by Sepulchre
Something seemed to shrink within those globular eyeballs when they came to rest on the shadowy form of Halloran, and the figure tried to rise, its scrawny neck arching backwards as if the weight of its head was too much to bear. The hood fell away from a hairless skull whose surface was mottled with deep brown blemishes; incredibly, the skin there, which should have been smooth, was also wrinkled and ridged, as though the bone beneath had no firmness, no substance.
Repulsed, Halloran took another step away. The impression of gazing down at an enormous lizard-like creature was enhanced when the figure's mouth opened and a tongue, so darkly red it seemed black, protruded and rolled across cracked, lipless flesh. Only the lidless eyes refuted the reptilian image.
The figure attempted to speak, but no more than a gasped sigh escaped. The head sank back into the rough bedding with a finality that suggested the body, itself, had expired. Only then, and with reluctance, did Halloran advance again. Those bulbous eyes were fixed on him and he shone the light directly into them. They did not blink, nor did the pupils, behind their mist, retract.
'It's you,' came the sibilant whisper.
Halloran froze.
The figure gasped in air, as though the effort of speaking had caused pain. Even deeper rents furrowed its skin and the mouth puckered inward.
Halloran struggled to find his own voice. 'Who are you?' The slightest inclination of the withered head, a gesture that the question was of no importance. And then the whisper: 'Death comes.' Its grimace might have been a smile.
Halloran leaned close, ignoring the fetid air that rose from the rumpled head. 'I can get help,' he said and the thought of touching this person almost made him retch.
Again that toothless, puckered expression that could have been a grin. 'Too late for me,' came the whisper. 'Come closer.' Halloran shuddered inwardly and made no effort to comply.
'I must speak . . .' it said, '. . . with you.' He knelt, but still could not find it in himself to bend near the hideous face. 'Tell me who you are,' he repeated.
This time there was an answer, perhaps an inducement to draw him in. 'The . . . Keeper.' The voice was stronger, and that, he thought, of a man.
'The gate-keeper?' Halloran said. Surely it wasn't possible. The person before him was too ancient and too infirm to bear the responsibility.
The man's laugh was a choking sound, and his head shook with the exertion. 'The Keeper,' he said again, the last syllable an exhaled breath. A silence between them, then: 'And you . . . you are Kline's guardian.' The dark tongue flicked out, the movement quicker this time as it swept across his mouth. The skin was hardly moistened. 'I understand now,' he murmured so softly that Halloran wasn't sure if he had heard correctly.
Those staring eyes with their veiled pupils were disconcerting, and he wondered how much the old man could really see. 'I'm going to bring a doctor to you,' he said, questions racing through his mind.
'Too late, too late.' The words were drawn out as a sigh. 'At long last . . . it's too late.' His head lolled to one side.
Not anxious, but curious, Halloran reached out to feel the pulse between the still man's neck and chin.
He jerked his fingers away when the face turned back to him.
'Do you understand why you're here?' he was asked.
'Felix Kline is a client,' Halloran answered.
'Do you know why you came to this house?'
'Here, the lodge-house'?' There was no reply.
'I came to check it out, to find out who was inside, who handled the . . . the dogs.'
'Now you've seen me.' He nodded.
'But it seems you understand nothing.' The wrinkled face creased even more. 'I wonder what you sense.'
There was an accent in the soft-spoken words.
'What did you see when you entered . . . this room?' the old man whispered.
How could he know? Unless he had caused them, just as Kline had caused hallucinations out on the lake.
“things past, but never quite forgotten'?' A catching in the throat, perhaps a snigger. 'Your account has been brought up to date. I wonder why?'
'Is Kline still playing stupid games with me, putting thoughts into my mind?' Halloran felt anger overwhelming his abhorrence.
The shaking of the old man's head was feeble. 'No . . . no . . . the thoughts came from you. They are yours alone. Memories. You brought yourself . . . to this point.' Those disturbing, milky eyes watched him, the ragged gash of a mouth curled in what could have been a grin.
'Tell me about Kline,' Halloran said at last.
