A Gathering of Crows

SIX

Most of the people Levi met as he waded through the chaos were either in shock or half-crazed with fright. A few ran away from him as if he were the Devil incarnate, stalking the streets of Brinkley Springs. A few more people shot at him, not bothering to ask questions or give warning first. One particularly terrified old man had thrown a bottle of whiskey at him and then followed it up with a lit wooden match. As a result of these confrontations, Levi had a hard time gaining a coherent understanding of what was occurring. Many of the townspeople were as clueless as Levi himself. They’d heard the screams and gunshots and explosions, but had no idea what was happening. Others mentioned men in black and crows. Neither image was particularly useful.

Men in black was too vague of a term. It could mean anything. A group of gunmen dressed in dark clothing. Agents from some government agency or perhaps Black Lodge. It could even be one of the many different manifestations of Nyarlathotep—a supernatural who some mistakenly believed to be a demonic servant of Cthulhu but who, in reality, was simply the messenger of God. Somehow, Levi doubted it was any of these things. Human gunmen wouldn’t have explained the feeling that had come over him earlier. No, whatever forces were at work here in Brinkley Springs, they were almost certainly of supernatural origin. And Nyarlathotep, on the rare occasions that he manifested himself on Earth, wasn’t known for massacring people—which was what was happening here, if the reports Levi was hearing from the panicked survivors was correct. God’s messenger did occasionally appear as a man in black, but he also manifested as a worm, a hummingbird, a pillar of fire, a burning bush, a giant hand or one of a hundred other forms. He did no harm, other than imparting a message to whomever was chosen to hear it. Then he disappeared again.

So forget the men in black, Levi thought as he snuck through a small cemetery behind a tiny Baptist church that—judging from the moldering plywood nailed over the doors and windows—had been abandoned by its congregation long before tonight. Focus on the crows. People keep mentioning they saw big black crows. What does that tell me?

He tried to remember everything he knew about crows, as they related to occult lore. If he’d been back home, if he’d had access to his library, the task would be a snap. But between the adrenalin coursing through his body and his own fear, amplified as it was by the town’s collective horror, he’d have to trust his memory, instinct and years of experience.

So, what do I know?

The first thing that came to Levi’s mind was Raven, a deity of the Native American tribes who had once inhabited the Pacific Northwest. According to their beliefs, Raven was sometimes a generous benefactor and, at other times, a mischievous trickster, credited with doing everything from creating the Earth to stealing the sun. But since Brinkley Springs, West Virginia, was on the other side of the country, and since there were a number of other tribes who had worshipped other deities between here and there, he doubted this had anything to do with Raven. The Hindu god Shani was usually depicted as being not only dressed in black, but dark in color, as well. Shani also traveled around the world on the back of a giant crow. That seemed to fit, but as far as Levi knew, Shani was a god of justice who would have abhorred the atrocities taking place. What else was there? There was Odin, of course, with his two pet ravens, Hugin and Munin. Celtic mythology told of Morrigan, also known as Badb, Fea, Anann, Macha and others. One of the goddess’s forms was that of a crow. The Welsh had the giant king of the Britons known as Bran the Blessed, whose name meant “crow.” Levi wondered for a moment if Brinkley Springs’ residents were primarily of Germanic, Irish or Welsh descent. Probably so, but even then, none of those possibilities felt right.

Crows were present in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as well as in Chaldean, Chinese and Hindu mythology, and they were mentioned quite often in Buddhism, especially the Tibetan disciplines. One physical form of Dharmapala Mahakala was a crow. Crows had watched over the first Dalai Lama and had supposedly heralded the births of the first, seventh, eighth, twelfth and fourteenth Lamas. Levi was certain, however, that he could rule the Dalai Lama out as a suspect.

He stuck close to the church walls, remaining in the shadows. Lost in thought, he didn’t notice the dead dog until he was almost upon it. The poor creature had been impaled on the black wrought iron fence that surrounded the churchyard. One end of the iron rod jutted from the dog’s anus. The other end stuck out of its mouth. Judging by the expression in the dogs face, it had been alive when the act was perpetrated. Without even really thinking about it, Levi reached out with two fingers and closed the poor dog’s eyes. Then an idea occurred to him. If he could find a dead human—one whose death was connected to these mysterious crow figures or the men in black—he could summon their spirit and get the answers from the departed. It stood to reason that a murder victim, especially one killed in so gruesome a fashion, would be able to answer questions about the person or persons who had killed them.

