by S. E. Green
No prints.
The dagger is now being handed to someone else. The chanting elevates. Everyone moves in. I don’t. I stay on the outside, frozen, looking in.
Suddenly I realize I’m holding something and look down to see Michelle’s Barbie in my grip. She’ll want this, I think, and try to go give it to her, but still my feet stay rooted.
A gloved hand falls onto Michelle’s head and gives a gentle push until she kneels. Her mouth opens to scream, but she’s so terrified, nothing comes out. The person with the dagger moves forward, and idly I note he’s smaller than everyone else.
I watch as he kneels in front of Michelle. I watch as everyone links hands in a circle. The chanting lowers, becoming deeper, and then I watch as the dagger slices clean across her throat.
MY EYES FLY open and I shoot straight up in bed, panting, covered in sweat. What the hell? I look out into the darkness of the room, and it takes me a second to remember where I am. I’m in a fishing cabin. We had dinner, we visited, we went to bed. What time is it? Automatically, I reach for my phone, but then remember it’s in my duffel bag down on the floor.
I look at my watch. It’s two in the morning. It’s officially Sunday.
That dream, or rather I should say that nightmare. It’s been years since I’ve dreamt something so real. When I was a kid I used to wake up screaming and Mom and Dad would rush in. I would have night terrors about all kinds of stuff: someone in my closet, or a creature under my bed, and one time there was this little tiny person—no bigger than a baby doll—sitting on my chest. I remember him clearly now, and a shiver creeps through me. He had long black hair worn high in a ponytail, slanted eyes, and a split tongue as it unrolled to lick my face.
It’s no wonder I struggle with insomnia when sleep only holds such demons.
A deep and haunting rhythm thrums through my body, and I realize it’s coming from outside. I swing my legs over the edge of the bunk and tune my ears. It’s a drum, yes, but also voices, or not really voices, more like throaty humming. Sort of like what I just dreamt.
Like what was playing when I saw Travis and Honey with that other couple.
Squinting through the darkness, I look at all the bunk beds. Across to the other top ones where Travis and Kevin slept, but they’re not there. Down to where my parents and Uncle Jerry and PaPaw were, but they’re gone, too. It occurs to me that I should be alarmed by this—all my family gone—but somehow I’m not. I’m merely curious.
“Hello?” I call out, but am answered with silence.
Carefully, I climb down the ladder, and the distant drumming seems to get a little louder. It’s dark in here but my eyes are definitely adjusted, and I slip my feet into my running shoes before crossing the cabin and opening the front door. Our SUV is there, right where it was when we all went to bed, and PaPaw’s Jeep is right behind it.
On the small porch I gaze through the dark and shadows of the surrounding woods and there, off to the left, I see a flickering lantern, then another, and then another. I grab a flash-light from a crate of our things and step off the front porch onto the dirt, and with slow purpose, I begin winding my way through the woods toward the lanterns. I pass a cabin and then another, all dark, and I wonder if there is a late night gathering that I didn’t know about.
The drum rhythm stays steady, bum-bum-bum, and the guttural singing continues, growing louder as I get closer.
The lanterns flicker brighter. The bass thump-thump-thumps. The haunting chanting vibrates the air around me, making my heart quicken its pace.
I grow closer still, and my breaths begin to come shallow. I flick off my flashlight. I don’t need it anymore. Turn around my brain says, but my body doesn’t listen, and it reminds me of when I was following Daniel James through our woods. Everything about me seemed disconnected then, as it does now.
I can see people, men and women, standing in a circle with their backs to me among the trees where lanterns hangs from branches, illuminating the area in an eerie glow. Quietly, I approach. I catch a few of their faces in the flickering shadows and see that they all have their eyes closed. Then simultaneously their mouths open, and another yawning moan reverberates the air and seeps into my blood.
Over to the left one of the men stands behind a tall drum. It is unlike any I have ever seen. Large, yes, but made of leather and gold and decorated with ornate engravings.
I take a step closer, drawn by some weird force, and two of the people standing in front of me move apart, leaving an opening in the circle. It’s then that I see it, an altar of sorts, built of wood, about six feet long and sitting three or so feet up off the ground.
But it’s the unconscious person lying on top of the altar that has me snapping back into myself and rushing into the circle.
“Kevin!” I scream.
The drum continues. So do the evocative mantras. Nobody opens their eyes. Nobody even acknowledges I’ve just screamed. Instead, they all take a step closer, tightening the circle.
Ignoring them, I rush over to my brother and reach for him. “Kevin!”
Opening his eyes, he sits up and swings his legs over the side to face me. But he doesn’t look at me, he gazes through me, like he can see inside my skin and bones all the way to my organs. I’m not sure how I know it, but I realize he’s bait. They needed me to come into this circle on my own, and my brother lying here, offered up, was the only way I would.
Kevin slides down then and walks over to join the circle of people. Something creepy and evil scrapes across my skin and every tiny follicle on my body shifts to stand. I turn, and my gaze runs over all the faces in the circle, their eyes closed, their mouths open.
There are the people from the fishing camp who I ate dinner with just hours ago, there’s Kevin and Travis, my dad and mom, PaPaw and Uncle Jerry, and my heart lurches when I see Bee-Bee, Edwin, and one of our local cops.
