That last part evaded him. He knew there was some purpose to it, some need for the creature to go to this particular place at this particular time, but he couldn’t place his finger on it. What he saw, through the mind of the creature, was the rumblings of a primitive, savage brain. He understood its instincts and its immediate drives, but the over-arching end he couldn’t see. He couldn’t figure it because the creature couldn’t. It just knew to kill and kill and kill.
None of this answered his question. Why was he going to Constance? Did he really think he could stop such a creature? Did he plan revenge for what it did to Cindy?
He spat a wad of phlegm from his mouth and slipped back into the car where he sat for a long moment, thinking things over. He couldn’t decide if he was traveling to Constance because he wanted to stop the creature or if he was somehow being compelled to go. He sipped his cola, swished it around in his mouth, and spewed it out the open car door. The taste of copper and meat was still on his tongue, but not as sharp. He shut the door, checked his rearview, and drove back onto the road.
He’d had his chance to turn and run. He’d had his chance to go and never look back. But Martin didn’t take it. He figured he was heading to his certain death but part of him didn’t care. Because like the creature he was now part of, some primitive bit in him understood that whatever the reason for going on to Constance was, it had something to do with a bigger mystery.
He needed to know it, and his need to know made his foot heavier on the gas, propelling him down the road to his destiny.
VII
Jacob
Jacob drove his old Plymouth Valiant down the interstate, and like Martin before him, he’d taken the exit to Constance. His mind was fairly empty but for the job ahead. He muttered a few prayers to God and listened to religious music as it drifted from the speakers. That was one thing he loved about the south: you could find literally dozens of channels with religious programming. He liked listening to the preachers mostly because they reminded him of his father. When he was a child, his father would practice his coming sermons all week long, speaking from the pulpit to an empty congregation hall. Sometimes Jacob would sit out there and listen, watching as his father went through the motions.
The only problem was, after a time, he realized his father was a fraud.
The great William Sterns, Faith Healer. That was his father, a man renowned throughout the south and the Midwest as the greatest healer to walk the Earth since Jesus himself. Of course, William Sterns turned out to be a fake. He was in league with his deacons and they used a small group of people, mostly old women and children, who traveled from town to town with them, to pretend injuries and handicaps. When William laid his hands on them, they were ‘magically’ cured. It was a great racket for a while, until they got discovered, and then William and his folks were run out, word spreading quickly of the false prophet fleecing God’s flock. Jacob was twelve at the time, and it was just about that same time that he discovered his own abilities.
It was a great cosmic joke, like God was punishing William by giving the gifts he feigned having to his son. Oh, Jacob couldn’t heal, but he could do much, much more. One day, he woke up and everything was different; a new light burned in his heart, the Holy Ghost light. It showed him things and allowed him to see into the hearts of men, to see the spirits and demons that lived all around, unseen by the naked eye. He was frightened at first, but a still small voice spoke to his heart and gave him comfort and assurance that all would be fine. God was in control now.
He never looked back.
He used his abilities to help those in need around him. Some accused him of being a fakir, like his father, but others came to believe. Jacob’s biggest early moment was the finding of a lost girl some thought kidnapped. It turned out she’d fallen near a creek one county over, breaking her leg. The family came to Jacob, aged fourteen at the time, and implored his assistance. William mocked and hissed at his son, bitter that he had honest to God-given abilities where William had none, but Jacob ignored him. He prayed to the Lord and received the answer, a scene appearing in his head, just like a painting on a wall. And thanks to God’s good grace, he was able to tell her parents the exact location of the girl. She was found later that same day and word spread quickly of the boy with the visions.
His father kicked him out of the house a month later and he had nowhere to go. He’d never known his mother because she died giving birth to him, although the rumor was that she’d been a whore from Tuscaloosa, a whore his deceitful father was fond of visiting when passing through. She confronted William after he impregnated her, so the story went, and in the only decent act of his entire life, William Sterns stayed by her side until Jacob was born. Then she died and William took his son on the road with him.
Jacob never knew his mother’s name. There was no birth certificate and his father never spoke of her except once, to tell him the story of his birth. Time passed and Jacob, the matter fades to the back of his mind.
So he was alone at age fourteen, thrown out of his home and left to his own devices. He thought his father cruel and wicked but he did not begrudge him. God would provide and God had, all the days of his life, up until the present moment.
He lived off his talents, roaming the states and going wherever the Holy Spirit led him. Those he helped fed him and clothed him until he was old enough to take care of himself. Eventually, he established himself in the paranormal community and there were so many jobs, he never lacked for opportunities to show God’s good grace and power.
People called him a psychic. He despised that term. He preferred ‘Seer’ or ‘Man of God,’ for that was more to the truth. The Lord revealed things to him, through intuition and visions. He also edified himself on his own time, having no formal education, often visiting local libraries in the towns where he was called to go. He worked hard, rested infrequently, and was a driven man. God had put him in this world for a purpose, and that purpose was combating evil in all its dread and dire forms. Evil never slept, so very rarely did Jacob. He would push himself to exhaustion and then collapse. He would spend days recovering and, when he was ready, he got back up on his feet and got back to doing the Holy work of God.
