by Dan Thompson
The engine coughs at three miles per hour, threatening to die any minute. Tears do no more than screaming, she finds out, for nothing changes the cold engine to warm. The wolfhounds are at the back door of the car, running along beside, their normally friendly faces a fright mask of blood and snarl.
“Come on, you piece of shit, get going,” Wendy screams in frustration, feeling the car rocking as the large dogs slam against it. The motor’s coughing subsides after a bit, and begins to run more smoothly, picking up speed, leaving the furious animals behind. She leaves the headlights off, fearing the battery will react poorly along with everything else, and besides, there is no need for the extra light. The bright red has progressed over most of the sky, covering the constellations she usually recognizes. There are no clouds visible, and Wendy wonders if the heat from Earth is being pulled heavenward, maybe into a black hole. She worries that she has crossed a line and can never go back to the reality she knew before.
The road she wants to take is Route 1 through town, for it is a straight shot from suburbia, then the city, before leaving it all behind. Wendy figures all this out while she is driving, and her concentration on mundane directions keeps her mind off the debilitating cold. The wind whistles through the ventilation system as she drives. It is turned off, but the fan blows icy air and will not stop. As she arrives at the first group of streetlights, she observes that none are shining. The Santa Clauses and elves look forlorn as they hang upon the light posts, their faces tinted red in the weird light over Rosedale. She can hardly wait to leave, for she has no job since her boss is dead, her apartment building has a dead girl in it, and who knows how many others have been slaughtered by the raging dogs.
The rearview mirror shows an empty roadway as her car makes the trip down Main Street. She waits at a stop sign and glances in the back seat. In the corner of her eye she catches a glimpse of a large shadow rising off the cushion. Screaming from fear and surprise, Wendy stops the car on the road and prepares to jump and run. She opens the door but is stopped short.
“Close the door, Wendy. I’m cold as hell already.” Claudia lifts her head from the covers, keeping a bulky quilt wrapped around her.
“You scared the crap out me. How did you get in my car?” Wendy yells.
“I went to your apartment, but I was too scared to go in. I thought it would be safer out of the building, and would have gone to my own car, but it’s in the shop, so I found yours. You didn’t lock your doors. I took some Xanax and it knocked me out. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“Oh, Claudia, I am so glad to see you. I thought I was alone.” She starts to cry, then firms her resolve to be brave. “Come to the front seat. I don’t want to be here by myself. Bring the quilt and we can share it. Maybe you can figure how to turn this fucking blower off.”
“Where are we going?” Claudia is still groggy from the Xanax, and can’t focus on anything for long. “Did they kill everyone?” She is talking about the dogs, and Wendy has to admit that she doesn’t know.
“I went to all the apartments, but no one answered the doors. Driving the street doesn’t tell me anything either. I mean, it’s late, but haven’t these people seen what’s happening? They can’t be asleep!”
“Hey, calm down, okay? You’re going to wreck us.” Claudia has climbed over the seat, and, after a few minutes, figures a way to keep the cold wind off them by stuffing the vents with paper from the car’s trash bag.
“Yeah, sorry. I’m nervous, hungry, and sleepy. Would you hand me one of those protein bars?” Wendy puts her eyes on the road and chews the bar that Claudia unwraps. She makes a conscious effort to pull herself together.
“So, I thought about just getting out of the city. There’s a park of some kind about twenty miles from here. That’s far enough out of town, we can stop, make some plans. What do you think? Ever camped out? It could be fun.” She doesn’t want to admit her harebrained plan to Claudia.
“Fine with me, I can learn,” Claudia says. “Anywhere away from the drama I’ve seen tonight is good.”
“Keep your eyes open for dogs on the road. It’s like they’re hypnotized, not dogs at all, machines or something. I’ve been thinking: it’s a good time to not own a pet.
“Well,” Claudia says, snuggling under a coverlet, “nothing would surprise me now, and you may be right; my dog left home last month. He may be out there with the rest of them.”
