Marker of Faith

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

"Hey, Rattle! Come over here, man!" A young wino in a ragged army jacket, bandannas tied all over the sleeves, motioned to a much older man pushing a cart down the sidewalk. He waved impatiently, but the old man ignored him.

"Man, I mean it! Get your lame, Night Train ass over here!" he yelled again. The shadows from the overhead bridge obscured the look of glee on his face.

Rattle shuffled behind the cart a little faster, his long tangled hair and scruffy beard fluttering in the breeze, and came to a twitching halt next to the bandanna wearer.

"Lem, I don't need no sorry-assed, lighter fluid drinkin', scab-faced, Dead Head wannabe tellin' me what to do. I got me my own agenda." Rattle stepped out from behind his cart to see what was the big deal. His breath caught in his throat, then the smell hit him.

"Oh shit," was all he managed. On the ground before him lay fragmented remains: recently shattered, but still clearly a human being. Rattle staggered and then stumbled away from the corpse, retching violently, his wine induced haze lifting with each spasm. The old man's clearing mind focused on survival, and he turned to face his friend.

"Lem! We gotta book! We ain't gettin' blamed for this!" Rattle started forward, intending to drag Lem away if he had to, but stopped mid-stride. Little alarms were going off in the old man's head -- there was something worse than the mutilation.

The muggy air prickled against Rattle's skin, doing nothing for the chill bouncing down his spine. It was summer but he felt ice in the darkness under the bridge around him. Flies, drawn by the scent of rot and death, swarmed the corpse, their drones a companion to the stench. The odor was staggering -- sulfurous and coppery-- so strong that Rattle could taste something bitter and evil on his tongue.

The old man stared at Lem, sensing the change in his friend, the creeping madness slowly taking over, and every instinct told Rattle that he should run, but he couldn't. He wouldn't leave the boy behind.

Rattle held out his hand, beckoning the dazed wino forward, but Lem didn't respond; he was transfixed by the dead body in front of him and had a faraway look on his young, but haggard face. His shoulders shook, the bandannas swaying back and forth in a macabre dance as Lem slowly looked up with a feral smile that twisted his face.

"The day of reckoning is upon us!" Lem threw his head back and howled like a mad man. It spurred Rattle into action and he leapt forward, putting one hand over Lem's mouth to stifle the bizarre yelps and cries while he grabbed him around the waist and hauled the boy away from the pieces of corpse.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Lem?" He dropped the younger man onto the pavement a few feet back. "What the hell you thinkin'? That blood is fresh, those pieces of person were probably whole a few hours ago, and if you keep screamin' and howlin', people is gonna come to see why." Rattle hauled Lem up by the collar and turned him to face the gory mass of body parts.

"See that?" he said gruffly in Lem's ear. "That's some crazy shit we don't need no part of." He gave the boy's collar a rough shake.

Lem looked up, all insanity banished for the moment, and then his eyes drifted back slowly over the tattered corpse. The same strange smile appeared and he whispered fiercely at the terrified old man.

"It's happening, Rattle. They're here now...I can feel Them." Lem put his hand on Rattle's arm. "You need to put me down now 'cause I got me some work to do. I thought you'd know about this, about Them," he said wistfully, "but you don't."

Rattle let go of Lem's collar and took a step back. The old man looked to the body, over the ruined torso and shredded clothing, and once again his breath caught in his throat, as if invisible hands were pinching him all over, reaching inside his chest and squeezing out the life. He stared in horror at the stump of neck where, surprisingly, the least amount of blood in the whole gory mass enhanced the body's identity: a priest's collar. Rattle stumbled back, riding another wave of nausea.

Lem stepped forward and picked up the priest's arm with its hand in a fist, setting off a flurry of flies that buzzed around him like a cloak. Rattle moaned as the boy pried open the clenched, dead fingers to retrieve a rosary.

"Oh, sweet Jesus.... Lem, come on, man. Don't do this!" Rattle backed away as Lem started pulling off the beads, one by one, and dropping them onto the pieces of the dismembered holy man.

Dizzy, with a burning pain in his chest, Rattle watched in mute terror as the boy further defiled the priest's corpse.

Lem whispered, but the words were unclear, disturbing and venomous. Unclean. Something was building underneath the words: a pulsing hum, a vibration that was almost visible in the air around the living man and the dead priest; dark and foreboding with writhing shadows taking form and purpose. Lem grasped the remaining crucifix tightly, squeezing and massaging it until blood trickled through his fingers.

Rattle was in danger -- more danger than anything he had faced since his multiple tours of duty in Vietnam or his crazy life on the streets. The world thrummed around him with the shadows inching towards him from the dead body. Worst of all, Rattle recognized that Lem was now looking at him the same way he'd looked at the priest moments before.

Rattle turned and bolted for the sunlight, for traffic, for the security of the real world. He ran as fast as he could, knowing full well that if he stopped, his friend, Lem, that burned out little drug-soaked hippie that he'd helped on the street, who he had taken under his wing and protected, would rip him limb-from-limb and spread him out all over the ground the same way that poor dead priest had been left for the world to find.

Rattle ran all the way towards the main street, and kept running, until the pain in his chest spread down his left arm and he finally collapsed in a gasping heap in front of an espresso cart.

The last thing Rattle saw before darkness came for him was Lem, with the bloodied rosary's crucifix jammed through the palm of his left hand, standing at the edge of the gathering crowd. He held it up and gave a sinister wave 'bye-bye' to Rattle.

The old man shut his eyes and slipped mercifully into unconsciousness.