by Ira Robinson
Beneath one of the masses, she saw the reflection of silver near where the rope lay, and she pushed herself to grab it, desperately trying to rekindle the spell. She grabbed a part of the pile of insects and tossed them away, then reached into what remained and palmed the necklace from the ground.
She tried to control the rope, as well, but it slid from her before she had a chance to take hold of it. She flung herself at it, trying again, but it moved once more.
It lifted into the air and hovered only a few feet in front of her eyes, its length curling upward away from the earth. More bugs coated it, but were not what was making it move.
A second later, it flew across the distance between Sam and Odessa and crashed into the old woman with her arms upraised. She could barely see Odessa's face through the mass of insects all over her.
With a loud crack, the rope coiled around Odessa's throat, criss-crossing over and over. She was jerked backward, her words cut off in an instant, as her body tumbled to the earth. Her hands reached, gripping it with the fingers Sam had such a short time ago seen do wondrous things.
Sam tried to stand but her feet slid beneath her, the mass of creatures from the ground allowing her no purchase. She, too, ended up on her spine, her teeth clacking together with the impact. The back of her head, already weakened from before, sparked in agony but she used her hands to push herself up to sitting. Clumps of bugs and worms fell away from her hair as her gaze met that of the creature in the hat, the demonic thing.
A laugh came again as it pointed downward, and Sam could not help but follow where it was leading.
The mass of creatures was not in the bare patch, avoiding the powder Odessa laid down as a circle of containment and protection. But there, near where her own feet lay, was a break in the dust, kicked away by her own flailing.
Sam looked into the hollowed out sockets that should have been eyes and felt herself sink into despair, her heart shuddering deep inside.
The figure of the being became more distinct, more power fed to it by the second, and it lowered itself, its own hands nearly touching the scattered pile of dirt.
Then it pounced.
It came out of the circle in one leap, its weight slamming into Sam even as she tried to brace for it. Once again her head met the ground and sparks flashed through her vision, blocking the sight of the rotting thing for only a moment. The white haze cleared and she saw the skeletal smile.
Sewer gas and desiccated corpses were forced into her nostrils as it breathed into her. She held her breath even as it pressed into her tighter. The weight of it was enormous, easily pinning her to the earth, despite its seeming lack of solidity.
The insects around her skittered as the creature brought its face within an inch of her own. She tried to use her arms to flail against it but they were held down by a force she could not see.
Her mind blurred, all sense of coherent thought blown away as the rotting breath streamed into her. She turned her head, but it only served to bring its lip-less mouth to her ear.
Its air whispered into her, and she closed her lids, knowing this was the moment of her death. It would take her with it to wherever it had come from and feast on her soul.
But she felt it shift off of her slightly. She opened her eyes anew, turning her gaze back into its hollow cells; inside the skull was only blackness and gleaming, rotted flesh.
One of the hands lifted above her chest and hung there for a second while strange noises came forth. Words, but unknown and, in her panic, completely indistinct.
Then the hand thrust, crashing into her essence.
Excruciating agony burst through her as the fingers of the demon reached into her heart and she was finally able to scream.
Chapter 16
The pain was more than Sam could take.
She saw nothing. Her only existence was black and agony. It was at the core of her being, the intensity of it the worst she could have ever imagined.
She could not think, could not see. The claw in her heart reached not just into her physical being, but her soul, blocking out everything but the ache she could not move away from, no matter how much she tried to twist herself from its grip.
It was useless to fight, meaningless to do more than scream into the dark.
It went on for an eternity, a never-ending stream of blight, continuing on until she could only wish for the creature to bring her death.
When it did begin to fade slightly, fraying at the edges of her vision, it was not a blessing, but a furtherance of the curse of the brute, as the aching, already paralyzing and intense, increased.
As the dark continued to break apart, she realized she was standing, somehow brought to her feet, and as more awareness flooded in, the intensity of the pain eased enough so she could think through it.
She had been transposed to a place of darkness instead of merely being blinded. The veil lifted further until she could sense the cold of the air, the dampness that hung everywhere, and the smell of rot.
She twisted herself and found she could move, that in some way she was free from the thing pinning her to the ground. She had been let go, but when she tried to thrust her feet, they were unable to carry her forward. She could only turn.
Ahead of her, water dripped, but she could discern no more than a few yards around her body.
"You're so precious," a voice whispered behind her, and she whirled to see who spoke. It was low and grating, a rasp across her spirit.
