I backed into the house and kicked the door closed, locking it. The loud echo of the deadbolt slamming into place was reassuring. In here, there was still sound, I could hear them coming. It was only outside that they could steal the noise. So I’d take them on in here.
I looked out the window. They were scattering around the house, readying to come at me from all sides simultaneously. I might not be able to kill them, but I could hurt them, of that much at least I was certain. They weren’t going to get her, absolutely not.
I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a large saucepan that I threw onto the stove and filled with a quart of cooking oil before igniting the burner and turning the flame up to high. Then it was back into the junk portion of the bathroom cabinet for a screwdriver and the large can of lighter fluid and a second lighter. In the linen closet I yanked down one of the wooden shelves and began scattering the towels and dish rags and other shelves all over the floor, dousing each of them in lighter fluid as I made a trail through the downstairs.
Some of the Bowlers were scrabbling up the trellis on the side of the house, heading for the roof, while another threw his weight against the back door over and over again. I grabbed the antique oil lamp from the end table and ran to the top of the stairs, emptying the oil on the carpeting all the way, then throwing the whole thing against the far wall where it exploded against my bedroom door with a loud, satisfying crash of glass and tin. One match, that’s all it would take. One match and the whole house would be swallowed by fire within a few minutes.
“Go away!” I screamed. “Leave us alone, goddammit!”
Back down the stairs and into the kitchen where the oil was bubbling up over the side of the pan and the Bowler on the back porch was about to break the door off its hinges. I grabbed the handle of the pan in the same instant that the back door splintered inward with the crack of wood and the shattering of glass. The Bowler was halfway through when I threw the scalding contents of the pan at his head. It sizzled as it splattered over his exposed skin, creating dozens of bubbles of boiling flesh. He grabbed at his face and body with wild hands, opening his mouth to scream but of course he didn’t scream because he couldn’t scream-when there are that many of them they cut out their vocal cords-and as he thrashed and flailed about I leveled the shotgun and emptied a round into his chest but still he didn’t go down and I thought that was a bit rude, so I reached into my pocket for a lighter, realized I’d soon need it elsewhere, so instead pulled a kitchen match from the shelf over the stove, lit it, and tossed it at him.
He burst into flames, his arms pinwheeling as he stumbled back and fell down the stairs into the yard. As soon as he hit the ground he began to roll but the fire was out of control now, snapping and spitting and sizzling (though you couldn’t hear it out there, out there the mist swallowed the sound, but I’d heard the deep hungry belch of the flames when he’d gone up inside and it made me smile), then he was on his feet once more, spinning around, arms raised, scattering smoky bits of charred material and meat in all directions as others gathered around him, pointing, nodding but not helping, and it was only then I realized that the burning figure was swaying side to side in perfect rhythm along with the other Bowlers, doing the Wave, mocking me – distracting me.
An upstairs window shattered. Then another. A pair of feet ran heavily across the roof. Something came through a window in the living room. The dog howled under the porch.
I fired another shot directly into the dancing flame, then turned just as another one of them leapt at me from behind, slamming us against the stove where the ignited burner still roared. I smashed against the side of his head with the barrel of the shotgun but I might as well have been bitch-slapping a medicine ball for all the effect it had. He grabbed hold of my head and began twisting my face toward the open flame. The dog’s howl rose in pitch and volume, becoming a shriek of fury; I knew it wouldn’t be long before they figured out she was in the crawl-space and went after her and I was not was not, repeat, was not going to let that happen, I’d known all my life that this day would arrive, that someday they’d come for me, I’d planned out my actions long ago, so if she and I were going down I was going to make damn sure I took as many of them with us as possible, but now the flames licked at my nose, I breathed them, felt the hairs inside my nostrils curl and singe and fill me with smoke and the smell of my own burned flesh, so I pushed up against his body with all I had and brought my knee up into his crotch and that seemed to surprise him because for just a second his grip on me loosened, but just a second was all I needed to snake my free hand down to my side, yank the screwdriver from my belt, and bury it all the way to the handle through one of his goggle lenses. He snapped up, his back bowing, hands grabbing at the thing jammed where his eye used to be as I lifted the shotgun and shoved the barrel right against his face and fired. Bone and tissue blossomed outward, hitting the walls, sliding moistly toward the floor, making wet trails on the way down.
