Gobek the Bell: Complete Edition
Parts 1-3, all in one post
SMOKING ROOM DEBRIEF: 07.9.~~63
SUBJECT: Phoughge, Diomedes
DEPLOYMENT: West Carpathians, FS.223, Date TBD
EXCERPT: 1.5
“So, what happened?”
“Well, they made it home, didn’t they?”
“No, I mean what happened initially in the village? What set all this in motion?”
“We can only theorize. But it seems obvious to me that he had protected them for so long that they took him for granted. It’s a long process, doesn’t happen overnight, but eventually, they forgot that there was a threat, and then they stopped holding up their end of the bargain. Wisdom becomes myth. Myth becomes superstition. People stop going to church. They stop getting baptized. Negligence opens the door. Malice rings the bell.”
“Cute.”
“Thanks. At any rate, he’s safe with us and we’ll figure out what he can do next.”
“You’re not planning to send him anywhere, right? He’s barely functional.”
“No, but… well, for starters, I think it was no accident that Sanborn got the call.”
“Why?”
“He needs him. He needs… if not a partner… someone else who understands what it’s like to lose everyone.”
“SANBORN? MR. SANBORN, SIR?”
Pimm sighed impatiently and adjusted the weight of the silver tray in his hands. “Private Sanborn, wake up, please!”
“You have to kick him,” came Rex’s voice from behind.
“What?” Said Pimm, turning around.
Rex gestured with the playing cards in his hand. “Kick. Him. He don’t wake up otherwise.”
“Kick him?!” Pimm whinnied.
“Well, not hard,” Rex drawled, “just pop him in the boot till he gets the message.”
Pimm sighed again and turned back. “Very well.” He took his foot and limply jostled the arch of Sanborn’s earthen combat boot. No reaction. Pimm shuffled again and tried it with slightly more but no less ineffective force.
“Do you need me to do it?”
“I am perfectly capable of rousing Mr. Sanborn, Mr. Mangions, I do not need your hectoring!”
“Well, whatcha waitin’ for?”
Pimm leaned over with the tray in his hands as if to gesture at the entire scene below him. He stammered for a moment before blurting, “He is holding a rifle!”
Rex looked down at Sanborn. He was slumped against the library wall with his entire kit on him and ready to go, as was his custom. He held his M4 carbine across his waist with his hand off the trigger guard, breathing silently with his head down on his chest. Rex shook his head and grabbed an apple off the table. Before Pimm could react, Rex whipped it expertly into Sanborn’s right shoulder. Sanborn started.
“Mr. Mangions!”
Rex threw his hands up and mouthed a scream, casting cigar smoke into the air as he mocked Pimm’s alarm.
Sanborn looked up instantly and blinked, ready for anything, but the bleary figure of Pimm standing over him and the amber light of the Smoking Room’s library instantly put him at ease and he relaxed his grip on the weapon.
“See?” Rex taunted. “He’s a professional.”
“One would assume a professional sleeps in quarters.” Pimm snipped.
The young private ran a hand over his dark, crew-cut hair. “How long was I out?”
“Four days,” Pimm said, leaning over with the tray to offer Sanborn a glass of water and half a boule of sourdough. The soldier took the water and downed it in a single draught. He grabbed the bread and ferreted it into a cargo pocket (to Pimm’s slight dismay), then took a thin cigar from the pocket on the opposite leg and lit it. “Fog need me?”
The Englishman nodded, returning to his full height and looking down gravely from his sharp mustache. “Twenty minutes, in the Raven’s Nest.” He turned and departed for the bridge.
Sanborn took a long drag from the cigar and then patiently smothered it on his boot so as to save it for later. “Awesome.”
He jumped up from the wall, adjusting his pack and picking up his carbine. Rex looked at him curiously through his golden aviators. “You can’t stay for a game?”
Sanborn shook his head. “Guess not.”
“So, you just got back and you’re already goin’ back out?”
Sanborn shrugged. “I work.”
“You don’t want a tail?”
“I work alone.”
“Suit yourself.” Rex turned to his poker opponent. “Would you fall for that, Hugo?”
The Mexican cocked his white cowboy hat to the side but didn’t look up from his cards. “For the right job, maybe.”
“For the right job, maybe.” Rex announced, looking back to Sanborn and grinning past his thick sideburns. “Hope that’s what Foggy’s got for you.”
But Sanborn wasn’t paying attention. He snatched his helmet up from the floor. His weight felt off, needed to replace some gear from the last mission, and he instinctively turned and strode towards the staircase to the Smoking Room’s lower hull. The beautiful amber lights and ambient glow of the stars shifted to a soft green. Emerald on brushed metal. His boots left wood and began to clank.
At the foot of the stairs, the long hallway grew before him, and he ignored each door to his left and right until he emerged in the welcoming light of the cargo bay. It was mostly empty at the moment. A few vehicles were stowed. He noted the empty bay next to Rex’s gold Buick GSX.
Was Smethurst gone? He wondered. Alone?
At the bottom of the stairs, he immediately turned back aft and headed for the Raven’s Nest, an elevated platform separated from the rest of the bay by a rail. Phoughge was already on the deck, and the flat grey door of Sanborn’s UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter was suspended in midair. Everything was ready to go.
“The tinker told me I had twenty minutes.” Sanborn said, coming up to the edge of the platform and stopping at a row of storage lockers. He threw one open and began stuffing rifle magazines into his tac-vest.
“Twenty minutes or as soon as possible.” Came the reply from Phoughge. He poked his head over the lockers like a gopher. “Do you have a suppressor?”
“Affirmative.” Sanborn bounded onto the deck. Phoughge was bent over a table of instruments, making adjustments and printing a map for Sanborn. His trademark purple coat was thrown over the rail, but otherwise, not a curly golden hair of him was out of place. Dapper, fastidious, dry. He turned, pulling the pocket watch from his checked lavender waistcoat. “We have fourteen minutes to take the air or the window passes. What about night vision?”
“Not in my locker. Smethurst fixing them?”
“Must be, but he’s out doing a favor for me, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Phoughge snatched the printed map and thrust it into Sanborn’s hands. “Half an hour ago I got a spike in the West Carpathians, date uncertain, but the area had never shown activity before and suddenly it’s overrun.” He placed a pair of photos on top of the map. Sanborn saw flat terrain near a river in dull grey and white in the first photo, but the edges were vignetted with a familiar black haze. Turning to the second photo, the effect was reversed. The black haze covered the center almost to the corners of the photo, which were now clear.
“It’s like a vacuum collapsed.” He said.
“Precisely. Which is why I want you to recon the area as close as possible to the event.” Phoughge clipped a radio to the top of Sanborn’s right shoulder and handed him a wire camera to mount on his helmet. “Your objective is to safely gather as much data as you can, for as long as you can, and then get out. I have no idea what we’re seeing here, but similar swarms throughout time have happened in places that were later discovered to possess significant relics or artifacts at one time. If you find anything interesting, perhaps we can fix a precise date to it and try again to recover whatever was holding off the, eh, vacuum collapse here.”
Sanborn nodded. “Copy. R.O.E.?”
“Defend yourself if necessary. Extraction is ad hoc. Don’t be a hero.”
“I’m not.”
“There’s a good lad.” Phoughge clapped him on the shoulders. “Ready?”
Sanborn nodded, plugged his carbine into the sling on his chest, and turned to face the Blackhawk door. Phoughge banged the door twice with his fist and it slid open in the middle of the air. Inside was the dimly red lit interior of the helicopter, and the noise of the rotor spooling up filled the cargo bay, muffled, but loud enough to drown everything else out. Phoughge fixed his radio headset to his ears, “Mic ready?”
Sanborn gave him a thumbs up.
Phoughge pointed to his forehead, then his heart, then to Sanborn, and yelled, “Percipē et facē, old boy!”
The private nodded, inhaled a large breath through his mouth, and jumped into the open helicopter door. Inside was twice as loud from the rotor noise and the windows were black on the outside. Phoughge slammed the door closed and Sanborn slowly exhaled, acclimating to the slight change in pressure.
The helo was already in midair, and he felt her dip forward at speed. Light slowly began to filter through the windows. Visibility was poor. Large clouds of dark, rusty earth surrounded him.
The radio speaker over the empty pilot’s seat crackled to life. “Come in, Private.”
