In The Season of The Damned (Book One)

by Shannon Allen

  “You’re a preacher?” I said, feeling a little relaxed to hear he supposedly was. “So my brother was into burglary?”

  “No, but your brother held a gun on me. I thought I was dead. He pushed me into a room and made me hear his story. To be honest, it started out a jumble of craziness, but when he got going, the story was so interesting, I almost forgot that he had a gun. He didn’t sound crazy to me, and he should have. The first words he said to me were, ‘They could be anywhere or anyone.’ These are the words you should always remember. Your brother ran a small paper, this is another thing that added credibility. I checked this out, he ran a small paper on the occult…You see, and he was on to the story of his life. He pushed it so far as to learn of a gathering of these elite people. He thought it would be some hokey ceremony, and he was partly right; it was hokey-looking, at first. Then came the sacrifice. From his view, he thought it was a fake till they all began stabbing the girl.

  “Your brother told me he couldn’t get those screams out of his head. He wanted to help her, but he knew he didn’t stand a chance. Then they all removed their masks to take pieces of her flesh to eat and then sip her blood from a goblet. He recognized some of the faces as a who’s who, I mean, he recognized famous personalities. Your brother escaped that night into the shadows, and if only he would have stopped there, but something carried him forward. He didn’t go to the police, he went and infiltrated two more ceremonies. He told me that something in that last ceremony scared him even more than the first. He asked me if I had a cross on my person. I said no, not on me. And he handed me this.”

  Mason pulled a cross out of his jacket pocket, it was beautiful as it sparkled in the diner light. “Your brother seemed almost beside himself. It was like he knew he was going to die and wanted to tell someone who he thought could help. The time crept on, and your brother put the gun down. He told me about his family. He feared for you, for you most of all. He said that they would be coming for you, and he scribbled your name and address, not your number. He said that he had to leave, but if he didn’t come back the next day, to find you and warn you.”

  At just that moment, I noticed someone entering the diner. He sat at the counter. “Just a minute, sir,” I told him.

  Mason stared at the person for a second. “Your brother thought that you might have trouble believing a stranger, so he gave me proof.”

  I sat there listening to this story, and I looked Mason in the eyes and it didn’t seem to me like he was lying. “How can I trust you? What did my brother say to tell me?”

  “He said the night he left, he came into your room and painted the words, goodbye, love forever, your brother.”

  “No, that wasn’t it!” I said. “It said, love you forever, Franny. So what happened next? This is still a bit much to take in. So my brother didn’t come back that day, where is he? What are your ideas? Could he just be hiding?

  Just that moment, the phone rang, but this time the voice on the other line was my father. “Baby, it’s your dad. Sit down, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s your friend Amelia, she was found two blocks from the diner. She was… in a bad condition, she’s been murdered.” I gasped at the sheer shock of what I was being told. “I want you to lock up the diner, sweetie, I’m coming to get you. Are you there?”

  “Yes, Dad, I’ll lock up,” I said with my voice quivering. I looked up to see that the person who had sat down was now gone.

  “What’s wrong?” Mason said.

  “It’s my friend Amelia, she’s been killed…two blocks from here,” I said, shocked.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” he said. “Can I call you a cab?”

  My mind was already reeling from him, a stranger who shows up in town with a mysterious story about my brother and then suddenly my friend is dead.

  Mason got his coat. “Francesca, I’m sorry, I have to go. You’re thinking nice, quiet town, the outsider must be the bad guy. I swear, I had nothing to do with this. And I took a great risk coming here, you see, the people after your brother are also after me. They may have followed me. I have something to show you.” He unbuttoned his shirt. On his chest there was a huge scar.

  “I was walking into the church that night to see if your brother was there. The story was so interesting to me that I didn’t really think about the danger from your brother or from these people, and out of nowhere I’m grabbed by hooded, clothed figures and one slashes me with a knife. I grew up a lot that night. The only thing that saved me was that I yanked on the alarmed church doors, and they, thinking they’d done enough damage, fled…or so I thought. These guys looked like something out of a movie; they wore hooded black robes with white masks.

