The Winged Things

his chest and his arms over his face, hands holding the back of his head, rocking back and forth, mumbling something that we can’t make out from one story above.

  “I don’t want to die!” The only intelligible phrase coming from below.

  “Maybe we’re dead already,” Gordon says. “Interesting afterlife.”

  Desmond is trying to wrap his shirt around his wounded leg, not having much success. I wish he’d just put the shirt back on. He’s flabby and he has pimply man-boobs, perhaps the most disgusting sight I’ve been subjected to this entire night. I wonder who won the battle royal between the Jurassic Croc and the Land Octopus.

  Prendergast is, of course, holding her crucifix and mumbling a prayer. Gordon is kneeling next to his trusty lantern, scratching his white beard and wiping sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

  I lean close to Boesch, clutching his arm. He’s still watching the chiropractor at the bottom of the stairwell. My smile fades when I glance down at my fingers; the wetness I’d thought was sweat is blood.

  “You’re bleeding.” I whisper it, showing him my fingers.

  He holds up his right arm, looking at a gash just above the elbow.

  “Looks worse than it is,” he says.

  “We should find a first aid kit if we can,” I tell him. “Desmond is cut pretty bad, too.”

  Boesch glances at Desmond, who’s still trying to wrap up his leg with his shirt.

  “Maybe we can find him a bra, too,” he whispers.

  I do my best to suppress a laugh, wiping Boesch’s blood onto my sweat pants.

  “We should go in,” Prendergast says, motioning toward the door that presumably leads into the church.

  “Just wait,” Boesch says.

  “Why?”

  “For one, it could be completely infested with those monsters. Two, I don’t like the idea of leaving him” – he points downward – “near the door. He could freak out and decide to make a break for it, letting those things in.”

  “The bad things can’t come in here. It’s a holy place.”

  Boesch scoffs. “Maybe they can, maybe they can’t. I’d just as soon leave the door locked.”

  I look up at Boesch and he doesn’t look right. I see his eyes roll up into his head and he swoons, hands reaching out into empty space. I clutch him around the torso as he goes limp, trying to keep him from pitching over the edge. Neither the staircase we came up nor the ledge we’re on now has a railing.

  Prendergast is mumbling a prayer, crucifix in hand. Boesch shakes his head, lifting himself to one knee.

  “We need to get that bandaged up,” I tell him.

  “I don’t think that’s the problem,” he says. “Maybe just the heat.”

  He swoons again, then stands straight up, his facial features contorted. He looks like he’s in agony. I take a step back.

  What happened next was impossible, although considering what had already gone on that night, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  Boesch grew wings.

  It only took a moment. One second he was just standing there, looking as though he were in great pain, and the next moment they had sprouted and spread, majestic wings the color of ivory. He flapped them once lightly – maybe it was a reflex and they did it on their own – and then the wings settled, curling into themselves on his back.

  He looked to his left, to his right, seeing the feathers, no longer looking pained, and he stared at me with an expression of disbelief.

  “A miracle,” said an awestruck Prendergast.

  “Amazing.” Gordon said it.

  “I’m a freak.” Boesch said it like a question, no obvious bitterness in his voice.

  I stepped forward and caressed his shoulder, looking past it at his right wing. I thought it had a pleasant aroma, like flowers. I kissed his sweaty cheek.

  “A miracle,” Prendergast said again. “May I touch them?”

  The question ruined the moment and tossing her down the staircase seemed a like reasonable retaliation for such an inconsiderate action.

  “If you touch me I’ll remove your head and throw it out the window,” Boesch said. The statement included more than a few curse words.

  My own foul-mouthed angel.

  Before Prendergast could utter another stupid response, something bad happened.

  A loud yelp comes at us from below. Boesch and I, the closest to the ledge, peer down. The chiropractor is rolling around on the cement floor, tearing at himself with his fingernails, wailing in agony. What happens next isn’t a huge surprise.

  The chiropractor sprouts wings, splitting his white shirt. They’re not ivory feathered wings, though. They’re leathery and disgusting, like the wings on our friends outside. He seems to be shriveling. His face is covered in his hands (well, they’re claws now, actually); I’m glad I can’t see it.

