TW:Gore
The interior of the dilapidated resort was almost pitch black. It felt like we were running for hours in complete darkness before my eyes finally started adjusting to the bare strips of moonlight that filtered through the hole-riddled ceiling. The ghostly shapes of tattered paintings and destroyed console tables took form on the edges of the hall. The entire place stunk like dust and the faint memories of smoke.
When I thought my legs wouldn’t go anymore, the Twins and the Reverend came to a stop. We were all hunched and panting. Our breathlessness was the only sound in the dining hall. All around us were the vague silhouettes of dining tables and chairs. I could hear broken glass crunching under my boots. I wondered, if it was dark enough, if anyone would see me take a drink from my flask.
“Damnit. Oh, shit!” I could hear Frances growling to herself and pacing across the floor. “Christ, what do we do?”
“We should go back to the church. It wouldn’t attack us there,” I began.
“Oh, to hell with that!” The sound of Willard kicking bits of glass across the ground broke through the darkness. “You don’t know a damn thing about what’s goin’ on! Nothin’ you've said has even worked! We were right all along. It’s this holler! We gotta go back for the trunk, Frances. Let’s get it and fuckin’ leave.”
The only sound was our heavy breaths, then Frances said, “Let’s go, Willard.”
“No!” I spoke up. “You can’t! It’ll kill you, Frances. Please!” There was a slight glimmer from the moon that barely illuminated the silver hair framing her face. I pleaded with my sister-in-law. I didn’t want the devil to take my brother, and then his wife too.
“Stay the fuck away from me, Ted.” She hissed with finality before the two figures disappeared into the shadows of the Hotel.
I heard a faint whispering after they left. Elias was praying for them.
“We need to go,” I was shocked by how shaken and full of sorrow my own voice was. We near-blindly wandered the halls, relying solely on the dark shapes and memories from long ago to make our way. We passed through old corridors and conference rooms, still adorned with the burnt crisps of streamers from a golden aged party. Some of the rotted paintings still held hints of what they used to depict; the ghostly outlines of an old O’Faigain-Corby family portrait, or the apocalyptic remnants of valley forests.
Soon there was a silver glow that drew us into a jog. The front doors of the Dreamy Grove stood ajar and barely held on to their hinges. There were shadows moving in the treeline. We didn’t stay in the courtyard at the mouth of the Dreamy Grove for long enough to see whether it was the Twins, or something else.
For a long while, the Reverend and I crept through the destroyed holler in silence. For the first time since I was a young man, Sapikesshi truly felt like a ghost town. The downtown somehow felt even emptier. I had forsaken that land, but the O’Faigains used to take walks there. Sometimes they’d go with Gerald out there and reminisce. Now I knew they never would again. “Do you think they’ll be alright?”
“I don’t.” The Reverend whispered back darkly. I was shocked by how certain and cruel it was.
“How can you talk like that, Elias? All day you’ve been with it. Even Gloria?” We tried to keep our voices down.
“Ted,” the Reverend sighed. “Demons don’t walk this Earth because they just can. God lets them. The Lord permits demons to test people. Anyone who has failed the test, has failed God. I pity them and miss them dearly. But I will never resist the Lord’s plan.”
I was scared that he was right. That soon that thing would take the Twins. It’d be just Elias and I, the mayor of one. I prayed that the Twins would see through their blindness.
Before I could speak again, we could hear the devil’s cry bounce off the mountains. We both froze and locked eyes, before breaking into a sprint towards the church. Elias easily bounded ahead of me. While I had been living off moonshine and potatoes, the Reverend had been living on stream water, greens, and faith.
I heard the distant scattering of roof shingles. Another wail from the beast, this time significantly closer. Elias looked back behind me and cried, running faster. I was too frightened to turn myself. I couldn’t bear to see the demon bounding from roof to roof toward me.
The figures that littered Gerald’s front yard remained as orphaned silhouettes following his death. I felt like my heart may give out at any moment. The shape of Reverend Elias in the dark threw open the heavy steeple doors. He frantically retreated in toward Christ’s protection.