All he had to do was find a corpse, and given the current situation, that should be an easy task.

Levi grasped the iron bars and vaulted over the fence. His hands came away sticky with blood and fur. Frowning, he knelt and wiped them on the grass. Then he stood up again and walked around the side of the church, sticking once more to the shadows to avoid being seen. A black car with flames painted on the side raced past, followed closely by a revving pickup truck. That struck Levi as odd. He hadn’t heard or seen any other running vehicles this evening.

Flames flickered in the night, casting the side streets and alleys with an orange glow. Though none of the buildings in his proximity were ablaze, the fires were close enough that Levi could smell the smoke.

His eyes watered. The curtains in a few houses fluttered as he sneaked past them. When he reached an open space and ran out of cover, he darted down the sidewalk. Broken glass crunched beneath his feet. An obese woman, sobbing uncontrollably, stood on the corner, leaning against a mailbox.

“Excuse me,” Levi called. “Are you okay? Have you been injured?”

She glanced in his direction and then her sobs turned to screams. She ran away, her speed belying her size. Shaking his head, Levi continued onward.

He found a dead body at the next intersection. The victim was a middle-aged white male. His head and limbs were still intact, but his genitals had been torn off, leaving a ragged, gaping hole in his crotch. Blood shone black on the asphalt beneath him, and his shirt and the tattered remains of his pants were crimson. Levi knelt next to the corpse and stuck the tip of his right index finger into the gore. The blood was sticky but not yet congealed. He placed his palm against the corpse and found that the flesh was cool, but still pliant. Whoever the man was, he hadn’t been dead long. Levi glanced around for the missing penis and testicles and spotted them lying on the curb—which meant that whatever had murdered this man hadn’t consumed the grisly prize. Nor had it eaten or mangled the rest of him. The killing had been quick, almost perfunctory, if not for the brutality of it. This hadn’t been about torture or revenge. This killing had served a purpose, albeit a quick one. But what? His blood hadn’t been drained. His flesh hadn’t been consumed. So why kill him in this fashion?

There was only one way to find out. Only one person who would have the answers—the dead man himself.

Lord, he prayed silently, as always, I am your humble servant and your mighty sword. Guide my hand tonight as if it were your own. Let our victory be swift and just, and though my methods might not all be yours, let their purpose be to thy everlasting glory.

Levi stretched the corpse out, making sure the head was pointing north and then extending the arms and legs straight out from the torso. He noticed purple splotches on the underside of the limbs. The remaining blood in the man’s body was beginning to settle. He stood up then and wiped his hands on his pants. He grimaced at the stickiness on his palms, and was reminded of the dog that had been impaled on the church fence. There was starting to be a lot of blood on his hands tonight, and the symbolism was not lost on Levi. He wondered if it was the Lord trying to send him a message, or if this was simple synchronicity. It didn’t matter, either way. If he didn’t stop this slaughter, and soon, all of the blood in Brinkley Springs would be on his hands.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a stick of chalk with his red right hand. Then he knelt again and drew a pattern around the corpse. He followed this with several arcane symbols, drawing each one quickly but carefully. He could afford no mistakes. Something as simple as one line or dot out of place could have unexpected—if not disastrous— consequences. Despite the chill in the air, sweat dripped from his forehead and the tip of his nose. Levi was careful not to let any of it fall inside the pattern. He worked in silence, except for the screams and occasional gunfire that still echoed across the town.

When he was finished, Levi stood up and surveyed his handiwork, ignoring the aches and pains in his joints and back. Satisfied that he’d done it correctly, he stood over the body, careful not to let his shoes touch the chalk lines.

“I’m deeply sorry about this,” he whispered. Then he raised his voice and chanted in a guttural combination of ancient Sumerian and a language not normally spoken by human tongues.

A black crow hovered above the carnage while two of its brothers, both still in human form, eviscerated a family of four—father, mother and their children, a boy and a girl. Insatiable, they feasted greedily on the departing souls of the parents and the boy, pausing only to engage in a tug-of-war game with the little girl, using her arms as a rope. The limbs popped from their sockets. Sinew and muscle twisted and tore. The girl’s shrieks reached a fevered pitch. The crow swooped downward, resuming its human guise.

