“Aw hell, Ed,” I struggled to find my voice. “Now there’s a couple of them.”
After everything we had been through…surviving the fight with the dead flower lady, and our first encounter with this predator…I got the sickest feeling we were finally out of luck. I had held out hope that between Ed’s gun and our makeshift weapons we would be able to somehow fend off the beast. But two of them? And the second looked even nastier.
“Damn,” he whispered. “And with more of them, they’re going to be braver.”
As if to emphasize his point, small bursts of bioluminescence flickered in the darkness behind us. A low growl and another one of those metallic shrieks issued from the same direction as well.
They were getting their confidence up. And since we already survived on little more than a bluff, that made for very bad news.
At the same time, the street widened ahead of us and we found ourselves at the top of the turn-around for Chambers Circle…
…and discovered things were even worse than I thought.
The dark houses arced before us in a silent amphitheater both gloomy and alien. Glowing moss draped from the rooflines of two structures, while pale lights like enormous fireflies drifted among the branches of a large magnolia tree in the front yard of a third. One house, a two story ranch style place, seemed to be slowly imploding…its walls and roof buckling inward due to some force unrevealed.
In the center of the asphalt circle a small island featured a rock garden surrounding a miniature lighthouse. The lighthouse stood about six feet tall and probably had some kind of light that blinked when the power worked. But right now it rested quiet and dark, warning nobody of dangers imagined or real…least of all of the three toothy horrors sharing the island with it.
There were now five of them, and we had been cut off.
“Oh Christ…” Casey breathed. “Uncle Ed…”
My heart sank at the sight of the new monsters. These things must hunt in groups, and I wondered if they resembled lions more than I had previously realized…maybe with the huge, skull-headed one behind us being some kind of alpha male.
“Hey Ed,” I hissed through a suddenly dry mouth, “any ideas? I’m really not liking our position at the moment.”
I’ve got to give the old guy credit, even when things got desperate he never stopped thinking.
“Yeah,” he answered in a tight, but soft and level voice. “We’re going to keep walking at the same pace but angle to our left toward that house with the bricked in front patio. You see it?”
He pointed at a single story Spanish colonial style house constructed of white brick. But the feature he mentioned immediately caught my attention as well. The front entranceway was recessed back into the house, and a white brick wall separated what amounted to a small front patio from the front yard. The wall had an arch for the wrought iron gate, and another arch serving as a window.
The “window” arch had wrought iron bars and the gate arch had a waist high wrought iron gate. I’m sure the bars were primarily intended as decoration, but they would be a hell of a lot better than nothing.
It would be the most defensible location available without actually going into a house. At the same time, it was an open concession we were about to engage in a fight for our lives. I realized with a sinking sensation we might very well be heading for the place of our final stand.
If we made it that far.
“Just keep walking normal,” Ed urged as the three horrors slowly turned their heads to track our progress. We would pass uncomfortably close to them and they didn’t seem inclined to retreat. As a matter of fact, it appeared they had other ideas. They hissed, rose to their feet, and started to pace along the edge of our light as we came even with them.
“Mark, when we reach the front sidewalk, you pull up that flagpole and take it with us.”
“Right.”
With the Fourth of July only a couple days off, many people in Coventry Woods had hung flags or banners, while others had bought makeshift flagpoles to ram into the ground near their front sidewalks. These usually consisted of a slender steel pipe with a couple of holes drilled through to attach the flag. One such pole stood by the sidewalk to the Spanish colonial, its flag hanging limp in the heavy air. Despite its lack of a point, it would still serve as a suitable spear to poke through the bars of the arch.
I yanked the pole out of the ground as we came up to it, while casting a desperate glance around at our pursuers. They had spread out, trailing us at the edge of our circle of light, but the bioluminescent flashing had increased to frightening levels. We moved with a snarling, multicolored thunderstorm following in our wake…and that storm crept closer every second.
“Dodger,” Ed ordered in the same eerie, calm voice, “go on ahead of us and open the gate so we don’t have to stop when we reach it. We’ll stay between these things and you.”
“Right,” she whispered, and did as instructed.
I could tell by her pallor and tight voice she knew we were about to be in the fight of our lives. And judging from her demeanor, she must have been putting all of her trust in Ed at this point…counting on him to find a way through where she didn’t see any hope. I hate to admit it, but at this point I had been reduced to pretty much the same thing.
“Mark,” he continued as we both turned to face the hissing pack, “put a little more space between us to keep one of them from going around us and after her.”
“Yeah,” I breathed, and did as instructed.
I now moved backwards, with my pole lowered like a spear and wavering between one creature and the next. Ed moved in a sort of sideways fashion, with the lantern held out in one hand and his gun in the other. This slowed us considerably, but we didn’t dare show them our backs any longer.
The flashing display grew in intensity, and several had started thrashing their tails in a red blur. The effect was impressive, and slightly disorienting. In the dark, they would have been almost impossible to distinguish from each other.
