by J. Z. Foster
“Well, if he was under the control of the warlock, but able to get loose to come to us, we know we must have hurt the warlock pretty badly. Maybe even more than I thought, since his leash on the daeva snapped or at least got a hell of a lot looser. We also had to know what his hand was to play in all of this, why he was here.”
“You rolled the dice and they came back snake eyes. Fine. I can at least understand why you rolled ’em.” Ted kept his gaze forward this time. “Just tell me if I need to turn off this road.”
“Fine.” Richard felt a burning sensation growing in the back of his head, but he tucked the feeling away. Ted was making his skin crawl, so he took a deep breath and tried to let it go. His mind started to wander at what Ted had said, if he really did ask the wrong question, but he stopped it. There was no point in wishing he was somewhere else. He was here, now, and if he wasn’t focused he could get them all killed.
“We’re getting close.” Beth’s eyes widened as she turned to look out the window. “Am I the only one that feels it?” She looked down at her arm to see the hair standing on end.
“I’m getting it too.” Richard looked up from the bowl. “This is where he’s at.”
Ted took them through another section of old roads with thick woods on either side. The moon was still high in the sky, but the thought that in just a few hours the sun would be rising brought a little comfort to Richard, as if the sun was all they needed to kill what lay in the dark.
They turned onto a more trafficked road and breezed past some old-looking farms that had fences with thick-wrapped barbed wire. They stayed on the road, silent as they drove, with less and less evidence of the people that lived in the town appearing outside the windows.
And then they were there.
They saw the light from the old gas station. It was far down from the highway, something set for just the people in town. It looked aged, like something built in the ’60s or ’70s, and they didn’t seem to have even bothered changing their sign that simply read “Petrol.” Richard was sure now; there were no further conflicts, no more ambiguities. It was clear.
This is where the evil lies.
“It’s here.” The hair on Richard’s neck stood on end.
Ted stopped some ways down and let the van idle. He took in a deep breath. “Well, the lights are still on, after-hour lights anyway. Are we going to run into anyone else?”
“I don’t see any other cars.” Beth leaned forward and stared out the windshield. “I don’t see anyone at all, actually.”
Ted turned back to look at Richard. “Well, are we going to do this?” For all the talk of killing witches before, only the van’s motor felt a need to fight back the silence now. It idled on as Richard worked up his courage.
“Man is such a fickle thing.” The wight finally blurted, cutting away the silence. It turned to briefly gobble down a powdered donut. “Ride your carriage to the tavern there and we shall fall upon the weakened warlock. It is not such a thing that needs further discussion.” As it spoke, pieces of the donut fell from his mouth. “We shall finish our tormentor quickly, in the same haste he would have for our party.”
Ted scoffed. “You just get those creepy fingers of yours warmed up back there, Stretch. When we get there, you tear ass out of here and sniff him out, you hold him down, and I’ll finish it, all right? Don’t be too worried if a finger or two finds its way into his eye either, we’re cool with it.”
“What is ‘tear ass?’” the wight asked, intrigued.
Richard cut in. “Just be ready.”
The van pulled into the gravel parking lot as Richard reached into his bag and plucked out the blade. He gripped its wooden handle tightly and inspected the grooves in it, grooves in wood older than he was. He had to wonder about its history.
Has this blade ever killed a witch before?
“Let me have it.” Ted snapped his fingers and held his hand out to Richard.
It’s good that Ted wants it. It’s the right thing to do. He can do it, you can’t. He’s stronger than you.
With some reluctance, Richard handed the blade over to Ted. They all filed out of the van. Richard breathed in the cold night air and searched the length of the road, making sure there was no one else who might interrupt. “I guess it’s now or never, right?” He swallowed his fear and tried to lock it away somewhere else. He didn’t feel much else—neither nervous nor excited—only numb. His legs felt like they weren’t his own, and his body seemed to move forward without him commanding it. He felt as if he were only watching it all play out.
“Stay close to me, Richard.” Beth warmed his arm with her own, entwining them together.
He was happy for it; Beth had been with him every step of the way. She’d been the one that fueled his confidence, helped him understand that he could do it all. He was glad that she was still here with him.
With his free arm, he gripped his satchel close, almost by instinct. He already had his hand deep inside, resting on his book. The pages gave him some comfort, as if they held the answers to everything.
I’m ready.
The wight stretched when it climbed out from the car, making it a good deal taller than the rest of them. A moment later, it hunched forward into its natural curved shape and used its knuckles to touch the ground for support. It didn’t even hold the illusion of humanity when it scampered forward this way. Ted, clearly reluctant, followed behind it with the blade held tightly by his side.
There was a faint orange light outside the gas station, but with no lights on inside it was nearly impossible to see into the pitch dark. The wight swept forward, galloping on its knuckles, the calluses on its hands and feet providing ample protection against the gravel.
The wight pressed its long face to the window of the station, leaving a smeared mess as it jolted toward the door. It held its nose a few inches from the handle and drew in a breath, drinking the scent. “The warlock dwells inside.” Its flat lips curled up into a sneer.
