“Why drain him here?” asked Mike. “That other guy was more of a threat.”
“That’s why,” said Toby. He glanced at Benny, and it was a worried glance. “Are you sure, Benny?”
Benny swallowed hard. “I don’t feel him anymore. The dog-things either.” He shrugged, casting an uneasy glance at the woods. “It… He must be out.”
Toby’s gaze shifted to the tree at the center of the glade. “We should chop down that damn tree.” Herlequin thrashed, but his silvery eyes remained vacant.
“Oh, he doesn’t like that idea,” laughed Mike. He bent over Benny’s backpack and came up with a hand axe. “Let’s see how he likes this.” With a double-handed grip, he swung the axe toward the tree.
An unreasoning fear slammed through Benny’s mind. “No, Mike! No!” he yelled, but it was too late. The bleeding form of Herlequin disappeared, and all hell broke loose.
41
She stayed hidden until the troopers led Gray out of the church, his hands cuffed behind him, his feet shackled. Breathing easy at last, she stood straight and walked to the street.
Gray’s eyes tracked her, and in them, she read hope. Yes. I’m “babe,” and I’m coming to your rescue.
A trooper stepped in her way, but she ignored him, looking over his shoulder, looking Owen Gray in the eye.
“Why, Brigitta? Why did you abandon me again?” His voice shook with emotion, and he sounded wretched, heartbroken.
“Because, my love, I’m not Brigitta!” See me! I’m Shannon Bertram!
His head jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “Who the fuck are you? How did you do that?”
“Do what?” asked a trooper.
“I’m Shannon Bertram,” she said. “And I’ve got a crisp dollar bill for your troubles, you asshole!”
At first, Gray looked confused, but recognition spread over his face. “You? Chickenpox girl?”
“Damn right!” Shannon snapped. “Enjoy your time in prison!” She turned her back and walked away, bee-lining for Toby’s little red BMW. I love this car, she thought as she slipped behind the wheel.
She started the engine, wanting to go pick up Scott and meet the boys at the park as they’d planned.
42
I knew it! I knew it was too easy! thought Toby as Herlequin’s body disappeared like smoke. In the same instant, the air erupted with howls, snarls, and an eerie wailing.
Mike jerked the hand axe out of the ugly tree, and instead of sap, thick cadmium green blood poured from the wound. The tree writhed and thrashed, whipping its boughs around like savage clubs. A limb smashed into Mike and sent him flying.
Before he landed, dog-things began pouring into the glade, teeth bared, lips back. Toby started to move, jinking behind the tree, then back out, snapping dart after dart at the dog-things. Unlike the first one, the new-comers were resilient.
Mike rolled to the Remington shotgun and scooped it into his hands. He snapped the gun up to his shoulder, and it boomed, once, twice. A dog-thing keened and fell to its side, more cadmium green blood pouring into the grass.
Benny stood frozen, staring at the writhing tree. His mouth was moving, but no sound came out. “Benny!” Toby yelled. “Get out of there!” But Benny didn’t move.
Boughs of the ugly tree were circling around behind Benny, as if the tree wanted to give him a hug. The bark of the tree shimmered, shining with a chartreuse light.
“The tree, Mike! The tree!”
Mike looked, and in one fluid movement retargeted the shotgun and fired, smashing slugs into the heart of the tree. He bent and fed shells into the shotgun’s ammo tube.
Toby snapped his tranquilizer gun up and fired five quick shots at the tree. It was unclear whether the shotgun’s rounds or the darts irritated the tree more, but it was clear that neither type of round did much more than that. “Benny! Move!”
Benny’s eyes snapped away from the tree and locked on Toby’s. Toby replaced the spent magazine and beckoned Benny with his chin. “Move!”
Benny looked around, saw the tree’s limbs behind him and dove toward Toby, arms up to protect his face. He hit the ground and rolled to the right, avoiding two thick branches that slammed into the earth by a mere fraction of an inch.
