by C R Langille
“I know. My father knew. But my mother couldn’t help but see the devil inside us.”
“So where is Toby?” Linda asked.
Evard shut his eyes and tried to locate him. He used to find Toby easily enough when he was younger and they played hide-and-seek. Evard always knew exactly where the boy hid but he took his time finding him regardless. He didn’t think much of it back then, but it was as if the puzzle pieces of life finally started to form a picture. Evard focused, and the pinpoint of energy turned into an itch on the left side of his mind. When he turned his head, the itch crawled across his skull as he moved. Evard pointed.
“That way.”
“Okay then, let’s get going. We’re burning daylight, buckaroos,” Doyle said. The special agent snapped an imaginary whip and ushered them along.
***
Toby drove through the streets. He navigated on autopilot and hoped he would stumble across his family. They couldn’t be far; he knew they were close.
Toby slowed the car down as he stared at a nearby church. The hairs on his arm raised and danced in the latent energy that swirled around the building. The area calmed him and was different from the other places of power he encountered. This place was clean.
Bloody hell, Love. It makes my skin crawl.
“You mean my skin?”
Same-same.
It didn’t make his skin crawl, but he did get a massive headache. Blood flowed from his nose and into his mouth. It was a strange sensation, a clash of calm and pain.
Get us out of here, Love. Quickly.
Toby hit the gas and sped away. Once he left the church in the rearview, the nosebleed stopped. The headache disappeared.
Thank you. That was less than pleasant, wouldn’t you agree?
Toby wiped the blood away with his sleeve. He drove a few more blocks down the road until he came to a large hotel, although it looked more akin to a battlefield. Police cars, a S.W.A.T. van, and two fire trucks created a barrier in front of the lobby entrance. Bodies littered the parking lot, piled on top of each other in front of the barricade. Men, women, and children lay in the pile with equal abandon.
A damned bloodbath, Toby Dick. Think of the chaos, the sweet, succulent fear and chaos. A beautiful thing.
What a waste, Love.
Some of the rooms were lit, and he waited a moment to watch. Movement on the third floor caught Toby’s eye. He scanned the windows and waited. It didn’t take long before someone walked up to one. Toby wasn’t sure, but it looked like a woman. Toby fished his binoculars out of his gear, but the woman was gone before he could get a bead on the window again.
“Damn.”
Toby killed the engine and hopped out. It was Linda. He had no doubt about it. His wife and son were in there, and he needed to get them out. He double checked his stuff, ensured the gun was loaded, and moved toward the lobby doors. As he neared the pile of corpses, something made him stop. The dead didn’t look like normal people. Limbs were a little too long, teeth were sharp and crooked, and worst of all were the smiles. Each one of the dead sported a grin, which stretched the skin of their cheeks.
I wouldn’t advise this, Love. It’s too dangerous.
“My family is in there.”
I doubt it. Besides, where are the bobbies?
Whatever had happened, they weren’t around anymore. Not a single police officer’s body was in sight. Enough spent brass to take on an entire platoon lay scattered behind the barricade, as well as enough blood to paint a barn, but no dead cops.
“Maybe they’re inside.”
And maybe I was the Queen of bloody England, Love.
Toby stopped and arced an eyebrow.
I wasn’t, you gob shite.
“Someone’s in there. I can’t leave until I find out if it’s Linda and Sebastian.”
Ever stop to think something’s fishing for you, Love?
Toby dismissed her rambling and walked into the hotel.
***
Evard needed to concentrate to keep his mental radar locked on Toby. It didn’t take as much as he thought it would, but if he let his mind wander, the connection faded. Linda tried to ask him questions at one point, but he put a hand up and silenced her.
“Need to focus, sorry.”
Doyle and Sebastian played a game of ‘I spy.’ The game stopped when Doyle spied a man with large black wings who flew through the sky. Evard looked up to see it, but only caught a shadow before it disappeared behind the clouds. Linda said the game was over then.
