Billy Purgatory: I am the Devil Bird

by Jesse James Freeman

  “There are no more fortunes.” The new girl raised the umbrella to lash. “That old lady was my grandmother and she's known death for a week and a day.”

  “She was just here!”

  “Get out!”

  Billy took five steps in one leap then and met the rainstorm with full force and speed. Nothing out here in the deluge of cold could be any worse than getting your fortune read by a dead Old Lady.

  III

  When Billy got home, it was well into the night, but the rain had stopped. The humidity of the day had been cast out by the storm and a cold wind blew down his street and chilled his rain-soaked body.

  The house was dark, and Billy started to panic – where was Pop? Billy didn't have time to think about any of this. There was no time to process when he saw the message left for him.

  The words, which he hoped were written in red spray-paint, across the door to his garage chilled him more than the wind:

  We caught your pretty. Come to the dark edge of the park if you want her to live.

  Chapter 4

  The Horror of the Time Zombie

  Billy Purgatory stood on what at one time had been the pitcher's mound of the overgrown baseball diamond by the park. The outfield had long ago given up and allowed itself to begin merging with the woods, and the infield was a bushy unkempt mop of weed and tiny pines. The next time Billy would find himself walking through this place, he would be much older and it would be a maze of overgrowth with no clue to the fun once had here. Happy memories fade with too much time and rarely imprint themselves on history with enough force to leave a scar.

  He supposed, that they had been what rustled the grass which he at first considered to be wind. One, maybe two of them, that wasn't strange. It was nothing to find a wino passed out in the field like a broken shortstop, stumbling up eventually—a curious puppet appearing from nowhere. Sometimes Billy would poke them with sticks to wake them up, just to see what they would try to sell him.

  One time this guy had tried to sell Billy a mule. While there had been no mule anywhere nearby, the wino promised that he had left it tied up back at the Driveline Motel in front of Room 5.

  That night was not one of those nights. This wasn't another thrilling episode of hobos with drinking problems; it was something altogether different. Billy found himself uneasy from the very moment they rose from the weeds. Like hungry scarecrows, arms outstretched and staring at the boy with the skateboard.

  The sort of ugly men Anastasia had told him were vampires were popping and creeping all around Billy. Billy had considered that Anastasia might have been exaggerating because vampires weren't supposed to be real and the two vampire dudes who he had saved her from hadn't acted all that tough, even though there was something pretty scary about them.

  There were far more of them than the two he had encountered that other night, and they'd brought with them women, children and all.

  The women with them all had long dark hair, some curly, but most straight and tangled. Their faces were strikingly white, their expressions like mistakes someone had tried to paint out with typewriter correction fluid. Someone had hit the wrong keys and made the wrong words trying to describe beauty, and all the good adjectives just had to be wiped from the page.

  The men had cobalt eyes, dark but not black. Their wives, were Egyptian Cleopatra ladies he'd seen at the zoo or the museum or one of those places the teacher dragged the unwilling off to so they could stare at stuff that didn't exist in the world anymore. Completely horrifying in every way, from the unnatural act of their movements to the all-too-natural beauty trapped on their faces like a stain.

  The grass kept moving and their children began showing their faces, sticking closer to the trees. Little versions of the grown ones, even scarier for some reason: they were closer to Billy's size and looked to be ten-year-olds, which was how old Billy was then. They weren't regular kids like the ones at school.

  Billy's generation wasn't necessarily one that could be considered “highly motivated.” The kids on the baseball field wanted something and they wanted it scary bad.

  One of the forward positions was occupied by a man who was bald on top and had straight, friar hair running around the bottom of what had been his hairline. He wore a collar like a priest and Billy then gave him the nickname that would forever stick to him – Uncle Priest. (It has never been said that Billy was particularly inventive when it came to nicknames, but they always were unshakeable once branded).

