Soultaker

by Bryan Smith

Jake approached him, put a hand on his shoulder. “Kelsey…where’s Jordan?”

  Kelsey sniffled and looked at him through eyes shiny with tears. “I don’t know,” he said in a numb monotone. “She was gone when the wind stopped.”

  Jake grimaced. “Fuck.”

  Of course.

  It fit right in with everything else that had happened today. Nothing could go down the clean and easy way. If he’d found them, he would’ve heeded Kristen’s advice. She was right. They couldn’t win. They’d been stupid to ever believe they could. But with Jordan missing, he felt obligated to look for her.

  “You didn’t see where she went at all?”

  “I just told you, I looked up and she was gone.”

  Jake sighed and looked at the open door to the auditorium. His stomach churned and he felt faint. It was the only place she could have gone. He would have to go in there.

  He took a step toward the door.

  Kristen grabbed him by the arm again, more forcefully this time. “No. I mean it. You’re not going in there. If I have to, I’ll shoot you in the fucking foot and drag your stupid ass out to the car.”

  Jake looked at the door again.

  Then he looked at Kristen, saw the fierce determination on her face. She would really do it, he knew. Shoot him to save him from himself. He could feel his resolve diminishing. It was so tempting to just admit defeat and slink away.

  Then something happened that frightened him more than anything else that had happened.

  The screams stopped.

  There was a long moment of frozen silence. None of them moved. None of them said a word. Jake felt a deep coldness pierce the center of his being.

  They all knew what that silence meant.

  They were all dead.

  All the kids.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  Jake’s breath caught in his throat and tears stung his eyes. He would have collapsed to the floor had Kristen not been holding on to his arm. The enormity of the loss hit him like a blow to the gut from a heavyweight champ. His knees sagged and Kristen drew him close, wrapped her arms around him.

  A sound broke the silence.

  Jake’s heart started hammering again.

  Footsteps.

  Coming from somewhere on the other side of that open doorway.

  Someone on high heels.

  Then the person came through the doorway and he thought his heart might stop altogether. His mouth opened. He forced the word out. “Moira.”

  The demon smiled. “Hello, Jake. I’ve missed you.”

  Kelsey got shakily to his feet and moved backward a step. “Something’s not right. That’s not her. Not Myra. But…”

  Kristen’s grip on his arm tightened. “Jake? Who is this? Do you know this person?”

  Jake didn’t reply. He was temporarily incapable of speech. A mind-bending sense of surreality gripped him. This thing was their enemy. Lamia. And at the same time it was Moira Flanagan. The hair. The clothes. The eyes. The mouth. That same knowing smirk, so playful and full of sexual promise. And yet…there were little differences, slight subtleties in the shape of her face. A moment after he sensed this, he saw through the disguise. Moira Flanagan was still dead. This was her baby sister, the girl he’d met at the Grill his first day back in town. Bridget. He couldn’t fathom why she would have gone to such lengths to look like her dead sister.

  Lamia moved a step closer. “It’s true. This is Bridget’s body. But I am Moira, Jake. And I am Lamia. I am the woman who was the center of your world for a few precious years. The one you made love to in the back of your car down by the dock. The one you read your first stories to. You’ve never loved anyone like you loved me.”

  Jake shook his head. “No. Moira’s dead. She went for a ride with my brother Michael. There was an accident. They both died.”

  Lamia smiled again. “Moira’s body died, yes. But the essence you loved lived on, just as it has lived on through the ages.” She held out her hands, looked at them, then looked at Jake again. “This is just a shell. I can inhabit any female body. You like this one, yes? I can take another if it’s not suitable.”

  The sense of surreality intensified. Too many horrific revelations in too short a time span. The dead love of his life had never really died. Had never been truly human. He thought of all those drunken, wasted years he’d spent mourning a monster and would have laughed if not for the tragic circumstances.

  He found his voice at last and said, “You killed them all, didn’t you?” He nodded at the open door behind her. “All those kids. They’re all dead.”

