The beasts had dark orange faces and solid black eyes. From both sides of their mouths grew tusks so long the demons could not close their lips together. They were almost close enough to reach out and grab him.
Thursday stumbled back and fell to his rear.
“Don’t run,” the demons said in unison.
Their faces melted, orange dripping away to reveal Caucasian skin beneath. The new faces retained the tusks, but other than that were human. Not just human, familiar. The one on the left was Thursday’s mother, just as he remembered her from his childhood. The one on the right was Thursday’s father, young and strong.
“You have fear in your heart,” his mother said.
No. It was the other way around. The one of the left was his father, and the one on the right…
One of them was his mother and one of them was his father, he was sure of that. But Thursday could no longer tell their faces part. He didn’t know which was which.
“You have sin in your heart,” his mother/father on the right said.
“There is no hope for you. No redemption.” He could not see their lips move or tell if the voice speaking was a man or a woman or if it was more than one voice speaking at the same time.
His parents took one step forward and came to an abrupt stop, then took another step forward and stopped again. With inhuman motion, the two closed in on him, their bodies starting and stopping in a way that defied momentum. But they didn’t get any closer. No matter how many steps they took, they remained the same distance away.
Their tusks grew, curving upward, inches of pointed bone extending into feet. Their fingernails and toenails grew as well, like wires that surrounded Thursday in a cage as the pair reached for him.
“I want to confess!” he screamed, hunching down and covering his head in his hands. “We came here as spies for the King of Brews. He made us. He was going to kill Nandi’s friend if we didn’t!” Tears rushed from Thursday’s eyes, his words became sobs. “But we didn’t know. We didn’t know you were a servant of God. I believe in you now and I trust in you.”
“Get up, Thursday.”
It was Nandi’s voice, right behind him, calm and quiet.
Thursday opened his eyes and looked up. The demons with his parents’ faces were gone. He looked back over his shoulder. Standing behind him was a goddess in swirling white robes. Warm light shone from her bronze skin. Her face was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Stop looking at me like that,” the goddess said with Nandi’s voice. “They slipped us their Godsight fruit. You’re hallucinating.”
The words made no sense to Thursday. He remained on his knees, staring up at the goddess. Her robes did look an awful lot like the ones the Bishop’s people put on him and Nandi.
“Focus. Try to shake it off,” the goddess said. “Now that you’ve screamed ‘we’re spies’ at the top of your lungs, we should probably get out of here.”
The goddess yanked him by the arm and he climbed to his feet. She ushered Thursday along, walking quickly, but whether they were heading back the way they came or going deeper in, Thursday wasn’t sure. Now that Nandi had told him he was hallucinating, he could feel it—a haze in his mind, a vibration in everything he saw, a warping echo to every noise.
“There’s no need to run, children,” a man’s voice called out. “The direction you walk does not determine salvation or damnation. Only God’s judgement deliver’s that.” It was an authoritative voice, and Thursday soon recognized it as the same voice that preached from behind the cathedral’s altar.
A man stepped out of the darkness, Thursday recognized him as the Bishop. Tiny black flames flickered up from his eyelids, but did not burn him. Two of his followers loomed behind his shoulders. The skin of their faces turned grey and hard like the skin of an elephant, then faded back to normal skin tones.
“The food we gave you this evening included fruit from the tree of Godsight,” the Bishop said. His tongue flickered, thin and quick, like that of a snake. “It is the only way you can discover those cruel shadows hiding so deep in your heart you don’t even know they exist.”
“By going on a drug trip?” Nandi asked. Thursday could see now that it was her, not the goddess he’d seen before.
“The fruit is not a drug,” the Bishop said calmly. “It is a gift, and we are blessed and honored to be the guardians of that gift.”
“Yeah, well, considering that a minute ago I saw a man with no head walking on the ceiling and you’re looking a lot like a giant praying mantis right now, I’m wondering how you’re so sure this is something more than just a drug messing with us.” Nandi said.
