by Phil Tucker
The sound of the demon's inhalation filled my ears, and suddenly it felt as if something was being sucked out of me, through the wounds over my heart. As if the binds that held my soul in my body had been shucked and my essence was being ripped free, roots and all. It was an agony that just as quickly began to grow numb, such that I stopped fighting, lay still, straining and gasping like a beached fish. Darkness began to cloud my vision as I felt some deep and essential part of me being torn free. It felt as if it was tearing out my heart, and I was falling into a bottomless hole.
An explosion of gunfire and the demon was knocked off of me, bullets blasting into its head. With a great sucking inhalation my eyes flared open as everything came roaring back into me, my sense of self, my being, and—something more. Something red and pulsing and alien flooded into me along with everything else, something stolen from the demon through the very channel it had opened.
Pain. A blanket of burning roses with inch-long thorns wrapped itself across my chest, and for an agonizing second of pure white fire I wanted to die. I lay there, shuddering, and then with a force of will I made myself sit up, blinking tears from my eyes. A part of my brain was screaming at me, trying to tear through the shock and pain, screaming: your gun! - get your damned gun!
The shotgun lay just a yard away from me. I crawled over to it and registered that Josh was yelling, firing shots. My head was ringing, each breath bringing fresh pain, but I picked up the shotgun and turned around.
Josh was backing toward the church door, trying to slam a new clip into his Desert Eagle, the beam of his flashlight swinging wildly, dancing over the floor, walls, ceiling. I raised my shotgun, lit up the demon as it rushed towards Josh, broad, skeletal hands outstretched, and fired right at its head.
Nothing but a click, and a sudden fury cleared my mind. Immediately I began feeding new shells in, but in those critical seconds the demon closed the distance.
Maybe if Josh hadn't wounded his leg he would have been able to get away, throw himself into a roll, something. Instead the demon swept its left claw around in a scything arc and tore a deep gash across Josh's throat. He let out a gurgling croak and clasped his hands to his neck, eyes wide with shock. The demon lowered itself so as to duck into the fountain of blood spewing from between Josh's fingers, and then punched Josh straight in the chest, cracking his sternum and sending him flying through the air to crash to the ground a few yards shy of the door.
I fired the shotgun from my hip, striding forward through the debris. The first blast caught the demon in the side, stove in its ribs. It turned on me, lips peeled back, shredded face gleaming blackly with Josh's blood. I pumped, fired a second shell. Its left shoulder exploded into dry splinters. The third shell took it out at the knee, causing it to fall. Somehow it avoided my fourth shot, rolling and coming at me with unnatural grace, crossing the distance between us so quickly that only instinct had me pull the trigger when it surged up, wings extended to curl around us both and draw me down into the dark.
The shotgun bucked violently at my hip and then it was on me. Leather and bones and long sinewy arms, a musky stench like rotted herbs and copper. I fell down before it, thrashing with arms and legs, the demon on top of me, dust and blood filling my mouth, expecting at any moment to have my throat torn out.
But it didn't strike. Instead it slid brokenly off, toppled to one side. I scooted out with my heels, yelling and hawking up gobs of dust, saliva and blood onto the floor, mouth scalded and raw.
The demon lay still, a heavy mass of dry canvas around an angular body of shadows. I stopped, frozen, and then pulled the machete from my hip, forced myself to my feet. With sudden maniacal energy I threw myself on it and began to hack as hard as I could.
My furious, terrified screams rang out in counterpoint to the swing of the blade. It's body was as hard as knotted tree roots. I yanked the blade free and brought it down with both hands even as it shivered and began to move beneath me. I was filled with a fury so bright and vicious that it overwhelmed the terror consuming me, and I hacked over and over even as the demon began to rise.
“Hurt you,” it whispered through its ruined maw.
“No!” I screamed, but then stumbled as the wing beneath my feet jerked out from under me. “Die, you piece of shit!” I hacked down again, the blade caught on bone, stuck. With both hands I wrested it free.
