A terrible struggle raged in the flesh of Martin’s face…human features racked with a rippling evil, nerves and muscles contorting with the battle.
A whoosh of energy rose from Martin’s body, invisible but palpable. Robin froze, overwhelmed with the sheer force of it. She saw Cain and Lisa staring upward, paralyzed. The energy ripped through the air and cycloned around the room, gusting through the flames in the hearth, shaking the windows, blowing the curtains into a frenzy, overturning everything in its path.
Robin held tightly to Cain. He grabbed Lisa and they clung to one another as furniture rattled and jumped around them. Above them, the ceiling beams groaned.
Lisa was screaming. Robin couldn’t tell if she was, too.
The energy spiraled, raging around the room. The couch flipped over, and books exploded out of the shelves, pages flying. The mirror shattered above the hearth, raining glass.
In the midst of the tumult, Robin heard a small, frightened voice.
“What’s happening?”
She whipped around. In the chair, Martin sat with eyes wide open, staring in terror at the thundering chaos around him.
Robin gasped, fixed on his face. “Martin?”
He looked back at her, small and lost. “What’s happening? Where are we?”
His voice was hoarse, but the horrible alien sound was gone. Robin stared at him, hardly daring to hope. There was no sign of the mad gleam of the Qlippah.
Martin’s eyes fell on Patrick’s dead body tied across from him. He cried out, “Oh my God…what’s happening?”
A ceiling beam split and crashed down toward the floor. Cain barely leapt out of the way in time.
Robin ran to Martin, squeezed his shoulders. “Hold on. Don’t let it back in.”
The energy whooshed around the room, then blew straight against the table, flipping it, crashing it against the wall. The four of them struggled against the blast, screaming. Patrick’s dead body jumped with the force of it. Glass blasted inward as all the windows suddenly burst, showering them with shards of glass. Rain gusted in from the outside; lightning branched in the sky. A guttural, disembodied howl of rage tore through the room. The energy cycloned, shaking the windows, making the fire blaze up, shredding the curtains, spiraling papers and plaster and broken furniture up into a funnel of black wind and rage.
And then it was as if the cyclone had been sucked into space. Suddenly, everything was still.
The silence was deafening, like a ringing in Robin’s ears. The four of them looked around them, stunned.
The lounge was wrecked, broken furniture and glass everywhere. Curtains billowed inward as rain blew in from the smashed windows.
Lisa gulped out, her voice tiny. “Is it…over?”
Cain took a deep breath. “It’s gone…I think….”
Then Robin felt her heart leap wildly in her chest as Patrick’s eyes suddenly opened.
The corpse jerked up to a sitting position, grinning wolfishly. The dead voice grated. “Did…you…miss me…children?” The dead eyes were black, fathomless.
Lisa stared at him, her face white. He waggled his tongue at her and she bolted back.
Patrick’s voice was slow and thick, his face distorted, the muscles slack and grotesque as the Qlippah tried to speak through dead vocal cords. “Big…boy…woudn’…mind….”
Lisa and Robin backed away, shaking.
Behind them, Martin gasped out, “Burn him.”
Cain whipped around, staring at him. Martin looked up at Cain from where he was still tied in the chair. “Fire. We have to drive it out.”
Cain’s face tightened. “Cut Martin loose, quick.” With his good hand, he fumbled his pocketknife out of his pocket.
Robin leapt to take the knife, then sliced through Martin’s ropes with the blade. She helped Martin stand shakily and the four faced Patrick.
The corpse jerked spasmodically in the chair, the Qlippah trying to work the dead muscles. It strained against the ropes, bellowing, “NOOO. NOOOOOO….”
Martin spoke loudly over it. “Burn the body. Drive it out. Fire is pure light.”
“NNNNNNOOOOOO!”
Patrick’s body writhed grotesquely. The chair started to rattle on the floor. Darkness seemed to gather around it.
