by Peter Nealen
The Walker On The Hills
By Peter Nealen
This is a work of fiction. Characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination.
Copyright 2015 Peter Nealen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, to include, but not exclusive to, audio or visual recordings of any description without permission from the author.
Printed in the United States of America
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Also By Peter Nealen
The Jed Horn Supernatural Thriller Series
Nightmares
A Silver Cross and a Winchester
The American Praetorians Series
Task Force Desperate
Hunting in the Shadows
Alone and Unafraid
The Devil You Don't Know
Chapter 1
Eryn sniffed the air as we stepped inside the entryway. “Do you smell that?” she asked.
I couldn't very well have missed it. The stench, like a mix of mold, formaldehyde, and rotten eggs, had slapped me in the face as soon as we'd opened the door. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Hag. Crap.” I took a deep breath, redolent of the stink, and steeled myself as I closed the creaky door behind us. “I just hope it hasn't fed yet.”
The house could have been on a “Haunted Houses R Us” poster. Three stories, abandoned, with the porch sagging off the front of the house, all the paint peeling off, and not an unbroken window in sight, it was, of course, a prime attraction for the teenagers in the little town of Forth. The locals had stopped even bothering to try to lock the place up, since every padlock they put on the door ended up getting snipped off with bolt cutters. Even if it hadn't, the ground floor windows didn't have any glass in them, so there really wasn't any keeping people out, at least not without putting a 24/7 guard on the place.
Eryn and I had gotten the call about this one because there was some suspicion that something more dangerous than just teenagers trying to scare each other in the dark was going on.
Quietly, we stepped into the empty entryway, guns lifted. Eryn didn't care for the kick of my trusty Winchester '86, so she was carrying a Remington 870 instead, which I had pointed out made no sense. She'd just told me to hush. She liked the shotgun better. I'd just rolled my eyes and refused to argue. My wife can be kind of stubborn about such things.
“What if it has?” she whispered.
“For one thing, there's no point in whispering, because the filthy thing already knows we're here,” I replied in a regular conversational voice. The trouble with hunting Otherworldly creatures is that there really isn't any way to sneak up on them. Father O'Neal once described the Otherworld as, “the world that's just out of sight.” These things were elusive and sneaky by nature, as well as having senses that are, frankly, preternatural. The hag could either hear us from across the house, or could be lurking in the shadows, invisible, watching and listening. “Just try to shoot it before it can get its claws on you. They get really nasty close up.”
We started across the entryway. There hadn't been any furniture in the house in at least a decade, and the floorboards were showing through the rotting remains of the carpet. The walls were partially covered with peeling wallpaper, with the lower three feet paneled with dry, cracked pseudo-pine. The place was dusty, and dead leaves were scattered beneath the broken windows. The only light inside was the gray, cloudy twilight coming through the shattered windows and the white glare of the flashlights we were both carrying. Eryn's was actually attached to her shotgun's pump, while mine was clamped to the rifle's forearm by my fingers. Hey, lever guns date from a time before weapon lights, and I wasn't going to desecrate the old rifle, that has been around a lot longer than I have, with any kind of “tacticool” mods.
If I'd been facing people with guns, I would have been carefully flashing the light only when I wanted to see a particular spot, so that the gunmen would have a harder time zeroing in on me. Against a hag, there was no point. So I kept the light on as I moved into the living room.
The living room was as empty as the entryway. The light revealed nothing but creaking floorboards, a few tattered bits of wallpaper barely clinging to the plaster between gaping holes, and graffiti left by generations of teenage trespassers. There were old beer bottles and cans scattered in the corners, along with a sizable collection of mouldering fast food wrappers. What was conspicuously missing at this hour was the skittering sounds of the rodents that had to be infesting the old house.
I moved along the outside wall, feeling horribly exposed as I crossed the windows, but the odds of the hag being outside were pretty long. They prefer their prey to come to them, once they've found a cozy little spot to draw the thrill-seekers. I kept the muzzle and the circle of light trained on the door to the dining room. Eryn had her shotgun aimed up the stairs, the reflected light off the faded, institution-green wallpaper in the stairwell giving her face a sickly cast I didn't care for. I ignored the momentary onslaught of the heebie-jeebies and concentrated on the dining room. I hate hags. They creep me out more than most of the creatures crawling around the dark underbelly of the Otherworld.
There was no movement in the dining room. Judging by what was left of the wallpaper, whoever had decorated that room had had a thing for flowers. Lots of 'em. There were divots in the floor where a table had apparently stood for a long time, and there was a single, rickety-looking white metal chair, with a rotten, vermin-eaten cushion on the seat, sitting propped against the wall. I took another breath, almost choking on the hag-stink, and pushed into the room, quickly swinging my rifle muzzle to cover each corner and the ceiling. I'd seen a hag drop off the ceiling onto another Hunter's head before. It hadn't been pretty.
