by Joe Lansdale
The howl crawled out of the golem’s chest, rose to the sky, and seemed to fill it. Bernard had the illusion that the moon quivered. But it was he who quivered. He felt so empty. Felt as if he were filled with empty. How could that be? How could you be filled with emptiness? It was an odd impression of being so fully empty as to be a void, yet the void had weight and awareness. Contradictory feelings, for sure, and strange, and in that moment Bernard felt so damn sorry for the golem. Not so sorry he wished it well, a spot on the beach with an umbrella and a paperback, but so sorry he wished it dead, for that howl seemed to request it, a quick death, a release from that dreadful, spiritless form that had been made for one sole purpose: destruction.
The howl seemed to last forever, and then slowly the golem lowered its head, and even more slowly it turned its head in their direction, and let its gaze settle there. Its head very slowly shifted to one side. Then to the other.
“It’s too dark for him to see us, right?” Wilson said.
“It’s an it, and it sees us, dark or no dark. Run, Wilson.”
The golem started to trot. Bernard and Wilson made a dash back to the dozer. Their moment of relief had been brief, and Bernard cursed himself for his curiosity. They should have stayed back at the dozer. But no sooner had he thought that, he knew he was wrong. It wouldn’t have mattered. The golem was going to find them. There was no way to avoid it, on this island, in the city, wherever. Once it latched its intent on you, it would stay after you until it was satisfied. Then a new victim, or victims, would fall into its path, and the cycle would continue.
Bernard and Wilson scrambled into the dozer. Bernard said, “You ever play cowboy?”
“What?”
“Ever roped a cow?”
“Of course not. But if you would like to take the time to explain it to me, nothing would please me more, except for that whole giant, bad-ass monster shit.”
“Get the chain, make a loop. You’re going to rope it.”
Bernard had already started the dozer when Wilson reached behind the seat and pulled out the heavy chain. It was about twenty feet of chain, and it took considerable effort to pull it over the back of the seat and have it end up coiled in the floorboard, except for one end, which he held.“Make a loop with a slipknot. There’s a padlock in the glove box. Take it out and clamp it so the chain won’t slip, but the knot will.”
Wilson fumbled about with the chain. His fingers seemed about as useful for the job as sausages.
“This might be your worst idea,” Wilson said.
The dozer was heading back in the direction of the golem, the lights were on and bright and just waiting for the golem to appear in their glow.
“Wrong fucking way.”
Bernard ignored him. “When I get right on top of him, I’m going to stop and spin the wheelhouse, and you’re going to be at the back of it, and when he starts climbing up to rip our heads off, you’re going to throw that chain over his body, and you’ll need a big loop for that.”
“Why don’t I just do some rope tricks with it first?”
“That’s your choice,” Bernard said, “but I don’t recommend it.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Wilson said.
The dozer bumped along on its tracks, and then there was the golem, running steadily toward them on untiring legs.
Bernard kicked the dozer up a notch. Wilson opened the sliding back window, dragged the chain up to it and put one foot outside on the carriage.
“You might want to fasten the chain to the undercarriage of the seat,” Bernard said.
“Oh,” Wilson said. He bent down and went at it, trying to link it up underneath the seat.
“You got it? Tell me you got it.”
“I don’t got it.”
That’s when the golem and the blade of the dozer collided. Bernard had raised it high, and now as they came together, he dropped the blade to the ground and scooped the golem, knocked it down. It was one good blow for the good guys, thought Bernard. Well, the better guys.
“It’s hooked,” Wilson said.
“All right; when he stands I’m going to swivel it. Hell, there he is.”
The golem had in fact stood up, and as he did, Bernard raised the blade as if for another strike, but hit the toggle switch and the dozer spun its wheelhouse so fast it nearly threw Wilson loose.
Wilson braced his feet, and with the golem climbing up the back of the dozer. Wilson threw the loop of chain. It was heavy, and he knew the minute he let it go that he was fucked, that it wasn’t going to work. But he was only partly right.
The chain didn’t fit over the golem completely. It went over its head, and over one arm, and cinched up in its armpit as Bernard jumped the dozer forward in a way Wilson didn’t think could be done; it sort of bunny-hopped on its treads, and when it did, the golem fell backwards and the chain cinched up. Bernard clutched and geared and throttled, and the dozer began to move away fast, dragging the golem after it.
Bernard wheeled the dozer to the left, made a wide turn, swinging the chain and golem into a small tree, smacking the tree hard enough it sagged from the blow. As they rode away in the dozer, dragging the golem behind it, heading back through the gap toward the Big Drop, the tree cracked even louder and fell, clipping the golem and striking the back of the dozer. A limb from the tree drove through the back glass and shattered it and knocked Wilson onto the floor board.
From that vantage point, Wilson said, “The chain—it’s slipping.”
“No,” said Bernard, “it’s the seat.”
At that moment Bernard stood up, and the seat was jerked out from under him through the back of the dozer, blowing out what glass was left, bending the frame that held the glass. But the seat lodged against the frame and held.
Bernard was fighting the controls now. The dozer wasn’t meant to be driven while standing. They broke out of the shadows of the trees and into the moonlight, bearing down on the cliff.
