“Do you mind terribly, if I draw a new picture for you?”
She shrugged and then reached out the palm of her hand to wipe away the symbol of The Five. “Clean slate. Go for it.”
The Old Soldier extended two fingers, and cut parallel lines into the sand. “In the way of promises, I have made two. I don't call them promises though, I call them vows. The first was to protect this house and all of its occupants. The man you asked of, Ulysses, he took me in when no one else would. He didn't have to.”
“Well, that's not a great revelation, you've already plainly stated…”
The Old Soldier raised a finger and continued. “The second was that for the rest of the days I would be on this Earth, that I would live a quiet life. I would never again walk the path of violence.”
The woman stood. “Those sound like very conflicting vows from my perspective.”
“They never have been, until this morning.”
The woman motioned for the rest of her demons to close in on him. He saw the cuffs and the blackjacks and the guns.
“You're not going to have to worry about breaking any vows, old man.”
“I am not worried. Out of courtesy, which I do not owe you, I ask you once to leave this place as you found it and never return.”
“That's not happening.” She motioned for the soldier to stand with her. He did not argue and rose slowly from his fire.
“Then know it was you, and not I, who caused those lines to intersect.”
The woman stepped forward and the troops moved into the shed. “Once we've raped what we want from you, we'll drop your bones into somewhere quiet where you can renew your vows. I know just the perfect place.”
Neither the woman, nor any of her demons posing in riot gear, was ready for the soldier to kick his boot into the fire and send the burning log sailing up and out over their heads. He watched it flame and fly, as did many turning heads.
The woman grabbed at him, and he felt his arm flex for the first time in many years. He next felt the impact of his fist on her sternum. The Old Soldier was watching the flying flaming log sail into the overgrowth of the backyard, and he did not see the woman's body that he had struck impact with the wall of his shed. He only heard the noise she made as she went through the snapping lumber and twisting tin.
The Old Soldier felt it in his heart when the log he had sent as a projectile of fire collided with the overgrowth. He felt the warmth in his chest as the weeds and vines he had watched silently grow for years smoked. The same garden that he had last night blanketed in kerosene erupted in a bright flash, which was more blinding than the morning sun.
Half of them were overtaken by flame instantly. Their clothing burned and their weapons heated. They pulled at their armor and couldn't get their belts off fast enough before flash grenades they wore began to erupt.
The Old Soldier had his arms raised and pushed the flames to rise and burn hotter and faster. He stared at them and their ammunition began to detonate all on its own. Their bodies riddled with their own bullets and the bullets of their companions. Their guns exploded in their hands and shot off in their holsters.
He raised his hands ever higher, spurring the fire, and the flames from his fire pit leapt towards the ones who hadn't been caught up in the inferno that had claimed the backyard.
They screamed more in defeat than pain. To the Old Soldier, there was no greater song than the anguished cry of a demon who suddenly found fire not to be his ally.
The ones who did not run, he pushed out of his way as he walked towards the hottest, truest point of the eruption. It felt good to punch them, and he did it often as he took his time walking across the yard.
At the wall of flame, he sent his hand towards the house and the fire followed his cue, flying into the home that Ulysses had welcomed him into so long ago. Had he not been so consumed with anger, he would have found the burn that mercilessly stormed the house very sad.
Then the Old Soldier walked into the heart of the flames he had created by destroying the calm he had stared into for many years. He turned as the fires danced around him and licked at his clothing, setting it alight and incinerating it from his body.
He watched through the flame wall as the woman crawled across the yard, dripping blood from her mouth. She had broken ribs, he'd heard them snap. She raised her still new face to meet his eyes as he raised his arms once more and sent a cone of fire sailing up towards the sky.
She watched as the fire got so hot that his body began to be consumed. She pushed herself up and her pretty face turned to sheer agony and wrath. “You dare use fire against us? Against demons? This will not go as forgotten.”
She heard the booming voice from the flames.
