The Revenants

by Castle, Jack

  “I don’t know what your game is…” This from Mr. Blowhard again. “But all you are accomplishing is frightening a bunch of tourists.” His eyes glanced around self-importantly as he pulled up the waistband of his pants. Clearly this was the man’s coping mechanism.

  When Wally answered him he said flatly, “I swear to you, I’m not. I wish we were.”

  “I’ll bet the four of you just had a bit too much to drink is more likely.” A thin elderly man in a golf cap, glasses, and wearing a pink sweater vest said disgustedly. He stood in the back with his arms firmly crossed. His eyes swept the room and fell on Wally with a stare to end all stares.

  “Hey!” Calvin spoke up suddenly, raising his voice to the point it was almost shrill. “I saw it, too.” When all eyes moved upon him he added, with believable fear in his eyes, “You didn’t see the paramedic lady in the hallway like I did.” Those who had been laughing quickly quieted down. “Her face was white as a bleached skull, and the way she moved…” He took a moment to compose himself. Swallowing, but still looking at the floor he added “…the way she moved… it was…” he lifted his eyes at them “…it was unnatural.”

  Becca shivered at the memory. Calvin was right, even in the red haze of the emergency lighting, she had seen the way Denise had loped toward them as though dancing on air and that wasn’t all either--it was like her eye sockets were oozing darkness, like a smearing of ink. Becca had forgotten that somehow. How could she have forgotten something like that?

  Breaking the silence, Elaine’s voice crackled. “Excuse me… Excuse me… I’m sorry to say this, because you all seem like such nice young folk, but isn’t it possible the four of you are suffering from some sort of mass hallucination. I mean, I’ve seen stuff like that on documentaries on the television.”

  Wally shook his head before answering. “No, ma’am. I’ve been a paramedic for over ten years, and I can assure you we are not suffering from any mass hallucination or effects of any narcotics. To put it simply, we aren’t experiencing any other symptoms.”

  Clearly the crowd didn’t like Calvin’s confirmation or the ability to easily dismiss their predicament as something imagined.

  “Alright, would everybody just calm down.” It was Mr. Blowhard again. “I didn’t want to say anything but I was a cop for nearly thirty years.” He paused for a moment to allow that little factoid to sink in. “And I’ve seen a lot of crazy things. I’ve seen just about every horror a man can inflict on one another. Now it seems to me, the reality of the situation is your friend--” He struggled to recall the name, when he couldn’t right away, his wife, a beaten-down looking woman who appeared to be ten years his senior, whispered something to him. Once she did he snapped his fingers loudly and said, “That’s right, Denise. It sounds like your friend, Denise, had some sort of mental breakdown and attacked you. That’s all. That’s all this is. It happens all the time on the job. I’ve seen it a million times.”

  The crowd seemed to breathe a sigh of collective relief. This was a theory they could get on board with.

  “What about the trauma sheers I jammed into her head?” Wally asked.

  Mr. Blowhard frowned. Looked around the room before answering Wally and said, “Are you kidding, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen in hospitals; why this one kid shot an arrow up into the air and when it came down it went straight through his noggin’. Hand to Heaven, I swear,” he held up his hand like he was swearing on a stack of Bibles, “the kid not only stayed conscious, but walked thirteen blocks to the nearest emergency room.”

  See, lass? There’s nothing to worry about. It took Becca a moment, but eventually found Donnie standing next to golf cap and glasses, sizing him up. Listen to the nice retired police man. Denise just had a major mental meltdown, t’is all.

  Becca wanted to ask how Denise had gotten behind them when Big Leonard, Wally and her were all crammed shoulder to shoulder in the hallway. There’s no way she could have. ‘What’d she do, crawl on the ceiling?’ But Becca wasn’t sure the more rational theory, albeit the wrong one, wasn’t entirely a bad thing. This theory would certainly keep everyone calm until the Calvary arrived in the morning. Besides, just like Big Leonard said, they did their duty and told the truth. It’s not their fault they were too stubborn to hear it.

  You’re right, lass. Best keep everyone calm. That way they make easier targets than yours truly.

