With a supreme effort, Sharon cleared her head of some of the haziness and confusion. The shadowy darkness remained, lurking at the edges of her vision like a menacing stalker. She knew the candles and the skull she had seen were hallucinations, figments of her fevered imagination. She was dying; she sensed it and was mildly surprised to discover that the notion didn’t bother her all that much.
There was a pang of regret that she would so quickly lose what she had gotten a small taste of with Mike McMahon—his tenderness, humor, and a sensitivity she had never before experienced—but otherwise Sharon Dupont viewed her impending death with an almost clinical detachment. Her arms were broken and useless; she assumed at least one rib was broken and probably more, and she suspected that one or more of those broken ribs had punctured a lung. Undoubtedly she was bleeding internally.
It was becoming harder and harder to remain lucid, as evidenced by the strange hallucinations she had suffered upon regaining consciousness moments ago. She remembered her determination to warn Mike of the strange sight she had seen a few hours before and almost laughed, would have laughed, actually, were it not for the intense pain she knew would result. The idea was ludicrous. She was lying face down and helpless on a filthy floor in a room littered with who knew what sorts of atrocities and she was going to—what? Jump up and charge into Paskagankee to save Mike McMahon? She couldn’t even walk a perimeter around a raging bonfire without getting lost.
Sharon shook her head and a woozy, nauseous sensation rolled up her gullet from her belly and straight into her head: do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. She concentrated on not throwing up, knowing instinctively that to puke right now would be a very bad idea, given her likely internal injuries. She realized she had been drooling while she was unconscious and looked down on the dirty carpet to discover blood had been leaking out of her mouth, bright and red and terrifying.
Again the perceived sensation of movement felt rather than seen tantalized her, just beyond the edge of her vision. Ignoring the pain and nausea and fear, she willed herself to turn her head, accomplishing maybe half an inch of movement. It was just enough to bring the object she had sensed into her line of sight.
She saw a man, a very familiar-looking man, wearing a red plaid hunting jacket. But something was not right. The jacket was ripped and torn, almost in tatters, hanging off the man in long, stringy cloth strips.
Then she remembered. The man was former Paskagankee Police Chief Wally Court; she had glimpsed him a few hours previously, stumbling around inside this filthy house. His left arm hung askew, bent a full ninety degrees between his wrist and elbow. Sharon couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a fragment of bone had pierced the man’s skin near his elbow. The arm was clearly broken, shattered, really. Court should have been in agony, and yet he moved silently and smoothly—too smoothly, almost as if he were gliding instead of walking. And his hair. His hair looked greasy and matted, with leaves and twigs and something that looked suspiciously like animal excrement smeared throughout it.
Sharon wondered if somehow she was suffering another hallucination. She decided she must be; although she couldn’t imagine how, everything seemed so vivid and real. It was not possible that Chief Court—if it really even was Wally Court sharing this nightmare scenario with her—could be gliding around this house, a few feet away, moving in eerie silence with a shattered left arm and cow shit and matted straw inhabiting his thinning gray hair. That was simply impossible and about as ridiculous as floating candles and grinning skulls.
But there it was.
An overwhelming sense of sadness and confusion overtook her like fog rolling in off the ocean. Sadness for what she had lost and would never regain with Wally Court—the father-figure who had meant so much to her in her formative years—and confusion because she was not entirely convinced that this sight was even real and not just a product of some bizarre and random synapse misfirings occurring in her brain thanks to the severity of her injuries.
Suddenly, Sharon Dupont slid smoothly and completely back into her cocoon of darkness. She felt it coming and wondered for a half-second if she would ever reawaken. Then she was gone.
53
MIKE TURNED TO SEE what had caused Professor Dye’s eyes to widen in fear. In other circumstances, the professor’s face would have been comical, eyes huge and mouth agape. In the distance, on the front porch of the log cabin, former Paskagankee Police Chief Wally Court had appeared. The recently retired chief, whose last official act had been to hire Mike as his replacement, was a mess; he was barely recognizable, but Mike knew it was him. What he was doing on the porch was a mystery, but whatever it was, he was doing it in utter silence, gliding inches above the structure like some demon figure skater from hell.