  “Now, this is what scared me. The guy who came to take my police report at the hospital was strange. I believe he was one of them, as he tried to make it my fault, and he said your brother’s name before I recall giving him the name. That’s something that came to me later. I’m going to go now, there are car lights. Does this place have a back entrance?”

  “Yes,” I said, ushering him into the kitchen, and turning back just in time to see my father rush through the door, arms outstretched.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, wrapping them around me, “sorry for everything.”

  Over the next few days I went through the motions, thinking of all that Mason had said and wondering when he would make contact again. There were similar murders happening in places that were not Addington. Amelia’s death really affected everyone. I felt like my emotions had been bleached. I stared at a picture of us, and we could be sisters, her face slightly fuller than mine, with her blue eyes sparkling. It was always quiet, but now it was unsually so. Everyone around me started to seem a bit strange. I was wrestling with it all; I don’t know what stopped me from calling the cops.

  I went to Amelia’s parents home to pay my condolences. Her mom brought me to her room to show me something Amelia had been working on; this was the nicest her mom ever had acted toward me. Amelia just had started knitting. She was making me a shawl to go around me. I teared up and sat on her bed. Her mother left the room, saying she’d give me a little time alone. As I got up, a diary fell from under the mattress. I picked it up to put it back, but then I noticed my name on the page. I heard her mother coming and stuffed the small diary into my pocket.

  The rain really was pouring down again. I watched a person in a bright red rain coat run up the stairs to the house across the street, watching as the few cars splashed by, thinking about the mystery that had entered my life. That night I sat at the front of the church alone; it was the viewing of Amelia’s body. My dad had asked to be there, but I asked for time alone to say my goodbyes. I told her all about Mason, and I asked her if I could trust him or not. I imagined her getting out of her coffin; she looked so alive. I went to touch her face, and her eyes opened and she looked at me with a haunting smile, and then they were closed again. I knew it was just a figment of my imagination.

  I walked to the back of the church to take a break, and there was Mason. “Franny, there is something I need to tell you.”

  “What?” I asked brashly. “Why are you here?”

  “I need to tell you, it’s something about Amelia.”

  “Why do you have a stake in your hand?” I asked, stepping back.

  He put up his hand. “You can trust me. I need to put this stake into your friend’s heart before she comes back.”

  “Are you crazy?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “but lately I’m teetering over the edge. You don’t know what I’ve seen. I only told you part of the story. Since that night at the church with your brother, I’ve seen some crazy stuff, Franny. We don’t have much time. I’ll tell you everything later. Right now, I have to do this.”

  “No! You aren’t stabbing her with a stake!” I said, pushing him. “You’re some insane person! Why are you doing this? My brother is probably still out there. Get out, you crazy bastard! Get out!” I said, pushing him through the door and lock
ing it.

  I turned around, crying, to see that Amelia was nowhere in the coffin. I glanced around. Had Mason somehow stolen her body? What kind of sick person was this? Who had I let into my life? I then heard something, a faint sound, sort of like a low-pitched growl; it was like that phone call. A sense of dread washed over me as I peered upward.

  My eyes met with Amelia staring down at me. Her back was arched like a cat and she was crawling slowly on the ceiling, but only her face was turned to me. If this was a nightmare, I was ready to wake up. I felt myself paralyzed staring into the flames of her yellow eyes. While this thing was crawling at me, I only could think about the fair my father took me to at seven, with the sweet smell of cotton candy. With my ears, I could hear nails scraping the ceiling and a shallow whisper calling my name. It was like experiencing many emotional states at once, happiness underlined with dread and being somewhere stuck in between.

