Curtis entered the Grand Salon wearing the provided workman’s coveralls. He felt ridiculous and his hair was still wet. He had used his time in the shower to think and now he was angry again.
What if he hadn’t come over this evening? Would he have become some sort of mindless drone like Laboria and Mitts-for-Hands? Did he owe these people his life or was he justifiably angry that they deliberately put his life in danger for the sake of their vendetta? Was he being selfish and forgetting what had happened to the De Gaizas and God knew whom else?
All of these questions occupied Curtis until he crossed the threshold of the Grand Salon. All of them were dressed like he was. The Turners were sharpening something in the corner. Sonny and Jahn were studying blueprints on one of the tables.
Miguel and Sophie were on opposite ends of the space. Miguel appeared to be praying and Sophie was stuffing a duffle bag. Sonny was injecting herself with something.
“I have some questions,” Curtis said.
Sonny and Jahn looked up as if a child had interrupted the adult’s conversation.
“Of course you do,” said Turner Alpha.
“I told him what I could in the way I could. Why do you have to be such a…?” Beta Turner stopped and looked around sheepishly.
“Ask my friend. We will be forthright.” Spoke Miguel. His face had taken on a serenity that perfectly supplemented his eloquent manor speech.
“As novel as that would be,” Curtis said, still angry. “First of all, how many times have I been here?”
Sonny looked puzzled, “Curtis you have been here every Sunday for over a month, so five or six times,”
Curtis was stunned. He had no recollection of ever being at the brownstone other than that first visit and now this one. “What are you injecting yourself with?” Curtis asked.
“It’s the same thing we’ve been giving you these past weeks, an immunization of sorts,” Sonny said.
“You think it’s some sort of disease?” Curtis asked.
“Not a disease as much as a virus or pathogen. Either way the formula offers some protection,” Sophie said.
“Some?” Curtis asked.
“Some,” Miguel said.
“How is it you people knew these things were in the area?” Curtis asked.
“We didn’t,” said Alpha Turner.
“Then how…?” Curtis stopped. Any decent hunter knows to set many traps, Curtis thought. “How many properties like this do you people own?”
“One, you really need to quit using the term ‘you people’ and two, our organization owns over one million homes between the U.S., UK, Italy, and South America,” said Sonny.
“Just the six of you?” Curtis asked incredulously.
“As I explained, Keeper had lots of children, and those children all had lots of children,” said Beta Turner.
“You’ll forgive us if we are not willing to divulge our specific numbers and locations,” said Jahn.
“No you smug bastard! I do not forgive you! YOU PEOPLE nearly got me killed! YOU PEOPLE may have already allowed an entire family to be slaughtered like cattle! I do not forgive any of you!” Curtis was breathing heavily.
“Our issue isn’t that we don’t owe you our trust, our issue is that you may not be yourself,” said Sonny.
“You will have to explain that,” said Curtis as he calmed himself.
“The antioxidant/antitoxin got rid of the creature but you have been under their influence for some time, weeks possibly. As far as any of us know from the very beginning. What you have been eating combined with the pheromones means you may fall back under his ‘influence’ – to a limited degree – if you were to come in contact with them again,” explained Jahn.
“You have been giving me that stuff for a month,” Curtis stated more than asked. “He knows you’re coming,” Curtis said. Not really to anyone in particular. “I don’t know what I may have told him,”
“It doesn’t matter, you can identify it, that means we can kill it,” Jahn said.
“Which unit is he in?!” asked Sonny.
“That’s the thing. He’s not a tenant. He lives in that property right next to yours. He calls himself Tanner or Tanár” said Curtis.
“Oh my god!” said Sophie.
Everyone asked in unison “What?”
“Tanár is professor in Hungarian,” Sophie said.
“That’s impossible! How could he know…?” Sonny stopped.
“He probably didn’t,” boomed a brusque voice from the couch. The couch was facing away from Curtis and most of the room. The speaker was obviously lying down thus invisible from where Curtis stood.
Curtis could make out a pair of hiking boots hanging off of one end and the top of a man’s head at the other. That’s impossible, thought Curtis, the guy would have to be close to seven feet tall. The way his voice carried was more like a subdued growl or roar.
“Who are you?” Curtis asked the couch. He was really just about done with surprises.
The giant man stood up. He was wearing safari pants and a matching jacket. He had a whip curled on his hip Indiana Jones style and a bandolier across his chest loaded with small darts. He towered over even Jahn. His chest and shoulders looked five feet wide to Curtis. Even though his smile was friendly his eyes had the look of a predator, a hunter. Someone who had survived by assessing every person and situation he encountered. The man looked like a psychotic Theodore Roosevelt. Curtis took half a step backwards.
