Gods and Monsters: Unclean Spirits Read Online Free Page B
me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Mother May I?
C ASON PULLS AT the doors, hands scalded, the palms blistering as he tries to open one, then the other, then back to the first door again. The window is cracking, warping. Inside it’s all dancing orange light and greasy black smoke and the shadow of a body—his wife’s body, thrashing around like a moth burning against a lamp bulb.
Then the body stops moving.
He can’t even see the car seat in the back.
Alison. Barney.
Taken from him.
He falls backward. Onto the road’s shoulder. Cason rolls, presses his forehead against the ground hard enough to draw blood. The skin on his hands is soft and shiny and red and he drags them against the gravel. Flesh sloughs off. He doesn’t even feel the pain, which sucks because he wants to feel it, needs to feel it.
That’s when it all stops.
The flames lay still behind the glass. A burger wrapper blowing nearby stops in mid-tumble and stands impossibly on its paper corner, poised but never falling. The air is warm and unmoving. Cason feels light-headed.
That’s when he sees a car pulling up.
T HE ROAD IS rough and the memory is broken as the cab skips across a pothole. Cason blinks, tries to figure out where they are. All he sees are trees. Dark trees lining an empty back road. The fuck?
“This isn’t the turnpike,” he says.
Tundu says nothing. Hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel.
“Hey,” Cason says again. “Where are we?”
Tundu’s head shifts, lolling limp against his shoulder. Mouth wide in a gaping, drunken smile. Tongue out. Eyes rolled way back into his skull.
A moan drifts from the cabbie’s lips.
Cason goes to shake him, but then—
Pop!
The cab shudders. Another three noises in swift succession. Pop! Pop! Pop! The car sinks on one corner, then the others. The tires are blown.
The engine gutters; dashboard lights flicker before going dark.
The cab drifts another ten, twelve feet, then stops.
From the hood, a tink-tink-tink of the cooling engine.
Tundu slumps against the steering wheel. His head honks the horn: a droning beep. Cason pushes him back into the seat. Worry bleeds into his gut, forming a septic pool. He reaches out, tries the key. Nothing. Not a spark. Dead battery. Or something else, something far stranger and far worse.
Turns out, though, that Cason doesn’t know what strange even is—but he learns fast. Ahead, headlights cut holes through the night as a car heads toward the cab. When Cason shifts in his seat, he hears a squish squish squish by his feet and a sudden smell rises in the cab: the smell of the beach, of the ocean, of brine and salt and dead fish.
Water is seeping into the cab. Rising one inch, then two, then three around his boots. Milky foam pools around the leather.
Cason cries out, pops the door, tumbles out onto the empty road. Trees sway and hiss above in a sudden wind, shushing him as that car grows closer.
This all seems suddenly too familiar.
No, not again, not possible, he’s dead...
The approaching car is a pearlescent white. A Lexus, by the look of it. It stops about ten yards away. Dust and pollen caught in the beams. Cason feels blinded.
The driver—
He sees a shape, a shape that doesn’t make sense, with margins that shift and seem impossibly inhuman...
The back door on the driver side pops open.
One figure steps out, leading a second someone by a length of... chain? Both women, by their shapes. The leading figure is tall, hair long around her shoulders, and even witnessing her shadow Cason feels the world shift like a listing boat—the curves are perfect, the lines elegant and inalienable, and again he smells the sea, but now the smell is heady, lush, intoxicating. A call by the waves to wade in and drown in the deep.
He swoons, almost falls.
The other woman stands bound in a straitjacket, which is in turn swaddled in lengths of golden chain. Hair a mad black porcupine tangle. She shakes her head like a dog with an ear infection, sobbing
CHAPTER FOUR
Mother May I?
C ASON PULLS AT the doors, hands scalded, the palms blistering as he tries to open one, then the other, then back to the first door again. The window is cracking, warping. Inside it’s all dancing orange light and greasy black smoke and the shadow of a body—his wife’s body, thrashing around like a moth burning against a lamp bulb.
Then the body stops moving.
He can’t even see the car seat in the back.
Alison. Barney.
Taken from him.
He falls backward. Onto the road’s shoulder. Cason rolls, presses his forehead against the ground hard enough to draw blood. The skin on his hands is soft and shiny and red and he drags them against the gravel. Flesh sloughs off. He doesn’t even feel the pain, which sucks because he wants to feel it, needs to feel it.
That’s when it all stops.
The flames lay still behind the glass. A burger wrapper blowing nearby stops in mid-tumble and stands impossibly on its paper corner, poised but never falling. The air is warm and unmoving. Cason feels light-headed.
That’s when he sees a car pulling up.
T HE ROAD IS rough and the memory is broken as the cab skips across a pothole. Cason blinks, tries to figure out where they are. All he sees are trees. Dark trees lining an empty back road. The fuck?
“This isn’t the turnpike,” he says.
Tundu says nothing. Hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel.
“Hey,” Cason says again. “Where are we?”
Tundu’s head shifts, lolling limp against his shoulder. Mouth wide in a gaping, drunken smile. Tongue out. Eyes rolled way back into his skull.
A moan drifts from the cabbie’s lips.
Cason goes to shake him, but then—
Pop!
The cab shudders. Another three noises in swift succession. Pop! Pop! Pop! The car sinks on one corner, then the others. The tires are blown.
The engine gutters; dashboard lights flicker before going dark.
The cab drifts another ten, twelve feet, then stops.
From the hood, a tink-tink-tink of the cooling engine.
Tundu slumps against the steering wheel. His head honks the horn: a droning beep. Cason pushes him back into the seat. Worry bleeds into his gut, forming a septic pool. He reaches out, tries the key. Nothing. Not a spark. Dead battery. Or something else, something far stranger and far worse.
Turns out, though, that Cason doesn’t know what strange even is—but he learns fast. Ahead, headlights cut holes through the night as a car heads toward the cab. When Cason shifts in his seat, he hears a squish squish squish by his feet and a sudden smell rises in the cab: the smell of the beach, of the ocean, of brine and salt and dead fish.
Water is seeping into the cab. Rising one inch, then two, then three around his boots. Milky foam pools around the leather.
Cason cries out, pops the door, tumbles out onto the empty road. Trees sway and hiss above in a sudden wind, shushing him as that car grows closer.
This all seems suddenly too familiar.
No, not again, not possible, he’s dead...
The approaching car is a pearlescent white. A Lexus, by the look of it. It stops about ten yards away. Dust and pollen caught in the beams. Cason feels blinded.
The driver—
He sees a shape, a shape that doesn’t make sense, with margins that shift and seem impossibly inhuman...
The back door on the driver side pops open.
One figure steps out, leading a second someone by a length of... chain? Both women, by their shapes. The leading figure is tall, hair long around her shoulders, and even witnessing her shadow Cason feels the world shift like a listing boat—the curves are perfect, the lines elegant and inalienable, and again he smells the sea, but now the smell is heady, lush, intoxicating. A call by the waves to wade in and drown in the deep.
He swoons, almost falls.
The other woman stands bound in a straitjacket, which is in turn swaddled in lengths of golden chain. Hair a mad black porcupine tangle. She shakes her head like a dog with an ear infection, sobbing
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