by Ward Parker
Stockhurst bellowed something in a foreign tongue and then Follett’s eyes deceived him because it hadn’t been Stockhurst he was looking at after all. It was a tall and powerful-looking creature covered in jet-black hair going gray with age, saber-like fangs protruding from a short snout and a mouth hanging open with hunger and dripping with saliva. Its eyes burned yellow and its bony forehead was topped with two horns like those of a ram. The creature looked like Darryl but more fearsome and, even, magnificent. Stockhurst’s suit hung from its body, split open at the seams. It was a full-blooded cral and even a grizzly bear wouldn’t be able to defeat it. Follett stared at it, frozen with awe.
“Good to see you again, Cedor,” Astogani said. “But get any closer to me and I rip her head off.”
The creature that was Stockhurst growled and moved closer.
“You know that I’m stronger than you,” Stockhurst said.
“Maybe physically stronger. But that’s not enough.” Astogani, the monster that formerly was Darryl, closed its eyes and became rigid.
“What are you doing? Stop that!” Stockhurst gasped and the gun fell from his hands. He dropped to his knees, holding his head in both hands, moaning in agony, spewing saliva as he panted harsh breaths. Then he crumpled onto the ground, curled into the fetal position and shook in short, sudden spasms. Follett glanced at Astogani and when he looked back Stockhurst had shifted partway back to human form—the horns were gone and the face was less bestial. At least half the fur had been shed upon the floor.
Meanwhile, the monster was focusing all his concentration upon Stockhurst, his body rigid and eyes closed. Diana tried to slip out of his arms, but they tightened around her and her breathing became labored. Follett grabbed Stockhurst’s pistol from the floor and tiptoed closer to the monster. If he got close enough, he could put a bullet directly into the monster’s head without danger of hitting Diana.
Then one of the monster’s eyes opened and fixed upon Follett. The center of his brain exploded in pain. He found himself on the floor, on his back twitching uncontrollably as the pain robbed him of his vision and balance.
This seizure was like the one Darryl had had in the calaboose cell shortly after he had been possessed.
Glass shattered nearby and the pain abruptly ceased. Follett looked up to see the monster throwing himself backwards through the nearest window, Diana still held against his chest.
Follett sat up, his head swimming with dizziness.
“We have to save Diana from him,” he said.
“Come on then,” Clemens said from the window. “I think the monster is headed south.”
Follett glanced at Stockhurst who was frozen halfway between cral and human form. He was still lying on his side in the fetal position, his clothing torn at the seams, his eyes open in horror. Blood trickled from his ears and nostrils. The tycoon, one of the richest and most powerful in the nation, would never want to be seen in such vulnerable disarray.
“Mr. Stockhurst,” Clemens said, “have you at last reconsidered the wisdom of coming here without bodyguards?”
Follett got unsteadily to his feet and went over to Stockhurst, checking his pulse at his wrist and then his neck.
“He can’t answer you,” he said. “He’s dead.”
* * *
“My educated guess is that Stockhurst suffered a hemorrhagic stroke that caused his death—basically a blood vessel or vessels bursting in his brain. I think he was trying to shift back to human form in case he died, so his secret wouldn’t be revealed.”
“He failed spectacularly,” Clemens said. “If he had remained in monster form no one would know that it was him. But now he’s recognizable, though barely. This could create a giant scandal if the hotel staff isn’t discreet.”
The two men were hurrying down a sandy road, while Follett struggled in the moonlight to find a trailhead in the brush and palmetto that lined the road. He was trying to retrace the route Darryl had used when he took them on the midnight jaunt seemingly ages ago.
“Why did he take Diana?” Clemens asked. “There’s nothing to bargain for—he’s gotten his revenge on Stockhurst.”
“Unrequited love, perhaps.”
“What?”
“I believe Darryl fancied her. It seems to me that although he’s possessed by the demon, traces of Darryl still manage to rise to the surface. The demon is using Darryl’s memory and knowledge to function in this world and it’s possible that Darryl’s emotions are getting their way to some extent.”
