by J. Thorn
***
Peter watched the truck crest the ridge and knew before he saw the driver that it was Frank. They had known each other their entire lives, often crossing paths at traffic accidents or emergencies. There hadn’t been a lot of time to forge a close relationship in those moments, but the familiarity was something both men capitalized on when they could. They shared a beer at the end of each Fire vs. Police Annual Softball Game Fundraiser, and Frank would be quick to point out that Fire had won the last three years in a row. Peter liked Frank, though, at the same time, he found him to be a bit cantankerous, as if he were an old man just before his golden years. None of that mattered now. Gaki had given him a job, and Jones would do his duty. Officer Peter Jones always got the job done.
“Peter,” said Frank as he pulled off the road behind the police cruiser. Frank got out of the truck and inhaled, his eyes buzzing back and forth in his head.
“Frank,” Peter responded.
“This is the place, eh?”
“This is it,” said Peter. “I’m assuming you have more detail on the operation than I do?”
“Yeah, you could say that. Have you secured the grounds? Checked out the house?”
“I just got here and was about to secure the crypt first when you pulled up.”
“Right,” Frank said. “Gaki said that rotting stone in the cemetery is more important than the house, but you gotta take care of the house, too.”
Peter turned his head sideways and looked at Frank. He knew what the fuck he was doing, and he didn’t want a fireman telling him how to do his job.
“Listen, Frank. I’ve locked down a few crime scenes in my day. Don’t you go all worrying over this. I got it.”
Frank turned, and Peter could see the infestation in his eyes. They were bloodshot, teary, and empty like the windows of the house. Jones took a step back. Frank even smelled of it, like the first hint of a dead mouse decomposing in the wall.
“What’re you getting from him?” Frank asked, his breath as foul as anything Peter had ever smelled coming out of any body, dead or alive.
“I’m just doing my job,” Peter replied.
Frank laughed and threw his head back. He wiped a tear from an eye as if Peter had just told the most hilarious joke he had ever heard. “Good for you, soldier. Do your duty, motherfucker.” Frank laughed again, and Jones was unsure whether to be offended or to join in.
“What are you getting from him?” Jones asked.
“I’m getting me a nice, sweet piece. That’s right, son. Some pussy you could only dream of.”
The energy waves surging through the crypt from the Portal began working their way through the two men, corroding their ability to rationalize. Gaki knew what to send through there and what those powers would do to the men’s reasoning capabilities.
“Nice,” Peter heard himself say, feeling no need for further explanation. He closed his eyes and opened them as more energy flooded his bloodstream like an intoxicant.
“I got some of them ugly fucking creatures feasting now, but they should make their way up to the ridge soon. They’ll give you the muscle you might need if shit gets hairy.”
Jones nodded and spit, a bad habit many officers formed from spending hours standing around a crime scene. He surveyed the property again, all hesitation and reluctance now stripped from his mind. Officer Peter Jones was on duty, and he would do his job. He always did his job. “What’s the ETA of the perp?”
“Knock that shit off, would ya?”
Peter nodded and dropped his head like a little boy. “Who’s coming, and what are we supposed to do?” he asked, rephrasing his question.
“Guess Gaki didn’t tell you too much. He left that to me.” Frank leaned against the cruiser and thrust a toothpick in the corner of his mouth before speaking. “Here’s the game plan. Doug is coming here to burn this house down. He’s a firefighter, and that’s arson.”
Peter nodded, thinking that intel was enough probable cause for him to react with whatever force was necessary. Instead of speaking, he let Frank continue.
“You and I, public defenders and servants, we can’t let that happen. We have to stop that arsonist in the act and secure him until the Feds arrive. We must turn him over to the proper authorities,” Frank said, stressing the importance of the last sentence.
“How do you know the Feds are coming?”
“It doesn’t matter, Jones. I know this is what’s going down. Gaki knows it, too. If we help him, he’s gonna give us what we want. Fair is fair.”
“Like sweet young pussy?” Peter asked with a tinge of sarcasm.
“Whatever you desire,” replied Frank.
“Why don’t I just shoot him?”
“C’mon, Peter,” Frank replied. “You ain’t listening to what I said. We have to turn him over. We can’t kill him.”
“Why not?” Peter asked.
“Because he says he wants him, that’s why. Enough fucking said.”
Peter nodded and accepted the explanation although his intuition told him that Doug had to have something very powerful for Gaki to want him alive. Before his logical mind could mull that over, another wave of energy seeped from the Portal and blew the thoughts away like dead autumn leaves. “What kind of backup we got?”
Frank smiled and clapped Peter on the shoulder. “Got me some mini-gaks running around that I think will work out nicely. Probably get a few more coming up, too, as I think that Gaki fuck’s been a busy bee the past few hours. They’re small and weak, but they’ll put up a decent fight. And if we get enough of them, it might be all we need to get the job done.”
Peter’s mind floated back to the scene outside of Jasper’s garage. “Y’all got, what, four of them?”
Frank’s smile turned serious. “How do you know how many I got?”
“Never mind,” said Peter. “Just a guess.”