Beside Robin, Cain gasped in disbelief. “Oh shit.”
The three of them watched, stupefied, as the chair rose slowly into the air.
Martin shouted, “Burn him! Do it!”
Cain spun and grabbed the Coleman lantern, from where it lay overturned and dark in the debris on the floor. He twisted the lamp open and threw the fuel over Patrick, soaking the corpse’s clothes.
Robin spotted the matches on the mantel and grabbed for them, but then she hesitated, looking toward Lisa.
Lisa stepped forward, staring at the writhing corpse above them. Her voice was deadly and sure. “Kill it.”
Robin struck a match, ignited the matchbook, and threw it at Patrick.
The Qlippah bellowed. “NOOOO—LIFE—LIFE— NOOOO—”
Flames exploded around Patrick, licked up his clothing, eating at the rope. The corpse shrieked, straining and contorting its chest; the chair hobbled wildly in the air.
Then suddenly, the ropes binding Patrick burst. The chair fell to the floor.
Patrick’s corpse lurched grotesquely forward, dead limbs flailing like a puppet with its strings cut. Flames ignited his hair, searing the dead flesh.
All four of the others stood paralyzed, staring in horror and shock. Around them, reality seemed to ripple; what was left of the lounge was suddenly insubstantial, as if there was nothing but darkness around them, swirling forms in the wind. Robin groped for the Star of David in her pocket.
Cain grabbed Robin’s arm, shouted, “Everyone out—”
Lisa and Martin were already backing for the door. Robin clenched the metal piece in her hand, thinking mindlessly, Help… .
And at that moment, across the room, she saw him. Just a shade, incorporeal, very still in the swirling chaos of the room, standing at the top point of Cain’s chalked pentagram: the pale young man from the yearbook, from her dreams.
As Robin stood, transfixed, Zachary locked his bottomless eyes on hers and raised his fist to his chest: the gesture from the ritual.
Cain pulled violently at her arm, shouted in her ear above the maelstrom. “Robin! Now!”
“Zachary—” she gasped out. Cain stared at her, uncomprehending. Martin and Lisa hesitated by the arched doorway, glancing back blankly.
They don’t see, Robin realized.
She looked back toward Zachary, who again pressed his fist to his chest. Robin’s eyes widened in comprehension. She spun to the others, shouting, “Finish the ritual. The others didn’t finish.”
At the archway, Martin stopped in his tracks. He grabbed Lisa and spun back, shouting, “Yes.”
Robin faced the staggering, burning corpse and raised her arms before her, shouting, “We close the portal of earth!”
She pulled her hands together, shutting the curtain. The burning corpse started to howl.
“LIFE. WARM. BODY. BLOOD. LIFE.”
Robin’s eyes were streaming. She gagged on the stench of burning flesh, but she spun to Lisa. Terrified, Lisa faced the burning corpse and shouted.
“We close the portal of water!”
She raised her arms as far as she could, shut her hands together. The corpse staggered jerkily toward her, burning arms raised. As Lisa stumbled back, screaming, Robin and Cain surrounded the corpse on the other side. Martin raised his arms, shouted over the howling: “We close the portal of air!”
The corpse turned away from Lisa, jerked toward Martin spasmodically.
“BREATH LIFE BODY GOD BLOOD DAMN BLOOD.”
Cain raised his arms, shouted, “We close the portal of fire!”
The burning corpse flailed horribly, screaming.
“GOD DAMN DAMN GOD DAMN YOU.”
Cain and the others all pulled their hands to
gether at once.
And Patrick’s screaming body exploded in flame.
The force of the explosion tumbled the four of them backward. Flames ripped through the room, searing the walls and furniture.
Cain, Robin, Martin, and Lisa staggered to their feet, beating sparks off their clothing.
Above them, the roof beams burst into flame. Fire raced over the walls, lapping at the dry old wood of the paneling and furniture.
“Run,” Cain shouted.
