Chapter Thirty-Nine: Go. Faster. (Patreon)

Valerie must have followed my gaze and seen the ripples in the puddle.

“We have to get out of here now,” she said. “Run!”

We started running before we even knew what was chasing us. By the time we were halfway back to the truck, that had become clear.

I glanced back over my shoulder and saw booths and carnival games went flying through the air behind us.

As the dust settled, I caught my breath and tried to make sense of the chaos around me. Suddenly, my eyes were drawn to a towering figure in the distance. 

It had been a thirty-foot-tall statue of a man, but now it was something else entirely - a monstrous gargoyle, with malformed wings that stretched outwards as if trying to attain flight if only they were able.

I could see the pain etched into its human face, twisted into an agonized grimace. Its long, pointed teeth gleamed menacingly in the low light, and its claws too long for its hands. It moved like it was roaring, but no sound came out.

It was Bartholomew Geist. In the flesh.

As I watched in horror, the Grotesque stepped forward, its massive form casting a shadow in the starlight. Its eyes seemed to glow with an otherworldly fire, and I could feel the ground tremble beneath my feet as it moved.

The stench of death and decay filled my nostrils as the creature flapped its useless wings. The sound was deafening, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.

In the face of such a monster, I felt powerless.

As I watched it destroy everything in its path, I couldn't help but wonder if there was anything that could stop it. All I could do was hope that I would survive long enough for us to figure it out.

Survival was possible, only just, thanks to Reggie’s sacrifice. None of us had to die in this scene… but how would we get away?

Valerie tried to light another of the Molotov cocktails. She handed it to Arthur in hopes that he would be able to do more with it than she could. As the creature approached us, its thunderous footsteps and the claws that had replaced its hands created chasms in the earth.

The Molotov cocktail landed on one of its feet. Arthur fired his gun and managed to chip off a section of stone on its foot that had been solidified. He might as well have done nothing. The giant statue didn’t notice.

“Drive,” Valerie said, tossing me the keys that she had found.

As we approached the spotlight and truck, Arthur said, “Help me get the generator in the back of the truck,” to Valerie.

I jumped into the driver's seat. I wasn't a good choice to drive, but I was a bad choice for any part of this story.

Valerie and Arthur hoisted the generator up into the back of the truck. Valerie got up in the back with it and started rifling through Arthur's guns before finding his large shotgun.

I waited to see where Arthur was going to ride but he never came around to the cab nor did he jump up in the back of the truck before Valerie smacked the roof and yelled “Go go go.”

I floored it.

The little truck was not designed to go quickly. I tried to coax every single ounce of speed out of it as I guided the truck up onto the road. I still didn't know where Arthur was.

Until I heard him screaming.

I saw the spotlight moving around behind us. Arthur was laying down on the small trailer that the spotlight was attached to.

He was aiming the light.

It took only seconds for the creature to catch us. If you watched it move, it looked like it was very slowly, lumbering about. However, it was moving at an incredible distance because of its long limbs. It started chasing us down the road.

It was hard to focus on driving when I was so concerned about that thing following us. I floored the little truck, but this wasn't a performance model. It was designed to be fuel efficient.

In the bed of the truck, Valerie was letting off shots left and right. Every time Arthur would turn part of the creature to stone, she would try to get a hit in.

At first, I thought she was wasting ammo but then I realized her plan.

The road between the fairground and the church was curvy. Getting a straight shot on the creature was therefore very difficult because as we went around a curve Arthur had to try to steer the light and keep it on the creature.

As fast as I could drive the Grotesque was gaining on us.

“Go. Faster.” Arthur said very loudly and very sternly from behind me.

“It doesn't go faster!” I yelled back.

After a moment or two to think, Arthur responded, “Slow down.”

Why the fuck would I want to do that?

But I did. He had a high savvy and if he had a plan, I was more than willing to see if it could work out.

I slowed down a hair. I tried to keep an eye in the rearview mirror to see what it was he was doing. Previously he had kept shining the light in the creature's face hoping to blind it or at the very least keep it from biting into us.

Now he was aiming for the legs.

Genius.

I slowed down even more. The limbs were a tough target

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Its footsteps were louder and louder as I slowed down. This had better work.

I couldn't tell what was happening behind me, but I thought that Arthur must have successfully turned one of its legs to stone because I heard a loud crack followed by a sound that I could only describe as “unscheduled demolition of building”.

The creature had fallen.

In my rearview mirror, I saw that one of its legs had snapped off.

That was Arthur's plan. Turning it to stone and shooting it wouldn't easily work on something this size but if you could turn one of its limbs to stone and then wait for it to try to put weight on it then he could use the creature's own weight against it causing it to break itself.

Still, the creature pursued us now on all fours trying to compensate for its broken limb.

It would be harder for that tactic to work again now that its weight was more evenly distributed among its 3 limbs and one partial leg.

Still, Arthur kept at it.

Crack.

Three of the creature's fingers broke off. Somehow with the pressure that was placed on them, one of them actually jumped into the air and overtook the car landing on the road in front of me.

Meanwhile, Valerie had spent at least 10 shots. I wasn't sure how much ammo she even had for that gun. I got the sense that she was trying to get down to the last bullet.

We had a huge advantage when cornering now because of its destroyed limbs. I took the initiative and sped up a little hoping to give us a little time for the next tactic.

The church was right up ahead, we only had a few hundred more yards before we had to turn. I didn't know what would happen if this thing was still alive when we got to the church, but I had a feeling it would tear the place down looking for us.

Eventually, Valerie announced the phrase that I'd been waiting for her to say for most of the drive.

“I've only got one slug left!” She said.

I slowed down. It might not have been enough for the audience to tell but I'm sure that Arthur and Valerie could. In the rearview mirror, I saw Arthur aiming this spotlight up at the creature’s face.

“Better make it count!” he yelled.

As the creature’s face turned to stone, Valerie took aim and fired her last shotgun shell.

The round entered the creature's mouth and exited out the back of its neck creating a profound crack and explosion as the remaining tissue was not strong enough to hold up the weight of the head.

The head snapped off and fell to the ground, smashing against the concrete.

After the worst drive of my life, I turned into the church’s entrance.

Behind me, Arthur had somehow managed to turn the spotlight around and aim it up ahead at the top of the church.

The large, winged creature that had been there was gone.

Before we got too close to the church, I spun the wheel so that I could turn the entire truck around and have the spotlight in range to aim at the door of the building.

As we arrived, dozens of Grotesques burst from the door ready to come for us.

The spotlight created a roadblock, as much as they struggled to come forward they could never push beyond the pile of gargoyles that built up in front of them.

That wasn't a huge relief.

Because we were about to go in that building.