Men of Perdition

by Kelly M. Hudson

  He was chosen for this moment, his blood ordained to help bring some monster into this world that was going to do far worse than any evil ever perpetrated in the history of the world.

  When the Bone Sniffer fractured his left calf bone, a white hot flash of pain jolted his leg, bolting up his ruined thighs to his stomach and shocking his heart. How had that happened?

  He thought he couldn’t feel anything, and yet there he was, sickened by the sensation of the Bone Sniffer’s tongue corkscrewing through his bones, searching for marrow to devour.

  The right calf hurt just as bad, if not more, and for the first time since he’d been scooped up by the creature, he panicked. If he could feel, then he could hurt. And he just couldn’t take any more.

  He prayed for an end to his suffering, looking up into the night sky as the moon rose to its highest point.

  Mumbling words of supplication to God, he felt the Bone Sniffer withdraw its tongue and saw as it stepped over him and started to work on Hazel, who lay next to him.

  Her screams filled the air, drowning out Martin’s prayers.

  VII

  Aggie

  Aggie pulled the truck off the road and cut the engine. He glanced over at Sadie, her eyes facing forward like a trained soldier, and shook his head slowly.

  “We ain’t got a chance, do we?” he said.

  “There is always hope,” Jacob said as he opened his door.

  Aggie reached out and touched Sadie’s arm. “What about you? You think we got a chance?”

  Sadie turned to face Aggie, her eyes as black as the night sky. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “None of it matters.”

  Sadie slid out the passenger door as Aggie watched. He shook his head again and cursed under his breath. That girl was gone, lost somewhere inside herself. And the other one was shaky, too. Not that he wasn’t scared, because he was, but he was at least thinking clearly about things. The other two seemed distracted, bothered by their anger or their fear.

  He shrugged his shoulders and got out of the truck. He reckoned Sadie was right; it didn’t matter one way or the other. They were there now, and they had work to do, and if they didn’t get it right then it was all over, anyway.

  Aggie fetched the shotgun from the bed of the truck and shook the pockets of his pants. Jacob only had about ten shells total for the gun, so he had scraped them all up and promised to make good use of them until they ran out.

  Jacob turned to the group. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder in which he’d put together the few remaining things he could scrounge up from his car. He searched through it and came out with three mouth masks, handing one to Aggie and Sadie each.

  “These should protect us somewhat,” Jacob said. “They were dipped in holy water and sealed with blessings.”

  “These for that gas guy?” Aggie said.

  “Yes. They won’t survive a direct blast, but they should keep you safe from any low-lying fumes.”

  “So this guy, he farts a lot, or what?” Aggie said. Jacob stared at him and Sadie just ignored him.

  “Excuse me for trying to lighten the mood for a second,” Aggie said. He rolled his eyes. He always hated when folks didn’t have a sense of humor. If he was going to run off and get killed, he preferred it to be with people who knew how to laugh, at least. Not these two, though; they were as much fun as watching your grandmother die of a heart attack.

  “Sam is dead,” Sadie said, her face dark.

  Aggie shut up. She was right. His good friend was dead and maybe he just couldn’t come to terms with it because it had happened so fast. Sam was there and then he wasn’t, and it was that way with so many others on this long day, the longest day he’d ever had since his sweet wife had died. Mostly, he wanted to crawl into a bottle and drown himself, but he knew that was a bad move, that there was no advantage to it. There was an evil out there in the woods, an evil that had killed his friend Sam, murdered Burke, and most of the rest of the town, as well. He needed to keep it together and do what had to be done. The bottle could wait.

  But oh, what a drunken tear he was going to be on if he made it through this.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. Sadie and Jacob had already turned their backs and were headed into the woods, pushing through the branches and the bushes. He followed, falling in at their heels.

  As bright as it had been on the road because of the moonlight, it was just as dark once they got under the cover of the trees. He heard Jacob fumbling with that bag of his up ahead and then a beam of light cut through the blackness. The guy had a flashlight.

