The Crippling Terrors (Tracking Ever Nearer Book 1)

by Jeff Vrolyks

  “It energized and answered our questions. We asked his name and where he was: Kalek and beside you. Becky accused us of pushing it, but she was nervous. More like scared. Ask it any question you want, Pietra told her. She thought about it for a minute, and with confidence she asked from afar, “What’s my father’s mother’s mother’s name and what country is she from. It answered at once: Peru.

  We figured the half-answer would evoke more condescension from Bucktooth but it didn’t. She stared in dubious silence. Pietra told Kalek that he better spit out the name for Becky: no answer. Pietra was getting upset and threatened that we’d quit playing and never give him blood again if he didn’t answer. He spelled: Just boobs grow up Clifford.

  “We laughed our butts off and wondered which of us spelled that on purpose. Bucktooth Becky was embarrassed and got very angry. She demanded to know which of us made it say that. We were confused and didn’t know anybody named Clifford. She then accused us of spying on her.

  “She set out to prove that we were faking by asking it a question that none of us could possibly know the answer to, including Becky (without a calculator, that is). ‘What’s the square root of two-thousand seven-hundred and ninety-three?’

  “It didn’t answer, so Pietra resumed her empty threats at Kalek. Becky, with a chip on her shoulder, stuck it in our faces. She smirked and watched quietly the Bloodletter Board. The indicator then began moving under our fingers. We expected a selection of numbers that would answer Becky’s question but instead it made words.

  “What we later found out is that Becky had posed a question silently, and Kalek answered it. Correctly. ‘What is my secret’, Becky had asked in her head: Watched Casey get murdered.

  “It rocked that girl to her core. That was the last day Becky stepped foot in that basement. In that house.”

  “Who’s Casey?” Holly asked.

  “I don’t know and Becky wouldn’t say. We did find out that she had a thirteen-year-old neighbor two houses down named Clifford and she had let him see her boobs. He kept begging her to see them again. ‘They’re just boobs; grow up, Clifford.’ Becky also later admitted that her father’s grandmother was from Peru, and we theorized why Kalek didn’t state her name—he didn’t know it. But Becky didn’t know it, either. She only knew she was from Peru, and wanted to see what bull-crap answer we would make up—just like the square-root question. Kalek was clever enough to stun Becky by unveiling her deepest secrets to divert the fact that Kalek wasn’t all-knowing—but he sure seemed to know everything in her mind. That’s—”

  “So what is Kalek,” Mike asked, “a spirit? The devil? A ghost? Sorry to interrupt you, Sue Ellen.”

  “We asked Kalek that. Amber asked if he was Lucifer: Kalek. Are you in hell: no. Are you a demon: care to find out? That’s when I had enough. I was done with Bloodletter Board and black magic, period. I even stopped hanging out with those girls and began hanging around my sister and her friends. Pietra, Amber, and Albie continued playing that damned thing.

  “A few months later Albie and I started talking again and walking home from school together. Soon she was hanging around with me as if we never drifted apart. We became closer friends than we had ever been and I was happy and relieved with her change of heart. Albie told me a few of the things that had happened after I quit playing the game with them, but she kept the big one to herself. I wanted to hear first-hand what had happened on that day, March seventeenth. I figured it was only a matter of time, she would talk about Amber when she was good and ready.

  “It’s one thing reading about it in the paper, and the he-said she-said garbage ran rampant at school, but Albie was there the day that Amber died.” Sue Ellen paused and sipped her water.

  “Then one day it happened. The tragedy had been bottled up in Albie for far too long. When she came over that day and finally let it out, it really came out. She made me promise not to tell anyone her story so long as she lived. Well, I kept my promise and didn’t tell a soul as long as she lived, and then some. I remember the details like she told me them yesterday. I went over her story incessantly; I was obsessed with it. And when Albie died I became even more obsessed. This is how Albie described it to me:

  “We provoked Kalek, insisting that he manifest himself. Kalek directed us to kill the lights and light a single black candle doused with the blood of the pure—blood of the pure meaning a virgin’s blood, we gathered. Amber and I were both virgins but we didn’t have a black candle. Pietra found a white candle and black marker and colored it so.

