The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  The bone had fractured during her fall on the backstairs, and in her almost continuous state of terror, she had barely felt the pain. Now, as her fist struck the glass, burning agony shrieked up her arm to her shoulder, and she gasped, unable to even scream. The pain was so great, her stomach rolled over; falling to her knees, she vomited over the side of the bed. The pain took over her senses and for a few moments, even her fear left her, but not her determination.

  Staggering up, wobbling crazily on weak legs and a sinking mattress, she positioned herself to strike the glass again, but this time with her left hand. Gayle knew that if she broke her left hand it would be all over for them, and because of that she pulled her punch. The heavy glass vibrated briefly and that was all.

  "Lord please!" she cried and punched again, this time she held nothing back. The window shattered as her hand went through it. Shards sliced her open, down the length of her wrist, and blood gushed out onto the broken glass scattered on the sheets. Heedless of the pain and the gory mess, Gayle started knocking out the remaining glass with the back of her hand.

  Another scream from Katie caused her to look back—the door was fully engulfed in roiling black smoke. At the sight, Gayle's heart stopped and started in great spastic thumps. The creature was only seconds from coming full into the room.

  Gayle was captivated by the unearthly sight. Despite the broken window, her pain, and the bleeding wound, and the fact that their chance at escape was practically nil, she couldn't look away—even when an outline of a face appeared in the smoke. Like the rest, the face was black and grey in color but was firm and distinct from the swirling madness around it. Gayle noticed it low down, about knee high and her eyes fixated on it as it slowly rose up the door. The face looked to be soundlessly screaming and it jerked back and forth, writhing in apparent pain.

  It was Talitha.

  Of that there was no doubt. A movement to the side caught Gayle's eye and she heard a small thump, but the face held her entire attention. When it neared the top of the door it collapsed, folding in on itself, and was sucked into the slim space between the door and the jam. Her mind reeled from the sight and she had trouble concentrating or even caring about what was happening around her. The creature was almost all the way through the door now and in its presence the fog she had experienced on the backstairs had returned and was now worse…much worse, because it was being directed right at Gayle.

  5

  Gayle's head felt heavy. She let it hang low on her neck, so that her face was to the carpet and she could see questing black tendrils of the smoke. They had the same symmetry as miniature tornados, spinning outward from the great mass of the creature forcing its way through the door. One of the tendrils was nearing the bed and swirled around the toes of a tiny little foot. The foot was pink and looked clean, as though it had been recently bathed. Gayle saw the toenails had been painted lavender; it reminded her of Katie's little foot.

  The smoke would cover that foot in moments and there was nothing Gayle could do about it; her mind was no longer her own. It belonged to the demon. The thing had her mind and was running through it, casually like a man skimming a magazine in a dentist's office. It paused here and there, looking for something interesting, looking for pain, looking for something naughty, looking for sin...

  Without explanation, the demon abruptly turned its gaze away from her and her mind snapped back to functioning normally with a jarring suddenness. In a flash, she finally recognized that it was Katie lying on the carpet, and it was her foot that the fingers of smoke were reaching out for. The girl looked as if she was fast asleep and Gayle could only hope that she had fainted before seeing the face of her sister in the smoke.

  Gayle leapt down from the bed and made to scoop up the little girl, but stabbing pain ran up her broken right arm. It was like fire. A gasp escaped her throat at the intensity of it, yet she tried again but the arm was utterly useless, unable to grip anything.

  Using her left hand, she dragged Katie to the furthest corner of the room away from the door. The door was no longer visible beneath the smoke. Even though the demon had looked away, the smoke of its body continued to pour into the room and now it was everywhere; it curled up the walls, and ran through the shag of the yellow carpet like snakes through a cornfield.

  Seeing this, Gayle desperately tried to pick up the little girl with her one good hand, but only had the strength to yank her in an ugly fashion onto the bed. Gayle jumped up as well as the tendrils now covered the floor in darkness and in growing horror she saw that soon they would begin climbing up the bedposts as well.

