Until... | Book 3 | Until The End

by Hamill, Ike

  He suddenly remembered the blood demon that he had fought. For years, the memories were so faded that they felt like stories that someone had told him when he was a child. Now, they flooded back in bright, undeniable colors. Ricky remembered what April Yettin had yelled to him. He yelled the same thing at Amber.

  “You control it,” he said. “It was called to you, so you can control it.”

  Even before he finished saying it, he knew that it wasn’t precisely true. Amber could entrance the monster—the thing was so fixated on her that she could induce some kind of hypnosis into the thing if she found the knack. It wasn’t precisely control, but it might be all they needed to keep the thing paralyzed long enough for George to finish the ceremony.

  Dr. Hugs stood up and tossed away the pillowcase. It couldn’t have covered him much longer. Dr. Hugs was growing too big for that. The way the stuffed animal moved, it almost looked like he was already fifty feet tall. His limbs swung slowly, like they were covering a great distance as he reached for George. Ricky remembered the monster that ate George. From his wide eyes and the way his mouth was hanging open, it appeared that George was remembering the same thing.

  “George, you too. You have to control it.”

  George’s eyes blinked back into focus and he regarded his brother. He tossed a pack of folded paper right by Dr. Hugs and Ricky caught it. He turned it so he could read the words from the candlelight. Meanwhile, George was trying to wrestle out of the grip of Dr. Hugs.

  Ricky found the place where George had left off and he began to read aloud.

  Dr. Hugs’s head whipped around and regarded Ricky with his one good eye.

  “I remember this part,” Vernon said.

  Ricky kept his eyes on the paper, reading the incantation that was supposed to reopen the passage and send the demon home for good. They had been stupid to believe that fire would kill it. The fire had only broken the thing down—disorganized it—until it could recover. Ricky realized that the same might be true for the blood demon. That monster had plunged deep into the lake and broken apart, but maybe it was still down there somewhere, trying to reassemble itself, atom by atom, so it could find revenge.

  Vernon swung a heavy stick down on Dr. Hugs’s head. A branch snagged the fabric and tore the top of Dr. Hugs’s head. Stuffing began to ooze out of the wound.

  Ricky continued his incantation, trying to keep his focus so his words wouldn’t slow.

  He realized that his mother had stopped reading too. She was swinging her flashlight towards the smoke creature that was tormenting Amber.

  In a matter of seconds, their careful planning had gone out the window. They were all attacking randomly. Ricky realized that he had lost his place and said the same line twice in a row. His father was still swinging the stick at Dr. Hugs, but the thing didn’t seem to notice. It was almost as tall as George now.

  He read two more lines of the strange syllables.

  Nothing was happening. Dr. Hugs was growing. Amber’s entity was whipping around with the speed of the wind. It slashed at Amber as it dodged Mary’s attack.

  Ricky felt helpless and confused. He had beaten one of these things before, and that fight had been won with nothing more than instinct and luck. These entities had no right to be as strong as they were.

  Tossing aside his brother’s script, Ricky reached into his back pocket.

  “Dad!” he yelled. Ricky tossed his folding knife to his father. Vernon spotted it and snatched it from the air before whipping it open. Ricky ran to the perimeter of the fire pit, where George had left the stick with the rag on it. The rag was still smoldering and vapor hissed off of it when Ricky doused it with more fuel.

  When he struck the match, fire exploded, catching his hands and jacket as well as the torch.

  “Mom!” he yelled, tossing the torch to her. Mary let it hit the ground and then scooped it up. It was much more effective on the entity. “It’s going for the back of her head. Get behind her.”

  Mary pivoted quickly and she was able to keep the monster at bay from the two of them. Vernon was slashing at Dr. Hugs’s back with the knife and streams of stuffing poured from the ripped fabric.

  Splashing some spring water from the jugs on himself, Ricky put out the last of the flames.