“Copy for Sanborn.”
“If you consult your map, you’ll see I’m inserting you at the southern end of the epicenter. Flat space with cover from an embankment just north. It should provide you with a clean exit if you don’t need anything more drastic and maintain discretion.”
“Copy.”
“Any questions, Private?”
“Yeah. The helo was already off the ground when I jumped in. How’d you manage that?”
Phoughge’s voice was proud. “Oh, I made some changes to the boot based on a hunch and they seem to have worked.”
“Seem to?” Sanborn squinted. “You didn’t know they would?”
“Well, worst case scenario you would have just had to take off like normal.”
“Hmm. Can you do the same with the plane? Might come in handy.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Phoughge out.”
“Roger. Sanborn out.”
Sanborn’s stomach pitched up. The Blackhawk was already making her descent. He looked outside again. Nothing but thick dark red clouds of earth surrounded the helo, visibility couldn’t have been more than a dozen yards. He pulled his gaiter over his face and drew the safety goggles down from his helmet. There was a sharp bump as the tires made contact with the ground. “Percipē et facē.” He whispered. The door whisked open.
Rifle up. Dust rushing out in all directions. Clear front. Clear left. Clear right.
Sanborn lowered his rifle and fished a long, thin magnet out of his front plate carrier. This he affixed to the edge of the Blackhawk door and knocked twice. Instantly the rotors stopped spinning, and the metal of the helicopter began to fold in on itself, starting from the tail rotor and the front cockpit, working inward. Every piece of the Blackhawk folded in, again and again, until all that remained was the door, which folded itself down into a single metal plate attached to the magnet.
The helicopter’s vanishing act finished, the plate fell toward the ground, but Sanborn caught it in mid air and smoothly stuffed it into his plate carrier. He dropped to one knee and looked forward silently. Rusty red haze surrounded him. The dull light of the sun, many times obscured, hung low in the sky. The earth beneath him was dry and seemed newly churned. Pebbles and small rocks littered the ground, and in the midst of the haze he could see the shadows of huge coniferous trees. They stood still. Unshifting. Dark. Sharp. Like trolls caught by the sunrise. All was silent.
“No wind,” Sanborn noted. The dusty path before him led up to the embankment Phoughge had mentioned and then disappeared into the treeline. He knelt still, looking for any detail he could, but found nothing else in the rusty fog. He switched on his helmet cam. “Deployment 27. Private Sanborn recon report, West Carpathians, date unknown.” He stood up and gave a clear scan of the entire area surrounding him for the camera, then readied his weapon and pressed forward towards the treeline.
Back in the Raven’s Nest, Phoughge had prepared tea and was sitting at the console. He could hear Sanborn’s voice through the radio, but had yet to figure out how to receive his camera feed. Unbothered, he sipped his tea and opened the boot program for the C-130 Hercules, leafing through the code.
Sanborn moved into the forest and the loose, pebbly earth of his landing zone transitioned to a soft mixture of thick moss and dead pine needles. He walked quickly, taking care for his feet to fall securely before moving to the next step. But for the trees, the forest was empty. He heard no birds, saw no vermin, and the leaves of the trees seemed frozen. “The hell is happening here?” He muttered to himself.
It was about a hundred yards into the forest when he heard what sounded like a laugh.
He froze instantly and dropped to one knee. It had been a sharp, “ha HA!” he thought, but he had no idea which direction it had come from. He tightened his grip on the carbine. Everything remained still. Even the scent of the trees felt as if it was hanging in the air unnaturally. He began to sweat, scanning past tree trunk after tree trunk. Finally, he saw it, a small figure ducking away behind one of the trees ahead of him. He shouldered his rifle and looked through his ACOG sight, calmly moving forward for a better look.
Drawing up to the tree, he kept a foot’s distance and then quickly pivoted around the trunk, leading with his barrel. Nothing but empty space. He breathed sharply through his nose and swung the carbine back around to his original direction to see a small dark figure standing in silhouette another ten yards away.
“hahaHAHAHA!” The figure cackled and scampered to the shelter of another tree trunk.
Sanborn kept his gun level, keeping the trunk in his sights. “A kid?”
“A kid?” Phoughge mouthed over his teacup, drawing his eyebrows to a furrow.
Sanborn again advanced slowly toward the next tree that the figure had ducked behind. One step. Two. A third. A hand slowly reached over the trunk and the figure leaned around. Sanborn couldn’t see much in the reddish haze but he could make out the plain features of a young boy, not yet ten. His skin and hair were pale, but the lids around his eyes were dark and swollen with blood. His eyes opened wide. “Body!” He said in a mocking stage whisper.
“I don’t know if the camera’s getting this, but it’s a kid. He does not look well.” Sanborn narrated, not taking his eye off the sight.
The boy swapped sides of the tree and laughed again. “Boooooooooooooody!” He cooed.
Sanborn’s finger did not leave the trigger. “Kid? Are you okay?” He called. “I’m not gonna hurt you but I need to know what your deal is.”
The child was not interested. “Boooooooooooodyyyyyyyyyy!”
Sanborn firmed up his voice. “What are you saying?”
The boy smiled and screamed. “BOOOOOOOODDDDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”
Sanborn winced and the boy took off running in the opposite direction. The private gave chase, taking care to check his periphery as he followed. He kept the boy in sight, but this felt like a textbook trap.
“BODYYYYYY! BODYYYYY! BODYYYYYY!” The boy yelled, echoing through the trees. “AAAAA BODYYYYYYYY!”
Phoughge left his work on the code and squinted, trying to understand what he was hearing. He clicked the radio. “Sanborn, what is he saying to you?”
The private ducked and veered around the trees whipping past. “I don’t know. Something about bodies. He keeps saying ‘body’.”
Phoughge’s face when slack. “Oh no.”
“What?” Sanborn huffed.
“Listen to me, Private.” Phoughge intoned. “Stop your pursuit and douse yourself immediately. Rear left canteen.”
“Copy.” Sanborn slid to the ground and stopped. Ahead he watched as the child disappeared past another thicket of trees, still crying “BODY!” into the forest. He unclipped his helmet and pulled the rear left canteen from his belt, dumping its water out over his head and shoulders. He rubbed the liquid into his hair and clothes and threw his helmet back on. “Now what?”
“That should mask your scent until you return.” Phoughge said. “But you may have even less time than I thought. Proceed with extreme caution, exfil at the drop of a hat if necessary.”
Sanborn turned and looked at all the forest behind him. He needed a fair amount of space and time to deploy the helicopter. There wasn’t going to be an exfil from here. He could only go back or through. Turning back to the direction the child ran, he pressed forward.
In less than a minute, he began to see gaps wide enough to indicate that the forest was either ending or opening up, and he heard noise: the soft rush of water. He emerged from the treeline to see a stone bridge vaulting over a creek about five yards in width. The sky hummed with red clouds, and the pointy, tiled roofs of a tidy village filled the horizon. A cobblestone path began just a few feet ahead of him leading to the bridge, on which now stood the child and a long line of his peers. They stared at him in silence.
Sanborn nearly started when he saw them standing there and stopped in his tracks. They were single file on the bridge, each looking directly at him. Each had the same lean and hungry look as the first boy; in their eyes the same flushed sanguine engorgement.
“He stinks like heaven.” One of them said.
“Sanborn, what are you seeing?” Phoughge asked.
“Uh. Kids.” Sanborn whispered. He counted. There were nearly twenty of them, ranging from kindergarten to what looked like early high school. Not all were clothed, and he found that he could not look at their faces for more than a second or two. Their skin was pocked and chalky, like desert soil, and there was a revulsion, a hatred, in their looks. It chased his gaze away like a dog fleeing a bull. “Evil kids.”
“Sanborn, you’re made, I recommend you disengage and exfil immediately.”
Several of the children began whispering back and forth to each other, still staring at him. “He can crack the nut.” “Lead him in.” “Lead him in?” “Send him to Gobek.” “Send him to Gobek?” “Send him to Gobek!” “Yes! “Gobek!” “Gobek!”
Instantly at this chatter all of the children save the first one turned and ran off the bridge full tilt into the village, shrieking and chirping with sinister glee.
Phoughge tapped his fingers on the console. “Well?”
“It’s a set up.” Sanborn grunted. He lifted his carbine up and trained it on the one boy who remained. “But I’m here, might as well.”
