by Jerome Sitko
S
Charlie gets a sharp shooting pain in his head when Lance throws the groupling. He knows that if he cannot stop him now, then he may never be able to stop him. He still needs both boys. Lance and Jeremy’s blood are needed to intertwine Adamah and Sheol. The red liquid of their ancestors that holds the bewitched power to merge the worlds courses through them. He was so focused on Delphine and getting his revenge that he lost sight of the boys and Lance has been growing more and more powerful each day. He underestimated Lance, and he is furious that he allowed himself not to see what was happening. Charlie begins thrashing and ripping limbs off the grouplings around him, fire shooting out of his eyes and lightning out of his hands, screaming so loud he bursts the grouplings’ eardrums. He leaves behind a tangled mess of body parts and blood as he disappears. He is going to the movie theater to end this once and for all with his bait in tow.
S
Ryan, in Chicago, has just crossed the threshold, back from another night of successful recruiting, holding the hand of his most recent victim when he suddenly feels a shock. It’s like grabbing a live electrical wire. There is a brilliant red streak and the room explodes into an array of embers. He shrieks as he disintegrates from the drug den and reappears next to Charlie in the projector room of the movie theater, the recruit’s dismembered hand still in his.
Charlie and Ryan can hear the commotion just outside the door. Charlie knows the kids are in the stairwell, but Ryan does not know what is going on.
He can’t comprehend in his current state. He has no idea his friends are risking everything to save him.
To be cautious, Charlie flashes his hand across his own mouth and invisible fingers sew Ryan’s lips shut. He squeals but cannot speak.
Charlie has not forgotten Harpy’s colossal failure. He gestures at the door and it passes through like Casper the ghost and slams against the back wall next to Ryan. Ryan gives it a disinterested look, but it has Charlie’s full attention. Charlie glides over to it. The room has a sinister, dark feel, and Charlie’s eyes are black and growing. He is morphing into his true self, a monstrous, evil being, leaving his human form behind. He reaches his arm out and Harpy smashes into his twisted claws. Charlie opens his mouth, his jaw unhinges and sucks Harpy back into him, turning into a black mist as it disappears down his throat.
The kids on the other side of the door have no idea what is going on inside. They have no idea that only a door separates them from Charlie and Ryan.
Lance’s confidence is building and he believes he has a chance to defeat the grouplings. He pushes the other kids behind him and becomes the barrier between his friends and the enemy. His mind is laser-focused and he raises both hands, arms extended out in front of him toward the grouplings. He makes fists with both hands, his right leg extended behind him for balance, and the stairs the grouplings are gathered on explode and crumble away. The grouplings fall, unable to advance.
“Fuck you! You’re not going to get us, you sons a bitches,” Lance yells as a small, vibrant ball of blue flames spin just above his open hands. The ball builds and grows until it’s the size of a bowling ball and he flicks it toward the grouplings. On impact, it bursts and the stairwell fills with flames and smoke. When it clears, the grouplings are gone, black striations mark the ground and remaining walls. Lance looks down at his hands, not able to conceptualize what just happened. His friends look at him with shock and awe. They know that more grouplings will be coming for them so they need to get the door open.
“Lance, shoot that shit out of your hands again and open this damn door.” Joey kicks the door looking back at Lance.
“How did you do that?” Reno asks, grabbing Lance’s wrists and turning his hands up. Lance’s palms are black and burnt, pink skin showing underneath. “Shit are you alright? Are your hands hurt?”
Lance rubs his hands on his jeans and looks at them in disbelief; burnt skin rubs off on his jeans. He lies to Reno. “No, I don’t feel a thing.”
His hands feel like they look, third-degree burns, and it hurts like hell, but he knows that if they are to survive, he will be the one to save them. He ignores the pain as he turns his attention to the door at the top of the stairs. He doesn’t even really know why they need to get into the room. Maybe, it’s not even the right door, but right now it’s the kids’ only option. Jeremy and Joey push up against the wall and slide behind Reno and Lance, giving Lance room to work.