“Do you think he’s going to, uh, do you think his intentions are dishonorable?”
“I can’t imagine Darryl would do that, but the demon is the one truly in control. Wait—here’s the trail, I think.”
There was a slight gap in the underbrush. As Follett bent beneath a gumbo limbo branch to see if there was actually a trail, shots rang out somewhere to the east of them.
“We have to hurry,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The monster jerked Diana off her feet and glass shattered around her as they flew backwards into the night. She braced for the impact with the ground, but the monster twisted in mid-flight like a cat and landed on its feet. It took off running away from the hotel with her slung over its shoulder, her ribs aching sharply with the jolt of each stride.
When the monster first seized her after Stockhurst drew his pistol, Diana was overcome more by revulsion than fear. It came from the disorienting feeling that the creature that held her was Darryl—yet it wasn’t. The voice wasn’t his and even the way it moved was a little different. Adding to her repulsion was the foul stench of the monster from its lack of hygiene.
Now pure fear was overwhelming any other emotion.
She didn’t know why she had been taken or if she would be killed. She was certain that Stockhurst was dead; she had felt the power the demon had aimed at him, which turned off when Stockhurst collapsed onto the floor. She wondered if Darryl was really in this monster somewhere. Could she reach him?
The monster stopped. Now that she wasn’t bouncing she could see where they were: on the resort’s golf course, at a pump house providing fresh water for the golfers and groundskeepers. She heard the rhythmic creaking of the metal handle and the splashing of water while the monster drank. She decided to take a risk.
“Darryl,” she said through a scratchy throat. “May I please have some water?”
The monster froze for a moment, then continued drinking.
“Darryl, please?”
The monster thrust her face beneath the spout and she tried to drink without choking on the flood of it. It was cold and crisp but with the slight smell of rotten eggs she had grown used to in the unfiltered water here.
The monster pulled her from the pump and before it swung her back upon its shoulder their eyes met. She recognized Darryl in them for the briefest moment until the eyes became distant and cold, as if a shade had been drawn down behind them. Then a look of burning intensity, a molten ooze of hatred, seemed to illuminate the eyes and she looked away.
The monster jogged to the nearest edge of the woods, then abruptly paused. It turned its head, sniffing loudly. Its muscles tensed and its ears perked up. A low growl rumbled inside its chest.
Maybe rescuers were approaching, Diana hoped.
The monster resumed its jog, finding a faint path through the saw palmetto and scrub pines. Soon they reached a small, sandy clearing covered in white sand with a gopher tortoise burrow in its center. The clearing was walled off by the saw palmetto as well as fetterbush and juvenile sand oak trees. It was like a hidden room. The moonlight reflecting off the white sand made the scene look almost day-like, almost cheerful in this terrible night.
A slight breath of hope filled Diana—she recognized this place. Darryl had taken her to this very spot during one of their midnight rambles. He had confessed he frequently came here to hide and be alone with his thoughts. Coming here was another sign that Darryl’s consciousness had not been totally erased by
the demon and could influence the monster’s decisions. She wondered if the monster had a plan now that Stockhurst was defeated or was just acting spontaneously, pushed by the demon to do one thing and by Darryl to do another.
The monster dropped her to the sand and sat nearby, breathing heavily. It appeared to be drained, exhausted, and she guessed it was because of the mental attack that had felled Stockhurst. Even if its powers were demonic, they nevertheless worked within the realm of the physical and had obviously taken a toll on Darryl’s mind and body.
“Darryl, can you hear me?” she asked softly.
No answer.
“Darryl?”
The monster turned its head slowly and looked at her blankly. Its face was slack.
“Darryl, are you all right? Are you injured?”
Perhaps it was her imagination, but the face muscles arranged themselves so that it was Darryl looking back at her.
