“Wer gonna go all-uh way t’night, gonna go all-uh way an tonightsa night…”
Slowly and steadily, he approached the open doorway. When he reached the threshold, he checked into the darkness. No one there.
“Wer gonna go all-uh way t’night, gonna go all-uh way an tonightsa night…”
Without the sense to contemplate the cause of the door opening, he stepped back and started to close it again.
“STOP RIGHT THERRRRE!” the vagabond belted out with a loud croak.
Suddenly, the door swung back open toward him with incredible force. The wooden structure knocked into him, and he staggered back from the impact of the blow. He was large and solid enough to keep from losing his footing, but it was enough to knock him off guard.
“I GOTTA KNOW RIGHT NOWWW!”
He didn’t have time to react; he didn’t even see him. As he was trying to recover from the sudden blow by the swinging door, a smaller, thinner man darted in with unbelievable speed. Before his mindless mind could register the unexpected situation, the man swooped under his flailing arms until he got behind his back. Then, in one seemingly effortless motion, the smaller man gripped him by the chin and the back of his head and twisted, snapping his neck instantaneously.
“Before we go any furder do ya luv me…” the wino continued to sing.
The Erased man collapsed to the dirt floor with no further thought of her. His name was David Keane. Once.
Chapter XIV
The vagabond lifted his head in mid-verse and only somewhat perceived what his intoxicated eyes had just seen. “Whoah… shit!” Then he started laughing again as he fell back. “Juss pissed m’self again, man!”
The man who was still standing over the Erased’s body turned his head and regarded him curiously. Then he approached.
“Got anythin’ ta drink?”
“Lie still,” the newcomer answered as he knelt by the mattress.
“Lie still?” he asked groggily. “Zit look like I’m runnin’ a marathon?” He tried to pick his head up. “Aw man, whaddaya doin? Where’s everyone at?”
The stranger, saying nothing, grabbed the vagabond by his ankles and dragged him off the mattress. He knelt down pressing his knees hard against his shoulders, pinning him against the earthen floor. Then he gripped his chin with one hand keeping his head still, as he placed the other hand on top of his forehead.
The vagabond tried to struggle, but in his inebriated state under the weight of the man on his arms, he was no more able to defend himself than a tranquilized rabbit in a lab. “Getha fuck offa me, man! I doan wun no more shit! I doan wun no more!”
“Shut up,” the man said calmly in a low voice, “and breathe. Do as I say.”
For some reason, he ceased his struggles and obeyed. Something about the stranger’s voice overcame him, and he could hear the man breathing methodically with long, deep inhales and exhales. He did the same, matching the man’s rhythm.
Within a matter of several, very silent seconds, he began to feel very warm. It began from behind his eyes, then spread throughout the rest of his body. “Wass goin’ on? It wuz cold… now iss hot in here…”
“Just keep breathing,” the man ordered.
He did so, hoping that if he did as he was told, the stranger would leave him alone. He thought his arms were starting to ache from the pressure of his knees against them. Within several more seconds he realized that his arms, along with the rest of his body, were burning. The warm sensation had escalated to a scalding heat that radiated throughout him. And he began to grow even weaker. “Wh—wha you doin’ t’ me?” he asked with strenuous effort.
“Keep still,” the man ordered.
He no longer wanted to listen. He was on fire, and he felt that if this went on for much longer that he would burn to death. Yet he could do nothing. His mind was jumbled to pieces and his body was as useless as a ninety-year old paraplegic woman on her deathbed. Stop! Make it stop! God, it burns! Water… I need water. Please…
The burning sensation was so intense now, that all he could see was a blur of red. Then, everything went black…
…until he felt a sharp sting against his cheek as if someone had just slapped him hard. Immediately, he sat straight up with his eyes wide and alert. “Fuck me! I was burnin’ in hell for an eternity!”
The man who had knelt on top of him was no longer holding him but down on one knee right in front of him. “Actually, it was just over two minutes,” he said with a smirk, “though I’m sure it felt longer than that.”
