Tales from the Crypt - Demon Knight

by Randall Boyll

  The beating of wings became like the roar of a hive full of gigantic bees, all of them mad and full of venom. Brayker had been under fire from these before, but never in such a small space. The first time he had heard them, in the year 1917, they sounded like the furious buzz of the French daisy-cutters, the artillery shells that exploded on the ground to release a hundred whirring pieces of shrapnel that would chew off your legs at the ankles if you couldn’t find a hole to dive into or a tree that wasn’t already shattered by bombs. It was the winged demons that killed Harrison, demons cut from the same satanic mold as the ones pursuing Brayker now.

  Actually, upon Brayker now.

  From pure instinct he turned as he ran and fired nearly straight upward. The demon’s wings were only a thin green membrane stretched across skeletal arms that would go flapping like a runaway window shade when pierced; Brayker heard wings snap after the shot, and two demons thumped against the walls of the tunnel. Not quite like Danny’s parents, these would drag about on their shriveled wings and brittle claws until they rotted into a form of ash.

  He could see, in front of the wildly jiggling flashlight, that Jeryline and the kid were crouched together, waiting for Irene to crawl through to safety. Uncle Willie, holding himself upright by clinging to the wall, had not even begun the journey. And how many shells were left in the shotgun? There was no time to stop and check.

  Jeryline turned her face to Brayker, her green eyes wide and afraid. “Hold them off,” she said, and turned away. “Irene,” she shouted, “if you don’t get your fat ass out of the way right now, there’s going to be a lot of dead people out here!”

  Irene zipped out of sight. “Now you,” Jeryline said to the boy, but he clung to her, silently shaking his head. She motioned at Willie, who dropped like a sack of concrete and scampered through, no problemo, señor, worthless drunk or not.

  “Now you,” she said, and peeled Danny away from herself. “Don’t worry about your mommy and daddy. We’ll save them too.”

  He dropped on all fours and clawed through the rubble.

  Brayker jerked as talons grabbed at the crown of his head, tweezing hair out, cutting ridges in his scalp. The stink of the flying ones was like damp and moldy rags, horrible. Again he hurled the flashlight at Jeryline; again she missed an impossible catch. Talons pricked his shoulders, jabbed his thighs. He lashed out with the shotgun but connected only with unimportant meaty parts. The noise of the things was one huge hum now. Wings, dozens of them, beat at his body as he was dragged to a stop. His feet were jerked apart, too far apart to maintain balance. With a grunt of effort, as he fell forward, he twisted himself over onto his back, jabbing the gun at the blur of wings. His shoulder blades slammed down hard on the floor of the shaft, no big deal, he assumed he would be dead soon. At least he had passed the key along.

  Or had he?

  He opened his mouth to shout. It wasn’t over, couldn’t be over, there was one thing left to do. The stampede of demons who had not come equipped with the optional flight package became a kind of thunder in its own right as they filled the tunnel. In response to his open mouth, Brayker got a cold, lumpy stalk of beak down his throat, making him gag. He crunched his teeth together and bit it off. The offending demon protested it with only a series of hisses while Brayker twisted his head to spit it out, but by then the demon had turned to ash and Brayker wound up swallowing most of it.

  He heard Jeryline shout out. The weight on his chest and stomach and legs shifted, heavy here, light there, heavy here again. He realized that he was absolutely pinned to the ground by the weight of the things. It all shifted again, and he was miraculously able to sit up and shake the rest of it away.

  “Your hand,” Jeryline said. “Pull on me.”

  He gave her the requested hand; he pulled. Never, he recognized dazedly, never had the demons come so close to killing him. Jeryline pulled him to his feet; with the key in her other hand she continued to hack at the air and everything in it.

  He found his voice. “Go on through, Jerry. Go on through.”

  “You go through, Brayker,” she said, and pushed him down onto his knees. “And don’t call me Jerry, either.”

  He went, not really caring. How extraordinary it was, if just for a moment, to have someone else in charge. He shuttled through the hole and handed the flashlight to the first pair of hands he saw. The shotgun was snatched from him, no surprise in that, considering that Roach had decided it was his even before the whole tunnel fiasco came to pass. After he stood, Brayker dropped wearily again and leaned back through the hole. Martel had received the flashlight, and went down on his knees beside him.

