The Creeps: A Samuel Johnson Tale

XXXVI

In Which Mrs. Abernathy’s Identity Is Revealed

THE ISOLATED MEMBER OF their little band said nothing. It was left to Professor Hilbert to break the silence.

“Dorothy!” he cried. “Er, and/or Reginald, of course. Can this be true?”

“Turncoat!” said the Polite Monster. “Eight letters,” it added, “ ‘one who abandons one party or group to join another.’ ”

“No,” said Samuel. “I don’t think Dorothy ever really existed at all.”

Professor Hilbert turned to Professor Stefan.

“I thought that you hired her,” he said.

“I thought that you did.”

“We need a more careful hiring policy,” said Professor Hilbert.

Dorothy/Reginald removed her false beard. What was revealed was a chin that had begun to blacken and decay. She tugged at her hair, and it came away from her skull in clumps until only a bald, spotted scalp remained. Her body started to swell, bursting through her clothing. Her arms and legs lengthened, and they could hear the grinding of bone against bone, and the snapping of sinews. She rose above them all as tentacles exploded from her back, their beaklike endings gulping at the air, as her black heart flooded the host body with its poison and transformed it. Her head expanded, horns sprouting from the bone, and her mouth grew larger and larger. Her human teeth were forced from her gums and replaced with row upon row of sharp incisors. She reminded Samuel of a huge black mantis, but there was a hint of Ba’al to her appearance, and more than a little of Mrs. Abernathy. Her skin was slightly translucent, and the bones and muscles were visible beneath it, as was the dark heart that beat at the core of her being, protected by a thick, hard shield of keratinized cells.

But it was the eyes that drew Samuel’s attention. They were large and still somewhat human in appearance, but any traces of real humanity were long gone: in their place was only absolute madness. Samuel thought that it was like staring into the center of a storm, a thing of pure, relentless destruction.

“Hello, Samuel,” said the beast, and the voice was Mrs. Abernathy’s, and any lingering doubts were banished.

“Hello,” said Samuel, for want of anything better to say. From somewhere near his ankles came the sound of Boswell barking. Mrs. Abernathy had once hurt the little dog badly. He had not forgotten, but he was not afraid. Instead, he seemed anxious to inflict some harm of his own upon her in return.

Above their heads, the Shadows converged, the weight of them pressing down upon the Earth. They sensed their time was near. Soon this world would be theirs, and all other worlds would follow. They would swallow every star in the universe and leave it cold and black before moving on to the rest of the Multiverse. In time they would make their way to Hell itself and put out its fires, for the Shadows wanted no lights left burning. The Shadows wanted only to spread the Darkness.

“Look at you all,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “Look how easily you were lured to me.”

She took in Dan and the dwarfs, and Sergeant Rowan and Constable Peel, and Shan and Gath, and Maria, even the Polite Monster, until finally her lunatic eyes fell on Samuel and Boswell, and Wormwood and Nurd.

“You!” she said to Nurd. “Twice you have been my ruin. Twice you sided with humanity against your own kind. There will not be a third time.”

A great forked tongue unfurled itself from behind her jaws and coiled around Nurd like a snake. Holes opened on its surface, and each hole was a tiny, sucking mouth lined with teeth. The tongue came close to Nurd, but it did not touch him, and he did not flinch, until at last it was drawn back into her mouth.

“Not yet,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “That would be too quick, too lacking in agony. Mould was right: there are greater punishments in store for you.”

“He should never have trusted you,” said Samuel. “If he’d given it even a moment’s thought, he would have known that you’d kill him in the end.”

“Kill him?” said Mrs. Abernathy. “I didn’t kill him. He was already dead. He just didn’t want to admit it. And I could feel him turning on me. He was weak, like all of your kind. The Shadows would not have been kind with him: about that, at least, you were right.”

“They won’t be kind with you either,” said Nurd. “They hate demons as much as humans. They’ll destroy you without a thought.”

“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Abernathy, “but they’ll have to find me first. You know, in a way you did me a favor when you scattered my atoms throughout the Multiverse. Even I had not understood how powerful I was until then, for as my being imploded, as I felt pain beyond that experienced by any being before me, I was given a glimpse of the Multiverse in its totality. For an instant I saw every universe, every dimension, because I was part of them all, and the memory of that moment was absorbed by every atom of my being. I know the Multiverse: I know where it is weakest and where it is strongest. I know the holes between universes. I can stay ahead of the Shadows for eternity, for there will always be new places to hide.”

“And the Great Malevolence?” said Nurd. “There will be no forgiveness for releasing the Shadows into the Mulitverse. You will have deprived it of its prize, of claiming the conquest of the Multiverse for itself, and the Great Malevolence will hunt you until the last star disappears from the sky.”

“I can stay ahead of our master, too,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “I have knowledge beyond that of the Great Malevolence. The old demon has lived too long in Hell. It has grown weary, and slow. It knows only its own rage, but I have knowledge of every nook and cranny of the Multiverse. Perhaps, in time, other demons will come to me, and leave the Great Malevolence to its plotting and planning, its endless hurt. There are ways to defeat the Shadows. There are universes of pure light. Their greed will eventually lead them to such places, and there I will be waiting. The wait may be long, but I have time.”

She turned once more to Samuel.

“And you will be with me, Samuel: you will keep me company in my exile, and you will live with the knowledge of the hurt that you brought upon your family, your friends, and worlds beyond number because of your meddling.”

“Then take me,” said Samuel. “I’ll go with you willingly. You can do what you want with me, but spare the others. Spare all of these worlds.”

“No,” said Mrs. Abernathy.