He stared at the stranger in disbelief. “What the hell’d ya do to me?”
“Seems you were drugged pretty heavily,” the man replied. “Whatever poison was in you had to run its course. I sped the process up by giving you a very high fever.” The homeless man’s jaw dropped with amazement. “You needed to sweat it out,” the man shrugged.
He examined himself and discovered that his tattered clothes were drenched. “Feel better?” the stranger asked.
“Yeah… but how…”
“Sorry, but there’s no time to explain,” the man interrupted. “You gotta name?”
He wiped his sweaty forehead with a sweaty palm. “Charlie. Friends call me Chuck. What the hell’s goin’ on?”
“Chuck,” the man repeated the name, “can you remember how you got here? What they want with you?”
Charlie looked down, thinking hard for a moment. Then, everything came back to him. “I was gettin’ some chow at the soup kitchen. It’s a service run by the church. Outreach program, it’s called. Anyway, the pastor comes up to me in line an’ tells me he’s found a job for me. So I get in his car an’ he takes me to the church. Tells me he’s got paperwork for me ta sign.
“We go inta his office. There’s a cop, a hot lady, and that big bruiser,” he pointed toward the lifeless body of the once David Keane, “waitin’ there. The priest asks the cop what he thinks and the cop says ‘He’ll do.’ Then the hot lady says ‘Take ‘im.’ Next thing I know, the big bruiser grabs me, an’ I feel somethin’ like a bee sting on my neck. That’s when everythin’ went all trippy. Then they brought me here. Bastards kept callin’ me Cliff for some reason. They said somethin’ ‘bout me bein’ a patsy.” He wiped his moist forehead again. “Fuckin’ cops. Can never trust ‘em!”
“Everything’s okay now, Chuck.”
“No it ain’t,” Charlie protested. “Listen kid, I don’t know how ya done what ya did just now, but I ain’t dwellin’ on it, cuz it ain’t the strangest thing I seen here. I wuz lyin’ here all fucked up, but now I remember everythin’ crystal clear like I wuzn’t. Ya got rid of the fogginess in me like it wuz never there, ya dig?”
The man nodded.
“So ya gotta listen. That priest. He ain’t no priest, if ya follow me. He’s somethin’ else. Those fucks got some girl in that room over there. They had ‘er in some kinda trance. Made ‘er do whatever they told ‘er. They wuz chantin’ some kinda voodoo shit, and it did a fuckin’ number on that girl. Strangest thing I ever seen, man. We gotta do somethin’. Whatever they got goin’ on in there, it’s bad. We gotta…”
The man put a gentle hand on Charlie’s shoulder to quell his growing hysteria. “It’s okay, Chuck. I already know. I’ll handle it.”
Charlie gave him a look that expressed both hope and doubt at the same time. “There’s a bunch of ‘em in there, son,” he said quietly. Then his eyes grew wider as he caught sight of something protruding from the man’s back underneath his leather jacket. “Jesus! Is that a sword? What are you, a fuckin’ samurai?”
“Chuck, listen to me,” the stranger said sternly as he pulled something from the inside pocket of his jacket. “I just saved your life. Do you believe that?”
Charlie calmed down a bit. “Yeah, kid. I do.”
The man continued; “So if you want to thank me, here’s what I need you to do.” He placed something soft in his shaking hand. “Take this.”
Charlie looked down at his hand and dropped his
jaw again when he realized he was looking at a fat wad of cash.
“There’s over five thousand dollars there,” the man explained, “enough for you to start a new life. I want you to go out the open door. It will lead through an unused storm cellar and up a set of steps that will take you outside. You’ll come to a long, dirt driveway that leads away from this property and onto a main road. I want you to turn right and run. Don’t look back until you reach the next town. Then get a bus ticket that takes you even farther. Don’t talk to anyone. Use the money to get yourself cleaned up and presentable looking so you can find yourself a cheap room for rent and a job. No booze. No drugs. Can you do that?”
