The Big Reap

by Chris F. Holm

“Tie us up. Abandon us. Leave us out here to die.”

  “Zadie, believe me, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Because, in order, yes I do; no, I hope I don’t; and leaving you out here’s the best way I can think to keep you breathing.”

  “If that were true,” she said, “you’d leave us our packs, at least.”

  I eyed the backpacks lying at my feet – their zippers open, their contents strewn about. “You can keep your packs, and your food, and your clothes. All I need,” I said, patting my stuffed jacket-pockets, “I got.”

  Topher glared at me. “Unless you’re leaving us my buck knife, the whiskey, and our sat phone, consider yourself hella motherfucking fired.”

  At that, I smiled. Because I’d be lying if I said my plan didn’t include his buck knife and his whiskey, if not his sat phone. And oh yeah, not just a little bit of fire.

  It was full dark now, and the moon was new. This far out from any human source of light, the stars and my conscience were my only guides. And I hadn’t heard much from the latter of late.

  “Look,” I told these two forlorn lovebirds, lashed back-to-back before me, “I won’t be long. Unless they kill me, in which case I might be a little while. But either way, you have my word that I’ll come back for you. I won’t let you die tonight – not on my watch. Just stay inside this cave, you hear me? Nothing that means you any harm can breach it.”

  “Whadda you mean, either way?” This from Zadie.

  “Never you mind,” I said. “Now do me a favor and keep quiet. I’ve got a job to do.”

  They didn’t listen. They just kept on screaming their fool heads off. But that was fine. I didn’t really expect them to heed my request. If I had, I wouldn’t have bothered scratching those protective runes into the rock at the entrance to the cave with Topher’s buck knife; God knows the damn thing was more useful to me sharp than dull. But whatever, if the Brethren heard them carrying on, maybe they’d serve as a distraction, because if those same Brethren caught wind of what I had in store for them, they were bound to get a little pissy.

  I trudged away from Topher and Zadie’s hidey-hole and flicked open the camera’s view finder and switched the image to infrared night vision. One of the perks of bumming around with cryptozoologists is they’re accustomed to skulking around the forest at night. Meant Nicholas was pretty sure-footed in the dark. Meant his camera was built for it as well.

  The night was cold and still and dark before me, but my viewfinder glowed with green-white light. It flared at the cabin’s windows – the light unseen by my naked eye, the ground on which the cabin sat appearing wild and undisturbed – and at the chimney’s outlet. I watched for the better part of two hours, hoping it would also give me some indication of how many creatures waited for me inside, but given that the source of the chimney’s heat was not visible through the walls it was clear the camera was incapable of delivering such a penetrating image. The closest I could come to any kind of estimate were the brief flickers of movement at window’s edge a time or two, as if whatever waited inside was pulling back the curtains to get a peek at me. But it, or they, were careful, and I never managed to catch a glimpse.

  That was fine. I had no illusions of sneaking up on them even without my two idiot companions carrying on behind me, we’d made enough noise on our initial approach they couldn’t help but have heard us. And anyways, I wasn’t worried about going in to the cabin blind, because I wasn’t going in at all.

  They were coming out to me.

  None of Topher’s socks would fit and anyway, he didn’t seem to have any clean ones left in his backpack, which is not to say that clean ones were required, only that they were preferable, since I wasn’t dexterous enough in gloves to complete my task, necessitating bare-fingered handling. But Zadie’s socks – particularly her wicking Rayon underlayer – were so just right, Goldilocks herself would’ve approved.

  So I soaked one of them in Early Times and stuffed it into the bottle’s neck to serve as a wick. Then I lit it with the Bic these three morons used predominantly to spark up bowls of weed, and I chucked it at the imaginary viewscreen cabin. It sailed in a lazy arc through the air, and I watched it bare-eyed as it flared against the velvet dark.

  And then halted in midair, crashing into nothing.

  Not nothing in the viewfinder, mind. On the viewfinder, the white-hot Molotov sun failed to complete its arching descent on account of the ghost-green cabin in its way.

