Gil tells them that they were on the Wendigo’s part of the mountain, its territory, essentially. The first fools stumbled into its home trying to run from the law, running stupidly into the gorge that grandfathers had warned of entering since their people had come to the mountain. And now there was no escaping it. Now it would feast on them all.
Unwilling to accept their ends so quickly, Matt and Rocco group their meager supplies and make a half comfortable camp in their small ravine. Come afternoon they sneak gingerly back the way they’d come and find the site of the attack largely unchanged . . .
Except that the three bodies, counting Lance’s, are all missing.
After collecting William’s AK, now speckled with dried flecks of his blood—Bad fucking job, amigo, thinks Matt. Sorry it was our last—the two men rummage through the camp. Within minutes they find a duffel bag with a dozen MREs, a cooler stuffed with water bottles, an FN Ballista sniper rifle with scope and a quarter box of ammo . . . and two old school hand grenades. Matt thinks about the crate of HKs still sitting in William’s Escalade. He grins darkly, similar to what William may have done.
Oldies but goldies. These will do.
William’s Escalade and Lance’s beat up Ford sit less than a mile away, each having at least a quarter tank of gas. But Matt and Rocco won’t have any of that backing away from a fight shit. Hell no, not William The Beard’s Red Cap Clan. Death afore Submission, thank you kindly.
They return to camp with their goodies, but Gil is only excited for the water and MREs. He tells them weapons are useless against the demon Wendigo, and that their death is at hand. Then he stuffs his face full of freeze-dried chili and climbs into William’s tent to perform an orchestra of snoring and intestinal distress.
With nightfall comes the full force of the wind.
It rips at the trees of the mountainside, an unseen demon prying them apart to look for its hidden prey. It howls and screeches all around them, carrying voices of the damned which plead for their surrender in soft sultry tones one moment and then scream for their warm souls the next. Matt hears Lisa’s voice on the wind, begging him to join her in the sharp hellborn currents. Wrapping his pillow around his head does little to muffle the sound of the voices on the wind, but enough so that he doesn’t hear Rocco storm out of his tent and run to the crest of the next gorge.
Matt and Gil both hear the rattle and clatter of the AK as Rocco fires it into the hideous wind. They peek at him from the screened window flaps of their tents. A maelstrom surrounds the giant tattooed man, flinging sticks and debris across the cluttered forest floor. Rocco stands in the moonlight, pale and crazy and firing his gun in random directions as the wind whips around him. He screams, and Matt watches vicious wounds open all over Rocco’s flesh. The thug lets the AK slip from his blood-slick hands as he droops to his knees.
With one triumphant gust, the wind picks Rocco’s crumbling form up and takes it into the night sky. Matt and Gil listen to Rocco’s screams in the wind for the next few hours, making sleep nearly impossible.
The days and nights blur together in a wind-driven nightmare. Finally they run out of food; a day or two later they run out of water. The day after that, Matt watches Gil climb out of his tent at dusk, naked as the day he was born, with his black hair braided tightly behind his head. Matt says nothing as Gil looks at him, tears streaming down his filthy cheeks, and nods. He doesn’t say anything when the weakened man trips and falls and has to struggle to get back to his feet. He watches raptly, and silently, as Gil struggles up to the top of the hillside, only to be plucked upwards by a wind which singes the branches of the trees around him. Gil’s screams last a day and a half.
Matt sinks into his mind.
Detached. Cold. Distant. Over and over and over and over.
One day Matt emerges from his tent, naked from the waist up and oozing from deep, self-inflicted gashes. He holds his hands at his sides, a trembling grenade clenched in each bloody fist. A gentle breeze tickles at his fresh wounds as he chooses the ridge to sacrifice himself from. The horrible wind welcomes him, clearing his path of obstacles as it licks the blood from his wounds with burning tongues and assaults his senses with the reek of carrion and decay.
Matt’s mind is calm and blank, blissfully so as the Wendigo digs its unseen talons in and tears away its first bites with the breeze.