  “You know,” Martel whispered moistly into his ear, “Little Miss Jeryline is one tough young lady.”

  Brayker jerked away. “Advice, Deputy,” he said. “Good friends always call her Jerry, She hates formality.”

  Martel, his face still smeared green and brown from his stupid, lengthy excursion outside, winked at him. “I copy a roger to that one, Chief. And hey?”

  Brayker raised his eyebrows. “Hey what?”

  “When I write up my report on this, I’ll mention you in a good way. I know you’re from New York and all that, but I’ll make you look good anyway. For the papers and stuff.”

  “Thank you,” Brayker said. “Thank you very much.”

  Was he kidding? Not really. In the old war it had been simple, homespun kids like this who fought and died. Martel was a doofus who fancied himself to be a moderate-sized fish in a medium-sized pond. Great leaders had lived and died with bigger delusions than that.

  “Come on, Jerry!” Martel cheered. “Come on through!”

  She dropped to her haunches and wriggled backward through the hole, where the wind of a hundred wings blew a furious gale of dust, still chopping at the demons. Martel reached out, took hold of her rearmost belt loop, and jerked her through. She tumbled onto the cement floor, then rocked to her feet. “Do it,” she said, extending the key to Brayker.

  He snatched it from her hand. “Give me light,” he grunted at Martel, and jerked the flashlight from his hand. “Now get back.”

  Martel pulled away. Roach crowded forward, pushing the stench of his armpits into Brayker’s nose. “Gimme a shot,” he shouted over the noise. “Brayker, move your ass and gimme a shot!”

  Brayker shook his head. He trained the flashlight on the key, ready to thumb the orb open, but let out an involuntary gasp instead. The key was slick with blood. He swiveled the light onto Jeryline’s hands.

  Shiny with blood. She looked at them, her eyes widening. “I didn’t know it was open,” she cried. “Brayker, I didn’t know!”

  He looked at the key again. The small hole was partially open. The last of Harrison’s blood-mix could create maybe one small drop, but no more. “Wipe your hands on the edge of the hole someplace,” he said, but his voice was devoid of hope. It took a decent size drop to seal even a small window. If the drop was disturbed or just plain wasn’t enough as it dried, the seal would vanish. It had happened before.

  She scrubbed both hands on the jagged, dirty rim of the hole. A fantastically ugly demon shoved its head through just then. Jeryline squealed, falling back, then lunged forward again and slapped it neatly across the face. Her handprint remained, beginning to sizzle. The demon performed a hasty retreat, hissing, all three of the yellow eyes on its jaw, nose, and forehead blazing with anger.

  “Has to be done,” Brayker groaned, leaned forward, and shook the last drop out.

  Twin lines of sparkling red fire traced the crumbly insides of the hole, and met at the top. A two-fingered claw was jabbed through enroute to Brayker’s hair, and instantly turned to ash and smoke.

  Brayker stood. Sweat sparkled on his face. “That ought to hold,” he panted. “So much for the mines.”

  Roach dropped to a crouch suddenly. “Hey!” he shouted through the hole. “What are you gonna do now, you ugly fuckers?” He jabbed the shotgun at them.

  “Don’t shoot,” Br
ayker warned him.

  “Just look at these pinheads,” Roach howled, laughing. “Who’s scared of them, anyway? Not me!”

  “We need to look for other openings down here,” Brayker said above the noise of Roach’s glee. “We can’t seal it, but we can sure as hell guard it.”

  Roach’s tone suddenly changed. “You!” he shouted. “Here’s for four years of minimum wage at your stinking cafe!”

  Brayker straighted in sudden alarm. He dropped to look through the hole.

  The guy, that kid Danny’s father, had pushed through the demons somehow and was glaring in, the exposed half of his brain shining and bloody, his face dripping. Brayker swung out to knock the shotgun aside, but too late.

  “Eat this!” Roach had bellowed, and now he fired.

  The cafe owner’s entire head blew apart. Thin white liquid simultaneously jetted out of his shattered eyes. It splashed against the perimeter of the hole. The blood seal evaporated into a wisp of grey smoke.

