Faith of a Monster Killer: Killing Forever Book 3

by David J. Phifer

  Maya closed her eyes. I think she was praying.

  With our bodies pressed together as one, I felt Maya’s racing heart. Her breathing quickened. She was terrified. Carefully, slowly, and with precision, I moved my hand over her mouth to quiet the sound. She followed with several deep breaths through her nose.

  Quietly.

  I have a hard time remembering when I was that frightened. To be that scared, you had to be afraid of death. Or pain. I don’t remember the last time I valued my life enough to care about either.

  Maya thought she was going to die. And she was right. But she wasn’t used to dealing with evil sons of bitches that wanted to devour you. It’s not that fear ever really goes away. The lizard part of the brain is still there, crying out to survive. To flee. But over time, with the over-stimulation of killing monstrous sons of bitches, it loses its hold on you. And you just become numb to it.

  The beast moved away from Maya’s face, trudging in the other direction. Maya’s hands were trembling.

  I set my hand over hers to steady them. “Remember to breathe,” I whispered. She looked up at me with large eyes. The terror inside them made my heart skip.

  Redmann smacked his palm against the glass. “Hey! They’re right there, you idiot.” He pointed at us. Meshach glanced back our way but didn’t pursue our direction.

  As long as we stayed in the circle, we were invisible to it. As far as the creature was concerned, we did not exist.

  Several of Redmann’s goons brought Augie into the lab and threw him to the floor. He was beaten pretty badly. And from the way he was holding his arm, I could tell his shoulder was out of its socket.

  Redmann took off his round spectacles and cleaned them. “Are you using magic? How barbaric. Clever but pointless.” Redmann snapped his fingers.

  Right on cue, his Shadrach bodyguard wrapped all four hands around Augie’s head. With the massive hands, claws, and talons around his skull, I could barely see the kid’s face.

  Redmann put his glasses back on. “Whatever you are doing, stop this now or I’ll crush the boy’s head. His brains will be jelly in Shadrach’s hands.”

  I glared at Augie.

  Augie knew what he was getting into. If he died, it was his own damn fault. But even if Redmann killed him, we were still helpless at the hands of the Meshach beast. It was going to find us eventually.

  I had a feeling when crossing the veil this morning that I wasn’t going to make it back. There was only one thing left to do.

  I whispered to Maya. “You’re meant to be something greater,” I told her. “Be patient with yourself. More patient than I’ve been. Be resolute and uncompromising.”

  She whispered, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “It only wants one of us.” I got to my feet.

  Maya grabbed my hand, trying to pull me back down. “No, no, no. Don’t leave me—”

  “Don’t be cruel to August. He has a good heart. Even if he is an assclown.” I scowled harshly. “But if you sleep with him, I’ll come back and haunt your ass.”

  She shook her head. “Stop it. Don’t say goodbye. I need you.” She squeezed my hand with a death grip.

  “Don’t hold on too tight,” I said, tugging as she gripped harder. “You need to learn to let go.”

  “Please, Ivy, don’t leave me.”

  I yanked my hand, forcing her to release me. Ignoring the tears in her eyes and that horror-struck look on her distressed little face—

  I stepped out of the circle.

  No longer in the circle of protection, I was visible to the beast. To the creature, I imagine it was like I suddenly popped into existence. A sudden blip appearing on his radar.

  Meshach swiveled his thick deformed head toward me as the tentacles from the portal all turned my way in unison.

  I knew what was coming. Meshach grabbed me and opened his mouth. Large, dark red and black tendrils coiled from its mouth and slithered down my throat. I didn’t fight it. I waited for my eyes to liquefy like the cop’s had. But they didn’t.

  Lucky me, I must have been a perfect match to become the monster’s newest donor.

  The large tendrils lowered from the portal and wrapped around my waist, arms, and neck. I cut my eyes to Maya one last time. She was on her knees, reaching out, bawling her eyes out. Barely able to catch her breath.

