“That would make them just about impossible to get
rid of, wouldn’t it? If you got close enough to do anything…”
“I’m afraid so. Even if you could, what would you do?
It would probably take something from the occult to fight them. None of us are
qualified in that respect, I’m afraid.”
Parker shook his head, sighing. “Aren’t you getting a
little carried away with all this? You’re acting like a bunch of kids around a
campfire, talking about monsters and ghosts and walking dead men. The whole
idea is just crazy, and you sit here talking like it’s gospel. You don’t have
any proof about anything of the sort.”
“Parker, you’re getting old and stubborn,” Wittakin
said sadly. “Ann, would you bring Derek a pencil and tablet from my desk?” Ann
got them and brought them to Derek, looking puzzled. He took them and looked
questioningly at Wittakin.
“Derek, how good are you at drawing?”
“I’m no artist, but I guess I do alright. Why?”
“Do you think you could draw the creature that you
and Mike saw? It doesn’t have to be great, just enough to give us some idea of
what it was.”
“I suppose I can try. No guarantees, though.”
Ann watched over Derek’s shoulder as he drew, her
head close to his. After several minutes of watching, she sat back on the
couch. She didn’t say anything, but she was visibly paler. When he was done,
Derek handed the drawing to Wittakin.
Wittakin looked at the drawing for a long moment.
There was no expression of surprise or disappointed on his face. “This is
pretty much what you saw, then?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I think you underrate yourself as an artist.”
Wittakin passed the drawing to Parker.
Parker’s eyes widened slowly as he took in the
details of the drawing, and he shook his head in disbelief. He coughed and
cleared his throat. “This is that thing you and Mike saw?”
“I wish I could say it was just a joke, but I can’t.
That’s what we saw.”
“Jesus. That’s nothing God ever made.”
“Have you ever heard of Nephilim, Parker?” Wittakin
asked.
“No. It sounds like a disease. What is it?”
“They. There were the ‘mighty ones who were of old,
men of fame.’ It’s from Genesis. They were the unauthorized hybrids born of
mortal women and sired by disobedient angels or spirits in defiance of God.
It’s possible that much of our mythology comes from the Nephilim. Can you believe
that?”
“That’s from the Bible?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus,” Parker looked sick. “Oh sweet Jesus. If
there’s something like that out there, what the hell are we in for?”
“That’s just what we need to…” Wittakin’s eyes locked
on Derek’s face. It was drained of color, grey, and beads of perspiration clung
to his forehead. “Derek? Ann, something’s wrong with Derek.”
Ann looked at Derek and gasped. She touched his arm,
then grasped it in her hands. His muscles were locked in place, hard and stiff.
“Derek? Oh please…” She looked pleadingly at the two men. “What’s the matter
with him? We’ve got to do something to help him!”
Derek didn’t hear them. Even if they had known what
was wrong, there was no way they could have reached him, because he wasn’t
there. He was in another time and place, one filled with fighting and dying,
where he stood in the middle of it all. Drenched with the blood of his enemies
as well as his own, he led and fought through it all as he felt a growing
helplessness and frustration.
In front of him a man fought alone and unarmed, his
face a mask of desperation, a face that he knew. The man suddenly stopped his
vain struggles and reached his arm out toward him, pleading for help, but there
was none; he died, his body torn to pieces.
Desolation and horror.
That desolation and horror stayed in his mind as the
grayness shifted and reformed with color and took on new shapes, the screaming
dying down to a concerned murmur. Faces near his, faces that wanted to help but
didn’t know how.
“What’s the matter with him?” Ann’s voice, worried,
soft and far away.
“It could be a seizure or convulsion, but I don’t
think so. Some type of trance, I would say,” Wittakin said. “Have either of you
seen any sign of this before? Derek, can you hear me?”
“Mmmmm.” Derek opened his eyes and sat up weakly,
looking embarrassed. “I can hear you. Damn. Making a fool of myself.”
“Nothing of the sort, but you had us worried. You
seemed to be in some sort of trance. Do you have a history of anything like
that?”
