Mortal Eclipse

by David Brookover

  At once, there was a heavy sliding noise somewhere in the blackness. He froze. A bulky body moved with considerable effort toward him with a loud scraping as it closed the gap between them. It sounded like coarse scales being dragged across the rough cavern floor. Neo held that awkward position despite his screaming muscles. Even in the cold, sweat oozed from his flesh as he anticipated a horrible death. Had the creature kept him alive only to devour him later? Neo recalled the rows of long, razor teeth in the creature’s mouth, and he swallowed silently. He didn’t really want to know the answer.

  A cold, oily appendage glided up the side of his face and explored his forehead. Neo’s shivers became tremors as the boneless flesh pressed against his.

  The thing’s touch totally repulsed him. Gathering what little strength he had left, Neo quickly rolled away and sprang into a crouched stance with his fists combat ready. His unsteady legs quivered beneath him.

  “Come on!” he attempted to shout, but it erupted as a hoarse squeak in his waterlogged throat.

  The creature retreated, but Neo sensed not very far. It was probably more startled than intimidated.

  Silence. No movement. Neo collapsed to his knees; the physical strain was too much for his legs. No response from the creature. A Mexican standoff.

  Neo cleared his throat. “I said ‘come on,’ mother! What are you waiting for? I’m right here. Come get some!” His voice sounded a bit more threatening than before.

  The creature moved deliberately and very cautiously toward him. Neo tensed, ready for action. A fight to the death. At this point, Neo had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

  “Bring it on!” he shouted. His echoing voice stung his ears. He clapped his hands over them and immediately regretted it. He’d lost track of the creature’s location.

  “I suggest that you refrain from raising your voice in here.”

  Puzzled, Neo lowered his hands. Was it his imagination or did someone just speak to him?

  “It’s not your imagination, Neo.”

  “Who said that?” he demanded.

  “You don’t need to use your mouth to talk. Just think it.”

  “Yeah, well where I come from, we use our mouths,” Neo said aloud.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Who . . . are you?”

  Neo heard a gruff laugh in his head. “Your gruesome lake creature.”

  “Nah, that can’t be.” Neo paused to consider the possibility. “This is some kind of trick. I’m hearing things. Maybe I am dead.”

  “Oh, you’re alive all right, but only because you’re Neo Doss, FBI Orion Sector agent.”

  Neo backed away from the creature. “And how do you know who I am?”

  “You might want to stop crawling before you run into one of my brothers.”

  Neo stopped and turned, but he still couldn’t see a damn thing.

  “Jesus, how many of you are there?”

  “Five.”

  A shiver rattled his bones. The darkness seemed to be closing on him.

  “That lived,” the creature finished.

  Neo frantically scanned the blackness in all directions for a silhouette, a partial outline of one of the creatures, anything that might help him escape.

  “There is no escape,” it said.

  Then it dawned on Neo. In his weakened condition, his mind wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. “You can read my mind.”

  “If I feel the need.”

  “And that’s how you knew who I was.”

  “I don’t usually intrude on people’s thoughts, but I did in your case.”

  “What do you usually do, eat them?”

  “We’re not totally barbaric.”

  “Really.”

  “We don’t eat them!”

  “Just kill them.”

  “It’s our job, Neo.”

  “How sweet.”

  “This is what we’ve been trained for. It’s our sole function.”

  “What, being guard dogs?”

  Neo recoiled as low growls surrounded him and echoed in the cavern.

  “Okay, okay, maybe that was a little harsh, but I’m feeling kinda bummed at the moment. You practically drowned me up there . . . down there . . . wherever the hell we are, and I’m freezing.”

  “Your temperature is quite normal.”

  So that’s what it was doing to my forehead, Neo thought.

  “Yes,” the creature said.

  “Will you stop that! I don’t like you in my head.”

  “We’re linked, Neo. Whatever you think enters my consciousness. It can’t be helped for now.”

  “Well focus on this: I’m friggin’ FREEZING!”