The Bishop stepped forward, his easy demeanor fading as he stood face to face with Nandi. He pulled the black-covered Bible from his pocket and held it up next to his face.
“If you are incapable of faith, you will suffer the consequences,” he said. “But I cannot tolerate the corruption of those whose faith is just starting to shine.”
The two men circled to either side of Nandi and grabbed her by the arms. Their ears and noses and mouths grew larger and smaller in random fluctuations.
“Hey!” she shouted, squirming to break free of their grips.
“You don’t have to do that,” Thursday said. “I’ll go with you. I believe already. Why are you—?”
The men dragged Nandi past the Bishop, who dropped the Bible back in his pocket and turned to watch her go.
“I’m afraid that we cannot let you go now that we know you are an agent for those who wish to destroy the faithful,” he said.
“I don’t give a shit about that King and all his assholes,” Nandi shouted. “I just don’t want my boyfriend to die. Let me go and I’ll lie about all this. I can help you throw them off!”
“You can’t be trusted,” the Bishop said. “But, we will treat you well, and perhaps in time you might yet become one of us.”
Thursday stood behind the Bishop, watching helplessly as the men dragged Nandi away. The Bishop’s Bible bounced in his pocket as he lifted his hands above his head.
“Salvation is still within your reach,” he said, his words echoing.
Thursday reached into the Bishop’s pocket and pulled the Bible from it.
“Give your thanks to God above that we will keep you safe and give you time to search your soul for the truth,” the Bishop called out.
Thursday flipped through the pages until he found the book of Revelation and skimmed through to find verse 9:19. The letters wavered, but he could read them clearly enough.
For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails; for their tails were unto serpents and had heads, and with them they do hurt.
It was nothing like what the Bishop had read aloud in the cathedral that morning. Had Thursday read the wrong passage? He checked the book and verse. It was the right one, the book and verse the Bishop said he’d been reading from.
“Can you even read?” Thursday asked.
The Bishop spun, a look of confusion on his face. He noticed the Bible in Thursday’s hand. His face lit up with rage.
“Give that to me!” he bellowed. The Bishop snatched at the Bible but Thursday pulled it back.
“It doesn’t say anything about aliens in here at all does it?” Thursday asked. He stepped back away from the Bishop and scanned through the lines of text, looking for any word that related to the invasion and aftermath.
The Bishop called over his shoulder to his men, who had halted when they heard the Bishop yell. “Get that from him!”
The men let go of Nandi and charged forward. One carried an iron bar, the second a piece of wood that looked like it must have been an axe handle. Thursday stepped back. He should have run, but he didn’t think fast enough and by the time he felt the wall against his back and realized his mistake it was too late. The man with the iron bar raised it over his head in both hands.
“Hey!”
The shout came from the second of the Bishop’s men, followed a second later by t
he blow of his own axe handle against the side of his head. While the Bishop and his two men had been focused on Thursday, Nandi had run up behind and snatched the weapon out of the second man’s hand. The man who had been about to knock Thursday senseless turned, his bar still up and ready to strike, and redirected his aim on Nandi.
Thursday lunged forward and punched him in the back of the head. His attack came a moment too late, the man had already started his swing. Nandi crumpled.
Thursday expected to break his hand on the back of the man’s skull. Instead, he felt a numb pain in his knuckles that quickly faded away.
It was the fruit. Jael had said it was what made the Bishop’s followers hard to hurt. When they fed it to him, he’d grown tougher.
The man he’d punched recovered and turned to face him. Thursday might have gained some extra durability, but the man still had an iron bar in his hand.
“Move,” The Bishop said to his man. When the man stepped out of the way, the Bishop stood facing Thursday with a revolver in his hand.
The axe handle slammed down on the Bishop’s wrist, knocking the gun from his hand. Nandi had only gotten to her knees and hadn’t managed a very hard blow, but it was enough.
