Ghost Road Blues

“I am the Sword of God!” Eddie yelled and his declaration sent the lurking night birds screaming into the troubled sky.

He smiled, joy flooding his heart and swelling his massive chest.

“Did you come…to help me?” And the dying baptizer’s words became part of the holy litany, and Tow-Truck Eddie heard the laughter of the Beast buried deep beneath the human pain. This was the key to everything. Compassion and restraint were tools of the Beast and Eddie was being tested on that point right now. Everything hinged on this moment and how he would answer.

In his mind he kept repeating: I am the Sword of God.

Then another voice overlay his own, booming in his brain like heavenly thunder as God said, Do this for me and open the way to paradise!

Did you come to help me?

Tow-Truck Eddie smiled, tears brimming in his eyes. “No,” he said and with great reverence reached for the man. He took the man’s face in both of his hands, lifted it, kissed the sacred forehead, kissed the bleeding mouth, and then held the face close, almost nose to nose, as he looked deeply into those eyes, trying to reach down through the barriers of evil to the trapped human soul within. The man struggled feebly, a last attempt to deceive him, a last ruse to really test his faith, his resolve, but Tow-Truck Eddie was steadfast. He looked into those eyes, searching, searching. The demon resisted him, keeping the man alive, denying Tow-Truck Eddie that brief glimpse into the infinite, but he was not to be denied this most sacred of all rewards. Holding the man’s head with one hand, Tow-Truck Eddie reached down with his other hand and placed his fingertips over the ragged holes torn by bullets. The man felt the touch and his eyes flared with the dread, but Tow-Truck Eddie smiled mildly at him and then thrust his fingers as deeply as he could into the man’s body.

The man screamed with all the agony of man and all the rage of a demon as Tow-Truck Eddie tore out his bowels. Then, the screaming mouth shouted only silence, though the jaws still gaped wide and the throat worked and the chest heaved.

“Bless me,” Tow-Truck Eddie murmured softly, gently. “Bathe me in the waters of salvation so that I may be purified, for I am the Sword of God!”

He stayed with the man, creating with his body the rituals of the New Covenant. The new bond of blood and flesh that would be the cornerstone of the world to come.

Now, hours later, sitting there in the cab of his wrecker, staring at the dried blood, he thought about all that he had seen and experienced. The man’s death had been so exquisite, so enlightening, and afterward when he had done all that was required and ordained to the man, he had learned so much. He felt glutted with knowledge, and yet much of that knowledge had yet to be processed, to be held up to the light of his new insight and examined. He knew that even now, with his mind so profoundly expanded, it would still take him some time to understand what he had seen, and what it all might ultimately mean.

He mumbled his own name over and over again as he sat there.

He had killed the Beast and been baptized in blood all in one night. He was sure that he would meet other demons in the days to come, now that his own nature had been discovered and declared. Well, that was fine, just fine with him. He grinned and flexed his powerful hands, feeling the muscles ripple on his forearms. Let them come, he thought. He would be ready.

He smiled grimly, still muttering his own name over and over again.

“Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.”

(2)

“The mayor is in a meeting right now, may I take a message?”

“Ginny, it’s me. Crow.”

“Oh, hi, how are you?”

“I’m fine, I…”

“My God, do you know about all the stuff that’s happening around here?” Ginny asked in a low and conspiratorial voice.

“Some of it. Look, I’m calling from my cell and I don’t have much time. Reception sucks out here. I need to speak to Terry.”

“Oh, gee, Crow, like I said he’s in a meeting.” For effect she added, “With Philadelphia narcotics detectives,” as if they were something akin to angels with burning swords.

“I know that. It’s about that stuff that I’m calling. Or might be, anyway. Can you tell him I’m on the phone?”

“Oh, I don’t know—”

“Ginny, Terry deputized me tonight, so you can consider this official business.”

“You’re back with the department?”

“More or less. Look, Ginny, just get him for me, will you?”

Ginny thought about it for another exasperating few seconds, and then said, “Okay, Crow. I’ll just do that.”

“Thanks,” Crow said, and as soon as she put him on hold, he said, “Hallelujah.” Crow had never liked Ginny Welsh, though she never knew it. Ginny acted as if being the receptionist-cum-dispatcher-cum-secretary put her at the very heart of regional law enforcement.

While he waited, Crow looked over at Mike Sweeney, who sat in the passenger seat of his car. The boy’s bike was stowed in the trunk, the trunk’s hood held down with bungee cords. The kid looked very small and young as he sat there, and it made Crow feel really bad for him. Mike Sweeney, or Iron Mike as Crow had nicknamed him last year, was one of those bright but lonely kids with so much imagination that it almost, but not quite, made up for the fact that he had few friends. It was easy to see that the kid was on a totally different intellectual plane than his age-group peers, and whereas intellectuality would probably see him in good stead among the adult community of Pine Deep in later years, it was quickly turning him into an embittered loner as a teenager. Crow also knew that Mike’s home life was a little rough, and that was something he could relate to.

Mike saw him looking and offered a smile.

Iron Mike was a regular customer at the Crow’s Nest, converting his hard-earned newspaper route money into model kits, comics, and copies of Fangoria. The kid knew almost as much about classic horror films as Crow did, but was the master by far when it came to science fiction. Crow was introspective enough to know that the nature of his own store, as well as his extensive readings of horror fiction and folklore, was part of his personal escape route. To make a monster look less scary, shine a bright light on him — you get to see the zippers and spirit gum and latex. That — and the bottle — had been Crow’s way of not dealing with the events of the Black Harvest, and he was fully aware of that fact. His dissociation was entirely deliberate.

It appeared to him, though, that Mike on the other hand walked a very fine line between reality and fantasy and was far less aware of it. Crow knew that Mike called his bike the War Machine, and that he often drifted away in thought, visiting who knew what kind of interior landscape. Crow wondered if he would grow out of the fantasies, or would grow strong enough to confront them. Therapy rather than sour mash.

Crow knew Vic Wingate very well. Vic was older than Crow and had been a legend in Pine Deep for decades. He was known as a hitter. Totally fearless in a bar fight and just as tough as he thought he was, but a world-class asshole nonetheless. More than once Crow had seen Mike walking with that stiffness that only comes from a leather belt wielded with enthusiasm. It made Crow sick and furious, but also frustrated because there wasn’t anything he could do about it, as he knew from personal experience. His own dad had a hard hand and used it way too often. In his heart, Crow would love to invite Vic to step behind the proverbial woodshed and dance him a bit. Crow wasn’t entirely sure he could take Vic, but he would love to try. The problem there was that Vic was tight with Gus Bernhardt and Jim Polk, and he was too smart to accept a private challenge. Anyone who went up against Vic, or tried to sucker punch him, wound up first in the hospital and then in jail, or in court. Vic was as cunning as he was vicious.

So, not being able to do anything about the problem, Crow tried to tackle at least one of the symptoms and had befriended Mike, treating him like a real person, which was the case anyway, and once in a while trying to work into conversation some of the values Crow himself found useful in life. He had even shown Mike a few jujitsu moves, hoping the kid would get hooked on martial arts the way he had. It had helped Crow stand up to his own abusive father — maybe it would help Mike do the same. Predators generally don’t like prey that shows its own claws and teeth.