by S H Cooper
“Nothing good has come from him, either, you delusional fuck wit.”
“Trust that He is guiding Matron Greer —”
“I trust that if you don’t at least tell me what’s waiting for us in Passit, I’m going to get in touch with the police and your school, maybe even a news station. You’re a librarian, aren’t you, Marcus? What would they think of a cultist educator being complicit in the kidnapping of a child? How much longer do you think you’d be welcome there?”
It wasn’t much of a threat. For the devout such as Marcus, their god often meant more to them their livelihood. I had a hunch, however, that Marcus believed he was meant to be at that school. He had access to young, impressionable minds, the kind that would eat up tales of Ibsilyth and a festering god-giant. Should he lose that connection and his standing in the community, would he still be so favored by Gorrorum?
“Faith —”
“I’ve got nothing to lose here, Marcus. If people think I’m crazy, that’s fine. I can leave any time I want, go back to my real life. You, though? Even if I was brushed off, the doubt would linger. People wouldn’t be quite so comfortable with you. You’d be ruined.”
He was breathing harder. His nose whistled. I waited.
“T’svotil,” I could hear the tight clench of his teeth as he spit the word out.
“What?”
“The Wicked Lure, the False Sight. He taints Gorrorum’s children, makes them see what they think they want or need. What isn’t there. He’s a vicious trickster. Whereas the Father offers truth, he offers nothing but sweetly painted lies and their doom.”
“And that’s what happened in Passit? This...T’svotil destroyed it?”
“He used them,” Marcus said bitterly. “They were meant to call Gorrorum forth, but...they were fools. And now they suffer. Anyone who goes to Passit suffers. You have to stay away from that place. You mustn’t fall victim to him like they did, Faith!”
“I won’t,” I promised. “Not to him or Gorrorum.”
Population: One
Marcus begged. He bargained. He reasoned. But after each new argument, I’d simply ask how to get to Passit again. I don’t know if my persistence or my calm aggravated him more. While he never raised his voice, I could hear the growing tightness in it. The way his teeth clenched and his lips stiffened so each word had to drag itself out from between them.
“I can call Mother Greer,” he insisted. “I can try and make her change her mind!”
We were far past that, however, and we both knew it. There was no going home after what she’d done.
I didn’t bother entertaining him with an answer. I just stood in the middle of my hotel room, fingers curled around my phone, chewing on the inside of my cheek to keep myself in check. Marcus’ breathing was quick and agitated in the silence. I imagined him, clad in a sweater-vest and khakis, pacing between rows of children’s books, red faced with frustration. Even if it wasn’t accurate, I did find the thought a little satisfying. He and his ilk had the upper hand so far and now, finally, the scales seemed to be tipping in my favor.
“I’ll text you directions,” he muttered at last. “But, Faith?”
“What?”
“Be careful.”
It was said so kindly. So genuinely. Marcus might not have been a good man, but I couldn’t say that he was a cruel one. Maybe that made him more dangerous.
“Just send me the directions,” I said shortly, and hung up.
I was out the door as soon as I got his text. It was better for me to go alone, I had decided, even as I kept telling myself how stupid I was being. No one knew where I was going, I had no supplies, and I was in a totally new place. It was chasing after the Daughter all over again! But going alone would be fastest. I could scout out the area myself first and bring Janice and Sasha back later, after I’d gotten an idea of just what we were getting into.
It’s only a recon mission, I thought as Okeechobee faded from my rear-view mirror. I won’t even get out of the car.
More farms, then more empty flatland, rolled by my window. The radio had gone to static and I switched it off, leaving the rushing wind as my only companion. My fingers drummed across the steering wheel in an anxious, erratic rhythm and I kept mouthing the name of the street I was looking for so I wouldn’t forget it. I must not have been going fast enough for the natives because cars bearing Florida plates kept whipping around me and speeding toward the sunset. More than one waved me off with a single finger salute. Only my fraying nerves kept me from responding in kind.
