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

by Chet Williamson

  Then he kicked hard and began to use his arms like oars again, stroking forward. He could hear his children's laughter now, could feel his wife's touch and smell the fragrance of her perfume. He thought about the way her hair smelled after she had washed it with herbal shampoo, and he remembered the softness of her touch. Last night? Had it been that recent? It seemed a decade had passed since he had seen her.

  It seemed he'd been swimming that long too. He looked toward shore again. It still was a long way off. He fought the numbness, concentrated on moving one arm, then the other; one leg, then the other. Stroke, kick. Stroke, kick.

  He was still losing blood, and the ache in his muscles was growing worse. He wanted to scream but he couldn't waste the energy. His arms were getting weaker and weaker.

  But he kept on. Kick, stroke, kick, stroke.

  And then, unexpectedly, he was there, at the water's edge, reaching upward through the reeds to grasp the dock that shot out from shore.

  He found a grip at the edge of a piling and began to pull himself upward. Then, in the light from the poles, he saw the outlines of tiny figures, a half-dozen of them, standing on the pier. How had they made it there from the car? It didn't make sense.

  They laughed and cursed and spat down at him, and then he heard something, something like a rattle, yet it was not a rattle. It was a different sound, metallic. What was it?

  Clink.

  When the weight hit him, he knew what they were dropping.

  Chains.

  Chapter 13

  The next morning in California, Devon helped Danube find his way through the crowded airport to his departure gate. She was dressed in her uniform, but she sat with him as he waited for his flight to be called. When the speaker blared Danube’s flight number, he stood and slung his coat over his shoulder. Before he could leave, she took his arm, stopping him from walking toward the ticket taker.

  “Who are you?”

  Her brow was wrinkled with confusion.

  “My ticket reads Ahasver.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You would not believe me.”

  “What do you know about me?”

  “We are related. Far, far back our bloodlines have crossed. I have lived a long time, and I had some brothers and sisters.”

  “Brothers and sisters?”

  “Your ancestors.”

  She almost laughed. “I thought I’d seen everything out here, but not a redheaded stranger. That’s why you’ve been able to control me? You’re not joking?”

  “It’s not control exactly, more suggestion, but yes.”

  She shook her hair out of her eyes and looked up into his face. "Will this—lineage, is that it?—will it affect me?"

  He bowed his head. "It should not."

  "You can tell whether I'm going to succeed or not. You can tell that somehow, I know it. You read it in me."

  "You should not know the future," he said. "For better or for worse. If I had known my future long ago, I would never have been able to move forward. Now I know my destiny, and it is a very heavy burden."

  "But—"

  "Ask no more. You carry the blood of a man who had to exist, a man who played a great role in the shape of the universe, but he played his role as a betrayer. Forget that and move on. You cannot be held accountable for his sins. His guilt was his alone."

  "And you?"

  "I am not accountable, but I seek atonement—for myself. Not for him."

  He turned and pulled his ticket from his vest pocket, quickly disappearing through the doorway to the boarding tunnel.

  On the plane, he sat by a window looking out at the clouds. He had felt close to Devon in the brief time he had spent with her. If he hadn't had to leave he might have talked to her more, explained everything, and taken the time to know her. She was not quite a sister, not quite a daughter, but she could have been a friend.

  But there was no time. He was needed. He had followed an erratic strand of information. He had learned a little, but nothing of much value.

  Dave had been ruled out as the man behind the conjurings, and the Gnelf creators had confirmed what he had suspected about the forces they had disturbed.

  He had learned before that, despite the seeming chaos of the universe, things seldom happened without a reason. He feared that he had been directed or manipulated to follow this lead in order to be misdirected.

  If that was true, he had to return to Louisiana as quickly as possible. If someone had been wise enough to make the effort to get him out of the picture, and had succeeded in the attempt, then real danger existed for the mother and child. He chose not to let his imagination play with the possibilities.

  A crane borrowed from a nearby construction site hoisted the car out of the water once the Penn's Ferry police, working with hired divers, had managed to connect tow lines. With a creaking groan and the whirring rattle of the machine's engine, the vehicle rose into the morning air. In the sunlight, the water that poured out of it glistened like crystal.

  When people had begun to spot the huge hole in the billboard at daybreak, the cops had come out to look around and had found Marley's body, then his car. Tanner watched from the bank, standing among the police officers and the onlookers milling around. The mayor, a heavyset man with a flattop crew cut, also stood with his hands in the pockets of his brown suit jacket, watching.

  Tanner also had his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and he was thankful he was wearing it. The morning was brisk in spite of the season, and the dampness in the air, coupled with the nearness of the water, made it quite chilly.

  "You were a friend?" asked Frank Ahern, the Penn's Ferry chief of police.

  "Acquaintance," Tanner said. He couldn't decide how much to tell.

  "How'd you hear about it?"

  "Another friend of his, Althea Rogers, got a call from his wife. "

  Althea had gone directly to Mrs. Marley's side, and after Katrina had come over to join Gabrielle, Tanner had headed out to the accident scene to see if he could figure out what had happened.

