Chapter 14: Grim Reaper's harvest

"Ask her."

"I don't think you should …"

"Ask her."

"Why? You've come so far …"

"Ask. Her."

"But what if Louise …"

"ASK HER!"

"Beth, there's something I have to ask you," Dean said as they were walking back through the dining room. In addition to being truly interested in Beth's answer, the man wanted to stop Doctor and Mister's argument before things got out of control.

"Huh? It's changed again," Beth said in an almost casual tone, referring to the white cloth-covered table. As weird as it might seem, she was getting used to things just appearing and disappearing with neither explanation nor reason. This time, a single silver platter had been placed on the nearest end. A shotgun rested on the platter, fully loaded with six shots.

"Well, I was just thinking …" Dean began.

"No, I was thinking, you credit-stealing fool," Doctor grumbled.

"… that, maybe, we shouldn't let them get the book."

Beth froze, dumbfounded. "What? You think we shouldn't give them some stupid little book," she held up their newly acquired copy of 'Crimson Ceremony', "when it's our only chance to get out of this hell?!"

Dean winced at the somewhat loud reply. "Ah, I see there isn't much credit to steal, anyway," Doctor said.

"What if there's something wrong about this ritual they want the book for?" Dean continued. "What if those things we've seen, the monsters and the other worlds … What if the ritual's going to make them spread?"

Beth opened her mouth to retort, but abruptly closed it again. Disturbing images started to manifest themselves in her mind. "He could be right. The 'Awakening of God' that priest was talking about – what if all humans' thoughts and memories came to life as well?"

twenty score men and seven thousand beasts …

Beth glanced down at the book in her left hand. Old and falling apart. Several pages torn or completely missing. The cover's colour was more like a faded red than 'crimson'. Perfectly ordinary. Not your typical occult tool for spreading Inferno on earth.

"We have no idea what that ritual is going to do," Beth said, trying to reassure Dean and herself at the same time. "Maybe it's totally harmless – a religious oddity or something. Let's just give this book to Louise and Philip, so we can get the hell outta here. I'll bet Shelley and Kyle would agree."

"But you don't know what that sect is like," Dean protested. "I've heard all kinds of sick things about them - they want the world to be 'cleansed with fire', and sinners will …"

Tired and exasperated, Beth cut the man off: "You know what I think? I think you're just angry because your mother died in a normal car accident, and you're trying to blame it on a fucking cult, so you can …"

"Leave her out of this!" Dean's voice was getting thick and shaky, and his fingers were curling up to form chalkwhite fists.

Beth sighed and turned to face the table. "Sorry. Let's just stop discussing this. We're gonna give them their 'Crimson Ceremony', and hope it won't have any serious consequences. Not like we have much of a choice, anyway." She picked up the shotgun from the platter and walked on into the living room. The gun looked a tad hard to use, and Beth had very little experience with firearms, but it should at least prove more lethal than the pericardial scissors from the hospital.

"Wait," Dean said, entering the room behind her. "Can't we at least read some of the book first?"

Beth paused, afraid of what they might find. "Yeah. Good idea." She raised the book to gaze at the somewhat tattered cover. It looked at least a century old, and it was probably a miracle in itself that it had survived to this day. It lacked the name of an author or a publication company – there was nothing but the title. Crimson Ceremony.

Beth's fingers lingered at the edge of the cover, hesitating to open it. "Calm down," she thought to herself. "You're not in a goddamn Lovecraft story. This is just a book. No matter what's written inside, it's just words. Harmless combinations of letters forming harmless sentences. Just open it."

But she couldn't.

"The fuck?" Beth mumbled as she struggled to pull the cover up. It simply wouldn't open.

"Let me try," Dean grabbed the book and tugged at the cover in vain. It was as if the damn thing had been glued shut, or filled with thin magnets relentlessly attracting each other.

Both relief and fear washed over Beth. She felt glad the contents would remain a mystery – at least to her and Dean – but at the same time, the dread of the unknown clutched her mind under its cold, bony fingers. "I give up," Dean said, handing the book to Beth before adding: "And I still don't think we can trust it to the likes of Philip and Louise. Normal books don't stay closed like that …"

"There's a totally natural explanation," Beth said in her ever weakening voice of reason. She left the living room and proceeded through the entrance hall. "This book had probably --- shit!" The sentence trailed off to a high-pitched yell, as her gaze moved upwards and found something that could definitely never be justified with a 'natural explanation'.

The two creatures were perched on the railings of the short balconies. Their bodies were reminiscent of lean men, but their skin colour was a sickly shade of yellow. The skin itself looked ragged and shredded, like the straw constituting a scarecrow's body.

However, the torso and limbs had a normal human shape, with the visually jarring exception of the head and hands. Hanging limp from both palms, the three middle fingers were melded together through some hideous mutation. The head and neck had also sunk into one undiscernible shape, from which two grey eyes peeked out in utterly wrong areas of the already deformed face. It looked like a particularly bizarre Picasso portrait come to life.

But the most horrifying part would undoubtedly be the three wooden stakes protruding from the rudimentary fists and head. Each stake was about three feet long, with silvery blades jutting out from their ends. Beth's jaw dropped as the woman understood the nature of the primitive weapons.

"Scythes. Just like the Grim Reaper."

Upon the hill where the light descended …

The Reapers started intoning with low, sputtering voices, which sounded oddly muffled - as if coming from a mouth buried deep inside the deformed head. Neither Beth nor Dean could understand the muffled chant, but a few clear words stuck out: "… lies and the mist - be obeyed – merciless sun - withering flower and …"

the beast intoned his song.

