But hatred and mourning and lamentation notwithstanding, LuRa and I were married by that kiss. I took the name WeSa and renamed her WeRa, and together we built our thatched home on the edge of River Home. We had no lack of building supplies; quiet and sad-eyed parents brought what they had saved for their own sons and daughters and left it silently at the site we had chosen. We used what was needful and returned the rest to the gathering place in the center of River Home. We did not want to build a spacious home on the backs of so many grieving families.
Already XiHe and the oldsters have circulated through River Home, gently encouraging all who are still able to have more children so that there will not be a bare generation in years to come. Already the bellies begin to swell, the breasts to hang. WeRa joins them in their fecundity, and I delight in feeling the firm tautness of her belly and imagine that I can feel the two little bodies inside, still too small and weak to kick at the pressure of my palm.
I hope it is two bodies. If one of our first birthing were to come stillborn, the whispers which still circulate about WeRa—given renewed voice by the injury and the covetousness of what happened in the River—would no longer be spoken without voice, but would be shouted on the footpaths and in the doorways: that she is ill-omened and her child without a birthsibling perpetuates a curse on River Home. There would even be talk of returning to the old ways of the Bad Times, when those born alone are given to the River. No one has said such things to me, but I know them to be true nonetheless. The mouth is not the only member that speaks, and the ear not the only one that hears.
So we hope for a healthy pair, and we go about our business, avoiding the shadows that lurk behind every conversation. Another Longyear will come, and whether the Flooding is as it was in times past or whether it chooses to rage again, they cannot blame my WeRa or me for it this time. We will do what we can, and bear as many fine strong children as come to us, and we will go on with our lives, thanking the River for mercy shown.
Other Duties
Note: This story was written specifically for the Monsters & Mormons anthology, which deals—as the title suggests—with monsters and Mormons. As such, it’s replete with LDS in-jokes. I apologize if non-Mormons don’t get them. Trust me, they’re funny.
The voice on the other end of the telephone line overflowed with nervousness and apology. “Hi— Bishop Evenson? This is, my name is Steve Roundy, from the West Point Fourteenth Ward. I’m really sorry to bother you so late, but I heard that you’re the agent bishop for stuff like this...”
“I am.” Norman Evenson rubbed the gummy stuff from the inside corners of his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. He could see his wife Miriam up on one elbow, watching him. Beyond her, the digital clock read “1:32 AM” in glowing green. He gestured to her to go back to sleep and stood up, taking the phone with him as he walked out of the bedroom toward his home office.
“Tell me what the problem is,” Norman said as he flipped on the light and squinted.
***
It took a little over ten minutes for Norman to get from Brother Roundy the salient details. After he hung up, he put on the white shirt, tie and Dockers that he kept in his office so he could get dressed at odd hours without waking Miriam. He avoided his two-piece suits for matters like this; not only were they all dry-clean only, but their crotches tended to split out if things got active. When the tie was knotted, he called his first counselor, Brant DeSalle.
“Sorry to wake you, Brant,” Norman said, the phone cradled in his neck as he slipped on his shoes. “We’ve got a call to handle.”
“Oh. Mercy.” Norman could hear the lag as Brant’s sleepy brain caught up to his words. “I don’t need to shave, do I?”
“I’m not going to. Give Brother Wills a call and have him meet us... Wait, he’s still out of town, isn’t he?”
“Baby blessing up in Idaho, back Thursday,” Brant said.
“Right. Don’t worry about it, then. I’ll see you at the church in fifteen minutes.”
After he hung up and tied his shoes, Norman flipped back through his stake calendar. It was the first week of February; he had only been the agent bishop since the start of the year, and this was only their third real call. Maybe he could call the previous agent bishop to put together the needed quorum.
There was no answer at Bishop Stewart’s home number, so he called his cellphone. It took three rings for him to pick up.
“Bishop Stewart, this is Bishop Evenson. Sorry to call at this hour, but we got an emergency call and my second counselor is out of town. I wonder if you can help us out.”
