Shallow Veins

by Brian Martinez

He stands over the body. “There was no password, you wicked perversion of-”

  Something crawls out of the plumber's stomach. It wriggles out from the black intestines and plants its legs into the meat of the plumber's legs, hooks into the muscle with the needle grips Father Curtis knows too well.

  All heart-brains have them.

  “Oh, Hell,” Father Curtis sighs.

 

  **

  The hearse shrieks to a stop. Butcher jumps out onto the walkway, the smell of burnt rubber in the dusk as a shout rises up from the other end of the building.

  He draws his gun as he spots the motel's only other guest running from the direction of Room Fourteen, a haunted look in his eyes.

  “What's going on,” he shouts at the man.

  “I- I don't know, there's a man with a gun and he's fighting a...a snake.”

  The kid from the front desk leans nervously out of the office door. “You guys got here fast,” he says.

  “You dialed 911?”

  “Like ten seconds ago. That's not a Halloween costume, is it?” He points to Butcher's uniform. “Aww, shit, please tell me you're the cops.”

  The idiot really didn't see my face, Butcher thinks. “Yeah, I'm the cops. Now I need both of you to get inside and lock the door behind you. We'll handle this from here.”

  The two men run inside, going as far as drawing the blinds in the front window before hiding under the desk.

  Butcher knows if the kid just called in an emergency, he has less than four minutes before half the Shallow Creek Police Department shows up at Sweet Haven Motel. While he would love some backup, they'll be wondering why Butcher is here before they are, and most curious of all without his partner or his cruiser. Four minutes until the questions that don't have answers start.

  That leaves him less than three to kill a monster.

  As he nears Room Fourteen, the extent of the damage becomes more obvious, making him increasingly nervous for Father Curtis- shattered windows, broken doors, sparking wires where light-bulbs used to be, and a persistent gurgle-growl coming from somewhere inside Room Seventeen, the door of which is slightly open.

  With the tip of his boot he pushes the door the rest of the way open. His gun stays trained in the open space. The already familiar smell of The Self hits his nose, like petting zoo meets rotting meat, and there's a dull chopping sound as well. He strains to see in the darkening room, only making out silhouettes at first, the dark details slowly filling in, but when he finally makes out the full picture of what's happening, the scene on the floor just beside the bed, he wishes he hadn't looked at all.

  A Self with black salamander body and the vague head of a mantis is crouched over Father Curtis, its legs, though human at the top, end in clawed feet that pin the priest to the floor. Its fingers are long, tube-like needles half-buried in the side of the old man's bloody temples, cloudy fluid pumping through them. The sounds are like a starving dog that's just taken down its first prey in weeks; fevered and blood-drunk.

  Father Curtis' eyes, so scared and hurt, meet Butcher's and ask for mercy. Beg for him to end the pain.

  Butcher feels a deep hatred rise up in his throat. His innards fill with acid and his hands curl into claws. With no thought to his own life, he throws the door the rest of the way open and falls on the monster, grabs it by its slimy-slick neck and pulls it off the priest. Its needles yank free of the priest's skull, and the old man cries out from the sudden extraction.

  Butcher tosses the thing against the wall and gets in its big, ugly face. "Keep your dirty claws off him," he growls and punches it once, twice in the fleshy part of its head.

  It gags up a putrid laugh in his face. "You'rre too late, old blood, we havve what we nneed from the priest."

  “Not if I put you down first.”

  The creature stops smiling.

  “What's wrong? Such a big head and you still can't broadcast satellite?”

  It hisses and cracks him in the face with its beak. Butcher tastes blood as he reels backward, head swimming, and nearly falls to the floor. He catches himself on the edge of the bed and brings his gun up, determined to end this thing.

  “Lower.” A weak voice comes from the floor. It’s Father Curtis, and he’s barely holding on.

  Butcher drops his aim a few inches and fires off a round, then another, then again, each shot more powerful than the last, until the final blast is like a volcano long overdue. By the time he’s done there’s nothing left of the creature but a pile of limbs and pieces at the foot of a smoldering wall, and then, like the woman back at the church, the pile turns to black ash.