He took a step forward, looking through the scope, then another, and another, and tripped, stumbling, into a large depression several inches deep. He looked down to see himself standing in a shallow hole about the size of a school desk. He glanced to his left and his right and saw that this hole was one of a series extending in both directions through the soil. A massive trail of footsteps?
“Body.” The boy whispered, and Sanborn whipped his head and his gun forward, trained on the boy’s forehead, which was now suddenly standing inches away from him. The boy did not react or appear threatened. Looking at the child made Sanborn feel sick to his stomach.
The boy pointed to his left and his right, at the holes trailing through the ground. “Gobek.” He said, then looked at Sanborn intently. “You kill Gobek. Or we kill you.”
“There there… Don’t stir. I’ve got your leg, now just–”
The prone hulk roared in pain and Smethurst winced. “It’s quite alright! It’s quite alright! Let me just…” He grunted under the weight of the foot in his hands, squatting down and hefting it up. He rotated it so that the toes, large as stonefruits, pointed away from him, then let it fall to the ground. The giant exhaled in relief and took deep breaths, clenching his fists in discomfort.
“That’s the first part.” Smethurst huffed, sweeping heavy locks away from his face. “We need to get pressure off your knee, let me find–” His voice trailed off as he rushed around the church looking for something to put the leg on. He found a kneeling cushion under a pew and was wrenching it free when a savage, echoing knock came at the front doors. Everything in the church froze at the sound. The dust stopped in the air. The candles ceased flickering.
Smethurst rolled into the row of pews in fright and popped up with his helical revolver pointed toward the narthex. The name “CADY” shone on the barrel in the soft red light of the windows. He had over a hundred feet of space between him and the door. If they broke in he could probably take down at least a dozen before they overwhelmed him.
Seconds passed in silence. Smethurst crept up and slowly sidestepped his way over to the wicker picnic case in the center aisle. The giant groaned in pain behind him.
“Just a moment, boy.” He whispered, keeping his gun trained on the doors. Another knock came this time, loud, desperate, beaten with two fists. “OPEN!” A reedy voice shrieked from the other side. One of those “Evil children” Smethurst muttered. He fished open the case with one hand and pulled out a dense metal ball, dropping it into his bathrobe pocket. “Coming!” He shouted, then whispered, “you bastards.”
The Englishman crept forward, revolver up. He was a sore sight removed from his usual black suit and bowler. Shaggy black hair harassed his brows, and the hair on his chin was just beginning to fill in his hulihee mustache, to say nothing of his worn pajamas and bloodstained bathrobe. Pimm would have been appalled to see him in such a state. “If I make it out of this, Diomedes,” he grumbled, “only a round of golf with your head will do.”
As he closed in on the doors, he lowered his gun to his waist but kept the barrel up. With his other hand he shifted a layer of pews to the side, moving them away from the door to clear a path. Three more loud knocks sounded, urging him to get on. “I’m here, alright! Be patient!”
Pews moved, he stepped forward and grabbed the bolt of the privacy window, jerking it open to see an American soldier in a late ‘90s uniform standing up front. Behind him was an army of the children, every single eye of which met Smethurst’s as he looked from the window. His flop sweat was flushed with surprise as he recognized the man in uniform.
“Sanborn?! My god!”
“Smethurst?”
The Englishman threw open the door and brandished his gun at the children, who seemed dryly amused by this. They had completely surrounded the church, crowding en masse onto the stairs and into the square around it. They filled the roofs of every surrounding structure, all gazing at the two men like wolves with a hock of mutton dangling above them.
“Get inside, now!” Smethurst ordered. “Don’t come any closer!” He pulled the metal ball from his pocket and held it ready. As the soldier passed the threshold, he heaved his shoulder into the door and slammed it closed.
The children made no effort to close the gap. They did not move at all. Instead, the one who led Sanborn from the bridge stepped forward and shouted loud enough to be heard through the wood. “By nightfall!” He screamed. “Bring us Gobek’s head! Or we do it ourselves!”
Silence followed, but there was no sound of the crowds walking away or dispersing. No muffled conversation. Smethurst breathed heavily and hauled the pews back into place. He turned around to see Sanborn crawling on his hands and knees, gasping and vomiting.
“Oh god, get it out, boy.” He stepped aside the soldier and thwacked his backpack with his broad palm. “Go on.” He then grabbed the canteen off the Sanborn’s belt and helped him sit down against one of the pews.
Sanborn glanced up at Smethurst. His eyes were steady but welled with tears. “Smethurst, what happened here?”
“I know. I know.” He reassured, handing him the canteen. “Take a drink and breathe.”
Sanborn did so, a long draught, which caught him before he could fully lose his grip on his emotions. He closed his eyes, letting the tears break and roll down his cheeks. He sat there with his head bowed and breathing for a full minute before he spoke again. “I’ve already used this.” He said, holding up the canteen. “How is it full again?”
“Don’t be silly, boy.” Smethurst took the canteen and took a drink himself. “We’re in a moment of need.”
Sanborn looked up, noneplussed. “What happened here?”
Smethurst slapped his palms down on his thighs and cleared his husky baritone. “Well, as you no doubt saw, everyone in this village is dead.” He stood. “And we’re trapped here with the only survivor.”
Sanborn stared at him. “These kids did… that?”
“No, dear boy. The ones who hold them captive did.”
Sanborn continued to stare at him, trying to comprehend the carnage he had just walked through.
“Is this your first encounter with, eh… let’s call it post-Incarnational opposition?”
Sanborn didn’t blink and didn’t respond.
“Well, things aren’t as easy for them as they used to be, but that’s a small taste of what they’re still capable of. Come.”
He offered a hand and the young soldier took it carefully, slowly rising to his feet and steadying himself. Smethurst walked back down the aisle towards the huge man struggling on the floor in front of the altar. Sanborn followed, one small step at a time, looking around at the church. Most of the interior was hewn of rough grey stone. He guessed the vault of the ceiling to be roughly sixty feet above him, with enough space and pews for perhaps a few hundred people, although many were smashed and strewn about the nave. Several round candle stands sat on the altar with dwindling flames. The windows were narrow and nearly opaque, allowing only the soft red light outside to filter in. With each step, he came a little more and more to his senses, remembering his task. “Wait!”
Smethurst stopped and stepped back. “Yes?”
“How the hell did you get here?”
“Ah! That reminds me.” Smethurst stepped back toward him with an odd jaunt in his gait. He pointed to Sanborn’s radio with both index fingers. “Is the purple man on the other end of that?”
Sanborn nodded.
“Give us it.” Smethurst snatched the radio off his shoulder and all but sang into the speaker. “Housecat, housecat, this is field mouse, hullo!”
The radio was silent for a moment and then crackled as Phoughge responded. “Smethurst? What on earth?! Is that you? Well, there’s some luck. Report!”
Smethurst dropped his act like a hot coal. “You’re a Girgashite, Phoughge.” He flicked the radio back at Sanborn and it fell, bouncing from its spiral cord. He veered and continued lumbering back to the altar.
Sanborn awkwardly fished the radio back up and reattached it to his shoulder. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Ah, right.” Smethurst sheepishly tucked his hands into his bathrobe. “If you must know, I was on vacation. Off planet, even. Trouble is Phoughge asked me to deliver some things for him first and then I ran into our old friend the Wolf, who said I was needed here and then did that thing where he taps you on the head three times and you wake up in–” he gestured “–medieval Polish hell.”
“The Wolf?” Sanborn said. “I heard he hates being called that.”
“How long have you been with us?” Smethurst asked.
“About eighteen months, I think.”
“Have you met him yet?”
Sanborn shook his head.
“Well, he looks more of a hound, to be honest. Big jolly jowls, you see. I’ve heard he has a human face too, of course, but I’ve never seen it.”
Sanborn asked, “He’s never met me and he thinks I need help?”
A moment of frost passed between them and Smethurst spoke plainly. “I don’t know what he knows or what he thinks. But it was clearly enough to put my life on the line as well, so let’s to it.”
