The Evil Returned

by Richard Raven

  It had all been for nothing; it had all proven too much for him. She could feel the unnatural and unhealthy beat of his good heart, feel its distress and pain, and she could see it in his aura that he didn’t have very long. At any second she expected to see his soul attempt to escape from its shell and cross over to her side.

  There was nothing she could do for his woman. Not now, and she lamented that failure bitterly. Yet, maybe, she could save him, or at least lessen the grave danger that was closing in on him like a malevolent shadow. Yes…maybe she could save one.

  The woman knelt beside him and she placed her hands flat against his chest. At the instance of contact her form began to flicker and quiver, winking in and out of sight, as his injury rifled into and through her and into the void. A groan escaped her parted lips as more and more of it left him, replaced with enormous amounts of her strength and her energy. She was at her strongest and most powerful here, near where she dwelled, and had become more so over the years.

  But she wasn’t an invincible entity. She was but one trapped spirit, toiling in the penance of her sin; she was capable of only so much…and this was too much. She felt herself getting weaker and weaker…

  …and still his pain and distress flowed like a torrent out of him.

  “Help me,” she rasped. “Help me.”

  She suddenly felt the presence of those with whom she dwelled. Felt the flow of their energy through her and into the man’s body. Mercifully, she finally began to feel less and less of his injury leaving him, but there was still much of it in him. Only when she believed she could endure it no more, that those that lent their strength could endure it no more, did her hands rise from his chest. She remained at his side, for the moment too weak to move.

  “Will he be alright now?” asked one of the spirits at her side.

  “Yes,” the ancient one rasped. “Yes…I believe so. Do you see his aura? It’s a much healthier color now.”

  “But he’s so pale,” observed another. “And he’s been sick…it’s all over him.”

  “Yes, he’s been sick,” the ancient one agreed. “He’s been sick—was nearly struck down tonight…for the evil returned. But for now, I think, he may be out of danger. At least for a while or until help can get here…and I pray help isn’t long in coming.”

  “Should we stay here with you…with him?”

  “No, no, all of you go back and see to the others. Our number has been increased by three this night; do what you can for them—and mind that you don’t let the evil one know you’re there. I’ll stay here with him, and I’ll call you if I need you again. Now go, all of you, and hurry.”

  As the spirits departed one by one, the woman gazed down at the still and silent man.

  Hear me, she implored with her thoughts. It has now become your destiny to help destroy this evil…and destroyed it must be. I have witnessed it spew and vent its hatred many times as it ravaged and defiled those frightened and weak of heart, the very ones that gave of their energy to save you. I fear and loath the evil, we all do, and yet I vowed to stop it, for I was the one who unwittingly unleashed it through my own act of pure selfishness. So far, I have failed to stop it…we have all failed. It is too strong, too unholy. But now, with your help and with the power we gave you, I and the rest may just have one more chance to end it. I can feel it and I believe we will have that chance. Once last chance…or else forever remain lost in this darkness, the glorious light perhaps denied us all. Hear me, I pray, and live. Live.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A few minutes later, the Mustang that had passed Jeff and Angela earlier rolled slowly up the dirt road and stopped at the edge of the pavement. For a long moment the car sat there, its engine revving. Finally, the car’s dome light winked on as the driver’s side door swung open. The killer climbed out and stood looking over the car’s roof at the still figure beside the Mazda.

  Another long moment passed, cold and impassive eyes staring without blinking, before the man stepped around the back of the Mustang and approached the figure lying in the dirt. As he neared the figure he shot a quick look both ways along the county road. Satisfied there wasn’t anyone else within miles, he squatted next to the figure and made a face.

  “Puked all over yourself, I see,” he mouthed, his voice edged with disgust. “I’d say, just by looking at you, that you’re as good as dead. Well, tough shit for you, asshole. I’ll give you one thing, though—you had great taste in bitches. One hot little fuck she was…and I fucked her righteously—in both holes and even made her suck me. Finally got my rocks off. The way she screamed it was easy to see she was used to you and not a real man, with a real man’s dick.”

  He laughed as he stood up. He stared down at the still figure a second longer, then gathered a glob of spittle and spat, hitting the asshole squarely in the face. “Thanks, you fucking bastard, for the use of your bitch and for making it so easy for me.”

  Then he walked away without so much as a backward look at the figure. Nor did he waste a second thought on the asshole. His night was over, his business finished for the time being, and now he had other places to be and things to do.

  ***

  The Mustang’s taillights were still visible in the distance when the killer’s spittle disappeared from Jeff’s face as if gently wiped away by a careful but unseen hand.

  After a time Jeff began to stir, moaning softly, and he began mumbling.

  Chapter Fifteen

  About two hours later, a little before one A.M., a passing car stopped. The driver, a weary salesman on his way home after a long stretch on the road, was taking a shortcut home. The man saw the faint glow and soft blink of lights in the distance and had slowed when he saw the car parked just off the pavement. The man surmised that the car had been there for some time, its fading headlights no more than dim spots, the flashers barely lighting up at all. When the man saw the driver’s side door was open and what looked like someone lying beside the car, he slammed on his brakes and switched on his flashers.

