Edward Lee - Creekers

“Okay, take care.”

They branched off to their separate vehicles. Phil was thinking. Late job? Eagle said he did construction work, but then Phil remembered his rap sheet; he’d done time for dealing PCP. Maybe he’s bullshitting. Maybe he really runs dust for Natter. These considerations were pertinent, but there was no point jumping the gun. Only time would tell. Phil knew he’d need to work on Eagle with great care, or else his cover was gone. He also knew it would take a lot more than a couple beers in a strip joint to gain complete trust.

Dust rose in billows as the parking lot began to empty. Following Eagle tonight would be a dumb move, but he thought it might be a good idea to tail one of the regulars for a while, just to see which direction he was headed. He set his sights on one of the pickups that frequented the lot, waited a moment, then pulled out. The pickup turned north on the Route, away from town. In fact, most of the vehicles pulling out headed north.

And another thing occurred to him. Natter wasn’t at the club tonight. His car wasn’t in the lot…

But before Phil could contemplate that any further, a shadow rose up behind him from the back seat.

««—»»

The dream was a proffering, a blessing…

It was a gift.

In the dream, he was vapor, an unholy ghost. Bodiless. Perfect. Spiralling down perfectly into perfect black.

But it wasn’t really a dream, he knew that. They were never really dreams…

They were summonings.

Ona. Oh, blessed flesh of Ona, he thought. I am so unworthy…

He ascended, somehow, downward.

He soared.

Bereft of the flaws of his curse, he was perfect now, the vessel of his being light as air, his wisdom heavier than all the earth.

He knew where his wisdom had come from.

The darkness smeared, soaring past. He felt terror at first—so quick was his flight. He breezed through massive stone channels pocked and blackened by the age of all of history. He wisped through crevices no more wide than a fraction of an inch.

On and on. Down and down.

Into the blessed black.

Soon the great ebon wall approached. He soared right into it—

—then through it.

Greater blackness bloomed beyond the wall. Blackness that was brighter than the sun. He could smell the sound of screams. He could taste the dense stench of burning human muscle and bone. He could smell pandemonium, a scent sweet as fresh-cut roses.

And with his ethereal eyes, he saw the field.

A field of flesh, of people. Acre upon acre, prone humans lay naked and alive, awaiting the field’s noxious attendants, its pious harvesters. And they squirmed in their wait. Screaming. Shrieking. Convulsing in spastic tremors.

Soon the harvesters arrived: squat, rough-skinned figures plodding forward into the screaming field. Above them, a blistering black moon shined, offering light to their sacred tasks. Dutifully, then, and steadfast, they began to farm the field.

With unholy tools, they plowed and tilled; great blades and hewers, twivels and trowels, rose and methodically fell to turn the hearty human soil. Skulls burst under the blows of mallets. Breasts, buttocks, and faces threshed raw. Bellies riven open by scythes which swept this way and that like clockworks, baring fresh, fertile entrails, ripe organs, and rich, fecund blood. Some of the harvesters worked barehanded, crawling along the squirming horde to punch out eyes with stub fingers, twist genitalia out of shivering groins, crack bones and unseat limbs. Hands and feet were bitten off by glassine teeth, then spat out. Talons raked throats. Palms and heels crushed bodies and heads like grapes in a wine vat.

Hard work. Eternal work.

Tending the fields of the father! he thought in utter, rushing joy.

Acres and acres, miles and miles, he continued to soar above the wondrous spectacle. Oh, how he prayed that on some great day he, too, would join the harvesters in their divine and hallowed labors.

But even eternal farmers needed reprieve. They needed sustenance. They needed recess. So at the granted time, they set aside the tools of their industry—

Such wonders!

—and began to feast.

Some took their meat raw, others preferred it cooked. Plump organs were plucked from opened abdomens as fruit might be plucked from vines. Eyeballs were swallowed whole like grapes, lungs eaten like bread loaves, intestines consumed like so much robust salad. The living dirt screamed forth. Whole heads were cooked to perfection over open flames, then prized apart and picked clean of their delectable meat. Testes were roasted on skewers, severed breasts fried crisp, uteri and placenta, fetuses and kidneys, human bowels and human hearts—all flamebroiled and lustily munched.

It was a hearty meal, and a well-earned one.

And once the reverent harvesters had sated themselves of the belly, they next proceeded to sate themselves of the groin. Demonic erections rose, to plunder every conceivable orifice, and some not so conceivable. Vaginas were routed with gusto, rectums were sodomized raw by perverse organs sunk to their hilts. Unwilling jaws were pried wide till their tendons tore—the only way the pitiful human mouths could accommodate the tumescent girth of such netherworldly members. Trowel punctures and scythe rents, too, provided fine pockets of release, and such release poured forth in copious volume, gouts of lumpen semen flooding bowels and wombs, stomachs and entrails, emptied eye sockets and cracked-open cranial vaults.

A romp indeed.

Slaked now, the field hands took up their tools and finished the dark work they’d started.

The field was tilled red. Rich, fresh blood drenched the chopped soil, the finest of fertilizers. More attendants followed behind, bearing sacks of strange seeds. The seeds were sewn liberally into the verdant, warm soil, and beneath the light of the caliginous moon, they began to spout at once. Soon stalks rose high, heavy with succulent fruit, and the fruit was then expeditiously threshed and taken away to market.

The harvest was over, only to begin again and again and again…

His vapor siphoned back, wisping fast as light through stone cracks and rabbets, back up the charnel earthworks, back from whence he came.

He didn’t want to go back; he could soar here forever, and revel in these holy sights and many more.

But I must go now, he realized.

He had his own fields to farm…

Back, back, he sailed. Back out of the hot meat of the earth, back to the lackluster terrain of his forebears, back to his wretched human vessel.

Back—

Like blood sucked up by a sponge, his flesh reclaimed his glorious vapor.

Ona. Ona. I give thanks to thee for such sights, such heralds, such righteous and holy gifts.

I live to serve thee…to the ends of the earth.

The Reverend opened his eyes.

And sighed.

««—»»

“Jesus Christ!” Phil shouted. “You scared the—”

“The shit out of you, I know. Sorry.”

Phil, in his shock, had weaved across the yellow line, then veered back over to the shoulder. When the shadow had risen from the back seat, he freaked…

But the shadow…was Vicki.

“I just—I just needed someone to talk to,” she explained. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”

Phil put the car in park on the road’s shoulder. “Yeah, fine,” he acknowledged. “But did you have to hide in the back of my friggin’ car?”

She hesitated. “Well, yeah. I guess so.”

“Why?”

She swept shining red hair off her brow. “Let’s just say I had a bad day.”

Phil gave his heart a moment to slow down—actually, several moments. “I didn’t see you in the club tonight. What, day off?”

In the rearview, he saw her glance down. “Something like that. It’s best if you don’t ask.”