Detached. Cold. Distant.
Matt struggles on, the wind encouraging him and debasing him in turns. It cuts with teeth and words.
Detached. Cold. Distant. Just can’t wait to get the hell away from me, can you, Matt?
Matt reaches the peak and the wind engulfs him in a razor blade embrace as it pulls him into the air. It fills his ears with the screams of the damned and his sinuses with the rot of death.
Detached. Cold. Distant. I’m leaving now . . . I can’t fucking do this anymore.
Matt feels it feasting on him. His head flops to the side and he absentmindedly notices the scenery whipping by below.
Detached. Cold. Distant.
Matt’s body twitches as the Wendigo feasts, but he doesn’t scream. In fact, he smiles as he uses the last of his strength to demand his thumbs pluck the pins from the grenades.
Her words never cease as he rides the flaming winds all the way to Hell.
Jonathan MoOn is the strange bastard behind Worms in the Needle, Heinous, and Stories To Poke Your Eyes Out To, among several other terrible things. He eats souls, drinks whiskey, carries knives, and wears masks.
mrmoonblogs.blogspot.com
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Rogers let his head fall back. Broken glass scraped his neck and pate as if he were in the maw of some beast—but instead of hot, damp breath, there were tongues of cool air that moved ever so gently across his skin. It almost took his mind off the pain—which reminded him about the pain—and he balled a wet fist against the hole in his side.
Hammond lay in the aisle directly in front of him, surrounded by torn Frito-Lay bags. Blood had pooled around his entire body, and Rogers imagined the corpse would be epoxied to the floor by the time the meat wagon rolled in. Rogers didn’t want to know how badly he himself was bleeding. He was still lucid, and the throbbing wound was still white-hot—so that had to count for something. Maybe he’d still have a pint in him when somebody showed up. Maybe he’d make it.
He was seated against a half-shattered cooler door at the back of the store. He could smell beer and figured one or more of the bullets—perhaps the one that had punched through his midsection—had killed a 12-pack. Whoever owned this dump was going to hit the roof. Unless the cashier was the owner, in which case he wasn’t hitting anything ever again.
God, I’m gonna have to write all this up. The pettiness of the thought gave Rogers a bitter smile. Yep, I’ll make it. Because that’s how the luck of the Rogers clan works. I’ll drown in paperwork before blood.
Hammond, being between Rogers and the register, had gotten the worst of it. That went without saying, given his present condition. He’d probably saved Rogers’ life just by pausing to move a pack of Zingers someone had misplaced. Hammond always did shit like that. It was annoying. Hell, one time Rogers invited him over for dinner with Ellie, and he and the girls had alphabetized their bookshelf while the table was being set. Hammond would have made a good detective.
I hope Bollywood up there triggered the silent alarm while he still had a face.
It was dead quiet. Rogers realized his ears had been ringing all this time and had only now stopped. The pain was everywhere. Fuck. Things wouldn’t have gone down like this if the cashier hadn’t brandished that sawed-off. Why in the Christ had he done that with two beat cops standing right there to take care of it? The perp hadn’t even noticed them when he came barreling in; their cruiser was parked on the side street, and they could have married him to the floor before he even smelled bacon. But Bollywood wanted to be the hero. He had probably been the owner.
Rogers sucked air through grit
ted teeth. With his free hand—the one that wasn’t pressed against the hole—he made another try at grabbing the radio mic off his shoulder lapel, but the pain corkscrewed through his torso and his hand fell limp. His eyelids fluttered and he saw colors exploding as agony flowered; then it retreated into the wound. A dull throb now. Maybe better to slip his phone from his pocket and call the wife. Maybe it was that time.
He fished the phone out, noticing as he did that his pistol was lying on the floor in a pile of glass. He returned his attention to the phone. He had Ellie and the Belly set as his wallpaper. She was seven months along. They hadn’t settled on a name yet. Typical cop story; wouldn’t be a box-office hit if he didn’t kick the bucket. As his trembling fingers brushed the keypad, he tried to think of a good name. He wanted that to be the last thing he said.