“Don’t play with your food.”

Its brothers laughed. They pulled harder and the limbs came free. The girl toppled to the ground, unconscious yet writhing. They jostled one another for the departing soul, but stopped suddenly.

“Do you feel that?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“Someone in this town still knows the ways of old. He or she seeks congress with the realms beyond.”

“If they can do that, then perhaps they are skilled in other works. Perhaps they can defeat us?”

“Reach out. Do you feel their power? This one is dangerous.”

“Indeed.”

“Find them immediately. But be careful. This one isn’t like the others. This one is like those we faced of old.”

Without another word, all three reverted to crow form and flew into the night, leaving the mangled bodies where they’d fallen. The birds soared in different directions, searching the darkness for the source of the disturbance, and their cries were terrible to all who heard them.

At eighty-nine, Jack McCutchon was the oldest man in Brinkley Springs. He lived by himself and fended for himself, something which he took great pride in. He still exercised every day, walking from his front door to the end of the driveway and back again, and still had most of his teeth. Sure, he had to wear hearing aids, but other than that, he thought he was in pretty good shape.

Jack wasn’t afraid of being old, and he wasn’t afraid of dying. He wasn’t afraid of much, in fact. As a radioman in the air force, Jack had flown bombing missions over Japan during World War II. One night, they’d been only eight thousand feet over a Japanese village. At that height, they’d been able to smell burning flesh even inside the plane’s hull. The heat and thermals from the explosions had buffeted the aircraft, tossing it about like a child’s toy glider. One moment, they were cruising along at eight thousand feet. The next, they were shooting straight up to ten or fifteen thousand. Some of the other planes in the bomber group had actually flipped over from the turbulence. Jack’s crew had made it safely back to base, but he’d never forgotten that night. It was the most frightening experience of his life.

Until the man dressed in dark clothing broke into his house and confronted Jack in his chair, where he’d been doing a crossword puzzle. His hearing aids sat on the end table next to him.

“What are you supposed to be?” Jack wheezed, his hand going to his chest. Suddenly it was very hard to breathe. “A pilgrim or something?”

Jack died of fear before the intruder even touched him.

Hand in hand and gasping for breath, Donny and Marsha ran, turning down one street and then another, darting through backyards and alleys and glancing over their shoulders as they fled. Marsha stumbled, but Donny pulled her upright and urged her onward. Panting, she resisted and tugged her arm away.

“I’ve got to rest. Please? Just for a minute.”

Nodding, he guided her to a row of shrubbery in front of an abandoned house. They ducked down behind the untrimmed bushes and caught their breath. Their stifled gasps were punctuated by screams and cries from nearby streets.

Marsha shivered.

“Are you cold?” Donny asked.

“No,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

“Me, too.”

“Even after… what you saw over there?”

“Sure. Iraq was Iraq. This is different. I lived here.”

Despite their situation, Marsha noticed that he referred to Brinkley Springs in the past tense rather than the present. She decided not to mention it. Now wasn’t the time.

Donny reached out and took her hand again.

“What are you thinking about?”

“I don’t know. Everything. Brandon… He was just a kid. We shouldn’t have just left him like that.”

“No,” Donny agreed. “We shouldn’t have. It wasn’t right. But if we hadn’t, then we’d both be dead right now. I don’t give a shit about me, but I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”

Marsha stared at him, unable to speak. She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back. Then Donny cleared his throat and peered through the branches, watching the street.

“I hope my parents and my brother are okay,”

Marsha said. “They have to be, right?”

“Where were they tonight?”

“At home. Mom and Dad were watching TV and Randy had friends over—Sam and Stephanie.”

“You mean little Stephanie Hall?”

“I sure do. Except she’s not that little anymore.”

Donny grinned. “No kidding? Is he going out with her?”

“Who knows? I think she likes playing him and Sam against each other.”

“Well, that’s not right. I always liked your little brother. He’s a good kid. Little weird, what with all the hip-hop stuff, but still a good kid.”

“You don’t have to live with him. He’s a pain in the ass.” Her voice softened. “But he likes you, too. He was excited when he heard you were back. I think he hoped you’d stick around. He missed you, Donny. We all did.”

