The Devil's Bed

by Doug Lamoreux

  The rain drubbed, harder now, on the cottage roof. The thunder rolled in the distance. Then came a new sound; the stamp of approaching…

  “Horses!” Marthe exclaimed. She tried to rise but her mother grabbed her. Annabella pointed at her prayer book. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.”

  It wasn't fair ignoring horses. How often anymore did you get to see horses?

  “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  “Mother, aren't we going to see to the riders?” She could clearly hear the horses had come to a stop outside. Their riders were, no doubt, dismounting at that very moment. “They're here! Mother?”

  Annabella looked up with terror in her eyes.

  Eleven

  Luis Socrates awoke with a start.

  He bolted up, struggling for cognition, his mind afumble. A moment elapsed before he was fully in touch with his surroundings. Happily, he found everything as it should be. He was in the hay loft of the old barn; his home away from home. The loose shutter on the loft door was banging and the assault on the tin roof told him the rain had come in buckets. He was wondering what awakened him when Luis heard… something. Horses? And… something more. Chanting?

  Luis lifted his little worn black book, his constant companion, his Shakespeare, from the hay where it'd fallen and slid it into his back pocket. He climbed from his loft bed, took hold of the bale rope, and swung out over the floor of the barn. Luis hung there, allowing the rope to quiet in the ancient block, then shimmied down. He eased the barn door ajar and found he was right.

  A group of horses stood outside their small yard fence. What sorry looking animals they were; gray and skeletal, wrapped in rotted blankets, hoods and (he doubted his own eyes) heavy with armor and weaponry. He'd been right about the chanting too. Luis heard it now, even louder, somewhere out of view.

  He hurried to a window on the other side of the barn, scrubbed the cobwebs away with his sleeve and, keeping low, peered out. Luis wondered if he was still asleep and having a nightmare. Armed knights, wearing red crosses, their faces as rotted as their cloaks, were gathered at the cottage door. Templars. The word came quickly; its meaning more slowly. “Mon Dieu,” Luis whispered breathlessly. Their front stoop was thick with chanting, mold-covered Templar knights!

  Though his parents never spoke of them, or their legendary curse, he'd seen their whispered reactions to the subject all his life. His crazy father, caretaker of the Templars' ruined castle, averting his eyes like a child whenever he passed their graves. His mother crossing herself and showing the evil eye at their mention. The very name of the Order forbidden in a house that lived off of them. A hysteria. A hypocrisy. A bogey story.

  Now a nightmare… come to life.

  “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done…”

  Something heavy slammed against the cottage door above the latch. The metal was rent, the jamb splintered and cracked. The wood shuddered as the frame gave way and the door exploded inward.

  From her knees before the hearth, Annabella refused to look. She tightened the grip on her rosary and on Marthe's arm. Marthe couldn't help but look. She stared in disbelief at the armored corpses flooding the doorway and cried aloud from the pain of her mother's hold. Terrified, Annabella could think of nothing but prayer. “On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.”

  The Templars ceased their chanting. Rain-soaked and stinking of the grave, they moved into the cottage intent on their own sustenance.

  Marthe pulled free of her mother and backed away screaming.

  Annabella clamped her eyes shut and gripped her rosary so tightly her fingers turned white. She prayed, as quickly as she was able, spitting out the 'Our Father' as if reaching the end was the key to their survival. “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

  Marthe, neither looking for forgiveness nor handing it out, ran for the stairs screaming. One of the Templar mummies broke from the group after her.

  Annabella, eyes pinched, tears streaming, realized she was not going to win the race. Still, she forced the words, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from…” Evil, the last word of the prayer, became a horrified scream and, in turn, a tortured groan as a knight shoved his sword through her back.

  Marthe reached the top of the stairs, and could see her bedroom door, when the decayed hand of the Templar seized her ankle. He yanked her to the floor and dragged her, bouncing and screaming, back down to rejoin the horror show. Marthe kicked, screamed and, when the Templar grabbed her hair, dug her nails into the dead flesh of his hand. The knight drew the hammer from his belt and, as he'd often done throughout the Crusades, brought it down with all his might. Marthe's scream was silenced.

