The Depths of the Hollow (Mercy Falls Mythos Book 2)

by Nathaniel Reed

  Arianna Genovese walked into the discount drugstore. There wasn’t always a great selection of potential victims here- mostly vagrants this late at night. But they were also the people most likely to wander out alone, and not have family or loved ones who might look for them. Of course, where they were going no one would ever find them. She scouted the aisles for potentials, pretending as if she were shopping.

  Soon enough she noticed a middle-aged man in dirty clothes with a gray beard and gray and white straggly hair. He stunk of liquor and BO, and underneath that was the faint smell of urine. It pained Arianna that she would even consider this adequate. With her acute sense of smell his stench was nearly overpowering. But he didn’t look too skinny, so he hadn’t been skipping meals for long. And she didn’t detect any drugs in his system other than alcohol, which was good. Judging from his complaining he seemed to have been denied an early refill on a prescription. She made her way out the door a few seconds after he departed, keeping her distance as she followed him.

  It was eleven p.m. on Thursday night, August 26th;

  the night of the full moon. There were a few stragglers still out and about on the streets, and she needed to get him to a place secluded enough where she could take him unawares.

  k

  Thomas Killian was having a dilemma of his own. He needed to get out of the cage now. Midnight was approaching; Chelsea was nursing her newborn, a girl; and The Coven of Hecate was preparing to leave for the cemetery to perform the sacrifice.

  “I need to use the bathroom!” Thomas whined.

  “Ah, piss yourself for all I care,” Drakos said. “We’ll be leaving soon enough. Not that you’re going anywhere.”

  Chelsea looked at him. “You’re going to just leave them in there?”

  “What do you propose I do? I can’t let them loose. They’ll just go and call the police. As soon as they can find a working phone, that is.”

  “What makes you think we won’t just scream our heads off the minute you leave?” Meredith said.

  “That would be unwise. Then I’d have to kill you for sure, and that would make a bloody mess and much more noise.”

  “We’ll make sure you’re far enough away,” Emily said, “But they’ll still be able to find you. Your sacrifice is too important.” She cringed at the use of the word, and so did Chelsea.

  “What are you going to do with me?” Chelsea said, done nursing.

  “Why kill you of course, once we begin the sacrifice,” Drakos replied. “You’ve served your purpose, splendidly.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I ask a request?”

  “A request?” Drakos laughed, “Oh, child, why not?!

  Shoot,” he said, pointing the gun at her.

  Chelsea flinched. “Let me in the cage with them

  instead.”

  Drakos eyed her suspiciously. “Why?”

  “Well, you’re going to kill me anyway. Why not let me stay with them instead? I’d rather live.”

  “And let your child die in your place? How noble.”

  “Yes,” she said, ashamed. It was not her plan to let her child die, but this was her only play.

  “Very well,” Drakos said. “Berenice, open the cage and let her in.”

  Chelsea didn’t know why Thomas wanted out so bad, but she knew it wasn’t because he needed to use the restroom. He either knew something they didn’t, or he had a plan. She had to trust her instincts and make this work.

  She looked at Thomas and mouthed the words, “This is your chance.”

  Thomas’s eyes locked with hers; he acknowledged her words with an almost imperceptible nod.

  Sophia took hold of the now crying baby. Berenice opened the gate slowly. Drakos and Jason watched with guns pointed, but Chelsea obstructed their view, as planned. She elbowed Berenice in the gut, and pulled Tom’s waiting arm out from the cage, swinging him around the two of them.

  “GO NOW!!” Chelsea shouted.

  Tom ran, crouching down to avoid the bullets he knew would follow. Drakos fired a bullet into Chelsea’s back. She fell against the bars. Jason’s bullets whizzed over Tom’s hurtling body. He crashed into Jason, knocking him over, and rushing out the door.

  Berenice was hunched over holding her stomach. Sophia waved her hand, slamming the door to the prison shut before anyone else could get out.

  “Damn it!” Drakos screamed furiously.