Even with my slow-going vigilance, I almost missed my turn. The road sign was bent backwards and away, like it had been hit by a car. Or, perhaps, someone had intentionally tried and failed to remove it.
I jerked the steering wheel and barely made the corner. Gravel kicked up beneath my tires and I leaned hard into the turn with a grunt. The road seemed to go on forever in front of me, cutting through untamed scrub landscape. The yellow lines dividing the lanes had long since faded to little more than dull smudges upon the pavement. Disuse of the road had led to disrepair, and its surface was pitted with cracks and potholes that jostled the car as I drove over them.
I didn’t pass anyone else going down that road. No one approached, no one turned down after me. I went on for almost a half-hour without seeing a single other soul. And it wasn’t just people that were absent. It was everything. No livestock in the fields, no birds wading through the shallow ditches half-filled with stagnant water. It occurred to me that I wasn’t even hearing the tell-tale plink, plink of insects splattering against the windshield.
The world had become empty and quiet.
Passit revealed itself in little ways at first. An abandoned truck, rusted and missing all of its windows, pulled off to one side of the road. It was pointed back toward the way I’d come from. A dilapidated mobile home rotting behind waves of high, golden grass. Discarded trash that had become shriveled and browned from a long time spent exposed to the elements.
And then a small sign.
Remnants of the blue it had once been still remained around the edges, but most of it had been bleached down to a forgotten off-white. The lettering, likewise, was so far gone that I had to pull over and squint at it to make sure I was in the right place.
Welcome to Passit, it assured me.
Just below that line, it read Population:. Someone had written “One” over the actual number in thick, heavy letters.
The town behind it had fared no better. It was beyond tired, an exhausted cluster of boxy, wooden houses and small stores. Leftovers from a time when stucco and cinder block hadn’t been the norm. Patchy shingled roofs and broken windows offered little protection from Mother Nature, which was slowly reclaiming the abandoned properties.
Ripples of nervousness became a current of apprehension sweeping through me as I crept down the street. The pulse in my throat throbbed uncomfortably against my seatbelt, until I felt like it might choke me. I tugged at it repeatedly and shifted in my seat, fidgety with tension.
A single stoplight hung in the center of town. The bulbs had all burned out, much like everything else around it, and it swung lazily on its wire with a grating squeak. I rolled to a stop just short of the intersection and looked both ways.
Off to the right, a cop car that had seen better, cleaner days was parked alongside the sidewalk in the shadow of single-story diner. I turned toward it and approached at a crawl.
The front window of the diner had been shattered, allowing me a clear view into the place. Tables and chairs were scattered and upturned. Whatever had hung on the wall when it was open had been torn down or ripped apart, leaving broken frames dangling precariously on their hooks. Dark stains mingled with the floral pattern of the remaining wallpaper.
Among the wreckage, sitting on a stool with his back to the street, was a police officer in a dark green uniform.
He had his elbows propped up on the counter, as if he’d just placed his order and was waiting for a waitress name
d Mabel or Annie to bring him his coffee. I watched him through the window, waiting for him to turn and acknowledge the idling car that had pulled up outside. He had to have heard it. But he didn’t budge. Not even a subtle tilt of his head to indicate something might have caught his attention. My insides squirmed with nervous warning.
Still, I called out to him, my foot poised and ready over the gas pedal. “Excuse me?”
Slowly, he turned on the stool.
His smile was pleasant. He appeared to be in mid-thirties, maybe early forties, with a crew cut and dark sunglasses tucked into the collar of his shirt. His uniform was creased and patchy with dirt, obviously unwashed. He’d been wearing it a while. There was a stiffness to him when he stood. I swallowed hard and fought the urge to stomp on the gas.
“Well, well,” he said, hooking his thumbs through his belt loop as he swaggered toward the diner’s door. “We don’t get many visitors all the way out here. You lost, darlin’?”