  Billy stood his ground and considered whether he should not have. He should have started running ten minutes or so ago. He didn't think about it much, as one of the men was suddenly crouching before him, bald and with a crooked nose and crookeder smile. His teeth were sharp and they clacked to a stop before his rasp spoke words that Billy could understand.

  “Don't worry. We're not going to hurt you.” It winked at Billy as if to reassure him. Billy enjoying being winked at would come much later in life and involve girls covered in glitter.

  “That your story, mister?” Billy had expected a fight and all that (and still did).

  “I said, won't hurt you…but our Master is going to.” It laughed, and it sounded like Mrs. Scopas' Cadillac trying to wheeze to a start.

  The boy crossed his arms. This made the thing smile wider. “What's your name, scaredy-britches?”

  Billy spit at the ground (he'd been aiming at the guy's forehead). It looked cool that the spit hit the dirt at its feet, so Billy let it go.

  “I'm Billy Purgatory, and buster, you're about to find out what you get when you piss in a grizzly's punchbowl.”

  Billy swung his arms with all his might and sent his skateboard flying with them. It flew great until the deck impacted with the dirty pervert dude's jaw. There was a loud crack and the dislocation of the bald man's rattletrap getting knocked was heard all over the baseball field.

  Billy had hit his first home run. The force of the blow sent the thing pretending to be a man tumbling over into a heap. The tip of the board pounded against the ground, and Billy raised it up over his shoulder just like Pop had taught him how to hold a baseball bat. Words so tall you couldn't reach them with a step-ladder flew out of Billy's mouth. “Okay, who wants the dirt next to him?”

  Defiantly, courageous for lack of good sense, Billy continued to address the assembled creatures of the night. “Someone better tell me what you want with the girl.”

  Vampires snickered about this big time, and vampire snickering isn't all fun and games: it's more of a scraping noise like fingernails on a coffin. They showed no signs of backing down as they laughed and continued their journey towards the boy.

  “I'm warning all of ya, my Pop was in the war and he taught me serious ass-knocking skills.” Billy pointed down to the one he had put in the dirt, but it was gone, having slinked away, Billy figured to lick its wounds. “I'm a living weapon.”

  Billy raised his board again to dust the first one that came within range. “Okay, I'm done warning all of you. It's about to be time to crack some walnuts.”

  It was then that Billy heard her voice. “Billy…”

  Weapon still in the air, Billy shifted his gaze back to Uncle Priest, and there she was. The dark haired girl he'd been searching for was standing before him, the vampire's claws holding her at the shoulders.

  “Let her go!” Billy started to move to her, but then he heard an altogether new voice, one that boomed across the field and made the night shake. “Child! I know of you. Calm yourself and lower your weapon.”

  He was taller than the rest of them, of course, the big vampire on campus. He was seriously rocking the whole vampire get-up too: long-flowing crushed velvet cape with a hood, black on the outside and lined in red satin. Beneath all this was the black suit and white frilly shirt, a sword worn on his left hip, and a holster on his right that held a pistol straight out of a pirate movie. As he strode from the back of the vampire's ranks, he led his motions with an extended left arm, which was neither made of vampire pa
rts or man parts. It was mechanical and much more menacing than Pop's wooden leg in appearance. The robotic fingers opened up before Billy's eyes as he continued to speak. “I am the Master of the last family of vampire. Your mind will follow the path drawn from my royal blood.”

  Billy didn't have any idea what to say back to this guy. Could he be real? This was a thing that shouldn't exist; it was a mish-mash of comic book clichés and bad dreams fueled from falling asleep watching late night horror movies and eating way too many nachos.

  It was too much. He had to be dreaming.

  The pretty girl with green eyes was walking over to him then, the only good part of the dream, if that's what it was. She was so pretty and the Priest looked on as she took quiet little steps in front of the vampire army. Billy kept his board raised.

  “Take him,” called the self-proclaimed Master of the Vampires. “I, your Lord Byron Helkross command you.” The mechanical fist closed maniacally and raised above Helkross's head.

