Hollow King, page 7
I sprint out the door into the autumn morning’s sun on busted shins and ballooning ankles. Every step is a knife. Every stomp is fire through bone, but I run across the frozen ground toward her, Miss Sally. Those goblin cunts caught her. They’re dragging her into the sunlight. Her naked gossamer-pale skin blisters under the open sky. Smoke rises from her shoulders like burnt paper. She can’t be here. She writhes and screams, as a dozen metallic turquoise goblins drag her against the dead grass. Tommyknockers. Ugly little bastards with needle claws, swinging crude stone hammers and hooting like devils.
I reach her, and my right boot collides into the closest tommy with every ounce of hatred I’ve got. It flies into a trunk of a nearby tree and drops limp. Another’s yanking her by the hair. I stomp its spine with both feet. Feel the crack, but one of them’s on me now. Its needle claws stab into my calf, deep and burning. I scream and fall ripping the thing out of my leg and toss it across the grass. My hands are shaking. My blood’s hot and running.
Miss Sally’s still fighting, flailing wildly, skin boiling in the autumn sun. She can’t see what she’s fighting, but doesn’t stop. And I’m face-down in the grass, staring up at another tommy. It’s standing over me. Hammer raised high.
“They look bigger from down here”, I think.
As the creature swings down toward my unguarded face, I slap it away with everything I’ve got. It tumbles, crashing to the ground in a heap of limbs and shrieking metal. I don’t give it time, I army crawl toward it, dragging my shredded leg through the dirt. It’s dazed, but moving, trying to rise. I lunge on top of it. Raise my fist and bring it down. Again. And again. And again.
Each strike crunches deeper. Its shining metallic skin doesn’t break, but what’s underneath turns to mush. A lumpy, twitching sack of ruin. I shove myself up off the ground, chest heaving.
Miss Sally, beside me, smashes one tommy’s skull down against a stone until it stops moving. I take turquoise stained hands and pull her thin elongated frame up on to her bare feet. The only flesh spared from burns rests below her long black locks of hair cascading down from her eyeless head.
There’s maybe six or seven left now. They move too quick to count. They flit between trees and shadows like angry wasps. Then, Bex. She charges in beside us, breath ragged and eyes blazing. In her hands, a rusted iron claw rake and a garden hoe. Smart girl.
She jams the rake under me, bracing my weight. Then swings the hoe like the Grim Reaper’s scythe across a battlefield. With this reprieve, I strip off my jacket and shirt and grab Sally’s blistered, trembling hand.
“Miss Sally, it’s me. I got ya.”
I pull the layers down over her, raising the hood of my sweater, wrapping her as best I can with my red and blue blood stained cotton garments. Only her lower legs remain bare. But it’s enough to buy time. To keep her from the worst of it. I glance at her, offer half a grin. “Hope your sense of smell ain’t as good as your hearing.”
I grip the rake like a crutch, leaning heavy on the twisted metal, and start guiding Sally toward the house. Her legs wobble with uncertainty under her. She stumbles with every step, but she moves.
More of the damned goblins pour out of the cavern now, spilling into the daylight like a swarm of angry hornets. Bex lets out a sharp squeal and stumbles back, recoiling from the onslaught.
I shout,“Squonk!”
And like an overripe cannonball, he explodes from the doorway, sprinting across the field like a fat show dog at full tilt. He skids through the dirt, circles around Sally once, and begins nudging her forward—chirping, gurgling, and guiding. She listens. She follows. Together, they move toward the house, slow but steady.
I grip the rake a little tighter and turn to face the tide. Bex swings the hoe wild, teeth bared, hair matted with sweat. Tommy’s cling to the shaft—clawing, gnawing, screeching. She’s overwhelmed. I plant a foot, raise the rake high above my head and bring it down hard. The tines tear through a cluster, impaling two and crushing another beneath the blow. I wrench it free and swing again. And again. Wild, desperate, brutal. We’re not winning. They’re too many. Too fast. Ol’ Snarly would’ve loved this. Plenty of squeaking chew toys to rip apart.
