The Gypsy Moths, page 22
“I’m gonna fucking barf,” Shawn said. “What the hell is that stink?”
“An animal probably died nearby.” Alex brought a hand to his nose. “From the smell I’d say it’s been rotting in the sun for a while.”
Max suddenly bent at the waist and threw up.
Ahead, the ground slanted upward, leading to a summit where forest became granite. The sun was even lower now, but the heat still rippled up ahead, rising from the ground in waves just like it had from the street back in town. Everything beyond it looked blurred and in motion. Combined with the smells of Max’s vomit and the strange stench filling the air, my stomach turned, and as a sharp pain rifled through my abdomen, I doubled over and barfed too.
Shawn, preoccupied by something he had clearly seen at the summit that no one else had, moved toward it. Slowly at first, and then he pulled the club from his belt and began to run, letting out a howl that sounded like a war cry.
“Shawn!” Alex called. “Wait up!”
Max dropped to his knees. “Everything’s spinning,” he gasped.
I knew exactly what he meant, and closed my eyes in an attempt to stop it, but within seconds I felt myself tilting and swaying, and by the time I opened my eyes it was too late. I’d stumbled ahead, too close to the edge of the path, and was suddenly falling through the air. Violently impacting with the ground, I rolled down the embankment toward the lake below.
Somewhere in the distance I heard Max calling my name. But he sounded impossibly far away, as if he were shouting to me from the distant end of a long tunnel.
The world tumbled all around me, trees and sky and forest floor spinning and turning again and again as I smashed across rocks and roots and branches, rolling faster and faster through the woods. If I didn’t crash directly into a tree along the way, I’d eventually roll off the ledge and take a significant fall into the lake below. I threw my arms out and almost caught a tree, but couldn’t get a strong enough grip and momentum painfully tore my hands free. Continuing to roll down the ridge, I braced myself for the sudden sensation of falling off the ledge and descending through the air in a twisted freefall, when my legs suddenly snagged on a tree. The back of my knees hit the trunk in a way that slowed then spun me around before I finally slid to a stop.
Bruised, cut, scraped, scratched, and out of breath, with the taste of vomit still coating my mouth, I sunk my hands into the pine needles on the ground until I’d found purchase, then pulled myself up and raised my knees to my chest.
I lay there with my ears ringing and that terrible odor still drifting all around me. In the distance I heard frantic voices, but they quickly faded. As I looked up the path from which I’d fallen, despite the tears in my eyes I could see someone standing there looking down at me.
Realizing I was no longer in danger of rolling the rest of the way to the lake below, I ignored the pain and forced myself to my hands and knees. Still trying to catch my breath, I looked again.
At first I thought it might be Shawn, but it wasn’t.
It wasn’t Max or Alex either.
What stood on that ridge looking down at me was not human.
Tall and gangly, with limbs that appeared unnaturally long in relation to the rest of its body, its head was proportional but narrow and skeletal, with sunken black eyes and a snout that came nearly to a point. As it raised its clawed hands to the heavens, it threw back its head and let out another terrifying screech.
The sound echoed through the trees, down the ridge, and struck me like a punch to the center of my chest. Despite being drenched in sweat, an icy chill shot straight up my back. Horrified, and struggling to maintain some semblance of sanity, I wiped my eyes and blinked until my vision cleared completely.
When I looked again, the creature was gone.
I tried to stand, but a sharp pain stabbed my temple then fanned out across my forehead, and I collapsed down onto my stomach. As darkness closed in around me, more screams followed…human, and very far away.
* * * *
I don’t know where I am, but I can hear water dripping. Slow and steady, the drips hit something hard, perhaps a porcelain sink. It is that sound I hone in on, as I find a peculiar comfort in its rhythm and consistency. The sound focuses me, brings me back toward consciousness…or something similar.
“I’m not a monster.”
