Cherry Hill

by James A. Moore

  Soon, it knew, it could be born into the world. It would be powerful, nearly unstoppable. All it had to do was finish the task it had given itself and it would have life of its own.

  At first it had planned to build the body from nothingness, but now it reasoned out a better way of handling the situation. Now it understood that there was no reason for it to strain so mightily when the answer to its woes was already in the asylum and waiting.

  The living people in the asylum were already screaming, fear and pain leaving them no choice in the matter.

  What was one more scream among so many?

  With the power it had gathered, the preparations it had made, the Dead God reached out and touched the target of its hopes and dreams.

  Only forty feet away from where Jonathan Crowley had just murdered Alex Granger, Leslie Anne Hampton opened her eyes as she felt the baby kick within her womb.

  ***

  Leslie felt the strange sensation and was puzzled. Ever since she’d been moved to the new room, she’d been treated carefully. Her medications were administered and she was fed and left to herself a lot of the time. These days, she even had a television, but she thought that was mostly because she kept asking questions when she wasn’t distracted.

  Her belly felt funny, hot and tight. She moved her hands and felt something moving inside of her. Whatever it was, it seemed agitated. She’d had bad gas a few times, who hasn’t, but it had never felt like this.

  Puzzled by the sensation, she moved her hospital gown out of the way and looked at her stomach. It used to be flat, but now it was moving as something swelled and burbled inside of her. She poked it, and felt a sudden sharp pain where her finger touched the skin.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and then decided she should call for the nurse. One of the nice things about her new room was that she could push a little button with a nurse’s cartoon face on it and the nurse would come to check on her. She pushed several times but got no response.

  The pain was getting worse, so Leslie lay back on the bed and closed her eyes, hoping it would go away.

  It didn’t. If anything, it was worse than before. Her belly was growing so fast that she couldn’t even lie on her stomach and hope to make it go away. She looked like her older sister Nancy had looked before her nephew Tommy—we don’t talk about Tommy, Leslie! NOT EVER! —was born.

  Leslie tried to sit up, but couldn’t. Her belly weighed too much. She lifted her gown again and saw that her breasts were swollen, but they looked like anthills next to the mountain of her stomach. The skin was stretched and red, and the weight of the mass was heavy enough that she had trouble breathing.

  When she tried to reach out with her hand she found she lacked the strength.

  Leslie closed her eyes and soon found herself drifting mercifully into sleep.

  She was not conscious as the form swelling inside of her continued to change and grow. Despite the energies fed into her from beyond, the growing child demanded sustenance. When none was provided, it began to cannibalize its mother. Proteins and body mass were stolen away, drained to keep the growing god alive.

  Leslie Ann Hampton died five minutes after the Dead God touched her.

  One minute after that, her corpse gave birth.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Carl Branaugh hadn’t planned to go to work. He’d intended to play hooky. Funny how things never seemed to work out quite the way he wanted them to. Instead of calling in sick and grabbing his fishing pole, he got dressed and went into the office. There was just too much damned guilt involved in sneaking away when his caseload was bigger than it had been at any time in his past.

  He was at the office and almost ready to just take the paperwork with him and finish it at home when the phone calls came in from Cherry Hill. This time he decided to demand back up. He was readying himself for a nice shouting match with the captain when the man came to him and told him to take two cars along for the ride. Four extra cops did a lot to make him feel better about going back to the asylum.

  Murphy, Liebowitz, Chapman and Wendt came along for the ride. He warned them about the weird goings on and they listened. It was hard not to take the warnings seriously when over thirty people had been killed according to the phone calls.

  The ride was strictly business. All three cars left the station with sirens going and lights flashing.

  Carl knew things were going badly when he saw the covered bridges on the way to Cherry Hill. Rather than try to explain it to the others, he simply got on the radio. “I don’t know what’s going on here, guys, but the bridges are…wrong.”

  “When the hell did they put those things up?” Liebowitz was sounding as puzzled as Branaugh felt.

  “No idea, Johnny. Just keep going. Captain said he’d have back up for us as soon as he can.”

  The air grew darker as they moved and Carl felt the start of butterflies winging around in his stomach. Nerves; he wanted to turn around and toss his badge over the captain’s desk, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He’d sworn an oath to protect and serve. Besides, there weren’t a lot of high paying jobs in the area, unless he wanted to work at Cherry Hill.

  “Is the sun going down?” That was Liebowitz again. Branaugh thought he’d been imagining things: the sky was clear except for a few puffy clouds and those were nowhere near the sun, but everything seemed darker anyway.

  “Look, there’s been some weird shit going on at Cherry Hill. That’s why we’re going out there now. Just be prepared for anything that might come along.”

  Moments after he finished speaking, Branaugh saw the people moving along the side of the road, just past the last bridge. He kept driving and kept his eyes on them, puzzled as to how they’d gotten there. The asylum was ten miles into the middle of nowhere and he hadn’t seen any cars broken down along the side of the road. Of course there were bogs all around them. It was always possible someone had gone over the side.

