by S. M. Reine
Anthony steered the boat closer. Turned on the floodlight.
It was a body, facedown in the lake, with masses of inky black hair spread around its head. Judging by the shape of the waist and legs, it was a woman.
A naked woman.
Probably a dead woman.
“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.” He rubbed his hands on his frozen jeans. “What the hell, Benjamin?”
Snow swirled harder around him as he struggled to bring his boat alongside the body. There was a pole and net underneath the seats. He used it to drag her closer. Careful not to capsize, he snagged a limp arm and dragged it over the side.
The skin was shockingly warm on his cold fingers. It felt more like he had pulled her out of a bath than Lake Tahoe in December. And she weighed nothing—it was easy to drag her legs into the boat. Masses of wet hair stuck to her face and chest.
Something dark marred one of her palms. Anthony grabbed her hand and uncurled the fingers.
There was a mark on her skin—an intricate design imprinted on the palm, more like a brand than a tattoo. A few centimeters below the base of the mark, a long red scar stretched all the way into the corner of her elbow.
It wasn’t the first time he had seen that mark, or that scar.
Anthony’s heart pounded as he drew her shoulders into his lap and shoved the hair out of her face.
She looked like Elise.
Rubbing his eyes and shaking his head didn’t change anything. He wasn’t imagining the resemblance. He wasn’t going crazy. Those were the same lips, cheekbones, and arched nose—except this woman didn’t have the twisted bridge from having her nose broken in a dozen fights. She also had black hair. Black eyebrows. White skin, no freckles.
She coughed. Her chest jerked. Anthony almost dropped her.
Water spilled over her lip, cascading down her chest in waves, too much to have been in her lungs and stomach. Buckets of water.
She gurgled and choked on it, and it was more instinct than rational thought that made Anthony prop her up against his shoulder so that she could vomit into the bottom of the boat.
Her hands bit into his biceps. It hurt. She was too strong. He tried to push her off, and her eyes flew open with a gasp.
They were black. So very, very black.
“Elise?” he asked tentatively, pushing more hair off her forehead.
She screamed. It was a shrill, piercing sound. She threw herself away from him, slipping and falling over the bench. She bumped into the spotlight. It spun on its base.
“Whoa! Wait, be careful—”
She jerked, staring out at the water as if she couldn’t believe the sight of it. Pulled her knees into her chest. Covered her face with her hands, and kept screaming.
Then she held her hands away from her, as though she was frightened of them, and the shrieks cut off.
She lifted her right arm. Stared at the empty palm in the reflection of the spotlight off the water. Ran her fingers down to her elbow, as if she couldn’t believe it was there.
And then she looked past her hand to him.
Recognition sparked in her black eyes.
“Anthony?”
Death Scream
A Short Story
1
Dublin, Ireland — February 2001
Castle O’Reilly was the most boring castle in Ireland, which meant that Gregg McNamara, as the resident tour guide, had the most boring job in Ireland.
The castle hadn’t been involved in any cool battles. It had never hosted any political prisoners the average tourist would recognize. It also wasn’t haunted, unlike many other local castles. Gregg had been at Castle O’Reilly at all hours of the day and never heard so much as a disembodied footstep.
“Crazy bastards,” Gregg muttered to himself.
“What’s that you said?” asked Billie. She staffed the desk where tickets for their incredibly boring tours were sold.
“Look at them.” He gestured at the tour group entering from the other side of the foyer. “A dozen people wasting their vacations at our castle. There are a million more interesting things to do in Dublin. Literally, a million.”
“They’re probably here to see the ghost,” Billie said brightly.
Yes, “the ghost.”
The fictional ghost that didn’t haunt Castle O’Reilly.
Gregg had to admit that it was a pretty good marketing idea from Old Man O’Reilly, who owned the castle and signed Gregg’s paychecks. O’Reilly had been circulating stories about a spirit flinging objects around the grounds at night. The so-called ghost had also broken several antiques that had been insured. The old bloke had probably collected some decent money from that.
Aside from the insurance fraud, O’Reilly’s stupid stories had also gotten tourists to start visiting in larger groups. Too bad for Gregg, who got paid whether or not tourists showed up, but only had to endure retelling boring stories when they did.
“Best get started.” Gregg donned a Castle O’Reilly polo over the t-shirt he’d already been wearing.
“Just stay out of the dungeons today,” Billie said. “That’s where the ghost was rampaging last night.”
“Don’t tell me you believe that crap.”
“Well, Old Man O’Reilly—”
“He’s insane,” Gregg said quietly enough that the tourists wouldn’t hear. “Don’t listen to a damn thing he says.”
Billie sighed. “Just stay out of the dungeons, all right?”
He ignored her and met the tour group in the center of the room. A second headcount showed him that he’d been wrong about the attendance—there were fifteen people there, not a dozen.
Fifteen people wanted to look at this terrible castle.
Lord almighty.
“Good afternoon, and welcome to Castle O’Reilly,” Gregg said, unable to muster any enthusiasm.
Most of the group muttered various greetings back at him. Four lads in the front, however, cheered loudly and started punching each other in the arms. It was only nine in the morning and they smelled like they’d been drinking. Probably on vacation from uni.
