Enter the Rebirth (Enter the... Book 3)

by Thomas Gondolfi

The driver sneered.

  “He’s with me,” Bill said. “We need to get some air.”

  The driver stared at them both.

  Bill thought, What am I doing? It’s sticking my neck out all the time that screws me up in the first place.

  The driver looked Ed up-and-down and swept a hand to the door. “Okay, okay. Come on.”

  He stepped down the stairs into the night.

  The night air slammed Bill’s pores shut. Cleveland had been chilly, but here in the mountains no warmth radiated from brick streets or buildings to block the wind. The breeze smelled of pine and exhaust. Breath drifted in the dark like phantoms. Gravel and dry grass crackled underfoot.

  The boy and Potato Lady remained together. The boy trudged slow and sore, voicing all the gripes all the adults were too polite to say.

  Potato Lady stared at the front tires. “Geez Louise!”

  The front tires steamed, shredded to rags. Something protruded from the left front wheel well, looking like ragged dead lips around a piece of licorice. A pole glistening with black goo. Bill set his bag down and looked close. Scraped the goo with his thumbnail.

  Under the goo was rusty iron. Ridges on the side of the length showed where barbed wire would be strung.

  Plaid Coat hung close over Bill’s shoulder. “A fencepost across the road?”

  “Kids,” Potato Lady said, keeping an eagle eye on the boy.

  Bill flicked the crap off his finger. “Out here? We’re miles from anywhere.”

  Something slapped the side of the bus, making the metal wall ring.

  Plaid Coat nodded at the pole. “What is that stuff?”

  Bill sniffed. It was sour and smoky, with a raw-egg stink.

  “Sour crude oil.”

  Ed’s head rose and he looked straight into Bill’s eyes. Bill felt his caution like a lightning bolt into his brain.

  Yes, Bill thought. It’s hit this Ed guy too. This situation is definitely off.

  Dingy Coat turned and looked back at the road. “Did it fall off a truck?”

  He looked to the driver. The man’s stocky shadow stretched up the road to a barely-seen turn uphill. He looked up the road as if searching for something.

  Pushing into his satchel, Bill found his bottle of whisky tucked into his inside breast pocket. When he stood, the driver was still looking up the road. Then something struck Bill as even more odd.

  Bill lowered his voice. “There’s a lot of traffic on this road. There should be at least another truck with wheels messed up.”

  The driver’s hand hung by the angle of sidearm on his hip.

  Bill realized, Somebody put this pole on the road just now.

  The driver turned. “Everyone get back on the bus.”

  “What?” said the Potato Lady. “We just got off!”

  “Please, ma’am! Everyone back on until help arrives.” The worry in his voice got Bill’s attention.

  Potato caught it too. She said, “Yes, sir. We’ll get back on. Look! Somebody’s over on the other side by the road.”

  Another slap sounded on the back of the bus, like someone had hit it hard on the far side.

  The driver breathed a curse. He strode through the headlights to the far side of the bus. He turned on his heel, the target of his wrath blocked from view by the bus.

  “You! Get back on the bus! Or I will find you in default and I will leave you—”

  A figure lurched. Its thick hands seized the driver’s head.

  The driver screamed. The scream rose high in pitch and he struggled. It gargled before becoming a choked cry.

  Olive Coat scuffed forward, stunned and uncertain. “Hey! Hey!” He grabbed the figure from behind, around the throat in a stranglehold, still saying, “Hey! Hey!”

  A second figure seized Olive Coat from behind. It pressed its face into the man’s neck like a passionate kiss.

  The driver and the first figure fell in front of the headlights. The attacker glistened with filth. Steam from the driver’s strangled cries curled around their heads. The attacker leaned back and gave a long groan, sounding of relief and triumph.

  Bill found himself just watching, thinking, Did this guy come out of a bog or roll in the mud or—

  Then Bill realized. No steam came out of the attacker’s throat. The filth on its face melted and poured. Revealed bits of gray bone at its forehead and at the peaks of cheekbone. More filth poured out of its throat.

  The old lady stared and made little cries like a crow. The boy stared, eyes wide.

  Olive Coat screamed from around the other side of the bus.

