by Mark Tufo
"Mother." She hissed. Then Becky dropped to the floor like a lifeless corpse. Hank and Rick ran to help her, while Cara stood completely still against the wall. Ben went to Cara's side.
"Are you alright? Are you ok? Baby, I'm so sorry I couldn't help you. Are you alright?" Cara didn't answer him as he checked her for injuries, finding none.
"Is Becky alright?" Cara asked from her trance.
"She's unconscious, but breathing. I want to get her to a hospital, though." Hank was obviously scared.
Becky began to stir on the ground.
"Becky?" Rick asked, with obvious concern.
"Get me the fuck out of here, now." She mumbled as she tried to sit up.
The two men helped her up as Ben got Cara up the steps. Becky let the two men guide her up the steps and out of the basement.
14.
As the group fumbled their way out of the basement and into the foyer, Cara slowly came out of her trance. She let go of Ben and ran to the front door. As she tugged at the knob, nothing happened.
"It won't open!" She yelled.
Rick rushed to the door and started pulling as Cara stepped out of his way.
"She's right! It won't budge."
Ben disappeared into the back of the house to try the back door. He reappeared a minute later.
"The back door won't budge either."
"Break a window, I don't care what, just get us out of here." Cara was becoming more and more hysterical with every passing minute.
Rick grabbed up a planter that sat at the foot of the stairs and flung it at the front window overlooking the screened porch. Unceremoniously, the planter simply bounced off the glass and fell to the ground.
"What the fuck?"
"Let me try." Ben picked up the hat tree that Cara had bought at the local antique store. He raised it up to shoulder height and rammed it into the glass. The only thing that accomplished was sending a shockwave of pain through his arm and almost making him land on his ass.
He held the hat tree and moved on to the large window in Cara's art studio. His actions only produced the same result. He dropped the would-be ram and reached in his pocket for his cellular phone. No signal.
Ben walked back out to find that the group had made its way to the dining room so that Becky could take a seat. They had apparently had the same idea, because four cell phones were lying out on the table. Ben added his phone to the useless junk pile.
"We're trapped here. We're trapped." Cara was crying, with a distant look on her face. Ben walked over and knelt in front of her.
"We are going to get out of here. Do you hear me?" He shook her lightly to make sure that he had her full attention. He wiped the tears from her face and she gave him a look of understanding, tinged with the remnants of panic.
"Alright."
Hank was sitting next to Becky holding her hand as she swayed back and forth.
"Where is Mitchell?"
"In the study with the equipment. I'll go get him." Rick replied and walked out of the room.
The rest of the group sat in silence waiting for Rick's return with Mitchell, each of them playing escape scenarios in their heads. All of that thinking was abruptly interrupted when they heard Rick screaming.
"Stay here." Ben instructed the rest of them as he ran to find out what had caused the screaming. He rushed back to the study and found Rick, bent over outside the doorway, puking all over the floor.
"What's wrong?" Ben asked as Rick finished losing his breakfast. Rick weakly pointed into the study, and began heaving once again. Ben looked into the study and had to place his hand over his mouth to hold back his own bile. Rick had found Mitchell. Most of him, at least.
Mitchell's body was spread out across the floor in front of Ben's desk. His neck was surely broken, because his head was completely backwards, eyes staring at the carpet. Something had torn his stomach open and laid his insides on the outside. Ben forced himself to continue looking at Mitchell's ruined body. He needed to try and figure out what had happened, even though his stomach was screaming at him to turn and run away. Mitchell's leg was broken. Not just broken, but snapped in half. The bone was sticking completely out of his shin. Ben thought it looked like something had been eating Mitchell's organs. With that revelation, he could not look anymore. He turned to get Rick and get away from the carnage in his study, but Rick was already gone. Ben rushed to the dining room and found Rick seated there, telling his story. Everyone had looks of shock and disgust on their faces, but in their eyes was only terror. Hank looked up at Ben, and he nodded in confirmation. Cara simply stared straight ahead and cried. Becky had seemingly fully awakened from her own semi-catatonic state and was looking at Rick intently. After the story was finished, Becky stood up without as much difficulty as would be expected.
