Mojo and the Pickle Jar

by Douglas Bell

  “They’re eating them!” someone yelled. “They’re eating the mosquitoes!”

  Mojo kept his head down and prayed. He had never imagined he would be so glad to be dive-bombed by bats.

  “Stay low! Wait it out!” Narn shouted.

  * * *

  They didn’t have to wait very long. In less time than Mojo would have believed possible, the mosquitoes had been thinned down to a few buzzing stragglers. Mojo remembered watching a Discovery Channel program once about how many thousands of mosquitoes a bat could eat in an hour. He hadn’t believed it at the time. He did now.

  Mojo pulled himself up onto his hands and knees. Then his feet. Other people were doing the same, standing up and dusting themselves off. He rubbed his arms. They were tingling from all the mosquito bites, but other than that, he felt fine. He took a deep breath. The night air was sweet. It was good to have not been sucked dry.

  “It was pyramid power that saved us,” Soaring Eagle said solemnly as he rose to his feet beside Mojo. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a tiny glass pyramid. He pushed the pyramid under Mojo’s nose. The glass sparkled in the firelight.

  “See that? See that light? That’s the internal spiritual energy source. I’ve got a half dozen of these babies hung in trees all around the meadow. They’re what energized those bats.” He readjusted his wire-rim glasses. “Nothing can harm us in this valley. No way. Not with pyramid energy to protect us.”

  “Gather, darkness!” Moloch roared angrily from up on the mountainside. “GATHER … DARKNESS!!”

  * * *

  “That’s it? That’s darkness?” Mojo wondered, looking up.

  Narn nodded. “I guess it must be.”

  A huge black cloud had filled the sky above the valley. The cloud was growing. It had started out no bigger than a dot less than a half hour before. Now it covered the entire sky except for a few grey areas around the edges. The cloud was rotating as it grew. It spun around and around. White threads of lightning flickered in its center.

  “I think maybe it’s coming down,” Soaring Eagle said. “Lowering. It’s hard to tell in this light, but I’d swear it was higher a few minutes ago.”

  “What do you think it is? A tornado or something? Think it’s going to suck us up?” Juanita asked.

  “Gather, darkness! Gather!” the demon roared again from his place on the mountainside. It was the same litany he had been repeating over and over again for the last thirty minutes. Several bolts of lightning crackled in reply.

  “Maybe he’s trying to make it rain on us,” Nefertiti suggested.

  “Now, that’s a cheerful thought.” Mojo lowered his head. Staring up at the cloud was making his neck stiff. He glanced over at the fire. Jumped in alarm.

  “Hey! The fire’s going out!”

  “What?!”

  Mojo ran to the bonfire. It was smoldering. Thick black smoke hung over the charred wood. There were still flames, but they were low and flickering. “It’s dying! The fire’s dying! Come on! Help me fan it!”

  Mojo grabbed a branch from the pile of deadwood and began swinging it over the fire, creating a draft. The flames flickered feebly in response. A few white sparks shot up. Then died away.

  “Come on!”

  The others came to help, but the fire continued to flicker and die in spite of their efforts. Mojo fanned until his arms ached, but it was no use. The white flames were slowly turning to blue, the blue flames slowly turning to red. The heat was dying along with the flames. The smell of smoke hung heavy in the night air.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Narn panted as he swung a branch over the fire. “It acts like it’s being smothered. Like somebody’s holding a blanket over it or something.”

  Mojo stopped fanning. “That’s it!” he exclaimed, suddenly seeing it. “It is being smothered! By the darkness! By the cloud!”

  Mojo looked up. The dark cloud covered the entire sky now. And it was definitely lowering. He could see it coming. It was falling down on them like some huge black curtain.

  “We’ve gotta stop that cloud! That’s what’s putting the fire out! We’ve gotta stop it from coming any lower!”

  “Stop it? How the hell can we stop a cloud?!”

  A deep rumbling laugh rolled over the meadow. Mojo spun around. The firelight no longer reached to the trees. Nowhere near them. The light stretched only a few scant yards beyond where they were standing. Beyond those few yards there was nothing but black, unfathomable darkness. The laughter had come from that darkness.

  “Damn! It’s in the meadow!” Narn dropped his branch.

  The laughter rolled again, coming closer.