  “Should we go after him?” Sophia asked.

  “No, if he doesn’t alert the neighbors, our gunshots already have. We need to go now!” Drakos said.

  The newborn’s cries had turned to wails. The Coven left the home with the child, leaving the imprisoned behind.

  Silence dominated for a moment. Frederick sat stunned, slack-jawed. Wesley was sobbing softly to himself. Emily and Meredith were crying as well, looking into the blank stare of the blonde girl whose body had slid down the gate on the other side of them, her face pressed against the bars looking in. She was dead.

  “What a brave girl,” Emily said.

  It took them another second before they realized they were still alive, and trapped, and there was a child that still needed rescuing. They began to shout for help.

  

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Faraday asked.

  “Yes,” Amelia said. She sat down on the chair Faraday had provided for her, just outside the police station, facing the doorway. Her trusty .357 Magnum sat at her side, in its holster, the first three chambers loaded with silver rounds.

  “I’ve got a lot of men in there,” Faraday said. “Should anything go wrong I can’t guarantee your safety.”

  “I know the risks Detective. He’s my friend. I have to do this.”

  “All right,” Dave Faraday said, looking at her admiringly.

  “You’ve got balls kid,” he said.

  “Gee, I certainly hope not,” she replied.

  Faraday laughed.

  An officer came outside. “All right Mr. Faraday...”

  “Detective, please.”

  “Detective,” the officer corrected himself. “We’ve got video rolling, and we’ve got at least a dozen men with

  guns ready as witnesses.”

  “Good,” Faraday said, clapping him on the back.

  “Try not to shit your pants too much, okay?”

  The policeman looked at him, uncertain.

  Faraday waved him away. “Go about your business.”

  His walkie blasted at his side. “Shots fired near Clyde Street. We’ve got reports of cries for help from a residence...”

  “I’m on my way,” Faraday responded before they could finish. The dispatcher could relay more information as he was on route.

  He looked toward Amelia. “Good luck.”

  “You as well Detective,” she replied.

  

  She followed the man into an alley. At last! Arianna double checked to make sure no one was around. She was in the clear. The man pulled out a bottle in a brown bag from his jacket, taking swigs from it while leaning up against the brick wall. She charged him while he was still drinking, bashing the back of his head into the brick. The bottle dropped from his lips, and she deftly caught it before it could crash to the ground. His eyes closed. She hit hard enough to render him unconscious, but not kill him. The blood would stay warm if he wasn’t dead when they fed off him. She tossed him over her shoulder, taking flight. If anyone saw anything they wouldn’t be sure what it was they saw, because they were mostly a blur as they streaked through the sky.

  k

  They found the cemetery the captive had spoken of and prepared the sacrifice. They placed the baby on a bed of leaves, upon a hard stone slab that served as the roof of a mausoleum, the closest thing they could get to an actual altar. It rose to the height of Drakos’ chest. In the midst of the surrounding trees and nature, and the white gravestones of the dead all around them this was a suitable place indeed for their transformation; for their rebirth.

  “Time,” Drakos sa
id.

  Jason consulted his watch. “11:48.”

  “Excellent. We can only hope they won’t find us before midnight. Once it is done it won’t matter. They’ll have no power over us.”

  Berenice and Sofia nodded approvingly.

  “Come,” Drakos said. “I want you all by my side. Let’s make a circle around the child.” He poured the sand from his palm about the child, forming an inverted pentagram, the child enclosed in the center of it. “The dagger please.”

  Berenice handed him the ceremonial dagger, a twisted, curving, serpentine blade with a solid metallic hilt embedded with a red jewel, a reptilian eye slit through the middle of it. They donned their dark robes, raising their hoods, and they began to chant.

  

  He pounded on every door, woke every neighbor that wasn’t up already, shouting at them to call the police. Thomas Killian felt the change coming. Like every other time he could not control it. He couldn’t save his family even if their captors had left. It was too much of a risk. And he couldn’t go into the cemetery to try and save the child. He might end up inadvertently harming it. He was too close to transforming. He had to go now.

