by Amy Cross
“Not now,” he mutters, pushing her hand away.
“You guys are such downers,” Anna continues, grabbing Scott's arm and trying to lead him out the door. “It's time to focus on the good things in life. Scott, your aunt wouldn't want you to sit around like this, listening to her when she's in pain. She'd want you to be out there, enjoying life.”
“I'm not leaving her,” Scott sniffs. “I can't. Not until...”
His voice trails off.
“Sam, can you tell him?” Anna continues, still forcing an exorbitant degree of happiness that seems utterly unsuited to the occasion. “I've been trying to explain how we won, and how it's time to get on with life. Scott's aunt wouldn't want him to be moping around here all the time. She'd want him to be -”
Suddenly a louder, harsher cry rings out from upstairs, filling the house for a few seconds before once more dying down to a steady, gurgling sobbing sound.
“So let's go, yeah?” Anna says, although even her voice is filled with hesitation and doubt. “Let's go far away and have fun.”
“I have to see what's going on here,” Sam says, turning and starting to make her way up the stairs.
“Don't go in there!” Anna calls after her. “Sam, you don't need to see any of this!”
Ignoring her friend, Sam reaches the top of the stairs and heads toward the nearest bedroom. As she reaches the doorway, however, she stops as she hears a low, gurgling moan that sounds almost animalistic. Then she spots Doctor Burnham kneeling next to a single bed, attending to a figure that's tossing and turning under blood-stained sheets. And then, finally, Doctor Burnham reaches over to his bag, allowing Sam to see the face of Scott's aunt.
“No,” Sam whispers. “Please, no...”
Yellow and jaundiced, with bloodshot milky eyes, the woman is flat on the bed with her head tilted back against the pillow and her mouth wide open. Her jaw is twitching slightly, and fresh blood is dribbling from her lips, while her hands are tightly clenched against her chest. Her body is shaking as she fights back the pain, and after a moment Sam sees thick, bloodied sores that have cracked open all across the woman's skin. As if the sight of such suffering were not already enough, a moment later the stench of blood and other fluids becomes unbearable, and Sam takes a step back.
Nearby, on the bedside table, a framed photo shows a slightly younger version of the same woman, smiling happily at the camera.
“She was the best person I ever knew,” Scott says.
Sam turns to find that he's come up to join her on the landing.
“She was proud,” he continues, staring past her with tear-filled eyes, watching his aunt's continued suffering. “Not in an arrogant way. She was just always aware of what was right and proper. She had such love and compassion for everyone she met. She volunteered at the local church, tending to the flowers, even though she wasn't actually religious. She never discriminated against anyone, she never spoke badly of people she met. I always wanted to be like her, but now...”
His voice trails off for a moment.
“What kind of a world,” he adds finally, “lets a good woman suffer like this?”
Sam tries to think of an answer, but all she can do is turn and look back over at Doctor Burnham as he slides a needle into the woman's arm.
“I tried to kill her last night,” Scott whispers.
Sam begins to turn to him, but then she freezes.
“May God have mercy on my soul,” he sobs, still standing behind her, “but I placed a pillow over her face and I pushed and I pushed, and I held it there for ten minutes. It was going to be a mercy killing, to end her suffering. I'd have taken any consequences, I'd even have gone to jail. But when I was done, she hadn't died.”
Finally, Sam looks back at him.
“So I tried again,” he continues, closing his eyes as more tears run down his face, “and again. Ten times during the night.” He pauses, before opening his eyes again. “Nothing worked,” he explains. “No matter how close she comes to death, something seems to be pushing back against her from the other side, refusing to let her pass. I know I'm an awful person, but I'd give anything if it meant she'd no longer be in pain.”
“You're not an awful person,” Sam tells him. “You care about your aunt.”
“She keeps peeing herself,” he explains. “She'd hate that. I can't... I can't see her like this. I just can't!”
With that, he turns and hurries back down the stairs. Sam hears Anna calling after him, and then she hears the front door slam shut.
“Just let me go,” Cathy sobs suddenly, her whole body shuddering now with pain. “I don't even care if I go to Heaven or Hell. I just want to be free of the pain.”
“Can't you do anything for her?” Sam asks, stepping into the room and – despite the horrific sight and the nauseating stench – making her way over to the bed. “Why is she like this?”
“I've given her so many drugs,” Doctor Burnham replies, as he fills another syringe, “she should be gone by now. I've been a doctor for a long time, Ms. Marker. I know how to help someone when they're suffering, how to ease their pain so they can die with dignity. It might not be entirely legal, but I don't care. I do what's right for my patients when they're in need.” He looks up at Sam. “This woman should be dead,” he explains, “ten, fifteen times over. But something won't let her die, and it's the same everywhere.”
“That doesn't even make sense,” Sam says, looking down at the woman. “People die, I mean... They just do.”
“And I'm telling you,” he replies, “it's almost as if the gates of Heaven and Hell have been slammed shut.”
“But -”
Stopping suddenly, Sam realizes the full implication of what Doctor Burnham just said. For a moment, her mind starts racing with all the possibilities, and she keeps hearing those last few words echoing over and over in her mind.
