Chance Damnation

by DeAnna Knippling

  Then he hit something.

  His first thought was that he was at the bottom of the descent; anything left along the slope would have rolled or slid to the bottom. Then he flew out of the pan and into the softness of whatever it was, and he was grateful that it wasn’t a piece of machinery.

  What it was, was a dead demon. It had tags in its ears, one of the leaders.

  By the time he got himself organized and upright again (everything still in the backpack), he was having second thoughts about that. A dead demon, well, what was it dead for? Here? He checked over the body by touch in the darkness and found that its chest had been cut. He wiped his hands on its fur. His brother Theodore was a little crazy about knives; he could have done it. Jerome didn’t think anybody else he knew could have done it. So it was either Theodore or one of the other demons. He’d just have to see, or not, in the dark.

  It was good luck (and good sense) that he’d stopped to investigate the demon.

  He heard them before he saw them, the crunch of hooves on fresh gravel. Then the light. So they couldn’t see in the dark, could they? Jerome closed his eyes to save them, even against the far pinprick.

  He could hear them talking to each other. Stupid. He felt like he could almost understand what they were saying, Da DA da da da-da da? Da da da da. At least two of them, but they weren’t walking very fast.

  Jerome squinted his eyes open and looked around. The demon was gray, rather than black, and nope, there was nowhere else to go: up the slope or toward the light was all. He thought about trying to hide the pan but gave up on it. He moved without thinking about it (this was the best way he’d discovered to be silent, to move as if there were nothing to worry about) until he was lying next to the demon. He lifted the demon’s arm and rolled until he was underneath it, then moved its leg over his with his boots.

  He kept his eyes clenched shut as the demons crunched toward him.

  Celeste Marie was still a long ways away. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew.

  While he waited, he tried to work out what direction the tunnel had gone. He knew for certain that it had first led toward the northeast, that is, more or less away from anything but more farms. The Duncan church was on the outside edge of the towns and people he knew. But he thought the tunnel had turned a little to the left, as it had gone down the slope. He’d kicked off from the right-hand wall a couple of times, which might make the tunnel direction more northerly.

  Pure speculation.

  The demons finally reached him. One of them kicked the body, which slid a little further over Jerome. He felt the air being crushed out of him and smiled. Was that the best they could do?

  Then the pan clanged.

  “We’ll have to hide the body.”

  “Don’t be garlatha. Mokka ha ha sorbek.” His stomach twisted in midsentence, twisted back.

  “Why would he have done that?”

  The body shifted, rolled off him. Jerome was up in a second and running, his eyes clenched shut against the light.

  The demons yelled in shock.

  Jerome ran faster. He would be killed in about a second, if he hit his head in the dark, or if the tunnel turned. If he concentrated, he could feel the air moving around him.

  After a few, calculated seconds, he opened his eyes. He kept running, yes, he kept running.

  Chapter 20

  “Pants,” Theodore said.

  “Ha ha,” Aloysius said. The dangling flaps of his pants were mud-stuck onto his belly; he peeled them off and brushed them down as best he could.

  The next moment, Peggy had burst through the front door and was yelling down the stairs at them. “Where’s Jerome?”

  “Didn’t see him,” Aloysius said. “We need to get a group of men together and go back down there.”

  Peggy’s dress was dirty now, covered with blood from the knees down. “He’s dead and you’re not going to tell me.”

  “I couldn’t find him, Peggy. I don’t know whether he’s dead or not. Blackthorn’s dead, though. It’s pretty ugly, so don’t go down there. We need flashlights and ropes, anyway.”

  Peggy said, “Pa’s dead.”

  “I know.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Aloysius put his hand over his eyes as they came out of the basement. The sun was bright; it had hardly moved in the sky since the attack. “I don’t know. Look for Jerome.”

  “Excuse me, Peggy,” a voice said.

  Peggy looked over her shoulder at the silhouette blocking the light behind her. “Oh, hello, Don.”

  Aloysius winced, hoping the shadows blocked the look on his face. The Sheriff wasn’t going to like any of it, and there was nobody left to take responsibility for Liam’s mistakes but him. Theodore wouldn’t talk, and Sebastian was, after all, a priest.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Don said. “Aloysius. Theodore. What’s going on here?”

  “Freight train.”

  “Why didn’t any of you call me?”

  Aloysius shrugged.

  “People are dead, Aloysius.”

  “Jerome’s down there in a tunnel. We need lights and men. Probably Blackthorn’s girl, too.”

  “Why didn’t anyone call me?” Sheriff Novak yelled.

  Aloysius didn’t much feel like standing up to a man while his pants were all in shreds, but he didn’t have much choice. “Liam, all right? We all lined up behind Liam. You can yell at me, but you already know what the damned answer is. And if you want to yell at the BIA for not telling you what happened on the reservation, be my guest.”

  He pushed past the Sheriff and went outside.

  “Theodore,” the Sheriff said.

  “Don.”

  “Sorry for your loss.”

  Theodore didn’t answer.

  “I’ll have half-a-dozen deputies here in an hour,” the Sheriff said. “With flashlights and ropes. We’ll take care of the legalities later.”