The man locked eyes with Curtis, extended a massive paw-like hand and said, “I’m a Specialist,”
“Curtis,” was all Curtis could come up with as his hand was engulfed.
“Sorry to put you through so much my boy. Your recent troubles have been mostly the result of my meddling,” The Specialist continued.
“Come again?” asked Curtis.
“We…the Keepers, have had need in the past to work with…” Sonny struggled for phrasing.
“For tonight’s activities, I’m your ally and stalwart companion,” boomed The Specialist.
Curtis did not like the way this man smiled, or smelled for that matter. It was too close to an animal scent.
“I would like you to elaborate on your theory that this thing knows were coming and possibly who they are,” instructed The Specialist.
“He asked me about my little group of friends. He asked me if I called myself the Lord of Land.” Curtis fought through the fog of memory. Remembering a dream was difficult under the best of circumstances and these circumstances were not those.
“Yes,” said The Specialist thoughtfully “He probably didn’t know. Well, it appears that you Reapers have underestimated our quarry.”
“Could someone fill me in?” Curtis asked.
“We have a number of properties,” Said Sophie.
“I got that part…” Curtis thought for a minute and then the anger returned. “You ass-holes have been using your properties as…traps,”
“Don’t be too hard on them young man. It was my plan,” said The Specialist who had returned to lounging on the couch. “Apparently our quarry had a similar idea but in reverse. All he had to do was find a property you folks might be interested in and wait for you to fill it with food,” The Specialist chuckled.
“But you peo…you Reapers can’t be this callous toward human life,” Curtis almost pleaded.
“We do what we do in order to save the lives of countless others,” Beta Turner said.
“So the De Gaizas…they died for the greater good?” Curtis asked.
“If the De Gaiza’s are dead, yes, they died for the greater good,” said The Specialist in a very nonchalant tone.
Curtis definitely didn’t like this man. He looked around the room at the faces of these self-appointed vigilantes. Monster hunters or not, and the greater good aside, they could not use people as bait.
“Sorry to disappoint,” said Sonny. “But we have a task, a task that’s bigger and older than all of us. It’s an obligation we have dedicated our lives to and have made many sacrifices to fulfill,”
“Who knows? They could still be alive, though probably not for long,” said the couch.
It had taken one hour to get prepped and loaded into the two black Suburbans. Miguel lead the convoy on an off-road Ducati motorcycle.
As they rolled along Curtis began to have doubts. To be more accurate he began to regret this whole idea.
“You just plan to go in guns blazing, huh?” Curtis asked The Specialist who was sitting in the back with him and taking up two-thirds of the seat.
The Specialist turned from staring out of the window to look at Curtis. It was snowing outside and God only knew what The Specialist may have been thinking. Curtis immediately realized he had asked the wrong person.
“No guns,” The Specialist said surprising Curtis. “No guns mean no ricochets, no stray bullets, and most of all, no noise. I mean, it’s a residential area for God’s sake, people are trying to sleep,” The Specialist found this funny.
“The one with the big hands is as strong as an ox and the other one is…” Curtis sighed looking to The Specialist for a response.
The Specialist had returned to watching the snow.
“This weather,” The Specialist said, “makes you want to get out and run instead of ride doesn’t it?” he laughed. No one else did and Curtis saw the Turners exchange a look as The Specialist entertained himself.
“Well? Does one of you Mary’s want to give this guy some fire power?” The Specialist asked and chuckled.
Alpha Turner spun around and nearly came over his seat at The Specialist. He was holding a straight razor. Beta Turner stopped him just out of striking distance by grabbing the collar of his coveralls. The seat belts made movement difficult but Alpha Tanner was determined. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared a little otherwise The Specialist didn’t move. As a matter of fact to Curtis’s astonishment The Specialist became even more still than when he was absentmindedly staring out of the window.
“I’ll cut your tongue out for that you son-of-a-bitch!” screamed Turner Alpha.
“No! Stop! He’s toying with you! He’ll kill you!” Turner Beta was screaming.
Curtis had a moment of realization. The Turners weren’t siblings. They were Mr. and Mr. Turner.
“Shut the fuck up back there!” Sonny screamed.
Alpha Turner stayed half hanging over the second row of seats his eyes locked with The Specialist’s. Alpha Turner’s arm was drawn back as if to make one fatal slash and Beta Turner was hanging on to that same arm for all he was worth.
Alpha Turner relaxed a little. Then turned and slumped down into the seat. Beta Turner put an arm around him and glared back over the seat at The Specialist.
