by Dan Padavona
When Viper thought about the growing neighborhood of Florida Bliss, he suddenly felt concern.
What if Ricky or another group of thugs drives into the neighborhood with a truckload of weapons?
Viper put down the beer and stared at his motorcycle parked alongside the beach house.
“Maybe I should take a cruise past Florida Bliss. Just to put my mind at ease.”
The sea breeze skimmed a plume of sand off a distant dune, the tide pulling the evidence of departed vacationers out to sea.
From behind the dune, eyes watched in the night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Beast in the Woods
A fine line separates paranoia from acute vigilance. In the deepest pit of night, when thoughts of sunrise seemed no more than desperate hopes, Joshua Geldon lay awake, fingering the hilt of the dagger, hearing every rustling leaf, every owl’s hoot, every ghostly whisper of wind through tall grass. A canopy of low clouds smothered the moon, promising rain and cloaking the forest in darkness. A chill hung in the air that did not belong to the Midwestern night.
Hunkered down on a forested hill near the Illinois-Missouri border, he looked over at Severin, a shadow among shadows, seemingly asleep at the base of a thick hickory. Joshua knew Severin was awake. The man never slept when danger was near, and sometimes Joshua wondered if Severin slept at all.
In the time it takes for an eye to blink closed and open, the dagger glowed without aid of star or moonlight. Joshua moved into a crouch, gliding toward his silent partner. He wasn’t surprised when Severin whispered back at him.
“The beast has found us again?”
“The same. I can never throw it off our trail for long.”
“Is the eternal one—”
“No. I sense Lupan broke off the hunt long ago. But we will see him again, and this beast will track us to the ends of the earth.”
A mournful wind hollowed through the meadow, setting leaves into motion. Branches clicked together like brittle bones, meadow grass danced in the valley below, and something else moved through the night.
“It comes,” Joshua said, his eyes fixed on a snaking path plunging out of the copse and into the valley. The dagger pulsed with heat.
“Then we end this battle before dawn breaks.”
Glaring into the thick blanket of shadow, Joshua wondered if dawn would ever arrive. The beast had pursued them since Friday night in Okbeth. Several times, wading through cold streams where the monster could not follow their scent, climbing over stout congestions of bramble that should have slowed their pursuer, they thought they lost the beast. Yet the abomination always remained a mile or so behind, prowling through the wilderness, its huge paws imprinting deeply into the soft earth. Joshua wished they were near a city or township. Battling the beast would be far easier amid human-built structures, where they could conceal themselves inside buildings, waiting for the monster to pad its way down high-visibility streets. Here, he felt they wandered in the beast’s territory.
Brush within the valley crackled under heavy weight. The beast became brazen now, not bothering to cloak its pursuit. Joshua slipped deeper into the copse, watching as Severin stood against the hickory, the silent assassin nearly invisible. But Lupan’s beast did not require sight to track them; it hunted by scent. That, Joshua reasoned, might be the monster’s downfall. By separating, they forced the beast to track two disparate scents, dividing its attention between Joshua and Severin.
Now there was nothing to do but wait for the inevitable. The thinly-worn path out of the copse rendered barely discernible in the pitch black, weeds and grass hemming in the path, as venerable trees grew into the night like guards to a forgotten tomb.
For a long time, only the moaning wind and the phantom rustle of fauna disturbed the silence. Seconds ticked into minutes. The night became a taut cord, stretched ever tighter by tension. And still the beast did not show itself.
Where are you? Severin thought as he gripped the dagger. The weapon’s hilt pulsed between inferno heat and the chill of winter. Trees swayed in the building wind as though laughing.
A fallen branch snapped in front of him, filling Joshua with a sense of amazement. Somehow the humongous monster had stalked to within several feet of him without so much as a whisper of sound. As he lifted the dagger, he saw the beast’s eyes, twin pyres burning through the gloom. The beast lunged forward and leaped, snarling. Its rancid breath made him nauseous, and he imagined its misshapen fangs, twisted and hooked, dripping with blood.
