The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  "There are two problems with that Brian." the Commander said. "First, we know that things will be worse for her but not necessarily for us and..."

  Will raised his hand too, but then not waiting to be called on, interrupted saying, "I know who it is, Dad." While the conversation had been flowing around him, Will had been only half-listening. He'd been going over his list of suspects, which included every woman on the island that was close to his mom's age: 36-42.

  The face that came almost immediately to mind was that of Mrs. Harris, their next-door neighbor. It was partly due to her black hair and dark eyes, which his mind had stereotyped as "Gypsy" but it was also her odd behavior in the dark the other night. But since she was much younger than his mom was and would've been around ten year-old at the time of the first possession twenty-one years before he had discarded her from the list.

  The fact that Talitha was a virgin and that it had to be known by the witch, limited the number of suspects to her friend's parents and maybe her doctor. There were a few mothers that fit in the age group, but they all seemed...normal, and none of them had ever appeared to take any extraordinary interest in his sister. The only one who had had been, was once again Mrs. Harris. But again there was simply nothing out of the ordinary about her, apart from her beauty and the fact that she must have married really young to have...

  "I know who the witch is, Dad. It's Mrs. Harris, she...she was very interested in Talitha...ah sexually," he couldn't help it and cast a quick look at Brian when he said it. "She talked to me the other night...asking me to look out for her virtues." It all seemed so clear to him suddenly. "And remember how she kinda despised the Nelsons, and she said how their daughter was such a slut? Maybe she wanted to sacrifice Jen Nelson but couldn't because she wasn't a virgin, so..."

  William looked skeptical. "So she poisoned Mrs. Nelson? There's no way."

  "What about that ridiculous husband of hers!" Will turned to Adrina with excitement. "This lady, Mrs. Harris is...beautiful and you know super sexy," Will paused and blushed, feeling weird saying this to a lady as old as his grandmother. "But her husband is so...boring and ugly. I was just thinking what a cosmic joke the two of them were...you see?"

  She nodded her head in understanding. "Is there more?"

  "Yes, two nights ago she was outside our house wearing nothing but...uh I mean she was out there talking about how close it was to the full moon. Does the moon being full have any meaning?"

  "Yes, but not the way you would think. It's an internal thing that..."

  William interrupted, "I'm sorry, but I don't think it's her. I've known Greg off and on for years and Henny too. She could've done this back when we lived in South Carolina, why would she have waited until now?"

  "Both time and place are equally important...I don't know why so don't ask," she said at Will's look of curiosity. "It's the house itself that posed the opportunity, this I'm sure. Twenty-one years ago, it had already been stained with blood, old blood. The weird visions you witnessed, the feeling of unease, the cold, these are signs that the house is on a fault...a weak point between worlds."

  Will's father was still shaking his head. "Great, a fault! But...Henny? Sure she's sexy, but we don't know what Greg was like when they were younger, maybe he was more... manly."

  "I doubt it, Dad." Will said bluntly. "But her sexiness is also part of it. When I see her I want her, but I'm also repulsed by her, she seems so skanky. I discounted her at first because of her age but then I realized, she only looks young. She's the same age as mom." William nodded his head in agreement and Will went on, "And remember how she took such an interest in Talitha when we were at dinner?"

  "You were at the witch's house?" Adrina seemed alarmed by this. "Did she ask for anything of Talitha's? Did she take anything of hers?"

  Will considered this but couldn't think of anything. "I'm pretty sure she didn't, I was with Talitha the entire time."

  "Her hair, damn it!" William seemed to come alive and grow stronger in his anger. He told Adrina about the makeup room and the new brush that seemed out of place. "It's her, you're right Will, it's her. But what do we do now? I don't think we can just grab her and force her into the house?"

  Will felt a sudden rush of hot anger. "I say yes! Knock her out cold if we have to. She has already got what she wanted from this. She's rich, now that the admiral is on his death bed."

  "No," Adrina stated after a pause. "We tell her exactly what we intend to do. An exorcism on her will break the connection the demon has to this world, and if it was money she was after and she already has it, then she will likely want to go through with it."

