“Over here, Clyde! Stinky, you run for it!”
I got to my feet and took off running. I slipped in the mud, got up and ran again. I crossed that soaking wet piece of exposed land waiting for the sound of the gun. When the booming sound finally did come, my sharpened instincts told me the gun was deliberately fired over my head, up into the air.
Maybe Harrow would be satisfied with driving us away.
I was now a few yards from the beware-man and right at the edge of the Harrow property, but I couldn’t run off like a chicken and leave a girl behind. So I reluctantly turned, crouched in a mud puddle and waited for Julie. Just then the rain suddenly slacked off a bit, and a pocket of moonlight lit the whole area. I could see Julie now as she stumbled toward me, dragging the pitchfork. I suppose she figured petty theft was better than no revenge at all.
I could see the man on the porch more clearly now. He fired another blast out into the frigid air. “You kids stay off this property,” he called. Hell, that didn’t sound like Clyde Harrow. In fact, the voice belonged to a much younger man. I heard something behind me, and that’s when the short hairs at the back my neck fluttered and came to attention.
“S-S-Stinky?”
No answer. I slowly sat up and raised my hands high in the air. I did not look back. “Mr. Harrow, I’m sorry about this. It was all supposed to be a joke.”
“You stay there, you little monster.” It was Clyde Harrow, sure enough, and his voice was low and hoarse and had the oddly whimsical lilt of a man who’d gone mental. He shouted at the house. “You can go back inside now, Horace!”
The guy on the porch was Horace, the nephew Harrow had told Mr. Peterson was staying with him! Horace waved and went back into the house. My hands were shaking from the cold and the fear.
“Don’t hurt us.”
“You just stay there,” Harrow chuckled. “You two have caused enough trouble for one night.”
Two?
Who did he mean? Had he missed Little Stinky, or Julie?
“Your friend is going to help me out. Maybe I can think of a use for you, too.”
Maybe he hadn’t seen Julie. I risked a peek and confirmed it. She was still coming, but now from slightly further to the right. Julie was on her feet and had the pitchfork gripped tightly with both hands. Harrow still hadn’t spotted her, likely because he was looking down. He began to caress the back of my head.
“Little monsters,” he giggled. “I got you both, now.”
“Back off, you old fuck.”
Harrow straightened up. There stood Julie, only a few feet away; eerily illuminated by a fresh bolt of lightning. She was holding the pitchfork waist high with the wicked prongs facing forward. After a long moment, I caught on that there must be a reason for such courage. I got slowly to my feet and turned, and sure enough Clyde Harrow wasn’t armed. Now I felt like a coward and a damned fool.
“Ah, shit.” I kicked the mud with my foot.
“Three little monsters,” Harrow chortled. He seemed disoriented. He turned in a small circle and then started to walk away from his house, past the hulking figure of the beware-man, toward the woods. “Wait till I tell your parents.”
“AAAAAAAAAAA!”
Julie screamed in outrage and slogged after Harrow, the pitchfork up and aimed for the small of his back. She meant to frog-gig the old bastard, once and for all. My head swiveled back and forth. She passed me, going for him. It came to me to just give her a little push. I was filled with fear and anger and shoved her harder than I’d meant to. Julie lost her balance and plunged the pitchfork into the towering figure of the beware-man.
“NO!”
Julie froze, obviously amazed at the transformation in Clyde. “What’s your problem, old man?”
‘Don’t hurt him.” Harrow sank to his knees, sobbing, head in his hands. He kept on repeating the word, “No, no, no.”
“Why, you superstitious old fart.” Julie giggled and stepped back. The pitchfork hung at a sideways angle from the beware-man. Chuckling, one eye on Harrow, she pulled it out and stabbed again. She put her upper body into the third time.
I heard what sounded like the rip of fabric and then something plopped down into the mud.