Nothing was there but the gloom. The sensation of spasms washed through her again, increasing as she spun. The terror already coursing through her increased, her lips quivering even as her teeth ground against each other, biting on the pain.
"You've always been mine," the voice came again, pushing past her blind panic and ache. She whirled repeatedly, her arms flailing out instinctively.
At the edge of the twilight ahead she saw a figure of a man, tall and wearing a hat, but it faded away as quickly as she caught it.
"What are you?" she screamed, echoing everywhere. As it came back to her, it mixed with laughter.
"I'm your beginning," the disembodied, jilting tone spoke again. This time was different; it rode the waves of the echo of her own voice and the laugh that joined it. Even as she grasped those words, more forced their way into her. "You need me, child."
"Let me go!" Sam's shout was lost in the chamber, barely more than a squeak. She closed her eyes, nausea ripping through her, entangling with the pain.
From ahead of her, a new sound came, and all other sounds diminished as it grew. Music, indistinct and wispy.
She opened her lids again, feeling she was moving forward, though her legs were still locked in place beneath her. The air rubbed against her skin as it flowed past, and she could not tell if it was her own body or the world shifting.
A small glow of white pierced the darkness surrounding her. Merely a spark at first, within a moment it became much more, until she was covered in it herself.
The intensity dimmed again and as it did, a tiny room emerged, plastered with dingy, pastel-laden wallpaper. Shredded at the edges, it fell apart with decay. Small toys, mired in dust and grime, scattered across the dirty carpet, all of its color lost to mold and rot.
A crib, most of its wooden slats broken away, rested against one wall, with the original white barely showing through the ugly wet slime coating it.
She heard the music again, a warped and deep sound and, at first, Samantha could understand nothing of it. But as she was forced to stand there, looking at the room gone to waste, the melody of a familiar lullaby strained through.
"Hush little baby, don't you squirm..."
The words came from everywhere and nowhere at once, filling the room. The sound was warped, morphed like a tape player with low batteries.
"... I'll hold you nice and firm..." the song continued.
Sam tried to control herself, fighting through the pain and the paralysis gripping her, but she was, once more against her will, forced slowly
toward the crib. She closed her eyes and turned her head, trembling at what she would see there.
"... and if that little baby cries..."
Sam's eyes were peeled open to stare into the crib at a young child. It kicked its legs and moved its arms, or at least what was left of them. There were places the bones showed through the rotted flesh. It mewled quietly, its mouth opening and closing over and over.
"... I will pluck out its little eyes..."
Sam screamed, and as she did, the world around her spun. The room disintegrated as her cry continued, until she was finally left with only the blackness and pain.
"Hush little baby," the voice came again and she could once more feel the grip of the things hand on the heart in her chest.
It squeezed, the misery inside of her overcoming everything else. The only thing she wanted was for it to all end.
Another eternal moment later, the blackness around her was shattered as a massive crack jolted through her ears.
The pain ended instantly, as the brilliant amber light of day poured into her vision. She winced against it before opening her eyes fully.
The creature on top of her pulled backward, lifting itself from her body as it looked away. Another second, it vaporized, shadowy bits of itself dwindling to nothing as a deafening sound crashed into her senses.
The weight of it pinning her down was gone and she saw the great mass of insects scatter in a heartbeat, all flying off as one. Their droning faded completely as Sam rolled over, trying to catch her breath.
Her brother stood near the edge of the circle with his gun in his hand, shock on his face.
Chapter 17
Samantha pushed herself from the ground with her arms as she struggled for breath. Each was a labor.
They weakened and she fell back to the ground, her already labored breaths huffing out of her as her chest impacted the dirt. Bits of it flew up into her face. The last air remaining in her lungs was thrust out with a quiet moan.
She moved one, then the other, as she tried again to force herself from the ground, finding more strength and purchase. She rolled onto her back, then up enough to sit on her rear and stare around as she recovered from the attack.
The wind was silent, no longer whipping as it had been during Odessa's ritual, and no bird song came to her ears. The sound of the mass of insects, too, had faded away into nothing. Whatever the creature had done, it sent everything into a state of shock and stasis, so the only seeming signs of life were from her brother and herself.
She tried to stand as she watched Bart step closer, the gun still in his hand. He kept watch as she failed to get enough of her senses together to make it to her feet.
"You okay?" he asked, breaking the quiet.
"Do I look okay?" she replied with a rasp.
She tore her eyes away from him and looked around, her breathing finally coming under control. The beating of her heart slowed, but the terror she had been gripped in would not let her go.
There was no sign of the thing that dragged her to the ground, no indication at all that it had been there to begin with.
