by James R Tuck
I couldn’t move the arm with the knife, the water Fey had it locked in a wrap of skin. My free hand scrabbled at it, trying to find a purchase. We crashed into the handicapped stall, the Fey giving a high-pitched squeal of murderous joy as I slammed it against the wall, trying to get it off me.
The world was going black, dark spots dancing in the edges of my vision and the red haze of unconsciousness creeping in when my fingers dug under the edge of the skin flap trapping my arm.
I gave a vicious yank, pulling with all the strength I had left and the skin lifted with a squelch. Driving my hand forward, I shoved the cold iron knife into the swollen skinsack smothering the life out of me. The edge slipped in and hot, putrid water gushed over my hand. The Boogeyman gave a shrill, skreening cry and tried to fling itself off me; convulsing to get away from the hated cold iron blade. My free arm clamped down on it, hugging it close to me, pinning it in place as I shoved harder with the knife, jerking the edge left and right to widen the hole.
I held it over the toilet, the malevolent water gurgling into the bowl with retching splashes. The skinsack deflated as the porcelain bowl flooded with evil swampwater. It took a few seconds for the skinsack to drain completely and hang in my hands like a shredded inner tube. Rot set in immediately without the magick of the Fey that had lived inside of it. In disgust I tossed it in the toilet with the Feywater. The stench was awful as it quickly began to dissolve into a curdled sludge.
The Feywater in the bowl gurgled, surface shimmering into a semblance of a face, like a dim reflection. Words floated up, echoing hollowly in the bowl. Fey magick tinged the air, pecking at my skin.
“give . . . me . . . your skin . . .”
My boot lifted, coming to rest on the chrome handle.
“Piss off.”
My foot pushed down. The toilet whooshed clean water into the bowl, swirling the Fey away. I turned away and stepped out of the stall battered, tired, bloody from the biting tentacles, and soaking wet with stinking Feywater.
And I still had to do my shopping.
I hate the damn mall.
In this collection I think it's become clear that I really enjoy taking odd, off the radar monsters and putting a Deaconverse spin on them. The Aswang, the Boogeyman, Elves, even the Were-Spiders and Were-Pomeranian. Well, in this one you get yet another turn of the old folklore as Deacon goes on a basic 'track em and whack em' job.
This first appeared on Tynga's Reviews.
NATURE TRAIL TO HELL
Briars.
Brambles.
And bugs.
Motherfucking bugs.
Mosquitos, fleas, chiggers, and those shit-damn South Georgia gnats. You know, the ones that crawl into your nose and ears and the corners of your eyes with their tiny, buzzy, wriggly bodies and their pinprick biting mouths.
I hate being in the damn woods in the dog-day heat of summer.
So why was I tromping through some God-forsaken chunk of land outside of Ballsack, Georgia?
For the kids, man.
I wasn't hiking. I was hunting.
Seems that for the last few weeks there had been the occasional missing person around these parts. Never anyone who lived in the area, just travelers. A LOT of people drive by Ballsack, Georgia since the Interstate highway runs right past it, but the town itself is barely a wide spot in the road. One sad-sack gas station, a Dairy Duchess (it used to be a Dairy Queen but apparently the owner got tired of paying franchise fees so he bolted a sheet of plywood over the Queen portion and painted Duchess under it. Yep, all class.) and a deer cooler.
That's it.
Almost no one ever stops. Think about it, do you want to stop and hang out somewhere named Ballsack, Georgia?
Yeah, neither do I.
So when these travelers didn't make it to their destination, no one even blinked in the direction of Ballsack, Georgia.
What changed? What not only made Ballsack, Georgia a suspected location of these disappearances, but also required that I hop in the Comet and haul my occult bounty-hunting ass down here so I could stomp through the woods hauling fifty pounds of monster killing gear while my nostrils and ear canals were being violated by approximately nine hundred thousand little bastard gnats?
A troop of Royal Rangers had come up missing.
Royal Rangers are a church version of the Boy Scouts. Same gig, turning boys into men with forestry skills, but with an overtly religious foundation. And I was a bit generous with the term troop. There were three boys and one leader. Not so much a troop as it was a pack. When they didn't show up at their return rendevous the local sheriff sent out the only deputy in Ballsack, Ga.