“Remember,” she said, “you took me to this clearing before. You said this was like a sanctuary for you. You would come here to reflect and seek peace. It is quite a beautiful spot, isn’t it?”
The mouth opened to speak, but no sound came out.
Come on, Darryl, she thought, please break free.
But then its ears twitched and its nostrils flared. It sniffed while turning its head right and left and the entire body tensed. Gradually the coldness returned to the eyes and the facial expression turned malevolent.
“Darryl doesn’t want to speak with you,” the monster said in the voice that wasn’t Darryl’s. “And there are some humans with guns who are coming for us that we have to kill right now.”
The monster leaped to its feet and as it came to pick her up she crawled away out of its reach, scrambled to her feet and sprinted across the sand into the bushes. But her head was yanked backwards by her hair and before she could resist she was again hanging across the monster’s shoulders, its fetid stink and her own despair enveloping her.
* * *
Zack had worked for the Pinkertons for well on four years and this was the first time he was enjoying it. He was a sharpshooter; growing up in Nebraska he could nail a running rabbit at 100 yards, and he had gone to Cuba with the volunteers where he picked off three Spanish officers in just a week. But since then, he hadn’t had a chance until now to fully use his hunting skills. Guard duty didn’t have much use for marksmanship.
Now he felt like he was hunting rabbits on his uncle’s farm once more. He knew if he could get a bead on the freak he’d take it down in one or two shots. Didn’t give a damn about the hostage the freak had, either. They’d been ordered to try not to shoot her—emphasis on try. Zack knew he could nail the freak even if it was carrying the lady, as long as the freak wasn’t completely shielded by her.
The men were advancing northward from the hotel, spread out so much he couldn’t see the men to his left or right but they were within earshot. So when he heard the shouting off to the right he knew the freak had been spotted. He climbed into a dry ditch next to the sandy trail he had been following and got into prone firing position, keeping an eye on both directions of the trail and through the woods in the direction of the shouting.
A rifle fired nearby in the woods, probably thirty-forty yards away. With his rifle stock close to his cheek, he stared at the woods. He thought he saw some movement. His hands were sweaty and he tried not to grip the rifle so tightly.
A shadowy form moved through the trees from left to right but he held his fire because he couldn’t tell for sure if it was the freak and if it had the woman with it.
He saw it again and it was coming right toward him. He fired and it seemed to disappear.
Sweat was getting in his eyes. Just as he ran his hand across them, branches cracked from his left in the woods on his side of the trail. He whipped the rifle in that direction at a looming figure less than 20 yards away. He fired again, even though he hadn’t gotten a good look at it.
Whatever it was, it was gone or down. He considered approaching to see if the freak was bleeding in the underbrush.
But then someone tapped him in the back of the shoulder.
He turned around and just inches away, towering above him, was the freak. It wasn’t really a freak like he’d been told, it was a goddamn monster. Its eyes glowed yellow and it grinned at him as it grabbed his rifle with one hand and wrested it away as if he were a weak child.
He stepped backwards but before he could run he fell as his feet became entangled in something. The discovery that it was his spilled intestines was the last thing he knew.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Follett plunged ahead along the trail with Clemens close behind him. At first the trail had seemed familiar, one that he and Darryl had used on the night of their ramble. But soon it grew fainter and more choked with underbrush and Follett feared the trail wasn’t the right one at all.
“I’m afraid I’ve lost my bearings,” he said. “From which direction did the gunfire come?”
“I think we’ve curved away from it. We need to go left and back behind us a ways,” Clemens said.
“Are you absolutely certain?”
“Of course I’m not absolutely certain. But back in my youth I piloted many a steamer through some tortuous sections of river at night with no moon and thick fog as well, so I’ve got a pretty good sense of direction. And my sense is telling me to turn left.”
“Then please take the lead and I’ll follow.”
“Oh good, I’m the one who gets to bushwhack through this undergrowth without a trail.”
“And, please, flush out any snakes while you’re at it.”