Sanborn hid a twinge of embarrassment and followed. The two men cleared the last row of pews before the altar and the soldier finally received a clear look at his quarry. There on the floor, heaving labored breaths, was the largest man Sanborn had ever seen. It was hard to tell exactly by his place on the ground, but he easily cleared eight feet in height, and even while supine, the breadth of his shoulders came up to Sanborn’s waist. He was dressed simply, in a pale brown monk’s robe, but attached to his back, chained over his shoulders in a wooden harness, was a massive bronze bell, engraved with many crosses and writing that neither man could understand. Its weight held the giant down, bending his back at an awkward angle, as if he were reclining without a cushion, and his right leg was shattered at the knee, leaking blood.
“Help me get this kneeling pew.” Smethurst ordered. Sanborn helped him jerk it free from under the larger pew. “I’m going to lift his leg now, push it under quickly.”
Smethurst took his position next to the giant’s shin. “This will hurt, lad, forgive me.” He squatted, grasping the man’s calf and hauling it up. The giant screamed and Sanborn pushed the pew under like a bobsled. Smethurst let the leg down gently and the giant whimpered, softer and softer until merely a grunt.
“This is Gobek.” Smethurst said.
Sanborn studied the giant. He had a huge, square head, with a flat slate of dark hair, deep-set squinted eyes, and broad, spade-like features, all caked with blood. He kept his face pressed to the floor, and his fingers stretched in and out, grasping at the flat stone to exert himself beyond his pain. He was covered in flesh wounds and newly scabbed injuries.
“Has he said anything?” Sanborn asked.
“A little. Repeating himself, I can tell, but I lost my puck, so I haven’t understood him.”
“I’ve got one.” Sanborn said and reached into a cargo pocket, taking out a small black circle. He depressed a button in the middle and set it on the giant’s robe under his face, then offered his canteen. “Water?”
The giant raised his face to the bottle and Sanborn kept it in place so as not to spill. The giant drank slowly until the canteen was empty again and then set his face back on the floor. But with his right eye he looked up and kept his gaze on Sanborn, a struggling look of gratitude.
“Can you speak?” Sanborn asked.
The giant started to respond, coughed heavily, and said something in a raggedy deep voice. A second after he spoke the puck translated his words in a clear robotic tin. “I am Gobek.”
Sanborn glanced at Smethurst, who raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Well, good.”
The giant tried to speak again, repeating what he had just said and endeavoring to continue, but his voice failed him. The puck spoke. “I am Gobek. Where… where I…”
“It’s okay.” Sanborn knelt down and placed his hand on top of Gobek’s. The puck translated his words back to the giant. “You’re safe with us. Take it easy.”
“The water will help him.” Smethurst said. “Let’s figure out what we need to do.”
Sanborn stood up and took another long look around the church. “They said ‘by nightfall.’ Can they not come in here? Why wait?”
“Toying with us, I imagine. The village is gone. They would probably not like to enter here unless they have to. Affords us a little time.”
“So what’s the mission now?”
“He is.”
Sanborn looked at Gobek. His first thought was that there was no way he was going to fit in the helicopter. “What about the kids? Can we do anything for them?”
Smethurst almost laughed, but caught himself and played it into a polite cough. “Well, we’d need a priest for that and you saw what they did to him.”
Sanborn looked back at him and then away, his eyes newly remembering what couldn’t be un-seen.
Smethurst moved closer. “Listen, boy.” He laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “What happened here was a judgement. You understand?” Sanborn simply looked blank again. “This place has been given over to itself. That’s the only way something like this happens. All that’s left for us is to see what good can be done and lay our hands to it.” Smethurst pointed to Gobek. “Percipē.” Then pointed his thumb at the open air behind him. “Facē.”
Sanborn looked down again, deep in thought, then nodded, looked over at Gobek, and nodded again. “Okay. Resource tally.”
“Right.” Smethurst grabbed his picnic case from the floor and laid it up on the nearest pew. He threw open the lid and cast his wool blanket to the floor, pointing at each item in sequence. “One Webley, one Derringer, requisite ammunition, one Omni-knife, a Dramatic Exit, a tourniquet, bandages– those are quite useful, self-binding –ah, this here,” he held up a small metal pill and a reel of wire. “This is a capsule motor. You can bind almost anything together with the kinetic thread and then turn it into a vehicle or whatever type of machine you need, provided it’s of sound physic.” He thrust the pill and the reel into Sanborn’s torso and continued. “A spyglass, spare pocketwatch, spare monocle- battery’s dead, unfortunately -astrolabe, various currencies, and… well, it looks like four vacuum grenades.” He said, dropping the metal ball from his bathrobe back into the case.
Sanborn was quiet for a moment and then said, “This is what you vacation with?”
Smethurst shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned forward petulantly. “This is what happens to me on vacation.”
Sanborn looked down into the case again. “Fog said you were fixing my NODs?”
“Oh, yes, dash it, I left those at the hotel.”
Sanborn nodded. “Never mind, we’ll figure it out.” He set his M4 down on the pew and clicked his radio. “Come in, Phoughge. This is Sanborn, over.”
Phoughge had ignored Smethurst’s customary insult earlier and was hard at work compiling new code. “Go for Phoughge.”
“We need as much map data as possible. As large an area as you can get for us. Load it on the plate.”
“Copy that. What is your plan?”
“We’ll figure it out.” He repeated, then looked to Smethurst. “Hand me those bandages.”
Smethurst tossed them over and Sanborn walked back to Gobek. He dropped to a knee and carefully peeled the giant’s robe off of his leg, poring over his wounds. “I can clean this, I think. Doesn’t look like he’s walking anytime soon, though.”
“Certainly not.”
The puck continued to translate this for Gobek, who attempted to speak again. “I am Gobek. Where I-” his voice fell to a cough.
Sanborn unshouldered his backpack and pulled out a roll of medical supplies. He spread these on the ground next to him and gestured to Smethurst to help. “This is gonna hurt, Gobek, I’m sorry.” He called. The puck rephrased this in his native tongue. Gobek took a deep breath and nodded.
Sanborn pulled a pair of surgical gloves over his hands and began to work, gently dabbing each laceration with cotton. Gobek twitched at points, but held his nerve.
“The way I see it, we have three main problems.” Sanborn began. “First, there’s no way we can fit him on the chopper, even without that huge bell, and we gotta figure out how to get that off next. Second, even if we could fit him on the chopper, we don’t have enough time or space anywhere to deploy it. Finally… Oh man, that’s his patella. Pass me that clamp and the scissors.” Smethurst did so and Sanborn alternated holding each tool in his mouth as he worked. “Get a needle and stitch ready.”
“Here.”
“Okay, hang on… Easy, easy.”
“There’s that.”
“Rinse.”
The two worked for several more minutes before Sanborn could finish his thought. “Third, there’s no way we survive a direct encounter. Too many of them. So we have to get out of here, and we have to get him safely into a space that takes us back to the Smoking Room.”
“Why can’t you just open a plate here back to the Smoking Room?”
“Not how it works. When you’re outside the ship, you have to deploy the vehicle, get inside, and then open it back up into the plate on the Raven’s Next. The plates aren’t portals, they’re not one to one. You go inside a vehicle, close the door, and you come out at home.” He looked up into the open space of the nave. “I could probably deploy the chopper in here, but he can’t fit inside it, so he can’t come out the other side.”
“Very well.” Smethurst sighed. “I have to say, your kit is bizarre. Can he fit on the plane?”
“Definitely, but that triggers problems two and three. We need time… and space… and a way to guarantee that they don’t kill us or sabotage it while it’s unfolding.”
Smethurst nodded, running his fingers through his mustache. “One of us needs to sneak out of here and deploy the plane. The other one has to get him to it.”
“Bingo.” Sanborn finished dressing the knee and held up a strip of the bandage. “By the way, you know this is just a band-aid, right?”
“A what?”
“Self-binding,” Sanborn teased. “We’ve had these for decades.”
Smethurst scowled. “Don’t play with me, boy. I fought the Boers. Without those!”
“Well, I don’t–” Sanborn’s voice dropped as he looked past the Englishman.
“What? What is it?” Smethurst turned around and looked at the church windows behind him. Each was suddenly full of the silhouettes of the children. He wheeled around and saw this to be the case at every window all around them. A dark audience had gathered to attend their planning. Both men sat still, watching the shadows of their heads; fixed, still, and thick at each of the windows.
The puck cracked. “I am Gobek. Where I stride…”
“Do you think they can hear us?” Sanborn whispered.
