"I guess I got no choice," he muttered and got back in the car. Cursing silently, he put the car in reverse and turned in the seat, one hand behind the passenger seat, to back the car out of the woods.
Jesus!" He slammed on the brakes and gaped at the wall of green blocking his car to the rear. It was the same as the one in front of the car and had not been there a second ago!
"This is fucking weird," he uttered and quickly got out of the car again. He stood awed by the two walls of thick plant and tree growth that stretched for a good fifty to sixty feet overhead. They ran, on both sides, into the woods in both directions, creating a highway-wide corridor between them. Joe looked around, a half smile on his face, expecting to see the TV cameras of some kind of reality show, like Punked, but as far as he could tell, he was alone in the woods. It was amazing and confounding and, obvious by the racket in the bushes, it seemed he was not the only one agitated by it. The sounds caught his attention and he turned, curious what was causing the noise. Immediately, he flattened his body against the side of the car. He gasped, staring wildly, fearfully at the bushes.
"I didn't just see that," he said, closing his eyes for a moment. Most people can admit to having a worst fear, but Joe Kennison, if anyone could ever get him to admit it, had three and they were his secret shame, each one more embarrassing than the previous. The first he had recognized at age five while watching The Wizard of Oz. But, unlike most children who saw Oz, Joe did not come away afraid of haunted trees, flying monkeys, or green-skinned witches. Joe came away with a deadly fear of something in the movie most people found adorable-munchkins-which soon spread to a fear of all dwarves, midgets, and anyone under five feet tall.
Like the tiny face that had peered out of the bushes at him just now. The leaves moved again and he caught a glimpse of a tiny, meaty hand wearing brass knuckles.
"What the fuck are you lookin' at, asshole?"
The voice was squeaky and high-pitched and belonged to the owner of the brass knuckles, who now stepped out of the bushes onto the road less than a foot from Joe. Though he was the size of an Ozian munchkin, that's as far as the similarity went. Instead of the quaint suits the little people wore in the movie, the munchkin in front of Joe was dressed all in black leather, like a biker, from his leather vest (bare chest beneath) to his leather chaps and boots.
Joe Kennison felt doubly sick and afraid. The sight before him embodied his first two greatest fears in life. For reasons he could not explain, Joe Kennison had always been afraid of the Hell's Angels. Now a midget Hell's Angel was threatening him, and his insides quaked. What anyone else might have found comical Joe found terrifying and disturbing.
"You think you're a big man?" the dwarf biker asked him, rubbing his left palm over the brass knuckles on his right hand.
"You gotta be kiddin' me,"Joe gasped, shock making it hard to breathe.
"You think I'm funny?" the midget roared, his voice taking on a Joe Pesci quality a la Good Fellas, Joe's favorite movie. "You think I'm some kind of fuckin' joke? You think I'm here to entertain you? I'll show you somethin' funny."
The midget biker suddenly rushed at Joe and punched him square in the balls with his brassed fist. Joe's world blurred, then grayed as he curled to the ground in a fetal position, his hands cupped over his injured testicles. With a savage yell that reminded the pain-dazed Joe of childhood games of cowboys and Indians, a mob of leather-clad midget Hell's Angels swarmed out of the bushes and over him, beating him with chains and blackjacks and kicking him with their tiny leather and steel-toed boots.
Trying not to pass out from the pain in his jewels, Joe squirmed and tried to protect himself from the rain of blows while trying to get his gun out of his shoulder holster at the same time.
Ginny reached the bottom of the crematorium stairs and pushed the door open. The first thing to catch her eye was the large table directly ahead, upon which lay Aunt Chalice's boyfriend. The other thing that quickly got her attention was the wall of bars at one end of the room, turning a good third of the room into a large jail.
A jail the witch uses to keep children in, so's she can fatten 'em up for supper!
That sudden tidbit of information made Ginny shudder. She entered the room and went over to the table. She could immediately tell that Jackie wasn't going to be able to help her. She doubted she could even wake him. He was hurt badly; the back of his head was matted with fresh blood that was running down his neck. She looked around. Aunt Chalice was not down there.