“High score,” Doyle said.
“Not fair. Mommy, tell Special Agent Doyle he cheated.”
Linda didn’t have much to say. Evard wondered if she saw the flying man or not. One thing was for sure, since the storm, they weren’t in Kansas anymore.
The connection broke and severed as if it never existed to begin with. Evard stumbled. It had happened so quickly, and he let out a small gasp.
“Mommy?”
“What kiddo?”
“Something happened to Daddy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, he diss-da-peered.”
Doyle scanned the night sky and then turned back to Sebastian.
“Not the Greys. I can’t see any of their craft. Doubt it was an abduction,” Doyle said.
“I felt it too,” Evard said. “He vanished, like Sebastian said. Does it mean he’s dead?” Evard asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But usually it’s a gradual fade when you track someone, and they die. Did either of you see an image flash in your head before the connection broke?” Doyle asked.
Evard shook his head.
“No, I never saw anything. Just felt him in my mind.”
“What does it mean?” Linda asked. “Is he okay? Is he dead?’
“I’m sorry ma’am, I’m not sure.”
Sebastian raised his hand. Evard couldn’t help but smile. The boy had Toby’s manners.
“Yes, boy?” Evard asked.
“I saw something.”
Evard believed it. Sebastian possessed a lot of power. He was possibly stronger than Toby and Evard combined.
“What did you see?” Doyle asked.
“That.” Sebastian pointed down the street. The top floors of a large hotel peeked up and over the trees.
“In there, buddy?” Linda asked.
“Yeah, Daddy’s in there.”
***
The emergency lights lit the lobby of the hotel, and it was darker than Toby expected. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust, but when they did, he wished they hadn’t. The desk clerk stood behind the counter sans head. The words, WELCOME TO THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA were painted behind the body in large print. Toby didn’t have to check to know it was blood.
The clerk’s nametag read “Dante.”
“Hello, Dante. Any vacancies?”
You feeling okay, Love?
“Peachy.”
Toby knew he shouldn’t feel so good, but he couldn’t help himself. The challenge before him brought a smile to his lips. He wanted to beat whatever was in here and arrive to his family in triumph. They would marvel at his power and know without a doubt he could take care of them. They would… Those weren’t his thoughts. They couldn’t be his thoughts. He needed to find his family quick and then deal with his own mind. Something wasn’t right.
Toby checked behind the counter. He found a flashlight in one of the drawers.
“Jackpot.”
The pitter patter of footfalls thumped above him. Toby put a finger to his lips and pointed up to the ceiling. A soft chuckle escaped his lips, and he gripped the gun tight. Someone was going to be very sorry.
Can’t be too careful, T.D. Let’s sneak up there and show your little shit of a son why you’re the daddy.
Toby massaged
his temple. The voices fell back to sleep. He shook his head and things started to clear for him.
“I don’t know if I am thinking straight anymore. I’m losing it.”
They have started to seep into your mind and take root. I can help, Love. You may not like it though.
Before Toby could answer, a muffled scream emanated from above him. Toby ran to the stairs and shouldered through the door. The beam of the flashlight bounced in front of him as he made his way up the steps. He came to the second floor and rushed into the hallway. Bold letters painted in blood decorated the wall: YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU WANT, BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE.
A door slammed down the hallway and grabbed Toby’s attention. The hallway stretched for what seemed an infinite distance of doors bathed under dim emergency lights. Soft light escaped from under the door at the end of the hallway.
Toby started the long walk toward the door, but the hall grew longer and longer with each step, as if the hotel itself mocked him. As he walked by one room, something crashed behind the wall. Toby stopped and pointed his weapon. Glass broke, and someone pounded on the walls and sent dust motes dancing through the flashlight’s glow.
“Linda?”
The sound stopped. Toby got closer to the wall and listened for anything at all. Someone scratched from the other side—a slow but deliberate scratch. He didn’t want to know what it was, so he kept moving.
