Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

“What the hell was that?” Cole asked.

“Just stand still and wait for them.”

Cole wished he had the gun from Jessup’s glove compartment. As the screeching came again, it raked all the way through his body.

The chipped statue was bleeding.

Shrieking came from several different angles in the sky. Sunlight was fading into a dull glow that gave the other statues an aura.

“I think that one just moved!” Cole said, pointing the club at a nearby dog statue.

“No it didn’t.”

The shrieking grew louder.

“What is that crap you dug out of that thing’s back, Jessup? Is that gargoyle going to wake up or not?”

“Shut up! I told you we need to wait for them. They won’t come if we’re looking for them.”

“Spare me the predator prey bullshit and just tell me what the fuck these statues are supposed to do for us!”

“Shut up so I can listen, dammit,” Jessup barked.

“Are there more cemeteries around here?” Cole asked. “Or churches? Where else do you find gargoyle perches? Just tell me what I need to know!”

“What the hell is wrong with you, Cole?”

Cole’s blood surged through his veins in a sporadic mix of fast and slow rhythms. It pumped in time to his heartbeat at first, but the longer he paid attention to it, the more he realized it was moving at a pace all its own. His first thought drifted to the tendrils still wrapped around his insides, and when he looked down, he realized he was pointing the sharpened end of the club at Jessup.

The older man’s eyes were locked on Cole when he asked, “Are you strung out?”

Even with the world going to hell and what sounded like a war encroaching on the outskirts of town, Cole was surprised by the question. “I’m not on drugs!” he said.

“I don’t mean drugs. I mean the healing serum. How much have you been taking?”

“A lot lately, but I’ve been wounded.”

“What about before you were wounded? Did you take it any time you got hurt even if you didn’t absolutely need it?” Jessup’s eyes narrowed and he moved toward him and a distant howling gave way to a shriek that became louder and more intense. “Have you reached for a needle even before you knew how badly you were hurt? When you get cut or scraped or knocked around, do you look forward to that light-headed rush that comes with—”

“I’m not a fucking junkie!” Cole snapped.

“You didn’t answer my questions.”

“I’ve got a question for you,” he said while moving the club as if trying to pass it off as something other than a weapon. “What’s that screeching? It’s coming from everywhere.”

“No it isn’t,” Jessup replied while closing his eyes. “That noise is today’s biggest lesson. You wanna know another lesson I learned a long time ago? Don’t work with someone who’s strung out on anything, even if it’s something we cooked up ourselves.”

“I haven’t even had any of that stuff for a while.”

“Which is probably why you were about to stab me a few seconds ago. Now close your eyes and listen for that screech. We need to know what direction it’s coming from.”

The sky was growing darker by the second. When Cole looked to the east, he saw a blur of clouds and dark purple. Looking to the west forced him to squint before catching a jabbing ray of sunlight in his eyes. “It’s getting closer, whatever it is. Do you know what it is?”

“Shush up and listen,” Jessup scolded. “And close yer eyes. It’ll help you focus.”

Cole did as he was told. The stench of rotting meat and blood was still thick in his nose, and the frantic beats of his heart showed up as pulsing blobs of light behind his eyelids. Before that became too much for him, he heard something else with his newly focused ears. The shriek started off as just one of the many that crossed back and forth above him. When something screamed directly toward him, there was no way in hell he could keep his eyes closed.

A large flap of skin sliced through the air, attached to a frame of narrow bone. It was thin enough to glide and light enough to be steered by what looked like fluttering ribbons trailing behind it. Long talons stretched from the skin flap’s two front corners as it extended even more to ride a wind that rippled over its back and through its body, which produced the shriek Cole had been hearing.

As the thing in the sky angled sharply downward toward Jessup’s back, several more of the narrow fliers descended like pencil lines that suddenly decided to leap off a page. They were right behind the first one, filling Cole’s eyes with sunlight reflecting off smooth undulating backs and filling his ears with a shriek that now sounded more like a whistle blown with the power of a concentrated hurricane.

The closest one opened its body into a tattered flag with four talons at either end. Without opening his eyes, Jessup drew the hunting knife from its scabbard to snap it up and around toward the incoming mass of skin. Between his confident swing and the creature’s own momentum, the blade cut through the upper framework of bone and shredded the flying thing’s body all the way down to the tattered pieces hanging from its lower end. Its shriek turned into an agonized cry as pieces of its body fell to the ground. The others still in the air veered off before getting close enough to fall victim to the Skinner’s blade.

Opening his eyes, Jessup flicked the knife down to spatter a clear, viscous fluid onto the ground and said, “It’s all in the wrist.”

Once he’d sheathed his knife, Jessup asked Cole to help him pick up the dead flier and run for cover. Although he was more anxious to do the latter, Cole helped with the former as well. The shredded pieces of the thing that had come screaming from the sky now looked more like a broken kite made of moist skin on a flimsy white frame. When Cole jumped into Jessup’s pickup, he almost crushed the parts already on the seat.

“Careful!” Jessup said as he shoved him toward the passenger door and gathered up his part of the kite.

“What the hell are—” Cole’s question was nipped in the bud by the hard slap of something against his window. Although he could still see the colors of the setting sun through the thin layer of skin now pressed against the outside of the glass, his view was impeded by what looked like a hastily drawn face with features that were nothing more than dark lines on a lighter surface. Talons scraped against the top of the truck and the face twisted as if trying to shove its way inside. The mouth that gaped open against the window had small ridges for teeth, no tongue, and no lips. Cole took the .38 from the glove compartment and pointed it at the window as more of the skin flags slapped against the outside of the truck. “What are those things? Were they after the gargoyles too?”

“Those are the gargoyles,” Jessup replied while hastily cutting apart the one he’d brought down.

“No, you were showing me the gargoyles. They were those stone animals outside the cemetery.”

“Nope. Those are what these gargoyles left behind.”

Now that it was clear the things outside weren’t strong enough to break their way in, Cole lowered his gun and focused on what the other Skinner was doing. “Every gargoyle I’ve ever heard of was made of stone. I’ve even heard of ones that are stone during the day and come to life at night.”

Jessup looked up from what he was doing to ask, “Where’d you hear about that?”

“Well …it was a cartoon.”

Shaking his head, the other man returned to his task. “Those statues were called gargoyles because they’re all folks saw after these things came through to feed or defend their nest.”