For Mature Readers Only

# 3
June '07

Strange Tales Presents

THE HAUNT OF HORROR
featuring Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider '57
Part 3 of 6

Written by Mike McGee

“Howard?”

Sheriff Howard Jourgensen started in his seat, aware all at once of just how close he'd come to falling asleep behind the wheel of his cruiser. Jesus, and the clock out front of the Sunset Falls Savings & Loan said it was only a minute past eight. Four more aimless hours of patrol and he'd be lucky to make it back to Beverly in one piece.

He toggled the switch on the radio and lifted the mic to his mouth. “Start talking, Laurie. Over.”

There was no urgency in it. Sometimes Howard tried to sound authoritative, ready to react to whatever fresh hell his dispatcher was condemning him to in the name of truth, justice and the American Way...but the fact was that Laurie usually just called him up on the squawk box because she was bored. Howard insisted she keep the telephone line to the Sheriff's Department open at all times, despite her persistent efforts to convince him that no one ever called it except pranksters and crazy old ladies anyway, so there was no good reason why she shouldn't be talking to her boyfriend. She seemed to take Howard's refusal to allow her to make personal calls as an underhanded attempt to sabotage their relationship, and held Howard directly responsible for every fight she ever had with the guy. Once Howard did attempt to explain to her that the sole purpose of her job was to take phone calls and relay the pertinent information, a job which she could not very well do if the line were tied up with her and Bobby from the Texaco reading love sonnets at each other all night long, but he could tell he wasn't getting anywhere so he just quit. Laurie figured that if her God-given right to chat on the telephone was going to be revoked, then it fell upon the sheriff to entertain her instead. God only knew what she'd found to talk his ear off with this time.

“Howard,” she said, “it seems like there's some kind of a situation over at Betty's. Do you know about this? Over.”

“What, have they got that perch on special again? I told folks not to eat nothing that comes out of that lake.”

A long, crackling radio silence.

“Are you over?” Laurie's voice came back.

“Goddammit, Laurie, yes, I'm over.”

“All right,” Laurie said, “'cause this is serious. You know I wouldn't try and waste your time, Howard. Over.”

“'Course you wouldn't,” Howard muttered. He stuck a Lucky Strike between his gelatinous lips and punched in the dash lighter with a broad thumb. Louder: “Okay, then, give me the story. Over.”

“Some kids were coming out of that werewolf flick over at the Rialto,” Laurie said. “They went to go over to Betty's and get some burgers and whatnot, when they saw a bunch of motorcycles parked up in their lot....”

Howard's gut twisted. His pulse hammering hard in his wrists and temples, he toggled over the talk switch on the radio and shouted, “What? What?”

Feedback screamed over the connection and filled the cruiser with white noise.

Howard shook his head briskly and flipped the switch.

“ – get feedback when you do that, Howard, goddamn, and me wearing a goddamn headset over here. Now you just listen to me, and I'll say ‘over' when I'm done. I swear.”

There was a ping as the dash lighter finished heating up, and the small cylinder popped out an inch for him to take it. The sheriff took the lighter out of its groove and pressed the business end to the tip of his cigarette. The blazing coils flared from electric red to a brilliant fiery orange, illuminating the darkened interior of the cruiser for an instant.

“So they walk up on the bikes,” Laurie said, “wanting to get a better look at ‘em, and they notice some folks inside – big fellas in leather jackets. The kids said they heard some shots, like gunfire? And what happened after that, they don't know, because that's when they ran to call us. Over.”

Howard only heard one word in seven – the important ones, like “bikes” and “big fellas” and “gunfire.” He heard Laurie say “over,” too, and by the time she'd given him the go-ahead to talk back, he was already charging down Carmody Lane at sixty-five miles an hour. No flashers, no sirens – and the Lord help anybody who got in his way. He'd just have to come back and scrape them off the pavement later. These cocksuckers were never gonna see him coming.

“These bikes,” Howard said, “we got any description, any of these kids know anything about bikes enough to say what make any of ‘em were, what year, and how many do we have? Over, over, over!”

Laurie came back sounding startled and frantic. “They don't know nothing technical. They're kids, they don't know. They say they counted seven of them. But Howard....”

Howard broke left at the end of Carmody and barreled down Worth, the Rialto coming up on his right, Betty's Grill down at the end of the block and getting bigger by the second. He saw the faint outlines of the motorcycles: From here, it was impossible to tell how many of them huddled in that parking lot, and there was certainly no way to guess at any of their particulars. Something up there was on fire, though – that much he could say for sure. The big red needle on the phosphorescent green speedometer crawled up past seventy....

“One of those bikes....”

And then something came hurtling right back at him, something that flew out of the parking lot out front of Betty's, something that screamed and burned and was coming at the cruiser head-on....

“...It was Johnny Ackerman's Black Shadow.”

Howard's head snapped back, his eyes went huge, as the thing howling like a demon out of Hell was carried up over the hood of the cruiser – and a face that was not a face at all but was instead a burning, screaming, fleshless skull smashed itself up against the glass between them – and came through.

Before:

The kitchen of Betty's Grill was too small for eight bodies to fit into it with any ease – the half-dozen bikers were packed in tight around Mallory Coscarelli, the last survivor of the Betty's staff to clock in for work that night, the woman they had been about to gangrape and murder before the arrival of the thing that had once been a young man named Johnny Ackerman. Even as the bikers leveled their shotguns and revolvers at him, the Johnny Thing, the Skeleton Man, was thinking this through, working out the angles, trying to decide how best to handle this situation without risking harm to the carhop in the process.

There was only one thing for it.

“Time to take this outside, fellas,” the Skeleton Man said – and cracked the chain he'd snatched off the one they called Reptile like a bullwhip.

The rust-colored chain wrapped itself around the throat of the biker his buddies referred to as Palomino, and before any of them even realized what was happening, he was off his feet and yanked in the direction of the Skeleton Man. The Skeleton Man sidestepped the howling, hurtling body of the biker and gave the chain a mighty swing over his shoulder – and then let go. Palomino screamed as he flew unfettered for several yards and then crashed headlong through the picture window at the front of the diner.

Covered in blood and broken glass, Palomino writhed on the blacktop of the parking lot, struggling in vain to take to his feet.

“I'm going out there to kill him,” the Skeleton Man said.

