“No you don’t. Nor should you. I don’t find much point in prevarication, Mallory. The truth is easier, and almost always more convincing.”
“And what’s to stop me from pulling a pin, then killing you? And getting out before it all comes crumbling down?” She wondered if she sounded as tough as she meant to. Probably not.
Almost certainly not.
“That is definitely an option,” Chad agreed. “You’re welcome to try to outrun the destruction.”
Mallory blinked hard. She tried to reason with her brain, but the more she thought about the proposal, the more sense it seemed to make. Reason was losing by winning. “And how am I supposed to get it out? Just give it a good yank?”
“Well, you are sturdy, aren’t you?” he teased. Mallory glowered, and he held up his hands defensively. “I apologize,” he said with a laugh, “You could try to pull them out with your bare hands, though I doubt you’d have much luck. If only you had some sort of mystical tool of great power that could pull a stake from a stone as easily as a plum from a pudding…”
Mallory looked down at the Spear of Rad. In truth, she had almost forgotten that she was holding it. Now she snorted out a little laugh. “The thing that kills you is also the thing that can set you free? That’s a little convenient, don’t you think?”
“Is it?” the ancient evil asked, raising an eyebrow. “I find that the things that set us free are quite often the same as the things that cause our demise. I’m sure if you think about it long enough, you’ll agree…”
Mallory shook her head slowly. She ran a hand through her tangled hair and pushed it back from her face. “If I let you live, you’ll eventually destroy the town. And all of the people in it.”
“And, most likely, the entire planet,” he added. “I’ll turn the whole thing into a literal hell on Earth, if I can.”
“Anguish, pain, torture, fire—all that?”
“Oh, certainly. For starters, anyway.”
“But that won’t be until long after I’m gone,” she said quietly, almost to herself.
Chad nodded slowly. “I can’t guarantee the timeline, but the odds are in your favor.”
Mallory chewed her bottom lip as she thought. “What would I tell Lewis?” she said.
The ancient evil shrugged. “Lies aren’t really my purview, as I’ve said. But I suppose you could tell him you completed the task.” He lowered his eyes to the rusty point of the spear. “My blood is on the blade, after all.”
Mallory couldn’t even comprehend the type of life she could have with that much money in the bank. Forget Lenore’s safe house. Hell, forget Canada. She could buy her own island. Fencing a diamond spike the size of her arm might be tricky, but surely Lenore would know somebody. You didn’t become an international source of awe in the business of providing safe houses for criminals if you didn’t have a few good contacts in your Rolodex. And even at an exorbitant handling fee—and there would surely be one—just a single stake from the demon represented more money than Mallory could possibly have hoped to spend in her lifetime.
She clapped a hand to her head and tried to let a little bit of reason into there, because surely this was nothing but madness…wasn’t it? Who in their right mind would sentence all of mankind to excruciating torture and eternal, flesh-stripping damnation? The image of the naked men impaled upon the glowing hot iron rods burned before her eyes. That would only be the beginning, she knew. No matter how well-mannered and easy-going he portrayed himself, that’s how he would warm up…by playing with an unlucky few, using them as an example of why it was pointless to even try to stand up to his hateful, barbaric omnipotence.
Anomaly Flats would be the epicenter; the murder and chaos would start here, then gleefully spread across the state. The nuclear power plant in Callaway would have a meltdown and spread radiation through the entire country; the Mississippi would boil over and flow red with blood; the Ozark Mountains would crack and split wide open, and the meth-addicted hill people would fall into the eternal swirling darkness of the chasm, and that would be just about the only upside to the whole ordeal.
The rest of the Midwest would follow; acid would rain down upon the plains, and peoples’ skin would slough right off their flesh. Temperatures would rise, and eyeballs would roast and pop in their sockets. Children would split right down the middle, and their organs would fall out of their bodies and writhe, steaming, in the dust. Unfathomable creatures would emerge from beneath the ground—huge, stinking monsters with the gigantic heads of wolves or tarantulas or cuttlefish, and they’d scoop up the survivors with their tentacles or spindles or whatever they had attached to their monstrous torsos and crunch them down their gullets.
Then the entire country would be plunged into darkness. The earth would shake and tear itself apart. The Grand Canyon would fill with boiling tar. Water would transmute into venom, fruit would rot and bear swarms of locusts, and scorpions would spill forth from every corner of every home. The oceans would rise, skyscrapers would collapse; liquid fire would gush from every sidewalk crack.
And after that...the people. The world’s population would melt, burn, shrivel, decay, but they would be kept alive, every single human being; they would, each and every one of them, experience the sheer excruciating pain of decimation, and when humans had been reduced to simpering puddles and wailing cinders and breathing piles of ash, the demons would descent upon the world, and then the pain would truly begin.
The full power of Chad would be unleashed, and misery and pain didn’t come close to describing what awaited those future generations if Mallory pulled the diamond stake from the wall.
And she could not be responsible for that.
“Yes I could,” she said softly.
Of course she could. She didn’t have much of a choice, really. She had already made her decision two days ago, when she took the cash and diamonds from the safe. She meant to amass a small fortune, trample every person who stood in her way, and live her life on her own terms, independently, and without regret. What wouldn’t she do to secure that future for herself?
