Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five (3 page)

Zeus looked back to Billy with a twinkle in his drunk eyes and blew a smoke ring Imena's way. “How'd you get lost over here anyway, kid?”

Imena must have decided to let them talk man to monkey, because she gave Billy one last look and walked back to her hut.

“Vampires were chasing me. Then this monster that smelled like Bufford's piss jar snatched me and did some magic trick junk.”

“Sounds more like science and an undead temporal anomaly to me.” The monkey puffed his cigar.

“Yeah well, I don't understand all that fancy zoo talk. So whatever you say.”

“I gotta hand it to ya. You're taking talking to a monkey pretty well. It freaked most of this bunch out the first time I rolled into village square and asked them who I was gonna have to smack up to get a drink.”

Billy looked over at him. “Are monkeys not supposed to be able to talk?”

“It's chimpanzee and I haven't always been one. They call me Zeus.”

“Yeah, that's what the doctor girl said.” Billy was sitting facing Zeus now, holding his board in his lap. “You think they'd have mentioned in school that monkeys can't talk.”

“To be fair, they probably didn't feel like they had to come right out and say it, kid.”

“It's not a big deal, really. Pop has a talking chicken in our backyard.”

Zeus put his hands up. “Okay, that's just cuckoo.”

“Anyhow, you know how to get me back to America?”

Zeus was looking at Billy's skateboard. “You roll around on that thing? It sure is sparkly for a hunk of wood.”

“Really?” Billy looked down at it. To him, it looked like a dull, banged up piece of wood with wheels and tape on it. “I don't see sparkly. To me, it looks rather calm and understated. Sort of an earthen palate, but with rich overcast burnishing.”

Billy looked back up at Zeus, who just stared at him funny.

“I don't know a lot of smart talk, unless it has to do with skateboard finishes.”

“Yeah okay, so I'm gonna go knock off the rest of this bottle and pass out over by the compost pile.” Zeus pulled himself up on unsure primate legs.

“I thought monkeys slept in trees?”

Zeus was wandering off into the night, a trail of cigar smoke following him. “Oh yeah, good idea. We'll talk about getting you back home tomorrow, kid.”

Billy watched him and the spears slung over his shoulder fade into black. He wasn't entirely convinced that monkeys were any smarter than chickens, but Zeus definitely had something the chicken lacked.

Style.

III.

A fire burned also in the caves beneath Wind Hill. Mostly embers, it sent a stingy trail of blue smoke up through the crack in the rocky dome of the roof. The High Elder of the first one's descendants sat in quiet meditation, watching the life of it all burn away as the charred pit joined the night, and together would grow cold.

The pictographs which lined the walls sparred with the dark and the last flicker of it, all causing them to become cartoon cells in shallow but fluid movements. Stories from the past cut out long ago, left to languish in a world where little magic remained.

The Elder grew as tired as the day had, and he too would give in to the dreams brought to him. The cave was a home unfulfilled, littered with empty promises made long ago by his ancestors to a god who mocked them by his ignoring countenance.

More than anything, he was bored with it all. Bored with this world, and not up to the task of any more empty promises.

Or so he thought, as his eyes fluttered and barely fought off sleep.

Shadow brought a gift though; some things in the cave were more than the dancing drawings of the old ones. A bruised and creeping jackal, wild dog of the African plain. It stayed low and made simple, but precise motions towards the last of the fire-dance.

The High Elder was intrigued in spite of himself. This one should be out hunting; if she was here now, then something strange was surely afoot.

Something new.

“What have you brought your master, She-beast?”

The She-jackal limped stealthily to the far wall. It was decorated with a painting of the changing seasons and the glimmering stars — an odd representation of the zodiac, with symbols ancient and near forgotten.

The High Elder watched as she pressed her cold nose to the stone. Just above her snout, she indicated a certain figure upon the larger cosmic wheel of life.

The Elder leaned close, then crawled halfway the distance between him and the picture wheel carved into the stone. He was too excited to waste time in the motion of standing — more than anything, he slid the rest of the way across the smooth rock floor.