Ken moaned again, staring in abject terror at the thing on the porch a hundred yards away. Mike swiveled as quickly and silently as he could and clapped a hand over the professor’s mouth, pulling him down behind a mammoth boulder next to the fallen log they had chosen as their reconnaissance point.
“Ssh!” he whispered fiercely. Professor Dye blinked and nodded. Mike pulled his hand off the older man’s mouth, relieved to see some of the alertness returning to his eyes, the look of sheer panic fading.
“What the hell is going on here?” Mike asked quietly, peering around the jagged edge of the boulder to discover the Wally Court–thing was nowhere to be seen. He assumed it had retreated back inside the house and hoped it hadn’t heard or sensed their presence and was not even now moving silently to the boulder to tear them apart limb from limb.
“It’s the spirit,” Dye told him, no longer bothering to add the disclaimer, “if my theory is correct.” It was no longer necessary. That one terrifying glimpse of Chief Court was enough to convince Mike that the professor had been right all along, that what he chose to believe or disbelieve was irrelevant.
“How the hell is it walking?” Mike asked, more out of a sense of wonderment than any real notion the professor might be able to answer the question.
But Professor Dye seemed ready for it. “The body the spirit has possessed is dead and has begun decomposing. Did you notice the stench when it came out of the house?”
Mike said, “Notice it, how could I miss it?”
Dye nodded. “Exactly. Since the flesh is decomposing, the ankles and legs are probably no longer strong enough to support the rest of the body. The human host is only a vessel for the spirit to maintain physical contact with this world anyway, so rather than actually walking on the ground, the spirit is simply levitating the corpse and moving it at will.”
Mike shook his head and grimaced. “Okay, it’s the spirit, and it can levitate. I can’t believe I just said that.”
Professor Dye smiled nervously and Mike continued. “But it doesn’t change anything. I still need to get a look inside that house to see if Sharon or anyone else is alive in there.” He was shocked at the sense of calmness he felt. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon, and there were only three possibilities: He would find Sharon alive and rescue her, or he would find her alive and die trying to rescue her, or—worst case—he would discover Sharon already dead, in which case he didn’t care what happened after that.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Mike said, still speaking softly, although he assumed since they were still alive the spirit had not heard them and must have gone back inside the house. “I’m going to circle the cabin at a distance of about twenty feet. If it seems feasible, I’m then going to make my way from window to window until I find one where I can get a look inside. If you see anything I need to know about, use the walkie and warn me, then get the hell out of here if things start going sideways. Do you understand?”
Professor Dye nodded, leaning to his right and looking around the edge of the boulder to check the cabin again. Mike saw him freeze stock-still for a moment, the color draining out of his face so completely he looked exactly like the Chief Court–thing they had glimpsed moments ago. Then
the professor abruptly stood and began walking around the gigantic rock toward the cabin.
Mike leapt to his feet, and as he rounded the boulder behind Professor Dye he saw he had been wrong about the spirit. If it had gone back into the cabin at all it had done so only momentarily. The thing had heard them or somehow sensed their presence and was even now gliding swiftly toward them, suspended over the ground like some hovercraft from hell. Its feet moved like a normal person’s but did not contact the ground as they swung back and forth. Instead they simply passed inches over the uneven forest floor as the figure of the former Paskagankee Police Chief moved in their direction. He (it?) was now no more than fifty feet away, closing on them rapidly.
In front of Mike, Professor Dye stopped abruptly and spread his arms, as if surrendering to the thing. His breath came heavily and erratically; Mike could hear his ragged respiration from behind; he was almost panting, but he appeared, incredibly, calm and collected.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mike hissed, reaching out to grab the professor’s right shoulder.
“This is how it has to be,” Professor Dye said, staring resolutely at the terrifying apparition, which had picked up speed and was now advancing on them like an avenging angel.
