by Peter Nealen
“No you’re not!” I replied. “I have to move fast, and I can’t do what I have to and worry about you at the same time.” I continued toward the sacristy. Bullets were smashing the carvings above the altar, and one had already chipped the crucifix. I cringed at the sight. “They shouldn’t be able to come in here. If they do, whatever is screwing with their heads won’t be able to come in with them. The possessed definitely shouldn’t be able to.” It had happened under less threatening circumstances, but something like those abominations out there shouldn’t be able to cross the threshold of a sanctified church, much less stand the sight of the tabernacle. I remembered the toad monster from the other night.
Suddenly, Eryn grabbed me, pulled me close, and kissed me. “You’d better come back,” she said. There was a catch in her voice and her eyes glistened. Then she scrambled away, her AR clenched in white-knuckled hands.
I confess I was a mite distracted from all the hellish noise, the impending summoning, and the bullets smashing into the church there for a second. I still felt the warmth of her lips, lingering on mine. Then another round whizzed by overhead, tumbling as it lost velocity after smacking through two wooden walls, and I got real focused, real fast. I continued my crawl toward the sacristy and the back door.
The noise of gunfire lessened as I got into the sacristy, but the storm still shook the whole building, and thunder still boomed and rumbled overhead. It sounded like it was getting worse.
I checked one last time that I had everything. Bible, silver cross, 1911, Bowie, bandolier, Winchester, flask of holy water, helpfully replenished from the receptacle Father Pat keeps in the vestibule. I wasn’t going to have much in the way of chances to grab anything else before this all came to a head. It would have to do. I opened the back door and stepped out into the late afternoon, which had now completely turned to night.
There was somebody waiting for me out there in the rain. I had my rifle trained on him before I recognized him—tall, thin, white hair and handlebar, with a rifle identical to my own in his hands. “Sam” was here, manifested. That alone spoke volumes about how serious the situation was.
“Well, Jed, looks like we got our work cut out for us,” he drawled.
“No kidding,” I replied. “I’m heading for the center. Try to handle Mayhew before this gets much worse.”
“The center’s only one pole of what’s going on tonight,” he said gravely. “Mayhew might or might not be there, but the heavy stuff isn’t happening there.”
“Where, then?” I asked.
“The sawmill,” he replied.
“The sawmill?” I was momentarily confounded. “If anywhere I’d think it would be the Booker place.”
He shook his head. “The killings, the glyphs written in blood, are the points of a larger glyph. Be glad it’s one you can’t read. I can.” He looked momentarily pained. Bear in mind, “Sam” was an angel, vastly older and more powerful than any of us. And even he was affected by these things. “The apex of the glyph is at the sawmill.” He saw me trying to puzzle out the shape. “The glyph isn’t just in this world,” he explained. “It’s in the Abyss and the Otherworld at the same time. Don’t try to make any sense of it. It’ll put worms in your head.”
I decided to take his word for it. “They’re probably all going to be at the sawmill, then,” I mused. “Could we disrupt the summoning if we destroy one of the points? Like the center?”
“It’s possible,” he allowed. “Mayhew and the sgilli will still have to be dealt with, but it is more important that we stop the summoning.” He stroked his mustache thoughtfully. He didn’t seem to be getting all that wet, even in the driving rain. “It’s worth a try. But this is your show, champ. I’m just here to watch your back.”
I nodded, dashing water from my face with my free hand. That was pretty typical, actually. Angels are really big on free will. They’re messengers and sometime protectors, and they’ll go to great lengths not to stray from their mandates. If that means letting you do something stupid and get eaten, sometimes that’s what it means. They’re horrified by the idea of forcing a human to do anything, so sometimes they get real cautious about helping at all, lest they influence someone too much. Like I said, the mere fact that he was here and ready to fight said a lot about how dire the situation had gotten.
I started into the woods on the far side of the graveyard. There were flickers of movement around some of the graves, flickers that I pointedly ignored. Everything unquiet was coming out in this storm. I could only imagine what I was going to find the farther away we got from the church.
I climbed over the fence and into the trees. They were swaying violently with the wind, creaking and cracking threateningly while their upper limbs thrashed with a sort of spectral howling. It just served to make the whole scene that much creepier.
I circled well away from the church. Outside the shooting was louder, and a few stray rounds were cracking by overhead. It seemed that the enthralled mob wasn’t all that keen on controlling their shots. “What happens to the people inside?” I asked.
“Sam” just pointed. I could then see four figures posted around the four corners of the church. None were all that distinct, and I wasn’t sure the mob could even see them; hell’s bells, I hadn’t even been sure that befuddled mob had really seen me when I was facing them a few minutes before. But they were there, and they emanated a calm power that was completely at odds with the raw fury of the storm and the sour stink of sorcery in the air.
“They’ll be all right, at least for a while,” he said. “We need to concentrate on bigger things for the moment.”
He was right. I continued on, coming toward the street about two blocks down from the church. I was hoping that the storm would hide us from the mob.
Unfortunately, there were worse things out and about than the mob that afternoon.
