The Summoning

by Bentley Little

The chief 3id he already talked to him. We should be able to swing it."

  The ambulance came, sirens blaring, while Buford, Rossiter, Simmons, and Rand were positioning the mouths of the hoses at either side of the church, facing east. Rich stood next to Sue and her grandmother, holding on to the willow spears. Woods made sure that the baht g' leaning against the side of the patrol car did not fall.

  Robert authorized removal of the body, helped the arty bulance men fill out a preliminary report, and by the time he finally turned back around, the hoses were secured and in place.

  "We're ready," Buford said.

  Robert nodded. "All right, then. Do iL"

  Buford got into the truck, started the pump. Simmons and Rand, each manning a hose, opened the nozzles. Twin jets of pressurized water, with enough power for visible back-kicks that nearly knocked the firemen off their feet, exploded forth from the oversize hoses on each side of the church. Sand and dirt were blown instantly out of the ground as the concentrated water carved its own niche in the earth, uprooting weeds and small cacti that were immediately carried away in the newly formed streams.

  Robert was impressed. He looked for Sue's grandmother, saw an expression of approval on her lined face, and felt good. He walked over to the fire truck, looked up at Buford. "How long can these be kept up?" "Don't know," he admitted.

  "We'd better get in now, then. We've wasted enough ii

  Buford jumped down from the cab, and the two of them hurried with Rossiter to where the rest of the seven stood waiting. "Ready?" Robert said.

  They nodded.

  Robert called Steve and Ben over. "You stay out here," he ordered the two policemen. "We're going in. I don't know what's going to happen, but if things get hairy, call for backup. And make sure those state police get their lazy asses over here. We'll do what we have to and be out as soon as we can! "Be careful," Steve said.

  "That's the plan."

  Rich passed out flashlights and the spears, and he and Wood carded the baht gwa between them across the side walk. The seven of them walked through the remnants of Wheeler's army, up the church steps, until they reached the door. Robert had expected the door to be locked, bolted from the inside, maybe with a huge bar of steel like those old cathedrals in the movies. But the black door opened easily when he turned the knob and pushed. The interior of the church was dark and smelled of paint and sawdust.." and blood.

  Sue's grandmother said something.

  "Is everyone wearing jade?" Sue asked.

  They all nodded.

  She and her grandmother pushed past Robert, walked into the church.

  "Let's find the cup hugimgsi. "'

  What had happened to her D/Lo Ling Gum

  Sue walked into the black church, clutching her flash light and spear.

  D/Lo Ling Gum was supposed to help her, to guide her, but the power lay silent, dormant within her. She received no images or intuitive flashes as she stepped across the church threshold.

  She had thought Di Lo Ling Gum would be something she could control, something that obeyed her will, but instead it seemed to exist independently of her and to work only when it wanted to.

  She found herself wondering what would happen if her grandmother was killed, either by the cup hu imgzi or by Pastor Wheeler, who was still around somewhere. She would be expected to take over, lead them, tell them what to do. Yet she had nothing but the vaguest idea of what was supposed to occur.

  Why had her grandmother not told her more?

  There was a hard knot of fear in the pit of her stomach that made her want to vomit and void her bladder at the same time. She thought she was doing a good job of main mining a calm outward appearance, but the truth was that she had to condnce herself to take each tiny step forward, that she was so terrified she could barely think straight

  She glanced over at her grandmother, who smiled reassuringly at her.

  They walked out of the entryway into the chapel.

  The fear she'd experienced only seconds before was nothing compared to the powerful new emotion Sue felt now, this gradation of terror that had no name. Every fiber of her being was telling her to get out of here, to turn tail and run, and it took every ounce of courage she had to override that instinct.

  The inside of the church looked like a taxidermist' paradise. The walls were festooned with the bodies of go cats and javelin as sucked dry and suspended from hooks. Dead hawks hung on wires from the high vaulted ceiling. There was no floor, only hard dirt, and there were three huge openings in the earth, each the size of a small room

  Next to each opening were piles, of debris No, not debris. Plants and animals.

