I Live Among You Page 3

  I ditched the car on the other side of town, walked several blocks, and then caught the bus back to my house, using the old lady’s five-dollar bill.

  ***

  I settled into my new life, falling into the familiar routine of hunting. My neighbors probably thought I was a trust fund baby, since I had no job and no visible means of support. I almost forgot about Lictor, about the Old Gods.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t forget about me.

  A small film festival was going on, and I attended some screenings and made some casual acquaintances. One night, I was watching a cheaply made but intriguing horror film. In the seats around me was the staff of a local comic book store, some of whom apparently had parts in the film. Before the lights had gone down, a young man had entered to applause.

  “Who’s that?” I’d asked the kid next to me.

  “Brad,” he had said, “the director.”

  I didn’t really give a damn. I was just immersing myself in the culture of the town. Already I was getting nods from people who recognized me from other events. I didn’t want to get to know them, but I also didn’t want to be thought of as some weird loner. Seeming normal was the best disguise for someone like me.

  The movie started, a strange mix of a thriller with supernatural elements mixed in. The acting was decent, the story was good, and the dialogue was natural. I had the sense that there was a lot of improvising going on by the actors.

  The final scene came on, where the hero finally confronts the villain, an older man whom he had looked up to.

  The scene was cut down the middle, the images falling to either side. For a moment I thought it was part of the film, but I noticed the kid next to me tensing up and realized that something unexpected was happening.

  It wasn’t the scene that was splitting, I realized, but the screen itself, as if someone was taking a razor blade to it.

  The lights were coming on, and people were crying out. A tentacle with a sharp talon on its end appeared in the middle of the screen, now cutting it from side to side. For the first time, I saw what lay behind the tentacles.

  It had a rounded, greenish body, covered in slime, and numerous unblinking eyes, all of which seemed to be staring directly at me. The creature slithered through the opening in the screen, pulling itself forward, almost walking, on its lower tentacles. As I watched, open-mouthed, more limbs sprouted from its glistening body, and then they were twirling in a hypnotic way directly at me.

  The crowd was running for the exits. I was the only one still sitting there.

  I looked over my shoulder. Everyone had gotten out, though a few braver or stupider souls were peeking around the curtains.

  I put my hand out, closed my eyes, and searched for the flames within.

  I felt only coldness, an empty, icy spot at the center of my chest. I could summon nothing, not even fear. Not an ounce of heat. My eyes sprang open at the moist touch of the first questing tentacle, which slashed against my forehead.

  The pain ignited the fires. They flowed out of me, not just my extended hands, but from every part of my body, burning away my clothes and the seats around me.

  The Old God oozed slime, and the fire sizzled against the dampness. The creature crawled over the stage, flopped with a liquid splat onto the floor, and moved up the aisle. I felt my fires begin to diminish, but as the Old One loomed over me, I directed what I had left right into all those eyes and into its opening maw, filled with sharp, needlelike teeth.

  It shuddered and moved to one side, then the other, trying to escape the concentrated flames. And then it sloshed backward and gathered momentum, its soulless eyes still staring at me. Its green flesh was turning darker. It reached the stage, pulled itself up by two of its larger limbs, and continued to retreat. It disappeared into the darkness behind the screen.

  And then I sensed that it was gone, back to whatever hell from which it had come.

  I got up and walked toward the far exit, completely naked. There was a young couple making out in the alley behind the door, and I was next to them before they knew it. The woman let out a squeak, and the man put out his hands defensively, his eyes wide, a loud, wordless grunt coming out of his mouth.

  “Give me your coat,” I said.

  He stared at me as if he didn’t understand.

  “Quickly, dammit.”

  He shrugged off his coat and handed it over. I put it on, and though it barely covered my ass, it was better than nothing. I started trotting away.

  This is just like every anxiety dream I’ve ever had. Naked in public.

  Despite myself, I laughed. I realized, somewhat to my amazement, that I had enjoyed the whole encounter, more so even than my kills.

  I have bigger prey, I suddenly realized.

  Chapter 4

  So how do I go about calling Lictor? I wondered.

  I needn’t have worried. Within an hour of arriving home, there was a knock on the door. I’d rented, along with all the other hipsters, one of the tiny “mill” houses on the west side of town, which were being marketed as “Craftsman style.” So far, I hadn’t decided whether to resume my PI disguise or keep pretending to be a trust fund baby with unlimited but mysterious money.

  The steps creaked loudly. I was already getting up to answer the door when I heard the knock.

  Lictor was standing there, looking ridiculous in his baggy shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, with a straw hat. He fit right into the town’s aesthetic.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  “If I say no?” I answered. “What happens then?”

  “There is no rule keeping me out, Mr. Grandy, only politeness,” he said, looking annoyed. “I may be a demon, but I’m not rude.”

  I opened the screen door and ushered him in. His head nearly reached the ceiling, and he looked around the small front room with an expression of distaste. “You know, the east side of town has nice houses for half the price.”

  “Ah, but then I’d be uncool,” I said. “I’m glad you showed up, Lictor.”