  Bill had his knife out of his pocket and flicked at the blade with his thumbnail. He stepped behind the thing on the driver and stabbed into its back. The blade sunk in all the way to Bill’s wrist. The wound stunk of tar and rot. His forearm sank into cold slime. The slime surged up his coat like a sucking mouth.

  Bill screamed and pulled off his pea coat. The muck crackled as it pulled from the skin of his hand.

  Black oil drained from the creature’s face and slapped onto the bus driver’s shaking no-no-no head.

  Bill found himself at the bottom of the bus stairs. In front of him, the Potato Lady grabbed the kid’s belt and pulled him up. Dingy Brown pushed her ass from behind. Ed stayed at the back wheel, lit by the flashing red hazard lights.

  Bill growled and in two steps grabbed Ed’s arm. The coat was hot. The cloth was like a cotton mitt grabbing a bread pan out of an oven.

  The bus door hissed. The glass glinted as the door started closing. Bill yelled and shoved his bare right arm in the gap. The door clamped down but he couldn’t feel anything. His arm felt cold and asleep from grabbing that creature.

  “Lemme in, goddammit! Lemme in!”

  The filthy things and their victims struggled, indistinguishable in the darkness.

  Through the door glass, Dingy Brown sat in the driver’s seat, hand tight on the lever. He pushed it back.

  “Come on, man! Get in!”

  The door gasped open. Bill dragged Ed up. Ed clamped hands around the stair rails and pulled himself up.

  Dingy Brown pulled the door lever shut.

  He fumbled the bakelite radio microphone and turned to the passengers. “Everybody? Everybody! We got the door shut! Stay clear of the windows and we wait until help comes!”

  A man yelled back. “The police’ll be on horses! How long would they take to get up here?”

  Ed grabbed a luggage rack. His pale skin sheened with fever sweat. His Adam’s apple bobbed over and over. Bill sat him in the seat behind the driver.

  Everyone craned their necks to see out the windows.

  Oily hands banged on the glass. Long strands of clotted hair framed a mocking grin slicked with molasses black. Beneath the oily visage, a white lace nightgown peeked.

  Women and men screamed and shouted.

  Bill counted four pairs of hands pounding at the windows. “Everybody keep cool! We’re fine in here!”

  A man called, “Somebody’s gotta drive up from the city and see us! There’s trucks hauling stuff up here all the time!”

  “Mayday-mayday!” Dingy called into the microphone.

  Bill looked at his bare arm. The skin had reddened and his thick wool of arm hair had been pulled out. The skin cold like he had dunked it into a frozen pond.

  Sick with fear, he slapped at his arm to get feeling. Did I catch something from whatever-that-is?

  Dingy Brown fumbled at the mic button. “I don’t know what bus this is!”

  “One-Forty-One!” someone yelled.

  “No!” yelled someone else. “One-Fourteen!”

  Dingy yelled into the microphone, “One-Forty-One bus! One-Fourteen-bus! Base! Dammit, there are things out there attacking us! Get some cops up here!”

  Bill pushed to the back of the bus.

  “What are they?” the old lady cried.

  Ed’s hollow voice rang over the din. “Targhouls! They are Targhouls!”

  Bill turned, his han
d on his pack. The crowd quieted. In that reassuring litany earlier in their trip, Bill had spoken of Sea Wraiths and someone else had named them. Another spoke of Storm Children, those people who had been swept up in thunderheads and lived in the winds, possessed in spirit by the storms.

  No one had mustered the courage to mention “Targhouls.”

  An old man turned to Ed, his face slack with horror. “They . . . they burned the last Targhoul up here years ago! Back in the forties!”

  Ed inhaled and tilted his head back. That echoing voice croaked from him. “The black blood of the earth passed through a sinful soul. All things impure and dead were made one. Came forth to foul the land.”

  “What do you know about this?” Potato Lady asked.

  Ed swallowed. Blinked and seemed to find himself. “I need . . . to go to the back of the bus.”

  Hands pushed Ed’s shoulders down and held him. Voices demanded he tell more.

  Another pair of hands slapped at the windshield. A stick swung against the glass on the door. White specks appeared in the tempered glass.

  In the darkness beyond the windshield, the road ahead started to glow where the road curved.

  Bill saw a chance to get out and get the people off Ed. “Hey! Headlights! Here’s a truck! Start waving everybody!”

