by JKMelby74
“Herbert sits there.” She said while holding her knitting needles in a threatening manner. I stepped back and turned to the homeless guy. I wasn’t sure if I wanted the seat next to his head or his feet. He was bald so I figured there was less chance of there being any parasites there so I sat there. The smell wasn’t as strong as I thought it would have been, but I soon felt a strange itching sensation come over me. I looked down and I could literally see the bugs traveling across the armrest from him to me. I leapt up and brushed my body up and down as quickly as I could. Gwen came up to me just then.
“She’s in room two ten.”
“Fine. Let’s go.” We then headed for the elevators.
We stepped out of the elevator at the second floor and I spotted room two ten right away.
“Keep watch.” I said as I went in. The only light available was the small light that was fixed above Demonica’s bed. She was curled up under the sheets. I heard the rhythmic beep of the monitoring equipment.
“About time.” She then turned over to face me. Her face was pale, more so than usual. Her eyes looked heavy and swollen.
“Sorry. I had some paperwork to deal with.” I pulled a chair up to her bed.
“That’s fine. You’re here now.”
“Okay, I don’t have a lot of time. What were you trying to tell me back at the house?”
“Jackal. He betrayed The Reborn. I guess in his research, he discovered another sacred rite. A way to transfer Morgan’s powers to him without reviving her.”
“So he killed them all?”
“Yes. He found a way to destroy them permanently. He wasn’t going to let them keep running around wild like that. He couldn’t risk it.”
“Why didn’t he kill you?”
“It’s not like he didn’t try. I had gotten wise to his little plan and I would be dead if one of those zombies hadn’t wandered up and distracted him. I heard it all from upstairs though. It was horrible.” Demonica said with a slight shiver.
“You know what he’s doing?”
“Of course. I’ve known about this little incantation for some time and I know exactly what he needs to accomplish it. He has Morgan’s body and the dagger. The only things he needs now are four sacrifices of blood and a place to perform the ritual. It must be done someplace that is strongly tied to the one casting the spell. A place with deep emotional meaning.” I thought about it quickly and a thought popped into my head.
“What about the dagger? Did you find out how it can be destroyed?” Demonica’s face fell slightly.
“I was only able to find a very odd verse about this subject.” Demonica reached for the drawer in the nightstand. She pulled it open and plucked out a small slip of paper.
“The dagger can only be vanquished when surrounded by the place where all life began.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. That’s all I was able to find. If I had more time...”
“But you don’t. I have to go.” I got up and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Better you don’t know. I’ll see you later.”
When we returned to the car, I got in behind the wheel while Gwen belted herself into the passenger seat.
“Well? What did she say?”
“She told me that Jackal betrayed The Reborn and plans on transferring all of Morgan’s power into himself.”
“Why do you sound so happy? This is bad, isn’t it? We still don’t know where Jackal is.”
“Oh, yes we do.”
“We do?” I turned to her and did my best to muster up my most charming smile.
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.”
“What the Hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll find out. Get comfy.”
Chapter 32
Slater
We had been driving on the interstate for two hours straight. There were a few stories on the radio about how I had escaped police custody, but we were so far past the city, no one would be looking anymore and the car we were driving wasn’t even on their radar. I held to the speed limit as best I could and at about eleven, I finally got off the freeway and took some back roads to get to where we were headed.
Gwen was fast asleep in the passenger seat. She didn’t even wake up as we hit all the bumps and rises on the dirt road. I managed to find a rather large pothole along the path and that rattled her at last.
“What? Where are we?”
“We’re on the road to where we’re going.”
“Which is? Where are you taking me?”
“We’re going to Slater.”
“Slater?”
“A small town. It’s where Jackal grew up.”
