The Pit in the Woods: A Mercy Falls Mythos

by Nathaniel Reed

  over Gladstone’s bald forehead.

  Mr. Gladstone screamed as the water seared his flesh, bits of glass and holy water running into his eyes, blinding him. Fulton Blake took advantage of his disorientation, and pushed him, running with him, past the employees. The severely attractive woman, who he later learned was Veronica Sawyer got up from her desk shrieking. Other workers parted ways, splitting into two sections to either side of them, as if Blake was Moses and they were the water, as the two of them barreled down the center aisle. Blake was thinking fast. He’d seen the window directly ahead of them.

  “Show yourself!” Blake shouted, “Reveal yourself!” He knew if The Other showed its true self it would be susceptible to the daylight. He wasn’t quite sure how he managed it, but he pulled out the metal crucifix with Jesus’ tiny body hanging off it, even as he continued to push the prodigious man toward the window.

  “Reveal yourself!” He presented the cross, but Gladstone could not see. They crashed through the window, Mr. Gladstone’s back shattering the glass and taking the brunt of the impact. Blake meant to shove him through, but Blake ended up going through with him. It was eight floors down and this was his only chance.

  “Reveal yourself!” he screamed as they plunged through the morning sky, and he planted the cross on the man’s forehead. It sizzled there, smoke rising, and Blake held it there, drawing out The Other’s unearthly shriek, and its transformation. It shifted from one reality to another, from an oversized man, to a leather-winged demon in an instant, a blur of movement the only thing between one moment and the next, and instantly caught on fire. Blake had nothing else to hold on to, so he let the blazing fireball guide him down and cushion his fall.

  The creature hit the ground, and Blake bounced off him, rolling away, burning from coffee and burning from The Other’s skin, but otherwise uninjured. There would be some bruising, but no broken bones. The Other lay writhing a few feet from him, consumed by flame, screeching like something from an Alien film. Its hideous talons were reaching toward the sky as if beseeching someone for help. It wasn’t long before it was beyond help and just a scorched smoldering mass.

  Blake got up, his cap still covering most of his face (Thank the Lord for small favors). He looked up to see several workers looking down through the window; his cue to run, as far away from this disaster as he could get.

  20

  “Jeeeesssus!!” Tony exclaimed, leaping back as Blake stepped out from behind a bush as they were walking past. “You scared the shit out of me!”

  “Yes, sorry about that. I have to tell you what happened today.” Blake recounted the story.

  “Wow! That place has gotta be swarming with cops!” Jeremy said, “Wait! Is my dad okay?”

  “Yes, he’s fine. No one got hurt, except yours truly. Just some bruises and cuts from the glass, nothing serious. Could’ve been torn open by that thing. Truth is I got lucky. We don’t really know what we’re dealing with here, especially if there are more of them hiding like this in plain sight.” He pointed to Johnny. “We’ll have to visit your pool hall and see if that Other shows up again. And we’ll all go to this one. You will all go in first and I’ll come in several minutes later. We have to pretend we’re not together.”

  “Incognito again?” Myron asked.

  “As much as such a place will allow.”

  “When?” Staci asked.

  “Tonight.”

  “Don’t you need to get rested up pops?” Johnny said.

  “No, I’m fine. And do stop calling me that.”

  Staci smiled.

  “Meet me outside, one block from the Bed and Breakfast, at 5:30,” Blake said, “The sun sets tonight at 7:05. Bring whatever weapons you can. I’ll supply my own. Just come prepared.”

  “What if our parents don’t let us go out tonight,” Myron said.

  “Yeah,” Jeremy seconded, “I’m sure my dad will be freaking about what happened, although I’m sure no one really knows exactly what happened, except that you went out the window with his fat boss.” Jeremy shook his head at how wrong that sounded, on so many levels.

  Blake nodded. “Call the Hillside. I’ll be there. If at least three of you can come we should keep the rendezvous tonight.”