"I think it's time I told you guys what I learned. Before I do that, though, I need to clean up and maybe borrow some clothes?" Becky looked towards Cara. "Cara, can you loan some clothes?"
"Yeah, sure." Cara replied and started to get up from her chair.
"No one goes anywhere alone from now on." Hank insisted.
"We won't be alone upstairs, Dad. We'll be back down as soon as I get cleaned up."
"Be careful." Ben kissed Cara on the forehead. That kiss seemed to awaken her from her fog. She reached up and kissed him on the lips with the intensity of a soldier going to war and not knowing when the next kiss might be available.
"I love you." She whispered in his ear.
"I love you, too. Hurry back. Yell if you need us for anything."
"We'll be ok." Becky insisted and started up the stairs with Cara somewhat reluctantly following behind.
15.
Becky studied her face in the mirror, trying to assess the damage to her nose. She decided that it was swollen, but not broken. The cut on the side of her head had stopped bleeding, but looked nasty. She undressed and stepped into the shower as Cara stood by the sink with her back turned. The hot water stung her various cuts and scrapes at first, but then felt great as it washed away the dried blood and grime from her body. She quickly scrubbed the events in the basement away, and stepped out of the shower.
Cara was standing in front of the mirror. She had taken her shirt off and was now looking down at her bare stomach.
"Are you alright?" Becky asked as she wrapped up in a towel.
Cara turned to show Becky the mark on her midriff. There, just above her navel was a red rash in the shape of a hand with elongated fingers. Becky looked into her eyes and saw that Cara had started crying again.
"What's happening to me?" she pleaded.
"Let's get dressed and I'll tell you what I know." Becky put on the sweats and t-shirt that Cara had given her while Cara slipped on her own t-shirt. She sat down on the bed and motioned for Cara to sit down next to her.
"Are you pregnant, Cara?"
Cara looked at Becky with total shock.
"I could be, but I'm not sure." Cara broke down completely. She laid her head on Becky's shoulder and sobbed. Becky stroked her hair and tried to comfort her. "I missed my last period. I was going to take one of those home tests."
Becky slipped her hand over and placed it on Cara's stomach.
"That is three." She hissed in Cara's ear. "Only four more."
Cara stood up and stared at Becky, who just sat and smiled.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"What do you mean, Cara? What's wrong?" The smile had disappeared. "Oh my God! We have to get downstairs. You need to stay away from me. I'll explain it all downstairs." She got up and started out of the room. Cara followed her at a distance, wondering what was happening.
16.
"What the fuck is happening here?" Ben asked Hank. "We can't leave, our phones don't work. What has the power to do this kind of thing?"
"I don't know, Ben." Hank said with exasperation. "This can't be just a spirit, though. I would say that what you have here is a demon."
"A fucking demon? Are you shittin
g me?"
"No, as a matter of fact, I am not. The first thing that you need to do is calm down. We have to try and figure out what this is and what it wants. It will be very difficult to do so if you continue to walk around shouting obscenities and spewing anger. Anger will only fuel this thing's fire, Ben." Hank had tried to keep his tone steady and comforting, but they could hear the tremble of fear and desperation in his voice.
"Alright, sorry. I just don't know how to deal with this. If you had seen that…." Ben trailed off as he pointed towards the study where Mitchell lay eviscerated by God knows what.
"That is why you let us come here, Ben, so that we could help you. I don't need to see Mitchell. Rick here is like a son to me, and Mitchell was his best friend. If I want to concentrate on figuring this situation out, I need to keep my head straight. Seeing a young man's guts splayed out on the floor will not help my cause."
Ben took a deep breath to try and steady his nerves. He looked at Hank's kind but wary face and felt a little more faith in their operation.
