by J. Z. Foster
“How long were you there?” Ted flashed the light of the camera onto the wight. “In the basement, I mean. How long?”
It scoffed, and spoke with a voice like broken glass scratching together. “I saw no moon nor rising sun. I slumbered for weeks or years at a time until meat was brought to me. By what count could a being judge? By what measure could—”
“Yeah, so you don’t know.” Ted stopped him short. “Pretty long time though.” Ted shifted the light from it back to the others.
“What could you tell us about him, though?” Richard said. “What did he look like? How did he act?”
The wight spoke from the dark. “He consumes the eyes.”
“Shit,” Ted shuddered.
“He eats people’s eyes?” Beth stood up from the desk. “How do you know?”
“The master would occasionally feed me from the remains of his sacrifices. Their eyes were always missing.”
There was a moment of silence in the room; only the buzz from the microfilm reader continued. Beth looked at Richard, as if to ask what it meant.
Richard gulped and took a deep breath; he knew the words but found them difficult to speak as his throat dried up. He turned to look at his book, though he knew he didn’t need to. After taking a moment to center himself he finally spoke. “Were they men or women? Adults or children?” Richard felt the room grow tense.
The wight considered. “Children?” It stepped farther into the light and bent down on its haunches. “Small humans? On an occasion, those born with death have some value to one like him. Others were men. Man-meat.”
“Stillborn.” Richard shuddered. It felt as if the tips of claws were raking his back. He took another deep breath and pondered. “The year of animal corruption, the eyes of adult men. Stillborn children.” He licked his lips and nodded. “I think we’re dealing with a blight warlock, a plague witch. Bringer of disease and corruption.”
“A blight warlock?” Beth stood up and moved to Richard, her eyes filled with horrid wonder.
He nodded, still unsure. “I can’t say much for certain, but it looks like his presence is a corrupting force for sure.”
“So what? Cancer rates are twice the nation’s average?” Ted asked from behind the camera.
“Likely. The blight warlock spreads disease, sickness, and madness.” Richard licked his lips and glanced down. “I would bet that there is a significantly higher rate of Alzheimer’s here too. Suicide, wild animal attacks.” He bit his lip. “People in the city look at places like this and think the people here are just insane, but the truth is more sinister than that. He feeds off of their pain and energies. Depravity and sin fuel his magicks.” He drew in a deep breath. “He’ll swallow them all up, and when the well runs dry, move on down to the next town.”
This is big. Very big.
“Then there’s just one more question.” Beth stepped in and grabbed Richard by the arm. “What do we do about it?”
Richard nodded his head—his soul filled with resolve. He turned back to his book and flipped through the pages. He mouthed the words as he read through them, and then looked up. “We need something pure—pure soil, herbs. Something uncorrupted, untouched by his plague.”
“So, what, a handful of mountain soil? Some holy water?” Ted kept the light focused on Richard.
Richard bit his lip and shook his head. “No, it’s never as easy as that.” He looked down at his book and mouthed some words again. “I see some names here of flowers. I think? And some herbs?” His voice was clearly unsure. “Does anyone know what Mintunsun or Korvison is? Anybody?” He looked between them before glancing back to the book. “How about root of Newyen?”
“No idea, let’s search the Internet?” Beth stepped alongside him to read.
Richard was about to respond when they heard glass breaking. Ted spun around, flashing the camera light into the dark. “The hell was that?”
The wight’s tongue licked the air as it spoke. “I smell something wicked. Can’t you taste it in the air?”
“What is it?” Ted asked while using the camera’s light to probe the darkness.
The wight squinted, its thick white eyelids creating a narrow slit for its eyes to shine through. It took a three-toed step forward and used the knuckles on one of its arms like a third leg. “The air—I taste the abyssal form upon it. But I know not what it is.” The wight’s tongue flicked out again before it corrected itself: “What they are.”
Skittering came from the east wing of the library. Something else jumped up to the second floor, just far enough into the shadows to be hidden.
