The Devil's Bed

by Doug Lamoreux

  “No,” Ray admitted through gritted teeth. “And no.”

  “Ahh, but your sister, monsieur, she is a nun?”

  “You son of a bitch!” Ray balled his fist.

  Before he could use it, Petit shoved his sidearm - with no uncertain meaning - into the big American's face.

  Ray froze, staring down the blue steel barrel. It wasn't fear that stopped him. He'd lived a colorful life and this wasn't the first gun ever waved his way. But he knew that when a cop was doing the waving your options were limited. He stretched his fingers wide and eased his hands to his sides.

  Amused, Blanc issued an order and Petit returned the weapon to its holster.

  “I gather, M. Kramer, you are a bit… impulsive?” He wagged his finger. “Permit me to warn you. How would your Judy Garland say? You are not in Kansas anymore.”

  “He didn't mean it,“ Brandy said.

  “Yes, mademoiselle, he did.”

  “Your officers just pull guns on tourists?”

  “We are not police,” the Colonel said. “The police nationale, the former Sûreté, patrol the cities of France. They have no jurisdiction in the countryside. The rivers, the coasts, the villages; these are ours. We are the military police, the Gendarmerie. Do not confuse the two.”

  Brandy nodded her understanding.

  His point made, Blanc smiled. “Yes, mademoiselle, he meant it. But I do not blame M. Kramer. I too have a sister. I will send a car to, discretely, pass the castle. To do more now would waste resources and perhaps violate your sister's rights to privacy.”

  “And if you don't see her?”

  “She may not want to be seen. Have patience. If, in forty-eight hours, she does not appear, I will do everything I can to locate her.”

  Returning to the street was like jumping into a pool. The breeze had intensified with the approaching storm and the darkness seemed to swallow them. It was just as well as both needed cooling off.

  “God,” Brandy said. “I can't believe he pulled a gun on you.”

  “He's a cop. I'm surprised it took him so long.”

  Brandy took his arm and, as they started away, wondered if she was offering comfort or looking for it. It didn't matter. Ray tensed at her touch and, when enough time elapsed for both to avoid embarrassment, she let go.

  “Maybe they're right,” Ray said. “My sister isn't exactly an angel.”

  “What's that mean? Must she be before they take an interest?”

  “Easy. I'm on your side.”

  “I don't have a side. I'm worried about Vicki.”

  “I am too, damn.” Ray forced a smile. “If she doesn't drag herself in by morning, we'll rent a car and find her ourselves.” She nodded, agreeing to his unspoken truce. In the distance came the first roll of thunder. Ray stared at the sky. “We'd better get back to the hotel. We're going to get drenched.”

  Seven

  The rusted bars of the castle gate were cold in Vicki's hands. They towered over her, solid as Gibraltar… locked. Beyond there was nothing to see. Night had fallen and country dark covered all. Vicki lay her head, her hair a confusion of dirt and blood, against the bars and closed her eyes. Vicki hoped she had a concussion. The way she felt, if it wasn't that, it could only be something worse.

  Vicki wasn't a decision maker; never had been. Decisions brought consequences which, as a rule, she detested. Both were better left to others. How then to decide what to do with her mind scrambled like an egg?

  She staggered back to a courtyard she had to have passed to reach the gate (with no memory of having done so). All she knew was her head throbbed. She felt sick and dizzy. All she could do was stare at the ruins and wonder how she'd gotten there.

  It was going to rain… chats…et chiens.

  That was it! Vicki laughed sadly. She'd looked it up in a translation book earlier that day, or a month ago, or a year ago… It was going to rain… cats and dogs; chats et chiens. Her brain still worked – kind of. Vicki began to cry again.

  Through her tears she saw that, with neither door nor roof, the castle wouldn't serve as a shelter. She needed shelter. And, Vicki realized, she needed to lie down.

  Across the courtyard stood an old chapel with, thank God, a roof. She weaved toward it, stumbled up the steps, and against the door. A hasp and padlock frightened her at first but neither were in place. Grateful, but hurting, Vicki slipped inside.

