A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

by Chet Williamson

  “Getting back to my first encounter with it,” Kesselring continued, “I went into the grocery store along with the SWAT team. Capwell was in there somewhere, and we had to find him. We swept the store once without spotting him. As we were getting ready to search the place again, I went into the office to make a phone call. Capwell was above me, in the false ceiling. He could have shot me, but he didn’t. Instead he made sure I shot him. As he died, I saw it coming out of him. It was exactly as you described it. A furry upright thing the size of a man, with hooves for feet, a reptilian face, glowing red eyes. It was there for an instant, and then it was gone. No one saw it but me, but I knew I had seen it. I wasn’t crazy.”

  Don knew the ex-cop had a lot more to tell. He remained silent, waited for Kesselring to resume his story.

  “I couldn’t get it out of my head, what I’d seen,” the former policeman said. “So I started trying to find out if anyone else had ever seen anything like that. I figured that, as a group, cops were most likely to have run into this thing, because they’re so often at the scene of death. So I put an ad in some of the law enforcement magazines, described what I’d seen, and asked anyone else who’d seen it to get in touch with me. I used a blind box number provided by the magazine. I got five replies. One from Vermont, one from Georgia, one from New Mexico, one from Missouri, one from British Columbia. I used vacation time and days off to go and talk to them. They’d all seen exactly the same thing I did—and you did. A lot of them seemed relieved that someone else had seen it too, that there was someone they could talk to.

  “It was always the same. Some guy would kill a bunch of people, usually with a gun, and then either turn the weapon on himself or force the cops to take him out. In Missouri, three cops had seen it. This dude blew away four of his co-workers at the office, then ate the gun when the police showed up. The three officers got inside in time to see the Evil come out of him. One of them, a Cambodian, had seen it before.” He hesitated, collecting his thoughts—or maybe just for effect.

  “He was a refugee, fled the Khmer Rouge. He said that when he was just a kid he was on hand when one of Pol Pot’s lieutenants, a particularly bloodthirsty son of a bitch who’d all but wiped out three surrounding villages, was captured by some local guerrillas. The Khmer Rouge hadn’t been expecting any resistance, so his squad was small. The locals surprised them, then simply overwhelmed them with sheer numbers, mostly using sticks and other makeshift weapons. Most of the soldiers they just killed outright, but this village-destroying lieutenant of Pol Pot’s, him they gave special attention. And when he finally died, they saw the Evil coming out of him. Scared the hell out of them, and they all ran like hell.

  “Anyway,” Kesselring continued, “the more I learned about this thing, the more I knew it had to be destroyed. The other cops who’d seen it had families, so I figured it was up to me. I was eligible for retirement, so I turned in my shield.

  “I kept the ad going in the magazine, and I started doing research on the supernatural. I’ve been all over the world to talk to people and to look at rare books that the owners won’t let out of their sight. And every time I hear about a mass murder where the killer’s still alive, I try to get there. Just in case it’s the Evil.”

  Don said, “How long have you been at this?”

  “I first encountered the Evil three-and-a-half years ago, and I guess you could say it’s been the focus of my life ever since.”

  “But … why did you quit your job, take up this one-man crusade?”

  “Because it has to be destroyed. It’s evil in all senses of the word, and it kills people. It exists to kill people.”

  Don didn’t know what to say to that. He’d seen it too, and he hoped it would go away and leave him and his family and his community alone. The notion of pursuing it would never have occurred to him. Did that make him a pragmatist or a coward? And how about Kesselring? Did he have the stuff heroes were made of, or was he an obsessed lunatic? But then who was Don to judge? There was probably some obsessed lunatic in most heroes and a bit of the pragmatist in most cowards.

  “These people,” Don said, “the murderers, it possesses them like in The Exorcist?”

  “Sort of, yes.”

  Don saw an image of the possessed girl’s head going around and around like a record while she spit out stuff that looked like pea soup. Pfeil hadn’t done anything like that. Nor had his face broken out in running sores. But then Don was thinking of Hollywood’s version of possession. The real thing was apparently different.