  Ricky had no idea if his thought would work, but he figured he had to rely on instinct and luck. Everything else had failed. Their family kept plastic jugs—a gallon each—and filled them from the spring up on Cottle Hill Road once a week. George had brought four of them out for the ceremony. Ricky grabbed the two closest and tossed one towards George and the other to Amber.

  “Drink it,” Ricky yelled. “All of it.”

  Amber obeyed immediately. George looked at Ricky with a puzzled expression until Ricky repeated the command. Years before, when Ricky had been faced with his own monster, the only way he was able to detach from it was to drown himself in the lake. He hoped that George and Amber wouldn’t have to go to that length.

  With the torch, Mary held the entity away from Amber.

  Vernon distracted Dr. Hugs with the knife.

  George and Amber drank.

  The monsters thrashed and twisted, reacting to an invisible onslaught from above.

  Ricky ran back, grabbed the papers and knelt next to a candle. He started from the top, reading the incantation. He heard Amber cough and choke.

  Mary said, “Keep going. It’s working.”

  Ricky glanced and saw his mother handing another jug to Amber. Most of the water was splashing down her neck and soaking her, but it did look like it was working. The smoke entity had shrunk down and it seemed completely occupied by its own fight for survival.

  Dr. Hugs was standing in a pool of his own stuffing. He was shrinking as his insides gushed out from all the slashes. George upended the jug and drank.

  Ricky turned the page and read as fast as he could.

  “Dad, get out of the circle,” George said, gasping between swallows.

  Vernon stepped over a candle and grabbed Mary’s arm, trying to pull her out as well. Mary picked up the torch again and waved it towards the entity, driving it towards the shrinking form of Dr. Hugs.

  Ricky finally saw it. He saw a purple flame beginning to take shape under the pile of stuffing. He had read about the purple flame before—it was a sign that the gate was opening. The stuffing began to glow. It was infused with the pulsing purple light. There were more dark shapes overhead, but Ricky ignored them as he finished the incantation.

  By the ending lines, the wind was swirling. The entity made of gray smoke was being pulled apart by the gusts. Dr. Hugs’s loose shell was flapping. George began to hunch and retch. The water was coming back up as the flame consumed the stuffing and painted the trees with flickering purple light.

  The papers fell from Ricky’s hand, but it didn’t matter. He had read everything. The stuffed bear and gray smoke were being pulled down into the purple flames. George and Amber began vomiting at the same time. The volume of water that poured from their mouths and noses far exceeded what they had taken in. The torrent was flushing the entities down into the flame. Everything stopped at once and all was silent until George gagged and coughed.

  The only light in the woods came from the rising moon and the flashlights that Vernon and Mary had dropped. All the fires had gone out—doused by water.

  Amber moaned and Mary helped her to her feet.

  George spat.

  Ricky knew what his father would say when he heard him clear his throat. He wasn’t disappointed.

  “I think it’s time for bed.”

  Fourteen: Amber

  She had no intention of sleeping that night. With her own eyes, she had seen the demon that had plagued her for years, killed her grandfather right in front of her, and then caused her parents to die in a fiery crash. In addition, she was in a house that was no more than an hour’s drive from where she had been attacked in the night by bloodthirsty monsters.

  Amber had every reason to
keep her eyes wide open and stay awake all night.

  After a shower, she sat in the living room on the couch next to George. Tucker snuck up on the couch between them when nobody was looking and he hadn’t yet been ordered to get down. They were watching The Office, and every few minutes Mary would quote a line before it was spoken. Under a blanket, Amber felt her eyes drifting closed and she didn’t fight it.

  She woke in the morning to the sound and smell of coffee brewing.

  Amber began to push the blanket off.

  In one of the recliners, Ricky was asleep with his mouth wide open. He seemed to sense her stare and he shook himself awake.

  “You guys go back to sleep,” Vernon said quietly from the doorway. “I have to go to work, but you can still sleep for a bit.”

