Hellboy: Odd Jobs (23 page)

"Look," said Hellboy, "I gotta take a leak." He heaved himself up and stood beside the table for a moment, weaving unsteadily, trying to keep his balance. "You tell her the rest of it."

With that, he started toward the restroom, taking short, halting steps.

"Okay," The Finn said, hunkering down and leaning forward, his arms hooked over the chair back. "You have to try to picture it. We're out there in the middle of this cornfield. It's getting on toward night. There's a steady wind rustling through the dead leaves of the corn, but the first thing I notice, the creepiest thing about the whole thing is, there's no wildlife around."

"What do you mean?" Lorraine said as a strong shiver ran like teasing fingers up her back.

"I mean nothing. No birds singing. No late-season crickets buzzing. No dogs barking.
Nothing
. Total silence except for the wind, blowing through the dried corn. Red Shirt tells us he's gonna follow the tracks around the pond. It wasn't very big."

"What about the farmer ... the person who owned the field?" Lorraine asked.

The Finn lowered his eyes and shook his head grimly. "He was already dead. Him and his whole family. They were the first of Moses' new victims, once he'd come back as the scarecrow. I went back to the car to get some things

some flashlights, guns, and a cigarette lighter and some road flares."

"Road flares?"

"We thought of making some torches, using the corn stalks, but they were too damp and brittle. I figured road flares would burn better, even if it started to rain."

"Hey,
I
was the one who suggested that road flares would work," Hellboy said, coming up to the table so suddenly even The Finn jumped when he spoke. "If you're gonna tell the story, tell it the way it really happened."

"Yeah, okay. It was your idea," The Finn said with a half-smile on his thin lips. "Are you going to let me finish the story or not?"

"No, I'll take it from here," Hellboy said as he sat back down in the booth. Before going on with the story, though, he took the second, untouched glass, filled it with beer, and slid it over to The Finn. Then he refilled his own glass and slammed the empty pitcher onto the table.

"Glad you made some room for that," The Finn said.

Hellboy nodded. "So where were we?"

"Down by the pond," Lorraine said. "The Finn had just gone back to get guns and road flares."

"Oh, yeah," Hellboy said, and for a moment, his eyes fluttered as he leaned back in his seat. "I went down to the water, where the tracks led, and was leaning over it, trying to see to the bottom. I heard someone coming up behind me, but I figured it was The Finn, returning with the equipment, so I didn't look until it was too late."

"But it was Moses, right?" Lorraine said, anticipating the story.

Hellboy nodded. "Yup," he said, the word sounding more like a burp than a word. "And he's got this garrotte he's made with barbed wire that he wraps around my neck and starts pulling. Fortunately, I had just enough of a warning, and as I turned around, I got my right hand up between my throat and the wire."

"Your
right
hand," Lorraine said, glancing at the huge stone hand resting on the table, next to the cooler.

Hellboy nodded. "Yeah, lucky for me, too, cause once he started twisting that garrotte tighter, I'd have been a goner if I hadn't reacted so fast."

"The problem was," The Finn said, "with his hand up so close to his face, ol' Hellboy here lost his balance and fell headfirst into the pond."

"I didn't fall. I slipped," Hellboy said, glaring at The Finn. Lorraine saw the dull orange of his eyes intensify.

"The edge of the pond was all muddy, and I slipped and fell."

"Either way, you ended up headfirst in the water," The Finn said. "And with that big stone hand of yours weighing down, you were helpless as a baby."

"How do you know?" Hellboy said, leaning forward and pounding the table with his stone fist. The impact made the pitcher, beer glasses, and cooler all jump. "You weren't even there!"

"That's just when I returned," The Finn said softly, looking directly at Lorraine and ignoring Hellboy. "I saw him hit the water, and then he

the scarecrow, that is

saw Red Shirt coming back, and he attacked him. I

shot at Moses twice with the shotgun, but if I hit him at all, it didn't have any effect. He was charging at Red Shirt, but I knew I had to react quickly and help Hellboy before he drowned."

"I wasn't all
that
helpless," Hellboy said.

"What do you mean?" The Finn shouted. "You were stuck headfirst in the mud at the bottom of the pond, and you were drowning!"

