Evil Eternal
Page 19
“If you ever want to see your mommy again, it’d be best not to listen to him.”
Shane tried to raise a hand over his head and fell to his side. A splinter of rib pushed into the soft tissue of his lung.
Time to go, he thought. Hopefully there will be someone else to fight this war.
I love you Aimee, and I’ll wait for you.
There was a crashing of glass, but it sounded distant, followed by grunts and frantic thumping. To Shane, it was all happening behind the gauze of a faintly remembered dream.
Muffled screaming, then another voice, too low to discern individual words. A voice more felt in the pit of his stomach.
Was it real or just the last gasp of a dying brain?
It didn’t matter, so Shane let the tide of infinite black drag him under.
He awoke with instant clarity and bolted upright as if warning bells were sounding around him. The pain in his head and ribs was gone. The apartment was once again silent and seemingly empty.
He scrabbled to his feet and ran to his room, grabbing a crucifix-dagger.
When he stepped back into the hallway, his foot kicked up gray motes of ash from a pile by the doorway. A similar, smaller mound of soot lay several feet away.
Kneeling, he ran his fingers through the ash, glancing at the smaller mound across from him.
The boy. Dear God, the boy.
He took a deep, painless breath.
Sunlight trickled in through the half-closed blinds of his bedroom window.
“Father Michael?” he whispered.
Silence.
And again, only louder and filled with as much hope as fear, “Father Michael? Father Michael!”
About the Author
Hunter Shea is the author of the novels Forest of Shadows and Evil Eternal. His stories have appeared in numerous magazines, including Dark Moon Digest, Morpheus Tales and the upcoming anthology, Shocklines: Fresh Voices in Terror. His obsession with all things horrific has led him to real life exploration of the paranormal, interviews with exorcists and other things that would keep most people awake with the lights on. He is also half of the Monster Men video podcast, a fun look at the world of horror. You can read about his latest travails and communicate with him at www.huntershea.com, on Twitter @HunterShea1, Facebook fan page at Hunter Shea or the Monster Men 13 channel on YouTube.
Look for these titles by Hunter Shea
Now Available:
Forest of Shadows
The dead still hate!
Forest of Shadows
© 2011 Hunter Shea
John Backman specializes in inexplicable phenomena. The weirder the better. So when he gets a letter from a terrified man describing an old log home with odd whisperings, shadows that come alive, and rooms that disappear, he can’t resist the call. But the violence only escalates as soon as John arrives in the remote Alaskan village of Shida. Something dreadful happened there. Something monstrous. The shadows are closing in…and they’re out for blood.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Forest of Shadows:
They screamed.
And impossible as it seemed, George Bolster was grateful for his family’s unbridled cries of terror as they masked the other unearthly sounds that ghosted their every move.
Whump. Whump. Whump.
The steady beat of an unseen giant’s footsteps up the stairs.
“Into the bedroom, now!” George shouted at his panicked wife and sons. They scrabbled into the room at the end of the hall while the floor quaked beneath their feet. Once inside, George slammed the door shut and braced his back against its oak frame. His sons, Cory and Matt, clung to Sharon’s sides, their eyes wide and terrified, darting around the room, looking for death in benign shadows.
“Sharon, push the dresser over.”
Stifling a sob that made her entire body shudder, she reluctantly pulled away from the boys and ran over to the large dresser. George grunted as the unseen force in the hallway pounded against the door.
“Hurry!”
Matt leapt to his mother’s side to help push the heavy piece of furniture across the floor and against the bedroom door. Cory, who was only six and barely forty pounds, could only curl up into a corner and whimper. A clap of thunder made the entire house quake and they all shrieked in unison. George still pressed his weight against the door while Sharon and Matt gathered as much bulk as they could find and piled it as high and as fast as they could on top of the dresser.
The door shook as it was rammed again and again, so hard that the arch above the doorway began to crack. It wouldn’t be long before the entire wall would collapse and then where could they go?
A deep thrumming emanated from beyond the door, a sonorous hum that was not so much heard as it was felt. It hurt like hell. They felt it vibrate their chest walls, disrupt the hammering rhythm of their hearts. It crept up their spines and exploded in their skulls, threatening to liquefy their brains.