  Her smile remained placid. “I fed, yes. It’s irrational to hate me for it, Jake. It’s simply my nature.”

  “And now you’re going to kill me?” He glanced first at Kristen, then at Kelsey. “And them.”

  She moved another step closer, raised her hands, splayed her fingers. “Them, yes. Not you.”

  Jake moved backward a step, dragging Kristen with him. He felt her tremble and drew her close, wrapped an arm around her. “Why not me?”

  She laughed. “Because I enjoy you. I want you around. The others are nothing to me. I’ll feed on them as I fed on the children. Then I’ll feed you some of their essence. I can do that. I wasn’t strong enough ten years ago, but now I am. You’ll become stronger, too. And you’ll live a long, long time. Hundreds of years, if I wish.”

  Jake’s throat constricted but he managed to push out the words: “I’d rather die.”

  Lamia shrugged. “I don’t believe that. But it hardly matters. The choice is mine, not yours. You are mine. You will do as I say.”

  He shook his head. “Fuck that and fuck you.”

  The time to run had come. No more talking. There was nothing more they could do here other than die. He spun around and Kristen turned with him. Then Jake’s heart sank as he realized they wouldn’t get to make a break for it. The way out was blocked out by at least a dozen big dogs and an array of other animals. The dogs bared their teeth and growled at them. Huge droplets of saliva drooled from the mouths of each. Jake sensed these weren’t normal animals. The strangely glowing eyes told him that. And there was the way they’d sneaked up on them without making a sound to consider. An immense frustration tore at Jake. There was nothing to do now. No way to run. No way to fight. They could tangle with these creatures or Lamia, and either way they’d be equally fucked.

  Then he looked at the .38 Kristen still held and thought maybe there was one last option, after all. He didn’t like it, but it beat the hell out of a surrender to the monster. He looked her in the eye and saw the same grudging acceptance. He pressed his lips to hers and felt equal measures of regret and longing in the way they yielded to his.

  “Stop that.”

  Lamia’s voice was harsher now. Angry.

  Jake heard the click of her heels on the floor tiles as she strode rapidly toward him. Jake wrapped one arm around Kristen in an awkward embrace as his other hand went for the .38. He had to do this fast without thinking about it. Had to get off two quick shots. One straight between Kristen’s eyes, then swallow a bullet himself.

  BOOM!

  Jake jumped at the sound, recognizing it immediately for what it was. He let go of Kristen and turned back toward Lamia, gaping at the sight of the massive and bloody exit wound just below her sternum. Then he looked beyond the demon and saw Jordan Harper. The girl pumped another round into the shotgun’s chamber and took aim again.

  Instinct pushed Jordan through the open door as Kristen took aim and fired at the knife-wielding bitch who’d murdered Will Mackeson. Though she’d found temporary solace in the company of others, she knew she was the only one who stood a chance against Lamia. She had to act while the others were otherwise occupied, before they could get themselves killed by trying to face the monster.

  Much of her bravado vanished as she entered the backstage area and saw all the elegantly attired bodies on the floor, all of them leaking blood from still-fresh gunshot wounds. The rest of it dis
appeared as she moved beyond them and got a look at her mother, who was still working her dark magic at the edge of the stage. The body belonged to Bridget, but strong, undeniable intuition told her the girl she’d known no longer inhabited that body. It was her mother. Lamia. She stood at the edge of the stage with her hands raised high over her head. Bolts of electricity arced out of her fingertips to weave a tapestry of light over the ceiling. The students screamed and screamed. The ones that were still alive, that is. Bodies were piled up at the chained doors and in the aisles between seats. The bodies looked ravaged, as if they’d been hollowed out from the inside. The eyes of the dead appeared to have burst, the sockets filled with bloody pulp. Every few seconds a finger of electric light would descend from the ceiling tapestry to strike at yet another of the screaming students huddled between the rows of seats. The light would enter through the mouth, suffusing the flesh of the victim with an incandescent glow. The body would convulse and quickly wither. Jordan watched this and felt her resolve wither just as quickly. The energy emanating from the edge of the stage was as powerful as anything a faulty nuclear reactor might generate. Stronger. She’d only just started learning how to tap and harness her own abilities. They would be no match for what her mother could do. So she watched in numb shock as the massacre went forward unimpeded, feeling paralyzed, unable even to retreat. She knew she ought to get back to the others, warn them it was hopeless, but she remained riveted to the spot until it was nearly over.