“I don’t care.” Smethurst said. “What’s next?”
Sanborn pulled the plate out of his plate carrier, still staring at the windows. “Next, you might have to apologize to Fog.” He sat the plate on the ground and tapped it twice. “Map data.”
A threaded black and white image sprang into the air in front of them showing the topographical layout of the village and surrounding area. He panned, gesturing with his fingers, looking to the creek and the forest. “This is where I deployed, south of these woods.” He continued to pan until the forest picked up again and the image grew fuzzy and grainy. “No good.” He panned in the opposite direction to the other side of the village and beyond. On this side were further woods and a path to a valley, adjacent a rising mountain. Wheat fields, thick with mature crops abutted the mountain’s rise and stretched long into the valley. “There,” Sanborn said, “Reckon we could get the plane down in that?”
Smethurst leaned forward, squinting. “We could take off, surely. You want to land?”
“Maybe.” He clicked his radio. “Fog, did you work out how to deploy the plane in the air? Over.”
“Sanborn, what on earth are you planning to do?” Phoughge asked.
“Yes or no, boss?”
“Well, yes, but if you’re on that side of things you have to deploy it in the air.”
“I’ll worry about that.” Sanborn stood up and went back to Smethurst’s picnic case. “Smethurst, tell him you’re sorry.”
“J’refuse!” Smethurst peeled, swiping through the map himself. He noticed an odd, dimpled pattern that surrounded the village and peered closer, trying to make sense of it.
“You’re welcome, over.” Phoughge rolled his eyes.
“Are you going to tell us what the devil you’re playing at, boy?” Smethurst demanded, giving up on the map.
Sanborn came back with the capsule motor and kinetic thread in his hands. “I am, but I need you to show me how to use this first.”
Smethurst leered. “Why?”
“Because you’re not gonna talk to me after I tell you what you’ve gotta do.”
Two hours later, the hatch door on the roof of the church belltower popped open. Smethurst lurched through the threshold, stopping for a moment to gain his bearings. No company, a small relief. He hauled himself and the rest of his equipment out. The sun had now descended beyond the edge of the horizon and the red haze of the sky was shifting to a sickly purple. Nightfall was upon them. He set the trapdoor down carefully and laid everything he carried out on top of it. “If I live, I can kill him.” He hummed to himself. “I can kill Phoughge. I can kill Sanborn. And maybe I’ll kill Pimm too, just for a lark.”
He stood up and re-tied his bathrobe to make it as tight as he could, then took stock of everything he had below him. First, he took Cady and packed her into his shoulder holster. Sanborn had given him a walkie-talkie and a flare, each went into a separate pocket. The plate and magnet handle that would deploy the plane went directly into his bathrobe, tight to his chest, and finally, he unrolled the Dramatic Exit to its full length. He stuck the middle of it to his back and fastened it tight around the front of his waist with the rip cord ready at his left hand.
Everything ready, he leaned out of the belltower and looked down to the village below. The children were starting to move now. A fire was lit in the middle of the square and a select few were putting torches to it. The others watched in obedient stillness. Smethurst shuddered at the scene that lay around them. The scale of their mayhem was even worse from above, and he took a deep breath to steel himself.
Inside the church, Sanborn was making his final adjustments to a makeshift four-wheeled vehicle and sled. He had cut up the pews into long planks with the Omni-knife and then strung them together with the candlestands to fashion a crude chariot. All that was left was to activate the capsule motor and load Gobek onto the sled. He approached the giant, who had slept fitfully throughout the afternoon.
“Gobek. Gobek!” Sanborn called. The puck repeated for emphasis. The giant stirred and looked up at him. His eyes were suddenly fierce, and Sanborn felt a twinge of fear, finally realizing what life could do in a creature of this size. “I– sorry.” He stammered. “It’s, uh, time for us to go.”
Above, from the roof, Smethurst took his courage and shouted at the mass of children below. “Ahoy! Ahoy, I say! Look at me you filthy gnats!”
The children turned as one, and seeing Smethurst out in the open, unprotected, their eerie composure broke, and set them in a frenzy.
Sanborn leaned back for a moment to show Gobek that he respected his space. “Ahoy! Ahoy, I say! Look at me you filthy gnats!” they heard Smethurst call from above. The silhouettes of the children suddenly vanished from the windows. Shouting and screeching buffeted the walls around them, and the shadows reappeared, moving upward.
“Listen, uh.” Sanborn began. “I didn’t introduce myself, did I?” He held out a hand. “You’re Gobek, right?” He gestured calmly with his eyes for the giant to take his hand. The puck translated. Gobek nodded. “Francis.” Sanborn said, placing his other hand on his chest. “Franciszek.” The puck stated.
“Come and get me!” Smethurst shouted. “Come try a piece of Uncle Tarquin, you stupid blighters!” He whirled away from the edge and scurried back to the center of the roof over the nave. Unholy shrieking and clamor filled his ears as the children ran and set themselves to the crannied stones of the church. His feet slipped on either side of the roof’s arch as he ran, slowing him down. He turned and saw the first hands grasp the edges of the roof.
“Too close!” He shouted, and pulled the rip cord of the Dramatic Exit. Instantly, a crekhide balloon sprang out of the membrane in the belt behind his waist and jerked him into the air. He rose slowly, kicked his feet to wheel himself around and see a frothing mass of the children bearing down upon him. “Up! Up! Move you stupid plank!”
Whether his thrashing increased his speed is academic. Smethurst exceeded the grasp of the children with less than a second to spare. They snatched at empty air, screaming, tearing tiles from the roof and whipping them in his direction. But the balloon continued to inflate and Smethurst’s ascent quickened. He was soon high enough to look down on the whole village and see further crowds of the possessed drawing in from the forest, carrying torches and screaming. “Dear God.” He said as the throngs milled like fluid below him. “Oh dear God.”
As he rose, he saw again the strange pattern that had surrounded the village on the map. There was a clear, clean break between the village and trees that bordered it on all sides, and in between the village and the trees was the stark path of dots that separated civilization from wilderness. It looked like someone had drawn footsteps on a map. He gazed, struck by the neatness of the path, as the first torches were thrown upon the church roof. “Godspeed, boy.”
Gobek took the puck from under his chin and struggled up to rest on his elbow. Torches flickered around the windows outside. He looked at the puck curiously for a moment and then flicked it away, where it struck a wall and shattered.
“Hey, easy!” Sanborn said, standing up and backing away. He pointed. “You see this? You hear this?” A window shattered in the background. “We’ve gotta go!”
“We go.” The giant rumbled. He rolled onto his elbow, getting his hands underneath him and pushing up. He brought his left leg underneath and rose, climbing upright. The bell hung regally between the wooden collar over his shoulders and Sanborn’s jaw dropped to see him rise to his full height. The giant turned, carefully, keeping his weight off his right leg. The bell was chained to him, underneath his arms and over his chest. He looked beaten, but alert, and eager to act. Taking the wooden collar in both hands, he shifted the bell’s weight on his shoulders, then, with a look of grim determination, lowered his gaze to Sanborn’s.
“I am Gobek.” He said. “Where I stride the demons cannot be.”
Glass shattered all around Sanborn and Gobek. Windows burst open one by one throughout the sanctuary. Torches fell upon the roof, some rolling and rattling off into the throng of children below. Others held their place and Sanborn heard the appetizing cracks of wood as the flames took to them.
“Gobek, I need you on the sled.” He pleaded, gesturing.
“I am Gobek!” The giant repeated angrily. “Where I stride the demons cannot be!” He swung himself next to a nearby pillar, gripping it for support and leaning back. The bell swung behind him. The shrieks and barks of the children filled the church. Sanborn whirled around to see them climbing into the windows. They began to cough and wretch as the church air met their lungs. Sanborn was ready with a pair of flares. He struck them alight and threw them into the spare wood and pews lining the windows. Each barrier erupted in flames where the flare landed, spreading quickly in an outline of the nave.
He turned back to Gobek, who had leaned as far back as he could, and with a determined grunt, swung himself forward. The bell on his shoulders followed the movement of his torso, and would have struck, if not for the child who crashed into the giant from above. Gobek reeled and swung back, gripping the back of his head. He fell backward onto the floor again, and Sanborn looked up to see more children dropping from the roof.
