Spring 2007 (10 page)

When they had traveled for some time, the deputy said,
obviously feeling good about it, “There ain’t nothing out here ‘sides what you
would expect. A possum maybe. The wind.”

“Good for you, then,” Jebidiah said. “Good for us all.”

“You sound disappointed to me,” the deputy said.

“My line of work isn’t far from yours, Deputy. I look
for bad guys of a sort, and try and send them to hell…Or in some cases, back to
hell.”

And then, almost simultaneous with a flash of lightning,
something crossed the road not far in front of them.

“What the hell was that?” Bill said, coming out of what
had been a near stupor.

“It looked like a man,” the deputy said.

“Could have been,” Jebidiah said. “Could have been.”

“What do you think it was?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do.”

“Gimet,” Jebidiah said.

***

The sky let the moon loose for a moment, and its light
spread through the trees and across the road. In the light there were insects,
a large wad of them, buzzing about in the air.

“Bees,” Bill said. “Damn if them ain’t bees. And at
night. That ain’t right.”

“You an expert on bees?” the deputy asked.

“He’s right,” Jebidiah said. “And look, they’re gone
now.”

“Flew off,” the deputy said.

“No….no they didn’t,” Bill said. “I was watching, and
they didn’t fly nowhere. They’re just gone. One moment they were there, then
they was gone, and that’s all there is to it. They’re like ghosts.”

“You done gone crazy,” the deputy said.

“They are not insects of this earth,” Jebidiah said.
“They are familiars.”

“What,” Bill said.

“They assist evil, or evil beings,” Jebidiah said. “In
this case, Gimet. They’re like a witches black cat familiar. Familiars take on
animal shapes, insects, that sort of thing.”

“That’s ridiculous,” the deputy said. “That don’t make
no kind of sense at all.”

“Whatever you say,” Jebidiah said, “but I would keep my
eyes alert, and my senses raw. Wouldn’t hurt to keep your revolvers loose in
their holsters. You could well need them. Though, come to think of it, your
revolvers won’t be much use.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Bill said.

Jebidiah didn’t answer. He continued to urge his horse
on, something that was becoming a bit more difficult as they went. All of the
horses snorted and turned their heads left and right, tugged at their bits;
their ears went back and their eyes went wide.

“Holy hell,” Bill said, “what’s that?”

Jebidiah and the deputy turned to look at him. Bill was
turned in the saddle, looking back. They looked too, just in time to see
something that looked pale blue in the moonlight, dive into the brush on the
other side of the road. Black dots followed, swarmed in the moonlight, then
darted into the bushes behind the pale, blue thing like a load of buckshot.

“What was that?” the deputy said. His voice sounded as
if it had been pistol whipped.

“Already told you,” Jebidiah said.

“That couldn’t have been nothing human,” the deputy
said.

“Don’t you get it,” Bill said, “that’s what the preacher
is trying to tell you. It’s Gimet, and he ain’t nowhere alive. His skin was
blue. And he’s all messed up. I seen more than you did. I got a good look. And
them bees. We ought to break out and ride hard.”

“Do as you choose,” the Reverend said. “I don’t intend
to.”

“And why not?” Bill said.

“That isn’t my job.”

“Well, I ain’t got no job. Deputy, ain’t you supposed to
make sure I get to Nacogdoches to get hung? Ain’t that your job?”

“It is.”

“Then we ought to ride on, not bother with this fool. He
wants to fight some grave crawler, then let him. Ain’t nothing we ought to get
into.”

“We made a pact to ride together,” the deputy said. “So
we will.”

“I didn’t make no pact,” Bill said.

“Your word, your needs, they’re nothing to me,” the
deputy said.

At that moment, something began to move through the
woods on their left. Something moving quick and heavy, not bothering with
stealth. Jebidiah looked in the direction of the sounds, saw someone, or
something, moving through the underbrush, snapping limbs aside like they were
rotten sticks. He could hear the buzz of the bees, loud and angry. Without
really meaning to, he urged the horse to a trot. The deputy and Bill joined in
with their own mounts, keeping pace with the Reverend’s horse.