The whole tree was shaking and writhing, but whether it was from pain or fury, Toby had no idea. He snapped the tranquilizer gun up at the same moment Mike shouldered the shotgun. They fired in unison, Toby’s darts hitting the tree from the right, Mike’s shotgun blasts slamming into the tree trunk from the left. A horrible keening wail split the air, and the whole tree shuddered.
“Look out!” yelled Mike.
Toby ducked and felt the wind of a passing tree limb. Still stooped he jigged right, then left, unslinging his pack as he went. “Have to reload, Mike!”
“Do it!” The shotgun boomed again and again, and the keening increased in volume. The dog-things stalked in circles, snarling and growling, unable, or unwilling to get close to the tree.
Toby knelt and began feeding darts into empty magazines. “Benny! What do we do? What do we do?” His attention on reloading, he didn’t see Benny stand up and run at the tree.
43
She froze, her hand on the gear selector, her eyes locked on the review mirror.
Brigitta was sitting in the back seat, looking back at her with hatred in her eyes. “You bitch!” Brigitta hissed. “How dare you? How dare you!” Spittle flew from the blonde woman’s lips and her eyes seemed to pulse with malevolence. “He is mine, do you hear? Mine!”
Shannon didn’t know what to do. She stared at the apparition in the back seat, muscles locked in place, fear streaming in her blood.
44
Scott came down out of the belfry when the troopers entered the church. A grim smile played at the edges of his mouth, but he felt empty. Drained.
He left the hateful old church and walked out into the cool fall afternoon. He watched Shannon approach Gray and exchange words. She climbed into Toby’s BMW and started the engine, but then she seemed to lock up like a robot running out of batteries.
Something stirred in the pit of his stomach. Something that both hurt him and scared him at the same time. He dropped the rifle and sprinted toward the car.
45
Benny understood. It was too late, but he finally understood. Herlequin wasn’t a gargoyle or a demon or a goblin or an elf. He wasn’t one of Toby’s “traditional” or “undead” demons, though he played at being both. No, Herlequin was a “weird.” Herlequin was the tree.
He sprinted toward the tree.
“Benny, no!” screamed Mike. He fired the shotgun in quick bursts at the trunk, spent shells peppering the dog-things.
Benny ducked his head, avoiding a sweeping blow from one of Herlequin’s branches by a hair. Ten feet from the tree, he shifted his focus from the tree trunk to his abandoned pack lying in the grass. He dove, scooped up the pack, and rolled away. He dumped the contents of the pack out in front of him and pawed through it, looking for the metal canister Toby had given him to hold. “Your canisters!” he yelled.
Mike stood hunched over, shoving more shotgun shells into the loading tube when the thick branch slammed into his side. The force of the blow lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing into the trees.
“Mike!” Toby screamed. “Benny! Look out!”
46
“I…I…” she stuttered.
“You nothing,” sneered Brigitta. “You nothing!” Her voice shook with near-uncontrollable rage, and spit flew from her lips with each syllable. “It’s ruined! It’s all ruined, and it’s all your fault!”
Shannon’s hands came back to life, and she scrabbled for the door handle, wanting nothing else than to be out of the car and away from Brigitta.
“No,” said the woman in the back seat. “Look at me!” she snapped in a whip-crack voice.
Without thinking, Shannon looked at her. The visage of the blonde beauty fell away and what sat in the backseat of the car scared Shannon
more than anything had ever scared her.
Brigitta was hideous. Her skin was black and riddled with weeping sores. Flesh hung loose from her bones, and her dry, brittle hair hung in purulent clumps. Her nails—claws—were long and age-yellowed. But it was her eyes that terrified Shannon. Her irises were crimson, and blood dripped from the corners of her eyes. They blazed with a pestilent, virulent hatred. “Now he’s lost to us. Lost to me. You will pay for what you’ve done!”
47
The blow knocked Mike’s breath away, and he almost dropped the shotgun when he crashed into the trees. His friends were trapped behind him, a score or more of dog-things between them. Worse, now that he wasn’t within range of the twisting, slashing tree, the dog-things were coming.
Benny was screaming his name, yelling something he couldn’t understand. Mike pushed his aching body up and finished reloading the shotgun. He had to get back to his friends, had to help them, had to protect them.