  Aloysius started to walk down the hill. He was just so damned tired all of a sudden. He flapped a bee away from his face and looked at the church. It was just a little church out in the middle of the prairie. Probably the oldest church in this part of the state. Wrecked now; they might as well burn it down and finish what the demons had started.

  Aloysius pressed his lips together and kept walking. He couldn’t even think about it. His thoughts skidded away from it, looking for something else to fuss over, like the cut on his leg or the bandage on Theodore’s face.

  He’d planned to avoid seeing Liam by staying outside the church, but it was too late: the bodies had been brought out and laid out on the grass, their faces covered with red handkerchiefs.

  Sebastian was climbing into his car, which provided the perfect opportunity for Aloysius to get angry at someone who wasn’t dead. He strode over to the car and slapped the hood with a bang. Sebastian looked up. His face was pale, sure, thin and pale. Guilty? Guilty for what? Getting the other priest killed? Not standing up to their father? Well, all three of them were guilty of that. And Robert, for encouraging the old bastard? All of them? Wasn’t Liam guiltier than anyone, and received his just desserts for it?

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Sebastian rolled down his window. “I have to call the families.”

  “We have to get Jerome back. He’s still down there.”

  Sebastian looked like he was going to be sick, his chest heaving. He started the car, and Aloysius hit the hood again.

  “Please, Aloysius. I have to go.”

  “Run away then.”

  Not that he didn’t want to. But if he didn’t have the right, Sebastian shouldn’t have it, either.

  Theodore pulled him away from the car by his shoulder.

  “I won’t take over,” Aloysius said. “I won’t be the head of the family. I won’t.”

  Theodore shook his head. “Robert.”

  “Robert doesn’t deserve it. It should be you.”

  “Robert’ll hold it until Jerome’s old eno
ugh.”

  “Why’d he have to do it? Why wouldn’t he stay back? Why wouldn’t he stay out of it?”

  Theodore shook his head again. Aloysius didn’t know how he could keep his temper in the middle of all this. He needed to be doing something.

  “You boys want to help us?” a man asked. He pointed at the bodies, which were now wrapped up in tarps. “We’re going to have to get these back to town.”

  “What about the ambulance?” Aloysius asked. The last thing he wanted to do was load his father’s body into the back of a truck.

  “They can’t carry this many. In this heat. Saving them for the living.”

  Theodore steered him toward the tarps, the grip on his shoulder pretty damned insistent.

  Aloysius sighed and walked forward until he was standing in front of his father’s body. They’d just finished wrapping it from head to toe in a tarp and wound around with a lasso-rope, to keep it from leaking. He, Theodore, and two others lifted the body and carried it through the grass to the back of Theodore’s truck. The light started to go dim as Aloysius walked, and he stumbled.

  “You all right?” someone asked.

  “Sure, sure,” Aloysius said.

  Then truck was beside him as he gripped the canvas tarp in both hands, feeling the fabric sliding through his fists. His old man was heavy, light and heavy. He should have put his arms underneath him, but he didn’t want to be that close to the body anyway. He gripped harder, and they slid the body head-first into the truck. Theodore waited until the other three were out of the way, then closed the tailgate.

  Theodore looked at Aloysius, and Aloysius shook his head. Whatever it was, he didn’t want any part of it.

  Someone passed him a flask, and he drank. He passed it on to Theodore, who drank also.

  “We should go down there now,” Aloysius said. “Not wait for the Sheriff. Just go. Every second we wait is…” Nobody was listening to him. Well then. Why didn’t he just go himself?

  Sick and restless. He spat, but the taste in his mouth didn’t change.

  He was going around in circles, getting tighter every time he turned around.

  Theodore got in his truck and started it.

  Aloysius was still standing behind it. “You can’t leave now. We have to get Jerome.”

  “He stinks already. I’ll be back. Pick up some more rope.”

  Aloysius kicked the ground and walked off. Someone gave him a paper cup full of water, Peggy probably. He walked around the church. More people were coming up the road, more and more of them as word spread and people showed up “just to help.”

  There was one wall, facing the hill, where he couldn’t see anybody, so he slid down and sat in the grass and waited for the sun to burn him dry.

  He woke up with a jerk as someone kicked him in the side.

  Don yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “What?”

  “There ain’t no tunnel under the Blackthorn place.”

  “No tunnel?”

  “Not even a place where something might have broke up the floor.”

  Aloysius pushed himself up the wall and started hobbling up the hill. They’d sealed the tunnel up tight, packed it shut. He’d been sitting here the whole time they’d been backfilling it.

  He concentrated on not stepping in a gopher hole, putting one foot in front of another. He needed more to drink, water or otherwise. He crested the hill and looked up.

  On second glance, the house didn’t look as damaged as he remembered it. He drifted toward the front door, not knowing where his feet touched the ground. The front of the house was at right angles to the ground again. He went inside. The beams had been cleared from the basement stairs, and, after he went down them, he saw the ceiling was back up again.

  The floor was unbroken.

  “What the hell?” he asked.

  “That’s what I want to know.” Don was right behind him.

  “Where’s Blackthorn?”

  “We can’t find him.”

