by Неизвестный
“She’s alive,” someone had shouted among the cries and shrieks of the funeral party.
An impossibility, as half her organs had been removed at the autopsy on the cold steel table, and most weren’t returned to her body.
However, the scratching and scraping became louder. One woman fainted, as the undertakers frantically pulled at the coffin and forced off the lid.
When they finally opened it, there was silence. Everyone stared in horror at the peaceful looking dead girl.
Then a black shape suddenly came from beneath the woven silk over-blanket, and sprang from the coffin. No one had seen the black cat enter the coffin at the funeral home, but the smell and filthy state of the inside lining made them believe it had been in there for at least two days.
Luckily, there was another already prepared coffin of the same size, and the funeral finally took place later in the day. The lawsuit would wait until later.
Travis had run off screaming, and when they brought him back, he stated through sobbing lips that his dead sister had smiled at him when the coffin lid was removed.
This was put down to an overactive imagination, and the matter was soon forgotten.
This whole damn episode has a real bad taste to it, Tom thought.
***
Bill Green was reeling from his self inflicted headache when the doorbell sounded.
“Go see who that is, Martha,” he ordered the heavy-set woman as he buried his head in his hands and moaned.
Martha swung the door open and stepped back. “Tom!”
“Hello, Martha, long time no see....”
“Who is it?” Bill’s voice loudly interrupted.
Martha invited Tom inside with some reluctance, and he could immediately see why.
Nothing had changed for Bill and Martha. In fact, things had deteriorated very badly since his last visit. Now he was sorry he had left it for so long.
The hallway was a mess, and the smell of urine, drink and stale food almost caused him to throw up.
As he entered the living room, Bill looked up through bloodshot eyes. Bill had come to America as a small boy when his parents decided to make their life in the Big Apple, and his real name was Billetsio Torenolli. But through the years his friends had shortened it to Bill, and now he was known as Bill by everyone.
“Well if it isn’t my old friend, coming along on his daily year round visit. To what do we owe the damn pleasure this time, stranger?” Bill jibed sarcastically.
“Leave Tom alone, Bill You know how busy he is these days,” Martha snapped angrily.
Tom felt his face flush, because somewhere in his heart he knew Bill was right. But it hurt Tom deeply to see them live like this. He quickly wiped a tear from his eye as he looked at the pathetic, one-legged figure slumped in the chair in front of him.
This guy with the drink stained trousers and matted unkempt hair had once saved his life, and Tom thought back to that time.
***
The war in Nam was almost at an end, and all US troops had been pulling out in their thousands. Tom had been a private then and Bill was his friend and platoon sergeant.
“Where the hell are the damn choppers?” Bill had shouted down the radio, as the garbled message came back. Bill stared hard at the radio, a look of horror on his face, before speaking. “They ain’t coming, boys. We have to get back on our own. We have to make it to the Hi Chan River. We mus...”
“But that’s more than twenty miles away,” someone interrupted.
“We’ll never make it; the place is swarming with gooks.”
“Yeah, well the longer we sit on our asses and argue about it, the less chance we’re going to have, because if we stay here, we’re all dead men anyhow,” Bill answered.
Most of the men trusted Bill. He was one of those self-assured guys who always achieved what he set out to do. A real man’s man, tougher than most. And a soldier who could break a guy’s neck in two seconds flat. He’d also received a shitload of medals for his leadership and courage in battle over three tours of duty. As far as Tom was concerned, wherever Bill went, then that’s where he was going come hell or high water.
“Lead on, Sarge,” Tom shouted.
It would take them seven or eight hours of tough, jungle marching to reach the Hi Chan River.
Here they would be picked up by patrol boats. But Bill knew that on all their missions to date, this would be by far the most dangerous.
Every Vietnamese soldier was using this last opportunity to kill as many GIs as they could, before they pulled out, and the jungles were swarming with them. No prisoners would be taken here, either, Bill knew.
They had been walking for five hours and making good progress when from nowhere all hell broke loose. Tom was about two paces behind Bill when suddenly Hoffmire, the point man, stopped and hunkered down. He had turned to signal to the others, when a hundred flashes and the heavy noise of automatic gun fire broke the deathly jungle silence.
Hoffmire’s head exploded, spraying blood everywhere, and as the men returned fire, five others were immediately cut down.
“Pull back,” Bill commanded.
Tom fired at the muzzle flashes, and the cries of death from these unseen faces told him he was at least going to take some of these fuckers with him should he be killed.
Then he felt the burning in his shoulder. A pain he had never experienced before shot through his body and he fell in a heap to the ground.
Just before he blacked out he thought of his young wife and child. They had both died in a plane crash five years ago, and now he was sure he was about to join them.
***
It was some time later when he awoke, and he stared around, puzzled.
“Where are we?” Tom groaned, as the monsoon like rain washed across his face and played a familiar drum beat on the surrounding terrain.
“We made it outa’ there Tom,” Private Greenbank answered.
“How many made it?”