  Still flush with the energy of his anger, Will stood and paced. "So Father Alba does the exorcism, while the four of us go find..."

  From his wheelchair, William shook his head. "No. I can't let you near that thing again, or you Brian."

  "It won't be enough, Commander." Adrina suddenly appeared more grey in the face than white. "The boys will have to come...I know," she added cryptically. The fire of Will's anger was immediately smothered by the way she had said I know. There was a finality to it that sent a cold chill down his spine. She knew...what? Did something happen to him? To his dad? He was bursting with the need to ask her what she had seen, and was so preoccupied that he nearly missed her next question. "You are both virgins, am I right?"

  The two boys turned pink in the cheeks and red in the ears, and each glanced at the other hoping each would answer first. Brian, whose eyes seemed extremely large at the moment answered in a quiet voice, "Yes...I'm a virgin."

  Bolstered by his friend's words, Will stated with some confidence, "I am also." Brian gave him a sharp look, which Will returned only briefly, but then turned his eyes down to the worn table. He drew in a quick breath of embarrassment a moment later.

  "You two boys aren't homos are you? Because it will be worse if you are." Adrina said and she eyed them appraisingly. Again, they looked at each other before shaking their heads in unison.

  "No ma'am," Brian said to her, but then turned in his chair, which teetered on its uneven legs and looked steadily at Will. "It may be important, Will. Tell the truth, you're not a virgin."

  "Wait, not a homo virgin, or a regular virgin?" Adrina asked in surprise.

  If Will's cheeks had been pink before they were apple red now. "Neither! I mean...it was...uh..." he found he could not discuss the topic in front an old lady, his priest, and his dad. He had wanted to say it had been close, but that would have been an understatement when he thought back to the night with Amy Harris.

  6

  Amy had been all over him in that bedroom at Carlos' house, and his body had responded with irrepressible eagerness. However, his insides were a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions, all of which had been thrown into an uninterpretable mess by the tremendous amount of beer in which he had drowned himself. The battle over which would control him, his body, his mind or the beer, would've been close had it not been for Amy's practiced hands.

  She had him out of his clothes so quickly that there had been no time to protest. Moreover, he didn't think it would have made any difference if he had protested for she had a velvet grip on him that left no room for doubt as to where this was heading.

  His mind had capitulated to the inevitable and there wasn't enough beer in the world that could have stopped his seventeen-year-old body at that point. But he had stopped. He had been poised to enter, when Amy lied.

  "I saved myself for you," she had said, huskily. It was probably the only thing, short of his mother walking in, that could have stopped him at that moment. It was the most blatant stupid lie he had ever heard, and he leaned back away from her, the dark hiding what would have been an insulting look of incredulity.

  'What did that slut just say?' he asked himself and his ardor slipped momentarily.

  "What's wrong?" she had asked, but hadn't waited for an answer and those expert hands had gripped him again. She had a magical touch and in a flash, his body raring to go again,
but his mind honed in on a stray thought: Lisa truly has saved herself for me.

  In fact, her words, 'I only have one thing left to give,' came back to him and held him in a grip greater than Amy's. All he had to do was love Lisa without reservation and she would give herself to him completely. For just long enough to slip away from Amy, get dressed and leave, he focused on the fact that he loved Lisa.

  It was because of his love for Lisa, that he was still a virgin. Just the previous night, before he knew about the demon, he was on the verge of having sex with Lisa, when he heard his own advice to Talitha echo through his head, Demand that he make it perfect for you. What he and Lisa were doing was far from perfect. She saw it as a necessity, a chore to be performed to keep him from straying.

  He had stopped her gently and asked, "Is this how you imagined it would be?"

  She had laughed a bitter laugh. "No."

  "Lisa, I want us to be forever. Do you see...If we do this now, this way, we will look back forever and see it as a mistake. I know very little in life is perfect but I want our love to be as perfect as it can be." She had stopped her frantic motions and had looked at him in that calm way of hers. They looked into each other's eyes and Will knew they were good again...in fact, he knew they were better. His desire for her swept over him and, despite his fancy words, it was all he could do not to take her right there and then.

