Finding the mask—embracing what it had to say—had changed him. All that mattered now was the mission. Nazmaroth would return to Earth tonight. He arrival would cut through the confusion the world was suffering, restore purpose and direction.
Fisher couldn’t wait to serve at his master’s side, to fulfill the dream once dreamt by the last person to wear the mask. Macobros had paved the way for Nazmaroth’s return. Forces beyond his control had intervened, but history wouldn’t repeat itself. The twenty-first century was an age of false gods, a time when men only saw fit to worship themselves, unwilling to embrace the infinite dark. The endless night.
With Nazmaroth’s return, humanity would find its purpose again. This he believed with all his heart.
Ever since Fisher had placed the second sacrifice in the Croftmore Theater, he’d refused to take the mask off. To Fisher, the horned mask felt like his real face now. He was a follower of Nazmaroth, a servant of nocte infinitum. The promise of a new world awaited.
These thoughts were still going through his mind when the door to the converted barn swung open, and a familiar figure appeared. It was Sara Maitland, her pale, naked body covered in the henna tattoos he’d drawn over her unconscious form. He’d experienced no desire while carrying out his work, no impulse to caress the warm flesh that now, in death, had grown cold as ice. Sex had lost all importance him. The joy of serving his master had supplanted such baser animal instincts.
The corpse who’d become the vessel for Susan Hax's dead spirit entered the barn with staggering, dragging strides. Her face was blank and expressionless, and her eyes gleamed dully in the moonlight, her mouth gaped open wide.
Dead of flesh, dead of soul.
A part of Fisher, the human part that was fading fast, regretted that Maitland had to die to make this next step possible, but the emotion was fleeting. She was nothing to him. A shadow .
Maitland stumbled into the center of the wooden barn and waited. Her feet were bloody from the long sprint through the woods, and she left wet footprints on the barn’s bamboo floor. The heart no longer beat, but the blood was pooling in the corpse’s feet, dark and viscous.
Fisher watched her from behind his mask, his anticipation building with each passing second. He marveled at the intricate pattern of tattoos that covered Maitland’s naked form. To be honest, he couldn't really recall making those drawings. The spirit inside the mask had guided those brush strokes. He'd placed his trust in Macobros, in the spirit that whispered into his brain.
Each symbol served a function, links in a chain of dark energy. His master could only be born through the union of those dead in both body and in spirit.
Thinking back at everything he’d accomplished here, he shivered with delight. The plan had seemed overwhelming at first. How could he hope to pull it off? But the voice emanating from the mask had reassured him, had bolstered his confidence when it threatened to flag. He’d accomplished the impossible, and the preparations were now complete. Haskell was the only missing link, but he would arrive soon enough.
Wouldn’t he?
For a panicked moment, Fisher worried that the resurrected reality TV show host might have failed to fight his way out of the precinct. Could the ordinary firearms stop the thing Haskell had become? Fisher wasn’t sure, and his master had no knowledge of modern firearms-
A door creaked open and interrupted his thoughts. The sound echoed eerily in the church-like barn. It could mean only one thing. Haskell was here.
The sound of dragging footsteps filled the barn. A beat later, Haskell’s already decomposing form lurched into the barn’s communal living area. The sickly-sweet smell of formaldehyde made Fisher gag, a human weakness for which he cursed himself. Haskell’s dead, wax-like features mirrored Maitland’s vacant face. Blood had spattered his chest. From the looks of it, he’d run into some resistance at the precinct. But nothing had stopped Haskell from following the siren call of the endless night.
For an eternal moment, Haskell stood there in the moonlight like an automaton whose operating system was rebooting. The metaphor was appropriate, in a way. Neither one of the spirits bound to those dead bodies had a will of their own any longer. The tattoos on their skin had become their programming, guiding and directing them to this singular moment.
Maitland and Haskell faced each other in the dark. There was no longer lust or love or any other emotion between them. They stood like statues, waiting for a signal to set them in motion. Only the tattoos on their nude forms showed any real signs of life; Fisher could have sworn they lit up with a strange crimson light as they approached each other in the pools of moonlight and shadow .