Well, at least they’d be entertained by anything he told them.
Gregg wished he could have been drunk.
He led the tour group through the usual routine. They began on the first floor, admiring tapestries that hadn’t been woven by anyone remarkable. They also hadn’t withstood the test of time very well. The threads were discolored from sunlight and one had a stain from a previous lord wiping himself with it.
Then they moved on to the so-called museum, which was a tiny, boring room with a few placards about the castle’s tiny, boring history.
After exploring the “museum,” they moved into the gardens, which were probably the nicest part of the castle. The flowers were lovely and the hedges were very pleasant in that hedge-y sort of way, Gregg thought.
Unfortunately, the sky decided to start pouring rain right about then, so they had to cut that segment short.
The only segment Gregg actually enjoyed.
He really wished he could have been drunk.
“All right, come inside,” Gregg said. “We’ll take a walk up the tower.”
Most of the group didn’t argue with him. They headed right inside.
One man lingered, though. All of the tourists had been given name badges when they checked in, and this bloke was named James.
He was quite tall—almost a foot taller than Gregg—with lean muscles and a shock of dark hair. He was so interested in studying the foundations of the castle that he didn’t seem to notice he was getting drenched.
“All right, come inside,” Gregg said again, louder and more pointedly than before.
James finally looked up. “I’m sorry, did you say we were going to the dungeons?” His accent was American, like the way people in movies talked. No wonder he didn’t care about the rain. Americans were insane.
“No, the dungeons are closed today. We’re going up the tower.”
“I was really h
oping to see the dungeons on this tour,” James said.
Gregg’s eyes narrowed as he studied the tourist. “You here because of the rumors?”
“I’m just fascinated by dungeons,” he said lamely, which meant he was definitely there because of the ghost stories Old Man O’Reilly had gotten on the news.
Oh, what the hell? Billie didn’t want them downstairs, but they’d missed most of the gardens because of the rain and there wasn’t much else to the tour after that. They might as well have a little fun. “We’ll see if we have time.” Gregg ushered the man inside.
Now that the tourists were soaking wet and tracking mud everywhere, there was really no choice but to take them downstairs anyway. Gregg couldn’t have them messing up the non-priceless, rather unimpressive rugs woven by Great-Great-Grandmother O’Reilly.
“This way,” he said loudly, leading the group out of sight of Billie’s desk before heading into the dungeons. What Billie and Old Man O’Reilly didn’t know couldn’t hurt them.
The mood of the entire tour group brightened when they realized where Gregg was taking them. Everyone loved a good dungeon.
Gregg decided to forget his usual speech for the dungeon area and roll with the new story.
“I have to ask you all to stick close together for this portion of our tour,” he said. “We’ve had trouble in the dungeons and I don’t want anyone wandering off.”
“Because of the ghosts?” asked one of the uni students, whose name tag said “Seamus AKA the Machine.” All of the students had gotten creative with their identification like that. Gregg didn’t know why Seamus would want to be called “the Machine,” but he suspected it was a story best left untold.
Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper, Gregg said, “I’m not supposed to talk about the ghost.”
He was rewarded with excited murmurs.
Except from the American tourist, James. He didn’t look excited. He looked like he genuinely expected them to be attacked on the narrow stairs down to the dungeon. Maybe he was claustrophobic.
“I’ve heard about these hauntings,” said an old lady. “Apparently the ghost is quite violent!”
“Oh yes. It’s the, ah, ghost of Lord McNamara,” Gregg said. “He was a real beast. But I shouldn’t talk about that.”
“Come on,” urged Walker, whose real name was written in tiny letters above his nickname, “CUNTPUNCHER.” All capital letters, just like that. Lovely. “Tell us all about the beast!”
Gregg scratched the back of his neck, pretending to vacillate. “I don’t know. The dungeons are scary enough without hearing about the villagers who died there.”
The students all laughed.
Nothing more hilarious than the fictitious slaughter of villagers.
They reached the dungeon, which was really just a narrow tunnel underneath the castle. It led through about a dozen cells, each of which was walled off by rusty iron bars—probably a relatively recent addition to the castle, though Gregg didn’t care enough to find out.
They’d wired a few electric lights throughout the tunnel, but it was still cramped and dark in the dungeon. The roof was too low for the tall American tourist to stand up straight.
Gregg weaved an increasingly ridiculous story of mayhem and murder as the tourists examined the first pair of cells. The unreal Lord McNamara was a villain on par with Vlad the Impaler or Countess Bathory, luring hapless people to his castle to devour their flesh. He’d speared hundreds of living men and watched them die while dancing a jig.
It was so stupid that Gregg didn’t think anyone would ever believe him, but the tour group hung onto his every word. It was spooky and quiet down there, and easy to imagine Lord McNamara could have been real.
“And then his wife murdered him for all he’d done,” Gregg finished. He was out of creatively horrible sins to attribute to Lord McNamara. Might as well kill him off.
“Women,” scoffed a middle-aged man.
