Ash: Return of the Beast

by Gary Tenuta

  “Nothing here, either. Where the hell is that room where we found the urn and all that demonic crap? That’s where he’s got to be, right? That’s where he does his ritual shit and projects the Doppelganger, right? But where the hell is it?”

  Ravenwood shook her head. “It has to be on the ground floor but I didn’t see anything like it when I checked the rooms off the hall.”

  Then they looked at each other: The tunnel.

  ***

  At the center of the Lucifer Seal, surrounded by the dancing light of all nine candles, Rye Cowl sat transfixed, sweating, his heart pounding. His sweet revenge was only moments away. The long journey was about to end. His ‘Someday’ had arrived.

  Deep within the shadows of Cowl’s poor distorted soul, the essence of the Beast was waiting patiently for its own moment. The former Rodney Duckworth didn’t realize that the glory of his ‘Someday’ would be short-lived, a mere flicker of light to be swallowed immediately by the gaping mouth of eternal darkness. The musician had sold his soul to the Devil and the Beast was about to take total possession. Whatever Rodney Duckworth had been, whatever Rye Cowl had been, neither would ever be again.

  ***

  In the black depths of the Underworld, the demons at the Gate were also waiting. In frenzied fits of madness, they snapped and tore at each other like caged animals, starving for food, restless and reveling in visions of carnage. Their release was imminent. They could smell it.

  CHAPTER 72

  Trail’s End Trailer Park…

  The old pastor’s weak resolve had given in to the torturous pain of the branding. Now, scarred by the sign of Lucifer’s Seal on his forehead, his rotting soul was caving in, crumbling under the weight of guilt and shame.

  The righteous Reverend Pete Kane had given up the lives of Sarah, her mother, and everyone else in the world to save his own life––the same deplorable life he’d tried to snuff out earlier, fueled by the same cowardly motivation: the fear of facing what he knew he had coming.

  Now he found himself sinking into a mire of utter confusion. On the one hand, he felt relief that the Beast was going to let him live. On the other hand, he wanted to die. He wanted to die but he wanted to live. Either way would be hell. He knew that. But death would surely hurl him into the burning pit of the real Hell, the screaming Hell of Dante’s Inferno, the God-forsaken Hell of the Holy Bible. Oh, yes. He knew it well. For years he’d etched its image into the minds of the sinners in his congregation. He’d reveled in some perverse, ego-inflating pleasure as he watched the sheep shifting uncomfortably in the pews while he blasted them with his hellfire-and-brimstone sermons and threatened them with the promise of the agony of eternal damnation if they didn’t adhere to the rules of the Word. At least now he’d found some form of relief, knowing he’d escaped that very fate for himself. Whatever kind of hell on earth was coming at the behest of this hooded creature, it couldn’t possibly be worse than the alternative into which he’d nearly cast himself, had the bullet not missed its mark. Besides, the hooded figure had promised him protection… sanctuary, he’d called it. It had been a strange turn of events. Death had rejected him and Life had called him back. It must have been God’s will.

  For reasons he could not fathom, God had granted mercy on his soul. He’d been given a second chance. God had a plan for him, an opportunity for redemption. But what could it be? It would have to be something enormous. Then a glorious thought filled his head: maybe he was destined to save the world from the Evil that was coming. It was an insane idea and he knew it. It seemed impossible. Still, he reminded himself, The Lord does move in mysterious ways, His miracles to perform. At that moment, the old man understood. It had all been for a reason. Everything in his entire life––in spite of the way it may have seemed––had been leading up to this. That realization sparked a glimmer of hope, a tiny light that was growing brighter with each passing moment. The Lord had chosen him for something special. He was saved.

  The Doppelganger laughed. “Oh, my dear Pastor Pete. You poor, deluded son of a bitch. Open your bathrobe and close your eyes. This is going to hurt like hell.”

  The old man couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He gazed up at the hooded figure. Wh-what? No! This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. You promised. You said I could live. You said–– Even as he was projecting his protests he found himself loosening the belt of his bathrobe and letting the robe fall open against his own will. We made a deal. You said––

  “I lied. You’re fucked.”