Donny didn’t reply. Instead he focused on the street again. Marsha sensed that she’d struck a nerve and decided it might be best to change the subject.

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “We should hide somewhere. I don’t reckon it makes sense to go back to my mom’s place. No way of knowing if those fuckers are still around there or not. If they are, they’ve got us outnumbered.”

“Who were they?”

“Something… not normal. Did you see how fast they moved? Nothing normal moves like that.”

“What are you saying, Donny? That they were demons or something?”

“Hell, I don’t know what I’m saying. I mean, I didn’t used to believe in that stuff. But I heard things. Over in Iraq. Guys talked, you know? I reckon you see enough of the worst shit imaginable, then you start to believe in evil. Real evil, like what they taught us in Sunday school when we were little. There’s so much more to our planet, Marsha. It’s a big world out there beyond these mountains, and we don’t know as much about it as we think we do.”

Marsha opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off.

“Look, forget it. All I’m saying is that we need to be careful. We got lucky back there, and if we come across those fuckers again, I don’t think we’d get that lucky a second time. I need to make sure you’re safe.

I don’t know what I’d do if one of them got you.”

“Donny…”

He turned toward her, and Marsha saw the tears in his eyes. She reached for him, cradled his face in her hands and then pulled him toward her. He didn’t resist. Their lips met, and when Marsha closed her eyes, the darkness seemed to fade a bit.

Somewhere overhead, a bird cried out.

Levi stopped chanting and frowned in concern.

There had been no reaction to his summons. By this point in the ritual, the departed soul should have returned to the body, regardless of which plane of existence it now inhabited. He checked the symbols and incantations and reconfirmed that all were in place and correct. Then he addressed the corpse.

“Can you hear me? If so, then I command you to tell me who did this to you.”

The dead man didn’t answer. Levi watched the corpse’s face, looking for some sign of movement or awareness, no matter how slight, but nothing changed. The body was as soulless and empty as when he’d first found it. But why? What had gone wrong? This was simple necromancy, after all. Not a discipline to be trifled with or taken lightly, of course, but not nearly as hard as many other occult tasks. Even if the man had been dead for hours, Levi should still have been able to pull the soul back. It wasn’t until decay set in that such a summoning became useless. After all, how could a dead man be expected to answer questions with a decomposing tongue?

“Are you there? Please, I only want to help. Perhaps you are confused by your situation? Can you tell me your name? Can you tell me who did this to you?”

Silence. Levi’s frown deepened. There should have been some spark, some indication that the soul had temporarily returned to its former home. For whatever reason, he had failed. He was no closer to knowing what he was dealing with, and while his questions remained unanswered, the situation in Brinkley Springs grew more desperate by the minute. Even now, the screams drew closer. He needed to face this—whatever it was. He had to save these people. Had to defeat it. But to do that, he needed the name of the entities. He needed to know whom or what he was fighting. All power stemmed from naming.

Without a name, the situation was hopeless.

Desperate, Levi racked his brain for an alternative. His hands curled into fists and his fingernails dug into the skin of his palms. He didn’t notice the pain. For a brief moment, he found himself wishing that the Siqqusim—a race of incorporeal beings used as soothsayers by the ancient Sumerians—weren’t sealed away in the void. He could have done as the Sumerian priests used to do and cast one of the entities into the body of this dead man, thus giving it a voice. But to do so—to breach the veil—was beyond his abilities. Indeed, he didn’t know anyone on Earth who could achieve that.

So what’s the point of standing around here and mulling it over? What’s wrong with me? I’m better than this. I bested Nodens two years ago. I should be able to do this.

Think, man. Think!

“Crows,” he whispered, staring up into the sky. “Dark men dressed in black. The systematic slaughter of innocents. But why? For what purpose? Simple cruelty? What am I dealing with here, Lord? Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.”

The heavens were as silent as the corpse. Levi had expected as much.

“God helps those who help themselves,” he muttered. “But He sure doesn’t make it easy for them.”

Hurrying footsteps caught his attention. Levi glanced up in time to see two young people—a man and a woman—step out of the shadows. The man appeared to be in his midtwenties. He wore blue jeans and a flannel shirt, both of which hugged the contours of his body. He was in good physical shape. His brown hair was cropped close to his head and shaved down to stubble on the sides. Levi recognized the haircut. It was what members of the military called a “high and tight.” He assumed that this young man was either a soldier or a marine—or had been until recently. The woman he was with appeared to be about the same age. She was slim and pretty, with mournful brown eyes that matched her long hair, and a fair complexion.

