Anrique

PROLOGUE - THE QUIET DESERT

Sunset over the desert town of Anrique cast long shadows, the kind that reach into people’s souls and make them do things they wouldn’t remember. It was a poison, not in the water or air, but in space; haunting the town before leaving them in the night. Anrique had a steady stream of migrants, but it never got above five hundred people; five hundred people haunted by regular murders, mysterious circumstances, and the supernatural.

CANTO ONE - THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT

The Victorian Trapper spent five minutes striking a piece of steel with an arrowhead before the kindling caught flame. It was a cool, dark night, friendly to those with friends, lonelier to the lonely. The Trapper felt particularly alone this evening. 

And then the Trapper was less alone - a shift of the breeze, a gentle movement of the sand, and the unmistakable death-toll of a branch snapping. There were no wolves out tonight, no jackrabbits or bobcats either, for they’d all been found dead in the desert surrounding Anrique over the course of the past year. Soon, someone would find the body of the Trapper, too, but they wouldn’t find the cause of it all; the black, monstrous, wretched thing that stood before him now. It’s shadow, pressed by moonlight, cascaded over him, filling him with dread and fear, and then continued back behind him another twenty feet. It was tall enough to block out the moon. It was Something Ghastly. It was going to die soon.

CANTO TWO - SOMETHING WITCHED THIS WAY COMES

The Absconded Diviner and the Decadent Hag had a Gypsy vardo they’d attached a Ford engine to and drove it across the country, looking for good drinks. The Absconded Diviner, having been arrested for witchcraft before the turn of the century, was interested more in hard liquors because of the habits she’d acquired during her time served (before she escaped through the less Wiccan method of dynamiting a hole through the wall of the yard). The Decadent Hag, in contrast, was doing careful research to determine exactly how large a town has to be before the local saloon starts keeping a stock of champagne. She kept careful track of town sizes and the places they’d been in a journal, and current figures suggested the limit was well under a thousand people. Thus, they were headed to Anrique - a remarkable town because it’s population had been the same for a year, despite the local gold rush. 

The vardo pulled over five miles outside of town center. Here, the road was a dried up riverbed, and the skeletal remains of the local flora lined the path. The Decadent Hag stuck her head out of the front door of the vardo to ask why they’d stopped, but the Diviner was running off from the makeshift car, towards a dwindling column of smoke. The Hag, not one for hijinks, made a point of not caring until the Diviner returned and laid a corpse at the Hag’s feet. She was not amused.

“This is not a hearse, this is our home.” 

The Diviner was already turned around, ready to take her seat steering the wagon. “We’re too old to be heartless.”

CANTO THREE - ANRIQUE

Anrique was a Mormon settlement before the founders were run out by miners looking for gold. It had a wide main street with a temple in the middle of the north side, that had since been converted into a town hall. The rest of the north side was picture perfect houses with wide lawns. The south side of the boulevard was brownstone townhouses and businesses with apartments above them. There was a boarding house for the poor and those who came to town to pan the dried out streams for gold. It was typical, but the entire town felt sacreligious, like for all their prayers God wouldn’t look them in the eyes. 

The residents of the Arizona town were fed, clothed, and petty, meaning they had no serious wants or needs and had time to idly gossip. They busied themselves with image, dividing the town up into different castes every other week, exiling one adulterer and knighting another. It was as though a fever had taken in the head of every citizen, and the plague roiled like the ocean. It was not stable. 

CANTO FOUR - THE BIRD IN THE CUP

The Bird in the Cup was the rather confusing name of the only saloon in town to be granted a liquor license. Many patrons, including the Absconded Diviner, thought it was a reference to the common phrase “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Other patrons, like the Decadent Hag, thought it had something to do with wetting one’s beak. Others still, including the owner who’d tended the bar for forty-odd years, thought it was nonsense, and were getting sick of all the bar fights that broke out over it.

The vardo parked indirectly in front of The Bird in the Cup on the north side of the street. As the beldams made their walk from the car to the tavern, the knitting circle in front of the bar began clashing their needles together increasingly hard and fast, as though there were intruders in town they could scare away with yarn. Their judgmental eyes narrowed and cast hateful glares, all of which hit the witches’ cowls and fell to the ground like broken arrows. They weren’t the sort to care about perception.