His spouse elbowed him. “I’ll murder you if you’re not quiet, dear.” Then she turned to Gregg. “That was a fascinating story, but I thought you said the ghost was a lord.”
Gregg nodded gravely. “That I did.”
“Then who is she? Is that the wife?”
The tourist was pointing behind him.
Gregg whirled in time to see a feminine figure at the end of the tunnel before she slipped into one of the cells. It was too dark to make out any details of her appearance. The tour didn’t usually go down that far, so they hadn’t wired that end of the hallway for light.
He was probably imagining the fact that it looked like she had no legs.
His heart leaped.
“Hey!” he shouted. “You’re not allowed down here without a guide!”
Nobody emerged from the cell.
But he heard a loud crash —the sound of something large shattering against a wall.
“Wait here,” Gregg said.
He raced down to the cell where the woman had disappeared, flinging the iron bars open.
There was nobody inside.
He immediately spotted what had caused the noise, though. Somehow, Billie’s computer had been dragged downstairs and hurled against the wall. The case was split open. Components were strewn across the stone floor.
“Billie?” he whispered, feeling stupid. She wasn’t the one who had thrown her computer against the wall. For one, she wasn’t strong enough. For another, she wasn’t capable of walking through walls, so she couldn’t have vanished that quickly.
The only way in and out of the cell was through the door and he hadn’t taken his eyes off of it since the woman had gone inside.
So how had she escaped?
Acid fear flowed through Gregg’s veins. He wanted to get out of that dungeon. Now .
Despite his instructions, the tour group had joined him by the cell, and now they were all straining to see over his shoulder. He blocked the cell with his body. “Why don’t we go upstairs?” Gregg asked.
One of the young women broke away from the tour and tried to elbow past him. Gregg’s first ungenerous thought was that she wasn’t a girl blessed by genetics; her features were too strong to be pretty, her build too stocky to be feminine.
His second thought, which came to him embarrassingly slowly, was that she was carrying a golden chain of charms in one gloved hand and a very large knife in the other.
Or was that a short sword? It was hard to tell.
She has a knife , Gregg thought.
And then, Mother of God, she has a fucking knife!
He didn’t think. He just reacted.
Gregg stepped in front of her to protect the tour group. “What in the flaming hell are you doing?” His eyes flicked down to her name tag. She’d written her name in crude, blocky letters that looked as vicious and un-feminine as the rest of her. “Elise?”
“Move,” Elise said, lifting the sword. Yes, it was definitely a sword. He’d never seen a knife longer than a woman’s forearm before. Its blade was curved, single-edged, and looked viciously sharp. There were strange marks engraved in the metal.
“Are you fucking crazy?” he asked.
Elise only repeated herself: “Move.” She was another American. Further proof that Americans were all nuts.
“You’ll move if you want to live,” added James, stepping up to join her. He didn’t have a weapon, but there was something decidedly threatening about a man that tall who spoke with so much conviction.
Gregg decided that the couple was definitely threatening him, and the Americans were definitely both crazy.
“Run!” he shouted over his shoulder at the tour group. “I’ll hold them off!”
Some of the tourists ran—or waddled, rather, because it was all of the older people escaping up the stairs. They were the smart ones. But the students didn’t move except to flank Gregg protectively. “What’s the problem here?” asked Seamus, also known as the Machine.
“You’re not haunted; you have a demonic infestation,” James s
aid. He was flipping through a notebook with a five-pointed star on the cover. “My companion here is an exorcist and about to save your life.”
Elise strode into the dungeon with her sword uplifted and glared around the cell as though expecting to see something in the shadows.
“Show yourself.” Her voice boomed.
A pale woman materialized in the corner. That was the only word for it—“materialized.” She didn’t walk through walls or emerge through a hidden door. She just appeared .
It was the figure Gregg had glimpsed from down the hall.
“That’s a bloody ghost,” Seamus the Machine said.
Gregg was not paid enough to deal with this. “Fucking hell.”
He stripped the Castle O’Reilly shirt off, flung it to the floor, and bolted.
The tour guide made it three steps before the demon killed him.
As Elise watched, the demon flashed across the dungeon cell, crossing from the corner to the door in the time it took a heart to beat. She twisted Gregg McNamara’s head from his neck, sliced her claws from belly to throat, and dropped his eviscerated body on the stone floor.
The demon could teleport. And she was fast. Fast enough that even Elise didn’t have time to save Gregg.
Going up against that kind of speed was going to be fun.
Elise launched herself at the demon, raising her sword in both hands. Elise had to jump high in order to reach the demon’s head—it was floating near the ceiling.
When Elise tried to plunge her sword into the demon’s skull, her foe simply wasn’t there.
Her knees cracked against the floor, splattering Gregg’s blood onto her jeans. The point of her falchion skittered against the stone without ever connecting with flesh. The demon had vanished and reappeared two feet away.
The demon’s head tipped back, her mouth opened, and she screamed.
That sound could have woken the dead. It was so shrill, so loud, that Elise’s entire skull vibrated. Hammers smashing into her temples would have hurt less.
James clapped his hands over his ears. He looked like he was screaming too, but Elise couldn’t hear anything over the preternatural shrieking.