by David Wood
On the counter were various candies for sale. One was a tin of small, round breath mints. He forced a smile to man behind the counter as he bought a tin, even though the man looked at him like he was a giant walking turd that was smearing up the diner by its presence alone. Grant went directly from the counter into the bathroom and tipped the contents of the small tin into the garbage bin. He took the finger from his shirt pocket, refusing to even look at it, and pushed it into the tin, which he jammed deep into the hip pocket of his jeans. He wanted to throw the hideous thing away, but something compelled him to keep it. Even though it darkened the edges of his mind, laid a stain on his very soul, he couldn't get rid of it, couldn't even leave it behind somewhere. He had to keep it with him, even if he had no explanation why. At least now he wouldn't constantly feel its horrible movements.
He pulled the book from his back pocket, thumbed through to the chapter on the banishing of Kaletherex. He read the first few paragraphs, standing in the coolness of the bathroom. It talked of a man who had moved to Wallen's Gap when it was little more than a camp, and how that man had uncovered the activity of a very nasty group of people praising a thing called Kaletherex. A daemon the book said. Grant paused, shook his head. A demon?
He read on.
The man who arrived in Wallen's Gap was appalled at the things this group did in the name of the daemon Kaletherex. He vowed to put an end to their deviant ministry, even if it killed him. This chapter is the best account of this legend I could put together, collected from various members of the Wallen's Gap community, though I should point out that getting any information at all was not easy. The people of this remote mountain town are distrustful of outsiders and reluctant to share any knowledge of this old myth. Most claim to have never even heard of it. But a few bits and pieces of information began to surface and I was able to put together this account, of how that weary traveler took on and supposedly banished the demon Kaletherex. That man's name was Josiah Brunswick and this, to the best of my ability, is his story.
Grant stopped reading the old professor's words, his blood turning to icicles in his veins. Josiah Brunswick? Like Cassie Brunswick? Was it even vaguely possible they were related? In a town like this, it was highly unlikely that two unrelated families would shard the same surname. He needed to learn more about this and quickly. He stuffed the book back into his pocket and headed out into the diner. He needed a big coffee while he sat and read the rest of the account.
He pushed open the bathroom door and stepped out, and something hard struck him across the cheek. With a cry of pain and surprise, he fell to one knee, his vision blurred.
“You just can't take any kind of hint, can ya?” Jesse Stallard said, and kicked him in the ribs.
Pain blossoming through his chest Grant hurled himself at Jesse, and caught him on the chin with a hard right cross. Jesse staggered back and Grant bore him to the ground. But, before he could do any damage, Jed and Cliff were on top of him. He struggled to break loose as they hauled him to his feet, but the two were strong, and held his arms in twin vise grips. Jesse kicked him in the groin and Grant's knees gave way. Next he knew, the three brothers set to punching and kicking him as he curled up in a ball and tried to shield himself from the worst of the blows. He caught sight of the diner's owner standing by the front door, one hand on the lock as he watched the street outside.
“Help me!” Grant croaked, but the man didn't even turn to look.
The blows became distant and the pain a dull roar all over his body as consciousness receded. In a dark haze, he was dimly aware of being lifted, and felt the cold air of outside wash over him before the hard, rutted metal floor of a pick-up truck rose to meet him with a jarring impact.
Everything hurt. He swam in and out of awareness as the truck roared to life and pulled away. There was nothing else in the back with him and he slid left and right as they drove, banging into the metal sides with dull thumps and grunts of pain. Was he going to die now? Thoughts of throwing himself from the truck, heedless of further injury, rose in his mind. Anything was better than lying here awaiting his fate.
He braced himself to rise despite the pain in every part of him, pushed himself to hands and knees. Something hit him in the jaw and he fell sideways, stunned again. Through a haze of pain and semi-consciousness he saw Cliff Stallard sitting on the side of the pick-up, hanging onto the roof-mounted hunting lights with one hand, leering down at him. Cliff raised his boot again and Grant gave up and let the darkness in. His last thought was that he had let Cassie down and would never get the chance to save her, to help her away from Wallen's Gap.
Chapter 15
Cassie looked down at Grant with an expression of deepest regret. She reached down to touch his battered face, and he flinched away. She frowned and her expression grew dark.
And then her hair darkened. And her eyes.
It was Jazy looking down on him.
“I told you we should go away together. Now look what's happened to you.”
He tried to answer but could only manage a dull moan. He hurt all over.
“Aw, does it hurt?” Her words were sympathetic, but cold pleasure gleamed in her eyes. “Here, I'll kiss you where it hurts.”
She leaned in close, and her face... rippled. Her hair fell out and her skin turned gray and scaly. Her teeth sharpened into yellow fangs, and her face elongated into a snout.
Grant thrashed about as the thing that had been Jazy drew closer. He wanted to fight it off, but his arms were like lead.
“What's wrong?” the creature hissed. “Don't you think I'm pretty?”
He watched in horror as it flicked out its tongue and licked him across the forehead.
“No!” He screamed and sat up.
