The Last Rite

by Chad Morgan

  “Hello?” Daniel called out to the prisoner in the cell. “Who’s there?”

  The person in the cell rambled, “Nobody. I’m not here. You’re not here.”

  Daniel put one arm out, guiding Bethany to step behind him. He said to the prisoner, “What happened? Where is everybody?”

  “I know where they are. You know where they are. You’ve seen them. I don’t see them. Not anymore.” The prisoner started to laugh, the kind of cackle that told Daniel the man had run out of tears a long time ago, and laughing was all he had left.

  Daniel felt Bethany tug on his sleeve. “Mr. Burns? Please, let’s just go!”

  Daniel nodded. The security of having a weapon was being outweighed by the increased risk of searching the station. “Yeah, let’s go, Bethany.”

  He turned Bethany to leave and started backing away towards the door when the prisoner asked, “Bethany Sloan?”

  They both froze. Daniel glared at the prisoner, but the man in the cell didn’t turn away from the wall. Without taking his eyes off the prisoner he said to Bethany, “Stay here.”

  “Daniel?” she asked, her voice dripping with fear. He felt her pressing against his back as if she was trying to fuse with him.

  Daniel pushed her back with a gentle hand but spoke firmly. “No, stay here.”

  Daniel slid the tire iron into his belt, catching on the L bend like a holster. Daniel made his way back to the sheriff’s body. He tried to keep his eyes on the prisoner, looking away only to guide his hand towards the gun in the sheriff’s grip. Reaching over the corpse, he spotted around its neck another one of those silver and turquoise necklaces. Wasn’t important now, he needed the gun. He grabbed it by the barrel, but the previous owner didn’t want to let it go. Daniel shook the gun free, the hand stiff but not as it should have been with rigor mortis. That made Daniel’s heart beat faster as he realized the body was still fresh. This hadn’t happened too long ago.

  Daniel held the gun in his hand. It wasn’t too different than the revolver he had when he was in uniform. Suddenly he was back in that alley, chasing after a suspect around the corner. A gun shot rang out, but it wasn’t his. He could feel the slug rip into his stomach. For a second the hole in him was numb as if the pain couldn’t travel as fast as the bullet, but the pain caught up with the bullet soon enough. It burned, the metal searing hot from riding through the barrel. Blood and bile trickled from the wound and soaked his uniform. Daniel placed his hand on the wound, trying to hold his blood inside him, but it ran between his fingers and over his hand. He collapsed to the ground, trying to crawl away from his attacker, whose light footsteps stalked after Daniel with a casual pace. He was going to die. His attacker was going to finish the job. He raised his gun and fired.

  The last thing Daniel saw before resurfacing from his memories was the young boy’s face, his playful smile the last to fade like the one from the Cheshire cat. He was breathing hard as if the bullet wound just happened, his shirt soaked with sweat and glued to his chest. Daniel swallowed down his anxiety. He had to focus. Bethany was depending on him. Anna was depending on him.

  Daniel opened the cylinder and dumped out the empty shells into his hand. Dropping the shells to the ground, one or two tinkling against the tile floor but most plopping in the congealed blood, Daniel felt a small comfort that the sheriff went down fighting. He searched the belt along the body and found two quick-loads of rounds. He put one quick-load into his pocket, which he was surprised to find wasn’t easy to do as his hand was shaking wildly. With the other quick-load round, he reloaded the revolver, which was a bit easier than pocketing the first quick-load now that he was aware of his shaking nerves. He willed his hands to be steady as he shoved the six bullets into the chamber in one motion, then let go of his concentration and allowed his hands to shake again. He aimed the pistol at the man in the cell, grateful his back was to Daniel and not seeing the jittering gun. At the moment, he didn’t feel very intimidating.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “What’s happened here?”

  In the darkness, Daniel hadn’t noticed the man was kneeling, but now the prisoner stood up, still slouching forward and not turning away from the wall. Something was splattered against the wall, but the light was too dim to make it out. Daniel could hear the prisoner’s grin as he said, “I thought you didn’t like guns, Daniel?”

  Daniel’s heart skipped a beat. He gripped the gun tighter and extended it forward towards the prisoner. “How do you know that? How do you know me?”

