“Good Lord.”
“In time,” Franco continued, “with the continual slaughter of their offspring, they started to hate themselves. But they hated Boxer even more, and they eventually turned on him too. Late in the summer of 1947, the townspeople killed Boxer in one of his own sick rituals. He was over three hundred years old. They thought killing him would end it all, that it would finally free them, but what they didn’t count on was how angry Lithobolia would be. Boxer was his emissary, his gatherer of souls. And those souls, those slaves in the afterlife, they’re what make those like Lithobolia so powerful.”
“What happened to the town?” Billy asked.
“Lithobolia destroyed it. If you look at the official records the State of Maine claims Boxer Hills was destroyed by a freak storm in 1947, a horribly violent nor’easter that included torrential rains, hail, hurricane force winds and even the brief appearance of a tornado. The official records indicate nearly all 180 residents were killed. Those who allegedly survived supposedly moved on and the town was never rebuilt. It sits empty now, rundown and mostly rotted, only partially standing buildings set back in an overgrown section of forest miles off the state highway. It’s a forgotten ghost town, a memory.”
“But we’re standing in it right now,” Alex said.
“The town’s cursed. For eighteen years it sleeps, and the souls trapped here sleep right along with it. Not alive, not dead but caught somewhere in between. And then for one day, one span of twenty-four hours, the town of Boxer Hills returns just as it was in 1947 before its destruction. Whoever’s caught in town at the time is free game for the souls trapped here. But if they just kill you outright, the way some do when they first come awake filled with the rage, your soul’s freed and on its way to wherever it was headed before any of this happened. It’s once the ritual begins, the gathering, if they get you then, it’s their ticket out. It’s their chance for redemption, deliverance. But the devil doesn’t give you anything for free. There are no passes, only trades.” He ran his hand along his balding head again, wiping away the rain, pushing it down across his face. “None of the townspeople in Boxer Hills can get to Heaven without sending someone else to Hell.”
“What happens after the twenty-four hours?” Alex asked.
“The town vanishes.”
“Where does it go?”
“I don’t know. All its inhabitants sleep.”
“For another eighteen years, and then it reappears and this happens for a single day all over again?”
Franco nodded.
“It’s like some sort of demonic Brigadoon, for Christ’s sake.” Stefan laughed lightly, his hands clutching either side of his head. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“That’s why the window in the general store moved the way it did,” Billy said, “and why everyone was drinking coffee and acting like they’d just woken up. The town had just reappeared. It was still…”
“Becoming,” Franco finished for him.
“Why eighteen years?” Alex asked.
“It’s the Devil’s number. Three sixes equal eighteen.”
“What happens if we avoid this ritual, and after twenty-four hours we’re still alive?”
“You’re free.”
“How much longer do we have?”
Franco looked to the cracks in the roof, the rain splashing across his eyes and forehead. “It’s already dark. You get to dawn, you’ve made it.”
“If all this is true,” Stefan said, “then why are you still alive?”
“They killed my wife. They captured me.”
“So this ritual,” Billy said, “it was performed on you.”
He unfastened the buttons on his shirt and peeled the drenched material away from his skin to reveal a chest covered with a hideous network of scars, the skin stretched tight over an uneven skeletal structure. It looked as if his chest had been crushed then haphazardly reconstructed.
“Then you’re one of them,” Alex said.
“It’s all a lie, don’t you get it? No matter how right they think they are, no matter how fanatical their beliefs become, no one gets to Heaven through murder and torture. Their first mistake was trusting Alton Boxer. Their second was in trusting the false god they worship.”
“But why are you different from the rest?”
“I’m doomed no matter what I do. I gave my soul to Lithobolia, but they can’t force me to play his games. There are only a few renegades among the flock, we don’t last too many of these cycles. But none of that matters to me.” He closed his shirt. “They may have killed Lauren eighteen years ago, but to me it’s only been a day. I know God’s still out there somewhere, and she’s with Him. Maybe if I do what’s right…” He pawed tears from his eyes. “Last time, I just wanted to sleep.”
“And now?”
Franco picked up the shotgun and rested the sawed-off barrel against his shoulder. “I want to know that wherever I wake up, it won’t be here.”
Outside, in the distance, someone screamed and the sound of a fireball igniting and bursting echoed through the now early evening.
In a single frantic rush, Billy, Alex and Stefan ran to the door they had entered and looked out at the field.
A large bonfire had been set at the edge of the forest. Even through the heavy rain, it burned, its flickering flames providing sufficient light to see the decaying bodies of those who had been killed or come before them. Demonic trophies hanged from trees, they dangled like gutted and mutilated rag dolls, Tory among them, the bodies swaying in the mounting wind.
Scattered throughout the forest’s edge, the field and around the bonfire, numerous townspeople stood chanting their blasphemous prayers, eerie voices echoing across the field and through the rain, the night.
Mesmerized, Billy and the others watched and listened.
The ritual—the gathering of souls—had begun.
