Hellhound on My Trail

by D. J. Butler

  Chuy’s scalp, long black hair still attached, hung open like a flap covering a pocket, exposing the bloody skull beneath. Blood ran down from the scalp and the flesh around it, but quickly became indistinguishable from all the rest of Chuy’s blood. He’d been cut everywhere, not stabbed or slashed but carved artfully, like he’d been tattooed or even simply written on from head to toe by someone who was an artist. Chuy’s throat had been slit—that was the last cut, the police had said, the one that had finally put him out of his misery—all the way to the spinal cord. Every cut bled, and Mike would have sworn he could smell the reek of Chuy’s ghostly blood.

  It was the stink of guilt.

  “No,” Mike said weakly. He really wanted a drink.

  “Is that how you treat family, Mikey?” When he spoke, blood spilled from Chuy’s lips, too. “I mean, you went and left mom alone, now you gonna knife me? Is that what you meant, with all that bullshit about being a man?”

  Chuy hadn’t aged, after all these years. He still looked sixteen years old, under all the blood.

  Mike tried to ignore his brother, though both his hands trembled with the adrenalin and he felt like throwing up again. He wiped sweat out of his eyes again and examined the hallway—no exit, unless maybe the john had a window.

  “What, you don’t want to talk to me? You feeling guilty, pendejo? Maybe what you need is a woman, huh? Well, hey, brothers gotta help each other, don’t they? When I needed a woman, you got me one … I think I still know where to find her!”

  Horrified at the thought of what Chuy might produce next, Mike fled from his brother’s ghost, heart racing. He slammed back into the chaos of the bar, elbow first and knife at his hip, ready to jump up and into the belly of anyone getting in his way. Except Chuy, of course. Mike had tried attacking his brother’s ghost once, years ago, and the only effect had been to make Chuy even angrier.

  Butcher’s was on fire. Smoke filled the upper half of the room, so Mike coughed and bent over to run. His gut got in the way, and his lack of stamina, but fear propelled him and he scuttled as fast as he could.

  He was so afraid, he didn’t even try to grab his bass.

  He was halfway to the door, the only exit he knew of, when a new eruption of gunfire and a sheet of flame that spun sideways across the room in front of him forced him back. In the confusion, he lost his grip on the knife and dropped it. He stumbled on something, and when he looked down he saw that it was the bouncer’s headless body, jeans jacket scorched to a charcoal gray color.

  “Huevos,” Mike muttered, but the bouncer had a pistol. Mike picked up the gun. Five seconds of fumbling through the dead guy’s pockets were rewarded with a second clip.

  The gun was nothing fancy, a simple, straightforward semi-auto, the kind of pistol that cops and guys in the army carried. Mike felt reassured by the weight of the pistol in his hand, though he was no soldier. He gnashed his teeth to bite back a flood of bad memories: gangbanging and robberies and worse.

  Poor Chuy.

  The lizard-lion barreled across the room in front of Mike. As it reared back, its skull smashed out pieces of the ceiling, bringing a rain of flaming timbers and smoking sheets of corrugated tin. Plunging forward, claws the size of microwave ovens cracked and gouged the concrete into hot gravel. It paid Mike absolutely no attention, but the lash of its long tail—a tail that, Mike now saw, was forked at its tip—nearly knocked him over. Crocodile jaws snapped and fire jetted from its nostrils and it chomped at the singer, Jim. Jim retreated slowly, his white face whiter with fury.

  And he fought it back with a sword. With his free hand Jim snatched a bottle off a table as he passed and hurled it at the monster. He retreated over a chair, rising to the top of the chair back to stab down at the creature’s face and then tipping heel-first gracefully to the ground, to then hook the toe of his boot into the ladder of the chair’s back and snap-kick it into the lizard-like face.

  Mike would have laughed, if he hadn’t felt sick, exhausted, hurt, suffocated, and afraid of burning to death. The big singer wielded a long, slender sword, like a French or Italian fencing weapon, not that Mike was really in a position to know. He wasn’t a sword guy. But it wasn’t the big two-handed sword, or better still, axe, that Mike would have guessed based on the guy’s build and complexion, and his fighting wasn’t hack and slash.