  “We hope you can remedy that soon.”

  “Me?”

  “Later.”

  “Jesus.” Neo hugged his arms close to his chest. “So you mentioned that I’m alive because I’m Neo Doss. I don’t understand. Who am I to you?”

  “A friend and partner of Nick Bellamy.”

  “That’s supposed to enlighten me?” He heard the creatures moving around him, and the hairs raised on the back of his neck.

  “I guess you haven’t figured it out yet. Nick Bellamy is the Chosen One.”

  Neo burst out laughing in spite of a feeble attempt at restraint. He couldn’t imagine Nick being the Chosen One for any thing – or any one. This was getting more bizarre all the time.

  “Bizarre as it seems to you, it’s true.”

  After a few moments, he managed to rein in his laughter. “Okay, I’m game. What’s he been chosen for?”

  “This is a very serious business, Neo. We’re not joking.”

  Neo had a sudden epiphany. “You want him to bring down the Creeper?”

  “Bring down?”

  Not much on idioms, are they? he thought. “To kill him. Eradicate the son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Correct.”

  “Well, in case you don’t know, he’s working on it as we . . . communicate.”

  “He won’t succeed.”

  “Then why do you call him the Chosen One? You’re not making sense,” Neo prodded.

  “It makes perfect sense to us.”

  “Well, it doesn’t to me. Mind cluing me in?”

  “He has to find the Creeper’s father, and only then he can bring down that murderous monster.”

  “Father? Are you kiddin’ me? There are two of those weirdoes running around the planet?”

  “They’re doing more running than you can imagine.”

  “Well, right now in this cavern, surrounded by talking lake creatures, my imagination can conjure up a whole lot of freaky stuff.”

  “You’ll be told at the proper time.”

  “Oh yeah, when’s that?”

  “Only Nick Bellamy can determine the time,” the creature replied. “Let’s work on getting you some clothes.”

  “Sounds damned good,” he said. “And while we’re at it, how about finding me a way out of here so that I can help my partner?”

  “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to stay with us for a while,” the creature replied.

  “What the hell for?” Neo shouted, and then covered his ears against the deafening echoes. “Sorry,” he said after the din subsided.

  “You are no use to Nick Bellamy if you’re dead, and if we release you, Ariel will certainly do just that.”

  “That bitch?”

  “Witch, to be more precise.”

  “You mean that magic stuff is genuine?” Neo asked.

  “Absolutely. Now, let’s tend to your needs. And along the way, we’ll give you a tour, Neo, and help you understand just how powerful the Creeper is. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  Chapter 37

  Nick reclined his seat as the 727 ascended through the heavy cloud cover to its cruising height. The streaming white mists stained with ragged gray patches had a hypnotic effect on him, and his lids, already weighted with exhaustion from his seventy-two-hour sobering ordeal, fell noiselessly over his blo
odshot eyes.

  He had purchased his ticket under his alias of Dave Findlay at the Cincinnati Municipal Airport so that no one, including the Creeper and Ron Withers, could easily track his whereabouts. He was not physically up for any additional complications. His mind was still a bit fuzzy from Crow’s miracle Indian cure. What he needed was a two- hour catnap to clear his head, so he could devise a coherent plan for trapping the Creeper.

  His brain didn’t cooperate. It kept replaying the facts that he and Crow had discussed over and over like a summer rerun of a bad television show. The most irritating enigma was the possible connection between him and the Creeper. He had a gut feeling the answer was locked away in his memory that was lost when he had arrived in California as a seven-year-old orphan.

  He massaged his forehead. A trip to California from where? Was it really from Duneden, Ohio? What had happened to his parents? Who had delivered him to Children’s Services in San Francisco? And why there? The questions kept popping into his consciousness faster than he could analyze them. Not knowing was maddening.