Chapter Nine
The prayers continued like a dirge, the voices droning above the sounds of the storm. In the other direction, the field remained empty, tall blades of grass barely visible through the darkness and rain, moving slowly, back and forth with the wind. Billy watched the night. He’d always looked at things as if he were doing so for the last time, always approached things in his short life with abandon, attacking them head on, as though every day were his last on Earth and his final chance to experience everything being alive entailed. He’d died onstage countless times and in numerous incarnations, but now he felt like he really might be up against his final hours. “Why are they leaving us an escape route?”
“You can’t see them in that direction, but they’re there.” Franco rose to his feet, and holding tight to the shotgun, reached for the machete. Freed from shadows, he looked more formidable. A wide scar ran the length of his right cheek, and the sleeves on his shirt had been torn away to reveal thick, well-muscled arms. An uncontrollable twitch danced across his face and down into his neck. He clenched shut his eyes in an attempt to control the darkness growing within him. When the spasm had passed, he handed Billy the machete.
The cold grip and weight of the large knife filled his hand.
“Your only chance is to make it to those woods on the far side of the field,” Franco said, breathing heavily. “If you get that far, follow the forest straight through ’til dawn.”
“What’ll hit us between here and there?”
“Most are gathered around the fire in prayer. They’re conjuring their master.” Franco shook his head, as if to dislodge those things slithering through him, changing him, turning him toward the darkness to which his tortured soul was pledged. The prayers of the others seemed to make it worse, but he continued to resist until he was again able to speak. “They’ll come in a wave from the direction of the fire and storm the barn. They’ll leave others scattered in the field between here and the woods. They’re out there, but there’ll be fewer of them. Just understand they won’t stop. This is their chance to put their souls to rest. They’re human, but the de
eper into the ritual they go, the more powerful they get, the less human they…we…become. No matter what you do, how many you kill or how far you run, they’ll keep coming. They’ll try to take you alive. Don’t let that happen. When you see the sun rise, that’s when you’ll know you’ve made it, not a moment before.”
Billy turned to the others. “I’m gonna head straight for them. You two cut out the back, head across the field and make a run for the woods. I’ll veer off and lead as many of them away from you as I can.”
“Bullshit,” Stefan said, hastily pushing his feet back into his loafers. “We’re staying together.”
“If we stay together we die.”
“Then we die together,” Alex said firmly.
“No. I’ll outrun them and we’ll all see each other again come morning.” He gave a sad smile as rainwater dripped from his face, the dagger earring swinging in the near dark. “Besides it’s a great part, and you know me, always a sucker for the tragic.”
“We don’t have to do it like this,” Stefan said, eyes moist. “We can—”
“I’ve always felt pressed for time, you know that. I’ve always known it was running out on me faster than most. That’s why I am the way I am, man. I just never knew why.” He handed Stefan the machete. “Now I do.”
Wind lashed the barn, spraying through the holes and gashes in the building. And as suddenly as the prayers began, they stopped.
“Stef, get her out,” Billy said, eyes burning with intensity. “You hear me? You get her the hell out.” He looked to Alex. “Get each other out. This is the only chance we’ve got.”
Alex threw her arms around him, hugging him so tightly he could barely breathe. “Please, Billy,” she whispered in his ear. “Please don’t—”
“Alex, look at me. Who am I?”
She held his face in her hands, the same wild and defiant face she’d never been able to resist. It blurred through her tears. “You’re Billy the Kid,” she said, laughing and crying at once. “And you can do anything.”
“True enough.” He gently pushed her toward Stefan, and as she left him, a cold sensation bled through and washed over him, something efficient and deadly and final. With it, there might be some chance of survival. Without it, he—and quite possibly the others—were already dead.
With steely resolve, Alex grabbed a loose board roughly the length of a baseball bat hanging from one of the decaying stalls and tore it free.
“Hurry,” Franco warned. “They’re coming.”
Hand in hand, Stefan and Alex headed for the opening in the far wall. With a final desperate look back, they stepped into the night.
Franco handed Billy the shotgun. “Go ahead, take it.”
“What about you?”
He pulled a revolver from the back of his belt. “Good luck.”
Billy held his stare a moment, and though no words were spoken, a great many things passed between them.
Something above them cracked and splintered a section of roof, sending small pieces of wood spiraling down with the rain. The horrible stench of sulphur filled the air. “Don’t look,” Franco warned. “He wants you to look. Don’t.”
Despite his terror, Billy struggled to remain perfectly still.
Ignoring his own advice, Franco slowly raised his head skyward.
Inhuman yellow eyes pierced the night, peeking down at him through a gash in the wet roof.
Above the clamor of rain, Billy heard the steady flapping of what sounded like large leathery wings.
Franco cocked the hammer on the revolver. “Go.”
With a deep breath, Billy ran to darkness.
Behind him, the roof gave way and something descended through the rainy night amidst falling planks and rotted boards.
Franco fired, filling the barn with a deafening blast and a bloodcurdling scream, but neither prevented him from being cast into a relentless darkness of his own.