Maitland grabbed Haskell by the hand and led him toward the center of the room. The table there would become the altar to their dark god, the holy place where their lifeless flesh would become one. Through their union, a doorway to this world would open for Nazmaroth. The thought made Fisher’s heart pound with growing excitement.
Maitland took the lead, guiding Haskell toward the empty table where the crew of Haunt Chasers had dined together at night. There was no hesitation as she pulled Haskell on top of her and guided his sex into her with machinelike efficiency.
Fisher watched in rapt silence as dead flesh slapped against dead flesh.
Chapter Seventeen
Detective Winters’ cruiser tore up the winding dirt road at breakneck speed. Our destination—the farmhouse where Fisher was holed up. A swirling mist lay heavily on the landscape, moonlight imbuing the shifting clouds with a spectral glow.
I noted the unnatural silence which had descended over the forest. The only sound disturbing the stillness was the hum of the cruiser’s engine.
Winters had assigned two officers to monitor Fisher at the farm. Neither one of them was answering their radios.
Not exactly an encouraging development, and both Winters and I feared the worst. I could see the flashes of guilt in the detective’s distracted gaze. She was blaming herself, wondering if she’d inadvertently sent the two police officers to their deaths.
Maybe that’s why we were doing this without backup. With two of their officers missing, the small police force of North Bay Harbor was stretched thin. I also had my doubts about whether additional forces would improve our odds. They’d be more of a liability than a help against the otherworldly powers we were up against. There was no need to put more innocent lives at risk.
I’d tried to explain to Winters what was happening here. How spirits long dead now animated two murdered reality TV stars, and an ancient black magic spell was controlling them like automatons.
Sometimes sharing is a bad idea.
Winters had shaken her head and held up her hand—she’d heard enough. I couldn’t blame her. She refused to live in a world where dark rituals could shape reality. When this was all done and over with, she would want to return to the normal world. A world where order contained chaos and light defeated darkness. I prayed for Winters’ sake that such a world awaited her at the end of this case.
My mind turned to the challenge ahead. Even though the detective refused to go deeper down this occult rabbit hole with me, there were a few things she needed to know before we arrived at the farmhouse.
“I know you don’t want me to get into this, but hear me out. Both Haskell and Maitland may look like they’re alive, but they’re dead, do you understand? Newly risen, undead, zombies—different names for the same creature. You need to shoot to kill, and we must use my custom ammo. ”
I took out a spare magazine of my custom 9mm rune-engraved silver bullets and placed them on the dash.
Winters cocked an eyebrow. “Magic bullets.”
“Something like that.”
“If this is a normal day in your life, I would hate to see what your Halloween looks like.”
I smiled. At least Winters still had her sense of humor. She would need it for what lay ahead.
“Tell me one thing. Why did Fisher mention Maitland’s obsession with the Croftmore Theate
r? He could have kept his mouth shut, and we would’ve never found her body.”
I eyed the detective with respect. I’d asked myself the same question.
“Fisher wanted us to find Maitland. The ritual bound Susan Hax’s spirit to the dead body, loosening the hold the theater had over her soul. But it required someone not connected to the spell to break the spiritual chains keeping her trapped there.”
“So when our forensic team wheeled her body out of the theater…”
“We liberated Susan Hax from her spiritual prison for good. Fisher needed us to set her free.”
The same was true for Haskell. Both victims had to be found by outsiders and removed from their spiritual prisons. By doing their jobs, the authorities had helped Fisher complete the ritual.
“The bastard has been playing us from the start.” Winters’ eyes flashed angrily, and she punched the gas .
The dark forest rippled past us in a hallucinatory blur. Ten minutes later, the farmhouse with its converted barn sprang into view. Earlier that day, the place had looked like a scenic getaway from the urban grind. Ringed by a ghostly fog and silhouetted in sickly moonlight, the area felt a lot less inviting.