  “He was—” Aloysius pointed at the place.

  “He wasn’t.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Where’s the hole in the floor, Aloysius?”

  “It was right here.” The room was spinning. He sat down.

  “What the hell are you yanking my chain for?”

  “I don’t know, Don, I don’t know.”

  “Your dad just died. Don’t do it again.”

  Aloysius wanted to laugh.

  “Better get out of Blackthorn’s basement before he finds you. You know how he is. He’ll think you were here to steal the church linens.”

  Chapter 21

  The steps out of the basement were steep and narrow and clean, showed no sign of dirty boots tramping up and down them for the last few hours. The door—he’d broken it open earlier—was whole again, and closed. Aloysius couldn’t remember whether they’d closed it behind them earlier, but he didn’t think so.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Don. “I mean, do you know? You saw the house before, it had been all smashed up. And now it’s not.”

  “I think you need to see the doctor,” the Sheriff said. “You look like you lost a lot of blood from that leg. You should have gone with the ambulances.”

  Aloysius stopped at the top of the stairs. He could see Don behind him, with his tan cowboy hat on, a little glint from the bass medal tacked to the band, but he couldn’t see his face. “There were ambulances?”

  “You know there were ambulances, Aloysius. You helped me load them up with people who had been hurt. And then you helped us with the, the dead ones. Like your father.”

  “My father is dead?”

  It still felt like a dream, the idea of Liam being gone. But for a moment he found it a relief, that one thing hadn’t changed.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Don said.

  “What happened?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  Aloysius didn’t like standing in the half-shadows, trying to read the expression on Don’s face in the dark, so he led them outside. “I remember the attack, about half of them came up through the floor, and the other half down the hill. We thought we were ready, but we weren’t. They had weapons this time. Strange ones.”

  “What attack?”

  Aloysius closed the door behind them and made sure it latched. Then he froze.

  Coming up the hill was a demon, walking as calm as you please. It had small, nubby horns, only two of them, with ivory-colored caps on the ends, and wore a black shirt and pants, with a thin white collar.

  Its feet seemed to weigh it down, the last few steps up the hill, and the demon grunted as it reached the top. It saw the two men and grunted, forcing itself forward into a run.

  Aloysius yelled and charged toward it. Another thing that hadn’t changed: his pants. They flapped around his legs and scraped up against the cut on his right, a flare of pain every other step.

  The demon stopped in front of Aloysius and roared, “What were you doing in my house?”

  Aloysius could have counted its teeth, if he’d wanted. They were sturdy and somewhat yellower than the ivory caps on its horns.

  Aloysius said, “Where’s my brother?” and punched it in the snout. This was considerably higher than his own, so there wasn’t much force behind it.

  Don pulled him backwards, and he landed on his bum. “That’s enough of that, Aloysius. Sorry, Mr. Blackthorn. He’s been hit on the head. He was saying something about you being dead and his brother Jerome gone after your daughter down a hole in your basement.”

  “You shouldn’t have let him in my house.” The demon bent over and looked at him. “What has Jerome done with my daughter?”

  Aloysius gaped at him. “What?”

  “My daughter!” the demon yelled. Its voice was easily louder than a man’s. “My daughter! What has Jerome done with her?”

  “You stole her; you should know,” Aloysius said. “You demons.”

  “What did yo
u call me?”

  “You’re not Blackthorn. You’re a demon. You look like a buffalo in deacon’s clothing, but you’re a damned demon.”

  The demon roared at him, spraying him with spit.

  “Now, Mr. Blackthorn, keep your temper. Aloysius isn’t in his right mind. There’s no call getting that angry at him.”

  “That boy and my daughter were seen leaving the church before the explosion! And I want to know where they went!”

  “He probably doesn’t know, Mr. Blackthorn. He was standing right next to Liam Jennings when it happened. I mean, just look at his head. It’s no wonder he’s not all there.”

  Aloysius said, “If there was no demon attack, then what happened?”

  “Propane tank blew,” Don said. “For some reason, the worst of the damage was inside the church. The valves should have been shut off for the summer. Nobody knows, Aloysius.”

  Aloysius shook his head. “What about the other churches?”

  “What other churches?”

  “The other churches!” Aloysius said. “The other two churches they attacked!”

  Don shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “People died, Don!”

  “Nobody else has died recently, Aloysius.”

  How did he know whether he was crazy or sane? How could he?

  He saw something moving at the bottom of the hill. Theodore’s truck. He must have driven a hundred miles an hour to make it to town and back already, with Liam’s body. Unless that had changed, too.

  “Ask Theodore,” he said. “Ask him.”

  Don reached his arm down, and Aloysius took it. “Come on, son. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but it isn’t doing you any good to argue with me in the hot sun. Let’s get you some water and see if Theodore will drive you in to town.”

  “You’re not old enough to call me son, Don. I dated your little sister in high school.”

  Don chuckled nervously. “Let’s just get you down the hill.”

  Chapter 22

  Theodore looked like he’d had the shock of his life. This, Aloysius could understand.

  “You all right?” Aloysius asked.

  “Fine,” Theodore said. He touched the bandages on his face and shoulder and winced.