The Last Rite

by Chad Morgan

  The Last Rite

  Chad Robert Morgan

  Copyright © 2017 Spectral Ink Productions

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1720680361

  ISBN-13: 978-1720680369

  For the cast

  Prologue

  The forest stood quiet. Deathly quiet, as if the thick fog dampened sound as well as light. The empty road, curving and winding along the contours of the mountain and peppered with reflective traffic markers, were the only evidence that humans had ever existed. No wind rustled the trees, no birds or squirrels rustled the grass, as if everything with a heartbeat knew to stay away, or had been slain. The road arced around a bend where a weathered wooden sign stood, its carved words welcoming visitors to Shellington Heights.

  The four-door sedan roared passed the sign, its tires screeching to hold onto the road as it zoomed past way faster than the posted speed limit sign said to go along the curve, the car weaving across the empty lanes. The engine roar sounded like a rocket engine in the unnatural silence. Even the leaves rustled up in its wake sounded deafening in the absence of any ambient sounds.

  Banking the curve at such a dangerous speed caused the case and folder sitting on the passenger seat to slide towards the door. Without looking, the driver reached out with one slender and blood-stained hand to catch the case as if it would slide out the closed car door. Carolyn Lightfoot stole a glance to make sure the cylindrical case was safe, then snapped her head back to the road, her long black hair matted to the blood drying on her forehead. Her knuckles were white as the padding on the steering wheel creaked under her grip. She kept one eye glued on her rear-view mirror, but still she’d shoot a look over her shoulder when the road would allow her too, her eyes wide. Every time she did, her necklace would jingle as the silver and turquoise pieces bounced against the center piece, which resembled a silver dreamcatcher. The necklace was large, but the weight was reassuring. It reminded her it was there. That was important. It was vital.

  Tear tracks cut paths through the dirt and blood on her face, showing the light brown color of her skin. Her long, straight black hair, normally shining and neatly brushed, still hung straight where it wasn’t glued in place by drying blood. Her dark brown eyes were bloodshot, her eyelids swollen. As she drove, she predicted each bank and turn, slowing down just enough to make the turn but still well over the posted speed limit. Unlike her cousin, Charlie, who left the reservation for the big city and never looked back, Carolyn lived in what used to be Shellington Heights and she knew these roads. Of course, Shellington Heights was something else now. In a sense, so was she. Now, she was a survivor.

  The fog started to break. In the horizon, the sun was glowing like a beacon to safety. Carolyn could see the glistening of the not too distant Pacific. She could smell the salt from the sea spray. A smile grew on her face while tears began to trickle down her cheeks. The smile cracked into a sporadic giggle, which grew into an almost hysterical laugh. She was almost out. She was almost free. She looked over her shoulder again. Shellington Heights was behind her, and not just in terms of miles. It was another world now, but she was back. Back to the real world. Almost.

  When she glanced back to the road, Carolyn saw the red-brown blur dart across the road in front of her. Carolyn turned the wheel to avoid whatever the thing was without thinking. In the real world, you avoided killing things, you tried to not hurt people or things, and while those rules didn’t apply in Shellington Heights the habit was ingrained. The car careened out of control and off the road.

  Carolyn stirred to partial consciousness. She pushed her head off the now deflated airbag, looking out of the cracked windshield. In front of her was a redwood tree, steam coming from the crushed radiator, the front of the car crumpled and bent. The world swam in a foggy blur . . . no, it wasn’t all the crash. While her vision was blurred and her head swimming, she was aware of one thing – the fog was total again. There was just a hint of the smell of the sea air, though the sounds of the waves cracking against the cliff side, what should have been a defining roar, was missing. It would have been kinder if that salty smell was absent completely, but the faint tinge taunted her with how she was almost there. The sun was gone, the ocean replaced by more forest road that stretched off to infinity. No, not infinity. She knew where the road led. Like the road behind her, all roads led back to Shellington Heights in this world.

  She was almost out. Almost.