“They won’t feel pain.” Smethurst had told him. “You can damage their bodies, even kill them, but the only thing that’s going to make them feel pain is the water.”
Sanborn closed in on Gobek with his M4 at the ready. The children who had survived the fall inside were slow moving, dazed and bent on the floor, some with obvious injuries, others knocked out cold, and others struggling to breathe as they entered the church’s interior. Sanborn clambered between them, dispatching each with a bullet to the head. There was a loud crash as the front door was finally beaten down, and the mass of children at the fore began to climb over the burning timber.
Gobek rolled himself prostrate again, pausing only for a moment to slam his palm down on the head of an adolescent who had landed nearby. It cracked like a walnut and Gobek spat, pushing himself up onto his good knee again. The first children who managed to walk over the burning pews unscathed now swarmed him and jumped onto the bell, grabbing their hands around its circumference to mute it with their flesh. He bellowed, tearing them off by their ankles and tossing them into the fiery debris.
Sanborn whipped his carbine in every direction, putting his sights to every head that made a silhouette against the flames and pulling the trigger. The crunch of burning wood thundered from the roof above and the din of the children’s bloodthirsty cries drowned out all else. One mag spent, he reloaded. The children had pressed a layer of their comrades into the pews and were now walking over them, closing in faster as the air of the church began to be replaced with the air from outside. He moved forward and grabbed Gobek’s upper arm. “GET ON THE SLED!”
Gobek yelled and pancaked another assailant against a stone column. He leaned back on his hands and began to drag himself to the sled. Sanborn pulled out the capsule motor, crunched it in his fist, and threw it at the makeshift chariot. The pill sprang open into a little mechanical box with a control stick that clamped itself onto the chariot’s rail and activated the kinetic thread. Instantly, the threads that were wound in and out of all the planks of separated pews and throughout the candlestand wheels glowed bright blue and buzzed like neon lights, making the sled hum and rise a few inches into the air.
Above them the dome of the ceiling cracked. The central bar extending towards the space over the altar, wreathed in flames, collapsed and caved downward. The other supporting strats in the dome followed suit until the entire structure, weakened by flames and weighted by the children, crunched and dropped inward into the nave, charging into the floor like a molten bull. Gobek pulled himself away from the epicenter just in time. Stinging splinters of wood and burning sparks buffeted his face. The entire church flushed with smoke, blinding everything except the dim blue hum of the chariot’s harnesses.
Coughing filled the air now. Even the demons could not breathe like this. Sanborn drew his gaiter over his face and looked upward. The smoke that had crashed into the church had temporarily left the night sky to shine brightly above them, and there in the starry blue light, he saw Smethurst’s flare descending through the sky, as if Apollo himself had been shot down.
“Cowboy time.” He grunted, and grabbed the wooden harness of the bell, helping Gobek haul himself securely onto the sled. He brought his carbine up and cleared several more attackers from the area in front of the sled. Coughing and retching and the slaky, malicious howls of frustrated predators roiled all around him. He leapt over the front of the sled and into the chariot where the control module was waiting for him. Two children clambered over the front when he landed, reaching out with bloody claws. These he met with his knife, dipped into his canteen before battle, and steam erupted from the path he carved across the air. They fell back, screeching in agony, and he jammed the detonator switch clipped to the front of his tac-vest.
A loose square of det-cord that Sanborn had planted around the front door before the melee exploded. The shattered door and the layer of incapacitated children around it burst apart like sawdust being blown off of a two-by-four, just enough space for the chariot to move in through. Sanborn grabbed the control stick and charged.
The chariot shot out of the church door and into the open night air. It cleared the church steps and landed in the earth of the main square, bowling aside clods of the possessed. They had hidden themselves well in Sanborn’s walk to the church, and now he saw them present in full force. Torches and screams of opprobrium bathed the town. Fire leapt up from across the roofs in every direction. His eyes grew wide under his goggles as he realized just how outnumbered they were. Dozens and dozens if not hundreds of the youths boiled and surged towards the pair of escapees.
“HANG ON!” Sanborn shouted, and pressed the control stick as far forward as it would go. The metal candlestands bit the earth and churned, shooting mud and gravel high into the air, before kicking forward in a huge rush. The chariot plowed through the onrush of children and fire. In a concentrated mass perhaps they could have pressed and stopped the chariot from the front, but coordination and strategy failed them, and the chariot broke through. They gave chase as one, while Smethurst ducked and leaned left, taking the chariot on the path to the village’s end and the forest beyond.
The possessed, for their lack of toughness, made up with speed, and tore after the sled on foot. When in range they threw themselves on the sled, grasping its edges with unyielding grips. Gobek frantically set himself to the business of throwing them off, his upper strength near fully in hand, gripping whatever he could in his broad palms and crunching it before tossing it to the side.
As the vehicle began to clear the burning tiles of the houses and draw to the clearing before the forest, Sanborn grabbed one of Smethurst’s vacuum grenades and tossed it behind them. The dense metal ball landed with a dull clank and rolled into one of the giant’s footsteps that circled the town. It was soon overtaken by the rush of thundering feet. Sanborn looked back to see the hateful crowd in pursuit. The orange haze of the burning village gave way to the blue-green blur of the forest, dotted with pops of yellow torches.
Sanborn whispered to himself. “Was that a dud, or–” KA-THOOM!!
For a split second, the crowd looked as if it had a magnifying glass drawn over it, and then, everything surged backwards. A mass of children and dirt and trees and stones was pulled in on itself, compressing and grinding and packing down altogether by a violent gravitational pull; a dark globe of limbs and debris that drew itself together, tight as a clenching fist, straining, cracking, and hanging terribly in the air for a moment, before all fell lifelessly to the ground.
“Good Lord.” Sanborn gasped. He turned around and charged into the treeline, making for the wheatfields beyond. High in the sky above them, a dark shape was unraveling in the clouds.
Sanborn lit another flare and jammed it into the front of the chariot to light their way. The capsule motor was surprisingly fleet, and they moved at whip speed through the forest, taking care to steer where there was enough space.
It wasn’t long before they heard the screams of the children again, and Sanborn looked back to see the rest of the horde filtering through the trees, undeterred by the first grenade. He readied the other three, tossing one to his left flank, one to his right, and saving the last for directly behind him. The first two KA-THOOMED stripping the branches around them of pine needles and pulling dozens of bodies into their orbit. The forest cracked with crunching bones and the irritated snarling of frustrated pursuers. He dropped the last grenade behind him, and this time, felt the pull of the vacuum tug sharply on the sled. They were safely away, but it was enough to make Sanborn think that he had doomed them just for a moment, and the feeling pulled his stomach inside out.
“It’s alright, Gobek.” He called behind him. “You alright?”
Gobek pulled himself up on the sled. He glared at Sanborn and declared. “Where I stride the demons cannot be!”
“Yeah.” Sanborn nodded. “We’re striding! We’re gonna make it!”
Gobek turned around with a grimace. He huffed angrily and tore a piece of pew wood off the sled, flinging it into the woods as the crowd of possessed began to reform and catch up to them. Torches peppered the trees, drawing closer and closer until the yelling caught up with them, and before the two knew it, their circumstances were just as if they had stayed in the village. The possessed barreled and careened past the trunks, some came close enough to throw their torches onto the sled and Gobek was quick to grab them and toss them off.
“ALMOST THERE!” Sanborn yelled. The trees ahead began to open up, and the subdued amber of the wheat field lay beyond. The children began to grow more dense, coalescing into one furious mass that pounded after the sled, beat for beat with its charging wheels. The front line leapt up and reached out, just barely grasping the edge of the sled as they came down. More children leapt and fell down upon them, forming a tail of bodies that held onto the edge of the sled and began to slow it down. Gobek drew the foot of his good leg up into the air and brought it down, bashing the arms of the children that held onto the sled. A few broke and lost their grip, but they were soon replaced.
One child, older-looking than the others, clambered forward with its torch in its teeth. It leapt and scrambled nimbly over the bodies of its hanging allies. It dodged Gobek’s leg, avoided his sweeping fist, and jumped close enough to thrust its torch into his face. He turned just as the torch came down, but not fast enough to avoid being caught between the eye and the bridge of his nose. He screamed, and Sanborn whipped around with his M4 up in his free hand. The possessed child hissed and leapt on top of Gobek’s shoulders. Sanborn pulled the trigger, but the child swatted the barrel just as he fired and the carbine was torn from his grip, clattering into the woods.