  What he found left him more than a little shaken. One look and he knew that the only thing that would help the poor soul lying in the dirt road was police and paramedics. After a quick check of his cell and finding he had no signal—Never a signal in this Godforsaken place! —he was back in his car and speeding back toward State 365. Once he found a signal and made his call, he returned to the Mazda and did what he could for the man on the dirt road. About ten to fifteen minutes later he heard the wail of a siren and saw the flash of blue and white lights.

  “The guy’s a mess,” the salesman said to the officer who climbed out of his squad.

  Armed with a flashlight, the officer, a County Sheriff’s Deputy, walked over to the prone figure in the road. “Is he still alive, or can you tell?”

  “He was alive when I found him, and he still is, but he looks like he’s either been hurt real bad or he’s in shock—most likely both, I’d say. He’s barely coherent and I still can’t get him to answer me. All he’s done is mumble, but I still can’t make out what he’s trying to say.” The salesman made a face in the dark. “He’s been sick, too.”

  The officer knelt beside the man, shone his light on him and made a face of his own. The guy had been sick, alright. A wonder he hadn’t choked to death. The man was mumbling; the officer leaned closer to him.

  “Hey, fella. Come on, talk to me. What are you trying to say?”

  Fifteen, maybe twenty seconds later the officer stood up, his face grim. “Angela,” he said, reaching for his two-way mike clipped to his uniform. “That’s what he’s saying. He’s repeating that name over and over again.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wednesday, last day of September

  “I put my precious little body and my all in your capable hands, my darling.”

  He can still feel the warmth of her sweet lips on his. Still hear the trust in her voice and see the faith she has in him when she smiles. A smile to light up the darkest abyss.

  “You just w
ait until you get me home and get these clothes off me, because you’re going to find a she-tiger that going to have her way with you.”

  His head rolling side to side, he groaned aloud. Not the lusty sound a man makes when anticipating the pleasure of a woman’s willing body, but more of a mournful, lost sound of fearful dread and pained denial.

  “I’ll be right here.”

  The words were sincere and said with complete certainty; a reassuring promise.

  Another groan escaped his trembling lips. Only this time it was a low and elongated cry of despair that builds into a wail of agony and outrage as if something had slashed open his very soul, for he…

  …has thrown open driver’s side door and finds the car empty—

  “Angela?”

  —and only the scent of her perfume remains.

  Why is the engine not running?

  And so there he lay sprawled in the dirt road beside the car, his hammering heart filled to the point of bursting apart with shame and fear. In his mind’s eye—

  Why the fuck is the engine not running?

  —he sees her face, sees her smile; her name poised on his lips.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “ANGELA!” Jeff yelled, his voice strained and hoarse as he bolted upright in bed.

  “Easy there, hon,” said a soothing yet urgent voice. “You’re going to rip out your IV line if you’re not careful.”

  Jeff heard the voice, but the words failed to register. He felt a hand gently grip his shoulder; he jerked away from the touch.

  “Go away,” he rasped.

  “Easy, Jeff, easy. It’s just me, hon.”

  Still he resisted, twisting away from the insistent and reaching hand.

  “You just had a bad dream, that’s all. Come on now, look at me. Look at me.”

  A bad dream. Jeff went still, breathing in hard gasps through his mouth, as his eyes darted in every direction. A hospital room…my hospital room. Yeah…yeah, just a bad dream…another one. It happened every time he dropped off to sleep and, most of the time, it was always the same dream. Most of the time…but not always.

  Several times, especially in the past couple of days, there had been another and wholly different dream. A dream in which he seemed to lay suspended in a vast and total blackness and there were voices coming from somewhere out of that void. Two voices, both female, though one was much deeper and rougher than the other. Both the voices were speaking to him, as if trying to reach out to him. He could understand little of what the voices said, both weak and sounding far away, all but a few of the words lost entirely. The one voice, the more raspy of the two, sounded familiar to him, but he really couldn’t place it, and he could make out none of the words this voice spoke.

  Not so with the other voice. He not only recognized this voice, but the simple words were clear enough to him, though they sounded like they coming through a really bad phone connection.

  It was Angela’s voice and she was pleading with him to help her. To—

  “—help me help the others.”

  Whatever the hell that means. At least I didn’t have that dream again. I wonder, though, if all this means I’m losing my shit. Jeff’s head dropped as if it was suddenly too heavy for his neck to support. The hand was still at his shoulder.

  “Janice,” he breathed.

  “The one and only,” she replied quietly. “I swear, Jeff, as far as I can tell, those dreams are getting a lot worse.”

  “Not getting any better, that’s for sure.”

  “Come on, hon, lie back down and relax before you set off an alarm and have all the nurses running in here like you did yesterday.”

  Compelled by the gentle persuasion of the hand on his shoulder, Jeff lay back and closed his eyes. “What the hell time is it?”

