Jabberwock Jack (19 page)

I shook my head. "I'd have a migraine." Sometimes just short periods with our goggles hurt my eyes. But we weren't exactly using the highest in tech. We were using goggles that were sent to us anonymously. Usually thermal goggles were much bulkier and very expensive.

"Maybe if we -" she began, but she was cut off with a shhh from ahead. I noticed everyone had slowed and now crouched. All the flashlights were out, but our personal LEDs were still on. Delilah and I switched off our flashlights to match. Someone had heard something. I noticed Diego and Meat both cock their heads to see if they could hear better.

Diego's head shifted suddenly. He raised his flashlight and clicked it on, sweeping it up to a specific location. I watched the beam as it took a slow route down the tunnel. First there was nothing... nothing... nothing... nothing...
crap.

The beam came to rest on a humanoid form fifty feet in front of us. Also crouched, it was nearly naked, wearing just a tattered loincloth that thankfully concealed its junk. The ghoul's skin was pale, the body emaciated. Its gangly arms ended in human hands that held long sharp claws. The face was also humanlike, just feral and thin. Eyes better suited for darkness squinted in the light. From a mouth full of rot and sharpened teeth erupted a hiss.

It was a ghoul.

A quick recap: ghouls are found in various places in the New Avalon area. Light adverse, they are consummate underground dwellers. They're the real life CHUDs. We've found they typically run in small packs or nests of about half a dozen. They will eat any dead or living creature they can overpower, including humans. My brother and I had dealt with ghoul nests a few times, typically following up a lead of a disappearance of a few people, one at a time, over a period of months. Up until recently, we thought they were mostly feral, no smarter than animals. But then we saw more ghouls than we had ever seen in one location worshipping a suit of armor. Now we didn't know what to think of them.

The ghoul hadn't moved yet. Maybe it was evaluating its position, as it was clearly outnumbered. But if I were a ghoul and was outnumbered by any prey, especially well-armed prey far below the surface, I'd run as my first reaction. Why wasn't it running? Something felt wrong here.

More flashlights clicked on. We shined them on the lone ghoul, who shielded its eyes from the additional light. We paused, the beams of light moving up and down the ghoul. Then we began shining the flashlights in the darkness. Diego held his flashlight on the ghoul, so our six other beams travelled the rest of the area. That's when fear really started crawling up my spine. Our beams passed over shadowy forms before we homed in on them. First one. And then another. And even more. Our beams travelled the length of a host of still figures.
Many
figures. More ghouls.

I had only seen so many ghouls once before, and that was the collection of ghouls worshipping the armor, which had thankfully not even been aware of our presence. These ghouls were definitely aware of us, their eyes squinting beyond our beams, easily seeing us with our LED lights.

There must have been at least thirty ghouls. And they were different than I was used to. You might think that if you'd seen one pale, flesh eating, humanoid, underground dweller, you'd seen them all. But when you have to kill them, you get to see the details - sometimes details are the difference between life and death in a fight. So when I saw these ghouls in the light, I picked up on how they were different. The ghouls in the Sewers closer to the surface were animalistic, which is probably why we thought them unintelligent. Those ghouls were often naked. Occasionally we'd see rags or
maybe
a loincloth - which made the first ghoul we saw here a member of high fashion for our usual ghouls. They didn't carry weapons, relying on their claws. The most elaborate weapon I had ever seen a ghoul carry was a femur which he used as a club, like the Szandor Troll did.

These ghouls seemed, for the lack of any better term, more civilized. That first ghoul we saw was the worst dressed of the bunch. Most still wore loin cloths, but some wore shirts, some pants, some even wore jackets. One ghoul wore a discarded set of football shoulder pads. The female ghouls of the bunch seemed to have even picked their clothes to be modest of their breasts. Many of them wore necklaces. And these ghouls were armed. Nearly every ghoul carried at least a sharpened stick, but most carried spears. I couldn't tell if the spears were wood and bone or even metal, but they looked lethal either way. These ghouls were far more dangerous than the usual ghoul. My brother and I relied on ghouls trying to pounce on us for hand-to-claw attacks, typically using the reach of our weapons to maintain our advantage. But if ghouls had spears, they could keep
us
at a distance.

