The Angel Alejandro

by Alistair Cross

  The thought was uncomfortable. He shifted to his other side and stared at the bathroom door.

  REMEMBER.

  Nick felt trapped. The walls seemed to be closing in and the air was heavy. He rolled onto his back and wiped away the sheen of sweat that dampened his forehead. He looked at his watch again. Maybe Roxie was still awake.

  No.

  Surely she had to be up early to open the diner tomorrow morning. But what makes you think she wants to see you again? Drunk as I was, I couldn’t have given a very good performance.

  His thoughts floated from Roxie Michaelson to Clint Horace. He’s going to be a problem. He could tell by the way the rat-faced little bastard looked at him: Like he’s just waiting for me to fuck up. He didn’t want to think of Clint Horace.

  He sat up, took a deep slow breath, and blew it out. The walls felt closer than ever, giving Nick a feeling of being locked inside an airless box.

  A coffin.

  Death.

  Ghosts.

  REMEMBER.

  I’m losing my fucking mind.

  He remembered Father Tom. Call me anytime, day or night, he’d said. And for a moment, Nick considered it. But what would he say? I can’t sleep, Padre. Can you come and tuck me in? No. Calling the priest at midnight wasn’t an option. And neither was going on a beer run, or calling Roxie Michaelson, or dwelling on the animosity Clint Horace had for him. Or sleeping.

  Resigned to another sleepless night - and a subsequently miserable next day - he threw the sheets off and padded into the living room for his guitar.

  * * *

  St. John’s rectory rested just east of the church itself on a small lot with a lawn that never quite turned green, even in spring. It was humbler than St. Agatha’s - but it suited Father Thomas Wainwright fine.

  In the bedroom at the back of the redbrick abode, he dreamed of his former church and home. More specifically, he dreamed of the murders there three years ago. In his dream, as it had been in life, he saw young Brandon Marsh, just a teenager, sitting in the back pews, his black hooded sweatshirt pulled tightly enough around his head that Tom had hardly recognized him.

  Tom had been preaching forgiveness that morning, and even now, he believed that was no coincidence. About twenty minutes into the service, Brandon had stood and walked toward Tom in slow, deliberate strides. Tom went silent as Brandon pulled back his hood and smiled. It was a smile filled not with malice, but rather, sad regret, and as long as he lived, Tom would never forget it.

  And suddenly Brandon Marsh’s back was to the chancel. Tom could never recall the motions that had the young man facing the worshippers - it was as if there had been a scene jump, an editing glitch. He never saw him draw the gun, either.

  Rapid shots rang out, blood exploded like fireworks, people screamed, clamoring into the aisles. Reality had suspended itself, as if Tom had walked into a waking nightmare.

  Dreaming now, his legs and hands twitched, and he whimpered, trying to find his voice, trying to call out and - just as on that terrible day - he couldn’t speak.

  Brandon had turned and fired at Ms. Froelich, the organist. Her body was blasted from its seat and crumpled to the floor.

  Tom jerked awake, his face damp with tears and sweat.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, grateful he was miles from St. Agatha’s. The shooting hadn’t been the only tragedy at the place, but it had been the worst. He’d always felt uneasy there, and the dark events, combined with the stories his old friend Christopher O’Riley - bless his soul - had dug up, were the reasons Tom had moved to St. John’s.

  Thomas Wainwright was convinced the place was a breeding ground for evil. In the same way some places felt inexplicably divine, St. Agatha’s was, very simply, a godless place, its wickedness going as far back as the 1800s when Joseph Willard built his ubiquitous hotel there. That unholiness continued to this day, and his descendant, Draven Willard, seemed pleased with it. He and his ancestor, Joseph, were cut from the same dark cloth.

  Draven Willard.

  Thomas Wainwright shuddered at the thought of the strange, menacing man who lived alone in the hills in his castle of stone and glass.

  * * *

  All stone, glass, and cement pillars, Draven Willard’s home was much larger than it appeared because only a fraction of it was exposed. The majority of the home was built into a large hill, high enough to spy on the entire town of Prominence.

