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them pushing him to the ground. A great weight crouched against his back, squeezing the air out of his lungs. It hurt to breath. The air smelled rancid. And when he felt the leathery wings fold around him he prayed God for a merciful end. What he got was a pitiless dawn. *** The wailing is what brought him to his senses. He’d been aware of its decline and eventual silencing, but now he heard it growing louder again, felt it crescendoing all around him, beside him, beneath him, behind him. He fought the randomness within, trying to bring order to his thoughts, understanding to his world. He remembered wings. He thought of Shep. He heard the wailing from the wailing itself. He opened his eyes. His vision was distorted, bowled slightly and lo lock locked cked forward. He saw trees, a clearing — the same me ccl clearing learing — but it was all somehow far away and awfu awfully fullllyy big. As if building. seen from above. As if seen from the top op of a building ng. Movement was useless. It was all too o cclear, lear, now. He was immobile, frozen forever in tthe he form of a
22 METROSPIRITAUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
grotesque, squatting hunchback, the final occupant of the second tier from which he overlooked the man. The boy. The chalky white dog. Shep! The wailing grew louder still, but it wasn’t the wind swirling around wings and talons. It came from the gargoyles themselves, the unmoving, unspeaking, unholy reductions of life assembled around him. Assembled by the predatory sentry standing silent guard on the deadly perch above them. He sensed a rustling in the woods. The moonlight wasn’t bright enough to illuminate down the trail, but immediately he knew it must be Lydia. She would have gotten worried and followed the trail just as he had, following the footprints down the frosty path to the clearing. “Lydia!” He started to wail himself. It was the only way he could articulate his warning. He didn’t know how he did it, but he knew he had to alert her of the
danger, the evil. “Lydia!” He wailed louder, wailed with all his stifled might. Dear God, he thought. Turn back. Turn back. A figure emerged from the woods. “Lydia!” All at once the wailing ceased, replaced by a symphony of lower pitched hissing that quickly rose to the same painful level as before. He didn’t understand, he didn’t understand any of it, but he knew he had to save her. He had to save Lydia. Nora followed behind her, edging into the clearing with her arms folded solemnly behind her back. She looked as uncomfortable as she had at the house, the same disapproving frown on her face and an aura of guilty compliance slowing her steps. Lydia, however, showed no such reticence. With her tweed coat pulled tight against her body, she entered the clearing without apprehension, without even the slightest hint of worry. And there was nothing he could do to save her. The two approached the building just as he had, eyes turned up to the rows of hissing gargoyles. “It’s a pity about Shep,” he heard Lydia say to her mother. And then the two turned for home, ignorant of the hissing choir that had increased by one.
25OCTOBER2012