The Last Rite

by Chad Morgan

  “You’ll forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical,” he said, measuring his words carefully. “You’ve always distanced yourself from our culture, turned your back on our beliefs . . .”

  “Yeah, and then the trees started walking. Sort of puts your crazy folk tales in a different light,” Charlie said. He had no reply for his grandson, so the three of them – seven if you counted the avatars – stood in awkward silence until he said, “Right. So, find the scroll, find Bethany’s dad, perform this voodoo of yours . . .” At this, he waved the medicine bag in front of them. “And head back here. Anything else while I’m out? We good on milk?”

  “Please take this seriously, Charlie,” the professor said.

  Charlie stepped up into his grandfather’s face. “Hey! Carolyn is dead because of all this crap. Don’t you ever suggest I don’t take this seriously.”

  The professor put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Yes, Charlie. Of course. I’m sorry.”

  It took a moment for the anger to pass from his grandson, then Charlie looked down at the girl. “Take care kid,” he said to her. “I’ll do what I can for your dad.”

  Charlie turned to leave, but Bethany reached out and grabbed his hand, begging, “Don’t go.”

  “It’s okay. The monsters won’t come into the graveyard, so just stay here with my grandfather and you’ll be okay.” Charlie said. Then he leaned forward and said in a fake whisper, “Just don’t get him started talking about anthropology unless you want a good nap. He is a professor after all.”

  He winked at Bethany, and Professor Lightfoot watched the girl force a smile. It was enough for Charlie, and that huge grin he had since he was a boy grew back on his face. For a moment, Professor Lightfoot saw the young boy again, and his heart swelled, but then Charlie turned and the cold reality that Charlie was heading back out into danger draped over him. He watched his grandson walk up the road and out of sight, his honor guard of avatars following him. Professor Lightfoot closed his eyes and made a silent prayer that the spirits of creation would do a better job guarding his grandson than they did his granddaughter. When Charlie was gone, he reached out a hand to the girl.

  “Come, child,” he said.

  But the girl refused his hand. She stood there and looked up at him, her eyes burning him with guilt. He had seen that cold stare many times but from the ancient eyes of the old woman. The child said, “He doesn’t know, does he? Your grandson. You didn’t tell him.”

  “Tell him what?” he asked.

  “You’re bad people too,” she said.

  Professor Lightfoot knelt to look at the girl in the eye. “What did they tell you?”

  The girl wasn’t scared. She stared at him with a defiant gaze, her shoulders square. “That you both want me dead, that you’re both going to kill me. You and the business suit people.”

  He shook his head. “No, my dear. We are definitely not going to kill you, and I do not wish for you to die.” He gestured with a sweep of his arm to the fog-shrouded forest. “And all this? Your mother’s death? It’s all their fault, not ours.”

  Her eyes grew wide, swollen with hope. It broke his old heart. “So, I’m not going to die?”

  Professor Lightfoot stared at the dirt at her feet. What should he tell her? She was smart and brave for a young child, but of course, she would be. She was her mother’s daughter, after all, who was her mother’s daughter, and so on. If she knew, he wouldn’t be able to hide the truth from Charlie for much longer, but how long could he keep Charlie in the dark anyway?

  He looked back into Bethany’s demanding eyes, and it was all the convincing he needed. “Let’s go into the cabin, and I’ll explain,”

  Professor Lightfoot stood up and offered his hand again. This time she took it, and he led her into the cemetery and to the caretaker's cabin.

  20

  Chunks of the ceiling fell on them as the long sword-like hand of one of the spider creatures stabbed the room without aim or direction. Lisa and Daniel both ducked, but if Daniel yelled, Lisa couldn’t hear it over her own screams. She fell back onto her rear, looking up to see the head of the monster pushing through the hole in the ceiling like it was exiting the womb. It squeezed its shoulders past the beams in the floor above them, the thick wood creaking and cracking as it tried to push its bulbous lower half through, but it could only get its first pair of legs inside. With each hand as tall as Lisa and sharper than her kitchen knife, two was all it would need. It scanned the room, then screamed, it’s jaw splitting in the middle like mandibles.

