There is a reproduction grandmother clock in the front hall, patiently ticking away the seconds. Patrick darts through and opens the cabinet door on its front, pushes aside the lead counterweights and disturbs the pendulum that has counted out the twilight hours and months he’s spent here with Moira. Leaning inside the cabinet with its muzzle on the floor and the butt close to hand is a sawn-off pump-action shotgun. Five in the tube and one up the spout. He keeps it for emergencies, along with the discreet camera on the front stoop and the screen inside the door. Right now the camera is showing nothing much, just the usual view of the steps and the mailbox, but something about it isn’t quite right—
There is a hammering on the door. “Police! Open up!” There’s nothing on screen, but right then the tattoo heats up like a bad patch of sunburn and begins to glow.
Out of time for the subtle stuff, Patrick feels an old and familiar fury: So they want to fuck with me and mine? Not that he’s got much. This run-down two-story house in the suburbs, and his run-down wife, sallow-skinned and exhausted from the cancer, sleeping upstairs. But he will not let them pass, whoever they are. He pulls the shotgun, brings it round to bear on the front door, and fires without hesitation.
Click. Nothing happens.
Crunch. The door bows inward near the lock, but the reinforced frame he installed is holding for now—until they bring a jack to bear.
Patrick swears angrily and works the slide, ejects a cartridge, and pulls again. Click.
His tattoo is burning hot now. The kettle begins to wind up to an eerie banshee scream from the kitchen as it comes to a rolling boil.
Another cartridge goes rolling across the floor as Patrick squeezes the trigger again: another misfire. He glances down as he reloads, futile—the red plastic tubes projecting from the cartridge bases are glowing cuprous green in the shadows. They’re loaded with banishment rounds, but it looks like someone’s brought countermeasures.
Patrick drops the gun and legs it towards the kitchen, hunting wildly for anything suitable—the knife rack by the worktop, the kettle screeching its iron lung out—grabs Moira’s favorite carving knife and the aforementioned iron jug, skids back into the hall, and turns at bay as the door opens.
They are not the police.
“Motherfucker!” Patrick screams in fury and throws the contents of the boiling kettle at the first intruder. Conservatively attired in a black suit and tie, white shirt, the missionary takes the steaming gush direct in the face without flinching. His eyes glow the same shade of green as the flawed shotgun cartridges rolling underfoot as he steps forward. Glowing green wormlike shapes writhe within the intruder’s eyes. “Get the fuck out!”
Patrick lunges forward, carving knife held low. The missionary is spreading his arms wide. Now his mouth opens, revealing something silvery and twitching. The knife is a faint hope. Patrick leans hard and the point sinks into the missionary’s chest, right between the ribs, but no blood comes out. And now Patrick’s tattoos are glowing nearly as brightly as the low-power bulb in the hall light fitting. The missionary takes another step forward, and the second one crosses the threshold, cutting off any chance of escape through the front door.
Patrick takes a step back, treads on a loose shotgun cartridge, and falls against the wall beside the clock. Door hanging open, chains and counterweights disemboweled—he reaches in and yanks hard on the pendulum, a kilogram of brass on the end of a meter-long steel shank. (The clock was his old man’s; the only thing of his that he’s bought to the new world.) Raising the improvised shillelagh he takes a swipe at the missionary’s head with the counterweight. Success. The thing in front of him raises an arm to block, and stops pushing forward. The knife blade sticking out of his chest is oozing slowly, thick and dark.
“Join us,” drones the missionary. “We are the Saved. Join us and bathe in the blood of the lamb and be Saved forever.”
“Fuck off,” Patrick snarls, waving the pendulum at the walking corpse. “Get aff my fuckin’ patch, motherfocker!”
“Join us—” The missionary repeats the invitation perfectly, like an answering machine from hell.
“Patrick”—another voice from the top of the stairs, one that detonates an emotional hand grenade that sends grief-tainted shrapnel tearing through his heart—“what’s going on?”
Only one thing left. Utter desperation and fear threaten to weaken his knees before he can do it. It’s a last resort: maybe they can—
***Help?***
Patrick loses consciousness immediately. Someone else looks out through his eyes, someone more detached, with the aloof cruelty of a small boy contemplating the antics of insects trapped in a jam jar.
“Hello,” says Patrick’s mouth.
The missionaries hold their ground, but look apprehensive. It’s like they know their own kind.
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here,” says Control. “Did Ray send you?”
“Join us—”
“Bo-ring.” Patrick’s body jabs the pendulum into the nearer missionary’s face and lets go of it. And then, with an agility alien to a sixty-year-old in poor condition, he stoops sideways and scoops up the shotgun.
“Patrick? Who are these—”
“Oh shut up.” He spins towards the staircase and casually pulls the trigger. The detonation is deafening in the confined space. What’s left of Moira’s upper torso fountains blood as it topples forward, coming to rest at the foot of the stairs. Her head lands face down on the landing.
Control ejects the spent cartridge, chambers a fresh round, and turns back to face the missionaries, raising the shotgun and bringing the barrel to rest under his borrowed body’s chin.
“Who sent you?” Control demands, resting a finger lightly on the trigger.
“Why did you kill her? She was Unsaved.” The second missionary is more talkative than his taller companion, whose unfortunate encounter with a carving knife has damaged his lungs.
“Who sent you?” Control repeats. “I’m getting impatient here. Tell me or I’ll kill the hostage. Then you won’t get to eat him.”
“We do not eat them!” protests the second missionary. His voice is thick and hard to make out. His tongue ripples fatly between his lips, silvery with twitching legs: it has grown almost too large for this mouth. Soon it will asphyxiate the carrier, and the host will require another body. “We bring them to the Lord.”
“All right.” Control lowers the shotgun muzzle far enough for Patrick’s mouth to swallow convulsively: certain physiological reflexes continue, even if the usual tenant is elsewhere. “Who is your Lord?”
“We serve the Gatekeeper of Heaven, He Who Sleeps and Will Rise Again. Come with us. Accept the love of Jesus Christ into your heart and mouth and rejoice in everlasting light for eternity. You, too, can be Saved. Help us tear down the Wall of Pain and open the gates of the pyramid and dance wild and free forever in the silver heat of His gaze!”