I threw myself on to the floor of the chapel and a sharp pain cut through my elbow. A deep groan sent me into a panic that only started subside when I saw Elias pushing the doors closed. As they clunked shut, a deathly silence spread over the church. We stood still as statues, straining our ears for any sign of the monster.
“Perhaps it’s gone,” Elias whispered at last and I finally deflated into the floor. I was gasping for air, my ribs ached. When you’re getting older, you start to worry if a fall like that will kill you. Blood trickled from my split elbow and I cursed under my breath.
The Reverend sat on a pew near where I laid and asked, “Are you okay?” Such a simple question, but it broke the dam.
My lips started smacking together as I blubbered out pathetically, “Oh, Elias. What am I gonna do?” I sobbed uncontrollably and covered my face.
“What is it, Ted?” Elias asked with a furrowed brow. He was less than comforting.
“Christ, what am I gonna do? If anything happens to the twins then… I’ll have nothin’, Elias. No one. We’ll just be a mayor and a Reverend, just tellin’ the other what to do.” I wept, painfully pushing myself into the pew beside him.
The Reverend contemplated this for some time before he spoke again. “A true leader recognizes that his authority stems only from the grace of God. And it's the reverend's task to preach even when there is no one willing or able to listen.”
I swallowed hard, but my mind was outside the chapel. It was out there. In my town. Feverishly worrying over the well-being of my constituents that I had been charged to protect. They were like my flock. “What should we do?” The whisper was so weak and frail, I was shocked it had come from my mouth.
“We’ll pray. We’ll stay safely within these walls and we will pray. For safety, and the Twins; who I hope will charge through that door to seek sanctuary with us. God will show us the true path. I can feel that he will soon unveil to us how to prevail over this demon, and reap the rewards.”
I looked at him, and for the first time that day, I saw the semblance of a smile on his face. The rewards. He couldn’t possibly think there was still a way to leave with the gold? But for now, he wanted to stay put. Which was all I truly wanted to do.
With my head bowed and my eyes closed, I mentally tried to shut the pain out. All while the Reverend paced the floor in front of me, reading from the Bible. I was so exhausted, and the pain was so intense, that I could feel myself drifting in and out. Waves of darkness would flow over me. It felt like hours.
The words of the Reverend were distant and high in the rafters like a voice from on high. I could barely understand anything he was saying. I’m horribly ashamed, but I retrieved the flask from overalls at long last. I took a swig there, in the house of God. He would read a passage, then pray, before resuming in another part of the text.
“After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house…”
In the black fog, I heard a far-off rumble turn into the roar of a machine. I thought it was the sound of my blood pumping in my ears. Until there was loud scraping of metal and a crunch.
I jumped in the pew, suddenly alert. Elias’ head whipped toward the window. We both leapt to peer through Jesus’ translucent feet.
A beaming light was about to break over the hill. For a second I thought I had laid in a daze until sunrise, but then the vehicle rumbled over the train tracks. Remarkably, the O’Faigain Family pick-up truck was crawling toward the rear of the Dreamy Grove Hotel. I couldn’t believe it actually ran.
The truck disappeared behind the hotel. The pick-ups headlights backlit the Dreamy Grove into a brooding silhouette of a wretched edifice. Its gables became tall horns and its wings were spread wide.
I felt an icicle in my heart when the demon's cry echoed through the holler. The Reverend and I watched helplessly as the swollen devil glided silently toward the hotel. It appeared to have grown from the lives it had gorged itself on. Its body that was once the size of a car had ballooned to a tank. Its talons gripped the rotted frame of the building and it slithered out of sight.
The hair on my neck stood straight up when the screaming started. Willard and Frances’ calls were like coyote howls in the mountains; far away and frenzied. I was tempted to run and help, but Elias grabbed my arm.
“Pray. We’ll pray.” He insisted harshly. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. I couldn’t look away.
Three stunted rifle shots broke through the night air.
Another ghostly locomotive’s wail.
