by Ripley, Ron
So James kept his steady pace through the second floor. Like the first floor, there was evidence of someone living in the house. A few books on a shelf beside the bed. The bed, a simple thing of rough wood and probably a strawtick mattress. A tall armoire of dark wood carved and looking as if it had made the trip from Ireland to America with Liam Boylan.
James’ stomach tightened as he looked at it.
Swallowing nervously, he approached the armoire, reached out a hand and opened the door.
It swung out on silent hinges.
Hanging amongst the few clothes were two boys.
The Verranault brothers.
The boys were naked and eviscerated.
By some miracle, James managed to not throw up as he closed the door.
“They’re pretty like that, aren’t they?” a voice asked from the far right.
James spun to face that direction and the beam from the flashlight settled upon a tall, slim man whose face was harsh and unkind. His black hair was shaved close to the head, and he gave James a smile of long, yellow teeth. He wore a black minister’s frock and had his hands behind his back.
“You’re James Markarian,” the man said, a slight lilt to his voice and James realized this was the true voice and image of Liam Boylan.
“And you’re Liam Boylan,” James responded. He kept a tight grip on his sanity.
“I would say we’re well met,” Liam smiled again, “but we both know that is a lie, and I am many things, Master Markarian, but I am not a liar. I am, however, exceedingly perturbed by your destruction of two of my puppets. They are, as I’m sure you can imagine, difficult to acquire.”
“I don’t suppose you would do me a kindness and tell me how to kill you, would you?” James asked.
Again the vicious smile.
“No,” Liam said, “but I must say, Master Markarian, you and your friends have come uncomfortably close to doing so. And, I must add, I am extremely impressed that you had the presence of mind to use a light and avoid my trap. The good Father Stathi realized that it was a trap, but failed to remember everything he should have. And now,” Liam sighed with pleasure, “he’s currently preoccupied with avoiding the none too gentle hands of his first religious father.”
“And Father Moran?” James asked.
“Peter,” Liam grinned. “Well now, let’s just say that Peter is reliving one of his most exciting moments as an exorcist for the Papacy. Of course, the incident resulted in the maiming and near immediate death of his friend and teacher, so that sort of lowers his enjoyment of the experience. They do say, don’t they, the hardest lessons are the ones easiest to remember?”
James nodded, never moving the shotgun off of Liam’s face. He didn’t know if a couple of loads of salt would do anything to what looked like a physical body, but he sure as hell was going to find out if he had to.
“And what about Mason?” James asked. “What’s his memory?”
For the first time, Liam Boylan looked angry.
“I’ve made that special for him,” he snarled. “That little wretch has been far more difficult than he should have been. Look at what he’s done, brought you and three others into this. His damnable relative was the same way. Even his predecessors tried to burn my home to the ground after that raid,” and Liam paused, giving a small smile. “But that doesn’t really mean anything to you, does it? Let’s simply say, I have to work just a little harder to make sure Mason Philips remains where he is.”
Liam looked at James and his smile broadened. “Now, however, comes the question of what to do with you, young master Markarian. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Yes,” James said. “Tell me how to kill you.”
Liam chuckled, nodding in appreciation. “Yes, that would be rather beneficial to you now, wouldn’t it? I, regardless of the constant state of flux in which I find myself, enjoy this existence. I don’t get to do nearly as much as I would like, but I certainly don’t have to worry about my Puritan neighbors setting me alight either. I don’t think that they would have minded terribly about what I was doing with the occasional Abenaki child, but their own precious tots would have proven to be a different story.
“No,” Liam sighed, “I’m afraid I cannot help you in that regard. I would, though, like to rid myself of you, and unfortunately for you, I’m afraid, that means killing you.” Liam gave him a sad, conciliatory smile. “I promise you. I will receive no pleasure in it. You are far too old and simply no longer attractive to me. You must have been an absolutely delectable youth, though, and I imagine your sweetmeats were ever so sweet.”
“I’m just impressed with how you can talk to me, keep the two priests in the past and keep Mason out of the picture,” James said, sliding his finger onto the trigger.
“Well thank you,” Liam said, offering a short tilt of his head in a sign of pleasure, “it is difficult. I am thankful that I have enough skill and concentration --”
And concentration was the word that James was waiting for.
He put a single round into Liam’s face, spinning the man around, the tails on his coat flaring out.
James followed up with two more quick shots, the noise of the shotgun drowning the outraged screams of the beast across from him.
And then the thing and the darkness were gone.
Six
The Second Floor of the Boylan House
Mason sat on the wide plank floor of the Boylan House. The shutters were closed. Beside him sat James on the right and Father Moran on the left. Father Alexander sat across from them.
The three of them had listened to James’ tale, and they had believed him, of course. Had they even wanted to doubt him, the fact that he knew exactly what horrors they all had been experiencing would have erased their doubts. In the sickening silence of the house, the men tried to gather their thoughts and their courage.