  21

  He went to the train station where he’d stored his regular clothes in a locker, and changed in the station bathroom. He couldn’t have the Sedricks asking him questions about why he was dressed like an electrician or a handyman, when he’d told them he worked washing dishes. This was where he’d changed out of his street clothes into the uniform before, carrying it in a duffel bag. He hadn’t thought to bring the duffel bag with him to the offices and possibly stored more weapons. It could have passed as part of his tool kit, unless someone decided to poke their nose in it.

  When Blake arrived back at the Hillside Bed and Breakfast, he walked up the stairs without checking if the Sedricks were around. Mrs. Sedrick stepped out of the kitchen, and into the living room, calling after him when he’d made it halfway up.

  “Mr. Trimble! Will you be staying for dinner?”

  “No, no, I’m sorry. I have plans for this evening. But thank you so much. Perhaps tomorrow.”

  The bedroom upstairs had its own phone line and Blake sat in bed, waiting for their calls. He turned on the TV, and watched the news while he waited. As he expected the local story of the day was the event at Camtech. There were some grainy pictures taken by a surveillance camera of him pushing Mr. Gladstone out the window. Due to the cap on his head, and the positioning of the camera behind him, there were no pictures of his face, save for several seconds where it was completely shadowed by his cap and blurred. He was incredibly thankful for that. The few eyewitnesses who saw them after they hit the ground reported a man on fire that did not look like Mr. Gladstone at all. He was too tall and skinny. The reporter laughed when one of them said it looked as if he had wings, like a bat.

  “Like a bat?” she said, in an incredulous, mocking tone.

  The eye-catching lady Veronica Sawyer was one of the window watchers, who caught a glimpse of them on the ground. She was having a microphone shoved in her face, and by the shocked look on it, she’d seen a lot more than she was saying. She kept her comments brief, supporting the main storyline her co-workers were claiming, without any mention of the supernatural. Of course, the event itself was unnatural. And since there’d be nothing left of The Other now but ashes, very little evidence, other than broken glass and a dodgy surveillance tape, would be the only things to prove anything had happened.

  22

  This time it was Johnny, Jeremy, and Tony that went through the doors of Lucky’s Billiards. Myron’s parents insisted he stay and do homework, and have dinner with the family. Staci’s wanted her to do chores. They both knew the underlying reasons for that had to do with what was being reported on the news.

  Everything appeared normal as the three entered the pool hall. As promised, Blake entered approximately five minutes later, and stuck to the back of the hall, on a stool, near the mirrors.

  “Do we know who we’re looking for?” Tony asked.

  “No,” Johnny said, “I never saw the actual guy; just his reflection.”

  “So it might not even be a guy,” Jeremy said.

  “It seemed to be male.”

  “How would you know?” Jeremy asked.

  “I just know,” Johnny said. “Let’s play already.”

  “You’re always in a rush,” Tony said, “But we always end up waiting on you.”

  “That was one time.”

  “That’s okay. Your girl is not here tonight.”

  “His… girl?” Jeremy asked.

  “Blondie he was flirting with the other night,” Tony said.

  “Oh.”

  Tony racked up. “You want to break?” he said to Jeremy.

  “Yeah, I’ll go.”

  Blake, in the meantime, sat sipping a Coke. He wore his trademark duster and a brown fedora on his head to keep his face in
shadow.

  “So have you called her yet?” Tony asked.

  “The girl?” Johnny said, “No, not yet. Maybe I’ll call her tonight. Or maybe I’ll call Julia.”

  “Decisions, decisions,” Tony said.

  Jeremy smiled, “All about choices.”

  “Damn skippy,” Johnny said. “I think you’ve made your choice.”

  “Staci, yeah. I’m happy with Staci.”

  “That’s good man. It’s all about being happy.”

  “I thought it was all about choices,” Tony said.

  “Yeah, and having my choice of woman makes me happy.”

  “You’re lucky Staci isn’t here to hear that,” Jeremy laughed.

