The Devil's Touch

by William W. Johnstone

  They all heard the back door open and close. The smell of the grave permeated the house.

  THREE

  "I sure would like to dip my wick in that Balon woman's snatch," Sheriff Pat Jenkins said to Vernon. "Sexy bitch." They stood a safe distance from the mansion, both of them looking at the hugeness of Fox Estate in the night. "Then I'd stem Monty's wife."

  "Fine-looking cunts," Vernon agreed. "But Mille's the one I want."

  "Miller Jenkins laughed. "Hell, Vern. She's been spreading that pussy around town since she was twelve/thirteen years old."

  "It ain't wore out," the deputy replied. "Other than a woman's mouth, the pussy's the most durable part of her body. Besides, there's only two kinds: big ol' good ones and good ol' big ones."

  The crowd of unshaven and unwashed men laughed at the old joke. The stench of them was foul. Dan Evans said, "And you ain't never had no bad, huh, Vern?"

  "Nope. Just some that was better than others," Vernon said. He looked at Jenkins. "Why don't we rush them, Pat? Just rush them and take them out of that mansion?"

  "The Master says no. The Princess says no. We have to obey. The Master is going to win this time, and he knows it. He wants to play with them for a time."

  Vernon nodded his head in understanding. He looked around him. "Anybody here wanna come home with me and fuck my old lady?"

  A huge fat man stepped up, an equally fat man with him. "Me and Jesse'll take a whack at her, Vern."

  Vernon looked at the pair, an amused look in his eyes. "Yeah. One in front and one in back. That ought to be a sight to see. Wanna come see the show, Pat?"

  "Bet she'll holler," the sheriff said with a smile. "Yeah, let's go."

  The grounds of Nelson College lay dark and quiet in the purple of Satan's night. A light mist clung to the land, undisturbed by even a whisper of wind. Inside the dark structures, however, it was quite a different story. Low moanings could be heard from nearly every room; weeping and crying out for mercy came from the basements; the begging and pleading for God to put an end to this suffering and degradation whispered and echoed around the deserted halls and corridors of the buildings. The slap of flesh against flesh, the gruntings as male hardness hunched in and out of female softness played a rhythmic tune without melody or meter as dozens of rapes continued into the night.

  In the basement of the administration building, a bloody and naked young man clung to life and love of God. Life was rapidly leaving him; but love of God had not. He refused to renounce his God.

  Another young man, his clothing blood-splattered, stood over the naked young man, a stained knife in one hand. He turned to a group of men and women. His smile was macabre.

  "Are you ready to take the pledge to forever serve the Master?" he asked the crowd of young people.

  "Yes." The reply came as one voice. All eyes were on the hideously tortured young man tied to a table. To a person they had enjoyed the horrible cries from the torture. Yes. They were ready to take the pledge of submission.

  Professor Edie Cash began intoning the chant that would forever seal the fate of all who repeated the damning words.

  And all present repeated the chant of the damned.

  Screaming filled the basement as the knife-wielding young man began cutting into living flesh. He removed the still beating heart and held it in his hands, blood leaking from life's muscle, dripping onto the floor.

  "Now you are and always will be one with us," Edie told the group. "For you, there will be no turning back. Now, go! Seek out and find all nonbelievers in the word of the Dark One. Bring them to us. Go!"

  The room quickly emptied.

  Edie looked at what was left of the young man on the bloody table. "Stupid fool," she said. "He could have had eternal life with us." She lifted her eyes to the young man standing with the knife and heart in his hands. "Have him taken to the Beasts."

  "Yes, mistress."

  Sam and Father Le Moyne ran from the room and jerked up the sharpened stakes leaning against the wall in the hall. Sam paused for a moment at the door.

  "Lock all the doors to this room and don't let anybody you don't know inside. No matter what they might say. And be sure it's who you think it is. Father Le Moyne, Noah—let's do it."

  The smell of the undead was strong in the mansion. The smell was of rotting flesh and blood. The lights flickered off and on, finally settling into a dimness, shadowing the corners and pockets of the hall.

