and Ruin

by Molly Tanzer

  “I agree,” he said. “I’ll take that one.” He pointed with his club.

  “I’ll go for the one to his left.”

  Ellie figured she’d try to choke him . . . but would she go so far as to kill another man? The last time had been an accident . . . The idea of deliberately setting out to kill someone was overwhelming, but like Lester, neither could she stomach the idea of letting them harm or murder her friends. And better to take the man out permanently than risk him regaining consciousness at an inopportune moment . . .

  Ellie was furious at having to think that way, but this wasn’t her choice. It was theirs. They came here to do this. Luck had granted her the chance to intervene.

  “Ready?” whispered Lester.

  Remembering her boxing lessons, Ellie pointed to her temple. “Bring that club down on him here,” she recommended.

  “The mask, though . . .”

  Ellie swore. “Well, just . . . just hit him as hard as you can. It’s the best we can do. But please, Lester, if it gets bad . . .” She handed him her pocketknife. “Go back to the boat, cut yourself free, and get out of here? I didn’t bust my ass all year for you not to get to college, all right?”

  “I promise,” he said.

  The man in the circular mask was still talking when Ellie and Lester stalked their prey. Ellie wished they had more of a plan than “take them out and see what happens,” but she reasoned it was best to act rather than dawdle and risk things getting worse. Right now they had what Gabriel would probably call “the element of surprise.”

  Between the fire and the moonlight Ellie actually found it fairly easy to pick her way along the edge of the clearing without being seen. Lester did, too; when they were both in position, she indicated to him that she was ready. He nodded.

  Once again, that unspoken connection between them served them well. Lester’s club came down on the back of his target’s head right as Ellie got her arm around the neck of hers. She heard the thunk but willed herself not to look; she was too busy making sure to get her opponent’s throat right in the crook of her elbow, hoping that it would put the man to sleep like it had when she’d seen Ed Lewis use it during a wrestling match. They called him “Strangler” for a reason, after all. Gabriel had claimed that match was a fix; she had a wild thought as the man writhed in her grip that if it worked on him, she’d have to tell her fiancé it was real.

  And it did seem to be working. He was heavier than her, and stronger, but she’d gotten the drop on him. It was tough to keep him in the grip as he thrashed, but she only had to hold on for a few moments before he fell to his knees. She went down with him, keeping his throat pinched. After a few moments he went limp, but she held on for a few more breaths after that, to make sure.

  He dropped to the earth with a soft thud. Ellie wasn’t sure if she’d killed him or not until the shape of his head . . . changed. It took her a moment to understand that it hadn’t been a triangle-shaped mask he’d worn; it had been his actual flesh. She felt sick as she watched it shrink into the more familiar shape of a human head.

  Even worse, the head it changed into belonged to Lieutenant Perry of the Amityville Police.

  Ellie had seen the man often when making deliveries to Jones. As it turned out, Jones had been right to be suspicious of his fellow officers.

  Something collided with her sternum, knocking her back as the wind left her lungs. Ellie’s head hit the ground, and she saw stars for a moment—then she saw a foot coming down again. She rolled out of the way and tried to push herself to her feet, but the toe of her assailant’s boot caught her on the left side of her torso. She cried out as the pain blossomed inside her, but she managed to keep her wits about her, rolling one more time into a crouch to get away from her attacker, whose mask—no, whose face—was diamond-shaped.

  Though dizzy, she gained her feet as he came at her and even managed to dance out of the way of a wide punch he threw her way. Keeping to the balls of her feet, just like she’d learned in her boxing lessons, Ellie kept out of his reach until she had her wits about her, and came back in to try for a punch to the jaw.

  He ducked. Ellie kept on her toes and dodged again. Her next punch caught him on the general area where his right eye would have been, and he wailed as her fist made contact with flesh and bone, albeit flesh and bone molded into an unusual shape.