My gaze was drawn to one particular ghoul in the middle of the pack. Unlike the others, he didn't just wear clothes. Over his back he wore the skin of an albino alligator. The alligator's snout rested on his head, the teeth descending around the ghoul's wizened face. The skin was held on by straps, some of the white leather pulled around the ghoul's abdomen. This ghoul carried a staff which seemed to have been painted with crude colors. From the top of the staff hung a multitude of strings. Some ended in feathers, some small skulls, some teeth. Others were necklaces I didn't recognize.

"A shaman," whispered my brother in shock. "When did ghouls get shamans?"

"This is
not
good," said Meat. He also recognized that this was very different from our typical ghoul pack.

We had all grabbed our weapons tightly. I was not happy with this turn of events. I had just a spear gun. Single shot, long reload. Not so good for a metric fuckton of ghouls. I wished I had my katana. Or even one of Szandor's lead pipes. I had a feeling I'd be bludgeoning them with the spear gun before the end of this. Delilah, Diego, and Meat had guns at least. But would they get much use out of them? The ghouls could close the gap quickly and overrun us. If they made a move.

"What are they waiting for?" whispered my brother.

The ghouls hadn't yet attacked. Other than hissing and staring, they really hadn't moved. It seemed like there was some sort of hissing communication between the shaman and the others, but we couldn't be sure. I could tell that the ghouls hadn't been camped here. They must have been on the move when they came across us. Maybe they had been coming to investigate the gunshot. If this was their territory, they probably wanted to know what the noise was about. But the fact they weren't immediately charging at us gave the impression they might not be hostile. Or at least not a berserk sort of hostile.

"We don't want any trouble," called out Meat. We've never seen or heard ghouls communicate other than hissing to each other, but there's been some evidence that they understood what we say. Or maybe not. Maybe they just reacted to the tone of our voices, like the way Tor's dogs did when Szandor would swear that they understood his words. Still, it was worth the risk to try to parlay.

There was some hissing in reaction to Meat's attempt to talk. The shaman ghoul turned his head, cocking it left and right and peering at us in the light, as if trying to discern our words by looking at us.

"We have no quarrel with you," said Jericho. His voice was strong but calm. "Let us pass."

There was more hissing. The shaman was still unimpressed.

Fala stepped to the front of the group. "We come with greetings from the Appaquagh!"

The reaction to this was much greater. Shock showed on the shaman's face; it was a look that screamed confusion to me. Then his eyes narrowed and he began making what seemed like a croaking. But it wasn't
just
a croaking. The shaman was speaking words. They were in no language I could recognize and they seemed distorted by the croak sound, but they were definitely words.

"Holy fuck, ghouls can talk," said Szandor. It wasn't a surprised exclamation. While there was some surprise in it, his tone was more in the range Of Course They Can That Seems To Fit With Every Other Fucking Wrong Thing Today.

Of course it was shocking. We had never seen ghouls talk. They seemed human-like, but until recently we had never noticed anything really human. We had only ever seen them hiss or screech to communicate. If they could talk... that changed everything. Were they much closer to humans than we thought? Were they somehow
actually
human? There were so many new questions. I'm sure some of the others had that same moment of doubt. Meat and Szandor at least. Diego probably had few encounters with them, Jericho didn't care, and I had no clue what Delilah thought of ghouls.

But Fala had a reaction to the Amazing Talking Ghoul even stronger than ours. But I don't think it was because of some revelation that ghouls could talk. It seemed much more about
what
the ghoul had said.

Fala paled, her expression shocked. "I understood that," she said breathlessly. There was disbelief in that tone. She hadn't expected to hear what the ghoul said. She hadn't expected to understand it.

"Is that bad?" said Szandor. "This seems bad."

Then Fala said something in a language I didn't understand. I couldn't remember hearing that sort of sounds in any movie. I went out on a limb and guessed it was whatever language her Appaquagh forefathers had spoken. Her voice was weak, tentative, and stumbling. It still sounded better than the croaky shaman.

