Soft Apocalypses (21 page)

I raised the shotgun to my shoulder, aiming at his throat. If I got him with a good solid blast under the jaw, maybe I could pop his skull off. “Don’t come any closer.”

“I reckon the Bible’s pretty clear on the subject of witches.” He stopped coming toward me, but didn’t raise his hands or avert his stare. “The good Lord said in Exodus 22:18, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”

Then there came a rustling all around, the sound of cold bodies unfolding themselves from leaf-covered shallow graves and straightening up on dead legs. I turned to see how many creeps were coming toward me; a quick glance around showed at least thirty undead men in ragged clothes shambling toward me. Crap.

I only looked away from Brother Hiram for maybe a second, but that was enough. He rushed forward and grabbed the barrel of my shotgun with a strength I didn’t imagine he possessed. Before he jerked it out of my hands I managed to pull the trigger, hoping to get him in the face, but the blast went wide. My ears rang.

Hiram held the Mossberg high, swung it around and slammed the butt into my sternum. Right over my heart. The blow woofed the air out of my lungs and hurt like hell. I stumbled backward, bright stars sparking in my vision, but managed to stay on my feet. Pal’s little claws dug into my shoulder as he scrambled for purchase.

“I ain’t in a mood to suffer the likes of you.” Hiram glowered at me, gripping my shotgun in his dirt-streaked fists.

His ragged mob was nearly on me. I had time to do exactly one thing, so I grabbed Pal with both hands and tossed him up into what I hoped would be safety in the branches of the nearest cypress.

“Go get help!” I thought to him as I turned to face the men surrounding me.

“What am I, Lassie?” His voice teetered on the edge of hysteria. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere—how am I supposed to get any help?”

I kicked a man dressed in a rotting flannel shirt and camouflage pants; his lips had been mostly eaten away from his face by maggots. “Call Madame Devereaux! She’s in my contact list ... if she doesn’t answer, try my brother!”

“And your cell phone is where?”

“Glove box!” I punched a guy who had pus-filled holes where his eyes should have been.

“Is the truck locked?”

It was. I swore, kicking away a guy who had a spiked billy club strapped to the decaying stump of his right arm.

“Jeepers creepers, Pal, go find a car battery and lick it or something! Embiggen yourself and break in!” I thought back.

“Y’all stop foolin’ around and git ‘er down, already!” Brother Hiram barked.

The zombies dogpiled me, pressing me down into the leaves and slimy mud. I thought I would pass out from their weight and stench. A moment later, one of them had looped a rope around my neck and they were dragging me through the yard as I gagged and fought for breath.

They pulled me up onto my knees beside a huge woodpile and held me there, my arms outstretched. I didn’t fight them, taking a moment to try to get my bearings and breath back. I was completely surrounded. I’d have a chance if I could just get my shotgun back, but without it, I was pretty much screwed. The hidden boot knife’s sheath was jammed painfully into my calf. No way to reach it.

I heard the sound of heavy footsteps in the leaves, and the mob parted to let Brother Hiram through. He stood in front of me, still holding my shotgun. His face was grim. “You are a witch and an abomination unto the eyes of the Lord. But ye shall repent, and before this day is over you will be calling the Lord’s name with all your heart and He will welcome you with open arms into His kingdom. Eternal salvation will be my gift to you.”

I dearly wanted to tell him in graphic anatomical detail exactly where he could stick his salvation. But I had a rare moment of prudence and realized that anything I had to say would just make things worse. So I held my tongue, watching to see what their next move would be.

Hiram nodded at his rotting crew. “Git ‘er ready.”

Two of them carried over a 6”x6” square wooden post beam. A pair of iron D rings had been securely screwed into the middle of the rough-hewn beam, as if it was supposed to be hung someplace. Someone had routed a series of well-worn grooves a few inches from each end. The wood was mildewed; it looked like it had been spending a lot of time near the water, and it was stained with something dark and rusty. Old blood. The beam was a bit longer than the width of my outstretched arms; I guessed it was probably six feet even. Six by six by six. What the hell were they going to do?

Dead hands pulled me up, turned me over, and threw me down on the beam, binding me tightly by my wrists to the wood with coarse sisal rope that fit neatly into the grooves. My stomach churned as I realized what they had planned.

