Syth and Axe (part 1) : Bunyan vs. J'ba Fofi

The first part of my Paul Bunyan book - need beta readers. Still going to come back and change some details, but this is the first of many parts (have three completely written, one more well underway).

The Bunyan Went Down to Jersey

"Let this child be the Devil." ~ Mother Leeds, about her thirteenth child, 1735

    Screams and blood. A blinking, red sensation washing over everything. Then the pain - it exploded out from the back, ripping flesh and sending twisted cords of muscles flapping as they broke and reconnected.

    Next - cold air, then darkness.

1935 - Pine Barrens, NJ

    Paul leaned forward and stretched his broad hands to the flame. It flickered and crackled in the glade. The large man closed his fists and leaned back against the log that was currently his seat. "Two hundred years ago?"

    The shape across the fire gave what looked like a nod. His form was cloaked and vaguely humanoid.

    The man rubbed his meaty palm across his thick stubble. Rough. Course.

    "I was able to lay low for most've my life; accidentally gained notoriety, then played it off as folklore. Never tell anyone my full name, especially not anymore." He muttered, reaching for a steel cup. It was hot to the touch, and filled with the thickest coffee imaginable. It veritably oozed as he drank it. It was sharp and bitter, but better than nothing.

    The other form sat in the flickering darkness. A long finger stretched from the folds of what looked like a broad cloth cloak, hooked around the haunch of roast hare, and brought it to his mouth.

    Paul swirled the tar in his cup.

    "Are we the same?"

    "You find me in my home," the cloaked figure responded, his voice wispy and faint, a whisper on the wind, as if these were some of the first words he had spoken in years. "So you knew to look for me - really look. And you think I'm of the same type as you?"

    Paul shrugged and leaned toward the fire again. He took another pull at the sludge that was his coffee. He set it down. "Could be."

    "You're human."

    Paul shrugged. "Maybe. You are too, or at least used to be."

    The form seemed to retract on itself, a wound in the world that wouldn't close, no matter how hard it tried.

    Paul sat in silence, watching the crackling of the fire, then reached up, tore down a broad branch from the tree above his head, snapped the deadwood in two, and tossed it on the pyre. The clearing burst to light, shadows dancing as the dry kindling was consumed.

    The shrouded figure flinched but didn't flee.

    "We must be similar - humanoid but not entirely human," Paul began. "We both began human, but maybe not totally. We’re both immortal.”

    Two glowing embers glared from under the cowl.

    "What I mean to say," Paul repeated, "is that you were human, at least if the legends are to be believed, and you gained -"

    "Was cursed."

    "You were cursed with a transformation that made you what you are today. I was born human, yet I have these abilities as well - curse or no."

    The form stretched a narrow-fingered hand out of its cowl and dropped the bones from the leg, then snatched up another.

    “Let’s figure out what we are. We’d stand a better chance working together.”

    The form dropped another few bones, then rose. "I will think on it."    

    With that, the being swept its cloak apart, blasting the fire with a mighty gust of wind, then vanished up into the darkness and out of sight. Night retook the clearing as the gust extinguished the fire, and Paul couldn't help but chuckle.

    He'd met his share of strange beings in the darkness of the woods, but this one was different. This one... intrigued him. He brushed the ash and soot off his clothing, rose to semi-full height, and began packing up his things.

    The cup he rinsed in a nearby stream and strung to the side of his pack. The cooking implements the same. He rolled his bedding, looped it across the top and then hoisted his mighty axe. He hefted it over his shoulder, waited for his eyes to finish adjusting to the darkness of the Barrens, and began his trek through the woods.

    It was a day's trek before he reached civilization again, but as soon as he stepped from under the broad darkness of the Barrens, he wished he were in the wilderness again. The town was of the style of old New England - narrow, winding streets, a distant church, its white steeple probing the cloudy sky. A graveyard seemed to span a nearby hillside, sliding down into the churchyard and then ending in short, slightly toppled stone wall.

    Vines and ivy grew all over, making one house positively sag under the weight.

    The village was otherwise devoid of life, as if everyone had vanished, leaving the plants to slowly overtake the remains.

    "Hello? Anyone home?"

    Nothing.

    His feet clomped all-to-loudly against the cobble streets that wound from the village proper, with its few stores and shops, up to the abandoned church on the hill.

