by Sam Witt
Thick roots tore up from the soil, their glistening white tips punching through her body. They looped around her broken bones, hooked into the pink slits of her torn flesh, and wrapped around her throat like living nooses.
The girl’s voice was strangled to silence and she hit the ground so hard she dug a furrow in the rich, black soil.
“Far enough,” Zeke grumbled and spat on the ground near the snarling half-made girl. He turned and limped away, dragging his bum leg up the hill. He was out of trees to cling to and had to lower himself back onto his one good knee and his scarred hands. It wasn’t far now, maybe thirty feet. The ground felt good under his hands, and there were no more rocks to dig at his knees. He prayed for the strength to continue, for the faith that had gotten him this far.
Whatever the Long Man and the Night Marshal might think, Zeke believed there was a God up there. Not a kindly old man with a swaying beard and a warm hug, but a demanding, vengeful spirit that wanted the best from its followers. The kind of God that farmers and miners could believe in, the sort of father that pushed his children to get shit done and only ask for help when they were too spent, too exhausted to go on alone. Heaven wasn’t for everyone; you had to earn it. Zeke had done his best to get through those pearly gates, he wasn’t about to stop trying now.
The revenant trapped beneath the trees shrieked in desperate anger, a hellish cry that filled Zeke with cold dread. He pushed the fear away and kept crawling, dragging himself up the hill one handful of damp earth at a time.
The top of the hill was a naked hump of glossy black marble pushed up through the deep emerald grass. Zeke’s breath gushed out in a relieved sigh when he saw that ancient rock, and he crawled the last few yards in a rush. He crawled up onto the marble slab and lay on his belly, head dangling over the edge. A hundred feet below, Chickinee Springs spread out through Fallen Star Hollow. Its waters were black in the darkness, shot through with tinges of red from the rising sun.
Zeke maneuvered around until he was sitting on the ledge above the springs. A cool wind dried the sweat on his brow and tugged at his beard. He sighed and pulled his short-bladed knife from the doe-skin scabbard on his belt. He’d carved hoodoo charms with this knife, used it to strip bark from sassafras trees for his tea, even cut switches from the old willow tree when his parents decided he need a little corporal punishment. Holding it was a reminder of his lifetime in Pitchfork County, of the chores and duties and jobs and pain that had rested on his shoulders for his whole adult life.
“Father,” Zeke began the blessing that would cleanse the springs of their foul taint. “Take this sacrifice and bless it with yer grace. As ya bled for me, so I bleed fer thee. I ask for yer presence, not for myself, but for those I protect. Shepherd, in this time of need, drink of the blood of yer servant and shield yer flock from the darkness.”
Zeke slashed the knife across his palm and held his hand aloft, cupped so the blood collected within it. The pain in his hand was intense, far out of proportion to his actual injury, a burning that sucked the air out of his lungs. The pain of sacrifice. It was almost over.
Thunder roared behind him, and the stone under him cracked and bounced, nearly shaking Zeke off. “No,” he whispered. He needed more time, just a little more time.
She blasted free from the face of the bluff below Zeke’s feet, a bloody, earth-crusted horror that wormed through the air like a broken kite. Torn roots dangled from where they’d impaled her, and rivulets of dirt and gravel spilled from her raised arms. She spiraled up before Zeke, a black aurora of tangled hair flaring out around her head. Her body rippled in the wind, loose and boneless in places, awkward and stiff in others. She reached for Zeke with arms that seemed far too long. He could see new wounds on her, places where the trees had bitten into her skin and rubbed her down to naked muscle. Her strength was still awesome to behold, as if the pain filled her with unwholesome energy.
“So close,” she growled, “but still so far to go.”
Then her fingers closed around Zeke’s injured hand, and she augered her way through the air above his head. Her grip wrenched his arm around and wrested him away from the top of the hill. His blood burned in his hand as the prayer of sacrifice took root and began working its magic. He had to get away from her, get his blood into the water.
But she was having none of it. Her mangled body swirled around Zeke, and her free hand raked at him with ragged fingernails. Zeke groaned as she shredded the parchment-thin skin over his ribs with one vicious swipe after another.