“Just you, me, Hawkins and the Sarge,” Greenbank answered. “You’ve been hurt Tom, but you’re going to be a lright.”
Tom pushed his head into his hands for a moment before speaking.
“But how did I get awa..?”
“The Sarge carried you,” Greenbank interrupted, as he pointed to the two soldiers standing some distance away.
Tom couldn’t hear them, as they sheltered under a large rubber tree, but he instinctively knew they were arguing about him, and Hawkins seemed to be doing most of the talking.
‘We’ve got to leave Tom, Sarge. He’s only going to slow us down. His wounds have been strapped up well and the gooks will fix him up proper when they come.’
“Yeah, they’ll fix him up all right. Fix him on the end of a fucking bayonet. I’m not leaving him, understand?”
Tom noticed Bill’s trouser leg was covered in blood below the knee, and when Bill approached him, Tom pointed at it.
“Only a scratch, I’ve been cut worse shaving,” Bill stated.
It took the four men another two hours to reach the river, slowed down by the torrential rain and mud, and by Tom who had to be stretchered along most of the way. The depleted men almost cried for joy as they boarded the patrol boat, which sped quickly off accompanied by two others.
What Bill didn’t know was that the small scratch he said he received would later turn out to be a very bad wound, which would require the removing of his lower left leg, some two pain-filled years later.
But he had saved Tom’s life, and of that there was no mistake. Now they were like brothers.
***
Suddenly the memory left him, and he was back in today’s world. He smiled awkwardly at his friend.
“How are you, Bill?”
“Like shit, how are you?”
“Well I’m still at the school and....”
“Fucking pencil pusher,” Bill laughed as he interrupted him.
Then he outstretched his arm and Tom shook his hand firmly.
“Give this damn
little pen pusher something to drink, Martha,”
Tom looked at the empty glass case where once Bill’s medals used to proudly sit, and pointed.
“I hocked them. Well, what damn use were they anyway?” Bill laughed, beating him to the question.
Tom couldn’t believe how a change in someone’s fortunes could turn so bad. It would maybe have been better if Bill had been killed in Nam, he thought.
But before Nam, Bill had been a priest. A very young priest, who had lost his faith quicker than a diving barracuda.
He had never revealed the fact of why he left the priesthood, though. Bill had simply said he didn’t want to talk about it.
But they had been best friends through childhood, and Tom was pretty sure he had been frightened out of the job by some dark, superstitious, untold reason.
“You want my advice about something, don’t you, Tom?” Bill questioned, as he eyed Tom with some suspicion.
“Whatever advice you can give me on a certain matter, yeah, I do.”
Tom explained word for word just what Travis had told him at the school, and he had barely finished his sentence when Bill spoke up.
“Number one, when they appear like this, and, um, communicate, they are usually on a quest for vengeance on someone.”
“They?”
“Yes, they, demons!”
“What? So you believe this boy and his ravings?”
“Well, you said she told him to kill someone. All I can say is that this is one seriously fucked up spirit. She wants him to kill for her, but she could easily do that for herself. There’s a reason for this. Yep, there’s a reason,” Bill repeated.
“For her, this killing must involve them as a pair, a joint venture. Someone’s due some payback, and believe me; they are going to get it.”
“So you’re saying that she comes to Travis at night asking him to kill someone with some revenge angle that’s going to make this young boy a murderer?”
“Yes!” Bill answered firmly.
“So she’s a psycho lying spirit then?”
“No, the dead can deceive, but they can’t lie. Someone has done something bad to her, and she won’t rest until she is avenged. Anyway, I thought you didn’t believe in that sort of stuff?”
“Well, I don’t, Bill. I’m just trying a different perspective here. Because what matters here is that Travis believes it. I just want to know if you’ve seen this kinda thing before in a person?”
“Well, I have, Tom. I’ve witnessed this before, many years ago,” Bill stated.
“To someone imagining they’ve seen a ghost?”
“No Tom, not imagining.”
“So you think I’m really going to believe that the boy is experiencing a real event here?”
“You just don’t understand it.”
“Try me,” Tom pleaded.
Bill poured a glassful of bourbon with a shaky hand and took a swallow before he spoke.
“Have you ever heard of the Detroma Stantora? Thought not,” Bill said, without giving Tom a chance to answer.
“Is it Latin?” Tom asked.
“Yes, it’s Latin. It means the deceiver. A vile entity that uses disguise to make it more real, and trusting if you like, to the person it victimises.”
“But why, and for what purpose?”
Bill ignored the question and spoke on.
“This boy Travis you talk about. Is he a good boy? Do you like him?”
“Yes, he’s a good boy, and yes, I like him.”
“Then why do you disbelieve him?”
“Well I tend to look at it from the point of view that what’s happening to the boy is more of a psychological problem. Something to do with his background maybe.”
“Well, and I’m going to give you some good advice about background here, Tom. You have told me about it. Now you must tell no one else. This fucking thing will kill you if you interfere with what it’s trying to do.”
“What is it trying to do?”