“Bullshit,” answered Mike as he spun the older man around and down behind him. He shoved hard and winced when he heard the thud of the professor’s head striking the side of the boulder. Again Professor Dye moaned, this time as he lost consciousness, slumping to the cold ground next to the big grey rock. A bright crimson splash of blood dripped down the surface, disappearing into a thin patch of moss.
Mike wondered distractedly if he had just killed the man he was trying to protect. Just my luck, he thought crazily and then turned to face the nightmare spirit, which was still approaching and now almost upon him.
He drew his Glock and aimed at the center of mass of the rotting corpse. The stench was nauseating, even to a man who had experienced dozens of dead bodies in his career. “Freeze, Police!” he barked, more out of habit than any sense that the thing would actually stop. For all he knew, it couldn’t even understand him. His eyes began to water from the awful smell of corruption surrounding the body.
A detached part of Mike’s brain took in some of the horrific details as the thing approached. Bodily fluids seeped from every orifice as the process of decomposition proceeded according to the laws of nature. Not even a wayward Native American spirit could change some things, it appeared. What was left of Wally Court’s plaid hunting jacket fluttered in the breeze, trailing the corpse as it advanced on Mike.
The thing gave no indication it understood Mike’s warning to stop, gave no indication it even heard him, in fact. It was now close enough that Mike could see into its eyes, or what was left of them. They were milky-white, covered in some sort of glaze, not seeming to focus on him or anything else.
Mike fired.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The body of Chief Court jerked backward three times from the incredible kinetic energy of the high-velocity rounds as each of Mike’s shots slammed home. Three direct hits—center of mass, right in the chest, as trained—put the thing down, ripping violently into the ruined flesh and bone. The corpse fell backward, smashing into a dead birch tree and spinning to the ground. A broken branch impaled the body in its side, sinking a good eight inches into the rotting flesh.
The smell of gunpowder filled the damp forest air, and Mike was grateful for the momentary respite from the overwhelming stench of death and corruption and decay. He stood holding his gun in both hands. His knuckles were white and he relaxed his grip. He turned to check on Professor Dye, and his hands began shaking badly from the adrenaline rushing through his body.
Mike knelt on the cold ground next to the professor and reached for the unconscious man’s carotid artery. The pulse was steady and strong, and Mike breathed a sigh of relief. He turned the man’s head and examined the wound, grateful that it seemed already to be clotting. It would have to be cleaned, of course, but after disinfection and maybe a few sutures, he should be good as new.
Professor Dye twitched and groaned. His eyelids fluttered and his head shook. Mike held the man’s head off the ground with one hand and gently tapped his cheek with the other, hoping to ease him back to consciousness, slowly enough to—
—SNAP!
Mike whipped his head around at the sound, loud as a gunshot in the empty forest, and saw the form of the spirit—impossibly—rising off the ground and starting for him again. The thick branch that plunged into the thing’s side as it fell had broken off against a tree as it began levitating, giving Mike a second or two of warning.
He scrambled to his feet, again raising his weapon. He remembered Professor Dye’s statement that bullets were useless against the spirit; that they would simply embed themselves inside the host’s body. The apparition would be unaffected and would keep coming. How do you stop an ethereal presence that wasn’t meant to exist in this world to begin with?
Mike fired, not knowing what else to do. Maybe if he could put the thing down again, he could use the few seconds he would gain to come up with some other option. It wasn’t much of a plan—hell, it wasn’t a plan at all—but it was all he had. The shot missed everything and Mike realized his hands were shaking so badly he was unlikely to even hit the damned thing if he couldn’t get himself under control.
By now it was almost upon him. He fired again and hit pay dirt as the body slammed back against another tree trunk. This time the tree held it up, preventing it from being thrown to the forest floor by the force of the projectile. Mike fired again and again, emptying his weapon into the thing, and the body tumbled face-first onto the ground, a slick, wet squishing sound emanating from it as it crashed down onto the wet leaves and pine needles.
