The Last Rite

by Chad Morgan

  The boy faded away like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland, leaving his smile until it too faded away. The graveyard, his younger self, it all faded away. He found himself standing in the library again, only a few hours ago. He saw himself cradling Lisa, the long spider-like appendage piercing through her chest.

  “Lisa,” the other Daniel said. “Lisa, I’m so sorry . . .”

  “You didn’t have a choice,” Lisa said.

  “Yes, I did,” he said. “I could have . . .”

  “Let me kill you?” she asked, interrupting him. “That’s not a choice, Daniel. You can’t blame yourself.”

  “You were safe in your apartment, and I brought you out . . .” the earlier version of Daniel began to say.

  Lisa shook her head. “No, Daniel, you can’t blame yourself. You must forgive yourself, or you will never find Bethany.”

  “Lisa?”

  “Cold,” she said. “So cold.”

  The world again faded to gray. This time, however, no new scene faded into view. Daniel turned to find the wolf standing there, his animal spirit guide Charlie had suggested. A bright light came from behind the wolf, like a sun breaking through the haze. The wolf turned and walked towards the light until Daniel couldn’t make out its form in the brilliance of the glow. Daniel walked towards the light, following the path the wolf had taken, and he understood. His trial was over.

  Daniel woke up in front of the dying flames of the bonfire. They no longer glowed blue but a normal yellow and red. He was drenched in sweat, but he felt good, better than he had in years. He looked down at the wounds on his arm and stomach. They were still there, but the infection was gone. The puncture wound on his stomach was a normal puncture wound, no different than if he had been poked with a stick. His arm still had a ring of puncture marks from the uneven teeth of the dog monster that bit him, but gone were the black tendrils and reddened blisters.

  He felt something cold against his bare chest and reached up to feel a silver and turquoise necklace hanging around his neck. He didn’t have to look to know it matched the one that Lisa used to wear or the one he saw around Charlie’s neck.

  It had worked. He was cured.

  Then why was it still so hot in here?

  And that’s when Daniel stood up and saw the rest of the theater ablaze.

  38

  Charlie sat behind the concession stand while Daniel started the sweat lodge ceremony, bored out of his mind. Part of him wanted to join Daniel, at least dream visions would be more entertaining than sitting and waiting, but someone had to stand guard. Charlie wondered where the wolf had run off too. Not that the wolf was a good conversationalist but having the wolf with him would have made him feel less lonely. He thought about calling some of the avatars over, but he wasn’t sure how close they could get to Daniel without smelling the black blood infecting his veins and want to destroy him.

  He lay his bow, quiver, and the scroll case on the counter then started scavenging through the concession stand. With a little luck, Charlie figured, he might find a box of candy or something. He wasn’t too hungry but eating would at least be something to do. The stand, however, had been picked clean. Charlie stood up, wondering what he could do next to pass the time.

  Charlie heard the growl from his left, out in the lobby. He turned to see one of the dog monsters sniffing through the broken glass and debris. It must have come in while Charlie was ducked behind the counter, and it was only luck that when he stood up the abomination was facing away from him. The abomination began to turn in its searching of the lobby, and Charlie ducked back behind the counter. He didn’t think the monster saw him, but there was no way to tell for sure unless he checked, and he saw no way of doing that without being seen. Charlie’s heart began to thud hard and fast, and he tried to keep his rapid breathing as quiet as possible. He followed the dog monster with his ears, listening to its claws clicking against the floor and over the glass.

  Charlie reached over and searched for his bow with his hand. His first blind grope didn’t touch the bow, and for a moment he thought it was gone, that someone had taken it when he wasn’t looking. He swallowed the irrational thought and felt around until his fingertips touched one of the blue feathers that decorated the bow. His hand crawled up until it gripped the bow string, and Charlie hooked his fingers around the taut string. Inching the bow towards him, he pulled it to the edge of the counter where he could reach up and grab it, all the while his ears listening for where the dog monster was. Then he reached up and grabbed the quiver. Once the quiver was down behind the counter with him, he notched an arrow, pulled it taut, took several deep breaths, and jumped to his feet.

