by Laird Barron
“A shadow? Here I thought we were dealing with the wolf man. Silver bullets, belladonna, etcetera.” I sighed. “Come on. I’ve seen the horrible shit man does to man. No need for werewolves or shadow monsters.”
They exchanged unhappy glances.
“A shadow personified,” Lila said, emphasizing each word. “Whether it’s man or beast is irrelevant for it is most certainly a distilled and concentrated horror that exists on the edge of human experience. Tread lightly.”
Mary lifted my dress and strapped a stiletto in its sheath to my thigh. Snugged it against the stocking. All right, this improved my mood.
“Your Ka-Bar is a good blade. Won’t help. Mine is cold iron and it has been blessed. Doubt it’ll help either. Still, you’re okay. I like you.”
“See you two at the event, I guess.”
“No,” Lila said. “We’ve decided to skip this one. Good luck, Ms. Jessica.”
“Remember to take off those heels if you need to start running,” Mary said.
“Don’t try to teach your grandma to suck eggs,” I said.
I thanked them and tottered out the door.
* * *
Benson Gallows handed me a bag with scads of rolled hundred dollar bills stuffed inside. I stashed the bag under Beasley’s bunk and we gathered to head for the big top and supper. The boys could spin whatever fantasy they liked. Made no difference to me. Besides, I trusted Beasley, insomuch as I trust anyone. More importantly, I trusted myself and the belly gun, a .25 caliber derringer I’d swiped from his footlocker and slipped into my sweet little handbag.
Beasley and the Gallows Brothers carefully explained my duties, which were negligible, considering the amount of dough they parted with to secure my participation. They assured me all aspects of the ritual had been assiduously researched and rehearsed. As long as I followed my cues, events would unfold smoothly. In some respects, this felt akin to the slavish preparations of hardcore Civil War re-enactors. Except for the actual pile of human heads and assorted parts in the back forty.
“I’ll be out in the field tonight, in case.” Beasley had squeezed into a cream-colored number, slicked his hair down, the whole bit.
“In case of what?”
“Uh, in case you run into a rabid coyote.”
“Or a rabid elk,” I said. “Mary and Lila seem to think—”
“Those broads are eccentric,” Beasley said.
“This is a carnival. What else would they be?”
“Yeah, well, even for a carnival.” He offered his arm.
The séance cum last supper, or whatever you’d care to name the ritual, occurred in the big top. The roadies had broken out a massive mahogany table inlaid with granite and matching chairs. They left a flap open in the ceiling. No moon yet, but plenty of stars sprinkled against the black. Jazz piped in soft and slow.
Our fateful supper included a honey-braised roast, wild rice, pineapple and grapes, sorbet, and plenty of red wine. I may have proved slightly unladylike in my enthusiasm for the various dishes. Free meals this swanky were rare.
I had nothing better to do than stuff my face, anyhow.
The girls wore dresses, although none as nice as mine, and the boys were in suits.
“Yowch!” I said as Beasley pulled out my chair. “Did I tell you how hot you look?”
His melancholy expression merely flickered.
“Do me a favor and don’t argue,” he whispered. He slipped the crucifix from his truck around my neck.
I would’ve given him grief except for the fact that bit of adornment drew the attention of every man at the table who hadn’t already surreptitiously ogled my bosom since I’d strolled in.
Though I was supposed to be the centerpiece of the evening, it seemed as if the entire company had secretly agreed to exclude me from the conversation. Fine, the silly bastards could stare at my tits and leave me out of it.
Ephandra, a lovely, long-in-the-tooth contortionist and apparent paramour of Benson Gallows, eyed my vampy dress, silver choker, purple eyeshade, and hair piled high. She smirked with voluptuous malice, pulled on a pair of ermine gloves, and lit a cigarette. She smoked it in a holder, Greta Garbo-style, or some other Golden Age actress.
“Tell me more about the séance,” she said to Benson Gallows.
“You’re a little séance virgin?” His white eyebrows lifted.
“Oh, I did a séance in spectacular fashion. And you?” She stared at him now, like a cat at a bird.
“There was this one time…Me and a couple of my cousins spooked each other on an overnight camping trip. I was in middle school.”
