The Mayor of Sapikesshi, West Virginia(Pt3/4)
TW: Gore
It took another moment for the crickets to gain the confidence to chirp again. The severity of everything came crashing into my gut like a fatal punch. My hands were shaking as I patted my chest, the lumpy impression of the revolver still laid flat against me. The ice cold air chilled my lungs, I had started running. Somewhere in the shock and swift grief, my body knew the town was in danger. Even writing this now, I feel like Johnny was moving my legs for me.
“Gerald? Gerald!” I flew faster than I knew my weathered body could take me through the Old Man’s lawn-gallery of wooden effigies. The racket I made hammering my fist on Gerald’s door roused the Reverend as well. I could see a lantern moving from window to window in the old chapel.
When the Old Man finally opened the door, he had heavy eyes. The gray remnants of a head of hair clung to the edges of his skull and he was dressed in a well-worn white shirt. “Ted? What the hell is going on with you, son?”
“Gerald! That thing, it, it took Gloria! I think it—“ That's when the shock started to die down and the horror pushed through the haziness that still lingered in my mind. Gloria was dead. It felt like her ghost had tailed me all the way from our street and stabbed me in the back. The moment her body folded was stained on to my thoughts. She snapped in the middle again and again, like a book being opened then slammed shut repeatedly.
The grief gagged me and I choked on a ball anguish. When Gerald saw a sob building behind my face, he swiftly grabbed my shoulders. We hunched slightly in his doorway as he scanned over Mt. McClelland, like he thought a bomber squadron would come around the summit.
The Reverend was close now with a questioning look on his face. The Old Man spoke, “It’s Gloria.” Reverend Elias seemed perplexed more than shocked.
“What happened?” He said flatly, but he already knew.
“She took a necklace, and some rings,” I blubbered out through long sniffs. “From the trunk… She took ‘em for Logan.” I was only trying to tell them what happened, but venom dripped from that bastard's name when I spat it out.
A disquieting breeze rushed through us and the Reverend joined Gerald in scanning for winged silhouettes in the air above the West Virginia peaks. “Y’all need to get inside, go to the church!” I pleaded.
“Did she ask for the Lord’s forgiveness? Before it took her?” Elias held no compassion in his voice, only logic. It was alarming from the man who had been her preacher for four decades.
I was enraged. “What are you sayin’!? She had no chance! That devil snatched her up before she could even scream about it! And she was confused!” I shaped up to him and the Reverend didn’t flinch. He simply grabbed Gerald’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I was just concerned for her soul. I know she meant no malice by stealing what she had.”
I scowled at him calling her a thief, throwing dirt on her name. “She wouldn’t have done it all alone. She’d only have taken it if someone else did first! Fuckin’ Frances…” I growled and turned in the direction of the O’Faigain farmhouse. The Reverend and the Old Man shot each other knowing looks before retreating behind the tall, oaken doors of Sapikesshi’s Chapel.
The charred remains of Downtown and the Dreamy Grove Hotel were reduced to towering, alien figures in the dark night. The moonlight wouldn’t touch that wretched place. The windows and balconies were obscured, like a face hidden in shadow.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off the mountain tops. I constantly searched for shapes in the sky and even when my neck started to ache, I only looked harder. I tried to think about anything but the sickening snap Gloria made when she was taken. My mind instead started to torment me with the vague, nightmare-like memories of my childhood. I remember when the Beast first came to the hotel. My little legs ran as fast as they could, the smoke was filling up the whole holler like a flood. My mother worked at the Dreamy Grove as a waitress. My five year-old self rounded the corner by Gerald’s house and witnessed the column of hellfire rising up from the crumbling gables of the hotel. I was screaming for my mom when the devil raised its small, serpentine head and spread its buzzard wings, a massive black mass in the shape of a demonic bird. And that eye. That bulging, cycloptian eye— sickly yellow like a foul moon and housing a tiny, blood red orb filled with mindless cruelty.
When the O’Faigain Farmhouse came into view, its homely appearance, with its lantern-lit windows and scenic garden, filled me with complete disgust. Even before the tragedies that struck that night, the O’Faigains had been controlling our food. They lived in this big, beautiful house. That beast destroyed everything that the family owned. Yet they had been living it up on our backs. Extorting everyone for whatever work they needed, cause they had the garden.
