The Last Rite

by Chad Morgan

  The two avatars jumped through the windows, the glass showering down on Charlie and the Ben monster. The abomination turned to see what was attacking as each avatar grabbed an arm and pulled the monster down, then without hesitation they each pulled in opposite directions. The Ben thing split in half, black oily fluids splashing onto the ground.

  With the monster off him, Charlie shoved the shelf off his legs. Leverage wasn’t on his side, but he could get it just high enough to slide his body out from under it. With many grunts and curses, Charlie pulled himself free. He looked over to where the two nature avatars stood over the dead abomination.

  “What part of ‘watch my back’ where you two unclear on?” he asked them.

  Charlie glanced down at the tan shirt, now fused into the skin of the dead abomination, and the patch that said “Ben.” Standing on top of the fallen display shelves, Charlie looked around. The problem was, it was called “Dale’s Gas.”

  “So, here’s the big question,” he said aloud. “Where’s your boss?”

  As if on cue, the abomination burst through the door from the garage. It looked just like the Ben-thing, except it was bigger, smellier, and the patch on the shirt said “Dale.” Damn, he liked Dale. The shelves on their side made moving difficult, so Charlie stood his ground and, without hesitation, let an arrow fly. It struck Dale right between the . . . well, where eyes would have been. Where the arrow made contact, the oozing oil bubbled and fizzed. Dale, or the thing that used to be Dale, clawed at his face with his bulbous hands, but the hands melted away as it touched the arrow. The Dale-thing screamed and howled as it crumbled to the ground.

  Charlie climbed over the uneven shelves, raising his arms for balance, and walked over to the thing that was once Dale. The black ooze melted off him, and while it didn’t revert back to human, it did look more like the Dale he knew than the oil monster that wanted him dead. Amongst the blisters and crusted skin were one of Dale’s kind eyes. The man was old now, or was before he was made into this thing, but in the lifeless eye, Charlie saw the kindness he used to know from the Dale he knew. Damn, how many more people had to die? Carolyn, Ben, Jacob, Dale . . . Sue Ann!

  Charlie turned to see the woman still hanging on the wall, fresh burns chewing a scorched hole in her side from the fireball that was meant for him. He made his way over the slanted display shelves, balancing as they shifted under his feet. Reaching the end of the aisles and back to flat ground, he pulled the box back over and climbed up to Sue Ann. Charlie grabbed at the bones piercing her palms and holding her in place.

  “Sue Ann? Can you hear me?” he called out to her between huffs of excursion. “I need the key to the tank. Do you have a backup pump? Sue Ann? Can you hear me?”

  He looked up to Sue Ann, to those piercing blue eyes that once made his teenage heart thump wildly, but now made it feel like it was caught in a vice. They were wide as she let out a deep, wet, rattling breath. Then the light in her eyes faded from the world, and her head fell slack against his. Charlie pressed his forehead against hers and brushed back her oil-encrusted hair. In his mind, it was still gleaming in the sun, her freckles sparkling on her nose.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to her. “I’ll find it. You just rest.”

  Charlie reached up and closed her lifeless eyes. He looked away from her, fighting back the tears. The two avatars stood sentry over the dead Ben monster, waiting, as if to remind Charlie of the tasks left to do. Charlie walked away from Sue Ann and started searching for the backup pump.

  Daniel and Lisa snuck quietly past the end of the dining hall. There were no windows on this side of the building, the side that led to the alleyway, but they were being as quiet as possible just in case. The alleyway was beckoning them. It was either their salvation, of a death trap. Daniel figured they had a fifty-fifty shot.

  “We should be able to sneak by undetected,” he whispered, trying to bolster Lisa’s morale. He could feel Lisa wanting to bolt as if he was pulling her against some magnetic repulsion.

  “We better,” she whispered, “because all we have is a lug wrench.”

