“Oh God,” Myron said, covering his mouth.
“Blood,” Jeremy said.
There was a sudden thump at the window, and they all jumped. When they turned, there was a man there, floating outside, just as Betty had described.
“Betty,” the man moaned, “Betty, why’d you run away? Come back to us Betty.”
Jeremy looked at Betty. “Betty, these men, did they always look human?”
She shook her head frantically. “No, no, when they got angry their faces change, their teeth grew long.”
Jeremy looked toward the man at the window, and turned to
Betty. “Whatever you do Betty, don’t look him in the eyes, and don’t let him in.”
“Oh my God!” Staci said. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“It’s happening,” Tony said.
“Do you have a crucifix?” Myron prodded.
“Bettttty!” the man outside pleaded. “Look at me, I’m your friend.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jeremy said. Betty was shaking.
“Do you have a crucifix?” Myron repeated.
Betty didn’t understand. “What’s a cruckafix?”
“A cross,” Myron said.
Betty nodded, pointing. “In the first drawer.”
“Johnny!” Jeremy said. “Get it!” John was closest to the nightstand and did so without hesitation. In that second Jeremy took his eye off the girl, Staci heard a hiss behind her. When they turned Betty’s face had formed into a snarl, her canines were sharp, over her lip.
“Betty,” Staci cried out in dismay. She was looking directly at the thing that looked like a man in the window. Johnny took the rosary from the drawer, finding the cross at the end. He shoved it toward the glass, for a moment catching a glimpse of pointy teeth and red, glowing hypnotic eyes. He turned his head as he brought the cross forward.
“Get away you fuck! You are NOT invited!”
The thing shrieked and propelled itself backward. Meanwhile Johnny could hear more inhuman wails behind him. The others were restraining Betty on the bed. Johnny looked at them, and then turned back toward the window. There was no longer anyone there.
“Gone,” he said. “Good.”
“Johnny, help us!” Tony said. Johnny jumped in and held back her head. The other four had her arms and legs.
“Betty!” Staci cried, “We’re your friends! You’ve got to fight this!”
“Fight it!” Jeremy echoed.
“Fight it! Fight it!” The group chanted.
Betty screeched, struggling beneath them.
“God, she’s strong!” Tony said, and that was saying a lot, coming from him.
“The master will kill you for this!” Betty screamed. “He’ll kill you all!”
She broke free. Not so much broke loose, as she actually threw them off of her. Staci hit the wall. Tony went flying into the dresser drawer, the corner digging into his lower back. It wobbled and almost fell over on top of him, but then settled back and righted itself. Myron hit the nightstand, the drawer knobs nearly embedding themselves in his shoulder. Jeremy’s head hit the window ledge, knocking him unconscious, and he slid down the wall onto the carpet.
Johnny, who still held her head, and not an appendage, gathered the chain of beads in his other hand and shoved them in Betty’s face. She screamed, but it was different than the man at the window; more human. She looked at the cross almost in awe, rather than fear, and Johnny watched her face transform, the pointed teeth shrink back, and her creased brow smooth out.
“Betty?” Johnny said. That was when she started to cry.
9
Jeremy regained consciousness to the sound of the door opening downstairs. Betty’s parents were home.
“Hello!” they called. They began gathering their composure. Tony rubbed at his back, Myron cupped his shoulder. Staci was more of an allover ache, her entire body taking the brunt of the wall. Jeremy felt the lump already forming at the back of his head.
“Yes, we’re up here!” Tony shouted back. Betty lay on the bed, drained. They looked at each other and the same question was on all their faces: What are we going to do?
“Betty?” her mother said, knocking on the door.
“Betty,” Staci whispered, “Pretend you’re asleep.”
“’Kay,” she said. Her parents came in.
“How is she?” her mother asked.
“Out like a light,” Tony said.
“You boys are so sweet,” she said. “To watch over her like this. And you miss,” she said to Staci. “Thank you for everything. Thank you for bringing our little girl back.” She walked over to where Betty lay and kissed her forehead.
“Thank you,” the father echoed, choked up and at a loss for words. He looked at Tony and said, “Are you all right?”
“Huh?” Tony said. He realized he’d been absent-mindedly rubbing his ache. “Yeah, just a bad back; got it from my dad.”
“Too bad. Well, you’re all welcome to dinner. We’ve got plenty of food.”
“Um, we actually should be leaving. It’s dark and our parents are probably worried.”
“Oh my,” the mother said. “We’re so sorry to have kept you, but we had to make sure she’d be safe, you understand.”
“Yes,” Myron said. “It was no bother. Betty is great.”
“Why thank you young man. That’s so sweet of you to say. We agree.” She looked at her husband. “Should we wake her Steven? She really should eat.”
How were they to tell her that what she needed to eat wasn’t on any menu?
Betty pretend woke herself. “I’m okay mom,” she yawned. “I’m not hungry.”
Yes, what about later tonight? Jeremy thought.
“I suppose I should call the police and tell them they no longer need to search for our girl. You youngsters should stop by tomorrow. No thanks are enough for what you’ve done for us,” Betty’s mom said. “You’re always welcome to eat at our house.”
