Chapter Three

Kenly Bent was beginning to have second thoughts.

As he crouched beside the hedge in front of Nobindi's house, Beigh Shabley finally extinguished the lantern as he had been telling him for the last quarter mile. Of course anybody looking through the windows would have already seen the small circle of light the bullseye lantern provided, and Shabley had only extinguished it because he kept burning his knuckles on the poorly constructed wire handle. Constructed by Shabley himself, as a matter of fact.

But at least it was finally out, and in a few more minutes Kenly would be able to see beyond it's feeble range.

"Come on." He picked the lantern up from the ground before Shabley could take hold of it again, and crept along the inside of the hedge until they were within sight of the barn.

"Where are we going?" Guller asked, much too loudly. He was at least as drunk as he and Shabley put together. They should have left him under a bush to sleep it off, only if they did that what was the point of any of this?

"Laz, please. Would you shut the fuck up? We're going to the barn." Guller was standing up straight, not having the balance to crouch. He was practically staggering on the spot.

Kenly took him by the scruff and propelled him towards the rear of the small property. The barn was a deeper darkness with unknown hazards inside but he felt exposed in the yard. He rushed them towards the interior.

A little too quickly perhaps. As soon as they were inside he ran Guller straight into a post, face first. The entire structure shook with the blow, which was more than he could say about Guller. As far as he could tell, the man hadn't even noticed.

"Are you okay?" In the dark he could see nothing, but Shabley's giggling was pissing him off way too much to look very hard. "Beigh, for fuck's sake. Shut your pie hole for two minutes."

"What are we doing here? I thought we were gonna go fuck up that stupid pig and his stupid wife." Guller's voice was like a beacon of drunken sound, and Kenly had to fight down the urge to slam him into the post again to shut him up. Shabley just giggled that much harder.

"No Laz. We decided to grab a goat, remember? We figure he owes us one." Kenly wished he had thought to bring a bottle of potato juice with them. This was quickly turning into a frustration.

"I don't want to fuck a goat, Kenly. That's pig talk. I don't even want to fuck a pig. But I'm gonna. Fuck her right in her fat ass." Shabley was beside himself, doubled over and trying desperately to suppress his laughter. Kenley put his boot into Beigh's side and pushed him over. His racking fits of laughter continued unabated, even when he dropped the heavy iron lantern into his midriff.

"Beigh, settle your bowels and give us some light, would you? I'm going to set Lazarus down and see what's about. I don't think we alerted anyone inside." That was not exactly true; he was fairly positive that they had managed to awaken every corpse buried within a hundred miles, much less the merely sleeping. But he was attempting to get across the idea that they were actually trying to be sneaky. He feared he was being far too subtle.

Getting Lazarus to the ground consisted of relaxing his grip a little bit and letting him collapse at a slightly slower speed than gravity might have chosen, given its druthers.

Once Lazarus was seated and leaning against the same post with which he had just had his surprise encounter, Kenly straightened up to have a look about. And, if he could leave these two assholes unattended long enough, maybe even a piss.

He was just becoming aware of the unnatural silence that permeated the barn, too quiet for what even their clumsy intrusion could account for. As soon as he became aware of it though, he knew instantly that something was wrong. He didn't want to peer into one of the pens, but as Shabley giggled and struggled to get his lantern lit, he forced his feet to carry him to where he could see.

The pen was pitch black at the bottom, full of indistinct shapes. All unmoving.

He was about to call out to Shabley again for some light, when there was a flare from behind him that brought out all of the colors in the nightmare scene spread out before him.

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Dead lambs, dead sheep, dead goats. Every single animal had been disemboweled, some of the sheep still on their feet even. Ranging from deep brown and purple to pink and white, the vivid colors somehow made the scene much too real, much too fast. He hadn't even managed to take it all in before the stench of blood and hot bowels overcame him. He retched.