  She now was on the floor, crawling towards me while holding eye contact. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the candles that lined the wall around the church flicker. I felt the strangeness of knowing I was being hypnotized and wanting out, but wanting to stay in as well. I could see her eyes now were totally gone, all that was left were leathery slits. Her body was contorting in so many ways unhuman. A lovely white wreath was around her head. I knew if I stood there I was going to die.

  As she got closer, I could feel the coldness. Her beautiful red dress dazzled, looking so much like the raincoat I’d seen earlier. Her teeth weren’t normal, they were like animal teeth.

  In the end, it was Mason who broke through the door and plunged the wood through her heart as she cried out. I stood numb as she lay there dying a second time, peering at me as her eyes closed. “Come on! Others will be coming for her. They are going to be really, really pissed!”

  “Thank you, I’m so sorry,” I said as he grabbed my hand. He took me outside and put me in a car.

  “I had to save you.”

  “How did you know where I was anyway?”

  “I didn’t, but I suspected where, when I heard exactly how your friend was killed from your boss while at the diner today. So tonight, I thought I’d stop by.”

  My heart was still pumping, I was still so very afraid, like when you just wake up from a nightmare.

  “There’s something I need to show you.”

  “What happened to Amelia, how is that possible?”

  “There are a lot more things possible than I knew before I met your brother. Many things are now possible, Franny. I’m a person who believes in the devil’s existence, but mostly in cruelty and how we treat each other, I was never expecting to run into him physically. I believe the Alden Marsh Killer and these people are the same. I’m sure of that.”

  He took me to the Windom Hotel. I was more afraid of what I didn’t know than being with this stranger. I was trying to take in all that had happened. I still couldn’t grasp what I’d seen. I kept seeing flashbacks of Amelia’s eyes, and remembering my inability to move.

  “You were hypnotized.” Mason’s voice broke through my thoughts. “It’s going to take a few days to recover fully. You’ll have flashbacks of the incident. Sometimes they will be just as it occurred, sometimes they will be much worse. These things, once they get in, I dunno if they ever get out of your mind, your thoughts. They breach you. I’ll be here if you need me.”

  “What is it you wanted to show me?” I said, hope and curiosity getting the best of me.

  “I have a book I want you to take and read.” He went to the bed and picked up the mattress as the silky covers slid off. “It’s their book,” he said, handing it over. The cover read, “The Wisdom of the Witch.”

  “The title of the book is Wisdom, and this hotel is called the Windom?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, “You’re really quick. I did not think of that. After your brother confided in me, strange things started happening and things that felt like a coincidence, but weren’t. People were following me, and I felt my family wasn’t safe. I told my wife that we needed to leave. I told her to pack as much as she could. I told her what happened, but that last day I went to work as usual at my wife’s insistence. I said goodbye to my congregation. I stayed till 7 PM, talking with people, saying farewell, not letting on what was really happening, I just told them I had to leave town for awhile. I had quite a few errands, and by the time I got home, it was late. I opened the door.

  “I called for my wife Sarah. I called for my sons. The house was dark. I cut on some lights and they flickered. I ran upstairs, still calling. Then my wife answered me, she said she was in the attic. The stairs to the attic were let down. I thought maybe she was packing. I noticed unfamiliarity in her voice. Something inside told me I shouldn’t go up there, and when I stepped on the first rung of the ladder, fear overtook me, dread like you felt with Amelia. She called again, but there was just something in her voice that unnerved me; I wanted to go, and yet I wanted to stay away.”

  “Just like Amelia,” I chimed in.

  “She kept asking me to come to her. With every rung of the ladder, I felt the air get colder and colder. A hollow, dead feeling crept inside of me. I was truly scared, but couldn’t stop my assent. I thought of my dog, who I named Friend; he was hit by an Ace Movers’ shipping truck. I tried to save him, but I couldn’t. It was pitch dark and so cold I could see my breath. When I flicked on the light at the top of the attic, flies hit me in the face trying to gather warmth. What I saw up there will haunt me forever. It had the voice of my wife, but it didn’t look like my wife. Her teeth had grown, her face had changed. My two sons, four years and twelve months, lay in a heap, and they were pale and drained of all blood.

