It was Payne. He moved among them, whispering, cajoling, his dance a winding path of discord threatening to tear the seam of the moment and let it spill out in tragedy. Brandt caught the man’s eyes, heard the soft flow of laughter, the confidence, and the dark threat.
“Not today, pal,” Brandt whispered. He shifted again. He let his mind drift, back to Dexter’s church. He remembered the sound, the rhythm that had drawn Dexter down the aisle, that had stood that congregation on their feet and drawn their attention to the altar.
Brian, and the table, they were the altar this night. There were no snakes, but there was a meal, a very special meal, and for some reason, Payne had gone to a lot of trouble to see that the table was set, only to turn and do his best to see the moment ruined. Brandt kicked up the tempo, and Shaver and Synthia followed easily. Shaver turned, just an instant, and winked at Brandt, understanding somehow, and he stepped forward. The notes flowed less quickly, but with sudden, deep intensity. Shaver was throwing a lifeline of sound to those gathered, and sensing this, Synthia pounded in behind him, the new song, tempo, and rhythm shivering out from her bass and through the tiny amplifier, the only electronic addition to their sound, the only thing with a power not generated in their minds and their fingers.
Liz glanced back suddenly. She caught Shaver’s eye, clutched her mother’s arm tightly, and turned away, back to where her father, steadily, and with no concern nor attention for those gathered, slowly ate his way around the table, laying the late Reverend McKeeman’s corpse bare to the night. Payne hadn’t slowed Brian’s efforts.
The shifting of the sound seemed to have maddened Payne, and his gyrating, off-kilter dance took on new power. Bursting from the crowd, he whirled to the table, leaping up on one end, balancing there, and nimbly leaping across to the other side, shaking the framework and nearly toppling it all.
Payne passed in front of Brandt very closely. The tails of his long coat whipped in the breeze and flicked out like long fingers, reaching to still Brandt’s fingers. Brandt closed his eyes and ignored the distraction, playing easily now, instinctively. He felt the low chorus of voices trapped deep within him, humming the melody and strengthening his notes. Even without their amplifiers, Brandt and the others were filling the clearing with sound.
It wasn’t enough. Payne slipped out through the crowd, to the bonfire, and he turned, letting the jacket flare out to the sides and up, cheap stage-magician cape to bat-wing proportion in seconds, and his laughter rang out, deep and powerful. The fire shifted, nearly snuffed by the force of that sound, and the music dimmed. Brandt played, desperately, but the sound had reverted to the weak, tinny notes of unamplified electric guitars.
Those who’d been feeding the fire turned as well, moving in just behind Payne. They shifted, growing taller, more gaunt. They held instruments. One stood tall, the polished bass leaning in close against his chin and his wrist bent just so, angled to pluck the deep, vibrating sound free. There were guitars, three of them, each glazed and glittering, polished to a high sheen. There was a sax, and a lone dancer, swaying and beautiful, tambourine held high and shaking softly.
They didn’t play. They stood, and Payne stood before them, and then began to walk forward. He paid no attention as Brian slipped around the final corner of the table, where the wine and the final helpings of Reverend McKeeman’s sin, stacked on plates and cooled in baking pans, were waiting for consumption and redemption. He moved straight toward Brandt with confident, fluid strides that covered the distance with deceptive speed.
Madeline stepped forward and planted herself between Payne and the band.
“Move aside, woman,” Payne growled. “This isn’t your game.”
“It isn’t a game at all,” she answered, her voice wavering, but strong. “It isn’t a game, and it isn’t your place.” She looked Payne up and down once, and then actually smiled. “Judging from your fancy dress, ‘Reverend,’ this isn’t your time either.”
“All times are mine,” he answered with an arrogant smirk. “All pain is mine. Pain, and time, are both relative. Do you believe in the afterlife, Maddy?”
“You know I do,” she replied. As an afterthought, “Don’t you call me Maddy.”
Payne laughed again, but Madeline held her ground.
“You aren’t welcome here,” she said softly. “Leave us in peace.”
As she spoke, the music swelled, rising in volume and picking up power. Payne laughed again, a bit less confidently, and spun away.