  The dog monster was gone. Charlie swung the bow left and right, but his target was gone. Charlie walked out from behind the concession stand, aiming the bow around, but there was no sign of the dog monster. Did the thing wander out just as it had wandered in? He relaxed his bow and his stance. Looked like he lucked out.

  From the far wall, Charlie heard the clicking of claws on the tile. He turned to see the dog monster emerging from the open doorway of one of the bathrooms. Charlie and the abomination saw each other at the same time, which meant it was already too late. He remembered what Daniel said in the cellar of the library, once one saw him, they all saw him. The dog monster charged at him as Charlie drew his bow. As the dog monster bounded into the air, it’s misshapen mouth open wide and aiming for Charlie’s throat, he let his arrow fly. It pierced through the abomination’s chest, the monster going from attacking to floundering in pain as it collided with Charlie. The force shoved Charlie to the ground even while the abomination crumbled into ash. Charlie hit the ground in a cloud of abomination dust.

  Coughing and sputtering, Charlie got to his feet, brushing the ash off his clothes. Speaking aloud to himself, he said, “Damn it. They’ll know we’re here.”

  A pale dawn found a small army of abominations marching down the street, the business suit man in the lead and his partner by his side. The abominations came in all shapes and sizes, all dark, all deformed, all ugly. The theater stood in front of them, silent and still, but one of the abominations was killed inside it. The others knew it, they felt it die, felt Lightfoot’s arrow kill their fellow abomination. Then they alerted the man in the business suit.

  “Surround the building,” he ordered them. They should have had them at the library, but somehow Burns and Lightfoot found a way to sneak out unnoticed like the bugs they were. The business suit man was not letting them get away again. “We need to cut off every avenue of escape. Do not engage until everyone is in position.”

  The abominations obeyed, spreading out in coordinated groups that only a well-practiced team could, or a group of creatures that shared a supernatural link that defied natural law. The business suit man watched them in envy, wishing he had a group this well coordinated on some of the ops he participated in over the years. The clusterfuck in Laos would have gone a lot better if he had a squad of abominations instead of the undisciplined mercenaries he had to deal with on that op. It was an army he was looking forward to serving in, once the full invasion began.

  “We should go in ourselves,” his partner said beside him.

  He shook his head. She was smart, he couldn’t deny that, but as brilliant a strategist as she may be, there was still no substitute for experience. He nodded to the troops circling the old theater. “Let them do the grunt work.”

  “Yeah, because that worked so well last time,” she said. “Maybe this time someone with a brain should go in.”

  He nodded. He hated to admit to, but his partner made a valid argument. Still, he wasn’t sure where her loyalties lay. Since Lightfoot had her caught in her hotel room, she was asking questions about their mission. He was convinced Lightfoot filled her head with ideas, what he was unsure of was how much of it swayed his young partner. “Point taken. We’ll send in a small party, and then you can follow them in.”

  She glared at him, but he stood there stone-faced. He
wasn’t going to let her hear gleam any of his thoughts from him. Finally, she turned away and assumed her position as leader of a small troop of abominations. He knew she didn’t like being around the creatures, but whatever distaste she had for them, she didn’t let it show. She marched them forward towards the front of the theater.

  He called one of the abominations to him. “Watch her. If she betrays us, kill her.”

  And he knew that by telling one of them, he told all of them.

  Charlie poked his head in on Daniel. He was hoping Daniel would be done with the sweat lodge ceremony, but he still sat still in front of the blazing blue flame. Daniel’s eyes were wide, his pupils expanded in spite the fire light shining in his face. According to the instructions left to him by his grandfather, Daniel couldn’t be moved until he returned from his spiritual journey, else risk Daniel never returning to his body, or worse, something else returning in Daniel’s place. Charlie yearned for the days when he could revel in his ignorance and consider his grandfather’s mumbo jumbo as superstitious bullshit.