  “Helkross?” Billy was snapping out of it, “That's what that stupid chicken said in my dream.” Billy tried to remember the dream he'd had and exactly what the Devil Bird had said, “Beware Helkross,”Billy remembered the words of the Devil Bird.

  She stood before Billy, and it was impossible to focus on anything except her eyes. Vampires began to surround them on the pitcher's mound. Soon, there'd be no saving her this time.

  “Hey girlie, we gotta bust out of here.” Billy had to come up with a plan to save her and quick.

  The girl of his dreams didn't answer. The Priest and Helkross looked on, devilish smiles on their faces as the vampire horde tightened the noose around Billy and the girl.

  “Run, Billy Purgatory.” She whispered the words to him.

  “I gotta save you again. I can't just run.”

  Her lips made quiet sounds again, moving slowly and delicately. “Run.”

  Billy could feel the vampires at his back, see them out of the corners of his eyes at his sides: he was surrounded. There was only one direction to go if he meant to escape: right through her.

  She said the word for the third time but refused to move out of Billy's way, and he somehow knew that she wasn't going to let him rescue her.

  “Run.”

  Billy could feel vampire breath on his neck when he unleashed the skateboard deck, swinging hard and cracking the girl good right in the face, pushing her down with the force of the blow and opening that hole he needed and leaping over her while she still fell to his left. He dodged swiping, sharpened vampire nails and landed just out of reach of Lord Byron Helkross's mechanical hand of skateboarder's death.

  “What did I do?” Billy's thoughts were panicked and unclear. “I just hit the prettiest girl I've ever seen in the face and left her to die?”

  Billy ducked and looked back for her. He was going back for her no matter what she had told him to do, but he didn't see her in the grass. Like that first mouthy vampire he'd smacked, she was gone.

  Helkross attempted another swipe, and Billy backed up as the vampire army now began to corral him once again. Uncle Priest started to step towards Billy, and the boy did a sharp spin, sweeping his outstretched arm, and vampires ducked. When Billy stopped to face Helkross and the Priest again, he knew he was all out of escape routes.

  Billy thought about everything Pop had ever told him. None of it was giving him any clue what he should do.

  The hairs on the back of Billy's neck stood straight, and he felt it in the pit of his stomach before he heard it scream. It was the most horrible scream he had ever heard in his life, and its point of origin was right behind him.

  Billy wasn't the only one on the baseball field that froze then. All the vampires did too. Their expressions went from “we're about to win the championship” to “oh shit, the team bus is on fire careening off a bridge.” Then the vampires began to scramble, run over one another and fall back into darkness.

  Vampires began to scream too.

  “It's here!” “The demon!” “Don't let it take you!”

  Billy watched as the field emptied. Only Helkross stood his ground. The boy lowered his board and looked up to the Lord of the Vampires and grinned.

  Then, Billy remembered that what they were all running from was standing right behind him. Billy didn't so much turn as he jumped, spinning in the air and coming down to face the creature while doing his best faux-karate stance.

  When Billy Purgatory looked up, he almost joined the screaming.

  Vampires had been a lot easier to wrap his young mind around: aside from dressing weird and having a few out of place and slightly ugly features, they looked like people. The thing Billy faced now didn't look so much like a person. It stood on two legs like a man, had two arms and a head, but that's pretty much where the similarities stopped. It was gaunt and dripped green, rotted flesh barely wrapped onto aged bone. Open sores and puss and jagged yellow teeth. It had exposed slices in the flesh where black muscles and rancid blood drained over what was left of a torn button down shirt and slacks. It was a monstrosity that looked like it should not have been able to stand, or move – like it should have been unraveling at the seams and the only thing that held it together was pure evil and unyielding will to power.

  It wasn't entirely flesh though, and this made it even worse in Billy's eyes. Around its chest was wrapped a type of vest. Lights frosted over in dried goo strained to blink, and there were dials and knobs and a large stained gleaming circle that shot shafts of a green light that bathed Billy's face as if to say that it could see the boy and there was no escape.

