“But if this beast is on the other side, as you call it, why would anyone bring it here?”
“Never underestimate the curiosity and stupidity and greed of man, Norville.”
“If the book set this thing free, then burn the book.”
“Not a bad idea, but I doubt that would get rid of anything. In fact, I might do better to study the book. My guess is whoever first brought the book, loosed the creature. They then decided they had made a mistake, made the marks of power on the stones and sealed the thing in the well where it preferred to reside—it liked the dampness, you see. And then, someone, like you, took the rocks from the well and the thing was let loose. One of the other survivors, the preacher for example, may have figured out enough to seal the thing back in the well. And then you let it out again.”
“Then we can seal it back up,” Norville said.
The Reverend shook his head. “Then someone else will open the well.”
“We can destroy the well curbing, put the rocks in, build a mound of dirt over all of it.”
“Still not enough. That leaves the possibility of it being opened up in the future, if only by accident. No. This thing, it has to be destroyed. Listen here. It’s light yet. Take my horse and walk it and take off its saddle, and then bring it inside where it will be safer.”
“The house?”
“Since when are you so particular? I do not want to leave the horse for that thing to kill. If it must have the horse or us, then it will have to come and get the lot of us.”
“All right then.”
“Bring in my saddle and all that goes with it. And those rocks from the well. Only the rocks from the well. Start bringing them in by the pile.”
“Aren’t there enough here in the fireplace?”
“They are in use. One may cause this thing to flee, but that doesn’t mean one will destroy it. I have other plans. Do it, Norville. Already the sun dips deep and the dark is our first enemy.”
∇
When the horse was inside and the stones were stacked in the middle of the floor, the Reverend looked up from the book, said, “Place the stones in a circle around us. A large circle. Make a line of them across the back of this room and put the horse against the wall behind them. Give him plenty of room to get excited. Hobble him and put on his bridle and tie him to that nail in the wall, the big one.”
“And what exactly will you be doin’?”
“Reading,” the Reverend said. “You will have to trust me. I’m all that is between you and this thing.”
Norville went about placing the stones.
It was just short of dark when the stones were placed in a circle around the table and a line of them had been made behind that from wall to wall, containing the tied up horse.
Reverend Mercer looked up from the book. “You are finished?”
Noville said, “Almost. I’ll board up the bedroom window. Not that it matters. He can slip between some small spaces. But it will slow it down.”
“Leave it as is, and leave the door to the bedroom partially cracked.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite.”
The Reverend placed one of the rocks on the table, removed the bullets from his belt and took his knife and did his best to copy the symbols in small shapes on the tips of his ammunition. The symbols were simple, a stick man with a few twists and twirls around it. It took him an hour to copy it onto twelve rounds of ammunition.
Finished, he loaded six rounds in each of his revolvers.
“Shall I light the lamp?” Norville asked.
“No. You have an axe and a shotgun lying about. We may have need for both. Recover them, and then come inside the ring of stones.”
(4)
THE ARRIVAL
While they waited, sitting cross-legged on the floor inside the circle of stones, the Reverend carved the symbols on the rocks onto the blade of the axe. He thought about the shotgun shells, but it wouldn’t do any good to have the symbols on the shells and not on the load, and since the shotgun shot pellets, that was an impossible task.
Lying the axe between them, the Reverend handed the shotgun to Norville. “The shotgun will be nothing more than a shotgun,” he said. “And it may not kill the thing, but it will be a distraction. You get the chance, shoot the thing with it, otherwise, sit and do not, under any circumstances, step outside this circle. The axe I have written symbols on and it may be of use.”
“Are you sure this circle will keep him out?”
“Not entirely.”
Norville swallowed.
∇
They sat and they listened and the hours crept by. The Reverend produced a flask from his saddle bags. “I keep this primarily for medicinal purposes, but the night seems a little chill, so let us both have one short nip, and one short nip only.”
The Reverend and Norville took a drink and the flask was replaced. And no sooner was it replaced, than a smell seeped into the house. A smell like a charnel house and a butcher shop and an outhouse all balled into one.
“It’s near,” Norville said. “That’s its smell.”
The Reverend put a finger to his lips to signal quiet.
There were a few noises on the outside of the house, but they could have been most anything. Finally there came a sound in the bedroom like wet laundry plopping to the floor.
Norville looked at the Reverend.
Reverend Mercer nodded to let him know he too had heard it, and then he carefully pulled and cocked his revolvers.
The room was dark, but the Reverend had adjusted his eye sight and could make out shapes. He saw that the bedroom door, already partially cracked open, was slowly moving. And then a hand, white and puffy like the leaves of an orchid, appeared around the edge of the door, and fingers, long and stalk like, extended and flexed, and the door moved and a flow of muddy water slid into the room along the floor.
The Reverend felt Norville move beside him, as if to rise, and he reached out and touched his shoulder to steady him.
The door opened more, and then the thing slipped inside the main room. It moved strangely, as if made of soft candle wax. It was dead white of flesh, but much of the skin was filthy with mud. It was neither male nor female. No genitals; down there it was a smooth as a well-washed river rock. It was tall, with knees that swung slightly to the sides when it walked, and there was an odd vibration about it, as if it were about to burst apart in all directions. The head was small. Its face was mostly a long gash of a mouth. It had thin slits for eyes and a hole for a nose. At the ends of its willowy legs were large flat feet that splayed out in shapes like claw-tipped four-leaf clovers.
Twisting and winding, long stepping, and sliding, it made its way forward until it was close to the Reverend and Norville. It leaned forward and sniffed. The hole that was its nose opened wider as it did, flexed.
It smells us, thought the Reverend. Only fair, because we certainly smell it.
And then it opened its dripping mouth and came at them in a rush.
As it neared the stones, it was knocked back by an invisible wall, and then there came something quite visible where it had impacted, a ripple of blue fulmination. The thing went sliding along the floor on its belly in its own mud and goo.
“The rocks hold,” the Reverend said, and it came again. Norville lifted the shotgun and fired. The pellets went through the thing and came rattling out against the wall on the other side. The hole made in its chest did not bleed, and it filled in rapidly, as if never struck.
Reverend Mercer stood up and aimed one of his pistols, and hit the thing square in the chest, and this time the wound made a sucking sound and when the load came out on the other side, goo and something dark went with it. But it didn’t stop the creature. It hit the invisible wall again, bellowed and fell back. It dragged its way around the circle toward the horse, tied behind the line of stones. The terrified horse reared and snapped its reins as if they were non-existent. The horse went thundering across the line, and then across the circle of stones, causing them to go spinning left and right, and along came the thing, entering the circle through the gap.