  “Tell them about the school bus,” Peyton spoke up suddenly. “Tell them how you found me in a crumpled school bus that was nose down into the highway like a lawn dart, and packed with mutilated corpses.” Tears began to flow. The elderly man with the golf cap and glasses shrank a few steps away from her, as though Peyton’s kind of crazy might be contagious.

  Becca moved up beside Peyton and put a reassuring arm around the young girl’s shoulders. Peyton shook it off and exclaimed, mostly to Wally, “Tell them!” Jumping down off of her chair she continued, “Tell them how some…” she struggled for the words and decided on “…force… picked up my school bus like it was nuthin’ and crushed it down onto the pavement…”

  Wally could only stare back at her, unsure what to do.

  Mr. Blowhard, seizing the opportunity to reclaim the crowd from the young fireman said, “So what are you suggesting, we’re all under some sort of freakish supernatural attack? Because if that’s what you’re saying, young lady, I don’t think any of us are buying it. All we know for certain is…” his eyes scanned the room until they fell on her “…that woman right there shot and killed a paramedic. And self-defense or not, that’s exactly what I’m going to tell the cops when they arrive.”

  Becca felt her temper rise up again, and managed to control it – with no small amount of effort.

  But Big Leonard lost it. “Hey! Do you not see my vest?” he said, hooking his thumbs underneath the folds of the shredded vest he still wore. “Do you NOT see the scratches all over my neck and face?”

  The crowd studied the big lineman, who looked like he had barely survived a lion attack. Becca saw Mr. Blowhard take a step back; as big and fat as Mr. Blowhard was, he wasn’t about to go toe-to-toe with Big Leonard. He thought about it, but in the end he was smart enough to keep his pie hole shut.

  Big Leonard lowered his voice and addressed the whole crowd. “Whatever Denise the paramedic had become, she knocked down a man three times her size and did all of this,” gesturing to his coat and wounds again, “in a matter of seconds. If Becca hadn’t shot her when she did, I wouldn’t be breathing right now.” He allowed this to sink in for a moment. And before anybody could say anything else, he added, a little less to the crowd and more to himself, “And if you ask me, this is only the beginning.”

  Wally on the other hand was calm, patient, and the epitome of reason. “Listen, everybody, it’s almost morning. If anything, I think the storm is dying down. This will all be over very soon. We just have to keep it together for a little while longer. It should be sunrise any minute now.”

  There was a collective murmur from the group, but this seemed to be where things were going to end up… for now.

  “Uhm… excuse me.” It was Elaine again. She sat there with her long-fingered hands primly in front of her. “Mr. Wally,” she said. “I hate to be a bother. But it appears we have a situation of some concern here.”

  Becca watched as Wally knelt down next to the elderly woman’s chair. She wasn’t sure why she felt this way but she fought the urge to scream at Wally to get away from the old hag post-haste. She didn’t remember Elaine’s fingernails being so long. Seriously, they were like talons. An image of Elaine lashing out at Wally’s exposed neck with impossible speed and slicing open his jugular flashed through her mind.

  Wally rested a reassuring hand on the old woman’s forearm. “It is okay, Elaine. It should be sunrise any minute now. We can reevaluate then.”

  “That’s just it, young man.” She held up the enormous gold watch on her wrist for him to inspect and pointed to it. “It’s nine forty-f
ive am. It should have been sunrise hours ago.”

  And the sun became black as sack-cloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

  -Rev 6:12

  (This stuff’s in the Bible, people)

  (Oh, I’m sorry; I only just realized. I did not introduce myself earlier. I’m a VOICE, too. Not quite like Donnie’s. He’s reserved himself for Becca.)

  (Whose you ask? Oh, let’s not worry about that right now, we’ll get to that all in good time. Now where were we? Oh yes, those poor delicious souls trapped inside the motel. My, that was ominous of me. Delicious souls, as if one’s soul could be delicious. How positively absurd. Right? Why they’re actually pretty scrumptious.)

  Chapter 28

  Pey-Pey

  Talk… talk-talk-talk, talk.

  That’s all the adults did. For two hours. And accomplished nothing. To Peyton, the next few hours seemed surreal. Having more people know about what had happened over the last forty-eight hours didn’t make her feel any less like she was living inside a dream.