Then, as if the situation weren’t already complicated enough…
“Guys!” I heard Casey call out behind us. “There’s already somebody in here!”
I could hear her and another voice start arguing behind us.
I guess whoever waited back there didn’t feel terribly thrilled with the company we were bringing. I could hardly blame them. They must have been hiding out, and now we led death to their doorstep.
I guess Ed picked up on that too.
“Ma’am?” he called back as he retreated. “I’m sorry about this! We didn’t know you were there. But now that these things are here, you’re a whole lot better off letting us in so we can face these things together!”
The arguing intensified behind us, but I also heard the sound of a metal gate swinging open…a good thing since we were almost there. I don’t know who opened it, or if they did it willingly, but it still came as music to my ears.
Mainly because we had just run out of time.
The monsters must have sensed our plans for they began crowding in and two started to do that butt wiggle cats are famous for right before they leap.
“Mark, you back in first so I can keep the light in their face. But keep the pole sticking past me, just in case.”
“Right.”
“Hurry!” Ed urged at the same time as I felt the top metal edge of the gate poke me in the back.
Then a whole lot of things happened at once, and the shitstorm began.
An arrow suddenly sprouted from the shoulder of the monster to my left and the thing whirled and bit at the missile with a screeching howl. The horror next to it leapt for us just as I had maneuvered myself into the gate. It hit the pole I had sticking past Ed’s shoulder, halting it in midair while knocking me backward at the same time. Ed fired several shots at it, and the monstrous skull-faced one next to it, while staggering back through the gate and into me.
Somehow the gate got closed, although I never found out if it was by Ed, Casey, o
r sheer dumb luck. But it barely mattered. Two of the monstrosities immediately pushed themselves halfway over the bars toward us. Ed dropped the lantern and tried to use his cane to help me hold them back while aiming for another shot. The creatures jammed against each other in the tight arch, snarling and flashing in the now chaotic light. Only the fact they had tried to come over the gate at the same time saved our lives…
…for the moment.
I remember hearing Casey scream one had climbed the wall, and briefly looked up to see a third monster had scrambled to the top of the barrier and now glared down into the patio upon us. The beast spread its iridescent mane and gave a triumphant, spine-shattering howl as it paced the top of the wall.
Then the howl turned into an agonized shriek when another arrow appeared as if from nowhere and sprouted from its eye. This time the outcome was quick, and lethal. The creature stiffened, then fell off the wall and out of sight.
Somebody on our side was a hell of a shot.
But even as I realized this, another one appeared in its place…and this one came right over the wall and into the patio. Unfortunately, Ed and I fought between the lantern on the ground and that side of the patio, so it disappeared into the darkness. I heard a large gun blast, screams erupt from the same direction, and knew a desperate fight for survival had started. I also realized Casey must be part of that fight and desperately wanted to run over there and help.
But I had problems of my own.
The creature in front of me struggled to pull itself over the top of the bars and into the patio as well. If it got in too, we were all dead…if we weren’t already. I jabbed at it with fear fueled abandon, causing it to shriek as my pole snapped off a long tooth.
Then matters improved as it fell back from the gate under withering fire from Ed. But this respite didn’t last long. Right as I pivoted to put my pole to use against the other creature now reaching for Ed, things got a whole lot worse.
The truly massive one I had come to think of as “Skull” suddenly appeared in the place of the one that had vanished. And it must have taken a running leap to try and force its way through the opening. Its great death’s-head roared at me from a startlingly close distance.
It couldn’t quite fit through the archway either…not with the other monster still there…but it had still powered it’s way far enough in to land an earth shattering blow before I could swing my pole back to bear.
It felt like the entire universe exploded.
The world did a cartwheel, and the next thing I knew I lay crumpled against the wall of the house. My head rang like somebody had set off all the bells of Notre Dame between my ears.
I remember lying on my back, and seeing the world through a dreamlike haze. None of it seemed related to me anymore. I could see “Skull” glaring down at me and struggling to get farther in through the arch. An arrow shaft appeared in the beast’s shoulder, and then a couple of seconds later another materialized in its mane.
Neither seemed to bother it very much.
Then I remember a chunky, middle-aged woman in a flowered nightgown squatting beside me while grabbing frantically for the pole I had dropped. It’s odd, but in my strangely dissociative state, the thing I mainly remember about her was the perm that basically amounted to a blonde afro. I vaguely wondered if that had been the effect she had striven for.
At the same time I also noticed she had miscalculated her position in the bad light and placed herself closer to the monster than she probably intended. Or maybe she simply had no idea of the creature’s reach. Either way, no matter how noble her intentions, the mistake killed her.
Skull lashed out with one of those huge talons and this time caught her by the shoulder. A split second later he jerked her face to face with him.
During all this, I couldn’t move a muscle. Not a twitch. My body seemed a thousand miles away, while at the same time I witnessed every detail of what happened next. I remember her and somebody else screaming as the huge abomination opened its jaws insanely wide.
And that’s when it bit her face off.
