The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  She ignored the big man and spoke to the white-faced priest, "Look at what Will did to me, he took my sight, soooo, an eye for an eye just like your bible says."

  "Jesus would actually instruct you to turn the other cheek," the priest said in a quavering voice, his desperation sapping the strength from it.

  She turned smug, "So you say, but you won't follow that command, so why should I?"

  "I will," Father Alba declared quietly.

  "Father," She said with a little smirk. "When I take your left eye, it won't be clean like in those Kung Fu movies; it won't just pop out. It's going to burst and I'm going to have to dig around in the socket to get all of it." She paused for the thought to sink in and Father Alba let out an obliging moan of fear. Upon hearing it, she smiled broadly and went on, "So, in accord with Jesus' teachings, you're going to then turn your head, to let me at the right one as well?"

  The horrifying room with its blood-strewn walls was silent. Will shook his head back and forth, pleading desperately with wide eyes, but Father Alba refused to look in his direction and was long in answering, but finally said, "Yes I will."

  Chapter 15

  The First Death

  Will knew she would attempt to lock them in, perhaps even before she did, but she was faster, closer and though blind, she moved with an astounding nimbleness and the door slammed shut in Will's face as he threw himself forward. The boom of the heavy door against the jam had a finality to it that threatened to overturn the now delicate workings of his mind and as he stood leaning his forehead against the door he could feel the vibrations coursing through it.

  They triggered a thought that pulsated throughout his body: Three would die. He looked around at the men with him. The others had not moved and they had all stood as if helpless spectators, as Talitha entombed them with a mutilated corpse and the unimaginable stink. They looked not only helpless, but useless as well.

  A scowl creased his features before he turned back to the door and pounded on it with his fists. Ignoring her new name, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Talitha! Don't do this! Don't do this! I'm warning you. You can't come back from this!"

  Will paused to listen, however there was nothing but the slight shaking of the door and the thought came to him again: Three would die. It came with more urgency and Will checked his watch, 12:06.

  He felt fatigued by the sight and sagged against the door, however it was sticky with a black viscous goo and letting out a low groan, he pulled away from it, revolted to his core.

  "What do we do?" Sean Shay asked as if he were a little boy, unable to think for himself. This earned him another scowl from Will, but it was also a catalyst for Jim. Striding over to the door, he gripped the knob and yanked and heaved at it, straining, becoming roused with the effort.

  He was not just a tall man, but hugely strong and muscular and the sinews of his arms swelled as he pulled with all of his considerable might. But to no avail. The door held firm without the slightest shimmy and he paused to take a few big breaths.

  Will only saw one way out. "Forget the knob. Tear down the door!" he barked the order to Jim and stood back out of the way. It was well that he did too, because the giant unleashed an amazing fury on the door blocking his way.

  Time and again, he threw his entire weight, bodily against it, irregardless of any pain. It was an awesome sight but even he tired after a minute and at the first pause, Will order Sean at it. Sean charged it without complaint and he too was something to see, however he tired far more rapidly and still the door had not budged.

  Will sent Jim to relieve Sean, who was panting like a mule and checked his watch, 12:09. Ten minutes. He would kill again in ten minutes. His eyes went back to the gun, no longer coveting it, but repulsed by it. Yet for reasons unknown to him, he went over to it and picked it up and hefted it in his hand, liking the weight.

  He stared down at it, absorbed by the reality of death it symbolized. Time ticked away. Thud…thud…thud! The noise was rhythmic and it was a second before Will realized it was occurring outside of himself. Jim was kicking at the door, his great leg pistoning out, angry sweat dripping from his face. Thud…thud…thud!

  "Use the gun, Will." Father John stood beside him, his face no longer handsome, but aged by fear and creased by worry.

  Will's first thought, It's not time yet, made him check his watch in the exact same manner as he would at 12:19. With the gun in his right hand, he pulled back his sleeve with his pointer finger…his trigger finger and the orange glow told him it was still 12:09.

