Crawl(15)

(I suggest you crawl)

—and slunk up next to him. She thumped the piece of wood on the ground, knocking charred bits of wood from the sides, like flicking ash off a cigarette, and leaving only a vicious point of red hot stake.

Juliet giggled.

The red priest yanked his hands from his face and gazed up in horror as she lurched forward on her knees, the glowing stake clasped in two hands, held high above her head.

“Don’t!” he cried. “Don’t! He only—”

Juliet drove the smoking stake into the red priest’s guts. The point stabbed into the ground beneath the man, sending an aftershock through Juliet’s hands and arms. His flesh sizzled and crackled around the wood impaling his abdomen. She smelled cooked meats.

Juliet attempted to yank the post free, to ram it into him again, but her scorched hands refused to work.

All the while, the red priest howled. He looked like a vampire, staked and dying, smoke coming off him, as if sunlight had found him in his coffin.

“You stupid… stupid child…” the red priest spat. “He only… Silas only…”

On her hands and knees, Juliet craned her head to meet the man’s eyes. She grinned weakly. “Shut up and die.”

“Agh,” he grunted, as agony painted his face. He sat up as far as the stake in his stomach would allow and loosed a wail to the heavens before collapsing back onto the ground.

Juliet surveyed her work with sick pride. She’d done it. She’d killed the man who’d almost killed her. She’d won.

Only he wasn’t quite dead. Not yet.

“He only…” The red priest gurgled. “He only eats the dead. But He… He plays with the living.”

Our father, who art staked to the ground, fell silent. Juliet looked upon him, locked in stunned stupidity.

“Boogedy… boogedy… boo…”