“What exactly did he tell you?” Aaron asked.
“He did not reveal much to me.” The priest reached for the door handle and stopped short of turning the knob. “The boy has a troubled soul. That, I can tell you.”
Father Sotoro opened the door, revealing a small room with a rusted metal desk and a couch that resembled something you’d find at a yard sale. Aaron had misjudged Saint Michael’s. He had expected more impressive décor in the head priest’s office to match the rest of the expensive architecture. It was a bit humbling, but it didn’t change his overall opinion about organized religion. They still weren’t getting any of his hard-earned money.
The priest raised an open hand toward the couch where Cody slept. “I tried to wake him, but he appears to be in a deep sleep. The poor child was exhausted.”
“We appreciate you taking care of him, Father,” Sergeant Henderson said. “You mentioned something about a curse. What do you mean by that?”
“Let’s not bother the man with that,” Aaron said, while giving Cody a gentle shake. “Time to go home, Cody.”
“Don’t you want to know what Father Sotoro and Cody discussed when he arrived?”
“Um… they have that whole priest-patron confidentiality thing. Forget it. I just want to get Cody home.”
Cody whimpered and jerked his head from one side to the other. His eyes twitched underneath his eyelids. He rolled over on his side, muttered something incoherent, and rolled back around. “No,” he mumbled. “No, don’t,” he whimpered and became even more restless on the couch.
Father Sotoro gazed at Cody and held a tight grip on the large ornate cross hanging from his neck. He closed his eyes and prayed in silence.
“Something feels very wrong here,” Henderson said, while taking a step back from the couch. “What’s going on, Aaron?”
“You need to call Richard. Call him right now.” Aaron grabbed Cody’s shoulders and shook him. “Wake up, Cody. Come on, son. Wake up!”
†
Agent Stone reached inside his jacket. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Yes, I do.” Maria pointed across the living room to the front door. “But you can smoke outside.”
“Mom,” Samantha said from the hallway. “I’m getting hungry.” Maria looked over her shoulder. “We’ll eat in a little bit, Sam. Now go back to your room while I speak to these gentlemen.”
Samantha complained, but she obeyed and shut her door in a manner that wasn’t quite a slam, but close to it.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Sanders,” Agent Kelson said, “but, as I mentioned before, our investigation has uncovered details that need a follow up. We’ve interviewed many of the students at your daughter’s school and—”
“Aaron didn’t seem to trust that this was just a routine visit,” Maria said, as Agent Stone got up from the couch with a pack of cigarettes in his hand. “What is this really about?”
“I assure you, Mrs. Sanders, there is nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Then why is he here?” She pointed to the Sheriff, who was sitting in Aaron’s recliner.
“I may have given the FBI the lead on this investigation,” Sheriff Donovan said, “but this here is still my town. Just making sure they behave. That’s all.”
Agent Kelson glanced at Sheriff Donovan. “Anyway, the sooner we can talk to your daughter, the sooner we’ll be out of your hair and you can enjoy your dinner.”
†
“He’s not answering his phone,” Henderson said, and dialed again. “Will you please tell me what’s going on?”
Cody spoke in tongues, whimpering between incomprehensible sentences. His voice changed, deepened, as he spoke in an unknown language. It wasn’t Latin. It was a dialect Aaron hadn’t heard before.
The priest switched from silent prayer to vocalizing his communication with God. He prayed in Latin, and with his eyes closed, stepped closer to Cody. He made the sign of the cross with his right hand over the couch.
The door slammed shut behind Aaron and Sergeant Henderson. They both jumped, but it didn’t interrupt the priest’s prayers. A minute later, he fell to his knees as Cody’s voice rose above his. Henderson knelt next to him and placed a hand on the old man’s back. Aaron grabbed the doorknob behind him, twisted, and pulled on it. It wouldn’t budge.
Father Sotoro’s voice faded. His body slouched. He pressed his right hand over the left side of his chest and moaned. Cody screamed and shook frantically on the couch. Aaron rushed over to him and tried to wake him. Cody flailed his arms and scratched Aaron on the cheek. His screams continued.