  The headlights appeared around the bend and grew closer. The driver’s side headlight winked. Something blocked the beam.

  Those beside the windows, the Potato Lady and the kid, Olive Coat, all waved at the windows.

  Ed pushed out of the seat and staggered up the aisle. Bill grabbed Ed’s lapel and pulled him along.

  “Maybe the truck’ll run ’em down!” Plaid Coat said. “Run ’em down! Run ’em over!”

  A woman cried, “Our driver’s out there! That other man too!”

  The truck engine roared over the passengers’ cries. Both headlights blinked and swung across the road, back and forth. Bill thought of some primeval beast struggling in the dark.

  The rig flashed past the bus headlights. It was a glimpse, but it was enough.

  A spindly black figure climbed over the rig windshield. Another hung and reached inside the glittering, shattered glass of the driver’s door.

  The rig swerved toward the bus.

  Bill inhaled a long, croaking gasp. People screamed. Flung themselves across the aisle away from the truck. The bus jolted sideways. The old lady gave a hoarse, ugly scream. Olive Coat and the Potato Lady fell backward onto the boy.

  The rig passed the back of the bus where there was no window. The red lights of the trailers tipped up into the sky as it flew over the embankment, then dove like a rollercoaster. The metal undercarriages broke from the trailer and the aluminum sides split along the seams.

  With a final, flat-noted clang, it tipped and went over.

  Hands clawed at the window. Gaping, drooling faces rose over those hands. A cold gust blew up the aisle. People screamed and scrambled to the front. Some fool had opened the bus door to get out.

  Outside in the bus headlights, Dingy stood staring into the dark, free and clear. Then a figure in blue seized the dingy coat collar from behind and slammed him down onto his back. The bus driver fell and punched Dingy’s flailing arms. Oil vomited out of the driver’s mouth onto Dingy’s horrified face.

  The other passengers screamed and spilled out of the bus. In the back of the bus, Ed sat, hands on the seat arms, still as a stone pharaoh. “I am a vessel. Of fire.”

  Then he bent over. Retched into his lap, but nothing came out. Dry-heaved again.

  “Please,” Ed groaned. “I have to get out.”

  A man shoved Ed back into the seat. He pulled his hands back. “You’re hot! Why are you so hot?”

  Bill remembered the heat. It reminded him of documentaries at the movie houses. Movies about the spirits of fire, the Salamanders, burning down Los Angeles.

  “Back off the guy,” Bill said. “Give him room.”

  The man fumbled at a tiny gold crucifix necklace. “Why are you so hot?”

  Ed wailed. “Please! You aren’t safe! You need to get away from me!”

  “Back off him!” Bill shouted. “Get out of the bus while you can!”

  Potato Lady turned and scrambled to the stairs with the boy. The boy looked back, his fear-crazed eyes widening with awe.

  Boys study war machines and monsters and big dangerous things. Bill wondered if the boy knew what Ed was too. They stumbled down the stairs into the dark.

  People still cowered and hid in their seats. Through the windows, screams pierced the too-heavy darkness.

  Bill’s heart chilled so bad it fell into his stomach and he thought he would vomit from fear. The strength drained from his legs.

  All those other folks are outside. Let them draw off those monsters. The cops will be here soon. I’m covering my ass and keeping down.

  Something creaked behind him.

  Ed had risen from his seat, pulled up the sleeve of his overcoat. Pulled back the sleeve of his white shirt. Even in the bus light, pockmarks speckled his arm. He strode to the door.

  Under the flat, tiny lights in the bus, his skin waved filaments of steam.

  The remaining passengers pulled themselves out of the aisle. Ed passed, his face set with grim purpose, and walked to the front of the bus.

  The tall man turned. Stepped down the stairs slow and hard.

  “Ed!” Bill shouted. “What are you doing? Stay down, dammit!”

  I have to help him! Dumbass junkie’s going to get himself killed! Bill’s muscles refused to move. He started arguing with himself: Die here from those things? That lady and her boy are outside! Those other people! Let those people be hurt? I can’t. I got to be worth something.

  Bill grabbed his bag. He ran down the aisle to the stairs.

  “Close that door behind me, dammit!”

  Just as he stepped onto gravel, the door snapped shut. On the shoulder, he searched for movement, any movement. The remaining bus headlight stared in shock at the road.

