by David Tully
When he saw his only one, his heart simultaneously leapt in hope and sank in despair. He hadn’t known hearts could do that.
In the alley next to the pharmacy stood Murray the Guru’s VW bus, right where it had swiveled and stopped after smashing into the mailbox and sending Murray airborne. None of his hippie pals had managed to remember to come back and set this one ablaze—perhaps all that weed all those years meant that hippies weren’t even useful as mindless rot-faced slaves of a demon from hell. He’d always known drugs couldn’t be all bad.
Matt ran from the doorway and into the wide-open back of the VW. Inside, he was unsurprised to find an astonishing collection of bongs, several rain-soaked Day-Glo posters, and best of all, the keys, still sitting in the ignition where Murray had left them when he took flight.
Matt gunned the motor, and it leapt to cantankerous life. He put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas—and the VW wouldn’t budge. It had plowed into the public mailbox with such force that the two were fused together. Matt put the car in drive and tried to push the box forward.
The mailbox rocked on its side, refusing to come loose from its attacker or allow it to move forward.
Matt put the car in neutral, staring at the windshield wipers as they plowed through the ceaseless rain.
A large shape came shrieking over the mailbox into the glare of the headlights, lurching across the hood, and smashed through the windshield.
Gibbering and cackling wildly, the sack of rot that used to be Murray’s face came within a centimeter of Matt’s, yellow stumped teeth biting at the air where his nose had been a moment before, as Matt’s head went back against the headrest and his arms came up, grabbing at the thing attacking him. The filthy dreadlocks that framed the horror gnashing in Matt’s grip slapped at his head, dousing him with the rainwater they were soaked in.
Matt suspected that the accident had so disfigured Murray’s face, when it slammed into the brick wall of the pharmacy, that even without Croatoan’s infection, the poor old hippie wouldn’t have looked too good right now.
In fact, from the strange flopping motion of Murray’s body, Matt suspected that the guy’s spine was broken. This lifeless vessel was running on mindless, evil energy—which freed up Matt to deal with him a little more forcefully than he otherwise might have.
As the Slinky-like creature that used to be Murray gibbered and wriggled its way through the windshield, Matt pushed back at its shoulder with one hand while frantically reaching behind his seat to find a weapon with the other. The ax was somewhere back there, but as his hand gripped something else that had rolled across the floor moments earlier, he knew it was only right and just and exactly the way Murray would have wanted to go, had he been given a choice here.
Matt brought the enormous glass bong up and shoved it into the gaping maw of the thing trying to tear out his throat, and with a push on the bottom, he rammed it in deep.
The thing shrieked as the glass crunched through its teeth and tongue, straight back through its mouth and out the other side of its throat.
It rolled backward out of the windshield, tearing at the glass weapon piercing its head with such force that it was nearly tearing it off, and hurled itself off the hood.
The bulky, wriggling thing hit the mailbox with such force that the already loosened container now broke free of the van—and with a final gurgle, the Murray-thing fell across it and went still, eyes on the heavens, bong protruding from its mouth.
Matt pondered the tableau a moment, then flashed a peace sign with his fingers to the sky, hoping Murray—the real Murray—was answering from a better place.
Matt put the floridly painted love machine into drive and headed out of town.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Matt didn’t know if it was Croatoan, Mr. Dark, Almighty God, or Mother Nature, but somebody sure didn’t want him out driving in this weather.
It seemed that every tree not completely knocked over and lying in the road was bent over double—one way or the other, the entire forest was hell-bent on making an impossible obstacle course for Matt to navigate.
The gusting winds drove the leaves from the branches, adding further confusion and a welter of flying debris, coupled with twigs and small branches smacking into the car and hurling through the window to bite at Matt’s face. The windshield wipers were useless on the shattered windshield, and as fast as he could wipe the water and the flora from his face, more was thrown at him.
On top of that, the creeks and streams that coursed down the mountainside had been filled to capacity by the hurricane and had long since burst their banks, sending raging rapids cascading down the pitted mountain road.
