The Complete Hidden Evil Trilogy: 3 Novels and 4 Shorts of Frightening Horror (PLUS Book I of the Portal Arcane Trilogy)

by J. Thorn

  If not for you, we’re doomed.

  He stumbled against the dresser, knocking a few bottles of medication down. Doug squinted and looked at the door, which remained shut. “What the fuck was that?”

  Please, Doug. Trust me. You carried me out. You saved me. Now I want to save you.

  He blinked and shook his head. “Are you in my head?”

  No. I’m communicating to you without audio waves. Not the same. I cannot read your mind, if that’s your concern.

  Doug remained standing, his shoulders moving up and down from rapid breaths. “Do I need to speak, you know, with my mouth?” The question sounded absurd even to him.

  If you prefer. Or you can speak with your mind.

  “So I just . . .” Doug stopped. So I just think the words?

  Yes.

  Doug laughed and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. He pulled up a plastic chair and slid it next to the raised head of the bed, careful to avoid the numerous tubes and lines running from the equipment into Ravna.

  “I think I’d rather speak, if you don’t mind. Kinda used to talking with my mouth.”

  I understand, came the reply and a hint of a smirk. If necessary, you can flip into the mental, should someone enter the room, for instance.

  “What’s the range on this thing?” Doug asked, leaning back in the chair and crossing his feet at the ankles. “Can I head out to the snack bar while I’m talking to you?”

  It carries like your voice, not like a smartphone.

  Doug laughed. He could not decide whether it was the quip or the situation that made him do it, but he laughed. He immediately looked at the door as though any levity inside of the ICU would be against the rules. “If some doctors come in, what should I do?”

  They won’t. We don’t have a lot of time, but what we do have is, how shall I say, protected.

  “I’m Doug.”

  I know. My name is Ravna.

  “What?”

  Ravna. The first A like apple. RA-vna. Or you can just call me Rav.

  “Are you in pain?”

  Loads. Luckily, the meds mask it to a dull ache, but I don’t expect the flesh to hold up. There’s been so much damage.

  “Sorry,” Doug said, not really sure how to respond.

  Don’t be. It’s not your fault. She’s dead, isn’t she? I knew she probably gave up before the explosion, but it’s just me and the demon across the room, right? Have they IDed Karen or Jasper yet?

  “I’m FD, Rav. Not my gig. But yes, I believe two dead at the scene and you two here in the ICU.” Doug felt Ravna’s emotions roiling in the ether like a massive storm cloud. He could tell Ravna was trying his best to keep them contained. “I’m sorry. You must have been close.”

  Thanks. Yes, we were. I’ll see her again, I’m sure of it. The body moved beneath the bandages. Doug waited. But we have very important business, you and I. We won’t have the luxury of training. It’ll have to be much more efficient.

  “Like a lesson.”

  Yeah. Kinda like that.

  “Where do we start?”

  The explosion and what you face. Then we’ll try to figure out how to stop it. I knew I had to do it, and I fully expected to die. The fact that you’re here is really a blessing of sorts. Gaki made it, too, which is probably why. Good can’t exist without evil.

  Doug smiled. “Very Zen Buddhist of you.”

  Very Mashoka. The student emulates the teacher. Let me tell you. . . .

  ***

  They had me in the basement and I knew Karen and I were about to die. There’s a feeling that settles in, a desperation but also a sense of finality. I really can’t explain it.

  Jasper had Karen tied to the chair and he was drooling over her in a way that made me physically sick. Gaki berated me, saying I was responsible for killing Drew but I knew it was the demon’s curse that caused it, not me. I told Gaki that he could go to hell and that was when he gave Jasper the nod. They were about to do terrible things to her as a means to get to me. I had one last play and I knew it was unlikely that any of us would make it out alive.

  I knew there was a natural gas leak inside the abandoned house. I’m not sure if Gaki or Jasper knew or if they even cared, but I realized it was all I had left. I asked for a smoke and Gaki sent Jasper out to his truck to get me whatever stale tobacco he had laying around in there. When he came back with a cheap cigar, Jasper untied me. I had convinced Gaki it was all over and that freeing my hands wouldn’t make a difference. He believed it.