Hellboy looked intently at Lorraine, his eyes flaring as he said, "I
wasn't
all that helpless. Honest. I'd already started to loosen the wire."

The Finn sniffed derisively. "Sure. Whatever. The way I remember it, though, I had a choice to make in a split second. I could either light a flare and help Red Shirt fight the scarecrow, or I could drop everything and keep Hellboy from drowning."

"I
wasn't
drowning," Hellboy said, slurring the words horribly and wavering in his seat.

"If you say so," The Finn said. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, because I reacted without thinking and dove into the water and got him up to the surface before he died." He nailed Hellboy with an angry stare. "I saved your goddamned life, and believe me, it wasn't easy. The least you could do is show a little gratitude."

"I didn't need your help," Hellboy said. "I was just about free of the wire by the time you got me."

The Finn scowled angrily. "Well, given the choice to do it over again, I'd sure as hell try to help Red Shirt instead, believe me."

Hellboy shook his head, letting his gaze go unfocused for a moment. "Look," he said, "either way, I got out, but it was already too late to help Red Shirt. Moses

the scarecrow

had another piece of barbed wire

with him because he strangled Red Shirt so hard, his head came off. I saw that happen just as I broke the surface with The Finn clinging to me so he wouldn't drown."

The Finn leaned back and shook his head with disgust. "That's not exactly how I remember it, but go on. Get to the end of the story."

"Well, like I said, it was already too late to save Red Shirt. He was dead, and Moses had taken off, running across the field toward the woods. He was moving pretty fast, and I wasn't sure I could catch him, so I took one of the flares The Finn had brought and lit it. Then I tied it to the wire Moses had tried to strangle me with and, swinging it around my head like one of them South American bolos, I chased after Moses until I was close enough to throw it."

"That was quick thinking," Lorraine said, hoping by her praise to assuage any hurt feelings Hellboy might have.

"Yeah, and I guess I got lucky, too," Hellboy said, " 'cause the bolo caught him around the neck, and after it spun around a few times, the flare landed on his back, right where he couldn't reach it."

"It was an amazing sight," The Finn added, smiling now and nodding with satisfaction.

"So Moses is running across the corn field, stumbling as flames spread across his back," Hellboy said. He leaned forward in his seat, fully enjoying the climax of his story. "There's pieces of burning straw and smoke streaming out behind him. He looked like a comet, streaking across that field. But he never made the woods."

"You mean he burned up?" Lorraine asked.

Hellboy nodded solemnly. "All the straw did, yeah, but before it was all gone, something else happened. It wasn't just fire and smoke that was coming out of him. As he was running, I we saw this thick, black cloud

shoot out of his body and up into the sky. It was his spirit

his soul, departing."

Lorraine gulped audibly and looked back and forth between Hellboy and The Finn.

"You both saw it?" she asked, her voice hushed with awe.

"Well, we saw ... something," The Finn said. "I'm not exactly sure what it was."

"It was his soul," Hellboy said emphatically. "It was getting dark, and I'll hold open the possibility that it could have been an illusion, but I'm sure I saw something

a dark, almost human-shaped thing streak out of

the scarecrow as its body was consumed with flames. And then, as soon as the scarecrow's body was gone, a huge flock of crows cawing real loud flew out of the trees, like they'd been waiting there. They swooped over

... whatever it was, and carried it away."

"My God," Lorraine whispered, covering her mouth with both hands and staring at Hellboy with wide eyes.

For a moment or two, everyone at the table was silent. Finally, Lorraine cleared her throat and said, "But there was nothing you could do ... for Red Shirt, I mean. He really was dead."

"Yes, damnit!" Hellboy said.

When he clenched his fist and pounded the table in anger, his hand grazed the cooler and knocked it over.

The impact snapped the latch, and it opened up, spilling its contents onto the table. Lorraine let out a piercing scream when she saw a large, wrinkled object that looked like a gigantic dried prune until she realized that she was looking at a face. The lips were dried and cracked, pulled back into a terrible grimace that exposed the top row of yellowed, rotting teeth. The nose had caved in, leaving a dark V-shaped divot, and the eyes were closed and sunken in, the lids looking like thin layers of moldy onionskin.

