The Beloved

by Gonzalez, J. F.

“I was afraid for Jason,” Gary said. He took a sip of coffee. “When I heard the news I...well I cried. I wept like a baby. I was so sorry it had happened and I mourned for her. I really loved her, and I was just so sorry she had thrown her life away like that. But another part of me was...I don’t know...sort of glad that...that she wasn’t around anymore to be a danger to Jason.” Gary looked sheepishly around the booth. “I know that probably sounds like a pretty shitty thing to say about the mother of your child and the woman you used to love.”

  “It doesn’t,” Gregg said, leaning forward. “I would have felt the same way too.”

  Gary nodded, eyes downcast. “Yeah, well it still made me feel shitty. I was stunned by it all. So stunned I didn’t really reflect on how bad Ronnie looked at the wake. I just figured he was as shocked as I was. Then...” He motioned to Ray. “When Ray showed up at work and started talking to me, something that...something in what he was saying told me he was telling the truth.”

  “Why’s that?” Gregg asked.

  Gary looked up at him. “When he told me about the phone calls he and Cindy were getting it was the first I’d heard about them. I didn’t know what to think. When he told me that the last phone calls Diana made were threatening Mary, that she expressed wanting to do physical harm to her...well...I just knew right then what happened at Ronnie’s house wasn’t an accident.”

  “I think I told Gary because I wanted some kind of reality check on what I was feeling,” Ray said, picking at his own food. “I thought I was going crazy thinking the shit that was going in my head.”

  “Cindy loved her kids,” Gary said, his features reflective. “She may have had her problems, but she loved Jason and Mary to death. When Ray told me everything that happened between her and Diana, I knew right then Cindy had gone over to the Baker house to protect Mary.”

  “So you believed she went over there to kill Diana?” Gregg asked, his voice low.

  Gary nodded. “Kill her, beat the shit out of her, warn her...whatever. Yeah, I think she went over there because of those phone calls. She did it because she was scared for Mary and nobody would believe her.”

  Gregg finished off his breakfast, his mind racing. “Did you try contacting Ronnie?”

  “Yeah, lots of times,” Gary said. “I called him everyday for like, over a week. He was never home.”

  “Diana always answered?” Gregg asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then...” Gary began, and from the way the other man’s voice dropped Gregg knew they were coming to the present. “I heard about what happened at Jerry and Laura’s Thanksgiving evening,” he said, his voice low. “When I heard Diana and her kids were the only ones who survived and that you and Mary were missing...I knew something was up.”

  “He called me that night,” Ray said quickly and between the two of them Gregg learned the rest, which was simple. For the next two weeks Gary and Ray were constant companions. They traded notes on Diana Marshfield, they cruised by the house hoping for a glimpse of her. Gary tried to get more information on the investigation into Cindy’s death, which had officially been closed, and he also tried to learn more about the massacre at the Baker house.

  Gregg was surprised to hear Gary and Ray had attended Elizabeth’s memorial service. “Thank you,” he said following their condolences on his loss. “I had no idea you guys were there. I was pretty out of it that day.”

  “Ray noticed something about Diana at the service,” Gary said, nodding to Ray. “Go on, tell him.”

  Ray licked his lips, looking nervous. Gregg watched them, noting Don Grant’s expression. Don looked like he had heard this before; his calm blue eyes reflected acceptance of their story and understanding. Instant camaraderie. “When I first met Diana back in June, maybe July, she was real skinny. Her hair was lifeless and dull and she looked...well hell, she looked like shit. But when I saw her at Elizabeth’s memorial she looked like a different person. In fact, I barely recognized her. Her hair was the same color and a little longer but it looked real...I don’t know...real lively. And her eyes were different, her posture...she was just...”

  “She looked energized perhaps?” Gregg asked.

  Ray nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s the right word. Energized. She looked damn good. When I first met her I thought she was kinda a white trash dog, but when I saw her at Elizabeth’s memorial service I couldn’t believe I was looking at the same woman. She looked damn fine.”