  The alleyway behind the dining hall was narrow, just wide enough for a garbage truck to drive down. Just looking at it made Daniel feel claustrophobic, and if he was feeling hesitant then Lisa must be jumping out of her skin. It smelled bad, but there was something more than the rotting garbage and stagnant water. Turning the corner, Daniel saw one of the whip-arm monsters standing in the middle of the alleyway, it’s long snake-like arm coiled and ready to strike, hissing and spitting. It was hard to make out in the fog, but Daniel leaned over to see around the monster and saw a dog snarling at the snake-like hand of the abomination.

  No, it wasn’t a dog. It was a wolf. The wolf, the one he saw from Lisa’s apartment window, and before that at the clinic. Wolves were an endangered species, so he doubted there were multiple large gray wolves running around, though with everything else going on in this town, anything was possible. Still, something told him it was the same wolf, and that it being here in this alleyway wasn’t a coincidence.

  Daniel felt Lisa tugging on his arm. “Shit! C’mon!”

  Daniel shook his head. “No.”

  Lisa either didn’t hear him or couldn’t believe he said what he did. She pulled harder on his arm. “While it’s distracted! Let’s go!”

  “No,” he said again. “We need to get past to the camping store, and I can take it.”

  He nodded at the lopsided monster. He’d taken one out before with nothing but the lug wrench, and he was alone. He couldn’t count on Lisa to help any more than he could have counted on Bethany, but he had a feeling the wolf would prove a much more reliable ally. There was no logical or rational reason why he would, but he abandoned logic and reason a couple of days ago. He pulled up his tire iron and stalked towards the back of the abomination.

  “Daniel?” he heard Lisa shouting in a whisper, but Daniel ignored her. “Damn it!”

  Daniel crept up behind the monster, planning to drive the narrow end of the tire iron into the back of the thing’s neck. The things head was facing the wolf, but the head of the snake-arm swung around and spotted him. Daniel realized it too late, the snake-like arm wrapping around him and pinning his arms to his chest. The tire iron pressed hard against his rib cage as the creature lifted him into the air.

  Daniel craned his neck to look to Lisa. He saw her turn to leave, then turn back to fight, only to realize she had no weapon. Daniel figured she was too scared to run and was too scared to fight. He had to admit, that was more than he thought she would do.

  The wolf leaped into the air and clenched its jaws on the long snake-arm. The coils loosened as the snake-like hand hissed in pain. Daniel slipped between the scale-covered coils and landed on his feet as the mouth of the snake rear to strike the wolf. He jumped in front of it as the snake-like arm struck out, ramming the narrow end of the tire iron down its open mouth. The tire iron struck the side of the wall, and Daniel held it pinned against the back wall of the diner. He turned to see the wolf lunging at the misshapen head of the monster, the wolf’s teeth plunging deep into the abomination’s flesh. Black blood squirted from the puncture wounds as the wolf dragged it to the ground. The wolf shook her head violently as it tore at the throat while Daniel pulled the tire iron free. He bashed the monster’s snake-like head while the wolf gouged its throat.

  The two of them stood over the corpse of the abomination, breathing hard and recovering from the fight when they looked at each other. The wolf stared at him, not moving, no sign of either approachability or aggression. Daniel slowly lowered the tire iron to the floor and raised his hands.

  “Easy,” he said. “We’re on the same side here.”

  Daniel held out his right hand. The wolf looked at it and sniffed it, then looked up at Daniel. He stood there, frozen until the wolf sat on its haunches. Well, it wasn’t wagging its tail, but Daniel figured that was as non-aggressive as he was apt to get. He waved for Lisa to come forward.

 
; “I think it’s okay,” he said. “Just come slowly.”

  Lisa stayed at the edge of the alleyway, like a child summoning up the courage to dive into a swimming pool. “That’s not a stray dog, Daniel! That’s a grey wolf!”

  Daniel didn’t try to hide his exasperation. “And we just killed something with an anaconda for an arm. I think under the circumstances he’s okay. Just walk slowly.”