  The window over the bed, which had the appearance of a mouth filled with sharp bloody teeth, was her last chance and she began yanking and pulling poor Katie up to the sill. However, without being able to use her right arm, it was impossible.

  Filled with a mixture of sick dread and despair, Gayle had a sudden wish that she could faint too and lay down alongside her daughter. It looked so nice and peaceful. She wished that she could just lay her head down and dream the nightmare away. But that was not to be and there was only one thing left to do. Gayle bent and gave Katie a kiss on the cheek. "I love you."

  With that, she got up and turned to fight the demon in any way she could. Yet even as she turned to face the creature, her heart leapt in excitement; the black smoke was receding, sucking itself back through the doorframe.

  It was leaving.

  Why or how she didn't know, but her spirits rose at the sight and for the first time that night she felt they had a chance. However, Katie would have to be awake if they were to take advantage of the opportunity. Gayle's eyes darted around the room and came to rest on a half-filled glass of water next to the bed.

  ''Mommy, can I have a glass of water? On-a-cuz I'm so thirsty." Katie had said days and days ago in another lifetime or so it felt to Gayle—though in fact it had just been a couple of hours ago at bedtime.

  "You won't drink it, you never do." Gayle was tired and wanted to read her own book. She had listened to Katie read her books on baby animals for the past hour; the little girl was mad about baby animals.

  "I will this time, I promise. I'm sure I’m thirsty, Mommy."

  "Not tonight, dear. I'm bushed. You know, if you ever drank any of it I would..."

  "I'll get you some water, Katie-bunny." William stood in the doorway, nearly filling it with his broad shoulders.

  He had fetched the water and tickled his girl and now the water sat on the bedside table, untouched since William put it there. Gayle grabbed it and poured the contents slowly over Katie's face and to her delight, the girl began to splutter and look about in surprise.

  They had a chance!

  It was very difficult, but Gayle pulled her daughter to her feet. The little girl blinked in a stuporous daze, wobbled a moment and then put her hand out to the wall to steady herself, but just as suddenly she snatched it back and the confusion in her eyes was replaced in a flash, first by understanding and then by fear. Quickly the fear in Katie’s eyes began to turn to panic.

  "Katie! Listen to me. We got to get out of here. I need you to..." Gayle was just about to tell her how they were going to jump out of the window, when she heard a voice from far away. It was more than a voice, it was a bellow and one she knew.

  "Gayle! Katie! Get out of the house! Now's your chance! Run!"

  "Daddy!" Katie cried, fully awake now, relief showing plain on her face.

  Hope flared and expanded in Gayle's chest. They really could make it. William was here, and if he said to run, she was going to run.

  "Katie, I can't carry you. You're going to have to run for the front door, and don't look back!" Her complete faith in her husband was on display then. Without bothering to look through the keyhole, she threw open the door and charged out of the room pulling Katie after her.

  The end of the hall near the landing was a deep, deep black. It was down there, and Gayle felt fantastically exposed with nothing but thirty feet of empty hallway between them. I
gnoring this, she yanked Katie to the stairs and watched as her little feet nimbly sped down them.

  Gayle stood there, out in the open waiting until her daughter reached safety. Seconds later she almost laughed with happiness; they were going to make it outside for sure. It was now on the backstairs heading down and she would only have to wait a few more seconds until Katie made it all the way down. Looking back at Katie, she saw the tiny blonde girl was only three steps from the bottom and Gayle thought in giddy triumph: 'Close enough!'

  She reached out her bloody left hand, gripped the rail and started down as fast as she could, feeling almost joyous at the idea of getting out of the house. Only Gayle had no idea what she was dealing with.

  The demon had not finished with Talitha before she was taken from the house and now the little girl was almost to the front door… almost out of its reach, as well. The demon was angry. It had a horrendous, hideous anger, and when it looked upon Gayle from the backstairs, she felt the fury of it pass through her and around her. Her mind went instantly numb and a great static filled her ears. She pitched forward onto the railing and then crumpled down a few stairs.

