Brimstone

by Daniel Foster

  Youngblood whined and took a snap at the last vine wrapped around his leg. His teeth severed it and he was free. Despite how uneasy it made him to be so close to her, Youngblood slogged through the brush to Gerda’s side and began biting at the vines around her.

  Man-steps pounded across the clearing from the far side. Thunder branches boomed and arrows flew. The men were coming, shouting as they ran. Couldn’t they understand that the monster would not die? Couldn’t they smell it? There was no way to kill that which was already dead. Running was the only way to—

  Hot, ripping pain tore into Youngblood’s abdomen, followed closely by the sound of a thunder branch. He yelped as the force of the shot knocked him over. The pain made Youngblood want to curl up and run away at the same time. Instead, he dragged himself with his front legs back to Gerda and bit into the vines around her ankles. An arrow struck the ground beside him, sinking deep. Another followed.

  In a blur of dark fur and a blaze of hatred, the creature was back, catapulting itself overtop of Gerda and Youngblood to meet the men coming from the other side. They tottered slowly on their ridiculous legs and the creature tore into them. More booms rang over the flowers. Youngblood felt men coming from all directions now, their footsteps crushing the flowers into the dirt. Another arrow fell, grazing Youngblood’s hip.

  One more bite and Gerda would be free. He drove his teeth together, shearing the tough vines. He pushed himself up and nosed Gerda, whining, imploring her to run. The creature would come back for her in a moment. Instead, she stayed seated, clinging to Youngblood’s fur and yelling at the men, insisting, entreating. Youngblood growled at her, took a fake snap to scare her into running. She recoiled, but didn’t get up. Another boom echoed, and Youngblood could hear the men flying apart all around the clearing, their body parts tumbling into vines, their blood flinging across delicate blossoms. The creature was shredding the men like chaff.

  Youngblood nosed Gerda again, yipping insistently. The pain in his abdomen was growing. Another boom rang out, very close. Dirt flew from the ground beside Youngblood’s paws, and a man’s footsteps closed quickly. Gerda covered Youngblood’s head and shoulders with her own and continued shouting.

  Perhaps he could use her position. Youngblood dug in and backpedaled. Because she was clinging so tightly to his fur, his motion hauled her forward to her knees. She was halfway up, at least. Instinctively, he took another snap at her, which she had to stand to avoid.

  The creature of hate and bloodlust came out of nowhere. Glowing eyes, fur-covered death. It reached out as it flew low over the ground, extending claws for Gerda’s face. Youngblood leaped, not straight up, but sideways, mouth open to bite down hard as he could. He couldn’t stop the monster’s charge, but if he could hit its arm hard enough…

  It worked. He caught the creature’s speeding wrist in his mouth, bit down as hard as he could, and let all his momentum bear against it. His sideways motion didn’t slow the creature, or even change its direction, but it did manage to move the creature’s arm to the side just enough. Gerda had already fallen away, and together the two motions changed the monster’s throat-ripping reach into a narrow shave with two claws, which opened Gerda’s shoulder and her cheek.

  Booms and arrows continued to fly across the clearing, though not nearly as many as before. The creature skidded to a stop, tearing a furrow out of the field bracken. Only a second had passed since Youngblood bit down on the creature’s wrist, and he didn’t have sense enough to let go before the monster seized him with its other hand and ripped him away. Two of his teeth had punctured the monster’s skin, but nothing more.

  The creature’s ears flattened and its eyes burned as it regarded the starving wolf in its grip.

  “You are not equal,” it said in a phlegmy rumble. Another volley of arrows fell. One of them clipping Youngblood’s neck, deep enough to tag a muscle, but not deep enough to open his neck-blood and kill him. He mewled, and the creature laughed. Two of the arrows struck it in the chest, both splintered and tumbled away.

  In a blur of motion, it flung Youngblood through the air. He collided with one of the men, the impact whipping Youngblood’s spine and eliciting a grunt from the man who then tumbled bonelessly into the trees. Youngblood rolled to a stop and regained his feet. The pain in his abdomen was making it difficult to breathe.