“You think he’s going back to his hometown?” Just then, we drove around a large bend and I could see the humble town of Slater up ahead. We cruised by a rather intricately built wooden sign by the side of the road that was meant to welcome visitors to Slater. The name of the town was carved into the wood in big letters and there were little flowers and butterflies painted lovingly around the letters. It had seen better days as the paint was terribly faded and the wood had clear signs of rot. It was looking more like a warning sign than of welcome.
Slater was a town that boasted a population of five hundred at its most dense. It had been a dairy town back in the day and it survived solely on the profits of its cash crop, milk and dairy products. Over time, though, competition and industrialization proved to be Slater’s downfall. Profits began to slip and then dropped off altogether. The cows were sold, the fields died which caused all the family owned farms to fold and the town of Slater fell into a financial slump it would never recover from. It became a ghost town in the truest sense of the term. The buildings were just empty husks that stood as painful reminders of the past. Its current population was a little more than a hundred and that was true only if you counted the homeless dregs that insisted on hanging on.
We drove through the heart of the town. Small streets lined with decrepit and rusted out stores and buildings. Abandoned cars were parked along the neglected roads and street lamps that once burned brightly stood dead and cold. The most activity I could see was down one alley. There seemed to be a group of homeless huddled around a burning oilcan.
“This is depressing.”
“This place has seen better days.”
“No wonder Jackal grew up to be so twisted. This looks like the kind of place that just churns out serial killers by the busload.”
“Oh. This is nothing. Wait ‘til you see where we’re stopping.”
“We’re stopping? You’re actually stopping the car here?”
We drove past the main drag of Slater and up a large hill. We came up on Sunnyridge Orphanage. It was the most prime piece of real estate in Slater as it had the best view of the entire town and it was the largest parcel of land available in the county. I brought the car to a stop just in front of the main gate leading up to the house. A twisted oak tree sat in the middle of a small field nearby. Its branches were bare and listless. I got out of the car but Gwen seemed resistant. I ran over and pulled her door open.
“We’re here.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. This is like something out of some cheap slasher movie. Why are we here?”
“This is where Jackal grew up. Inside those walls.”
“This was his home?”
“It was an orphanage. His mother died during childbirth and his old man never showed up after that to claim him. The state just stuck him in here.” Gwen finally slipped out of the car. She walked about carefully and tried to get the lay of the land. I heard her step on something wooden. We looked down and saw that she was standing on the sign that had once been posted proudly at the entrance. It was worn and cracked and there were some signs of vandalism, but it was still legible.
“Sunnyridge. That sounds pleasant.”
“Well, it was anything but. This place had a long track record of abuse and cruelty. Of cou
rse, none of this ever came to light until five years after Jackal escaped.”
“You know quite a bit about Jackal.”
“I’ve been fighting with him for a long time. It was there he got into the occult. It was his way of escaping his tormentors. He studied all the books he could get his hands on. By the time he was sixteen, he was tapping into some seriously dark power. It was all downhill from there.”
I walked over to the main gate. It had been chained shut but I managed to slip through. Gwen came running over.
“You don’t mean for us to actually go in there, do you?”
“He’s not going to come out here to us. Now come on. Just squeeze through.”
“I’m not going in there. It looks like it should have been condemned years ago!” I noticed a sign on the ground and picked it up.
“Good news. It was.”
“What do you need me in there for anyway? You’ve got the strength.”
“You have a point.”
“Good.”
“You can stay here and keep watch. You have your phone on you?”
“In the car.”
“If I’m not out in twenty minutes, call someone.”
“Who?”
“Anyone.” I turned from Gwen and headed toward the house.
The house was run down dump. The wood was rotted and dark. All the windows were cracked and broken. The closer I got, the more I could hear the worn out planks of wood creak and snap at the slightest breeze. It just looked evil to me. It sprawled out at me like a predator with gnarled claws. When the wind blew, it whistled like a banshee. Beckoning me in or warning me away. I wasn’t sure which.
The front door stood open as if like an engraved invitation. Jackal wanted me to come to him. I set my foot upon the first step and it broke under my weight. Bugs scrambled around madly as I jumped back. I found some solid footing and went inside.