In fact, all our woes had been their fault. The mine, the treasure, the hotel, and even when Frances was bitter at Johnny. He wouldn’t have done something as crazy as diggin’ up dead folks' jewelry, if Frances hadn’t driven him out of his damn mind.
I grabbed the brass knocker and threw it against the door so hard that when I reeled my fist back, I took the fragile ring with it. “FRANCES! WILLARD! Y’ALL BETTER COME HERE RIGHT NOW!” I heard a commotion inside. The O’Faigain family rifle flashed into memory. I reached for my revolver.
“Ted!” Willard’s withered face peered through the sidelight with a scowl. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’?” His voice was muffled behind the glass, but as soon as the door cracked open, I pushed my way inside.
“What the shit!? Theodore!” Frances was in the rear of their parlor. She was in a frumpy night gown and clutching a robe around herself. The parlor was warm. Some kind of tea was brewing and the books the Twins had been reading were sprawled out on the coffee table. These little luxuries sent me into a rage.
“What’d you take, Frances!?” I howled. Willard’s eyes were locked on my chest, where my hand was buried in denim and clutching my revolver. “You too, you little weasel! You took from that chest, both of y’all did!” My free hand waved erratically at the two O’Faigains. They looked at each other in shock.
Frances put on a stern face. “You’re fuckin’ drunk! You don’t even know what the hell you’re talkin’ about!”
I drew back. My racing thoughts wanted to believe that maybe I was drunk. Gloria could be resting fine. While I was here, causing ruckus over hallucinations. But I could see behind it. I knew Frances for all fifty-five years of my life and I knew when she was guilty. “Don’t you, don’t you give me that! What did you bastards take!?” It kills that they didn’t admit right away. I wonder if they had confessed and set things right, if the devil would have gone away. “That demon came and took Gloria.” I said at last, that bubbling torrent of emotions finally exploded out of me.
They were finally quiet. All that was left of our screaming match was haggard breaths and shock.
“No,” Francis whined to herself at last. “We didn’t, steal anything. The chest is ours… Our aunt—“
“If you bring up that shit from before yous was born again—“ they gawked at my outburst. “Go to the church.” The commanding voice of an elected official rumbled in my chest. “Bring what you took. We’re gonna figure this out.”
Like disciplined children, the O’Faigain Twins walked with bowed heads as they retreated into the home. I paced back and forth on their front porch while I waited for them. I wanted to kill them, hate them for taking from that damn trunk. But I understood. All my life I’d heard about it. I’d run people off who were lookin’ for it. I had to stop myself from pondering too hard on the ingots and jewelry. I didn’t know if the beast could smell the precious metals in my thoughts.
When the Twins emerged, they were still in their nightwear but had now downed boots and larger coats. My muscles threatened to burst into action when I saw Frances exit with her rifle, slung over her shoulder. I relaxed only as I eyed her hands stuffed in her pockets. They bulged with treasures unknown.
I insisted they lead the way to the church and I’m sure it wasn’t lost on them what I was thinking as I marched them across town. We all watched the sky above. Every breeze that tossed our hair or shadow that crossed a star would send me into momentary panic. The O’Faigains became more and more on edge the further they walked from the farmhouse.
The tall doors of the church were painted a deep red and looked almost medieval in construction; its heavy timbers banded by straps of wrought iron. Behind it, the Reverend and the Old Man had been waiting anxiously.
“What on earth is goin’ on? What did you do!?” Gerald shouted, rising up from the pews.
“Oh, you know damn well!” Frances spat back viciously. The Old Man immediately retreated back behind the wood panels, he looked to the towering crucifix at the head of the room in shame.
“Show us,” I crossed my arms and widened my stance imposingly behind them, blocking their exit from the chapel.
Willard whipped around, his eyes full of rage and fright like a rodeo-bull. “You’re such a self-righteous prick, Ted! You always thought you was better than us! Where’s her body, huh? How do we know you didn’t do her in, just like you did my poor brother-in-law!” He declared drastically. Willard had hated Johnny and, for a time, he hated Frances because she was married to Johnny. Willard was all too happy to move into the farmhouse to ‘support his sister’ the day after my brother died. He pays the dead lip service when it benefits him.