  She shimmied to the corner and pulled her knees up, burying her face in her arms, unable to watch.

  As the black snakes made their way down, they no longer filled my airways. They were inside me. And I was free to speak.

  “Maya,” I said with a voice made of gravel. “Maya, look at me.” She peered over her arms, her face twisted in pain. “I’m proud of you, firebug.”

  The tentacles lifted me into the portal, pulling me deep into the creature’s universe until the circle of light leading to my world—

  Was gone.

  Chapter 30

  The Abyss of I Am

  I floated in a sea of dark endless liquid, swimming between folds of serpentine flesh and squirming worms. There was no air, yet I breathed freely. At first, the liquid, the atmosphere, whatever it was… stung my eyes. But the pain soon subsided. I kept my eyes open. Not that there anything to see. Mostly blackness with giant tendrils shifting around me. It was as though I was dropped into a giant jar of oil and earthworms.

  This was the universe of the beast. Home of The Presence.

  Until it came upon our world, this was the only home it had ever known.

  Imagine growing up in a dark room with nothing else around you. Nothing to interact with. No pets, no people, no toys. Only darkness.

  There’s a reason why solitary confinement is the worst punishment given in prison. You’re alone in a dark room, confined to the one thing you can’t stand: yourself. It’s enough to drive you insane. Over the course of a billion years, the damage to your mind would be irreversible. It was no wonder the entity wanted to invade our world.

  It had nothing else to do.

  I sensed myself floating, but had no up or down to relate my movement to. I was weightless. The liquid felt like protoplasm. Only it was warm.

  I had the hunch I wasn’t just inside the monster’s universe, I was inside its consciousness. It had… he had a mind. Much like when he appeared to me in the cavern, he said he was swimming through the fluid of humanity’s consciousness. Now I was swimming through his.

  It was a giant deprivation tank. I couldn’t tell where I ended and The Presence began.

  At least I was still alive, that was the most important thing. And quite a surprise, I have to say.

  Since escaping the cavern, I had been silently praying over myself, blessing my body for protection. Between the prayer and numerous sigil tattoos on my body warding off possession, I was fairly certain I was protected from the beast transforming me into his unholy minion.

  But only fairly certain. And certainly not positive. It could just be that I gave the fucker a bad case of indigestion.

  Any moment now, I expected to cough up the squirming thing inside me just like Maya did. I felt it moving in my gut. Trying to change me.

  I continued on with my prayers. Only this time, I said them out loud.

  Even though the air was liquid plasma, sound still escaped my lips in this dimension. I was surprised sound even existed here at all.

  If The Presence could shift through people’s minds in my world, there had to be a means for me to do it in his world as well. Swimming through the alien embryonic fluid, I calmed my mind and relaxed.

  I wondered if the fluid was slowly dissolving me. Eating my cells from the inside without my knowing. Maybe I was just a tiny cell and my body was already dissolved. And the thoughts I currently had were merely echoes of my memory replaying through eternity.

  From the depths of the abyss, a voice rang out.

  Why did you abandon me?

  It was a voiceless voice. Neither male nor female. Neither young nor old. As I examined the sound, I realized
it wasn’t a voice at all. And not merely a thought. It was a feeling.

  More of them rushed into me.

  I hate you. Why did you do this to me? Who am I? What am I? Why do I exist? Why me? I’m not real…

  Feelings of shame, rage, confusion, hurt, loss, and vengeance pushed through my body. It was overwhelming. These weren’t my thoughts, but they were familiar. I heard them hundreds of times before. They didn’t belong to human beings.

  They were the thoughts and feelings of Forever People.

  This is what Maya must have felt. What she said was calling out to her. The pain and suffering she felt.

  I swam through a universe of dark feelings. An abyss of darkness coming from every Forever who ever existed.

  When a human being experiences pain or grieves, where do those emotions go? Energy is never destroyed, just transformed. So it must travel somewhere.

