by Ron Ripley
“You don’t have to do this, Victor,” Jeremy said in a soft voice without looking at him. “You can wait out here. I will go in and let you know if it is safe to do so.”
Victor shook his head. “No. No, I have to.”
“Alright,” Jeremy said. From the back seat of the car, he removed two small bags. They were fashioned from a mesh of lead strands placed between two layers of leather. Salt had been laced between the leather as well, and the bags would serve as temporary storage for any item that might serve as an immediate threat to their safety.
On the flight from New Orleans to New York, Jeremy had given an in depth explanation about the properties of certain items to help stop the dead. He had spoken of iron and salt, and how both the metal and the mineral could be used separately or in conjunction to stop and contain the dead. Jeremy had also explained the significance of lead and, depending on the ghost, the effects of religious items.
While Victor’s education had been brief and concise, it had been extremely informative.
Jeremy passed one of the bags to Victor, then he took a pair of white gloves out of his pocket and handed them over as well.
Victor nodded his thanks and put them on, wincing as he slid one over his damaged, frost bitten hand.
“Will you be effective with your injury?” Jeremy asked as he put on his own gloves.
“That depends,” Victor answered.
“On what?” Jeremy asked, glancing at him.
“Whether or not you’ll be okay in there with a cane,” Victor said, grinning.
Jeremy chuckled and gave a short bow. “Well said, my friend. Well said indeed. Now, let us enter this house and see what awaits us.”
Victor could only nod. His throat had gone dry, and his tongue seemed to have swollen in his mouth. Images of the doll and the bear, the corpse of Mrs. Ducharme and Sue, when she had been possessed, all flashed through his mind.
If the house in front of them did belong to the person who had set the objects loose onto the world, then there was bound to be trouble beyond the door.
And Victor had no idea what that trouble might be.
Jeremy reached out, grasped the handle and opened the door.
A foul, rotten stench eased out of the house, rolling over them and spreading into the air. It was a noxious wave that stung Victor’s eyes and caused him to gag.
“Never a good sign,” Jeremy murmured.
“Damn, is there a body in there?” Victor asked, trying not to vomit.
“A body would be the least of our concerns,” Jeremy said, stepping over the threshold.
Victor followed him, the floor creaking beneath their feet.
A glance around showed they were in a family room. There was a couch and a pair of recliners. An older, box shaped television stood on a worn table against the far wall. Pictures of family members hung in cheap gold frames on the walls and blinds were drawn against the rest of the world.
Victor stepped away from Jeremy and looked around, searching for some sign of the owner.
“Will you get the light please?” Jeremy asked.
“Sure,” Victor replied, going to an end table and turning on a small lamp. A dull light spilled out from beneath its tattered, ivory shade. Three cherubs, carved from stone, clung to the center of the light, their feet planted on the base. Their heads were raised, staring up at the shaded bulb.
“Is that all there is?” Jeremy inquired, glancing over at the light. His eyes widened, and he hissed, “Step away.”
Without asking why, Victor did as he was told. When he had reached Jeremy, he said, “What happened?”
“Nothing yet,” Jeremy answered, his eyes fixed on the lamp.
“Is something supposed to?” Victor asked.
“Look,” Jeremy replied, nodding back towards the light.
Victor turned around and bit back a gasp of surprise.
A trio of toddlers climbed out of the cherubs, the three ghost children squatting in predatory positions, their gaze locked on Victor and Jeremy.
“They can’t do that,” Victor said, not believing what his eyes were telling him.
“They can, and they do,” Jeremy said. “We cannot take our eyes off them, Victor. One of us must be watching them at all times until we leave this room, and then we must be certain to close and lock the door.”
“Who are they?” Victor asked.
“Later,” Jeremy said, shaking his head. “Keep your eyes on them while I scout the next room.”
“Sure,” Victor said, his heart pounding.
Jeremy left him, and a moment later, there was a crash, and the older man cried out.
“Oh God, no!”
Before Victor could ask what happened a heavy weight smashed into the back of his chest and sent him into the floor.
And he lost sight of the children.
Chapter 49: The Fight Begins
Tin soldiers scattered across the old tile of the kitchen floor, the metal thumping and scraping, the troops skidding into dark corners and beneath the cabinets.
For the first time in years, Jeremy knew fear.
The temperature plummeted, and the first of the soldiers appeared.
He was a thin man, an officer, with a handlebar mustache. On his left eye, he wore a monocle. His right hand held a cavalry saber. He grinned at Jeremy and said, “Surrender, and you will be spared.”
Jeremy knew that no answer he gave the man would stop what was about to come.
The officer repeated the statement, and when Jeremy still didn’t reply, the soldier shrugged and shouted, “Attention!”
Four more ghosts appeared. They carried muskets with disturbingly long bayonets attached to them, and the soldiers leveled the weapons against him.
The officer raised his saber and spoke again. Each of the soldiers cocked their muskets, and Jeremy lifted his cane in salute.
A cunning smile appeared on the officer’s face, and he snapped out an order.
