by Laird Barron
He said to Bane, "Not one Bible. You ever see this many houses without a copy or two of the good book lying around?" Bane shrugged and allowed as he hadn't witnessed that particular phenomenon either.
Both parties finished within a few minutes and regrouped in the square. Everyone was sweating from running up the hill to check the half dozen houses perched there. Miller mentioned the lack of holy literature. Stevens said, "Yeh, mighty peculiar. Where are the kids? You seen any?"
"Gudamn!" Horn said. "Brats should be crawlin' underfoot, chasin' the chickens, screamin' bloody murder. Somethin' shore as hell ain't right."
"Mebbe they inside the big house," Ruark said. "Or that tower."
"Well, we gotta check that house," Miller said although the idea made him unhappy. The thought of searching the tower was even worse-it curved out of joint, angles distorted, and the sight made his head queer, his stomach ill. Not the tower if there were any other way.
Horn appeared stricken. "Hold on there, fellas. Them women ain't gonna hold Cal or Ma. No sir. We barge in there an' git shot, some might say we had it comin'."
"Yeh, I reckon," Stevens said. "You can stay out here and keep watch if you're afraid of the ladies. Them husbands gonna be walkin' in on us any minute. Who knows how many of them old boys'll show."
"Plenty, you kin wager," Bane said.
Miller kicked the door. "Solid as a stump," he said. Ruark spat and unlimbered his axe, as did Bane a moment later. The pair stood shoulder to shoulder chopping at the door and it crashed inward after a few blows. The men piled into the house, blinking against the smoky dimness. The sole light came from what seeped through window notches and a guttering fire in the hearth. The murk made hazy blobs of the long table, the counter and barrels stacked in threes here and there. The peak roof vaulted to a height of fifteen or so feet, supported by a massive center beam and a series of angled joists that met the wall at about chin level. Meat hooks, pots and pans, coils of rope, cured ham, and strings of sausage swayed and rustled with each gentle exhalation from the hearth.
Of the women there was no sign, but Ma was present.
Miller almost cried out when he beheld what had been done to the Welshman, and Stevens hollered loud enough to bust an eardrum. Miller didn't blame him. Ma sat Indian style, naked in the middle of the floor, blood thick as pudding around his legs, in his lap. His belly was sliced wide and a quivering rope of purple innards was strung several feet above him and looped through a large eyebolt suspended from a chain. The intestines traveled down again like a pulley cable and wrapped around a wooden turnstile. The turnstile had been cranked repeatedly and its gory yarn oozed and leaked. Most of the rest of Ma's guts were slopped across his thighs, or floating in the grue. His slack jaw drooled. He gave his comrades a glassy eyed nod not much different than his usual.
"Oh, god, Ma!" Stevens said. "What'd they do to you, hoss?"
Horn stuck his head in to see what the commotion was all about and shrieked to beat the band, so Ruark swatted him with his hat and drove him outside. Right then the matron ghosted from the gloom in the corner and hacked Bane's shoulder with a cleaver. He yelled and smacked her in the jaw with the butt of his Rigby and she sprawled.
Blood trickled from the matron's lips. The injury did not diminish her, rather imbued her with an aura of savagery and mania that caused the men to flinch as one might from a wounded beast. Her eyes were so very large and dark and they gleamed with tears of rage and exultation. She whispered with the intimacy of a lover, "Did ye see what's waiting for ye in the trees?"
"Where's our other man?" Miller strode over to the matron and leveled his rifle at her. "I'll blow a damned hole in your kneecap, Missus. See if I won't."
"No need for that. The handsome lad is in the tower. They gave us the fat one for sport. It amuses them to watch us practice cruelty."
Miller walked around Ma and the coagulating lake of blood. He grasped the ring of a trapdoor and pulled. Several of the women were huddled like goats in a root cellar. They gasped and held each other.
"See him?" Stevens said.
Miller slammed the trapdoor and shook his head.
Bane cussed as Ruark pulled the cleaver free of his shoulder with a gristly crunch. Miller fashioned a tourniquet. The entire left side of Bane's buckskin jacket was soaked through and dripping. Horn shouted. Everyone ran to the windows. Twilight lay upon the world and a disjointed chain of lamps bobbed in the purple dark, descending the switchback trail on the other side of the valley. Miller said, "Either we fort up, or we run for it."