  I’ll tell you what: I may not have been able to see the cabin with my – er, Nicholas’s – naked eye, but when that bottle burst, I could damn sure see the flames. In that thin, dry air, that wood went up like so much paper, and suddenly, the house-shaped nothing blazed orange-white. The heat of it warmed my cheeks. The light forced me to squint. The sound as it caught was like a rush of water, a sudden wind. And yet still, the protective juju held, so that the something looked like nothing, even as it burned. It looked like a house made of fire itself. And I stood outside it, waiting, Topher’s buck knife in my hand.

  I had no idea how many of them lived here. How many were inside. Ada claimed that there was more than one, which represented the alpha and the omega of my intel. Could be two, or three, or five. Could be zero, I supposed. No saying they stuck around once Ada bailed. But I was guessing they hadn’t. Looking back through a hundred years of local newspapers, the nearby municipalities had seen their share of missing children. I was betting the Brethren had stuck around.

  What I hadn’t counted on was them being as hard to see as the house that they called home.

  I should’ve. Ada couldn’t describe them, after all. But somehow, I hadn’t considered the greater implications of that fact. Hadn’t squared it with the cabin that wasn’t there. Hadn’t thought one lick about how it affected my approach, until the first of them was on me.

  I didn’t realize what I was looking at, at first. When I saw its flaming form burst through the crosshatched windowpane with a snap of wood and a tinkle of glass, I could see it fine, or so I thought. Then it hit the ground and rolled in the chill night air, extinguishing the fire that engulfed it, and before my eyes, it seemed to disappear. Only then did I realize my mistake.

  I hadn’t seen the beast itself; I’d seen the flames. Like the house I couldn’t see beneath the flames I saw just fine. Problem was, the house wasn’t capable of putting itself out, nor of going anywhere. The big scary whatever that just leapt out of it, on the other hand, was. Lord knew what kind of big and scary it was. I heard it huff and puff somewhere in the flame-split black as if catching its breath. It neither wailed in pain, nor cried in anger. Just breathed audibly, and rustled as it moved. And, if I’m not mistaken, stalked, circling my position as if attempting to discern its best angle of attack. On occasion I thought I caught a glint of starlit silver fur in my peripheral vision, which vanished whenever I wheeled toward it. I couldn’t help but think that if the moon were high and full, by its light I’d see the creature fine. But I had no moonlight to rely on.

  What I did have was the camera.

  I held it like a talisman before me, swung it to and fro to no avail. There was simply nothing out there for me to see. My heart sank. My pulse raced. And then, as I gave up…

  There it was, a lanky, matted, vulpine thing, naked or nearly so. It was half-hidden by the skeletal trunks of trees still bare from winter. Sucking wind as it sat on its haunches, waiting to strike. Unconcerned to see me facing it, because it was so very certain whatever enchantment kept it hidden from prying eyes remained undisturbed. Unaware it had been bested by technology.

  I tightened my grip around Topher’s buck knife and advanced upon it, all casual and halting, like it was sheer fucking coincidence I’d decided to strike out into the night straight toward it. I kept the greenish blob of it in the center of my viewfinder at all times, to ensure the fucker couldn’t slink off while I played coy.

  But it didn’t slink off. It didn’t even move. And why would it? I was playing right into its hands. I
could damn near hear it smacking its lips as I approached, as if it couldn’t believe its luck. I pictured the looks of sheer surprise on the faces of Magnusson and the border creature when I ripped their Godforsaken souls from their inhuman, undead chests, and thought to myself that this was just the first in a list of things this fucker was gonna have trouble believing.

  That’s when the second window exploded. Before I knew what hit me, another creature was atop me, and I was surrounded by the pop and smack of searing flesh and snapping jaws. My camera sailed into the night. My clothes singed as the flames that scorched the creature bald leapt from it to me.

  But damn if I didn’t hold onto that buck knife.

  I rolled over beneath this second beast, the movement a struggle. Whiskey fumes bit at the soft tissues of my eyes and throat, harsh and sharp and explaining why this one still flamed, when its sibling so quickly doused. It grabbed my wrists, and my jacket ignited. A reek like curling irons and bacon filled the air. I screamed as Nicholas-not-Nicky’s nylon shell melted, and his exposed skin blistered and peeled.

