Bethany's Sin

by Robert R. McCammon

  “Pickax,” Evan said. Neely didn’t move. “Pickax, damn it!” He reached up, took the pickax from the fear-frozen man, and began to strike at the earth in a sweat-flinging frenzy.

  “They’re coming,” Neely whispered, staring into blackness, afraid of what he might see. “Dear God, they’re coming…”

  The trench had deepened to Evan’s waist; he closed his ears to the approaching war cries, closed his mind to the horror that was now racing on horseback toward them, axes glittering blue with moonlight. “Goddamn it I know they’re here!” Evan shrieked, his voice shredding, and struck with all his strength into one of the walls of the trench. The wall cracked, crumbled, split, and began to fall to pieces around him.

  And the bones began to spill out like an obscene flood breaking the walls of an earthen dam.

  Full skeletons in rotted clothes, broken skulls, pelvises, arms and legs with remnants of gray flesh still clinging, spines that looked like hideous staircases, tumbled out around Evan’s legs; he spun, a scream gagging his throat, and struck deeper into the trench with every ounce of strength he could summon. More household trash: boxes, cans, bottles. Struck again. Bones. Grinning, toothless skulls. Again. Dirt cascaded. Shattered femurs, broken fingers, jawbones, here a skull with a scalp of black hair still clinging, here a rib cage, clotted with dirt, wearing a blue-checked shirt. Struck again, the scream ripping him. The tiny bones of skulls and spines of infants poured out of the dirt. Yes. Yes. Terror gripped his heart and tore at it. The little boys. This is where the little boys come to rest and sleep forever. His mind, reeling with pure shock, groped: a line from a Beatles’ song came insanely to him. All good children go to Heaven. All good children go to Heaven. He swallowed dust; the flies encircled him, feasting on the Death smells, feasting on dried flesh still dangling from human bones. This was the unholy place of Death in Bethany’s Sin; not the cemetery, no, because that was a holy place and probably only women lay there. No, this was where the murdered men and the male infants were brought, thrown in with the rest of the garbage, covered over with filth, forgotten. This was the slaughter ground of the Amazons, the corpses heaped here like bodies on blood-drenched, smoke-drifting ancient battlefields.

  “…they’re coming!” Neely screamed at him, had been screaming because he’d seen the first of the rapidly moving shadows approaching, but Evan hadn’t heard.

  Evan felt his mind slip. He couldn’t find the strength to climb out of this godforsaken slaughter pit. My wife and child; got to get my wife and child…

  “Come on, damn it!” Neely shouted, and held out his hand for Evan to grasp. “Come on! Hurry!” He glanced back over his shoulder. Shadows taking shape. The rumbling of horse’s hooves, a trembling of the earth; burning blue orbs hunting him down. He looked back to Evan, saw that the man had been overcome by shock. Neely reached down, his nerves screaming, and grasped Evan’s wrist, pulled at him.

  And in the next instant there came an earsplitting screeeeeeech just behind Neely Ames; he twisted around, his mouth coming open to scream. The night black horse loomed over him like a storm cloud, and an ax blade that glittered with a power like live electric cables whistled down for him. He heard the shriek of air as the metal parted it.

  Neely’s head, throwing spirals of blood, was flung over Evan’s shoulder by the blow; blood spattered his face. The decapitated body, still gripping Evan’s wrist, crumpled to its knees and slid down into the trench. The hot droplets of blood brought Evan back to where he was, and to the reality of the nightmare things that were closing in. Evan jerked his hand free of the death grip and reached for the pickax. The Amazon on the black horse was rearing back for a blow that would split his skull; Evan, his shoulders hunched, swung the pickax into the horse’s front legs. The horse shrilled, staggered, lost its balance, and fell heavily, crushing the woman-thing underneath it; there was the sharp, brittle sound of bone breaking and an inhuman, guttural cry of pain.