  Once he's sure the job is done, Butcher goes to the side of the old priest and checks for a pulse. It's weak, and getting weaker. Outside the sun is sinking in the sky.

  “You have to make me a promise,” the priest rasps.

  “Save your strength.”

  “There's...nothing to save. Don't try to…tell me otherwise.”

  Butcher nods.

  “Whatever happens here, keep it quiet, or others will...come looking. Promise me.”

  “You have my word,” Butcher says, and the old man's face relaxes. “I just want you to know that no matter what happens, I'm glad you left me that note.” The old man looks confused. “The one on my car,” Butcher adds.

  Father Curtis shakes his head. “Don't lend your trust lightly. This is a dangerous game. A game with...too many players.” His eyes feel heavy. The lids begin to close.

  “Father, you have to tell me where the book is.”

  “Hmm?”

  “The book, the one they're looking for.”

  “Of course, yes. Find it…find it before they do.” His words slurring now.

  Butcher shakes him, hearing sirens in the distance. “Father, you have to tell me where it is.”

  “A friend. A friend has it.”

  “Who?”

  “The first torch…that lit up…Shallow Creek.”

  “The Mayor?”

  Father Curtis' eyes close.

  “God damn it, don't leave me with this.” Butcher grips the man's shirt, angry, his eyes stinging.

  The priest's eyes just barely open. “Stop...taking…the Lord's name in vain.”

  Butcher lets out a laugh, his mouth thick from tears. Father Curtis' eyes close again, but this time, they don't open again.

  Butcher feels a sinkhole form inside of him. He feels more loss, more regret than when his own father died. It's as if he mourns not the friendship they had, but the one they were supposed to have.

  The sirens are closer now, less than a minute away, which means it’s time to go. Yet he doesn't get up. He can't leave the man like this.

  A shard of glass falls from the broken window and shatters on the ground, catching Butcher's attention. On the windowsill, watching and listening, the woman's hand is perched on long, articulated legs. It scurries out the window, down the motel wall and away.

  Butcher knows if it gets back to the others they'll know where to find the book. He knows that means trouble in ways he can't imagine. It also means he'll be letting down Father Curtis, breaking the final promise he made to the man.

  He's nervous. He's hurt. But most of all, Franklin Butcher is pissed off.

  Chapter Eight: Sundown to Showdown

  On the long, flat stretch of road heading into town, framed on both sides by tall grasses, there aren’t enough lights to beat back the night. There are no stores, no houses, no storage sheds or power plants buzzing with electricity, nothing except moonlight and wind and the chirp-scratch of crickets.

  Up the road a bit something moves. Scuttling out of the inky dark and along the asphalt, the Self hand moves with daddy-long-leg speed. It keeps its body low to the ground and its finger-eyes open for predators.

  A pair of eyes forms on the horizon in the direction it came from, two yellow balls in the dark distance growing from pinpoint dots of pale yellow to something larger, moving fast, gaining on the hand.

  Co
ming into view, the eyes belong to a speeding car, black paint in black night.

  The hearse roars through the night. Behind the wheel, Butcher pushes the old car past its limit. His face is hard through the windshield, eyes on fire, his hand crushing the wheel.

  The hand scurries along the road at an impressive rate, and Butcher knows where its heading- into town, wherever Kevin is hiding. He knows the consequences of letting the little monster find the big monster, but more to the point he refuses to let Father Curtis' killer go free.

  He pushes the hearse harder.

  The hand becomes aware of the car gaining on him, just a hundred yards behind now, breaking its eye-fingers to look behind without stopping. Focusing in with bird eyes, it sees Butcher's face through the windshield. It pushes out extra legs to run faster.

  Eighty, sixty, fifty yards back, Butcher grabs his gun off the passenger seat.

  Thirty, ten, five, he rolls down the window. Aiming left-handed and steering with his right, he fires on the hand-creature. It leaps back and forth on spindly legs, barely slowing down. Butcher only manages to hit asphalt and dirt, nothing more.