Eryn was right behind me, making sure to check behind us, through the door, before we moved toward the kitchen. She'd only joined the Order of the Silver Cross a few months before, right after we'd been married, but she caught on fast. Considering what she'd survived in Silverton, that shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. Very long hours under Ray's and my instruction helped, too.
The kitchen was as empty and barren as the dining room. All the cupboards were hanging open, with one door held on by only a single hinge. The stove was still there, though none of the other appliances had been left. On impulse, almost afraid of what I might find, I reached out with my off hand, still gripping the flashlight, and pulled the oven open. It came open with an unholy screech, making Eryn flinch; she'd been checking our six again and hadn't seen me reach for it. I slapped my hand, and the flashlight, back on the rifle as I stepped back and pointed the .45 caliber muzzle into the oven. If the enemy had been human, it might have looked ridiculous, but I got over worrying about that a long time ago.
It looked like some rats had nested in the old oven, but no hag came boiling out of it. There also weren't any body parts in it, which was always a good thing.
There was a back door leading to the yard, and a tiny pantry tucked into the corner next to it, but other than that, the kitchen was the last room on the first floor. On to the stairs.
I took the lead going up. Eryn was a full-fledged Witch Hunter, sure, but I had more experience, was generally better in a fight, and damn it, she was my wife. I wasn't going to send the woman I love up the stairs first while I follow behind to pick up the pieces.
Being the woman that she is, she never argued the point. The one time we'd discussed i
t, she'd simply smiled and said, “Okay, dear.” When it comes to some things, she's a lot stronger than I am.
I paused just before the landing, then popped over, sweeping the muzzle to clear the entire room above. It was a small hallway, with several bedrooms opening off of it. It was stark, dusty, and empty.
All but one of the doors were open. I moved to the first and stepped inside.
It was a near carbon-copy of the rooms downstairs; bare, peeling walls and a creaking, filthy floor with several of the floorboards actually missing. It was also completely empty.
I didn't linger, but met Eryn at the door, pointing to the next room. She fell in behind me, still turning every few seconds to check the rear and the ceiling.
We may have been clearing the house systematically, but don't be fooled—we weren't on the offensive. We'd been on defense ever since we'd stepped in the door. We didn't decide when we found the hag; the hag decided when it found us. We were just trying to avoid being ambushed while we searched for the missing kids.
The next room was empty. So was the one after it, except for the pile of filthy rags piled in the corner under a window that didn't even have the fragments of the glass panes left in it, but just a splintered, broken frame. I kept my rifle trained on the pile a little bit longer than usual; I'd faced a Rag Man in Silverton and it wasn't an experience I was eager to repeat.
But the rags didn't move, so we moved on until we were right outside the only closed door on the entire second story.
It was closed and latched, which was a little odd; even the front door had been slightly ajar. I pointed my rifle at the door, and Eryn reached over to turn the knob.
The mechanism wasn't in good shape—big surprise—and it took some effort to get the knob to turn. It rasped loudly, though the hinges didn't squeak as the door swung open. I darted in behind my Winchester, trying desperately to spot the hag before it jumped on me.
The hag wasn't there. But, in contrast to the rest of the house so far, the room wasn't empty.
There were clumps of dried vegetation hanging from the rafters, along with thicker cobwebs than I'd ever seen anywhere, never mind in the rest of the house, which was generally cobweb-free. The thickest such webs were in the corner, where three forms were swathed in them like flies in a spiderweb.
In the center of the room was a pile of bleached human bones, the skull lying at the bottom. They could have been there for a century, from the looks of them, but I knew better. They were the scraps from the hag's feast. “Ah, hell,” I said. “That answers that question.” The hag had fed, which meant it was going to be faster, meaner, and stronger than it would have been otherwise, not that a hungry hag isn't enough of a handful already. It was also going to be able to soak up a lot more punishment before going down.
Eryn moved across the room to check the survivors, who were swathed in the hag's web. Hags have a reputation in folklore for being weavers, to the point that some depictions of the inside of a hag's hut show a loom. Well, they are weavers, just not the kind that need a loom to weave with.
I didn't watch; I was too busy keeping my rifle trained on the door while checking every other crack and cranny that the thing could crawl out of. A hag that's eaten has ways of sneering at size limitations if it wants to get at you.
I could hear Eryn struggling to pull the web away from the victims' faces. It was tough stuff. The sound almost masked the rustle out in the hallway. “Hold still for a second,” I told her. I needed to listen.
At first there was only silence, as if whatever had moved had heard me and was staying still, the sound of its movement no longer masked by Eryn's struggles with the cobwebs. Of course, that wasn't likely; the hag could be completely silent if it wanted to be, regardless of where it was. It was far more likely that the thing was toying with us.
