Bloodstained Oz (13 page)

      “Horses,” Elisa whispered.

      Hank nodded. The only reason the
creatures would try so desperately to get into the barn was if there was something
alive in there for them to kill, hot blood for them to slake their devilish
thirst.

      There came a loud noise from the roof,
the crack of wood, and he saw that several of the creatures had managed to tear
a section of shingling away, creating a hole.

      “No,” he said. “God damn it, no.”

      Those horses were their only chance.

      He gripped the shovel in both hands, and
burst from the corn. Hank let out a cry of fury and terror and ran across the
hard ground toward the barn.

      The little demons heard him, and their
excited chatter grew even louder and more shrill. The one who’d bloodied
itself and perhaps shattered its bones continued to hurl itself against the
door, and two of those on the roof disappeared into the hole, but the others
took flight, ragged, torn wings beating the air as they charged. Hank heard
himself screaming. His fingers gripped the shovel so tightly that they hurt.
The night had become even colder, as though the world itself was dying.

      As the fastest of them reached him, he
swung the shovel. Its blade whickered through the air. It struck the little
beast with a terrible sound, cutting deep into its side beneath one arm and
crashing it to the ground. He stomped on its neck as it writhed beneath the
shovel, picked up the blade, and drove it right into the monkey’s face,
shattering its skull and spilling gray matter out onto the ground. Its brains
were writhing red maggots that began to blister and melt upon exposure to the
air.

      His guts churned and bile burned up the
back of his throat. Hank might have vomited, but the others were on him then.
Two of the monkeys collided with him, knocking him to the ground, wings beating
the air. But almost the same moment that the three of them landed in a tangle
of limbs and gnashing teeth and the clang of the shovel upon the ground, the
monkeys screamed. He smelled their fur and flesh burning and they sprang off
of him, hopping away, cross-shapes seared into them where they had come into
contact with the crucifixes he wore.

      A few feet away, the shotgun thundered.
The shot echoed across the farm. Another of the little bloodsuckers had been
flying at him, and as Elisa fired, its head exploded in a mist of blood and
bone and decaying maggots.

      Hank got to his feet and Elisa ran up
beside him, racking another round into the shotgun’s chamber.

      “We’ve got to save the horses,” she
said.

      Several of the monkeys had begun to
retreat, seeing what had happened to the others. Hank thought it was more the
crosses than the weapons, but he didn’t mind if it was a combination of the
two. He plucked the hatchet from his belt and went over to where his shovel
had fallen. One of the monkeys, braver than the others, lunged for his face.
He swung the hatchet at the beast’s chest and it fell from the sky, wings
jerking and twitching. It rolled over and over on the ground, trying to pull
the hatchet out of its chest, where the blade had lodged in bone.

      Elisa went to shoot it, but Hank waved
her off, wanting her to conserve ammunition. He picked up the shovel and drove
it down on the thing’s neck, popping the head off.

      Only the wings were still twitching as
they walked off, leaving it to die.

      “Faith,” Elisa whispered.

      When Hank looked at her, he saw that she
had begun to weep.

      He let out another scream and started
after the vicious little beasts. The monkeys flew up toward the hole in the
roof of the barn. Hank swore and they ran toward the doors. That one, mad
little monster was still crashing into the door, though its head hung strangely
on its shoulders and its face was caved in.

      Shuddering with revulsion, Hank batted
it with the blade of the shovel and then when it was down he swung the shovel
down again and again and again.

      Elisa aimed the shotgun at the place
where the doors to the barn were joined and pulled the trigger. Bits of wood
exploded from the doors and whatever had barred them was gone. They swung
loose.

      Hank grabbed the edge of one door and
hauled it open.

      Three horses whinnied and kicked at
their stalls. One was down, torn open, and two of the vampires were feasting.

      But the others were already dead.

      “What in Hell?” Hank muttered.

      A roar shook the rafters. A lion had
one of the flying monkeys in its jaws and shook it back and forth like a rabid
dog with a rag doll. The lion held it down with one paw and with the other,
tore its head off.

      There were four or five other monkeys
that were already dead.

      Now the lion went for the two survivors,
the ones that were feasting on the fallen horse. Elisa raised the barrel of
her shotgun.

      “No,” said a tiny voice from the shadows
beside the door, where the moonlight could not reach. “He’s a friend.”

      Hank spun, shovel at the ready. But
then the speaker stepped from the shadows, a little blond girl, her hair dirty
and tangled but her eyes wide with innocence and sadness.

      Together, the three of them watched as
the lion tore apart the last of the vampires. When it was through, the massive
jungle beast sat on its haunches and tried to wipe its paws as best it could on
the hay scattered about.

      “You’ve come for the horses,” the lion
said, its growl of a voice laden with wisdom.

      Hank could only stare, unable to accept,
even after all he had seen, that the lion could speak.

      “Yes,” Elisa said. And then she told
him about the wagon.

      The lion raised its enormous head, mane
streaked with blood and gore, and gazed at them with golden eyes. “And you
will take the girl?”

      Hank heard the crack in Elisa’s voice
when she replied. “Of course.”

      “Then we shall all go.”

Chapter Sixteen

      Gayle led the horses, who were skittish
as they left the barn. Her lower lip quivered a little but she pressed her
mouth closed, angry with herself. Tomorrow she could cry. After the sun was
up. But not tonight.