  The police were still wondering about that, but he had an advantage. He knew there were demons involved. He could not question that any longer, even though he wished he could. The accident could be genuine, but he doubted it. Marley's body, which had floated to shore, was still lying beside the lake, but a sheet had been draped over it.

  Tanner made his way over to the chief after speaking to several other people. The chief had read his books and seemed talkative.

  "It's a puzzler," Ahern said, taking off his blue cap and scratching his balding head. A thin, wiry man, he was wearing a brown plaid cowboy shirt and brown slacks held up by a thick brown belt that had his first name etched on it in back.

  "Best we can figure he swerved off the road, hit that embankment, and went through the sign into the lake."

  "Maybe something ran in front of him."

  "Nope." Ahern shook his head. "He's got stab wounds. Several superficial ones and one pretty deep cut on his leg from what the coroner said. We're sending him to Bossier City for forensics, that's for sure, but I've seen stabs before. He'd been pricked like a pin cushion on his right side."

  “You mean someone was in the car with him?"

  "Looks like it. Like somebody was ridin' with him and started playin' a nasty prank, stickin' him. Only it went too far." The chief shook his head and plopped his cap back down on his head. "What I can't figure out is where the passenger went. He's not in the car."

  "Maybe he made it to shore, got away."

  "Maybe. If we find him we'll charge him with second-degree and it'll get bumped down to manslaughter. Way these things go."

  "Did the stab wounds kill Marley?" Tanner asked.

  "It's my guess he drowned."

  Tanner thanked the policeman and headed back to his car. If Ahern found Marley's killer he'd be hard pressed to put him on trial. Unless he assembled some sort of tribunal of priests, Tanner thought.

  He walked toward the water’s edg
e, past the sheet-covered body to a spot where the water lapped at cattails and licked his shoes. A narrow, almost unnoticeable path had been made through the reeds. They had been pushed apart, evidently to allow passage.

  He wanted Danube back. Things were getting out of hand, and despite his reservations, the red-bearded man seemed to represent the best chance of finding an answer to all of this.

  And ending it.

  Gab sat with Katrina at the kitchen table, sipping her third cup of coffee. She had not slept well, and the caffeine gave her a temporary boost to keep going. She had not cried, but remorse had seized her when word had come of the minister's death.

  "It's not your fault," Katrina said, reading her thoughts. "You couldn't have prevented it."

  "He was trying to help me, Kat. That wouldn't have happened to him if it weren't for me."

  "You don't know that anything happened besides his runnin' off the road. That does happen. Doesn't mean ghost demons got him."

  "Tanner went to check it out, but last night, after Reverend Marley had gone, Heaven woke up and was upset. She said he shouldn't have left here."

  "Are you saying she had a premonition?"

  "I think those things talk to her and she's afraid to tell me about it. You remember how upset she was at your house?"

  "She was scared of seeing them on TV, but then she got over it for a while."

  "She endured them when I was around because she didn't want to upset me. They must have told her something was going to happen to people trying to help me."

  "Gab, you're tired. All of this bullshit is starting to get to you. This guy in the monkey suit has convinced you all this is real, and you're believing it."

  "Tanner and Althea are convinced, and if you'd seen what's gone on, you'd believe it too."

  "Right, right. Look, you need to get out of this house. You can come stay with me for a while, get your mind off this and regroup and get Heaven some help. You don't need to see this Danube character again if he comes back."

  "He may be the only one that can help. You've got to understand, this is not something normal that's happening."

  "Gab, you're not bein' rational. This is crazy."

  "I've got to think of Heaven. Whatever it takes. If I have to bring a priest in to perform an exorcism, I'll do it."

  "Listen to yourself. You've got to pull yourself together. There are no Gnelfs."

  "Don't be so sure," Tanner said from the doorway.

  Gab was out of her chair and moving toward him before Katrina could protest. "What happened?" Gab demanded.

  Tanner embraced her. "They found stab wounds on his body. It looks like somebody sat beside him and poked at him until he ran off the road."

  "Oh, God." Gabrielle buried her face against his shoulder.

  "She didn't need to hear that," Katrina said, giving Tanner a hard, cold look.

  "It happened," he said.

  "Is everybody going crazy?" Katrina asked.

  "It's my fault," Gab said.

  "No. It's the fault of whoever is causing this," Tanner said.

  "Dave? Or whoever."

  "Maybe Danube will know something."

  "You're trusting this guy?" Katrina shrugged. "He's a nut. He just wanders in with some explanation about nuns in the Balkans and you guys buy it?"

  "Katrina, we've seen unbelievable things happen," Gabrielle said. "We have to trust him. He's the only one with any answers."

  "So he's snowed all of you. He must be some kind of cult leader. Don't drink any of his Flavor Aid. You think Dave is out in California summoning hobgoblins to aggravate Heaven and kill preachers?"

  "Somebody's doing something," Gab said calmly.

  "I think it's getting worse," Tanner said. "Up until last night they were all pranks, even the assaults on Heaven weren't deadly. Now they're getting brutal, and they actually were able to do things to Marley physically. Before they were able to assault Heaven, but when they went after Althea they manipulated the things around her. Think about it. It was the same here with the table. They didn't directly assault us."

