Daemon of the Dark Wood (36 page)

He looked up to see the unnatural thing closing on Thorn and knew he had no time to retrieve his pistol. He went after the beast with the baseball bat, hoping to buy Thorn and himself a little time. And after that? Who knew?

* * * *

Liza pulled open the door and slid in behind the wheel of the police car. The engine was still running. Cops always left their squad cars running, didn’t they? Made sense, sure, but it must cost the taxpayers a pretty penny, gas prices being what they were nowadays.

Concentrate, old girl. Think sharp
. Was that Wilbur’s voice in her head? More likely, it was the ghost of Liza’s younger self offering frisky counsel.

She put the car in gear, gripped the steering wheel as firmly as she could with her gnarled fingers, and then put her foot on the gas pedal. The car eased forward over the grassy ground at five miles per hour.

Through the rain-smeared windshield she could see the deputy going at the tall beast with a bat. Professor Thorn—God bless him!—was grinding the stump even though a bird of prey appeared to be attached to his back, angrily flapping its wings.

Liza lined up the car so that there was a straight path to the goat-footed monster and then she put the gas pedal to the floor and the car shot forward, finding little traction on the wet ground, then fishtailing, the front-end swinging to the right and taking her in the wrong direction.

“Lord, Liza,” she said, jerking her foot off the gas. “Be sharp!”

She turned the wheel until the beast was once again lined up in front of her, about nine yards away. She pressed down on the pedal with a gentler foot this time, and the car’s aim stayed true.

She evenly increased the gas feed, gaining speed as she kept the vehicle going straight ahead, the goat-man growing bigger in the glass screen of the windshield.

Then she stomped the gas pedal and braced for impact.

* * * *

Up close, the thing was repulsively grotesque. And it stank worse than a wet graveyard dog. It towered over Rourke and fixed him with molten eyes. It growled, then screamed like a panther as it reached for Rourke with big hairy hands.

Rourke swung the bat and thought he heard a knuckle crack, not that it mattered because the beast seized Rourke by the throat with one of its hands as it closed the other hand over his face, like a gigantic NBA player palming a basketball.

Blinded by the thing’s stinking hand, Rourke swung the bat onehandedly, to no effect. The monster lifted him off the ground, held him up so that their faces were inches apart and Rourke could smell its carrion breath, and then the mad beast began to crush his skull between those massive hands.

* * * *

Thorn glanced up from the diminishing stump and saw the creature pick up the deputy by the head.
Sweet Jesus, the thing’s going to kill him and there’s nothing I can do
.
Nothing but to keep on grinding this damned stump and hope for a fucking miracle before it kills me too.

As he was about to avert his eyes from the killing of the cop, Thorn saw the police car barreling down on the beast. He couldn’t see who was behind the wheel, not that he much cared, because he was suddenly preoccupied with working out a fast physics problem in his mind, calculating force, mass and trajectory. Yes! With any luck the goat-man monster would—

And then it happened just the way he foresaw it.

The beast looked up a fraction of a second before the police car rammed into him. The front bumper clipped him just below his oddly bent knees, sweeping his hooves off the ground, and the car carried him forward and dumped him right on top of what was left of the stump—and right into the heavy spinning teeth of the stump grinder. The deputy fell beside the stump, dead or unconscious.

Thorn kept the grinder going full guns. The teeth chewed into the goat-man’s thick neck and shoulder, pinning him to the stump, grinding him
into
the vanishing wood.

The thing screamed and shook his head as if to deny what was happening to him. He thrashed his legs and kicked at the muddy ground with his hooves as the grinder ate into his torso and churned out a bloody mulch of flesh, wood and bone.

Thorn watched in sick horror as the goat-man’s head finally rolled free of the pulped upper body and fell to the ground, coming to rest against the unmoving deputy. The falcon relinquished its grip on Thorn’s back and fell dead at his feet.

An enormous death-throes erection sprouted from the monster’s furred loins. Thorn winced as the grinder’s spinning blade chewed up the hideous cock and spat out bloody threads of its remains.

And then the stump grinder’s motor died and an eerie silence hung over the land, blotting out the sound of falling rain.

