by Brian Harmon
He came to a stop between two rows of corn and crouched there silently, listening.
They were all around him, moving through the corn, searching for him.
There must be a way out of this. He remembered the lake. That second boat. And before that, the scaffolding that bought him the extra few seconds to escape the resort monster. The universe had so far appeared to be stacked in his favor.
So what was he supposed to do now?
He tried to remember his dream. He was walking down the road between the corn, frightened by the strange movement in the field and a cold certainty that something was watching him. But he didn’t recall seeing one. They remained out of sight.
One came too close. A darkling shape in the shifting stalks spooked him. He ran. Around him, things ran with him.
But he couldn’t yet remember what happened next.
Far to his left, one of the creatures emerged from the corn and stood with its back to him, searching. Stretching its body to its full height, it peered out over the corn, likely searching for the telltale movement of cornstalks.
As quietly as possible, Eric slipped between the stalks and into the next row before it could turn and see him.
His gamble seemed to have paid off. The very same thing that gave them their stealth was now hiding him from them. If he hadn’t still been utterly terrified, he might have smiled at the justice of it all.
But it was far too early to celebrate.
At that moment, his cell phone rang. Its eager buzzing sounded at least as loud as a chainsaw motor to his startled ears, and it was more than loud enough to draw the attention of the gruesome pack of creatures he was hoping to escape. He could see the one he’d just avoided turn and look right at him.
Shit.
Eric shot to his feet and ran.
A huge, groping hand snatched at him. He cried out and leaped out of the way, changing directions, only to catch sight of something tearing through the corn directly toward him.
He changed directions again, crying out as the heavy leaves battered his face.
Something uttered a gut-wrenching roar directly behind him.
The goddamn cell phone kept buzzing at him.
“This is not a good time!” he growled.
As he ran, the corn suddenly began to shrink around him, withering away, and a chill cut through the August heat.
The remains of a very old tractor appeared, covered in rust and half buried in the parched soil. He veered toward it, seized the wheel and vaulted over the metal seat, hoping to slow down his pursuers.
He risked a quick look back over his shoulder and saw three of the grotesque creatures converging on him, undeterred by the pitiful obstacle.
He turned forward again, running even harder, and barely avoided colliding with the broad trunk of a tree.
He didn’t even have time to wonder what the hell a tree was doing in the middle of a cornfield before the ground abruptly dropped from under his feet and he went sprawling down the side of a steep hill, cursing all the way to the bottom.
He landed hard in a dry creek bed, the gravel digging into his palms and elbows as he skidded to a halt, his injured shoulder flaring with pain.
But he had no time for pain. He had to keep moving.
Sitting up, he found himself bathed in deep shadows. Huge trees towered over him, surrounding him.
There was not an ear of corn in sight. He now seemed to be in a dense forest.
Looking back up the hill he’d just maneuvered with even less grace than he might have handled an advanced ski slope, he saw a half-dozen tall shadows peering down at him, several of them already making their way down the hill after him.
Scrambling to his feet, Eric took off again, following the dry streambed along the ridge as fast as his feet would navigate the rough terrain.
He didn’t recognize any of this. As with his ill-conceived venture into the Altrusk house, he was way off the map.
He tore through a thicket of brush, spooking a small flock of birds and catching a cluster of painful thorns in his right forearm.
For several minutes he ran, occasionally glancing back over his shoulder and always finding the yawning visage of one or more of the creatures close behind him.
He recalled now that he had continued to run along the road in his dream, past an area where the corn had grown stunted and small, to an old wooden bridge with planks that creaked underfoot as he raced across it.
By the time he reached the other side of the bridge, the things in the corn were gone and he never even saw what they looked like.
On-Time Dream Eric was a lucky son of a bitch.
A path crossed the streambed, offering surer footing, and Eric swerved to follow it even as the snarling and grunting behind him grew unnervingly close.
He crested a hill and raced down the other side. Around him the trees grew larger and taller. They were the biggest trees he’d ever seen in his life, at least as big as the giant California redwoods that he’d only seen in magazines and on television.
The blue sky seemed to pull away above him and the shadows deepened until the gloom began to envelop him. It seemed to be growing dark out, though it was still hours before sunset.
In his dream, the corn gave way to more pastures filled with cows. The sun shone brightly above. He’d begun to sweat. In one field, a young and playful palomino mare trotted up near the fence to investigate him.
The horror had ended as quickly as it had begun, leaving him shaken, but still unharmed.
Here in the waking world, Eric glanced behind him, but he could no longer tell the monsters from the shadows. Even their snarls had mingled together until he could no longer discern how close they were getting or from what angle they might pounce.
He rounded a curve in the path and glimpsed a light between the massive tree trunks ahead of him.
Hopeful for a miracle, he willed himself to run even faster, though he was rapidly losing strength.
