Severed

by Corey Brown

  “Unlike those in the physical world,” T’biah says. “There is no afterlife for me. This is it. There is nothing else. And, just like me, once slain, demons cease to exist. They vanish. And believe me, the Master’s workforce is thorough, I doubt they left even one alive. If I had to guess, Abaddon has precious few servants left.”

  “I do feel something,” Suzanne says. “But what is it?”

  “You and I are keeping him alive,” David says.

  A pained smile comes over T'biah’s face and he says, “Like I said before, when we were up against the twin, coming here was my last choice. Like all those demons, I will soon cease to exist.”

  David looks at T'biah closely. “Only our spirits, our life-force sustains you.”

  “Well,” T’biah says. “Not quite. There are others.”

  “Others?” Suzanne says.

  Before T’biah can respond, David points to something low in the sky. “Isn’t that…” He frowns. “What is that?”

  Both Suzanne and T’biah turn to look. Suzanne squints trying to understand what she is seeing but T’biah sees it all too clearly. He had suspected something like this when the Yaw never arrived, even before that when, on his way to Myth, he’d seen the pit of hell spilled out across the universe like oozing black paint.

  Hanging just above the horizon is a semi-circle of inky blackness. Fuzzy at the edges, but in the center is the brown-gray outline of a church. From this single vantage point, they can see all around the building, inside it, above and below. On three sides, they see three policemen running toward the front, running toward a small group of people standing near an ambulance.

  From above, they can see the building is missing a section of tin roof but below, far beneath the soil, beneath the roots of trees and bushes is a huge, mercurial machine from which giant chains stretch out in every direction. The chains connect to millions, perhaps billions, of creatures, all of who are slowly being drawn and quartered.

  Inside the church, there is a pulsating, bestial wall of energy that seems to be both contained by the structure and stretch beyond it to the very edges of the Stygian semi-circle.

  Suzanne blinks, rubs her eyes, trying to get her mind around a sight that violates the way her three dimensional mind perceives things.

  “What is that?” Suzanne says.

  Now T’biah is frowning. He feels something, knows it is happening, but still cannot quite understand. “Well,” he says, slowly, “I think you are about to experience something amazing.”

  «»

  Derek is standing to one side, holding the door open for Todd. In the corner of his eye the Yaw looms, poised to rip Derek’s life completely from him. Derek wants to go out first. He wants to sprint outside screaming for anyone with a gun to open fire. But he checks that emotion, shoves it down by force of will, and waits for Todd to carry Cody outside.

  Still cradling Cody like a baby, Todd ducks to avoid cracking his head on the top of the doorjamb. Derek sees Todd twist sideways to let the doorway accommodate his massive body, watches the teenager stand up straight again. And now Derek is alone on the inside, alone with the Yaw.

  In his peripheral vision Derek sees the Yaw and, without quite knowing why, he spins to look at it. For a split second Derek has the same sense of vertigo he had experienced upon first entering the little church. The infinite blue-black expanse drifting left and right is now coupled with the howling screech of a massive, seemingly liquid life form. The sensation of needles in his brain now covers his face. Derek swallows, feels dizzy, he feels like shit. He wants to vomit, but locks that sensation out of his mind.

  Derek jerks the semi-automatic upward, aims and fires until the second clip is empty. But the pulsating thing muffles the sharp crack of the handgun. Even the scent of cordite is absorbed by the beast. With a grunt, Derek hurls his pistol into the rift. The Yaw ripples, seems to open, seems to swallow his gun.

  “Take that, motherfucker,” Derek says and walks outside, slamming the church door.

  The heavy door bangs shut against the stop. Mentally, Derek envisions the thin wood strip that keeps the door from swinging past center. He thinks about how that simple door separates him from the Yaw. At the same time, he knows it is God doing the work. Or, at least, Derek hopes it is God standing between him and the Yaw.

  “Derek? Jesus, what happened? What were you shooting at? Are you all right?”

