Marker of Faith

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 44

As they drove, the sun crept up from behind, fighting its way through the darkness enveloping the town. The city had a cold, deserted feel enhanced by an icy mist that hung like a shroud over the road. It was like pushing through shadowy spider silk, and John drove slowly, inching along because of the poor visibility; the yellow lines in the road disappeared into the gloom barely five feet ahead of the front bumper. The lights overhead winked out one by one on both sides of the street as the car passed by, either from the approaching daylight or as a herald of the Old Ones; John hoped for the former. The mist coiled in tighter around the car, and John slowed to a crawl.

Minerva said, "John, don't slow down!" just as a hand shot out of the fog and slapped at the windshield. Something grabbed at the outside passenger door handle, the metallic click rattling through the sedan as the lever inside jerked next to Roddy. He slammed down the lock and grabbed for the shotgun with his other hand.

"We've got company, folks!" Rattle was fighting to keep his door closed as more phantom hands beat at the windows, cracking the glass. His door lock kept popping up and he kept slamming the button down again, Minerva doing the same on her side. In the headlights, hazy forms took shape and crowded in around the car to create a blockade. A few familiar faces caught John's eye and he gasped. Officers Nielson and Cooper, apparently part of the Chief's missing personnel problem, were linked arm-in-arm with the rest of the Shadow Army and chanting taunts at the car. There were other cops in the mix, most of them John recognized, and despite that he felt a brief surge of relief that Wilkes wasn't in the crowd.

A cold detachment settled over John, numbing him for what he was about to do. The Shadow Army was fair game now, the former people now gone and replaced with these dark shells. He stomped on the gas pedal and braced for the impact against the front grill, but nothing happened; no thumps of bodies under the tires. Instead the mist swirled away and around the sedan, carrying the sound of whispers and maniacal laughter in its wake.

"They're learning." John snapped.

"I don't think so," Minerva said, pointing at the windshield. "Something's not right, they're just toying with us."

Roddy said, "Great," and tightly gripped the shotgun.

The car was filling with mist, the tendrils snaking through the cracked windshield and carrying in the smell of decay. Little pockets of shadows formed around the interior, flesh and bone lumps that hung in the air then dissolved away to mist again. Minerva screamed as a face with a serpentine tongue poking out of a crude parody of a mouth materialized next to her. She swatted it away and it exploded, showering her in a foul spray heavy with the scent of the void.

Up in front, a shadow man pushed halfway through the passenger door without enough substance to do anything yet but lurch across Roddy's lap, flopping and twitching as it tried to materialize. The M.E. jerked the shotgun up to fire point blank into its face, but the gun mired in the shadow's transitioning body, hanging up like a shoe stuck in a bog. Roddy gagged at the feeling of his hand caught in the forming flesh; it was warm and soupy. The man's body was becoming whole, living, incorporating Roddy's arm and trying to suck him in.

"Holy fuck, get it off me!"

John punched the man in the head, sometimes passing through the gooey flesh, while Rattle tried to get Roddy loose from the seatbelt, at the same time kicking at the torso still trapped in the door. The car weaved wildly back and forth across the road as John steered one-handed and punched with the other.

The shadow arched its body, raising the head level with Roddy's face and laughed at him. Its face formed fully and Roddy recoiled as he recognized the man -- it was one of the morgue techs.