by Brom
They entered the square and she could see the horrified faces lining the meetinghouse windows, see the dozens of muskets pointed her way, and understood she had to get to Ansel before they came in range.
She screeched again, a long, hair-raising yowl, and as she had hoped, Ansel glanced back in openmouthed terror, causing the horse to veer, slapping into one of the torches. It didn’t stop the horse, but it slowed it down just enough.
Abitha bounded forward, using all her newfound strength to hurtle herself through the air. She had the satisfaction of hearing Ansel’s scream as she struck the tail end of the horse. The horse spun and stumbled, crashing to the ground, sending both Ansel and Abitha tumbling across the yard.
Abitha sat up and for a moment couldn’t find Ansel, then she spotted him on the far side of the horse, crawling toward the meetinghouse.
Men were shouting Ansel’s name, telling him to get clear.
Abitha rolled to her feet and leapt for him, and that was when the night came alive with thunder and white smoke.
Hot heat slapped into Abitha’s chest, hammering her backward. Another blast kicking the dirt up all around her, and more rounds struck her, knocking her off her feet and flat on her back.
Abitha tried to sit up, couldn’t, her entire chest burned and ached as though her very heart was being crushed.
“Ansel!” they shouted. “To us! Hurry!”
She forced her head up. Ansel was on his feet now, hobbling his way to the meetinghouse door.
“No,” she growled, clawing at the dirt, fighting to rise. Another volley and something hot struck her side. She bellowed.
“Hold fire!” someone was shouting; it sounded like Sheriff Pitkin.
Abitha realized a man was standing over her. All was blurry, but she could make out his boots, his black jacket. She raised her arm as to ward off a blow, but no blow came; instead strong hands grabbed her beneath her arms and began to drag her away.
More cries from the meetinghouse, followed by more shots. They were shooting at the man. Abitha blinked, trying to clear her vision, saw that it was Reverend Carter, his face grim and set, barely flinching as the bullets zipped about them.
The reverend dragged her behind a giant pair of oaks.
The musket fire continued for a few moments more, spattering bark off the trees.
Abitha tried to sit up, started coughing.
“Lie still,” the reverend said. “You need to lie still.”
Abitha glanced at her chest, saw six large holes. She heard a strange sucking, wheezing sound and realized it was coming from her. Oh, I’ve been shot but good.
Sky flew in, perched in a tree, joined a moment later by Creek, both watching Abitha with woeful eyes.
“Abitha?” It was Samson; he came and knelt beside her, his face grim.
The reverend gave Samson a wary look but didn’t flee.
Samson looked over her wounds, and Abitha didn’t like what she saw on his face. He laid a hand on her chest and began to hum softly, and she felt him reaching for her, into her, connecting with her, then their souls were as one and she could hear her own heartbeat, how it was growing fainter and fainter. She felt a wave of sorrow wash over Samson.
“I am dying,” Abitha whispered.
Samson continued humming. He closed his eyes, began conjuring his own blood, that which was mixed with hers. She could feel it stirring within her as he tried to hasten its healing hand, but it wasn’t enough; she was sure she would die before his blood could restore her.
“Please, Abitha. I cannot do this without you.”
She tried to join him, to call her own blood, her own magic, but felt dizzy, unable to concentrate. She thought she caught sight of her mother, but she seemed so far away, everything seemed so far away.
Samson’s cadence changed, he was calling to Mother Earth, trying to summon her aid. Abitha sensed his growing desperation and despair.
She coughed, spitting up blood, and it was then that Samson grabbed the reverend’s hand, placed it atop Abitha’s. “Call your God,” Samson said. “Call all your gods. Death is here, I can feel it. She needs all the help, all the blessing, all the magic we have.”
The reverend took her hand and squeezed it between his. “Abitha,” the reverend said. “It is time to pray, time to call the Lord back to you. Abitha, let God back in.”
“I … never turned him away,” Abitha gasped, and coughed. “It was He … that turned His back on me. I will always have room … for God … in my heart.”
The minister began to pray.