“Yeah, I’m in Barbados on a cruise ship,” said Bishop Stewart.
“Oh. Sorry to bother you, then.”
“Best of luck, though.”
Norman ended the call and paged again through the directory. The next person in the ward who held priesthood keys was Kyle McMullin, who had come back from his mission in May, gotten married in November, and been called as the elders quorum president in December. Norman doubted that the high councilor had even given Kyle’s presidency any training yet on the full scope of the agent ward’s duties. But that was the way the line of authority ran.
He dialed Kyle’s number. “G’day,” said a groggy voice. Norman smiled. Sometimes when caught off guard, Kyle slipped back into the accent he had picked up on his mission in Australia.
“President McMullin, this is the Bishop. Sorry to wake you, but I need your help.”
***
Norman got to the bishop’s office before Brother DeSalle or President McMullin. He had time to kneel and pray in silence; then he unlocked his desk and reached past the calling forms and welfare carbons in their hanging folders to the locked box at the bottom of the drawer. He had just set it on the top of his desk when Brother DeSalle entered, followed by the elders quorum president, who was still tying his tie.
“Thank you, brethren,” Norman said. “I hope we can get this handled quickly.” He looked at Kyle’s sleepy, confused face. “President McMullin, I think I need to explain a few things to you...”
Norman was right; Kyle hadn’t been trained on any of this, and sat stunned as Norman sketched in their extra duties.
“So...” Kyle said, trying to use his missionary restate skills to wrap his mind around the situation. “...You’re the agent bishop for supernatural stuff?”
Norman nodded. “‘Paranormal and Occult.’ Just since January. It’s an annual rotation through the local stakes in northern Davis County. That makes our entire ward the agent ward, so in Brother Wills’s absence, the duty falls to you.”
“Wow.” Kyle swallowed. “Should I have, like, brought my consecrated oil?”
“We have plenty.” Norman inserted a key from his ring of church keys into the lock on the front of the box. “And some other things.”
In the velvet-lined tray inside was a set of three gold-colored medallions on leather thongs. Norman took them out and handed one each to DeSalle and Kyle. DeSalle slipped his on over his head; Kyle watched him and followed suit. Norman put on his own and then removed from the same tray three spritzer bottles with short straps attached. He passed them around.
“As much oil as you’ll need.”
DeSalle leaned over to Kyle. “When you need to use it, put the strap around your wrist. Oil on your hands gets slippery. You don’t want that. Trust me, I know.”
“You guys have done this before?” Kyle asked.
“Yes, but don’t ask us about it,” Norman said. “It’s confidential, just like a disciplinary council.”
Norman pulled out the velvet-lined tray. Beneath it was another tray, this one containing a long-barreled six-shooter of burnished silvery steel, with cream-colored porcelain grips and accents. Kyle gaped at the gun but said nothing.
A small wooden box also nestled in the tray contained cartridges, and Norman began loading the gun. The bullets weren’t metallic; they looked like clay, and on each there were inscribed tiny symbols. To Norman they l
ooked like the “Book of Mormon Egyptian” characters on the souvenir bricks one bought in Nauvoo, but he was no expert; they could have been old-world Egyptian, or Hebrew, or even Adamic for all he knew.
“We forgot to replenish our supply of these after our last time out,” Norman said. “Remind me to have one of the clerks order some more on Sunday.”
“Will do,” DeSalle said.
Norman snapped the revolver’s cylinder shut. “Well, brethren,” he said, “I think a prayer is in order.” He lowered himself to his knees, and the other two men did likewise.
***
They took Norman’s Kia and drove in silence. The suburban regularity of Clinton faltered as they drove west, with clumped developments alternating with horse pastures and hay fields. The last snowfall had been a week before, but cold daytime temperatures had kept it powdery, and in spots it had drifted in half-hearted streaks across the blacktop.