  The sun was streaming through the kitchen window. Amber thought that the idea of falling asleep again was absurd. Her eyes were shut a few seconds later.

  # # #

  The way the dream unfolded before her, Amber knew that it wasn’t the first time she had lived through it. She was back in the house where she had grown up and she was fending off her relatives while her parents were outside in the burning car. This time, everything was different. She saw the whole thing from above instead of from behind her own eyes. She saw the monster—the amorphous cluster of smoke—and she saw how it was manipulating everyone with its invisible hands.

  Then she was transported back to the fire pit from the night before. Again, she saw everything from above. The fight unfolded beneath her and at one point Ricky looked up and spotted her watching. He didn’t let it distract him. He kept reading until the gateway was open and the monsters were being sent down into the pit of purple light.

  George was flying next to her, observing the battle as well.

  He said, “Demons have to be called into a person. That’s how I know that these aren’t demons. They’re something else—some other kind of malevolent force. The bear is my fault. I chose that form. The smoke entity is different. You can tell that, right?”

  Amber realized that the question was directed towards her.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  The ground opened and swallowed the monsters. The gateway was sealed by their own vomit.

  “It’s over,” George said.

  “I don’t know,” Amber said again.

  “Amber?” George asked. He spoke with his brother’s voice. Amber looked to him and he called her name again but his lips didn’t move. She looked down to Ricky on the ground, who was chanting the spell.

  “Amber?”

  She was pulled upwards, out of the dream. It faded as she blinked into the reality of Ricky’s living room.

  Ricky was hovering over her.

  “I’m going to work. Do you want to move up to the bedroom?”

  She looked at the other end of the couch. George was already gone.

  “No. I’m up. Thank you.”

  She coughed into her elbow and began to extract herself from the blankets and the deep cushions.

  “Mom put a towel on the bed upstairs if you want a shower or whatever.”

  Amber smiled. “Thank you.”

  “No sweat. Mom loves having company but we rarely get…”

  “No, I mean thank you for last night. What your family did…”

  “Do you think it worked? I’m pretty sure that it did, but I didn’t want to say because I figured you would know better than me. I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” He shook his head as he blushed. “Sorry. What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure, but it felt good to be doing something instead of just reacting, so thanks.”

  Ricky nodded. He stepped back, looked like he was going to say something, and then simply waved. He knelt and said goodbye to Tucker before he walked out and she heard his car engine starting. Amber folded the blanket and tried to tidy everything before she went upstairs. George’s door was open a few inches and she saw him laying on top of the bedspread, still dressed. Amber moved as silently as she could, trying not to make a sound as she figured out how to work their shower and she changed into fresh clothes.

  Mary was downstairs in the living room with Tucker when Amber came back down.

  “Kitchen is fully stocked,” Mary said. “You can help yourself to whatever you’d like. I’m taking these boxes down to the Village Peddler, or I would offer to fix you something.”

  “Oh, no, I can fend for myself.”

  “Or,” Mary said, raising her eyebrows as a new thought occurred to her, “I think the Grill is open. You want to come with me and grab a bite?”

  Amber started to shake her head. “Thank you, but I wouldn’t…”

  “I can tell how this is going to go,” Mary said. “You want to come but you don’t want to intrude, blah, blah, blah. Grab a jacket and get that other box. The Grill only has a couple of good things on the menu, but I can steer you in the right direction.”

  Amber laughed. There was something about Mary that reminded her of her cousin Evelyn. The woman didn’t have a filter and she seemed to think that she always knew what was best for everyone. In other circumstances, Amber would have been irritated. But the way she felt at the moment, it was nice to have someone else steer for a change.

  “I’ll grab my coat,” Amber said, pointing towards the stairs.

  “Meet you in the car.”

  Amber climbed the stairs and heard Mary talking to the dog downstairs as she carried her boxes towards the door.

  George was awake—they met in the hall as Amber was slipping on her coat.

  “Where you off to?”