“I don’t think so, Maddy,” he hissed. “Don’t think so at all. I must say, I’m a little disappointed in this evening’s—festivities. Maybe it’s the music.”
Payne raised his hands dramatically, stalking around the end of the table toward Brian. Brian held the wine flask. The last of it, the last of the food and the drink, the bread and the meat, gone. Impossibly, gone. Miraculously gone. But he held the wine, and before he could lift it to his lips, Payne was there, dancing closer, too-white teeth gleaming in the firelight.
“You don’t want that, Brian,” Payne whispered. “You don’t want to drain that man’s evil into you—it’s his, don’t you see? It isn’t your burden. Let it go. Pour it out, and walk away.”
Brian backed toward the crowd, and the fire. They parted before him, as they’d parted when he arrived. His eyes, if anything, were wider—wilder than before. They no longer shone with hunger, but with another light. A deeper light. His hand gripped the flask tightly, and he brought the brim to his lips. He spoke no word, but there was a strength in his silence. Payne took a step back, and he brought his arms down in wide arcs to his side.
Those standing by the fire . . . Payne’s band . . . began to play. It was a sultry sound, emanating from deep within the flames. It leaped to life as Payne’s arms dropped, and Brian staggered. Something in that sound, something running wild in the notes, dragged at his arms, pulling the flask from his lips. He cried out softly and steadied himself, the effort a horrible struggle that strained muscles and coated his brow in sweat. He shook, fighting an inward battle outwardly displayed. Payne laughed again, and this time the tones of that laughter had deepened, and strengthened.
Brandt gritted his teeth and played. He could barely make out the sound from his own guitar, so intrusive and all-encompassing was the music of Payne’s minions. He felt it weighing on his soul, pressing him back, and down, yet still he played.
Crossroads, or the crosshairs, boy, ain’t no in-between.
Wally’s words floated to him through his mind. Brandt closed his eyes. He saw that alley, fires burning in the trash barrels and he heard the music. The solo, lonesome voice of that mouth harp, drawing him in. He flashed on the image of the old woman, the cards. He glanced down, and there she was as he stepped forward, in wonderment.
Toothless grin and a flick of the wrist and a card sent sailing into the breeze. Brandt tried to focus on the image, tried to see what it could be. He played, and he stepped forward, following that twisting, wavering image with his eyes and his soul. Yellows and greens. Something curved and twisting.
A gnarled hand whipped from the shadows, snatching the card and turning it face-to Brandt, holding it very still. He stared. Shock prevented him from glancing to the hand, or the arm, and focused his attention on that card.
The Universe. A naked woman, fighting a snake, twisting in an oddly symmetrical figure-eight pattern. Masks at the four corners, looking inward. Balance. Brandt stood straighter. He turned, gaze shifting down the arm, the tattered shirt. Meeting those familiar eyes as the sound washed over him, pure and clean.
Wally stood there. The old man tossed the card again, and it floated in the mist above them as ancient, callused fingers wrapped around the harmonica, and the sound swelled. Brandt rode that wave, became that wave, slipping beneath the notes and lifted them higher. At his back, he felt Shaver, felt the sudden adrenalin rush and exaltation of sound as the lead raced to catch Wally, and to dance, subtly, between the notes.
The music g
rew, and washed over the clearing, and for that instant, Payne backed away, toward his fire. His eyes glowed, but the sound of his band had dwindled to a hum, and he no longer loomed so large. Payne’s toothy grin had become a snarl, and he slipped back through the crowd quickly.
Brian watched, and tilted the flask, letting the first of the wine trickle over his lips. Head thrown back, he gulped slowly, eyes closed.
Payne roared. The sound shattered the music, splintering it and sending the shards bursting from the clearing. He moved forward again, making straight for Brandt, and Wally, eyes blazing, and the smile slowly curling back across his lips. The card shimmered in the air, and Brandt concentrated on it, brow furrowed and fingers burning like fire. Like they’d not burned since that first night. He felt those within him screaming for the release, begging him, saw the old man and his violin, playing a dirge to millions as black-booted, goose-stepping devils kept cadence. He saw the girl, and the endless parade of Cherokee dying, marching to oblivion, heard the tinny, whistling song of the flute as they moved. Felt Wally sliding closer, blending more firmly with his own notes. Felt it all fading, and flickering, and failing.