  In his mind, Daniel was already rationalizing. The prisoner must have heard Bethany say it, call him by his name. Just as he convinced himself of that excuse, the prisoner shattered his reasoning.

  “Haven’t held one since your incident, have you Daniel?” he asked, making air quotes when he said “incident.”

  Daniel cocked the pistol. “Who are you?”

  “I’m nobody. I’m NOTHING! I don’t exist.” he said, his mood swinging to different extremes with each sentence, settling on his crazy laughter. “I’m a figment of my own imagination.”

  “Where is everyone?” Daniel asked. “Where did they go?”

  “Oh, they’re around,” he sang. Without turning he pointed to the cabinets to their right. “There’s a bit of Deputy Walker there on top of the filing cabinet if you want to say hello.”

  The prisoner fell back into his wild laughter. Daniel called out over his cackling, “How do you know Bethany?”

  This pulled the prisoner back to the conversation. “Oh, we all know Bethany,” he said, emphasizing all. “That’s all they talk about, the key, the key, we need the key, where’s the key. Know all about Bethany. And Anna. And you, Daniel.”

  He looked back to Bethany, hoping for some hint from her as to what the man in the cell might be talking about, but Bethany stared back wide-eyed and opened-mouth. He turned back to the prisoner. “What the hell are you talking about? Who are ‘they’? What do you mean, ‘Bethany’s the key?’ Key to what?”

  “Don’t know,” he replied. “Don’t know who they are. They know everything. But they didn’t know about you, did they, Daniel? You threw a monkey wrench in their little plans, didn’t you?”

  That didn’t make sense. His mental gears started working on the inconsistency, siphoning energy from his fear. “If they don’t know me, how do you?”

  The prisoner looked up at the ceiling as if God was speaking to him. “She talks to me.”

  “Who?”

  “The old lady,” he said with the reverence of a priest.

  “What old lady?”

  “Oh, she comes and goes, comes and goes,” he sang, his wild mood shifting causing Daniel’s mental gears to grind. “Not everyone sees her, you know. No, I guess you wouldn’t know. But you will soon. Very soon.”

  “Why does she talk to you?” Daniel asked, his police training guiding him to get as much information as possible. Once the informant started talking, keep him talking. “What makes you so special?”

  The prisoner burst into his mad laughter. “Me? I’m not special. I’m nothing.” He then spat, “I’m shit! But Bethany . . . she’s everything. The Alpha. Or the Omega. Or maybe both? Maybe neither.” He began laughing again. “She talks to me because she knew I would talk to you. And now my usefulness has come to an end. They’ll kill me tonight. Or will they? Can I die if I’m already in Hell? I hope I die. There are worst things than dying. But you’ll know about that as well.”

  “Where is this old woman now?” Daniel asked. He had to keep this guy focused. “What happened to the sheriff?”

  “Poor Sheriff Thundercloud,” the prisoner said. “He’s an Indian, you know. Lots of them up here, them Indians. I heard him screaming. Didn’t have time to reload by the sound of it.”

  “Did you see what got him?” Daniel asked. “Was it like a dog?”

  “See?” the prisoner asked. He started laughing. And laughing. He was in hysterics. The prisoner turned to face Daniel, who gasped and almost dropped the g
un. Bethany screamed as the prisoner leaned his mangled face against the bars and into the light, gripping the bars with his blood-caked fingers. His eyes were missing, deep scratches across his eyelids, his empty sockets sparkling in the fluorescent light. Daniel backed away as the prisoner screamed, “I didn’t see ANYTHING!”

  “Jesus,” Daniel gasped, not from the gore but from the realization that the man in the cell had done it to himself.

  “I can’t see them anymore!” he said gleefully, then his smile dropped. “I can still hear them though. I’ve tried! I’ve tried to pull my ears off, but they’re not as soft as eyes are, you know? My eyes, they just sort of went ‘pop’ and they were gone, but these fucking things!” He gripped at his ears and pulled at them hard, leaving blood streaks on the bars. His ears slipped out of his bloody hands and he grabbed at them again, yanking them down. “They won’t fucking come off!” He shot his hand out through the bars, smiling. “Hey? Hey, you have a knife? Because I can still hear them, man, I can still FUCKING HEAR THEM!”

