Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Okay, yeah.” Nate nodded along. “Yeah, I heard about that.” He guffawed, low. “How much would it suck to get gored while you’re standing in line for the shitter?”

  “It’d suck. A lot. But my point is, crazy shit happens everywhere. And it gets on the news.” Keith extended a hand to sweep it over the whole square. “How many people d’you reckon died here now? A couple hundred? And have you seen one news truck?”

  “Hell, I heard the sheriff couldn’t even get the Tennessee State Patrol or TBI to show up,” Nate said, now sounding sullen.

  “That’s my point,” Keith said. “We have all these people die, and no one from the news or the state or the federal government shows up?” He waited, trying to make his point by silence. “Ain’t that a little weird?”

  “Well, it was a demon attack,” Nate said. “Not exactly the sort of thing the news would tend to want to talk about.”

  “And that’s another thing,” Keith said. “I saw with my own eyes what happened here … and I still don’t fully know what I saw. People going crazy and tearing into each other and shit?”

  “Man, if that ain’t the work of the devil, I don’t know what is,” Nate said.

  “See, I seen shit like that before on TV,” Keith said. “Or in the movies … there was one called Kingsman—”

  “That movie was awesome,” Nate gushed. “That limey motherfucker could really kick some ass.”

  “But you know what I mean, right? Where they had that weapon that turned everyone on each other?”

  “Yeah,” Nate snickered, “in the Westboro Baptist Church. He killed every motherfucker in that place, like a boss.”

  “I think they called it something else in the movie,” Keith said. “Probably didn’t want to get sued.”

  “We all knew what they were talking about though,” Nate said with a low chuckle. “For all our differences, I gotta say—is there anyone that don’t hate them?”

  “I don’t hate anybody,” Keith said. “I just don’t like everybody. But my point is … this shit here was right out of a Hollywood movie, you know? Neighbor turning on neighbor, wife turning on husband. Divide and conquer.”

  “Well, shit, we got conquered all right,” Nate said uneasily, looking around. He lifted up his scrub brush, red liquid running from it in a long drizzle. “We flat out got our asses kicked, man. If we were a turtle, we’d be on our backs right now, shell down, belly up, and asses vulnerable to whatever coyote wants to come along and take a bite.”

  “Yeah,” Keith said, the hose dripping on a patch of sidewalk that wouldn’t come clean, no matter how much he sprayed it. The blood had soaked in good. He hadn’t seen his daddy on the square. He wondered where he’d fallen, if it had been here? Over there, maybe? Keith shook it off, and focused on the conversation. “It wasn’t on the TV.”

  “Nope,” Nate said.

  “Tennessee Highway Patrol didn’t show up. TBI didn’t show up. FBI didn’t. News didn’t.”

  “Nope.”

  “I always felt like there’s a lot out there I didn’t know,” Keith said, putting a thumb over the end of the hose to try and focus the spray. It squirted out around his thumb in a sprinkler pattern, but the red on the sidewalk failed to diminish. It was ingrained in the concrete, and no matter how much he washed, it did not fade. “Like maybe people out there—out past the boundaries of Calhoun County—people in Nashville, people in Washington, people in New York and L.A. … I felt like they knew things I didn’t know.”

  “Well, yeah, Keith; they got college degrees for that—”

  “Not what I meant, jackass,” Keith snapped, the hose still going to little effect. “I mean, I felt like … they knew things about how the world worked, the government worked, the press worked … things they didn’t tell me, tell you, tell us. Like they were in it all together, and in their little coastal enclaves—”

  “Fancy word.”

  “—like it was a big club, and we weren’t invited,” Keith said. “We weren’t good enough.” He looked at the blood spot. “We didn’t belong. Now I’m seeing this shit—this … I don’t even know what … spilling out all over the place in the streets of my own town, and … I’m wondering …” He looked east, settling his gaze toward the sheriff’s station that was out on Old Jackson Highway. “I’m wondering if there isn’t an elite in our town that knows more than they’re telling us. That’s keeping us in the dark because we’re … not good enough.” Keith’s hand shook, but he couldn’t tell if it was fear or rage that moved it to do so.