“A good one, at that. Listen, Jones. I’m gonna need you to go through the house first and then secure the perimeter around the cemetery and keep an eye on the crypt. That’s the most important thing, you hearing me? Hold the house, but if shit gets insane, pull back and guard the crypt with your life.”
“Yes, sir,” Peter replied like the good officer he used to be. “I’ll start by establishing a safe perimeter for the house, then go through it, and then station myself near the crypt.”
“Go on,” replied Frank. “It’s getting dark, and the show will be starting soon.”
Frank walked to his truck and climbed in. He pulled the vehicle around the cruiser and drove it over the curb and behind a copse of trees that would hide it from the road. Officer Peter Jones looked at the house again before walking through the brush and around the back of the property.
***
The demon sighed in the darkness. Gaki felt their presence outside and that of the woman inside. They could all burn within the rotting lumber, for all he cared. He had to lure the Hunters to him so he could eliminate them once and for all and open the Portal to its full dimensions. This plane felt like an overripe fruit that was moist and sweet but on the verge of rotting. Gaki would not allow that to happen. He had spent hundreds, thousands of years preparing for the time in which he would open the floodgates and let the desire consume all. The beasts of this plane did very well on their own. For centuries, the greed of man had brought ruin to almost everything it touched. Gaki thought of the Medicis and the writings of Machiavelli that had done so much to further his cause. The shift in human consciousness had occurred in a split second, and within a few hundred years the thought pattern had spread like a filthy disease. The creatures here were so social that the eventual collapse of their society under its own undue burdens of greed and lust would not take long. Gaki knew it would come to this, and he had enjoyed every possession. He had felt the vicarious power of hands committing heinous acts of depravity while he sat within the eyes, enjoying all of it. Some of the possessions were more visceral than others, and the Hunters did find a way to organize and resist to a de
gree. But that was all wasted effort and past energy. Gaki had let them devise their arcane methods for detection and battle, letting them think that the source of the demon was the blood curse or that it followed genealogical lineage, all of which was nonsense. Some humans had more sensitivity to the hunger than others, and those were the ones Gaki could push to more extreme abominations. The eventual success he would have here would help to end this epoch of humanity and bring the plane to a new, more real existence. And he would sit atop that throne.
Gaki heard the fireman and policeman talking strategy. He felt them preparing to greet the Hunters. The creature sent out a stream of energy to the minions, several that Frank had helped turn and others that were somewhere on the spectrum. He called out to several souls that could be leveraged in this situation based on their relationships to those involved. Gaki knew better than to spare any weapon at his disposal. Either he would lose the fight and they would destroy the crypt and the Portal it shielded, or he would open it completely and let the swarm of hunger consume the planet in a wave of desire. Nothing would be spared. He awoke the prisoner inside the house and the spirits that had gathered there over the centuries.
When the forces were all in play and the confrontation inevitable, Gaki would enjoy the experience. He was tired of the manipulation that it took to take what he hungered. Once the Portal was open and the energy was released, he would be able to partake of the madness at will. He would relish the blood. Gaki would gorge himself on human suffering and pain at lengths not seen since times before history, when men performed such depraved acts without his influence. The demon would restore the world to that more primitive, natural state. Men had forgotten that they are mere animals, as well, bound to the same laws of desire and wanting. It would take a momentous force to remind them of that, and Gaki was prepared to be the deliverer of such news. He would be their awakening, their grotesque enlightenment.
Chapter 12
“If you’re real, help me. I’m in here.” The words came out of her mouth in a dry, raspy moan. Kelly could not be sure if the sounds she heard outside were real or imagined. She thought she heard tires on gravel, car doors, and voices. But then again, Kelly had heard many things during the ordeal. “Please,” she said again, this time dropping her chin to her chest.
She had spent the better part of the day counting the flies feasting on Robert’s corpse. The sun and warming daytime temperatures had pulled the decaying odors out of him. Kelly knew nothing of the work of funeral directors or morticians. She knew those would have to be some of the most unpleasant occupations, yet, for modern culture, they were necessary ones. The flies came a few at a time until, by late afternoon she had counted thirteen. It was hard to keep track, and no matter how many times she yelled at them, the flies refused to remain still long enough to get an accurate head count.
“How the fuck am I supposed to fact check this story if I can’t do a simple thing like count the number of flies buzzing about that big pile of shit?” She laughed at her own question and shook her head. Kelly pulled on the copper wire keeping her wrists bound to the wall. As during the previous four hundred times she had tried, it did not budge.
Now, several hours later and with the sun’s beam dropping down the wall yet again, Kelly could not be sure if the sounds were real. She lost interest in the flies unless they buzzed her face, and even then, she got tired of shooing them with a punch of breath over her bottom lip. She just couldn’t be bothered any longer. There was definitely something outside of the house, but Kelly didn’t think it was the wolves. Since the first night, they had stayed away. It was as if the beasts knew better than to move too close to the place. They howled. They knew she was inside, but they would not risk it even for a fresh piece of bound, naked human.