  "Daniel." The whisper drifted through the dim corridors of the lower level of the huge house. "Come, Daniel. We want you, brother. Come to us and we'll go home. Come meet us, now, brother. It's time."

  A hissing sound filled the corridor. The hissing was followed by the foulest of smells.

  Father Le Moyne began murmuring prayers. He held vials of holy water, one vial in each hand. He whispered to Sam, "The holy water will cause them great agony. But you must strike immediately after the liquid touches their flesh. Give me a stake."

  "You handle the holy water, Father," Sam returned the whisper. "I'll handle the stakes. I'm younger and stronger. Are you sure you can go through with this, Father?"

  "They are no longer of this world, Sam. That is not my brother nor my brother's wife. They are of the undead, the walking dead. They must be destroyed."

  "Look out!" Noah yelled. "To our right."

  Creatures from the depths of horror's living reality came lunging at the three men, momentarily freezing them in the grips of stark terror and revulsion.

  Noah was the first to react. His shotgun roared, the double ought slugs ripping into already mangled flesh, knocking the man and woman sprawling backward. The sight was more than hideous. Father Le Moyne's brother had only part of his face; one eye dangled from the socket. His chest was ripped open, exposing the rib cage. His wife was torn and mangled from her face to her knees; she had been thrown through the windshield. Bloody tissue and whiteness of bone was evident.

  The priest sprang into action. He hurled the holy water onto the flesh of the undead.

  The man and woman shrieked in agony as the blessed water burned and seared the unholy flesh. Their gaping mouths spewed forth great belches of stinking breath as they thrashed on the polished floor. A thick yellow fluid began leaking from the smoking holes in their flesh.

  Sam jumped forward, a stake in each hand. He drove the first stake into the center of the man's chest, whirled around, and drove the second stake through the heart of the woman.

  "Noah," Sam shouted. "Work the stake deeper into his chest."

  The writer handed Father Le Moyne his shotgun and jumped into the middle of the stinking gore, grabbing the stake and working it deeper into the man's heart.

  The screaming of the undead echoed through the great house, ricocheting off the marble statues, the fine paintings, the old wood, and causing the chandeliers to vibrate, trembling as if in terror.

  Dirty yellow smoke began rising from the man and woman. They jerked and screamed as their souls left their bodies. Father Le Moyne prayed to God Almighty to forgive the dead, for what they had become was not of their choosing.

  The smoke drifted away; the moaning ceased; the jerking stopped; the man and woman were no more a part of the living dead. Nothing was left of them except a few scraps of stinking rags and the dust of a few bones.

  "Noah," Sam said. "Find a garbage bag. I'll get a shovel from the utility shed." He looked at the priest. "You want to say anything over them when I bury what is left of them, Father?"

  Le Moyne hesitated for a moment. "No," he said. "I've said all that needs to be said. There is more I could say, but I don't believe it's necessary."

  "Barbara." The electronically pushed voice once more found its way into the mansion. "Come on, baby. Come suck ol' Duke's cock again. Then you can bend over and I can stick it to you. I bet you'd like—"

  Joe's rifle barked, flame leaping from the muzzle of the .270. A bubbling, choking scream cut a painful scar into the ink of night, followed by a thump and a metallic sound
scraping on concrete.

  Joe's voice drifted downstairs. "Shot that bastard right in the bullhorn. Drove that sucker slap into his mouth and down his throat. Bet that'll shut him up."

  Somewhere in the huge mansion, Barbara began alternately laughing and screaming hysterically.

  WEDNESDAY

  "What has been done to bring Sam Balon to me?" Xaviere asked the coven leaders.

  No one replied. None present would meet the young woman's piercing eyes.

  "I see," she spoke softly. "Sam and the others have ignored my deadline. I cannot, for some reason, reach my Master Father, and that disturbs me. For I am unsure as to the proper direction to take. 1 do not know what has happened. He was here only hours ago. Now he is gone."

  "Princess!" Jimmy Perkins shuffled into the room. "The Tablet is gone!"

  They all knew what that meant. Satan was gone.

  But why did he leave?

  "You cheating, rotten, no good son of a cosmic whore!" The Dark One hurled the message across the sky in plumes of yellow smoke.

