The wakening, p.25
The Wakening, page 25
“You killed us! Why can’t we leave?”
The crushing sense of hopelessness, of evil. Everywhere.
And then it was all gone.
And a dead body lay on the floor.
At some point, they’d stopped talking and shared their first kiss. That led to more, and by the time they went back to Randi’s car they were more than friends.
What Stone remembered most now about that day was how beautiful Randi had looked. Pale skin, raven hair, dark clothes. Just like Claudia and Shari.
And she was still beautiful, just in an older, more experienced way. He wondered if she was as wild in bed as she’d been back then. He missed that, the complete lack of inhibition she’d brought to lovemaking. Claudia was good, but she always seemed to be holding back, afraid to fully show her emotions. With Randi, sex had been more than just fulfilling, it had been a total release, lust and love combined into an explosion of sensual pleasure that—
“Hey!” Hands pushed against his chest. He opened his eyes and found Randi staring at him, her expression a mix of confusion and anger. “What the fuck, Stone?”
“I…I’m sorry.” He slid away. Had he really tried to kiss her? “I don’t know what happened. Everything kind of went…blank.”
He kept the rest to himself, the images of her writhing naked beneath him, screaming his name, the heat of their bodies—
Stone jumped up and went to the ancient sink at the back of the cell, where he splashed tepid water on his face and waited for his erection to subside.
When he finally turned around, Randi still stared at him, only now she looked more suspicious than anything. Like he might attack her again. He sat down on a different bench.
“I think the stress is getting to me,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen. She and Shari had this kind of bond. Like two halves of a whole. I’m not sure she’ll survive.”
Before Randi could respond, someone shouted upstairs and footsteps pounded on the floor. A moment later, the wail of a police car’s siren reached them through the tiny window in the wall.
“Hell, I don’t know if any of us will survive this town,” Randi said.
After that, neither of them spoke for a while.
The pale, emaciated figure on the bed did not resemble the man Rob Lockhart had known back in college.
He barely resembled a man at all.
Tubes and wires snaked out from under the sheets and joined various pieces of equipment that beeped and hummed next to the bed. Father Leo’s arms and legs had withered to flesh-covered sticks and his cheeks formed cavities beneath the dark hollows of his closed eyes. His once-sizeable belly had shrunk to the size of a cantaloupe, which protruded like a miniature burial mound below the flatness of his chest.
The moment Rob entered the room, his hopes for Bonaventura being his savior plummeted down to zero. Even if the old priest came out of his coma, how could he possibly have the strength to banish one of the most powerful demons known to man?
Tears flowed down Rob’s cheeks as he pulled a chair to the side of the bed. It was over. No hope for him, for Abigail, for the town of Hastings Mills. The evil of Asmodeus would continue to spread, infecting more and more people, until either the Church figured out a solution or the demon tired of its games.
The third possibility, one he refused to acknowledge, was that Asmodeus might fully emerge into the world and bring about the destruction of mankind. He couldn’t imagine God allowing that to happen.
Then again, the past few years had delivered some pretty biblical events. Viral plagues, wars, famine…maybe they’d been signs.
“Wouldn’t that be the perfect epitaph? Because of my sins and hubris, I helped trigger Armageddon.” Rob placed his hand on Father Leo’s arm. Loose skin shifted over aged bone.
“I’m sorry, Father,” he whispered to the still form. Only a slow rising and falling of the priest’s chest indicated he still lived. “I tried. I really did. But I failed God again. I’ve done awful things, things that condemned my soul to Hell. I don’t deny my sins. But this time, this time I truly thought I was doing God’s will. Only I fell victim to Satan’s lies and my own pride. You were my last chance. Now I understand why the demon asked for you. It knew what I should’ve known. That your days of fighting are over. And so are mine.”
Tears dropped onto the sheets. Rob let them fall. Each one represented his shame manifesting for the world to see. He’d ruined his life and so many others. He had willfully followed the wrong path. And now he and the world would pay the price for his transgressions. There would be no final triumph, no divine intervention. The only thing left for him to do now was turn himself in.
First, though, he would pray. Not for his own soul; it was too late for him. He would pray for Abigail Rawlings. Pray for Hastings Mills and all the people he’d wronged in his life. And most of all, he’d pray for Father Leo, that the priest might find peace and freedom from his pain, either in this world or the next.
Rob bowed his head and closed his eyes.
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, and abides in the shade of the Almighty, says to the Lord, ‘My refuge, my stronghold, my God in whom I trust.’
“He will free you from the snare of the fowler, from the destructive plague; he will conceal you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge.
“His faithfulness is buckler and shield. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the plague that prowls in the darkness, nor the scourge that lays waste at noon….”
Halfway through Psalm 91, Rob’s exhaustion claimed him and he drifted into sleep.
He never noticed when Bonaventura’s arm twitched.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hastings Mills, NY, July 20th, one year ago
Ken Webb and Del Hall sat next to each other in the equipment van, watching the different rooms in the Rawlingses’ house on the split screens.
