Vicarious

by Jon F. Merz

  But I will persevere.

  1 May

  The temperature in the jungle is a humid ninety degrees constantly. Rain soaks us on a daily basis and I have taken to following the cues of our guide who wears one set of clothes throughout the day which are always wet. At night he changes his clothes – this set is dry and protected from the elements by being wrapped in a cloth bag that is then placed in a haversack.

  I was doubtful it would work, but to my delight it does. And I enjoy sleeping in dry clothes much more than wet ones.

  We have drawn closer to our destination. All told we have traveled half the distance. Not as fast as I would like, but the jungle grows so thick in places we are forced to cut around for hundreds of yards sometimes.

  4 May

  Interspersed with the heat and humidity, we have begun feeling strange cold winds at night. Our guide has also become much more apprehensive. He prays constantly. Not just to Jesus, either. I have seen him offer up small pieces of our meals to some unknown benefactor perhaps. I hope his gods are strong. They will need to be.

  6 May

  Pervez is ill again. He runs a high fever that has left him delusional. And even the medicinal plants our guide gathers will do him no good. I fear he may die if the fever does not break soon. He drifts in and out of a stupor, calling out “Diablo” over and over again.

  My own fear is rising as well. I pray God grants me the strength to see this mission through. Else I fear we shall all be suffering.

  8 May

  Pervez died during the night last. His hand went cold in mine as a sharp strong gale blew into our camp. The wind was so fierce it scattered our fire. Pervez slid away from us, embraced by death. I pray the Lord take him into his blessed house and keep him well.

  We buried him by the foot of a hill, marked by a grove of trees. We prayed over his grave for some time and then marched on.

  I am now alone with the guide.

  Loneliness is constant.

  10 May

  Our progress has been swift these past two days. We crossed a raging river, flush with mountain snow come down from afar. Haritu the guide says we will be at the temple within three days if we are able to continue our current pace.

  I wish his news cheered me. But it does not. As we have grown closer to the temple, something very tangible seems to be haunting us in this jungle. I have felt eyes on us. I have heard voices. Whispers. And the cold winds that are strangely out of place here sweep in on us at the weirdest times. Once while I prayed in the morning and just after we had settled down to sleep. That time, a particularly strong gust tossed a blazing log out of the fire circle. Haritu had to quickly stomp it out or else it would have turned the jungle into an inferno.

  11 May

  Haritu is having second thoughts. I can see the fear growing in him and I am a poor choice for stirring any reservoir of courage he might have. For I feel my own bravery wavering in the face of reaching our destination soon.

  I want nothing more than to turn around and head back to Caracas. I want to go home and see my beloved Margaret again.

  But I cannot. God has directed me here. I feel compelled to see this through to the end.

  Whatever end that may entail.

  12 May

  I have seen the temple.

  Haritu guided us to the edge of the clearing that stands before the overgrown walls. Perhaps I was expecting something grander in size. But it is little more than a mausoleum-sized artifice carved out of the rock of the side of a mountain. It overlooks some type of small river that runs colder than any water we have crossed so far.

  Haritu would not permit me to drink from the river and I’m glad he forbade it. The temple is a gray granite pockmarked with bizarre script that is worn away in places. Jungle vines have overtaken the majority of the place so that it is very difficult to see unless you look at it directly.

  I know what I must do now, but I am loathe to do it. Already, the sun dips in the sky and the cold winds have returned to plague us again. Haritu whimpers quite a bit. I have seen much fear in my life; I have seen it play across the faces of man and beast alike, but Haritu’s fear is so overwhelming, I fear he may run away and leave me here alone.

  I pray I am wrong.

  13 May

  I was not.

  Haritu has vanished and I am left on my own. Part of me wonders if he truly ran back to the world or whether the jungle simply took him. I slept fitfully last night, my head filled with strange dreams. I woke once hearing a series of screams that seemed to drift all about the jungle. Are they spirits of those killed by the demon? I feel haunted by a presence lurking in the jungle and yet I can explain nothing about it.

  I’m sure this sounds like so much silliness, but even as I write this, I feel compelled to stop often and look up. I’m certain I will see someone looking at me, but I do not.

  Dawn arrived today with a heavy gust of cold wind. I feel like I am touching the world of death here. I shiver and sweat at the same time.

  Does the demon know I am on his trail? Does he rest in that temple even as I write these words?

  Is he waiting for me?

  Perhaps I will go right now and see.

  Perhaps tomorrow.

  14 May

  I will go today. This will be my last journal entry until I return. I shall leave my belongings outside the temple in case something should happen to me inside. I will take only my revolver, knife, crucifix, holy water and bible. I don’t know how else to combat an emissary of Satan. I pray these tools will be enough.

  It has grown warmer and the cold winds have ceased.

  Does he know I am coming today?

  I miss Margaret. I love her so.

  God keep me safe. God keep us all safe.

  The journal ended there.

  Lauren let her arms fall by her side. She felt exhausted.

  And absolutely terrified.

