Chapter Eight
9 April, 2018
With Johnson, we could actually do a bit more exploring. I didn’t feel quite so badly about leaving Miller and Holt alone to research while I took the other shooters out to look for things or try to find clues on how to get out of here. With the Humvees, if four people wanted to go, we could do it. Even using both vehicles, things would still be cramped, but we’d have a better chance of coming home in one piece.
Thing is, most folks see a Humvee in the movies or on TV and think they’re full of room. They aren’t. Toss in personal weapons, food, ammo, and the oh so important water and presto! There’s barely room for people inside.
At least the AC’s worked. That hadn’t been a given in Iraq, even with contractors there repairing them 24/7.
“Where to?” Padgett asked as we pulled out of the funeral home parking lot.
“Surprise me,” I replied.
This was going to be our first ‘patrol’ as such. We’d let the other team figure out where they were going tomorrow. Today, Padgett, Diindiisi, and I were going to drive around, burn fuel, show the flag, and look for daemons to kill because I wanted to see what Ma Deuce would do to a daemon.
“Right,” he said, turning south.
We filled the tank with diesel, raiding the ‘Stop and Rob’ for snacks. We travelled north…but north gave us another conundrum.
“Huh,” I said, tapping Padgett to stop.
“What huh?” he asked.
Diindiisi scanned the area around us.
“By my calculations, and what I remember driving down here last week, we should be in Kyle,” I said. “See anything?”
“Not much to Kyle,” Padgett replied.
“Except for the honking big prison that was near northbound I-35,” I said.
“There is that,” he replied.
The area around us looked like the gently rising terrain between Austin and San Marcos. Only all the structures were missing.
“So, not everything came into the Shadow Lands,” Padgett said.
“In my experience, if we keep going north, we’ll find ourselves on the south side of the city,” Diindiisi said. “The Shadow Lands are a Mobius strip.”
“You know about Mobius?” Padgett asked.
She sighed. “Yes. I read his and Listing’s work in the original German, to pass the time when Henry was away. I even met his son when we were doing some research in Germany.”
“I…I’m sorry. I assumed that, you know?” Padgett temporized.
“That because I was an Ojibwa woman, born to what William Warren called the Mississippi River Band in 1872, that I had no formal learning?” she replied. “You’d be correct. By my people’s traditions, I shouldn’t have inherited my husband’s powers, but I did. Henry took me away from that, giving me a larger world. He also insisted I learn something, since I had an ear for languages.”
“I’m sorry,” Padgett said. “Jesse, you want me to keep going north?”
“No, turn around and head back. Let’s go down Aquarena Springs to get back to the house, okay?”
“Right,” he replied, driving across the median and down the center lane of the southbound side of I-35.
We rode in silence, and I thought about the implications of the area being a Mobius strip. I didn’t know what the others were thinking, and didn’t ask. We hadn’t made it to where Post Road splits off of Aquarena Springs when we heard the first thunderous squeal.
“Hey, Jesse, should I paddle faster?” Padgett asked.
“Why, you hearing banjos?” I asked.
Another movie we’d have to watch and explain to Diindiisi.
“I’ve got visions of being chased by inbred hill folk dancing in my head,” Padgett replied.
A large, dirty pinkish something leaped into the air by the Meadows Center, and it crashed back into Spring Lake. Water sheeted into the air.
“Go!” I shouted, after making sure the trigger block was on safe.
It’s damn near impossible to break the tires loose on an up-armored Humvee. Not that Padgett didn’t try, of course.
He cut the angle and crossed the sidewalk, tearing divots into the carefully manicured grass of the golf course that surrounded the Meadows Center. He knocked over a short bollard before swinging right on Laurel and running toward the area where, according to the signs, you could take glass bottom boat rides. The squealing got louder as we approached, and I watched the world’s largest daemonic boar leap into the air again and ‘swine’ dive into the lake. I could see a human shape tumbling through the water raining back into Spring Lake.
“There are Powers at work here!” Diindiisi shouted into the radio. “See how the water falls into the lake?”
“Padgett, follow the pig,” I said.
The daemon was jumping downstream in short hops. Padgett got ahead of it by turning down Spring Lake Road and thundering through a parking lot, barely dodging the cars there.
“Get down to the lake, if you can,” I said.
“Right,” Padgett replied, jumping the curb again as he angled toward the lake.
He pulled up just short of the bank in a small clearing. A person came swimming downstream, followed by el Puerco Grande. I flipped the trigger block to fire and pressed my thumbs to the butterfly trigger between the spade grips. Ma started singing her song at a stately seven hundred rounds a minute. Gouts of meat exploded from the daemon. Squealing in rage, it turned toward shore.