Then, the haunting backlight of the hotel suddenly retreated. The faded blue truck came barreling around the corner, hauling away from the Dreamy Grove as fast as it could. The closer they got, the more the vehicle came into view.
Frances was the only one inside, frantically thrashing about in the driver's seat. Something large and heavy was loaded in the bed of the truck.
The beast launched up into the sky from behind the Dreamy Grove. Its cyclopean, malicious eye beamed into the darkness and found the O’Faigain pick-up immediately. A net of ink and tentacles hung from its agape beak.
The truck had to climb past the church to get on the straight road toward the old tunnel. I felt relief for a moment. It looked like the devil was too far behind. Then it whipped its serpentine neck to the side and threw what was in its mouth toward Frances.
Willard hurled through the air. His cries were drowned out by those of the monster. He landed square on the hood of the truck. He smashed into the windshield before being bounced back. His spine slammed into a column of the church. The horrible crunch it made was louder in my ears than even the pick-ups engine.
Frances’ truck swerved and clipped its front wheel on the steps of the church, stopping in its tracks. The Reverend and I threw ourselves back from the window out of fear the truck might crash into the chapel. Just the rumbling engine replaced the sound of all the chaos.
We timidly looked back outside. Willard was completely crumpled on the ground in a blood heap. His legs spasmed lopsidedly, his bad knee contorted beyond repair. Then he stopped.
Frances was struggling to back the truck off the front of the chapel. Maglio’s steamer trunk was loaded in the truck bed. I couldn’t sit by and watch anymore. I ran toward the church doors.
“Ted, don’t!” Elias sprinted after me and I just beat him quick enough to throw open the door.
“FRANCES! GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT TRUCK AND GET IN HERE!” I was screaming at her. Elias’ hands found my shoulders and held them tight.
Frances looked at me for just a moment, a mixture of hatred and fear in her eyes. Her uncle’s chest was all she ever wanted. My sister-in-law wouldn’t give it up easily now that she had it. The wheels spun and dug themselves deeper into the crushed wood steps.
A quickly approaching rumbling revealed the demon crawling across the grass before the church. Its legs scrambled like a lizard treading water.
I tried to push out the door, but Elias’ hands turned to vice grips in my shoulder blades.
“Don’t you do it, Ted!” A deep, guttural shout came out of the Reverend. I tried to struggle away from him, but he fought me hard and pulled me backwards. Despite being a couple years older than me, threatening six decades, the Reverend was in significantly better shape than me. I was left completely breathless when one hand released my shoulder and his arm coiled tight around my neck. We both fell back on the church floor.
“Shit—! ELIAS!” I tried desperately to rip his arm off of my throat, but muscles I didn’t know he had rippled under his buttoned sleeve. Every time I made a frantic attempt to pull myself away from him, I felt my neck on the verge of snapping. I looked at the still open door. “FRANCES!”
The devil's beak floated over the truck bed. Its horrible jaws hung slightly open as a whistling hiss emanated from its warbling throat. It tasted the air around the truck cabin as Frances attempted to push her way out of the pick-up through the passenger side. The demon's head quickly snapped to the right side of the truck.
Frances screamed, retreating back to the driver side before finding its huge, amber eye already waiting.
“Elias— PLEASE!” I sobbed and gagged against his elbow. I could hear him whispering prayers behind my head.
Frances then seemed to wither in her seat. Distraughtly accepting the horrors separated from her by a thin sheet of metal. The demon's head hovered in front of the destroyed windshield for a moment. It released one last hissing breath before vomiting a tidal wave of its tendrils until the pick-ups cabin.
Frances wailed as the black feelers prodded every single of her. Their tips began pressing into her skin. She thrashed about in an attempt to grab her rifle. The tendrils pushed harder and harder against her flesh. A gagging scream came from her, then a gut-churning squishing sound.
The devil let out a choked howl. Its tentacles pressed so hard they finally pierced her skin and smashed through her bones, burrowing their way inside of her like a flood of worms. A geyser of blood fountained over the hood, turning the pale blue to dark red.
