The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  "Andy Gibb," she said sheepishly.

  They smiled at each other and everything was normal for a few moments. But then she stared at his lips and her mouth came open; she went to him and kissed him deeply. Guiding him to the bed, she pushed him down onto it and they kissed as lovers do, but there was a frantic nature to her kissing, that reminded him of the night they broke up. Yet even so, he became quickly aroused and she put her hand on him and squeezed him gently. He moaned in his kiss and she broke off.

  "Ok. Ok," Lisa spoke to herself as if coming to a decision and nodded her head up and down. Her hands shook as they went to his belt and fumbled at it.

  Will was sad for her. He took her hands in his and brought them to his chest.

  "It's ok, Lisa. You don't have to do this." He wanted it very badly, but he also wanted to be a gentlemen.

  She stood up and her eyes brimmed over with tears. "Is it her? Is it because of her? You don't find me attractive, I know." Lisa went to her mirror, looked long at it and then took a brush and started to tear at the tangled mess of her hair.

  "Don't, please." Will went to her and held her arms. "Of course I'm attracted to you." For emphasis he pushed hard against her. "And this doesn't have anything to do with Amy. It has to do with you and me." He turned her around, kissed her softly, and then gently rubbed his nose to hers. "I want the first time to be special."

  "You mean my first time," she said stiffly.

  "I mean mine and yours, yes."

  "You want me to believe...ok sure. Sure. If that's what you want me to think." Breaking away from him, she went and stood leaning against the wall.

  "This is why it can't be tonight. We have to get past this first."

  "No, that is why it has to be tonight," she replied and moved to the light switch. The room became lit only by the bright, full moon. He watched with eyes that widened slowly as she stripped out of her clothes.

  "She is still all over you, Will. Her scent, her hands, her mouth. I bet you can still feel it, can't you?" It was true, he could still feel her. Lisa continued, "The best way to get rid of a stain like that is to rub it away."

  She reached out and began to run her hands up and down him. He gasped...

  7

  Another walk in the night.

  This one far different. He breathed in, his lungs expanding largely, and instead of the sigh he had been exhaling constantly for days, he gave a little laugh. The other night he had run from Amy, but tonight he had lingered long in a deep kiss with Lisa.

  Will had indeed shown her what true love was and he had never felt more like a man than at that very moment. He was so happy he skipped a few times, something he couldn't remember ever doing.

  Talitha was another non-skipper. He couldn't recall her ever skipping, even as a young girl. Katie on the other hand, skipped almost everywhere. She even had three speeds of skipping, depending on her frame of mind. Will was in such a good mood that he considered trying the three out, but decided the night wasn't nearly advanced enough for that. It was just past 11:30 pm, and there was always the possibility one of his friends was lurking about.

  Standing in the middle of the Green, he checked to see if his parent's bedroom light was on, but the great leafy canopy of the oak trees blocked his view. However, he could see the Harris house next door and in one of the upper floor windows, a single light burned.

  Amy was going to be a thorn in his side as long as they were neighbors. Lisa had forgiven him, but there was no way short of brain damage she would ever forget. He'd have to endure her insecurity and he felt that he could handle that. But it was Amy, who was a vindictive witch, who gave him cause to worry the most. She'd no doubt be petty and cruel and he wondered to what ends she would go to get what she wanted or to get her revenge when she didn't get it.

  He decided to pray on it.

  His latest prayers had been answered in the most complete way, so he lay down in the cool thick grass of the Green. But after struggling to come up with an anti-bitch prayer, he decided he'd better handled Amy without divine intervention, so he simply thanked God for his blessings. When he was done, he laid there feeling the greatest contentment.

  Something at the corner of his eye caught his attention and turning his head, he realized that from his current angle, he could see his house from under the leafy boughs of the oaks. One second slipped away from him as he stared, and then he sprang up, running with great speed toward the house.

  In that second he saw a light in the room above the porch blinking rapidly on and off. It was Katie's room. The light wasn't the warm inviting gold that he had expected, but was red and dim, and the frantic way it flashed out into the night bespoke fear or danger.

  He threw off the happy feelings of a moment before and sprinted to the house in seconds, bounding up the red brick stairs of the porch in a single leap. Will neither knew nor cared what he was going to confront when he opened the front door and he didn't hesitate a moment, but reached for the handle of the door, hoping it was unlocked.

  But it was locked…and shockingly cold. It felt frozen, colder that any metal he had ever felt even in the deepest of winter. His hand stung with the cold of it and he snatched it away.

  Briefly, he stared with revulsion at the unnaturally cold knob, his mind struggling to come to terms with how such a thing was possible. Then he heard a thud from above him…it was a heavy sound and in no way did it belong in that room at that time of night.

  Katie!

  She was in trouble. Fear started to flow through him, but it was mostly a fear for her safety and it got him moving. He vaulted over the railing of the porch, landing in the little flowerbed beside it and sped around the side of the house.

  As he reached the back entrance he understood that this door might also be locked and if it was, he made up his mind that he was going to break it down regardless. Without a pause he made to open the door and this knob too was deeply cold, but it had been painted over so many times that there wasn't the sharp sting of freezing naked metal as at the front door. It still hurt however, but he ignored it and the door flew open, propelled by his strength and urgency.