Stevens said, "Trapped like rats in here. Roof is made of wood. They could burn us alive."
"Not with they women in here," Bane said through gritted teeth.
"You want to spend the night in here with them?" Miller said.
"Yeh, never mind."
"We could take this one as a hostage," Stevens said halfheartedly.
"Piss on that," Miller said. "Who knows what she'll chop off next time."
"Ye should flee into the hills," the matron said. "The horrors ye will soon meet…flee, good hunters. Or make an end of each other with your guns and knives. T'will be a merciful death in comparison."
"Shut up before I kill you," Miller said. The matron stopped talking at once.
"What about Ma?" Stevens said.
"He's gone," Bane said. "Worst way a man kin go. Gutted like a pig."
"We cain't leave him."
"Naw, we cain't." Ruark drew his flintlock pistol. He walked over and laid the barrel against the back of Ma's head and squeezed the trigger. For Miller, in that moment the past five years of his life were erased and he side slipped through time and space into a muddy trench in France, shells and bodies exploding. He had never left, never escaped.
Stevens aimed his rifle at the matron. He lowered it. "Don't have the sand to shoot no woman. Let's git, boys."
Ruark said, "Won't make it far in these woods in the dark."
Stevens said, "We head for the tower and fetch Cal. See what happens."
The Matron said, "Yes! Yes! Go into the house of the Master! He'll greet ye with a glad smile and open arms!"
"Quiet yerself, hag," Stevens said, menacing her with his rifle butt. "C'mon, boys. Let's find poor Cal before the villains make stew of him." There was grudging acquiescence to this plan and the men withdrew from the longhouse and its horrors.
Miller went to the palisade gate and shouldered the Enfield, aimed at the string of lights and blasted several rounds in rapid succession. One of the approaching lamps burst, the rest were doused momentarily. A howl of pain rose from the field. Miller reloaded in a hurry. He ran for the tower where his companions were gathered near its double doors. Something fluttered to his left-a coat tail disappearing behind a pile of neatly stacked firewood. He knew they'd been had. While the villagers waving lanterns on the flats played decoy, others had crept along in a flanking action. He dropped to a knee and swung his rifle around.
"Ambush!" Bane hollered as a dozen or more men in coats and top hats sprang from behind sheds, cottages, hay bales, seemingly everywhere. Pitchforks, hatchets, and knives, edges gleaming and glinting; a couple carried blunderbusses, bulkier and older than even Ruark's. Those guns cracked and spat fire. Puffs of sulfurous white smoke boiled and seethed.
Ten feet away Bane let loose both barrels of the Rigby with a clap of thunder that sounded as if Archangel Michael himself had descended from Heaven to smite the good Lord's enemies. The muzzle flash lit up the tower courtyard like a rocket explosion. A villager was cut in half and a section of the cottage wall behind him caved in, stomped by an elephant. The other loggers loosed a fusillade in a murderous fireworks display.
Night vision spoiled by the alternating glare and shadow, Miller struggled to find targets. He didn't have the opportunity to draw a bead, but simply emptied the Enfield as fast as he could work the bolt. Most of his bullets clattered off stone or ripped furrows into the earth. However, he shot one bearded brute between the eyes as the man
charged with an upraised hatchet, and drilled another in the back as the fellow stood motionless as if uncertain how to join the fray.
The cottage that Bane had perforated with his gun caught fire. Flames leaped into the sky. Glass tinkled as it fractured. The fire spread to another house, then another, and in less than thirty seconds, the combatants were struggling by the red blaze of a circle in hell. Ruark swung his axe and lopped a villager's head. The head floated past Miller and into the blaze. Bane screamed and laughed, his beard splattered with blood. He pressed a man's face against a flaming timber and held it there until flesh popped and sizzled. Horn dropped his rifle and turned to run. An older gent in a stovepipe hat knocked him down and skewered him with a pitchfork. The pitchfork went in with a meaty thunk and a clink as the tines bit through into the dirt. Horn grabbed the handle and wrestled for dear life and the man grunted, planted his boot against Horn's groin, and pried loose the pitchfork and raised it to stick him again. Then Ruark's axe whapped the back of the villager's skull and turned it to jelly and the man collapsed facedown, legs twitching. Stevens' rifle boomed once, twice, and he cursed and drew a knife and sidled in tight with his companions. Miller was empty. He picked up a severed hand and forearm and threw it in a man's face then shoulder-blocked him to the ground and methodically clubbed him to death with his rifle butt. Sweat and grease and flying drops of blood soaked him. Miller's arms were weak and he could scarcely raise them at the end. A blast of heat from the burning houses seared his cheeks and ignited the tips of his hair. The smell of roasting flesh was strong.
