Rushed (18 page)

“Fair enough.”

“Way I heard it, there was a guy out there somewhere who could make these things.  Caused all sorts of trouble.  You can probably imagine.”

Eric thought he just about
could
imagine it.  How many hapless people could one of these things kill before someone figured out how to stop it?

“This…‘foggy man’ of yours apparently knows the same trick.”

“Apparently.”

“The problem here isn’t necessarily breaking the golem’s focus.  I think I might be able to handle that.  It’s that goddamn box.  Even if we find an adequate distraction, it’ll just return to wherever it’s tethered.  That first one went right back to the wardrobe.  The second one…you said it crashed through a door?”

“Yeah.  From outside.”

“I’m guessing whatever it was hiding in was sitting just outside the door.  Maybe even a box just like that one out there.  You would’ve tripped it as soon as you came close enough.  And that’s where it returned after you knocked it off the roof.”

Eric considered telling him that the creature fell off the roof of its own accord, but decided it was unimportant. 

“It stands to reason, then, that this one will always return to that box.  Meaning I’ll be attacked by it every time I go out my fucking door.”

“I’m starting to see why you don’t care much for company.”

Returning to the front doorway, Father Billy placed the assault rifle on the chair next to the one that dropped the three corn creeps.  Turning to face Eric, he reached into the duffel bag and withdrew a stick of dynamite and a coil of fuse. 

Eric actually took a step back at the sight of the stick.  “Do I want to know how much explosives you keep back there?”

“I doubt it.”  Father Billy cut a short length from the fuse and fitted it to the stick of dynamite. 

“Grenades too expensive?”

“Yes, actually.  And they’re harder to acquire without drawing attention to yourself.”  He held the prepared stick out for Eric to take.  “This is for you.”

“What?  No.  I don’t know anything about dynamite.”

“You know you don’t want to be right next to it when it goes off, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then you know something about dynamite.  In fact, you know more than enough to do the job I’m about to give you.  You see, my theory is that if you destroy the container a golem is tethered to, you’ll get rid of it for good.” 

“Sounds reasonable,” guessed Eric.  “Either that or they’d just be free to go where they please.”

“That’s also a possibility,” Father Billy admitted.  “I’m going out there and I’m going to get its attention.  Then I’m going to run like fucking hell.  You’re going to watch for it to chase me out of sight and then you’re going to light the fuse, run out there and drop this in its box.”

“No way.  I don’t want anything to do with that.”

“You’d rather be the bait?”

Father Billy made an excellent point.  Reluctantly, Eric took the dynamite.

“Come on.  Let’s get this over with.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“Obviously, I’ll be fucked.  Now let’s go.”

Father Billy didn’t wait for him to protest further.  He slung the duffel bag onto his back, shouldered the assault rifle and picked up the weapon he’d used to greet Eric.  He then slid open his homemade peephole and surveyed the yard on the other side.  Nothing had changed.  The box remained where it was.  Neither the foggy man nor the corn creeps had returned.  He slid the panel closed and pulled a lighter from his pocket.  “Take this.  Light the fuse as soon as it comes out of the box.  When it’s followed me around the side of the building, run out and drop it into the box.  Then run like hell.  If I’m right, it’ll either vanish or it’ll return straight to what’s left of the box, so you don’t want to be anywhere near it.”

Eric nodded.  He didn’t like this.  But at least there
was
a plan.  He hadn’t had a plan all day.  He was flying by the seat of his pants.  And he couldn’t keep relying on dumb luck to save his ass. 

Father Billy, who was no father to anyone, opened the door and stepped out into the gloom. 

Eric closed the door behind him and watched him through the peephole. 

Nothing happened at first.  Father Billy made his way slowly across the yard, his body tense, ready to spring away. 

But step-by-step, nothing happened. 

Eric began to think that the golem would ignore anyone but him, that others could walk right up to the box without disturbing it.  He had just begun to wonder if this plan was doomed to fail when something enormous exploded from the top of the box

A great, howling visage burst upward with the speed and force of an automobile airbag inflating in a collision.  It swelled into the sky, raining down broken branches from the massive trees as it rose higher and higher.  Two stories tall, it dwarfed Father Billy in its shadow.  Massive teeth bristled from a long, fleshy snout and terrible eyes the size of tractor tires blazed like molten rock.  Long, coiling tendrils unraveled themselves from the creature’s body and snaked across the sky.