  He reentered the field at a run and scanned for Gerda. She was a hundred paces away, moving swiftly through the brush towards the edge of the forest. Men from the village ringed the clearing all around, most of them dead, a few still living, yelling, and trying to kill the thing that could not be killed, which was, at the moment, tearing the arms off of an older man.

  Youngblood flew low across the grass, trying to stay out of the creature’s sight. Gerda turned as he reached her side. His stomach and legs were getting warm, wet and sticky. He was also weakening rapidly. He stumbled against her legs, and would have fallen, but she grabbed a handful of his fur and hauled him towards the tree line. Youngblood did not think she would be safe in the trees. He did not now think she would be safe anywhere.

  In Youngblood’s vision, the trees drew near in fits and starts, keeping time with his hobbling steps. Gerda was near, helping him along. His vision was closing in at the edges. Going dark. Another step, another. Something hit his haunches so hard he thought it was the monster’s fist. It spun him around and flung him into a thicket of vines and delicate, long-stemmed flowers. It was not a fist, because it rolled to a stop beside him. It was a head. The head of the old man, blood pasting part of his grey hair to his face, his mouth and eyes open and twisted and stretched and leaking blood. The monster had thrown the man’s head at him.

  Where was Gerda? Youngblood struggled up, but his back right leg was bound up tight in a spool of green leaves and vines. He reached back to gnaw at it, but the monster was on him, dripping sweat, man-blood, and rank-smelling oil from its fur.

  It chuckled, slammed a hand down over Youngblood’s back, knocking the air from his lungs and pinning him down. It pushed him away from the vines, stretching his tangled leg out tight behind him. Then, with no ceremony, it closed its mouth around his pinned foot, vines and all, and bit his paw off.

  Youngblood howled as the bones broke and the flesh ripped free. The creature released him. Standing over him, it made sure he could see its obvious swallow. Then it laughed again and was gone to shred a nearby gunman. The man squeezed off a shot and the deadwalker tore his head from his shoulders.

  The Appalachian Mountains, 1912

  Since the first time Garret had taken Babe into the woods as a pup, she had stayed beside him. Sometimes she ran ahead, sometimes she lagged behind or detoured to sniff a log, but she always returned to his side. Now she stayed behind him. Sometimes slightly to one side or the other, but always behind. It was right and natural. He knew it in his wolf mind as surely as she did. Garret couldn’t communicate with her any more than he ever had, but he understood her better, felt her presence more completely. He also felt her absolute trust in him, and her love for him. Even though he was now a canine, like she, and it confused her, she still regarded him as the master. She would do so until she died. She knew that he was leading her into a place where death was likely, and she would not have left him if he told her to.

  The simplicity and purity of her feelings added another layer of guilt to Garret’s mind. She was such a good dog, and she was innocent in all this, as innocent as Sarn and Molly, but he feared he might not be able to save them without her.

  Garret turned his mind to their nearing destination. When Garret read the journal entry, he realized that Grey knew more about the creature than Garret had initially thought. In fact, Grey probably knew right where the creature would keep Molly and Sarn. And Grey was going to tell. Oh yes. He was going to sing like a gelded canary.

  As Garret barreled through the woods with his faithful dog behind, he reflected on how much he’d changed in the last few days. For example, he’d been unable to stab Dr.
Grey less than a day ago. Now, as the pieces were beginning to fall into place, he didn’t think he’d have any problem with gutting the sniveling little weasel. So, cheered by that thought, Garret picked up his pace for Grey’s house. The increased speed was making him breathe hard, which was making the lacerations on his back hurt, so after a moment of consideration, Garret stopped long enough to shift back and forth from human to wolf a dozen times. Babe sat down in the leaves and gave him a bug-eyed, saggy-eared stare.

  “What do you think girl,” Garret asked, his voice warping as he pushed his body back and forth. “Do I look better with a tail or not?”

  By the time he was done, he needed to relieve himself, and he was hungry again. He took care of the first, and started making plans around Grey’s icebox for the second. Maybe I’ll make a sandwich while he’s hanging by his nuts from the rafters. He should be ready to talk right about the time I’m done slicing the bread.

