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

by Chet Williamson

  “But you don’t know if it’ll work,” Don said. “You think it’ll work, but it’s never been tested.”

  “No,” the ex-cop said. “It’s never been tested.” Reaching into the case, he picked the spike up, held it a moment, almost fondly, then handed it to Don.

  Don nearly dropped it.

  It was pulsing with energy.

  “Jesus,” Don said. “It’s like grabbing hold of a live wire.”

  “It’s done that ever since a very special ceremony was performed over it in Greece. It’s the first time that ceremony has been performed in over two hundred years, and I had to work very hard to convince the people who conducted it to do so.”

  The thing in Don’s hand tingled with so much energy it seemed to be alive. The pulsations were slow, rhythmic, like a heartbeat. Don had indeed stepped into something akin to a fairy tale. Pull the silver spike from the stone, and you will be king.

  No, not king, but executioner. And the execution would be very much like driving a stake through the heart of a sleeping vampire. He was back to Bram Stoker again. Even though it was impossible to rule out the existence of other such creatures—somewhere—at least there was only one on the island. And it couldn’t spread its sickness through its bite, creating ever more monsters as each victim in turn searched for new necks into which it could insert its hollow teeth and suck like a kid drinking through a pair of straws.

  This ain’t real, something inside Don insisted as he held the pulsing spike. Look real close, you’ll find the place where the batteries go. But there were no seams in the shiny metal, no compartment to hold the batteries. And yet some mysterious energy flowed through it, beating with that slow, steady rhythm. And it seemed to be getting warmer as Don held it. Suddenly he didn’t want to touch it anymore, and Don thrust it at Kesselring as if he’d just discovered he was holding a poisonous snake.

  “You felt it, didn’t you?” the ex-cop said, taking the spike.

  Don nodded.

  “It’ll do what it’s supposed to do,” Kesselring said.

  Don believed him. “How do we find it?”

  “We wait. The Evil will need a new human body to occupy, and when he locates one, we’ll have more murders.”

  “You always this cheerful?”

  Kesselring said nothing. He put the spike back into its case and closed the lid.

  “I notice you said we when you were talking about what to do next,” Don said.

  “Yes,” Kesselring said without looking up from the case. “We’re going to need each other’s help.”

  “I’ve got the state police coming in tomorrow by helicopter to assist with the murder investigation.”

  “They can’t help you with this.” Now Kesselring did look up, his eyes fixing on Don’s. “If you told them about the Evil, they’d never believe it.”

  And Don knew he was right. The state police could do some of the lab work, maybe transport some of the bodies to the mainland, where the medical examiner could look them over, but they couldn’t help him with the Evil.

  “I do need your help,” Don said.

  Kesselring nodded. “And I’m probably going to need yours.”

  5

  It was dusk as Tommy and Jean Quirk walked across the ice, carrying an aluminum canoe on their shoulders. They hadn’t wanted to wait until darkness was this near, but the canoe had been behind a bunch of other stuff in the garage, and they’d had to move everything. Then it took another forty-five minutes to find the paddles.

  They hadn’t told their families they were leaving, not even Tommy’s brother, who was half-owner of the garbage collection business. Jean had wanted to let them know, but Tommy had said no, there wasn’t time, and besides they could always phone from the mainland.

  Tommy squinted, trying to see whether there were any breaks in the ice ahead, but the dim dusk light turned everything into a bleak grayness that seemed to absorb the details of their surroundings. They trudged along, Tommy in front, Jean in the rear, looking like some bizarre four-legged canoe creature making its way through the twilight.

  “What was that?” Jean asked.

  “What?” Tommy followed the direction of her gaze, seeing only ice that seemed to stretch off endlessly through the dusk.

  “I … I thought I saw someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. A man, I think.”

  It flashed through Tommy’s mind that Reverend Pfeil was pursuing them, but the minister was dead. “There’s no one out there,” he said. “No one goes on the ice during the Split, especially at dusk.”