“Settle yourself down, son. You ain't in no condition to be leaping about like that.” Strong hands pushed him onto his back. He wanted to resist but his body failed him. He lay back and felt a cold cloth pressed to his forehead. “That's right. Just relax. You're safe here.” The smoky voice was familiar, though he couldn't place it just yet.
“Where am I?” he rasped, scarcely recognizing his own voice. His throat felt like sandpaper and he hurt all over.
“You're at my house. Somebody done messed you up and dumped you in the creek.”
Grant blinked to clear his vision and looked at the speaker. The room was dark, with only a sliver of light through the doorway to illuminate it. As his eyes adjusted, he recognized the man.
“Amos?”
“That's me. You're lucky me and my grandson was out catching crawdads when you come tumbling into the water. Whoever done it knew just where the deep place was. You'd have drowned long before you was conscious.”
“The Stallards,” he croaked.
“I ain't surprised. You didn't really think you could go tooling around town with Jed's girl and them not do something about it?”
“Who, Cassie?”
“Jazy. Everybody knows about her and Jed.” Amos cackled. “Lord, his mama don't like it none. A preacher's son going around with the town mattress.”
“Wait a minute.” Grant sat partway up, supporting himself with his elbows. His head swam, but he ignored it. “Jazy is Jed's girl? But she was the one who...” He shook his head, and pain lanced through his skull. “I don't get it. She practically begged me to take her away for a few days, and was really pissed when I didn't.”
“Who knows why that girl does anything? I warned you she was trouble. Now, you need to get yourself some rest. You're bruised from head to toe and I wouldn't be surprised if you got a cracked rib or two.”
“I can't.” He forced himself up to a sitting position and gasped as a new wave of pain shot through his body. “You know Cassie Brunswick, don't you?”
“Sure do. Good girl, bad life.” His assessment was as accurate as it was succinct.
“I think something's happened to her.” He drew a ragged breath. “I think her dad, Carl, and the Stallards are all in on it.” The pieces began to fall into
place as he spoke. “Jazy's a part of it too. They tried to tell me Cassie had gone to stay with her aunt, and I thought it was bullshit until Jazy told me the same story. He pounded his fist on the bed. “That's why she wanted me to take her away. They were using her to keep me from looking for Cassie.”
“What exactly do you think they've done to her?”
“Amos, have you ever heard of Kaletherex?”
The old man sprang to his feet faster than Grant would have thought possible, turned, and strode to the door. Before Grant could apologize, the light clicked on, blinding him for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, Amos was once again seated in a chair beside the bed.
“Such things are not to be spoken of in the dark.” He sighed. “That's a dangerous question, boy. Wallen's Gap's darkest secret.”
Grant waited as the old man's eyes took on a faraway cast.
“Kaletherex is a religion. Nobody wants to talk about it, of course, except in whispers, because there ain't no telling who's in it and who isn't, but everybody walks soft around here.”
“What are they about?”
“Nothing good. I did some researching when I was younger, trying to figure it all out. Best I could tell, they get up to some nasty stuff-- animal sacrifice, sex rituals, evil things.”
“What about,” Grant swallowed hard, “human sacrifice?” He didn't want to think that was the fate planned for Cassie, but he couldn't forget the pictures he'd seen in his father's book.
“Two times, best I can tell. Both times, a young girl went missing and was found much later, all torn up like some wild animal done it. I don't believe it, though, because both times it happened was some of the darkest times in this town's history.” He ran a hand across his leathery brow. “People went plum crazy. Children kept having accidents, as they called them. You couldn't leave your house for fear somebody'd rob you blind while you was gone. Old feuds that died a hundred years before sprung back up. It's like all the evil in people's hearts just bubbled to the surface. It lasted until the next full moon, and that was the worst night of all.”
“You talk like you were there.”
“I was, for the last one. It was 1962.” He lapsed into silence.
“What happened?” Grant urged.
“They went wilding. Leastways, that's what some of us called it. All these men in white robes went through town howling at the moon, setting fires, laying hands on any man or woman who dared stick their nose out the front door. Soon as I saw it starting I got home and we hunkered down here and prayed they wouldn't come our way.”
“Didn't you have a gun?”
Amos laughed. “I was a black man in Virginia in 1962. A white man could have killed my whole family right in front of my eyes, but if I took a shot at him, I'd be the one going to prison. Yeah, I had a gun, and I would have used it if I had to, but it wouldn't have made much difference. There was too many of them.” He looked down at the floor. “Next morning, it was like everybody woke up from a bad dream. People pulled together and rebuilt what had been destroyed, and nobody talked about what had happened.”
“You said there was another time this happened?”
“Yes sir. Happened in 1899. Might have been other times in the past, but I couldn't find no records of it.”
Grant considered this.
“Was there anything special about those dates? Anything that ties them together?”
“I only come up with one thing. A conjunction.” Seeing Grant's confused expression, he continued. “A planetary alignment. Big ones happened in both of those years, right about the times the girls went missing. Of course, it don't make no sense. Kaletherex is about a bunch of crackers putting on robes and doing wrong. Ain't no need to believe in no supernatural.” He waggled his fingers as he said the last word.
“Where are my pants?” Grant asked. “There's something I need to show you.” Amos nodded at a pile of clothes on the bedside table. Grant fished around and found the finger.
