Dead Souls

by Michael Laimo

  Hugging the bawling baby under his left arm, Eddie hurriedly tried the door on his right. It occurred to him in this defining moment that he might very well be uncovering a coat closet for refuge, but was exceedingly thankful to find a set of wooden stairs disappearing down into chilly, dank darkness.

  "Come here!" the minister yelled. He reeled into the hallway, the pound of his boots sending vibrations into the floor beneath Eddie's feet. Eddie gripped the inside doorknob with his free hand and turned his right shoulder against the door, hesitating only a second before shoving his weight against it. The minister crashed into the solid wood with a painful grunt and skidded down onto the floor like an iron weight. For a moment he lay stunned, but then began thumping and sprawling, the hammer in his hand hitting against the wall as he struggled to his knees. The baby, eyes wide and terrified, squirmed and bawled in Eddie's arms. Eddie, grimacing from the burst of pain in his shoulder, hurriedly fled into the cellar.

  As he raced down, his most immediate thought was to protect the baby—and the only way he could do this was to hide it somewhere and then distract the minister upon attempting to flee. Eddie reached the bottom landing and tripped over something hard and heavy that shifted gratingly upon the cement floor. He shouted out, not in pain, but from fear of nearly dropping the baby. He crumpled down on one knee. The cement floor dug a jagged hole through his jeans and bit into his skin—he could feel a warm trickle of blood on his leg.

  There was a sharp thud—the sound of the hammer slamming onto the floor. Eddie shot a glance up the stairs and saw the bloody fingers of the minister grasping the edge of the partially open door.

  Eddie climbed to his feet and limped toward a stack of boxes, knocking into a standing lamp base that tottered back and forth. He circled around the boxes, then moved deeper into the cellar.

  Here the room grew a bit brighter, caught beneath the dusky light trickling in through the small windows. It was packed tightly with a wide array of shadowed clutter. boxes and lamps and dusty pieces of furniture. Rafters and pipes crisscrossed on the ceiling, swathed gauzy webs.

  He scampered to the farthest corner and hunkered down, listening with apprehension as the pounding footsteps of the minister, the same damn plodding monster steps that had come up the stairs to murder his family, made their way down.

  "I want my son!" the madman shrieked.

  Eddie became vaguely aware of a cool draft behind him. He spun. Looked. Here, coated in dust and cobwebs and a few greasy cloths, was a crawlspace.

  "Give me my baby boy!" The minister was in the cellar now. Eddie could see his head over the maze of boxes, bobbing as he lurched toward a large oil tank in the opposite corner. The man swept aside a stack of books, leaned down, and peered beneath the tank.

  Eddie scanned the immediate area. There was a burlap bag on the floor a few feet away, laying against a box like a dead possum. Keeping to his knees, he scooted over to it and grasped it, scowling at its stiff, rough condition.

  He peered at the baby; it was breathing raspily, wet eyes swollen and contemplating Eddie's unfamiliarity with intense yet trustful inquisitiveness.

  "I'm sorry…I'm sorry…" Eddie whispered, tapping a gentle finger over the baby's lips. I'm sorry. Quickly, he shrouded the baby in the bag, stood up, and tucked it deep into the dark crawlspace.

  "Bring me my boy, you son of the devil!"

  Head down, Eddie immediately raced back toward the stairs. The minister launched across the cellar toward him, hammer raised high. Quickly, Eddie stepped aside and pushed the standing lamp down. The minister tripped over the iron shaft and staggered into a stack of boxes. There was a loud shattering noise as both minister and boxes crashed down to the cement floor.

  Eddie, instead of fleeing—because fleeing would simply give the crazed murderer an opportunity to seek out his baby boy unhampered—fell to his knees and groped for the hammer. It quickly settled into his grip, fingers closing around the iron claw; blood spread across his palm, sticky and warm. He rose up on one knee, pulled. The minister tightened his grip on the handle and yanked back.

