The Dead Man: Eater of Souls (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Joseph Nassise

  Figuring he could make a quick getaway before having to deal with whoever they were, Matt glanced off the edge of the porch to where he had parked his bike.

  It was nowhere to be seen.

  The siren wailed again, closer this time.

  “What do you want?” Matt asked, tightening his grip on the axe, wondering what he had gotten himself into this time.

  The sound of his voice seemed to break the teens’ paralysis. The one in the lead raised his head, letting the glow of the back porch light illuminate his face as he opened his mouth and hissed at Matt through a tangle of tentacles that filled it. As one, the trio moved forward.

  “Fuck me,” Matt said, as his dream of the night before suddenly came to life before him.

  He knew he didn’t have time to waste; he needed to get out of here before the cops showed up or his ability to put a stop to whatever Mr. Dark really had planned for Harpers Bay was going to be seriously hampered. A moment before he’d been wondering how he was going to take down three good-sized students without injuring them too badly, but now that requirement had been taken from him. He didn’t know what those things before him actually were, but one thing was certain.

  They weren’t students any more.

  That freed him up to do what needed to be done in order to get out of here before the police showed up.

  Axe in hand, he went down the steps to greet them.

  Whoever they were, or whatever as the case might be, they didn’t know shit about fighting. The one in the front was faster than the others, so he reached Matt a good thirty seconds before his companions, effectively negating the advantage they had in sheer numbers. He simply rushed forward, arms outstretched and those creepy tentacle things waving wildly in the air.

  Matt was already swinging his axe as he sidestepped the other’s charge. The blade sank into the middle of the thing’s chest with a meaty smack.

  Blood flew.

  The thing crumpled to the ground.

  Matt stepped forward, stomped on its neck to keep the thrashing thing still, and brought the axe around in a swing like it was a crochet mallet and the thing’s skull was the ball.

  Thock!

  The creature stopped thrashing about.

  One down, two to go.

  Matt wrenched the axe free and turned just as the second of his assailants barreled into him, driving them both to the ground.

  Matt landed hard, the back of his head striking the ground and making him see stars, which gave the teenager time to scramble atop him, kneeling on Matt’s arms to keep him from using the axe. As Matt looked up, the other opened its mouth wide and half a dozen tentacles spilled out and reached for him.

  With his arms trapped, Matt did the only thing he could think of; he reared up and smashed his forehead into Tentacle-boy’s face!

  The blow was enough to stun his attacker, which let Matt pull his right arm, the one holding the axe, free. He didn’t have room to swing it, so instead he brought the head of the axe straight up and jammed it right between those waving tentacles, shoving the teenager off of him in the process. Matt scrambled to his feet, intending to finish off his stunned opponent with another swing of his axe.

  Unfortunately, he’d forgotten about his third assailant.

  As he went to lift the axe, his arms were pinned in a bear hug from behind.

  He struggled to get free, but found the other’s strength too great.

  Then, to his horror, he felt the wet splat of cold tentacles as they wrapped around the back of his skull and something began to try burrowing its way through his flesh!

  No fucking way was he going out like this! he thought to himself.

  He couldn’t bring his arms up to use the axe as he normally would, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t any good to him. He gripped it in both hands and swung it backward between his legs, hoping like hell he’d gauged the length right.

  The blade sank into his attacker’s crotch with a sickening sound.

  The arms around him let go.

  Matt didn’t hesitate. He spun around and buried the axe in the top of the creature’s skull, trying to ignore the sight of his own blood amidst the thing’s tentacles.

  Two down.

  Sirens wailed, very close now.

  Number three was climbing to his feet as Matt turned in his direction and with an almost casual air took the thing’s head off with one swing.

  He looked around, surveying the damage, and knew there wasn’t a darn thing he could do about the fact that there were now three dead bodies in the Bateman’s backyard. He had only seconds to get out of there and no way of hiding them in that time frame. Best he could do was make sure he didn’t get caught standing over them with the murder weapon in hand.

  He cast about, looking once more for his bike, but didn’t see it anywhere. With no other option available to him, he checked to be sure he still had the journal, then turned and ran around the house, staring anxiously down the street.

  Blue lights lit the horizon but the police cars weren’t in view yet.

  Move, move, move!

  Axe in hand, he rushed across the road and disappeared into the woods on the other side just as a police cruiser turned onto the far end of the street.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It took him four hours to walk back to campus. He kept to the woods as much as he could and relied on the darkness around him to hide the axe from view when he was forced to stay on the edge of the road.

  Once back at his bungalow he stripped off his clothes, threw them into the trash incinerator in the maintenance area, then took a long shower to scrub any evidence of the conflict from his body. He had a shallow puncture wound in the back of his head, which hurt like hell as he washed it clean. That, of course, was nothing compared to how it felt when he poured iodine into the wound to kill whatever strange and creepy bacteria might be lurking about in there. It wasn’t bleeding, so he didn’t bother with a bandage, just let it dry in the open air.