  More like a nightmare if you ask me.

  You’re damn right about that. Peyton agreed, but then wondered who she was speaking to; she knew he sounded familiar but she had yet to place him.

  (It’s a him. Well there’s a start.)

  Peyton broke the survivors down into two groups; the Practically-know-it-all-Science Geeks, and the televangelists who believe anything, including a cat’s coughed up hairball, is a sign from above. The Science Geeks were led by Mr. Blowhard himself, and their group was predominantly his wife, Golf cap man with glasses, the tour director, and about half of the blue hairs. This group only believed in only what they could touch, the practical, logical explanations. Somehow they even convinced themselves that the absent dawn could easily be explained by some unforeseen celestial event, or something to do with the atmosphere. A UFO could land on their heads and they’d say it was a flung trashcan lid or trick of the light.

  On the other side of the room you had the religious nut cases, who believed this was some sort of supernatural nonsense like demons and ghosts. The cute fireman and Miss Becca seemed somewhere in-between.

  “You doing alright, young lady?” croaked an elderly voice off to her right.

  Peyton turned and saw Elaine sitting down next to her in one of the high backed chairs sipping some tea. Although Peyton didn’t remember Elaine looking like this before, the old woman had taken on a kindly old grandmother appearance. Probably just the knitted shawl she was now wearing around her shoulders. Peyton wanted to say something jaded or something clever to the old bat, but the truth was, right now, she could use a friend. So she settled for saying, “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Elaine nodded. After taking a loud last slurp of her tea, the old woman clinked the saucer and teacup loudly as she placed both on the small table between them. Peyton watched as the old woman then unbuckled her saddle-bag sized purse and fumbled out a box of cigarettes.

  (Interesting. Isn’t that the same purse her husband died going back to get? You mean she had it the whole time? Oh, Elaine. You devious little minx.)

  Smoking. Gah-row-essss.

  That Voice again. As Peyton was beginning to realize who it was she actually saw the dude. He was standing there, just outside the glass doors in his letter jacket. It was none other than Marty. Marty Moonie (that really was his name) the Captain of the Basketball team, the darling of Sioux Falls High School. Peyton had a crush on him since they were in the fourth grade together. They used to be playground buddies back then; he even used to have a cute little nickname for her (Pey-Pey). She was fairly certain that ever since they had entered high school together Marty barely knew she existed, so it surprised her when he started talking to her. The only reason Peyton didn’t leap out of her chair and run over to him and let him inside was because on some instinctual level she knew Marty was dead. Although she hadn’t seen him in the pile of bodies at the bottom of the bus-tower, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Magic Marty Moonie, with the pecs that won’t quit, was long gone.

  Confirming this, Marty was now inside the lobby entrance without ever having to open the glass doors. Adding to Peyton’s theory further, Marty’s right eye was hanging out of his socket like a shiny bauble at the end of a long red and sinewy fibrous cord, kinda reminding her of red rope licorice, but Marty, he seemed oblivious to it.

  Oh, is this bothering you, Pey? Cuz I can fix it. No problemo. Watch this.

  Even though Peyton was certain the outside observer would see she was speaking to only empty air she shook her head and breathed, “No, it’s okay, it doesn’t bother me.” The truth was it did bother her, mainly because she spied a pair of scissors on the lobby’s counter and she was fearful of what Marty might do with them. As though sensing her thoughts, Marty followed her gaze to the scissors and when he turned back toward her he smiled.

  Oh, Pey-Pey… how delightfully morbid of you.

  Forgoing the scissors, Marty cupped his eyeball in the palm of his hand and ever so carefully pushed it back into its socket. He then tilted back his head like someone trying to swallow a large pill or supplement. He then brought his head slowly back down, as though fearful the eye might drop out again. Seemingly satisfied the wayward eyeball wasn’t going to spill out again, he spied Peyton and asked, Better?

  It was better; kind of. Yes, Marty’s eye was back in its socket where it belonged but it still looked all wrong. Sort of like those glass eyeballs that never seem to quite match up to the real thing, no matter how good the craftsmanship is.

  “Far be it for me to pry,” Elaine murmured beside her. “But it seems to me like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  (Yech. Cliché. Really, is that best we can do here?)