  He gave the priest a puzzled look, not at what the priest had said but at the fact that it was still 12:09. Time, it seemed, was an ally of death and was holding itself back to ensure Will kept his appointed fate.

  "Shoot the lock," Father John prompted.

  "Huh?" It took a moment for Will to realize, the gun might have another use. "No, you do it." Will pushed the gun into the priest's hands and stepped back nodding encouragement and pointing at the door for emphasis.

  "Ok, I guess. Stand aside you two!" Father John was small and thin, conversely the gun looked all the more powerful, and when he pulled the trigger, the sound of it in the room was shocking.

  Jim went to try the door but stopped a few feet away, it was plain, the priest had missed. There was a hole a foot above the lock.

  "Get closer," Jim suggested to the priest, who obviously didn't like the idea and only took two baby steps nearer. Will covered his ears this time.

  Blam! Blam! Blam! On his fifth shot, he hit the lock dead on. Jim wasted no time and attacked it again, yanking and pulling with all of his might, but still it wouldn't budge. He turned back to Will perplexed.

  Will was baffled as well, always in the movies this sort of thing had worked. He studied the lock for a second. "Get closer…no right here. And shoot at an angle."

  Since he kept turning his head at the last moment, it took three more shots before Father John hit the lock a second time.

  "Hold on!" Jim roared and again strained at the knob, and now there was obvious movement. He went back and forth and moments later the lock gave and the door flew open. The air of the corridor, fouled by the vomit of five men was cool and wonderfully fresh compared to the terror of the room.

  The men dashed for the stairs. The feeling of relief at getting out of the horrendous room was indescribable. Will found himself grinning as he jogged along and he wasn't alone in this. Puffing next to him, his many chins bouncing up and down was Sean Shay and he sported a huge grin as well.

  Will scowled at him.

  He couldn't help it. He hated the man. He couldn't help that either. Will tried not to think about him and when they reached the stairs, Sean quickly fell back breathing loudly.

  Mid-way up the stairs, Will caught up with Jim and as they reached the top, they tore down the hall together, but when they entered the chapel itself, he stopped.

  "I don't see the trail!" Jim said, anxiety coloring his voice. He swung his huge ugly head back and forth staring down at the carpet. "There were blood drops all the way up here and now they're gone."

  With the lights off in the main room, the carpet was very dark and there was going to be no chance to see blood on it. Will dropped to his knees, his hands out running his fingers delicately over the carpet.

  "Here's a drop, they went this way." Will was up and racing for the front doors. As he entered the foyer, which had more windows and thus was better lit, he could see the blood plainly.

  "More blood," he called out excitedly. "With Luke bleeding like this we should be able to track them easily!" He saw blood on the handles to the double doors and shot through them, eager to catch up to his sister, who couldn't have gotten very far, not with two hostages.

  The rain was coming down as heavy as before and Will ran into it but stopped only a few feet from the front doors. There was no longer a blood trail. The rain flowed over him, washing away the last of his enthusiasm.

  "Damn it!" Jim raged against the storm and th
en went to his hands and knees searching the running water.

  "Stop," Father John put his hand on the giant's shoulder. "The trail's gone, but it doesn't matter, look." He pointed to a nearly empty parking lot. "Father Alba's car is missing, it was right there. They could be anywhere."

  Jim stared long at the parking lot, his face congealing miserably, but then he became animated by sudden anger. "You!" he thundered at Will. "You can see the future!" It came out as an accusation and he advanced on an alarmed Will. "Where are they?" he demanded, grabbing Will and shaking him.

  "I don't know."

  He towered over Will and his rage made him look even bigger. "You do know; now tell me where they are!" Jim had his fist raised to strike and for a second Will wanted to be punched. A punch from a man that big would certainly knock him out, and he'd lose any chance he would have to kill…whoever it was.

  "I'm sorry Jim, but it doesn't work that way. The visions come to me, I can't make them happen." Even as he said it, Will realized that may not be true; after all he had never tried and with good reason.

