Really, they had been following the tall, gaunt, Cherokee Mankiller since the beginning, Decamp reflected. It had been Mankiller who had caught the signs of activity among the strange pale folk who dwelled on the North Face of Blacktop Mountain and it had been Mankiller who had brought Decamp into the matter. The two men had shared an interest in the paranormal since their days together at Emory University.
Of course Decamp had never thought that those interests would lead him to be out in the pitch darkness of Blacktop Mountain on All Hallow’s Eve. But Mankiller’s evidence had been overwhelming and Decamp had caught the connection between the sightings of the so called Moon-Eyed people and a series of deaths and disappearances that had plagued Northern Georgia for the last few months, escalating as Halloween approached. Bringing the hardheaded Reece into the matter had been a challenge. Still was, really.
“Okay, we’re past the worst of it,” Mankiller whispered. “Let’s stop here and get our gear ready. Things may turn bad fast.”
“I’m still not convinced we’re going to find anything,” Sheriff Reece said.
“But you’re here all the same,” said Mankiller.
“Only because of Decamp here. He’d have made a good homicide detective.”
Decamp said, “I still wish you’d brought along a few men, Sheriff.”
Reece hawked and spit. “Yeah, I can just see trying to justify that to the department. Paying overtime to a bunch of deputies to help us fight little men who live underground.”
Mankiller said, “I told you before that the part about them being small is myth. The Moon-Eyes are as large as you or I. Some are larger than men but I suspect they are not natives of this world.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Reece said. “Decamp has told me all I care to hear about creatures from other dimensions. I’m just here because I think whoever is up here may be involved in those unsolved murders on my patch. Now everybody check your guns and let’s hope the rain holds off a little longer. The wind and lightning are bad enough.”
Decamp made a quick examination of his army issue Browning 22. He had oiled her that afternoon. He checked his pump action shotgun as well.
Reece had an AR converted to full auto and a big 45. revolver. The Sheriff looked over at Decamp and said, “I see you brought a sword. I know you’re a fencing champ and all, but you really think that thing will do you any good?”
“Depends on what we run into,” Decamp said. “And besides, the sword doesn’t run out of ammo.” He didn’t bother telling Reece about the blade’s unusual properties. It had been forged with silver along the edge and there were certain words in Latin etched in the blade. The blade had once rested inside a cane that had belonged to an old family friend, a judge from North Carolina. Decamp had had it reset in an unadorned hilt.
Mankiller had at least three pistols of various makes and a heavy bladed hunting knife. He was the best knife fighter Decamp knew, and given Decamp’s years of training with various edged weapons that was saying something.
“Guess we’re set,” Reece said. “What’s the plan?”
“The clearing I told you about is just over that rise. We should be able to approach through the trees and see what’s going on.”
“If we could see, that is,” said Reece. “Darker than a witch’s heart out here.”
Decamp said, “We’re at a disadvantage there. The pale folk can see in the dark.”
“So you keep telling me,” said Reece and though Decamp couldn’t see the Sheriff in the darkness, he could almost feel the man rolling his eyes.
“You’ll be able to see the Moon-Eyes coming,” Mankiller said. “Their eyes glow with a silver light.”
“Uh huh,” Reece said. He hefted the rifle. “Let’s get moving.”
Lightning flashed again and Mankiller started through the trees. Decamp and Reece fell in behind him. The wind was picking up and leaves fluttered and whirled around them, reminding Decamp of bats. He kept the . ready, his thumb on the safety.
“Careful here,” Mankiller whispered. “We’re close to one of the walls left by the Moon-Eyes in the old times. Sometimes one of the entrances to their tunnels is near a wall like this.”
Decamp could just make out the low wall. It seemed to have been constructed of wide, flat stones. He stepped over it where he had seen Mankiller step. Once past the wall the three men came out of the trees at the top of a bowl shaped clearing. Then the lightning flashed and someone screamed and for a moment Decamp though he had lost his mind because of what he saw in the shallow bowl.