  The Bible says to let your requests be made known to God. If our Creator absorbs the heaviness of humanity, who absorbs the heaviness of Forever People? If God doesn’t give them comfort or strength, who takes their darkness? Where does it go?

  Floating in the vast abyss of dark protoplasm, I had my answer.

  My mind drifted to the skulls found in the caverns. They decayed to dust. I thought it was because they were centuries old. But I was wrong. It was because they weren’t human.

  They were Forevers. Their organic tissue breaks down faster than humans because the DNA isn’t real.

  The German in the video.

  The skeleton in the well.

  The bodies in the cave.

  They were all Forever People.

  Goddammit. Why didn’t I see it before? They weren’t trying to contact the entity for power. Or to win the war. They were trying to raise a devil.

  Their devil.

  The Dark God of the Forever People. The creature who absorbs every desperate thought, every painful moment, every sinful feeling. The energy had to go somewhere. Since energy can’t be destroyed, it merely transmutated into something else. That energy didn’t go to God. It coalesced into form. It created this universe, this monstrosity, this reality.

  Their darkness formed a universe of despair.

  It gained sentience. It became curious. Now, this dark god wants to know freedom, to explore the universe, to know itself through humanity by becoming humanity.

  Fucking twisted piece of horseshit. I was getting a headache. This entity was the antithesis of God. Instead of the holy light, it was the unholy dark. And Redmann wanted to give it life.

  It’s the collective consciousness of Forever People. And it’s one dark, epic son of a bitch.

  Forever People are a mistake of nature. A cosmic fluke. They may not technically be real, but their pain sure is.

  My mind ran wild as I made connections that hadn’t come before. After all, I had nothing but time.

  Everyone on the Island, whether Forever or not, has probably contributed to the pain that created The Presence, because they were trapped in that space, in the aura of the beast, literally separated from God. The feeling I got when I crossed the veil wasn’t a feeling at all. It was the end of feeling. A complete separation from divinity. Sure, we still had our souls, we didn’t become psychopaths, but our spirits were lost in translation.

  Or maybe all this was merely speculation and The Presence really is just an evil prick who hatches lizard monsters from people’s chests.

  Chances are it was a bit of both.

  The creature’s snake, or brood, or whatever the hell you call it, was still inside me. Probably transforming me from the inside. I couldn’t sit here and accept my fate. I had to do something. Unfortunately, having options were not a luxury I had at the moment.

  If I was lucky, maybe I could reach Sam. If he was dream-walking, there was a chance I could connect to him. Even from a different universe.

  The state I was in had to be similar to a dream state. This dark jelly around me acted like a deprivation tank. Slowing my brain frequency to a sleep state. I focused my mind and reached out to Sam. After several minutes, there was no response. He wasn’t dream-walking at the moment. And didn’t sense me reaching out.

  That pissed me off to no end. I didn’t like not having options. For once, I had no backup plan. I was helpless. Not my favorite spot to be in. My mind was all I had. My consciousness.

  I should have known not to come through that damn veil. Whenever there was a broken veil in our world, nothing ever good rests on the other side.

  I should have thrown that stupid file from Wilcox back in the fire. I should have waited it out until Zac was back in the real world of Chicago. I should have let go of Karen Bell.

  But no. I had to poke my nose into Blackwell’s business. And got screwed for it. Again. Trapped across the veil in a bunker created by Nazis. Floating in the body of a dark deity.

  I began to tire. The neurons in my brain were slowing down. My mind drifted to the memory of the film with the American scientist and the possessed man in the chair.

  Were Forever People using the scientist for their own evil ends? How many humans worked in the bunker and how many were Forever? And how many were goddamn Nazi sons of bitches?

  The only thing worse than a Forever Person is a Forever Person who’s also a Nazi. How many goddamn layers of evil can you pile on top of one another?

  Twenty questions popped into my mind. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open or closed. All I saw was black.