  Sacrifices to the cup hugirngsi.

  "esus "

  Rich whispered behind her.

  She turned her attention toward the front of that church. At the foot of the altar, a crowd of dead animals was arranged around Jesus' feet.

  The figure of Jesus itsei impaled on a grossly oversize cross She sucked in her breath, took a step forward, shining her flashlight.

  Jesus was the dead and mounted body of Jim Hollis. She stared at the figure. The ranch owner's dried and shriveled form was nailed to the cross with what looked like old railroad spikes, and the spikes had shattered and flattened the withered hands and feet through which they'd been pounded. Hollis's eyes were missing--black holes rimmed with wrinkled skin marking where they had been--and all of the teeth had been knocked out of his mouth. "

  The martyred figure seemed blasphemous to Sue, and as she turned to look at her companions, she saw the expressions of fear, shock, and revulsion on their faces.

  "It is a warning," her grandmother said. "The cup hu

  /rngs/is trying to scare us away."

  "It's succeeding," Sue said in Cantoncs i She translated her grandmother's words into English.

  "Where's the vampire?" Rossiter asked, and the sound of his flat, totally unemotional voice made everything sccma little less frightening. It was calming. Sue was ddenly glad the FBI agent was with them.

  She translated her grandmother's words as the old woman spoke them: "It is underneath us. The cup g/rngs/must spend most of its daylight hours in the earth."

  "So we have to go down there?" Robert pointed toward the openings. Sue nodded.

  "He can't go over flowing water," Woods said. "Can he go under it?"

  Sue had not thought of that. She looked again toward her grandmother, translated the question. Her grandmother frowned, and Sue realized that she had not thought of this possibility either. "We will find out," Sue repeated the words in English. The answer did not seem to boost anyone's confide no "How do we get down there?" Rich asked.

  Robert pointed at two hubs of metal peeking over that a of the middle hole. "Ladder. If I'm not mistaking This is the one that our friend the Pastor used right there. "I'll go first," Rossiter volunteered.

  Robert nodded. "I'll go last."

  It took nearly ten minutes for all of them to dim down. Sue did not like heights, and more than once she thought she would slip, her hands were so sweaty. finally they made it safely to the bottom. Her grandmother had little more difficulty. The old woman's legs were tired, her grip weak, and even with Rich climbing directly below her, helping her down, she still needed extra assistance race. Woods came after her, periodically reaching down ) help hold her hands between one rung and another when she reached the tunnel floor, she was sweating an out of breath, her overly rapid pulse visible in the throl f her neck.

  Once again, Sue realized how old her grandmother was and how frail.

  What if she had a heart attack before they even found he cup hugirngsit. Sue pushed the thought from her.

  The air down here was dank and fetid. It smelled almost like a sewer or a dump. Almost. But there was enough odor here, the stench of death, a dusty, decaying scei that just missed being cloyingly sweet.

  Rich climbed halfway back up the ladder, took the ba gnva from his brother, handed it down to Woods.

  "All here," Robert announced
a few moments later he hopped off the ladder. He was feigning a confidence he lid not feel, but Sue admired his bravery.

  She looked down the length of the tunnel, shining her flashlight. They were all shining their lights, the beams following the eyes and interests of their owners, and it produced a low-level strobe effect that made the high and strangely rounded passage seem that much deeper and darker.

  "One of us will die," her grandmother said softly.

  There was surprise in her voice.

  And fear.

  She had not expected this.

  Sue felt cold. She shone her light on the old woman's face, then quickly moved it away when her grandmother shut her eyes against the beam.

  "What did she say?" Robert asked.

  ""We'd better start walking," Sue said.

  She let them think it was a translation.

  Rich looked over at Woods, placed his spear in his flashlight hand, and picked up his half of the baht gwa. He shone his flashlight into the tunnel ahead. He had expected the other two openings in the floor of the church to empty here as well, but the hole through which they'd come was at the beginning of this passage, which meant that the other openings led to different tunnels altogether. Tunnels heading in other directions.