The remaining villagers routed, fleeing through the flames and the rolling black smoke. Bane, still braying mad laughter, chucked a tomahawk. It sank into a man's backside. The man yelped and stumbled. Bane whooped and said, "Run, ya fuckin' dogs!" And he barked.
"There's reinforcements yonder!" Stevens and Ruark grasped Horn under the arms and dragged him to his feet. The lad gasped and fainted.
Rifles thundered near the front gate. A musket ball kicked dirt near Miller's foot." "Follow me, boys!" He led the charge up the hill and into the cave along a twisting path illuminated by the hellish conflagration. Storming the tower was out of the question-he suspected it would burn to the ground soon enough. Regardless, anyone trapped inside would be smoked out or broiled alive.
The cave mouth opened into a low-ceilinged area with a sandy floor and natural outcroppings that served as adequate cover. The men quickly repurposed empty barrels and busted timbers to fashion a makeshift barricade at the entrance. After they'd finished effecting hasty fortifications, Stevens passed around the remnants of his bottle. He said, "We're in it deep. Killed us a few, but I count twenty, maybe more. Prolly mad as hornets over what we done."
"Learn us somethin' we don't know, boy," Bane said. Between blood loss and one too many belts of rotgut to kill the pain, he slurred, listing precariously until Ruark helped him sit against the wall.
Below, several houses were utterly consumed in the inferno and the fire made a sound like rushing wind. Sparks ignited the lower branches of nearby trees. The smoke had become so thick it proved difficult to discern the movements of the villagers. Men darted about with buckets, presumably hurling dirt and water on the flames. Miller went flat and laid the Enfield across his rolled jacket. He waited, inhaled, partially exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. A lucky shot-a villager's arms flew from his sides and he toppled and lay in the dirt, one hand extended into a burning pile of wood, and soon his clothes smoked and flames licked over them. The rest of the villagers made themselves scarce. The fire spread swiftly after that.
Horn moaned and twisted on the ground. He prayed for Jesus, Mary, and God. Miller helped Ruark peel aside the boy's shirt and slid his hand under his body and felt around. The tines had indeed gone clean through and Horn leaked like a sieve. It wouldn't be long. He caught Ruark's glance and shook his head slightly. Ruark spat. "Boy didn't even fire that peashooter o' his. Bastards."
Horn cried for his mama.
"Hush," Stevens said, striking a match and lighting a lamp he'd found on a peg. He hung the lamp from a support timber in the back of the cave where it constricted to a narrow passage that descended into absolute darkness. Miller couldn't determine the purpose of the cave; although moderately carved and shored, it wasn't a mine. Occult symbols had been chalked upon the walls. Stick figures bowed and scraped, dwarfed by what appeared to be a huge bundle of twigs. Not twigs-worms, or something squiggly like worms.
Huddled around the lamp, the loggers resembled characters from some gothic fable; resurrection men leaning on spades at midnight in a swampy graveyard. By that primitive oil lamplight, the company was a horrific, blood-soaked mess. They piled their packs and sundries in the middle of the floor and counted ammunition and rations. Wounds were appraised: Bane's hacked shoulder would be the death of him without medicine. Ruark had gotten hit in the belly; the hole was about the size of a bean and welled purple and it bubbled when he took a breath. The black powder ball was still inside, although the old logger shrugged and spat and said he felt fine as frog's hair. Stevens revealed nasty punctures in his thigh and ribs, a vicious slash across his breast. Only Miller had survived the melee unscathed.
