***
Upset because she had to go to bed without getting to pillage the king’s ransom of candy she had hauled in tonight, Cassie pulled her covers up to her chin. Grabbing the pillow from beneath her head, she buried her face in its feathery depths. She didn’t want her parents to hear her wailing sobs because they would likely think she was being a spoiled brat, which would only cause them to withhold her candy even longer. Well … that wasn’t the only reason she was crying. The creepy shadows in the hall outside of her room were scaring Cassie, too, even though her daddy had explained what caused them. Knowing they were the branches of the tree in the front yard did nothing to calm her fears when she could see the shadows scratching at the walls like the long, skeletal fingers of a hideous monster.
Fighting to choke back her sobs, Cassie sniffled and took a deep breath. Lifting the pillow off her blonde curls and pushing it toward the headboard of her bed, she listened to see if her parents had heard the commotion of her wails. Their voices hadn’t change, remaining soft enough as they penetrated the wall between the two rooms that Cassie couldn’t make out what they were saying. To her, it almost sounded the same as Charlie Brown’s teacher in the Peanuts cartoons.
Catching a flicker of movement in the hallway from the corner of her puffy, tear-reddened eyes, Cassie turned her head expecting to see her daddy. Instead, she was greeted by the glowing, elongated face of a clown. Closing her eyes in hopes that it was something her frightened imagination had conjured up, she counted to three in her head before opening them. The face was still staring into the room, its shimmering yellow eyes boring into her. Unable to look away from the horrible sight, Cassie screamed at the top of her lungs.
***
Talking softly as she lay beside George in their bed, Jen relayed the events of her trick-or-treat outing with Cassie. Listening to her tale with all the attentiveness of a good husband, he nodded and smiled in all the right places, even though his mind worked furiously as he contemplated the Black Knight’s demands. He had to be the perfect actor if he had any intention of carrying out the demon’s request without raising his wife’s suspicions. After relaying her story, she turned off the light on her nightstand then scooted in closer to snuggle with George. Draping her arm over him, she pulled her husband to her lips and kissed him goodnight.
Jen was on the verge of falling asleep a few minutes later when an ear shattering scream broke the silence, causing her to sit up in bed so quickly that you would have thought she had been jabbed with a cattle prod. First she spun her head toward the closed bedroom door, then whipped it back toward George to see if he was awake. A small amount of light filtered through the blinds drawn down over the window, but it was just enough for Jen to see her husband sitting up on the other side of the bed.
“I’ll go check on Cassie.” He sighed, feeling the urgent, panicked jostling of his wife. “She probably just had a nightmare,” he added, hoping to calm Jen. Rising from the mattress, George stumbled through the darkness to the door and felt around for the knob. Swinging it open fully so his wife could hear what was going on better, he stepped into the hall and turned toward his daughter’s room.
As he approached her door, George noticed something lying on the floor. Bending down to pick up the object, he suddenly became very angry. “Where are you, you bastard?” Squinting into the shadows, his eyes flicked from one area to the next, trying to find the entity which contacted him earlier and was likely nearby. The deformed clown mask he held in his hand was evidence that the demon hadn’t stayed put in the basement.
Turning toward his daughter’s bedroom after a fruitless visual search for the creature, he couldn’t help but wonder. Was the foul monster growing impatient because he hadn’t carried out his orders immediately? Was it taking matters into its own hands and killing his family while he slept, perhaps thinking he was a coward that wouldn’t do it? Whatever the reasoning was behind the mask’s appearance in the hallway, there was only one way to find out.
Reaching through the narrow opening that the cracked door provided, his fingers fumbled across the wall for the light switch. Flicking it up, the room was bathed in the pinkish illumination of the decorative cover of the light fixture on the ceiling. Before him, Cassie cowered against the headboard of her bed, her tiny face buried in the pillow she clutched to her chest, allowing only a fraction of her blonde curls to be seen.
Relaxing slightly when he saw his daughter alive, George sauntered over and sat down on the mattress beside her, placing a gentle hand on the back of her head. “Did you have a nightmare, honey?” Though his soft tone of voice would normally soothe her enough to warrant a hug, this time she didn’t even look up at him. Instead, she shook her head vehemently in the feathery depths of her pillow.
“There was a monster standing in the hall, looking at me, Daddy,” she cried. “I think it wanted to eat me.”
“Well, it’s not there anymore, honey. I must have scared it away when I came to check on you,” he whispered, dropping the mask on the bed beside him and pulling the pillow from Cassie’s grip so he could see her face. George pulled his daughter toward him and hugged her tightly to his chest.
She sniffled for a few moments before turning her head upward to look at him. “Can I sleep with you and Mommy tonight? I promise I’ll be good,” she pleaded.
“Of course, sweetheart,” he replied, playfully ruffling her hair. Cassie wrapped her arms and legs around him happily, a smile creasing her tear-stained face for the first time since George had sat down beside her. Pushing himself up from the mattress, his daughter clung to him like a leech. Temporarily forgetting about the clown mask, which still rested on Cassie’s bed, he turned the light off, exited the room, and walked back to his own bed chamber.
