Deadman's Crossing (16 page)

“Find the axe,” the Reverend said.

Norville went outside and got the axe and brought it back. It
was a single edge, and the Reverend turned the flat side down and
swung and knocked the lock off with one sure blow. He opened the
box. Inside was a book.

“Why would someone put a book under lock and key?” Norville
said.

The Reverend went to the table and sat on the long bench
next to it. Norville sat on the other side. The Reverend opened
the book and studied it. He looked up after a moment, said,
“Whoever built this house originally, their intentions for us
were not good.”

“Us?” Norville said. “How would they, whoever that is, know
we would be here?”

“Not you and I. Us, as in the human race, Norville. They,
meaning the ones who possess this book, called
The Book of Doches
.
The ones who find it or buy it or kill to possess it always believe
they will make some pact with the dark ones, the ones darker than
our god, much darker, and they believe that if they allow these
dark ones to break through they will be either their master or their
trusted servant. The latter is sometimes possible, but the former,
never. And in the end, a trusted servant is easily replaced.”

“What are you talkin’ about?” Norville said.

“There are monsters on the other side of the veil, Norville. A
place you and I can’t see. These things want out. Books like this
contain spells to free them, and sometimes the people who possess
the book want to set them free for rewards. Someone has already
set one of them free.”

“The sucking thing?”

“Correct,” the Reverend said, shaking the book. “Look at the
pages. See? The words and images on the pages are hand printed.
The pages, feel them.”

Norville used his thumb and finger to feel.

“It’s cloth.”

“Flesh. Human flesh is what the book says.”

Norville jerked his hand back. “You can read this hen scratch?”

“Yes. I read a translation of it long ago, taught myself to
understand the original symbols.”

“You have the same book?”

“Had. One of them got away from me, the one adapted into
English. The other I destroyed.”

“How did it get away from you?”

“That’s not important to us today. Whoever built this house
may have brought this copy here. But their plans didn’t work
out. They released something, one of the minor horrors, and that
minor horror either chased them off, or did to them what they did
to your poor Sissy. This thing they called up. The place where it
is from is wet, and therefore it takes to the well. And it is hungry.
Always hungry. A minor being, but a nasty one.”

“But if this beast is on the other side, as you call it, why would
anyone bring it here?”

“Never underestimate the curiosity and stupidity and greed of
man, Norville.”

“If the book set this thing free, then burn the book.”

“Not a bad idea, but I doubt that would get rid of anything.
In fact, I might do better to study the book. My guess is whoever
first brought the book loosed the creature. They then decided they
had made a mistake, made the marks of power on the stones and
sealed the thing in the well where it preferred to reside—it liked
the dampness, you see. And then, someone, like you, took the
rocks from the well and the thing was let loose. One of the other
survivors, the preacher for example, may have figured out enough
to seal the thing back in the well. And then you let it out again.”

“Then we can seal it back up,” Norville said.

The Reverend shook his head. “Then someone else will open
the well.”

“We can destroy the well curbing, put the rocks in, build a
mound of dirt over all of it.”

“Still not enough. That leaves the possibility of it being opened
up in the future, if only by accident. No. This thing, it has to be destroyed. Listen here. It’s light yet. Take my horse and walk it and
take off its saddle, and then bring it inside where it will be safer.”

“The house?”

“Since when are you so particular? I do not want to leave the
horse for that thing to kill. If it must have the horse or us, then it
will have to come and get the lot of us.”

“All right then.”

“Bring in my saddle and all that goes with it. And those rocks
from the well. Only the rocks from the well. Start bringing them
in by the pile.”

“Aren’t there enough here in the fireplace?”

“They are in use. One may cause this thing to flee, but that
doesn’t mean one will destroy it. I have other plans. Do it, Norville.
Already the sun dips deep and the dark is our first enemy.”

When the horse was inside and the stones were stacked in the middle of the floor, the Reverend looked up from the book, said, “Place
the stones in a circle around us. A large circle. Make a line of them
across the back of this room and put the horse against the wall behind them. Give him plenty of room to get excited. Hobble him and
put on his bridle and tie him to that nail in the wall, the big one.”

“And what exactly will you be doin’?”

“Reading,” the Reverend said. “You will have to trust me. I’m
all that is between you and this thing.”

Norville went about placing the stones.

It was just short of dark when the stones were placed in a circle
around the table and a line of them had been made behind that
from wall to wall, containing the tied-up horse.

Reverend Mercer looked up from the book. “You are finished?”

Norville said, “Almost. I’ll board up the bedroom window. Not
that it matters. It can slip between small spaces. But it will slow it
down.”

“Leave it as is, and leave the door to the bedroom partially
cracked.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite.”