  Her fist hurt from the strike, but she ignored it; the sounds all around her were maddening, but she ignored those, too, in spite of her worry for her brother, and for SJ and Aaron. Her attacker was reeling; she had to focus on that, so she pressed her advantage, socking him in the gut with her left hand and remembering to rotate her fist, just like she’d learned to and had practiced on her heavy bag at home.

  He choked on his wind, and she shoved him hard. He fell on his ass; she kicked him in the groin. Inelegant, but he was crippled enough for her to get her hands around her neck. She choked him until he stopped moving.

  Ellie didn’t see who he turned into; she was too busy vomiting into the grass. Her side hurt, her hand hurt, and even worse than that, seeing him thrash out his last had been horrible. At least with the first she’d been unable to really see what was happening; this time she’d watched her own hands as they cut off his air.

  There was no time for doubt. She looked to her brother, to see that his original target was on the ground, rolling around and clutching his head and screaming. One of his fellows had come to his aid, and he’d wrested away the branch Lester had been wielding. Meanwhile, SJ was keeping the man with a square face at bay with her crossbow while the man with the round mask-face tussled with Aaron.

  SJ was holding her own, as was Aaron, so Ellie selected one of Lester’s attackers—the one with the club—and ran up behind him. A sharp kick to the back of his knee made him drop the branch, and in a lucky accident it landed on his own foot. Ellie grabbed for it as he hopped.

  Once she had his weapon in hand, she hesitated. Her stomach lurched again at the thought of hurting someone else, but then she saw the man on the ground grab Lester’s foot, dragging him down, and she knew what she had to do. Her tired arms had some strength left—she swung wildly and caught the side of the man’s jaw. He went down hard, and Ellie turned in time to see Lester had gotten out her knife. He gripped it uncertainly, slashing at the man who was hanging on to his foot. Drawing on some deep well of fury inside her, Ellie hit her assailant a second time, on the back of his head, and then went for the one attacking Lester.

  “Let him go!” she shouted, striking down at his midsection with the branch. Lester scrambled away as she cracked the man another to the head. She must have hit him hard, or at just the right point, as his skull caved in.

  Apparently, she hadn’t heaved up everything before; she threw up again, a sour taste that had an odd pungent tang to it, probably from the moonshine.

  Wiping her mouth, Ellie heard a panicked “No!” in the distance from SJ.

  There was a twang and a thunk and then a scream after SJ’s cry, and Ellie turned to see the man with the round face stagger as the crossbow bolt caught him in the back of the shoulder. He did not let go of a dizzy-seeming Aaron, whom he was dragging toward the forest; rather, he redoubled his efforts, in spite of the quarrel sticking out of his flesh.

  The square-faced man took advantage of her distraction and caught SJ with a swipe at her side. Ellie ran to help, but SJ did not need it; she swung her crossbow around and struck the man in the neck with the stock. He dropped like a stone.

  Skidding to a halt, Ellie looked to the tree line to see Lester, her knife still in his hand, crashing into the underbrush toward where Aaron was struggling to free himself from the man with the round face. Aaron was putting up a good fight, but his opponent was large. Ellie started running, too, and as she headed their way the round-faced man held his hand aloft. It began to glow with a strange light that cast uncanny rainbow shadows on the rough bark of the trees and the spindly branches above them.

  “Let you be of some use
to this island at last!” he cried as the glow intensified and he reached for Aaron.

  In his haste Lester tripped on a root just as he approached them, his hands shooting out to catch his fall. What he caught instead was Aaron, knocking into him, which knocked Aaron into his captor. They all went down in a heap, scrambling at one another.

  There was a bright discharge of eye-searing color that made Ellie’s eyes water, and she stopped in her tracks. Once it dimmed she rushed toward them in the hopes of breaking up the scene, but she slowed when the three men fell away from one other.

  Aaron got to his feet. The man in the mask did too, leaving Lester’s crumpled form splayed on the ground.

  Ellie watched, limbs leaden, as the round-faced man backed away from her brother as if in horror. Taking a step away from Lester’s too-still form he stumbled—limped?—in a way that was all too familiar to Ellie. But maybe that, too, was her eyes playing tricks on her. Surely the man in the mask couldn’t be her father . . .

