by J. S. Bailey
She chided herself for such thoughts when the bus stopped in front of her. Ashley bounded out the door with her purple and pink backpack. “Mommy, you’ll never guess what we did in school today!”
Allison decided to play along as they walked up to the house together. “You…took a field trip to Disneyland.”
“Nope!”
“You went to the moon.”
“Nope!”
“You…I don’t know. You’ve got me.” She held the door open and let Ashley inside ahead of her.
“We started seeds,” Ashley said, as if that should have been the most logical answer from the start. “In plastic baggies with paper towels and water. Mrs. Teeter says if we leave them in the window, they’ll sprout tiny bean plants.”
“Sounds cool. Do you think they’ll grow magic beanstalks?”
Ashley shook her head. “You know those are only in stories.”
“You’ve got me again.”
While Ashley shrugged off her backpack and deposited her shoes by the door, Allison went into the kitchen to fix Ashley’s favorite afternoon snack of celery stalks and peanut butter. She tried not to grow misty-eyed while she cut up the pieces and arranged them on a plate. You know Frank’s okay, Allison. You’ll see him again, but hopefully not anytime in the next four or five decades.
“Mommy, I’m going to go put on my pajamas.”
Allison swiped a hand across her eyes and turned. “Already?”
“Uh-huh. We’re not going anywhere, right? So we can pretend to have a sleepover all day.”
Allison smiled. “Suit yourself, then. But those jeans still look clean, so be sure to fold them and set them on top of your dresser for tomorrow.”
“Okeydokey!” Ashley bounced down the hallway toward her bedroom, and Allison put the leftover celery back into the fridge.
She could hear Ashley’s dresser drawer open and then thunk closed. Then, in an uneasy voice, Ashley said, “Mommy? Can you come here?”
Allison’s pulse quickened. “What is it, honey?” She arrived in Ashley’s bedroom doorway. Ashley, still clothed in her jeans and sweater, stood in front of her dresser holding a wadded-up pair of pajamas and staring wide-eyed at the closed set of closet doors.
Tears of terror glinted in her daughter’s eyes. “Someone’s in my closet,” she whimpered.
“What? No, there isn’t. I’ve been home for almost an hour.”
“But I heard them sneeze.”
Allison’s skin prickled. She stared hard at the door. All was still, and she strained her ears for the faintest sound of breathing or any other sign that an intruder lurked behind it.
Then, faintly, the floor inside the closet let out a low creak.
“Ashley,” she whispered, “get out of here. Now.”
But fear had rooted Ashley to the floor. Her arms shaking, Allison stepped forward to grab hold of her daughter so they could make a run for it and call the police when the door slid aside and a black-clad figure darted out holding a knife.
The blood drained out of her face. The figure wore Phil’s old grim reaper costume and gloves. His face was barely visible beneath the low-hanging hood. How did he get in here? I didn’t—
He lunged for Ashley, and Allison yanked her arm hard. “Ashley, run! Go get help!”
Ashley regained her senses and scrambled toward the bedroom door. The intruder swiped the knife toward Allison, who managed to duck to the side just in time to avoid being sliced open. She snatched the Mickey Mouse lamp off of Ashley’s tiny writing desk and swung it at him so hard that the plug tore out of the wall.
He stepped back in tandem with her swing, and the edge of the black robe came up high enough for her to see part of a Nike gym shoe.
“Who are you?” she shrieked at him. “What do you want with us?”
He lunged at her again. She brought the lamp up to deflect the blade…
…but wasn’t fast enough.
The knife tore through her sleeve and into her wrist, and the lamp dropped to the carpet.
Somehow in the split second that Allison involuntarily gripped her wrist with her other hand, the intruder knocked her to the floor and straddled her. She struggled to sit up, but she had a small frame and wasn’t strong enough to force him off of her.
Slowly, he reached his hands up and drew back the hood.
Allison drew in a sharp breath. There was no life in the man’s eyes, and his expression was smug.