His words came out in a lazy drawl.
“No,” I replied, all too aware that he was closing the distance between us. “I’m actually looking for someone. Or, a few people, actually.”
“Oh yeah?” He was only steps away from the car now. A peculiar odor, not quite rotten, but old, dirty, came with him. “Not too many folks around these parts nowadays. I blame the highway. Takes them right past us.”
Even though the motion was neither swift or sudden, I jumped slightly when his hands came to rest on the open window of the passenger side door. The name tag over his breast pocket was taped over and the name “Andrew” was written on it.
“Have you seen an older woman with a young boy? His name is...” I trailed off as he lowered himself into a crouch beside the window.
“Why don’t you get out of the car, ma’am?” he asked, still pleasant. “We can have a chat inside.”
I recoiled in my seat. His eyes! They were clouded over, and in their pale depths, black, worm-like shakes wriggled and writhed. He grinned broadly, showcasing browned teeth. But as we stared at one another, eyes locked, that smile faltered.
“You’ve brought him,” he said quietly. “You…”He reared back, slamming his hands down upon the open window. He kicked the door, spun in an agitated circle, and kicked it again before pacing the length of the car, all the while alternating between high pitched giggles and muttering, “You brought him!”
As I reached down to shift the car into drive, Andrew leapt in front of it. Jagged lines of red ran down his face where he had raked his nails over his flesh.
“You brought him! Festering Father! Not welcome here, none of you! The believer’s blood draws close, but it shall not runneth over! This land is mine! Mine, mine, mine!”
He cackled deliriously, his arms thrown up over his head. And then he snatched the pistol from its holster on his hip. I screamed and threw the car into reverse. It lurched backwards. He waved at me with the gun and, still laughing, placed the muzzle against his temple, and pulled the trigger.
Black ooze spilled from the wound with a piercing screech. It pooled together to take the shape of some kind of worm and thrashed on the pavement, trying to escape Andrew’s ruined skull. And then it collapsed into convulsions before going still and separating again into a dark puddle.
I slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt in the middle of the intersection. For a long moment, trapped in a fog of shock, all I could do was sit there, fixated on the mess. I was frozen, my entire body trembling and my ears ringing with the ghost of that gunshot. Gradually, my senses returned, and I grabbed my head between both hands and leaned as far forward in my seat as I could.
“What the fuck, what the fuck,” I mumbled in a strained whisper, only half aware that I was rocking back and forth.
Had that been the creature, T’svotil, Marcus was talking about? It seemed unlikely. It had gone down too easily. I shuddered, recalling how it had stared in my eyes and cried that I’d “brought him”. It could somehow see Gorrorum, or at least a part of him, inside my head. I pressed the back of my hands against my mouth to quell the nausea that rose in the back of my throat.
Don’t think about it right now, I advised myself harshly. Find the kid first, then freak out.
If the “believer’s blood” was close, then the others were going to have to hurry.
After I managed to get my hyperventilating under control, I groped in the center console for my phone and dialed Janice’s number.
“Where are you?” she answered on the first ring in a near panic.
“Passit,” I replied quickly. “I found it. I’ll explain how later, but you and Sasha need to get out here now.”
“What? How? Where?” All of her questions seemed to come out at once.
“I’ll text you directions. I haven’t seen your mom or Ben yet, but,” I stopped myself from saying my first brush with a local hadn’t gone well. I didn’t need her getting any more worked up. “But if they’re not here yet, I definitely think they’re on their way.”
The Incubator
“What have you done?”
The furious howl tore through Passit’s silence only seconds after I’d sent Janice the directions. My car rocked sharply to one side, pushed so far that the driver’s side wheels left the pavement. A woman beat against my window with both fists, her face pressed against the glass. Black worms twisted in her clouded eyes.
“You brought him!” she shrieked, spittle flying from her lips.