The figure indicated was that of a boy, sitting atop a plank with a starfield to his back.

The High Elder watched the jackal as she raised a paw to the smoke-escape in the roof. Stars painted the night and had full hold of the sky.

The old man's eyes narrowed and he looked back to the boy on the wheel picture. “You will take me to him,” the Elder commanded of her. “This will please me.”

The She-jackal took her eyes from the stars and met his gaze as the last of the fire clung to life.

“Pleased enough to change me back?” the jackal asked.

The High Elder was already standing and going for the horn to call up the clan. He paused at the question and gave a smile to the dark, which he had erased from his mouth, before he turned seriously back to the She-jackal's eyes.

“Not nearly that pleased yet, my wife,” the High Elder said, as the fire gave the room last rites.

IV.

Billy Purgatory sat away from the fire under the only tree in the village. The wind blew the handle of the pump, which dumped into a round cistern nearby. The clanging wasn't loud, but it was the high pitch of metal against metal, and Billy knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep if he stayed out here all night.

Even though he was so tired.

Billy looked up at the moon and wondered if Pop had noticed he was missing yet. Billy figured that he wouldn't catch on to his absence until the morning, when he didn't hear Billy unclacking all the locks on the front door so he could skate off to school.

Billy figured he had until tomorrow afternoon to make it back to town before Pop got worried about him. He hoped that Pop wasn't going to be mad at him. Billy hadn't done this on purpose, and he hadn't had much choice. He was caught between a vampire master with a mechanical arm and a zombie with a space control panel on his chest. Billy had to press that button, or he was gonna get ripped apart by both of them all at once.

Lots of stuff wanted to rip him apart lately. Jamming that control box turned out to be an easy way out of ground creepo.

Wait? Was that teleporter jazz what's-it a time-machi..?

Billy caught the sound of Zeus' snoring in his other ear. Whatever that computer thing was, worrying about it wasn't gonna help him get any sleep.

Billy started to stand up and wondered if
where
he was might not be the big problem. Maybe it had a lot to do with
when
he was?

Billy looked up at the stars again; you sure could see them good here. He put his hands behind his head and stared into a million tiny twinkles. His gaze wasn't unobstructed for long.

Imena came into the frame then, with the hunched shadow behind her and holding her tight. One of the shadow's hands was over her mouth, and the other held a rusty bladed dagger across her throat.

Billy jumped up, board in hand.

“Let her go!”

He took a step back and raised his board to swing at the tribesmen's pebble-pot, but once again found himself to be outmatched.

They had come upon the village quietly, and they had brought a lot of shadows with them. Imena kicked and screamed, and her eyes were serious and scared when she looked over to Billy. The village proved to be overtaken — men trapped in their homes with spears pointing into the doors at their children's sleeping throats.

Billy looked to the tallest among them, the one with the fanciest robe with the gold trim. He was the only one with shoes, tennis shoes, like he was some track star from Billy's side of the world. He was in way too good a mood for Billy to like the guy, and he looked to the boy now with the skateboard raised with a spark in his eye and a song in his voice.

“They call you Purgatory, right? I am the High Elder of Wind Hill. You don't know me, but I know you. Your picture is on my wall.”

“Yeah, it'll last longer.” Billy felt that joke fall flat before he got half of it out. Imena's eyes implored him to do something. Anything.

That Elder guy just laughed. “Tonight, you fly. We spit into God's eye, yes?”

Billy grimaced. “I'm about to use your neck like a ladder and climb up your head, so I can board-jack that goofy smile off your face.”

The High Elder laughed loudly this time, big honking laughs. “I like your spirit. You like this girl who bandaged you?”

Imena struggled and kicked at nothing, but oddly seemed genuinely interested in the answer.

Billy said nothing though.

The Elder kept trash talking, “I'm going to seal her in her little hut with the rest of the people and burn this village. That's no way to treat a pretty girl now, is it?”