It was a huge mass of pale gray flesh against the dark canopy of branches, but somehow its body resisted any attempt he made to grasp what it looked like.  It was more than just a great ball with a gruesome face rising into the sky, but that was as close as Eric could come to describing the thing.  Whatever made up the lower half of its massive torso seemed to be too strange for his limited, human mind to comprehend. 

Father Billy was moving in an instant, across the yard and around the side of the building. 

Not surprisingly, he was also swearing like a longshoreman. 

Eric lit the fuse to the dynamite.  The instant it caught, the object became even more frightening than he ever imagined.  In just a short amount of time, this unremarkable brown stick was going to detonate with catastrophic force, blowing itself to dust and taking with it anything in the immediate vicinity.  If the fuse burned before he could deposit it into the box, it would, at the very least, blow off his hand. 

He tossed aside the lighter and looked out one last time to make sure they had gone.  He saw the creature’s long, fleshy tails sliding across the rocky ground, away from the now empty box. 

Bracing himself, he opened the door, stepped over the corn creep carcasses and ran as fast as he could go toward the foggy man’s murderous gift. 

He could hear the golem howling behind the church and hoped Father Billy was okay.  It was by far the largest of the three monsters the foggy man had left for him.  He doubted even the world’s largest bulldozer would faze it and it appeared to be free-floating, obviously leaving it immune to falling.  He would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved that he didn’t have to find a way to break its focus all on his own. 

He was sure something would happen to try and prevent him from completing this task.  It was far too simple.  Surely he could not be so lucky.  Yet nothing attacked him and nothing blocked his path.  He ran to the box and dropped the dynamite inside without any trouble.  Relieved, he turned and ran back toward the safety of the church. 

He only made it halfway back before he spotted the golem.  It was rising up into the air behind the church, its crazed eyes shining down at him. 

Father Billy was screaming something he couldn’t make out from this distance.  But he didn’t need to understand the words.  He knew perfectly what was going on:  It
knew
.

Somehow, the thing knew what he had done.  By tampering with its box, he’d managed to divert its attention from Father Billy to himself. 

It simply didn’t seem fair. 

It was coming for him, clam
bering right over the church roof, tearing up shingles and knocking aside the already-leaning steeple.  Pieces of it rained down between him and the door. 

Booming gunshots rang out as Father Billy tried to draw the monster’s attention, but it seemed to know which one of them it wanted.

He stood frozen with fear, trying to decide what he should do.  He could still make it to the church.  It wasn’t that far, but he’d never survive.  The building wouldn’t protect him from something this big.  This thing would only tear the small structure to pieces searching for him. 

Behind him, inside the box, the dynamite fuse continued to burn. 

A tone rang out from his front pants pocket, alerting him to a text message.  Numb with fear, hardly realizing what he was doing, he pulled his phone out and glanced down at it.  One word stared up at him from the little screen:  RUN!

Chapter Nineteen

Eric ran for the woods and the golem followed. 

The thing howled, its terrible voice rolling across the clearing like slow, rumbling thunder, filling him with bone-chilling dread.  Beneath this awful howl were the sounds of splintering wood from the church roof, the booming echoes of the rifle and Father Billy’s bellowed curses, all mingling into a single, chaotic din at his back. 

Almost as soon as he entered the woods, he could hear the thing tearing through the heavy branches directly behind him. 

How long did it take a stupid fuse to burn? 

Seconds dragged on as he ran for his life.  He wove between the trunks of the massive trees, hoping to slow the creature down, but he could hear the thundering crash of these same trees smashing to the earth behind him, some of them startlingly close.

Finally, he heard the explosion.  A great, hollow concussion that struck his ears like a crack of thunder.  At the very same instant, the golem cried out in a dreadful, howling shriek that might have been agony or rage or even simply despair.  It was difficult to know for sure.

The howling stopped.  A hush fell around him. 

He dared a glance back over his shoulder, hopeful that the ordeal was already over, and glimpsed one of the forest’s massive trees crashing down from above him, shattering branches in its path as it hurtled toward him. 

Eric bolted out of the way.  He felt the ground tremble with the force of the impact.  A great gust of air rushed past him and dust and debris rained down around him.  He was not sure how close he came to being crushed, but he strongly suspected that he had missed certain death by mere inches. 

High above him, the golem howled again. 

So much for getting rid of it by blowing up its box. 

He ran as hard and as fast as he could go, but it didn’t seem to be enough.  Somewhere in the nearby woods, another tree crashed to the ground close enough to rain splinters onto him.  He couldn’t keep this up forever.

