by Eric Flint
"Never heard a steer make that noise," Charles muttered.
It sounded like the cow was screaming. Then strangling. Then there was a long agonized moan, and the sing-song gibbering of the beasts.
Miss Eliza was wide-eyed. "What on earth are they—"
"They're killin' the cattle," Boz said, and then something huge struck the side of the car.
The stock car trembled on its rails. The passengers screamed and clutched at each other.
"What the devil—" the conductor said.
The impact came again, closer to the ceiling this time, and for an instant a large dark shadow blotted the sky between the ventilation slats. The slats cracked under the impact, buckling inward.
Boz leaped to his feet. "They're throwin that carcass at the—"
The third blow crashed through. The narrow slats, not built to withstand a half-ton of beef, splintered to admit the front half of a steer. The passengers screamed and scattered from the spot, packing into the ends of the car, but the body stuck there and hung, head lolling, one horn broken off. One of its front legs cocked through at a grotesque angle. Blood and froth dripped from its mouth.
Then it began to saw back and forth in the opening. The things outside fluttered around it, climbing over the slats, trying to pull it out. The limp head rolled and bobbed.
"Oh, my Lord," Miss Eliza said sickly, and put her hand over her mouth.
But the beef was well and truly stuck. One of the things shrieked in rage and drove a fist into the steer's side, then began to squeal and thrash when its hand became stuck. One of the others came to its assistance. The first one swatted it away, but the jerk freed its arm and they both toppled off. There was a thud and a yelp as they hit the gravel.
Somebody laughed, screamingly. It was an awful sound, choked and hysterical, and others in the car took it up, wailing mad laughter until it dissolved into crying. Brother Clark's voice rose shrill over the chorus.
"Brethren! Be not afraid! The hour of death may be upon you, but trust in the Lord and you will be redeemed!"
"Hour of death, my ass," Boz said. "I don't mean to die in some box car like a dumb beast."
"Nor do I," said the conductor, hefting up his rifle.
"Though this darkness may surround us, and the minions of Satan try to tempt us to the path of unrighteousness—"
"I say we go out there and give those bastards a taste of lead," said Charles, brandishing his shotgun in one hand, a torch in the other.
"Don't go near that door," Trace snapped. "You open that and all these people are dead. We're not fightin' them off a second time."
"You wanna wait in here till they break in?" Charles demanded.
"Lead don't stop them, remember?" Boz said. "I didn't mean we should go rushin' out there."
"Yet we must not falter! For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rules of the darkness of this age—"
"They won't break in, and if they do we'll make our stand here," the conductor said. "Better to take one at a time than open up our flank to their numbers."
"Are they demons?" Miss Eliza asked, low, looking up at Trace. "They shied from the cross. That book you were reading—there was writing in it. Didn't it say how to kill them?"
Trace tried to signal for her to be quiet, but Boz turned sharply and gave him an awful, accusing look.
"She told you how to kill them?" he said. "She knew what they were?"
"I didn't," Miss Eliza said quickly. "He had a book. A pulp novel, really, but—"
"I didn't write those notes," Trace said. "And she didn't tell me, exactly. Not anything like this."
"What did she say, exactly?" Boz demanded.
"She didn't say anything, Boz, she just wrote some notes on a magazine and left it for me to find. I didn't know it meant anything, you know she never tells me half of—"
"But what did it say?" Boz and Miss Eliza cried together.
Trace blinked. The conductor, Charles, and Ferris were looking at him, too. And in the sudden quiet, Trace heard something else.
"Listen," he said.
There was a soft, slithery sound under their feet, something sliding under the floor of the car. A series of gentle thumps, and something rattling.
"What's under us?" Trace asked.
"Feed boxes," the conductor said.
"Full o' hay and corn," Charles added.
"And the wheels and undercarriage, of course, the journal boxes."
"No doors?" Trace asked. "No access in here?"
"No."
