by Brian Keene
“Dad—”
Removing his hand from his son’s shoulders, Jerry raised one finger to his lips. Randy fell silent. The tapping on the glass resumed, frantic and angry.
With it came a dry, rustling sound. Randy held his breath. Jerry grasped the curtain and pulled it aside.
A large black crow stood on the other side of the glass, tapping at the doors with its beak. It stopped, tilted its head up and stared at them. Both Randy and his father exhaled at the same time. Then Jerry laughed.
“What is it?” Sam called. “What’s out there?”
Jerry turned around to face them. “It’s just a bird. That’s all. Just an ugly old crow. Big sucker, too.”
The others murmured among themselves, and Randy, whose attention was still focused on the bird, heard the relief in their voices. He tried to speak, tried to get their attention, but suddenly he had no breath. The bird was changing. As he watched, it turned shadowy, blurred. And then it changed.
A tall man, dressed all in black, stood on the patio where only a second before there had been a crow. He grinned at Randy, revealing rows of white teeth. Too many teeth. Randy didn’t think human beings were supposed to have that many in their mouths.
The man in black raised a fist. Randy whined softly. “Dad . . .”
Still grinning, his father started to turn toward him. The stranger’s fist smashed through the glass doors, and he grasped Jerry Cummings by the ear.
“Come here.” The man’s voice reminded Randy of fingernails on a chalkboard.
Jerry had time to utter a startled yelp, and then his attacker yanked him forward, pulling his head through the shattered hole. Glass fragments fell to the kitchen floor. The gun slipped from Jerry’s hand and spun like a top on the linoleum. Randy screamed, dimly aware that his mother, Sam and Stephanie were doing the same behind him.
Laughing, the man on the patio jerked Jerry’s head down. Long, jagged shards of glass slashed his face and throat. Blood spurted, running down the doors on both sides. Jerry wailed and thrashed, arms flailing, legs kicking wildly as the stranger pushed his head even lower. Another shard speared his eye, and Randy heard a small pop, like air rushing from a sealed plastic bag. His father’s cries ceased. Jerry jittered once more and then lay still. His body went limp and the glass slipped even farther into his eye socket.
Randy gaped, crying as the killer grasped his father’s hair with both hands and tugged him through the opening. The remaining glass shattered as Jerry’s corpse was pulled through. Randy flinched as the stranger lifted his father’s head and kissed him on the mouth. The murderer’s cheeks seemed to balloon for a moment, as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of something. Then he casually tossed Jerry’s lifeless form aside and stepped through the hole.
“Didn’t you hear me knocking? I was gently tapping, tapping at your chamber door.”
Randy scrambled backward, tripped and fell. He sprawled across the kitchen floor and spotted his father’s gun. He reached for it, but the invader moved quicker, kicking it away. The weapon slid across the floor and slammed against the kitchen cabinets.
“It wouldn’t have done you any good,” the man said, looking down at him. The tip of the killer’s black hat brushed against the ceiling fan. “But if you don’t believe me, go ahead and try. I’ll wait.”
Randy skittered backward, sobbing. The man followed along, clearly enjoying the sport. His laughter echoed through the kitchen.
“What do you want?” Randy shrieked.
“Your soul. They taste better if you’re scared.”
The man leaned over him and Randy closed his eyes.
“Youuuu get away from my son!”
Footsteps pounded across the floor. Randy’s eyes snapped open in time to see his mother leaping over him, flinging herself at her husband’s killer. She beat the intruder with her fists, but the man in black swatted her aside. She crashed into the refrigerator and then stumbled to her feet. Groaning, Cindy grabbed the salt and pepper shakers from the countertop and flung them. Both bounced off the figure’s shoulders and smashed on the floor, spilling their contents all over the linoleum. A thrown coffee mug suffered the same fate. Then Cindy seized a steak knife from the dish drainer.
“Get away from us,” she screamed. “Jerry! What did you do to my Jerry?”
“Mom.”
