The Devil's Bed

by Doug Lamoreux

  She was naked, gray as sculptor's clay, and prominently displayed the results of a bizarre surgery. She bore an incision that started at each shoulder, met between her breasts and descended as one cut to her navel in a 'Y'. The bloodless wound was stitched together; pinches of flesh haphazardly sutured with thick brown twine.

  The girl laid her gray fingertips on the window and stared through the glass, twisting her head mechanically like the animatronic presidents at Disneyland. Her eyes were shining black marbles in a sea of yellow – at once horrifying and captivating.

  For no earthly reason, and against all logic, Brandy found herself drawn to the door and to the gray-as-death thing on the other side. She reached for the handle and for the lock beneath. Only then did it dawn, a faint glimmer in the dark, what – who – this thing was. “Vicki?” Brandy said weakly. “My God. Vicki, it can't be you. You're…”

  “Help me!” the thing said in a voice dredged up from the pits of hell.

  Brandy snapped the lock off, then turned back to see the mirror behind the bar still reflected only her image. There was nothing on the balcony.

  Vicki turned the handle, forced the door and pushed a hand through to hold it. While Brandy, her fear growing, held it closed as best she could - unsure whether to struggle with her friend or not.

  “Vicki… you're in the morgue.”

  “They treated me so badly there. You don't know.”

  Now she recognized it, Vicki's voice, but different; filtered, gurgling over rocks like a waterfall, choked with smoke, angry. Tears streamed down Brandy's stunned and disbelieving face. And, as if on cue, thick, globular tears slimed their way down Vicki's ashen face as if in unholy parody of her own.

  “I'm so cold,” the Vicki thing said. “I'm so hungry.”

  Brandy, struggling to escape the drowning pull of the deep black and yellow eyes, backed away from the door. It swung wide and Vicki entered; her arms raised to embrace. The room was suddenly rife with the antiseptic odor of alcohol and an acrid undercurrent of spoiled meat. Brandy felt her stomach knot.

  Yet the shining black eyes were drawing her in.

  Vicki took hold of her and, though she nearly drowned in revulsion, Brandy felt powerless to withdraw. Vicki's hands were as icy as the grave. The stench of rotted meat flooded her nostrils. Vicki kissed Brandy on the lips and disgust overwhelmed her. It was evil, horrid, empty; no affection, nor even warmth, merely a parody of a human act. Still Brandy felt powerless to resist.

  Vicki gripped Brandy's chin in her cold hand and forced her head to the side. Brandy heard an ecstatic intake of breath. She heard Vicki's mouth open, heard her hiss hungrily and imagined her wetting her lips with her bloated blue tongue. Vicki bared her teeth and inched toward the rapidly pulsing vein in Brandy's exposed throat.

  “Victoria!”

  The Vicki thing snapped around at the sound of Ray's voice. Again the strange rotation of her head as if trying to recall the big man in the hall door. Ray stood, horror trading place with disbelief, trading place with horror, on his face. Vicki released Brandy, smiled pleasantly, and stretched her gray arms toward him.

  Ray stared, as Brandy had, captivated by the eyes. His sister had always had such lovely green eyes. These were not Vicki's eyes. They were sickly yellow with deep black pools… Pools that dragged you down. Eyes full of fear, hate and hunger.

  Ray jumped, startled to find Vicki had crossed the room, without seeming to move, and was, even now, cupping his face with her icy hands. “I missed you,” she gurgled. Her mouth opened as her face disappeared below his line of vision.

  “I command you!”

  The Vicki thing looked up angrily.

  Behind Ray, inside the door, stood a priest Vicki did not know. She gave the man of God a fleeting glance, then ignored him, and returned her attention to Ray.

  “I command you,” Father Trevelyan shouted again. He stepped forward and pushed his hand between their faces. “Unclean spirit…”

  The next instant was nothing short of explosive.

  Vicki saw something in the priest's hand, thrust in her face, and then recognized it – a crucifix. The crucified Christ. She shrieked and was propelled back from Ray.