Jen met them in the doorway, the look of a terrified mother etched across her features. “Is she okay?” Before George could answer, she ran her hands lightly over her daughter as if she were searching for a mortal wound.
Reaching out, George put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head up to meet his eyes. “She’s fine, baby. She thought she saw a monster and asked if she could sleep with us tonight.”
A thin, tight-lipped smile appeared on Jen’s face and she sighed through her nose in relief. Her bright blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears of happiness. “Of course you can, angel,” she remarked, leaning forward and kissing the back of Cassie’s head.
***
The excitement of the night’s events had passed. Jen and Cassie were cuddled close to each other and sleeping soundly. Normally, Jen’s light snores would be like a lullaby to him, but it wasn’t the case tonight. His mind was restless and sleep eluded him as George lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling and contemplating what he should do the next time he crossed paths with the demon that demanded he kill his family.
Chapter 5
Katie stirred from her slumber as the first rays of dawn began to filter through the doorway of the inn. Wincing at the stiffness in her neck, she rubbed the tightened muscles absently. “What?” She glanced sternly into the grinning face of the red-haired shaman across the table from her.
“Nothing,” he laughed, spotting the small puddle of her drool on Edward’s shoulder.
“Once you are more fully awake, you and Brian should get going,” Edward remarked, turning his gaze to meet Katie’s sleep reddened and puffy brown eyes.
A cloud of confusion crossed her features temporarily, but it quickly cleared when her foggy memory began to recall their earlier conversation. Rubbing her hands briskly over her face and lightly slapping her cheeks to speed up the process of waking, Brian once again burst into a fit of laughter.
“What’s so freaking funny?” Katie glared at him, despising being the brunt of a joke.
Quickly he regained his composure, though it was hard to see because he hung his head. “I’m sorry, Katie,” he apologized. “Guess it’s just been a long night and things that I wouldn’t normally find amusing I am finding more hilarious
than they probably are.”
She sat in silence for a couple of minutes before she realized that she was being a bitch again, likely snapping at him because she’d barely slept at all in the last day or so. Raising her head, she met Brian’s expectant blue eyes, the look in them telling her that he was waiting to see if she would accept his apology. “I’m sorry, too, Brian. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh.”
“No big deal.” He smiled weakly. “I should have known better than to pick on you right after you woke up. I probably would have been grumpy, too, if the shoe had been on the other foot.”
Attempting to return his smile to let him know there weren’t any hard feelings, Katie’s mouth opened in a cavernous yawn, interrupting the grin and twisting it into something that made her look deformed. Brian bit his cheek to suppress the urge to chuckle. “Perhaps we should gather our things and get going,” he suggested, trying his best to divert his attention in order to restrain another outburst.
Nodding in agreement, Katie turned to face Edward. “What about you? I’m still not entirely comfortable leaving you here alone, especially in your condition.”
“I won’t be alone,” he replied, grimacing as he reached down to stroke the fur of the wolf by his feet. “I have Jack to keep me company.” Still, even so, he longed to be able to make the journey with his friends and couldn’t help but worry about their safety. “Don’t forget to pack a saddlebag to take with you. There’s no telling how long it will be before you return,” he added.
“We’ll be fine,” Katie consoled, lightly patting Edward’s shoulder. “If we run into trouble, Brian can fast fry the opposition like we’re having our own private barbecue.”
“Either that, or I could turn the enemy inside out,” Brian joked, “but that’s only if Katie doesn’t kick the crap out of them first.”
“PMS is a bitch.” She laughed with a wink toward the red-haired shaman.
“Ha, ha,” Brian smirked as he pushed his chair out from the table and rose to his feet. “I’ll be outside if you need me for anything before we go,” he told Edward, “packing a bag and making sure we don’t forget anything.”
***
It wasn’t long before Brian and Katie poked their heads back through the front door of the inn to check on Edward one last time. His arms, tucked beneath his long, black hair, rested on the table before him. He raised his weary dome to focus his pale eyes on their shadowy figures.
“We’re preparing to leave now,” Brian announced. “Are you sure you don’t need anything before we go?”
Edward shook his head in response. “Getting some rest and allowing my wounds time to heal are my primary concerns. As long as you left at least some of the supplies behind for me, I should be fine until you both return.”
“We will try to make this journey as swift as we can, but since we have no idea what we may be up against, I can’t make any promises. For all I know, it could only take a day or less, but I’m not going to hold my breath or try to give you false hope.”
“With the way my luck has been running lately …” Edward trailed off, not wanting to voice his concerns of the possibility that he might never see them again.
Katie peered over Brian’s shoulder at their haggard leader, waiting for him to finish his sentence. When Edward remained silent, she understood the implications of why he hadn’t completed the thought. Her shoulders slumped as she sunk down and turned her head so the men wouldn’t see the well of tears threatening to leak from her eyes. When she had regained her composure, Katie tugged on Brian’s sleeve and motioned with her head that they should go. Before he could add to the sadness of the moment, the red-haired shaman offered a nod and a wave to Edward, then turned to follow Katie.
