Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

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.”

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 saddlebags. “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 eyesight 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 as 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.

The Reverend fired again. The thing jerked back and squealed like a pig. Then it sprang forward again, grabbed the Reverend by the throat and sent him flying across the room, slamming into the side of the frightened horse.

Norville swung the shotgun around and fired right into the thing’s mouth, but it was like the thing was swallowing gnats. It grabbed the gun barrel, used it to sling the clutching Norville sliding across the floor, collecting splinters until he came up against the bedroom door, slamming it shut.

It started forward, but it couldn’t step out of the circle. Not that way. It wheeled to find the exit the horse had made, and as it did, Reverend Mercer, now on his feet, fired twice and hit the thing in the back, causing it to stagger through the opening and fall against the line of rocks that had been there to protect the horse. Its head hit the rocks and the creature cried out, leaping to its feet with a move that seemed boneless and without use of muscle. Its forehead bore a sizzling mark the size of the rock.

“Get back inside the circle,” the Reverend said. “Close it off.”

Norville waited for no further instruction. He bolted and leaped into the circle and began to clutch at the displaced stones. The Reverend put his right leg forward and threw back his coat by bending his left hand behind him; he pointed the revolver and took careful aim, fired twice.

Both shots hit. One in the head, one in the throat. They had their effect. The horror splattered to the floor with the wet laundry sound. But no sooner had it struck the ground, then it began to wriggle along the floor like a grub worm in a frying pan; it came fast and furious and grabbed the Reverend’s boot, and came to spring upright in front of the Reverend with that strange manner it had of moving.

Reverend Mercer cracked it across the head with his pistol, and it grabbed at him. The Reverend avoided the grab and struck out with his fist, a jab that merely annoyed the thing. It spread its jaws and filled the air with stink. The Reverend drew his remaining pistol and fired straight into the hole the thing used for a nose, causing it to go toppling backward along the floor gnashing its teeth into the lumber.

Reverend Mercer ran and leaped into the circle.

When he turned to look, the monster was sliding up the wall like some kind of slug. It left a sticky trail along the logs as it reached the ceiling and crawled along that with the dexterity of an insect.

The horse had finally come to a corner and stuck its head in it to hide. The thing came down on its back, and its mouth spread over the horse’s head, and the horse stood up on its hind legs and its front legs hit the wall, and it fell over backward, landing on the creature. It didn’t bother the thing in the least. It grabbed and twisted the horse over on its side as if it were nothing more than a feather pillow. There was a crunch as the monster’s teeth snapped bones in the horse’s head. The horse quit moving, and the thing began to suck, rivulets of blood spilling out from the corners of its distended mouth.