A sighed whisper, a slow releasing of breath. 'Ahhhh ',The ravaged head shifted slightly so that his eyes looked into the blackness of the ceiling.
Halloran waited, uneasy in the stillness, wary of this person whose decomposition seemed to precede his death. Halloran was wary, too, of the lodge-house itself: there was movement in its shadows, as if spectral shapes weaved and danced there. Things perceived not with the naked eye but through the mind. Halloran checked himself, tried to throw off such crazy notions. Yet still they asserted themselves.
The old man was murmuring and, despite his repugnance, Halloran edged closer, wanting to catch every hushed word.
'A cunning boy. With powers . . . powers valuable to us . . . us Jews. But he was . . . foolish, too. He imagined . . he had claimed his deity, not realising that he was the one . . . to be claimed.' He groaned and clutched at himself.
Halloran held out a hand to steady him, but could not find it in himself to touch the thing lying there, not even though it was covered by rags.
When the worst of the pain had subsided, the aged and crumpled man spoke again. 'Almost three thousand years of waiting before the . . . the Christ . . . two thousand years after . . .' He was rambling, and when he coughed, there was a pin kiness to the spittle dampening the corners of his mouth. He gasped, as though anxious to tell. 'We searched the world for disciple's . . . our kind. And we found them. It wasn't difficult. And Kline caused havoc wherever we went. All for the glory of Bel-Marduk . . .'
He drifted away once more.
Kline had spoken that name before. Halloran shivered, for the air was very cold. He looked around at the shadows: the torch beam was frail.
A stirring of the makeshift bedclothes. then a shrivelled hand, more like a claw, fingernails long and curled, stained brown with age, appeared. It reached for Halloran's arm and the operative shuddered when it came to rest on him.
'He . . . Felix . . . used me . . .' He was drifting away. The trembling hand flopped from Halloran's arm.
'No longer afraid . . .' came the hushed words. 'No worse Hell than . . . here . . . ahhhh . . .' Life seemed to flow out from him.
Overcoming his revulsion, Halloran shook the covering over the old man's chest. 'Tell me who you are.'
he demanded, both angry and frustrated. 'How can you guard this estate, control the dogs'' How do you keep the gates locked? You're old, you're sick . . .' A dry, reedy chuckle. The remnants of life flickered.
'I have . . . power, too. Kline . . . working through me. My mind holds the . . . gates. My . . . mind controls . . . the beasts, the demons . . . But no more . . . too weak. He needs another . . . Someone corrupted to his ways . . .'
'Who are you?'
'I am nothing.'
'Tell me!'
'Nothing. Although once . . . I was a merchant.' He drew in a grating breath. 'He . . . he is vulnerable.'
Again he clasped Halloran's arm. 'Is it you? Are you the one?'
'To take your place? Is that what you mean?' A different kind of fear in Halloran now.
The slighest inclination of the wizened head. 'No something more . . . than that . . .
There were noises from downstairs. A soft rushing. Halloran remembered he had left the window open.
He felt a tightening of the clawed hand on his arm. Then the fingers uncurled and the hand fell away.
A scuffling in the hallway below.
There was a liquid rattling in the old
man's throat as a long exhalation of air escaped him.
Pattering on the staircase.
Halloran scooped up the black bag as he rose and leapt for the door in a desperate bid to close it before the jackals came through.
But he was too late.
39 A TERROR UNLEASHED
The first of the beasts burst into the room, a glistening an its jaws caught by the beam of light.
To Halloran's surprise, the jackal bounded past him. He quickly stepped behind the door, using it as a shield as others, snarling and yelping, their fur bristling, streamed through. They made straight for the bundle of rags in the corner of the room.
Halloran drew in a sharp breath as the first jackal reached the lifeless figure and tore into the bedding, its jaws snapping and rending material. He heard a feeble cry above the frenzied yapping and realised that the disfigured old man was not yet dead. The puckered skull suddenly emerged from the rags, its mouth a toothless, jagged hole, the eyes now totally white. The second jackal buried its teeth into the scrawny throat.
