Black Treacle Magazine (March/April 2013, Issue 2) (2 page)

He didn't like
leaving the guns and the money behind. But dragging that stuff
along would only slow them down and make them more conspicuous.
They weren't getting anywhere now and they'd be sitting ducks if
cops showed up.

Jesse answered
by getting out of the truck. He shoved the money bags under the
seats, hid the guns, too. Together they headed down the road.

The night air
was unsettlingly silent. Hearing a coyote or something would have
been unnerving, too. But as the silence continued, Jesse thought
he'd welcome a distant yowl, just to know there was something alive
out there.

They entered
town. Some lights shone, but there were no signs of life. Automated
lights, just as he'd thought. If this town had been vacant as long
as he thought it might have been, one day those would burn out and
Blackrock would go completely dark.

One of the
streetlights gave enough light inside the gas station that Elaine
was able to find a map. She brought it outside, looked it over.

"Found it,"
she said after a minute.

"Where we
at?"

"Middle of
freakin' nowhere, near the center of the state."

"Shit..."

"Closest town
is about fifteen miles from here."

They could
make fifteen miles on foot before dawn if they got moving. Maybe
there was a chance yet. Lift another car, drive back. But not too
close. Switch the plates and--woo hoo hoo--take the money and
run.

"Let's do
this," he said. "Which way?"

She pointed
away from where his truck sat. Jesse headed off down the short bit
of road back towards the main road, Elaine following behind
him.

Before long,
the back side of the "Welcome to Blackrock" sign loomed ahead.
"Thanks For Visiting Blackrock!" it said. "Come Back Soon!"

The air felt
thick and Jesse had trouble catching his breath. With each step he
took, the feeling mounted. He slowed to a walk but even that took
great effort, like walking through hip-deep snow when he was a
little kid back in South Dakota.

"Everything
okay, Jesse?" Elaine asked from behind him.

He shook his
head, tried to keep moving forward. A wave of nausea flowed over
him and he fell to the ground. He rolled over, saw Elaine crouched
down, watching him closely. He crawled towards her. There was no
resistance here.

"What's going
on, Jess?"

He pulled
himself to his feet. "I don't know. Something's wrong with me. I
couldn't breathe, felt sick. I don't feel too bad now. Just give me
a minute..."

Jesse
collected himself, took several deep breaths, and nodded. "Probably
just stress. Let's go."

Only a few
seconds were needed to convince Jesse that it wasn't stress causing
his difficulty. Each step he took down the road brought back the
nausea and shortness of breath. He stopped and turned away before
he was forced to the ground again.

"Dammit..."

Elaine took a
few steps forward. He watched her struggle, just as he had
done.

"Maybe it's
something in the air here?" she said.

"Dunno. Let's
try going that way," he pointed off the road, towards distant
mountains. "See if we can go around whatever's stopping us."

They tried
several different approaches. Nothing worked. Every time they tried
to leave the town, they were held back.

Jesse slumped
down to the ground by the dead Buick.

"Just gonna
give up?" Elaine asked him.

"I don't know
what else to try. The cars are dead, you said. Something's keeping
us from leaving town on foot. Unless you're thinking we're going to
sprout wings and fly, then it sure looks to me like we're
stuck."

She bit her
lip, looked around. "Let's check the houses again, see if we can
find anything useful."

Jesse stayed
on the ground, lost in his thoughts.

"Get up,
dammit! We're not gonna figure anything out sitting here." Elaine
turned and walked back towards Blackrock. Reluctantly, Jesse stood
up and followed her.

"We'll check
all the buildings. You take this side of the street"--she pointed
left--"and I'll check the other."

It seemed like
a big waste of time to Jesse, but he didn't have a better idea.
Hell, he hadn't had a good idea in months. Even robbing that bank,
something which had seemed like it had gone off fine at
first...

He went
through the buildings one by one, not sure what he was looking for.
His cell phone, otherwise useless, did work as a mediocre
flashlight so he wasn't stumbling around in near-darkness.