  It was dancing. The lizard-lion lunged and snapped, aiming for one of Jim’s legs and then the other, and the tall guy stepped neatly back and aside each time, tipping away the beast’s head with the hilt of his sword, which was wrapped in a fancy steel basket, or poking it back with the point.

  He almost looked like he was having fun.

  Except that whenever he stabbed the creature, which happened over and over again, the point skidded off the beast’s skin without leaving a mark.

  The beast was between Mike and the door, blocking his escape. He raised the pistol, thumbed off the safety and squeezed the trigger. No silly turning the gun sideways to show off now, he just aimed for the big monster’s chest and emptied the clip, bang! bang! bang! bang! bang!

  Actual sparks flashed off the creature’s hide where he’d hit it.

  The creature drew back from Jim and turned to stare balefully at Mike. Its eyes were black and glassy but seemed to dance with flame, and the smoke and fire wisping off its body made it look like the hottest burner in a barbecue. Only moving, and angry.

  Jim lunged to the attack once more, stabbing at the flesh around the lizard-lion’s black eyes. The thing roared again and turned back to Jim, lunging in a threshing hurricane of long, smoking teeth.

  “You can’t stay here!” Mike heard yelling in his ear and a hand clutched his elbow. He recognized the voice as belonging to Twitch, the drummer, so he turned to look at the guy—

  but there was no Twitch. Instead, a smallish white horse or a pony—Mike didn’t really know the difference—stood beside him. The creature had Twitch’s coloring, though, and his long silver hair. Mike grabbed the charms around his neck and wondered.…

  But no, that was crazy. Twitch wasn’t a horse. Then the animal tapped one of its front hooves on the concrete floor and held its head low, keeping its mane out of the flames that engulfed the bar’s ceiling, and then it lowered its front shoulders, almost like it was bowing to Mike before a dance.

  Or inviting him to climb on.

  Mike hesitated a moment, and then laughed himself out of it. “Why not?” he asked, coughing from the smoke. Weirder things had happened to him. “Jeez,” he dragged himself onto the horse’s back, a clumsy and awkward assault for which the animal held perfectly still, “weirder things have happened to me tonight.”

  Besides, after the grisly spectacle of Chuy’s ghost and the terrifying force of nature that was the lizard-lion, the white horse looked more ridiculous than anything else, and positively benign.

  Mike still wanted a drink.

  The white horse plunged forward into the curtain of fire, just before a chunk of the roof collapsed in fiery ruination, shattering into sparks and charcoal on the floor. Mike wrapped his arms around the animal’s neck to keep from being thrown off on its second jump, through another sheet of flame, and then he could see the door. It gaped ahead of him like a black spot in a wall of orange and red, and the horse raced for it.

  Someone stepped into the door. The horse reared up, like it might attack the person, but then it dropped back onto all fours and galloped past. Mike saw that the person who’d almost gotten himself trampled was Adrian, his suit all singed and tarnished from the smoke.

  The horse broke into the cold night air and Mike sucked oxygen into his lungs, coughing as the good air fought with the smoke for possession of the territory. Just as he finally felt he could breathe again, the horse bucked and he fell off, crashing to the gravel strip that served the roadhouse as a parking lot.

  Whoosh! All the air immediately left his lungs again and he gasped.

  Mike stared up at the sky, seeing the glittering brilliance of th
e desert at night and a yellowish moon squinting suspiciously over a dark sandstone butte. He heard screaming, the squealing of tires and the sputter of aged car engines as the bar’s patrons fled in terror. By the time he could breathe and rolled to his feet again, the horse was gone.

  Adrian stood in the doorway of the flaming roadhouse. His guns were put away and he had both his arms raised, like he was saying some kind of prayer. Eddie burst out of the flames first, racing full-tilt past Adrian and toward Mike. Mike almost turned to run, but realized he was standing next to the only car in the parking lot besides Mike’s own dented Impala, a big old Dodge van with a bumper sticker reading I BREAK FOR LAMIAE, and instead he stepped out of the way.

  Eddie jerked the van door open and started rummaging inside for something.

  The beast bellowed from inside the inferno. It isn’t over, Mike realized, and fumbled to switch the full clip into the pistol.

  Twitch rushed out of the smoke and fire next, and Jim ran with him, half-leaning on the shoulder of the much smaller man. That’s where the drummer was, Mike thought, and dismissed his silly thoughts of people changing into horses with an ironic snort. Jim still held onto his sword, and as they cleared the door, Jim peeled away, staggering and almost falling, but keeping his feet and bringing his blade up into an en garde position, like a Viking Zorro.