  Taking one last look at the church, Derek turns and sees his friend, the retired state cop, talking, coming toward him. The Parish deputies, three on the left and one on the right, stand several yards away, their shotguns at the ready.

  Greg stops a few feet from Todd, looks at Cody. “You okay, son?” he says. “You need help with your dad?”

  “Good Christ,” one of the deputies says. “What happened to his arm?”

  Greg looks at Cody’s tortured limb. He resists the urge to talk about what he had seen in the church and wonders if that could have been him if he’d gone in with Derek. Without realizing, Greg rubs his fingertips together as if to make sure it had not.

  Todd glances at the deputy then back at Greg, shakes his head and continues toward the ambulance. Derek watches this interaction and cannot believe Greg is ignoring Todd’s new size. He glances at the cops, catches the eye of Deputy Haines, none of them seem to care that the kid is ten feet tall. No one seems to notice Todd’s massive bulk.

  “Come on,” Greg says to Derek. “Get away from there.”

  Fighting the sudden urge to cry, Derek says, “I…” He shakes his head and bites his lower lip to stop the quiver. “I’m not sure there’s any place far enough.”

  Greg looks closely at Derek. His youthful face is pallid and waxy. New licks of gray streak his black hair. Derek seems to be ten years older. And his tone is not quite what Greg expected. It is flat, vacant.

  In a hushed voice, Greg says, “What happened to Cody’s arm?”

  Derek sighs, he focuses on some point on the ground for a few seconds then looks over at the group of parish deputies and, loud enough for them to hear, says, “Chemical burn. The whole place is set to go up in flames.”

  Greg nods, understands that Derek is speaking in code but isn’t quite sure what he means. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  Derek takes a step then loses his balance, grunting as he drops to one knee. Greg is there in an instant, slipping an arm under Derek’s, steadying his friend.

  “Easy, man. Just take it easy,” Greg says. He signals Deputy Haines. “Hey, give me a hand, will you?”

  One arm on Greg and the other draped over Deputy Haines’s shoulder, Derek makes his way down the gravel path. He can smell a mix of cigarette smoke and chew on the deputy’s breath, the scent making him nauseous. Behind him, the other three deputies close ranks, bringing up the rear. Derek can hear both tension and relief in their low comments.

  “Glad that’s over,” one says. “Goddamned FBI can screw themselves, I’m getting out of here.”

  “No shit, me too.”

  “Hey, what do you make of this Smith and Wesson I found?” another says. “It just…well, it kinda came out of nowhere.”

  For a second Derek thinks this guy is talking about the gun he hurled, but his wasn’t a Smith. Derek knows his 84 Cheetah is somewhere in the gullet of that thing Todd calls the Yaw. Derek realizes this deputy must have been the one standing out back, near Cody’s hand. It is Cody’s gun the deputy has found. He considers asking to have it back, decides to forget the idea.

  A million thoughts are strafing Derek’s mind, not the least of which are ones of the Yaw. That thing is still in the church. Derek can still feel it watching him, looking at him through the windows. He hopes Todd is right about God finishing this business, because if the boy is wrong… Oh man, things will turn shitty, and fast.

  In the middle of his worries, for some reason Derek thinks about why he threw his gun at the Yaw. He wonders how he will explain that to the office chief when he expenses a new pistol. H
e considers just buying a replacement, thinks about what his wife will say if he spends the money.

  Why did I chuck it? Derek thinks. It was a good gun. Why didn’t I just keep the damn thing?

  Feeling a crawling sensation at the base of his skull, Derek turns his head slightly, makes a feeble attempt to look back at the church. He knows the Yaw is reaching out to him, touching him. Derek tries to shake it off, knowing he will probably feel that itchy, tingly feeling for the rest of his life.

  Then a cool draft brushes the treetops, bringing with it the scent of wet dirt and pine needles. Derek’s feet seem to drag as if they are dead weights. He leans harder on the other two men. The uncontrollable jumble of thoughts racing through his brain mixes with the discordant sight of a muscled, ten-foot tall teenager stooping to lay his dad on an ambulance gurney. Feeling almost intoxicated, Derek makes a goofy smile, wonders how much longer he will remain conscious.

