The sun woke me, spilling cheerful light through the windows and across my face as I lay tangled up in my blankets on the couch. The night had been a fitful mix of half-remembered dreams and anxious watchfulness. Getting up was a relief.
Savory smells and the subtle sounds of breakfast cooking revealed that I wasn’t the only one up. Warm thoughts of coffee and eggs hurried my steps as I grabbed both of my bags and padded across the chilly wooden floor to the hall bathroom to take a shower.
Ten minutes of scalding hot water did an acceptable job of substituting for several hours of sleep, driving off the last of the night’s tension.
After dressing and repacking my old clothes, I knelt on the bathroom floor and unzipped the second duffle. Inside were two old familiar things, both of which I had salvaged from my house as it burned down around me.
The first was a leather holster that was stiff and shiny with age, the worn surface covered with a fine network of cracks and lines. A long strip that started with a metal ring and ended in a six-inch tube went against the outer thigh of my right leg, attached by a leather strap meant to go around your belt and snap shut, and another stout strap at the bottom that went around my leg. I buckled it on a little clumsily. It had been a long time. I stood and knelt a few times, getting the tightness right and making sure that the old leather was still sturdy. It was.
The second item was an eighteen-inch-long steel rod that was an inch-and-a-half in diameter. The bottom four inches were wrapped in sweat-darkened leather over crosscuts in the metal underneath.
A two-inch piece that was the same diameter as the shaft was welded to the side where the wrap ended, giving it the appearance of a tonfa, except that the short side handle was cut off square instead of rounded, and much too short.
I hadn’t had any desire to get fancy at the time, I just cut two pieces off of a thirty-foot section of steel construction stock and welded them together.
I wrapped my hand around the grip and squeezed the leather until it creaked. The heft of it felt good to me, although it would be uncomfortably heavy to any other man. I had kept it oiled and wrapped, but the metal had still developed a dark patina over the years.
Its metallic smell was at once familiar and disquieting for the memories it carried. I slipped the end through the metal ring on the holster and down into the snug leather tube at the bottom. Unlike the single belt loop that most batons or nightsticks were carried with, this rig would keep the weapon in place regardless of whether I was running, climbing, or even inverted.
Of course it was uncomfortable and awkward as all hell, but with bags around, I figured I could live with it one more time. I rolled up the empty duffel and stuck it in my clothes bag, then followed my nose to the kitchen.
When I walked in, Anne was already seated, and Henry was putting a big bowl of grits down on the table. The bowl stopped in midair as his eyes went from my face to my leg and back again. “Sleep well?” The bowl thumped down.
“Like a baby. Cranky and two hours at a time.”
He put an empty plate and a cup of coffee in front of me. “Like a big, ugly baby.”
“Granted. Morning, Anne.”
“What are you wearing on your leg?”
“It’s for my Teddy Roosevelt impression. Hey, you mentioned that Patty taught you to shoot. Can you handle my.45?”
She shrugged. “Yes, but I’m better with a nine or a.38. The recoil on the.45 is more than I like.” She grinned at me. “Because I’m so dainty.”
“Well,” said Henry, “I’m sure I can find you something that will better suit a lady of your refinement after breakfast.” If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.
“Thank you, Henry.”
Conversation drifted into small talk as we ate, as each of us tried to hold on to the pleasant mood of the morning. While Anne and Henry got acquainted, I mostly kept quiet and ate.
I can’t remember the last time I had real grits, but it was surely too long ago. They were creamy and buttery in just the right way and went perfectly with the fried eggs and thick slices of bacon that Henry served on top of them.
I was on my second plate when we heard the crunch of tires on gravel outside. “That would be Leon and his friend,” said Henry.
They came into the kitchen full of energy and testosterone. Both wore Marine BDUs, whose pixilated pattern of light and dark brown patches mixed with the occasional rectangle of blue looked strange and futuristic to me.
Leon dropped into a seat and was already reaching for a plate before he spoke. “Everybody, this is my buddy Carlos.”
“Hey.” Carlos gave me a friendly nod, then turned to Anne with a big smile. “And hello to you, sweet thing. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He was young, handsome, and obviously having fun. Anne rolled her eyes and laughed as he took her hand and kissed the back of it.
I turned to Henry. “Yeah, they’re Marines all right. Rangers have more class.” He laughed and slapped my palm.
“You got that right.”
“Just like the Army to call in the Marines when things get tough,” said Leon with a grin.
Carlos just shook his head sadly. “Some things will never change.”
The two men promptly settled in and inhaled the remaining six eggs, half pound of bacon, and pot of grits in five minutes flat.
“Still hungry?” asked Henry, who was apparently used to it.
“Nah, we had breakfast on the way here.”
“Of course you did.”
When we were done cleaning up the kitchen, Henry led us all outside. The morning air smelled green and fresh, and the sky was a deep clear blue. About a hundred yards behind his house was a square building made out of sheet metal on a wooden frame. It was about the size of a barn and it looked old. He opened the big padlock on the front door and let us inside, flipping on the overhead fluorescent lights as he entered.
Walking in, I was hit with the smell of machine oil and concrete dust. Two large worktables stood in the middle of the floor, and a desk was pushed into one corner. Four full-sized metal filing cabinets stood against another wall, and wooden shelves lined the entirety of the remaining two, the top shelves filled with books and binders, the bottom shelves stacked with boxes and small crates.
“Wait for me by that table there,” Henry said, indicating the larger of the two tables in the middle of the room. “I just need to get a few things.” He walked across the room in the slow, measured gait of the elderly and began pulling boxes off of a shelf.
“Didn’t you used to work on your tractor in here?” I asked.
“I did. But after I sold most of my acreage, I decided to get rid of it. Besides, this place makes a nice study. I have enough elbow room for my research.”