  “Why does it kill?” Don asked.

  “It feeds on death. Don’t ask me how. Perhaps there’s an energy given off when a person dies, and the Evil can absorb it.”

  Don took a moment to let that sink in. A creature that fed on death. Jesus. “But why does it have to possess people?” he asked.

  “Because it’s from another plane of existence. To survive for any length of time on our plane of existence, it has to find a host. I guess you could say it’s a parasite. The worst kind of parasite, because the host always dies.”

  “Why?” Don asked. Yesterday he wouldn’t have believed he could be sitting here, holding this conversation, asking serious questions. But then a lot had happened since yesterday.

  “That’s the only way it can escape the body of the host,” Kesselring said.

  “That’s why Dwyer—”

  “Yes. I’d identified Dwyer as the host. I’d been right behind him all the way from California. I almost had him in Omaha and again in Duluth.”

  “Wait a minute,” Don said. “If all the Evil has to do to escape from the host is make sure the host dies, why was it running from you? Why not just drive into a telephone pole or something like that? I mean, I don’t understand why it was running from you at all. There are all sorts of ways to commit suicide if that’s all it had to do.”

  “True,” Kesselring said. “But Dwyer didn’t have a gun, and I never gave him the chance to get one. And anything else was a risk the Evil wasn’t willing to take. You try to jump off a bridge, someone may stop you; you may wind up in jail. Drive into a phone pole, and you may end up in the hospital with a bunch of broken bones, but still alive. In a hospital or jail, the Evil’s trapped; I can get it. As I said, these are risks the Evil isn’t willing to take unless it’s very desperate. Because if I get it, I’ll kill it. And I’m probably the only one on this earth who can.”

  The ex-cop hadn’t shaved in a while. He ran his hand over the gray stubble on his left cheek. “Think about it and you’ll see why the Evil wouldn’t risk being trapped where I could get my hands on it. It’s been alive—if alive is the right word—for thousands of years. It’s been here since the planet was formed, for all I know. And it will live forever. If I die, what do I lose? Ten, fifteen years? But if the Evil dies, it loses eternity.”

  Don recalled how Pfeil, though seriously wounded, had attacked him again and again. And now Don knew why. The Evil had to make absolutely certain that Douglas Pfeil died.

  “A thing that could be as old as the earth and lives forever,” Don said, shaking his head. Despite what he’d seen, a part of him was having trouble accepting what he was hearing. You built a lot of barriers against believing in such things. The barriers were strong; they crumbled reluctantly.

  Apparently realizing how insane all this must seem, Kesselring said, “I’ve done a lot of research. There are legends of evil supernatural creatures that go back thousands of years. I don’t know how many of them might relate to the Evil, but everything I’ve learned suggests that such creatures are extremely ancient and that they go on forever —unless we find some way to stop them.”

  “You said creatures,” Don said. “With an s. You mean there are more of these things running around?”

  “As far as I know, this is the only one that lives off death the way it does. Legends can be very vague, and they change over time, get farther away from whatever kernels of truth they contained at the beginning. So it’s often impossible to
say whether a given story or passage in a book refers to this creature or some other.”

  “So you’re not sure this is the only one,” Don said.

  “Not positive, no. All I can tell you is that when I get near it, I can feel it. I can tell that it senses my presence and that it knows me. And, at least on some level, I know it. I know it’s the same creature I met in the grocery store.”

  Don tried to recall the mass murders he’d heard about. Guy blows away his family, then turns the gun on himself. Guy shoots up the finance company that turned him down for a loan, then eats the gun. Guy murders his boss and a number of co-workers, then gets wasted by the cops. It seemed the “crazed killer” almost always died after the murdering was over.

  How many mass slayings was it responsible for? Were most so-called crazed killers really victims themselves, puppets to be used by some ancient evil thing, then simply discarded once enough blood has been shed to satisfy the monster?