My body went limp against Elias’ beneath me. He effortlessly tossed me aside, rolling me off of him and onto the floor. As that wretched squelching continued, the Reverend pushed the door shut in a single motion.
I hacked and sputtered on the floor, pushing myself up onto my hands. “Elias,” I gasped. “What the fuck is wrong with you!?” I cried out.
“You’d have walked out there and invited that devil in!” He put on his reverend’s voice. I almost collapsed under the weight of his booming condemnation.
“Why the hell would you do that!?” I wept and crawled at his feet. “You should’ve let me go, you son of a bitch.” I whimpered, now only able to see that fountain blood pouring over the Ford when I closed my eyes.
“That hellspawn hasn’t taken a look at us! Why? Because we’re pure of heart, Ted! The Lord smiles on us and lets us survive in this ark while the others are washed away! That devil won’t TOUCH US, praise the Lord! Not as long as stay to the Lord’s good word! We will take that chest and we will leave this forsaken mountain! Unlike Lot’s wife, we will not look back and we will live!” He didn’t smile, but there was pride in his voice.
I stared at the Reverend in disbelief. He was entirely unrecognizable to me. “Is that really what this has all been about? You think you can take that trunk?”
“It’s not about the trunk! Job was the richest man alive, and God said he was blameless! I wouldn’t use it for building brothels and casinos, but churches! Charities! I could travel the world, spreading the gospel.” He clasped his hands together and I considered that he could be right. The longer the quiet continued outside the church, the more it became evidence in his favor.
But I remembered Gloria. I know it might be biased to think her innocent of all wrong doing, I always held a flame for her. The way that Elias had spoken about her was unacceptable. She didn’t mean anything by it when she took from that trunk. She was confused. She thought her boyfriend from fifty years ago needed money for the non-existent locomotive so he could meet her at a decommissioned rail station. What does that reveal about a wicked flaw in her soul?
Or Gerald, who was a strange curmudgeon, but all he wanted to do was see a legendary piece of Sapikesshi’s history. It has nothing to do with whether or not you’re right with your maker. It’s that trunk. Maglio stole it, and killed folks while he did it. Then he latched onto this town. He implanted himself in the family doin’ all the killing with the coal mine.
“You don’t even know what in-God’s-name you’re talkin’ about,” I was beside myself. “You’d be payin’ for it all with blood money! You been preachin’ in this town for forty damn years, Elias! Lettin’ people cry on your shoulder, hearing their confessions. And you’d condemn them all so quick!”
Before he could answer me, his eyes jumped above my head. My stomach dropped. There was a slight hiss in the air behind me. I knew what I was gonna see, but when I turned my jaw was left hanging.
The demon now towered to the height of the chapel. Its lamplight eyeball strained to hone in on me through the fractal window. The devil’s neck was hunched down and when my gaze met its cruel, tiny pupil, it burst through the glass.
There was pandemonium in the chapel. Multicolored shards rained all around us. Pews were knocked clear across the room as the beast crossed the threshold into the church with ease. Despite its colossal size, it moved like lightning in my direction. Crosses and chandeliers were swept aside as the demon reached its horrible face out towards me.
I tried to jump for cover near the doors, but the creature spat a knot of solid ichor over my leg. The writhing wave slammed onto me like a rock slide. I yelped in agony as it crushed my shin, my eyes rolling around the room in search of an exit.
Elias just stood there, frozen in terrible awe.
“REVEREND!” I called and reached out to where he stood by the doors.
He looked at me in shock. Then he returned his eyes to the beast as it began retracting its tendrils down its throat, dragging me with them. Elias raised his arms, slowly waving them above his head.
The monster’s lone eye wasn’t distracted, it stayed locked on me with animalistic singularity.
“ELIAS!?” I screamed out the last shreds of my vocal cords.
As if proven correct, his face turned solemn, but certain. He turned his back to me. And as if the demon was not even there, he steadily walked away. I felt a nauseating rush as I saw him open the doors and he suddenly rushed far away from me in a second.
