The Banshee

by Henry P. Gravelle

  “You killed the Chief’s wife?” he asked angrily.

  “She was a necessary offering. I was not aware she tried to warn you of your fate,” Nancy grinned.

  David now understood why Nancy was upset when he told her of his dream. She did not know Colleen was trying to alert him of the danger about to descend on Wexford.

  “You are a descendant of this town and therefore you must feel the wrath of Isabel’s vengeance,” she added.

  “My Uncle, Chief Murphy, Father Ahern…God knows who else is dead because you and your pals want revenge? Everyone with the same blood as those who executed her three-hundred years ago has to die? Everyone born since that time has to join you, is that it?”

  “Once again I have to admire your intelligence. You have certainly hit the nail on the head, but of course, you are seeing just a portion of the picture. There are many others since this morning,” Nancy said moving seductively to divert David’s attention. “The answer is yes, as you stated, all those at the bar including Kelly. And we can add those at the lumber yard, the gas station, the flower shop, Eric and Phyllis Porter, everyone at the McCain farm, your precious big mouth Mrs. Toomey. Oh the list grows by the hour, David.” Nancy sighed, sounding like a proud schoolgirl reciting homework.

  “How many more will die, when will it stop?”David focused on her knees, keeping his eyes off hers.

  “More must die,” answered another voice from atop the stairs. He turned and saw Nancy’s mother on the top step. What little light filtered up the stairway glittering off the diamond and ruby encrusted pentacle around her neck. The darkness at the top of the stairs blurred her form but he could see well enough to know she was also naked.

  “Jesus Christ, do you have any more relatives in the wholesale slaughter business?” David asked.

  “I told you my father was a Prince,” Nancy laughed. The house filled with the laughter of thousands of voices, reverberating and multiplying as if they stood within a deep cave. David covered his ears and blocked out the hideous sound. Nancy lifted her hand and the deafening clatter ceased.

  The mother took a few steps down the stairway. “You ask many questions. I am sure you have many more. Since you have been attentive to my daughter, I will grant you the answers you seek before you are destroyed.”

  Perspiration dripped from his forehead. His mind raced with questions and thoughts of what was going on, everything he had heard, learned and sensed since arriving in this frightening place. It was a nightmare pulled from his dreams and made reality.

  “Father Ahern told us your husband died at the hands of those worshippers the night you discovered them. I have a feeling you didn’t tell him the whole story.”

  Betty Flanagan gazed at David with the same zombie-like features Finley and Nancy wore. “When I saw my husband collapse I screamed and gave away my location. They found me and brought me to the circle, to kneel before the Master. I looked into his eyes and never felt such power…I was spellbound and gave myself to him, conceiving his daughter.”

  “Your one and only,” David said, sarcastically nodding to Nancy.

  “A beautiful daughter to fulfill the destiny of the damned who reside in Wexford, completing Isabel’s vow of vengeance,” Betty said.

  “You didn’t realize it,” Nancy spoke, continuing to approach nonchalantly, “when you found Colleen’s body, you found Isabel. Her spirit dwells within the body of Colleen. As long as the body lies in the grave, Isabel can enter this world unscathed to seek victims.”

  David’s mind tried to digest the information. He recalled Mrs. Toomey’s advice; burn the body in the grave in order to disable Isabel from leaving hell.

  “What about the beast?” he asked.

  “At our disposal,” Mom said.

  “If Isabel goes back to hell the beast goes with her?”

  “You were right, Nancy,” Betty spoke to her daughter, “he is smarter than he appears.”

  Nancy began to approach him. “What does it matter where the familiar is or ends up? You will be long gone, but not forgotten, David.”

  “Stop right there,” he shouted, holding out his hand like a traffic cop.

  “Or what, David, what will you do?” asked the mother, taking a few steps downward. “You are the son of a man born in Wexford and carry his blood. You are part of Isabel’s agenda. Make it easy on yourself, David. Do not resist; obey and submit to your fate.”

  He felt the sudden warmth in the air. A humid dampness filled the interior of the house like a pizza oven opened. At the top of the stairway, he heard a low, thick grunt. Two eyes like burning matches glared at him. The beast moved one of its cloven hooves onto the first step. The wooden tread moaned under the weight.

  David did not experience the curiosity effect that usually made him second-guess his decision. He swiftly did not hesitate like he did at Mrs. Toomey’s house. He ran as fast as he could from Nancy’s, jumping from the front porch onto the lawn.

  Shadowy forms emerged from all sides of the street; neighbors and friends who neared with the same wasted expression and venomous smile on their faces as the others, all intent on David’s destruction.

  He ran to the patrol car, pushing aside an older man who fell backwards, striking his head on the concrete sidewalk with an awful thud. He remained down and silent, a dark puddle forming from under his skull. David did not care as he turned the ignition key. There was no response.

  “Goddamn it, start you bastard,” he shouted at the dashboard, slamming his hand against the steering wheel.

  The mob neared with a goat-headed figure leading. Arms reached in through the window, grabbing at his shoulder and steering wheel. Nancy and her mother stood on the porch watching the mob surround the car. Behind the daughter of Satan appeared the beast, looking intently at David. It seemed to smile, knowing it would soon tear him to shreds.

