A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

by Chet Williamson

  Kesselring unlocked the cell door, pulled it open. The Evil rose, turned to face him. Aiming the silver-plated spike at the host’s heart, the ex-cop stepped into the cell, closed the cell door, locked it, slipped the key into his pocket.

  “Time for you to go back where you belong,” Kesselring said.

  Time for you to die, the creature said, the words coming not only from the mouth of the host but from the air, the floor, the bars, and from inside Kesselring’s head.

  A blackness seemed to seep from the ceiling of the cell, like a cloud descending. And out of that blackness blew a breeze so fetid Kesselring had to fight to keep from gagging.

  You think you can destroy me, old man? ME! Look at you!

  And Kesselring saw himself. He was a withered old man, a bag of bones that didn’t weigh more than eighty pounds, with pale, almost translucent skin through which veins showed like blue spaghetti. He was crouched over in a permanent stoop, barely moving on decrepit, arthritic joints, using a cane to keep himself from collapsing.

  No! Kesselring thought. Get out of my head, damn you! Get out!

  The image vanished.

  “Your tricks won’t work,” the ex-cop said. “You’re not welcome in my head. You’re not welcome in my world.”

  The monster looked at him through Hollis Jurkowski’s eyes, hating him. The blackness swirled above him, no longer looking like a cloud. Now it seemed to be an opening, as if it marked the spot where dimensions or worlds or parallel universes joined. But the only thing on the other side of the opening was blackness, an almost living blackness, as if it had substance, and Kesselring wondered whether he was looking on pure evil, the stuff that could be molded into hatred and sadism and all the other horrors humanity inflicted upon itself.

  The metal spike was growing warm in Kesselring’s hands, throbbing. He tightened his grip on it.

  Suddenly Kesselring was unable to move, as if held by invisible hands. And the darkness above him was lowering. He struggled to blink, to move a finger, to twitch any muscle in his body, but he was frozen in position so solidly he could have been a statue of himself. The blackness was still moving downward, getting closer.

  It touched the top of his head.

  Settled over his eyes, nose, mouth.

  And he was enclosed in it, and it was absolutely dark, like being sealed in a coffin.

  Except coffins were designed to be comfortable-looking, nice places to rest, spend eternity. And this was like sinking into a cesspool. The blackness touched his skin, sending revulsion throughout his system. His brain cried out for him to move, to get away from this loathsome stuff at any cost, for it was repugnant and vile and sickening beyond imagining. Its touch made him feel violated, contaminated, and his flesh wanted to turn itself inside-out and shrink into his bones.

  It’s not really happening, Kesselring told himself. It’s just the monster messing around inside my head.

  The black stuff vanished.

  He was in the cell, facing Jurkowski, the darkness still hanging above them.

  Cockroaches, a reddish brown tide, scurried from the base of the walls, so numerous they made a hissing sound as their feet propelled them across the cement floor and their bodies bumped together. They covered his shoes, and when he stepped back, they crunched beneath his feet.

  They began climbing up his pants legs.

  And inside his pants legs.

  “Enough!” he screamed, and this image, too, vanished.

  Aiming the spike at Jurkowski’s heart, Kesselring lunged forward. The needle-sharp point dug into the man’s flesh, hissing like a red hot piece of iron being plunged into water by a blacksmith. But the creature had moved quickly, and Kesselring’s spike had only caught it in the fleshy part of the upper arm.

  Even so, the Evil screamed in pain, and it was like nothing Kesselring had ever heard before. It was the agonized cries of a thousand torture victims, and yet there was nothing pitiful about it, for it also was clearly a sound of hatred and rage and menace, and it was unquestionably evil.

  Kesselring pulled the spike free. It seemed alive in his hands, so full of energy he could be holding a live wire. Jurkowski was backing away from him, the two men circling each other within the confines of the cell. Kesselring was already beginning to weaken. In a prolonged confrontation, the younger man would prevail simply because of his greater stamina. The ex-cop faked a lunge to his right, then shifted to his left. Jurkowski threw himself backward, avoiding the sharp point, but he lost his balance and fell, landing on the bunk. Instantly Kesselring was on top of him, raising the spike, then bringing it down with all his strength.

