House Ghost resisted. The air crackled with their energies. Roosting birds fell dead from the trees. Chips of paint fell off the house.
The great shadow from the ball of ectoplasm melted into the earth, and then up from the earth, skeletal figures, bones blackened as if charred, rose up, swords and battle axes clutched in bony fingers, the blades of the weapons the color of greased obsidian. The moonlight danced on white teeth as the dark skeletons smiled; they were a wall of bones fifty feet wide, and twenty feet deep.
Johnny and John Henry skidded to a stop, watched as the ebony bones marched toward them.
“Really see some shit in this job, don’t you?” John Henry said.
22
ELVIS IN POSITION
Elvis looked out, thought: Shit, it’s a ruse. Vampires know more than we thought, it’s a chess play, Booger-Knight to your King’s ass, and I’m the King.
Elvis pushed up the window, leaned out and looked down. Jesus in diapers. Some of the black skeletons had broken loose from the pack and were crawling up the wall toward him.
Elvis reached under the bed, yanked out his bag. He pulled a blessed and shiny sword from it, said aloud, “Okay, baby. It’s Go Time.”
23
IN THE YARD
John Henry and Johnny stood ready as they watched more of the walking bones grow up from the ground as if from Cadmus’s sown dragon teeth. They saw others crawling up the wall toward Elvis’s open window.
The monsters strutted toward them, their bones rattling as they came. And then the bones rushed them with a sound like a box of dishes tumbling down stairs.
John Henry’s hammer swung.
You could hear the wind from it. It looped in a great silver arc. The hammer sparked and that hammer sang, hit the leaping bones solid smackcity right upside the head, cracking skulls and sending ectoplasmic brain goo spinning off into the night.
Johnny fired his crossbow, sent a bolt into an open mouth between bright white teeth, the projectile exiting out of the back of a black-bone head. The thing fell apart like an ancient moth-eaten rag.
Johnny popped another bolt into place.
John Henry was springing over the yard like a grasshopper, swinging that hammer, faster and faster; it made a sizzling sound like steak on a superhot grill as it swung, and when he struck, the black bones rattled and flew.
They were too close now for Johnny to effectively use the crossbow. He jerked a bolt off the loader on the crossbow, dropped the bow, and came into collision with one of the bone-walkers. Its mouth opened. Its teeth snapped and wet foam came from its mouth which came from some place where there wasn’t any place, just bones.
Or so Johnny thought. But when he stabbed out with the bolt, it went into a place between the ribs of the bone-walker, and stuck, seemed to hang in mid-air. There was flesh, or something akin to it, covering the bones, but not visible to the human eye. When Johnny jerked the bolt free, what oozed out of the unseen wound was visible, however. Goo as dark as the bones, thick as maple syrup.
“EEEehhhhh,” Johnny said.
Now they all came forward in a rush. John Henry swung his hammer and Johnny stabbed with his bolt, and that brought some of them down, but there were many, and it seemed there were more than there had been but moments before, still growing up from the shadow-soaked ground.
As they fought and retreated, placing their backs against the house, across the yard they could see the House Ghost, still in battle with that humongous wad of whatever. The two of them were rolling together, like ectoplasm tumbleweeds, ripping chunks of goo from one another. Teeth, claws, fingernails, tentacles and the like, snapped and writhed, clutched and tore. Neither seemed to be gaining the upper hand.
John Henry stepped forward as the bone warriors rushed. He did what he always did when he fought, he began to sing.
“John Henry swings his hammer. He swings it like a man. And every time he does, there’s a ringing in the land. Come on now, line it up, come and get you some, take me where I stand. I’m John Henry, a steel driving man.”
Johnny thought John Henry might profit from some voice lessons, but hearing him sing, seeing him smile and swing his hammer like a black god of destruction, gave him greater courage.