In the dark contrasts between the blinding torchlight and black floor, the revolver was lost to Thursday’s sight. He dropped to his knees and swept his hands over the floor, feeling for it. The Bishop’s man kicked him in the face with every bit of his strength.
Thursday flopped over backward, a sharp sting overwhelming his cheek and nose. Water filled his eyes, but the sting began dissipating almost right away. Shouts and hits and a cry of pain rang out before Thursday could lift himself to see what was happening.
The gun went off, a crack of thunder reverberating off the walls so loudly that Thursday figured the gun itself must have exploded. When he looked up, the Bishop was standing with a look of shock on his face, red worms dripping from a hole in the middle of his chest and falling to the floor.
No. Not worms, that was just the hallucinations. What poured from the Bishop’s chest was blood.
The Bishop dropped. The man with the iron bar let go of it fast enough to catch his leader before the man hit the ground. Nandi stood behind them, the smoking revolver in her hand.
“Bishop? Bishop?” the man cried.
Nandi turned as if to run. She paused and extended her hand to Thursday with wide eyes, silently pleading for him to get up and come with her. He didn’t hesitate.
The two ran, and Thursday could only hope that they were running out of the tunnel instead of further in. A howl of anguish echoed down the hallway behind them.
“Give me the gun,” Thursday huffed.
Nandi tossed him the axe handle. The tunnel opened ahead of them, and it looked to Thursday like the same way they came in. The silhouette of an alien body stepped into view from one side of the opening. No, it wasn’t one of the aliens, it was a woman.
“What was that?” she asked. “What happened…?”
The woman’s eyes got wide, surely realizing that the two people running toward her were not fellow devotees. She pulled a knife from her robes.
“Stop!” she ordered.
Without breaking stride, Nandi fired the gun. The explosion seemed to shatter the air itself, and Thursday stumbled as he slammed his hands over his ears. When he regained his balance and pried his eyes open, the woman who had been blocking their way lay motionless on the ground.
Thursday and Nandi ran into the ballroom and headed for the stairs that led out. The Bishop’s people appeared from doorways and leapt down from balconies, green water splashing down in waves behind each body. At least a dozen of them appeared from hiding and came at Thursday and Nandi with knives and clubs and grimaces of rage. Nandi spun and fired the gun at the horde chasing them, the explosion less painful to Thursday’s ears outside of the tunnel. Whether or not she hit someone, Thursday couldn’t tell—as soon as the bang sounded, the Bishop’s followers scattered and dove to the ground. Nandi pulled the trigger again, this time with an empty click. The click warped in the air, sounding and reversing and sounding again.
They bounded down the stairs two at a time. Nandi dropped the gun as Thursday slammed through the door and fled into the night. The moon was full, but jittery, skipping from one cloud wisp to the next.
“Why did you do that?” he yelled.
“It was empty,” Nandi replied, speeding to pull alongside him.
“They might not have heard the click,” he panted. “But when they see you dropped the gun they’ll know we’re defenseless.”
“Shit,” Nandi said, her pace slowing.
“Well, we’re not going back for it now,” Thursday said.
Nandi sped up again.
“Which way to the brewery?” she asked.
Thursday swung his head every which way, trying to get his bearings. “That’s the Arch,” he said, pointing to the metallic curve faintly glowing in the moonlight many blocks in the distance. “Where is that located?”
“By the riverfront,” Nandi said. “We’re running east. Good.”
“We have to turn south eventually,” Thursday said.
A clang caused both to turn their heads. The Bishop’s followers streamed out of Union Station a block behind them.
“Now’s a good time,” Nandi said, and cut down an alleyway to her right.
~~~
Thursday and Nandi made their way southwest, running when they thought the streets before them were empty and hiding whenever they heard or saw any kind of movement. Every straight lined seemed to bow, every pile of trash seemed to grow limbs. The hallucinations made it rare for them to travel more than a single block before paranoia gripped Thursday and he yanked Nandi into a dark recession in the side of a building.