  Atop the things head, fused with the flesh was a skullcap holding a random collection of probes that seemed to give the heavens the finger. Pulses of electricity danced from one dark probe to the next.

  It opened its mouth again, long and slow, like a yawn that became another undead scream of anguish.

  “Mister,” Billy said backing away. “You look like the last ten days of dammit to Hell.”

  The creature raised arms and began to follow the boy. Then Billy cringed when Helkross's voice echoed once more.

  “Thing!” The voice of the vampire who Billy had temporarily forgotten about was commanding. “You will not stop my work! Not this night!”

  Billy checked over his shoulder. Yep – Helkross was coming his way too. Billy was about to be stuck in the middle of an evil sandwich. Pop would have called it another kind of sandwich, but Billy was sticking with evil.

  Helkross sped his motion, his mechanical arm raised while also drawing the golden sword with the vampire arm. Meanwhile, the creature the vampires called a demon had rotten teeth glaring and bone fingers up and at the ready. Billy was in trouble, big trouble.

  The boy's mouth started to move when the words of the Devil Bird again rang between his ears and filled his memory, “It moves through time and space. Be careful how you set the dials. You'll know it by its undead screams. It's unholy stench.”

  The thing did stink. Helkross was no rose garden either, but this had to be what the chicken had been going on about. Billy pulled his skateboard against himself and looked up: Helkross and the demon would lock up any second, and Billy was face level with the blood and gut encrusted glowing green dial on the demon's chest.

  Billy pushed out with his board, slamming the deck into the glowing green. This is when Billy Purgatory and the Time Zombie vanished from the baseball field.

  Everything was white hot and then went black.

  II

  Billy's eyes flew open and he sprung from his bed. He held his board over his shoulder and was ready to swing. He found his room to be quiet, except for the noise of his beating heart. Billy slowly began to calm and eventually lowered his weapon.

  He didn't remember running from the vampires or the monster they had been so afraid of on the baseball field. Billy didn't remember coming home, locking all his doors, or feeling safe and lucky to be alive.

  Surely those things had happened, though.

  Nearly an hou
r later, Billy had searched his entire house for his father. “Pop?” He'd called the name a thousand times that morning. Billy couldn't find him anywhere. He climbed up and looked out the back window in the kitchen and almost fell into the sink and stacks of dirty ashtrays. Pop had been smoking again.

  That normally meant something was wrong.

  Billy considered the last time he could remember seeing his Pop. They'd sat out back in the cool night air and Billy had stared at the moon. They'd barbecued and Billy drank root beer – it had been the night Billy had the dream about the mountain.

  Time didn't seem to make any sense.

  It seemed like a week had passed since then. Beyond vampires and girls and nightmares, Billy couldn't remember anything.

  Billy still didn't like it that the Devil Bird had talked about his mother in the dreams. He'd never be cool with that.

  Everything had gotten weird since he met that girl, Anastasia. He had been spending all his time trying to save her from vampires, but the more he tried to save her the less she seemed to want to be saved. “The next time we talk that kooky broad better have her story ready and give it to me straight.” Billy wasn't in the rescuing business just to have something to do. Besides, he suddenly had a bigger problem.

  Billy knew what he had to do first – he had to find Pop.

  Billy ran into Artie Wusenkrantz at the bus stop. Billy never took the bus, but he had to skate by it every day while he deliberated whether or not to go to school. More often than not, whatever it was that deliberation meant seemed to lead him to the same answer…

  No!

  “Dude!” Artie was as excited as a geeky fat kid could get and not be completely out of breath. “We thought you moved?” Artie continued sweating. “There's been nobody at your house. People said they saw your Pop ride out on his motorcycle.”

  Billy kicked his board up to catch it in his hand. “Pop doesn't ride that thing. He said it doesn't even run.”

  “I heard the engine howling two nights ago.” Artie screamed this for emphasis. “Your dad ran away, Billy!”