  Peyton dragged her eyes away from Marty for a moment and fully looked at the old woman. Her face was leering, almost happy. Peyton watched as the old crone took another, impossibly long drag on her cigarette, lighting the red tip up like a road flare on crack. Elaine sighed with pleasure as she exhaled a small cloud of smoke.

  Peyton knew what Elaine was doing. The old biddy was only trying to comfort her. Despite Peyton’s normal M.O. (Modus Operandi--that’s Latin for Method of Operating. Cops like to sound cool when they say it.) the old woman’s concern only made her like Elaine even more. Peyton’s eyes flicked to the lobby doors and she saw Marty was now gone. A quick scan of the lobby only confirmed what she already knew. “I keep having this, what to call him? Voice in my head.” If she told Elaine she was seeing her dead school chum, Senor Marty Moon, Elaine would think her mad.

  “Got voices in your head, do you?” When Peyton nodded. “Is that all?” Elaine then patted her on the elbow warmly. “Oh child, that’s nothing to worry about.” Elaine then leaned back in her chair and took another drag on her cancer stick. Funny, Peyton didn’t recall the old woman smoking earlier in the diner, but now the woman reeked of cigarettes. Ever since the motel she was in a constant haze of smoke. And the stench… wow. It was overpowering.

  Smells more like Fire and Brimstone to me, Marty said.

  So he isn’t gone. At least not entirely. And then thinking about what Marty had said she shot back reflexively, Marty, how would you know what brimstone smells like?

  Interrupting her inner dialogue, Elaine said sweetly, “You know, I’ve always thought of the Voices in our heads as Angels, guiding us along the way.” Another drag on her cigarette, and this time really sucking on it too, so much so that the end flamed up, lighting her whole face up in a bright orange haze.

  Hear that, Pey? Old lady says I’m an angel.

  Peyton snorted audibly and thought, ‘Yeah, I don’t think so.’

  Elaine finished her cigarette and extinguished the butt in her small round, portable ashtray. She then removed a fresh box of cigarettes from her saddlebag-sized purse and crinkling the cellophane around the box she removed another smoke. Catching her stare, Elaine asked, “You want one?”

  Now we’re talking!

  A solitary cigar
ette slid out of the box as if by its own accord. Did I imagine that?

  “Go ahead, dear. I won’t tell. Under the circumstances, I seriously doubt anyone will care.”

  Yeah, Pey-Pey, do it! Smoke-smoke-smoke…

  Peyton could see her trembling fingers hesitate before the cigarette. Ultimately, it was one of those anti-smoking commercials where the young girl turns into a haggard old woman in the mirror that caused Peyton to say, “Thanks, but I’m trying to cut down.”

  Cut down? Since when have you ever smoked a cigarette, Pey-Pey?

  “Suit yourself,” Elaine said with a hint of disapproval in her tone. Like a gunfighter twirling his pistol before seating it back in its holster, with a flick of the wrist the cig was back in its home with the others.

  For some reason Peyton could explain, she didn’t like disappointing the kindly old woman. She was about to offer up an apology when a commotion started up over by the clerk’s desk. She wasn’t sure what had started the fight but Mr. Blowhard was thrusting his finger in Miss Becca’s face. Peyton would’ve thought Big Leonard would have had something to say about it but after a quick check, she could see he was no longer in the lobby.

  “You were in the military,” Mr. Blowhard was saying. “It’s your job. It’s your job to protect us.”

  “Look, buddy, I don’t owe you anything,” Miss Becca spat right back, eyeing Mr. Blowhard fixedly. “I stopped being your protector the moment some stupid kid blew himself up and the military tossed what was left of my sorry ass out of the military.”

  Wally laid a gentle hand on Miss Becca’s forearm. And when she jerked her arm out of his grasp the fireman eased his way in front of her. Addressing Mr. Blowhard, Wally said gently, “How about this? You three post up at the other of the hallway, and Big Leonard and I will post up here. That leaves everyone tucked up in their rooms, nice and safe in-between.”

  Mr. Blowhard opened his mouth to say something but just then Big Leonard entered the room and asked irritably, “What’s all this?”