  Aaron knelt down, and then stood up again. “He’s dead,” he said accusingly. “You killed him!”

  The man took off into the woods, his first step terrifyingly distinctive. Aaron charged after him.

  “Aaron!” SJ screamed, but behind her Ellie saw the man SJ had clocked with her crossbow getting to his feet. He had something in his hand; it ignited and he hurled it at her shack. When it hit the roof it burned with surprising ferocity.

  Remembering what SJ had said about her operation’s flammability, and seeing how close SJ was to the structure, Ellie grabbed her friend and not the man, physically dragging her toward the water when she struggled.

  “Stop,” cried SJ, looking over her shoulder. “Ellie, no, I can’t—”

  Whatever SJ couldn’t do, Ellie never learned. The explosion was powerful; she felt it in her bones and stumbled but managed to keep herself and SJ on their feet. Only when they reached Ellie’s boat did she let her friend go, but quickly Ellie realized SJ intended to return.

  “What are you gonna do?” she demanded, grabbing SJ’s arm.

  SJ went limp and stopped fighting Ellie; in fact, she just sat down on the ground, staring at her feet.

  “I’m so sorry, SJ,” said Ellie.

  “You’re sorry? Why?” said SJ. “This isn’t your fault.”

  When SJ wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, Ellie saw her shirt was soaked with blood. A quick inspection showed a nasty-looking stab wound; it was shallow, but bleeding freely. Ellie had no idea how to treat it other than binding it, so she gave SJ her handkerchief and had her press it to the wound as she ripped a strip from the bottom of her shirt and set to tying the dressing tightly about her friend’s ribs.

  Just then Aaron crashed around through the scrub forest.

  “Oh, thank God,” he said, sitting down beside his sister. “When I heard the explosion, I—”

  “We’re okay,” said SJ.

  “She’s not okay,” said Ellie. “One of them got her in the side with a knife.” Her own ribs, while aching terribly now that she was calming down, were nothing to an actual wound. And there was something else—something she had to deal with now that SJ was safe and being tended to. “Aaron . . . I have to go . . . Will you look after SJ?”

  “What, you’re going back there but you won’t let me?” SJ was still full of vinegar, even when injured.

  “She needs to see to her brother,” said Aaron. SJ inhaled sharply.

  “That was your brother.” It wasn’t a question. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ll come up in a minute to help,” said Aaron.

  “Help?”

  “If you can’t carry him, I mean. You won’t want to leave him there, I reckon.”

  Ellie hadn’t thought of that, so she just nodded and started up the hill. Her feet felt heavier than normal. She was not eager to look upon her brother, take him to her boat, take him . . . where? Where did one take the body of one’s dead brother?

  Under normal circumstances, she’d go to the police. But that was impossible, given that the circumstances were not normal and she’d just killed one police officer, possibly more. She hadn’t really looked at the others she’d killed.

  She entered the wood about where she thought she’d find her brother. Scanning the ground, she spied a pale patch and made for it.

  She had tried to steel herself against the horror of Lester’s body, but it was far worse than she could have imagined. What at first she thought was blood was not blood at all, but a glossy, oily substance that rippled like the bay on a blustery day. It was consuming him in some way, absorbing or dissolving his body, she couldn’t tell . . . The darkness of the night and the smoke from the remains of SJ’s shed made it even more uncanny . . . but not unfamiliar. The flickering firelight behind her seemed to bend with the undulating, oozing mess.

  She’d seen light bend like that before, convex one moment and concave the next. Her brother was becoming one of those terrible mushrooms, and at an astounding rate.

  She watched helplessly as it grew over Lester’s neck and wrists. Just as it reached Lester’s face and began to grow over his features, so familiar to her and yet alien in death, Aaron crashed up behind Ellie. He looked to her, his eyes wide in horror, begging her to explain, but before either of them could say a word, in the distance they heard a stranger’s voice call, “Over here!”