A few rooms down, the choked cries of a woman crept out from under the door. Whoever was on the other side was in pain. Toby touched the doorknob and the sobs stopped, replaced with a slight giggle.
“Fuck this,” he whispered.
Toby turned his attention back to the light at the end of the hall. The person he spied from the outside would have been in the far room, so that was his goal. More sounds escaped the other rooms as he walked by. He did his best to ignore them. When he neared the end of the mile-long hall, the door with the light on opened and bathed the hallway in its luminescence.
Someone stepped out into the hall. It was a child, silhouetted by the light.
“Sebastian?’
The child turned and ran around the corner.
“Wait!”
Toby ran after the boy. As he neared the lit room, the light turned off. A light bulb popped behind him. When Toby turned to look, his chest tightened. The voices in his head sang, yelled, and groaned in a cacophony of glee. All the doors were open. Darkness spilled out of the rooms in a flood. As the gloom hit the emergency lights they burned out of existence. The tidal wave of shadow rushed toward him and ate the light along the way.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Doyle walked through the sea of spent brass and reminisced of the night the Allies held Hooper Hill against the demonic invasion of 1943. The Hellrift at Hooper Hill wasn’t too big, but the creatures who spilled forth and attacked the Allied forces were legion. Many soldiers died during the fight. It gave him a headache thinking about it, and his arm twitched—a souvenir from the battle.
Doyle picked up one of the spent shells, and his memories scuttled back to the present. The sharp smell of cordite and brass caressed his nose. He tasted the shell with the tip of his tongue and spat. These definitely weren’t imbued bullets like his ammunition.
“I told the boss countless times, we need to supply law enforcement with the right weapons and ammo. Did he listen? No! Special Agent Johnson, just focus on your assignment. Special Agent Johnson, quit harassing the Pentagon. Special Agent Johnson, I’ve got the results of your latest psych evaluation. We need to talk.”
Doyle flapped his hand as if it were an imaginary mouth during the rant and then turned to the rest of the group. They kept their distance during his tirade. Sebastian tried to break away from his mother’s grip but couldn’t get free. They all gave him wide-eyed looks as he finished; only Sebastian grinned.
“What? You try and get a promotion when your psych eval comes back locked in a rolling tool case. Anyway, where are the policemen?”
Evard looked around as if he had just noticed while Linda kept a grip on Sebastian’s shoulder. Doyle pointed to the war zone.
“Where are the policemen?” Doyle asked again.
“You already asked,” Sebastian said.
“Exactly, so where are they?”
“Not here,” Sebastian stated.
“Bingo!”
“I don’t get it,” Sebastian said.
“Neither do I, young man, neither do I.”
Doyle paced the length of the barricade. Where would all those policemen go? He licked the end of his index finger and put it in the air. No breeze and no gate to the In-between since there wasn’t the familiar shock of a nearby portal.
“Bad place,” he whispered.
“Toby’s in there?” Linda asked. She nodded to the hotel.
The building was only five stories, but it loomed over the group. Every window stared down at them with murder in mind. The lobby doors were an open gullet hungry for an afternoon snack.
“Yepper, spuds,” Doyle said.
The hotel didn’t look anything like the commercials on television, probably for the best. If the television advertised the place in its current condition, their customer base would drop dramatically. “My guess is the policemen are in there too.”
“My guess is we don’t want to find them,” Evard said.
“Good guess,” Doyle said.
“If Toby’s in there, we need to get him out,” Linda said.
Evard nodded and walked toward the entrance but stopped at the door. Doyle joined him and similarly stopped. Cold slapped him in the face and chilled him to the bone—a cold that would make a Yeti cringe. Not good. Not good at all.
“It’s too dangerous. You’d risk Sebastian going in there,” Doyle said.