Wilson had managed to get his feet under him and was hanging onto the dash. He said, “You are going to turn, right?”
“No,” Bernard said. “We’re going to jump.”
“Shit, man! I don’t want to jump.”
“Get ready,” Bernard said and unlatched the door on his side, slid it open.
“I don’t want to jump,” Wilson said.
“One,” said Bernard.
“What part of I don’t want to jump do you not get?”
“Two.”
“Shit.” Wilson swung his door open.
“Three.”
Wilson jumped. He landed pretty wide, but the golem was swinging on the chain, and it swung toward him. He didn’t have time to get up. The golem missed him, though its arm reached out for him. The chain didn’t miss. It caught Wilson along the shoulder, side and hip, lifted him painfully into the air.
Wilson rolled on his side, glanced at the dozer. Bernard was still in the wheelhouse.
“Jump!” Wilson screamed.
The dozer reached the edge of the cliff and the blade tilted down, and Bernard jumped out of the dozer. Wilson had seen him jump, but from his angle he didn’t see him land. The dozer kept going, nodding on the edge of the cliff, and then it went over and the chain jerked along the ground and the golem jerked with it, was rolled over on its stomach. The golem clamped its fingers into the dirt, making grooves in the soil as it went, and then it was at the edge of the cliff, and its fingers caught hold there, and then …Jesus, thought Wilson. Unh-unh. The golem was hanging there firm, even with the chain around it and the dozer tugging at it. It reached one arm way up, to gain a better hold. Wilson saw Bernard. He had made the jump successfully. He was up and limping toward the golem.
§
Bernard limped to where the golem struggled. He grabbed hold of a huge rock at the edge of the cliff. He could hardly lift it. He felt his spine strain and his testicles swell as he boosted it to his chest, then dropped it on the golem’s head. The golem lost its grip, perhaps because of the blow, but just as
likely due to the weight of the dozer pulling it loose of its hold on the cliff’s edge. Bernard watched as the weight of the dozer dragged it down toward the ocean. Bernard let out a little laugh of triumph.
“Motherfucker,” he said, and then his leg wouldn’t hold him. Damn; it was broken. It had finally snapped all the way. Had he not been so high on adrenaline and fear he wouldn’t have been able to stand at all, and the pain would have been unbearable. But, hey, he thought, I still have the pain coming, and I have that to look forward to. He lay on his stomach at the edge of the cliff, watched as the dozer hit the waves below and foamed them white as it disappeared beneath them, yanking the golem on the chain after it.
Wilson came jogging up then.
“Did we get him?”
“Yeah,” Bernard said. “We got him.”
“Good. I never doubted it for a moment.”
“That right?”
“Well, a moment here and there, but all’s well that ends well.”
“Listen, you have to go get the front-end loader. My leg’s broken.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” Bernard said. “Get it and take me back to Island Keep. You’re going to have to set it.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You didn’t know how to play cowboy either, but you did.”
“Yeah. I did, didn’t I. Okay. Wait here.”
“You can count on that,” Bernard said.
Wilson trotted off.
Bernard edged to the cliff again, looked down at the water. He thought about the golem. It was deep there, and dark, and down he would go, and that should be the end of it, chained to that goddamn bulldozer beneath the waves.
He felt the excitement start to drain. Relaxation came first, and then the pain. He lay there for a long time feeling it, gradually feeling worse and worse, and then he looked over the edge of The Big Drop and saw something impossible.
The head of the golem rose out of the stormy waters and its arms clawed at the slick wall, clawed hard, somehow taking purchase on the stone. Bernard actually shook his head, thinking he might be having some kind of delusion brought on by fear and pain.
But nope. He was seeing what he was seeing. The golem was climbing up the side of the Big Drop by grinding its fingertips into the rock wall. It was a slow ascent, and impossible, but yet, it came. The chain was still wrapped around it, shedding water in great moon-lit droplets. And following the chain was the dozer, banging against the cliff wall like a child’s toy. Bernard knew the dozer weighed over ten thousand pounds. The golem had swum up from the bottom and tugged the dozer after it. He felt like Wilson now. It couldn’t do that. It just couldn’t.
Yet the golem was pulling itself and the dozer out of the water with the effort it would have taken him to drag a bicycle uphill.
Bernard tried to stand, but couldn’t. His leg was dead, limp as a wet noodle. He thought about crawling away, but there was no future in that. As slowly as the golem was climbing, he wouldn’t even make the edge of the woods by the time it reached the summit of the cliff.
It was then he heard the front-end loader crunching over the rocky soil, the roar of its motor. Bernard rolled over and saw the loader’s lights.
Wilson parked the loader, left the lights on, got out and walked briskly to Bernard.
Bernard said, “Take a look,” and dropped his hand over the edge.
Wilson took a look, and as he did, Bernard looked up and saw Wilson’s face go white as the moon.
“Oh, hell,” Wilson said. “We got to hustle.”
“And go where?”
“The compound.”
“It’ll come there. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Hey, I live by the minute, don’t you? Come on.”
“You have to finish it.”