  When she saw that only a few students remained alive, the shock gave way to a simple, reflexive act of self-preservation. She moved backward and tripped over the body of a man in a long black trench coat. She landed awkwardly, twisting her ankle as she hit the floor. The last of the screams from the auditorium cut off as she lay there. Then she heard footsteps coming toward her across the stage. She had only a few seconds to act and rolled under a table laden with a punch bowl, plastic cups, and various refreshments. Another dead body was nearby. She pulled it close, hiding behind it as she held her breath and waited for Lamia to pass. The sound of her mother’s heels entered the backstage area and continued through to the hallway beyond.

  Jordan let out a breath and shoved the dead body away. She crawled out of her hiding spot and spied the shotgun’s barrel sticking out beneath another table. She retrieved the weapon and hurried after her mother, a wild idea sparking inside her as she examined the gun. She knew how the thing worked. Her only high school boyfriend had been into guns and had shared much of his knowledge with her. In truth, he’d been more into those guns than he’d been into her. Which was fine, because she wasn’t into him either, but a girl was supposed to have a boyfriend. When he’d kiss her, she’d close her eyes and pretend he was Laura Miller, her number-one crush at the time. But his stubble made the illusion a fragile one. Well, at least now maybe some good would come of that sham of a relationship.

  Her plan was simple. She would sneak up on Lamia and blast her host body full of holes. And she would hope this would weaken the demon sufficiently to successfully engage her another way. It probably wouldn’t work, but there was nothing else she could do.

  She stepped into the hallway and aimed the gun at Lamia’s back, acting quickly before the others could see her and give her away. She squeezed the trigger and the shotgun’s stock slammed against her shoulder, but she’d been taught how to absorb the weapon’s recoil and was able to keep it steady as she took aim again. Lamia started to turn toward her as the next shell took out the back of her skull and sent bone shards and bits of brain matter flying. The demon’s mouth opened and a sound like a thunderclap split the air.

  Jordan chambered another round and fired again. The third shell took the demon full in the neck and nearly decapitated her. The head lolled sharply to one side, but the demon remained upright as she turned fully toward Jordan and began to stagger toward her. Jordan retreated down the hallway as she chambered yet another round. The next blast hit Lamia between the breasts. It staggered her for a moment, but she kept coming nonetheless. Any one of the blasts would have knocked a human woman off her feet, but Lamia was able to keep Bridget’s mortally wounded body erect and mobile. It was frustrating. And now there was another complication. The minions streamed past Jake and Kristen, past Kelsey, and Lamia herself.

  Jordan tensed, expecting an attack. They were Lamia’s minions, after all. Instead they surrounded her and formed a barrier between herself and Lamia.

  A few of the dogs even growled at Lamia.

  Jordan heard Jake say, “Well, damn. Look at that.”

  Jordan kept a wary eye on Lamia while directing a response at Jake. “I’ve got this. You guys get out of here.”

  “Are you sure? Because—”

  Jordan screamed and raised the gun again.

  Jake frowned.

  Now what?

  In less than a heartbeat Jordan had gone from relatively calm to terrified, and he had no clue what had happened to cause the change. She raised the shotgun to fire again. The blast hit Lamia’s midsection again, but failed to even rock her. Then the demon’s host body began to convulse. She ripped at her bloody clothes, shredding them and pulling them free. Her flesh rippled and shifted as something moved beneath. Then her skin began to split in several places as something inside started to push its way out.

  Kristen cringed and clung tighter to him. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Kelsey aimed his Glock at Lamia’s blister-covered back and fired until the gun clicked empty. None of the wounds seemed to have any effect, except perhaps to accelerate the change occurring.