“Most people just take up a little woodworking in their golden years.”
“Oh, I do a little of that, too. I’ll make you a picture frame next time I see you.” He came back with a small wooden box perched on top of a larger metal one. He set them down on the table, and then opened the wooden one, his strangely young fingers quick and sure on the latch.
The first thing he pulled out was a small book bound in thin, supple leather. I recognized it as the ritual book that we had taken from Piotr all those years ago in the train yard. There were as many extra pages of handwritten notes sticking out of it as there were original pages.
“What’s that?” asked Anne.
I handed it to her and watched her thumb through it. The original pages were covered in a dense pattern of curling symbols. They looked sinuous, as if they were meant to convey some kind of disturbing twisting motion instead of words. You couldn’t help but follow the undulating pattern with your eyes, but I knew from experience that staring at it for too long would give you a blinding headache in short order.
The handwritten notes and diagrams were in Polish.
Henry gently took it back from her. “If you translate the Polish, you’ll see that these are just notations, not a full translation like we originally thought. So it appears that Piotr could read the original text. One interesting thing that he did mention in his notes, however, was the fact that this book was delivered to him by an unknown agency. He woke up one day to find it next to his bed, wrapped in leather, next to several additional items. The altar pieces for sure, and a few other things that are never mentioned by name in his notes.”
“And you don’t know who gave it to him?”
“We do not. There’s no other example of this writing in the world as far as I can tell, and Piotr himself doesn’t know. We had hoped that taking the instruction manual and the altar pieces would be the end of it, but it appears not.”
He reached back into the box. “I believe this is what you’re looking for.”
He removed a flat, quarter-circle of metal and set it face down on the table. Twin spikes four inches long jutted towards the ceiling. I picked it up gingerly and felt my lips involuntarily thin in disgust. It felt oily to the touch, as I remembered, even though it was bone dry. I found myself rubbing my fingers together to prove that there was nothing on them. It was heavy, as though made of lead, but I knew from experience that it was harder than anything we had tried to use to smash it. Sledgehammers would only make it skitter and bounce away, a drill press couldn’t bite into it, and we even discovered that a steel plate backed by a vice would simply be punctured by the spikes.
On its front side, bumps and sinuous ridges chased each other across the face. Disturbing patterns seemed to catch your eye in them, but they never quite resolved into anything you could name. Worse, the light always seemed to be moving subtly across the face of it, making small shadows in the depressions writhe, as if it were reflecting a dim light from elsewhere.
“Can I see it?” asked Anne. She had the back of one hand pressed to her upper lip.
“Sure. Bad smell?”
She took her hand away from her face and accepted the piece from me. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I don’t smell anything,” said Carlos.
“She’s just delicate.”
Anne turned it over in her hands. “What is it?”
“According to the journal, it's a transmitter. Or part of one, anyway,” said Henry. “We think you need all four to broadcast, judging from the way we found it.”
“Meaning?” she said absently, as she ran her thumb across the depressions.
“Four of them together make a circle. We found four men nailed to a big wooden table. The feet of each man pointed toward one of the cardinal compass points, but their heads were together in the middle of the table, almost touching. Those spikes on the back were pushed through their eyes.”
The piece rang as Anne threw it down onto the table. She rubbed her hands on her pants. “Jesus.”
“The circle was resting across the eyes of the sacrifices. They were still breathing, even though those spikes must have gone deep into their brains. We tried to free them from the table, but as soon as the pieces stopped touching each other, they all died.”
Carlos looked at Leon. “No shit?”
Leon shrugged. “If that’s what the man says, then that’s what happened. Hell, it’s probably not even the weirdest thing he’s got stashed away in here.”
Carlos looked around the barn, a little wild eyed. “That’s great.”
A picture of that table, black and sticky with blood, flashed in front of my eyes. I still see it in my dreams sometimes. I remembered prying long nails out of one man’s arms and legs, and then the horrified screaming when we jostled the men enough for the metal pieces to stop touching. They didn’t die right away. First they screamed like I’ve never heard anyone scream before or since, as if their mouths and lungs simply couldn’t expel the terror and panic fast enough. Then each of them clawed at the plates where their eyes would be and died. I don’t know what they saw when looking through those metal pieces, but the shock of it is what killed them, not the spikes.
Leon looked at me across the table. “You say men are coming to get this part of the transmitter or radio or whatever it is?”
“And soon. I expect that the original owner is ready to put them to use again.”
“Fuck that shit. No way they’re getting it.”
“Hell yeah, brother,” said Carlos. “They messin’ with the wrong boys this time.”
Anne pointed a finger at Carlos. “These guys are really dangerous. Don’t get all cocky.”
Carlos laughed. “You worried about me, sweet thing? I’m touched. But me and Leon here got it covered. We’re Recon, baby, baddest of the bad. We’ll keep you safe, and you can think of a way to thank me afterwards.”
“I have no doubt you can handle yourselves,” I said, before Anne could start in on him, “but she’s right. Think junkie loaded up on PCP. You’re going to need a headshot to put them down for good, or at the very least knees and hips to get them on the floor.”
Carlos crossed his arms and leaned back from the table. “You’re shittin’ me.”
“No,” said Anne. “I’ve seen it. One of these guys killed my grandfather, and Abe shot him right in the chest. He didn’t even slow down.”
“Well, junkie or no junkie, I got a little something for him out in the truck.” He laughed and bumped fists with Leon.
Anne’s head snapped up and her eyes focused beyond the door towards the house. Seconds later, I heard the roar of an engine followed by the dull grinding sound of locked tires sliding to a stop on the loose gravel. “I don’t think you’re going to have time to get your surprise ready for the party. They’re here.”