  Lisa took a tentative step towards them, then another, and then another. She held out a hand to the wolf-like Daniel had, only hers was trembling. She inched her palm towards the wolf, the look on her face telling Daniel she was ready to jerk it away the moment the wolf snapped at it, but the wolf sniffed it and then sat back, looking up at Lisa.

  With the introductions out of the way, Daniel waved for Lisa to follow him as he continued down the alleyway. Lisa followed behind him, but after a few steps, Daniel stopped. Lisa stopped next to him, looking up at him in confusion, but Daniel looked over to the wolf. She sat there, her ears up and her head cocked to the side, looking back at Daniel.

  “You coming?” he said to the wolf.

  Lisa stared at him wide-eyed, then her eyes almost popped out of her skull when the wolf got to its feet and walked to them. Daniel looked over to Lisa and shrugged. “It’s okay. Enemy of my enemy and all that, right?”

  “It’s a wolf!” she said. “It’s a wild animal!”

  “We’re the only things alive here,” he said to Lisa. “I think it understands that.”

  He turned and head down the alley, turning his back to the wolf, which walked up to Daniel’s left side and trotted along. Lisa made a point to be on Daniel’s right. Daniel felt the wolf’s cold nose on his arm, and when he looked down he saw it give a low growl at the infected wound. Daniel was afraid it would bite, or at the very least turn and walk away, but the wolf turned its head forward and continued walking beside him. Not for the first time, Daniel wondered if there was something more to the wolf than the animal it appeared to be.

  They knew they were behind the diner’s back door by the crates of deliveries sitting by it. Boxes of vegetables that were now rotting, as well as bottles of cooking oil and cleaning supplies. Next to the building was a huge propane tank, the diner’s apparent gas supply. Next to that was the door to the bank, which meant not much further was Buck’s.

  Daniel leaned over and whispered into Lisa’s ear, “See? We’ll sneak by, no problems. What could go wrong?”

  “Oh, you did not just say that,” Lisa moaned.

  “Don’t be so superstitious,” Daniel said.

  And then everything went wrong.

  24

  The bank was filled with polished wood, from the paneled walls to the teller stands to the hardwood floors, all of which was now covered in deep gouges from the claws of the dog monsters. The bank lobby was now home to a pack of them, though watching them, the business suit woman was sure they were not pack animals. As one walked down the hall, another hopped onto the teller counter and snapped at the first. The two snarled and hissed at each other, their tails lashing about and taking chunks of wood out of whatever it hit. From one of the loan officer’s desks, her partner let out a high-pitched whistle, and the two monsters snapped their attention to him. The business suit woman realized, so did she. She looked back to the monsters and the two wandered off in different directions. Good, they already had two dead ones tossed in the corner. Better they kill themselves than her.

  Her partner never looked up from his desk. She walked over towards him, keeping one eye on the pack. “Those things don’t make you nervous?”

  “If we don’t get that little bitch back,” he growled, “they’ll be the least of our worries.”

  “We have time,” she said. She wasn’t going to fail. She never failed an assignment.

  “The Lightfoots have her in the graveyard,” he said, not looking up from his desk. “They must be. It’s the only place the creatures won’t go.”

  She looked over to him. “Did you ever figure out why?”

  He shook his head. “We need to get her back somehow.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “We have the scroll. They’ll come to us.”

  It was then that she noticed what was demanding all her partner’s attention. Unrolled in front of him was the scroll, a tablet computer laying on top of it. Various objects were acting as paperweights, holding the corners down, including a beer bottle. Condensation dripped down the side, forming a ring on the four-thousand-year-old papyrus. The business suit woman snatched the beer bottle as if another drop of condensation was going to be the one that ruined the scroll.

  “You idiot!” she yelled. She was not oblivious to the heads of the dog monsters popping up and looking over to her. “What are you doing?”

  Her partner turned his head away from the scroll and up to her. She felt he was trying to set her on fire with his stare, but she didn’t care. “What is your problem?”

