A Host of Shadows

by Harry Shannon

  “Yes.”

  “Members of my family were buried near here. How wonderful! In fact, I may see their graves again soon, after all this time!”

  Moon was silent. I could see he was troubled, but I cared not. I twirled in circles, like a child in a circus tent for the very first time, eyeing the rock face above. “But where is the house my grandfather constructed?” I cried. “It was of a decent size, and mainly built of stone.”

  Then I remembered the sadness of my parent’s passing, and that all those who had lived here were now passed away and gone. My enthusiasm waned. A long moment passed. I repeated myself: “Where is that house?”

  “Torn down, brick by brick,” Moon said.

  “No! But why?”

  Moon spat onto the parched earth. “To calm the spirits,” he said. “You may think I’m foolish, but they wished things…repaired. Back the way they were before the white men came.”

  A chill ran through me. “They wanted?”

  Moon smiled white and wide, but now his eyes were flat, reptilian slits. “I don’t have an Uncle Samuel,” Moon said. “Not anymore. He died five winters ago.”

  “But…”

  Moon looked up and around. Shadows were streaming out of the mountains like stalks from a carnivorous plant. He casually pulled a long Army Colt pistol and aimed it at my lower belly. I am ashamed to say that my bladder released.

  “Step back, sir,” Moon said. “Get away from the animal.”

  I did as I was ordered.

  In a flash, Moon was on his horse, clicking with his tongue and leading my mount away. I watched him go, my throat tight with terror. Fortunately, I had my canteen in one hand and my own handgun tucked into the back of my leather belt. I dared not draw it. Mr. Moon would have surely cut me down had I tried.

  “Where are you going?” I cried weakly. “What shall become of me?”

  “Truth is, I don’t know.”

  Moon looked back over his shoulder only once, and again I was struck by how different he seemed. With the palate of sunset behind him he seemed like a brave warrior from bygone days. I half expected to see feathers in his hair.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because of your family, sir. Your family desecrated this ground,” Moon said. He spoke softly, yet my belly flooded with adrenaline. “And because the Horse Humans are buried here,” he continued. “Nothing personal, but they need to stay buried.”

  “Moon!”

  But at once my guide vanished over the horizon, horse hooves clopping on scattered rocks; my needed mount in tow. It was night. I was alone in the wilderness with a handgun, six bullets and half a canteen of water. I struggled to control my consternation. I circled the small area, looking for ideas. The shed was nearly worthless, but would serve as some kind of shelter were I to arrange the components properly. I found a lantern, a moldy box of matches and a small container of oil. I dragged the sheet metal over to a dead-end section of the gully and propped it up on opposite lips of sand. I braced it with timber and stepped back. Now I would have three sides blocked and only one open.

  It was totally dark in the canyon and the wind was rising.

  Something howled, and my skin crawled like a colony of black ants. Coyotes? Likely nothing to be afraid of, and yet I felt an atavistic dread beyond description. I wasted four of the precious matches before I succeeded in lighting the lamp. The yellowed expanse of brightness warmed my very soul. I paced the area, trying to hold the terrain in my mind. I am an anthropologist, and I know the deep and ghastly dread of the darkness that lives in the bravest of men. I wanted to defend myself with logic, awareness and perhaps even to sketch a small map so that I would be able to readily picture the area around me during the night. For a moment, I felt I had control of the situation.

  There came a fiendish grunt. I froze and then spun around, holding up the lantern, gasping rapidly for air…nothing. But then I heard a liquid slurp, like a large beast slavering and sucking up its own drool. I drew my weapon. My hand trembled. I backed away, towards my cubby hole in the parched earth, my chest tight and my face slick with sweat.

  The first one came from the south.

  It shambled sideways, something like a sea crab. I cringed back and gasped. At first I thought it to be some prehistoric being returned from the bed of a dried-up sea. But it was worse than that, far worse. It was something that had once been human. The hair and nails were impossibly long, and rags still clung to the clicking bones. Some skin still stretched across the skull like yellowing parchment, and one cheek had been eaten away, likely by insects. The hideously grinning teeth shone through like yellowed piano keys. They opened and closed with an audible clack.