“Kill you,” rasped the demon, and I tore free the machete. With all my strength I swung that blade around and up from the hip like the world's greatest slugger and drove the edge as deep into its throat as I could force it. There was a crack like a branch snapping, and then it slumped. I jerked the machete free and brought it down again and again, my arms burning and then growing numb, until I missed a blow and nearly fell over. The demon slouched, collapsed.
Dropping the machete, I stumbled over to my shotgun. I picked it up and trained the light on the monster where it lay shivering in a broken pile, its bony back slashed open with deep lacerations that did not bleed. Its smooth skull was broken, shattered from behind, shredded in the front by the shotgun blast. But still it shivered, and even as I watched I saw the beef jerky flesh begin to close slowly over the exposed bones and wounds on its back.
Slowly now, almost mesmerized, I pumped a shotgun shell into the chamber and aimed the muzzle at the demon's head. Placing the stock snugly against my aching shoulder, I fired. The roar was deafening, and its head exploded into shards of bone and dust. There was no brain, just a void within the obscenely thick skull. Reeling, I trained the light on it once more, and saw that it finally lay still.
“Josh,” I whispered, and turned to search for him. His flashlight gave off a thick, syrupy red glow where it lay, drenched in blood and still clenched in one of his hands. “Josh!” I screamed, voice nearly ruined, and stumbled towards the church entrance. He lay still, on his back, eyes open and unblinking.
“C'mon buddy,” I whispered as I collapsed next to him. I pressed my fingers into his neck, staring with disbelief at his face. Nothing. He was still warm to the touch, but there was nothing there. Not a flutter, not a beat—he was gone.
I drew my hand back. Josh. He'd found me two years ago, drunk and raving outside a bar in Austin, ready to pack it in, kill myself in order to stop the nightmare into which I had descended. He'd dragged me back to his motel room, tried to talk sense into me, even shown me the spiral carved into the flesh above his heart that mirrored my own, and then finally knocked me out when I'd tried to leap from his window.
I looked down at his still face, reached out to close his eyes, my fingers dragging bloody smears across his brow. He'd shown me I wasn't mad. That I wasn't alone. He'd pulled me back from the brink and taught me that the demons could be killed, had shown me how to laugh while feeling terror, how to fire a shotgun, how to track our prey, and just about everything I knew about fine whiskey. And now he was dead.
Chapter 3
Have to burn it, I thought, shaking off my stupor. I looked about the church, head feeling empty, and then over at the demon. I thought about shooting it again. Without a head it should lie still for an hour or so. But it would grow back. I have to burn it, I thought again, and stood up and staggered out the door.
The night air was cool, delicious, and helped clear my head. For a moment I simply stood beneath the stars, inhaling deep ragged breaths of air, as if the darkness within the church had been inky water and I'd been submerged the whole time I'd been in there. My stomach was roiling and bubbling—I must have swallowed some of that crap that had gotten in my mouth. My chest ached and throbbed as if filled with broken teeth, burned where the demon had sliced me and I was slick with sweat and suddenly freezing in the chill air. Silence again, terrible silence after the screams and clotted curses and shotgun blasts. Josh, I thought, and What did that thing do to me in there? But I forced myself to stop. I'd seen demon victims before, sucked dry and shriveled like dried fruits with those gashes cut crossways over their hearts. I couldn't lose it. Not now.
I stumbled numbly down the steps and began to walk towards where we'd parked my truck, picking up speed till I fell into a shambling run, my flashlight swinging and leaping over the street and building fronts.
A scream broke the night, silenced my gasps. The girl was awake. I turned as if slapped toward the demon's original lair, where the white light of the camp lantern radiated out from the breached wall. A second scream, but this one was suddenly cut off as if smothered by a violent act of self-control.
“Hey,” I yelled from the street, “It's okay, it's dead!”