The cruiser came to a stop. Winter pulled out her Glock and switched out her regular mag for my custom ammo. Once fully loaded, we got out of the car.
It was just me and a small-town cop up against two zombies and a crazed occultist. I had faced worse odds in the past.
The ground made wet sucking sounds under our feet as we closed in on the buildings. The earth looked gray and dead, and had turned into mud. The trees around the clearing were bare, almost as if some hungry invisible force had stripped them clean. No lights burned in the windows.
I hesitated, considering whether to storm the barn or the farmhouse first. Sudden doubt slashed through my mind. Was this all a big mistake? What if Fisher and his two undead servants were somewhere else already? What if we wouldn’t find them until it was too late?
As I turned to face the barn, a stabbing pain tore through my shoulder and swept away my doubts.
They were here, all right. I guess Fisher hadn’t expected me to figure out his plan. Or he didn’t see me as a real threat. He’d soon learn the error of underestimating me. Like my father, Fisher’s arrogance would be his undoing .
Our weapons raised, we approached the converted barn. Icy air raked my face like caresses from the grave. I pressed on, Winters on my side. The sharp smell of ozone had infected the air, tinged with a stench of decay and rotting meat which increased as we moved closer to the barn. This farm had become ground zero for a dark spell that was warping the surrounding landscape, a pulsating heart of darkness.
A piercing scream shredded the silence of the night—a woman’s voice, more beast than human.
I nodded at Winters, who’d turned a shade paler, deeply unnerved by the woman’s pain-filled screams. What was happening here? Had Fisher found a new victim?
Winter elbowed me and nodded at a nearby police cruiser parked in front of the farmhouse, previously hidden by the fog. It had to belong to the two missing cops she’d sent to watch Fisher.
My heart sank as I realized the odds of finding the officers alive at this point were slim to none. The detective likely knew her men were already dead, but she pushed forward with renewed determination.
The shrill, blood-curdling screaming continued unabated as we picked up our pace. A wail of unbridled anguish which kept echoing through the night. What new horror was waiting for us in the barn?
We reached the barn’s large, wooden entrance. Gun ready, I kicked open the door and edged into the dimly lit structure .
The moment I set foot into the yawning darkness, the screams stopped. An unnerving silence replaced the cries of desperation. Had our enemy sensed our approach the same way my tattoo had detected his black magic presence?
We would know soon enough.
Shadows enveloped us as we penetrated the barn, living darkness determined to cloud our senses. I squinted, my eyes only gradually adjusting to the blackness. Up ahead, moonlight shafted through the skylight in the ceiling, illuminating a narrow swath of the main room.
After my father’s death, I’d spent five years with my aunt in upstate New York. I’d visited my fair share of farms during that time. But this was like no barn I’d ever seen before. The space resembled a spruced New York City loft on steroids. Poured concrete, sleek steel, and industrial chic décor. No wonder the crew of Haunt Chasers had jumped at the chance of making this place their base camp.
I advanced, jaw set tight, unnerved by the pervasive silence that hung over the place like a shroud. Even though my senses betrayed no movement in the shadows, my itching Ouroboros tattoo told a different story.
We weren’t alone. Our enemy lurked in the pools of blackness, waiting to strike like a rattlesnake when we least expected it.
Tension pulsed through every muscle in my body. Adrenaline roared in my ears.
I spotted a flicker of movement in the communal area, and my finger whitened on the trigger. Drawing closer, I could see a vague shape splayed out on the large communal table.
My eyes widened as I made out more details in the sparse moonlight seeping through the barn’s skylights. A naked woman lay sprawled across the table, her pale, tattooed flesh radiant in the sickly glow of the moon. It was Maitland, her fiery red mane masking her features. Small mercy , I thought, as I doubted that anything of her humanity remained.
“Oh, my God,” Winters whispered next to me.
God had nothing to do with the creature which now confronted us.