  I fired, but it did not flinch. I fired two more times and it stopped. Then the thing emitted a small, high-pitched squeal and retreated into the darkness. I swallowed vomit and thanked God for my luck, for I must have struck some remaining vital area. I was down to three bullets. I backed away and started to duck down into my make-shift home at the foot of the gully. The creature scuttled forward again.

  I heard a low, urgent moan of unholy desire from behind me, and knew there were others. I spun and fired twice, wasting more precious bullets. Then I crawled into my hole and curled up in a ball. To my utter horror I heard many more of the things approaching, and now from all directions. Whistles, shrieks and coughs ensured. They were dead, yet had voices of some kind, but from what soulless, fleshless orifice those sounds were created I do not know. I had but two bullets remaining in my side arm, and knew that my hubris was to cost me my life.

  I drank some tepid water. I closed my eyes and prayed. When I opened them again, a thing beyond description faced me. It stood just at the edge of the light. He had long white hair and filthy nails; an eviscerated rodent hung from a clenched fist. His ravaged features were tilted to one side in a quizzical manner. A long, thin string of bloody drool hung from the jawbone and trailed off into the sand. He wore what remained of a black suit with tails.

  Something happened inside me, something I cannot explain. In a flash I recalled my grandfather’s funeral, his distinguished body packed in ice for the wake, and the black suit with tails he had been buried in. Could such a thing be? I felt the strangest mixture of fascination and sickly dread. I raised the lantern and inched as close to the monster as I dared.

  The grandfather thing retreated, and it was then I realized my bullets had been useless. However, they were afraid of the light! I moved forward, and after taking a deep breath, stepped out into the gully. The yellowish glow spread. It beat back the night. All around me, gnarled forms withdrew; hissing their disappointment.

  “Grandfather?”

  The thing cocked its head again, as if responding to my voice with invisible ears. I swallowed more bile and stepped forward. “Can you help me…?” And at once I heard movement behind me, as several of the things attempted to slip down into my shelter. I whirled around and fired without thinking.

  One bullet left.

  I raised the light. The creatures grumbled and stumbled; cawed, crawled and staggered away. Now I could see that some were male, some female; some large and some mere children. Many wore what had once been the clothing of white settlers. Some wore fragments of tribal garments or carried ancient weapons. In this horrid place, the dead continued on indefinitely.

  My breath left me and the world fell away. “Help me, Jesus.”

  I saw them clearly, a few yards off: The same long hair and nails; all bones and strips of filthy fabric. They were fighting, as usual, only now over something red and wet. My father, improbably wearing bent wire rim glasses and what remained of his gold suspenders, was snarling and clawing at a raw, purple-veined chunk of meat. Meanwhile, my mother tried to drive him off by striking him with her well-worn Bible. They had become a ghastly and grotesque parody of themselves. I lowered the lamp in disgust.

  Movement behind me! My body was now blocking out the light. The grandfather thing lurched forward and teeth sank i
nto my lower leg. The pain was excruciating and I made a sound so high and shrill it could have come from a woman. I kicked out and pulled away, but the predator would not release me.

  “No!” I cried. “Let me go!” I twisted my damaged leg and yanked. A large chunk of my flesh remained in those macabre, gnashing teeth and blood spurted out onto the sand. The army of ghouls grunted with glee. They moved forward as one to enclose me.

  I could not stop the bleeding with my bare hands. I had nowhere to go, and one bullet left. I inched back down into my shelter and used my belt to bind the wound. I began to write in this journal. At once, an ominous lethargy began to overtake me; a numbness that began with the aggrieved calf muscle, and then traveled both down and up that leg. As I write this now, I can no longer feel my lower body.

  The lantern is flickering out.

  I am spent. Soon will put the gun to my head. Pull trigger.

  Can write no more. Take no more.