Johnny drove the crossbow bolt deep into the top of the head of one of the things, swung the bolt from side to side, landing the sharp point on target; ribs, skulls, deep into invisible flesh. Down the bones went, and yet still others came. The air was filled with the rattle of their movement, the crushing sound of John Henry’s hammer, and the thudding of Johnny’s crossbow bolt. The bone heap grew, and yet, still they came.
Johnny turned his head, saw John Henry, smiling and singing, swinging that hammer with ease.
And then Johnny was smiling. The battle lust was on him, even as the bones surrounded him.
He fought on.
24
ELVIS UPSTAIRS
Elvis, watching as the skeletal things climbed the wall like spiders, stepped back from the window and stepped up on the bed. That put him on a higher level, an advantage. He hoped.
He swished the blessed sword in the air a few times to make sure of its heft.
They flailed through the open window, one at a time, and as they entered the room the pentagram above the bed glowed and the bed was covered in amber light. All of the blessings and charms and Boo-buddy preventions were causing the things to lose some of their mojo. They crackled like dry leaves as they entered the room, staggered.
At least those goddamn spells were good for something, thought Elvis.
They rushed the bed en masse and Elvis swung the sword.
Bones splintered and rattled against the walls and floor. Like Errol Flynn, he leapt back and forth across the bed. He put his back to the wall, his legs against the headboard. They climbed onto the bed with rat-like determination; mounting the single raft at sea with hungry anticipation.
Elvis’s sword flashed.
Teeth flashed as they flew from mouths and plunked against the walls like tossed Chiclets. Skulls were chopped, split, and smashed. The sword went through the chest of one, piercing the invisible flesh there, the unseen throat of another, and yet, through the window came more, birthed constantly by fragments of the shadow down below.
“Shiver me fucking timbers,” Elvis said.
He hacked and chopped. They grabbed him. He flexed his body and flung them. His sword wove a pattern of silver strings that remained in the air and in full sight for long moments. He knew what that meant.
The spell on the sword was wearing off.
But it was all right. They had stopped coming. Their bones were dissolving like cotton candy, and now those parts of them that had been unseen swelled pus-yellow against the floor and evaporated.
Elvis stepped off the bed and pulled his bag from under the bed, and placed it on the sheets. He opened it and looked into his assorted goodies. There was what looked like a large magnifying glass there, but the lens was made up of stained glass from a devil-worshipping clan out of Bulgaria. The glass had been discovered during an archeological dig, and somehow it had come into the Colonel’s possession, and the Colonel had given it to him.
He had no more than pulled it from the bag, tossed the bag against the headboard and stepped back upon the bed, then they started scuttling through the window again. They wanted him more than anyone else.
Charisma had a down side.
As they came Elvis stuck the sword into the mattress in front of him and held up the magnifying glass. The shadows in the corner of the room pulled away from their spot and fled into the stained glass of the magnifier; pin-points of black light shot out of it like spears, hit the stalking bones with the impact of a .357. Bones came apart and fell. It sounded like the room was raining Jenga sticks.
Elvis, back against the wall, legs pushed tight against the headboard, whipped the glass right and left. Down from the ceiling, out from the walls, the symbols there became swirling images of blue and red and yellow light
and darted into the black bones and made them glow bright colors, and the bones began to snap and pop and fall.
“About fucking time,” Elvis said, as the last of the bone-walkers collapsed to the floor, their flesh now visible and heaving like fat pus-filled blisters, and then the signs painted on the floor absorbed them.
Elvis thought it was over then, but the floor heaved, and out of it came a swirling combination of lemon-colored pus, the protective emblems stuck to the yellow mass like tattoos. The mass rose, and rose, until it touched the ceiling, and then it blew apart, splattering all over the room and across the bed, and against Elvis. He looked like a comedian that had just intercepted a batch of custard pies.
And then he felt the throb in the air cease.
He and the spells had stopped the things.
For now.