Spotting him, they halted. The girl gasped. Both of them were obviously terrified. They glanced down at the body and then up at Levi. He held up his hands and smiled to show that he meant them no harm.

“Hmmm,” Levi murmured. “Maybe the Lord is answering prayers tonight after all.”

As Randy roared along behind Sam and Stephanie, he felt a sick mixture of fear, revulsion and shock. He’d turned the CD player off because it was too much of a distraction. His eyes were wide as he gaped at the destruction. He didn’t see the man who had killed his parents, nor the man’s compatriots, but the signs of their passage were visible on every street corner. Racing through downtown and struggling to keep up with Sam’s faster car, it was impossible for Randy to avoid the killers’ handiwork. Brinkley Springs was no longer recognizable as the place he’d grown up in. Fires burned unchecked in a dozen homes and businesses. Cars and trucks sat vacant along the streets and in driveways, some with their doors hanging open or hoods up, as if their owners had experienced car trouble. He thought again of when they’d first fled. Sam’s Nissan hadn’t started at first—not until Randy had leaned against it.

Corpses, both human and animal, lay sprawled in the streets, yards and sidewalks. Randy knew most of them—if not their names, then at least their faces—but he forced himself not to think about it. If he pretended that he didn’t know them, that their deaths had no more meaning than some random NPC in a video game, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt as bad. Some of the corpses showed no obvious signs of trauma. Others had been mauled and mangled— eviscerated, torn apart, heads and limbs tossed aside with careless abandon. And a few had suffered even worse fates. A man jutted halfway through the pawn shop’s plate-glass window. Shards of glass had severed his head from the nose up. A small child lay sprawled in a plastic wading pool. The pool was filled with blood. A man had been impaled with his own arms and legs. The grisly appendages stuck out the front of his torso as if they’d grown from it. Several people had been burned alive. Their charred remains still smoked on their lawns. A red and brown and pink pile of slop next to a woodpile and a chopping block with a bloodied ax embedded in it defied description, but Randy was pretty sure he knew what it was. Bile rose in his throat as he looked away. Across the street, a woman hung from a tree limb, dangling at the end of an extension-cord noose. Her breasts had been torn off and her stomach ripped open. Her innards lay on the ground at her feet. Carved into the bark of the tree was a single word in big block letters.

As he sped by, Randy wondered what it meant. It was a strange word. Certainly not one he’d ever heard before. He wasn’t even sure it was English. And who had carved it? The men in black, maybe, but how? Randy had some experience carving his initials into trees. When he was fourteen, Randy and Cathy Wilson had gone together for a whole summer. They’d had a favorite spot down along the Greenbrier River—a secluded section along the riverbank, hidden by a stand of tall birch trees. They’d gone there nearly every day and spent the afternoons swimming and talking and making out. Randy had convinced her to go skinny-dipping, but despite his best efforts, he’d never made it past third base. Near the end of the summer, he’d used the lock blade hunting knife his grandfather had given him for his birthday to carve his and Cathy’s initials— along with a big, if somewhat lopsided, heart—into the trunk of one of the old birch trees. Despite the soft bark, it had taken him all afternoon, and that was just four small letters and a crude heart. The strange word on the hanging tree was eight letters long, and each of the letters was a good ten inches high.

He promptly forgot about it as they hit a straightaway near the outskirts of town. Sam accelerated and Randy had no choice but to do the same. He glanced down at the speedometer. The needle was edging toward seventy-five miles per hour.

“Slow the hell down, Sam. It ain’t gonna do us any good if you and Stephanie end up wrapped around a motherfucking telephone pole.”

He knew, of course, that his friend couldn’t hear him, but Randy didn’t care. Hollering at Sam made him feel better. It took his mind off the horrors around them. It helped him forget about what had happened to his parents. Randy bit his lip and gripped the steering wheel hard. He moaned, long and low, and then the tears started again. He blinked his eyes, trying to clear his blurry vision, but every time he did, he saw the grotesque images. His father, bleeding from dozens of lacerations, shaking and jittering as the glass shard speared his eye. His mother, bravely holding the steak knife and trying to defend him. The way the killer’s voice had sounded when he promised to turn Randy’s mother inside out. How his ears rang and his hands grew numb when he pulled the trigger. Worst of all, Randy remembered the look on his mother’s face when the bullet passed through the intruder and slammed into her instead.

