The shrieking was Christine, and the smoke was coming from the gun in his hand.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Fucking sweet,” Jack said.
The kid kept shifting his gaze away from David to Steve, who slid down the front of the furnace blood seeping around the hands at his throat.
Christine’s scream trailed off into a choked sob as she backed away from the puddle of blood forming around the floor where Steve now sat. Jack was too absorbed to notice Mark backing away from the spreading blood, the viciousness in his face replaced with shock. He lowered David’s gun and then the blade in his hand fell out of his trembling hand.
“Oh god,” Mark said.
It’s him, David realized.
David opened his mouth to say something, but Steve gave a deep, ragged gasp and then stopped breathing. “My turn,” Jack said, turning his full attention to David now that his entertainment was over.
Before he could pull the trigger, Mark dropped to his knees and let loose a deep retching sound. Jack turned and Mark retched again, his whole body doubling up and his mouth strained as wide as possible. What came out of his mouth wasn’t vomit but thick black smoke. It tumbled to the ground, piling up like fog and drifting towards the furnace and the puddle of blood. There was a burning hiss as it hit the blood, and the fire in the furnace began to roar higher.
“What the fuck?” Jack said, and David charged, ducking under the gun that had drifted away from his center mass and tackling Jack squarely in the midsection. They fell to the ground in a pile, the boy thrashing as David forced Jack’s gun hand up towards the ceiling and grabbed for it. Their hands tangled together but David managed to slap the pistol out of the boy's hands and send it clattering to the floor.
Jack slipped a hand from David’s grip and punched up with enough crazy teenager strength to push him just enough to bring a leg up between them. Jack scrambled out from underneath him, legs kicking frantically as he crawled away towards the pistol. David tried to grab the boy’s leg, but before he could he took a kick to the temple.
David rolled backwards, trying to blink away the pain clouding his vision and hopefully crawling towards where Mark dropped his gun.
“Freeze you son of a bitch.”
David stopped, vision coming back into focus. Jack was up on one knee, both hands gripping his pistol and one eye squeezed shut as he took careful aim.
There was a roar of anger and the open eye disappeared with a burst of gunfire.
The gun in Jack’s hand went off and David felt the breeze of the bullet’s passing as it just missed him and ricocheted off the floor. Mark let out another scream and fired again, putting another hole in Jack’s face. The suddenly cyclopean teenage psycho fell backwards against the basement wall. Mark kept screaming and pulling the trigger until there was a fist sized hole where Jack’s eye and nose used to be and the room echoed with the metallic clicks of the dry-firing Glock.
When Jack’s body fell face-first onto the ground Mark realized he was still pulling the trigger on the empty gun. He dropped it and sat back, pushing himself away from it. He stopped when the gravel behind him went warm and sticky in his hands.
“Mark?” Christine said from behind him. “Is that you?”
He couldn’t speak, and he couldn’t bring himself to turn around to look at her. He just nodded.
“What the fuck?” she said, walking around in front of him. “What the fuck just happened? Was that . . . what the fuck was that, Mark?”
He didn’t want her to see him. He knew that if she looked at him, she’d see that twisted, psychotic face that Cor . . . that Darren had given him; the face of the crazed, ghostly lunatic that killed his best friend. He raised his hands to his face to cover it, but stopped when he saw the red on his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Mark said, putting his hands on the dry ground and trying to rub the color off them. “It wasn’t me. It was . . . I can’t even begin to explain.”
“It was the ghost, wasn’t it?” Detective Prescott said.
He nodded. His hands were still wet, and all he was doing was scratching the hell out of them on the gravel and concrete. Defeated, he just let them hang limply in his lap.
“Is he . . .” Christine asked, looking behind Mark. He turned and saw David standing at the edge of the pool of blood, leaning in and checking Steve for a pulse. For a brief second of stupid optimism, Mark thought David would shout that Steve was okay, and that if they hurried he’d survive and it’d be like this whole thing never happened.
Instead, David shook his head and stepped away from the body.
“Jesus Christ,” Mark said, resting his head on the top of hands.
“Are you two hurt at all?” David said.
Christine shook her head, and Mark just shrugged. David crouched down next him. “Mark, I know this is hard, but we have to get out here. I have to call this in, and then we can figure out what to tell them.”
“What’s to tell?” Mark said. “It was me the whole time. He used me like a fucking puppet, and I don’t think there’s anything that we can say that’s going to make people believe that.”
“We’ll come up with something,” David said. “Come on, we need to get out of here first, alright?”
Mark nodded, and with David’s help he got to his feet. He made it a couple of steps before everything went gray and hazy. David grabbed him before he fell over, and with an arm under him to keep him upright, David walked Mark up the stairs.
Mark shook his head to clear it of its sudden heat and weight but it didn’t help. Everything was fuzzy, but before they made it up the stairs he looked back down into the basement at the two bodies laying in puddles of blood and the fire in the furnace raging on.
