Angler In Darkness

by Edward M. Erdelac

  “Yeah,” sighed Father Mike. “But their cures don’t work on me anymore. I’m too old, I guess. I don’t know why the Church doesn’t end it, Terry. I just know the moon comes up,” and he looked up at the whirling clouds again, at the silver behind them, “like it’s gonna come up tonight, and I wake up with the blood under my fingernails and flesh stuck in my teeth.”

  “You fuckin’ freak....”

  “More than you know.” He looked at Terry again. “Now do it, Terry. Before it starts. I don’t wanna hurt you.”

  “Nut job.”

  “Terry...please. I can’t help what happens. If I bite you....”

  “What, then I join the club? Like in the movies?”

  “It doesn’t always happen, but it could, Terry. If you’re blood takes to it. Let’s don’t find out, huh?”

  The door to the sallyport rattled.

  “Hey!”

  Father Mike whirled.

  The night watchman was at the doors. Finding them locked, he was cussing, keys jangling.

  The steel roar of a 747 boomed in the night. It seemed to dissipate the clouds. The moon broke through, the silver light dappling the grass and Father Mike’s white hair.

  Terry hesitated.

  Father Mike turned back to him.

  Right there in the moonlight, the plane engines deafening in his ears, Terry saw the dark part of Father Mike’s eyes spread like ink in water. It took almost no time at all. The hair burst across his cheeks and neck, sprouting in thick tufts of white like some kind of night blooming foliage. His blackening lips drew back, the gums popping and streaming blood as the teeth elongated and tapered into dog-like fangs, a too-wide grin, a satanic leer.

  Terry had never been so totally afraid that he had thought with his legs first, but he was halfway to one of the rampart stairs before he dared to look back.

  The huge, shaggy white creature burst from the priest’s clothes and bounded not after him, but towards the sallyport doors. It moved so fast it seemed to race the jet that swiftly crossed the sky over the fort, a silver streak.

  It loped on long gorilla-like arms, pulling the distance beneath it, kicking it away with a pair of scrawny, inhuman haunches. Its misshapen head was lowered like a prow on its thick neck, the long, upswept ears flat against the heaving shoulders. Its pure hide was scintillant. Mercurial.

  The watchman pulled open the doors.

  He was a big bellied man in a green jacket, a radio squelching on his sagging belt. There was a look of surprise on his pale face as the huge white wolf thing barreled into him.

  The jet went over the water and was gone. Terry heard the watchman screaming, gurgling as his mouth filled with blood. The thing had him flat on his back. As it dipped its sharp head between his double chins, its muscled arms tore rapidly into him, ripping out chunks of his flesh, flinging it in all directions.

  Terry turned away and huffed up the stone steps.

  Nothing up here but the wind. He looked around for somewhere to go, but it was just a sheer leg breaking drop, about thirty feet. Across the water the lights of downtown glowed peacefully, unaware of the absolute insanity down on the parade ground.

  How could that thing be real? How could Father Mike be it? Could he kill it? Didn’t he need silver bullets or something? Father Mike hadn’t given him silver bullets, but he had brought Terry here to kill him, hadn’t he? Maybe silver was bullshit. Or maybe Father Mike had meant to kill him all along...but why, when he could have his pick of meals on the streets?

  A gust of wind whipped at him, urging him to move, to do something. He ran along the top of the wall past the useless iron guns toward the sallyport. Maybe he could drop down somewhere there, get across the park, to the parking lot, bust into the watchman’s car before Father Mike was....finished.

  He ran as fast as he could for as long as he could, which wasn’t long thanks to the beers and the smokes. He stopped after only a short sprint and had to put his hands on his knees and retch.

  When he was done heaving, he snatched a look down at the parade ground.

  The thing was staring at him, a nightmare face of white hair and red blood, barely man, only a little animal, mainly monster, a string of shimmering guts hanging from its maw like links of hot dogs in an old cartoon.