  Nick’s eyelids fluttered open when the flight attendant offered him a drink and a small bag of snack mix. He asked for a club soda and ice but declined the unappealing snack. His eyes followed her to the back of the plane, and suddenly he locked eyes with a woman’s gaze a few rows back in an aisle seat. She quickly looked away, but that fleeting contact left him feeling uneasy. He was certain that he didn’t know the woman, but her appearance was vaguely familiar and haunting. After a few minutes of struggling to identify her, he shrugged it off and blamed it on stress.

  He grinned. Stress seemed to be the politically correct catchall for everyone’s problems these days, so why not? After all, nobody knew he was on this flight, so why should he feel threatened by any of the passengers? It was just stress fueling his imagination, pure and simple. Case closed.

  Nick’s attempts at slowing his mental merry-go-round by reading the airline magazine were futile. He tucked it back in the seat pocket and his thoughts drifted to Jimmy. He punched the Wharton Clinic number into the flight phone and asked the answering attendant about his son’s condition. Nick hoped for the best as always, but the attendant reported that his condition was status quo. Disappointed, he thanked the man and leaned back to give his nap a second chance. It worked. He was asleep within moments.

  Nick wasn’t certain how long he had been asleep when loud shouting from the rear of the plane abruptly awakened him. He unfastened his seat belt and muscled his way through chattering, gawking passengers who stuffed the slender route back to the lavatories. A giant of a man, dressed in faded jeans and an untucked flowered shirt that barely concealed a holster, flashed a badge identifying him as a federal sky marshal to anyone who cared and pummeled the locked lavatory door with his fists. He demanded that the person inside come out, but his demands went unanswered.

  After a tense standoff, the sky marshal ordered everyone to stand back before he rammed one of his massive shoulders into the door. It shuddered, but didn’t give. Nick flashed his counterfeit NSA credentials at the sky marshal and joined him in the endeavor. Three metal wrenching slams later, the slide bolt bracket twisted away and freed the door. The two men grabbed the doorframe to prevent them from tumbling inside headfirst.

  Three flight attendants and several passengers who had crowded forward screamed hysterically as a male passenger’s brown, mummified body was bounced off the wall behind the toilet and lurched forward into Nick. Together, they fell heavily to the lavatory floor, the rotting corpse’s ghastly face inches from Nick’s. The dead eyes peered from dusty sockets encircled by deeply wrinkled and dehydrated flesh. The corpse’s mouth was stretched wide in a soundless scream, the flesh torn in each corner.

  “Jesus, get this thing off me!” Nick shouted.

  The sky marshal pulled the grotesque form away and let it drop to the floor outside the lavatory. Nick brushed the flakes of dead flesh from his shirt and pants with the backs of his hands.

  “What is that?” the sky marshal asked, pulling his thirty-two pistol from its holster as he searched the lavatory. After a brief look, he shook his head, perplexed at the lack of a single clue.

  Nick ordered the passengers back to their seats, warning them not to touch the corpse or enter the crime scene. Two men refused to back away. One was squat, well muscled, and stared at him through unblinking black eyes. The other man was thin with a narrow face, slits for eyes, and an expression that could only be classically described as sinister. Nick explained to these men that the corpse represented a health hazard and was also now federal evidence, and any tampering would earn them a few years in a not-so-friendly federal prison. They grumbled something low that sounded remarkably like “fool”, but slowly retreated.

  About ten rows forward, they paused and said something to a dark-haired woman in an aisle seat. Nick stiffened. She was the same woman who had looked so familiar earlier in the flight. That same uneasy feeling rippled through his body. Although he couldn’t hear their conversation, it appeared from the woman’s angry voice that she wasn’t too pleased with what the two men were saying. The squat one flipped a backhand at the woman and slits waved a warning index finger. She slapped the finger away from her face, and they continued on to their seats near the front of the plane.

  The enigmatic woman settled back into her seat once more and bent her head forward as if in prayer. Who was she? Nick wondered. What was her relationship with the two men? Did she have anything to do with mummy man’s death? Nick gnawed on his bottom lip as he contemplated the logic in that train of thought, but it didn’t add up no matter how he figured it. He’d have to question witnesses to discover if she had been anywhere near the back of the plane when the unknown passenger had been transformed into mummy boy. And yet, it would be difficult to make a case against her if she had been. The lavatory door had been locked from the inside.