“Did you make contact with the beyond?” Ephandra said.
“I made contact with my cousin’s boob for a second or two,” Benson Gallows said.
Victor the Fortune Teller frowned at this exchange.
“Perhaps this is not the occasion for jocularity.” He’d gone the extra mile and decked himself out in a fabulously extravagant black silk cape and a red turban studded with gemstones.
“Nice, Ben,” Ephandra said, dismissing Victor with an eye-roll. “Weren’t we supposed to hit a séance gig together once?”
“No. Wait, yes — we were on a break. You called, but I had a date with, what’s her name? Crazy blonde who dragged me to the pool hall every other night.”
“Ginny the psych student? Her dad had a place in Coeur d’ Alene. Slut. Whore. Bitch.”
“Yes, you met, apparently. I never got past first base, then you snatched me off the market.”
“Sorry, honey.” She stretched to stroke his arm, digging with her shiny white nails.
“What was the deal, anyhow?” he said.
Ephandra shrugged.
“The medium slaughtered a cat. Slit its throat.”
“Ahem! Now that we’re all in the proper mood — thank you, Ephandra — I propose a toast,” Robert Gallows said.
I reached for the wine and Poindexter deftly snatched the bottle.
“Vinette did not touch a drop the evening of her, er… demise. Here, try the cider.”
“Sorry, dear.” Benson Gallows poured a glass of cider from a ceramic jug and set it near my left hand. “Absolutely no blood of the vine for you. We must not risk spoiling the ritual, hey?”
I gritted my teeth. Ten thousand dollars bought this cuckoo crowd a tiny bit of forbearance. I tasted the cider and nailed Beasley with my most reproachful glare. He wilted, then raised a glass of cider in a gesture of solidarity.
“Did you folks know that Sheriff Holcomb’s mom is a gorgon?” I said.
Victor sighed.
“The Gorgon. There’s only one. Von’s a liar.”
“Most definitely a liar,” Ephandra said. “The only creature that let his bloated sack of lard father touch them was a hick sheep-herder maid from Butte. Probably not twice, either.”
Perkins the Carpenter killed the electric lamps and the music. The chamber fell into shadow, illuminated by a candelabrum and the edge of the moon now shining through the screen in the roof of the tent. The moon burned with a ruddy light.
Robert Gallows tapped his glass with a spoon.
“I propose a toast — to the memory of those poor souls taken before their time, and to a reversal of our own prolonged misfortune. Thank you, Jessica Mace, for making this restoration possible.”
Everyone drank. Beasley rose, gave a courtly bow, and exited the tent. My mouth dried and I instinctively touched the crucifix before I realized what I’d done. Stupid, inane, social programming at its worst.
“Shall we begin?” Robert Gallows said. “Jessica, be so good as to stand over there—perfect. Victor, I cede the floor.”
Victor waited for complete silence.
“Join hands.” He inhaled deeply and blew out the candles.
Took a few moments for the moonlight to kick in.
“Milo,” Victor intoned. “Milo are you with us, you scurrilous fuck? We’ve brought you an offering. Come among us and claim your prize, if you’ve the
balls.”
Well. I am not too proud to admit this spiel caught me flat-footed.
Chairs creaked. A staccato thumping emanated from the table; it and the chair-creaking grew louder, becoming violent. Knuckles, rings, and bracelets clacked against wood as the shadowy company trembled and twitched, caught in a mass seizure. Their spasms ceased and the enclosure fell silent.
Was this a con job? Or had they taken a psychotropic drug and were frying together? Damned weirdos. The lovely vision of ten grand in a bag steadied me, although I was tempted to step forward and shake Ephandra, see if she was playing possum.
“Girl, that’s your cue,” Perkins said, inches from my elbow. He didn’t seem quite himself in the near darkness.
“Gah!” I thought about having a heart attack.
A dozen chairs squeaked as the company unfolded to their feet in a unified motion. All of them stood stock still and regarded me in eerie silence. Their eyes blazed white with captured fire from the moon.
Hell of a cue. I got going.
* * *
Outside, a cold breeze sliced through my barely-there ensemble. I called upon my reserves of hardcore Alaska-ness and merely shivered.
