The Devil's Bed

by Doug Lamoreux

  She flicked her lighter, throwing dancing shadows across the walls. She was in a chapel vestibule; shouldn't there be candles somewhere about?

  She found a mirror, placed it on a small table against the wall and brushed away the dust. Her reflection startled, bloodshot and swollen eyes, tear-streaked cheeks, hair matted with dirt and gore. She looked as bad as she felt.

  Then came a metallic scrape at the door. And again!

  She realized someone was trying the latch. “Hello,” she shouted. “Help me!” The lighter went out as Vicki stumbled to the door. “I'm locked in. Please help me!” A breathless beat passed. Vicki heard it again - metal on metal. Somebody was fiddling with the lock; metal on wood as the hasp was wrenched free.

  “Oh, God. Thank God!”

  She struggled with the latch from her side. She yanked the door open, falling back to the floor with the effort. Breathless, Vicki looked up. Lightning flashed - turning her rescuer into a silhouette.

  “Thank God,” Vicki shouted despite being blinded.

  Thunder rolled. The darkness returned. Vicki lifted her lighter as she tried to rise. She struck the flint. The flame revealed her rescuer, the bearded, hooded, hideous walking corpse of a Templar knight. Vicki screamed, dropped the lighter and plunged the vestibule back into darkness.

  The Templar raised his dagger and, without ceremony, drove it down and into Vicki's right breast. In one mingled sound, she screamed in horror, grunted in pain and gasped for breath. The knight tugged, extracting the blade, and watched with pleasure as she fell back to the floor.

  Nine

  The cold rain fell as the Templar returned to his ancient burial site with Vicki in his arms. She was still alive. By design, the knight had thrust his dagger through her right lung, collapsing it and disabling her. She had another - for all the good it would do her.

  Inside the cemetery, the mummy dropped Vicki. She groaned on the ground at his feet. The knight ignored her. He stared across the plot at the six graves between his sarcophagus and the other; Francois de Raiis' six most loyal knights, executed with him, fellow worshippers of the dark One.

  Raiis advanced to the grave nearest his own. He read the name and remembered the faithful Geoffrey de Charney. Charney had been the able student of the Order's Grand Master when they'd met. What a delicious pleasure it had been leading him astray, corrupting his faith, and bringing him to the altar of the Unholy. Charney, faithful to their dark lord and to him at the terrible end, had earned a new beginning.

  Raiis grabbed the lid of Charney's tomb in his boney fingers and, with unnatural strength, threw it off - revealing the mummified knight within. He moved to the next grave, that of Henri Ethelbert, and tossed the lid open with the scrape of stone and a scurry of spiders. The Templar leader broke the ancient seal on the next and shoved the shrieking lid away, exposing the dried corpse of their chaplain, Benoit Lambert. Then he attended the remaining in-ground tombs, those of his last three executed disciples. The stone lids cried out as he shoved each aside and the remains of Louis Godenot, Jules Lefebvre, and Gaston Morel stared sightlessly up into the rain.

  Raiis backed into the other raised sarcophagus; the only tomb in the cemetery free of the inscribed curses. The Templar stared at the engraved name with furious red eyes then turned away leaving the tomb sealed.

  Vicki cried out when the mummy lifted her again but was unable to offer any resistance. He carried her to the first tomb, held her over the opened grave and, ignoring her scream, ripped her throat open with his teeth. Her blood spilled onto the mummified corpse. The Templar attended each of the tombs alike; splashing Vicki's blood on the faces and into the mouths of the long-dead knights. He reached the eighth, the unopened sarcophagus, and again ignored it. Then he dumped Vicki's body on the ground.

  Francois de Raiis, his rotted cloak flying in the wind, watched the opened graves as the thunder rolled, the lightning struck, and the rain fell. And listened as, spurred by evil, the chapel bells at Castle Freedom began to toll again.

  Socrates yanked the cottage door open and stared out into the rain. He stepped into the wind and scanned the dark. He saw nothing; but he heard it. “There! The bells!” he called into his house. “Do you hear them now?” His eyes were wide with a triumph that out-weighed his fear. “Drinking, hein? I did not imagine it! The bells are ringing!”