  “The Grill?”

  “Ugh. That place is terrible,” George said. “Wait up.”

  He didn’t take long. He pulled a hat over his unruly hair and leaned under the sink the bathroom until he found a bottle of mouthwash. He gargled it as they went back downstairs. Amber grabbed the box that she was supposed to carry and she handed it to George so she could get the door. They found Mary outside in the car. Tucker was in back. George climbed in the back with the dog and let Amber have the passenger’s seat.

  “Don’t you have class today, George?”

  “Nope.”

  Mary’s attention seemed to be completely focused on the rearview mirror, so she could interrogate her son. The car found its own way down the twisting road.

  “Why is that, exactly?”

  “Independent study,” he said. “I had to do all that research into magic ceremonies anyway, so I ended up writing a big research paper on it. I already turned in the first segment and got an A. The second one is written, but I haven’t turned it in yet. The professor thinks I’m still putting in two days a week on it.”

  “And there’s nothing else that you could be doing instead of sleeping until noon?”

  “I was a little busy last night, Mom.”

  “You have perfect grades in every other class?”

  Amber squirmed at the grilling.

  “Results, Mom.”

  Mary sighed and shook her head.

  “I never should have signed that,” Mary said. She turned to Amber. “If you ever have kids, don’t sign a single thing that they put in front of you, even if you’re sure you know exactly what it means.”

  “Okay?” Amber said, expecting more of an explanation. None was forthcoming.

  They pulled up to a four-way stop sign and George pointed through his window.

  “If you’re ever here in the summer, get lunch at this place.”

  Amber turned. He was pointing at a patch of dirt in an empty field.

  “They have a food truck there and they make the best fries.”

  “Not as good as Fred’s,” his mother said.

  “So much better,” George said.

  Amber watched the passing trees. There was an occasional house tucked back into the woods, but it seemed like mostly empty land until she saw the sign for the golf course. The road up to that seemed like it went straight uphill at a crazy angle. Beyond t
he course, there were older houses that were situated closer to the road. The next thing she knew, the woods opened up and they could see glittering lakes on either side. The village straddled the road on a thin strip of land between the two lakes. Mary pulled into the lot of the Village Peddler and stopped the car.

  “George, wander over and grab us a good booth before the lunch crowd settles in, would you?”

  “Lunch crowd,” George said under his breath.

  Mary put down the windows a few inches for Tucker and they got out.

  # # #

  Amber spotted George in the corner, underneath a TV that was showing some twenty-four hour news. The volume was down and the booth was cozy, except for the fact that people kept glancing over in their direction Amber told herself that they were just looking at the TV, but their eyes were lower—they were definitely looking at her.

  George watched her for a minute and then figured out what was making her squirm.

  “Don’t worry about them. They don’t see a whole lot of new people this time of year and they don’t know how to act,” he said.

  The bell over the door rang and Mary crossed the room.

  She stood there and shook her head as George began to slide over.

  “Nope. Not sitting here. Let’s go out on the porch.”

  “It’s drafty,” George said.

  “Get over it. It’s bad enough we’re eating here. I’m not going to be on display while we do it.”

  The waitress had come up behind her as she spoke.

  Amber braced herself for an embarrassing moment that didn’t come.

  “Oh, hey, Ruth. We’re going to sit on the balcony. How’s your sister doing?”

  While they caught up, George motioned to Amber and she followed. They worked their way around the half-wall near the bar and went to the end of the porch. George pushed aside chairs so they could settle in yet another booth in the corner. In this one, nobody was looking at them. They were the only customers out on the enclosed porch. George was right—it was a little drafty. Still, Amber felt much more comfortable.

  He leaned close, “Don’t order anything seafood, except maybe the fried shrimp. Those come frozen in a bag. The grilled cheese is useless—it’s toasted instead of grilled. I mean, it’s right there in the name. How do you mess that up? The fries are okay. The rings are better.”