  Afterward, he sat down with the journal and began making his way through it.

  It turned out to be enlightening reading. David had begun to suspect something was going on a few months ago. He had page after page of notes about how certain students were acting “out of character,” as he put it, and what those actions might mean. As he read it, Matt was reminded of the notations in the file Olivia had assembled on the boy; paranoid, delusions of persecution, possible danger to himself and others. All of her conclusions seemed naïve in light of what Matt knew about what was happening on campus.

  About a month ago David’s journal had taken a dark tone, listing sightings of what he called dopplegangers, things that looked like the students he once knew but no longer were those students. If Matt hadn’t just faced off against three of those very creatures he might not have believed it was even possible, but there was no doubt in his mind now.

  David’s notes revealed that he thought one of the female faculty members was the “queen” behind the “infestation,” as he called it. He had kept extensive logs of his time spent watching this individual, but never seemed to refer to the person by name. Matt flipped through page after page, trying to find even one notation that could help him identify the person in question, but either David had been too paranoid to put it down on paper or he didn’t see the need to do so when he knew who the person was.

  If Matt had to point a finger, he would do so at Julia Stevens. Something just didn’t sit right with him whenever she was around and as the acting principal she certainly had access to any student on campus pretty much at any time. But he knew he needed more information before he could act on any of what David had included in the journal.

  The problem was Matt was almost out of time.

  According to David’s journal, the “queen” had been building up to some big event that was supposed to take place during the school’s annual harvest bonfire, which was scheduled for tomorrow night. The journal didn’t say what the “queen” was going to do, but the way it was d
escribed lent the event apocalyptic proportions.

  As David put it, “it was going to be a massacre.”

  The word jolted Matt to his core and suddenly a host of puzzle pieces he’d been juggling for days fell into place and for the first time he thought he saw the picture clearly.

  Mr. Dark had lured him here with the idea that he might be able to prevent a deadly school shooting. He’d thrown himself into the task, narrowing in on the one student that seemed to fit the bill as a possible suspect. Even the kid’s psych file seemed to agree.

  But now he could see the truth. He’d been subtly directed toward David because as the one person who actually knew what was going on, Mr. Dark wanted David squarely out of the way. And if Matt hadn’t decided to dig a little deeper after David was arrested, he would have moved on, convinced that he had stopped the massacre that he’d come here to prevent.

  Matt was convinced that if that had happened, at some point later on Mr. Dark would have revealed that not only had Matt not saved the day, but that he had been an integral part of the massacre that followed.

  Rather than out and out corruption, as was Mr. Dark’s usual wont, he was trying to use Matt’s own moral code against him and “rot” him away from the inside out.

  It was a stunningly devious plan and Matt was reminded of how little he knew about his adversary. Underestimating him was not something Matt wanted to do in the future.

  Thankfully he hadn’t fallen for it and still had time to do something about it.

  He needed to know the identity of the “queen” and the only way of getting that was to talk to David again.

  A glance at the clock told him it was just past midnight. The best time to try to slip in and see the teenager again, he thought, was at shift change the next morning, when the night shift would be on the way out and the morning shift not yet up to speed the way they would be later in the day.

  Matt thought about giving Olivia a call, but then thought better of it. He needed to be ready for anything tomorrow and a good night’s sleep would go a long way to preparing him for what was to come.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Matt arrived at the police station just before shift change the next morning. His plan was to slip into the building the same way he’d done so before and make his way back down to the holding cells to talk to David.

  But as he was parking his motorcycle in the visitors’ lot, he saw a dark-colored prisoner transport van pulled up outside the side entrance he intended to use. As he looked on, the door opened and two officers stepped out, hands on the guns at their waists. They glanced about, then nodded back toward someone still out of sight inside the building. A moment passed and then two additional officers came out, this time pulling a protesting prisoner along with them.

  The prisoner was David Bateman.

  Oh shit, Matt thought.

  They were transferring him, that was clear, but the question was to where? And for what purpose? The arraignment was supposed to be that afternoon; Matt knew because he’d checked the court website. Which meant either something new had come to light necessitating a change of plans or else they were moving David for his own protection; Matt hoped it was the latter.

  The kid was swearing loudly as they loaded him into the back of the van and locked him in. The sides of the van must have been made of reinforced steel, as all sound was cut off immediately once the doors were shut. Two of the officers walked to the front of the van and got in, one on either side of the vehicle, while the other two made their way to a patrol parked nearby, apparently to act as the escort vehicle.

  Matt only had a moment in which to reach David.

  He rushed forward between the parked cars and rapped sharply on the window of the van’s rear compartment. Almost immediately David’s face appeared in the window. When he saw Matt, he began talking a mile a minute, but Matt couldn’t hear him.

  Matt shook his head, put his hands over his ears and then pointed at David.

