Gobek the Bell, Part 2
Read Part I here.
“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.”
Part 3 now available here.
May our Lord illuminate the righteous path He has laid before each of us and compel us to walk it dutifully and with joy.