In synch, everyone takes a step closer and the circle becomes even tighter. The drums. The intonations. I start to cry. “Dad? Mom?”
But neither of them answer.
The circle closes tighter and I back up, my rear hitting the altar.
“Travis,” I try, my voice cracking. “Uncle Jerry.”
Tighter still, closing in. On a surge of panic I lunge toward the circle, trying to break free, pushing, shoving, but their bodies only tighten, their muscles locked, their arms and legs merged. I can’t get out.
“Dad!” I scream.
The drum beats increase. The incantation gets louder.
“Mom!”
Then gently a hand grasps my arm, and I turn to see PaPaw. He’s looking at me, not through me, and I throw myself into his arms, sobbing. “PaPaw, what’s going on?”
“Sh,” he says, holding me, leading me back into the center.
Everyone closes in.
“No!” I sob harder, yanking now at his hold, but he only tightens his grip as he lifts me off my feet and puts me on top of the altar.
“No!” I cry, thrashing, kicking my legs, throwing my arms.
Shadows shift and move, and fingers touch my wrists and ankles as rope is twined around each one and I’m ceremoniously secured to the wood posts bracketing the altar.
“No,” I whimper—tugging, twisting, pulling—but nothing happens. I can’t get free.
The shadows move again, and I’m all alone now. The lanterns glow and flicker, dancing through the darkness. The drum resounds. The chanting continues. I stare up at the summer stars, and tears roll from my eyes to stream down my face.
PaPaw approaches me again. “Sh,” he whispers, running a soothing finger across my forehead and down the bridge of my nose. “It’s okay. Calm yourself.”
I focus all my fear up into his familiar, kind eyes, and something warm and peaceful washes over me. He must note the change, because his lips curl up into a gentle smile. “There you go,” he whispers, “much better.”
PaPaw continues tracing his finger across my forehead and down my nose, and I slowly fall into a tranq
uil, dream like state as I stare up into his serene face.
“You are something else,” he quietly says. “All my careful planning, grooming them all since they were kids—your dad and Jerry, your mom and Bee-Bee, and the others—all pawns in the prophecy. And Bee-Bee stepping in when your mom couldn’t conceive.”
I try to speak, but my throat feels thick and heavy.
“Yes,” he whispers, “all my careful planning, scattering evidence, anonymous tips, just waiting for Crandall to put it all together, and you, my sweet and bright Vickie, you almost ruined it all. I certainly didn’t expect you to find the evidence, to leak information, to dig for facts. Yes, you went off script.” He trails a soft finger across my cheek. “But that’s okay. I’m not upset. That’s why this place was always prepared and ready. Our backup. Just in case.”
It all goes through my mind in these flashes and flicks. Memories. Conversations overheard. Dreams that I realize now were reality. Years of meticulous details. The New Satanic Empire founded by PaPaw and prudently, quietly cultivated. There’s no telling how many other members are out there, eager to do whatever task he gives them.
“The prophecy,” I murmur.
PaPaw nods. “Four children from the same father, two boys and two girls, and when it came time the boys would sacrifice the girls to Satan, our true father.”
Me and Travis and Kevin. From the time we were toddlers, PaPaw was in our brains, crawling into our psyches. My night terrors, insomnia, sleep walking; Kevin’s rage-filled outbursts explained away as being bi-polar; Travis’s explorations into sexual deviance—all side effects of PaPaw’s hypnotic control. I wonder at which point my brothers will realize all that they’ve done. I imagine our grandfather has some way to merge past and present, reality and dream, conscious and subconscious so they’ll one day be active participants in this darkness.
Or maybe they are now, and I just don’t want to believe it.
Mark’s going down for Michelle’s murder. But me? That’s why my parents insisted I go on a world service project. Everyone expects me to be gone. No one will question my absence. Not even my brothers. Then when the time is right, my parents will weave whatever lie they wish. They can say I fell off a cliff and died, and no one will know otherwise.
A shadow beside me moves, and I turn my head to see Travis approach. His shirt is off, and I note his shoulder now has a fresh mark, red and raw, just like Kevin’s. The Mark of the Devil. Both of my brothers now have it. They’re chosen to carry on whatever twisted legacy PaPaw has planned.
Travis moves up onto the altar and PaPaw’s finger slides away from my face as he steps down. I lift my head, searching for the soothing touch, but it’s gone.
My brother is holding an ornamental dagger in his hand, similar to the one used on Michelle, but bigger and more ornate. Fresh tears blur my eyes as fear begins to creep back in, and with it, raw and terrifying reality.
“Travis,” I whisper, staring up at my twin. “Please, can you hear me? Please snap out of whatever trance you’re in. Please.”
Gently, his mouth smiles, but his eyes do not. “We were born for this moment,” he quietly says.
Then he lifts the blade, and he plunges it straight down into my heart.
I am the ultimate sacrifice.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There is not an author out there who writes a book all alone. Plotting, research, beta reading, marketing, publicity, editing… a lot goes into a book coming to life and it is truly a team effort.
Ultimate Sacrifice is my first horror novel and I would like to give hugs and more hugs to the whole brilliant and creative team at Oftomes Publishing who have rallied behind this creepy book: Ben Alderson, Claire Lucas, Chris Lucas and the family.