Lorraine pushed herself violently away from the table and tried to stand up, but her legs felt unstrung and nowhere near strong enough to support her. She sagged back in her chair, gasping for breath, but she was afraid to breathe the sour, sickening smell that exuded from the severed head.

"Jesus! ... Is that him ... ? Is that Red Shirt ... ?" she managed to say between gasps for breath. Her stomach clenched furiously, and a thick, sour taste flooded the back of her throat.

"Oh, no ... no," Hellboy said, scrambling awkwardly to get the severed head back into the cooler and close it.

"That's something else entirely."

"Jesus God!" Lorraine said. "It ... that didn't even look human."

"Oh, it was," Hellboy said as he placed the closed travel cooler on the seat beside him and patted it gently.

"About two thousand years ago, anyway."

"Well, then," Lorraine said, struggling to regain her composure now that the terrible object was out of sight.

"It's getting way late. I ... my sister must be wondering where I am. I'd best be getting along."

She got up shakily from the table. Her first and strongest impulse was to turn and run out of there, but she stood there for a moment, making sure her legs weren't going to give out on her when she started walking.

"Hey, wait a minute," Hellboy said. "Where you going?"

He was looking at her, sort of, but his gaze was shifting and unfocused.

"Now that The Finn's here, and you know the whole story, aren't you going to toast to Red Shirt's memory with us?" he asked.

Lorraine licked her lips, all too aware of the sour churning deep down in her stomach. She didn't know if she wanted to run away or pass out or what, but now that the head was, mercifully, out of sight, she didn't feel quite so bad.

Finally, she shrugged and said, "Ahh ... oh, sure. What the hell?" and slid back into her seat.

For the first time that evening, Hellboy smiled as he raised the empty pitcher above his head to signal Kyle that they were ready for another round. Outside, the cold, autumn rain lashed against the window as the late October storm blew toward the distant Maine coast.

Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched

Chet Williamson

Ashes lay like a comforter of gray down over the hard ground. Through their soft surface timbers rose, charred black, standing like trees swept by destroying fire. Hellboy watched as one of the standing timbers swayed, held, swayed again, and with a cracking sound no louder than that of a twig being trod upon, broke near its base and fell, softly, gently, into the thick ashes, which sent up a gray cloud, incense to welcome the new offering.

The beams of the rising sun split the clouds on the eastern horizon into wispy tendrils, and tinted golden the flakes of ash that hung and sparkled in the cool morning air. Hellboy walked slowly around the ruins of piety, recognizing shapes that pushed randomly out of the ashy coverlet: the broken spines of long pews, a blackened, square hulk that might have been an organ, and less identifiable shapes, all reduced to carbon.

In the middle of the destruction was a cross that, Hellboy theorized, had plummeted from the peak of the steeple when that topmost portion of the edifice had tumbled down into the flames that had dissolved its base.

Flakes of gold still adhered to the metal surface, but most had been burned away, revealing gray steel beneath. The cross had landed upside-down, and its head had dug deeply into the rubble, so that the crossbeam was flush with the ashes. It was Saint Peter, wasn't it, Hellboy thought, who had been crucified upside-down.

He got back into his car and finished his journey, driving into the town of Linden, North Carolina, thirty miles from the ashes of what had once been a Golgotha Tabernacle of Our Lord. There were a total of fifteen Golgotha Tabernacles in North and South Carolina, and it was the founder of this small but growing denomination that Hellboy was on his way to visit. He had no doubt that the call would be unpleasant, even though his way had been made straight by the Bureau. He also doubted that Donald Withers, Golgotha Tabernacle's bishop, would feel a widow's mite's worth of compassion for anyone from an organization with the word 'paranormal' in it.

Hellboy was hardly relieved to be proven right. When he arrived at the large but seedy southern gothic mansion that housed the offices of Golgotha Tabernacles, the secretary, a thin, middle-aged woman sitting behind a large wooden desk in the foyer, immediately fell to her knees, buried her face in her hands, and started praying feverishly and nearly incomprehensibly, though Hellboy was able to make out, "fires of Hell,"