He ran toward the glade, the snarling four-legged nightmares speeding ever closer. One of them leapt at him from the darkness, and he fired the shotgun from the hip. The slug took the dog-thing in the neck and punched straight through it, misting the air with cadmium green blood. He fired again, and this time, the slug hit the dog-thing in the jaw, smashing through the back of its skull. The dog-thing’s muscles slackened all at once, and it turned on its side in midair. Mike ducked, and it flopped through the air over his head.
Head down, Mike sprinted toward the glade, thumbing two more shells into the gun as he ran. The dog-things snarled and ran to intercept him.
48
Toby reloaded all three magazines, trying to watch Benny, Mike, the dog-things, and the whirling tree all at once. He slipped a magazine into his gun, shouldered it and fired five times as fast as he could squeeze the trigger. At this range, and given the width of the trunk, the chance of him missing was miniscule.
“Toby! Your canister!” Benny screamed.
Toby switched magazines and fired five darts in rapid succession. Who knew if the M99 was even effective against a tree?
“Your canister, Toby! I need it! Now!”
Toby glanced in his direction. Benny stooped low to the ground, arms outstretched, beckoning Toby. Like being struck by lightning, what Benny wanted to do dawned on him, and he stooped to fish through his pack for his own, fire-extinguisher sized canister. He pulled it out and threw it to Benny.
“I need Mike’s, too! Get it!”
With a nod, Toby slung his pack, so it hung across his chest, changed magazines, and fired his five darts into the tree. The tree was shuddering, swaying to and fro as if in a strong wind. He slung his rifle, and sprinted across the glade, one hand holding an empty magazine and the other fishing in his pack for more darts.
Mike burst from the trees in front of Toby, eyes wild. “Dog-things behind me!” he yelled.
“Mike!” yelled Benny. “Give me your canister.”
Toby grabbed Mike by the arm and tugged him inside the arc of thrashing tree limbs. “Get it,” he said. “I’ll keep the dog-things away.”
Mike dug through his pack, found the metal canister, and threw it to Benny. “What else?”
“When I say, shoot the canister!” Benny rolled the three canisters to the foot the tree and turned to Mike. “Now!”
Mike fired at the middle canister, and flames exploded up the trunk of the tree.
49
Scott had sprinted halfway to the car when he saw something come over the backseat at Shannon. He raced to the car and jerked on the door handle, but it was locked. He rapped on the window, but Shannon was in a fight for her life, some banshee with rotting, black skin screaming and slashing at her.
He turned and yelled for help from the troopers standing around the church. Scott turned back to the car and drew his pistol.
50
Brigitta shrieked and scratched. She hit and bit, pulling Shannon’s hair. It was as if a wildcat writhed in her lap. There was no way to get away, she couldn’t even fight back because it seemed like Brigitta was everywhere at once.
Scott was hammering on the window with the butt of his pistol. Each blow making a muted thud, but not breaking the safety glass. He had no leverage.
She will kill me before he gets in, Shannon thought in a detached, almost clinical way. Wait! That’s it. I’m dead! No reason to keep hitting the dead girl. I’m dead, I’m dead!
51
Scott hammered the window with the butt of his pistol again and again, but it wasn’t working. It just bounced and skittered off the safety glass. The thing in Shannon’s lap was tearing at her hair, gouging her face with her nails.
He could shoot out the window, but there was a significant chance of hitting Shannon. Even so, there was little choice. He set himself and aimed carefully.
Just when he was about to fire, Shannon died.
52
Fire cascaded in wide sheets across the tree, igniting the old wood. In the forest around them, the dog-things screamed—sounding very much as if they were the ones being killed. Toby hoped they were.
The fire spread through the tree as if by magic, racing up the trunk and down the branches. It popped and crackled as the flames hit Herlequin’s blood and ignited that too.
The tree was shuddering and hissing, but there was nothing it could do but burn. Herlequin shrieked, and it was a deafening sound—like a thousand jet engines at full power. Mike stood next to him, shotgun hanging loose in his fists, staring at the burning tree as if hypnotized by it.