  The wind gusts harder and leaves lift into the air, swirling about like a tiny cyclone, and the little eddy grows taller, wider. It grows stronger. The whirling expands until it encompasses the entire two-acre clearing. There seems to be more debris swirling about than there is in all of the surrounding forest, a virtual hurricane of deadfall. But the howl of a windstorm is strangely absent.

  Derek is supporting his own weight, now. Greg and Deputy Haines have had to abandon him in order to protect themselves. Shielding his own eyes, Derek looks around at the spinning mass of dead leaves and pinecones then glances at Todd. Everyone is squinting, protecting their faces with hats or hands. Everyone, that is, except Todd. He is standing erect, one hand covering Cody’s face, the other on his hip. His chiseled body is as motionless as a granite statue but there is a faint smile, a look of approval on his face.

  “Is this part of your operation, Agent Simmons?” Deputy Haines shouts. “What have you gotten us into?”

  Derek looks at Haines but says nothing.

  Then a woofing sound comes from inside the church. It echoes, bounces throughout the forest. It is low and carries a feral sense of surprise, like a dog caught unaware but isn’t sure if it should be alarmed. The sound is as much felt as it is heard and it rumbles into the woodlands like a low-grade seismic event.

  At that moment, the wind vanishes and immediately the swirling debris drop to the ground. Even the leaves fall like stones. The night becomes deathly still. After a protracted moment, an owl ventures a tentative hoot but it is silenced by another woof emanating from the church. This bark is stronger, almost defiant, and yet betrays a hint of panic.

  There is a sense of fixation, as if each person present is rooted to this exact place on Earth, connected to this place in time. Silence rings the little clearing and seems to shut out the world, as if this scrappy patch of grass, hewn out of the thick forest, is in its own world. The four deputies have clustered together, once more pointing their shotguns toward the little church. Greg and Derek are standing next to each other, only a few yards away from Todd, the two ambulance drivers and Cody. All eyes, most especially Todd’s, are on the church.

  No one speaks. The unnatural quiet carries a kind of weight, and the sense of it is almost oppressive. Derek hears Greg swallow. The night is so still and so cold that Derek can almost feel the silence surrounding them. Then realizes he not only feels it, he can see it, too.

  Threading along the edge of forest, a few inches above the ground, is a misty stream of light. The narrow band is mostly white but is tinged with sapphire and gold, wending its way on each side of the churchyard toward the back of the structure. Time takes on a strange slant. Derek can see the two ribbons of light ponderously weaving in and out of bushes and trees while at the very same time they have already met forming a complete circle.

  A growl reverberates into the night. The four deputies cast worried glances about, trying to determine if the sound came from the forest or the church. Derek looks first at Greg, who is also trying to determine the source of the growl, then at Todd. The teenager is still with Cody, maintaining a guardian-like stance over his dad, but now a huge grin splits his face as if he is the happiest kid alive. Derek looks away just as Todd speaks.

  “Get ready, Agent Simmons,” Todd says. “You are about to experience something amazing.”

  Derek looks once more at Todd. It’s not happiness splashed across his face, it is a look of peace, of serenity.

  The growling inside the wooden church starts again only now it is mixed with woofs and yips. Then an explosive bang splits the night. Everyone jumps just before another loud crash heels the first. The second sound echoes through the forest. Then a third cracking, breaking, barking noise escapes into the night. One outer wall of the church bulges, then a second, they distort as if a caged animal is trying to break free.

  Accompanying each impact is the sound and smell of wood splitting and some piece of the building dislodging, falling to the ground. The woofing-growling sounds become panicked and the church balloons, shakes on all four sides almost simultaneously, as the Yaw desperately tries to escape.