  Thomas fled to the only place he hoped would be far enough for him not to harm anyone- Jeremiah’s Woods.

  He cursed himself for not getting out sooner, but he

  couldn’t risk them shooting his family- the only family he had left. Thomas hoped they hadn’t had a chance to harm them.

  He bounded over the gate easily, his animal persona already taking over, leaping through the clearing, crashing through the trees. He was already changing. He fell to his knees. Each time it was like new. He’d forget what happened immediately before and immediately after transforming back. He’d forget the excruciating pain, how each time it was like being reborn, like giving birth to himself, every inch of his skin expanding and bursting, puncturing and breaking as it remolded itself.

  “Deeeaaarrrr GODD!!” he howled in agony. Clothes shredding, skin shredding, humanity shed.

  

  She landed near the pit. Arianna wasn’t ready to go in. She wanted a taste before she let the others feed. She could have gone in immediately but she got greedy. When she laid the unconscious man down to feed she was knocked over by something massive.

  “What in the world?”

  She looked up to see the giant beast looming over her- one of those moon beasts. A werewolf, still controlled by the cycles of the moon, and therefore unpredictable in its rage and capacity to maim, kill, and destroy everything in its path with no self control. She stood as it roared at her, backing away.

  “Now we don’t have to...” she began. It backhanded her and she was thrown at least twenty feet, landing in the grass, feeling the bruise already starting to form beneath her eye.

  The wolf attacked the man lying in the grass, her intended food, and the unconscious man woke screaming as the beast gnawed at him.

  Good, Arianna thought, its attention will be on the

  man now. She wanted to fly around the creature and into the pit without incident, but it was blocking the way. She attempted to go around and the creature raised its bloody muzzle and grunted. She noticed for the first time that the werewolf was missing an eye, a black hole present where it should have been, somehow making it look more intimidating under its furry, creased brow. No good. It threw its other victim aside and tore after her. She tried to dodge, fly, do anything- just get out of the way. She wasn’t fast enough. It was atop her in a heartbeat. It buried its jaws in her right shoulder, clamped down and tore it from her. Her shoulder was in its mouth and the damn thing was chewing on it, enjoying it like prime steak. Arianna was in agonizing pain. If she were human she probably would have been dead, but she wasn’t.

  She didn’t realize how badly injured she was until she stood up. If she had been capable of fainting she would have. Her entire right shoulder was gone from clavicle to bicep. Her right arm dangled precariously low, swinging back and forth on a flap of armpit, spouting blood in intermittent jets from several severed arteries. Fuck. If she’d even had a chance of fighting this thing off before, she certainly didn’t have one now. While it was occupied with her tasty shoulder-round she circled the beast, grabbing her alcohol laden friend and diving down into the pit.

  The good news was she would regenerate, although this injury might take months, and she wouldn’t turn into a werewolf herself. The same thing that let vampires heal quickly and fight off all sorts of diseases would prevent the infection from the bite from turning her into one of them, or so Lucio told her. The same thing couldn’t be said for her drunken friend, who was still clinging on to life.

  Feeding off him wouldn’t harm them but it might end up finishing him off, which would be a shame. They could hold him down here until he could learn to control it. It might take a decade or more until he was no longer ruled by the moon, but he would make an excellent familiar. This man, Thaddeus Underwood, would be responsible for the death of a hunter down here in the pit, a death that would ultimately not save the vampires on their day of reckoning.

  Arianna would be out of commission for a while but the beast that was Thomas Killian was still at large.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  BEN AND AMELIA

  The men and women guarding Benjamin Caldwell visibly shook when he began to change.

  “Are we getting this?”one of the men said. “Are we sure the camera is rolling?”

  “Yes,” a female officer said, “Although I’m not sure I even believe what I’m seeing.”

  Ben let loose torturous cries that made the toughest of them shudder and the hairs on their arms stand on end.