  In the firmament, the Almighty yawned.

  "Damn You! How dare You interfere with my earthly affairs? That was not the deal we made. You were to keep Your meddling nose out of my affairs."

  "I make no deals with the likes of you, wallower in filth. Besides, how have I interfered? The followers of My Word are still surrounded by your rabble. The barrier you erected around the community is still in place and functioning. I have not prevented the torture and rapes and deaths. How can you say 1 have interfered?"

  "You son-of-a-bitch!" Satan roared. "I cannot reenter the community. I have been blocked. You have blocked me from entering."

  "No, fallen one. I have done nothing of the sort. You are mistaken."

  Satan was silent for a time. When he again communicated with the one whom he once served, he had calmed himself. "Which is precisely the reason 1 hid the Tablet before leaving that area. 1 knew somehow You would find a way to jam Your fucking nose into my business."

  The Almighty directed His never closing and all-seeing eyes downward. "What are you implying, foul one?"

  "That You are a liar!"

  "I shall take no umbrage at that. No, Prince of Darkness. It was not I who interfered on Earth. And it was not my warrior, for he is seated beside me." The Ruler of Light looked at his old friend and companion. The warrior was sitting calmly, a smile on his lips. A rather smug smile, the Almighty thought.

  Satan began shrieking once more and the Almighty blocked out the howlings from the northernmost regions on Earth and spoke to the warrior. "Where is the elder Balon?"

  "I haven't the vaguest idea."

  "You tell lies to Me? Here?"

  "I have not told a lie in so many centuries I've forgotten how it would feel," the warrior replied. "Well— years, anyway. But I am being truthful with You. I do not know where the Elder Balon is."

  "But he is gone from the firmament?"

  Without hesitation the warrior said, "Yes. Would You like for me to search for him on Earth?"

  "No, 1 most certainly would not Perhaps Valhalla was not such a bad idea after all. Warriors can be such a nuisance. They're all so scheming. Very well. So the father has once more gone to help his son?"

  "No—I don't believe that is entirely the case," the warrior replied. "I do think that perhaps he has evened the odds a bit. I think that is all he will do. Leaving the rest up to the small band of believers. I think he will stay on, viewing the battleground."

  "And you would like to leave here to help Balon— ah—reconnoiter the situation?"

  "That thought has occurred to me," the warrior replied blandly.

  "Oh, I just imagine it has." The reply from the Almighty was dryly given.

  Both were conscious of Satan's furious howlings from Earth. Satan was shrieking for the Almighty to answer him. How dare He block him out?

  "Oh, shut up!" the Almighty roared from the heavens.

  Minor earthquakes were felt along several fault lines on earth. Hurricanes formed and then died. Volcanoes puffed smoke and ash.

  Then all was calm.

  "See what happens when You lose Your temper?" Michael said. "You really should try to watch things like that."

  The Almighty heaved a mighty sigh. He should be used to the warrior's needling by now. No one else would dare speak to Him in such a manner. "Find out how Balon keeps slipping out."

  "The same way he always slips out. He's an adventurous sort. Restless."

  "Why would he be restless here?"

  "Because he is a warrior. Relax. I don't believe the elder Balon is going to interfere any further."

  "Why is it your words somehow fail to comfort Me?"

  The warrior stroked his beard. He wished he was down on Earth, with Balon, kicking ass. "I haven't the foggiest," he said.

  "Sam?" Nydia asked. "Why are you so uptight this morning?"

  Sam had awakened in silence, and he had not spoken more than ten words in an hour. He glanced at his wife. "My father is near. 1 can feel his presence. He is very near."

  "He's here to help us?"

  "No. 1 don't think so. 1 don't get that feeling at all this time."

  "Who's here to help us?" Joe asked, turning from his post at a front window.

  "My father," Sam said.

  "Your father? But—ain't he dead?"

  Noah and Father Le Moyne sat quietly. Jeanne La-Meade sat beside the priest. The rest of the small group were at their posts, maintaining a watch from the upper level of the mansion.

