The Killing Floor

by David Tully

  Matt shrugged. “Nobody knows, but maybe we’re finding out.”

  “You mean they all just went nuts, too?” Zoey asked.

  Matt hesitated. “Something like that.”

  Zoey sighed and laid her head on his shoulder and didn’t say anything else. She only trembled, and he held her tighter, hoping that might make it somehow better, doubting it would.

  Virginia was already breathing deeply, slipped into sleep.

  A sound came from somewhere outside the library—it might have been the scream of a person, or maybe only the scream of the wind.

  Matt didn’t know, and he no longer cared.

  Zoey and Virginia were safe in here, and that was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A bit later, Zoey still rested her head on his shoulder, and Virginia her head on his lap. Matt leaned against the wall and looked at both of them in the warm glow of the candles.

  Zoey’s shaking had slowly subsided. She must have been reassured by Matt’s arm around her, pulling her tight. Looking at the side of Virginia’s face, he was momentarily surprised to notice that the dark circles under the girl’s eyes had vanished—she looked healthier, far less thin and sickly than when Matt had found her a few hours earlier. Even her arms looked fuller—apparently, running for her life from crazed killers agreed with the kid.

  Whatever. He’d protected her, and he wasn’t going to argue with the positive results. Now both the child and the woman were asleep, leaving Matt alone.

  Everything had been taken from him over the past few years: his wife, his job, his best friend, his life. And so he’d gone out on the road—walking, walking, alone.

  His wife was denied him, and with her, the child they might have had. The family he might have had.

  There was something special about these two, untouched by Mr. Dark’s madness.

  Matt knew there was a higher power for evil in this universe. Didn’t that mean there could also be a higher power for good? Maybe these two, uncontaminated, were connected to it. If so, he was more determined than ever to keep them safe.

  Matt felt contented and at peace—strange, considering he was trying to hide from the ravages of a monster hurricane even as an entire town of possessed maniacal killers was out in the storm thirsting for his blood.

  Still, he’d take the good moments when he could snatch them. He’d protect these two for as long as he could, even if it meant taking on an entire town himself.

  Hell, even if it meant killing the rest of the people in the town. If that’s what it took to stop this infection and save just these two, then Matt had decided he would kill them all.

  He laid his head back against the wall, gazing down at the two heads leaning on him, needing him, and thought about how things could have been.

  A cruel voice shattered the stillness: “Aw, Matty found friends to play with!”

  Mr. Dark suddenly lurched out of the darkness, his face thrust forward into the candlelight, white skin gleaming as his black lips drew back in a skeletal grin, revealing yellowed canines.

  “I wanna play, too!”

  Virginia screamed, suddenly awake, but Dark’s long arm shot out, white fingers digging into her shoulder, drawing her to him.

  Matt leapt forward, but Dark suddenly held one index finger to the girl’s neck—a finger whose hand ended in a lethal-looking, razor-sharp nail. In Matt’s effort to rise, he’d thrown Zoey to the side. She now struggled to consciousness, dazed and disoriented. As she saw Dark standing there, she instinctively crawled away from him, gasping in fright.

  “Ah-ah-ah,” said Dark, in warning to Matt.

  “Let her go, you bastard,” Matt said.

  Zoey, still groggy, looked at the hideous being that held Virginia, then at Matt.

  “You know him?” she asked Matt. He was surprised for a moment, even out of his concern for Virginia, to realize that Zoey could see Dark, Virginia could feel him.

  “Silence,” Dark hissed at Zoey.

  This was new. Dark had never taken such an active hand, never interacted so much with others, let alone been seen by them. What did he want? What was going on here?

  “Such a sweet child,” Dark cooed, with a glance at Virginia.

  “Let her go,” Matt said. “Your fight is with me, not her.”

  “Well, Matt,” Dark went on, ignoring his demand, “you’ve been a good hunting dog, and now we’ve successfully narrowed it down to two. But I think I figured it out once and for all.”

  Matt stared at him a moment, trying to process this. “What are you talking about?”

  “Boy, are you dumb.” Dark cackled. “You really don’t get it yet, do you?”

