Coming abreast of the folding chair, the old lady paused to grab her coffee mug and gave a single look back, the door was barely visible and she got a slight case of the shivers.
"We need the police," she whispered. Without Eric Milner she was suddenly more than willing to overlook her past grievances with the police. She'd gone so far as to beg both priests to bring in more officers.
Sister Mary had been overruled.
The disquieting fear that thrummed through her body had made her nearly impervious to logic and the fact that they were harboring a known fugitive, was simply a technicality to her. She could understand not involving the entire police force, but she simply couldn't get past the insistence of the two priests, that no one else be told.
They could at least bring in some more priests or deacons...or even some more nuns, maybe younger nuns. Nuns whose knees didn't pop and make that awful crunching sound as they climbed the stairs.
"Hail Mary mother of God, pray for us sinners..." the words a dry habit, slipped out of her thin wrinkled lips almost on their own accord.
She was gone from the corridor for only seven minutes, but in that time she had mumbled her way through twelve prayers and it would've been more, however she paused frequently to take small sips of her coffee on her return trip.
Each of her shifts contained at least one bathroom break and as refreshing as it was to get out of the reeking corridor, having to go back in, made it not worth it. Her nose and her stomach had to get re-acquainted with the smell, which was bad, and she would have to get used to the anxious fear, which was worse, but it was the near complete dark that made her reluctant steps back down the stairs, a slow motion terror.
The one dim bulb in the center of the corridor only gave enough light to make the shadows larger, adding a tactile dimension to them, making them physical.
To get to her little chair Sister Mary had to walk past three open doors and it was a hated ritual of hers to look into the blackness of each room. Some sort of sinister presence hid within them and when she walked by her heart always sent her a warning of its age, as it thumped mightily in her chest. Had they been furnished with a light switch she would've lit each one by then, however the rooms held a single light bulb strung from the ceiling and she lacked the courage to brave the dark. What would her hands find as she weaved about, swinging her arms in order to locate the invisible chain? Her imagination kept her from making the attempt.
The chair, with its feeble yellowed bulb above it, was an island of safety for her and when she settled her weight onto it, she couldn't stop her wrist as it came up to her face, 3:38 am.
"Uhhg," she groaned aloud and then began, "Our Father who art in Heaven..." She'd go through her top forty at least once before getting up again.
The chair was just too uncomfortable and it was her habit to check the door at the end of the hall periodically if only to stretch her legs. This time she buzzed through her prayers quicker than usual...something was different about the corridor. Something she couldn't quite figure out and her fear ratcheted up with her every breath.
Far too soon she finished her set of prayers and sat there not wanting to move, not wanting to draw attention to herself. Time clicked slowly by...very slowly and her watch, against her will, appeared before her face, 3:47 am.
She almost groaned aloud again, but something inside stopped her. The demon was listening for her again but this time she had the feeling that she was being watched as well.
That was bad, however what was worse, was the small noise that came from the room down the hall back toward the stairs.
It couldn't be explained away. It had a live feel to it. Accompanying the sound was a presence, thick with malice—and from the depths of the pitch-black room, she knew something looked out at her. She tried to peer in, but the thing was in alliance with the darkness and hid within its inky bosom and her growing fear rattled her bones about beneath her skin.
The room and whatever it was it held, sat between her and the stairs and suddenly, quite unbelievably, she felt it might be safer to be in the room with the demon than out in the corridor alone. Holding her breath, she pushed herself up slowly, without her customary grunting, and walked backwards away from the chair. With growing anxiety Sister Mary dug for the key to the room, searching and re-searching her pockets and it was with fantastic relief that she found it.
Now she was torn between her fear of the demon and her fear of the dark, and being this close to the foul smelling door, it made her second guess wanting to go into the room. In fact, the smell of death was worse than it had been and she turned and sniffed at the door, her face contorted by revulsion. Quite suddenly, the single light in the tunnel went out behind her and she stood nearly alone in the jet black.
The bulb hadn't burned out, the chain had been purposely yanked, and she could still hear the light: chink...chink...chink of it slapping the side of the bulb.
Her heart seized up and her breathing ceased. The only part of her that felt alive, were her eyes and these grew to tremendous proportions as she strived to see into the darkness. The darkness was infinite however. It stretched away from her for miles and miles in every direction, yet at the same time, it was close. The darkness hugged her greedily to it, wrapping itself around her, making her a living part of it.
The nun was not the only thing living in the darkness...the folding chair moved with a little scraping sound against the floor. The sound shot through her body, bringing with it a rush of adrenaline that had her heart beating again and her lungs pumping. She spun madly to the door, uncaring of the danger on the other side of it and searched within the blackness for the doorknob. Again and again, her hands swept up and down the flat heavy wood, feeling the old and peeling paint, but not the knob.
Behind her the chair made a long, slow scraping sound, as if pushed by a hulking menace. In terror she whipped her head around, peering uselessly into the unending darkness—it held nothing but the sound of the chair scritching along and her breath, which was loud and harsh. The old lady turned back to the door and her hand struck the knob, she fumbled for it, lost it, but then touched it again. She held it tight, fearing it would move out of reach in the darkness and frantically tried to get the key into the slot.
