Neil Gaiman & Caitlin R. Kiernan & Laird Barron (66 page)

That night I heard a board crack at the bedroom window, and I got up with a gun in my hand. I seen that one of the boards I’d nailed over the window outside had been pulled loose, and a face was pressed up against the glass. It was dark, but I could see enough cause of the moonlight, and it wasn’t like a man’s face. It was the eyes and mouth that made it so different, like it had come out of a human mold of some sort, but the mold had been twisted or dropped or both, and what was made from it was this…This thing. The face was as pale as a whore’s butt, and twisted up, and its eyes were blood red and shone at the window as clear as if the thing was standin’ in front of me. I shot at it, shatterin’ an expensive pane of glass, and then it was gone in the wink of that pistol’s flare.

“I decided it had to end, and I told Sissy to stick, and I gave her the pistol, and I took the fire wood axe and went outside and she bolted the door behind me. I went on around to the side of the house, and I thought I caught sight of it, a nude body, maybe, but with strange feet. Wasn’t nothin’ more than a glimpse of it as it went around the edge of the house and I ran after it. I must have run around that damn house three times. It acted like it was a kid playin’ a game with me. Then I saw somethin’ white that at first I couldn’t imagine was it, because it seemed like a sheet being pulled through the bedroom window I’d shot out.

“You mean it was wraith like…A haint, as you said before?”

Norville nodded. “I ran to the door, but it was bolted of course, way I told Sissy to do. I ran back to the window and started using the axe to chop out the rest of the boards, knocked the panes and the frame out, and I crawled through, pieces of glass stickin’ and cuttin’ me.

“Sissy wasn’t there. But the pistol was on the floor. I dropped the axe and snatched it up, and then I heard her scream real loud and rushed out into the main room, and there I seen it. It was chewin’…You got to believe me, preacher. It had spread its mouth wide, like a snake, and it had more teeth in its face than a dozen folk, and teeth more like an animal, and it was bitin’ her head off. It jerked its jaws from side to side, and blood went everywhere. I shot at it. I shot at it five times and I hit it five times.

“It didn’t so much as make the thing move. I might as well have been rubbin’ its belly. It lifted its eyes and looked at me, and…As God is my witness, it spat out what was left of poor Sissy’s head, and slapped its mouth over her blood pumpin’ neck, and went to suckin’ on it like a kid with a sucker.

“I ain’t ashamed to admit it, my knees went weak. I dropped the pistol and ran and got the axe. When I turned, it was on me. I swung that axe, and hit it. The blade went in, went in deep…and there wasn’t no blood, didn’t spurt a drop. Thing grabbed me up and flung me at the window, and damned if I didn’t go straight through it and land out on my back, on top of some of them rocks I’d pulled out of the well. It flowed through that window like it was water, and it come at me. I rolled over and grabbed one of the rocks and flung it and hit that thing square in its bony chest. What five shots from a pistol and a hack from an axe couldn’t do, the rock did.

“Monster yelled like the fire of hell had been shoved down its throat, and it ran straight away for the well faster than I’ve ever seen anything move, its body twistin’ in all directions, like it was going to come apart, or like the bones was shiftin’ inside of it. It ran and dove into the well and I heard it hit the mud below.

“I climbed back through the window, rushed into the main room, tryin’ not to look at poor Sissy’s body, and I got the double barrel off the mantle and lit and lantern and went back outside through the front door with the lantern in one hand, the shotgun in the other.

“First I held the lantern over the well, got me a look, but didn’t see nothin’ but darkness. I bent over the curbin’ and lowered the lantern in some, fearin’ that thing might grab me. The sides of the well were covered with a kind of slime, and I could see the mud down below, and if the thing had gone into it, there wasn’t no sign now accept a bit of a ripple.

“I hid out in the woods. I went back the next mornin’ and got Sissy’s body and buried it out back of the place, and then before it was dark, I boarded up all the windows good and locked the door and I got the shotgun and sat with it all night in the middle of the big room. I knew it wouldn’t do me no good, but that was all I had. Me and that shotgun.

