Ring Shout(37)

A rumble bubbles up from somewhere deep inside him and the front of his robes shred away, revealing a gaping mouth where his belly should be—same one from my dream! It opens to show curving teeth like needles, and a long, darting tongue. That nasty thing shoots out at me, and I slice it clean off, leaving it flopping in the rain. Been waiting to do that. He screams, staggers, then comes at me again, mouths open and singing.

It’s like the night at the juke joint. A mashed-up chorus, with no real timing or rhythm. As if it was created to unmake music. Like before it threatens to take me off balance, and I stumble under it. But no! I got songs too! I listen to my sword, letting those chanting voices fill me up. For a moment it seems the two are battling: my songs and his uneven chorus. But it was never a real fight. What I have is beautiful music inspired by struggle and fierce love. What he got ain’t nothing but hateful noise. Not a hint of soul to it. Like unseasoned meat. My songs crash right through that nonsense, silencing it, just as my sword takes off his arm. He falls back and I dip low, slicing away everything under one knee.

When he lands on his back I walk over, watching him fight to get up. Dr. Bisset appears beside me, studying the thing on the ground with interest. I bend close, easily avoiding the cleaver slashing at me uselessly. His mouths hiss, and I get to work, hacking away at the meat of him, the lie of him, all to the beautiful songs in my head. About halfway through, his whole body falls apart. Pieces of flesh go slithering and crawling out across the mountaintop, like a broken hive of insects seeking escape.

But Dr. Bisset is there—a blur, everywhere at once. He picks up each one of those pieces, dropping them into what looks like a white medical bag. When he’s done the bag the same size but bulging, as shrieking things inside fight to get out. He nods and I follow his meaning to a small dark shape in the distance, fleeing for the trees below. Butcher Clyde’s head by that red hair, grown legs like tubes. I catch up with it quick, planting a foot atop his forehead. Under the heel of my boot, two mouths where eyes should be gnash jagged teeth.

“Didn’t I say that one day I was going to cut you to pieces?”

When he open his other mouth wide to snarl I plunge my sword inside. The blade goes hot and there’s a melding of shrieks as Butcher Clyde’s head smokes and chars from the inside. I don’t stop until there’s quiet and nothing but a lump of ash that the rain begins to wash away.

“A shame,” Dr. Bisset says. “I would have liked to examine that specimen.”

I look to his bag. “You ain’t got enough?”

He answers with a tip of his bowler, then walks toward the dead Angel Oak tree.

“How did you convince your lords?” I call out. “To help I mean?”

He glances back. “I’ve told you. You intrigue them. They will be keeping … a watch on you.”

Now that, I don’t like one bit.

He sets out again, his body turning sideways when he reaches the dead Angel Oak, going flat as paper once more. Then he and the tree, fade from the night. The full weight of all that just happened almost drags me to my knees. Then I remember.

Chef! Michael George!

It takes some digging to find them. First Chef. She got a nasty bump on her head. Out cold, but still breathing. I come across two other women before finding Michael George. He bruised some, but alive. Though his eyes still turned up into white marbles. I look to the sky, catching rain on my face. The Grand Cyclops is gone. Butcher Clyde too. But this don’t feel over. Right about then I realize, we not alone.

I turn to find a mass of Ku Kluxes. The Klans who didn’t give their bodies to the Grand Cyclops still fixed on what’s left of the movie screen. But these monsters hiding behind men’s faces all looking dead at me in the pouring rain. I remember what Butcher Clyde called them—dogs. Now with no master.

One in front growls, flinging away the torch he’s holding and changing into a full Ku Klux. Behind him follows another. And another. In moments they all changed. A hundred Ku Kluxes, maybe more, snarling and working into a frenzy. When I lift my sword, they go crazy, and all come running, like they plan on burying us under their pale bodies.

But a sudden cry goes up and I look out through the rain to see a hell of a sight.

Charging across the mountaintop is Emma Krauss and her comrades. Molly’s apprentices, Sethe and Sarah, follow at their sides. And behind them come the rest, led by veterans in soldiers’ uniforms, holding rifles with bayonets, a burly colored man at their front. We’d told them to stay put and wait for our signal. Guess they took all that just happened for that. The veterans move in fast strides, splashing water as they holler, passing up Emma and her people. Only Sethe and Sarah match the pace of those men, and together they smash into the Ku Kluxes.

The veterans go about like men at work, bringing down Ku Kluxes and stabbing with bayonets. Sethe and Sarah are right hand and left hand, shooting Ku Kluxes and slashing out with big silver-edged knives. One comes too close and takes a blade across the throat, followed by a bullet through the eyes. Emma out there working the shotgun almost as fierce as Sadie. She blows a hole straight through one Ku Klux, then spins to shoot the leg off another. It crashes, and the soldiers’ silver bayonets on it in a flash. The flames from discarded torches catch light of shredded robes and bits of platform, starting small, unnatural bonfires that make the mountaintop look like a picture out a war. All that fighting finally breaks some Klans from their trance. They stumble about, looking stupefied and backing away from the widening battle.