The bikers stared back.

“And when I'm done with that,” the Skeleton Man said, “I'm going to blow up your motorcycles.”

The bikers charged.

The Skeleton Man bolted for the space where the picture window had been. Palomino, his face slashed to ribbons, saw the thing with the blazing skull-face leap out at him and screamed bloody murder as the demon in the blood-stained black leather jacket landed on the pavement in front of him. It settled into a crouching position before Palomino and reached a burning, skeletal hand toward his face...Palomino could feel the flames, and what they radiated was not heat, but a terrible, soul-chilling cold.

“I'm sure you've committed sins aplenty that you deserve to have inflicted back upon you a thousand-fold,” the creature told him. “But at the moment, I'm afraid there just isn't time.”

The demon's bone fingers closed around the chain that was still wound around Palomino's throat and pulled it free.

The Skeleton Man stood, and turned, and faced them.

Russell, the pasty-faced, earless ghoul. One they had the balls to call Satan, which made the part of the Skeleton Man that was not Johnny Ackerman but something else altogether laugh soundlessly at the boundless hubris of humanity. Another called Frankenstein, his face a webwork of scars – the part of the Skeleton Man that was Johnny Ackerman smirked at the sight of him, finding black humor in the knowledge that Palomino must be looking at him and wondering if they would be twins when the damage done to his own features healed over.

And then the last of them. The leader. The man they called Redbeard. The man who had murdered him.

“You hide behind your fellows,” the Skeleton Man told him. “Are you a coward? Do you fear retribution? A good general stands at the forefront of his troops, not at the rear, trailing along like some lost little orphan of war.”

“Just the order we filed out in,” Redbeard said. Of them all, he was the only one who showed no fear. It was as if he had been waiting to see the Skeleton Man, or someone like him, all his life. “You and me will have our night, you sonofabitch. But not tonight.”

And just then, a voice from within the diner bellowed out, “I'm holding this bitch till we get some safe passage outta here!”

The Skeleton Man almost seemed to sigh. “You have to be kidding,” he said.

“Later on there, little buddy,” Redbeard said, and punched the Skeleton Man in the arm.

The biker moved to walk past the Skeleton Man on his way to his bike. A burning hand shot out and landed on his chest, stopping him.

“This matter takes precedence,” the Skeleton Man sneered. He looked around at all the other bikers, fixing each with a stare that could have killed. “When it is concluded, you will, each of you, meet your fate. There is nowhere you can go where I will not find you. Count each hour between now and then as the last that stand between you and your eternal damnation.”

“Might be new to you,” Redbeard said, “but some of us have been damned for a hell of a long time.”

“I'm gonna kill this whore!” the one still inside the diner was screaming. “I'm gonna do it, and don't you DARE think I won't!”

The Skeleton Man released Redbeard. “I trust you'll leave your wounded to fend for themselves,” he said. “Touch the Shadow and I'll dream up a way to make things worse for you.”

“Got no keys to it,” Redbeard said. “Don't you wanna know how I knew who you were...Johnny?”

The Skeleton Man's dark, empty sockets looked deep into the black lenses of Redbeard's sunglasses.

“I have work to do,” he said. “You live at my pleasure.”

The Skeleton Man walked back in the direction of the diner. Behind him, he heard four engines start to life, then four motorcycles speed away.

The Skeleton Man pushed the door open. Redbeard had smashed the glass door with his boot upon his gang's entrance into Betty's; jagged shards of glass that still hung in the steel frame dropped to the floor and shattered. The glittering fragments made small crunching sounds underneath the Skeleton Man's booted feet as he walked in.

The biker who had remained in the kitchen continued to bellow his empty threats. The Skeleton Man wasn't even really listening to him.

The biker called Reptile sat Indian-style in the center of the dining room. His features were drawn, pallid, and his flesh was brushed with a fine dark soot that would never wash away entirely. Slowly, Reptile rocked back and forth, tears streaming from staring-wide eyes that saw nothing that was actually there, and he sang a sad and strange song to himself in the voice of a frightened child.

The Skeleton Man walked past him and went behind the counter, following the voice that howled violent obscenities from the kitchen.

Carefully, the Skeleton Man stepped over the bodies of the innocent dead. The sentimentality of Johnny Ackerman was within him, but subdued in the presence of the demon. It was Johnny who would mourn the passage of Gladys and Kevin and Matt; the demon gazed on their slaughtered corpses and saw only victims, those whose deaths it must avenge, and the only reason it troubled itself not to tread on their now-soulless shells was its impersonal respect for them.

The Skeleton Man returned to the kitchen. The biker they called Great White had the barrel of his revolver pressed to Mallory's cheek, the girl in a headlock, but all the bravado he'd displayed mere moments ago was replaced with shaking fear at the sight of the demon. The demon knew this meant that the young woman was even more imperiled now than before, as the terrified are even more likely to behave after the fashion of the stupid. The demon would have to exercise caution.

“You let us go,” Great White said. “I got no quarrel with a thing like you, you just let me and my bros go or I'll waste this cooze.”

“I have no idea how you've lived this long,” the demon said. “Your ‘bros' have abandoned you. Your only hope is that your sad, friendless predicament inspires me to take pity on you, which means that you are in a great deal of jeopardy indeed.”

Great White started to cry. “Fuck,” he said. “Oh, fuck....”

“Put down the weapon and I may let you live.”

“No!” Great White twisted his face into a hideous scowl and pressed the barrel deep into Mallory's face. “I got the power here, you fucking faceless nigger demon from hell fuck! This is my fucking whore now, this is my fucking bitch, and I don't need them, I have her, and if you touch me, if you dare to fucking move on me, I will....”

“No.”

Beams of satanic force burst from the sockets where the Skeleton Man's eyes should have been, and the Penance Stare stripped the flesh off Great White's soul. The biker threw his head back and screamed as if some terrible, ravenous beast were tearing him apart from within. The revolver fell from his grasp and Mallory moved out of the hold he had on her and elbowed Great White in the throat. He gagged, clapping his hands over his steaming eyes, and crashed to his knees.

“Miserable fuck!” Mallory cried, and spit in his face.