  The Templars, like suckling pigs, swarmed Annabella. Ignoring her cries, they stabbed her, ripped at her clothes and began viciously biting her.

  At the foot of the stairs, the lone Templar did the same. He fell on Marthe, unconscious but breathing, and sank his teeth into her throat. A fountain of blood arced and the Templar sated his thirst.

  Luis watched the Templars bust in. He heard the screams of his mother and sister. Yet he'd been too terrified to move. Now he forced himself, on wobbling legs, to slip from the barn and quietly move past the open front door to a window at the side of the cottage. He peered through and was stricken with horror.

  The Templars had his mother on the floor before the fire. They were biting her, stabbing her, drinking her blood. He saw his sister's feet at the foot of the stairs and the boots of one of the knights. One of those on his mother left that horde, drew a blade, and joined the knight killing Marthe. The screams subsided, replaced by the sounds of the living corpses feeding in grotesque satisfaction. Luis inhaled to stave off being sick.

  One of the Templars suddenly raised his head, blood dripping from his mouth into his matted beard. Luis froze. The Templar rose to his feet, wiped the blood from his lips and licked his boney fingers. He cocked his head; listening.

  The others joined him revealing Annabella on the floor. Her partially naked body was torn and smeared with blood. Her sightless eyes stared; her mouth was locked in a silent scream.

  Luis gasped. He saw the Templars react and realized he'd been heard. Only then did it dawn how quickly, loudly he was breathing. He shuddered and held his breath.

  The bloody knights stood still; waiting – listening.

  Luis held his breath until he thought he would explode. And, as he stood in terror, wondering what to do, despite the storm, he heard the rapid beating of his own heart. He peered through the window again… and that same heart nearly stopped. The Templar leader was staring at him.

  The knight pointed dried phalanges through the window at Luis. The others followed his hand. One in the group opened blood drenched lips and croaked an alarm. The last two, still-feasting, abandoned Marthe. They rose, dripping blood, and added their stares of hatred and lust.

  Luis couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe. With a strength of will he didn't know he possessed, he forced himself to move. He pushed away from the window and ran.

  The Templars, spattered with blood, poured from the cottage. They mounted up and, lit by flashes of lightning, spurred their horses into motion. Two knights, reeling with delight from Marthe's virgin blood, were last to their horses and last to disappear into the timber after the terrified Luis.

  The rain fell in a downpour; blasted by lightning and thunder.

  Luis raced through the timber; twisting, leaping over fallen limbs. Fern leaves and briars bit his ankles, low hanging branches scratched his face and hands as if he were running a gauntlet. His tennis shoes grew heavy with mud. His clothes grabbed, clung to him, weighted by the freezing rain. He panted for breath, overheating at the core, while his arms and legs turned to gooseflesh from cold and fear. Behind,
he heard the whinnying screams, the heavy hoof beats, the snapping foliage as the knights on their horses raced through the timber.

  The off-trail brush was thick, tough going, and he stopped to catch his breath. A lightning strike and, through the icy silver darts of rain, he saw one of the Templars closing. Luis screamed. The monster drew a weapon, something like a hammer, and spurred his mount.

  Luis, running, looked back again as the lightning flashed through the trees. The Templar was upon him, his horse – as dead as its rider – kicking up water. Luis dove from his path as the knight swung the heavy iron hammer; pick out. Despite the raging downpour, the slosh of mud and wet leaves, the snapping dead fall beneath his feet, Luis heard with crystal clarity the whistle and swoosh as the hammer narrowly missed his head. He hit the wet ground face first.