  What?

  “Well, okay, maybe not yet. But you will be. First I have some more decorating to do.”

  CHAPTER 73

  Moorehouse Manor…

  Kane raced down the stairs into the living room with Ravenwood on his tail. He stopped short at the front door, not expecting it to be closed. “Did you shut this door after you let me in?”

  “I don’t think so. No.”

  Kane turned the knob and gave it a tug but the door wouldn’t open. He glanced at Ravenwood and tried again. He checked the bolt. It wasn’t locked. He tried again but it wouldn’t budge. “Was it stuck like this when you opened it to let me in?”

  She shook her head, no. “The window.” She moved quickly to the broken window, released the latch, raised it up and crawled out with Kane following close behind.

  ***

  The Doppelganger’s finger slowly and meticulously traced out the sigil of Kutulu upon Pastor Pete’s pasty white flesh, burning it from the inside out. Every muscle in the old man’s face rippled from the pain. Inside his head, his own stifled screams were deafening.

  “Kutulu!” the Doppelganger called out. “Ninth and final Offspring of the Old Ones! Fire of the Earth!”

  The old man’s wet eyes bulged from their sockets.

  The Doppelganger’s voice grew louder. “O, sleeping demon! Thou who dost hold the power of all Magick! Soon I will awaken thee! This is your sign! I give you this soul, this sacrifice, knowing thou shalt spare me when thou dost rise from thy slumber!”

  Pastor Pete’s pulse was pounding, his heart pumping to the point of bursting as he prayed for death.

  The hooded figure laughed. “Your prayer is about to be answered, you fucking little child-molesting maggot. On your hands and knees. Now!”

  ***

  The darkness of the night seemed thicker than normal as Kane and Ravenwood made their way across the mansion’s long back yard, heading toward the garden shed.

  Kane took the flashlight and shined it on the shed door while Ravenwood tried to open it. “C’mon,” he said. “What’s the problem?”

  “It’s stuck.”

  “Shit.” He nudged her aside, handed her the flashlight and tried it himself. He pulled the latch with such force it should have torn the door off its hinges. “The hell is it with the doors around here?”

  Just as he was reaching for the handle to try it again, the door flew open by itself. He jumped back and let loose with a string of curses. He looked at Ravenwood.

  She returned the look. “After you,” she said.

  His foot barely crossed the threshold when a tsunami of rats came flowing out––hundreds of the hideous things, crawling over each other, screeching like a horde of tiny banchees. The force of the wave swept Ravenwood off her feet. She let out a shriek. The flashlight went flying as she hit the ground with a swarm of rodents scrambling over her body. Three and four deep, the swarm covered her, crawling over her face, smothering her screams. She flailed her arms and struggled to get up but the rats kept coming. She cried out. “Get ‘em off!”

  Kane scrambled over to where the flashlight had landed, grabbed it up, ran back to Ravenwood and began swinging it back and forth like a warrior wielding a club, beating the monsters off of her. He seized her hand and yanked her up. Then, as soon as she was on her feet, it was over.

  Kane scanned the yard with the light but the creatures were gone, vanished into the night as if they’d never existed.

  He suddenly
realized he was still holding Ravenwood’s hand. He let go and brushed her hair out of her face. “You all right?”

  She shuddered. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “That was fucking weird.”

  “Crowley. Had to be Crowley. He’s trying to stop us.”

  “Yeah? Well, we’ll see about that,” Kane said, drawing his gun. “You ready?”

  Ravenwood brushed herself off and drew her own gun. She took a deep breath and let it go. “Like I said. After you.”

  ***

  Pastor Pete expelled his final gasp of life in the midst of receiving his ultimate humiliation. His abused body collapsed under the weight of the Hooded Figure and lay sprawled out on the floor like a wrinkled old dead thing washed up onto a deserted shore.

  The Hooded Figure stood up, arms raised victoriously, and then slowly faded into the aether.

  At the center of the Lucifer Seal, Rodney Duckworth rose to his feet, exploding with rapture. He laughed loudly as tears of joy streamed down his face. It was a moment of glory beyond anything he’d imagined. Revenge was so goddamned fucking sweet!