As they stepped inside, the chatter in the room rose nervously, but the concern of the feverish town was not as evident as outside. The hardened men of the bar tried not to show their concern at seeing two witches. They were supposed to be above superstition. The beldams took their seats at the end of the bar. Without asking, the Decadent Hag was passed a flute of champagne and the Absconded Diviner was handed scotch. The Mercurial Alewife leaned back, away from the witches, maintaining an uncompromising stare between the two of them. She spoke after a long pause.

“Word ‘bout you two’s been on the wire. I’ve been waitin’ on you to come an’ now I’m waitin’ on you two to leave. You can have your drinks, for free if you like, an’ then you can git. We got ‘nuff strange here. Don’t need more.”

The Absconded Diviner’s primal urge was to slam back the scotch and order another round - a direct challenge to the authority of the Alewife. The Decadent Hag, however, capitalized on her southern charm to pry information from the barmaid. 

“Why, we’re sorry to be any disturbance to you, miss, but what strangeness have y’all got? Maybe we can be of some assistance.” She said it with an edge, as though refusing her help would offend the Hag.

Half the heads in the bar cautiously turned to look at the bartender and what she would say next. The Diviner shot a steely glance at no one in particular. The Alewife sighed and rocked on her back foot. 

“Sheriff’s dead,” she said with resignation, “crazy bastard came to town when he read about it, wearin’ a mask. Stunk like the Pit. He comes back every now and again for supplies. Says he’s huntin’.”

“Hunting what?” the Diviner cut in, curious what game there was in the desert.

The Alewife started, then gave a flat smile instead. “Damned if I know.” She focused her attention on wiping down the bar.

The Decadent Hag was about to ask her companion if she were up for adventure when the screams of old ladies went up from outside. A decaying revenant, the Victorian Trapper, the corpse the hexes had carried into town, strode through the batwing doors and stood expectantly, looking above the crowd. They took the cue and scrambled out of the bar. Only the Alewife, Diviner, and Hag were left. The Trapper took a seat at their end of the counter, and made a motion to his throat. The Mercurial Alewife, pinching her nose, poured him a glass of water. He drank greedily, and said in a low rasper, “Thank you for bringing me back from the desert.”

The Absconded Diviner shrugged, as though it was her pleasure. The Decadent Hag also shrugged, because she often took credit for the Diviner, and also because it was her way of accepting that she was going to have a day much stranger than she’d agreed to when she woke up.

A long time ago, when the Diviner was incarcerated, the Hag lived in the bayous of Louisiana in a stereotypical witch’s hut. She liked it there because of the mud - the acidity and decaying plant life made it good for soothing supernatural wounds, and she’d heard stories of those more talented than her using it to bring back the dead. The Trapper had a similar smell to the bayou, so the dead man before her was only mildly surprising. His attire, however, was more curious; a long navy frock coat with a tweed suit underneath, topped off with a bolo tie. If the revenant wasn’t dead his clothes would’ve killed him. The Diviner couldn’t smell the Trapper’s stench because she’d lost her sense of smell in prison.

So the witches and the undead sat quietly sipping, and the bartender abandoned her post before she vomited. The Diviner picked up her train of thought and queried,

“What were you hunting out there?” 

The Victorian Trapper paused, and carefully calculated what information she had and what more he’d be willing to give her. “Something,” his throat strained like it was made of jerky, “Ghastly.”

CANTO FIVE - WHAT RULED THIS LAND BEFORE

The denizens of Anrique would sometimes sit on their porches or lean out their windows and stare, with a gaze that spoke of anger and fear, at the horizon, and imagine they could see the mountains that lied imperceptibly below it. They were looking for what contained them, why they stayed. While the desert was harsh, it was not impassable, and many came to realize they were there because they’d been there too long already, and leaving would be to abandon a part of themselves. 

There was a cemetery off the beaten path, about two miles north of the main street. It wasn’t the town’s cemetery, not really. It was the old Mormon graveyard, and it was buried under dust and debris - nobody knew there were bodies out there. Whenever people looked towards the horizon, their eyes passed over the solemn memorial, and the secrets it contained.

