Back to the adventures of Barry and Sheila as they take on the bunny-demon-vampire monster.
Things are looking pretty grim.
Onward!
What Lurks Between - Part Twenty-Four
The bunny monster advanced, its maw opening wide to reveal an expanse of teeth. Big, sharp, pointy teeth by the dozen. It growled, and its breath was hot on my face even though it was still several meters away. Right then, my earlier question sprang to mind: how do you kill a vampire?
And I knew that was the wrong question. The same way I suddenly understood what the monster was and where it came from.
“It’s not a vampire,” I said to myself. “It’s a demon. How do you kill a demon?”
“You don’t,” Sheila said, and I realized I had spoken more loudly than I thought. Reaching into her purse - it suddenly struck me how wonderfully feminine it was that, through all that had gone on since we bumped into each other on the streets above, she kept ahold of her purse - and pulled out a beaded chain that she wrapped around her right hand. “You banish it.”
Sheila stepped forward to meet the bunny monster, her hand raised high, and I could see a small metal cross dangling from the end of that chain.
A rosary. She carried a rosary? Who carries a rosary anymore?
How many people even know what a rosary is anymore, dude, replied that annoying voice in my head that always told me when I was being a dummy.
“Be gone, beast,” Sheila said in a firm voice of authority. Authority, and…faith.
She was a believer.
The bunny monster stopped for a moment. I could swear it was perplexed as it considered her and the small little cross dangling from her hand.
Then it began to chuckle. Slowly at first, then with greater gusto until its chuckle became a laugh and then a full-on guffaw. It was quite rude, actually. Sheila was not being funny at all. In fact, the more I thought on it, the more I realized she had the right of it.
I stepped up next to her and placed my left hand overtop her right. If she could believe, I could too. Hell, after everything that had happened and all that I had learned I could not not believe.
Scowling, I said in as firm and commanding a tone as I could muster, “Be gone!”
The monster just laughed harder. And it advanced. It was not moving quickly; it’s bulk prevented very quick movements on the walkway, narrow as it was.
Wait. That did not make any sense. The thing had moved quite well just a moment or two ago, and the walkway was not any narrower than it had been. What the hell?
It was growing.
Son of a bitch, it was growing, expanding even further than it already had. Especially around its belly, where its babies were surely about ready to burst forth. The patches of fur were smaller now, more stretched. The oozing, scaly areas larger. Greater amounts of that ooze dripped off the bunny monster’s bulk. One particular drop caught my eye as it pooled at the bend of its left foreleg for a couple seconds before dropping away.
My gaze followed the drop as it fell. I watched as it hit the metal of the walkway floor. And as it bubbled and hissed as wisps of gas rose from the spot where the drop landed.
Acid. The ooze was acid. I had noticed that before, but it had not clicked. I looked at the metal plating at the monster’s feet. A few meters back, where it had paused last, several small holes were eaten through the walkway. The monster was moving now, though, and the drops did not have time to pool.
But it was also larger, and oozing more.
I squeezed Sheila’s hand, a plan forming in my mind. She winced slightly and shot a glare my way. I nodded toward the floor and her eyes followed the motion of my head. They widened. She understood.
Together, we stepped forward, toward the monster which now crouched only three meters away.
“Be Gone!” I shouted, and I heard her shout it as well. Our words rang out in unison, amplifying each other as the sudden hope and resolve I felt seemed to give them strength.
Then, suddenly, the little cross dangling from our hands flashed. Just a little flash of light, but I saw it, plain as day.
The bunny monster stopped. Its eyes grew wide and its jaw dropped open, but not in a roar or in a show of intimidation. In amazement.
In fear.
"You know Him?" It said, its voice, so strong and mocking a few seconds earlier, now quivering and uncertain. "Impossible! You cannot -"
I moved forward again, and Sheila came with me. She needed no prompting; it was as though we both knew what we needed to do without discussing it with each other. Like our minds were one, just then.
“Be Gone,” we shouted in unison, and the cross lit up again, brighter this time.
The bunny monster drew back, open fear on its face as it retreated. The ooze was dropping even faster now, almost a steady stream of the stuff.
The light from the cross remained; it even grew brighter. In fact the entire tunnel seemed as though it was becoming illuminated by it.
Then I heard the noise behind us and I realized it was not the cross that was glowing. It was reflecting the lights of the southbound train as it approached from further up the tunnel.
The beast noticed the train as well and its eyes narrowed once more. The fear lessened on its face, and it grinned for a second.
“Well played,” it said, and it placed its foot down on the bit of walkway it had just abandoned in its retreat.
With a loud squeal of protest, the walkway, having reached the edge of its endurance between the beast’s weight and the corrosion caused by its acidic ooze, gave way, its outer edge collapsing downward until it struck the floor of the tunnel, leaving a ramp where a minute before there was flat walking space.
The beast’s eyes widened again as it tried to prevent itself from falling, and for the briefest of moments it appeared the bunny monster might succeed. But slowly, ponderously, it lost its balance and toppled down onto the floor of the tunnel.
The bunny monster rolled over as it fell, its momentum carrying it clear of the walkway wreckage. I heard the horn of the train sound as the conductor saw what happened - Lord knew what he thought of it. Then there was a flash of white-blue light as the bunny monster struck the third rail, the one that carried the electric current for the trains.
Brakes squealed, but even louder squealed the bunny monster.
And then the train barreled over it, its momentum too much to prevent a collision.
The front car lurched, bouncing off the tracks and slamming into the pillars dividing the southbound from the northbound rails. But the momentum of the cars behind it kept pushing the train along. Unable to leave the rails completely because of the narrowness of the tunnel, it ricocheted from one side to the other, rending the walkway to the south of us and the pillars on the other side, shattering train car windows, tearing open the metal of the cars’ sides until finally it came to rest with the front car, battered and crushed, halfway out into the station to the south.
Previous Posts:
- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
- Part Four
- Part Five
- Part Six
- Part Seven
- Part Eight
- Part Nine
- Part Ten
- Part Eleven
- Part Twelve
- Part Thirteen
- Part Fourteen
- Part Fifteen
- Part Sixteen
- Part Seventeen
- Part Eighteen
- Part Nineteen
- Part Twenty
- Part Twenty-One
- Part Twenty-Two
- Part Twenty-Three
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