written by Nicole Elmer, image collaborations w/ midjourney

PART ONE…DISCOVERY…

Your older brother, Martin, is missing. Shreds of his favorite shirt of death metal band, Immolation, lay on the ground. Blood soaked. And strange feathers too. Sticky shiny black ones. You call for Martin. No reply. Just the wind rattling the busted window behind you...

You look out back of the house but there are no signs of him. You hop on Uncle Ronnie’s precious motorcycle. He’s won’t know. He’s drunk at the only bar in Dog Patch anyway. You take a chance, speed away on the damp night roads, off to a place deep in the forest you both loved where you and Martin spent hours as kids. The place where you once found your beloved brother near death, his mouth full of sticky bitter pills only the doctors knew how to pronounce...

You stop. Get off the bike. Wrap your leather jacket and run into the forest. The motorcycle headlights grow distant behind you. Things are not like you remember from childhood. The old rusted out cars? Why so many broken motorcycles? The animal bones? How the hell did anyone drive out here anyway with trees as dense as these?…

Then the smell. Something burning. This is the Pacific Northwest during a typical damp winter. Nothing burns out here. The smell is not from a fireplace. It’s thicker. Like burned hair. Meat. You gag. That’s when you see it. A figure of some sort. Then it disappears.

PART TWO…THE HOLE…

You blink. The figure is there again. Can it see you? “Martin!” You call. But you know it isn’t him. Still, you step forward, curious, even if the smell of something foul burning is nauseating. 

Rounding a thick fir tree, you face the source of the burn. Bones. Skin of things you don’t recognize. Empty eye sockets from disfigured animal skulls. Then a wave of smoke comes. You turn away, gagging, to spot an effigy of some sort. In fact, as you look around, you notice all of these things had been put here, arranged, by someone with a purpose. Like offerings to a god. A god of what? Not of any you know, any you and Martin turned away from when you were kids. That god was cruel and aloof. Is this one no less? Is this why it requires such things?

You don’t wait to find out. You turn and run back in the direction you came but slip. Damn pine needles. Damn rain. A scream escapes you as the sensation of falling comes. 

You land with a bounce. The ground is soft. The layers of pine needles there have softened the blow. You blink, catch your breath, and stand. The ridge of the hole you stumbled into is easily ten feet above. As you look about for a tree root with which to pull yourself out, the moonlight highlights a piece of a shirt. Martin’s Immolation band shirt. The blood in the fibers is still wet. He’s here. Somewhere.

“Martin!” You scream in the darkness of this hole. “Martin! Fuck! Where are you?” A light appears before you just as you hear the scrambling of animals.The flapping of wings. As the light brightens, vultures come your way. Opossums and raccoons move over the cave floor, unaware of you as they all crawl out of the hole from which you fell.

Then. From far in that tunnel someone calls. “Innkeeper?”

PART THREE… THE DOG…

Something else heads your way. You hide in the shadows as it flies by, screeching. 

“Innkeeper!” It’s that deep voice again from afar. Wet. You can only imagine the face that owns it. The light from the tunnel grows dim, like a door is closing. You run to it. If Martin is anywhere, he’s back there. 

The ground shakes as you spot a dark entrance and enter. The stench of sewage lasts only a minute. You are back in your town, Dog Patch. A place never free of rain, with the steel mill churning like a mechanical heart. But is it really Dog Patch? As you walk, you spot a large dog. It moves with repetitive jerks. An automaton. 

You walk past it as you run smack into something and fall, look around. There is nothing. You stand, feel the area to find an invisible barricade. It’s like fish skin. You step back and run into the same thing. No matter where you go, you hit the same barricade. In fact, it’s closing in, making sucking noises. 

“Innkeeper!” The dog asks from a small speaker in its ribs.

You approach the dog. It might have answers. For its eyes there are two dark lightbulbs. You panic as you feel the space closing. You spot a coin slot under the dog’s neck. You reach into your pocket to find a quarter. Fumbling, you pull it out, force it into the slot. The membrane stops sucking. The dog spits out a piece of paper. It’s an old fortune telling card with the image of you and Martin embracing. On the other side is Martin, dead, a sword through his neck. 