For a split second, Robin looked toward the specter of Zachary, still standing on the point of the pentagram. Time seemed to stop. Then Zachary raised his hand to Robin—a farewell, or a blessing. Tears pushed at Robin’s eyes; then she turned away and shouted to the others against the wind, “Go.”
She seized Martin’s arm and ran for the door. Cain grabbed Lisa and ran with her.
The four scrambled into the hallway, running full force for the front door. Behind them, there was a whoosh and a crackling roar as the lounge exploded into an inferno. Flames billowed into the hall behind them. Robin could feel the heat like breath on her back.
Cain lunged forward for the front door, shot the bolt, and jerked it open.
The four of them burst through the door onto the porch, slamming the door shut behind them, running down the steps, running as hard as they could from the burning building, into the grove, into the night.
Inside the dorm, windows began to burst from the heat, tongues of flame licking out. Firelight glowed and danced from the upper floors.
And inside, one last demonic howl of rage roared, rising to a crescendo, then was sucked away.
Into the Abyss.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ash Hill Courier, December 21, 2011:
Ash Hill police today attributed the death of Waverly Todd, business student at Baird College, to another troubled student. The student, whose name has not been released, allegedly killed Todd before setting fire to a campus residence hall. The student perished in the blaze.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
They stood in the copse of oak trees, in front of the memorial bench from 1920, Martin, Robin, and Lisa watching as Cain mounted the new bronze plate onto the marble under the names of Zachary Prince and the four other students.
Lisa placed a bouquet of wildflowers gently down on the bench; then Cain and Robin stepped up and put their arms around her.
Martin hovered apart until Lisa looked at him and reached out a hand.
He stepped to her side and the four of them looked down at the new bronze plaque under the old names:
IN MEMORIAM — PATRICK O’CONNOR
OUR FRIEND
EPILOGUE
The sun was setting over a Midwestern campus, pouring golden light over gently rolling hills.
Students walked the footpaths between modern buildings.
In the lounge of Norton Residence Hall, several students sprawled around the room, watching the old big-screen TV, playing Game Boys, half-studying.
A few of them looked up when an excited voice came from beside the built-in cabinets. A girl pulled a familiar-looking rectangular game box from the shelves, turned to the room.
“Hey, look what I found. Anyone want to play?”
THE END
Read on for an excerpt of THE SPACE BETWEEN, by Alexandra Sokoloff
1. Burning
The B Building is burning.
Anna Sullivan stands alone in the upstairs corridor, halfway between the Social Studies wing and the Math wing, her legs rooted to the floor, her heart racing in her chest. She can barely catch a breath through the smoke stinging her eyes and lungs. The wide dark halls of the school are thick with it, curling, wafting. Bluish, with an acid bite.
There is a creeping fear, undefined, but growing. And not just the usual school anxiety, either, the butterflies that always started the moment she stepped off the bus to cross the yard toward the prison gates of the high school. For one thing, she can’t seem to move.
What’s happening? A chemical fire? Those morons from Litwack’s 3rd period lab, trying to shut down the building?
There’d been half a dozen false fire alarms since the beginning of the semester.
But why are the lights out?
The only illumination is from the red EXIT signs above the side stairwell doors. The whole building is dark; there is only the drifting smoke, tinged red from the neon.
Alarm bells are ringing, but far, far away.
And why am I alone?
Anna turns her head and looks around her for what oddly feels like the first time, blinking through the smoky gloom. The cavernous halls are empty, and there’s no one in the open classrooms, either.
There is the sound of sobbing, though, from somewhere, resonating faintly in the tomblike dark.
And softly, softly, screams.
Screams?
Anna’s heart stops in her chest.
Panic breaks through her paralysis and she spins to stare down the center aisle of the classroom to the left of her, down the collapsing fiberglass curtain that serves as a wall between classrooms. What she sees turns her to ice.