“We used nails for the first couple of crucifixions,” Brother Hiram said. His expression had changed now that I was seemingly helpless; he was looking down at me with something that almost seemed like kindness in his dead eyes. “But nails make the wood too weak after a while, and I seen a couple of people pull off the nails, and then the whole thing’s over too quick. Rope’s better all the way around.”

Hiram paused. “I reckon God wants us all to suffer so we’ll appreciate Heaven when it comes along. So I ain’t doing my bit for the good Lord if you die too fast. You need time to really reflect on the pain you’ll be feeling and accept him into your heart, and I aim to give that to you.”

They hauled me up to my feet and kicked me forward onto a muddy path that wound down through the trees. The guy in front of me was shirtless, and a huge swath of flesh was missing from his side. I could see nearly all his ribs. In my light-headed terror his bones reminded me of a xylophone or marimba, and suddenly the Violent Femmes’ “Gone Daddy Gone” was playing inside my head.

The wooden crosspiece was a hell of a thing to carry. It weighed probably fifty or sixty pounds, which normally wouldn’t have been much of a problem if I just had decent grip on it, or even if they’d put it up on my shoulders. But the damn thing was dragging halfway down my back, twisting all my arm joints out of their sockets. They’d bound the scratchy ropes so tightly that my flesh hand was turning puffy and purple; I didn’t know what my eerie hand looked like beneath the glove. I couldn’t pull the crosspiece up, I couldn’t put it down; I was constantly off balance. When I fell, they’d haul me up and shove me down the path again.

By the time we got to the edge of the swamp, I was half-blind from exhaustion and perspiration, gasping for air like I’d just run a marathon. My jeans and tee shirt were covered in red mud and dead leaves and pine needles. My arms and shoulders ached horribly, and my hands had gone completely numb.

“Git ‘er on out there,” Brother Hiram said.

The dead men pushed me out into the chest-deep water, and my vision cleared enough to see the tall wooden post set out in the middle of the swamp; it looked like a stolen telephone pole that they’d stripped of its original hardware. A pair of newer steel hooks was bolted to it about three feet from the top. On each side of the tall post were short steps made of cypress logs.

They pushed me out to the post, and the tallest of the men grabbed each end of the crosspiece and hauled it and me up out of the water. After a couple of shoulder-wracking tries they got the crosspiece hung from the hook. They splashed back to shore, leaving me hanging out there in the damp heat and eerie quiet.

My booted feet dangled about two feet from the deep green water; I tried to grip the pole with my legs to take the weight off my arms, but the wood was too slippery. It smelled like they’d smeared it with axle grease. The sun beat down on me, merciless as Brother Hiram, and mosquitoes whined in my ears. My arms were screaming, and I could already feel the hang-strained muscles in my chest beginning to spasm.

I closed my eyes, concentrating.

Pal, are you there?
I thought.
I could use some help over here. Pal?

No response. Either he was too far away for telepathy, or ... I didn’t want to think about the alternatives.

I’m so screwed
, I thought.

A low roar rolled across the water. It sounded like a huge crypt slab being dragged across the hollow marble floor of a mausoleum. I was suddenly aware that, beneath the stench of the dead men, I could smell the sharp rankness of reptile offal.

My skin broke out in goosebumps despite the heat. I scanned the water, spotted what I first thought was the fat trunk of a downed tree. And then realized it was moving. Toward
me
.

The swimming gator was nearly as big as a dragon. It was easily twenty feet long and had a maw of sharp, jagged teeth the size of steak knives. And, as it came closer, I saw that it had milky white eyes, and patches of its thick hide were missing from its back, revealing grey leathery muscle beneath.

Somebody started spewing profanity and shrieking about zombie gators. It took me a couple of seconds to realize I was the one making all the noise.

“Taking the Lord’s name in vain won’t help you none,” Brother Hiram called. “You best start repentin’. I gave ol’ Rufus there a sacrament of my own blood, and he’s an instrument of God now.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep, painful breath.
Stop panicking. Panic won’t help
.

What could I do? For the first time, I wished my left hand were still a torch of cursed hellfire; at least then I’d have a shot at burning the ropes and freeing myself. The knife in my boot was plenty sharp enough, but even if I had the circus freak flexibility to swing my foot up to my hand, my fingers were too numb to grip anything.

What about the anti-magic field? Those took a fair bit of juice to maintain, and I didn’t see any ward stones along the banks. I tried speaking a couple of simple charms for lights in the air, but I got that same sticking-in-my-throat sensation and the words failed. Crap.