We came out of the woods where the road skirted the edge of town, and I looked carefully around before venturing out of the shadows. The street was empty, aside from the mob down the way. In fact, the more I looked around, what I could see of the town was unnaturally still, aside from the lashing of the storm. It seemed as though anyone who hadn’t been turned had wised up and gone to ground until things blew over. Assuming things did blow over.
I dashed out from under the boughs of a big spruce that was overhanging the road. It wasn’t like I was going to stay dry—I was already soaked to the bone by the lashing rain. At times it was coming in sideways from the powerful gusts of wind that were trying to knock me off balance, almost as though the storm itself was alive and trying to get me. For all I knew, there was indeed a malevolent intelligence directing it.
I ran across the road and into the dubious shelter of the wind-battered awning out front of the near-defunct “Manny’s” men’s apparel store. Manny was long gone, but McKinney had a controlling interest in the store, so it stayed open. I didn’t see my companion cross the road, but he was suddenly there beside me, still not looking all that rumpled or even wet.
There was an alley between Manny’s and the sports store next door. I turned to duck into it, and ducked back just as fast.
There was a dark, smoky shape, vaguely like a serpent, slithering down the alley. I instinctively knew that being touched by that shape would be very, very bad. After the encounter up by the Booker place, I was pretty sure that it was the Shadowman’s work.
I eased one eye around the corner. I was fully aware that it might not be physically possible to hide from whatever it was, but some instincts die hard. And getting into a stand-up fight with anything roaming the streets at this point was going to be counterproductive. I had to disrupt that ritual. Then I had to go back and relieve the people holding the church, including a woman who was apparently as interested in me as I had become in her.
Whatever form its senses took, the thing either didn’t spot me or chose to ignore me, and slithered off and around the corner, out of sight. It could have been waiting just around the corner, waiting
for me to follow it in order to pounce when I let my guard down. I glanced at “Sam.” He was impassive, giving no sign one way or the other. He seriously was just there to watch my back. He’d make no move to influence my course of action beyond what he’d already done.
I decided not to go the way the spooky shadow-snake had gone, and instead headed along the road, following the front of the sports store. No point in asking for trouble.
There was a grassy square on the other side of the block, with the WWII memorial obelisk in the center. It was surrounded by the post office, city hall, the Elks club, two bars, and the police station. Mayhew’s center was on the far side and two blocks down.
I began to think I was hearing other sounds over the wind, rain, and thunder. And when I got to where I could see toward the square I realized I had not been mistaken.
There were people in the square. There were also at least a dozen of the sort of shadow-snakes I’d seen before, weaving in and out and through the crowd. What had gotten these people out and about in the storm I didn’t know, but whatever had led them there, they weren’t sane anymore.
They were howling, screaming, laughing maniacally as they tore at each other. There were at least a dozen corpses on the ground, and the grass was wet with blood. I won’t describe some of the acts I saw there. I have a hard enough time keeping the nightmares at bay as it is.
I carefully moved back into the empty street, trying to stay in the shadows. It was risky, with some of the Otherworldly and sorcerous monstrosities lurking about, but I really didn’t want to be seen or heard by that crowd. I was struggling to keep my gorge down at what I’d just seen.
As soon as I figured I was far enough out of sight in the gloom and rain, I turned around.
And came face-to-face with Janice Robinson. Or rather, what had been Janice Robinson.
She had torn her own eyes out. Oily smoke now drifted in her mangled eye sockets and floated from her nose and mouth.
She was about six feet away but didn’t dare come any closer. “Sam” had her at gunpoint, the muzzle practically touching her forehead.
Even without eyeballs, I could see her—it, rather—staring at “Sam.” “Now here’s a contest.” The voice gurgling from Janice’s slack, blood-streaked jaws fluctuated between deep and feral and high-pitched and screeching. It was nauseating. “Who do you think will successfully banish the other…brother?” It grinned horrifically. “We seem to be evenly matched.”
“I can keep you from getting to him, at least,” my companion growled.
A sickening laugh. “True, true. But there are dozens of us about tonight. More still to come. Which one of us will catch it while you fight me?” Again, it laughed that gut-wrenching laugh. It was like having fingernails scraped across a blackboard while somebody slammed your head into the blackboard.
“Sam’s” only response was to pull the trigger. There was an actinic flash and a booming shockwave that momentarily blew all the rain away for about a six foot radius.
The thing’s head snapped backward as it was flung twenty feet to smash into a brick wall with a crunch audible over the noise of the storm and the screaming coming from the square. Broken bricks tumbled into the street.
What crawled out of the rubble only looked vaguely human. Beneath the writhing, greasy darkness was only the outline of a mangled corpse. It had sprouted claws and tentacles of smoky shadow.
“Sam” rocked the lever and shot it again, with the same thunderous effect. And again. And again. “Go, Jed!” he yelled over his shoulder, between reports that threatened to bring the surrounding buildings down. “Try to avoid any more of these things, but you’ve got to disrupt that summoning!” He was well past eight shots and not bothering to reload. It must be good to be an angel.
The demon was now roaring its hate as it thrashed and struggled to get out of the rubble. Pulverized brick flew through the air and pattered off nearby walls like shrapnel. I narrowly missed being brained by an almost whole brick that shattered a window just past my head. “Sam” was completely unfazed; he just kept advancing on the possessed corpse, shooting it over and over again, pounding it into immobility.
