“Call the ambulance,” the first officer said, rushing to the cell with the keys.
He opened the cell.
Ben grabbed him with arms that were bulging abnormally, “What are you doing?! Close the cell!!”
“Christ!” the officer screamed.
“I can’t control it!” Ben shrieked. He threw the policeman aside. The change was incomplete, but the beast was already taking over. The open gate was pushed forward, swinging around into the wall. He pushed his way past the law enforcement; crashing through the doorway leading outside before they could raise their guns. The one furthest from the holding cell reached for his and fumbled it, disconcerted by what he saw. The man was changing before his eyes, into God knew what. And now he was gone. Faraday would not be pleased.
The creature that was Ben shattered the windows of the Supra-Mart. Customers screamed as the nightmare thing snarled. One woman was not quick enough to step out of its way and was tossed into a rack of magazines next to a register. It pounced on the back of a man attempting to flee. This khaki-slacked, bespectacled, sweater wearing man with a receding hairline had his head pulled back by his remaining hairs as his throat was torn out between the massive jaws of the wolf-like monster. His head dropped with a sickening thunk, his glasses and teeth shattering on the linoleum.
The few cashiers who weren’t at the meeting and manning the registers looked on wide eyed and slack-
jawed, before they too ran.
When the glass shattered the heads of all the
managers and employees in the break room went up.
“What in the world is going on?” Chuck Cohen wondered. When the screams started they all ran out to the floor.
It was pure mayhem. People were running, crying, shouting things; and the thing they were talking about was busily eating a customer. Everyone ran the other way, and Chuck ran to the back to call the police.
The werewolf looked up, done eating all the good parts, and ran through the empty floor. He could smell more meat, but it was hiding. Stalking through the clothing aisles he tore one of the fitting room doors off its hinges. Instead of a person inside he was startled by his own reflection. Ben looked at himself curiously, the large hairy body, the bloody dripping teeth, and the big snout. The beast in it angered him and he pounded on the mirror with his fists, fracturing it into great spider web cracks. He stormed out grunting.
When he was done calling the police he and assistant manager Sheila moved into the dairy cooler. They were crouched down behind the milk looking through the glass doors.
“Please God, have the cops get here quick,” Chuck whispered. Sheila shushed him.
Amelia was two doors away in the receiving bay, hiding behind two high stacks of pallets, with only a narrow opening between them.
The beast stormed through the electronics aisle, getting frustrated and angry. The sound of all the TVs running wasn’t helping. He lifted one of them off its shelf, one of the newer Sony Trinitron TVs (a flat screen box TV, still using tube based technology, packing some heft) and pitched it high, away from him. It sailed to the ceiling shattering one of the fluorescent lights in a spectacle of raining glass and sparks, and then it did rain as the TV struck one of the sprinklers, setting all of them off, before it crashed to the ground with exploding circuitry.
Ben roared as the water doused him, rearing his head up angrily, as if trying to shout the water down. His muscles tensed and bulged, and he roared again before he dashed off in search of prey.
Faraday was already at the police station, responding to the call about Ben’s escape, and tearing the officers a new one, right before he got the call from the Supra-Mart’s manager. Nope, this would not be a slow night.
Benjamin found an associate hiding underneath the Electronics register. The heavily tattooed teen was praying softly; something he hadn’t done in a long time. Ironically enough it was the whispering that attracted the beast. He was hauled up by his work vest bringing the boy face to face with him in his large furry paw.
The boy sobbed. “Please, please, please don’t...”
Ben roared into his face before he ripped the boy’s face off in his powerful jaws. The teen fell onto the register conveyer belt, sliding him toward the checkout, before he teetered off and dropped to the floor, landing on his head and snapping his neck for good measure.
He shoved through the double doors to the receiving bay noisily, the doors smacking against the walls, and bouncing forward and back multiple times. Amelia made a quick startled sound before she covered her mouth. It was too late; the creature had already heard her and smelled her. He started flinging pallets aside, one by one, tossing them as if they were made of paper mache, instead of inch thick wood. Amelia Rivers shook behind them, panic and water raining down over her as the sprinklers dowsed her shivering frame, wishing she had her gun- the Magnum that was at home, doing her no good now. She’d practiced using it since she was twelve, going out on the gun range, and was fairly proficient in its use (the only thing of use her daddy taught her). She thought she’d blast a hole in the abusive bastard one day, but she never did. Not many people knew her love and respect for guns, the only thing that seemed to give her any power. And now with nowhere to hide, and nowhere to run- the monster blocking her only escape route, she felt powerless and set to die without it.
The werewolf roared as he went through every one of the pallets, casting two or three aside at a time now in his frenzied attempt to reach her. Amelia slunk down into the corner as the beast loomed over her, growling and dribbling saliva, its snout caked with blood. The beast smelled of blood, and wet dog, and something else, something familiar under that.
“Ben?” she said. The creature grunted and paused. A flicker of recognition seemed to pass through its eyes. Sirens sang in the distance. It lifted its head to listen. It glanced at her once more. And then it bolted, running off to God knew where.