“I have to find a gas station and fill the tank, if I can,” Wendy says. “I need you to watch the parking lot and road.”
“Sure,” Claudia yawns. “Whatever.”
“Hey, wake up. I really need your help.” Wendy is anxious, afraid the car’s gas tank will run dry and they’ll be stuck on the open road.
“Yeah, okay,” Claudia says, pointing off to the right. “There’s a station. It looks deserted. Hope your credit card works.”
“I… don’t have a credit card. Damn, I brought money but no credit card. What are we going to do, Claudia?”
“It’s okay. I have one in my pocket. Here, I keep it on me, just in case, you know, if I want to buy something. Or maybe call a cab on a rotten date.”
“Hey, I’ll get out, but I’m leaving the door open,” Wendy warns her, accepting the bent blue debit card. “Prepare to get cold again.”
The building is dark inside and out, but the pumps have digital numbers on them, a good sign they’re working. If I can get some gas, we may have a chance at leaving here, Wendy thinks.
Standing beside the car in the strange red light, she keeps low, avoiding attention. The gas pump grinds and spits out three gallons, then stops. The card has debited Claudia’s account, and there is no more money on it.
“Is that all you have?” Wendy asks in a loud, disbelieving whisper.
“Sorry, I thought there was more,” Claudia murmurs, embarrassed.
“Oh well, at least you brought it. That’s more than I remembered to do.” Wendy is determined to stay calm. “I think we’ll be all right. Where we’re headed isn’t that far, and tomorrow, maybe we can make it to a new town where I can get money from my bank. Mostly inconvenience,” she says, trying a chin-up approach. She doesn’t have the slightest idea what she will do now, and she is scared beyond belief.
Across the street, there is movement, only a slight amount, but movement, still. Something is coming their way.
“Hurry, Wendy,” Claudia says in a whisper. “For God’s sake, hurry up and get inside. Let’s go. Do you see that? It’s a line of people being herded by dogs. We have to hide!”
“Shh, they haven’t seen us. Keep down,” Wendy says, diving into the car, and ducking her head below the windshield. She starts the engine without revving it, and eases the car away from the gas station, avoiding a collision with the gas pumps. A few trees are near the entry, and Wendy stops the car there, hoping she hasn’t been seen. Meanwhile, the line of people and canine guards has grown. They are marching down Route 1 single file, a solid, unswerving queue that goes on and on with no seeming end.
“Where did they come from?” Claudia whispers, “And where are they going?”
“Good question. Now we know what happened to all our neighbors. Thank God everyone’s not dead. Claudia, now I just want to get out of here.”
“Me too, Wendy. Me too. Give it the gas.”
Chapter 8
He pulls the truck in behind a big rock, hiding it from anyone casually looking. Even though Short knows there is no reason to fear being seen, years of demon hunting has taught him a few rules. The first and most important, and you could throw out all the others, was never, never give a demon the edge. Keep your plans as well hidden as possible. Right then, Short doesn’t know what he is going to do, exactly, but he has a thing or two up his sleeve that Mr. Gorgel probably has never seen. Tilting his head skyward, seeing beyond the red mess the demon made of the sky’s canvas, Short reconnects and nods.
“Yes, sir,” he says, as always. “I can do that.”
Talking to the
Creator always leaves him humbled and surprised, although “Why me?” is a question he doesn’t ask anymore. It was answered once. “My Will,” was all Short ever needed to hear. He can’t say the job is a good one. Getting slammed around, burnt up, stretched out of shape, deboned, defiled, and disrespected beyond measure were certainly disadvantages. Still, it has some powerful rewards. Just being able to please his boss is the best one. Helping mortals is still another.
The situation is bad, really bad, and Elisha Short needs to hurry. It is late evening already and, to the best of his figuring, he has just a few hours of mortal time to save the planet. From the looks of the yellow and orange spurts in the distance, he may not have that much. When it comes down to it, Short thinks, Lucifer’s children ought to be extinguished. There might not be anything permanent I can do, but maybe I can put a sizeable dent in the pranks they have planned for their pleasures.
