by Sara Clancy
Ma was careful to keep to the edges of the scene. Not close enough to be noticed but near enough to keep a close eye on the proceedings. While no one had smeared the symbol yet, it was only a matter of time. More doctors swarmed down the hall, brushing past her and funneling into the room as they wheeled Marigold’s bed back. Ma rushed forward, needing to keep the possessed girl in sight. A hand caught her before she reached it and yanked her back. Ma whirled around to face the narrowed eyes of Sheriff Berret.
“What did you do to her?”
“You need to let me go,” Ma said in a harsh whisper.
“I don’t think you realize that I can have you arrested.”
“What for? Her skin condition?”
Marigold’s screams were a continuous background noise, met with the hum of the hospital put to emergency status. The lights began to flicker overhead, adding their buzz to the crush. Ma’s skin prickled as the temperature of the hallway suddenly plummeted. Within a moment, both women’s breaths had turned to fog that bellowed before them.
“What is happening?” Berret demanded.
Ma ripped herself from the sheriff’s grip and ran the short distance left to Marigold’s room. She staggered to a stop in the open doorway, Berret a half step behind. Her grip was like iron on Ma’s hand but she froze before she could begin to pull her way. Marigold was still upon the bed, blistered skin oozing as she distorted and curled.
The demon had given up on being a hidden threat. It roared with a thousand voices and let its power flow. Each item in the room began to rattle. The liquid in the IVs boiled and split through the plastic bags, the lights exploded in with a shower of sparks.
Berret’s grip on Ma’s arm faltered, “What is this?”
“This is what happens when a demon calls your bluff.”
“Demon?”
The word had barely crossed Berret’s lips before Marigold’s skin tore open. A phantom blade seemed to pass across the flesh, creating gaping wounds through the battered flesh. Slips of black poked their way free, growing and twisting, twitching wildly as spider after spider pulled free from her body. They flooded over the table and squirmed out of her mouth, forcing their way out of the rim of her eyes and from under her fingernails. The swarm scrambled over the table and down on to the floor. As one, they attacked the medical staff.
Panic exploded throughout the room as they were forced back from Marigold and out of the room itself. Ma and Berret shuffled back to give them room to pass, but were unable to take their eyes off the sight. The air froze their lungs. The spiders clattered, their shells glistening in the final sparks of the dying lights. Ma got one last glimpse of the tormented girl before the door slammed shut and the world grew silent.
***
Marigold clawed her way out of the cold, wet earth. The dirt lingered within her nose and mouth, smothering her even as she tore herself free. Clumps of earth and dead grass crumbled under her hands and finally she pulled her shoulders free. Gulping down mouthfuls of air, she wiped the dirt from her eyes and got her first real look at her new torment. She was emerging from a dirt road, broken with age and infested with weeds. A fog clung to the ground, curling around the trunks of barren and gnarled trees.
The screech of a thousand ravens taking flight splintered the silence. She whipped around to see the swarm fly like a black mass over the darkened shell of a plantation home. An icy wind swept up along her now exposed spine like a questing finger. Marigold shivered as she finally worked her feet free. Her legs felt like rubber as she forced herself to stand.
Once again, the question was placed before her and she hesitated in the face of it. Which way? She mulled the decision over and over but couldn’t make one. The house looked like a beast reared up, ready to strike and consume. On her other side, the orchard spread out towards the horizon, a field of looming shadows that tapered into a bottomless ebony. What luck have you ever had with houses? A voice whispered in the back of her mind. Better to be in the open.
The gravel dug into her bare feet as she took her first hesitant step away from the house. Rusted fog swirled around her legs and brushed like lapping water against her fingertips. The darkness of the horizon rushed forward like a mammoth wall. Marigold hesitated, acid flooding her stomach as it twisted into knots. Every nerve in her body screamed at her in unison that something was watching her, something just beyond her sight.
She staggered back as a point of light burst into existence. At first, it was no bigger than the flame of a candle, it grew rapidly in size as it surged towards her. The hound, the thought slammed against the inner walls of her mind. She quickened her steps but couldn’t tear her eyes off of the approaching beast. A new burst of terror flooded like swamp water through her veins when another flame burst into view. Another. And another. They scorched the lost horizon and turned the infinite darkness into an inferno.
It was the howling that finally broke through her shock and forced her into action. She spun around and raced towards the house. But no matter how fast she ran, the hundreds of hounds still devoured the distance separating them. Their claws crushed against the grave. The small stones ripped open the soles of her feet. Fog flooded her lungs on each breath, freezing her even as her lungs began to burn. She bolted up the short flight of stairs, her blood streaking across the dust and splintered wood. The front door was chipped and worn, its rusted hinges squealing almost as loud as the howls that chased her.
The second she crossed the threshold, Marigold spun on her battered heal and threw the door closed with all of her strength behind it. The blood that covered her feet made her slip and she slumped to the ground, plastering her back against the door with as much force as she could muster. The hounds continued to scream, their snarls and snapping jaws covering the silence. Their claws scratched against the aged wood as they paced back and forth, sounding like the drag of a thousand knives. Their shadows flickered across the windows.