  Glancing over her shoulder, Ellie saw lantern light coming their way.

  “We need to go,” she whispered. Aaron nodded.

  It seemed wrong to leave her brother’s body there, alone, but it wouldn’t help him if she and Aaron were discovered. They padded their way down to the dock as quietly as they could; there, they collected SJ and piled into Ellie’s skiff without a word, after gesturing for silence and pointing up the hill where lights were now everywhere.

  Ellie rowed them out of the inlet as quietly as possible, her ribs screaming at her with every motion. When they were safely away from the ruins of SJ’s shack and anyone who might be listening for them she fired up her motor, but remained silent otherwise. What could she possibly have to say? Lester was gone and yet here she was, puttering along her usual bootlegging route, knowing she’d never need to worry about earning a dime for his future. Her brother only existed in the past.

  From

  The Demon in the Deep

  by G. Baker

  Miss Depth’s house already had the cold, empty look of an abandoned dwelling even though it had only been a few days since Susan had woken up on the shore, unsure if what she remembered was real. But in the parlor she found the forlorn remains of whatever Miss Depth had done still sitting out, like a feast no one had cleaned up. There was that odd altar, and upon it, between two waxen puddles that had been candles, sat a jar. Given the deep purple color of the crust still clinging to the sides and bottom, it had once held Miss Depth’s sister’s beach plum jelly.

  Miss Depth had once sadly observed that her sister would never can another batch; she clearly treasured it. Why then the jar should be there was completely beyond Susan. She picked it up, as if it might offer some further clue, and heard a rustle from the paper doily upon which the jar had sat. In pencil she saw Turn me over written in her friend’s handwriting.

  On the other side were a few lines of verse. Susan puzzled over them until she realized it was a description of how to perform whatever ritual her friend had done at this altar . . . and an invitation.

  Take thee these first steps

  when you would at last see

  what the world seeks to hide.

  Susan thought about her friend’s white skin and white hair and black eyes and shuddered. And yet, when Susan undressed for bed that evening, she discovered in the pocket of her dress the doily with those strange verses. She thought she’d cast it aside, but there it was. In her familiar room, instead of inside that strange cold house, the sight of her friend’s handwriting made her sentimental. She placed it carefully between the leaves of the Bible her grandmother had left her
in her will.

  It was many years before she thought about it again. But think about it Susan did.

  1

  “Ellie, I hate to ask this,” said SJ, “but where are we going?”

  The truth was, Ellie didn’t know. She hadn’t been thinking about it as they skimmed away from the ruins of SJ’s shack. Her mind had been a confused jumble of images—Lester falling to the ground; the burning shack; the different ways in which the men she’d killed had died; the gait of Lester’s killer. Ellie looked from SJ to Aaron as if waking from a deep sleep.

  “Do you want to go to your house?” asked Aaron. He, too, looked vaguely worried. “I mean, your and Gabriel’s house; I know home isn’t . . .”

  Ellie shook her head. “Not there.” SJ and Aaron looked surprised. “Gabriel didn’t believe me when I told him about, well . . . everything we just saw,” she said.

  “What did we just see?” asked SJ.

  We saw my father kill my brother, thought Ellie, but she didn’t say that. She wasn’t sure it had been Robert West, or at least she didn’t want to believe it. A moment’s limp wasn’t a lot of evidence to go on, but at the same time, her stomach knew, her bones knew . . . It was just that her mind didn’t want to accept it.

  “Demons,” she said, not looking at either of them. “They’re real . . . apparently. People can summon them, and they grant odd powers to their followers. I know it sounds unbelievable, but . . . I’ve seen what they can do. Now you have too. When the man—the one who killed . . .” She trailed off for a moment, then said, “His hand, when it went bright . . .”

  “I didn’t see that,” said Aaron, looking worriedly at SJ. “I thought he’d . . . I’m not sure what he did, really.”

  “I didn’t see that either,” said SJ, “but I know those weren’t masks. They didn’t fall off. Their faces . . . changed.”