  "Are you sure?" Father John looked at him with brown eyes that were sharp and flinty with accusation. "Father Alba told me just last night that the old lady…from before could see into the future if she wanted."

  "Yeah, did he tell you that people died when she did?" Will was suddenly worried that they would ask this of him and he became defensive and angry in his own right.

  "People are going to die anyways!" Jim cried and gripped him by the shoulders. Will had strong broad shoulders, but they suddenly felt frail and easily broken in Jim's tremendous hands. The man gave Will a healthy shake and continued. "I think blinding Father Alba will be just the start if we don't get there to stop her."

  "And she's going to torture that demon-guy," Sean Shay said from the warmth of the church.

  "He deserves it!" Will spat out angrily at him.

  "You're right, Will. He does deserve it," Jim agreed reasonably. "My worry is what information she'll get from him. He knows things he shouldn't, even Talitha thought so. He might know how to use the sword."

  The rain thrummed loud all about them, but the four men were silent. Will checked his watch, 12:12. Seven minutes left.

  There had been seven people in the room when he had his final two premonitions and three of them would die soon, one very soon, but would any of these deaths be his fault? Would looking into the future cause them to happen?

  Yes.

  Unfortunately, that answer was easy. After all, he could just sit down in the rain and let the time run down until his watch read 12:20. There would be no flash of light, no roar of the gun and no blood on his hands.

  Or perhaps there would be more blood. How many would die if he did nothing at all? Father Alba and Luke to start with, but if he didn't stop Talitha now, there could be hundreds. Maybe even thousands. His heart told him many thousands.

  "Ok I'll do it…I'm not sure if this will work, but I'm willing to try," Will said.

  Jim pulled his hands off of Will as if he had a disease that was catchy. "What should we do?"

  "Nothing," Will spoke quietly, a nervousness had begun thrilling through him and he wrapped his arms around himself, for warmth as well as to keep his hands from shaking.

  He thought that looking into the future would be more difficult than it turned out to be. He simply reached within the core of his mind and the vision sprang to life before him.

  "It's very dark…they're going down stairs slowly, warily… they're nearby, right down the street, Haikes Rubber and Tire. I can read the sign! They're deep down in the place, underground in a sub level maybe? I'm not sure…there's a body!" Seeing it hurt Will's head, a sharp stabbing pain that went through the middle of his brain.

  "Is it Father Alba's?" Jim asked in alarm.

  "No…it's…a boy. Oh no!" The body was that of one of the missing boys. Will didn't how he knew that, but he did. The boy was tied, kneeling down over a box and in a second, Will saw all that he was going to see. He pulled himself out of the vision and with horror he wandered out into the rain.

  He stared up into it, letting the water run into his eyes, but it didn't help, the boy was still there in his mind, he had been dead for days. His skin was a sick black color and parts of it were bloated and filled with toxic gasses. In other areas on the boy's body, the skin had split in great fissures, and these were now home to maggots roiling over each other by the thousands.

  "Oh, God, no!" Will shook his head hard. Swinging it back and forth, making himself dizzy, but it didn't help and when he opened his eyes, the boy was there, just in front of him—kneeling over the box, his pants down around his knees.

  Will rubbed hard at his face, the twitch jumping madly around his right eye, obscuring reality, but leaving the vision of the boy still perfectly clear. He had been sodomized in a horrendous fashion. The flesh back there was an open maggot filled gaping hole.

  "No!" Will screamed at the top of his lungs.

  The vision of the boy's rotting body wouldn't stop, everywhere he looked, it was there revealing more of it terrible surprises. He could now smell its sweet sickening stench and then he heard the pathetic soul wrenching cries of the boy begging for his life and then begging to die.

  "No!" Will screeched again even louder. Nothing was stopping the vision, now. It came regardless of what he tried to do and Will strayed over the edge of insanity and played in its shallower waters. He struck himself with tremendous viciousness across the face and then again and again until Jim finally came up and pinned his arms to his sides in a great bear hug.