Kelly shook, and her eyes rattled inside her skull. She wasn’t sure if she had passed out or fallen asleep. The sun was gone from the wall, and the day’s warmth was oozing from the room, as well. From what she could see out the broken window, the night’s curtain had fallen over the mountains and the moon was still aglow beneath it. She looked past Robert’s body and noticed that the darkness had brought a respite from the sound of flies buzzing about the room. The smell was worsening, and Kelly didn’t know if it was her dying or his death that was causing it. The camera had long since flickered out, and Kelly thought about the detectives who would have to watch it. She wondered if it would eventually make the rounds on the Internet, the file easily viewed and shared thousands of times. Her death would be viral in more ways than one.
A soft patter moved across the ceiling as if a frightened child were running around in the bedroom upstairs. She strained to look up, and when she turned her head toward the doorway, the apparition had returned.
***
She saw the long, black robes and the way the hood covered the ghost’s head. Kelly thought of the reaper until she saw the slender fingers. The apparition dropped the hood, and Kelly stared into a face from the past. The woman appeared gaunt, sickly, but not entirely present, either. Her eyes were set back in her face, and the hair bundled upon her head was gray. A deep feeling of sadness radiated from the creature, and Kelly felt more remorse than fear.
“You were persecuted. Hanged?” she said.
The vision stood alone. Kelly looked past it and through the doorway, but no other ghosts were there.
“Yes.”
“For witchcraft?”
“Yes.”
“I can hear you in my ears. Why sometimes in my head and sometimes in my ears?”
“It is all the same,” said the woman. “It is only different in how you process it.”
Kelly let the comment go. She didn’t understand what it meant and didn’t really care. “Am I dying?”
“Yes.”
“So why are you here? Are you taking me to Hell?”
“Hell is a very real place, no matter what your contemporaries say about it. The Indian attacks in the dead of night. The crop failures. The sick and dying children. Those are all Hell.”
Kelly nodded and exhaled.
“You see,” continued the apparition, “Heaven and Hell are what you make of them.”
“Last night you mentioned a coven, the hungry ghost?” Kelly asked.
“He is giving you a choice.”
“Gaki?”
“Yes. If you serve him, he will join you to the coven and release you from your suffering. You will fulfill every desire you’ve ever had.”
“At what cost?”
“You must enter Preta’s Realm. You will have the power to pass through Portals and manifest in different ways.”
“Like an apparition from another time, like you?” Kelly asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” replied the ghost. “Your mind is of a mortal nature, and you cannot conceive of the other strands running through the cosmos. You believe time exists, that it is linear. When you come into Preta’s Realm, you’ll understand that this is false. Time is more like a physical location. You can move from one to another if you have the understanding of how to get there.”
“Do I have to die first?”
“Are you alive now?”
The question turned back to Kelly made her pause. “Of course. I breathe, I hurt. I could not do that otherwise.”
The apparition smiled, and Kelly felt the confusion in it, as if there was no way words could explain what had to be explained. “Gaki allows you to satiate desires, which is impossible in your current form. Those who have been accused of witchcraft, those hanged or burned, were souls trying to break free of desire. That’s all.”
“Sounds more Buddhist than Wiccan.”
“It has nothing to do with either. Those are labels applied to energies so that simpletons can make sense of them.”
“If this is about fulfilling desires, why not just offer the Realm to all of humanity? Why not convert the planet to billions of content souls?”
“That is exactly the plan. The hundreds, nay, thousands of years th
at men have killed and tortured women in the name of witchcraft were to prevent this very thing. Fulfilling all desires strips those in power of that power, and they would not stand for that. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch hunts, these are all ways of keeping the mind a prisoner, telling it that the only way to salvation is through conformity and obedience. I’m offering you another path.”
“Then why is the creature so hideous? He eats blood and shit.” Kelly winced and felt an acidic burn moving up her throat.
“That is the appearance pushed upon Gaki by those who attempt to destroy the Realm. Not everything you see accurately reflects its true nature.”
Kelly nodded, her mind swimming with a thousand thoughts while dehydration extracted critical moisture from her brain. “The creature. The gaki, or Preta, or hungry ghost—whatever. That thing rapes and tortures, murders and mutilates.”
“All perception, not reality.”
Kelly giggled at the apparition as she moved her foot across the floorboard. “I can feel the evil, the negativity, the same way my eyes observe it. I think you’re lying. I think you want to use me to exploit the manifestation of evil on earth.”
“The time is coming when you will be forced to choose.”
The apparition slid the hood over her head, turned, and left Kelly alone in the room. The flies buzzed as Robert’s body continued to decompose at her feet. Kelly closed her eyes, no longer sure whether she wished to live or die. When she opened them, a swath of light cut across the wall and nearly blinded her. When she heard the car doors open and slam shut, Kelly realized the noises were real and that the time to make a decision was nearly at hand.
***
Gaki sat back and knew that the manipulations had come to an apex. The battle would hinge on the actions of a woman. Specifics of the outcome were murky in his vision, but he felt a woman would decide his fate. For as much influence as he could spread, ultimately, the decision to submit or rebel would be her own. He had not yet found the ability to overpower the free will of all humans, but if the Portal was opened completely, he would not have to.