  “You a boy scout or something?” Aggie said. He couldn’t help it. Maybe it was nerves or just his way of coping, but he could not stop opening his smart mouth.

  Jacob didn’t respond. He led the way, shining his light and pushing back the blackness of the night for just a few seconds.

  Aggie took up the rear, his sweaty hands gripping the shotgun as his heart pounded with anticipation.

  “Here goes nothing,” he said.

  VIII

  Jenny

  When the Bone Sniffer finished with her, after it had already supped on the others, she didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Her legs were ruined, shattered and broken and useless, and the pain was extraordinary, the worst she’d ever experienced. But she couldn’t pass out; she couldn’t close her eyes to the agony and make it go away. She watched, eyes following the Bone Sniffer as it lurched around the circle of dead bodies underneath the netting of human intestines, unable to keep her attention off of what was happening. It was the gas, she reckoned, or her own natural curiosity, that compelled her to stare at the bizarre proceedings going on around her. In the end, though, it didn’t matter much why she was watching, just that she was.

  The Bone Sniffer staggered and did a dance, almost as if it were drunk, as the Weeping Lady drifted over to its side. She ran a long, pale hand over its back, stroking it like a person would a beloved pet. The creature leaned against her leg, its body shaking with pleasure, as it mewled and rubbed its big head against her knee.

  The Weeping Lady spoke to it in a strange language and the Bone Sniffer pushed itself from her and staggered to the middle of the circle of bodies. Jenny looked down the length of her ruined legs and stared as the Bone Sniffer met its destiny.

  Its sides retched as its legs quivered. The Bone Sniffer arched its back and vomited the bone marrow, spitting it out on a small, circular patch of ground in the middle of the arranged bodies. As it did so, the Weeping Lady chanted in a language Jenny had never heard before.

  It sounded ancient and wicked, every word cutting her ears until they bled. It felt like there were razor blades deep inside her ear canal, slicing at her eardrums, shaving off infinitesimal flakes, whittling away at her brain. She wanted to scream but had no voice. All she could do was watch as the world came to an end around her.

  The marrow dripping from the snout of the Bone Sniffer hissed and sizzled like hot bacon grease on a burning pan. It dribbled down and struck the ground, each drop making the earth quake in that tiny spot, the marrow scorching the grass and clearing a small patch of dirt as it soaked into the earth.

  The Weeping Lady stood over the scene, arms raised high in the air, her veil pulled back to reveal her face, as her charred, blackened lips spoke the words of the incantations, the beginnings of the ceremony to bring their dark lord into this world.

  As she spoke, the air around the clearing crackled with energy, little streaks of lightning burning and zapping the trees, the ground, and the atmosphere. The hair on Jenny’s body stood up, prickling across her arms and ruined legs.

  The Bone Sniffer finished heaving, the last of the chosen human bone marrow dribbling from its mouth. It staggered back and looked up at the Weeping Lady, still in the midst of her invocations, its nostrils sniffing and snorting as it lay down in the last spot available between the humans, completing the bizarre arrangement of bodies. It breathed heavily one last time and then let go, dying.

&nb
sp; Jenny gazed on the creature as its body trembled and yellow foam erupted from its mouth and rear end, coating the creature from head to toe. Her eyes flickered back and forth, watching the Weeping Lady and then the Bone Sniffer, as its body transformed, changing from the beast it had been back into the slack, naked, dead form of Sheriff Monroe.

  All the while, the air buzzed and sparkled as the ground beneath her pitched and tilted, like a giant tree were underneath, ready to burst up through the earth and grow to the heavens.

  The Weeping Lady stopped speaking and all at once, everything went quiet.

  No birds sang. No crickets chirped. No wind stirred and silence, thick and heavy as a burial shroud, hung over the area. Nothing moved. The air had a sense of anticipation, as if something was about to happen, something grand and horrible.

