by Amy Cross
“What's that?” Don asks, while signaling to Mary for two whiskeys. “What kinda creature are you talkin' about?”
“Mankind.”
“Come on,” Don replies with a faint, force chuckle. “Now you're just gettin' morbid.”
“Twenty four hours,” Matt mutters, as Mary places two whiskeys in front of them. He eyes the drink suspiciously, but he doesn't push it away, not this time. “I honestly don't know whether a human being can keep up a scream like that for twenty four hours. The whole situation is stretching the limits of reason. It's getting to the point where I can't quite believe it's really happening.”
“Drink this,” Don says, sliding one of the whiskeys toward him.
He slides it back.
“Drink,” Don says again, pushing the glass back to him before turning to look at the window. Outside, with the scream still ringing in the air and with people hurrying across the town square as they continue the search, a statue stands. He smiles for a moment, as if he's remembering something from long ago. “You see that thing?” he asks finally, pointing at the statue. “Do you know who that fella is? Or who he was, whatever.”
“Godford Ridley,” Matt replies wearily. “Your great-grandfather. Everyone knows, but I don't think this is the time for a history lesson.”
“I remember the old bastard,” Don continues, with a glint in his eyes. “When I was a kid, he was close to a hundred years old, but I remember him. Stank of tobacco and gin. He used to tell me stories about the old days. He was around just after the goddamn war between the states, can you believe that?”
Matt stares at the whiskey for a moment. “I guess.”
“He was mayor here too,” Don continues. “He kept the town in line. Now, he never had to deal with anythin' as crazy as this scream, but I feel like he'd have handled it better. Whenever I'm strugglin' to know what to do, I try to work out what Godford Ridley would have done. I don't reckon there's anything under the sun that he wouldn't be able to deal with.”
“Maybe it's something we can't deal with,” Matt whispers.
“What's that, Doc?”
Matt pauses, before downing the whiskey. “I spoke to that priest earlier. He told me something. It sounded crazy at the time, but now I'm starting to wonder...”
“You don't wanna go listening to some British guy,” Don mutters. “He's probably just some travelin' nut-job.”
“He told me the craziest thing,” Matt replies, as Mary brings two more whiskeys for them. “I dismissed it at the time, but now I'm starting to wonder. It was about this... thing. He said no-one really knows if it's a demon, or a fallen angel, whatever, there are variations of the story in different cultures. This thing has different names, too. I only remember a few of the ones he told me. Chanciechaunie was one. What kind of a name is that, huh? Chanciechaunie. Another name he had was Attaroth, and another was...” He pauses. “God, I don't remember. Hel, maybe, something like that. There were loads, a list as long as your arm. The point is...” Another pause. “The point is,” he continues, with a hint of darkness in his eyes, “the priest told me that this Chanciechaunie demon likes nothing better than to torture human beings, and that he'll do it for as long as possible, keeping them alive with tricks and spells. It's said their cries ring out, uninterrupted, for all to hear, sometimes for months on end, even years. He finds someone who's desperate, someone who's lost, and he lures them close, and then he starts on them and he never lets go.”
“Huh.” Smiling, Don looks down at his drink. “I never had you down as the kinda guy who'd believe stuff like that, Doc.”
“And this Chanciechaunie guy,” Matt continues, “is said to be the cruelest creature that has ever lived, with the darkest eyes. According to the priest, the damn thing doesn't even exist completely in this reality, he straddles several at once, which means he's never fully in any one of them. And all he wants to do in this world is to find and exploit people, and to make them suffer. Not just physically, either. Mentally too. He wants to make them...” He pauses. “The exact way the priest phrased it,” he continues finally, “is that Chanciechaunie lives to make people scream, and to torment others with that scream.” Another pause, and a flicker of realization crosses his face. “And apparently he's being doing it, on and off, throughout human history.”
“So that's your explanation?” Don asks finally, with a hint of disbelief in his eyes. “Jessica Barton has been abducted by a demon named... Chanciechaunie?”
“People believed that stuff in the old days,” Matt replies. “Maybe we should at least consider the possibility.”
“People also believed the world was flat.”
“I'm a man of science,” Matt continues, “but this scream has got me reconsidering a few things.”
Don turns and looks over at the window for a moment, as the first rays of dawn continue to spread slowly across the town square, bringing light to the search once again. “We can't spend another day looking, can we?” he asks finally. “It doesn't feel possible.”
“We're going to find her,” Matt replies, taking another shot of whiskey and then signaling Mary for a third. “Soon. We have to.”
“Are we?” Don turns back to him. “How many times have you told people that since this all started? A thousand? 'Cause I know it's all I've been sayin' all day and all night, and now look at me. I look like a goddamn idiot. Every square inch of this town has been checked, re-checked and triple-checked. You know as well as I do that there are no nooks or crannies we've forgotten. You go to one end of town, the scream seems to be coming from the other. Sometimes it's like... it's right behind you, almost as if you're gonna turn around and see it right there. Other times, it seems to be up high, floatin' on the breeze. And then sometimes, it's like -”
“We finished,” says Robert Leary as he and a couple of other men arrive from outside. Their faces are exhausted, and their eyes show signs of hopelessness. “We just... That's four complete sweeps of the town now.”