There was no response from the room above. She had to be terrified out of her mind I thought, and took a half step towards the house, but then stopped. I had to burn the demon first. She'd have to wait. I ran on down the street till I reached the truck, opened up the back and hauled out the bright red gasoline canister. Suddenly my vision blurred and I dropped it and nearly collapsed. My heart was thudding painfully, and a rushing roaring sound filled my ears.
“Oh God,” I said, “Oh God.” A fire was burning in me, in my chest, like something had set my heart aflame. For the first time I felt a malevolent presence within me, something new, unwelcome, smoldering and vile. What did that thing do to me?
Opening the car door, I picked up the bottle of whiskey that lay in the seat and pulled the cap off with shaking fingers. I needed to wash my mouth out, burn away the filth that had gotten into me, needed it so bad I couldn't think. The top fell from my fingers and I up-ended the bottle, I swigged down a large gulp, and then a second, and then I coughed violently, my eyes teared up and I gagged, bending over and hacking.
I forced myself to stand, took another long pull, closed my eyes and raked my fingers through my hair, over and over again. What happened in there? Was I poisoned? The burning in my mouth felt like gasoline, my throat was on fire, my stomach curdled. Calm down, I heard Josh's voice say, get a grip. You've still got a job to do.
A figure appeared in the second story breach in the wall, the ghostly white light silhouetting her head.
“Hey,” I yelled, “Don't worry, it's dead. You're going to be fine.” Then I thought of the spiral carved into her flesh, and shut my mouth.
She jerked back at the sound of my voice, and then slowly appeared again. “Who are you?”
I felt nauseated. Grimly I lowered my chin, focused on the street. “Hold on,” I called out hoarsely. “You're safe now. Just some cleaning up to do.”
“Wait,” she said, and I could hear panic threatening to break her voice, “Where are you going? Don't go—I'm coming down, wait—“
I didn't stop walking. A few moments later I heard the sound of running footsteps, and raised my light to where the girl was approaching. Her sundress, even scuffed with dirt and blood, was luminous in my light. She slowed to a stop, and approached tentatively, trying to look past the light and see my face.
“Who-who are you? Where is it? Is—“
“I'm Jason,” I said, and turned the light to illuminate my own face. “I've got to, I mean we've—“
“What happened to you?” she asked, shocked.
“It's not my blood,” I said slowly, and began walking again. “Well, maybe some of it is. My friend's in there. But he's not coming out. We need to burn the church down.”
She stood still for a moment and then fell in with me, arms crossed over her chest, looking anxiously about in the darkness. “Is it—what happened? Where are we?” A memory surfaced in her mind, and she paused, raising her hands to her mouth, “Holy shit,” she said, looking straight ahead at nothing, “Holy shit-“
I stopped, swaying. The adrenaline was seeping out of me, leaving me dizzy with booze, unsteady on my feet. I wanted to lie down. “Come on. Easy now. Everything will make sense in the morning. Right now we just need to burn it. It's not safe yet.”
She focused on me, reached up to curl her hair back behind her ears. She touched the blood on her face, then lowered her hand to look at her fingertips. “I'm bleeding.”
“Yup,” I said, and began walking again. “It was cutting you when we came in.”
“When you came in—who are you? What was that—that thing?” Hysteria was beginning to mount in her voice. She looked about wildly, at the abandoned buildings, the vast desolation of the desert and then back at the blood on her fingers. “Please, can we just go, can we just leave?”
“No.” The church was close. How long had it been? Enough time for it to have healed already? A cold, greasy panic took hold of me, rose up through my nausea. “Look, it's nearly dead, I just have to finish it off. Then we can go.”
I mounted the steps, paused to load my shotgun. The mechanical sounds seemed to spell her into silence, and she stood at the base of the steps, watching with one hand over her mouth, looking about but always returning her gaze to me. I turned towards the door, and walked in.