A couple of miles after they passed the last streetlight, DeSalle in the passenger seat checked a reflective street sign on their right against the sticky note that Norman had given him. “Turn here,” he said, “and then the second left, first house on the right.”
Norman turned just after a sign that read, “Castleview Meadows Phase I Coming Soon—Reserve Your Lot Now!” Following DeSalle’s directions, he pulled in by a thirty-year-old split-level that had been built on a large country lot. The night sky was punctuated with clouds, and once the headlights were off Norman could see a long backyard separating the house from a horse barn, and fenceposts beyond that marking a horse pasture.
They stepped out of the Kia in their parkas; Kyle also wore a cap with flaps down over his ears. As they started trudging toward the house, the front door popped open and out came a man with a camo hunting jacket thrown on over a sweatshirt and sweatpants.
“Oh, thank God!” he said. “I mean—I’m Steve Roundy. Bishop...?”
Norman waved to show which one he was. “I’m Bishop Evenson. When did this all start, again?”
Steve stuck his bare hands in his pocket. His tennis shoes were untied, and his feet shifted in the cold.
“Last night, I guess. I mean, Amy said there was something wrong—that’s my daughter—she said for a couple of weeks that something was wrong, but, you know...”
“Is your daughter here?”
“No. My wife took both kids into Ogden to her mother’s house, right about when I called you.”
Norman nodded. “So what have you seen?”
“Well, what I heard first was the horses... Do you want to come inside?”
Kyle started moving toward the house, but Norman shook his head. “We ought to go right to work.”
“Right.” Steve led the way around the house, and they trudged in single file toward the horse barn. “Well, as I said on the phone, we heard something, Amy and I, we heard something from the barn last night. The horses were noisy, whinnying and dancing around. We went out after dinner, and we couldn’t see anything wrong, so we just left them to settle down on their own. But they kept getting noisier. Finally, around midnight, we were worried and couldn’t sleep, so I went out again. The horses were screaming by this point like there was a rattler in their stalls or something, so I went in, and before I reached the light switch I saw...”
Steve stopped, and the other three stopped behind him. They were in the backyard now, closer to the barn than the house on a well-worn path through the snow.
“...Eyes. I saw eyes, red and glowing. Like in the movies. I’ve never seen things like that for real, though. It wasn’t like cat’s eyes reflecting—these were glowing like hot coals. And a voice... I don’t know what it said, but it rumbled so low I could feel it in the soles of my feet, inside my boots. That’s when I ran back to the house, Nicole bundled up the kids, and I called the bishop, and he gave me your number.”
Norman looked at the barn, sturdy and unpainted. There were two glass windows on this side; nothing showed through them but darkness.
“Is that a new development going in over there, Brother Roundy?”
It took Steve a second to catch up to the change of subject. “Uh, yeah. They broke ground and started laying out lots in the fall. Used to be an alfalfa field. Why?”
Instead of answering the question, Norman asked, “How many horses do you have?”
“Two,” Steve said. “Chaser and Star.”
“They’re quiet now.”
“I know. They got quiet sometime after I got inside. After I called you, I stuck my head out to hear, and I couldn’t hear anything.”
Norman nodded.
“Well, let’s get this started.”
He raised his arm to the square.”
“By the power of the Holy Melchi—”
He broke off as one barn window shattered, and something sailed out, whirling end over end. Norman leaped to the side; it landed roughly where he had been. It was a horse’s head, white with a black patch between the wide-open eyes. The steaming neck was severed messily, like it had been taken off with a chainsaw. Norman felt wet spots on his pants and looked down. Blood from the neck had splattered up his pant leg as it flew through the air. The hot blood immediately turned cold.
Behind him, Kyle breathed, “Oh, man...”
Steve swallowed. “That’s Star,” he said. His voice sounded like he was trying to hold back a sneeze.
Norman unzipped his parka to give him clear access to the gun in his belt. “Brother Roundy, once we go in the door, where is the light switch?”
