Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five

by Freeman, Jesse James

“I don't expect you to understand, Mudder. You never did.”

  “I understand you were drunk on borrowed time. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You ever think how bad it's been down the mountain for the rest of us? How bad it's been on that boy?”

  Ulysses stared out at the new mud splats running down the windshield. “Everything I did was for him.”

  “Well, I hope it pays off for him. You have finally accomplished putting yourself in a position where you are completely no use to him whatsoever. You ain't gonna feel it, because I did a patch job and a morphine stick, but right now about the only thing keeping you alive is you're way too annoying to die.”

  “Just get me home. Let me find the boy.”

  “You ain't got no home. You're going to a hospital.”

  “I won't.”

  Mudder slammed the brakes on the jeep. It slid down the road and did a 180 before it came to a stop. “Pick a spot, Ulysses.” Mudder pointed across Ulysses’ face. “You want me to dig the hole over there by that runoff?” Mudder craned his big arm out his side of the jeep. “How about this — you climb that sycamore over there? When you get as high as you can go I'll light it on fire for ya and you can go full Viking.”

  Ulysses didn't say a thing.

  Mudder pulled the shifter back in gear and spun the jeep around and pushed it down the mountain again. “You know, I wondered why all this was happening, and why you and that kid had gotten me pulled into the shitter-swirl with y'all. It hit me though, this ain't really neither of y'all's fault— it's mine.”

  Ulysses stared up at the trees thinning over his head, they'd hit the actual road soon. Either way they pointed, they would hit one of the little mountain towns eventually. “What do you mean it's your fault? What did Mudder Kelroy ever do?”

  Mudder kept his gaze forward as he dodged a patch of stumps. “I promised that woman that I'd keep that chunk of wood safe. For as good a job as I done, she might as well have asked me to climb my big mean ass up a tree.”

  ~31~

  “OUR HOUSE…WAS OUR CASTLE AND OUR KEEP”

  —MADNESS

  “SOMEONE IS GONNA DIE.” Billy stared out through the little window of the vampire tunnel that had been made to look like a storm drain opening under the sidewalk. He was almost directly across the street from where the house he had grown up in had stood. All that remained was charred foundation, a wrecked fence, and lots of police tape.

  Everything on the lot had been burned to cinders, but where the yard stopped is where the damage ended. The houses on either side of the destroyed home were completely untouched. Billy could make out the skeleton of the riding lawnmower Pop had abandoned in the center of the backyard long ago.

  Even the shed he had imagined the Devil Bird had lived in was gone.

  “They are after us in earnest.” Anastasia stood behind him. She felt bad for Billy in many small ways, but she didn't share Billy's nostalgic traits. “Do you see now why I said we should take the tunnels?”

  Billy just nodded. “I had a lot of good times at that place.” Billy had convinced himself that when nothing remained of the house he'd grown up in, his upbringing had been much more magical than it actually had been. “It's like a dragon took a deuce all over my childhood. Me and Pop's house might'a been a hobble and all, but it was our hobble.”

  “Hovel.” Anastasia tried to correct more delicately than she normally would.

  “That thing too. What are you, the goth word police?”

  “It was a bad idea to come to this place. I'm sure they're still watching for you to return.” Anastasia placed her hand on his shoulder. “There's nothing else for you here.”

  “The Goddess told me I'd find Lissandra hiding in the smoke of the Brickstaff Mansion.”

  “I don't see how any of that is relevant to the situation at hand.”

  Billy turned from the siege by fire that had been home. “Because, Anastasia, it was a goddess.”

  “She spoke to me as well, and Lissandra was nowhere around. She speaks in riddles, and I can only assume this is all a game to her.”

  “Knock, knock.”

  “What?” Anastasia looked at Billy as if he was off his medication.

  “Knock, knock.”

  Anastasia gritted her teeth. “Who's there?”

  “A goddess, so maybe we should listen.”

  “You're only saying that because you are staring at the remains of your father's house and you don't know what you should do.”