  Several silent seconds passed, then Jean said, “I … I guess I imagined it.”

  We could have waited for morning, Tommy thought. And he knew they really couldn’t have. They’d have left at midnight if that was how long it had taken them to get the canoe out of the garage and find the paddles. They had only one goal, and it overrode everything else.

  Get off the island. Now.

  For Ice Island wasn’t safe anymore. Or sane. It was the home of a monster that had wanted to murder them while it made their friends and neighbors chant and watch. A monster from hell, from the devil. Maybe it was the devil himself. Ice Island was a dangerous place, where sanity no longer existed. To stay there would be like moving into the house of horrors at the carnival, with the door locked so you couldn’t get out.

  Locked in the house of horrors with the devil.

  The way ahead was flat. And gray.

  “I’m scared,” Jean said breathlessly. She was tiring.

  “It won’t be long now,” Tommy said, having no idea how long it would be. At least they hadn’t needed the flashlights in his backpack yet. When it got that dark, they were going to have to be extremely careful.

  They hadn’t needed the canoe yet. Although the ice was breaking up, the chunks were still large, more than large enough to support two people, and the Quirks had had at least one piece of luck. The wind and lake currents that steered the ice when it began to break up had jammed it all up against the south side of the island, which was why they hadn’t needed the canoe so far. And when they got to the edge of the packed ice, they could canoe from there all the way to the mainland across open water.

  Tommy slowed as he reached a spot where two pieces of ice had met. The chunk ahead seemed large enough, containing as much square footage as a bedroom in a medium-size house. Still, it paid to move to a new ice raft with caution, so Tommy stepped over the crack gingerly, testing the new chunk to make sure the edge wouldn’t break off when he put his weight on it. It didn’t, and he and Jean moved onto it, continued southward.

  Tommy had no compass. At the moment he was keeping the brightest part of the dimming sky to his right. If he was still on the ice when it became fully dark, he’d be able to see the lights on the mainland. It was only three miles, and they’d already covered half of it.

  He stared into the grayness, seeing nothing but ice in all directions, its surface as pockmarked and bumpy as a lunar landscape from the melting and freezing of the snow that covered it. The footing was slushy and slippery, and they had both come close to falling. Tommy was starting to tire, too. He was beginning to feel as though he were walking uphill.

  He was walking uphill.

  The slab of ice on which he and Jean were walking was rising in front of him.

  Going up like a drawbridge.

  Jean yelled something unintelligible as she slipped and fell. They dropped the canoe, and then Tommy was slipping too. The drawbridge was still rising, Tommy, Jean, and the canoe sliding down the ice, faster and faster, out of control. Tommy’s mind flashed back to the time he’d been a ten-year-old taking his first ride down a water slide, his body bumping into the sides as he rushed downward, powerless to alter his speed or course, but knowing deep down inside that everything would be okay.

  But this was no water slide, and everything was not okay. It was a piece of ice, and he should have stopped sliding by now, should have reached the level
ice. You’re going to go right into the water! something inside him was screaming. And sliding into the water meant death. No, he thought, it’ll be all right; we’ll slide onto the level ice, because it’s all packed tightly against the island and there aren’t any places where the water’s exposed.

  But then Jean screamed as she hit the water with a splash.

  Then the canoe hit.

  Then Tommy.

  Pain shot through his knee as it hit the canoe, but Tommy immediately forgot about that, for he was under water, and the need to breathe was much more pressing than the pain. Although a part of him knew he was dead already, his survival instincts took over, making him kick desperately toward the surface. His mind put everything aside except the overriding need to get his head above water, breathe, take in air, lovely, wonderful air.

  He was moving upward now. Soon he would break the surface, take in the oxygen his lungs were screaming for, and he hoped—prayed—that Jean would be there too, waiting for him. Maybe they could figure something out, some way to survive. Maybe they’d make it. Maybe.