The voice is familiar but echoes and sounds like it’s been electronically manipulated somehow. I realize I am lying on my back on a cold and cracked cement floor. I want to sit up but my body won’t respond. I can only turn my head from side to side enough to see that I’m in what appears to be an abandoned building of some sort. The walls are cement like the floor, and there are no windows. Yet there is light. Artificial light, but I cannot figure out the source or where it’s coming from. Am I in a bunker?
As my head lolls to the right, the direction in which I think the voice came from, I see someone sitting in the corner. They’re partially concealed in shadow, but I see now that it’s Perry Jenkins. I recognize what little of his face I can see through the long dark hair hanging in front of it. But there’s something wrong. He’s not…right…
“I’m not a monster,” he says again. “I just didn’t believe in nothin’. Not even me. That’s what they do. They kill it in you. Everything you believe, they kill it. You know that the same as I do. Don’t you, Frankie Boy?”
“Help me.” My voice is raspy and raw, like I’ve been screaming for hours.
“I can’t,” Perry says. “No one can.”
“What’s happening to me?”
“It’s taking you. It’s been happening for a very long time.”
The dripping increases, becomes a bit louder.
“What should I do?”
Perry reaches up and pulls his hair aside, revealing more of his face.
At first I think he’s smiling, but it’s not that at all. His lips are gone, gnawed off, accentuating his bloody teeth and raw gums.
It is not water dripping into a sink, but blood leaking from his horrifying mouth onto the floor.
I turn away. I don’t want to see his face, it frightens and repulses me.
I hear shuffling and know he’s slithering toward me. I won’t look at him—I won’t—but I can smell and hear and feel him as his cold dead hands touch me, and his sour breath, like the exhale of an open grave, pulses against my face.
“You should scream,” Perry says, “for mercy that will never come.”
And as he licks me, his tongue cool and dry like leather sliding across my cheek, I do just that. But it only excites him, and soon the licking turns to biting, and his teeth sink deep into my flesh.
As Perry tears loose a chunk of meat from my face, his rumbling laugher rises to a fever pitch. I scream again, this time in pain, and at the sight of antlers that burst from his skull like gnarled bony fingers lunging for my eyes.
* * * *
Light returned slowly. It was dim and not as bright as before, and as I found myself next to the same tree that had stopped my fall, I realized that dusk had nearly arrived.
Frantic to get out of there and find the others, I got on all-fours and crawled back up the ridge as quickly as I could. Though I slipped and slid a few times, I managed to maintain my balance until I’d reached the path and rolled back onto relatively even ground. Above me, the sky was growing dark. Night was still maybe half an hour or so away, but it was coming and coming fast. With labored breath, and still lightheaded, I got back to my feet.
Somehow, the knife was still in my belt and hadn’t fallen free. Ignoring some dizziness and the pain coursing throughout my body, I ran for the quarry.
As I reached the path’s summit, and pine needles and dirt turned to granite, I saw the walls of stone. Those near the cliffs were covered in graffiti. People had been painting on them for years. A flat shelf leading to the edge of the first drop to the lake lay directly before me.
Max lay in the center of it on his back, the baseball bat next to him. At first glance it looked as if he’d been dropped there from some higher elevation, but as I scrambled over to him, I saw that he was awake and staring up at the sky.
“You okay?” I said, sliding next to him on my knees. I looked around quickly but saw no sign of Shawn, Alex, or the creature. “Are you all right?”
His eyes rolled back to me, but he didn’t move or say anything.
“Max,” I said, taking hold of his shoulders. “What happened?”
He stared at me, mouth open and eyes blank. I’d never seen him look that way. There was no sign of physical damage, but it was as if something deep inside him had shut off, and this was all that was left.
“Are you hurt?” I asked. “Can you get up, can you stand?”
“I saw it,” he whispered. “Frankie Boy, I…I saw it.”
“I did too, at the top of the ridge.”
Slowly, he pressed an index finger to his lips. “Shh, it might hear you.”