  “Maybe we should take the tunnel back down to the seaside and stare at what's left of the house you grew up in?”

  Anastasia turned him forcibly to face her. “I thought we discussed this? The plan.”

  “What exactly did we come up with as far as what the plan actually is?”

  “We didn't have time to discuss much, as you took it upon yourself to drive us here while I was sleeping.”

  “You wouldn't wake up so I could ask you.” Billy had a look on his face that not only shocked Anastasia, but made her angry. It was a look of sincerity.

  “Your father is not here.”

  Billy looked back at the house. Pop hadn't been staying there in a long time; he knew she was probably right. “Then we have to go to the cabin.”

  “What cabin?”

  “Pop has a cabin up the mountain past Piney Point.”

  “If I didn't know about it, then perhaps they don't know about it either.” Anastasia put on her stern and rational face. “For us to go there would only draw attention to that place and put your father's life in danger. I know that you don't want that.”

  Billy had his foot on his skateboard, and he made it do a spin on the ground as he contemplated — or, he did whatever it was that passed for contemplation in his head.

  “Billy?”

  “Yeah, I'm thinking.”

  He spun his board against slick stones of the floor again.

  “Stop doing that.”

  He looked up. “Stop doing what? You told me to think.”

  “We need to keep a very low profile and actually formulate a plan.”

  “The more you talk, the more I get the feeling that whatever the plan is gonna be is what you want to do and not what I want to do.” Billy kicked up his board and caught it.

  “That is not what I'm saying. And I have at no point said anything even remotely like that.”

  Billy gave her a questioning look as he slung his board onto his backpack. “So, where do you want to go?”

  “Nowhere familiar. My own sister has been murdered by them, and you don't see me asking to go to the scene of the crime, do you?” Anastasia betrayed a quick tinge of regret in her lips as she spoke, and to Billy's credit, he picked up on it.

  “I'm sorry about your sister.” Billy knew she'd heard him, but she didn't offer back her own words of thanks for his concern at her loss. He didn't let that slow him down though. “So, how exactly do you know that your sister got murdered if you haven't seen her in a long time?”

  Anastasia started to answer and then stopped her lips from moving as she realized that Billy was staring right at her and trying his best not to grin.

  “I just know.”

  “Or, did someone tell you that she got murdered by them? Was it Uncle Priest?”

  Anastasia knew what he was doing but it was already too late. She just shook her head.

  “Oh, it must have been the goddess — you know, Artemis — that told ya.”

  “Damn you.”

  “Damn right. So, you were saying about how we have nothing to gain from talking to this goddess chick?”

  “I actually had a vision, and the goddess only confirmed the information to me.”

  “A vision? Is that like a fortunetelling thing? Who do we know that tells fortunes?”

  Anastasia crossed her arms and didn't try to hide her disgust. “That gypsy?”

  “Lissandra, right.” Billy started walking away from the window that showed him the vacant lot that had been his and Pop's home, b
ack towards the tunnel. “Lissandra and the goddess are like best-friends-forever and paint each other's toenails. So we find Lissandra, and then we find the goddess.”

  “I'll not seek out either of them. This is not the plan.”

  Billy called to her from the dark tunnel. “Hurry up Anastasia, before you have another vision you need confirmed.”

  II.

  “Kick it harder.”

  “I am kicking it hard.”

  “I thought you had vampire strength powers?”

  “I am stronger and faster than you.”

  “Nobody is faster than me, trick'r treat.”

  “Shut up and help me push it. Put your shoulder into it.”

  Billy faced Anastasia as they pressed their shoulders into the fallen tree that blocked the exit to the tunnel. Anastasia was all business as she lodged the big limb against her shoulder blade and dug her boots into the stones of runoff channel they stood upon. Billy was staring at her face as she braced herself and brought her hands to grasp a limb, trying to gain leverage.