“You’ll hurt him!” Harrow wheezed. He stumbled forward to intervene, but fell on his face in the soaked earth…
Another flash of lightning illuminated the scene. I saw that things had gone terribly, terribly wrong; that they were far worse than my darkest nightmares. Harrow clasped his hands as if to pray. Julie’s mouth dropped open and vomit spewed forth. I didn’t want to look where she was looking…but I did.
Little Stinky had been tied up, gagged and stuffed into the hollow beware-man. His eyes were bulging bullfrog-wide. The pitchfork had opened his belly and what looked like a coil of long, blue and red ropes trailed down to his bound ankles. I backed away, clutching my St. Christopher and chanting a rosary. Julie started murmuring “it’s not my fault.” Meanwhile Clyde Harrow slipped into total madness. He hugged and rocked himself.
“Oh, dear,” he giggled, “now you’ve gone and done it. The spell only works when the offering is alive.”
Julie whimpered. “W-w-what happened?”
Me, I cried out to the indifferent stars. “Oh, God.”
Meanwhile Clyde just hugged his knees and rocked. “It’s the offering, you see, not the beware-man,” he said. “It’s how you fill them up. That’s the ticket.”
_______________
“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance
When the need for illusion is deep.”
—Saul Bellow
Concrete Gods
with Kealan Patrick Burke
“Whoa! You’ve got to be kidding.”
Andy Scanlon closed his eyes and gripped the ropes holding the platform in place as the universe twitched and trembled. What the fuck was that, a gust of wind? He’d been washing windows for more than six months, but still hadn’t gotten used to the intense feeling of vulnerability. Andy’s cousin Barney seemed to love dangling twenty stories up, but then Barney was known to be a couple of cans short of a six-pack.
Andy swallowed his fear, forced his eyes open. If he squinted, he could see past the reflected sunlight and into the crowded office on the other side of the window. An obese woman wearing a telephone headset stared back at him; eyes popping, jaw dropping, chocolate pudding girth shaking uncontrollably. Christ, she felt it, too!
He shaded his eyes, peered inside. Several confused men wearing slacks and white short-sleeved shirts with cheap ties had dropped their stapled papers, manila files and Styrofoam cups of coffee to seek the perceived shelter of a doorway. Andy felt his bowels loosen. He reached for the pulley, saw that his hand was shaking badly. He started lowering the platform. The large plastic bucket of detergent began to slosh back and forth in bubbled waves.
The building rippled like a body in the throes of fever. He tried lowering himself a bit faster. He was one floor lower now and could see people screaming and struggling to make it to the exits, the stairwells, the elevators. Something popped and singed; a loose wire from the scaffolding.
Andy screamed, too.
The platform eased away from the office building, lazily twisted in the wind. Two of the support ropes hissed and began to unravel. Andy had just enough time to take a deep breath, then the scaffolding slammed back into the side of the building and dissolved into splintering pieces. His head burst open. His scalp ran red. Andy floated through the screeching atmosphere like a skydiver. The ground below seemed motionless, frozen for a few seconds and then it rushed at him—a hungry mouth with asphalt teeth and a sidewalk for a tongue.
Seconds later, he crashed into the cement, colliding with and killing numerous pedestrians who hadn’t thought to look up. What remained looked inhuman: multi-colored entrails festooning the sidewalk and pints of fresh blood flowing down the gutter and into the bowels of the city.
It was time.
««—»»
>
From restless dreams of smoke and shadow, it has awakened…
At first, confusion reigns. And then this new dawn sends rays of realization to stroke the stone walls of its domain.
Its skin.
It is alive again. Aware.
For decades it has lain still, pondering, growing hungry; weathering the repulsion that sends ripples through its mind. It despises the feel of those bags of skin and bone that traipse over its hide like fleas on a drowsy dog. Humans burst apart like fleas when bitten, and they are parasites who serve no greater purpose.
It bears its disgust well but unlike so many of its brethren, its patience has worn thin. It growls. Now and again a shudder escapes and those fleas panic, feeling the skin shift beneath their feet. This brings an inner smile to the city. It drinks down the blood and offal; an appetizer while it ponders its return.