  Annoyed, he tosses the gun back onto the seat and then, with both hands on the wheel, he veers sharply. Tires squeal as he tries to run the creepy little bastard down. Every time he veers, the hand responds, staying out of reach.

  After the third try, the hand leaps onto the car.

  "No you don't, you little shit." Butcher swerves wildly, trying to shake the thing, but it manages to claw its way up the front panel and onto the hood. The wind blasts it, blowing through the hairs on its stick legs, but it holds on tight and begins to work up the hood toward Butcher.

  "Nope. Nope, nope, nope." He clutches the window lever and spins it as fast as he can, rolling up the glass, the hand-thing on the windshield wiper now, gripping it and working its way around to the driver's side. And then, as the window is almost rolled up, with just a few inches to go, the lever falls off.

  Butcher stares at the piece of junk in his hand.

  "You're kidding me."

  The hand sticks a finger through the open space, staring at Butcher with the veiny eyeball at its tip. Butcher smacks at it with the broken lever and strikes it in the eye. It shrieks and withdraws out the window, hurt. Butcher shouts, but a second later the smile is wiped from his face.

  The hand-creature launches through the open window. It attaches to his face, bug-legs wrapped around his head and woman-fingers reached out to smother him. Butcher stomps on the brakes and brings the hearse to a crooked, smoking stop in the middle of the road. He swipes at the hand with the broken lever but catches himself in the side of his head- the flash of squiggly light tells him it was a bad idea.

  Butcher drops the lever, grabs the hand-creature with both hands and with all his strength pulls the thing away from his face. It holds tight, bug-legs dug into his cheeks and neck, hooked around his ear, human fingers stretched out, and he can feel what it wants, see what it wants, pictures of it shoving all its fingers into his mouth and down his throat to choke him.

  He pulls harder until its bug-legs stretch so far a few tear and pop and snap free from the hand to hang dead on his neck.

  He squeezes the bleeding thing until his hands shake. He wants to crush it in his fingers, squish the pseudo-life out of it.

  The hand-creature has other plans.

  Butcher yelps and drops the hand, the skin of which is now covered in porcupine barbs, sharp spikes pushed out of human pores. It jumps from his lap and onto the dashboard with its body in strike position.

  "You're not trying that again," Butcher warns. He retrieves his gun from the seat and fires at the hand, forgetting how strong the gunshot would be. The windows shatter all at once, glass exploding outward. The inside of the hearse fills with deafening sound. He shakes his head and bangs it with his fist until his senses return.

  When they do, he finds himself alone in the car.

  Butcher looks around to find telltale fingers or spots of black blood, until he sees it- out of the car and down the road a bit, scuttling once again toward town, the first buildings visible just ahead.

  Butcher pulls the dead legs from his ears, wipes the shards of glass out of his way and guns the gas.

  **

  On the outskirts of town, where the first stores pop up like mushrooms of brick and light, Butcher pulls the hearse over. He jumps out and leans on the hood, watching the Self-hand slip between feet, into the crowd and out of sight.

  The Halloween parade. Once a year the people of Shallow Creek put on the scariest costumes they can find and cram themselves into the sidewalks of Main Street. Standing shoulder-to-fake-bloodied-shoulder, they drink from plastic cups and watch the procession of the dead pass them by- grotesque floats, undead little league teams, dancing ghosts, even a lightly-clothed fire-breather from three towns over. The kids trick-or-treat in the stores while their parents get good and sloshed, because other than New Year's Eve it's the one day police look the other way.

  Up until a few days ago, Butcher had planned to be right there with them. But plans have changed slightly.

  “Cool car,” a werewolf shouts, patting him on the back a little too hard. Butcher has half a mind to knock the wolf on his drunk ass, but instead he leans into the hearse and pockets the keys.

  “Watch it for me,” he says, and walks into the crowd.

  The mob is thick with the smell of beer sweat and costume glue. Butcher gets more than a few annoyed looks as he pushes through the crowd, eyes on the ground scanning the cigarette butts and empty cups for signs of prey. He keeps one hand on his holster in case some sloshed partyer decides it would be hilarious to grab a cop’s gun.

