Slowly now, almost mesmerized, I pumped a shotgun shell into the chamber and aimed the muzzle at the demon's head. Placing the stock snugly against my aching shoulder, I fired. The roar was deafening, and its head exploded into shards of bone and dust. There was no brain, just a void within the obscenely thick skull. Reeling, I trained the light on it once more, and saw that it finally lay still.
“Josh,” I whispered, and turned to search for him. His flashlight gave off a thick, syrupy red glow where it lay, drenched in blood and still clenched in one of his hands. “Josh!” I screamed, voice nearly ruined, and stumbled towards the church entrance. He lay still, on his back, eyes open and unblinking.
“C'mon buddy,” I whispered as I collapsed next to him. I pressed my fingers into his neck, staring with disbelief at his face. Nothing. He was still warm to the touch, but there was nothing there. Not a flutter, not a beat—he was gone.
I drew my hand back. Josh. He'd found me two years ago, drunk and raving outside a bar in Austin, ready to pack it in, kill myself in order to stop the nightmare into which I had descended. He'd dragged me back to his motel room, tried to talk sense into me, even shown me the spiral carved into the flesh above his heart that mirrored my own, and then finally knocked me out when I'd tried to leap from his window.
I looked down at his still face, reached out to close his eyes, my fingers dragging bloody smears across his brow. He'd shown me I wasn't mad. That I wasn't alone. He'd pulled me back from the brink and taught me that the demons could be killed, had shown me how to laugh while feeling terror, how to fire a shotgun, how to track our prey, and just about everything I knew about fine whiskey. And now he was dead.
Have to burn it
, I thought, shaking off my stupor. I looked about the church, head feeling empty, and then over at the demon. I thought about shooting it again. Without a head it should lie still for an hour or so. But it would grow back.
I have to burn it
, I thought again, and stood up and staggered out the door.
The night air was cool, delicious, and helped clear my head. For a moment I simply stood beneath the stars, inhaling deep ragged breaths of air, as if the darkness within the church had been inky water and I'd been submerged the whole time I'd been in there. My stomach was roiling and bubbling—I must have swallowed some of that crap that had gotten in my mouth. My chest ached and throbbed as if filled with broken teeth, burned where the demon had sliced me and I was slick with sweat and suddenly freezing in the chill air. Silence again, terrible silence after the screams and clotted curses and shotgun blasts.
Josh
, I thought, and
What did that thing do to me in there?
But I forced myself to stop. I'd seen demon victims before, sucked dry and shriveled like dried fruits with those gashes cut crossways over their hearts. I couldn't lose it. Not now.
I stumbled numbly down the steps and began to walk towards where we'd parked my truck, picking up speed till I fell into a shambling run, my flashlight swinging and leaping over the street and building fronts.
A scream broke the night, silenced my gasps. The girl was awake. I turned as if slapped toward the demon's original lair, where the white light of the camp lantern radiated out from the breached wall. A second scream, but this one was suddenly cut off as if smothered by a violent act of self-control.
“Hey,” I yelled from the street, “It's okay, it's dead!”
There was no response from the room above. She had to be terrified out of her mind I thought, and took a half step towards the house, but then stopped. I had to burn the demon first. She'd have to wait. I ran on down the street till I reached the truck, opened up the back and hauled out the bright red gasoline canister. Suddenly my vision blurred and I dropped it and nearly collapsed. My heart was thudding painfully, and a rushing roaring sound filled my ears.
“Oh God,” I said, “Oh God.” A fire was burning in me, in my chest, like something had set my heart aflame. For the first time I felt a malevolent presence within me, something new, unwelcome, smoldering and vile.
What did that thing do to me?
Opening the car door, I picked up the bottle of whiskey that lay in the seat and pulled the cap off with shaking fingers. I needed to wash my mouth out, burn away the filth that had gotten into me, needed it so bad I couldn't think. The top fell from my fingers and I up-ended the bottle, I swigged down a large gulp, and then a second, and then I coughed violently, my eyes teared up and I gagged, bending over and hacking.
I forced myself to stand, took another long pull, closed my eyes and raked my fingers through my hair, over and over again. What happened in there? Was I poisoned? The burning in my mouth felt like gasoline, my throat was on fire, my stomach curdled.