“No,” Derek sighed, shaking his head. “Not until
recently, anyway. It’s happened two or three times in the last week, I guess.”
“Do you remember anything about them, or what causes
them?”
“I don’t know what causes them, but I seem to
remember… fighting. I’m always fighting, and I think I’m wounded…” Derek leaned
his head against the back of the couch, staring toward the ceiling. “I don’t
know. Sometimes it seems as if I see creatures like the one I drew, and I’m
fighting
them
.”
“I am not a trained psychologist,” Wittakin said.
“But I can see where someone could be affected in somewhat that manner. Tell
me, do you ever recognize anyone in these ‘dreams’?”
“Sometime I seem to.” Derek lowered his eyebrows in
thought for a moment, then suddenly sat up, his body going tense. “Mike!”
“Mike what?” Ann asked.
“In that… dream, or whatever. I think Mike was there
and he needed my help, but I couldn’t do anything.”
The four of them sat in confused silence, looking at
each other as Derek’s words soaked in. A tension filled the room, until
Wittakin asked the question that was forming in all of their minds at the same
time. “Do you think Mike might be in trouble?”
“Yes. I don’t know why, but I think so.”
“Did he say where he was going after he left you at
the hotel?”
“Back to his office. He was going to try to figure
out what he should do.”
“I think it would be a good idea to find him. Let’s
hope we’re being silly and he’s in his office having a beer right now.”
* * *
It hadn’t taken Mike very long to formulate his plan.
It was more or less complete by the time Derek had begun telling all he knew at
Wittakin’s house. Something or someone was using the basement of the Jarmans’
house. Whether it was being used as a burial, or feeding place, or some kind of
lair. Mike didn’t know, but he was going to find out.
The plan was simple enough; he and Derek would set up
a booby-trapped camera at the doorway to the basement. They would park the
Scout at the edge of the yard facing the front of the house, and both of them,
armed to the teeth, would wait in the Scout and watch. Whatever it was would
have to come or go sooner or later, and they would be there to see. And
anything they didn’t, the camera would. Then at least they would know who or
what it was they were after.
His camera was in the back room where he slept. He
got that and a handful of coat hangers from the closet and placed them on his
desk. He checked the film in the camera, reading the number on the paper tab.
Six left, if the film was still good.
The camera was a Polaroid Land camera, an old one
with movable bellows, but it worked perfect. He tried it with the flash, aiming
at the far wall, and waited for the film to develop. It gave a perfect picture
of the far wall, he saw with relief, the film was still good.
Next he straightened one of the coat hangers, then
began bending it in different shapes to fit the body of the camera. The first
didn’t work, and neither did the second; but the third worked better than he
had hoped. It hooked under the base of the camera, across the back, and over
the top, just touching the release button. The thick wire had just enough slack
so that it would depress the button if it was gently pulled forward. Half of
his booby-trap was done.
He rummaged in the top drawer of his desk until he
found a small spool of tough string. Bracing the camera through the back of his
desk chair, he tied one end of the string to the top part of the coat hanger.
He stuck a new bulb in the flash unit and reset the shutter, then played out
the line of string until he was about ten feet away. With crossed fingers, he
gave the string a gentle tug.
The flash worked; everything seemed to be okay. He
waited impatiently for the sixty seconds it took for the film to develop, and
when it finally had, he tore off the negative from the print. It had also worked.
The print showed a tired looking sheriff holding a piece of string in one hand.
So far so good.
He snatched a candle from the overhead shelf that ran
across one side of the room, sat it on his desk, and lit it. He held the bottom
of his ashtray just above the flame, letting it gather soot, then spent the
next ten minutes rubbing that soot into the string. When he was done he had
black hands, a smudged face, and twenty feet of fairly black string.
Now he needed something to put everything in. There
wasn’t much; the drawers from his files or desk were too heavy, and there were
no cardboard boxes. He looked at the wastebasket, hesitated, then shrugged;
what the hell. He could clean up anytime. He needed something now. He up ended
it, dumping the content on the floor.