Jesse nearly
passed up a particularly ramshackle building, but if he was going
to go through this pointless mission, he might as well do it up
right. He climbed the steps of its porch, each letting loose a
pained creak when his weight fell upon it.

The interior
of this house was as discouraging as its exterior. Clutter was
everywhere, stacks of books and papers reaching towards the
ceiling. He would have left right away, despairing of finding
anything helpful in the mess. But he noticed one thing here he
hadn't seen in any of the other houses. A pair of suitcases sat
near the front door. A quick heft of each showed they were full.
Someone had been ready to leave Blackrock.

Jesse pressed
on through the house. A room near the back held a large desk,
bookshelves crammed full, and still more piles of papers. He swung
his cell phone back and forth, examining the room. In one corner
stood an oddly-grotesque statue, carved in dark wood, of a figure
that seemed half-man and half-
thing
. He quickly looked away
from it.

A book sat
open atop the desk. It looked old, with those peculiarly-printed
letters that he associated with the falling-apart bibles in the
Lutheran churches he and his mother had frequented back in the
Dakotas. Back when those churches' free meals were all either of
them had to eat.

An
illustration on one of the pages the book was open to, echoed the
lines of the statue, and gave Jesse a chill. The other page had
blocks of text with curious headings like "Summoning the Vile" and
"Parting the Barrier." Penciled notations were in what remained of
the margins of the tattered pages. "The Vile feed at midnight" read
one note. "Do this when they are distracted" read another, by the
"Parting the Barrier" heading.

What the hell?
He flipped to the book's cover. One word stood out to him on the
cover--"Grimoire." He remembered that word from a book a friend had
lent him when he and his mom first moved to Texas. The kid turned
out to be a real freakazoid...

Jesse sat in
the chair by the desk. Someone had been planning to leave town.
Someone who had a grimoire. A spell book. And that book talked
about how to "part" a barrier. And there certainly was a barrier
between him and freedom now.

He felt dizzy,
thinking these thoughts. Magic wasn't real. But he also couldn't
explain what force was keeping him stuck in Blackrock.

What the hell.
Like he had anything to lose. Jesse tugged at the page. It didn't
come free at first. He pulled with more force. It came loose
abruptly in his hand, tearing with a sound like a long-retained
sigh. He shoved it in his pocket, gave the house a quick further
glance, then headed outside.

No way he was
showing this to Elaine. First, he'd seem like a stupid kid claiming
that magic would help them get out of this mess. Second. Well. If
it did work, then he'd be out and she'd be stuck and he wouldn't
even need to worry about shooting her later. Maybe the Vile would
take care of her for him.

He hurried to
the edge of town, stopping only long enough to grab his own map
from the gas station. He stopped when he felt the first hints of
nausea. Feeling incredibly foolish, he began to read the words from
the page. They were unfamiliar words, not any English--or for that
matter, any German--he had ever seen. Still, they seemed to flow
easily off his tongue.

A sharp pain
took his breath away, halted his words. He crumpled to the ground,
eyes filling with tears. He reached one hand back to the source of
the pain and drew it back, bright with blood.

"I had to see
if you'd do it, Jess." Elaine's voice. He twisted his neck, saw her
standing nearby. She held a knife in one hand, a paper in the
other. "Before I could walk out of this town with you, I had to
know if you'd try to screw me over. When you get to be my age, you
get kind of careful."

He heard her
start to utter the same words he had been speaking moments before.
As she came to a close, Jesse felt prickling on his skin, like
before a lightning strike. She looked up, around, then walked
forward. Hesitantly at first, then with more confidence. She was
clearly past the place where they had been stopped before.

It had worked
for her. He knew he had to try again, wounded or not. He couldn't
stay here. The Vile feed at midnight.

He got to his
knees and started reading again.

