"Why are you here?" I asked a man who only stared back at me in total despair.
"Who are you?" he answered. Sarcasm lined the edges of his voice.
Another scream reached me from down the hall. Sly, I thought, and marched forward. That sounded an awful lot like Sly. I stumbled as I moved, but managed to keep my feet without grabbing for one of the bars. I didn't think I would be able to go on if another child clutched me and begged me for help.
Finally the jail cells ended, and I continued past them, the pleas of the doomed haunting me from behind. "There's nothing I can do," I said aloud to myself. "Nothing." Later, though. I'll come for them later. Right now I have to help Sly.
I came to a "T" in the corridor, new halls venturing in both directions. "Which way?" I wanted to yell for Sly to say something, but knew I couldn't give away my position. Not wishing to waste any more time, I chose the left corridor, and continued my way. Five minutes later, someone screamed again, and the voice came from just up ahead. A closed door greeted me on the right, and I stopped and pressed my ear up against it. No use walking into a slaughter. I heard the soft groaning of the damned. Hoping I had just discovered Sly's whereabouts, I turned the knob and opened the door.
The room was small, well lit by fluorescent lights overhead, and the far wall was lined with hand and foot shackles. Fettered to the center one of five was Sly. His clothes were torn and his face was bruised and battered. He had been beaten.
"Stephen," he said, looking at me through sullen eyes when I shut the door behind me. "You shouldn't be in here. Go back. Find Melissa, and leave."
Ignoring his admonition, I proceeded to walk toward him. Once there I leaned heavily upon the wall beside him. Remembering what I thought I heard on the cross earlier, I had to ask him about it. "Was what you said to me true?" I turned to face him head on. "Did you set me up?"
He shook his head vehemently, and sweat flew off his hair. "No, no," he said. "That's not the way it happened. You weren't supposed to follow me through the mirror. You--"
"Ah, so here's where you've wandered off to."
I bolted around, faster than I thought possible, and felt my heart sink when I faced Reed approaching me. He walked on the floor this time, but had that same warm smile I recalled from my ordeal on the cross. "We meet again." I didn't want the fear I felt inside to bubble to the surface. I couldn't give him that satisfaction.
He stopped three feet away. "I have to give you a lot of credit," he said, still smiling. It was a smile that sent a chill through my soul. "Not everyone can pull himself off a cross like that. Especially with that weak left arm of yours." The smile faded into the beginning of a frown, though not quite. "Hurt much, did it?" He took another step toward me, cutting the distance between us in half.
"Haven't you done enough, Reed?" I asked, not giving up any ground. Sly rattled his chains behind me, as if in warning. "Haven't you distributed enough pain on everyone?"
"Especially you. Right?" All semblances of friendliness had departed from his face and tone of voice. He took another ominous step toward me, and this time I did give him room, circling back around him. He turned to face me, along with Sly behind him.
"Everyone," I replied. Sly nodded and looked at his own waist. There, just a portion of the handle showing between two of his shirt buttons, was the gun. No one had as of yet discovered it and removed it.
While my attention was averted for the one moment, Reed reached out with one hand, grabbed me by the front of my sweat-drenched shirt, and lifted me with ease off the ground. I grunted in surprise but didn't resist. With my almost useless hands, I didn't have a chance against strength like this anyway. "I should kill you right here," he said, looking up at me with fierce gray eyes. Then the smile returned to his face, and he eased me back to the floor. "But I can't. Not yet. Melissa's choice must be made first without any unnecessary distractions."
He patted me on the shoulder, and I had to force myself from showing the shock. Reed was warm; he didn't send a cold shiver through my soul, as he should have. And that was more of a shock then the sudden chill would have been. What had happened?
"I bet you want your hands back," Reed said, as he reached for them. I pulled them away. "Come, come. I only want to fix them for you."
I gave them to him. There was nothing I could have done to resist if I had wanted to. "What are you going to do?" I asked, somewhat scared and beleaguered. Any pressure at all on my hands would bring back the intense pain I had hoped to be rid of.