“Good luck, my friends,” Edward mumbled to their backs as they walked away. He only hoped that it wouldn’t be the last time he saw them.
***
The two of them shuffled around to the back side of the inn. Both were too choked up with the departure to speak, until they left the shelter of the buildings behind and approached the railroad tracks masked by the overgrowth of weeds at the edge of town. Bending down next to the rusted rails, Katie glanced to her left and saw that the tracks seemed to terminate about one hundred feet away. Turning her head in the opposite direction, she saw a bend in the rails, which appeared to head directly into the forest, and toward the mountainous hill beyond. “Looks like we’re going that way,” she told Brian, pointing to her right.
***
With the light of day upon him, George could no longer see the ghostly nuisance which seemed to follow his every move. For a brief moment, he was grateful for the reprieve, but at the same time disappointed when he concluded that he wouldn’t be able to torture the woman by making her watch what he did to people. A flicker of comprehension dawned on him, causing a twisted grin to cross his face when he realized that his form was similarly invisible. I could have some real fun with this! Even though I can no longer touch, and savor, my victims, being a ghost could prove to be just as amusing! Maybe even more so! His mind swirled with possibilities as he watched two of his adversaries exit the inn.
Allowing his transparent form to drift effortlessly, he followed in their wake to spy on them, wondering why they had left their injured friends behind in the inn. Seeing the girl bend down a short distance from the rear of the building, intently studying the railroad tracks, George began to think that his luck would continue. When he saw her point to the section of rails heading away from town and up the mountain, this feeling became an almost certainty. Even so, he patiently waited until he saw them start to follow the tracks, disappearing from sight in the dense underbrush beside the rails.
Rubbing his invisible hands together with maniacal glee, George floated toward the entrance of the inn. Time to turn up the heat and make things interesting! When he got to the front of the structure he became agitated. The door was shut! Frustrated with the delay of his playtime, he began searching for another way into the building. Slowly circling the inn, George drifted from one window to the next, each one yielding the same results. His anger was on the verge of boiling over when he spotted his salvation. High above him, a small, attic window was propped open with a stick, presumably to keep the uppermost floor of the structure from getting too warm. This time of year it should have been closed up tight like the rest of the windows, but apparently someone had neglected their duty. Perhaps the individual who should have taken care of this assignment was lying with the rest of the corpses piled against the rear of the building.
Quickly taking advantage of the open portal, George entered the attic. After a brief search, he located a stairway leading down to the lower levels. In his excitement, he zipped down the steps, only to come to another closed door blocking his path. At this point, George was grateful he was no longer alive. If he were, he would almost certainly have developed an instant migraine from the overwhelming rage he now felt. His anger was so strong that it was clouding his thoughts. Attempting to close his eyes so he could take a deep breath and relax only heightened his already volatile emotions, realizing that in his current state he could not close his eyelids to block everything from sight because they were transparent.
Returning to the attic, George flitted furiously from one end to the other, desperately trying to figure out how to get at the injured people somewhere below him. Pacing back and forth managed to dissipate his murderous rage, but only slightly. With his anger retarded a notch, the solution suddenly became clear. The old woman is the key! If I infest her crinkled shell again I will be able to interact with the physical world once more. It might actually be more satisfying to see the look in her son’s eyes when he believes his own flesh and blood is taking his life.
Drifting back outside through the propped open window, George sped toward the stable to retrieve the old woman’s body. As he rounded the corner of the building, a noise emanating from somewhere to his right drew his attention. Searching for the source of the sound, his eyes settle
d on the haggard-looking wizard, rifling through the contents of a saddlebag. George watched the man take something from the pack, shoving the item in his mouth before untying the straps which held the worn, burlap sack in place on the back of the mechanical horse.
Out of the corner of his eye, George caught a glimpse of the opportunity he’d been looking for. The front door of the inn was partially open! Wasting no time, he quickly floated inside. Immediately upon his entry, a snarling, three-legged wolf greeted him with bared fangs.
Chapter 6
Though the underbrush they traveled through was dense, the railroad tracks they were following blazed a trail through the tangled foliage quite effectively, allowing Katie and Brian to make good time thus far. After an hour, two at the most, they found themselves at the foot of a rickety bridge. Even though some of the boards which supported the tracks were decayed, some to the extent that they had fallen to the river rushing below it, there didn’t seem to be any damage to the rails themselves. Obviously, if the dilapidated bridge had been sturdy enough to withstand the weight of a rail-car, the two of them should have no trouble making the crossing without incident.
After a brief discussion, Brian and Katie decided to take a quick, five minute break. Even though the morning air was cool, and they were both in decent physical shape because of all the walking they did every day, Brian was on the verge of a full-blown sweat. Wiping the perspiration from her brow, Katie plopped down on the edge of the bridge, allowing her legs to dangle over the side. Peeling his sweat dampened tunic over his head, Brian sat down beside her, fanning his shirt out on the wood next to him in hopes the sun would dry it a bit.
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