And there, with her vision fading with every breath, Abitha managed to be astounded by the impossible: a Puritan minister and the Devil praying together, praying to Jesus and Mother Earth and who knew what else, all in an effort to save her. She would’ve laughed long and loud if she but could; instead she coughed and spat up more blood.
And as death’s darkness swam in, she saw them, the eyes, popping out from the void. First one appeared, two, a hundred, a hundred thousand. The same eyes from when she’d flown through the night with Samson, through the very fabric of the universe—the eyes of a hundred million gods. And the truth she’d seen, it was so clear to her now. All the eyes, all the gods, they are all part of the same. Mother Earth, Christ, all the religious sects across the globe, the sun, the earth, the moon, the planets, the stars, man and beast, gods and devils, all of existence. All of it, one thing!
One by one the eyes began to shut, their light to fade, and just before the last eye closed, just before total darkness took her, Abitha had a final thought. God, I am you, and you are me.
* * *
Abitha’s eyes fell shut; her breathing imperceptible.
“Hold on,” Samson whispered, and a tear fell from his eye and landed on Abitha’s face. But it was no magic tear; she didn’t suddenly suck in a deep breath of life and give him her warm, vibrant smile. She just continued to fade, her heartbeat growing fainter and fainter.
Again, he tried to summon Mother Earth, digging his claws into the dirt. He could sense her power, her pulse; it was there, deep in the ground, but the Mother of all Mothers simply wasn’t responding. “Why?” he growled. “Why do you turn your back on me now?”
A shot rang out, another, slapping through the tree limbs. Sky cried out and leapt into the air, cawing as he circled. Creek fell to the ground, flopping about. He’d been hit.
Samson snarled, stood to his feet.
Creek flipped back up into the air, swimming back and forth, hissing angrily, a big hole in his tail.
Samson, the rage boiling up from his gut, from his heart, stepped out from behind the trees, set his golden eyes on the meetinghouse. He could see them, their terrified faces peering out from the windows, their damnable weapons pointed at him.
Another shot, this one hitting a branch near Samson’s head. Samson sucked in a great chestful of air and started forward. “I am the shepherd and I am the slayer. I am life and I am death!”
* * *
The Devil, the very Devil stepped out from behind the giant oaks.
A collective gasp went up inside the meetinghouse. Sheriff Pitkin tried to order the men to fire but found no air left in his lungs.
“If it is a devil you seek, then it is a devil you shall have!” the beast shouted in a booming voice, his words rumbling through the meetinghouse like low thunder, through each person, cutting them to their very core.
Every gun facing the oak trees fired, filling the air with dense white smoke. And even though they couldn’t see past the end of their muskets, they continued to fire.
“Cease fire!” the sheriff cried, wanting to conserve the little powder and ammunition they had.
The shots tapered off, and when the smoke finally cleared—nothing, no sign of the beast.
A clamor arose from the west windows.
“Sheriff,” Felix called. “Sheriff!”
The sheriff dashed over, and he was there, the beast, standing at the edge of the trees.
&nbs
p; The men let loose another volley.
“Where is he?” the sheriff asked. “Anyone see him?”
“There!” Felix called. “By the well.” The men fired.
“Is he down?” Sheriff Pitkin called.
“I think so,” Felix said.
“Nay, he’s here!” Charles cried from the other side of the meetinghouse, and the men there fired.
“Is he down?”
“I know not,” Charles cried. “One minute he is there, then he is gone.”
The sheriff spotted the Devil back on his side of the meetinghouse, just strolling along the tree line. The creature was oddly dim and shadowy, grinning at them and waving his tomahawk. Then he was gone. “He is playing us! Hold fire until he comes closer.”
The men shifted nervously about at the windows, jerking their muskets this way and that, as though something might leap upon them at any moment. The room smelled of gunpowder, sweat, and fear, all the bodies heating up the meetinghouse, stifling the air. The children were crying, as were many of the adults, and the room filled with the sound of their fervent prayers.