They came to a place off the side of the road where the
brush thinned, and out in the distance they could see what looked like bursting
white waves, frozen against the dark. But they soon realized it was tombstones.
And there were crosses. A graveyard. The graveyard Old Timer had told them
about. The sky had cleared now, the wind had ceased to blow hard. They had a
fine view of the cemetery, and as they watched, the thing that had been in the
brush moved out of it and went up the little rise where the graves were,
climbed up on one of the stones and sat. A black cloud formed around its head,
and the sound of buzzing could be heard all the way out to the road. The thing
sat there like a king on a throne. Even from that distance it was easy to see
it was nude, and male, and his skin was gray—blue in the
moonlight—and the head looked misshapen. Moon glow slipped through cracks
in the back of the horror’s head and poked out of fresh cracks at the front of
its skull and speared out of the empty eye sockets. The bee’s nest, visible
through the wound in its chest, was nestled between the ribs. It pulsed with a
yellow-honey glow. From time to time, little black dots moved around the glow
and flew up and were temporarily pinned in the moonlight above the creature’s
head.

“Jesus,” said the deputy.

“Jesus won’t help a bit,” Jebidiah said.

“It’s Gimet, ain’t it? He…it…really is dead,” the deputy
said.

“Undead,” Jebidiah said. “I believe he’s toying with us.
Waiting for when he plans to strike.”

“Strike?” Bill said. “Why?”

“Because that is his purpose,” Jebidiah said, “as it is
mine to strike back. Gird you loins men, you will soon be fighting for your
life.”

“How about we just ride like hell?” Bill said.

In that moment, Jebidiah’s words became prophetic. The
thing was gone from the grave stone. Shadows had gathered at the edge of the
woods, balled up, become solid, and when the shadows leaped from the even
darker shadows of the trees, it was the shape of the thing they had seen on the
stone, cool blue in the moonlight, a disaster of a face, and the teeth…They
were long and sharp. Gimet leaped in such a way that his back foot hit the rear
of Jebidiah’s animal, allowing him to spring over the deputy’s horse, to land
hard and heavy on Bill. Bill let out a howl and was knocked off his mount. When
he hit the road, his hat flying, Gimet grabbed him by his bushy head of
straw-colored hair and dragged him off as easily as if he were a kitten. Gimet
went into the trees, tugging Bill after him. Gimet blended with the darkness
there. The last of Bill was a scream, the raising of his cuffed hands, the
cuffs catching the moonlight for a quick blink of silver, then there was a
rustle of leaves and a slapping of branches, and Bill was gone.

“My God,” the deputy said. “My God. Did you see that
thing?”

Jebidiah dismounted, moved to the edge of the road,
leading his horse, his gun drawn. The deputy did not dismount. He pulled his
pistol and held it, his hands trembling. “Did you see that?” he said again, and
again.

“My eyes are as good as your own,” Jebidiah said. “I saw
it. We’ll have to go in and get him.”

“Get him?” the deputy said. “Why in the name of
everything that’s holy would we do that? Why would we want to be near that
thing? He’s probably done what he’s done already…Damn, Reverend. Bill, he’s a
killer. This is just as good as I might want. I say while the old boy is doing
whatever he’s doing to that bastard, we ride like the goddamn wind, get on out
on the far end of this road where it forks. Gimet is supposed to be only able
to go on this stretch, ain’t he?”

“That’s what Old Timer said. You do as you want. I’m
going in after him.”

“Why? You don’t even know him.”

“It’s not about him,” Jebidiah said.

“Ah, hell. I ain’t gonna be shamed.” The deputy swung
down from his horse, pointed at the place where Gimet had disappeared with
Bill. “Can we get the horses through there?”

“Think we will have to go around a bit. I discern a path
over there.”

“Discern?”

“Recognize. Come on, time is wasting.”