“Where is it?” I said in a loud whisper. “Where are Shawn and Alex?”
“I don’t know. Help me up.”
I did, but he was still wobbly, so I held onto him. “What happened, Max?”
“I was running, and then it was like I hit a wall that wasn’t there, I—I don’t remember anything else until you were standing over me.”
I reached down, picked up the bat, and handed it to him. “We’ve got to find them.” I knew he heard and understood me, but still seemed out of it. “Max,” I said. “We’ve got to find them!”
Though he was obviously disoriented, he nodded and held the bat up higher, as if to show me he’d regained his strength.
I pulled the knife free and, holding it blade-down, started across the first granite platform. With Max close behind me, we jumped from one slab to the next until we reached the second cliff. As we dropped down onto another huge shelf of stone, I noticed something red near the edge.
“That’s Shawn’s bandana,” Max said before I could.
I crouched down and grabbed it, shaking with fear and anger.
“My God,” Max said. “What’s happening?”
Craning my neck, I looked down to the lake, which was at least a hundred feet below, but there was no sign of Shawn, Alex, or anyone else in the water. I stuffed his bandana into my waistband.
“Shawn!” I screamed, the sound of my voice echoing along the walls of the stone cliffs. “Alex!”
“We have to go for help,” Max said when no answer came.
“We are the help.”
He gave a reluctant nod. “It’s going to be dark soon, and Alex has the only flashlight.”
I crossed back over to the next shelf of rock, and from this slightly higher position, was able to see a good portion of the forest in one direction, and a third cliff in the other.
“Oh no, oh—oh no,” I heard Max say from not far behind me.
He’d seen them too.
Standing near the edge of the third cliff was Shawn, his back to us. He’d taken his shirt off at some point and dropped it at his feet. Arms at his side, in one hand he held the club. It was stained with crimson.
Lying a few feet away, motionless and bloodied, was Alex.
Chapter Twenty-Two
SHAWN STARED OFF over the ledge, beyond the lake below and into the miles of forest in the distance. His eyes were dull and lifeless, his face expressionless and flecked with blood. Bare chest and stomach glistening with sweat, he stood motionless, the bloody club held down at his side.
While Max knelt next to Alex to check on him, I’d stepped in front of Shawn, putting myself between him and the edge of the cliff.
“Jesus,” Max said, “are you okay?”
I heard Alex groan. Glancing down quickly, I saw Max helping him up into a sitting position. “Shawn,” I said, focusing on him again. “I need you to give me the club now.”
“It’s not safe,” he answered in monotone, his eyes looking right through me. “It’s not…safe.”
Slowly, I reached down and took hold of the club. To my surprise, he let me take it. Gently placing a hand on his shoulder, I guided him several steps away from the edge. “Is he all right?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder. “Alex, are you all right?”
“No, he’s not fucking all right,” Max said, spitting the words at me. “Look at his face!”
Although conscious and sitting up, Alex’s nose was bleeding profusely from both nostrils, and a large welt had formed over his left eye that was already swelling and badly bruised. “I’m okay,” he said groggily. “I just—I—I’m okay.”
Max got back to his feet and closed on Shawn. Whatever state he’d been in previously was gone, and although he was back to himself, I’d never seen him show such rage. “You attacked Alex? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Take it easy,” I said, holding a hand out to stop him from getting any closer. I didn’t know if whatever had gotten into Shawn still had a hold of him and I was now afraid maybe it had its claws in Max. “Just hold on and—”
“What the fuck is happening?” Max began to tremble, and his eyes filled with tears. His body slumped, as if he were about to drop to his knees, but he remained upright. “What the fuck is happening!”
“I’m sorry,” Shawn said, his face twisting with pain and regret. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Alex, I would never do that, you know I wouldn’t, I—I didn’t mean to—”
“What’s happening to us?”
“I don’t know, Maxie,” Shawn said desperately. “I don’t know.”