His body crumpled onto the table, shuddered, kicked, then lay still.
So they could be killed.
Good to know.
I heard footsteps upstairs pounding toward the landing. I jumped over the Bowler’s body and ran through the house, lighter at the ready. I looked up the stairway and saw the first shadow bleed across the wall as they neared the top. I struck up the flame and tossed the lighter upward. As soon as it hit the carpet a bright blue-orange line of flame vomited out in both directions; it fizzled out before getting down to the living room-I hadn’t spread the fluid out as well as I’d thought-but it chewed its way up the stairs and around the corner so fast I knew they didn’t stand a chance. I rammed the door closed, locked it, and spun around just in time to see a smoking, charred tower of meat come at me with outstretched arms. I lifted the shotgun but he was on top of me before I could get off a shot. He weighed as much an elephant, and when we hit the floor every breath I’d ever taken since I’d been born blew out of my lungs and I went numb. He grabbed at my throat with deep-fried hands and began to squeeze, pushing up and down to increase the pressure. I felt the world slipping away from me, felt my body handing in its formal resignation, my legs kicking out in uncontrollable spasms as I wet myself, but then he pulled up again and one of my legs jerked back, its knee bending, and I saw the handle of the dagger jutting out from the sheath strapped to the ankle. Take me, it cried out. I’m right here, so take me, fer chrissakes. I knew that I should but my arm wasn’t cooperating-at least, that’s what I thought, but then I heard the echo of Whitey’s voice in my head saying keepers gotta keep the kept kept, know what I’m saying and I remembered the way he’d looked the last time I saw him and some beast composed of equal parts anger and sadness snarled to life in my chest; the next thing I knew there was my arm shooting out and my hand grabbing the handle and then the dagger was free; I looked up into the scorched ruins of the Bowler’s still-smoking face and I did what I was taught to do with a roast when you had a knife-I began to carve. First a cheek, then the lump that had once been his nose, the charred meat searing my own skin as it fell off in blackened, dripping chunks, but I kept at it, burying the dagger to its hilt and then swiping sideways before pulling it out and hacking away until his grip loosened and he fell to the side, shuddering. I shoved the gristle- covered dagger into my belt, staggered to my feet, and disintegrated the rest of his head with a single shot.
Across the room, another window exploded in a shower of glass and wood. One of them was throwing rocks through all the downstairs windows in order to let in the mist. The mist swallowed sound. The mist obscured perspective. The mist had terrible faces in it, both animal and human, and they wanted to talk to me, make me listen, make me understand that it had to be this way and I really had no choice in the matter, it was an ancient thing when you got right down to it, a way for nature to make perpetual use of its organic systems, hadn’t I figured that out yet?
I stepped over the broiled mass on the floor and made my way into the kitchen, grabbing the step stool and putting it to good use. Then I started back toward the guest bedroom. Underneath the house, the dog’s shrieks of fury had become something so loud and primal and frenzied they sounded like the screams of a waking dragon. I knew there was a chance she might come after me once I was down there but I had to risk it. She’d come here for a reason; even if she wasn’t completely aware of it, I was.
A flash of movement as one of the Bowlers darted across the hall. I lifted the shotgun and pulled the trigger; there was only an impotent click!
So be it.
I used the dagger to cut away the duct tape and let the shotgun drop to the floor, then removed the pistol from the back of my pants and clicked off the safety before transferring it to my ruined hand and using the remaining duct tape to hold it in place.
Then I just stood there.
I could hear them coming in through the back door, through the shattered windows, pounding their way through weak spots in the roof. Two loud thumps from behind the door to the upstairs let me know that at least one of them had made it through the flames and was heading down.
Still, I just stood there.