Of course she would take the diamond.
“A deal with the devil,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Chad admitted. “But you have to admit, it’s a pretty good deal.”
It was most certainly that.
Mallory spun the Spear of Rad in her hand and jammed the forked end beneath the head of the nail. She forced it in as far as she could, then pushed at the spear shaft with all the strength she could muster. As it turned out, the spear was mystical enough to do all of the work on its own; the diamond spike slid out easily, and her force took her into a face-first collision with the stone wall.
“Son of a bitch!” she cried, feeling her face for bruises.
“I may have forgotten to mention that particular rule. Mystical tools are usually overly-effective. Sorry about the lip. Worth it, though, I think.” He nodded down at the loosened diamond, which now lay glittering and flawless on the dungeon floor. Then he hitched up his shoulder and sighed happily as he swung his arm freely in a circle for the first time in centuries. “For both of us.”
Mallory suddenly realized she was within easy grabbing distance of the demon, and she slipped backward, out of reach. Chad grinned as he flexed his wrist and wriggled his fingers. “Smart girl,” he said, every bit of his constantly-changing face gleaming with victory. “It wouldn’t do for either of us if I ripped out your throat; it’d bring all the wrong sorts of attention. But an evil being does have its urges.”
Mallory reached down and picked up the diamond. It was perfectly clear, and somehow polished, despite having spent the last several centuries buried in stone. It glittered and gleamed in the orange glow, casting dizzying refractions about the room. The light sparkled in Mallory’s eyes, and she was so hungry for the precious gem in her hands that her stomach
actually rumbled at the sight of it.
I wonder if there’s something wrong with me… she thought.
If there was, it wasn’t anything a few hundred million dollars couldn’t fix.
“Don’t break free for at least a thousand years,” she warned him, giving the spear a little jab in his direction. “Or I’ll come back and finish the job.”
Chad smiled. “Sure.”
The air in the chamber suddenly felt hot, and a little thin. It was time to go. Mallory tucked the diamond stake into her back pocket and fluffed her shirttail over the top to hide it. There were no mirrors in the dungeon, but a quick assessment with her hands told her that the overall effect was something less than covert. But she decided it probably didn’t matter. For a scientist, Lewis was shockingly unobservant.
She backed away from Chad, holding the Spear of Rad before her, ready to strike. But the demon didn’t move; he just flexed his wrist and watched her go, his face filled with a flicking amusement, his smile presenting itself in an ever-changing series of lips.
She reached the staircase and set her foot on the bottom step. The torches still flickered, and she could see a watery wash of light coming in from the Walmart doorway above. She turned and gave the demon one last look. The blood of billions would someday be on her hands. Some people, she knew, would lose a little sleep over that. But she took a grave comfort in the knowledge that the ancient evil’s face wouldn’t haunt her dreams.
She didn’t even know what his face really looked like.
She hurried up the stairs, leaving Chad alone to his patient and gruesome plans.
“Mallory!” Lewis cried as she emerged through the doorway at the top of the stairs. “You’re alive!”
“Try not to sound so surprised,” she said irritably.
“I’m sorry!” he gasped. His eyes grew wide, and they were coated over by a film of tears. “It’s just—I didn’t—the ancient evil, and—I’m just…” He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Just…welcome back.” He limped forward with his arms out, aiming for a joyful embrace.
Mallory put out her hand and stopped him with a palm to the forehead. “Personal space, Lewis,” she said, gesturing in a general circle around herself with the spear.
“Right,” he said, clearing his throat uncomfortably as his cheeks flushed red. “Sorry. So what happened? Did you…you know?”
Mallory skirted sideways down the aisle to keep the poorly-hidden diamond stake out of his view. “It’s done,” she said.
“You killed it?” he asked, his voice quiet with wonder.
“Yep. Right through the heart, as instructed.” Mallory held out the tip of the spear as she crept backward so that Lewis could see the drying blood.
Lewis shook his head in wonder. “Mallory,” he said. His voice caught in his throat, and he cleared it a few times. He didn’t want to choke up in front of her, but honestly, after all that had happened, how could he not? “I don’t know how to thank you. For coming back. For finishing it. For…for saving Anomaly Flats.”
“Yep. I did it. I saved the town and all its weird, carnival-sideshow people. I’m a hero.” She reached the end of aisle 8 and backed out of it, stepping over the exploded canned goods, the ruined shelving, and the lifeless body of Lewis’ evil clone. “And I think I’d like to go now.”
“Just like that?” Lewis’ face fell. “Not even a goodbye drink? We could stop by the Dive Inn—”
But Mallory cut him off. “I’m not really a goodbye kind of gal, Lewis.” She set the Spear of Rad on its hilt and leaned it against the end cap. “Let’s just call it good, and maybe I’ll see you later.”
He gave her a sad little smile. “No you won’t,” he said.
“No,” she agreed with a nod. “I definitely won’t.”
Then she turned, hurried down the aisle, and left Lewis alone in the Walmart with a half-dozen employees and a primeval demon that would someday rise up and swallow the world.