  A thing that fed on death.

  Was it there for the Trojan War, the First World War, the Vietnam War? Did it grow fat and happy on so much death and suffering? Did it frequent the torture chambers in places like South Africa and Chile? Did it rejoice when the Reagan administration funded the contras, because still more would die? Did it delight in the chemical weapons used in the Iran-Iraq war? As innocent villagers writhed in their death throes, did it gloat?

  “As I told you, I’ve been all over the world,” the ex-cop said. “I talked to people in England and France and Italy; Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Rumania; the Caribbean, the Middle East, China. People who know about the supernatural. I learned a lot about my enemy by talking to them. For instance, I learned that to possess someone, it must be invited in by the host.”

  “Invited in? Why would anyone be crazy enough to invite it in?”

  “I can’t tell you exactly how it works, because no one has ever survived to tell us. But I can tell you it’s very subtle. The Evil’s victims tend to be sad, lonely people. Or bitter people. A feeling comes over them that there’s a way to improve things or get what they want. All they have to do, on some mental level, is say yes. You don’t know you’ll become a murderous tool. You don’t know you’ll have to die. You only know that saying yes just seems almost irresistible.”

  Don said, “I take it people can resist, can say no.”

  “Oh yes. If you’re a content, well-adjusted individual, you probably will say no. You may not know exactly what you’ve done, but something within you will be aware of the Evil and reject it.”

  “Has it ever tried to possess you?”

  Kesselring got a distant look in his eyes. He was remembering. “Oh yes,” he said. “Many times. I’m the only one who knows how to kill it, don’t forget. It would like nothing better than to get a hold of me. It waits until I’m discouraged, all but ready to give up, and then I hear it talking to me.”

  “What does it say?”

  Kesselring massaged his forehead. “It’s hard to explain. It says things can be better or that you don’t have to put up with what you’re being subjected to. The words are sort of in your head and sort of not. You don’t know exactly where they’re coming from. You’re not even sure you’ve heard anybody talking. Still, you know that what it wants is for you to say yes. It’s telling you that saying yes is the way to make things better.”

  “And if you agree, it moves in, takes over.”

  “Yes.”

  Don said, “How did this thing get everyone to go to the revival meetings? Were my wife and daughter … possessed?”

  “More like influenced. The only one possessed was Pfeil. The Evil wasn’t within your wife or daughter.”

  “What was the point of the revivals? Why get a bunch of people out to a barn so they can chant while Pfeil offers up human sacrifices?”

  “I don’t think they were sacrifices,” Kesselring said. “I think they were just food. As far as the ritualizing of it …” He frowned, slowly shook his head. “I can’t be sure, because as far as I know, it’s never happened before. I think the Evil’s playing games with us. It’s found itself on an island with people who are trapped here. It no longer has to be discreet. It can feed whenever it pleases. I mean, to the Evil, the people on this island are little more than cattle in a pen, awaiting slaughter. We’re dinner, that’s all. And the Evil’s been gorging itself.” He fixed his eyes on Don’s. “And one result of having all this readily available food is that it’s growing stronger. Much stronger. I think that’s why it was able to exert so much influence over so many people. And I think the revival was simply a means of getting people to bring in food. It wanted to be waited on.”

  “Shit,” Don said softly, thinking about people being dragged to the revival so the thing within Reverend Pfeil could absorb their life force as they died. “Just how powerful is this influence?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. But I don’t think it works on everyone. If it did, the Evil would have used it on me. Did you feel an urge to go to the revival?”

  “No.”

  “Along with a lot of other people. Most of the people on the island weren’t affected. And as far as I can determine, some of those who were affected didn’t go to all the revival meetings.”

  “Does this … this Evil know you’re on the island?”

  “Oh yes, it knows.”

  “Then why doesn’t it send people to kill you?”