The circle remained, though, with the flattened area that once was the pile of dirt.
As the seconds passed and the horror transitioned into shock, Sam tried to exhale through it, to calm herself as much as she could. The thing was gone, as were the bugs, and there was nothing left there for her to fear.
But why didn't it work? They had done it right, hadn't they? She did everything Odessa asked of her, and yet it had come out of the circle as if it did not exist.
Odessa...
Sam turned her head back to face Bart, who was putting his gun into the holster at his hip. He stood next to the crumpled form of Odessa on the ground, the rope Sam had seen flash across the distance between them still wrapped around her neck.
He bent over and gingerly undid a part of the garrote, prying it away from the skin. He winced.
Two of his fingers touched the throat near one of the main veins and pressed down. Sam struggled to her feet, but did not move any further. Her legs were too wobbly to do more than remain erect.
Bart rose from his own squat and put his hands on his hips, shaking his head at Sam's questioning face.
"What the hell happened here?"
Sam shook her own in reply. The shock wore away to incredulity as she looked at him. "What do you think happened, Bart? You saw yourself."
"I need to hear you tell me," he said, stepping closer.
Was he playing with her? There was ample evidence around to reveal the story to him, and he saw for himself the creature on top of her. Why else would he have fired at it?
Had he really destroyed it? Did the gunshot do enough to it so she would not have to worry about the beast anymore? If that were the case, why had it not worked when she did the same previously?
Too many questions all coming at her at once, and no answers to be found.
"How did you know?" It was the one thing Sam could not figure out. How had he realized she was in trouble, let alone where she was?
He reached his hand up and shifted the hat on his head, using the inside brim to scratch at a spot on his scalp.
"I was driving past on patrol when I saw something was going on over here." He let his hand fall to his side once more. "Now tell me what the hell you were doing. Who is this and why is she dead? And don't lie to me, damn it."
Sam pursed her lips and kept her silence as she got her legs to move, if slowly, across the deadened grass. The multitudes of insects that came at the behest of the shadow man matted down everything around her, flattening all the plants in a huge area. Much of it had marks of mandibles, but there was no sign of any of them remaining, beyond a few piles of corpses left behind.
She stooped carefully next to the body of Odessa, and stared into the face of someone who died because she wanted to help. The impact at all that happened to her was finally beginning to fray, and, as her eyes took in the rips in the flesh of the old woman, her stomach knotted.
Odessa did not deserve this. She did not deserve to be taken out of this world in such a horrific way, especially not for Sam's sake. She should have never come to this woman's house. She should have tried to figure out on her own how to get free of the terrible curse she had been saddled with.
How many years had this sweet lady lived in peace before Sam came along and destroyed it all? How could she have done this to such a great woman with magic in her fingers?
It made no sense. How had all of this failed so badly? What had she done wrong to spread her punishment to Odessa?
She could answer none of it, and she did not know how to start to describe anything to Bart, who still stood waiting for her to open her mouth to speak.
"She was saving me," Sam finally muttered, so low that Bart had to step closer to her to catch the words. "Her name's Odessa, and she was just trying to help me be free."
It took time for her to explain, but she let it come, all the while studying the face of the woman on the ground. There were tears coming out in streams, but she paid them no heed. They drifted to the ground, joining the morass of corpses scattered all around
No sense. None of it had meaning. It should have worked. Why didn't it?
Adding to the disturbance she felt inside of herself, as she told Bart what transpired, he never appeared shocked. He seemed unsurprised by the fact Odessa was trying to cast a spell, and he was just as blithely watching her about the things she had seen while under the control of the creature.
"Now, tell me I am crazy," she said as she finished her story. "You saw the thing. Tell me I am crazy."
"No," he muttered, finally looking once more at the body of Odessa laying between them. The rope still hung loosely around her neck, the end trailing away toward the circle. "But it does put me in a bad position."
He bent, staring into the face of the woman, then swiped his fingers across her eyes and closed them, hiding them from the bright of day.
He turned to Sam and sa
id, "Go home. I'll take care of all this."
"No," Sam countered vehemently. "There's no way I am leaving. Not until I get some answers, myself."
"Sam, you've got to get out of here. You don't understand..."
"That's it exactly," she shouted, interrupting his words. "There's something trying to get me, to kill me, and I am not going to leave until I find out why." She walked closer to the circle again, glaring at the center of it. There was nothing left of the monstrosity that had risen from it, nor anything to show how it even came to be to begin with. "The only thing that can protect me is me."