  She started pulling off the improvised paperweights, looking for any signs of damage. “The scroll is several thousand years old! You have any idea how fragile this thing is, you stupid . . .”

  The business suit man stood up and shoved her aside. He was huge, at least a head taller than her and twice as broad, and all his weight pushed her into a nearby chair. She heard the clicking of claws against wood as the dog monsters crept in, eyeing the commotion, but she didn’t care. She was going to leap back out and rip his damn throat out, but the business suit man reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. He reached down into the neighboring waste paper basket and pulled out some crumpled paper and lit it, then dropped it back in the wastepaper basket. In a moment, it was a roaring flame. The dog monsters looked at the flames with hungry eyes.

  When she saw what he was about to do, she leaped to her feet and screamed, “No!”

  Her partner grabbed the scroll with one hand and ripped it off the desk. He threw it into the blazing trashcan. The business suit woman almost dove in after it, but her partner spun and grabbed her about the waist with one arm and pulled her back. She squirmed against him and reached for the burning scroll, all the while the members of the pack looking at the blaze with both fear and hunger, their long tongues licking their mutated lips.

  “Are you out of your mind?” she screamed.

  After a moment, the flames died down enough that her partner no longer thought it a threat, because he relaxed his grip on her. The business suit woman slid out of his arm and fell to the floor. She wasn’t sure how much of the scroll was destroyed, but she had to rescue as much as possible. No longer worried about tearing the ancient papyrus, she reached for it, intending to yank it out and throw it onto the desk, but her partner beat her to it. He stepped aside, letting her look at the scroll.

  It was intact. There were no burn marks. There wasn’t even ash from the burnt paper. Even the condensation ring from the beer was gone. Her eyes went wide, amazed and doubting her senses when she couldn’t find a single mark.

  “If the scroll could be damaged or destroyed,” her partner said, “don’t you think someone would have done it by now?”

  She couldn’t believe the scroll was still intact. Like trying to find the secret to a magician’s trick, she ran her hands over the scroll, but her partner ripped it away. Despite his size and his history, she wasn’t afraid of him. As a woman, she had been surrounded by men who thought their physical size and what they had between their legs made them superior, and she long ago learned to stand up to them and to not take shit from them. She more than once had to demonstrate that superior size did not mean physically superior and that their great and mighty penis and testicles were no match to a woman’s knee. This was different. Her partner looked down at her with a blaze in his eyes. He rolled up the scroll and put it back into its case, then marched back to the vault.

  “None of this phases you?” she called out after him. “Monsters and magic papyrus?”

  “Situation changed, you adapt,” he said. “It’s tha
t simple.”

  As he walked to the vault, one of the dog monsters looked up at him. It had been attracted by the flames and was riled up, and the business suit woman thought its fur would have been raised if it had fur. She thought the monster would bite his arm off in spite of the protection of the contract they had with them, but the business suit man reached down and pet the thing’s dark and blistered skin. She couldn’t tell if he liked these damned things, or if he wanted to demonstrate his dominance over the abominations. Maybe it was both.

  “Keep your mind on the task at hand,” he said, standing outside the vault. “We need to find the key.”

  “I told you, the Lightfoots will make a move for the scroll,” she replied. “They’ll come to us eventually.”

  “We don’t have the luxury of time,” he growled. “Besides, they have no idea we’re here. Even if they did, what could they do about it?”

  She turned to the front of the bank before either of them heard the engine roaring. You don’t tease the universe like that and not expect it to respond, especially when the fabric of the universe was torn apart and reshaped to your client’s desires. It was too tempting an opening for the universe to not respond. The flat face of a semi-truck burst through the front doors, sending pieces of brick and splinters of wood flying through the lobby. She ducked behind one of the desks, and she saw even her partner turned to put his back to the flying debris. The truck careened into the teller counters, smashing a couple of the dog monsters into paste as it went through the wall and poked into the neighboring building.