The interior was even worse than the exterior. It was like walking through some kind of demented dollhouse. The wallpaper was worn and cracked. It looked as though the original floors and lights had been left intact, but were covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. The doors had been taken off their hinges and I could feel a chilled wind blow in from all directions. At times, it sounded like the faint laughter of small children, at others, it sounded like their screams. It was a very bad place and very bad things had happened there, and as it rotted, it seemed to still attract bad things.
Every step I took inspired a chorus of strange and unnatural noises. I moved into the room to the right. It was long and wide and I could only assume it once was a parlor of some kind. There was a line of lit candles running along the floorboards, casting long shadows along the walls and leading to an open door at the other end of the room.
“Hello, Jake!” Jackal’s voice came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I heard footsteps behind me. I turned and three leather clad biker punks burst in. They dressed the part perfectly. Thick leather boots. Black t-shirts. One of them even had a spiked collar wrapped around his neck. Their eyes were glazed over and seemed stiff and awkward. “I met these fine young men at the local watering hole. I explained to them what I was planning and after a little coaxing, they were all too eager to help me arrange this little surprise.”
Suddenly the shortest of the three broke his stride and pounced at me. I jumped back but he whipped his arms out wildly. His friends came swarming around on either side of me. They were on me faster than I thought they would be and they each had my arms. The runt in front of me smiled and threw his meaty fist at my chin. His hand felt like a ball of concrete. My mouth was already filling with blood when he landed another blow. After the fourth, I started to feel a stray tooth swim around.
Before he could connect again, I jumped back and smashed his face with the sole of my shoe. I felt his nose break under the pressure. I seemed to surprise his friends because their grips loosened and I was able to shake free. The puny guy crawled to the corner to nurse his wound, but his buddies still wanted to play.
They began circling around me, sizing me up. They both came charging at me. I grabbed one by the neck and swung him around at his friend causing both of them to tumble to the floor. I caught my breath for only a second when they got back up and started at me again. The voice in my head began to pound in my brain louder. Whatever was living in me had just woken up. I began to feel the power surge through me but as it did, I noticed the thugs’ eyes. They began to go wild all of a sudden. They came at me and their strength was surprising. I pushed and punched as best I could but then I heard someone approaching. I turned my head and saw the runt had gotten his second wind as well, and was on a collision course with my spine. Things got dark after that.
When I woke up I was lashed to a large chair. There was only the light of the candles around the room to give me an idea of where I was. It looked like a basement of some kind. I suddenly noticed three people tied up on the floor. I wasn’t sure if they were dead or not, but suddenly I saw one of them move and another let out a muffled yelp. It was then I realized my mouth had been muzzled. I heard a door open and close and Jackal drifted in from the top of a staircase in the back. He was wearing a black robe. His face looked different too. There was something more ferocious in his eyes. Whatever magic he was using, it was taking its toll on him.
As I focused my eyes more, I could see an altar on the other side of the room with a body wrapped in a red blanket lying across it. Morgan, I assumed. Jackal’s eyes found me and he approached slowly. He lifted my head with his finger under my chin. His touch burned like acid.
“I’m so glad you could come to my little party, Jake. It just wouldn’t be the same without you.”
Chapter 33
Sacrifices Will Be Made
My eyes focused and I could see everything more clearly. The room was lined with small black candles. In the middle of the floor there was a large black blanket spread out and the three victims Jackal had taken were tied up and gagged on top of it. Their arms were pinned behind their backs and their legs were tied together. The one on the end was an old lady who had a head of white hair and I could see tears streaming down her cheeks.
I looked down at the bonds holding me to the chair. They were cutting into my skin, making me bleed. I tried to pull free, but whatever they were made of was stronger than me. Jackal was standing before me and he was slowly pushing his claw-like fingers into my chin.