The mere existence of Liam Boylan rattled the men more than they cared to admit.
“What do we do now?” James asked, reloading the shotgun which he had used so effectively.
“We need to find where he is hiding,” Father Moran said.
“And drive him out of it,” Father Alexander finished.
“And when he’s driven out?” James asked. “What then? How do we kill something that isn’t dead? I’m not denying that there’s a way, but I don’t know what it is.”
“We have to find his place of power,” Mason said, rubbing the back of his head. “With that destroyed, he won’t be strong enough to resist the prayers of exorcism.”
“Will we be able to get home?” James asked.
Father Alexander nodded. “With him gone all of this,” he said, sweeping his hand around at the room they were in, “all of this will return to normal.”
“And if we don’t kill him?” James asked.
“Then we won’t have much to worry about anyway,” Mason said, standing up. “But the Churches know we’re here, James. Even if we don’t accomplish this, then others will come after us to finish the job.”
“That’s not a lot of comfort,” James said as he and the two priests stood.
Mason smiled. “I don’t expect that it is.” He looked around the room and then his eyes settled on the chimney and fireplace.
It was a truly monstrous affair, built out of fieldstones and held together with some ancient mortar. A heavy mantle of thick, dark wood ran along all four sides, much like the one on the first floor.
But Mason remembered something.
He walked to the fireplace and held the shotgun in the crook of one arm, a hand on the butt of the stock. Reaching up he ran his hands along the edges of the stones that met the mantle, then along those that formed the rounded corners of the chimney.
And he found it, just a slight depression. Enough for him to slip three fingers into and when he did there was a loud click. With only a slight tug, the entire upper part of the right section of the chimney pulled away, swinging open on unseen hinges.
Stacked neatly on a dozen
rows of polished wood were small skulls which had been bleached white. A neat hand had labeled each skull, the writing a fluid script that had the curious lettering of the seventeenth century. But the names were easy enough to read, and one two rows from the top caught Mason’s eyes.
Kevin Peacock.
“What the hell?” James asked.
“Hell is right,” Father Moran said, and Father Alexander offered up a prayer in Greek.
Looking at the skulls, Mason saw there was a large, iron key hanging at the bottom shelf, barely visible in the small ossuary’s shadows. Mason reached in and took the key out.
It was large and bitterly cold to the touch. He put it on the mantle for a moment, pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wrapped it around the key. The cloth helped a little, but not much.
“We need to find a keyhole,” Mason said.
“There aren’t any doors up here,” James said, and he and the two priests looked around.
“There won’t be,” Mason said. “It will look like a knothole or a stain. But it will be at the height of a doorknob.”
Stepping away from the chimney, Mason joined the other men, and they started walking closely around the room. They did one complete circuit around the room, then a second, and then a third. They started their fourth when Father Alexander called out, “Here!”
They hurried to him and found him standing before a shuttered window.
“I didn’t think to look at the shutters,” he said, pointing to a small keyhole in the left shutter of the window.
“Neither did I,” James said.
Mason and Father Moran shook their heads. None of them had, except Father Alexander.
Stepping forward, Mason slid the key into the keyhole and turned it slowly to the right. A grating sound, like that of old tumblers in terrible need of oil, assaulted their ears.
Something clicked loudly, and Mason let go of the key, his fingers partially numb and complaining loudly.
The shutter swung out towards them, revealing a long dark hallway that stretched into nothingness.
“That really shouldn’t be there,” James said. “That’s just leading out into the open air.”
“If we weren’t within this house,” Father Moran said, “then that would certainly be true, James. But we are beyond reality here. This is the Boylan House, something which he built in both our world and within his own corrupted mind.”
“Well,” Mason said, flexing his hand to get some of the feeling back into it, “let’s get on with this, shall we?”
The other men nodded and Mason stepped up and into the opening beyond the shutter. The floor of the passage was rough wood. The walls were of the same. Light came from somewhere, although he couldn’t quite be sure. No windows broke the monotony of the walls and the passage never turned, never dipped, never raised up. It simply continued on.
All too soon, the open shutter behind them was gone, not even a speck in the distance.
Then the passageway did begin to turn. A gentle curve that rolled out to the right, then rolled back to the left, finally opening to a large, dark field. The sky above had only a smattering of stars and the moon was absent. Corn, nearly ripe, stood in tall rows around the circle which the passage emptied into.
The field, whose tall grass had been pressed down as if stomped upon by many feet.
In the field’s center was a large fire pit that was dark with blackened wood. The smell of freshly cooked meat hung in the air.
And it wasn’t animal meat. Mason knew instantly.
“Smells like a pork roast,” James said in a low voice.
“It’s not,” Mason replied.
“What is it then?” James asked.
“Try not to think about it,” Father Alexander said.
“Try not to think about it? Think about what? Do --” James stopped talking. “Oh.”
Mason moved towards the fire pit. A rustling sounded from the corn and a trio of shapes appeared.