Decamp recalled seeing a copy of Dante’s Inferno when he was a kid. The book had been illustrated by Gustav Dore, and Decamp remembered being terrified by the images of lost souls writhing in torment. That was the image that flashed in Decamp’s mind as the lightning showed him a scene of a living hell.
Dozens of naked white figures, twisted and cavorted in the clearing like great maggots in a smashed and upturned skull. They danced around a stone altar and on that altar was bound a terrified and naked man. One of the white figures had a crude wooden mallet and he was using it to drive some sort of spikes into the man’s groin. The man screamed again in agony. In that brief flash, Decamp had seen that there were several mutilated corpses scattered around the altar.
“They are trying to open the gate,” Mankiller said. “We have to stop the sacrifices.” He pulled something from a canvas bag and hurled it. “Shield your eyes!”
Decamp did as he was told a moment later he realized that Mankiller had hurled a flare into the midst of the obscene revelers. Now Decamp could see them clearly. Mankiller had been right. Most of them looked to be about average human size, though some were smaller and others much larger. Their skin was an unhealthy bluish white and the ones in the glow of the flare had eyes as black and reflective as pools of oil. In the darkness beyond the flare, he could see other eyes shining with a baleful glow.
“Jesus Christ,” Mike Reece said. “You weren’t shitting me.”
“No,” said Mankiller. “My people have known of these things for centuries.”
“They’re coming our way,” Decamp said.
They were. A mass of the dead-white creatures were swarming up the sides of the bowl toward the three men. Decamp got the idea that the pale ones were trying to put themselves between the intruders and the altar. They didn’t want the sacrifices stopped, Decamp realized. He could see some of the pale folk herding some crying, pleading people toward the altar.
And then Decamp didn’t have time to see anything else because the Moon-Eyed folk had reached him. He could smell the unwashed reek of them. A dark underground smell full of worms and the cold air of deep places. Decamp leveled the shotgun at the crowd and fired. Whit Gramling had told him to use rock salt in his shotgun shells and that certainly seemed to do the trick. The pale ones shrieked and stumbled and fell frothing on the ground.
Decamp heard the bull fiddle moan of Reece’s machine gun and he saw pale figures jerk and buck as the slugs slammed into them. But some of the creatures, the larger ones, were still pressing forward. Decamp drew a bead on one of them, an emaciated, almost deformed figure and hit it full on with his last shotgun shell. The creature was staggered but it kept coming forward. Decamp dropped the shotgun and put a . slug through the thing’s forehead, but still it lurched toward him. What the hell was this thing? Mankiller had spoken of some of the Moon-Eyes who were living in two dimensions at once, still partly in that place from which the race had come centuries ago.
Decamp fired the . again to buy himself a second, then shifted the gun to his left hand and with his right he whipped the silver edged sword from the sheath on his back. He lunged forward and drove the keen blade through the pale one’s chest. The creature shrieked and fell. Decamp vaulted the body and cut at the throat of another of the larger Moon-Eyes. Dark blood erupted from the wound, spattering Decamp with foulness.
“We have to reach the altar!” Mankiller yelled. “I don’t know how many sacrifices they need bu
t something’s happening!”
Something was indeed happening. Decamp could feel it in the air. A heaviness, a pressure, as if the atmosphere itself had grown thicker, more oppressive. He worked his jaw and felt his ears pop.
“Last magazine,” Reece shouted. “Let’s make it count.” He ran into the crowd, firing the AR 15. The pale creatures scattered and Decamp and Mankiller followed in Reece’s wake.
Now Decamp could see the altar clearly. The man he had seen on the altar earlier was gone and a different man, this one much older, was being bound in his place. It occurred to Decamp that some of the figures helping to bind the man were human. They were swaddled in heavy robes but Decamp could see that they weren’t pale ones. One of them was a woman, though the cloak’s hood hid her features. What sort of people would be helping these things?