As he shoved his way through some dense underbrush, something scraped his left arm, drawing blood and wrenching from him a frustrated curse. 

He had no idea how he was going to survive this.  There was nowhere to go.  The thing was obviously perfectly happy to spend the rest of the day pulling up every massive tree in this forest in search of him.  How could he even
hope
to break its focus?

Another tone rang out, the sound of the cell phone, still clenched in his left hand, alerting him to another text message.  He glanced at the screen. 

LEFT

This was new and surprisingly bossy behavior for his cell phone.  But given that he was out of ideas and terrified for his mortal life, he found it hard to turn down freely given advice.  Since he was only running blindly through these woods anyway in hopes of not being crushed to death or eaten whole by a two-story monster, he humored his phone and turned left. 

Another reverberating crash from behind him.

Another blood-curdling howl.

Eric crested a hill, descended the other side and emerged from the woods into the oldest and creepiest cemetery he had ever seen outside of a horror movie. 

“Really?”

Sure.  Go left and into the creepy cemetery.  That’s what he got for listening to a stupid phone. 
Now
what was he supposed to do?

Glancing over his shoulder again, he saw another tree crash to the ground and the massive, looming face of the golem floating after him. 

Nowhere to go but among the headstones, he ran out into the cemetery. 

“Sorry!” he breathed as he trod across graves of people long gone from this world.  “Really sorry!  Don’t mind me!”

Behind him, the golem was far less polite.  Another tree came crashing down into the cemetery, crushing several headstones and making enough noise to…well… 

After all that he’d been through today, Eric would not have been remotely surprised to see the dead bursting from the hard, rocky earth and loping after him.  Or simply screeching at him to keep it down.  But surprisingly enough, they kept to their coffins and left him to the golem. 

Making his way across the cemetery, he glanced back again and found the monster floating after him, howling its grizzly howl and glaring down at him with its enormous, red eyes.  Its long, fleshy snout was unrolling itself from its gruesome face, crooked teeth as big as elephant tusks emerged and bristled outward as it reached toward him. 

It was almost on top of him.  He couldn’t outrun it much longer.  His legs were beginning to ache.  He could feel a pain forming in his sides.  And he still didn’t have any idea how to break its focus. 

Then Father Billy was there, running toward him.  He had several more sticks of dynamite in his hands, all of them lit, all of them with troublingly short fuses. 

“Keep going!”
he yelled as they drew close to each other. 
“No matter what, just keep going!”

The golem howled thunderously.

Father Billy ran past him, toward the monster, swearing at the top of his voice at it. 

Eric did as he was told and kept running. 

He heard shouting.  Unearthly howls filled the air. 

As he entered the forest again, a brief series of enormous booms rocked the cemetery and all fell silent but his own frenzied fleeing as he tore through the underbrush. 

He dared not look back for fear that he would find the creature right behind him still, just waiting for him to turn and look in its molten eyes before snatching him off his feet and grinding him to pulp between its countless, massive teeth. 

But no such fate awaited him. 

He climbed to the top of the next hill and passed into a thicket of smaller trees.  The gloom lifted.  The chill receded. 

He found himself in a clearing behind a barbwire fence. 

The sun was shining brightly again. 

He climbed the fence before allowing himself a look behind him.  He was alone.  Father Billy’s explosive, head-on attack had finally done what the single stick of dynamite in the thing’s box had failed to do. 

Eric leaned against the fence and allowed himself a moment to catch his breath. 

It was over. 

Once more, he had survived. 

But now he couldn’t help but wonder what had become of Father Billy.  Had he survived the attack?  Or did he sacrifice himself to break the golem’s focus?  He hoped the good father was okay. 

His cell phone rang. 

Apparently, he was home again. 

And he was still clutching the phone in his hand for some reason. 

Looking at the screen, he found with no surprise at all that it was Karen. 

He hesitated to answer for a moment as he wondered where those text messages had come from, the ones that advised him to RUN and go LEFT. 

He pushed the question to the back of his mind and answered the phone.

“Where are you now?”

“Cow pasture.”

“Hope you’re watching where you step.”

“I am.” 

“You sound out of breath.”

“You know how it is.  Staying in shape.”

“Right.  My husband the fitness nut.”

“Have to keep those buns nice and toned.”

“Right.  Where’ve you been?  I’ve been trying to call for hours.”

Eric recalled the untimely call that almost got him caught and eaten by the corn creeps.  He thought about pointing out the danger she had put him in with all her calls, but decided better of it.  That seemed like a good way to start a fight, especially given that
he
had not called
her
even once today to assure her that he was still alive. 

