Now she could actually feel the demon's will coupling with hers. He would command her to take another step, and she would move forward. Step after step until she needed no more commands, progressing toward the stairway and toward Jeffrey Chandler.
Yes. She would stop him. Now. Forever.
"Jeffrey," she said. "Wait, Jeffrey. . . ."
The darkness was complete. It was as if his eyes had suddenly vanished from his head.
Blinded, Jeff suffered a profound disorientation. No up or down. No floor beneath his feet. Oddly, he stood in a slippery, sloshing liquid. And he could walk on it! He took another tentative step, fearing that if he acknowledged this impossibility he'd sink and drown in a bottomless sea.
Another cautious step. The waves he caused rippled in concentric circles to the ends of the universe. Then back. Flooding over him as an invisible tide.
He felt things that might have been fish brushing against his flesh as they swain by. Their touch was cold, clammy, impossibly foreign.
He pulled away in disgust.
Someone called from all around, "Jeffrey, wait. Jeffrey."
When he turned he saw his wife Jessica. His dead wife. Grinning at him from Casey's wheelchair.
Her face exploded, just as it had a million times in his mind. The assassin's bullet blasted it to pieces.
There was another face underneath. It exploded, too.
And another . . .
Jeff turned away, screaming. All the time knowing that if he escaped into hysteria, something would jump into his mind and take hold of him.
But he didn't care.
He heard the sound of another explosion. Another.
He screamed again.
Then something grabbed him.
Lying flat on the porch floor, McCurdy tried to open the screen door without making any noise.
He allowed the spring to tug the door's weight against him, forcing it to close a little at a time as he dragged himself through.
When he was fully into the kitchen, he let the door shut quietly against its frame. Then he exhaled with great relief.
The first thing he saw was the priest's body, a new addition to the farmhouse morgue. Seeing it shriveled against the wall inspired a momentary stab of hopelessness. The priest had been God's man. Did this mean all faith was powerless against the accursed thing?
Because McCurdy had been deluded, was he also to be damned? Had salvation and a lifetime of prayers been . . . wasted?
No matter. God or Devil, the thing had betrayed him.
The remnants of his pride demanded revenge. With a motivator stronger than love, McCurdy propelled himself forward. Arm over arm, he slid across the gritty floor toward the hail. Beside the doorway, he used a chair to help himself get to his feet. There was no way he'd meet the fiend lying on his belly, groveling on the floor.
Leaning against the door frame now, McCurdy reached into his pocket for the pistol.
Then he stepped into the hail, took aim. And fired!
Alton Barnes pulled Jeff into the bedroom. Jeff's face was brilliant red. Veins stood out in his forehead and neck as he screamed and screamed.
"Jeff, stop it!"
Jeff's body was rigid, almost convulsing. His hands were balled, locked against his chin.
"Jeff. It's okay, you're all right."
Al slapped him gently. Slapped him again, harder. "Jeff, come on. Snap out of it, for Christ's sake. You're okay."
Tension released and Jeff slumped into Alton's arms. The old man supported him with ease, dragging him into the bedroom.
"You was so dazed up I thought you was gonna walk straight into that christly wall out there. What they doin', messin' with your mind, Jeffrey?"
Jeff shook his head as if trying to wake up. "Alton? Christ? What . . . ? Where'd you . . . ? How'd you get up here?"
"I come back with the car and seen what's goin' on in here. Figgered I'd better get the computer for ya. So I climbed up that maple by the porch roof and come in the window. Hurry up now, grab the sonuvabitch and let's get the hell out of here."
"There's no time. I've got to do it here. Now. Stay by the door, will you? See to it nobody bothers me."
"You got it."
The liquid crystal screen was still lighted, glowing its eerie neon purple glow. Jeff hit the enter button to activate the program. When the outline of a left hand with a truncated little figure appeared, he knew he was beaten.
McCurdy's bullet smacked the old man in the shoulder, spinning him away from Karen.
