The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  This left him with the unappealing choice of climbing down the pipes that ran up the sides of the atrium. Seeing a small set that looked as if they could hold his weight, he jogged over and was pleasantly surprised to find a ladder nestled in them and after giving it a cautious shake, he stuck the gun deep into the waistband of his jeans and swung his legs over the rail.

  He made his decent as quietly as possible, pausing every few rungs to listen and to wipe the sweat from his palms. With each successive rung down, the gloom settled on and around him more firmly, but that was only part of the reason that he began to feel a terrible anxiety. There was something else. Something that he knew lurked down in the depths of the factory.

  The bodies of dead children.

  Decomposing horrible bodies. The stench was outlandish, second only to the smell that had radiated from the crate beneath the church, but for Will this was worse. The smell went hand in hand with the vision of the boy tied to the box and the image of it kept blossoming up, ghastly and hideous.

  Will's hands began to sweat freely, and he now added a fear of falling to his anxiety, but since he also felt terribly exposed out in the open like that, he quickened his pace, and was down a few seconds later, the gun yanked from his jeans and pointing outwards.

  Down there the smell intensified and his stomach threatened to explode. He fought the urge to dry heave with every ounce of concentration he could muster and his breathing came in hard gasps. If he went down to his knees gagging, Talitha could be on him before he knew it and he'd be death number two for the day.

  Somehow that thought calmed his breathing and his stomach relaxed as well, giving him a chance to focus on the rooms around him. Unlike the areas above, the basement was far from open; there were more walls and doors for one thing. But it was the dark and the smell coating him with indecent filth that lent the level an oppressive constrictiveness.

  The basement seemed to form a grid. Long pipe-filled hallways intersected each other like avenues in a city and Will was at a loss for which way to go. On a whim, he started toward the front of the building, but hadn't gone far when he heard a fast stomping or perhaps a drumming of someone's feet against a wood board.

  Turning, he advanced quickly in the direction of the sound, his arms out stiffly, his hands gripping the gun hard. The thumping ceased and Will slowed down, moving with caution, but not enough caution. His foot came down on a piece of glass making an audible crunching sound and he froze in place. But then the thumping came again with more urgency, it came from a room maybe twenty feet from him.

  Despite the near overwhelming dread that ran through his bowels, he also felt silly when he jumped into the room with the gun outstretched, like a cop from a bad TV show. What the room held for him made that silly feeling depart along with all the feeling in his hands and feet.

  This was the room from his vision.

  But it was far worse in person. The gruesome details were fresher, alive with the richness of the aroma of death. In a cleared space in the center of the room, the boy knelt over what eternally would be his box. This Will had seen, but there were other things, he hadn't.

  For instance, he now saw that the box was made from wood and that it was blackened where the boy's blood had run down it. The ropes binding him there looked to have been knotted by an experienced sailor, one with cruel intentions and they cut deep into the remains of his flesh. The gaping maggot filled remains of the boy's anus writhed with the undulations of the horrible creatures, but there was something else he hadn't seen before, something inside the boy…Will gagged and turned away.

  What Will saw, he absorbed in a blink of an eye, but even that was too much for him and he felt shocked to depths of his soul and his mind reeled.

  The rest of the room was lit by the indirect gloom from the hallway behind him and he now saw that the boy knelt in the middle of a symbol painted in blood, it was a five pointed star with two circles running along the outside of it. Strange lettering spelled words within the circle; they were of no earthly language. He knew it was a hell language.

  More symbols, black blood again, adorned the walls even as they had in the room beneath the church, and just as he had seen in the pits at Rek, where the great demon dwelled. The memory of those dungeons came and went, leaving him stunned and sick. He had seen this room before, not just in a vision, but in his dreams as well.

  For Will, everything about the room was an illusion of hell.

  His mind revolted and threatened to shut down completely at the sight. He turned back to the door wanting to leave, picturing himself out in the rain, but it was then a small movement caught his eye, Luke lay upon the ground, trussed up in the torn remains of Father Alba's stole. He was wriggling like mad, trying to escape and had butted up against the cinder blocks that made up the walls, his feet scraped at the cement of the floor and for a second he reminded Will of an inch worm.

  Will was slow to realize that there was nothing wood nearby that Luke could have been kicking. The sound had to have been made by someone else.

  From his right came a blur of motion followed by an amazing shrieking pain. His arms had been outstretched, holding the gun away from his body, and Talitha, lurking just behind the open door, had leapt out with a flashing front kick that struck him above the elbow. Two inches lower down and his elbow would have swung both ways. As it was his arm from the point of the blow down went instantly numb.

  Helplessly, he watched as the gun tumbled from his deadened fingers, landing just in front of Talitha. She was so close to it that he feared she would get to it first, but she wasn't after the gun. Even as he bent down to retrieve it, she leaned her body to the left, and her right leg swung in a hard fast arc, a roundhouse kick that would've taken his head off if he hadn't seen it coming.

  Even though he knew where it would land, it wasn't as helpful as one would think. She was too fast to avoid the blow completely and it struck him just on the top of his forehead, snapping his neck back and sending him reeling into the wall behind him—it was the only thing that kept him upright.

