by Peter Nealen
I didn’t argue. Father Pat had been just inside his door, watching but giving Eryn and me some space while I talked her down. It hadn’t taken much talking, but I rather appreciated the space anyway. Now he joined us as we made a beeline for St. Anthony’s front door.
He led the way in, then shut the doors behind us. Johnny was restless, pacing the vestibule. Eryn was staying close by me. Father Pat gestured toward the sanctuary, and we followed him to the steps in front of the altar.
“All right, Johnny, what’s up?” I asked. I glanced up as I noticed it getting dimmer and dimmer. That storm was almost on top of us.
“Two more girls were taken,” he said. His words echoed in the empty church like hammers. “In the last hour. And both had those…murals drawn where they were taken.”
Mindful of where we were, I refrained from cursing. Yep, it was bad. Really bad. While I’d been occupied fighting the Shadowman up there, someone or something had been doing an end-run. And in broad daylight.
“Where?” I asked. “I need to know where they were taken. And did anyone see anything?”
He shook his head. “Max Burnbaum saw something, but he’s turned into more of a vegetable than Janice Robinson. Completely out of his head. Nobody else saw or heard a thing.”
I went to the window and peered out. Black clouds were boiling overhead, their shadow starting to turn midafternoon into twilight. This was proceeding faster than I anticipated. “Has there been anything else?” I asked. “Anything weird going on, people having sightings, what-have-you?”
“Not that anybody’s told me,” he said. “But the odds of anyone reporting such things with McKinney looking over our shoulders are pretty slim these days. He’s got a way of trying to drive anybody out who makes noise about the oddities up here.”
“That figures.” It was just like McKinney. Look in the dictionary under “petty tyrant” and you’d see a picture of his fat face. “Look, I’m spitballing here, but I’m pretty sure we’re about out of time. Whatever Mayhew’s got going is going to happen tonight, and this is pretty much the only place we might be able to make a halfway effective stand. This is the high ground, and whatever unpleasantness Mayhew and the Shadowman are trying to stir up is going to try to take it out. We need as many people here to hold the line as possible.”
“I doubt some of the people around here would be good defenders, Jed,” Johnny pointed out. “Look, you’ve done some serious work here, but I live here. A lot of these people are…well, they’re a little twisted. There’s something wrong about this town.”
“Of course there is,” I replied. “It started with whatever manifested up by the Booker place fifty years ago.” I turned and met his eye. “It’s like a kind of supernatural background radiation. It infects people. But there are those who are resistant to it. And I think you know who those resistant people are.”
“I do,” Father Pat said. “Even outside my congregation. Eryn, dear, if you’d be so kind as to come with me, we’ll get a list worked up and we can start calling people.”
She looked at me for long moment. Then she took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and nodded. “What are you going to do?” she asked me.
“I’m going to go hunting,” I replied.
I didn’t have far to go. I stepped out of the church to find another Silverton PD car sitting outside. Mark was standing in front of it, looking haggard, his eyes bloodshot, his Glock drawn.
“Mark, what are you doing?” Johnny asked from behind me.
Mark turned his attention jerkily toward Johnny. I took the opportunity to slowly start bringing my Winchester up, carefully pulling the hammer back to full cock. I was pretty sure I knew what was going on.
“You don’t hear that?” Mark asked, his voice hoarse. “You don’t hear his voice?”
Johnny took a step toward him, as I took one to the side. My rifle was now in my shoulder, though still not quite pointed at him. Johnny was trying to talk him down, but with what I was pretty sure was in his head, that was going to be difficult at best. At worst, I’d have to blow his head off.
“There’s no voice, Mark,” Johnny said, his hands out to his sides, trying to present as little a threat as possible as he took another step forward. “We’re the only ones here. Now put the gun away, and we can talk this over.”
Johnny was approaching Mark like a regular breakdown. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. “Johnny, don’t get too close,” I warned him. “This isn’t what you think it is.”