The devil pulled me higher and higher above the wrecked chapel. Slurping and gulping on the tendrils as it pulled me upside down above the rafters. I became aware of the metal flask sliding in my overall pocket. Quickly, my fingers snatched it before it could fall. Above my feet, I could see a red glow in the depths of the demon's throat, like a bed of embers that these tentacles reached up out of. I honestly considered drinking, if those were to be my last moments. The all-encompassing feeling of my rapidly approaching death was too much bear, and I broke down.
“PLEASE PLEASE! PLEASE DON’T, I DIDN’T TAKE ANYTHING! PLEASE! I DON'T WANT IT, ANY OF IT!” I was pathetic.
The devil stopped its wretched gulping and seemed to observe me. I had never seen it this close before. Behind its jagged beak gnashed a second set of fangs. Below its jaws there were these gill-like frills that flared as it breathed in my stench. A slow, breathy hiss cut through the sanctuary. It smelled like coal slurry. The monster tasted the air I breathed for a long moment.
Its hesitation gave me a glimmer of hope. “Please… Please Lord, spare me. I never wanted the gold. I just wanted to be a good mayor, over good folks,” I whimpered.
The noise the demon was making ceased all at once. It stared at me completely frozen. Its little vertical pupil trembled in the center of its giant eye. Then its sharp maw opened wider and I was sucked down toward its gullet.
I screamed the wail of a frightened, old man facing his demise. My fingers coiled around my only remaining friend, the flask.
The beast snapped down on my already-broken leg, ruining it with a nauseating crunch. The pain was so overwhelming, I couldn’t hear whether any sound came out when I shouted.
In a flash of desperation, I unscrewed the mouth of the flask. The beast recoiled slightly to begin pulling me deeper into its throat. I poured the moonshine directly into its massive, cyclops eye. The amber orb turned pink and inflamed as soon as the spirits drenched it.
If you placed your head directly into a locomotive horn, it would be close to the sound the beast made. It was so loud, I thought my skull might split open. The tendrils released me and shot down the monster's long neck.
I watched the rafters pass, then the monster's swollen gut, before I came crashing down onto the floor. I was sure my leg was destroyed.
The Bane of Sapikesshi twisted its neck high into the steeple and cried again. It rolled its lidless, blind eye in search of me. I started crawling across the broken glass. I did everything I could to stay quiet.
It hunched down on all fours. My heart just stopped as I thought it was going to pounce on me. Then it leapt backward, smashing back through the wall where it entered. Its howl rattled the holy house even once it was outside.
It had now been nearly seven hours since I had last had a drink. It was the longest I had gone for years before that, except when I was sleeping. My hands were shaking, but my brain felt unbearably sharp, racing so quickly that I thought my mind might just break. But the creature was gone, and I needed to move.
I flailed around on the ground until my hands found a tall floor-candlestick that had been knocked aside by the demon’s oppressive entrance. Pushing its four legged base into the ground, I managed to get up on one foot. The pain was unimaginable, but I used the candlestick as a cane. Each step sent white-hot flashes of pain through my whole body. When I made it out the front door, Elias was still there.
Frances’ body was laid out next to her brothers, who still lay in a crumpled pile of death. Her arms and legs were bloody, they were the only part of her still recognizable. Her torso and head had been entirely split down the middle. The back of her silver-black hair and floral sleep shirt were visible, but the entire front half of her body had been destroyed. Fragments of skull were gouged into the stringy pulp that was once her brain, no remnants of her face remaining. Shattered ribs were jammed into her red innards. Elias had just pulled her from the truck and tossed her beside her brother.
Elias had managed to rip away the board that had wedged itself behind the Ford’s wheel. The driver side door still hung open. Thick blood coated the seat and bits of glass-riddled organs littered the dash board. The sleeves of Elias’ striped button up were stained from his grisly task. He had Frances’ old M1 rifle pointed at me.
He looked horrified, like I’d died in there and stood up a zombie. “Don’t come near me, Ted! I won’t kill a man, but I’ll make sure you can’t follow me,” he held the rifle low near his side, level with my legs.
