What Price Gory?

by West, Terry M.

  Adam shook his head, dodging the daggers. “It was more than that, okay?” he said, trying to make Nathan understand. “The book was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep and the first thing I thought about when I woke up. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Iris noticed my head was off somewhere else. I didn’t tell her or the kids about it, though. It had become my secret cross to bear, and I didn’t want them sucked into the words. Those damn words.”

  Adam finally crouched down. His story was sapping the strength out of him. He put the rifle aside and rubbed his hands together, trying to warm and calm them.

  “Finally, I realized the only way I would be free of the damn thing was to just do as it asked. I holed up in the attic to perform the ceremony. That deep down feeling told me the attic was the only place for this to happen. Maybe it was because the book had sat up there so long and the room had grown rich with its magic. Besides, it was just a bare room, with no life to occupy it yet.

  “So I went up there and I did just like the book told me to. I had locked myself in, to keep the family out. Last thing I needed was for Iris to assume I worked for the devil, now. I had snuck a goat upstairs earlier in the day. I read the words and then I slit that poor thing’s throat, in accordance. The kids loved that damn goat. Figured I would tell them a coyote got to it in the night.”

  “And then it came,” Ted guessed.

  Adam nodded grimly. “The goat blood must have been powerful stuff. It showed up right away, and I realized what I had done. What I had called here. It formed in the middle of the air, busted through the attic door and headed downstairs. I heard Iris and the kids screaming…”

  Adam paused, shaking quietly, lost again in his own nightmare. “After it left, I gathered up what I could of Iris and the kids. It was a messy but easy chore. Most of it fit in a bucket. I brought their remains here,” Adam said. He motioned to a far corner of the barn floor where a reddened and moist sheet covered the bloody remnants.

  The survivors hadn’t noticed it before. They had taken refuge in a makeshift morgue.

  “Why did you bring them here?” Nathan asked, staring at the sheltered remains.

  Adam smiled, tears coming now, though he tried to deny them. “Because Iris hated messes in the house, you know? And leaving them like that just didn’t seem Christian. I brought them here inside the barn to keep the animals away so what was left could be buried properly. I was going to dig three graves. I figured there was nothing of the baby to bury as Iris’ stomach was gone. I was going to sort out what I could, commit them to the earth, and then I was going to eat my barrel and chase after my family. But the hate got the better of me, and I went after the Car Nex. I had to track it on foot, because the damn thing had destroyed my truck before it left. Don’t know if it did it on purpose or if the truck was just in its way. Y’all know the rest.”

  Adam didn’t bother trying to stifle the tears anymore. He let them come in a quick, heavy downpour, like a sudden cloudburst. Ted and Nathan were both discomforted by the show of emotion. It pulled at any security they felt.

  With great difficulty, noticing their disdain, Adam tried to suck it all back in.

  When he was able, Adam said to Ted, “It hit your place ‘cause you’re the closest to me.”

  “Let me get this straight,” George said. “We were attacked by the God damned Tasmanian Devil because a book told you to do it?” There was no compassion in him whatsoever. Compassion was a hard tool for one as self-consumed as George to use. There was only fear and anger in him, and these were easy for him to wield. He stared with hatred at the man who had made a monster out of thin air and endangered them all.

  “Tread lightly, George,” Ted advised, eying Adam, who was still wiping the grief from his face. “It was an accident.”

  “Shitting in the shower is a God damn accident, Ted,” George went on, his anger making him bigger than he was. “Adam meant to do this. He decided to play with hell, and now we all get to die. Instead of losing my salary this week, I can look forward to getting my fucking face gnawed off. And I have Adam Campbell to thank for that. Thank you, Adam.”

  “You got no call to talk that way,” Nathan chastised George.

  “I’ll say whatever I want, old man,” George snapped. He then focused his angry attention back on Adam. “This is your fault. We’re going to die because of you. We’re going to look just like your little family over there. How does that make you feel, Adam?”

  Adam regarded George with red and soft eyes. He started to rise, slowly, and he brought his rifle with him.

  George came to his senses and regretted his outburst immediately. He even clamped a hand over his mouth to discourage further discourse. He shook his head as Adam approached him. His shadow quickly falling on the school teacher, Adam gripped George by the hair on his head.

  “I want to show you something, George,” Adam said softly. “Bring the lamp over here, Ted.”

  Adam hauled the struggling and protesting school teacher to the remains of his family. George whimpered an incoherent apology as his feet made a trail in the dirt floor. Adam shoved George to the ground and whipped off the sheet. Ted and Nathan, who were lending light and peering over Adam’s shoulder, both immediately turned away. There was no healthy reason to invite that image in.

  George was given no choice. Adam held George’s face close to the waste that the carnage had left behind. George immediately puked.

  “I can’t tell you who’s who, other than the obvious,” Adam said, forcing George’s head closer. “Oh, that’s right. You never met my wife of fifteen years and the two wonderful children she blessed me with. Three if you count what was growing in her belly. Or, no, wait, that ain’t right. Adam Jr. was in your class. Well, you’ll have to excuse him on Monday.” Adam said this all with an unnerving peacefulness. It chilled Ted and Nathan to the bone.