  Her knife. Lisa dared to look away long enough to spot the kitchen knife on the other side of the room. Looking back at the half-emerged monster, Daniel apparently had a similar idea. He sprinted across the living room, dodging the piercing hands as the spider monster tried to spear him. Daniel slid like a baseball player coming into home plate, and Lisa understood what he was going for. His backpack was by the chair, and with it, the tire iron.

  Daniel ran at the creature, swinging the blunt end of the tire iron at the creature’s head. The creature reared back to avoid the swing of the improvised weapon, looking for an opportunity to bite and claw in-between Daniel’s attack. The creature thrust when it should have parried, and the tire iron contacted the side of the thing’s skull. The thing’s head snapped to the side, it's slit jaw slacking, but the monster continued the attack.

  Lisa crawled to the knife and grabbed it. Feeling the plastic handle in her hand gave her an ounce of comfort. She got to both feet and held the knife out with both hands, aiming it at Daniel and the spider monster as if the blade could fly out like a missile. She watched them from a distance, too scared to join the fray, and not sure if helping Daniel was the smart thing to do. Her hands shook, but her grip on the knife was like a vise.

  Lisa was so focused on the fight, she didn’t notice the plaster snowing on her head and shoulders, the sounds of the pieces of ceiling hitting the floor lost under the screams of the attacking spider monster and Daniel’s cries. She had no idea a second spider monster was punching through the ceiling until it’s stretched-out hand pierced her shoulder. She screamed, more from the shock than from the pain. It was a small wound, only the tip of the spear-like hand had punctured her skin, but it was enough. She looked up to see the face of the second spider monster peering down at her through the hole in her ceiling. Was it smiling at her? The spider monster disappeared, either to look for another, easier route into the apartment, or because its job was done.

  No, this couldn’t be right. She couldn’t have been bit. Lisa put her hand to her shoulder and felt the warm, wet blood seeping into her shirt. She lifted her hand away to see the red blood on her fingers, the coppery smell reaching her nostrils. She dropped the knife, but as it clattered against the floor the sound was a million miles away. In a daze, she stumbled to the couch, as if the fight between Daniel and the spider monster was something on television. She started to cry. Or was she laughing? She couldn’t tell.

  “I’m fucked. It’s over!” she shouted. “We’re fucked. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you very fucking much. I was just fine before you came around, just fine!”

  Daniel flipped the tire iron around and ran the narrow end into one of the spider monster’s eyes. It screamed, black inky blood spewing out, and retreated back into the upstairs apartment. They could hear the thumping of the knife-feet into the floor above them as they scuttled all around them. Daniel followed them with his eyes, tracking them, but Lisa couldn’t bother to care. Her life was over. She sat there, even with the clawing and scraping noises came from right behind her.

  “They’re clawing through the walls!” Daniel yelled.

  He ran towards her, but Lisa just sat there. Let him kill her, it would be more merciful than turning into one of those things. She not only thought he was going to kill her, she was shocked to find she was praying for it. She closed her eyes, lifting her head to expose her neck and chest, anticipating the blood-slick tire iron to punch into her, sliding between her rib
s, and sinking deep into the spongy lungs. Instead, Daniel grabbed her and pulled her to the floor. The head of the spider monster rammed through the plaster and Daniel leapt at it, bringing the tire iron down on its head. The spider monster screamed as Daniel spiked it through the head and out the bottom of his jaw, then fell silent when Daniel grabbed both ends of the tire iron and twisted, the monster’s neck snapping.

  “It’s over,” Lisa said as Daniel pulled the tire iron out of the thing’s skull. “They cut me. I’m going to be one of them now, it’s just a matter of time . . .”

  Daniel ripped the half-severed piece of his shirt free, pulling it off his arm. He knelt down to Lisa and held the cleanest spot on the fabric he could find against the bleeding wound on her shoulder, careful not to touch the necklace she wore. Daniel suspected the necklace would burn him, like the one he found on the street would, the one identical to Lisa’s.