Mike spotted a good-sized branch that had been knocked from a nearby tree during the recent ice storm and lifted it off the ground. It was heavy and shaped like a club; although if it was a club it would be more suited to the Jolly Green Giant than a normal sized man because Mike could barely heft it. The branch/club was maybe five feet long and six inches wide at its thickest point, tapering down to about an inch-and-a-half at one end. It felt solid and brutal in Mike’s hands.
The Court–thing again rose silently off the ground and Mike approached it, wielding the wooden weapon like Ted Williams turning on a fastball. He swung from the heels and connected solidly with the human host’s ribcage. He was rewarded with a sharp cracking sound and the thing went down again, before almost immediately beginning to rise.
Mike’s arms were already tiring and he knew he could not continue beating the thing like a piñata much longer. Once he lost the strength to keep knocking the entity to the ground, it would be all over him. He smacked the makeshift club into the dead body and the thing fell again with a hollow thud. It had still not made a sound during the entire confrontation. The only noise came from Mike, his labored breathing sounding loud and harsh in his ears. He knew he was just about spent.
Again the thing started to rise and again Mike clubbed it and again it went down. His arms burned and felt heavy and rubbery. Tears streamed from his eyes as the stench of death assaulted him. He felt sick. He clubbed the thing again, and again he heard/felt ribs break, not that it made any damned difference. He tried to catch his breath and was unable to do so. His lungs burned.
The thing began to levitate again and Mike swung again and this time he missed. He immediately tried to reverse course with the big club, but it was now too heavy to control. He made contact with the thing’s body but because he had been unable to get any torque behind the swing, it didn’t fall over. It didn’t react at all.
He was out of time; it was over. His arms felt as wooden as the club. He desperately reached back to swing again and the thing was upon him, pulling him high into the air with a cold, dead hand on his neck and flinging him against a tree, the same tree that had impaled the monster just a few s
hort moments ago. The death-smell was so much worse when the thing actually touched him that Mike gagged, he couldn’t breathe, and then he was flying through the air on a short but violent trip, crashing into the tree and falling in a heap on the ground.
Mike felt pain radiate through his back. His head snapped back and exploded in agony, and he felt warm blood running down the back of his neck. His knee was practically useless, bent at an odd angle. He coughed weakly, spitting up blood, and sensed the spirit moving silently behind him to finish him off. It wouldn’t take long. He apologized in his mind to Sharon, the woman he had fallen in love with and the woman he had gotten killed.
Again the cold but inhumanly strong hand of the thing lifted him skyward. He wondered why the apparition wasn’t ripping him apart and decided it must prefer to kill its victims first. Small favors, Mike thought, as he felt his body being lifted into the air like a rag doll. He tensed for the final toss, the one that would undoubtedly shatter his neck or smash his head against a tree or break his back and paralyze him.
For a long moment he hung suspended in the air, gagging from the smell and waiting for the inevitable. Then, to his amazement, the thing dropped him. He tumbled straight down from a distance of seven or eight feet onto the relative softness of the thick carpeting of leaves and pine needles and landed with a muted thud.
For a moment utter stillness reigned and the thought flashed through Mike’s brain that maybe he was already dead and had somehow missed the particulars. Then the monster’s death-stench began to fade, and Mike realized the thing was moving away from him.
Mike turned his head gingerly, thankful he had somehow avoided paralysis and was still alive and kicking, more or less. He watched the retreating body of the spirit, then looked beyond it and his breath caught in his throat.
Thirty feet away, standing woozily where he had fallen a few minutes before, dried blood plastered over his face, was Professor Ken Dye. He was white as a ghost, an observation which struck Mike as strangely appropriate, all things considered, and he was once again standing upright with his arms spread in a gesture of supplication to the spirit. Mike could see him shaking like a guy getting juiced in the electric chair, even from thirty feet away and lying on his side, but the professor was not running or in any way attempting to defend himself. He simply offered himself to the thing. This was your big plan? Mike thought angrily.
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