The Beasts Of Valhalla

'Garth!'

'Mmmmmm.'

'Wake up!' I shook him.

'… sleepy…'

'Yeah, well this is no time to take a fucking nap! I Goddamn well can't carry you! The bad guys are after us, remember?'

'Guy… packs one… hell… of a punch.'

I slapped him hard, twice. All he did was grin stupidly. I stood up and kicked him in the stomach-just hard enough to get his attention.

Garth's eyes opened, searched for me in the darkness. 'You do that again, I'll tear off your head and hand it to you,' he said in a clear voice.

I did it again. Then I grabbed two handfuls of parka and struggled to pull him up. 'Get up, Garth!' I pleaded. 'You have to stay awake just a little longer! Too much noise! Others will be coming!'

Garth grunted, grabbed hold of my forearms and managed to pull himself to his knees. 'Yeah. I… know. Sorry about this, Mongo…'

Stepping around behind him, I draped one heavy arm over my shoulder, anchored my forehead in his armpit and shoved with all my might. Slowly, Garth rose to his feet. I shoved him in the direction of the door, and he wobbled forward. I followed him into the Reverend's office, then abruptly grabbed hold of his parka, stopping him.

'Wait here,' I said, shoving him back against the wall. His head banged against the plaster, then rolled around on his shoulders-but he stayed on his feet. I went back into the other room. I knew I was probably being incredibly stupid, considering the racket Garth and Leviticus had made, but there was some business I felt I had to attend to.

I took some heavy wrapping twine off the shelf, picked up a shard of wood off the floor, then went over to Leviticus. The Warrior was just barely conscious; in another five minutes, or less, he'd have bled to death.

'Listen to me,' I said quietly as I knelt down beside him, pushed his hand away from the bleeding stump and started to fashion a tourniquet. 'As my mother would say, some people will believe anything. You people have yourselves one cockamamy religion here, but I'm not going to argue theology-except to tell you that everything you believe about Siegmund Loge is bullshit. Garth and I aren't servants of Satan-even Satan can't get good help these days. The old man you believe is God heads up a project that would have made the Nazis drool with envy, and rumor has it that he's not as crazy as his son, or as mean as his grandson; these are people you and the others here think dance with angels. Can you hold this stick?'

Leviticus nodded weakly, put his hand over the stick controlling the tension of the tourniquet.

'Let go of it and you'll die,' I continued, rising to my feet. 'So stay awake, and think about what I said.'

I hurried back into the office, tore the phone out of the wall, grabbed Garth's parka and slung him in the general direction of the door, which Leviticus had left open. Garth staggered out, and almost knocked over a startled Reverend Ezra.

Shhh.

'Uh, Father love you,' Reverend Ezra said tightly as he craned his neck, went up on his toes and stared down at Whisper, which was nestled in his crotch.

'Fuck him and you, Reverend.' Lights were coming on all over the place, and I had to squint. My eyes were beginning to burn. 'You got a medical kit in this place?'

'Yes, but- '

'Well, I hope it's a good one. Mike Leviticus is inside, and he's hurt badly. Go get the kit. Run, you silly jerk-off!'

Reverend Ezra ran. I grabbed the front of Garth's parka and pulled him around to the rear of the building. The ignition keys were still in our car. I pushed Garth into the rear seat, paused to slash the front tires of the Willys, then jumped behind the wheel of our car and turned the keys in the ignition.

The car wouldn't start.

Garth had begun to snore.

Holding my breath, I turned off the ignition. I pumped the gas pedal, waited three beats, then tried it again.

Grind.

Snore.

The engine finally turned over on the third try. I gunned the motor, popped the clutch and spun around in a power slide, narrowly missing Brothers Amos and Joshua. I straightened the car out, shot up the dirt road leading out to the main highway. The car banged over frozen ridges, crashed into potholes. The door Garth had torn off, and which we'd roped back on, flew off. I hit the ceiling a couple of times, barely managing to keep my grip on the steering wheel, and Garth rolled on the floor with a loud clunk.

'Huh…? Mongo?'

'Go back to sleep,' I said through clenched teeth.

Problem. Dozens of flashlight beams were dancing in the orchards to my right, and they were ahead of me; Children of Father were running through the trees, and they obviously intended to cut off the servants of Satan at the pass. I managed to dig my glasses out of my pocket, put them on. I turned on the car's high beams and floored the accelerator. I fishtailed around a sharp bend to find half a dozen Children standing in the middle of the road, arms linked, eyes closed, faces wreathed in ecstasy. More Children poured out of the orchards, lined up behind them.

Convinced they were going to pop up from the dead in Great Time, the Children of Father were obviously perfectly willing to temporarily check out of this not-so-great-time as martyrs; I wasn't willing to oblige them. I slammed on the brakes, managed to bring the car to a halt an inch or two from the closest of the Children, a teenage girl with a bad case of acne. Garth rolled around in the back. Bodies clambered up on the hood. A rock came out of the darkness, shattering the window and just missing my head, spraying glass over the back of my neck.

'Garth, upsy-daisy!' I shouted, slamming the gears into reverse and flooring the accelerator again. 'Nap time is over! Wake up!'

'Yeah,' Garth said groggily, pulling himself up on the back of the seat. 'Where are- '

We hit a rut, silencing Garth and removing half the bodies from the hood. A pothole took care of the rest of the bodies, but behind me, flashlights jumping in their hands, more Children were running up the road.

'Hang on, Garth! When we stop, you've got to get out and run! Do you understand?!'

Garth made a sound which I hoped was a 'yes' grunt. I reached over, opened the glove compartment and groped through its contents as I suddenly whipped the steering to the left. The rear of the car veered sharply, hit the frozen shoulder and took off. We soared through the air, crashing through tinder-dry brush in the raw forest on this side of the road. I kept the accelerator to the floor; the car landed, the tires bit, and we continued to shoot backwards, crashing through underbrush and knocking over small trees until we finally hit one large enough to stop us.

It felt as if my teeth were shaking loose and my brains being scrambled, but I had somehow managed to keep one hand on the steering wheel and the other in the glove compartment; now the tips of my fingers touched what I had been desperately hoping to find-a book of matches.

The air was suddenly filled with the acrid odor of gasoline.

My door had sprung open. I leaped out, ran around the car, and was relieved to see that Garth was at least halfway out-the pocket of his parka had caught on the door handle, and he was still too groggy to release it. I unhooked the pocket, helped him stand, then turned him in the general direction of the woods and pushed as hard as I could. Garth wobbled and swayed, but he managed to stay on his feet-and he was walking away.

The lights were closing, converging on us from two directions.

I waited until Garth was perhaps fifteen yards away, then turned back to the car, squinted over the top of my glasses, and lit a match. It went out. I lit another, used it to light the matchbook; when it flared in my hand, I tossed it toward the ruptured gas tank, turned back and sprinted after Garth.

The car's gas tank had been close to three-quarters full, and when it went the concussion of the blast hit me in the small of the back like a giant fist, slamming me to the ground. Flaming pieces of metal and upholstery