  He lifted his face to breathe and blinked through a mask of dripping mud. The Templar, trying to recover from the swing and readjust in his saddle, dropped his reins. The horse, unguided, raced headlong toward a massive fallen branch jutting from the ground at the base of a grizzled tree. The horse jumped. The Templar came undone in the saddle. Propelled up and forward with terrific velocity, the hurtling knight met the end of a low-hanging branch. The Templar howled as the limb tore spear-like through him, his cloak and mantle, hauberk and gambeson, dried flesh and ancient bone, and jutted from his back. The knight was transfixed on the branch. A puff of dust escaped the wound and was quickly knocked down by the rain. His riderless horse disappeared whinnying into the blackness of the soaked timber.

  Luis scraped his eyes with muddier fingers and watched in horror as the impaled knight kicked. He let his hammer fall with a splash to the swamped floor of the timber and, using both hands, wriggled in vain to free himself from the branch.

  Luis sat, momentarily stunned, up to his hips in mud and up to his chest in wet undergrowth and downfall. The rain fell, even through the thick trees, in sheets. It ran down his matted hair in rivers. He scrubbed his hands on his pants then ran one over his eyes, like a wiper blade, tossing off the excess water. Again he found himself staring at the knight; hypnotized by the grotesque sight.

  It… he… was still alive (what passed for life), flailing and writhing on the tree limb. He… it… screamed, hatred and frustration meeting in a voice roiling up from the depths of a hell Luis never imagined existed. But the rain, coming even harder, muted it and the frequent eruptions of thunder drowned it out altogether.

  Or was it thunder? It continued; deep, booming. Luis was suddenly shaken from his trance. Though thunder still highlighted the storm, he realized now that was not what he was hearing. It was hoof beats.

  Twelve

  The other Templars were still in the timber, on horseback, searching for him.

  With a great splash of water Luis jumped to his feet and, in the dark and rain, ran. Around trees, through soggy leaves, over fallen limbs, through mud, in the torrential downpour, he ran. He cleared the timber and raced, as fast as his sodden feet would carry him, past the Templar burial ground and into the field beyond. Behind him, Luis heard the Templar riders break through the trees in pursuit. Ahead lay the chapel and castle grounds. He fought for breath and ran.

  With his mother and sister dead, and his father missing, the panicked Luis could think of nowhere else to go. It may have been the knights' ancient stronghold, but he'd been raised there. He crossed the open field, through the rain and lightning flashes, saw the cemetery and chapel, and knew the castle was right ahead. He neared the graveyard and began to feel a sense of relief. Then he made the mistake of looking back.

  One of the Templars, a spiked ball twirling murderously above his head, was in front and gaining on him. Luis yelled, cut right – as the mounted knight was upon him – and raced into the chapel cemetery.

  The Templar's horse reached the boundary of the hallowed ground, whinnied in horror, and planted its hooves in the spongy ground. The animal lowered its head, as the knight flew from his saddle, then veered away wanting nothing to do with the graveyard.

  Luis dove between grave stones to avoid the hurtling Templar. He slid, rolled through a puddle and came to his feet as the knight smacked a marker head on. Luis watched, aghast but unable to tear his eyes away. And the words flooded into his head:

  Now it is the time of night

  that the graves all gaping wide,

  every one lets forth his sprite,

  in the church-ways paths to glide. …

  Luis doubted this was the sprite his beloved Shakespeare had in mind.

  No sooner did the Templar's body splash to a stop in the 'church-way path' than it began undulating like bacon on a griddle. The knight came off the ground, its mouth spread as wide as the dead flesh allowed. What passed for a scream in the realm of the hellish creature blasted the night.

  Luis was suddenly the farthest thing from its mind. The knight dove for the high grass outside of the cemetery as if trying to escape a pool of acid. The screaming ceased when it landed back in the field and smoke billowed from beneath its chain mail as the mummy rolled on the wet ground.

  The other Templars had arrived and rode the perimeter of the cemetery. They made no attempt to enter. They reined in their horses, and fought to stay in their saddles, as the nervous animals reared trying to throw them off.

  Luis huddled beneath a monument, a whispering winged angel holding a cross, and watched the circling horses and their damned riders through the rain. He had to get out of there. Luis left the angel and serpentined through the tombstones, eyes darting from one knight to another, as he made his way toward the chapel. The Templars couldn't get near. That, Luis hoped, would give him time. He reached the far end, burst from the graveyard, and ran for the castle.