  Virginia shuddered, trying to break free of Dark. He looked down at her, gripping her even more tightly.

  “Could it be, child? You truly don’t remember?” Dark reached into one pocket of his long black coat and pulled something out.

  “Then here,” he said, pushing it toward her. “Have a lick.”

  He shoved a maggot-covered lollipop at Virginia’s mouth, filth oozing off it. Disgusted, she turned her face away.

  Matt took a step forward. “Whatever you’re doing, just take me instead.”

  Dark ignored him and grabbed Virginia’s head, shoving the lollipop into her mouth and hissing, “Eat it, bitch!”

  Wide-eyed, Virginia gagged on the lollipop. She spit it out and turned away, then stopped.

  Shuddering, she fell over. Matt approached her as Mr. Dark stared down at her still form.

  “Clever shaman, I’ll give him that. Confused even me with his mumbo-jumbo spell.”

  “I said take me!”

  Matt ran at Dark, who waved a hand and sent him flying against the wall—where he was pinned, immobile, two feet off the floor. As his head smacked into the wall, Matt’s mind went blank for a moment, then filled with grainy black-and-white images of Jesse Weston in the grimy cell of a mental facility, pinned to a wall, sliding to the ceiling, trapped like an animal the night Rotting Jack came for him.

  Was this it, then? Had his moment come at last, too, then? Had Mr. Dark beaten him down to the point where he could open him up and climb on in, taking control of the whole show?

  Dark walked over and stood below Matt, regarding him with head cocked to one side. “Shut up, meat.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  “Only what she’ll appreciate. Tell me, Matt—how much have you learned about Croatoan?”

  Matt glared at him, not answering.

  “Oh, come on, Matty, I know you did your research. A baby born in Roanoke, the whole place up and vanishes, the word left behind. Some thought it was a warning. But it was just an artist, signing his work.”

  “What have you done to her?” Matt seethed through clenched teeth.

  Dark feigned astonishment. “You think I’m doing all this? Why wouldn’t I have tried this before, if I could?”

  Dark strolled up and down the dark, candlelit room. Virginia was still on the floor, Zoey cowering in fear, Matt unable to help either of them.

  “No, Matty boy. I’m big enough to admit when credit is due. I just wasn’t sure until now who to thank!” He leaned over Zoey, a hand on each knee. She whimpered and stared up at him, immobilized by fear. Dark waved at her, a mocking twirl of his fingers, then turned back to face Matt again.

  “I should have known the medicine man would be fucking with my mojo—that’s why it took me so long to figure it out. And you made the same mistake. Your problem was your fixation on the word Croatoan. If only you’d looked closer at the people of Roanoke, the way I should have looked closer at the people of Sundown.”

  Behind Dark, Zoey rose and advanced toward Virginia. Matt eyed her, then focused on Dark, hoping he could keep his attention.

  “What about them?” Matt sighed. He was barely listening to Dark, intent on breaking free of this spell, on letting Zoey get to Virginia and get her away.

  Zoey had reached Virginia and was crouching n
ext to her. The child’s face was turned away from her. Zoey reached out and touched Virginia’s shoulder.

  “The baby, Matt—the first European child ever born in America,” Dark continued. “Her name was Dare. Virginia Dare.”

  Zoey glanced at Dark, then back at Virginia—as the little girl’s back split down the middle.

  A huge black appendage, like the limb of some enormous spider, shot out of a gaping wound in Virginia’s back and impaled Zoey through the heart, pinning her to the wall.

  Zoey stared at Virginia in wide-eyed shock, gurgling as blood sprayed out around the black, spindly-haired limb that had impaled her.

  Quickly, the light died in her eyes.

  “No!” Matt screamed. He struggled as hard as he could but still couldn’t move a muscle.

  Virginia, still huddled on the floor, let out a heart-wrenching cry of pain and fear—and Matt came free of the wall, falling to the floor. Dark whirled away from Matt, spinning to face Virginia.

  When he saw what she’d done to Zoey, his demented smile widened even further.