  Socrates disappeared into the cottage.

  A moment later, carrying shotgun and coat, his hat askew, he reemerged into the wind and rain. He stared west, listening between gusts and thunder crashes, to the ominous peels riding the waves of the storm. He threw on his coat.

  “Anibal!”

  His wife and daughter were in the doorway watching Socrates with fear in their eyes. Annabella tore herself from Marthe and ran to her husband. Desperately, she grabbed his coat, bringing him around to face her. “Anibal, you can't go up there!”

  “I must. It is my job.”

  She grabbed his cheeks, wiped the rain from his brow, pleading in genuine terror, “There is… something… evil up there.”

  “Oh, silly.” He kissed one of her chore-worn hands. “You're going to catch cold in the rain.” She showed no sign of returning to the cottage and his smile faded. “There are trouble makers up there. I won't have trouble.”

  “Don't go alone. At least take Luis with you.”

  His eyes darkened. He shook his head. “I haven't seen your lazy son all night. I won't look for him now.”

  He started through the gate. Marthe joined her mother; braced her in the wind. “We'll pray for you,” Annabella called out. He seemed not to hear her and she repeated it shouting against the storm. “We'll pray for you!”

  Socrates smiled and waved. He pointed to the dark woods and the castle beyond with his shotgun, shouting, “Pray for them!” He laughed and disappeared into the stormy darkness. His laughter floated on the air like a ghost. Then it too was gone.

  The chapel bells rang eerily in the distance. The lightning flashed, the rain fell around Francois de Raiis. The resurrected Templar watched as the corpses of his knights jerked, heaved and flexed their way back to life - awakened by Vicki's blood.

  The first was surreal in underarmor, haubergen maille, white mantle, a hooded surcoat and, emblazened across his chest, the red cross that was the Templar coat of arms. He stretched from Louis Godenot's grave and wobbled like a marionette. Then he lifted a helmet from his filthy tomb and, risking comic absurdity, donned it over his mail coif like a gentleman stepping out.

  The others followed, each emaciated like Raiis and Godenot, gray, rotted flesh over skeletal frames with shining red eyes gleaming from grinning skull-like heads, wearing, to varying degrees, the uniform of their Order; with and without underarmor, with and without mail, with and without helms, but all with the Templars' mandatory mantle, cross and full-length surcoat. But, as theirs was a bastardization of life, so their uniforms were a bastardization of the glory of the Order. Each was burned, rotted, covered in the dirt and decay of seven centuries in the grave.

  Benoit Lambert, the only knight in a brown mantle, had in life been their chaplain and was responsible for their spiritual well-being. Death, and this unearthly return to life, had not changed that. His face still splashed in Vicki's rejuvenating blood, Lambert lifted his clawed hands and began to pray – albeit not to God.

  “Diabolus, meus Senior.” His atrophied vocal chords, restored by Black Magic, produced a frightening gurgle. “Quod three everto in Hierarchies' of Abyssus. Lucifer, Diabolus, quisnam to order totus. Beelzebub, procer of seraphim, quisnam tempero men per superbia. Leviathan, quisnam tempero men per heresies quod sins repugnant unto fides. Sonneillon, procer of cado cherubin, quisnam tempero men per odium obviam suum hostilis. Tribuo nos vox. Plumbum nos in victoria super nostrum hostilis.”

  As motion returned to their corpses, each Templar left his grave and fell into ranks before their resurrector. Raiis, beaming with evil pride, his boney hand caressing the hilt of his sword, nodded his approva
l and started out of the ancient cemetery.

  On his heels, Lambert began a low pitched, ritualistic chant that the knights, in unison, joined in singing as they followed in horrific parade.

  “Laus Lucifer, unde totus bona flow.

  Laus Him totus creatura hic in Terra.

  Laus Him supremus minions of Abyssus.

  Ut is eram secundum cado, est iam quod umquam vadum exsisto,

  universitas saecula saeculorum.

  Laus Him. Laus Him.”

  They disappeared into the storm leaving behind seven empty graves, one undisturbed tomb and, in the weeds beside it, the bloodless body of Vicki Kramer.

