THE GROTESQUE TRUTH
THE GROTESQUE TRUTH
by Matt Handle
Deputy Liam Martin sat up in his worn leather recliner and turned up the TV volume via remote control. The kids were raising a ruckus down the hall in the playroom as usual, but he wanted to hear this before he finished getting dressed and headed into the station. He thought it might just be damnedest thing he’d ever seen.
According to the pretty blonde on Fox, it had started yesterday morning in Europe and it had now spread all over the globe. Every building sporting a gargoyle had a hole where the ugly decoration had been rooted and that wasn’t the half of it. The weird little carved stone water spouts weren’t just missing. They were moving. Photos and videos were all over the Internet and a series of them were playing on the news as the blonde told stories of the creatures flying across the skies in formation like geese and traveling across the countryside like miniature herds of buffalo.
Eyewitnesses told tales of the creatures scurrying down city streets and taking wing right outside their windows. One poor mother out in Flagstaff claimed her son had tried to grab a dragon-looking gargoyle as it dashed across their backyard and the crazy thing bit him. She had to take the boy to the doc-in-the-box for stitches and a tetanus shot. Catholic priests stood outside the Notre Dame bemoaning the lost ornamentations and lamenting it was the end of the world. Liam didn’t know about all that, but he did think it was a hell of a lot more interesting than those rehashed missing laptop theories the talking heads were dishing about last week.
After a glance at his watch told him he was going to be late if he didn’t get moving, Liam got up, took his half-drank coffee to the sink and poured it down the drain before heading back to the bedroom to pull on his shirt, boots, and holster. Lizzy was still in the shower singing the latest Miranda Lambert song at the top of her lungs so he hollered goodbye through the bathroom door, stopped in the playroom to give the kids a kiss, then headed to the department SUV parked in the gravel driveway.
The Edwards County Sheriff’s office was about 20 minutes down the highway if you drove the speed limit. Liam figured he could make it in 15. He tuned the radio to 700 AM and found Buck Brown talking about the gargoyle mess in an even more alarmed tone than the good folks on Channel 7. According to Buck, the CIA was investigating possible ties to an experimental lab in China. Before Buck could tell him what the Department of Defense planned to do about it, a half dozen stone creatures darted across the pavement in front of him so fast Liam had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting them. He let out a string of curse words as his vehicle left ten yards of rubber on the road. He pulled off onto the shoulder and picked up his scanner.
“Doreen, you there?”
He waited until the handheld radio squawked back.
“I’m here, Liam. What’s your 20? Sheriff’s expecting you any minute.”
“You seen or heard the news about all these missing gargoyles?”
“Kinda hard not to. It’s on every station. The Sheriff wants all hands patrolling the streets today on the look-out for them. Mayor is making a stink about public safety.”
“Well I just nearly lost a fender at 60 miles per hour trying to avoid hitting a bunch of them that ran across 377. I’m gonna check them out before I head in. Let Tom know?”
“You got it, Liam. Be careful out there.”
Liam looked out across the desert in the direction the gargoyles had run and all he saw was the cloud of dust they left behind. He knew he’d never catch them on foot. With a sigh, he put the SUV back in drive and started out across the hard-packed Texas dirt. The vehicle had 4-wheel-drive but it was still a bumpy ride. He dodged the scrub brush and deeper ridges as best he could as he followed the cloud deeper into the wasteland. The engine and shocks both complained the entire trip but it wasn’t long before he realized where the little stone monsters were headed. He found the dirt road past the park gate and rode the rest of the way in relative comfort.
The Devil’s Sinkhole was about the only reason anyone outside of Rocksprings ever bothered to visit the sleepy little town Liam called home. Wednesday through Sunday tour guides led eager adventurers around the park grounds including near the 50 foot wide hole in the earth that was the park’s namesake but made sure they never got too close to the 350 foot drop and almost certain death that came with it. The highlight of the trip was nightfall when many of the three million bats that roosted there would fly out into the dark in search of food. Today was a Tuesday and Liam could still feel his eggs and bacon breakfast sitting in his belly so the place was deserted. Deserted of humans anyway.
He parked the SUV along the side of the road and tried the scanner to let Doreen know his position. All he got back was static. He tried once more, frowned at it then put it back down on the seat. He got out of the vehicle slowly. He thumbed the strap on his holster as he walked around the back of the vehicle toward the sinkhole.
There must have been a thousand gargoyles lined up around the edge of the hole. Big ones, little ones, gargoyles that looked like dragons, lions, monkeys, goats, and creatures Liam couldn’t have named if his life depended on it. The ones sitting along the edge were as still as if they were back on the sides of the buildings where they belonged. Every one of them faced the 350 foot drop, their lifeless eyes cast downward. More of the monsters arrived by the minute, running, loping, hopping, and leaping from all points of the compass. Liam watched in amazement.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there gawking at the impossible scene before him but the sun wasn’t directly overhead yet when the humming began. It shook him from his daze and his hand reflexively went to the butt of his firearm. The monsters were making noise in unison. The hum reminded him of a swarm of bees, but lower in pitch and much louder. A few stragglers continued to arrive, finding a spot in the now crowded circle, but it seemed the gargoyle migration was almost complete. When the final stone creature took its place, the hum grew in volume and the ground began to quake. Sweat broke out on Liam’s forehead and his heart raced as he tried to decide whether to hightail it back to the SUV or hang tight to see what happened next.
The gargoyles made his decision for him. As one, they leapt into the mouth of the swallet. One second they were all lined up in a stony circle humming like monks in meditation, the next they were gone. A plume of fire shot up from the hole and millions of bats flew out ahead of it. They momentarily blacked out the sky, screeching as they were forced into the sunlight to avoid being devoured by the flames. They disappeared into the horizon as Liam sunk to his knees. This couldn’t be happening. It was a limestone hole, not a volcano. He’d lived in Edwards County his entire life. Fire had never spouted from the Devil’s Sinkhole.
The sound of grinding rock emanated from below. Liam could feel the shifting movement beneath his knees like a tectonic reckoning. The ground shook harder. The SUV’s alarm system went off, but Liam didn’t even notice the blaring of the horn. All he could focus on was the lip of the sinkhole and the flames that were turning it black.
Like a rocket lifting off its pad, a giant made of magma and bits of stone rose from the sinkhole, rushing into the air until it towered ten stories overhead. Liam fell backward in awe. The monster seemed to morph as it grew. The bits of stone moved into place until Liam recognized them as the remnants of all the gargoyles that had sacrificed themselves to this molten beast. It took the form of one giant gargoyle, a fiery dragon of earth and stone. Its tail and hind legs were still somewhere underground, but it pawed the scorched earth in front of it and spread its giant wings until Liam could see nothing else. It opened its blazing maw and Liam was sure he was about to be roasted alive.
It was a slumbering god of fire awoken and angry. It was a beast of forgotten legend returned by the stone idols unknowingly made in its likeness. It was the beginning of the apocalyptic end. In panic, Liam got to his feet and ran. He didn’t bother getting into the SUV. He didn’t dare look over his shoulder. He only sprinted mindlessly into the sandy wasteland, driven mad by the grotesque truth.
Fiction © Copyright Matt Handle
Image by moritz320 from Pixabay