  This is my town, my people. I own them. He had many reasons to be happy, but something was bothering him. St. Agatha’s … Why did I sell it?

  Immediately after selling, his stocks had fallen, his investments stopped playing out, he’d been in a minor fender-bender that left an expensive dent in the Rolls, and he’d found seven gray hairs. These were signs from his forefathers; he was sure of it.

  Draven thought of the mysterious Mr. Jones from Moonfall.

  How did he talk me into selling?

  Jones was undeniably persuasive. Handsome, well spoken, and well dressed, he’d immediately appealed to Draven, but it wasn’t like him - or any Willard! - to be so easily persuaded. Yes, he needed to talk to Mr. Jones and rescind the sale.

  * * *

  Olivia LeBlatte reached out in the darkness - and felt only emptiness beside her.

  Mr. Jones had come again tonight, ravished her, and apparently, left.

  “Bastard.” She liked having the bed to herself … but not when she wanted another round.

  And she did want another round - even though she was tired. So very, very tired.

  And cranky. Terribly cranky. Her temper was getting out of hand. Yesterday at the pharmacy, when she’d learned her prescription wouldn’t be ready for five minutes, she’d called the pharmacist a dick. It just flew right out of her mouth. But that hadn’t been enough. She then found herself reporting the pharmacist, claiming he’d given her the wrong drug. It wasn’t true, and she supposed she ought to feel bad and rescind her complaint, but she did neither. She smiled to herself, giddy with thoughts of the man floundering as he tried to explain his error to his superiors.

  Dick, she thought. Olivia LeBlatte doesn’t wait. Not even for five minutes!

  It didn’t occur to her that this sudden mean streak was out of character. Instead, she relished it, and her thoughts returned, as they always did these days, to Gremory Jones.

  She really wanted another round.

  She closed her eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep. Olivia hadn’t taken notice of it yet, but she never dreamed anymore. She hadn’t since the day she’d met Gremory Jones.

  * * *

  Since her visit to the old rectory at St. Agatha’s, Bernadette Watkiss couldn’t tear her mind off Astaroth and Tyranny, the beautiful strangers who’d seduced her. She dreamed of them now, their hands and mouths all over her, exploring, caressing, nipping, tasting. Her own hands stroked firm, warm flesh, and her mouth traveled powerful ridges of muscle and buttery stretches of smoothness. She tasted heat and salt, the tang of flesh. And then Astaroth was inside her, his tremendous size hot and pulsing as he stretched and filled her, plunging deeper with every careless thrust.

  Seconds before she peaked, the man was off her, out of her.

  She shot up, out of breath, covered in sweat, nude except for the silver moon necklace Tyranny had given her. Her nerves buzzed with slow-descending ecstasy, and she felt the raw absence inside of her as surely as if the act had been real.

  From the shadowed corner of her room, she caught movement.

  She stared at a long, dark shadow that hung near her bookshelf. It was black, solid except for twin glints. Eyes! It couldn’t be. Dette blinked hard. It changed nothing.

  Her breath hitched as she made out the expanse of shoulders, the length of arms, the spidery movement of fingers. The darkness wavered as if the strange silhouette existed beneath rippling water.

  An intruder! “Hello?” Her whisper was like sandpaper.

  It raised its arms and they began stretching out, reaching across the wall,
impossibly long. She watched as they spread, pouring fluidly across the ridges of shelves and book spines, its fingers feeling their way along the walls, searching, crawling, moving toward her.

  Dette pulled her knees up and wrapped the sheets tight around her.

  The movement stopped. She was certain she’d imagined it all.

  Then there was a slow flutter of fingertips, a small, playful hello. The distant tinkle of tiny bells jingled as a slow, stark whiteness appeared in the center of the thing’s face, spreading like spilled milk on black linen.

  The intruder was grinning.

  Dette screamed, threw herself off the bed, and raced down the hall - a high, lunatic cackle nipping at her heels.

  * * *

  Though finally asleep, Nick Grayson had no peace. The old dream had come for him - the memory.