  Coupled with his all-consuming desire to find Molly and Sarn, Garret also had a blossoming disgust for the men he used to revere. So instead of taking the stealth approach, Garret ran directly into town, leaped onto the boardwalk, and brushed the sheriff’s left leg as he stepped out of the station. Halstead’s squalling, flailing reaction was wonderfully satisfying. Babe was more polite. She stopped to sniff him. Garret turned and whistled to her. A human whistle out of a wolf’s mouth.

  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Halstead.

  Garret turned up Grey’s street and could have jumped through the window he smashed earlier, but decided he’d rather break the window on the other side of the door, too. As he slammed through the plate glass, shattering it across his wolf head and shoulders, it crossed his mind that Grey might not be home. Nah, he’ll still be here. Leaving would be smart. Grey’s an idiot.

  Garret bounded past the living room and down the hall. He’s a pig-headed conniving idiot. Garret didn’t actually know what “conniving” meant, but it sounded like something Grey would be.

  Grey didn’t disappoint. But he did horrify.

  Garret entered the surgery and skidded to a stop on the wood. On a cot in the corner lay Dr. Grey and Garret’s mother. They were twisted together in a groaning, moaning pile of pasty skin and desire. Babe rounded the corner and ran into Garret’s butt. She stumbled to the side.

  Garret stared, repulsed by the shameless lust, but unable to look away. The sight of his mother blinded him to all else. He heard something, felt something rise up from a long time ago. It was a terrified, childlike part of himself, asleep for many years, and it had been mutilated until it looked neither human nor wolf. Grey broke off a deep kiss and turned his head towards Garret. With a gasp he scrambled off of… out of… Garret’s mother and stood.

  Without preamble, Garret jumped on his face.

  Under Garret’s weight, Grey slammed into the wall with a nice thud. In fact the thud was so nice that Garret thought about shifting back to human so he could stand Grey up, then back to wolf to pounce on him again, then see how many times he could repeat the cycle before Grey got all rubbery.

  Grey’s face was still black and blue from where Garret had beaten him not long ago. Well, that’s a nice start. Garret was standing on Grey’s pasty chest, snarling and drooling in his face before he realized that Grey’s terrified expression wasn’t directed at Garret. In fact, Grey hadn’t been looking at Garret from the moment he’d turned. He was looking at something behind Garret at the far end of the room. Garret became aware of Babe’s thready whimper. He smelled Brimstone. That was the moment his world changed.

  Garret’s realization came so late that he might as well not have started to turn at all. The creature’s flames roared to life and it took one long step. Babe gave a half-challenging bark, but as a fellow canine, Garret knew what she meant by the sound. She’d faced the monster before. She knew it was a no-win scenario in the best of circumstances, and now they were trapped. They were caged with a demon.

  Garret managed to complete most of the turn before the creature hit him. He caught a glimpse of hellfire, a maw full of cracked teeth, and black, hate-filled eyes, before its iron hand connected, swatting him into the wall. It was the hardest the creature had yet hit him. Plaster gave, wall studs snapped, and something else, down near his hips, broke with a deep pop. Muscles were crushed and tendons ripped as Garret was driven through the wall, then the next, then the next by the blow.

  He tumbled to a stop in Grey’s living room, his mind filled with cotton and a high, whistling note. He jerked, heard his mother scream, and tried to right himself. It felt as if his mind was yelling at his body from miles away. After a few failed attempts, he had sorted out which muscles weren’t useful anymore, and managed to rise, or at least his front half. His back legs weren’t working. At all. He had no feeling in them. He dragged himself back through the hallway, whimpering, crying, begging God to let him save his mother’s life, because he’d seen the hatred one betrayed woman could level against another. Garret couldn’t climb back through the holes because his back legs were limp, so he dragged himself down the hallway as fast as he could go. He kept listing to the left as if the floor was sloping, and his left eye wasn’t focusing, but he scrabbled for more speed, sliding forward in painful lurches.

