by S. T. Boston
“I’d never, never be like you,” she said, mustering defiance into her voice.
“Shhh,” Lucinda cooed. She smiled softly and brushed her thumb over Ellie's dirt-smeared cheek. “You don’t choose the darkness, Ellie. The darkness chooses you. Your brother has been chosen, chosen so that the Minister might once again dwell in this world, dwell in living flesh, as he did for so many years. He will still be Henry, only he won’t be Henry. Your death will enable that transition, Ellie. So, you see as much as we’d like to keep you, alas - destiny has other plans. Through your death, he will live."
"He will become," the blonde woman said enthusiastically. "Through your sacrifice, he will become and once more our father will lead us.”
Ellie’s head span, all she could think to do was plead with them, plead with them to let her go, plead with them to just end it all for her quickly and painlessly if that’s what they meant to do. The girls in her dream had birthed children to these monsters, which meant they must have been incarcerated here for months and months at a time. She’d spent just less than six days confined to her cell and already she felt as if her mind would crack. Before she could speak there was a commotion from the passage outside the door through which she’d just come. She was unable to turn her head, but soon the door was pushed open and a small crowd surged past her. At the front, his legs bound at the ankles, so he could do no more than waddle, and his hands tied behind his back, was a tall and well-built man in his twenties with jet black messy hair. His face was ashen, and cloth had been tied in a gag through his mouth. He saw Ellie tied to the chair and his eyes widened in recognition, he tried to mouth something, but it did nothing other than cause blood filled saliva to run from the corners of his mouth and drip in long stringy stands down to his black button-up shirt. Behind him a group of ten or more people shoved him forward, shoved until he reached the edge of the stone steps where, with a final push, he lost his footing and fell. His body tumbled all the way to the bottom like a ragdoll, where he came to rest by the base of the nearest altar. Ellie thought he was dead, but as the first of the group reached him, he began to stir, began to sit himself up. Ellie saw his face now wore a fresh cut, just above his right eye and deep red blood flowed freely down the side of pallid cheek, the crimson liquid all the more brilliant in colour against his ashen skin. Ellie knew the guy, but in her confusion, she couldn't place just where from. Had he been at the barbeque, too? She didn’t think so, but his face was definitely familiar. Just as she couldn’t fully recall the name of the woman with blonde hair, it was lost to her for now, just out of reach, yet her mind continued to try and grab for it.
The group who’d bundled him into the room and cast him down the stairs all wore identical robes to that of Lucinda and the blonde woman, only their faces were covered with white featureless masks of porcelain. Three of the masked figures manhandled him onto the altar nearest to where she sat, he kicked his bound legs out in protest and muffled groans of pain and anger came from behind the fabric of his gagged mouth. Once in place, the same three held him down onto the stone while two others worked deftly at binding his body, legs, and head in place, so he was fixed looking at the beams of the roof, just as Ellie had been when she'd been a passenger to all those girls. Once he was bound in place his shirt was torn open exposing his bare chest, and even from her elevated position, Ellie heard the small plastic buttons as they tinkled to the floor. She wanted to look away, but the binding on her head meant she was looking directly at the nightmarish scene. Unable to do anything else to shut it out, she closed her eyes.
“Open your eyes, Ellie,” Lucinda said. “Open your eyes or I’ll have them dig one out with a spoon and feed it to you. You look pretty hungry, maybe you’d like that.” The calmness in which Lucinda spoke chilled her and Ellie had no doubt that Lucinda Horner meant every word of it.
“P-please,” Ellie sobbed. “I don’t w-want to s-see this, make it s-stop.”
“He’s been meddling Ellie," Lucinda said in a low voice as if it were a secret. "Sticking his nose in where it is not wanted. His spirit is not pure like yours so it's of no use in main ceremony, but the darkness will still devour his soul nonetheless, and he needs to learn a lesson, Ellie. One he will never forget. And trust me he won’t forget this. You see, Ellie when you are killed in any ceremony to the Lord of Darkness your sole goes to his realm, just as yours will. The human soul never really dies, so it becomes trapped there where the demons feast on you forever.”
"You-you're crazy," Ellie sobbed, but Lucinda didn't give her the pleasure of a reply, she was now stood upright, still and focused on the horror coming from the centre of the auditorium.
Other robed and masked figures were filing into The Chapel now, they moved around the lowest level of the auditorium where they stood as still as statues, their masked heads bowed toward the man on the altar. They’re going to kill him, Ellie thought to herself. Oh god they’re going to kill him and they’re going to make me watch. And, You need to watch, Ellie because the next person on there is you, the next life to be taken on that stone will be yours!
Only one robed figure was now left by the altar, the others had joined the faceless congregation and now all of them stood, their blank faces of porcelain bowed.
"Lord of night, Lord of Darkness," the faceless figure began. The voice was that of a female. “On this, the eve of the Grand Climax we give you this man’s soul in sacrifice so that you may feast upon it.” She reached under the altar, on the side that Ellie could not see, and as her hand reappeared Ellie recognised with horror what she now clasped. The golden dagger.
“Eo die festum,” came a chanting reply from the group of twenty or so and although they spoke, they remained statue still.