“Get ready to back the fuck up, fast,” I said.
“Right.”
Two things happened at once—the belt fed the last three rounds through the gun, and the pig daemon staggered ashore.
“Go!” I shouted as I opened a box of ammo in the turret and pulled out a belt.
Dropping the belt into the box on the side of the gun, I waited until Padgett had backed onto the hardball before I opened the feed tray cover on the M2 and dropped the belt into the gun. It’d been a while since I’d reloaded an M2 in a moving Humvee—Iraq, while trying to keep from being eaten by ghouls—but my hands remembered. I slammed the feed cover down and locked it as Padgett brushed the rear quarter panel of some imported compact, sending the econo-box spinning, while the daemon pig charged after us in hot pursuit.
“Dude, I’ve got to turn around!” Padgett shouted over the radio.
“Stay on target,” I said, pulling the charging handle back and running it forward.
I hit the triggers. This time I could see the pig’s head, and I sent fifty rounds smashing into it. The daemon pig staggered and fell about ten feet in front of the bumper. For good measure, I put a third box of ammo into the twitching corpse.
“Why does it smell like bar-b-q?” Padgett asked.
“Every fifth round’s a tracer,” I said as Diindiisi handed up a couple of ammo belts to replace the ones I’d fired. “Let’s see if whoever this thing was chasing survived.”
Padgett pulled down to the shore again. Sure enough, someone was there, unable to climb out of the water.
I got down, grabbed my UMP, and unassed the Humvee. If there were any more daemon pigs in the area, we might be screwed, but saving someone took priority.
“Hi,” the guy floating in the lake said.
From what I could see, he was about fifty, with a short, white beard, topped by light blue hair.
“Need a hand?” I asked.
“In a minute or so,” he replied. “Got to catch my breath first, I think.”
Behind him, a pier stuck out into the water.
“Can you make the pier?” I asked.
“I think so, yes,” he said, swimming toward it.
I trotted over and crouched down. We grabbed hands, and I rose, pulling him from the water cleanly. He sat down on the pier, laughing ironically.
“You alright?” I asked, a bit worried about his sanity.
“I’m okay,” he said. He stood, offered me his hand, and we shook. “I was just thinking. I was an extra in a really bad movie filmed here at Spring Lake…oh, forty years ago, I guess. Got saved from the ‘piranha’ in the movie because someone pulled me onto this pier. Thought I was going to be a big movie star at ten. Things didn’t work out that way. I’m Jonathan, by the way.”
We’d found another John to save. I chuckled, thinking of the comment I’d made the other day.
“Father Jesse Salazar. You can call me Jesse,” I said.
We heard a floomp! behind us, and I turned in time to see the corpse of Satan’s own porker burst into flame.
“I guess we should go see what’s going on up there,” I said.
“Be nice to go somewhere I could get dry,” Jonathan admitted.
“Got any gear?” I asked.
He gestured to the flaming pile of daemon.
“First thing he ate after knocking me into the water,” Jonathan said.
We walked to the Humvee. “This is…” I paused. “Jonathan…”
“Hiebert,” he supplied.
Padgett guffawed.
“I know, I know,” I replied. “What happened to the pig?”
“Holy water,” Diindiisi said. “Apparently, that particular daemon has an energetic reaction to holy water. I think calling the water we’re getting from the Mystical Bird Bath of Saint Mark the Evangelist ‘holy water’ is a bit of a misnomer.”
For a 140-year-old old woman, she had a wicked sense of humor.
The daemon, all five or so thousand pounds of it, had become a fine ash, and drifted on the wind.
“No shit, it has an energetic reaction. Mount up, everyone. Padgett, get us home, huh?”
“Right away, Jesse,” he replied.
Once we were back at the funeral home, we went through the introductions again. Johnson smirked, and Dalma laughed. Father Miller just sighed.
“You find anything else?” Miller asked.
Padgett had taken Hiebert into the ‘male’ apartment so he could get cleaned up and go through the tactical gear for something that was dry and didn’t fit too badly. The replacement gear was standard ‘one size fits most.’
“The water from the font has a, what did Diindiisi call it…”
“Energetic reaction,” she supplied.
“What she said, with some of the local residents,” I replied.
I talked Miller through what had happened, then I told him that we’d also found the region we were in was basically a Mobius strip.
“Sounds like a Klein bottle, but we’re arguing semantics,” Miller said.
