He sat at the bench, in the home, fingers dancing slowly across the keys. His mother's eyes, glazed and empty, stared through and beyond him. In the corner, one old man with a single leg tapped his wooden peg in time. Vanace turned, glanced up into Jimbo's wide-open, leering grin.
He turned, lurching from the piano. The bench caught him mid-thigh, and he windmilled his arms wildly. His shirt, now soaked from the spilled drink, was plastered to his chest, and his eyes were wide, staring.
Heather dropped her tray, drinks and glass and ice clattering to the floor as she brought her hand to her mouth, stifling her scream. The bartender was moving, out from behind the bar with the bouncer's practiced speed.
Vanace saw none of it. He turned to her. His lips moved, but the sound that emerged was soft, so soft none could have heard. His mother stared, then, slowly turned her gaze to him. Her lips parted, eyes clearing. His eyes softened, and he reached out to her, holding his arms open wide. She shivered, half-rising, her own arms raising.
Vanace toppled, his feet tangled in Jimbo's strings, his heel coming down hard, crushing the hollow wooden head and his knee striking the bench with a crunch that removed all support. She watched him, waited as he fell to her arms.
Vanace felt Heather's support, felt her waver, then hold. His knee throbbed, and his mind whirled. That was one reality. In the other, his mother watched him with her empty gaze, staring miles beyond his eyes to someplace he couldn't reach. He was lying across her lap, his arms wrapped tightly and hers falling limp across his shoulders. He couldn't raise himself with the one good knee, couldn't focus his thoughts.
"Mother?" he whispered, ignoring one reality for the older, "Mother, please?"
Heather heard his words, heard the odd, lilting soft tones of his voice, and her heart melted. Her own little ones were long gone to school and marriage and life, but she knew that tone. She knew what to say, and what to do.
As Vanace dropped his head to his mother's shoulder, cracked bits of Jimbo ground into his heel, Heather spoke soothingly in a long-dead voice. "It's okay honey. You let it go. It's all right."
Vanace's chest heaved, his eyes welled with tears. In his mind, the music slowly returned, the same song, slowly, her song, and He swayed in time. For once, his fingers didn't need to pound out the notes; his mind didn't need to concentrate on the sound. He felt her close, hugged so tightly that Heather feared she might snap.
Behind him the notes echoed from the keys of the piano, pacing his heartbeat. He peeled his head from Heather's shoulder, each movement a study in agony, a test of wills. His arms lifted. He felt the gentle pull of the piano, guiding him. His body, numb and tense, worked against that pull, failed. He returned to the stool, pivoted, releasing Heather from her obligation by way of a quick slide to the left.
As she slipped away, Vanace massaged the bicep of one arm, tried to rid him of that crawling sensation, arms seemingly entangled in spider webs, or...strings.
Against the wall, sitting silently, dead-mindless stare no different than a thousand other times, she watched. Ghost images of the others leaned against the walls, lost in their own worlds, oblivious to the music, to Vanace.
Without thought, he played. His fingers worked softly, caressing each key and moving on, releasing the notes in an ever-quickening dance of joy. A song, one song, the only song he knew. He noted a slight shift in his mother’s face, a twitch at the corners of her lips. With a twist of his head and a quick flash of a smile to melt through that cold, endless silence, Vanace played out loud and strong, filling the room with the heavy beat and lilting notes. Her eyes flickered, opened, and turned. She watched him, features melting to life, flowing into the smile. Vanace felt a catch in his heart, tears flowing freely and steadily. His fingers danced. Behind him, shaking her head, Heather closed the door behind her gently. The now empty club rang with the notes of "Kitten On the Keys".
Deliver Us From Meeble
By Brian Keene & David Niall Wilson
"Small towns are like people, boy," the old man had said. "Some get old and die a natural death. Others get murdered."
Justin hadn’t understood what the old man was trying to tell him. Now, hours later, it was starting to become clear.