  She leaned heavily against the door shutting out the wind. Alone in the silence, her head swam. “Hello?” It was silly, she knew. There was nobody. “Hello?” Arms outstretched, she moved through the darkness. Vicki wasn't a churchgoer and didn't know one room from another. What she knew was it was dark and empty.

  Two stained-glass windows were all that remained in a row near the ceiling along the far wall. The rest were boarded over. It didn't matter. The light was gone. Vicki's head battled her reason. Her pain crossed swords with her confusion, traded punches with her dizziness as she moved. “Help me,” she cried out. The only answer was an echo.

  She stumbled up three steps and came in contact with a flat surface - solid beneath her hands. A flash of lightning, rainbow tinted by the stained-glass, startled Vicki. She was standing at the altar beneath a huge crucified Christ. She laid her head on a big book, a Bible she imagined, and whispered, “Help me,” to whoever heard prayers. “Please, help me.” Then, sick and frightened, Vicki slid to the floor. She curled into a ball, closed her eyes and cried as a sea of dizziness lapped over her.

  Socrates was a bundle of nerves. Loitering tourists and falling stones had left him behind time. On a night like this, with work yet to do there in the stable, that was nowhere to be. A storm in these hills was nothing to take lightly and the castle after nightfall was no place for a superstitious man.

  By lamplight, Socrates mucked the soiled straw from Zorion's stall. Despite his haste, he whistled something (Verdi, perhaps, he didn't know) as if he had all the time in the world. It kept his mind off of the wafting ammonia. Then, with fresh bedding in place, he led Zorion in as the clouds rumbled overhead.

  “I have no sugar, no apples,” Socrates said, patting the beast, “no way to thank you for today's hard work. I am sorry, old friend. And I am sorry for tomorrow, which promises more of the same. Some day, Zorion, I would like to make it up to you.” Socrates bid his mule good night as he slid the gate home. He carried the lamp out and the stable, and his mule, fell into darkness. As he secured the door, Socrates realized he had been right, at least his knee and feet were right, a storm was coming.

  The caretaker used the chapel to store tools and materials and secured the building with a padlock. He was already past, watching the storm, when he realized he'd forgotten to lock it. He hurried back.

  Socrates had never heard of Vicki Kramer. He had no notion she'd been attacked on the property. He had no clue, as he started home again, that he had just locked the unconscious young woman inside the chapel.

  Socrates passed the chapel cemetery and headed across the eastern field unable to shake the unease which had been growing on him all evening. It only intensified as he neared the Templar burial ground.

  His wife, Annabella, a religious woman, was terrified of this graveyard. He'd tried for years to calm her fears, assuring her there was nothing left; the dusty bones of ancient Crusaders, a few weathered markers, a rusted fence. She called it The Devil's Bed, the unholy resting place of Satan's servants. She warned him away. Socrates, while not a man of God, was superstitious and, more to the point, knew better than to disobey his wife. He routinely passed the cemetery in a wide arc, eyes averted, whistling or humming as the mood struck, until he reached the timber separating him from his home. Tonight his nerves precluded a tune and his agitation had him all but running for the trees.

  The thunderstorm that had threatened all evening was nearly upon him. A bank of fog had settled on the ground. Strange that a fog should appear with a storm. Bein, Annabella's Lord worked in mysterious ways.

  Socrates was grateful
to see his cottage as he left the timber. A weight lifted from his shoulders as he passed safely through his gate. Though he didn't know why, this was one night he would be glad to put behind him. Then he heard a sound that sent a chill up his spine.

  He stared to the west, to the timber and the Templar cemetery, to the castle and the storm, and caught his breath. Was it his imagination? Was it the wind? Or was he hearing the tolling of bells?

  Socrates entered the cottage and was accosted by his wife.

  Annabella was country stock, muscular yet feminine, small on top, wide at the hips. She was attractive, without beauty, and had a deadly wit but rarely smiled. She popped from the kitchen, wet hands strangling her apron, declared, “You're late,” and disappeared like a cuckoo clock figurine.

  “My boots?” Socrates barked.

  “I washed them,” she called from the kitchen. “You don't need your boots.”