The Reverend placed one of the rocks on the table, removed
the bullets from his belt and took his knife and did his best to
copy the symbols in small shapes on the tips of his ammunition.
The symbols were simple, a stick man with a few twists and twirls
around it. It took him an hour to copy it onto twelve rounds.

Finished, he loaded six rounds in each of his revolvers.

“Shall I light the lamp?” Norville asked.

“No. You have an axe and a shotgun lying about. We may have
need for both. Recover them, and then come inside the ring of
stones.”

 
CHAPTER
4

THE ARRIVAL

While they waited, sitting cross-legged on the floor inside the circle of stones, the Reverend carved the symbols on the rocks onto
the
blade of the axe. He thought about the shotgun shells, but it
wouldn’t do any good to have the symbols on the shells and not on
the load, and since the shotgun shot pellets, that was an impossible
task.

Laying the axe between them, the Reverend handed the shotgun
to Norville. “The shotgun will be nothing more than a shotgun,”
he said. “And it may not kill the thing, but it will be a distraction.
You get the chance, shoot the thing with it, otherwise, sit and do
not, under any circumstances, step outside this circle. The axe I
have written symbols on and it may be of use.”

“Are you sure this circle will keep it out?”

“Not entirely.”

Norville swallowed.

They sat and they listened as the hours crept by. The Reverend
produced a flask from his saddlebags. “I keep this primarily for
medicinal purposes, but the night seems a little chill so let us both
have one short nip, and one short nip only.”

The Reverend and Norville took a drink and the flask was
replaced. And no sooner was it replaced than a smell seeped into
the house. A smell like a charnel house and a butcher shop and an
outhouse all balled into one.

“It’s near,” Norville said. “That’s its smell.”

The Reverend put a finger to his lips to signal quiet.

There were a few noises on the outside of the house, but they
could have been most anything. Finally there came a sound in the
bedroom like wet laundry plopping to the floor.

Norville looked at the Reverend.

Reverend Mercer nodded to let him know he too had heard it,
and then he carefully pulled and cocked his revolvers.

The room was dark, but the Reverend had adjusted his eyesight
and could make out shapes. He saw that the bedroom door, already
partially cracked open, was slowly moving. And then a hand, white
and puffy like the petals of an orchid, appeared around the edge
of the door, and fingers, long and stalk-like, extended and flexed,
and the door moved and a flow of muddy water slid into the room
along the floor.

The Reverend felt Norville move beside him, as if to rise, and
he reached out and touched his shoulder to steady him.

The door opened more, and then the thing slipped inside the
main room. It moved strangely, as if made of soft candle wax. It
was dead white of flesh, but much of the skin was filthy with mud.
It was neither male nor female. No genitals; down there it was as
smooth as a well-washed river rock. It was tall, with knees that
swung slightly to the sides when it walked, and there was an odd
vibration about it, as if it were about to burst apart in all directions.
The head was small. Its face was mostly a long gash of a mouth.
It had thin slits for eyes and a hole for a nose. At the ends of its
willowy legs were large flat feet that splayed out in shapes like
claw-tipped four-leaf clovers.

Twisting and winding, long stepping, and sliding, it made its
way forward until it was close to the Reverend and Norville. It
leaned forward and sniffed. The hole that was its nose opened
wider as it did, flexed.

It smells us, thought the Reverend. Only fair, because we
certainly smell it.

And then it opened its dripping mouth and came at them in a
rush.

As it neared the stones, it was knocked back by an invisible
wall, and then there came something quite visible where it had
impacted, a ripple of blue fulmination. The thing went sliding
along the floor on its belly in its own mud and goo.

“The rocks hold,” the Reverend said, and it came again.
Norville lifted the shotgun and fired. The pellets went through
the thing and came rattling out against the wall on the other side.
The hole made in its chest did not bleed, and it filled in rapidly,
as if never struck.

Reverend Mercer stood up and aimed one of his pistols, and
hit the thing square in the chest, and this time the wound made a
sucking sound and when the load came out on the other side, goo
and something dark came with it. But it didn’t stop the creature.
It hit the invisible wall again, bellowed and fell back. It dragged
its way around the circle toward the horse, tied behind the line of
stones. The terrified horse reared and snapped its reins as if they
were non-existent. The horse went thundering across the line, and
then across the circle of stones, causing them to go spinning left
and right, and along came the thing, entering the circle through
the gap.

The Reverend fired again. The thing jerked back and squealed
like a pig. Then it sprang forward again, grabbed the Reverend by
the throat and sent him flying across the room, slamming into the
side of the frightened horse.

Norville swung the shotgun around and fired right into the
thing’s mouth, but it was like the thing was swallowing gnats. It
grabbed the gun barrel, used it to sling the clutching Norville sliding across the floor, collecting splinters until he came up against
the bedroom door, slamming it shut.