And as it crouches and thinks (such a glorious novelty, this consciousness!), it determines it shall rid itself of the multitudinous parasites wearing tracks upon its nerves.
««—»»
Bo Whitley was savoring breakfast from a screw-top wine bottle when the alley began to tremble.
Any semblance of clarity had left his plagued mind hours ago, consciousness departing on a train reluctant to see another familiar station. For Bo, the soporific deadening of his schizophrenic mind was sheer bliss.
The trembling started in his weakened legs—a slight vibration in his bones that didn’t even warrant his attention at first. And when his shoes began to slip from his feet and a trashcan began a crazy, rattling dance near the mouth of the alley, Bo just smiled. He was accustomed to seeing a lot of remarkable things. But when the mouth of the alley bent into an arch as if the two buildings through which it ran were leaning over to study him, that smile faded. Shit!
Dust rained down on his forehead, coating his protruding tongue like cobweb-shrouded snowflakes. Bo coughed and pushed himself up from the comfort of a torn blue sleeping bag; but then the ground wavered, or else he did. Bo wasn’t certain. All he knew was it was no longer possible to stand.
Somewhere in another time and place, a woman screamed. Police sirens wailed. Horns honked. Cars screeched to a halt. The walls of the alley shimmied and boogied and chuckled like October dark.
And Christ, was that some shadowy eyeball forming on the side of the building in front of him?
Sure. Right.
That was, of course, impossible.
But there it was, blinking and shot through with gossamer veins. Bo knew it was a hallucination—punishment perhaps for his violation of countless oaths of abstinence—but it inspired him to try harder to stand. Eventually he turned his back on the eye, lowered his gaze and watched his torn tennis shoes as he wobbled toward the mouth of the alley. He was muttering, now; reassuring himself with phrases that would have made no sense to anyone else. Finally, he looked up.
Figures whipped past the alley entrance, moving too fast for his booze-heavy eyes to follow. He cursed the fleeing blurs. Another siren, close. Cops? Had he done something wrong lately that he should really try to remember? Those friggin pigs were always on his ass about something.
The earth rumbled, cracked, and heaved him toward the far wall. His palms slapped hard against the cold stone. The daylight narrowed to dusk, or was it just his rheumy eyes?
No.
What the hell?
He glanced over his shoulder and frowned. The alley was…closing. But how could that be?
I’m as drunk as a skunk
, he thought and chuckled, thin streams of drool dripping from the corners of his mouth. Man, I’d kill for a cheeseburger right about now.
The wall moved. Shifted. Rocked. Bo looked up and was struck with a vertiginous sense of dread.
The top of the frigging building was tipping its hat at him. Howdy, Bo!
He opened his mouth to moan in dismay, finally realizing that the drink was not to blame, not for this waking nightmare. In fact, now the alcohol was rapidly escaping from his body, soaking his legs as the hat tipped, slipped and a legion of falling slates increased Bo’s number a thousand-fold.
««—»»
Nearby, Alistair Corby saw the wino’s death but paused only momentarily to grimace before the tilting pavement propelled him onward. Like everyone else, he tried to run without knowing why or where.
What the hell is going on?
It was an earthquake. It had to be. But earthquakes were rare in Ohio, and one of this magnitude seemed impossible. Yet that was the only satisfactory explanation as to why the ground was heaving upwards, lifting cars on their rear wheels and rending the street apart.
Alistair ran, elbowing and jostling, cursing and hopping his way along, seeking the impossible…safety. The soundtrack of screams and car horns pierced both the air and his eardrums; he blocked them out, his maroon tie swung over his shoulder as if to watch the madness recede.
Someone screamed for help, somewhere up ahead. A quick scan of the sloping sidewalk showed a woman covered in blood, squatting on the curb, her hand outstretched. She didn’t seem aware that a chunk of masonry the size of a basketball had put a deep depression in the top of her oozing head. Alistair sidestepped the brisk fount of blood shooting from her wound. He kneed away her outstretched hand and wondered how she still clung to life, or what she thought was to be gained by survival now that the city had seen fit to disfigure her. He tried not to meet her one remaining eye, and did not heed her agonized scream as he passed.