Payne was nearly upon them, and the card was drifting down, slowly, caught in the breeze and slipping side to side as it descended. Too much. The weight of those eyes, and the relentless, pounding beat from the band, and the pulsing flames, pressed against Brandt. He felt the heat, felt his skin reddening, near to blistering. He felt the strings so warm—hot—they nearly glowed. He gritted his teeth, tears streaming down his face, and he played.
Beyond Payne, over one shoulder, he saw Brian, the flask still tilted, his throat working slowly, as that sin, and that pain, flowed down and in and away.
Then it happened.
Slowly, a shimmer of sound like sandpaper whisked over wood, brisk and clean. It started low, a misty, rain-soaked sound that grew steadily, and powerfully. The mist became a shimmer, became a downpour of sound, rolling and twisting, shifting and driving into Payne’s shocked features. Too close. The man had come too close, and now, as the sound grew and the strings cooled, as Brandt felt the pain shifting, and exploding up and out and away, Payne could not escape. He could not retreat to his fire, or his band. He couldn’t smile, or frown, but only stare, and slowly—ever so slowly—diminish.
And the rhythm grew. It danced, and it rippled, growing in strength and speed, impossibly intricate and delicately balanced.
Dexter. Dexter had finally drawn himself from his reverie, lifting the drumsticks and letting them dance, his wrists moving so quickly they blurred in the firelight, and the beat, the pounding rhythm so perfect that it dragged Brandt, and Shaver, Wally, and Synthia into its depths and molded them to the sound in an instant.
Payne mouthed a word. A negation, but the sound died, stillborn. He tried to back away, but as he took the steps backward, he shrank. As he moved, his features sank inward, and the air shimmered brightly. The vibration was palpable—visible and pummeling Payne toward the table. It danced in time with Brian’s Adam’s apple as he gulped a final time, draining the flask and smashing it to the table, even that sound engulfed in the music.
As that last drop was drained and the flask shattered, the fire grew with a sudden rush, becoming a single, brilliant pillar of flame, reaching toward the heavens. The band that had stood before it was gone, swept up and away in that burst, and Payne, stretching now, his face a rictus of pain and anger, was drawn in as well, slowly. He fought it. He held his ground and reached out, trying to grasp Brandt, trying to rip at Wally’s throat, trying to put a single discordant beat into Dexter’s onslaught. Failing.
He grew, taller, thinner, drawn up and into that column of flame as if it were a tornado of fire. He screamed, but even that sound was silent in the face of the music, and suddenly, Dexter moved forward. He no longer played, and he no longer held the drumsticks. Twin serpents dangled from his arms, and his head was thrown back in the ecstasy of the moment.
The air shimmered, and where Payne had stood, a ghostly image grew. A woman, arched in the air, twisted and reaching toward Dexter as he moved forward. Dexter never saw, never needed to see. He stepped forward with certainty and thrust his arms toward the apparition, the snakes growing, elongating and taking on a shimmering glow of their own.
The serpents stretched upward, blended with the woman, and Brandt cried out softly, seeing it. The card, The Universe. The image flared, trapped in the mist and darkness, strobing so brightly it stole their sight and flickered in bright after-images.
The images whirled, shifted away, leaving Dexter standing with his empty hands and arms outstretched. The scene whirled, vertiginous shift of light and dark and suddenly it was Brandt, and the woman, and the serpents, and Brant turned away, toward the cliff. He glanced out into the waves, saw the groping hands of those on the coffle, stretched . . . and felt his fingers grasp another’s.
It went dark. Everything, pitch black and empty. No sound, no light, only the whisper of soft breeze, dancing through the leaves and limbs of the trees.