  “Nine-thirty, maybe a little after. You want a sip of water or anything? A nurse brought in a cup of ice chips a little while ago.”

  He shook his head. “How long have you been here today?”

  A moment of silence. “Since visiting hours started at eight.”

  Jeff’s eyes opened, he rolled his head to one side and looked into the worried face of his office manager standing next to his bed, her free hand gripping the railing. When he finally came to early Saturday afternoon and had gathered enough of his wits to know what was going on, Janice was the first person he saw and recognized. What little of the rest of the weekend he could remember, she was there as she was for most of Monday. Early the morning before, when his doctor began cutting back on his meds, further clearing his head, Janice was still there.

  Her blue eyes were blood-shot and weary and she looked close to dropping in her tracks. She had her sandy blonde hair up and held with a fluffy pink scrunchy and she was wearing very little makeup. Jeff noticed that she was wearing the same blouse and jeans that she had on late the afternoon before when he last saw her.

  “Eight o’clock? I’d say you spent the night again in the waiting room.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “I told you that you didn’t have to come here today. I distinctly remember telling you to take a day off from me and the office and to stay home and rest. You keep this up, Janice, and you’re going to end up in one of these beds, yourself.”

  “Well, aren’t you something?” she said softly. “With all you’re going through and after the way they brought you in here, more dead than alive, and you’re worried about me. Jeff, that is so sweet. I swear, if I thought it wouldn’t start your heart running away with itself again, I’d kiss you.”

  “There’s no danger of my heart doing that, or so I was told last night.” According to the doctor treating him, he had so dangerously stressed his heart that it was nothing short of a miracle that it didn’t kill him. Had the paramedics not reached him when they did and started him on the drugs to bring his wildly erratic heart rhythms under control, “I wouldn’t be talking to you now,” the doctor had told him. Then he had added, “I only wish I could say for sure what kept you alive until they did get to you. Normally, this kind of shock and panic induced fibrillation kills fairly quickly.”

  Yet the night before the doctor had assured him that he was out of danger; that his heart was fine and had sustained no permanent damage. The last thing he said to Jeff before continuing with his rounds was that he, Jeff, was a very lucky man. Jeff would have argued that point with him until hell froze over, if he had felt up to it. Physically, he felt like hell, as weak as a newborn. Mentally, he was a total wreck.

  And the mental part was only getting worse.

  “All the same,” Jeff said to Janice, trying to smile as best he could, “you save that kiss for your new fella.”

  Janice smiled and stroked some of his sweat-soaked hair away from his forehead. “You know, you’re not only a pretty terrific boss, but you’re the best friend I have, I hope you know that.” Her smiled faded a bit. “You sure as hell don’t deserve any of what’s happened to you…and to Angela. It’s bad enough to see you here, like this, but it tears at my heart to think about what…” She couldn’t finish.

  “I know, Janice.” Jeff’s voice was low, pained. “Believe me, I know.”

  “Have you heard anything new from the police? Anything at all?”

  “Yeah, I spoke to a Sheriff’s Detective early last night after my doctor cleared it. A guy named Leonard Ross.” Jeff had managed to speak with County officers for a few minutes late Saturday afternoon, and then again briefly Sunday morning with an FBI agent and a State Police detective, both times under the watchful eye of his doctor. “He wasn’t here but about twenty minutes or so. He came in right after you left to get something to eat and to go home…or so I thought.”

  “I came back after about an hour. I checked on you but you were already asleep. So what did this Detective Ross have to say?”

  “That the State Police and FBI are still looking into the kidnapping angle, but the Sheriff’s Department seems to be concentrating more on two other theories.”

 
“What other theories?”

  “The first is that it’s possible that Angela left the area of her own free will that night. In other words, she just walked away, no warning, no nothing.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Janice said emphatically.

  “You and me both.” If Angela had anything like that in mind, Jeff was all but convinced that he would have seen it written all over her face. Little signs, at the very least, that he would have surely picked up on. There were also several other things that pointed away from that possibility. For one, she didn’t have her glasses, and she was all but blind at night without them.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “the second theory is even worse than the first.”

  “What is it?”

  “That I did something to her.”

  Janice’s mouth dropped open; her eyes shocked. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said, emphasizing every word.

  “I wish was.”

  “Did this detective actually accuse you of something like that?”

  Jeff shook his head. “No, not in so many words, but it wasn’t hard to see what was behind his questions. How well did I know my wife; when, exactly, was the last time I saw her that night; was she still in the car with me when I spun it off the road; did we have an argument at any time that day or night; was I really mad at her about something. Just on and on with it.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Janice said, shaking her head.

  “That’s not all, either,” Jeff went on. “He kept asking me about some woman named Tanya Harris. Did I know her or anyone by that name. He also asked me the same thing about a woman named Debra Massey. I bet that name rings a bell with you, doesn’t it?”

  Janice’s eyes had narrowed in thought. “That’s the woman who went missing about…what? Almost two years ago now? The one who failed to pick up her little girl from daycare?”