  They struggled. The minister managed to climb to his knees. Now both of them were kneeling, eye-to-eye, grimacing madly. The minister jerked and bucked and yanked; drops of blood flew from his torso and spattered a cardboard box. Eddie saw a window of opportunity and let go of the hammer, which caused the minister to plummet back down against the crushed boxes.

  Eddie scrambled to his feet. He glanced about, looking for something he could utilize as a weapon. The standing lamp was the only thing at his disposal. In one fluid motion, he grabbed it and swung it around. The exposed socket tore into the minister's wounded chest, like a knife into an ripened pumpkin.

  With a scream of both pain and exertion, the minister grabbed the end of the lamp with his free hand, and before Eddie could jerk it back, levered himself to his knees; black blood, glistening in the pallid light, fell down his chest in a stream.

  Eddie let go of the lamp. He made an attempt to plant a foot into the minister's chest, but lost his balance and missed. The minister dropped the lamp, and with a grunt, swung the hammer. It struck Eddie's shin with a sound like a firecracker going off.

  Eddie screamed. He collapsed to the cement floor and immediately started pushing with his good leg in an attempt to crawl away. The minister lurched forward, panting and growling like a dog. Eddie rolled sideways. His hand came in contact with the heavy thing he'd tripped over. He felt out a thin wire handle and the circular weightiness of a full can of paint.

  The minister screeched and leapt forward. The hammer's claw swept down over his head. Eddie grabbed the can of paint with both hands and held it up just as the hammer came down.

  The driving force of the hammer, and the weight of the can, proved too much for Eddie to absorb. The heavy can slid from Eddie's defending grip. It came down on his nose, shattering it. A silver burst of agony shot deep into his head, and he gagged and choked as blood and bone poured into his throat.

  In a purely instinctual move—because he knew quite well that the hammer was on its way down again—Eddie skittered back against the steps, and, despite his shattered shin, his shattered face, made a valiant effort to clamber up. The hammer hit the cement floor between his legs. Eddie jerked his body up a step. The minister crawled after him. This time Eddie was able to plant a foot squarely into the minister's forehead. The crazed man fell back and spilled to the floor.

  And that was when Eddie, even with the sheen of blood and bits of bone smeared in his eyes, saw the knife, its blade twelve inches of wet, bloody steel staring back at him. The minister must've kept it on him, he thought, 'it', as in the murder weapon. It rested on the cement floor between them like a dropped hockey puck. Eddie moved first, screaming in agony as he put weight down on his shattered leg. The minister, also setting his eyes on the knife, leapt up.

  He didn't go for the knife.

  He raised the hammer instead.

  Eddie latched onto the knife and stabbed upwards as the minister swung the hammer down. There was a ghastly popping sound as the knife sunk into the minister's left eye.

  Warm blood drenched Eddie's hand, and in this moment his mind reeled: This has happened before and will happen again…there is a significance here…I cannot explain it…is it because without sight we cannot seek our proper destinies?

  In the distance, the baby cried.

  The minister shrieked. Eddie attempted to back away, but couldn't move. In the span of a second, time fell into a frame-by-frame progression. Eddie held his bloody hand up—beyond it, he could see the minister, one hand groping for the knife that jutted from his eye-socket…the other swinging the hammer down.

  Eddie squeezed both his eyes shut, the final image in his line of sight imprinted clearly upon his dying mind: the hammer's claw, puncturing the top of his skull.

  A feeble scream trickled from his lips. He fell back down onto the steps. There was a dull pressure in his skull. A blinding white light filled his s
ights. He felt something like hands pulling him down, and he collapsed to the cold cement floor, the hammer sticking out of his head like a tomahawk. Caught in a void of darkness, he lay motionless as his life spilled out through the hole in his skull, his heart forcing its last few beats deep into his mind:

  Thump…thump…thump…

  Benjamin howled pure agony as the handle of the knife pendulated from his socket, nearly four inches of blade grasping the glutinous tissue that used to be his eye. With his good eye he could see the intruder, the baby-stealer, lying in a pool of his own blood, the hammer's claw buried in his skull.