I should have known better. Now what do I do ? she wondered. The decision was made for her in the sound of the witch-boy's approach from upstairs, returning with what sounded like another body being dragged behind him.
"Hide!" Ginny whispered and looked around desperately.
Steve Nailer dragged his brother's unconscious girlfriend down the crematorium stairs, chuckling at each thump of her body on the steps.
Almost there! Almost ready! So easy, see? Everything is going to be fine. No laughter anywhere, certainly not in her head. Certainly not from the Great Beyond. What a joke! There is only life and it is hers for the taking forever and ever.
Everything is going to be just fine now.
Steve pushed the door at the bottom of the stairs open and dragged Chalice into the room and over to the cage. He left her slumped against the bars while he retrieved the large key ring from the far wall. He unlocked the cage door with one of the keys and dragged Chalice inside. He closed the cage door, leaving the keys in the lock, and went to the embalming table. He stood over his unconscious brother, frowning. He poked the end of his sibling's nose.
"Hey! Wake up!" he said, poking again. Jackie didn't respond.
This is not good. She probes, trying to pull her nemesis back to consciousness, but there's nothing there! It is as if he is dead, though she knows he is not.
"I need you awake!" Steve Nailer hissed in Jackie's face, leaning over him until their noses nearly touched. "It won't be any fun to just kill you. I want you to be able to enjoy it, too." Steve spun around, facing the cage, a look of inspiration on his face. His eyes fell on Chalice Silver.
"Maybe I can coax you awake with a little love," Steve said over his shoulder to the unconscious Jackie.
The combination of coherent thought and character traits that made up the personality and mind of the real Steve Nailer rode a dream wave to its peak and from its summit he could see the world-the real world-through the window eyes of his body, not too far away.
He was close, getting closer.
One, two, three more attacks-he could feel it. The witch wouldn't be able to take it. If he could dislodge her grip on his body, why couldn't he banish her to the depths of his subconscious as she had done to him?
Easier thought than done. He hadn't stayed buried, why should she? He came back ... he knew she would, too.
So what was he really going back to?
Revenge! came the answer. And after that ... he didn't care. As long as he could make the witch pay for what she made him do with, and to, his mother and everyone else. He pushed those memories away, refusing to let them hinder his purpose. It was almost time.
Time to ride a wave right back into the witch's face and hit her with everything he could muster.
Steve Nailer opened the cage door and dragged the groggy Chalice from within and over to the armchair with the straps on it, next to the embalming table. With a great deal of effort he picked her up and dropped her into the chair in a slumped, sitting position.
"Whew! You need to go on a diet, dearie," Steve said, out of breath. He looked at Jackie and back at Chalice. In a clear, high voice he sang:
"Good morning to you! Good morning to you! We're all in our places, with bright, shiny faces. Good morning to you!" He started to unbutton Chalice's blouse but only got the first two undone. Jerking as though shocked by a dose of electricity, he straightened, his upper body jiggling, and staggered sideways into the cage door hinges. He grabbed the bars of the door frame with both hands
, clinging to them as though fearful that letting go meant falling from a great height even though his feet were still on the floor.
GET OUT OF MY HEAD! LET MY BODY GO!
The pain is worse than before. It cuts deeper and attacks her grip on her host's body with renewed force, prying her mind tethers loose.
No!
She fights back with everything she can, but the boy is so much stronger than before-nearly as strong as she....
GET OUT!
Steve Nailer slid to his knees and let go of the cage door. He slumped against it and closed his eyes, his mouth open, breathing heavily.
Scrunched up and lying in the bottom of a long cabinet along the wall to the right of the table where Jackie lay, Ginny shuddered at the pain she suddenly felt from the witch boy But she was also encouraged. The witchboy was weak, hurt. In the aftermath of the boy's attack, the witch's mind was fully open to her again without the witch sensing her. The witch was dazed and feeling pain. She was really hurt. She was vulnerable.
