We looked from each other to all around us as the room shook. The various pictures that dotted the walls began to fall off, causing them to crack and break. We held on for dear life to our chairs and pulled our feet inward to protect them. Then as suddenly as the earthquake began, it tapered off till nothing more could be felt. We cautiously set our feet back on the ground, feeling for any vibrations, and slowly stood.
“What in the world do you suppose that was?” I asked Deb, who looked as bewildered as I felt.
“I….I don’t know. You don’t think it has anything to do with the offerings to the Twins do you?” She asked me in return.
“I don’t know, it is possible though, it’s mid day after all. What exactly is the offering they gave? Do you know?” I asked in response as I walked over to the windows and looked out.
“The same offering the master chief gave in the story. They are to cast to the winds offerings of ground white corn, shells from the creatures of the water, pollen from our best flowers, and the war paint we used in older days.” Then she added, “Then they take decorated plume sticks up to the mountains and complete a ceremony, then they use them to mark the sacred sites and leave them there to appease the Twins.” She answered following me to the window.
“Once this is done, what happens then?” I asked her yet another question.
“They come back to us and we are to go from there.” Deb told me.
So we waited for their return, cleaning up the broken glass and pictures. I had never really taken the time to look at them, but now as we cleaned I began to take note of them. Hopefully I would be able to gradually decipher them in time based on things I would learn about the town and its residents. After a couple of hours, the men came back to the hotel and I ran to let them back in. Once inside I could see from the expressions on their faces and their wide eyes something had happened on those mountains, something extraordinary. I ushered them to sit in the now cleaned up sitting room. Deb and I sat on the couch opposite to Nathaniel, and eagerly awaited his story.
“What happened on the mountain?” I started. “We heard and felt a great earthquake!”
Trying to find the words Nathaniel sat there speechless for a moment, and then he said, “The Twin gods came to the mountain! We gave them our offerings and it appealed to their better nature. They came down in spirit, like a bright flame, and they told us what to do to kill the cannibal demons.”
Deb and I looked again to each other excited to hear more. Then Deb asked something in her native tongue that I did not understand, and Nathaniel nodded in response, causing Deb to become excited and exclaim, “The gods are truly generous!”
“What? What happened then?” I asked, Deb’s excitement rubbing off on me.
“They came to the peak of the mountain and breathed into the nostrils of us all, giving to us much wisdom and strength, hallowing our weapons and giving them power! We know now how to defeat the demons that walk this land, and they have lent us a bit of their strength to accomplish this task.” Nathaniel told me.
Now I was all ears, as if I hadn’t been before, but even more so now if that is even possible. “How do we kill them?
He looked at each of the men sitting in our semi circle around himself and said, “The men and I will wait till dark, when they decide to come around, and we will take the bows and arrows and clubs made for us by our people, the very same ones that the Twins hallowed, and we will attack them as they come! Then we are to bring their corpses to the mountains and leave them to the Twins to do with as they wish.”
Deb was in awe, and I must admit something within me was as well. I didn’t know the ancient stories that Deb did or of the power that the tribe yielded, but something within me understood and took great joy in the knowledge that some things, while not known, can be absolutely amazing and powerful far beyond comprehension. We all sat in silence for a moment, and contemplated what was needed to prepare for the coming of the demons and evil spirits, and no one said a word for a good long while. I finally broke the silence and asked quietly to Deb and Nathaniel,
“What can I do to help? I want to be able to help and support you in some way since it is my family’s and the town’s fault that all this was brought about.”
Nathaniel looked at me with kindness and understanding and said, “Do not worry, I haven’t forgotten you or Deb. We will need someone brave enough to be the bait in capturing the demons so we can kill them. Only, though, if you are up to the task.”
I sat up straighter in my seat and stiffened my jaw, holding my head up high, and with a deep sigh said, “I am more than up to the task. It would be my honor to be chosen to help you if I can.”
It was settled then. We decided that on that night, as the sun set and dusk came about, we would go through the town and wherever we saw the demons, we would trap them into the alleyways for slaughter. Deb’s and my job was to be the bait, and lure the demons and spirits to the alleys with sweet scented meats from various animals, and once on the alleyways, we would flee from them out the back and the men would lay siege upon them. At least 3 men were to be at the end of each alleyway and we were to double back and cut the demons off at the front, with bitter smelling herbs and sage, salting the earth in lines behind and in front of us as we went, since the evil spirits of the world cannot stand the purity of salt. The closer it became to dusk the more anxious I became. Soon it was time to leave the hotel. Locking the doors behind us, we set about our mission.
We all headed out into the night, ever vigilant and wary. We knew all it would take was once slip up and the whole thing could go awry. As our group split up into the different directions, Deb and I stayed close together, our arms clasped so as not to lose one another in the twilight, when shapes and shadows can look like any number of fearsome things. As we walked together, with sticks filled with gamey smelling meat, we traveled from the hotel to the edge of town. Once at the edge, we turned and stood for a moment, then slowly began our walk from one end to the other, watching for any sign of movement as we went. Soon we began to hear a rustling from behind us.