“Lord of the Abyss we offer you this man’s soul so that the shadows may devour it." On the opposite side of the room, Ellie saw what at first looked to be no more than the shadow of a man’s cloak, but it formed quickly and purposefully, and soon she knew what it was. The thing that had been in Henry’s room that first night, the thing that had stalked her in the field the next morning, the thing that had visited with her in the cell. The others didn’t seem to notice it, or if they knew of its presence, they ignored it. Despite the fact that it had no face, Ellie knew it was looking right at her and grinning.
“Devorabunt,” the group chanted as the figure conducting these unholy last rites removed her mask. The woman was older than Lucinda, maybe in her late sixties. She had jet black hair that was cut to a bob not too dissimilar to that of her own and Ellie recognised her as one of the villagers that she’d met at the BBQ. She’d even spent some time kicking a cheap plastic ball around Lucinda’s garden with Henry, whilst he ran and laughed with delight, and the memory of it made her feel sick.
The dagger was high above the man’s bare torso now, clenched tightly in a two-hand grip and beneath it, his body writhed against the restraints in anticipation of the blade. The dark man on the opposite side of the room watched on from his faceless darkness. The robed figures still stood statue still, waiting, anticipating. And above her, in the murk of the roof, the shadows stirred.
Beneath the fabric of the gag the man tried to speak, maybe to beg or plead for his life, but what he was trying to say was lost. Elie wanted to close her eyes again. She wanted to shut the horror out. Wanted it to end, but both Lucinda and the blonde woman were stood guard by her, so she watched, feeling nauseated and helpless as the sacrificial dagger sank into his stomach, sank and sank, until it reached the hilt, all seven inches of the glinting, golden blade eaten by his flesh. Ellie heard him scream with pain and she saw his large muscular body tense. It went rigid before it tried to double over, but the restraints held fast and prevented the natural movement. The black-haired women, the master and architect of this nightmare, kept both hands on the dagger, she paused for a second, waiting until the poor man’s thrashing had subsided a little, then proceeded to cut him from stomach to sternum.
“We send his soul to the Aby
ss, so that you may feast on it for eternity,” the black-haired woman cried in glee. She removed the knife from his chest and held it aloft in blood-soaked hands, and as she did Ellie saw the skin on her face mould, as if melting before her eyes. The skin rippled and twisted before her face came back.
"Nam aeturnum," chanted the group as his body convulsed and blood flowed down over the stone. The muscular spasms caused a section of his intestine to spill from his body, it slid from the slit in his stomach and fell to the floor like some oversized piece of limp spaghetti, but it wasn’t over yet. As he lay dying, the shadows began to drop from their hiding places among the beams and like birds of prey, they swooped down sinking their ethereal forms hungrily into his fatally wounded body. As each one penetrated him, a fresh screaming cry of pain erupted from his now bloodied lips. It went on like that for what felt like an age but was likely no more than a minute. Gradually the spasms began to ebb, the way an epileptic might stop convulsing at the end of a grand mal. Eventually they stopped altogether, as did his screams.
In the final moment of death, his head, the restraint holding it now loosened from how viscously he’d fought against it, gave way, and lulled to one side. His lifeless eyes locked onto Ellie's. At that moment, she knew where she’d seen him before and why he’d looked so familiar.
Chapter 42
Mike felt his way along the central corridor, leaning his body lightly against the wood panelled wall for direction. Tara gripped his left arm like a vice and after the brightness of the light and the crescendo of screams the darkness and the silence that now followed felt both perpetual and disorientating. The only sounds that now befell his ears were his own laboured breathing, the sound of their feet as they shuffled along the thickly piled carpet and the occasion sob from Tara.
“He’s g-gone, Mike,” she sobbed in a voice that was no louder than a whisper. “He had hold of m-me, then he d-didn’t and now h-he’s gone.”
The central corridor came to an end and Mike knew that now they were in the kitchen. No moonlight came from the windows or the half-glazed panel of the back door and he had to rely on memory and touch to navigate his way along the granite worktops to the gas hob. He sighed in relief as his fingers found the dials and Mike wasted no time in turning one and depressing it. The hiss of gas emanated from the burner and filled the room. With his other hand, Mike found and clicked the lighter to life. It was one of those long ones with a clicker button on the end and shaped like a match, designed for the sole purpose of getting the stove on when the electricity went. As the flame found the gas the burner fired, finally providing some light to see by. He repeated the process with the other three hobs and soon the kitchen was bathed in an ethereal glow of blue gaslight. He turned and took Tara in his arms, pulling her close enough so that he could feel her trembling. She buried her head into his shoulder and he enjoyed the faint smell of shampoo on her hair, it was something real in this seemingly impossible situation.
“I’ll get the lights back on and then we will look for him,” he reassured her. “The fuse box is in the utility cupboard by the back door.”
“And if it’s not the fuse box, what then?” she asked.
