by Lex Sinclair
On the left was an old man, having great difficulty standing motionless, due to the fact that his joints kept clicking and his knees kept buckling under the strain. That lazy left eye twitched spasmodically in its socket. Already Hugh looked like an ideal advert for starvation. His wrinkled flesh sagged off his skeleton, losing its battle to gravity. The bags under Hugh’s eyes were hanging down into his prominent cheekbones; his teeth were crooked yellow miniature tombstones; his lips, purple and cracked like crocodile skin. He groaned as his knees buckled yet again, although he somehow righted himself using the communion table as support.
All three of them stood there, helpless, desolate and effete against the powers that now controlled them, preventing them from dying in the traditional sense.
When Hugh inadvertently knocked one of the five-holder candlesticks over, reaching out for the edge of the wooden table to stop himself falling flat on his face, the thing with the goat’s head shot to its feet and backhanded him with such a force that the feeble old man flew backwards, smacking the rock wall beneath the pagan symbol and slid to the ground, feet stretched out in front of him, head bowed down facing his lap, where he sat slumped. Joe couldn’t help thinking how painful a position that must be for someone who’d had a hip replacement and had never been the same thereafter.
‘Why don’t you come down here and try doing that to me?’ Joe offered.
The thing with the goat’s head whirled around and blazed its furious, inhuman eyes at Joe. ‘Do you know how easy it would be for me to kill the lot of you right now without doing anything more than raising my finger?’ it asked.
Joe knew there would come a time when he’d have to prove his courage and take a chance. This was that moment.
‘Why don’t you, then? Save you a whole lotta trouble, wouldn’t it?’
The thing with the goat’s head grinned malevolently. ‘Oh... don’t tempt me, Joe.’
Joe shrugged, looking deadpan. ‘I’m not trying to do anything, besides saving you some time. I mean if you can kill us all in less than a couple of minutes, think of all the other things you could be doing?’
The thing with the goat’s head cocked its head, nonplussed. ‘You want to die, Joe, is that it?’
‘Well, I’m gonna die anyway, according to you. May as well get it over and done with, right? That’s what I came down here for. After all, you said yourself there’s no escaping our doom now, and my neighbours can’t afford to move home, so here we are.’
‘Are you trying to deceive me, Joe?’
‘Hey, if I was going to mislead you,’ Joe said, growing in confidence, ‘I’d tell you that I’m on your side - but I’m not. I think you’re a spiteful, rotten, jealous goat-headed motherfucker, who hasn’t even got the balls to come down here and fight me - fairly - like a man... But then, you’re not really a man, are you? So, I don’t suppose you’ve got any balls, either.’
‘I can destroy you without even touching a hair on your head,’ it spat.
‘Which would prove my point,’ Joe said in an even voice, ‘that you haven’t got the balls to fight me fairly. Remember, anyone can threaten someone with a gun - or in your case, supernatural powers - but there’s nothing impressive in that, not really.’
Joe stared coldly at the creature and saw that, only be studying every intricate feature, he could just make out the twitching of the mouth as the creature became steadily furious with Joe’s comments at how it wasn’t man and never would be and didn’t have any balls.
‘Oh, Jenna-Marie loved having intercourse with Ben Johnson, Joe. When he finished doing the deed and rolled off the bitch, she’d whisper in his ear “You’re the best, Ben... You’re dick is miles bigger than Joe’s. It’s like I was fucking a boy before, and now I’m fucking a real man!” Ben would smirk. Oh he’d love to hear how crap you were in bed with Jenna-Marie, and how she only stayed with you because you were a good provider. Ben told her that you weren’t that good, and when you two eventually fought, he’d beat you ugly.’
‘But he didn’t!’ Joe snapped, his cheeks growing with the heat of his anger. ‘I outclassed the prick.’
‘But not in bed with the woman you loved; where it mattered...’
An uncomfortable silence filled Joe’s ears. Even though he chastised himself for caring about what Jenna-Marie thought of him as a lover, it still hurt, a knife jabbing him in the heart, an icy cold wave washing over him, so cold that it was hot.
‘Funny, you saying that,’ Joe said, ignoring his subconscious advising him not to go down this route. ‘Because all those years I was with Jenna-Marie, she never complained in the middle of the act. If I recall correctly, during some of our arguments, she said it was the only thing that kept us together, as well as the money.’
The thing with the goat’s head guffawed; the noise reverberated off the rock walls. ‘Joe, Joe... Don’t be so naïve. Ninety percent of the time, whatever that cheating bitch told you was bullshit. She knew it made you feel good, believing that you were as good in bed as you were in the ring. But the truth was - when she was with other men, riding them like there was no tomorrow, she said, “Doing this with Joe, is like trying to have an orgasm with a pencil inside me.” It may have cost you a lot of your hard-earned money, Joe, but the best thing you ever did was get rid of that bitch, you know it, I know it, and everyone who’s your friend knows it, too. If you stayed with her any longer, you’d have probably got yourself an STI, and/or caught her in the act yourself, which would have broken your heart a lot more than suspecting her of adultery. Trust me.’