  “Whoever you are, along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God,” Trevelyan stepped around Ray, “By the mysteries of the incarnation, passion, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, by the coming of our Lord for judgment, tell me by some sign your name, and the day and hour of your departure.”

  The Vicki thing swore as she screamed and, as if struck, flew backwards. Her naked body struck the wall with thunderous force. A stitch broke on her incision, a slight gap appeared in her chest and the bag holding her organs was partially visible beneath.

  Even Trevelyan began to tremble now. He breathed deeply and steadied the crucifix with both hands. “Depart transgressor,” he commanded. “Depart, seducer, full of lies and cunning, foe of virtue, persecutor of the innocent.”

  Vicki cried out, shielding her burning eyes and trying to climb the wall to get away from the priest and the hated object in his hands.

  His momentary panic behind him, Trevelyan drew a vial of holy water from his pocket. “Give place, abominable creature,” he ordered. “Give way, you monster, give way to Christ. He has cast you forth into the outer darkness, where everlasting ruin awaits you and your abettors.”

  Trevelyan shook the vial throwing holy water on Vicki in the shape of a cross. “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” The splashes hit her like acid. She clawed at her burning flesh; screaming. Then, incredibly, she burst into flames.

  “Vicki.” Horrified, Ray started forward.

  Trevelyan grabbed him. “It's not Vicki,” the priest said. “That is not Vicki!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The creature stopped screaming and dropped to the floor in a flaming heap. The curtain over the door had caught fire, the charred paint on the wall peeled, and the carpet around the body was catching.

  “Look at her!” Trevelyan said. “That is not your sister, Ray. Your sister is dead and whatever killed her caused this to happen.”

  Ray's fight vanished as he fell into shock. Trevelyan eased him from the heat, then threw open the balcony doors, coughing as black smoke rolled from the ceiling. Somewhere a fire alarm screamed. Then Brandy was there spraying the wall and curtain with the small extinguisher kept behind the bar. She extinguished the fire on the wall but stopped short of the thing on the floor.

  The priest nodded in agreement. “Let it burn.”

  Twenty Seven

  The Colonel, his knees locked, held a handkerchief over his nose with a shaking hand and stared through the hotel room door. Inside, a smoke-ejecting fan, two firefighters, and two medics worked over the burned thing on the floor. In twenty-three years, Blanc had never seen anything like it. It was turning into one hell of a night.

  It started with that foreign idiot at the morgue telling him the American girl's body was missing and then, apparently, just walking away from his work. Followed by a frantic call from the Le Alexandre staff reporting a hell-raising assault on their fifth floor. Now this. Good Christ – what was this?

  His call to Durand, that lazy son of a bitch, was a waste of time. The surgeon insisted he'd already declared the Kramer woman dead, autopsied her and delivered his findings. She was out of his hands and no longer his responsibility. Return her to her family, Durand yelled, slamming down the phone.

  As he watched the workers collect Vicki Kramer's remains, for the second time, the Colonel realized he couldn't blame the doctor. Nor could he just return a burned corpse to the family and wash his hands of it. Especially this family. Something inexplicable was happening. He wanted answers.

  Blanc tucked away his handkerchief and entered the room opposite the horror. The American couple and the local priest, of all people, waited there. Yes, something inexplicable was going on. Blanc closed
the door on the activity across the hall.

  The Americans sat on a sofa looking exhausted. The priest, on the edge of a chair, jangled a cup and saucer. Unable to halt his tremor he soon gave up on the tea.

  Blanc cleared his throat. “There was a report of a disturbance in your room. I was already en route, when that call came, to deliver the news that your sister's body was missing. I arrive… and am appalled to find you disposing of evidence.”

  “Disposing…” Brandy stared aghast through red eyes. “Evidence of what?”

  “Come, are we children?”

  “We told you what happened.”

  “Your story is nonsense!”

  “See here,” Trevelyan said, rising.

  Blanc ignored the priest and kept his glare on the Americans. To his surprise, even in their grief, they returned the look unflinchingly. He reconsidered his approach. “For some reason, someone or some group is trying to make us believe the Templar curse. That the Templar knights have… from the dead been resurrected. Monsieur, Mademoiselle, I ask, is it you?”