The chair overturned behind her with a loud clatter, but she didn't look this time, there was no point. "Oh God, please help me," she begged the nothingness in front of her and like a miracle the key slid into the hole and the knob turned. She felt the smallest moment of happiness and then the stench struck her full force. Wavering, she almost didn't go into the room. The smell had a physical presence, an acid that burned her nose and made her gag.
However, it wasn't the smell that had her in a panic of indecision about stepping across the threshold; she was struck with a sudden incredible fear of falling. When she'd opened the door, the view in front of her was exactly as the one behind her. It was as if she had opened an invisible door to a black world and even though the small part of her that could still reason told her the floor of the room was as flat as the hallway, the rest of her mind rebelled. It felt as though the floor ended just in front of her and that she stood upon the edge of a tremendous chasm of black.
"Sisssster?" the voice of the possessed man called out softly from behind or at least she thought it was behind her. In the darkness, directions had lost all meaning and she suddenly didn't know if she was facing the corridor or the room. But it didn't matter, the voice was full of malicious intent and after only the slightest pause, she took a cautious half-step forward, still clinging to the invisible knob of the door. When her foot landed upon cement, she quickly took two more shuffling steps and was in the room. She hauled the door shut behind her and threw her weight against it, scrambling again to find the key hole.
In a second, the door was locked.
Now she waited—gasping and panting—fully expecting the demon to launch itself at the door. In her mind it had grown to outrageous proportions, filling the darkness and she
prayed in her speeding, mumbling fashion for the door to hold against the weight of the thing. Seconds ticked by and her mouth filled with the nasty dead smell of the room; it was putrid and she wanted to spit but a thought occurred to her. If the demon was out there...maybe the man was here.
"Uh...sir? Mr...Ba'al?" At the moment, she didn't know if that was the man's name or the demon's. "Are you in here? Could you turn on the light?" There was no sound in the room, but then a knocking came at the door and she leapt in startled, frightened surprise. Harder she pushed up against the door and how it was possible, she didn't know, but her fear grew stronger and her panting kept getting quicker and shallower. The knock came again and she jumped just as before and clung to the doorknob with all her might.
"Go away," she cried out in a high scared voice.
"Let me in...I left something in there."
She caught herself foolishly looking around at the blackness. "Ba'al, there's nothing in here," she replied with a touch more strength.
"Yes there is. My snack is in there," it said.
Her brain whirled over the last thirty or so hours and she realized they had brought him nothing to eat. It was she that he was after.
"No Ba'al, we had a deal! The sword for the children. That was the deal," she pleaded.
"I have a new deal..."
She didn't want to hear the new deal...she knew she was part of the deal. A pain began to spread in her chest, making it hard to breath. "No, Ba'al please no. We have a deal already; the sword will be here soon. Ok? Please stay out there."
"Stay out? Your walls can't hold me, if I don't want them to...feel."
Both of her hands still rested on the doorknob and despite the fact that it had just been locked it began to turn beneath her fingers. She tried to grip it tighter but her sweat made it so she could barely hold it at all and the knob continued all the way and then, though her full weight was hard up against it, the door opened just a crack.
She screamed into the black, "No please no, Ba'al we have a deal, ok?" Sister Mary's panic was near complete and she almost went running off into the darkness, chasm be damned, but suddenly the knob turned to the left and the door shut.
"I was supposed to have my path by now...that deal is gone, but I have a new one. Except you have to want it. You have to beg me for it." The possessed man's voice, though muffled was now more man than demon and she could understand it just a bit better.
"No, I want the old deal...it's very fair I think."
"Don't you want to even hear the new deal?"
"No. No I don't. I want the old deal!" The new deal would hurt, she knew it. Her fear was horrendous; she was losing control of her muscles and she shook from head to toe in the darkness. Her hands repeatedly slipped off the knob and she had to wipe them on her habit every second or so to keep any sort of grip. Her mind began to go over a litany of tortures she'd heard about, but then the demon spoke again, interrupting her.
"I will do you a favor and tell you anyways..."
"No!" she screamed.
"Here's the deal..."
"NO!"
"I want to kill tonight...before the sun comes up," he said. "Now, I think you are worth six of those boys up there..."
"Nooooo!" She was in misery and the word she screamed was a long terrified wail.
"You haven't even heard my proposal yet." He seemed a little pouty over this. "Now don't be too quick to answer...do I kill you or six of your boys?"
Sister Mary Agatha felt like she was just about to float away into the black. Numbness spread out through her entire body and in the darkness, it seemed as though she were evaporating. She wondered vaguely if she were about to faint and even as she thought it, she did.
A half-second later, she hit the floor hard, smacking the side of her head and face on the cement. It snapped her back to her terrifying reality and she weakly scrambled to the door, only to find a wall where the door had been.
"Sissster?" The word came from her right. She crawled toward the sound, and her questing fingers touched the door. She pulled herself up using the knob as a grip and stood there trying not to fall back over, speechless.
"Sissster?" He was a little more impatient this time. "That's ok...I understand. You can't find it within you, to tell me to go kill six little boys. Just remain silent and I will take it we have a deal."