  “You were sexually attracted to her?” Gregg asked.

  “Hell yes!” Ray looked embarrassed by his answer. “I mean...if I had no idea who she was before and she walked into a bar, I would’ve hit on her.”

  “We talked more about it on the way home,” Gary continued. “We went to my place and went on the Internet and researched all kinds of shit. I had seen a movie once where this guy falls in love with this woman and she totally seduces him, sucks him in, drains the life out of him.”

  “Succubuses,” Ray said.

  “Right,” Gary said. “Succubuses”

  “Succubi,” Don corrected.

  “Huh?” Gary looked at Don, confused.

  “Forget it,” Don said, and to Gregg it looked like he was fighting back a grin. Gregg held back his own grin with a cough.

  “Anyway,” Gary resumed. “I finally found the movie—it was some cheapo horror movie. And anyway, the thing in the movie was a succubus, a female demon that comes to men in their sleep, seduces them and drains the life right out of them.”

  “We researched the fuck out of that shit,” Ray said, looking proud. Gregg wondered if this had been the first thing he had researched in his entire life; if he had kept company with Cindy Baker it probably had been.

  “Most of what we found on the Internet was for shit,” Gary said. “Lots of occult-related sites, stuff about demons, lots of Satanism stuff. They seemed to treat succubuses like it was a myth.”

  “I even went to the library,” Ray offered. “I found a book that told us some stuff.”

  “Yeah, Ray found this great book about the occult that had a pretty good section on succubuses and incubuses—you know, the male ones.”

  Gregg nodded at Don. “Did you tell them what you told me?”

  Don nodded.

  “Yeah, he told us that shit,” Ray said, looking disturbed. “It’s like even the stuff in the books have it all wrong. Like they don’t even know that succubuses and incubuses are the same thing.”

  Gregg fought the urge to correct their grammar, and he fought the urge to laugh out loud. “So what happened then?” he asked, the beginnings of a grin cracking his face.

  Gary didn’t appear to notice. “Last night we got together and started talking and before we knew it we were driving over to Ronnie’s. We were still not...we still didn’t want to believe the occult shit we were reading. I mean it was crazy, you know? So we decided to drive over to Ronnie’s house and go up to the front door and talk to Diana.”

  “We were going to offer our condolences to her,” Ray said, looking solemn. Gregg nodded, getting the message of their underhanded attempt to check things out last night.

  “Exactly,” Gary said. “We were going to offer our condolences, see if she would talk to us. We thought if we could do that we’d see what was going on.”

  “Only when we got there nobody was home,” Ray resumed. “So we parked down the street and waited.”

  “We were there maybe forty minutes,” Gary continued. He fingered the rim of his coffee cup, “just talking, when Diana’s car pulled into the driveway.”

  “And that’s when you saw Ronnie,” Gregg murmured.

  Gary and Ray nodded. “At first our theory kinda got blown out of the water,” Gary said. “We started thinking maybe she was a witch or a Satanist or something, bringing people back from the dead like zombies.”

  “Or causing dead people to be possessed so they come back,” Ray said, his features grave.

  “That’s the same thing, du
mb ass,” Gary said.

  Ray looked like he was going to protest but Gregg waved it off. “Did Don tell you how it lives? How it gets its energy?”

  They nodded. “He told us everything on the drive back to his motel room,” Ray said. “And after seeing what we saw, it kind of confirmed what we were already discovering for ourselves.”

  “He told you how it gets its greatest energy from the souls and life force of children?”

  They nodded.

  Gary looked nervous. “When he told me that...” He glanced at Don, and for the first time Gregg saw fear in his eyes. “It...it made me think about something I had almost forgotten at Cindy’s memorial service. And when I did it scared the shit out of me.” He glanced at Ray. “In fact, I don’t even think I told you.”

  “What?” Ray asked.

  Gary took a deep breath, took off his baseball cap, and looked around the diner as if afraid he would be overheard. “Well...you remember how packed Jerry and Laura’s place was that day, right Gregg?”

