by R. D. Tarver
“There’s something else,” Rick said.
Jesse looked to his brother.
“Goddammit, you’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?” he sighed. “There’s something else you need to know about how I got through the accident.”
“What?”
“It was you, dude. I could never admit it because it killed me inside. I was supposed to be your big brother, your protector—the mighty Rick. Instead, you ended up taking care of me. And I’m finally in a spot where I can return the favor.” He held out his hand to Jesse. “So let me do my job for a change, and let’s get out there and fuck with some Jesus freaks.”
2
The Lynn brothers, along with Mazes and Rust, arrived at the church in Mazes’s beat up ’81 Honda Civic hatchback. The vehicle pushed its way through the crowded lot like a small silver fist. Spectators of the Community Cleansing circled around a large roll-off dumpster where a controlled burn was being supervised by the local fire department.
Peppered throughout the crowd were several individuals parading as caricatured, costumed devils. An array of colorful props and informationals lined the front entrance of the church, adding to the convention-like atmosphere.
“And, of course, there’s the p&g lunatics.” Rick gestured out the window towards a large exhibit detailing the evolution of the Proctor & Gamble logo through time. “They really missed the plot on that one. Even Satan could learn a thing or two about evil from corporate America.”
They parked the Civic next to a tight circle of cars at the far end of the expansive lot in front of the adjacent Plaza on Main businesses. Jesse felt a mixed sense of relief upon seeing that the site of the counter-protest had already been established by the half-dozen alternative kids Jesse recognized from school. A genre rift between the two cliques had exposed a mutual disinterest in one another, but having allies in this fight was a numbers game—the more the merrier.
As he helped his brother exit the vehicle, Jesse noticed that a handful of employees from Camelot Music were shuttering the doors and windows as they eyed the gathering taking place across the lot.
The muscled clerk with the bowl cut from RadioShack had also emerged from his storefront. He eyed Jesse as he leaned against one of the red-brick columns that supported the plaza façade. Unlike his fellow retail jockeys, there was something different in his manner—something almost relaxed, despite the already tense atmosphere.
“Here we go,” Rick said. “It’s showtime.”
All eyes were on the podium that had been erected at the base of the steps leading to the front entrance of the church. Jesse watched with the others as a handful of mscoc community organizers took their turn on the bull horn.
After the opening remarks, Pastor Seth Roberts stepped up to the podium with his giant saucer-shaped eyes and wide, beaming smile. He brandished an unlit torch over his head in one hand and a megaphone in the other.
“God is great,” said Pastor Roberts.
The crowd echoed the utterance in unison.
“God is smiling upon the community of Macomb Springs, whose believers and steadfast worshippers have turned out today, seeking Divine Providence, in such amazing numbers.” Pastor Roberts waved the torch overhead as he chuckled into the megaphone. “I hope to see such a wonderful turnout this Sunday too, y’all.”
The crowd returned a playful laugh at the remark.
The pastor’s smile faded. “In all seriousness, thank you for bearing witness to the almighty power of our lord, Jesus Christ, as we band together to ward off the forces of Satan, who even now seek to infiltrate our community.”
Jesse wanted to puke his guts out.
Pastor Roberts gestured at the counter-protesters gathered at the opposite end of the parking lot. “For those in league with the lowly outcast, Lucifer, I would also invite you to bear witness as we destroy these satanic articles that are corrupting our youth. Watch as we release Macomb Springs from Satan’s grip. Watch as our community is reborn in the cleansing flames of Christ, our lord!”
Pastor Roberts stepped down from the podium to sustained applause. He moved gingerly, walking with a stooped posture as he made his way towards the site of the impending burn. As the torch was lit by one of the attendees, Pastor Roberts dropped it into the dumpster. Once the controlled fire began to blaze, a crowd of parents and children lined up behind the pastor carrying boxes, milk crates, and garbage bags full of various and sundry items deemed to possess satanic influence.
One by one, they dumped cassettes, vinyl lps, cds, t-shirts, and posters into the fire. The crowd roared with each devilish deposit as the flames rose higher and higher.
“Holy shit.” Rust pointed over the circle of cars towards the line of parents and children leading up to the dumpster. “It’s Alex.”
Jesse stood aghast as he watched Alex approach the dumpster. Still barely recognizable in his short hair and conservative dress, their former guitar player looked to the contents of the box he carried and hesitated. Alex’s parents prodded him along as Pastor Roberts whipped the crowd into a frenzy, rejoicing as the young man emptied the contents of his prized cassette collection into the fire. The flames rose higher and licked at Alex’s hands as he tossed out the few remaining tapes that clung to the bottom of the box.
Rust climbed up on the roof of the Civic and tried to shout over the din of the crowd. “Jump in, you fuckin’ traitor! Fuckin’ kill yourself!”