“Randy,” Sam shouted. “Come on!”
Randy clambered to his hands and knees and crawled toward the handgun. Grains of salt from the spilled dispenser stuck to his palms. The intruder’s attention was focused on his mother. The killer taunted her, leaning in close and then darting out of the way as she repeatedly slashed at him with the steak knife. They repeated this dance again, the killer giggling as Cindy shrieked.
“Run, Randy.” Her eyes didn’t leave her tormentor. “Get out of here.”
“Leave her alone,” Randy shouted as his fingers curled around the pistol. He jumped to his feet and pointed the weapon at the man in black, holding the .45 with both hands and spacing his feet apart at shoulder width, just as his father had taught him. “I mean it, you son of a bitch. Get the fuck away from her.”
The dark figure didn’t even turn around. “Go ahead. Take your best shot.”
“I’ll do it,” Randy warned. He hoped his voice didn’t sound as terrified as he felt.
“Then do it already, boy, and be done with it. My brothers and I have many more to deal with tonight. You make such small morsels.”
“Randy,” Cindy said, “go find your sister. Make sure she’s safe. Get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you, Mom. That fucker killed Dad.”
“Sam,” she cried. “Stephanie. Get him out of here.” “Come on, Randy,” Sam urged again. “Let’s go get help.”
“I’m not leaving my mother here, so fuck off!”
The man in black turned around to face him. His smile was terrible to behold.
“I’m going to turn your mother inside out now. Would you like to watch?”
Cindy lunged forward and drove the steak knife into his back with both hands. At the same time, Randy pulled the trigger. The .45 jerked in his hands, and he felt the reverberation run all the way up his arms. The blast drowned out all other sound, and Randy’s ears rang in the aftermath.
Grunting, Cindy stumbled backward and slipped again to the floor. Randy noticed that there was blood spattered across the white refrigerator door. It hadn’t been there a moment before. He wondered where it had come from. Then he saw more of it on the front of his mother’s sweatshirt.
“Oh my God.”
The killer, his expression impassive, calmly reached for the knife jutting from his back. He pulled it out and dropped it to the floor. Then he smiled again.
“But I shot you.” Randy tossed the gun away in frustration. “I shot you, not my mom.”
“Indeed. The bullet passed through me and into her. And for that, I thank you, boy. You helped expedite things for me. As a reward, I shall make your death quick and painless. Just give me one moment.”
He turned back to Randy’s mother and knelt beside her. Cindy struggled to sit up, but slumped back down again.
“M-Mom . . . I’m sorry.”
Her eyes flicked toward him. Randy noticed a thin line of blood dribbling from one corner of her mouth.
“Marsha,” she wheezed. “Go find your sister. It’s okay, baby. I love you.”
“Mom . . .”
“Dude.” Sam had opened the front door. A gust of wind blew into the house, and the screams of the neighbors grew louder. “Come on, man, before he kills you, too.”
Randy glanced at Sam and Stephanie, then back to his mother and the stranger, and then down to the discarded gun.
“Forget it,” Sam shouted. “You already shot the fucker once, and it didn’t faze him. Come on!”
“Oh, Jesus.” Stephanie stared at something across the street. “There’s another one. What’s it doing to the Garnett’s dog?”
Randy turned back t
o his mother again, intent on rushing forward and pushing the intruder away from her. The man was kissing her, just as he had kissed Randy’s father. Cindy’s eyes were closed.
Balling his fists, Randy opened his mouth and—
“Randy?” Stephanie’s voice cut through his rage and distress. “We have to go. We have to go now. Please?”
He glanced from her to his mother, and then back again. The man in black stood up and sighed.
“Ah, that was tasty. Now come here, boy. I promised I’d make it quick, and I keep my word.”
Randy took a faltering step backward. The killer moved forward and then stopped, recoiling as if he’d been shocked. He glanced down at the floor and hissed. Randy looked down and saw that the intruder’s toe was at the line of spilled salt.
“You little bastard. Come here.”
