Finally, with nails scraping grooves into the white wood, the huge man lumbered offf down the side alley disappearing from view. ‘Every cloud has a silver lining.’ Joan refused to move for moments after, dark spots exploding in her vision. She crouched like that for a good twenty minutes.
When she was no longer to bear it, she breathed in. She found that surrounding herself in the cluster of waving bushes kept most of the snow offf of her. None of her surroundings appeared recognizable. How can you get lost in your own neighborhood? She wondered. How was that possible? Confused about everything that was happening to her, Joan paused to clear her mind. Slowly, hunched over, grasping her knees, Joan took deep soothing breaths easing her panic and doing some good for her lungs. The cold made it difffiicult to breathe deep. Her limbs began trembling then as if reaching their breakin’ point.
Spots in her vision became thick clouds, obscuring her sight-lines. There in the secluded nook of bushes, Joan Luckert gave in to the massive weight of her stress allowing the exhaustion to ease her into oblivion.
“Guess this is my stop.” Joan whispered.
Surrounding her, bushes kept her hidden. Her last cognizant thought was, ‘The whole nine yards.’
Chapter 27
Humans reek. He smelt them before he heard them. Humans stank in this new century. Eating processed food-stufffs prepared by machines, these beings were terribly out of balance, overweight and slow-witted. Animals, he thought. Man had devolved into unfiit animals. Resting in the earth, listening to the world turn, Gray had become convinced that the human race was fiinished. Ready for its new frontier, to take one giant leap forward into their graves. Time for the strong to rule.
Nature was playing havoc with his senses. He’d paused for prey a block back, thought he smelled a young female. Gray could have used her blood. Massive gusts made divining the scents more difffiicult. It was a good thing the stinking peasants were so plentiful. His black eyes looked around. Every house held families, many fat bags of meat and blood to sustain him for months. Especially children, he mused. The very young contained the richest blood of all. Gray had developed a keen taste for mewling youth. The iron and rich proteins in their blood were like the best vintage of Cabernet.
Gray looked forward to sampling the wares. He’d made an executive decision cutting ties to that feckless idiot who’d been newly made through Erna’s hapless mistake. Gray had always prided himself on keeping close grips on the servants who helped him. But he’d thought it was time to cut chafff from wheat. Gray smirked as he kicked a buried metal container out of his way.
Let the useless fool cause as much carnage as he could in the area. Once the sun returned, that unholy orb in the sky, another loose end would be severed. Gray caressed the onyx cube in his deep pocket. The damned thing was warm, growing hot. What kind of world would it be with those demons? Where would he stand in their pecking order.
He wondered if he had the vision to lead them, then everything around him became blotted out by a white squall. Gray stopped mid-alley, adjusting his bearings. His senses reached out. Smoke, rancid swill that was close to what he remembered as beer, all these scents blew towards him. To his right, there was a home with barricaded windows on the second floor, lights on the fiirst dimly gleaned through yellowed curtains. Ice was permeating his sight, he thought he’d seen someone adjust the fabric covering the back window. It was impossible to tell. The huge man was hungry, willing to take a chance. His right arm braced upon the seven foot chain link fence blocking him from egress. It was bolted to steel poles, snow piled high against it. Gray leaned his considerable bulk upon the middle shaft, slowly forcing the entire fence to lay down into the yard.
He moved on. One thing he’d not counted on, was the constant need for nourishing blood to revive him. And the resistance itself. Sleeping in the earth for decades had given Gray the chance to listen. Learning by hearing the world around him had caught him up to speed. His hubris knew no bounds.
Gray crunched through the snow thumping up the side yard between homes. Bits of wood, old furniture and obscure junk littered his path. Small red, orange and white orbs popped in the snow. The big man barely noticed the Christmas ornaments on the steps in front as he advanced. He decided to go in through the front door. This entire neighborhood was owned by him. The land belonged to him. Gray considered all of Olde Irving Park, his.
The smell of cheap rancid beer was the scent he followed. He would catch that human bastard who burned him earlier. Surprise for surprise. Resistance to his effforts to open Hell ceased today.