Decamp had allowed himself to be distracted and he paid for it. One of the bigger Moon-Eyes came lurching from his left and struck him a heavy blow. Decamp went down, rolling and trying to gain some distance, but the pale creature pressed the attack. Decamp managed to get to one knee and he swept the sword upward, opening the creature’s belly. As it toppled, Decamp scrambled to his feet just in time to see another of the big creatures rear up behind Mankiller. Before Decamp could shout a warning, the pale one grabbed a handful of Mankiller’s hair and jerked his head backwards. With its other hand the creature ripped Mankiller’s throat open. Bright, red, arterial blood spurted as Mankiller’s lifeless form fell to the ground.
Decamp groaned, but forced himself to keep fighting. There would be time to mourn Mankiller later, if he survived. He heard Reece cursing and risked a glance toward the Sheriff. He was firing the big . with his right hand and using the empty machine gun as a bludgeon with his left. Decamp had lost the ., but he still had the sword and he began cutting his way toward the altar. He could see something behind the robed figures. An area not so much of light but more the absence of darkness. A sort of roiling gray area that was growing larger. The people in the robes were chanting in a language Decamp had never heard and several pale ones were dragging another victim toward the altar. The last victim. Did that mean that once the last sacrifice had been made that the gate would open?
Decamp decapitated an attacker, then spun and ran another through. He had almost reached the altar when someone stepped into his path. For a moment he thought it was just another of the Moon-Eyes, but then he realized that this opponent was dressed from head to foot in black and had bone white hair to match his white skin. He looked human enough except he appeared to be an albino. However his eyes were pale and there was just a hint of silver light in them.
Decamp lunged in, aiming the point of his sword at the albino’s heart. Without seeming effort the pale man twisted out of the way and backhanded Decamp with a blow that rattled Decamp’s teeth and sent him sprawling. As he struggled to get up, Decamp saw a ring of the Moon-Eyed ones closing over him. Then a loud voice told them to move back and the albino was standing over him.
“Get him up,” the albino said and two of the pale ones forced Decamp to stand. The albino leaned close so that his face was inches from Decamp’s. “Who are you?”
Decamp would have liked to have spit in the pale man’s face but he found his mouth was dry. He said, “No friend of yours.”
“That much is obvious. Well I’m glad you’re here. The calculations are imprecise and we may need another sacrifice.” He glanced to his right. “Or two.”
Decamp followed the pale man’s gaze and saw three Moon-Eyes dragging a struggling Mike Reece to stand next to Decamp. Reece said, “I’ll kill you, you god damn bastards.”
“Unlikely,” said the albino. “You’ve arrived just in time to witness the return of my kind to this world. If you’re lucky we’ll have to kill you before the path is fully clear. You won’t like what happens afterward.”
Decamp said, “You asked me who I was. Now who are you?”
The albino smiled, showing crooked sharp teeth. “You can call me Isaiah.”
“Stop playing with those fools,” the woman in the robe said. “Come and help me finish this sacrifice. Hold this pathetic thing’s head still so I can get the spikes in his eyes.”
“Don’t,” Decamp said.
Isaiah turned back to glare at him. “You’re giving us orders? What do you mean, don’t?”
“Look at my right hand,” Decamp said. He followed Isaiah’s gaze down to the object he had pulled from his pocket when the Moon-Eyes were dragging him to his feet.
“What is it?” The woman called. There was something haunting about her voice. Decamp blocked it out. He needed to stay focused, to stay angry. It was the only way he could do what he was about to do.
“It’s a fragmentation grenade,” Decamp answered for the albino. “And the pin is out. I’m holding the lever down. I let go and the grenade goes off.”
“You’ll be killed too,” Isaiah said.
Decamp smiled. “Like I’m going to live through this in any case. Now tell your friends to let me go. Mike too.”
“Release them,” Isaiah said. “For all the good it will do you. If you get away from the clearing, you won’t get down this mountain alive. I can promise you that.”