It was as though his stomach had been waiting for the opportunity to rebel. In the initial outburst, his stomach attempted to expel every drop of liquid he had ever swallowed, all at once. As far as Kenly could tell it was succeeding admirably.

His heaves had him folded over the fence like linens on washing day, and his vision skittered from one brain-scalding sight to the next.

What might have just been a dance of the shadows became a small mass of utter blackness, crawling along the edge of the fence. Crawling towards him, and using the horrors of blood and intestines for cover.

Kenly didn't see what was creeping towards him through the nastiness, but he did manage to blast it with a hot, violent stream of vomit before pushing off of the fence. He couldn't stop retching, so he sprayed the insides of the barn indiscriminately as he fought to get his limbs to respond.

Another time, he might have been furious with Shabley. The reason why there was ample light was because Beigh had poured out the oil onto the barn floor and set it on fire. Now it was the least significant thing in the world.

The fire was climbing the tack hanging against the railing, and slowly making it's way through the hay towards Lazarus. Beigh was half way between them, with barely enough self-control left to keep himself out of the flames. Kenly charged them both, sloshing bile that felt like acid coming out his nose. Very flamable acid, it turned out.

By the time he reached his friends, Kenly somehow managed to get his vomiting under control. As he reached down to pull Guller to his feet, he barely barfed on him at all. Just in his hair, and all down his face.

They had to go. Nothing else mattered in the least. The old wives' tale about being in the presence of true evil was absolutely correct. It was unmistakable for any other thing.

With a mighty heave, he managed to haul Guller upright and lean him against his favorite post. Then he turned to Shabley.

"We need to go right fucking now." Without waiting for a response he picked him up and bodily set him on his feet. He shook him until he got his giggles under control. "Help me with Laz." He was talking louder than Guller had been, practically shouting.

"It's just a little fire, Kenly. You said you wanted- WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" The last part came out in a shrill screech, and he was staring wide-eyed over Kenly's shoulder.

Kenly released Beigh's shoulders and wheeled. Like an arrow, the ink-black shadow flew through the air, directly towards him. He didn't think, he didn't hesitate. He simply grabbed his friend Lazarus and moved him into the path of the oncoming horror.

In the blink of an eye, Guller's entire head was engulfed in shadows. The fire climbing towards the rafters was the only sound, and then in another demonic whirl, the shade vanished, streaking through the back doors and into the woods beyond.

What was left of Guller was still standing, but the flesh had been stripped from his head. The odd tuft of hair was stuck to his skull by the blood and gore, and one eye was completely gone. He still had his tongue though, Kenly could see that plain as day through the side of his face where his cheek used to be.

When he turned about, he was already in motion. He was vaguely relieved to see that Shabley was way ahead of him, already disappearing through the front doors. Because if not, then fuck him. Kenly was running.

His stomach retched as he ran through the dark. He had nothing left to spew, but the racking spasms were agony nonetheless. He was virtually blind in the night, leaving a now blazing barn in his wake, glowing like a sunrise. He kept running.

It took him nearly the same quarter mile to catch up to Shabley. If the man didn't smoke so much ragmoss he doubt he ever would have caught him. But he finally did, and forced him to stop. Even though he needed to catch his breath worse than Kenly, and there was no way he could have seen what became of Guller, Shabley pulled against his grip wanting to go on.

"Stop it, damn you. Whatever the hell that creature was it's gone. If it wasn't, we'd know it."

"Kenly my face hurts," Guller said behind him. "It kinda itches, too"

Kenly was dimly aware of the warm flood of liquid filling his left boot and making his foot slide around. He was distant, on a mountain top with the sea roaring in his ears. He floated as he turned, seeing Guller's one remaining eye staring blankly at a spot above Shabley. His nose was a cavernous hole now, and his teeth clacked in place of lips, making his voice into a dusty hiss. He did not look winded at all from his run.

The roar of the ocean in his ears finally overcame everything else, and Kenly surrendered to it, allowing it to carry him into darkness, and sweet oblivion.