by Logan Jacobs
“You look shaken,” she said as she led me toward the bed.
“The images that thing planted in my head,” I muttered as I sat down. “It was like seeing your own death a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, each more painful and scary than the last. It only lasted for a second or so, and I’m not sure I could even really describe what I saw, but in that moment, it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen or felt.”
Sorcha didn’t say anything right away. She pulled my head to her shoulder, then placed a hand across my forehead. I felt her energy flow into me again, and I closed my eyes as I soaked up her energy.
I heard Freya step quietly into the room, and after a moment’s hesitation, she sat down on the other side of me and took my hand in hers. I opened my eyes and shared a grin with the mutant woman, then took a deep breath and sat up straight between the two women.
“I needed that,” I sighed.
“Any ideas as to what it was?” Freya asked.
“No idea,” I replied. “It was like something out of a nightmare, though I don’t think I’ve ever heard any stories that match what I saw.”
“It didn’t have magic,” Sorcha added in a pensive voice. “At least, not the kind mages have.”
“Well, this trip just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Freya snorted.
We heard the sound of the clean-up crew’s return then. Footsteps stomped up the stairs, accompanied by the sound of clanging tins, and something heavy that bumped against the steps. The three of us stepped back into the hall and watched as the small group reappeared, ready to do battle with what was left of the creature.
The members of the clean-up crew all wore thick work gloves and carried a collection of old tin cans and chipped pottery. Darwin and the man with the sword also carried a pair of shovels that smelled like they had been retrieved from the stables. Darwin passed me a pair of gloves, and then we all stepped carefully back into the room.
The clerk clicked a couple of mage lights on, and we got our first real look at the mess. The black ooze had taken over most of the floor, though a few larger pieces of glass could still be seen just below the window. The window frame dangled from the sash, and what was left of the pane glittered in the sudden burst of light. Somehow, the ribbon with the lavender still hung from its spot, though it swayed gently in the breeze that now blew through the room.
“Whooo,” Darwin snorted. “It’s starting to smell pretty ripe in here.”
“It smells like…” the kitchen kid began, then paused as he tried to come up with an appropriate description. “It smells like the stables when they haven’t been cleaned out on a hot day.”
“Smells worse than that,” the man with the sword replied as he scooped up a shovelful of black tar and tilted it into an old punch bowl.
That one scoop filled up the whole bowl, and I looked around at the paltry collection of bowls and tins that had been gathered, then at the amount of black goo that trickled across the floor. For such a slender creature, there certainly was a lot of it.
“I think we’re going to need something bigger to put it all in,” I noted.
“There’s some old barrels behind the stables,” the clerk offered. “I was going to use them as planters, but I’m sure we could fit all this into one or two of those. And they’ll burn well enough.”
“Let’s go get one,” I said to the man with the sword.
“Sure,” the man replied. “I’m Harry, by the way.”
“Hex,” I replied as we shook hands.
The two of us ran back downstairs and found the rest of the guests had gathered in the dining room. One couple, a rotund pair with matching striped pajamas, hustled between the tables with pots of tea and coffee.
“The owners,” Harry explained when he saw my surprised expression. “They don’t usually deal with customers, but since Sally is helping to clean up the mess and the rest of the staff is still gone for the night, I guess they didn’t have any choice.”
“So do you stop here often?” I asked as I peered into the street just to make sure there wasn’t a strange orange light.
“Used to come regularly,” Harry replied as we stepped cautiously into the street, then darted toward the stable.
We found the horses and the barn cat in remarkably good spirits, given what had just happened at the inn. The cat barely raised its head at our dramatic entrance, and the horses all stuck their noses over the edge of the stall in the hopes that we might be there to give them an early breakfast. Harry and I ignored them all and picked our way through the darkness to the back door.
I opened the door slowly and checked for the orange light again, then opened it wider and moved into the small yard. The barrels were easy to spot, even with only the moonlight to see by. They were stacked haphazardly in a pile next to the post fence and I could tell that there were several different sizes in the mix.
“I’d say grab one of the big ones, but I’m not sure if we could get it all the way upstairs,” Harry whispered. “Plus, we still need to get it back downstairs with all that... stuff in it.”
“Let’s take those two yellow ones,” I suggested. “We should both be able to carry one, and I think it will all fit in those.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Harry murmured as he started across the yard.
We grabbed the medium sized barrels as quietly as we could, though the hollow thud of the barrels echoed in the night air as we shifted some of the others around to grab the ones we wanted. I wasn’t really sure why we were still trying to be quiet. The sound of the Glock had shattered the illusion of nonexistence the town had tried to create, and if the rest of the tar creatures were on their way for revenge, it was hard to believe that they would be turned away by silence.
“Tell me about these creatures,” I huffed as we stepped back into the barn and stopped to catch our breaths after the sprint across the yard.
“I don’t know much,” Harry confessed. “Just what I’ve heard on my visits.”
“You said you used to come regularly,” I noted.