  A deputy takes aim with his shotgun. Strangely, Todd can feel the anxiety coursing through the policeman’s body. He senses the adrenaline dumping into the man’s veins; Todd can actually hear the bones in the deputy’s hand creak. Without leaving Cody, Todd reaches more than seventeen feet away and pushes the barrel down just as the deputy pulls the trigger.

  Shotgun pellets pepper the dirt a few yards ahead of the lawman. Clods of earth and dead snake parts spray into the air. The deputy looks at his weapon, frowns. He looks at Todd. The deputy knows Todd knocked his gun off target but can’t understand how it was done.

  “There’s no need for that, Deputy,” Todd says, his voice that of a sage. “Besides, it won’t do any good.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Derek had experienced the incongruous sight of Todd’s elongated arm reaching for the shotgun. Part of him wanted to turn and see the sight more clearly; a bigger part told him not to think about it, to ignore such things.

  The ribbon of light encircling them expands, grows taller. At first, there is smoothness in the way it stretches upward but as it reaches the treetops it contracts slightly, seems to quiver, or shake then explodes skyward forming a tunnel of light stretching out across the universe.

  «»

  Startled, Suzanne flinches. “What is that?” she says, as the brilliant ball of light rockets up from the odd semi-circle hanging in the sky.

  “Get ready,” T’biah says. “Here comes that amazing thing.”

  David nods in agreement. Suzanne grips David’s arm, he pulls her close and says, “Yup, here it comes.”

  The blast of light reaches up from the distant planet, and becomes a tunnel. It rises higher, stretching out, twisting and bending, curving, coming toward them. Coming for them. Dazzling bolts of red break free and jag into the cosmos like supernatural lightning. The luminous tunnel draws close, arcs high overhead then seems to hesitate before spiraling downward and slamming to the ground with thunderous force, putting Suzanne, David and T'biah off balance.

  The trio can hardly stand as shock waves ripple beneath their feet, move around them, through them. Strangely, the physics of energy and friction do not seem to completely apply and the impact, quite literally, goes unnoticed by the planet itself. Even as the quaking sound rumbles across the landscape, the wildlife, the surrounds, everything outside the tunnel of light seems to be ignorant of what has just happened. Nothing stirs, nothing moves.

  T'biah and David understand what is happening but Suzanne marvels at the sight. They are in the center of a vivid light show. White and sapphire sparks kick toward them, kick away, and the air crackles with energy. Excitement and anticipation layered with a sense of peace seems to wrap around them. Light rings them the same way as it wraps around Derek and the others, but the luminosity does more than form a circle around David, Suzanne and T’biah. The light tunnel erases distance and space between two worlds.

  Instantly, a quiet mountainsi
de on some distant forever-autumn planet is connected to a little clearing in the Louisiana forest. Earth and Myth are no longer separate, but instead occupy a single plane, a new dimension created across a billion light years of space. Two worlds blend, creating a place shared by four parish deputies and a fallen Regulator. A place where a giant teenager comes face to face with a multi-millionaire turned servant of God, who was once an unbeliever and lived with a demon. A realm inhabited by a policeman who reached into Hell, the friend who tried to rescue him, and a woman of unwavering faith with stunning green eyes.

  Absolute power, the sense of forever, everything that makes up organic life permeates the circle of light. Just below this, riding like an undercurrent, seems to be the sound of a heartbeat. It is subtle, more sense than sound, but it is constant, like a metronome. Like a divine pulse.

  For some time---- how long, a second, an hour, for a lifetime? For some wholly indeterminate period of time everyone just stares. Everyone, except Todd, David and T'biah. Awkward glances flash from one person to another, flash back again. No one speaks. What was there to say? Everything, nothing?

  Instead of glancing around, instead of staring, T'biah, David and Todd have each dropped to one knee, heads lowered, eyes closed. Then understanding reaches the others. At once, it hits them like a full force gale and at the same time slips in like a gentle summer breeze through an open window. Shotguns clatter to the ground, leather shoes creak, and low gasps escape open mouths as everyone kneels, as everyone bows before the presence of God.