  He sat in the back seat, watching the passing traffic. In the front, his parents talked cheerfully, telling him all the things he’d see in Crimson Cove, where his Aunt Janice lived. They were even going to take a rowboat out on the lake; his father was going to teach him how to fish. Nick couldn’t wait.

  He didn’t see the wrong-way driver coming at them. Neither did his father - not until it was too late.

  Brakes screeched, metal crunched, glass exploded.

  Nick felt the car flying through the air … then they were rolling and crashing down the side of the mountain. A sharp, bitter pain shot through his chest.

  There was nothing for a moment, and then Nick heard his mother’s voice. “Please,” she whispered. “Save him. Save my son.” By now, Nick knew they’d had an accident, and at first, he thought help had arrived, but there was no one there to hear his mother’s pleas.

  Mommy! He tried to say it, but couldn’t. Daddy! Daddy, are you okay?

  The world turned red as something warm and sticky dripped into his eye. He tasted copper in the back of this throat … and the pain in his chest - It hurts! It hurts so bad! - just kept getting worse.

  “Please, save my son …” His mother’s words faded as Nick’s vision dimmed.

  In the distance he heard sirens. Then just beside him, a single whispered word: “Nicholas.”

  It was not his mother.

  * * *

  In the apartment above The Psychic Sidekick, Beverly Simon’s dreams were like shards of a splintered mirror; a mirror that showed her spattering blood, storm-roiled skies, and rising seas. Between these was a rapid-fire slideshow of desecrated religious images: crosses in flames, churches left to burn, religious statues smoldering and smeared in blood.

  It had been like this for days. She’d been getting no more than an hour and a half of sleep before waking in a cold sweat. Her mind was a horror movie, scored by a cacophony of screams, groaning earth, and shattering glass. Beyond these sounds were the tinkling of bells and hysterical laughter, but they’d become such constant companions to her - in sleep and in wakefulness - that Beverly barely noticed them.

  The images flashed, glinting like sparks, moving so fast they scarcely registered. For a moment, the world was black and silent. In the darkness, she heard the rustle of movement, quick and scampering, like a rodent roaming the shadows.

  And then Beverly became aware of herself. She was there, squinting in the darkness, sitting in a chair. She felt velvety armrests and the cushion at her back. She looked up and saw a vast platform, several feet high; it was a stage. She was in some kind of theater.

  She stared as the ebony curtain rose to reveal a tall black shadow, center stage. The lights shot on in a sunburst of illumination and Beverly stared at a great marble altar. Several half-human creatures scurried - like gargoyles - onto the stage, their nude bodies glistening and groping.

  They moved like liquid - like sheets of gliding black silk, then met and merged, tangling together in a hissing, roiling mass of blackness. From the center of the horde, a head - and then shoulders - began to rise. Great horns grew from the head, stretching and curling, each several feet long, ending in sharp, fine points.

  Beverly shot forward, tried to get to her feet, but was detained, trapped by something hard and unmoving. She looked down at the hot slimy arm that locked her in place. She writhed in the sickening embrace, horrified, as several more hands broke through the fabric of the seats around her, reached toward her, then across her, and pinned her in place. She screamed, and one of them squeezed her throat, choking her. Another one rose behind her and palmed her forehead, locking her in place.

  Beverly watched, paralyzed, as the thing on the stage continued to rise, its body forming and smoking as it grew and grew. It was male, she realized as its sex organ came into view. She winced, tried to turn her head, but the vises tightened.

  The grotesque genitalia swayed and dripped something sticky and shiny. It was more a weapon than an organ - thick as a man’s arm and just as long - marbled with veins that beat and thrummed as blood pumped visibly under the glistening skin. The tip was blade-sharp, a cruel and jagged dagger.

  The creature rose, its legs and feet forming into something that wasn’t human. Hooves. Beverly caught sight of a tail flickering from behind, dancing and weaving like a charmed snake, searching the beast’s body, then snapping like a whip.

