by Logan Jacobs
“Pretty much,” I admitted with a shrug.
“You don’t suppose those things we encountered in the tunnel are terrorizing this town as well,” Darwin pondered.
“Could be,” Sorcha agreed. “But what’s the point of closing the curtains and staying away from the windows?”
“This seems like it might be something different from the tunnel creatures,” I added.
Our young waiter was back then with the promised beer and a plate of soft goat’s cheese and warm bread. He darted away to one of the other tables before we could even say thank you, and Darwin chuckled as he watched the kid collect dirty plates and run back to the kitchen.
“At least the service is fast,” Darwin declared as he smeared some of the cheese across a slice of the bread.
“And he knows what he’s talking about with the beer,” Freya added as she placed her mug back on the table. “That’s really good.”
The entire meal turned out to be excellent. The pie crust was flaky, but not so soft that it dissolved into mush. It sopped up the gravy from the chicken and vegetables nicely, all of which had been seasoned with fresh herbs and a nice dash of pepper. The carrots were still crunchy, the peas still tasted like summer, and the chicken was tender and plump. Best of all were the mashed potatoes, which were thick and creamy, with just a hint of cheese, a ton of butter, and a puddle of gravy right in the middle. It was almost enough to make me forget the weirdness that had besieged the town.
“I don’t think I can move,” Freya moaned as she ate the last few beans on her plate, then scooped up some of the butter sauce with the last slice of bread.
“It’s going to be hard to stay awake for the show tonight,” Sorcha replied. “What do you suppose we’re in for?”
“What haven’t we encountered yet?” Freya mused. “A giant cow?”
“A giant flatulent cow,” Darwin corrected.
“Maybe some of the plants will attack,” I offered.
“Hmmm,” Sorcha mused. “Marching trees, perhaps.”
“Don’t tease,” our young waiter said quietly as he reappeared at our table. “You’ll get winnowed, too, if you look outside when it’s passing.”
“When what’s passing?” Sorcha asked in a kind voice.
The boy glanced back toward the kitchen, then started to gather our dirty plates.
“Don’t know what it’s called,” the boy replied.
“Has it winnowed people before?” Freya asked.
“Some,” the boy said as he hesitated for a moment. “I lost my friend Eric a month ago. He was like you, joking about what it was. Said he was going to watch through his window one night. And then he was gone. All they found was a broken window the next morning.”
The boy darted away, then, and we all exchanged puzzled looks.
“I guess this thing really has taken people,” Sorcha finally murmured.
“That does sound like the mutants in the tunnel,” Darwin pointed out.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “It doesn’t match what they did before. And if it is them, why go to all that trouble of trapping people in the tunnel when you have this whole town available?”
“And why would not looking at them save you?” Freya added. “I’m pretty sure they would have killed us whether we’d looked at them or not.”
“Okay, okay,” Darwin sighed as he held up a hand. “I’m just thinking it would be easier if we already knew what we were up against.”
“I agree,” I replied, “but our luck doesn’t seem to work that way.”
I glanced around the dining room again and noticed that most of the other guests had already returned to their rooms. A middle-aged couple huddled by the fire over a pot of tea, but otherwise the place was empty. I was amazed, since most inns I had stayed in usually included a few people who would stay up for a hand of cards or just to chat with whoever else was around.
“I guess we’re going upstairs,” I commented as I looked around. “Doesn’t seem to be any more action down here tonight.”
“They all beat a pretty hasty retreat,” Darwin noted as he stood up.
“I’m up first,” Freya reminded us as she slipped from the table and made her way across the room.
The rest of us trailed after the mutant, though no one spoke. A deep hush had fallen over the inn, one that seeped into every square inch of the place. Just the sound of our footsteps on the stairs seemed somehow rude and invasive. I realized then that I couldn’t even hear anything in the streets, not the tinny sound of a saloon piano or the soft thunk of horses hooves. The whole town was locked down, and I could sense the anxious anticipation even though I couldn’t see any of the inhabitants.
When I slipped into my room, I found that someone had already replaced the sheets and closed the curtains. The curtain fabric was heavy, and weights had been sewn into the hems to make sure they didn’t blow open in a breeze. Or accidentally let the night creatures in. I risked a peek around the edge of the curtain and saw that the street remained empty.
I flopped onto the bed, still in my clothes, and tried to get some sleep. But sleep was elusive, and I finally gave up and stared at the ceiling as I tried to make sense out of what the locals had told us. I was still puzzling over what kind of creature will only attack if you look at it when there was a soft knock on the door. I stood up and crossed to the door, then opened it a crack.
“Time for the next watch,” Freya said quietly.
I opened the door the rest of the way and invited her in.
“Thanks,” she said with a nod as she stepped inside, then sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Anything interesting happen?” I asked.
“Not a thing,” the rabbit woman sighed. “I peeked between the curtains a few times, but this place is deader than some of the abandoned pre-magic towns. At least there, the wildlife has moved back in.”
“Well, you should get some sleep,” I noted.