Charlie gazed at the young man with awe. “Yeah. Sure, I can do that. I don’t do drugs anyhow. An’ booze I can’t afford. But why are ya…”
“There’s no time, Chuck,” the man cut him off again. “Just go. Go and make a life for yourself. It’ll be a simple life, but simple’s good.” He helped him up. “One more thing. Forget you ever saw me. Promise?”
Charlie nodded. Surprisingly, he had the strength to stand, and with steady feet, he made for the open door. But he stopped and turned around to face his mysterious rescuer one more time. “Be careful with that woman, son. I dunno how I know it, but I do. She’s the worst of ‘em. Thank you. And good luck to ya.”
The man was already standing in front of the opposite door, the one that gave Charlie the creeps. But he spent a little more of his precious time to turn his head halfway back toward him. “You too pal,” he said with a sincere look, then turned back to focus all his attention on the task at hand. Charlie didn’t wait around to see what would happen next. As soon as he reached the storm door at the top of the stairway, he did as he was asked and honored the man who saved him by bolting down the long driveway, away from this cursed place.
The man in the cellar placed one hand against the menacing door that stood between him and his task. Then he pressed an ear against it. He could hear nothing inside. But he could feel… coldness, darkness, and… something else. He shuddered as he removed the side of his face from it, examining it again. “Thirteen locks,” he said to himself. “This is going to take some effort.” Then he took from his pocket the necklace he had with him before. He gripped it tightly and brought it to his lips, whispering, “Keep praying, kiddo.”
The man closed his eyes and again began to take deep breaths. Slowly. Steadily. His hands were raised to his shoulders, palms facing the door. With each breath he exhaled, he slowly pushed his hands toward the door, and with each breath he drew in, his hands slowly moved back toward his shoulders. Inhaling. Exhaling. Flexing. Extracting. With each pattern of movement his breathing grew more loudly, as if he was gathering up all the energy of the unseen, letting it build within him.
When he finally felt himself as one with the universe… heard the music in his mind, he opened his eyes, blazing a fiery blue, and lunged at the door, palms slamming against it with a thunderous blow.
Chapter XV
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Megan forced the thought as her vocal chords forced the deafening screams through a locked jaw. The woman was jamming the deadly instrument under her fingernails one by one, taking her time.
“Scream all you want, love,” she whispered to her through her featureless mask. “The room has been sound-proofed.” She jammed another finger as Megan wailed again. “We’re the only ones who can hear you scream, and we just love it when you do.”
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
When Diana Palmer had gotten through all five of Megan’s throbbing fingers, she passed the dagger to the figure on her left as she took from Father Paul the dark goblet, stained with the girl’s blood. The priest raised his arms. “In the name of the dark lord and his minions, we draw the virgin’s sense of touch into ourselves so that we may serve him with our power.”
Diana held Megan’s bleeding fingers over the goblet, squeezing them in order to milk the crimson liquid from her. The surge of pain returned as she did this with no gentleness in her deadly grip.
“We are his servants and his agents forever,” the chanters issued their response with gloomy, monotone voices.
He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul.
Unfathomable, searing pain suddenly exploded in her right ear as the figure now holding the dagger twisted and turned the blade, not so deep as to rupture the tiny bones inside, but deep enough to create agony. The blood inside began to seep and clog her ear canal, muffling the sound of the voices to her right. Her unblinking eyes began to blur from fresh excretions of her tear ducts.
“In the name of the dark lord and his minions, we draw the virgin’s sense of hearing into ourselves so that we may serve him with our power.”
“We are his servants and his agents forever.”