Richard couldn’t help but think of just how the wight had been a servant to the warlock only hours ago, but now was eager to rip him apart.
What if Ted was right? What if it turns on me just as easily?
He stuffed the thoughts away with the fear—any more doubt and he wouldn’t be able to take another step forward. He had to trust the wight now. He had no choice.
Ted stared through the glass door and into the darkness behind it. He bent from side to side, trying to get a better view, though none was available, then cautiously grabbed the handle, as if it too could be a threat that could sink its teeth into him.
We’re crossing the Rubicon. The point of no return.
“Wait,” Beth said, her voice low. “Is that safe? To go directly in like that, as a group?”
“I’m open to a better idea if you’ve got one; we’re not exactly a SWAT team,” Ted whispered back.
When no one else had anything to offer, Ted turned again to the door. It stuck, but with a little force, he pulled it open. “Not locked—that’s good, right?”
Or maybe he wants us to come inside.
A bell at the top of the door jingled when the door opened, forcing Ted to wince. He froze in place, studying the dark, but when nothing lurched from it, he continued forward.
Richard trailed in behind him. Faded lime-green tiles covered the floor and an old, dusty register sat at the clerk’s counter. Soft lights glowed behind the coolers, which were filled with drinks that had old labels and promotions that ended decades ago. Most of the shelves were filled with products that looked like they had lain untouched for years.
The wight took a few steps forward and stopped to sniff the air. “A thing of decay, putrid smell.” It took another whiff. “He’s soiled himself.”
“He shit himself?” Ted asked with wide eyes and a nod of his head. “Well, that’s definitely a good sign, right? You don’t usually shit yourself out of confidence.”
Richard’s calm was starting to break and he shook with anticipation, h
is muscles ready to jump or run. He whispered, “Where, though? Let’s finish this quick.”
The wight fell farther to the floor and sniffed as its tongue slithered out. It stepped forward to lick a brown stain on the floor before it skittered toward the back, with the group following closely behind. The wight’s pace slowed as it came to a door and reached out a three-fingered hand to softly push it open.
Richard held his breath as the door creaked open, the smell inside immediately assaulting their senses. Richard coughed as the thick stench came over them and the wight pushed into the room with no clear regard to the odor. Beth reached in to hit the light, illuminating the room.
Nothing.
The small room was empty, save for an old bed with dark brown and black stains, but nothing of particular strangeness. Richard sniffed the air but drew back again, covering his nose with his arm. He wasn’t even sure where the smell was coming from.
Is it the stains? Something soaked into the mattress? Is this where I was supposed to go?
He was suddenly no longer confident, no longer sure of that gut feeling, of anything.
Beth let her arm pull away from Richard’s as she stepped inside. The smell didn’t seem to bother her, but her lip curled up and he could see the disgust behind her eyes. “He’s not here, Richard. He’s gone! You idiot.”
Did she just say that?
His stomach was tied in knots again, and his mouth went dry. The witch was loose, and apparently Richard didn’t know where. He failed.
The witch is ancient. It’s dealt with things like this before—of course I couldn’t find it so easily. There’s no way I could have overwhelmed it in The Outside and known where it was.
“I think maybe it tricked me,” Richard said sheepishly.
He watched as Beth scoffed and walked out. Her confidence had lifted him and her trust had given him resolve. He couldn’t hear Ted’s curses; they fell on deaf ears as he focused on Beth storming out.
“Fucking useless,” Beth said as she walked down the hallway.
His heart broke.
Chapter 19
“That it? You get there and there’s nothing?” Minges shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Kind of a letdown, yeah? All that just to get to an empty room? Didn’t find nothing there? Besides that brown stain that you felt like mentioning—thanks for that, by the way.” He rolled his eyes. “The girlie got a little pissed at you, though, right? But that’s probably right around when things begun to unwind.”
Something clicked in Richard’s brain. The little haze that was left fell away. “Beth was really mad at me, I remember that. Wait, there was something else.” More unraveled, like boney, ghastly fingers reaching into his mind. The thin fingers grabbed at the curtain his consciousness had constructed and pulled it open.
The blood…
“Yeah? What’s that, son?”
Richard’s eyes mindlessly searched the scratches and grooves in the table in front of him as his mind worked. He dragged his finger over the web-like patterns. “We looked over the rest of the place. We found the crawl space, we looked through the register, everything. There wasn’t any trace of him.” He squinted his eyes in confusion, trying to remember. Drips of memory began to take color and form, but they came in cloudy and disjointed. The thoughts mutated and changed like water—no, like blood—in his mind.
“Then what? You keep telling me the same thing. I got that part; you didn’t find anything.”
His thoughts played out like a black and white picture with color leaking in, painting a horrid image of blood and broken bones. “Oh my God…” His voice cracked and then he bellowed when the color painted a twisted, dead grin on Beth’s face. “I killed her!” Richard threw his head back and cried in frustration. Blood rushed to his face, making it warm and bright red. “I killed her! No! No, God, please!” The color formed blood spatters across the floors of his memory. There was no curtain anymore, no lie to hide behind.
I killed her. I cracked her skull. I broke her body. I beat her to death.
