Scorched Earth

Humbly, they all went to the flames. One by one. Hardy smelled them as they burned, but there were no screams.

"We done a good one here today, Hardy," the mayor spoke, husky and choked. The hat was low. The edge covered dark eyes watered from the smoke. "We done a good one, Hardy."

"Takes a lot of work, all of them."

The mayor wasn't up for arguments. He nodded, then hawked a stream of black sludge from lungs caked as walls of tar. When the flames were done, they went back to the truck and rumbled toward the town. There was a crowd gathered when they pulled the truck to a stop. Dozens of 'em. Posted up all around the hall as though they had no other place to be.

"Mayor Paul! Mayor Paul! My boy, my boy. He hasn't come home, Mayor Paul. The cops are nowhere. Won't you help us?"

The mayor waved them off and Hardy cleaved the crowd.

"Now, now," he told them. Some of them had faces tear-drenched. "The mayor has a lot of work. Let the man by."

That wasn't an answer the crowd wanted.

"Oh, shove off, Hardy! You ol' coward's splat! We wanna know where our sons are."

After that was chaos. A couple of the women screamed. A few more of the men folk bucked up and threw out puffed chests. Someone threw a shoe, that would have pummeled the mayor had Hardy not jumped the attacker just as the launch began. Mayor Paul scrambled up the steps and leaped toward the safety of the hall beyond. Once Hardy dealt a hand to a few of the rougher fathers, he ran and followed. The door slammed shut on Hardy and Mayor Paul as the mob surged beyond.

Hardy's breath came hard and fast, but he managed to brace the door.

"They're hungry for them answers, Mayor Paul."

The old man shuffled across the hall, where a bar stood empty and flanked by ragged stools. He took the closest stool and tapped the top of the bar.

"Don't worry about that now, boy. Come pour me a beer."

The taps were dry, so Hardy poured them both glasses of a deep amber hooch. There was no label on the bottle, but the Mayor showed no worry.

"There's no cold stuff," Hardy grumped between empty troughs beneath the bar.

"Don't worry 'bout that," the mayor snapped. "Get them glasses and get a seat here. There's a thought on me to guzzle hooch and 'spect you have the same. That was tough work. Good work. Tough."

Hardy, never of a type to deny orders, flopped down on a stool next to the old man.

The mayor took the glass gruffly and took a deep, drowned-man's guzzle. Empty, he reached over the bar, grabbed the bottle, and topped the glass once more.

"Days as these, boy. Them's what makes a lead so tough. Tough work. Tough talks. But these days...you never know what could be asked of ya'. Gotta be a man who can make tough work of stuff. Ya know what them words mean, boy?"

Hardy wasn't sure, but he nodded anyway. Twenty years now he had worked for Mayor Paul. He knew better. Hardy wasn't a smart man, by any means, but he wasn't so dumb as to cross the most dangerous man of Grapple Falls. So Hardy guzzled hooch too and nodded at the places where the mayor turned over that one-eyed gaze.

"Had to be done, Hardy. Had to."

Hardy agreed.

Once the mob was gone, the sun had set low over the streets of Grapple Falls. The tall ports at the top of the hall were dark. They could hear only the sound of the breeze beyond. Both men were drunk, but Hardy thought they were safe.

"They're all gone now," he told Mayor Paul after a scramble up the ladder to one of the nearby portholes. The streets of the town were dead and empty. Not so much as a soul roamed the shadows. Hardy scuttled to the front door and pulled up the brace slowly, slowly. When the door came open, there was no one beyond.

"We're safe," he breathed. The two crept out toward the darkness. Cool brushes of breeze braced them and the lovesong of frogs bloomed out of far away shadows. "What now, Mayor Paul?"

The corners of the old man's mouth went crooked.

"He'll be here, Hardy. He'll be here."

The man appeared just as he gave word. Hardy thought he was dressed odd. Too odd for a man under cover of the moon. A black coat hung from broad shoulders, and sharp pressed trousers hung beneath. Even across the space, Hardy could see the handsome cut and make of the cloth. The man looked a banker...or one of those mobsters from those tales Martha watched.

Hardy threw out a hand, to grab the mayor, but was too late. The old man's boots shuffled down the steps and through the dusty haze of town's proudest street. No eyes watched on. None but Hardy's. Desperate, he called out, but the mayor was beyond all sound...or reason.

Mayor Paul met the dark-clad stranger when the clocks started up the call for the darkest hour. The stranger face was pale, but held naked joy too. Mayor Paul looked shaken, but he spoke loud and made clear what he wanted.

"Got done the work you asked," Mayor Paul told the stranger. "Hard work. Tough work. But, got all of 'em."

The stranger's teeth gleamed through the shadows that danced around them.

"You have done all," he agreed to a curt nod. Hardy hated the sound of the words. There was an accent there, an otherness he couldn't place. A brace of fear formed up the length of Hardy's back and down to wobbly legs. A warmth spread over the top of Hardy's trousers.

No! He wanted to scream. Don't go, Mayor Paul. Don't trust the...the..demon. But all was lost. The deal was made and Mayor Paul had done the work asked.

"All the eldest sons and daughters. Yes, yes...that should do well. Very well." The stranger's words were almost sweet as a mother's coo. "My master's greatest pleasure, managed at last."

Hardy's eyes screwed up closed. He couldn't let the memory come back. Not of the flames or the smell. That awful smell. When Hardy's eyes opened once more, Mayor Paul was there, drawn toward the man.

"Now ma' end of the deal," he managed, gruff as he could. "There was words made. See they get met."

There were no words that could have encompassed what came next. No senses that could have transmuted the horror. The stranger took a step backward. The look on the man's face changed. He had changed, somehow. Taken on a broken appearance. Flesh cracked and eyes exploded. Blood puddled on the corners of mouth and pulsed between chasms of sharpened teeth.

When the world cracked beneath them, Hardy felt the flesh torn from bone. Mayor Paul screamed, but all was too late. They were lost. The door was opened and the game had come to an end.

"Mayor Paul," Hardy screamed as he was sucked down toward a wall of unquenchable flame. Then, the world went black as all of hell exploded to flood the streets of Grapple Falls.