He kicked over the radio antenna mounted on the roof above the front driver window before jumping down off the car. Jesse thought for a minute that Mazes might tear his arms off, but instead the gentle giant simply patted Rust on the shoulder as he cast his eyes away from the flames.
By nightfall, the fire had burned through the contents of the dumpster, filled to the brim with the church community’s sacrificial offerings. Pastor Roberts led the gathering in a rendition of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” to close out the event. The official portion of the ceremonial cleansing had come to an end. Unofficially, Jesse could sense that the God-fearing citizens of Macomb Springs were just getting started.
Many of the counter-protesters had turned up their car stereos in an attempt to drown out Pastor Roberts’s sing-a-long. The discordant aural onslaught was maddening.
A group of parishioners led by Stan Summers—father of the missing Kenny Summers—marched across the parking lot, pushing through the counter-protest towards the adjacent strip mall. The mob lined up in front of Camelot Music and began banging on the windows and doors, demanding to be let inside. Jesse heard a loud crash as one of the store windows shattered, an act which added an ear-splitting security alarm to the sonic fray.
Droves of looters streamed inside the store, emerging with armloads of cds, lps, and cassette tapes destined for the cleansing flames of the dumpster. A few moments later the red-and-blue police sirens were flashing near the entrance to the parking lot.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Jesse said to the others.
A clap of thunder rolled overhead, followed by a gust of wind that picked up one of the large Community Cleansing flyers and lodged it between the spokes of one of Rick’s wheels.
“Look at this shit,” Rick said as he removed the flyer from his chair and held it aloft. “Can you believe the amount of money these fuckers put into their propaganda? We need a production budget like that.” He gestured towards the church entrance as he continued. “I mean, shit, take a look at those props.”
The group hymnal erupted into a chorus of screams as a great black shape emerged from the shadows on the edge of the smoldering fire. A bestial form swelled within the cocoon of shifting darkness, rising above the group of arm-locked parishioners who stood paralyzed in fear. Even from his distant vantage point, Jesse could see the agony on their faces.
He watched, unable to take his eyes off the horror as it began to materialize near the entrance to the church. The glint of the dying flames reflected off the crown of the beastly figure as it loomed over the crowde
d lot. A great horn pierced through the veil of shadow, rising from its head like a spiny, segmented spear.
A pack of quadrupeds emerged from the vortex of living darkness that seemed to transport the colossal being. They looked like the result of some kind of half-baked genetic experiment that tried to cross a hairless ape with a king-sized dog. Jesse immediately flashed back to the creature from the mine cart. The thought that Mal had been down there alone with these things just before she disappeared made him sick.
Fucking stray dog, my ass.
Following behind the pack of hairless fiends were a handful of larger, bipedal humanoid forms who, unlike the pack, ambled slowly and methodically towards the crowd of onlookers. The latter arrivals appeared in all manner of historical dress, looking like a bunch of Night of the Living Dead extras that had wondered into the wrong wardrobe department.
A chill ran down Jesse’s spine as he began to intuit some mechanism of cooperation among the amassing horde.
“I don’t think this is part of the production.” Jesse grabbed the back of Rick’s wheelchair and called to the others as he tried to push his brother through the crowd. “We need to get the fuck out of here—now.”
Mazes and Rust nodded without taking their eyes from the scene.
Pastor Roberts was one of the first to break ranks at the sight of the otherworldly legion. He tried to run, arms flailing, towards the inner sanctum of the church. Before he got to the entrance he was stopped by a pair of the lesser imps that snapped and snarled at the Pastor, backing him down the church steps towards the shadowy presence that lingered at the edge of the fire.
The hellish minions had corralled the remaining church goers at the foot of the abominable being, rallying around the monstrosity like trained hounds.
In unison, the pack unhinged their swelling jaws and emitted a low sonic pulse that Jesse could feel in his chest, even from across the parking lot. The parishioners were rendered immobile by the paralytic call, tumbling to the ground, unconscious.
Mazes forged a path through the counter-protest, allowing Jesse to get Rick inside the car while Mazes and Rust loaded the wheelchair into the hatchback. Others were already fleeing in their vehicles, creating a logjam at both the lot’s two main exits.
“Oh my God! They’re taking them!” someone screamed.
The group of nearby counter-protesters had taken to the roofs of their cars. Screams and blaring horns mixed with the loud music being played from the circle of trapped cars.
Jesse followed suit and climbed on top of Mazes’s car. From the roof of the Civic he could see the great beast as it idled in an amorphous flux of shadow that seemed at times to phase in and out of existence. It continued to loom motionless over the lot as the slow-moving humanoid forms worked in concert with the pack of corralling minions to immobilize dozens of the Community Cleansing participants.