  Standing in the kitchen of the strange apartment, Will had paused as the two memories drifted through his mind. When he realized that the room had become silent, he looked up to see faces staring at him expectantly. His ears burned hotly, but he tried to hide his embarrassment by sounding confident.

  "Despite the rumors, Brian, I'm still a virgin. But...but what does that have to do with anything."

  Adrina was nodding and looking with keen interest into Will's face and he wondered again if she had seen into him. His ears felt ablaze and, self-consciously he touched them.

  "Against the demon, there is very little protecting us: Faith in God, purity of the soul and strength of mind. This is all we have!" she said forcefully. "And it will not be enough. That Mr. Commander is why we need the boys to come. Two of us will not be enough...even four may not be enough."

  "If we have come to fight, we are far too few; if we have come to die, we are far too many," Will's father quoted softly. "I can't remember who said that. Isn't that strange? I could...I could get more men. Mrs. Fortini. Would that help?"

  "No, the demon would simply slip into the shadows...not in fear but in cunning. And there is little time left to save your Talitha." She gave a small cough. "We must face it ourselves, tonight. But keep in mind, we are not alone...we have God on our side." She paused again, before saying in a tired voice, "It will come for me first...or I should say, I will challenge it first. I'll hold out as long as I can, but it won't be very long. That is why you have to be quick!" she added, looking at them.

  "The boys...they're just boys." William said, his eyes meandering around the rough surface of the scarred table.

  "I'll go and I'll be as quick as I need to be...just tell me what I have to do," Brian declared.

  "I'll go too...I love Talitha." Will spoke firmly, trying to appear as strong as Brian.

  William smiled at his son. "I was wrong; you two are men and I think I'll need you, perhaps desperately so. But..." He turned and looked directly into the old lady's black eyes. "But you, I don't know if I can trust you. I'm sorry but I need to be blunt. Before I agree to you coming along, I need to know two things: how did your son die? And perhaps more importantly, how did you live?"

  Chapter 11

  William and Adrina

  June 5th, 1980

  1

  William had known the old lady was holding something back. Perhaps it wasn't a total lie, but there was something...something disingenuous in her story. She had glossed over the death of the priest and failed completely to mention how her son had ended up with a bullet in his brain.

  "Finish telling us what happened twenty-one years ago. The exorcism failed you say and the demon looked at the priest..."

  Everyone turned to Adrina expectantly. "Yes the demon let me go. I had been falling apart and the demon likes it when you're fresh, more aware. It was such a relief! Either way it was at the priest...ripping into his mind. It was doing something to him, hurting, or punishing him. I knew that it was different from what it had done to me and it was awful to see. I tried not to look but I couldn't seem to help it. I couldn't pull my eyes off of..."

  She paused gazing off out of the window of her apartment. Her mouth hung agape and William was repulsed by the stale denture smell wafting out of it. He turned his glance to the others and saw that Father Alba was pale, a sick whitish green color; absently, he chewed at the skin of lip.

  Adrina started again, so suddenly that William gave a little jump in his wheelchair. "But...but time was running out and so were our options. Tomas expected me to figure something out, but I couldn't think clearly what with the demon so close and Father..." She cast a nervous glance at Father Alba.

  "And Father, what? What happened to him?" Alba was clearly nervous and the fear caused his voice to become strident and angry.

  "That's just it. I don't know what the demon was doing to him. He started screaming: It's not my fault! But that wasn't the worst; he began clawing at his eyes." She swallowed hard for a moment. "And then, and then he fell to the floor and the blood...it ran from where his eyes used to be...two streams of blood just poured from those gaping holes. Then the screaming stopped and it looked like he was choking. On what, I don't know, but he turned a wild shade of red, and..."