  If Graham Westerly was unable to kill him, she thought, how in God’s name are we supposed to succeed?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Curran switched off the eleven o’clock news and leaned back into the deep cushions of his sofa. Tonight had not gone the way he’d wanted it to. By the time he picked up Kwon and they’d finally managed to part the traffic and get themselves back down into position on Charles Street, Darius had already closed up shop for the night.

  Kwon had wanted to go to Darius’ house and keep watch from there, but Curran had said no. All they had at this point was…well, nothing. Sure, Lauren had identified him as the guy she’d seen stalking her. But that was all they had. And if Darius spotted Curran, he could either disappear entirely or make Curran’s life hellish by claiming the homicide detective was harassing him for no reason.

  Better, Curran suggested, that they have some type of proof to go on first.

  That had been before Lauren’s phone call.

  The way she sounded on the telephone, the nervous tone to her voice, Curran knew she’d found the information they were looking for. When she told him about it, Curran felt his inside go cold. The idea that the serial killer he’d been stalking for so many years was truly attempting to do something incredibly evil beyond all his expectations shook him hard.

  Maybe deep down he’d known someone as skilled as the Soul Eater could only have the most foul of purposes for existing. Maybe the way he left the dead over the years had almost conditioned Curran for news like this. And even as many times as he’d privately denied the possibility, the way he felt when she uttered those words was more of a sickening feeling of having been right all along.

  The dreaded ‘I told you so’ voice spoke up from his instinct.

  Lauren had phoned from her friend’s house in Brighton. Curran felt good about her being there – he considered her safe from the Soul Eater.

  At least for now.

  No telling what this guy will do once we start coming for him, he thought.

  But what to do now?
<
br />   He sighed. The faint yellow glow from the floor lamp threw dim light all over the room. Curran liked keeping the lights on low, preferring soft subdued light to the harsh brilliance of fluorescent bulbs. Especially on a night like this when the cold November winds howled outside his windows. The dim light felt warm. And Curran had purposefully set his thermostat higher tonight. He could hear the creaks and pings of his radiator pipes pushing heat into all parts of the house.

  Curran let his eyes close.

  All things pointed at Darius as being involved somehow with the Soul Eater. Lauren told him the Soul Eater assumed the guise of a man. That meant in reality, Darius was something else.

  A demon, she’d said.

  Curran tried to wrack his mind for images of what a demon actually looked like. Did they have wings? Could they fly? What about horns? Scaly skin? A pointy tail?

  He almost made himself laugh. The truth was probably a lot more terrifying than that.

  And I’ve got to deal with it.

  Nifty.

  Lauren said there wasn’t much in the way of being able to take this guy down. He might fall to bullets when disguised as a man. But she’d quickly countered that by saying the last guy who tried had disappeared.

  That made Curran feel even better.

  A small part of him still privately wished this would simply turn out to be a lunatic who’d gotten his head around some old legend he’d once heard of. The killer had simply chosen to become this Soul Eater. Maybe he truly believed it, but that wouldn’t make him a demon.

  And it would mean Curran could take him down legally and without having to resort to supernatural defenses – of which Curran was completely naïve.

  Proof, he thought. That’s what I need. Something that will connect Darius one hundred percent. Even if it’s only one hundred percent in my mind.

  Because something still held him back. That tiny fragment of logic that had swollen in size after his faith had been so thoroughly destroyed by the pedophile priest, demanded its due.

  But even Curran couldn’t justify everything logically. Too many strange occurrences had transpired. Too much weird stuff.

  Spooky was more like it.

  His eyes felt heavy. He needed sleep.

  He stabbed out the quickly dying cigarette butt into the ashtray next to his favorite armchair. I ought to drop this habit, too.

  Tomorrow, he decided. Maybe tomorrow he’d go and discuss things with his Captain. Get some advice. The craggy old bastard, a police vet of almost thirty years, he’d know what to do with something like this.

  Either that or he’ll order me to get a psyche profile.

  Curran padded into his bedroom and slid under the covers. He lay on his back, the way he always did when he first went to sleep. His hands folded across his chest, timing the rise and fall of his respirations. Tongue tip behind his upper teeth. This was the way he’d once read Soviet special forces used to sleep right before hey embarked on a mission. Curran had tried it and found it worked wonders for him.

  His conscious mind began shutting down. The buzz of the workday slowed and the replay images of everything he’d seen during the previous fourteen hours faded to black. Small patterns appeared behind his eyelids and Curran felt his body begin to grow heavy, like it was sinking into the mattress itself.

  He fell asleep.

  ***

  When the first images zipped across his mind, his conscious self simply chalked it up as a dream.

  But he knew better.

  Darius’ face loomed before him. The quiet and mocking smile, brilliant white teeth, the salt-and-pepper hair.

  “So you think you know me?”

  The voice echoed inside his head. To anyone watching Curran while he slept, they would have simply assumed he’d entered REM sleep by the fast action of his eyes beneath their lids.

