Evil Never Dies

by Mick Ridgewell

  "You said that's what they called them. What would you call them?" Roland asked.

  "I guess the short answer, and the one most likely to get me put in the funny farm, is vampires. I personally thought of them as demon spawn. Demons, or vampires, were only the symptom. The disease was much worse."

  "I don't understand," he said.

  "Those men were just men when they arrived in our lovely hamlet. Unfortunately for them, Mr. and Mrs. Steen moved into the old Adams house."

  "The man in that well," Roland said. "He was dead. Had been buried for…"

  "Evil never dies," Patricia told him again, as though it weren't getting into his brain.

  "We can't blame the Steens though. How could they know? How could anyone know? Even if we knew and warned them, would you have believed a story so wild?"

  Roland nodded his head to agree with her. The problem was, he was hearing it now inside his own head. He battled with his own thoughts from the start. His modern mind telling him she was crazy, and his heart telling him she was for real. Finally, Roland believed every word she told him. Hell, the woman was 120 years old, why spin a tale of crap at this point?

  Chapter 24

  Patricia's Journal—Friday, June 21, 1912

  Summer solstice, the longest day of the year.

  That is all that needs to be said.

  Roland sat beside Patricia on the porch swing. A cold front had moved in overnight ushering in rain and a cool breeze. The roof over the veranda kept the drizzle off them, but they both held their teacups to keep warmth in their fingers.

  Moisture from the air collected on the bottom of the gutters and dripped rhythmically on the scraggly rosebush at the base of the porch. You'd think with the way the extra water dripped on that bush it would thrive, but the evil in the ground where old Bill expired refused to release the pathetic shrub.

  Patricia put her journal on the side table and pulled her sweater close at the neck.

  "Was that the only good thing you could write about that day?" Roland asked.

  She gave a nod, then looked out across the road.

  "They came in the night, just like Daddy said they would," she began. "Somehow those bastards, the men who had gone missing, found the families they left behind in the lives they lived two days before. The mayor and his wife were found like the Wilson boy, drained and grey. The family they took in had disappeared. Same thing over at the reverend's place. Some tried to say those women did it and ran off with their children. Can you imagine? Women killing the people who took them in and running off in the night with those things out there in the woods."

  Roland could imagine people saying just about anything under that kind of strain. He said, "They were frightened and tried to comfort themselves with a tale that made it easier to sleep at night."

  Patricia shrugged and continued.

  "By the time we arrived in town, we found a bunch of beaten men. Their faces had no anger, only fear and defeat. There should have been outrage, but they all looked like lame deer, separated from the herd and surrounded by wolves. They had accepted their fate and were praying it would be over without too much suffering. I think Daddy was angered more by that than he was the death of his friends."

  "What did he do to rally the troops?" Roland asked.

  "They were beyond pep talks. Daddy told them that the only way to prevent the mayor, the reverend, and their families from turning into the same monsters as those responsible for their deaths was to cut off their heads and burn the bodies."

  "I'm sure that didn't make him very popular," Roland said.

  "It didn't," she agreed. "Not a single man would help him. He didn't want me to help, but he could not do it all alone. We went in those houses, just me and my father. We dragged the corpses of people we knew and cared for out into the street. We loaded them on our wagon and took them to the cemetery. Daddy did convince the undertaker to get the graves dug at least. Once that was done, more men joined in, and when it was time to do the worst of it, Daddy didn't need me to help. They carried each body to a grave. Daddy took his axe from the wagon, walked over to the reverend, and before anyone could object swung that blade down on the reverend's neck. His head rolled into the hole, and Daddy crossed himself before bending, asking the reverend's forgiveness, and rolled his body in too.

  "My 'bigger than life' father stood beside that hole and wept. I wanted to go to him, to hold him, but someone held me back. I never knew who held me until later. It was Mother. She had not wanted to go anywhere near town, but in the end, she couldn't stay away."

  "I'm sure it meant the world to you and your father that she was there," Roland added.

  Patricia nodded, sipped her tea, and closed her eyes.

  "Daddy asked one of the men at his side to fetch the container from our wagon. It was a can of kerosene. He poured some into the grave, tossed in a match and walked away.

  "Flames spewed out of the ground like a volcano. Once the initial kerosene burned off, acrid black smoke rose from the hole.

  "Oh, the smell," she said, waving her hand in front of her nose in an attempt to fan the offending odor away. "As soon as the swirling breeze churned that smoke around, people began to vomit. The stink from that fire made everyone sick. We didn't all vomit, but everyone felt like they might.

  "The other bodies were treated the same. Daddy didn't have to do it alone with the rest. The other men all pitched in."

  "He led by example, and they followed," Roland said.

  She nodded, and holding her hand out, said, "Roland, dear, help an old woman to her feet. I think it's time we had some lunch."

  Chapter 25

  After lunch, Patricia excused herself and went to lie down. Roland planned to be more forceful in his efforts to get her to see a doctor. He remembered thinking Patricia looked to be a young eighty, younger even. Now he thought she looked terribly old and tired. A sudden slide like that couldn't be good.