“Me?” Wilson said. “What am I going to do? Give it a lecture? No, man, I got nothing to say to that thing. I got nothing I can do. You’re coming with me.” Wilson reached down to pull Bernard up.
“No. Listen to me. Its forehead. The mark there. You have to scrape it off.”
“So it climbs up, I take a pocket knife to its head, scrape off the symbol and we’re done. Is that your plan? So far your plans haven‘t worked out quite as well as we hoped. And this one, man, it’s the worst of the bunch.”
“You’re pretty good with the loader, right?”
“I’m not Toggle. I’m not you. And who gives a shit? I’m not taking a driving test. Is your head broken too?”
Bernard glanced over the edge of the cliff. The golem was steadily coming, digging its fingers into the rock as if it was made of plaster.
“Listen, son. My leg won’t let me work the controls the way it’s needed. You drove it here without a problem, and you can use the lift and the bucket pretty well, and you can put it where you want it. I’ve seen you. You’re going to have to tilt the bucket, use the edge to scrape off the word on his head.”
“I don’t like that idea. That sucks. Seriously.”
“I think you just mess up the word a little, and we’re good.”
“You think?”
“Wilson, it’s all we got. That’s it. We’re just prolonging the inevitable if we go back to Island Keep.”
“Prolonging the inevitable was my plan all along.”
“When it comes to the lip of the cliff, you have to be ready.”
“Oh, man. I just wanted to finish out my term in peace, make a garden.” Wilson leaned a little, glanced down. “Oh, good.”
Bernard checked below. The seat attached to the chain was starting to pivot and slide through the broken window of the dozer. As they watched, it snapped free, and the dozer plunged back into the ocean with a splash and a swell of waves. It was gone in an instant. The seat swung wide on the chain, then back and forth like a pendulum.
The golem, dragging chain and dozer seat, climbed faster.
§
Wilson dragged Bernard toward the dozer, pulled him up so Bernard could get his hands on the machine; that way he could help Wilson push him up and into the seat. When Bernard painfully found his position, Wilson climbed up.
“I can cue you if you need it, but you can do it,” Bernard said. “You know how. You got this.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Wilson said.
“Just take it easy,” Bernard said.
“You say.”
Wilson took the controls, eased the machine forward, hopping a little at his touch. “Nervous,” Wilson said.
“No hurry,” Bernard said. “Just ease up to the edge.”
“Come, on, Bernard, you really think that soft-talking shit helps?”
“I hope so.”
“Well, yeah, I mean, it doesn’t hurt. Okay.”
Wilson moved the machine closer, and then there it was. The golem, its head rising above the rim of the cliff like a dead, blackened sun. Wilson brought the shovel down on top of the golem’s head with a ringing sound that drove the monster out of view, except its hands which continued to grasp the cliff’s edge.
Raising the shovel, Wilson waited until the golem edged over the cliff again.
“You can’t just bang it,” Bernard said. “You got to scrape its head; otherwise, you knock it down, it’ll keep climbing right back up.”
That didn’t stop Wilson from banging it again when its head poked over the rim, knocking it back down, but not loosening its grip.
“I said it’s no use,” Bernard said. “It’s just a game of whack-a-mole this way.
“I know. But it satisfies.”
Wilson backed the loader slightly, lowered the scoop, and then the head came up again. He rushed the machine forward, trying to hit the golem in the forehead, but to their surprise, hanging by one hand, the golem reached out with the other and clutched the edge of the scoop, and when it did, it actually shook the loader, twisting it sideways.
“Goddamn, I may have to leave you Bernard. Sorry. My balls are only so big.”
Bernard was wrestling his knife from h
is pocket. He clicked the blade free.
“You got to be kidding,” Wilson said.
Bernard placed the knife in his teeth, eased the side door open, and swung himself out, screaming with pain as he did it. He fell down on top of one of the lifting arms, smacking his nuts in the process. At least it momentarily took his mind off his broken leg. Bernard bellied forward. The loader rocked left, then right, as the golem turned it like a plaything.
“No!” Wilson said. “Don’t fucking do it.”
Bernard kept sliding forward until he reached the shovel. He lunged over it awkwardly and fell on top of the golem’s head, swung around so that one leg clutched over the shoulder of the golem and he hooked a heel in its chest. The other leg, the broken one, dangled along the golem’s back, the foot turned in the wrong direction. Bernard was out in the wind. If the golem fell, so did he, all the way to the rocks and the sea.
Wilson tried to back the loader, but the golem held it.
At first.
And then it let go of the loader and reached up for Bernard with the free hand, but Bernard took the knife from his mouth and scraped it across the length of the word on the thing’s forehead. The golem howled that wild, soulless howl, but this time Bernard found it invigorating. Not frightening as before. It seemed to him that this time the howl was one of fear, something the golem might never have experienced before.
Wilson lifted the shovel slightly and rammed it forward so Bernard could easily tumble into it. Bernard dropped the pocket knife and grabbed the scoop with both hands, and though his broken leg caught on the back of the golem’s head and twisted and cracked so hard when he fell into the shovel he passed out from pain, he made it.