“What the hell is that, boy? You been grave robbing?”
“My father hid this along with a book that I think is important to Kaletherex. It... moves sometimes.”
“Sure it does.” Amos nodded, as if indulging a small child.
Grant wanted Amos to believe him. He remembered the first time the finger had moved, he'd been thinking hard about Cassie, wondering where she was and if she was all right. He concentrated on her face. Where are you? Where are you?
“Jesus God Almighty!” Amos came to his feet, upending his chair, as the finger twitched and pointed. “What did you do?”
“I didn't do anything. I don't understand much, but I can tell you there's more to Kaletherex than just a bunch of rednecks getting their jollies. They're up to something bad, Amos, and they've got Cassie.”
Amos ran his hands through his snow white hair and turned on the spot. “Jesus Lord, I didn't believe it. I was sure it was over and done with.”
“What?”
Amos let his hands fall to his side. “There hasn't been a grand conjunction since 1962, but there's going to be another one tomorrow night.”
Chapter 16
“Amos, we have to find her!” Grant ignored his body’s screaming pain and jumped to his feet.
“Now, calm down, son. Let's just think a minute.” Amos laid a hand on his shoulder and gently shoved him back toward the bed.
Grant ignored him. “You said the other times this happened, young girls were found mutilated. If they're aiming to do the same thing again tomorrow night, it stands to reason they're going to use Cassie! Why else would they hide her from us?”
Amos shook his head, his face pained. “You really think old man Brunswick would put his own daughter in the hands of them butchers?”
In fact, Grant thought exactly that, and the sudden conviction made him dizzy. He sank back to the bed, one hand pressed to his ribs. “I've looked in his eyes. He's a cold bastard, sure enough. If these Kaletherex people are as crazy as you say they are, then maybe he would. He's one of them, right?”
Amos nodded. “Yep, I reckon he is. And the Stallards. Hell, most of this goddamn town seems to be in on it sometimes.”
“What made you think it was over?”
Amos sank his face into his palms, shook his head. “It was fifty years ago. I thought maybe I'd half imagined the whole thing.” He looked up, his eyes haunted. “I've kept an eye on things and knew there was another conjunction coming. But everything ‘round here seemed to have settled into some kind of normal. I didn't see any signs like something was happening. Most of the people around back then in '62 are dead and gone. But I guess enough of their kids was old enough then and still around now. The Kaletherex thing has been mighty quiet for a long time. I guess I just hoped it was done with.”
“Fifty years ago it was a lot easier to keep stuff covered up,” Grant said. “These days, news can spread pretty quickly.”
Amos nodded sadly and they sat in silence for a while, both lost in their own grim thoughts. Grant pushed the finger back into its tin and the tin back into his jeans pocket. What could they do? Thoughts of his father drifted through his mind. “Hey, did you know my dad?” he asked.
Amos looked up. “Andrew Shipman? Yeah, I knew him a little bit. He was a nice enough fellow. But he started to hang around with the Brunswicks and Stallards and the others. I had a feeling he got pulled into the Kaletherex cult.”
“He did. But I don't think he liked what he found. At least, I think he changed his mind about them.” Grant tried to order his thoughts, hard as it was with every inch of his body aching and throbbing. “I found that finger in a secret safe in his smokehouse. He had an old, leatherbound book stashed away in there too. I think the book was really important to them, because Mrs. Stallard came around asking about it, and then her sons busted in and stole it back.”
“That right?”
“It had to be them. But they didn't find the finger.” Grant pointed to the pocket of his jeans. “I can't really explain why, but
I'm pretty sure that thing is important, might even help us somehow. I think my father was collecting information, trying to find out how to stop them and they killed him for it.”
Amos nodded sadly. “That is entirely possible.”
Grant paused. “They said my dad died of a heart attack.”
Amos barked a bitter, humorless laugh. “They can say whatever they like, son. The doctor, the sheriff, the city council. They're all either in that cult or controlled by them. Ain't nothing in this town happens without their say so.” At Grant's raised eyebrow, Amos flapped one hand. “Oh, you can live your life here peacefully enough if you stay out of their way. They need goods and services and all that same as everyone else. A whole bunch of people live peacefully enough in Wallen's Gap and never cross paths with the cult of Kaletherex. But people disappear if they cause trouble and there ain't many crimes in this town that get investigated like they oughta. Everything gets explained away nice and easy like.”
“How can they get away with that?”
“They's all kinds of things can happen to a body in these hills. Hunting accidents, bad falls, snakebites, wild animals, accidental fires, drunk kids running off of winding mountain roads. Everything just common enough to be believed.”
Grant stared disconsolately at the floor between his feet. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn't just walk away and leave, he owed Cassie more than that. Suzanne’s words echoed in his mind, You never finish anything! Well, he fully intended to finish this, one way or another. But he was scared and not too proud to admit it. And he had precious little to go on. Dark shadows flitted around the edges of his vision. A tugging pulled at his chest, seemingly from the inside. He imagined a black stain trying to push its way out through his ribs. The sensation was nauseating and disconcerting.