Instead of falling, the ghastly body spun slow motion into the air as if it were no longer subject to gravity. With arms spread, the old man hovered between floor and ceiling like a wrinkled helium balloon.
McCurdy aimed, preparing to fire another round.
Karen turned, ready to attack the intruder.
Sneering, the old man pointed a gnarled finger at McCurdy. With a voice that seemed impossibly loud, he commanded, "Disarm him!"
McCurdy's arms snapped straight out to the sides as if yanked by invisible ropes. The gun flew from his hand and vanished in the darkness.
It was as if the old man's unseen bodyguards were holding McCurdy in place while brutally pulling his arms at right angles to his body. And those invisible protectors were impossibly strong.
McCurdy screamed in agony, his body lurched this way and that, caught in an impossible tug-of-war. He issued a lunatic scream as both arms ripped from their sockets and thumped to the floor. Blood spurted like a fountain as McCurdy's body started to spin.
On their way downstairs, Jeff and Al watched McCurdy collapse, crying and moaning.
"Al—" Jeff began.
"I know," Al assured him and ran down the stairway.
In her peripheral vision, Karen saw everything go crazy.
Alton Barnes scooted by her like a furtive animal and disappeared from sight; McCurdy twitched and cried on the floor; the walls seemed to fade and the candlelit hallway became part of some endless emptiness that was far too alien to register coherently on what remained of her human senses. She saw tiny beings composed entirely of light skittering around her feet. They emitted high-pitched birdlike giggles as they scampered and swarmed. She heard leathery wings flapping like sodden sheets somewhere behind her. Vaguely human voices whispered, "It is done." She saw stars blinking out one by one in the vast celestial dome she used to call the sky.
Even while these impossible things happened around her, she could not move her eyes to see them directly, to try to understand. Instead, her gaze was welded to the eyes of the old man who floated before her, suspended horizontally in the blackness of space.
As Karen stared, his eyes glowed like two penlights, boring laser beams directly into her mind. What looked like fine silver strands extruded from the many orifices of the old man's body. They reached out from his ears, his nostrils, his tiny pores, millions of them, stretching toward her like the threadlike tentacles of a gigantic jellyfish. And when they touched her, they tunneled like worms into her skin.
Words from her profession popped to mind and fell away like dry, dead leaves: delusion, hallucination, dementia.
Reality had changed, shifted. Then it too fell away with the obsolete jargon of her career.
I can kill and destroy, she thought. I can bring this whole house to the ground with the flex of a finger.
Spider web strands continued to flow as the old man emptied himself into her. It was a preternatural copulation that would bring about the birth of a new god on the earth. A god of metamorphosis and transmutation. Because Karen herself was mutating, becoming. The demon spirit, the god spirit, the soul of Splitfoot poured into her, its essence surging, its will filling her to the bursting point.
And when what she saw as silver cords stopped moving from the withered body into hers, she watched the once-human thing shrivel and fall away.
Like a snake shedding its skin.
Like a chrysalis discarded.
Like an insect sucked dry.
It flashed an
d streaked and vanished like lightning from Heaven. And a will that was almost her own commanded, End this now.
Finish them! We've toyed with these puppets long enough.
She turned on Alton Barnes who was moving past her like a fish, swimming in slow motion against a night-black tide. His aura glowed rainbow patterns and she found them irritating.
She watched as he clutched at something. He picked it up, threw it into the void. She saw the alien object catapult from his hand. Flying toward the stairs.
Turning end over end, the thing vanished into oblivion.
Finish him!
Karen flexed incorporeal muscles. Air moved around her in response, swirling, gathering speed and density, growing to whirlwind force. It smashed Alton. He flew off his feet. His back smacked an invisible wall and he crumbled to an invisible floor.
Tides of electrical pleasure coursed through Karen; the workout was invigorating.
Good, her instincts assured her. Now stop Jeffrey. Stop him, kill him!
Yes, her mind hissed. Yesss.
She turned to face the invisible stairs.