“Is that a vow?”
She pulled a gun and it went white hot in her hand, searing her flesh and then exploding, sending most of her fingers flying.
“You will listen to me now.” The flames singed the clouds above, and she could no longer see the figure which had been the old man within the tower of fire.
“You will tell your masters that they have angered the Oracle of the Pyre, and that the son of Ulysses Purgatory will now have a reborn ally.”
She pulled herself to her feet. “Oracle of the Pyre? No such thing exists. What are you?”
A tendril of fire flew from the wall of flames and set her hair on fire as it made its way to light up the shed. The demon woman with the burning blonde hair ran from the yard as the voice of a coming cataclysm called its own name.
“I am the Devil Bird.”
~30~
“ALL THINGS TRULY WICKED START FROM INNOCENCE.”
—ERNEST HEMINGWAY
The keys were white hot on nights when the thunder rolled with the oncoming clouds. He was so high up, in his cabin, that when the biggest claps hit it stirred the window panes to motion within their frames. They had been threatening to crack, then shatter, for years now — but things hadn't gotten quite loud enough in the world yet, and the typewriter made a much more menacing roar to his ears. With each new stroke, he felt as if he were murdering another of them in their sleep.
Who was he writing any of this for anyway? There were boxes upon boxes of white pages, filled with words that nobody would ever rifle through. For the longest time, he was sure that he would die up there, alone. He hadn't thought, for the longest time, that it would be of any consequence one way or another. If he did die there in exile, none of them would ever know; yet if he were to come off the mountain with the burden of the weight of his words, he felt he wouldn't be able to bother any of them to read — to listen.
He was writing the greatest book that had ever been written. He had stopped numbering the pages at #8703 —that had been a year or more ago. He thought about all the typewriter ribbons… miles of them… no, it had been three years ago.
One day blended into a year, and the only thing that ever changed was the weather.
Do you know of the coming of the rain? Are your soul cups ready to run over when it spills down? Man is a filthy ashtray, undeserving of the storm which will wash away his filth. You will be hosed down with the same casual scrutiny you have given to the world around you. Dirty man, covered in their ashes, you never paid any attention to them or their desires. Why should you be shocked when they pay no attention to you when they turn on the hose and let the rain fly?
Open your mouths. Drink Deep. Gargle fully and try to wash the taste from your mouths.
Filthy, dirty, stupid human race. You have never tended well the fires they lit for you in your spirit furnace.
Ulysses Purgatory had felt that a great first chapter title.
He started each new page with the same header:
The Last Manifesto of Ulysses S. Purgatory
Ulysses had felt it important to make sure the reader remembered what it was they were reading. That if anyone never bothered to read any of it was a foregone formality. It was also not Ulysses’ problem.
He leaned back in his chair
and reached for the half-smoked cigar he had stubbed out hours ago. He provided it with new flame for the rolled leaves to contend with and took in the desperate, bitter smoke.
“Castro.” He smiled and took another puff, rising. The tiny counter in the kitchen was covered with jars in one state of philosophical wonderment or another. The ones to the right were upside down and drying on dishtowels. The ones to the left were all full — save for one. He screwed off the golden lid and took a sip of his homebrew. He'd learned to add a little mint, and just a touch of ginger.
It made him think of the jungle and it helped him remember.
“Hair like the blondest snakes.”
Not even Cortez had ever coveted strands of gold so fine and pure.
He hit the back door with the cigar and the half-empty glass of ‘shine. It was already dark atop the mountain, and it wasn't anywhere near nighttime. The clouds were black, and much too fat to contain the rupturing lighting strikes. It was all moving his way and would be on him soon. Ulysses watched the bolts strike the peak of the neighboring mountain like a nest of copperheads.
He could see a fir burst into flames at the top of the tree line on that distant mountain. Yes, it was all coming this way.
