I don’t believe in God.
I should; I grew up in a Christian home. Church every Sunday morning, et cetera, et cetera, but the honoration never clicked for me. The crux of my disbelief came from putting my faith in something incorporeal. Something I couldn’t see or touch. Existing because my pastor or my parents told me it did. I was a stubborn child; if I couldn’t touch it, see it, taste it, or hear it, it didn’t exist. The Sunday mornings I woke up early to spend an hour and a half in a sweltering brick building were an exercise in keeping my parents happy, not faith. I never understood what the people were singing and dancing about.
Praying for health, good fortune, protection—it never happened. They stayed in their miserable circumstances. God never helped anyone.
“No, no no—I—you—please—”
Ronnie’s squeals grew in fervor and pitch, losing what little coherence he had left. He stared past the priest, his eyes stretched so wide I thought they might burst. The splotchy, beet-red flush returned, blooming across his cheeks. A long vein pulsed in his forehead, below his hairline. He was looking at something at the farthest end of the clearing, where the mass of sheared rock swallowed the horizon behind the trees. I followed his gaze.
It poured into the light, pooling, spilling over the tree roots and pine needles. It poured from the eyes scratched into the trees, a thousand pinpoints of agony frozen in time. It poured from their lips, thick as blood.
It didn’t billow out or flatten; it moved with purpose. I couldn’t see where it started. Beyond the firelight somewhere. Almost like it came from the base of the enormous granite slab.
Smoke, black as the shadow lurking between the trees. Black enough I couldn’t see beneath it, see inside it. It moved toward the man in the leather jacket, pooled beneath his crouched form. It rose, sliding up his legs and torso.
“No—” Fat tears burned bright on Ronnie’s cheeks. Snot gleamed on his upper lip. “No, I don’t—I can’t—”
The smoke touched the skull in the priest’s hands, caressing the bleached bone. It slipped inside the deer’s gaping mouth, moving in thick strands, bulging like muscle. Gathering inside the hollow space behind the skull’s eyes.
“The Woodkin feast,” Father whispered. The dozen hands on Ronnie picked him up, held him in front of the skull. His eyes locked onto the dead leaves and dirt at his feet. He shook, head to toe.
“Please.” A sniveling, low and pathetic.
It took someone’s hand grasping Ronnie beneath the jaw to tear his vision up.
“Look.” The priest hissed a whisper, held in a moment of rapture.
The darkness oozed from the deer skull toward Ronnie’s snot- and tear-covered face, slow—too slow. It poured into him inexorably, streaming into his open mouth, his nose, the corners of his eyes. He fought against it, thrashed, choked, spat, to no effect. It forced his mouth wider, silenced the already-muffled protests in his throat.
The hunters clutching his limbs dropped him like a bad habit, backing away in a rush.
Ronnie fell to the ground, jittering and twitching like he’d touched a live wire. His mouth appeared to scream around the choking black vine pushing into his lungs, but no sound came out. His eyes stared at the sky behind his glasses, blank. I watched, as they clouded over, turning dull, gray. Lifeless.
Moving like a puppet, he rose to his knees. His movements were faltering, jerky. Smoke fell from his eyes and nostrils like thick liquid. His head swayed, bent between his shoulders. Like something filled him, weighed him down.
The night stilled. The bonfire grew silent, burning down to a dull red glow.
It started in his fingers. The first boils, red and angry, pushing against the sallow skin of his hands, little pinpricks. Then on his palms and wrists: the size of marbles, stretching beneath his skin. They moved up his arms like plague pustules, red at first, turning black. He opened his mouth in a silent scream. As if someone had pressed the mute button. Not even a hoarse whisper of breath.
The boils opened, and delicate wisps of black plumed out, hanging heavy on his limbs. The transformation wasn’t the bang-and-flash of movie visual effects; it was incremental, torturous. Ronnie’s muscles clenched and spasmed, struggling in uncoordinated agony. The shadow consumed him, grew from him, swallowed him. It covered his neck, his jawbone—it slipped into his mouth, choked him. It slid over his eyes. The man disappeared, and only the smoke remained.
Is this why people prayed for protection in church? What they prayed against?
The shadow stretched into heavy limbs, crushing the pine needles, digging deep furrows into the ground. One leg, two, three. There were also arms. Huge and only getting bigger, crowned with ingrown claws, stabbing into its own flesh. There the inked shadow congealed and grew thick, shiny. No blood fell from these self-inflicted wounds—just a scattering of dark flakes, like rust, evaporating as soon as they touched the wet earth. Already as tall as me, getting bigger, drawing strength. Its torso stretched three feet across, a mass of dark shadow around slick patches of shiny hide.
I backed away, stumbling.
A head formed, pulled out of the torso like taffy, snapping into place as the shadow cracked like bone. It didn’t solidify; it stayed indistinct, a thick, boiling mass of coiled black, like snakes writhing on top of one another.
“Feast.” Father’s voice floated from a great distance. The Woodkin fell to their knees, faces pushed into the dirt and dead leaves, groveling. In the corner of my vision I saw the woman—the one who’d turned Ronnie into a squealing pig—clutched between two hunters. Her face was every bit as white as mine felt. Her eyes were filled with terror too.