Brandt staggered, dropping to one knee. He managed, somehow, to cup the guitar in close, not damaging it. He heard the others, one by one, indrawn breaths and soft cries. He heard the moans of the townspeople as they gained their senses, as the darkness and the moment faded slowly to solid reality.
There were no voices. That was the first thing he knew. There was nothing, just the night, crickets chirping softly, and the sound of the others around him. He glanced to where Wally had stood, listened carefully, but again, nothing. The night, and the silence, and already the voices of those around him, softly denying, wondering, praying.
He rose, turned, and caught Synthia in his arms as she fell toward him. Shaver and Dexter were moving in from the side, and Madeline had turned, as Liz watched, and moved toward the table, now devoid of the impossible feast, bearing only the body, and the urn.
Brian stood there, watching her approach. He didn’t flee, nor did he flinch from her as she ran the last few steps and threw herself into his arms. The two were so tightly embraced they scarcely noticed when Liz added herself to that tight mix, or when Shaver moved up and wrapped himself tightly around her.
They stood that way, the group of them, as the people of Friendly, California faded into the shadows, one by one, leaving them to their peace. As the moon’s glow bathed the clearing, a single harmonica sounded in the distance, low and clear, and Brandt smiled, hugging Synthia even closer.
They turned toward the van, and as they stepped away from the clearing, Brandt stopped. He leaned down, and there, in the dirt of the clearing, he saw a brilliantly colored card. The Universe card. Up, and to the side of that, he saw a card with a young man, stepping off a cliff, oblivious to the danger, a dog attached firmly to his ass.
Brandt picked them both up, staring, and he laughed. He tossed The Universe card to the night breeze, slipping The Fool into his pocket.
Dexter stepped up beside him. With a grin, the drummer snatched the drifting Universe card deftly from the air.
Brandt asked, “What happened to the snakes?”
“I put them back,” he said softly. “Wonder if there’s any coffee left?”
Laughing, the band was swallowed in silence and moonlight.
BONUS EXCERPTS
ANCIENT EYES
By David Niall Wilson
ANCIENT EYES takes place on a mountain peak one over from Friendly California. This is a novel of horror, ancient evil, and spiritual redemption as Abraham Carlson comes home to the mountain to finish the work hi father left incomplete…the cleansing. This is Chapter One:
ONE
They streamed out from the trees, in groups, singly, in pairs, turned onto the trail and moved deeper into the woods. They were silent, though their combined motion created a single voice. Whispered hints of words trailed after them in the scrape of booted feet and the rustle of cotton and linen skirts. Moonlight filtered through the trees and dappled the shadows with dancing light
s.
Each had left behind the warmth of hearth and home without a backward glance. On their doors, already fading, his mark trailed down and joined with the grain of the wood. The mist of early morning would absorb it, and the bright light of the sun would melt it away. It was enough that they had seen it, that they had run their fingers down the coiling length of it, not quite brushing the design.
Some had journals, or Bibles, left to them by their fathers, mothers, grandfathers or uncles tucked away in the recesses of their bedrooms, or wrapped carefully and buried with their other memories in dusty attics and musty barns. Sometimes his symbol could be found scrawled in those pages, and at other times it was painstakingly etched and so minutely detailed that even a magnifying glass seemed inadequate to bring out the exquisite darkness of the image. The journals were seldom read, and if a page that bore his symbol was encountered, the book was closed. Nothing was said. Ever.
None of them carried a light into the woods. There was fire ahead, deep in among the trees, and they shuffled in a dazed procession toward that distant light. Though not a word was spoken, there was a voice on the wind. Deep, sonorous tones echoed from branch to branch and vibrated through the hills. He had marked them, and now he called. As their father's fathers had done, they answered, filing dead-limbed into the ripening night.
Sarah watched from her porch, her shawl drawn tightly around thin shoulders. She was old, but her eyes pierced the gloom like those of a predatory night bird. When shadows shifted, she unbound them and gave them the form of her neighbors marching into the woods, and despite the shawl, she shivered. Behind her, etched into the wood of her door, the ancient ward stood out in stark relief, carefully carved so many years before. Chanted over and tempered by fire, charred and pitted by…
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