“I started coming here a couple of years ago because they don’t have a local plumber,” Harry explained. “When the Krafts took over the inn, they got in touch with several plumbers in the area, and finally asked me to come take a look at the inn and do some improvements. I’ve been doing their work ever since, as well as some of the other folks around here. But I haven’t been coming as much since those things arrived. I don’t want to be caught on the road some night with one, so I only come when I’m close enough to get here before nightfall.”
“So has it attacked other towns?” I asked.
“Not that I’ve heard,” Harry admitted. “You’ll find people in the other towns that have heard stories about it, but they usually laugh and say it’s just a bunch of hooey told by country bumpkins who don’t know any better.”
“But not you,” I guessed.
“No,” Harry agreed. “I was here when Mrs. Ramsey was taken. I’ve never forgotten her screams.”
“I wonder why these creatures only attack this town,” I mused.
“I have no idea,” Harry replied as he hefted his barrel onto his shoulder. “They talked about getting a mage out here, and they sent a couple of messages. But they never heard back from the authorities, and the folks sent to deliver the messages never returned, so that was the end of that.”
We peered out into the street again, then ran as quickly as we could manage to the inn’s door, though trundled may have been a better description as we lugged the barrels along. We burst into the foyer with enough noise to cause several of the guests to spill their beverages. Harry and I both mumbled quick apologies, then humped the barrels up the staircase.
“No, no,” I heard Darwin’s voice declare when we finally made it to the second floor, “it’s more like rotten eggs and old vomit.”
“I guess they’re still trying to describe the smell,” I chuckled as we carried the barrels to my room and dropped them loudly on the hallwa
y floor.
“Oh, good, you’re back,” Darwin noted.
Darwin had scooped some more of the remains into some old chinaware, but it hadn’t made much of a dent. The kitchen boy had grabbed the ash shovel from the fireplace and was happily dumping glop into tin cans as he debated Darwin on the best way to describe the pungent and increasingly disgusting smell that now filled my room.
“We have barrels,” I said triumphantly as I pushed one into the room. “There are more out back if we need them.”
“Oh,” the clerk sighed as she spied the two yellow barrels. “And I just painted those.”
“Sorry,” I replied. “But the size was right.”
“Well,” she sniffed as she pulled herself up to her full height. “Shall we get this cleaned up?”
Even with the two shovels from the stable as well as a smaller one the clerk found in the kitchen, it still took us a couple of hours to scoop the remains into the barrels for the journey to the bonfire. And we still had smears of black ooze on the floor that we could only remove with old rags and elbow grease.
It was nearly sunrise when we dropped the last of the rags into the barrels and then muscled the barrels back downstairs as carefully as we could manage. We set the barrels just outside the inn’s door, then debated the best spot to burn them.
“I would say just do it in the middle of town,” Darwin huffed. “But we might set some of the buildings on fire if the embers drift.”
“There’s an old field on the edge of town,” Harry suggested. “It’s mostly just rocks.”
“As long as we don’t have to lug these things too far,” I replied as I stretched my back. “Damn things are heavy.”
“I’m sure we could find a cart,” Harry laughed. “God, I can’t believe you killed one of those things. I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Well, now that we know it is, you’ll be able to fight them,” I replied.
Harry shook his head as he studied the town.
“I don’t know about that,” the plumber replied sadly. “I reckon most people will be too scared to fight.”
“Then we’ll have to convince them,” Darwin replied.
“I thought we were leaving at first light,” I reminded the ex-trooper.
“Well, we have time for breakfast,” Darwin noted. “And taking ten minutes to explain how these things are killed won’t really delay us.”
By that time, a few townspeople were slipping outside to investigate the sounds from the night before. It was clear that everyone was expecting to hear that one of the guests had looked outside, despite the warnings, and then been killed and dragged away. So Harry’s tale of how one of the creatures had been killed instead drew looks of awe and consternation.
“But how was it killed?” a woman in a flower print coat demanded.
“Shot through the head,” I said. “So clearly you can kill them that way.”
“I would guess lopping off the head would work as well,” Darwin added. “I’d say a shot to the heart as well, but I’m not sure if it had one.”
“Stick with the head,” Harry surmised. “Shoot it, cut it off, bash it in. Whatever you can do to--”
“Hey,” Freya interrupted as she stuck her head around the door. “Cook said breakfast is ready.”
Harry, Darwin and I all nodded and stepped back inside while the rest of the town’s residents started to emerge. We sat down with Freya and Sorcha and sipped on coffee while our favorite kitchen boy shuttled hot plates piled high with spicy sausage, crispy hash browns, and fluffy, cheesy omelettes from the kitchen.
The food was so good that I wondered if the cook had forgiven me for killing the creature. Surely no one who was still that angry could serve me such deliciously fattening food?
Sadly, I was proven wrong. Once we had finished our meal, we sat with Harry for a while to discuss what the town should do next. I could tell that the other members of my own group were still undecided about our travel plans as well, and I could understand why. If, somehow, the death of the night creature somehow unleashed a massive retaliation by its fellow nasties, then it only felt right that we should stay and help. But we risked being found by the Magesterium again if we didn’t keep moving. Then again, that may have been exactly what the town needed.