  He tripped over the body and faltered up the steps, wholly intent on getting back into the barn, thinking crazily of the boy, David Mackey, whose eye he himself had gored, and then of his bawling son, who he was leaving behind in the basement.

  Bryan will come, the voice in his head promised. I will bring him to you.

  Thank you Osiris. And when he comes, I will deliver his soul to my family. Thank you for your guidance, my God.

  He wove through the house, the knife swinging back and forth from his eye like a blind man's walking stick. He burst through the kitchen door, and into the waiting night.

  We will be waiting for you Bryan. Osiris will bring you to us.

  As Benjamin staggered across the backyard, all the pain of his injuries returned to him. He collapsed in agony, just feet from the entrance to the barn, his injuries throbbing excruciatingly, spitting blood in gushes. He peered up at the doors. Reached out with his slashed arm, now flooded with pain.

  In the entrance to the barn was a figure—a looming shadow in the darkness.

  And Benjamin knew: it was not that of the spirit of Osiris. It was of something else, a rolling shapeless thing with sagging flesh crawling with buzzing horseflies. It filled the doorway, stretching and moving, black holes opening up and vomiting maggot-ridden birds. Stinking, withered feathers floated down from its roiling bulk and landed on Benjamin's wasted body.

  "Osiris…" Benjamin pleaded vainly, his voice barely a whisper.

  A black, shadowy appendage crept out from the thing. It latched on to Benjamin's neck, and with brutal speed, wrenched him into the barn, where the crucified souls of his family awaited for ancestral afterlife.

  PART TWO: THE LIVING, DEAD

  "What happens after death? Only the body dies. The soul…it lives on forever."

  —Scott Cunningham

  Chapter 28

  September 8th, 2005

  6:37 PM

  Visiting hours were in full session. She'd heard a nurse in the hallway telling someone that they ran from six to eight, but had expected no one to come. Not Ed, and not even Johnny. She gave God credit for imparting upon her this sudden, prescient knowledge.

  While the nurses hustled and bustled out in the hallway with their clipboards and their stethoscopes, her acceptance of abandonment was displaced with a wave of focused anxiety. It forced her to silently and furtively dress herself in the clothes she had come here with and sit on the edge of the bed to wait for an indication of when to leave.

  As the hallways grew more alive with activity, as more visitors came peeking at the small gold numbers on each door, as the day nurses left and the night nurses arrived, her answer came, perching itself upon the sill of the lone window in her room. A large black bird, a crow maybe, its feathers shiny-wet, glistening beneath the late-afternoon sun. The sounds of the city coalesced into an ambient blur, acting as a backdrop to the low whispering tone of the bird's command.

  Go to the house…

  She remained on the bed, staring out of the window at the bird, which hopped back and forth on the sill, cocking its head in a curious almost intelligent fashion, aiming its little gleaming eyes in at her as if waiting for her to heed its instructions. Although its beak did not move, she could distinctly hear the hollow whisper as it seeped into her head like a murmur from her own conscience.

  Go to the house…

  She stood from the bed, which creaked slightly, the steel supports pressing against the mattress as it assumed its original form. She stepped over to the window, heart pounding like a soldier's stride, hands firm in their intent to open the window and further her contact with the bird.

  She placed her hands against the cool pane and again looked out at the bird—she'd taken her eyes off it upon getting up from the bed—and in this fleeting moment the bird had not only died, but had rotted, giving host to a swarm of wriggling larvae in its now decomposed abdomen.

  A single black feather, healthy and glistening unlike the rest of the bird now, billowed in the breeze against the window's edge. Mary Petrie cracked the window the entire four inches it would go, and retrieved the feather with two reaching fingers.

  Holding the feather, she backed away, feeling suddenly confused, and yet, at the same time, strangely focused. It was as though her old self were doing battle with what appeared to be a sudden, novel realm of consciousness taking hold of her body, her mind. She placed the feather in her pocket, then gripped the steel railing of the bed, taking a few moments to catch her wits, which were as far away from her mind as a horizon on a clear day at the beach.