He lunged sideways, slicing the dagger across the monster’s torso. But the beast was too fast, and its razor talons cut deep into his shoulder as he spun out of the way. The monster crashed into the brush, baying into the black sky, something between a wolf’s howl and an ogre’s bellow. Already it turned back for him, clawing at the earth like a bull, spraying dirt and rock into the copse.
A dark form darted through the trees and angled back toward them. Severin. The beast noticed Severin, too, and as its eyes centered on Severin, Joshua ducked below a bramble hedge and circled around the abomination.
Joshua plunged the dagger into the beast’s hide. The beast howled and twisted. Its hulking girth struck Joshua in the shoulder, sending him reeling into the trees. He fell back into the brush, his head narrowly missing a thick trunk. Panic welled up through his chest when he realized he no longer held the dagger. The weapon protruded from the monster’s torso, and though the dagger was anathema to the beast, if the weapon fell as the beast bucked wildly through the brush, the monster would be free, and Joshua might not locate the dagger before the beast destroyed them. Branches snapped like cherry bombs, and small trees tumbled over as the monster lumbered through the copse, delirious with pain and bloodlust. Joshua could no longer see the beast; he only heard its pursuit of Severin.
Shaking the cobwebs out of his head as he pulled himself up, Joshua ran toward the maddened sounds, hoping he would be quick enough to retrieve the dagger and stop the beast from escaping. Three gunshots interrupted the wind, flashing beyond the tree line. Joshua knew Severin’s bullets would never kill the monster, but they might slow the beast long enough for him to arrive before the beast slaughtered Severin.
As Joshua pushed through the trees into a clearing which descended into the valley, he saw the hulking silhouette of the hobbled beast stumbling toward a row of bushes. The bullets had struck the monster with impossible precision in each front leg, slowing the monster but not stopping it. The beast charged at the bushes, the earth thundering beneath its injured gait. Joshua’s breath caught in his throat—the monster had found Severin. The monster leaped into the air, its jaws opening wide, the dagger no longer jammed into its hide.
But when the beast landed, crushing the shrubs and scattering dirt and stone, it spun in a circle, confused. Its prey had vanished.
Suddenly Severin sprang out from the thicket. The bullet wounds healed along the beast’s legs, but as it charged back at Severin, he raised the silver Colt 1911 and fired two shots. Each shot exploded like cannon fire and brought forth a hideous squeal from the monster. Joshua did not require light to know where the bullets struck, for Severin never missed his mark. Blood trickled out from where the beast’s eyes had been. The monstrosity stumbled about blindly, snorting and howling, desperate to find its prey. The debilitation would not last long, for the weapons of men were ineffective against Lupan’s monsters. Soon the wounds would heal, and the beast’s sight would return. Joshua needed to move fast and end the battle while the opportunity existed, but upon the darkened hillside, the dagger seemed impossible to locate.
“Joshua,” Severin said in warning. Joshua saw Severin moving in wide arcs through the meadow grass, trying to confuse the monster. The beast’s head followed him with increasing precision; its sight gradually returned.
Ducking low, Joshua ran down the hillside, the swish of his boots through the grass temporarily distracting the beast. He followed a path of matted grass which marked where the monster had emer
ged out of the copse. The dagger had to be along this path, but Joshua could not see it.
Joshua watched Severin aim the Colt 1911. The beast’s head held steady now, its glowing eyes healed. If Severin shot the monster again, would it make a difference? Would it do anything more than buy them another minute before the beast recovered and tore them apart?
“The dagger, Joshua.”
But Joshua could not find the dagger. Amid the building gale, the monster’s baleful grunts, and the shrinking distance between the beast and Severin, Joshua felt something he never experienced—panic. He had lost control of the situation.
Filtering out the madness of battle, Joshua closed his eyes and let the wind buffet his skin. The gale sounded fierce in his ears, like waves slamming a shoreline. Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes until he saw in his mind a recreated vision of the hillside in the light of day, the tall grass yielding to the wind, the flattened growth stark against the slope. And then he saw the dagger—a glint of silvery light within a tangle of weeds several yards up the incline. His eyes popped open, his vision piercing the gloom to give clarity to the night.