When she suspected Lucy was no longer breathing, Casey knew what to do. Mindless of the insanity around her, she flopped from the chair and crawled across the porch to the little girl's side.
Lucy's chest wasn't moving. Her lips and nostrils were still.
How to help? The child's deformity made mouth-to-mouth impossible.
Fighting growing revulsion, Casey folded the rubbery lips against the child's chin and held them there with her hand. Then, reluctantly, she lowered her mouth over Lucy's nose and exhaled. She breathed and exhaled, just like they taught her in school. She kept this up until she realized it was no use. The child's body had swollen to twice its former size, and mean as it sounded in the privacy of her own thoughts, Casey guessed death might be the best thing for her.
Should she call for help? Maybe someone would come out and look at Lucy. But Casey didn't dare risk shouting.
She dragged herself to the door and looked inside.
What she saw made no sense.
Karen was standing in the middle of the hall, naked, grinning like a madwoman. There were two bodies on the floor: the priest and McCurdy. Where'd he come from?
And old Mr. Barnes was standing near Karen. He shrank from her as if she frightened him. All at once Mr. Barnes heaved something to Dad. It was white and bent. Before she could tell what it was, Dad snatched it from the air.
Then Karen flicked her wrist. It was a quick, tight motion, as if she were trying to shake a drop of water from her fingertip. Though she never touched him, Mr. Barnes flew off his feet and slammed into the wall!
And when he crumbled to the floor, Karen laughed. Then she turned her whole body toward the steps that led to the upstairs room where Dad had just disappeared.
Holding the severed arm, Jeff flattened McCurdy's left palm against the computer screen. It flashed:
MCCURDY VERIFIED
Then he typed frantically. Part of his mind tried to ignore the slow steady pounding of feet coming up the stairs.
But it was impossible to ignore the unfamiliar female voice that called to him. "Say your prayers, Jeffrey. And if you want to save yourself, you'd better say them to me."
No, not now. He needed time. Time!
Alton Barnes picked himself up off the floor. I'm okay, he thought. Nothing broken this time. Shaking his head, he looked around.
He saw Karen, heavy-footed and awkward, walking up the steps toward the bedroom.
Somethin's got her, he thought.
Alton knew what Karen was experiencing. The thing was inside her. Fucking with her mind, eroding her values, battering her principles, mocking everything she loved with irresistible temptations. It wanted to tear down everything good, replace it with sickness.
"Wait, Karen. Stop! Don't go up there."
Jeff hit the REPEAT command. He hit it again and again.
Any minute someone would burst in the door and force him to quit what he was doing.
What if he couldn't finish?
And if he did what if his plan didn't work?
But damn it, he had to try.
All he needed was a little more time.
The loudest voice was the one in her head.
It said, Move faster! Get up the stairs!
She took another step.
"Karen. Dr. Bradley. Try to stop. I know what's inside you, but you gotta fight it. Come on, you gotta . . ."
She glanced over her shoulder. Alton was looking up at her, his eyes imploring. She wouldn't stop.
With a wave of your hand, with a nod and a wink, you can blast Jeffrey and that damn machine back to atoms.
She took another step.
When the machine is gone, your place in this world is assured. The greatest musicians will play for you. They'll write you operas and symphonies. The most charming, the most powerful men—politicians, entertainers, power brokers—will be yours for playthings.
Fire erupted on the stairs around her.
Flames jumped and danced around her legs. Fiery tongues climbed her torso, lapped at her breasts. It didn't burn. No. In fact it felt cool, soothing. Its radiation caressed her skin. Surrounded her. She wore it like a garment. It moved along with her like a protective barrier. And when she commanded, it would leap forth and destroy.
As she took another step she saw the wallpaper turn brown and peel from the plaster like scorched parchment.
Although she wasn't looking at him, she could see Alton Barnes behind her at the foot of the stairs. He held his hands before his face, shielding himself from the heat. He wouldn't be able to come any nearer.