  Nate was quiet for a moment. “Well, I mean … they told us it was demons that did this. Demons that possessed people—”

  “Maybe it was,” Keith said softly, the spattering sound of the hose splashing against the concrete a steady rhythm. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’re telling the whole truth. It’s like I been locked out of the club so long I don’t know how to trust someone when they finally claim they’re inviting me in, you know?”

  “I think I know,” Nate said quietly, the splash of the water running out of the hose the only sound in the early morning square. “I felt that same thing before too. Like there’s a club and you’ll never be part of it. The cool kids.” He put the scrub brush down. “But I do gotta ask you …” He looked up at Keith with earnest eyes. “Do you really think it’s all true? That demons … really do exist and they’re in Midian right now, raising all manner of hell?”

  “I think so,” Keith answered honestly. “Would Sheriff Reeve lie to us? He’s one of us, after all, not from somewhere else … though who knows what that means anymore, cuz that cowboy ain’t from around here, and they seem to be listening to him. Awww, hell,” Keith said, finally turning the hose to somewhere else, somewhere that it would be put to better effect. Little chunks of flesh washed into the grass, the smell of rot rising as the morning air became warmer. “I been wrong before though.”

  They kept working in the silence, both of them still pondering that last statement, as they tried their hardest to clean up the mess of their town square.

  *

  Mack Wellstone was practically shaking. He was in the woods with his dad, on the first day of gun season for deer, something he’d been looking forward to since he was a little boy and first understood that his dad left to do something mysterious and fascinating every November. He’d pack the car and vanish from their family home in Knoxville for a weekend or longer, coming back grizzled, his usually smooth-shaven cheeks replete with a few days of beard growth, a wide smile for his son and wife when he got back, a sort of placid calm fallen over him that was different from when he spent a week away traveling for work.

  Mack Wellstone had been looking forward to this day for almost his whole life. He’d been in the woods before with his dad, been out stalking deer in this very place—not too far from a cabin outside Midian, Tennessee—but always in the off season, maybe the summer, when it was hot and the sun was cooking them from overhead. Not like this, all bundled up against the cold, heavy camo jacket and a blaze orange vest over it. He felt like a traffic cone in the middle of the autumn woods, but his dad had assured him that deer couldn’t see blaze orange, and his dad knew everything, didn’t he? Mack was still young enough to believe that in his gut, even if intellectually he knew otherwise.

  “Shhhh,” his daddy said, nodding once to his foot. Mack had accidentally crunched a leaf as he’d stepped. It hadn’t rained here in a while, apparently, and there wasn’t a lot of dew on the ground. His dad had warned him about that, said if they were going to stalk prey they needed to be quiet, because a deer could hear you coming from a long ways off.

  Mack trod more carefully with his next step, though he still crackled a leaf underfoot. He grimaced, but when his father looked back, he was grinning. Whew, he wasn’t mad at all. That was a relief.

  His dad beckoned him forward, and they headed for a nearby tree. His dad was all done up in camo as well, his own blaze orange vest and his head capped with an orange toboggan ha
t. He sat down against the bark of a large tree, and Mack followed his lead, taking the rifle off his shoulder, checking to make sure the safety was still on, and then leaned it up against the trunk before sitting down next to his father, nervous tension making him want to get up and run a lap around the clearing in front of them. That’d spook the deer for sure though.

  “When are we going to see one?” Mack leaned in and asked his father, whispering nice and low.

  “We might not,” his dad said, “at all.”

  Mack shifted restlessly, crunching another leaf. “Oh,” he said, trying to bury the disappointment. But that was hardly definitive, was it? It meant they could still see one, after all. Could see a whole bunch of them, maybe.