Bex screams as she rips a tommy off her back and hurls it to the ground. It scrambles to rise and I stomp the flat of the rake across its forehead with a sickening crack. It stops moving. But more are coming, so many more.
“Get back to the house! Now!” I shout.
She looks at me with hesitation in her eyes. I swing the rake in a wide arc, steel catching bone and dirt as they circle tighter.
“I’m right behind you. Go!” I bellow again.
She runs while I skewer three more. In the distance I hear the front door slam and a wave of relief catches me for a moment, before—
Crack. Something slams the back of my skull. Sharp. Precise. A perfect little tommy-knock. The ground rushes up to meet me. My face hits turquoise-stained dirt.
Everything goes black. And in the dark… I’m falling. An endless red sky unfolds above me. An impossibly vast sea below. The sea of souls, my final resting place. Beside me, a cliffside taller than anything is just outside my reach. I fell for what seems like forever, but I’m never any closer to the waves. The world falls with me, to where, I do not know.
I reach for the cliff and come to on my back. Thin nylon ropes dig into my arms and chest, pinning me flat to the dirt. A tommy sits perched on my sternum, tranquil and watching me with unblinking eyes. He’s a fancy one, wearing a gold Rolex across his body like a sash. Must be a leader of some sort. Its skin shines that sick turquoise under the high sun.
I take a breath. “Y’all don’t seem to have a bug in your bonnet,” I say, trying on a smirk. “So, why you hasslin’ us?”
The creature tilts its head, then answers in a tinny little voice like a busted toy speaker.
“He don’t give those out willy-nilly. Too slow to lay, too slow to hatch… for the likes of us, anyway.”
It sniggers, tapping one claw idly against my chest.
“But long as we work for him? Things stay smooth.”
I glance to the side at the field littered with twitching turquoise corpses.
“This is smooth?”
“Better than the alternative.”
My smile fades.
“Why does he want the Thunderbird?”
My voice is flat. No humor left. The tommy shrugs an exaggerated little puppet motion.
“No idea. Somethin’ about how we all got here. Says he can get us home.” It leans down, close enough I can smell its breath, wet metal and bile. “Now that we got you… he might even keep that promise.”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” I say, calm as a cloud, resting my head back in the grass.
The tommy blinks, its little head cocking sideways.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
I don’t answer. Just breathe. I Settle deeper into the binds, like I’m laying down to nap. The creature shifts on my chest.
“What am I forgetting?” it screeches, its tinny little voice shrill with sudden panic.
I laugh. It snarls and jabs a needle claw into the scar on my cheek.
“Tell me.”
I wince but hold steady.
Then I whisper, slow and cool, “Come closer.”
The gremlin leans in, smug and curious.
“My name ain’t Gulliver.” My neck snaps forward, jaw wide, and I clamp down on its ugly little head with everything I’ve got. Teeth grind against bone. A wet crunch. Then pop. My mouth fills with something bitter and thick, turquoise ink, warm and pulsing. I spit. Then smile, bloody and wild. I grunt and twist, pushing and pulling against the nylon bindings. They weren’t meant to hold someone like me. Not for long. I pocket the gold watch. “Gold for wolves,” I tell myself.
Across the field, the goblins, what’s left of them, are busy. They’re stacking their dead in neat little piles. Methodical. Mechanical. There are fewer of them now. Some must’ve run, scuttled back down the hole to report their victory. Idiots. The closest tommy finally notices the commotion. It opens its mouth to scream, but doesn’t get the chance. My hand comes down, mottled green and purple, swollen and broken, and lands hard on its back, driving it into the dirt. My fingers tighten. I feel its bones bend and then pop. Its skull disconnects from its spine like a cork pulled from a bottle.
I let the body drop. No one stacks me. The next one’s a daydreamer. Whistling to himself like a dwarf in some twisted Disney cartoon. He’s facing away, lost in the rhythm of his work. Stacking corpse after corpse with perfect, patient care. I move slow. Army-crawling through the dirt, ribs grinding, breath low. Turquoise blood froths on my lips—bitter, warm, and still bubbling from the last one. It drips in fat drops from my chin. The little bastard hums a tune that doesn’t belong in this world. Light and bouncy, like he’s building a house out of bones and smiles. And I crawl closer. Closer.