  With the prisoner’s screams echoing in the station, Daniel ran to Bethany and, taking her by the hand, ran for the door. His heart was pounding so hard he felt he could outrun sound, but the prisoner’s screams brought Daniel back to harsh reality. “You think they’ll let you leave? None of us leaves! How do you leave Hell? We’re damned! We’re all damned!”

  Daniel led Bethany out of the station and ran straight for the car, but in the unnatural silence of the empty town, the crazy prisoner’s yelling carried even out of the building. “We’re all damned!”

  Daniel opened the car and ushered Bethany in, then jumped in behind the wheel, dropping the gun and tire iron onto the passenger seat. The door wasn’t even closed before Daniel had the engine roaring to life. He jerked his seatbelt over and clicked it into place.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to Bethany, “we’re out of here.”

  Daniel stomped on the accelerator and the car spun in an arc as he spun the wheel. The car zoomed back up the road they came down. In moments, they passed the wooden Shellington Heights sign, the back reading “Thank you for visiting Shellington Heights! Come back soon!” Daniel took a deep breath. It was over. They were out of that crazy town. He looked over his shoulder to Bethany.

  “It’s okay, we’re out of there. We’re okay,” he said, trying to convince himself as well as his daughter.

  Daniel shifted his body to reach into his pocket. Fishing out his phone, he dialed 911. Holding the phone to his ear, taking the sharp curves one-handed, he heard the ringing. Then a cheerful female voice of an automated message said, “We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and die. Goodbye, Daniel.”

  Daniel dropped the phone as if it burned. What the hell was that? In the rear-view mirror, he saw Bethany grip her doll. He was amazed the doll wasn’t torn in half by now. Bethany met his gaze through the mirror, her eyes heavy, and said, “It doesn’t matter. They’re not going to let us go.”

  “There’s no ‘they’. That guy was crazy,” he said.

  “Like Mommy was?” Bethany asked.

  Daniel opened his mouth to reply, but before a word got out his eyes opened wide as the car raced by the welcome sign to Shellington Heights. “What the hell? How did we get turned around?”

  “It’s okay, Daniel,” Bethany said in a defeated tone. “It’s not your fault.”

  “It’s okay,” Daniel said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  Bethany looked away and out the window. The car re-entered Main street and Daniel spun the wheel hard in a tight U-turn, the tires squealing on the asphalt. The car roared even harder as the speedometer spun higher and higher to the right. He again drove past the back of the sign marking Shellington Heights, once again reading its message hoping he would return soon. Daniel was taking the turns dangerously fast, overdriving through the fog, relying on memory more than his eyes, but he had to get away from that damn town. The fog was growing denser. Maybe it was his increased speed, but he felt he couldn’t see as far down the road as he had the last time. He kept his eyes open wide, looking for whatever turn in the continuous road he might have made to get turned around, but there were none. It was one road to the coast, one way in, one way out. There was no way he could have . . .

  “Fuck!” Daniel screamed, slamming his hand against the wheel.

  Once again, he drove past the wooden sign saying, “Welcome to Shellington Heights.” The sign seemed more worn, a trick of light caused by the thickening fog. Daniel spun the car around again, his heart pounding, the wheel getting slippery under the sweat on his palms. As he drove past the sign again, this time someone had written in red paint, “You think you can leave?” At least, he told himself it was paint. There had to be some fork in the road he was missing in the fog. In his mind, he saw the road as a giant Mobius strip, but that was crazy. He had come in into the town through that road. There was no way he could . . .

  He hit the welcome sign again. This time many of the letters on the sign had been scratched out, large splinters of wood ripped out, so the sign now read “Welcome to hell.” Not only was he was back, he had come back sooner. The Mobius strip he was on was shrinking.

  “This can’t be right,” Daniel said to himself. “This CAN’T be right.”

  “It’s okay,” Bethany said behind him, her voice calm. Too calm. “You can give up. I won’t blame you.”

  Daniel spun the car around again. “I’m not giving up.”