“Keep my brothers name out of your mouth, you fuckin’ rat,” I jabbed my finger in his face. He looked like he wanted to snap it off. “If you thought I was lyin’, why did you come here? And why are your pockets full?” I gestured towards their coats.
“We. Didn’t. Steal anything,” Frances hissed and threw her hands in the air, as if this whole thing was just nonsense. “Everything in that chest is an heirloom to the O’Faigains! You can’t covet something that belongs to you!” She looked to the Reverend for his support, but he didn’t meet her gaze.
“You’re not allowed. It's the law.” Gerald murmured barely loud enough for us to hear, but Frances exploded ten-fold. She reached into her deep jacket pockets and flung fists full of gold ingots onto the church floor. Each one clattered across the ground before clanking off one another.
“YOU WATCHED US TAKE IT, YOU OLD BASTARD! AND YOU, REVEREND!” She wailed, a long talon pushing towards the two men. “How dare you act shocked and appalled! You’re both spineless!”
The betrayal slapped me so hard, it spun me to face Gerald and the Reverend. I demanded an answer with a glare. Elias just looked at the stained glass, which depicted Roman soldiers arresting Jesus. It was unclear whether there was any guilt on his face.
The Old Man’s whole face shook back and forth as he stammered an explanation. “Ted, they was inside when we got to the hotel! When we got in there, the box was open and they was rootin’ through it! I know we shoulda’ stopped them, but— people been lookin’ for the treasure since before I was born. I just, I wanted to see it.” But that was enough. I couldn’t wrap my head around why they would lie.
I looked to Elias in disbelief and he finally looked away from the translucent, crystalline Jesus. “I’m not certain that it’s the gold itself that’s cursed. I mean, Johnny was killed without ever finding it. There is no scripture that states possessing is sinful. It’s holding that wealth above the Lord.” He looked at me from the corner of his eyes. “Perhaps, Gloria held the jewelry, or what it could do, higher than Christ in her heart.”
“How could you say that?” As I said it, he transformed into a stranger before my eyes.
He turned in alarm before adding, “I have also considered if it’s the holler. If the sins of this place are so great, that it’s the town that was cursed. Like Sodom and Gomorrah. I wonder if the beast would even follow us if we left and didn’t look back.” The Reverend didn’t sound certain. Was he fishing for a reason to leave? A reason to take this gold?
“I think he’s right,” Frances declared sharply. The Garand slid down her shoulder, the butt thunking onto the rickety floorboards. The tension flooded the room like molasses, the air becoming thick and resistant. “I say we take the trunk and go. We’ll warn people! They’ll send out the national guard or something to deal with that thing. If they even believe us. But we’d be free and we’d have the ability to move wherever we want!” She waved her hands over the gold scattered across the ground.
“Absolutely not!” I shook my head violently. I couldn’t listen to all of this. “If that was true, you could’ve left at any time! It’s only now that you’ve got that chest that you wanna go.” My flask seemed to grow heavier as the argument went on. I needed a drink. “Please,” I was pleading now. “Folks have tried to leave before. We—we haven’t heard from Mary in years. I’m the mayor and y’all trust me to look out for you. I am right now. Please, let’s go put it back.”
“How about we vote then? Like always?” Willard had a slight smirk. With Gloria gone and the Reverend acting as strange as he was, I wasn’t sure the voices of reason would succeed. “All those in favor of taking the trunk and using its contents to help everyone with their new lives, say aye!”
“Aye!” He and Frances instantly answered their own call. Reverend Elias remained silent.
I was so hopeful he’d come to his senses that I sent out my own call. “Those who wish to continue with our humble existence and return this curse to the ground, say aye.” I answered my own call and was quickly joined by Gerald. Still the Reverend did not speak. His hand was clasped over his mouth as he became increasingly lost in his thoughts.
“No! No abstaining! You have to vote!” Frances screeched.
Elias jumped and then held my eyes for a long moment. I wordlessly begged him to let things go back to the way they were. I was petrified of that beast, but more than that, I was scared of everyone leaving town. Without Sapikesshi, I’d be just an old man.
