“Forget it,” Sam shouted. “You already shot the fucker once, and it didn’t faze him. Come on!”
“Oh, Jesus.” Stephanie stared at something across the street. “There’s another one. What’s it doing to the Garnett’s dog?”
Randy turned back to his mother again, intent on rushing forward and pushing the intruder away from her. The man was kissing her, just as he had kissed Randy’s father. Cindy’s eyes were closed.
Balling his fists, Randy opened his mouth and—
“Randy?” Stephanie’s voice cut through his rage and distress. “We have to go. We have to go now. Please?”
He glanced from her to his mother, and then back again. The man in black stood up and sighed.
“Ah, that was tasty. Now come here, boy. I promised I’d make it quick, and I keep my word.”
Randy took a faltering step backward. The killer moved forward and then stopped, recoiling as if he’d been shocked. He glanced down at the floor and hissed. Randy looked down and saw that the intruder’s toe was at the line of spilled salt.
“You little bastard. Come here.”
“F-fuck you. You killed my parents.”
“And now I’m going to kill you. Come here. I won’t ask again.”
Randy noticed that the man still hadn’t moved. He seemed unable or unwilling to come any closer.
It’s the salt, he thought. I don’t know why, but he doesn’t like the salt.
“Fuck you.” This time, his voice didn’t waver.
The killer’s eyes widened. “You have the touch, don’t you, boy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Touch this, you son of a bitch.” Randy grabbed his crotch.
“Amazing,” the intruder whispered. “You don’t know.”
“Randy?” Stephanie’s voice was pleading. She sounded near tears again.
With one last glance at his parents’ bodies, Randy turned and fled. Tears streamed down his face as he followed Sam and Stephanie through the open door. He noticed that they were hand in hand, but at that moment, he didn’t care.
“Run,” the man in black called after them. “Flee, if you wish. There is nowhere for you to go, little bugs.
One of my brothers will see to you in due time.”
The street and yards were chaos, but none of it registered with Randy. He only caught fleeting glimpses as he ran across the grass toward his truck. Homes were burning. Bodies lay in the street. Another dark figure, almost identical to the one they had just faced, strode across the roof of the house next door, menacing two people who had crawled to the edge.
Sam unlocked the doors. Randy watched in despair as he guided Stephanie to the Nissan and yanked the passenger door open. She hurried inside and he slammed the door behind her. Then he looked up and noticed Randy.
“What are you doing?”
“Truck…” It was all Randy could manage to say.
He pointed at the 4×4.
“Follow us,” Sam said, and quickly climbed behind the wheel. Then, a second later, he swore.
Stephanie glanced around, frantic. “What’s wrong?”
“It won’t start!”
Randy stumbled toward them. Sam sat behind the wheel, frantically turning the key back and forth in the ignition. Randy placed his hand on the Nissan’s hood and was just about to tell them to get in his truck when Sam’s engine suddenly roared to life.
“Got it,” Sam shouted. “You coming?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Randy ran over to his truck and fumbled for the keys. They jingled in his trembling hand as he unlocked the door. The people next door screamed as they plummeted to the ground. The man in black on the roof turned in Randy’s direction and waved. Randy gave him the finger and then slipped into the cab. He started the truck and the engine roared to life. The man on the roof seemed startled by this. He leaped to the ground as Randy raced away, pressing the accelerator all the way to the floor and struggling to keep sight of Sam’s brake lights as the black Nissan lowrider with flames painted on the sides raced into the darkness. The CD player beeped and then began playing the Geto Boys’ “Still,” which Randy had been listening to the last time he was in the truck. Now, he barely heard the music.
“I’m sorry,” Randy sobbed as he whipped around the turn and followed Sam. “I’m so sorry.”
The truck’s massive tires crunched over a corpse lying in the middle of the street, but Randy didn’t even notice.
SIX
Most of the people Levi met as he waded through the chaos were either in shock or half-crazed with fright. A few ran away from him as if he were the Devil incarnate, stalking the streets of Brinkley Springs. A few more people shot at him, not bothering to ask questions or give warning first. One particularly terrified old man had thrown a bottle of whiskey at him and then followed it up with a lit wooden match. As a result of these confrontations, Levi had a hard time gaining a coherent understanding of what was occurring. Many of the townspeople were as clueless as Levi himself. They’d heard the screams and gunshots and explosions, but had no idea what was happening. Others mentioned men in black and crows. Neither image was particularly useful.
Men in black was too vague of a term. It could mean anything. A group of gunmen dressed in dark clothing. Agents from some government agency or perhaps Black Lodge. It could even be one of the many different manifestations of Nyarlathotep—a supernatural who some mistakenly believed to be a demonic servant of Cthulhu but who, in reality, was simply the messenger of God. Somehow, Levi doubted it was any of these things. Human gunmen wouldn’t have explained the feeling that had come over him earlier. No, whatever forces were at work here in Brinkley Springs, they were almost certainly of supernatural origin. And Nyarlathotep, on the rare occasions that he manifested himself on Earth, wasn’t known for massacring people—which was what was happening here, if the reports Levi was hearing from the panicked survivors was correct. God’s messenger did occasionally appear as a man in black, but he also manifested as a worm, a hummingbird, a pillar of fire, a burning bush, a giant hand or one of a hundred other forms. He did no harm, other than imparting a message to whomever was chosen to hear it. Then he disappeared again.
So forget the men in black, Levi thought as he snuck through a small cemetery behind a tiny Baptist church that—judging from the moldering plywood nailed over the doors and windows—had been abandoned by its congregation long before tonight. Focus on the crows. People keep mentioning they saw big black crows. What does that tell me?
He tried to remember everything he knew about crows, as they related to occult lore. If he’d been back home, if he’d had access to his library, the task would be a snap. But between the adrenalin coursing through his body and his own fear, amplified as it was by the town’s collective horror, he’d have to trust his memory, instinct and years of experience.
So, what do I know?
The first thing that came to Levi’s mind was Raven, a deity of the Native American tribes who had once inhabited the Pacific Northwest. According to their beliefs, Raven was sometimes a generous benefactor and, at other times, a mischievous trickster, credited with doing everything from creating the Earth to stealing the sun. But since Brinkley Springs, West Virginia, was on the other side of the country, and since there were a number of other tribes who had worshipped other deities between here and there, he doubted this had anything to do with Raven. The Hindu god Shani was usually depicted as being not only dressed in black, but dark in color, as well. Shani also traveled around the world on the back of a giant crow. That seemed to fit, but as far as Levi knew, Shani was a god of justice who would have abhorred the atrocities taking place. What else was there? There was Odin, of course, with his two pet ravens, Hugin and Munin. Celtic mythology told of Morrigan, also known as Badb, Fea, Anann, Macha and others. One of the goddess’s forms was that of a crow. The Welsh had the giant king of the Britons known as Bran the Blessed, whose name meant “crow.” Levi wondered for a moment if Brinkley Springs’ residents were primarily of Germanic, Irish or Welsh descent. Probably so, but even then, none of those possibilities felt right.