And still more poured through the doorway.
Halloran reached into the bag and pulled out the MPSK, not bothering to yank out its retractable stock as he aimed at the welter of shoving and tumbling bodies. Blood suddenly mush.-d upwards to drench the agitated backs of the jackals, its smell, its taste, driving the animals into even greater frenzy. They ripped into their broken victim, shaking him in feverish rage.
Halloran loosed fifteen rounds of 9mm bullets into the pack, aware that the old man would also be hit and knowing id really didn't matter any more.
The jackals screeched, some leaping into the air, others thrown against the wall by the impact. In little more than a second, the room was a carnage of convulsing bodies, a redness coating the floor and running down into the cracks. But not all the beasts had been killed outright. Several had just been wounded. Others had only been frightened.
These turned towards their attacker.
Halloran quickly switched the weapon to single-shot, unwilling to waste the rest of the magazine on one short burst.
The howling subsided to an agonised whimpering, the sound piteous but invoking no pity from Halloran.
He pointed the gun at the nearest advancing jackal. The animal leapt, carnassials bared and already stained. The bullet entered its neck and exploded from the other side, taking fragments of flesh and spine with it into the ceiling.
Halloran was pushed back against the wall, the torch he had kept locked against the weapon falling from his grasp as the contorting body struck him. The dead animal dropped away, head loose from its shoulders, and Halloran, crouched now, heard rather than saw the rush of another jackal. He raised the weapon and fired blindly.
The first bullet did not stop the animal, merely creasing its flank, and teeth sank into the operative's wrist.
He scarcely felt the pain.
The next bullet, the weapon itself directed downwards by the jackal's weight, scythed along the creature's underbelly. The piercing yelp set off a renewed howling from its injured companions and Halloran cringed under the cacophony. He tugged his arm free, the brute's teeth scraping across the skin of his wrist as it slid to the floor. He reached for the torch, swiftly turning the beam into the mass of juddering scavengers. Those that were still able were crawling towards him, some limping badly, others squirming on their stomachs. The mattress and bedrags behind them were sodden with dark, seeping liquid.
Sub-machine gun held in one hand against his hip, Halloran stooped to retrieve the bag, which contained extra magazines, never once letting the light beam waver away from the creeping bodies. The howling had died, to be replaced by a low, menacing growling. He edged around the door.
A limping jackal suddenly made a dash at him. Its legs gave way and it slumped at Halloran's feet, jaws weakly snapping the air, a low snarl coming from deep within its throat. He backed out the door as the others gathered their strength and staggered forward. Halloran pulled the door shut with a jarring thud and heard the jackals scratching at the wood on the other side.
He leaned against the frame, forehead resting on a raised arm, breathing slowly, giving himself time to recover from the horror.
But a scuffling on the stairs would not allow that.
He stiffened, then moved to the rail overlooking the stairway. More jackals were bounding up the steps, their backs to him. Halloran leaned over and took them one by one, shooting at the base of their skulls, shattering the bone there. The first jackal stopped dead, as if stunned, then toppled downstairs, the one close behind becoming entangled with the falling body. The third, startled by the gunfire and trying to avoid its companions, dodged to the side and received a bullet in its shoulder. The jackal howled and tumbled out of sight.
Halloran swiftly walked along the landing and paused at the top of the stairs, shining the light down. Only two corpses lay at the bottom.
He descended cautiously, anxious to get away from the charnel-house, but wary of what might still be waiting below. Hopefully these were the last of the stragglers. From above came the continued scratching against the door and a kind of mewling whimpering.
Halloran stepped over the dead bodies at the foot of the stairs and backed away to the frontdoor, keeping his eyes on the corridor leading to the rear of the lodge-house. Slipping the bag over his shoulder and gripping the pen-torch firmly between his teeth, he tried the doorhandle. It resisted his pressure at first, the mechanism obviously rusted, then grudgingly turned. But the bolts, top and bottom, were rusted solid and would not budge.