  He passed them by at high speed and then pulled over, ready to render aid if needed.

  The people looked out of focus and he rubbed his eyes, wondering if it was time to break down and see an eye doctor. The other two squad cars pulled over in front of his and the four uniforms climbed out.

  It was Liebowitz that noticed what Carl missed at first. “Why do they look fuzzy when everything around them is fine?”

  He looked again. It wasn’t his eyes; it was, in fact, the people. He tried to stare at them hard enough to make out details, but they were too blurry.

  “I don’t like this.” Chapman spoke softly, even as he reached for the butt of his .38.

  “Neither do I.” Liebowitz was frowning as he spoke, but kept his hand away from his holster.

  Branaugh cleared his throat: “Do you folks need assistance?”

  For the first time, the oddly blurred people looked up at him. He felt his balls try to pull inside as he realized what they were. Ghosts. Every last one of them was a dead thing and if he was counting right, there looked to be seven of them looking his way.

  ***

  Jonathan Crowley looked around the ward, trying to figure out where the impossible monster might be hiding. He still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the idea of a living hungry ghost and that delay was costing him valuable time.

  He was certain, absolutely sure, that the man he’d just killed was responsible. Now he was having second thoughts.

  “No. I’m right about this. There aren’t any other options.”

  Frustrated and fed up, he turned toward the exit to the medical ward, planning to stop only long enough to dispatch a few of the ghostly things that were moving around the room.

  He’d seen ghosts manifest before; he knew what he was looking at. They were shapeless until they concentrated, and then they took form. Most of them seemed to have a few strange notions of what they were supposed to look like, but considering they were in a nut house, he wasn’t too surprised.

  The thing on top of Mr. Weasel was letting out a continuo
us screech, a wailing note that grated at Crowley’s nerves. Mr. Weasel on the other hand, was motionless. He was alive, Crowley could see that much, but decidedly unconscious or even comatose.

  There was no way he could exorcise every spirit in the building, but he could make things difficult for a few of them. He spoke under his breath, pleasantly surprised at how quickly he could access the ancient spells. His mind was clearer than it had been in a long time and he wondered if that was because he was finally recovering, or simply because he had to focus to handle the current situation.

  It didn’t much matter. Either way, he spoke the necessary phrases and the thing sitting on Mr. Weasel bucked, leaping back from its chosen target as if scalded.

  “That’s right. Get away from him. You want someone, come for me.” The unevenly shaped thing stared for several seconds, wide eyes bulging in its lopsided face, and then charged. It had about the same level of finesse as it did good looks. John caught it as it stumbled past him and pinned it against the edge of a gurney. The thick skin of the thing was an illusion; touching it was like holding onto a balloon made of wet leather and filled with water.

  The strength it possessed was far more real than its appearance and it caught him a solid blow across his jaw. John staggered back, taken off guard by the ferocity of the attack and then he retaliated, driving his fingers into the gelid flesh and puncturing the body it had created for itself. While his hand was buried deep into its spectral insides he cast a second spell and trapped the spirit, drawing it in against his palm. Without the weight of the body it generated from the air, it was easily held and captured. What was left collapsed on the ground and began to decay at high speed. Crowley stepped over it and moved on, prepared to weave as many spells as he had to in order to keep the people around him safe.

  “No, damn it all!” His fists clenched, and the one spirit he’d taken out of commission burned against the palm of his hand. “I don’t have time for this!”

  The people around barely noticed his comments or his actions. They were too busy trying to stay alive.

  And that was exactly the problem. To save them he had to find the thing behind the newest dilemma. If he left them, they would likely all be killed in the meantime.

  He looked around with eyes that could see so much more than most humans, and tried to find the source of what was happening. The spirits that moved around him came into sharper focus, including the ones that had not yet dressed themselves in ectoplasmic flesh. The very walls of the building pulsed with spectral energies for a moment and then the glimmer that emanated from the asylum disappeared as if it had never been there.

  And finally he understood: The enemy he sought was everywhere at once, spread thin and not locked into a single location.

  “You sly bastard.” He couldn’t quite keep the admiration out of his voice. Jonathan Crowley wasn’t easily fooled and somehow the thing had kept him in the dark for a long time.

  “Where did you go?” He looked around again; checking the ceiling, the walls, the floor, but whatever had been filling the whole of Cherry Hill was trying something new.

  Was it hiding? He doubted it. The feeling in the air was different now, darker. The living hungry ghost was doing what he’d feared it would do all along. It was trying to be born. This time, it seemed like it might actually succeed.

  ***

  The Dead God rolled away from the ruins of Leslie Anne Hampton and tried to stand. And failed.