Doppler bent her pathetic wails as Alistair rounded the corner of Sixth and Maple. He sighed, only vaguely aware of the sweat trickling like moist spiders from his hairy armpits.
And then he halted, stunned by the tableau of total devastation that was laid out before him.
The road had become a crater. Thick billowing smoke shielded him from the worst of the carnage: The bumpers and crumpled hoods of cars stuck up from the hole at odd angles like frozen shark fins, trailing thick black tendrils of oily smoke. Alistair saw a handful of panicked motorists who had somehow survived being abruptly dropped into the chasm in the earth. They now clambered atop their vehicles like shipwrecked sailors and waved their arms at the uncaring sky.
The pungent smell of gasoline stung his nose.
Overhead, the suspended traffic lights blinked green, but no one heeded their consent.
From where he stood, he could see where the pavement had collapsed into the gaping hole, leaving sharp, gray edges of broken stone behind in rows of jagged teeth. And then they moved.
It’s chewing
, Alistair thought, absurdly. He was struck then by an impossible sight which registered in the periphery of his vision.
Through the thickening plumes of foul-smelling smoke, as rubber melted and fire spread, he saw that the buildings comprising the unspectacular skyline were shifting. The swaying of these concrete and steel behemoths seemed almost choreographed. As Alistair watched, one of them took a bow and was abruptly obscured by a blossom of fire within the widening crater.
A hoarse cry ripped through the smoke, followed by a shrieking, blistered man wearing a coat of raging fire.
Alistair stepped back and tried to run, but he was not quick enough.
The burning man embraced him, as if afraid to face his fate alone.
««—»»
Catherine Banks whispered feverish prayers. Her husband drew her close against his chest. They were huddled in the basement, cold and afraid, with the groaning earth above them. Somewhere up there, little Perry was barking and whining. They could only imagine what the poor mutt was feeling.
“I should go get him,” Jack said, but all courage drained from his voice and fear left his teeth clicking in time with the tremors. “He shouldn’t be up there. Not alone.”
They had left the basement door open but Perry hadn’t followed. The dog had followed his instincts, barking and snarling in a reckless attempt to dissuade the threat that had engulfed them.
The chest freezer at t
heir backs shuddered and died, the naked light bulb over their heads dancing between the oaken joists before it too, dimmed. They watched in fearful silence until it hummed and returned, re-washing the stone walls with warmth and shadow.
“It’s not safe. Try calling him again,” Catherine said. In truth, she was angry at her own selfishness. She didn’t want Jack to go up there, to leave her where all she would hear would be her own heartbeat and the distant cries of her neighbors. She loved Perry, considered him part of the family, but couldn’t bear the thought of being without Jack; being alone down here in the gloom.
Jack drew in a shaky breath and yelled for the dog. The barking stopped. Was he dead? Then they heard the scrabble of claws and a low whine. Then the barking recommenced, louder and more agitated than before. Jack cringed. “He’s always been terrified of the basement. We’ll have to drag him down here or he’ll get hurt.”
He made to move but Catherine pressed closer against him. She knew Jack loved Perry much more than she did but, for God’s sake, going back upstairs when the kitchen ceiling had suddenly, without warning, decided to come crashing down? It was sheer madness.
“You can’t leave me here,” she told him. Her hands, of their own accord, grabbed handfuls of his shirt. “Perry will be okay.”
Jack cleared his throat and ran a grimy hand through her hair. “No he won’t. He may be cute but he’s also dumb as a sack of hammers. I have to get him before something happens to him.”
Catherine held him where he was. “What about me?”
He gave her a weak smile. Stark terror and streaks of dirt added twenty years to his face. “It will only take a second.”
“Jack, please.”
A crackling noise, as if someone were walking on unstable ice. They froze. Listened.
A Host of Shadows Page 24
