by James Hunt
Iris fingered the smooth crystal still attached to the necklace, and smiled sadly as she looked at Sarah. “My late husband thought the same thing you did. He couldn’t understand how his own family could make a pact with the devil. He didn’t understand that it would take our children, that it would take my daughter!” Iris stepped from Sarah’s reach. “I understood what my husband couldn’t.” She plucked the orb from her neck. “The devil gets his due.”
When Iris dropped the orb into the witch’s palm, Sarah lunged for it, but was suddenly squashed to the floor, unable to move her body.
The pain returned, but it was different this time. It felt closer, more intimate, and when Sarah clawed at her shirt, she felt the scales spreading up her stomach. The pain reached her chest, and she grew short of breath and then lost her voice as she felt the vibrations of her screams in her throat.
“It’s going to hurt,” the witch said, walking closer, her hips swaying and that coy little smile still spread across her stunningly beautiful face. “And I know it’s in your nature to fight and resist, but the more you try and put this off, the more it’s going to hurt. You’re going to die, Sarah. Your soul will vanish, and you will cease to exist. The scary part is knowing that beforehand, but I can tell you that when it happens…” She leaned close, and Sarah caught the faint stench of decay on her breath. “You won’t even remember what it was that you were afraid of.”
“Sarah!” Dell stumbled forward, but before he even made it a step and had a chance to reach out his hands to grab her, she was gone.
Dell waved his arms around in the spot where she had disappeared, but he touched nothing but air. Spinning in circles, he looked back up at the house.
Dell sprinted back to the squad car, reaching for the radio inside and ignoring Brent’s pestering questions. “Faye! Tell the state troopers that I’m going to the Bell house, and tell them that our situation has changed to involve hostages.” He tossed the radio receiver onto the dash and popped the trunk.
“Dell? What the hell is going on out there?” Faye’s voice crackled through the radio, and Dell scooped the dashboard receiver one last time before he left.
“Just tell them that I’m going to the house and that the kidnappers involved are Iris and Kegan Bell. Both should be considered armed and dangerous. If I don’t make it out, I need you to take care of Sarah, all right?”
With Faye still screaming questions, Dell opened the trunk and grabbed the shotgun and started loading shells. His nerves started to fray as he loaded the weapon, and he could hear Brent screaming through the back window.
“You’re going to get yourself killed, man!” Brent’s voice sounded throaty and hoarse. “That’s what she does. It’s all just a game for her to try and make herself feel better. Don’t get caught up in it!”
With the shotgun loaded, Dell shoved another handful of shells into his pocket and then slammed the trunk closed, revealing Brent staring at him through the back window, still shaking his head.
“Don’t go!”
But Dell wasn’t going to lie down. He sprinted toward the mansion, the butt of the shotgun shoved into the crook of his shoulder, and his gaze focused on the weapon’s sights.
The Bell family had sunk its teeth and claws into his town for too long, and now they had taken nearly everything. Dell knew that they weren’t going to stop until it was done. But he couldn’t let them win, not now. He was going to put a stop to it, and he was going to do it by any means necessary.
Dell leapt up the steps to the Bells’ front door two at a time, winded by the time he reached the top, and slowed as he approached the doors. He gripped the shotgun with both hands and then flung the doors open.
Dell kept the shotgun poised to shoot but after a quick sweep of the foyer, he found it empty save for the candles that wiggled flames, moving the shadows inside, bringing the house to life.
Shadows and light danced in a tango of mystery and defiance. Despite the cold inside, Dell was sweating. He stood there in the foyer for a moment, unsure of where to go.
“Sheriff’s Department!” Dell shouted, his training taking over and forcing him to identify himself. “I want everyone inside to come out and identify yourselves, now!” But his voice only echoed off the walls and bounced off the high ceiling. No one exited. No one left.
Dell turned toward the grand staircase, lifting the barrel of his gun up the winding steps to the second floor. If Sarah was here, he was betting that she’d be on the fifth floor. He approached the stairs carefully and then made his way up, leading with the shotgun.