  The creature swung its arm in a desperate attempt to deflect the descending death. Jurkowski’s fist connected with Kesselring’s wrist, and the spike flew from the ex-cop’s grasp, rolled under the bunk.

  Suddenly there was a crackling, buzzing sound.

  The odor of ozone filled the cell.

  The creature grabbed Kesselring’s throat, began choking him. But Kesselring was still on top, and he used it to his advantage. He kneed his adversary in the balls. The man gasped. Although the monster wasn’t flesh and blood, the host was, and what the host endured the beast endured. Kesselring kneed him again. And again. The hands on his throat relaxed their grip a little. Instantly Kesselring grabbed Jurkowski’s wrists, rotating them and pulling them apart—just as he’d been taught years ago in self-defense courses at the police academy. As soon as he was free, he quickly backed away, looked for the spike.

  It lay on the floor, near the foot of the bunk, and a big wiggly line of yellow-white electricity was flowing from it to the cell door, leaping from bar to bar, buzzing and sputtering. It looked like a continuous lightning strike, one that had come from a cloud with unlimited stores of energy.

  Jurkowski came off the bunk as if he’d been yanked by an invisible hand, threw himself at the spike. Kesselring, who’d played football in high school, gave him a body block, and the man slid into the bars. He screeched when he hit them because the electricity was suddenly wiggling around his arms, like snakes of white light. Kesselring dove for the spike, grabbed it, and the electrical arcing abruptly ceased.

  Before the ex-cop could move, Jurkowski kicked him viciously in the side. Then in the face. Kesselring tried to sit up, get the spike into position to defend himself, but Jurkowski kicked him in the head, knocking him back onto the floor. The kicks came again, harder, faster. Kesselring heard himself groan, and then he saw swirling lights that were not images created by the monster. The foot hit his ribs, and pain shot through him. A moment later, the kicks were just dull thuds, and he felt almost nothing at all.

  And then the punishment stopped.

  Through eyes he was barely able to hold open, Kesselring saw Jurkowski reaching down toward him, and the ex-cop realized the Evil was trying to take the spike. Kesselring summoned what strength he had left and found he was already using it just to hang on to consciousness.

  No! something in his mind cried. You can’t let him have it.

  But Kesselring lacked the strength to stop him from taking it.

  It was over, and he had lost. The Evil would take the only weapon that could destroy it. The spike was irreplaceable, for the stone amulet from which its tip had been fashioned was one of a kind. The monster would go on, killing and killing, as long as there was life for it to destroy.

  No! Damn it! No!

  But the protestations of his brain were wasted, for the body had no strength left with which to change the inevitable outcome. Smiling at him, Jurkowski put his hand on the spike.

  Green and orange sparks flew from the metal.

  And within the janitor’s body, the Evil screeched in frustration and pain. Hesitantly the creature reached for the spike again. More green and orange sparks flew from the metal, and again the beast shrieked.

  Can’t touch it, you bastard, can you? Kesselring tried to force his face into a knowing smirk, but he was incapable of it.

  The creature
approached again, but this time it reached for Kesselring’s pocket instead of the spike. It took the ex-cop a moment to figure out what was going on. The creature wanted the keys. He swung at it with the spike, and instantly it backed away. Then Jurkowski’s foot struck Kesselring’s side. Three more kicks followed before the ex-cop lost consciousness.

  Seventeen

  1

  “I blew it,” Kesselring said, his voice slurred by the painkillers.

  “I should have helped you,” Don said. “It’s as much my fault as yours.”

