The Collected Horrors of Tim Wellman (4 page)

He moved closer to Izbet, as if the small girl
could protect him. "What are they doing up there?"

"Searching," she said. "I found the house only a
few weeks after Lydia killed herself, but I guess I was careless.
They followed me here. The first time... the first time they found
me it was bad. They knew how to torture those with less power, they
were experts at it. I guess they thought I would never return, so
sure of their handiwork. So, I would just hide in the woods when
they arrived and they never cared to look for me. They only come
here at night, always searching for the spell Lydia had used to
screw their masters over."

"The spell we found," he said. "So, it's useless
to even try to fight them? We've lost everything, including your
chance to find your soul."

"But the spell didn't work," she said. "We
missed something. They can't kill me, they can only hurt me, so
I'll always remember what I know, and even if it takes centuries
and a thousand beatings, I'll come back here and keep looking. But
you, I got you into this, and..."

"You said I could go," he said. "This morning.
So it was my
choice
to stay."

They could hear the basement door open and heavy
footsteps come down the stairs. They were in the basement, in the
next room with only the old rotted door separating them.

"It will probably be fast for you," she said.
She tried to smile and patted him on the cheek with her little
hand. "You would have made a great father. Maybe someday..." She
pointed at the door. "They've found us."

Suddenly the door shook, then shook again. They
could hear the deep voices, but Allan couldn't understand the
words. The door handle jiggled then the whole door rattled as one
of the things pulled harder.

But something was wrong. They couldn't get
in.

"Izbet, what's going on?" he said in a
whisper.

"I don't know," she said. "They're strong enough
to rip that door apart. They know we're here. That's what they were
talking about."

"Then what..."

"But... maybe they
don't
know," she said.
She hopped up on her knees and pointed at the door. "They just
talked about getting through the door, not specifically about
getting us." She giggled loudly and smiled. "They
don't
know! This room is safe! It holds and amplifies magic and blocks
the outside world from knowing what the room was used for, so there
was enough of Lydia's magic left to keep them from ever getting in
here, even though they keep trying! They could never feel the magic
remaining in this room! Neither could I! That sneaky old
witch!"

Allan stood up and scratched his head. "Okay,
I'm just a stupid human, remember?" He looked away and then
snickered. "
I am not afraid; for though I am the youngest, I'm
the tallest
," he said. "
They're
the final element of the
spell!" He bent down and pulled Izbet to her feet. "Get it?!"

Izbet looked confused, but then a huge smile
crossed her lips. "Yes!" She hurried to the magic symbol on the
floor and stretched her arms out again. "
Kehr mir die Zung im
Arss umb
!" She was laughing, now, as she floated off the floor.
"M
arukka Asaruludu Namru Asaruali
!"

The room began to fall apart even more and the
door shuttered and shook and suddenly began to crumble. Allan ran
back to the back wall and squatted down as several of the ancient
demons discovered the weakness and started reaching through the
holes in the wood.

"The small curse on the large one be reversed!"
Izbet looked down at Allan and smiled again. "
I am not afraid;
for though I am the youngest, I'm the tallest
," she said.

Suddenly huge bolts of light filled the small
room, bouncing off the walls, illuminating the space as brightly as
the sun, and as the door fell open, the lights seemed to know their
mark, and each found the chest of one of the creatures. They all
roared and wailed, a horrific sound, as the power lifted them off
their huge, malformed feet and burned the number '55' into their
chests and then pierced them through. Allan could only watch as the
disgusting creatures began to wither, as if all the fluid in their
bodies were boiling away, leaving only the dried tissue. Their
thunderous voices faded until the only sound was the light
crackling through the air as their corpses crumbled.

And then there was silence. Izbet was still
floating in the air, but something had changed. As he watched she
seemed to grow, to change, and in only a few seconds, age. She fell
to the floor, now an old woman, frail, and not much bigger than she
had been as a child.

"Izbet!" He ran to her and dropped to his knees.
"It worked."

"It worked," she said through cracked and
bleeding lips. "Thank you."