It's almost as if the gates of Heaven and Hell have been slammed shut.
“This is wrong,” she says finally, taking a step back. “This isn't how it's supposed to be. This isn't how anything's supposed to be.”
“I don't know what else to do,” Doctor Burnham replies helplessly. “We're way beyond anything I could possibly understand.”
“I should never have let this happen,” she continues, turning to him. “I should have realized.”
“Let it happen?” He furrows his brow. “Ms. Marker, what are you talking about? What exactly have you done?”
And at that moment, Cathy lets out a cry of pain that's more agonized and fearful than ever.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Sam? Where are you going? What's wrong?”
“Abberoth's closed Hell,” Sam says firmly as she storms out of the house and heads along the street, making her way back toward the cemetery. “And Heaven too, I think. I don't know how, but for some reason he's decided to change how everything works. No-one's allowed to die anymore.”
“But people have to die, don't they?” Anna asks, hurrying to keep up with her. “If people don't die, then what happens? Do they just live forever?”
“Apparently they just get sicker and sicker,” Sam explains, “but there's nothing at the end to ease their suffering. Young, old, whatever... They just linger forever with absolutely no hope of relief. It's not just here in Rippon, either. I think it's happening all around the world.”
“So what do we do?” Anna asks. “Sam? Can we maybe get in touch with Abberoth and point out that this new arrangement isn't working? I mean, after all, we did win, so that has to count for something. Right? Couldn't we, like, remind him that we won? Maybe he just forgot.”
“I don't know that we won, Anna,” Sam says darkly, with a growing sense of panic in her chest. “I think the real battle might be just around the corner.”
***
“Why isn't there anything in these books?” Sam yells, before suddenly throwing one of the titles against the wall with such force that several of its pages fall away and drift to the floor. “Faraday w
as right, these things are useless.”
“Then how do we figure out how to contact Abberoth?” Anna asks, still taking a moment to look through one of the other books. “I mean, there's lots of stuff in here. There's almost too much!”
“It's rubbish,” Sam says, taking a step back and putting her hands on the sides of her head for a moment. “I need to figure this out. Abberoth took the Devil back to Hell, and he put the world back to normal, or at least that's how it seemed. But now people can't die, and that's a situation that's only going to get worse. We need to figure out some way of forcing Abberoth to undo this mess, but all we have is this pile of books!”
“I don't suppose you have his phone number, do you?” Anna asks. “Or maybe his email address?”
“The world can't go on like this,” Sam says, heading to the window and looking out for a moment at the cemetery. “I never thought I'd say this, but we need death. Humans are not designed to live forever. We need to pass on to somewhere else at the end of our time on the mortal world. Abberoth probably thought he was being kind, or maybe he decided to just punish us in some subtle way. Whatever, we need to put the world back to how it was. We need to figure out how to force Abberoth to undo it all.”
“How about this?” Anna asks, holding one of the books up. “Apparently there's an ancient artifact called the Neame of Shamule, and it can be used to break down the gates of Hell.”
“Where do we find this Neame of Shamule thing?”
“It doesn't say.”
“What does it look like?”
“Um, it doesn't say that either.”
“Then what use is it?”
“Or there's this one,” Anna continues, taking another book. “Here, it says that the Lord of Hell can be compelled to do whatever we tell him, if we collect six precious stones from throughout reality and set them in a special boot made of gold.”
Sam turns to her. “Seriously?”
“First we have to go to a land of riddles, and pass three great challenges.”
“I hate riddles,” Sam reminds her. “They're the definition of time-wasting.”
“The challenges will be set by a three-headed goat that lives on an island near a...”
Her voice trails off for a moment.
“Okay,” she mutters, “even I think this one's silly.”
“They're all silly,” Sam says with a sigh.
“But maybe this boot could be the key,” Anna continues. “I mean, precious stones could be a good idea, right? It'd be like that thing Thanos had in that film, except it's a boot!”
“Whoever wrote the book you're holding,” Sam says, “was just making stuff up.”
“You don't know that.”
“Call it a hunch. They probably had good intentions, but good intentions won't help us right now.”
“What about this one?” Grabbing yet another book, Anna holds it open for Sam to see. “There's even a map! We have to go to a far-off land and enlist the help of -”
“Enough!” Sam snaps. “We're facing a very real threat here, and I don't have time to wade through a bunch of pseudo-fantasy rubbish that has no relation to reality. There might be a sliver of truth somewhere in one of those books, but we don't have time to go through them all.”
“But don't we have all the time in the world?” Anna asks.
“How do you figure that out?”
“Because no-one can die.”
“People are in pain,” Sam reminds her. “People who were dying are not trapped like that, eternally dying but never being freed from their pain. And soon more people will end up like that, until everyone's trapped in a permanent state of un-death. We can't let that happen.”
“I thought heroes fought to stop people dying,” Anna suggested, clearly confused.
“We're not heroes,” Sam replied. “We're just people who got stuck in a weird situation.”
Turning, she heads toward the door.
“I need time to think,” she adds. “There has to be a solution somewhere.”