I was running out of options. My stone eye worked, but it was only good for different sight; I couldn’t shoot laser beams with it or anything. I made a mental note to ask my father about getting an upgrade.

“Rufus ain’t had no food for a while so he can’t jump real high,” Brother Hiram said. “Probably he’ll only take your feet at first. It’ll take him a while to chew those fancy boots of yours, I ‘spect, but once he’s got your meat in him he’ll get friskier. He’ll get your knees on his next jump, and after that it’s a mite hard to predict. I seen him get hold of one feller’s innards on the third jump and start windin’ ‘em out of his body like he was unspooling a hose. You shoulda heard that feller start prayin’! It warmed my heart to see him find God like that.”

I swore in frustration and slammed my head back against the wood.

“But don’t you worry none,” Brother Hiram added. “If he takes a mite too much of your giblets I can give you a sacrament so you’ll stay awake. Even at his friskiest Rufus is a little too big to get more’n chest high. As long as your head’s still on your shoulders, you’ll be able to keep repentin’ all night.”

Christ on a crutch. Well, at least he’d confirmed how I could kill these creeps. If I ever figured out a way off this damn pole. I wondered briefly if Brother Hiram meant to come out to where I was hanging to give his “sacrament”, but then I saw one of the zombies hand him a case that contained a black Spyder air rifle, a tub of bright orange paintballs, and an embalming syringe. Hiram took out the syringe and plunged the thick needle into his own neck. Once he’d filled the barrel with his tarry blood, he began injecting it into the paintballs.

Well. That would do it. He’d just have to get some of his blood in my mouth or on an open wound to turn me. An easy shot from where he was, supposing his eyes were 20/20. I was screwed a hundred ways to Sunday.

The monstrous gator was still cruising toward me; it was maybe fifty feet away now. The rotten-fish stench of him was starting to make my eyes water. I wracked my brain, trying to figure out what I could do. If I could just get to the knife in my boot, I could get myself untied and climb the top of the pole—it didn’t look like they’d greased the wood above my head—but that would take magic.

I stared resentfully at my left hand, wishing I could get the damn thing to flame up one last time. Before it had been cursed fire it had been gone completely, courtesy of having been bitten off by a demon. At least when I was nothing more than an amputee I could still grip things, courtesy of my parakinesis, and nobody could tie my missing arm up—

Wait a minute
, I thought, my heart beating faster.
Who’s to say that couldn’t work now?

Parakinesis was a kind of magic, sure, but it was a natural talent I’d improved with practice. It wasn’t a spell. If my eye still worked, my parakinesis should, too. The trouble was, I’d never tried to disconnect my spiritual extension from my flesh.

Rufus was less than twenty feet away. I didn’t have a choice—I
had
to make this work.

Okay. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I concentrated on my left arm, the feel of the ropes biting into my gloved wrist, the hard wood against my elbow, the sun burning my bared skin. I lifted my knees, imagining that I was kneeling on solid ground, imagining that the ropes just weren’t there. I pictured myself dropping my freed left arm down to my boot. And then I could feel my fingers sliding down into the leather shaft, grasping the handle of the knife, and pulling it out.

The huge gator let loose a tooth-rattling roar right below me, and I don’t think I’ve been so startle-scared in my whole life. It literally spooked me out of my skin. I scrambled up to the top of the pole, clinging for dear life with the knife clenched in my fist, and it took me a long second to realize that my consciousness had entirely left my flesh. My real body hung there limply, unconscious, not breathing. I saw myself in spiritual form as a faint, translucent glow. A glance at the dead men on the shore told me they couldn’t see me like this.

White-eyed Rufus heaved himself out of the water and made a snap for my swaying feet, missing by a couple of inches. Crap. I had to hurry if I didn’t want to become a permanent ghost haunting this swamp. But while I was a ghost, I was freed from not just flesh but most physics. I knelt on the crosspiece and began to saw at the ropes binding my flesh wrist to the wood. The last strand abruptly snapped, and my body swung down, perilously close to Rufus’ jaws. Almost as bad, the torsion on my still-bound arm was bending my elbow the wrong way and I worried it was about to snap. I grabbed myself by the back of my tee shirt, and hauled my body up onto the crosspiece with one hand while I slashed the remaining ropes with my left.