He notices me when my shadow falls across his work. He turns slowly with shock in his eyes, the whistle dying on his lips. I rise to my knees in front of him, towering like some great behemoth. The blood of his kin froths and drips from my mouth, stringing down my chin in globs of green. He’s frozen. Too afraid to run. I reach down and lift him with one hand. He kicks once, feebly. In that tinny little voice, I hear a single, desperate word: “Please…” I grip his lower half with one hand, his upper with the other. And I pull. Pop. Like a party cracker made of bone and bile.
The few creatures that remain skitter across the field like roaches in the light away from the house, away from me, all but one. He doesn’t run, he screams a ragged, high-pitched cry, guttural with sorrow, stumbling toward the mangled body at my feet, wailing a name I’ll never understand. Drops to his tiny knees. Cradles what’s left of his kin in his tiny arms. Rocking. Shaking. Weeping. It reminds me of that day. I watch him. Silent. I raise my boot and bring it down. The sound is wet and final.
I turn and limp toward the house.
22
Spitting Venom
I sit on the front porch steps and breathe the venom out of my lungs. Slowly, the world returns. My field of vision widens. Color seeps back in, like paint bleeding into water.
Bex steps out with the first aid kit clutched in both hands. She tells me she got the ‘eyeless woman’ settled in a dark room, blackout curtains pulled tight. She used what little burn ointment we had. Says Squonk’s curled up beside her, watching over her. I suspect Squonk’ll do her more good than any tube of ointment. Bex sits next to me, but her voice feels a thousand miles away. How did he know my name? The thought circles like a buzzard.
Pain snaps me back. Bex has a pair of small pliers gripping one of those long, needle-like claws embedded in my back. She gives it a yank, and the world flashes white.
I grunt and take the pliers from her. My turn. I work on the barbs still lodged in my thigh, jaw tight. She rummages through the kit again, pulls out alcohol and bandages. We patch each other up in silence.
The sting of the rubbing liquor hits like fire. She tapes gauze over my gouges. I finish with the leg, splash alcohol straight onto the wounds, and grit through it.
Then I take her hand and guide her down onto the lower step between my knees, her back to me. Red and turquoise smears streak down her back and arms soaking into her ruined shirt. I gather her long blonde hair, matted with sweat and gore, and sweep it gently over her shoulder.
I work the claw from her neck. Her ribs. The back of her arms. She flinches now and then, but doesn’t say a word.
I dab each wound with antiseptic, the cotton turning the color of rust. One cut runs deep and jagged. I reach for the super glue, draw a thin bead down the split skin, and pinch the flesh together with careful fingers. It reminds me of Yaya patching my face together when I was still just a boy. That damn ape is still hours away.
My undershirt’s little more than rags stained with sickly patterns that might be mistaken for a tie dye. I gather the remaining cloth in a bunch and with a long pull, the fabric tears away like paper.
“Thank you.” I tell Bex without looking at her.
“Don’t mention it.”
In the field, the pile of corpses lie still. Their strange, metallic skin catches the afternoon light. Silver and glistening, barely scratched despite the carnage. I rise, sore and slow, and head for the barn for tools.
Hours pass. One by one, I skin the tommyknockers, peeling them like trout, careful to keep the hides intact. Flesh comes away easy enough. It’s the sewing that grinds me down. Beside my makeshift fire pit, I thread slick twine through a needle, made from a claw torn from my side, and begin stitching the skins into a limp cylinder. Tedious work, the kind that lets your mind run while your hands are busy. The kind I hate.
Bex sits nearby, quiet beside the fire. She’s bundled in an old woman’s faded floral wool coat, too big for her, sleeves rolled up. The light from the flames flickers across her cheeks as she watches me.
I finish the stitch and hold the patchwork tube up to the firelight. It glints wet and eerie. I hang it on a hook above the pit, letting the smoke rise into it, funneling through the seams. The dusky sky fills with that thick, earthy haze—burnt wood, blood, and grease.
I sit beside her on a broken stool. The fire pops.