  ROAR!

  Mike raised the pistol.

  More of the roof collapsed, sending sparks and flames higher into the silvery darkness of the night.

  “Come on!” Eddie shouted, inside the van. “Where are you?”

  In the fire, Mike saw movement, and the creature crawled forward. It moved slower now; maybe Jim had wounded it. Maybe he had wounded it, he thought, and felt a little pride at the idea.

  “Now!” Twitch yelled, but he and Jim didn’t move out of the way and Mike didn’t have a clear shot at the thing advancing out of the flames.

  Adrian shouted something that Mike couldn’t understand and waved his hands in front of his face—

  and collapsed to the gravel.

  “Chingado.”

  ***

  Chapter Two

  “You’re Eddie Marlowe, aren’t you?”

  “Get away from me, man!” Eddie yelled.

  Mike heard the words in one ear and tried to ignore them, focusing on the blazing pyre that had once been Butcher’s roadhouse.

  Jim jumped into the door of the inferno and slashed at the lizard with his sword, driving it back again into the fire. Twitch slapped at Adrian’s face with the back of his hand and tapped him on the forehead with his club-like drumstick, and they were all in the way of Mike’s shot. For a split second, Mike thought about just shooting himself then and there. But he was too rattled from seeing Chuy and from the other strange events of the evening, and not nearly drunk enough, so instead he turned to see what was happening at the van.

  It was Shiny Shoes. The shoes weren’t so shiny any more, and he was scorched from head to foot. He held his hat in his hand, burnt black, and he looked like he was begging. Firelight danced in the high sheen of sweat all over his head, making him look feverish and fanatical.

  “Please, Mr. Marlowe, I know it’s you. I’ve seen videos, and I know what you can do. I’m here, look, I’m here even with all this—” he gestured at the burning building. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “It tells me you’re crazy,” Eddie muttered. “Get the hell outta here.”

  Mike had to agree with Eddie. With all the insane, impossible things happening tonight, the absolute craziest might just be this guy who stuck around through it all so he could talk to Eddie. What on earth could the guy be thinking? Irritating maricón.

  “I want to sign you, Mr. Marlowe, I’m an agent. I can book you with the Rolling Stones tomorrow.”

  Even crazier. Mike shook his head.

  The lizard howled again. The sound made Mike’s hair stand on end, and his stomach churned like he might throw up again. He didn’t know what Eddie was doing, he couldn’t help Adrian, he couldn’t get at the beast without running past Jim into the fire. He was helpless.

  Eddie dove with both hands into a dog-eared cardboard box, rummaging. “I didn’t send video to any agents,” he complained.

  “You didn’t have to,” Shiny Shoes said, sweating. “Some kid filmed you in Montreal last summer, when you did Flight of the Bumblebee on tambourine. They put the clip of you on YouTube.”

  “Damn Internet!” Eddie gruffed.

  “Look, I—”

  ROAR!

  Whatever it was Eddie Marlowe was trying to do, Shiny Shoes the agent was getting in his way. Mike stepped forward and slapped the pistol against Shiny Shoes’s forehead. “The man said no!” he yelled.

  Shiny Shoes dropped his hat and stared up at the barrel of the pistol, which made him look cross-eyed. “Are … are you signed with someone else?” he ventured.

  “Yes!” Eddie shouted. Only his feet stuck out of the Dodge door now. “Go away!”

  “Wh-who?”

  Mike pointed his pistol at the sky and fired off a round. “He’s signed with me!” he shouted, and then poked Shiny Shoes in the cheek with the smoking muzzle.

  “Ouch,” Shiny Shoes whined, and started to back away.

  ROAR!

  Mike risked a look over his shoulder. Twitch was dragging Adrian to his feet, but the organist lay as limp as a stringless marionette.

  “Got it!” Eddie scooted out of the van, holding up a bandolier—

  hung like a cluster of grapes with hand grenades.

  Shiny Shoes turned to run. “You haven’t heard the last of me!” he called. “I’m not giving up on you, Mr. Marlowe! I’ll be back!”