They thanked her.
Jeremy hugged Betty and whispered in her ear, “We’ll try to be by tomorrow after school. Do you think you can make it through the night?”
Betty nodded, but her expression wasn’t exactly the picture of certainty.
“Okay.” It had to be good enough. The rest of them hugged Betty as well. They weren’t exactly sure what Jeremy had said to her, but they could guess.
“Bye Betty,” they said to her.
“Bye,” Betty said, sadly.
Myron always took the blows he was dealt and suffered them in silence, but when he looked at this girl he felt a great well of anger rise up in him at what had been done to her; how she’d been taken and controlled against her will. As they left the house he said, “I do not know about you guys, but I do not think she will make it through the night. And her parents are not aware of what she has become. Neither of them is safe.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Jeremy said. “I told her we’d be by tomorrow after school, but I think it’s tonight we have to worry about.”
“Yes, I can feel it too,” Staci said. “Something is going to happen.”
“All right,” Tony said, “So maybe we should scope out their house tonight. We just have to come up with excuses to our parents about where we’re going.”
“Right, I can still feel all her emotions,” Myron said. “So much sorrow; she is fighting it so hard, but it is taking over.”
“It,” Johnny said contemptuously, “I guess we all know what we’re dealing with now.”
“Yeah,” Tony said. But for some reason it was difficult to say. But Staci did.
“Vampires,” she said.
Myron agreed. “But Betty and the guy at the window, they were different from what we saw at the Rock Spot.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said. “They still looked human. Those things at the club were like…”
“Monsters,” Jeremy finished for him. “They’re all monsters. Whatever we need to do to stop these things from killing us,
killing our friends, we have to start with Betty. We have to protect her and her parents. Myron and Staci are right. There’s a battle going on inside her, and I think she’s losing it. She sent me a message, a thought, when I hugged her. Maybe she didn’t think I’d hear it. She doesn’t know about our gifts, if that’s what you call them. But I did. She saw it in my face that I’d heard her.”
“What did she say?” Tony asked.
“She said, ‘Help me.’”
V
1
“So what are we listening for?” Jeremy asked.
They sat in Tony’s car, outside Betty’s house. They’d been there for over an hour now with not a sound, but no sooner had Jeremy asked the question when they heard the scream.
“Something like that,” Johnny said.
“That sounded like Betty’s mother,” Tony said.
They got out of the car and sprinted toward the house. Tony broke open the door. “Betty!” he called. The rest of them followed behind him.
There was a line of blood trailing out of the kitchen, coursing toward them like an open vein. Tony swung open the door.
Betty Leesburg looked up from the floor where she cradled her mother’s head. She’d changed again, and this time there was blood all over her mouth. Her mother’s eyes were wide open in shock, looking up at her daughter. Blood was still pumping out from the wound in her neck.
“Oh my God,” Staci said.
“Betty, back away from her now,” Tony said.
Betty hissed at him.
“We’ve got to help her mom,” Myron said. “She’s going to die.”
“I know,” Jeremy said, “But we’ve got to pull her away. Staci, talk to Betty.”
Staci nodded. “Betty honey, this isn’t you. You’ve got to fight
this. You have to let us help your mom.”
“I was so hungry,” Betty said, “Mommy be one of us now. Be with me forever.”
“Your mother’s going to die if you don’t let us help her!” Johnny shouted.
“Shhhh,” Staci said calmly. “Johnny, she’s confused. Let us help her Betty. We don’t want to hurt you or your mom.”
“Um guys,” Tony realized, “Where’s the father?”
“We don’t know,” Johnny said.
“Do you still have the rosary?” Staci asked.
Johnny nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I think I do.”
“Use it,” she said.
He brought it out and dangled it in front of Betty’s face.
“Back away!” Johnny said, and Betty rapid crawled backward on all fours.
“Hold her at bay while we help her mom,” Staci said. “Tony, get some paper towels!”
Jeremy, Staci and Myron knelt beside the mother.
“It’s going to be all right Mrs. Leesburg,” Staci said, putting her hand on her forehead. “Wet a few if you can,” she told Tony. “There’s a lot of blood.”
“We should have warned her,” Jeremy said.
“She wouldn’t have believed us,” Staci replied.
Tony handed her the towels. Staci began cleaning the wounds. Jeremy and Myron winced now that they could see them clearly.
“It looks like she barely hit the jugular,” Staci said, “That’s good. We probably got here just in time.”
She placed some of the dry towels over the wet ones.
“Jeremy, Myron, apply pressure. Tony, call 911!”
Tony looked around confused, and found the phone. “What do I tell them?”
“Whatever!” Staci said. “Tell them there’s a woman on the floor bleeding to death! That should get their attention!”
“Um,” Johnny said, “What about Vampirella over here?”
“We’ll be out of here before they arrive. We’re taking her with us,” Staci said.
“What?” Myron said, “We can’t! She’ll kill us!”
"I hate to agree with Myron,” Johnny said, “but from the way she’s looking at me I think he’s right.”
“Where’s your father Betty?” Staci asked, walking over to her.
“I wouldn’t get any closer,” Johnny said, holding the cross up higher.
