by S H Cooper
“Are there more of them here, in our world?” she asked. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
“Yeah. At least three that I know of back in Pennsylvania. I’ve, uh, had a few run-ins with them.”
Ben had cried himself to sleep and I let my hands fall back to my sides. Sasha rocked him gently, her face tilted toward the stars.
“Go back to the motel,” she said.
“What?”
“Go back and wait for me.”
“I can’t just leave. We have to call the cops and —”
“Janice and I will. It’ll be hard enough explaining how we got here and what happened to Nina and her mom. You aren’t tied here like we are.”
“I paid for Janice’s flight. I’m tied to her.”
“The last anyone saw, she and I were together. You weren’t with us. Nobody knows that you were here, and nobody needs to know. Go back to the motel, clean up, pack your shit, and wait for me.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to take me to Pennsylvania, and we’re going to make those assholes pay for what happened to Nina.”
Arguing with Sasha was an impossible feat. She didn’t want to hear my warnings, she dismissed my concerns, she wouldn’t listen to any attempts to reason with her. A steeliness has settled over her, drawn across her face in a dozen little lines that connected to form a formidable mask. I relented when Janice appeared in the hole Sasha had left in the church, red drops splattered across her front. She made it only a few steps before crumbling into a hysterical heap upon the ground.
Sasha stopped me from going to her with an outstretched arm. “I’ll take care of her and call the cops. Get out of here.”
“You don’t know what you’re walking into, Sasha,” I said, my final attempt at stopping her.
“You’ll have a whole flight to fill me in.”
I considered leaving both of them in Florida and going north alone. I thought about it the whole drive back to the motel in my clunking, rattling rental, and while I stood listlessly in the shower, turned up as hot as it would go, and as I scrubbed the gore from my clothing in the bathroom sink.
I was still thinking of it hours later, when the sunrise had turned the sky to fire and I was sitting on the end of my unused bed, luggage packed at my feet. But I made no move to open my laptop or purchase a solo one-way ticket. Because the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to follow through with Sasha’s plan. The vengeance I’d craved for so long had resurfaced as a furious, starved beast, stoked by a twin ember burning for the same. And this time, I was going to feed it.
I knew that the Daughters could be hurt. The flare had proven that much. I had been so worried about drawing attention or leaving a paper trail, but that seemed so petty now. Gorrorum and his kind had spilled so much blood, caused so much pain. It was time to return the favor.
The eager fervor I worked myself into was stalled by the continued absence of my would-be accomplice. At some point in the mid-morning, I lied down for what should have been only a moment of shut eye. But I was more tired than I’d realized, and a deep sleep washed over me.
The winds of Ibsilyth lashed against me, stinging my eyes and stealing my breath. Its relentless scream and the ceaseless whispers vibrated down to my teeth. The smell that surrounded me was unlike any I’d ever encountered. Fetid. Rotten. Death. I braced myself, arms raised to shield my face, but the suffocating gale drove me backward. I squinted against it, trying to make sense of where I was. I yelped and had to sidestep a few slug-like beings as they rolled by my feet, propelled helplessly by the wind without sound or sign of protest. I half-turned to watch them flop across the jagged ground, toward a mountainous mass of flesh, mottled and broken with weeping pustules. As soon as they made contact with the mass, their bulbous forms began to dissolve into its slimy surface and sink into its stinking depths.
In muted horror, I craned my neck to look up and up and up, and from high against the raging sky, a face of a thousand eyes stared back.
I was torn from Gorrorum’s gaze by Sasha violently shaking me awake. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, distress furrowed deeply into her brow.
“What’s wrong?” I grabbed her wrists, my heart skipping. “Where’s Janice? What time is it?”
“Just past eleven. She’s been put up in a hotel with Ben,” she said. “They can’t leave until the DA figures out if Josie’s death was self-defense or not, but they’re safe. An aunt or someone is flying down to be with them. I wasn’t allowed to see them again after I was released. We’ll have to wait until she’s cleared before we can call.” She tilted her head slightly and frowned. “But what about you? It took forever to wake you up!”
I let her go and fell back against the pillows, my palm pressed to my forehead. “Nightmare.”
That wasn’t the right word for it. It was too real. I could still smell the festering giant and feel the grit buffeting against my skin. Sasha eyed me critically until I sat up.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Long day with the cops. It’s a mess. I’m free to leave, but they’re going to contact the authorities back home for more questioning.” Her tone dropped slightly and a sad smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Nina will be sent home after they do an autopsy. They think she was kidnapped by the couple that was found with her. None of them knew anything about Passit.”
In the heavy silence that followed, I took her hand and squeezed it tight. She returned it and then wiped her eyes.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
The airport rental agent’s jaw dropped when he saw the state of my car. He stammered and pointed at it with the tip of his pen, but I just dropped the keys on his clipboard and kept moving.
“Accident,” I said over my shoulder. “You have my insurance info.”
Sasha and I met up again at the ticket counter and purchased seats on the next flight heading to Wilkes-Barre. In the few hours we had to kill before we took off, we huddled with our heads together and I filled her in on everything I knew about the ungodly ones, starting with my father’s death. By the time I finished, she looked very much like I probably had that first night after I’d gotten all of Edna Boltson’s research.