He passed the second floor and then the third. Halfway up to the fourth floor, Dell heard a blood-curdling scream that propelled him up the stairs in a sprint, sacrificing the steadiness of his aim as the shotgun wobbled back and forth from his increased pace.
The screams worsened when he reached the fourth floor, and just before he reached the steps leading up to the fifth, a heavy thud whacked the back of his skull, sending him sprawling out onto the floor and sending the shotgun from his hands and skidding across the boards.
“You know it’s not polite to enter without knocking first.”
Dell turned his head at the voice, the back of his skull throbbing in a dull ache, and before his eyes had an opportunity to adjust, a fist rammed his nose, drawing blood from his nostrils and flinging back his head.
Still disoriented, Dell felt hands picking him up by the Kevlar vest beneath his uniform.
“You should have just stayed out of it, Dell,” Kegan said, dragging Dell’s body along the hardwood, struggling with the man’s size and weight. “All you had to do was stay in Redford, but you just couldn’t stay away from this house, could you?” He laughed. “You never could.”
A quick flood of adrenaline helped pull Dell from the throes of confusion, and he swung his arms, forcing Kegan to wrap him in a chokehold on the floor. His airway tightened, and pressure started to build in his head.
“You want to do this the hard way?” Kegan asked, his voice strained from the effort of having to choke him out. “You want to travel back in time to grade school when I kicked your ass up and down these halls?”
With his cheeks turning purple, Dell clawed at Kegan’s arm, the pressure in his head causing his eyes to bulge from their sockets. He choked, and his vision blurred.
“You never could get the girl, Dell,” Kegan said, a joyful malice to his voice. “I bet it’s been frustrating for you to never have been the guy, the dude, the man who had it all figured out.” He leaned closer to Dell’s ear, dropping his voice to a whisper. “You’re just a bastard whose daddy left because he couldn’t hack it. I guess it runs in the family.”
Dell grimaced, then steadied his legs, squared up his hips, and lifted them both into the air and slammed Kegan hard on his back.
After the harsh crack of contact between Kegan’s back and the floor, the pressure and tightness around Dell’s neck loosened, and he flung Kegan’s arm off him and scrambled toward the shotgun that lay nearby.
Fingers clasped Dell’s ankle, and he looked back to find Kegan latched onto his leg. Dell kicked, the heel of his boot missing the first two strikes but connecting against Kegan’s forehead on the third, which again released him.
Dell crawled again toward the weapon. Just when he had his hands around the stock of the shotgun, he was flattened to the ground, his chest atop the weapon he had been reaching for.
“You stupid fuck!” Kegan had wrestled his way on top of him, punching Dell’s back and sides with quick, heavy strikes. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
The Kevlar around Dell’s torso helped lessen Kegan’s punches, and Dell managed to twist himself around and then wrap his legs over Kegan in a scissor hold, choking him out with his knees.
“And you never knew when to shut up.” Dell tightened his hold, and Kegan pounded impotently at his leg, the motions growing weaker and weaker until finally he passed out.
Dell released him, his own muscles
trembling from the exertion, and then stood, picking up the shotgun off the ground. He removed a pair of zip ties from his belt and restrained both Kegan’s wrists and ankles.
Once he was tied up, Dell flipped Kegan the bird, but his victory was cut short with another scream from upstairs. “Sarah.” Her name left his lips in a breathless whisper, and he hurried up the steps and toward the commotion. He prayed that he wasn’t too late and that whatever Sarah had gotten herself into he would be able to get her out of.
20
Even though Sarah could no longer hear herself screaming, she still felt her throat grow raw. Terrified, she forced herself to look down at the horrid transformation of her body. The icy scales had crawled to her neck and covered everything but her head.