Oh God oh my God…
Blood is splashed across the maps from World War II battle campaigns, the National Geographic history charts, bright crimson against the sepia.
Male legs in khaki pants and reindeer socks stick out from under sweet Mr. Brooke’s desk. The legs are stiff and still. Anna thinks absurdly of the Wicked Witch of the East, how she ran screaming from the living room when she was five and first seeing The Wizard of Oz on TV and those black-and-white striped witch legs curled up and rolled under the house… I
In her peripheral vision, a dark shadow runs suddenly past.
It is fast, so fast. Sinuous, snakelike. And it carries a long, thin…
Gun?
Smoke, screaming, blood, a gun….
Anna whips around, staring down the corridor, her heart racing. No sign of the shadow.
Where is it? What is it?
Silence, stillness…
But it’s a heavy stillness, live.
She holds her breath, watching…and the shadow falls again across the wall.
It has two heads.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod
Anna unfreezes and runs for the main staircase. It feels unbearably slow, like running through sand. Like running—
In a dream
The fire alarms start to shrill, piercing, pulsing beats.
Anna veers instinctively toward the EXIT doors of the side emergency stairs. Her stomach plunges and she stops in her tracks. Someone has twisted a bike chain around the release bars, locking them.
It’s real. It can’t be real. This can’t be happening….
Anna bolts past the chained doors, heading toward the center stairwell of the building.
Her breath is coming faster, her legs moving even more maddeningly slowly. Her pulse pounds in her head, the sound distorted and visceral. She knows the shadow is behind her - she can hear a double breath.
Madness….
She reaches the edge of the main staircase, grabs the rail to pull herself forward onto the stairs—
At the foot of the staircase, on the landing below, Tyler Marsh stands looking up at her, as real as she is, even now heart-stoppingly beautiful, perfect profile and long, dark silky hair falling into his eyes. The alarms pulse around them, vibrating through her body.
Tyler?
She takes a shaky step toward him.
“Run,” he says, without opening his mouth.
* * *
The clock alarm is bleating in shrill pulses, five a.m. blinking redly from the digital screen. The morning is pitch black, the wind outside scrapes the thorns of the orange tree across the window like some creature wanting in. Anna’s heart still pounds crazily in her chest, shaking the mattress. She reaches for the clock to silence it, then lies back, dazed and groggy. The dream is gone.
The stench of smoke is in her nose.
Shower in
the cramped, dark bathroom to wash away the lingering, inexplicable smell of smoke, then way too long with the hair dryer, reluctant to shut off the warmth. Anna mostly avoids her own eyes in the mirror, but sometimes, with her thick, dark hair blowing around her, she is almost pretty.
Dressed in a sleeveless, shapeless black dress with sweater wrapped around her waist, she negotiates the tiny, but labyrinthinely cluttered living room by the light of the silent TV screen. Her father is passed out and snoring in the huge vile LaZBoy, empty beer bottles scattered at his feet.
Don’t think about it. Can’t think about it. Keep moving. Caffeine and go.
Anna grabs a Diet Coke from the kitchen fridge, grabs her backpack from the hall, and plunges out the front door into the black-and-blue pre-dawn. The dark outside is moving, alive, trees bending sinuously in the dry wind, which is always strongest just before sunrise.
She runs, and makes it to the corner just in time to catch her bus.
Inside, she rides in rumbling darkness, alone with the bus driver and two Latina housekeepers, over potholed streets, under the towering silhouettes of palms and old-growth trees, through sleeping San Gorgonio.
San G. is a base town, or was until the base was shut down in the closures of the nineties, plunging the city into economic depression. The war in Iraq did not revive the base. The dying town sprawls in a semi-desert ringed by mountains, pocketed in a valley which traps heat and smog for the entirety of the summer, only somewhat relieved in fall by the winds Anna once read described as “those hot, dry Santa Anas that come through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.” And bring asthma and arson and devastating wildfires, Anna knows all that.
The Harrowing Page 21