“Now, Ben, you need to tell me if anything odd has happened. Anything that you did not tell Cara about. Something you might have kept from her, for whatever reason.”
“No, I never keep anything from her.”
“Ben.” Hank said in a chastising tone. “There is something, isn’t there?”
“Ok, yeah. One day when I came downstairs, Cara was in the kitchen talking to herself. That wasn’t the weird part, though. She was answering herself in a different voice. It was almost a hiss. I couldn’t tell what she was talking about, but I figured that she was just messing around. When I came into the kitchen and asked what she was saying, she told me that she had no idea what I was talking about. I thought that she was just embarrassed because I caught her, so I just dismissed it.”
“Why did you think of that instance, Ben?”
“Because when Becky was doing that crazy shit in the basement, the voice that she used to talk to Cara was the same voice that I heard Cara using in the kitchen that day.” Ben started to cry openly. “What is happening to her? Is she fucking possessed or something?”
“No, I don’t think that Cara is possessed.” Hank put a consoling hand on Ben’s. “I do think that there may be something that is trying to get to her. Maybe a spirit, but probably a demon of some kind. Our laptops don’t work, either. I can’t look on the internet, so we will have to go the old fashioned route.” Hank reached into one of the cases that Rick and Mitchell had brought into the house. He pulled out a large, leather bound book. It was worn on the edges and the pages had taken on the yellow tint of age. On the front of the book in dark letters, lined in gold were the words:
‘Spiritus Daemonum, Et Compendium’
Hank continued, “This book has been in my family for a very long time. It is…”
“A Compendium of Spirits and Demons.” Ben interrupted. “I took Latin in school. That thing really exists? I thought that was just some Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of crap. What the hell?” Ben leaned back in his chair, completely exasperated with his new knowledge of the other side.
“I assure you that this kind of ‘crap’ existed long before Buffy.” Hank said with a little chuckle.
“Where is she when you need her?” Ben replied with an outright laugh.
Hank joined in, and surprisingly, Rick even laughed a little. The two men looked at Rick, and a little of the color had come back to his cheeks.
"We need to take a listen the EVP recordings. See if anything is on them that might be useful to us." Hank said after the laughter had died down.
He placed the small recorder on the table and pushed play. The three men immediately clasped their hands over their ears. The only thing that you could hear on the tape was constant, high pitched screaming. It sounded like hundreds of children, screaming all at once. Hank switched the recorder off.
"Seems like we won't be learning anything from that."
"I'll bet Buffy would know exactly what that means."
They all started laughing nervously again as Becky and Cara ran into the room.
17.
“What the hell is so funny?” Cara asked, irritated.
“Nothing, Babe, just relieving some tension.” Ben stood to greet her, happy that she was alright.
“Well, get ready for some more.” Becky said.
“What is it, Becky?” hank asked, alarmed at the serious looks on their faces.
“I need to tell you what I found out. But first, Cara has some news for you, Ben.”
Ben looked at Cara, scared to find out what this news might be.
“I might be pregnant.” Cara said with a sorrowful look.
“Oh my God.” Ben took her in his arms and held her tight. “That is great news. I’m so happy. When did you find out?”
“I haven’t found out for sure. I was going to take a test tonight. I just feel it, though. I’m sure I am.”
Ben continued holding her in his arms.
“Now,” Becky chimed in, “let me tell you why it is not such great news.”
Ben and Cara looked deflated as this small joy was about to turn into something bad.
“When that thing had control of me in the basement, I was able to find out a few things about it. I knew that Cara was pregnant, because I could smell it. There was a sweet aroma coming off of her. In the pit of my stomach, I had this deep craving. I wanted to touch her, to be close to her.” Cara gasped and reached for her stomach.
“Then it was gone. Before I collapsed, I heard children laughing, and I felt something being tugged out of me. It was like, in the midst of this dark hunger, there was a little light that was good. I think that something is here, working against the dark thing.”