He guessed the entrance hadn't been used for many wears, but was reluctant to leave through the backway. Instead he went into the room on his right.
Halloran was halfway across the floor heading for one of the windows, when something dripped onto his extended arm. He stopped, curious. Liquid spattered against his cheek. He pointed the beam upwards and saw the blood dripping through the ceiling. That was when he heard the throaty snarling from behind the door.
The jackal was on him before he had time to aim his weapon. He went down, dust rising in great clouds as he hit the boards. The torch flew from his grasp, striking the wall and blinking off when it fell to the floor.
The slathering animal was only a dim form above as Halloran clenched its fur and tried to keep the snapping jaws away from his face. He was forced to release the sub-machine gun so that he could fend off the attack with both hands. Its long legs were sturdy, much more powerful than they appeared, and they raked his clothes, scratching the skin beneath. Halloran felt blood trickling down his wrist, but realised it was from his attacker“s Own wound. Using one hand again to hold the jackal off, with his other he reached for the blood-soaked shoulder and squeezed hard. With a sharp, high-pitched yelp, the jackal sprang away, but Halloran went with it, keeping the pressure on the wound. Because of their skeletal structure, he knew dogs or wolves were virtually armour-plated, their vulnerable points few; but a sharp blow to the jackal's neck, just before the shoulders, numbed it into immobility. Halloran followed through before it had a chance to recover by slipping both arms beneath its shoulder, joining hands behind the creature's neck, and bringing up his elbows while pressing down his hands in one fast, vigorous action. The jackal's breastbone split with a sharp crack, the shock killing it immediately.
He let the limp body fall away and without taking time to recover his breath, Halloran searched around the floor for the weapon. When he had it in his hands, as well as the black bag carrying the extra ammunition, he returned to the door and closed it, a barrier against any other jackals not dealt with. He went to the window, felt for the catch and, with some difficulty, forced it open. When he attempted to lift the window, however, he discovered it was stuck solid.
Wasting no further time, he covered his eyes with one hand and used the stubby butt of the sub-machine gun to smash the glass. Halloran squeezed through the opening and dropped to the ground outside. The Mercedes waited in the gloom a short distance away.
He had taken only a few paces towards it when a window above shattered and screeching shapes rained down on him.
He stumbled when one landed on his shoulder, tripped when another jackal fell at his feet. There was no way of telling how many there were around him and he knew there was little chance of recovering the weapon in the darkness. He pushed an animal away, its resistance weak because of its wounds, kicked out at another when he had risen, sending the beast tottering backwards on legs that were already unstable. Something tugged at his ankle and he lifted the jackal off the ground, hurling it away from himself. He ran for the car drawing the Browning from its holster, just as a section of moon appeared.
Throwing open the door, he leapt inside. He changed gun hands to close the car door, pulling at the handle as another jackal launched itself at him. The animal became wedged and Halloran leaned away to avoid its gnashing teeth. With his left hand he touched the automatic to the jackal's head and squeezed the trigger. The beast jerked once, then slumped lifeless. Halloran pushed the body away from the car and pulled the door shut.
He sat there, chest heaving, his arms and forehead against the steering wheel. When he raised his head again to stare back at the lodge, the moonlight revealed a macabre scene: the wolf-like creatures were staggering around in circles, shocked by their wounds as well as in pain, baying at the moon, their stumblings almost a ritual dance.
Halloran reached for the RT, intending to alert the patrol cars of the estate's loss of inner security. It had been unfortunate that neither car had been passing the gates a minute or two earlier when gunfire from the house would have brought them in to assist, but that was always a problem if manpower was stretched; not for the first time he cursed Kline for his faith in his own security. Static blared out at him when he pressed the transmit button. He switched off, then on again, hoping that interference would clear. It didn't. He spoke into the mouthpiece anyway, but the static became even worse as he waited for a reply.
Glancing up at the sky, he saw that the clouds were big and thunderous, the atmosphere itself muggyclose, charge-filled. With a muttered curse, he returned the RT, holstered the gun, and switched on the Mercedes' ignition.