by J L Bryan
“You look like him.” Georgina approached Ryan with interest, seeming to notice him for the first time. Her rotten, colorless hand reached for Ronan, and her white eyes bulged in their sockets as she looked at the boy. “And this one...so full of life...”
“Stay back!” I shouted.
Normal protocol here would be to torch her with full-spectrum white light, and of course some holy music at ear-splitting volume wouldn't hurt. But seeing her reach for Ryan and his kid infuriated me, and I got a little unprofessional.
“I said stay back!” I stepped forward, right up to Georgina's apparition, and stared her right in her colorless dead eyes.
Then I drew back my boot and kicked Georgina's skull as hard as I could.
The long-dead skull detached from the body easily. I really didn't expect it to lift off the floor, though, and go sailing several feet down the cave tunnel, to smash into a hundred pieces against the rocky wall.
Georgina let out a high-pitched shriek, the black pit of her mouth opening like her jaw had detached. She scrambled after her broken head and grabbed at the bits, swiping her hands through them like she was trying to reassemble them. The bone pieces stirred slightly, as if caught in a tiny, weak whirlwind, but of course there was no fixing her remains.
I kicked her in the ribs, shattering two or three of them, and Georgina rounded on me, howling.
“I'll destroy you!” I shouted, and I kicked her arm loose. Her hand and a chunk of her broken forearm lifted up from the floor and flew right through her apparition, which slowed her charge at me as she tried and failed to catch it.
It struck the wall behind her. Finger bones scattered and rolled in all directions like lost marbles, and she shrieked again.
“Let us by!” I shouted.
Davey moved on me, and Michael and I both blasted him with light. He faded a little, retreating toward the wall.
“Call him off, too,” I said. “I can smash your body to pieces and pour them down the sewer. I'll do it.”
Georgina hesitated, pulsing in and out of sight in front of me, as if indecisive.
Indecisive was fine. Indecisive was great. She could remain indecisive for eternity as far as I was concerned.
We hurried past, the three adults doing our best to keep the two kids away from the spirits.
As we continued down the tunnel, Georgina howled behind us, desperately trying to reassemble her shattered bones, losing shape as she turned into a whirlwind of white fog. I thought of the shades of Tartarus from Greek mythology, the spirits of the dead deteriorating over time until they were just shadows in the cold, cavernous underworld.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
We followed Penny's directions through more narrow, twisting caverns. Her apparent connection to her twin was all we had to guide us whenever the path branched and we had to choose. We were putting a lot of faith in her, but we didn't have much else to guide us. We unspooled a rope as we went so we could find our way back.
We were heading downward, deeper underground, farther and farther into the mountain. We remained silent, listening for any return of the ghosts from behind us, and also listening with strained ears for echoing voices from ahead, hoping to hear Melissa or Polly.
There was nothing, though.
The tunnel grew narrower, and the walls became damp and muddy. Cold water drizzled on us from overhead, occasionally at first, then more and more frequently, as if we were underneath a lake.
We moved single file, Michael insisting on leading the way, which I allowed on the grounds that he had a bit of training for extreme situations.
“Daddy, I'm really scared,” Ronan whispered behind me.
“We'll be okay,” Ryan said.
“Tunnel forks ahead,” Michael said.
“Penny?” I asked, turning back. “Which way?”
Penny frowned, her face streaked with muddy water. She looked exhausted and cold, shivering.
“Penny?” Ryan asked, gently.
“I don't know!” Penny rubbed her head. “I can't tell anymore. It's too hard.” She started to cry, and her father hugged her close.
“There's a footprint in the mud this way.” Michael pointed his flashlight down the tunnel's left branch. “Looks like a child's.”
We went that way, pausing to let Penny place her foot into the muddy print. It fit exactly.
Onward. Soon we crawled on hands and knees to avoid scraping our heads on the sharp points of the low roof. The floor was covered in mud and tiny pebbles that dug at my fingers and palms. The kids had much to complain about, though, and I winced for their tender hands and knees.