  “Amber and I couldn’t agree on who should bleed on the candle and Pietra claimed that she at her butcher boyfriend had sex once, even though she had touted her virginity many times before that day. Therefore, Pietra concluded that both Amber and me (Albie) should cut ourselves and bleed on the candle.

  “Easy for her to say, right? She’s not the one slicing herself with a razor. But then again, she never hesitated to bloodlet the board before. Either she really did get laid or she feared repercussion for her blood being the catalyst that summoned a demon.

  “We were scared, but Amber and I agreed to do it and we did. It didn’t work. Not a damn thing happened. Pietra asked Kalek why he didn’t show up. He didn’t respond. We were beginning to wonder if a lot of this game was in our heads, that maybe we did subconsciously know the answers and pushed the indicator along.

  “The next day Pietra bought a black candle. She assumed coloring it black was the problem. We tried a second and final time early that evening. We doused the candle with our blood, set flame to the wick, killed the lights, gathered around the board and waited.

  “Minutes passed by. We didn’t see anything, again. We asked Kalek why he didn’t show himself, getting a little bitchy this time, and this time he responded: Reflect upon me thy chosen one to travel the path between us.

  “Kalek had a great way of being vague. What the heck were we supposed to do with that useless tidbit, right? We asked what he meant. No response. Instead, he led the indicator off the board and toward a corner of the basement. When our outstretched arms couldn’t reach the indicator anymore, it stopped. For a second. Then it continued on its own, finally stopping at a white sheet draped over an old standing mirror. We went to it.

  “The basement was dark, lit only by a candle at the other end of the room. Pietra uncovered the mirror. It was antique, gaudy and dusty. I could vaguely see my own reflection. Amber went to fetch the candle while Pietra and I stood side by side in front of the dark glass. Between our silhouettes was a distant candle flame that lifted high up off the floor—Amber evidently held it before her head. It bobbed up and down as she walked toward us. It never clicked that I should have been able to see her face behind the flame. When she arrived, I saw that it wasn’t Amber. It wasn’t human. Kalek was enveloped in a black shroud and was taller than any man I’ve seen.

  “I thought I was having a heart attack.

  “He stood between the stairs and us. I had no voice to scream but I could run, and run like hell I did. In a mad dash, Pietra and I skirted around either side of him, cleared the stairs two at a time, cleared the house and front door, and didn’t look back until we reached the sidewalk. We expected, or at least hoped, to see Amber running out behind us, and we sure as hell weren’t eager to go back inside to look for her, but she wasn’t coming! We looked at each other without saying it, but thinking it: Amber not coming out could only mean one thing. One really bad thing.

  “After an eternity (realistically, thirty-seconds—time mixes strangely with fear) Amber walked out the front door like nothing had happened. She came to us with a glossy red lower-lip, index finger trickling blood, and an expressionless face. ‘Where’s Kalek, Amber?’ She smirked and shrugged her shoulders. It alarmed me that her right hand hid behind her back. And there was something else. She was chewing gum. Amber wasn’t a gum chewer, and I’m sure she hadn’t been chewing any before. Above her collar she had two welts like bee stings. Those were new, too. ‘What happened
to your finger?’ She shook her head and shrugged again. Pietra and I looked at each other, knowing this wasn’t Amber. Nonchalantly I began taking steps away from her, and said ‘Chewing gum, are we?’ She stopped chewing. I think she had just realized that she was chewing gum. With her thumb and mutilated finger she tweezed the fleshy gum out and examined it closely. Her eyes blinked up at me; it wasn’t a kind look. The time for subtleties had passed.

  “She flicked the fingertip away. Pietra and I hauled ass down the sidewalk. We cut across the street and between houses, and headed for my house, which wasn’t far away. I didn’t glance back till we reached Harper Avenue, and saw that she was in fact pursuing us, a few paces or so behind. When she caught me looking, she hid away the kitchen knife behind her back again. A car was approaching us when we made a run for the other side of the street—we just missed it. Harper was a busy street and more cars were coming, but we made it across.