“F-fuck you. You killed my parents.”
“And now I’m going to kill you. Come here. I won’t ask again.”
Randy noticed that the man still hadn’t moved. He seemed unable or unwilling to come any closer.
It’s the salt, he thought. I don’t know why, but he doesn’t like the salt.
“Fuck you.” This time, his voice didn’t waver.
The killer’s eyes widened. “You have the touch, don’t you, boy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Touch this, you son of a bitch.” Randy grabbed his crotch.
“Amazing,” the intruder whispered. “You don’t know.”
“Randy?” Stephanie’s voice was pleading. She sounded near tears again.
With one last glance at his parents’ bodies, Randy turned and fled. Tears streamed down his face as he followed Sam and Stephanie through the open door. He noticed that they were hand in hand, but at that moment, he didn’t care.
“Run,” the man in black called after them. “Flee, if you wish. There is nowhere for you to go, little bugs.
One of my brothers will see to you in due time.”
The street and yards were chaos, but none of it registered with Randy. He only caught fleeting glimpses as he ran across the grass toward his truck. Homes were burning. Bodies lay in the street. Another dark figure, almost identical to the one they had just faced, strode across the roof of the house next door, menacing two people who had crawled to the edge.
Sam unlocked the doors. Randy watched in despair as he guided Stephanie to the Nissan and yanked the passenger door open. She hurried inside and he slammed the door behind her. Then he looked up and noticed Randy.
“What are you doing?”
“Truck . . .” It was all Randy could manage to say.
He pointed at the 4×4.
“Follow us,” Sam said, and quickly climbed behind the wheel. Then, a second later, he swore.
Stephanie glanced around, frantic. “What’s wrong?”
“It won’t start!”
Randy stumbled toward them. Sam sat behind the wheel, frantically turning the key back and forth in the ignition. Randy placed his hand on the Nissan’s hood and was just about to tell them to get in his truck when Sam’s engine suddenly roared to life.
“Got it,” Sam shouted. “You coming?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Randy ran over to his truck and fumbled for the keys. They jingled in his trembling hand as he unlocked the door. The people next door screamed as they plummeted to the ground. The man in black on the roof turned in Randy’s direction and waved. Randy gave him the finger and then slipped into the cab. He started the truck and the engine roared to life. The man on the roof seemed startled by this. He leaped to the ground as Randy raced away, pressing the accelerator all the way to the floor and struggling to keep sight of Sam’s brake lights as the black Nissan lowrider with flames painted on the sides raced into the darkness. The CD player beeped and then began playing the Geto Boys’ “Still,” which Randy had been listening to the last time he was in the truck. Now, he barely heard the music.
“I’m sorry,” Randy sobbed as he whipped around the turn and followed Sam. “I’m so sorry.”
The truck’s massive tires crunched over a corpse lying in the middle of the street, but Randy didn’t even notice.
SIX
Most of the people Levi met as he waded through the chaos were either in shock or half-crazed with fright. A few ran away from him as if he were the Devil incarnate, stalking the streets of Brinkley Springs. A few more people shot at him, not bothering to ask questions or give warning first. One particularly terrified old man had thrown a bottle of whiskey at him and then followed it up with a lit wooden match. As a result of these confrontations, Levi had a hard time gaining a coherent understanding of what was occurring. Many of the townspeople were as clueless as Levi himself. They’d heard the screams and gunshots and explosions, but had no idea what was happening. Others mentioned men in black and crows. Neither image was particularly useful.
Men in black was too vague of a term. It could mean anything. A group of gunmen dressed in dark clothing. Agents from some government agency or perhaps Black Lodge. It could even be one of the many different manifestations of Nyarlathotep—a supernatural who some mistakenly believed to be a demonic servant of Cthulhu but who, in reality, was simply the messenger of God. Somehow, Levi doubted it was any of these things. Human gunmen wouldn’t have explained the feeling that had come over him earlier. No, whatever forces were at work here in Brinkley Springs, they were almost certainly of supernatural origin. And Nyarlathotep, on the rare occasions that he manifested himself on Earth, wasn’t known for massacring people—which was what was happening here, if the reports Levi was hearing from the panicked survivors was correct. God’s messenger did occasionally appear as a man in black, but he also manifested as a worm, a hummingbird, a pillar of fire, a burning bush, a giant hand or one of a hundred other forms. He did no harm, other than imparting a message to whomever was chosen to hear it. Then he disappeared again.