“We have to keep looking,” Matt replies.
“But if -”
“We have to keep looking!” he says firmly, getting to his feet with real anger in his voice. “We can't just give up, we can't -”
“Hold up,” Don says, grabbing his arm. “Easy there, tiger. Let's not start fighting amongst ourselves, okay? We need to keep things civil.”
“Give up if you want,” Matt tells Robert, before turning to the others. “All of you. If you want to go home and try to sleep through this godawful noise, then be my guest. No-one's forcing you to be here.”
“We want to find her,” Clifford Tanner replies wearily, “it's just... There's nowhere for her to be. We could keep searching for another day, but we still wouldn't find her.”
“Maybe it's just going to go on forever,” adds Rebecca Jones. “Maybe we have to... I don't know, evacuate or something.”
“Or at least call in help from out of town,” suggests someone else.
“The phones are down,” Don reminds them. “Internet too. If this thing is still goin' on tomorrow morning, we'll send someone by car to get help. But it won't be still goin' on in the morning, because we're not gonna let it, are we?” He waits for someone, anyone, to agree with him. “Are we?” he asks again, more firmly this time.
“No,” come a few muttered replies, none of them sounding particularly confident.
Turning, Don sees that Matt is holding the next glass of whiskey, although he hasn't drunk any yet.
“Go on,” he says, patting Matt's shoulder again. “It'll do you good.”
“There's only one thing that'll do me any good,” Matt replies, staring into the glass as he listens to the sound of the scream in the distance. “Getting rid of that... thing!”
Sighing, Don sits back down, and the stool creaks slightly under his weight. He opens his mouth to say something, but again the words seem to stick. For a man who has always been well known around Pine Ridge for his ability to talk the hind-legs of a donkey, the sensation of hel
plessness is completely new. He wants to tell Matt, to tell everyone, that the whole situation is going to be okay, but he knows those words would sound so weak and hollow, and that they'd open him up to ridicule. Taking another sip of whiskey, he tries to empty his mind of all doubt and fear, but after a moment he realizes all that's left is the scream.
“Shut up,” Susan Etterman says suddenly, sitting a little further along the bar as she nurses a cup of coffee. With tears in her eyes, she turns to look at the window. “Shut up!” she shouts. “Just shut the hell up!”
“Susan -” Don begins.
“No!” she says firmly, climbing off her stool and hurrying to the exit. Pulling the door open, she makes her way out onto the sidewalk and stops for a moment, looking around as the scream continues to fill the air. “Shut up!” she screams at the top of her voice. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
“Come on,” Don says, shuffling after her, “let's go back inside and -”
“Shut up!” she shouts, sobbing as she steps out into the road. Putting her hands over her ears, she drops to her knees. “I can't take it anymore, why won't it just stop?”
“Doc!” Don calls out, looking back into the bar. “Need some help out here!”
“Shut up,” Susan whimpers, as tears flow down her face. “Just... make it... shut... the hell... up! I can't take it anymore, it's like it's scratching at the inside of my mind!”
“Can you give her something?” Don asks as Matt emerges from the bar. “A sedative, maybe?”
“I'm not a fan of giving sedatives,” he replies. “Not unless they're strictly necessary.”
“God,” says Felicity Horner, standing nearby, “why won't it stop? How much longer can it go on for?”
“Not long,” Don tells her. “We -”
“How do you know that?” Felicity shouts, stepping toward him angrily. “How the hell do you know anything, Don? For God's sake, for all you know, it might be going to last forever!”
“It's not going to last forever,” he replies. “That's an absurd idea.”
“Shut up!” Susan screams, before breaking into a series of sobs.
“She's right,” Robert Leary says, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk and putting his head in his hands. “I'm done. It's driving me crazy. I can't take it anymore! I swear, I can't even think straight with all of this going on.”
“None of us can,” Don tells him, “but we have to stay strong, just a little while longer. We're gonna get to the bottom of this. For Jessica's sake.”
“I almost wish she could just die,” says Judy Cluny, standing a little further back and looking up at the night sky. Her squint is worse now; every few seconds she squeezes her left eye so tight, the lids are getting sore and red, but she can't help herself. “The poor thing must be in so much pain, I can't handle it any longer. Just thinking about what might be happening to her...” A tear runs down her cheek. “It's not right.”
“Everyone just calm down,” Don says, turning to look at the slowly-gathering crowd. “I get it, we're all on edge, but that doesn't mean we should start turning on each other.”
“People are getting sick,” Matt tells him. “The mental strain is too much, they can't take it anymore.”
“They just need to be stronger for a little while,” Don replies. “It's the same for everyone.”
“Shut up,” Susan sobs, with her face in her hands. “Please, just make it stop. I tried pushing cotton into my ears, but it didn't help, I could still hear her!”
“Come inside,” Matt tells her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You've been through enough today. Everyone who feels like this, come inside and we'll try to find a way to relax you. I can prescribe something to help you sleep. Maybe... Maybe it's time to break open the sedatives after all.”
“Sleep?” Felicity spits at him. “How the hell can anyone sleep at a time like this?”