“Everyone, get close,” Beth said, moving in. She flashed her light behind them.
“They’re surrounding us.” Ted set the camera down and pulled out his Glock.
Richard pulled his book up tight and turned his back to his friends, suddenly much more reassured by Ted’s pistol.
Something clattered to the ground behind them. “Will you help me?” The soft girlish voice carried out from the dark. The few lights from the main library suddenly cut out, dropping a cloak of darkness onto them.
“What do we do?” Ted asked Richard. “What the hell is it?”
“It’s uh…” Richard started to tear through his book. “I need light!” Beth held up her cell phone to the pages.
“I’m hurt,” The pitiful, childlike voice whimpered from the shadows. “Help me, it’s hurting me.”
Beth took a step forward before Richard grabbed her hand. “Wait, just... just wait.”
Fear the dark.
“Please! It’s trying to find me!” A childlike shape formed near the main hall of the library. The light didn’t stretch that far, but the moon’s light cast her shadow down. “Help me!” It dashed away on its small legs to hide behind something.
“Help us!” Another voice said from the above them.
A third voice cut in. “I’m hurt, my leg is stuck!”
The voices cried out and sobbed in the dark. Moving and darting about unseen, each pleaded, asking them to come farther out of the light to help them.
The wight growled, but otherwise didn’t move.
“Go out there! Get it! See what they are!” Ted yelled at the wight, waving his hand forward.
“You hold no bond over me, male,” it snarled back at him.
Beth let out a breath and took a step forward. “Let’s all just go together?”
“No!” Richard shouted at her as he scanned the dark. “Just give me a minute to think. I need a minute to think.” He licked his lips again and his breathing grew rapid. He mumbled words to himself as he kept scanning through the pages.
“Help us!” A girl’s voice shouted again. A young boy’s voice joined in, “I’m hurt, I’m hurt!” Another girl’s voice cut in from behind them. “My leg is stuck!” More voices joined in from other places.
How many of these damn things are there?
“No!” Ted stepped forward and yelled. “Shut up! Shut your damn mouths! Be quiet!” He raised his pistol up and aimed into the shadows; Richard could see nothing.
The voices went silent for a few moments. Eventually one started to giggle and the rest joined in, their laughter rapid and unnatural. The voices changed from children to something deeper and more vicious. It echoed through the halls of the library.
Richard’s finger landed on a line, scribed in faded ink. Infernal illusions, it read.
“I cast you out!” Richard roared and stepped forward. He held the book up while reading from it. “In the name of Christ! In His name I cast out thy tormentors and demonic illusions! Into the pits of darkness, through the gates of hell! I rip away your façade and cast you down!” Richard’s voice shook as he spoke. “Latitudo autem ante faciem perdere! Revelare verum!” More strings of Latin followed, practiced from his times in trial. He held his voice as resolutely as he could.
As the last of his words echoed among the dark, a shape took form in the front of the lobby. Its feet patted the ground as it moved forwa
rd. Though it moved feverishly, its childish legs could not carry it quickly.
How? How did they know we were here?
Ted grabbed his camera and focused on the creature. It stepped into the light, holding the shape of a young girl. In the shadows, its face might have resembled something human, but now its facial features were burning away into something horrid and maligned. It had the snout of a pig and the yellow, slitted eyes of a cat. Smoke poured off it, burning away the last of its human features to reveal the monster beneath.
All I could do was burn away its illusion.
The smell of something terrible cooked in the air. The small creature’s maw dragged up and spittle slid out from the ragged edges of its mouth, reflecting what Richard could only assume was excitement.
“We’re going to have so much fun together!”
Chapter 11
“Hot shit, son. Thems sounding nasty.” Minges shook his head, and the rolls of his chin rippled. “Now you sure you boys weren’t doin’ nothing too hard before this, right? Not a thing that’d be givin’ you delusions, yeah? Ain’t no reason in keeping it secret, son. They’re gonna test you, that’s for damn sure. Sure as you’re handcuffed to that chair, son, they’ll get you.”
