by Vic Kerry
“Yes, Master.”
Rogers bowed and hurried from the room. Czernobog sat on the cot beside Ashe. His face smoothed out to the swarthy complexion he had the first time they had met. The smell of sulfur still clung to him. He put his hand on Ashe’s knee like a father would a son.
“You have finished?”
“Yeah.”
“You have done a good job. You have no need to worry about Miss Fairchild’s safety. I will uphold my end of the deal completely.”
Ashe believed Czernobog, but it didn’t help ease his mind any.
Cybil felt her way around in the pitch black. She knew that she was in a basement. When the guards or whatever they were moved her from the closet they kept her in they walked down stairs. They made sure to keep her blindfolded. She wasn’t even sure what time it was. Staying in the closet day and night with only the artificial light from a single low wattage bulb screwed up her orientation.
She heard the rumble of noise above her. It wasn’t in the house or wherever they kept her. The sound came from the street. The wall felt like old hewn block as she slid her back over it. Cybil felt ahead of her with one hand. After shuffling along for a while, her hand hit a corner. She scooted around it and kept against the wall until her hand no longer ran across a solid wall. Her foot bumped against a wooden step.
“Thank you.”
Cybil swung around and placed a shaky foot on the step. Her hand pawed in the darkness until she grabbed a banister rail. Using it as an anchor, she started up the steps. Her steps were quick but short to keep from missing a stair and toppling to the hard floor in the pitch black. The higher she ascended the stairs, the louder the noise from outside became. Now she heard cheering and felt the bumping of bass coming from speakers. Occasionally the shrill blast from a plastic party horn cut through it all. Her eyes began to perceive a slit of light not far from her. Three more steps and the hand she slid up the banister rail hit the doorjamb. She searched for the doorknob with her free hand. The cold metal of the knob first flirted with the tips of her fingers. Then she wrapped her hand round it and twisted hard. The knob didn’t move.
Cybil repositioned herself on the top stair. She took her hand from the rail and balanced as best she could. A quick shifting of her weight down the steps nearly toppled her over, but she flung that momentum into ramming the door with her shoulder.
An involuntary puff of air burst from her, and pings of pain prickled across her shoulder. The door seemed no worse for it. Deep inside her, Cybil knew that this might be her only chance to escape. As best she could tell, Czernobog, the Devil, or whatever he called himself, had ordered all the living corpses out of the house tonight. That’s why they locked her in the basement. She flung herself against the door again. More pain and still more of nothing happened to the door. Desperation took over. She slammed into the door with the rhythm of a manic-depressive typing a suicide letter.
The wood on the doorjamb popped. Another ram with her shoulder made the wood crack. A well thought out hard blow with most of her weight splintered wood, and the door pushed open. Cybil fell onto the upper floor. More air forced its way out of her in a large puff.
Sweat ran into her eyes. It stung. As she wiped them with her sleeve, her eyes focused in on the light. They ached from having been so long in the dark. The sound from the street almost rattled the window. She stood up and walked to the window. Outside revelers stood along the street, as a large float passed by. It looked like a dragon and seemed to slither from side to side as smoke billowed from its nose. She hurried through the house looking for a door to the outside. As she ran into the kitchen, the small door with a window in it almost beckoned to her. Cybil ran across the room. She twisted the dead bolt and jerked the safety chain away.
The cold night air gushed in around her when she opened the door. The sound of all the festivities followed as well.
“Thank you,” she said again out loud.
Hindered by nothing, Cybil ran down the small back steps into the little yard. A fence cut the yard off from the street, but a gate stood ajar. She rushed it and bounded onto the street. Several of the revelers gave her mean looks when she bumped into them.
“Please help me.” She pulled on a man’s sleeve. “I’ve just escaped from that house. They kidnapped me.”
The man jerked his arm away and pushed deeper toward the street. Cybil moved down the street and grabbed a man in tuxedo wearing a feathered domino mask.
“You’ve got to help me. I just escaped from kidnappers. They’ve kept me for I don’t know how long.”
“What?” The man pulled up his mask.
“I’ve been kidnapped. I need help.”
“All right, just stand here.” The man sounded panicked. He pushed into the crowd toward the street.
Cybil waited. Her heart beat hard, and she kept twisting her head to make sure none of the living corpses were coming up the street. The man in the tuxedo came back with a police officer who had several strands of Mardi Gras beads around his neck.
“This man tells me that you just escaped from some kidnappers?” the cop asked.
“Yes, and I’m afraid they’re out here in the crowd. I need your help. Take me to the police station or St. Mary’s-by-the-Bay church. I’m friends with Father Smalls. He’ll know what to do.”
The policeman looked at the tuxedoed man. “I think she’s in shock.”
“I’m not. They’re going to get me,” Cybil screamed at him.
A plastic horn squealed out, and a string of beads hit her in the face. She pawed at it knocking it to the ground. The policeman took her by the wrist.
“Please just try and settle down. I’m with you and you’ll be safe.” He turned to the radio clipped to his epaulet. “This is Simmons. I have a woman who says she’s been kidnapped. I’m at Government just past D’Iberville Court. Send a buggy.”