She didn’t think she’d ever seen him before, not that it mattered.
He picked up the knife again and plunged it as hard as he could into Allison’s chest.
PHIL WRUNG his hands together while he sat out in the hospital waiting room simultaneously yearning for and dreading word from the ER. He’d been here for more than an hour already and had the shakes so bad that any onlooker would have thought him to be some kind of junkie in need of a fix.
He’d tried to reach Randy to no avail. His friend’s phone just rang and rang before going to voicemail. Phil had stopped leaving messages after the fourth call.
Frankie, the only person he’d been able to contact, sat in the chair next to him with his hands folded calmly together in his lap, looking as oversized as Phil would have looked sitting in one of Ashley’s plastic Fisher Price seats. “She’s going to be okay,” Frankie said. “This hospital works wonders in keeping people alive.”
“Don’t I know it?” Phil muttered. It was true that Randy had survived multiple near-death encounters under the care of this facility’s doctors, but they were only human. No physician on Earth would have a 100% success rate.
Phil had gotten the call just past three-thirty saying Allison had been attacked. Ashley had run into the kitchen and hidden inside one of the bottom cabinets while she called the police to say that a man had broken in and was trying to kill her mother. By the time the cops and paramedics arrived, the intruder had vanished, leaving Allison lying in a pool of her own blood.
According to the police, the intruder had dipped his finger into Allison’s blood and scrawled a message on Ashley’s bedroom wall: “Surrender Servant or all will die.”
Even though Phil hadn’t been at the house, he could picture the scene with clarity. The carpet would have to be torn out of Ashley’s bedroom, and the walls would need to be repainted to eliminate all traces of the assailant, who had obviously been sent there by Thane since the man’s disability prevented him from physically traveling there himself.
All the more reason to wipe Thane off the face of the planet.
Janet Jovingo, who had disappeared several minutes before, presumably to use the restroom, returned to the waiting area holding two styrofoam cups of coffee. “Here,” she said, handing one each to Frankie and Phil. “I thought you two could use some of this.”
“Thanks,” Phil murmured as Janet settled into a chair on the other side of Frankie. He thought that a few shots of bourbon might have done a better job of making him feel better, but he wasn’t going to complain.
Phil took a moment to regard his daughter, who sat in another chair with her knees drawn up to her chest, a coloring book and crayons abandoned on the chair beside her. Please don’t take her mother away from us, he prayed.
Phil lifted his head as footsteps crossed the waiting room floor. A white-coated physician with a grim face stopped before him and cleared her throat. “Mr. Mason?”
Phil’s legs drew him forward without him telling them to. “Yes?”
“Your wife is alive and in intensive care.” The doctor’s eyes flicked to Ashley, who peered at her in trepidation. “If your daughter had been any later in calling for help, we might not have been able to save her. Allison was also lucky that her attacker didn’t strike any organs when he stabbed her. But let me remind you, she isn’t in the clear yet. She lost a lot of blood.”
Phil’s chest hitched as he breathed in a sigh of relief. “When can I see her?”
“Soon. She needs to rest before she receives any visitors.”
/> Thank you, God.
The doctor drifted away, and Phil turned to Frankie and Janet, the latter of whom was smiling and the former of whom exuded an aura of smugness.
“What?” Phil said.
“I told you she’d be okay, didn’t I?” Frankie said.
Phil shrugged as he sat down. Usually he loathed it when Frankie was right, but he’d make an exception today.
“Have you talked to Randy yet?” Janet asked Phil.
He gave his head a weary shake. “He won’t pick up the phone. I left a message with Roger, too, but he should still be at work.”
“Randy works today too, right?”
“Yes, but he’d be off by now.” Phil could feel his insides squirming. As much as he hated to admit it, something here wasn’t right—not in the least. As far as he knew, Randy always kept his phone on him. So why wouldn’t he answer Phil’s calls?
