Above some stars disappeared.
“I sure wish the moon was abroad, fellas,” said Val, loading his rifle. He watched from the window of St. Catherine’s church. “Can’t see a damned thing out there.”
“Nothin’s happenin’, that’s why,” said Lynn, lighting a cigar with a candle beside him. “But give it time.”
“What’s that you got there?”
“A weapon that has stood the test of time,” he replied, holding up the Holy Bible. “One more powerful than that machine you’re messin’ with.”
“Did you see the look in those guys’ faces when they rode on in Monaghan?” said Driver, shaking his head. “I swear they were devils wearing masks.”
“You think they were new to the town?” asked Lynn, sitting down on the window ledge next to Val. “You think we sent two poor suckers up that there hill to listen out for the fun of it?”
“What’re you tryin’ to say, man?”
Lynn looked over his shoulder at Will. He was sitting on a pew, as small as a child.
“Bernard Reeves and his sons were witches.”
“Fuck that, man,” Val sneered, shaking his weary head. “Don’t be feedin’ me no fuckin’ Sunday school story.”
“Remember where you are!” Lynn snapped.
Val cleared his throat before looking out at the night’s sky.
“They’ve been swingin’ their dicks through Monaghan for over a decade, I tell you,” said Lynn. “Ever since they were banished from Drack about two hundred miles to the east of here. They’d turned the church black with their prayers and the people got sick of it. Especially since that damned orgy they stopped goin’ on.”
“Orgy?” said Will.
“I knew that’d wake you up,” said Lynn, but there was little humour in his words. “I was told by Ted Whitely, who once lived in Drack. He used to preach there before he’d had enough. If the Reeves weren’t runnin’ their mouths off, cursin’ at the ladies, then they were holed up in that bastardised church of theirs. The young seemed to follow ‘em everywhere. Lord knows how they did that.”
“They overthrew a church?”
“Nope, just turned the rat hole that passed for their house into one. Covered the thing from floor to shingles with sigils-”
“Sigils?”
“Signs,” said Lynn, glancing over at Driver. “Bit like the one over the lodge.”
The other man nodded. “But…what signs?”
“Shapes mostly. Ones that shouldn’t be drawn by man nor beast. I saw some of them firsthand on a trip out there. I don’t think I’ll ever forget them. The Reeves ranch had some cattle. Just a dozen cows is all, but they weren’t penned in with no barbed wire or fences. They had a shape around ‘em, keepin’ ‘em in order. Those guys aren’t stupid. I’ve heard stories about angels leaving their marks, you know, writing on walls in places no man could ever reach, but Ted believed it was the work of demons.”
“Demon writing?” said Will. “But that’s crazy.”
“Didn’t you just check up on two guys listening out for the bells in a cemetery?” said Lynn.
“You win, Pastor,” replied Will.
“Well,” Lynn continued, “following a drunken brawl, the town decided to burn down the church with the Reeves inside. Extreme, I know. But the jail couldn’t hold “em, bribing them to leave held nothin’ for ‘em, they just returned like four rotten pennies every time. Nope, fire was the only way. So when they did, the young, impressionable folk that had followed them around like cattle, returned home; it was like nothing had ever happened.”
“But they survived, right?” said Val, turning the words over in his mouth like salt. “Makes sense why we never cremated ‘em-”
“If they’re the bane of the county then why desecrate our good ground up there-”
“BECAUSE WE’RE NOT ANIMALS!”
The room was silent for a moment. Lynn wiped the sweat from his brow. His outburst had shaken the house of St. Catherine, but they had gone on long enough with words.
“This isn’t goin’ away,” said Val, cocking his rifle. “You have your book, I have this-”
“I”m hoping it’ll be enough.”
“We’ll see.”
***
“I just can’t sleep, ma,” said Danny, standing in the doorway. A candle flickered beside the hearth, spreading shadows across the low ceiling.
“I know what you mean, my love,” she replied, patting the window ledge beside her. “I can’t either.”
The boy sat down and looked out at the night sky. A scratch of a moon appeared through the darkness, and a shooting star arced across the heavens. They didn’t make a wish; their thoughts were with the Jenkins and Marlbroughs, who lost their sons and daughters at Hanneman’s Mart earlier that day.
“What drives a person to hurt another person, ma?”
She smiled wearily and sighed. “I suppose the only thing seperatin’ us from the animals is we stand up straight. Anyways, go back to bed. I need you full o’ beans for cutting the wood the morrow; It won’t cut itself.”
Danny nodded. “Night, ma,” he said, kissing her brow before slowly getting up to leave the room.
Her smile faded as she thought over his words. Kids had a way of asking the most difficult of questions. She closed the shutters and walked over to her own bed. Sleep kept a wide berth, and she only thought she was dreaming when the first scream rung out.
Driver tied the rope around the door handles, then gave it a pull for good measure. The metal fittings creaked like Will’s joints.
“Go easy on it, y’ maniac. Don’t want to loosen the damned nails,” said Lynn. Luckily, the windows were ten feet above street level. Nothing was going to get in St. Catherine’s. At least he hoped not.