Minges leaned back in his chair and said nothing; he only brought his hanky up to dab the sweat from his face.
“No, Beth, no!” Richard wailed. He brought his hand down onto the table, beating against it until his knuckles felt like they might break. “Please, God, no!”
“There’s nothing here, Richard.” The frustration in her voice cut away at him. “You kept saying everything would work, but now what?”
“Yeah, there’s nothing. We’re shit out of luck.” Ted batted away a piece of trash. “Got something else there in your stupid book or what?”
“I... No,” Richard was taken aback by their cruelty. “I told you guys, I haven’t done this before! I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m trying my best!”
“Your best isn’t good enough. What the hell use are you anyway?” Beth turned to leave.
“Me and Stretch here are going to step outside, see if we can find anything.” Ted glared. “Try to do something useful, all right?” He slapped the wight on the shoulder. Richard heard the bell on the front door ring twice as the two left.
“Beth, I’m sorry.” Richard scrambled back to her. “There might be some interference here. I don’t know what’s happened exactly. It’s not my fault, though. We just have to keep looking. If we can’t find him, The Kord will be here soon and he’ll know what to do.”
“The Kord.” There was a chill in her voice. “He sounds just as stupid as you. This is all just some game for you. You guys all stumbled into it and then dragged us with you. I almost died tonight, Richard. I almost died because you said you knew what you were doing.”
“That was back when I didn’t know it was real! I believe in it now. I know it’s all true now. I just... I’ve never done this before!”
“Yeah, you keep saying that.” She mocked Richard’s voice. “I’ve never done this before. So what, Richard? If you’re no help for us, then just leave. We’ll do it by ourselves. You’re useless.”
What the hell is wrong with her!
“I’m not useless! I was the one that saved you at the house!” He felt an ember of anger start to grow in his chest. “I’m the one that got you out of there!”
“Yeah?” She stepped over to one of the coolers and took out a can, cracked open the seal, and took a drink. “You’re also the one that pointed us here! Everything, everything that has happened tonight has been because of your incompetence. You’re supposed to be a professional, but you can’t even do this. What can you do, Richard? What can you do?”
The ember burned hotter and spread to his shoulders and down his arms. “I didn’t want to come here, dammit! I wanted to leave! You guys dragged me into the house! You wanted your damn story and you got it! I came along to help you, to protect you!”
“Great job you’re doing, right?” She took another sip. “Look where we’re at. The sun is nearly up and the witch is almost gone, and then what, Richard? Then what?”
“Shut up!” The fire in his chest burned hot, sending the flames up his neck and down his legs, a fire that burned just beneath his skin now. He stomped over and slapped the drink from her hands, sending it crashing to the green tile floor. “Shut the hell up!” Something in his mind cried out for him to stop, but the fire burned it to a weak whisper.
She responded with a slap across his mouth. “You’re pathetic.”
The heat touched that bare skin where she struck him. He glared into her brown eyes, those same eyes that had warmed him before; now they only made him burn. “Get the hell out then! Go write your damn story and leave me alone!” He shoved away a shelf of goods as he made his way out, but then he caught sight of it—an axe resting in the corner behind the counter. It looked new, with a For Sale sticker still on it, maybe the only thing in the entire store that wasn’t coated in a layer of dust. Richard felt a cool breeze riding across his back; he couldn’t pull himself from it. The power was there, locked within the axe’s handle and sharp edge. He brought the axe up closer to his
eyes to inspect it, not realizing he had even gone to pick it up.
The fire took control of him then, the heat surging into his arms and legs. He felt the adrenaline as the chase began, now hunter and not prey, for the first time that night. It came in a blur with only flashes of things that caught his eyes, things like the dull side of the axe catching the glass of the front door as he burst through it. There was a screech as the axe came up and a flash with a red streak as it fell. The screech turned into a gurgle as the axe rose and then fell again, a crack of bone to accompany it.
The anger drove him and controlled him, but it was the collapsed, bloody mess that had been Beth that brought him back to his senses. A strange, satisfied grin rode across her mangled head. His hand opened and the wooden handle slid away and clattered against the pavement. The fire breathed out all at once, replaced with the cold air of the night, the cold night that had been with him as much as anything else.
What did I do?
Beth lay there; her brown leather jacket was torn and bloodied. There was a huge gouge in her chest and several across her scalp. It had caved in like a rotten pumpkin. Her body shook and jolted violently in the throes of death—but the grin stayed there, unflinching, as if the reaper’s own fingers held it in place.
Richard brought his hands up and into his hair, smearing the blood across his face and hands. His stomach jumped, and he felt as if his mouth would fill with the evening’s pancakes.
The blood, there’s so much of it, so much blood.
Where Ted or the wight were, he didn’t know. He could hear the sirens now. How the police had been called or arrived so fast, he had no idea, nor did he care. Nothing mattered now, and he collapsed to his knees. He wailed loudly. The blood from the piled mess in front of him leaked toward him, drenching his knees. But something came in the thickness of it; a maze of lines and webs began to form cleanly in the blood. It cut away into a single word:
Lies.