He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Through blurry eyesight, Megan’s attention was suddenly drawn to the chandelier above her. Something like black mist seemed to slither around it and in between the branches holding the individual candles. It was shapeless at first, but it began to slide and spin more quickly, as if the progression of this sadistic ritual excited it. Eventually the shade formed the silhouette of a black face, with a long, black misty tongue hanging from where its mouth should’ve been. The entire shape began to approach her. Her captors did not seem to take notice, but they began to breathe more hungrily as if they felt its presence.
All Megan could feel was a deadly cold that penetrated her inside and out. She tried with all her might to close her unresponsive eyelids, but even if she were not petrified from the dark spell that had been cast upon her, she doubted she could tear her horrified gaze from the thing.
Mom! Please Mom, I need you! God, please!”
The only answer she received was another burst of ripping, torturous pain; this time in her left nostril. Twisting. Slicing. She thought for sure that her vocal chords would burst as her screaming resumed.
“In the name of the dark lord and his minions, we draw the virgin’s sense of smell into ourselves so that we may serve him with our power.”
The shape was hovering over her now. Megan could hear a sickening sniffing sound from it as if it were searching for her like a hound dog. Long, black hands of mist grew from the thin cloud and reached for her. She remembered something similar to this in her recent nightmare. (MINE!) This black specter before her was far worse.
“We are his servants and his agents forever.”
The thing extended its newly formed hands nearer. When one of the cultists turned her head sideways to allow the flow of blood from her nose to enter the goblet, the thing descended down to her side to inspect her petrified eyes.
Mom, please! I don’t want to die I don’t want to die I don’t want to die! Mom, please don’t let me die… GOD, WHERE ARE YOU!
(God won’t save you, child)
It was in her head, or so she felt like it was. Her vision was a mess of watery fuzziness, and she was disoriented from the pain and the blood, but she thought she felt the thing’s hands around the sides of her head. Its long, black tongue of mist crawling up her bleeding nostril, wanting to connect with her. Wanting to feed on her essence.
(God hates you)
No! Get out of my head! God, please do something!
(God hates shit like you. God…)
{Keep praying, kiddo.}
It was small. Distant. Like an echo of an echo. But another voice, a gentler one that was almost familiar, reached to her. She sensed the thing hesitate for a moment, as if it heard the voice too. Its movements, its groping sniffs, its harassing fingers, slowed with slight uncertainty.
Megan focused with all she had. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul…
One of the robed figures, Megan could no longer tell which one, leaned over her, holding the dagger close to her face. The dark presenc
e faded back behind him, giving him room to do its bidding. Slowly, with a lust in his eyes that were hidden behind his mask, he neared the tip of the double-edged blade toward her mouth that she could not shut. With a tool resembling a pair of tongs, he seized her tongue and pulled it until it extended past her lips. Her sinking heart knew what was to come as the faceless mist stretched one long, smoky finger into her mouth.
NO! NO MORE! NOT MY TONGUE! PLEASE GOD! He guides me in the path of righteousness for His name’s sake…
The man in robes brought the blade to her tongue.
“In the name of the dark lord and his minions, we draw the virgin’s sense of tas…”
< BOOM! >
A short but resounding bang, strong enough to vibrate throughout the room, distracted the priest from his chanting. Distracted the robed man with the dagger from his mutilating, enough that he also released her tongue from the tongs’ grip. The dark presence phased out for a quick second, the way an old computer screen momentarily loses its clear image when someone hits the side of the monitor too hard.
Megan, with a voice that was croaky from the endless wailing cried out of her own, sudden free will; “EVEN THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL!” She blinked as tears flowed down her cheeks. “For You are with me.”
She didn’t even notice that she blinked. But she surprised herself and the gathering of the cultists around her when she cried out. The priest turned his head for a second and looked directly at her, saying nothing, perhaps contemplating the cause of her freedom from verbal paralysis. She tried to move again, but was still frozen upon the altar. But whoever had held her head sideways also released his grip, and her head immediately returned to face upwards on its own. She saw that everyone’s attention was focused on the rear side of the room, where they had first entered. The dark mass had retreated back to its slithering around the chandelier.
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