He returned to the forest a retrieved the ax. Ten minutes later he had four more spears.
Officer Tony Costantino was next.
He removed his uniform and split him in half with the ax. He put his groin and his legs on one spear and his torso and head on another. It was easier that way. Smaller pieces were easier to work with.
He found little Mandy in the backseat of Mr. Burton’s car.
He stripped her naked, chopped off her head, and placed it on a spear. He slid her twelve-year-old body onto a different spear, upside down. The stake entered the stump of her neck, traveled through her lungs and intestines and exited the place she was saving for her wedding day. Her arms hung straight down. Her legs were opened in a ‘Y’.
He did the baby’s next, impaling her mouth first. After he was done with the baby he impaled the child’s mother on the same spike.
An hour and fifty minutes later he was done. He had twelve bodies skewered across fifteen sticks. The sixteenth stick was in his hand.
Covered in dirt and blood, he walked.
He walked away from the dead bodies, the abandoned vehicles, the bloodstained road. He walked away from the spikes and the clothing, which he left lying carelessly on the ground. He walked––not towards Nicolas Nehalem, Daniel McGee, and Patrick Love, not towards the pit in Daniel’s basement. He walked towards town.
For the first twenty minutes he saw nothing but the moon in the sky, its glare upon the road, the fields at his sides. He listened to the earth crunching beneath his feet and the insects in the grass. He didn’t know what the sounds were, or what they meant, or where they came from. They just were.
A row of houses came into view on the left side of the road. A row of houses came into view on the right. He walked past them, towards St. Peter’s cemetery. He saw the church that sat next to it. And like all small-town churches, it looked abandoned in the darkness. He couldn’t see the windmill or the wooden bridge that sat behind the graveyard; the night was too dark for that. But he could see the fence that surrounded the necropolis, an outline of the forest in the distance, and the one thing that his eyes were focused on––
Light.
The light was glowing dimly, not from any of the houses that were lined up in a neat little row, and not from inside the church. The light was coming from the humble residence that sat beside the church: Father Galloway’s place.
Kyle stumbled towards the light with his body cooling. One hand was raised and one hand hung limp. He looked at the cross sitting high upon the tall steeple, the sea of tombstones, the scattered trees. His thin, dry lips pressed together. A crow flew overhead. Looking at it, he tightened his grip on the spear.
His mind was consumed with hunger and rage.
3
Father Mort Galloway opened his eyes, staggered out of bed and lifted his housecoat from an antique hook. The housecoat was white. The hook was made of wood.
He put the housecoat on and yawned.
On his way to the bathroom he flicked several light switches. After a squirt and a flush he wandered into the kitchen. He poured a drink of water, swallowed it down, and wiped his mouth with his hand.
On the wall was a crucifix. He looked at it and looked away.
With his dehydration somewhat relieved, he opened the cupboard beneath the sink, removed a half-empty bottle of gin, unscrewed the cap and poured himself a shot. Not a big shot; just a small one, a mouthful. He only wanted to wet his whistle, nothing more.
He drank the gin straight, squinting his eyes as it went down his throat. His chest burned. He looked at the crucifix again, took a deep breath and poured another shot, lying to himself about quitting his nasty habit: I can quit. It won’t be hard.
He swallowed the shot and poured a third.
Then he heard a dull THUUMP, THUUMP on the door.
He sat the glass on the counter, next to several candles and a vase full of flowers. He wiped his lips with his hand and walked towards the sound, not wanting to open the door. After all, he had been drinking––not much, but some. And that was no way for a Catholic priest to present himself. He was a man of God, not a sales rep from Budweiser. In a town like Cloven Rock these things mattered.
But then, doesn’t a man of God help a brother in need?
A hymn:
When I was hungry you gave to eat,
When I was thirsty you gave me to drink,
Now enter into the home of my father...
Damn, he thought. I need to open that door.
He certainly didn’t want to open it, didn’t want to do anything but swallow another shot or two of London Dry, crawl under the covers and wait for morning. Besides, it was late. Real late. Who comes knocking at this hour?
Someone in need, he thought. Now enter into the home of my father.
THUUMP.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’m coming.”
He scooted into his bedroom and threw on a pair of pants and a shirt. Then he returned to the door, unlocked it and opened it up.
“Hellooooo––”
Father Galloway’s eyes widened and color drained from his face.
Kyle Van Ryan was there, dead but not dead, blood pumping in reverse. His shoulders and neck was gnarled; the blood on his shirt was soaking. His eyes shimmered and glowed like a cat caught in the headlights while his nose sniffed the air like a dog.
He grinned; he growled.
He dropped the spear and attacked.
Father Mort Galloway stepped back and Kyle was on him, grabbing his shoulders with his hands. They crashed against the floor. A statuette of the Virgin Mary fell from a shelf and snapped into three pieces. Kyle slammed a palm beneath the priest’s chin, causing his teeth to smash together. A little section of Galloway’s tongue was chomped off and pain shot through his body. His eyes bulged. His nostrils flared.
Kyle chewed a chunk from Galloway’s neck while clawing at his face.