“Roger that Simmons. Buggy on the way.”
Simmons, the policeman, pushed her back from the crowd and against another fence. “I’ve got a golf cart on its way. We’ll get you somewhere safe.”
She put her arms around his neck. “Thank you.”
News Report: Channel 10, Mobile, AL, 2:30 a.m. CST. Sharmaine O’Calley Broadcasting.
“Good morning. We are sorry to interrupt the repeat of Thursday night’s American Idol, but we have breaking news from downtown Mobile.”
Sharmaine O’Calley turns to the second camera as it focuses in closer on her.
“We received a report around two this morning that the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Basilica, seat of the Archdiocese of Mobile, was on fire. Not long ago, the Mobile Fire Department confirmed that the one-hundred-plus-year-old church is engulfed in flames.”
Grainy images of flames lapping the sky replace that of O’Calley. Orange fire envelops the large church building. Several laddered fire trucks sit diagonally to the building. Firefighters spray the flames with water from hoses. O’Calley speaks over this scene.
“Maxwell Grady, captain at the downtown firehouse, says that the fire appears to have been set. At this time, the Mobile police will not confirm or deny this. They do report that they are currently reviewing the video from the traffic cameras near the basilica. This video was emailed to us by a reveler heading home from Dauphin Street celebrations after the Mystics of Time parade.”
The video of the burning church loops back to the beginning, and O’Calley comes back on screen.
“There is also no word from the Mobile police if this fire might be linked to the kidnapping of Archbishop Harrington, who presides over the Archdiocese of Mobile. The spokesperson for the Mobile police did report they are looking for a suspect in the kidnapping of the archbishop, and will probably question that person about this fire.”
She stops and puts her finger to her ear. She listens for a moment.
“We’ve just been given a
report that Fairview Baptist Church on Azalea Road burned to the ground about an hour ago. Late night tipsters are also making unconfirmed reports that West Mobile United Methodist Church and St. Simon’s Episcopal School have burned.”
The broadcaster looks nervous at this point. Her young face shows the inexperience that landed her on the overnight shift at the television station.
“It appears that we are in the middle of a major news event. Please stay tuned to Channel 10 for the latest breaking news about this rash of church burnings. We are going back to our program still in progress.”
A commercial for Zion Presbyterian Church comes on. The minister smiles as a church organ plays “Nearer My God to Thee”.
Chapter Thirty
Cybil woke up in a haze. Slits of light came into the room from behind blinded windows. She rolled over to her back, making her head swim. Her eyes felt heavy and hot. Cotton filled her mouth. She lacked enough saliva to swallow.
The sunlight in the room looked older than morning light, more like noon or just after. What time was it? She looked around the room but saw no clock. Nothing in the room looked familiar. She willed her mind to clear so that she could search her memories.
Last night the living corpses left her in a basement, and she escaped and found a policeman along the parade route. He brought her to the police department. She told them her story, and they transported her to University Hospital. Everything got fuzzy after that. Another look around the room confirmed that it looked like a hospital room, but without some of the customary furniture. No chairs sat against the wall. The mirror over the sink looked more like high polished metal than glass. There wasn’t a television anywhere, and the bed was more of an uncomfortable mattress on a rectangular block of wood.
She stood up and swooned, catching herself on the wall before she fell back on the bed. Her clothes were the same she had on last night. The floor felt cold on her feet.
“No shoes,” she said.
Steadying herself, she staggered to the door and into the hallway. The smell of the hospital washed over her. Chatter from other rooms buzzed around her. A man in dark blue scrubs walked toward her. He carried a clipboard like a tray. A small paper cup was on it.
“Ms. Fairchild?” he asked.
“Yes. That’s me.”
“I need to give you this.” He handed her the cup.
Inside were two small pills. Cybil stared at them but wouldn’t take the cup from the nurse.
“What are they?”
“Your medications.”
“Why am I getting medications? Where am I?”
“You’re in University Hospital. These are what the doctor ordered to help you get your thoughts straightened out.”
“What do you mean? I haven’t seen a doctor. I don’t even remember coming to this unit.”
A short, angry-looking woman with wild curly hair stomped past. She mumbled about the queen’s tarts and how she’d eaten them all. Realization cleared Cybil’s mind quickly.
“I’m on a psych ward?” Cybil said. “How did I end up here?”
“Please just take these,” the nurse said.
“I’m not taking anything until you tell me how I ended up here. The last thing I remember was the police bringing me to the ER because I had escaped from kidnappers.”
The nurse set the cup back on his clipboard. “In the ER, you told them that you had escaped from zombies, who had to go to the Mystics of Time parade because their master, the Devil, told them to. You became agitated when they tried to orient you to reality so they gave you a shot of Geodon then transferred you to us.”
“I’m not crazy. I really did escape from living corpses. They have a house in downtown and a warehouse on Michigan Avenue. Call Father Smalls at St. Mary’s-by-the-Bay Church. He’ll tell you.”
“Ms. Fairchild, I don’t want to have to give you a shot, but if you don’t take these medicines, I’ll have to.”