  He hoped they were going the right way.

  He didn't want to be caught in this labyrinth when night fell.

  "What direction are we heading?" he asked suddenly. Robert looked at him. "East. Why?" "The streams."

  Robert looked up. "I didn't even think about that." He looked back up through the hole to the church, then glanced down the length of the tunnel, gauging its direclion. "Luck of the Irish," he said. "I think we're safe. I think we're between the streams. Assuming that idea works at all."

  "If the cup hugirngsi's close enough. If the streams don't peter out."

  .... "You know," Buford said, "I bet this empties out by the arroyo."

  Robert nodded. "I bet you're right."

  They began walking. Multiple flashlight beams scanned the curved sides of the tunnel. Rich looked over at his brother. He could tell from Robert's expression that he felt foolish with the willow spear in his hand, the jade choker around his neck. He would probably have felt more comfortable with his fingers around the butt of a45, but he obviously knew that his usual modes of thought did not apply down here.

  In a true show of faith, Robert had even left his rifle outside with Steve. He knew that they were not dealing with a criminal, or even with the type of movie monster that could be taken out by firepower.

  They were up against something so old and alien that even their knowledge of the supernatural could have no bearing on their actions.

  They were entirely in the hands of Sue's grandmother. Rich, too, would have probably felt more secure if Robert and the FBI agent were packing heat, but he knew that was just conditioning. They were as safe now as they could possibly be under the circumstances.

  No matter what happened, he thought, no matter how things turned out, he was proud to be here. Proud to be there with these six people.

  Even Rossiter.

  They continued walking. And then he heard it. The Laughing Man.

  % His mouth suddenly felt as though it was filled with cotton, his saliva dried up at the source. The sound was coming from far away, from somewhere deep in the tunnel but even faint and muffled, he recognized the sound of the Laughing Man. His brain told him that this merely his own demon projected back at him, that the cup hugirngsi looked like that baby-faced monster from the videotape, that no one else probably even heard the sound, but his instinct was stronger than his intellect, and was suddenly deeply and uncontrollably afraid. He knew he could not face the Laughing Man again. He was not brave enough to see it once more.

  "Do you hear that?" Sue asked, her voice hushed and fearful. "That laughing? ..... Oh, Cod, Rich thought. She heard it too. He glanc over at Robert. His brother was already looking at him, face pale.

  Sue's grandmother said something in Cantonese.

  "Noises cannot hurt us," Sue translated. "Ignore them. There will be more."

  They shone their lights ahead, toward the source of the sound. The walls of the tunnel before them were no longer smooth, no longer rounded, but looked rough and bulgingly irregular.

  Rich was the first to realize why. "Jesus," he breathed. The tunnel before them was lined with the nude dehydrated bodies of men and women, many more than they would have imagined. As they drew closer, Rich saw that all of them "aere arranged in grotesque biblical tableaux, cruel, blasphemous parodies of sacred scenes. Daniel in the lion's den: Daniel, a castrated child; the lions, dead kit tens. The feeding of the ratdtiautes: the multitudes, a score of old men, dead rats in their outstretched hands; Jesus, a naked mummified young woman with her breasts re moved.

  "Holy fuck."

  Rich looked up at the sound of his brother's voice.

  Robert was a little ways ahead and standing next to Woods, looking at a tableaux on the other side of the passage. Rich put down his side of the baht gwa.

  It was Pare Frye, naked and standing between Am Hewett and another older man. She was made up like a prostitute and obviously supposed to be Mary Magdalene, the rouge and lipstick and overdone eyeshadow appearing frighteningly out of place on the shrunken skeletal child's face. Behind Pam and the others, Mayor Tillis stood as Jesus, holding his hands out in mocking benediction.

  Rich swallowed, tasting bile. Rio Verde's dead and missing were here, were all down here, and the extent of the up hugirngsi's butchery was staggering. The few bodies that had been found in town, the few missing people of whom they were aware, were merely the tip of the iceberg. The cup hug/rngs/liked to save its victims.. And play with their bodies.