  Father Alba broke in, demanding harshly, "Did you try to save him?" Adrina had been telling the story while staring off and she didn't seem to hear, but her head moved back and forth gently. Father Alba's tone became superior at the denial, "You just let him choke to death, didn't you? You let him die. Why? So you could run away?"

  "Yes I let him die. It's true. But I didn't run...I couldn't. I wanted to so badly, but I was weak from the demon; I could barely stand. I tried to use the time to..."

  "Use the time? You mean you used his death! You sacrificed him is what you did. You gave him to the fiend in return for what?" Alba's nervousness had been replaced by self-righteous denunciation.

  "You don't know what you're talking about," Adrina replied quietly. "I sacrificed no one. The demon can kill quite easily without my help. I just used the time..." She sighed another rattling sigh, "I used the time just like you three will use the time I give you."

  Father Alba deflated at the thought, and William saw that the priest wasn't ready for what lay ahead of them. He worried that the man might become dangerous in his fear.

  "How did you use the time, Mrs. Fortini?"

  "I uh...I told my son to run but he couldn't hear me, I guess." She looked at William with eyes that were heavy with guilt. It was apparent that she was lying again and his eyes narrowed in anger.

  She didn't seem to notice. "It was just that we were out of time and there was nothing I could do. So...I looked for the answer, the Knowing if you understand me."

  "But you shouldn't have," Will blurted out. "You said there would always be price to pay."

  "Yes I did, didn't I? There was a price and I paid it... or at least I thought I had." Her body was racked by a great rolling shiver. It reminded William of the extreme reaction she'd had when they had first entered. Although he was perversely curiosity about it, he thought it wiser not to ask.

  Instead he asked, "What did the 'knowing' show you?"

  Tears sprang from her eyes, raced through the valleys of her wrinkles, and dripped down her chin with the regularity of a broken faucet. She tried to form words, but with her eyes seeing a time far away, it took a long time to spit out: "Emily had to be killed."

  There was a long silence and William leaned back in his chair, and for a moment, his exhaustion was so overwhelming that he knew if he closed his eyes he would fall asleep again
right there.

  "She can't be trusted!" Father Alba spoke loudly and without warning. Everyone jumped except for Adrina who was still crying. "Not only did she sacrifice the priest to save herself, but she killed her own granddaughter as well! And! And I think it's safe to say that she killed her own son! What do you say to that?" He asked this with a snap of his fingers in her face.

  Adrina sat staring straight ahead, as if he hadn't said anything. But then she did answer him in a quiet voice that stopped and started at odd intervals, "You're right... I shot him. But, it's not how it sounds. I didn't ask for this, I didn't want...any part of it. The priest...he was choking from the inside. I couldn't help him. I knew he would be dead soon...and I knew I would be..." She trailed off. Her eyes were dry now, unblinking and staring far away.

  "You knew you would be next, right Mrs. Fortini?" Will prompted and his father was amazed at the compassion in the boy's voice.

  Adrina seemed to hear it also and a smile that didn't touch her eyes slipped across her face. "Yes, you understand don't you? I was going to be next and Tomas would then try to get Emily out of the house. That's the way it should've happened. But we were up in the attic and he would never have made it out in time. You see, don't you?"

  "I'm trying to Mrs. Fortini," Will spoke with the understanding of an old friend. "So the vision showed you he wouldn't make it and that you had to kill Emily? When did you shoot your son?"

  "Afterwards...Emily died first. It had to be that way. I knew I wasn't the one to do it...it had to be Tomas."

  The compassion was still strong in Will's voice when he asked, "Why Mrs. Fortini? Wouldn't it have been easier and quicker if you had killed her?"

  There was an odd look to her eyes—they were unfocused. William asked her, "Are you ok?"

  "I don't get a 'why'," she replied to Will, completely ignoring William's question. In fact, she seemed not to have heard the plainly stated words. "When I ask, all I get is an answer, no reasons are ever given. Nonetheless, I do know why. He would've stopped me. Tomas would've stopped me, and there was no time for arguments. So I said: Tomas, you have to kill her in order to save her soul."