Chills (6 page)

He screamed for help into the inky emptiness all around him.

As if in answer, the thing on the roof jumped down onto the trunk, and Dan turned sharply in his seat. Puffs of its breath fogged the back window, melting the snow. For the first time, Dan saw the creature's head, and it sucked the breath and scream right out of him.

The pale head was anglerfish-like, wide-eyed and scaly with serrated teeth swathed in fleshy, dull lips. The body crowding the rear window was all lean muscles and angles, the scales or flesh like snow and ice. It was there one second, and then it blew away, like so many flakes in the window. Then it reformed again. It growled at him, a sound like rending metal, and for one horrific second, Dan thought the thing was tearing through the car. Then it scrabbled up the back window and onto the roof again.

It seemed like a long time passed after that. The wind blew dry, anxious whisper words of snow against the windows of the car. All around him, the night exhaled its leaden grayness, separating him further from any hope of help. He waited, his breath shallow, and listened for the thing on the roof. It had been a while since he'd heard it wailing and thumping up there. Maybe it had left. He peered through the window into the swirling darkness. Everything was moving out there—it would be impossible to see where or if that thing was waiting out on the road.

His chest hurt from pulling in cold, dry air, and his body was shaking uncontrollably.

His phone! He scrambled to pick it up and turn it on. His fingers were numb and his first few attempts with the touch screen yielded nothing. Finally, though, his phone came on, and he laughed in relief. He was just about to call 911 when his phone went black. No amount of coaxing could make it come on again. The laughter died in his throat.

Dan swore, tempted to throw the phone out the window. Instead, he tossed it on the dashboard, disgusted.

His phone dinged, indicating a new text message. He frowned, confused, and picked it up to check the screen.

The new message was from Jessica Florey.

He looked at Jessica's phone, in the puddle of blood where he'd left it on the passenger seat. It was dark and still.

He tapped the text message to bring it on screen, and the rush of anxiety that filled his chest was the first bit of warmth he'd felt in what seemed like hours.

The world dimmed in the corners a bit. Run? Run where? Cold and confused, he looked around the car helplessly. He had recently cleaned out his car, at the behest of Jessica. Anything he could have used to layer and keep warm was gone now—old scarves and wrinkled jackets, T-shirts balled up in the back seat . . . Hell, he thought he might have at one time even had a waterproof pair of work boots back there somewhere. Now there was nothing but an empty foam cup from Wendy's, a quarter, and—

And sweet, sweet Jesus, it was his pocket knife. He allowed a tiny smile, a slight loosening of the knot in his chest as he reached into the back seat for it. He had to force his stiff fingers to close around its handle, but he got it, and its little hard realness was something of a relief.

Run Danny Ruuunnn,
the text had said. And why not? There was a good chance he would freeze to death whether he went into the snow or stayed in his icebox on wheels. His skin was so cold and it was getting harder for him to focus. Why had he wanted to stay? Was the car keeping that thing from getting to him? How long would it matter, even if that were true?

It had been a while since he'd heard the thing on the roof. A flash of panic drove him to peer out the various car windows—the thought of losing track of the thing now, just as he was contemplating escape, seemed unbearable to him.

Nothing but darkness and snow enveloped him and his car. It had to be stacking up all around him, maybe muffling the movements of the monster outside as the thing looked for ways to peel open the car like a tuna can.

Or maybe it had given up and gone away. He clutched the pocket knife more tightly. He'd have to take the chance. He was freezing to death in that car.

His heart stuck in his chest as his hand hovered over the door handle. He counted his shallow breaths. At ten, he promised himself he'd bolt and make a run for town.
Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve . . .
He promised he'd go at twenty. Twenty-five.

On the twenty-sixth breath, his body made the decision for him, and before his brain could object, he was in the cold, the air stabbing his face, his eyes, his lungs, the point of the knife held out before him like a beacon. And he was mostly running and sliding, sliding and running, praying he wouldn't fall, because if he fell and that thing moved swiftly and silently through the drifts and jumped him before he could get up again....

He didn't look behind him. He couldn't bring himself to. He kept concentrating on running and not falling, sliding and gliding but not falling, until dual lights rounded the corner of the road and surprised him. He stopped short. The lights kept moving, but their direction was all wrong. They were moving up toward the sky, and the sky was moving out of the way. He felt his limbs move all wrong, too, and then felt the painful, bone-shattering thud of the hard-packed snowy road beneath his back. The cold ate into his pants, his jacket. And for just a moment, a half-opaque blur blotted out the snow and that scent of unclean, over-petted dead things filled his nose and throat.