“Did you actually see something, or was it just your imagination again?” Nandi asked.
“Well, I don’t know do I?” Thursday replied. “The hallucinations sure aren’t helping.”
“Mine have calmed down a little. Have yours?”
Thursday watched Nandi’s face take on the features of a giant frog.
“Uh, yeah, I think so.”
A torch in the distance caught Thursday’s eye. He pulled Nandi back into the darkest part of the shadow.
“They’re close…” he whispered. He looked again and realized the torches were well above ground level. “No…”
“It’s the brewery,” Nandi said. She stepped out into the street, plainly visible in the moonlight, drifting forward as if in a trance.
Thursday grabbed her by the shoulders and hurried her forward. “We’re not out of the woods, yet. They’re still on the hunt for us.”
Nandi picked up her pace, no longer cautiously looking for signs of trouble. Thursday could hardly blame her, every minute they were away could have turned out to be the last minute Ryan was still alive. She broke into a jog.
They reached an intersection, the street they were on coming to a dead end. An alley ran perpendicular to the street, and just on the other side, a stone wall rose three stories up, stretching a couple blocks to either side. They couldn’t get into the brewery’s grounds from this side, they’d have to circle around to find the gate.
Nandi’s head swung, searching for the best direction.
“This way,” she said, and hurried away.
“Stay in the shadows,” Thursday whispered urgently.
She disappeared behind a cargo trailer parked in the alley. Thursday caught sight of her again just in time to see her feet fly sideways and her body zip upside-down into the air. Thursday tried to stop short, but it was too late. Something whipped his feet out from under him and his body slammed to the concrete sidewalk. He flew upward, head dangling down below his feet.
Thursday had just enough time to catch a glimpse of the ground dropping away beneath him before his body rolled lengthwise over a metal cylinder and was dragged across a porch and inside the building. The cord around his feet pulled him up again,
coming to an abrupt stop with his head a foot off the ground. He swayed back-and-forth, Nandi dangling beside him.
“Hello, tasty morsels,” a rocky voice said from the darkness.
“You got somethin’, didn’t you?” yelled a second voice from the next room. The sounds of feet knocking against the floor above let Thursday know there were a handful more people upstairs.
A kerosene lamp moved closer and behind it two men squatted to look at Thursday and Nandi up close.
“Oh yeah, we got somethin’,” the short one holding the lamp hollered back. “Got a lot of meat on ‘em, too.”
A hoot of delight sounded from yet another direction, muffled by walls. There were a lot of people in the building.
“We work for the King of Brews,” Nandi said. “He’s expecting us back. If we don’t show, there’s going to be trouble and he’ll—”
“The King of Brews?” the one with the rocky voice said. “Funny I never seen you before, then. Y’know, with us trading him meat for beer, and us being so friendly with all his crew, I figured we woulda met each other at some point.”
Nandi thrashed, swinging fists at the men and grasping at the cord around her ankles. The men jumped back and laughed.
“Nandi stop. Just stop,” Thursday said. “It’s okay. It’s better this way.”
Nandi quit flailing but remained rigid. She looked at him, eyes wide with fear and confusion.
“Better this way?” she asked incredulously.
“They’ll kill us quick,” he said. He looked at the cannibals. “You will kill us quick, won’t you?”
The cannibals looked at each other and shrugged. “I suppose we won’t kill you slow on purpose,” the short man said.
“I’m tired, Nandi,” Thursday said. “I’m tired of trying to walk on feet all eaten up by the rot. I’m tired of waking up in the night and hearing your wails of pain. You’ve been trying to hide it from me, but I hear it. I know the rot is eating away at your stomach, I’ve seen how you throw up every time you try to eat.”
“Wait,” the rocky-voiced cannibal said. “What’s that?”
“I’m sorry,” Nandi said. “I didn’t want you to know you infected me because I didn’t want you to die feeling guilty.”
The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to St. Louis Page 4