    He stepped onto one of the shop's porches and peered in the grimy window. Dry goods, toys, a few nick-nacks. And spiderwebs - more spiderwebs that he was comfortable seeing. A thick-bodied grey barn spider stared at him from a nearby web, fiddling with a webbed up bug.

    "You stay there and we all get along. You come near and you're juice."

    The spider didn't blink, but Paul imagined it, a look of confusion on the small arachnid's face.

    "You heard me. I don't want any of you finding a way up my pant leg and giving me all those itches."

    Again, no response from the small, grey spider.

    Paul stepped up to the next building - an old two-story farmhouse, by the looks of it. "Anyone home?" He pounded on the door, cringing slightly as the wood splintered. He mouthed "Sorry" and    stepped back.

    Something skuttled above him. He stepped back, looking up into the broken boards at the top of the porch. The skittering stopped. He brushed past some stray webs and quickly retraced his path off the deck, slipping around a broken railing, casting his eyes up toward the second story, looking for whatever had skuttled about up there. Nothing he could see.

    The wind shifted slightly. He felt the slight touch of a spider web brush his face. He swept it away, turning up his nose at the scent. Sickly sweet. He knew that odor. He knew it too well.

    He rounded the corner of the building and found a deer dead against the side. It had begun to bloat, its legs sticking out as the body slowly swelled from decay. He pulled his shirt up over his nose and stepped near, noting the few spots where raw flesh had begun to pucker and fester.

    He'd done his share of hunting and skinning, so the sight of a dead deer wasn't troubling. However, something about this disturbed him. The deer was dead in the bounds of a town, and not by any apparent gunshot. It was as if it had wandered in and just dropped dead.

    And the wounds. What had caused those?

    He looked around. Still no one at all.

    Then the scuttling again, up near the roof line. At least something was alive.

    He turned from the building, keeping half an eye on the roofline as he made his way toward the old church. It sat on the nearby rise, barely a hill, a white hen surrounded by gravestone chicks. Its bell tower rose over the village, and rotting boards ran down the ridge of the roof, forming a dilapidated line from front to back. Two eye-like windows stared blankly out across the town, and long-gray, once-white boards hung loose from the broad tower.

    The doors hung open, one swinging slightly, creaking in the wind. The other seemed stuck.

    He stepped up the moldering steps and pushed on the swinging door. It creaked open, then seized on the uneven floor. He forced his bulk around it and into the foyer. A rotting pew sat in the corner, crumbling into the floor. A small metal chair rusted in a doorway.

    How long had this place been abandoned?

    The town looked recent, but this church - it was if no one had come in here, or so much as maintained it, for years! The wind creaked at a nearby door. He peaked in. It was an old classroom. The chalkboard had collapsed, leaving erasers, dust, and pieces of slate in a heap. Several desks sat, still robust in their metal and wood, but had begun to overgrow with lichen and vines. A thin carpet of moss had long since replaced whatever had covered the floors originally.

    Paul peered through the broken entryway doors into the auditorium. It was a small, rectangular footprint, perhaps no wider than twenty-by-sixty. About a dozen pews had once formed into rows on either side of an aisle wide enough for maybe two men to walk side-by-side. At the far end of the room, a broken pulpit languished as it sagged into the platform.

    For the first time, Paul wondered if there were a basement, and if so, were he going to fall into it. The rest of the building had so sunk with age, were there a lower floor, had it too been compromised?

    He made his way through rows of rotting pews and stepped onto the stage. It creaked under his weight, but held. Behind the stage was some sort of pool - perhaps a baptismal? Was that what they called it? It had cracked and rotted away, but the remains of some sort of tub lingered.

    He pushed away a thick bank of spiderwebs and pulled a single Bible out of the corner. It had been unceremoniously tossed back here. 

    "That doesn't seem right."

    Paul had never been a tremendously religious man - he believed God existed and all that, but he'd never settled on this religion or that - but to see a Bible treated with such irreverence in a church... well, that just didn't sit right. Not for the first time since entering the building, something seemed off. Something seemed... unholy about this holy building.

    He gently placed the Bible on the edge of the window overlooking the platform. Apparently, someone could get baptized here and be seen through the window by the congregation, then they could slip off into the sides and get changed. He'd of course heard of people getting "baptized," but what the significance was, he'd never been able to tell. He followed the angle of the wall and came to another set of doors, which opened into small rooms - one was a changing room, one was some sort of cleaning closet, and one opened up into a staircase - one leading up above his head - entered from the other side, and one leading down into the depths of the church.