  “Listen to me,” he said, shouting over the sound of the spider things walking above them or digging through the walls. “I found bodies of people – real people – that hadn’t been turned. Maybe not everyone changes, or maybe there’s a vaccine or something. I don’t know. What I do know is that out there, maybe we’re dead. In here, we’re definitely dead. ‘Maybe’ beats ‘definitely’.”

  Lisa looked up into his eyes. She was so tired. She wanted to believe him, wanted to dare to hope, but she had seen so much death, had fought for so long . . . “We can’t outrun them.”

  “Then we have to slow them down somehow,” Daniel said.

  Daniel stood up and looked around, then Lisa could see the idea hit him. He snapped his attention back to her and said, “Lisa! Do you have some alcohol left? Lighter fluid? Anything flammable?”

  In thinking of ways to get out of the apartment, all of Daniel’s ideas had run up against the same wall – he couldn’t do anything that would risk Lisa’s security. Bethany was out there, but there had to be a way to get to her without putting the only other living person in this town in jeopardy. He thought of going out the windows, but that meant prying to boards off, which exposed Lisa, and if he was spotted climbing down from the second-floor window it would be a beacon for any of those creatures. Sneaking through the front door was risky as there was a limited field of view, not to mention how they barely pulled off getting Daniel inside in the first place.

  As he stood up and looked around the apartment, desperately searching for an escape, the tips of those spider monster’s hands and feet stabbing through the plaster above him, it dawned on him – Lisa’s safety was already at risk. With that limitation removed, a plethora of possibilities hit him, and the first thing that crossed his mind was the old woman’s words – they were attracted to fire, and also vulnerable to it.

  After giving Lisa her orders, she ran to the bathroom and bedroom to grab anything that could burn, while he ran into the kitchen. There wasn’t much food left, but there was a bottle of vegetable oil and a bottle of non-dairy creamer. Under the sink were many cans of cleaners of various types, many having the warning label to keep away from flames. With his arms full, he dug through the dirty dishes piled in the sink and pulled out a large pot. He dumped all his cans into the pot and ran into the living room.

  Lisa came running out from the other side of the apartment, carrying hair spray and a lighter and some more cleaners. Daniel found a bottle of nail polish remover in Lisa’s collection and poured it into the pot, hoping the acetone would work as an accelerant. Daniel went to work on building his improvised bomb. He undid the top of the vegetable oil and put it into the pot. The oil wouldn’t ignite unless it was very hot, but once it did it would burn long and at very high temperatures. With some luck, the bomb would explode and shower the room – and any monsters inside – in flaming oil. As he poured what little alcohol was left into the pot, he said to her, “Lisa, go tie your sheets together so we can climb out of the window. Hurry.”

  “They’ll get us!” Lisa shouted.

  She still didn’t get the plan, and Daniel didn’t have the luxury of time to explain it. She’d figure it out soon if it worked. If it didn’t work, they’d have bigger problems. “Just do it!”

  Lisa disappeared into the bedroom. For a second, as Daniel stacked all the compressed cans of cleaners and such in the pot, he feared Lisa was just cowering in a corner in the next room, but then he heard fabric ripping and he knew she was tearing her sheets into strips. With his bomb ready, he needed to get the window open. Daniel ran to one of the windows and began pulling at the makeshift barricades. The cheap particle boards cracked and ripped at the nails as he pulled them free, and for the thicker pieces, he used the tire iron as a crow bar to pry free.

  Lisa ran into the living room, the rope of tied sheets in her arms. Daniel glanced at it, gave a single nod, and said. “We need to tie that to something.”

  “To what?” she asked.

  Did he have to do everything? “I don’t know! It’s your fucking apartment!”

  The spider monsters were clawing new holes in the wall, and he could hear them digging above them. They didn’t have much time left, but the barricade was off. It wasn’t much of a barrier, and Daniel was thinking how little it would have done to stop one of the spider monsters when he tried to open the window. It wouldn’t budge. Coming out of the wooden window frame were dozens of nails, many bent, all of them hammered in at random angles. He didn’t have time for this, the spider monsters were breaking into the apartment. Daniel ran to the dining room and grabbed one of the chairs. It was heavy, made of solid wood. Good. He ran with the back of the chair in his hands and hurled it at the window. It shattered, the wood of the frame splintered and cracked. From behind him, Lisa screamed. Daniel used the bottom of the chair to shove the broken pieces of the window out of the way, and when all the jagged pieces were gone he waved for Lisa to come to him.