“Quite,” the Skeleton Man said. “But not without his uses.” The glance the Penance Stare had provided into Great White's depraved, maggot-infested soul had also granted the demon some insights. He'd seen only flashes of memory, not enough to make any real sense from them, but they were clues. Images of captivity, long years of suffering. Before that: Blood on the highway. And a face: A vengeful, angry face...one that struck a note of terror in the heart of Great White, and a very different chord in the soul of Johnny Ackerman.

He had seen other things, as well. Unspeakable acts the monster on his knees before him had taken the utmost pleasure in. Great White had much to atone for...starting now.

“You wear the brand of the Third Reich on your flesh,” the demon said. “Somehow YOU, a being hardly human, consider yourself to be a member of some ludicrous master race. Do you know what your heroes did to those they considered less than men?”

Great White looked up at him, his bleary eyes still smoking and streaming hot tears. “Yeah!” he screamed. “They killed them! Fucking kikes, faggots, niggers! Fuck you, thing!”

“They burned them,” the demon told him. “Burned them alive. In ovens.”

Great White was all but blind. He could not see what the demon was doing, but he heard the hatch grind open. And felt a cold-burning hand land on the back of his neck.

“What are you....” The demon lifted him off the floor, into the air. “What in the fuck are you doing!?”

“Your hostage broke the hold of the Penance Stare,” the demon said. “Your suffering would have been much greater than this had she not. I have no sympathy for you, but if I did, I would wish for you to take some small measure of comfort from that.”

And the demon pushed Great White into the baking oven and slammed the door shut.

The biker's cries echoed from within, but the demon was unmoved – first, when Great White screamed promises of revenge, and then when he burst into hysterical sobs and pled for his life. Where had the mercy been for his victims? The Skeleton Man braced the oven door closed with a five-foot length of iron pipe Matt had kept on hand for emergencies and twisted the temperature dial as high up as it would go. Great White's fists battered the inside of the door with an increasingly desperate intensity as his screams grew shriller and more tortured.

The Skeleton Man turned to face Mallory, who stared back at him in cold horror.

“He...you beat him,” Mallory said. “You...whatever you are...he was defenseless, and you...murdered him....”

“It isn't enough that evil be stopped,” the Skeleton Man said. “The guilty must be punished.”

“But...but then, you're just the same as...them.”

“I am a creature of Hell, Mallory Coscarelli. It is not your place to judge one such as I. You are an innocent, and I kept these men from killing you, and worse than killing you. I neither require nor expect your thanks, but... oh, fuck, Mal.”

Mallory's eyes widened. “Johnny?”

And, of course, she thought, it all made sense. The thing was wearing Johnny's clothes, wasn't it? The evidence had been right in front of her eyes. But....

“How?” she said. “What...Johnny...what happened to you?”

The Skeleton Man was suddenly unsteady on his feet, reeling, his hand to his hand. In Johnny's voice, he said, “I...I came back, Mallory. I had to. I....”

The strange figure lifted its flaming skull head.

“I came back for you.”

Mallory Coscarelli looked at the thing before her and shuddered.

“Our souls,” the Skeleton Man said, “are bonded, but have yet to fully you ain't the boss of me meld. In theory, his life is his own when he wears flesh, and control is mine when vengeance must be sought. Why I must dally and explain these matters don't you think she oughtta know? to you, a mortal whose comprehension is by definition too limited to grasp them at all events, I cannot say.”

“You...you're possessing him. Like the spirits, in Santeria....”

Great White continued to scream and beg for mercy, crying out in torment, beating on the inside of the oven, totally ignored.

“Yes,” the demon told Mallory. “Although it isn't that simple. As you can see, damn right I do not wear John Ackerman like a glove. Our souls are BONDED. He is no longer entirely the man you knew, and I am no longer entirely the Spirit of Vengeance. In time, we shall mature into a single entity with two facets. HIS character shall temper my own – and vice versa. That process is already underway. But for now, he is still too stubborn to accept this, and too weak I'll show you how fucking weak I am in this state to do much more than nag at me while I attend to the affairs of justice. Excuse me.”

The demon brushed the young woman aside; goosebumps rose on her arms and the breasts left mostly exposed by the bikers' interrupted assault. The Skeleton Man stalked out of the kitchen, the blaze that surrounded its skull of a head leaving a trail in the air behind him. Mallory stood there in stunned silence for a moment, took note of the hysterical shouts that still emanated from the baking oven, looked and saw the impressions that Great White's fists were leaving on its door, shook hold herself and followed the creature.

“He's still alive in there,” she told the demon. “Whatever you are, some part of you is still Johnny, and Johnny wouldn't just torture someone like that, no matter what kind of person he was.”

“I do not torture,” the demon said. He was going through blood-spattered take-out bags, orders that had been called in and prepared but were as yet unclaimed. Betty's would never see those customers; anyone who'd called in and dropped by to pick up their food would have taken one look at the blood and carnage all around and turned tail. “He must pay. And he may yet live. It's all a question of how determined he is, I suppose.”

Somehow, watching the demon look inside each of the take-out bags before shaking his head and moving on to the next was even more bizarre than all that had gone before. “Are you...hungry?”

“My only hunger is for VENGEANCE.”

“Okay, well, we don't serve that here.”

“You have made a small joke. How clever of you.”

The demon threw each bag that didn't contain what he was looking for over his shoulder. The blood-soaked bags landed one on top of the other to form a soft, meaty pile. Nausea swelled in Mallory's stomach.

“Look,” she said, “I work here. Why don't you just tell me what you're trying to find, and....”

“This shall serve,” the demon said. As his skeletal fingers twisted the bag closed, the ticket came fluttering away. Mallory snatched it from the air and looked at it....

“Three bacon cheeseburgers and two sides of home fries?”

She looked up from the ticket and saw the demon was already walking for the door, bag in hand.

“Hey!”

The demon looked back. Mallory shuddered at the look he shot her; his mission was not to be interrupted.

“Yes, Mallory Coscarelli?”

“Take it easy on me, okay? These people...these dead people...they were my friends. Johnny is my friend. You...”

“Would you like to be MY friend, Mallory?”

A lump was forming in her throat. She swallowed hard, biting her lower lip – she would not show weakness. This was a confrontation, even if this thing had saved her life. She had to show the demon that she was as strong as he was.

“No,” she said. “I don't think I'd want to be your friend. Is this the part where you tell me that Vengeance has no friends?”

