Witches of Rascar Pablo: Part III

By Kristopher Lawrence
Edited by Gao Rong

Chapter 10: Katatòn

∞ : ∞ @# ijđæ, ĦǮ ∞, ЊҨ (ӢἏ)
??, ЌΆȚǢŦŐŇ

Almost immediately after falling asleep, Lucas awoke clinging desperately to the flimsy branches of an old oak tree. He looked down, could see the same murky waters he’d seen many times before, overtaken by moss and lily pads, running like a moat about the craggy hill on which the church sat. He looked up at the purple, holomorphic sky, could see the red sun suspended there, covered in black lesions like a kind of splendid carcinoma. Howling winds blew the moat’s rank stench into his face and curled his nose as he panned the horizon for whatever was making that sound – it was like the soft whinny of a pony. Using his hand as a visor against the glare he squinted and watched a small incoming fleck gradually take the shape of bird as its whinny warped to the sound of a wrenching, gyrating ignition that refused to turn over. It came nearer. He could make out its terrible beak and its wicked wings stretching to the furthest corners of his peripherals. Its sharp talons opened. Its booming, ratcheting squeal paralyzed him.

He pondered letting go of the already splitting branch on which he stood and looked down. The putrid moat was right below him – as it always was. Just as the giant bird-like creature came screaming by, a sudden pain – seemingly out of nowhere – twisted though his left calf, and he let go. He entered into a long, prolonged free fall that lasted for several minutes before plunging into the moat. The splash resulted in a standing mist in which brilliant fractal-like rainbows glittered where it met the rays of the soon-to-be setting sun. He started swimming for shore. The burning pain in his leg combined with the confused contrast between the moat’s surface and the rank atmosphere was terrifying, and he began to sink. As he sank, he could feel something moving along his left arm. He could see the small lump running slowly along his vein toward his hand and he suddenly remembered… A cold tingle ran up his spine and, for a split second, he could see Harmony’s face hovering over him. He could see the flickering candlelight, and the Child of God tattoo on her throat. He could feel the guitar strings at his finger tips. Then it was gone, and all he could see were the algae-covered pebbles at the bottom of the moat. He made one more futile attempt at reaching the surface before the water – if indeed that’s what it was – went from stationary to moving in a circular current. A drain opened up beneath him and a whirlpool spiraled about him. He was sucked in, whisked through a series of slimy tunnels, spat out into a shallow, slimy gutter laid with brittle, algae-covered bricks. He had been here before, hadn’t he? He carefully lowered himself over the seemingly less steep edge of the shelf. The pain in his calf still throbbed and burned. Little fragments of obsidian dug into his leg as he slid down, and drew blood that evaporated into miniature mushroom clouds of candy-apple red as it touched the putrid air. He looked up and was struck by a kind of déjà vu at the sight of the giant mastiff. Its body was a mosaic of tortured souls, twisted and mangled, that writhed and cried out in distress as it sniffed about the gutter. Its eyes were orbs of pure black, its jowls wet malleable humanoids, flanks like grand pianos, and haunches as big as tractor engines. Lucas slid into a crevice beneath the ledge as the huge beast tried to root him out. Its snout came out over the edge and was right above him. A wart on its nose was the caved-in head of Deezer. It opened its eyes and screamed. Lucas screamed back, alerting the beast to his hiding place. It growled, peered down the crevice, forced its paw through, trying to get at him. It growled and frothed and barked. The sudden low bellow of a horn sounded, it recoiled, left the enclave.

Lucas dislodged himself from the crevice, walked upward along the side of the ditch. The molten red sun faded as he watched it set behind a file of buttes off to his left. Its mean glare gradually was replaced by the seductive ward of the pink moon, filling him with a kind of fraudulent warmth. Rats trickled out of cracks in the cobblestone and stampeded downward, opposite his direction. Some of them started up his pant leg and he swatted at them frantically while climbing up a ledge to get out of their path. Then he heard that sound again, like the ratcheting squeal of a broken transmission, and up ahead of him appeared the giant black winged creature he’d seen on his way in, with wings spread and fury in its eyes. He turned and ran. He ran alongside the rats. He peered over his shoulder. It was right behind him, gliding right at him. He crouched, curled up into a ball. It flew right by him and dove into the rush of rats. Lucas watched in awe as it scooped up rats by the dozens into its gaping pelican-like beak. He could hear their bones snap and crunch as it chewed them. When its wings were folded it had the shape of a giraffe with talons and a six-foot beak.