  The Templars, forced to skirt the cemetery, kicked ancient spurs into the atrophied haunches of their mounts and took off after him.

  Exhausted, terrified and weighed down by soaked clothes, Luis stumbled into the flooded courtyard where the rain, thudding on the wet ground, turned to high-pitched snaps as it hit the stones. He slipped and slid on his face throwing up a huge wave. Blinded by freezing water, near drowned, Luis struggled back to his feet. Beneath him, blood fanned out across the water like paint splashed in a pool – and he couldn't understand why. Until he saw the mutilated body of his father. Luis screamed, and kept screaming until he thought his mind had snapped.

  Then he saw the knights ride into the courtyard and, with a herculean effort, got control of himself. He ran across the courtyard in the raging storm as the mounted demons gained on him. He reached the wall of the castle ruin, backed against the wet stone and, with nowhere to go, watched as the Templars dismounted. They started toward him with raised weapons. Luis moved down the wall, his eyes trained on the advancing mummies. The faster he backed away, the faster the undead knights came on.

  All the troubles of a short and misspent life, the regrets, the pains, and the accumulated horrors of this one night raced toward him and all Luis could do was scream.

  Thirteen

  It was unfortunate that, on such a bright morning, Brandy's thoughts should be so trained upon darkness. She awoke to discover her future sister-in-law still missing. Which may or may not have led to an early argument (all right, it was a fight) with Ray. He'd already spent the night on the couch so she felt justified discounting it. A fight was inevitable. Either way, when they started their search for Vicki later that morning, darkness hung over both.

  Brandy wasn't at all surprised to find that 'dark' was the only word to describe Marcel Fournier. You could use others. Short, thin, muscular, curled black hair, olive skin, a groomed mustache… None of it mattered. Fournier was dark. And in questioning the tour business owner, Brandy and Ray gained nothing but a feeling of dread.

  “Already I have told you,” Fournier growled, “the guide he is off today.” He fell back into his chair, thumped his shoes on the desk and resumed hurling darts at a cork board on the office wall. “I cannot help you.”

 
; “Is there anyone who can?” Brandy asked. “Please.”

  Fournier tossed his last dart onto the desk. He laughed showing a gap in his teeth. Then he sighed and, without warning, shouted, “Loup!”

  Red curtains hung in a doorway behind Fournier. Half a minute passed, before the man Brandy facetiously knew as 'Don Juan' parted them and stepped out. The two spoke, without his acknowledging the Americans, then Fournier said, “This is Loup Wimund. He was at the castle yesterday.”

  Brandy wanted to say, 'Yeah… he was a jerk.' What she said was, “We're looking for a girl missing from the tour yesterday.”

  He murmured something. Fournier growled and pointed at the Americans. Loup looked up and said, “There were many women.”

  “This was an American,” Ray said. “Vicki Kramer, my sister.” He gave a description but the Frenchman seemed uninterested. “She was with me,” Brandy added, to jog his memory.

  “I know nothing of her or what happened to her. If I saw her, I do not remember.”

  “Don't you count your passengers, for God's sake?”

  “This was not a children's outing, monsieur. We offer a travel tour for adults. They are for themselves responsible.”

  “That's it? That's all you can tell us?”

  “I cannot tell what I do not know. I do not know this woman.” Loup looked to Fournier. His boss shrugged and Loup disappeared into the back room.

  He pulled the curtain closed shutting out the obnoxious foreigners. Who the hell did they think they were? What happened to the blonde bitch… Before Loup could finish the thought the back door opened and Eve Molyneux stuck in her pretty little face. Eve was the red-haired beauty scowling at Felix on yesterday's tour. No surprise; she was his girl. Which made her a stupid whore in Loup's eyes. She was candy, no doubt, but dedicated to a lesser man. Her loss. Loup had no time for her.