"Is he back yet?"
I’m so weak I can barely move and all I can see hovering over me is a smear of orange hair on a blurry shriveled face. My hearing is fine though and I’d recognize that voice anywhere. "Yeah, I'm back" I say irritated to Margery. My voice is gruff and scratchy, and when I swallow it feels like I’m trying to gulp down an entire egg. I clear my throat but it sore, like a bad case of strep throat. I won’t do that again.
“Give it another few minutes before you try to move,” says Oscar. He’s sitting on a chair beside me, rubbing something that smells like rotted fish off my neck. Then he adjusts his position backward, exposing blinding lamp light that shines brightly in my eyes.
“Turn that off, will ya?”
“Can’t. Only light in here,” he says, but shifts the lamp slightly, softening the glare.
“You had to go and miss the turn, didn’t you,” says Margery. “Put us behind schedule.”
It takes me a few seconds to comprehend what she said, then I let out “Pshaw.”
I blink my eyes and squint, then take in a deep breath that causes me to choke. Damn that hurts.
The room is coming into focus behind Margery, albeit rather slowly. Not that I really want to discern Margery’s image from the rest of the place. Looks like I’m in an old wood panel shack that smells of a mixture of dust, wood shavings and oil, and cluttered with machine parts and broken wagon wheels. Up above my head hang rusted out hand tools and as my bleary vision further clears I make out fishing equipment as well.
“Where am I?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” snaps Margery.
“Why don’t you both shut up and let Barry’s voice box finish sealing back up.”
That doesn’t stop her. With her voice shaking, “Were you with Vern in the refugee camp?”
I don’t answer because I’m looking around the room for the quickest way out of the shack, which is a door to my right, about ten feet away from the cot I’m laying on. Only obstacle is a small round table surrounded by a few chairs.
“Answer me!” she shouts.
I reply with a snigger.
Margery raises her hands and leans forward, in a motion to strangle me.
“You sure you want to do that?” asks Oscar.
I hold my breath, half expecting Margery to grow into her demon form. Instead, we all stand frozen while the shack seems to spin around us until Oscar breaks the silence. “Go smoke a cigarette while I finish putting him back together.”
Slowly, Margery backs away and disappears out the door.
* * *
“Trouble has a way of following you wherever you go,” says Oscar, “but it only seems to be able to nip at your ass.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you manage to stay one step ahead of Margery and that really pisses her off.”
“I wouldn’t say getting my head nearly bitten off is staying one step ahead.”
“Got you to Hell didn’t it.”
“What difference does?” I pause. A picture of Vern sinking into the grounds of the refugee camp flashes in my mind. The last words he said follows. Margery. Setting me up. Apprentices. My torso jerks into a seated position.
“Slow down,” says Oscar while pushing on my chest to motion me back down. “You’ll end up headless again.”
My right hand reaches back for the cot to catch myself and steady my balance. “No, I’ve got to.” Again I pause.
“Got to what?”
I can’t tell him I’ve got to stop Margery. So I tell him, “Go. I’ve got to go.”
But he persists with the questions and pushes harder on my chest. “Go where?”
Oscar is a strong guy, and in my weak state he’s starting to win the battle to lay me back down. So, I take a swipe at him with my left hand, or I try to push him away. Something’s wrong. “My arm? Where is it?”
“Check in your shirt,” says Oscar and he motions to help me pull an infant sized limb through the hole of the sleeve.
I whimper.
Oscar thinks it’s funny. “Like a freak show, isn’t it?”
My jaw drops as I shake my shoulder and watch my limp arm flail forward and slap my chest. “I can’t control it!”
“It’s pretty useless right now, although if you concentrate, you should be able to make a fist.” Oscar squeezes his own hand to demonstrate, then spreads his fingers back out.
He’s right. For several seconds I squint and wince, and finally my fingers bend. Once my hand clenches, it adheres in a fist. A lot of use that’s going to be. As soon as it’s back to normal size, it’ll be hard not to use it on Oscar.
“In another thirty minutes or so it should be twice the size. Full size in an hour or two. You might have to work the muscle back up though. They don’t always grow as fast as the bone, and if that happens, it’ll hurts like a son of a bitch.”
I give him a dirty look.
“Hey, I’m not the one who decided to take on a devil dog.”
“Yeah, like that was my decision.”
“You’re lucky it ripped your arm off at the shoulder joint. It’s easier to grow a limb back than heal a ground up flesh wound. Or at least it’s quicker. I probably would have cut it off and started from scratch anyways.”
I take a closer look at my miniature arm and curl my lip in disgust.
“I feel dizzy,” I tell Oscar. “Is that normal?”
“Could be a blood clot or kink in a vein.” He readjusts the light to beam at my neck, blinding me again, so I shut my eyes tight. “Huh,” he says a few seconds later. “Looks fine.”
“Whoa,” I complain. “There it is again.” With my good hand I grab the side of the cot to steady myself.
“That’s not you, Barry. I felt it too,” he says, “and it’s getting worse.”
A screwdriver falls between my knees and my eyes widen. There’s rattling all around us now. I hold tighter on the cot to stop myself from falling off.
“It’s another earthquake! And they’re getting worse!” Oscar shouts. "We've got to get out of here."
“Earthquake?” My downturned eyebrows expressing my question.
“Third in the last hour, but that one was too shaky for comfort.”