  The stage lights turned red and a face formed from the black mass of the beast’s head. Reptilian eyes darted and blinked, a bull’s snout protruded, flaring nostrils puffed out misted plumes of breath. Its mouth was that of a lion’s and it peeled back thin lips to expose savage, yellowed fangs. The beast brought its monstrous head back and loosed an unearthly roar that rattled the theater and sent rippling shockwaves through the concrete beneath Beverly’s feet.

  She tried to scream, to stand, to run, but the arms and hands holding her were iron bars; she was a captive, a prisoner behind her own eyes.

  The beast’s gaze lit on her and its slitted pupils contracted, taking her in. The lips curved upward and steaming strings of wet saliva dripped from each corner. The beast touched its own torso with great, clawed hands, its razor-blade talons leaving gashes from which thin trails of smoke rose. It explored its massive chest, its hard-plated abdomen. Then it reached lower, grabbed hold of the gnarled, malformed phallus that swung low and heavy between its goatish legs. There was a quick hiss, like a cigarette being dropped in a cup of old coffee, and smoke rose from the touch. The beast stroked itself, watching her as the stink of brimstone brought tears to her eyes and made her nose run.

  Then it released its organ, chuckled deep from its colossal chest, and brought a dripping hand to its face. It raised an impossibly long finger in front of its weeping mouth.

  “Shhh…” It echoed through the theater, bringing hot, sulfurous clouds of breath to Beverly’s face.

  It’s coming, she thought. It’s coming!

  The beast laughed and Beverly was struck by new knowledge: No. It isn’t coming. It’s already here!

  The beast nodded, its massive head barely moving on its thickly veined, bull-like neck.

  I have to tell someone! I have to warn people!

  It wagged a long stiletto-sharp finger at her, back and forth. No, no, no.

  Beverly Simon shot up in bed, screaming.

  * * *

  The sound of screaming entered Alejandro’s dream. He opened his eyes and sat very still, listening. There was nothing but silence now. He turned his attention back to the fading dream. It had been more than a dream. A man had been looking for him; a man that Alejandro was certain he’d known before his memory had vanished. “Brother,” the man had said. “Where are you?”

  I have a brother? Alejandro strained for more information, for anything that might jar something from his past, but his life before last Sunday was a reticent ghost. I have a brother? He tried to imagine it, tried to feel what it felt like to have a sibling - and he could not.

  In his sleep, he’d pushed the blanket off - it lay on the floor next to the couch and he retrieved it now to cover himself in case Madison came out and chastised him for removing his unde
r garments again. Was she the one who screamed? He bolted up, wrapped the quilt around himself, and ran to Madison’s bedroom.

  She was sleeping.

  Moonlight cast silvery slats through the blinds.

  His heart rate slowed and relief washed over him.

  The bed sheets were pulled down past her thighs and she lay, one arm above her head, the other tight against her. She wore a long T-shirt that ended above her knees and Alejandro admired the pale, smooth curves of her legs. Her glossy black hair was like a spill of silk ribbons that spread out around her face. She clutched a small object he couldn’t make out.

  He stepped closer and saw it was a stuffed bear. It, too, wore a T-shirt - this one with a big orange ball on it. He smiled and found himself staring at her hair again. He wanted to touch it, to smell it. Bending closer, he detected the soft fragrance of shampoo - something sweet. Under this, he caught the tender essence of feminine sweat. A primitive urge stirred deep within him and he accidentally let out a low, purring growl.

  Madison moaned and took a deep breath.

  Alejandro watched her breasts rise, pressing against the thin cotton of her T-shirt. He wanted to touch those, too, gather them in his palms and knead them, lower his face to them - but he knew that would be very impolite.

  She rolled onto her side, turning her back to him, and Alejandro was mesmerized by her form, the crest of her hips, the valley of her waist. And the smooth length of her legs, so like alabaster in the moonlight.

  He wondered if she was dreaming, and if so, what images played behind her eyes.

  It was not she who had screamed. But someone had. Who?

  In the living room, he dropped the quilt and headed outside where he pulled himself onto the roof.

  Prominence was silent, still. His eye was pulled to the old church a few miles away, and even its black silhouette against the midnight backdrop, made him shudder.