“Dammit!” Sanborn echoed, but as the child prepared to leap up into the chariot, Gobek caught him by the foot, and he vanished into the darkness.
“Are you alright?” Sanborn called.
“I am Gobek!”
“Good enough!”
The trees finally began to open up further, and Sanborn looked up to see exactly what he hoped: the diving shadow of a C-130 Hercules, descending towards the field directly above them. It sailed triumphantly overhead, passing the chariot as it continued downward.
“GO SMETHURST, THAT’S IT!” He cheered, but his excitement was short lived. The edges of the crowd began to overtake the chariot, closing in from the sides to block their front. Sanborn leaned on the control stick, willing the vehicle to gain any extra speed it could, and in his desperation, failed to see a decayed log covering a small ditch rushing toward them.
Sanborn drove into the log at full speed and the right wheel of the chariot dropped, slamming into the ditch and flipping the sled forward.
Time stopped.
Sanborn went heels over head, over the front of the chariot, and landed on his back to see the sled, with Gobek and several of the attached pursuers on it, flying forward through the air. Sanborn watched as their bodies slowly sailed through the blue firmament. Legs and arms waved helplessly. Bodies spun and rolled. The planks of the sled flew loose, and blue glowing kinetic thread blinked out. He watched the tableau of wreckage unfold before him. Gobek’s eyes were cinched closed, one side badly charred. The giant rolled once more through the air, before striking the ground on his back side, which took his full momentum into the ground, causing the bell to snap forward.
BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG!!
The air held still.
The trees did not move.
The ground did not shudder.
There was no displacement of leaves or needles or dust or grass.
The world did not react to the sound of the bell.
But the demons did. Every one of them in the dozen yards surrounding Gobek was violently thrown back, and their skin, if it could be said, began to sizzle. It vibrated with such speed and intensity that they were rendered blurry to the eye, and for the first time that night, Sanborn heard them scream in their real voices.
*** *** ***
Smethurst dropped another pew next to the others and dashed oil over it. “There. That’ll do this side.” He wiped his hands clean on his bathrobe and walked back to Sanborn, who was cinching the last plank of wood to the sled. “Looks as if we’re ready.”
“I don’t know.” Sanborn said, standing up. “I got one thing bothering me.”
“And that is?”
“I have a feeling I’m gonna have to shoot a lot of kids to get out of here. I’m not, uh… not looking forward to that.”
Smethurst chuckled coldly. “You did seem a bit young to be a father.”
“I’m serious, T.”
“Well those aren’t children.” Smethurst looked at him square in the face. “Those are bodies. Do you understand?”
Sanborn rolled his head to the side and shrugged slightly.
“It used to be in the old days they could just walk about freely. Go where they pleased, appear where they might. But at this point in time it’s much trickier. They need bodies. And they go where they can get them.”
“How does that help?”
Smethurst tried poorly to hide his exasperation. “Let’s say that we had a priest here. Or someone like Glen McGann, who, really, I have to say, should be dealing with all this instead of us, but that’s beside the point.”
“For real.” Sanborn agreed.
“Say that we could give them a proper exorcism.” Smethurst resumed. “Free them from their possession. What would that wake them up to? To see the horrors that they were used for? To see what’s left of their home? Like this? It’s a rotten lot, boy, I know. But at the very least, we can still save the last thing they want to destroy.”
Sanborn looked back at Smethurst. “Could we ever come back here?”
Smethurst furrowed his brow. “Why on God’s green earth–”
“I mean if we knew when this was! If we could date it, could we use that to come back and stop this from happening?”
Smethurst sighed. “I’ve asked that question myself several times. In different places, of course, but so far, unfortunately, that just isn’t how kairos works, even if you do know the specifics.”
Silence spread between them for a minute or so. Sanborn paced, looking around the church. His eyes rested on a book lying on the altar. Smethurst finally spoke. “None of this will be easy.” He leaned into his accent for emphasis. “But… we’re soldiers, iddn’ we?”
Sanborn looked back and nodded.
“The sun’s getting low. Let’s give everything the once over.”
*** *** ***
Bodies showered the ground. Sanborn looked up to see them. Buzzing. Shrieking. Popping. Writhing. They convulsed, their skin shuddering like plucked piano wires. In their voices was the alien but unmistakable emptying of agony. The freight horn of the dying. It was as if their screams began with the peal of the bell, out in the open air, and were slowly, irreversibly, agonizingly drawn back within their bodies, down to the pits of their stomachs, where the sound suffered, sputtered, and died. Hell reclaimed them on the earth.
Sanborn stared, mouth agape, breathing heavily. The note of the bell fell gently away and all was replaced by the ringing in his ears. “So that’s why they want to kill you.”
The horde of the damned had finally stopped, a dozen or so yards from the blast. Their faces held the wan, exasperated pique of hateful desperation. The one who confronted Sanborn in the forest emerged to the fore. The bags under his eyes were cracked and bleeding.
“What do we do?” Another one said.
Sanborn pulled himself upright, patting his equipment. He still had his knife, the Omni-knife, his sidearm, and the radio. His left lower back twinged in pain as he lurched forward. Smethurst had brought the plane safely down in a great furrow, and he could see the red lights of the rear cargo door opening. They had 400 yards to go.
“Fog. Fog come in.” He rasped.
“Phoughge, over.”
“Prep the door and get a rinse screen ready. We’re coming in hot.”
“Roger that.”
Sanborn moved forward and bent down, scraping up pieces of kinetic thread and wood into his hands. He found the capsule motor controls and jerked them free.
“What do we do?” The possessed echoed. “What do we do? What do we do? Is he dead?”
Sanborn stumbled forward into a creaky trot and slid next to Gobek’s body. He turned around as he did so and saw the waiting horde of children, torches filling the air with smoke now that they were still.
“Are you okay? You awake?” He asked. Gobek opened his good eye and breathed. “Don’t move!” Sanborn commanded, placing his hands on his chest. “Stay still, it might buy us some time. I’ve got a new plan, but it’s gonna hurt. Not long, just long enough to get us to the plane.”
“I am Gobek.” The giant answered creakily. “I must stride.”
“That’s the idea.”
The forest child glared, watching the soldier kneel next to Gobek and begin working on his leg. “He isn’t dead.” He cursed. “He’s not dead!” The others shouted and cursed in response. “He’s not dead! KILL HIM! KILL HIM! KILL HIM! KILL HIM! KILL HIM!”
Sanborn saw the rush boil forth once more and quickened his pace. He had wound a plank of wood apiece over Gobek’s thigh and calf and was tying them off with the kinetic thread. This done, he took the control module and fastened over Gobek’s knee. The threads glowed to blue life once more.
“This is gonna work.” He said. “It has to. Up.” Taking Gobek’s left hand in both of his arms, he leaned back and pulled the giant up on his good leg. “You hold the bell straight. I’m gonna operate your knee. We take it one step at a time, okay?”
The giant gripped the bell and huffed.
“Left!” Sanborn ordered, pulling back on the control module and straightening his right leg.
“KILL HIM! KILL HIM! KILL HIM!” The torches surged.
“Right!”
BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNGGGG!!
Instantly, as before, the lead column dissolved into an avalanche of rhythmic keening.
“YES! LEFT!”
But the horde did not abate this time, chasing over their fallen comrades.
“RIGHT!”
BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNGGGG!!
The sound of the pealing dead gave way to static, and Smethurst’s dire growl shouted through the radio. “Sanborn, I can fly the plane but I don’t know what the bloody hell any of these other buttons do–”
“LEFT!”
“There’s an awful racket in here, but I don’t know how to turn it off.”
“RIGHT!”
“Will you please get to the bloody plane and shut this down!”
BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNGGGG!!
“Sanborn?! Sanborn, come on! I’ve got the door open but I don’t know how to get it closed again, or where this bloody music is coming from!” Smethurst shouted.
Sanborn wasn’t really listening, and he couldn’t help himself: the further they stepped, the more the bell rung, and the more of the defeated they piled up. For the first time in how long he did not know, he was beaming.
“LEFT!”
“I can see you! I can hear you! Even over this infernal racket!”
“RIGHT!”
BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNGGGG!!
“Wait, here it is, it’s this one!”