“You’re assuming I’m leaving,” said Decamp. He saw the albino’s eyes widen in realization, then Decamp tossed the grenade. A simple underhand toss, like throwing a softball to a child, but directly at the glowing gray space behind the altar. At the Gate. Then Decamp lunged forward carrying Reece to the ground in front of the altar. He felt a terrible concussive force and the world went black.
***
“As you’ve probably surmised,” Decamp said, “The altar protected Reece and me from the shrapnel in the grenade. Most of it anyway. I have a tiny fragment in my left calf, still.”
“What happened to the robed people?” Griffin said.
“I don’t actually know,” said Decamp. “When Reece and I came to, it was morning and all the bodies were still there, both the Moon-Eyes and the sacrifice victims. However the Moon-Eyes were decomposing at an amazing rate in the sunlight. The entire area was filled with trenches and deep holes. I think that there was a network of tunnels under that clearing and the surrounding area. The grenade opened them up. What few ancient ruins had been on Blacktop were destroyed.
“But as to the robed people, whom I later learned were members of the Blackbourne family, there were no signs. My theory is that they somehow used the power they had generated to escape. Their plan to open the Gate fully had failed but perhaps they were able to step between the dimensions and save themselves. That’s my best guess anyway.”
“Well we know for a fact that Isaiah escaped. Charon and I met him.”
Decamp frowned. “That’s not good. Over the next few years I learned a good bit about the Blackbournes. Isaiah is sort of the family enforcer. He can move in daylight as easily as the more human members of his family, but he has all the talents of the othersiders, as you call them.”
“And bullets don’t bother him,” said Griffin.
“Not regular bullets at any rate,” said Decamp. “I can probably help you with that. What’s your preferred caliber?”
“I use the 45. mostly.”
“Ah, good. That will chamber 357.s.”
“It will but I prefer the knockdown power of the 45. shells.”
Decamp said, “The 357.s I’m going to give you are special.”
Charon said, “So why didn’t we ever hear of what happened on Blacktop?”
“Simpler times,” said Decamp. “In those pre-Internet days it was easier to cover things up. As I said, the pale folk decomposed alarmingly fast, and there were no remains at all by the next day. Most of the sacrifice victims were homeless or without families so they were buried quietly. The others were marked up to a serial killer, my poor friend Jim Mankiller included. We told his family the truth of course, and they agreed that the world was best left unaware of Jim’s real fate.”
Charon s
aid, “But he saved so many lives. It seems terrible that no one knows.”
“I know,” said Decamp. “And now you know.”
“What happened to Sheriff Reece?”
“Mike died of a heart attack about five years ago,” said Decamp. “Or at least I’ve thought it was a heart attack all this time. Now that I know that the Blackbournes have been active, I have to wonder if Mike’s death was really from natural causes.”
Griffin said, “You’d better ratchet up your security measures too, Decamp, now that the Blackbournes know you’re aware of their plans.”
“You can count on that,” said Decamp.
“By the way,” Griffin said. “What the heck were you doing with a frag grenade? I mean, I’ve seen your weapons collection, but that’s not the kind of thing most collectors have sitting around.”
“Let’s just say that my run-in with the Moon-Eyed people wasn’t my first or last encounter with the supernatural. I learned to have a lot things handy.”
***
There were a surprising number of people who remembered Merle Blackbourne from his time in high school. Most of them tended to think of him as a backwater, ignorant, scrawny little redneck. A few of them had learned better the hard way.
Sometimes he even had to teach his own family a lesson or two, much as he didn’t really like to do that. Sometimes, however, a man had to remind people why he was in charge. He slammed the meat hook into Jeb’s thick shoulder and hauled him backwards, cursing up a blue streak as the freak screamed. The blood that flowed from the wound was as black as ink, and the boy’s skin was as white as snow. His teeth were yellowed and stained and numerous. When he snapped at Merle, the man kicked him in the face and hauled on the hook a second time.
“I fucking told you to find Arlo and Beau! That was three hours ago! Where the fuck are they!?”
Blind Shadows: A Griffin & Price Novel Page 17