  “Listen, son,” his dad said, leaning in and putting a big hand on his shoulder, giving him a firm and reassuring squeeze. “It’s not all about seeing a deer or even killing a deer—I know you want to, and I understand, because I was like you once—it’s about getting out here in the woods and being part of nature. It’s about seeing the sun come up, hearing the woods coming alive, smelling that fresh air.” Smiling, his dad drew a deep breath to illustrate what he was saying, then froze, making a face. “Ugh.”

  “What?” Mack took a sniff of his own and almost gagged. What was that? It was sharp, and stank like eggs left out in the sun all summer.

  “Sulfur,” his dad said, coughing lightly. “Yuck.” He swiped a water bottle out of his pack and took a drink. “I know there’s an old paper mill in Midian, but ugh, that is rank. I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything quite that rancid out here before.”

  Mack agreed. “It smells like somebody didn’t cover up their latrine when they were done.” He’d read all about digging latrines in an old Boy Scout handbook his dad had given him.

  Mack’s dad laughed. “Yeah, it does smell a little like th—” His dad froze, listening. Mack imagined he looked a little like a deer who’d caught wind of something, and wondered why he’d thought such a strange thing.

  Then Mack heard it as well. A leaf crunching behind them.

  His dad held a finger to his lips in warning. Then he slowly started to turn, trying to look around the tree they were leaned against …

  Mack tried to stay quiet too. It wasn’t easy; there was a bed of dry leaves all around them. He watched the placement of his hand as he leaned his weight, trying to keep his old boots from crunching dried leaves as he got to one knee. Mack picked up his gun.

  He leaned around the trunk of the tree, watching his dad do the same on the other side. The sun was up, but the canopy of the woods intercepted most of its rays. There was another crackle of leaf, loud as a shot in the clear, quiet morning air.

  Mack leaned out, slowly. He wanted to see what was coming. Could be a raccoon. A squirrel, maybe. Or …

  It could be a deer. A big, twelve-point buck. His dad had promised to let him take the first shot.

  Mack looked out beyond the tree, keeping his head closer to the ground. He knew that a silhouette could betray his position to his prey easier than almost anything. He kept his movement slow, and knew his dad was doing the same on the other side of the tree. Mack leaned, his abdomen unhappy with the way it was twisted. He didn’t care. He needed a look.

  The rifle in his left hand, weight leaning on the right, Mack tilted his head around the tree trunk.

  And saw …

  What the hell was that?

  It walked on four legs. It was the size of a dog, maybe a Labrador. Its coat was shining, shimmering black though, and darkness seemed to melt off of it like smoke off dry ice.

  Mack peered at it, not sure if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. That sure as hell wasn’t a buck. Or a doe. Or even a fawn.

  “The hell …?” his dad whispered. He wouldn’t have spoken if it had been a deer, Mack didn’t think.

  The black thing—whatever it was—lifted its head. Its eyes glowed a ruby scarlet, that strange shadowy-melt drifting off it. It cocked its angular head toward his father, and made a noise.

  It was like a hissing bird call, high and low at the same time. It followed it up with clicking noises.

  Mack just stared. He’d never seen anything like this, not even on TV.

  Another sound mirrored the creature’s call, and then another, off in the distance. There was a rustle in the leaves nearby, and Mack turned his head slowly.

  It had been loud.

  And close.

  One of the black, shadowy things was coming out of the woods behind them.

  “Dad,” Mack whispered, and the thing looked right at him.

  “Shit,” his dad said, holding steady and still. “Mack, don’t move.”

  The one that had emerged from the woods behind them stared at them with those ruby eyes. There was no trace of a mouth on its pure-black head. A long, thin tail waved behind it, like it was balancing the creature.

  Leaves crackled. Another one came into view to his dad’s side.

  An aura of menace floated in the air. Mack could see his father’s tension in the way he held his gun, the intensity with which he watched the creatures. A worried rumble crackled through Mack’s belly.

  “When I tell you to,” Mack’s dad said in an even voice, “you shoot the one coming out behind us here. I’ll get the one to my right. Then we’ll both turn and get the last one, if it ain’t scared off by then.”