Sanborn looked up at Gobek. The giant looked down and nodded. They were winning. In the distance, Sanborn could just make out some sort of music playing from the plane.
“Blast it! No! It’s just started over again!”
“LEFT!”
“That’s it! I give up, Sanborn. I’m coming out to shoot some people.”
RIGHT!”
BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNGGGG!!
“I AM GOBEEEEEEEK!” The giant screamed in triumph, but as he did so, the worn leather strap of the clapper inside the bell snapped, and it fell, smacking his neck with a heavy thud and falling dead to the ground.
Sanborn looked down in disbelief. The clapper, a heavy piece of cast iron, rolled harmlessly behind them, into the crowd of seething possessed, who came on over the dying ones and swarmed them as the bell fell silent.
Gobek thrashed, roaring from the pain in his neck. Sanborn ducked out of the way and drew his knife, thrusting and stabbing and slashing wherever he could. In the crush he felt his elbow snap forward and he dropped the knife, crying. The demons were everywhere and endless. They mounted the bell and began clawing at the harness to tear it off. Gobek caught several limbs in his teeth and tossed them, but they came on again without relent.
Smethurst entered the fray, charging like an overhand thrown bowling ball and slamming into the outer throng. He swung Cady wildly at all within reach and then began to fire, emptying bullets into the crowd as fast as he could. One of them struck the bell.
BWEEENG!!
Those touching Sanborn and Gobek were instantly shed off, howling in agony, and Sanborn, who had fallen and been pinned to the ground, suddenly saw their next play.
“Shoot the bell again!” He screamed at Smethurst.
The swarthy Englishman complied and another eruption of pealing demons followed. Sanborn pulled himself up and looked at the plane. They could still make it.
“Go back to the plane!” He shouted, drawing his sidearm in his right hand and snapping his left elbow back into place. “Wait, what is that?” He said with a grimace. He heard the distinct percussive beats of a pop song bumping softly through the meadow.
“I told you: I pressed something purposeless and stupid in there and I don’t know how to turn it off!” Smethurst jeered. He shot the bell again.
BWEEENG!! Screaming.
Sanborn stopped. He placed his left hand on the control module again and felt the exhaustion in his shoulders. He knew this song, and for a split second, he had to listen.
🎜I catch the paper boy [bumm bumm]
But things don’t really change [bumm bumm]
I’m standing in the wind [bimm bimm]
But I never wave bye-bye
[bumm bumm]
But IIIII try🎜
“I try.” Sanborn whispered in time with the next line.
[bumm bumm]
[bumm bumm]
The bouncy, familiar horns of the chorus came next– [buh bum, buh bum bum, buh bum, buh bum bum] –and Sanborn nodded his head aggressively. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
🎜There’s no sign of life🎜
“LEFT!”
🎜It’s just the power to charm🎜
“RIGHT!”
🎜I’m lying in the rain🎜
[shot] BWEEENG!!
🎜But I never wave bye-bye🎜
Screaming.
🎜But I try🎜
“LEFT!”
🎜IIIII try 🎜
“RIGHT!”
[buh bum, buh bum-bum, buh bum-bum, buh bum-bum]
[shot] BWEEENG!!
Screaming.
Together, they found their rhythm again. Sanborn hummed along to the song as they pressed forward, using his left hand to operate Gobek’s leg, and his right to shoot into the lip of the bell with his pistol. Slowly, then faster and faster, with Smethurst leading the way ahead and shooting the stragglers at the edges. The red hope of the cargo door lay welcome.
🎜Modern love
BWEEENG!!
walks beside me🎜
🎜Modern love
BWEEENG!!
walks on by🎜
🎜Modern love
BWEEENG!!
gets me to the chuuurch on tiiiiime🎜
“We’re in the jackpot!” Sanborn shouted. The horns bopped triumphantly as they came to the edge of the door and rushed into the plane. The song was blaring from speakers inside the ceiling and outside under the fuselage. The bell’s range shortened considerably under the din. Gobek fell to the floor, Sanborn tossed the Omni-knife to Smethurst and leapt for the door switch. The possessed who had come this far came to the door and met Smethurst for their trouble. He was in his element, a whirling dervish of steel, muscle, and red stained tartan wool. The door finally, mercifully, lifted up and began to close.
🎜Church on time- terrifies me
Church on time- makes me party
Church on time- puts my trust in Godddd and man 🎜
The children clawed at Smethurst, beating their torches down upon him, but the Englishman could feel nothing. He bellowed, stabbing with the knife and hammering Cady’s barrel down on their heads, crumpling them all. Sanborn could only watch from the side. Those who had jumped onto the door and were scrambling to get inside were now crushed as it closed and locked tight. Arms and hands were pinched in the threshold. Some stuck there. Others slid down the door.
The yoke of Smethurst’s back heaved. He breathed heavily, dismissing his battle lust. Blood and carnage ran everywhere.
🎜God and man- no confessions
God and man- no religion
God and man- don’t believe in moooodern looove 🎜
Sanborn heaved a sigh of relief and pawed his radio. “Open up, Phoughge.”
The door whooshed and vented again as it lowered to the soft warm lights of the Raven’s Nest. A laser thin screen of blue light was sitting just outside and Phoughge stepped through to lay his eyes on them all. He observed the viscera on Smethurst, then looked down to Gobek’s exhausted bulk.
🎜Modern love- walks beside me
Modern love- walks on by
Modern love- gets me to the to the chuuurch on tiiiiime🎜
Phoughge looked at everything without a word and stepped calmly over to the exit control panel. He tapped a button and the speakers fell silent. He looked down. A severed hand lay next to his polished purple oxfords. This he carefully stepped over and looked at each person with his unique brand of serene, benevolent bemusement, mouth hanging open for just a touch too long. “Sorry. How did Bowie come into this?”
Before anyone could answer there was a crash on the side of the plane. A window to the side cracked as the children resumed their efforts to capture Gobek. The fuselage rocked and the screaming din of the horde surged as before.
“Grab his leg, the left leg!” Sanborn directed. All three men set themselves to Gobek’s foot and calf, dragging him with great effort through the open door. Phoughge slammed a button on the console and the door re-shut itself, leaving them all safely on the deck of the Raven’s Nest without a care. Everyone exhaled from the pit of their stomachs. No one said a word. All was allowed to be still and silent for a pair of precious minutes.
Footsteps clanked down the staircase to the cargo bay as Pimm rushed to see who had arrived.
“Smethurst! There you are!” He called from the foot of the stairs. “Where on earth have you been, and what…” He suddenly stopped his gallop and took in the full vision of Smethurst as the bloodied Englishman came down from the Raven’s Nest. “What happened to you?”
Smethurst did not stop to talk, shuffling past Pimm and answering dismissively. “I flew a plane in my night attire.”
“I…” Pimm could only stare at the carnage caked into his bathrobe. “Well, quite.”
Sanborn placed a heavy arm on Gobek’s shoulder. The giant looked at him with his good eye and nodded. The soldier squeezed him tight with his palm and stood up shakily. “Next time I wake up, don’t send me anywhere,” he said to Phoughge, handing him his camera and radio. The purple man nodded and waved him off the Raven’s Nest, then turned to attend to Gobek.
Sanborn caught Pimm just as he was brushed aside by Smethurst. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out the book from the altar of the church. “Hey, tinker.”
Pimm turned to face him.
“Do me a favor and see if you can pull a date on this.” He pressed the book into Pimm’s shirt and kept walking. He took the stairs and the long emerald hallway back up to the library. Amber lamps filled the room with a cozy glow, thickened with cigar smoke, and outside the Smoking Room’s towering glass windows, the stars and planets shone cheerily in the cosmic firmament. Rex and Hugo were still playing cards at the table. Glen McGann had joined them. He greeted Sanborn with a nod and a two-finger salute.
“Oh my.” Rex said as Sanborn stepped slowly into the room and leaned into his usual place on the wall, sliding slowly down. “Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, chere, but you look awful.”
“It’s fine.” Sanborn said. “We figured it out.”
Rex peered over his aviators. “Well what the hell happened?”
“I’ll tell you later.” Sanborn said, lowering his head and adjusting his back snugly against the library shelf. He huffed slightly, finding the right place. “I need a nap.”
May our Lord illuminate the righteous path He has laid before each of us and compel us to walk it dutifully and with joy.