    With ginger step, the large man descended into the depths, the thick stairs somehow holding his weight, even these many years after being abandoned. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and as he ran his hands along the wall, he fumbled over an old light switch.

    He clicked it on, and a wave of yellow sent spiders skittering away, striking his ears with the low hum of dying bulbs. Small bookcases lined the walls, and a concrete and cinderblock tunnel led off into the darkness.

    He scanned the cases as he passed. Predictably, they were filled with old, musty hymnals and a few stray Bibles. But they were all old - older than he'd imagined. Some seemed to be from the seventeen hundreds...

    Something scuttled in the darkness. He spun, hand going to his lumber axe.

    A single bulb swung in the darkness, casting strange flexing shadows.

    A huddled form moved just out of his sight. Cautiously, he took a single step toward it, then reached out with the blade of the axe and poked it.

    It toppled sideways, landing on the floor with a dull thud.

    A toy.

    He watched it for a moment longer. A stuffed animal - what kind he could no longer tell - probably filled with cotton or straw, with button eyes and some sort of fake fur attached here and there that had long faded.

    Skittering.

    He spun, axe at the ready.

    Then the whispering began. It started low and indistinct - a mere sussurration wafted across the stillness. It began low, trickling like a stream rolling over small pebbles, then grew. Then it burst over him. It wasn't whispering - it was skittering. Thousands of legs' worth of skittering - from everywhere.

    Shadows danced and swayed, and floor began to move.

    "Paul! Run!"

    He didn't know whose voice had commanded, but he responded, bounding back up the stairs with thundering aplomb, his mighty boots slamming recklessly against the rotting boards, cracking and breaking them in his haste. He rounded the corner of the building, hearing the rumble above as the whispering skuttling became a crescendo.

    "Run!"

    He burst into the auditorium, still unsure of what, exactly he was fleeing. He brushed aside some stray webs that had broken free, rushed up the aisle, and shouldered open the stiff entry doors, feeling the crack in the wood as his muscles easily overpowered the resistance, splintering it and setting it toppling out into the silence of the village.

    The whispering silenced.

    Heart pounding, Paul took a step away from the old church. Wisps of dust floated around him, a stray web here and there, small flecks of wood.

    "Something dark has taken this town."

    He turned. A cloaked figure stood before him, its form concealed under folds of cloth... and something else. Something... familiar.

    "How did you get ahold of me?"

    The figure didn't seem to move as he spoke. "I have my ways. I've always had various means of communication at my disposal."

    "What was down there?"

    "I'm not sure exactly what, but rumors are whispered of a being known as the J'ba Fofi."

    "That narrows it down," Paul retorted sarcastically. "What is it? What happened to this town?"

    The hooded form moved slightly, as if looking around. Though that would be nearly impossible under the thick cloaks and robes.

    "Something was imported in the shipments."

    "Shipments?"

    "The village received food and other exotics goods from far away lands."

    "Far away like New York?"

    "Like other side of the world."

    "And something came with it."

    The shrouded figure nodded. "Exactly."

    Paul turned back toward the abandoned church, pieces clicking into place. "Let me guess... food shipments distributed by the church and stored in the basement?"

    The form nodded again. "You're quick for a lumberjack."

    "Been around for awhile. Anything else I should know?"

    "I've been keeping this village isolated for a long time."

    "So the people couldn't leave?"

    "That was a regrettable decision. But you are once against correct."

    "So what, you killed them?"

    The figure shook his head. "No. The J'ba Fofi did."

    Paul sighed. "And these people just stayed as they were dragged away and killed?"

    "They fought back."

    "That went well?"

    "About as well as could be expected, given what would happen if they entered the forest."

    His heart sank. "So you scared them into staying in the village, and they would rather face death at the hands of these creatures than face you?"

    "Regettably, yes."

    "You keep saying that, but is it true? Do you genuinely regret any of this? It sounds like you'd do it again."

    The form shrugged. "I do what I have to, even when I dislike it."

    "There was no other way?"

    The form held up a small white peanut. "Guess what this is?"

    Paul shrugged this time. "Part of the food shipment - I'd guess a seed of some kind?"

    "It's an egg."

    "Okay."

    "It's the egg of the J'ba Fofi - these clusters can end up anywhere. And guess how easily it can slip out of the region in a bag, or a cart, or on a bicycle?"

    Paul sighed again. "But to kill the entire village."