A gunshot exploded behind him. The monster bellowed, unaffected.
Joshua climbed the terrain, sensing the dagger before he spotted it, just as he once had on the back roads of western Texas. But time ticked against him. Already the beast recovered from the bullet, centering its eyes on Severin. Exactly as his vision revealed, the dagger lay tangled within a weed clump, its deadly point lodged in dirt. Pulling the dagger free, he felt undefinable power surge through him. As he rushed into the battle, the darkness appeared to recede from him, as though the light of day followed him down the slope.
Severin rolled away from the beast when Joshua arrived, firing a shot that ripped past the monster’s open jaws and tore a hole through its mouth. The monster bellowed and twisted away, leaving the side of its torso open to Joshua. He buried the dagger into the beast’s hide, this time gripping the hilt and shoving the weapon deeper. The monster thrashed and squealed, its flesh burning with rancid smoke as the dagger pulsed with light. But the beast was much stronger than the others had been, and Joshua felt the dagger slipping free.
“Shoot its legs!”
Joshua was blind to night, blind to the hillside, blind to everything but the massive girth of the monster. The Colt reloaded, Severin shot the beast twice, and again he did not miss despite the cloak of darkness and the thrashing target. Feeling the beast stumble, Joshua threw his shoulder into its torso. The monster tumbled sideways into the grass, Joshua leaping astride and burying the dagger deeper. Blood spurted out of the wound, the beast’s howls becoming shrill wails in the blustery night. Now the dagger seemed to dig into the beast on its own, seeking to snuff out the abomination’s life. It was all Joshua could do to keep his grasp on the weapon, fearing it would descend into the hide and be lost inside the monster.
The beast’s thrashing slowed. The glow of its eyes paled, twin candles burned to the wick and flickering out. Then the monster’s chest heaved and trembled. Its breathing ceased. The monster stared lifelessly down toward the meadow.
Joshua pulled the dagger free and collapsed. His arms shook, and his legs seemed unwilling to support him yet. Severin surveyed the beast, always vigilant, never leaving anything to chance. When he was convinced the threat had ended, Severin knelt next to Joshua and placed a hand on his.
“You did well.”
Joshua nodded. “As did you.”
But as his eyes drifted north, where the heart of night’s darkness pooled, he felt a cold chill in his bones. A larger battle was coming, one he could not win on his own.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ouija Boards and Water Glasses
Tori awoke at five minutes past ten to the moon’s face in the window and the hoot of an owl. They both startled her. The moon’s eyes appeared to widen as it looked upon her, and she thought, I’m the real monster, aren’t I?
She climbed out of bed and pulled the window shut. The shadowy figures of three adults stood across the street near the community center. As they said their goodbyes and walked back toward their houses, she recognized one of the men as Mitch Bloom. She felt relieved that the blind man, Lance Benin, was not among them. She instantly felt guilty for thinking such a thing, but the way Lance had stared at her earlier unsettled her.
How can he stare at me if he’s blind? It’s like he can sense what is inside of me.
He knows I am a monster. Somehow, he knows.
She padded lightly across the floor and peered into the hallway, where Blake’s steady breathing drifted from down the corridor. Without a sound, she slipped down the hallway and pulled Blake’s bedroom door closed. She paused, afraid he would awaken. When she felt certain he was sound asleep, she sneaked back to her bedroom and shut the door behind her. After twisting the lock, she returned to the window and pulled down the shade.
Alone, and hidden from prying eyes, she sat cross-legged on the floor, her fingers tugging nervously at the bottom of her shirt.
Several paces away rested a glass of water on the floor. Eyes closed, Tori rubbed her temples.
Why am I doing this? I don’t want it to work. I don’t want any of this at all.
When she opened her eyes, the glass was still there, looking dumbly back at her. Condensation droplets trickled down the exterior, forming a ringlet of moisture on the carpet.
How do I begin?