Picking up the double-barreled Smith & Wesson, he checks his pocket for loads. There are at least ten. He puts a great deal of faith in angel dust: he has seen its effects, but has never used it on a real underworld creature. That’s why they call it faith, he thinks with a grin.
The rough ground is familiar, like other plains he has traveled, both on earth and in other galaxies. His feet are encased in soft, durable boots, and his jeans keep the burrs from scratching his baby skin. The chaw between his jaw teeth is real, and so is the nicotine that floods his corporeal body. He is almost drunk on the juice. A ten-gallon hat sits high on his light brown hair, the brim leading the way toward possible extinction. He sees the whip line of people, their steps together—goose steps, they called them during the Nazi massacres. Row after row of mesmerized canines march, and each animal carries one or two goblins on its back. The imps are invisible to mortal eyes, but not to Elisha Short, and it sickens him. He must continually remind himself that his job is to send them back if at all possible.
Behind the uplift—the rise in land that is almost a mountain—colors are brighter, the atmosphere colder. Great caverns have been eroded as though by time and wind, but they were quickly made by Gorgel and his goblins. They are portals that travel straight to Hades, or Hell. Inside them are stair-steps dug into coal, and Short understands the significance of its chemical structure. Coal is a symbol of dark deeds and things that are bad. It pollutes the lungs of mortals who pull it from the Earth; it takes their breath away.
Short is not surprised by anything Lucifer’s children do; there is no boundary they respect. He reaches the first hill and waits, gathering information. He can see the goblins scattered across the fields and hills, hundreds of them awaiting their master’s call. Gorgel’s age is just short of Lucifer’s, and his powers of destruction are very close to his father’s. There is a connection between the two that is unbreakable, for Gorgel is the most favored of all five demons, but Short wonders if Lucifer knows what is happening above ground.
“Old son,” Short says quietly, “I wonder if you remember the jealousy in your daddy. Here you are, surrounded by mortals, and all of them afraid of you.
Gorgel’s metamorphosing ability is far, far beyond his siblings’. While on Earth, he has no difficulty subsisting in a supernatural body, as the presence of his essence proves. He stands aloft on a wide overhang above the largest cavern. There are no steps inside, and Short believes it is because the demon allows nothing else to use that entry into Hell. Goblins are gathering near their master, leaving the dogs behind them. There is clearly an agenda, but as yet, Short doesn’t see it. He remembers the date—it is December 24th; it’s approximately five p.m. Christmas Eve is upon the land, and a demon from Hell has gathered his minions around to put a stop to Christmas.
So far, the people have remained quiet, even though some appear to be waking to their surroundings. There is hustle and bustle in the crowd, some adults are cursing, and the children are crying from hunger and exhaustion, but mostly they are stunned. It is, after all, the day for Santa and his reindeer, for opening presents at Grandma’s house, for singing Christmas carols with the church choir. This is not what they signed up for.
Goblins disperse and began herding the people toward Gorgel, demanding obeisance. They are forced to their knees, facing the demon. A huge fire is burning in one of the caverns, and it spits darker orange and yellow into the red sky. There is no warmth; it is colder than before. Now and then, a reluctant person refuses to stay down, and the goblins grab him and throw him into the flames. It is the body fat that spits and sputters when it melts; it is mortal flesh that makes the flames turn orange and yellow. The rest of the crowd appear horrified, and stay on the ground.
Short turns from the sight, his heart heavy, but he can’t bring anyone back from death. He must find a way to stop the dreadful torture that Gorgel has induced and get the people back home.
Chapter 9
Wendy passes the line of people; are all headed where she and Claudia are going. They appear to be sleepwalking. There is no explanation for any of it, and both girls stare as they drive by. The dogs snarl and appear to be held back by an external force, but there are no signs of interference by humans. Wendy shivers from fear. She is exhausted and wants to sleep, but is grateful she is not on the road with the rest of the townspeople. Claudia sits with her mouth open, watching the parade. One of the dogs stares, catching her eye, and something slimy slips into her brain.