  “Please, Adam,” George pleaded, trying but not able to close his eyes on the gore. “Please, I am so sorry.” Now George was crying, which didn’t surprise or even offend the men that much, given the circumstances.

  Adam shoved George aside, and covered his family back up. He poked the barrel against George’s forehead.

  “You want to condemn me to hell, George Berryman, you do it in your head where I can’t hear it. Because I am beginning to think that putting a bullet in your brain would be a kindness to the both of us.” The calm still stuck to his voice. This wasn’t a violent threat from Adam. It was a solemn guarantee of what was to come if George didn’t weigh his words more carefully. Adam was tired and empty now. He knew his sins better than anyone. He would account for them and add to them if George opened that mouth of his again.

  Nathan jerked a pitchfork from a pile of hay and pointed it at Adam.

  “You take your weapon off George, Adam!” he screamed.

  Adam turned to Nathan, taking aim.

  “You can shoot me if you want. But I’ll let this fly first and with purpose, Adam Campbell! I don’t intend to lie down for you or this monster of yours! I am an old man and I am not afraid of you!”

  Adam looked at the men. He saw how scared they were, and it wasn’t the beast they were wary of. Adam had appointed himself their protector and he was terrorizing them. He had become a bully, and he hated bullies. He suddenly felt ashamed and he despised himself. He pitched the rifle to the ground, deciding that it didn’t belong in his hands. He turned to George, who still lay frightfully on the ground.

  “I’m sorry, George,” Adam said, reaching out and gently adjusting the glasses which had gone askew on the teacher’s face. “I am deeply sorry.”

  George nodded silently, determined to never utter a word again.

  Adam looked to all of them and raised his hands. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he assured. “And I don’t want anyone else to die. Take the rifle, if it makes you feel better.”

  George considered it, but was too shit scared to make a move.

  “Put those hands down, Adam,” Nath
an said, stabbing the hay with the pitchfork. “And pick up that rifle. You’re the best shot here, anyway.”

  Adam looked to Ted, who held the lantern up near his face and looked like a bearded lawn jockey. “We all have our moments, Hoss,” Ted said, adding his two cents.

  Adam retrieved the weapon and then offered a hand to George, hauling the slender man up easily.

  “So, what do we do?” Nathan asked, praying the tension between the men was buried now.

  “We wait,” Adam said. “It won’t live past dawn. That much I know. If we make it ‘til then, it’ll go back to hell or wherever it came from.”

  “That’s still a few hours away,” Ted gauged, staring at his watch. “That’s a long time.”

  “Come on, guys. We can make it,” George said, a little hesitantly at first, as his words were prone to inspire anger and violence. But then he decided to fan a little hope their way, to show them that George Berryman was a changed man. He was Scrooge on Christmas morning from now on. That rifle against his head had taken the venom out of his bite. “It hasn’t hit us, yet. Maybe it gave up on us. Or maybe it passed us over.”

  “Maybe,” Adam said, giving George a soft squeeze on his shoulder. At least the school teacher was being optimistic, now.

  “No news is good news, I guess,” Nathan said, allowing a little hope in himself.

  Ted had nothing to say. He looked to his watch again like an impatient child. Dawn wasn’t any closer.

  Adam gave a confident but lifeless nod to the group. He was keeping his chin up for their sake, but really, what did it matter to him? He wanted these men to survive, less blood on him, but his life had already ended. He had been a dead man on foot since his family was taken. Shame and vengeance were the only two impulses left in his brain; the only motivators that remained. He was vacant inside, otherwise.

  Then, suddenly, the men realized they had been dining on happy horseshit.

  Ted Gavin was the first to notice it. “Wait a minute,” he said, glancing around. “You hear that?”

  But, there was nothing to hear. It was more of a feeling. It was as if an innate but long dormant sense deep down inside had suddenly been given new purpose. They had been thrust back into the food chain, and nature had compensated somewhat for them. They were now deer- perched and drinking from the creek- straightening quickly as a predator’s eye admired them from the brush.

  Something longed in a sinister fashion for them, and they knew it. They just knew it. The same had occurred at Ted’s house during poker. The men had all paused, disturbed suddenly by something they couldn’t explain. That had happened right before the beast tore through a wall, sending a forceful wind of debris and slaughter through Ted’s home.

  That sensitivity was back, now, haunting them all. It was suddenly hot in the barn. They could feel the warmth of hell slipping in through the cracks in the walls. Nathan regained the pitchfork, clutching it tightly to his chest. Ted and George scooted as far back as they could, finding a slight solace behind Adam.

  “It’s here,” Adam reported quietly, raising the rifle to his face. He took aim, his sweat pouring onto the weapon.

  The barn door exploded inward. A gust of wind sent the men reeling back. The force of it ripped the rifle out of Adam’s grip. The rifle was pitched away like a tomahawk into the darkness behind Adam.

  A funnel cloud manifested inside of the barn. The storm grew as tall as the loft and flickered with hungry teeth and claws. Red, demonic eyes glared out from the center of it. A thunderous growl shook them all.