Jacob had doubts, let there be no question about that. They came to torment him at night, when he was all alone and his heart broke for the life he never had, one much like that of those he encountered every day. It was in these moments Jacob longed to be a doctor, or a banker, or even a grocery clerk, something mundane and full of tedious boredom. He wanted to have a wife, a child, and a house to live in. He wanted these things but he knew they were not for him nor would they ever be. The calling of God was hard and unforgiving, and he knew it was his destiny to live the life he did.
Despite the doubts, he kept going, day after day after day, pressing forward and moving ahead. The hesitations he had would keep until they were too much and they swirled about his head like moths swarming a warm, bare light bulb. He would bat them away with prayer and scripture until they died to a steady murmur in the back of his heart.
He had no doubts, however, about the evil come to Constance, Kentucky.
The Men of Perdition were there and they had to be stopped. There was no misgiving there, no disbelief, no hesitation. Jacob knew this to be as true as the fact that man needed air to breathe.
He drove on, passing a car parked by the side of the road. Martin’s car, in fact. Jacob felt a flash of familiarity as he passed the car but he pushed it away. Down the road, over yonder, there were terrible things going on. People were dying and being horribly tortured and the only person who could do anything about it was Jacob Sterns.
“I am coming, evil ones,” he whispered. “Beware.”
PART FOUR
I
Aggie
Aggie drove down the road, having left his lover behind to travel back home. He was tired after his sexual exertions and his back ached. A grim smile slithered across his face. He was getting old and there was no more de
nying it.
He’d given it good and hard to Charlotte Johnson, as good as he’d ever done when he was a younger man, but he only had one time in him anymore, and as sad as that made him, he was still proud that he was good at least once. The smile grew and he pounded the steering wheel.
He’d driven maybe half a mile from Charlotte’s house when he happened upon a group of children, all disheveled and pale, with black eyes. They walked along the side of the road, in single file, and when they saw Aggie coming, they spread out to block the way. The Black-Eyed Children stood perfectly still and serene, as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
Aggie thought about stopping, but there was something about the look of those creepy kids that changed his mind. There was something unsettling about them. He cussed under his breath and floored his truck. It lurched and bucked ahead, like an old stallion feeling his oats one last time, and bore down on the children.
They didn’t move.
For an instant, he felt a hesitation, and his foot hovered over the brakes, uncertain about what he should do. He thought he’d scare them, that they’d scream and scatter like blackbirds, but they did no such thing. They simply stood and dared him to keep going.
At the last instant, he slammed on the brakes and the truck bucked and slid across the road, tires shrieking in protest. He came to a stop inches away from the lead child, Hippy Girl. She smiled at him, a sad grin, the kind that could break the heart of someone that had a heart. Fortunately for Aggie, he was bitter and brittle, and there was no such thing as compassion in his chest for these bums.
He stuck his head out the window, a flurry of curses tripping off his tongue.
“You goddamn little fuckers!” he yelled. “Get the hell out of my way!”
The kids broke off and they moved in pairs to either side of his truck. They had the most serene expressions, and this more than anything unnerved Aggie.
Hippy Girl came to the driver’s side, Red Shirt beside her. The other two went to the passenger side.
“Have you seen our mother?” Hippy Girl said.
He eyed her, suspicious. A chill ran up his spine, so cold and frigid it nearly took the words from his mouth.
“Hell, no,” he said.
“Have you seen our mother?” Red Shirt asked.
Aggie spat on the ground at their feet. They didn’t flinch.
“There’s something wrong with you all,” he said. He put the truck back in gear and stamped on the gas. It lurched again and surged forward. In the blink of an eye he was down the road, the creepy kids in his rearview mirror staring after him.
He shuddered. That was the strangest thing he’d ever seen. Those kids were either mentally deranged or on some kind of drug. He couldn’t be sure which and wouldn’t have been surprised if it was both. As he turned the corner and left them behind, he was glad to be rid of them. He hoped the next driver along would plow over them and keep going.
The road opened before him and he relaxed as he put more distance between him and those kids, and it was only when he was almost to Burke’s that he realized they were heading in the direction of Charlotte’s house. He’d have to call her when he reached the farm and check on her. He smiled for the first time in several miles.
She may have been despised by most folks in Constance, but he was developing quite a warm spot for her. And although that should have worried him, he was strangely comforted by the thought.
He arrived at Burke’s about ten minutes later, the sun setting and darkness creeping like a blanket across the land. He pulled in at the house, got out, and went inside. What he wanted more than anything at that point was a nice, cold beer and something to eat. First, though, he had to call Charlotte.
He rang her but there was no answer. The machine picked up and he hung up. He tried one more time and fished through his pockets for her cell number. He called it but it went straight to voice mail. He hung up, not leaving a message. Aggie was paranoid her husband might have her code and listen in on her messages, so he never left any. He hoped she was okay, figured that she probably was, and sauntered to the fridge to grab that beer he’d been wanting.
