Like Lambs Led

23 Haggard Wolf

After I went and did what Mercy told me, I shot back to Aunt Shannon's. The fight below isn't much of a fight. It's a slaughter.

The old house rocks in the wind. Branches on the oak tree snap. Blood mixes with rain, making the grass oil-slick. Mercy, Mom, and Shannon scream to the night with black, opaque pupils, commanding the spirits to maim the folks running around the yard.

All I can do is hover above, listening to Mercy use my voice and point with my fingers. You know what sucks? Being dead and watching your sister take over your body. Seeing Mom's face light up.

Death makes you review what you could've been if you hadn't been so afraid. This is why Mercy is down there being the badass she always wanted to be, and why I'm up here, hoping I get the chance to go back and be a braver version of myself, too.

Ethan looks terrible, but  it is satisfying to see him spring past the tree, aiming for sniveling Colt, who's huddled at the base of the porch, his head covered by his arms.

But before the entity can touch him, a voice cuts the clamor: "Don't you touch him. I want first dibs on Colt Colby."

Bella Hardgrove, her luscious hair waving in the wind, stands in the middle of Old Salt Road. Thunder crashes with each step she takes. Her crazed eyes zero in on Colt while her fist clutches a carving knife.

The girl sure knows how to make an entrance.

Before Mercy took over my body, she told me to find Bella and tell her that the time has come. The situation must be redressed.

I'd found her in her no-good daddy's trailer. Dressed in a nightgown with yellow crescent moons, Bella sat up straight in her bed when I entered her room. She couldn't see me, but I made sure she felt me good. I dragged my words over her skin, tugged at strands of her hair. I wanted to scare her like she scared me. Death offered me an opening, a chance for some revenge, but Bella's blubbering stopped me short.

"Moriah?" She asked, her hands waving wildly in her dark bedroom. "You're dead? Did the Colbys kill you? Oh no. That's what I hoped to avoid."

"You wanted to help me?" I asked, incredulously.

"Of course." She wept, her face buried in her hands. "I thought I could scare you away from him. From them. I knew they were after you."

Bella Hardgrove was my protector?

I told her about the gathering at Aunt Shannon's. How Mercy and I had convinced them to come. That she could butcher them, the way they'd butchered so many others.

Now, as she charges through the townspeople, brandishing her butcher knife, I've never been happier to see a bully at work. She swings the knife as it were a scythe, jabbing the tip of it into people's sides.

She comes upon Colt. Stands over him with a snarl. "How can you live with yourself? How is it so easy for you to snuff out the lives of others?"

Colt has no answer. But he does cry out as her knife finds his back over and over. Breathing shallow breaths, he collapses into the wet mud.

Sheriff Colby lets out a muffled yell.

Mercy yanks her hand from Aunt Shannon and points to the Sheriff cruisers. As she scuttles from the porch, she leaps over writhing bodies in the lawn, and calls to the spirits, telling them to surround Sheriff Blueberry's car.

The spirits hum in acknowledgement.

The fat clouds in the sky around me swirl like a swarm of bees. They twist and coil as the hum of the dead rattles the sheriff car. Mercy lets out a small cheer when the trunk pops open. But I'm not so hopeful.

The sky lets out a sickening crack while Mercy gets to work, untying Maryanne Franderson and Sheila while the dead joins Bella in cutting down the rest of the people flailing in the yard. Holding bleeding limbs, the crowd hobbles through the yard with dazed expressions.

Sheila stumbles as she pulls herself out of the trunk, speaks gibberish when she sees the bodies strewn around the yard. "Dear Lord, help me!"

Mercy shakes Sheila's shoulders. "Sheila. Help yourself!" Taking their hands, Mercy leads Maryanne and Sheila through the thrall of the dead and dying. "Keep your heads down!" she tells them.

But, The Dust is forming. And it wants all of the attention. Spinning in the clouds, it races across the sky before shooting to the ground below like a wayward lightning bolt. I expect to see a lumbering demon, something with outstretched arms and long fangs. But The Dust isn't large at all.

It's small and sickly.

A wolf stands in the middle of the melee. Fluffs of matted gray fur decorate its frame. From here, I can smell the decay wafting off of it. Frail and haggard, it attempts a howl. But the hoarse cry sounds more like a whimper.

Mercy was right. The generations of Whisperers uniting has already weakened the pitiful entity.

Bella and Mercy surround the wolf. They begin speaking their ominous words.

If the wolf could speak back, it would probably beg for his life. Instead, it bends its knees and lowers its head.

"Stay right here!" Aunt Shannon orders when Mom tries to follow her. Grabbing Sheriff Colby by the collar, Aunt Shannon drags him from the porch. His body lands on the wet earth with a thud.

Mom's back was straighter, head higher, when she was clinging to Aunt Shannon's hand. But now, alone on the porch, she's retreated back within herself. She shivers in the chill.

As Aunt Shannon joins Mercy and Bella around the wolf, I am at Mom's side in an instant.

They chant, "Mammon, your reign is over."

I whisper to Mom, "You know who you are. You know your power."

Gnashing and howling, the dead whip themselves into a frenzy around the wolf. Their energy tells me that they love being unleashed. The dead commands the dead.

And I try to coax some life back into Mom.

With one, long ear-splitting scream, the spirits form a cyclone. Beat the house. Yank at the tree.

I wrap my dead arms around Mom. Though the world falls around her, I am here. I am here for her. Just as she needs me to be.