The Mormons didn’t know this either, but underneath their forgotten graveyard was a cave, with a pool of crystal clear springwater. After a few particularly bad droughts, the ground dried out more than usual for the desert, and the body of the Pilgrim Founder fell through the weakened soil and into the grotto. 

There is something in the sky in Anrique; just beyond the horizon, and just behind the sun, something primal and primeval, Something Ghastly. It rules the desert, and it submits to none. It finds its home in those seeking retribution, justice, revenge. It is not bound by the laws of man or science or nature. So it found a place inside the still heart of the Pilgrim Founder, and it took up the corpse’s anger at what had happened to his town, and it made every attempt it could to restore things to the way they should be. 

CANTO SIX - THE BELL TOLLS

It was getting dark in Anrique now, and the old ladies’ knitting circle had hitched up their skirts so they might walk home faster. The trio of Unusual Interlopers, an ungodly combination, took their places on the porch of the saloon and waited, either for the Victorian Trapper to give them more information or for something to happen. A street clock chimed eight. Then nine. Then ten. 

The singular chime that marked an hour into the next day woke the Absconded Diviner, and she narrowed her eyes at the scene across the street. In front of the town hall, a young man sat on a bench, slumped over. A solid kick roused the Decadent Hag, who then slapped the Trapper awake. They narrowed and widened their eyes as they struggled to capture the detail of the scene.

The Trapper moved first, and he moved quickly, lunging out, running to the bench, and checking for a pulse. The women followed him. By the time they got close enough to make out the face of the mayor, the Trapper was shaking his head. 

The Decadent Hag turned to find the police station in the row of brownstone, but movement in the corner of her eye made her look above the town, into the sky.

“Isn’t it supposed to be a full moon tonight?”

The sky was star filled, and fairly bright, but where the moon should have been directly above the packed buildings there was nothing.

And then, suddenly, there was something, like the silhouette of a monstrous centipede, with long legs that could puncture steel. It bent back from its upwards position, where it had been watching the old temple, and crawled down the reverse side of the street, revealing a full, white moon.

The Hag shrieked, and immediately windows opened and lamps were lit. The Gauche Deputy came running out from the station, but instead of going to where the body was, ran to the upper north side of the street to rouse the Intrepid Coroner. The Unusual Interlopers took the opportunity to make themselves scarce and watched from the vardo. The Coroner, a spry old man, took one look at the body and told the Deputy to put him in the ground. He couldn’t explain it, like the last twenty deaths in town. 

The three sat in silence, figuring out their next move. Then the Diviner spoke, “Why did you scream? You already knew he was dead.” The image of Something Ghastly filled the Hag’s mind, and the Trapper read her expression with ease. “You saw it?” Worry engulfed her eyes. “It was terrible.” The Diviner looked expectantly to the Trapper for an explanation, and he relented what he knew.

He told the story of Anrique, and his Mormon son, and how after the town came under new management he was the only one who stayed behind so he could be sheriff. And they didn’t talk much, but the Trapper received a telegram saying he’d been killed, so he came to collect the body. But they’d already burnt it, and couldn’t tell him why. All the testimonies of the townsfolk suggested there was something happening, but they couldn’t describe it themselves. After reaching out to a few of his more heretical friends, he put together that a vengeful desert spirit was out to get the town. All he had to do to avenge his son was kill it.

“How?” the Diviner asked. The Trapper shrugged. “It needs a host with a desire for revenge. I intend to avenge my son. I will make it kill itself.”

CANTO SEVEN - THE LESS UNUSUAL INTERLOPER

So the supernatural triage, in their quest to save the town and avenge its Departed Sheriff, would have to set a trap - and some poor, unfortunate visitor would become bait for Something Ghastly. The day started out in The Bird in the Cup, a freshly silent establishment. Of course there was conversation, but it was nonverbal - glares and glances told conspiracy theories of the murder, shuffles and coughs made light of hidden information. The three did not pick up on the game of social chess being waged, and rather sat in the same places as the day before, facing away from the rest of the day-drinkers, forming their own microcosm of dialogue. The walls of this detached universe were punctured by the under confident swagger of the Gauche Deputy, who shakily threw three pairs of handcuffs on the bar. His eyes pleaded and his voice quivered as he asked, “Could I take y’all in for some questioning?”