  As Carolyn’s car lay dead, two figures walked down the road and through the fog. Both wearing dark business suits, they walked with a purpose but not in a rush. The man walked stiff and straight, his cropped-cut blond hair and chiseled, clean shaven jaw adding to the impression he was used to wearing a military uniform instead of a business suit. He wore a practiced soft smile that seemed contrary to the coldness in his bright blue eyes. Next to him, with her heels clicking on the asphalt road, the woman looked stern and deep in thought, an expression that detracted from her otherwise pretty face. Her long blonde hair was pulled into a tight pony tail, but while her male counterpart walked tall with confidence, she seemed to walk tall out of defiance.

  The two of them walked up to the wreck. The business suit woman stood back and crossed her arms while the business suit man wrenched open the warped driver’s side door. Carolyn lifted her heavy and swollen eyelids, but while every thought in her concussed head told her to run she couldn’t get her body to move. The business suit man leaned into the car. Carolyn tried to push him away, but her arm moved as if she were submerged in some sort of viscous fluid. The business suit man didn’t bother to glance at her but simply pushed Carolyn back against the seat as he reached past her to the items on the passenger seat. He grabbed the file and the cylindrical case. Carolyn moaned in pain and protest and reached out to stop him, her arms with all the strength of a child. The business suit man pushed her aside with no effort and even less consideration, one hand pushing her back against her seat, her necklace under his palm. As the business suit man exited the car, he clutched the necklace and yanked. The thin silver clasp snapped, and the business suit man pulled the necklace away from Carolyn while she feebly grasped for it. He dropped the necklace to the ground.

  The business suit man handed the file to his companion. She took it with a grimace, not that the business suit man noticed or cared. His eyes were on the canister. He unscrewed the cap, reached in, and began tugging at the contents inside.

  “Careful, you idiot!” his companion snapped.

  He scowled back at her. He pulled the contents out more gently, more to pacify her than out of any real concern. The contents inside were not nearly as fragile and she seemed to think it was, but he was in no mood for a lengthy conversation. He pulled from the canister a rolled-up scroll. Handing the now-empty canister to his companion, the business suit man took the scroll over to the truck of the car. The business suit woman watched him unroll it gently, but what she mistook for caution was reverence and awe.

  It was beautiful. He felt the scroll with his fingers. He was expecting it to be made of paper of some kind, but it felt more like leather. The writing was faded but still legible. His writing, the Mad Arab, written in a language that was forgotten thousands of years before Christ was born. He had been studying the ancient language since before coming to Shellington Heights so some of the phrases made some sense, but he’d have to sit with reference books to translate the rest. Still, in spite his limited knowledge of the language, the scroll seemed to whisper to him, like it was aching to share its secrets with him. He could almost see the words dance on the page as if vibrating with power . . .

  “Is it intact?” she asked him, pulling him back to reality.

  “Doesn’t look like she hurt it,” he replied. As if the Lightfoot’s could have
hurt it. If they could, the Professor would have destroyed the thing instead of sending his granddaughter to try to escape with it. Despite that, the business suit man rolled the scroll back up slowly, each word being covered back up causing him a pain of longing. He reached out for the canister and the business suit woman handed it to him. He slid the scroll back into the case and closed it. Without a word between them, the two began the long walk back to Shellington Heights.

  Carolyn Lightfoot couldn’t think, her brain clouded as if the fog outside had seeped into her head, but a more primal part of her knew she needed to run, that her life depended on it. She fumbled at the buckle to her seatbelt when she heard the thud on the roof of the car. Like a rabbit, she froze and looked up, hearing footsteps and tracing them with her eyes as whatever it was walked to the open door. Carolyn reached for the door but recoiled when a hand gripped the doorframe. The knuckles of the masculine hand were scraped raw, brown dirt smeared with streaks of dried blood, but it was human. The second hand, however, looked more like a three-fingered talon, with claws as long as her finger, its black scales glistening. It lowered its head and searched the car with its one good eye, the other side of its head a melted mass of flesh and blisters, it’s misshapen mouth a random jumble of fangs. Carolyn screamed.