“This is the part,” the demon said, “where I tell you what you might have had. Where I tell you that John Ackerman's feelings for you were such that he turned over care of his soul to the Dark so that he would not have to see you come to any harm. He exchanged HEAVEN for HELL so that YOU would not DIE. His is a damned soul, Mallory Coscarelli. You would do well to forget him.”

“I don't believe you,” Mallory said. “And I won't.”

“You have done nothing to incur my wrath,” the demon said. “Thus your affairs are your own. Goodnight.”

The demon turned from her, and she allowed her eyes to close, her shoulders to sink. She heard the demon's footsteps, then the tinkling of the bells over the door. From the room at her back, Great White continued to scream his mortal agony. The demon had left her there, alone, with the dying. And the dead.

A hand brushed her shoulder.

Mallory gasped, sucked in air to scream, then held her breath at the sight of the demon. Strange that its face should come as a reassurance. She saw the reason for the creature's return, and very nearly smiled.

“You will not be alone for long,” the demon said. He pulled the leather jacket that he had taken from Palomino around Mallory's shoulders. “It would not do for you to be so uncovered. And there is a chill besides, this night.”

She looked into the black, empty sockets of the demon's eyes. She wanted to say thank you, but the words would not come. The demon, too, seemed about to say something, but did not. After a moment, he turned and left once more.

She watched through the blown-out picture window as the demon strode across the parking lot. His motorcycle boot landed squarely in the center of Palomino's abdomen as he made his way over to Johnny's Black Shadow. The demon raised his hands over the bike like a faith healer. Nova bursts of some weird, eldritch white fire exploded from them to consume the bike utterly. A cold wind swept through to scatter the flames, and all that remained of them were the strange fires that licked around its wheels and burned out of its single headlight. The demon climbed aboard the transformed machine and sent it screaming out of the parking lot and into the night streets of Sunset Falls, and left blacktop scorched by hellfire in its wake.

“This is madness,” the demon said aloud. The Black Shadow soared down the highway at close to two hundred miles an hour, well beyond any earthly speed it should have been able to muster; but then, it was no longer an earthly vehicle. “The girl was right to laugh. I am the Spirit of Vengeance, not a gofer? little errand boy. You make a mockery of our righteous task.”

“Get used to it,” the Skeleton Man responded to himself, this time in Johnny's voice. “I make a mockery of most everything.”

“If this man's state of decrepitude is so advanced that an evening without sustenance will bring him to death's door, then perhaps it would be for his own good to let nature take its course.”

“I'm gonna pretend I never heard that,” Johnny said. “That there's the garage coming up on your left.”

“I knew that.”

The blazing bike cut left and pulled into the dirt lot in front of the garage; it decelerated to zero in a split-second, but the demon allowed the engine to rumble. He got off the bike, took the take-out from its place of safe-keeping in the saddlebags, and found that Johnny Ackerman would allow him to go no further.

“What,” the demon said.

“Change me back to me,” Johnny said. “If we go in there like this, we'll scare the hell out of the old man for sure.”

“My appearance is meant to be terrifying.”

“Yeah, well, way to go on that one.”

“The one you call Coyote Bob has seen horrors beyond your reckoning,” the demon said. “You have only the dimmest understanding of what a man endures in war. And the Great Butchery was horrific in ways you could not imagine.”

“What makes you the authority on World War One?”

“I was there,” the demon said. “The transformation into our human form requires time and energy that we must not squander. He'll look at us and live. Now release this lock on my legs before I break it myself.”

The Skeleton Man let himself into the garage. He looked around: Bob should have been sitting behind the counter, waiting for him to come back with the food, but the place was empty. And that goddamn Pat Boone was crooning “Don't Forbid Me” on the radio, which just gave them that much more reason to beat feet.

“He must be in the john or something,” Johnny whispered. “Leaving a bloody bag of take-out here with no explanation is gonna be creepy as hell any which way, but it's better that than....”

“Hold,” the demon said.

The Skeleton Man approached the counter. He hadn't been able to hear it over the godawful caterwauling that poured out of the radio, but as they neared it, Johnny picked up the ack-ack-ack sound of a phone left off the hook. Then he spotted the Old West book he'd bought for Bob, spotted the coffee splashed all over the cover, fresh and wet, no effort having been made to clean it up. And there....

And there, sprawled out underneath the counter, eyes closed, his lips flecked with foam, one hand pressed to his chest...was Coyote Bob.

“Oh, no,” Johnny said. “Oh, Jesus Christ, no.” Tears welled up within him...the ghost impressions of tears, tears which the Skeleton Man did not have it in him to shed.

“His chest falls and rises,” the demon said. “He is among the living. There may be time....”

“Change me back!” Johnny cried. “Do it now! How am I supposed to –- “

“I am as CAPABLE – “

“You just like being the big cheese, that's all it is for you. You don't give a good goddamn whether this man lives or dies! I gotta take this fella to the hospital, how am I supposed to do that with a burning skull for a head?!”

“Guh...” Bob said.

The Skeleton Man knelt before him. “Bob,” Johnny said, no longer mindful of his appearance. “Bob! Come on, Bob, fight...say something to me, you contrary old sonofabitch.”

Coyote Bob's eyes fluttered open. Johnny saw the red-orange gleam of his own fiery halo reflected back at him in the old man's misty pupils, but what Coyote Bob saw he could not say. Whatever it was, it could not have been the spectre before him; for at the sight of the demon, the old man produced the shadow of a smile.

“Guh...Ghost,” Coyote Bob said, and sounded like a man talking in his sleep. “Ghost...Rider.”

His eyes fell closed.

And Johnny Ackerman screamed. The hollow spaces between his bones swelled to accommodate internal organs that appeared -- steaming and pulsing and pumping out vital fluids – from nowhere; veins and musculature wound themselves around him and constricted like steel cables pulled taut. An organic hot wax oozed all over the entire bloody mess, then blessedly cooled after what felt to Johnny like an age in Hell...cooled, and became flesh. A young man knelt beside the unconscious form of Coyote Bob, where the demon had been a mere sixty seconds beforehand. Johnny Ackerman ran a hand through the tangled, sweaty rat's nest on his scalp, gave with a huge sigh, and fell heavily on his ass.

“Holy shit,” he said. “I feel like I've been drilled like a dollar-a-toss hooker.”