“Something like that,” I replied. “You find anything?”
“Yes? Maybe?” he replied. “I need to do more research.”
“Give,” I replied.
“We might be able to get out of here and back to 2018,” he said. “But I’m not sure how, yet.”
My knee gave a big twinge and ectoplasm started falling in sheets outside the window.
“Crap,” Miller said.
“Spec-fucking-tacular,” I replied. “Get your weapons!”
Whatever was happening, we weren’t going down without a fight.
Dalma came out of her room, sub-gun slung, the big Murfreesboro Five-O carried across her body at high port.
“Roof,” I said, and she went out the door to the right.
Johnson came in, followed by Holt, Padgett, and Hiebert.
“Johnson, take the Golf, and go backstop Dalma on the roof. Holt, grab a sprayer. Mr. Hiebert, are you familiar with firearms?”
“No. What’s happening?”
“Probably nothing good,” I said. “How do you feel about using a backpack water sprayer?”
“Like a plant sprayer? I can use one,” Hiebert replied. “I worked as a groundskeeper for a while.”
“Right. Holt?”
“Sprayer two,” he replied, grabbing Hiebert by the arm. “Follow me.”
“Miller, you and Padgett got the garage, with Mr. Hiebert and Holt for backstop. Diindiisi and I will go up on the roof to the front.”
“Got it.”
We dispersed. The ectoplasm was falling in sheets along the limits of the property line. You couldn’t see the street, let alone across it, because the goo was falling so thickly.
“Ok, this isn’t good,” I said to Diindiisi. I keyed my mike. “Nobody fire unless you’ve got a clear target.”
“Where do you want the sprayers?” Holt called.
“Backstop Father Miller for now,” I replied.
The sheet of ectoplasm falling to the front of the funeral home thinned to allow a figure to step up to the line.
“That’s different,” I said, stepping to the front of the roof.
“Mortals,” the figure called.
“Nice, he speaks English,” Diindiisi said.
“Would you prefer Akkadian? Or Ojibwa?” the figure asked, morphing into a man wearing a wrapped skirt with a cone-shaped hat. His ensemble was completed by a chest-length, square-cut beard.
“No, English is fine,” I replied.
“I am Abzu, husband of Tiamat, and Lord of this Realm,” he replied.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
I don’t think that was the expected response. I was probably supposed to fall to my knees, bewailing my fate or something like that, based on the look he gave me.
“You have killed some of my children,” Abzu replied, finally.
“Several, by my count. In my defense, they were trying to kill me,” I pointed out.
“Your mortal botherations are not my concern,” he replied.
I looked at Diindiisi. She shrugged.
“You,” Abzu said, looking at her while stepping closer to the building. His foot burst into flame when it made contact with the grass. He stepped back.
“How have you done this?” Abzu thundered.
“A true and certain faith in the resurrection of the dead,” I replied, shrugging.
He retreated into the falling ectoplasm briefly, returning once his foot was only smoldering.
“Followers of that upstart, I see,” he sneered.
“Something like that,” I replied. “Is there something we can do for you, or are we just going to stand here yelling at each other?”
“I wanted to see the beings that had defeated one of my ablest followers,” Abzu admitted. “And to tell you your lives are forfeit if you leave the protection of your God.”
“Good to know,” I replied. I said a small prayer, keying the mike. “Dalma?”
“On the way,” she replied.
The roof over the living quarters was about three feet higher than the rest of the funeral home. She was on the leading edge of that roof, behind us.
The Barrett barked. Abzu went down like he’d been poleaxed, then stood, looking at the smoking hole in his chest.
“Silver? You dare try to kill me with mere silver?” He laughed. “Your God protects you now, but know, I will be watching for an opportunity.”
He turned, stalking into the rain of ectoplasm.
“Stay frosty, people,” I said, keying the mike again.
Something came flying through the ectoplasm.
“Sweet monkey of Jeebus,” Johnson muttered.
A griffin smashed against the barrier.
“Interesting,” Diindiisi said.
“Jesse?” Johnson said.
“Light him up,” I replied.
Dalma fired when Johnson opened up. The target was huge, but following a moving target through a scope isn’t as easy as they make it out in the movies or video games. She fired a second round into the griffin, while Johnson walked over to where Diindiisi and I stood, firing from the hip, Rambo style.
The griffin went down, exploding in a welter of blood, goo, and feathers. The griffin’s fall seemed to be a signal of some sort, because a horde of marauding, shambling things rushed the property line.
“Go hot,” I said before opening fire myself.