Her chest heaved and her legs burned as she looked around the room. The rotted plantation house shifted around her. Different worlds began to fold in on each, stacking up and bleeding together. The world she found herself in was the backdrop, warped wood and corroded air. A fine sheen of blue twisted and floated over that, creating the memories of grandeur and ghostly figures. The figures grew clearer but never solidified. There were others amongst the women in hoop skirts and the finely dressed men. Malnourished and haggard, their devastated bodies were stuck in a state of torment. Watching them, she realized that they were the ghosts of the past, the lingering souls that had once walked these halls.
A world of red created the final layer, just as intangible as the blue. It offered a different view of the room, one strikingly similar to the first two. Marigold gasped as crimson phantoms emerged from behind her. One after the other, they wafted through the closed door and passed through her as if she didn’t exist. They felt like an icy breeze emerging from inside of her and drifting out to her skin.
She lurched and scrambled from the door. With the wall solid against her shoulder, she watched the red figures continue to drift through the door and spread out in the hallway. They were dressed in jeans and tee-shirts and moved in a group, following one person like a tour group. They’re alive, she thought. Her jaw dropped as she pushed herself up onto her feet. None of them acknowledged her, or the blue world which filled with the lingering dead. But the dead saw them. They rushed at the crimson specters, crowding around them like a pack swarming a fallen deer. They raged like wounded animals, ripped and clutching at them, screaming within inches of their faces. But the living didn’t respond and their neglect drove the ghosts into more violent acts of lunacy.
Marigold leant heavily against the door as she watched the proceedings. She watched carefully but couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. People continued to come, the new arrivals receiving far less attention than the ones that preceded them. One of the faces from the crowd instantly captured her attention.
“Louis,” she rushed to his side, a
lmost tripping over her feet in her haste.
She wasn’t the only one who noticed him. Marigold hesitated as she watched a woman made of blue light slowly circle around Louis. The woman didn’t venture too close, instead keeping to the walls, but her eyes never left him. The woman was pretty, with sharp angles, delicate features and fine clothes. There was something very familiar about her, her dark gaze was unforgettable. She looked at Louis with something more than just anger. It was predatory.
Finding her voice again, Marigold screamed his name and hurried the short distance between them, reaching for him with every step but never quite believing she would make contact. He didn’t turn to her voice, didn’t give any indication at all that he had heard her. That she even existed. The cloth of his shirt felt like static as she grabbed his shoulder and tried to force him to face her. Louis shifted slightly, more like responding to a slight breeze than someone tugging at his arm with all their strength. He blinked rapidly, his eyes never meeting hers.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Am I dead?”
***
The demon’s energy flooded the darkened hospital, leaking out from the seal that struggled to contain it. It was a dam against raging waters and Ma knew it was only a matter of time before it failed. She latched onto the sheriff’s arm, trying to keep the other woman back from the threshold into Marigold’s room. Berret held onto her just as tightly. The emergency system had kicked in, flooding the hospital with an ethereal red glow. Heat bellowed from the room in humid clouds of steam, drenching the hallway and prickling against their skin. Items whirled across the room, smashing into scattered debris and the last of the staff ran over the threshold. Only Marigold remained. Her and the demon within.
“What the hell is going on?” Berret snarled through clenched teeth.
A booming crack rattled the walls. The tiles vibrated under the women’s feet as they backed up a few steps. Silence descended over the hospital. The turbulent staff stilled. With bated breath, they waited. An uneasy silence holding them snuggly in the dark. The stillness was broken by a soft groan of metal. Something shifted through the air vents above, thumping like a death rattle, soft but unmissable.
Screams broke the tension, but it wasn’t them. The sound carried from beyond the swinging doors, followed closely by fevered panic. Ma and Berret took a step towards it before one side of the door flung upon. René filled the space, chest heaving as barely-concealed fear shone in his eyes.
“Ma, we need you out here.”
“What is going on?” Berret cut in.
“The gators are acting up.”
Both women snapped their heads around to face René who was glaring at both of them. Unable to master his fear, he clung to his anger, using it as a protective shield.
The sheriff growled at him in frustration, “What gators?!”
“The ten or so that are currently trying to break their way in,” René answered with equal hostility. “I’m guessing this has something to do with the demon.”
“Demons don’t exist!”
René’s composure began to shatter, “I would have said the same thing two days ago, but hanging around Marigold would change that. Also, there are ten gators now trying to break the door down.”
“Fifteen!” Cordelia gasped as she appeared by René’s side. “There are fifteen now. And more coming. What is going on?”
The words had barely left her mouth when the vents exploded open. Snakes rained down through the gap, hitting the ground with wild hisses and bared fangs. Ma and Berret pulled back, separated from the others by a sea of squirming black. They clambered onto a gurney and out of the range of the reptiles and their poison-soaked fangs.
“Cottonmouths?” Berret snapped as she reached back and blindly pushed Ma more securely behind her. “How is that possible?”
“Get back!” Ma yelled to René and Cordelia. “Keep the gators out and get Louis!”
“You want us to go out into the gator farm just to get Louis?” René snapped.
“We need the help.”
“We can text him.”