Hanneman had pulled one of the pews across to the door too, almost losing a finger in the process. Will’s hadn’t been of any use, complaining of a bad back. Despite Lynn’s protests, he used all the bad language he knew and more; promising to wring Will’s neck if he survived the night, so God help his sorry ass.
“Boys,” Lynn whispered, his eyes wide and bright. He pointed out to the horizon. The others joined him at the window. “This isn’t right at all.”
“God have mercy!”
***
A black tide of bodies rolled towards Monaghan, only stopping briefly at the county gates. The metal buckled beneath the weight of the dead, pulling away at the hinges; a gentle breeze drifted down, carrying with it the stench of hell itself. Eyeless skulls pushed against the bars, some breaking in two as the horde moved inexorably. Limbs snapped like tinder as the fallen were trampled underfoot, only to slowly get back up and follow. Into the county they poured, like ink, dispersing and spreading.
“God, no way!” said Hanneman, cocking his rifle, preparing to aim at the shifting darkness below. But Lynn grabbed his arm.
“Bullets are useless, Val. It’ll just give away our location. Don’t you get it?”
“He’s right,” said Will, leaning against the wall. “I’m so tired-”
“Don’t you be gettin’ your shut eye now, ol’ man,” said Lynn, suddenly grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “We need all the help we can-”
“Pastor!”
Lynn looked back at the window.
“Whatever you got up your fuckin’ sleeve, you better use it right away,” said Driver, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. Lynn joined him at the window.
They heard the screams and the sound of shattered glass. Gunfire snapped, separating the darkness with tiny sparks, unveiling the true identity of the shifting dead. Fire spread as lamps were thrown; small children buried their faces in their mom’s bosom as they fled their homes, only to run head first into the grisly arms of generations past.
“No, damn it, that’s Victoria and Simon-,” said Val, punching the wall. “I thought there’s just the fuckin’ four of ‘em?”
“This should be easy,” said Lynn, his voice quivering, barely a whisper.
“The Reeves were weak, they had to be. But…but we were wrong.”
“What’s this fuckin’ we business?” said Will, sitting on the pew in front of the door. “We followed you, we thought you had all the answers-”
“Shut the hell up! Both of you,” said Driver. “We sit here and do nothin’, when the sun comes up Monaghan will be no more. This is the house of God. We’re safe here, if there ever was a sanctuary.”
“Aye, we might be safe,” said Will, pointing a thumb over his shoulder, “but I can’t say the same for ‘em folk.”
***
Donita felt the thumbs penetrate her naval, fingers piercing her torso like iron talons. Blood pooled about the corpse’s hands as it pulled the flesh open, a sound like torn leather drowned out by her screams; its mouth catching the entrails as they spilled from the gash. She had buried her husband, Paul, over four months ago. The fool had fallen from his horse coming back from Driver’s one night; a belly full of whiskey and the smell of cheap perfume on his crippled body. He’d been a man of the world, everyone knew it too; even Donita. He always was insatiable between the sheets. Now she grabbed his hair, pulling it away in fistfuls as his crooked, rotten teeth feasted on her body,just like he had the night of their honeymoon.
***
Fire spread through the small room as if a river had burst its banks, threatening to drown everyone within it. Becky and Peter clawed at the shutters, but when they opened it a gust of wind sent the ravenous flames about the house, engulfing them hungrily. In the doorway Thom and Clara looked on, a grin on their bloodless faces. The brother and sister had been playthings for their father ever since they could crawl. Clara had lost count of the number of times she had comforted her father on late, cold nights. The sickness had rendered her incapacitated and silent in life, but in death…it was a different story.
Despite the fire peeling away whatever dust covered her broken, rotten bones, she grabbed her father’s throat as he tried to leave. Her fingers pierced the flesh just under his chin. Then, with a swift pull, the skin came away. She didn’t stop until he looked over his shoulder, screaming; just like the hundreds of times she had done the same. Now he looked at her, a skinless, faceless excuse of a man. He didn’t have the lids to blink. The flames ate away at the bodies, indifferent to the bitterness and poison running through them.
Thom grabbed Becky, his stepmother. She looked deeply into his eyeless face, remembering the day she had helped her husband dump him in the river. She even remembered the performance she gave as Deputy Gary Bournemouth informed her of the grisly find three weeks later.
Thom had been starved and beaten to death. Now he feasted on her body as it writhed beneath him. She screamed, but he sensed something under the sound, there was something…something else.
***
Lynn was on his knees, whispering prayers.
Will watched, silently, shaking his head.
“You must be fuckin’ crazy,” he said, lighting a cigarette.
Lynn fell silent, then looked up at the old man.
“Care to elaborate?” he said.
“This ain’t the work of no angels or God,” said Will as a matter of fact. “The Reeves are demons.”
“What the fuck are you goin’ on about?” said Hanneman at the window.
“We need demons on our side,” said Will, blowing smoke into the air. “You said so yourself…they’re some kind of witches.”
“I’m trying to use what I have-”
“BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH, MAN!”
“When you come up with a solution, I’ll listen,” replied Lynn. “But until then…”
“Yep. You stay on your knees…that’s the way. When they get in here you can have your fuckin’ head ripped off…I don’t care!”