When he spoke the boy’s name, the power of the place shuddered and sent vibrations through Doyle’s body. A dark figure moved across the outer wall, accompanied by the flap of wings. Doyle followed the movement and frowned. Crouched on the corner, its wings draped about it in a horrible version of batman, was a euniphrite—a gargoyle of a modern age.
“Clever girl, should of have known,” Doyle said.
Everyone looked up. Evard let out a sigh and kicked the wall. Linda stared up into the sky.
“Don’t those things have somewhere else to be?” Evard asked.
“We’ve killed its brothers. Plus, it wants the boy.”
“Well, let’s kill this one too,” Linda said. “It’s threatening my family.”
“I know for a fact three of them are dead already. Who knows if others are alive or not? This one won’t be taken down so easy.”
Sebastian tugged on Doyle’s coat. The boy’s eyes were wide, and his face screwed up in a hurt expression.
“My daddy’s in there. We aren’t going to leave him, are we?”
Doyle looked back up to the roof. The euniphrite still hunkered down on the edge of the roof; no doubt it took their measure. Doyle figured the fact it was locked down in a cell for billions of years was the only reason humanity still had a chance. It would use the building to wear them down and then devour all of them.
“No buddy, we aren’t going to leave him. Evard, try to re-establish a connection with your son. Take Linda and Sebastian with you. You two stick as close to him as you can,” Doyle said. “Your mind’s going to turn inside out, and you might think you see or hear things. Don’t let it grab hold. Sebastian, you just stick with your mom. Keep a tight hold on her hand, okay?”
“But, what about you?” Sebastian asked.
“I’m going to take care of the bird problem.”
Evard put a hand on Doyle’s shoulder.
“You sure it’s wise to split up?” Evard asked.
“No, I don’t. The Dungeon Master will probably kill us. But birdman on the roof will definitely
kill you all.”
“And you’ll be safe?” Evard asked.
Doyle patted his coat and checked his pockets. He smiled and threw a wink to Sebastian.
“I’ve got a few tricks up my interdimensional sleeves.”
Linda gave Doyle a hug. He gave her directions to the safe house, just in case.
“Thank you for helping us,” she said.
“All in a day’s work, ma’am.”
“You’re coming back, right?” Sebastian asked.
“Does a wendigo like red meat?” Doyle drew his gun, turned to go, and then stopped. He looked off to nowhere. “Actually, I met one who was a pure vegan. Weirdest thing.”
***
Darkness. Nothing but darkness and the constant low mewl of a thousand voices in his head. Toby figured he was in Hell.
It’s warmer there, Love.
Jezebel’s voice appeared as a low flicker of light. With the backdrop of pure black, the flicker was a sun in the vast universe. Her voice soothed him. It anchored him in a sea of shadow.
“What happened?” Toby asked.
You’re dying, Love.
The sledgehammer statement pounded into his heart. He imagined he fell to his knees, but he couldn’t see or feel anything. For all Toby knew, he floated in this dark ocean, suspended until death.
Sorry, buddy, Daddy’s not going to make it. Linda, I tried.
TRIED? DON’T MAKE LAUGH, YOU FUCKING WASTE OF MEAT!
It was Linda’s voice, but a multitude of other voices supported her solo with a crescendo of screams, yells, and groans. He wanted to believe it wasn’t her, but the darkness ate away pieces of his sanity. It started with the blackness on his chest. Usually cold and numb, it now burned with a fire hotter than a nuclear explosion. His wife’s disappointment twisted the dagger in his heart.
JUST LIKE YOU TRIED TO KEEP ME HAPPY? KEEP ME SATISFIED? JUST LIKE YOU TRIED TO BE A GOOD FATHER TO OUR LITTLE SHIT OF A SON?
“Stop!”
Her laughter blasted through his head.
Toby tried to massage his temples and make the voices go away, but he couldn’t move his arms. He couldn’t move at all. His heart thundered in his chest and slowed to an impossible beat.