He didn’t really want to talk to them, especially not one on one. As long as they sat in a cell, he had done something about it, and contributed some characters for the town to demonize. He wasn’t sure what the next step could be - but he didn’t think they’d try to break out in however long it took him to decide.

Anrique’s sheriff's office had two cells, both rarely used, and now both full. In one was the Unusual Interlopers, and in the other across from them was a traveling Chinese Swindler, selling snake oil and cheap fireworks. He had been arrested because of a town ordinance criminalizing the sale of medicines, real or otherwise, except from a licensed doctor. 

One of the reasons Anrique never got above five hundred people, aside from the unsolved murders, was that occasionally citizens would come down sick with strange diseases there was no local cure for, or that Western medicine hadn’t yet remedied. Natives would come off the local reservation to offer their traditional treatments, but were always turned away by the threat of the ordinance. Most people in town didn’t like the natives anyways. 

The Chinese Swindler didn’t speak much English, but the ability to recognize the presence of evil spans all civilizations. Anrique looked like an easy target a mile away, probably full of fearful people desperate to keep devils from their stoops. Now, he thought he was staring down the evil presence haunting Anrique. His eyes, looking through the witches and the zombie, searched for salvation. What they found instead was a glimmer of an idea, reflecting off the Trapper’s bolo tie. 

The Gauche Deputy, ever ineffectual, left his prisoners alone overnight so he could stay with his wife, who was pregnant and increasingly paranoid with the strange goings-ons in town. She needed his presence for comfort, and the Absconded Diviner needed his absence to blow open the door of the cell. He had never bothered to search her pockets in his pathetic arrest, and thus had missed the sticks of dynamite she kept folded in her shawl. 

The Decadent Hag took the spare ring of keys and unlocked the door to the other cell. The Chinese Swindler sized up the situation and the kind smile that freed him, and made a bolt for the door, but was delivered into unconsciousness by the practiced blow of the Victorian Trapper. He was bound and gagged, and the newly villainous triage carried him out into the quiet desert.

CANTO EIGHT - FINALE

The Swindler was left about a hundred feet from a rocky outcrop that shielded the Interlopers from the sun. The rest of the first night was uneventful, and the day was seering and boring, but as the last slivers of the sun melted away at the beginning of the second night, there was a scurrying on the horizon. Something Ghastly hungered for the restoration of an old, now impossible order, and the Chinese Swindler was something of an antithesis to its vision for the world.

It rose on its hind hundred legs, stretching, towering into the night, before lunging into the foreigner with such force that its head was buried in the sand. His death was instantaneous, but the hell his soul would endure was eternal. The Victorian Trapper ran towards the beast and threw a knife into its side. As its head reared, a shower of sand shrouded its unearthly figure, but as the dust settled and the awfully pointed ends of the fore hundred arms came into focus, the revenant’s confidence quivered, and the monster took this gap to peer into his soul, paralyzing him. In its mind, it dissected this intruder, and wanted to treat it as it had all others. But the longing to see the world burned and reforged was stronger in the undead man than anything it had ever felt, and slowly, dark shrouds and mists slid from the horror and into the body of the husk, where he slowly began to transform into Something Ghastly. Where it had been was now the limp corpse of the Mormon founder of Anrique, who rested angrily at what had happened to his town.

The beldams watched as the newly hosted abomination struggled inside the Trapper, both trying to fulfill his wish of avenging his son and of trying to restore an outdated order to the world. It shrieked, a hollow, reverberating scream, which shook the stars and turned rivers to blood, and then it burst into flame, defeated by its own mania. 

EPILOGUE - THE RETURNED SHERIFF

The next day was pleasant in Anrique. The Returned Seriff waved politely to the mayor, who was welcoming Anrique’s newest citizens - the witches, who had decided they’d found the perfect saloon in the perfect town, and that maybe Anrique was just interesting enough they could settle down without getting bored. The Victorian Trapper, though remembered by them, could not be located, but it seemed to them as though he’d given up his unlife for something worthy. He was strangely present in his son, just enough that the Unusual Interlopers never quite let their guard down around him.

The Chinese Swindler was as dead as dead men get. He had no place in anyone’s vision of Anrique, and was not pulled up from the circles of hell as the Sheriff and mayor had been.