"I...I...I," she couldn't form the words, she couldn't form any words.
"I what? You or the boys...if I don't get a firm decision, I will make it seven."
"No...I..." her mouth hung open and the putrid stench was no longer a factor, only her fear was important. It was everything and even though she loved her boys she couldn't bring herself to say the words that might let them live.
"Seven it is then...good! That's what I hoped you would say..."
"No," she whispered it in the weakest manner.
"I'll be back in the morning...I think I will start with the little red headed one. Who wants a red headed kid anyways, right?"
"No, not Jeremy! Please no." His precious face appeared in living color in her mind and she realized then that she was crying. She touched her face and habit, they were soaked and she wondered how long her tears had been falling.
"Not Jeremy?" the demon asked, considering. "Then you pick the seven."
"I can't"
"Then open the door and invite me in." He said it quietly and she knew that he was evil beyond any man that had ever been.
She turned the knob with numb hands and a part of her hoped that she would faint again. The door opened only a little way, perhaps a foot and then it stopped, held there by the possessed man just beyond. Sister Mary gave a little gasp and the breath that she drew in from the corridor was amazingly fresh compared to the poisonous rot of the room she was in.
"Before you agree," he began softly and she jumped back, his voice was far closer than she expected. "Are you sure you really want to do this? It's only seven boys and we both know, nobody really wants these children anyways, right Sister?"
"Don't hurt them...I'll do anything, just don't hurt them."
"That's it? You aren't going to fight me or scream?" he asked with bogus amazement. She knew screaming would be a waste of time. When the demon had first walked into his room, the one he had chosen, he had screamed bloody murder, but it had been impossible to hear, even just above in the church. At the time she had been thankful.
"No I won't scream...just...you can't hurt the boys...that's the deal." She felt the tiniest amount of courage seep into her wretched miserable soul, but he took it away again in the next second.
"But I want you to scream. Don't you know what I'm going to do to you?" He was very reasonable sounding and that made his evil all the worse. She figured that he was not driven by insanity, but by a lust for pain and she knew it would be terrible.
"I think so," she mumbled the lie. She didn't really know what he would do but only knew that it would hurt. Thinking about it made her aware of her body again...she couldn't stop her old muscles from shaking and her legs were threatening to buckle beneath her.
"You don't know, Sister. Tell me you are virgin, please." He paused breathing heavily, waiting for her response but her own breath stuck in her throat. She was a virgin. Even as a youngster, she had been homely and instead of fighting her genes, she had decided to save herself for God.
"I can't hear you Sister...before you die, am I going to be your first?"
Her legs did indeed buckle beneath her and she held to the knob with the last of her strength. There was a spinning sensation but with the blackness there was nothing to spin and she could only pant like a dog and the only other sound was a tiny, lipp...lipp...lipp, as her tears struck the floor.
"I told you, you didn't know...but I think you got me all wrong. I'm not going to rape you. I mean you're old and fat and ugly. Why would I want to rape you? I would rather kill those children, so if you don't want that, you're going to have to convince me to fuck you. But I don't see how you will, short o
f begging. Come on ya old saggy slut, beg me, or am I going to make it eight?"
The number eight came to her from a mile away and it brought her back again from the precipice of fainting. "No not eight...you can't." But he could. There was no way she could stop him. "Ok...ok. Please come...um do the uh..." She didn't know how to beg for it.
"I don't think your heart is into it...don't worry you tried." The door started to shut from the other side.
"No, please...I want you...uhh badly um, please make love to me?"
"Not! Good! Enough!" he roared the words at her. In terror she stepped back into the room and lost her hold on the door. She panicked at this and swung her arms about wildly, only the room seemed to have expanded greatly because she didn't come in contact with anything. Up and down began to lose meaning and she half-fell, half-sat hard upon the floor and sobbed there, blubbering loudly in the endless dark.
"This is my fault," the demon said and his voice seemed far away. "You're new at this...I like that...it gets me hard. Now I've always wanted to do a nun, so I'm going to help you. Say this: Oh yeah fuck me hard!"
Her mind rebelled against it and she had trouble saying anything with her crying so heavily, but she finally whimpered, "O-yeah...fuck me...hard."
"Now say, oh baby, that's right do me good." He was closer, somewhere in the room.
Sister Mary Agatha curled into a ball and said to the floor, the only part of the world with any substance, "Oh-baby-that's right-do me good...Hail Mary mother of God..." Pain suddenly exploded in her back.
"No praying...except for when you say: Oh God! Oh God!" He laughed maliciously and then he loomed over. She could feel him hot above her. "Now take off your clothes you little slut," he whispered with excitement in his voice.
"Ohhh nooo," she cried in quiet misery but took off her clothes all the same until she lay naked upon them, her body shivering with the cold and the terror.
Now there was only a painful silence, and it seemed that the demon had moved away. For a second hope flared that he had left her—that it had all been a cruel joke but then the door to room closed with a finality that sent a shiver down her soul and when he suddenly touched her in the darkness, she screamed. The darkness swallowed her many screams and no ears would ever hear them.
The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set Page 46