  The transformation is over quickly. The thing that used to be the chiropractor is tearing at the remnants of its clothes, ripping all of the material off its new body. Once finished, it looks up at us (is it grinning?) and lets out a robust shriek.

  “What’s happening?” Desmond’s voice. He’s sitting near the door, too far away to see. Prendergast and Gordon, having inched forward, can see just fine.

  “Stand back,” Boesch says, pulling the machete free, spreading his wings.

  He leaps off the ledge.

  As I watch him float downward, his new wings spread, I can’t help but feel a little jealous. Not the envy that is apparent on Prendergast’s face – she’s just upset that she wasn’t chosen to be an “angel” – but a feeling of regret that I can’t experience the sensation of floating downward safely through the air using my own set of wings, being able to skydive, even at this relatively short height, without a parachute. I doubt that his wings will allow him to fly like a bird – even the winged things outside, with their light shriveled bodies, can’t seem to do much more than flutter a short distance – but he’s gliding, no problem. He’s spiraling downward, machete held up.

  The winged thing goes for the door. Before Boesch lands, the thing unlocks it, opens it. Shrieks from just outside the door.

  I pick up Boesch’s lance and run down the staircase.

  When I get to the bottom, Boesch is pushing against the door, trying to keep the creatures out. At least two of them are trying to force their way in, their clawed hands thrusting clumsily through the opening. Boesch flaps his wings, adding a bit of momentum into his efforts. Behind him there is a headless corpse, its wings splayed, the chiropractor creature, I assume. I don’t see the head. I poke the lance through the opening in the door, standing out of range of their claws, and hit something. One creature hisses in pain and flees. Boesch uses his wings again, jumping, driving forward, flapping them, yelling furious curse words. The door slams shut as the other creature retreats. Boesch clicks the lock. I wrap my arms around him.

  Prendergast interrupts us again. This time, with a terrified scream. We run back upstairs.

  Gordon is bleeding, curled up near his lantern, a series of wounds on his neck and torso. He’s dead or close to it. Desmond is gone. A winged thing is attacking Prendergast, clawing at her face and chest with its talons. The thing’s leg is bleeding. No big mystery here. Time to put an end to the thing formerly known as Disgusting Desmond.

  The Desmond-creature shrieks and bashes Prendergast’s head against the bell like a mallet to a gong, causing it to emit an echoing chime. It turns, sensing us perhaps. Boesch is close, blade ready. The Desmond-thing tosses Prendergast over the ledge and she screams all the way down, clutching her crucifix. The scream ends at the cement floor.

  Boesch swings and one of the creature’s fingers flies off. It howls in pain and comes straight for me. I raise the lance.

  Its wings flap and it reaches out. I try to sidestep it but one of its talons scratches my arm, wrist to elbow. I don’t feel the pain right away.

  Once it’s past me, I thrust the lance at the Desmond-thing’s back, piercing it. I release the
weapon, leaving it stuck in the creature. Boesch brings the machete down and slashes its wing. The Desmond-thing teeters toward the ledge’s edge. It turns and reaches for Boesch.

  Both of them fall.

  Boesch comes back upstairs a few minutes later. I’m kneeling, cradling my bleeding right arm with my left hand. I can see that he’s holding Prendergast’s set of keys in one hand and the machete in the other. His hands are covered with blood.

  “Can you walk? Maybe we can find a first aid kit in here somewhere,” Boesch says, going down to one knee. “If nothing else, we can find some holy water to wash up with.”

  I try not to laugh, feeling woozy. I look down, seeing his fingers resting on the handle of the gore-stained blade. My body doesn’t feel right. A horrible thought: I’m about to turn into one of those winged things from Prendergast’s “bad place” and Boesch is going to have to use the machete one more time. The world becomes a kaleidoscope of black and white, like television snow.

  I wake up with arms around me. I’m still kneeling. I smell flowers.

  “Have a nice nap?” It’s Boesch’s voice.

  “I dreamed about things with wings.”

  He manages a weak laugh.

  “Can you stand?”

  He helps me up.

  “If I turn into one of those things, will you kill me?”

  He smiles. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Does that mean you will or you won’t?”

  He points at my shoulder. I glance to my right. Ivory feathers. To my left. The same. The wings are light. I can barely feel them. I spread them, an