They came from inside the well, correct?”
“Nearly all of them. It’s a very deep well.”
“As I have seen. Did you not notice the marks?”
“Guess I was so anxious to get those rocks out of there I didn’t.”
“It is only visible if you’re looking for it.”
“And you were?”
“I was looking for anything. This is my business. When you said you hit this thing with a rock and it fled after shooting it and hitting it with an axe had no effect, I started to wonder. I believe these are symbols of protection.”
The Reverend began walking about the house. He looked under the bed and at the walls and checked nooks and crannies. He bounced himself on the floor to test the boards. He stood looking down at the blood stained rug for a while. He picked up the edge of the rug and saw there were a series of short boards that didn’t extend completely across the floor.
Sliding the rug aside, the Reverend used his knife and stuck it under the edge of one of the boards and pried it up. There was a space beneath and a metal box was in the space. The Reverend removed a few more boards so he could get a good look at the box. It had a padlock on it.
“Find the axe,” the Reverend said.
Norville went outside and got the axe and brought it back. It was a single edge, and the Reverend turned the flat side down and swung and knocked the lock off with one sure blow. He opened the box. Inside was a book.
“Why would someone put a book under lock and key?” Norville said.
The Reverend went to the table and sat on the long bench next to it. Norville sat on the other side. The Reverend opened the book and studied it. He looked up after a moment, said, “Whoever built this house originally, their intentions for us were not good.”
“Us?” Norville said. “How would they, whoever that is, know we would be here?”
“Not you and I. Us as in the human race, Norville. They, meaning the ones who possess this book, called
“What are you talkin’ about?” Norville said.
“There are monsters on the other side of the veil, Norville. A place you and I can’t see. These things want out. Books like this contain spells to free them, and sometimes the people who possess the book want to set them free for rewards. Someone has already set one of them free.”
“The sucking thing?”
“Correct,” the Reverend said, shaking the book. “Look at the pages. See. The words and images on the pages are hand-printed? The pages, feel them.”
Norville used his thumb and finger to feel.
“It’s cloth.”
“Flesh. Human flesh is what the book says.”
Norville jerked his hand back. “You can read this hen scratch?”
“Yes. I read a translation of it long ago, taught myself to understand the original symbols.”
“You have the same book?”
“Had. One of them got away from me, the one adapted into English. The other I destroyed.”
“How did it get away from you?”
“That’s not important to us today. Whoever built this house may have brought this copy here. But their plans didn’t work out. They released something, one of the minor horrors, and that minor horror either chased them off, or did to them what they did to your poor Sissy. This thing they called up. The place where it is from is wet, and therefore it takes to the well. And it is hungry. Always hungry. A minor being, but a nasty one.”
“But if this beast is on the other side, as you call it, why would anyone bring it here?”
“Never underestimate the curiosity and stupidity and greed of man, Norville.”
“If the book set this thing free, then burn the book.”
“Not a bad idea, but I doubt that would get rid of anything. In fact, I might do better to study the book. My guess is whoever first brought the book, loosed the creature. They then decided they had made a mistake, made the marks of power on the stones and sealed the thing in the well where it preferred to reside — it liked the dampness, you see. And then, someone, like you, took the rocks from the well and the thing was let loose. One of the other survivors, the preacher for example, may have figured out enough to seal the thing back in the well. And then you let it out again.”
“Then we can seal it back up,” Norville said.
The Reverend shook his head. “Then someone else will open the well.”
“We can destroy the well curbing, put the rocks in, build a mound of dirt over all of it.”
“Still not enough. That leaves the possibility of it being opened up in the future, if only by accident. No. This thing, it has to be destroyed. Listen here. It’s light yet. Take my horse and walk it and take off its saddle, and then bring it inside where it will be safer.”
“The house?”
“Since when are you so particular? I do not want to leave the horse for that thing to kill. If it must have the horse or us, then it will have to come and get the lot of us.”
“All right then.”
“Bring in my saddle and all that goes with it. And those rocks from the well. Only the rocks from the well. Start bringing them in by the pile.”
“Aren’t there enough here in the fireplace?”
“They are in use. One may cause this thing to flee, but that doesn’t mean one will destroy it. I have other plans. Do it, Norville. Already the sun dips deep and the dark is our first enemy.”
When the horse was inside and the stones were stacked in the middle of the floor, the Reverend looked up from the book, said, “Place the stones in a circle around us. A large circle. Make a line of them across the back of this room and put the horse against the wall behind them. Give him plenty of room to get excited. Hobble him and put on his bridle and tie him to that nail in the wall, the big one.”
“And what exactly will you be doin’?”
“Reading,” the Reverend said. “You will have to trust me. I’m all that is between you and this thing.”
Norville went about placing the stones.
It was just short of dark when the stones were placed in a circle around the table and a line of them had been made behind that from wall to wall, containing the tied up horse.
Reverend Mercer looked up from the book. “You are finished?”
Norville said, “Almost. I’ll board up the bedroom window. Not that it matters. He can slip between some small spaces. But it will slow it down.”
“Leave it as is, and leave the door to the bedroom partially cracked.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite.”
The Reverend placed one of the rocks on the table, removed the bullets from his belt and took his knife and did his best to copy the symbols in small shapes on the tips of his ammunition. The symbols were simple, a stick man with a few twists and twirls around it. It took him an hour to copy it onto twelve rounds of ammunition.
Finished, he loaded six rounds in each of his revolvers.
“Shall I light the lamp?” Norville asked.
“No. You have an axe and a shotgun lying about. We may have need for both. Recover them, and then come inside the ring of stones.”
While they waited, sitting cross-legged on the floor inside the circle of stones, the Reverend carved the symbols on the rocks onto the blade of the axe. He thought about the shotgun shells, but it wouldn’t do any good to have the symbols on the shells and not on the load, and since the shotgun shot pellets, that was an impossible task.
