Scarecrow Gods (24 page)

“Of course it’s heavy. We only got a little ways to go, then we’ll be there.”

“Both of you, shut the hell up,” hissed Doug.

“It’s not like anyone’s gonna hear us,” Tony chimed in, taking off his pointed hood. “Just look around. There isn’t anyone within miles.”

“Put your hood back on, idiot,” said Doug. “What if someone sees us?”

“As I said,” said Tony as if he were speaking to a child. “There isn’t anyone around to hear
or
see us, so why don’t you stop trying to be Mr. Mom and stop ordering us around.”

Doug launched himself to a standing position. He strode toward Tony, hands flexing, but Danny’s warning stopped him.

“
Shhhh,
” said Danny. “Keep it down. We’re close now and voices carry.” He ran several feet ahead and knelt.

Doug backed up slowly, his eyes on Tony. Before he sat, he leaned over and hissed, “See! I told you so.”

Tony shrugged and stared off into the night.

Two minutes later, Danny returned. Tilting his hood back, he wiped sweat from his eyes. His hair was plastered to his head. “Okay. Everyone knows what to do. We need to get there fast and quiet. No talking from here on in. I don’t know how light he sleeps, but the last thing we need is to get caught by the police.”

“I can cut the phone line,” said Doug.

“No way. You’d probably cut the power line. Turn you into a crispy critter,” said Tony.”

“Would not.”

“Would too.”

“He doesn’t have a phone line,” said Danny.

“Can someone else carry this? It’s too heavy,” said Eddie. As he leaned forward, the contents of his backpack sloshed.

“Jesus. Okay. Anyone?” asked Danny, waiting for an offer. Everyone but Eddie averted his eyes. “Listen. I have point, so I can’t carry it. One of you needs to do it. Eddie’s carried it far enough already. Doug, how about you.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Come on, man. It’s only a little way.”

Doug sighed heavily. “Fine. I’ll do it you little
pansy
. Give it here.”

Eddie ignored the comment, took off his sheet and shrugged out of his pack. It took both hands to pass it to Doug. Doug tossed it over his shoulder, not bothering to conceal it beneath his sheet. He shrugged once to adjust it, then glanced at Danny.

“Fine. Everyone happy now? Can we go?” asked Danny. He glared at each of the other boys. At twelve-years-old he commanded their attention as well as any Army Colonel could. His jaw was set. His gaze was steady. He waited until each of them nodded assent, then placed his hood back. “Good. Let’s go.”

Danny picked his way through the vegetation. Where before they’d been less concerned with noise, silence was now at a premium. Twice he had to backtrack. Once because of a deadfall that needed to be scaled, another time because of a thick stand of blackberry bushes that snatched at the sheet he wore.

Finally the house came into view. In the front yard, illuminated by the dull orange glow of a light shining through the window, a gnarled crabapple tree grew. An old pickup was in the driveway. Beneath the mailbox were two holly bushes.

Danny halted and held up his hand. He stared at the house for several moments. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. It seemed as ramshackle as ever. Shingles were missing, some hanging. The tar paper beneath was torn in places, in others gone completely. The truck was parked where it usually was. There were no dogs. No cats. No security lights in the eaves or on poles. Just a lonely broken-down house with a light on in the living room.

That was it.

The difference was the light.

Hadn’t the windows been covered in plastic before?

He was almost certain they had been. Everyone knew the Maggot Man was afraid of sunlight. Something about him being burned—rumors that had been going around since before he could remember. Danny had never really been close enough to tell, nor did he want to. In fact, he didn’t even know a single person who’d seen the Maggot Man face-to-face. Only a few glimpses through the screen door, a looming shadow that wasn’t entirely human.

But that was it. The windows
had
been covered in plastic. They’d planned on the windows being covered so they could set things up unobserved. Now, with the windows uncovered and the Maggot Man possibly sitting in the lighted room doing God knows what, they needed to adjust their plan. At the very least, they needed to be extraordinarily careful.

One thing was for sure. Someone needed to go peek in the window and check to see if the Maggot Man was still awake. Danny turned and stared hard at his friends. Eight scared eyes avoided his gaze.

Shit.
“Wait here,” he sighed. “Gonna go check.”

He removed his hood and sheet, revealing a sweat-sodden T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Half-running, half-crawling, he made his way to the corner of the house. On his right was a dark window in the center of a wall. To his left was the front wall, and five feet away was the near edge of the window where the light originated. On the other side of that was the front door.

Danny placed his ear against the wall. He felt the heat from the day lingering within the tar shingles, but heard nothing. Maybe the Maggot Man was asleep and had forgotten to turn off the light. If there was a television or radio on, the walls were so thin, Danny was certain he would’ve heard it.

Then again the Maggot Man could be waiting for them.

Danny cursed silently at that last thought. He didn’t need that kind of imagery. He was already scared, and the idea of getting shot in the head did nothing to allay the fears.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He tried to calm himself. He wanted to run, but he knew this had to be done. He pressed his ear hard onto the wood and listened closely. Although the light hinted at occupation, the place had that undeniable atmosphere of total emptiness where nothing had been moved for a long, long time.

Finally, with his body pressed flat against the house, he scooted to his left. Inch by inch, he crept to the edge of the window, careful not to make noise.

This was it.

If the Maggot Man was going to shoot him, it would be now. Gritting his teeth, Danny moved his head slowly until his left eye stared into the room.

Upon the couch sat the Maggot Man facing him. Instead of awake, however, the disfigured man was slumped down, asleep, a thin line of drool sliding from the corner of his mouth.