  And then Evan had heaved himself out of the trench and was running across the landfill for his station wagon. The others wheeled their horses toward him, eyes flaming with hatred, axes swinging high; they dug in their heels, and dirt spun from the hooves of their mounts. He glanced over his shoulder as he ran. The one in the lead, on a dappled horse, would catch him before he made the car. He ran on, his legs pumping against the earth; he could feel the ground trembling as the horse gained. He spun around as the ax blade shrieked for him. It whistled past his cheek, and he fell on his stomach to the ground, dug his fist into the earth, ran again; the horse wheeled alongside him, and the Amazon’s arm came up for a second blow. Evan stood his ground and flung the handful of dirt into her face; when the ax fell it shaved past his left arm, peeling back the cloth of his shirt. The horse spun in a wild circle as its rider tried to clear her eyes, and the others were fast approaching.

  But Evan had reached the station wagon. He flung himself behind the wheel, locked all the doors, rammed the keys into the ignition. His tires threw chunks of earth as he slammed down on the accelerator. Behind him he heard the shrill, bloodcurdling war cry, and he knew they were after him. Bethany’s Sin, he thought, his brain throbbing with his heartbeat. Got to get back there. Got to get Laurie and get away. And Kay? What about Kay? No, I’ll come back. Get the state police first. Then bring them back. First get Laurie. Laurie.

  He wrenched the wheel to the left, and the station wagon spun, tires shredding, in a circle that almost threw the car into a ditch on the far side of the road. Then he was accelerating again, his teeth gritted, the headlights showing deserted highway ahead. He heard the next Amazon shriek almost directly in his ear, and then there was a figure on the road before him: a large-flanked chestnut horse bearing a rider whose burning gaze pierced him to the bone. The Amazon’s teeth were bared and he had an instant to realize that this woman was the librarian who’d inquired if he wanted to see any art books. But now she wore a different, mask-like face, and hatred screamed from her open mouth. Evan slammed on the brakes, but the horse was too close; the station wagon smashed hard into the animal, staggering it backward and to the side. He heard the grille shatter, and one of the headlights flickered out; but then the Amazon’s body, thrown from the horse by the impact, came flying across the car’s hood, struck the windshield, and sprayed jagged glass that whined around Evan’s face, nicking his cheeks and forehead and neck. The body, face slashed, throat pumping thick blood from a sliced jugular vein, dangled down over the dashboard; the sightless eyes mirrored for another moment the tremendous power of the entity within that form of flesh, and then the blue darkened. The eyes looked like black, empty holes, and the flesh seemed to have withered around the face, giving it the look of a long-dead skull.

  Evan pressed his foot to the floor, wound his way back toward Bethany’s Sin, back into the vile, evil nest of…them. This time he made no attempt at silence; his tires squealed as he took corners, and the station wagon’s engine screamed at the limits of its power.

  Dark streets. Dark houses. A terrible, gathering darkness. The moon, grinning in window and window and window.

  McClain Terrace. His own house, pitch-black and silent. He drove the car up onto the lawn, leaving tread marks on the grass, and leaped out, running for the front door. They would be after him, of course, and in minutes they’d find him. He fumbled with his keys in the lock. Hurry. Have to hurry. Have to. They’re coming. They’re coming. His key slid home. A dog barked, barked, barked.

  And in the next instant the door was ripped from his grasp. A hand with manicured nails grasped his wrist, wrenched him into the darkened entrance foyer with a strength that threw him to the floor. From the darkness a figure reaching, reaching, eyes aflame and terrible, and he heard himself whine like a trapped animal. He was hauled up, pushed through parting darkness, and thrown onto the floor in the moon-dappled den.

  Evan, crouched on the floor awaiting the fiery blow of an ax, looked wildly around.

  Four figures touched by moon-shadows. Four women. Four s
ets of merciless, murder-hungry eyes.

  One of them sat in a chair on the other side of the coffee table, watching him without speaking.

  Dear God, he thought, his mouth as dry as landfill dirt and the image of a crumpling headless body flashing through his head. They were waiting for me all the time. They were waiting.

  From the chair the Drago-thing spoke, with two voices: one her own, in her Greek-accented English, the other a guttural harsh language that was the strange tongue of the Amazon, both voices meshing perfectly from the same throat. “Now,” she said softly, the Amazon tongue sounding hollow and eerie within the confines of the den. “We shall talk.”