  The body of the watchman lay beneath it, entirely hollowed out, the bones of the broken ribcage pale as ivory in the night. The corpse looked as if something inside it had exploded for a good five feet in every direction. Even the arch of the sallyport was dripping with blood. The thing had consumed him in a shark-like frenzy.

  It barked. The noise was strange, high pitched and yet throaty, the unholy mix of the bay of a wolf and a man.

  It sniffed the air, growled, and began to run.

  It darted across the parade ground toward the stair.

  Terry ran again, his heart threatening to explode out the back of his torso, his wretched belly twisting in knots as his numbing legs pounded old stone.

  He stumbled and threw himself against the wrought iron railing over the sallyport.

  Down below he saw the watchman’s red and black ATV with its tool bed and hard top. How fast could the thing go? It was more than a golf cart, but it wasn’t a GTO.

  He looked back.

  The thing took the stairs four at a time and skidded into a turn when it reached the top. He heard its nails scratching on the stone and gravel as it swung around and started running towards him.

  He lifted the gun and popped off four shots to dissuade it. It flinched and began to slalom. He didn’t think he’d hit it, but it knew what a gun was. It wasn’t scared enough to stop coming, but it slowed and dodged.

  Maybe he had a chance after all, but not with his back to space.

  He clambered over the railing, took an eighth of a second to try and gauge the distance, then pushed off. He fell through space, his stomach slipping somewhere up behind his lungs, and landed on the roof of the ATV. His left leg gave away underneath him. He bounced and tumbled onto the pile of tools in the back.

  He groaned, but managed to hold onto his pistol, even though something sharp tore his left pant leg open and sliced the calf beneath.

  He scrambled on his knees and crawled into the cab, praying the guy hadn’t had his keys with him. He was rewarded with the feel of the cold bit of metal between his fingers as he groped the starter.

  It started up immediately, the engine whining. He kicked the pedal to the floor. The thing lurched off down the walkway.

  He thought he hit a rock in the dark for a moment because the entire body of the ATV shuddered and slammed him back and forth. The hard top bent inward and smashed him in the top of the head, opening a gash that quickly poured a cascade of blood in his left eye.

  The thing had leapt off the wall and landed squarely on the roof. He could hear its claws scrabbling against the metal. He pressed the muzzle of the pistol against the roof and fired twice, deafening himself, but hearing a doggish whine above. He jerked the wheel left so hard the ATV almost tipped. He saw the pale furry shape smash through a wooden picnic table and rise shaking its head in the rearview mirror.

  He made for the concrete path down the causeway to Head Island.

  The creature flung the broken table away and came snarling in pursuit.

  The speedometer displayed an optimistic fifty on the far right. He stood on the accelerator and willed the orange needle there.

  How fast could that goddamn thing run?

  He squeezed the wheel and rocked in his seat, as if he could by momentum increase its acceleration.

  A furtive glance showed the great blood flecked white wolf-thing swelling in the rearview.

  The creature was foaming from exertion. The machine was likewise thrumming beneath his feet. Maybe they were both giving all they could give. Maybe the old age of the monster would make the difference.

  Then it sprang forward with one last supreme effort and grabbed onto the tailgate. It dragged behind for an instant. Terry felt the
pull. Then it was heaving itself into the bed and lunging for the cab. Its wild head came through and snapped at him, lips curling back from vicious fangs, its breath hot in his ear and reeking of blood. He felt its teeth clamp down hard on his right shoulder, passing through leather and muscle and grinding his joint like a soup bone.

  He screamed as one great shaggy arm slipped in and raked its yellowish claws up his trunk, trying to scoop his guts out. He was spared a disemboweling only by a momentary jump of the ATV as it left the pavement. He reached up and jammed the .45 into the werewolf’s face and got off the last bullet, blowing out his own eardrum to no apparent effect.

  He jerked the wheel hard right. The ATV spun in the gravel and flipped.

  He didn’t count how many times it turned over because after the first revolution he was flung ass over end into the wet sand, his shoulder torn violently free of the monster’s bite. The sound was like a go-cart with a string of metal garbage cans behind rolling down that stair from The Exorcist.

