Hag Night (17 page)

Day by day, he was his old self.

When Wenda hadn’t heard from him in two days, she thought he was deep into the doc.

Then she walked into his apartment after a day of silent foreboding she could not put a name to. When the doctor came out of the ER and told her he was sorry, she barely nodded.

This happened just after graduation from Stony Brook U when she’d been hired on at WKKX, long before
Chamber of Horrors.
After that, she dated no men. She touched no men. She cringed when one touched her in the most platonic way. And on those rare occasions when she touched herself, she saw only David’s face. He haunted her mind and lived in her soul and invaded her dreams. And very often, as she fell asleep at night, she distinctly heard his voice say,
Wake-up, Wenny. Wake-up.

She always did, but he was never there. And the crazy thing was, she hoped he would be. That his death was nothing but a dark, feverish nightmare.

Vultura had helped her enormously.

It had channeled her creativity and given her a purpose, but there never had been any
more men. Or women, for that matter. There was safety in solitude and it was all she knew.

4

Wenda, of course, could never understand what it was like, Megga knew, because she had that fine, pure light in her eyes that was reflected from her soul. She could never understand how it was to be carved from death right from the start or how it felt to know the shadows were creeping in on you and the darkness wanted to own you. Those were things that were far beyond Wenda’s mindset. She might host a TV show and play a ghoul, but she never understood the dark side or dipped her fingers into the black blood running beneath its surface.

Look at her over there,
Megga thought,
with that fucking stake and her silver knife.

Yes, Wenda had a ferocious look in her eyes like those weapons made her a real world-beater, but she didn’t stand a chance. You couldn’t fight those outside with a blade and a pitiful slat of wood. She thought she would do the impaling, but the truth was it was
she
who would be impaled.
And it would not be easy for her. Those out there were angry and Megga could feel their thoughts like hot black oil filling her skull. They would make Wenda suffer. They would make an example out of her. They would break her in the worst way possible. The attack would be vicious. They would tear her throat out and hang her by the feet and shower themselves in her blood.

Yet, Wenda was so sure of herself.

That angered Megga; Wenda had never been sure of herself before. And now that she was, it was disturbing. It enraged Megga and filled her mouth with a taste like hot steel that she could not swallow down. She knew the undead were going to come and when they did, they would initiate her because they wanted
her
to deal with Wenda, to destroy her, to strip her down to the most basal level of primal fear. She could almost taste Wenda’s blood now and that not only sickened her, but excited her. She knew it would be the biggest, nastiest, dirtiest orgasm imaginable and, God, how she needed that right now.

Poor Wenda.

Poor stupid, deluded little Wenda.

T
he one who stands behind the others.

Yes,
Megga had seen him out there and felt the formless terror he always inspired. He was ruthless. He was undying and irresistible.
Even now she could hear his cold triumphant laughter and see his white craggy face that had been old when Cobton was new. He had a name and she knew what it was, but she did not dare say it aloud for he might not like that. She did not want to be his enemy. She knew what he did with those that disobeyed or raised a hand against him. He pulled them apart like a boy picking the wings off a fly. He desecrated them and broke them, peeled off their hides and drained them dry. He had filled graveyards with his enemies.

But she could not tell Wenda that.

Because Wenda would say,
then I’ll kill him first.

Megga tried to control her breathing. Tried to avoid looking at the window because he was out there now peering through the curtains at Wenda. And knowing this, Megga could feel the furnace heat between her legs cooking her from the inside out.

5

In the end, Doc did not feel too guilty about any of it.

After Bailey had settled down, Burt announced that he was waiting no more. It was time to make a run for that car. Despite the fact that Reg and he were ready to go at it at any time, Reg had gone with him to scout out the best way
which was a window in the back looking out on the square.

Even Reg had tried to talk him out of the idea.

But Burt was resolute: he would do this.

He claimed it was for the good of all but, of course, Doc didn’t believe that. In his mind Burt was a sniveling
little self-centered weasel. A weakling. And like most weaklings he was quick with his fists because it was the easiest way to prove he was not as weak as he in truth knew he was.

Outside, there was only
the snow falling, the wind blowing it around. The storm had abated a bit, but not significantly. As Reg began working the window loose so it could be slid up, Doc tried one more time. “Burt…you don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, yes I do.”

Doc wondered if maybe his motivation was not so much selfishness now but an almost puerile need to prove himself after he’d locked-up when the hag had gone after Bailey. Maybe it was the same thing that drove kids on dares, made them eat a bug under a log or sneak into deserted houses or play chicken with a knife.

Okay,” Reg said. “You ready?”

Burt nodded.

Reg shook his head and slid the window up. A blast of frozen air came in like an exhalation from a polar tomb. It was cold in the house, too, when you got away from the fire, but not this cold. Doc could smell something
ancient and corrupt on the wind.

Burt swung a leg up onto the sill, pulling his gloves on. He looked at Doc and Reg like some hero in an old movie going into the breach, maybe wishing he had a screenwriter handy to feed him some famous last words. He offered them a thin smile, saying, “I’ll lay on the horn when I get around front. Be ready.” Then he slipped out
the window and landed in a snowdrift. He pulled himself up, brushing snow free and fighting forward into the wind, trudging through the heavy snowfall.

Reg shut the window.

They watched him moving slowly out into the storm, pausing and looking around, then moving off through the courtyard to the fence beyond. The blizzard kicked up and he was gone, lost behind driving sheets of white.

Doc checked his watch. It had been fifteen minutes. “I better get back to Bailey,” he said.