It was a miracle that one headlight still worked on the battered vehicle, but the other was shattered, and on top of it all, Matt was driving directly in the face of the wind, which fought with all its might to drive him back, back down the steep mountain trail he was trying to climb.
The gears groaned in elderly protest as Matt gunned the gas, forcing the VW up into the face of the storm—which, if anything, was angrier and stronger than it had been even minutes ago. He vaguely recalled that peaceful drive with Zoey, several hours and a lifetime ago, as they’d gone to the fracking site to protest. He’d managed to get this far, and it should only be a few minutes more.
Before he even expected it, his one headlight picked out the opened gate to the quarry, swinging wild and free in the storm, one section of fence near it crushed by a vast fallen elm.
Matt sighed with relief and stepped on the gas.
With a roar that was audible even above the hurricane, a gigantic tree directly ahead, not far below the gate, was suddenly broken loose from its ancient mooring by the flooding waters of an overrun creek: Matt had only a split second to register the oncoming wall of water and wood before it smashed into the already badly bent-in front of the car, and then he was sliding sideways and knew in his gut that something was forcing him back down the mountain and over the cliff.
He’d taken the precaution of putting the ax in the passenger seat and silently thanked the patron saint of axes as he grabbed it and leapt out the driver’s door.
He rolled into the mud and started sliding downward on his back, then hurled himself onto his stomach and put both hands on the ax trailing behind his head.
He slid several more feet, and then the ax caught between two small pines holding tight in the storm.
A shriek of metal caused him to look over his shoulder in time to see the vast tree that had come loose push his ride over the sharp edge of a cliff, not fifty feet below where Matt lay.
Both tree and van vanished into the dark, the sound of any impact far below lost in the roar of the river following in their wake.
Matt pulled himself up to the pine holding one end of the ax and held on tight to the trunk. After a moment, he climbed to his feet and tottered for a moment. Then he pushed himself forward, up the remaining stretch of road to the quarry gate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Matt crouched behind a sand container, trying to see through the driving rain—no good. He’d need to get closer. He’d dodged his way through the circular arrangement of fracking materials that led to the water, expecting at every turn to encounter Dark, Croatoan, or their pals from town. But so far, no one.
Until he reached the water, and saw that everyone from town, and everyone who’d come to hassle everyone in town, was now standing side by side near the water, oblivious to the raging elements, calm and collected and indeed seemingly brain-dead, their focus on the enormous crane and pipe that formed the latest drilling operation for the hydrofracking company. And the machinery was in full operational mode tonight, hurricane or no hurricane. It seemed the opposing sides had settled their differences and gotten down to some serious fracking in the wee hours of the night.
From a distance, Matt looked at this insane setup for a moment, shielded by a small chemical bin, and then studied the sloping hills around the quarry, hoping to get clo
ser. He hadn’t noticed yesterday, in all the noise and action, how the banks around the quarry formed a natural amphitheater. Long before the Europeans drew rocks here, or gas, the Iroquois drew blood, hoping to appease whatever dark forces they feared in these woods. This was the killing floor.
Not long ago, Matt would have dismissed customs like that as childish, primitive, something we’d all grown beyond.
Now he knew better. There were bad things in the woods. If you were scared of them, you were only smart.
Scuttling from sand container to chemical box, searching for any possible barrier that might keep him hidden, Matt made his way toward the sloping side of the quarry and the trees that grew there.
He had no intention of rushing blind into an angry mob of Croatoan’s mindlessly rampaging zombie hordes—but as he got closer, he realized they might not be such a problem, after all.
Unlike the last time he’d seen them, the citizens of Sundown and their antifracking buddies now seemed to be incredibly well behaved.
A group of about twenty, comprised of both fracking workers and antifracking protesters, were now diligently manning the drilling equipment, though in complete darkness.
Their expressions were blank as they operated the equipment—some weren’t even looking at what they were doing, only staring blankly ahead into some indeterminate distance.
