The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  The boy knelt over the box with his pants down…Will shook his head savagely, forcing himself not to think about the vision. "No, just somewhere very deep."

  "We'll do our best…right there," Jim's long arm came between Will and the priest pointing to the obvious. A loading dock and a series of boarded up doors were in front of them and the Volvo screeched up to it.

  The two men started to squeeze their huge bodies out of the chunky car and Will felt a flutter of panic seeing Jim go.

  He called out to them, "Remember, she's very dangerous. Try to trap her if you can and don't engage her if at all possible. Use your bulk and smother her, until we get there."

  Jim gave him a last look, a queer one filled with mixed emotions that he couldn't read. "You gonna be ok, Will?"

  "Yeah…yeah, I'll be fine, now get going." Will didn't know if he would be fine or not.

  "Ok, good luck, Father," Jim said to the priest.

  Oddly the priest kept his eyes fixed on the steering wheel. "You too, Jim."

  The two men turned and jogged to the dock and Father John, not giving them a second look, hauled the car about and gunned it around the building. His eyes flicked to Will twice and it made Will slightly self-conscious. He wondered what he looked like. Crazy he supposed; he certainly felt that he was still trailing his coattails just over the edge of crazy.

  "It was only a couple of times…three times actually," Father John spoke, slowing the car to clear an overturned dumpster. The parking lot that surrounded the building was nearly empty, barren of cars, but strewn with trash. Glass lay everywhere, papers, mostly newspaper hugged the fencing, old chairs and desks, broken and unusable lay in random piles and tall green rivers of weeds jutted up through the pavement in long lines.

  "Three times?" Will was confused and wondered when he had missed the conversation Father John was referring to. The church was only a few hundred yards away and the trip couldn't have lasted more than a minute.

  "Mrs. Jackson," the priest whispered it secretively to Will and it went nearly unheard over the sound of the car. He grabbed the door as the Volvo took a sharp turn; the front of the building was now in sight.

  "Mrs. Jackson? I…I don't know her." Will was clueless to what the man was talking about and gave him a shrug hoping he wasn't being offensive with his look of bewilderment.

  Father John grimaced and took a deep breath. "The demon mentioned her…and... he wasn't lying."

  Understanding hit Will like a club, as did the weight of the man's guilt and for some reason, he found he couldn't look at Father John. He kept his face forward, eyes on the looming entrance.

  The priest continued, "I didn't mean for it to happen. It's just… she was in a vulnerable place. Her husband is not a good person you see. And I tried to comfort her…it was only a couple of times and I tried to end it, but she was so needy, I thought she would fall apart if I broke it off."

  The car pulled up, stopping hard next to an old Plymouth station wagon. Will went to get out, but Father John held him back. "You believe me right?" The man seemed desperate for Will to understand, but he didn't.

  "Why are you telling me this?"

  The priest's eyes slid off him and went back to the steering wheel, "Because, I need forgiveness."

  A look of shock flashed across Will's features. "I'm…I'm not the one you should be asking forgiveness from. This is between you and the Jacksons."

  "You're right, but you are near to God. He has touched you." The priest reached over and grabbed Will's hand almost reverently, however with a look of fear as well. "I'm afraid…I've been afraid of the demon and now I'm afraid of your sister. I just think. I just think that it would be best to confess my sins now, while there's still time."

  We don't have time for this, Will thought in anger. However, the man's look of sad desperation quelled his temper. He looked into the priest's brown eyes. "God sees into your heart, if you are truly sorry, then," he paused feeling blasphemous, "Then you are forgiven."

  Father John smiled in relief. "I am sorry. Thank you so very much."

  Will smiled as well, but felt sleazy as if he had perpetrated a fraud and slid out of the car in one fluid motion. He glanced back in and Father John was still there, looking at him in a way Will didn't like. The look was of adoration and Will tried to ignore it, checking his watch purposefully, 12:17. Two minutes to go.

  "Grab the gun, Father, but whatever you do, don't give me it, ok?"

  The priest didn't seem to hear. He pulled himself from the car and stood holding the gun, smiling. He looked to have regained some of his youth and handsomeness and there was a lightness to him. "It feels so good to get that off my chest. Thanks again, Will."

  "It was nothing…remember don't give me the gun. It's very important. But now we got to go." Will started for the door trying not to see that the look of adoration had not left the priest's face.

  The priest held him back again. "I'll go first, I have the gun after all."

  The front door of the building was at one time glass but now was constructed of graffiti scrawled plywood boards, one of which had been yanked off and lay on the cement a few yards away. Father John stepped through the opening and disappeared into the blackness beyond.

  "Be careful, there's glass all over the place in here," he said from inside and it was almost as if the building itself had issued the warning. It caused a moment of hesitation on Will's part, but then he ducked in through the makeshift door.

  The first thing that struck him, was the powerful stale smell of old urine, it burned his nostrils as he breathed it in, causing his face to contort. The odor reminded him of the bums he had seen about Boston and the room, once obviously a receptionist's foyer was now a trashed out mess and likely a home to one of the bums.