Chapter
Thirty-Six

Julie Archer halted when she saw what looked like a bunch of flaccid Halloween masks arrayed on a gory stump. She moved cautiously forward, sniffing the air and drinking in the musky scent of the dark one who had summoned her. No, these weren’t masks. They were the human faces these crushed skulls had worn.

She understood that these heads had been offered to
him
in some dark ceremony she could only imagine.

She stuck a fingertip into the goo oozing from one of the shattered heads and then tasted it. Saliva flooded her tongue. She smacked her lips hungrily and wished she’d been here to see the sacred ceremony.

A piercing scream echoed through the woods. In apparent response to the shrill sound, urine ran down Julie’s bare legs. All at once weak-kneed, she sat down on the wide stump. The screaming went on a few moments longer and then suddenly stopped.

The kitchen knife slipped from her fingers. An overwhelming emptiness opened a fathomless gulf inside her, and she began to sob. Then she was bawling like a small child whose mother won’t be coming ever again. Tears streamed down her dirty cheeks. She shivered, naked and cold even though the canopy of trees kept much of the rain off her.

Something whispered in the trees.

“Michael? Is that you? Oh, Michael, please help me. I’m sorry, so sorry …”

But no, it wasn’t her Heavenly guardian. He was done with her. It must have only been the wind.

Then she thought of Angela and of what she’d done to her.
Was that me? Did I really do that?

The whispering came again, louder and insistent. More than one whisperer. A chorus of hissing voices.
Angry
voices.

She picked up the knife, stood up and fearfully looked around. She couldn’t see them but she knew they were there. Knew they wished her ill.

She jumped onto the pedestal-like stump and danced madly about, slashing the air with her blade.

“Come on then!” she shouted with hollow bravado. “You want a piece of me? Come and get it! Don’t you know who I am? I’m Julie Archer. I’m the queen of fucking horror!”

* * * *

His head throbbing with a deep ache, Rourke leaned against the cruiser and surveyed the bloody battlefield. Of the fallen women, only two remained alive, dazed and in need of immediate medical attention. What was left of the monster wasn’t easy to look at, never mind that it had nearly killed him.

Professor Thorn waved a hand at the beast’s lower legs and head and said, “We’ll want to make sure those don’t get away from us.”

“I don’t expect they’ll get up and run off,” Rourke said.

“No, I mean they’re too valuable to turn over to your forensic people and have them end up incinerated. This is an important scientific discovery and it must be treated accordingly.”

“Aren’t you gonna see to them women?” Mrs. Leatherwood asked the two men.

“Yes ma’am,” said Rourke. “I’ve already called for an ambulance. I’ve got a First Aid kit in the car but I don’t know if they’ll let me get close enough to do anything for them.”

“I don’t think she can hear you,” Thorn reminded Rourke.

“Well I reckon she can read. I’m going to write her an official letter of commendation. You’ll get one too. If you two hadn’t done what you did, I’d be dead. Now get your shirt off and let’s have a look at your wounds. Those two crazies can wait.”

Unbuttoning his shirt, Thorn said, “I think a couple of their cohorts ran off when I started grinding up that hairy son of a bitch.”

“I doubt they’ll be doing any more hell-raising.”

While Rourke was getting the First Aid kit from the cruiser, the radio crackled with static and the dispatcher called for all available units to respond to a report of multiple homicides at the Trucking-A.

“Jesus,” he said. “Now what?” Was there another band of wild women on a murderous rampage? No, he didn’t think so. He didn’t
want
to think so. More likely, these same women had hit the Trucking-A before coming here. The truck-stop wasn’t that far from here. And the women had been wearing blood when they first came running out of the woods.

Rourke felt certain that it all ended with the killing of the goat-man. The monster’s evil influence was no more. All that remained was the messy cleanup. He would probably have nightmares for the rest of his life, but the flesh-and-blood horrors were over and done.

But there
was
one thing that worried him now. In the cave he’d had that mind-warping vision of the strange world from which the beast had come.

Were there other monsters there, waiting for the way to open again so that they might come shrieking into this world?

