by Lex Sinclair
And, in all fairness, in hindsight, Michael had been spot on. They ignored it and everything carried on as it had been prior to its discovery.
Reassured, Raul forced a smile. Then he crossed the bedroom and opened the door, offering the upstairs hall.
He halted all of a sudden when he saw the door to the spare bedroom wide open...
11:02p.m. June 5
Reverend Rodney Ward and Michael arrived had arrived promptly at eleven sharp outside Raul’s residence and were becoming alarmed as to why all the lights in the house were out and there was no answer. Michael couldn’t very well stand outside slamming the brass door knocker. Before long the neighbours would start peeking through their windows, wondering what the ruckus was about.
‘I don’t sodding believe this,’ Michael muttered, as he headed back to the Mercedes idling on the bricked driveway.
‘Well?’ Rodney asked, perplexed.
Michael threw himself onto the passenger seat and slammed the door. ‘What the fuck’s he playing at?’
‘It doesn’t look like anyone’s home,’ Reverend Ward said.
‘No, really. What gave you that impression?’
The Mickey Mouse reverend made a sound with his tongue in disapproval of the sarcasm.
‘Where’s the nearest payphone, dammit?’
‘About two or three blocks over. I think we passed one on our way.’
‘Well, what’re you waitin’ for? Put your foot down!’
‘Yeah, all right. Don’t ‘ave a go at me.’
Reverend Ward rammed the gear stick into reverse and backed down the drive onto the road, performed a U-Turn and depressed the accelerator pedal.
When Michael stepped out of the phone booth, Reverend Ward could tell there was no answer. The passenger door slammed shut as he got in.
‘Now what?’
‘Back to the house,’ Michael snapped.
‘But -’
‘Just do it!’ he roared.
Beginning to lose his own temper, Reverend Ward broke the speed limit getting to Raul’s house.
He watched Michael rapped hard on the front door, shaking it in its frame. Then stormed back to the Mercedes. The passenger squeaked on its hinges as it was wrenched open.
‘Where’s that wrench?’
‘It might be in the boot. I’m not sure if I took it outta the car a while back.’
‘You better not have.’
Reverend Ward jumped as the door slammed for the third time. Miraculously, the glass didn’t shatter.
In the rear view mirror Michael opened the boot. Reverend Ward could hear him rummaging around in there. He prayed to Satan that he found the wrench he sought after. The impact of the boot closing rocked the stationary car. Yet, before Michael ended up destroying his car and battering the front door of Raul’s house down, Reverend Ward saw him marching across the front lawn, armed with the wrench. Only he didn’t go to the front door. Instead he disappeared around the side of the house across the paving stones. Then Reverend Ward remembered that the back door had a glass panel. The sound of glass shattering didn’t surprise him, although, now he kept a vigilant eye out for any of the street’s residents who may also have heard the sound, too.
A good five minutes passed. No one came out of there house to see what all the commotion was. No patrol cars drove past. No sirens wailing in the distance, growing nearer as they approached. He waited another five minutes and saw no lights inside the house illuminate the interior. And that was the sole reason why Reverend Ward decided to get out of the car and go and take a look-see inside the house.
He crept around the side of the house, hardly able to see his feet moving forward in the darkness. The rear of the property was cordoned off by a timber fence of vertical slats, painted brown. He could smell the emulsion filling his sinuses. Ordinarily, he’d have found the pleasant smell comforting. Nevertheless, the shards of broken glass glinting in the moonlight unnerved him. But not as much as the chasm pouring from the jagged hole emanating from within.
Reverend Ward cussed under his breath. He wished he’d brought a torch with him so he could see in front of him. Yet, in spite of his dislike of the pitch dark on foreign property, he pulled the back door open and stepped inside.
As he ventured down the hallway where the staircase filled most of the foyer, Reverend Ward heard heavy breathing coming from upstairs. He wasn’t sure if he ought to call out to Michael or if he should remain as quiet as a mouse. Perhaps if he knew if it was Michael panting or not it would help him decide. However, the only way he was going to find that out would be if he climbed the stairs and took a look.
The stairs creaked underfoot. Shaking his head in disdain, the old man couldn’t help thinking how awful a spy he’d make. Then he climbed the rest of the way on tiptoes and although the stairs still creaked, it did make a slight improvement.
He saw it even before he reached the landing. The dazzling white light emanating from the spare bedroom. The door stood wide open. The light spilled onto the carpeted hallway, as though a white sun lived inside that very room. He had to shield his naked eyes with his right arm as he crept forward, and not even that was enough to prevent him from squinting as he neared, inch by inch. The light was far too intense to be generated from a light bulb or even multiple light bulbs for that matter. Evidently, this was no ordinary light. He got to the doorway and made out the motionless figure of Michael, standing rigid; hands by his side, head arched back, eyeballs stretching the optical nerves, threatening to escape the head. He shook him, trying to snap him out his trancelike condition. It didn’t work. He cried out Michael’s name. That didn’t work, either. Then he too gazed at the source of the brilliant illumination.