  The empty and aging beer cans and the partially broken liquor bottles littering the floor suggested this as well and there was even a disgusting shredded sleeping bag in one of the corners. Father John walked over to it, his feet treading over the glass making it crunch in a nasty way that had Will vaguely recalling a dream.

  That was the only good thing about his sister's horrible dreams, they faded from his memory just as normal ones did, however this one was fresher and with a jolt, Will realized the sound was similar to the crunching of his bones when that demon had chewed off his fingers. He couldn't remember if he had dreamed that last night or the night before, but it didn't really matter to his stomach, which felt suddenly queasy.

  Father John had moved away from the sleeping bag and pulled on the main doors, he whispered, "These are locked, try that one." He pointed to a door on far left of the room, nearer to Will.

  "Sure." Will's own feet continued to make the crunching sound as went to the door. He tried not to think about his dream, but then the image of a boy tied to a box came to him. His queasy stomach turned a loop and that was far more difficult to ignore.

  He concentrated on the door instead.

  Covered in many layers of spray paint, it was unexceptional, save for an odd little peephole located at chest height. Bending down, he looked into it but the room beyond seemed black as jet. He gave the door a try, it was blocked from the other side and budged only a few inches.

  As he started to turn back to the priest to tell him that they would have to find a different way in, he saw a little placard. It too was covered over in paint and was completely unreadable, but when he ran his fingers over it, he felt the word, Stairs.

  "Over here," he called over to the priest and then bent his shoulder to the door and shoved hard. It began moving with difficulty, but when Father John also added his weight, it moved far enough to allow them to enter.

  Will went first.

  The door opened onto a wide cement landing with stairs going off in both directions. Just as the peephole had suggested the stair well was blacker than night, with the only light coming in from the gloomy reception area. Will reached out and felt what was blocking the door; a great jumbled mass of office furniture had been
piled as high as his shoulder.

  "Look out," Father John cautioned from the narrow space in the doorway. With no other choice, Will took a few steps up the stairs and the little priest slipped in. "What is all this? Oh, furniture." He felt the mound. "I think we can get around, over here."

  "Where's over here? I can't see you," Will said, starting toward the pile only to misjudge it, he barked his shin and the pain shot through the bone exquisitely. He wished he had thought to bring a flashlight and used the next best thing.

  He pulled back the sleeve of his coat and the orange glow of his watch seemed very bright, much brighter than usual, 12:19.

  Relief and excitement filled his chest; he had somehow averted the first death. His initial thought was that his forced vision had cancelled something out, but he didn't know for sure. He wondered about the next two deaths, but when he tried to recall the feeling that they had given him, he saw the boy tied over the box instead.

  Will had to shake his head hard to clear the vision, which wobbled him slightly and the darkness moved oddly around him, making him think of the ocean at night.

  "Are you coming?" Father John asked nervously from the other side of the pile. Will bent to the task and found it relatively easy. The orange glow from his watch was no help at all, but feeling his way wasn't as hard as he thought it would be, and in a few seconds, he had cleared the pile.

  Father John had moved down a few steps to wait for him. "I doubt your sister took two hostages this way."

  Will could hear the man's voice retreating down the stairs and he hurried to catch up, only to run into him in the dark.

  "Sorry about that."

  "You are forgiven, Will," the priest said jokingly and went down.

  Light flashed.

  It was a bright white, a bolt of lightning, a strobe light...hot and fast and there was Father John in silhouette. The roar of a gun, more like an explosion, echoed hugely bouncing off the walls of the cement stair well. The noise ran through Will's skin and penetrated deep into his being, deep into his soul.

  He hadn't averted the first death after all.

  Father John collapsed onto him, knocking Will back onto the stairs. The priest's hands were out stretched and by a quirk of fate, the man's right hand found Will's and the gun, invisible in the blackness, slipped into his own, as if it belonged there.

  Bafflement flooded through him and his mind struggled to realize what had just happened. He was past the time! He had to be. Reaching across the lifeless body of the priest, Will pulled back the sleeve of his coat with his trigger finger, 12:19… a second later, 12:20.

  The vision matched reality, exactly.

  He realized then that the gun was cold against his skin, it hadn't been fired, and that meant only one thing. He wasn't alone in the stairwell.

  Chapter 16

  Beneath the Factory

  Will was not alone. That thought sent a chill through him and he reacted without thinking, bringing the gun across his body, he fired three quick shots down the stairwell. Will paused listening, his eyes wide in the absolute blackness, clutching Father John's body closer to him, making him a human shield.

  The shots had sent a knife-like pain stabbing through both ears, but he was still able to hear the sound of metal moving on the stairs. His breathing, quick shallow breaths, stopped cold at the sound. However, his mind quickly reclassified the sound not only as friendly, but merry as well.

  One of the brass cartridge casings ejected from his gun, danced and skipped about, making its way down the stairs. It seemed to go all the way to the bottom, taking its sweet jubilant time and Will listened, all the while holding his breath.

  Once it stopped it, Will let out the pent up air, slow and quiet. He sat there straining to hear the least movement, but none came and after a few minutes he felt his arm growing heavy. It had remained outstretched, pointing the gun, but now he laid it on top of Father John's chest and it was then, he felt the blood. The priest's chest was drenched with it.