  Brayker tossed the flashlight aside and took two handfuls of Roach’s greasy T-shirt. He hauled him upright. “You dumb little bastard,” he snarled in his face. “You just killed us all.”

  He jerked the shotgun out of Roach’s hands and shoved him away. Roach crashed down on his elbows as the first demon hand shoved through the hole unharmed. “I didn’t know!” he squealed. “Don’t be blaming me!”

  Brayker looked at the others. “Back upstairs,” he said hollowly. “Be quick or be dead.”

  No one offered an argument. Not even Roach. They all turned and ran as the demon horde clawed through.

  For Brayker and Jeryline and Roach, for Martel and Willie and Irene, and for little Danny, the only survivors in a town of the dead, the long struggle was just about over.

  But not the long night.

  15

  Danny was an extremely heavy kid, Jeryline Noticed as she climbed the ladder, which had mysteriously lost its bottom two rungs and required extra effort. With a groan of effort, she hoisted him overhead into Uncle Willie’s waiting hands. For a drunk, Jeryline decided, the man sure could move when the heat was on.

  She squirmed up through the small rectangle after Danny had been pulled out of sight, the opening to the cellar that had, until tonight, been her secret. On her knees she waddled into the warm familiarity of the Mission Inn’s homey smell, got to her feet, and still managed to crack the back of her neck on the shelves loaded with preserves. The day would come, she hoped, that she would see this place burn to the ground. She still had a few matches; would anyone suspect arson on such a crazy night? She thought not.

  Brayker came up next, his face heavy with concern, an observation which did Jeryline’s mood no good at all. She took Danny’s hand and stood away, waiting for orders, aware of the burden of fear in the faces of Irene and Martel and even Uncle Willie. The Mission Inn was under siege, and no one here had the remotest training in such military tactics, except Roach, who was some kind of ditchdigger in the National Guard. Deputy Martel had been in the army, or so he had said, but Jeryline doubted that even General Patton could organize his troops against this onslaught.

  Brayker crawled out of the closet and rose tiredly up, his face perhaps the most negative of the whole bunch. He had seen these things before, it was obvious, and as the commander of this doomed troop he looked about ready to hang out the white flag. Did demons take prisoners? She tossed the errant thought away and concentrated on Brayker. He had brought all of this shit here. He was the professional.

  “Up the stairway,” he said, pointing. “The rooms are still sealed.”

  Roach burst up through the trapdoor with his hair frazzled and his T-shirt torn almost to tatters. “Pull me up!” he shrieked, jerking and squirming. “The bastards are tearing up my legs!”

  Everyone, in perfect synch, looked at each other. Unspoken questions passed from eye to eye. Gazes became downcast. The group gave a communal shrug.

  “It ain’t funny!” Roach roared, clawing at the floor. He was jerked down a bit, howled out a string of curses, and kicked his way back up. His eyes locked with Jeryline’s and for a tiny slip of time she could see the frightened boy in him, the scaredy-cat bully.

  “Hell, Deputy,” she said, since Martel was closest. “Save his worthless ass.”

  Martel dragged him out, swiftly got hold of the trapdoor, and jammed it in place after using it as a club to smash a groping pair of claws. “Head on upstairs,” he grunted as he turned on his knees. He sat on the trapdoor. It thumped and hammered. Martel raised his hands, grabbed hold of the lowest shelf as a brace of sorts, and pushed up to make himself heavier. The board popped up from its moorings and a host of Mason jars became momentarily airborne. Everyone jumped back. Jars arced down and exploded on the floor. The aroma of peaches and blackberry jam jumped into the air.

  Brayker laughed. Jeryline looked at him, her face a blank slate. He laughed some more. He put a hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut, helpless with growing hilarity. His knees looked as if they might unhinge and dump him on the floor. Jeryline smiled a little, utterly confused, and looked apprehensively at the others, but no one else was laughing at all.

  “Up the stairway,” she told them. “Irene, take Danny.”

  Irene took a step and snatched him up. “Come on, big boy,” she crooned in his ear. “Let’s go play us a game or two.”