And with that, she closed her blue eyes and
began to crumble before him until there was just a silhouette of
dust on the floor. But in the center, where her heart would have
been, was the blue soul stone she had taken from him. He picked it
up and as he held it in his hand, it dissolved and once again
became a part of him. He sat down on the floor, stunned, amazed,
with a thousand emotions and thoughts spinning around his head. But
then, above him, either real or imagined, he heard a young girl's
laughter. And then it was silent.

About A
Girl

She was standing on the edge of the old Cole
building with a half-born moon backlighting her. Her long white
shift glowed like a bright aura around her and failed its main
purpose of hiding the shape of her body underneath. I liked the
shape. It was just two stories high, but enough to finish her off
if she fell. I could see her toes over the lip of old stone,
crumbing bits falling away from her like sparks from a rocket ready
to take flight. But birds like her don't fly, they fall... and hit
hard.

It was none of my business, another jilted lover
or dope head out of her mind. Still, I was the only witness, I
imagined, so I should at least check out the body, see if there was
a pulse, maybe. I really wasn't sure what I was doing. Perhaps it
was just morbid curiosity.

She wasn't pretty anymore, maybe she never was,
but I grabbed her wrist and squeezed. I thought I felt something,
but whatever it was, the last few heartbeats, the last jolt of
death, disappeared almost instantly. I shouldn't have looked at her
face, I guess, but again, I shouldn't have been there at all. I was
mistaken; she
was
pretty, what was left, smooth skin and
well-coiffed blonde hair. I figured it was lucky we were mostly in
shadow; romantic ideals work best in shadow. "Baby, whatever it
was, you can stop running now."

As I stood up I heard the distinctive and
gut-gnawing sound of several police revolver hammers being pulled
back. I waited for the usual, "Freeze!", or, "Hands in the air!",
but there was nothing. Silence. I decided to put my hands up
anyway. I turned slowly to face the blue army I knew had gathered
behind me.

"You boys got it wrong," I said. "I saw her fall
and came to see if I could help." I was facing them now, seven of
our city's finest. But something was wrong. Yeah, they were there,
but seemed frozen in place. "You hear me?" No one moved.

I shrugged, the international symbol for 'what
the fuck?' and slowly lowered my arms. And without warning, they
fired, and continued firing. I hit the asphalt alleyway before the
second round went off, certain I had been hit seven times. But no.
They continued to fire at something else. I turned back toward the
girl, and behind her, mostly hidden in shadows, there was
something
. I can't go beyond that description because the
shadows can distort vision and judgment and I was taught
exaggeration was just another lie you'd have to keep track of. But
whatever it was had the cops practically hypnotized.

"Marlin!" one yelled. "This way!" The boys knew
me, not purposely, but I seemed to hang out around police stations
a lot when I was on a case. Yep, private detective, and I know,
every two-bit hustler and his mule is a private detective these
days. Still doesn't change the fact.

I scampered across the ground like a chimpanzee
or, probably more accurately, a shell-shocked soldier crabbing his
way to the relative safety of a foxhole. I stood up beside them and
pulled my own revolver, but I couldn't lock in on a solid target.
But when the cops had to pause to reload, the thing showed itself.
A hideous, hulking shape, deformed in all ways representative of
humanity, with long drooping arms, short, squat legs, and overall a
leathery red hide except on the top of its head where a great shock
of coarse black hair sprang out.

He moved toward the girl's body, then grabbed
her by the arms and in one swift move, slung her over his shoulder.
I fired, and continued to fire, six rounds into the beast's back,
and at the sickening 'click' of a spent cylinder, the cops rejoined
the battle. But the thing wasn't bothered. The bullets, all
thirty-eights, pounded into him, but just as quickly the wounds
healed over. And in silence, then, we all watched the monster carry
the crumpled and crushed corpse into the darker shadows of a
cross-alley and disappear into the night.

"Do we follow?" I said as I reloaded my gun. No
one answered. "Guys?"