He paused at a makeshift barricade. Gray pushed through the flimsy debris fiield that blocked Mavis’ front door with ease. A smile crossed his face. He strode with confiidence into the front room. The Gray could smell the fiine mixture of hops and grain alcohol. He had learned to brew real beer decades ago. Everyone in his time had learned the skill. It was how the world was back in the early days of Chicago.
Jimmy and George waited patiently. The former held a double ought shot-gun while George hunkered a wide stance with his father’s magnum. The front room remained a stained mess from when the driver had attacked Mavis. The sons sought to add to the house’s make-over.
Gray walked right into their onslaught. Both brothers red simultaneously, emptying their weapons into the big man’s body. The front room fiilled with gunpowder, akin to brimstone brought up from the depths of hell.
The Gray stood his ground. His face serenely kept still as his body absorbed the punishment of the projectiles. His dark coat shredded, black drops plopped steadily to the floor. His clothing was rendered to tatters.
“Shit Jim. Mama was dead right.” George shouted. The eldest spit a load of chaw out of the right side of his mouth. Both brothers were reloading.
“Guess so. Big sum of bitch.” The Gray exhaled. Holes in his neck, face and scalp, did nothing to prevent the huge man from speaking. None of the wounds bled profusely. Gray’s flesh had turned chalk white. Smoke coiled offf of the perforations in his frame.
“This activity has made me peckish.” His ngers had nails sharpened to spear points. Thick hair on the back of his wide hands curled in anticipation. He drew himself up. Snarls uttered from his lips.
Jimmy refused to budge, his frown exposed his deep anger.
“Yeah? Peck on this, bitch.” Jimmy plunged Mavis’ holy dagger into the Gray’s broad chest. For the fiirst time in decades, the Gray looked aghast at the weapon buried in his body. Hands grasped at the silver crossed handle.
“Didn’t see that coming, did ya?” Jimmy muttered, using all of his force to keep the blade haft dug deeply into meat. George merely looked on, slapping his thigh in support for his older bro.
He hooted.
“You the man, Jimmy! Fillet that fiish!” The Gray broke away from flailing at the burning wound. He swiped his flat hand, nails extended across the older brother’s head. It was a quick and neat cut. Half of Jimmy’s skull splattered onto George’s chest and face. Blonde hair stuck in George’s mouth along with the tough gristle of his sibling’s scalp. He gagged accidentally, then breathed quickly in, swallowing flesh and brain matter. He could taste Jimmy’s coppery sweat. George stared at the exposed brain of his brother.
For his part, Jimmy stood his ground. Blood seeped from what remained of his scalp. His dark brown eyes dimmed. The Gray glowered at him, no more than a foot apart. The old vampire sunk his teeth into Jimmy’s brain tugging at it, slurping tissue and blood. Gray was a cur then, chomping at a bone. Those chufffiing noises as he ate would stay with George for the rest of his life. This continued for a good ninety seconds until Gray drew back his hands releasing Jimmy.
One moment Jimmy was erect, the next he crumpled. An empty puppet onto the debris inside Mavis’ house. George gasped, looking down at the emptiness of his brothers cranium. Images of them as boys eating Fruit Loops, his bowl empty flew at him. What was left of Jimmy’s brain-stem rolled out of his skull stopping on a discarded Popular Mechanics ma
gazine.
George registered that PM had always been their father’s favorite magazine. The shock broke as the Gray burped. George screamed and bolted for the back of the house, running out the kitchen door into gusting winds. He burst out into the frigid cold, screams mufffled by the driving cold. Sobbing as he bolted through the white landscape, feet growing numb with every footfall. Tears mixed with icy sleet freezing to his cheeks. The storm swallowed him up.
“Weak.” Opined the Gray, laughing at the frightened rabbit’s retreat. He licked the Brain matter and blood o fff of his hand. Looking down at his prey, he ripped into the carcass and began to feed on what was left.