  I said, “I could smell it as soon as I got down here, even over your rotten filth. I’m sure the fucking redneck couldn’t smell anything beyond his own foul body odor and that chaw he’s always spitting. But I did. It started making me sick, and then I realized it might be my only salvation. Our salvation. It’s been building up within the walls for days, maybe months. It’s not huge, but over time, shit adds up. The stuff you hide behind the walls can’t remain hidden forever, can it?”

  Maybe Gaki knew what was going to happen at this point and maybe he didn’t but he growled and moved closer to the basement steps. Jasper was still in the kitchen on the first floor. The redneck opened the door and wanted to know what was going on. When he saw me with the lighter and Gaki’s slow retreat to the steps, the dimwit put it together and realized what was about to happen.

  I lit the cigar and inhaled, then tossed the lit cigar at the meter and I dropped to the ground. The flame caught the natural gas that had been leaking into the basement, and the fuel exploded, blowing the ceiling outward. The gas trapped within the walls ignited as well, throwing plaster and wood across the abandoned neighborhood.

  The old gas furnace in the corner was going to provide me as much cover as I could expect to get. I looked at Karen and we told each other good-bye. Somehow we knew it was the end for her, for us, and she gave me permission. She allowed me to end her pain.

  “I get it,” Doug said, unsure if he really did.

  Once the cigar was lit, it was a matter of seconds before it felt as though the entire earth had opened up and let hell escape. I was flat on my stomach, my hands covering my head. I heard a swooshing sound in the instant prior to the gas igniting. Then it felt as though a giant fan had kicked on in reverse, pulling everything out, even the air. I remained on the ground as the initial blast washed over me. I couldn’t breathe, as it sucked the oxygen from the air. Then the roaring sound blasted my eardrums and knocked me unconscious. When I awoke, you were pulling me from the rubble.

  Doug nodded, having no reason to doubt what he was being told. The forensic evidence sat before him, wrapped in soiled and leaky bandages. “Now I’m assuming you’ll tell me what the fuck you were all doing there in the first place. I’m no detective, but I have to guess normal business isn’t conducted in the basement of an abandoned house.”

  There is nothing “normal” about the situation. You cannot forget what I’m about to tell you, and you will never be the same. Ever.

  “My wife, my family . . .”

  It will affect them, too. However, their fate will at least be in your hands as opposed to those of another.

  “This isn’t much of a choice, Rav.”

  No. It really isn’t. But you’ve already spoken to Preta, to the gaki. You’ve already entered his Realm.

  “I’m not clear on all of the mystical bullshit that’s going down, but I was in 5468.”

  What did the hungry ghost tell you?

  “It was more about what he showed me, something about a blood curse, an insatiable desire for all that’s wicked.”

  Almost poetic.

  Doug sensed the smirk again, and he smiled, thinking it would be a shame that this man’s body would not survive. He found he enjoyed speaking with Ravna. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t pretty. That thing told me it’s been around a long time and that it’s here in this town, setting up shop. Seems the demon has found itself a lair.”

  A unique way of phrasing it, but yes, I’d say that is accurate.
<
br />   “This force, this demon, it moves through people and through families. It kind of eats the soul from the inside out.”

  More like corruption than consumption. It takes normal human urges and desires and makes them insatiable. It takes the taboo ones and makes them irresistible.

  “You blew this fucker up with a natural gas explosion and weren’t able to kill it. You have all this knowledge and training on hunting gakis, yet you failed. How the fuck am I supposed to win this?”

  You probably won’t. You’ll probably die like the rest of us.

  Doug snickered, laughing in the way that folks do in the lobby of a funeral home. “You must have been a motivational speaker in your day job.”

  No, but I’m an aficionado of sarcasm.

  Doug sat back, waiting, sensing time was growing short. The clock’s second hand tapped the edge of the glass on its circumnavigation of the face. Doug looked up and realized that the hour and minute hands had not moved since he entered the room. “I don’t know what kind of dojo you’re running, but I’m in. Let’s do this.”