The brush was not kind to their legs and ankles, but they eventually saw a sliver of moonlight ahead and emerged onto a narrow dirt road.
“I recognize this road,” Follett said. “It takes us very close to the lake. Er, which way is west?”
“That way,” Clemens said, pointing toward what Follett thought was a pile of palm fronds on the road.
As they walked closer, it wasn’t palm fronds after all.
Clemens gasped. “My God.”
“Probably one of the Pinkertons,” Follett said, “though it’s hard to tell. I don’t see a gun anywhere.”
“Could the demon have taken it?”
“If it could tap into Darryl’s knowledge of firearms, yes. I certainly hope he never learned to shoot well.”
They followed the road west as it gradually sloped down to the lake and soon the woodland trees gave way to mangroves. Silver shards of moonlit water showed through the trees. As they reached the bank, Follett found a path through the mangrove roots to the brackish waters of Lake Worth lagoon. They were in the inner curve of a cove, the sides of which curved away and out to either side of them.
Looking to the left, he spotted them, wading through calf-deep water: the monster that was Darryl walking away from them along the south side of the cove, Diana draped over his right shoulder, a rifle carried in his left hand.
They were close enough that Follett could hear Diana’s voice. She was saying Darryl’s name in a pleading manner, most likely coaxing him to rise to the surface of his mind and subdue the demon’s influence. His walking slowed.
Then a clicking sound arose from the forest beside Darryl. Mangrove trees appeared out of nowhere, sliding out into the water. They appeared to be walking on the stilt-like roots that descended from their trunks and kept the trees above water. It was the Houtani, the creatures to which Darryl had introduced him on their midnight tour. They were blocking Darryl’s path and surrounding him, extending their leafless limbs and branches outward to encage him.
They must know Darryl is fully gone and that something evil has replaced him,” Follett thought.
He heard footsteps in the mud behind him and Clemens, then the sliding of rifle bolts.
“Put your hands up and don’t move,” said a condescending voice.
Follett and Clemens complied, but Follett did move, turning around to find six Pinkertons comin
g along the trail down the bank through the mangroves. They all carried rifles except for the one who was obviously their leader, a tall man wearing a campaign hat and carrying a pistol.
“What are you gentlemen doing?” asked the commander with a sneering tone on the word, “gentlemen.”
Clemens turned around and said, “Ah, Swineborne. How are you? We were just enjoying the evening.”
“The monster is out there in the water,” said one of the men excitedly. “By those trees in the water. He’s armed.”
“Get out of the way,” Swineborne said, pushing Clemens and Follett aside as he led his men into the water.
They waded out, forming a rough skirmish line, all aiming their rifles at Darryl and Diana.
“There’s an innocent woman with him,” Follett said. “Don’t shoot.”
“I order you to halt,” Swineborne shouted at Darryl, even though it was clear the Houtani had made it impossible for him to move anyway. “Drop your weapon and release the woman or you will both be shot.”
“I protest, Swineborne,” Clemens said. “You can’t shoot an unarmed hostage.”
“Shut up or I’ll shoot you, too.”
Follett could just barely hear Diana pleading to Darryl. The Pinkertons kept their rifles aimed, nervous fingers quivering beside the triggers. He tried to think of a way to distract them.
But then Darryl lowered Diana from his shoulder into the water. The Houtani allowed her to wade through their ranks, but she remained nearby. Darryl raised his arms in surrender, the rifle gone.
“He’s surrendering!” Clemens said. “Has the demon freed him?”
* * *
Once again that night, Darryl felt as if he’d awakened from a dream—the brief moment of awareness you get when rolling over in bed, realizing you were only dreaming before falling back into another dream. He was standing in Lake Worth, close to the mangroves, with someone on his shoulder. The input from his senses was intense: the cool water lapping his lower legs, smooth sand beneath his bare feet and sea grass undulating around his ankles. The scent of a woman and her fear.