Trace didn't feel any easier about it. He caught Boz's demanding, impatient look and swiped a hand down his chin. "Fire kills them. We know that. Sunlight—I think Ferris the Fire-master is right about that, but it doesn't do us any good. Pure metals, like silver and gold, maybe—"
"Lead's as pure as it gets," the conductor said, "and it only slows them down."
"Don't have any silver or gold, anyway," Charles said.
"Shut up, let him think," Boz said.
Trace ran a hand over his hatless head, trying to recall; there was something else written in that pamphlet, he could see Miss Fairweather's fine writing in his mind's eye, but not sharp enough to read it. His fingers brushed the goose-egg on the back of his skull and he winced. Whatever the word was, it made him think of food, of steak and potatoes—
Yum, said a voice.
Trace glanced warily at the ceiling; he was pretty sure he'd heard that voice with his mind, not his ears—he had the faintest tingle of electricity down his back but there was no tell-tale gleam of moonlight in the car, no standing up of the hair on his arms. The dead steer's mouth was open, its glazing eyes fixed on him, but it didn't seem to be talking. Miss Eliza and the others were staring at him, still waiting for an answer.
Yum! The voice said again, more insistently. Yem!
"Yim?" Trace repeated.
"What?" Boz said.
"Did somebody say yum? Or yim?"
They all looked at each other, a wary exchange of glances Trace had seen many times, usually just before somebody asked if he'd had too much sun, or maybe too much whiskey. He stepped away from them and turned, slowly, sweeping his gaze carefully over the people huddled against the walls.
The Chinaman stood in the corner, erect and still, while the emigrants around him cowered and wept. He was wearing some kind of dark shirt or robe that blended into the shadows, and when Trace looked directly at him he seemed to fade even more, until only his face and his pointing hand showed pale in the flickering light.
He was pointing under the feed-trough. Yim! he said.
Understanding rushed in on Trace, like a flash-flood in a canyon. He dove for the space under the trough.
It was down there, a whole block of salt-lick for the steers. Trace hugged it to his chest with one arm and crawled out backwards. "Salt!" he crowed. "Salt! That was it!"
"Of course!" Ferris said. "Salt has powerful preservative properties."
"Salt?" Charles repeated. "What, are you gonna pickle em?"
"I can't believe this," the conductor grumbled.
Trace gestured to Boz. "Gimme that ax."
Boz passed it over and Trace, rose on his knees in the middle of the floor, lifted the ax-handle up in two hands, to bring the flat top of its head down square on the salt-lick.
But he checked it. His knees felt warm where they touched the floorboards. He bent over and put one palm flat against the floor. Not merely warm—hot enough he had to pull away after two breaths. The quality of the smoke in the air they were breathing had changed, too.
He looked at Miss Eliza, who was barefoot. "Your feet feel warm?"
"No," she said, and came closer to where he knelt, then quickly backed up. "Oh! It is there."
Trace beckoned to Charles. "Bring that torch over here." There was smoke coming up through a knothole in the tightly-laid floorboards. He bent low, and sniffed: it smelled of hot metal, like a branding iron. "What did you
say was under here?"
The conductor's face went slack, with terrible understanding. "The wheel journals," he said hollowly. "We've got us a hot box."
"I think they made us a hot box," Trace said.
"Ah yes! Lubricating grease burns quite well," Ferris said brightly. "They had only to light the animal fodder and let it spread."
"But they burn up if they touch fire," Charles protested.
"So do we, my friend," Ferris said, "but we still handle it every day."
"Maybe you do," Boz snapped. "They saw us get drove out of the third-class car by fire, thought they'd try it again. These things are too damn smart to be animals."
"On the contrary, monkeys are quite clever," Ferris said. "They've been known to—"
"Will you shut up!" the conductor shouted. "There's a damn fire underneath us and this whole car's gonna go up in about five minutes!"
That, of course, started another uproar. A couple of people rushed for the door, but Boz and the conductor got in front of them, Boz with both guns out. Miss Eliza tried to calm them, her hands and voice soothing, pressing people back toward the edges of the car. Brother Clark began to pray, calling out for an angel with a fiery sword.