  His head throbbed, however the blows had been worth it, he no longer saw the body. But it was there as a memory and the sadness of it made him cry a deep soul-wrenching cry. He sobbed into Jim's chest feeling like a child in the arms of his father.

  "Ok, you did really good, Will." Jim's voice was a soothing rumble and it felt good on his aching head to hear it. "Really good, thank you…Father get your car quick…good job, Will. Good job."

  Within in a minute Will had calmed somewhat and heard the approaching car, an old boxy Volvo with Father John behind the wheel. Jim released him from the bear hug and Will staggered a little but then found his legs and climbed in. There was an uncomfortable silence in the car and Will was convinced that everyone was secretly questioning his sanity, and he didn't blame them, on the contrary, he joined them.

  There felt to be a great crack running through his mind, one big enough to hold a body, not the body of a little boy, but that of a grown man. Somebody would have to fill that crack and he knew that if he walked away now without finding Talitha, the crack would grow larger and larger until it was big enough to swallow him whole.

  Adrina, the gypsy from whom he had inadvertently received his talent, had considered looking into the future purposefully as something unnatural, and death was the punishment for attempting it, but Will looked on death now as a form of payment. He saw and now he owed. He had been steered across a river no living man should be allowed to travel and had seen the other side. And now, the ferryman was demanding payment; a life.

  "Fuck that!" Will muttered angrily. He wasn't paying anything and if he could help it, no one would.

  "What's that?" Father John asked without taking his eyes from the road that was flying under them at fantastic speeds.

  "We can still save Father Alba, hurry," Will demanded, and thought: the future is not set.

  "No! He's good, Will. He's doing fine," Jim said in a voice that was much higher than usual.

  Will felt a moment of irritation until he recognized that they were already hurrying, possibly far more than was smart. The priest had turned out of the parking lot and was now pushing the Volvo to its limit, and with the heavy rain and the great speed, Will felt mild alarm. The two men in the back seat were well past alarm and held on to the interior like a couple of tomcats on the way to the vet.

  It made Will smile, but it lasted less than a second and then his face went back to
the tired grave look he had worn most of the day. A part of him, larger than he would ever care to admit, welcomed a crash, especially a fatal one. The last two days had taken a psychic toll on him and the idea he was rushing to murder someone or to see that boy's body, killed any fear of a car crash, it fizzled inside him leaving only apathy and a single hope.

  The future is not set.

  He remembered the flash of light in the darkness. "Hey, Father? Do me a favor and keep hold of the gun."

  The priest's eyes came off the road just long enough to glance at Will, look down at the seat next to him, and then back up again. "What?"

  Will looked down. The gun, like a hard black snake, lay next to him on the seat, practically touching him. It was offering its grip to Will as if it knew where it rightfully belonged and the barrel pointed at the priest. Seeing it that way bothered him and as casually as he could Will spun the gun.

  When he did so, it was with a disquieting feeling of playing Russian roulette, and the deadly end of the gun didn't make a full circle and caught on the seat belt, facing Will. He looked down that dark barrel and a wave of shivers washed down his back, but he ignored a sane desire to point it away from himself and instead checked his watch, just in time to see it click over from 12:15 to 12:16. Three minutes left.

  "I want you to…" He couldn't finish, the priest hit the brakes hard, and everyone leaned well forward, the gun skipping off the seat. Will bent down to retrieve it, experiencing a moment of nausea as Father John turned the car sharply to the left. The gun felt alive, it eagerly bounced up and settled into his hand, comfortably, becoming an extension of himself.

  The feeling was welcoming as well as repulsive as if he liked it too much. Will jammed the gun in between the back cushion and the long bench of the seat, just as the Volvo roared into the parking lot of Haikes Rubber and Tire Company.

  "To the left!" Jim yelled from the back seat. "I'll take Sean and go through the employees' entrance, you two go through the front doors and move down and to the middle. Will, do you know what level they're going to be on?"