Those of us that recognized the sound bouncing off the mountains shuttered when we heard it. It sounded like a train horn and an elk's cry. The howl filled the holler, then stopped abruptly. Everyone shifted nervously and started to peek out the tall windows of the chapel.
The Reverend finally slid his hand from his mouth and made a small click with his tongue. “We’ll put the gold back, then we’ll pray for guidance.” He decided at last.
Willard was furious and demanded Frances help him to take the gold anyways. No one would stop them while she had her rifle. But Frances just boiled in her perceived betrayal and started to gather all the trinkets. I didn’t know if she was afraid of the demon in that moment, or if she was just afraid of the change all this would bring.
Her brother stormed away in a huff while the Reverend, Gerald, and I started to peer out the windows for the source of the howl we heard before. The air was still when I pushed the doors ajar and surveyed the mountain. The breeze poured through the break in the doors, biting my nose. Every star that twinkled sent my heart racing. My eyes were playing tricks on me in the night, seeing shapes where there were none. Or at least I hoped.
“On my signal.” One by one, I ushered each of the Sapikesshans through the chapel doors. The monstrous shape of the Dreamy Grove loomed at the end of the street. First we moved cautiously and slowly, not wanting to arouse too much attention. We were reaching the railroad tracks when I could tell everyone was starting to doubt me. They didn’t creep quite as thoughtfully, or crouch quite as low.
We stepped over the tracks. The O’Faigains now stood at their full height and only occasionally glanced at the mountains. Gerald struggled to keep up with all of us, even at our methodical pace. There was a pressure in the air, the oppressive silence of night on the mountain.
Then we heard that sound again. That eerie call cleaved through the air like an ax. In an instant, it grew from a distant howl to a thundering roar, as if we were seconds from being plowed through by a locomotive. Our hair was kicked up by the wind and I turned back just in time to see a dense blackness dropping on us. The demon. Its razor talons glinted in the thin strands of moonlight.
“— DOWN!” Half of my scream was totally drowned out by the blaring sound. I pulled the revolver from the pouch on my chest before throwing my hand back toward the ravenous shadow. Frances’ legs were staggered as she leveled the rifle.
The first shot exploded from my six-shooter. It was followed immediately after by a torrent of Garand fire. The hail of gunfire lit up the clearing in front of the old train station like a lightning storm. The Beast was revealed in quick flashes. Its bulbous, green body swooped down from the sky like a swollen dragon. Its black, feathered wings were too small to logically carry its sedan sized body, but it glided with the skill hawk. Its beak shone like bronze, still slathered in the rotting blood of long-dead Sapikesshans. Within moments, my gun was completely empty.
The bullets didn’t pierce its hide. It drew back its small head, like a snake about to strike. The fat body swung below its head, its tail slashing toward us like a whip. It fluttered backwards slightly, the booming shots of our guns giving the monster a moment of pause.
“GO!” Willard screamed. He was already ten yards ahead of us, the Old Man hobbling on his cane to keep up. I had to pull Elias up off the ground, who was cowering there and praying.
Its little wings made a supernaturally powerful gust as it rose higher back into the air. Our hands clasped over our ears as the demon let out another deafening cry. We scattered beneath it like rats from a bird of prey. All the Sapikesshans scrambled around the side of the Dreamy Grove Hotel. The entire building shivered and quaked as the beast slammed against its walls. It crawled after us, its hulking body slithering back and forth like a pond-lizard. In the shadows, I could see a flowing mass falling from the devil's beak, like it was puking a squid.
I was gaining quickly behind Gerald, who was running as fast as his withered legs and cane could carry him. I stuck my hand out and pushed into the small of his back. “COME ON, GERALD!” He nearly collapsed onto his face, but he clambered forward.
We dashed through the skeletal doorway into the old dance hall. The trunk was still beneath the shattered floor, but its lid stood open like Gloria’s tombstone. The moon beams caught its shimmering contents just right, giving the wooden maw on the ground an ethereal, silver-gold glow.
All of our heads darted back and forth as we stared through the gaping holes in the roof. But the beast didn’t reveal itself immediately.
Our attention then turned to the luminous cavern. “Well, put it all back!” Gerald stammered, receiving a glare in response from the O’Faigains. Frances slung her rifle back over her shoulder.