Trace got a leg up on one of the water troughs and stood, balancing against the wall to look out through the slats. Down the slope about five yards from the tracks, the black shapes crouched in a line, watching the car, firelight reflecting in their eyes. Smoke wafted up past the ventilation slats.
Trace hopped to the floor and caught up the ax handle in one hand. "Boz!"
"What?" Boz's eyes and guns were still on the passengers, but some of them had backed down, and Trace's words caught their desperate attention.
"Sponge this water out of here," he said, splashing his hand across the surface of the trough and trying to meet as many eyes as possible. "Soak the floorboards with it, where Mr. Railroad Conductor tells you to. Buy us some time."
"Sure will, Boss," Boz said, but it was the passengers who surged toward the trough, taking off shawls and shirts to soak up the water. Charles and Ferris moved to help.
Trace caught Miss Eliza's elbow, drew her toward the middle of the car where Brother Clark was standing and shouting, waving his arms in the air.
"Remember the prophet Elisha?" Trace said, kicking the block of salt before them. "How he cleansed the poisoned waters?"
She looked blank for a moment, then her eyes widened. "The salt?"
"Yes. It was one of the weapons against vampires mentioned in that penny dreadful—but it's also one of the guards against evil I studied at seminary—Blessed Salt. Same use as Holy Water, more or less."
"Holy wa—" She blinked. "You're a papist? A priest?"
"Papist, yes. Never got as far as a priest. I know the words to say but we'll need Brother Clark to say them. You think his faith is true?"
"He's a believer, true enough," she said, her lips pinched. "But I don't think he'll agree to this, Jacob."
"Make him," Trace said shortly, and put his hand on Brother Clark's shoulder. "Pastor, I think I'm ready to hear the error of my ways, now."
Brother Clark flung him off with a snarl, like a terrier flinging a rat. "Blasphemer! You brought this pestilence upon us!"
"I did not bring it," Trace said. "I came here to fight it, but I need a holy man."
"You know nothing of sanctity! You speak with a false tongue, and you bring judgment upon all of us!"
"You're right," Trace said. "I know I'm cursed. I've been this way for a long time, but I keep tryin', brother, and I need somebody to show me the right way." He got down on his knees, slowly, keeping eye contact with the preacher, keeping one hand on the block of salt. "I'm beggin' you, brother, just help with this one thing. Just ask a blessing on this salt lick and—"
Brother Clark sucked his breath in as if Trace had suggested something obscene. He whipped his right hand across Trace's cheek. "Blasphemer! Papist! I will not be led astray by your temptations! This is the hour we must stay true, and walk willingly into the fiery furnace! Those of the true faith will be saved!"
Trace's jaw had already taken some bad blows that night, and the slap was enough to make his eyes water. He clasped a hand to his chin, amazed that anyone could be that arrogant.
Brother Clark gave him a most un-Christ-like look of triumph, and raised his hands. "Brethren! Though we are tested as Job, we must be ready as Job was, to go into that land of darkness, the place from which we shall not return, a land as dark as darkness itself, as the shadow of death without any order, where even the light is like dark—"
Trace swung and clipped him under the jaw. His audience gasped. Brother Clark's head snapped back and he went down like a sack of potatoes, quiet at last.
"I always hated that passage," Trace said, flexing his hand.
"I've never been fond of it either," Miss Eliza said.
And that was a damn fool thing to do, Trace thought glumly, looking down at Clark's slack mouth. He glanced around at the huddled, shuddering congregation. "Anyone else here right with the Lord?"
"Jacob." Miss Eliza put her hand on his arm. "You do it."
"Ma'am, I can't," he said. "I was never ordained. It has to be a priest."
"We Baptists don't believe in the idea of priests as intercessors," she said. "My father—and my brother, Martin—taught that everyone should read the Bible and attempt to understand it—that anyone could have congress with God, if his heart was open. Elisha may have been a prophet, but he didn't bless the salt himself, if you recall. He didn't purify the water. He asked the Lord to do those things, and the Father did them because Elisha believed. There can't be any wrong in you asking for the same blessing."