  But why had it left some out where they could be found? Why hadn't it taken Manuel Tortes or Terry Clifford down here? Why hadn't it hidden the two teenagers killed in the river?

  Because it had wanted them to find the bodies. Because it had been toying with them.

  He suddenly realized the enormity of what they were up against.

  "How long has it been here?" Robert said softly. "How long has it been in our town?" He pointed toward a shriveled husk of a body lying on the ground at Pam's feet. "That's Lew Rogers. He and his girlfriend skipped town about two years ago. We thought. I figured it was because of all they owed."

  On the other side of the passage, Sue gasped, her sharp and sudden intake of breath echoing and unusually loud.

  Rich hurried over to where she stood, followed her gaze. It was a nativity scene, only baby Jesus was a tiny, hydrated, barely formed fetus, connected by a tiny urn bilical cord to a mummified Mary whose empty breasts were little more than flattened flaps of dried wrinkled skin.

  "That's my friend," Sue whispered. "That's Janine." Her grandmother spoke in a clear strong voice, and Sue's attention shifted from the manger scene to the old woman. "What did she say?" Rich asked.

  "She says it knows we are. coming. It put these here to warn us, to frighten us." . He nodded. "It's trying to scare us away."

  Sue shook her head. "No. It wants us to come." They were all gathered around her now, the other six. They had looked where they'd wanted, had not liked what they'd seen, and had come together around Sue and her grandmother for protection and reassurance. Robert was pensive, Woods and lSuford silent and subdued, and even Rossiter's aggressive assurance seemed to have fled. They were a more thoughtful group than they had been up above, more fully aware of what they were facing, but Rich was not sure that was a good thing. They needed some cockiness now, they needed some aggressiveness. They needed the bravery of the foolhardy.

  There was none of that now. He felt as though they'd all given up before they'd started, and that frightened him. He thought of Corrie, thought of Anna, tried to tell himself they were up ahead, hostages to the cup hugirngsi. He looked at Sue. "Corrie and Anna are not in hiding, are they? They didn't sense danger coming and find some place to hide, did they?"

  Sue
looked over at her grandmother but did not translate. "I don't think so," she said.

  Rich nodded. "I think they're up ahead. I'm going to find them." He held up his spear and flashlight, lifted his half of the baht gta.

  "Dead or alive, I'm going to find them."

  The started forward.

  They followed him. As he'd thought, as he'd hoped, his determination seemed to have energized his companions, provided them with renewed purpose, and they strode with him down the center of the earthen tunnel, flashlights trained in unison on the darkness directly before them, no beams sidetracked by the strange staged scenes off to the sides.

  The tunnel curved slightly to the left--underneath the stream.-and then narrowed. The rounded ceiling grew flatter, rougher.

  They stopped walking. Before them was a doorway, a high thin slice in the hard packed earth that led into even deeper darkness. i And would allow only one of us through at a time.

  "I'm going through," Rich announced, putting down the baht gwa. His heart was trip-hammering in his chest with attack force, and there was nothing in his life he had ever felt less like doing, but he knew that this was why he was here, this was why he had come. The time for selfishly succumbing to fear had passed.

  Robert grabbed his arm, held him back. "You're not going in first. I am."

  Rich managed a smile. "You want to hog all the glory for yourself?."

  "it's probably a rap. I'm better prepared to deal with something like that than you."

  Sue's grandmother slid through the opening.

  "Heyt" Robert yelled.

  There was no time to argue now. Robert quickly followed the old woman;

  Rich followed Robert. They walked through, one after the other, in an order that was entirely circumstantial: Sue, Buford, Woods, Rossiter.

  Buford and the coroner carried the mirror between them as they moved single file through the opening.

  The high narrow doorway led into a chamber, a rock room.

  The lair of the cup hugirngsi.

  Rich bumped into his brother and the grandmother as he stepped through.

  He felt the hard tenseness of his brother's muscles, felt the trembling fear of the old woman as he grabbed her arm to keep her from falling.