  His head swam momentarily and he had to spread his hands on the wall to keep from sagging to the ground. Death surely awaited him if he ever went down. Talitha danced to her right, inches from the gun, swinging her head back and forth. Will suddenly realized that she could see, perhaps not well but enough.

  He took an intentionally loud step to his right, trying to draw her away from the gun and nearly lost his testicles in the process. She heard the movement and sent a second roundhouse, this time high up at his face, but he saw it coming and ducked away, however that had been a feint and just as her right foot landed, she flashed in toward him with another snap kick. She held it back till the last moment giving herself a choice of targets and ruining any chance Will would have to stop it with his foresight.

  He relied instead on his knowledge of his sister; she would go for the balls. They weren't the easy target most women assumed them to be and Will was able to turn just enough to take the blow on his thigh instead. That also hurt.

  "Almost," she said. Smiling and flush with the action, she was pretty in the dim light. Will didn't say anything, the muscles in the top of his leg had knotted instantly by the blow, and he rubbed at them in furious silence.

  "I'm honestly surprised that you got here as quick as you did," she said, moving to keep him close. "You spoiled my fun with the priest you know. You made me cut it short with all of your ruckus. So, who were you shooting at? A pigeon scare you?"

  He nearly answered and the memory of Father John's lifeless body laying over him almost made him miss the snapshot of the future. A deft sidekick aimed square at his midsection. Anyone else would've had their ribs stove in, but Will dodged adroitly, still moving to his right.

  "You're getting pretty quick," she complimented. "But you didn't answer my question. I can smell the blood from that yapping priest on you; was it a ricochet, or did you just get tired of him running his mouth?"

  He thought again o
f the lifeless body of Father John and with a pang of regret, he realized he had just left him there without saying a prayer or even arranging the body. He'd been too wrapped up in his fear of traps.

  With a sigh, he answered, "A trap got him." The door was just behind him and as Talitha made another feint, he stepped back through it.

  She advanced on him, but paused in the doorway, her face screwed up in puzzlement. "How did the bullet miss you…oh my God. You filthy coward! You let that little priest go in front of you."

  Talitha was right in a manner of speaking, but Will had been more afraid of killing than in being killed—still the acid of her accusation burned him.

  Will kept backing into the hallway and she followed, looking expectant. "Are you giving me the silent treatment? If so, you got the wrong gal, it wasn't my gun, I just left…"

  He saw it coming.

  In mid sentence she let fly with a heavy left hook and he stepped back again—the speeding fist literally whistling by his face. He saw the next fist coming and the two that followed, but they flew so fast, one after the other that seeing the future became practically useless. After the fourth swing missed, he saw the fifth coming and knew he was out of position to dodge it and too slow to stop it.

  It came at him hard and fast—the fist seemed to grow to huge proportions, he tried to step back, to lessen the effect it would have, but his foot caught on a pipe running across the floor and he fell over it. Talitha's fist just clipped him on the jaw and he went sprawling head over heels.

  He landed hard on a thick clay pipe, hitting in the center of his back, knocking the wind from him. She advanced to finish him off, but her inability to see slowed her down. She wore a puzzled expression and swung her arms about in front of her, obviously not seeing him in the dim light of the surrounding pipes.

  Taking advantage of her predicament, Will scurried like a rat under the larger pipes thinking to flank her and make a run for the gun, but she heard him and dodged to the side, somehow cornering him. Looking back, he saw a maze of piping that he couldn't climb over or under.

  Now his only chance for the gun was a desperate dash past her. He feinted to the left and then leapt high over the pipes on the ground, it was a quick move for him, but she was so fast. Talitha caught a hold of his coat in mid-air and reeled him in with it.

  Panic seized him.

  It was the combination of her total maliciousness and the fact that his coat had become too constraining. This had never happened to him before, but he had been feeling an undercurrent of claustrophobia since entering the room beneath the church and now when the coat stretched taught around him, the sudden constriction caused him to explode in a bizarre panic.

  He didn't struggle so much against her, than against his coat. Will tore at the zipper, while his shoulders jerked and twisted violently—and then he was free. He stumbled backwards and then ran blindly down the hall still very close to panicking.

  Though he raced as fast as he could, she kept pace, dogging his footsteps, her feet softly landing on the cement of the hallway. It was as if she were out for a jog; she even had a small but very nasty smile on her lips as she loped along with indecent ease.

  With the knowledge that she could outrun him, he dashed into the first room that he came to, slamming the door behind him. With the door shut, the room was black like the stairwell had been and he had to scramble around for the lock blindly.

  His hands wove up and down until he realized with dread: there was no lock. Talitha threw herself against the door and Will dug his feet in, pushing back as hard as he could but it in vain and he slowly slid inwards.

  "Aw man!" she grumbled unexpectedly from just on the other side of the door. "Right when it was play time. Will, it looks like we're going to have to get this over with quicker than I wanted. I just heard someone knocking into things upstairs, probably that big oaf, Jim."