What he saw aged him five years in that single moment.
The creature/girl had somehow broken free of its restraints and was now kneeling on the mattress, leaning back, arms spread out away from her torso. A deep, guttural cry emitted her yawning mouth. The white dazzling light shone out of every facial orifice. The anatomy of the girl was silhouetted against the luminescence. And in at the centre of the source of this white sun a creature revealed itself in all its nerve-shredding, heart pounding terrifying magnificence. For it had the head of a mammal. And that mammal was a goat. And four, curving horns sprouted out from the summit of its glorious head. The eyes shone a phosphorescent crimson that weren’t eyes at all but windows to the depths of hell.
The deep, guttural cry escaping the thing atop the mattress came from something not of this world but that of another terrible realm, where the souls of good and bad alike burned to death over and over and over again, evermore...
Rodney had no recollection of how he and Michael had ended up carrying the bundle down the stairs out the front into the night and placed her on the back seat of the Mercedes - but somehow they managed.
Rodney and Michael collapsed into their respective driver’s and passenger seats unable to speak. The remainder of Rodney’s hair was ghost-white. His face, as did Michael’s, looked as though he’d stuck in the freezer for days it was so pallid. Their protruding eyes were camouflaged in the vast whiteness. Steam billowed out of their gaping mouths in the interior of the car. Rodney didn’t see the steam or the condensation on the windscreen. Instead he saw the crumpled form belong to Raul at the foot of the bed, his head turned completely around. He’d looked like a badly constructed mannequin, save the floppy neck.
Why the demon inside the girl had murdered Raul was anyone’s guess. It didn’t make an iota of sense. Raul had done an excellent job in taking care of the creature/girl for as long as he did in complete obscurity. Sure, he’d phoned Michael on occasions sounding panicky about certain aspects regarding the demon’s knowledge and demands, but that was to be expected, Michael had said. No one within the cult expected the creature/girl to thank Raul. However, no one cou
ld have foretold what had transpired upstairs, either.
Prudently, neither of them had touched Raul’s cadaver, or so Rodney believed. Now that the incident was in past tense, his memory was gradually returning, and he remembered going into Raul’s bedroom opening one of the cupboards above the bed and taking out a woolly blanket to wrap Sofie in, while Michael picked up her body after the brilliant light had been sucked back into her by an invisible vacuum and she’d toppled sideways off the mattress.
He really ought to be grateful that he was still alive and able to operate both his mind and body after what he’d seen. Yet he couldn’t snap out of his trancelike condition no matter how hard he tried.
‘We can’t stay here all n-n-night,’ Michael muttered, breaking the profound silence.
Rodney turned his head to look at him. Then he nodded and dived into his coat pocket for the car keys and slotted them into the ignition. The growl of the engine startled him. Nevertheless, it also got his senses back. Two minutes later Rodney could feel blood rushing into his legs again. He flicked the headlights on and whimpered; his subconscious thinking that he was back upstairs in Raul’s house in the spare bedroom. Then he slowly reversed back onto the street, shifted the gear from reverse in first gear and drove down the peaceful street, gripping the steering wheel harder than necessary.
The black Mercedes rolled through the open gates onto the gravel driveway around the circular driveway with a pond at the centre and came to a halt outside Charles and Yvonne’s red Victorian gothic architectural house alongside the statue of demon with its right paw raised in some sort of salute. Rodney killed the engine. His feet were aching. His face had warmed because he’d turned the heater on full blast to its hottest temperature. He checked his reflection in the rear view mirror and smiled at the sight of red cheeks. Michael’s leathery visage also appeared healthier, human, too.
The big front door opened just as they got out of the car and had been about to lift the unconscious heap out of the back seat. Michael glanced over his shoulder and raised his hand in greeting to Charles and Yvonne. Then he and Rodney studiously carried Sofie up the porch steps and into the warm interior that - unlike Raul’s residence - was filled with light and sound from the TV.
‘Where’s Raul?’ Charles asked, closing the door behind them.
Rodney and Michael exchanged an anxious look.
Charles repeated the question believing them not to have heard the first time.
‘Raul’s met with foul play,’ Michael said.
‘Pardon?’
‘Sofie - or the demon - for some reason or another killed him. We saw his body when we went to collect her not long ago,’ Rodney said.
Yvonne and Charles cussed simultaneously.
‘But why?’ Yvonne cried. ‘Raul was the one who protected it during its most vulnerable stage.’
Michael shrugged. ‘I don’t know either. But what’s done is done.’
‘I hope that bitch dies straight after she gives birth for what she’s done,’ Charles said, his false teeth grinding.
‘Well, that might be the case,’ Michael said. ‘Anyway, we need to take her upstairs and keep her incapacitated until the following night. We’ve come so far. Things haven’t panned out as we’d hoped, I know. But, we’re here now. Less than one more day to go. Just need to keep a vigilant watch on her, and, as I said, what happens to Sofie is not up to us, either way. The thing that emerges from here will be our sole responsibility.’
23.
