He reached back and carefully grabbed for his gun, withdrawing it and, hands hardly shaking, aimed carefully.
A face attached to a serpentine body—teeth sharp and needles, eyes pulsating, snapped forward and slurped the gun from his hands.There was a noise—that of an explosion as if a gunshot had gone off—and then the snake-thing spat the mangled gun back at the Sheriff.
To his credit, Sheriff Stephens did not immediately piss himself and run.He had come face to face with many a snake in the wild.He instead slowly backed up.And as he took a step backwards through the door, he saw the giant man-faced snake retreat into the shadows.When he was sure that the doors were shut tight, he breathed in.Felt the doors slam, as if the snake was bursting to get out, and then turned and babbled as he fled up the basement stairs.
There was an open window on the next floor, near the stairwell.It was facing the barn, which was cheerfully lit.He clambered through, thinking desperately—I don’t know what I need to kill that thing, but I bet they have a pitchfork in there.
Something buzzed from the shadows behind him—the thrumming engine noise of a handheld garden saw, perhaps, or an automated tree trimmer.Yet in this darkness, was it not possible it was the throaty growl of an insane dog?He wasn’t sure.He just ran, leaning forward into it, and slammed into the barn door as someone—dressed like a scarecrow—tore from some nearby pasture and swung at him.The tree saw slammed into the door, sticking, and Sheriff Stephens reached out and punched the scarecrow in the face.Then stepped backwards into the barn, looking desperately for something—anything—to defend himself with.
There was a rake on one side of the barn, and a shovel.He staggered towards them, stopping as he felt something drip over his head.He turned upwards, slowly, looking at the rafters with horror.A tangle of intestines was looped like a garland through the rafters, and a man’s organs were hanging here and there like ornaments.Slowly, like a spider, its head descended on a loop.And then it turned, grinning at the Sheriff, who screamed.
He grabbed a shovel by the door and ran, barreling through the way he came, tearing into the night.A series of torches led the way to the churchyard in the distance, and he ran, lungs gasping for air, as he followed the only source of comfort he could find in the darkness.An unburied grave lay open, next to a pile of dirt, and he paused here for rest, staring down at the horrors before him.
A black, tarred thing, bones, and blood alone, slithered hand by hand to the surface, scrabbling and moaning.As it rose, its groans seemed to spurt from its eyesockets like green light—and soon, everywhere around him, other corpses burst from the earth, their skeletal claws reaching the surface, their skulls straining as their empty jaws clacked at the sky.
He whacked a few with the shovel as he screamed, running past them into the church.There was a loop in the handles—he placed the shovel handle back here between them as if to wedge himself in, and then turned.
An altar all aglow with candles everywhere.A naked woman—the woman from earlier, he wondered?Painted with blood and laying prone on a table.A dark man in a cloak, with iron-gray hair standing over her.In the distance, a goat head braying at the ceiling.
“May the Lord of Darkness smile on our sacrifice,” the older man intoned.
“Don’t—what are you—oh my…” the Sheriff began.
He fell to his knees, clutching his heart.Pumping his right hand.Thinking about the things his doctor had told him before—“You’re overworked, Esteban.You’re pushing yourself too hard, especially for the condition you’re in.You’ve got to take it easy.”
“I think I’m having a heart attack,” he gasped.
And then the world went black.
12.
The Stephens had come backwhile we were waiting on the ambulance.
“Jesus,” Steve Stephens said.“Is that my brother?”
“You’re alive?”I asked.
“Of course I’m alive,” he said.“That’s a stupid question.Why wouldn’t I be alive?”
“We found your car—uh?—“
“Yeah, my wife parked her SUV out back to make sure nobody could see it from the road,” he said.“We drove separately and met up somewhere.I’m sorry.What happened to my brother, again?Why’s he look so pale?”
“Long story,” Brother Al said.“We delivered quite a fright to him.”
“He has a heart condition, you morons,” Steve Stephens said.“What kind of operation are you even running here?Do you understand you could have killed him?”
“I assure you,” Brother Al said, through gritted teeth.“You will be more than fairly compensated.”
“I’d damn well better be!”Steve Stephens roared.
“Well, at least let him have his photo,” I said.
Sheriff Esteban on the ground, clutching his heart in the church, while Brother Al and I stood next to him, covered in blood, with our thumbs up.
“I know that was part of it, but this looks really bad in retrospect,” I said.
“Yes, yes,” Brother Al said.“Perhaps Nagi ought have been our photographer in the first place.”