‘Are you gonna get down here and fight me, or do I have to come up there kick the crap out of you?’ Joe barked, foaming at the mouth, losing the battle in doing his utmost to remain calm.
‘What’re you fighting for, Joe? What’s on the line, as they say?’
‘My life,’ Joe answered.
The thing with the goat’s head snorted green vapour from its snout. ‘C’mon, Joe, you can do better than that... I’ve already got your life. How about your soul and the lives of your other residents?’
‘I thought our lives were already on the line?’
‘They are, I just thought I’d refresh your memory at what’s at stake here... After I destroy you, my empire will grow. The flesh of the dead General and police officer aided in the resurrection of your friends standing behind me.’ It motioned to the three deceased neighbours of Willet Close. ‘Also, I will have control of your soul, and show you where you were and what you were doing, while men like Ben Johnson were giving your wife a good seeing to. I will break your heart for ever and ever and ever. Then I’ll make your other neighbours relive their excruciating deaths for ever and ever and ever, as well. And it’ll be all your fault.’
‘What’s the alternative, then?’ Joe asked.
‘There isn’t one. I’m punishing you; increasing the pressure on you, for attempting to persuade the Acolytes of Doom to defeat me. But I corrected them.’ It motioned to the hooded shape-shifters, who raised their skeletal faces to Joe, where ragged pieces of flesh flapped off the bones like torn wallpaper. They had decomposed rapidly since the last time Joe had laid eyes on them. The flux of their faces was horrifying, yet hypnotic.
‘It wasn’t their fault,’ Joe protested.
‘No, I know. Hence, why I said it was your fault, Joe.’
Joe shook his head in disdain. ‘I suppose it had nothing to do with you, is that right?’
‘Oh, it had a lot to do with me. But you see, Joe. I promised those four former worshippers of God an eternal existence if they worshipped me instead. They died doing my will. I resurrected them, as I’d promised - but then they disobeyed me.’
‘But they didn’t!’ Joe yelled. ‘They refused to help me, because they feared you; not because they loved you.’
‘Love is a fruitless emotion, only the weak seek.’
The thing with the goat’s head smiled broadly. Then it climbed down the concrete steps and glided towards Joe so they were standing face to face.
22.
Naomi refused to stand motionless any longer. She had to find out what was going on beyond the opening to the demon’s lair, but any access she sought was denied by the
Acolytes of Doom, who stood by the entrance, steadfast; their faces fluxing. Their faces kept filling and draining with blood, tissue and bulging and shrinking veins. It turned
Naomi’s stomach inside out seeing the grotesque metamorphosis beneath their baggy hoods. When they smiled, she could see their teeth from the front curving back towards the side of their craniums, where the ears ought to be. But worst of all were the eyeballs falling into the deep, blackened sockets... and then popping back up again, staring wildly.
Their bodies didn’t know whether to rot and die, or to develop more layers of flesh and blood on their bone and continue to live. Even though the four shape-shifters were incapable of showing any facial expression, it was apparent that they had no control over their bodies. They couldn’t speak any more, because they didn’t have any tongues, and every time they moved flesh rippled, falling from their faces and to their feet. Instead of stepping forwards, they staggered, unsure to take another step lest they fell down and couldn’t pick themselves back up again.
Naomi turned to Jake, Emma, and Martha. ‘We can get past them! They can barely stand!’
‘No way!’ Jake snapped, shaking his head forcefully. ‘If we’re not supposed to go any further, then we don’t go any further. For all we know, that ghastly monster and Joe are negotiating right now. If we go barging and interrupting them, it could be worse for all of us.’
Martha frowned at Jake. ‘You can’t negotiate with the demon,’ she said in a firm voice. ‘The demon is a liar... Look what it did to its faithful followers, just because Joe tempted them. It doesn’t trust anyone, even if they gave it everything it wanted.’
‘You’ll die!’ Jake argued.
Martha focused her magnified eyes behind her glasses on him, and said, ‘Jake, hon, at some time or another we’re all gonna die. If you live your life, not wanting to do anything, because there’s a chance you might die, then you’re never gonna do anything worthwhile - and if you’re not going to do anything with your life, except merely exist, then what kind of life is that? Especially when your good friend could do with your help.
‘Are you so afraid, that you won’t even help Joe?’
Jake nodded solemnly. ‘Okay. Let’s give it a go. Whadda we got to lose, huh?’
Martha smiled at him.
Together they turned and face the Acolytes of Doom. Then they strode forward. Suddenly, Jake took the lead, and without warning, charged the tallest figure, head down and thundered into him, knocking the air out of the dead monk and sending them both crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust.
Jake’s head came into direct contact with one of the many stones strewn on the ground. He heard and felt the crack above his eye; the billowing dust temporarily blinded him and he clutched his head where blood seeped out of the fresh wound. The sound of countless feet around him, very close to his head, scuffled on the ground in what sounded in his perception like a stampede.
