Crimson Shore

In the rest, they found the living: whole families cowering in basements, or hiding in the attic or in various closets, so terrified they could hardly move or speak. And when they did, they spoke of glimpsing a creature: a demon with a tail and a dog’s face. His men duly took down the information, shaking their heads with disbelief. In the storm, the darkness, and the power outage, no one seemed to have gotten a good look at it — at least, no one who survived.

In the thick of battles in Iraq, Rivera had experienced a kind of chaotic, collective terror, in which events were so fast-moving and scrambled that afterward nobody could say what had really happened. That seemed to be the case here. The survivors had nothing to say that was reliable or credible, even though their recollections were remarkably consistent on certain points. If only he could find someone who had gotten a good, long look at the killer…

As if on cue, Rivera heard a shout. Lurching from behind a house staggered the figure of a man, not exactly drunk, but not exactly sober, either: wild-eyed, shouting and waving. He spied Rivera and came rushing over, arms outspread, and before Rivera could react the figure had enveloped him in a panicked hug, like a drowning man clasping his rescuer. “Thank God, thank God!” he screamed. “It’s the end times. The demons have been unleashed from hell!” Despite all that Rivera could do, the man knocked him down in his desperation.

Two members of his team came to Rivera’s assistance and helped wrest the man off him, pinning him to the ground. He continued to thrash and shout.

Rivera rose, then bent over him, trying to speak in a calming voice. “What is your name?”

This was answered with a fresh gust of shouting. “What does it matter?” The man cried inconsolably. “The world is ending; nobody will have a name now!”

Rivera leaned closer and steadied the man’s face with his hand. “I’m here to help you. My name’s Lieutenant Rivera. What is your name?”

The man began to emerge from his mindless panic. He stared at Rivera, eyes bugging, sweat streaming down his face.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Rivera went on calmly. “I want you to listen. Are you hearing me? Nod if you understand.”

The man stared and finally nodded.

“Your name, please?”

A croak. “Boyle.”

“Mr. Boyle, are you hurt

?”

The man shook his head.

“What did you see?”

He began to tremble. “Too much.”

“Tell me.”

“A… demon.”

Rivera swallowed. “Could you please describe the attacker?”

“It… he… came down the street… He was running… And making a sound. He kept saying the same thing over and over again… ”

“What was he saying?”

“Something like son, son… He was horrible, gigantic, seven feet tall. He had a dog’s snout. Rotten teeth. Naked. Horrible yellow skin. And he stank. He stank like shit.”

“Naked? In this weather?”

“Yes. And… he had a tail.”

“A tail?” This was disappointing; the man was going to be about as useful as the others.

“A horrible tail, not like a real tail, it was dragging around behind him like a snake. And he had hands, giant hands that ripped people apart like they were nothing more than… ” He was overtaken by a violent fit of trembling. “Oh, God… Oh, God!

”

Rivera shook his head and rose. “Get this man into an ambulance. He’s not sane.”

52

Gavin’s gun went flying as the creature seized his wrist; he drew Gavin toward him with a growl, twisting the wrist hard as he did so. There was a faint crackle of tendons. Gavin grimaced in pain but did not scream; he stared, as if in shock.

Constance remained frozen. So this, she thought with a strange detachment, is Morax — the demon. And yet it was human, or mostly so. A tall man with a dreadfully deformed face: a prognathic snout, with projecting teeth that pushed out from behind rubbery lips, and a sloped forehead with a massive sagittal crest that rose up like a bony Mohawk across his knobby skull. His skin was sallow and streaked with filth, his yellow skin puckered with pustules, scabs, and a thousand tiny scars; his eyes were a dark orangey brown; his body was ropy; he was bald and naked; and his stink filled the perfumed confines of the altar room. But the tail — the tail — was what most arrested her attention. It wasn’t a typical animal tail, but rather a long rope of pink flesh that was utterly limp, its club-like end bristling with wiry hairs. The tail had no life; it dragged behind him like a flaccid, paralyzed limb.

The man gripped Gavin’s wrist with a hand as massive as a bear paw, with spade-like fingers terminating in brown nails. He stared at Gavin, his pupils contracted with hate. The two seemed momentarily frozen in a grotesque tableau.

And then the creature made a sound, an angry hissing sound, which broke the spell.

Gavin, wincing, spoke with remarkable presence of mind. “It’s all right, Morax. Everything’s going to be fine. You’re home now. Let go of me, please.”