He halfway expected the demon to talk back, but the alien presence within him said nothing. Perhaps, Johnny thought, he was still the one in charge here; maybe it was the case that he could exert some measure of control over the demon when he was the Skeleton Man, but the reverse wasn't true. Johnny couldn't even feel the demon inside him now, though surely he was still there. Johnny couldn't bitch, whatever the story was. Right now, less than an hour after getting his face shot off and somehow surviving to tell the tale, it just felt good to be alive.

Now he had to make sure that Coyote Bob stayed that way.

But it looked like the dramatic race to the emergency room he'd had in mind was out of the question. The demon had been right about the amount of piss and vinegar the transformation would take out of him. Johnny's limbs felt like they were encased in lead – he could hardly move without pulling something, and he definitely couldn't stand. He grabbed hold of the cord and pulled the phone off the counter. It landed with a crash on the floor next to him.

Johnny put the phone in his lap and dialed O. He took his finger out of the hole and watched the dial leisurely slide back. The weight of all that was still ahead of him settled onto his shoulders. Three of them were out of commission now, but four still remained...including the worst of them...Redbeard. Johnny realized for the first time that he feared the man; it was a new and unpleasant sensation, so accustomed was he to fearing nothing and no one. But Johnny had faced him and died: There it was. But the biker had yet to face the demon....

The demon. What had Bob called him?

Yeah.

The Ghost Rider.

“Operator.”

“Hey there, little thing,” Johnny said. “I'm gonna need you to call an ambulance for me. It's to the garage over at 4468 Skipp. I got one guy who needs an ambulance for sure: That's the proprietor, he's sixty-two years old and I think it's his heart, but he talked to me before he went back under and he's a mean motorscooter besides. And then I got another guy who I think only probably needs an ambulance, and that's me.”

Sheriff Howard Jourgensen pressed the whole of his considerable body weight down onto the brake pedal. There was an ungodly screech of grinding gears, and the cruiser went into a fishtail that crashed its back end into a lamppost before the car came to a stop. The burning, faceless man whose torso had burst in through the windshield was carried the rest of the way into the police car on impact. Howard wasn't a man who was ever inclined to move altogether that quickly, but with a writhing man on fire upside-down and screaming in the shotgun seat of his vehicle, it took the sheriff all of half a heartbeat to climb out of the car, slam the door behind him, and scope out the scene from the safe vantage point of the sidewalk.

“What in the fuck happened here,” he said quietly to himself. One fat hand went instinctively to the grip of his service revolver, though there wasn't much good the gun could do him in a situation like this. Howard couldn't make his eyes leave the burning man. It was the goddamnedest thing he had ever seen in his life. Part of him wanted to shoot the poor sonofabitch and put him out of his misery, but that was just him wanting to do something where there was nothing to be done, not for the burning man or for the cruiser, for which it was also all over. That car had served Sunset Falls since 1948, beginning in the days before it was Howard driving it, and now not only was its ass-end staved in, but its upholstery was rapidly proving itself combustible. Good God, all Howard needed to have happen now was for its gas tank to catch and the whole thing to blow sky-high.

Then Howard spotted the fire hydrant and realized his gun might have a use or two in this debacle after all.

He stepped back several yards, aimed the gun, and fired. The hydrant went off like a mortar shell. A jet of water geysered into the night sky – and, as he had hoped, the deluge came raining back down on the crippled automobile. Howard saw steam rise from the debris, but there was entirely too much happening what with all the watery chaos to get a look into the car clear enough to determine what the damage was now that the fires were extinguished, either to the cruiser or to the man. Truth be told, Howard wasn't sure he even wanted to know.

The sheriff lowered his gun, but didn't holster it. People were rushing out of the movie theater and the various restaurants on the block to see what was going on, but Howard just acted as if none of them were there and started walking the rest of the way up the street to Betty's Grill.

The excitement was over. The army of motorcycles that Laurie had promised him was a mere three in number, and none of the bikes was Johnny Ackerman's. The evident owner of one of them was covered in gruesome slashes and stretched out in an ocean of blood and broken glass in the middle of the parking lot. Howard couldn't tell if he was dead or not, but it was obvious he wouldn't put up a fight either way. A Mexican girl he recognized as one of the carhops was sitting out front of the place, which even from here Howard could tell was ripped up like a war zone on the inside. Short, shapely legs that ended in rollerskates were crossed in front of her. A black leather biker jacket hung open to reveal nothing underneath but a bra with some bloodstains on it. The carhop looked at the pavement and smoked a cigarette, and if she noticed Howard coming, she didn't seem to care.

“You oughtta zip that up,” Howard said. “Your titties are almost as big as mine.”

“Nice of you to drop by,” the carhop said. “Too bad everybody's already dead.”

“Who all would that be?”

“Matt...Kevin...Gladys.”

The sheriff went ashen. “Gladys...Gladys London? She was here?”

Mallory eyed him. “She worked here. Worked the register. You didn't know that? I figured someone like you would make it his business to know everything about everybody in town.”

“I, uh...well, I never have had much occasion to come by around Betty's way.” He rubbed at his eyes. He cleared his throat, straightened himself. “Well. You don't know something about someone who might've been set on fire, do you?”

“I might,” Mallory said. “He was in our oven until about two minutes ago. Then he came running past me in flames, so I guess he must have gotten out.”

“That sounds like a very reasonable assumption. Who was he?”

“Some guy.”

“You didn't know him?”

“I guess not.”

“Miss, are you being uncooperative here?”

“No, sir,” Mallory said. “The truth is, I don't know a fucking thing. If you'd like to talk to somebody who may know a fucking thing, I suggest you step inside and talk to the person you find there. He was one of the murderers you failed to apprehend while you were busy gawking at the chests of nineteen-year-old girls or whatever the hell it is a person like you does. Right now – “

Howard took hold of the girl's wrist and twisted. He leered in close to her face, close enough for her to smell the tobacco and beer and pastrami on his breath. His other hand reared back to slap her.

“I have a very stressful occupation, you cunt,” Howard said. “If you wanna go ahead and make it even more stressful, you be ready for what happens.”

“Do it, pig!” she shouted. “Go on. I've been pushed around by people a lot scarier than your slob ass tonight. You know Johnny Ackerman wants to beat the shit out of you anyway. You go on and crack me one and give him a good reason, and you better be ready for what happens.”