“I think you should look at this,” said Hanneman.
***
Fire spread through the county, houses were ablaze. The occupants, some lying still in the dirt, were burning fiercely. The dead followed, smoke billowing from their dusty, time worn rags. Limbs dislocated and fell in their wake as they feasted on the fallen. A scent of charred skin and hair held onto the shoulders of the strengthening breeze as it swept through the corridors of Monaghan. Screams had died, now the crackling of fire and the groan of the county’s dead echoed in the night.
***
“You see that?” said Hanneman.
“I can’t see nothin’, man,” replied Will.
“I can see,” whispered Lynn, signing the cross on his chest, for all the good it could do him. “They’re not stupid…Look at them, with their noses in the air, sniffing us out. They know we’re hiding-”
“That’s pure horseshit!” said Will, keeping his voice to a whisper. “How ‘n the fuck could they know that-?”
“Ah no,” said Hanneman, cocking his rifle, “they’re comin’ this way.”
***
Hands lost their grip on the dead flesh, and blood dripped from the chins of over a hundred driven corpses as they had sensed something on the night’s air; something familiar. Not a scent, or the distinct sound of the living, for the dead couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, taste, nor feel. They were pulled inexorably toward the living by the sheer force of the soul, like iron filings to a magnet. There was a force present, they knew it. One which must be devoured. They’d find it, they’d search. Drool poured from torn mouths as they moved, like the breeze and its stench of burning humans.
***
“The Reeves knew how to wake the dead. Whitely knew it- heck, whole of Drack could testify too. Boys, I don’t think we’re gonna get outta this-”
“Fuck that, Pastor!” snapped Will. “Get back to prayin’ if that works-”
CRACK!
“Shit, man!”
Hanneman felled one body with his first shot, but he could see it rise up, and get on its way.
“Give us some warnin’ You know how loud it is in-”
CRACK! CRACK!
One body went down and the second shot missed.
Lynn was on his knees, eyes screwed up tightly. For the first time in his position with the church, he couldn’t recall one single prayer. Not. One. Single. Psalm.
“You’ve failed me,” he breathed, opening his weary, tearful eyes; looking at the wooden figure on the cross before him. “In my hour of need, in the presence of madness and horror, you’ve turned your back.” He slowly got up and withdrew his pistol, joining Hanneman at the window.
They exchanged glances before firing at the moving horde beyond, and if Hanneman lacked respect for Lynn in the forty years of sharing the same county, he’d gained it there and then.
***
Lead passed through rotten muscle and wasted bones, sending small clouds of dust into the air. The sound was deafening, it rang out into the desolate wastes beyond Monaghan. Gunfire was commonplace; nobody thought twice, nobody stirred from their slumber to come help. The living were nothing compared to the dead. Onwards the corpses moved, like a living shadow; a wall that would stop at nothing to reach the source of that energy they craved.
***
“Gentlemen, I hope we can be good friends on the other side too-”
“All this God shit has scrambled your brains!” shouted Will, covering his ears against the thunderous crack of the gunfire.
Lynn laughed, firing off three more shots before reloading.
“We’re on our own, old man.”
***
Bernard, Jim, Mikey-boy, and H flocked together. The four Reeves watched the destruction they had caused; utilising the sunken army of the boneyard to eradicate the wasted souls of the county. They remembered Drack, remembered Whitely; sneered at the way they had tried to burn their blessed home, their cherished church. With the town behind them, a place of broken souls, Monaghan was yet to come alive. Now they looked at St. Catherine’s with something akin to lust in their eyes. They could see what the dead sensed, and they understood the allure of the living human soul. It burned with the strength of a thousand suns. A n
ew church had arisen in the darkness like one of their own. All they needed to do was take it. They moved slowly, with eternity on their side.
***
“They’re pushing…I don’t think I can hold ‘em off for much…longer!” Will had his back to the door, but he shifted every couple of seconds as the dead pressed against the panelling. The pew was slowly sliding away from the door.
“I…we… have no prayer,” said Lynn, shooting at the dead beyond the window. Then he pointed the gun at Will.
“What the fuck are you doing?” the older man screeched, covering his face with his hands, eyes wild. The bullet shattered his skull, a geyser of blood erupting from the small exit wound. Brains splattered the wall behind, steam rising from the rent in Will’s head. He fell to his knees, and then slowly got back up. A smile spread across his bloody face.
“It’s the only way,” Lynn cried, tears blurring his vision. “It’s merciful-”
Driver tried to get his pistol from his holster but he was too late. His head came apart at such close range, obliterating his skull from the nose up. He hit the ground like a rock, but unlike Will, he remained still.
“Would you look at that…”
“You…ne’er were tha’ smart,” Will slurred, shuffling forward.
Hanneman turned the rifle on Lynn, but he wasn’t quick enough. Lynn fired, the bullet shattering his jaw, sending the other man flying across the room. He laid there, the left side of his head in pieces. Blood pooled about his fragmented face, eyes staring at nothing but darkness. Then he got up.
Lynn looked at the dark, cavernous ceiling.
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