Chapter 21
Evil Lewis snorted as Mallory ran toward the exit. “Good riddance,” he said, spitting on the floor.
He looked down into the blank, staring eyes of Lewis Burnish, a mediocre scientist in life and a useless lump in death. “Sorry about how this played out for you,” Evil Lewis said, nudging Lewis in the ribs with the toe of his shoe. “I mean, not very sorry, but sort of sorry.” He reached down and grabbed Lewis’ cheeks. They were already turning cold. He squeezed his hand to make the dead man’s jaw work. “I forgive you, Evil Lewis,” he made the scientist’s mouth say in a squeaky voice. Then he stood up and gave Lewis’ body a good, solid kick. “I don’t need your forgiveness,” he spat.
Evil Lewis limped his way over to the doorway and peered inside. He couldn’t hear the ancient evil below, but he could sense it. He could feel its energy radiating up the stairwell. It was still alive, then. Everything had gone quite nicely to plan.
“I was worried for a minute,” Evil Lewis called down as he descended the stone steps. “I thought she might actually kill you.” He hopped down off the last step and gave the ancient evil a wide grin.
“And she might very well have,” Chad agreed. His features—his true features—were slowly shifting into their proper positions on his face…if one could really call it a face. His skin blistered, and little boils popped and hissed and spat streams of yellow goo onto the dungeon floor. His flickering nose sank into its cavity, and his eyes crusted over with sulfur. His ears dropped away from the sides of his head and melted onto the stone below, leaving nothing but vapors trailing into the air. His hair grew long and ragged beneath his hat, and then it fell out altogether, and that, too, vanished in a sour-smelling puff of smoke. He continued to rotate his newly-freed shoulder, working the feeling back into it after the long years of restraint. The fingers on his hands melted themselves into a cloven flesh hoof. “But if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that greed makes people foolish, and almost everyone is a slave to it.”
“Must we have let her get away?” Evil Lewis asked. “I wish you’d let me kill her as soon as she resurfaced.”
“Death is rarely the best punishment,” Chad said.
Evil Lewis nodded. He approached the demon and bowed low. “You know best,” he said.
Chad reached out and placed his free hoof tenderly on the back of Evil Lewis’ head. “You’ve done well.”
Evil Lewis raised his head, and his eyes burned with shame. “You only have one bond loosed,” he said, his voice small.
“We don’t write the rules,” Chad said simply, giving a little shrug. “Only outsiders may loose the stakes, and only one each, at that. It is writ in the fabric of the universe. There’s no sense upsetting oneself over it.”
“But we could have used the scientist,” Evil Lewis said bitterly. “I’m…I’m sorry he was killed before he could be put to use.”
But Chad shook his head. “I have a sense that Dr. Burnish was one of the incorruptible sort. I don’t think he could have been persuaded, and then I might be dead, or fixed to all four chains yet. No; things worked out as they should have, I think.”
Evil Lewis sighed. Perhaps it was true; maybe it all had worked out for the best. Everything certainly went much better than it could have. “I wish the process wasn’t so long.”
“Time hands down its own justice,” Chad said simply.
Evil Lewis nodded. That much was true; time would eventually set the evil free, and it would punish the arrogance of the natural citizens of the world. He had no doubts about that. He, a simple clone, had played a large part in that, and he had played it well. There was much pride to be taken in that. “Still,” he sighed, “I wish I could be there with you for your reign.”
Here, Chad’s bubbling, popping lips twisted themselves into a sly grin. “The rules of time in Anomaly Flats are quite
unique, my friend. I think together we will discover how to properly use them to our advantage.”
“We may,” Evil Lewis said. Then he brightened considerably. “We will! I know we will. One day, I’ll write the letter that leads Lewis Burnish here.”
Chad nodded. “Indeed. The secrets of time will allow us much freedom...eventually. So don’t fret. You’ve done well, and you’ll be rewarded.”
Evil Lewis smiled.
“Now listen carefully, my friend,” Chad continued, “for we have much work to do, and I am eager to begin…”
Chapter 22
Facing Lewis had been harder than Mallory expected. She scrubbed at the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks as she hurried to the Impala in the parking lot. “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered sternly to herself. “He’ll be long dead by the time the demonic shit hits the fan.”
She popped open the door to the car and tossed the diamond onto the passenger seat. Even here, in the darkness of the Anomaly Flats night, it glittered and sent sparkles of light around the interior of the car. It was almost as if it was being lit from the inside.
The purple Jansport was still tucked safely beneath the driver’s seat. One quick pat of the bag was enough to reassure her that the money was still inside, although it hardly mattered anymore. Still, more was always better than enough.
“Please start,” she prayed, slipping the key into the ignition. “Please, please, please just start.” She turned the key.
The engine started.
“Yesssss,” she whispered. She threw the car into drive and hit the gas.
The roads were quiet, of course, and the highway out of Anomaly Flats took her away from downtown, so she was spared the sight of the citizens whose descendants she’d doomed to an excruciating fate. But then, the people in Anomaly Flats were all sterilized, weren’t they? There would be no descendants to kill off. That made Mallory feel better about her recent decisions. “Keep drinking that coffee,” she said.
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