All they found of him was his boots, his gunbelt, and his hat.
And a shitload of blood.
The Sheriff mounted up, went out with dogs, rounded up a posse from the local good 'ole boys, and they went huntin'. The dogs hit the camp, pissed themselves, broke leash, and ran off. The men tried to go on until one by one they dropped to hysteric convulsions. One was in the hospital, he swallowed his own tongue. The other four were in the psych ward.
So the Sheriff shagged ass out of there and called the Atlanta Police Department and they called me.
I guess my reputation precedes me.
Which is the chain of events that led me to this ridge, in these woods, trying to find three Royal Rangers and their Leader.
And I was close.
Now I'm no tracker, but four people running for their lives in a heavily wooded area leaves a pretty wide swath of destruction that even I can follow. Broken limbs, bent saplings, leaves and loam from the ground churned into ruts by terrified feet.
Yeah, they were nearby. One way or the other.
The air around me was thick. Not just the normal humid mugginess of South Georgia summer, where the humidity level will make you feel like the heat has slapped a wet blanket over your head and is dragging you into a dark alley so it can rob you blind.
They don't call it mugginess for nothing.
But it wasn't just that. The air was thick with some supernatural shit. It jangled through the Angel's blood running in my veins. Because of that blood I can sense the weird and paranormal. The stuff in the air was setting that blood on fire, a hollow, pungent magick that sat on the back of my throat like spoiled milk.
I pushed through a briar patch that had been shredded by bodies running through it at high speed. The tiny thorns still bit at me, snagging on my jeans, pulling at my shirt, skritch-scratching along the barrel of the shotgun slung over my shoulder. Stepping through the other side I saw the end of the trail just about fifteen feet ahead.
It ended at the mouth of a tiny cave.
Not really even a cave, it was a hole in the rock side of the ridge I was climbing that was a bit less than three feet around. Too small for me to fit in, but just about right for a couple of pre-teen boys to shimmy through. The trail I was tracking ran straight up to it and disappeared. There wasn't any blood but the ground had been shredded around the hole, ripped down to bare rock and hard-packed Georgia red clay.
Bingo.
I said a small prayer that somehow I'd find some of them alive. Normally when I hit the scene the bodies are on the floor and I'm left chasing the thing that did it.
I didn't want to find pieces of kids today.
I slung the shotgun off my shoulder and down into my hands. It was loaded with silver-plated buckshot. I also had one of my Colt .45's under my arm, my backup .44 in the small of my back, and since I was wood walking today a heavy-bladed machete with a silvered edge lay strapped to my thigh.
“Hello? Anybody in that hole?” My voice rolled through the woods, bouncing off trees and rocks. It carried through the silence. There were no birds chirping. No squirrels scurrying. Hell, even the gnats had stopped buzzing.
My ears strained to hear anything but my own breathing.
From the cave, muffled by the rock, came a voice. “It's not playing tricks on us. That's a big guy with a gun. I can see him.”
>
“Come on out of the hole, it's safe now.” I said.
As I watched a dirty, pudgy face loomed to the opening. It was a kid, about eight, with round features. His eyes jittered from a lack of sleep behind round, wire-frame glasses. Brown hair hung over them, limp from sweat and dirt. He didn't come out of the hole, stopping just shy of being outside.
“It's alright kid. You can come out. How many of you are in there?”
“We're all in here, even Mr. Davis. It opens up once you get inside.”
“Well, y'all come out and let's get you home.”
“Is that thing gone?”
“I don't see it anywhere.”
Which was true. But I did feel something. The magick in the air was getting thicker, curdling on my skin. The skin on the back of my scalp tightened. Something was watching us.
“On second thought, stay put kid.”
I reached into my pocket, pulling out a small vial. Before coming down I knew I was going to be hunting something that ate people. The vial was full of donated blood, just what the doctor ordered to bait a monster. My thumb flipped the rubber cap off. I slung the blood around me in a wide arc, sending it flying through the air. It spattered on the leaf covered ground like rain.