  “Whoops! Somebody’s waking up!” He crept up to Virginia, hovering by her shoulder, her face turned away from all of them, her form lost in the darkness beyond the candlelight. Dark leaned closer to her, staring intently.

  “And as a bitter ex-Beatle once sang,” he cooed in her ear, “the dream is over.”

  Virginia shuddered, still not rolling over, but the appendage slid from Zoey’s chest, retracting into Virginia’s back. Zoey’s body slumped to the floor, where it sat, wide-eyed and splay legged.

  Behind Virginia and Dark, Matt groaned, rising to his knees on the floor where he’d fallen.

  Dark turned to Matt again. “Where do you think this is all coming from? All the rot, all the power?” He pointed one long, bony finger at Virginia. “From this little lady here. She’s the cause of it all…just like she was in Roanoke. She’s been spreading her darkness, but unconsciously so far, not knowing who she is, what she’s doing…what she can do. But now that’s all gonna change. Yep”—he swooned, laying both hands on Virginia—“it’s time to kick this up a notch.”

  As Dark’s hands made contact with Virginia, the girl screamed—but the scream was lost in a howling wind that suddenly whipped through the library as if all the windows and doors had been opened to let the hurricane in.

  Books flew from shelves and danced in the air. One massive facsimile of the Gutenberg Bible slammed Matt in the face, sending him sprawling backward.

  Shelves crashed to the ground, doors flew open and slammed shut, screaming on their rusted hinges.

  And as quickly as the maelstrom started, it stopped.

  Virginia still sat on the floor, staring at the wall, her expression blank.

  And then a look of knowing, of realization, that made her tiny face seem disquietingly adult, rolled in, and her eyes slid shut.

  When they opened, the orbs were completely black.

  She looked up at Mr. Dark as he regarded her expectantly, and when she spoke, the voice of Virginia sang out one last time in its old high tone, as she said, dully, “I remember.”

  Dark turned to Matt where he lay on the ground, blood oozing from the cut in his forehead. Matt’s eyes searched the room for his ax—wherever it was, it was buried beneath a sea of books.

  Mockingly, Dark sang out across the room, “Allow me to introduce a long-lost hero of mine: ladies and gents, give it up for…Croatoan!”

  Virginia turned her gaze from Mr. Dark to Matt and smiled at him.

  “Virginia,” Matt whispered. “Honey, don’t listen to him…”

  Even as he spoke and she looked at him, her smiling face split open. What erupted through the torn flesh was a hideous parody of the child, her angelic features withered into the gray parchment of a hag stretched over a skull. The black orbs erupted into flame, glowing with red intensity, as the shell of the body that had housed the beast Croatoan was shed.

  Legs shot out in profusion from a spindly, segmented body that defied all laws of anatomy in its twists and multijointed turns, yet resembled nothing so much as the tumor-ridden love child of a spider and an octopus. It was wrong in every way, and it hurt Matt’s mind just to look at it, but he forced himself to take it in, searching for a trace of Virginia, finding none.

  Several of the spider-thing’s limbs shot out, some punching holes in the wall, one knocking down a door, two shattering a window, allowing the wind and rain to rush in and soak the books that carpeted the floor.

  Mr. Dark sighed, gazing up at the beast in rapture: “I think I’m in love.”

  It turned its gray face, inhuman and yet horribly human, toward the window, ignoring Dark.

  It moved forward, towering over Matt where he lay, dazed and defeated, prostrate across a leather-bound set of Dickens that drove its sharp edges into his back and head.

  “I remember,” the thing above him hissed. “And now I know what I have to do.”

  Matt struggled to rise. Swallowing his disgust, he grabbed hold of one thick black appendage coated with coarse, bristling hair.

  Another leg shot through Matt’s stomach, impaling him on a copy of Bleak House. Matt stared at the Virginia-thing a moment in wide-eyed shock, then at his stomach split open and speared through. Then the light went out of his eyes, they closed, and he fell back on the books.

  “Tasty,” said Mr. Dark, perched on one still-standing bookshelf across the room, enjoying the show.