"What? None of that blood you're covered in is yours? Not even a scratch, you lucky bastard!" Stevens threw back his head and laughed as Ruark helped wind strips of cloth around his torso to staunch the bleeding.
Miller didn't say anything. He'd never taken more than a few bumps and bruises, the occasional cut from flying shrapnel, during the war, had literally walked through the apocalypse at Belleau Wood untouched.
Stevens made a firepot by slathering bear grease in a tin cup and lighting a strip of cloth for a wick. He and Ruark proposed to scout the tunnel and make certain nobody was sneaking along their back-trail. That left with Miller with the kid, who was unconscious and raving, and Bane, who appeared to also have one foot in the grave.
The wait proved short, however. Stevens and Bane reappeared, wide-eyed as horses who'd been spooked by fire. Ruark tossed loose timber and small rocks in the tunnel opening. Stevens reported that the caves stretched on and on, and branched every few paces. In his estimation, anybody damn fool enough to venture into that labyrinth would be wandering for eternity.
After a long, whispered conference, it was decided the men would wait until daylight and then make a run for Slango. There was no telling when or if McGrath might deign to send a search party, so it was safest to assume they were on their own. Watches were set with Ruark taking the first as he allowed he couldn't sleep anyhow. He snuffed the lamp and the firepot and they settled in to wait.
Stevens said, "Ever wonder what Rumpelstiltskin wanted with a kid?"
Miller pulled his hat down and tried to relax. An eldritch white radiance illuminated the cave and it was just him and Horn; everyone else melted and vanished. Mist flowed from the passage and curled over the pile of packs, swirled over Horn's chest and around Miller's knees. Horn stared. His face was gray, suspended in the mist. He said, "C'mon, tell me true. What'd y'all see in that tree? What was hidin' up in there?"
"Worms," Miller said. He wasn't certain if this was accurate. The memory slipped and slithered and changed when he tried to examine it closely. A fibrous network of slimy roots, or worms, or a mass of tendrils squirming in the moist dark of the mighty cedar bole. "They had faces." Demons sleep in holes in the ground. Live in the rocks, sleep inside a big ol' trees in the deep forest where the sun don't never shine.
"Oh." Horn nodded. "I dunno what the little man in the story wanted with the child, but I kin tell ya the villagers give their babies to their friends inside the trees… inside this mountain. The sons an' daughters of Ol' Leech. An' I kin tell ya what the people of Ol' Leech do with 'em."
"I'd rather you didn't."
"Jist shut yer eyes an' look inside. We so close, ya kin see their god. He's sleepy like a bear in winter. Dreamin' of his people. Dreamin' of us here in the daylight, too. But he's wakin' up
. Be creepin' out a his den pretty soon, I reckon."
"Save it, kid."
"He loves his people. Loves us too, in a different way." Horn's smile was shrewd and cruel. He opened his mouth and inhaled the peculiar light and Miller's dreams became confused. He dreamt of falling through the mountain, through the entire Earth, and into the sky, accelerating like a bullet until the light of the sun dwindled to a pinprick. He crashed through the icy, blood-black surface of a strange moon and drifted weightless in its hollow core. The cavern was rank and humid and dark as pitch. He floated over crags and canyons and forests of clabbered flesh and fungus, his body carried upon the updrafts of a warm, gelatinous sea. At the center of this sea a mountain range shuddered and stirred. The colossus writhed and uncoiled with satanic majesty, aroused by the whine of flea wings. It whispered to him.
***
Miller awoke to Calhoun begging for help.
Calhoun cried from the direction of the tower. He called them by name in a tone of anguish and his voice carried. He began screaming the screams of a man partially buried alive or hung in barbed wire or swollen with mustard gas. Miller lay in the shadows, watching the dying light of the fires shiver across the wall of the cave. Calhoun kept screaming and they all pretended not to hear him.
***
Still later and after night settled in as tight as a blindfold, Stevens shook Miller. "Somethin's wrong."
"Oh, jumpin' Jaysus," Ruark said and moments later lighted the firepot. Miller would've cursed the old man for revealing their position, except he saw the cause of alarm-Horn was gone, spirited away from under their noses. Drips and drabs of blood smeared into the tunnel, into the blackness. "Them sonsabitches snatched Thad!"