“As if I could,” she laughed quietly. “I’m surprised anyone in this place can ever sleep given how tense it feels.”
“I’ll be happy to be away from here,” I admitted. “Do you think whatever it is visits the other nearby towns as well, or just this one?”
“I would guess it doesn’t visit too many places,” she mused. “And only these small towns that no one really visits. Otherwise, those travelers we met probably would have warned us about it, and the Magesterium would have sent someone to investigate.”
“That’s what I thought,” I replied. “Which means this thing has some intelligence.”
“So, a rogue mage or a mutant,” Freya pondered.
“Probably,” I agreed.
We sat quietly for a few more moments, and then Freya smiled at me.
“About what you said earlier,” she began. “Were you serious, or were you just being nice?”
“If I was just being nice, I would have commented on how lovely you are and how I’m sure the right man for you was out there somewhere,” I replied.
Her nose twitched, and I caught a glimpse of a rabbit ear before she tucked it beneath her long black locks.
“Good to know,” she huffed as she stood up.
She crossed to the door with a wiggle to her butt that made me think of a rabbit, and I wondered what it would be like to catch a glimpse of the tail. She opened the door, glanced over her shoulder long enough to give me a grin, then disappeared into the dark hallway.
I grabbed one of the pillows from the bed and sat down on the floor next to the window. I had no idea what I was even looking for, but at least I had a good reason to be awake at this hour. I placed the Glock on the floor next to me, then settled in for what I hoped would be a quiet watch.
Two hours crept by, and despite my regular checks outside the window, I never spotted any mutants or mages outside. My adrenaline had worn off as I sat on the floor, and all I cared about was crawling into the bed and getting a few hours of sleep. I stood up stiffly and tried to remember which room Sorcha was in as
I worked the kinks out of my neck.
The only sign that something strange was happening was an orange glow that suddenly appeared around the edge of the curtains. There was no sound of footsteps or jingle of a harness from the road, or any wild and inhuman calls from one of the buildings. For a moment, I actually thought I might have imagined it. But the weird glow remained, and I finally forced myself to peer around the edge of the curtain.
Something black moved slowly down the road. Not dark-skinned, not black furred, but something that was as black as tar, and seemed to absorb all the surrounding light, then cast it back out as the strange, flickering orange energy. For a moment, I thought it wore some sort of black clothing, but then I realized that I was seeing its bare skin and bony limbs, which slowly shifted shape even as it moved. Everything about it was abnormally thin, except the head, which moved slowly from side to side as it walked along the street.
I gasped, I remember that, but I have no idea if it somehow heard that or if it saw the edge of the curtain flicker. Maybe it really could sense when someone was watching it. Whatever tipped it off, I barely had time to react.
The creature stopped its slow shuffle down the street, and the head tilted slightly to the side. Then, with frightening speed and ferocity, it whipped around and launched itself toward my window. Bizarrely, what registered in some distant part of my brain was that there was still no sound of any kind, at least, not until the thing smashed into the window and sent glass flying across the room.
Chapter 4
I had just enough time to duck to the side as the creature crashed against the window, then poured inside as the glass broke apart. It didn’t lose shape, exactly, but it definitely flowed. I scrambled back against the wall as I grabbed the Glock from the floor and pointed it toward the black ooze that was moving toward me at a speed that shouldn’t have been possible.
I managed to pull the trigger when the creature was only inches from me. The staccato sound of the rapid fire weapon sounded like thunder in the otherwise soundless room. The creature wheeled back, its body elongating as it tried to pull away from the bullets that punched into the tarry substance. For a moment, neither of us moved, and then the head started to sway again as we looked at each other.
The head looked more like a skeleton than a face, one that had been painted with heavy black paint. The eye sockets held two black marbles that flickered with the same strange orange light that now flowed around the room. The nose was little more than a lump in the middle of the face, and the mouth opened long enough to reveal a dark road to some distant hell.
For a moment, I felt frozen with fear as images of dark and disturbing places filled with the most horrible deaths ever conceived raced through my head. Some part of me recognized that it was the creature that was creating these images, and I knew that I had to kill it if I wanted to be rid of the fear and terror. With what was left of my sanity, I managed to pull the trigger one more time, and the images in my mind shattered just like the glass had.
The creature made a whistling sound as the bullet punched through the bridge of the nose and plowed through the skull. It wavered for a moment, and then the orange light in the eyes faded away. The shape dissolved into a soup of black tar that slowly oozed across the floor.
I scrambled to my feet just as the door to my room was flung open. Darwin was there, the Winchester at the ready, and I could just make out Sorcha’s golden halo of hair and Freya’s black tresses over his shoulder.
“What the…?” Darwin began as he saw the black puddle that spread across the floor of my room.
“I have no idea,” I replied with a tremor in my voice as I backed away from the mess. “It was this weird, skeleton-like thing walking along the street. Somehow, it knew I had seen it, and it threw itself at the window and crawled inside. I finally killed it when I shot it in the head. At least, I think it’s dead.”