  A Hispanic officer said a prayer in her language, crossing herself. The man next to her said, “I don’t believe in God, but I hope that helps make sure he can’t break out.”

  Outside Amelia sat up in her seat, taking the gun out of her holster. She couldn’t understand how those sounds could be coming from Ben.

  Ben looked at the officers with bloodshot eyes, and they watched his humanity slip out from them, to be replaced with rage, as the wolf took over. He lunged, to be stopped by the cage. He grabbed at the bars, attempting to shake them loose, be free of this prison and get at them, but they wouldn’t budge, enraging him further. Ben roared, his enormous jaw dribbling with saliva, pushing his muzzle through the bars as if he could somehow reach his prey this way. All the guns were aimed at the creature. A Sony Digital (D8) camcorder using Hi8 tape sat on its tripod recording. The werewolf reached an arm through the bars, swiping at them, but the officers smartly kept their distance.

  “Maybe we should leave the room, just let the thing record,” one of them said, his brow sweaty with anxiety. “He obviously can’t get out.”

  “Shut up Diego,” his female partner responded. “We have our orders.”

  The werewolf shifted its focus to something other than the men and women in uniform. The light and the sounds the video recorder was making seemed to annoy the beast. It roared and shook the bars. Its rage seemed to get more and more intense as it fixated on the camera. The bars didn’t budge, but the stone ceiling the bars ran through showered some rock dust into the cage.

  “Shut the camera off!” someone yelled.

  “Yo, get me the fuck out of here!” Dominic shouted from his cage.

  “That’s the safest place you can possibly be right now kid,” one officer informed him.

  “Bullshit!” Dominic replied. “That motherfucker gonna get in here and skin my black ass!”

  “Settle down.”

  Ben shook the cage more violently and pebble sized pieces of rock began to fall.

  “Oh dear God!” the atheist said.

  “Prepare to fire!” someone else said.

  One giant-mouthed roar and one giant heave and the cage came down, a huge slab of rock breaking in two, and crashing down on the camera, skating through the air with its blunt point barreling into one of the men, as the bars fell forward. The ba
rs were still anchored to the floor, sticking out at an angle. The creature stomped down with one massive foot on two of them, bending them to the floor, and forced his way through. Everyone started firing.

  

  Something went wrong. The screaming, the howls... Amelia heard the cell collapse, and she stood up, indecisive. Should she rush in or wait?

  Dominic Finch was free of his cage, but had no

  weapon. He climbed the canted bars and ran. They could arrest him another day if they wanted, but he was going to stay alive. Amelia saw him sprinting for the door and almost shot him. He never even saw her as he ran past.

  Inside the werewolf was being pelted with bullets,

  as it ripped through the officers with its giant paws, shredding through them with elongated nails. The bullets hurt and angered it, but would not kill it. It took an officer’s head in its monstrous jaw, popping it off like a cork on a wine bottle. The officer went into spasms, the gun continuing to go off under his tightening trigger finger, before his headless body flopped over to one side.

  Ultimately the gunfire was too much for the beast, and it darted out the door, pushing the remaining officers aside. Amelia stood in front of the werewolf, several feet from the doorway. It stopped.

  “Ben,” she said, “You don’t have to do this. You can control it.”

  It looked at her a moment as if considering, then roared at her, hurtling at her. She shot him once, twice. First the heart, then the head. One in the ticker, the other in the computer, her father used to say. They were perfect shots. She was a marksman. The only good thing her daddy taught her. She had to keep reminding herself of that. It wasn’t much, but at this moment it was everything.

  The beast went down, the ground vibrating with its weight. Amelia slowly, cautiously approached, her gun level with the beast. She had one more silver round if she needed it.

  The wolf thing didn’t move. But then it seemed as if it was. Amelia backed up, aiming the Magnum at the side of its head, as it was curled up in the fetal position, much the way they had found Ben at the Supra-mart. The werewolf was dead. It was simply transforming, changing back to the man that it was before, back into Benjamin Caldwell.