  Mojo stepped back until he was almost in the fire. The others pulled back with him. Even this close the light was dim and hazy. The ring of firelight that separated them from the darkness was shrinking. The light was receding as the fire died, coming back like a rug being rolled up.

  “Did you really believe you could defeat me? Did you really believe that a pitiful little trick like those bats could defeat a Baron of Hell?”

  The voice was so close that Mojo had to steel himself not to step backwards into what was left of the flames. He could hear the demon slithering towards them, crackling through the dry meadow grass. He could smell it. After a few moments the demon’s yellow eyes materialized in the edge of the creeping darkness.

  “Soon,” the demon promised softly. “Soon the light will be gone.”

  “Do something!” Juanita yanked on Mojo’s arm.

  “Do what? What do you want me to do? Attack it? I don’t even have a weapon.”

  “No. Something else. Stop it.”

  “That’s all, huh?”

  “You can do it! Think of something!”

  Mojo had no idea how he could stop a giant centipede demon, but he was certainly willing to try. After a moment of reflection, Mojo stepped forward and spread his arms and turned his face to the black sky. “Scatter, darkness!” Mojo commanded the cloud, which was now so close above them that it was only discernible as a cloud when lightning ran across its face. “Go away, darkness!!”

  He waited. Nothing happened.

  “It’s not working! Try something else!” Juanita demanded urgently.

  “Gather, light!” Mojo tried. And then, in a louder, more desperate voice: “Gather, fire! Gather, light and fire!”

  A brief flicker of lightning played over the cloud. It was, if anything, closer than before.

  The demon chuckled. A deep, ominous sound.

  The firelight flickered, settled, flickered again, grew dimmer.

  “Try the bats! Call the bats back!”

  “Gather, bats!” Mojo shouted at the top of his lungs. “Come on, bats!!”

  After a moment a single bat swooped past Mojo, followed by a low grunt in Willis’ direction. But that was all. They waited, but no more bats appeared.

  The fire sputtered softly.

  “One? That’s it? That’s all? Just one crummy little, sorry little bat?” Juanita wondered.

  Narn shouldered his way past Mojo. “Stand back. I’ve got a special kind of magic for our friend there.” Narn had a determined look on his face. He had the shotgun in his hands.

  Narn stopped beside Mojo. Planted his feet and raised the shotgun towards the half-seen demon. “I’ve been waiting for this,” Narn said softly. “Waiting for this chance ever since I first heard the damned thing back in West Texas.”

  Narn aimed and pulled both triggers. The triggers clicked. Narn paused. Pulled the triggers again. The triggers clicked once more.

  Narn cursed softly under his breath. He broke open the gun, tossed out the two shells, and inserted two more. He snapped the barrels shut. Lifted the shotgun. Aimed. Fired. Again the hammers clicked harmlessly against the shells.

  Narn lowered the shotgun. “Shit,” he said.

  The demon snickered.

  “Soon,” Moloch creaked softly. “Very soon now.” He took another rustling, crackling step in towards
the fire.

  Mojo glanced over his shoulder. There were only a few pitifully small flames left. The thing was right. It wouldn’t be long now.

  “Out of my way!” A dark figure strode forward, pushing Mojo and Narn aside. The figure leaned out and pointed a pistol-like finger at the demon. “I hear you, sucker! I see you! I see you sneakin’ around out there! I see your lyin’ yellow eyes, you old devil! I hear your lyin’ tongue!”

  It was Willis.

  Mojo stared at Willis, amazed. Mojo could hardly recognize him. Willis’ shoulders were no longer slumped; his neck was no longer bowed; his eyes were no longer clouded. Willis stood straight and tall as he faced the demon. Pale blue firelight glistened on Willis’ dark face and sparkled in his dark eyes. He looked like a different man. He sounded like a different man. The old confused, sleepy-eyed Willis was gone. This new Willis had an air of iron resolution about him. He had a voice like a brass church bell.

  “Yeah, I see you, you lyin’ devil!”

  “I see you too, little man. And soon I will see you dead.”