  But Curran wasn’t dreaming.

  Darius regarded him. “You’ve spent years of your life tracking me, haven’t you? And it must seem like such an eternity. All those cities. All those bodies. And yet you never figured it out.” He smiled again.

  Curran wanted to talk to him. But he found he had no voice here in this limbo-like existence. Darius laughed. “You know, come tomorrow, part of you will argue this is simply a dream. That it’s simply some type of mental conjuration you’ve built up by being so involved with this case for so many years. The inevitable result, as it were, of your rather obsessive compulsive personality.”

  Darius’ disembodied face zoomed closer. His voice grew soft. “But you’ll know better. Won’t you? You’ll know deep down inside that we did really communicate tonight. And my presence only serves to confirm that which you are so unsure about."

  He backed off. “Your friend.” His eyes closed. “Lauren. She’s fascinating. Have you ever known someone who could be so ruined by evil and yet emerge so wonderfully clean and good?”

  He laughed. “I have walked this Earth for thousands upon thousands of years and never seen such an example of good. In truth, I am disgusted by it. But there is reason enough for such a woman to exist. One which will become obvious to you soon enough.”

  Curran’s mind fought to speak. Slowly, painfully, he squeezed out the words: “Leave…her…alone!”

  Darius’ laugh filled his head. “You really care for this woman, don’t you, detective? How utterly amusing. What is she to you? Have you found a woman who can finally stand your presence?”

  His head zipped around the ethereal air in Curran’s mind. “You know how long I’ve watched you, Curran? You know how long? Ever since you first became aware of me. No, not since you learned it was really me as the man Darius. But ever since you started investigating the bodies I left behind. I’ve watched. Waited. And when my travels eventually directed me here to this pathetic town in which you’ve tried so hard to reconstruct a life, I felt joyous. At last. I knew we would meet. It was inevitable.”

  Curran’s mind swam against the tide of images rushing at him. His arms felt like leaden weights had been poured into them.

  Must…fight.

  “It’s no use trying to do that,” said Darius. “You’re well outmatched in this arena. Of course, that’s what happens when your faith suffers as yours has. When you only rely on your conscious mind – when your only tool is logic – your only reward is a mere fraction of reality.”

  Take me instead.

  Darius regarded him. “You? You?” He laughed. “A silly suggestion at best and a stupid one at worst. You have no idea what purpose she plays in all of this. But you will. And you could never take her place. You’re two different people. Each one with their own destiny.” Darius’ face zoomed close again. “Would you like a glimpse of your own destiny, Curran? Would you?”

  Before he could think about answering, Darius’ face changed. Gone were the white teeth and brilliant smile. In their place, long yellow fangs dripping with bloody gore. Long streaks of coarse black hair streamed out of a thorny skull, surrounded by greenish blackish skin that undulated in gross tidal waves of musculature.

  Curran felt his stomach heave.

  A new voice spoke now. “You see? While you’ve imagined me as one thing, you’ve been hunting another. And now that you know, it’s too late for you to do anything. And yet you still haven’t seen the end of this.”

  The demon pulled back and Curran could see the rest of its body. Two arms that hung down close to its three-toed feet dangled like lethal pendulums, each topped with six claws that scraped across the floor of Curran’s skull.

  It sounded like fingernails down the chalkboard.

  “When I come for you, Curran, it will not be the same death as the others. You I will take the greatest joy in destroying. I will feast on you like I have not quenched my hunger in eons. Your flesh will be my delicacy. Your blood my sweet nectar and I will drink you down with an unyielding thirst. And you will feel every exquisite agonizing sensation as it pulses along your nerve endings.”r />
  Darius morphed back once more into human. “You will sleep now. Come morning you may find you have some memory of this but you will fight it. You will insist that it is just your imagination working hard to process everything you’ve seen and learned.”

  He laughed one last time. “Or maybe, just maybe, you will be brave enough to let your instincts decide your destiny this once. Are you that brave, Curran? Are you brave enough to come for me when every reflex you own screams at you to run and hide?”

  He smirked. “Sleep now. Our time together will come soon enough. And I am looking forward to it. Very much.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Curran woke the next morning feeling like his head had been used for soccer practice. An unending series of tidal throbs rocked and bucked his senses. He tried to eat breakfast and promptly puked it back up. Bucking his usual trend, he shot down four migraine headache pills, bolted back a half can of Pepsi and then sucked down two cigarettes in short order.

  Remarkably, his treatment held. And soon enough the pulsing pain had subsided.

  What the hell happened to me last night?

  He had vague memories. And somehow he knew Darius figured into it. But not just another weird dream. Not this time. This time something very unusual had happened.

  The answer hit him at about the same time as his conscious mind realized the same thing. Darius had opened some sort of link with him.

  Great, now he had a telepathic demon haunting him.

  If things get any better, he thought, I’ll just die from happiness.

  He called Kwon. His friend answered on the fourth ring and Curran could tell he’d woken him up.

  “What?”

  “I need a favor.”