Father Sotoro collapsed.
†
Agent Kelson placed a photo of a medieval style axe on the coffee table in front of Samantha. “Have you ever seen this axe before?”
She lifted the photo, studied it for a moment, and shook her head.
“No? Are you sure?”
“She’s never seen it,” Maria said. “Now, can we move on?”
Agent Kelson exhaled a breath of air through his nostrils and glanced at Sheriff Donovan. “Mrs. Sanders, we have a witness and video evidence that—”
The front door opened. Agent Kelson and Maria turned towards the entrance. It was Cody.
“Oh, thank God!” Maria got up from her recliner, rushed towards Cody, and hugged him. “Where in heavens have you been?”
“Nowhere,” he said, and nodded towards the Sheriff and Agent Kelson. “Is that why they’re here?”
“No. It’s for something else.” Maria grabbed her phone off the kitchen counter. “I need to call Aaron and let him know you’re home safe.” She pointed a stern finger at Cody. “And don’t ever disappear like that again, okay? You had us worried sick.”
“Yes, mother,” he said, and smiled at Samantha. “I promise.”
†
Henderson pressed his fingers against the priest’s neck. “There’s no pulse.”
Aaron’s phone rang. “Call dispatch. We need an ambulance and someone to get this door open.” He checked the Caller ID on his phone and answered it. “Maria, listen to me. I’ve got Cody with me and… Hello? Maria?”
“Aaron… we…” Maria’s voice cut in and out through the bad connection. “…ody… ome… I… Aaron? Can you… me?”
The phone beeped three times and disconnected the call.
“Damn it!” Aaron dialed his wife again, but he kept getting a NO SERVICE message on his phone. “Son of a bitch. Hey, Scott, can you get a call through?”
Scott held his hand out. “I’m on with Dispatch.” He requested an ambulance at Saint Michael’s Catholic Church and informed the dispatch operator of Father Sotoro’s heart attack. “He’s not breathing… Yes… No, we’re stuck inside his office… I don’t know. The door won’t budge… Okay, but… All right. We’ll be waiting.”
Aaron held his hand out towards Henderson. “I need your phone.”
Scott handed him the phone and informed him that the ambulance was on its way.
“That’s great,” Aaron said, while he dialed his wife’s number. The call went directly to her voice mail.
Cody screamed. Tears dropped from underneath his eyelids.
Aaron and Sergeant Henderson jerked their heads towards Cody, then glanced at each other. Aaron dropped the phone and pulled on the door several times and beat on the surface with the flat of his fist.
“Hey! Somebody! We need help!”
Sergeant Henderson knelt next to the priest and attempted to revive him with CPR. Aaron watched him pump the old man’s chest and then focused on the gun on his hip.
“Your gun,” he said.
“What?”
“Your gun. Give me your gun.”
“For what?”
“To shoot the lock out. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Help is coming. We’ll be fine.”
Cody screamed again. “No!”
Aaron checked on Cody. His body twisted. His legs kicked. His hands clawed at the cushions. Aaron turned back to Sergea
nt Henderson. “I’m not worried about us. Now give me the goddamned gun!”
Henderson unbuttoned the holster and held the gun out to Aaron.
“Cover your ears,” Aaron warned, and aimed the gun at the door lock. He held one hand over his left ear, lifted his right shoulder, and tilted his head towards it. “Ready?”
Henderson covered his ears and shouted, “Go!”
Aaron fired two shots and shook his head. Even after covering his ears, they rang. Henderson shook his head and widened his eyes. Maybe firing a gun in such a small space hadn’t been such a good idea after all. He pulled on the door, but it still didn’t budge. He fired two more shots without warning. Still nothing.
“Damn it!” Aaron cursed, with one hand over his ear. He shook his head again and ran his finger over one of hinges. He darted his eyes around the small office.
“What are you thinking? And whatever you do, don’t fire that gun again.” He held his hand out. “Give it back.”