Stars flared and died. The moon burned a hole through the black and into my mind. I decided to heist a truck and haul ass for town, or anywhere directly away from the remnants of the carnival. Keys were in everything around here. I didn’t heist a truck. I decided to fetch my loot from under Beasley’s bed and ride shank’s mare in a straight line until I hit something like civilization. But, no. I didn’t do the smart, obvious thing. Sensible action slipped my grip.
I walked toward a massive rectangular tent, domain of Hondo the Panther Lord, as I’d been instructed. My flesh tingled the way it does when I’ve gone over my limit of booze. Strange, since I hadn’t had a snort since early in the day. I wiggled my fingers and clucked my tongue to test the theory. All systems go.
An offering, Victor had said. A human sacrifice, he’d said. Okay, he hadn’t said as much, merely implied it. How much danger was I in? My hair-trigger alarm system kept sending garbled messages filtered through static. Meanwhile, there went my sun-darkened hand on the mesh screen, and there went my feet, bearing me into a den of beasts, and there awaiting my arrival, crouched Satan, golden-black in the glare of a kerosene lantern suspended from a hook.
I name her Satan because she smoldered with an inner radiance I’d intuited from a thousand glimpses of the Devil’s likeness in stained glass windows and illuminated manuscripts of the holy and the occult. Her shadow spread across the floor and up the wall, massive and primeval and bestial.
Satan, AKA Deputy Cooper who served as Sheriff Holcomb’s K-9 expert, wore blue and white uniform pants streaked in dirt, and nothing else. Broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, sinewy, her feet sank into a puddle of gory mud. Before her, lay the carcass of her K-9 partner, its jaws caked in red. She’d skinned it with a flint knife from the Neanderthal King exhibit.
Deputy Cooper slowly pivoted and revealed that the dog had eaten some of her face before it died. I swallowed bile.
“Damndest thing,” she said. “I was chilling in the cruiser. Baxter tore through his kennel and went right for me.”
I almost didn’t recognize the deputy, for obvious reasons. She’d also ditched the mirrored shades. Her shape twisted and thickened into steroid-fueled contortions. Her hands were bigger than Mary the Magnificent’s, and those long, sharp nails weren’t press-ons. Incongruously, she lacked much in the way of body hair. Folklore and Hollywood have conditioned us to expect pointed ears and a fur coat.
We were alone in the tent. Earlier in the day, a crew had loaded the animals into traveling enclosures and cruised toward Idaho. Victor had said that the phantom of Milo wouldn’t require the meat of a panther or wolf. The only force acting upon the Black Magician was his lust for Vinette. All else was pantomime. The dog’s corpse and Deputy Cooper’s wrecked face suggested Victor might not have possessed total command of the facts.
None of this was following the script. Dead dog, mutilated cop, me armed and dangerous.
“Good fucking God, Deputy.” I pulled the derringer from my purse, aimed at her head, and cocked the hammer. The pistol felt like a toy in my fist, in the presence of evil.
She drove the flint blade into the ground and straightened. Blood oozed over her breasts and painted her belly and slicked her pants. The blood flow showed no sign of slowing. Black-gold blood.
“You smell…great,” she said through impressive canines.
“Thanks,” I said. “Get on the ground.”
She tilted her partial death’s head. Her eyes were bloodshot and yellow.
“I’m going to eat your whoring heart, Nettie.”
“Okay, lady.” I pulled the trigger, saw a tiny hole bore into the exposed bone of her skull. A wisp of smoke curled from the wound.
Deputy Cooper blinked.
“There’s mud in your eye,” she said.
Her arm looped around fast and smacked me across the chest. Oof, let me tell you. Back in junior high Julie Vellum drop-kicked me in the head. Another time a kid walloped me full force with an aluminum bat. This felt kind of similar, except somebody had filled the bat with rebar and Babe Ruth slugged me with it. A flash of insight suggested that in a parallel reality, the blow had struck claws-first and my insides had splashed all over the place.