Ulysses left his coat on the back porch rocking chair and began the walk to higher ground on his own peak. There wasn't much between him and where he was going, aside from rocks. Nothing that God had left up here, anyway.
He had salvaged the steel from what had been left of his truck. It, like Ulysses, hadn't run right in years. It had taken him longer than he had wanted to cut it down and build the rods, but he had a wooden leg to contend with. He had cut the denim away from the prosthetic, it was easier to take on and off that way, and it didn't feel the cold mountain winds that Ulysses normally kept the rest of his body shielded from.
It only throbbed, even though it no longer existed — there was still the phantom pain after so many years. Whatever that had been that had eaten his leg away, finally taking its prize after Mudder Kelroy had used an ax to send it to full chum, hadn't been greedy at least. Hadn't taken more important parts.
“I hope it tasted like old burnt third-leg goat, you octopus bastard.”
Ulysses sent back his head and let the moonshine flow down his trap. The burn did him good against the windstorm that the clouds had kicked up. “Here it comes, sure enough, Ulysses. Sure a'damn-bang-smooth, it comes.”
He worked the last of the cigar, standing just outside the pentagram. The five metal spikes he'd driven into the ground pointed up to a sky that was about to be full overcast by dark clouds. He'd found enough wire to make the crisscrosses from the points. He'd wrapped the mirrors in copper and had them all tied to the posts, pointed in at the clocks which were piled up in the center of it all.
Ulysses took a last puff of the cigar before he dropped the smoking nub onto the ground. The lighter fluid and dish soap burned good and hot. Reflected in Ulysses’ tired irises was the flaming pentacle.
He closed his eyes and thought about her and then said all FIVE of their names aloud.
Ulysses took a step into the fire pentagram and called out the monster's true name.
“I command you!”
He didn't open his eyes and he stayed stone still as the lighting did what it was supposed to do and struck the five points. When he did let his lids lift, he watched the lighting mix with the fire, running in balls and coils across the copper and up the wires. The thunder mixed with the noise of a hundred ringing alarm clocks.
Ulysses tightened his gaze. The reflection in glass on the clock faces revealed the hands of the instruments as they began to spin wild and fast.
It let out the most horrible scream as the flash blinded Ulysses. The torn clothing it wore fluttered, but not from the wind of Ulysses’ world. It seemed to float above the spinning clocks, and the lighting tendrils circled around it in a way which would have made Tesla proud to make Ulysses’ acquaintance.
All it did was scream.
Ulysses had his guns pulled and was firing into it, but it wasn't fully there. Ulysses could see through it. The electricity all around gave enough flash that he could clearly see the projectiles he fired sail right through the ghost of a Time Zombie trapped between worlds.
Ulysses kept firing anyway.
“Where did you take him? Where did you take my boy, you som' bitch?”
He kept squeezing the triggers, even after the clips of the pistols were empty. The soldier advanced, pushing forward on his trusted wooden leg. He let the pistols drop and pulled two knives that would have been considered swords in times long past.
“You're gonna tell me where you took Billy. I'm gonna cut the zombie-taint right off you if that's what it takes. I'm gonna smile while I filet your—”
The lighting struck hard, dancing from one knife to the other, burning the hair right off Ulysses’ arms and blackening his skin. It threw his body clear of the pentagram and he watched, flying backwards away from the monster, as the Time Zombie appeared, fully formed and screaming at him with all its regal countenance.
Ulysses slammed into the rocks below the summoning place as the Time Zombie's full weight caused its feet to sink into the pile of clocks. The monster stepped from the mess of them and, with eyes focused on Ulysses, began to move forward.
It was fast, faster than one might consider an undead creature powered by atomic fire might be. It wasn't faster than the lightning though, and the next strike set the metal rods, the wire, and the spinning clocks all in motion again.
It let out a roar as it was again caught up in the madness of what Ulysses had created.
Ulysses’ eyes had once again closed, but he still saw the flash and knew that the monster was gone.