Its teeth drove in at the top of her forehead and under her chin. But surprisingly it didn’t kill her right away. The beast held her there in its partially open mouth for a second, as if anticipating its next move…its glowing eyes still seeming to glare straight at me. Then the monster’s jaws closed with a massive crunch that sprayed blood all over the area.
The woman spasmed, and fell to her knees. Her hands fluttered around her ruined head like blind moths. But those moths had nowhere to land. Only a red crater dripping brains and ruined teeth remained. The body fell slowly over onto its side, where it convulsed for several seconds before finally lying still. I could only hope her death had been quicker than it looked.
Right about then I also started to realize I might be hurt worse than I first thought.
My body still didn’t respond to any commands. Worse yet, the sight in my left eye seemed to be going. The world started to drift and I struggled to hang on to the scene in front of me. Yet this took effort as well. Even as horrific as things were, I found myself starting to become disconnected from the whole thing.
I looked back up at the flashing demon with my one good eye and numbly wondered if my turn had come. It seemed like the next logical development.
But then another arrow appeared, this time in the monstrosity’s neck. That one finally caught its attention.
The great horror let loose an ear piercing shriek and jerked itself back out of the gate. It seemed the thing had finally had enough. I heard the predator snarl twice more, but its voice sounded farther away each time. I guess the creature decided it made more sense to return to the vehicle of its earlier kill.
At least so I hoped.
Then silence reigned. The fight on the other end of the patio must have been over as well.
As I lay there, I saw how lucky we had truly been. The whole reason we lived was because the massive alpha horror hadn’t been able to squeeze past its companion trying to get through the archway at the same time. And now that I looked again, I saw the creature next to it had been slumped over the gate…dead…for the end of the fight. Apparently Ed had won that showdown.
At the same time I guessed he must have run out of bullets since I didn’t remember him firing any at Skull.
But I didn’t get much further in thinking because it felt like my mind had started to slow down and fracture. The ringing in my head grew louder as well. An enormous sense of pressure filled my skull, threatening to create fiery cracks all over my cranium.
I vaguely remember Casey dropping to her knees in front of me, waving her hand at my face and yelling something about the number of fingers she held up. The desperation in her voice worried me, and I hoped she was okay. Otherwise her words made little sense.
The pressure in my skull increased and the ringing drowned out all else. A great wave of nausea swept over me. My stomach lurched, but even the act of gagging seemed beyond my capabilities. My throat seized shut, and as the world dimmed around me I realized I had stopped breathing.
Somehow that didn’t seem right, but I simply couldn’t marshal any effort to make my lungs work anymore. As a matter of fact, nothing worked anymore.
The world started to shred around the edges, and as I drifted down into darkness I felt a terrible sense of disappointment with myself for failing Stella and Casey. I would have to count on Ed to see things through.
My time had come.
The last spark of my consciousness sputtered as it plunged deeper into the void opening beneath me. And as my life fled, I offered one final prayer to whatever powers might be listening that my failure would result in nobody’s death but my own.
But it was right then, as oblivion closed around me, the voice cut through the darkness…
“You really shouldn’t do that, you know.”
Chapter Seven: Making Acquaintances
“You really shouldn’t do that, you know.”
Suddenly my fal
l stopped, and I found myself back in my body surrounded by the carnage of the fight. A strange orange light with no source suffused the scene. It didn’t amount to much…just enough to illuminate the area without being useful for the purpose of seeing detail.
Casey still leaned over me, but she didn’t move and her body seemed to be made of dark smoke. I vaguely made out other smoky forms sharing the small patio with me. Neither the odd light nor their murky consistency allowed me to discern much about them. I could only assume these were the people who had been hiding in the enclosed patio when we had arrived with our pack of killers in tow.
Yet I barely noticed any of this due to the one figure who stood out in clear relief against the otherwise dim scene.
He leaned casually against the archway, and he was reading one of my books…my first novel.
A tall slender man, with swarthy skin and regal features, he wore a white suit and top hat with gold trim. The cut of the suit appeared old, like you would expect a stage magician of yore to wear. He carried an ivory walking cane tucked under one arm, topped with the miniature golden bust of some ancient Egyptian king.
The cane’s decoration seemed most appropriate since the lean face under the top hat sported kohl rimmed eyes, and one of those traditional chin beards found on the pharaohs of old. He presented an odd and slightly disorienting contrast of styles, as if Seti the Great had dressed up to attend the opera in Victorian England.
I could neither move nor speak, completely under the thrall of the shining figure.
“You shouldn’t simply toss out prayers to ‘whatever powers might be listening’ like you do,” he continued as he flipped through the paperback in his hand. “You never know who that might be.”
He gave the book in his hand a shake, and right before my eyes it became my second novel. He fanned through the pages and then shook it again, causing yet another transformation. He repeated the process twice more before he sighed and caused the book to vanish with a flourish of his wrist.
“I can see prose has taken an unfortunate turn toward utility in the past century,” he said with obvious regret. “I’m afraid Poe and his contemporaries would be most disappointed.”
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