  For seconds there was no sensation but the static in Gayle's mind and then she heard Katie's voice screaming up at her. The words were indistinct but the fear in her voice was starting to register.

  A distant part of Gayle's brain ordered her to get up and get moving and with each passing second her body started to respond but it was not happening fast enough. Gayle began to weakly push herself with her bleeding left arm and she slid down a couple of stairs in hard jerking thumps. That was all the energy she had and she came to a stop midway down and lay looking back up the stairs. The hallway above slowly filled with an intense blackness.

  She knew she should move but the demon's presence was all about her, and she felt her mind being ravaged. Memories that had been distant and vague came back crystal clear, but they were distorted and spun to show her in the worst possible way. Seeing them in her mind's eye Gayle began to hate herself. It became so bad that had she a knife on hand she would've slit her own throat.

  Closer the demon came and the hate grew—she was evil—horribly so and it was no wonder her family had all left her to the fate that she so obviously deserved.

  Even as the self-loathing erupted through her, William suddenly appeared standing over her and she remembered how poor of a wife she had been to him: how she had denied him sexually and had practically driven him from their bed; how she had harped and nagged at him; how she had made him feel that he was useless and pathetic, less than a man.

  She saw his hands reach down to her and his face was set in anger. He would kill her. That was good. Dying by his hands was the way it should be. Yet for some reason he didn't kill her. Instead, she felt a strange weightlessness as she unexpectedly flew into the air. She ended up on one of his broad shoulders, face down, staring at the back of his legs, carried like a sack of potatoes.

  Then with a snap the demon was gone from her mind.

  She felt a great rush as her brain took in everything around her with fantastic clarity. She knew the endless dull ache of her broken right forearm and the painful numbness of her bare toes. She felt the blood rushing to her head and pouring in a steady stream down her left wrist. Gayle heard the cries of Katie at the front door and the steady breathing of her husband.

  The rush of awareness was then followed by a wave of exhaustion so complete that she was content to hang over William's shoulder, watching her blood trickle on the stairs leaving a long red trail. Vaguely, she wondered if she was bleeding to death…and couldn't decide if she cared.

  They were on the last stair when William stumbled.

  He lurched to the right, catching himself from falling by holding onto the archway in the foyer. Gayle felt the presence of the demon, it wasn't focused on her, but on her husband.

  William’s body went rigid beneath the things gaze. His fingernails on the wall of the foyer made a long drawn out SSSCRRRIITCHH! His left arm, the arm holding Gayle to his shoulder, began to squeeze the back of her legs with such force that she cried out in pain. She pushed up with her good arm, trying to adjust her legs, to relieve the pressure he was exerting on the bone in her left thigh. As she did, she caught sight of the staircase, barely ten feet away and saw it was as black as midnight.

  Her emotions were shattered, but she knew she wanted to live, and she started to spank William on the backside to try to get him to move. Her weakened state made it an act of futility, and she could do little but hit him pathetically and watch as the blackness drew closer and closer.

  This was it, William's shaking had become extreme, and his head started to whip back and forth against her leg. Gayle's only hope was that he would collapse quickly and that she would have the strength to pull him from the house, but until then she was a virtual prisoner in his arms.

  "No!" he yelled out with hard savagery in his voice and instead of his legs buckling under him, he started moving forward slowly as if wading through deep water. Then a great blast of hot air washed over Gayle as he stepped out into the night. The heat was tremendous compared to the frigid temperatures of the house and it revved up her lethargy so that she felt herself slip in and out of consciousness. She was carried to the back of the house and dumped roughly on the grass of the golf course.

  "Are you ok?" William's face was ashen and grey and his bleary eyes couldn't seem to focus on anything but kept wandering about.

  "Talitha..." she said weakly.

  He looked just to the side of Gayle and his eyes filled with tears. "I know, but there's still a chance."

  A chance?