  Terry lay flat on his back, bleeding and spitting salty sand. He might have blacked out. The wind had been knocked from him. He wasn’t sure, but thought he might have broken a rib or two. His chest felt warm and yet the chill wind penetrated. He glanced down at the dark wound there, a mass of oily blood, the shirt and jacket shredded to tatters. He couldn’t feel his shoulder, couldn’t move his arm, but he did wiggle his fingers in the gritty sand. He watched another plane streak low across the night sky. He waited for his ears to stop ringing, decided they wouldn’t, and strained to roll on his side.

  A few feet away the wheels of the ATV were spinning in the air, half in the surf, broken against one of the pier pylons. All the tools and equipment in the bed were strewn about the sandy beach beneath the causeway. His pistol was gone.

  There was a thrashing sound in the water, and a wounded dog whine from the pylon.

  Terry pushed himself slowly up, falling twice back into the wet sand before getting to his feet. There was no strength in his right arm. It was as if it wasn’t there. But he could move his fingers. He would be alright.

  He squinted about for his pistol, but the only gleam he found was a steel hacksaw, handle in the sand, where it had been thrown from the open toolbox.

  He squatted down and got it in his left hand, then slowly waded out to the pylon.

  The water there was only knee deep.

  He could hear the thing panting heavily. He should turn and run, but he knew if he did, if the thing was able, it would just chase him down.

  He passed warily around the end of the overturned ATV. The vehicle was right against the pylon. The metal of the front left quarter had bent around it. Wedged between steel and wood was the creature, one white shoulder and arm protruding from the twisted metal, thrashing pitifully, straining to keep its head above the lapping seawater.

  Terry’s last bullet had ploughed a furrow in its cheek and torn away much of the lower half of its right ear. Its grin had widened to horrendous proportions, the row of teeth along the long jaw totally exposed.

  It whined like a puppy.

  Terry stared at it for a minute before its black nostrils caught his scent above the intrusive fish smell of the waves. It growled low in its throat and redoubled its useless efforts. It was possible its back was broken. It definitely wasn’t going anywhere.

  Its face was wholly animal, but its feral black eyes retained some kind of mad humanity, like the eyes of a mental deficient.

  Terry backed off and waded around the far side, where the arm couldn’t possibly reach him.

  He got within inches of the ferocious face, which now twisted to snap at him.

  At least three kids had passed over this thing’s tongue. He wondered now about the half remembered children in his own class who had gone missing in his youth. Kids who he had written off as having moved out of Southie during the summer, or bused off to the colored schools because their parents couldn’t pay tuition. Father Mike had said he used to be able to control it. But had he? Had he let loose on those kids during his monthlies?

  Something like this, how much could you really control it? How much did you really want to?

  He leaned against the ATV and lifted his booted foot up, pressing it to the side of the thing’s muzzle. It struggled anew, but it was thoroughly pinned, and probably partly paralyzed. He found he could force its head against the pylon with ease. He watched it under his heel, the tongue lolling out, the jaw feebly working, the teeth grinding against his sole now and then, the big black eyes rolling in their sockets to try and see him.

  The throat beneath the jaw pulsed.

  He put the hacksaw to its neck, pressing the serrated edge into the furry, yielding flesh.

  The creature seemed to understand and let out a pitiful howl that raised the hairs on the back of Terry’s neck. He gave it a rip like he was starting a lawnmower.

  Blood bubbled up and gushed from the ragged wound, but every slap of the swelling and retreating tide bathed it and washed it clean. He didn’t stop, but stooped and straightened, sawing the throat vigorously. He found he could put his right arm to work after a bit.

  The noise it made as it kicked and splashed in the surf became less like an animal howl and more like a man’s shrill shrieking.

  “You thought I’d make it quick, you son of a bitch?” Terry snarled, mainly to shut out its horrible screams in his ringing ears. “Fuck you! Fuck you, Fadder!”

  He gripped it by the scalp and sawed until the edge ground against the vertebrae. The noise stopped, the wicked jaw hung slack. And in his very hands, the long white fur began to come away, shedding so fast into the surrounding water it was like somebody had taken a leaf blower and just scattered it.