“There's running water ahead,” Michael announced. “I can hear it.”
It had been drizzling on us the whole time, but he was right—there was a constant splashing sound ahead, heavier than the dripping and trickling of muddy water to which we'd grown accustomed.
“Finally,” Michael said, crawling away and rising up ahead of me. The tunnel had widened a bit, into a cavern where a muddy waterfall chugged from overhead on one side, draining down a small tunnel on the other side. “The floor's flooded, but at least you can stand up in here—”
Then he shouted, and his flashlight spun wildly, illuminating shelves of slippery rock that jutted out from all angles.
Michael went down hard into the water flowing across the floor, which wasn't deep enough to help break his fall. He let out a grunt at the impact.
I emerged into the wider, wetter cavern and knelt by Michael. He bled from a slash across his face.
“It's here,” he said, while I helped him sit up. His voice sounded dazed.
I swept the room with my flashlight, looking for the assailant.
“There.” Penny pointed from where she crouched, still inside the mouth of the tunnel from which I had emerged.
Ryan began to crawl out.
“Stay there,” I told him. “With the kids.”
Then I turned to see what Penny had been indicating.
Many ghosts don't like water, or running water—the color “haint blue” found throughout Savannah, including on all the interior walls of my apartment, was meant to discourage ghosts from entering a home.
Amil was a different kind of entity, though.
He emerged from the largest of the thin, sloshing mudfalls like a crocodile from a swamp.
More than ever, he looked like a crocodile, too, his face elongated, the extended jaws lined with horrible teeth.
I didn't know much about Phoenician mythology—does anyone?—but in ancient Egypt, at the time Amil might have lived, the snake-god Apophis was evil, the enemy of the sun-god Ra, lying in wait below the horizon to strike his heavenly enemy. Sometimes Apophis was portrayed as a crocodile. I wondered whether the evil priests in my vision of Amil's death were devotees of Apophis or a similar deity.
This thought flickered across my brain as he charged me. I raised my light, hoping to lance him with a full blast of white light.
The apparition came at me through the powerful light with open jaws...then vanished just before impact.
Unfortunately, it didn't go away.
Invisible, it slammed into me, and I felt stabbing pains up my arm and shoulder, on both sides, as unseen jaws closed down.
I screamed in pain.
Michael was on his feet again, unsteady on the flooded floor, his face caked in mud and blood. He raised his fists like he meant to punch the entity. Two problems: the entity had gone invisible, and even if it hadn't, Michael's fist would have passed right through it, into me.
“Music!” I shouted, while reaching for the iPod on my belt. Michael was outfitted with the same gear.
He blinked, then reached for his belt.
Amil gave his crocodilian head a toss, I suppose, because I was flung across the room.
I smacked hard into rock coated with a thin gruel of wet mud. The impact was stunning, and for a moment I could see nothing at all. This was partly caused by me losing my grip on my flashlight, but I conk
ed my head on a rocky outcropping, too.
Then I fell to the floor, landing in a few inches of moving water. I observed, distantly and uselessly, that the water was a little warmer than I might have expected.
Another useless observation: my flashlight drifted away underwater like some glowing deep-sea fish. The narrow drainage tunnel swallowed it down along with the muddy water, making the chamber much dimmer.
I struggled to rise, but my muscles were like boiled pasta, with no power of their own until my lungs got to working again.
“It's soaked,” Michael said, touching the dripping portable speaker clipped to his belt. “Useless—”
Slashes appeared across Michael's already-ripped shirt, tearing it to ribbons and exposing the muscle beneath. Blood welled up from a hash mark of overlapping stripes across his chest and abdomen.
Then Michael launched off his feet, up and back, as the invisible entity hurled him against the wall. A chunk of rock broke loose and crashed to the floor along with Michael, shattering into chunks all around him.
More chunks spilled down from the ceiling, along with spattering mud, and I wondered whether it might be starting to cave in. It was hard to tell, especially for an avid non-spelunker like myself, but there did seem to be a lot of extra mud and debris gushing down from above, and at a faster rate than before. A couple of rocks pelted my shoulders and back like fists; I was lucky they didn't strike my skull.