“What do you think? You going to burn it down?” Jeremy asks as he keeps looking over his shoulder to make sure grouplings aren’t reappearing at the bottom.
Lance doesn’t want anything to do with fire if he can help it right now. He pulls his backpack off his shoulder and pulls a flathead screwdriver out and rams it in between the door and jamb. He pushes as hard as he can and feels it give a little, but it’s not enough to spring the door. Joey sees what he’s doing and stages himself next to Lance and nods. Lance does it again and Joey kicks the door as hard as he can just under the doorknob. The door almost cooperates, both boys nod at each other and do it one more time. This time, the door flies open and Joey loses his balance and stumbles into the room. When he looks up, he’s staring straight into the dead eyes of his old friend Charlie.
Charlie snickers to himself knowing that he now has the boys.
Lance is still standing at the door and is the first one to spot Ryan in the back of the room; he says, “Ryan, it’s me!”
CHAPTER 8
If You DIE in Adamah
Lance quickly surveys the room, his eyes bouncing from the projector in the center to the rows and rows of movie reels that are all neatly stacked and labeled, and his gaze finally settles on Charlie’s black, soulless eyes. Their eyes lock and like schoolyard kids, both refuse to be the first to blink and look away…to show weakness. There’s a thick tension in the room weighing like a coda to their violent relationship.
Charlie can sense it’s different this time. Lance has confidence and a new found power, a blue aura surrounds him. Charlie will not underestimate him again. Last time, it was Charlie’s hubris that caused him to fail. This time he has Ryan as his ace card, and he has what he believes is a joker up his sleeve. He summons that joker.
“Joey, come over here to me.” Charlie waves his mangled claw at him, his abhorrent face grinning the best it can as black blood pulses through his veins on the surface of his mangled head. His large, black, crow eyes are now vehemently staring a hole through Joey’s soul.
Lance turns toward Joey and sees, or feels, that Joey is bewitched; Charlie’s hypnotic grip is firmly wrapped around Joey’s neck, strangling his free will. Lance reaches for Joey and the room explodes in a black brilliant light. Its rays seize their minds and all of the kids drop to their knees, hands clasped over their ears, screaming.
Joey is powerless to disobey and moves next to Ryan. Now Charlie controls two of Lance’s friends. Lance opens his mouth, releasing a high-pitched, piercing scream that breaks Charlie’s mind-bending light show and the room returns to the dull yellow of the single lightbulb.
Charlie knows the task at hand will not be easy. He has to get Lance and Jeremy back to the epicenter to finish what he started. He needs to amalgamate their blood to unlock the portal between Adamah and Sheol, releasing Erebus for good. He knows simply commanding the kids to follow him like before will not work. He will need to be diabolical and if anyone is diabolical, it’s Charlie. He commands Joey to kill the new girl, knowing that Lance will be torn between his friend and the girl.
Joey’s eyes fade to black and he pulls his knife out of his pocket and begins moving toward Lance and Reno. Under Charlie’s command, he does not know what he is doing.
Lance knows it. Right now to Lance, Joey is evil and he will do what he needs to do to protect Reno, no matter how bad emotionally it hurts.
“Joey, please stop! Don’t do this!” he yells as he backs up, his arm out to protect Reno.
Reno screams. She doesn’t know what is happening. She’s so confused.
“It’s not Joey. He’s being controlled by Charlie. Don’t trust him. He will hurt you,” Lance quickly explains to her.
“Joey, what are you doing? Stop. It’s me Reno,” she says, now more frightened than ever. Up to this point, she has battled the undead and large black vultures, but now a friend, is trying to kill her. It’s surreal. She can’t escape. The stairs are demolished and there might be more grouplings down there. She’s frozen, fear and confusion paralyzing her.
Lance puts his hand up as a warning to Joey that he will use his powers on him if he needs to, to save Reno. Joey ignores the warning and continues moving forward. Charlie’s demonic figure performs a little dance to imitate a puppet on strings. He laughs out loud knowing Lance will have to choose who to save.