So forget the men in black, Levi thought as he snuck through a small cemetery behind a tiny Baptist church that—judging from the moldering plywood nailed over the doors and windows—had been abandoned by its congregation long before tonight. Focus on the crows. People keep mentioning they saw big black crows. What does that tell me?
He tried to remember everything he knew about crows, as they related to occult lore. If he’d been back home, if he’d had access to his library, the task would be a snap. But between the adrenalin coursing through his body and his own fear, amplified as it was by the town’s collective horror, he’d have to trust his memory, instinct and years of experience.
So, what do I know?
The first thing that came to Levi’s mind was Raven, a deity of the Native American tribes who had once inhabited the Pacific Northwest. According to their beliefs, Raven was sometimes a generous benefactor and, at other times, a mischievous trickster, credited with doing everything from creating the Earth to stealing the sun. But since Brinkley Springs, West Virginia, was on the other side of the country, and since there were a number of other tribes who had worshipped other deities between here and there, he doubted this had anything to do with Raven. The Hindu god Shani was usually depicted as being not only dressed in black, but dark in color, as well. Shani also traveled around the world on the back of a giant crow. That seemed to fit, but as far as Levi knew, Shani was a god of justice who would have abhorred the atrocities taking place. What else was there? There was Odin, of course, with his two pet ravens, Hugin and Munin. Celtic mythology told of Morrigan, also known as Badb, Fea, Anann, Macha and others. One of the goddess’s forms was that of a crow. The Welsh had the giant king of the Britons known as Bran the Blessed, whose name meant “crow.” Levi wondered for a moment if Brinkley Springs’ residents were primarily of Germanic, Irish or Welsh descent. Probably so, but even then, none of those possibilities felt right.
Crows were present in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as well as in Chaldean, Chinese and Hindu mythology, and they were mentioned quite often in Buddhism
, especially the Tibetan disciplines. One physical form of Dharmapala Mahakala was a crow. Crows had watched over the first Dalai Lama and had supposedly heralded the births of the first, seventh, eighth, twelfth and fourteenth Lamas. Levi was certain, however, that he could rule the Dalai Lama out as a suspect.
He stuck close to the church walls, remaining in the shadows. Lost in thought, he didn’t notice the dead dog until he was almost upon it. The poor creature had been impaled on the black wrought iron fence that surrounded the churchyard. One end of the iron rod jutted from the dog’s anus. The other end stuck out of its mouth. Judging by the expression in the dogs face, it had been alive when the act was perpetrated. Without even really thinking about it, Levi reached out with two fingers and closed the poor dog’s eyes. Then an idea occurred to him. If he could find a dead human—one whose death was connected to these mysterious crow figures or the men in black—he could summon their spirit and get the answers from the departed. It stood to reason that a murder victim, especially one killed in so gruesome a fashion, would be able to answer questions about the person or persons who had killed them.
All he had to do was find a corpse, and given the current situation, that should be an easy task.
Levi grasped the iron bars and vaulted over the fence. His hands came away sticky with blood and fur. Frowning, he knelt and wiped them on the grass. Then he stood up again and walked around the side of the church, sticking once more to the shadows to avoid being seen. A black car with flames painted on the side raced past, followed closely by a revving pickup truck. That struck Levi as odd. He hadn’t heard or seen any other running vehicles this evening.
Flames flickered in the night, casting the side streets and alleys with an orange glow. Though none of the buildings in his proximity were ablaze, the fires were close enough that Levi could smell the smoke.