The car fell back to the ground with a metallic groan. Before I could do anything but scream, she hauled herself up to the roof and jumped up and down, shouting that I wasn’t supposed to bring him. Dents appeared over my head and I sank down in my seat with a cry. She leapt down on to the hood and sent cracks spider-webbing across the windshield with a swing of her fist.
Her other hand clawed at her eyes.
Nails dug deep into sockets, puncturing the filmy orbs within. Thick ichor and streams of black stained her cheeks. She alternated between angry tears and hysterical laughter.
The car roared forward when I found the gas, and then stopped just as quickly when I hit the brakes. The woman flew from my hood, rolled a few times, and came to lay in the puddle left by Officer Andrew. I could still hear her growling and spitting curses as she tried to push herself up.
The thud she made beneath my wheels as I drove over her was sickening and satisfying. It was no less so when I backed up again.
The two of them, the people who weren’t human anymore, were crumpled on top of one another, limbs twisted and bent. Rivulets of black ooze trickled from her mouth and nostrils. Neither of them moved. I still ran them over one more time for good measure.
Breathing hard, I undid my seatbelt and, very slowly and cautiously, pushed open my door. A glint of silver had caught my eye the last time I’d driven over them, and I wanted it.
Officer Andrew’s gun had fallen from his hand after he’d shot himself and now lay in the dusty street. I circled the still pair, keeping a wide berth between us while I watched for signs of life. Even in death, it felt like their eyes followed me, accusing and hateful. But they stayed dead. Once I was mostly satisfied they weren’t merely pretending to lure me in, I dove for the gun and swept it up. For such a small weapon, the heaviness of it was surprising.
I turned it over in my hand, as if I could learn how to use it if I just studied it closely enough. Safeties were a thing, I knew, but given that Officer Andrew had just sunk a round into his skull, I was confident it was off. As for how many bullets were left, I couldn’t begin to guess. No amount of wrist flicks made the magazine slide out like in the movies, and I was too afraid of testing any of its little latches in case it all came apart. I’d just have to hope that good old Andy had kept more than one in the chamber.
I lifted the pistol and cupped the bottom of the grip, mirroring every cop stance I’d seen on TV. It shook unsteadily as I aimed it with squinting eyes and swept it slowly back and forth. It didn’t make the gun feel any more fa
miliar. I was glad to have it anyway. At least now I was armed.
A door creaked slowly open from somewhere in the diner.
I swiveled back toward the building, gun leading, and searched its shadowy innards with a tense grit of my teeth. Feeling overly exposed, I walked backwards around the car and took cover behind it, never once looking away from where I’d heard the sound.
Gradually, a young woman came creeping out from between the tables, one hand raised to shield her eyes from the weakening sunset. She was all bones and sharp angles held together beneath a thin layer of pale flesh. Except her belly, which protruded grotesquely from her skeletal frame. Each step was a labored one, unsteady and uncertain. The shuffling gait of a zombie. She stopped in the doorway, stared at the bodies, and then sagged against the frame with a softly uttered cry.
“Stay where you are,” I warned her firmly, taking courage from the skin-warmed steel pointed at her.
She lifted her face to me, her expression dim, and I took a long look at her eyes. Sunken and circled in dark rings, but clear.
“You’re…,” I started to say.
“Still me,” she finished.
“How?” I still hadn’t lowered the gun. Marcus had said that T’svotil was a great deceiver. I wasn’t taking chances.
She grimaced and rested her hands on her enormous stomach. “Because he didn’t need another drone.”
She turned, unconcerned with the pistol still trained upon her back, and dragged herself slowly to a chair. I waited until she’d sunk into it before leaving the protective barrier provided by the car and moving closer.
“A drone?” I asked, looking away from her only long enough to ensure the diner was otherwise empty.
“What they were,” she gestured feebly toward the bodies. “Hosts controlled by the parasite.”
“Then what are you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She looked down at her belly. As if in response, it twitched under her threadbare t-shirt.