  Gregg nodded.

  “I was standing in the living room in the corner, just...just kind of lost in my own thoughts. Trying to deal with it. I had already talked to Ronnie for quite a bit, and we had a good talk. Diana had been there, but I didn’t even register her. She just wasn’t there to me. And...well, shit, that day was such a blur that I don’t remember who all else I spoke to after that, but at one point Diana walked past me and caught my eye. She smiled at me and came up and touched my arm.” He put his right hand on his left forearm. “And...I could tell on the surface it was meant to be a gesture of support, but...the look she gave me and...her touch...it was brief and real subtle, but there was this undercurrent of sexual desire. She told me she was sorry for my loss and she said that if I ever needed to talk I could call her or see her anytime. And...and when she told me this I got this flash...you know that feeling you get when you meet a woman you’re really strongly attracted to for the first time and the tension is just real strong? I felt that for like a second. And she felt it...it was like she knew I felt it. And she rubbed my arm, smiled, and then I started getting a boner. And even though I was wearing slacks and I casually crossed my legs and tried to think other thoughts, I knew that she was aware of...you know...”

  “Your raging hard on?” Ray asked. He chugged the rest of his coffee.

  Gary didn’t even give Ray the benefit of a fuck off in retort. Instead he swallowed, his face pale. “Like I said, it only lasted a second or two and she was gone. But I felt it, I know she felt it, and Ronnie was there the whole time and he didn’t even notice. When they left I told myself I was imagining things and a minute later people were coming up to me again, saying they were sorry and stuff, and I forgot about it.”

  “Did you think about her since then?” Gregg asked quietly.

  For a minute Gary didn’t answer. He looked down at the dregs of his coffee cup. The booth was quiet. Then, in a soft voice, Gary said, “Yes. I have. Sometimes I fantasize about what it would be like to go to bed with her. One night I was feeling horny and started thinking ‘bout her and I...I jacked off.” Gary looked embarrassed and frightened when he related this last part. Gregg also detected a hint of guilt in his eyes. “And that’s why I’m scared.” He looked up at them and the fear in his face was evident, was so strong that Gregg knew where it stemmed from. “I’m not afraid for myself. I’m afraid for my son, Jason. She knows I have a little boy. She knew Cindy and I were living together, that...that...you know.”

  Gregg nodded, laying a hand on the other man’s arm. “I know, Gary. I know.”

  Gary took a deep breath, composing myself. “It just hit me when Don told us.”

  It had also hit Gregg, but not in the same way. During Gary’s narrative he turned things over in his mind, listening, absorbing, analyzing. When Gary told them about Diana touching him and how that had made him feel, the idea caught a spark and simmered as Gary continued the narrative, and now it smoldered in the background as Gary told them about how he feared for his son.

  Gregg looked up, his nerves racing. He knew exactly what to do.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said.

  Gary, Ray and Don stopped talking and looked at him. Don recognized the look in his eyes and his face paled. “You’re not serious,” he said.

  “I am,” Gregg said, feeling better about the idea the more he turned it over in his mind. “And it’s the only way. But we can’t discuss it here. Let’s go back to the room.” He pulled out his wallet and slapped down two twenties for the bill, which still hadn’t arrived yet, and slid out of the booth, grabbing his jacket. “Come on, time’s a wasting.”

  “What are we gonna do?” Ray asked, confused.

  They followed Gregg out of the diner.

  TWENTY-SIX

  WHEN GREGG STARTED explaining his plan on the short drive over to the Sunset motel the first thing Gary said was, “You gotta be shitting me! You actually mean you’re going to try to—”

  “Don’t argue with me!” Gregg said, his mind set and determined now. He pulled into the parking lot. “Just hear me out.”

  Once in the room the arguing began. Gregg held his hands up, pleading for them to quiet down. “We don’t have time to argue! The sooner we can do this, the better chance we have of saving Mary. Just hear me out, okay?”

  The three men looked at each other, shrugged, then turned to Gregg, nodding.