“I warned you,” came a shaky voice. It was Ansel, pulling himself up from behind the pulpit. “I warned all of you. But did anyone listen to poor old Ansel? Nay, you snickered behind your hands at me. I saw you. Do not think I did not. Now, look what you have wrought. What your lack of vigilance has done!”
“Enough,” the sheriff commanded.
“You have brought the Devil down on yourselves!” Ansel shouted, his bulging eyes darting every which way. “This is your fault!”
“You are to shut your mouth!”
“You, and you, and you!” Ansel cried, jabbing his gnarled finger from one soul to the next, each person flinching, withering beneath his accusing glare.
Sheriff Pitkin stepped over and drove his fist into Ansel’s gut, doubling the man over, dropping him to the floor.
The sheriff readied himself to follow through with another blow, when he heard chanting. It was coming from outside. He jumped over to the nearest window and leaned out as far as he dared.
He spotted the demon amongst the trees, well out of effective range. The beast was kneeling, its hands on the ground, its claws digging into the earth.
“What is it doing now?” the sheriff whispered, not truly wanting to know.
The chant grew louder; it was in his head now, shifting into a wail, taking on a wobbling echo, sending shivers up and down his spine. God, he thought, covering his ears. Make it stop. And when the sheriff felt it could get no worse, other voices joined in, as though in answer, and together they made a song—that of singing banshees.
The song emanated from deep in the woods, but it was coming closer and closer. He could see the leaves rolling like in a wind, only there was no wind. And then, from out of the trees stepped a huge beast, some kind of bear, but unlike any bear the sheriff had ever seen—skeletal, with ragged shards of flesh trailing from its body in long wispy tendrils. It was quickly joined by a large cat, like a mountain lion, but with long savage tusks, a lumbering elk, more bears of all sizes, several horned stags, then a handful of tiny horses. All of them cadaverous, ghostly and pale, looking as things dug up from the grave.
The menagerie entered the meetinghouse yard, turning shades of red as they passed through the ring of torches. The flames billowed in their wake. And still they sang their song, wailing and howling. The sheriff felt his knees grow weak. He wanted none of this, he wanted to run and never stop until that awful song was far, far behind him.
Men began to weep, some to wail, several leaving their posts, crumpling into shivering heaps on the floor, weapons forgotten, their hands clasped tightly over their ears.
“Hold your place!” Sheriff Pitkin shouted, and the sound of his own voice gave him some resolve, thinking, hoping that if they could but hold out until morning, that the daylight might bring them salvation.
He thrust his musket back out, set his bead on the nearest beast—the giant bear—and fired. He hit it, he was sure; there was almost no way to miss. But the creature didn’t stop. Other men began to fire as well, but still none of the creatures fell or even slowed.
The sheriff rammed in another shot—fired, but to no effect.
The beasts began to gallop, circling the meetinghouse, and it was then that the sheriff saw that they were not bound to the earth but were flying through the air.
The men were all firing as fast as they could, volley after volley. The meetinghouse was dense with smoke, the sheriff unable to see five paces. There were men and women and children screaming and wailing everywhere.
A bear flew in through one of the windows, snarling and snapping, drool and rotting flesh spraying from its mouth. Someone fired at it, the shot going through the creature and hitting Goody Dibble in the chest. And it was only then that Sheriff Pitkin understood that these things had no substance, that they were but apparitions.
Goody sat down hard, staring at the large hole in her ribs as blood bubbled from her lips.
The sheriff heard a thud on the roof, went to reload, and realized he was out of shot, that most of the others were as well.
“Fire!” someone called, and the sheriff saw that the dense clouds were more than musket smoke, that there was a red glow of flames blooming on the west side of the meetinghouse. And that was when the screaming began in earnest. People began to panic, rushing toward the front doors, only to find their way blocked by the barricade, and yet still they pressed on, massing together, piling atop one another, becoming hopelessly entangled. And to make it worse, flames began to sprout from the back of the meetinghouse, black smoke filling the room, blinding and choking people, leaving only the two windows on the sheriff’s side open for escape.
