The Final Battle

I stopped to catch my breath. Condemned men get a last cigarette so I lit mine. As I smoked, I also fortified my resolve with two more swigs of the rum. Finished, I said, “Well, I’ve had my last cigarette. I guess I can face death now.” I walked forward for twenty paces, thinking, then stopped and yelled, “No, goddamn it! I’m not dying yet. I want to make love to my wife. I want to hold my daughter. Tell them that I love them. Then I can die. Not till then. You can’t have me till then!” This sounds like the ranting of someone who is stark raving mad, someone on the ragged edge who just took a big step, but these thoughts and words galvanized what little sanity I had left. I sank to my knees and prepared for battle. I wasn’t going to play by his rules anymore.

I made two more lamp oil lanterns, slinging one in the holster. The other, I lit. I moved to the tunnel entrance. As I entered, I felt him, the beast, Ouintan-Mantua. But I’m sure he felt me as well. By surviving the first tunnel and the trestle I’d gained power. I sensed he’d be more cautious now, watching and waiting. I also sensed that Margot and Marissa were close by. This knowledge frayed the hold that I had on any control; being so anxious to bring them to safety. I moved on. If I failed, we all died. If I didn’t try, they would, and that would be worse than death.

At least three times I tripped on tracks or debris and almost pitched forward on my face. Wisps of light—little ghosts—floated before my eyes. Moans emanated from the darkness that seemed always twenty feet in front of me. But I kept moving. Feeling warm all of a sudden, I stopped to open the denim jacket then moved on. Seventy-five yards in I saw the bend in the tunnel ahead, a flickering light coming from beyond it.

I set the first lantern on the tracks just before I reached the angle. Then I slid out the camp axe, peeled off the plastic blade cover, and slid the sharp blade across the back of my forearm, drawing blood. I spat on it and whispered, “Tomahawk to tomahawk, mother fucker.”

I lit a candle and proceeded with it as my source of light. In my other hand I held the axe and the beaded staff. I tried to be silent as I moved forward, but the sound of my steps echoed off the damp walls. Dripping water, amplified by my fear and heightened state of dread, pounded in my ears. I neared the point where the bend would allow me to see what lay beyond. Two, three, four steps, and I walked into the glittering light of a small, but bright fire. It blazed in the area off to the right of the railroad tracks.

At first, the bright fire mesmerized me. Then I saw him. He crouched a little to the right of the fire with his back and left side to me. I could just make out the contour of his face, an Indian face, high cheekbones, prominent nose, and long flowing hair. Dark markings, not unlike tattoos, moved and flowed on his face. Save for these shapes he was still, as if frozen in this scene. Then I saw Margot. She sat against the far right-hand wall, her hands bound separately with rope and raised above her head. Each rope looped over a hook in the brick wall. Beside her on the floor lay a long knife. She was naked except for panties and bra. Her head hung down, and I thought she looked hurt. My rage rose, and then he turned in slow motion. As he did, I was forced, commanded by his will, to look at him. Though his lips never moved, a roar filled my head, and I staggered back.

His face held the evil of the ages. I now saw this great horror when Ouintan-Mantua turned, now in the façade of an aged, painted Indian. Dark, shimmering skin, glowing yellow eyes rimmed in red, cracked lips. And power. Power over me and Margot. I can’t describe it, but I’ve never been so afraid in my entire life.

“Drop the staff,” his voice whispered in my mind.

I dropped it, leaving only the camp axe in my right hand, the candle in my left.

“Kill her.”

I looked at the axe in my hand and dreamed of planting it in Margot’s skull, saw it, wanted it, needed it.

Across the tracks, Margo’s ropes fell to the stones. She picked up the knife, stood, and advanced, all the time crouched as if ready to spring at me. Her gaze burned through me, her teeth clenched in a snarl.

 “Come on,” I hissed as I looked at her. “You want a taste of this? Come on then!” I, too, crouched and started to circle around to her left.

The Indian demon stood at the point of a triangle, the other two corners described by Margot and me. The fire burned in its center. The Indian stood with his hands raised above his shoulders, the left hand outstretched toward me, the right toward Margot. His hands opened and closed as he bent his elbows and lifted his hands up, then snapped them out straight as if he were a crude symphony conductor.

Margot’s form rippled with light. The knife she held gave off long tendrils of red and yellow. As she advanced, the white of her bra smeared along the path it traveled. The mushrooms and psychedelic beans had taken full effect. I looked at Ouintan Mantua; he’d changed too. Instead of a powerful sorcerer, I now saw him in his true form. Ugly and fearful, yes, but also an old and frail creature, cowering behind the power of his illusions. The secret of the drugs; they’d weakened his illusions. He looked at me, and I believe he realized that his secret had been uncovered. His power over me had been diluted, so he turned his attention to Margot, concentrating on her.

I gripped the candle in my left hand like a bat, holding the flame too close to my hand. Hot wax poured on to my thumb, wrist, and jacket cuff. The wax didn’t divert my attention, but when the cuff caught fire I reacted by slapping the camp axe onto my arm, cutting it deeply. The pain of the burning jacket against my skin and the axe biting into my arm broke whatever hold that the creature had on me. I blinked and no longer wanted to kill Margot. I’d overcome his spell. I dropped the candle and peeled off the jacket, throwing it on the tunnel floor where it continued to smolder. As I held the axe against my left wrist, Margot raced at me. She brought the knife down with her right hand, meaning to sink it into my chest. I swung upward with the axe, catching her arm on its descent and parried the knife blade across my body to the right. The point carved a quarter-inch slice from below my left nipple to my right armpit, then over my right bicep. At the same time the flat of the axe caught Margot in the temple and sent her sprawling off to my right. She must have hit her head because she crumpled to the tunnel floor, limp and unmoving.

A sinking hole swirled in my gut as I watched her go down and lie horrifyingly still. Rage welled up in me, but the hallucinogenic drugs slowed my reactions. He was on me before I could fully turn my attention his way. He floated past the fire and towered above me, both feet off the ground, and seized me by the throat, forcing me back. I tripped on the tracks, dropped the axe, and landed on my back, hitting my spine on a railroad tie and my head on the far track. I was seconds from losing consciousness.

Powerless to stop Ouintan-Mantua, I could only lie in his death grip. I wasn’t under his power of illusion any longer but neither could I repel the assault. Under the influence of the drugs, I saw him in his true appearance, unhidden. Though this was the mindset I needed, the one described in the Jesuit’s cure, the wounds I’d accumulated, especially the near-braining on the steel track, drained away all my resistance. I pawed at his sides once or twice but this had no effect on the chokehold. I could do nothing more than try to live second by second as he squeezed the life out of me.

I looked up and I saw the ageless face of evil. His eyes bore into me as they changed from red to yellow and back. His lips curled back in a snarl, and his teeth resembled the yellow fangs of a leopard. His fetid breath washed over me. The image I’d seen in the abandoned farmhouse on Rupp Road crawled over his face. Dark blue, the circle with arms and a tail, moving and pulsing. His leathery hands closed like a vice on my throat. I sensed I was moments away from death.

Mind-speaking, he said, “You cannot stand against me or defeat me. You are weak and powerless in the shadow of my might. Die now. And know that your women will die more horribly than you.”

I felt him try to penetrate my mind with images of Margot and Marissa being tortured and dying. He failed to gain a foothold there. Dying with his hands on my throat, I wouldn’t allow the illusions of fear and hatred in. He squeezed harder.

As I lost consciousness, my last sight was of Ouintan-Mantua’s eyes suddenly opening wide and his face reeling back away from mine.

Blackness covered me.