This is not the future! You rip the card. The dog moves, fur shaking loose to reveal its mechanical skeleton. The bulbs in its skull glow.

“The Innkeeper reins in the dead.” That dog grovels, lowers its head. You glance at the ripped card, pick up the pieces. Putting them together reveals an image of an old hotel where a lone person stands behind each window. Martin is one of those souls, on the sixth floor. A bald woman sweeps the entry. A key ring hangs from her neck. The Innkeeper!

You know this hotel. Well. It’s where whores do business, metal heads and punks play, and where the addicts to Light Speed congregate.

Pocketing the card, you run to Main Street. It’s time to find the Innkeeper.

PART FOUR…THE HOTEL…

Behind you, the automaton dog retreats. Main Street in this place is no different than the one in Dog Patch. Crooked buildings caked with soot. Colorful graffiti is the only beauty here, something the Punks have mastered.

In front of the pawn shop is Painted Willy who will Sharpie your horoscope on his stomach if you pay him. Just down the block are Hecate and Betty. Owners of the best metal bar in Dog Patch.

Then you hear sweeping. The Innkeeper.

You turn a corner, spot the hotel and the floor where you saw Martin in the card. The window is empty but a light is on. You push past the Innkeeper. She presses her broomstick against your heart, snarls. She will not let you pass, but there are other ways in. 

In the alley, you approach a door near a reeking dumpster. You open the door, find yourself in an open market. What? This was the musicians’ load in for the real hotel. You enter, overwhelmed by a meat stench. Vendors are everywhere. They push their wares. All made of something once alive.

“Offerings for the Feathered One!” Some say.

“100 bucks.” A fat man says over a jar of entrals. 

“For an intestine?” You ask.

“It will keep the Feathered One satiated for weeks. Longer than the other low quality shit here.”

“Cheaper here, boy.” Another vendor says. He grinds bones into balls, has jars full of them.

“Bullshit.” Another says.

You don’t waste time listening to them. A commotion coming from the stairs has your attention. You run. On the sixth floor, you duck into a supply closet. Through the crack in the door two you see two creatures drag a man from a room. He is rail thin, clutches a set of fresh ribs.

“Thieves pay when stealing from the Feathered One.” A creature says. 

The man breaks free. The creatures pursue.

The hall is quiet. 

You exit, see the man dropped the ribs. You approach them. Meat seems to have value in this place, so you pick it up. 

Then you hear a violent choking, vomiting, coming from the room where Martin would be. 

You run. You are flooded with memories of finding him near death in the forest, pills scattered about. You throw yourself against the door, hear a bone crack. You don’t care. You’re not going to lose him. Not now. Not ever.

PART FIVE… THE FACELESS MAN…

Martin chokes behind a closed door. The knob is tight. You throw your shoulders against it. Ignore the sting. The pop of bones. Who cares if something is broken? Martin raised you. No way are you losing him. 

The door breaks and you tumble into the forest you were in when looking for Martin. You feel the rain on your head. Eye your clothes, your young hands. These are the hands of you at age 12. You recall that horrible night. You orient yourself to the highway, run north to the spot where you and Martin spent hours as kids.

Your heart churns. There must not be much time. You see the shine of the moonlight on a leather jacket zipper. Recognize the white pills. Martin, now age 22, lies face up, skin pale, convulsing. You are reliving this event of his near suicide.

With strength you’ve never had, you pull him to the highway. Yes. That Ford pickup is coming. Just like the first time. It stops. Out steps not the bearded man from the real moment, but a faceless one. He lifts Martin, places him in the truck. You move to the truck but he stops you. 

“Nothing is free here.” He says. “The Feathered One will help. But offer something.”

You search your pockets. You gave your last coin to the automaton dog. 

“Money is worthless here.” The man points to one of your fingers.

What does this mean? The man reaches into the truck, presents a knife, waits for your approval.

You squirm. Martin’s breathing is more labored. He must not have much time.

You nod and put your hand before the Faceless Man.

“This will do for now,” he says. “But if you want to keep your brother away from death, you will need to do more.”

You nod. “Hurry for fuck’s sake.”

He presses the blade on your finger. You hold your breath. He slices. Intense burning and the color of blue hits your vision. You scream, clutch your bleeding hand. The Faceless Man kisses your finger, then tosses it into the forest.