“Your time is over,” she whispered into his ear, her lips brushing against his skin. “All those people you thought you saved, all the fools who came crawling to you for help? They’re ours now. We give them what they really want.”
Zeke struggled in her grip, but she was so strong it was like being wrapped in chains.
She turned him until their eyes were inches apart. She stank of rotten earth and old blood, and her eyes burned with the fires of madness. Her arm turned, and Zeke’s wrist splintered. Her thin arm rotated as if it had no bones in it at all, while Zeke’s skeleton popped and cracked and came apart inside his forearm.
“Father,” he gasped as the sacrificial blood spilled out of his mangled hand. “All I have I give to thee.”
The half-made girl spun, turning her whole body around the axis of Zeke’s shattered arm. “He can’t hear you.”
Zeke’s elbow separated with a sickening lurch, and his shoulder followed a second later. The ball and socket went their separate ways, and his old, stiff ligaments shredded with muffled cracks. The pain was beyond anything he’d ever experienced. It split his mind open and exposed his nerves to a roaring, burning wind of agony.
The girl laughed and revolved again, again, again. Zeke screamed and fell face down, the empty socket where his arm had once been engulfed in a roaring ball of fiery pain. His heart pumped, and he felt his life jetting out of the gaping hole, spraying onto the earth.
Something wet and hot slammed into his ribs, cracking half of them on his left side and knocking him a yard up the hill. Zeke lay on his back, watching the half-made girl wind toward him. She slithered toward him, a sinuous cord of hate and evil wriggling over the ground.
He shoved with his good leg, driving himself up the hill as best he could. His remaining hand dug into the earth, dragging him back in an awkward crab crawl.
“Nowhere to go, old man.” She laughed and reared up above Zeke, his severed arm raised above her head. She swung it down and around in a brutal swipe that smashed into his bad hip and drove him farther up the hill. She hit him again, slamming the fleshy club into his ribs so hard he thought she’d stopped his heart.
She bit a mouthful from the ragged stump of his arm, gnawing on it like a kid with a chicken leg. “How many demons you think you’ve chased out of this shithole county of yours?”
Zeke gagged on the pain, shook his head. “I reckon one too few.”
“One hundred and seventeen.” She took another bite of his arm, swallowed it like a gator gulping down a bass. “They wanted you to know something.”
The girl roared toward him, blood spewing from her broken body. Her hand locked around Zeke’s throat. She rose into the air with him, spitting words into his face.
“They’re all waiting for you.” She kissed him gently on the lips and breathed the taste of his own flesh and blood into Zeke’s mouth. “Waiting for the day you fall. Today’s the day.”
Zeke forced words past the grip on his throat. “There ain’ no demons where I’m headed.”
Despite the pain, despite the suffering, Zeke believed that was true. He could still feel the touch of his God, scalding hot in his blood, proof that his blessing was still there. His blood was holy, cleansing. He was going home.
“We’ll see,” she whispered and flicked her tongue across the tip of his nose. “Tell my sisters things are going well.”
Zeke smiled and spat in the girl’s face.
She screeched and spun, whippi
ng Zeke around in a tight circle.
The half-made girl released her grip on Zeke’s throat, and he flew, sailing out past the edge of the hill, arcing over the water of Chickinee Springs.
CHAPTER 63
JOE’S LEFT EYE felt like someone had scooped it out of his skull, rolled it in a patch of poison ivy, then stuffed it back into his head. The itching woke him, burrowing down through the dense fog of unconsciousness to drag him back into the painful waking world. He opened his eyes and stared up at the stalactites clinging from the ceiling. Joe knew there was no light here, but he could still see, though everything was cast in shades of black and gray. Joe heard something shuffling in the darkness and lifted his head a bit to look around.
A teenage girl was crouched a few feet off, watching him with wide eyes, chewing on her fingertips. Joe could smell the cat-piss perfume of the longtime meth abuser and wondered how long she’d been working on turning her brains into pudding. He found he didn’t have any fucks to give about her situation. “Do what you will,” he muttered.