  God help me Nelly Tall Bear is eating my foot…

  _______________

  “The memory of the just is blessed;

  But the name of the wicked shall rot”

  —Proverbs 10:7

  Night Nurse

  Bud was speeding down the Hollywood Freeway in the fast lane when the pain came. He knew what it was the second he felt it, a sharp blow to the solar plexus, quick as the kick of a mule. His upper gut contracted into a burning fist that wouldn’t, couldn’t relax. He groaned, doubled over, took his foot off the gas. The asshole behind him leaned on the horn. In agony, Bud managed to hit the turn signal. He forced himself to sit up a bit, checked the rearview mirror. Fortunately there was room in the lanes to his right. Everyone in LA was rushing to get home before dark.

  Bud had already been hospitalized for stomach pain earlier that month, and the gastro guy assigned to him—a nice Indian fellow with a lilting accent and an irreverent attitude—suspected he’d passed a stone. Since the guy couldn’t prove it, they called it acute gastritis and sent him home.

  Bud pulled off the freeway and headed for the same hospital, wondering if he’d throw up or pass out before reaching the ER. A friend had told Bud that this condition was kind of like having a baby, but worse. Maybe she was right.

  Damn it to hell…

  Sunset was an ugly orange and red smear of smog when Bud reached the hospital, pulled into the parking lot, found a space. He opened the door and promptly barfed on the pavement. Two PAs were outside smoking cigarettes. One sprinted for a wheelchair and the other rushed to Bud’s car. Bud realized he was shivering now, sweating up a storm. His shirt was soaked through, even his underwear felt damp. He was clearly running a high fever. The two men got him into a wheelchair, raced him across the pavement and through the sliding glass doors. The shopworn ER was packed, primarily with flu sufferers, many of them poor and likely uninsured. The walls were ogre green. The room smelled like a cattle car. Bud’s stomach rolled over, but there was nothing left to expel.

  The PAs wheeled him to Admissions. The overweight female behind the desk appeared indifferent, or perhaps just burned out.

  “I think it’s my gall bladder,” Bud wheezed. He gave his name, let them know he’d been in the hospital only a couple of weeks prior for the same condition. He told the woman that this experience was worse, far worse, than the last attack. She pulled his file, found the necessary insurance information. A male nurse, some kid festooned with tattoos, was asking a lot of questions. Bud heard himself answering as if from another dimension. His fever was rising steadily. He was drenched. Concerned about a heart attack, the overworked staff rushed him down the hall and onto a gurney. IVs were inserted, a blood pressure cuff attached. A balding man in white came in, scanned the file, ordered drugs and mentioned scheduling surgery once the fever had gone down.

  “Can I have some water?”

  “Nope, nothing at all right now,” the doctor said. “You’ll toss it back up. You have pancreatitis. That could kill a man your age.” He flashed a grin. “Hey, I promise I’ll keep you so high you won’t care.”

  Whatever they put in the drip, it made the world turn even more surreal. Bud remembered test after test, different faces doing different things, but the doc was right, he didn’t much care. Well into the evening he was finally moved to a room. Saw the shadow of another man on the other side of a long white curtain. Someone who kept saying “I don’t want to die, God give me another chance,” in a low, raspy voice. The man’s desperation made Bud’s skin crawl, despite the heavy veil of medication. He closed his eyes wearily, fell asleep.

  Pain woke him with a roar. His belly was on fire again. His right elbow hurt, too. Someone had strapped it down so he wouldn’t move the IV needles. Despite the discomfort, Bud dozed again, this time for quite a while. He opened his eyes to blackness, except for a bit of moon glow from the window. It was quiet. The door opened, a long corridor of light speared the darkness. A new nurse came in.

  “Bud? How do you feel?”

  Kindness. A personal touch. His first name. Bud tried to focus. The night nurse appeared to be close to his age, perhaps sixty. She moved slowly, a bit stiffly. Her brown hair was flecked with grey. She smiled. Bud thought she had the kindest, deepest brown eyes he’d ever seen. She came to the bed, leaned over. Her lips moved, asking if he was in pain. Bud nodded. She vanished to his right, doing something with the IV. He was grateful, but didn’t want to watch. Bud hated needles. Within thirty seconds another dose of narcotic flooded his system with warmth, and the world spun away.