For one of the rare moments in her long existence, the witch was scared.
Ginny sensed it all and something else-that escaping the witch safely with Aunt Chalice was going to be impossible. There was only one way to get away from the witch, she realized.
Only one chance.
In the darkness of her hiding place, Ginny focused her mind.
She is staggered by the attack but not thrown. Like a weary bronco rider she hangs on praying for the eight-second buzzer to end the ride. She holds on; she endures, and the storm of the boy's attack eventually weakens, falters.
Where am I?
Slowly reason and memory return. That was close. Another attack like that-the boy is getting stronger each time.... She's uncertain she will be able to push him under again and keep him there until Halloween. Its all getting so hard. It was never this hard before.
How long do I have before his next attack? She can't remember when the last one was; can't think straight. No time anyway. Hope for the best and get on with the task at hand.
And trust in the Machine.
Now, if only she could get up....
Joe Kennison almost had his pistol out of its holster. He grunted, enduring a sharp kick between his shoulder blades, and rolled with the blow so as to pull the pistol completely free. He clicked the safety off with his thumb and brought the gun out in one fluid motion that included uncurling his body and kicking the biker midget closest to his feet square in the chops, sending him spinning into the bushes.
Joe shot randomly at his attackers. The first bullet was too high, but the second caught the dwarf Hell's Angel who had first assaulted him. It burrowed into the naked bit of chest visible between the flaps of the midget's leather vest. The diminutive motorcycle outlaw was literally blown away by the shot, leaving nothing but smoke behind. Joe kept on firing and didn't notice. The remaining biker munchkins scattered and the rest of his shots were wild.
Grunting in pain, Joe clambered to his feet and spun this way and that, looking for one of them to shoot. They had all disappeared, but he could hear them hiding in the bushes nearby, waiting for a chance to jump out and grab his gun or knock it away so they could get him again. He looked around for escape. The only way open was across the short path of road left exposed between the two walls of vegetation and into the woods on the other side, which were less dense and appeared munchkin-free, for the time being anyway. Whispers in the bushes spurred him into action. Hobbling against the pain in his groin, he leaned against the car as he went around it, then used it to push off into the forest.
He was immediately submerged in shadow, but the footing wasn't bad and he soon found the remnants of a path. Whether animal or human made he didn't know, but it was wide enough and clear enough to see and follow as it ran to the left, seemingly following the road toward the Grimm house. He walked it and soon realized that the wall of vegetation that had blocked his progress and retreat on the road did not extend as far into the woods as it had appeared to from the road.
This is too weird, he thought, panting from fear and panic as much as exertion. He didn't know what the hell was going on, but it was not lost on him that he had just been attacked by two of his three worst fears-Hell's Angels and munchkins rolled into one: a munchkin biker gang. He couldn't help but feel the whole episode had been a hallucination. Could someone have slipped him a drug? The more he thought about it the more he was certain that had to be it. Of course, he didn't feel any different except for having such vivid hallucinationsso maybe it wasn't a drug. If it wasn't that, he might have something more serious to worry about-massive brain tumor flashed through his mind. He tried not to think about that and focused on the idea that if he knew he was hallucinating, then the hallucinations couldn't hurt him. He hoped.
He was glad for one thing. His third fear-the deepest, darkest, and most embarrassing-had not surfaced with the other two. His sense of relief grew, and he pushed on with renewed energy. All thoughts of playing TV detective were gone; he just wanted to get out of there and call the state police to take him to the hospital so he could find out what was really wrong with him.
One moment he was anticipating reaching the Grimm house and aid, the next he was thrown forward, over a log, his head exploding with pain. From the bushes, a half dozen biker dwarves leaped onto him, pinning him down. One of the gang, taller than the rest, stepped up. Joe recognized him vaguely at first and soon did a double take in horrified recognition.