Chapter 28
The apse was silent. A rug had been rolled away from a sturdy metal hatch. The stairs Doug climbed, led up to the floor of the church just outside the second set of wooden weather doors, which at present were propped open. There was a private room for late comers used mostly for unruly infants and their mothers who wanted to remain with family watching the service thru thick glass. Doug noticed three orange hazard cones were placed around the opening to prevent unwanted drop-ins even at this time of night.
St. Viator’s had always been open for prayer year round, even when he was a child. The old Polish and Italians in the neighborhood liked to stop by for solace at all hours. It had been the meeting place for decades among many religious families, parochial students and various police and fiiremen. At one point, the church had been quite popular and busy.
Parishioners had been falling away in recent years. Dwindling from scandal, lack of personal diversity-outreach and just laziness or apathy from younger people had shrunk the church’s ranks. That didn’t make the religion any less potent, Doug thought. It had however, obscured history.
Secrets of the past were forgotten as the praying population dwindled. Today though, the terrible storm outside had blunted even the stalwarts from attending Mass on Christmas Day.
They had the whole place to themselves. He found himself dipping his fiingers into the ocher marble fountain crossing himself as he genuflected. It was by reflex, a habit ingrained in him from catholic school long ago. A huge marble tableau of the apostles surrounding baby Jesus cradled in Mother Mary’s arms stood sentinel the wide broad altar. He’d forgotten how formidable the church was. The trappings dwarfed him. The Catholic Church always seemed to want to keep its members in their place. Small in the universe, the mote in God’s eye. One had to learn where their place was.
Mavis waited for him halfway up the long main aisle on the way to the altar. She coughed. Doug was about to speak, but she had her fiinger to her lips. Only sound heard was the incessant howling of the wind outside. Above ornate stained glass windows of angels and saints, the churning white ice of Chicago’s biggest blizzard leapt about searching for egress. It sounded as if the huge church had unholy coiled snakes hissing about, pissed offf about something.
Mavis moved forward up the aisle. The old woman continued scanning their surroundings. It gave Doug a respite to consider the past brief hours. Thoughts formed fervent prayers for the lost and the ones he loved. He took stock of where they’d come. Mavis waved him on to advance. The echo offf the granite walls was eerie.
They’d moved up the few steps past the altar. Mavis held keys wrapped in red tape. She unlocked a fiifteen foot gate. Doug opined they were journeying where the priests kept the gold chalices. Good idea to hide the valuables in this hardscrabble blue-collar neighborhood.
He was wrong though. Both of them disappeared into a narrow passage behind the huge statue. Doug had never been this far back. Mavis opened another shorter gate. Both stood before what appeared to be the base of the marble statue of the apostles. Doug looked up seeing a benevolent bearded face.
“St. Mark.” Answered Mavis, the question unasked. She glanced back at Doug. They were past the second barrier now. Her tiny fiingers rubbed the marble. An unseen button clicked. Mavis slid open a panel. She entered with Doug following under the statue.
Both were entering musty chambers that appeared not to have been entered for years. Doug discovered where secrets lay hidden: Glimpses of armored knights, paintings, tapestries. Mavis led them through several rooms producing one more key on her red hoop. A small lead key.
No words were uttered. Only breathing fiiled the silence. Being out of nature’s constant roar relieved pressure in their heads. Doug rubbed his ears. His jaw popped making his skull ache.
Heavy doors that had scared Douglas as a child clanged shut. Their footsteps clicked echoing offf the old stentorian walls. Absence of ambient sound made Doug want to scream. Silence was as un-nerving as chaos. They both stopped before a fresco painted on wood. It looked medieval.
Mavis nodded before Douglas could ask if it was genuine. The painting looked ancient. What must have been a tree branch outside the church, scraped against the wall, relentlessly scratching for entry. Both listened to the sound, watching their flashlights illumine the beautiful painting depicting Jesus on the road to his Crucifiixion. Like a huge predator scratching against an animal’s hide, Mavis and Douglas waited breathlessly even knowing the walls of the church were meters thick.