“When will we have a shot like this again?” Sonny said aloud but not to anyone in particular.
Sonny’s question seemed to dissipate some of the nervous energy that had accumulated in the vehicle. Beta Turner reached down and pulled a duffle bag from the floor. Jahn had been conspicuously quiet during all of this.
“Here,” he said and handed Curtis a contraption he couldn’t quite understand.
Curtis was too stunned to reach for the device at that moment.
“Look alive, young man. Salvation is within your grasp,” The Specialist said and returned to staring out of the window.
It was a paint-ball gun.
“It’s not a paint-ball gun by any standard definition,” said Beta Turner. “The average paint-ball gun fires pellets at a speed three-hundred feet per second and fires approximately eleven shots per second. This…”
“What?!” Curtis’s outburst was more about the accumulated tension than his shock at being handed a child’s toy.
The Specialist put a massive hand on Curtis’s shoulder and he flinched.
“This is not a toy. If you hit one of them they will be down for a while and a head shot will usually kill them,” The Specialist said.
“This is not going to work on these things,” Curtis sighed and looked down at what looked to him like a lab-rats bong.
“These guns fire seventeen shots per second at five-hundred seventy-five feet per second.” Turner explained.
“Will this put a hole in them?” Curtis asked.
“Sorry, I forget things sometimes,” Beta Turner looked sheepish for a moment. “The pellets have a frangulating porcelain shell, inside is a mix of ammonia, salt water, and nicotine,”
“So the pellets hit, shatter, and they get doused with saltwater and ammonia, what’s the nicotine for?” Curtis asked.
“It’s a transdermal. It allows whatever is mixed with it to pass through the skin just like a smoker’s patch,” The Specialist finished for him.
“We also make these with silver sulfadiazine if you ever want some,” Beta Turner said to Curtis as he looked at The Specialist.
The Specialist just chuckled but the laugh didn’t sound sincere.
The Suburbans stopped one mile from the property. They had exited IH-35 and were parked in a beat up strip mall parking lot. Hutt’s Hamburgers shared the same lot and two parked vehicles didn’t look suspicious.
“Why are we at Hutt’s?” Curtis asked looking at the paint-ball gun as if it were loaded with Ebola virus.
“Miguel is scouting ahead,” said Sonny.
“Is there anything else anyone wants to tell me beforehand?” Curtis asked.
“You may feel slightly stronger or more alert. The solution you’ve been drinking on Sunday has certain properties that may enhance some of your natural physical abilities,” Jahn contributed.
“Ok,” said Curtis, feeling stumped again. That would explain how Beta Turner had lifted the crossbar from the dungeon door, Curtis considered.
A few minutes later the Bluetooth system chimed on and Miguel’s voice came through.
“Long Scythe to Gardner, copy?” announced Miguel.
“This is Gardner,” Sonny said into the dash-mounted system.
“Party looks to be in full swing,” said Miguel.
“Copy that. Get safe and stand by,” replied Sonny.
All at once everyone began searching through his or her respective duffel bags. It wasn’t a panicked search but an orderly preparation.
Curtis thought this was stupid. A whole family is being held hostage in the basement of some guy’s house. He was sitting here in the parking lot of a burger place with a paint-ball gun, a homophobic sociopath, jacked up on super-soldier serum, and these people were using code names. Code names!
“Sonny, please call the cops,” Curtis said. He realized that had it not been for that thing that had come out of him combined with his dreams/memories he wouldn’t have believed any of this.
“The police will send a two-man patrol unit. Those two will go to the door and get invited in to ‘look around’. It will be an hour before their precinct realizes they haven’t called in. Then it will be too late for those cops, the De Gaiza’s and anyone else on the menu,” said Jahn.
Curtis should have thought of that. He wondered how they had learned that lesson. Probably the hard way, he thought. These people may be zealots but they weren’t idiots.
Beta Turner handed Curtis a pair of gloves and some goggles.
Curtis looked at The Specialist. The Specialist wanted to cause mayhem. He wanted to hunt and kill something. Curtis knew instinctively that this man was not here to help anyone. He was either motivated by the excitement, some type of animal blood-lust or…
“Are you getting paid for this?” Curtis blurted without thinking.
“Quite handsomely,” The Specialist responded.
“Gardner you copy?” asked Miguel’s voice through the Bluetooth system.
“Gardner here,” Sonny replied.
“We have complications, it looks like every kid in the neighborhood is standing lookout in the yard and the adults are inside,” said Miguel’s voice.
“What’s their strength?” asked The Specialist.
“You mean how many innocent children are surrounding the monsters house?” asked Sonny.