  He turned the key while tearing away hands from his body. The motor roared to life. David dropped the shift lever down and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The vehicle raced forward, carrying with it a worshipper hanging on to the door. The goat-headed man clung by his fingertips to the hood.

  The car increased speed away from the house and sped toward a telephone pole. Seconds from collision, David swung the wheel sending the car alongside the pole and scraping the man off the door with a sickening sound, like a bug splattering against the windshield.

  David turned the wheel left and right as the car accelerated again, trying to free the man still on the hood. The goat head fell off from his shoulders revealing Art Finley. He laughed. “Stop, David…you have lost.”

  “You are what I am going to lose,” David shouted, driving towards a picket fence. He angrily remembered what the beast had done to his Uncle and pressed hard on the brake; the tires smoked and screeched.

  Finley flew forward from the abruptly stopped vehicle. His body burst through the fence. The cars headlights showed several wooden pickets impaled into his body and the dullness in Finley’s dead eyes.

  “Go kiss your master’s ass.” David brought the car toward the highway.

  In the rear view mirror, the naked crowd danced in front of the porch where Nancy stood. He watched the distance grow between them until he drove around the corner and lost sight of her. Reaching Route Eight, the car sped toward Plymouth.

  Chapter Twenty

  The motor hummed steadily, moving the patrol car along the pavement and bringing the cool night air through the open window. The breeze eased the pain that ran rampart throughout David’s body. Slowly his muscles began to relax, the tension eased and his shoulders sunk from the tension release. Rational thinking returned replacing the panic and fear he had at Nancy’s.

  He thought of his Uncle and the others murdered horribly for the sake of vengeance within a nightmare world that invaded Wexford. It seemed impossible but he had
lived through it, witnessed the carnage, the beast, and the evil that sucked the human spirit out of the worshippers. How would he explain this to the police in Plymouth? They would not, or could not, believe such a story.

  Nancy and her mother will claim I went nuts with a chainsaw and killed everyone. The rest of those Satan freaks will vouch for anything that comes out of Betty Flanagan’s mouth. The cops will lock me up as an insane killer. Up ahead, the Welcome to Plymouth sign was coming into view. He pulled onto the road’s sandy shoulder and stared at the sign just a few feet away from the front bumper.

  He felt a tugging sensation inside his body, a force commanding him to return to Wexford, go back and warn the others. Why did he have this desire to return? His conscience busily convinced him of an obligation to turn around and help those about to die.

  David shook his head and tried to squeeze the thoughts out of his mind by pressing against both sides of his skull. It did not work. Voices called through his mind, like trapped miners in a deep hole, begging, pleading for his return.

  “No, no, no!” he shouted, attempting to cease the voices from continuing, yet they did.

  He wrapped both his arms around the steering wheel and rested his weary head on top of them. His body was drenched in perspiration against the cool night air. His body ached and his mind was a jumble of surreal visions, visions of the past twenty-four hours of hell on Earth. He questioned his feelings, wondering if they were genuine or induced by a spell. The lure to return was too great. He wanted to destroy Isabel’s grave and end her reign of terror.

  The road was quiet and empty, a blackness that punched through the forest and opened a shadowy hole into the next town. He accelerated, spinning the back tires in the soft sand. When they struck the roadway David pulled the wheel hard to the left, bringing the car into a one-eighty turn. Smoke billowed from spinning tires skimming over the asphalt, propelling the car back to Wexford. The car dashed along the empty streets heading straight for Whiting Field.

  “The grave,” he said to no one in particular. “If I can get there then maybe…”

  He neared the bleachers and noticed a band of worshippers by the town hall. They watched the car speed by, not slowing as it reached the field’s entrance.

  David tightly gripped the steering wheel, bracing for impact against the granite curb. A front tire immediately blew out, sending shards of rubber into the air.

  He bounced about the front seat, holding onto the steering wheel as the car continued along the infield of the baseball diamond. He struggled to aim the vehicle in the direction of the Oak tree and the grave across the sediment-filled shallow section of river.

  The damaged front wheel dug into the sod, leaving a furrow as it crossed the field. David kept the accelerator pressed to the floor while he bounced up and down, striking his head on the ceiling and interior light, his arms and legs repeatedly slamming into the steering wheel.

  Finally the headlights picked out the ancient tree just as the front wheel sank deep into softer earth along the bank, causing the car to veer sharply to the left still under full power. The motor roared and careened the patrol car up and over the embankment.

  The car became airborne, jumping the narrow width of the river and landing with a loud splash, sending a cascade of water in all directions. The car struck the silt and gravel sediment which sustained the vehicle’s weight causing it to travel additional yardage. Then the flight came to a sudden and abrupt halt.

  David remained gripping the steering wheel. His knuckles were white, blood seeped from scraped fingers and broken nails. He stared in disbelief at the bent hood. The only sound was the hissing radiator and motor still humming under the destroyed hood. One headlight illuminated the top of a birch still wobbling from the ground-shaking impact.