So they screamed. Fighting fire with fire. The pile of debris stashed against the door shook as the pounding on the door continued. Staggering on jellied knees, George peered out the sole window into the moon bathed woods outside. It was only a drop of twenty feet or so. Maybe, if he jumped first, he could catch them one at a time and they could run into the woods. But it was so damn cold, well below zero, and they didn’t have a coat between them. Could they possibly navigate their way through the snow steeped forest to their nearest neighbor a mile away?
Suddenly, everything stopped. The pain ceased and they all dropped to their knees. What sounded like a thousand tiny claws ticked across the hardwood floor of the hallway, retreating to the other end and descending the staircase that lead to the living room below.
George shook his head and went back to the window.
“Is it gone, Daddy?” Cory whispered.
“I don’t know. Everyone stay quiet.”
He kept his eyes on the faintly illuminated yard and his ears tuned for any sounds within the house. Matt and Cory muffled their cries into their mother’s breast.
“What are you thinking?” Sharon mouthed.
George pointed out the window and used two fingers to simulate running. It was their only chance.
“George, we’ll freeze to death.”
One look from her husband ended any protest. Gently pulling the boys from her sides, she went over to the dresser and found two blankets, several pairs of sport socks and one wool hat. She worked in silence, wrapping the boys in the blankets and putting an extra pair of socks on their shoeless feet. Cory, being the youngest and frailest, got the hat.
George gathered his family by the window.
“I’m going to jump into the snow out there. Matt, I want you to go next, then Cory, then Mom. Once we’re all out, I want you to stick close and run as fast as you can. We’re going to try to make it to Glenn’s house.”
“But that’s really far and it’s so dark out,” Matt protested.
George hugged him and felt close to tears. “I know, little man, I know. But we have to get out of here and Glenn’s house is the closest to us.”
“Maybe it’s gone away,” Cory said. They all looked towards the door. The entire house had been silent for almost five minutes now.
Sharon placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “It might not be a bad idea to wait a while and see.”
George wanted nothing more than to run like hell from his house. Freezing to death was a welcomed option to the thing downstairs.
“I’m not sure−”
The floor exploded just five feet from where they sat as the assault recommenced, this time from below. A fist-sized hole opened up between the splintered wood. A maniacal rush of thrashing and clawing blasted from the fresh portal as the floor shook from repeated efforts to widen the gap.
“Everyone up!”
George threw the window up hard, shattering the glass. Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped out into the cold night. He landed in a three foot pile of snow that cushioned his fal
l. His right leg throbbed a little and his lungs hurt as he sucked in his first draft of frigid air.
“Okay, Matt, jump!” he shouted.
Sharon plucked her youngest son and aimed him into his father’s waiting arms. George caught him and they both fell back into the snow. He was back on his feet by the time Cory had himself perched on the windowsill. Cory looked back at his mother, afraid to leave her alone, even if it was only for a moment.
“Go, Cory. I’ll be right behind you.”
The opening in the floor grew wider as more shards of wood shot out of the hole like lava from a volcano. Cory sprang into the air and almost sailed past his father. After a quick tumble in the freezing snow, George was back up and waiting for Sharon.
Heavy moaning filled the room. Sharon’s bladder lost control. Something was trying to find purchase on the jagged edges of the hole. Something huge, black and evil.
“Sharon! Come on!” George and the boys were shouting to her from the yard. Momentarily mesmerized by creeping fear, she turned back to the window and placed a foot on the sill.
As she prepared to jump, a trio of shadows stretched from the trees like a sentient ink spill and engulfed her family. One second they were there, calling for her to jump, and the next instant they were gone as the shadows retreated back into the forest.
“Nooooooo!”
She never noticed the presence behind her.
Evil Eternal
Hunter Shea
Only one priest can battle the ultimate evil!
An evil as ancient as time itself has arisen and taken root in New York City. Father Michael, the mysterious undead defender of the Church, answers the call to action from the Vatican, while Cain, a malevolent wraith that feeds on fear and blood, has taken the life and form of the city's mayor and readies a demonic army to ignite the apocalypse.
With an unlikely ally, Father Michael will prepare for the grim confrontation as he grapples with his sworn duty to God and the shreds of humanity left beating in his immortal heart. The time is ripe for Cain and the fulfillment of dark prophecies. Father Michael must battle Cain and his horde of demons in a final showdown that could very well herald the end of mankind.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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Evil Eternal
Copyright © 2012 by Hunter Shea
ISBN: 978-1-60928-911-9
Edited by Don D’Auria
Cover by Scott Carpenter
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2012
www.samhainpublishing.com