  “We had just gotten to the other side when we heard it. It was a nightmarish sound, like when you stand on the hood of a car and it caves in, only a hundred times louder and with bones splintering with it. The van that hit her never stopped, never even slowed down. If anything, it sped up.

  “People stopped to tend to Amber. Nobody followed the van. Amber died instantly.” Sue Ellen sighed and finished off the bottle of water. We waited for her to continue but she was done.

  “That’s it?”

  Sue Ellen nodded at Holly.

  “What happened afterward? You said Albie died.”

  “Your brother is about to start back up.”

  Chapter 42

  “Johnny, do you have to run today?” Simone whined. “The news even said it’s not a good idea. Won’t you just wait until they find the mountain lion?”

  John chased a handful of vitamins with a glass of water. “Baby, I know it concerns you, but can’t you understand that it’s a chance to get to hear one of my favorite bands play a private set?” He moved swiftly past Simone and into the hallway. She followed.

  “How do you know it isn’t just a CD, or maybe they’re done playing by now? I don’t think you should risk it, John. Please? For me?” She grabbed hold of his right arm as he opened the hall closet. He sighed and gave her an exasperated look. “Maybe Karl is mistaken or playing a joke on you. Do you want to risk being attacked by a mountain lion?”

  “Simone, Karl isn’t joking,” John said, running out of patience. “I heard the music in the background of his cell-phone. He’s standing by Kloss VonFuren’s backyard wall as we speak. Opportunities like this don’t come often. And don’t worry about me, I’ll be prepared.” He opened the gun safe in the closet.

  “I didn’t know Brenner’s Pass even went to the Beaumont Estates.”

  “Technically it doesn’t, but there’s a trail that forks to the south of it that gets close enough to his house that you can hear the music. Why don’t you run with me if you’re so concerned, honey? You’ve been saying you wanted to start running again, right?”

  Simone slouched. “I do… but not today.”

  He pulled the Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver from the safe and put it inside his sweats pocket. “I can’t run with this,” he muttered, “it will flop around.”

  Simone’s face lit up. “You’re right! Maybe it will go off while you are running and shoot your foot. And you can’t risk going out there without it. You should stay home!”

  John closed the closet door and eyed his wife suspiciously. “You’re worried about me getting attacked and shooting myself? Have you no faith in me after six years? I can’t figure you out, woman.” He pecked her forehead and moved toward the front door.

  “Wait!” She stepped to him and turned him around. She pressed herself against his body and began arousing him. “How would you like to try what we were talking about the other day?” she murmured.

  John closed his eyes as she rubbed him through his sweats. “I would love to. Can it wait an hour or two?”

  “If we do it now, you know what else we can do?” With her hand moving purposefully, she whispered in his ear. John’s eyes opened wide and he shuttered.

  He made it as far as opening his mouth before her increased efforts stymied his will to refuse her. His head rolled back. Simone heard a moan and it encouraged her.

  Simone twisted and writhed her clothes off, down to her socks. “Let’s go,” she whispered. She led him to the bedroom like a teacher dragging a delinquent, only the ear was located at half mast. She pushed him onto the bed. She glanced at the clock: 1:18 P,M. She crawled on him and kept his attention.

  Minutes passed before John spoke. “Baby, I’m ready. Let’s do it now.”

  She nodded, left the bed saying, “I’m going to get something that will make this even better.” He smiled as she stepped inside the walk-in closet. Her heart raced like she just ran Brenner’s Pass in record time. She wiped her wet forehead and moved deeper into the closet, opened a shoe-box and took out a pair of handcuffs and left its key behind.

  “Getting something from the pink bag?” John asked, with a lascivious grin that Simone couldn’t see.

  Her body glistened with nervous sweat. She hoped to God this would work.

  Every night this week she had a recurring dream. The first night she blew it off as a silly dream. The next night she considered that it might be more. By the third night she knew she had a serious problem on her hands.