Galloway tried to push the attacker away and dispute the situation. “Son,” he begged, “Son!” Blood ran into his throat. “Stop it! Stop this!”
Kyle lifted a clawed hand, straightened and flexed his index finger, and rammed the finger into Galloway’s bugling eye.
“Son!”
The conversation ended with a scream. Galloway swung his arms madly while kicking his heels against the dark hardwood floor. He thrashed his head left and right. Little spots of red speckled the freshly painted walls around him. A painting of St. Christopher slipped from the wall and smashed against the floor.
Kyle’s finger slid free from the man’s eye socket. A long, glimmering stringer clung to his nail. He raised his hand up, flexed his muscles and stabbed the same finger into the same eye again. It went in easy; the cherry had already been popped.
Galloway convulsed. Blood drained from his nose. Legs shook and hands slapped at nothing.
Kyle wedged a second finger inside Galloway’s skull, scratching a hole in his brain. It almost seemed like he was trying to dig a path to the other side. He scooped a scrap from inside Galloway’s head and a piece of meat rolled free. He pulled his hand away and licked his finger’s ravenously.
Galloway twitched twice more. Blood poured from his eye socket, his nose, and from one of his ears.
Kyle bit into the priest’s neck again, feeding.
Feeding.
4
Father Galloway sat up. There was a blank spot in his memory. He remembered getting up from bed and having a glass of water. He remembered pouring a shot of gin and hearing a knock at the door. He remembered being attacked and then, and then––
He wasn’t sure.
The blank spot was big enough to park a bus in.
Galloway looked at his hands; blood poured from his skull to his palms. He licked what was left of his lips and grunted. He tasted blood and forced himself to his feet. Chunks of his brain and mush from his eye rolled down his face. He didn’t notice, nor did he care. All that had happened was in the past, and the past seemed pointless now.
Previous thoughts and beliefs didn’t matter. Religion didn’t matter. His church didn’t matter. His dwindling congregation and the community it represented mattered even less.
All that mattered was feeding.
But no, he quickly realized. That wasn’t true.
What mattered wasn’t feeding but following the command of the Master. He was no longer the shepherd; he was among the flock. He knew the Master’s needs even if he didn’t understand the Master’s plan. He knew the Master’s order even though the Master remained a mystery. It was the town that mattered. Old Testament judgment was being forged in Cloven Rock. The people were to be divided. Some would be executed while others would be given a seat at the Master’s table. Some would feed; others would be fed.
Eternal life: he preached about it but never understood the meaning. Now he knew; now he understood. Eternal life also meant eternal death. He would live inside his corpse, blood flowing in reverse, following the will of the Master, a servant of the damned.
Galloway stepped outside with half his face hanging from his skull and bite marks in his neck. He sniffed the air like a wolf.
There was a row of seven houses to his right, a cemetery to his left. He walked away from his home, along the great wall of St. Peter’s church, across the parking lot and onto the lawn. He made for the houses.
The houses were dark, except one. In one the lights were on.
He heard a family screaming and a young girl crying. He heard a glass shatter and something heavy hit the floor. A bright light appeared behind one of the windows. Something might have been on fire. And as Galloway walked past the house, he saw Kyle Van Ryan inside, strangling a child.
Dragging his feet against the road, he walked to Leanne Wakefield’s house. He entered her backyard and stood by the pool.
He thought about Leanne a lot before the blank spot, which was growing bigger and deeper and somehow more relevant. He thought about her while he watched X-rated movies and drank himself sick with gin. The tight little shirts she wore to mass always looked so good. With her nipples peeking through the fabric and her lips painted red, she was the girl of his dreams. He wanted to eat her up.
He licked his lips.
Of course, him thinking this way didn’t matter.
The Master’s desire mattered now.
Galloway lifted a large stone from Leanne’s garden and hurled it towards a bedroom window. The Master’s desire shall be done.
CRAAAA––
5
––AAASSSSH
Leanne Wakefield flinched; her eyes opened.
“I’m up Simon,” she said, slurring her words and licking the dryness from her lips. “I’m up.”
But Simon wasn’t there; he was dead and gone.
Simon drowned in the backyard pool two summers ago; Leanne had been sleeping alone ever since. She mumbled her late husband’s name one last time, extended an arm and clicked the nightlight beside her bed. The light came on; it was bright, so very bright. Didn’t matter. Even in her weary and lethargic state she knew something happened. So she sat up, put her feet on the floor and sighed. She had to deal with it… whatever it was.
“Is someone here?” she said, lifting her eyebrows rather than her eyes.
Being more awake, she realized the bedroom window was broken. There was glass on the floor, in the drapes, on a plant and inside several pairs of shoes.
Someone broke the Goddamn window, she thought angrily, rubbing a knuckle into her eye. But maybe it wasn’t a ‘somebody’. Might have been a bird, right?
She exhaled a deep breath.
No. It was a somebody. Not a bird. No bird could have done such damage, and if it did, where was it? Why wasn’t it flying around or wounded on the floor?
She looked into the heart of the mess. No bird. But a rock peeked out from beneath her bed.