The light turned out to be shining from the windows of a small church. But the sight that greeted him did not appear even remotely holy. The windows were glowing blood-red, casting a crimson light across the rocky ground, as if the entire area were bathed in gore. The building itself was badly in need of repair. The paint was almost entirely peeled away, the shingles warped and buckled. Even the steeple seemed to be askew, as if some great and unholy force had shaken the whole structure, nearly toppling it to the ground.
It was easily the last place on earth he would have chosen to stop for a quick Sunday school lesson, but the horde of flesh-crazed predators at his back made it difficult to be snobby.
He bounded up the steps onto the small, concrete landing in front of the door and yanked on the handle.
Naturally, it was tightly locked.
Glancing back, he saw the shadowy shapes stalking across the blood-tinted clearing, closing in on him.
He beat on the door. He shouted, pleaded for someone to open it. There had to be someone home. Why else would there be lights?
The creatures were right behind him.
He darted right, toward the corner of the building, intending to run around behind the church, but another creature appeared in his path, blocking his way and bringing him to a halt before he had even reached the end of the landing. They were everywhere.
He turned and pressed his back to the wall, his fists doubled, his jaw clenched, his eyes fixed on the nearest of the creatures, resigned to stand his ground as long as possible, though he was sure that wouldn’t be long. They were so big. He certainly didn’t stand a chance.
Maybe he should have answered the phone when it rang. It might have been his last chance to say goodbye to Karen.
As the first of the monsters reached out with its long, green hands, the church door slammed open. A thunderous boom assaulted Eric’s ears and imploded the top half of the nearest monster’s head.
A second and third boom likewise disfigured two more of the creatures before the first had fully collap
sed into a heap on the church steps.
Then, as he stood there with his hands pressed over his ringing ears, someone seized the sleeve of his tee shirt, hauled him bodily into the church and threw him to the floor as the door slammed shut behind him.
Sitting up, Eric turned and found himself staring into the barrel of a large-caliber rifle.
Chapter Seventeen
This was definitely not the most welcoming congregation he’d ever attended.
“Why the fuck are you here?” boomed the man staring down at him over the weapon.
“Is ‘I don’t want to be eaten by those things outside’ not an acceptable answer?” asked Eric as he gazed down the barrel. “Because I may not be able to think of a better one with that in my face.”
The man glared at him and did not lower the rifle. His eyes were dark and piercing, determined. They were not the eyes of a man who appreciated his kind of humor.
“Okay… Just back it off a little.” Eric had never had a gun pointed at his face before. He was surprised to find that he wasn’t pants-wetting terrified. Instead, it was an impressively surreal feeling. He was too distracted by the absurdity that he should find himself at the business end of a firearm to be too afraid. As a result, he managed to meet this man’s piercing gaze with a fair amount of dignity, if not exactly action-hero bravado. “Those things chased me here. That’s all. I was looking for the cathedral.”
This seemed to be the wrong thing to say, because the man pressed the barrel of the rifle against the side of his nose. “This ain’t no fucking cathedral.”
Now Eric felt a little more of that carnal fear. This guy clearly had a talent for this. “I didn’t think it was.” And this was perfectly true. He hadn’t thought to make any connection between the cathedral and this church until now. The only thought that crossed his mind when he first laid eyes on the little structure was that it didn’t look as warm and welcoming as he thought a church should look.
Sometimes first impressions were spot-on.
“That’s just where I was going when those things came out of the corn,” he continued.
“Corn creeps.”
“Corn creeps? Really? That’s what they’re called?”
“It’s what I call them.”
“It’s a good name for them,” Eric decided.
The man’s eyes narrowed. He regarded him for a moment longer, the rifle barrel still pressed to Eric’s face. Then he abruptly turned away and placed the weapon gently on the seat of a chair that was standing next to the door. “So you’re that sorry bastard.”
Eric rose warily to his feet, still half-expecting to have his head blown off his shoulders. “I’m sorry, but exactly what sorry bastard am I?”
“The sorry bastard that’s going to die screaming in the festering asshole of the almighty cathedral.”
Poetic and frightening. Nice. “Maybe you’re thinking of somebody else?” hoped Eric.
The man let out a snort of a laugh. “Sorry to break the news to you.”
“Probably not as sorry as I am.”
The man was tall and lanky, with lean, muscular arms and an impressive mane of unkempt blond hair. “Probably not. What’s your name? Actually, forget I asked. I don’t want to know. No reason to know a dead man’s name.”
“Eric.”
“Or you could just fucking tell me anyway.”
“I don’t intend to be a dead man.”
“Don’t matter what your intentions are. We all die.”
“Then I don’t intend to die today.”
“If you say so.” He turned away and slid open a small window built into the door. The feature appeared to have been added somewhat recently, and without much care for aesthetics. It was little more than a short length of two-by-four held in place by several metal brackets. Eric noticed that it was mounted at the perfect height for the man to aim the barrel of his monster-busting rifle through. While peering out into the unnatural gloom, he said, “I’m Father Billy.”