  27

  * * *

  The Women

  “YOU’RE A MUCH MORE intelligent man than I’d at first believed,” the Drago-thing said from her chair. “I admire intelligence. I admire strength of purpose as well.”

  Evan’s eyes moved slightly. Mrs. Giles—or what had once been Mrs. Giles—standing in a corner of the den; No-longer-Mrs. Demargeon standing at the foot of the stairs; a young blond woman wearing a mask of callous hatred standing to the left of Drago’s chair. He measured inches against seconds.

  “Don’t be a fool,” the woman in the chair said.

  He glanced up at her. The woman-thing’s eyes burned bright and fierce. Laurie. The fear slashed at him like a gleaming ax blade. “Where’s my child?”

  “Sleeping.”

  His gaze moved toward the stairs.

  “Not here,” the woman said, the rumble of the Amazon language echoing from wall to wall, as if the words had been spoken within a time-lost cavern and not within the den of a wood-framed house. “Somewhere else.”

  “Where is she?” He forced himself to keep his gaze steady, but even so, he felt the power within this woman as surely as if he stood before a white-hot blaze.

  “Safe, I promise you. Interesting. The end of your own existence may be seconds away. Why do you concern yourself with the child?”

  “Because I’m a human being,” Evan said, choosing his words carefully. “I doubt if you know much about the feelings of real humans anymore.”

  The Drago-thing paused, regarded him for a moment without speaking. “Oh, yes,” she said finally. “You’re referring to the maternal instinct. Unnecessary. The strong will always see to themselves. The weak must be weeded out as a threat to the perpetuation of the race.”

  Evan’s eyes narrowed. “I saw an example tonight of what you’ve ‘weeded out.’”

  “Yes,” the woman said. “So you did. You went into the Field of Bones, where our enemies lie fallen by the will of Artemis…”

  “Enemies?” Evan said incredulously. “Men and infants?”

  “Men and men-to-be,” Drago said softly, her voice velvet and iron, the Amazon voice lower and harsh. “Two of you went into the Field of Bones. Only you returned; where is the workman?”

  “He’s dead. Killed by one of those…things on horseback.”

  “Warriors. A pity Mr. Ames was struck down; he’ll never see his children now.”

  “Children?”

  She responded with a tilt of the head. “Two women are pregnant by his seed. We hope one of them will bear us a daughter. Of course, Mr. Ames never knew; Antigatha’s potions strengthened his sexual potency and blanked his memory.”

  “Antigatha?” Evan’s heart pounded. “Mrs. Bartlett?”

  “The one you call Bartlett, yes. You underestimated our superior senses of sight, of smell, and of hearing. Antigatha easily overheard your conversation behind that locked door. But unfortunate about the man; the younger warriors have yet to learn restraint, even against the enemy. I had hoped that the man would be a successful breeder.”

  “Then they weren’t sent out there to kill us?”

  “No. Only to”—she paused, searching for the proper word—“herd both of you back to the village. I assure you, if I had ordered you dead, you would now in fact be dead. And buried by now, along with the others.” She shook her head, eyes blazing eerily. “I don’t want you dead. Not yet.”

  Evan looked quickly around the room; the other women hadn’t moved. They watched him like animals eager for the kill. A shudder rippled up his spine; he could see the spiderish shadows cast across the walls by the moonlight. Creeping nearer and nearer. “What in the name of God are you?” he asked her, his voice trembling. “What are all of you?”

  “We are…survivors,” the Drago-thing said, two voices echoing, intertwining. “Survivors by the sheer force of our individual wills, gathered together in a place of cold darkness for…a long time of waiting. We are the chosen of Artemis, the vanguard of Her might, and our hatred sustained us when we were broken to our knees and cast into the maw of Hades.” She closed her eyes for a moment, opened them and stared down at the man on the floor before her. “We are warriors first and always, and one can fight in Hades as fiercely as on the steppes of Athens. One can fight Master Death in a clash of wills, and with the divine help of Artemis, win. Yes! Win!” Her eyes flamed; the power seared Evan’s face, and he drew back. “You know nothing of the desire to survive,” she said, her lips curling as if she were snarling at him. “You know nothing of the will to live, to walk the earth and the forests, to smell the sea again, to stand beneath a burning sun and scream toward the sky! We know all that, and we know bitter, limitless cold and dark, and we know wanting to shriek but having no voices, and wanting to see but having no eyes!” Her voice rose, rose, hammering at the walls. “We know the grip of Thanatos, with his scaled hands and his red burning eyes, and we know what it is to fight that grip as one raging power fights another! And we know what it is to wait and to wait and to wait!” Her arm flashed out, golden bracelet gleaming around the forearm; the fist crashed down on the coffee table, and there was a piercing craaaaaack! as the table split from one end to the other. She blinked, as if for an instant the power within that flesh sought to burst free, out of control. She brought her hand back and sat staring at him over the broken table.