  Ray stood with the priest. “How in the hell can we be suspects?”

  “We found four bodies at the castle, your sister among them. You and your fiancé were at the castle. The property is owned by Marcel Fournier; a known criminal. You were both seen at Fournier's. We found a Templar's armor and weapons, weapons used in the killings in the timber. Again, you were nearby. And you are now keeping company with a man who collects Templar relics.”

  “Are you making it official, Colonel?” Father Trevelyan asked. “Are you accusing me of murder?”

  “Someone committed these murders, vandalized the Templar cemetery, and left these ancient trinkets to scare others away from the castle.”

  “I've never heard such horseshit,” Ray said.

  The Colonel carved a hole in Ray with his eyes. “You are this close to being arrested, monsieur.”

  Brandy looked up incredulously. “On what charge?”

  Blanc pointed at the door and, by proxy, at Vicki's body in the next room. “Murder,” he said. “What else?”

  “First me; now them? Colonel!” Trevelyan, out of character, was actually laughing at the officer. “Ray murdered his sister? Brandy murdered her friend? A woman your medical examiner pronounced dead two days ago?”

  “I could certainly charge them with body snatching.”

  “When did they do this? They have been with me all the evening.”

  “Watch yourself, Trevelyan.”

  “You're claiming he stole a body you would have released to his custody probably tomorrow morning?”

  The Colonel jerked the door open. Across the hall, in the room still gray with smoke, an ashen Soliveres and a pimpled Aldric (trying not to breath) lifted Vicki's scorched remains to the open body bag on their cot.

  “When we are done,” Aldric said, unaware they were being observed, “I quit.”

  “Coward.” Soliveres spoke without conviction then inhaled not to be sick.

  Brandy jumped up, crying out. Ray swore. Heads spun in the burn room and the medics nearly dropped the body. Blanc ignored them all. He pointed across the hall and shouted at the priest, “There… is the body of his sister!”

  “Ayez du sens, l'homme,” The priest shouted back, arms akimbo. “You're suggesting they stole it, brought it here and set it afire in their living room? For heaven's sake, make sense!”

  Brandy buried her head in Ray's chest.

  Blanc waved the workers back to their task. Then he turned to the priest, his cheeks purple, his shock of white hair bringing out the dog. He poked a finger in Trevelyan's face. “Your influence,” he said, through clenched teeth. “…and that of the Church, only go so far. As I have to you clearly indicated, you are, with your American friends, 'persons of interest' in this case. I warn you to understand that.”

  Blanc turned abruptly and stormed out.

  “I'm sorry we got you into this.”

  They'd stepped across the hall, Brandy, Ray and Father Trevelyan, and were taking in the scarred, blackened mess that had been their hotel room. Brandy, rescuing her purse, jacket and little else, felt overwhelmed.

  “Things happen for a reason, Brandy,” the priest said. “God got me into this.”

  “Don't blame God.” Ray lifted his melted pillow and blanket (now one polyester sculpture), choked on the smell, and threw them down again. He turned a suspicious eye on the priest. “The last time we saw you, outside a little café, you turned down a ride in favor of a walk in the night air. Don't take this wrong but… why are you here?”

  “Ah, er, eh, I followed you.” The fidgeting Father was back. Trevelyan picked his crucifix up from the floor and his holy water from a soaked and battered end table. He pocketed the crucifix and was about to do the same with the vial. “I, eh, was concerned. So, er, I followed you.”

  “It's a good thing you did,” Brandy said, giving Ray the evil eye. She pointed at the vial. “And it's a good thing you had that.”

  “I, eh, had an American cousin who used to read comics, eh, comic books. They lived in Wyoming in the States and my Aunt drove him sixty miles to the nearest town to buy them. When he'd finished with them, my Aunt sent them to me in England.”