“I’m sorry, Mommy.” He wiped his eyes and nose with the back of his hand. “I didn’t mean to leave you there. I just didn’t know what else to do. And there was Steph…”

What would Marsha say when she found out? What would she think of him? She’d probably hate him, and she had every right to. He’d abandoned their mother. He’d shot her. It was bad enough that he couldn’t save his father, but he should at least have been able to defend his mother. Instead, he’d killed her.

Randy hoped that his sister was okay, hoped that she was with Donny. If anybody could kick these weird fuckers’ asses, it was Donny Osborne. If Marsha was with him, she’d be in good hands. She had to be. Marsha was all that Randy had left. Marsha and Stephanie…

They blew past Pheasant’s Garage. It was dark, just like the rest of the town. As Randy caught up to Sam, something occurred to him. They hadn’t encountered any other cars or trucks since escaping his house. Oh, they’d seen plenty parked along the street or in driveways, and they’d seen some wrecked. But nobody had driven past them. Not even a motorcycle. He wondered why? What did it mean? Surely, they couldn’t be the only ones trying to get out of town.

His thoughts returned to Stephanie. He studied her silhouette through Sam’s rear window. When this was over, he was going to tell her how he felt. Enough was enough. Life was too short. He’d never really thought about that before. Sure, he’d known people who died—his grandparents, and a friend of his had died of leukemia in the fourth grade. But those deaths were different than tonight. He needed Steph to know how he felt about her, no matter what the consequences. Hopefully, Sam would understand and be okay with it.

Just beyond the garage, they passed a Mazda pickup truck with out-of-state tags parked along the side of the road. In front of the truck was a small pile of ashes that stirred as they sped by. Randy glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the ashes swirling in his wake. He glanced forward again, practicing what he’d say to Steph—

—and then Sam’s car imploded.

It happened so fast that Randy couldn’t be sure of what he saw. One second, they were zooming toward the sign that told folks they were leaving Brinkley Springs. The next, it was as if Sam’s Nissan had slammed into an invisible brick wall. There was a shockingly loud sound of a collision, and then the car crumpled, accompanied by the tortured shrieks of metal and fiberglass—and of Sam and Stephanie. The sounds lasted only a second. By then, the engine block was shoved through the rear bumper.

Randy slammed the brakes and spun the steering wheel. He felt the truck almost tip over as it slid sharply to the side, stopping only inches from the wreckage. He flung the door open and leaped out. The car was no longer recognizable. Neither were his friends. Earlier tonight, they’d sat in his bedroom, listening to music and playing video games and laughing and talking and breathing. They’d had arms and legs and heads and hair. He refused to believe that the scraps of raw, dripping hamburger that were strewn through the wreckage was all that remained of them. He inched forward, screaming Stephanie’s name, and something crunched beneath his heel. Randy lifted his foot and glanced down. He’d stepped on someone’s finger. He couldn’t tell if it was Steph’s or Sam’s.

Randy bent over and wretched. Vomit splashed his shoes and steamed on the road. He took a deep breath, screamed and then threw up again. His stomach cramped and spasms shook his body. He vomited a third time and then gasped, trying to catch his breath. He smelled gasoline and motor oil and blood. He staggered backward, moving away from the wreckage. Wisps of white smoke rose from it… but then he realized that it wasn’t smoke. The shredded metal and fiberglass and rubber wasn’t on fire. These wisps were something else. There were two of them—small, ethereal puffs of white. They reminded him of the way his breath looked when he exhaled on a cold day. They drifted above the accident scene like cigarette smoke, slowly gliding upward. Suddenly, there was a flash of light that made Randy think of the bug-zapper light in his parents’ backyard. The two white clouds flattened out and then disappeared. The entire sky flashed blue, and then the darkness returned.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?”

With his throat raw and his eyes nearly swollen shut, Randy charged forward, wanting only to escape this new horror. He paused after taking a few steps. What if he slammed headfirst into the same unseen barrier that had stopped his friends?

He glanced back at the wreckage. His vision blurred and the world began to spin. Randy’s sobs finally ceased as he toppled backward, hit his head on the ground and lost consciousness.