Aaron handed the gun back to Henderson. “We can get those hinges off if we can find something to… there.” Aaron pointed at the priest.
“What about him?”
Cody finally stopped screaming, but still mumbled and moaned. Aaron glanced at him and then removed the ornate cross necklace from Father Sotoro’s neck. “We can use this as a chisel and your gun as a hammer to knock the bolts off the hinges.”
Henderson flipped the safety switch on his gun and hit the large gold cross with the handle while Aaron directed the piece of jewelry into the space between the bolt and hinge. It was working. As they freed one bolt from the hinge, someone banged on the door from the other side.
“You in there, Scott?” Deputy Copeland yelled from the other side of the door.
“Yeah, I’m here!”
“We got reports of shots fired!”
“That was just us trying to shoot the lock off! We’re working on the hinges now!”
“We’ve got firemen and paramedics here! They’ll get you out soon! How’s the priest?”
Henderson looked back at the old man on the floor. “Not good!”
“Tim, this is Aaron! I think my family is in danger! I need you to go to my house and check on them!”
“Danger? From what?”
Sergeant Henderson also had a curious look on his face. “I don’t have time to explain! Please, just go!”
“Dilbecky’s on patrol! I’ll send her!”
“No,” Henderson said, glancing at Aaron. “You go! That’s an order!”
“Ten-four! I’m on my way!” Deputy Copeland yelled back. “I’ll call you when I get there!”
“Thank you, Tim!” Aaron yelled.
Scott banged on the cross with his gun several times, but the stubborn bolt wouldn’t budge. “Want to tell me why I sent Tim to your house? Richard and the FBI agents are already there.”
“Just help me get this damn hinge off, so we can get out of here.”
Henderson struck the cross a few more times and then it snapped in two.
“Damn it!” Aaron yelled and threw the fragment he still had in his hand against the wall.
“Step back away from the door,” a voice came from the other side. “We’re going to ram it.”
Aaron and Scott stepped away towards the couch where Cody lay. He stopped moaning, but his body was still restless. After several loud bangs, the door burst open, still hanging from its stubborn hinge. A firefighter and two paramedics entered the room. The paramedics immediately tended to the priest in an attempt to revive him. One of them asked about Cody.
“He’s fine,” Aaron said, and picked him up. “We’ve got to go,” he said to Sergeant Henderson.
“You should take Cody to the hospital for observation.”
“No, he’s coming home with me.”
“Aaron, I don’t think—”
“He’s not going to the hospital. Now, are you coming or what?”
Henderson focused his attention on a paramedic carrying a stretcher into the church. “No, I’d better stay here and deal with this.” He helped Aaron rest Cody into the front seat of the Corvette.
“I wish you’d tell me what’s going on. Who do you think you’re protecting your family from?”
Aaron stepped into the driver’s seat. As he started the engine he said, “Not who, Scott. What.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Breaking Point
Aaron sped through intersections, ignoring red traffic lights and stop signs. He narrowly missed slamming into the side of a delivery truck as he charged out of town. The needle on the speedometer bounced at eighty-five while the engine roared, pushing the old Corvette to a much higher rate of speed than the instrument gauged.
Aaron maneuvered around traffic on the two-lane highway and approached an eighteen-wheeler head on. He swerved back into his lane just in time, ignoring the blaring horn of the big rig as it traveled past in the other direction. Cody remained unconscious and secured in the passenger seat, his head bobbing as Aaron negotiated the traffic.
The back end of the Corvette swung around and fishtailed as Aaron forced the car onto the long gravel driveway leading to his home. The car skidded to a stop behind the cluster of vehicles parked in front of the house. Flashing emergency strobe lights on Deputy Copeland’s cruiser trickled through the dust cloud and reflected off the windows of the house and other vehicles.
Aaron reached in front of Cody and opened the glove compartment, pulling out his personal Glock 38 pistol, and dropping a small flashlight onto the floorboard. He rushed out of the car, leaving the door open and the engine idling.