  "They didn't kill Marley directly if they caused him to run off the road," Gab said.

  "No, but they were able to affect his actions. It's like they're gaining ground. Any one of us can serve as their channel—or whatever Danube was talking about. All of us have the gate symbols in our brains, and the more tangible the Gnelfs seem to us, the more they're able to do. I think they're using our thoughts to take physical form."

  "You're all going crazy," Katrina said. "Gab, you shouldn't be hanging around with this guy. I might have known a writer would be weird."

  Tanner grinned in spite of their grim situation.

  "What I'm saying is that these forces are gaining power over us. It's like they're using our thoughts, our images to make themselves real, tangible in the here and now."

  "You’re saying the more we conceptualize them—"

  "The more that concept becomes real," Tanner finished.

  "That's crazy," Katrina said. "Y'all's imaginations are coming to life?"

  "No, our imaginations are being used by spirits without form to create forms for themselves. We're open to being used because we've seen the symbols of the gates in the children's books."

  "Did you get all this from that rabbi?" Katrina asked.

  "No. I'm a writer. I'm thinking it up as I go along."

  "It doesn't make sense to me," Katrina admitted.

  " Heaven was susceptible first because she has the imagination of a child and no skepticism," Gab said.

  "That's why she was cut directly," Tanner said. "Marley had reached that point in his car."

  "And they could strike any of us now," Gab said.

  Althea returned to Gab's place in mid-afternoon, tired and ready to collapse. She had not cried for Marley, but she'd felt tears as she'd spoken with his wife. She knew holding her own grief back was not emotionally healthy, but she could not indulge personal pain. She had to be on hand for Gabrielle and Heaven. Marley had died for his calling, and she would not relinquish the commitment to help people. It had cost her a marriage, and it had cost her in other ways, but she couldn't run away from that responsibility now. She had made a vow.

  True, her involvement had been with catalogued theories, but confronted with a reality totally alien, she would face this evil in whatever form it chose.

  She had suffered as a child, trapped in the world of her mother and her mother's lovers. She remembered Theodore, the one who had moved in, the one who had wanted to be her "uncle" the one who’d left scars that had not been erased even by therapy.

  People could find so many ways to hurt each other and use each other.

  Some entirely different method was being used to attack Heaven, but was it that different? It all wound up being the same thing—assault, violation that tore at the very soul. Someone out there had feelings perceived as needs, and whatever had to be done, whoever had to suffer, to fulfill those needs did not matter. Marley was dead, others were hurt and frightened.

  She would do everything in her power to keep Heaven from suffering the trauma and the horrible nights she herself had known, and if possible she would help Gabrielle fight back.

  "You look pretty tired too," Gab said.

  For the first time Althea noticed how deep and black the circles under Gab's eyes were. "None of this is your fault," she said.

  " I must have done something, something that's brought the wrath of hell down."

  Althea shook her head, remembering the guilt she had carried for so long. It had been years before she had spoken of it, not until she had begun to make breakthroughs, to achieve understanding. Now she heard the feelings that had once plagued her coming from Gab's lips.

  "You are being made a victim," Althea said softly. “Someone is using Heaven to bring guilt and pain to you. The blame goes to whoever is behind this, Dave or whatever or whoever it is."

  Softly she touched Gab's hair, wishing she could offer comfort, but all of
her training and experience did not give her words. This was a hell that had to be endured.

  Danube watched through the cabin window as the jet climbed through blue-gray storm clouds. Tiny droplets of water formed on the glass outside, were quickly pressed flat and became small moist streaks like the tracks of tiny slugs. Then they were above the clouds, and he was looking out across a blanket of damp gray cotton, but he felt like he was sitting still.

  It had been a mistake to leave Gabrielle and Heaven.

  He had faced many dark forces during his time with the order, but now he could sense something or someone had seized great power. Vibrations inside him were more intense than he had known, even in the presence of almost pure evil.

  The use of the gates was just the beginning. More and more power could be obtained, and if the proper doors were opened he could only begin to list the nightmares which might be released.

  The drugged-out man he had left in Los Angeles could not be responsible, nor were the Gnelfs' creators aware of the full extent of the powers with which they had dabbled. What did that leave?

  Some other lunatic who had been able to lay hands on forbidden writings.

  He wondered how bad it would be if he lost. In losing, at least he might be set free. Free for the first time in almost an eternity.

  A new scene fluttered into view, projected above the clouds from his memory, a dirt road, crowded on either side by people, hundreds of people, perhaps thousands. They shouted and jeered at the man walking down the road, Roman legionnaires behind him.

  Danube had stood among the crowd, not jeering or throwing things or spitting. He was too young for that, too young to be swept up in the frenzy. He did not understand why they hated the man so. He could not explain the fury in their cries. The man—he had hardly known him—had seemed so gentle, so caring.

  Many things were confusing. He could not understand why his father had been so withdrawn the night before, so despondent and sick.