The Reapers took off from the banister and sailed through the dusty air. They latched their six scythes onto the chandelier, sending old cobwebs falling to the floor like little parachutes. The chandelier soon followed, pulling a large portion of the ceiling with it. Beth screamed and ran along the south wall, closely followed by Dean.

In the middle of the room, the chandelier and ceiling chunk landed on the table with a deafening crash. The three were crushed and merged into one enormous heap of rubble, bent metal and splintered wood. On top of this heap, two grim figures stood in the rising cloud of dust.

Beth and Dean ripped the double doors open and dashed through the front yard. The thorny weed scraped against their trouser legs, and the cold air snapped at their faces and hands. These minor irritations, however, were nothing compared to the agony awaiting them if they failed to outrun the Reapers.

The scythe-wielding monsters burst onto the porch and scanned the yard with their hideously misplaced grey eyes. Their prey had already made it through the door to Munson Street. "… they are my blessings," the creatures chanted, voices rising with their growing wrath. Abruptly, with no run-up whatever, they took off from the veranda and soared across the yard in a physically impossible leap.

Beth stood on the sidewalk with her hand on the car door, ready to open it and dive in to the driver's seat. That plan was ruined, however, as the Reapers came flying over the barbed-wire-adorned top of the mansion wall and landed on the Honda's hood with a cacophonic screech of metal grinding against metal.

"… and all that is me in the place that is silent …"

The roof collapsed and sunk onto the seats, and the Reapers swung their arms down, jabbing the two scythes into the four tires. The blades easily pierced the thick rubber. The creatures' movements were remarkably synchronized, almost mirroring each other while they destroyed both sides of the car. Windows shattered, the hood was crushed, and the car was soon reduced to a miserable wreck. It reeked of spilt gasoline, and a lush forest of flames grew and spread across the smashed metal.

Till now, Beth had been standing hypnotized on the sidewalk, shocked by the destruction of her trusty old vehicle. She finally remembered the danger of the imminent explosion and sprinted down towards the Katz Street intersection. Dean followed, the duo's hands clutching as if they'd fall into an abyss of dread and hopelessness if they let go for one splitsecond.

That was when Dean's hand slipped out.

"Dean!" The woman skidded to a halt on the icy road and spun around, only to find that her companion had been pulled back by one of the Reapers.

The abomination sat perched on the top edge of the bumper, it's scythe-lengthened arms wrapped around the man's chest. He hadn't been severely wounded yet, but the look in his twitching green orbs was easy to interpret: The Reaper was going to harvest his life now, and Beth could do nothing but run away, lest her name would be next on the list.

Beth stayed, however. She stayed and raised the shotgun with shaking hands, making a ridicolously inexperienced attempt to aim the heavy weapon.

The Reaper raised its left arm while still holding Dean with its right scythe-handle. The man squirmed and kicked frantically, but to no avail. "… and the last struggles of the dying man," the Reapers intoned, "they are my BLESSINGS!"

"Fuck," Beth breathed, fumbling with the trigger. "Come on, dammit …"

The left blade reached the top of its vertical curve and slashed through the misty air, descending toward Dean's torso.

A shot rang out. The Reaper was instantly knocked backwards by the force of the bullets. Its muscular torso crashed through the windshield, and the Reaper landed head-first on the driver's seat. Its twin monstrosity jerked its gaze up from the car to focus on the female assailant farther down the road.

Dean sprinted from the car and up to his last-minute saviour. The unscathed Reaper hopped across the car and down the road, arms and scythes stretched out to offer a deadly embrace. Beth fired two more shots. One of the bullets plunged into the car and thus assumed the role of the proverbial last straw to break this vehicle's back.

Compared to the town streets' usual silence, the explosion made a razorsharp contrast.

The Honda unfolded into a rapidly growing flower with orange petals of fire. If the car hadn't been utterly destroyed by the Reapers, it was certainly wrecked now. A mighty tower of black smoke rose through the milky-white fog and up to the heavens.

Fortunately, Beth and Dean had made it to a safe distance from the explosion. They stared with gaping mouths at the wreck.

One of the Reapers came staggering out, its movements slow, pathetic and enveloped in flames. Even its voice was losing all coherence and energy: "Even u-u-under sun and proud and p-proud a-a-and … blessings of the d-d-dying ma-man's wine call upon m-me … and all that is me … is me … is me …" The creature fell in a burning heap, and its voice trailed off into the unmistakeable silence of death.

Beth breathed a sigh of relief. The Reapers were dead, thanks to her and the shotgun. Of course, she'd have to get a new vehicle if she ever escaped this town, but the loss of the Honda didn't bother her much at the moment. Right now, she was just relieved to have survived the twin creatures' attack.

"That was close, huh?" Beth said, flashing Dean an exhausted smile.

The man simply stared at her with a look of cold emptiness in his eyes. His face looked as white as the surrounding fog, sweat glinting on his forehead. "What's wrong?" Beth asked.

Dean groaned and collapsed on the middle of the road.

"Shit!" Beth knelt beside the man and picked up his wrist to check the pulse. A fast beat came under her fingers. She scanned the man's limp body to find a cause for his condition. Her eyes soon locked onto a crimson stain on the left side of his coat. A round hole was torn in the fabric, and pierced flesh was visible on the other side. Blood oozed from the wound and down to the icy asphalt below.

Beth gasped as the epiphany hit her.

"You … you've …" A mix of saliva and blood seeped from the corner of Dean's quivering mouth.

"Yes," Beth nodded, fighting back the vomit that threatened to rise in her throat.

She had shot him.

---

A/N: It's been a while since the last evil cliffhanger, hasn't it? Well, better keep the tradition going … Check my profile for a link to my Reaper sketch. And don't forget to tune in next week, -E.P.O.