The muskets were lowered, but the mustached man kept his saber high.
“A duel,” Jeremy said.
The officer nodded, gave a short bow, and lunged towards Jeremy. As Jeremy went to block the attack, the officer reversed the blow and cut him across the back of his left arm.
The pain was instant and searing and had Jeremy been holding the cane in that hand, he would have dropped it.
A chuckle slipped out of the officer, and then he dashed forward, the saber point deadly in spite of its incorporeal nature.
Gritting his teeth, Jeremy slid a half step to the right, allowed the blade to pass through the bicep of his left arm, and bit back a howl as he swung his cane in towards the officer.
The iron filled handle caught the laughing ghost squarely on the side of the head, and the man vanished. Jeremy stumbled back, saw the looks of surprise on the faces of the remaining soldiers, and let out a pleased snort.
His joy was short lived as the ghosts charged at him, bayonets lowered.
A blow landed against his back, knocking him to the floor and Victor leaped over him. The younger man let out a cry of pain as one of the bayonets caught him in the thigh. Victor barreled through the man and crashed into the cabinets.
“Victor,” Jeremy gasped, “there are toy soldiers on the floor, gather them up, and secure them!”
The other man nodded and spat out a single word through clenched teeth.
“Kids.”
Jeremy had enough time to turn and see them crawling across the floor towards him, eyes wide and teeth bared.
Behind him, he heard Victor yell, but he couldn’t spare the man a glance. The dead children would be on him, and they would do more than seek to feed on his flesh. They would rip out his soul if they could, and feast on it for as long as possible.
The toddlers were small, with chubby cheeks and limbs. But their eyes lacked any trace of innocence, and they had full sets of teeth. Each had been sharpened to a point, and Jeremy could only imagine the horrific pain as they bit into flesh.
<
br /> Behind them the lamp remained lit, the stone forms they had abandoned once more looking up at the bulb.
“We know you, Jeremy Rhinehart,” one of the dead children said. “We remember you. You sought to imprison us, to keep us away from food. That was not polite. You were not polite. I am afraid you lack manners.”
Jeremy reached out for his cane and found it as the first of the toddlers found his foot. The teeth passed easily through the leather of his shoe, and the pain was as horrific as he had imagined it would be.
Chapter 50: The Soldiers
Victor jerked the bag open, grabbed the first tin soldier he saw and thrust it into the pouch. He cinched it shut as pain pierced his calf.
A scream tore out of his throat, and he twisted around to see one of the soldiers withdrawing a bayonet.
Victor’s eyes darted around the kitchen, spotted a second soldier, and he threw himself across the floor at it. No sooner had he stuffed it into the bag with the first did another bayonet punch his shoulder. For a split second, he felt himself pinned to the floor, then the weapon was removed, and Victor spat at the soldier.
Three of them formed a semi-circle around him as he pushed himself upright, back against a cabinet. He spotted two of the soldiers, then the final one, all by the refrigerator.
The men glared at him, and he returned the expression and the sentiment. His eyes darted over their uniforms, taking in the cut of the jackets, the muskets and the hats they wore.
They were British, he realized. Late eighteenth century.
His mind raced as he sought out what he knew about the militaries of England at that time. From the deep recesses of his memory, he dragged up the basic concepts and formalities of King George’s army.
One of the soldiers stepped forward, bayonet at the ready, and fear brought the language back to Victor.
“Attention!” he barked.
The three men snapped to the position of attention, and they looked at Victor with barely masked surprise.
Victor struggled to his feet and dragged up fragments of treatises on British military discipline.
“You dare to touch me?” he spat, the words coming out with difficulty.
Fear flickered over their faces.
Penalties in eighteenth-century armies had been brutal at best, and Victor recalled a project he had done about corporal punishment.
“It will be the wheel,” he said, nodding as he took a painful step towards them.
One of the men started to shake, terror in all of their eyes.
“Move,” Victor hissed, and the men moved as he stepped towards them. He bent down in front of the refrigerator, snatched up the toy soldiers, and turned to face the ghosts.
“Later,” he said. With a shrug, he opened the sack and dropped the toy soldiers in. As he cinched it closed, the dead vanished. Victor turned to Jeremy and choked on a scream.
The toddlers had come into the kitchen.
Two of the three were latched onto Jeremy’s feet while the older man fended off the third one, who was attempting to bite his face.
For a heartbeat, Victor stood still, unsure of what to do. Then he saw Jeremy’s cane on the kitchen floor, and he leaped forward, snatched it up and swung it one-handed.
The handle passed through the child, the iron causing the ghost to dissipate.
Instantly, the other two abandoned Jeremy’s feet and charged towards Victor, high-pitched squeals ripping out of their mouths.
Victor knocked them both back with the cane, the dead vanishing.
“They’ll be back in moments,” Jeremy gasped. “Go into the family room, unscrew the top of the cane. There is salt in it. Pour it out and make a circle. Put the lamp within the circle. Quickly now.”