25
UP ON THE ROOFTOP VAMPIRE PAWS,
DOWN THROUGH THE CHIMNEY HUNGRY JAWS
Their black bones smoking from the scalding effect of the protection spells, the bone-warriors, like Santa’s assassin elves, came bursting out of the fireplace and into the large dining space in a flood of clicking bones and foul odors. They rose up from the hearth and came forward as a wall of bones, but, they staggered a little. The spells were limiting their power.
The Colonel and Blind Man were near the fireplace, waiting. Weakened or not, the things rushed forward with a surprising yell, and it was assholes and elbows; a thunderstorm of swinging clawed fingertips and snapping teeth.
The Colonel, belying his chubby appearance, leaped forward and drew first goo. He hit a critter in its invisible chest, the sword slipping between bones, and the yellow mess came out of the invisible wound and splattered on the Colonel’s white suit.
Blind Man bent his head and listened, pulled back on the cane with his left hand, so that the charmed steel was revealed, and then his right hand continued to draw the sword, and in drawing it he continued its arc and cut off the black bone head of one of the monsters, sent it flying across the room and shattering a window, smashing into the yard. The rest of it collapsed to the floor.
The things were all over the place, still coming through the gap in the fireplace, multiplying outside the house. The Colonel danced with his sword. Bones went to pieces, heads toppled, teeth went snapping against the floor.
Blind Man was surrounded, but he quickly cut a path, leaped to a chair, swung his right leg out so that it turned him in the air, and light as a spring-loaded feather, landed firmly on the long table in the center of the room, sending the remains of leftover dishes and uneaten food crashing to the floor.
The last of the bone folk came down the chimney, arrived with an explosion of soot, a clanking of bones.
The room filled with them.
26
JENNY ON THE STAIRS
(Happening same time)
From her position on the stairs, facing the front door, Jenny saw the line of salt beneath it blow outward.
That wasn’t good.
The front door creaked and groaned, and then a letter slipped under the crack. A long, blue-white letter. No, not an envelope, but a long piece of paper.
Uh, no, not paper. The long, flat piece of whiteness swelled and bloated into a stack of dark bones that in mid-air arranged itself into a skeleton, and then within the blink of an eye, the bones divided and became more of the same. Within an instant, the black walking bones crowded the foyer.
All their bony skulls looked up with hollow eyes to where Jenny crouched in the middle of the stairs. She back-stepped quickly, came to the landing and found position behind the great crossbow. It was loaded with a large harpoon-like shaft, and there was a foot-pedal device that loaded six other loads, all blessed, all stinking like the Ganges River when the sun was hot and high.
Jenny cranked the crossbow on its swivel with a grinding screech, dipped the arrow down so that it was square center of the stairs. And then a little joy happened.
The cosmic bones, moving slow, like cats stalking mice, came up the
stairs. One by one, and in line, the spells on the steps causing them to sizzle and smoke, but still they came.
Jenny smiled, locked her eye on the crossbow sight, and gently squeezed the trigger.
Away went the crossbow bolt, sizzling through the air.
Go back in time a little bit, and arrive at—
27
JACK ON THE TOILET
Jack, who right before it all came down, decided he best take a dump, and was crapping in the dark, finishing up and papering up, when he heard the commotion in the yard, and the near simultaneous explosions of action upstairs where Elvis was, as well as the crashing of dishes in the dining room, the sound of the great crossbow bolt whizzing through the air, and then a noise like a large pane of glass shattering.
Jerking his pants up, fastening his belt, Jack picked up his crossbow and rushed out into the fray. He was turning a corner when he saw a single line of dark skeletons on the stairs and heard the great crossbow spring, and glanced at the great bolt of charmed power pass through each skeleton in turn, strike the floor below, and bounce, eventually clattering against the door. He watched as the bones fell to the ground and yellow pus spurted and leaked from invisible flesh.