“Given the amount of exposure they’ve all had. I wouldn’t worry about innocent parties,” The Specialist responded.
Sonny paused for a moment and considered the validity of the question.
“Long Scythe do you have a head-count?” Sonny asked.
“Close to thirty,” Curtis accidentally said aloud. He remembered the weirdness at the park that day.
“Approximately thirty children but no idea how many adults are inside,” Miguel confirmed.
“Long Scythe, return to Nursery. Change of plans. Copy?” she said.
Silence.
“Long Scythe do you copy?” Sonny repeated.
Silence.
Sophie had driven the other Suburban and as Sophie tore out of the parking lot with her tires squealing Curtis realized that she must have been listening in on the conversation.
“Shit!” said Alpha Turner.
Jahn engaged the engine and sped out of the parking lot after her. The two vehicles rounded the corner at almost fifty miles per hour. The tires squealed as Curtis was thrown against The Specialist. It felt as if he had run into a wall. The Specialist just chuckled. Before Curtis could reach the ‘oh shit’ handle mounted above his door Sophie had the vehicle on a strait path again heading into the cul-de-sac.
Sophie was picking up speed.
“Christ! What is she planning to do?” asked Beta Turner.
When the wheels of Sophie’s Suburban hit the curb in front of Tanár’s house, the front end lifted almost a foot in the air. She ground the mailbox down to a stump and was just yards away from the dilapidated wood porch when she spun the vehicle so that the rear was aligned with the front door.
Sophie’s vehicle was silent for a moment and Jahn screeched to a halt on the street.
People began pouring out of the house. Some were screaming, some laughing hysterically, others milled around calmly and just chewed. The hands and arms of all of them were drenched in blood. It was a scene from the nightmare of a madman.
The Specialist was in the yard hurling the tiny darts at anything that moved. When the darts struck home they adhered to the skin and instantly injected the toxin. As the creatures tried to pry the darts loose a burst of concentrated ammonia sprayed in all directions.
Curtis stepped out of the Suburban onto the curb as the rear hatch of Sophie’s Suburban flew open. From the rear of Sophie’s vehicle, twin pressurized bursts of liquid hit the crowd exiting the house and a compressors motor hammered away in the background. The solution that Sophie was saturating the creatures with was even more potent than The Specialist’s darts. The screams coming from the porch made Curtis cringe. The creatures on the porch that were in front tried to force their way back through the door which had now become a chokepoint as those inside tried to exit.
Curtis could hear Sophie cursing in Spanish above the den. Jahn and Sonny were standing on the hood of Sophie’s Suburban now. They stood back to back and rained a steady volley of the little ceramic balls into the throng.
The element of surprise was gone. The crowd of enraged people, adults and children alike were working to rock the Suburban back and forth.
Curtis knew this couldn’t last. He took the opportunity to grab his paintball gun from the Suburban. In the chaos he had forgotten it. Watching Jahn and Sonny mow down his neighbors with such efficiency had earned the device a new level of respect in Curtis’s mind.
He found a handful of The Specialist’s darts and took them also.
Curtis ran passed the chaos and toward his unit. He ran through the back yard, jumped, and grabbed the lower part of the fence. He hurled himself over and was in Tanners back yard in one fluid motion. Enhanced physical abilities, Curtis mused.
The ground was soft. He could smell the freshly turned earth and that helped keep his footsteps quiet. This must be another of those enhancements, Curtis thought. Although he probably could have been blasting ‘Mississippi Queen’ and no one would have noticed, Curtis considered. As he approached the back door the smell changed. It wasn’t earthy but coppery. Curtis had been hunting only once in his life but he would never forget the smell of blood in quantity.
The blow came from directly above him. It was as if someone had struck him full force with a rubber mallet. The blow didn’t cave in his skull but he felt the whiplash-like sensation in his neck. His knees buckled, he saw the dark earth rushing up to meet his face. He managed to intercept his fall with his forearm. With his other hand he tried to bring the paintball gun around.
He had slung the gun’s shoulder strap over his head and one arm when he climbed the fence. Now it was an impediment. The strap wouldn’t let him bring the gun around to get a shot and he was too disoriented to stand.
“Hello Lord of Land,” said a syrupy voice.
Fuck! Mitts-for-Hands! Curtis thought. She walked around to squat in front of him.
She grabbed Curtis by the throat and lifted him to his feet. Curtis was blacking out. He saw little tracers in his eyes like a thousand shooting stars all moving in curling ‘S’ patterns. Curtis grabbed at her wrist with his left hand. She held his other hand that was still clutching the paint ball gun.