“This is…”
“Insane?” I suggested.
“That’s a word for it, yeah.” She leaned forward in her seat, elbows on her knees and head resting in her hands. “If I overheard us, I would think we were off our meds or something.”
“I know.”
She stared at the ground and I pretended not to notice how glassy her eyes had become. “Why Nina? She was good. Like, truly, genuinely good. All she wanted to do was help animals and live in some small town where she knew everyone on a first name basis. Out of everyone in this whole fucked up world, why her?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I almost told her what Nina had said about T’svotil recognizing her desperation for something new and reaching out because of it, but stopped myself. As far as Sasha was aware, I had never met her sister.
“I had to tell our parents over the phone,” she continued with a humorless scoff. “Dad thanked me at the end. Mom was screaming in the background. He was crying. But he thanked me, like I’d done them some kind of favor. How weird is that?”
“You brought her home,” I said softly. “That means something. None of you have to wonder anymore.”
I knew what the wondering did to people. The sleepless nights, the heated arguments, the way they break when that last thread of hope finally snaps. It took Grandma the longest to accept that my dad was dead. Without a body, she could almost convince herself he’d survived whatever had happened on the mountain. She’d run through every soap opera cliché to explain why he hadn’t come home: he had amnesia, he was in a coma, he was in hiding due to his disfigured face. The day she finally faced the adult version of the truth, that it had been an animal attack, I watched Dad die all over again in her eyes.
“They can be killed,
right?”
“Huh?” I reburied the image of my grandmother standing over an empty grave and returned to the present.
“The Daughters. They’re killable?”
“They’re flammable, at the very least, so I’m assuming so. I shot one with a flare, it seemed to do some damage.”
Sasha nodded slowly. “Good. But I don’t want to just ‘do some damage’. I want to destroy them. Any ideas on how we can get that done?”
“A few. Most involve some big guns and lots of ammo.”
“Which you just happen to have lying around your house?”
I looked up at the board listing our destination and flight time, only minutes away, and allowed a weary smile to touch my lips. “We’re going to Pennsylvania, Sasha. All we gotta do is show up at any old gun store with some ID and a credit card.”
Desk attendants had appeared at the gate and were leisurely preparing to start loading the plane. Eager travelers gathered nearby, as if proximity would make their row number be called any sooner. Sasha and I remained seated, our boarding passes in hand. As the first class and gold members were welcomed through their exclusive lines, Sasha smirked coldly at me.
“You know,” she said, “I think I’m going to like Pennsylvania.”
Daughter to Daughter
Sasha and I made only one stop on our way to Conroy after landing in the northeast. The gun shop was a huge, square gallery inhabited by every type of firearm imaginable. While Sasha waited in the car, I walked in with sweating palms and the certainty that the nice bearded man behind the counter would instinctively suspect something was amiss and turn me away.
“What’re you looking for?” he asked personably. No squinting side-eyes or long stare downs. Yet.
“Shotguns. 12-gauge, basic pump action, nothing fancy. And buckshot.” I rattled off the agreed upon list Sasha and I made after some cursory Googling on the drive over.
The man nodded, unperturbed. “Alrighty. Big plans for the weekend?”
“No, just finally getting around to setting up a little home protection.” Some of the tension eased out of my shoulders at his continued casual pose, loosely crossed arms and an inquisitive head tilt.
“Well, a shotgun will give you that. You rack that thing once and anyone with half a brain will be running the other way.”
He showed me to the wall display and started down the line, discussing the pros and cons of each model.
I interrupted him as politely as I could with my only real criteria. “Which is the easiest to use?”
A little over an hour later, I walked out with a pair of Mossbergs, a new flare gun, and a slew of shells in tow. Sasha twisted in her seat and quirked a brow as I loaded my haul into the trunk.
“That was simple,” she said with some skepticism.
“I told you: a little paperwork, instant background check, and a credit card. You’re in hunting country now.” I slammed the trunk shut and got into the driver’s seat. “Here, we’re going to need these.”
I handed off the earplugs that the sales clerk instructed me to buy, the kind connected by a cord to make them harder to lose, and turned the key in the ignition.
The sun had set over Conroy by the time we rolled into the motel parking lot where I still had my room. White Crow Mountain peered down at us from the east, a dispassionate host to our arrival. I pointed it out to Sasha while we emptied the car.
“That’s it,” I said, gesturing with the tip of shotgun case.
“So close.” She paused with her bag halfway hoisted to her shoulder. “You sure you don’t just wanna go set the whole thing on fire right now?”
“Tempting, but I’m not feeling quite stupid enough to go after them at night. Come on, the room’s this way.”
Thirty-six sleepless hours caught up with Sasha as soon as her head hit the pillow. She’d barely managed to kick off her shoes before the snoring began. While she slept, I took out my laptop and earbuds to watch every tutorial I could find about our new purchases. It was a welcome distraction from the apprehension that had wound itself so tightly around my nerves, bringing with it echoes of my father’s screams and the faint smell of earth and decay. Unconsciously, I touched my side where the faded bruises from the Daughter’s grip were still visible. A shudder rolled down my shoulders and I shook it away, once more turning to the internet to fill my mind in place of memories.