Victor didn’t waste breath on an answer. Instead, he stumbled out of the kitchen, his body a massive ball of nerves and pain. The dead children appeared as he moved towards the lamp and he knocked them back again with the cane.
Hissing with pain, Victor forced his injured hand to unscrew the cane’s handle. The strong smell of salt rose up from the confines, and he poured the contents out on the floor, making a rough, unbroken circle. He limped to the lamp, ripped it off the table and the plug out of the socket, and put both in the center of the salt ring.
Then Victor stepped back, screwed the handle back onto the body of the cane, and waited.
Nothing happened.
He glanced at Jeremy in the kitchen. The older man’s face was a twisted mask of agony, but he had managed to sit up.
Victor took a step toward him, but Jeremy held up a hand, stopping him.
“No,” Jeremy said, wincing. “Don’t come any closer. I’m not sure what is a trap and what is not. The entire house could be, for all I know.”
Victor glanced around, wary of every object, wondering if even the television was possessed.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Victor asked finally.
“That, my friend,” Jeremy said with a forced smile, “is an excellent question. I am hopeful that in a moment I shall be able to get to my feet. When that is the case, I will endeavor to leave the kitchen.”
“And then?” Victor asked.
“I will do what I should have done before I walked so blithely into the house,” Jeremy said in a voice filled with bitter self-reproach. “I will look and see what needs to be seen.”
“What are you talking about?” Victor asked, confusion mingling with the pain and causing a headache to burst into existence behind his eyes.
“If we make it out of this house,” Jeremy said, his tone serious, “then I will tell you what I mean. Suffice to say I was foolish, and I do not plan to be so again.”
As Victor watched, Jeremy got to his feet, staggered back and reached out. His hand found the lip of the countertop, slipped and struck a ceramic mug with a large letter ‘E’ emblazoned upon the side of it.
A shock wave of cold air rushed out of the kitchen, knocking Victor back a step and he heard Jeremy speak.
“Oh no,” the man said in a soft voice, “it seems I’ve been foolish again.”
Victor couldn’t answer.
Something came roaring out of the kitchen.
***
Stefan watched the mug fall, the look of horror appearing at almost the same time on the old man’s face.
He knows what it is, Stefan thought, grinning. He knows who is coming.
Chuckling, Stefan leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited to see what would happen.
Chapter 51: A Familiarity with the Dead
The house became darker as if a giant tarp had been dropped around it, cutting the building off from the rest of the world.
It was a disquieting feeling, and one Victor hoped would end sooner rather than later.
The house grew silent, and darkness filled the kitchen, blocking Jeremy from view.
Victor glanced down, made sure he wouldn’t break the circle of salt and stepped away from the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” a voice asked.
It had a hollow ring to it, as though the words were spoken from a great distance.
“Evidently,” Victor said, clearing his throat, “I’m not going anywhere.”
The unseen ghost chuckled. “You’re not stupid. I’ll give you that. Although I don’t know why you came in here. Didn’t you know it was a trap?”
Victor started to answer and then stopped. The question, he realized, was rhetorical.
“Now,” the ghost said, the voice taking on more definition, becoming masculine. “Tell me, what do you think I should do with you?”
“Let us go?” Victor suggested.
The ghost laughed and said, “No. Not likely. My name is Nicholas, and I have every intention of seeing if I can pull your intestines out through your mouth.”
“Wow,” Victor said in a small voice, “that does not sound like a good time at all.”
“No?” Nicholas asked. “Hm, I suppose we’re going to have to
find out.”
The darkness took shape, revealing a tall, thin man, his head nearly touching the lintel of the kitchen’s doorway. His features were blurred as if he couldn’t quite recall what he had looked like in life.
“Tell me,” the ghost said, “what is your name? I should like to know it so when I question you there is a familiarity between us. So when I’m removing your ears, I might ask, how is this? And thus insert your name. I should not want us to be so impersonal. Death, my good, fine sir, should always be a personal business.”
“Victor,” he whispered, “my name is Victor.”
“Victor,” Nicholas said with satisfaction. “That is an uncommon name. I lived a great many years, you know, and only once did I know a Victor. He was named after my own father. A time when sons still respected their elders.”
“Was he a good man?” Victor asked, desperate to stall his torture at Nicholas’s hands.
“I don’t know,” Nicholas answered. “I died when he was still a babe in his mother’s arms. It was that miserable cold New England weather that did me in. I am sure of it. You sound as if you are from that miserable portion of the States.”
“I am,” Victor said. “Pepperell.”
Nicholas took a step forward and then stopped.
“Pepperell, did you say?” the ghost asked, his voice suddenly suspicious.
“Yes,” Victor said, nodding. “I was born and raised there.”
“What is your father’s name?” Nicholas demanded, his voice rising.
“Alexander,” Victor said hurriedly. “His name was Alexander.”
“Was it?” Nicholas asked in a doubtful tone.
“Of course it was,” Victor snapped, anger rising in spite of his fear, “I think I know the name of my father.”
“And his last name, what is it?” the ghost asked softly.
“It was Daniels, just like mine is,” Victor answered.