Emma had picked up a stone and threw it as hard as she could at one of the hooded figures, where it created a nasty V-shaped fissure on its cheekbone. Martha and Naomi saw this and did the same. It was a very effective method; and due to the fact that the creatures of the night were at their weakest, there wasn’t much they could do to prevent the fusillade of stones being pelted so fast they could scarcely see them. They raised their arms to protect their skeletal heads, yet it didn’t stop the three crazed women hurling more stones at their bodies. The robes they wore cushioned some of the blows to the abdomen, but it still hurt and they could feel the vibrations of every stone slamming into them, vibrating through their brittle bones.
Jake rolled onto his knees, squinted, and saw to his relief that the four hooded figures were back-pedalling, covering up like a boxer on the ropes, unable to stop the barrage of blows raining in. In spite of blood dripping from the wound on his head into his eye, obscuring his vision, the other eye was still working perfectly well. He had to act now, before the Acolytes of Doom recovered, or the women ran out of stones on the ground to hurl at them.
Waiting for a break, when the women were bending down to pick up more stones, Jake darted in the gloom to the leader of the four shape-shifters and shoulder-barged him off his feet for the second time. This time though the hood flew off the head of the skeleton, and when he landed, there was sickening crack that resonated off the walls in the cave.
All at once, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at the one called Brother John, whose skull was cracking from the back of his cranium, deep fissures racing each other over the top of his head and down into the enormous sockets.
Jake saw his opportunity. He leapt on the robe-clad figure, dug his fingers into the chasm of his eye sockets, gripped with tremendous force - and contorting his features, grunting, then yelling, as he pulled with all his strength - he broke the skeleton head; it was coming apart in his hands in small pieces. Then he seized the dead monk by the side of the cranium, lifted it up off the ground, spotted the jagged rock jutting out of the ground, and smashed the skull down again. This time it didn’t crack - it shattered.
Jake screamed at the top of his lungs, victorious, bits of broken bone dropping out of the palms of his hands.
The other creatures of the night gasped. They stared, gaping in complete astonishment, aghast at seeing their brother finally dead, at long last, sprawled out on the ground with no head, just pieces of bone discarded around the remaining skeletal frame.
Jake bared his teeth at them, blood still dripping from the wound above his left eye, picked up a stone and pelted it at them, which smacked another acolyte directly on the forehead above the nose. The acolyte collapsed to his knees, clutching his head, grinding his many teeth together in searing agony.
‘We are going to help our friend!’ Jake boomed. ‘Is there any one of you that are going to stop us, tell me now?’
The other creatures of the night backed away from Jake and the three women, hurt, frightened, and above all, defeated by their human adversary.
Jake got to his feet, dusted himself clean, and stood upright. Then said: ‘If you wanna worship something - worship this! He gave them the middle finger, grinned wickedly before spinning around and facing the entrance to the demon’s lair.
‘Stay here,’ he ordered the three women. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to see, or if it’s safe for all of us.’
Martha knew in a sudden moment of realisation that she; Naomi nor Emma would see Jake alive again. He was about to walk into a certain death, and there was nothing she could do to stop this, because it was his destiny, just like it was the destiny of that deceased man and his fellow brothers all those years ago, who’d go on to commit the terrible sin of murder.
‘Jake,’ she said; then glanced at Emma. ‘Give your wife a kiss and a hug before you go in there.’
Jake eyed the old woman suspiciously for a few seconds, considering asking her why she’d insisted on such a thing. Did she know something that he and the others didn’t?
However, there was no time to waste. He went to Emma, rested his hands on her shoulders, leaned closer, slid his hands to the base of her neck and lost himself in a meaningful kiss that filled his beating heart with love.
When they pulled away, breaking contact, Emma slowly opened her eyes, and said, ‘I love you, Jake.’ She didn’t know how important it was to say that to him then.
Nevertheless
, on a subconscious level, she knew that if it was going to be the last thing she ever said to him, then she wanted him to know that she loved him, and would always love him... dead or alive.
Jake smiled, not wickedly, subserviently - but a proper, endearing smile that shone through his eyes, which Emma felt as well as saw.
The last image the women remembered of Jake Harris was him walking into the slanting golden light, smiling at them, raising his hand in a farewell gesture before he was swallowed up by the radiance out of their lives for ever.
***
The thing with the goat’s head summoned the staff with the replica of its head and snatched it out of the air.
Joe backed away immediately, alarmed by the weapon breathing a cloud of green vapour into the dank air. ‘I thought this was going to be a fair fight?’
‘Oh, it will. But I don’t won’t any outside interference getting involved and helping you, either.’
Joe looked perplexed, scanning the room. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
Then, just as he uttered those words, a figure emerged from the billowing cloud where the entrance used to be. Joe kept one eye on the thing with the goat’s head and the other eye on the approaching figure, wary that this might be some sort of ploy to get him to be attacked when he wasn’t paying strict attention.
It wasn’t.
Jake swatted away the coils of smoke enveloping him - but as he did, the air in the cave was sliced by something incredibly fast, spearing Jake through the chest against the far wall. Before Joe had time to raise his hand to Jake, warning him not to come any closer, crimson blood was oozing out of Jake’s gaping mouth, down his chin. His eyes were wide with horror, as he reached with outstretched arms to the staff protruding from his chest. He met Joe’s terrified, heartbroken gaze, aware that in a few moments the life would drain from him, the same as the blood was draining from his head.