Out of his line of sight, the front door opened.
Ding.
The phone fell into Rogers’ lap. He tried to straighten up and felt glass teeth nip the back of his neck. He tried to call out, but only a soft sigh emerged from his lips.
A boy who looked to be maybe twelve stepped into the aisle where Hammond lay. The boy was dressed in blue jeans and a striped shirt. Tiny horizontal strips of white, orange and red. Rogers’ vision began to swim, and the stripes scrolled up and down over the boy’s chest. Kid had a weathered red ball cap. His eyes were dark and they studied Hammond’s body with curiosity.
Rogers tried to speak again. The boy looked up at him, and, stepping over Hammond, approached.
The kid had a denim knapsack slung over one shoulder. One hand gripped the strap, and the other swung lazily at his side. Tufts of brown hair stuck out from under the red ball cap. He was looking at Rogers like the cop really was something out of a movie, or a video game. Goddamn kid’s face was blank as a . . . something or other. Rogers was running out of similes faster than blood (although that line wasn’t half-bad, he’d save that for the boys if he made it).
He set his jaw and tried to work his voice box. A wheeze, then a croak, passed his parted lips. Then he said, as steadily and clearly as he could manage, “Call 911.” After that, the air went out of him.
He pointed to the phone in his lap. The kid knelt, studying Ellie and the Belly. Pick it up, Rogers’ mind screamed. His eyes drilled a telepathic beam through the boy’s forehead.
The boy picked it up.
He put the phone in his pocket.
As he knelt to unclip Rogers’ mic from his shoulder and unplug it from the radio, the cop watched in a wondrous daze. He wanted to laugh, he really did. Little shit was robbing him. The last thing Rogers would see was this tiny smug-faced prick shoveling armfuls of chips into his backpack. This badge, so heavy on his chest now, was the cosmic goof he’d always suspected it to be. KICK ME, it may as well have said. They’d bury him in white gloves and black shoes shined for the first time in a decade.
The kid took the radio, too, dropping it next to Hammond before he knelt over the body. The kid rolled back his striped sleeve. Then something emerged.
Rogers didn’t want to believe it—but he had no choice, because it was happening. From a razor-thin slit in the boy’s forearm—from beneath pale flesh which now resembled tissue paper, like a sleeve itself—emerged a long, wet, gray mass of what looked like coiled spaghetti. The foul wormy thing slid out of the boy’s arm and touched down lightly on Hammond’s chest. The individual noodles, trembling gray appendages, separated from one another and drifted in the air over Hammond like . . . like tentacles, or maybe antennae . . . like they were sniffing around. And the boy’s face was calm and still.
He’s no boy, Jesus, you gotta know that. Rogers’ head bowed slightly as he nodded to himself. He pulled bloody knuckles across the tile, toward the holster on his hip.
No, no, the gun was over there! In the glass! Snap out of it, asshole. Somehow you know this is your only chance, your one shot. As long as he’s doing whatever he’s doing with Hammond—and let’s face it, you know what he’s doing. He’s doing what monsters do with corpses.
Rogers did know, but it still caused his murmuring heart to jump a little when the noodly things began sucking at Hammond’s wounds. The gray tendrils grew fat and pink and the boy’s face flushed.
Sweet Jesus. The gun, the gun!
There was a sound coming from the boy as he—it—fed. It did not sound like liquid being gulped into an empty bladder, as Rogers might have expected; it sounded like rain on dead leaves. The cop sensed that there was something in the boy that could never be nourished and that he just fed for feeding’s sake. Idle and bored, like any kid . . . in that sense, at least.
The boy detached from Hammond and looked back at Rogers. His eyes were wide now, and so dark. God, they were all-black.
Rogers managed, again, to speak.
“No.”
The boy came up so that he was standing at Rogers’ feet, and he knelt between them. The pink tentacles wavered over Rogers’ wound. The cop pressed his fist into that bullet hole until fireworks went off in his brain. Not my blood. Not getting mine.