“All right,” Tony said, “They’re on their way.”
“Where’s your father?” Staci repeated.
“Upstairs!” she spat.
“I’ll go look!” Tony volunteered.
2
Beneath the surface of this relatively quiet Massachusetts town, within the earth itself, was an entirely different reality than what most of humanity knew. One of which Betty’s saviors had only caught a glimpse of. This evening those that dwelled within the pit were restless. The candle sconces on the cavern walls illuminated two men.
“Did you get her Lucio?” the tall one questioned.
“No. There were others there, teenagers in her room, helping her,” Lucio said.
“Bah! She will realize who she is soon enough and come back to us herself.”
“But Marcus, she is just a little girl! She will expose us!”
“The Others have done more to that effect than that little girl can ever do, with their brazen attacks and insatiable appetites.”
“The Others,” Lucio echoed with disgust.
“Nevertheless,” Marcus added, “Perhaps we should try to retrieve her. That will entail taking out her new friends.”
“I’m on it.”
“Not by yourself you’re not. Take Arianna and Spangler.”
“Spangler? You’re sure you want me to take the American along for this job?”
“Yes, yes!” Marcus said. “I’m sure that you and Arianna can take care of this yourself, but should you need a little extra help, well… Spangler is expendable.”
“Ah,” Lucio understood.
“Try to get each one alone, or in pairs. Find their haunts, track them. And try not to be seen.”
“Right,” Lucio agreed.
Marcus glared at him, waiting. “GO!”
“Now?!”
“Yes, now! No time like the present, as the Americans are fond of saying.”
Lucio rushed past Marcus to a door leading to another chamber, and opened it. He proceeded down a narrow corridor into a room. Uneasy faces looked up at him. There were many here, hungry and eager for the hunt, but only two of them would be joining him tonight.
3
The girl couldn’t believe what horror she’d caused. Didn’t really understand it. She was only five. It was as if she was in a coma, and someone else was taking over her body as she slept. Betty couldn’t have expressed it in such words, but she knew something was terribly wrong. She saw the blood; and her mother and father as if she were outside herself.
Betty Leesburg saw her friends try to help her. She heard Staci saying, “Fight it! Fight it!” over and over again, but she wasn’t sure what she was fighting. The cross dangling in front of her frightened whatever it was inside her. It had never frightened Betty before. It had always been a source of comfort; her parents were devout Christians and recited the Lord’s Prayer with her every night.
She felt herself struggle, imaginary hands reaching. She was
trying to get past the hunger, but it was overwhelming. Betty had to look at her mother and force herself to remember why she loved her; why the sight of her laying in her friend’s arms, wrapped in bloody towels, blank-eyed, disturbed her.
“I think she’s coming through,” she heard Staci say.
4
Tony wasn’t sure what to expect when he walked into the parent’s upstairs bedroom. He was hoping it wouldn’t be what he thought. Turned out it was much worse. The father not only lay on the bed dead, his body had been twisted one way and his head another. His head was almost severed, hanging only by a few chords of sinew, the sheets bathed in blood. If not for the spots of white, red would have seemed to be the sheet’s natural color. A man, or what used to be a man, was leaning over the body, drinking from the stump of its neck, lapping up blood like a cat. Tony saw what they’d missed at the Rock Spot
. Yes, it was grey and bald and the fangs were ridiculously long. It wore no clothes, and whatever may have served as a phallus before was crude and malformed like a Picasso sketch. The entire frame was lanky, its limbs unnaturally elongated. When it looked up from its dinner and smiled at Tony it stood at least six and a half feet, its arms dangling past its knees, the fingers of its hands ending in five inch curled talons. Its eyes were bloodshot as if it was getting drunk off the victim’s blood.
“Well hello,” it hissed, its voice barely human.
“No,” Tony shook his head, “No.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” the beast said, “The girl didn’t do this, at least not all of it. She didn’t kill him, only took a little. Of course, she couldn’t resist inviting me in. The call of kin is undeniable. It’s what attracted me here.”
The creature extended out its arms and Tony saw skin
stretching beneath them, from its underarms to its side like webbing,
or a bat’s wings. Veins were visible through the translucent gray skin,
even with only the dim lighting of the bedside lamp to illuminate them.
“Would you like some?”
Tony backed away.
“Oh, come on boy, have a taste. Those big strong muscles need protein.”
“Go AWAY!” Tony said, making the sign of the cross with his fingers.
“HA!” the thing laughed. “That’s funny! Priceless! Couldn’t afford a real cross? Thank your stars I’m not hungry anymore. I’d have fun picking you apart.”
It turned toward the window, and flung itself through the opening.
5
“She is back,” Myron said.
“Oh man, she really is,” Jeremy agreed.
“You can stop waving that rosary in her face now Johnny.”
“What, you think I trust her?” Johnny said.
“Mama?” Betty started saying.
“Oh God,” Staci said, “Jeremy, get her out of here.”
“Mama?” Betty said. “Is she all right?”
“I’m on it.” Jeremy took her by the arm. “Come on sweetie. I’m going to take you outside.”
The Pit in the Woods: A Mercy Falls Mythos Page 22