  She cast Jeryline a worried glance. Brayker had sunk to his knees, wrenched into spasms by the force of his unexpected hilarity, the shotgun trailing out of his hand onto the floor, barely held by his trigger finger. The tattoo on his open hand looked dull now, the clumsy work of an amateur.

  “Shit, I’ll take it,” Roach said, and bent over.

  Jeryline kicked him in the face. It was a surprise blow to both him and her, one that knocked him completely backward. He slid a foot or two across the wooden floor, went up on his elbows, and frowned up at Jeryline. “That’s gonna cost you, bitch,” he said in a strange, drowsy monotone. A bright line of blood slipped from his left nostril to his lip; his tongue popped up and he sucked the blood into his mouth, his eyes narrow and cunning.

  Now Martel seemed to find himself being jostled more than his taste would allow. “I’m not sitting here all night!” he shouted. “Get upstairs!”

  Roach got languidly to his feet. He swiped an arm under his nose. “Gonna cost you bad,” he growled, plodding away. “All of you.”

  Brayker began reassembling himself. The bags under his eyes were wet with tears of whatever mad joy he had endured. He used the shotgun as a crutch to push himself upright, chuckling at times as his bizarre merriment pricked him. Finally he stood with his jaw hanging open, staring at nothing, swaying on his feet, a man so sodden with fatigue that his entire body seemed to sag.

  Jeryline went to him and offered her arm. He shifted his eyes. “Thank you, madam,” he said. “Chivalry is not dead.”

  “Maybe not,” Jeryline said. “But you just about are. When’s the last time you slept?”

  He made a noise. “Not since the war.”

  She urged him to move toward the stairwell. “Vietnam screwed up a lot of guys,” she said. “You’re not alone in this.”

  He jerked suddenly away. “My war saw seven million men die, Jerry. And it was only the first one. The second one was even more fun.”

  Martel let out a whoop behind them. “Frigging run!” he shouted, and shot off the trapdoor like a rat under sudden light, aiming for the stairs. The trapdoor jumped out of its rectangle and skittered across the floor. Twisted arms and strange heads popped up.

  Brayker blinked his tired, unhappy eyes. “I guess this war’s not over yet,” he said. His shoulders became firm and his chin tilted up a notch. He unhooked himself from Jeryline’s supporting arm and took her by the hand instead. “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings,” he said, and winked at her. “You suppose we could get Irene to sing for us?”

  Now, finally, wonderfully, she laughed. It was crazy, it was inappropriate,
but it was genuine.

  They ran off while the demons scrabbled and clawed at the floor, each one mindlessly fighting to be the first one out.

  “It started before the beginning of time,” Brayker said. “But time had no beginning, and can have no end. The keys, in various forms, were always there.”

  They were huddled together in Room Five, the room Irene had assigned to Brayker earlier this evening when the world was a sane and normal place, when devils and demons were the stuff of fairy tales and religious hokum. Now the survivors sat tensely on the bed or stood on the floor to listen, at last, to the real story behind the Salesman, Brayker, and the key.

  As he and Jeryline had hurried up the stairs together they had found the others waiting at the top landing: a nervous crowd, to say the least. In that instant the weather outside decided to return to the previous mode, dumping a barrage of noisy rain at the roof, jabbing the windows with stark white light, filling the night with thunder. They were tired, Brayker could see, yet worse than that, as it became obvious that the battle was going badly, they were fed up with fighting for a cause that was, except for the need for simple survival, a complete mystery. In the first gigantic war so long ago the world had sent millions of men to fight and die without explanation, other than that their nations demanded it of them. That had been Brayker’s war. But now, at the end of a century that had seen war follow upon senseless war, people at last refused to fight unless they knew why.

  Knowing that, sensing that same thing among these unlikely soldiers of Wormwood, Brayker realized at last that he would have to tell them the whole story. It was not really much of a secret, but two hours ago they would not have believed it. Now they would. Gathered together in that room, with Irene and Danny and Jeryline sitting on the bed, Deputy Martel and Uncle Willie and Roach standing in various spots around it, they listened quietly to things not many humans had ever been privileged to hear.