  Blake scoped the crowd, spinning his stool around every now and then to catch people’s reflections behind him. He found it amazing that The Other could have been so close to the mirrors that Johnny had caught his reflection, but it had been close to sunset. Perhaps The Other had realized it, and rushed for the door before he changed. Blake wasn’t expecting to get that lucky. If he saw its true form, it would be one of the random specks of people in the crowd, in the distance. He might not even show up tonight. The positioning of the mirrors on the walls to the right of the door made him wonder why any of their kind would frequent a place like this. But many things The Others did made no sense. It might simply enjoy the danger.

  Blake didn’t think one of The Others had anything to do with the body they’d found in the dumpster, made to look as if she’d been beaten. The Others weren’t known for covering their tracks. They simply killed, which led him to believe that it had to be the work of a survivor, or survivors, from the pit, still living in Mercy Falls above ground, attempting to assimilate into society. This led Blake to wonder where The Others lived. There were too many questions.

  He thought of work, and the woman he’d met on his lunch break, Andrea. He pulled the business card out of his wallet and looked at it. Perhaps, if everything turned out all right this night, he could give vampire hunting a brief respite. Blake wasn’t interested in modeling, but something about her interested him.

  “What’s Blake doing?” Tony said, pausing with the cue in his hands above the table.

  Jeremy shook his head. “I don’t know, looking at something in his hand.”

  “Well, we better keep an eye out while he’s distracted,” Tony said.

  “Yeah,” Johnny said, “We’ll watch while you play. I mean, we’ll watch you too, make sure you’re not cheating.”

  “Me, cheat?” Tony said, “Why would I need to? I beat you last time.”

  “Pure luck,” Johnny said.

  “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”

  “All right, you got one good game. I’ll get you this time.”

  “What about me?” Jeremy said, “I’m playing too.”

  “Oh, right. I’ll let you down easy pipsqueak,” Johnny said.

  “Thanks.”

  23

  For Walter, working on the computer from home, in the last few hours before sunrise, shades and curtains drawn, was the most mind numbing and hardest part of assimilation. The only other option

  for him would have been to work the graveyard shift somewhere, but

  that would have greatly reduced his hunting time. Selling products for companies on the internet wasn’t turning out to be as profitable as he had hoped, but it kept him to a decent standard of living. Why he decided to stay here, when the rest of them had left town, he wasn’t sure. It could have been he didn’t want to hide out anymore, at least not underground somewhere. An apartment was more comfortable than a cave, or wherever else they might choose to hole up. But being cooped up in here during the daylight hours, sleeping the day away made him realize he’d simply traded one hole for another. Being one who preyed on the weak, he knew he wouldn’t get much sympathy. He had, however, missed the creature comforts of a more human existence. Eventually he’d make enough money to own a home, mostly through porn distribution, but for now he had to limit his nightly wanderings, so the neighboring apartment tenants wouldn’t get suspicious.

  A couple of kills had made it into the papers. He’d done his best to make them look like accidents, or incidences of domestic abuse. But the necessary feeding made it difficult. When they took victims into the pit, the victims simply went missing. Now he had to find places to dispose of the bodies, and hide the fact he was ingesting their blood, which pretty much meant that Walter wasn’t able to drain them, as much as he’d have liked to.

  When the rest of his brethren returned, his vampire blood would call them to him. For now he was content to be on his own, as dull as it might be sometimes. He didn’t think Lucio was as strong a leader as his father Marcus had been, but at least the man got out of his cave often. And Lucio had a much larger capacity for cruelty than his father ever did. Marcus was more steeped in tradition. Killing and drinking was merely survival for Walter, and occasionally fun and exhilarating. For Lucio suffering was the best part. He delighted in torment, whereas Walter did not so much care one way or the other. He believed in a quick kill. Eliminate the possibility of things going wrong. And the quicker he killed, the quicker he’d be fed. Humans were merely cattle to be slaughtered, not play things. Evil came in many forms. Walter’s was strict survivalism, the savagery stripped down to its core basic need- Satisfy the hunger, satisfy it now.