    "One village or the entire country?"

    "The region it comes from must have it contained somehow."

    The form crushed the egg. "No. They don't. They only hope there's enough food to keep the creatures sated, but when they harvest the resources of that region, these escape."

    "So they're all over, then?"

    "No. Not by anything I've seen. This is the only outbreak I've detected."

    Paul looked back at the old church. To think, this gesture of goodwill had ended the lives of the entire village. He looked across the old buildings. "So, where are all the bodies?"

    The form gestured to the church. "No doubt in the basement, where you so foolishly wandered."

    "If you've been eyeing this region so closely, why didn't you stop me?"

    "I didn't think you'd be dumb enough to enter their lair."

    "And if I didn't know if was a lair, how would I know?"

    "If you walk into a cave, how do you know if it's a bear den or not?"

    Something skittered behind them, and the door of the church creaked shut. Paul looked back, and the form was gone. He sighed and hoisted his axe. He'd have to handle this himself, then.

    He strode the length back to the building, eyes sweeping left and right - the graveyard, he now noticed, was laced with strands - most likely more of those spider webs. The J'ba FoFi, he gathered, was a mutant spider of some sort - especially deadly, dangerous, and aggressive. No telling what was just under the ground. Were these the web-sitting monsters or trap-door?

    As if on cue, he snagged a strand. He tugged at it, and true to form, it was unbelievably strong. And at the other end, buried amongst the tomb stones, came the largest, most monstrous spider he'd ever seen. Nearly five-feet wide, with legs elevating it nearly his height, the gangly, monstrous form tore itself from the fake rock that covered its lair and lunged at him, fangs bared, its brown body punctuated by the strangest flash of purple.

    Paul was mesmerized for a moment, but the glint of fangs drew his gaze away just in time.

    His hands clasped tightly around the massive mouthparts before they could strike. He heaved, tearing free one of the fangs, which he promptly tossed aside before ripping out the other. A spray of black ichor pulsed from the monstrosities wounded maw as it shrieked angrily and retreated.

    "No, you don't!"

    He rushed forward, axe raised, but found he couldn't. Too many strands had entangled him. His feet were locked in place. Another gravestone burst open, and a larger creatures pried itself free.

    He turned to face the new threat when two more graves burst.

    He began to see what had happened - the bodies had been buried and these things had come out of them, using them as some sort of festering food source and nest until triggered.

    The two new J'ba closed on him.

    He readied his axe, his hands slick with the blood of the previous attacker, and waited. They circled him, and for what he could do, he pivoted, his feet still locked in place. He did whatever he could to not show them his back, but they were too clever by half.

    One lunged, and without knowing what else to do, he dropped, sweeping up and back with his axe as he did. Legs, spines, and meaty flesh dropped on him as the creature shrieked. The sudden movement protected him from the other attacker, as its companion was now forming a writhing mass of wall between him and its deadly fangs.

    Paul wrenched his axe free with a sickening schlock and heaved the two bodies. They were lighter than it would have appeared, and though he could not free his feet, he could at least rear with enough force to strike at the legs of the nearest one. The axe bit through them as easily as it would have a small sapling.

    The spider-like creature toppled sideways as what looked like blood pulsed free. It had already begun to curl in on itself when the survivor attacked.

    Paul barely got a strike in as the body latched onto him, pinning him down.

    The fangs, dripping and deadly, dropped down toward his face. Then stopped.

    A severed head, if that's what it could be called, fell free, bounced harmlessly off Paul's chest, and rolled away. He stared up, past the twitching corpse, to the hooded figure. A horse-like face, with small, angry eyes, glared down at him. Behind it, on a long neck, was a body with massive bat-like wings stretching off to each side. And in small, thing, wiry hands attached to similarly-lanky arms, the creature held Paul's dropped axe, dripping with ichor.

    The wings rose up, shielding them both from the sun.

    "So I get to see the Jersey Devil in all his glory."

    "Apparently," came the voice to his mind. The creature hefted the dead spider off him and handed back his axe.

    "Now leave this village before it truly kills you."

    He wrenched the spiderwebs free and pointed toward the road. "I will permit you to leave."

    "And if I'm already infected, like those corpses?"

    The Devil looked at the bodies, then toward the graves, and his features grew still. "All this time..."

    "What?"

    "I thought it was in the food."

    "What then?"

    "Missionaries."

    "I'm not following."