They were shadows, darkness solidifying and fading.
Three men, middle aged and Native Americans. They wore breeches and moccasins, leather jerkins. And they carried muskets, their hair thick and hanging down about their backs and shoulders.
They looked warily at Mason and the others.
One of them spoke something in his native tongue and looked at Mason.
Father Moran stepped forward and said to Mason, “May I try something?”
“Please do,” Mason said as the newcomers shifted in and out again.
Father Moran said something in what sounded like French and one of the men solidified even further, smiling as he asked a question.
Father Moran answered, and the man translated into his own tongue.
Mason and the others looked at Father Moran. “What’s he saying?” Mason asked.
“He’s probably telling them that we’re looking for Boylan, too,” Father Moran said.
“How did you know he spoke French?” Father Alexander asked.
“Do you see the crucifix upon his chest?” Father Moran asked.
“Yes,” Father Alexander answered.
“Only the French were converting Natives at this time. I was lucky in that he knew the language,” Father Moran said.
“So were we,” James added.
The French speaking native turned back to Father Moran and told him something.
Father Moran hesitated for a moment before answering. But he did answer.
The French speaking native swallowed and asked Father Moran something.
Nodding, Father Moran answered.
The French speaking native turned to his brethren and repeated what Father Moran had said. One of the men solidified and took a stumbling step back.
“What did they ask you?” James asked.
“How long have they been chasing Liam Boylan,” Father Moran said. “I asked if he was still alive when they found the way into his secret place.”
“And they said yes,” Father Alexander said.
Father Moran nodded. “I had to tell them that they’d been in here for centuries.”
The three Native Americans had all solidified completely and sat down around the fire. They looked shocked as if they didn’t know they had been chasing the thing named Liam Boylan for so long.
Mason went and sat down with them. A moment later, the others joined them.
The native who spoke French looked at Father Moran and asked him a question. Father Moran nodded, answering the man quickly.
“He asked if we would like their help,” Father Moran said. “I said yes. They have a fair idea of where he might be if we chased him out of the house itself.”
“That’s fantastic!” James said excitedly.
The native who spoke French said something to Father Moran and the priest nodded. Father Moran turned to the others and said, “The man said that the way is thick with danger. They were six when they began their hunt and even here in this place Liam Boylan has destroyed them.”
“And they will show us the way?” Father Alexander asked.
Father Moran asked the man, and he nodded. “Yes,” Father Moran said. “They will show us the way.”
Seven
Within Liam Boylan’s Darkness
The world around them, Mason realized, would never see sunlight. It would never see a full moon. It would never see any moon.
It was always night.
Always Fall.
Always the end of October, that time which Liam Boylan loved the most, it seemed.
The Native Americans led the way, more solid than they had probably been in decades, if not centuries.
All of them moved as quietly as they could, wary of the stalks of corn. Any rustling from the corn would be heard for miles, Mason was sure. There were no animals to hide the noise with their night sounds.
The air was chilly, and Mason could smell death. Old and new, flesh rotting and bones yellowing.
This was Boylan’s world and none of them knew where he was, w
ithin its depths.
Even the Natives, Father Moran, had told them, weren’t sure as to how far the boundaries were. But they felt certain as to where the beast was hiding.
The rows of corn suddenly ended and a narrow field separated the corn from the thick forest beyond. And before that forest was a small cemetery.
The grave markers were of wood and intricately carved. They bore the names of the boys that Boylan had killed. Rows upon rows of them. The markers were in no sort of order, some clumped close together, others scattered individually. No dates marred the surface, only names, and the images cherubs.
And amongst them, sitting in a tall chair and looking out at his victims, was Liam Boylan.
One of the natives raised his musket and fired off a shot that splintered the chair and sent Boylan sprawling. And then they were all running towards him, fanning out as he scrambled to his feet.
“Damn you all!” the thing shrieked, its mouth opening impossibly wide and the yellow teeth seeming to grow before Mason’s eyes. “And you, Philips, oh I am not done with thee!”
Boylan reached into a pocket and pulled out something. Screaming in a foul tongue, he threw the thing at them.
Whatever it was, glittered, even in the dim light, and it struck both Father Moran and the French speaking native in the face.
The native disappeared, yet Father Moran was not so lucky.
The priest collapsed to the earth, grasping his face with both hands as a gurgling scream tore its way out of his throat. Mason and James fired again at Boylan as the man fled into the forest, the natives firing their weapons as well.
With Boylan gone, Mason turned to Father Moran and found Father Alexander kneeling beside the fallen priest. The giant Orthodox man was attempting to hold Father Moran still, yet he writhed and screamed, the intensity of his pain nearly shattering Mason’s heart and ears.
The shrieking continued as James came to stand beside Mason. Father Alexander leaned over Father Moran, whispering something into the man’s ear.
Almost a full minute later, with Father Alexander whispering the entire time, Father Moran suddenly went silent. His body went limp, and the hands fell from his face.