Besides, if he’d been smart, he would’ve turned the stupid thing off. 

Instead, he focused on what she’d just said:  “Hours?”

“Yeah.  It’s been like three hours.  You’re making me a nervous wreck.”

“What time is it now?”

“It’s almost five.”

According to Eric’s watch, it was not yet two o’clock. 

“I’m losing time.”

“What?”

“It hasn’t been that long for me.  Time isn’t consistent in and out of the fissure.”

“That’s not possible, Eric.”

“Of course it is.  It’s a well-known scientific theory that time can be distorted, though it’s usually on cosmic scales.  Black holes, light speed...”

“Every third or fourth episode of
Star Trek
?”

“Well…yeah…”

“Whatever.  If you say so.  What’s going on in Wonderland?”

“Right, well, after I got off the phone with Paul…  Wait…  If it’s been three hours, did Kevin ever get there with the PT Cruiser?”

“He got here a while ago.  Gave me back my key, had some cookies and then Damien came and picked him up.”  Damien Glowstern was Kevin’s best friend.  He was practically a member of the family. 

That was one less thing he had to worry about, at least. 

“I don’t know where Paul is.”

“Paul’s in the fissure,” he told her. 

“He’s
what
?”

Eric turned away from the fence and started walking again.  He didn’t care to stay in one place very long.  That seemed like a good way to invite trouble. 

“He called me right after we hung up last time.  Told me he was poking around.  He’d already found his way through the barn.”

“Oh my god…  Is he in any danger?”

“Yeah.  I think he is.  But he might be all right if he doesn’t do anything really stupid.”

“That’s really not at all reassuring.”

“I know.”

“You haven’t heard from him since?”

“I just got my reception back when you called.  I haven’t checked messages.”

“Great…  Now I have to worry about both of you.”

“I told him you’d be mad.”

“Good.”

“I threatened to cut off his cheesecake privileges.”

“That would serve him right.”

“I know.  Anyway, I hung up with him and then promptly ran into the corn creeps.”

“Corn creeps?”

“Ugly things.  Mean.  Lots of them.  They chased me to this old church.  I got to spend some quality time with Father Billy.”

“A priest?”

“No.”

“Oh…”

“Long story.”

“I see.” 

Eric noticed that his arm was bleeding and recalled that he had gouged himself on something while running through the woods.  Fortunately, it didn’t look that bad.  Next to the claw marks on his arm, it hardly warranted concern.  “We had a visit from the foggy man while I was there.  He left a present for us.  Another one of those monsters.”

“Scary.”

“Yeah.  But we took care of it.”

“How’d you do that?”

“Dynamite.”

“Sounds effective.”

“It was.  Eventually.” 

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Me too.”  He didn’t bother telling her in detail just how narrowly he’d managed to remain okay.  Maybe once he was back home and safe, but not now.

“Do you think you’re getting close?”

“I hope so.”  He was making his way across the pasture now.  There were a few dozen cows at the far side of the field, but none seemed remotely concerned with him.  Still, he kept his eyes open for anything that might like to eat him.  After all that he’d seen, he wouldn’t have been entirely surprised to see those very cows stand up on their hind legs and start stumbling toward him, clutching knives and forks. 

“How’s the dream coming?”

“I think I missed something.  The corn creeps weren’t supposed to chase me to the church.”

“Really?  That’s what they’re called?”

“I didn’t come up with it.  Father Billy did.  And he seemed a little touchy about it, to tell the truth.”

“Oh.  Sorry.”

“I think I was supposed to stay on the road.  I think there was somewhere else I was going to go.  Now I think I’ve missed it.  I’m not entirely sure, but I have a feeling I might’ve gone around it instead.”

“Do you think you’ll need to go back?”

“I don’t think so.  I feel like it’s more important to get to the cathedral.  But I’m not sure anymore.  Father Billy thinks I need to stay away from the cathedral.”

“Maybe he’s right.”

“Maybe.  I don’t know.  He saved my life back there.  Twice, actually.”

“I like him already.”

“Yeah…  I lost him, though.  I’m not sure what happened to him.”

“You think he might be dead?”

“It’s possible.  I don’t know.  I hope not.”

“Me too.”

“Whatever happened, it’s done now.  I can’t go back.  He told me to keep going.  No matter what.  He’s not the kind of person you care to disobey.  And who knows if I could get back there even if I tried.  The path might not lead back there anymore.”