He ignored me. “Look, Mark, it’s been a stressful time for all of us,” he said reasonably. “Missing persons, all this weird stuff going on, it’s rough. But we can handle it. Just put the gun down and let’s talk about this.”
His words did not have the desired effect. Mark’s eyes widened as he seemed to writhe in pain for a moment, then the Glock came up to point right at Johnny’s face. I whipped my rifle up and leveled the gold bead on Mark’s head. The pistol snapped over to point at me.
Mark looked like he was struggling to say something. His eyes bulged out of his head. Then they rolled back, and he tipped his head back. He opened his mouth. Faint black smoke seemed to drift from his mouth and nose. He let out a long, moaning roar that went on far longer than it should have from one breath. His finger tightened convulsively on the trigger.
I shot him. The rifle’s boom was nearly drowned out by the roll of thunder overhead, and Mark’s head snapped back, a good chunk of his skull and brains splashing out the back of his head. He fell to the pavement, the Glock still clutched in his hand.
Johnny whirled on me, aghast. “What the hell, Jed?!” he exclaimed. “You just shot a cop!”
“He wasn’t a cop anymore, Johnny,” I growled at him, my rifle still leveled on Mark’s body. “He wasn’t even Mark anymore.”
Across the street, another Silverton PD car pulled up. Ralph got out, looking much the same way Mark had, his gun already in his hand. “Johnny,” I barked through his protests, “get inside. Now.” To make matters worse, the thing that had been Mark was starting to stir. Damn it. Whatever had possessed him didn’t need a live body. “This just keeps getting better and better,” I snarled, as I shot Mark’s corpse a second time, dropping it back down onto the pavement. I shoved a shocked Johnny toward the church. “Inside! Now!”
Ralph started shooting. I sent a snap-shot at him but missed. I didn’t get a second shot, as I was scrambling to avoid the hail of 9mm he was sending our way. Bullets smacked into cars, shattering two of the windows in Johnny’s car and three of Mark’s.
Mark, or rather, Mark’s corpse, was now standing up. Since Ralph’s gunfire wasn’t terribly accurate, I turned and put another 300 grain bullet into Mark’s face, which didn’t resemble much but a pulverized mess of hamburger and bone at this point, surrounded by a greasy black miasma. The thing in him was laughing even as it hit the ground again, a grotesque, burbling noise that made the hair on my neck stand up.
We were only a few steps from the church door when Ralph’s magazine ran out. He fumbled with the reload—obviously the entity that possessed him didn’t know much about firearms. I shoved Johnny into the church vestibule, turned, took a knee on the step, and shot Ralph high center chest. He dropped, the same sort of oily black stuff already starting to smoke from his eyes and the bullet hole. Then I charged inside and slammed the door.
I grabbed Johnny by the shirt front. “How long were you in the Robinson girl’s room compared to those two?” I asked. My voice was almost a snarl. “HOW LONG?!”
He stammered. Before he could answer there was a fusillade of gunfire from outside. The door burst open, and Weiss, Sam, Gabe Mosher, and two big young lumberjack looking kids came in. The lumberjacks—they had to be brothers, from the looks of them—were both carrying AKs and firing them out the door as they came in. One had an impressive array of shotguns, ARs, AKs, and a couple of bolt guns slung over his shoulders; the other had a fairly large duffel bag straining at the seams with ammu
nition. Several AK magazines were peeking out of the partially open zipper.
Weiss was carrying his deer rifle, an old Mauser sporter. It looked kind of out-of-place compared to all the modern hardware the lumberjack boys were carrying, but I knew from experience that Weiss could do more with that bolt action than some could do with an AR with all the bells and whistles. Sam and Gabe were both carrying ARs; Sam’s was fairly basic, but Gabe had just about every tacticool accessory known to man bolted on his. It looked like it weighed twenty pounds.
Weiss slammed the doors shut as soon as the lumberjack boys stopped shooting. “What the hell is going on out there?” he exclaimed. “As soon as we came around the corner, Ralph started shooting at us, and so did a body with half a head in a cop uniform. And no matter how much we shot ‘em, they weren’t going down.”