    The Devil pointed to the graves. "These were from several missionaries who died in the field. Their bodies were returned here for burial. It wasn't the food that caused this - the creatures were already in the corpses. The burial gave them all they needed to hatch and continue living. Another missionary died soon after he returned from the field - it caused so much grief that the wake was held for days..."

    Paul nodded. "Days required for the eggs to hatch."

    "Yes."

    Paul rubbed a hand over his grimy face and grimaced. "Nothing is ever easy."

    The Devil shrugged and looked back at the graves. "I thought to burn the village, but I'm afraid something might slip away in the smoke."

    "Nothing gets out at night?"

    "I can see in the dark."

    "When you sleep?"

    "I don't sleep anymore."

    Paul groaned. "That must be pleasant," he replied sarcastically.

    "Maddening."

    Paul sighed. "You seriously never sleep? And you've been keeping an endless vigil on the town?"

    Nod.

    "You killed the entire town because you had no other option to contain the creatures?"

    Again, a nod.

    "At no point in this entire endeavor did you think to enter and destroy?"

    The Devil shrugged. "If I were ensnared, I'd never escape, and this whole region would be overrun."

    "But you came to me?"

    "Yes. If we work together, then maybe we can push them back."

    "And how would we do that?"

    The Devil paused. "We would have to burn it all down, building by building."

    "And the fire won't get out of control?"

    The Devil pointed to the church. "I believe the infestation began and is centered there. If we contain that - collapse the tunnels, desecrate the graves, burn the bodies, then anything else will just be sweeping up the crumbs."

    Paul watched the faint webs flitting around here and there and though whether there was a giant creature hiding somewhere or whether those were just normal creatures. Then he turned to the graves. A few had already been stirred up by the chaos.

    "Not sure I feel too comfortable desecrating graves."

    The Devil looked over at the fresh mounds of dirt and nodded, then pointed. "It is regrettable, but I estimate only the freshest graves are the ones needing to be exhumed."

    Paul followed his finger. Nearly a dozen graves, all in the closest rows of the graveyard, were fresh. "These all died recently?"

    "Within the last month, yes. They buried each other. I buried the last."

    "And none were killed by the spiders?"

    "To my knowledge, no. They died of starvation or suicide."

    Paul groaned. "You terrified these people to the point where they'd kill themselves before entering the forest?"

    "I already told you that."

    "Yah," replied Paul, "and I still can't believe it." He scowled. "All right. So we dig up those bodies and burn them, right?"

    "Right."

    "Then we burn the village building by building."

    "Correct."

    "Then the church."

    "Yes."

    "I'm not a superstitious man, but even I know not to dig up the dead at the command of the Devil."

    "I'm not really the Devil, you know."

    "Then what do I call you."

    The Devil pondered for a moment, as if he'd never been asked such a thing. "It's an old family name. Call me Leeds."

    Paul nodded knowingly. "So you are the real one."

    "Regrettably so."

    "Well, Leeds..." Paul paused. "I'm sorry, that name just doesn't suit you. How about 'Syth.'"

    The Devil chuckled, his wordless voice echoing quietly in Paul's mind. "That'll do just fine. Now, I'll take up my vigil along the borders. I'll know if anything flees that way. You destroy these buildings one at a time, and I'll destroy anything heading out of town."

    And so Paul did. Shop by shop; house by house. And soon, his beard slightly charred and his face black from soot and dripping with sweat, he stood in the burnt out ruins of the nameless town that the spiders had taken. He turned to the graveyard. Syth appeared beside him, nearly appearing from the surroundings.

    "It's getting late. We need to finish this now."

    Paul looked at the Devil. "Syth, I'm not desecrating the graves. You know the protectors of the churchyard and what they do."

    "Those are myths."

    "You're a myth. I'm a myth. Myth doesn't mean we don't exist."

    Syth pointed to the church and its surroundings. "We have no choice. This holy ground is tainted by the very things that could destroy our land."

    "I'm not disturbing a grave."

    Syth's wings twitched. His face sunk into a scowl, and his hand gestured violently. "You stupid woodsman! Do you understand what is going to happen if we do not destroy each of these bodies? The fires still rage. Toss the bodies on the fire and be done with it!"

    "You do it."

    "I can't.”

“Sounds like a cop-out to me.” Paul replied. “Afraid of getting your hands dirty?”

“Are you?”

The pause between them was pregnant with hostility. “I’m not afraid of anything in these woods. But I don’t court trouble.”