They might have been chanting, but beneath the furious beat of my own pulse in my ears, I couldn’t hear a thing. My heart sledged against my rib cage; sweat dripped down my face. I wanted to scream, wanted to run, wanted to do something . . . but I froze in place. This had nothing to do with perspective. I wasn’t dreaming or high. I couldn’t rationalize the monster that bloomed in front of my eyes.
It turned. With each movement of its nightmarish limbs, the bent-backed Woodkin surrounding it scuttled out of its way. The ball of wriggling snakes swiveled, tasting the sour air of the clearing. Its body went taut, convulsing, snapping excitedly—a malevolently abstract Picasso. I stared at the beast’s head, watching it change again. It stilled and shifted, churning into a face. A face with longish hair and round spectacles. A mockery of Ronnie Coors’s face, screaming. It pulled his face into sharp lines too clear to be anything other than utter, endless agony.
“Jesus wept,” I whispered.
It swiveled, finding me in the crowd. The dark, splintered pupils behind those glasses found mine. My bladder loosened, and everything went warm. Teeth—there were too many teeth. Long and thin, like needles, rows on rows of them packed into that dark mouth, stretching open. I heard that howl again, a high, sharp sound. It came from all around me, echoed in my head, in my very thoughts. It sounded like my mom, screaming through the fire that burned her alive.
Did I hear her? I clenched my teeth, blinking the sudden tears away. No. I was not in the house. The firefighters had taken me out of the house.
Right?
The face changed again, shedding Ronnie like a dead husk. Slim brow, pronounced cheekbones. Sharp eyes. The same face I’d taken to a first date at RN74. The same one I’d stood in front of and said I do.
I’d never seen Deb’s eyes full of so much loathing, so much disdain.
The beast exploded with a roar, crushing my eardrums and ringing me like a bell. I collapsed, clutching at my ears. I think I was screaming, but I couldn’t really tell. The world spun on its axis, a confusion of movement, light, and darkness. The shadow moved like a gale carried it, growing thin in places, evaporating.
A glimpse of Ronnie, hidden deep in the depths.
At first, I caught nothing but a pale form, hunched over, arms wrapped around his knees. He’d lost his glasses, and his dead eyes stared holes in the dirt beneath the tips of his shoes. A stream of muttered words fell from his lips. He looked small, lost. The smoke broke for a fraction of a heartbeat, and he looked up.
Straight at me.
His eyes widened. In a burst of confused motion he sprang to his feet, leaping toward me, hands outstretched. His face, cut deep with hard lines that hadn’t been there five minutes ago. Like the faces in the trees.
Help me.
I read the words on his lips but couldn’t hear him. Red marks covered his palms and fingers, angry and livid streaks like burns. The beast swelled around him and grew, tall now as the bonfire, snapping into grotesque limbs, shouldering into the charcoal sky. Ronnie disappeared, consumed by shadow again. The beast stretched toward the clouds, rising ten, fifteen feet into the air. It roared.
A pause, a hesitation. A moment, where its growth shuddered.
The snarling black hooks jutting from its hide dipped for a second. The look of enraptured zeal on Father’s face slipped. He and the priest exchanged a worried glance.
The scream clawing its way through my ears changed in pitch, became lower, more desperate. The twisting mass of black tendrils bucked, pitching to one side and then the other, thrashing. The tendrils grew smaller, shrinking, like a candle suffocating.
The shadow twisted into sharp angles, crawling into itself like burrowing maggots, shrinking. The scream built into a crescendo, so loud I was sure it would split my skull. I clapped my hands over my ears and writhed in the dirt.
It stopped.
I sagged into the pine needles. My shirt was stuck to my chest, either from rainwater or sweat, I couldn’t tell. I’d completely forgotten about the rain. I dug a finger into my ear. I could still hear a high-pitched ringing, an echo of the scream lingering far longer than was welcome. I rolled onto my side. The shadows disappeared. I squinted against the sudden glare from the bonfire, burning brighter than before.
Where the darkness failed lay a familiar body, facedown in the dirt. Blue chambray shirt, open and fluttering in the cold wind. His eyes frozen wide, his lips tight, stretched over his teeth in one last scream. Angry red weals crisscrossed the skin of his face and neck. His hands stretched outward, taut and white-knuckled around fistfuls of dirt and rock.
The smell in the air again, stronger than before. A bitter tang, like gardenias, like the aftertaste of ash. The wind rose and the scent danced past me, filling my nose and throat. I flipped over, inhaling through the pine needles. A flash of white and scarlet, lying on the ground. A pair of blank eyes, digging into mine. Two corpses for the price of one.
Appletree. I’d forgotten about him. The images came rushing back to me, picture fragments that didn’t line up. The gleam of fire on my keys, dripping blood. The commotion, yelling and screaming, and wave of panic. The wave of red liquid gushing over Appletree’s neck and chest—
Father approached the corpse of Ronnie Coors, a scowl clutched deep in his disfigured face. I backed away.
You could make a run for it. The thought came sly, cautious. No one is paying any attention to you.