June 6 1986
Allan Bowen and his son Richard (better known by everyone who knew the six-year old as Ritchie) Bowen had spent the early hours of the evening erecting their camping tent. Allan was teaching his son how living out in the wild would not only allow him to appreciate how lucky he was to have a roof over his head but to also make him appreciate the wildlife a lot of people never bothered to take any notice.
‘I think it looks pretty good, Dad,’ Ritchie said.
Allan was busy embedding the pegs into the ground until he believed the tent was firm enough to withstand any winds. He’d camped with his father often when he was a boy. They used to go hiking up in the mountains, seeing marvellous sights. And he couldn’t help even at the tender age of six being taken aback by the amazing sights of the same places and how different they appeared in contrasting weather. They’d spend the cold nights eating canned food sizzling in a hot pot above the crackling fire. Allan would play the harmonica beautifully and his father would sing along or hum the tune as darkness descended.
‘Almost, Ritchie.’ He knocked the last peg in, placed the lump hammer into his satchel and rose. ‘There we go. Sleeping bags are in there. I’ll cook us some food.’
‘Whadda we got, Dad?’
‘Hotdogs, beans and I remembered to bring some bread rolls and tomato ketchup. You got your bottle of juice in the cooler and I’ve got two cans of beer.’
‘I’m not hungry yet, Dad. I’m still full from the pasty.’
‘Okay. How ‘bout we have a sit down and I can show you how to play the harmonica. It’s kinda fun once you know how.’
‘Okay.’
Ritchie listened to Allan play the instrument, adoring the dulcet sounds, gazing upon his dad with awe at his unknown talent. Then he tried. He was a little disappointed when he could barely put two notes together, although his dad told him that it took a lot of practice and patience. After half an hour Ritchie had improved, and could hit a few notes perfectly in a row.
Allan consulted his wristwatch and saw that it was almost half past eight. The amethyst hue of the sky caught both father and son’s breath. It was so beautiful it couldn’t possibly be real. The essence of beauty made both father and son wonder where the earth stopped and heaven began.
Ritchie smelled the hotdogs cooking but never took his gaze from the sky, watching intently as the light of the colours ebbed, relenting to night. The shiny silver stars that formed shapes in the galactic sky overhead if you looked hard enough twinkled with vibrancy. Directly overhead a comet ripped the sky. Then came the sounds of distant chanting...
Beyond the forest a couple hundred acres of an open pasture was the venue of something not many people witness, for it was not only bone-chilling but unprecedented. Black-robed figures moved as one wave towards the makeshift altar where four robed figures stood motionless around the plinth that a girl’s body which had once belonged to a young Swedish woman who came to the United Kingdom to study Law, writhed.
The chanting grew louder and distinct. However, the language was foreign and hard to decipher. The robed figure armed with a machete that glinted in the moonlight pulled back their hood and drew closer to the girl and revealed their true identity.
The long mane of brown hair and face that stared, void of emotion, at Sofie seemed all too familiar all of a sudden. The face belonged to her saviour. The saviour that had drove her out to this Victorian, gothic residence owned by a family of devil worshippers. The saviour who’d then taken it upon herself to come to her rescue when she needed it most, and would have done had the demon witch not slit her throat and induced a hellish collision into a rock-faced wall.
If there had been any last remnants of a girl named Sofie Lackberg still alive somewhere deep inside her own decomposing shell, then it died in that harrowing moment.
The incantation coming from the demon witch, Reverend Ward, Michael and Janice Stevens was echoed by the mass followers, standing side-by-side in a large circle, watching the fire-lit torches illuminate the plinth so they could see the rebirth with their very own eyes. The golden rod with the shiny goat’s head exhaled dense, coiling steam over the girl’s body that no longer writhed. The demon inside was ready to be released. By the condition of the emaciated form, even if the girl did somehow manage to gain control again she’d die shortly after.
Behind the plinth a bonfire crack
led and spat glowing embers like fireflies into the night. The four robed figures standing atop the makeshift altar were backlit and that added to the eeriness tenfold - not that it needed it.
When the girl began screaming and her hips bucked with every contraction the incantation ceased and silence descended. The demon witch looked on while Janice held Sofie down along with Reverend Ward. Michael parted Sofie’s legs and used his torch to see how much longer they’d have to wait, grinning from ear-to-ear, malevolently.
The screaming that followed froze the marrow in the bones of everyone in attendance. They were not the normal agonising screams of a woman in labour but of someone who was being sliced open from the inside. Some of the robed figures’ heads sunk into their chests, unable to look any more. Others clamped hands over their ears, doing everything they possibly could to block out the guttural cries of someone in the wraths of an unspeakable death.
An audible gasp from everyone who was witnessing this eyesore escaped the robed figures, causing some to look away in revulsion as Michael extracted the tiny creature, sheathed in blood and body fluid and held him up in both hands for everyone to see.
What had come into the world was the most hideous creature ever seen. Its head was nothing even distantly resembling a human’s, for it had long snout, burning red eyes that looked like traffic lights and four horns dripping crimson blood.