  She gave another hard shove and now the door was open a good foot and a half. He shoved back hard, hoping that help was on the way, but Talitha had only been toying with him before and now she pushed back with greater strength. Again, he slid inward and as he did the room became lit by the dim light of the hallway and the slow lighting revealed a new horror.

  A boy tied to a box.

  It was a different boy, this one had been here much longer, and the blackened flesh, what was left of it, hung from its bones that peeked out from the remains of the child cadaver. It was covered with a constantly shifting black haze of flies that buzzed loudly. That alone was too much for Will and he turned away with a moan coming from the back of his throat.

  It was then that he saw Father Alba.

  Near a long wooden table, the man was stretched out on the floor, his arms flung wide, unmoving. His face was a Halloween mask of horror. Where his eyes should have been there were two gaping holes seemingly large enough for Will to put his fists into. The priest looked to be crying—not with tears, but with blood and gore, which dripped thickly from the wounds.

  The sight of it caused something to snap in Will. His fear of his sister forever vanished in that instant and in its place he felt a cold hatred, the malice of which sent a surge of power through his limbs. He felt that he could've held the door shut against her if he wished, but he no longer looked to hide.

  He rolled away from the door, and came to his feet facing her. Talitha, surprised at Will's action didn't charge into the room; she was cunning and suspected others to be as well. Instead, she stood turning her head at odd angles to catch a glimpse of him.

  "Whatcha doing, Will? Finally grown a pair, have you?"

  "Yeah, I'm done running."

  Her head swiveled in his direction, orienting on the sound of his voice and with a smile she stepped full into the room. "You've been a bad boy, Will. Ruining my fun, letting me get shot, all because…"

  He intruded on her soliloquy which he knew from experience would be long and self-serving, "Cut the crap!"

  "That's not nice," she pouted prettily in a girlish manner, something that might have touched his heart before, perhaps easing his anger, but now Will's heart was an icy stone in his chest.

  "I don't care about being nice. All I care about is hurting you." He meant it.

  "Whoa! Big talk. Have your balls finally dropped? Are you finally going to start acting like a man, after being such a disappointment to dad?"

  "Enough Talk! Come on!" Will yelled angrily as his body geared up for the fight, adrenaline pumping into his system—he felt strong.

  "Just one thing. Do you think you can beat me because I'm blind?"

  That was a largest part of it, but there was no reason to admit it. "All these years, I've been holding back. That's done with."

  She seemed shocked, "Are you planning on killing me?"

  "Yes," his voice spoke the truth and the word came out hard.

  Talitha gave him a giggle. "Where's the love? I'd never kill you. Lisa and your little baby girl, yes, but not you. I'm thinking quadriplegic; you know to keep you from running away. So you can keep doing me that little favor you do, dreaming my dreams."

  "That's not happening." Her words were a goad, burning him up, turning him mean, he liked it.

  "Because I can't see very well? Dear brother…you keep forgetting that I'm smarter than you, much smarter." Her teeth were a dazzling white and like the Cheshire cat, they were the last thing he saw as she shut the door, drowning his world in utter blackness.

  He was now as blind as she was.

  Chapter 17

  To the Death

  The plunge into sudden blackness froze Will in place, but for only an instant—then he knew he was about to be struck, yet it was only a vague warning. In the absolute darkness, his vision was practically useless and her first blow sank deep into his stomach, knocking the wind from him in a great, "Oof!"

  His only advantage was knowing his sister; with Jim on the way she'd attack without mercy or pause and he threw himself backwards feeling the air just in front of his face roil in disturba
nce as a kick or a punch swished through it. He landed on his back, yet didn't remain there for more than half a second—rolling to his left he came up against something hard that stopped his momentum and in a flash changed course rolling back to the right.

  The odd sounds coming from just below Talitha caused her to misjudge her next strike and there was a loud crack next his head. He wasted no time thinking or caring what she'd just hit and instead rolled faster, log like, trying to get clear of her. A second later, his face hit something hard and tacky.

  It was the box the boy was tied to.

  A great disease filled buzz erupted all about him as an untold number of flies took flight. The air seemed filled with them and one struck his lower lip, he had to suppress a sudden need to vomit, he scrambled up and away, only to know he was about to be hit again by Talitha. He didn't know from what direction, he just knew his face was about to feel tremendous pain and he dodged left, hoping to avoid the invisible attack. However, he guessed wrong on the direction and a clumsy, club like punch struck him on the side of the neck.

  It jarred him and sent him spinning away from the box and further into the nothingness of the dark and he realized then, he was completely lost. Will had no idea where the door was, or where Father Alba lay, or even where the boy knelt, but worst of all he had no idea where his sister was.

  The darkness was all-encompassing and to him she was everywhere and nowhere. While he huffed and puffed still working to regain his breath from the first blow, she was absolutely silent. He could feel her though. Talitha was out there orienting on his labored breathing, trying to judge his exact position. Will lunged blindly to his left, arms outstretched in a spastic attempt to snare her like a fish in a net, but he came up empty and he paused, listening.

  To the right he heard her giggled and it turned his hatred to rage, which sent him flying in that direction, but he grabbed only empty black air. He stopped once more and listened, a foolish mistake.