  Then he heard a voice inside his head.

  Feels good, yes?

  Cowl laughed, exuberantly. “Good? Are you kidding? It feels great. I could die right now and I wouldn’t care.”

  I’m glad to hear you say that.

  “What?”

  You’ve had your moment as promised, your revenge, your Someday. Now it’s time for you to leave.

  “Leave? What do you mean, leave?”

  Your body… your soul. They’re mine, now. You’re moving out. I’m moving in. Simple as that.

  “What? No!”

  Oh yes.

  “Wait!”

  Say goodbye, Rodney Duckworth.

  ***

  The old tire swing, hanging from the huge chestnut tree, suddenly swayed gently back and forth in the cool night breeze. Inside the house, Lieutenant Brian Kane’s daughter and her mother were asleep in their beds, blissfully unaware of the nightmare that was about to invade their home.

  CHAPTER 74

  Kane flipped the light switch inside the shed. The bulb immediately popped and shattered. A shard of the glass flew at him, drawing blood just above his left eye. He stumbled backward against the wall and something heavy fell to the floor.

  More dazed than injured, he pushed away from the wall and shouted a few choice curses.

  Ravenwood took the flashlight and illuminated his face to check out the wound. “Lucky. Could have been your eye. Probably was intended for your eye.”

  Kane stared at her. A week ago––hell, even just a day ago––he would have thought that was crazy talk. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed the cut above his eye. “Come on, we’re wasting time.” He started to move forward.

  “Wait…. Smell that?”

  Kane stopped. “Yeah. Smells like gasoline.”

  Ravenwood directed the flashlight to the floor. Gasoline was flowing around their feet. She scanned the floor, looking for the source.

  “There,” she said. She pointed to a gas can that was lying on its side. The last of what must have been a full gallon was dripping from its spout. She tipped it upright with her foot. “That must be what fell off the shelf when you fell against the wall.”

  “Yeah… wait… Do you smell smoke?”

  Ravenwood grabbed him by the sleeve. “Let’s get out of here.”

  As soon as the words left her lips the door slammed shut and a flame shot up in the corner behind a stack of paint cans. Kane tried to push the door open. “Shit!” He lunged at it again, putting the full force of his shoulder into it, but it might as well have been a brick wall. “What the fuck!”

  The gasoline slithered along the wood flooring, seeping into the cracks, creeping closer to the growing flames.

  “The trapdoor,” Ravenwood said. “The tunnel! Come on!”

  Kane scrambled toward the trapdoor just as the gas ignited with a dull whomp! A ribbon of fire snaked its way quickly across the floor, pushing him back toward the shed door.

  He watched Ravenwood, on her hands and knees, trying to reach the handle of the trapdoor. Each time she tried, the flames lashed out to stop her. The sleeve of her coat caught fire but she quickly batted it out. She managed to wriggle out of the coat thinking she could use it to smother the encroaching flames but the entire coat caught fire and she tossed it into the corner.

  The shed was quickly filling with smoke. It was nearly impossible to breathe. The flames were crawling up the walls. The heat was becoming intense.

  ***

  The Doppelganger appeared in Linda’s darkened bedroom and yanked the covers off the bed, exposing the shapely, half-naked woman clad only in a pair of gray cotton boxers. She awoke, startled, and screamed when she saw the dark shape of the hooded figure standing at the foot of her bed. She grasped for the covers that weren’t there, brought her arms across her chest, drew her legs up. Her heart was pounding. “Who are you? Get out!”

  The hooded figure remained silent and moved slightly to the left. Linda’s eyes grew wide as Sarah appeared just behind the ominous stranger’s long, heavy robe. The girl stood there, seemingly undisturbed, in her pink-and-white striped pajamas. Linda screamed at her. “Sarah! Run!”

  Sarah didn’t move. Her eyes stared blankly.

  “Sarah!”

  Sarah responded in a quiet tone. “It’s okay, mother.” Then she moved, trance-like, to the nightstand at the side of Linda’s bed, turned on the light and tilted her head to the side. “Look, mother. He made it go away.”