Joey lunges and Lance sidesteps him and strikes him in the back of the head with his backpack, sending him stumbling to the ground. Joey grunts and looks up, his black eyes blazing with hatred. He stabs himself in the stomach to show Lance nothing can hurt him.
Both Lance and Reno scream, but Lance knows that that will not stop Joey. Right now, Joey’s mind is a black hole void of feelings or emotions, but past the black hole in the back recesses where Charlie does not have access, there is a small flicker of hope, faint but present.
How can Lance stop him without destroying him? Right now it doesn’t look like that will be an option. Lance is pleading with him to remember that they are friends.
Nothing is registering. Joey stands and continues his march toward Reno, slamming his hand against his side spreading the blood with each strike.
Lance has no choice. He has to destroy Joey to save Reno. It’s tearing him apart inside.
He’s been friends with Joey for years. Joey let him stay with him for more than a week when his mom brought home a brutal asshole that would strike him with metal clothes hangers back when he was eleven.
But there’s something intrinsic in Lance that will make him choose saving a female over a male. Maybe it’s all the years of watching the low-life scum that calls themselves men hit his mom or perhaps it’s something deeper, something in his genes. It could be the reason Emma is with him. Maybe he’s just a good person. It saddens him, and now he’s beginning to feel hopeless when Emma appears.
“Lance, the only way you can save yourself and your friends is to get Charlie to follow you to Adamah; he has limited power there.”
“How, how Emma? I don’t know how to get out of here,” Lance says to her as he sizes up Joey to figure out his next move.
“You need to get him to follow you, run now!”
Lance grabs Reno’s hand and they run down the demolished stairs. Leaping at the bottom to avoid the gaping hole of missing steps, they hit the floor and roll. Lance’s backpack flies past them. It settles just out of reach. He looks up and scrambles toward his bag when he sees the grouplings closing in on them. He turns toward the stairs in time to see Joey leap toward him. His knife leading the way. Lance raises his hands emitting a blue glow. Joey freezes mid-air and crashes back up the stairs, banging into the walls. Lance turns his attention back to the grouplings. He knows he has to hurry. His hands are burning. He doesn’t know if he can use his powers much longer if at all. The burns are trailing up his arms to his elbows and he can feel his blood boiling in his veins, and now there’s a pressure in his head. It feels like the worst headache he has ever had, even worse than the time he cracked his head on the cement during a dark slide on a handrail that went terribly wrong. He scrambles to his feet and grabs Reno. They look for a way to escape. Ryan, hunched over, emerges, floating down the stairs. Charlie glides behind him holding an invisible leash walking his comatose dog.
“Lance! Isn’t he the reason you’re here? Don’t you want to save him?” Charlie flicks Ryan who flies up and smashes into the oval roof and then lands hard on the ground letting out an “ooff” and lies motionless on the floor.
A spark of anger flashes in Lance’s eyes. He forgets the pain in his head and hands. He launches toward Charlie. In the same instant, black lightning shoots from Charlie’s hands. Lance is airborne when the lightning smashes into his chest. He flies hard into the wall.
They’ve forgotten Jeremy. But he’s managed to get down to the lobby. He’s next to Reno. The scene is chaos. Bodies are strewn everywhere. Charlie stands at the bottom of the stairs. Grouplings edge toward the kids.
A sense of hopelessness engulfs Lance. There’s no possible way to escape.
Charlie is too strong and he’s played a perfect game of chess, getting ready to checkmate Lance and his friends.
That flicker of hope, humanity, in the back of Joey’s mind finally breaks free. Joey has been through so much and a weak mind would have succumbed long ago, murdering his friend Ryan, murdering Carter, the specter manipulating him, and of course Charlie and his hold on him. The forces of good have released him from the hold of the darkness, like sunlight eviscerating the mold. He can think clearly, and he knows he has to help save his friends.
“Fuck you!” he screams as he propels himself from the top of the stairs toward Charlie’s back. His knife once again leads the way. Charlie turns his attention away from Lance to deal with Joey. But it’s just enough time for Lance to react. He scrambles to where his friends are gathered. With all of his will and the little power left in his scrawny body, he makes a portal appears. He actually made a portal! He’s stunned and when Charlie turns back around, he’s equally stunned. Not knowing how long he can keep it open, Lance begins pushing his friends through. He takes one last look toward the stairs for Joey and not seeing any sign of him, he steps through the portal and disappears.