Steve was still staring at the horse’s head on the snow. “To your left, when you go in. On the stud, about three feet in.”
Norman looked back over his shoulder. DeSalle watched him, his lips together in a thin line. Kyle’s eyes kept returning to the horse’s head, but he didn’t seem to be hyperventilating or trembling.
“Brother Roundy, you stay here and listen for us.” He nodded to the other two. “Let’s go.”
They approached the barn quietly, but didn’t bother trying to be sneaky; whatever was inside obviously knew they were here. A couple of times Norman thought he heard breaths or snorts. The other horse? It could still be alive; the head that was thrown out at them had obviously been alive recently enough for the blood to be fresh.
“Oil out,” he murmured to the other two.
He heard DeSalle tell Kyle, “Put it in your left hand so you can raise your right arm to the square.”
“Oh. Got it.”
At the barn’s double doors they stopped. Norman’s nose had begun to run, and he wiped it quickly on the back of his sleeve. He noticed that Kyle had put his earflaps up.
Norman waved DeSalle to the left side of the double door. “Okay,” he said. “One, two...”
On “three,” DeSalle yanked the door open, and Norman jumped inside, fumbling for the light switch. He heard a snuffling sound, and then drowning it out a deep rumble, like an asthmatic whale. Then the bare lights bulbs came on.
At the far end of the barn, beside the horse stalls, was a monstrous humanoid figure, probably topping ten feet. At first glance, it was an articulated human skeleton. At second glance it wasn’t terribly human, even allowing for the size; swept-back spines grew out of its skull and down its back, and the orbital sockets in its face were drawn triangular into a scowl instead of showing the round-eyed surprise of a human skull. On third glance, it was more than just a skeleton; its bones were held together by a thin layer of red meat and glistening tendons, as if it had been recently and deeply flayed. Norman saw, on the floor behind it, a pile of moist, bloody bones, and understood: the skeleton hadn’t recently lost flesh, it had recently gained it from the slaughtered horse.
Where was the other horse? The stall doors were open. One was empty; the other—yes, the horse was on its side on the straw, shuddering. Did horses faint? This one might have.
The skeletal thing watched Norman with its eyeless eyes, a glottal clicking or purring coming from its throat. Norman had seen the movie Predator once
on TV; it sounded like that.
“Brethren,” he whispered loudly, and DeSalle and Kyle edged into the barn, their eyes on the skeleton. Even without eyes in its sockets, Norman could sense its attention focusing on each of them in turn.
It spoke. Its voice vibrated like a passing freight train; the consonants were thick and grating. Norman couldn’t understand the words, but he felt the menace in them. They were being warned.
“Okay,” he said to the others, keeping his voice to a whisper. It probably couldn’t understand them any better than they could understand it, but he didn’t want to spur it to action. “We’re going to try to corner it in the empty stall where I can get a good shot at it. Oil ready? Go!”
The three men spread out, advancing at the skeleton with their spray bottles held up. Norman could sense surprise from the thing as he spritzed out a fine mist of consecrated oil in its direction, surprise that turned into malice. It started backing up as the three advanced. Then it whirled and leaped into the stall, and from there it climbed up the wall, its long partially-fleshed limbs sure and spidery. Norman hadn’t been expecting that.
It easily reached the top of the barn’s space, where beams and girders held up the peaked roof in shadows that the light bulbs barely reached. They craned their necks to keep it in sight as it clambered as fast as a man can run, and Norman could tell it was bearing down on him specifically; it had identified him as the leader. It leaned down suddenly and raked a clawed hand at him, and Norman dove to the side to avoid the long fingers. He rolled over a hay bale awkwardly and landed hard on his left shoulder.
“Hey!” Kyle shouted, his voice breaking. He dashed forward and spritzed his oil on the still grasping arm. The thing shrieked like rusty metal being dragged across concrete and pulled back its limbs.
Levels: Fantastic and Macabre Stories Page 10