Looking up, he saw Jenny drop another bolt into position. More of the bones were climbing the stairs. They were so focused on her, they didn’t notice him at all. He gave her a thumbs-up and charged into the dining room, intent on helping the Colonel and Blind Man, as he could hear the battle raging there, and Jenny seemed well-positioned.
Jack didn’t make it into the dining room. He met one of the things immediately, it having wandered out of the dining room where Colonel and Blind Man did battle. It let out a yell, swung a bony, dark fist at him. Jack moved his head, avoiding the swing, but the monster’s swipe sent his crossbow flying. Jack jerked the club off his belt and waded in. He swung the club, smashing bones easily, but now there were others. Swarming him like blue bottle flies on cow shit. They were sprouting from the shadow which was flowing under the front door and throughout the house.
Jack fought valiantly, but one swing was a miss, two was a strike, and then another miss, and they had him.
They grabbed him and pulled at his arms, dislocating his shoulders. Their teeth were coming down on him, and—
They stopped.
The walking bones all turned their heads to one side, the same side. They did this throughout the house. Two of them grabbed Jack and darted toward the front door, forming a rushing triangle of bones, striking the door, some of them coming apart at the impact, and then they carried Jack away with them.
28
THE YARD
The House Ghost and the great ball of toothy, tentacle-waving ectoplasm had come to rest in the yard, knotted up in a confusing wad.
And then the big ball of mean ectoplasm became soft and liquid and flowed away from the House Ghost, across the ground, through the fence (to the sound of hot crackles and thick white smoke). On the other side of the fence they took human form, except below the knees, down there was like smoke and the smoke blew across the land and carried them away.
A horde of the walking bones came out of the house at a run, dragging Jack with them, and then all but two of them melted onto the ground, became part of a great flowing shadow.
The two bone creatures that remained had hold of Jack. They coiled their legs as they neared the fence, and leaped, lifting Jack airborne. As they cleared the fence, Jack dangled between them like a doll. They landed silently on the other side of the fence, became less skeletal, more insectlike. They practically galloped after the ectoplasm blob and the gliding shadow that was their source. Within moments, the dark shadow and the fleshy-ball of ectoplasm combined, and rolled on to the river, and then they/it was gone.
29
JOHNNY'S JOURNAL:
THE AFTERMATH
Me and John Henry were all of a sudden without anything to fight. I stood there with my crossbow bolt, an
d he stood there with his hammer, eager to swing it. The piles of bones on the ground had dissolved and flowed like water, out and away.
A beautiful woman, pale as the mist with hair dark as a killer’s heart, came gliding over the earth and past us. She wobbled and waned and came to the house and spread her arms wide and clutched at an outside wall. There was a sucking sound and her body was absorbed by the wood, like a fresh coat of paint.
It was the House Ghost, of course.
There were no bodies in the yard now. The grass had turned the color of a drying dog turd. We could see the shadow moving across the yard, beyond the fence, and we saw two bone-walkers jump over the fence, carrying poor Jack with them. Before we could collect our thoughts and make our ragged bodies pursue, they were at the Mississippi, and then they were sailing across it with our comrade. Gone, baby, gone.
We staggered into the house, found the Colonel there, along with Blind Man. Like us, they were drenched in sweat and goo.
Elvis came down the stairs then, I could hear him talking to Jenny, and then he and Jenny rounded the corner and entered the dining room. We all came together there amidst a ruin of dishes and overturned chairs, pulled-down curtains, and soot-coated tile in front of the fireplace.
Blind Man, Colonel, and Jenny didn’t know that Jack had been taken, though I could tell from the look on Elvis’s face, he did.
So I said it. “They got Jack.”
“What?” the Colonel said.
“They took Jack,” Elvis said. “You know, nabbed him, carried him away. I saw it from upstairs.”
“To what purpose?” Colonel said.
“Hey,” Elvis said, “you’re the brains here, but I’m going to say they got a late-night snack in mind.”
“Damn,” Colonel said.