  Without warning, sparks of light danced in my brain. Neurons were firing again. I opened my eyes. I was no longer in the dark void.

  I was in the bunker. I fell into the wall, tripping over my own feet. I glanced at my hands. But they weren’t my hands.

  I coughed. “Where am I?”

  A man in a white lab coat reached out to steady me. “What’s wrong, Thomas?” he asked.

  I scrunched my brow. “Who’s Thomas?”

  “The Entity has taken its toll on you,” he said. “You’re losing your marbles.”

  As I steadied myself on a metal table, the calendar on the wall stared at me. On it, a group of women wearing old-style bathing suits waved to soldiers going off to war. My eyes fell to the date.

  The date was 1943.

  Chapter 31

  A Ship Without a Rudder

  When I awoke, I opened my eyes to 1943. I was in the bunker, trying to catch my breath. My legs were failing. The man beside me was a scientist, the same scientist from the black and white war film.

  He grabbed my arm, trying to keep me on my feet. “Are you channeling it? Is this the Entity?”

  I squeezed his hand. My words were slurred. “The Nazis-” I coughed.

  “Stop this, Thomas. These men are our partners, not Nazis. They defected of their own accord. They want to stop Hitler as much as we do. I know you’re suspicious, but we must trust them.”

  “We must destroy The Presence.”

  “Is that the Entity’s name? The Presence?” He shook me. “Get a hold of yourself, Thomas.”

  My hands trembled. My heart pounded out of my chest. These men were responsible for releasing The Presence into the world. If I could stop them, I could stop The Presence from ever coming through. The world would be safe. And Karen Bell would still be alive. It all came building to one simple conclusion:

  Everyone in this bunker must die.

  I threw my grip around the man’s throat and took him to the floor. Normally, I could snap his neck in a second, but I was so weak, I felt like a child trying to control a life-size puppet.

  He grabbed my wrists. “Thomas, stop this—”

  “You idiot,” I shouted. “You have no idea what forces you’re dealing with. You’re going to destroy the world.”

  He choked on the words, peeling my hands off his throat. “W-we’re s-saving the world.” He reached out to someone behind me. “Heinrich. Help—”

  I glanced back. The last thing I saw was a blond German soldier coming at me with the butt of his gun.
>
  When I jerked my eyes open, I was back in the black abyss of The Presence, floating aimlessly in ectoplasm.

  Did I just have a dream? A delusion? Was it the result of my brain matter breaking down from the acid of the ectoplasm?

  Or did I really hop into the body of a soldier from 1943? Did I travel back in time?

  I was moving through consciousness. And if consciousness was fluid, then so was time. If I was swimming inside of humanity’s consciousness like The Presence did, perhaps I was following the beast’s trail, skipping to the minds he inhabited.

  And if consciousness and time are the same, then I should be able to skip anywhere inside the continuum where the beast existed. If he touched that point in time, in theory, I should be available enter into it.

  If I could go back to 1943 again, maybe I could stop this. Destroy everything before it starts.

  I needed a connection. Some kind of memory or emotion. That had to be what triggered the transference before. It couldn’t have been random.

  I wished we had reviewed more of the film footage when we first found the hidden bunker. Had I seen more clips, I would have more connections, more memories, which I could grab onto.

  I could still feel the German clocking me over the head. Even though it wasn’t my head. His hard face and stiff upper lip were crystal clear in my mind.

  Without warning, I was yanked through the dark abyss like a bullet.

  I opened my eyes and glanced at my hands. They were stockier than the hands I had before. A different man’s hands. I passed a parked truck and stared in the rear-view mirror. I was the blond German, Heinrich.

  I reached into my coat and pulled a Walther P38 handgun. I tucked it back under my coat. The scientist was most likely the head of this operation, the brains behind the communication with The Presence. Without him, their little science project would end. He had to be the first to die.

  I moved down the hall, passing dozens of workers. I rounded the corner and there he was. The scientist. At the main console.