  Linda’s brow twisted into an expression of utter disbelief. The scar that had marred her daughter’s face was gone. For a fleeting, uncertain moment, she thought she must be dreaming. But she was awake. She knew it. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins, her heart was beating like a hummingbird’s wings. She turned to the hooded figure, not sure if she was looking at a devil or an angel. Try as she might, she could only see a hint of a face deep within the shadows of the cavernous hood. “What is this?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

  The Beast raised an arm and Linda’s bathrobe rose up from the chair across the room. Her disbelieving eyes followed it as it floated through the air and dropped, as if released from an invisible hand, onto the bed. Desperate to cover herself, but afraid to touch it, she hesitated.

  “Believe me, my dear lady, I’m quite comfortable with you as you are. It’s up to you. Simple as that.”

  Linda’s eyes strained without success to find the face from which the oddly hollow-sounding voice had come.

  She sat up slowly and, with her gaze still fixed upon the stranger, she cautiously reached for the robe, slipped it on and wrapped it tightly around her shivering body. “I… I don’t understand.” She could barely get the words out. “Wh-what is this? What’s happening? What did you do to my daughter?”

  “As you can see, she’s quite all right. Better than before, in fact. I’m sure you will agree. Yes?”

  Linda turned to Sarah. The girl was still standing beside the bed, blank-eyed, no expression whatsoever on her perfect face. Linda turned again to the stranger. “Why is she acting like this? What have you done to her?”

  “She will be fine. Trust me. The trance is temporary, I assure you.”

  For the first time in her life Linda wished she’d taken Brian’s advice to keep a gun in her nightstand. But, no way was she going to do that. Guns were horrible things. Her daughter’s face was a daily reminder. Now she hated herself for being so stubborn, so goddamn naïve. Tears welled up in her eyes. “What… what the hell are you?”

  “What I am doesn’t matter. What matters is that you give me what I came for. If you don’t, then I can easily return the scar to Sarah’s face. In fact, I can make it into a deformity of hideous proportions. Something so dreadfully awful that she’d rather be dead than be seen. Of course, I could arrange that, too. It’s up to you.”

  Linda was sobbing. Her voice weak,
pleading. “Please… What do you want from me? I’ll give you anything. Just leave my daughter alone. Please!”

  “Very good. Exactly what I wanted to hear. Now, somewhere in this house is a book. A very small book. The Keys Of The Gatekeeper. You give it to me and Sarah will be as she was. Minus the scar, of course, because I always keep my end of a bargain. Then I will take my leave and you, dear lady, will never see me again. Simple as that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What book?”

  “I told you. The Keys Of The Gatekeeper. Pay attention and don’t test my patience. I don’t want to be here all night. The book!”

  Linda’s mind reeled. She tried to think, tried to envision the few books on the shelf in the den. There weren’t many. She wasn’t a big reader. That was more Sarah’s thing. The Keys Of The Gatekeeper… It didn’t seem even remotely familiar.

  The Beast was reading her thoughts. “Let us move to the den, then, and see what we shall see, shall we?”

  Linda suddenly realized her body was moving toward the edge of the bed. “Oh, my god…” Her voice was barely more than a whimper. “What are you doing to me?” In the next moment she was standing on the floor.

  “Just reminding you that I’m in control here, simple as that. Now, let’s go.”

  Linda glanced down at Sarah who seemed oblivious to what was happening.

  “She’ll be fine,” the Beast assured her. “Now, let’s find that book. Shall we?”

  ***

  Ravenwood finally managed to grab the handle of the trapdoor. She flung it open. “Kane! Come on!”

  Kane pulled his coat up over his head and scrambled across the floor toward Ravenwood. She was already half way down the ladder when he reached the trapdoor. He hurried down after her and tried to pull the door shut behind him but it was already on fire and a large burning piece split off and dropped down, just missing his face. His foot slipped on the ladder, he fell awkwardly to the ground. “My shoulder! Jesus!” he yelped, grimacing in pain. “Fuck!”