  He faced the sky marshal. “Question the crew and passengers while I check out the lavatory,” Nick said brusquely. “See if anybody knows who this guy is and find out if someone heard him screaming in the john before you got here.”

  “I know how to conduct an investigation,” he snapped, and then nodded toward the open doorway. “You won’t find anything in there, but help yourself.” He shrugged his shoulders and moved away toward the front of the plane.

  Nick knelt beside the corpse and examined the exposed skin. There didn’t appear to be any needle marks or bites of any kind, but they would be difficult to identify in the withered folds of skin. There were no signs of bullet holes or knife wounds, either. So what had dried this poor son-of-a-bitch into a prune? And why for godsake? Nick stared into the lighted lavatory and sighed. The answer had to be in there.

  After asking the flight attendants to vacate the cramped alcove between the lavatory doors, Nick entered the crime scene. There didn’t appear to be any obvious evidence as to why the John Doe had died such a cruel and mysterious death. Maybe the sky marshal was right. Maybe this was just a waste of time.

  Then he saw the dull reflection of an extremely small object lying on the floor at the toilet base. He carefully picked it up off the floor and examined it under the vanity light.

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. It was a snake scale. He searched the floor for more, but he came up empty. Now why would there be a single snake scale in an airplane lavatory? Was there a snake keeper or carnival snake charmer on board? He wrapped it in a tissue and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. Again, his search had turned up more crazy questions than answers.

  As he turned to leave, the lavatory door slammed shut behind him. He tugged it, but it was wedged tight against the frame by an unseen force. The deadbolt latch wasn’t even in the locked position. The door should’ve come open easily.

  “Hey!” he shouted, pounding both fists against the door. “Get me out! I’m stuck in here.”

  The flight attendants tried opening the door, but it wouldn’t budge. They shouted for help, and the sky mars
hal came running. The two men who had refused to clear the crime scene area earlier, stood and followed the sky marshal to the rear of the plane. Suddenly, the sky marshal fell back, as if thrown by invisible hands, and crashed into the two men behind him. They all teetered on the brink of collapse before recovering their balance.

  “What in blazes did that?” the sky marshal demanded, as he dabbed the blood on his split lip with one hand and gingerly massaged the rising knot on his forehead with the other.

  Squints raised his hand toward the door, but its progress was quickly thwarted. “There’s some kind of invisible wall here,” he said calmly, as if he had expected it.

  The passengers mumbled loudly between themselves, and a few women sobbed wildly.

  The sky marshal raised his hand for silence, but it went ignored. “Goddammit, quiet down!” he shouted. The panicked buzz gradually receded. “Now listen and listen good. You’re all safe here, but there’s another man trapped in the lavatory that I’ve got to try and get out. So please, stay calm and stay out of my way, or I swear I’ll have you arrested as soon as we put down in Florida.” He scanned the crowd for any protestors or even anyone who looked like they might challenge his authority. Satisfied, he nodded and joined Squints.

  “So how do you propose we get through that?” the sky marshal asked.

  “That’s your department, lawman. Me and my brother are just along for the ride,” Squints replied and backed away toward his brother.

  “Damn chickenshit,” the sky marshal mumbled, as he traced the smooth contour of the invisible partition.

  Squints didn’t hear the comment. He and his brother gazed in surprise at the empty seat where the troublesome woman had been.

  “Damn her!” the squat brother said, though it sounded like a growl to those seated nearby. “She’s been a major pain-in-the-ass since she was young.”

  “Yeah, but knowing the bitch’s life history ain’t going to help us out of this mess. We’ll be spending the rest of our lives swimming in Lake Griffin as a couple ugly croakers if we don’t find a way to help Bellamy,” Squints said grimly.