  David pushed on the door until it opened with a thud. He stepped out, stumbling to the wet ground. A warm stream ran from his forehead onto his cheek from the cut on his head. Opening the trunk, he found a flare, flashlight and shovel from the emergency supplies the police department wisely placed there.

  He flicked on the flashlight and scanned the embankment, seeking to recognize where he had landed. Soon the beam showed a mound of freshly -packed earth near the front of the car. Then he heard the animal.

  It was close, coming directly for him from the line of trees just yards away. He turned off the light and held the shovel in a batter’s position. It neared steadily, its snorting and labored breaths telling where it would break from the underbrush.

  David jumped to the spot and delivered the first blow. The shovel missed its mark but caused the animal to stop. The flashlight beam flashed onto the priest atop a horse.

  “David, it’s me, Father Ahern.”

  “You’re alive, you’re alive…” David ran to the horse. “I heard you scream, I thought you were dead…the worshippers…Nancy and her mother…everyone dead…”

  “Bless you, David. I am sure you have quite a tale to tell but first, please help me off this fine animal.” Father Ahern must have read David’s mind concerning the others and stated, “I’m the only one, David, I’m sorry.”

  David looked disheartened. “I tried to warn you.”

  “I’m afraid I have broken my arm in the tussle,” answered the priest, holding his arm.

  Tearing off the remainder of his tee shirt, David made a makeshift sling around the Father’s neck to support his injured arm. “That will have to do until we get out of here. What happened to you, Father?”

  “I was certain the creature was about to destroy me so I knelt and prayed, expecting the death blow any second. I felt nothing. When I again looked, the beast left me to begin climbing after you. I jumped upon my friend here and rode like the wind. I did not know where I was and let the horse lead. I witnessed your flight across the field, quite impressive.”

  David picked up the shovel and returned to the grave at the front of the car. “We must destroy this grave, Father.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Hold the flashlight. We have to be fast, we’re going to have company.” David nodded back across the river toward the town.

  The priest noticed lights entering the field across from Kelly’s destroyed bar. David quickened his pace and soon the shovel sunk into something other than earth. Father Ahern aimed the flashlight beam on the spot.

  The shovel broke through Colleen’s decaying chest. David continued shoveling away as much earth as possible. The worshippers neared the Oak tree and their lights shined on David and the priest.

  “There must be two dozen,” Father Ahern’s voice was anxious as he watched their progress.

  David swung the shovel up under the car, striking the fuel tank several times until he could smell fumes from escaping gasoline. He lit the flare and handed it to the bewildered priest.

  “When I tell you, toss the flare into the gasoline,” he explained, pointing to the growing puddle under the car. He jumped in behind the steering wheel and once again urged the motor to carrying the heavy automobile.

  “Just a few more yards,” he begged, looking behind at the nearing mob. “Come on baby, you can do it!”

  The motor roared to life. He put it in low gear and pressed down on the accelerator. The car lunged then stopped. The bent front wheel sunk into the earth.

  “Merciful Lord, please help us,” David whispered. The car jumped forward then rolled backward into the hole. “One more, that’s it, rock your ass free.”

  David gripped the wheel and rocked back and forth with the motion of the car as if he was freeing the vehicle from a mound of snow. Suddenly the motor screeched, smoke billowed from under the hood and the front end lifted. The car jumped forward so fast he nearly missed stopping the car atop Colleen’s body.

  “Now, Father, now!” David shouted as he jumped from the car. The priest carefully tossed the brilliant
stick of burning light into the gasoline. It ignited into a blue, almost invisible flame that flashed along the path left from the hole in the tank.

  The tank exploded in a bright orange ball of heat and light. The worshippers, thundering across the stream like a herd of wildebeest, dropped into the water, as did Father Ahern and David. After the blast, David shook his head clearing his blurry vision and noise from his ringing ears. Father Ahern stood next to him swatting a small flame on his pant leg.

  The explosion lifted the patrol car and repositioned it atop the grave, incinerating Colleen’s corpse. The mob of worshippers who had tried to stop the destruction of Isabel’s portal from hell remained in the river. Some had remained in the water, others walked back towards town; a few watched the fire consume the grave.

  The bright flames turn into a thick gaseous cloud. A figure floated, almost translucent, weaving within the black smoke rising high into the clear night sky. From under this specter rose other smaller forms floating among the larger. Hellish moans and screams came from all of them. They drifted higher, the din nearly unbearable.

  David knew he hit his head during the wild ride and was certain the explosion’s shock had caused momentary loss of senses, but had it also caused temporary insanity?

  The priest moved next to David. He nodded at the specter in the smoke towering over them and asked, “A monk named Pelagius once stated that if you choose to disobey God’s laws, then God will visit upon you. Do you know what he meant, David?”

  David sat on the riverbank gazing in bewilderment at the rising blackness towering over them. His eyes told the priest he had no idea what he was saying.

  Father Ahern continued, “Pelagius suggested that mere mortals had the power to ruin God’s creations and if men chose to act wickedly then God was forced to punish them. The wind of human sin begets the whirlwind of divine vengeance. Because of human action we are punished by divine reaction.”