“He could have dropped his phone somewhere outside and hasn’t noticed yet,” Janet said, her tone uncertain.
“Randy doesn’t lose things. Something’s up.” Phil stood, looked toward the exit, then sat back down on the edge of his chair, willing himself to stay calm. He had to keep his priorities in order, so while he was indeed worried almost to the point of nausea about Randy, he had to focus on his wife. Allison would always come before his friends. No one could judge him for that.
“If it makes you feel any better, I can stop by his house and see if he’s home,” Janet said.
Frankie shifted his weight in his chair, which creaked as if on the verge of collapse. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. There’s going to be a perfectly logical reason as to why he isn’t answering the phone.”
Janet shot him an accusatory look. “A little peace of mind never hurt anyone. Now give me your keys.”
RANDY’S EYES snapped open, and he found himself lying spread-eagled on his living room floor.
His prayer had been answered, given that he was still alive.
Everything seemed normal at first—the couches and bookshelves sat in their proper places, and he could see the open archway to the kitchen sitting off to his left. Then he realized that the colors of everything had been skewed like he was looking at a negative photograph.
He held his hands in front of his face, and oddly enough, his skin was the proper color.
“Like that’s the odd thing here,” he muttered.
He pulled himself to his feet and turned in a complete circle. How could he have missed it at first? The opposite colors of everything made him feel disoriented, like he’d been plunked down in the middle of some kind of funhouse.
Nothing about this came across as “fun,” however. He had to be dreaming, but no dreams of his had ever felt so realistic.
“Randy Bellison?” said a voice that seemed to be speaking on multiple grating wavelengths.
Goose bumps lifted the hairs on his arms as he turned. Standing just feet away, where moments before there had been nothing, was…Randy couldn’t quite say. The thing was man-sized but had no discernable face and seemed to be made of pulsating blackness.
Randy managed to clear his throat. “Who’s asking?”
“No one of your concern.” The amorphous shape pulsed more frantically, and Randy found himself unable to avert his eyes despite his increasing desire to do so.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“We want you to back off.”
“Back off? From what?”
“From Bobby. From ‘Servant business.’ From everything.”
“You know that’s not in my nature. I don’t let evil have its way if I can help it.”
“It would be in your best interests,” the thing said, “to cease your search for Bradley Scholl.”
“Cease my search? That’s funny, because he was just here a bit ago.”
“That’s what you think! You want to imprison and torture our child Bradley. He’s ours.”
“He’s not, and never will be.”
The being—the demon, Randy was sure—surged closer to him, and Randy stepped back and knocked into a lamp on one of the end tables, sending it crashing to the floor. “Bradley was never yours to take,” Randy went on.
“Yet we have taken him, and if you try to stop him and the other from performing their duties, we will kill you.”
The “other,” Randy assumed, must have been Thane. “Death doesn’t scare me,” he said.
“That remains to be seen.”
The presence backed off a few feet but didn’t disappear. Randy knew he should try to call upon the Spirit to drive it away, but he felt compelled to keep talking to it—probably not the best of ideas, but he wasn’t the Servant anymore, so what did it matter? “Why are you targeting me, anyway? I’m not the one you’ve got to worry about.”
“The other one is…unavailable.”
Randy couldn’t help but laugh. “So demons can’t wreak havoc long-range.” Bobby had been smart to leave town, apparently.
“We do what we must.”
“I’m sure you do. In the name of God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his Son, and the Holy Spirit, be gone from—”
He collapsed to the floor as a pain greater than any he’d ever known seared through his head, and suddenly he could hear a pounding like someone beating on a wall with all their might, and then the colors of his living room returned to normal.
Janet Jovingo of all people stood over him looking as pale as a cave fish. Shadows filled the room, indicating that he’d been out for hours.
Janet bent down and put a hand behind his head to help lift it. “Randy, what happened? Are you okay?”