  Someone shoves him from behind. The mass of people in front stops him from falling to the sidewalk, not without a few annoyed grunts and shouts. He spins to see who pushed him but he’s met with a wall of strange looks, as if he’s the problem here.

  There are two conclusions he can come to: one, that someone realized too late they just assaulted a police officer, or two, they knew who he was, knew he was a cop, and attacked him anyway.

  He hasn’t forgotten the faces of the Self-people who chased him from the Robins house and across that field trying to kill him, the same he saw around town the next day as if everything was normal, as if they weren’t doppelgangers from another world. Butcher inspects the crowd for those faces but all he can see are emotionless masks. Villains and terrors, frozen in time. All at once he understands how vulnerable a position he’s put himself in.

  No back-up. No eyes from above. No plan.

  Alone in a crowd.

  A little girl screams further up the street. It’s the kind of freaked-out reaction Butcher had been hoping for, the kind no one would pay attention to in the middle of a Halloween celebration. It isn’t much to go on but it’s all he has. He forgets about the shove for the time being and locks in on the girl. He finds her with her face buried in her father’s pant leg, a young, Indian man alongside his pretty wife, tourists judging by their clothes.

  “Is she hurt,” Butcher asks.

  The man looks frightened by the uniform. “There’s no problem, officer.”

  “But did she see something?”

  “I think she’s overwhelmed by all the noise.”

  “Did she see which way it went?”

  “Really, it’s no problem.”

  “Which way did it go,” Butcher raises his voice. The man stares back at him, but then a tiny voice rises up from below the crowd.

  “It was a spider,” the girl says. She points up the street to the empty block beyond the barricade.

  Butcher takes off in that direction, shoving again through the crowd, now even more determined to find the hand and crush it under his boot.

  Behind him he hears a woman reassuring the girl. “Don't you worry, Officer Butcher will catch that mean, old spider.” He glances back to see Meredith Maycomb, all in black, smiling at him.

  Butcher le
aves the woman behind, telling himself he’ll have to pay her another visit in the near future. He continues through the crowd, through the oohs and ahhs and drunken hollering until he reaches the police barricade at the other end, which he slips under and into the empty street. No one in the crowd bothers to notice, focused either on the parade or on the bottom of their plastic cups.

  A wind picks up that smells of ozone, the fresh, pregnant air of a coming rain. Then, he spots it. One block up, lit by streetlight, the Self-hand scuttles around the corner and makes a right onto Jackson Street.

  Butcher is thankful for the lucky break- Jackson Street is a dead-end, blocked at the end by the Shallow Creek Municipal Court building. With all the stores closed there will be no witnesses, no bystanders. He'll have a clear shot to take the thing out before it reaches the others.

  Butcher draws his gun and checks how many rounds he has left: twelve bullets. More than enough to kill a hand.

  He picks up the pace and rounds the corner to find his prey in the middle of the street, turned around to face him. The heavy-breathing hand moves up and down on bug-legs, watches him approach with its finger-eyes.

  A few yards separate them, too far for a clear shot at such a small target. Around them garbage blows in the growing wind- man-made tumbleweeds in a twisted joke of a Western. Butcher could almost enjoy the moment if his brain weren't pounding inside his skull.

  "There's nowhere to go, you little bastard." He raises his gun and the hand tenses.

  "Thatt was the idea, Officer Butcher." A woman steps out of one of the cars parked along Jackson Street. She’s familiar, one of the faces from the Robins party. As she walks toward him, another car door opens. This time a man steps out.

  "It takes the simplest of planns to catch a human," he says.

  Another car, another Self. "Of all the worlds yourrs is the weakest."

  This time behind him. "We will easily ttake itt from you."

  One after the other, Self-people emerge from every car until Butcher and the hand are surrounded, a wide circle of doppelgangers cutting off every exit. A gust of wind blows through them, giving Butcher a nose full of their stink.

  In the distance, on the bronze structure that tops the court building, a man rises into view. He holds the building’s antenna to steady himself in the wind. Lightning flashes here and there in the dark clouds beyond.