The effect was like uncapping a lightning storm.
The ground exploded at the top edge of the ridge. Leaves, dirt, and rocks rained down on me like an avalanche. It drove me back, my shoulder hitting a sapling as my feet skidded down the hill on loose leaves and loam. I slapped out with my arm, grabbing the sapling to stop myself. It bent, curving under my weight, threatening to pull out of the ground and let me slide fall free.
It held.
I swung the shotgun up in my right hand and shook my head, blinking away dirt packed into my eyelids, scratching my cornea. My mouth tasted like rotting leaves and wormdirt. My vision cleared as a hoarse, raw roar blatted out through the woods.
A monster charged down the hill at me.
It moved fast, hooved feet ripping the earth. A massive, antlered head swung back and forth, spiked bone shredding leaves from branches. Baleful eyes rolled in deep sockets on the sides of it's skull and its mouth dripped with foamy pink spittle. It was huge, all legs and arms around a hollowed ribcage and a bloated belly, skin drawn tight, sickly translucent over a weird, angular skeleton. Organs pulsed and beat inside it like they were being steamed in a plastic bag.
My power kicked and my mouth dried up, throat closing down as sick, hard pangs cramped in my stomach. Hunger drove spikes from my spine to my navel.
Motherfucker.
How did a sumbitchin' Wendigo wind up in the woods of Ballsack, Georgia?
My finger jerked the trigger on the shotgun. It bucked, spitting a fist-sized wad of silver-coated pellets. I didn't aim, I didn't have time, but it's damn hard to miss something near twenty feet tall only ten feet away. The swarm of buckshot punched through the membrane that stretched from splayed rib to swollen belly, ripping it open. Murky green gore splashed out and a chunk of weird organ slipped down, hanging out of the tear.
The Wendigo hit me before I could jack the slide and load in another shell.
We bowled down the hill. One hand clamped under that shaggy throat, holding gnashing teeth away from my face, the other scrabbled against the gore-slicked skin on it's side. The shotgun was lost. We rolled, the ground slamming into my back like the fist of God then the sky whirling over as we whipped around and around and around. My teeth clattered, my lungs felt like they were being squeezed for juice.
Then we hit the briar patch.
A million thorns ripped across every inch of exposed skin, setting it on fire. I kicked out, driving myself up and away from the Wendigo. It fell back in a flail of arms, legs, and antlers. The world spotted black, pulsing in and out as my heart throbbed in my chest. I sucked air desperately as my fingers closed on the grip of the .45 under my arm.
The Wendigo stood with a scream of rage, briars tangled around antlers, jerking them from the ground roots and all. Unblinking, boiled egg eyes stared at me in red-rimmed sockets. It threw it's mouth open and bellowed, spittle flying at me. I could feel its seething hunger, its anguish to slake its torturous appetite, an appetite that drove it like a cruel, mad slavemaster. It was a creature of desperation, driven to the brink and over by wretched, horrible starvation.
It couldn't help what it had become. Wendigos aren't born. They're tortured creatures, created by hunger. By need. By lack.
And by cannibalism.
The gun thundered in my fist.
Bullets flew, splitting the air between us before the Wendigo could move. Three .45 caliber slugs smashed into its head, just under the eyesocket. They hit as a group, almost as one at that distance, churning through, breaking into devastating shrapnel, and spitting out the top of its skull. It's brain was just an enlarged hypothalamus, all the logic centers gone, devoured by the part that controlled hunger and instinct. The smashing bullets spilled it out in a puree of mind mush.
The Wendigo choked to silence, then toppled over into the briar patch, body laying face down in one direction, massive rack of antlers tangled in another. A fat, pink tongue stuck out between its teeth.
"That was awesome!"
I looked around. The kid from the hole was standing there. He was short and pudgy, dirty as hell, and bowlegged.
I slipped the gun back in its holster.
"You the only one left kid?"
"Naw." He jerked a chubby hand over his shoulder, thumb pointed behind him. "Brett, Otis, and Mr. Davis are still in the cave." His face broke into a smile. "You really killed that thing! It was like a movie!"