  Charlie ran back to the concession stand and ripped open all the cabinet doors, throwing out plastic cups and paper popcorn bags, looking for anything that could be used for the defense of the theater. He wasn’t going to hold them back alone with only his bow. No matter how magic it was, it only shot one arrow at a time.

  “Damn it, give me something,” he mumbled to himself.

  Each empty drawer led him to rip open the next one even faster. Then he opened the drawers under the popcorn maker. Sitting there were two large plastic jugs of oil for the popcorn machine. He pulled them out. One was opened and used, but the other was full.

  “They’re vulnerable to fire,” he thought to himself, remembering what Daniel had told him.

  Charlie poured the oil along the perimeter of lobby entrance, thinking a wall of fire would slow them down. What Charlie didn’t know was that, while the oil was combustible and burned very hot, it also had a high ignition point. As he got to his knee, he took the obsidian point off one of the arrows and spun the blunt end against the oil, trying to create enough friction to ignite it. Putting his hands together and rubbing them vigorously, the arrow spinning back and forth against his palms, it felt like his hands would catch fire before the oil did. Sweat beaded on his brow.

  “Great,” he said to himself. “I’m the only fucking Indian that can’t start a fire!”

  Charlie could see a group of abominations coming up the steps towards the broken doors of the theater, crouched low like great cats ready to pounce on their prey. Silently, Charlie started to pray - to God, to the All-Father, to Fred Fucking Flintstone for all he cared - just wishing for whatever benevolent force was out there, the one that animated the trees and earth for the avatars, to please cut him a break. He struggled harder to start a flame as the abominations started to charge.

  “Shit!” Charlie cursed, working the arrow harder but not taking his eyes off the oncoming death. “Shit! Shit!”

  There was a spark. Whether from his hard work or his desperate prayers, Charlie didn’t know, nor did he care. Flames ran along the trail of oil he had laid down as the abominations reached the doorway, both catching ablaze at the same time. The abominations caught fire like they were made of paper, and they howled in either pain or ecstasy, Charlie couldn’t tell which, and for some reason, he found that fact the most disturbing part of the whole thing.

  Charlie stood up, his hands stinging and the muscles in his arms tight and sore. As the abominations either burned or backed away, he smiled. That is, until the fire spread.

  Quickly.

  Very quickly.

  The old wood, the aged wallpaper, the litter on the ground all caught with little effort. Flames ran across the floor and the walls, and stopping the abominations with fire was now looking to Charlie like a very stupid idea. He grabbed his gear and the scroll case and ran for one for the doors to Daniel, but his way was already blocked by fire, as was one of the stairwells to the balcony level. He took the other stairs, the only path opened to him, the flames chasing him.

  Charlie ran, looking for an exit. He found his way to the balcony, looking up over the theater below. Daniel sat there in the circle, shirtless and staring into the blue flames. Charlie believed his grandfather when he said Daniel was protected inside the circle, but Charlie was pretty sure his grandfather meant from evil spirits, not from fire or from having a building come down on him. Charlie had to get Daniel out of here. With the fire in the lobby blocking the main doors, dropping down from the balcony seemed the only route open. Charlie slipped his gear over his shoulder and hurdled over the balcony rail.

  The scroll case caught on something, pulling Charlie to a stop, almost pulling his shoulder out of the socket. He slipped out under the scroll case, but as the strap slid against his arm he caught the end of it in his grip. He came to a halt with a jerk, and he heard a scream of pain from above him. Charlie looked up to see her, the business suit woman, Tanya, holding onto the same strap with dear life. Her chest was pulled against the balcony rail, using all her strength to hold on and not follow Charlie over the edge.

  “Let go!” Charlie yelled. From his angle, he could see the flames growing from behind Tanya. The curtains on the sides of the balcony were aflame.

  “I need that scroll!” she shouted.

  Was she insane? What kind of crazy person gets into a stalemate in a burning building? “Let go or we’re both dead!”