  “Mommy did,” Bethany said.

  Daniel gritted his teeth. “I’m not your mother.”

  He passed the back of the sign, but as the road curved around the mountain, the sign was already on his right. This time the sign said, “Welcome BACK to hell,” the word back written in what Daniel could no longer lie to himself and call paint. This time he didn’t turn the car around but raced deeper into the town.

  “Maybe there’s another road out of town,” he said.

  “The guy in the jail was right,” Bethany cried. “We can’t leave.”

  “Stop it!” Daniel shouted, looking back at Bethany. “We’re going to get out . . .”

  “Watch out!” Bethany screamed.

  Daniel snapped his head forward. Ahead of him in the fog was a shape, a bipedal shadow hunched over in the middle of the road, and Daniel was speeding right towards it.

  “Fuck!” he screamed as he spun the wheel.

  He knew he lost control of the car before the car started to flip over, could feel when the tires no longer gripped the road. Turning too fast, the car rolled up onto its side, crushing the passenger side doors as it continued onto its top. Upside down, the roof pushed in and the windows shattered, raining glass everywhere. The car rolled several yards until it was upright again and the passenger side of the crumpled car slammed into a lamppost. The large metal structure slowly fell over, bending at the point of impact, until it laid over the car, the glass of the lamp shattering on the street.

  Daniel’s head lopped to the side, his left arm dangling out the broken window, blood trickling from his nose as he laid against the deployed airbag. Unconscious, neither Daniel nor Bethany heard the steam hissing from the cracked radiator, nor the uneven shuffling of what Daniel had narrowly missed as it walked towards them.

  8

  The lumbering form walked towards the wreck of the car, neither occupant moving. It was still too far away to make out what it was from the car, but while it walked on two legs it hunched over and limped as if its limbs were of random lengths. It was in no hurry, though with its awkward gate it might be moving as fast as it could. It continued towards the car with no hesitation, one large thump followed by a sliding of the other foot along the ground.

  From behind the car, a gray wolf walked through the dense fog and stood in the figure’s way, it’s body tense and its hackles up. The wolf growled at the figure, which paused and shuffled, unsure what to do next. The wolf snarled, crouching low like a trap ready to spring, exposing perfect ro
ws of white canine teeth and snapping barks at it. Its ears were pulled back, a streamlined missile ready to launch. The bipedal thing receded back into the mountain mist with a hiss.

  Though the wolf stood up from its pouncing stance, it looked smaller now that its fur was no longer standing on end. It stood there like a sentinel, its ears standing up like twin furry radar dishes, twitching and searching for the slightest noise. Confident the threat was gone for now, the wolf relaxed and turned to the car. The wolf placed its front paws on the car door and peered into the window. Bethany lay in the back seat, slumped in her seatbelt, unconscious but otherwise appearing unharmed. The wolf whined, but with the door closed and the window up, there was nothing to be done. The wolf dropped back down to all fours and walked over to Daniel, who lay out of the driver’s side window, his left arm dangling over the side. The wolf sniffed at the wound, then recoiled, its ear flattening, but slowly the wolf stepped back to Daniel’s wounded arm. The wolf started licking at the bandages.

  Before Daniel could open his eyes, he heard whispers, but they seem to be coming from within him. They were mumbles, and it wasn’t even a language, but if Daniel listened and concentrated he could almost understand . . .

  The whispers started to fade. No, it felt more like they were being pulled from him like peeling dead skin off a sunburn, and with it, his unconsciousness was lifting. Daniel opened his eyes, his vision blurry. His head felt three times heavier than normal, his brain sloshing around inside it. Every thought echoed in his skull. He felt something stroking his bandaged arm, something soft and boneless, like a large slug . . . no, a tongue. He looked down and saw a gray blur licking his arm. He blinked to focus, and the gray blur became furry, two bright eyes staring up at him. He blinked again, and the thing was clearer now. A dog? No, more like a coyote? A wolf. He blinked again, but this time the wolf was gone. Was it ever there, or had he imagined it? He started to try to reorder his thoughts. He had been trying to drive away, but the roads kept leading back to town. Someone was on the road, he swerved to miss him, the car flipped . . .