  As the business suit woman walked beside her partner, the file and the scroll case in her hand, she looked back at the car when she was sure he wouldn’t notice. She saw the dog thing jump off the car and circle back in a low crouch, its legs a tight spring ready to let go. It was a dog only in the sense it had four limbs and a tail. It looked like someone had welded a creature together with spare parts, its hairless body covered with large blisters and horns. It leaped into the car, slashing with its claw arm as Carolyn screamed, the car rocking violently as blood splattered against the back window. The business suit woman closed her eyes and turned away. She glanced back up at her partner, but he seemed to not hear the woman’s screams. The roars, the woman’s cries of pain and fear, the shocks of the car creaking as it was rocked back and forth, the sound of flesh tearing . . . it all just went on and on, and the business suit woman felt a chill as she realized the creature was taking its time in killing Carolyn Lightfoot. The business suit woman put it out of her mind and stared forward into the fog like her partner.

  The business suit man reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Punching the only number on his contact list, he put the phone up to his ear. The business suit woman could only hear their side of the conversation, but she had been the person on the phone enough times to know how the conversation went.

  “Sir? Yes, sir, we’ve regained the parchment. It’s intact,” the business suit man said, his deep voice carrying over the sounds of Carolyn’s cries. “No, sir, we’re still missing the girl, but we have her identified as . . .” He snapped his fingers. The business suit woman held back the urge to slap him in the face with the file but handed it to him. He opened the file with his free hand and read it. “Bethany Sloan. Yes, sir, she’s the key.”

  He handed the file back to her. The business suit woman looked down at the file. A picture of Bethany Sloan was paper-clipped to the inside. It looked like a school photo, the kind with a generic backdrop and even lighting, but the young girl looked distant and mournful. The pretty dress and the neatly brushed long brown hair did nothing to brighten her sad face.

  “Father unknown,” the business suit man continued. “The mother has been handled as directed and we will have the girl shortly. We just need to tie up some loose ends.”

  The business suit man hung up the phone and put it back in his pocket as Carolyn Lightfoot’s screams finally ceased. The business suit woman looked back at the car, now small in the distance, but while the screaming had stopped, her stomach lurched as she noticed the car continued to violently rock back and forth.

  1

  Daniel Burns drove along the coastal road, the window down and the sea air rustling his short cut hair. The road hugged the cliff side, lush forest with tall trees to his right, jagged rocks and dark rolling ocean to his left. The sun shone brightly, the winding highway forcing him to take a leisurely pace, but the scenic drive was wasted on Daniel. In his head, he replayed the phone conversation that set him driving up from L.A.

  He had been at his desk when his phone rang. Normally he answered his phone with the habitual company greeting, but before he could get a word out the woman at the other end asked, “Hello, Mr. Burns?”

  “Yes, this is Daniel Burns,” he had answered.

  “I’m Ms. Garcia from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. Are you acquainted with an Anna Sloan?”

  Daniel almost dropped the phone. The air in his lungs turned thick and sank into his stomach, and he leaned back in his office chair. “Anna? We dated a few years back.” From his side, he could see Greg lean back to peer around the cubical wall. Like most people at Security Solutions, he was formerly in law enforcement or military and had the body that, while still fit, had softened slightly from years behind a desk. Greg looked at him, his brows high in disbelief. Daniel shrugged back at him and asked Ms. Garcia, “Why? What is this about?”

  “I’m afraid Anna has passed away.” She didn’t say it unkindly, but her words lacked any emotion. It was merely a fact, meaning as much to her as the death of George Washington or Joan of Arc.