“What?” Richard raised his hands. “I’m not handcuffed.”
A flicker of doubt crossed Minges’s eyes. “Hmmm.” He looked at Richard and shrugged a heavy shoulder. “Guessing you got a bit of luck, son.” He laughed. “Now here I could’a sworn…”
He’s so freaking out of it.
Richard exhaled loudly. “We didn’t do any drugs, nothing. They were little monsters—Sankai, I think.”
Minges raised an eyebrow. “Sankai?”
“A creature from Japanese lore. It’s when a mother gives birth to something that’s not human. These things had faces like pigs or raccoons or raccoon-pigs.” He emphasized each word. “They were terrifying!”
“Now son, why would a Chinese pig baby be running around over here? You see how I have to be a little skeptical ’bout the intoxicants, right? Hell, a ghost would at least make sense.”
“Well, I mean they’re not Japanese, of course. But I think the Japanese are the only ones who have a name for it. Maybe he was using the stillborns to do it or something, I don’t know.”
“Yeah, I guess he just ran down to the ol’ doctor-dumpster to grab himself a few, eh?” Minges rolled his eyes. “Just ain’t no logical sense to it, son. Sometimes, when people do horrible shit like you do, hack a poor girl to death, it’ll make you play these jokes on yourself.”
“I’m not making a damn thing up. I know what I saw and none of it was a joke! And I know every minute I’m sitting trapped in here is another minute he’s out there tearing this town apart. You don’t get it. We kicked a hornet’s nest. He’s got to heal, got to defend, got to run, but he’s pissed! He’s going to be ripping this place to shreds.”
Minges laughed under his breath. “Now calm down, son. You been nice and calm this entire time, don’t go—”
Something about the dismissive tone opened a vein of emotion in Richard. “Do you know what a human pig-baby’s brain looks like splattered across the ground? I do. It’s purple and bloody.” Fire burned in his chest. “How do you think I got out of there!” he yelled. “There’s no lore for fighting something like that! No magic words to send it back to hell! Only lore I could find would strip the guise off and let us see what piece of hell was crawling its way into that library!”
Minges inched backed in his chair just as Richard was standing up.
“I grabbed a chair, smashed it against the first little son of a bitch that charged me!” He clenched his fists into rocks as the heat burned hotter in his chest and bellowed out from his lungs to spit fire at Minges. “When it broke, I grabbed the largest piece and turned to the ones that were still laughing.”
Minges clumsily stood up and started moving toward the door.
“Get back here! Don’t you tell me I killed Beth! Don’t you tell me she’s dead and there’s nothing I can do about it! Don’t you tell me this is how it ends! Don’t you tell me this is how it ends!”
“Sit’cher ass down, boy!” Minges finally snarled as he retreated. “You sit your ass down right there and cool off! I’mma get you a damn cola, and you just take yourself a breather.” He turned and pounded on the door. “Get me outta here! I need some damn air!”
Richard was huffing air in a labored attempt to cool the hot coals in his chest. Finally, something snapped in the anger. He wasn’t the type to yell at anyone, and just as quickly as it came, it started to fade.
What am I doing? He’s my lawyer. Am I really losing my mind?
“Hell, Richard.” Minges shot a look back at him. “I hate to think what it actually was that you were beating the brains out of.”
A uniformed officer with a scowl drooped across his face showed up and opened the door to let Minges out. Richard went back to his seat and slumped into it, letting his head fall into his hands again. He started to cry. He wasn’t sure if it was the rage he was coming down from, or the situation he was in.
What it actually was…
Minges’s words ran through his head as he questioned his own memory.
No. No, I’m not insane. I’m not insane. It all happened. I’m not crazy.