But they were working well—the pipe was now deep in the earth, working away to dredge up whatever was down there. Matt had a good hunch it wasn’t gas they were aiming for this time.
He reached the base of the embankment that circled the quarry and froze: a gust of hurricane rain suddenly abated for a moment, allowing Matt to see clearly for several yards in front of him—and standing in front of him were Virginia and Mr. Dark. The beast had assumed its earlier form, though the hold seemed less permanent, the features shifting and rolling, stretching the skin taut, then letting it go slack.
Luckily, their eyes were trained on the pipe drilling deep into the earth, staring into the hole with a fixed intensity as chains were lowered through the pipe. Matt knew those chains were meant for one thing: to drag Croatoan’s tomb out of the earth and put the shaman’s stone in the hands of either that demon or another. He was just in time.
Matt scrambled up the embankment and crouched behind a tree, clutching the ax tightly so his grip wouldn’t slip on the wet wood. He watched, waiting for the moment.
With a tear, the chain and pipe erupted from the earth, and a massive piece of the floor came with them. Allowed to get its grip deep in the earth through the pipe penetrating the stone, an enormous hook attached to the end of the chain had torn a great rock free.
The rot-faced mob gathered as one to lift the boulder when it stuck, while Virginia’s black eyes seemed to glow with a feverish anticipation. Behind her, Dark beamed, his gaze still on the hole in the earth.
The wind whipped through the woods with a fierce howl, knocking trees down left and right, as it seemed to be coming for the crowd of monstrosities gathered by the water.
The pulley groaned as the earth lifted, heaving the enormous rock free. It was the same boulder that Matt had seen in the shaman’s vision: the seal on Chillingworth’s tomb.
Matt gripped the ax handle more tightly, restraining himself from rushing forward immediately. He had no chance against that mob for long—he had to know for sure that they’d found it, had to see the prize he was aiming for.
Virginia smiled at the boulder as it hovered above the crowd, held there by the crane. She jerked her head to the side, and with another groan of grinding steel, audible above the screeching hurricane winds, the rock was moved away from the opening it had left in the earth.
From his vantage point behind the bending, protesting tree, Matt could see Mr. Dark nearly dancing with anticipation behind Virginia.
“You found it!” he crowed. “Your hour of liberation is here!”
Virginia glanced up at him, then returned her focus to the gaping hole in the ground. She slowly stepped forward, followed by Mr. Dark. The army of rot-faces stood immobile, waiting for further direction, staring vacantly into the heart of the storm that pummeled them.
Matt leaned forward, straining to see what lay beneath the earth, though in his gut he already knew.
Virginia pointed into the darkness beneath and screeched at her rot-faced followers: “Bring it up!”
Four of them shambled forward, even as the pelting rain removed more chunks of their flesh, rainwater mingling with the bubbling ooze that slid off their skulls.
They leapt into the crater and fumbled in the mud, rainwater spilling over the sides and starting to fill the hole.
As Matt leaned forward more, the rain-soaked ground beneath his feet gave way, sending him sprawling to the shoreline below. Clawing at the earth, he let go of the ax as he slid down the embankment and crashed to the earth below, half buried in mud and leaves.
He lay there a moment, waiting for the inevitable attack—until he realized that in the howling chaos of the hurricane and the focused attention on the uncovered tomb of Parson Chillingworth, nobody had noticed the new arrival at Croatoan’s beach party.
Virginia was crouched by the side of the pit, animal-like, her lip pulled back in a feral snarl of anticipation. Dark’s focus, too, was fixed on the fumbling ghouls below—and he audibly yelped with greedy anticipation, clapping his thin white hands together as they wrenched an object coming up out of the muck below.
“Bring it to me,” Mr. Dark said. Virginia shot him a look. “To us, of course. My mistake.”
Matt was scrambling through the morass of earth he’d brought down with him, looking for the ax while constantly checking over his shoulder that no one had noticed him yet, only yards from the excavation. He knew he didn’t need to worry about the good people of Sundown, who, without any explicit commands from Virginia, were now as interactive as plywood.