  I led him to the table in the nook of the tiny kitchen. He sat down on a wooden chair, which creaked threateningly under his weight. I sat across from him.

  “Want some coffee?” I asked. “Some beer? They have some amazing brews around here.”

  Lictor smiled. “One of my boss’s brainstorms. If beer starts getting uncool, then market them with a new concept.”

  I poured myself a cup of coffee while he sat there silently. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

  “I…I guess I’ve changed my mind,” I said.

  “I told you,” Lictor said smugly. “You have no choice. Once I came to your office, you were marked. Little devil that I am.”

  “So how do we do this?” I asked.

  Lictor leaned back, pushing the chair onto its back legs. The chair groaned, and he hastily leaned forward again. “So far, the Old Gods have only been able to show a small fraction of their real power. Portals have been opened with just enough room for them to extend their little fingers, as it were.

  “We need to keep it that way. If any portal is opened wide enough for an entire Great Old One to enter, we’ve got major problems. From this side, an Old God could open new portals, and the other Gods could open more. Once started, the invasion would be impossible to stop.”

  “What’s keeping them out?”

  “The fact that they require human sacrifice,” Lictor said. “They have to convince humans to sacrifice dozens of their fellows to create every tiny crack in the dimensional façade. It would take a massive effort to open a portal large enough for even one of the Great Old Ones to enter. It would require thousands of sacrifices, all with the proper ceremonies, done by hand, one by one. Not an easy undertaking in this socially connected world.”

  Once again, he leaned back in his chair, and this time, he ignored the warning creaks. “I believe they’ve tried before and almost succeeded, and those instances have come down to us as holocausts and genocides. But these kinds of thing
s have a way of getting out of control. Human bloodlust overwhelms the rigorous procedures the Old Gods need to actually enter this dimension.”

  I pondered this. “Should be easy enough to stop,” I said. “Just alert the authorities.”

  “Oh, we have. More than once, ever since we understood the danger. But the Old Gods have gotten very crafty. They are operating under the radar these days. Or at least, they’re trying to. Our one advantage is, our side happens to know the kind of people they need; the kind that will cold-bloodedly murder in service to Evil. So we’ve managed to keep control of the situation so far. But lately they seemed to have found a loophole.

  “A loophole?”

  “As it happens, there is an example in this very town. Well, one town over, in Sisters, but close enough. A religious cult, ironically enough.”

  “One town over?” I echoed.

  “You thought you were escaping us?”

  Sisters was a tourist trap that captured visitors from the heavily populated Willamette Valley on their way to Eastern Oregon. It seemed fortuitous that I’d ended up exactly where I was apparently needed. “How convenient,” I said.

  “Yes, isn’t it.” Lictor stared me in the eyes. “Oh, come now. You don’t really believe you have free will, do you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” I said. “But if I don’t, what’s the point? Why not just invite the Old Gods in, since I appear to be doomed either way?”

  The chair came crashing down, and he leaned forward. “There is a difference, Mr. Grandy. The Old Gods will consume your world until there is nothing left but slime. We, at least, let you live out your lives, no matter how short. Without humans…well, the great game can’t be played.”

  “Like parasites,” I said.

  “How’s that?

  “You need to keep us alive to feed on us,” I said. “Like parasites.”

  “Your God created parasites,” Lictor said. “As he created us.”

  I got up. I tried to pour myself another cup of coffee, but the pot was empty. I stood there staring out the window, trying to decide whether to make more.

  “What’s the loophole?” I repeated.

  “The loophole is, they are using people who think they are doing God’s work. These poor sheep are so deluded that they believe what they are doing is holy. Not the kind of people we usually have access to—at least, not until they act. Of course, once they follow through, they are ours—more so than most, I must say. But until then, they are hidden under the veil of religious fervor, which, frankly, makes us a little uneasy.”

  “Jonestown,” I said.

  “Indeed,” Lictor said. “I’m impressed. Yes, that was an attempt. But Mr. Jones got a little hasty, killed his people without reciting the proper spells. But I must admit, it was a close one.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  “We want you to infiltrate the cult. God’s Lambs, they call themselves. As I said, most of them are innocent—if turning off your brain and following blindly is innocent. It’s their leader who is the one you have to reach. We haven’t decided whether he’s in on the plot or he’s just being used. Probably the latter, since we haven’t been able to reach him.”

  I decided I definitely needed more coffee, and removed the used filter and tossed it into the trash can under the sink. I poured scoops of grounds into a new filter and started up the coffeemaker.

  “I’m not cult material,” I said. “First Bible verse they test me on and I’ll flunk.”

  “That’s why we are giving you an assistant,” Lictor said.

  At that moment, there was a scratching sound at the back door. I looked toward the door and frowned.

  “Well?” Lictor said. “Are you going to answer or not?”

  I got up and walked to the door. I couldn’t see anyone through the windowpanes, but the scratching continued, so I opened the door.

  Standing there, his tail high and fluffed, was the biggest, fattest cat I’ve ever seen. He was a solid orange, with long hair that trailed almost to the ground. He had a wide head, and both of his ears were tattered. His eyes were orange as well, a dark shade that was almost red.