“What are we going to do? We can’t let these people troop off into God knows where to be eaten as a dog’s breakfast,” Wendy says distractedly. “This whole day has been shit. My boss is dead, my job is gone—how much worse is it going to get? Jeez, it’s Christmas. Just take a look at this weird sky. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone.”
Claudia sits and says nothing. She feels strangely disconnected, as though a buzz saw has opened her head, and something foreign has taken over her thinking. She sees Marvin, her runaway pet, marching with the other dogs and knows she must get out and walk. She looks at Wendy but sees through her. Must get out, the voice in her head speaks loudly. Must get out. Need to walk, need to go with other humans. Ahead of the car a child is in the road, and Wendy slows to allow him clearance. Claudia takes that moment and opens the door. She jumps onto the roadway and falls, skinning her knees, but doesn’t bother to wipe the blood when she stands.
Wendy screams, “Claudia, are you crazy? Those people are drugged. Get back in the car.” She drives slowly beside her friend, begging her to get back in, but the girl doesn’t hear her. Claudia’s head is filled with other voices, hundreds of them that repeat the same litany. Need to walk, must walk.
Sobbing loudly, Wendy knows she must go on, for her friend is under the same spell affecting the other walkers. Wendy revs the engine and notices the dogs have become very interested in her behavior. She can’t see the goblins with their black-rimmed eyes, their pale skin, and toothless mouths. They are invisible to her, but she feels their presence. In her parents’ house in a rural area outside Austin, Texas, there were creatures they called daddies, or daddy long-legs. It is said they have venom, but their teeth are too short to bite through human skin. In shadowy places they band together as one, hundreds of them all stuck together, bouncing, but not moving. Whatever holds the dogs at bay are like those daddies, Wendy thinks. They move as one unit, given instructions by something a lot meaner than they are.
She misses Claudia’s presence, even though the girl had little to say. Now she feels alone, and wants her back. The gas gauge shows a quarter of a tank, enough to go a long way in her Ford Escort. She has become numb with the cold and doesn’t notice the continual dropping of the temperature. The blower is better after Claudia fixed it, she thinks. Thoughts of the other girl make Wendy feel sorry for herself and start crying again because she is alone but not lonely enough to get out and walk with the lemmings. That’s what she has been silently calling all the people who walk beside the dogs. Lemmings, just like in the story.
Up ahead she sees the bright orange and yellow bursts into the
red sky and knows she is almost to the park. Whatever is going on, it seems to be happening there. She looks for a side road and finds one, but it takes her to a dead end where she must turn the car around and get back on Route 1. There are too many marchers on the road; their numbers have swollen twice what they were. She guesses it’s because those at the end of the line are catching up. There is no place to go, so Wendy pulls back to the dead-end road and parks the car, thinking she will hide behind the rocks and see what happens when the lemmings stop walking. She has to find a way to save Claudia.
She hates leaving her car, but knows she isn’t safe inside it. At any time, one of the big dogs might find her and break through the windows. She doesn’t want to be a statistic of the night the sky turned red. The color has intensified, becoming a curtain covering the galaxies and Earth’s moon. She thinks the world is about to end, and wonders about prophecies—were there any words mentioned about the blood-red night?
Christmas Eve is upon the land, and it is cold and dry. There is no snow playground for children, no fire to heat the chimney. Santa will have no smoke or heat to contend with. She always liked that part of Christmas, when people made up Santa stories. Now, a red Christmas—who would have thought it?
The rough, dry ground probably has snakes and scorpions, but Wendy says, “Bring them on. I am not afraid.” She is, though, for snakes make their home in dark places. She reassures herself, it’s probably too cold for any living creature that is not hypnotized. Her short blond hair doesn’t lend much protection to her ears and head, bringing the cold up close and personal with her. The huge hoodie helps, but covers her peripheral vision if she uses it. She just thought the car was frigid. Compared to the outside, it was warm as toast, even with the half-assed blower misbehaving.