She looked into his eyes and held his gaze for just a moment but it felt like an eternity to Curtis. She drew him in closer lifting him a few inches from the ground.
Curtis felt the sharp pang of hunger and the smell of blood was making his mouth water. This is wrong! He thought. Why was he reacting this way…pheromones! Curtis let go of her wrist and slowly took three darts from his pocket.
“I see you no longer bear the essence of us. Did your stupid friends do that? That was a foolish thing to do, getting rid of it. If you had…”
Curtis thrust the darts into her open mouth. He barely withdrew his hand before the rows of serrated teeth snapped together. Mitts-for-Hands bit down too late to maim Curtis but the force of the bite was enough to burst all of the darts.
She dropped Curtis, gagged and coughed then staggered backwards clutching her throat. Curtis fell to his knees but this time he was ready. As Mitts-for-Hands opened her mouth to cough Curtis could see three rows of sharp teeth. She stood back up and took a few steps before her hair fell off.
Curtis realized that it was a wig but it startled him nonetheless. She fell to her knees in front of him and the moon reflected off of her scaly pate. Any thoughts Curtis had entertained about the creatures being human dissipated.
With one hand clutching at her throat she gnashed her teeth and made a last grab at Curtis with her free hand. Curtis fired seventeen porcelain pellets into her mouth then kicked her in the chin snapping her head backwards. She fell backwards staring blankly at the cold night sky.
Curtis approached the house and climbed the steps of the back porch. He was still aching from the ambush and was hyper alert to anything that looked out of place. He heard a window break above him. The tin roof of the porch obstructed his view but he heard something heavy land and then he saw it roll off and into the yard. It was a child. It landed a few feet on the other side of Mitts-for-Hands body.
The child couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. It rolled around on the ground and stood up. The child turned around and was eye-to-eye with the corpse of Mitts-for-Hands.
For just a moment the child frozen in shock. Then it began one of those long wails that children do before leading up to outright bawling. It opened its mouth to inhale and Curtis fired. His shot went wide and stung the child on the cheek. Then the child began to scream in earnest. The scream didn’t last long and the child soon dropped unconscious to the ground.
Curtis opted to focus on what he had set out to do and rescue the De Gaizas – if they were still alive. He opened the back door and although he could hear the muffled sounds of the melee from outside, seeing it was an entirely different form of sensory assault.
The first thing he noticed was that there was a small anteroom between the back door and the main parlor. What many would refer to as a mudroom. Curtis stepped inside quietly to get a better view of the main dining room. The second thing he noticed was that both Alpha and Beta Turner appeared to be rising out of the floor in the center of the room, only the upper half of their torsos visible. Both were releasing precision bursts of paintballs into the group.
Then the final element of the tableau fell into place. On the dining table, in the center of the room, on his back and spread-eagle was Miguel. One of his eyes was swollen shut. His hands and feet were tied with ropes to the four legs of the table. One arm was tied at the bicep and the flesh between his elbow and wrist appeared to have been peeled away and some of the muscle tissue had been chewed on.
Fortunately, Miguel was unconscious. Curtis hoped that he wasn’t dead. Sophie was astride him. She had a massive tank - full of what was probably the same solution as the paint balls – strapped to her back and she was soaking everything within range. When the first wave of attackers would fall back screaming in pain, another uninjured group would charge. When that group fell back, the remainder of the prior group would charge again. It seemed endless.
The effect of the solution on the ghouls was horrendous. Curtis couldn’t understand how they could all be infected or so far gone. Then he reminded himself that he really only had a vague memory of anything that had happened during the past month of his life.
The ghoul’s skin snapped and sizzled like bacon and a green miasma filled the room as a result of the chemical burns. Curtis watched as the injured literally tore the damaged skin from their bodies and continued to advance. The fog created by the corrosive agents only increased as Sophie saturated every surface she could with the powerful solution.
Sophie was crying and still screaming curses in Spanish. Her hair was going in all directions and she had the look of a caged animal. She had long since passed the point of being a zealot on a mission. She didn’t care if she died and intended to take as many of those things with her as possible. She was rage incarnate.
There was a crash from above as the ceiling fell in crushing three of the creatures. Three men fell in a clump and became a writhing mass of white plaster and muscle. The Specialist had the whip around the throat of Tanár. Tanár’s eyes had become opalescent and he struggled to remove the whip. Behind The Specialist, a man with a mangled face was screaming and stabbing The Specialist repeatedly. The Specialist didn’t seem to notice the stabbing or the screaming.