  Socrates wasn't certain. With the wind bending the trees, whistling through the timber, repeatedly slamming the shutter on his barn's loft (behind) and howling through the fissures in the castle ruins (ahead), with wet leaves flying in autumn's take on a blizzard, with the rain falling and the thunder rolling… how could he be certain?

  But now, on top of the bells, Socrates thought he heard singing!

  He took Annabella's arc, passed the unhallowed graveyard away to the south, humming, eyes averted, and continued to the castle. This, no doubt, protected his soul. But it prevented his seeing the Templar cemetery had been disturbed… and from realizing that all of the graves, save one, were now empty.

  Normally, the Annabella-inspired dread fell away once past the cemetery. The walk across the open field usually charmed; the flowers, tall grasses, and wildlife, leading to the serenity of the old cemetery, the apse and pitched roof of the chapel, the bell tower beyond and, in the distance, the remains of the keep against the morning sky. Normally, approaching the castle from his cottage was a comfort. But not now.

  There was the storm. And being near the castle at night was unpleasant. But he'd been wet and windblown before. He'd been on the grounds in the dark as well. No. It was the vandals and their foolishness that was making him uneasy. What were they doing and why? Even under the rain he could hear bells - and that made no sense. And he could still hear them singing, or was it chanting, louder now. None of it made any sense. Socrates gripped his shotgun tightly as he passed the cemetery, rounded the chapel and entered the courtyard.

  Then, as if someone had thrown a switch, everything ceased. The chanting, the bells, even the rain stopped. Only the wind remained; white noise adding presence to the sudden otherworldly silence.

  Ten

  Socrates scanned the courtyard, from the drive that vanished into darkness on its way to the main gate, past the castle ruin, across the ghost-like blur of out-buildings, to the chapel on his right.

  “What the hell?” he muttered.

  The chapel door stood open. Of all the property on the castle grounds, it was the last door that should have been bothered by the wind. It was new, designed to look old, with a good latch. And he remembered clearly having backtracked to lock it. He pointed his shotgun at the door and ordered whoever was inside to come out. There followed neither stirring nor reply. He shouted again and, switching from French to Portuguese, a third time.

  The caretaker cautiously climbed the three short steps and approached the door. He peered into the darkness and called again, but now his fear was audible. Sensing something at his feet, Socrates crouched to examine the threshold. “Mother of God!” He jumped back. Congealing there, inside the door, was a pool of blood.

  Then the chanting started.

  Socrates moved back into the courtyard. The sound was in front of him, then behind, then all around. Socrates crossed himself and squeezed the shotgun with white bloodless hands.

  The chanting grew louder. A tall figure emerged from the shadows in a dirty white hooded wrap. He shrugged the cloak open, revealing a soiled tunic with a red cross, a thick leather belt and what looked to be a sword. His skeletal left hand rested on the hilt. His right drew back the stiff linen hood.

  The caretaker gasped. The Templar knight (that's how he was dressed), the thing before him, had the face of a skull with stretched gray skin, a ragged beard, and eyes blazing with hellfire from deep sockets.

  There was another flash of lightning, another roll of thunder. The demonic chanting continued and Socrates' heart raced. A snick of leather and metal on stone forced him around. A second moldering knight emerged from the shadows. And then they came, one by one, from the shadows. Four, no five, more Templars – chanting in Latin – as they surrounded him. Socrates gasped; his mind reeling.

  Then logic took over. Surely what he was seeing was not real. The legends were rubbish. There was no such thing as – the living dead. His fear became anger as he realized they were making a fool of him. There were no ghosts. But there were delinquents. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

  In answer, the first Templar drew his sword.

  Those who knew Socrates would agree that was a mistake. His face flushed with rage. He leveled his shotgun and fired.

  The blast hit the knight in the chest. Dust spattered into the air while shrapnel of corroded mail links bounced on the courtyard stones. The front of the knight's tunic was peppered with holes. The Templar casually surveyed the damage.

  The others, quieted by the attack, stared - then started chanting again.