He’d been discharged from the Navy two days ago. No family to return home to. No wife or girlfriend waiting outside the base with hugs and kisses. No friends, other than his fellow shipmates. Walking through the gates at Norfolk, only one thing awaited him—the open highway.
He’d hitched a ride with a Chief Warrant Officer traveling to Richmond. Justin spent the night in a dingy motel, with cockroaches and the moans of the couple next door as his only company. While eating breakfast in the diner next to the motel, he’d met a trucker who was traveling west on Interstate 64. Justin tagged along as far as the West Virginia state-line. He’d hopped out near Lewisburg, and had been walking since.
Justin didn’t mind the walk. After four years spent mostly at sea, walking on firm ground was a welcome novelty. The day was perfectly picturesque; cool air, birds singing, no mosquitoes buzzing in his ear. His seabag rested easily on his back, carrying his few belongings. Justin felt reborn and refreshed.
He made his way down a narrow road meandering through the surrounding farmlands. Justin was amazed at how many different shades of green existed in the countryside. Mountains topped each horizon. He’d seen no towns since Lewisburg, and very few houses. Barely a half dozen vehicles had passed him during his trek. Occasionally, the scenery was broken with a lone silo, or a ramshackle barn with CHEW MAIL POUCH painted on its roof in fading letters. A herd of cattle gazed thoughtfully at him as he walked by. Other than that, he’d been alone. Justin enjoyed the solitude.
But as night approached, he regretted his isolation. He had no desire to spend the night sleeping in a pasture. The air grew damp and chilly, and a light fog drifted over the road. Somewhere to his right, a whippoorwill sang a lonely song.
That was when the old man had showed up. Justin breathed a sigh of relief when the headlights of the rickety pickup truck crested the hill, slicing through the fog. It pulled alongside him, belching gray smoke from the tailpipe.
A grizzled old man in denim coveralls and a faded ball cap opened the door, his craggy face profiled in the dashboard light. He smiled, displaying teeth yellowed from age and chewing tobacco. A silver haired, overweight beagle lounged next to him on the bench seat.
"Need a ride, or are you walking all night?"
"A ride would be fine, sir." Justin climbed up into the cab, and the dog sighed, moving out of his way.
The old man had proved a talker. In fifteen minutes, Justin heard all about the man’s brother who had joined a militia and got arrested, his cows, his farm, the dog, what the government was doing wrong, what the media was doing wrong, and how gas prices were climbing. He’d displayed an instant kinship when he learned that Justin had just left the navy. That started him on a tale of his service onboard a troop carrier during the Second World War.
He kindly offered to let Justin spend the night in his barn, informing him that it was another two hours drive. Exhausted, Justin had groaned inwardly.
"Aren’t there any towns nearby? I wouldn’t want to put you out for the night."
"No other towns," the old man said, a little too quickly. "Nothing but forest."
Consigned to his fate, Justin yawned and settled in for the long ride.
Minutes later, he spied a yellow glow over the treetops to the right. A small, one lane dirt road led away in the direction of the light.
"I thought you said there were no towns?"
"That ain’t no town, boy," the old man insisted. "Let it be."
Not wanting to argue, Justin thanked him firmly and asked him to stop. Instead, the old man increased speed, stomping his foot to the floor.
"Hey!" Justin grabbed the door handle. "What’s the idea?"
Not used to the punishment, the truck sputtered and stalled, coasting to a halt. Justin took the chance an
d jumped out of the cab.
"Boy," the old man said. "You don’t want to go down there. Please!"
As if in confirmation, the beagle whined.
"What is it about the town that scares you," Justin asked. "Do they not like strangers or something?"
"Small towns are like people, boy. Some get old and die a natural death. Others get murdered."
The old man had been right.
Twilight changed to darkness in the valley, and the mist vanished. The moon’s silver light was bright and clear, giving the winding road a creepy iridescence that, combined with Justin’s exhaustion, increased his heart rate slightly. Justin knew it was silly, the old man’s words and the scenery were the perfect setup for mindless panic. He pushed it all aside, shifted the seabag to a more comfortable position on his shoulders, and plowed ahead. There was no way of knowing what sort of place he was heading into, and with the late hour, finding a place to crash was going to be no picnic. He wished, just for a moment, that he were still rolling down the highway, now fading into the distance behind him, with the old man’s endless prattle numbing him to sleep. In hindsight, maybe the old man’s barn wouldn’t have been so bad.