  “I ran over to them, holding their cold, sticky, stiff bodies in my arms. I’ll never forget that, there was no life left in them. I exploded in tears. My youngest still had his feeding bib on. I looked up to see that she was foaming at the mouth…and she laughed. She laughed the most wicked, evil, inhuman laugh. She moved towards me, with the most beautiful red eyes and a slight hint of the smell of rat. In my mind I saw our first meeting, the first time we made love, her having our children, our wedding…I would have been done for, but when she got close enough, she reached for the cross around my neck and tried to take it off.

  “Instead, it repelled her…the very cross she had given me as a gift. Only in that instance as she looked at me did I see anything of the old her. I grabbed at the cross your brother had given me, still in my pocket, and with that she was gone. She jumped through the attic window. I don’t know how they got her, except that she let someone in…I can’t talk about this anymore,” he said. When he finished talking, he was slightly shaking. “I’m going to take you home. Read the book. Take this,” he handed me a cross to wear around my neck and a little flask. “It’s holy water,” he said. “I blessed it myself.”

  On the way home, we talked precautions. I was worried that my father would come out when we reached the house. Mason said he’d make contact again, to just sit tight. He also told me I wouldn’t have to worry about going to Amelia’s funeral and that they’d already come to take her body.

  Sure enough, the next morning my father informed me that Amelia’s body had been stolen. The town’s sheriff questioned me politely over the incident, and I almost decided to tell him everything, but didn’t.

  Over the next few days, I read the big book. I lugged it everywhere with me. Its contents were extremely interesting and scary, considering it was about a cult and witches. These weren’t your ordinary witches, if such a thing exists. These witches believed in all types of things. They worshipped transdimensional beings, which, judging by the description of these beings, the idea of the devil isn’t too far off. These things require flesh and blood to survive, and they fed. Vampires, they sounded like vampires. I’d read mythical novels before, but this book seemed to become scarier and scarier as I read.

  One story told of a small town where the children began going missing. There was a b
arkeep, and he was sure that witchcraft and sacrificing was happening. The keep decided he’d lock all the members of the town into the pub and question everyone until the truth came out. He locked them in and chained the doors and windows. He began his questions.

  Who was the witch, he asked. Everyone denied being the witch. He grabbed a mirror, a mirror he said was given to him by a gypsy, and it was said to have the power to reveal who the witch was. He lifted it up to the nine people. He began shaking, as it revealed that all nine were witches. The owner fell to the floor; he died of his own fright. So were the stories in the book.

  It told of future events. It talked about the dead walking again, and it gave specific dates. It shed light into their world, and on their rules. The one oath is to always fit in, it said, to fit in with normal people. There were little inscriptions, “A future stained with blood, catastrophes unheard, betwixt time and absurd till time be no more.” It was poetic. It was blunt, and it frightened me more than anything had. I checked the printing date. How could this have been prewritten, it spoke of things that just had occurred and things that would? I began to feel I was a small cog in a big machine.

  A fly with polka dotted wings landed on the book. I watched as it floated off in what almost looked like slow motion. I should take this book to the police. How could it speak of a marsh killer? That’s what I decided to do. I felt a bit like I was betraying Mason, but this was too crazy. I marched right out of my room; it was time to get my parents in on this, too.

  I looked all around the house and called out, but found no one. Then, I heard the water on in the bathtub. I opened the door to my parents’ private bathroom, and I let out a gasp. The walls were painted in red, sticky globs with what looked like chunks of skin attached. Frozen, I walked to pull back the shower curtain. My hand immediately stuck to the curtain. I pulled the curtain back to see what looked like the lifeless body of my father. His face was submerged under the bloody water, which had overflowed onto the floor. I stuck my hand in the water and lifted his head. His features were barely recognizable. His graying hair was caked with blood.