  Trevelyan stared past the couple, through the smoked window, no longer seeing them or the lights of the village. He saw a little boy, himself as a child, running the green rolling hills of Cornwall. He closed his eyes for a sweet moment then shook off the reverie. “When I was growing up,” he said, quietly, “I always wanted to be a super hero.”

  He turned the vial in his hands, silver cap and shaker top, round cut crystal with a cross etched on either side, now nearly empty.

  “Super heroes derive their abilities from a higher power. And they carry the most incredible toys. I guess the priesthood was as close as I was ever going to come.”

  Trevelyan escorted them back across the hall to what had been Vicki's room. He was about to bid them good night when Brandy asked, “Why did this happen? Why is any of this happening?”

  “I don't know,” the priest said helplessly. “I'm sorry.”

  “None of it makes any god damned sense.” Ray's explosion came from nowhere. Then he stood there - spent.

  “No, Ray. Believe me, you're wrong. You see, there are no contradictions. Had we all the facts, I am certain everything would make sense. Even if the facts seem, on the surface, unbelievable. Within their framework they will make sense.”

  “I don't get it. I'm a simple guy… Hell, I don't even know what to call you. Priest? Father? I'm not a Catholic. I'm not…”

  “You're my friend, Ray,” Trevelyan said. “Call me Clive. It's my name.”

  Ray nodded. “I'm a damned simple guy… Clive. I work hard - in the real world. I'm not a religious man. I don't even believe in God. But I'm not one of those morons who turns atheism into a religion either. You can believe what you want just leave me out of it. I like bikes, beer, tattoos. I love Brandy and I love… I loved my sister. After Mom died, Vicki and I only had each other.”

  Ray looked at the door separating them from… that room. The room where the unbelievable had become real. Where the remains of… that thing… had called him brother and attacked his fiancé. The room where… something… (the power of God?) had caused that evil creature to go up, screaming, in flames.

  Ray started to shake. “I admit I'm not all that bright. But I just don't get it.”

  “You're looking for rationale where it may not exist. I said the facts will make sense… within their framework.”

  “You've lost me.”

  “It's simple,” the priest said. “You weigh two hundred pounds here. If I ask you to float on the air my request makes no sense. In a spacecraft, in space, you're virtually weightless. You float regardless of whether or not I ask it of you. In fact, you must be tied down to prevent it. You haven't changed. What's changed is the framework in which you exist.”

  Ray nodded. But what one had to do with the othe
r he had no clue.

  “We're dealing with the supernatural,” the priest said. “But we don't know the rules. We don't have the facts to make it rational. Without those facts, the unexplained cannot be explained.”

  “Then we need those facts,” Brandy said. She took Ray's hand and held it to her face. “We need to go up to the castle.”

  “What!” Trevelyan grimaced. “That is a remarkably bad idea.”

  “You said we need to do some fact finding.”

  “I said there were facts to be found. I didn't say they ought to be found and I certainly did not suggest you two find them.”

  “I want an explanation. If one exists, I think, it will be found at the castle.”

  “Brandy, you have both suffered enough. Please, go back to America.”

  “I can't do that.” She turned to Ray and, happily, found him nodding support. “We can't do that. We're going to go right on suffering until we have some answers.”

  Trevelyan saw the determination in Brandy's eyes. Then he saw the loyalty in Ray's. The biker moved to the small bar in this room and poured drinks for Brandy and him. Then he waved the bottle, silently offering one to Clive. The priest nodded and watched Ray pour the third.

  Brandy downed the shot, was startled to find it was whiskey, and felt the heat burst in her chest. She took a breath then looked to Trevelyan with renewed determination… and not a little hope. “You know more about the Templars, more about that place than anyone, Father. Will you come with us?”

  “I came to France,” the priest said quietly, “a long time ago – to hide. I thought, eh, no, that's a lie, I always told myself, I joined the priesthood to help people. I'm afraid, all along, the truth was I wanted to protect myself… from everything.” His eyes began to tear and he told himself it was the whiskey. “For the longest time, I've felt the Lord pulling me, scolding me really, to stop hiding. Clive Trevelyan, he's been saying, I created a big world. Go and see it. And really be of use.”