I didn’t want to leave his side. Not just because there were other nasties out there that I’d have to face without his help, but because, in my human foolishness, I felt like I had to help him. He’d saved my hide, no mistake, by interjecting himself between me and that demon when it popped out. I knew, intellectually, that he was far more powerful than I, and that any help I could offer would be the equivalent of a mouse helping a draft horse pull. And that’s being generous. But my gut was trying to insist that I couldn’t leave him behind.
He sensed my hesitation, turned back one more time, and barked, “GO!” His shout hit me with the force of a command from On High. I turned and ran into the rain, trying to put as many trees and buildings between me and the square of madness as I could. In the same instant, the demon launched itself like a missile out of the rubble, and slammed into him. I didn’t look back. I had a job to do. He could handle himself.
I had to dodge two more of the shadow snakes in the next block. They seemed not to notice me if I flattened myself against a building and didn’t move. I briefly entertained the thought that they sensed fear, but I was scared spitless of them, and they still didn’t home in on me. Once I was clear, I continued to run toward Mayhew’s center.
The lightning was changing character. It was starting to flash in patterns in the sky above the town and the hills. And it wasn’t just white anymore, either. I spotted purple, reddish, and sickly green. To my utter lack of surprise, things were getting worse. I pushed harder, running through the rain, my boots splashing through the torrents sluicing through the gutters.
I figured that the center was going to be guarded. I wasn’t disappointed, either.
I almost didn’t recognize it at first. It just looked like there was a pile of dirty rags heaped up in front of the front door. But there was something off, something sinister about it, even before it started to move.
The rags rose up from the steps, resolving into a tall, skeletally thin figure draped in tattered cloth. No detail of the creature itself could be seen, only the rags and the dark, formless void that took the place of a face.
I think I was getting numb to the horror at that point. I should have been too scared to move. I’d heard of The Rag Man, but never seen one. Most of the stories about them, or it, as no one could ever be certain that there were any more than one, were along the lines of get away as fast as you can. Nobody seemed to know where it came from, what it was, or what it was really capable of. The only detail that the stories all agreed on was that it was very, very dangerous.
I already had my rifle in my shoulder. It was dripping wet and the wood was slicker than snot. I hadn’t thought to wear gloves, which was an oversight I spent all of about a half second bemoaning as I laid the gold bead sight on the ragged figure and pulled the hammer back to full cock.
“I’ve been expecting you,” The Rag Man said. Its voice was like a whisper, but as loud as a full bull-bellow.
I didn’t bandy words with it. I just shot it. The .45-70’s report seemed awfully muted after the ear-splitting thunder of “Sam’s” weapon.
The 300 grain bullet didn’t even faze it. I thought for a second I’d missed, levered a second round into the chamber, and fired again. It just laughed.
Oh, hell.
It was coming down off the steps, slowly, taking its time. I shot it again, just as uselessly. Apparently even silver didn’t bother this thing.
I started praying, fast. That seemed to slow it down a little, though it still continued its leisurely advance. Somehow it seemed amused. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the flask of holy water.
That was when it hit me. It was still twenty feet away, but a long strip of rag lashed out and smacked me head over heels. I actually flew through the air a couple feet before coming down hard on my side and skidding through the water ru
nning in the street.
Damn, that hurt.
I’d kept my hands locked on my rifle, and tried to shoot it again. It was going to be completely ineffectual, I knew, but sometimes just the show of defiance has a value all its own. It hit me again before I could, sending me tumbling another fifteen feet. Ow.
I scrambled up to one knee, dashing the water from my face so I could see. The strobing lightning and the wind-driven rain didn’t make that easy. And something seemed to make The Rag Man hard to focus on in the first place.
My flask was gone. I’d lost the holy water in the latest tumble. The Rag Man was still advancing on me, still radiating that sense of amusement. It was like a cat playing with its food.
I whipped the rifle up and fired before I even had much of a sight picture. This time, two strips of cloth, that were nonetheless strong as iron bands, whipped out, wrapped themselves around my neck, and threw me. Fortunately I hit the bush planted in the hole in the sidewalk before I hit the tree beside it. Unfortunately, my rifle hit me, the front sight glancing off my jaw and cutting me open. I couldn’t feel the blood in all the rain, but I could definitely feel the pain, even over the pain of the battering this thing was giving me.
I had to find that holy water. I realized I’d lost track of the litany the first time The Rag Man had hit me. I started over, pumping two more shots into it while I tried to scramble out of reach of those whipping strips of spectral cloth, looking around for my flask.
It reached out again and wrapped a strip around my arm. I let go of my rifle with the other hand, hauled out my Bowie, and slashed at the strip that was constricting around my arm like a pipe clamp.
It was like hacking at Kevlar. For all its gossamer appearance, it was tough as hell. It wasn’t able to shrug of the blade like it could the bullets, though. It had to have physical form to hold me, so it had a physical form I could cut at. That didn’t make it easy. I got maybe a quarter inch in before it threw me against a bike rack. I barely avoided stabbing myself.