We turned sharply and glanced behind us, and for a moment I thought I could see a shadow move in the distance. The longer I stared the less movement I saw. After a few moments we turned and continued about our way. When we were in and around the center of town, the wind picked up, and on the wind we heard a loud bellowing, as if somebody was crying out for someone in the heavens to hear. We grew afraid then, of the fierce bellow and of the creature that made it. As the wind died down, there came yet again a rustling sound, but this time it was accompanied by the fast padding of feet. We turned yet again, this time to behold one of the demons, come from the shadows and as it neared us, it shifted from a black form into a fearsome giant before our eyes. In that moment, all I could think was how the entry from the red binder, didn’t do the beast justice. We turned and ran then for the nearest alleyway, hoping we could reach it in time.
The demon was terrible to behold. It was as the stories had said. A giant man with bulging, bloodshot eyes, covered in porcupine like quills and black and white scales, ugly as could be, his smile stretching from ear to ear, yellowed and sharp. My heart began to pound out of my chest as we ran to the ally. Holding hands with Deb we at last came to the entrance of the alleyway, and we dropped our sticks and fled around to the other side, but not before lining the exit with salt. We heard a loud cry come then from the night. We sprinted around the back of the post office to the front of the alley and laid salt down there. Then we lit the bundles of herbs and sage and waved at the demon, who was now trapped in between us and the tribesmen. Nathaniel stood tall and strong in the dark, as he pulled an arrow back in his bow, and loosed it before we could even blink.
The arrow sailed through the air, before piercing the chest of the demon, straight through to the heart. The great giant fell as his heart gave out, and with a great crash and thump hit the ground so hard it made the pebbles and stones tremble at our feet. Before we had time to cheer or congratulate one another, we heard another cannibal demon and another, one close by and one further away. Now was our time to catch more. We broke the line of salt in the sandy dirt and ran to through the streets to the next alley.
The next demon was on us before we had time to catch our breaths. The third was fast also and came towards us from the front and the second from the back. In the blink of an eye I ran forward and Deb ran back. We separated then, not by choice, rather by mistake, and headed in different directions. I ran fast as I could then to the next alley between the hotel and the pharmacy. I tried to get there in time but was cut off by the now chuckling demon. I ran in the opposite direction trying to get away from him. I paid too much attention to the speed of my steps rather than where they lead as I watched the demon over my shoulder. When I finally had the chance to turn around, I noticed that I was right on the town line, before I could stop, I tripped over my own two feet, as I have been frequently known to do, and fell whole bodied across the line. I heard a scream from behind me as well as other voices shouting and carrying on, and a feminine voice call out my name. I hit the ground with a hard knock, headfirst against a flat rock, a surge of pain exploding through my head.
When I came to, I was back at the hotel, in my room, my head pounding and my vision blurry. I tried to sit up but couldn’t from the pain. I heard a woman’s voice say,
“She’s awake! Go get Nathaniel!” As I heard footsteps leading down the hall to the lobby.
Before I could see straight, the same person leaned over me, and said, “Just hold on, be still, you’re alright, you’re safe now.”
I lay there for a few moments longer, rubbing my eyes to try and stimulate them to work again, my arms heavy and hard to lift. That’s when I heard two sets of footsteps out in the hall coming to my room. I heard the first voice speak again, which I now recognized to be Lilly’s.
“It’s ok Nathaniel has dressed your wounds and has made you comfortable.” She said.
“Autumn, Autumn can you hear us?” A second voice belonging to Nathaniel asked.
“Yes I can,” I uttered in response, still groggy and my mind unclear. “What happened?”
“You took a fall, and fell headfirst into a great rock. You have a nasty bump and scrape on your head, but otherwise are fine.” Nathaniel answered.
Then a third person added, “We got separated, and things went wrong, but we got them, we got all the demons. We didn’t find you till everything was over. We almost began to think you had been eaten.” It was Deb.
“When did you get here?” I asked turning my head in the direction of Lilly’s voice.
“I came back to let you know about rebuilding the hotel, but you weren’t inside and the doors were locked, that’s when I heard the yelling and shouting, I saw you fall and rushed as close as I could to the town line but I couldn’t reach you since you went over it. I thought you were dead.”
“Why would you think that?” I asked her, my vision beginning to return as the minutes passed.
“Once you enter the town, if you are a member of the townspeople or our family, you can never leave alive. Many of the caretakers have tried only to wind up dead as a result. I thought you were too. In fact, I truly don’t understand how you are still alive.”
“I don’t either. It is quite strange.” Added Nathaniel.
“Well let’s all just be happy she is alright. We can look into that another time, how about we just let her rest for now.” Deb said.
So they allowed me to rest and left the room, turning out the lights as they went. Now I was as perplexed as they were. I knew I could never leave the town, and even though I was liked by the native peoples, it didn’t change my heritage or my fate. So how was I able to fall over the town line and come back to it alive and without any lasting damage? I didn’t know the answer to this question, but it rattled in my mind till I was finally able to fall asleep. I would definitely be revisiting this incident in the morning for sure.
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