A loud bang from beyond the lights was answered with that horrible wind-wail, and the blur jerked backward, out of his line of view. He waited, afraid to get up, afraid to even breathe.

A round, somewhat cherubic face with a thatch of auburn hair sticking out from beneath a woolen cap filled his vision, and he felt a surprisingly strong grip on his arm helping him to his feet.

“Oliver Morris,” the cherubic face told him. “Police. Are you okay? Is there anyone else in that car back there?”

Numbly, Dan shook his head. “Gone. She's . . . gone,” he mumbled. “The thing got her.” He turned slowly, looking back at the car, willing himself to look down at the lump that had been taken down by the .45 Morris was holstering. It was rapidly deteriorating into slush, which flattened and froze into black ice.

The world swam in front of him and winked out as he collapsed in the snow beside the remains of the thing that had tried to kill him.

“W
ell, if you're Toby's sister, I suppose it's okay.”

From an uncomfortable plastic guest chair left for her by a surly orderly, Kathy watched the crazy woman on the bed with no expression. She did not move. It was her experience that people like Charlene Ledders were feral things, drawn to and distracted by movement, and easily put on the offensive by loud noises and sudden gestures. She wanted Charlene to talk, to respond and not react. She waited, studying the woman.

Charlene was in her late forties but easily looked ten years older. Her sallow skin looked papery thin, as if any sudden movement of her own might tear it like tissue paper. Her eyes, a dull blue, kept darting to the corners of the room—the far corner behind the door, in particular—as if waiting for something, or watching it. What might have once been soft waves of blond hair had dulled to a bleached-bone colorlessness, hanging in frizzy dreadlocks and uneven braids. She wore a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, as well as one sock, all of which looked like they'd seen better days. One of her wrists was in a leather cuff, bound to a metal rail that ran along the far side of the bed. The free hand, a bony, spidery thing with ragged, uneven nails, she used to scratch incessantly at her scalp. Kathy could see a crust of dried blood along her hairline. Her toenails had once been painted blue, but most of the polish had chipped away. She sat with one leg tucked under her and the other tented in front of her, occasionally bouncing on her simple, cot-like bed. Behind her, the snow beyond the barred window blocked out the sky.

Charlene's head twitched, and she sniffed, then looked up at Kathy with those dull blue eyes. “You want to know about the Hand.”

“Yes.”

“What do you want to know?”

“They're planning something—a complicated ritual, I'm guessing, involving human sacrifices and complex sigils—but the signs are like nothing I've ever seen. I want to know what the ritual is trying to accomplish. Toby's been . . . out of the loop, as you know, so he told me you could explain it to me.” She opened the file folder she was holding and took out a photo of the sigil that had been carved into the John Doe's back. It was difficult to gauge how the woman would react to it, but Kathy had to take the chance. She handed the photo to Charlene.

The other woman's eyes grew wide, her lips working into soundless shapes, and she began bouncing lightly on the bed. “Where did you get this?”

“A friend who understands my interests. I'm told this is a key. What does that mean?”

Charlene dug her nails into her scalp and began scratching. She whispered something Kathy couldn't quite make out.

“Pardon?”

“What's it to you?” she spat with sudden venom. “Why do you need to know? You don't need to know. You can't be more than an acolyte at best. This is need-to-know.”

“I need to know,” Kathy said. She thought quickly. “I want more from the Hand. And let me put it this way: I intend to have it. I want to move up in the ranks. Toby is willing to vouch for me, but I need leverage. This right here—this is my leverage.”

The woman gave her a sly grin. “Very smart. You
are
the right stuff. Good.”

“So this . . . key, is it—?”

“It's a key all right,” Charlene said. “Which means they must have found it, yes, out here in Colby. Found a door. See, first you have to find the door. Then you fashion a key. The hard part—yes, it is—the hard part is making sure the key fits the door, because not all keys fit all doors, and—”

“I'm sorry, Charlene, but you're losing me. What keys and what doors are we talking about here?”