Part Three

They went back up the road a pace, found a trail that
led through the trees. The moon was strong now as all the clouds that had
covered it had rolled away like wind blown pollen. The air smelled fresh, but
as they moved forward, that changed. There was a stench in the air, a putrid
smell both sweet and sour, and it floated up and spoiled the freshness.

“Something dead,” the deputy said.

“Something long dead,” Jebidiah said.

Finally the brush grew so thick they had to tie the
horses, leave them. They pushed their way through briars and limbs.

“There ain’t no path,” the deputy said. “You don’t know
he come through this way.”

Jebidiah reached out and plucked a piece of cloth from a
limb, held it up so that the moon dropped rays on it. “This is part of Bill’s
shirt. Am I right?”

The deputy nodded. “But how could Gimet get through
here? How could he get Bill through here?”

“What we pursue has little interest in the things that
bother man. Limbs, briars. It’s nothing to the living dead.”

They went on for a while. Vines got in their way. The
vines were wet. They were long thick vines, and sticky, and finally they
realized they were not vines at all, but guts, strewn about and draped like
decorations.

“Fresh,” the deputy said. “Bill, I reckon.”

“You reckon right,” Jebidiah said.

They pushed on a little farther, and the trail widened,
making the going easier. They found more pieces of Bill as they went along. The
stomach. Fingers. Pants with one leg in them. A heart, which looked as if it
has been bitten into and sucked on. Jebidiah was curious enough to pick it up
and examine it. Finished, he tossed it in the dirt, wiped his hands on Bill’s
pants, the one with the leg still in it, said, “Gimet just saved you a lot of
bother and the State of Texas the trouble of a hanging.”

“Heavens,” the deputy said, watching Jebidiah wipe blood
on the leg filled pants.

Jebidiah looked up at the deputy. “He won’t mind I get
blood on his pants,” Jebidiah said. “He’s got more important things to worry
about, like dancing in the fires of hell. And by the way, yonder sports his
head.”

Jebidiah pointed. The deputy looked. Bill’s head had
been pushed onto a broken limb of a tree, the sharp end of the limb being
forced through the rear of the skull and out the left eye. The spinal cord
dangled from the back of the head like a bell rope.

The deputy puked in the bushes. “Oh, God. I don’t want
no more of this.”

“Go back. I won’t think the less of you, cause I don’t
think that much of you to begin with. Take his head for evidence and ride on,
just leave me my horse.”

The deputy adjusted his hat. “Don’t need the head…And if
it comes to it, you’ll be glad I’m here. I ain’t no weak sister.”

“Don’t talk me to death on the matter. Show me what you
got, boy.”

The trail was slick with Bill’s blood. They went along
it and up a rise, guns drawn. At the top of the hill they saw a field, grown
up, and not far away, a sagging shack with a fallen down chimney.

They went that direction, came to the shack’s door.
Jebidiah kicked it with the toe of his boot and it sagged open. Once inside,
Jebidiah struck a match and waved it about. Nothing but cobwebs and dust.

“Must have been Gimet’s place,” Jebidiah said. Jebidiah
moved the match before him until he found a lantern full of coal oil. He lit it
and placed the lantern on the table.

“Should we do that?” the deputy asked. “Have a light.
Won’t he find us?”

“In case you have forgotten, that’s the idea.”

Out the back window, which had long lost its grease
paper covering, they could see tombstones and wooden crosses in the distance.
“Another view of the graveyard,” Jebidiah said. “That would be where the girl’s
mother killed herself.”

No sooner had Jebidiah said that, then he saw a shadowy
shape move on the hill, flitting between stones and crosses. The shape moved
quickly and awkwardly.

“Move to the center of the room,” Jebidiah said.

The deputy did as he was told, and Jebidiah moved the
lamp there as well. He sat it in the center of the floor, found a bench and dragged
it next to the lantern. Then he reached in his coat pocket and took out the
bible. He dropped to one knee and held the bible close to the lantern light and
tore out certain pages. He wadded them up, and began placing them all around
the bench on the floor, placing the crumpled pages about six feet out from the
bench and in a circle with each wad two feet apart.