Ma ground her teeth as the snakes began to make their way around the gurney, squirming their way towards René and the swinging door.
“His phone was destroyed.”
René dug into his pocket and tossed her his mobile. “We’re going to have to keep the snakes in,” René said. “There are kids out here.”
“Whatever you need to do!” Ma said.
“I’m calling animal control!” Berret added.
When the door swung shut, the two women found themselves alone. They had been the only ones unable to evacuate and the snakes continued to fall like rain. They pooled over the floor like living ink, piling on top of each other and tumbling over the tiles. Berret called it in over her shoulder strapped radio while Ma scrolled through the basic mobile to find Louis’ number. It was still trying to connect when a shadow loomed in the doorway of Marigold’s room.
Her features were hidden by the lingering darkness. Only her eyes were visible, twin points of searing light, glowing like silver disks. Her feet didn’t touch the floor. Berret numbly let go of her radio as Ma clenched the phone until the plastic began to protest. She could feel the sick, volatile energy that poured from the creature and seeped through the wall containing it. Marigold reared back and slammed her head against the invisible shield. The contact sounded like an explosion, the shockwaves rolling over them and forcing the wheeled gurney further against the far wall.
“It’s trying to get out,” Ma breathed just as Louis answered the call.
Chapter 10
“René?” Louis threw an apologetic smile to the tour guide but only received a dark snarl in return.
It was an expression shared by most of the small tour group. He wondered if he had ever glared like that at someone who took a call during his tours. The thought cleared away the second the person on the other end of the phone line said his name.
“Ma, what happened?”
Louis ducked into the nearest room and closed the door behind him. By the caretaker’s instant reaction, he judged that he wasn’t supposed to splinter off from the group. But Nadia quickly intervened and no one followed. Ma hadn’t stopped talking during his journey and by the time he finished pacing the room, he was up to date with the madness that was taking place back at the hospital.
“We need you to get over here.”
“It would be a couple of hours,” Louis said.
“No place in this town takes two hours, Louis!”
“I’m not in town.”
His mother’s voice carried a deathly chill as she asked, “Where are you?”
“The old La Roux plantation home,” he rushed on before she could scream at him. “I’ve got good news. I don’t think this demon’s been feeding off of Marigold. I think it has latched onto a ghost. Well, a baby ghost.”
“How is that better?” Ma snapped. “I shouldn’t have to remind you that demons gain their strength from emotional turmoil. The stronger the emotion, the more powerful it gets.”
“I know that.”
“So how is it good news that it has access to an infant?”
“Because I think I can find it.”
His words broke through her rage and fear and when she spoke again it was with a calculated tone. “Bring me the bones. I can sever the connection once and for all.”
“That’s the plan. I just need a bit of luck.”
As he said the words, a soft sizzling sound started within the walls. Phone still at his ear, he turned around just as each item of furniture within the room slid towards him. The heavy items scraped over the floor, digging deep groves as it went. Two thick wooden desks careened towards him. A hand grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked, toppling him off his feet and out of the way. The two desks smashed together hard enough to shatter the wood and crack bone. He stood there, catching his breath and looking at the pattern that now took up most of the room. A cypress tree. The exact one that had be
en edged onto the door.
“You need to hurry, Louis. Even I won’t be able to keep it contained indefinitely.”
“Give me as much time as you can.”
“If you can’t get back in time, we will have to reconsider our options.”
“Do not kill her,” Louis snapped each word.
“She can’t be allowed to go free.”
He eyed the arranged furniture. The tree. “I think I know where the body is.”
Pain sliced along his back, his shirt and jacket offering no protection from the assault. He buckled to his knees as another lash struck him. The phone scattered uselessly across the floor. Blood oozed from the open sores on his back. His head hit the floor as another strike came.
***
Marigold threw herself at the woman before she could bring the whip down onto Louis again. They hit the ground hard, each grappling for the weapon while trying to throw the other off. Marigold had followed Louis into the room and the women had been close behind them. For most of the conversation, she had remained by the door, refusing to acknowledge Marigold’s presence while she threw all of her rage at Louis by gaze alone. The woman had watched Louis and Marigold had watched her. Finally, something shifted in her mind and Marigold remembered where she had seen the specter before.
That first day at Louis’ house. When he had reached into the piled boxes that had contained the bloody history of her family line. Of sadists and killers. Of a woman born of a slave breaker. A woman who looked at the needless, senseless, sickening cruelty of her father and accused him of lacking creativity. She was Fleur La Roux. Her father had built this plantation and she had turned it to a mass graveyard.
It had all clicked into place a moment before a baby’s wail shattered the room. Marigold knew the sound by now. Each time she heard the wail, it was always the same child. Fleur seemed to recognize it too and her face twisted with a new level of loathing. Strips of dancing green light slipped into the room. They twisted and streaked, moving like an aurora brought low to earth. Marigold had winced against the shrill noise bombarding her ears as she marveled at the unearthly beauty of the sight before her. That was until it had wrapped around the furniture and hurled them towards Louis. It had surprised her that she had been able to touch him, to pull him out of the way. She hadn’t had time to get used to the idea.