  “Okay.” Mack clicked the safety off. He’d been ready to shoot something this morning, but he wasn’t expecting it to be these … things. “Dad …” He hesitated, and his dad looked at him. “You think these are in season?”

  His dad sat there uneasily, hand gripped around his rifle. He stared at the one that was looking right at them, tail cocked and ready to spring. “I get a bad feeling about the way these things look. I’ll take a poaching ticket if it comes to it.”

  Mack readied the rifle. He drew a bead on the one in front of them, its shoulders down, butt up in the air like it was going to spring. The rifle was a .243, one his dad had borrowed from his uncle. Mack looked through the scope, trying to breathe like he’d learned. He exhaled, one finger just barely on the trigger once the reticle was settled on the creature’s shoulder. Just like a deer, Mack thought.

  “Shoot,” his dad said. “I’ll go as soon as you do.”

  Mack stroked the trigger softly and felt the gun bellow in the morning air. The rifle shot was a deafening crack in the still woods, barrel leaping up as the muzzle flashed.

  The black creature took a stumbling step back from the hit. Mack figured he’d got it in the shoulder. He waited, watching, as it curled in on itself.

  “Aieee!” His dad’s scream tore Mack’s attention away from the creature he’d shot. His whipped his head around, looking to see—

  One of the creatures had his dad against the tree. Its jaw was open, a shadowy line broken by Mack’s father’s face buried in sharp, shadowed teeth. Blood was dripping down, and another scream tore the morning. Mack’s dad’s rifle was just out of reach, his struggling fingers trying for it and failing. The creature had him, pinned him, a cracking sound emerging between his father’s screams.

  Mack raised his gun on instinct and fired. The flash blinded him for a second as the barrel rose. The black thing snapped back like he’d kicked it good. It let loose a whimper that sounded like a car with the muffler fallen off.

  Mack just stared. His dad was bleeding, one hand shaking as he tried to staunch the flow, the other still reaching for his rifle. It was a few inches from his fingertips. Mack watched as he labored for it, almost had it—

  A hard blow knocked his father sideways as something struck. It was the first creature, then one that had been around the tree. Mack was supposed to shoot it, but he’d gotten distracted.

  He couldn’t shoot it now though. It was half-hidden behind the tree, and the part that was visible had his dad in its jaws.

  “Dad!” Mack shouted as the thing ripped into his dad’s leg. A warm geyser of red steamed as it
splashed onto the orange and brown leaves, wetting them where before they’d been dry.

  “Oh, God!” his father yelled as Mack tried to bring his rifle to bear. It was so close, but the shot was tough. It was twisting, shaking his father like he weighed next to nothing. Mack could barely see the thing in the scope. His mind was running away with him. He was reacting fast, crazy. He’d just shot two times at two different animals.

  They’d been attacked by animals. In the woods. In Tennessee.

  What the hell were these things?

  “Mack, look out!” His dad’s dull, pain-tinged warning tipped Mack off just in time. The first beast he’d shot was coming up now. It staggered a step as it leapt at him. Mack didn’t have time to fire.

  He dodged.

  He rolled as he fell back. It was all instinct, just trying to get out of the way of the train bearing down on him. The thing was big, bigger than any dog he’d seen.

  It breathed on him as it passed over. Its breath smelt of that same stinking scent—sulfur, his dad had called it? Like rotten eggs.

  Mack brought the gun up and fired without even looking through the scope. It roared, the stock slamming him in the upper arm. He hadn’t had much of a grip on it when he’d shot. He’d eyeballed the thing, and it hit right in the thing’s hindquarters. Ass shot, Mack thought. Normally he would have laughed at that.

  There wasn’t much to laugh about now.

  His dad was still screaming. That other thing had him and was pulling him, yanking him behind the tree, the rifle lying lonely and forgotten across the dry leaves.

  Mack fired again at the shadowy creature he’d just shot. Another hit, both to the critter and to his upper arm. That’d be a bruise later, he reckoned by the dull ache in his bicep. Not that it mattered.