It was, to quote Willem Dafoe, a slaughter. Daemons and imps piled up along the barrier, the ones in front bursting into flame before being crushed down by the ones behind. The guns chewed into the mass, adding to the carnage.
“We’re surrounded,” Dalma reported.
“Good, it’s a target-rich environment,” I replied.
“Fucking jarhead!” Johnson shouted over the radio.
I gave it ten minutes.
“Cease fire, cease fire. Holt and Hiebert to the front, please,” I said over the radio, before running down the outside stairs.
Holt, followed by Hiebert, met me at the front of the building.
“Hose the edges of the property down,” I said, looking at the mass of things that were still pressing against the barrier, trying to get in.
They did. Wherever the water touched daemons, they exploded. The mass pulled back, finally.
“Refill and clear the rest of them off, okay?” I said, keying my mike. “Padgett, meet Holt and Hiebert in the chapel and escort them around to clear the property line. Break. Father Miller, Diindiisi, meet me on the roof.”
Everyone acknowledged so I went back up top.
Johnson was watching the cleaning crew from his lofty vantage. Miller stood with Diindiisi nearby, waiting for me to say something.
“I’ve got an idea I’d like to test,” I said. “It’s going to be a bit…okay, it’s actually probably going to be damn dangerous.” I paused and then asked, “See how there are patches appearing in the ectoplasm?”
You could follow where Holt and Hiebert had cleared the daemons back from the property line—the ectoplasm avoided areas where the holy water had been sprayed.
“I see it, but what do you want to do?” Miller asked.
“We could enlarge the protected zone,” I said.
He mulled it over for a minute.
“Take a while with the backpack sprayers to do that, wouldn’t it?”
I grinned like a shark. “Holy water purifies what it comes in contact with, right?”
“Yes,” he said, voice full of exasperation.
“So, what happens when you pump it into a pressure washer through the soap valve?”
“You know,” Miller said, “there is something very wrong with your brain that you thought of that.”
“Blame D&D,” I replied. “Purify food and water.”
He sighed. Diindiisi looked at both of us.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“There’s a machine in the garage for washing cars,” I said. “It shoots water at high pressure, with cleaning agents like soap in the mix. I’m pretty sure we can use it to spray holy water at high pressure, long distances, to give us a wider ‘safe zone.’ I got the idea from Holt’s game.”
“So you need someone to help?” she asked.
“I need someone to cover my ass while I’m testing the theory, yes.”
“If you go down, what’re the rest of us supposed to do?” Miller asked.
“Listen to Diindiisi. She’s been here longer than I have,” I replied.
She smiled. “I’ll cover your back,” she said. “When do you want to try it out?”
“Now’s as good a time as any,” I replied. “We’ve got samples to test it on, after all.”
We called Holt and Hiebert off ‘wash’ duty and started setting up my latest mad scheme. It took about half an hour to get everything set up. The tricky bit was getting the soap line to stay in the backpack sprayer; I ended up duct-taping it in place, which would cause issues with switching tanks, but we’d cross that bridge when we got to it.
When everything was ready, I swung the sprayer up on my back, and Hiebert started the pressure washer. It coughed and then settled into a roar. I started hosing down the daemonic creatures that had once again collected at the edge of the—for lack of a better term—safe zone. At first, they were simply irritated by the water. One of them realized there was soap in the stream, so they started taking baths, as obscenely as possible. There’s just something wrong about watching tiny lust imps mime having sex in a shower. They were clowning, and they blew bubbles right up until the holy water replaced the soap in the tube, and they started exploding. I pushed them back, forming a square with the spray from the washer. The daemons started scrabbling back from contact.
“Try splashing it at them from the ground,” Hiebert shouted over the pressure washer’s roar. “It worked best with the backpack sprayers.”
I tried it. If anything, it worked better than trying to just catch them in the spray. The water, rebounding from the ground had a wider area of effect. I pushed the daemons across the street and into a parking lot, turned, and worked my way uphill. Diindiisi followed, staying in the cleared area. I hit the end of the fifty foot high pressure line, turned it off, and walked back to where the pressure washer sat.
“How’s the water level in the tank?” I asked, taking a bottle of water from Miller.
“About half full. You could probably do the rest of the frontage here. That’s interesting. The holy water keeps its sanctity for a while,” he replied, pointing downhill.
Sure enough, there were two channels in the rain of ectoplasm, following the curbs down the hill.
“Top me off so I can finish the street, and we can clear the house next door,” I said.
“Sure thing,” Miller replied.
* * * * *