He told himself that over and over again. It was several long minutes before he started believing it. After some time, Minges returned with a can of off-brand cola in one hand and what looked like coffee in the other. He approached Richard more cautiously than he had before. He took his seat and slid the cola over to Richard. “Cheer up, son. We’re gonna get you the help you need, yeah?” Minges took a sip of his coffee.
Richard glanced up and sighed. He popped the tab on the soda. “So, you want to hear the rest?”
He took a drag of his coffee. “Yeah, you all right telling it?” Minges had cleaned up his attitude; he was less demeaning now.
God, maybe I am just tired. Maybe I am just imagining things. Did I really do it? I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have.
Richard gulped and took a breath, filling his lungs, and stared into the lawyer’s eyes. “I’m not insane. I want you to know that. And, if I die, I want you to tell someone else. I want someone to know what happened here. I don’t want it to die with me.”
Minges nodded. “All right then, son. Let’s hear the part about smashing pig-babies and whatnot.”
Richard gave him a long hard stare before he started to speak again.
Richard let the broken wooden leg fall onto the creature again and again. He didn’t know what the creature was—he could only guess—but he knew the sound it made when it died; it was a terrible squealing noise that Richard was sure would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his days.
Something had happened when the laughter stopped and the echoing giggles faded, a rush of bodies—thin and small, but full of teeth—descended onto them. Something had changed between this place and the last. The war in Richard’s mind that he had been fighting all night had been won.
This time, when death came, he stood to meet it.
The flashes from Ted’s gun almost blinded Richard. The light allowed him to catch enough of a glimpse of one creature leaping quickly from side to side as it rushed toward Ted. It jolted from one leg to the other, dodging each shot of Ted’s gun. The creature lunged at him, nearly raking his face, as more monsters joined the fray.
The wight let out a horrible, curdling roar as it snatched the creature lunging for Ted in midair, and dug into it with clawed fingers. Richard watched in horrid fixation as the wight tore the smaller creature apart. It split down the middle, dumping purple entrails out like slop from a fisherman’s bucket. The smell of rancid meat hit them at once.
Oh, God! Run!
Richard’s brain screamed as he watched in horror. But he couldn’t watch long; more of them were coming out of the dark. They ran up to him on all fours like rabid animals.
He clubbed the ne
arest on the back of the head, slinging what blood had already been there. It cried out but pushed forward and grabbed onto his leg. It bit into his shin, pushing its needle-point teeth clean though his jeans. Richard grunted in pain and kicked it against a table. It wrapped its fingers around his leg and sunk its teeth in farther, doing what it could to hold on while it growled like a mad dog and dug at his flesh.
Beth rushed in from the side and kicked it. It barked before it let go. “Oh God, Beth!” It was all Richard could say. He limped forward as more rushed toward him.
The wight jolted in, swinging its long arms out and grabbing several of the monstrous horde in its claws. The jaw of the wight unhinged and stretched down like a snake’s. It was hard for Richard to see exactly what was happening in the dark—he saw only light and shadows—but he heard one of the small creatures wail in terror as the wight shoved it into its gaping maw; a dance of shadow horrors presented the show. Richard was thankful for the dark.
Richard turned to flee with Beth but bashed against a table and shoved it aside. Ted’s camera had been sitting on the table; it spun off and clattered to the ground, resting its light on the wight. Beth and Richard turned to see the wight pull several of the creatures apart before falling on them to feast on the pieces. It started with the ones that were still alive. Richard turned away; the creatures’ screams were enough to make it clear what happened next.
“We need to get out of here!” Beth screamed.
Ted was still firing into the dark when Beth grabbed him by the arm. He turned, with panic in his eyes, and nearly shot her. “Let’s go, Ted!” she yelled at him.
Ted took two steps forward with her before he looked back. “I need my camera!” He turned around and went to pick it up. As he spun it around, the light shined across a creature in a little girl’s dress with saggy eyes and ears far too long, already nearly upon him. Her jaw, long and drooping, hung open as closed in on Ted. He tried to pull the pistol up, but Richard was faster.