The slow-moving lurkers appeared to kneel over the fallen, quaking in convulsive fits as they performed some unseen rite of dominion. After a few passing moments, the townsfolk each came to, standing of their own volition. They stood passively in wait until they were marched by the lurkers in a ghoulish procession towards the dark void that surrounded the towering horned beast.
As the last of the fallen disappeared into the abyss of shadow, a deep, baleful call resounded from the heart of the vortex and shook through the night. The force of the call shattered the windows of the church entrance and any vehicle caught within the call’s blast radius.
Jesse slid down from the hood as the pack drew nearer. “Mazes, start the car.”
“It’s no good, man—we’re trapped,” Rust said. “We have to go on foot.”
“We can’t go on foot,” Jesse snarled between clenched teeth. He gestured at Rick, who sat in the back passenger seat of the Civic.
“Hey guys?” Rick called. He pointed out the window towards the approaching pack. “They’re getting closer.”
“Get in the car,” Jesse repeated.
They jumped in the car, locked the doors, and rolled up the windows.
“What’s the plan?” asked Rust. “We’re sittin’ ducks here, man.”
“Why aren’t they going after those cars?” asked Jesse. He pointed to the remaining counter-protest vehicles, whose passengers were still standing on the roofs of the cars, blasting out music from their car stereos.
A baby-blue Chevy pickup truck sped through the lot towards the exit. The tires squealed as the truck crashed into another car, stalling out. Two young men exited the vehicle from the passenger-side door. They made it about twenty yards before a few of the pack splintered off and ran them down.
“Mazes, turn the music up,” Jesse said.
Mazes started the engine and obliged by turning up the volume on the car stereo. The cassette deck engaged, and the chorus of “Don’t Bring Me Down” by Riot, from their album Fire Down Under, released in 1981 on Elektra Records, blared over the Civic’s stock speakers.
“Louder,” Jesse urged.
Mazes turned the volume knob as far as it would go, rattling the speakers and causing them to distort as they fought to contain the music.
Rust turned to Jesse from the front passenger seat, screaming inaudibly over the speakers as he cupped his own ears.
“what?!” yelled Jesse.
Rust put his mouth up to Jesse’s ear, close enough to where he could smell his rank breath. “last song.” He pointed to the cassette deck. “we gotta switch sides.”
“no time.” Jesse shook his head and tapped at the pretend watch on his wrist. “radio?”
Rick punched Jesse in the shoulder and pointed out the window towards the broken antenna that hung limp from the roof.
“fuck,” shouted Rust.
The deafening garble of the car stereo came to an immediate halt as the tape stopped.
Jesse watched as one of the encroaching minions began to sway its barbed tail above its head while it snapped at the air, eying the Civic and its inhabitants hungrily.
Mazes turned to face the backseat. “It has been my honor to accompany each of you on this final journey,” he smiled.
Another low-frequency blast broke above the chaos of the church parking lot. The pack retreated back to the shadowy portal through which their master had emerged. Jesse and the others watched as the last of the otherworldly legions returned to the darkness from whence they came, along with several dozen of Macomb Springs’s population.
3
Jesse had witnessed first-hand how traumatic events could do funny things to people, how they are forever changed when life pulls back the curtain to reveal something they were never meant to see.
Right after Rick’s accident, Jesse’s mother had been pulling double duty between work and waiting on Rick at the hospital for nights on end. The event had created a shockwave of pain and misery that rippled through the lives of all those who were caught in the existential blast radius of the crash.
It was the final straw that ended his parents’ marriage. That had been a long time coming; things hadn’t been good for a while. In the end Jesse’s dad—his biological father—had used Rick’s accident to make his chicken-shit exit. He couldn’t hack it and he bailed.
Turns out his real dad was a real asshole.
Around that time, Jesse had gotten into a couple of fistfights back at his old school. One day, his mother was called in to pick Jesse up after a particularly nasty scuffle, one that left him with a swollen black eye and a gash on his forehead requiring even stitches.
The principal, a Mr. Jones (who was coincidentally always eating a sloppy hamburger every time Jesse was called into his office), had asked his mother how everything was going in Jesse’s home life since her recent divorce.
“Is there a father figure in these boys’ lives?” Mr. Jones had asked, a glob of mayo in the corner of his mouth. “Young men need discipline. And above all, a happy, healthy home so they can thrive.”
Jesse’s mother turned to stone for several moments before bu
rsting out in a hysterical fit of laughter. She laughed all the way out of the school building and all the way home (which was on the complete other side of town) where she locked herself inside her bedroom without saying a word for three days.
He couldn’t imagine how she would have reacted to seeing a thirty foot-tall shadow monster materialize out of thin air, but he imagined that after seeing her firstborn pinned under a flatbed truck next to what remained of his late girlfriend’s headless torso, she could handle it.
Jesse could only try.
Once they returned to the practice trailer, Rust passed around a twelve pack of beer to the others as he talked to himself in hushed tones.