  The creature was screaming and Grey was yelling, trying to placate, trying to explain, to beg for some sort of mercy. Beneath it all, Garret’s Ma was screaming. They weren’t the high, adrenaline-charged screams of fear. They were the bent cries of pain.

  Garret rounded the corner. Grey was lying on the floor, one hand over his face to shield from the heat of the flames, the other extended in a plea.

  “Charity,” he pleaded. “Charity, stop!”

  “I gave you everything, William!” the creature roared, turning on him. The more it spoke, the more it sounded like Charity. “I gave you everything! I gave you my heart!” The creature shuddered as if the next words were tearing it apart on the inside. “Mother was right about you! HOW COULD YOU LET HER BE RIGHT?!”

  Babe leapt here and there, trying to bite or in some way distract the creature from its object of attention. She was only getting burned for her efforts.

  The creature was hunched to fit under the ceiling, its shaggy, muscular body wrapped in flames. In its right hand it held Garret’s Ma by her torso, its finger-claws sunk into her back, its thumb-claw driven into her shoulder between the bones. With agonizing slowness, it sank the claw in, letting its increasing width slowly pry her joint apart from the inside.

  Garret’s Ma shrieked again as the other claws impaled her delicate back muscles, the flames scalded her tender skin, and her shoulder popped free. Her beautiful raven hair caught fire, going up in a swath of orange. Garret screamed with her. He knew his spine was broken, but at the moment, that meant nothing. This was the end.

  The back door exploded inward, breaking in the middle, folding and tumbling away. A furry form surged through and hit the creature. It was like watching two boulders collide. The creature fell. It was the first time Garret had seen anything take it off its feet. It flung his Ma away, and she hit the back wall at an odd angle. Perhaps there was a crunch, perhaps not. Under the roaring flames, shrieks of the creature, and howling battle cries of Babe and the newcomer, only God could have heard the soft sound of a dying person.

  The furry newcomer tumbled here and there, over and over with the creature, snapping, biting, rolling and tearing. It was another wolf, this one weighing over two hundred pounds. Flames were beginning to dismember the room, but the two fighters tore at one another as though they would let the whole world burn, as long as they could each die with a chunk of one another between their teeth.

  The big wolf, Garret’s Pa, was vicious as Garret had never seen him. Finally, for once in his life, he was using the strength God had given him to defend his family. Garret watched helplessly as Pa and the creature rolled and flung each other. In that moment, Garret was proud of his Pa. He was proud to be his father’s son. It was the first time i
n many years.

  For a moment, Garret thought his Pa might gain the upper hand, but it didn’t last. The element of surprise won Pa a few harsh bites, one of them even punctured the creature’s skin and left it oozing black, stringy blood from a couple small holes, but the creature was not crippled, only angered more.

  Garret dragged himself out of the way as the creature flung his Pa into the exam table. Pa went through it with a splintering crackle and hit the dispensary cabinets behind it, some of which were already broken from where Garret had thrown Grey earlier. Glass shattered, shelves snapped, and bottles went flying, spilling their liquids. The creature was no longer aflame, choosing to inflict a blunter form of pain with its fists. Its blows reverberated through the floor and walls as it went after Pa.

  Garret dragged himself towards his mother, but turned back when his Pa gave a sharp yelp. The creature had caught him, and had him off the ground, holding him up by his scruff as if he were a pup. Pa strained mightily, whipping his wolf body here and there like a fish on a line, but the creature grabbed Pa’s hind quarters, shifted its other hand to Pa’s skull, and began to pull.

  Pa yelped canine pain, then whimpered, somewhere between a dog and a man. Garret crawled as fast as he could back towards them, sighting with his one good eye, dragging his useless back legs.

  Something popped and Pa let loose a desperate mewl. The creature saw Garret coming and kicked him aside contemptuously. Garret hit an already crushed cabinet and tumbled into the broken bottles on the floor. He dragged himself back towards the creature, as best he could. His one good eye was now swimming with the medicine which soaked that side of his head when he landed in it. The metallic taste of it filled his wolf mouth and clogged his nose.