  A wave of bitter, dead cold swept over him, stopping him in the doorway.

  The cold struck him full in the face and he gasped, but the gasp was weak, his lungs burned from his sprint, and that first breath of cold air was like an ice pick in his chest. His back felt almost on fire compared to the deep cold sliding its frozen fingers down the front of his shirt. The night had been a warm one and he thought he could feel the sweat from his body freezing in place along his neck and down his arms.

  He staggered for the briefest second. It wasn't the cold that had him clutching the door with his sore right hand; there was something dreadful, a current of evil, running beneath the cold.

  The feeling that something was wrong in the house, that he had sensed lying in the grass of the Village Green, had been instinctual. He had no facts to back up his crazed sense of desperation and even as he ran, a small part of him had held out hope he'd find nothing wrong. But now there was no hope of that. A great terrible presence, a thing of unimaginable foulness had emerged in baleful triumph and was in the house. It was a black-hearted evil that was beyond the pathetic human notion of the word and Will could feel its unnatural presence with his every cell.

  Fear of the awful creature held him in place for only a second but something stronger inside him drove him forward across the old linoleum of the kitchen to the back stairs. Love? Loyalty? Raw courage? He had no time to search his emotions and Will was on the second stair before it realized he was in the house.

  Will was not ready for what happened next.

  There was no way he could have been. The foul creature was on the second floor just outside Katie's door. It perceived Will through the intervening walls and stairs, and looked upon him…and through him. If the boy had been staggered before by the cold and the feeling of perverse evil on the air, he was now literally knocked off his feet and fell back down
the two stairs, landing hard on the kitchen floor.

  It had not been physical. His mind had been open, and despite his fear, inquisitive. He was untrained, unprepared and what's more, he was still just a boy.

  The demon—and somehow Will knew now that it was a demon—had poured out its evil simply with a look, and being open as he was, Will took it all in. Misery, torture, anguish and more, all in fantastic proportions invaded him, so much so that Will's mind short-circuited and his head snapped back as if he had been punched.

  Collapsing, he lay on the linoleum and his every muscle went taught and straining. His legs and arms were straight out, while his eyes were wide and bulging. His mind and soul were being shown the ancient darkness of the demon and in the few seconds before the soft scream came, Will saw just enough to send his mind skittering on the edge of reason.

  Luckily for him, a muffled scream rolled down the corridors of the near silent home and the pain and terror ended as abruptly as it had begun. The demon had looked away.

  "Heee...heee...heee...heee...heee." The high-pitched noise came uncontrollably from deep in his throat, as Will thrashed and convulsed on the floor. When he could, he tore at his exposed face and arms, rubbing and scratching. Though he knew he wasn't, it felt as though his body was covered with a greasy, malignant film and he had a desperate need to get it off.

  "Aaaaaiiiieee."

  A scream from upstairs made him remember the first one of a few seconds before, it already seemed as if it came from a distant dream. Within moments, he forgot the foul sensation on his skin and struggled up to his feet. And it was a struggle. He found he wasn't able to move in a normal manner, his joints were stiff and he felt crazily like a robot.

  Once up, he looked upon the back staircase with horror. No longer was he filled with the brash reckless courage that had spurred him into the house, instead he felt that certain doom awaited him up those stairs. He knew that he might already be dead, had it not been for the scream from...

  "Katie," he said aloud.

  That he loved his little sister was unquestionable, but he didn't know if he could face the demon, not up those stairs, not directly face to face. He stood in the kitchen and four precious seconds slipped by, as an internal battle took place within him. To run or to stay. His head swiveled back and forth between the stairs and the kitchen door.

  Finally, he let out a quiet, whiny noise, "Ooh nooo," and ran in a jerking motion toward the stairs.

  He went up rigidly, his knees almost unable to bend far enough to make each step. The staircase was dark and narrow. He kept his head up, although he was deathly afraid at what he would see above. As he neared the landing, his chest filled with great physical pain and he choked back a cry of despair.

  There was a body on the landing.

  It was either Talitha or his mother. They were so similar in size and appearance that in the dim light he couldn't tell which it was. It hurt him so badly to look at the body that he found he couldn't breathe. He took two more slow steps up and though he wanted to go on, his fear stopped him just short of the landing. His feet were heavy as lead so that he couldn't get them to budge and he had to content himself with standing on his tip-toes, child-like to get a better look. The darkness was amazing but he was able to see something white near the body, a notebook.

  Talitha! It had to be her.

  Tears sprung from his eyes and he went nearly to the top of the stairs. She laid half in the long hall of the second floor, and half on the landing. From where he stood Will couldn't see any marks on her and a wild hope filled him that she was simply unconscious. Wanting to be sure, he reached out, but just at that moment, he became aware of movement.

  He flinched back, but it was only a piece of paper from Talitha's notebook fluttering down the hall. It was then that he noticed the wind for the first time. The hall felt practically breezy, and though the wind was cold, it was far warmer than the surrounding air. It blew from behind him and went straight along the hall and as he watched, the paper skipped and flipped about, picking up speed. At the far end, it spun as if caught up in a tornado and disappeared into a hellish, unnatural darkness.