Sitting there in the quietude and secrecy of her locked bedroom, Tori remembered when Missy Alanson, one of her friends from the varsity tennis team, had persuaded Tori and several other girls to play with a Ouija board at a sleepover. They had all placed their hands on a wooden heart-shaped planchette and moved it around the board, while one girl asked questions to dead musicians from their favorite bands. While Missy asked Kurt Cobain if he liked the new Foo Fighters CD, Tori felt the planchette nudged toward Yes and No by the other girls.
Now Tori thought she was acting just as stupidly as her friends had at the sleepover. Amid the blank walls of the unfamiliar bedroom, breathing in the smell of recently-installed carpeting, she might just as well have been a clueless girl with a Ouija board, summoning binary answers from the undead. But as she concentrated on the glass, an air bubble disturbed the water.
I didn’t make that happen. That was just an ordinary air bubble rising to the surface—
The water rippled again, and this time a flurry of bubbles gushed upward as though the glass was heated from below.
Tori put her hand to her mouth and bit her thumb—hard enough to break the skin. She looked down at the scarlet outlines of her front teeth embedded into her flesh. There was no mistaking she had caused the water to roil. At once, she felt a sense of achievement and absolute horror.
Was this how I murdered the men at the amusement park?
She pictured one victim’s bloody remains, his body turned inside out, his insides cooked. Feeling nauseous, she cupped her hand over her mouth and choked back a gag.
And his partner. She had flung him across the carnival grounds into the wall of a souvenir shop.
Except she didn’t recall killing anyone. All there had been was a wall of light in front her eyes and hatred burning through her body. The men had tried to kill Blake and Tori, just as Jacob Mann and Mickey Keller had attempted to kill her days before. She relived the raindrops, soaking her clothes and running in rivulets down her face. She saw the thugs centering their guns.
She heard Jacob’s whisper from behind the living room curtains in Red Oak—
“Torrriiiiiii…”
—and saw Mickey’s wild eyes before he plunged his tongue into her ear and placed a hooked knife in front of her eye.
The glass shot across the bedroom. Tori gasped as the glass exploded against the wall. A water stain and a chip in the plaster marked where the glass had struck. Shards of glass lay in the corner of the room.
Blake called her name. His hurried footsteps approached her locked bedroom doo
r, a quaver in his voice.
“Are you okay, Tori?”
“I’m fine. Everything is all right,” she said through sobs.
Quiet filled the hallway, and then he spoke again. “What was that sound?”
“Nothing…I mean…I just dropped a glass.”
“You sound like you’ve been crying.”
“I’m okay, Blake. Really. It’s just been a long week. Go back to bed. I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you in the morning.”
His footsteps trailed off down the hallway, and when she didn’t hear his door close, she knew he purposely left it open so he could listen. It was warm inside the bedroom, but it was more than heat that raised a sticky sweat over her arms and legs. The magic—if that was what her cursed power was—brought forth panic and revulsion, leaving her shirt clinging damply against her body.
She fell onto the bed and cried into the pillow. If she could have had one wish, it would have been that her mother be there to stroke the hair away from Tori’s eyes and tell her everything would be okay.
I’m nothing but a monster. My mother would be terrified of me. I shouldn’t be alive.
It was a long time before Tori fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Boogeyman Escapes
Lightning tore the night sky like dragons’ claws, momentarily giving light to the darkened corridors of the school. A push broom stood propped around the corner, leaned against a metal drinking fountain. Pressed behind a row of lockers, Jacob Mann peered around the corner, waiting and listening. Metallic clangs and a scraping sound traveled down the hallway, originating from the cafeteria, where Rob Humphrey stayed late to clean up after dinner. Jacob’s hand slipped against his pants pocket, feeling the steak knife.
A half hour had passed since Victor Lupan, his face a mask of raging hatred, stormed down the hallway and out the double doors. No one wanted to be around when Lupan became angry; though Jacob kept to himself the murders of Masters and Harsted, the huge men were not easily missed within the compound. People had begun to talk in hushed tones, wondering what Lupan had done with them. So when Lupan roared in anger, a demon’s bellow ringing through the corridors, the workers quickly evacuated and returned to the hotel complex across the road.