Stories (2011) (76 page)

"That isn't my job."

"Well, I ain't got no job. Deputy, ain't you supposed
to make sure I get to Nacogdoches to get hung? Ain't that your job?"

"It is."

"Then we ought to ride on, not bother with this fool.
He wants to fight some grave crawler, then let him. Ain't nothing we ought to
get into."

"We made a pact to ride together," the deputy
said. "So we will."

"I didn't make no pact," Bill said.

"Your word, your needs, they're nothing to me,"
the deputy said.

At that moment, something began to move through the woods on
their left.

Something moving quick and heavy, not bothering with
stealth. Jebidiah looked in the direction of the sounds, saw someone, or
something, moving through the underbrush, snapping limbs aside like they were
rotten sticks. He could hear the buzz of the bees, loud and angry. Without really
meaning to, he urged the horse to a trot. The deputy and Bill joined in with
their own mounts, keeping pace with the Reverend's horse.

They came to a place off the side of the road where the
brush thinned, and out in the distance they could see what looked like bursting
white waves, frozen against the dark. But they soon realized it was tombstones.
And there were crosses. A graveyard. The graveyard Old Timer had told them
about. The sky had cleared now, the wind had ceased to blow hard. They had a fine
view of the cemetery, and as they watched, the thing that had been in the brush
moved out of it and went up the little rise where the graves were, climbed up
on one of the stones and sat. A black cloud formed around its head, and the
sound of buzzing could be heard all the way out to the road. The thing sat
there like a king on a throne. Even from that distance it was easy to see it
was nude, and male, and his skin was gray—blue in the moonlight—and the head
looked misshapen. Moon glow slipped through cracks in the back of the horror's
head and poked out of fresh cracks at the front of its skull and speared out of
the empty eye sockets. The bee's nest, visible through the wound in its chest,
was nestled between the ribs. It pulsed with a yellow-honey glow. From time to
time, little black dots moved around the glow and flew up and were temporarily
pinned in the moonlight above the creature's head.

"Jesus," said the deputy.

"Jesus won't help a bit," Jebidiah said.

"It's Gimet, ain't it? He . . . it . . . really is
dead," the deputy said.

"Undead," Jebidiah said. "I believe he's
toying with us. Waiting for when he plans to strike."

"Strike?" Bill said. "Why?"

"Because that is his purpose," Jebidiah said,
"as it is mine to strike back.

Gird your loins men, you will soon be fighting for your
life."

"How about we just ride like hell?" Bill said.

In that moment, Jebidiah's words became prophetic. The thing
was gone from the gravestone. Shadows had gathered at the edge of the woods,
balled up, become solid, and when the shadows leaped from the even darker
shadows of the trees, it was the shape of the thing they had seen on the stone,
cool blue in the moonlight, a disaster of a face, and the teeth . . . they were
long and sharp. Gimet leaped in such a way that his back foot hit the rear of
Jebidiah's animal, allowing him to spring over the deputy's horse, to land hard
and heavy on Bill. Bill let out a howl and was knocked off his mount. When he
hit the road, his hat flying, Gimet grabbed him by his bushy head of straw-colored
hair and dragged him off as easily as if he were a kitten. Gimet went into the
trees, tugging Bill after him.

Gimet blended with the darkness there. The last of Bill was
a scream, the raising of his cuffed hands, the cuffs catching the moonlight for
a quick blink of silver, then there was a rustle of leaves and a slapping of
branches, and Bill was gone.

"My God," the deputy said. "My God. Did you
see that thing?"

Jebidiah dismounted, moved to the edge of the road, leading
his horse, his gun drawn. The deputy did not dismount. He pulled his pistol and
held it, his hands trembling. "Did you see that?" he said again, and
again.

"My eyes are as good as your own," Jebidiah said.
"I saw it. We'll have to go in and get him."

"Get him?" the deputy said. "Why in the name
of everything that's holy would we do that? Why would we want to be near that
thing? He's probably done what he's done already. . . . Damn, Reverend. Bill,
he's a killer. This is just as good as I might want. I say while the old boy is
doing whatever he's doing to that bastard, we ride like the goddamn wind, get
on out on the far end of this road where it forks. Gimet is supposed to be only
able to go on this stretch, ain't he?"