  “That’s . . .” The words would have stuck in his throat if had known what he would say. Thinking back on it, he had lots of things he could have said, but at the time his mind stumbled to make sense of what he was hearing. Even now, driving up to meet Ms. Garcia in person, he couldn’t believe what he had been told. Anna was dead. He hadn’t seen Anna in what? Ten years? And then she was gone. She didn’t break up with him, she didn’t take a new job or move away, she was simply gone. Even her brother Marcus couldn’t find her. For a while the two of them looked for her together, then one day Marcus decided Anna couldn’t be found because Anna didn’t want to be found.

  Greg looked at him and mouthed the words, “What’s going on?”

  Daniel waved him off and leaned into his cubicle for some pretense of privacy and said into the phone, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Mr. Burns, the reason for my call is that Anna is survived by a 9-year-old girl, Bethany. Before she died, she named you as her father. We would like to arrange a paternity test to verify . . .”

  Driving north to Washington, Daniel couldn’t recall with any clarity any of the rest of the conversation. He remembered making the arrangements to verify Anna’s claims that he was the girl’s father, but he did it in a haze. While taking the test and then waiting for the results, he ran the gambit of emotions from excitement over maybe having a child, to anger at Anna for never telling him, to self-doubt over if he was good enough to be a father. He didn’t hesitate to adopt the child, not waiting for the test results. Even if she wasn’t his child, and he was sure she was, this girl was still Anna’s daughter. He pulled every favor to make that happen, but now as he drove up to meet his daughter for the first time, he wondered if this was the right decision. The bad thing about such a long drive was he had time to think, including revisiting all the mistakes he had made in his life. He rubbed his stomach where, under his shirt, there was a scar from a bullet wound. Did he deserve to have a kid after what he had done?

  His cell phone rang. Daniel slipped the Bluetooth headset into his ear and hit the button. Ms. Garcia’s voice came through the tiny speaker. “Mr. Burns? We have the results of the paternity test, and you are indeed Bethany’s father. I know this is strange for you, but we would like to discuss the future care of your daughter.”

  “I’m already on the road,” he told her. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

  For the first time, Ms. Garcia’s professional demeanor wavered. “Mr. Burns, I’m afraid it’s not that simple . . .”

  He knew that well enough. Even with all the connections he had made both as a security consul
tant and before that a cop, the bureaucracy was daunting, and the bureaucracy involving children moved purposely slow. He knew he’d probably just be turned away for it was unlikely he’d be handed custody of his daughter so easily, but this was his daughter. He had to meet her. And he had to know what happened to Anna.

  “We’ll discuss that when I get there. In the meantime, where was Anna buried?”

  On the other end of the phone, Daniel could hear the rustling of papers. “The county cemetery. They buried her next to her mother. I can give you directions . . . “

  “I know where it is, thanks,” Daniel said and hung up the phone before Ms. Garcia could voice another argument against him driving up. He leaned back in the car seat, and for the first time glanced out the window at the ocean beside him. They buried her next to her mother. Good. She would have wanted it that way.

  Daniel drove by a T-intersection, passing a winding road heading into the forest. At the corner of that intersection, a tree bore the scars or a car crash though no car was there. The only sign one ever was there was a silver and turquoise necklace on the ground. The road sign said twelve miles to Shellington Heights.

  The graveyard was old but well maintained. It should be, Daniel considered as he walked amongst the grave markers, considering the prime real estate the old graveyard sat on. When the graveyard was founded coastal land wasn’t at such a premium, but in modern days the land they stood on, overlooking the ocean on a plateau on top of the seaside cliff, would be worth millions. Daniel and Anna never talked about it, but her mother buried here always hinted that Anna came from a family of some wealth. In the front of the graveyard were old tombstones, many damaged and restored over time, but tombstones were expensive and vulnerable in a land prone to seismic activity, so at some point, their use was discontinued in favor or flat grave markers. This made a clear distinction between the older sections of the graveyard and the more modern grave sites where Daniel was now. In his hand was a bouquet of flowers and a single lily. He found his way to an older grave marker, the metal tarnished with age and oxidation from the sea water in the air, but it was pretty much how he remembered it. He knelt at the grave which read “Rebecca Sloan – Beloved Wife and Mother.”