By then, a few more people had arrived, those who were brave enough to investigate the sounds that had filled the inn for the last few seconds. I recognized the boy who had served us dinner, and the cook who had talked to Darwin, as well as two of the male guests who had eaten in the dining room earlier. The cook, at least, had armed herself with a carving knife, and one of the guests had a long sword that he fingered nervously.
“Should we clean it up?” Freya asked as she peered over her grandfather’s shoulder. “Is it safe to touch?”
“Wouldn’t recommend it,” Darwin replied as he watched the creature’s remains. “Not without some heavy gloves, anyway.”
“Well, at least that’s the end of that nightmare,” I tried to joke, though my voice sounded harsh even to my own ears.
I felt a sliver of fear as I remembered some of the images of a long, slow, tortuous death that had ricocheted through my mind, and then tried to shake them away.
“How did you kill it?” someone called from the hallway.
I realized that only Darwin had seen the Glock, and despite the noise, no one besides the people in our group had figured out that a gun was involved.
“I shot it,” I called back as I slipped the Glock out of sight into my jacket pocket.
Darwin still had the Winchester in his hands, but no one else at the inn had yet to register what he held. Darwin stepped into the room and casually leaned the gun against the wall while still blocking everyone else’s view.
“This is great!” our waiter cried out joyfully. “We can go out at night again! We could have parties and dances and--”
“No, we can’t,” the cook replied sharply. “There are others out there. And they’ll be back in force when they realize what’s happened.”
I saw the boy’s happy face collapse at the warning, and he turned his eyes to the floor before anyone else could see his tears.
“How do you know there are more?” Freya demanded.
“Sometimes, there’s more than one,” the cook replied with a sniff.
“And how do you know that if you never look out the windows?” Sorcha pressed.
“That orange light,” the cook said as she looked at me. “Is that what drew you?”
“It was,” I admitted.
“It’s how we know where they are and how many there are,” the cook explained.
“That makes sense,” I said when I saw Freya and Sorcha start to protest. “There was this strange orange light around the edge of the curtain. That’s how I knew something was out there.”
Neither Freya nor Sorcha looked convinced, but they both went quiet after I gave them both a warning glance.
“And now you’ll be leaving and we’ll be the ones who have to face their wrath when they come for revenge,” the cook huffed. “You shouldn’t have looked. You were told not to look.”
“But you don’t need to fear them any more,” I replied even as an image of me being tossed alive into a vat of acid percolated through my brain. “Now you know you can kill them.”
“With what?” the cook demanded. “We don’t have whatever magic you used on them. And don’t tell me you didn’t use magic. There’s no other way you could have killed it.”
A few more people had started to gather in the hallway by now, though most looked either puzzled or amazed. Clearly, the expectation had been that there would be nothing left in the room except some broken glass and maybe a few drops of my blood.
“There is a way to kill them,” I insisted. “You just have to shoot them in the head.”
“Is that all?” someone asked sarcastically.
“Yes, that’s all,” I snapped in both fear and anger. “Look, the thing did try to use some sort of mind control, and what it showed me would scare anyone with an ounce of common sense. But you just have to fight through that. If you do, you can shoot it and kill it.”
“Maybe we should move this discussion somewhere else,” Darwin suggested. “And continue it after we remove this… whatever it is. I think we should probably burn it, just to be safe.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” t
he man with the sword protested.
“Do you really want to leave this in here until the morning?” Darwin asked.
“Well... no,” the man with the sword admitted.
“We have some big gloves in the stables,” the boy offered. “And there’s some work gloves in the storage room.”
“Those will do,” Darwin replied with a nod. “Are there some tins or something we could put it in? Something it can’t seep out of?”
“Sure!” the boy replied enthusiastically.
“Then let’s go get them,” Darwin commanded.
The boy raced away, just as he had done in the dining room, while Darwin followed after him at a more stately pace. The rest of the inn’s guests and residents hesitated for a moment, then one by one, they trickled after Darwin and the kid. Finally, it was just me, Sorcha, Freya and the cook.
“You’ve killed us all,” the cook hissed as she waved her knife in my direction.
“We can fight this,” I replied calmly, though the knife brought back a momentary image of a blade slowly peeling my skin away. I shivered at the image that had been planted in my brain by the creature and wondered if I would be plagued by these sudden horrors for the rest of my life.
“We have time to work this out,” Sorcha added as she placed a hand on my arm and sent a wave of soothing energy into me. It had to be the link that had formed between us when we had sex the first time that let her do that, and I was never so happy to feel her presence as I was at that moment.
The cook looked unconvinced, but Freya stomped her foot and stepped in front of the angry woman with her arms crossed and a frosty stare of her own. The cook mumbled something too quietly for me to hear, but then finally turned and returned to the stairs.
“Get the rifle,” Freya said as soon as the cook was out of sight. “I’ll stash it in my room.”
I passed her the rifle, then grabbed my own pouch of personal items, which I had, thankfully, tossed on one of the shelves after Sorcha and I had finished our lovemaking. Sorcha waited by the door for me, then gently guided me into her room.