  “Dead, huh?” Willis snorted contemptuously. “You want to wrestle with me, devil? Is that it? You want to try me, you old devil? Well … come on, then! Come on and wrestle with Willis, then! I ain’t afraid! No, sir! Not one bit afraid! You see, I already wrestled with worse than you! I already wrestled with sin! I already wrestled with my own soul! I already wrestled with sin so strong and heavy and hot-breathed that it makes a devil like you look puny in comparison! I already wrestled with a soul blacker and eviler and heavier than you could find in a whole pack of devils! So come on, devil! Come on and wrestle with me ’cause I got God on my side now, yeah! I got God as my good right arm and can’t no devil whip me! No, sir! Can’t no devil scare me since I stood toe-to-toe with sin! No, sir! Can’t no lantern-eyed, slack-jawed, shit-brained excuse of a devil whip me now that I got the Great God Almighty on my side!”

  “You tell him, Willis!” Big Judy cried excitedly. “Tell that devil how it is!”

  “You have a sharp tongue, little man,” Moloch rumbled from the edge of the darkness. “But soon I will make you sorry that you were not born dumb. Soon I will drag you down to Hell!”

  “Hah!” Willis boomed. “Don’t try to lay no ‘what I’m gonna do to you’ shit on me, devil! No, I’ll tell you; I’ll tell you what you’ll do to me, old devil! I’ll tell you what you’ll do! Shit! You won’t do shit to Willis! You won’t do shit to me because you’re nothin’ but a dried-up, fucked-up, toothless old limp-dick of a devil!”

  The demon growled angrily. It was a grating sound worse than a hundred pieces of chalk being scraped across a blackboard all at the same time. The demon took another step in towards the fire. He was so close that Mojo could smell his kerosene breath.

  “Now, there’s some who say a devil can’t be beat,” Willis said, turning calmly towards the others and ignoring the demon, who was now less than ten feet away. “There’s some who say a devil just can’t be beat. There’s some who say that a devil is just too strong, that a devil is just too old, that a devil is just too wise, that he’s just too much of a devil for a mortal man to beat. But I say they’re wrong! I say they’re dead wrong! I say fuck them! I say a devil can be beat! I say we can beat this devil! I say we can send this old devil packin’! I say we can send this old limp-dick devil packin’ right back down into that cold dark pit he crawled up out of! Yessir! All we need is faith! Yessir! All we need to kick this old devil’s ass is faith!”

  “Amen, brother! Amen!” Big Judy shouted.

  The fire behind Willis stirred: a sudden red sparkle, a quick white flash.

  The demon growled ominously in the darkness.

  “No, sir! No, sir! Can’t no devil pull me down, no, sir! Not while I got faith! Can’t no old cold devil jerk me around, no, sir! Can’t no old, cold, no-souled, lyin’ motherfucker of a devil pull me down and jerk me around while I got my faith!”

  “That’s right, that’s right!” Big Judy cried. “Oh, don’t let that old devil turn you around, Willis!” she pleaded.

  Mojo saw a flash of light and glanced back. Flames were popping up all over the bonfire. Bright white flames. Mojo turned back. Willis was advancing on the demon, the light from the flames casting a towering shadow in front of him. Willis shook his fist at the demon, who was slowly retreating before the light.

  “No, sir! No, sir! Can’t no old devil turn me around, no, sir! I got the power right here, yessir! I got the power in the blood right here, yessir! I got the power of faith in the blood right here, right now, yessir! I got the power and can’t no old devil face that power! Can’t no old devil turn me around!”

  Mojo felt a sudden flash of heat on his back. Light leaped out from the fire behind him and lashed across the blackness. The light struck the demon. Mojo could see the demon clearly. The demon reared up on its long legs in the light. It opened its sideways mouth and gnashed its white fangs. The demon screamed like a banshee. It screamed and twisted for a moment in the sudden bright light, then turned so fast that it was no more than a blur and raced off into the darkness.

  “Yessir, yessir! You’d better run, yessir! You’d better get your evil devil ass out of here right now, yessir! I got the power of faith right here, right now, yessir! I got the power of faith that no half-brained, half-assed, full-ugly devil like yourself can ever stand up against right here, right now, yessir!”

  The bonfire roared behind Mojo. Its flames leaped to the heavens. Its light surged across the meadow and broke over the forest. Its heat seared across Mojo’s back and curled the hair on the back of his neck. Mojo stumbled away from the burning heat of the bonfire and out into the grassy meadow. When he was far enough away from the fire that it no longer felt like an open oven at his back, he stopped and looked in the direction Moloch had gone.