CHAPTER NINE
LUCAS
The coins in Lucas’s pockets jingled as he walked. It was a beautiful day and he’d spent it stopping in the shops on the main drag identified as Fentmore Row, just outside the rich area of town known as Westchester Hills (considered uptown in Mercy Falls). He wasn’t buying anything, just looking. Everything was too pricey and not really his taste. He did, however, splurge on a rich decadent chocolate truffle bar, which he gorged on for a full minute. It probably didn’t help his acne, but he didn’t care. The light of day never did shine kindly on Lucas Pratt.
Sixteen with dark matted hair and a greasy awkward complexion, he’d never had a date, and could barely smile without sending shivers up someone’s back. He’d dropped out of high school, and lived at home with his divorced mother, mostly working part time jobs to pitch in at the house and to have a little spending money. He had no friends to speak of and didn’t really care. People were mostly shit, that’s what he told himself. It made things easier. At this young age he’d already become bitter, introverted, and sexually frustrated and confused. He didn’t think about men, no, but girls- much younger girls. His frustrations unfortunately veered him toward more depraved and perverted thoughts. He sometimes wished he could rid himself of them, but then other times he wondered if it would just be simpler to give in to that darkness.
Lucas bounced up and down the street, for the moment amusing himself with the noise the change made in his pockets. He wore loose khaki cargo shorts (the kind preferred by skaters), under his too-big for him white swirls and whorls design logo tee, because he had more wiggle room. He’d never skated in his life.
As he was bouncing he saw he was passing a catholic school. He looked up at the silver cross neither with disdain nor reverence, but with indifference. All faiths meant little, if nothing, to him. Lucas noticed some lights were on in the windowed room above. He was given the impression of a wide expansive room, and caught some shadowy movement. Small, almost imperceptibly he made out the sound of sneakers squ
eaking against linoleum- a gymnasium. Before he looked away, a group of three girls came to the window. They were perhaps ten or eleven years of age, certainly no more than twelve. They were wearing white basketball uniforms. The one front and center was quite tall for her age. She had brown hair tied behind her head in a loose bun, all shaggy and disheveled, and a bit frizzy. What struck him most were her eyes, a grayish-green, which he could see even from where he stood. They began to giggle and point at him. The one in front whispered something to the girl on her right, and then looked behind her both ways before she turned around and dropped her shorts.
Lucas’ eyes nearly sprang from his skull. Her butt was a perfectly smooth sculpture, untouched by ravage or age of any kind, even slightly tanned, and all he wanted to do was to touch it, and kiss it. Oh what a wonder!
The other girls were laughing. It was only a glimpse, however, because just as quickly as she had pulled her shorts down, she pulled them back up. She turned around to see his reaction, laughing with the others, and didn’t like one bit what she saw.
Lucas smiled, and waved, trying to reassure them that he meant no harm, but it only raised the level of fear and anxiety in their faces. They turned and ran from the window. Lucas Pratt continued walking.
All he could think of now was how he would get
home and masturbate to the memory of that lovely un-spoiled virgin ass. He shrugged off the temporary disgust he felt with himself. This was exactly what he needed to get over depressing thoughts of suicide. If he couldn’t have someone real, at least he could fantasize.
The day was quickly turning to dusk. He had to hurry, so he cut through Jeremiah’s Woods, going through the hole in the fence he’d made a few months earlier. Further down the woods were gated. At least this way he would not have to climb. Even though he was almost technically an adult, living at home still meant his mother worried if he wasn’t home before dark. She still thought of those days when all those children had gone missing. But he wasn’t a child; couldn’t she see that? And those days had ended. It still didn’t keep him from tearing into a walk/run combo through the woods.
It was quiet inside, only a shushed kind of nature creating the sense that all was still, the sun breaking up into great red bands across the sky. It almost made Lucas want to cry, although he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because nature had been so cruel to him that seeing it now, reworking itself into something beautiful... If only he could envision his life that way.
He shrugged, stopping to enjoy what was before him, for what it was; to think of nothing else. A cool breeze had sprung up to break up the heat and humidity, and he strolled briskly through it.
As the evening darkened he caught a whiff of something on the breeze, like sulfur. Luke crested a hill and saw a dim light in the distance. It was in the path he was headed so he pushed forward, unsure. Something in the air had changed. The light was dancing, reddish yellow. The closer he came the easier he could discern that someone had built a fire. There was something odd about it, however. It wasn’t low to the ground like he would have expected of someone who had built a campfire. Against his
better judgment he continued to inch closer.
Lucas was still hundreds of feet away but he could
now make out that the fire was coming from what appeared to be a black metallic urn, which glinted with reflected light off its silver speckled surface. He moved forward, eyes squinting, making out figures in a circle around the urn, their features entirely covered. One of them was moving forward toward the flames, lifting something with both hands into the air. There was a whispered mumble of words, and he stood still to make them out. He couldn’t understand any of it, but he was sure that they were chanting. What had he stumbled onto?