David and Christine got Mark upstairs and seated in one of the old kitchen chairs. He was completely white, aside from the smears of blood on his hands and drops of it on his face. Christine knew that Mark wasn’t the snarling savage that had held her hostage but it was hard to look at him and not feel the edge of the blade pressing against her throat.
Or realize that her brother’s killer was sitting in front of her muttering for forgiveness.
“Mark, can you hear me?” David said, squatting down in front of Mark.
Mark nodded, and then with a deep gulp, said “Yeah . . . I just needed some air. It’s so hot down there.”
“I know,” David said. “Can you stand?”
Mark nodded and then got halfway out of his chair before falling right back down in it.
“I guess not,” he said.
“That’s okay,” David said. “Just take your time.” He reached down to his belt, unclipped his cell phone and flipped it open. He frowned, put the phone to his ear, and then flipped it shut.
“I’m not getting any signal in here.”
“Let me try,” Christine said, welcoming the excuse to look away from the blood on Mark’s hands. She checked her phone and shook her head. “I’m not getting anything either.”
“Okay,” David said. “I’m going to go and try from outside, I want the two of you to stay here, okay?”
“Sure,” she said, and Mark just nodded.
David headed down the hallway for the front door and Christine tucked her phone back into her pocket. Mark leaned forward, elbows on his knees and moving to rest his head in his hands. He pulled up at the last second when he remembered what they were covered with.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, sitting back upright.
“Let me see if there’s something you can wipe your hands with,” Christine said, turning away and scanning the dust laden counters for something even remotely clean.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mark said.
“Dammit!” Christine whirled around, expecting to see the blade and the wicked gleam in Mark’s eye coming at her again. The yell hadn’t come from Mark or the basement, but towards the front of the house where Detective Prescott had gone.
Mark had staggered to his feet, but Christine pushe
d him back into the chair as she passed on the way to the front door. “Stay here,” she said. Once she was in the hallway she could see Detective Prescott gripping the door handle and pulling with all of his strength.
“What is it?” she said as she came up behind him.
“The door was open when I came in here with Steve. I don’t know if that Jack kid closed it and found some way to lock it, but it’s not moving now.”
“Let me help,” she said, coming around him and wrapping her hands over his and helping twist. All their combined might achieved was two pairs of sore hands, deep breaths and muttered curses.
“Dammit!” David said, shaking his hands. “There has to be some other way out of here. C’mon, let’s check around back,” he said, but before Christine could follow, he stopped. “Oh shit.”
“What?”
He pointed down the hall and into the kitchen and the empty chair where Mark had been sitting.
“Where’d he go?”
Mark watched them struggling at the door and the guilt in his stomach turned to cold clarity.
Whatever was trapped in the fire in the basement was burning merrily along, waiting for them to exhaust themselves trying to get out before whatever remained of Darren flowed back up the steps to finish them off. If it was going to end, Mark was going to have to stop it. He got up, the uncharacteristic bravery chasing most of the light-headedness away. He would’ve let them know what he was doing, but they’d probably just try to argue. Once he was sure of his footing, he headed back down the stairs.
When he got to the base of the stairs he tried to focus only on the furnace and the flames in front of him. Not the hole through Jack’s head that seemed to follow him as he walked. Not Steve’s body, staring off into infinity in a pool of his own blood.
Mark stepped around the blood and squatted down as close as he could to his dead friend. He wanted to touch him and close his eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d done enough already.
“I’m so sorry, Steve.”
From where he was kneeling, Mark could stare directly into the open furnace. The heat from the flames was oppressive, and he could feel it pulsing in his head. In the fire he could just make out something moving with the flames.
“I’m going to kill you,” Mark said to it. “I’m going to find out how and I’m going to end you, you demonic piece of shit.”
He got to his feet, breaking his gaze with more effort than he would’ve liked. The closest he could find to an “off” switch on the furnace was a temperature control. He hoped something as simple as turning the flame down to nothing would at least stall whatever was powering Darren long enough to . . . to what? Darren had said he’d had enough power to live on in the house for decades, presumably with the furnace turned down to non-demonic levels. If anything, snuffing the flames would be satisfying enough for now. He could come back later with a priest and a bulldozer.
As he reached out for the gauge a hand clamped down on his.
“Not so fast,” a ragged voice whispered in his ear. “I’m not done with you yet.” Before he could turn, Mark was hurled forward. His head hit the front of the furnace, the impact knocking him off his feet and down onto the floor.
“I’m honestly sorry it’s come to this,” the voice said, coming closer. “But you brought it on yourself.”
He tried to push himself back up to his feet, but everything was wet and slippery and he couldn’t find his balance. Over the roar of flames and throb of pain in his head he heard the familiar sound of metal scraping home and the tiny click as the blade was locked into place. Something smashed into the back of his head, causing his arms to buckle and dropping him flat onto his stomach.
“I’ll be back to deal with you, but right now we have some guests trying to leave the party, and that’s just not acceptable.”