  Ravna’s broken body managed a smile as he began to formulate the information in his head, stripping it of all but the critical elements that would be essential for Doug to defeat Gaki, or at least to take his best shot at the demon.

  ***

  It reminded her of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan, standing in front of El Castillo, the great Mayan pyramid unearthed and now on display like a huge, tacky tourist trap. Kelly thought back to the stifling heat on the bus, the handmade tortillas grilled roadside by an old woman, and the feeling of insignificance when she stood before the stone god.

  She had been whisked away by one of the video technicians she met at the station. They had hopped on a flight direct to Cancun and spent the better part of each night twisted up inside of each other. During the day, they drank spiced rum on the beach and smoked Cuban cigars. On the second to last day, Tim wanted to see the ancient Mayan ruins. Kelly protested, arguing that another day in the sands with a book and an umbrella in her drink was much more tantalizing than driving four hours through the jungle to see a big pile of rocks. But in the end, she relented, and she was glad she had. They had arrived before the Mexican government roped off the structure. Kelly and Tim climbed to the top and gazed upon the endless miles of green jungle and marveled at the expanse of a once mighty empire.

  The real treat, however, came at noon. Crowds came from nowhere, bus after bus pulling up to the edge of the complex where thousands of onlookers gathered with as many recording devices as they could hold in their hands.

  “It’s the vernal equinox,” Tim explained. “The sun is at the perfect angle only twice a year. They built it this way. It’s going to look like a serpent slithering down the temple, its head at the bottom.”

  Kelly remembered feeling stupid, as if they had all been tricked into coming down to Mexico to stare at a shadow. But as it formed on the gleaming white limestone, she felt transformed. Kelly felt as though she was part of something bigger, something cosmic. The children in attendance grew restless, and some of the Americans had left their attention spans back at the hotel. But she was riveted. Kelly could not take her eyes off the spectacle as she considered the herculean effort it must have taken to build it. She thought of the architects, the financiers, the religious leaders. Kelly thought about what they would have had to do, and then she thought about the construction site and what it would have taken to construct it with crude hammers and chisels. The Mayans had no cranes, no blasters, no backhoes, no wheels. They had carved these stones out of their own flesh and blood, and the astronomers had directed the project with a precision usually reserved for high-powered computer algorithms.

  All of those memories came rushing back as she watched the sunlight crawl down the living-room wall, hour by hour, minute by minute. Her legs cramped multiple times, and the last one made her scream in silence while tears ran down her face. Kelly had almost forgotten about the injuries she had sustained while in the grip of the monster as her parched throat itched.

  She fought the bonds again, and again they held her tightly to the wall. Robert must have twisted the copper wire together, making it nearly impossible to pull free. The knob and tube wiring in the house had been there for decades, and she did not have the strength to loosen it from the porcelain fasteners nailed to the wall studs.

  “You fucking son of a bitch,” Kelly cursed, but Robert did not answer. One thing was for certain: she was a murderer, and now she was trapped in a room with the corpse. All of his video production gear, bags, stands, and equipment was out of her reach. She knew he carried a small set of tools in the one camera bag, which she could use to free herself, but she might as well have been trying to use her toes to touch Miami.

  “Miami,” she said with a hoarse laugh.

  All of the times she had sucked his cock, swallowed his bitter remorse, and none of that mattered now. She would most likely die on this floor, and if she didn’t, her only connection to the South Beach market lay dead on the floor like a perverted version of Humpty Dumpty.

  “Help!” Kelly screamed, her own voice reverberating off the empty walls and drilling back into her own skull. “Somebody, help!”

  The contents of her purse lay scattered about the floor. None of it was within reach, and even if she could reach it, it was all meaningless. She looked at the relics of her lifestyle and made a promise, much like a drunk does while hovering over the toilet in the early hours of the morning.

  “I’m going to change. If I get out, I’m going to change. I promise. No more manipulation, no more games, and I want out of this industry, with its fake smiles and bloody headlines. I can’t thrive on someone else’s pain any longer. Get me out and I promise I’ll make a difference. I’ll make it right.”