“Nails on a chalkboard,” whispered Mavis. Suddenly, the branch scraped its way down the outside wall landing its heavy bulk with a thump on the concrete. A predator grown bored with its prey. Lights from the massive overhead cylinder lamps flickered, its connection threatened by outside forces. Doug peered up at the massive containers of illumination. He had, as a child always been afraid to sit under one, fearful that their dangling chains would snap and he would be crushed by their immense weight.
The companions of Diogenes swayed a bit with the storm’s winds. Above them a hundred feet, the lights seemed to be judging Doug and Mavis’ actions below. Their illumination shined on the just and the unjust alike.
“Man.” Douglas recovered. “So where is it? Where the hell are we?”
The old woman reached up her fiinger to chastise.
“No swearing. Not in here. We never blaspheme.” Mavis walked to the corner reaching past it. In the back of the structure where the priests could sit was a beautifully varnished walnut and cherry cabinet. It looked like a French writing desk. The old woman opened two drawers, one next to another. The small cabinet began to roll to their right. Another lock had been opened.
“Careful now, it’s a tight squeeze.”
She disappeared into the gap blocked by the cabinet. Doug peered inside. Nothing but inky blackness accompanied by the strange musk of myrrh. He waited a minute until a candle lit up far ahead in the narrow corridor. Doug took a deep breath and went inside.
The walls here were rough and older than the church outside, as if this chamber had been built fiirst. Doug could see there were chambers offf to his left, but did not hesitate to explore them. The odors of incense overpowered him. It was a combination of smells he was unused to, even though some brought back disturbing memories of church days past. Primal scents of loam, rot and death vied for attention.
“Got it. We can go.” Doug jumped. Mavis was climbing up from an ancient oubliette. There was a sturdy hatch from which she lowered herself. It clanged shut with its hasp flipping over in compliance. Mavis slapped the lock tight. She turned to him. Doug had only caught a glimpse of shiny sharpened weapons.
Was that some hidden arsenal room of the church? Her candle provided brief illumination. The reflections bounced offf the metal in the blades. The old woman blocked him from seeing any more.
“What’s down …” He began. “Forget it. You’ve seen too much as it is.”
Mavis stood her ground motioning Doug back. “You’re not serious, right? We need as many weapons we can grab to stop that stone psycho out there. I’ve seen nothing.”
“All the better for you.” She murmured. Mavis stood still, the candle under her chin making her appear as an old crypt keeper. Her eyes bored into Doug’s head.
“In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself wi
thin a dark wood where the straight way was lost.” The old woman licked her lips. “Love Dante. What must he have seen? We have enough. Those artifacts are part of our trust. Leave them alone. Their use is only for the end of days.”
Doug stared at Mavis waiting to hear the punchline. Mavis remained still. Doug whispered with frustration.
“End of days? What do you call what’s happening to us now? ‘Middle days’?”
Mavis walked past, leaving Doug momentarily in the dark.
“Hey. Why are you being like this? Especially with me?” Doug was disquieted, forcing himself to refuse the urge to look behind him as if a creature was about to lay his undead hand on his shoulder. Now he knew why Orpheus had looked back. His skin was covered with goose flesh. Mavis was already past the altar hurrying out. Behind him, the doors were clanking shut. The whole trippy experience had been too much.
“Mavis. Enough of this.” His voice exploded in the quiet. His frustration cut thru the constant barrage of the driving wind. Mavis stopped walking. She did not turn around. Doug stood in the middle of the church. His outrage echoing.
“Enough of the sketchy Illuminati shit. I don’t need to know all your secret crap. Just quit treating me like your third son. I’m not an idiot. I deserve more than you yanking my chain.”
Mavis did not respond. A form from the back of the church moved. It was slight, like a child. The voice was old, yet familiar. The diminutive form kneeled in the last pew near a cluster of lit votive candles. Each candle represented a person loved and prayed for. The burnt wax contributed to the wafting mustiness. Gentle flickering of flames illumined the fiigure.
Grayland: Chapter Three of the Dark Chicago Series Page 12