Matt’s hands pulled at the mud and roots and leaves, but every time he wiped the mess aside, the wind and rain obscured everything again, shrouded as it already was in darkness.
Behind him, a large wooden box made of thick wood burst free of the mud with a loathsome squelching sound, and for the first time in centuries, the tomb of Croatoan was seen by human eyes.
Matt watched this unfolding and returned to his search for the ax with new, nearly hysterical intensity—time was nearly up. The moment either of those things got their hands on the shaman’s stone, it was over. He turned his eyes back to the ground—and saw two feet standing in front of him.
The warlock’s tomb was lowered to the earth, where it thumped down with a smack. Virginia motioned with her head alone, and two rot-faced would-be fracking protesters shambled over to the lid. They clawed at the wood so fast that its splintered surface instantly shredded the skin on their fingers, but they ignored the wounds and tore at the lid.
Preserved in the mud so long, it easily tore free, intact.
Inside, the black-robed skeleton of Parson Chillingworth lay on its side. The skin was gone, but long gray hair flowed from the skull in clotted clumps. There was a space in the tomb next to him, big enough for a child, where Croatoan had slept for centuries.
And grasped in the arms crossed over its skeletal chest, it held an object: a small brown stone not much bigger than an eggplant, its sides still adorned with the faded paint of hieroglyphs whose meaning was lost to the people who now walked these hills.
Virginia stepped forward, arm outstretched.
Matt came up with a roar, ready to tackle whatever rot-faced bastard was trying to slow him down—and came face-to-face with Wyandotte. As always, the guy seemed totally unfazed. What was more, he wasn’t even wet, and his long white hair was untouched by the wind.
He said nothing as Matt halted his fist on the way to the shaman’s face. He just pointed behind Matt, back on the embankment.
Matt turned and lunged at the forest floor there, and his hands slid around the wooden handle of the ax, buried beneath sli
ding mud.
As Virginia leaned down to grasp the shaman’s stone, Dark played his hand. Reaching out to one of the rot-faces that had pulled the box from the ground, he touched its cheek. A gray fungus blossomed on the glistening skull, and as it opened its mouth, the lower jaw came loose, dropping to the mud below.
“Take it,” Dark purred.
The creature lurched forward and shoved Virginia aside, sending the small form sprawling on the ground, caking her filthy dress in even more mud.
Virginia screeched as she fell forward in the mud, sounding not unlike the petulant child she appeared to be.
Dark’s servant shot a skeletal, tattered arm into Chillingworth’s coffin and seized the shaman’s stone—just as a spiderlike appendage pierced its torso and ripped upward, splitting the shambler’s body in half. The stone flew through the air, hit the mud, and rolled.
Behind it, Virginia’s form again burst apart, revealing the spider-god Croatoan in all its perverse glory. It reared on several of the legs at the rear of its body, towering over Mr. Dark, glaring down at him with its monstrous (though in some way disconcertingly still childlike) face.
“It’s mine, Dark!” it roared above the hurricane winds. “You promised!”
Dark smiled, reaching out for the sheriff, who wavered beside him. “You’re no good to me running off on your own,” Dark purred. Somehow, his voice was perfectly audible to Matt even from where he crouched, though Dark made no effort to speak more loudly in the pounding gale. “You need a tutor. A master.”
The creature hissed. “So that’s what this has been about. I trade one foul slaver for another.”
Dark shrugged. “You say tomato, I say tom-ahhhh-tooooo.” And then he touched the sheriff.
The fungus blossomed, and the inert figure roared to life, lunging for the shaman’s stone where it lay.
The sheriff was on all fours, reaching for the stone, as Croatoan leapt over Dark and the assembled townspeople, landing on the sheriff and gripping him by the shoulders. The monster had raised him up and was beginning to rip him apart at the seams when Dark finally lost his fabled cool.