“Maria!” he yelled, while dashing up the steps and into the house. The lights were off except for one beam of light coming from Samantha’s bedroom. He yelled her name and tripped over something on the floor, falling hard on his chest and knocking the breath out of him. His gun bounced off the hardwood floor and slid down the hallway.
Someone gasped for air nearby. It was a faint, gurgling breath, but it was there. He listened for a moment and found the silhouette of a body on the floor a few feet away.
“Aaron… help… me,” the voice said.
Aaron gulped and steadied his breathing. Broken shards of glass cut into his hand as he reached for the lamp by the end table next to the couch. It wasn’t there. Aaron winced while he pushed himself off the floor. He stumbled toward the dark kitchen and flipped the light switch.
The globe overhead lit up the kitchen and part of the living room. Sheriff Donovan and Agent Kelson sat motionless at the kitchen table. They were both dead. The Sheriff’s shirt was painted in blood from a four-inch slit in his neck. Agent Kelson’s body was slouched with his head tilted back. He had a single gunshot wound in his forehead. Aaron peered at the Sheriff’s hip. His holster was empty.
“Help…” the raspy and weak voice on the floor pleaded again.
Aaron turned around. It was Deputy Copeland, lying face down in a pool of his own blood. He glanced down the hall, where a dim light shone from Samantha’s bedroom. He glanced back at the dying man on the floor and pursed his lips. He then moved towards the hallway, but stopped, turning back and kneeling beside Deputy Copeland. He turned him on his side, revealing several stab wounds in his stomach.
He attempted to call for help with Copeland’s radio, but all he got was static. No response. He tried again on Sheriff Donovan’s radio, announcing officers were down and giving his location. Deputy Copeland died moments later, his eyes staring at Aaron as he called for help. Aaron ran his hands over them and closed them. His heart raced and blood pumped through his veins with vigor. He needed to find his wife and stepdaughter.
Aaron picked his gun up from the floor and pulled the slide back, loading a bullet in the chamber. He stood outside of Samantha’s bedroom and stared at the door knob. The door was cracked open about an inch.
“Samantha?”
Gunshots erupted outside.
Aaron ran through the house, jumping over Deputy Copeland’s body,
and rushed outside. He stood on the porch with his gun poised out in front of him. He scanned the area in front of the house and listened. The Corvette engine rumbled, still idling with Cody asleep inside it. Aaron shut off the engine and listened for movement while using the vehicles for cover.
Another gunshot. Aaron crawled into the car and grabbed the flashlight from the floorboard. He slammed the driver’s side door and went into the field, swaying his flashlight beam in different directions. He couldn’t see it, but there was a distinct sound of an axe whooshing through the air and hitting something soft. Then his light revealed someone wearing a hooded tunic, swinging the axe towards the ground.
Aaron pointed his gun at the hooded assailant. “Freeze!”
It turned its head towards him and ducked into the tall grass. It reappeared a few seconds later and threw something round at him. It landed in the grass a few yards to his right. It was all the perpetrator needed to distract Aaron long enough for it to disappear again into the overgrowth.
“Son of a bitch!”
Aaron moved slowly towards the area where the object had landed, stopping every few seconds to listen for movement. The only rustling came from his own feet, which kicked something on the ground… the severed head of Agent Terrance Stone.
Sirens wailed from Deputy Copeland’s cruiser and the FBI sedan. The horns from every vehicle on the property joined the loud vehicular orchestra, along with blaring heavy metal music through the mobile speakers. The sirens, horns, and music stopped as soon as Aaron approached his car. The passenger side door was open. Cody was gone.
“Cody?” Aaron checked around the property, shining his light in all directions. “Where are you?”
Glass shattered from inside the house. Aaron held his gun low and stood next to the front door before poking his head inside.
“Cody? Are you in here?” He eased forward. “Maria? Samantha?”
Devil's Nightmare: Premonitions (Devil's Nightmare, Book 2) Page 42