Sleep snuck up on me sometime after midnight. I dozed off, slumped over the table, to a video of a man with a white mustache shooting watermelons.
No nightmarescape awaited me that night. Only a deep sea of black and voices that rose and fell like distant waves. Their whispers were harsh, probing, stretching through the nothing, trying to find a way to wrap themselves around me and crawl inside. But on I floated, always aware of them, but never within reach.
An ache in my neck disturbed the calm waters of my rest, then a twinge in my back. Shifting in an attempt to get more comfortable just made it worse, and the last of my sleep evaporated. I peeled open one eye to a row of lettered keys pressed against my cheek. After a whining groan, I sat up, half of my face numb and indented with ridges from a night spent on the keyboard. Despite the rusty stiffness in my joints, it was the best night’s sleep I’d had in a while. I wasn’t sure why it had been so different until I tugged my earbuds out.
The backs of them were coated in a dried, waxy substance. The Fingers had visited, but failed in their mission. I doubted keeping my ears blocked was a long-term solution, but for one night, I had managed to keep them out.
With a triumphant scoff, I tossed the buds down and stretched. The clock on the bedside table read 8:04. Sasha was already up and showering in the bathroom, so I threw on a change of clothes, jeans and an old tee beneath my jacket, and practiced loading and unloading each of the shotguns while I waited.
Neither of us spoke much when Sasha emerged. The air felt weighted, our movements mechanical. My thoughts were at once racing and empty, just a constant meaningless whistle spurred by a hundred emotions vying for control.
“You want breakfast?” Sasha asked. She was sitting on the end of the bed in my borrowed red sweater, tying her shoes.
“No,” I replied, resting a hand on my jumbled stomach. “I think I’d puke if I tried to eat.”
“Same,” she agreed, eyes turned toward the floor.
We sank back into ourselves, torn between the excited need for vengeance and the reality of what lay before us. I glanced at the shotgun lying on the small table, seven shells lined up beside it.
“You don’t have to come,” I said softly.
The bed squeaked. Sasha was stuffing her clothes from the day before in her bag with a nervous jerkiness. “And miss out on all the fun? Go fuck yourself.”
“Fine.” The relief that had made its way into my voice surprised even me. But I couldn’t deny I was glad not to be facing this alone anymore. “Then let me show you how to use this thing before we go.”
Sasha was a quick study with a shotgun. Her fingers were steady as she chambered the rounds and held it against her shoulder. Once she felt confident, she tucked it back into its case and swept a hand toward the door.
“Daylight’s burning. Let’s get going.”
It was a clear, crisp day outside, already bright. Perfect autumn weather. We drove with our windows down, the radio on but unlistened to while we figured out our next step.
“They’ve seen you, they know you’re a threat,” Sasha reasoned.
“It’s too dangerous!”
“You’ll be nearby, just off the path. I can lure one of them out and then,” she mimicked a gun with her index finger and thumb, “boom.”
“They’re fast,” I countered.
“So we better be faster. Look, I’ll be armed. They won’t get near me. And if they do? I hope you’re a good shot.”
“We should just stick together.”
Sasha’s nerves had eaten away at her willingness to compromise. “Do you want them dead or do you just w
ant to keep talking about it?”
I exhaled heavily, fingers flexing around the steering wheel, her flinty gaze boring into the side of my head.
“Alright, alright!” I gave in unhappily. “You walk the trail, I’ll follow from the woods. Just, don’t hesitate, ok? If one’s coming for you.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” she said, pulling against her seatbelt to gaze through the windshield at the mountain ahead. “After what they did to Nina, they’re lucky we don’t have more bullets.”
A damp chill enshrouded the base of White Crow. I shivered, zipping my jacket up to my neck, but Sasha stepped welcomingly into the brisk breeze. We gathered the guns, filled our pockets with as much extra ammo as we could fit, and I tucked the flare gun into my waistband against the small of my back. Together, we turned to face the trail, a thin slice of dirt cutting through dense forest. She took my hand tightly and we stood in the morning sun for a moment longer, two almost-strangers, joined by our hurt and loss and the desire to destroy everything that had caused it.
“Be careful,” I said.
“You too.”
There was nothing left to say.
We put our earplugs in and parted, her taking the well-trodden path and me hiking parallel through underbrush. I maintained my distance, picking my steps carefully, moving as quietly as the woods allowed. Sasha remained in sight, although it was only in brief glimpses of blonde and red through trees. It was easy to keep track of her, though. She moved with all the grace of a drunken sailor, belting out a horribly off-key song, thankfully muffled by the earplugs, just as loudly. A serenade for the Daughters.
I studied the ground around her, looking for the telltale slash of white against the leaves, but the blanket of fallen foliage remained unbroken.
After some miles, Sasha’s singing dwindled to a dreary hum and she kept turning toward me, her expression thinner each time, until I waved for her to take a break. She lowered herself with a wince against the nearest tree, her legs stretched out in front of her. I did the same, staying in line of sight with Sasha, and took one of the plugs out, letting it dangle from its cord around my neck.