  Mike watched the would-be manager run, and movement caught his eye. In the sky, over Shiny Shoes’s head. Something shimmering and metallic, but moving through the air. It was like someone was out flying remote control toy airplanes, Mike thought, in the middle of the night on a deserted New Mexico highway.

  “Fire in the hole!” he heard Eddie shout behind him as Shiny Shoes disappeared, and then he remembered.

  “My bass!” Mike shouted, and wheeled around. Eddie lobbed a grenade neatly over Adrian and Twitch, bouncing it off the ground beside Jim’s feet and landing it neatly in front of the jaw-snapping lizard-lion.

  Jim spun about and sprinted.

  KABOOM!

  The beast disappeared back into the flames roaring and spitting, and pieces of concrete launched into the air like mortars—

  “My bass!” Mike shouted again, impotently—

  crash!—

  and a chunk of cheap masonry smashed down in the center of the Impala’s roof, crashing through the front seats, driving a hole through the floor of the car and kicking out a cloud of dust and sand as it plowed to rest in the ground underneath.

  “My car,” he groaned.

  “We got bigger troubles than that,” Eddie said, jerking open the shotgun door of the van as he threw the bandolier over one shoulder. He pointed into the darkness. “Zvuvim. Keep an eye out for the Baal.” From a pocket in the door, he pulled out, of all things, a shotgun. Twelve-gauge, sawed-off. Mike swallowed back the urge to throw up again; a lot of working bands carried some protection, but he’d never seen anyone like these guys.

  “Keep my eye on the ball?” he snorted. “What ball?”

  Eddie chuckled. “All of them.”

  Jim raced in the direction Eddie pointed, sword up. Beyond and above him, the things that Mike had thought might be remote control airplanes were coming in. But they weren’t airplanes.

  They were flies.

  Flies the size of Dobermans, with clacking, scythe-like front legs and jaws. They were black and dusty-looking, except for huge eyes that glittered like clusters of Christmas tree ornaments, and enormous jagged mandibles that gleamed like steel and clacked together as they flew.

  “Cagado,” Mike observed.

  “Zvuvim,” Eddie said, as if that made any kind of sense at all. �
�They can be killed.”

  “They can?” Mike asked weakly. “By what? Giant flypaper?”

  “Also, they’re kind of stupid until the Baal actually gets on the scene. Twitch!” Eddie shouted. “Get Adrian up now, we need daylight, pronto, or we’re dead meat!”

  “I’m on it!” Twitch called back.

  “Dead meat?” Mike gulped. “I thought you said they could be killed.”

  “They can,” Eddie said, “but there’s an awful lot of them.” He pumped the shotgun, raised it and fired, blasting one of the giant flies out of the air before it could jump on Jim’s back. He stepped forward, pumping the weapon again.

  Jim slashed with his sword, backing in a constant quick circle as flies swarmed him like a herd of flying black murderous sheep. He looked like he was trying to scratch them with his blade, rather than impale them, and that made sense to Mike—if the big guy got his weapon stuck inside one fly, the others would pile onto him. A fly zoomed in too close, biting for Jim’s knee, and the big guy flipped forward, cartwheeling right over the creature as it missed.

  “Twitch!” Eddie called, and aimed at one of the Zvuvim.

  Boom!

  The shotgun blast shredded the giant fly like a piñata, throwing black flesh and steel shards in all directions.

  Mike looked over at Twitch, and then shook his head to clear it before looking again. He would have sworn that the drummer was a man, but from this angle, Twitch looked more feminine than he … she … did before. And he clearly had breasts.

  She.

  “Come on, Adrian,” she said, and she leaned over the boxy organist and her hair fell around them both like a veil. “There’s no one here but you and me, you handsome devil, and I need you to cast a little spell.”

  Mike shook his head. He’d lived with some pretty odd things in his life, sure. He’d been a gangbanger and a thief as a kid, he’d seen death and he’d caused it, and he’d lived all his adult life with a ghost who tormented him and drove him to constant drinking. That, he knew, was more strangeness and darkness than most people ever encountered in their entire lives, and it was enough strangeness and darkness to push him to the edge of suicide. But the step from his brother’s ghost to the events of this evening—the swords and guns, the grenades, the gender-ambiguous drummer, the giant fire lizard, the silver horse, the flies as big as wolves—was a giant leap, like the NASA guys might have said.