Imena kicked him then; she got his knee good and temporarily did the job of making him frown in pain.

The Elder seemed like he might be getting pissed off then. “I will enjoy doing it even. The burning. She is as much a nuisance to me as her parents were. So you make the decision easy for me. You won't fly, then I torch this place and make roast'mallows.”

Billy started to make his move, spurred on by Zeus springing up out of a drunken haze, finally. Zeus barely got to his monkey toes when the She-jackal pounced from darkness and pushed him back to his dirty bed.

“My jackal, she remembers you. She doesn't like monkeys. Well, she likes to eat them. But who doesn't think monkey is tasty?”

Zeus stared up in a haze, helpless for that moment.

Billy put his board under his arm then. “Just stop it!” Billy yelled to them all. “I'll fly.”

The High Elder beamed and snapped his fingers. The shadowed cultist with him dropped Imena from his grip.

“Come along now, Purgatory. Your friends will be safe. We have much flying to do. God will be angry with you.”

Billy started to follow, but he felt Imena grab his arm.

“Billy, didn't you listen to the story? What the Shaman said? All they send down that cliff crash on the rocks. You will split your skull open and die.”

Her fear for his life was genuine, and Billy appreciated that, but he still shook her off him as he kept moving.

“I don't want anything to happen to you, Imena. You were nice to me today. Not many people have been.”

Billy followed the Elder as all his men fell into line and kept the villagers at bay as they left.

Imena called out to Billy one last time, “You will die! All do.”

Billy looked back and gave her a smile that neither of them believed was real.

“Maybe nobody's just ever been fast as me,” Billy called back as he faded into the silhouette shroud shadow of Wind Hill.

~2~

T
HE
W
IND

IMENA CRIED IN SPITE OF HERSELF as the line of shadow cultists from Wind Hill vanished from view towards the lonely, far off, forbidden place. She couldn't help caring so much that Billy was caught up in something that was not only over his head, but would cause him to lose it. Billy was a foolish boy, and what he was engaged in now was equally foolish. He had wrapped it in a cloak of caring for her well-being, but even though she barely knew him, Imena had felt enough of his character to know that altruism wasn't the only goal.

That kid secretly wanted to jump off that mountain.

Men were tending to hysterical mothers and children. There was talk of gathering up and going after those who had threatened to burn their homes and roast them in the process, but Imena knew they wouldn't follow. They regarded Wind Hill as a haunted place, and nothing good could come of traveling there.

Above all, they were more afraid than they were vengeful that night. Imena couldn't blame any of them.

Only the Shaman stood at the edge of the village, out past the well, and watched the night. Imena had always regarded him as most wise, and tonight, exceptionally unafraid. She dried her tears as she made her way to where he stood.

“How can I save him?” Imena tried not to let pleading slip into her words.

The Shaman didn't try to hide the grave expression he wore on his face. Wisdom held honesty tightly in its grasp that night.

“Surely there is something that can be done?” Imena wasn't giving up easily. “Surely?”

He said nothing to the girl, simply pointed towards a thick grove of trees across the plain, barely visible in starlight.

Imena didn't want to look that way, but made herself.

“I can't go there.” Imena let her words slip out as she stared towards the trees. “You know what happened there.”

The Shaman continued to point.

“That's where it took them.”

The Shaman turned away from her and walked back towards the fire, leaving Imena alone with her fears.

The girl continued to stare into the grove.

“Where the wind stole their souls.”

She had every reason not to then, but regardless of all the
no's
, she found in herself a tiny
yes
. This
yes
caused her to not only keep her eyes trained on the place of the savannah more horrifying to her than the false mountaintop dangerous men were dragging Billy to then…

It caused her to run.

Imena ran until she was thick into the grove and it was impossible to run anymore. The trees had begun to close in on her; it was denser in there than it looked outside of the grove. The brush became thicker and thicker, and it was impossible to see where she was going. She became trapped in vines and brambles, and as her eyes failed her more and more, she used the cuts and scrapes she received to guide her through the trees.