  And then he saw the surface, only inches above him, a gray ceiling that covered this freezing watery world of blackness. His eyes broke the surface, then his nose, and he was sucking in air, big, huge lungfuls of wonderful, life-giving air. He looked for Jean. She wasn’t there.

  “Jean!” he yelled, thinking, No, God, not this, no, please. Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please.

  And then Jean broke the surface, spitting out water and greedily drawing in air.

  “Jean!” he shouted. “Jean … Jean.” All he could do was say her name. She seemed unable to speak, but their eyes met, communicating all that needed to be said.

  And then Jean’s head vanished beneath the water as if she’d been yanked from below.

  “Jean!” Tommy shouted. “Je—”

  Something had just grabbed his leg. Something big and powerful.

  Suddenly Tommy was pulled down, and his head was under water again, and he could see Jean, almost close enough to touch, struggling, trying to wriggle upward, her hair flowing like a flag in a gentle breeze, bubbles escaping from her mouth. As they had on the surface, her eyes met his, and they were filled with terror.

  They were still being pulled down.

  Though still nearly close enough to touch, Jean was disappearing into the water’s icy blackness. Tommy’s lungs, which had been struggling to hold out, gave up and sucked in water. He choked, drew in more water. He looked down, trying to see what had them, finding only bottomless blackness. And then something took shape just below him.

  Two glowing red dots.

  Like eyes.

  For an instant, he could see the entire head, and he realized that the thing pulling him down was Red Olafson, the mechanic at Phil Deemis’s Shell station. Red was looking at him, grinning a crazy, mindless grin, as if he’d just smoked a truckload of marijuana and couldn’t stop giggling. Bubbles came out of his mouth.

  And then blackness closed in around Red Olafson.

  And Tommy Quirk stopped struggling.

  Fifteen

  1

  “The chopper’s ready,” Lieutenant Roper said, “but it can’t fly in weather like this.”

  “Yeah,” Don said, because he didn’t know what else to say—unless, of course, he decided to tell the lieutenant that the Evil was loose on the island. And what’s the Evil, you ask? It’s sort of an evil spirit from hell. You know, one of those dudes who goes around possessing people. This particular one turns them into mass murderers. I’ll bet you didn’t even know that a lot of these people who just sort of snap and start killing people aren’t really crazy at all. It’s the Evil. It’s got ’em. By the short hairs.

  Uh-huh. And here come the guys in white suits and big butterfly nets, looking for that constable, Don Farraday, who’s nuttier than a fruitcake, goes around talking about evil spirits and shit like that.

  Don hadn’t told the state police about Pfeil, the revivals, any of it. He’d wait until the chopper could make it. He needed time to figure out how to tell it.

  “I guess you’ll just have to hang on until the weather clears,” Roper said.

  “Yeah,” Don said. Realizing that he was being monosyllabic and repetitious, Don added, “This is something, isn’t it? Weather like this in March.”

  “First time I’ve ever seen anything like it. One bitch of a late-winter storm, that I can see. Mother Nature letting us know that she’s just been teasing us with all this warm weather. But not this. This has to be a fluke.”

  “For sure,” Don said.

  “Weather bureau says it’s small and localized, but a slow mover. Could be like this for days.”

  “Hope not,” Don said.

  “Well, all we can do is wait for it to break. When it does, we’ll get out there and give you a hand.”

  They agreed it would be best if that happened soon and ended the conversation. Don walked over to a side window through which he could see the intersection of Marquette Street and Island Avenue. Wind-driven rain slithered down the glass, flowed like small rivers through the gutters, the water grayish-brown from all the salt and sand that had been applied to the streets over the winter. What was left of the snowbanks was rapidly disappearing. Nothing removed snow like rain did, and when it was all gone, the island would be nothing but a huge mass of mud. Even the paved streets would be mucky, because the cars would collect mud on the dirt roads and drop it everywhere. The stuff built up in wheel wells and then fell out on the pavement, like globs of automobile shit. A gust of wind rattled the window through which Don was looking, howled in the eaves.

  “I’ve lived here all my life,” Corrine said, “and I’ve never seen weather like this in March.”