“I guess you might be right,” Anna says with a sigh, as she continues to flick through one of the books. “All this stuff is just nonsense. I mean, this page here doesn't even look like it's been edited properly. The rest are fine, but this page is full of typos.”
Dejected, she sets the book aside.
Sam opens her mouth to reply, but then suddenly she stops in the doorway as she feels the hairs starting to stand up on the back of her neck.
“What did you say?” she asks cautiously, slowly turning to look back at Anna.
“This book's the worst,” Anna continues with a sigh, looking down at the book she just discarded. “There are, like, typos on every few lines. How sloppy is that?”
Sam hesitates, and in that moment she hears the Devil's voice echoing in her memories:
“If a book has no typos,” he'd told her back in the cafe, “you can be sure that it's safe. It contains nothing that threatens the darker forces. But if it does have typos, then you know it got too close for them to be comfortable. Too close to the truth about real horrors. The dark forces pushed back and, although limited in their power when it comes to such things, they were able to disrupt the book a little. Enough to move a few words around, change a few spellings. Typos in these books are a sign that the author angered those dark spirits. That the author got too close to the truth.”
“Let me see,” she whispers, reaching a hand out toward Anna.
“It's a waste of time,” Anna says dismissively, picking the book back up and taking another look at the cover. “There's no point even -”
“Show me!” Sam snaps, before hurrying over and grabbing the book from her hands.
“That's, like, the last place to find anything useful,” Anna continues. “Sam, let's try some of these others again.”
“The Dagger of Rahl Amon has two purposes,” Sam reads out loud. “It can be useful to save the world.” She pauses. “I think that's supposed to be used, instead of useful. Anyway.” She continues reading. “It can also be used to destroy the world. It can save the world by being hold – held, I think – along and allowed to channel positive energy from the sun, directing that energy at any creature that threatens the world's existence. It can even undo any dark acts committed by that creature. But never let the dagger's blade enter soil that is soaked in the blood of innocents, for then all of realities will been destroyed.” She turns to Anna. “I think it's supposed to say reality, not realities. And be instead of been. These typos are really annoying.”
“So?” Anna asks. “That doesn't sound any more realistic than any of the other stuff in these books. It sounds like something from an episode of He-Man.”
“The dagger is said to be part of an ancient prophecy,” Sam continues, still reading as she turns and starts making her way across the room. “It was forged from the same metal as the Shackle of San Shaheth, and it has long been said that one day the Dagger of Rahl Amon will be used to save the world from...”
Her voice trails off for a moment.
“From what?” Anna asks.
Sam pauses, before turning to her.
“From one who has usurped the whole of Hell itself.”
“Oh.” Anna pauses. “Well. Yeah, I mean... That does sound a bit like Abberoth. I guess I didn't pay much attention to that part of the book, 'cause of all the typos.”
“The dagger has the ability to appear where and when it is most needed,” Sam reads. “It can trick its owners, and it can pass from hand to hand until it reaches the hand with which it must be wielded.”
“Okay,” Anna says cautiously, “so where is it, then? If this dagger's so important, where do we find it?”
“I don't know,” Sam says, before turning to hurry through to the cottage's other room, “but I'm going to -”
Before she can finish, the hilt in her head catches once again on the underside of the door. Letting out a gasp of pain, Sam stumbles back. She reaches up and touches the hilt, to make sure that it's
still firmly in her head, and then suddenly she pauses as her fingers touch the dagger that has been embedded – for many years now – in her own head. She hesitates, and then slowly she turns to Anna.
“What?” Anna asks, wide-eyed and innocent. “You've got that look on your face again. Do you think you know where the dagger is?”
She waits.
“Well?” she continues. “Sam? Where is it?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“You've got to be kidding!” Anna shouts, hurrying after Sam as they head out of the cottage's front door. “Why would Fenroc have done that? He was working for Abberoth, right? So why would he have taken the one dagger that could defeat his own boss, and stuck it conveniently into your head for you to use later?”
“He didn't know!” Sam says, stopping and turning to her. “Didn't you hear what the book said? The dagger has a way of manipulating people, of making sure it ends up where it's needed. Real prophecies often work that way.”
Reaching up, she uses both hands to once again gently feel the dagger's hilt.
“As for the fact that it's convenient,” she continues, “I'll take that right now. The dagger made its way here and it's been waiting ever since. It's been catching against things for a while now, too, which I guess might have been its way of getting my attention. But that's only half the battle, because now...”
Her voice trails off.
“Now what?” Anna asks.
“Well,” Sam continues, “it's not much use in my head, is it?”
“Are you going to pull it out? Wait, you can't! Can you? I thought it was, like, stuck in there?”
“That's always been a little unclear,” Sam replies, still feeling the hilt but not quite daring to take a firm grip. “I've been given some contradictory information over the years. There's the state of grace here in Rippon, so I might be protected. At least for a while. Or I might just keel over dead. Either way, I've got to at least try.” She takes a firmer hold of the hilt. “You heard what the book said, the dagger can undo everything that Abberoth has done. We can put the world back to how it was, right? I have to try.”