Danny sighed and felt the toxic air of tension rush out of him.
Probably passed-out drunk,
he thought.

Although his every inclination was to step away and return to the safety of his friends, a certain morbidness held him in place. He’d never been this close to the Maggot Man before. He’d never seen someone so disfigured. He had only one arm and no legs. The man’s skin was shiny in places, smooth with a slick plastic sheen. In other places it appeared to be as rough as sandpaper. Splotches of black mingled with orange and white. Some smaller spots had no color other than the redness of a raised and puckered scar. Two metallic-looking legs lay across the coffee table beside a long wicked hook-arm.

Danny inched back to the corner of the house. With grim determination, he turned and made his way back to where his friends waited. Whatever hesitation he’d felt before was gone. The Maggot Man was less than human; therefore their crime was less than criminal.

* * *

The alarm went off sending shockwaves of negative energy through the back of his head. Contrary to the lessons the Old Mung had drilled into him, Maxom turned—and upon turning, realized his mistake. He spread his wings, frantically attempting to catch air before he hit ground. He arched the long black feathers, reaching for even the smallest updraft.

WHAM.

Too late. What felt like a baseball bat to his back was actually the right wing of the crow giving way as feathers and hollow bone intersected a pine branch. He crashed toward the forest floor, the crow striking more and more limbs, totally out of control.

The pain blinded him.

The warning jolts from his human form tore at his concentration.

Finally, he struck the ground, the body wrapping itself up into a ball as it rolled amidst a bed of crushed ferns and dead leaves. He tried to bring the crow upright, but the body refused his commands. Strange. That had never happened before. He’d always been able to manipulate an animal, bring it to his will, share space and time. He tried again, his thoughts rebounding back as if he were shouting against a wall. He needed to get back to his body, but he had a responsibility to the bird.

Then he felt it. Cold seeped through bones and muscles. An almost overwhelming feeling of emptiness rode the slow motion wave of cold. The closer it came, the more panicked Maxom felt, until finally, he could take no more. He leaped, his astral self soaring up and into the sky. He’d felt that particular darkness once or twice before, and it’d always terrified him.

What would happen if he let it consume him? What would happen if he allowed death to overwhelm him while joined with an animal? Would he die as well? Would he be stuck in some limbo, unable to return to his body, unable to continue forward
?

Those were questions he didn’t need answered. Maxom could live his entire life without knowing and die the happier for it.

Within seconds he was back in his own body, opening his eyes, feeling the aches of old joints, the itches of phantom limbs and the dryness of his mouth. He’d been snoring again. And drooling, it seemed, as he wiped away the small river of spittle from the side of his face.

So what was so damned important?

Then he saw the bright orange glow of fire shining through the window. Maxom searched wildly for his prosthetics. He saw them lying on the table. There was no time to put them on. Even now, torches could be arching towards his roof. He remembered last time that the poorly constructed cross had twisted and fell, catching the corner of his house. The memory of the burning cross hurtling towards him sent shivers along his spine.

He threw himself to the carpet and pulled himself along. The nubs of his legs pushed as best they could, but as slick as they were with scar tissue, found little purchase. He found himself puffing and hyperventilating.

He made the wall. Hunching and squirming, he managed a sitting position. As he reached for the windowsill, he tried to remain calm. He’d beaten his demon. He was no longer afraid of Bernie or of the cross
. Hadn’t he managed to drive to where that little boy had been dying and take him to a hospital? A Catholic hospital, nonetheless? So what was the big deal about a burning cross?
Maxom calmed a little as reality held his old demons at bay with a shotgun.

He pulled himself up and peeked over the window sill. Twenty feet away a cross burned. In the evil halo of the cross’s glow stood five figures wearing the uniform of hatred. White sheets. Pointed hats. Shadowy eyeholes. Maxom heard the cackle of the flames. He heard laughter and remembered—the Vietnamese, the nurses, Bernie on his cross calling him to hell as if Maxom were a dog.
Heeeerrreee, Nigger nigger nigger. Come here, boy. Come on.

For the second time that evening his astral self shot out of its host. Panicked as he was, he knew he had to stop them. It was either that or he’d go insane or he’d die. As fast as he’d departed, he merged with the first spark of life he saw that wasn’t human.

Suddenly, Maxom found himself three inches tall, long blades of grass blurring as he sped across the ground to the nearest tree. His conjoined mind was jerked a thousand different directions as fear and impulses guided his direction. What seemed like a straight shot became a series of frenetic jerks and spins as the creature maneuvered whimsically.

He was not within the haughty simplicity of a bird, no. It only took a few seconds before Maxom realized he’d descended into the mind of a squirrel—truly, one of God’s most possessed and psychotic creatures. The squirrel stared momentarily at the burning cross. Through the filter of the animal’s vision, it was less than terrible, even bearable. Yet even the squirrel shuddered at the sight, its tail flicking violently.

The cross was a towering immolation that split the night sky like a raw red scar, separating the world of the small creature into a left and a right. Each was equally mysterious in the darkness of the night, the only danger the spreading rent in the universe. Sparks popped free from the wood as sap superheated and sent small flares to the ground. Several spots in the yard were already smoking, as if the earth had split and hell had come home.

Maxom fought desperately to gain control of the squirrel’s mind. As it was, he found himself fighting the convoluted logic. At times he was almost in agreement with the creature’s incessant need for food, gauging the prospect of things edible and inedible, of things that could cause life or encourage death and all the degrees in between. Even now, an acorn lay a dozen feet closer to the conflagration and he felt the squirrel’s mind ticking off possible scenarios as it crept towards probable death—all for the want of a nut.