  Kelsey looked at Jake. “Why won’t she fucking fall down?”

  The shotgun boomed again. The shell hit Lamia’s neck again and now the head hung by a single thick strand of tissue. But now something else surged through the neck stump. Another head. This one green and triangular, with hard, pebbled flesh and rows of sharp, glistening teeth. The rest of Bridget’s dead flesh fell away and a reptilian creature the likes of which Jake had never seen stood hissing in the hallway. It had short, stubby arms, somewhat longer legs, and a long, thick tail. And it began to grow as they stared at it in awed, paralyzed terror. The body expanded to perhaps three times its original size in seconds, its head bowing to avoid scraping the ceiling. Its arms grew and long black talons appeared at the tips of its fingers. The minions whimpered and retreated as it reached for Jordan. A flick of its thrashing tail knocked Jake and the others off their feet. The back of Jake’s head smashed against the combination lock of a locker and a bright, flashing pain obliterated everything else for a moment. Then he rolled onto his back and lifted his head to get a look at what was going on.

  And he felt a small flicker of hope.

  Because now Jordan was changing, too, her body morphing, becoming something very similar to the reptilian demon without having to shed her skin. The creatures lunged at each other and clashed in the hallway, slamming each other from wall to wall. The auditorium door was knocked off its hinges. Lockers collapsed like crepe paper beneath the force of the body slams.

  Jake realized what was about to happen an instant before it did.

  There was no time to get out of the way.

  He closed his eyes and hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much.

  Then the thing that had been Jordan crashed into him and the world went black.

  The first thing he felt when he woke up was pain. Pain all over. He wondered for a moment whether he was paralyzed, but then realized he wouldn’t feel this all-over pain if he’d been paralyzed. He carefully tested his arms and legs, rolled his neck from one side to the other. It hurt like hell, but nothing seemed to be broken. A miracle. Now he’d just have to hope he hadn’t been hit quite hard enough to trigger some kind of internal bleeding.

  He drew in a deep breath, braced his palms against the slick floor, and pushed himself up to a sitting position. He held his breath as he surveyed the carnage around him. Kristen sat slumped against a bank of lockers, unconscious but breathing. She l
ooked okay otherwise, with the exception of a bruised face and a bloody nose. Then he saw Kelsey and felt a pang at the center of his chest. The boy was facedown on the floor. His neck had been snapped during the monster melee. He wasn’t breathing. Jake considered a CPR attempt, but knew it would be useless. The floor was littered with pieces of Bridget Flanagan’s exploded body.

  He frowned.

  They were gone.

  There was no sign of Jordan. No sign of the thing she’d become. No sign of Lamia in Godzilla mode. All the animals were gone, too.

  What the fuck happened?

  Kristen groaned and her eyes fluttered open. She blinked slowly and in a few moments was able to focus on Jake. “Jake…what…happened?”

  He sighed. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  He got to his feet and went to her. He took her outstretched hand and pulled her gingerly to her feet. They walked out of the school and she held tightly to him as they made their way to the Camry. He got her settled into the front passenger seat and said, “I have to go back inside for a minute.”

  Some of the bleariness drained from her eyes then. “No. Jake…please…”

  “I have to. I won’t be long, I promise. You stay here. I just have to check on something.”

  He turned away from her and left without another word. Back inside the school, he moved quickly past the bodies in the hallway and stepped through the open door leading to the auditorium. In the backstage area, he stopped and stared for a moment at the bullet-riddled bodies of the adults. These were the people Lamia had recruited to assist her in arranging the Harvest. All dead. Good. Fuck them. He moved past them, found his way to the stage, and felt the strength drain from his body as he saw what had happened in the auditorium.

  They were all dead. Just as he’d feared. Every last one of them. If Trey’s body was out there somewhere, he would never be able to identify it. The withered corpses barely looked human.

  He dropped to his knees and just stared at the horror for a long, long time.

  Then he heard footsteps behind him.