  An arrogant young surgeon visited him somewhere around dawn. Bud winced in the sunlight, cringed at the man’s tenor voice. Things seemed way too bright. His eyes hurt. Someone had removed the white curtain. Bud’s desperate, panicked bedmate was gone. He did not ask where or why. It would be good to have a private room. Later, someone else asked about insurance, if he had any family to notify. Bud was so stoned he told the woman his life story. How his bitch of an ex-wife had moved out of state, that he’d lost his job and had to COBRA the damned insurance, had nobody in the world left who gave a shit. On one level Bud knew the woman didn’t care; on another it felt good to complain to someone. Hell, even talk to someone.

  He tried to watch TV, but couldn’t concentrate. He’d sleep for an hour or two and they’d come back to draw blood or poke him with something. His bladder filled urgently and often. The IV was flushing his system out. Unable to move, humiliated and scared, Bud peed in the plastic bottle. He got a shot every four hours. The drugs made it all tolerable, but just barely. As promised, they kept him stoned. Bud missed the night nurse. Nobody else bothered to use his first name.

  She came again just as the pain returned, which was shortly after dinner. No one brought Bud anything, but he heard all the activity and smelled the hospital food. It made him queasy. The night nurse stepped into the darkness, left the door open a few inches, as if concerned not to blind him, for which Bud was grateful. She flowed into the room gracefully this time, carrying a plastic tray with bottles. She put a small bit of ice on his tongue. It was heaven. Bud hadn’t noticed the first time, but she was rather pretty for her age, and younger than he’d originally thought. Bud felt his body craving the drug and wondered if he’d leave the hospital with some kind of addiction. The gentle nurse wiped hot perspiration from his brow. He considered asking her out when all of this was over. Then slept.

  They scheduled him for an operation, early morning of course, after one more day on fluids. The surgeon seemed concerned that Bud hadn’t tried to get up. Bud explained he felt weak. The surgeon showed him how to disconnect the IV rig and urged him to try to make it to the bathroom once in a while, to just keep moving, keep the circulation going. Later that afternoon, Bud dropped the gate on the side of his bed. He unplugged the IV, heard it beeping. He couldn’t believe how dizzy he became while struggling to stand. I’ve lost weight, I can feel it.

  Bud limped into the bathroom, forced out a tiny, very weak stream of urine. As he turned to go back
to bed, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Saw deep lines etched in his face, blue shadows under his eyes, pale skin sagging. Bud thought he looked like some kind of ghoul now, fucking death warmed over. This thing was really kicking his ass.

  The staff brought him some chicken broth, but Bud couldn’t eat. The thought of surgery frightened him, being cut open like that. Naked in front of chattering strangers. The hours crawled by. He’d never felt so alone.

  Soon it was dusk. The pain came on again, and Bud found himself staring at the door, willing her to come soon. At last the door slid open; a long, warm bar of light rolled across the linoleum and into the shadowy bathroom like a living thing.

  Bud said, “Please.” It was someone else’s voice, very far away.

  The nurse with the kind eyes nodded. She leaned over to kiss his forehead this time. She looked radiant. Bud had an erotic fantasy that surprised him, considering his pathetic condition. He didn’t know if he’d been hallucinating before or was imaging things now, but the kind nurse was quite pretty really; thirty at most, with ample breasts and thick black hair. He closed his eyes, waiting for the medication. The glow flooded through him. Bud felt his heart kick and then weaken. In fact, he suddenly felt panicked, knowing it wasn’t sleep he was dropping into, but something far more sinister…

  And then suddenly it became difficult to breathe.

  Help me!

  Bud fought off the pleasant drowsiness, turned his head to tell her this was the wrong medication, that someone in the bowels of the hospital had made a terrible mistake…

  The night nurse wasn’t there.

  Confused, Bud rolled his head the other way. The IV was unplugged and beeping urgently.

  The last thing Bud saw was the gorgeous young night nurse crouched over the hospital bed, dark eyes rolled back in her head. She was gently sucking on the tubes coming from his bruised and bloody arm.