This kid had spent two nights in a hole hiding from a cannibalistic horror show and still had the bravery to come out and watch me kill it. Most of the time when someone runs up against the monsters they spend the rest of their lives in therapy. This kid might be alright.
"What's your name, son?"
"Donovan. Everybody calls me Donnie."
"Stick with Donovan. It'll get you further with the ladies."
He nodded like I had just given him the secret to life. Maybe I had. I pushed myself up. I was gonna be sore in the morning.
Donovan watched me. "Hey mister. You gonna take that head for a trophy?"
"Nah. I don't do that. Besides, it'll be decomposed in an hour." I could smell it already, ripening in the heat, the Wendigo's flesh turning cannibalistic on itself. As long as no one got near enough for it to latch on then it would just dissolve away into nothing.
"Let's go gather your troop and get the hell out of here, kid." We turned and headed up the hill.
A buzzing kicked up around us. The gnats were back.
Damn, I hate the woods.
A bon-a-fied cut scene. This was something I wrote in the first draft of BLOOD AND MAGICK that didn't find its way in for the finished version. It's a cool scene and shows just how different that book might have turned out. I'm super happy with the book as it was published but it's still cool for me, and hopefully for you, to look at how things evolved.
BLOOD AND MAGICK
ALTERNATIVE SECOND CHAPTER
The Comet ripped down the road, eating asphalt, speedometer needle bouncing off the underside of 90. The engine roared, full-throated and angry as I pushed the pedal closer to the floorboard. The chain-link steering wheel was hard under my grip, fingers locked tight enough to bruise. I cut my eyes over to the rearview mirror. The hanging rosary pulled backward from g-force that pushed us all back in our seats. The witches were still there, still hanging in the air, still keeping pace.
The plump one, the one who had sliced that woman's throat, rode a pulse of satanic red power. Phthalo green crinoline and lace skirts blew back from her corseted waist and at the end of tight, lace-edged sleeves miniature hands twisted, chubby fingers tied in arcane knots.
The tall leather clad witch had sprouted a giant pair of batwings and a matching forked tail. She swooped and whirled around her companions leaving a tra
il of magick bruising the air in her wake. Her hair streamed out behind her, mouth open in maniacal glee.
The warlock rode the back of the muscle-bound vampire he controlled. It was a flyer, cutting gravity with no apparent means of support. The warlock had his legs around the bloodsucker's waist, ankles locked tight. The vampire's braid wrapped around one hand like a rein. His black cassock rippled behind him like a cape.
I could feel the magick they were using like a concussive wave we were racing ahead of. Barely. It pressed against my power like a thunderclap of destruction.
Larson lunged up, wiry arm slapping over the seatback. "Where are we going?"
I didn’t look over at him, concentrating on the road. We had hopped the highway right next to the restaurant, slewing through the intersection and almost clipping the EMS workers screaming to the scene. We were on the northern outskirts of the Atlanta suburbs so ripping north on the highway opened us up to being in the country pretty quickly. Houses and businesses quickly fell behind in our wake.
Good. I needed to get these crazy witches away from people so no one else got hurt.
Larson hung over the seatback still looking at me.
“I’m looking for a place to make a stand. There’s a corn maze up here that's in the middle of nothing, I’m shooting for that.” I shouldered his arm off the seat. “Buckle up. We’re almost there and this ride's going to get rough.” I caught his eye in the rearview mirror. “If we get out of this shit alive, you and I are going to have a serious talk.”
Like how the fuck are you walking now?
He nodded once then turned to make sure Kat was buckled in. Light spilled into the front seat as Tiff popped the glove compartment. She pulled out blessed rosaries and began passing them around. Her legs flashed in the light; long, smooth, and bare where she had tucked the hem of her dress up so she could run and move. The Taurus Judge from her purse was reloaded and shoved into the waist of her dress. It made an awkward bulge, but was at hand for use. After the rosaries, she bent and pulled the Benelli Tactical shotgun from its clip mounts in the floorboard. She checked the breech to make sure it was loaded and then held it across her lap.