The boy spoke. He spoke in a weird, terrible falsetto, as if his voice were being dubbed by an adult in a piss-poor imitation of a little boy.
“You’re an ugly treat,” the boy said, and frowned.
He knocked Rogers’ fist aside like a wet sock and the noodles lunged at the wound.
Rogers screamed as they struck home. The tentacles convulsed and went from pink to black in an instant. They convulsed again. What was this fucking thing doing to him? He could see now that the tendrils were quite translucent, and that the fluid rushing through them was going in, oh Christ Jesus, going into his wound.
Ellie.
His hand grabbed the boy’s shirt and the fabric snarled around his trembling fingers. With the last of his strength, he shook the dully-staring thing. “Fuck you. Stop. Stop.”
The kid smiled and withdrew.
And Rogers, who expected at that moment to die, did not.
As a matter of fact, he got up.
Life surged through his limbs and the pain faded from his wound, and he pushed himself to his feet with his eyes locked onto the boy he was about to kill. He bent quickly to snatch up his gun, and his finger was already pulling back on the trigger as he thrust the weapon forward.
Had the smiling thing in his sights. Right there. Right there!
His finger went numb. He couldn’t pull the trigger.
Rogers beat on his arm as the numbness spread, then took the gun in his other hand. It immediately lost all sensation, and the gun clattered on the floor.
He staggered towards the boy, who danced backwards to the register.
“Hobbled hobbling hob,” sang the kid in that hideous falsetto.
Movement made Rogers glance to his left. There was a big, round mirror affixed to the ceiling at the top of the last aisle to offer the cashier a bird’s-eye view of whichever minorities he stalked through his little piece of America. Rogers saw himself lurching over Hammond’s body, but no kid. Not exactly surprising. What surprised him was when he looked back down and the kid was actually gone.
“Shit. Shit!”
His first thought was that he had to get to the car and call it in. His second was that the kid’s black blood was in him now, and had healed him. The third was that it had also prevented him from firing the gun.
He retrieved his piece and went outside. The street was empty, the night sky a blank chalkboard. There must have been black clouds obscuring every star . . . or maybe the planet had just fallen into another dimension. Each seemed equally plausible at this point. Rogers rounded the corner onto the side street, and before he could say “no more surprises,” he saw the mangled wreck of the cruiser and howled.
Goddammit! Little fuck had thought of everything, hadn’t he? The radio in there was probably ripped apart. Rogers had to check, so he crept forward. He wondered how long the kid had been out here, slowly and silently warping the car into an optical illusion. Maybe he had
some telekinetic powers or magic or something. Rogers thought about the boy’s lack of a reflection and wondered if the boy would photograph. Needed his phone with its camera—
The kid had his phone. He had Ellie and the Belly. They weren’t ugly treats. Ellie was worn in places, sure—but Rogers knew and loved every one of them: her popping right elbow, the creases of her always-laughing eyes. Somehow he knew that the kid could see all these things now, too. Was that why he’d done what he did? Forget the phone . . . was that why he’d put himself into the cop? To get into Rogers’ head? To get his address?
He broke into a run. He didn’t know where he was going, he just ran.
Phone, asshole. Pay phone, bar, whatever, just call this in and get a black-and-white to the house!
“Officer?”
Rogers turned, his gun snapping up at the sound of the man. He fell into a firing stance, then ice flooded his veins as that familiar tingling crept into his fingers and they went dead.
The man stood at the mouth of the side street, observing the heap that had been the cruiser. His face was white and his eyes were black like the boy’s. They glittered as he looked from the car to Rogers.
“Did he touch you?” the man called.
Rogers let his arms drop. The man nodded at the unspoken answer.
“You’ll die soon if we don’t find him,” the man said. He was calm—way too calm—and it was no put-on. This character was all business.
“They’ll die, too,” he went on. “Whoever they are, they’ll die first. And once he doesn’t need you anymore he’ll take back what he’s given.”
Darkness Ad Infinitum Page 20