Where was Burke? He popped the tab and the cold, amber brew fizzed up before he slurped it down, the bittersweet taste slipping past his lips, flowing over his tongue, and hitting the back of his throat in a tidal wave of pleasure. God, he really loved beer.
He walked around the house, calling out for Burke. It was odd he wasn’t around because he should be. If Burke was going somewhere, he would have either told him or left a note. But there was nothing. It was strange, and that same shiver he’d gotten when he saw those creepy kids came back, sizzling up his backbone.
He walked to the porch and turned the light on. Instantly, bugs buzzed around the bare bulb, dinking off it and coming right back again. He couldn’t see anything out there. With a heavy sigh, he rifled through a drawer in the kitchen, came out with a flashlight, and went back outside, beer in one hand, light in the other.
He strolled over to the barn. Burke liked to go out there sometimes and he’d stay there for hours, looking over the crop and reminiscing about the old days. Aggie never bothered him when he did it; he figured he had his beer and Burke had his barn. But now he was worried because it wasn’t like Burke to just disappear like this.
The barn was empty.
The next place to check was the fields themselves. He drained his beer and tossed it aside. Burke would bitch at him for littering, but he didn’t care. The old bastard was ruining his night, making him go out and look for him like this, so Burke could pick up the damned can himself.
He stumbled out across the grounds. He searched all over and it took him fifteen minutes before he came upon Burke’s dead body. And what he saw made him vomit up the beer he’d just drank and nearly turned his bowels to liquid.
Aggie fell to his dead friend’s side, moaning in anguish, his voice spiraling high into the night air, sounding for all the world like the call of a coyote.
II
Sheriff Monroe
Sheriff Monroe stood at the edge of the clearing and gazed down on the dead bodies of a man, woman, and two children. He’d never seen the like before and hoped he never would again. They were laid out and butchered, their entrails strung from the low-hanging branches of the nearby trees like lights on a Christmas tree, hanging about eight feet in the air. Their intestines ran from their flayed open stomachs, across limbs and around tree trunks, wove amongst each other, and their ends were tied around the necks of one of the other bodies, forming a strange, witchy symbol.
It stunk, too, like rotten cabbage and foul milk.
He’d gotten a call from Willy Perkins, the mailman, about a car run off the road. He was glad to get the call because it got him away from the crazy woman in the jail. So when Doc arrived to have a look at her, he went out to check on the call from Willy. After finding the car, it didn’t take him long to spot the trail someone had made running into the woods. After following it for a short bit, he stumbled on the scene before him.
What in the hell had happened to these people? It wasn’t an animal that did this, it couldn’t have been. The stringing of the intestines was too intricate, too much of a design. So it had to be people. But who?
Sheriff Monroe stepped back and stood on a stump to his right. He thought he recognized the pattern to the displayed guts, but it was something his mind was seeing yet not comprehending. He thought maybe a change in perspective would do some good. He groaned when he saw it from his vantage point on the stump, as plain as day.
The intestines formed a star in a circle; a pentagram, made of human entrails. He gagged as his corned beef sandwich from lunch surged up into the back of his throat, but he fought it back down again. He scratched his chin and plugged a new wad of tobacco into his cheek. It should settle his stomach; backy juice always did.
Goddamn. He was going to need to call in the State Police. First things first, though; he needed to tape off the scene. Sheriff Monro
e stepped off the stump and pushed his way through the brush back to the road. He opened the trunk of his car and fished around until he found the ‘Police Line’ yellow and black tape. It had been a long time since he’d used it, the last being when old man Kelsey had killed himself in his own home.
That had been something, seeing that fat man hanging by his neck from the stairs by nothing but a belt. How the belt held Kelsey’s weight he didn’t know, and he also didn’t understand how the stairs themselves hadn’t crashed or at the very least the railing where the belt was wrapped. Because that son of a bitch had been heavy, too heavy for four men to move his large ass once they cut the belt and he smashed to the ground. The dead bastard crashed through the floor and was stuck halfway in and halfway out. They’d had to knock down the living room wall and bring a forklift in to get him out.
They wouldn’t need a forklift for those dead kids back there, that was for sure. Dead kids. Christ on a popsicle stick. What was this world coming to?
A truck roared around the corner, its headlights splashing his car, freezing him in place. It blew past his parked cruiser going at least seventy miles an hour, and on a road this narrow and curved, that was some dangerous driving. Sheriff Monroe slammed his trunk shut, jumped into his car, and fired it up. He pulled back onto the road, turned around, and took off in pursuit.
There wasn’t much he could do about a bunch of dead kids, but he could chase down whoever that was in the truck and put an end to their shenanigans. He floored the car and the good old v-eight engine coughed and chugged along, the tires eating the pavement like a tiger stripping an antelope. Sheriff Monroe loved this car, even if it was old and a bit rickety. They just didn’t make them this pure anymore, everything nowadays being full of computer chips and all kinds of fancy gadgets. As far as he was concerned, when you wanted power and speed, he looked no further than his Oldsmobile.
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