  It fell to the ground on muscles that had never attempted motion before and shivered, unprepared for the effects of gravity on its body. Still, it grinned. Life! It was alive; it could feel for the first time instead of merely studying the memories of sensation. There were senses it could barely comprehend, waves of input that were fascinating and almost painful in their intensity. It had acknowledged that walls existed before, had seen them in stolen memories, but the four barriers that surrounded it on all sides were so much different then what it expected. Like a blind man seeing the colors of the spectrum for the first time, it was briefly overwhelmed. Sounds were much louder than it had imagined; smells were more intense. The organs inside its body were functioning perfectly, but they were so very bothersome and distracting. Its heartbeat was a dull thunder that seemed ready to break its body apart with every pulse. Light was unsettling and the feeling of falling, of lying on the ground was both a wonderful new sensation and agony.

  It had access to so many memories and it employed them now, teaching itself motor function at a speed that was unheard of in human history. Though the process still took almost five minutes, it was soon moving its arms and legs, reveling in the sensations.

  Outside the room it still heard screams, but inside its mother’s small prison all was calm. It looked back at Leslie’s remains and frowned. What little remained of her was wet and bloodied. It hadn’t planned to kill her, merely to use her body as a vessel. Still, both she and the unborn child she’d carried were now a part of it. They would be together.

  It breathed in the scent of her death and exhaled a charnel stench from deep within itself. The world waited beyond the whitewashed concrete walls and the steel door that separated it from its new domain.

  The door resisted its first attempt to open the handle, but yielded as soon as it pushed.

  Outside the dead and the living were locked in a mad dance, some fighting against each other from time to time, though few of the living remained capable of defending themselves.

  Most of the humans in the room barely noticed it at first, but when they did, they made their appreciation vocal. The dead and the living alike saw the Dead God for the first time, and knew that the being standing before them was superior, powerful, and deserving of worship. It knew because they fled just after seeing it.

  The Dead God lowered its head to move from the room that had been its birthplace. The body worked perfectly, but the size of it made access to the larger room a challenge and it felt the top of the doorway break to its will.

  “I AM DEAD GOD. WORSHIP ME.” The words were thunder as they spilled from its lips. The people trembled and clutched at their ears, wincing in pain.

  All save one.

  Sight was still a new thing, barely understood and confusing, still it could look upon this one and know him anywhere. The once old man stood still, slowly turning his head to look upon the splendor of Dead God’s perfection and bared his teeth in a wide and unpleasant smile.

  “Hi, Dead God. Great name by the way. I bet you’re gonna’ be a lot of fun at church picnics.”

  Dead God didn’t understand the meaning of the words, or the sarcasm with which they were spoken. It only understood that the man before it was not trembling and did not feel the need to worship it.

  Perhaps, it thought, the once old man does not understand. He will, given time, but for now he must be made to know me. “I AM DEAD GOD. WORSHIP ME.”

  “You’re not supposed to exist. Fuck off.” The once old man came closer and stared Dead God in the eyes. It looked down at him physically, towering a head and shoulders above the once old man. It thought carefully about what the strange man had said and realized that it had been insulted.

  Once more it tried to reason. “I AM DEAD GOD. WORSHIP ME.”

  “Oh please, you’re already getting boring.”

  Enough! The man was offensive. The Dead God swung one arm forward and caught him in the chest. The once old man let out an involuntary noise and flew across the room, his body striking the ceiling and then falling, bouncing off of a metallic table and finally to the ground. Dead God heard the bones break, saw the blood that escaped from the wounds where the once old man hit the table, and saw him fall to the ground in a way that it knew meant he had been damaged beyond the human body’s ability to mend itself.

  If the confusing old man was not dead, he would be soon and then the Dead God would eat him.

  It looked at the people where they trembled and tried to hide. It watched as the dead instinctively fled from its presence,
and it smiled. “I AM DEAD GOD. WORSHIP ME.”

  The once old man stood up and wiped blood from his mouth with one hand. Even as he moved his face healed and his teeth showed in a savage grin.

  “You have no idea how much I wanted you to do that.”

  ***

  Amelia crouched in the corner of her room and shivered. She could feel the panic that came from the living and the dead alike in waves of emotion that pushed into her, even through the wards that Jonathan had created to protect her. Much as she wanted to help him in some way, the fear was crippling. She could barely make herself open her eyes and the idea of standing, of seeking out Jonathan was too much for her to handle.

  Just when she thought she would be able to overcome her paralysis, she felt the Dead God being born. The fear was bad, but the sensations that ran through the poor soul that was forced to give birth were too much for her, Amelia held herself tightly and shivered as she was hit by wave after wave of agony. She experienced echoes of what Leslie Anne Hampton endured, but they were worse for Amelia: she was conscious throughout the process.

  The fear intensified even more as the newborn made his presence known. She sensed the thing’s mind, its emotions, but could not fully understand them: whatever it was, a ghost or a demon, its mind was powerful and its emotions struck her like physical blows. She felt her skin burn as it walked somewhere above her.

  Amelia knew secrets about Jonathan Crowley that few people knew. For instance, she understood that he would recover from almost any injury that was not natural. He had lost a leg years ago in a purely mundane, if violent, method and he had not healed from that, but she’d seen him cut and bruised and broken in other ways and watched his flesh mend from all of it.