“You said, ‘That is three. Four more to go’, what did that mean?” Cara asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but I do know it wants to touch you like it did in the basement. That’s why you have to stay away from me. If this thing can occupy me, I don’t know what it will do, or how I can stop it.”
Hank looked at Becky, woefully, “Then we have to restrain you.”
“Yes we do.” Becky replied matter-of-factly. “You need to tie me up. Dad, do you think that we should try an exorcism?”
“I don’t see any other way. If this thing is a demon, we need to try and at least weaken it, if not banish it, so that we can get free of this house.”
“I agree. Ben do you have any rope?”
Ben was awakened from the information induced haze he was in. He started when Becky spoke to him.
“Uh, yeah, I think. We still have the ropes from the move, and I think I have some duct tape in the garage.”
“Get whatever you can.” Becky sat down in the chair, ready to be restrained. “Rick, go with him, ok?”
“Yeah. Whatever we need to do to get outta here.” Rick replied eagerly, and headed off to the garage with Ben, as Hank looked in his book for an idea of what was going on.
18.
First, Rick tried to open the garage door. No luck.
“I figured it was worth a try.”
“Dude, the ropes are over there in the corner.” Ben directed Rick to a pile of moving leftovers. “I’ll find the tape.”
Rick made his way over and started gathering rope and twine. He turned to ask Ben if there was anything else, wanting to get back to the others as soon as possible. As he turned, something brushed against his cheek and he moved his hand to swat it away. That’s when he realized it was a foot, attached to a body that was hanging from the rafters above his head. The body of a woman, dressed in victorian clothing. Her skin was a pale bluish purple and her half closed eyes were bulging from their sockets. Her purple tongue was hanging from the corner of her mouth.
“Son of a bitch!” Rick exclaimed as he jumped back and almost fell into the pile of empty boxes. Ben turned and looked in his direction. “Do you see this shit?” Rick asked him, pointing.
“I see her.” Ben was almost frozen in fear, but he
managed to move closer so he could get Rick and get back to the house. As he approached Rick and reached for his arm, the woman, whose body was twisting back and forth from Rick’s swat, opened her eyes and looked directly at them.
In a raspy voice she said to them, “You won’t get away. She will have you, and they won’t be able to help you. She’ll eat your eyes and suck the marrow from your bones. No one can resist her; she is the bringer of nightmares. She will have all she wants and when she is done drinking your blood, she will rule again.” The hanging corpse went slack and then disappeared. Rick and Ben both took off running back into the house. As they came to the dining room, they both tried to catch their breath and tell the others what they had seen.
19.
Cara stayed as far away from Becky as she could. She leaned against the far wall of the dining room as Becky sat in the chair. Hank continued to search through his book, occasionally asking Becky questions about her experience.
“Did you get a name?”
“No.” Becky replied.
“Were you able to get any visions of what it looked like?”
“No.”
“What did it want from Cara?”
“To eat her baby.” Hank started at this admission. Becky had begun to squirm in her seat. He raised his head to look at her.
“What’s happening, Becky?”
“I will get her. I only need to lay my hands on her. I will devour her unborn, and eat all of you. You will not stop me.”
Hank jumped up and got behind Becky to try and stop her from getting up. He grabbed her arms and held them to the chair.
“Cara, get out of here. Go get Ben.”
“I can’t leave you.” Cara cried out.
“It wants you. You have to save yourself and your baby. I can’t hold her for long.” He was already struggling to keep her arms pinned down.
Hesitantly, Cara left the room and ran towards the kitchen. She could hear Becky laughing in that same voice as before. Suddenly, an unseen force lifted her off of the ground. She was flying backwards through the air into her studio. She landed against the back wall with a thud. Her easels collapsed on top of her as she screamed. The door shut with a loud bang. She got up as fast as she could and tried to open the door. Like the others, it would not move. She banged her fists on the sealed door.