  Mojo spied something big and fast running up through the pines on the mountainside. He spied a huge black shadow dodging up through the forest, whipping around the tree trunks, running pell-mell, racing just ahead of a wave of rapidly spreading firelight that seemed to be chasing after it.

  “Hallelujah!” Big Judy shouted from somewhere near Mojo. “Look at that! Look at that old devil run! Glory, hallelujah!”

  “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Mojo shouted with her, caught up in it.

  The huge black shadow gained the top of the mountain and flew over it and disappeared just before the light flared and lit the entire mountainside like a ring of spotlights. Mojo watched for a few moments longer, but the demon didn’t reappear.

  Mojo turned around. The bonfire was so white and bright that he could hardly bear to look at it. Whatever was burning in it certainly wasn’t wood. The bonfire was casting so much light that Mojo figured they could have played night baseball in the valley and still had enough light left over to illuminate a half dozen shopping-center parking lots.

  “Look!” Narn was pointing skywards. “The cloud is breaking up!”

  Mojo looked up. It was true. The black cloud was on fire. White-hot flames from the bonfire were running across its face. Smoke billowed from around the white flames. As the wind blew the smoke away, Mojo could see stars shining through the holes.

  * * *

  A few minutes later and the cloud was gone.

  A few hours later and the bonfire was still burning without even adding any wood to it.

  Many hours later and the sun came boiling up out of the east. Sunlight struck the bonfire. The bonfire gave one last blast of white light before smoking down to a cold black smudge on the valley floor.

  16

  “Get up.” Narn gave Mojo a not-so-gentle kick. “The Queen of the Nile has breakfast for us.”

  “Wha—?” Mojo rolled over and opened his eyes and blinked at the bright sunlight. He moaned softly. His back ached. He rubbed it. He couldn’t imagine how these people could stand to sleep on the ground every night. If going back to nature meant sleeping without mattresses, Mojo wanted no part of it.

  �
�Come on. We’ve got to get out of these mountains and do something about that heart before it’s too late.”

  Narn grabbed Mojo’s arm and hoisted him up.

  Juanita was waiting for them at the patched tent.

  * * *

  The breakfast Nefertiti served was nutritious. The breakfast was nourishing. It was healthy. It was some of the worst stuff Mojo had ever tasted.

  “Do you like it?” Nefertiti asked Mojo.

  “Oh, yeah.” Mojo fished around with his spoon and plucked a few sunflower seeds out of the mess in his bowl. Sunflower seeds were one of the few ingredients he could recognize. “Really different.”

  “I serve only healthy foods,” she said with pride. “Natural foods. None of that poison like you get back in the fascist state.”

  Mojo slipped the seeds into his mouth and chewed enthusiastically like he had taken a bigger bite than he actually had.

  “Guaranteed to keep you regular too. That’s the secret to health, you know. Regularity.”

  This sounded ominous to Mojo. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be regular in a place that didn’t have commodes.

  Mojo swallowed and smiled at her. “Filling too,” he said. “Very, very filling.”

  “Come on.” Narn set his bowl down and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “We need to get on the road.”

  “I’m ready,” Juanita said.

  “Me too,” Mojo said gratefully.

  * * *

  After they had finished telling everyone goodbye—including Willis, who was lucid enough to nod if not speak—Narn took Rocky aside.

  “You should go to school,” Narn said. “I know you don’t want to leave your folks, but it’s not right for a boy your age to live up here like some kind of damn animal. I could talk to your father. I could arrange for you to attend this boarding school in El Paso. It’s run by some Sisters who owe me a favor.”

  “Nuns?!” Rocky looked appalled. “You want to turn me over to nuns?”

  “You want to be an ignoramus?” Narn growled. “You want to spend your life washing cars?”

  “Look.” Rocky lowered his voice. “You don’t understand. I can’t leave. These dorks would starve to death in a week without me. You think they live off the fat of the land up here? The bounty of the earth? No way! They live off canned tuna the same as everybody else. Even that swill this morning came from a health food store in Santa Fe, and you wouldn’t believe what it cost me! No, without me, they’d be chewing grass in a week. I can’t leave them.”