“O God of Carrion, accept this offering.”

The Faceless Man puts you into the truck. As you wither into an unspeakable pain, you catch a glimpse of Martin’s face. His eyes are open. His breathing is normal. 

The Faceless Man starts the truck and drives.

PART SIX… MERCY KILL…

Your missing finger has stopped bleeding.  

Martin’s bedsheets are speckled with crimson but you are focused on getting sustenance into your brother. He looks at you with sullen eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. As the carillon bells in town announce sunset, his eyes close. You want to question him about why he was missing, the forest, the Faceless Man, but he is asleep. The doctors wanted him for “psychological monitoring,” but you both escaped the hospital. Neither of you like these places where people go to die. 

You lock a chain around him, not risking his escape. The sedatives you stole from Uncle Ronnie might suffice but…

Uncle Ronnie.

“We’re going to that diseased fir tree,” he orders. You start your chores, grab the bucket of deer guts, a leg. He follows you with the head. You will drag all of these to the tree. It’s the same thing daily. When he doesn’t kill an animal, he instead peels off road kill from the highway and takes it deep into the forest.

After a long silent walk, you find the tree, dump the steaming guts. Uncle Ronnie places them in a circle, the head in the center, then the limbs. 

You never really cared before but you ask. “Why that pattern?”

Uncle Ronnie wipes the blood on a handkerchief. “A story you don’t need to hear, boy.”

You grimace. He looks around as is habit. He stops. His eyes narrow, he nods at something in reverence. You see it too. Something without skin, watching. It walks on two legs to you. Waits.

You back up, gasp. Uncle Ronnie faces you. “You see it!?” 

You are too dumbstruck to reply.

He grabs your jacket, shakes you. It hurts. “What did you do!?” He is in a fury you’ve never seen. 

“I don’t understand.”

He glances at you in terror, spots the blood damp cloth around your hand. He rips it off. His eyes redden.

The creature waits. Uncle Ronnie raises the rifle slung to his back, points it at you. The weapon shakes. He cries, softens like he has the few times he’s ever shown affection for you. 

“This is out of mercy,” he says.

part 7 …the babies…

You’ve never felt the barrel of a rifle against your head. It’s not as cold as you expected. It shakes in the hands of your Uncle Ronnie. His eyes are bloodshot like you’ve never seen them, even after his long nights with moonshine. You wonder if you’ll feel the bullet when it goes through your skull. 

Finally, he lowers the gun. The creature nearby has changed. It’s no longer the strange tall thing on two legs. It now hovers like a bird-like specter. You can smell it. Pungent. Like moss and burned hair.

Uncle Ronnie points at a bird’s nest in a cedar.

“Climb, boy. Pull it down,” He says. “Waste no time.”

You climb, the muscles you used as a child climbing these trees roar to life. The mother bird dives at you. 

The creature’s smell strengthens. You grab the nest, chicks inside chirp in terror. You descend the tree carefully while clutching the nest.

“Now break their necks.” Uncle Ronnie splutters.

You’ve hunted plenty but never killed a baby bird. A cough spell hits you. The creature expels a noxious air. In its dark mass, now strangely birdlike, there is something sharp. A beak. 

“Do it!” Uncle Ronnie screams.

The coughing overtakes you. You see huge black feathers, razor claws of this thing as it steps closer. You take a nestling and with a snap, break its neck. 

“Now hold it out.”

You do. The creature grabs it, eats.

“The others now!” 

You break the necks of the last two chicks, offer them to the creature. It eats. 

The creature retracts, devours Uncle Ronnie’s arrangement of deer parts, bones. The creature folds its wings into itself, flies away, a gigantic black shape in the overcast sky. 

Uncle Ronnie folds into a heap on the ground. He points to the blood where the deer parts were. “Now do you understand why I do this?” He says.

“But why is it after you then?”

Uncle Ronnie sighs. “I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you about the God of Carrion.” He gets up, gathers his pistol, gestures for you to follow.

You do. The familiar smells of the forest return. You spot the mother bird above, wonder if she is grieving. Wonder if birds can grieve like people do.

TO BE CONTINUED…