Around and around we went, until Harry glanced out the window, then stood up slowly. I followed his gaze, and saw that the rest of the townspeople had gathered outside the inn, and the story of our night’s adventures was being relayed to everyone by the cook. I couldn’t see her face, but the anger was evident in her posture and the jab of her finger.
“Well, you may not get much say in what happens next,” Harry announced.
“We should talk to them,” Sorcha suggested. “Before the cook has them convinced that their only option is to kill us and set us out as an offering.”
Freya started to giggle, then stopped when she caught Sorcha’s serious expression.
“You weren’t kidding,” she said in surprise.
“I wasn’t,” Sorcha replied. “I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Sometimes I really hate this world,” Darwin muttered.
We all stood up then and made our way back to the front door. Harry opened it and stepped out first to a chorus of hisses and boos.
“He’s not one of them,” the cook declared.
“Sounds like our cue,” I whispered to Sorcha as I stepped outside and stopped next to Harry.
“He’s the one!” the cook exclaimed in an angry voice. “He’s the one that’s put us all in danger!”
“I’m the one who killed the creature,” I corrected. “And we’d be happy to help you kill the rest.”
“We would?” Sorcha whispered, though I saw the smile she gave me for a moment, which meant she agreed with my declaration.
“So much for moving on down the road,” Darwin sighed.
“You knew we had to help,” Freya teased.
“You’ve doomed us all!” a frail voice called out.
“You can fight these things,” I insisted. “What happened last night is proof of that.”
“What if he didn’t really kill it?” someone else suggested. “Maybe they just made it all up?”
“He killed it all right,” the cook growled. “And now the rest of them will be back here looking to get revenge. I say we let them have their revenge. We can tie this lot up by the side of the road and let the nightcrawlers take them.”
That suggestion was met with some lusty cheers, though I did see a few people shake their heads.
“How did you kill it?” a man at the front of the pack asked. He was close to my age, with a thick mop of black hair and a mustache that curled at the tips.
“I shot it in the head,” I replied to a chorus of boos.
“With what?” the men pressed. “It wasn’t an arrow or a bolt. Neither one makes noise like that, even if they have been enhanced with magic.”
“It was... a Glock,” I uttered since I figured no one in the crowd would even recognize what that was.
“A what?” the frail voice demanded.
“A Glock,” I replied, “but that’s not what’s important. What is important is that we know how to kill these things. And now that we do, we can fight them when they come back.”
“Is that some sort of mage weapon?” a middle-aged woman asked in confusion.
“Yes, a mage weapon,” I agreed.
“Won’t we need more… Glocks?” someone asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” I tried to interject.
“We could just take his Glock and then leave them tied by the road for the nightcrawlers to get their revenge,” another voice suggested.
“It’s magic,” Freya declared. “And it won’t work for anyone else except the person it was designed for.”
“Er, oh, yes,” I stuttered.
Freya’s claim settled the crowd for a moment as they tried to decide whether or not she was telling the truth. I noticed the man with a mustache
looked like he was about to start laughing, but he managed to contain himself and gave me an appraising stare instead.
“This is your chance,” I called out above the low hum of voices. “We’ll stay tonight and help you defeat these creatures. You can reclaim your town and live a normal life again. But if you chase us from your town, you won’t have another opportunity as good as this, and you’ll probably never defeat these things.”
“Let’s do it,” the mustached man yelled out.
“It’s too dangerous,” the cook spat back.
“Then put it to a vote,” the mustached man insisted.
The crowd erupted at that suggestion, and as everyone shouted to be heard over everyone else, it became impossible to hear what anyone said. I glanced at Harry, who shrugged, and my three companions, who looked as uncertain as I felt.
“Okay,” Darwin finally huffed, “maybe we should just leave. Collect our stuff, slip out the back, and ride, well, walk out of here. Let them face these things alone.”
“Gramps,” Freya protested.
“I don’t plan on being strung up like a chicken to serve as bait for these things,” Darwin replied.
Before any of us could reply, an elderly man with a cane stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of the inn. He looked over our little group, then turned to face his fellow citizens. When he waved his cane at the crowd, it slowly fell silent.
“We’ll take the help that’s been offered,” the man announced. “And when the rest of these creatures are dead, we’ll thank them kindly for their assistance before we see them on their way.”
“But Roman….” the cook started to complain.
“That’s what we’re doing,” Roman declared with a frosty gaze. “If you want to save this town, that’s what has to happen. And I, for one, would like to save this town.”
The crowd started to murmur again, and Roman turned toward us.
“What do you need us to do?” Roman asked loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“Uhh,” I stammered.
“We’ll need to see what weapons you have available,” Darwin cut in. “And we’ll need to organize everyone. We should also see what kind of fighting skills there are and talk about the best ways to attack and destroy these things.”