“Destroy those graves or these things will get out. You have no idea how many I’ve killed simply guarding these forests.”

“And you’re sure none have gotten past?” Accused Paul.

“Certain. I can sense these beasts, whatever they are. And I know these forests.”

“Then you can chase them down if they slip past.”

“Not if I’m fighting them.”

Paul’s mind jumped back to the creatures bursting from underground. Jack was right. He was in for a fight, and if they got tangled, those beasts could scurry in all directions. Why they hadn’t tried it before, he could only guess. Perhaps they lacked coordination.

“They fear exposing themselves. That is why they continued to move from house to house, hoping to get closer and closer to the forest. Only in an act of sheer desperation will they attempt to make a break for the forest by crossing lit paths.”

“So you’re afraid at night…”

“The moon counts.”

Paul looked up. The sun had begun to set, the brilliant hues of sunset tore through the sky. “Then we don’t have time.”

“The flames will keep them at bay a little longer.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Syth scowled, an oddly human expression for his dog-like face. “There’s all sorts of things I’m not telling you. We’re running out of time. Destroy the bodies and we’ll face down the evil inside - together. I can’t go into that church until the outside is sanitized.”

“Ah, ‘sanitized.’ Yes, come up with a fancy word for desecrating the graves of the buried.”

“Fine. I killed them because I had to. Are you happy?”

The flames flickered around the village. The graves were now piles of fresh dirt exhumed and burned. Every corpse lay on the pyre. Paul brushed his broad hands on his pants, wiping the foul ichor against the rough fabric. He plucked his hatchet from the ground and scowled at the shadowy figure as it descended. 

“Nothing has escaped.”

“You seem sure of yourself.”

“I’ve lived for over two hundred years in this stretch of forest. There’s not much that comes in or out I don’t know about.”

“All these creatures arrived without your knowledge.”

“Spiders are one thing. Infestations are another. The queen is still in the basement of that church.”

Paul scowled. “You’re not telling me everything.”

Syth folded his wings back like a strange cloak and crossed his arms. “We must finish this.”

Paul shouldered the axe and followed the figure into the ruined church.

“What’s your plan?”

“We destroy this place from the inside out.”

“You make it sound simple.”

Syth shrugged as they ventured down into the depths of the church.

Webs, small spiders, rotten boxes - a long, winding cellar.

“And where is this creature?”

Paul stepped around a small crate. It had cracked open, and small peanuts had spilled out. “Why import these, of all things?”

Syth eyed them, and they continued on. The webs grew thicker, hanging from the ceiling, connecting wall to wall as they went.

Paul’s hands absently reached for the boxes of matches in his pocket.

“Wait.”

“For what? We can end this now.”

“I need to see this creature. We need to make sure its dead.”

“The queen?”

“Yes.”

Paul followed the cloaked form deeper into the darkness. Old electric bulbs, long dead, hung here and there, buried under webs. Paul clicked on his flashlight, illuminating the walls and ceiling in a dull yellow glow. The beam fell on a strange shape in the corner.

“Don’t look.” Syth warned.

Paul shook his head and grabbed a handful of the web. He started to pull. It didn’t budge.

“Stronger than steel.”

Paul nodded, then felt the fibers in his arm tense and tighten, cords popping and realigning. The fibers tore one by one, pinging open, revealing a dessicated ruin of a body. Sunken cheeks, drawn lips, empty sockets. Every muscle was a tense cable, with withered, paper-skin pulled taut across it.

“Drained.”

Paul stepped back.

“Every villager?”

“The ones that lived on the surface were spared this. They died of more natural causes.”

“Fear and hunger?”

No response.

Paul tore open another web. Same.

He turned to Syth. “And all this time, you waited for someone like me to come contain it?”

“Others wandered in but never came back out.”

“And did you try to save them?”

“No.”

Two more webbed corpses.

Paul glared at Syth. “All these bodies. All this time.”

“I’m the Devil,” Syth replied, “don’t think I’m not unfamiliar with scorn and glares. 1909 was a bad year for me, and I don’t care to repeat it.” He responded. “We’re finishing this today, and you can judge me however you will after this is over.”

And the basement stopped. Before them stood what had once been some sort of root cellar. Shelves, long rotten, lined the walls, the rusted cans and broken bottles all that remained of the human food and other goods once stored there. Now, in macabre contrast, stood dozens of webbed bodies, no doubt human food storage.