His inclination was to run, and he made as if to turn away. He didn’t want to be caught by some satanic cult roasting live goats or chickens to his dark glory. Something made him stop- the gleam of pink skin in the fire’s light.
“Oh no,” he murmured to himself, almost consolingly, “Oh God no.”
What the robed figure held was a baby, a human baby. It began to cry. He saw the robed form turn its head toward him, tilting it back as if it were sniffing the air.
“No, no, no,” Lucas was chanting now.
They halted. The robed... whatever passed the child to another, slowly, tenderly, as if to harm it before it was fed to the fire was tantamount to putting its own head in the fire. Before Lucas was entirely sure what was happening the robed shape seemed to vanish; except it hadn’t vanished at all. It rushed so quickly toward him he caught a glimpse of the face beneath the hood in front of him, before a rough hand seized his throat, lifting him into the air.
“What,” the man-thing rasped, “are you doing here?”
Lucas Pratt tried to speak through his constricted throat but only managed to choke on his words. He was dragged toward the fiery circle, the others looking at him curiously. They at least appeared human beneath their cowls, but there was something wrong behind their eyes, their pale faces- something evil and hungry.
He looked toward the one that held the baby, slightly shorter than the others. Luke could tell it was a woman by the way she stood and how she held the baby. It was a newborn; a boy, no more than two days old.
The thing let go of his throat. He gagged and gasped for air, coughing. There was a murmur among them, an almost quiet consent, that there would be a feast before the sacrifice. He knew he was dinner even before the grins and the flash of their sharp wicked teeth in the firelight. They surrounded him, pushing forward- all but one- the woman with the baby. She was its protector, for now. Her dinner would have to come last.
And it was in that instant Lucas knew what he must do. If he had to die here, if this was how it would all end, he had to try to save this one life, this most innocent of innocents.
So surprising and unexpected was his mad dash forward that he actually pushed two of the vampires inching toward him aside.
“No!!” he cried, as he grabbed the woman by both shoulders, “Let him go!!” He shook her, attempting to snatch the baby from her. When she realized what he was doing, she hissed at him, swiveling away from his reaching hands, and in so doing she dropped the child.
The group of vampires, half a dozen, perhaps more, descended upon Lucas. Lucas screamed as he felt two of them sink their teeth into his throat, and the blood rushed over his face, blinding him, a red film over the black of night and the pale white ghost faces hovering over him. His body went into shock as he was rent apart. Fists punched through his chest, his innards yanked from his stomach. He felt the top of his head come off and teeth sink into his brain before his nervous system completely gave out, and the slow release of death washed over him. In his sacrifice,
Lucas Pratt, the would-be monster became a hero.
The intended sacrifice, the child whose life they’d come to end instead of his, had miraculously survived unharmed. Its fall was short, and onto soft overgrown grass. Although babies shift as babies do. It found itself rolling down an incline, away from the vampires, where it lay wailing, naked, crying its poor uncomprehending heart out, forgotten, as the vampires gorged on their fresh dinner.
Outside the gates, far from the lights of the fire, or the baby’s cries, someone stopped their car along the curb. Windows were rolled down, and headlights cut off, and a woman got out. She was not too far to hear Lucas’s screams.
“Oh dear Lord,” she said. Unsure, she ventured in. This wasn’t the first time or the last. At night this place seemed... wrong. It wasn’t long before she heard the cries, carried by the wind. She ran toward them, praying she wasn’t too late. Even if she wasn’t she was still unarmed, unprepared. Amazingly, she found the baby alone, a newborn baby boy, and it was crying. She could still hear the screams of the other victim dying in his throat, and knew it was too late for him. It was important to get the baby to safety as quickly as possible. She crouched down and reached her hands toward the boy, picking him up.
Although it didn’t completely calm him, his cries settled down to a few ragged sobs between sighs and hiccups. She was already in love with him.
She knew he had no mother or father. This baby
was born recently; the couple was taken, and then
slaughtered for blood, the child born for sacrifice. Someone
would still be looking for the parents.
“Animals,” she muttered. She laid the baby on her shoulder, face down, and gently patted its back. The baby let out a small burp.
“There you go,” she told him. She looked back over her shoulder, standing there with the boy in her arms, her wavy chestnut hair and floral print dress blowing in the breeze, sans her customary leather jacket which was too hot to wear this time of year.
Beyond the next hill, some distance away now, but not far enough, someone was going to notice the child was missing. She rushed hurriedly toward the gate and her car. She was able to drive off before the vampires, who were too busy in their feeding frenzy, noticed or caught a whiff of her scent. All they could smell now was the blood of their kill.
“Okay, baby, we’re okay,” she sighed, “We’re okay.” Her name was Mary Crowley.
PART TWO
BLOOD RITES
“Bad luck isn’t brought by broken mirrors, but by broken minds.”
-Suspiria
“Hold on, hold on to yourself
The Depths of the Hollow (Mercy Falls Mythos Book 2) Page 11