Nightwalk 2 Page 28

  I couldn’t help but take a step back at the sight of the beast unfolding to its full height after ducking through the door. It stood at least twelve feet tall. And just like the titanic atrocity that had dominated the skies earlier, some ancient genetic memory within me flashed in recognition of the thing before me.

  Ebony fur covered the goliath from its split-hooved feet to the top of its horned skull. Its eyes had flat pupils, and glowed from its hircine face with the orange of sacrificial fires. Two obsidian horns rose from the sides of the monster’s head, while a third curved back from its brow. Its mouth grinned with fangs. Ragged, sable-feathered wings half spread from behind the brute’s massive shoulders, adding even more size to its already dominating presence. It radiated power like heat.

  The stench of the thing curdled the very air. It stank of smoke, blood, carrion, sweat, and the shit of a thousand different living things. The whole area around us reeked like somebody had set fire to a zoo.

  The beast glared down at me, and when it spoke it was with all the menace of an approaching storm.

  “Now do you see?” it rumbled. “Now do you understand?”

  Its voice still had the same strange quality of two speakers in unison; but while it was badly distorted, I could still recognize one of them as Hallett’s.

  “The Dark Goddess of the Woods has gifted me with the spirit of the Black Goat,” he thundered, “who once and shall again roam the forests primeval.”

  He stepped from the top of the short stairs to the sidewalk in one stride. His hoof landed on the concrete with a deep thud, causing cracks to radiate from beneath it.

  “She has bestowed upon me the privilege of bringing down the civilization that smothers this world under its webs.”

  He took another thudding step up to me and lowered his goat-like face to mine.

  “Then the great bonfires will once more light the night in her honor. THEN the altars will once more quench her thirst with blood! And I am the one she has granted the right to preside over this glory! It is I who will sit at her side in immortal greatness. Do you understand NOW?!”

  His voice echoed off into silence, and I looked into those mad, orange eyes for a second before answering.

  “Yeah… yeah, I do,” I whispered. “I understand. Actually, there’s only one thing left I don’t understand.”

  Then I raised my forearm beside me and continued…

  “While ‘she’ was doing all this gifting and bestowing, did she bother to give you a watch?”

  The beast twisted its head to stare at the timepiece as it ticked off the final seconds to 5:34. Then it looked back at me with an expression of sick realization.

  “No! She promised! I…”

  “Oh, stuff it,” I grouched. “At least you got lightning bolts. All I got was a pat on the back and a lousy bottle of baby formula.”

  Then the world went white… and got very hot… and we died.

  ###

  There was only void.

  No light. No time. No sound. No sensation. No mind.

  No me.

  Nothing but an eternal infinity where existence itself had no place. Here the universe had waited to be born, and here the universe would ultimately return when it died. Here was the end of all things.

  And yet…

  And yet something moved within the void.

  A great flaming eye opened and illuminated the vastness with its presence.

  There was only the one colossal eye, although in a place without dimensions there existed no way to tell if it were disembodied or part of a greater unseen whole. It was definitely an eye, but its fiery iris was strangely shaped…as if three human irises had been laid in an overlapping, triangular pattern, creating a three-lobed iris with a pupil of the same disturbing shape in the center.

  The ocular leviathan swept the void with its burning gaze. Its scrutiny pierced the eternal darkness as if the very path of its sight became rays that revealed all. It shifted its gaze constantly, in a rapid and seemingly random pattern.

  But then the shifting stopped. The flaming eye grew brighter, the alien iris contracted, and its focus narrowed down to one infinitesimal point in a limitless expanse.

  And that infinitesimal point became me.

  I became aware of my own existence again, and found myself hanging in null space before the shattering presence of the eye. And it was terror.

  The behemoth rushed toward me, growing ever larger as it approached. As it did, the iris contracted further and focused its awful gaze solely on me. It grew to astounding, and then incomprehensible proportions, until I floated before nothing but the great pupil itself.

  I could feel its inspection like a physical thing. It saw me, and saw through me. I could sense its scrutiny coldly sifting down and examining every particle of my being. I became like a gnat under a cosmic microscope, and my mind balked at the thought of what could possibly be looking through the eyepiece.

  And then it was gone.

  Darkness returned, and I fell to the floor that suddenly existed under my feet.

  As I lay there, I struggled to understand my situation. What had just happened? Where was I? Was I dead? I remembered dying, or at least I thought I did. I had been standing out there in the open with Hallett when the nuke went off. This made a pretty strong case for me being dead. Or at least I had been. Now what was I? Still dead? Or something else? What the hell else was there?

  Even as I fought to grasp my new situation, I discovered I was no longer alone.

  “Mr. Garrett?”

  I heard approaching footsteps echo in the blackness and rolled over to see the shining figure walking toward me.

  The man in white.

  “There you are,” he announced with a broad smile. “You know, finding a single dead man in two years of eternity is no trivial feat. Nor one I’m usually given to performing. But I am a man of my word, so once again I find myself making an exception.”

  He stopped before me, regarding me with the mixture of benevolence and sardonic humor I had come to associate with him.