Paul shined his beam toward the ceiling. In the dim glow of the flashlight’s dying beam, he saw - something - pulse lightly.

“Big.” he muttered.

Syth nodded. “Gorged on the blood of an entire village.”

“Then we kill it.”

Without pausing, Paul hurled his hatchet at the beast. It clanged harmlessly off the creature’s leg, barely leaving a scratch.

The leg twitched and stirred, and the spider lowered itself from the ceiling, almost casually extending itself before turning on the pair.

Paul drew his two-bit axe from across his back.

“Well, that didn’t work. Any ideas?”

The spider’s eyes became visible in the fading gloom, dark pin-pricks of void against the rotting backdrop. Large mandibles pulsed and dripped, large fangs glinting dully in the dim glow of the flashlight. Then the creature rushed them.

Paul readied his axe, swiping rapidly at the beast as Syth swept backward and out of the way. The blade whipped through the air, then caught the creature in the face. The blade deflected just a moment, then bit deep into one of the eyes.

The spider recoiled, lashing out with its front legs. One caught Paul across his midsection, launching him back into a nearby wall. Debris collapsed over him. The devil swept up toward the ceiling, clinging lightly to a nearby web before vaulting back into the darkness.

Paul raised himself up as the beast rounded on him and struck with a sharp foreleg. He spun, dodging aside as the bladed spike pierced the ground where his head had just been. With more agility than seemed natural for a man his size, he vaulted off with one hand, landing on the other side of the room, catlike.

He slid along the stone floor as another leg shot out. This he latched onto, his muscles tensing as he strengthened his shoulder, his biceps, his forearm, and finally the muscles in the palm of his hand. Tendons stretched and strained. He could feel his arm swelling, skin stretching as it moved to make way for the rolling and rippling muscles. Then he flexed out another arm, raising it back and cracking his fist against the chitin of the lower leg. Once. Twice. It cracked, splintered, and started to leak.

He grimaced and heaved, his shoulders and back swelling in time with each pull.

His face a masque of ragged determination, the old lumberjack wrenched sideways, and with a resounding crack that rang through the room, he snapped free the lower part of the giant spider’s leg. Ichor gushed and the creature stumbled back.

“No… you… don’t!”

Paul hefted the severed appendage like a dagger and drove it into the creature’s joint. He wrenched it out again, then heaved. The upper part of the severed leg broke free with a satisfying snap.

The spider knew it was fighting a fatal battle, and seemed to pivot between lunging for a last-ditch kill shot and fleeing. But there was nowhere to run, and Paul was driving it before him like a sheep before a shepherd.

He raised his leg-dagger in one hand and the cudgel-like upper leg in the other.

With a mighty thrust, he drove the spike of the leg into an eye, then raised the cudgel with a growl. “This one’s for Ol’ John!” and brought it screaming down. It caught the spiked leg-piece squarely on what could only be described as the head, spearing it down into the softer flesh beneath the eye.

Black ichor splattered as Paul raised his club again, driving the spike deeper and deeper.

The only sound he could hear was the scrabbling scratch of the twitching legs and the drip-drip of the blood.

His arms deflated, shouldered relaxed, back eased. His hands shrank to normal size.

He gave the leg a light toss. It was hard, solid, and relatively light. “It’ll make a good axe haft.” He muttered. “Ol’ John, you’d’ve been proud.”

He turned. Syth stood in the doorway, his form silhouetted against the darkness, a single electric bulb illuminating him from behind.

“Some think you’re a large bat. Now I see why.” Paul muttered. He turned as the spider slowly curled in on itself. “At the end of the day… a giant spider’s just a spider - all weaknesses included. So what’s going on now? Is this the part where you betray me for some hidden master? I hear Ol’ Indrid Cole’s still being seen around places in these parts.”

Syth shook his head. “No.”

“No to betraying me or no to having a dark master?”

“Both.” Syth replied, his head turning to look back down the tunnel. “I don’t know how you did any of this.”

“Not too hard,” Paul responded. “At the end of the day, a spider’s just a spider. Break its carapace and its circulatory system shuts down.”

“That’s not what I mean. How did you see me?”

Paul scowled, shaking a blob of ichor from his hand as he plucked his fallen axe from the ground. “I’m not sure I follow.”

The devil gestured for him to follow. “Let’s burn this place, then I’ll explain.”