I pushed up to my knees just in time to see Snake Man flicker into visibility.
He stood over me, easily seven feet high, the dark pits of his eyes staring down from his hideous, scaly face. His long, claw-tipped fingers twitched as if he couldn't wait to tear me apart.
My speaker was dripping wet, too, my iPod fried by the muddy water.
I looked up at the ghost. I remembered what I'd seen in his memories, how he'd been used as a supernatural hunter, sent to kill the enemies of those who'd created him. Those wicked priests were long dead, their purposes forgotten, their civilization turned to dust...yet the ring remained, with Amil's tortured, monstrous soul attached, ready to command.
I wondered where else the ring had gone over the centuries, and how many Amil had killed.
Then I thought of the terrified boy deep inside, the one whose affection for Polly seemed to be a vulnerable point. He'd released me when Polly called his name. Melissa had covered Polly's mouth while giving him orders.
“Amil,” I said, looking up at him. “It's me. I understand what they did to you, those evil priests in their masks. The sorcerers. I know the ring commands you, but you have the power to resist. I've seen it. When Polly told you not to attack me—”
Well, if I'd thought I was going to talk him down, I'd been delusional. He struck me again with that taloned, scaly hand.
“Stop!” Ryan was out of the tunnel and on his feet, rushing at the Snake Man. He had two kids in the tunnel, but a third was still lost somewhere ahead. It looked like he was tired of waiting for us. It also kind of looked like he was charging out to protect me, which was sweet.
Stupid, but sweet.
“Ryan, no—” I started, but the entity was on him in an eyeblink, slashing him and slamming him against the wall.
“Amil!” I shouted. “Leave him!”
More slashes appeared across Ryan's body.
“Daddy!” Penny stepped out of the tunnel, leaving Ronan alone and crying. “Daddy!”
“Get back with your brother!” I told her.
“Penny, don't—” Ryan began, just before the entity knocked him to the rocky, wet floor.
“AMIL!” Penny shouted, balling her fists. “STOP!”
The Snake Man actually hesitated, for a moment. Then he turned on me, striking me in the back and slashing open my jacket, all the way through my mud-soaked shirt and into my skin.
Then he turned on Penny, baring his jaws, and started toward her.
“NO!” Penny said. “Look, it's me. It's...Polly. Can't you see? Don't you...don't you love me?”
The Snake Man hesitated again.
He leaned in, sniffing at her with his crocodilian snout.
I tensed, but I wasn't sure what I could do, other than scream “Amil!” and try to distract him. But the sudden noise might trigger an attack response. He was much too close to Polly to risk startling him.
Michael and Ryan lay in the mud, trying to recover; I hoped they didn't have broken bones.
I wasn't in much better shape, attempting to regain my hands and knees where I'd been knocked down.
I didn't know whether I'd ever encountered an entity this physically strong. Or this ancient.
His crocodilian snout sniffed at Penny's face, her hair, her neck...
Then he let out a long, angry hiss, like maybe he'd detected this wasn't really the girl who'd captured his twisted ancient heart. Like he'd detected she was trying to trick him.
She let out a cry of fear.
I was just starting to push myself up when I saw the small shape emerge from under the splashing muddy waterfall at the side of the room, the same place where Amil had emerged.
Polly staggered out, having apparently gotten away from Clay.
She looked exhausted, and could have been injured any number of ways; there was no way to tell under the layer of mud.
She tumbled to her knees and let out a cry of pain at the impact of her kneecaps on the cave floor. I began to slosh over to her.
Then a taller, stronger figure emerged through the mudfall. There must have been another tunnel behind it.
“Come back, come back, little kitty,” Clay sang out in Melissa's voice. Melissa's mud-dripping hand reached for Polly's slumped, swaying form kneeling in the mud. “There you are, little kitty...”
I didn't want to hurt Melissa, but I didn't see much choice but to intervene and protect Polly.