  “I think this ability to influence people is very general. It can draw people to a revival, but I doubt it can draw specific people. As for the people who were brought to it—the food—the signal it sent out was probably just to bring food. The Evil was probably unable to control who was brought or who did the fetching. It’s like when it tried to use the people in the barn to stop you from rescuing the Quirks. From what you tell me, they really didn’t do much to hinder you.”

  “No,” Don said. He was thinking about Irene Waggoner and Valerie Spindler and Wes Brock—and maybe others he hadn’t learned about yet. All of them food. He saw Pfeil standing in front of Jean Quirk, tormenting her with the wicked-looking knife.

  Food.

  Not the flesh, but the act of dying, as if this thing could snatch the life force away and consume it before it reached the ether. And then Don recalled that on one occasion it did eat the flesh.

  “The Gordons weren’t just killed,” he said. “They were mutilated. Decapitated, eaten.”

  “That’s happened before,” the ex-cop said. “It doesn’t have to be overly brutal to feed, but it’s brutal by nature. Also, I think some of the Gordons may have been forced to watch what was happening to the others. Although death is its primary source of food, it likes fear as well. I guess you could compare it to sprinkling a little extra sugar on your dessert. It doesn’t add to the nutrition, but it’s nice.” There was nothing nice about the expression on Kesselring’s face. It was twisted and full of hate for this thing he called the Evil.

  “Can’t this creature just hang out at a hospital, eat up the souls or essences or whatever of people who die naturally?”

  For a long moment Kesselring simply looked at him. “It’s evil,” he said finally. “That’s its whole purpose in being here. To do evil.”

  Don just shook his head; the whole thing was unbelievable, dizzying. And yet he had seen the Evil. A thing that had risen as shadows from the body of a dead man. A thing he could easily believe was evil.

  “What happens now?” Don asked.

  “The Evil will find another host,” Kesselring said. “And then it will go on killing.” He drew in a slow breath. “And I will try to kill it.”

  “But how can you kill something that’s not … not really alive? I mean … I don’t really know what I mean.”

  “It’s a supernatural being,” Kesselring said. “But it can still be killed. You just have to know how.”

  The ex-cop’s black case sat on the dresser, within reach. He put it in his lap, popped the catches, and lifted the lid. Inside was a metal spike abou
t two-and–a-half feet long. “This is how you kill the Evil,” he said.

  Don stared at the thing, having no idea why it would kill a supernatural adversary. It was shiny and silver-colored, and it tapered to a needle-sharp point made of a dull gray material. It was a very deadly looking weapon.

  Kesselring said, “This, driven through the heart of the living host, will kill the Evil.”

  Not to mention the host, Don thought. But then if Kesselring was right, the host was dead anyway. “Why not use a wooden stake, like in the vampire movies? Or a silver dagger?”

  Kesselring shook his head. “Wouldn’t work. Only this’ll work.” He lifted the spike from its case. “It’s made of silver, but silver alone isn’t enough. The tip’s the main thing. It was made from an ancient stone amulet discovered in England, not far from Stonehenge.”

  Ancient stone amulets from England? Silver spikes? The notions swirled through Don’s mind, getting mixed up with images of Merlin the magician and the Wicked Witch of the West. Don felt as if he’d stepped into a fairy tale. Next he’d start finding trolls under the bridges.

  “How can you be sure that’ll kill this thing?” Don asked.

  “I had a lot of help from people who know about these things. Until I started looking into it, I never knew how many people there are in the world who believe in the occult. There’s a wealth of old books and papers on the subject, and all sorts of people who hang on to them. For some it’s just a hobby. Others own little shops that specialize in unusual things.”

  Don saw himself stepping up to the counter in some dingy place and asking for eye of newt, a lock of hair from a virgin, and two shrunken heads. He pushed the image away. Eye of newt didn’t sound nearly as weird as it would have a few days ago, before he’d seen the Evil.

  “I bought the amulet from a shop in London,” Kesselring said. “A company in Germany ground the stone into a point and made the spike. It’s not solid silver, by the way, just silver plate, but that should be good enough.”