“You can’t force me to take medications. I’m here against my will and preference. You’ve kidnapped me again.”
“The doctor made you something called a no AMA discharge, which means that tomorrow when the probate office opens he will have you committed, which means we can force medications on you. Please don’t make us.”
Cybil saw that she had lost this particular battle. She held out her hand. The nurse poured the two pills into her hand. She popped them into her mouth.
“Do you need some water?” he asked.
She swallowed big, using the movement to secure the two pills between her top gum in the back and her jaw. “I don’t need it.”
“Let me see.”
Cybil stuck her tongue out and lifted it. Then she swished it around her mouth, making sure not to dislodge the pills. “We good?”
“Thank you.”
“What time is it?”
The nurse looked at his watch. “One fifteen in the afternoon. You missed lunch, but I saved it for you. Would you like it?”
“Yes, please. Can I go back to my room?”
“Of course. I’ll have the PCA bring it to you in a minute.”
Cybil walked back into her room and then into the bathroom. She closed the door and spat the pills out into the toilet. The swirling water flushed them into the sewers.
Lunch had been surprisingly good. Ashe didn’t want to eat, but the smell from the tray that one of the undead minions of Czernobog brought him was too much to resist. The fear of being drugged kept him from eating very often since coming to an agreement with the Devil, although he’d been promised many times that would not be the case. He really didn’t trust the Devil beyond their agreed-upon area.
The afternoon drags took hold of him. After finishing his work on the engram recorders, Ashe hadn’t much to do except sit in his cell/lab twiddling his thumbs. Czernobog denied him anything to entertain himself. Even a romance novel would have been better than counting the rivets in the ceiling again. His eyelids grew heavy as he started down the third row of rivets.
The door slammed open. Ashe jerked to a sitting position. Czernobog strolled in with a large smile on his face.
“Did I wake you?”
“No, I was just counting the rivets in the ceiling, again.”
“Has the number changed since you got here? If so that is a disturbing turn of events.”
“It’s been the same number the last nine times I counted them.”
“You should really get a hobby.” Czernobog walked deeper into the lab. “I recommend masturbation. It seems to work wonders for Dr. Rogers.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I assume you haven’t come here to discuss my recreational interest.”
“You are correct. I have come to test the engram recorders. I need to make sure they play the music correctly and then distribute emotions out.” He pointed to the box Ashe kept the small devices in. “I’ll just help myself.”
“No.” Ashe jumped to his feet. “Let me get you one.”
“I have been around since time began, Dr. Shrove. I can handle getting a device from a box.”
“Yes, but you didn’t give me a clean room to make these things. Several of the devices malfunctioned during construction because your corpse slaves had too much static electricity in them. If you unload a single charge, it will destroy them all.”
“How will the same thing not happen to you?” Czernobog sounded skeptical.
Ashe walked to the worktable and tapped his hand on a metal pad. “Because I’ve been handling electronics for years. I know how to do it.”
“You could not show me?”
“I don’t know what kind of electrical makeup you have. I don’t know if the Prince of Darkness is AC or DC.”
Czernobog laughed. It sounded pleasant and filled with real humor. “Mark Twain was the last of your species to make me really laugh. That man was truly a si
lver-tongued devil. Please select one. You are correct. I would hate to destroy all of this work with just two days to go. You have shown amazing skill for a human, but I think having to remake those would test your limits. I will not test you that far.”
Ashe tapped the metal pad again to make sure he had no static build-up. He didn’t need those things frying. The Devil was right; there was no way he could get them completed by Mardi Gras night if he did. He lifted the lid of the box. Ten identical thumb drive–like devices lay in the box. He picked up the one at the end. It was programmed exactly as the Devil had wanted it to be. If it were used, whoever heard the music stored on it would drop dead, and could then be given recorded emotions and be possessed. If the Devil wished to test any others, Ashe intended to make it look like he took a new device from the box, but just give the same one back. It was a plan suited to the Devil himself. He closed the box and handed the device to Czernobog.
“There you are. I hope you know that as soon as you use that thing, you’ve won.”
The Devil appeared puzzled. “How do you mean?”
“You’ll have damned my soul.”
“Perhaps.”
Ashe almost felt the coldness in the Devil’s voice, but there was something else hidden in the frigidness. Crystals of doubt seemed to rim the chilly words. He wondered if the Devil was as powerful as everyone thought when it came to Hell and damnation.
“I look forward to seeing if all your hard work has paid off. I hope for Cybil’s safety it does.”
“Oh, it will.”
Czernobog slipped the engram device into the pocket of his suit vest and walked out of the room. As he closed the door, he reached into his coat pocket and removed a small paperback book. It hit the table near Ashe, cover up. Apparently, the Devil had a wit equal to Mark Twain’s as well. He was going to let Ashe read The Exorcist.
Cybil walked out of her room into the hall of the psych unit. Something had happened. She hadn’t heard anything, but the lights blinked out and back on. A single shrill scream echoed from the fire alarm and then went silent. All that caught her interest. With all the weirdness she’d encountered over the last few weeks, she’d come to expect anything.