  24

  The game of pool was in full swing, when the strange man walked in. The first thing they noticed were the hat and the cape, and then the cane. He was dressed like a proper gentleman- from the 1800s. He had a small mustache, thick eyebrows, and a pointed nose. If he’d been wearing a monocle he might resemble the Planter’s Peanuts guy.

  Blake noticed the man first, and then in his reflection who the man was hiding- the demon underneath. Blake sat up, kicking his stool back, making the wooden legs screech against the floor as he got to his feet. The rest of them caught on and the game stopped. None of the other patrons noticed anything was going on, just that an oddly dressed man was sidling up to the bar. The man was no longer in the vicinity of any mirror, but Blake had seen The Other. He followed the man to the bar, and sat next to him. The kids watched from a distance, but approached slowly, doing the best they could to ready themselves, weapons in wait underneath their jackets.

  The man ordered a Coke and a basket of cheese fries. Blake continued to sip his Coke while surreptitiously watching. The man seemed to catch on.

  “Is there a problem?” Mr. Peanut questioned him.

  Blake shook his head. “No problem. Just wondering why a man such as yourself, dressed as you are, wanders into a pool hall, to order cheese fries and a soda.”

  “And this is your business… why?”

  Yep, vampire or not, Blake wanted to kill him already.

  “Just making conversation.”

  The man eyed him suspiciously. “Well, they don’t seem to have any liquor.”

  “I don’t think you came in here for the liquor, or the food,”

  Blake said, “considering vampires don’t eat.”

  This got the gentleman’s attention. He turned toward Blake, eyes opening briefly, and then pretending ignorance. “Excuse me?”

  “Why don’t we take this outside, so no one else gets hurt?” Blake asked.

  The man grinned. “I don’t think you know who you are dealing with.” The Other, posing as the man he once was, backhanded Blake, knocking him off his stool. Blake’s legs tangled with the stool legs, dragging it down with him. Someone nearby yelped. The boys ran toward Blake, but he was already lifting the stool from his position on the floor and swinging it at The Other’s legs. The chair smashed against the creature’s thighs, and momentarily caught him off balance. The rest of the pool hall turned toward the commotion.

  When the man suddenly shifted from man to beast, the crowd screamed and scattered. Blake got up, though his jaw was throbbing as if he’d been hit, not with the back of a hand, but a full fist with brass knuckles. The t
hing reared up, its gray skin dark under the fluorescent lights, spreading its sinewy wings, with a horn at each apex. The kids circled him, pulling out their stakes. Blake was impressed by their bravery. He joined them, pulling out his crucifix, and his revolver. The Other turned to him and hissed.

  “Six silver bullets in the chamber, just for you,” Blake said, “Make your move.”

  That was Fulton Blake’s first mistake; to give it a chance to do anything. It moved with uncanny speed, nearly a blur. Blake fired two shots before The Other grabbed Jeremy. It leapt onto one of the pool tables, arms encircling him, holding Jeremy to its chest. The last patron exiting the bar looked back with worry and indecision, and a growing horror. Blake read his face. He knew the man must be wondering should I call the police, and will it do any good?

  “Just go,” Blake told him, “We’ll deal with this.”

  The Other smiled through a mouthful of white spikes, coming to lethal pinpoints.

  “Your move,” it said.

  Blake had hit it with the bullets, he noticed. One had taken a

  chunk out of the top of one of its wings, and the other pierced a hole through the fibrous membrane. None had lodged in its skin, so the silver didn’t have any time to take effect. Now it was too dangerous to fire with the creature using Jeremy as a shield. It had taken the person it perceived to be the weakest, although Blake already knew Jeremy’s strength lay in his mind.

  Shoot it! Jeremy said in his head. Blake shook his head No!

  The creature cocked its head to one side, wondering why Blake was shaking his. It brought its talons up to Jeremy’s neck, letting them skate along the flesh as warning.

  It looked from one to the other, and stopped at Tony.