  He pulled his hands back and a second later he heard his first sound since the dancing bullet casing; it was far off, down below in one of the sub levels, a scream of intense pain wailed up out of the blackness. Will pictured his sister tearing out Father Alba's eyes—it got him moving.

  With the gun held out at arm's length, ready to blaze away at the slightest noise, he slid out from beneath the body Father Santos. Keeping to the wall, he took a step down and felt something under his foot. Reaching down he found a heavy length of cord running across the stair. He followed it until it came to what felt to be an eyebolt drilled into the wall.

  Remembering the peephole in the door at the top of the stairs, he realized that Father John must have set off some sort of trip-wire trap. For a second a touch of relief flared within him, but then the feeling died in the dark as sweat broke out down his back.

  There could be any number and type of traps hidden in the darkened stairwell—steel-toothed bear traps, heavy bladed pendulums, thin-wired garrotes...

  Will nearly froze in place. His only solace was the knowledge that Talitha hadn't set the traps. If she had he would've turned around right there knowing the futility of trying to make his way in the dark. This was the handiwork of...Luke. The name Jim had mentioned took a moment to squirrel out of his memory. It had to fight its way past his fear and the lurking vision of the dead boy.

  The vision wanted to come back and Will hissed out, "Stop it!"

  He had no time for visions—two more would die.

  Moving in a slow shuffle and keeping away from the center of the stairs, Will followed the cord down and at the first landing, he accidently kicked something wooden. Feeling it, his fears were confirmed. It was a chair and on it pointed up the stairs was a rifle. String ran from the trigger and threaded through another eyebolt drilled into the wall behind it.

  In the complete blackness there was no way anyone could've avoided the trap and it was happenstance only that saved Will. Yet would it save him a second time? Were there more traps ahead? He shivered in the dark and cautiously stepped around the gun.

  Now his fear grew. What was out there? What new death did the dark hold? His shivering picked up in pace as his imagination ran wild and at the edge of the landing his shuffling steps stopped cold. He felt like he was standing in front of a great yawning abyss and he pictured a new trap. Perhaps there were no stairs in front of him, or maybe just one or two and then…nothing but a long fall.

  Until his right shoulder and the side of his head hit the wall, he didn't know he was dizzy. In the dark there was no up or down and he let out a little yelp when he collided with the wall. But now that he had a hold of it, he could feel his head swimming and the wall felt like it was tilting back and forth.

  He put his hands out and laid his cheek upon its invisible surface, breathing loudly. As long as his left hand roved up and down the side of the wall he felt better, it gave him context and placed him in the world and not…in the void. Will rarely dreamed of the void itself, but when he did, it was like this; at once eternal and infinite but also close, as if he were deep underground trapped in a lightless, airless casket.

  Another scream came out of the darkness, a long horrible wail that went up and down in the scale of misery. He pictured Father Alba again and realized with a start the priest was probably now in this sightless world as well. Not as a frightened timid visitor like Will who was nothing but a guest in the dangerous world of the blind, Father Alba was a permanent resident.

  "The future's not set," Will murmured, lying to himself and to the blackness.

  The words didn't echo as he thought they should and the darkness squeezed more closely around him, but only for a moment. Desperation gave him impetus to reach out with both hands and he felt the wall on one side and the railing on the other. He slid his foot out feeling the stair below him cautiously, but he didn't step down.

  Instead, looking to bypass the obvious, he mounted the railing and like an overgrown boy, he slid down. After a f
ew seconds, he could feel his too large butt cheek slide off the railing and he landed, crouching as low as possible, but there was no gunfire. Giving up on the railing, he slid down the stairs on his belly, trying to feel in front of him with one hand while the other acted as a brake.

  He gained the next landing, which turned out to be the first sub floor and again there was a pile of furniture in front of the door. It didn't stop him. Will knew he had to go lower but he felt a burning need to see light and began pushing the pile aside frantically. Once the door had the slightest amount of room, he pulled it open and slipped through.

  After the absolute darkness of the stair well, the factory was surprisingly and reassuringly bright and he stood breathing the light in with great heavy gasps. He saw that the building had been constructed along the lines of a long rectangular atrium with the interior of it open from the skylights high above, all the way down to the lowest basement, two floors below him. The derelict factory was in a shambles and from where Will stood, he could see over turned workstations, broken desks, and light fixtures dangling by thin wires.

  Rusting machines, looking asleep but still dangerous, sat haphazardly about and pipes of all sizes wove in and around them on their way to who knows where.

  Will went to the railing overlooking the atrium and peered down into the lower levels, hoping to catch sight of Talitha. However, the light from above seemed to lack the power to penetrate the depressing gloom below him and everything down there appeared vague and shadowy.

  Just as he turned away from the rail he heard another cry, different from the others, in that it was muffled and less urgent. Will dashed back to the rail, but still there was nothing to be seen and he began to feel a frantic desperation to get down to the lower levels, however that feeling butted directly against his dread of the possibility of traps in the blackened stairwell.

  Across from him, he spied an elevator and had taken a few steps toward it before his brain kicked into gear. There was no way it would be operational and if it were…he pictured it plummeting down.