“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long,” Jackal ripped my gag from my mouth and then paced around the room like a shark seeking his prey. His robe floated behind him like a cape of living shadows. He stopped at the small altar. He stood over the figure wrapped in the red blanket and I noticed the dagger on the floor next to it. Jackal bent over and picked it up. It looked like he was getting some kind of charge from it. His head snapped around and his eyes found me quickly. “Jake Corba. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have you here.”
“What is all this?”
“A little ritual your friend Demonica clued me in on. Not intentionally, of course. I had to pry it out of her, but it was worth it,” He came up to me with the dagger swinging back and forth like a pendulum. “She told me that there was a way I could take Morgan’s power and transfer it into my own body. This dagger of yours not only can bring people back to life, but it also acts like a conduit of life energies. It can literally transfer one life force into another body,” My eyes darted over to his captives. “You’re curious, aren’t you?” He dashed over to his three captives. “The essential point of this ritual is that it must be done someplace very close to my heart and requires the blood of four people who are just as close. Everyone we meet in our lives leaves an imprint on not only our minds, but also our souls. These three in fact, are pretty much responsible for the fine, upstanding man I’ve become.” He knelt next to the old woman on the end and pressed the blade to her neck. I could hear a stifled squeal escape her lips.
“This is Evelyn Hoag. My first foster parent
. Once, she was quite a pretty woman with a hard working husband, Sherman. Sherman liked to drink. A lot. And when he had enjoyed a few drinks, he got punchy. Too bad for me, I was the closest thing around for him to punch,” Jackal pushed the tip of the dagger into Evelyn’s neck and I could see a small red dot of blood form. It began to trail along the blade’s edge. He traced the dagger across Evelyn’s neck and left a thin red line of blood behind it as it cut through her flesh. The red line began to grow thicker. “She was brave though. She bravely turned her head away when her darling Sherman would beat me. I was six then. She denied it to the very end, you know. Even after Sherman died, she refused any talk of his abuse of alcohol or me.” Jackal then pushed Evelyn down onto the black blanket. I could see the blood spread under her. He stepped over her and to the gangly old guy in the middle.
“Michael Covington. He was the administrator of the orphanage when I arrived. He was such a caring and loving figure of authority. Kept a tidy, and cost effective, ship. In fact, all the years he was here, they never had to pay for a cleaning crew because he simply made use of the labor force that was already here. The kids.” Jackal took Michael by the top of his head and stuck the dagger deep into his chest. He coughed but the gag in his mouth muffled his gasps. Soon streams of red were trickling down his chin. Jackal worked the dagger in deeper. Michael rattled violently and then fell quiet. Jackal stood up and stepped over to his final guest. A portly man. He was the only one of the three who was tied with a bungee cord. Jackal kicked his foot against the guy’s back and forced him down onto his stomach.
“And this happy little porker, is Herbert Murkwith,” Jackal dangled the dagger over Herbert’s back. Herbert seemed to be not only the heaviest, but also the youngest of the three. His face was red as a tomato as he flailed and screamed muffled cries for help. “This fat little load was the resident bully. He was the leader of the pack who tortured me every day I was here. It was harmless to begin with. A wedgie here, a swirly there, but soon it got more intense. He’d punch me in my stomach in the middle of the night sometimes. He would lead group beatings on an almost daily basis. I thought his torment would end when he was adopted, but so many had learned from his example and the abuse continued unchecked. That is when I turned to the books in the library for shelter. For that I thank you, Herbert.” Jackal then stabbed the dagger down into Herbert’s thick back. With a heavy jerk, Jackal pulled the dagger back out. It was covered in blood at that point. The hilt of it glowed eerily as the blade dripped red. Jackal then walked over to me. I saw his hand gripping the dagger. His fingers looked as though they had grown longer. The nails were gnarled and jagged. He clasped the dagger tightly in his fist. His eyes looked down upon me with a primal hunger. As if he had been feeding off of something in the room.