“Some doors we open. Some are opened by others. Doors have often been opened and used by lesser gods—the Scions, the Hollowers, the Hinshing. And we can use these, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. But doors to Xíonathymia, the Great Far Realm of Starless Space, the home of the Greater Gods who devour other dimensions, are always locked, locked, locked. And doors to the places where those who serve the Greater Gods live—those are locked, too. They need keys.”

Kathy had, in her extensive work in the field, come across those names of the “lesser gods” Charlene had mentioned, and their supposed invasion of and influence on parts of the United States, Great Britain, Mexico, Africa, and South America. She had studied the legends of comparable beings from this very dimension, this very planet, which indigenous people all over the world had worshiped and feared for thousands of years. But the symbol that had been carved on the dead man's back had nothing to do with any of those. She was confident now that any murder in relation to that symbol would be only the first of many in a string of atrocities in the name of the belief system connected to it. This was not a key meant for the common realms and passage of lesser gods. There were bigger things at stake here. Kathy pressed on.

“So you're saying one of these doors, I'm assuming one leading to this Xíon—Xíona—”

“Xíonathymia.” She pronounced it
Zy-on-ath-EE-me-ah
.

“Yes. Xíonathymia. So the Hand found one of these doors, specifically a portal of some type to Xíonathymia or someplace similar, right here in Colby?”

Charlene nodded. “Town was probably built right on top of it.”

“So what is the purpose of opening it? What does the Hand expect will happen when they cross through to the other side of the door?”

Charlene scratched at her scalp and looked away from Kathy, her jaw cracking as she stretched it. “No one goes through the door, Toby's sister. No one in her right mind would dare go.” She shook her head, amused. “Besides, most doors only go one way—from there to here. And so, so many others come through . . . first spirits and forces, then legends and lesser gods, then the mighty minions and then their masters. Only the most devout ever discover what is on the other side, in the other places beyond the Convergence, and they only know stories based on stories based on dreams of ancients who were given the secrets. No one has actually been to Xíonathymia.”

Kathy had expected the woman to go into a little esoteric philosophy, but it didn't make wading through it to get useful answers any less exhausting. It was all about asking the right question, but that was sometimes a trial-and-error kind of process. Most of the time, what the actual belief system was didn't matter beyond what it meant to the cultists and their plan of criminal action. But a ritual of this level meant a belief in the need for human sacrifice, and it was crucial for Kathy to ascertain the extent of the sacrifice.

“Charlene, I need you to focus for me and tell me what the Hand of the Black Stars hopes to accomplish by opening this door in Colby. It's very important.”

“We—the Hand of the Black Stars and I—believe, or believed, or have maybe just proven, that these god-doors, lesser and greater, open to . . . other places. Other worlds, other planets, other universes—it depends on the type of door. How to do it is in some book they have. A book of doors. And of keys, because a door is of no use without a key to open it. Keys require sigils and sacrifice, different types for different doors. Different rituals to open different gateways and commune with different beings possessing knowledge of life and death and everything between—”

Kathy slapped the picture of the sigil down on the bed in front of Charlene, causing the woman to flinch and then giggle nervously. “Focus. I need you to tell me what happens in the ritual that uses this symbol. I need to know what I'm looking at here.” She changed tactics. “Toby told me you could help me. He recommended you to me specifically. Was he wrong?”

She blushed. “Of course I can help. I—well, I mean, the Hand in particular worships a pantheon of greater and lesser gods from Xíonathymia the Great Far Place, like Iaroki the Swallower of Suns, Imnamoun the She-Beast Mother of the Spheres, Xixiath-Ahk the Blood-Washed, Okatik'Nehr the Watcher, Thniaxom the Traveler—”

“I get it,” Kathy broke in. She was losing patience.

Charlene nodded and continued. “To bring them here would create a commixture of worlds, an Interverse through which we would have access to the Greater Gods and lesser gods and all their power. It is the One Purpose of the Hand of the Black Stars. It takes a complex ritual, see.” She pointed to the photo of the sigil. “That ritual. And it happens in monumental stages, a chain of events. All these door-opening rituals are like that. First, there is an awakening, like cold blood splashed on the face, usually when one identifies a door. The first of the sacrifices must then be made. Then there is a cleansing with fire or ice, with screams and death, with the rendering of humanity to viscera, meat, and waste. Then, a seeding and a spawning and the growth of a new world. The faithful believe that enough open gateways will bring about the Interverse. It will be a glorious and chaotic intersection of supremely powerful and ancient beings from the outermost edges of space where there are no stars, from far points of the universe and from worlds beyond it, in other universes. A tumultuous end to everything, and a beginning unfathomable to mere human minds. There will be no need for doors or keys, and the faithful will be powerful and knowledgeable beyond imagining. The dimensions and the Convergence will bleed into each other.