  “Me neither,” Don said. He returned to his desk.

  Corrine’s eyes followed him. “Don …”

  “I know what you’re going to ask, Corrine, and I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you even have any idea what’s happening?” Her eyes were looking at him so intently Don wanted to look away.

  He considered telling her about the Evil, then dismissed the notion. He had seen the thing that emerged from Reverend Pfeil’s body, and Corrine had not. She’d probably think he was crazy, and he had enough problems without having Corrine looking at him from the corner of her eye all the time because she was worried that he might be dangerous.

  “Reverend Pfeil was the killer,” he said.

  “I know, but—”

  “His fingerprints were on the tire iron that was used to kill Paul Edley, and they were in the Gordons’ house too. You already know that.” The prints at one murder scene had come from Pfeil’s right hand, and at the other they’d come from his left, which had prevented Don from learning early on that all the killings were the work of the same person.

  “It just doesn’t make sense,” Corrine insisted. “How could he do something like … like that?”

  “I don’t know, Corrine. I’m not a psychiatrist. Crazy people do things that only make sense to them. Their brains burn out or short circuit or something. But there’s no doubt that it was him. I found bloody clothes in his car, and I’m sure the blood types will match the victims’ blood types. You don’t have to worry about the murderer anymore. He’s dead.”

  “The murders were bad enough,” she said. “But there’s more to it than that.” Her look was challenging now. You haven’t told me everything, have you?

  “Corrine, I don’t know how he lured people to the revivals, got them to bring him his victims. How did Jim Jones get all those people to drink poison? I know things like that go on, but I sure can’t explain them.”

  Corrine nodded, shifted her eyes back to her desk. Corrine’s reaction was typical. There was some relief among Ice Islanders that the apparent murderer was dead, but there was a lot of apprehension left. That it was the minister made them uneasy. And too many strange things had been going on. Even this freak rainstorm.

  Last night he’d told Caro
lyn Pfeil that her husband was dead. Her first reaction was confusion, almost as if she didn’t know how to react, and then, just for an instant, relief had spread across her face. Then she’d begun to cry.

  Through the sobs, she told him that Carly was missing and that her husband had prevented her from notifying him. Don promised to look for Carly, but he was fairly certain that he wouldn’t find her—not alive, anyway. She had joined Wes Brock, Valerie Spindler, and Irene Waggoner. Missing and presumed dead.

  Carolyn Pfeil had given him permission to search the house for evidence. Crying, she’d followed him as he searched, and whenever he’d caught her eye, she’d been giving him the same look Corrine had: Explain it to me. Make me understand what’s happening.

  And how the hell am I supposed to do that? Don wondered. I don’t understand it myself.

  He hoped the Quirks were safe on the mainland, that they wouldn’t end up on the list of missing and presumed dead.

  The phone rang, and Corrine answered it. After talking to the caller a few moments, she pressed the hold button and turned to Don. “It’s Guy Quirk,” she said. “He says Tommy and Jean have disappeared.”

  Don just stared at her, not wanting to pick up the phone.

  “Don …” she said, frowning.

  He nodded, reached for the receiver.

  2

  Ten-year-old Ben Upchurch was pissed.

  Pissed at his mother.

  Wearing a yellow slicker and matching hat, he trudged along Pine Road, which ran through the woods along the eastern edge of the island. The rain beat on his hat and slicker, stung his face. The puddles were three and four inches deep, over the tops of his shoes. Ben didn’t care; he slogged right through the deepest parts of them. Maybe he’d ruin his shoes, and his mom would have to buy him another pair. Would serve her right.

  What happened this morning had been building for a long time. Ben had trouble getting up in the mornings. Actually, Ben hated getting up in the mornings. His mom would shake him, and he’d just roll over, go back to sleep. When he did get up, he was groggy, uncoordinated. He’d do things like bump into the door frame as he was walking out of his bedroom, stare at his breakfast, too stupefied to have any appetite.