Howard's grip on her wrist tightened...and then he released her. He turned his back to her, produced a Zippo, and lit a cigarette. “I'm sorry,” he said. “That was wrong of me.”

“Kiss my ass.”

“Your Johnny,” Howard said. “Was he here?”

“No.”

“You playin' with me?”

“Go ask the guy inside,” Mallory said. “The one who keeps singing a song that goes, ‘in heaven, everything is fine.' That's when he's not crying and talking to people who aren't there and chewing on his fingers. He had one of them most of the way off, the last I looked.”

Howard looked at her again. “You serious?”

“If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'.”

“What the fuck kind of freak show did this place turn into?”

“Just goes to show you what can happen in a small town diner without the proper amount of police supervision.”

Howard knew what his next question had to be.

“The ones who did this,” he said. “No bullshit here. Can you tell me what any of these men looked like?”

“Two of them, it wouldn't matter,” Mallory said. “One of them is lying there right behind you with most of his face cut away. The one who was pushed in the oven probably doesn't look like much of anything human right now. And the third is the one who's eating his hand. You can get a look at that one yourself.”

“Was that all?”

“Four more. The main one, their leader, he was a big guy...well, they were all big guys, but he was the biggest of them. Red hair and beard, bushy and scraggly. It got even redder with some blood in it. He had a lot of tattoos, but the one I remember was on his right arm...huge and elaborate and colorful, but all the colors were really dark. It was....”

“A wolf,” Howard said. And he knew he wouldn't need to look at the guy inside, other than to eliminate him from his list of men to hunt – he knew damn well the face he wore would be one that he'd recognize. “Black, some red in the fur, with red eyes, blood in his teeth. Says ‘dire wolf' down under it.”

Mallory could only stare, her jaw open. “You knew?”

“I knew these others might be out and about,” Howard said. “They got busted out of jail three months back, and I've been partially expecting to see them again ever since. But not that fella.”

“Why not?” Mallory asked. “Is he supposed to still be in prison?”

“Wish it was that simple,” Howard said. “He's dead, little lady. I seen him die myself. He was shot dead eight years ago. By Ben Ackerman.”

“You are nothing!” the one called Frankenstein shouted.

The four remaining bikers had gone to ground in the wooded outskirts of Sunset Falls. Their motorcycles were parked nearby, well-hidden in the night by tall pines and foliage, their engines still warm. The highway was too far distant for its sounds to be heard here; all was still silence save for Frankenstein's accusing voice reverberating through the trees.

The hideously-scarred biker was tall enough to see eye-to-eye with Redbeard, and seemed to make himself even larger in his rage and fury. Russell and Satan stood nearby, each looking suddenly very small and very much afraid. Redbeard, as was almost always the case, wore no expression at all.

“You're resting on your laurels, old man!” Frankenstein told him. “What, are we supposed to be fucking intimidated by you? That thing took out half our crew!”

“Frankie,” Russell said, “come on, whatever that thing was, you know, it clearly was not a natural thing, the big guy he, you know, he can't really be expected to....”

“Russell,” Redbeard said.

Russell swallowed hard.

“...Yes?”

“Russell, I could be mistaken, but it seems to me that you are agreeing with this motherfucker here in front of me that I am now some kind of pussy.”

A cold drop of rain struck Russell's bald pate. He swept a nervous hand over his hairless scalp, spreading the moisture over his colorless skin as more and more fell all around them, faster and faster.

“Boss, I...you know that I would never say....”

“No, really, Russell, if you think so, I think that you should tell me. You know that I have always had a huge amount of respect for your opinion, and, gosh, if there was anything I could do different, I'd sure like your input.”

There was a distant growl of thunder. The storm began to pour down in earnest.

“You can have mine,” the one called Satan said. He was the youngest of them, AWOL from high school when they'd first started out, the only one of them who'd bothered to pursue any kind of book-learning when they were in the joint. “I think so far this is a major league fuck-up. We came here to kill three people, and so far we only have one of them taken care of, and I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not too sure we got that one. And I think you also need to leave Russell alone, because no matter how big and bad you think you are, you know he's the only reason why any of us are standing here right now. Especially you.”

“Is that really what you think,” Redbeard said evenly.

“Ain't what I think,” Frankenstein said. “Hell of a lot nicer than what I think. What I think is that you are something else a couple nights out of every few weeks, but not much else besides. You got something, but you didn't use it, or you're scared to use it, or you ain't got it to use right now, on that thing. And if you're scared of him, then I ain't scared of you.”

“Huh,” Redbeard said. “I see.” He looked around to the others. “Is that what's happening for you boys, too? You figure I'm a hotshot under the right conditions, and all the rest of the time I'm cruisin'?”

None of them said anything.

“Then fuck you,” Redbeard said, and his fist came out in a terrible backhand that tore straight through Frankenstein's throat. An inhuman wheeze came from the cyclist's broken windpipe as he clapped hands over the ghastly wound. Frankenstein's ravaged face went purple with asphyxiation. The blood pumped out from between his white-knuckled fingers and then, dying, he surrendered the damming hold on his neck and a thick arterial spray hosed forth at the moment of his collapse.

“Jesus Christ,” Satan said, and stepped back to draw his .38. Russell began to weep and blubber at his back; Satan absently shoved him away. Redbeard looked at the other man, looked at the gun, and laughed. His right fist was black with reflective blood in the moonlight, more blood than any rain could wash away.

“You know better,” Redbeard said.

Satan pulled the trigger.

There was a crack of gunfire and the frames of Redbeard's Foster Grants snapped into two neat pieces – one that popped high, another landing in the fresh mud at the gigantic biker's feet. There was a bloodless, burnt-edged hole just above Redbeard's left eye...an eye that shone with an eerie scarlet light that strobed in the cascading rainfall.

“Dumb shit,” Redbeard said, and first slapped the .38 out of Satan's hand and then took hold of him under the chin to slam his back to a tree. Effortlessly, Redbeard lifted Satan off his feet. The other biker started to strangle and spray spit in Redbeard's face.

“Do you think I need you?” Redbeard asked him. “What for? As far as I was concerned, you assholes were only ever tagging along for the ride. I am never a pussy. I'm gonna be a fuck of a lot stronger tomorrow night, but I am no bitch today, either. Unlike some.”