Donny was thinking about the kiss. About how warm Marsha’s lips had been. How she’d tasted. How her tongue had felt sliding across his. How her breath had caressed his face. He didn’t want to; he’d been trying instead to focus on keeping them both alive, but he just couldn’t help himself. It had brought back all kinds of memories that he’d thought he buried once and for all. He was disappointed and angry with himself. As wonderful as it had been, the kiss would just make things more difficult. Marsha was already having a hard time with him leaving. He still planned on doing so, just as soon as this crisis was over.

Marsha gasped, and squeezed his hand hard.

Donny glanced at her, and then in the direction she was staring.

The first thing he noticed was the dead body lying in the middle of the street. Despite the horrific groin injury, it wasn’t as grisly as some of the corpses they’d seen tonight—but it was certainly the strangest. The body had been positioned like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing (which one of Donny’s fellow soldiers had sported as a tattoo on his bicep). Some sort of weird circle had been drawn around the corpse with chalk. The circle had four points and was decorated with bizarre symbols. Donny didn’t recognize any of them.

The second thing Donny noticed was the dark-haired man standing over the body. Donny didn’t know him, and he could tell by the look on Marsha’s face that she didn’t know him either. His manner of dress and his long, unruly beard identified him as Amish, which was strange. To the best of Donny’s knowledge, the closest Amish enclave was over near Renick. The man appeared to be in his mid-thirties, although Donny couldn’t be sure. His complexion and build seemed youthful, but his eyes were older. Judging by his expression, the stranger was just as startled as they were. Then Donny noticed the blood. It was all over him, smeared on his clothes and face. His hands, especially his right hand, were stained crimson.

“Despite how this may look, I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

The accent confirmed what Donny already suspected. The man wasn’t from Brinkley Springs, nor even from West Virginia. He was certainly a Yankee.

Donny detected what sounded like a Pennsylvanian accent.

“I’m inclined to believe you,” Donny said. “But there’s blood all over your hands.”

The Amish man looked at his palms and then back up at them. His expression turned sad.

“Yes, there is. Too much blood, I’m afraid. You have no idea.”

Donny nodded at the corpse. “Looks like that guy had his pecker torn off, roots and all. I don’t reckon you could have done that.”

“No, of course not. But I guess you’ve no reason to believe me.”

“I didn’t say you did it. No offense, but you don’t look strong enough to do something like that. But no, to answer your question. I don’t think you did it. We’ve seen the ones who could.”

The stranger inched. He took a step toward them, and Marsha slid closer to Donny’s side. Her grip on his hand tightened. He slid one arm around her for comfort.

“You saw who did this?” The stranger’s tone was excited.

“I’m guessing it was the same people.”

“Where? How long ago?”

Donny shrugged. “Ten minutes ago, maybe. Back that way. That’s why we’re going this way.”

“Show me.”

“Hell, no. Trust me, mister. The last thing you want to do is tangle with those guys.”

“There’s more than one?” Donny nodded.

“How many?”

“We saw two of them,” Marsha said. “Dressed all in black. They’re wearing old-time clothes, like they’re Pilgrims or something.”

The stranger frowned, as if puzzled. “Why do you care?” Donny asked.

“Because somebody has to. Because it’s my job to care about things like this.”

“What are you, some kind of cop? Because, to be honest, you sure don’t look like one.”

The Amish man smiled. “I’m not a police officer. I guess you could say that I’m more of a private detective. I specialize in what you’d probably call ‘weird’ occurrences.”

“You’re certainly in the right place tonight,” Marsha muttered.

The stranger smiled and nodded, and then wiped his bloody hands on his pants. Donny noted that the effort didn’t do much good. All the stranger succeeded in doing was making more smears.

Something bashed overhead. All three of them glanced upward, but the sky was dark again.

“Heat lightning,” Marsha said.

“Maybe,” the stranger agreed. “Or maybe it was something else.”

“What’s your name?” Donny asked.

“You can call me Levi Stoltzfus.”

That struck Donny as odd. The stranger hadn’t said my name is. Instead, he’d said you can call me. He chalked it up to just a quirky speech mannerism— perhaps something from the Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch.

“I’m Donny Osborne and this is my girlf… my… This is Marsha Cummings.”