  "He came back before," Nydia said. "He met us at the Montreal airport several years ago."

  "Lordy!" Joe said.

  Flight 127 came in and emptied its load of passengers. Sam knew no one on the flight. He and Nydia sat in the now deserted arrival area, looking at each other, unanswered questions in their eyes.

  "Son?" the disembodied-sounding voice came from behind the young couple. Sam was conscious of a burning sensation in the center of his chest.

  They turned, looking around. No one was in sight. Nydia dug nervous fingers into Sam's forearm. "Son? Was that what the voice said?"

  "Easy now," Sam attempted to calm her. His own nerves were rattled.

  "Sam?" she said. "Look on the table in front of us."

  A manila envelope lay on the table. It had not been there when they arrived.

  They both looked at the deserted area around them. They looked at the envelope.

  Sam touched the packet. It was cold. He picked it up and carefully opened it. A picture and several sheets of paper. Sam looked at the eight-by-ten of his father for a long moment, then handed it to Nydia. "My dad," he said.

  "I can see where you got your good looks. Your dad was a rugged, handsome man. Sam? Where did the envelope come from?"

  There was a slight grimace of pain on Sam's face.

  "Sam!"

  "I don't know the answer, Nydia. But when that voice spoke, my chest started burning. It's better now, but man, did it hurt for a few seconds."

  Sam looked around them. No one in sight. Sam unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his T-shirt. He heard Nydia gasp.

  "Look at your T-shirt, Sam. The center of your chest."

  The fabric was burned brown, in the shape of a cross. The cross that Sam wore. His father's cross.

  Nydia pulled up the T-shirt. The cross had burned his skin, leaving a scar in the shape of a cross. The scar was red, but no longer painful, even though it was burned deep.

  Sam opened the pages from the envelope and almost became physically ill. The handwriting was unmistakably his father's scrawl. Sam had seen it many times on old sermons.

  "You're white as a ghost, Sam."

  "I—think that's what just spoke to me. My father wrote this."

  The young man wiped suddenly blurry eyes and began slowly reading, Nydia reading silently beside him.

  Son—writing is difficult for me, in my condition. Want to keep this as brief as possible, but yet, there are so many things I must say
to you and the girl.

  "How—" Nydia said, then shook her head, not understanding or believing any of this—yet.

  I have watched you, son—whenever possible— grow through the years. Tried to guide you, help you, as best I could, Nydia, too. The girl beside you, not the Nydia I—knew. Like that time you got drunk in your mother's car and passed out at the wheel. A close one, boy.

  "I'm the only person in this world who knew about that," Sam said.

  "In this world, yes," Nydia said. She was beginning to believe.

  Give the cross you wear around your neck to the girl. Do it, son. Time is of the essence.

  Nydia was softly crying as Sam put the cross around her neck.

  No one will be able to remove that cross from her. No one. I cannot guarantee she will not be hurt, but—well, you must have faith.

  Now then, a cruel blow for each of you, for I know your thoughts: Nydia is your half-sister.

  "Oh, my God!" Sam said.

  When I knew her mother, Roma was not her name. Her name was Nydia. She is of and for the Devil. She is a witch. After the hooved one attempted to take over the town of Whitfield— and failed, then—during which Wade, Anita, Chester, Tony, Jane Ann, Miles, Doris, and myself killed hundreds of coven members, I made a bargain with our God to save your mother and what few Christians remained. I won, in a sense. But so did the woman you know as Roma. I killed, or at least sent back to Hell, Black Wilder, the Devil's representative. Your half-brother, son, Black, is named for Wilder. And like that spawn of Hell, he is a warlock.

  When you leave this terminal, the both of you must go to a Catholic church and get as much holy water as you can. You will need it.

  Sam glanced at Nydia. Half-sister?

  She met his eyes, read his thoughts. "I don't care."

  They returned to the letter.

  It would be wrong, son, to say the Devil is back, for that one never leaves the Earth; so I'll simply say he has returned to Whitfield. There will soon be a great tragedy in Whitfield, and I must be there to help your mother, for her ordeal involves both of us—and the girl. There will be no survivors from Whitfield. None.