  The creature was no better off than I – writhing in agony as it burned, but determined to take me out with it. The air between us seemed to waver like a mirage, like shimmering heat-lines rising off of desert blacktop, and through the distortion I caught a glimpse of amber eyeshine, of ropy limbs dusted with filthy gray-brown fur, curling black in advance of the orange sparks of flame that tore through it as the fire spread. Of a face once human warped by its feral ways into something snout-like, pointed at ear and nose and chin like some kind of devil dog – or perhaps a wolf.

  The wolf-thing snapped at my throat with slavering jaws, and teeth three inches long. If they’d found their mark, poor Nicholas would’ve gone bye-bye. But they didn’t, because in that moment, I kicked with all I had, and used the creature’s momentum to backward somersault out from under its grasp. I tried to push my free hand into its chest to grasp its soul as I would a human mark. I’d not been close enough to the others to try, but it turns out, it was no use. The creature’s body was strong, unyielding, and my attempt was unsuccessful.

  Fine, then. Plan B. Which in this case meant that mid-roll, I drove Topher’s buck knife into its chest.

  Unlike Magnusson and Jain, when I plunged the blade in, nothing happened. No piteous wail, no big, dramatic death scene. Instead, I just wound up with a pissed-off wolf man who had my only weapon buried hilt-deep in its chest. Not too helpful, that.

  That’s when I realized my mistake. “Simple conductance”, Lilith had said of the replica skim blade, gold-plated from tip to tail. “Nothing more”. Apparently nothing less, either. Because the rebar – also metal from one end to the other – worked just fine. But Topher’s carbon steel knife with a textured plastic grip was a no-go. And of course it was. The instrument was useless unless the soul presented itself to be destroyed, and for that, it needed to be coaxed out by a Collector.

  Metal worked because it completed the circuit between the soul and, well, me.

  The creature and I separated. It found its feet and spun to face me. The roll had doused its flames; my own, I patted out. But it was clear to see the creature’d taken damage. First off, I could see it. And second, most of its fur had burned away, revealing cracked red-black flesh at once dull in spots and glistening. One ear was a curl-edged nub, looking like the melted-candle counterpart of its intact mate. And one eyelid looked to have burned off completely, revealing a mad, bloodshot orb that rolled wildly by the light of the burning cabin.

  The creature raised a hand to the knife handle that jutted from its chest, and with an audible growl, removed knife from flesh, tossing it to the dirt at its feet. The wound pulsed with blood as the blade exited. We faced off a moment, me eyeing him, him eyeing me. His flesh smoked. His outsized, muscular chest heaved in the bitter night air.

  And then he pounced.

  Not graceful like a cat, more the sheer brute force of an attack dog. Nails as thick as talons bit at the tender flesh of Nicholas’ shoulders, and knocked me flat once more. But this time, I was ready. I jabbed my fingers directly into the seeping knife wound as far as they would go, and the creature howled in pain. The two of us seemed to vibrate all of a sudden, two tuning forks at odds synchronizing.

  It bit my neck. Blood soaked warm into my collar. And then the creature’s jaw went wide, my neck released. I held its dead dry soul inside my hand.

  I squeezed.

  It slackened.

  The ground shook beneath my feet. The cabin this creature called home, weakened by flame, collapsed within itself just as its former inhabitant collapsed. A flurry of sparks spiraled skyward toward the star-speckled heavens from what now looked like no more than a goodly bonfire, as if the abode’s soul were now somehow freed as well.

  And then there was one.

  The problem was, where?

  I cast about for Nicky’s – fuck, I mean Nicholas’s – camera, finding it some twenty feet away, and in three pieces. I tried to reassemble it by the firelight, but it was no use. Cold-clumsy hands conspired against me, and it’s not like it’d been carefully disassembled, the goddamn thing was broken, its viewfinder black and dead.

  I cast the expensive hunk of useless trash aside, and wondered how the hell I was gonna find the second creature. Then I heard the screams – Topher and Zadie both – and the sickening wet pop of tendons and ligaments separating, like twisting off the turkey leg at Thanksgiving dinner. Zadie’s screams became suddenly more desperate, Topher’s thick and strangled.