“Where we going to go?”
“Anyplace but here. This old shack won’t take much more shaking before it collapses in on us.”
Oscar tries to help me off the cot, but I fall to the floor, right on my ass. He howls with laughter, but I’m not finding it so funny. With my neck still healing and a tiny arm, all I need now is a broken coccyx. Makes me cringe just thinking of the added pain.
While he continues to chuckle, Oscar reaches down and grabs my short arm to help me to my feet.
I’m able to reach out and clutch his hand. Still, the laughing. “Knock it off,” I say.
“New arm’s strengthening pretty quickly.” He seems pleased.
The ground starts shaking again, this time only bad enough to cause us to brace ourselves while looking at each other in a state of panic. It stops seconds later though.
“Let’s go.” Oscar heads for the door.
But I’m frozen in place. It just hit me. We don’t have earthquakes like this in Colorado. This is Margery’s doing. Or is it the apprentices? I expect she’s still outside and I need to find her quick. “Yeah, let’s go.”
* * *
Outside Margery stands beside two moving trucks, one with a smashed in front end that’s obviously the truck I was driving. “How’d you get that here?” I ask and point at it. There’s no way anyone could have driven it here.
She puffs on her cigarette and takes her time answering, “Bruno dragged it.”
The sight of the truck makes me shiver as my memory flashes to the giant hellhound that found my arm so tasty. Then I shiver again when I spy what can only be a demon coming around the truck. It’s three times the size of a human and black as night except for its yellow glowing eyes and the steer like horns on its head.
I lean in and whisper to Oscar, “That Bruno?”
He whisper’s back, “I think so, but it’s hard to tell with that type of demon. They all look alike.”
It’s carrying two metal kegs, one on each shoulder to the other truck. Then another one of the demons jumps out of the back of the smashed up truck, also carrying kegs. Oscar’s right, they do look identical.
“They work on the ranch?” I ask Oscar next.
“Yeah,” he says, then tells me to stop staring unless I want to lose some more body parts.
He’s right, I can’t just stand here and watch. I have to figure out what to do next, and fast. If there’s still something I can do that is. For me and the apprentices.
“Am I driving that truck out to the site?” I point at the good truck.
“You?” she says, standing with her arms crossed. “Haven’t you already done enough damage?”
“What am I supposed to do then?”
“Go back to the warehouse with Oscar and finish healing. You’re going to need your strength after this.” She laughs as if she’s just told an inside joke.
If I do that I might as well turn myself in. Or maybe that’s what I should let her think I’d doing. Cooperating. Then I can sneak away and find Trisha and the apprentices. And Nina. Where's Nina?
I scan the area for Nina, but it’s so dark I don’t see her anywhere close by. Then, like she heard my thought inquiring as to her whereabouts, she opens the door of the truck and jumps out.
“I thought I told you to stay truck!” hollers Margery.
But when she sees me, she comes running. “Barry Bear, are you okay?” I’m taken aback with the true concern in her eyes, like it’s actually Nina making the inquiry.
“You never mind about him,” says Margery. “Get back in the truck.” But it’s like Margery doesn’t exist.
“Is that Nina?” I ask Margery. “My Nina?”
Nina smiles as she approaches, like she approves of being ‘my Nina,’ but Margery gets between us in a huff. “Yeah, it’s partially her. Wouldn’t you know I put a weak demon inside a ditzy human. Seem they’ve melded together into a pretty useless combo.”
As Nina approaches with her arms out to hug me, Margery catches her by the hair and drags her to the side. “I told you to stay in the truck.”
“No. I want to stay here with Barry.”
“See. It likes to talk back.” Margery pulls harder on Nina’s hair and gets in her face. “Get back in the truck or you’ll be riding in the back with Bruno.”
Nina whimpers and stops fighting. “Please, no. I’ll be good.”
Bruno’s grinning a mouth full of sharp yellow teeth, ready to scoop Nina up like he’s King Kong. But she’s already jumping into the passenger side of the truck.
Margery turns to Oscar and says, “Keep him here. I’ll be back for him later.” It’s like I’m not present. She points at the other demon. “You make sure he stays here too. Use any force necessary, but make sure he stays alive.”
The demon glances in my direction with it’s menacing yellow eyes and snorts and hisses. Smoke escapes it’s nose and I take a few steps back until I run into Oscar.
Just as Margery heads for the now loaded truck, the ground begins quake, although slightly. Without turning or speaking to anyone in particular, she says, “We’ve got to hurry up. They’re just about through.”
“Who!” I yell.
Margery laughs, still not turning. “Who do you think?” Once inside the truck she slams the door and drives off quickly, scarping the tires and kicking up rocks.
Copyright © 2009-2010 V.1 W. J. Howard. All rights reserved. No content of this story may be copied or reproduced without the written permission of the author.
Barry has just lost his fourth jobs in the past year. Desperate for employment, he accepts the first position he’s offered over the phone, driver for OTG Courier Services. Shortly after meeting his new boss, a tiny yet fiery old lady named Margery, she coerces him into signing an questionable employment contract he soon regrets.
W. J. Howard is the author of the award winning novel, The Courier. She writes a mix of fantasy, horror and paranormal, with a bit of comedy thrown in. Recently she has partnered with R.J. Robyn, a long time friend to write the serial vampire novel, Bloodleggers, released twice a month on Blood Reads eZine.