  While she slept, Roland went for a walk. He followed the same path he had taken with Patricia the day they went to the cemetery. Without Patricia to slow him down, it took no time at all to get there.

  He took more time reading headstones. Names from Patricia's stories appeared before him on one marker after another. Sadness fell over him as he read names of people with whom he was beginning to feel a kinship. Like reading a good book, Roland had gotten attached to the characters. The problem here, these characters all died during the telling of her story.

  Men with wives, women with children, and children with a whole life ahead of them did not make it out of the summer of 1912.

  He made a mental note to return with his computer and do a detailed map of each site, with names and dates. Then he walked back to the road.

  He planned on going straight back to Patricia's. The rain had stopped, and the sun managed to burn off most of the cloud cover, chasing away the cool breeze and leaving behind warmth and humidity. The shade of her porch swing became more appealing as he broke a sweat.

  Roland walked in a daze, covering ground but unaware of his progress.

  When he got to the path that led to the well, he left the road without really choosing to. He staggered, zombie-like, to the ruined old farm. He gave the rubble of the building a wide berth until the old well came into view.

  The long grass, still damp from the morning's rain, soaked his jeans to the knees. The warm, humid air, combined with the stress of being back at the well, had his shirt equally wet beneath his arms.

  The barren ground around the well had grown. He was sure the ring of dead earth around the stone had doubled in size, maybe more. He could feel an energy coming from beneath the rock that covered the opening, and shuffled back, putting more space between himself and the evil that lived there.

  He was sure of it now. Evil lived beneath that stone. He could now feel deep inside himself what Patricia had been trying to tell him. Evil never dies, not ever.

  War waged within him. A force pulled him toward the rock, and self-preserv
ation pushed him away. It was a tug-o-war, and Roland Millhouse was the rope.

  His stomach began to roil, and his head to swoon. Roland knew if he didn't break free from the pull of the demon beneath the surface, he might be consumed by it. Despair within him grew so great that he contemplated suicide just to end the grief.

  He turned and ran. He ran as fast as his shaky legs would carry him. He didn't stop until his lungs were on fire and his legs were unable to support his weight. He staggered to the grass about five hundred yards from Patricia's driveway.

  He fell down on all fours, his chest heaving in vain attempts to recover from the over-exertion. Nausea built in his gut, and it took every bit of the minimal strength he had left to fight off the urge to vomit.

  When the nausea passed, and Roland's breathing slowed to something almost manageable, he allowed himself to fall over on his side. He rolled onto his back and lay in the grass, knees bent, eyes closed, taking deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

  When Roland opened his eyes, it was dark. He couldn't remember ever falling asleep like this. The run must have taken more out of him than he knew. He stood and looked around. The road looked so different in the dark. The trees seemed to be closer to the road, and so much bigger.

  He remembered being close enough to Patricia's house to see it when he collapsed from exhaustion. Now all he could see was the road and the trees. After all he had heard in recent days, Roland didn't like being out here after dark, and he started to walk in the direction he knew the old woman's house to be.

  He walked further than he thought necessary, and still saw only trees and road. Roland began to jog until he heard a noise in the trees. It sounded like the snap of a fallen branch being stepped on. He stared in the direction of the noise. When he was sure there was nothing there, he continued up the road, no longer jogging, but not walking at a leisurely pace either.

  He saw a pair of red lights ahead and assumed it was a car leaving Patricia's.

  "Who would be leaving her house?" Roland asked himself. "I have been here a week, and she hasn't had a single visitor."

  He concentrated on the tail-lights as he continued to walk. The car must be parked, the lights should have disappeared into the distance.

  "What the…" he began. Before he could finish, he realized the lights weren't lights at all. It was a man, and the red glow came from his eyes. Roland stopped walking so suddenly, he almost fell forward. He wanted to turn and run, but his feet wouldn't obey his commands. In seconds, the red eyes closed the gap, and Roland understood what Patricia meant about evil. It was no longer an abstract concept. Evil lived and breathed and had a shape.

  The demon's arm flew up faster than Roland could see, cupping its talon-like hand around the base of Roland's neck and pulling him in.

  It sunk its long fangs into Roland's throat and a torrent of red life flowed from the wound.

  Roland screamed, and the scream woke him to a glorious sunny afternoon.

  Chapter 26

  "You look like hell, young man," Patricia said as Roland made his way to the front porch.

  His normally perfect hair flared out in every direction, his shirt hung over his right hip, while the left side was still partially tucked. Bits of dried grass clung to his clothes, and his eyes were very close to vacant.

  Her greeting brought a weak smile to Roland's face. The thought of Patricia, who had aged decades in the past week, telling him he didn't look good was cute.

  "I think your stories may be taking a toll," he said.

  "Do tell."

  "I went for a walk while you were resting. I went back to the cemetery, and…"

  "You stay away from that well," Patricia warned. "Do you hear me?" She scolded him in a way a mother might a child to keep him safe from known danger. Patricia told her tales with strength and determination. The only emotions she had displayed during the telling were love for those she'd lost, and sadness for the unspeakable waste of it all.