  “Without that scroll, I’m dead either way!” she shouted back. “I’ve asked too many questions, I can tell!”

  “Then come with us!” he said.

  “I can’t!” she said through the strain and the pain. “Charlie, you have to let me have it!”

  “What?”

  “The scroll won’t burn!” she shouted. “If you don’t let me have it, we’ll both die, and then they’ll just pluck it from the ashes! Charlie, let go!”

  This stalemate would have broken if she’d just come with him. He didn’t understand why joining his side wasn’t an option for her, but he had to ask himself two questions. Was he willing to kill this woman to protect the scroll, and was he willing to die for it? No, there was a third question, he realized. Would either death accomplish anything? If what she was saying was true, then no. Charlie looked deep into her eyes, then let go.

  Charlie dropped to the ground, forgetting it was a theater and the aisles were slanted down. He lost his balance and tumbled down, rolling down the aisle several rows before he could stop himself. Getting to his feet, his body sore and bruised, Charlie saw two dog monsters coming up the aisle at him. Damn, he didn’t secure the rear doors. Tanya must have come in that way, letting the abominations follow her in. Charlie notched an arrow and let it fly as the two monsters pounced at him. The first monster went down, writhing in pain and turning to ash as the arrow melted it, but even as he reached for a second arrow he knew he couldn’t fire it before the second monster had him. Life moved in slow motion. His body continued following its previous instructions, even as Charlie’s mind calculated the futility of his actions. He couldn’t even close his eyes to avoid seeing his death, not enough time to issue the command to his eyelids.

  The second dog monster blew apart with a loud boom, and just like that time was normal again. Bits of abomination and black blood flew across the wall beside him, followed by several dozen small holes from the buckshot. Charlie turned to see Daniel standing there, his shotgun in his hands. He was red from the heat and peppered with beads of sweat, but his wounds were clean. Hanging around his neck was a necklace identical to his, and that was all the evidence Charlie needed to know that Daniel was cured.

  Daniel reached down and grabbed his shirt and jacked from one of the theater chairs. “We need to get out of here.”

  Charlie looked at Daniel, then to the balcony. Tanya was already gone. He looked back to Daniel and said, “I lost the scroll.”

  Daniel pointed to the spreading fire. “One problem at a time.
Let’s go!”

  They ran together, Charlie leading the way. Somewhere in the back was the door Tanya used to get inside, and it didn’t take him long to lead Daniel to fresh air. As they ran out of the building, two abominations, the ones with the long whip-like arms, flanked them, but Charlie’s bow made short work of one while a blast from Daniel’s shotgun finished the other.

  “Go! Go!” Daniel ordered, waving Charlie down the alleyway behind the theater.

  Charlie didn’t need to be told twice.

  The business suit man watched as the theater burned. Burns was doing more damage to the town than he did. The business suit man was feeling a touch of jealousy. Burns was becoming quite the arsonist. This made what, his third building he burnt down? He understood why, of course. The abominations were vulnerable to fire, coming from a dimension devoid of heat, an endless void of darkness. It sounded nice.

  Walking away from the burning theater was his partner. She was covered in ash, and her face was smeared with soot, but his eyes locked onto the case in her hands. She walked straight up to him and shoved the scroll case into his waiting hands.

  “I got the scroll,” she said, “but the two escaped.”

  The business suit man barely heard her. He held the scroll in his hands once again. He opened the case and pulled the scroll out, just to make sure it was in there. The rough papyrus felt good against his fingertips, almost orgasmic.

  “Well done,” he said, shoving the scroll back in the case.

  “We still don’t have the key,” his partner said.

  He grinned. “It doesn’t matter. They will come to us. We can’t open the gate without her, they can’t close it without this. They’ll come to us, and when they do, we’ll finish this.”

  “What makes you think it will be us?” she asked.

  His grin grew wider. “Because I don’t think Mr. Burns knows what he must do to close the gate. He won’t be able to bring himself to do what must be done, so the advantage is ours.”