He felt Marsha stiffen slightly next to him. She’d noticed his near slip of the tongue.

Levi tipped his hat to them. “It is very nice to meet you both. Now please, I hope you don’t think me rude, but I must know more about what you encountered. Tell me everything. Every detail, no matter how trivial or unimportant it might seem to you.”

“We stick around here any longer,” Donny said, “and I reckon they’ll find us. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen. Come on, Mr. Stoltzfus. You can hide with us.”

They started to move past him, but Levi stepped in their way.

“Do you both live around here? Are you locals?” Donny nodded. Marsha said nothing.

“Well, then,” Levi continued, “if you care about your town—if you care at all about your family and friends and loved ones—then tell me, quickly, whom you saw and how I can find them. I’m not asking you to come with me. I just want information.”

Donny sighed. “Can we at least get under cover? I don’t like standing out here in the open.”

“Of course,” Levi said. “I think that would be best.” They hurried into the nearest yard and hid in the shadows alongside a house. When they were settled, Levi nodded at Donny in encouragement.

“We were standing out in the street,” Donny began. “The power went out all across town and then all of the dogs started barking and howling at the same time. Then my cell phone wouldn’t work and my truck wouldn’t start.”

“My cell phone didn’t work either,” Marsha said.

“Does that happen often? Power outages and your cellular network going down?”

“Not that often,” Marsha replied. “I mean, our coverage isn’t the best, on account of the mountains and everything, but it’s never been like this. And I don’t just mean that the network is down. My cell phone is dead. It won’t even power up.”

“Same with everything else,” Donny added. “Flashlights—anything electronic or battery operated seems to be out. It’s like somebody set off an EMP inside Brinkley Springs. My truck was just serviced. There’s no reason it would have been fucking dead like that.”

“I saw two vehicles race by earlier,” Levi said. “A car and a truck. But otherwise, the streets have been empty of vehicular traffic.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know yet. What happened after you lost power?”

“We were… talking.” Donny glanced at Marsha as he explained. She lowered her gaze. “The dogs stopped howling and then everybody started screaming. We heard it coming from all over town. Gunshots, too. It sounded like there was a house-to-house battle going on. Then this weird guy appeared.”

Marsha shuddered, and Donny was surprised to find himself shivering, as well.

“Go on,” Levi urged softly. “Tell me about him.”

Donny did, recounting their escape in short, haltingsentences. He fought back tears as he told of the slaughter, and the fear and despair they’d both felt in running away and leaving Brandon and the neighbor behind. When he mentioned the strange abilities that the men in black had possessed, he assumed Levi would make fun of him, but the Amish man merely stroked his beard and listened intently, his expression showing no disbelief. When he was finished, Donny felt physically exhausted and emotionally drained. He noticed that Marsha was crying, and he slid his arm around her shoulder to comfort her. The memory of their kiss came to him again. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled like honeysuckle shampoo just as it had when they were in high school. Something stirred inside of him.

“None of this makes any sense,” Levi muttered. Donny got the impression that the Amish man was talking to himself rather than to them. When Levi looked up again, he almost seemed surprised that they were still there. “Are you sure you’ve told me everything?”

“The kiss,” Marsha said.

For a moment, Donny thought she was talking about the kiss they’d shared in the bushes, and then he realized what she meant.

“They leaned over each person as they killed them,” Donny said. “And then they kissed them.”

“Kissed them? How do you mean? A gentle kiss on the forehead to honor their victims in some way?”

“No. This was… obscene. It’s like they were sucking the air from their lungs or something.”

Levi became alert. His eyes blazed. Donny thought at first that he’d said or done something to anger the man.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Sucking the air from their lungs… or the souls from their bodies?”

Donny shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”

“It’s okay. I do. This still doesn’t make sense, but at least now I know what they might possibly be after.”

Levi placed a hand on Donny’s shoulder, and Donny was surprised at the man’s strength. He felt it radiating through him.

“Tell me how to get there,” Levi said. “The street where you first encountered them.”

“You don’t need directions. If you want to find them, just follow the closest scream.”

Something fluttered softly in the darkness. All three glanced upward and saw a large black crow perched directly above them atop the eaves of the house. It tilted its head and croaked, almost as if mocking them.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Levi whispered. “It appears that they’ve found us instead.”