  Kesselring was in a small room at Doc Ingram’s place. It had two beds, and it served as a sort of mini-hospital at times such as this, when the Split made it impossible to get sick or injured persons to the hospital on the mainland. The retired cop had an IV in his arm, its plastic tube connected to a bottle hanging upside down from a stainless steel stand. Don was sitting in a chair beside Kesselring’s bed. The other bed was unoccupied.

  After eating dinner, Don had gone back to the police station. He’d found Kesselring on the floor, badly beaten and unconscious but still clutching the metal spike.

  “The Evil got away,” Kesselring said groggily.

  “I should have helped you,” Don said. “I’m sorry.”

  “The best chance I could have hoped for, and it’s gone.”

  “I was trying too hard to cover my ass. I wasn’t thinking of anything else.”

  “It would have taken the spike, but it couldn’t touch it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Green and orange sparks.”

  “You took a pretty good beating,” Don said, “but the doc says you’ll be okay. Couple of cracked ribs, some knots on the head, and a lot of bruises. He doesn’t think there’s any damage inside, at least nothing real serious.”

  “Screamed like nothing you’ve ever heard, he was so mad. But he couldn’t touch it. Couldn’t.”

  They were silent for a few minutes. Don thought Kesselring had gone to sleep. Then the ex-cop said, “Farraday, the spike, where is it?”

  “Here.” Don held up the case so Kesselring could see it.

  “It’s inside?”

  “Yes.”

  “He couldn’t take it from me.”

  “I know. You told me.”

  “You have to keep it. I’m not strong enough.”

  “But—”

  “You have to. The Evil’s still here, still trapped. There could be a chance for you to use it.”

  “Listen, I—”

  “You’re the only hope. I can’t do it.”

  Don said nothing. He was thinking about being the keeper of a custom-made metal spike that tingled his flesh when he held it. A thing with magical power. A thing designed to slay a creature from hell. It was a symbol of all this madness, and he didn’t want it in his possession. He opened his mouth to say this to Kesselring and found he couldn’t.

  “I’ll keep it for you,” he said.

  “Good,” Kesselring said. “Take it with you wherever you go. Don’t let it out of your sight.”

  “I won’t,” Don promised.

  A moment later, the retired cop was asleep. Taking the case containing the spike, Don left the room. Doc Ingram was waiting for him, standing in the hall with his arms folded.

  “He took a pretty good beating from somebody,” the physician said. “Who did it to him?”

  “Hollis Jurkowski.”

  “Jurkowski? But—”

  “He escaped.”

  “Escaped?”

  “Don’t ask,” Don said.

  Doc Ingram gave him a peculiar look but didn’t press for an explanation. Lowering his gaze to the case in Don’s hand, he said, “What’s that, carrying case for your billy club?”

  “That’s some more of the same craziness,” Don said and let it go at that.

  The physician studied the case, as if trying to look through it, and then his eyes rose, meeting Don’s. Silently the doctor communicated all the fear and bafflement he was experiencing. It was that same haunted look Don had been seeing all over the island.

  “All those freezers in the back room are using a lot of electricity,” Doc Ingram said. “The town going to pay me for it?”

  “Give me a bill. I’ll see it gets paid.”

  “There’re no more freezers,” the physician said almost absently. “Dennis O’Connor said that’s the last one he had, so please don’t bring me any more bodies.”

  “I hope there are no more bodies,” Don said.

  The two men just stood there for a few moments, neither speaking, then the doctor broke the silence. “You won’t be able to sell those freezers.”

  “Why?”

  “Who’d want them after they’ve had corpses in them?”

  “I don’t know,” Don said. Nor did he care. The fate of the freezers was the least of his concerns.

  Telling the physician to call him if there were any unexpected problems with Kesselring, Don left. As he climbed into the Cherokee, putting the black case on the floor, he considered the responsibility he had assumed. If he encountered the Evil, it would be up to him to drive the spike through the monster’s heart. No, not the monster’s heart. The host’s heart.