  Now, her wide-eyed stare and stern tone showed Roland an emotion he didn't think Patricia capable of. Fear had come to Kings Shore, and Patricia found it.

  Roland stepped back, as though some of that evil she claimed to be hosting would at any time flare out of those terror-laden eyes and burn into his own like lasers.

  "It's getting bigger," he told her, his voice quivering. "The dead ground that surrounds the well, I mean. I think it's twice the size it was the last time I saw it."

  "Promise me you will not go back there. I showed it to you because I thought it important for you to see, but nobody should go near there."

  There was no mistaking the serious expression on the old woman's face. That place was evil and dangerous. Roland believed it even though he tried to convince himself otherwise. Did Patricia believe true evil lurked beneath that rock? Absolutely.

  Did Roland believe that place should be fenced off to prevent anyone from accidentally stumbling onto it? Without a doubt.

  "You don't have to worry about me," Roland said. "If I live to be 120, I hope to never feel the pull of that place again. It felt like…"

  "Like the happiness was being sucked right out of your soul?" she asked.

  "Exactly," he answered, nodding.

  "Are you well enough to continue?" Patricia asked him.

  It wasn't until then that he noticed the always-present journal on her lap. Roland didn't feel at all like listening to more of this tale of horror, but he needed to know more just as much as he feared to hear it. He sat in the chair next to her and motioned to the book.

  Patricia's Journal—Saturday, June 22, 1912

  We are going into town tonight. Daddy is convinced that we will be safer if we all meet at the church and confront the monsters together.

  God be with us.

  "When we arrived at the church, only a few of the farmers and loggers were there. Daddy was sure the others were not coming," Patricia began. "He thought they had decided to hold up where they were. He was right about some, but before the sun fell below the horizon, the church filled up. Farmers, loggers, and townfolk all squeezed into that small church."

  "Not all of them came, though, did they?" Roland said.

  "Not all," she agreed. "We waited and watched from the doors and windows. The moon was only half that night, and the stars were blocked by a few clouds, but the men had set bonfires and put lanterns around the church. If those demons came, we would see them.

  "It was so hot in that church. Too many people, and no breeze to move the air. Of course, even if it was windy that night, with the windows and doors closed, it would have done us no good.

  "I remember thinking cruel thoughts about some of those people. The smell of them made it hard for me to breathe. It was a church, and most Sunday's everyone was bathed and dressed in their best. That night many of the men had come directly from a hard day's work. When a man works hard in the field, or the mill, or cutting in the woods, he works up a smell. Close up a bunch of those men in an old church and, well I think you get my meaning.

  "Just when I thought I could take no more." She paused. "I wasn't the only one you know. Who was feeling antsy in there, I mean. With the heat, and the smell, and the stress of what might be upon us, everybody in the church felt the same to some degree."

  "I can't imagine anyone who wasn't feeling it," Roland said. "I feel it now, just listening to your story. Did anything happen that night?"

  "They came," she said. "The two strangers and all the people who were unaccounted for. They walked right down the center of the road. Somebody whispered, 'Here they come.' Some crammed themselves around the windows to get a peek. Others hugged each other. Many prayed or cried. I held Mother, while Daddy tried to get a look through the window."

  "Did he?" Roland asked. "Get a look at them I mean."

  "Oh, he saw them alright. Those things walked right up to the front of the church. Daddy said they stood there, staring at the door. Those abominations made n
o attempt to get in. They just stood there in the street, right out front. One of the women in the church saw her brother out there. At least she saw what was once her brother. She screamed at him to come inside. Said we could protect him from those evil men. He didn't even look in her direction. That woman begged some of the men to go out there and bring her brother inside, but none would."

  Chapter 27

  "Can you guess what our next problem was?" Patricia said.

  Roland shrugged and shook his head.

  "We had most of the town in that church. Those demons were outside."

  "I see," he said.

  "If anyone left, they risked attack from the monsters. The church was perfectly suited for that many people to sit for an hour-long sermon, but it was definitely not roomy enough for sleeping. There were small children in there, and they were getting very cranky."

  "I'm not surprised," he said. "I remember my mother scolding me every Sunday for fidgeting during mass."

  "It seemed the creatures could read the mood inside. They turned and walked out of town. Some thought it was a trap, and others felt those things had just gotten bored. Either way, we were in a dilemma. We couldn't stay in the church all night, and it wasn't safe to leave."

  "I'm guessing that eventually, nature would win out over fear," Roland said. "After all, I'm guessing a church from a hundred years ago didn't have indoor plumbing."

  "You're right about that. That old thing didn't even have an outhouse. Shortly after the monsters left most everyone in the church needed to relieve themselves. I'm sure nerves had something to do with it. The closest toilet was about a half mile away. It was decided to go in groups. The first group consisted of two men, two women, and three children."

  "Were they armed?" Roland asked.