There it was again—a papery sort of hiss, like something dry being dragged across the wall. I had a sudden mental image of a skeletal talon of a hand sliding across the ragged wallpaper in the hallway. It figured we were trapped, and was screwing with us on its way in to add to its larder. I've heard the theory that hags find the meat tastier when the victim is terrified. How the person who told me this knew that, I have no idea. Somehow, I expect if he'd asked an actual hag, he would have become the hag's next meal, and wouldn't be able to say whether or not his terror had had anything to do with his flavor.
I was banking on the hag not realizing that we had a bit of a bite of our own.
The rustling out in the hallway stopped. I waited for the hag to appear in the doorway, but the threshold remained empty. Nothing happened for a good five minutes, during which Eryn went back to trying to free the contents of the monster's little do-it-yourself pantry. I didn't relax, but kept my muzzle on the door and my eyes watching every gap in the plaster.
It had gotten wary all of a sudden. I suspect it had figured out that there was something strange about us. I hoped it hadn't realized what. Catching it by surprise would help finish this quickly.
The uneventful silence stretched on. I was tempted to taunt the thing, but I wasn't sure how good an idea that was at the moment. I was the only one ready for it if it came, and that would mean it would come from behind me, where Eryn was. Of course, what I did only had so much impact on where and when it attacked. It would come after us when it was good and ready to, probably at the most mind-blowingly inconvenient time possible.
Eryn had finally gotten one of the kids free of his cocoon and laid out on the dusty floor. It felt like I should be helping, but I knew that as soon as I put the gun down and went to assist, that was when we'd get jumped and eaten.
The rustling was back. This time it sounded something like skirts or burial shrouds slithering across the floor. “New visitors to my humble home?” The dry, creaky voice didn't seem to have a source; it just hung in the air all around us. If the thing was trying to sound like a kindly grandmother, it was failing miserably. Its voice had all the melodiousness of fingernails on a chalkboard. “But visitors ought to be more courteous. Breaking into the pantry without even saying hello. Tsk, tsk.”
I groaned. “Why do the monsters have to be chatty?”
“It's trying to put us off our guard,” Eryn said. She was beside me now, her 870 held ready. The victims could wait until we'd dispatched the hag.
“It was a rhetorical question,” I muttered, then raised my voice. It knew we were here, so the hell with it. “Just show me your face and I'll give you a proper greeting,” I said. I didn't have a lot of hope that it would oblige me with a clean shot, but it was worth a try.
There was a flicker of movement on the other side of the door, like a scrap of cloth sweeping past. I didn't take the bait. I was pretty sure it was a feint.
It was. No sooner had Eryn shifted her shotgun toward the movement than the hag was suddenly crawling through a crack in the plaster to her left. The crack was no more than two inches wide, but it stretched at an angle from the ceiling to two feet above the floor. The hag seemed to be having no trouble squirming through it.
Before it could get all the way into the room, however, I had swung my rifle and put two rounds into it as fast as I could crank the Winchester's lever. The big .45-70 boomed thunderously in the small space; fortunately, at Eryn's insistence, we'd splurged and bought battery-powered adaptive earplugs. They meant we'd gone without a few things for a couple months, but they kept us from going deaf when we had to do things like discharge firearms a couple of feet from each other's ears.
I usually carry a mix of steel and silver jacketed rounds for the '86, and that night was no exception. The two metals tend to have different effects on Otherworld creatures, depending on their nature and just how much truck they've had with The Abyss. Silver works better for some, steel for others. Hags tend to be vulnerable to iron.
The first round hit about dead-center as the hag expanded through the crack. It was a silver jacket, so while it had to hurt, it didn't have much effect. The second hit just above the first, and
that was a little more spectacular.
There was a noise like an enormous water drop hitting an equally enormous pan full of hot grease. A tongue of flame actually licked up from the impact point, and the hag screeched loud enough to have shattered the windows if they had still had glass in them, then vanished.
And by vanished, I mean there was actually a pop of displaced air rushing in to fill where it had been. I hadn't known that hags could do that. I guess they got a few other side benefits from eating human flesh.
“Well, now it's mad,” I said. I just caught the wry, sideways glance from Eryn, as she hastily headed back to the victims and started pulling at the webs wrapping up another one of them.
“We've got to get these kids out,” she said, straining to pull handfuls of the sticky, cottony stuff away from a girl's face.
“Unless we deal with that hag first, we'll just get all of us eaten on the way out,” I pointed out, still trying to watch every crack, hole, and door at once.
“But we can't leave them alone,” she said. “What if it comes back and snacks on one of them while we're running around the house hunting it? It's pretty obvious that it can get around a lot quicker than we can.”
I didn't look back at her, knowing that as soon as I did, the hag would probably take advantage of my distraction and rip my head off. I didn't have to, anyway. I could picture the look of determination on her face. This woman had helped hold off a possessed mob, hell-bent on murdering and defiling everyone in St. Anthony's Church in Silverton. She had guts; if she hadn't, she never would have taken to me, and we never would have gotten married. She also had a protective streak almost as wide as mine. There was no way she was going to willingly leave those kids to the hag's dubious mercy if there was any other way.