  Jurkowski would live only long enough for the monster to find a sure way of killing him. Who would the new host be? Stan or Patsy Brock? Joe Coleman? Corrine Matthews? Vince Terrell? Brittany Uhl? How could he use the spike on any of them? Maybe they were monsters on the inside, but on the outside they were still the same familiar people.

  And then another thought occurred to Don, one that made him feel cold all over.

  What if it was Allison? Or Sarah?

  The rain beat down on the Cherokee, swirled in the wind, coming first from one direction, then from the opposite one. Dirty water flowed through the gutters, carrying away the salt and sand that had accumulated over the winter, bubbling and churning as it ran into the grates of the storm drains.

  As Don drove through the curb-deep water, he muttered, “Evilslayer.” It was the name he’d made up for the object in the black case.

  It was not a term that gave him comfort.

  2

  The Evil stood in the basement of the elementary school. It was night, and the building was deserted. Although Jurkowski was the janitor there, his keys were in Don Farraday’s desk. The Evil had to break a window to get in.

  The basement was dingy and musty. Several stacks of moldering out-of-date textbooks stood along one wall, their covers puckered and warped, their pages brown with age. In the corner were a number of broken desks. One rested on its side. Scratched into the top in big awkward letters were the words fuck school. Kids were always writing fuck on things. Hollis Jurkowski had always wondered whether the students, ranging in age from five to twelve, really knew what it meant or whether they just wrote it because they knew the word was particularly upsetting to grownups.

  But then Hollis Jurkowski no longer worried about such things.

  Sometimes the host would try to resist, and some hosts were better at it than others. But Jurkowski’s efforts had been feeble, almost nonexistent. The school janitor had possessed neither the will nor the intellect to do anything other than surrender and invite the Evil in. In fact, it had been a long time since anyone had possessed the strength to resist the Evil after having allowed it to enter. The last person to truly put up a good fight had been an officer in the Roman army, a soldier in the service of Julius Caesar. In a moment of weakness, far from home and having just suffered a defeat in battle, the soldier—whose name the Evil had long ago forgotten—had let it in. Then, realizing his mistake, the soldier had struggled to regain control. Although the struggle had taken the best part of a day, the Evil had prevailed.

  It always prevailed.

  Although it used the human concepts of time, time was actually meaningless to it. It never slept. It never grew old. It had been here as long as mankind had, and it still looked exactly as it had when it was created. It had passed through neither a childhood
phase nor a nymph stage nor any other stage of development.

  It had no master. It did, however, have a creator, and it believed it resembled that creator. And it had a purpose. To feed. Its food was death itself, or more precisely the energy released by death, energy that had to pass through the plane of existence in which it lived. Death, any death, was satisfying, but death accompanied by terror was an exquisite delicacy.

  The thought kindled the hunger. It was time to feed.

  But not yet. There were things to do first.

  The monster feared only one thing. The metal spike that could end its existence. The metal spike it could not destroy, for it could not touch it. The existence of that oversized stone-tipped needle was the reason the monster had come to the basement. It had to be sure, absolutely sure.

  The building was old. A more prosperous community would have torn it down years ago, but Ice Islanders just kept fixing it, making do. The prevailing attitude seemed to be that good teachers and not fancy buildings were the key to a solid education. A teacher needed books, a blackboard, chalk, and a classroom. Period. The function of the building was to keep the students warm and dry; anything else would be extravagant.

  So the building was old. And so was its heating system. Lagging-covered pipes crisscrossed the basement ceiling, carrying steam to the radiators. They all met at the gas-burning boiler at the far end of the room. It was rusty and ancient-looking, but not as old as what stood next to it. The original furnace. A floor-to-ceiling brick structure with an iron door on which raised letters spelled out geo. watson and sons ironworks, Cleveland, ohio. It had originally burned coal and was later converted to natural gas, before being replaced by the present boiler in 1951.

  The old furnace still worked. It was still connected to the gas pipes, so it could be used as a backup in case the other system failed. The monster knew all this because it had absorbed the information in Hollis Jurkowski’s mind.