Remembering the abuse he’d endured, Joe didn’t get up right away. He lay on the floor and took stock of his body. He wiggled his toes, then clenched his teeth and flexed his legs.
He expected a blast of pain from broken bones grinding against one another, but there was nothing. He bent at the knees, lifted his feet off the floor and stared at his hobnailed boots, clicked his heels together. He seemed to be in working order below the waist.
Joe remembered the exquisite torture of his hands and arm. He touched his fingertips to his palms, one at a time. All seemed accounted for. He raised his hands, brought them up where he could see them. There were thick hash marks of scar tissue on his left arm, and he seemed to have a couple of extra knuckles on one of his index fingers, but other than that, they were his hands and they worked.
Joe closed his right eye. He could still see out of the itchy left one, despite that he distinctly remembered losing it. “Guess the new boss really did fix everything.”
“Good good good,” the girl said. She stood, stiff and awkward, as if she wasn’t quite sure how her arms and legs worked. “Come.”
The girl padded out of the pit on bare, scabbed feet. Joe struggled up to follow her. He looked up as he left the room and could see how far he’d fallen. Maybe twenty feet. He almost wished the fall had killed him.
Because he could feel the new boss in his head, a throbbing presence like a tooth threatening to go bad. That presence filled Joe with a deep sense of disgust, a constant reminder of his fear and weakness. He shoved his self-loathing down and concentrated on the new strength flowing through him. He was revolted by the choice he’d made, but he was still alive. That was a start.
“Where are we going?”
The girl stopped and tilted her head off to one side like a dog trying to identify a noise only it could hear. “The time time time is almost at hand. We must retrieve your girl girl girl.”
Joe kept walking after the girl, despite the uneasiness he felt at her words. But, even at the thought of Elsa, Joe’s emotions were blunted, stunted by the new power in his head. He could feel the panic, but it was distant, an idea rather than an emotion itself. He was different now. So were his priorities.
Somewhere way down deep, the old Joe was grinding his teeth in frustration.
Even further down from there, the Long Man gnashed his teeth in torment.
The girl dug in the pockets of her grimy jeans, came out with a tiny glass pipe and a crystal the size of her thumbnail. She waved a shiny silver Zippo’s flame under the pipe’s bowl and sucked on the stem, shuddering as the amphetamines poured into her lungs. Joe licked his lips, wanting a big slug of Jack to wash away the last of his worries.
The girl turned sly eyes toward Joe, smirked at his need, then led him deeper into the cavernous maze. She navigated a handful of intersections and switchbacks, and Joe found himself having to stick close to her back to avoid being left behind. When she stopped, he bumped into her, and she giggled as the two of them struggled to keep from falling. “Watch your your your step,” she snickered.
“You you you go alone from here. Follow the path, bring the girl to the cathedral.”
The girl lit up her pipe and smiled at Joe through a leaking mouthful of poison smoke. Then she turned and padded away on legs that seemed to bend in too many directions, disappearing into the blackness.
The tunnel bored deeper into the earth, a long descent that tested even Joe’s new strength. By the time it leveled off, his thighs were burning, and his calves felt stretched thin. He paused and knelt to rub some of the aches away, drawing deep from the stores of new strength he’d received from the new boss. Even knowing the source of that power didn’t sour its pleasure. Joe knew he’d been made for this kind of service and found it didn’t matter that much whom he served.
“Back it up,” he heard a familiar voice call from up ahead. “I don’t want any trouble for you, Joe.”
Joe stood, and his hand drifted to his holsters. Someone had slipped the pistols back into their homes while he’d lain on the floor of the pit. Joe couldn’t remember how many bullets he had left, and cursed himself for not checking before he needed the weapons.
“I got you covered.” Dan stood fifteen feet away, holding Elsa in one hand and Joe’s shotgun in the other. The ancient weapon’s enormous barrels were aimed at Joe’s gut, a pair of black throats ready to breathe fire and lead.
Joe lifted his hands high. “All right, Dan. I see you got the drop on me. Whyn’t you let Elsa down, and you can go on past.”