“You can take me, too,” said Nurd. “I’ll suffer beside him.”

“You’ll suffer anyway,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “You should have listened to Mould: you’re not offering me anything that I don’t already have in my grasp.”

“But why make them all suffer because of me?” said Samuel.

“Because I want to,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “Because it gives me pleasure.”

Samuel tried to recall what Crudford had said about playing on Mrs. Abernathy’s vanity.

“But wouldn’t it display your power more forcefully if you were to hold back the Shadows, and allow so many to go on living?” said Samuel. “Isn’t there more greatness in sparing lives than taking them?”

Mrs. Abernathy swatted away the possibility as though it were a fly, and a very small fly at that.

“No,” she said. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“Frankly,” said Jolly to Angry, “even I didn’t buy that one.”

“It was a long shot,” agreed Angry. “It would be like telling us that it’s better to pay for stuff than to get it for nothing by stealing it. I mean, it might be true, but you’re not going to get anywhere by believing it.”

“You know,” said the Polite Monster to Mrs. Abernathy, shaking with the kind of suppressed rage of which only the nicest people are capable, “you really are a very, very rude—four letters, ‘ill-mannered or impolite’—demon.”

Mrs. Abernathy roared, and foul-smelling spittle shot from her jaws.

“Enough!” she said. “It begins.”

The stones from the collapsed grotto ascended slowly into the air, revealing the dusty remains of Hilary Mould, but also a very old, very battered wooden door. It hung suspended just a foot off the ground, and at its center was a single lock.

“This is the last barrier, the doorway between the Kingdom of Shadows and this world,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “It needs only the key to open it.”

Her gaze flicked dangerously from one face to the next, until it came to rest on Maria.

“You,” she said. “I feel Samuel’s fondness for you. You will provide the key.”

As she spoke, two of the tentacles on her back lashed out, wrapping themselves around Maria and lifting her off the ground.

“You are the key,” said Mrs. Abernathy, “and the key is blood.”

The surface of the door rippled. Great splinters protruded from the ancient wood, each capable of spearing a human being like an insect on a pin. The keyhole changed shape, becoming a red-lipped mouth waiting to be fed. The last of the stars disappeared from above their heads as the Shadows merged into a single mass of blackness, a great face composed of many entities in one, and galaxies were swallowed in its jaws.

The dwarfs rushed at Mrs. Abernathy, and she struck back with her tentacles and her long, spindly arms, each ending in claws of spurred bone. Nurd and Wormwood went for her legs, trying vainly to overbalance her and pull her down. The policemen joined in the attack, supported by Dan and the Polite Monster. Even Lucy came out of her sulk and joined the fray. They hit her with truncheons and fists, with cricket bats and tennis rackets, but the demon was too strong for them. All they managed to do was distract Mrs. Abernathy, but at least they were preventing her from drawing closer to the door, and impaling Maria on its waiting spikes.

Samuel’s voice sounded loudly, even amid the chaos.

“Everybody get back!” he cried.

Without thinking, the attackers did as he commanded, creating space around Mrs. Abernathy.

“You put my girlfriend down!” said Samuel.

A single black object soared through the air toward Mrs. Abernathy, its cork already popping as its contents struggled to escape. The newly-arrived Shan and Gath watched it go with great sorrow.

The dwarfs saw it, too.

“Is that—?” said Angry, diving for cover.

“It can’t be,” said Jolly, already trying to hide behind Sergeant Rowan.

“I thought it was just a myth,” said Dozy, who had decided that, if someone had to go, it might as well be the Polite Monster, as he would probably be too polite to object, and so had chosen to use him for cover.

“Spiggit’s Old Resentful,” said Mumbles, and there was awe in his voice, as well as fear for his safety, for he seemed to be left with nowhere to hide at all. As a last resort, he curled himself into a small ball and prayed.

The bottle struck Mrs. Abernathy in the chest and exploded into shards. The yeasty weapon of war sprayed her skin and immediately went to work on it like acid, burning through the shield that surrounded her heart. Mrs. Abernathy screamed in pain and dropped Maria. Her tentacles and arms instinctively went for the growing wound as she tried to wipe the fluid from her skin. Instead it simply spread to her other limbs and began to scald them as well. Her screaming grew in pitch and volume, and then turned to a sound so agonized as to be barely audible, for the first of the Spiggit’s had found her heart.

Just then, there was a wet popping sound from inside Mrs. Abernathy, and her heart moved. It seemed to be forcing itself out of her damaged body, as though trying to escape its fate. At last it was entirely outside her, and it was only when a small gelatinous mass appeared behind it, black gore running down his sides, that the truth of what was happening was revealed.

Mrs. Abernathy gurgled. She reached for her heart, but Crudford was too quick for her. He oozed out of reach as Mrs. Abernathy’s body, weakened by the trauma of her injury, collapsed. The life left her eyes. Just like Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley, her human form had merely been a vessel for an essence of evil. Her foul heart continued to beat in Crudford’s arms, for that was where all of her true power resided.

The wooden door collapsed in upon itself. The face of the Shadows opened its mouth in a soundless cry of frustration and rage, and then was gone. The divisions between the dimensions of the Multiverse were slowly concealed, falling upon one another like clear sheets of plastic dotted with stars until at last there was only one familiar set of constellations in the sky, and then even that was gone as the floors and ceilings and walls of Wreckit & Sons became visible once more. Samuel and the others were left standing beside the ruins of the grotto, and there was silence but for the beating of Mrs. Abernathy’s heart.

“Don’t go anywhere,” said Crudford. “I won’t be a—”

And then he, and the heart, vanished.