  He wasn't pressed into the tree with near the same determination as Anastasia was showing on her face. Her eyes were focused on the ground, and he watched the lines of her face highlighted in the moonlight that seeped into the narrow open space.

  She was so pretty when she was all full speed ahead, and he couldn't help but take a personal moment and reflect on that. She was clenching her teeth as she pushed into the tree, and he remembered her soft lips, momentarily forgetful of the fangs that were hidden behind them.

  Maybe he should just kiss her?

  He saw her eyes look up as the tree moved maybe a quarter of an inch, then the look on her face when she realized that he was looking at her and not helping her push against the tree. She let off the pressure and the tree came back with her, moving a half an inch in the wrong direction and almost pushing Billy down to the stones.

  “You weren't pushing at all.”

  Billy righted himself and dusted his hands together, making a big production of it all. “That is some tree. I don't even think with your vampire powers we're gonna be able to move it.”

  “You didn't even try.”

  “Hell yeah I tried. You take that back. I was pushing real hard. I think I got a moss burn.” He rubbed his shoulder.

  Anastasia pushed away from the tree and stood straight. “So much for this plan of yours. Must be fate.”

  “We still gotta get out there. You said we could go out there?”

  “Unless you have a chainsaw in that bag of yours, we're not going out there.” Anastasia brushed off her own shoulder, then opened her fingers in front of her eyes disgustedly. They were almost glued together from sap. “Trees bleed more disgustingly than your people do.”

  Billy jumped up and grabbed what was left of the grate at the top of the arch the tree was blocking. “You can totally fit.”

  Anastasia looked up at him, hanging like a monkey. “Fit where?”

  “You can squeeze through these branches, and then you can rip some of them off and pull me through.” He dropped and landed in front of her face. “Turn sideways.”

  “I will not.”

  “Just… it's for science.” Billy held out his hands. “There's about this much space.” He indicated the distance from one of his palms to the other. “Turn sideways and lemme see if you fit between my hands.”

  Anastasia turned sideways. As Billy's hands closed on her, she shot out her left arm to strike him in the nose with an open palm.

  “Son of a…” Billy's eyes welled up and his nose stung like he'd slapped a hornet in the ass with it.

  “Lame, and you were saying what about being fast?” He watched her spring up from the floor and grab hold of the rusted bars at the top of the archway. She swung in and hooked her boots onto a branch. “You're right, I can fit.”

  “More climbing out and less hitting people.”

  “You're lucky I hit you in the face and didn't kick on my first impulse.” She grabbed the tree and pulled herself into the branches. She navigated her body over the dead tree like a serpent and began to squeeze through.

  “You might feel a little resistance at first. Just, you know, I'm sure they'll bounce right back once you're outside.”

  “I am going to kick you when you get out here,” she called down.

  “You gotta stay focused, Anastasia.”

  Billy crossed his arms and smiled at the show. It had such a nice shape, it was like one of those heart shaped balloons squeezed into a pair of jeans. If he was a learned man, he'd have probably composed a poem about that moment. Ode To Perfection. Or, Odin? He was pretty sure it was something like that, even though those poetry dudes were usually a lot more interested in the trees than the hot vampires that wiggled around on them.

  “I swear to this goddess we're looking for, if you're staring at my ass…”

  “I'm composing art, thank you very much.”

  Anastasia slipped through the branches and he watched her legs flap around quite violently; snakeskin cowboy boots became a blur. This was unfortunate, because the boots were hot too.

  Then she was gone. He watched her fall down the other side of the tree, then heard her curse his name as she crashed to the ground.

  III.

  Billy and Anastasia stood together in the moonlight atop Purgatory Bridge. He was happy to see that the graffiti that spelled out his last name had held up over the years. He was a lot happier about that than he had been climbing over and through that dumb tree that fell right in the way of the tunnel exit below them.

  “This is where I talked to her. It really wasn't that long ago. Well, it was after I got out of the army.” The woods were thick with overgrowth. It hadn't seemed so foreboding when they had been kids. Maybe they'd just been smaller and could fit through stuff easier.