  The caretaker's anger was gone. He trembled. From behind came a strange noise. Then his eyes flared wide - with shock - as a dagger penetrated the nape of his neck. The handle guard sank to his hair line while the blade passed through his throat; the tip showing beneath his elevated chin. He made an effort to scream but failed. Choking on blood, and the weapon, Socrates dropped to his knees.

  The chanting Templar horde descended upon Socrates. He struggled uselessly as they bit into his flesh and drank his blood.

  Mules, unfairly reputed to be stubborn, were actually intelligent creatures that refused to be put in harm's way. Zorion was feeling abandoned; in danger. The storm startled him and he moved unsteadily in his stall. Then came the chants, the screams, a shot, carried on the wind. Whether or not he recognized them, Zorion feared them, and cried; a whinny growing to a desperate hee-haw.

  A bolt of lightning struck near the stable. The explosion terrified Zorion. He kicked, blasting wooden slats from his stall. The whimpering cries of the mule were carried on the swirling winds.

  In the courtyard the Templars heard them. Raiis lifted himself from Socrates' corpse, his mouth and chin bathed in blood, and located the new sound. He started for the stable and his knights followed.

  The Templars approached, forced the south door and poured into the stable. What happened next only God and the Devil knew. It may have been so evil even the Deity turned away, leaving Satan the only witness.

  A long metallic scrape was repeated seven times as the dark knights drew their swords. Zorion cried, terrified whinnies, whimpering hee-haws, and kicked his stall. Then the stable went silent while the chapel bells again began tolling.

  The fog churned round the building. The deep throated chanting of the Templars began anew. What happened then was unbelievable and absolutely impossible. Yet, it happened all the same. The chants faded beneath a series of nerve-rending demonic screams that just as suddenly evolved into the whinnying of horses. And the Templars rode out.

  The living mummy of Francois de Raiis led the way. He ducked as he burst through the fog and cleared the threshold mounted on a saddled horse. The animal was real - bone, blood, sinew, snorting, whinnying on the move. At the same time it was dead - with dried skin stretched over atrophied yet magically flexing muscle. A four-legged creature in the image of a steed somehow called up from the deepest pits of hell. A machination of unchecked evil. Like its rider, the horse was suited in worn and rusted armor, blanketed and hooded in rotted linen and leather moldering from the grave, and fitted with the ancient accoutrement of war.

  Their leader cleared the doorway. Their chaplain followed immediately behind. Lambert too sat aboard an undead mount. He carried the standard of their Order, a golden cross atop a long wooden staff, depending through the crook of
his arm along the side of his horse. It glinted as the lightning flashed.

  The others trailed their leaders in rank, each aboard a hellish, mummified mount, weighed down with the armaments used by that knight in life. A pistol crossbow and quiver of bolts hung from Charney's saddle while, over his shoulder, the knight carried a compound bow of wood, bone and sinew. An assorted cache of daggers were tied to Ethelbert's saddle and he wore one on each hip matching his long sword. They continued to pour from the stable, through the swirling fog, like water through a burst dam. Godenot emerged clutching a halberd spear. The living mummy of Lefebvre, spiked maces on his saddle, raised his arm as he cleared the door and cut a swath through the fog with a black iron flail. Morel brought up the rear hoisting a battle hammer aloft as if threatening the heavens. Free of the stable, the knights reined their mounts in around their leader.

  Raiis steadied his horse, if it could be called that, and cocked his head to listen. On the wind he heard the comical sound of women – praying. What could be more blessed, or delicious, then the destruction of God's children in prayer!

  Raiss spurred his mount, rode away from the stable and across the courtyard. The others gouged theirs and followed. They rounded the chapel and passed its cemetery. Across the field, the horses found their stride and thundered like the wind. As they rode, the sky, which until that evil moment had only been teasing, split open and poured rain in a cold deluge.

  The bloodthirsty Templars rode past their own tombs and into the dark timber.

  Annabella Socrates was terribly frightened. Her husband was gone. Luis, their son, was… Heaven knew where. She and Marthe were alone; praying for Anibal's safe return.

  Marthe ploddingly repeated her mother's prayer, rolling her rosary beads between bored fingers and wishing she were upstairs listening to music. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”