Curt stood by the kitchen counter, pouring whiskey into a cup of coffee. His third of the day, even though it wasn’t noon yet. Ken couldn’t blame him. He and Del both agreed that if they’d been in his shoes, they’d be halfway across the state by now. Or locked in a mental ward.
In the living room, the sofa and chairs floated a foot above the carpet while slowly orbiting the coffee table. In Curt’s bedroom, all the dressers and the closet had disgorged their clothes, which had paired up, pants and shirts, and now danced in wild fashion throughout the room.
None of that compared to the scene in Abby’s room.
Dark, roiling clouds covered her ceiling. Lightning lit them from within. Each flash revealed horrific faces. Men and women, their mouths open wider than humanly possible, their eyes empty black holes. Green slime oozed from the walls and dripped onto the floor, where it disappeared into the cracks between the boards. Abby thrashed on the bed, arms and legs spasming, body writhing, head twisting back and forth. Blisters covered her skin, forming weird cuneiform shapes that constantly changed. Every so often, she’d stare at the camera with the yellow eyes and horizontal pupils of a goat, laugh, and vomit out more of the green ooze. Then she’d go back to her St. Vitus’ dance.
“This is some fucked-up shit,” Ken said.
Del nodded, not sure if his partner referred to the things happening inside the house or the arrests of Stone and Zimmerman. Either way, he was glad to be in the van. If Stone had been there, he’d have insisted they film by hand instead of setting up motion-activated cameras in the rooms.
Of course, even remaining on the property struck Del as pretty stupid. Only loyalty to Stone kept him and Ken from making tracks out of town. That, and the guarantee of a huge payday when everything was over and the footage got released to the world.
One of the computers beeped and a yellow light came on. Ken clicked a few keys and brought up a counter at the bottom of each screen. It showed how many hours of recording they’d made and how much storage space remained in the hard drives.
“Another forty minutes,” he said. “Then we’ll have to switch drives and upload these files to the cloud.” Unlike their original equipment, the new backup drives had to be connected to a separate server to transfer to the cloud.
Occupied with their work, neither of them noticed the smoky tendrils creeping into the van through the open back doors. A wispy strand wound its way up Del’s leg and he stiffened. A second diaphanous tentacle found Ken’s foot. He went rigid as well. Both of them remained like that for a few seconds and then relaxed. Del grasped Ken’s shoulders and began to massage them.
“Forty minutes is a long time. What do you think we should do while we wait?”
Ken turned his chair. “I can think of something.” He leaned forward and Del met him halfway, their gentle kiss quickly growing more vigorous, lips smashing together, tongues entwining. Del ripped Ken’s shirt open and slid out of his own t-shirt while Ken stood and undid his jeans. In moments they were naked and on the floor.
The hazy tendrils dissolved around them, but more slithered through the grass toward the neighboring houses.
Officer Corday Rose pulled up in front of the Motel 9 at the far end of Main Street, right at the edge of the town line. The midday sun burned his tired, aching eyes. Exiting the air-conditioned car was like being transported to a tropical jungle. Sweat broke out on his forehead and under his arms, adding to the stains he’d accumulated there during an exhausting night shift filled with some of the craziest calls he’d ever dealt with.
There’d been Mrs. Ronson throwing hot coffee in her neighbor’s face during a game of Monopoly, which had led to the neighbor’s husband sticking a cake knife into Mr. Ronson’s stomach. Then three women at Perkins had stood up, stripped down to their birthday suits, and offered to have sex with anyone in the restaurant. By the time Corday arrived, two men had taken them up on the proposal while the rest of the dinner crowd cheered them on. After that, there’d been two robberies – the 7-Eleven on State and the Tasty Pizza right next door. Same suspects both times, a pair of teenagers who not only didn’t try to hide their faces, they waved at the cameras and smiled as they left with the money.
And now this. Twenty minutes before the end of his shift, when all he wanted to do was go home and fall into bed. A call from the girl at the front desk, saying there’d been a ruckus in one of the third-floor rooms loud enough for him to hear it down in the lobby.
“All sorts of shouting, and stuff banging around,” the clerk had told Martha. “Like they’re rock stars trashing the place. I’m afraid to go up there.”
Corday exited the car, certain this would be another messed-up situation and he wouldn’t get home for hours. Not that home was any kind of haven. Every time he closed his eyes, visions of Abigail Rawlings floating in the air appeared in his head.
I need to talk to Graves. Or a shrink. Either way, I—
Three stories up, a window banged open and loud music blared out. Someone shouted, “Bombs away!”
Corday had just enough time to jump away from the car before a large rectangular object landed on it with a tremendous crash! The sound of glass shattering disappeared in the wail of the car’s alarm going off. Corday rolled over and saw the remains of a flat-screen TV wedged into the patrol car’s roof lights. Someone hooted laughter and the window banged shut.
Cursing, Corday went to the car and turned the engine off, silencing the alarm. Then he stormed into the lobby, passed the wide-eyed clerk without a word, and banged open the door to the stairwell. As he pounded up the stairs, he called in to Martha to request backup.