The remaining children continued to surge toward the table and the upper torsos of the Turners tripping and stumbling over the corpses of their neighbors as they did. Accompanied by their respective parents, aunts, uncles, guardians and grandparents the children formed a living phalanx of bloodlust while making unintelligible guttural noises. The only thing comprehensible about the sounds they made was that they were hungry, angry and they were frustrated. Curtis sensed that whatever was supposed to happen here tonight had been prevented. Which meant the De Gaizas might still be alive. He stopped himself from hoping.
The space was getting smaller as the surge of bodies continued. Curtis dropped down to one knee and opened fire on the man stabbing The Specialist. He and Tanár were clearly more resistant to the solution than the others. The man with the mangled face finally took notice of Curtis.
His face was contorted and covered with the same metallic looking scales as Mitts-for-Hands and Tanár. It had the same multiple rows of teeth but he also had pronounced canines in his bottom jaw that stood out like an English Bulldog. It roared in Curtis’s direction and half of the group that was moving toward the table stopped and turned toward Curtis. They moved as one, arms extended mouths and hands covered in blood. Curtis took the opportunity to put one last burst into the mouth of the man with the mangled face – Curtis knew the man was Ghoulish John.
Curtis was running low on pellets and CO2. He realized that the Turners were standing halfway out of a cellar. Alpha Turner was making every stroke count with his straight razor and Beta Turner was bludgeoning the ones he could with his paint pall gun but it was aluminum and only served as a minor annoyance.
Sophie was almost out of fluid. Sonny and Jahn…Shit! Curtis hadn’t seen either of them since he had left the front yard. He began to regret having abandoned them to go on this fool’s errand. He began to lapse into hopelessness.
From the hole in the ceiling made by the brawling trio a steady rain of an ammonia began to cover everyone in the room. It was Jahn and Sonny. They had somehow made it to the second floor with a hose connected to the pump in the rear of Sophie’s Suburban.
Curtis felt a weight on his back. An older child or small woman was on him screaming as if she were on fire and pounding Curtis with her fists. Curtis launched himself forward like a sprinter and dove headfirst into the deluge from the ceiling. Sonny saw his dilemma and – for a moment - focused the torrent on his attacker. The creature squealed, fell off of Curtis and landed on the pile of stinking bodies.
Curtis felt a blow on the side of his head. White granulated powder exploded around him and his eyes burned. Jahn dropped through the hole in the ceiling and was now standing where the trio had fallen. Jahn was wielding what looked like a t-shirt cannon and launching compacted packages of salt wrapped in cellophane. He stood atop a pile of bodies and laid down a steady barrage. One of those ’salt grenades’ had struck Curtis in the head. Curtis lurched right and left as his eyes burned and his skin tingled. The goggles and coveralls could only offer so much protection, the transdermal affected humans too.
The floor was covered with a thick layer of blood, salt water, ammonia, and dissolving corpses. The coating made Curtis’s feet stick and slide at intervals. He heard Sophie screaming but her voice had become raspy. She was exhausted. Curtis’s nostrils burned but the ammonia put the stench of the corroded corpses in perspective.
Then the fight was over. Curtis dropped to his knees. He had never been more appreciative of silence in his life.
Smoldering corpses lay everywhere in heaps liquefying where they lay. Some were still moaning but The Specialist was dispatching those with speed.
Curtis was nauseous. He saw images of all those children with their eyes frozen open in panic and rage. Someone opened a window. Then everyone was opening windows. No one spoke. Curtis noticed the time was a little after four a.m.
It would be dawn in less than two hours.
“You earned your pay Specialist,” said Sonny as she looked down at Tanár’s corpse.
“Someone help me,” instructed Sophie. She was cutting Miguel loose.
Alpha Turner heaved himself the rest of the way out of the cellar. He reached back and helped Beta Turner climb out. Beta Turner simply slumped there with his legs hanging over the edge of the open trap door. He pulled a flashlight from a pocket of his coveralls, ignited it and pointed it down the hole.
“Que es seguro salir ahora" he said in Spanish.
Curtis looked but feared to hope as one by one nine members of the De Gaiza family emerged. They coughed and the younger ones began to wretch from either the ammonia or the site of all the carnage.
Curtis stepped forward to assist but when the De Gaizas saw him they all began to scream. The older ones grabbed up the young and made for the door at the opposite end of the dining room.
Beta Turner went after them shouting in Spanish.
“It’s likely that the last time they saw you you were under the control of Tanár,” Sonny comforted. “Don’t worry about it.”
Curtis was crushed and angry and frustrated. He kicked Tanár’s corpse only to find he barely left a mark on the reptilian hide. Curtis studied the corpse more closely.