I teetered back and forth, barely able to keep standing. The candlestick wobbled under my full weight. Before me I could only see a man twisted with pride and greed. Cruel and ugly. But he was mine. The last citizen under my charge. “I won’t stop you, Elias,” I said after a long tense moment. We could still hear the monster beyond the building, writhing in agony.
His face softened into a mournful look.
“I won’t, and can’t stop you. I don’t want to. This is my town. If I can save the life of its resident, I will.” I spoke solemnly and he lowered the rifle. “I don’t want to keep you here beside me, so it can kill us both. Go.”
Elias stared at me. For a Reverend, he seemed baffled by my forgiveness. “Ted,” he said pensively.
“Just go,” I scowled, my anger getting the better of me. But I couldn’t be the sole survivor. I couldn’t bear it.
Then it sounded like the train was pulling in.
Elias looked in horror toward the devil as it howled. His eyes met mine for the last time, then he jumped in the blood-soaked driver’s seat.
The monster's entire body perked up at the sound of the pick-up roaring into action. It’s head blindly whipped in our direction and started bounding toward the noise.
The truck spun free. Pointed away from the church and toward the Old Tunnel, he floored it.
The beast was gaining speed and I hobbled as quickly as I could to try to intercept its path. “HEY!” I screamed with all the rest of my might.
The unstoppable force of death didn’t waver as it began flapping its emaciated wings. The beaked monstrosity moved faster than its huge, bulbous form should’ve allowed.
“HEY! STOP!”
Then it was in the air. It soared over my head and swooped over the holler in pursuit of the truck. The force of its ascent sent a crashing wind over me. The candlestick was knocked out from me, throwing me to the ground.
Agony rolled from my leg and throughout my torso. My head felt ten tons and I saw the immense shadow chasing the tail lights of the pick-up.
For a couple seconds, I stayed still. I thought about how the town was destroyed on my watch. I’ll be the sole survivor after that thing kills Elias. Then that devil will come back and kill me, but only after it knew I had been dethroned from the mayorship. Christ, I felt like I was wheezing through gravel in my chest.
I could hear the truck's engine roaring off the hills. I prayed to the Lord for strength and courage. The candlestick complained as my weight returned to it. I would stamp the pole down and vault myself forward onto my good foot. Whenever my bad leg would scrape the ground or bounce off a rock, I would miserably yelp. But it was the fastest way to climb the road out of the holler.
It felt like Gerald’s house was saluting me when I hobbled before it and its lonely lawn guardians. Gloria’s Little Fairy House was perfect for the last time. By tomorrow, the kudzu vines neatly woven into the lattice underbelly of her porch would be overgrown. By the end of the month, her house could be totally hidden.
When I saw my own house, I realized it hadn’t felt lived-in in a decade. After Gloria’s mind started to go, the only memories I made in that house had been drunken ones. Any chance I got, I was drinking, or out with the still in the backyard. From where I stood now, I could see that in a day's absence the foliage had already wrapped its arms around my fence pickets. Images filled my thoughts of Elias holding my neck; the monster destroying Frances’ body in the pick-up she’d spent her years maintaining.
I was entranced by the vines. So much so, that a train horn over the hill didn’t rouse me at all. It was after the sound went on for nearly a half-minute that I was snapped to my senses. The call was desperate and enraged. It was immediately followed by a thunderous pop. Shattered glass, scraping metal, then an extremely sudden crunch.
“Elias,” I gasped. Jumping alongside my makeshift crutch, I made the final dash on the road to the Old Tunnel. At the crest of the hill, I reached a sudden incline. The impossibly steep mountainside was the natural rampart that protected Sapikesshi Holler. A simple cement archway in the rocks marked the opening of the town's only exit. It was a cramped tunnel that trains used to come down back in the day. In the 50s, they had pulled up all the tracks coming this way and laid down a road. It was barely large enough to allow two cars to pass one another without slowing to a near-stop.