Reed held my hands gently in his. "Just relax." He turned his hands softly over and around mine. "There," he said, letting go. "All better now." And like magic, the pain was gone.
I held my hands in front of me. Dried blood still blanketed the flesh, but the puncture marks in the middle had disappeared. The only physical discomfort I felt now was a headache I hadn't even realized I had before. "How?" I asked Reed, bewildered. If it hadn't been for the dried and drying blood covering my hands and soaking my wrap, there would have been no evidence at all of my ordeal on the cross.
"Because I am god here," he replied, turning from me and walking back to Sly. Sly said nothing, but only stared at him with contempt. Reed took a single key out of his side pocket, and proceeded to unlock the set of shackles next to Sly. "You see, if Melissa makes her decision to be with me under duress, it will mean nothing. You must be whole." He turned to face me, smiling. "At least until . . ." He paused, as if not sure what to tell me. "Well, let's just say if she makes the right decision tonight, you won't have a thing to worry about. You'll be immortal, living for all eternity." He approached me. "Sounds good, doesn't it, my friend?"
I kept my focus on him, trying not to draw any attention to the sliver of Sly's gun showing through his shirt. "I don't want to be a part of your madness," I said back to him, still in awe of what he had just done to my hands. What level of power was I dealing with?
"Of course," Reed continued, ignoring my comment, "I have a few kinks to work out." He frowned. "The blood transfusions only prevent that discomforting stiffness for a few days. Then another source is needed."
I nodded. "So, that's why you have all those people caged up back there."
Reed grabbed my right arm. "Come on, now," he said, pulling me forward, toward the shackles. "Let's hang you on something you can't break away from, shall we?"
Once locked in those shackles, I knew, I wouldn't have a chance for any kind of escape. I would have to go for the gun now. "OK, OK," I said, sounding mortified. "You don't need to force me. I'm coming."
And as I hoped, Reed let go of my arm. "Glad to see you finally cooperating," he said, that warm smile breaking across his face. He turned his back to me just slightly. Just enough . . . "This will all turn out for the best, you know. It really--"
As I approached my own special shackles next to the docile Sly, I quickly reached for the gun under Sly's shirt. I had to pull out the shirt from his pants first, and with one stroke I lifted it out and slid my hand over the butt of the gun. But just I was squeezing my hand to grab it, Reed knocked me sideways, and I lost my grip. Knowing I wouldn't receive many more opportunities, I dove for Sly's belt. Reed, however, was waiting for just that particular move. He slammed me in the stomach with a rock-hard fist, sending me sprawling. I managed to knock the gun out of Sly's pants, and it went tumbling across the floor. I bent over to pick it up, but Reed only came up with a knee to my face and sent me flying backwards. By the time I regained my composure and stood steadily on my feet, Reed had the gun pressed firmly to my right temple.
"Fool!" he shouted, panting. "You want to ruin any slim hope that you've got?"
My nose felt broken, and I could feel the blood oozing over my lips and down my chin. I hung my head, not wishing to look my tormentor in the eyes.
The same four flunkies who had earlier pinned me to the cross piled into the room, and stopped when they saw their boss had everything under control. They still wore the same black-hooded robes.
"Put
him on the wall by his friend," Reed ordered, lowering the gun to his side. Turning to me, he said, shaking his head, as if to a small child who had just disobeyed him, "If you weren't an old friend, Stephen, I'd . . ." He didn't finish that statement, but only glared at me with contempt.
"Friend!" I said, as the flunkies approached me. "You crucified me, for Christ's sake." The cobwebs that blanketed my mind earlier had all but vanished. The jolt to my head only helped in clearing it. "Is that how you treat your old friends?" Even as I said it, I looked to my hands, now perfectly healed. Only the dried blood remained behind to tell of more painful times. How had he done that? I wondered. Or did he?
Reed rolled his head back and laughed, leaving his gun visible and unprotected. I entertained thoughts of going for it one more time, but the flunkies reached me at that moment and stood by my side, awaiting further orders. Another time, I thought, giving up the idea, another time.
Reed stopped laughing. "You're in my demesne now," he said, his expression dead serious. "I can create illusions so vivid that you can even feel the pain."