  “Well, she's not here now. How long do you propose that we wait around?” Anastasia was annoyed that they had already been wandering around the stone bridge over the runoff for nearly two hours.

  “Maybe a couple more minutes?”

  Anastasia had her hands resting on the stone railing. “Lissandra read my fortune here.” Anastasia said it like it was some big revelation.

  “Yeah, and Lissandra got all mad at me when you kissed me right over there.” Billy pointed to where the tree had once stood. “Oh, it was that tree that blocked the tunnel.”

  Anastasia pointed the opposite direction. “I kissed you by that tree.”

  “Oh yeah, it was that tree.”

  Silence. Not even a cricket.

  “How come the bugs aren't talking?”

  Anastasia looked away from the tree and the life re-entered her eyes. “Because there's something close.”

  She could feel them now. She could smell the humans long before she could smell the other two. Billy looked to her and mouthed, “What?”

  She pushed herself up and rose to her full height beside him. “There's no need to whisper, Billy. We're already surrounded.”

  “The truck's not far.” Billy cast his eyes in the direction. He'd run all over these woods as a kid. They weren't far from a trail that would put them out just off the gas station on Hansen. They had parked the truck in the woods behind it.

  “Today's your lucky day, Billy.”

  “How do you figure?” The wriggling over tree branches from earlier notwithstanding.

  “I don't need a gypsy or an Olympian to predict you're about to get to show me just how fast you are.” Anastasia looked back to him. “Here's your chance to impress me.”

  Billy took that as the starting pistol, and he and his vampire partner took off in a run down the bridge. If that hadn't have been his cue, the gunfire that erupted from the trees surely gave him a hint that the current plan was to run.

  IV.

  “Who's chasing us?” They both leapt over the creek and started up the hill. There were a lot of guns at their backs, and Billy was thankful, kind of, for just how many trees were blocking their escape. />
  “It's not them.” She landed with him on the other side of the ditch and decided that cowboy boots weren't made for running.

  “How do you know?” A small pine to Billy's left exploded into splinters as he grabbed Anastasia and pointed her up the hill.

  “Because so far they're missing.”

  Billy grabbed a tree branch and pulled himself up the hillside, then reached back, took Anastasia's hand, and hoisted her up. Just as her head cleared the tree, she heard the whizzz and then the thud of the impact into the tree. Her eyes focused on the sharp knife that had punctured the tree up to its hilt.

  “Margot.”

  Billy pulled her over the hill and they were temporarily out of the line of fire. “Who's Margot?”

  “A mistake.” Anastasia still had Billy's hand as they ran and Billy kinda liked it. He lifted his eyes to the woods ahead and focused as the trail cut through the moonlit ground.

  Anastasia pushed herself to run faster and she pulled slightly ahead of Billy. This caused Billy to kick it into higher gear and catch up with her. “Are we racing?”

  She looked at him and then slammed on the brakes. Her boots slid in the earth, and Billy looked back while reaching his hand out for her.

  “Ana, we can't stop.”

  “No, we have to go back.”

  “Go back? Are you nuts? They have guns.”

  “No, double back.” She pointed back towards the gunfire. “She's flushing us out. He'll be waiting for us.”

  Billy pulled at her arm. “Who?”

  “Me.”

  Anastasia heard the voice a second too late and watched as the Priest lifted Billy into the air. “Your patterns are so familiar, pretty.” He was fully healed, and more vile than ever. Billy flailed in the air as the old vampire had him by the backpack.

  Billy kicked at his face, but the Priest was far too fast and he dodged easily. Uncle Priest snarled. “You could have gone anywhere with anyone. You picked here.”

  “Anastasia, kill him.” Billy reared up for a big kick. “The new plan is kill him.”

  The Priest stared into Anastasia's heart as he tossed Billy over her head and into a tree like he was nothing at all. Billy slammed into the tree halfway up and then came crashing down, smacking every branch on the way.