“He should’ve been here by now,” I say, finally breaking the silence.
“He’ll come,” she replies, her hand resting soft and warm on my arm. I watch the smoke swirl.
“There’s no telling when, or if, they’ll come back,” I say after a while. “I don’t want to be asleep when they do.”
Night falls. The tube of skin stiffens in the smoke, drying into a crusted sheath. When I touch it, it crackles, rigid, but with some flex. Usable at least.
Miss Sally sits outside on the porch, away from the firelight but not far off. Just close enough to listen. Maybe she wants to feel less alone in this unwalled world she was dragged into. I couldn’t tell you. She rocks gently in one of the old wooden chairs, my sweatshirt crumpled underneath her translucent, naked form. Squonk gurgles and coos in her lap, little hands clinging to her as if he knows she needs the weight.
The boards creak beneath us as Bex and I step onto the porch, the leather tube of stitched tommy skin clutched in my hand like a relic. We settle into the remaining rockers beside her, the three of us in a line, watching the wind move through the tall grass.
No one speaks. The porch light hums faintly. The fire crackles behind the screen door and somewhere in the night, a mourning dove sings too late for the hour. Not a word passes between us. But the silence is thick with meaning. With questions unspoken. With strange kinship.
Sally shifts, and places her hand on my arm. I finally break the silence and with a cough, I start to introduce our troop of misfits.
“Miss Sally, that’s Bex there to your left. She’s the one who patched you up. I see you’ve made fast friends with Squonk, here.”
He’s curled up in her lap, gurgling contentedly, his watery eyes half-lidded with peace. Sally rests a thin, translucent hand on his back, her rocking steady, like she’s been doing it all her life.
“I’m Carl, you saved me in that cave of yours… I’m not sure when it’ll be safe for you to return there.”
I take the stitched tube of metallic leather and begin cutting the threads, unfolding it into a flat sheet of turquoise, shimmering dully in the firelight.
“I reckon I got enough material here for you,” I murmur.
I thread a new line through two rough holes at the edge of the unwieldy quilt of skin, my fingers working the claw-needle slow and steady.
“Cryptid hunter AND seamstress?” Bex says, her voice dry. She gives me an incredulous look.
“Been patchin’ clothes and tannin’ hides since I was a youngin’, ” I tell her.
Headlights slice through the dark, bright and sudden. They cut long, warped shadows across the barn and up the trees. A tall trail of dust churns behind the approaching vehicle, curling like smoke in the night air.
I don’t stop rocking. The patchwork quilt rests in my lap. My hand finds the blued steel of the revolver tucked in the waistband of my pants. My thumb strokes the hammer. Only three bullets, I remind myself. Quiet. Patient. Waiting.
A truck door creaks open, then slams twice with a shudder that rocks the frame. The headlights still glare, blinding and full of dust. For a moment, the figure behind them is nothing more than a silhouette.
The truck groans as it shifts under his weight.
“Y’know,” a familiar, booming voice calls through the dark, “I had a hell of a time findin’ this place.”
Yaya. I take my hand off the hammer and let the breath out slow. Relief spreads warm through my chest, and I smile without meaning to.
“Took ya long enough,” I shout back.
Before I can say more, Bex is already running toward him, arms wide. She throws herself into a hug around the massive ape-man, nearly bouncing off his chest.
Miss Sally doesn’t move. She listens, head tilted ever so slightly, eyes focused on the sound, her expression soft and distant like she’s hearing the voice of an old friend in a dream.
“Miss Sally… I see you ain’t got any shame bout bein’ buck nekid.” I keep my voice low and gentle. “Don’t bother me none, but I made you somethin’ on account of your kindness this mornin.’” She turns slightly toward me and I see her tears and blisters are already healing in the night’s sky. “Those lil’ vermin treated ya mighty unkind, but now they can make it up to you.” I take her hands, light as air, and help her to her feet. Her skin is cool, almost not there. I drape the patchwork of metallic pelts around her narrow shoulders, shimmering like oil in firelight. The toggle slips through its loop, snug, and I tug the hood over her head. It hides most of her face, except for the small smile curling at the corners of her mouth.