“It’s like goddamned Animal House here,” he shouted.
On the third floor, he had no trouble determining which way to go. Rock music screamed from around the corner to his left. He drew his gun and slowed his progress, moving carefully down the corridor. Several doors stood open, but when he glanced in, the rooms were empty.
He wondered where the guests had gone. Certainly not the lobby, it’d been empty.
He eased around the corner. The sounds of Bob Seger singing about a devil with a blue dress on blared from an open door down the hall. Not the kind of music Corday would have associated with druggies. Hugging the wall, he approached the room. The music was so loud it sounded distorted. It reminded him of the time he’d blown the speakers in his car as a teenager.
When he reached the door, he put his back to the wall and peered around the frame.
A group of naked men and women knelt in a circle around a candle on the floor, bloody hands clasped and faces turned up to the ceiling, eyes closed and mouths open. Crude symbols drawn in blood decorated their chests and stomachs. The music came from a bunch of hotel radios piled onto the bed, which had been pushed to one side of the room. Crimson letters dripped on the wall where the TV used to hang.
“—Burnin’ with a fire, unholiest desires! Hellrider, comin’ for you—”
The music cut off mid-verse. At the same time, all the people turned and looked at him.
With eyes of pure black.
The flame of the candle flared bright red and a tower of thick smoke rose from it, forming a dense cloud over the group. Shapes appeared in the smoke, almost like faces, except with oversized horns like a triceratops.
One of the people, a skinny woman in her sixties, stood up, her drooping breasts flopping from side to side like half-filled water balloons.
“Don’t move,” Corday said, aiming his gun at her.
She smiled, and the rest of the group got to their feet.
“I mean it. Not one step.” He heard the wail of sirens. Two minutes away at the most. All he had to do was keep things from escalating until backup arrived.
The entire group took a step forward.
“This is your last warning.” He counted thirteen of them, too many to control if they charged. They ranged from mid-twenties to definite senior citizens, including one bald, pot-bellied geezer with gray chest hair and a tiny worm dick poking out from a nest of white pubes. A pile of clothing next to the bed caught his eye, and a flash of realization hit him.
These were the people from the other rooms.
They’d all gathered together and stripped, and then…what? Decided to hold some kind of weird ceremony?
Like devil worship.
The moment he thought it, he knew it was true. And somehow related to Abigail Rawlings, Stone Graves, and that crazy priest, Lockhart.
“Fuck this.” Corday turned and ran. When he reached the stairwell, he slammed open the door and took the stairs two at a time, using the railing to keep from falling. He raced through the lobby without stopping and reached the parking lot just as two more police cruisers skidded to a stop next to his wrecked car.
“What the fuck?” yelled Mitch Banks, jumping out of the lead car.
“Room three-twenty-seven.” Corday pointed up at the window. “It’s a bunch of devil worshippers. They’re nuts.”
“Let’s go.” Banks drew his gun. The other officer, Emil Wallace, did the same and they ran for the entrance. Corday waited until they got to the door and then climbed into Banks’s squad car and headed for the station.
It was time to talk to Stone.
The sweltering darkness of Costa Rica surrounded Leo in an unending maze of terror.
No matter which path he tried, he ended up in the same place, the clearing at the edge of the village. He’d been running in circles for hours, trying to reach the river, to avoid facing the creature that waited for him.
Death.
Now he stood once again at the tree line where jungle gave way to trampled grass, his chest heaving, sweat soaking his clothes. Ahead of him, fires cast a red glow on the rounded huts. Villagers stood in small groups, waiting for him to come and cast the demon from their midst. A white man in bush clothes was with them. The doctor. Leo tried to think of his name but it refused to come.
I can’t help you. It’s too strong.
He turned to head back to the river. Maybe this time he’d find the right way. Make it to the boat. Then he could—
A young woman blocked his way.
“Hello, Father.” She spoke softly, with more than a touch of melancholy. One look and he could tell she didn’t belong in this place. Her pale skin marked her as someone who’d never spent any time in the tropical sun. And her clothes were all wrong. A plain white t-shirt and shorts made of blue denim. Sandals far too fragile for walking in the jungle.
All of this he took in with a glance before her eyes caught his attention. Upturned, slightly round. Deep violet, a shade he’d never seen before. The white of her skin made them even more prominent, almost unnatural. Like she could see into his soul. They sparkled with orange, reflecting the flames.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“We need you. The beast has returned.”
Leo looked back at the village. The beast, yes. In one of the huts. His ancient enemy. He turned to the girl.
“I can’t go there. Death waits for me.”
“Not here. Home. I’ve come to take you back. We need you. She needs you.” The woman held out her hand, her pallid flesh so translucent that for a moment he swore he could see right through it.
“Home? I don’t understand. How—”
“We must stop it. But not here. You have to trust me.”
A bestial roar sounded from the village. Someone screamed.
If she knew the way out….
He took her hand. Ice-cold fingers wrapped around his and the sparks in her eyes grew brighter. He realized she had her back to the fires.
A trick!