The witch stood off to the side, watching as Sarah struggled with the evil that was taking control. “The darkness is inevitable, Sarah. Why fight it?” She stepped closer. “Soon, you will join all of these souls, and yours will be the final key to unlock Satan’s wrath upon this earth. Your meaningless life and soul will have purpose, which is what all people search for their entire lives, and it’s right here in front of you. Just imagine!”
And Sarah could imagine. Because she felt the fire and smelled the death. Destruction was barreling toward them like a freight train. The sum of all her fears had accumulated into a single entity, and it was breathing down her neck.
But it wasn’t just her own fears. No, it was an entire world full of hate and confusion. It was a spectrum of humanity’s suffering that stretched from its conception to its end. It replayed over and over in her mind, and Sarah finally felt the levy break. A few frosted blue scales appeared on her neck.
“You can’t stop it,” the witch said. “You’ve struggled for so long, and you’ve suffered so much, why not just give in? Why prolong the torture of a life that has never had any meaning?”
Sarah spied the orb on the bed. She could hear the screams of the souls inside, and the light on the orb grew brighter and brighter. If it weren’t for the cries of pain, it would have looked beautiful.
“All of those people who let you down,” the witch said, now close to Sarah’s ear. “All of those people who cast you aside and told you that you weren’t worth the time, those are the people you’re helping right now. Those are the individuals you’re saving. And why? They hurt you, cast you out, amplified the pain and loss of a little girl who couldn’t defend herself.”
A few more scales appeared on her neck, inching toward Sarah’s throat, and she started to feel the last of her resolve slip away. The witch’s words were stoking the flames of hate and resentment in Sarah’s own heart. It was a fire that had always been there, and though she had tried to douse it with hope and love over the years, it was too strong to die.
“I can feel it,” the witch said, her tone laced with sympathy and longing. “I see all of your pain and confusion, and I’m here to tell you that it’s fine to let go. That’s all he wants. He wants to release you from the heartache that no one else has been able to ease. He wants to cradle you in the warming embrace of a father. Touch with the gentle caress of a mother.”
Three more scales appeared, and the blue in Sarah’s eyes started to fade, and her striking blonde hair greyed.
The witch shut her eyes, her lips pressed against Sarah’s ear now. “Just. Give. In.”
Sarah screamed, that fiery pit of hatred blazing to life in a horrible nightmare of pain. The control had slipped away. And she couldn’t fight the flames anymore. She couldn’t fight the hate. She couldn’t ignore the pain.
The witch was right. Why should she struggle to save lives in a world that had never cared anything for her? Why should she try and save the souls of people who never paid her any mind or helped her when she cried for help. She’d always been on her own. And it was time for the rest of the world to feel what she’d gone through her whole life.
But then she felt something. It was like a cool summer breeze after finding a shady spot in the grass in the park. She turned her head toward the door, looking past Iris, who stood there with a twisted expression of pain and excitement on her face. Her features had grown exaggerated, and she looked to have aged another twenty years in the past minute they’d been in the room.
But past Iris and the door was the source of the breeze. A ray of light penetrated the dark shroud that had encompassed her body, mind, and soul. It was someone she knew. One of those souls out of millions that was coming for her. And then she felt him.
“Dell.” She whispered his name in her mind, and the hate and pain started to fade. She remembered meeting him, remembered the touch of his hand and the warmth of his smile. She had liked him. And he had made her a promise. A promise that she let herself believe would not be broken because of the man that had given it.
She felt him close, in the house, coming for her. All she had to do was hold on now. All she had to do was keep the faith that she’d survive and that the pain would end. Because there was light at the end of the tunnel, but it was still far away. So Sarah shut her eyes, returning to her fight against the cold darkness spreading over her soul, and tried to hang on for just a little bit longer.
Dell reached the fifth floor, his breathing still wild and uncontrollable, and the door slammed shut. He grabbed the handle, finding it locked. He shoulder checked the door, the screams louder and more frightening than before.