      The man with the shovel—dressed up
in clothes from the prison—led the way with the pretty lady with the
olive skin. Elisa carried the shotgun like it was her baby, and Gayle wondered
if she knew it, and if she had a baby, where it was. The man’s name was Hank,
which seemed a decent sort of name for a convict. Gayle was curious why he had
been in prison and how he had gotten out, but like her tears, her questions
would have to wait until morning.

      Right now, quiet seemed to be important.

      The little girl held the reins and the
horses followed her. The woman, Elisa, had wanted them all to ride back to her
wagon, but Hank had said they needed to go quietly and rest the horses until
the wagon was hooked up. So they walked.

      The lion followed behind the horses, but
he wasn’t the reason they were skittish. It was the strangest thing, but they
weren’t afraid of him at all. Gayle understood. She wasn’t afraid of the
lion, either. He made her feel safe.

      As they walked away from the farm, Gayle
resisted the urge to look back. Her parents were dead, back there, somewhere.
Yet a part of her could not imagine never seeing them again. How could that be
possible? Never was an awfully long time.

      So she told herself that though her
parents were gone, one day she would come home, and maybe all would be well.
Maybe she would wake up in her bed, with them looking over her, brows furrowed
in concern, and tell her she’d had a fever and it had all been a terrible
nightmare.

      If she looked back, and saw the dark
shapes of the barn and her house across the fields, she would know it was all
just a little girl’s wishful heart. So she kept on, eyes straight ahead, and
did not let herself consider that she might never go home again.

      They went around the corner and down the
road. Gayle saw the little wagon on the side of the road and smiled. Her
horses were strong and fast. They would be out of Hawley in no time, headed
east toward the dawn. If Hank and Elisa were right, and the crosses kept the
monsters away, they would be safe.

      But even as this thought went through
her mind, Elisa glanced up into the night sky and pointed. Hank cussed nasty
enough that it made Gayle flinch, then he turned to her.

      “Let’s go, little girl. We’ve been
spotted. Whatever that was, there’ll be others.”

      They were at the wagon in another
minute, and then Hank and Elisa hitched up the horses while the lion prowled in
a circle around the wagon, watching for trouble. Gayle saw a body on the
ground and tried not to look. She noticed that Elisa wouldn’t look at it
either.

      “All right. Get in, Elisa. You and the
girl.”

      “Gayle. My name’s Gayle.”

      Hank smiled, eyes softening, and he
looked at her as though it was the first time he’d seen her. “Right. Gayle.
Go on, sweet. Get in the wagon. You’ll be safe in there.”

      “I can drive the horses,” Elisa said.
“If anything attacks us, someone ought to be fighting back. You can keep them
off of me.”

      Hank took a breath.

      “We haven’t time for delicacy,” the lion
said, sniffing at the air. “They’ll be on us soon.”

      “I don’t want to be in there alone,”
Gayle said.

      “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but Elisa’s
right. Let’s just get on.”

      Gayle swallowed hard, her throat
hurting. She went to the wagon and climbed into the back. A single candle
burned back there. She blew it out, knowing that they were going to be moving
fast and the fire would be dangerous. It was dark in there except for the
moonlight that came in through the open flaps at the rear of the wagon, and
what little light came in through the small square window at the front, just
behind the driver’s seat.

      Though she had seen the way Hank and
Elisa relied upon the crosses they wore, always touching them, holding them
close, she didn’t feel any safer inside the wagon with all of those crucifixes
around. She just felt more alone.

      The lion stood on his hind legs and
pushed his huge head into the back of the wagon. The heavy flaps draped
against his mane.

      “You’ll be all right, Gayle. You only
need a little courage.”

      She shook her head, blond hair falling
across her eyes. Gayle could not prevent herself from pouting. “I don’t have
any courage at all. Not at all.”

      The lion growled, soft and warm. “We
all do. Down inside. You just have to look for it.”

      Then he withdrew.

      Up on the seat at the front of the
wagon, Elisa clucked her tongue and urged the horses on with a flick of the
reins. The wagon started to move, wheels rolling over the rutted road. Gayle
went to the front and peered out the small window, just behind Hank and Elisa.
That made her feel a little better, less alone.

      For more than an hour she knelt there,
her muscles beginning to ache as she waited, tense, expecting something to
happen. But none of the monsters came. She heard Elisa and Hank muttering to
one another and their conversation was a comfortably familiar drone that
reminded her of her parents.

      Gayle allowed herself to feel safe.

      Her eyelids grew heavy. Exhaustion and
the rocking of the wagon lulled her and she became sleepy. Her head started to
bob and she knew she ought to lie down in the back of the wagon, but could not
bring herself to do it. Through the little window she peered between Elisa and
Hank, watching the road ahead, and glanced at the dry, dead land that they
passed on either side of the road. In the moonlight it was like the ghost of
the living, beautiful landscape it must once have been. Even in her memory, it
had been so much more alive.

      “They’re back,” Hank said, his voice
cold with fear.

      Elisa yelled at the horses, snapped the
reins, and they began to run. Things fell over in the back of the wagon.
Gayle bumped her head and had to grab hold to keep from falling over.

      Hank had the shotgun in his hands. He
swung the barrel to the right, tracking something in the sky, and then he
pulled the trigger. The explosion deafened Gayle for a few seconds, but during
that time—with the pressure against her eardrums driving spikes of pain
into her head—she saw one of the flying monkeys tumbling out of the sky.
One of its arms had been torn off by the shotgun blast and the wing on the same
side was shredded.

      “It’s going to get up again,” she said,
not even aware she was speaking out loud. “They get better unless you take off
the head, or put wood through the heart. That’s what the lion says.”