  She realized, quite suddenly, that she didn't need them to know what to do next.

  The house, she thought, peeking out at the dead bird, its small bony legs curled fetally against its wasted body, a single, withered feather quivering gently in the breeze. She looked down and with surprise saw herself wearing street clothes, not remembering now of how and when she got dressed.

  The bird's whisper returned: I will guide you.

  Mary Petrie, who was to be released from St Michael's Presbyterian Hospital in the morning, walked out into the hallway, looking no different than the scatter of visitors seeking out their loved-ones in the opened rooms. People glanced at her as she traversed the halls, a kind of thoughtful curiosity painted upon their faces. Were they assuming her to be the fleeing patient she in fact was? Or, one of the many visitors here to comfort their ailing loved-ones? She wanted to shout out: My boy has left me, he's been lured away by evil, and it is my destiny to rescue him from the damnation that impatiently awaits his arrival!

  She passed a doctor in the hall and moved into a stairwell on her right that released her one floor below into the busy lobby of the hospital.

  Without delay, she fled out the main entrance, into the night, a covert mission piloting her mind: go to the house.

  She walked and walked, for miles it seemed, blind to all the bustling sights as darkness released its cloak against the city's bright lights. Eventually, she arrived at her apartment building on 479 East 88th Street, where she rode the elevator up to the third floor. She got out and stepped down the hallway to her apartment.

  She turned the knob.

  The door was open.

  From inside came a noise, a dull, jarring thud…

  …thump…thump…thump…

  She entered the apartment. The kitchen table was just as she remembered leaving it, with the mail scattered, a lone torn envelope tossed aside like the stripped peel of a banana. The chair she fell from was still on the floor, her rosary laying beside it, a strip of shed skin.

  Johnny…

  Like a tangible discharge, the smell hit her: that of feces and urine and a hint of decay. She stepped across the living room, curious yet strangely expectant, listening to the noise, thump…thump…thump… and the three second intervals of dead pause between each occurrence.

  The door to her bedroom was ajar. Through the slight opening, she could see the curtain billowing in the night breeze like a ghost making its way into the sanctuary of her home…her sanctuary that had become a place of death—of evil making itself known once again in her life.

  Benjamin Conroy…

  She entered the room and saw her husband, who despite all his shortcomings had stood by her through thick and thin and had supported her every whim and way; here he was, now a dead man who under no circumstances would face the darkness th
at had returned to take his adopted son away; the man whose fear had proved to be much more dominant than the weak sense of love he held for a boy who had not one drop of Petrie blood in his veins.

  Here was the man who'd been dead for nearly two days. Whose body, pallid and blue beneath the room's glowing lights, swung from the leather belt looped around his neck. Whose head was twisted, whose eyes were coated and bulging from their sockets, whose tongue was protruding from his open mouth. Who was covered in a thick, black sheath of tar-like blood.

  The body swayed in the breeze gusting in through the open window. It hit against the wall, thump, adding to the solid 'O' there—the 'O' that was the first letter of the word scrawled in large wet bloody letters on the wall: Osiris.

  Mary leaned back against the doorjamb, staring at the man she'd been married to for twenty-seven years, the man who'd agreed to move away from the evil recollections in Wellfield that had slaughtered her family.

  The evil that had given them a son.

  Despite her initial hesitation to accept this gift…this gift resulting of the Devil's work, she'd not been able to deny her incapability to bear children. She'd spent endless hours trying to convince herself that the boy who'd become her son had in fact been a gift from God—His way of repaying her for her tragic loss.

  Now, gazing at Ed's hanging, lifeless body, her body trembling in the throes of oncoming shock, she realized that she'd never been so wrong.

  The blood on the wall is wet, as though the words had just been written…

  She took a step forward, into the room, beating back her gorge as the image she faced engraved itself into her mind: Ed's feet and legs, mottled black, his upper body and face blanched with empty blue veins showing though translucent skin. The bed had been moved aside, his body dangling over a clotted spot, a line of thick, dry blood shadowing his movement as the breeze pushed him up against the wall.