  “Let me in, asshole,” he said.

  I was so surprised, I couldn’t move. The cat brushed by me, walking between my legs. He was so fat that he forced my legs farther apart. The animal entered the kitchen and started sniffing the floor below the cutting board, then began licking up something that I had apparently let drop.

  “Meet Pussifer,” Lictor said.

  “Seriously?” I said. “Pussifer?”

  “Well, you don’t have to call him that. In fact, you should probably come up with another name, where you’re going. Something Biblical. Jeremiah, something like that.”

  The cat looked up at me. “‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know,’” he quoted.

  Lictor chuckled. “Pussifer…Jeremiah…really is quite amazing. Trust us, most of us can’t even wrap our lips around those words, and he can spout them for hours.”

  “I hate cats,” I said.

  Pussifer froze, then growled.

  “I’m not taking this beast anywhere,” I continued.

  “Then you’d better start memorizing the Bible,” Lictor said.

  “Hey, I’m a sinner, remember?” I said. “Why can’t I be an ignorant sinner who has only just seen the light of the Lord?”

  “That might work,” Lictor conceded. “Still, we’d rather you take Jeremiah along with you, just in case. We need you to move up the ranks quickly, and the more knowledgeable you are, the more likely that will happen.”

  “Come on, bud,” Pussifer said. He came over and rubbed against my legs. “It will be fun.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I hope they like cats.”

  “It’s a farm,” Lictor said. “They don’t have much choice. Old ‘Jeremiah’ here will join the barn cats, but he’ll come running anytime you need him.”

  I poured myself a new cup of coffee and sat back down again. “So how do I stop them?” I asked.

  “Infiltrate and disrupt,” Lictor shrugged. “Whatever you have to do. We have faith in you. You’ll figure it out.”

  I mulled it over, though I had already decided that I’d go along with whatever Lictor suggested. What choice did I have? The Old Gods knew who I was. But then, wasn’t that a problem?

  “You’re forgetting something. Thanks to you, they know about me.”

  Lictor waved his freaky big hand. “We can take care of that.”

  If you can take care of that, I thought, why leave me out to dry?

  Lictor laughed as he read my mind. “Why would we do that for you, Mr. Grandy, without getting something in return?”

  There it was. Make a deal with the devil and expect to get screwed.

  Chapter 5

  How does one dress to join a cult? I decided that I would go in my private investigator persona: black coat, white shirt, skinny tie. I was comfortable with the charade, after all.

  I didn’t want to seem too eager. I would come at them with a skeptical attitude. From what I knew about cults, that would be irresistible to them. They’d want to convince me they were on the up and up. So I’d let myself become seduced. They’d trust me all the more because of where my attitude had started from.

  Pussifer watched every move I made: dressing, eating breakfast, going to the bathroom.

  “What?” I finally shouted.

  “Just making sure you don’t bolt,” the damned creature said.

  “If I assure you I’m in, will you leave me alone?”

  The cat whole body became one big shrug. He sauntered away and only reappeared when I got ready to leave.

  He hopped into the passenger seat of the car and, as we drove through town, put his front paws on the door panel and looked out the window. At the first stoplight, the guy in the car next to us did a double take, but Pussifer stared him down.

  Jeremiah, I reminded mysel
f. Though if I slipped and called him Pussifer, I’d just pretend it was a nickname. The last cat I’d had had been called Trinity, but I had called her just about every name but that: Shortlegs, Fangface, Whiskers, Dimwit. She hadn’t seemed to care as long as I fed her.

  I was pretty sure Pussifer wouldn’t be so forgiving.

  The cult was located on a ranch near Redmond. It was a beautiful location, with Smith Rock State Park looming over it. The red rock shone in the morning sun, outlined by clear blue skies. I could see small figures on the rock face. The place was famous, attracting climbers from all over the globe.

  “Food for the cult,” Pussifer said. “The Frenchies and limeys and krauts are all so gullible. Looking for a better world.”

  “Even for me, you’re one negative cat.”

  Pussifer didn’t look at me. “It is what it is, man.”

  There was no gate and no sign at the cult’s compound. There was a large ranch house near the entrance, with people milling about. They were dressed normally; no white robes, like I’d imagined, no colors of red or orange or yellow, like the last major cult that had infested these parts, the Rajneeshees. (I’d done some research the night before and come to find out that a guru had wreaked havoc on the area, taking over a town, bussing in homeless for their votes and then abandoning them, and even food poisoning the population of a nearby town to suppress regular voters.)

  Everything looked relatively normal, actually.

  Behind the ranch house were temporary shelters of all kinds: motor homes, trailers, and tents. A larger structure was being built that had the utilitarian look of a dormitory.

  “What do they do all day?” I asked aloud, not really expecting an answer. I’d forgotten about the talking cat.

  “Pray to the Old Gods,” Pussifer said. “All fucking day.” As we parked, he strolled over onto my lap. “Keep me close,” he said. “Act like you like me. Believe me, I’ll find it just as hard as you.”