  “I need them. Minotte is hungry.”

  “En vérité. You don't need them. Minotte is not hungry.”

  “Minotte is always hungry,” he said, feeling abused.

  Socrates, by his own admission, was a man battered by life. An estate caretaker in his native Portugal, he immigrated to Paradis with hopes and dreams. He met and married Annabella. They had a lovely daughter each called 'my Marthe' and a troublesome son each called 'your Luis'. With his life's savings, Socrates planted a vineyard in anticipation of owning one of the great French wineries. Of course, the land was wrong and disease destroyed the grapevines. Annabella, ever an optimist, convinced Socrates to try again.

  After hearing 'she beat thirteen dogs and two other pigs in her last hunt', he bought Minotte, an eight-year-old champion pig truffle hunter. He purchased a membership in, and proudly wore the medal of, the Confrérie de la Truffe Noire (the Brotherhood of the Black Truffle). Of course, the land was as wrong for truffles as it had been for grapes. Annabela resigned herself. Socrates was a good man, but there would always be an 'of course'.

  So, a lifetime later, Anibal Socrates was a caretaker again. Of course, he was. He was a man battered by life.

  “I've already fed Minotte.”

  “Why would you feed Minotte?” Socrates asked, feeling slighted.

  “You were not here. I fed her.”

  “Why didn't Luis feed her? Where is your lazy son?”

  “What difference your son? Minotte is fed! I was beginning to wonder if you were coming home.” Annabella popped from the kitchen again and saw the distress on his face. “Anibal… what's the matter?”

  “Strange.” Socrates removed his hat and coat, ran his hand through his thinning hair. “As I came through the gate, I could have sworn… I heard the bells ringing.”

  “The bells? What bells?

  “The chapel bells.”

  Annoyance twisted her lips. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Of course I have not been drinking!”

  “Of course.”

  She disappeared again and Socrates felt foolish. He returned to the door, summoned his courage and pulled it open. Leaves skittered in on a gusting wind and he tightened his grip on the door. The night sky rolled with black-green clouds. He blinked as he stared into the storm, listening. “Can you hear anything?” A bolt of lightning flashed and thunder cracked. “Annabella, can you hear anything?”

  “Oui,” she called from her kitchen. “I hear a storm. Close the door before we blow away. Get washed for supper.”

  Eight

  The storm brewed violently; the wind, thunder and lightning acting as winds, percussion and pageantry for a nightmarish opera. And in the distance, evidence Socrates was correct; somber chapel bells were ringing.

  The fog swirled through the ruins of Castle Freedom, over its grounds, and into the Templar graveyard. It enveloped the sarcophagi, settled over the flat tombs, and turned dirt, moss and decay to a clammy slime on the cut stone.

  There arose a grating sound. The stone lid of the blood-stained sarcophagus began slowly to slide open. Though it took some time, a gap of several inches opened. A skeletal hand, gray and decayed, slid through the breach from within. It flexed and took hold of the covering. It pushed slowly gaining space. A second hand appeared. They tugged and, as lightning flashed, the covering slid free, fell at an angle to the tomb and thudded on the ground.

  Beneath the rolling black and green clouds, the lightning struck again, laying bare the face and form of the mummy within the tomb. His eyes snapped open revealing two flaming red orbs in what was virtually a skull; parched skin stretched over the orbital bones, sunken cheeks bracketing two black holes – all that remained of the nose. A long pepper and salt beard hung limp, matted with dirt beneath a grinning set of teeth, stained with Vicki's blood, in gum-less jaws.

  The seven hundred-year-old mummy gasped, sucking in a chest full of air. The Templar breathed fitfully, a hideous chorus of occlusion, that slowly settled to regular respirations. The knight sat up in his grave. He grabbed the edges of the sarcophagus, stood unsteadily, and stepped over and out of the tomb. The Templar lost his balance and fell to his knees with the crunch of ancient bone and the sing-song chink of rusted metal. He pushed himself up from the weeds and stood beside the grave.