  The demon was there.

  Down the hall in front of Katie's door—it was either the darkness itself or deep in it. Will was afraid to even glance in its direction and he wondered if he would have the mental strength to do more that try to get Talitha out of there.

  He reached with his inflexible arms and made to pick her up, but she was dead weight. And there was something else too, not only was she terribly cold, stiff, and lifeless, there was a nasty sticking feeling to her skin. Just the briefest touch of her bare flesh repulsed him and he pulled away or he tried to. It felt as though his hands had become slightly glued to hers and he had to almost peel them away. The simplest touch had been horrible, not because of the cold or the weird stickiness, but because there had been a hungry, greedy demand emanating from her.

  Through her skin, she fed off his warmth, and it had the feel of the demon to it. His body gave an involuntary shudder and he realized that he might never have recognized it had it not been for those horrible few moments when the demon had focused on him. But it was there and he was frightened for her.

  Will knew that time was slipping by and he had to hurry if he had any chance at getting her away, but he hesitated at touching her bare skin again. It had been too awful and the thought of a human sized leach came to his mind. Suppressing the image with a mental discipline that he didn't know he possessed he reached out to grab her. Seizing her by the shirt, he slid her across the floor to him and gripped her from behind, under her armpits. The leech-like feeling was coming off her so greatly that his shirt seemed to be stuck to hers and his biceps that touched her bare arms went numb from her cold. Grimacing and gritting his teeth against the feel, he hauled her backward down the first two steps.

  That was as far as he got carrying her. Whether purposely or not, Talitha pulled his heat and energy from him in endless gluttony, and his world started to turn gray and then black at the edges

  He staggered and leaned back against the wall of the stairwell, still holding her to him and the darkened staircase spun briefly. And with what felt like sadness, he knew he was going to faint. With barely enough strength, he turned, so that she landed on him and together they slid backwards down the steps. Thump, thump, thump, his head hit six of the stairs before he caught up against a baseboard that checked his momentum. He lay sprawled on the stairs and struggled weakly like a dying turtle trapped on its back. From that position, he felt his life draining from him by degrees and his only hope was that his death might help Talitha in some way.

  As he felt himself on the brink of death, Will’s eyes rolled in his head and he saw a great figure standing over him.

  His father was there on the backstairs, but it seemed that he was more than his father now…he was Commander William Jern.

  He stood looking up the stairs, his eyes hard, and his face set in determination and anger. Will tried to call out to him, to warn him, but he failed to make even a gasp. Where Will had struggled to even pull his sister to his chest, his father reached down with both hands and threw the girl over his shoulder in one powerful motion.

  The relief Will felt was intense and immediate; he could breathe again. He took a long draught of air and tried to pull himself up but only flailed around awkwardly with his stiff arms smacking the walls. His father, with his daughter over his shoulder draining the life from him, reached down with his left hand and gripped Will's shirt, his fingernails digging deep furrows in his son's skin.

  With one tremendous tug, Will was lifted onto his feet, but his knees buckled and the Commander was obliged to slam him bodily against the wall to keep him upright.

  "Get out of the house!" Commander Jern ordered, quietly but with compelling force.

  "But mom and Katie," Will said weakly.

  "I’ll take care of them. Now go!" His father's body gave a small spastic jerk and Will could see the ta
n of his face going pale white. He gave Will a small shove and it was all the boy could do to maintain his balance as he wobbled the rest of the way down the stairs. Behind him, he heard his father yell in his sea-going voice—the one that could carry through a hurricane: "Gayle! Katie! Get out of the house! Now's your chance! Run!"

  Will wanted to turn and tell his father about the demon outside Katie's door, but there was no need. It was coming for them. The feeling of the approaching fiend was unmistakable.

  It caused an inhuman terror in Will and in a panic, he lurched through the kitchen toward the back door. He no longer felt simply robot-like, now he was a drunken robot. His head swam in dizziness and he struck things as he walked. His vision tunneled so that the objects that he struck did not come into focus until after he hit them; the sink, a chair, the stove.

  Finally, he reached the door but it seemed stuck and Will using the last of his energy was just strong enough to open it.

  Heat blasted his face; blessed heat. He paused just long enough to take a deep breath before trying to make his escape. Pushing into the heat of the cool night, he made it to the other side of the street but there his foot caught on the curb and he fell face first into the grass of the golf course.

  Talitha had done something to him, or perhaps the demon had, but either way he could barely lift his arms and it took him a couple of seconds of straining just to roll over. When he did, he saw a kaleidoscope of his father. It was as if he were completely surrounded by the same man and he was a given a rough shake.

  "Are you ok?" The faces used a single voice that drifted in from far away.

  Will could only nod his head. His father said something else that he couldn't understand and then was gone. Will tried to get up, but the movement was too much and he fell back in a swoon. Just before he passed out, his head lolled to the side and he saw his sister Talitha lying in the grass next to him. Her eyes were glassy and stared lifelessly at the stars above. She was dead.