“Staying up is a risk to your health,” Matt tells her. “There'll still be plenty of us left to launch the next wave of the search, even if a lot of you feel like you have to go home. We can work in shifts.”
“It's never going to end,” she replies, her eyes burning with fear. “Don't you realize that now? It's never, ever going to stop! This scream is just going to go on and on, and one by one we're all going to lose our goddamn minds! It doesn't matter how many times you tell us all that we'll find her, or that it can't last much longer! You've been saying that all day and all night and none of it has been true! Face it, this scream won't stop until we're all crazy, and then it'll keep on anyway!”
“Can't someone just make it go away?” Susan pleads, staring up at the sky. “God, anyone, I don't care who, just... Someone, please make it stop!”
“I'll give you something,” Matt says, stepping over to Susan. “Something to help your nerves until we -”
“Don't say it!” she shouts, turning to him. “I swear to God, if you say one more time that we're going to find her, I will hurt you!”
“Calm down,” Don tells her. “We're all in the same boat here. No-one wants to -”
“I can't take it anymore!” shouts Felicity Hornmaker, with her hands over her ears. “I can't, please, I just can't...”
Suddenly, from inside the bar, there's the sound of glass being shattered. As Don and Matt turn to look, Mary comes stumbling out with blood pouring from a wound on her arm.
“It's Malcolm Stone,” she says, wincing as she holds her arm up and blood trickles down to the elbow. “He just lost it completely, started -”
Before she can finish, there's the sound of more glass breaking inside, along with angry shouts.
“This is getting out of hand,” Matt says, taking a step toward the building. After a moment, he turns to Don. “Maybe you were right. Maybe sedatives are the best idea for those who -”
Suddenly a gunshot rings out, accompanied by more cries from inside the bar.
“What the hell is going on in there?” Don shouts, hurrying to the door just as a couple of men emerge, dragging Davey Hunter with them.
“He took a shot at his brother Kenny!” one of the men shouts. “He missed, but the guy's losing his mind! This whole damn thing is getting out of control!”
“Go to hell!” Davey shouts, struggling to get free. “How can you stand to listen to that thing? I'm getting out of here. I'm taking my truck and I'm getting as far away from this town as possible, and I'm not coming back until that sound has stopped!”
“Let's just calm down,” Don says with a sigh. “I think -”
“Don't tell us to calm down!” Susan screams, pushing him so hard in the chest that he trips and falls back, landing square on his ass. “Don't you dare! You were telling us twenty four goddamn hours ago that you'd find Jessica Barton soon, and now look at us! Listen to that poor girl! Listen to her scream!”
“Susan -”
“Listen!” she shouts.
For a moment they all stand in silence, listening as the scream continues to fill the air all around them. The whole town is out now, and there are people over on the other side of the dark square, emerging from one building and going into another as they continue the search. From their shuffling gaits, however, it's clear that they're just going through the motions, that they don't really expect to find anything. Nearby, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, Judy Cluny has her head in her hands as she openly sobs.
And all the while, the scream continues.
“I can't take it,” Susan whimpers, dropping to her knees. “I can't, I just can't...”
“Everybody calm down,” Don says after a moment. “I swear to you, we're going to -”
“Don't say it,” Matt tells him firmly.
“But -”
“Don't. Just... don't.”
Pausing, Don seems genuinely lost for words. As the sound of more fighting breaks out in the bar, and as several other people start sobbing nearby, Don turns and looks across the town square, and then up to the brightening morning sky. He opens his mouth to say something, bu
t finally he holds back. He wants to tell them all that things will be okay, that they'll find Jessica Barton and that the scream will stop at any moment, but he's said those words so many times now, they've lost all meaning, even to him. All he can do is listen as the scream continues.
In fact, if anything, it seems to be getting louder.
“We'll find her,” he mutters finally, because he can't think of anything else to say. “I swear to God, we'll find her.”
And the scream continues.
Chapter Thirty-four
Jessica's anguished scream continues to fill the room as her chair tilts back, crashing down into a puddle of her blood. She tries desperately to get her wrists free from the ropes that have begun to dig into her flesh, but all she can do is continue to scream as, a few feet away, the vast, ever-shifting dark shape feeds on the priest's body, tearing his soul from its flesh and purring as fresh blood splatters down onto the concrete floor.
Within just a couple of minutes, the beast is done. Slowly, he turns and makes his way back over to Jessica, setting her chair back up and then leaning close to her screaming face. Laughing, he reveals row upon row of needle-like teeth, stretching all the way down into the depths of his throat.
Epilogue
Six months later
“Jesus Christ,” Bryony says with a laugh, “will you turn that awful music down?”
“It's amazing music,” Tom replies, keeping his eyes on the dusty road and spotting a town up ahead. “I think I see it. What's the name of the place again?”
“Uh...” Checking the map, Bryony takes a moment to work out where they are. “Pine Ridge. Sounds boring, but at least there's a gas station, which is really all we need.”
“Fill her up and get out?”
“Fill her up and get out,” she replies, smiling as the car reaches the edge of town. “The last thing I want is to spend time in some kind of backwoods hick town. They're probably all, like, retarded.”