He pulled a half a dozen thumbtacks from the bulletin
board and dropped them into the basket, then added the string, a flash light, a
pair of pliers and the rest of the coat hangers. On top of these, he gently
placed the Polaroid and extra flashbulbs. He covered everything with a nylon
windbreaker to keep out the rain.
Glancing around the room, he made sure he hadn’t
forgotten anything, then unlocked the gun cabinet and removed the two shotguns.
They were both twelve-gauge Remingtons, and would be very deadly at close
range. He stuffed a box of shells into his jacket pocket, sweeping the room
with his eyes once more. There was nothing else he could think of that he might
need. With the two shotguns under one arm, he lifted the wastebasket and carried
everything out to the Scout.
He had gone to the hotel and was just starting up the
stairs when Mrs. Jameson came into the lobby.
“Evening. Up kind of late aren’t you, Mrs. Jameson?”
“A little, I guess. I’ve tried, but I can’t get to
sleep anymore with everything that’s going on.”
“Came to see Derek. He in his room?”
“No, Mike, he isn’t.”
“Oh,”
Shit!
“Do you know where he is? I need
his help for something.”
“I don’t know. Ann wanted to see him and said she’d
be over at Jeff’s store, so he could be there. Do you want me to tell him you
want to see him if he comes back in?”
“Well… no, no need to. I don’t want to keep you up.
I’ll go over there and try to find him. Thank you.”
A light was on in the back of Parker’s store, and
Mike breathed a small sigh of relief. He began to worry again when no one
answered his pounding, so he let himself in. Both the store and the back room
were empty. He walked back out to the Scout, spreading a few choice words
around the store as he left.
Mike slumped behind the wheel of the Scout and lit a
cigarette. Now that he had a plan of action, he wanted to go ahead with it, get
it done as soon as possible. Waiting would probably lesson their chances;
whatever they were after might already be alerted.
He could see the main street of the town through the
wet windshield. He glanced at his watch. Ten forty-seven. The lights were on in
his office and at the hotel, but the diner, Sam’s bar, Ernie’s station, and the
rest of the buildings were dark. Even for such a little town, it seemed too
early to be so closed down. People didn’t have to know the details about what
was going on to be scared. Some of them were missing or dead, and no one was
particularly anxious for them, or their families to be next. So, no one was
going to be wandering around anywhere when they could be home, hidden and safe.
Let the sheriff take care of it, that’s what we
pay him for, ain’t it? You bet.
He thought about rousing someone else to help him,
Ernie perhaps, but discarded the idea. If he brought more people into this,
word would get out one way or another, and then he’d really have problems. As
if he didn’t have enough now. And anyway, it wasn’t their responsibility. That
shiny little badge and all that went with it hadn’t been forced on him. He had
gladly accepted it. Good job or bad, it was his.
He hesitated for a moment; it would be so easy just
to go back to his office and wait for Derek, wait for morning, just wait. He
sighed, shoving the Scout into gear, and drove to the turnoff that led to
Jarmans’ place. The Scout whined and churned reluctantly through the mud.
Nothing seemed to have been disturbed at the old
house since he and Derek had been there. The front door was still an open, ugly
invitation. The front of the house, with its broken windows, looked too much
like a dead, leering face. Once more, he resisted the temptation to give up the
whole idea, and instead pulled the Scout to the side of the yard and killed the
engine. He was well away from the house, but still had a good view of the
driveway and the front of the house. He lit a cigarette and sat smoking it in
the dark, letting his eyes adjust to the blackness. It did little good. Getting
out of the Scout, he flicked his cigarette away, tucked the wastebasket under
one arm, left the shotguns in the front seat, and went into the house.
Mike noticed a subtle drop in temperature as he
walked through the door. It grew colder as he got closer to the kitchen, and
the odor became a thick, gagging stench. The smell was one thing; he could
understand that. There were bodies down in the basement, some of which had been
there for several days at least. It was true that he had smelled rotting
carcasses before, and this smell wasn’t quite right, but in this old house… The
cold was something else. It seemed to seep through his clothes and cling to his
skin like the tentacles of some slimy, obscene creature.