  His mind slipped, slipped; he gritted his teeth, tried to quiet the scream that had begun in his soul. “You’re not Kathryn Drago any longer,” he said after another moment. “Who are you?”

  The woman-thing lifted her fist up, clenched tightly. It trembled with repressed rage. “The last of the royal blood,” she whispered. “After Troy”—she spat the word out—“after the murder of Penthesilea, the Chair of Power fell to me. But that was in the last days, and we were weak from the wars that had depleted our ranks.” Her eyes were half-closed now, hooded with memories. “And so the cowards came, horde after horde of them; black-bearded destroyers lapping at our shores, at the gates. of our city. We fought them back again and again; Artemis lifted up corpses and gave them life to fight still, and we battled day and night without rest. Until the end. Until the end.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “The end came in that cavern, didn’t it?” he asked her.

  She looked at him sharply.

  “The corpses were heaped together and burned. The cavern was sealed, and the invaders took over Themiscrya…”

  “Enough!” the Drago-thing shrieked, the word a hoarse bark in the Amazon tongue. Not-Mrs. Giles stepped forward a few paces, as did not-Mrs. Demargeon.

  “Why gather within Kathryn Drago’s body?” he asked her, watching her carefully, ready to leap backward if she attacked him. Knives. There were knives in the kitchen. Could he get to them in time?

  But she didn’t move. Instead, she smiled—a thin, haunting smile that drew the flesh tight across her cheekbones, giving her a look of a flaming-eyed death’s-head. “Because this one had been brought to us by the will of Artemis. Because this one was fulfilling her own destiny, drawn to where we waited in darkness. And this one had already delivered justice to the destroyer.”

  Evan didn’t move; his mind was racing. Knives. Knives in the kitchen.

  “Perhaps you would understand if I told you her maiden name. Bethany Katrina Nikos. Her father
and mother emigrated to America from Greece in 1924; the father purchased a plot of farming land and built a wood frame house, and in 1932 his daughter was born. But he was a rough, uneducated man, and he knew only how to work with his hands; his wife was frail and intelligent, but she bent to his wrath because she knew no better. When his crops began to fail, he spent his rages by drinking and beating her bloody; very often the little girl was awakened in the night by the sound of blows and piercing, terrible screams.” She blinked suddenly, and Evan knew that the small portion of Kathryn Drago that served as a disguise for the fiercer power was remembering. “Terrible screams,” she hissed. “By this time a village was beginning to spring up. Everyone knew that the man beat his wife, but what could they do? It was his business. And at night I remember…I remember my mother, her face puffed by bruises, sitting on the edge of my bed, telling me stories of a land where men did not dare inflict these pains on women, of a land where women were the masters, and men in their rightful place. She told me the legends of the Amazons when we were alone, when he was drunk and sleeping, and those stories seemed to take fire in my soul…” She blinked again; the face contorted, grinning. “He killed her on a night when the winds howled around the house and snow had frozen the earth. He hit her, and hit her, and she fell down a stairway and her neck snapped. The little girl heard the bones breaking.” She gritted her teeth, stared into his face. “Of course the police came, but the little girl was afraid to speak. He told them they’d had a fight over his drinking and she’d slipped and fallen. Those men all…grinned at each other, as if they shared a secret with”—she blinked again, and a shade passed over the eyes—“my mother at the center. Oh, yes. A fine, fine secret. And so I lived in the house with him, as he drank more and more and began to seek someone else’s flesh to strike his hand against. But I knew what I must do, and I…waited…