  Sounded like they’d gotten loose. Sounded like they hadn’t listened when I told them they’d stay safe if they stayed put. To a one, protection spells are locational, not person-specific. If I could have carved the runes into their flesh and kept them from a horrid end, I would have. But as it stood, the best that I could do was bar entry to their cave by those who’d do them harm. I couldn’t do shit for them if they decided to leave them damn selves.

  But they could apparently still do something for me.

  Because they’d just told me where the creature was.

  I sprinted back toward their hidey-hole, stumbling on the uneven earth and slipping here and there on fallen leaves. This far from the cabin, the firelight dwindled, and the world was drawn in deep blues outlined on each object’s eastern edge in orange. It was enough to keep me from bouncing off of trees, at least. And as it turned out it, was enough for me to see the horror of what had happened.

  As I rounded the hillock whose far side afforded entrance to Topher and Zadie’s narrow cave, I pulled up short. The beast stood plainly visible, just outside the protective barrier of the cave, back arched, and one hand held high above its head. In its hand was Topher’s severed arm, dripping blood into the creature’s open mouth. It hadn’t seen me coming, it was too focused on the cowering girl inside the shallow cave. This creature was bigger than the last, and more wolven. Its back legs were articulated such that the joints appeared to hinge backward, not forward like a human knee; its broad chest was thick with muscle and dusted here and there with fur. Shriveled flaps of nippled flesh draped from each broad pectoral muscle; it took me a moment to realize that in its prior, human life, this creature was a woman. Its arms were massive, its left one reaching almost to the ground while its right held Topher’s some ten feet in the air. Clawed hands the size of rowboat paddles dangled menacingly at the end of each thick wrist.

  Topher’s body lay at the creature’s gnarled bare feet atop a forest floor slick black with blood. He’d been unzipped from crotch to sternum in one clean motion, no doubt by one swipe of razor-sharp claw. His viscera gleamed purple in the dim firelight.

  As it drank from Topher’s severed arm, the whole creature seemed to swell, a process accelerated when it cast his arm aside and twisted his head off of his lifeless body, raising it to its mouth and sucking blood and brain from it as if extracting marrow from a bone. Muscles strained its leathery skin to the point of splitting. Teeth pushed through grayish g
ums, crowding a snout that grew ever longer by the second. Clawed feet knuckled harder into the dirt as the beast struggled to keep its feet through a growth spurt that plainly seemed to pain it.

  It rose to eight feet tall. Then ten. Then twelve.

  Guess all those years of strict rationing while it fed in dribs and drabs off the life-force of small children left the pump primed for some serious binge-eating. Kinda wish the end result was diabetes and Rascal scooters like the rest of us, and not, you know, “Hulk smash!”.

  When it threw back its head and roared, I cowered like a frightened child.

  But you know what they say: the bigger they are… the likelier they are to rip the head off your fucking meat-suit and drink lustily from its brainpan.

  Then I thought of poor aged Ada, and the countless more like her loosed into the vast empty wilderness once they had nothing left to give, only to die of exposure or starvation because they were not so lucky as to be discovered and I thought, fuck it – let’s kill this creepy hellhound.

  But first I’d need a weapon.

  Scratch that, I thought, as the creature cocked back one massive fist and punched the shelf of rock that formed the cave lip so hard it cracked directly atop one of my protective runes. This thing wasn’t as dumb as it looked. So my first order of business was to keep it from breaching my hasty defenses and snacking on yet another hapless innocent.

  It punched the rock again, so hard its bones cracked, its metacarpals pushing bloodily through the hairy skin. The creature bellowed in pain and animal frustration. Zadie screamed and crab-walked as far back as she could go – a whopping three feet. A chunk of stone the size of a cantaloupe fell from the underside of the lip, right where Zadie’s head had been. The rune was still intact, but damaged; it couldn’t take another blow like that one. No time for me to formulate a plan, I had to do something on the quick. So, as the beast brought back its ruined hand for another devastating blow, I fell back on an old standard: snark and false bravado, with shit-all to back it up.