Reg nodded, staring through the glass and hoping to get a good look at Burt out there but visibility was down to less than ten feet. Doc left him there, knowing they’d never see Burt again and if they did, it would be bad beyond imagining.

It was his idea and no one else’s.

That’s what Doc told himself as he made his way back to the parlor. Yet…he felt a twinge of guilt. He always felt sorry for people like Burt. Those that had to prove themselves. Those who lost their nerve when the chips were down and had to overcompensate for it. He’d seen plenty of guys like that in the war and most of them had been much like Burt.

Sighing, Doc l
et himself into the parlor.

Bailey was still on the sofa, sleeping.

He threw another log on the fire and the blaze leapt up, throwing flickering shadows over the walls. The warmth chased the frost from his bones right away. He lit a cigarette and hoped Reg wouldn’t stay out there too long.

Then he saw the wet spots on the floor.

Water?

Yes, it was water. There were droplets of it leading from the window to the sofa as if somebody had come in out of the storm and snow had been dropping from them.
Shit.
He went over to Bailey. Her breathing was shallow, her flesh pallid and moist to the touch. But she was still alive.

But just…

You old fool! They were just waiting for you to leave so they could slip in and feed on her. One of them must have called to her from the window. And Bailey, of course, being weak and delirious had answered. The seduction must have been effortless in her state.

“Yes,” she would have said. “Come in.”

And one of them had. Maybe Bailey had even opened the window for them.

He felt empty with guilt and remorse. He should have known better. They’d been playing this game God only knew how long.
Of course they were one step ahead of him. Of course they waited until he was gone. The hag who’d come into the room earlier had been a mindless, predatory thing, a leech motivated by hunger. But there were others. And many of them would be quite cunning from the centuries.

“Oh, Bailey,” he said. “I’m so sorry…my poor child…”

He checked her eyes and the pupils were so huge they were like glistening black onyx, the whites threaded with bloodshot veins. He closed them again, barely able to catch his breath. He had failed her. He had truly failed her.

Her eyes were open again. They were like glass.

“No, Bailey,” he said.

She grinned at him.

6

They weren’t worth saving. None of them.

This is what Burt thought as h
e waited near the fence for the wind to lessen a bit and make sure that he was alone because that was the most important thing: being alone. If those things found him out here, his goose was cooked. Cooked? Hell, it was seasoned, hot-buttered, and well-fucking-chewed.

Don’t think that shit. Just get to the car.

Sure, good idea. Only now the storm was really kicking up and he couldn’t see a damn thing. The snow was up to his hips in places and he was moving roughly at the same pace he did in those dreams he had where he was always running, always fleeing something that he could never quite see (which, he always felt upon wakening, was a good thing). It was just like that. Like his boots were filled with concrete.

He was trying desperately not to think of that thing that had called to him out of the storm after the bus accident. He had to put it out of his mind or the fear would overtake him and he woul
dn’t be able to think straight. And if that happened, he was going to make a mistake.

Here I am, Burt…right…here…

No, he had to block it. He couldn’t afford the luxury of fear. Out here and especially on this night of all nights, a mistake, a misstep could be extremely fatal.

Burt…over here, Burt…I’m waiting for you—

Knock it off!

It wasn’t anything but his nerves in the first place. A hallucination. Fear combined with shock produced it. He wouldn’t be the first one to have something like that happen. The thing was, he knew, to keep his head, keep his eye on the money and that was the car. Nothing else existed, only the car.

He pushed on further, the snow blowing in his face and down his back. The cold got inside him in a killing frost, the wind trying to drive him not just back but down. Down where it could shroud him in white and keep him like a leg of lamb until first thaw. Snow-devils whipped into him, covering his face so that he had to paw the snow clean so he could see again. His eyes were watering, his nose running. His mustache already stiff with ice. He was very much beginning to think this wasn’t such a good idea at all. But he shook that from his head because it would have meant Doc was right and there was no way Burt was going to let himself think shit like that.

Doc was not right.

And neither was that punk Reg.

They were wrong. They were the real cowards because they were afraid to try what he was trying.

Just a few more feet now. With every lumbering footstep, his boots broke through the crust of snow with volume. It sounded like breaking glass to him. The good thing was the wind was so damn loud with its moaning and howling, he doubted whether anyone or any
thing
could hear him.

A few more plodding steps and he made it to the fence, gripping its iced uprights in both gloved fists.

There. The first leg complete.

He sank into the snow on his knees and it came up above his belly. How easy it would have been to wait right there, to sink down in the snow and wait for morning. Let the drift pile up over him like a thick woolen blanket and just close his eyes and wait for the sun. How easy. How perfectly easy. And when morning came he’d get up, brush himself clean, then start that damn Suburu Outback, pull her around front and knock on the door. They’d all be startled, of course.
Thought you were lost out in it,
they’d say.
Driven under or maybe those things pulled you down into their tombs.
He’d laugh at the folly of it all—in fact, he could hear himself laughing right now with a loud, booming sound—and he’d look them in the eye. Especially that bag of wind Doc and his sidekick, that mama’s boy Reg. He’d look them monkeyskulls right in the face and say,
Me? Old Burt? Hell, that wasn’t nothing but a flurry last night. I just waited it out, caught a couple Zs.
He could just about see the hangdog look on their faces. He could see Miss Fancytits, Wenda Keegan, and that raven-haired Megga standing there. Both looking hungry on account they’d finally found a real man. Maybe he’d have them both at the same time—