The hiss of steam caught his attention; he looked over to see Boz and Ferris scooping water from the troughs with a feed bucket and flinging it on the floor. The wood was hot enough that the water just sizzled when it hit. The last few children were whimpering and trying to back away from the spot, but they were already crowded into the corner as hard as they could get. The air was beginning to get quite warm.
"Trace!" Boz hollered. "Whatever you're doing over there, you better do it fast!"
An odd sort of calm settled over him. Not peace; more like the sense of fatalism he'd felt on the battlefield. What the hell, he thought. He had to do something. At worst his blessing would do nothing, and the salt might still act as a repellent, if Miss Fairweather's notes were to be believed.
He closed his fist around his crucifix and pulled it off over his head, kissed it and crossed himself. He dropped to one knee and put his hand on the block of salt. Miss Eliza sank to her knees, too, and folded her hands.
The words came to mind with frightening ease, bringing with them the smells of incense, and old wood, and musty vestments. He shut his eyes, sucked into a memory so strong and sweet it blotted out the darkness around him—the near-forgotten echoes of the younger boys whispering and fidgeting during catechism, the singing at Vespers, the simple feeling of being good that he had hugged to himself in those days.
"Almighty Lord, I beg you to bless this salt," he said, "as you blessed the salt scattered over the water by the prophet Elisha. Wherever this salt is sprinkled, drive from us all unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions, assemblies and sects." Except the Baptists, we need them, his mind added automatically, and he nearly upset it all by laughing. There was a strong sense of exhilaration building in him, a sense of being heard, of being exactly where he should be, doing exactly was he was meant to do. He made the Cross again. "In the Name and by the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ, drive away the power of evil, and protect us always by the presence of your Holy Spirit. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen."
"Amen," said a chorus of voices, and he opened his eyes to see that a half-dozen of the passengers had joined him and Miss Eliza on their knees.
He saw something else, too. The block of salt was glowing white, faint but distinct in the smoky glo
om. He lifted his hand from it with a quick startled inhalation, and a few grains clung to his fingers, like the luminescence of a moth.
"What is it?" Miss Eliza asked.
"It worked," he said stupidly.
"It did?"
"Can't you see that?" he asked, but he could see she didn't. "Never mind. Step back."
He raised the ax like a drive-post and smashed it down on the block. A big chunk split off and he hit it again, in short hard blows to break it up as much as possible. The glow never faded, but spread out across the floor where ever the salt touched. Trace bore down on the chunks with the flat of the ax blade until they subsided into powder.
Suddenly there was a fresh yelp and scurry around the edges of the car. Trace looked over his shoulder to see flames licking up through the center of the floor, in a bulls-eye of rapidly spreading black.
"Trace!" Boz hollered again.
"I'm comin!" he said. "Everybody get over here and pick up some salt! Smash it up, grind it down so you can sprinkle it." Everyone's hands scrabbled for pieces of salt-lick. Trace scooped a handful of grains into his own pocket and hefted up the ax, moved toward the car door where Boz and the conductor were gathered.
"You really think that salt-lick's gonna hold them off?" the conductor demanded.
"We don't have a choice!" Trace shouted. "We can't stay in here. Try to corral them together, get them off in a unit. I'll clear the way for you as much as I can."
"Excellent idea, my godly friend!" Ferris appeared at his elbow, saluted him with his booze-flask. "I'll be right behind you!"
Trace glanced at Boz, who was showing some serious strain—his expression was set and determined, but his eyes were worried and Trace guessed it was more about the possibly of his being crazy than fear of dying. "Trust me, Boz," he said. "Stay close to Miss Eliza."
He gave the door a yank.
It slid half-way and stopped, its track blocked by the dead steer hanging from the ceiling. But that was all right, as Trace had time to realize: the narrow opening meant only two of them could attack at once. And they did.