SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Menchú paused, and Sal watched him with open concern. “The army just showed up to kill everyone, just like that?”

He shook his head. “There was an excuse. There always was. Harboring rebels who had refused to disarm. But effectively…yes. They showed up to kill everyone.”

“Why?”

“To prove that they still could.”

“And then the rebels found out, and surrounded the army?”

Menchú shrugged. “There weren’t enough of them for that. But it was enough for an effective ambush. With the element of surprise, they probably could have killed most of the soldiers. And then the government would have sent more to retaliate. Concentric circles of death all the way down.”

Sal wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry” seemed inadequate, but it was all she had.

“For years, I wondered if it was because of me. I had distinguished myself within the Church during the civil war. Conflict is fertile ground for demons, and I had made it clear that I would protect both sides from their influence, banishing them back where they came from as soon as they dared show themselves in my presence. I wondered if maybe…If someone high enough in the chain of command decided to take exception to that policy of neutrality, they might have made an example of my village in order to send a message.”

“The rebels couldn’t have been too happy that you were helping the army.”

“Not really. But they were more at risk from the demons than the government forces were. Doesn’t matter anyway. Eventually, I realized that trying to blame myself was just a form of self-aggrandizement. There was no way I made enough of a difference for either side to take me down so spectacularly.”

“You must have saved lives.”

“From demons, yes. But I couldn’t stop people from killing each other. And that’s what it looked like was going to happen again.”

They sat together in silence, until Sal asked, “What happened instead?”

Menchú sighed. “I stopped the massacre.”

Father Menchú steeled himself for the strong possibility of death. He wasn’t naive enough to believe that his collar would somehow protect him when the bullets started flying. For every man holding a gun who might hesitate to shoot a priest, there was another who would want to be sure that no official representative of the Church survived to tell the world what had happened in a small mountain village.

His only hope was to somehow convince the two armed groups bent on killing each other not to kill a cluster of innocent civilians in the process.

And then a hand caught his sleeve.

The boy was still standing beside him. Only now his eyes were featureless white, his skin glowed with an unearthly radiance, and his hair fluttered by his face, fanned by a breeze even though the air was perfectly still. He was the most beautiful thing Menchú had ever seen.

“What are you?” Menchú asked.

“If you try to talk to them, they’ll kill you.”

“Maybe not,” he said, then repeated, “What are you?”

“You know what I am.”

He did. At least, he hoped that he did. Menchú fell back a step, still cautious, but—for the first time that night—hopeful. “Can you stop this?”

The child nodded.

“Then why don’t you?”

“You have to ask.”

A part of Menchú’s mind, some deep instinct, told him to say no. It warned that there was a trap before him, and the only way to avoid it was to walk away. But hope was too strong. The hope that no one, including him, would have to die that night.

Menchú asked.

God help him. He asked.

“And?”

Menchú looked up from his clasped hands and realized he had been staring silently at them for some minutes.

“I asked the…thing…to protect the villagers from the army and from the rebels.”

“And?”

“It did.”

It was as though a madness swept through both armed groups simultaneously. Suddenly the army seemed able to see the rebels wherever they were hiding, and fired unerringly into the alleyways. The rebels fired back. The sound of gunfire and screams filled the air.

Instinctively, Menchú threw himself over the child-thing, shielding its tiny body with his own, covering his head and trying not to be noticed or caught in the crossfire. Only when the square once again fell silent did he finally dare to rise.

All around, the buildings were studded with bullet holes, and under the straining glow of the streetlights, the cobblestones ran slick with blood. But in the center of it all, not a single villager had been touched. In shock, Menchú looked down at the child. Its unearthly appearance was unchanged. But then it smiled, and Menchú’s blood ran cold. It was not the smile of the boy he knew, or of any child on earth. It was…wrong.

“Why are you smiling?” Menchú asked. Was this how God wrought His miracles?

The child’s smile grew. “Because what comes next is fun.”

Menchú stood there for the rest of the night. He found himself unable to move, speak, or intervene in any way as the demon who had possessed the boy tortured and killed every man, woman, and child in the village, there in the square in front of the church. At dawn, it turned to Menchú and slit its host’s throat.

Its last words were: “Let this be a lesson to you, Father.”

Sal flinched as Menchú gripped both of her hands in his. “I couldn’t protect them, but I will protect you. I won’t let you be brought down by the temptation of your hopes like I was.”

“But what about the rest of our people? How do we protect them?”

Menchú didn’t have an answer.

On the floor of the Archives, Grace shuddered and convulsed. Asanti held the other woman’s head, making sure she didn’t choke on the bile she occasionally dredged up from her empty stomach.

Liam was doing the best of the three of them, and even he had emptied his stomach hours ago. Worse, the tone had grown so loud that it was impossible to hear each other, even if they shouted at the top of their lungs.

Liam left his computer where he had been trying and failing to find a way to block whatever was causing the effect and carried a pad of paper over to Asanti.

“No good,” he wrote.

Asanti sagged.

He flipped the page. “Your turn. I’ll sit with her.”

Asanti yielded her place on the floor beside Grace to Liam and stumbled off, rubbing her forehead with one hand. Liam hoped that the stacks would have more answers than his electronic resources. Given how his search had gone, that was a low bar. He really should find his tablet. That way he could work while he watched Grace. Why hadn’t he thought to do that earlier? Noise, lack of sleep, lack of food. It was making him stupid. Can’t afford that. Have to stay sharp…

With a mental wrench, Liam pulled himself out of his downward spiral. No time for self-flagellation. He could get his tablet in a minute. Just going to rest here for a bit first. Grace’s head was pillowed against his thigh. The fact that she would never have allowed such intimacy had she possessed even a shred of consciousness somehow made the whole situation even worse. She had always guarded her privacy, and Liam had respected that. Seeing her now, he wondered if he should have asked more questions. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel so helpless.

Just a minute more. Then he would get the tablet and come right back.

Just one more minute.

As soon as his head stopped spinning.

With the relentless noise and the pain it caused, Liam wouldn’t have thought sleep was possible, but he must have lost consciousness, because suddenly Asanti was shaking him awake.