“But didn’t nothin’ bother me, though I could hear it and smell it movin’ around outside the house. Come morning, I was brave enough to go out, and Sissy’s body had been pulled from the grave and gnawed on. I reckon animals could have done it in the night, but I didn’t think so. I buried her again, this time deep, and mounded up dirt and packed it down. I cut some sticks and tied a cross together and stuck that up, then I walked into town and told my story. They didn’t even think I was a murderer. They didn’t question if I might have killed Sissy, which is what I thought they might do. They locked me up for bein’ a crazy, and wasn’t no one cared enough to come and see if her body was at the cabin or not. They wasn’t interested. I done taken Sissy off and wasn’t no man wanted her back now that she had been with me, which considerin’ the kind of women they was usually with didn’t make no sense, but then there ain’t much about Wood Tick that does make sense.

“And then you come along, and you know the rest from there.”

(3)

THE THING DOWN THERE

The sun was starting to slant to the West, but there was still plenty of daylight left when they arrived on horseback. The house was built of large logs and it looked solid. The chimney appeared sound. The shingles well cut and nailed down tight. It was indeed a good cabin and the Reverend understood the attraction it held for those who passed by.

Norville slipped off the back of the horse and hurried around behind the cabin. After the Reverend tied up his horse, he too went out back. Norville stood over an empty grave, the cross turned over and broken. Norville and the Reverend stood there for a long moment.

Norville fell to his knees. “Oh, Jesus. I should have taken her off somewhere else. He’s done come and got her.”

“It is done now,” Reverend Mercer said. “Stand up, man. None of this does any good. Let’s look around.”

Norville stood up, but he looked ready to collapse. “Buck up, man,” Reverend Mercer said. “We have work to do.”

No sight or parcel of the body was found. The Reverend went to the well and bent over and looked down. It was deep. He took out a match and struck it on the curbing and dropped it down the shaft, watched the little light fall. The match hissed out in the mud below.

“Do you believe me,” Norville said, standing back from the well a few paces.

“I do.”

“What can I do?”

“Whatever you do, you will not do alone. I will be here with you.”

“Kind of you, Reverend, but what can you do?”

“At the moment, I’m uncertain. Let’s look inside the house.”

The cabin, though not huge, had two rooms. A small bedroom and a large main room with a kitchen table and a rocked in fireplace and some benches and a few chairs. There was blood on the floor and on a rug there, and on the walls and even on the ceiling. The Reverend paused at the rocked up fireplace. He bent down and looked at the rocks. “Did you notice a lot of these rocks have a drawing in them?”

“What now?”

“Look here.” Reverend Mercer touched his finger to one of the stones. There was a strange drawing on it, a stick figure with small symbols written around it in a circle. “It’s on a lot of the rocks, and my guess is, if you were to pull the ones without visible symbols free, you could turn them over and the marks would be on the other side. They came from inside the well, correct?”

“Nearly all of them. It’s a very deep well.”

“As I have seen. Did you not notice the marks?”

“Guess I was so anxious to get those rocks out of there I didn’t.”

“It is only visible if you’re looking for it?”

“And you were?”

“I was looking for anything. This is my business. When you said you hit this thing with a rock and it fled after shooting it and hitting it with an axe had no effect, I started to wonder. I believe these are symbols of protection.”

The Reverend began walking about the house. He looked under the bed and at the walls and checked nooks and crannies. He bounced himself on the floor to test the boards. He stood looking down at the blood-stained rug for awhile. He picked up the edge of the rug and saw there were a series of short boards that didn’t extend completely across the floor.

Sliding the rug aside, the Reverend used his knife and stuck it under the edge of one of the boards and pried it up. There was a space beneath and a metal box was in the space. The Reverend removed a few more boards so he could get a good look at the box. It had a padlock on it.

“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 its master or its 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.

“Its 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?”