So I launched myself at Melissa's possessed body like a linebacker, trying to tackle her into the mud.
Clay had chosen his vessel well—Melissa was tall, her muscles well-trained and strong, especially her legs.
Which meant that her body could resist my sloppy, weakened, desperate attack fairly well.
Clay swayed a little at the impact, then smiled and used the opportunity to grab me with both hands, staring at me through Melissa's eyes, now the exact same blue as his own, the eyes that had haunted me through a lifetime of nightmares.
“Eleanor,” he said, with a mildly surprised tone, like we'd just bumped into each other at a distant acquaintance's party. “I wasn't planning to come for you just yet, but here you are.”
Then things began to get hot.
His smile stretched the boundaries of Melissa's lips as steam rose from his possessed body, turning the wet layer of mud to scaly patches of earth clinging to Melissa's skin, making her look a bit reptilian herself.
He'd pinned my arms to my sides, and the palms of Melissa's hands turned painfully hot. The gold and emerald ring was on her middle finger, and I could feel it pressing into my arm.
It felt like Clay was burning my jacket and the flesh beneath it. I wanted to cry out in pain, but I managed to bite it back out of pure spite—I knew any cries of agony from me would please him.
So I gave him the hardest, stoniest glare I could summon.
“You throw yourself into my arms so eagerly,” he said, leaning in close as if to kiss me, his familiar soft, threatening voice perfectly recognizable to me even through Melissa's mouth. “You know you are meant to be mine.”
Around us, things were only getting worse. Amil the Snake Man flicked in and out of sight, hammering down on Michael and Ryan as they tried to get up.
“Amil, stop—” Penny said. The Snake Man appeared beside her in response.
It struck her across the face, scratching her and knocking her to the mud. Penny screamed as she landed.
I looked to Polly; the quieter twin watched all of this silently, moving her lips but making no sound.
“Polly,” I gasped, while Clay burned into
my arm, definitely ruining my jacket and possibly the flesh beneath. I gritted my teeth together and forced myself to speak: “Polly, stop Amil! He'll only listen to you! Tell him to stop!”
“But he...but he...” Polly's face turned my way. She was still looking down, not up at me, but I realized her body was hitching. She was sobbing. “He's a monster.”
“Yes,” I said. “And he's hurting your family. And you can stop him. Just tell him.”
“I'm afraid,” she whispered, watching the ghost-monster flick in and out of sight as it lashed out at everyone who tried to stand against it, or to stand up at all.
“I know,” I said. “But you have to reach down inside, find your love for your family, find your strength, find your voice—”
“Be quiet!” Clay struck me across the mouth with a scorching-hot hand. Then he used that hand to cover my mouth and nose, smothering me with scalding heat.
Michael, Ryan, and Penny had all been knocked down into the muddy water by the Snake Man. They lay still, either unconscious or, maybe, realizing that getting up was hopeless. The Snake Man apparition was gone for now, but I was sure the entity was still there, invisible, waiting for someone to move.
Now, six-year-old Ronan slowly crept out of the small tunnel, sobbing loudly, moving on his hands and knees to where his father lay unmoving in the mud.
“Daddy!” he cried.
“Quiet,” Penny muttered, barely stirring where she lay. “Quiet, Ro, or it'll get you.”
The monster appeared then, more solid than I'd ever seen it, slime dripping from its scales, its green pond-scum reek filling my nostrils.
It snapped its jaws at Ronan, who screamed. Amil had been drawn to the boy at night. Maybe he'd been curious about the boy in the house.
Or maybe he'd decided he didn't like Ronan, and so had stalked him in his more horrific form, rather than trying to reach out to him like he'd done to the girls.
Or maybe I was giving Amil too much credit, and he wasn't really a twisted, lost, imprisoned boy on the inside, trying to break free of his awful fate.
Maybe he really was just a monster at this point, and the Snake Man was now his true form, and the memory of the boy he'd been was just bait used as a trap to draw the girls' interests.