Paul fumbled in his pockets for the lighter, pulled out a stick of dynamite, laughed, returned it, then lit a small batch of tinder in the corner of the storage room. Small bits of paper and old wood began to blaze. Smoke billowed, pushing the spiderlings out before them. They rushed up the darkened corridor, and just before they mounted the stairs, Paul lit another fire, driving more spiders before them.

He leapt up the stairs, lighting more as they went, until the whole church was a plume of gray smoke. Flames billowed, sucking in air from hidden vent holes, revealing their existence with appropriate hellish smoke. 

Within moments, the old church collapsed in on itself. Syth watched the surroundings, his eyes almost closed, as if listening or sensing with something other than sight.

“They are gone,” he whispered.

The inferno absorbed the old church, and a yawning hell chasm gaped before them. Paul shielded himself from the heat before turning to Syth. The ruins surrounded them, some buildings still smoldering. “You want to explain what’s going on?”

“You saw me,” Syth replied. “None ever see me unless they know where to look. How did you see me?”

“I used my eyes. You mean you’re actually invisible to most?”

“I can’t be seen unless someone is searching for me. There are reasons I keep to the rumored places and rarely appear. I cannot be seen except by those who know both who I am and are looking for me. And yet you have always seen me, and you weren’t searching for me.”

Paul shrugged. “I’ve always been able to see the mythical. I didn’t know any had the ability to be invisible.”

Syth nodded. “I do. Again, I can’t be seen under normal circumstances.”

“But the townsfolk?”

“They saw my actions, but none saw me. It was the fear of the unknown that caused them to remain in the village to die. I am just a legend. How could you see me?”

Paul shrugged. “I’m not normal, either.”

“I saw. Not quite the growth of your legend, but impressive.”

“My legend has been… exagerrated.” Paul replied. “I left my old ways and old name behind a century ago, but the legends crept up anyway. Drunk lumberjacks, always seeing fearsome creatures where there are none.”

“There has to be more to it than that.”

Paul shrugged. “I can’t grow to immense sizes, in case you’re wondering. I can grow strong, parts of me can perhaps double in size and gain the strength of that, but I can’t hit the tops of the redwoods.”

The flames licked up around the village, casting eerie shadows.

“I was born here.” Syth finally stated.

“In this village?”

“No, in the Pine Barrens.”

Paul chuckled. “Anyone who knows of you knows that. Leeds farmhouse, right?”

The devil nodded. “Yes. Cursed from childhood, driven from my home, and forbidden to ever return to the place of my birth.”

“You’ve tried?”

Syth nodded. His wings pulled tightly against his body as he spoke, as if comforting him. “There are places in this forest I can’t go - I am physically restrained from it. Holy places, sacred sites - that church used to be one of them. I always thought it was because I’m the devil. But then I found sites that weren’t Christian in origin - and when I couldn’t enter them, either… I began to wonder.”

Paul watched the flames as they lapped up the edges of the chasm. It really was as if a portal to hell itself had opened up, and all within had vanished. He half-expected a demon to crawl its way out of the pit. He turned to Syth. A demon already stood beside him. One that had already eliminated an entire town in the name of the greater good.

“What if I’m not from this realm…” Syth finally said.

“What other realm is there?”

“The fairy realm, the spirit realm - they’re legends, but maybe there’s more to it than that?”

“But you were born here.”

“And cursed… but what if the curse is from another place - or what if the legends of my birth are just a myth - what if I was thrown through into this world.”

“Then maybe I’m the same?”

“How old are you, Paul?”

He watched the devil, then turned to the surrounding town. “Born before the Revolution, I’d imagine. Things get a little muddy after that long, so not sure exactly when. It’s been a long time.”

“You don’t look older than thirty.”

Paul nodded. “Imagine I’ll be this way foreseeable future.”

They both let the silence and the flames rule the night, then the whispered voice of Syth touched Paul’s mind again.

“What are we?”

Paul shrugged. “I don’t know.”

The church building’s final supports finally collapsed, sending up a shower of sparks into the night air. Paul’s mind wandered to another pyre he had lit, decades earlier, when he’d put a dear friend to rest. Something seemed similar in those flames - something dark.

His gaze shifted to the devil - but Syth was gone.

Paul humphed and stood, plucking up his axe from the ground and tossing his traveling pack over his shoulder. “I guess I’ll see you again sometime.”

And with not another look back at the derelict ruins that had once been a peaceful town, Paul strode off into the forests.