Redbeard's other hand plunged into Satan's stomach. The hold Redbeard had on his throat kept Satan's mouth shut, but a stifled, tortured cry moaned through his clenched teeth as Redbeard tore the heart out of him. Redbeard let him fall; Satan's entire body convulsed, and he vomited a floodtide of blood. Satan was dead before his face struck the earth.

His fist swollen with the biker's heart, Redbeard turned to Russell, who fell to his knees in front of him. Tears and rain streaked down his milky-white cheeks.

“Please, boss...please....”

Redbeard's free hand reached for Russell's face.

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Redbeard wrapped his fingers around the frames of the shades that the earless Russell had had to adhere to his head with electrical tape. Redbeard pulled, and the rain-dewed sunglasses came away from Russell with an agonizing tearing sound. The black X's of tape Russell had used to keep them on were still attached to the earpieces, and now blood and several layers of Russell's skin were attached to them as well. There was a crude, bloody X at each of Russell's temples to mark the places where they had been.

“Oh, thank you, God, Jesus, thank you,” Russell said through his sobs, head bowed, “thank you....”

“Don't mention it,” Redbeard said. He tore the strips of tape from the shades and put them on, hiding the weird cast of his eyes from sight once again. “Jesus Christ, Russell, get off your fucking knees. You need to be a man here.”

Russell looked up at him with the huge brown eyes of a terrified eyes of a boy just roused from a nightmare. “I...I do?”

“Yep.”

“W-why, boss?” Russell asked.

“For tomorrow...we murder,” Redbeard said.

And bit into Satan's heart.

END OF PART THREE

For Mature Readers Only

# 3
June '07

Strange Tales Presents

THE HAUNT OF HORROR

"God's Great Acrimony"

Written by David Golightly

I will always savor the taste of blood. Even though I starve myself of its nourishment for strictly selfish reasons I can't help but crave the bitter embrace of its crimson flavor. There were times when I craved the taste of other things in life, like sweet cakes and candied fruit. That was, of course, before I became one of Satan's demonic children.

I remember being a small girl in West London , my mother desperate to instill her values in me. As the years stretch on it becomes increasingly difficult to remember exactly how those days went, but I'll never forget the lessons I was taught. Lessons of philosophy, religion, and most notably, pain.

When my mind wanders back to those anything-but-innocent avenues of my life I usually find myself desperate for a way to snap myself back into the present. I've often heard tales of humans engaging in self-destructive behavior as a means to this end. Heavy drug use, outrageous outbursts, alcoholic bingeing, even the cutting of one's flesh…the attention a person sometimes seeks through these methods is enough to pull them back from the edge. Unfortunately, my progressed physiology ensures that these practices will be nothing more than an irritation, not to mention that the simple fact that I've removed myself from anyone to draw attention from would make the acts redundant.

Cutting oneself continues to intrigue me the most, especially since I assume that not all cases are a cry for attention. Perhaps the sudden rush of adrenaline one gets from the knife slicing into the skin somehow focuses the mind, or maybe it even feeds some perverted nature the person wishes to keep contained. I know all about feeding the beast in small amounts to keep it dormant. A drop of sustenance now will save a soul later.

As I said, cutting myself does nothing more than momentarily aggravate my flesh. The wound begins to heal even before I've finished making it. To this end I searched for something similar that people of my nature might find equivalent. There are precious few methods of causing myself real harm but there is one that I find helps ease the pain of my morbid past by replacing it with pain rooted in the immediate present.

Sunlight.

I spend my days alone just as I do my nights, although for some reason I sense the depression is greater when the sun is awake. I can't stand to fully be immersed in the piercing rays but I usually sit beside an open window, my hand outstretched to catch the blistering warmth of light. I imagine that when my skin boils it must be the same mental stimulation a human feels from self-inflicting harm with a blade. I always pull my hand back into the safety of darkness before long, as I'm not anxious to lose my hand completely. Just as soon as I yank my appendage back the pain begins to subside and heal, yet just before then I've managed to accomplish my goal. Maybe I'm trying to keep my mind rooted in the present or maybe I want a small taste of the final death. I honestly couldn't pinpoint the exact reason. I doubt anyone could.

I stare at my pale skin as the boils quickly dissipate and the flesh fills in the tiny smoking holes. I often find myself wishing I could plug up certain pieces of my life the same way. There's never any blood lost, as my body hasn't produced its own in decades. What I steal from others is used up immediately and not left within my gangly form to lose. Bits of rotting muscle and tissue turn to ash as soon as the sunlight touches me but even then I'm careful not to let things get out of control.

Control isn't something I've been accustomed to having my entire life. Even when I was a little girl I very rarely had opportunities to call my own.

My step-father was never around but I don't blame him. My mother was a horrid woman full of wrath and it was not exactly like the money was easy to come by. He worked in the paper mills while I cleaned up the scraps for a baker on Milan Street . Oh, how I loved to steal a bit of left over dough when I could. My mother stayed at home, I imagined lying in wait for me to walk through the door. I had just turned seventeen when she gave me the most unforgiving lesson of my life.

God, in all his glory, hated me.

I don't pretend to make excuses for myself by way of my childhood, but all of the negative experiences didn't help my self-esteem. Too many times did I sit silently while my mother berated my psyche with her nonsense. It was all I could do not to cry.

“Those ridiculous Calvinists will never understand what it means to be a proper follower,” she told me. “As if their prayers are any different than mine. Cynthia! That blasphemous baker you work for is one of them, isn't he? Shut up when I'm talking to you, girl! I've never known a child who hated her mother so. I bet you would sooner see me in my grave before showing some respect…”

I told her she was wrong, that I loved her. It didn't matter how many times I tried to get that sentiment through to her since she always responded with the same accusations.

“Love is something you can't fathom. You're just a silly little girl with no respect or understanding of the world we live in. God has cursed me with you.”

Needless to say I refused to point out how she had once been married to a Calvinist, my father. Needless to say I refused to point out that she was now married to a godless cretin, my step-father.

Every night when I returned from the bakery she would rant on and on about something I was doing wrong. If it wasn't my chosen employer it was my clothing. If it wasn't my clothing it was the length of my hair. If it wasn't one thing it was the other. Every night my mother would verbally tear into me and then my step-father would do the same physically.