“You were running,” Alex said. “I chased after you, and when I found you up here you turned around and looked at me, but you looked like you didn’t know who I was. I started to say something and your eyes went all crazy and you started swinging on me with the club. Before I knew it I was on the ground.”
Shawn pushed by me and crouched down next to Alex, who flinched at first but then seemed to accept that he no longer posed a threat. “I’m sorry, man, I—I’m so fucking sorry! I didn’t know what I was doing, I—”
“You could’ve killed him,” Max said. “It’s a miracle you didn’t.”
On the verge of tears, Shawn leaned in and kissed the top of Alex’s head. “Last thing I remember,” he said as he got to his feet, “I was running up the ridge and I—I started hearing these voices. They weren’t human, and I didn’t want to listen because they were saying things—bad things, man, I mean really bad things—but I couldn’t make them stop. It was like they were ripping me apart from the inside. I had this pain in my head and I—I thought if it didn’t stop it was gonna kill me. The voices kept telling me to hurt you. They said they’d stop the pain if I hurt you and—Jesus Christ, I—”
“It was that thing,” Alex said softly, his previous skepticism gone. He looked up at me, blood still running from his nose in twin streams. “I saw it too, Frankie Boy.”
I handed him Shawn’s bandana. “Now we all have.”
A brief wind blew through the trees behind us, sounding like a thousand whispers rushing over us at once. It brought with it that awful stench, and suddenly I was staggering, disoriented and lightheaded again.
With a horrible grimace, Shawn covered his ears and dropped to his knees. “No,” he gasped. “Stop…”
“It’s coming!” Alex said, still pressing the bandana to his nose as he scurried away from the edge of the shelf. “It’s coming!”
“No.” Horrified, Max pointed over my shoulder. “It’s here.”
The club in one hand and the knife in the other, I stumbled forward, following Max’s finger to the shelf of granite above us. Ears ringing, stomach heaving, and vision blurred, I pushed through the terror and forced myself to look at something human beings were never meant or equipped to see.
The Wendigo stood leering down at us, its hideously emaciated body swaying, and a long string of drool hanging from its mouth. The creature had no lips. They’d been chewed off, as it had apparently devoured them in its ravenous hunger and rage. It was starving and weak, vulnerable. This was our chance.
A nightmare, a goddamn nightmare, and damned by God it most certainly was, the creature looked like something straight from the depths of Hell. No longer a flash or a fleeting vision gone in the blink of an eye, a nearly forgotten distant dream or a blurred hallucination in the dead of night, it was as real as the rest of us, right out in the open and bathed in the dying light.
It no longer wanted to hide. It wanted us to see. And it wanted to feed.
Unseen things moved beneath its sparse flesh, making odd clicking sounds like those of insects. As the creature swayed faster, the terrible sounds transformed into those of flesh tearing and splitting, bones breaking, and viscera popping and gushing from open wounds.
In the distance I heard faint music, strange and antiquated, drifting across the treetops and lake below, sounding as if it were coming from some terribly old phonograph hidden deep in the forest. Or a remote past I had never known.
Then the Wendigo’s eyes rolled from black to red, and it lunged for us.
My mind shattering, I watched it leap forward off the edge of the shelf and into the air. In the split-second I had to react, I froze, paralyzed with terror. A voice called out—I think it was Max—but the actual words didn’t register, and suddenly, from my right side, something else flew into my line of vision.
Shawn had launched himself into midair between me and it.
As their two bodies collided then rammed into mine, they took my legs out from beneath me and I crashed to the granite so hard it knocked the wind out of me. They flew right over me, and I came back up onto my hands and knees in time to see their tangled bodies tumble to the very edge of the cliff where Max was standing. He swung the bat down onto the creature’s back, but couldn’t slow their momentum. They slammed into him, and Max stumbled back, twisted around, and tried to find some footing. But it was too late.
With a look of panic and horror, his mouth open in a silent scream, Max fell from the edge of the cliff.