Tanár had changed during the struggle. It was as if he had shed an outer shell. The body lay there with its teeth clenched. Curtis was sure it had also had the multiple rows of teeth. The area around the mouth was distended and the head looked more like a leathery egg mounted on a tree stump. It was disgusting and the stench in the room was overpowering despite the open windows.
Alpha and Beta Turner were under each of Miguel’s arms. Curtis thought back ten hours ago to when he was being moved about in the same fashion. Then another smell came to Curtis.
“What is that smell?” asked Curtis.
“An accelerant,” said Sonny. She was heading upstairs. Sophie was following the Turners and Miguel toward the front of the house. Jahn was going over the bodies as if he were searching.
“We have a problem.” Jahn said without stopping his scrutiny of the bodies. “One sister is outside, Tanár is here, where is John and…”
He was cut off mid-sentence as his feet were swept out from under him. Laboria was standing half-way out of the trap door. She had a grip on one of Jahn’s ankles and was pulling him toward her. He tried to roll over and kick at her head but couldn’t do her any real damage. Curtis was down on his knee again and firing his last pellets at the exposed upper half of her body.
Sophie had disconnected the tanks from their harness, opened up the containers and poured what remained of the contents directly onto the head of the creature. The creature threw its head back and opened its mouth. It sounded like a diesel engine being revved to high. Jahn placed the barrel of his ‘salt grenade’ launcher in her mouth and fired.
For the first time Curtis noticed the width of her mouth. It was almost as if its head was able to split in half. The multiple rows of teeth created an image of a leathery cracked egg with serrated edges.
Alpha Turner struggled to remove the grasping hand from Jahn’s ankle. The hand had the telltale leathery scales and was slicked with blood and dissolving skin. It took Curtis and Alpha Turner together to pry the fingers free.
Jahn stood up and looked around.
“We are still missing one,” he said as if nothing had happened.
“I have a truck nearby,” boomed The Specialist. He had a grin like a man using opiates. His movements and manner of speech were sharp however. Curtis realized he was euphoric.
“Yes, release your hounds,” Sonny said from the stairway.
The Specialist pulled out his phone and left the room. Curtis looked at her quizzically but didn’t give voice to his question.
“Sometimes you have to use evil to fight evil,” said Sophie. “Let’s go. Five minutes Gardner!” she shouted up the stairs.
“Copy that,” came Sonny’s voice.
Everyone made his or her way toward the door at the opposite end of the dining room.
Curtis decided to follow Sonny upstairs. He stopped at the top and stood in the hallway for a moment. He heard her shuffling around in a room at the far end of the hall.
“Sonny we don’t have time for you to…” Curtis was speaking before he entered the room. Then he saw Ghoulish John. He had Sonny by the throat and was holding her against a wall. Her feet weren’t touching the ground. She was kicking furiously at him.
Ghoulish John turned to face Curtis as he entered the room.
He too seemed to be transformed. More reptilian, more primal his face protruded into something more snout-like. He snarled at Curtis. The fingers of one hand had were fused together into the shape of a trowel made of bone and gristle.
“Well Lord of Land. We finally have a chance to speak,” Ghoulish John hiss-grunted.
Curtis thought furiously. Everyone was outside, Miguel needed medical attention. Odds were they wouldn’t set the place on fire with Sonny and himself still inside but…
“Nothing to say? When you sat at my fathers table all those weeks you had plenty to say, between bites of course,” it snuffled or laughed Curtis couldn’t tell. “Now you have destroyed my family and left me with nothing. What do you have for me to take? Perhaps this high-yellow piece of ass you’ve been going on about? Let me ask you something. Do you think you have stopped us? We are legion. But you know what the quintessential difference between humans and us is? We don’t consume more than we need. We strive for balance. In truth, we serve a valuable purpose, we cull the herd,”
Sonny’s resistance was decreasing. Curtis could tell she was close to blacking out.
“We are the more highly evolved. Why should we hide in the dark?” Ghoulish John continued “We seek peaceful coexistence with your kind,” he seemed to be changing again. His eyes were narrowing and turning a milky color. He swiveled his jaw around on its hinges. Small tusks began to protrude from the bottom set of teeth just as they had on Tanár.
“If you and your little cabal had any sense of the natural order of things you would simply let us be. What are a few illegals more or less anyway?” Ghoulish John asked.
Curtis had left his empty paint-ball gun downstairs. He considered rushing the creature. But then what? The thing could brush him aside as easily as Curtis could cuff a child into submission.