  The knight's knee-length hauberk of chain mail showed, at his head and arms, beneath the white mantle of his Order, burned, rotted by time, filthy from the grave. A leather belt sagged at his waist bearing a sheathed sword on his left hip and a dagger on his right. Over all, reaching to his feet, he wore a sleeveless, hooded white surcoat emblazoned with a red cross; the Templar arms.

  Tall and thin, the mummy cocked his head staring through the flashes of lightning at the lid of the tomb crooked against the grave. He studied the inscribed threats and accusations. Then his red eyes crossed the name chiseled there: Francois de Raiis.

  Yes, that was… who he was – long ago.

  From a distance, beneath the building storm, carried faintly on the wind, came a familiar sound. He rose to his full height and cocked his head, listening. His sense of hearing, it seemed, was amazingly acute for he clearly heard – a woman crying. It was a sound he remembered and relished.

  The Templar knight started away, fumbling at first, then gaining composure. He found the gate, petrified with rust, and yanked it open. Then he shambled from the cemetery and was swallowed by the fog.

  Vicki awoke in pain, screaming from a nightmare, her cheeks stained, nose running, head throbbing - to what sounded like church bells. Alone in the dark, she struggled up using the altar for support. A lightning strike flooded the chapel with a rainbow burst of light. As it faded, Vicki eased herself around a waist-high wooden rail, down the sanctuary steps, to the floor.

  Shuffling more than walking, using the rail for balance, she moved past the sanctuary, straining her eyes and listening to the reverberations as her shoes sanded the stone floor. She reached a doorway, fumbled a lighter from her pocket and flicked it to life. The soft light displayed a long hallway with intermittent closed doors and an alcove with stairs heading up. Beyond the lighter's range the hall disappeared into nothingness. She burned her thumb and the light went out.

  Her head rang on a downbeat to the bells. She fought nausea as her stomach rolled with the thunder. She sucked her aching thumb. “Is anyone here?” Only her echo.

  “I'm hurt!” Vicki screamed with what strength she could muster. She held the sides of her head and began to cry again. “Please, please! I'm hurt!” Again the echo.

  It faded leaving only the wind, the bells, and the darkness.

  Beneath the lightning strikes and rolls of thunder, the leather soles of the Templar's boots snicked on the stones as he strode into the courtyard. His hooded cloak danced on the wind like a malevolent spirit.

  The knight halted as the chapel bells ceased their ringing.

  He cocked his head to listen. Faintly he heard the voice again. Still crying, but speaking now as well. The first human voice he had heard in seven hundred years. A female voice, crying, “P
lease, please! I'm hurt!”

  Vicki's pleas received no reply. Only echoes.

  And the wind. And the bells. She thought she might go mad from the bells. Until the ringing stopped. Then she realized how wrong she'd been. While they were ringing, even had it been the Devil pulling the rope, it felt as if someone were there. Now, in the silence, with only the wind and the darkness, Vicki felt truly alone.

  She'd strained her eyes and felt her way across the chapel back to the door, she thought, through which she'd entered. But she must have been mistaken for it was locked from the outside. Vicki leaned on the door, crying again, and now did nothing to stem the tide. She wanted her brother, Ray. She wanted her best friend, Brandy. She was frightened, alone and in pain. If anyone had reason to cry surely she did.

  Images flashed in his brain, jarring, quick, loud. A descent into hell. A preceding death. An earlier life. Battle. Blood. A woman's tears. A memory. Memories. Once, in life, tears had meant something; happiness, tenderness. Later those same tears spelled pain and sorrow. Then came the great awakening, after which a woman's tears were nothing more than a part of things dark and delicious. Dark and oh, so… delicious, Francois de Raiis thought, as rain began lightly to fall.

  The Templar drew his dagger and followed the caterwauling across the courtyard to the chapel.

  Vicki wiped the tears from her eyes. Enough was enough.

  She was locked in. That was bad but it could have been worse. She had other concerns, like not dying from her head injury and, as she could hear the rain, and was grateful being dry, finding a way to stay warm as well. Then getting real sleep until help arrived. No, Vicki decided, as she fought for mental clarity, she wouldn't entertain any other thought. Help would arrive in the morning.