She stood up, naked except for her tiny underwear. She didn’t care. She wasn’t an exhibitionist but it had been so long since anyone had seen her body she felt like it was going to waste. And she had nice curves; she was lean and attractive and worth taking a look at. She knew this, even if she was the only one that did.
Leanne put an arm across her chest, walked to the window and looked into her yard. A slight breeze gave her a shiver and made her nipples erect.
A man stood by the pool. His head was down and his shoulders were slumped.
She didn’t know who the man was; it was too dark to see.
Stepping away from the window, she lifted a blouse off the dresser and slipped it on. Then she returned to the window and let her emotions shine.
“Hey!” she said, with a cracking voice. She looked older when she was angry; the lines in her forehead changed her from thirty-seven to fifty in a heartbeat. “Whatcha doing in my backyard? Get away from here! Did you break my window? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Father Galloway snapped his tattered head towards her and growled. His single eye grew wide and blood dribbled from the remains of his chin. He lifted his hands, extended his arms, and shuffled towards the broken window. Chucks of his scalp hung loosely over one ear, flopping up and down as he moved.
Leanne, shocked, stepped away from the window.
A long sliver of glass dug into her heel. She let out a squeal and fell onto her bed. The pain was excruciating but her mind was elsewhere.
She recognized that man: it was Galloway.
What the fuck was going on?
Suddenly the priest was at the window, screaming like a lunatic. He slammed his forehead into the broken glass. Blood splashed. He raised his arms over his head and thrashed about like Kermit the Frog introducing a guest. Rage. He seemed to be filled with it. He smashed the window with his left hand. His smashed the window with his right. A chunk of glass fell to the floor. A layer of skin fell from his face and slid down his chest.
Leanne Wakefield hadn’t released a good-sized scream yet but she could feel one crawling around her throat, ready to be set free. She had to get away from this man, this thing––if she didn’t get away she would scream, and once she did she might not ever stop.
She tried to stand.
The shard of glass dug into her body deeper now than before. She sat back down. Another squeal escaped, this one, louder than her first.
Don’t scream, she thought, biting back her fears. Don’t scream, or it’ll be over for sure!
Still sitting on the bed, she looked at her foot and the growing puddle of blood beneath it. She eyed her wound and did a quick examination.
The bad news: she had a big hunk of glass hanging from her heel.
The good news: it would be easy to pull out.
Galloway tried to crawl through the opening but he couldn’t do it; the broken glass was none too kind. It ripped his body apart. His arms were shredded now. His throat was cut. Three fingers were broken and blood poured from him generously.
Leanne grabbed the chunk of glass between her thumb and her index finger, closed her eyes and yanked it free. She let out a quick yelp and stood up, conscious of the mess on the floor.
The priest became more excited. He smashed his broken fingers against his mangled face. He smashed his mangled face against the side of the house. Then in his seemingly exaggerated aggravation––he bit a HUGE piece of meat from his own arm. A mouthful.
Now Leanne did scream. She did. She couldn’t help it.
And when she figured things couldn’t get worse, Kyle Van Ryan showed up at the window, next to Galloway, looking like death, eyes glowing red, with someone else’s brains smeared across his face, smoldering fire in his hair, snapping his teeth like a caged hyena at feeding time, smashing his fists against the windowpane.
Galloway turned towards the gruesome fireman and hissed. He pounded Kyle with an open hand and ripped a chunk of smoking hair from his head.
With a snort and a growl Kyle grabbed the loose flap of scalp that hung from Galloway’s head. He tore it off and stuffed it in his mouth like cake.
Galloway shri
eked and spat and pounded Kyle in the face with a broken-finger fist. He growled like he had forgotten how to speak.
Leanne closed her eyes.
Her shoulders were high, her muscles were tense and her fingers were balled into fists. Blood drained from her foot. Her teeth clamped her bottom lip; one eyebrow was raised higher than the other. On top of it all, her hair was a complete mess. In short, she looked like horrified shit.
“I have to get out of here,” she said.
She turned away from the zombies, walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and sat on a bench. Yes, she walked. She didn’t run and she didn’t jog. She was trying to keep her composure. But it was hard; her poise was clearly slipping.
Sitting on the bench in her front hall, she put her shoes on.
“Easy,” she said. She took a very large breath and cleared her throat. “Just take it easy, Lee. Stay calm. Don’t panic and everything will turn out just fine.”
She stood up, opened the front door and stepped outside.
It was the biggest mistake of her life.
6
The house beside Leanne’s place had its lights on. So did several other houses. She figured her neighbors heard screaming and called the cops. That was good. Cops were good. A little bit of law enforcement was exactly what the situation needed.
She hustled across her yard and onto her neighbor’s porch. Only then did she realize she had no pants on. Thankfully she did have underwear. She considered going back home. Then she dismissed the idea, opened her neighbor’s front door without knocking, and stepped inside.
The foyer was smoky; there was a fire somewhere in the house.
She said, “Hey Tabby? You here? Is anyone here?”
Then she heard a growl.
Her neighbor, Tabitha Smith––owner and operator of Tabby’s Goodies––came running out of the haze; she was naked, with one arm ripped off, her skull cracked open, and teeth that resembled a bear-trap.
Terror Town Page 25