  It took Gregg ten minutes to explain his plan. By the time he was halfway through, Gary, Ray, and Don were nodding. They still looked frightened, but there was also a glimmer of hope, as if the solution Gregg had just offered them might work. There was still plenty of unease in their expressions and Gregg understood why. It was the first part of his plan that was causing it, and it made him nervous too, but he knew he could pull it off.

  He’d done it before.

  “When do we do it?” Ray asked.

  “Now,” Gregg said. “We’ll get some stuff together, whatever you guys can find; baseball bats, guns, chainsaws, whatever it takes to kill this thing. Then we head over and do it.”

  “Um, earth to Gregg?” Gary jerked a thumb toward the slightly opened window. “In case you haven’t noticed yet, it’s daylight outside. People will see us! Or was getting caught for breaking and entering and attempted murder part of the plan and you just didn’t want to tell us?”

  Gregg winced. Gary was right, but he also felt it was imperative they act soon. The thought of forcing Mary to spend another minute alone in that house with that thing was driving him mad with worry. “We’ve got to get Mary out,” he said.

  “How did Diana look when you went into the house with the cop?” Don asked.

  “Same as she always does, only pissed off.”

  “No, I mean did she look tired at all?”

  Gregg frowned, turning to Don. He tried to remember. “I don’t know. She was very hostile, very angry. It was hard to tell.”

  “Do succubuses sleep?” Ray asked, looking genuinely interested.

  “You think she’s tired?” Gregg asked.

  “From what I’ve been able to tell in my research, it does recharge its batteries after a feeding.” Don rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “And from what you related about Mary’s own experience, I think it would be safe to say she would be safe during this time. It wouldn’t be able to drain its victim completely within one day anyway, especially a child.”

  “Why’s that?” Gregg asked.

  “A child’s life energy is more potent. Stronger. It would be like you trying to chug a pint of Jack Daniels in an under an hour. You’d pass out halfway through the bottle if you were a social drinker, and the vitality of a child affects them the same way.”

  “So it might take a few days for her to completely take Mary?”

  Don nodded. “Yes.”

  “But you’re not one hundred percent sure.”

  “I’m very positive,” Don said. “Almost one hundred percent sure.” He looked at Gregg, his features serious,
grim. “You’re going to have to trust me on this, Gregg. I think it’s a foolish idea but I also think it’s brilliant. But we can’t do it today. We’ll have to wait until tonight when it’s dark.”

  “You think it’ll work?”

  Don nodded, trading glances with the other guys. “Yeah. I think it’ll work.”

  That confirmed it. He was going to do it.

  Gregg turned to Ray and Gary. “Will you help?”

  “What do you want me to do?” Gary asked.

  Gregg told him. He explained it all, going over the plan again from the beginning. When he finished he said, “I want to make sure you guys are serious. You’re sure you want to do this?”

  “This thing killed my girlfriend,” Gary said, his features looking more animated now, possessed with a vitality and spark that hadn’t been present earlier. “You fucking bet I’m in.”

  “I’m in too,” Ray said.

  Gregg turned to Don. “Don?”

  Don nodded. He looked scared, but he also looked determined. He took a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m in. And I want to go in the house with Gary when it’s time.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  They clasped hands together firmly. Brothers bound in a mission.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  GREGG WEAVER RANG the doorbell to Ronnie Baker’s former home at precisely five thirty p.m., a little over seven hours later.

  He waited calmly and was about to ring the bell again when he heard footsteps approach the closed door, then pause. He looked at the peephole and a moment later Diana Marshfield opened the door. Her expression was frank, her demeanor standoffish and defensive.

  And she looked absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

  She was dressed in a pair of stonewashed blue jeans that clung to her shapely legs and thighs and a tight-fitting white blouse. The top three buttons of the blouse were unbuttoned, and Gregg could see the generous swell of her breasts. Her hair was clean, her face impeccable. Despite the anger in her voice and body language, she still exuded an incredible air of sexuality.