The shaman was surprised by this as well. He seemed to blink his eyes in shock. Then he responded with croaks. It was now very apparent that despite the differences in pitch, Fala and the shaman spoke the same language.

Fala responded again to the shaman. Her voice was less tentative now. Of course I didn't understand any of what she said, but I did hear her say a familiar word:
Jagherherawagh
.

What had she said? Was she saying we were looking for Jack? Was she asking for directions? Or did she ask them something far darker? All I know is that the name got the ghouls' attention.
All
of their attention. Where before, only the shaman had been interested in Fala, suddenly the rest of pack was involved. All ghoul eyes fell on Fala. Shock was written across the shaman's face again. He took a long moment to look over Fala.

Had she somehow gained their trust? Had she intrigued them? Were we now part of the tribe?

No such luck. The shaman's eyes narrowed and I knew things went bad. His lip curled, revealing his rotted teeth, still sharp even after the decay. In his hissingly croaky voice, he snarled a single word at great volume.

"
Jagherherawagh!
"

There was a second of silence, then another ghoul snarled the name, their voice also something between a croak and a screech. Then another. And another. Suddenly the entire ghoul pack erupted in that name. They began chanting it over and over, raising their spears to punctuate the repetitions.

To say that us hunters got uncomfortable was a vast understatement. This was like the scene in
King Kong
right before Kong shows up. Except we were hunting a man-eating sea serpent, so I doubt things would go so well for us. We had neglected to bring a Fay Wray.

And then the obvious thing happened. I had one of my signature Bad Feelings. It was another hot flash, another throbbing scar moment. I acted before I truly discerned what it meant, knowing only what I needed to do. It wasn't Jack. I ran forward and grabbed Fala's arm. I yanked her backward, throwing her into Jericho's arms.

A second later a spear landed with great force in the spot where she had just stood.

"Run!" I yelled.

The ghouls' chant turned into a screeching battle cry. Their faces twisted into snarling masks of rage. Their crouched forms leaped into action, charging toward us. At once we all turned and began running. We only had one direction available to us, back the way we came.

The screeching followed, a howling that erupted from the darkness behind us, as much a pursuer as the ghouls themselves. We heard our breathing and the pounding of our boots the loudest, the screeching nearly as loud. But behind that piercing sound we heard their bare feet hitting the wet cement with a flapping sound. As there were at least thirty of them, it was its own percussion as we ran for our lives.

"Holy shit! Holy shit!" said Szandor as he ran. Similar curses came between breaths from some of the other hunters. We knew we were outnumbered. If we were to stop and make a stand, it had to be somewhere other than out in the open. We also had to make sure we didn't trip or lag behind. I had wondered if Jericho's leg would be able to handle it. His steps were louder, but he was able to move quickly. But one look at the man himself and I could see the effort and agony it took keeping up with us at that pace.

Our chests heaving, our legs burning, our packs heavy, and flesh eating monsters with spears at our backs, we ran. It was a sprint at first. I don't know how long we actually ran. It seemed somewhere between an eternity and two minutes. Few experiences in my life had gotten me that scared. I had fought many monsters before, but I had never run from an armed pack of them. The fear I had felt in front of Jack was different. In front of that massive beast, it was a primal fear, some ancestral instinct that prey feels in front of an alpha predator. What I felt now was a different fear. It was an anxiety, a sense of danger, of not knowing whether to turn and fight or to get hunted down when my legs gave out. It was the fear of getting stabbed, dog piled, and then eaten by a pack of angry mutants. Ghouls had never been something of major concern before, but now they were giving me a panicked fear.

I don't know if we passed the door we original came to this tunnel from or if someone in the lead found a side tunnel we had missed. All I know is that suddenly the rest of the group was turning right into a narrower tunnel. Coming last, I turned as well. Or I tried. My boots had other ideas on the matter. They slid on the damn concrete. Had I not been pursued by a murderous mob, this might have been a comical Breakfast Club-esque moment as I skidded in place while trying to make the turn. Finally my boots got traction and I surged forward in the new direction. Had this cost me time I didn't have?