"That's what Old Timer said. You do as you want. I'm
going in after him."

"Why? You don't even know him."

"It's not about him," Jebidiah said.

"Ah, hell. I ain't gonna be shamed." The deputy
swung down from his horse, pointed at the place where Gimet had disappeared
with Bill. "Can we get the horses through there?"

"Think we will have to go around a bit. I discern a
path over there."

"Discern?"

"Recognize. Come on, time is wasting."

–•–

They went back up the road a pace, found a trail that led
through the trees.

The moon was strong now as all the clouds that had covered it
had rolled away like windblown pollen. The air smelled fresh, but as they moved
forward, that changed. There was a stench in the air, a putrid smell both sweet
and sour, and it floated up and spoiled the freshness.

"Something dead," the deputy said.

"Something long dead," Jebidiah said.

Finally the brush grew so thick they had to tie the horses,
leave them. They pushed their way through briars and limbs.

"There ain't no path," the deputy said. "You
don't know he come through this way."

Jebidiah reached out and plucked a piece of cloth from a
limb, held it up so that the moon dropped rays on it. "This is part of
Bill's shirt. Am I right?"

The deputy nodded. "But how could Gimet get through
here? How could he get Bill through here?"

"What we pursue has little interest in the things that
bother man. Limbs, briars. It's nothing to the living dead."

They went on for a while. Vines got in their way. The vines
were wet. They were long, thick vines, and sticky, and finally they realized
they were not vines at all, but guts, strewn about and draped like decorations.

"Fresh," the deputy said. "Bill, I
reckon."

"You reckon right," Jebidiah said.

They pushed on a little farther, and the trail widened,
making the going easier. They found more pieces of Bill as they went along. The
stomach. Fingers.

Pants with one leg in them. A heart, which looked as if it
had been bitten into and sucked on. Jebidiah was curious enough to pick it up
and examine it. Finished, he tossed it in the dirt, wiped his hands on Bill's
pants leg, the one with the leg still in it, said, "Gimet just saved you a
lot of bother and the state of Texas the trouble of a hanging."

"Heavens," the deputy said, watching Jebidiah wipe
blood on the leg-filled pants.

Jebidiah looked up at the deputy. "He won't mind I get
blood on his pants,"

Jebidiah said. "He's got more important things to worry
about, like dancing in the fires of hell. And by the way, yonder sports his
head."

Jebidiah pointed. The deputy looked. Bill's head had been
pushed onto a broken limb of a tree, the sharp end of the limb being forced
through the rear of the skull and out the left eye. The spinal cord dangled
from the back of the head like a bell rope.

The deputy puked in the bushes. "Oh, God. I don't want
no more of this."

"Go back. I won't think the less of you, 'cause I don't
think that much of you to begin with. Take his head for evidence and ride on,
just leave me my horse."

The deputy adjusted his hat. "Don't need the head. . .
. And if it comes to it, you'll be glad I'm here. I ain't no weak sister."

"Don't talk me to death on the matter. Show me what you
got, boy."

The trail was slick with Bill's blood. They went along it
and up a rise, guns drawn. At the top of the hill they saw a field, grown up,
and not far away, a sagging shack with a fallen-down chimney.

They went that direction, came to the shack's door. Jebidiah
kicked it with the toe of his boot and it sagged open. Once inside, Jebidiah
struck a match and waved it about. Nothing but cobwebs and dust.

"Must have been Gimet's place," Jebidiah said.
Jebidiah moved the match before him until he found a lantern full of coal oil.
He lit it and placed the lantern on the table.

"Should we do that?" the deputy asked. "Have
a light. Won't he find us?"

"In case you have forgotten, that's the idea."

Out the back window, which had long lost its grease-paper
covering, they could see tombstones and wooden crosses in the distance.
"Another view of the graveyard," Jebidiah said. "That would be
where the girl's mother killed herself."

No sooner had Jebidiah said that than he saw a shadowy shape
move on the hill, flitting between stones and crosses. The shape moved quickly
and awkwardly.