“Go on, quick!” I hollered, keeping my pistol trained on the crumbled roof. A distant booming betrayed the demon's location. Beyond the dilapidated hallways, we could hear shingles falling and snapping. It was on the roof now.
With one last look to one another, the Twins started to empty their pockets. Gold bars tumbled from Frances’ coat and Willard begrudgingly laid down his own ingots. Then he revealed the watches and the rings. The glinting bands and bright faces were dazzling even in that moment of panic. Willard had taken even more than his sister.
I forcefully patted the front pockets of Willard's coat to ensure he wasn’t hiding anything, much to his outrage. When I turned to Frances, she snapped at me. “I don’t have nothin’! He wouldn’t have brought everything if I didn’t tell him to.”
With that, I kicked the hatch of the cursed trunk shut. It was like a gun shot and it left nothing but silence in its wake. We listened for the thudding of the approaching creature, but heard nothing.
“Heavenly Father,” Elias began, delivering an eloquent prayer of thanks. The Old Man and the Twins bowed their heads. I took a look at the stars through the ruined rafters, then joined them. “—And see that we are your humble servants who happily fulfill your plan on this world. Keep this demon from those of us without greed and pride. Amen,” the Reverend finished.
When I raised my head, the Twins were already looking around to see if it had worked. There was still silence in the hotel, the monstrous footsteps nowhere to be heard. The stars above shone on unperturbed, not even a bat flew over head. It was the first time that night that I noticed how beautiful the sky was.
“Oh, thank the Lord,” Gerald sobbed, pinching the bridge of his nose. His cane was trembling.
Elias tiptoed to the surviving doorframe and looked along the side of the hotel. He looked satisfied with what he saw.
Frances stood close to Willard, her head on his arm. They stared longingly at the trunk in the floor.
“We should all go home,” I finally was able to croak out. My old throat was shot from the screaming. The Reverend was nodding in agreement when I looked at those pretty stars again. There was a slight shift in the building's frame.
Then I saw it in its entirety. Stealthily clinging to the side of the building like a salamander, the beast stretched its feeble-looking, feathered wings. A lone, huge eyeball was fixed on its small head. A malicious amber globe, like a hungry moon. There was a tiny, cruel pupil in the center, red with bloodlust. Its metallic beak unhinged and a nauseating gagging erupted from the creature's long, serpentine neck.
An ear-splitting scream that curdled my blood left Frances’ mouth and filled the rotting walls of the old dance hall. My own cries were caught in my throat. Pandemonium broke out on the dance floor as the twins ducked under a surviving table. The Reverend dove behind the abandoned bar. The demon reeled back its head, snapping its beak before vomiting a waterfall of inky, black tendrils.
It was like a living curtain of crude oil as it slammed down onto Gerald, immediately crushing him to the floor with an agonizing cry. The dark tentacles slithered and prodded all over him, coiling around every available limb. Even his cane was tangled in it. It was as if the devil had eaten an octopus and was now regurgitating it all over the Old Man. But the mass was anchored in the back of its maw like a mess of oil-slick tongues.
Frances attempted to drive it away with more bullets. After a short volley, the high-pitch ping of the garand’s clip signaled that it was spent.
A final plea of mercy escaped Gerald Reese before the entire horrifying net was suddenly lifting him up. I won’t recite his exact final words, but he asked for forgiveness, because he only wanted to look.
The Old Man attempted to use his cane to block the demon's beak. It was slurping and swallowing the tendrils; I can only morbidly compare it to pasta. The size of the tangle of appendages dwarfed even the monster itself. In a split second, the beast’s black tongues retracted down its throat. It destroyed the cane with a single snap of its jaws. Then it did the same to Gerald. A sickening crack rattled through us as the devil bit into the crook of Gerald’s neck; completely crushing his collarbone and ribs. Any organs stored within the Old Man’s chest were shredded and rained around us in a hail of viscera.
Sapikesshan screams filled the Dreamy Grove Hotel for the first time in fifty years. Gerald’s legs spasmed for a horrible minute. With a single gag, the creature hacked out any bit of Gerald still in its beak. His body and a storm of blood fell onto the dance floor.
I called Gerald’s name as Elias, then the Twins ran past me, deeper into the ruins of the Hotel. A mountain-breaking howl rattled the building to its core. I had to follow them.