Calm down
, I heard Josh's voice say,
get a grip. You've still got a job to do
.
A figure appeared in the second story breach in the wall, the ghostly white light silhouetting her head.
“Hey,” I yelled, “Don't worry, it's dead. You're going to be fine.” Then I thought of the spiral carved into her flesh, and shut my mouth.
She jerked back at the sound of my voice, and then slowly appeared again. “Who are you?”
I felt nauseated. Grimly I lowered my chin, focused on the street. “Hold on,” I called out hoarsely. “You're safe now. Just some cleaning up to do.”
“Wait,” she said, and I could hear panic threatening to break her voice, “Where are you going? Don't go—I'm coming down, wait—“
I didn't stop walking. A few moments later I heard the sound of running footsteps, and raised my light to where the girl was approaching. Her sundress, even scuffed with dirt and blood, was luminous in my light. She slowed to a stop, and approached tentatively, trying to look past the light and see my face.
“Who-who are you? Where is it? Is—“
“I'm Jason,” I said, and turned the light to illuminate my own face. “I've got to, I mean we've—“
“What happened to you?” she asked, shocked.
“It's not my blood,” I said slowly, and began walking again. “Well, maybe some of it is. My friend's in there. But he's not coming out. We need to burn the church down.”
She stood still for a moment and then fell in with me, arms crossed over her chest, looking anxiously about in the darkness. “Is it—what happened? Where are we?” A memory surfaced in her mind, and she paused, raising her hands to her mouth, “Holy shit,” she said, looking straight ahead at nothing, “Holy shit-“
I stopped, swaying. The adrenaline was seeping out of me, leaving me dizzy with booze, unsteady on my feet. I wanted to lie down. “Come on. Easy now. Everything will make sense in the morning. Right now we just need to burn it. It's not safe yet.”
She focused on me, reached up to curl her hair back behind her ears. She touched the blood on her face, then lowered her hand to look at her fingertips. “I'm bleeding.”
“Yup,” I said, and began walking again. “It was cutting you when we came in.”
“When you came in—who
are
you? What was that—that thing?” Hysteria was beginning to mount in her voice. She looked about wildly, at the abandoned buildings, the vast desolation of the desert and then back at the blood on her fingers. “Please, can we just go, can we just leave?”
“No.” The church was close. How long had it been? Enough time for it to have healed already? A cold, greasy panic took hold of me, rose up through my nausea. “Look, it's nearly dead, I just have to finish it off. Then we can go.”
I mounted the steps, paused to load my shotgun. The mechanical sounds seemed to spell her into silence, and she stood at the base of the steps, watching with one hand over her mouth, looking about but always returning her gaze to me. I turned towards the door, and walked in.
It had risen to all fours and was blindly crawling towards the center of the church, hissing through the ruined hole where its lower jaw had been. Its tattered wings trailed behind it like ruined sails, and it looked like it was about to keel over and die at any moment. I paused. It wasn't going to keel over, I knew.
Setting the gun on a pew so that its light played over the hunched and boney thing, I approached with the gas canister and unscrewed its black plastic top. The demon didn't pause in its fumblings. I stepped right up to it, feeling too sick and numb to be afraid now, and began to pour the gasoline over its rickety body. It paused, and raised the remnants of its head as if in inquiry. The liquid sloshed over its body, ran down in thick ripples along the deep gashes of its ribs, in liquid sleeves down its arms. The air was suddenly thick with fumes, and when the whole canister was nearly empty I began to walk away, pouring what remained in a trail towards the door.
The demon began to turn towards me, rasping its knees and talons on the floorboards. I paused, tossed the canister aside, and then hitched my hands under Josh's arms and dragged him out of the church. My head spun, but I pulled him out onto the porch. I heard the girl say something behind me, but I didn't respond. I went back inside, picked up my shotgun, and drew a box of matches.
“Get back now,” I said, my tongue thick, “I'm gonna burn it all up.”
She had somehow summoned the nerve to step up to the doorway and was staring, riveted, at the blind, stupid thing that was now crawling from out of the darkness towards us. Even through the nausea and numbness I felt surprise that she hadn't screamed and gone running, but still I backed into her, pushing her away with my body as I raised the book of matches and plucked one free. “Gonna burn,” I repeated, lit the match, and let it drop.