"Move to the center of the room," Jebidiah said.

The deputy did as he was told, and Jebidiah moved the lamp
there as well.

He sat it in the center of the floor, found a bench and
dragged it next to the lantern. Then he reached in his coat pocket and took out
the Bible. He dropped to one knee and held the Bible close to the lantern light
and tore out certain pages.

He wadded them up, and began placing them all around the
bench on the floor, placing the crumpled pages about six feet out from the
bench and in a circle with each wad two feet apart.

The deputy said nothing. He sat on the bench and watched
Jebidiah's curious work. Jebidiah sat on the bench beside the deputy, rested
one of his pistols on his knee. "You got a .44, don't you?"

"Yeah. I got a converted-cartridge pistol, just like
you."

"Give me your revolver."

The deputy complied.

Jebidiah opened the cylinders and let the bullets fall out
on the floor.

"What in hell are you doing?"

Jebidiah didn't answer. He dug into his gun belt and came up
with six silver-tipped bullets, loaded the weapon and gave it back to the
deputy.

"Silver," Jebidiah said. "Sometimes it wards
off evil."

"Sometimes?"

"Be quiet now. And wait."

"I feel like a staked goat," the deputy said.

After a while, Jebidiah rose from the bench and looked out
the window.

Then he sat down promptly and blew out the lantern.

–•–

Somewhere in the distance a night bird called. Crickets
sawed and a large frog bleated. They sat there on the bench, near each other,
facing in opposite directions, their silver-loaded pistols on their knees.
Neither spoke.

Suddenly the bird ceased to call and the crickets went silent,
and no more was heard from the frog. Jebidiah whispered to the deputy.

"He comes."

The deputy shivered slightly, took a deep breath. Jebidiah
realized he too was breathing deeply.

"Be silent, and be alert," Jebidiah said.

"All right," said the deputy, and he locked his
eyes on the open window at the back of the shack. Jebidiah faced the door,
which stood halfway open and sagging on its rusty hinges.

For a long time there was nothing. Not a sound. Then
Jebidiah saw a shadow move at the doorway and heard the door creak slightly as
it moved. He could see a hand on what appeared to be an impossibly long arm,
reaching out to grab at the edge of the door. The hand clutched there for a
long time, not moving.

Then, it was gone, taking its shadow with it.

Time crawled by.

"It's at the window," the deputy said, and his
voice was so soft it took Jebidiah a moment to decipher the words. Jebidiah
turned carefully for a look.

It sat on the windowsill, crouched there like a bird of
prey, a halo of bees circling its head. The hive pulsed and glowed in its
chest, and in that glow they could see more bees, so thick they appeared to be
a sort of humming smoke.

Gimet's head sprouted a few springs of hair, like withering
grass fighting its way through stone. A slight turn of its head allowed the
moon to flow through the back of its cracked skull and out of its empty eyes.
Then the head turned and the face was full of shadows again. The room was
silent except for the sound of buzzing bees.

"Courage," Jebidiah said, his mouth close to the
deputy's ear. "Keep your place."

The thing climbed into the room quickly, like a spider
dropping from a limb, and when it hit the floor, it stayed low, allowing the
darkness to lay over it like a cloak.

Jebidiah had turned completely on the bench now, facing the
window. He heard a scratching sound against the floor. He narrowed his eyes,
saw what looked like a shadow, but was in fact the thing coming out from under
the table.

Jebidiah felt the deputy move, perhaps to bolt. He grabbed
his arm and held him.

"Courage," he said.

The thing kept crawling. It came within three feet of the
circle made by the crumpled Bible pages.

The way the moonlight spilled through the window and onto
the floor near the circle Jebidiah had made, it gave Gimet a kind of eerie
glow, his satellite bees circling his head. In that moment, every aspect of the
thing locked itself in Jebidiah's mind. The empty eyes, the sharp, wet teeth,
the long, cracked nails, blackened from grime, clacking against the wooden
floor. As it moved to cross between two wads of scripture, the pages burst into
flames and a line of crackling blue fulmination moved between the wadded pages
and made the circle light up fully, all the way around, like Ezekiel's wheel.