That much was true. The collection of twisted faces looked around, vacillating between bewilderment and disappointment. They gathered in small groups, all tight faces and whispers. Pointing to Ronnie or Appletree. A few of them actually wept, wiping tears from their cracked cheeks.
Father stood over Ronnie’s body, hands balled into fists at his side, looking down at the dead man. The priest walked up, sidling to one side, fingers drumming an anxious pattern on one leg. He looked like he’d finished a long sprint with a sudden stop. Dirt and ash marred his cheeks, which were outlined with sweat streaks. His chest, flushed beneath the leather jacket, gleamed in the firelight.
“A thousand apologies. I thought He would—” The priest shot a surreptitious look over his shoulder at the remains of the shopkeeper.
“It’s not up to us to guess His intentions,” Father said. His voice wavered like an untuned instrument. “He has a plan. Trust Him. All of us!” He raised his arms, spinning to face his audience. His cry echoed against the low-hanging sky, pressing down, closing us in. “We must trust in the Feast, for He is our one and true savior! It is He, who will ferry our souls across the river of bones and blood yet to come! Another Feast shall arrive. Another chance, to spread His gospel.”
They hung on his every word, breathless. Nodding, mouths moving in silent agreement.
“Only He knows the truth; this world will drown in its sins and misdeeds. We, the Woodkin, the faithful, will receive the gift of eternal life for our suffering. Our hardship. Do not let your faith falter, beloved. For we are closer than we have ever been to our greatest triumph.” He looked down on them, benevolent, confident. The split-faced men and women clutched one another, some mouthing a raucous cry. Like a pack of gibbering animals, hunched around their leader.
All except one, held fast in the fists of two hunters at the edge of the firelight. Her face was pulled into a mask. She was a fraction of who she was before Ronnie broke her. But it was different, now. Now I saw what that mask covered.
“I see your struggles. I see the sacrifices you make, for the Feast. Never doubt, children; He will rise. He has a plan, and we are all . . . His glorious machinations.”
The priest jutted his head forward, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. He looked nervous, or ill; a sheen of sweat beaded on his upper lip. “The guards who were watching him failed you. They’re the ones you should punish, not I. They were the ones—”
“I’ll punish who I see fit. Quit your sniveling.” The old man cut him off, and the priest fell into immediate silence, drawing back as though Father had slapped him. The two of them stood in silence, staring at the fallen Ronnie, boring holes into the dead man’s back. They’d forgotten about me for the moment, allowing me to fade into the background. Fine with me.
The Woodkin gathered behind me, gliding silent as sharks through water, coming to stare at the fresh corpse. Still and silent masks slipped over their features as they took in the man who’d called himself Reaper.
“What went wrong, this time?” The priest leered at the body. Poor Appletree lay where he had dropped, forgotten. It could have been a trick of the light, but his body seemed much smaller, lying in the dirt by itself.
Father nudged Ronnie’s corpse with his foot, a frown pulling twin lines deep into his brow. He shook his head.
“He was too arrogant to know true fear. His fear was the fear of a small man who thought himself big. He had his uses at the beginning, but his time had long since passed. Use one of the others to take his place.”
A twitch of movement caught my eye; a member of the Woodkin, wiping his mouth with the back of a dirt- and sweat-slicked hand. He left a smudge of black loam on his chin. Beside him a woman with a swollen belly stared at the fresh corpse, unblinking. A palpable shift of the energy in the clearing, now. They gathered around Ronnie. Pressed around their Father in a semicircle inching smaller and smaller.
At first I thought it might have been a shadow, uncertain light thrown by the dimming bonfire, or my own eyes, playing tricks. On the upper arm of one of the women, standing nearer the firelight.
A tattoo. An astronaut, waving at me.
My heart stopped. I remembered that tattoo. Fluttering in the corner of a corkboard in front of the diner in Bedal. Missing Person.
Found ’em.
“What now? The time is past. We can’t try again for—” The priest squinted skyward, hunting the pale clouds for answers.
A man with teeth visible through the raw gash in his face shifted, catching a moment of light. He wore shoes. Not scavenged, torn-up tatters, but laced-up hiking boots, old but 100 percent purchased in a store. A piercing glittered from his ear.
My vision wavered and spots danced in front of my eyes. I saw one, three, half a dozen. More tattoos, more piercings.
“One more day,” Father answered. “The time will ripen again, quickly. He is close; His strength only quickens, and He has tasted blood.” For the first time in several minutes, he turned his gaze away from the corpse and looked at me.
His mutilated face split open in a huge smile—a smile too big for his face, too big for anyone’s. A double image wavered over it, a blurring distortion of reality. His mouth warped, bleeding at the corners. Bending around an impossible number of suddenly razor-sharp teeth.
“Good thing we have a spare.”
The priest uttered a single syllable and they fell on Ronnie’s body in a crazed rush, snarling and growling like animals. The sounds of skin rending and bones popping out of sockets filled my ears and made me gag. They tore at him, clawing open his skin with their bare hands, slathering his blood over split faces. His flesh tore like wet cloth, ripping to expose the bones.