"I think I'm going off the clock and hitting the
nearest pub," one of them said. The rest seemed to nod, whether it
meant they were going to do the same thing or whether they were
simply acknowledging a smart idea, I don't know. They all walked
away and left me standing there alone. They left so quickly, if not
for the spent brass around my feet, I would be tempted to think it
was all just an hallucination, someone had, what was it they used
to say in the movies, slipped me a
mickey
.

There was still a pool of blood on the ground
along with other bits and pieces that are usually on the inside of
a body and I'm not sure what I was looking for in the effluence. I
guess I hoped some clue would just be sitting there for me to find.
Well, the setting was right, anyway. So, maybe that was the reason,
regardless, there
was
a clue: a ring with a single key. I
picked it up, a hotel key, and the fob proudly displayed Johnson
Street Motel, Room Six. She must have been holding it when she
jumped.

I knew the city well, grew up on the lower west
side, and knew the exact door that key would fit. I could have
dropped it and walked away. I don't know why I didn't. I didn't
need another non-paying client, especially one tied up with a beast
from hell or wherever that thing called home... I was pretty sure
it wasn't room six of the Johnson Street Hotel. But I held the key
up, the moonlight caught it just right, and I decided to check the
room. It was only a few blocks out of my way.

***

There was an old bum sitting against the wall a
couple of doors down. I waited till he finished pissing his pants,
and then motioned to him. "You seen a good looking gal coming out
of this room lately?"

He waved his hand, motioning me to get closer
and against better judgment and past experience, I walked down the
cement porch, littered with broken glass, syringes, half-eaten fast
food and used condoms. Nice place. "Ya got a dollar, buddy?"

"Dollar's hard ta come by these days," I
said.

"So's information," he said with a rotten grin.
"Ya see that bottle?" He was pointing at a brown paper bag beside
him, the neck of a rot-gut wine bottle sticking out. "Them's even
harder to come by."

Under different circumstances I would have
reacted differently but I was scared and tired and the whole damned
night was starting to eat into my brain like an unwritten crime
novel. I grabbed him around the throat and lifted his scrawny body
up and pinned him against the wall. "You seen a pretty woman come
out of that room down there?"

He seemed more willing to answer now. "I seen
her, I seen her!" he coughed. I let him go and he slid back down
the wall. "She came outa there around two hour ago, I think."

"Alone?"

"No, she was with some guy," he said.

"Black, white, big, small?" I said.

I done told ya all I seen, so fuck off and let
me be," he said. "Ain't no good come from you pokin' around with
them."

"You better keep talking, old man," I said. "I
could have gone home an hour ago and forgotten this whole damned
thing, but there's something digging at me, now, and I feel like
digging back." I kneeled down beside him and grabbed his jaw and
turned him around. "Now talk till I say shut up."

"You a cop?" he said.

"I ain't shit to you," I said. "Just an innocent
bystander at this point."

"She came out of there and walked out to meet a
black van," he said. "She seemed ta know a guy inside 'cause she
waved at 'em but I couldn't make 'im out, then the side door slid
open and she got in." He paused and looked at me for any reaction.
He saw none. "Then ya know what happened?" He started laughing.
"The van drove away." He laughed even harder. "But I ain't told ya
the good part," he said. "I seen inside that van when the door
opened up. Fuckin'
monsters
in there."

I stood up and got out my wallet and dropped a
ten dollar bill in his lap. "Don't spend that on food, buy more
wine," I said.

"I'm tellin' ya, they was
monsters
," he
said.

I nodded my head and walked away. "I believe
you," I said. "Seen one myself a bit earlier." I heard him
struggling to get up and stumble his way off the porch and into the
night as I reached the door of Room Six. I wasn't sure if I wanted
to open the door, wasn't really sure why I was doing anything.
Maybe it was something I liked about the girl as she stood up on
the ledge, like an angel from some old story my mother used to read
me, or maybe it really was just morbid curiosity like looking at
pictures of car crash victims; or maybe, though I wouldn't have
picked it from the three options, there was something else,
something to do with the supernatural, that was forcing me to act.
I put the key in the lock and turned it.