  “So I’m dead?” I asked as I came to my feet.

  “Yes. No. It’s complicated.” He motioned me to join him and we set off walking in the darkness. “I had arranged for you to return alive and unharmed at the instant of Hallet’s death, and then I moved on to other matters. I did that under the assumption you would either succeed or die in the attempt. I had not counted on you succeeding but dying at precisely the same time with him. You really do have a penchant for overcomplicating the simplest things.”

  “Sorry about that,” I sighed.

  “No apologies necessary,” he exclaimed with theatrical cordiality. “The oversight was mine. Besides, think of it this way… all the great heroes come with a tragic flaw.”

  “And since I’m not exactly the greatest of heroes, I come with a laundry list of them.”

  Now he laughed aloud.

  “Mr. Garrett, you are a delight! You are more resourceful than you give yourself credit for, and far more entertaining than some muscle-bound brute in a toga. Take heart! Your task is accomplished. You have slain the monster and are now returning home victorious.”

  Right. Two pawns struggling to the death, with one winning by stalemate. I guess his definition of heroes and mine differed.

  “Ah, but you weren’t a pawn,” he said, reminding me of his uncomfortable habit he had of reading my mind. “Jason Hallett was the pawn. You were a wild card who chose to enter the fray of your own accord. And that was the critical difference which gave you a chance to succeed.”

  “Huh?” I gave him my best blank look. “Difference?”

  “Indeed! Jason Hallett originally died in the church, shortly after dragging himself in from an unfortunate encounter with another armed individual. When the Dark Goddess of the Wood changed history by bringing Mr. Hallett back from the dead, she did it by making him a vessel for a servant of hers called the Black Goat. This gave him the ability to “chuck lightning”, as yo
u so charmingly put it, among other things. But it also meant he only had the illusion of free will. All the decisions he believed were his were actually in accordance with the will of the spirit he carried. He never truly had a choice in what he chose, or even in what he wanted or believed.

  But on the other hand,” he continued, tapping me on the chest with his pharaoh-headed cane, “you had choices. I even gave you the option of sending me away without hearing another word. I simply informed you of a problem, and after weighing your options you chose to tackle it of your own free will. There was no geas or possession on my part in order to impose my will.”

  That last sentence struck a chord.

  “’You are neither god-ridden nor under geas’,” I recalled Hallett’s words aloud.

  “Exactly!” he crowed. “Which was why you could walk under the very thumb of Shub-Niggurath herself without alerting her to the danger you posed to her plans. You were just one of many haggard survivors struggling in the night. Had I given you any form of power or piece of myself, she would have sensed it in an instant and destroyed you out of hand. Not to mention, it would have also revealed my involvement in the matter. But now it appears her plan fell upon the simple bad luck of her agent running afoul of another armed and crazed individual.”

  “Oh.”

  “I do have to give her credit though. Going back two years and making an agent of somebody, right before their death becomes set in time, is subtler than her standard gambits. It’s an interesting departure from her usual strategies. But if she intends to strive for more subtlety in the future, she needs to learn to broaden her selection of tools. A battle-axe makes for an incongruous concealed weapon, and can attract the very attention you hope to avoid.”

  Oh, fantastic. So, I wasn’t the pawn Hallett had been. I had just been a “tool” maneuvered with a greater degree of separation. Yeah, that really made everything better.

  But I saw nothing to be gained by arguing the point. Besides, I was more interested in other matters.

  “So, this ‘Dark Goddess’ is an enemy of yours?”

  “Not at all,” he shrugged. “I have even performed services for her in the past. Although we are different our interests sometimes coincide, and rarely do they come into conflict. This just happened to be one of those rare cases.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “I doubt it,” he chuckled, “but it doesn’t matter. We have reached our destination, and the time has come for the parting of ways.”

  “But…” I started as I looked around at the empty blackness still surrounding us.

  “Mr. Garrett,” he turned and interrupted me with an exaggerated tip of his hat, “just as before, it has been a pleasure. While your methods were somewhat variable, you acquitted yourself admirably. You fulfilled your end of the matter. And now, as promised, I will fulfill mine.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder before I could speak again…

  …and I found myself standing alone on my back porch.

  Home, sweet home.

  I had made it.

  And just as the man in white promised, I had returned in the same condition I left. I wasn’t injured. I wasn’t exhausted. And it appeared that everything I left with must have returned with me.

  Everything.

  I stood in a circle of spent bullets, cartridge cases, flare stubs, and glow sticks.

  Epilogue

  “Well go ahead! Open it!”

  “Must I?”

  “Oh, you must! You must!”

  I held Darla’s letter up and opened the envelope with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. It could not have arrived at a better, or worse, time. Then I read it aloud by the glow of my back porch light.

  “Hello Mark,

  It’s only been four days since July 1st, but I saw on the internet that you attended a writer’s convention yesterday so it looks like you survived. I guess that means you saved the world. Congratulations.

  You wanted me to write and let you know what happened to us. I actually hate writing letters, but in this case it seems only fair.