“I’m taking her outta here. She’s coming with me.” The sheriff took a halting step forward, one foot, then the other. “It’s the way it has to be.”
“I’m her father,” Joe said, not backing down. “Give her to me before this goes sideways and you get hurt.”
Dan’s sharp bark of laughter caused Elsa to stir. She snuggled in closer to him, burying her face into the crook of his neck as she hugged him tight. “I’ve seen what this shotgun can do. You don’t get the hell out of my way, I’ll cut you in half.”
Dan was closer now. Joe could see the sweat pouring off the sheriff’s face, the way one of his eyes rolled wild in the socket while the other eye stared dead ahead. Tremors ratcheted up and down Dan’s spine, and his legs didn’t coordinate. It was like there were two men trapped in one skin, and they couldn’t agree on what they should do.
Joe sympathized with that. But he had his orders. He had to dance to the new boss’s tune, now.
“You don’t know what you’re doing. Let me take Elsa before you get hurt.” Joe could see where this was going, knew where this would end.
The sheriff shoved the shotgun at Joe’s face. They were within ten feet of one another now. If he pulled the triggers, Dan couldn’t miss. “Not this time. I gotta do this. Can’t let you stop me.”
“Remember what I told you at the church,” Joe lowered his hands. “You do not want to find out which of us is faster today.”
Tears glistened on Dan’s cheeks. His left eye rolled up into his skull, and Joe could see the blood vessels burst across the blank white orb. “I need this. Get out of my way. Please.”
Joe sighed and rubbed his chin. “Why couldn’t you come to your senses a few days ago?”
“They got you,” Dan whispered. “I can feel it. They got you.”
Elsa turned toward Joe. “Daddy? Can we go home?”
“Not yet, baby.” Joe’s heart ached, a memory of sorrow echoing in its black chambers. “Daddy needs your help one more time.”
Dan took another step. “Last chance.”
Joe nodded and didn’t budge. “For you, too. Put down the shotgun.”
Dan shook his head.
Joe offered his right hand. “Pullin’ that trigger’ll be the last thing you ever do, Dan. I promise you that.”
Dan roared and turned his head away from Joe.
Elsa screamed.
Silver fire erupted in the c
avern, throwing Joe’s shadow out behind him like a flock of startled bats.
Dan screamed and fell onto his ass, blood pumping from the hole in the left side of his chest.
Joe looked down at the smoking pistol in his hand, then at the sheriff, at the wreckage of a man trying, too late, to do the right thing.
“Ah, Dan. I’m so goddamn sorry. You picked a shitty time to find your spine.”
Dan’s jaw quivered as he worked to form the words he needed to say. “She’s your daughter. You know what happens if you take her back down there?”
Joe knelt and pried Dan’s remaining arm from around Elsa. For a dead man, the sheriff still had some strength left in him. Elsa wept as her father scooped her up. “Better’n you.”
“I tried to help,” Dan wouldn’t look at Joe. He stared off down the tunnel as if watching for something only he could see. “I did.”
“Yeah.” Joe wanted a drink more than ever. “You helped them girls walk right out of your jail. You helped them meth head motherfuckers try and frog-march me right on outta town. You helped hell come to Pitchfork.”
Dan sobbed. “No slack even now?”
Joe shook his head, took aim with his pistol. “Especially not now.”
Thunder rolled through the cavern.
Dan’s head flopped back, brains sloshing out, and the sheriff was no more.
Elsa pressed her face close to Joe’s neck. “I’m scared.”
Joe hugged his daughter tight. “Me, too.”
He walked past the dead sheriff, pausing only long enough to pick up his shotgun, and made his way through the makeshift cells.
Elsa shivered. “Will you take me home, Daddy?”
Joe kissed his little girl on the cheek, tasted her tears. “I can’t.”
CHAPTER 64
ELSA’S THIN ARMS wrapped tight around Joe’s neck. He tried to ignore the carved spikes sticking out of his little girl. Their grotesque, pulsing glow throbbed in time with her tiny heart and banged against his chest through the thin cage of her ribs. Her breath puffed against his cheek, feathery and hot and too, too fast.