Reluctantly he released her from his arms, “One step at a time,” he said, reaching the cupboard and opening the door. The fuse box was at head height, a white rectangle with a smoked plastic cover. He flipped it up and ran his eyes along the bank of switches, feeling relieved to see that the main breaker, the one that killed power to the lights and the sockets, was in the down position. “See?” he said. “The fuse tripped.” And then a new and terrible thought crossed his mind, what if when he turned it back on the lights stayed off? The power had surged massively and there was a chance it had fried the entire breaker. If that had happened, they’d be stuck with the light from the cooker hob until dawn, and that was still hours away. He scrubbed the thought and promptly flicked the breaker switch up. There was a heavy and deeply satisfying CLICK and instantly the lights in the central corridor and beyond in the entrance lobby sprung to life. In the kitchen, the brushed aluminium microwave beeped and 00:00 began to flash slowly on its green display. Mike closed the cupboard door and immediately turned the lights on in the kitchen, too.
“We need to find him,” Tara prompted, already pulling Mike by the arm and back in the direction of the central corridor. Mike went with her and they retraced their steps back toward the lobby. Halfway down the passageway they found the GoPro, it was on the floor and still attached firmly to the selfie stick. Mike bent and picked it up, the screen was dead, so he tried to turn it on. The screen briefly flashed on, gave Mike a battery symbol with a red line through then beeped twice and turned off.
“The battery is flat,” he said with confusion. “Odd, it had only been recording for ten minutes at most.” He tucked the camera into the pocket of his cargo pants and carried on to the lobby. The front door was still locked, the key still on the slate hanger below the printed and laminated note reminding guests to leave the key there at all times when inside. From the lobby, they climbed the righthand staircase to the lounge. On the trestle table, the two twenty-inch screens displayed a NO SIGNAL message in blue. "When the power went it knocked everything out," Mike said. “The CCTV base units need to be manually rebooted.” Mike flicked the two units to life, the equipment whirred quietly to itself and one by one the cameras came back. Mike scanned through them as Scotty had shown, all the rooms were empty. Mike hit the record option on both systems. Things had already gone south in a way that was far beyond reasonable and CCTV footage might prove vital in trying to explain it later. Satisfied the camera system was working he crouched down and picked up the battery-operated Sonic Ear Amplifier, he worked the dial with his thumb. “Battery is flat on this as well,” he commented before placing it back down. The laptop had been plugged into the mains, but the screen was blank. Mike fired it to life and saw that its internal battery too had died.
“Mike,” Tara prompted, she was pacing behind him anxiously. “Please, we still have half the chapel to search.”
“I’m trying to figure this thing out,” Mike said, and he reached his own trembling hand out and took hers. “He can’t just have blinked out of existence.” But that was exactly how it had happened, Mike thought, and, That’s how those Harrison kids went, here one minute, then pooof, gone the next. “What do you remember?”
"The screaming," Tara said. "I'll never forget that. I think in ten years' time I'll still be hearing that when I close my eyes to sleep at night. Then the lights got bright. I had a hold of your arm and Scotty had a hand on my shoulder. I looked around at him, then looked back to you. It was so bright by then, and then I felt,” she paused as if searching for the right term.
“Like a pressure drop?” Mike asked.
“Yes, like when your ears go. The lights went out and I felt a bit, I don’t know – sick. No, not sick not that bad, more a little nauseous. It all happened so fast; this was all over no more than two seconds. When the lights went out, I felt his hand move off me and then he was gone. Mike, he was just not there.”
“Well I guess now we have to accept that the Harrison kids likely vanished in a similar way, and if we can find them - ”
"We find Scotty," Tara said hopefully, for a second there was hope in her eyes, but then it washed away. "But we've been around this fucking place three or four times this evening and - "
“We will figure it out,” Mike said, but he could hear the lack of conviction in his own voice.
From the lounge they went room to room, Tara calling Scotty's name as if they were searching some expansive area and not the inside of a building. In the bedroom that had been Henry Harrison’s, the Jack was still out of his box, his painted red smile grinned back at them knowingly from the centre of the room. Mike shivered looking at it and after a sweep of the room and the ensuite he shut the door, glad to be away from it.
Within five minutes they were back in the kitchen, “He can’t have just vanished,” Tara sai
d as if trying to convince herself of the impossible situation, her voice was wavering, and Mike knew they both needed to get out of the building, if only for a few minutes. “What do we do now?”
Mike took the key from the hanger by the back door, “I don’t know,” he said feeling defeated. “But I think I’d like to get out of here and get some air for a few minutes while I try to figure it out, you look like you need some air, too.” He unlocked the door and they both stepped out onto the rear patio area. Mike turned his face toward the sky and inhaled the mild air deeply, the air caught in his chest as he noticed something that didn’t compute. “Look at the sky,” he prompted. The sky was still black, yet in the east, the first tendrils of orange dawn light were threading their way like veins of amber through the darkness, and at this time of year it would be fully light before long.
“I don’t understand,” Tara said sounding confused.
“How much time has passed since you woke up?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most,” she replied.
“It was half two when I heard the music box, I looked at my watch, I remember it clearly. I remember it all clearly,” he said. Mike backed into the light coming from the kitchen window and checked the hands of his Timex. “It’s four in the morning, Tara. What the fuck happened in the hour and a half we seem to have missed?”