  Ted shit his trousers and dropped the light, darkening the barn. Flames crept from the glass housing of the lantern and a fire was born and it escalated swiftly in the hay. The wind from the creature strengthened the fire and sent it moving quickly and in all directions.

  Adam dropped to the floor and backtracked, searching frantically for his weapon. He could hear the screams of his friends on the harsh wind. They called for Adam at first and then they called for God. By a miracle, Adam found the rifle. He turned his attention back toward the storm. The fire was marching up the dry barn walls now. Adam pulled his bloodied work shirt over his nose and mouth.

  He saw very little through the thickening smoke. He went back down to his knees, trying to navigate below the smoke. Adam slung the rifle over his shoulder and held it with one hand. He crawled on his free hand and knees like a three legged animal. Adam edged forward and landed right in Ted’s remains, identifiable only because the head was still loosely attached to the torso. The expression on Ted’s face let Adam know that his death had been a terrible one, and there went another little piece of Adam’s soul.

  Adam got back up on his feet. George Berryman flew past him. George’s belly had been torn open and his insides had been crudely scooped out and hungrily devoured. George hit the side of the barn with a bone-shattering thud, opening the wall. Half of his body peeking out into the night. His glasses were lost and his dead face looked a little naked and out of place without them. Air spilled in from the gap George’s body had made and it gave the blaze in the barn more power and ferocity.

  Adam found Nathan next. He had been impaled to the center post of the barn with the pitchfork. Nathan was almost as high up as the loft. Half of his face had been bitten off and his legs were gone below the knees. Nathan’s remaining eye, with no interest in it or color or life left to it, stared down toward Adam. Nathan looked like a half-made scarecrow that was wearing a broken mask. The sight of Nathan held Adam there for too long.

  The fire consumed the loft. A new rush of night air fanned the inferno and the top of the barn collapsed. A heavy piece of smoldering wood drove Adam to the barn floor and trapped him there. He could barely breathe. His ribs felt broken and he knew it was worse then that when he tasted his own blood.

  Adam closed his eyes and waited for the creature to taste him. He had failed. He had failed his family. He had failed his friends. Ready to meet the maw of the creature, he figured he deserved no less.

  So he lay there, staring at the night sky now visible through the fractured roof of the barn. Smoke poured out into the dark. He noticed the moon, and he suddenly thought it just a dead thing that glowed sometimes.

  He had searched for redemption under the bright dead moon, and he had come up empty-handed. Adam would die a thing that was alone and unloved. Just like that moon. Closing his eyes, he hoped for a happy place somewhere in the beyond. A place that was sunny, breezy and very, very lazy. He wanted a place that the night never touched. Where the moon never rose. He could picture his family at that place. They waited for him with smiles, fishing rods and something freshly baked.

  The creature was still there. That newly energized sense of Adam’s could feel the beast circling him. It bathed in the smoke and fire. But it wouldn’t claim him. Tears of realization and regret came freely now with no one left to judge them.

  Adam had been the rope that tethered the beast to this world. It wouldn’t hurt him. If it did, its visit would be over and it would be called back to the dark dimension that had birthed it. The fire and smoke raged all around Adam, but came no closer to him, and he figured this dark magic he had conjured had something to do with that. It would keep him here and alive for as long as it could. It would let Adam die slowly from the internal injuries that stained his mouth.

  Adam cursed himself even stronger now. If he had followed his suicidal instinct when his family had been taken, a lot of lives would still be living. He apologized to them all over again. He could hear sirens in the distance, and he knew the monster would have more flesh to play with, soon. But Adam couldn’t have that. No, it was time to cut this picnic short. He felt around until his hand touched the hot metal of his rifle. With great and painful difficulty, he managed to navigate the barrel under his chin. The beast growled in the smoke. It sensed betrayal.

  Adam’s shaking hands slid down the barrel of the rifle as he stared at that dead moon again. And he shared in its cold misery.

  “Unto
Jesus,” he whispered, closing his eyes and seeing his family in that happy place, waiting for him. God would forgive him this act. He was sure of it.

  Adam’s finger tickled the trigger.

  CECIL AND BUBBA MEET A SUCCUBUS

  This wasn’t the weirdest thing they had ever done for cash, but it was up there high on the list. Turner “Bubba” Teague was known to ingest just about anything if there was enough money behind it. And Cecil McGee had made it with a rich old invalid’s young wife right in front of the fella for nearly a thousand bucks. Hell, Cecil would have done it for free, or maybe even contributed a few bucks toward it himself.

  The boys made money, but it was never enough. They enjoyed gambling, drinking and impressing women. These pursuits made rations a little bony sometimes.

  Smarter people earned more than them, and probably had an easier time of things. But the boys weren’t stupid. Cecil and Bubba were high school graduates. Granted they had climbed no higher in education, and they got their diplomas largely because of the promises and threats made by their parents.The boys were underachievers to be sure and the pair had known each other since junior high. They were both thirty. This was still a young age for men but an awfully old one for slackers. They rented a double wide together at a trailer park in Azle, because birds of a feather, as they say.