  “Go!” he shouted. “Now!”

  He took the improvised rope and threw it out the window. It stretched across the living room and ran short, dangling a few feet above the ground. Apparently, the only thing Lisa could think of to anchor the rope down to was the bathroom door. It would have to do. Daniel swiped the window sill with the tire iron, knocking off any small pieces of glass, then lifted Lisa up to the window. Her waist was slim, and in his haste, he had so underestimated her weight that he almost threw her through the window instead of merely up to its edge, but Lisa grabbed the shredded sheets and began shimmying down the side of the building. As Lisa started climbing down, Daniel ran to the improvised bomb with Lisa’s lighter. He lit several pieces of cloth and tossed it into the pot. The acetone caught and Daniel ran for the window.

  Daniel grabbed his backpack and tossed it out the window. Only Anna’s diary and Chrissy were in the backpack, and it landed with a soft plop on the pavement below. Lisa was at the end of the rope and let go, dropping the last couple of feet to the ground. She looked up at him expectantly. As Daniel climbed up to the window sill, a spider monster dove through the hole in the ceiling he defended earlier. No, it was that spider monster, the eye socket a dark hole where Daniel had pierced it with the tire iron. It slipped between the cross beams as far as it could, but when it’s larger rear half hit the wood it didn’t pause. It repeatedly rammed against the wood, and Daniel could hear them crack over the monsters scream of frustration and blood-lust.

  Daniel didn’t stick around to see if it made it through. With the tire iron tucked in his belt, he crawled down the tied sheets. His hands gripped it tight, fighting the smooth cotton. He was surprised how much effort it took to hold onto it and not fall. He didn’t think he was high enough for the fall to be fatal, but a broken leg was more than possible. He started to work his way down the rope when the head of the spider monster popped through the window above him, its mandible-like jaw snapping at him, almost scaring Daniel into letting go. The long knife-like hands slid out one at a time. Daniel reached down with one hand and pulled free the tire iron from his belt. He swung at the spider monster, but dang
ling with one hand, he couldn’t repel down without falling the rest of the way.

  “Daniel!” Lisa screamed. Daniel looked down to see her staring not at him but somewhere else along the building. He looked around and saw other spider monsters heading towards him. One was crawling over the edge of the roof, it’s blade-like hands piercing the bricks of the building. A second was coming out of another window from another apartment. Daniel was stuck, and more of those things were coming.

  “Aw, shit,” he cursed, debating to himself if he should risk dropping to the ground. The choice was taken from him. The improvised bomb went off and flames and shards of metal flew from the windows. The spider monster screamed, but the makeshift rope came apart and Daniel flew to the ground. He landed hard on one foot and fell over to the side, sharp needles running through the side of his ankle. Lisa knelt to his side, trying to pull Daniel to his feet.

  “Hurry, before more come after us,” she said.

  Daniel looked up at the flames coming out of Lisa’s apartment. “It’s okay. They’re attracted to the fire. Look.”

  The other two spider monsters he’d seen were no longer interested in him. They worked their way along the outside of the building towards the burning one, not showing any signs of sympathy or concern for their burning comrade. Daniel wasn’t sure how long the fire would burn or how much he could trust the monster’s moth-like instincts, so he leaned against Lisa as she helped him to his feet. His foot was stiffening, but as he grabbed his backpack and with Lisa holding him up, he limped towards the gate as fast as he could.

  21

  Lisa had not left her apartment since everything started. As she helped Daniel along the street, she looked at the shops she used to visit. The town felt like it was a forgery, an imperfect copy of the one she used to know. She expected to see bodies lying in the streets, was afraid to see the corpse of someone she used to know, or worse the mutated form of a former friend or neighbor leaping to kill her, but the streets were vacant. It was daytime, the things were less active, but their luck would run out eventually.