Pain, both emotional and corporeal, eventually takes its toll on a person.

The night I ran away turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. The final straw that was the catalyst for my leaving was an especially brutal one. My step-father, fresh off an eleven-hour shift at the mill, came home drunk and livid. His usual routine of slapping me across the face and throwing me to the floor seemingly wasn't enough on this night. Perhaps he had too much ale or maybe just not enough.

He started by backhanding me over a chair. I hadn't expected the sudden outburst when he struck, and the hit upset my balance greatly, sending me tumbling over the wooden chair and feeling something crack within me. I would later realize the fall had broken a rib but at the time I had other pressing matters to attend to. My step-father picked me off the floor by my neck, choking me between his massive and dirty fingers.

“Lil' one…” he called me. That was what he always called me, never my name. “S'bout time you ‘n me had some fun, eh?”

He pushed me against the thick support beam in the basement, holding me in place with his hand. I struggled but it was no use. He outweighed me considerably and the pressure he was putting against my throat was almost enough to make me pass out. I wish it had been.

He ripped away my blouse with one pull, despite my tears that were staining his clasped hand. His tongue lazily explored my chest and I knew that my mother had been right. God really did hate me. He continued to disturb my virgin body until he had his fill, finally letting me slide to the dirt floor in anguish, a virgin no more.

I tasted my own blood for the first time that night as it dribbled down my cheek from where he had repeatedly struck me. I spat the red liquid out upon realizing what it was, horrified at the atrocious act I had unwillingly become a part of. I stared at the footprints left in the dirt, his footprints, the toes much deeper than the heels from his attempts to gain leverage when thrusting into me. It was then that I realized if I didn't leave that it would only happen again.

So, I left. I remember thinking it would be some great task that would do its best to thwart my hope, but it was remarkably easy. I packed a satchel with a few changes of clothes, a bit of bread, and the money I had kept hidden from my mother. Out the door I went, finally experiencing a shred of control in my life for the first time.

The cold night was unforgiving. I ran several blocks without stopping, finally realizing that I had no where to go. In fact, the only other place in the world I really knew was the bakery. I turned the corner, ready to quickly move down the stone street so I could gain entrance to my place of employment and work out my troubles in the morning. I had not realized how much easier it was to navigate the city when daylight was abundant. Each block looked exactly like the last, a myriad collection of cobblestone and gas lamps.

One corner, another, three times rapidly…I was lost. The streets were completely devoid of life at this time of night, save one: a staunch man whose eyes seemed to glisten in the moonlight.

“Kind sir,” I implored him, “Might you point the way to Milan Street ? I seem to have gotten a bit turned around.”

“My dear,” he responded with a voice as sincere as the night is black, “I would not be able to refer to myself as a gentleman if I allowed a precious lady like yourself to wonder alone is this part of the city. Come.” He lifted his elbow out for me to grasp, a hint of fortitude in his movements. “It's not far. I walk there often to this magnificent baker for a loaf.”

I smiled, taking pleasure in the ironic secret. He led me back down the street I had wandered on to and around another corner, his tanned boots striking the cobblestone noisily. I remember thinking to myself that he must have been standing still for quite some time since I hadn't heard his loud boots before seeing him.

“May I ask what you would you be doing out this late?” he inquired of me.

“My business is my own,” I answered. “But what of you, sir?”

He remained silent, a sneer smoothly forming above his chin.

“Sir?” I repeated.

He led me around another corner, this time away from the streets and into a dark alley. I hesitated upon seeing the darkness but he clasped his arm on top of mine, holding me to him.

“Let me go!” I urged. He paid me no mind.

I did not have much in comparison but his strength was unimaginable. He practically dragged me into the alley, its cold and rigid mouth eager to swallow us up. I wanted to scream but found the cries had somehow lodged themselves in my throat, unable to be of any help. I was at this man's mercy. A solemn prayer whirled through my head, aimed directly at the heavens.

It was ignored.

The gentleman yanked hard on my arm and threw me up against the red brick wall. I struggled against his powerful arms as he held my own in place, the memories of my step-father still recently burned into my being. I began to beg to him, pleading to be let go and that I meant him no foul.

“Of course you're scared, my child,” he said. His eyes were glazed over like an animal. “We all are. I can smell the fear; I can taste your perspiration. Tell me: what is it you feel damned over? You've been tainted by a man, and recently. Is that why you walk the streets tonight? You're much too pretty to be a common whore.”

“How…”

He shook his head, smiling. “Look into my eyes, child, and you'll see your answer.”

I couldn't escape his pupils, even though I attempted to turn my head away. His gaze pulled me in, captivating my attention. It was like a sea of tranquility splashing around an obelisk of pale durability. I felt his presence all around me and I'm slightly ashamed to say that I was not repulsed. I actually enjoyed the warm feeling that he gave me as his eyes pierced to my very soul.

Then, as quickly as he touched that soul, he clenched it and ripped it away from me.

His teeth dug into my neck, two of them sinking further than the others. I felt a hot trickle of blood seep onto my shoulder as he drank my life away. Instead of lashing out wildly in hopes of freeing myself I simply slid closer to him, allowing him to take me.

He drank every last drop of my lifeblood, leaving me cold and hollow on the alley floor. I managed to blink once, twice, three times rapidly…and then there was nothing. Death cast her shadow over me as my vision went blurry. The last image I saw was my unearthly killer standing over my corpse and brushing his expensive coat off, even though there was no dirt on the sleeves.

I've thought of that moment every day since, trying to reason if I craved an innocent death or if I had lost the will to live entirely.

The rest, to be cliché, is history.

All I have to keep me rooted in the present and away from that disgusting fragment of the past is whatever cowardly strength I can muster to plunge my fist into the sun's rays, only to pull it back out again before the pain becomes too much. Perhaps someday I'll test myself and cast my pale body out the window completely.

Perhaps.

I often ask myself if God's intentions are meant to be known by mortals. Who are we to judge Him? I think the answer is that we are nothing and life is a way of reminding us of that. It's ironic how that in order to realize the futility of life we must comprehend its inception. Why, then, do I cling to it? I've come to believe that my own remorse is only a further part of this comical experiment called Creation.

God, in all his glory, hates me.

THE END