“Here!” the sheriff cried. “Over here. Now!” He smashed out the remaining glass from the window with the butt of his musket and saw the Devil plucking up torches—the very torches he had ordered set—and tossing them on the roof. And with the horror of that revelation he understood the ruse: that while they were shooting at ghosts, the beast was setting the meetinghouse ablaze.
Smoke continued to fill the room, making it impossible to see and harder and harder to breathe. The ghostly creatures continued to fly about, howling and adding to the chaos.
Dorthy Dodd, covered in soot, her eyes blind with smoke and tears, scrambled for the window. The sheriff tried to help her out, but before he could, Reverend Smith, his coat on fire, dove for the window, knocking into Dorthy, the both of them tumbling out. The window was set high off the ground, and the impact of their fall left them dazed. Before either could make it to their feet, the Devil was upon them, smacking them soundly on the head with his dreadful tomahawk, splitting their skulls wide open.
“No, you damnable bastard!” the sheriff cried; he tossed aside his useless musket and grabbed an ax. He climbed into the window case, readied to jump, when someone crashed into him from behind, causing him to fall and land hard. A sharp pain shot up Sheriff Pitkin’s leg and he let out a cry, clutching his ankle. He wiped furiously at his eyes, trying to clear his vision. The Devil towered before him, but the demon wasn’t looking at him—its eyes were fixed on the person who’d come out of the window with him.
“Well, well,” the creature said. “You are Ansel, are you not?”
Ansel was doubled over, coughing and choking, streams of black drool hanging from his mouth, but despite all that, when he heard his name, he looked up in terror.
There came a terrific crash—the roof of the meetinghouse collapsing, falling in on itself. An explosion of sparks and flame erupted, and the sheriff knew then that no one else would be leaving that doomed building.
The Devil watched the ghostly beasts flying around the flames. “It is so wonderful that the old ones have decided to join us. Take it in. It is a rare and special spectacle.”
Sheriff Pitkin pushed himself to his feet, fighting to stay steady on his injured ankle. He hefted his ax and waited.
The hor
ned demon looked at him. But it wasn’t malice, or hatred, or evil that the sheriff saw in this creature’s eyes, but sadness, an utter and profound sadness.
“The blood, it never ends,” the Devil said ruefully, and slammed the tomahawk against the side of the sheriff’s head.
* * *
Samson grabbed Ansel by the back of the neck and yanked him to his feet. Ansel screeched, flailing his arms as Samson dragged him away from the flames, over to the twin oaks, and shoved him to the ground. They both watched the meetinghouse burn, Samson on the lookout for any other survivors. There were none.
A few of the great old ones lingered about here and there, their ghostly forms drifting, growing dimmer and dimmer, their song fading.
Wolves appeared, skulking out of the shadows, sniffing, catching the scent of fresh blood. Several trotted to one of the bodies and began to feed.
Ansel started to crawl away and was met with a deep growl. The she-wolf strolled up, blocking his way, her cold eyes locked on him. Ansel froze.
“We are not done yet, Ansel,” Samson said, and walked away, over to where Abitha lay on the ground.
She’d not moved, and Samson sensed nothing from her, no life, no magic. The man she called “Reverend” lay curled in a ball by her side, quivering, his eyes clenched, his hands pressed tightly over his ears. Samson nudged him and he looked up, staring horrified at Samson, then beyond Samson at the ghostly shapes and burning meetinghouse.
“Your great god could not save her then?” Samson asked.
The reverend just stared at him, and Samson saw madness taking its hold. The man’s eyes went to the bloody tomahawk, grew wide and fearful.
Samson tossed the weapon away. “Death is not for you, reverend man. I have need of you. A small task.”
“A task from you,” the reverend said, and tittered. “Is it the Devil I now serve? Have I fallen that far?”
“I do not want your service or your soul, reverend man. I just want you to tell them, your breed of people, tell them what happened here. Tell them that the Devil, Slewfoot himself, burned down this church, killed them all … the men, the women, and the children. That he is wicked and cruel and shows no mercy. That he conjured demons and that they danced for him. Tell them to fear this forest, that Slewfoot waits for them there … awaits his chance to kill their families and eat their bones.”