It had risen to all fours and was blindly crawling towards the center of the church, hissing through the ruined hole where its lower jaw had been. Its tattered wings trailed behind it like ruined sails, and it looked like it was about to keel over and die at any moment. I paused. It wasn't going to keel over, I knew.
Setting the gun on a pew so that its light played over the hunched and boney thing, I approached with the gas canister and unscrewed its black plastic top. The demon didn't pause in its fumblings. I stepped right up to it, feeling too sick and numb to be afraid now, and began to pour the gasoline over its rickety body. It paused, and raised the remnants of its head as if in inquiry. The liquid sloshed over its body, ran down in thick ripples along the deep gashes of its ribs, in liquid sleeves down its arms. The air was suddenly thick with fumes, and when the whole canister was nearly empty I began to walk away, pouring what remained in a trail towards the door.
The demon began to turn towards me, rasping its knees and talons on the floorboards. I paused, tossed the canister aside, and then hitched my hands under Josh's arms and dragged him out of the church. My head spun, but I pulled him out onto the porch. I heard the girl say something behind me, but I didn't respond. I went back inside, picked up my shotgun, and drew a box of matches.
“Get back now,” I said, my tongue thick, “I'm gonna burn it all up.”
She had somehow summoned the nerve to step up to the doorway and was staring, riveted, at the blind, stupid thing that was now crawling from out of the darkness towards us. Even through the nausea and numbness I felt surprise that she hadn't screamed and gone running, but still I backed into her, pushing her away with my body as I raised the book of matches and plucked one free. “Gonna burn,” I repeated, lit the match, and let it drop.
The gasoline caught fire with a blue flame that raced along the trail. And then with a WHOOMPH the demon lit up, the darkness suddenly scalded back by the light of the fire. Shadows and orange light whorled and danced over the walls, the rafters, the broken pews. With the hiss of a broken gas main the demon reared up on its knees, and clawed futilely at the air. The fire licked over its body, wreathed it in blues and oranges, causing its wings to curl and cinder, its hide to peel back from its bones. Its stench filled the air, mixed with the oily black smoke that was coming off it.
“Get back,” I said, shoving my shotgun into her hands before reaching down to take hold of Josh once more and pull him down the steps. His boots clacked on each step, and then we gained the earth and I lowered him to the ground.
Slowly, painfully, I rose to my feet. The girl was straightening, hand to her mouth. We turned together. The church was burning, the dry wood lighting up like primed tinder. The crisp air filled quickly with the smell of wood smoke. The darkness about us seemed denser, almost tangible about the burning pyre, and we stood mute before the flames, watching with hollow eyes.
Soon the entire building was alight, the flame tips dancing and leaping high into the air. I watched the doorway, trying to peer inside to see the demon. Unable to make it out, I began to walk around the church, checking the windows, making sure it hadn't somehow escaped.
There was no sign of it. We waited and watched until the church roof collapsed inwards with a guttural roar and a shower of sparks spiraled up into the night, dimming the stars with their own molten brilliance. I stood still, trying not to sway, light-headed, drunk, and exhausted. One of the walls collapsed inwards, and then a second. The flames began to die down, and still there was no sign of the demon within.
“It's dead,” I said, and felt a weight lift from my shoulders.
The girl stood still next to me, still watching the blaze. “How did you… how did you know?” she asked, voice low, muted.
“We saw it in Reno.” I slowly sank to my haunches. “We saw it take you, and followed it out here.”
“I… I don't remember what happened,” she said, crouching down next to me, face lit by the flames, skin golden but shivering now as the heat of the church fire receded. “I was going to meet up with my friends, and I cut across the street in front of Circus Circus, and then…” she trailed off, and shook her head.
“It clouded your mind, probably,” I said. Everything felt surreal, two dimensional. As if I could reach out and puncture the surface of things, to reveal the void beneath. “They can do that to the unawakened. Make them see things, or see nothing at all.” I turned to look at her face. The dying firelight still lit up her features, made her eyes seem large, dark, liquid. “You're lucky Josh was there to see it.”