He rounded a final curve, and the lights he’d seen over the treetops took shape as squat homes in a shallow valley. The closest of those buildings, and the largest, was an old church, the steeple canting to one side in an impossible war with gravity. There was a light on at the front door, and another inside, glittering softly through stained-glass windows.
On the front of the steeple, barely visible, hung a white circle. As Justin approached, he saw that it was a symbol of some kind. Not one he recognized, and certainly not a cross. With a shrug, he turned toward the town.
Nothing moved. There was no traffic, no sign of anything that might be open. He continued past a few scattered homes with only porch lights glowing, and swung around the tree line once again. Ahead, blinking a weak, neon welcome, was a sign flashing VACANCY.
Sighing with relief, Justin crunched up the gravel driveway and lowered the seabag beside the door to the office of the Good Night Motor Lodge. The lot was empty except for a rusted Ford truck leaning weakly toward one flat tire. The windshield was spider-webbed with cracks. Weeds crept up around the sides of the vehicle; defying even the gravel in their search for sunlight. The sight spoke of long inactivity. Of rot and decay.
Shaking his head, Justin turned and rang the doorbell. He heard a distant tone, then nothing. He waited a moment longer, then reached out to ring again. Before his finger could make contact with the switch, an owl hooted, close behind him, and he turned toward the trees. When he turned back, the door had opened, though no one was in sight.
"Hello," he called out tentatively, "is anybody there?"
Only the owl answered him, its cry echoing into the night.
Justin slowly pushed the door open the rest of the way and crept into the lobby. It was just as deserted as the streets had been. A layer of dust covered the sparse furnishings. The sagging couch displayed tufts of its innards, burrowed through by generations of mice. A faded black and white photograph hung askew on the wall, the glass cracked.
His footsteps rang hollowly on the wooden floorboards as he walked to the counter. A silver bell, rusty with disuse, sat on top of it. Justin tapped it with his finger, the ring like a gunshot shattering the eerie quiet.
Now, even the owl was silent.
Stepping behind the vacant counter, Justin spied a curtain hanging over a doorway on the far wall. The tattered fabric swayed slightly. Swallowing hard, Justin reached for it.
"You shouldn’t be here."
Screaming aloud, Justin whirled in fright. A girl, no older than six, stood framed in the doorway to the parking lot. Heart pounding in his throat, he chuckled, embarrassed.
"You scared me." Justin smiled.
"You shouldn’t be here," the girl repeated direly.
At first glance she was quite adorable and Justin knew she would be a heart breaker when she got older. A deep despair welled up inside him, however. She was obviously poor, dressed in the tattered hand-me-downs of another generation; the style of clothing a child of the 1950’s would have worn. An air of melancholy hung over the girl like a shroud. There were dark, puffy circles under her hazel eyes, as if she’d been crying.
The girl appraised him as if he were an alien species who had demanded to be taken to her leader. She cocked her head and stared at his sneakers.
"What are those?" She pointed at his feet.
"Those are Nike’s." Puzzled, he glanced down at his feet. Could they actually be so poor as to never have seen a pair of Nike shoes? "Haven’t you ever seen the commercials on TV?"
"On what?"
"TV. You know, television. Your Mommy and Daddy let you watch cartoons don’t they?"
"My Mommy and Daddy are dead," she said tonelessly. "The white fuzzy thing tore them up like bugs and made their red stuff come out. You shouldn’t be here."
Stunned and unsure of what to say next, Justin paused. Physically and mentally exhausted, he tried a different approach.
"Can you tell me where the grown-ups are?"
"At the church," she whispered. "Mr. Aickman said we should try to get back with Jesus again, since we didn’t do anything when Pastor Anderson and the town council turned the church into a ‘den of evil’ and summoned him."