“Of course, this ritual, the one to open the portal to Xíonathymia, has never been completed successfully. Sometimes the wrong doors were opened, or opened in the wrong order. Sometimes the rituals were incomplete. Sometimes keys were fashioned incorrectly or incompletely. Sometimes, the Ones Who Come Before cannot be summoned. And of course, there are others—many of those lesser gods, in fact—who come through instead, who are too powerful to be enemies, but too indifferent to our One Purpose to be allies. They cannot be harnessed or cajoled to work toward the One Purpose. So you see, so very much can go wrong. So very much is left to chance, to providence. And worthiness—you need to prove yourself worthy of the favors of the Greater Gods before they will deign to protect you from the fallout of their coming. From what I've heard, they've tried twice in New Jersey and once in Massachusetts, but these attempts were miserable failures.”

She leaped toward Kathy then, and Kathy braced herself for defense. The restraints held Charlene in place, though, and only that haggard face came close, those dull blue eyes sparking with little flashes of excitement as she talked.

“But not this time. No, no. Not this time, not in Colby. The Hand has summoned some of the Ones Who Come Before—the Blue People. See, see,” she went on, her one free spider hand reaching for Kathy's sleeve, “this winter, this snow and ice and those that hunt in it—they're all part of the cleansing phase.”

“The Blue People? Who are—”

Just then, something scratched at the outside pane of her window. Charlene started as if jabbed with a pin, her eyes now wide and shining with genuine fear. A tight knot of anxious surprise sat heavily in Kathy's stomach. On the heels of what Charlene had said about cleansings and the winter, Kathy felt uncharacteristically afraid.

She followed Charlene's gaze to the window. A dark shadow passed over the frosted panes. Charlene began bouncing again, but this time with a rhythmic slowness, as if her body was keeping itself occupied while her mind was somewhere else.

And somewhere else her mind most likely was; all Charlene's restlessness and nervous tics had halted. Her attention was riveted to that window, and she was whispering something about the winter.

“Charlene?”

The shadow passed over the window again, and this time Kathy heard a high-pitched whine like pieces of metal scraping together and a kind of scratching against the side of the building.

“Go,” the other woman whispered. “Go now.”

“What is it? Tell me what's out there.”

“The winter has come. More sacrifices make the fingers of the Hand stronger . . . much, much stronger. Get out of here, Toby's sister—go! Go NOW before it gets in!” While she talked, her voice rose, and her last words thinned as they reached a near-hysterical pitch and volume that rivaled the sounds outside. She sounded both terrified and ecstatic, and it made Kathy's skin crawl. There was a wild desperation in her eyes, though, as if she knew something inevitable and terrible was going to happen, which finally got Kathy up and moving. Those eyes burned with some awful knowledge that seemed at once both painful and orgasmic, and the woman shook and twitched as volts of emotion wracked her worn-out frame.

Then Charlene started screaming. It might have been hysterical laughter or crying—at that breaking point, they looked and sounded the same—but the overall effect was horrible to witness.

Kathy thought she finally understood what others must feel around
her
sometimes. She wanted to get away from Charlene, away from the crazy-sickness spreading through her as a reward for loyalty to her beastly gods, before it infected her as well.

As she backed away from the woman, she went to knock on the door, but it was already swinging outward. Alerted by Charlene's screaming, three orderlies pushed past Kathy to their patient, who was now thrashing against the restraints and laugh-crying with wild, hysterical abandon. The orderlies attempted to sedate her, but her body bucked so wildly that their efforts were lost amidst a fog of grunts and swearing.

Kathy couldn't watch any more. Unnoticed, she slipped into the hall and hurried toward the elevators. She'd gotten all she was going to get out of the crazy woman, crush on Toby notwithstanding; even if there hadn't been such conviction in Charlene's dismissal, she was right that it was time to go. But that conviction, that desperate and elated certainty in the Hand of the Black Stars' theological tenets, had been present in every facet of Charlene, and in Kathy's experience, that usually meant something. Possibly even something big enough to blot out feeble moonlight as it scrabbled across the hospital window.