This caught Eric off guard. “You’re a priest?”
Father Billy looked back over his shoulder at him. “No.”
“Oh.”
Looking back out through the homemade peephole, the man who called himself Father Billy but was not a priest did not explain why he called himself “Father” when he was not a priest, but instead said, “You sure stirred up a shit storm out there. I’m amazed you made it all the way here. They ain’t the fastest-moving fuckers, but they’ve got damn long strides. Those long-ass legs of theirs.”
He certainly had far more colorful language than any “father” he’d ever known. Even his actual father had never strung together the kind of imaginative description that Father Billy used next. Not even when he hit his thumb with a hammer. And that was always good for encouraging creativity in vulgarity.
Deciding not to discuss the ethics of using such language inside a church, even a church in an advanced state of disrepair and possessing eerie, blood-red windows, he said, “So they’re still out there, I take it?”
“At least twenty of them, not including the three I put down.”
Twenty… “What are they doing?”
“Eating their dead.”
“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what was more disturbing, the fact that these things were cannibalizing their fallen pack-mates or that that this man could speak such a reply without a hint of disgust in his voice.
“Yeah. Nasty bastards. They’re extremely opportunistic. They won’t expend any energy to hunt if there’s something easier to eat. Even if it’s one of their own. It’s actually a good thing. Because if you can kill just one of them—or even just cripple it— the rest will forget about you and turn on it. Of course, if you’re stupid enough to go wandering around the fields without a gun, you’re pretty well fucked.”
Ignoring the insult that was quite obviously aimed at him, Eric stood up and looked around. The interior of the church was a mess. All the pews had been shoved against the walls like a barricade and a rough campsite had been assembled in the middle of the room. A pile of blankets lay surrounded by glowing lanterns, coolers, an assortment of propane tanks and jugs of water. And lots of trash.
“Do you live here?”
“I do.”
“With those things right outside?”
“They’re not always here,” Father Billy explained. “And they never come out at night. It’s always been safe to go out after sunset. Well… Mostly.”
Eric looked up at the windows. It wasn’t the light that was blood red, but the window panes. He wondered whose decision it was to do that and what it was, precisely, that they were thinking. From this side they did not glow at all. There was not enough light reaching down through the dense trees. “How can you tell when the sun’s set?”
“You can tell.”
He’d have to take Father Billy’s word on that, he supposed.
He felt an odd, crawling sensation on his arm and looked down at himself, expecting to find a bug on him. Instead, he saw several large thorns protruding from his skin. Fat drops of blood were slowly making their way down through the hair on his arm, toward his wrist. He’d forgotten about those. He picked them up running through some brush. At the time, he’d been far more concerned with escaping the things pursuing him than with a few insignificant thorns. One by one, he began to pluck them out, marveling a little at how big they were and how much blood they let out.
“I don’t know why they don’t come out at night,” Father Billy went on. “It’s strange. You’d think it’d suit them.”
“Where do they go at night?”
“Don’t know that, either.”
“Why do you stay here? Why not just leave one night?”
Father Billy shrugged. “I like it here. It’s private. Usually.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Stumbled across this church a few years ago. Seemed wrong to just leave it empty to rot. Didn’t figure God would like that very much. So I decided to keep it company. It f
elt right. Even the corn creeps couldn’t make me leave. After a while, I even took to calling myself Father. Just because I thought this church deserved a Father, even a shitty one.”
Eric supposed he could find no real fault in that logic. There was, after all, something about the thought of a church abandoned and left to rot. That was powerfully symbolic. He could see how a certain kind of person might be compelled to stay.
“They’re fascinating in a way,” Father Billy said, still staring through his homemade peephole. “Come look.”
He stepped out of the way and Eric took his place. Immediately, he saw the swarm of creatures that had fallen over their dead companions. Now that he was right next to the door, he could hear them, too. They snarled and grunted as they fought for every scrap. And even that did not entirely cover up the awful sounds of them slurping and tearing at their morbid meal.
“See the one that’s different?”
Eric scanned the dozen or more creatures that were moving around the yard and quickly found the one he was talking about. Unlike the others, it was hunched over, its long arms dangling toward the ground. It was much fatter, with a huge, drooping belly and a much broader chest. It looked considerably clumsier than the others, and much slower.
“That’s a male.”
“No kidding?”
“Only the females hunt. The males are too slow and stupid. They don’t care about much more than eating and fucking.”
Even as Eric watched the creature, he noticed that it seemed to be following one of the females around, as if waiting for a chance to pounce.
“It may take him hours, but eventually he’ll ambush one of them and have his way with her. Makes her mad as hell. You should hear the noise.”
Eric didn’t think he cared to hear the noise these “corn creeps” made when they mated. He was fairly certain that it was one of those sounds he could go his entire life without hearing and not be left feeling remotely unfulfilled. But that might be a rude thing to say aloud. Father Billy seemed genuinely proud of his knowledge of corn creep mating practices.