“Sarah!” He pounded on the door, and sweat poured off him in buckets. Heat penetrated the wood of the door. It was as if the house had caught fire, but there were no flames.
Dell stepped back, aimed the shotgun at the doorknob, and squeezed the trigger. The slug blasted through the door, leaving a hole in the doorknob’s space. The recoil of the blast knocked the butt of the shotgun hard against Dell’s shoulder. When he pushed the door open moments later, it was like opening the door of an oven that had been turned all the way up to broil.
Dell turned his face away, the heat so strong it felt as if his skin was melting off his face. But he pressed forward.
The screams grew louder and stronger at the other end of the hall, and Dell staggered toward the door, all the while the heat growing hotter and hotter. “Christ.” The weapon’s stock burst into flames, and Dell was forced to drop it to the ground. His eyes widened in terror as the flames were quickly snuffed out and the metal of the barrel melted to the floor.
Another scream brought Dell’s attention back toward the door at the end of the hall. “Sarah.” He stumbled forward, the soles of his shoes melting toward the floor, and he was forced to abandon them and walk barefoot.
Pain and heat and exhaustion clouded Dell’s senses, and his concentration waned. He couldn’t think anymore. He couldn’t remember why he’d even come up here, and he couldn’t remember who he was trying to save.
Slowly, his thoughts turned to his own survival. He wanted to leave. It was as if the heat had gotten inside of him, where it was trapped and burning him from the inside out.
“Help me.”
The voice penetrated the screams and the heat and his doubts, and Dell turned back toward the door. He knew that voice. “Sarah.” Dell pushed forward, his body growing heavy, as if the gravity of the house had increased and was trying to push him through the floor.
His very will was being stripped from him with every step, but Sarah’s voice fueled his drive. He could hear the pain in her voice and what remained of her hope beginning to fade. She couldn’t hold on much longer.
Dell was forced to crawl toward the door, but the closer he came to it the farther away it seemed to feel, and his own hope started to dwindle. His body had frozen, and that pressure, that monumental weight that had been crushing him for the past few minutes had finally done its work and flattened him to the floor, which was as hot as a stovetop.
His skin burned, searing itself to the wooden floorboards, and while Dell felt every excruciating minute of the pain, he couldn’t scream. All he could think of was that Sarah was on the other side o
f that door, and she was hurting. But he couldn’t hear her anymore. He couldn’t feel her anymore. The moment had passed, and he had failed.
And so Dell lay there, his body fused to the floor, the pain reaching such a crescendo that he finally opened his mouth to scream but couldn’t even hear it himself. It grew so intense that he broke into hallucinations.
“We’re so close, Dell.” Tears streamed from Sarah’s eyes but then caught fire as they dripped from her chin and hit the floor, exploding into small plumes of fire flowers before dissipating into nothing. “Don’t give up.”
Dell screamed, writhing on the floor, but the anger and shame grew so strong that he broke free and pushed himself off. He felt his cheek, expecting to find nothing but jagged flesh, exposed muscle, and bone. But when his finger hesitantly grazed his skin, it was smooth and even a little cold. It was wet, though, from the sweat.
He looked to the door, the waves of heat causing the entrance to the room to ripple like a desert mirage. She was just on the other side of that door. It wasn’t too late. He could save her. He just had to push a little farther.
The scales had crawled up Sarah’s cheeks and rested just below her eyes. Her mouth had been sealed shut, and she couldn’t move anything save for her pupils. She looked back to the orb on the bed, knowing that if there was any opportunity at stopping this, it was through that.
“Almost done, my dear,” the witch said, circling Sarah like a shark, sniffing the blood-soaked air that Sarah had bled from her body and her soul. She grazed Sarah with her fingertips, her nails scraping against the blue scales that had nearly consumed her. “The last soul. The last flame of hope snuffed out like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And to replace the flames of hope will be the fires of the damned, the resurrection of the rightful ruler of this realm, and the fulfillment of a prophecy that cannot be denied.”