“What are you doing here, boy?” it said in a low growl. It stood motionless, watching him with its black orbs, waiting for an answer.

Lucas stood paralyzed, unable even to look up at the creature, or believe it was him that the monster was addressing. He was forgetting something. Then he remembered. Breathe! He inhaled the vile atmosphere. The colors brightened, and some courage followed. “I was sent here,” he said, trembling as the creature stalked up to him.

“By whom?”

Lucas tried to remember who’d sent him there, and why, but to no avail. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t remember.”

The creature, with one swift motion of its talon, pinned Lucas to the ground, held its razor-sharp claw to his neck – the slightest twitch meant a fatal penetration to his jugular.

“Maybe you are one of Maximilian’s,” growled the creature. “Why shouldn’t I devour you here and now?”

A tingly itch built up in Lucas’s sinuses and he sneezed.

“Why didn’t you say so,” said the creature. It removed its talon from his jugular. “I am quite fond of the
young shaman.”

Lucas picked himself up. The creature looked down at him with its big black orbs. “Chank,” it said before spreading its massive wings and lifting itself into a hover above him. “I am called Chank.”

“The church,” cried Lucas, “where is it?”

“Follow this path to its end, and you will see it.” The creature’s voice echoed around him, “and do not listen to the pink moon.” It flapped its wings, broke off from its circular hover and headed for the horizon. “That was the folly of Francisco.”

* * *

9:23 pm Friday, May 19, 1984 (PDT)
Grants Pass, Oregon

Jon’s dad, with Jon and Paul, drove in the dark with their headlights turned off. No other cars were on the road. They followed the scattered flocks of pedestrians – all of whom wore sunglasses and had makeshift items jammed in their ears – to the bottom of the mountain that sat behind the high school. After skidding to a halt at the bottom of the BLM road, Jon’s dad pulled a pair of sunglasses from his glove box, put them on, wadded up some tissue paper, jammed it into his ears.

“Wait in the car,” he said, “and lock the doors. Be right back.”

He joined a man and a woman that had just started up the gravel BLM road on foot. He walked with them without saying a word.

“He goes to the boy in the place on the hill and… and…” said the man. He was tall, wore grease-stained coveralls, and wielded a huge crescent wrench.

“Goes to the… the… she goes to the forest with the mountain… to the… to the boy… to the forest…” said the woman, an attractive debutant in a skirt and high heels. She turned to Jon’s dad. “He’s up there,” she whispered. Her breathing was labored, bordering on sexual, “Huuuh… huuuhhhh… how do you think of doing it?”

Jon’s dad hesitated, not knowing what she meant, “Oh… me?… um… There are so many possibilities of how to do it,” he improvised. “Hard to decide… how about you?”

She lowered her tortoise shell sunglasses, looked at him with her bloodshot eyes. “With her bare hands,” she said, passionately, and with heightened pleasure she strangled an imaginary person in front of her.

“Oh… y-yes,” stuttered Jon’s dad. “That’s a good way of doing it.”

“She wants to pop his head off!” Her eyes bulged out of her skull, the muscles in her arms went taught as she strangled the imaginary person.

“Okay… sounds good.” Jon’s dad started back to the car. The woman turned and hissed at him.

“Oh shit,” yelled Jon. He and Paul watched from the car as the debutant and the mechanic stalked his dad. The mechanic chucked the giant wrench at his dad and missed. Paul ducked behind the seat as it twirled into the side mirror, breaking it clean off.

“The brights,” shouted Jon’s dad. “Switch the flip!”

Jon hit the switch to turn on the high beams. The woman and the mechanic fell to the gravel, writhed and squirmed.

Jon’s dad jumped into the driver’s seat, shoved Jon aside, hit the gas, and peeled out, leaving the woman and the mechanic in the dust.