I flew backward through the tent opening and landed on my ass. Here came the skull-faced wolfwoman, striding toward me. Mary, dressed in her carnival tights that showed off a lot of grotesquely-bulging muscles, stepped out of the shadows and clobbered her across the back of the neck with a steel wrecking bar. The steel clanged meatily. Deputy Cooper dropped to a knee and Mary hit her again like she was chopping into a log.
Deputy Cooper caught the bar on the third swing, ripped it from Mary’s grasp and slung it away. She covered her ruined face with her hands and wailed. Neither woman nor animal should be able to produce such a cry. The kind of sound you experience once and hope to never hear again. The deputy shuddered and collapsed into a fetal position and remained still. She appeared to diminish slightly, to sag and recede, as if death had taken from her a lot more than twenty-one grams. Made me seriously reevaluate my contempt for the Catholic Church and its hang-up with demonic possession. Sir Arthur C. Clarke once said that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic. In my humble opinion, that goes double for sufficiently advanced lunacy being indistinguishable from supernatural phenomena.
“I suppose that’s one way of solving the problem,” Mary said.
“Is it solved?” I said.
“The Gallows will have to send a postcard with the news. I’m taking Lila away from here.”
Beasley’s mention of the sword swallower who got chopped to bits in Malaysia occurred to me. I kept it to myself.
“Thanks, Mary. Adios.”
She nodded curtly and walked away. Deputy Cooper lay there, one eye glistening as wisps of steam rose from her corpse.
I gained my feet and stumbled along the concourse. Dim lights peeped here and there from the recesses of shuttered stalls. The moon swallowed all else. I swear the moon resembled Deputy Cooper’s flayed skull, and it wouldn’t stay put, it rolled across the heavens to glare at me. I staggered to an empty squad car parked on the grass between the shooting gallery and a temporary-tattoo stall.
My lucky night, keys in the ignition, shotgun missing from the console rack. The interior reeked of wet fur. I jumped in, got her revving, and then floored it, barefoot on the cold pedal. I raced along the dirt road that curved away from the carnival. A veil of dust covered the sky and the damnable moon in my wake.
Crippling pain set in as the bouquet of survival chemicals polluting my veins diminished. Cracked ribs for sure, deep tissue bruises in my back, everywhere. I’d bitten my tongue and jammed my neck. My feet hurt. It began to settle into my frenzied brain that I’d commandeered a patrol car, was mostly naked,
had helped murder a sworn officer of the law, and worst of all, left ten grand behind. Perhaps I should turn around and retrieve the money, at any rate. Hard to split for parts unknown without a few dollars in one’s pocket.
That’s when the wheel wrenched in my hands. Front tire blown. The cruiser slewed violently and I couldn’t work the pedals fast enough to avert disaster. It left the road at forty-five, flipped over and skidded upside down until it came to a halt in the bushes.
The crash tossed me around inside the cab. Ruined my hair and tore my gorgeous dress all to shit. Might’ve loosened a tooth or two as well. I was still partly stunned when Sheriff Holcomb got the driver side door open and pulled me out and dumped me onto the soft ground without ceremony. He looked pissed. The pistol in his hand accentuated my impression of his mood.
“Nice shooting, Tex,” I said with groggy reproach.
“Jumping Jesus lizards,” he said. “That rig is totaled. Biggest clusterfuck I ever did see.”
“I bet you’ve seen a bunch too.”
He holstered his pistol with an expression of regret.
“What the hell are you doing in Coop’s car? Where is she? I heard a shot. What the fuck happened?”
“Easy, easy. Give her a second.” Beasley emerged from the gloom, rifle in hand. He knelt at my side and checked for broken bones. Contusions, mainly, but I didn’t mind the attention. While he worked, I closed my eyes and related the appalling tale of the past few minutes. I considered editing out the part where I put a slug into Deputy Cooper’s brain — admittedly, it might not have killed her, the wrecking bar swung by a carnival performer who could bench a grand piano was the most likely candidate. Once I started spilling, I couldn’t stop, though.
“Real sorry about your deputy,” I said at the end and wiped my eyes to emphasize the point. “Sorry about the dog, too. He was probably a good dog.”
Beasley stood and faced Sheriff Holcomb.
“Shut up, Von.”
“Screw you, Beasley. I didn’t say anything. She’s admitted—”