"Can't you see what it's doing?" he cried'. "That's fire, miss, that's the Devil's tool. You can't let that sonavabitch do this to you."
The Devil's tool? She'd let him play with the Devil's tool. She'd fuck him with it! When she laughed a column of flame leapt toward Alton like a blazing attack dog. Scorching wind whizzed past his face, turning his cheeks red, making him screech in pain.
Hurry now, hurry. When the computer is down all the world will be yours!
One more step and she'd be in the upstairs hail.
In spite of the heat, Alton pursued her up the stairs. His shirt burst Into flame. The skin of his face blackened. "Wait, Karen, please wait. Let me help you like you done for me. Don't go up there. Don't go in that room. Please!"
He was only able to make three more steps before intense heat stopped him. His face blistered. His hair fell away as gray ashen powder.
Fire poured down the stairs, cascading over the steps like a flaming waterfall. It flooded over Alton and he vanished, screaming, under thick smoke and a fiery tide.
Casey saw it all.
Saw it, and still she did nothing. She hated herself for her indecision. She never knew what to do. Never acted quickly enough. Okay, she thought, I have to stand.
Yes, she had to run in there and offer whatever help she could.
She tried to calculate the risk: if she stood up, she'd be accepting the demon's healing gift. And if Dad was right, the moment she accepted the gift, she'd belong to the demon.
But if the effort of standing and walking made the demon abandon Karen and come to claim Casey, that would be okay. Karen would be safe, and Dad would have extra time to finish what he was doing. Maybe the two of them could even get away.
Prayers came easier now. She offered one more, confiding what she was going to do, asking for God's help.
Casey gritted her teeth, concentrating, forcing long-unused flesh to obey forgotten commands.
Muscles stretched. Tendons pulled like steel cables. Dormant nerves shrieked painful messages of distress.
It hurt like hell, but it was working. Casey was standing up!
She walked inside, her legs stiff as crutches. "Karen," she cried. "It's me, Casey. Please stop. Don't hurt Dad, Karen. Please. He loves you!"
Almost, Jeff thought. Almost. Just another second . . .
His fingers flew over the keys. In triumph, he hit the ENTER button for the last time.
"Now we just wait and see," he said it to no one. In his profound concentration, he'd been oblivious to the shouts and noise filling the air around him.
Words danced across the computer screen. He smelled smoke and the sweet scent of burning flesh. His strength vanished and he wilted in his chair.
It was over. One way or another, it was over.
The tiny dying part of her mind that was still Karen Bradley heard the terrified child—he loves you—and she stopped.
Indecision held her in place. Fear locked her muscles. Fear for what she had done. Fear for what she might still do.
She had felt this paralysis many times. But it was new to the alien presence that tried to propel her onward.
MOVE, you damn surly cow!
Yet as she stood there, still as a statue, the evil words sounded farther and farther away until they were a faint echo on the threshold of vanishing forever.
The ring of flames around her lowered like a gas burner going out. In a moment they were gone.
Casey. Jeff. Mr. Barnes. Lucy. She couldn't speak their names, but they were the clearest thoughts in her mind.
And suddenly the world changed one more time for Karen Bradley. The air in the old house clarified. Sounds once again began to resonate properly. The oppressive weight of an alien presence lightened until it departed altogether.
The first rays of morning sunshine poured in the windows and through the open door at the bottom of the stairs.
Karen heard Casey's footsteps coming up the stairs behind her.
She wanted to turn, to smile at the girl and hug her for saying the wonderful magic words that had broken the demon's spell.
But she was still immobile, rooted to the spot. Paralyzed.
A haggard-looking Jeffrey Chandler appeared in the bedroom door directly in front of Karen. Though he was filthy and seemed exhausted, he somehow managed to smile at her.
With five steps he was at her side. Jeff took Karen's arm and looked into her eyes. "Here," he said, smiling, "let me help you.", His voice lacked some of the depth and confidence of the first time he had uttered those words.
The Reality Conspiracy Page 44