Justin swallowed hard. The earnest look on the girl’s face certainly made it appear that she was telling the truth. He glanced back at the curtained doorway and turned to her again.
She was gone.
"Shit…"
Sprinting to the door, Justin glanced up and down the street. The girl had vanished from sight. The owl greeted him again.
"Did you see a weird little girl run by here," Justin asked it, "or am I more tired than I thought?"
The owl said nothing and in the silence, a new sound drifted to his ears. From inside the odd church he’d passed, an organ faintly played a mournful tune. Muffled voices accompanied it.
Behind him, the bell on the counter rang.
Justin turned around and gasped. Tiny wisps of smoke curled up from the counter. Carved deep into the wood was a message.
GET OUT
The edges of the letters were singed, as if the knife used to carve them had been red hot. A small tuft of coarse, silvery-white hair was snagged on one blackened edge.
Justin’s temper rose. All he’d wanted was a room. He’d faithfully served his country and he didn’t need a handful of backwoods hillbillies taunting him. Angry, he shouldered the seabag and stalked towards the church.
The moon was out in full now, and he could see the houses better. Most stood in various stages of neglect and disrepair. Here a broken window, there a screen door hanging askew. A rain gutter hung haphazardly from one, banging monotonously in the breeze. An ancient, 1950’s model Packard lay on its side, the windshield smashed and the passenger door ripped from its hinges. The town looked—dead.
The old man’s words came back to him.
The organ music grew louder and Justin made out the voices, raised together in a desperate version of "Rock of Ages". Approaching the church, he noticed the strange symbol again. He’d traveled most of the globe during his tour of duty, but he had never seen anything like it.
The music stopped and the muffled voices had turned to prayer. The familiar recitation of The Lord’s Prayer drifted out to him from beyond the stained glass windows. Justin studied them.
"Our father, who art in Heaven…"
The windows…
Justin gaped in horror at the blasphemy. The Virgin Mary was depicted kneeling on all fours in a field of grass, her robe drawn up around her waist. She wore nothing beneath it. On her face, the artist had rendered a detailed expression of both agony and ecstasy. A huge, white haired beast mounted her from behind, gleaming fangs exposed in a wicked leer. A monstrous phallus was half-buried inside her. Its talon-covered hands gripped her waist, and the artist had even de
picted the drops of blood where they raked her flesh.
"Hallowed be thy name…"
In the next window scene, the beast, looking like a cross between a giant gorilla and a cat, stood triumphant amidst a pile of dead, dismembered infants. A scarlet river ran from the mound of corpses to the edge of the window. Bile rose in Justin’s throat.
"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…"
Another scene, two Indians fishing alongside a wide river, the beast erupting from the waters, inhumanly long arms reaching for them.
"On Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread…"
A woodsman, screaming in horror as the beast ravaged his young daughter, flinging body parts haphazardly into the trees. The man’s axe hung ineffectively from the creature’s side, the white fur stained crimson at the wound.
"And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us…"
Justin whimpered. He glanced at the symbol on the church, the vacant dwellings, and the deserted motel.
"Lead us not into temptation…"
Pushed by invisible hands, the door to the church swung violently open. The voices swelled, surrounding Justin with their din.
"AND DELIVER US FROM MEEBLE…"
"Stop it!" Justin screamed aloud, clasping his hands over his ringing ears. Enraged, he dashed through the open door and raced into the sanctuary.
The church was empty.
The echo of the voices rang in his head, but the air was so silent, so dead, it felt stagnant. Thick dust whirled in Justin’s footsteps, and he sneezed. His first thought was that it was no wonder those praying had become incoherent. No way he could have talked in this fetid atmosphere, let alone chanted.
But there were no voices and there were no people.
Deliver us from Meeble. What the hell was that about?
Justin shook his head, held his hand over his mouth, and made for the door quickly. It had been far too long since he’d had any sleep, and, judging from the hallucinations he was having, both visual and audible, it was crucial he rectify the situation.
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