  How many of those things are out here?

  Another long cry up the road. Bill’s heart fell into his bowels.

  The others on that rig. Oh yeah, the others.

  “Help?” he whispered. “Anyone . . . need help?”

  The back of the bus was just a leap away from the rocks holding up the mountain side. The drop-off here shone with edges of granite. One step over, and he’d fall into the dark ravine below. He turned.

  Olive Coat’s mouth hung open in a feral, viscid rage. Oil drooled from his nose and mouth. Black trickled from the rims of his reddened eyes. Bill screamed. His foot skidded and gravel rattled back and over the cliff.

  The Targhoul hissed.

  Bill dodged to the left, trying to get under the bus. The Targhoul’s weight landed on Bill’s side. Bill’s kidney took the blow. Gravel got under his sweatshirt and stabbed his skin. The pain made him curl and cry out.

  The Targhoul pulled at Bill’s leg. When Bill’s head was out from under the bus, it fell on him. Cold slime slapped Bill’s cheek. The slime wriggled. A wail of terror tore Bill’s throat. Pushed at his clamped lips. Bill screamed at his uselessness.

  Just kill me and get it over with.

  The Targhoul’s fingers spasmed against Bill’s neck. Bill opened his eyes. Standing behind the Targhoul, Ed had laid his hand upon the Targhoul’s head. Ed’s lips slipped and hummed words Bill couldn’t hear. Flame cracked from the Targhoul’s chest like a burning log. The tar on its shoulders bubbled and hissed.

  A voice like a brass horn pushed through Ed’s lips. “As flesh is burned by flame, so let the wicked perish from the Light.”

  Bill had seen tar burn once before at a roof fire in Mississippi. That fire had been orange and choked in smoke. This fire from the Targhoul lit gold like blinding sunlight. Ed shoved the Targhoul aside. It tumbled to smoke beside Bill. Bill sat up and scrambled backward on his hands and feet. The tar fell from his face like a palsied hand.

  Hisse
s challenged from the darkness.

  Ed strode along the bus. Another Targhoul sprang upon him. This one stood as tall as Ed. Its fish-white, naked legs striped with black.

  Ed seized the thing’s head in his hands and sang about the Holy Light, the life-giving light that numbered our days and from whom all new things grew. Its eyes squirted steam. The Targhoul’s chest crisped and collapsed into a bonfire.

  So it went, the power within Ed frenzied, springing from one reanimated abomination to another, leaving sparking torches. Bill followed with tiny, childlike steps.

  The Potato Lady’s voice called in the dark: “Joe? Where are you? Joe?”

  A piercing scream sliced the dark. Too high to be from an adult throat.

  Bill pointed to their right, where the voice came from. “That boy needs help! Come on!”

  The lady appeared in the headlight, eyes wet, mouth open with despair. In the dark, another gold flare burst from Ed’s holy ignition behind her.

  Plaid pushed Bill away. “To hell with that kid! Get me out of here!”

  A man scurried toward the bus door. Started pulling at the iron pole. With a seeming superhuman tug, the pole pulled free and the man sprawled in the gravel.

  Bill called, “Where is he?”

  The woman cried. “Off the cliff over here! He’s hanging!”

  Her eyes looked behind Bill. He turned to see. The bus shimmered in firelight like a city awaiting an inferno.

  Ed stood before the trembling man in the plaid coat. Ed’s dark head rolled back. “Who is righteous before the flame? There is none.”

  He laid his hand on Plaid Coat’s head. “For the reward of all is fire; it shall burn the ungodly, dead and living.”

  The plaid-coated man’s awe widened into a silent howl. The plaid-coated man screeched and slapped at his smoking skin. Ran toward the rear bus wheels. He scrabbled in the dirt, trying to hide beneath the bus.

  Bill cried, “Wait-wait-wait! No-no-no! Ed!”

  Ed turned his head to Bill, his eyes flat with contempt. Bill realized why Ed needed the heroin. Bill tore off his coat. Pulled the Maker’s Mark out. “Ed! Brother!” The dark brown liquid gleamed in the headlight and flames.

  Ed’s fingers curled into claws. He rose, shoulders up like a cat arching its back in fright. Ed the Salamander staggered toward the outstretched bottle. The closer he got, the more the contempt gave way to a grimace of despair.