  The room remained silent. Kelly was unsure whether anyone or anything had heard her plea.

  She looked at the wall again, noticing the sunlight dropping closer to the floor. She guessed it to be late afternoon and suspected that night was not far off. It would bring the darkness and a chill as she sat naked on the floor. Kelly glanced at the door that stood open, and through that she could see the front door open as well. Freedom never looked so easy and yet so distant.

  Another howl pierced the remote silence, this time sounding much closer to the abandoned house and the single prisoner inside.

  ***

  Floyd had become possessed. That was what the townspeople of Caroling County would say for years after the massacre. Prior to his arrest and the charges brought against his family, Floyd Williams had led an honorable life. He was born in 1850 and became a man after the last gunshots of the Civil War had ended, yet he understood the lingering resentment still present in the South. By the 1880s, Floyd owned several tracts of land, including a family farm and a house several miles from the Pine Valley settlement. He was active in local politics and went to Sunday service every week. By all measures, he was a first-generation Confederate survivor doing well in the new economy that thrived on rebuilding what the North had destroyed.

  He had a wife, a son, and three daughters. All of the children worked the lands along with a number of field hands who had once toiled the same fields in chains. They kept to themselves up on the ridge without any extended kin, which was why the cemetery and the crypt behind the house became such a mystery to the folks in the community. Several believed the cemetery to be an old one, begun by settlers moving through the Blue Ridge Mountains on their way to a new life in the West. Others claimed to have seen Civil War veterans buried there, ones who had died in battle nearby. Either way, the crypt was something new, and they could only assume that Floyd Williams had built it. Years passed without incident until the indictment that would forever change Caroling County.

  Rumors of witchcraft and demonic apparitions spread through the county in the fall of 1890. With only old stories about the events of Salem in 1692, the townsfolk talked about what they believed was happening up on the hill above
Pine Valley. Ruford Benson claimed to have come across the Williams girls as he was hunting wild turkey in the woods behind the orchards. Ruford said the evening was coming upon him quickly, and as he was heading out on the trail, he saw the girls with “not a stitch on their skins,” dancing around a fire with “hell on their faces.” Others spoke of strange occurrences near the Williams estate, and others did not, fearful of demonic retribution.

  It wasn’t until Sarah Jackson died that the local law had to become involved. She appeared to be a healthy, normal infant born to parents of strong stock. After passing Meredith Williams, Floyd’s wife, at the corner market, the infant stopped eating. Within days, Sarah had been buried, and the whispers surrounding the Williams family turned to accusations.

  Constable Allen Jackson was sent to serve Meredith the court papers, as she was the only Williams who had committed a blatant crime: murder, as the charge read. When arriving at Floyd’s house, Allen was met with gunfire and a threat on his life. Judge Joseph Thornton was forced to write a warrant for the arrest of the entire family and ordered Constable Jackson to organize a posse to bring them in. They arrived after dark with guns and torches to find the entire Williams family gone. The mob searched the house from top to bottom, destroying what they could without facing charges themselves. When Jackson realized the family was not inside, he turned to the crypt and knew it had to be searched. Several members of the posse refused. They turned and went home to drink moonshine and play cards, wanting nothing to do with stepping into the old cemetery in search of warlocks and witches. With a handful of trusted friends and his deputy, Jackson entered the rusted cemetery gates and led the procession toward the back, where the crypt glowed in the burgeoning moonlight.

  As soon as they stepped on the sacred grounds, or profane soil, depending on how one described it, Jackson and his posse felt the woods fall silent. The cicadas stopped rattling, and even the crickets held still. Records indicate that not all of the men were said to have been in their right minds. Some of the interviews conducted by the doctors in the asylum claim that Jackson himself made a remark to the effect of “walking into the devil’s lair.” The foggy hue cast from the Blue Ridge Mountains settled upon the ground, mist curling at the ankles of the men as they walked past the final resting place of some of the Confederacy’s bravest men. When they reached the entrance to the crypt, the story became pure speculation. But the result was indisputable. All of the Williams’ clan except Floyd would be found dead, and he would never be heard from again.