“The weirdness just got ugly,” I replied, turning back to Johnny. “Answer my question, John.”
He had gone white as a sheet. “I don’t know. I didn’t like it in there, and tried to stay out as much as I could, but I had to go in to catalogue evidence. Maybe an hour, total?”
“No voices?” I asked. “You haven’t seen any phantoms?” He shook his head. There was raw fear in his eyes. “You might be all right.” I dug in my pocket, pulled out a rosary, and shoved it at him. “Pray. Hard. And don’t leave the church. At all. Not until this is over.”
“I’m not a Catholic,” he started to protest. He wasn’t; he’d actually been a member of Bob’s congregation, but, oddly, there was a pretty friendly relationship between the local Baptists and Catholics. I put it down to a common enemy.
“Then you’d better learn fast,” I told him.
I turned to the rest. “Gabe! Come here.” I grabbed him by the shoulder as soon as he was within reach. “Your job is to keep an eye on Johnny. If he starts shaking, acting weird, or talking to himself, you drag him straight to me or Father Pat. You understand?”
He nodded his understanding. “This is really bad, isn’t it, Jed? It’s worse than it’s ever been before, isn’t it?” Gabe, young as he was, was an old hand at this. He’d been a kid when the Stick Indians showed up, and he’d helped eagerly when I’d showed up to deal with the cult a couple years before. He had an active imagination and a flexible mind, and had accepted the supernatural stuff far more readily than most.
I took a deep breath. “I’m afraid so.”
There was the sound of screeching tires, more shooting, and yelling. It all sounded somewhat muted in the roar of the ever increasing wind. Lightning flashed in the windows, followed by a tooth-rattling roll of thunder only instants later.
There was more shooting and frantic pounding on the church doors. Weiss listened for a moment, then swung one of them open just far enough for half a dozen more people to come in. All were armed, even the bent, elderly lady. Her Schofield revolver looked a little weird surrounded by SIGs, Glocks, and XDs, but she carried it like she knew how to use it.
An older guy, with a thick white mustache and a well-worn Garand, took a quick look around then came up to me. “You look like you’re in charge here. Mind filling us all in on what’s going on? I just saw some pretty freaky stuff out there, like a cop with no head who wouldn’t go down when I shot him with a .30-06.”
I looked around. The church had officially become an armed camp. These folks hadn’t brought as much ammo as the lumberjack brothers had, but were still loaded for bear. I don’t know what Father Pat and Eryn had told them over the phone, but they’d come ready for trouble.
The building shook as a massive gust of wind hit it. Thunder was rolling almost continually now. The storm was getting more violent, and I was under no illusions that there was anything natural about it. We were running out of time.
“All right, here’s the deal,” I said. “All of you have seen the weirdness outside. That’s just a part of it. Short version—sorcery, demons, and monsters are real. Somebody’s trying to use sorcery here to summon a demon—a big, mean one. All of this…” I motioned to the storm and the possessed corpses of the two policemen outside, “…is a side effect and a diversion. They’re close, and they’re trying to take down the only high ground that we have a chance of stopping them from. That’s right here, in this church.” Eryn and Father Pat came in from the sacristy in the back. I glanced at Eryn before turning back to the bigger group. “I’m going to have to go out there and try to stop this. That’s my job. I need you folks to hold this place.”
“You’re not going out in that alone, are you?” Weiss objected.
“I have to,” I replied, feeling Eryn’s eyes on me. “It’s my job.”
“No,” Johnny protested. “No way. You’re not going out there by yourself.”
“I agree with John,” Eryn said. “That’s not a good idea.”
“You, for sure, are not going anywhere,” I said, looking pointedly at John. I looked around at the rest of them, including Eryn. “And how many of you have been dealing with this sort of thing for this long? Sure, there’s been some weird stuff happening around here most all your lives. But most of you haven’t fought it, not like I have. Like I said, this is my job, my calling.”