  "She's alive?" It seemed impossible. Gayle turned her head slowly, looking to where William's eyes had rested and saw her two eldest children laid out in the grass. They were still and appeared pale as death. Gayle tried to stand but lacked the strength, so she crawled to her children and cried over them.

  When Willy J opened his eyes briefly, her breath came out in a sharp gasp. She had assumed he was dead. In joy she kissed him, but his eyes soon rolled up in his head and he looked as though he had fainted. She wished that Talitha would open her eyes, but her beautiful daughter felt stone cold and Gayle thought her eyes would be closed forever. The thought caused her great pain and she went to kiss her baby, but drew back at once, repulsed by the feel. It reminded Gayle of the demon and she involuntarily looked up at the big house and was astounded at how close they were to it.

  They were right across the street and it loomed over them in the dark. The demon was in there, somewhere and all it had to do was cross fifteen feet of pavement to get at them. With a rush of fear, she attempted to get up again, but it was a failure. Her one ‘good’ arm, the one with the terrific gash, shook with the effort to push herself up and she collapsed back down. Blearily, she looked around for William, but he was gone. Only Katie was nearby—she stood with her back to Gayle in her once-pink pajamas, which were now maroon with drying blood.

  "Katie? Katie? Where's..."

  "Not now, Mommy," Katie asserted with a tone of command.

  This perked Gayle up the slightest bit. "Where's daddy? Katie? Katie?" The little girl kept her back to her mom and refused to answer at first, "Katie..."

  "Stop it, Mommy! I'm on guard duty on-a-cuz of the monster! Daddy went to get help, sheesh!"

  Gayle lay back, looking at the night sky, feeling foolish relief at being watched over by a skinny six-year-old. The moon seemed very bright and she closed her eyes.

  She awoke sometime later and the light of the moon was doused by flashing red and white lights. Fear gripped her, she knew these lights from somewhere, and she struggled to get up, but a strange man gently pushed her down. The lights hurt her eyes more than the moon had and she closed them.

  6

  It seemed only a moment later before she opened her eyes again and saw that she had been moved to a hospital room. That was fast, she thought to herself. She tried to get up, but her right arm ached a
nd throbbed and was too stiff to bend.

  She was amazed to see it in a fresh white cast and she stared at it as if she had never seen such a thing before. Her left arm was bandaged too, and her mind was all confusion and she wondered how long she had been in the room.

  Looking about, the first thing she saw was a blonde girl sleeping in a chair, curled up like a cat and Gayle didn't know who she was. The chair was pulled up to the bed next to Gayle's and her son was in the bed. He appeared to be sleeping and other than a bandage on his right hand, he seemed healthy. Relief flooded through her at the sight of him. The only other bed in the room held her darling Katie and she too, looked to be sleeping. Gayle stared long at the little girl trying to figure out where she had been injured, yet she seemed unblemished and perfect.

  How could that be so? Gayle distinctly remembered seeing Katie covered in blood, almost from head to toe.

  If Katie was all right, maybe that meant Talitha was ok too. For a second she allowed foolish hope to grow in her, but then she remembered Talitha's face in the smoke and the touch of her terribly cold body— the hope died in her. Great sadness took its place. Gayle turned toward the window and the sun shone through, streaming full on her face.

  She looked into the sun letting it blind her and she cried quietly for a long time.

  Warm soft fingers took her bandaged left hand and held it in a comforting way. The blonde girl in the chair had woken. Gayle realized the girl was Willy J's old girlfriend, Lisa. She was wearing an old ratty grey sweat suit, her face was pale and without any makeup, her hair was a wilderness of blond tangles, and her eyes were puffy, red-rimmed, and leaking tears.

  And she was beautiful; Gayle saw it then for the first time. She wanted to smile at Lisa but her sorrow and tears wouldn't allow it and she simply held the girl's hand. Lisa bent and planted a kiss on her cheek, her tears fell and mingled with Gayle's, and the two stayed that way for a long time, crying in near silence.