“It wants total control of its victim. And this boy is as much as a victim as the one she wants killed. On the other hand, she may well be his actual sister, returned from the dead. And this, my friend, is an entirely different ball game. Because then it really is a joint venture. She needs him involved. Find out if anyone has done something bad to the family. I bet you won’t be far away. In any event though, she can’t be at rest until this killing or killings happen. Now she’s at her most dangerous. Don’t get involved with this.”
Tom shook his head in disbelief, and Bill raised his voice.
“Look Tom, I witnessed two priests being killed by one of these damn things. These men were told by a higher authority to wait, but they meddled into something, and they met a very violent death.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes, I saw this demon with my own two eyes, Tom. The damn thing tore these men apart, and then it came across the room to me. It stared into my eyes for some time; two full minutes maybe, before it disappeared through the door. It sneered at me as it went though, and I think it only spared me because I believe it knew I wasn’t interfering with it. The police at first thought I was somehow responsible for these men’s deaths. But they soon realised that whoever done it would have been showered in blood, and there was not a drop on me. Suspicion followed me however, and I found I couldn’t stay in the priesthood after this. Now you know me better than most, Tom. And you know I wouldn’t lie to you about this. Please listen to me. You are going to find yourself in very grave danger if you keep this shit up. Just back off now, before it’s too late, and you can’t get out of it. Back off now, Tom, I mean this. I’m being honest with you.”
This was the first time Bill had opened up to him about the events of why he left the priesthood, and Tom felt a strange feeling come over him.
Everything Bill had said about his honesty was true. He had never known Bill to lie, or even play up on a situation. Bill was as straight as they come, as far as he was concerned. But Tom still believed there was another scientific explanation for what was going on, no matter how bad it looked on the outside.
***
Travis lay in his bed and waited. He had propped the camera between two books, and he hit the record button. Now they would have to believe him. When Mr Sullivan saw her the way he did, then maybe he would climb down from off his high horse.
It was sometime later and he was just starting to doze off, when the door slowly opened.
“Goodnight, Son,” his dad slurred?
“Um, yeah, goodnight, Dad.”
Travis looked sadly at his father. His condition was worsening rapidly. It had been the accident all those years ago that caused it. Travis had only been an infant then, and recalled almost nothing from memory. His sister had been babysitting him when the police and some medical staff arrived. He had a vague recollection of her screaming, and being led away by a helpful nurse.
Their mother and father had been driving home late at night when their car had left the road and smashed through the fencing, careening over the cliffside. His father had been thrown clear, but his mother had been killed instantly when the vehicle crashed to the rocks below.
His father had lain in intensive care for eight weeks, and years of strenuous therapy followed.
His sister had gone off the rails afterward, and the sick man could do nothing with her.
As his dad slowly shut the door, Travis recoiled in horror. She was back, inside the room, out of camera shot, beside the door frame. This time, however, she looked much more frightening than ever before, with her wrinkled white face, her black eyes and grey lips.
A blue vein pumped across her face as she spoke.
“You must kill him,” her coarse voice echoed.
“Kill him,” she hissed, through clenched teeth, before disappearing through the wall.
***
Late the following evening, Tom received a phone call from old McGuire, the head.
“That boy, Travis Dawson, from your class. His father di
ed in his sleep last night, just got the call,” McGuire explained. “Thought I’d let you know, Tom.”
Tom thanked the head, dropped the phone onto the cradle, and cursed loudly.
My Lord, Tom thought. The father was the victim. He was driving the car that killed their mother.
Now this disturbed boy had killed his father.
When Tom approached the police with his thoughts though, it soon became clear that Travis’s father had indeed died in his sleep. There wasn’t a mark on the body, and the boy had taken it real bad.
Then who is he going to kill? Tom thought.
Tom still didn’t believe any of this supernatural stuff, but he was convinced that Travis was making the voices up to cover in his mind for the crime he was about to commit. Now Tom believed he knew what that crime was. Kill the guy who sold his sister the bad drugs. This, Tom believed, was the target that Travis was seeking. He would try and find out who this person is. Warn him perhaps, do something to save him from the crazed boy. Tomorrow, he thought. He then thought about Bill and his warning to him. ‘Don’t get involved. It will kill anyone who gets involved.’
Bullshit, he thought.
***
Bill pulled himself onto his chair and made for the bedroom. He had been offered one of those fancy electric gizmo wheelchairs, but he’d decided to keep his old one. At least this way he would get some exercise. He slowly moved along the narrow hallway, pushing with his strong arms. He moved passed the framed photos of the army generals that formed a little gauntlet on each side. These generals had all seen combat at sometime in their lives, and he saluted each one in turn. As he entered the room his wife was already lying on the bed. But something wasn’t right here. Martha’s head lay at an odd angle and her face was ashen and dark. “Martha,” he croaked as he quickly moved toward the bed.
As he touched her face, her head rolled off onto the floor. He instinctively pulled at the bedclothes and reeled back in shock at his wife’s naked bloody body.