  The trees on the west end of the clearing suddenly shook and Jacob, Sadie, and Aggie stepped into the clearing.

  “Who said you all could start the party without us?” Aggie said, devilish grin creasing his face.

  Jenny’s eyes riveted in on them and for a second, a brief, wonderful second, she thought they might actually save her.

  That was before her stomach erupted in a geyser of blood and intestines. She found her voice then, the gas wearing off, and screamed at the top of her lungs.

  The others on the ground joined her, their stomachs ripping open as they screamed. Their guts rose up and danced, like cobras mesmerized by the music of a snake charmer, the strands interweaving with each other and with those strung between the trees, forming a new pattern, a latticework of unusual stars and peculiar symbols.

  The ground quaked and shook, tilting at an obscene angle. The Weeping Lady whirled around to face the intruders on the ceremony. She pointed a long, pale finger at them.

  “Kill them,” she said.

  And the Mad Gasser sprinted at them as Spring-Heeled Jack leapt through the air.

  “Ah, hell,” Aggie said. He raised his shotgun and started firing.

  X

  Tom

  They drove down the road in the opposite direction of Miller’s Meadow. Everyone was quiet, staring out their windows, full of fear and apprehension, wondering if they were going to be attacked or left alone, every moment pregnant with possibilities. After a few minutes of this, Mayor Reed reached over and turned on the radio, but all he got was static. He turned it off and glanced nervously around the inside of the car.

  Tom sat on the passenger side and Dolores was behind him in the back seat. He didn’t look at his wife or Mayor Reed; he instead stared at the passing scenery, watching as the groves and thickets, houses with dead bodies littering the front yards, and other houses standing empty and silent, disappeared behind them. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that his town was dead; literally dead. And there was more to come.

  “I’m worried,” Dolores said. He turned to face his wife. “I don’t think we should have left them.”

  “Are you crazy?” Mayor Reed said. He chewed his bottom lip and shook his head. “We have to go get help. You know that. Come on.”

  “She’s right,” Tom said. “We shouldn’t have left them.”

  “I hope you’re not just saying that because you’re married to her,” Mayor Reed said.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Dolores said.

  “Nothing,” Mayor Reed said. “But you both understand that we’re going to send help back, right? We ain’t running with no point to it.”

  “I think we are,” Dolores said.

  Tom thought it over and she was right. He felt it deep down in his stomach. They had abandoned their friends and ran like scared little rabbits.

  “I got no problem with running,” Mayor Reed said. “You forget what we saw? It’s all craziness, dear. I ain’t going near that shit ever again in my life.”

  “Pull over,” Tom said.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Mayor Reed said.

  “Pull over and let me out. I’m going back.”

  “Me, too,” Dolores said.

  “Will you listen to yourselves? You’ve gone crazy!” Mayor Reed said.

  “What about those speeches you made, Mayor?” Tom said. “The ones when things were bad, before the Toyota deal came through? You remember what you said?”

  Mayor Reed shrugged. “I have a speech writer.”

  “What?” Dolores said.

  “I got somebody who writes my speeches,” Mayor Reed said. “Ain’t no shame in it. Lots of politicians got speech writers.”

  “I don’t care,” Tom said. “Don’t you believe in what you say?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then you remember the speech about us sticking together, through thick and thin, no matter what. About our community, and how all we’ve got is each other to hold on to and depend on. You remember that?”

  Mayor Reed said nothing.

  “Practice what you preach,” Dolores said.

  “I ain’t going back there,” Mayor Reed said. “I may be a lot of things, but I ain’t stupid.”

  “Then let us out,” Tom said.

  Mayor Reed gnawed his bottom lip. After a few seconds, he slowed down and pulled into the driveway of a house with its lights on and a car parked in front. He stopped the car and looked over at Tom and Dolores, shaking his head slowly.

  “We need the gun,” Dolores said.