The pint-sized Hell's Angel standing before him, unbuckling his pants, was an abridged version of an actor from a scene in a movie that Joe Kennison hated more than any other: Deliverance. The actor was the one playing the first hillbilly in the woods. The scene was one Joe took special offense at, the scene that the midget biker seemed determined to reenact then and there, much to Joe's terror and disgust.
"Can you squeal like a pig?" the midget leered, showing a toothless mouth, and dropped his leather pants.
Ginny concentrated harder than she ever had, calling upon all the power she could, as when she'd forced the angelic girl to kill herself. Like a tsunami rushing in, the power flooded over her. She embraced the wave of power ... and swam with it.
Jackie Nailer lay deeply immersed in a thick fog and he liked it there. He knew the witch had hurt him and wanted to hurt him some more. This was the perfect hiding place. Here she couldn't find him. Here the witch couldn't hurt him. A shadow of doubt passed through the fog. He knew that wasn't true; the witch could still hurt him the same way she had hurt him a little while ago. She could hurt-probably kill-his body even though he might not feel the pain. If he lived, he'd feel it sooner or later; he knew that only too well from last time. If he didn't ... didn't matter.
And that was the crux of it: Was he ready to die? Because the witch was ready to kill him unless he did something.
But what?
A searing white light blasted away the fog, revealing him cowering and afraid. Was it the witch? He could not feel her evil presence....
He opened his eyes. The floating foggy place was gone. He blinked. He knew this place. He was in Chalice's niece's bedroom. On the bed sat the owner of the room, Ginny. On an unsteady wooden stool by the window, sat his brother, Steve. Jackie was sitting on a dented, four-foot bamboo clothes hamper.
"I brought you here because it's the safest place that I could think up in enough detail to make it strong against the witch. She doesn't know we're here, she's busy tormenting some poor policeman, but I don't think I can keep her out for long," Ginny said, looking at Steve and Jackie.
Steve suddenly burst into tears and blurted out: `Jackie! I'm sorry! I didn't know what I was doing! I didn't mean to-"
"I'm sorry, too," Ginny said quickly, cutting Steve off with sympathy on her face but a tone of authority in her voice that contradicted her age. "But we don't have time for that. The witch is hurt. You hurt her." She pointed at Steve, who was wiping away tears with both hands. "She's still too strong for any one of us, but togeth
er we can get her!"
"And do what?"Jackie asked, rising from the hamper. He felt springy and light, like the time he had tried a trampoline. "How do we get the witch out of my brother?"
Steve answered him. "You can never get her out, unless she transfers into someone else, which she's planning to do with Jen's baby, or. . ." He suddenly looked at Ginny. "There's only one way to get rid of her, really."
Ginny shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not."
"If you can weaken her enough that I can regain control of my body, just for a little while, I know what I have to do," Steve said softly.
Jackie looked at his brother and was afraid to ask what he meant.
Joe Kennison wanted to die. The pain in his ass was awful but not nearly as bad as the pain of humiliation he felt at being gang-raped by a faggot munchkin motorcycle gang. Suddenly, he spied his deliverance a few inches from his hand, right out in the open. His gun. He grabbed it but never once thought of turning it on his attackers. They were hallucinations anyway, right? Whether they were real or not didn't matter much to Joe anymore, the damage was done.
"Time to go," he said, looking into the barrel of the pistol, watching for the bullet as he pulled the trigger.
The death of the policeman washes over her. His pain brings renewed strength-it is just what she needs-but more problems, too. The web keeps growing and she can't keep up.
She realizes something is wrong. There is another presence in the house-a mind possessing ... power!
It is the little one she sent Angel after. She probes the house for her angelic faced accomplice and the image comes of the teen lying in a puddle of blood in the pantry doorway, the butcher knife she so loved stuck in her own throat so far the tip points out the back of her neck.
That little girl did this?
Where is she? Where is she?
Slowly, Steve Nailer regained his feet. He stood, hunched over, at the foot of the embalming table, and turned around, and around again, sniffing the air.
Grimm Reapings Page 31