Edward Lee - Creekers

Sullivan’s face turned beet-red; it was a terrifying and nearly inhuman visage. The muscles in his forearms flexed, showing puffed, dark blue veins, and his massive chest threatened to tear open the orange prison shirt. “You can’t treat me like this, ya motherfuckin’ cop! We had a deal!”

“What deal?” Phil said, and smiled like a cat.

Yes, indeed, it was fun putting the squeeze on a guy like Sullivan, but there was one problem with someone like this. They weren’t exactly stable. And Phil found this out the hard way when Sullivan, handcuffs notwithstanding, leapt up, kicked the table over, and plowed into Phil’s chest.

“Ho, boy!” Phil fell backward in his chair. Sullivan was all over him, snapping his cuffs as he grabbed for Phil’s throat. Never mess with mad dogs, he remembered his aunt telling him once. ’cos you’ll only make ’em madder, and they’ll git ya. Well, this mad dog was definitely gittin’ him; Phil thrashed under Sullivan’s dense muscled weight. “Guard!” he yelled, but by then Sullivan already had his throat, and the sound that came out was little more than a loud rasp.

“So ya like fuckin’ with people, huh, bub?” Sullivan inquired, wringing Phil’s neck like a sponge. “Let’s see how ya like this!”

Through warped vertigo, Phil noticed that his opponent’s face more resembled some sort of a kid’s devil mask. The other night had been different; Sullivan had been half-asleep, and Phil had enjoyed the element of surprise—not to mention the coffee table—but now the guy was so wired-up mad Phil couldn’t even get a punch in.

Whap! whap! he heard just when he thought his neck would break.

The weight lifted. Phil squinted up to see two county detention officers dragging Sullivan off. A third officer calmly resheathed his nightstick. “You all right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Phil said and clumsily rose to his feet. Meanwhile, the other two guards had Sullivan face-first against the wall and were recuffing his hands behind his back. “Put a collar on that guy,” Phil said. “Don’t let him get out of the yard.”

“This punk’s been nothing but trouble since the minute he got his ass thrown in here,” the guard remarked. “Say, you’re bleeding a little. You want to go to the infirmary?”

“Naw,” Phil said, wiping a handkerchief at a small cut on his lip. “Sorry about the hassle. How’d I know he was gonna go berserk?”

“Happens all the time.”

Phil walked up to Sullivan, who was now chicken-winged in front of the other two guards. “Think about it, Paulie. You got no one else to play ball with.”

“Go ahead and take a shot if ya want,” one of the detention officers said. “What’s funny about us prison guards is we got really bad vision.”

“No, I think I’ve fucked with him enough today. You can take Mr. Sullivan back to his suite now.”

“You fuckin’ cops are all alike,” Sullivan growled as the guards tugged at him. “One day I’m gonna bust your head.”

“Paul, by the time you get out of here, you’ll be so old you won’t be able to bust an egg. I’ll let you sit a few more days in general pop, then maybe I’ll come back and see if you’re ready to have another chat.”

««—»»

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mullins asked, gawking from behind his desk. “Last night you get in a shootout and wind up killing six Creekers, and today you’re getting your ass kicked by prisoners.”

“Not kicked,” Phil corrected. “Royally kicked. The guy went bonkers. I was playing with him, sure, and not exactly telling the truth about some things, but he went schizo on me. Took three screws to pull him off.”

“And the fucker didn’t give you the loke on Natter’s lab?”

“Nope. He gave me everything but. I already called the county tac team; they’ll be checking out that other lab. But as far as Natter goes, I struck out.”

“He’ll never spin on Natter,” Mullins said. “If he does, he knows Natter’s people will be waiting for him the second he walks out of the pokey. And he knows what they’ll do. These other guys—they’re lightweights, and guys like Sullivan ain’t afraid of lightweights. But Natter and his Creekers?”

“Different story,” Phil agreed. “You’re right. I didn’t even think that that could be the reason he squealed on his own outfit but not Natter’s.”

Mullins scanned Phil’s notes which he’d uncrumpled before he’d left the lockup. “Good work. I can’t wait for the county to bust this new lab.”

“Natter’ll probably be pretty happy about it, too,” Phil observed. “There goes his competition. But we still gotta get him.” Oh, yes, he thought. It was personal now, or perhaps it had always been. All he had to do was remember what Natter had done to Vicki, not to mention having Eagle killed. And then there’s always me, he reminded himself. Only now was he fully realizing how close he’d come to getting killed last night.

“Sullivan said something weird,” he pointed out next. “I asked him if he knew what those words meant—”

“What words?” Mullins asked, replenishing his bloated jowl with chewing tobacco.

“Those weird words the Creeker kid said just before I blew him away. Sullivan didn’t know what they meant, but he did know they were Creeker words. ‘Creeker talk’ he called it.”

“Just proves Sullivan knows more about Natter’s people than he’s letting on.”

“Yeah, I know. But he said something else, too. He said that the Creekers were cannibals.”

“Wives’ tales,” Mullins suggested. “I been hearin’ shit like that since I was a kid. It’s stuff our daddies dreamed up to keep us in line. ‘You don’t shut up and go to sleep, the Creekers’ll come and get ya.’”

“Yeah, sure, local legends and all that. I remember some of those stories, too. But Sullivan said one more thing that was pretty specific. He said the Creekers have their own religion.”

Mullins expectorated into his cup. “Oh, you mean they ain’t Catholic?” he attempted to joke.

Phil gazed blankly out the window. It was getting dark now, the smudged panes filling up with twilight. Their own religion, he recited. In the black sky, stars shone like swirls of crushed gemstones.

I wonder what it is they worship.

««—»»

“Ona,” the Reverend voiced to himself.

His voice was a black chasm, incalculable, endless like the night. The Reverend wore raiments just as black. Just as incalculable…

The shadow stirred in the corner. The Reverend could feel the miraculous heat, could smell the exalted stench.

Oh, how long we’ve waited, his thoughts wept in joy.

Ages.

No, a hundred ages.

He thought of things then, beautiful things. He thought of the recompense of all the truth of history. Of a time when the slaves would be freed of their fetters, when they would be praised instead of reviled, glorified instead of cursed. He thought of a time when he too would walk with his brethren through the holiest dark channelworks, amid the savory smoke of burning human fat and steaming blood, to gladly pay homage, and to eat, a time when he too, and all of them, would pull the flesh off the bones of the faithless, sink deft fingers into their wide open eyes, and strip their skulls of their pitiable faces. Their screams would ring out like the sweetest madrigals. They would inhale their blood and scarf their unchaste flesh forever and ever.

Yes, the Reverend thought of the most wondrous things.

Ona…

The Reverend bowed, then fell to his knees, his arms red with blood to the elbows.

Soon, your time will be upon us.

And from the stygian dark, his god looked back at him and smiled.

— | — | —

Twenty-Seven