“Your father died decades ago,” Curtis said and took a step toward Ghoulish John. “You let your brother be lynched,” another step. “You are not the more highly evolved. All you are is a well-trained draught animal and a traitor to your species,” another step. “But there was one thing I have been meaning to say,” Curtis was within arm’s reach now. “From the very first time I sat at that evil bastards table,”
Curtis jabbed two of the little darts into Ghoulish Johns eye.
“I AM NOT THE FUCKING LANDLORD!!!” Curtis screamed.
Ghoulish John released Sonny. As she dropped to the floor she took the opportunity to roll toward the door.
Ghoulish John lashed out with both hands. His hands ripped through the paneled walls of the room. With another random slash he snapped one of the posts that made up a four-poster bed. Ghoulish John howled like something from Curtis’s worst nightmares.
Curtis felt something tugging at his sleeve. It was Sonny. She was coughing and clutching what looked like a carpetbag under her arm. She was pulling him toward the door.
Smoke was coming up the stairs. Well, Curtis thought, maybe they would set the place on fire with us inside. For the second time in the last twenty-four hours Curtis wondered who these people were. They made it part way down the stairs. Terrible idea. Although the place was soaked with salt-water, the accelerant was winning. The acrid stench was inescapable. Curtis felt his lungs burn as he accidentally inhaled a cloud of ammonia and steam.
“Lord of Land!” Came a howl from the bedroom. “Lord of Land!”
Sonny started going back up the stairs. Curtis couldn’t believe it but he followed her anyway. At the top of the stairs instead of turning left she pulled him to the right. She was still coughing and couldn’t speak. Both of their eyes were watering due to the fumes.
They plunged through and into another room. The lights were on and Sonny shut the door behind them. Were it not for the smell and the screams of Ghoulish John, Curtis would not have imagined that the rest of the house was on fire.
The room looked like a butcher shop. Several oversized hooks hung suspended from the ceiling. Along the walls various cleavers and bone-saws hung from nails driven into the wall in a precise row parallel to the floor. Curtis remembered being here before.
The carcass of someone hung suspended near a window. It was partially skinned but Curtis could tell it had been a small child. Its muscle tissue had started to cure and Curtis could see teeth marks.
“Window,” Sonny rasped and pointed. On the far side of the room was a window. They had only taken a few steps when the door exploded inward behind them.
“Lord of Land! Did you think that a little scratch would stop me? You and your red-bone cunt are gonna feed me for weeks!”
Curtis stumbled backwards in terror as Ghoulish John lunged for him. The tusks from his bottom jaw now rose almost to the level of his eyes. He walked, or really crawled like a primate using the shovel like protrusions where his hands had been to pull him along. Sonny had fallen down or collapsed rather. She had finally succumbed to the smoke and Curtis could not think of a way to get to her. When she went down it was against the opposite wall and Ghoulish John was between Sonny and Curtis looking back and forth at the two. Curtis was out of weapons of any sort. All of the knives were on the wall above Sonny on the other side of the room. He fixed his gaze on Sonny’s lifeless body.
“Perhaps instead of eating her I should breed her. Yes, she would make a fine mother to the next brood,” Ghoulish John said over his shoulder at Curtis and laughed.
Curtis grabbed one of the hooks from the ceiling. Ghoulish John anticipated the movement and whirled to meet Curtis’s charge. As Curtis approached Ghoulish John stood to his full height. He was only a few inches taller than Curtis but his shoulders had become broader and his egg shaped head seemed to be an extension of the muscles in his neck. Ghoulish John smiled.
When Curtis was within striking distance he raised the hook above his head. Ghoulish John anticipated the strike and leaned slightly backwards drawing back his right arm. Curtis knew the curved claw could cleave him in two then he would focus his attention on the helpless Sonny. Then Ghoulish John’s arm fell to the floor.
Ghoulish John turned, too stunned to scream. Sonny was standing behind him holding a large cleaver. Curtis drove the tip of the hook down into the top of Ghoulish Johns skull with his full weight.
Sonny was grabbing the carpetbag and making for the window before Ghoulish John’s body reached the floor. Curtis was three feet behind her when she hurled the bag at the window and dove out behind it in an explosion of glass. Sonny hit the tin roof of the covered front porch and slid onto the hood of Sophie’s Suburban. Curtis leapt and managed to trip and somersault onto the roof of the vehicle.
The Turners were getting Sonny into Jahn’s suburban. Miguel already occupied the second seat of Sophie’s SUV. Once loaded the convoy sped away.
They had driven almost a mile before the first fire trucks raced past them going toward Tanár’s burning house. The house had gone up like paper once the salt-water had steamed away. There would be no evidence to tell the tale of what happened in that house.