Mark raised his head weakly and found himself staring into the ragged mass of flesh that used to be Jack’s face. The hole in his head now filled with the swirling black smoke of Darren’s essence
“Sweet dreams,” the Darren-driven Jack said. He swung the cane down onto the back of Mark’s head again and drove him down into the floor and unconsciousness.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“This is not good,” David said.
“Oh really? You could’ve fooled me,” Christine said, turning in place in the middle of the abandoned kitchen.
“Christine, relax, okay? We’re going to be fine,” David said. He put his hands on her shoulders and guided her towards the seat that Mark had been in.
“What if . . . whatever the fuck was in him got back in him? What if it comes after us?”
“Nothing is going to come after us, okay? We’re going to be fine. I just want you to sit here, take some deep breaths and I’m going to look around. I’m not going to go out of your sight, okay?”
She nodded, and he got up and began to walk around the kitchen. There was an archway that led into the dining room they saw from the front of the house, and a doorway that looked to lead into the back of the house. David pushed it open, sending up a large cloud of dust.
“Mark, where are you?” David called into the back of the house. There was no answer, and Christine turned to look at the only other way out of the room.
“Detective?”
“Yeah?”
“The basement.”
“Dammit.”
He crossed over to the basement door, leading with his pistol. “Just stay here, okay? If something happens to me, just go. Try to break a window or something. If Mark’s not down there, I’m going to come right back up, okay?”
She nodded with little enthusiasm.
“It’s going to be alri--” The cane swung out at him from the basement doorway, arcing downwards and knocking David’s pistol out of his hands. David turned back to face the doorway just in time to catch the cane flying back up and into his face, sending him down to the ground. With a scream, Christine leapt to her feet, and had half turned to run for it when the voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Don’t move, sweetheart.”
In the doorway was Jack’s body grinning and staring at her with its one eye. The hole where his other eye and nose used to be now swirled with the black smoke that Mark had vomited up.
Detective Prescott reached for his gun, but Smoke-Filled Jack stomped his foot down on his hand, grinning wide at the sound of bones crunching underfoot. Before David could finish yelling in pain, Jack swung the cane down into the back of his head. It took four solid hits before David stopped moving, and Jack added a fifth just for fun.
“That was invigorating,” he said, turning his attention to her.
She found herself shuffling for the door and wondering why she’d stopped when he told her too. It was magic, she told herself. Smoky ghost magic, and had nothing to do with the terror overpowering her common sense. Now that she realized this, it’d be the perfect time to run. Just turn and run. Grab one of those old chairs and hurl it through a window and not stop running until she saw the National Guard.
Smoke-Filled Jack smiled wider, splitting more of the skin in his face and causing more blackness to seep out of the tears in his flesh. “Don’t do it,” he said, his voice sounding almost like Jack’s but with another one just below the surface.
She shuffled her feet towards the doorway closest to her.
“I said,” Jack’s corpse said, reaching out with his free hand, palm down. “Don’t.” David’s gun floated up into his hand, the barrel now aimed squarely at her.
“Come here,” he said.
She shook her head, inching again towards the doorway.
“Christine. Come. Here.” There was a click as he pulled back the hammer with his thumb.
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” she said.
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll kill him,” pointing the pistol down at Detective Prescott. “And maybe, when I’m done, I’ll go back down to the basement and finish what I started on Mark while you ru
n around up here trying to find a way out.”
She shifted her feet again.
“And when I’m done with that, I will come and I will find you, and I will make the rest of our time together very . . . unpleasant.”
“And if I come with you?”
“Then we can end this much quicker. For you, that would be preferable.”
She took a couple of steps towards him, but couldn’t bring herself any nearer. He raised the cane and placed it on her shoulder, turning it so that the slightly curved dragon head pulled her in so that the gun rested against her chest. His smile grew wider, and she was close enough to see the almost dried blood seep out of his wounds.
“Silly girl.”
He pulled the trigger, and the sudden snap of metal made her jump.
“It’s empty,” he said, dropping the gun and taking her arm with his free hand. “Let’s go get re-acquainted.”
He marched her down the steps, a hand on her arm and the cane resting on her shoulder. When they got to the bottom of the stairs she saw Mark lying face down in front of the furnace and just outside the pool of Steve’s blood. Jack walked her forward until she was standing only a few feet away from the open furnace door and Mark’s prone form. She waited for a sign that Mark was still alive and that she hadn’t been tricked again, and after a few seconds he drew in a short, shallow breath.
“Arms up,” he said. She complied, and she felt her wrists brush against rusted metal. She looked up and saw a length of chain dangling down from one of the metal crossbars. Jack’s corpse reached up and wound the chain around her wrists until it was painfully tight.
“Don’t even breathe.” He slid the blade from the cane and dropped the sheath on the floor. Holding the tip of the blade on her neck, he stepped back and leaned down to fish something out of Mark’s jacket pocket. He pulled something out and stood back up, reaching for the chain on her wrists again.
Shadow of the Past Page 25