I held out my bloodied hands. "What about this?" I asked. "How much blood did I lose hanging up on that illusion?"
He waved his hands over mine again, and this time the blood vanished. If it wasn't for the ache in my arms, there would have been no sign of my ordeal on the cross now. "Another illusion," Reed said. He nodded to the flunkies, who grabbed me by my arms and escorted me to the shackles next to Sly. Sly only looked down at his shoes in utter defeat, remaining perfectly docile during the entire discussion.
I gave no struggle as the flunkies fettered first my hands and then my feet to the wall.
"An illusion," Reed continued, "so vivid it even had your friends believing it. The cross and ropes holding you up weren't real. The spikes and the resulting blood were only pushed onto your thoughts." The flunkies, finishing their task, backed away to the front of the room, as if now guarding the exit. Reed approached and stood only inches away. I could smell the decay in his breath, and winced.
"It was nothing more than that, you see," Reed said. "I am a bit civilized, you know."
I kept my gaze forward and in his eyes, ignoring the stench in front of me. "If you're so civilized," I said, "then why do you go around killing innocent people? Children even." I rattled my chains to add emphasis to my words. Or did the shackles even exist?
Reed stepped back a few feet. "Killed!" he said, indignantly. "These persons you claim I killed aren't dead at all, now are they?" He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissing my words. "And, besides, I need them--those that I took, anyway."
"What possible reasons could you have for taking their lives from them?" I asked, rattling my chains again. "What excuse can you give to a child who no longer has the opportunity to live a normal existence?"
He took his eyes off me and his gaze became distant, as if in deep reflection. At length he returned his attention to me. "I didn't wish for this to reach these proportions," he said, almost apologetically. He bit his lower lip, again in thought. Another minute passed before he continued. "Tabitha," he said, at last, and hesitated. "Tabitha wasn't taking my death very well. In fact, she was headed for a breakdown." He looked back at me. "Her life was being turned upside down. I couldn't allow that. So," he said, gaining confidence, "I took Mrs. Klaus and her little girl, promising them eternal life in return. A fair deal, I think. Don't you?"
I only stared back, giving no response.
"Well," he said, dismissing my attitude with another wave of his right hand, "it was working just the way I planned. All of you were having so much fun." He smiled. "Tabby and Melissa were coming back to life. I had succeeded." Then the smile vanished abruptly, turning into a grimace of hatred. "But you," he said, almost growling. "You had to play the detective. It wasn't bad enough that Pierce was snooping around in business that didn't concern him." Grabbing me by my shirt collar, he inched forward, until our noses touched. "You ruined everything, Stephen," he snapped.
I caught a copious whiff of his breath and began coughing spasmodically. Reed let go of my collar and backed off.
"But it didn't end there, though, did it?" I pressed him, after I could breathe normally again. "What happened then?"
Reed sighed. "That first one," he said, nonchalantly. "I don't even remember his name. He recognized me. And I couldn't let him--Del Smith, that was the idiot--I couldn't let him go about spouting off about having seen me, now could I?"
I shook my head, and the chains echoed my thoughts.
"Well, it doesn't matter." He drew a hand through his hair. "And Charlie." He hesitated. "I gave him a chance, didn't I? Didn't I make the right decision there?" His upper lip curled in anger. "You caused his death, you know? With your detective routine, you forced me to kill him." Then he relaxed and shrugged. "And can I help it if some of my people take matters into their own hands?"
"What about Tabby?"
"That wasn't supposed to happen!" he snapped. "That was an accident. You were supposed to be in that car. I wanted you dead!"
"Why?" I asked, my own anger rising within me.
He shook his head. "Because you were stealing Melissa away from me. You left me no alternative."
"You were supposed to be dead!" I shouted, leaning forward as far as my chains allowed. "You really didn't expect her to remain loyal to you even after you're rotting away under six feet of dirt, did you?" Spittle flew from my mouth. "Did you!"