  Withdrawing its pincerlike limb, the beast stepped over Matt’s still body and went out into the storm, an entranced Mr. Dark floating in its wake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When Matt opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that the storm had stopped.

  There was no wind, no rain…come to think of it, there was absolutely no sound at all. An utter absence, like he was in a vacuum.

  He lifted his head and discovered he was actually on a beach.

  Even better, that damn Indian was there with him. This time, the old guy was standing, staring down at Matt’s prone form. So that answered one question in Matt’s mind: the old guy wasn’t stuck in that cross-legged pose. Good to know.

  Then Matt remembered Zoey. And Virginia. And then he wasn’t feeling so flip anymore.

  He groaned and struggled to his knees, taking in his surroundings.

  He was on a beach, and it was night. There was no moon, but everything was lit by an odd blue light, like some permanent half twilight, or more like that goofy day-for-night effect they used in old movies, when they couldn’t film at night so they just filmed during the day, then tinted the film to try to make it look like night.

  Whatever it was, he could see everything clearly. It was the sound that was a problem. He could see waves crashing on the beach, could see tree branches blowing in a light breeze (nice to have a light breeze for once—he was starting to feel like hurricane conditions were all he’d ever known), but he couldn’t hear a damn thing.

  Until the old guy spoke.

  “Get up,” he graciously invited Matt. He didn’t sound mad, but he also didn’t sound too cuddly either.

  Matt struggled to his feet, checking out his stomach as he stood. Not a scratch, and it didn’t hurt. He knew that ever since the avalanche he’d been much better at the whole healing thing, but it usually took awhile, and a gaping hole in his midsection? He thought that one might even leave a scar, if it didn’t finally kill him once and for all. But there was nothing.

  Matt decided he could tackle that one later, and turned his focus back on the old guy. “The last time we talked, I asked if you were Croatoan.”

  The old guy stared at him a moment, then answered, “I think you know the answer to that now.”

  “I don’t know the answer to anything,” Matt roared at him. The old guy didn’t flinch. “I don’t know who you are, or why I’m here, or where here even is.”

  “Here is the land of shadows,” the old guy answered before Matt could continue with his rant. “The
land of the past. Of the dead. That is something you should know something about, Matthew Cahill.”

  “Great. You know me. Who are you?”

  The old guy turned to go, walking down the beach. “I am the shaman of my tribe,” he said over his shoulder. “That is all you need to know about me. Now, come.”

  Enraged, Matt stormed after him. “I don’t know where you’ve taken me, but there are people who need me back in that town,” he shouted, reaching out to grab the old guy by the shoulder. “So I’m not going anywhere but back to that—”

  As his hand came down on the old guy’s shoulder, the old guy grabbed it at the wrist. He whirled to speak to Matt, his eyes burning with an inner fire.

  “I am Wyandotte, shaman of the Croatoa,” he intoned—not shouting, but with a voice that commanded the listener to hear, hypnotic in its effect. Matt listened.

  “I am here to show you what has been, that you may stop what will be.”

  Like the Ghost of Christmas Past, Matt thought, only he wasn’t feeling much like Scrooge.

  The shaman’s other hand lay alongside Matt’s face, then pushed it to the left. “See,” he said.

  And Matt saw.

  Except that Matt knew what he was seeing was real. It had happened a long time ago, judging by what these dudes were wearing. But he knew it had happened.

  He saw a ship coming to the beach, even as Wyandotte and his people (the Croatoa, Matt knew, for though there were no words, he knew, in this place beyond language, he understood what he was seeing without asking) watched from behind the trees.

  He saw them start to build a town ringed by wooden walls—but Wyandotte and his people came and spoke, and there were smiles, and no fear, and the people from the eastern sea had found Eden again.

  He saw one from the village, a tall man in black, the shaman of their tribe, and knew his name was Parson Chillingworth. Matt knew there was a blackness in his soul that matched his robe, and he knew that as yet, Wyandotte did not know, and so they spoke, and shared.

  He saw a child born to the people in the village—a girl. He felt joy at the child’s birth, sharing the smiles of the people, and felt as if he were one of them.