He sat up and coughed a few times, noting that a few flecks of blood flew out of his mouth and into his hand as he did so. Must have bitten his tongue when he collapsed. “I don’t know,” he said, wiping his hand on his jeans. “What are you doing here? Where’s Lupe?”
“She hasn’t gotten off work yet. Phil has been trying to call you all afternoon, and when you wouldn’t answer him, he feared the worst.”
“Okay.” Randy kneaded his temples. “Why did Phil want to talk to me? And I mean no offense by this, but why did you come out here to see what happened?”
Janet’s eyes, so much like Carly’s, narrowed in accusation. “I came because Phil couldn’t. Allison is in the hospital. Someone broke into their house and stabbed her, but they think she’s going to be okay.”
Randy blinked. Allison? Stabbed? “Do they know who?”
“No. Whoever it was got away. Ashley said it was a man, but she didn’t recognize him. What happened to you?”
“I said I don’t know. The man Bobby was helping, Bradley Scholl, got in here somehow.”
“And he attacked you?”
“Yeah, and then I passed out, or something.” And then a demon visited me and made threats like a playground bully.
He stared at Janet, whose eyes glistened with fear. “Bradley must have gone to the Masons’ house and hurt Allison right after he left here,” Janet said. “Which means he’ll either visit Roger and Beverly or me and Frankie next.”
THANE SAT on the edge of his bed, brooding like he hadn’t brooded in years.
It all had to do with Mia. The little imp came back that morning and wouldn’t leave the house. She had taken up residence in a guest bedroom down the hall from him. He’d heard her talking on the phone a few times from behind the closed door but couldn’t make out anything she’d said.
She’d seemed shaken when she barged in during breakfast. Thane couldn’t imagine why. Someone with an ability like hers should have had nothing to fear.
He stood and stared at his closed bedroom door, wondering what Mia was doing that very moment. The girl wanted access to his family’s money more than anything else; that he was quite sure of since she’d ogled every square inch of the mansion like it was made of gold. The fact she’d returned told him she also wanted access to a comfortable estate. She was probably dirt-poor and finally found someone to exploit to her adva
ntage. Next she might even try to find Pamela and Leon and bleed them dry.
His hands curled into fists. Never mind that she wanted to help take Bobby Roland down—he would just have to kill her in order to remove her from his life, seeing as he’d never wanted anyone’s help to begin with. It couldn’t be that difficult to do. He’d just have to wait until she fell asleep. She couldn’t control him then.
Ever so quietly, Thane crossed the room and pulled open the door enough to leave a one-inch gap. He held his ear to the opening and listened, hearing only the hum of the furnace two floors below him.
He stepped into the hallway and sent out his thoughts. Meryl, the housekeeper, was asleep in her room dreaming of a beach vacation, and Thane’s parents were down at the swimming pool once again drinking late-night margaritas.
He couldn’t detect Mia. She’d probably put some kind of block on him so he couldn’t pry, like a mental firewall.
Thane tiptoed toward the woman’s room, grateful that he’d been granted the gift of independent movement, though to be honest, if Thane had stayed in that godforsaken nursing home, he likely wouldn’t be in this current mess at all.
He paused outside her door to slide the knife out of his pocket. Crude, yet effective if he could pull this off right.
He reached for the knob and turned it.
“It’s locked.”
Thane stiffened in surprise and turned. A wrinkled old man wearing a black suit and tie stood in the hallway behind him, his smile displaying two rows of crooked teeth.
He knew at once that this was his Father—not the one who had sired him, but the one who had healed him. He’d appeared differently to Thane during every visitation.
“You’re losing your focus,” the man said in a raspy voice.
“I’m what?”
The man gestured at Mia’s door. “She’s nothing. Focus on killing Roland, not her.”
Thane ground his teeth together. “I can’t kill him. I don’t even know where he is.”
“He’s in Ohio, of all places. We just found out—it took a bit of digging on our parts. None of us are sure what to make of that.”