Toby tore his eyes from the tree, searching the glade for Benny. He was slumped on the ground next to his pack, clumps of burning blood and drops of liquid fire raining down around him from Herlequin’s burning boughs. Toby sprinted over and pulled him out from under the branches. “Benny! Are you okay?”
Benny looked up at him, groggy and confused. “Is he dying?”
“Yes, Benny, I guess he is. Thanks to you.”
“Good,” said Benny and closed his eyes.
53
Dead! I’m a dead girl! shouted Shannon in her mind, lending all her mental reserves to her cries.
Brigitta stopped screaming, stopped attacking her.
Shannon glanced at her face and saw suspicion, disbelief. No, I’m dead, you killed me. I’m dead. You ripped out my throat. You can believe it.
Brigitta shifted to the passenger seat, never taking her eyes off Shannon’s face. Her eyes narrowed, and she sat bolt-upright in the seat. “No! No!” she shrieked and disappeared.
Shannon slumped in the seat for a moment and opened the door. Scott was there in a flash.
“I thought she killed you!” he cried.
“Sorry about that.”
“What happened? Where’d she go?”
“No idea,” said Shannon, and a moment later, she collapsed in a dead faint.
54
The huge tree burned, and Toby smiled, thinking of the woman in his dream. He wasn’t sure if it had been his mother in the dream, or if it had been Benny playing the role, but it didn’t matter. Her face resided in his memory now, and he would never forget it. He remembered her name: Candace. She hadn’t been the perfect mother, far from it, but in the end…in the end she’d tried to do right by him.
“Is it over?” asked Mike.
“I think it—”
Between Toby and the tree, the air popped, and a demon appeared. Her decaying skin sagged, and her brittle hair flew toward the tree on the currents of air feeding the fire. “NO!” she screamed.
Toby snapped the tranquilizer gun up and fired into her back. “Yes!” he snapped. He popped the magazine and fed the gun another. He fired that dry and repeated the process. Toby had hit her with fifteen doses of M99, and she reeled as she turned to face him.
“You!” she said, and it sounded every bit a curse.
Mike fired, the shotgun booming, drowning her out. The slug smashed into her and rocked her back a step. He fired again and again, backing her closer and cl
oser to the tree. When her hair caught fire, she fixed them with a freezing glance while she beat at the flames with her hands. “You’ll pay for your mischief!” she shrieked. The air popped again, and she was gone.
“What the hell was that?” Mike asked.
Toby shivered. “A teleporting demon,” he said.
“They can do that?”
Toby shrugged. “News to me.” They got Benny between them, supporting him in case the demon woman came back, and they had to run. “Is it finished?” Toby murmured.
Benny nodded. “Herlequin is dying—dead for all intents and purposes. The undead queen who just left us is another story.””
“What was in that stuff?” Mike asked, pointing at the torn remains of the chemical canisters.
“Chlorine trifluoride,” Toby said. “Maybe the most flammable stuff in the universe.”
“How long will it burn.”
“Until he’s gone.”
“Until his blood and body break up?”
“Gone for good,” said Toby.
“Good,” said Benny.
“Hope Scott and Shannon are okay.”
“They are,” said Benny, sounding very satisfied with himself.
The fire continued to burn, and the darkness lost its hold on the forest around them. The horrible corpse of the tree burned to ash. As the sun burned the last of the murk out of the Thousand Acre Wood, the three men walked back to the Jeep.
55
When Mike pulled into the state park to the north of Thousand Acre Wood, Toby’s red BMW already sat in the parking lot next to the woods. Scott and Shannon leaned against the side of the car, and while Scott looked unscathed, Shannon looked like she’d been to the roller derby.
“Shannon!” Benny yelled and hopped out of the back of the Jeep before Mike could stop. He ran to her side, but when he got to her, he stood there like an idiot, unsure of what to do.
“You’re going to kill yourself, you fool,” yelled Mike.
No, I’m not.
Mike laughed and shook his head. “Do you believe that guy?” Together, he and Toby climbed out of the Jeep and walked around to the BMW. “You get into a fight with a wildcat, Shan.”
Blackened Page 20