The gasoline caught fire with a blue flame that raced along the trail. And then with a
WHOOMPH
the demon lit up, the darkness suddenly scalded back by the light of the fire. Shadows and orange light whorled and danced over the walls, the rafters, the broken pews. With the hiss of a broken gas main the demon reared up on its knees, and clawed futilely at the air. The fire licked over its body, wreathed it in blues and oranges, causing its wings to curl and cinder, its hide to peel back from its bones. Its stench filled the air, mixed with the oily black smoke that was coming off it.
“Get back,” I said, shoving my shotgun into her hands before reaching down to take hold of Josh once more and pull him down the steps. His boots clacked on each step, and then we gained the earth and I lowered him to the ground.
Slowly, painfully, I rose to my feet. The girl was straightening, hand to her mouth. We turned together. The church was burning, the dry wood lighting up like primed tinder. The crisp air filled quickly with the smell of wood smoke. The darkness about us seemed denser, almost tangible about the burning pyre, and we stood mute before the flames, watching with hollow eyes.
Soon the entire building was alight, the flame tips dancing and leaping high into the air. I watched the doorway, trying to peer inside to see the demon. Unable to make it out, I began to walk around the church, checking the windows, making sure it hadn't somehow escaped.
There was no sign of it. We waited and watched until the church roof collapsed inwards with a guttural roar and a shower of sparks spiraled up into the night, dimming the stars with their own molten brilliance. I stood still, trying not to sway, light-headed, drunk, and exhausted. One of the walls collapsed inwards, and then a second. The flames began to die down, and still there was no sign of the demon within.
“It's dead,” I said, and felt a weight lift from my shoulders.
The girl stood still next to me, still watching the blaze. “How did you… how did you know?” she asked, voice low, muted.
“We saw it in Reno.” I slowly sank to my haunches. “We saw it take you, and followed it out here.”
“I… I don't remember what happened,” she said, crouching down next to me, face lit by the flames, skin golden but shivering now as the heat of the church fire receded. “I was going to meet up with my friends, and I cut across the street in front of Circus Circus, and then…” she trailed off, and shook her head.
“It clouded your mind, probably,” I said. Everything felt surreal, two dimensional. As if I could reach out and puncture the surface of things, to reveal the void beneath. “They can do that to the unawakened. Make them see things, or see nothing at all.” I turned to look at her face. The dying firelight still lit up her features, made her eyes seem large, dark, liquid. “You're lucky Josh was there to see it.”
She shivered, and looked about, her expression becoming hunted once more. “What are we going to do? Can we get out of here? I need to call my friends. Call the police.”
“Can't call the cops,” I said. “They'd arrest us for Josh's murder. They wouldn't believe our version of what happened. Demons.” I felt light-headed, swayed on my heels.
“What are we going to do… about your friend? Hey, are you all right?” The girl leaned in, and then her eyes widened. “You're drunk.”
“Yeah,” I said, and sat back on my ass. The dirt and gravel felt cold through the worn seat of my pants. “Your own personal savior is drunk. Or poisoned. Or both.” I couldn't focus on the fire. It was swimming before me, shimmering in the tears that were filling my eyes. “Want to rest,” I said. “I'm just tired.”
The girl said something else, gripped me by the shoulder.
Don't grab me there
, I wanted to say,
that's where it hurts
. But I realized that it didn't hurt, not really, and closed my eyes. I'll sleep, I thought. Just for a moment. I'd earned it.
When I awoke I felt like crap. Not exactly a hang over, but just a generalized pain and nausea that made waking up a bad idea. Beyond the burning pain of the gashes in my chest, the burns and generalized bruising, I felt like something had forced an oily rag through my mouth, right down my tubing and out the other end. Felt filthy, polluted almost. With a groan I opened my eyes and saw that I was lying next to the truck, my head resting on a folded towel, my hands placed on my chest. I blinked several times and sat up. Dawn was at hand, the sky bleached to a pale blue, the ridge in the west still dark against the lightening sky. Around me the buildings were dark lumps, squat shapes without definite form.