"Don't
bother," Elaine said. "I tore off the final words when I was in the
house this afternoon." He looked at her, scant yards away, but
untouchable. "You were a liability anyway with your face being the
one on the security camera, your truck being the one people might
have seen. I gave you a chance to screw me over and when you took
it I knew I'd just have to be quit of you."

Bells in the
church tower began to ring. One... two... three... A terrible,
inhuman cry came from somewhere close, something fierce, something
hungry. Four... five... six...

Elaine ran
down the road. Seven... eight... nine... Jesse got to his feet. He
looked around, feeling faint, trying not to fall back to the
ground. He didn't see anything, but the horrible screaming
continued. Ten... eleven... twelve.

The Vile fed
at midnight.

END

Michael Haynes
lives in Central Ohio
where he helps keep IT systems running for a large corporation
during the day and puts his characters through the wringer by
night. An ardent short story reader and writer, Michael had over 20
stories accepted for publication during 2012 by venues such
as
Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic
Medicine Show
,
Daily Science Fiction
, and
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
.
His website is
http://michaelhaynes.info
and you can find him on Twitter
@mohio73
.

Mike Rimar

Death-gray
knuckles smacked the wire-latticed safety glass leaving a smear
like a squashed grasshopper on a windshield. The zombie finished
with a strangled moan.

“Was that a
double-double?” I returned the undead creature’s vapid gaze with
one of my own and pushed the metal lever beside me. A Plexiglas
window slid open revealing a small box. “Swag first. You know the
rules.”

He continued
to stare, and I thought I saw recognition reflect from his one good
eye, remembrance of better days when the Tim Hornet’s drive-thru
meant coffee, donuts, and maybe a frosted cappuccino if the wife
wasn’t present. The zombie fumbled through the pockets of his
burial suit. I tapped the small photographic collage of random
jewellery taped to the safety glass. Almost child-like, the
creature associated the pictures with the gold band on his ring
finger.

“That’s
right.” I nodded encouragement then grimaced as the zombie tore the
finger from his hand, dropping wedding ring and digit into the
box.

Releasing the
lever closed the outer window. Pushing another lever opened a
trapdoor hatch and the payment dropped into a plastic container
already half-filled with jewellery. Next, I placed a paper cup
filled with a portion of human brain into the cubicle, slid the
door shut and pushed the lever again.

Growling
something unintelligible, the zombie fumbled for the cup, brought
it to his rotting lips and tilted his head back until the thick
slab of cranial organ wormed into his mouth.

“Always fresh
at Tim Hornets,” I said as the thing lumbered away on rigor mortis
stiffened legs. He’ll be back. Zombies always came back. Caffeine
or brain, a habit is a habit and giving the monsters what they
needed helped control the infestation, so sayeth the Ministry of
Zombie Food Services.

I sighed and
looked at my watch. Three more hours till my shift ended. Leaning
against the lifeless coffee maker, its circular hotplates cold and
dusted over with disuse, I watched the closed-circuit monitor for
movement near the drive-thru window.

“Bucky, get
out here you peckerhead!” What Chief Johanson lacked in stature he
made up for in volume. No one knew his first name. Formerly a Chief
Petty Officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, Johanson firmly believed
everyone who worked for him was a deaf idiot. That went double for
work-release parolees like me.

“Yeah, Chief?”
I stepped into the doughnut shop’s dimly lit counter area.

Johanson
charged at me like I was a new recruit. He would’ve looked
ridiculous in his yellow tunic and chocolate-brown trousers if not
for the pistol holstered around his waist. “Did you place the order
to re-stock the brains last night?”

That’s when I
noticed the refrigerated display case. Once used to keep milk and
other beverages cool, it now did the same for brain-filled paper
cups, only the case was empty. My gaze flicked to the cellphone
cradled within the recharge dock on the back counter. The battery
had lost power the night before and I’d mopped the floor while the
phone recharged. The new guy, Tommy Leblanc, had knocked the bucket
over, spilling sludgy water everywhere. Cleaning the mess took
another hour. After that--