As Stefan and Alex ran through the field, the rain fell heavy and hard, and the waist-high grass swirled around them as if by magic. The night had become thick as fog and even at this distance the smell of the bonfire hung in the air.
They had covered half the distance necessary to reach the forest when a shadowy form sprung up out of the grass and lunged for Alex. Stopping to plant her feet and gripping the board with both hands, she let loose a primal scream and swung at it with everything she had. The plank snapped in half across the attacker’s chest as the impact reverberated through her wrists, up her arms and into her shoulders. The man grunted and fell, absorbed back into the darkness from which he’d come. Off balance, she stumbled and nearly fell, but Stefan appeared at her side, grabbed hold of her arm and dragged her forward through the night. “Keep moving!” he called above the din of thunder. “We’re almost there!”
Lightning tore through the night above them, turning the world an electric blue long enough to illuminate the outline of nearby trees.
Stefan was right; they had nearly reached the forest.
But their glimmer of hope was dashed as several silhouettes emerged from the sea of black before them, slowly rising up through the grass.
They were on him within seconds of moving through the barn doorway, darting out from the darkness, reaching for him and screeching at him like banshees. Billy fired at the first man he saw, blowing him back and away. But another immediately took his place. Without slowing his pace, he braced the butt of the shotgun against his side, pumped, swung it around and fired again. The man wailed as a section of his torso blew apart, and the body tumbled away, swallowed by the grass.
Wind and rain tore at Billy’s face, and the untamed grass made his legs feel like they’d been submerged in wet cement. But when he saw a wave of townspeople coming at him from behind the bonfire, shoulder-to-shoulder and sweeping across the field like a single predatory organism, he veered off as planned and kept running.
Stefan and Alex dove forward through the grass and slid on their bellies, blades tearing at their faces and bodies until they came to a stop in the wet earth.
Rolling to her side, Alex found Stefan’s face peering back through the night at her, his expression a mix of disbelief and horror. He brought a trembling finger to his lips, signaling her to be quiet and remain still. She nodded as the rain pounded them, the rich smell of grass and soil filling her nostrils. Pushing her hands through the muddy and loose dirt for purchase, she realized she was still clutching a jagged stump of wood from the broken plank. Somehow, she found comfort in this.
Stefan cocked his head toward his machete, as if this might somehow reassure her, and then cautiously raised his head in an attempt to see through the grass. After a moment, he pointed straight ahead, held up a single finger then pointed to their left and held up three, staring at her to be certain she understood. Though she couldn’t be completely sure Stefan could do what was necessary when and if the time came, with a deep sense of vulnerability and helplessness, she gave another nod, and together they crawled forward through the grass.
Run. All he could do was run. Even though he now realized how futile this was. Maybe he’d known all along. It didn’t much matter anymore. He’d covered quite a distance but his legs were weak, his chest burned and his body was no longer capable of continuing. Barely able to breathe, Billy forced himself forward until his knees buckled and he crashed to the ground with enough force to separate him from what little air remained in his lungs.
He flopped onto his back, struggling for air. Somewhere above him, lightning blinked, offering a glimpse of the night sky. Even in tiny flashes it seemed so immense there, so vast and free.
As they came closer, he heard them rustling the grass, searching for him. He pumped the shotgun and pulled the trigger, but there was only an empty click. Raising it like a club, he somehow managed to regain his feet. As he turned, thunder cracked and something caught him in the throat. A warm and sticky wetness spattered his chin and neck. Before any pain could register, he was down again. Head spinning and rain splashing
his face, he reached for his throat. His hand came back slick with blood. Not thunder, he thought, not this time. I’m shot. They shot me.
The grass parted, and the faces of the damned appeared. So cold and harsh, such smug assuredness on their pitiless faces, he thought, and so many of them: children, the elderly, and everything in between.
He tried to swing the shotgun at them but it flew free of his grasp, made slippery by rain and blood, and spiraled off into darkness. Hands came from everywhere, fastening onto him and pulling him, dragging him back across the field. A flash of something in the night, perhaps the sole of a boot or heavy shoe, lurched into his range of vision. It slammed his face and everything went black.
Anywhere, she thought. They could come at us from anywhere. They’re all around us. Continuing to inch forward, carefully parting the grass as they went, fingers clawing through soft earth, Alex looked back over her shoulder to make certain nothing was closing in from behind them. She saw only darkness and slowly swaying stalks set to a soundtrack of thunder and driving rain. As she turned back, Stefan reached out with his free hand and grabbed her wrist, his flesh wet and cold and hard, as if he were already dead. Their eyes met, and he swallowed so hard she saw his Adam’s apple bounce along his thin throat. Drenched and dripping, his hair plastered to the sides of his face, he looked impossibly young, like a child really. But more than the sorrow, more than the terror, it was the uncertainty that bothered her. This was a man who carried bugs outside rather than step on them, a man who had quite possibly never had a physical confrontation in his life.
Catching Hell Page 7