  You saw us go into the pipe, and like you predicted the flashlight came on about a hundred yards in. It took longer than I thought it would to get that far because David kept stopping and zoning out. And we only made it a little farther when the bomb must have gone off. The ground shook, it got really hot, and then it got really dark because the flashlight and the glowsticks you gave us disappeared! So did the stun gun. We were still less than halfway there and we had to crawl the rest of the way with Lupe flicking my lighter.

  You were right about Cypress Knoll. When we crawled out it had all been pretty much destroyed. All the houses were burning piles of lumber. There was plenty of light then, but you could barely walk without stepping on stuff blown out from people’s homes. We didn’t hang around. We headed straight for the exit of the subdivision, and I think we saw less than ten people while we were in there.

  Even though it took us nearly half an hour to reach the fire station, there weren’t many survivors there yet. Lupe split off from us when he saw where we were heading. I don’t think he wanted to be around so many police, although I doubted they would have been interested in him. He headed south with the shotgun and that was the last I saw of him.

  I left David and the baby at the fire station. They acted really concerned about the boy, but he seemed to be in good hands. All I can tell you is he was still alive when I moved on. Judging by the logic you used with Mickey, they will probably be okay. They were kids, meaning most of the people who would have been affected by their deaths had probably already died that night.

  It was about dawn when I reached the interstate. Some guy picked me up along the side of the road a little later and took me to a nearby clinic.

  I told them I didn’t remember anything after going to bed, and had no idea how I got where I had been picked up. That’s been my story ever since. I guess it was good enough because I’m still alive and nobody ever arrested me.

  So there you have it. I have upheld my end of the bargain and let you know how things happened after you left. That was the deal. And you can relax, because I didn’t write this with the intent of striking up a future friendship or anything of the sort. The simple fact is we don’t fit in each other’s world, and I imagine we’re both fine with that. I will settle for simply wishing you a happy life and getting on with mine.

  Sincerely,

  Darla

  PS: Okay, it’s probably going to give me a rash to say this, but I guess I really should. Thank you. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for sticking with me even though I might have made it trying at times. I owe you that.

  PPS: Holy shit! I still can’t believe you actually sicced a fucking T-rex on me! You couldn’t have at least tried throwing me the rope to see if that would work first? No! You went straight to “Hey, I know what to do! Let’s feed Darla to a dinosaur!” And don’t think I couldn’t see how pleased you were with yourself afterword. Just so you know, I’ve signed this address up for enough junk mail to wallpaper the goddamn Pentagon. Toodles yourself, you smug bastard.”

  “And that’s all she wrote,” I sighed.

  Across the patio table, a red-faced Casey shook with suppressed laughter. She made two failed attempts to talk before finally succeeding on the third.

  “Oh my God!” she finally gasped. “You were telling the truth. You actually did it! I would have paid real money to see that!”

  “I was only trying to help her.”

  “Seriously?”

  “My intentions were good,” I replied with wounded dignity, “although I suppose she has a point about throwing her the rope.”

  That only sent Casey into further paroxysms of hilarity. She gulped and wheezed, and I started to worry the girl might even choke. But then she recovered enough to wipe the tears from her eyes and reach across the table to lay a hand on my arm.

  “Mark, I love you more than ever,” she chortled, “but promise me this… if I ever get k
idnapped by pirates, you will send somebody else to free me. I don’t think I’m brave enough for your brand of rescues.”

  Nice.

  When somebody saves the world in the movies, they get ticker tape parades and the adulation of millions. But me? Yeah, right. I get a mountain of junk mail from an ingrate, and a bonus ration of crap from my smartass stepdaughter.

  But that was okay. This was simply Casey being Casey. The most important thing had happened earlier.

  I will never forget picking her up at the airport that morning. She had run up and thrown her arms around me, and then declared me the most awesome, incredible, and wonderful stepdad in the whole world. The emotion in her voice as she said it left no doubt she meant every word.

  I had just become a hero to a young woman who swore she could never have heroes.

  I had given Casey her Uncle Ed back.

  Killing Tommy on the footpath, and then the monster in the graveyard, meant the former versions of Ed, Casey, and I had reached the man in white unopposed. And I guess since most of Ed’s years were behind him, History didn’t feel motivated to try and stop him. Either that, or it just didn’t think he was important.

  But if the latter was the case, then History was wrong. All it took was one look at the face of the young woman across from me to know how deeply important he was. And that made him all the more important to me.

  She practically glowed with happiness at me from across the table, and it felt so good to see that. Like me, Casey had survived the initial night in Coventry Woods. And now, like me, she had double memories of the night and its outcomes.

  She had woken up in Houston, probably right after I had returned to my porch, and she had been disoriented, confused, and suddenly unsure what was real and what wasn’t. Since her disorientation and confusion all seemed to spring from conflicting memories of that night, she had called me. I had given her a brief synopsis, and then arranged for a plane ticket on the soonest flight available.

  Now we sat on my back balcony overlooking the nighttime vista of Albuquerque. Casey recovered her composure, and we both spent a minute staring out at the lights. When she spoke again, it was in a softer, more serious tone.