  “What? No way. It goes with me,” Mayor Reed said.

  Tom held out his hand. “I understand why you won’t go back, Mayor. You’re no coward. But we need that gun if we’re going to help.”

  Mayor Reed closed his eyes. He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out the revolver and handed it to him.

  “Good luck, son.”

  “You get the cops,” Tom said. “We’ll be waiting for you.”

  Tom and Dolores climbed out of the car and shut the doors. Mayor Reed looked out his window at them, studying them closely as if fitting their images into his mind so that he could always remember them. The stare made Tom shiver. Mayor Reed gave them a half wave and backed out of the drive, pulled into the street, and drove off down the road.

  Tom and Dolores gazed at each other.

  “How stupid are we?” Dolores said.

  He smiled. “Well, honey. It’s not Cancun, but it’s the best I can do.”

  Dolores hugged him tight. “Go inside, get us some car keys, and let’s see what we can do about ending this and having our vacation.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He saluted Dolores and jogged to the house. What he saw when he went inside he would carry with him to his grave: four bodies, chopped up and stacked in the corner of the living room, blood everywhere, the bodies so mangled he couldn’t tell male from female, child from adult. He vomited twice, found the keys, and got out of there.

  He grimaced at Dolores, his face white with shock, as they ran to the car, started it up, and drove back to town.

  XI

  Everybody

  When the Mad Gasser charged them, the low mist of gas he’d left on the perimeter suddenly rose up, forming a wall ten feet high. It turned orange and poured over Sadie, Aggie, and Jacob, swirling around their heads, battering their mouth masks and steaming their eyes. All of them fell back, screaming and hollering, as Aggie fired a couple of wild shots through the fog and they backed towards the woods.

  Spring-Heeled Jack leapt from the gas, flying through the air, both blades glittering. He cackled as he arced, slamming down next to Aggie, swinging his blades and chopping Aggie’s left arm off below the elbow before leaping so far up into the air he disappeared into the gas again.

  Aggie screamed as blood geysered from the stump of his left arm. He fell down, dropping the shotgun, and landed on his rear end, a litany of curses tripping off his lips.

  Sadie turned to help Aggie when the Mad Gasser emerged from the fog like a giant black insect. He grabbed her and hauled her back into the mist with him. They disappeared together, Sadie’s screams cutting off in a ga
rgled cry.

  Jacob rubbed his eyes, trying to get the stinging pain in them to go away. The creatures were so fast, so devious! They’d arrived, ready to storm in and do God’s good work, and suddenly they couldn’t see or breathe and now two of them were down if not dead and Jacob was all alone. He coughed behind his mask and charged into the mist. He had to stop the Weeping Lady or all was lost.

  Aggie watched Jacob go as he held his arm. Blood was pouring from it, pooling around him so deep and thick that the ground didn’t have time to soak it up. He was going to bleed out, he was certain. There was nothing he could do but lay there and die.

  “Shit the bed,” he said.

  Then Sadie screamed again and he found new life. He rolled onto his knees, snatched up the shotgun with his one good arm, and staggered into the wall of gas. If he was going to die, by God, he might as well go down fighting.

  The Mad Gasser’s lower stem slithered out of the crack in his face and rubbed Sadie’s cheek, leaving a trail of slime. She screamed and kicked against him, dropping the bags she’d been carrying and trying desperately to wrench free from his grip. The Mad Gasser chuckled, licked her nose, and then her eyelids. She kept screaming and fighting, pushing and struggling, but it did no good. There was no escape.

  A second later and they were through the fog onto the other side of the clearing. It was suddenly clear and the air was clean. She coughed and looked up at the night sky, so brilliant and free. The Mad Gasser slung her to the ground, her head slapping a rock when she landed. Sadie looked up, dazed, as he leaned over her, a stem hovering in front of her mouth. It surged forward and slammed between her teeth, down the back of her throat, cutting off her screams.