I started for the door. “Besides, I’m not going to be entirely alone out there. Hold the fort so I have somewhere to fall back to if it comes to that.” I sure hoped it didn’t. If that leviathan in the Abyss got loose, I doubted there was going to be a lot of falling back happening.
Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan.
I opened the door in spite of several people’s protests, and almost had it yanked out of my hand by the wind. Stinging rain was hammering down out of the sky, and it seemed another bolt of lightning was forking across the sky every thirty seconds. The sun was gone—it looked like half an hour after sunset instead of four in the afternoon.
Even the dark and the rain couldn’t conceal the fact that things had just gotten even more complicated, though.
Every car in the Silverton PD was lined up in front of the church and their spotlights came on as soon as I opened the door. McKinney was actually standing there next to Ralph’s car, with a megaphone.
“You’ve shot your last policeman, Horn!” McKinney bellowed through the megaphone. “Throw down your weapons or we’ll kill you where you stand!”
In the next flash of lightning, before I’d really had time to process anything, or even move a muscle, I saw that McKinney was flanked by what was left of Ralph and Mark. Both were riddled with bullet holes; Mark really didn’t have a head left, just a miasma of smoky something floating over the ruin of his skull. But McKinney didn’t seem to notice that he was standing next to two demonically animated corpses.
In fact, neither did Daniel, who was looking a little strung out himself, or the mob that was forming behind them. As if this entire situation wasn’t already creepy enough.
Chapter 10
“Look around you, McKinney!” I answered him. “Look at what’s standing next to you!”
“You’re lucky Mark and Ralph are still alive, Horn!” McKinney shouted. He was making the megaphone squeal with feedback. “Otherwise this would be a lot worse! Now come quietly!”
“They’re not alive, you idiot!” I yelled. “Look at them! Mark’s head is gone!”
“Because you shot him!” McKinney bellowed.
I had to get out of there. This was sorcery, sure enough. Logic was not going to enter into it. Mayhew, or the Shadowman, whichever had spun this particular spell, had put one singular thought in the mob’s minds, regardless of anything else. Arguing wasn’t going to work, and I didn’t particularly want to shoot all of them, either.
I had to time this just right. I put the Winchester down in the doorway, which I still hadn’t stepped past. I shouldn’t have long to wait.
Lightning split the sky. It had a purple tinge, and was so bright it was momentarily blinding. Between it and the rain, I had the advantage I needed. I leaped back inside, ducking to grab my rifle at the same time. Weiss
didn’t need to be told, but slammed the door shut and locked it as soon as I was all the way inside.
“Everybody get on the floor!” I yelled, suiting actions to words.
“They wouldn’t shoot at a church!” one of the newcomers, a middle-aged man I didn’t recognize, protested.
“They might not even realize this is St. Anthony’s right now,” I told him. About half of the little armed congregation had hit the floor without question as soon as I’d said it. The others were hesitating, still unable to come to grips with the insanity of their situation. “They sure don’t realize that two of the cops standing with them out there are dead.”
“Come on, people,” Father Pat said, his voice ringing off the rafters even over the roar of the rain and thunder. “You heard the man.” He hadn’t gotten down immediately, though he’d urged Eryn to take cover with a hand on her shoulder. “The Good Lord protects, but it helps to have some common sense along the way. That’s why He gave it to us.” Only when everyone was prone on the floor did he finally get down himself.
Just in time, too. An ear-splitting barrage of gunfire hammered the front of the church, ripping through the walls. They were sturdy walls, but not sturdy enough to stop rifle rounds. I hugged the floor, hoping they were too out of it to think to aim their shots low. In that case we were dead, and Silverton was lost. I didn’t want to think about what might happen after that.
I crawled through the sacristy. The only way to stop this, short of massacring the entire mob out there, was to stop Mayhew. Interrupt the sorcery, stop the ritual, and we could calm things down. So far there hadn’t been any sign of anyone or anything trying to go around back, so I was going to try to break out through the sacristy.
Eryn intercepted me before I could get to it. She’d snagged an AR and a bandolier with four magazines. “I’m coming with you!” she yelled over the cacophony of thunder and gunfire.