Maitland’s stomach had grown to an enormous size since I'd last looked at her corpse in the Croftmore theater. It was grotesquely distended, rounded, almost as if...
She is pregnant , I realized with horror. We were too late to stop the union between the two resurrected spirits.
Something was moving under the bulging skin of her enormous belly, pushing and pressing against it, determined to break free of its prison of flesh and bone.
At most an hour could have passed since Haskell and Maitland had consummated this unholy union, but black magic had sped up the gestation period. Whatever monstrosity shifted and contorted within that dead womb was ready to be born.
Almost as if to confirm my dark suspicions, another scream exploded from Maitland’s dead throat, followed by the disgusting sound of tearing flesh. A split second later, a black, scaly arm burst from her belly in a spray of gore and slime.
Nazmaroth was here.
Chapter Eighteen
The tentacle-like arm whipped out of Maitland’s belly and cast undulating shadows against the wall. A hooked talon protruded from the tip of the black appendage and buried itself in the table’s wooden surface.
More sounds of tearing flesh followed as a second tentacle joined the first and firmly dug its hook-like tip into the table. Arms anchored, the two thin, pulsating limbs heaved the rest of its grotesque body out of the cratered stomach.
The watermelon-sized, sack-like thing emerging from its dead mother’s womb looked like a giant spider, a creeping clump of pure horror. Powered by the two tentacles, the thing dragged itself away from Maitland, leaving a trail of slime in its crawling wake.
Disgust crept up my throat, and my stomach balled into a knot. I’d seen some crazy shit in the last few years, but the birth of a demon was a new one for me.
“Oh God,” Winters breathed, her voice the thinnest thread.
I broke out of my paralysis and fired my Glock.
The newborn monster sprang into motion as my pistol went off. With a piercing shriek, the shivering mass shot off the table and landed in one of the shadowy corners of the open-plan living space.
Damn, I’d hesitated too long. Beside me, Winters was shaking, and I deeply regretted having dragged her into this hellish mess. I prayed she wouldn’t shut down and completely lose it.
Somewhere in this dark space, a new-born monster lurked. It had come to term
in less than an hour—who knew how long it would take for it to reach full maturity? What sort of abomination would his thing ultimately grow up to become? I had to stop it now before it was too late.
These thoughts were still going through my mind when I sensed movement to my right. My neck whipped around to see Maitland’s dead body hurtling toward me.
She was alive—or at least still moving—despite the giant hole in her stomach.
Alive and eager to kill.
Her body crashed into mine, the momentum throwing us both to the ground in a sprawling heap. As I went down, I let go of my pistol, and it sailed into the darkness. With Maitland’s bestial howls and roars bashing my ears, I felt my head smack against the floor, and I saw a burst of stars.
If the ferocious zombie pinning me to the ground wasn’t enough, I also had to worry about the tentacled spider monster skittering across the floor.
Fucking great. Come to Maine , they said. Try the lobster rolls, stay for the nightmarish horrors from beyond the veil.
My right arm closed around Maitland’s throat. I wasn’t trying to crush her larynx or cut off her air supply—the dead need not breathe. I was just trying to keep her teeth from getting too close to me. I didn’t want to find what would happen if those snapping choppers nicked my skin.
Maitland pressed her snow-white naked flesh into me with inhuman strength, both hands closing around my throat with a vice-like force. If she couldn’t tear out my throat with her teeth, she would strangle me instead.
My neck twisted in her grip, and as I turned my head, I saw the bodies of the two missing police officers under the communal table. Bones stripped clean of flesh, gore-covered death skulls staring back at me. The only reason I could tell they were the missing cops was because of the shredded blue uniforms still clinging to their ravaged bodies.
With horror, I realized that Maitland must have fed on the poor men. Whatever nightmare had been growing in her belly, it had needed to feed. If it hadn’t been for the undead creature on top of me, determined to make me her next course, I would have chucked up my lobster roll .
The Paranormalist- Servants of the Endless Night Page 11