  For a moment it was a bare wolfish face with a ridiculous head of well-groomed white hair. Then it seemed to melt. The ears retracted and reformed, all the sharp angles softened, the teeth retreated, the bones ground together as they moved in the face and the skull altered until the slack, mask-like face of Father Mike hung from his fist.

  He dropped it in revulsion. Half severed, it fell cheek to shoulder, the exposed partially broken vertebrae and connective tissue crackling wetly.

  Terry threw down the hacksaw and retched violently into the water.

  The water washed everything away.

  * * * *

  The tinsel and wreaths were up at O’Malley’s. One of the whores had put Elvis’ rendition of O Little Town of Bethlehem on the jukebox. She swayed with the fat john in the Santa hat who’d given her the dollar.

  A tall young red headed priest stepped in the door and slapped the snow from his coat.

  At the bar, Terry slammed back his Jameson and gestured to O’Malley to come over.

  The bartender had the bottle ready.

  “’Nother, one, Terry?”

  “Nah,” said Terry, shaking his head and planting his money on the bar. “Be seein’ you.”

  He dropped something into the glass that clinked.

  O’Malley watched him duck out the back exit and peered at the thing left in the shot glass.

  Terry had been in here before his stay in South Bay. He’d come in maybe twice a week, tops. He was a guy that preferred to drink alone and at home.

  But for the past three weeks, he had been in every night. O’Malley remembered him coming in looking like hell, all bandaged up, limping, with his arm in a sling. It was the night after the cops found two more of that whackjob slasher’s victims out on Castle Island. A night watchman and a priest, cut all to hell, the priest’s head sawed off.

  O’Malley had recognized the priest as the same old guy that had come in and talked to Terry that night. At first O’Malley had wondered if it had been Terry that had done it, but nah, that wasn’t Terry’s thing, to do a guy up like that. He was a murderer sure, but he was no psychopath.

  Anyway, that was the first time the sicko had done his business twice in one month. Everybody was still waiting to see if he’d do it again in December or take a brea
k for the holidays.

  O’Malley had tried to mark Terry’s visits by the healing of his cuts and bruises, though that had proved untrustworthy. Whatever Terry had gotten into, it hadn’t been as bad as it first looked. His arm was out of the sling in two days. The nasty cuts on his face were gone before that.

  O’Malley picked up the shot glass for a closer look, then turned it over and let its contents drop into his open palm. It was a ring with a saint on it and some Latin.

  When he looked up, the redheaded priest was standing there looking at it too. Their eyes met, and O’Malley’s hackles rose just a bit.

  The priest had weird eyes. Probably it was the light and the eggnog, but they seemed too big, too dark.

  “Where did you get that?” the priest demanded. He was FBI by his brogue – full blooded Irish.

  O’Malley’s eyes went to the back door. He opened his mouth to answer, but the priest reached out and snatched the ring from his hand.

  It was then that O’Malley noticed the same design on the priest’s finger.

  Terry Dunne did a lot of things, but it was low to steal from a priest.

  “He take that from one of yours, Fadder?”

  The priest was watching the door. He turned back and looked surprised at him, like he had forgotten he was there.

  “You want I should call a cop?”

  “No, that’s alright,” said the priest, moving for the door. “We take care of our own.”

  Vice Magazine did a story on the Aokigahara Forest in Japan and within a year a slew of writers had put out stories about it.

  I am no exception.

  A couple years later there were two movies about the subject. I think one of them even bore the name of this story.

  It’s natural. The setting and legend give themselves pretty easily over to the (re)telling. The real horror of it to me though, isn’t wailing ghosts or bloated corpses hanging in the trees, it’s that the biggest influx of suicides occurs around the end of the fiscal year, inferring that a lack of financial prosperity or misery at work that drives most to enter the woods and never come out again. That our self worth should depend so much upon meaningless numbers in some phantom account or that our security be so tied to working jobs we may hate is a miserable state of human affairs.