II.
Ulysses Purgatory's parched lips burned, but it was a new burning. It was liquid which irritated his cracked and bleeding mouth. He could not say how something could feel so good and hurt so bad all at once as the water flowed down his throat. It hadn't been much — it had only been just enough.
When he opened his eyes and they slowly adjusted to the new burn, the sunlight, he saw the burly form and out of control beard of Mudder Kelroy begin to take shape.
Ulysses tried to speak, but words didn't flow — perhaps he had finally spent all he would ever have on an endless highway of typewriter ribbons.
Mudder poured another sip from a cantina. “Quit trying to talk, dumbass.” Mudder's deep voice was laced with an extra slice of disdain. “You're lucky you ain't dead. Or, was that the idea?”
The vast biker rose on elephantine legs. Picking Ulysses up with him didn't at all seem a strain. “I don't know why I'm doing this, Ulysses. I ought to just leave you up here and let a couple more days of Mother Nature's big paintbrush wipe you clean out'a this mountain view.”
Ulysses tried to say the name of his son as Mudder Kelroy started carrying what was left of him down the mountain. Mudder looked down at his struggle with jaw and lung, and watched his mouth move like a fish on a poker table.
“Yeah, you got it. I ain't doing none of this for you. It's all for the boy.”
Ulysses’ eyes closed again…
…when they next opened, he was wrapped in a blanket and belted into the passenger seat of a relic of a green army jeep. He watched the trail that led up to his cabin unfold before his eyes in reverse.
“Did you get my book?”
Mudder looked over at him from behind the wheel through his aviator sunglasses. He had the jacket on, Lucifer's Circus Motorcycle Club, and an olive green T-shirt tucked into a pair of faded blue jeans. All of it was separated by that leather belt and oversized buckle. Mudder wasn't hiding the fact that he was armed, he rarely ever had; there was a holster at his hip with a chrome plated Desert Eagle at rest.
“If'n you mean the Encyclopedia Dementia you had scattered in boxes all around that place the answer is not no, but hell no.”
Ulysses didn't see the shoe of his wooden leg resting on the floorboard nex
t to his good foot. He realized that he was legless on one side. “Where's my wooden leg?”
“I seen it up in a tree. I ain't never been one to climb trees.”
“You left my damn leg up in a tree?”
“Piss on your peg. There could'a been a line of can-can dancers with my name tattooed on their asses spinning on every branch of that tree and I wouldn't a’ climbed it.”
Ulysses was glad he was strapped in as the jeep took a hard tilt his direction, clearing a brush patch from a fallen tree. “I could still climb a tree, and I don't have a damn leg.”
“I can't imagine why you'd need such a worthless skill as that, but I ain't gonna argue with you about it. Climbing a tree would be ignorant if a man had two legs and three tails.”
Ulysses bounced around more, but his ass never left the seat. He realized that not only had he been belted into the seat, Mudder had used ratchet straps to finish the job up right.
“You must have been afraid I was gonna spring out of here like a jack-in-the-box.”
“I'da sure missed your company, Ulysses. What with all your talk of writing books about the end of the world and how you can climb the highest tree on the mountain. I just can't understand why people didn't talk you out of leaving society and going to live ‘top a possum trail.”
“You made it clear you didn't want me around anymore.”
“I reckoned that God could make use of your company up on high much more than I could. Who was he gonna sit and drink ‘shine with and talk about the coming apocalypse if I didn't let you go your own way?”
The jeep slid silently into a mud hole and the four wheel drive caught after a slide. Mudder gunned it to pull out the other side and back on the trail.
“I had to collect my thoughts.”
“Only thing you've been collectin’ is mason jars and flies.
“If you had taken the opportunity to look at my work more closely, you'd have seen that I got a lot done up there.”
“You typed a lot of nonsense that don't mean nothing and ain't no account — all the while drunker than a three-titted jug.”
Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five Page 29