Charlie is furious. The lobby explodes and groupling body parts fly everywhere, coating the walls and floor with blood and chunks of flesh and bone. Charlie knows Erebus will not allow him to fail again, and if he does, he will spend an eternity in the house of horrors with whoever the new warden is that replaced Delphine.
Charlie is not aware Delphine is back, and if she gets her hands on Charlie again…
S
The kids are back in Adamah, back at the slaughterhouse, the cheerful pink pig winking at them as they lay sprawled out on the ground below.
Lance scrambles to his feet and begins taking a count of who is there: Reno, Jeremy, Ryan. Thank God, Ryan made it, but then Lance remembers Joey and begins looking for him and calling Joey’s name. A feeling of doom, failure, overcomes him. He traded Ryan for Joey so he really didn’t accomplish anything. He still failed. He flops down on his back, looking up at the bright sun, knowing that he could not save Joey. His hands and arms are burning and he shifts his attention to them. They are red and blistered.
He thinks, That’s going to leave a scar.
He’s tired, so tired, and so are the others. They lay next to him, all of them wanting to go to sleep. Maybe if they sleep and wake up, none of this will have really happened.
S
In Sheol, Charlie regains his composure. He’s not going to let a snot-nosed kid bring him down again. He grabs Joey by the throat with the intention of pulling him apart limb by limb when he has a thought. He still has Ryan. Ryan is a groupling so Charlie has total control of him in Sheol or Adamah. He can make Ryan bring Lance and Jeremy back. Make him convince them that Joey can still be saved. Lance won’t let Joey die. He came back to save Ryan. He’ll do the same for Joey.
Charlie is unaware that when Ryan passed through Lance’s portal and not one of Charlie’s, he regained his human self, mind and all. Ryan is essentially one of the boys again.
Ryan feels a slight tingle in his head. Laying there in the dead grass and dirt, he doesn’t know what is causing it, but it’s as if something, or someone, is calling to him. It’s Charlie ordering him to bring the other two boys back to Sheol. He shakes his head and thinks he must be dehydrated and c
loses his eyes again. The sun feels so good on his face and for some reason he feels cheerful. That’s the best way to explain it. He falls back to sleep, exhausted.
Charlie can’t feel the connection. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t control Ryan. He decides on another plan: Joey. He’s going to send Joey into Adamah to bring the two boys back, through his portal, not theirs.
Like a wisp of black smoke, he enters Joey’s mind and begins wrecking his brain, his thoughts, his emotions, a pinball bouncing around out of control wiping the old Joey from existence until he’s nothing more than a shell, a body with no human connection, no memory. This is unchartered territory for Charlie. He has never traveled this far inside anyone, never this intense, but he has to make sure whatever caused Joey to disobey doesn’t come back, especially in Adamah. When he is done, Joey is a trembling mass, his black eyes dead, even deader than Charlie’s. Charlie is convinced that he’s totally destroyed the old Joey and now sets about putting his plan into action.
Joey steps over the threshold and exits the door of the slaughterhouse. He sees the four figures sprawled out in the dirt and knows that is his target. He can’t think for himself. He has no feelings. Joey is doing what Charlie programmed him for, bringing Lance and Jeremy back. As he walks toward them, he steps on some twigs and all of the kids immediately sit up, alert, all of them except Ryan, who is still in a deep sleep. Reno is the first to notice it’s Joey and she springs to her feet with a look of relief on her face.
“Joey! We thought we lost you forever! Thank God, you’re okay. How did you get away?”
Joey does not answer her, doesn’t even acknowledge her. His big black eyes are staring into space. Lance is the first to notice something is wrong. He grabs Reno by the arm to keep her from going forward.
“It’s not Joey. It is, but it’s not really him,” he says pointing at Joey’s eyes, a feeling of dismay flooding his mind. Reno sees it and stops in her tracks.