  The teenager understood immediately. He stopped talking, thought a moment, and then mouthed two works. Matt wasn’t all that good at reading lips and it took him a moment to figure out what David was saying.

  The bonfire.

  Matt nodded. He knew that much already. What he needed to know was who was behind it all. Who was he supposed to be watching out for?

  “Who’s the queen, David?” he shouted back at him. “Who’s the queen?”

  David wasn’t any better than Matt at reading lips, worse perhaps, for he stared at Matt with a confused look on his face.

  Matt wanted to scream in frustration.

  He tried again, slower this time.

  “The queen?” he said and lifted his hands up, palms out to indicate his lack of information.

  David’s face lit with animation as he realized what Matt was saying. He opened his mouth to answer, when a white-gloved hand suddenly slipped round his face and clamped his mouth shut.

  A face peered over David’s shoulder at Matt.

  It was the face of a clown, with a bright red nose and a sinister-looking grin.

  A clown that smiled cheerfully at Matt as he reached out with his other hand, this one without a glove, and touched David’s cheek.

  Instantly a circle of rot appeared in the middle of David’s cheek and began to spread outward in a slowly growing circle, exposing the wet muscle and tissue beneath this flesh.

  David’s eyes grew impossibly, almost unbelievably wide, as he felt his skin began to decay and fall away from his skull. In seconds the white flash of exposed bone was visible in several areas.

  Matt shouted in horror, trying to get the driver’s attention, but it was too late. The van pulled away headed toward the street.

  Matt was left to stare after it in helpless dismay.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  After the events at the police station, Matt returned to campus, more determined than ever to put a stop to what was happening to the students here. He would focus his preparations on the bonfire and hope like hell he could figure it all out in time.

  As luck would have it, it was the bonfire Principal Stevens wanted to discuss when she called him to her office half an hour later.

  “The Harvest Festival bonfire has been a tradition here at Harpers Bay Academy for Academic Excellence for more than 150 years,” she told him. “In all that time we have not had a single accident. I fully intend to continue that tradition this evening. Do I make myself clear?”

  Matt nodded, but the truth was that he was barely listening. He was watching Stevens for some sign that Mr. Dark had her under his control. A blemish or sore, maybe? Something easily covered by makeup? He didn’t see anything, though that didn’t mean much. He hadn’t seen anything wrong with that woman back in Crawford, Tennessee either and she’d certainly shown him whose side she was on.

  He was just going to have to keep his eye on her and wait for her to make her move, he thought.

  He spent the rest of the day getting the bonfire site ready; laying the sand trap for the base, hauling and stacking enough wood to keep the blaze burning hot and steady for several hours, making sure they had adequate fire fighting equipment in case things got out of control. He was concerned that Mr. Dark would use the bonfire against them, maybe rig the setup to collapse like it had at Texas A&M a few years back, and so he double-checked it all personally just to be sure it was safe.

  In the end, he decided he was as ready as he would ever be and settled in to keep an eye on everything as the night went on.

  As the sun went down the bonfire was lit and by seven o’clock the quad was filled with students mixing about around the fire, talking and eating and having a good time. Matt had selected a spot for himself near the woodpile, allowing him to keep his eye on the fire while at the same time providing a handy excuse to have his axe close at hand.

  As the night progressed, Matt noticed some of the students pairing off and, when they thought no one was looking, slipping away into the darkness on the far side of the
bonfire.

  Off for little groping in the dark, no doubt, Matt thought, remembering what it was like to be young and full of life, before the realities of life set in. Before you saw the evil in the world and were forced to deal with it face to face.

  Aren’t you the life of the party, he thought sourly as he looked away.

  And then he immediately looked back again.

  One of the students he’d seen earlier, a tall blonde-haired kid in a football jersey, was just slipping off into the woods with a short, mousey-looking girl with brown hair. It wasn’t the difference between the pair that caught Matt’s attention, but rather the fact that he’d seen the same boy wander off into the woods not twenty minutes earlier with a buxom-breasted blonde cheerleader.

  Matt had heard of playing the field, but this seemed a little ridiculous. Never mind how normal clique behavior would never have those two kids talking to each other, never mind wandering off into the woods for a make-out session.

  Something was seriously wrong with this picture.

  As casually as he could, Matt got up from his spot by the woodpile, picking up his grandfather’s axe in the process. He stood facing the fire, pretending to watch the flames, and then, when he was reasonably sure that no one was looking, casually took a few steps backward, deeper into the shadows. When he was certain that he was not visible to those gathered around the fire, Matt turned and ran in what he hoped was an interception course on the direction he had last seen the two teenagers moving.

  Luck was with him and he found them not two minutes after setting out. The boy had his arm around the girl’s shoulders and their heads were close together, as if he was whispering to her. Every now and then the soft sound of her laughter would float back to Matt.

  Given everything he’d seen on campus since arriving here earlier in the week, the interaction between the two of them just struck him as wrong.