"But that's my point," Reed rebutted. "I wasn't rotting away under six feet of dirt, was I? I only wanted her to get over my supposed death before showing her that I was here and waiting for her." He pointed at me. "She and I could have had eternity together. But you have changed all that. You took her love away from me." He moved forward, stopping only when bumping against me. "Have you not?"
"And how was I to know?" I shouted back in his face. Then, more calmly, I added. "And how did all of this come about, Reed? Why aren't you dead?"
He stepped away, leaning his head back and covering his eyes with his hand.
"I can't even believe I'm standing here, wherever here is, talking to you yet," I said. "This . . . this is madness!" I waited for Reed to respond, but he only took his hand from his eyes and stared blankly at me. "How did this happen, Reed?"
"I made a deal a long time ago," he finally replied, but in a voice so low, I could barely understand him.
"You sold your soul?"
He shook his head. "No. It wasn't like that." He looked at me. "Remember that time we went ghost hunting at Wickerman's?"
I nodded.
"Remember that mirror? The mirror that I could put my hand through? The same mirror you fell into, and I had to save your ass by pulling you out?"
"There was someone behind that mirror," I added. "Someone not of our world. You went back, didn't you? You went back after I moved away from Dodsville, and you entered that mirror on your own. Didn't you? And you met that demon, or whatever it was, and you cut some kind of deal, with him. Didn't you?"
It was Reed's turn to nod. "He said I could have eternal life on earth." He turned his back on me. "He said he had just lost his right-hand man, and needed a suitable replacement. I told him no." He turned to me. "I told him I just wanted out of there--and to be left alone."
"What happened?"
Sly's chains rattled next to me, and I could see out of the corner of my eye he was paying astute attention to the conversation.
"He said he would just take me anyway." Reed gritted his teeth briefly before continuing. "So I cut a deal. I told him to let me live my life until I was old; then I would come back." He looked up at me, pleading. "And there was power involved here, Stephen. I would have more power than any living man ever. I rule down here, second to him, and no one can ever take that away from me. I possess a consciousness above anyone, and that includes all the mortals up there living their pathetic meager lives.
"I watched all of you at the mansion, you know," he said, smiling at me now. "And I ne
ver even came close to the Hill. I simply threw my inner eye across the space between us, and kept it focused on you. And Melissa. I saw what you were up to, probably even before you did."
I remembered the closet opening my first night at the mansion, and the ghost floating out. "That was you," I said. "That was you who floated out of my bedroom closet. Wasn't it?"
Reed shrugged his shoulders. "I only wanted a little fun with you. No harm."
"No harm!" I said. "What about--"
"And I'm sure you remember my telling you I was an atheist," he interrupted. "I had nothing to lose."
"I remember," I replied. "We got in more than a few discussions over that particular subject."
"And I told you that if there was a God, and he sent me to Hell, I simply wouldn't go."
I nodded. "You said you'd return as a ghost."
"Not as a ghost." He held out his hands, palms up. “As a Revenant.”
"But the damage you've done," I said.
"That was all your fault," Reed replied, matter-of-factly. "I wasn't planning on anything like this. I just wanted Melissa back at my side, where she belongs. You're to blame for things getting out of control."
My left arm began to ache with the strain of being held up for so long--again. Sly had returned to his brown study, staring blankly at his shoes.
"And," Reed continued, "that brings us to tonight." He turned to face his flunkies. "Go get her," he said to them. "Time to get the ball rolling." He turned back to me. "It's up to her now. Quite a few fates rest on her decision."
The four flunkies returned a minute later, escorting Melissa between them. She looked haggard, worn out, defeated. Her hair looked as if it hadn't been combed in days. When seeing me fettered to the back wall, her expression brightened, but only for an instant. A deep anger arose from within her soul, and she directed this emotion at Reed--without saying a word.
Reed took her arm, and the four flunkies returned to their guard position in front of the exit. "You didn't think I'd actually harm him, did you?" Reed asked her. She looked to me, and again her expression softened. "I told you," Reed continued when she didn't reply right away, "that I wanted your decision to be a fair one. Under no duress. No strings."
The Revenant: A Horror in Dodsville Page 42