  “Simone, you need to listen to me. Crying isn’t going to get us anywhere, is it? If you love your husband, and I know you do, pay attention. I’d hate to see such a precious soul widowed at twenty-five years of age. Do as I say. When things happen precisely as I tell you, you will know unequivocally that what I say is the truth. If you breathe a word of this to John, or anybody, he will die, but only after he kills you. At twelve noon, Saturday afternoon, you will do exactly this…”

  Simone was made well aware of the consequences of not doing as she was told. Sex wasn’t part of the lady’s plan, it was her own plan. There was no way she could get herself to physically harm John, like she was ordered to, but if the whole point was to keep him from leaving the house, she didn’t see how her plan could fail. She loved her Johnny with every fiber of her being, and to do something so horrific that he may even die from it, regardless of what the lady promised, was unthinkable. She couldn’t fathom living without him and wasn’t sure she’d want to. Besides, she thought, there’s no way Johnny would ever harm me. One look in my eyes and he’ll snap out of it.

  She dug through the pink bag in search of something to help implement her course of action.

  “Simone? You coming? Can we speed this along? I still want to head out soon, maybe catch the last few songs.”

  “Coming, sweetie. Just getting the strawberry body-syrup.” If he was handcuffed to the bed by one-twenty, he wouldn’t be leaving the house at half past one. She arrived from the closet with the cuffs and the syrup.

  “Honey, you’re dripping sweat. Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m just excited, sweetie. I’m burning up thinking about you,” she said with a sheepish grin. John leaned back as Simone got in bed, checking the clock once again: 1:26 P.M. Crap! Gotta hurry! She gestured him to put his hands by the bed-frame’s brass bars, which served as decorum between the two posts. He obliged and she cuffed his hands together, with a single bar between them. Safe and snug. She opened the bottle of red syrup and decided to have some fun with the couple extra minutes before the deadline, since she needed to keep him preoccupied anyway. She wrote sexy on his chest and the y led down all the way to Little John, which was now Big John. She kissed his chest and lapped the syrup provocatively with swirls and playful nibbles. She licked the letters off one by one. When she got to the y, she made her way, ever so slowly, down his abdomen. She was excited, wet. The epiphany she had, using handcuffs instead of physical violence, did more than just save the day, it ignited her bones. She couldn’t wait to jump on top of him and tear him apart. She dipped below his w
aist-line cleaning up the red trail of corn-syrup and red food-coloring, not once wondering how many grams of sugar she was consuming like she had last time.

  When she reached her final destination—not considering it may be her final destination in more than one way—his powerful thighs sprung like a bear trap on her head and squeezed mercilessly. She struggled to break free but his legs were conditioned beyond her ability to escape them. Following a spirited final effort she became still.

  John released, placed his feet above her waist and leg-pressed her off of him and off the bed. He yanked his wrists forward with explosive bursts. The steel chain of the handcuffs clanked against the hollow bar, each time chaffing the hell out of his wrists. With each attempt the bar bent forward a tick. One screw on each end was all that held him back, and when one screw finally sheered, he was free.

  He went straight for the shoe-box in the closet.

  Chapter 43

  When Kloss finished the first song following the intermission, Alison and Holly anxiously looked over to Sue Ellen, wanting more of the story, as was I. We shouted telepathically at Kloss, Wrap it up, Mister! Amber is lyin’ dead in the street and you’re rambling on about some loser with a computer chip in his head? Priorities, man!

  Toward the end of the next song, Eddie Booger slapped his hand right through the skin of a conga drum. The music stopped. He would have to locate a replacement and then spend time replacing it. Kloss told the crowd they should be good to go in as little as ten minutes. Immediately we turned to Sue Ellen with a hungry look. She laughed.

  Sue Ellen continued. “So Amber was dead in the street. They told the truth to the police and their parents. A lot of people assumed they were hiding what really happened, since Pietra had a reputation for being an eccentric Goth girl. People spun the story to their liking. Whoever was responsible for the hit and run was never found. People were outraged that someone in their cozy little town of Silverton could do such a thing. The van that struck her was well described, but nobody knew of a town resident who owned a similar van.