* * * *

Liza Leatherwood wiped her bifocals with the hem of her dress, put them on and looked down at the beast’s severed head.

“Humph. All my life I was afraid of you. ’Fraid you’d come back. Well, you did. And now look at you. Humph. Once upon a time you had your way, but you weren’t no match for
this
crop of mountain folk.”

She hawked up a meager wad of phlegm and spat it on the goat-man’s lifeless face. Then she turned to Thorn and said, “Professor? After you get yourself patched up, I’d be obliged if you was to take me home. I’m a mite behind on my beauty rest.”

Thorn smiled and gave her a courtly bow.

“Humph,” she said, grinning inwardly.

About the Author

Randy Chandler is the author of
Bad Juju
,
Hellz Bellz
, and co-author of
Duet for the Devil
. He is also the author of the novellas
Dead Juju
and
Howler
. Randy is a frequent contributor to Comet Press anthologies. He lives north of Atlanta.

 

ALSO BY RANDY CHANDLER

 

 

DIME DETECTIVE
Comet Press - April 2012

 

 

When barroom bouncer Joe Dall’s ex-wife is murdered, he finds himself pressed into service as a novice private eye. Something very dark and deadly lurks in the lush shadows of the sleepy Florida town and if he can’t unmask the killer soon, others close to Joe will die. Working on a powerful client’s dime, Joe Dall’s first case could be his last.

 

 

"To find a wonderful example of hardboiled detective noir today, you need not look any further than Randy Chandler's latest novel
Dime Detective
...
Dime Detective
is both an homage and a love letter to the genre, but in many ways, an interesting and original departure." --Walt Hicks,
Hellbound Times

 

 

HELLZ BELLZ
Comet Press - June 2012

 

 

Randy Chandler's out-of-print and hard-to-find novel
HELLz BELLz
is back in ebook, on Kindle and Nook.

 

 

When an ancient bell begins to toll in an abandoned church, the town of Druid Hills descends into a night of unholy hell. To survive, the less crazed citizens must fight for their lives as they battle their own primitive urges to commit unspeakable acts. Before the night ends, some will discover that there are fates worse than death.

 

 

"The tension is built with the skill of a professional, and it is added to by the reader's knowledge that every character is expendable.
Hellz Bellz
is good fun. There is sex, violence and a hell of a story. This novel reminds me just a little of early-Stephen King mixed with everything Richard Laymon ever wrote. This one, you should read." --
SFReader.com

 

 

HELLBENT HOUSE
Comet Press

 

 

Haunted by a house seen only in her dreams, Ava locates the old plantation house in the real world and makes the mistake of venturing inside. She lands in the middle of an honest-to-goodness ghost story with murderous roots in the Civil War, but in this hellbent house, there are things far worse than ghosts. And one of them is hungry for Ava's soul.

 

BAD JUJU: A NOVEL OF RAW TERROR
Acid Grave Press

 

 

Dark forces are afoot in Vinewood, Georgia, a deceptively sleepy town where the dead don’t stay dead and a sinkhole is as sinister as it is deadly. Violent events both natural and supernatural build to a chaotic crescendo of horrors that will threaten the entire town and everyone in it.

 

 

An odd handful of townsfolk put their lives on the line to save the town—but the darkness may swallow them up before they have a chance.

 

 

“Hot and thick, the atmosphere reeks of earth, blood, and decay. The astringent air carries with it a sense of malevolence and resentment. No matter where you look, no matter how shallow you breathe, this town will touch you.” —Kelly Tomblin,
Horror-Web
DEADCORE: 4 HARDCORE ZOMBIE NOVELLAS
Comet Press - September 2010

 

 

By Randy Chandler, Ben Cheetham, Edward M. Erdelac, and David James Keaton.

 

 

“Randy Chandler’s
Dead Juju
is a wild, graphic ride—a fast-paced array of elements including religion, politics, race relations, news media, socio-economic classism, contumacy—all handled with skillful precision as Chandler gives us deft glimpses of humanity in all its chaotic, whacked out splendor.”—Walt Hicks,
Page Horrific
“DEADCORE achieves all extremes. Violent, perverse, depraved and, as such, quite recommended.” —