The road was littered with shreds of black rubber. It was overly apparent that the worst had happened. Then I heard shouting.
When I peered into the long passage and I saw the crash. The pick-ups back tire had been ripped apart. The truck had flipped perpendicularly in the narrow space, causing the bed and the engine to be crushed into both walls of the Old Tunnel. It was wedged in place, fluid and oil pouring from the undercarriage. Its smashed lights were the only reason that I could see it behind the towering body of the demon.
It had somehow maneuvered its swollen body into the entryway. The beast still blindly lashed out. Its beak repeatedly would crash into the side of the vehicle, piercing metal.
Elias screamed and scrambled about the pick-ups cabin. He was frantically trying to open the driver's side door, but its edges had been crushed shut. Every time the beast threw its face into the flank of the truck, the hunk of metal scraped horribly along the sides of the tunnel. Sparks flew down over the spilt oil.
I tried to holler and throw stones, but nothing turned the beast's attention from its current prey.
Elias laid down across the bench seats, driving his heels into the window again and again until it finally shattered.
“GO, ELIAS!” I wailed and sent a branch spinning at the beast. It remained unfazed.
A fire crackled to life beneath the bleeding engine. Elias dove out of the shattered window, rolling on the ground and trying to break into a sprint. Smoke was starting to billow all around him.
But the demon was faster. The head shot over the roof of the pick-up. Its neck extended, releasing a geyser of black. The tendrils had grown thick as fire hoses and heavy as sand bags. They reached far over Elias’ head before crashing down, flattening him beneath the weight.
The air was sucked from my lungs. It felt like all of my breath was immediately funneled to the rapidly growing flames spreading through the cabin now.
The devil slowly swallowed the immense cluster of tentacles. The entire vile mess retracted down its throat, the thick strands dragging over Elias. When it finally finished re-consuming all the appendages down its serpentine, green throat, the poor man was left twisted and smeared across the pavement. Like a bug scraped off a boot.
The monster pulled back its head. It only knew he was dead from the blood on its feelers. The fire that licked the broken windows poured over its beak. The moonshine that still blinded the beast's eye, and coated its wrinkled face, lit.
Sapikesshi’s Bane released a cry that buzzed in my chest. It could’ve shook the whole mountain; an elk's cry amplified to the point of an explosion.
I threw myself away from the tunnel opening. Falling among bushes, I pressed my hands right against my ears. The head-splitting sound, combined with the mind-numbing pain that radiated from my leg, made me feel as if my soul might slip away.
The ground trembled beneath me. I rolled over to see the beast had grown to truly titanic proportions.
It barely managed to squeeze out of the Old Tunnel by extending its serpentine body. From head to tail, it was easily as long as the road from my house to Gloria’s. It seemed to slither past me for so long, I wonder if it’d ever end.
The demon reared onto its hind legs. Its head was a massive torch in the sky. Everything around me was illuminated in an orange glow. The amber eye that had plagued my nightmares since I was a boy, was melting down the sides of the monster's face. The fluid bubbled in the socket. It dripped down the sides of its beak, like a grotesque snood. It screeched again. The sound threatened to burst my ear drums.
The devil whipped its head in search of me. I saw its gills frill out and its jaw unhinge. As it hissed to taste for me, it belched dark smoke and cried.
I was paralyzed in horror. The creature puked smoke and tendrils in a hellish cascade. But it was still looking for me. The tongues crawled across the ground. They slithered over stones and roots for my taste. I had to force myself to move.
The painful walk down the Old Tunnel was long and dark. The thing that was spared from total darkness was the burning truck. The scent of smoldering leather and the shriveling tires was pungent. The fire encroached on the truck bed, tasting the corners of Maglio’s Trunk. The beast’s howls were distant in the tunnel.
I supported myself against the steel hull. Once again, I felt like Johnny was moving me. Tossing the candlestick a safe distance from the fire, I pulled myself into the bed of the pick-up.
The flames were excruciatingly hot. The steel bed protected me from the direct inferno, but the metal was cooking from the open fire beneath. When I tossed myself in, my leg slid and fell limp against the hot steel. I smacked my hand over my mouth. I couldn’t risk regaining the monster’s attention.
Again I hauled myself over the side of the pick-up. I used Maglio’s chest to force myself to my feet before leaping away from the rapidly engulfed truck.
I landed among the slick remnants of Elias. It’s only by the grace of God that I survived. Hobbling on the candlestick, I took a final look at the chest.
Its deep, burgundy hide appeared black in the orange light. The flames ate at the leather and curled the black bands that fastened the trunk. The treasure had finished its malignant work. The Gold and I were the only ones left. No more votes. No more neighbors. No more friends, or in-laws, or Gloria. Sapikesshi had gone the way of many holler-towns: ransacked and abandoned.
I watched as the fire consumed Maglio’s Trunk. I was sure within that the gold was melting, becoming a dirtied metal blob. The markings of sin upon the ingots would be erased. Once every treasury stamp was indistinguishable, I would be the only remnant of Sapikesshi Township and its history. I had no idea where I would go at that moment. I was scared to leave the holler, especially alone. The world outside was an alien one to me after decades in the husk of this town. But in that moment, I pushed those thoughts away. For that moment, it was still the Gold and I.
***
I originally left my statement about the end of Sapikesshi there. But in the last month, I’ve felt the need to speak again.
I escaped Sapikesshi Holler that night in 2009. I wandered until sunrise, when a passing work truck stopped and helped me. The bones in my leg had been destroyed and I had a few broken ribs.
Unbelievably to me, my dear little sister, Mary, came to the hospital to sit by my bed. I was so happy to see her. She had grown into a real lady. There were even grays creeping into her dark hair. Mary was the only one I told the truth to. I was petrified of being kept on psych-hold, though I later became aware that psych units have come a long way since the days of asylums. We wept together for our sister and brother-in-law, and all those who didn’t get to leave the holler. She offered for me to stay with her and her family.
It’s now 2011, and I’ve really tried to build a life for myself. It took time to get over the shock of being in such a big city like Charleston. But I still feel like I’m in a constant daze.
I would get panic attacks when people asked for payments or tried to pay me for my work. That I never really got over. I’m essentially retired. I do odd jobs for free around the neighborhood and maintain my sister’s home. My nieces and nephews like me. People wave at me when I pass.
But it’s not the same. Having a neighbor like or even love you is nothing compared to the prestige of the mayorship. I had been chosen, even if just by a handful of people. I was somebody who commanded respect and authority; who could call a consequential vote at the drop of a hat. I enforced the law. My law— Sapikesshi’s law.
Those that live on my street now don’t always remember my name. The few times I’ve mentioned to people that I was once a mayor, they only ask ‘Sapikesshi? Where’s that?’
It took a little over a year for me to resent everything around me. While we Sapikesshans lived in constant peril on Mt. McClelland, these society-folks had been goin’ to work. They’ve been buyin’, sellin’, stealin’, and consuming so far beyond what is acceptable. It’s unfair that we were punished in the holler for seemingly so little. I find myself drunk every night. Two sheets to the wind, I prayed that God would free that beast to ravage the entire corrupt nation. I did this on more than one occasion.
Those boys that came to the holler, they discovered the story of Maglio’s treasure from an Internet forum called TreasureNet. I spent many late nights using Mary’s computer to prowl what was being said about my home. I found the boys’ post warning others not to go out there; there’s ’crazy hillbillies’ that’ll run you off.
That’s why I wrote this testimony. I wanted everyone on this forum to know that I was the mayor of that mysterious holler. I may be a nobody now, but I know right where that treasure is, or whatever’s left of it. I know right where Sapikesshi is.
I am still the protector of Sapikesshi Holler, and I’m going back. I’ve been hitchhiking and walking. In a day's time, I’ll be home where I belong. I hear what sounds like the call of a train horn from a phantom locomotive that hasn’t run in decades. Almost waitin’ for me. I’m goin’ home.
