The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  Finally Will declared without emotion, "I dreamed about the end of the world."

  This animated the scene.

  Jim crawled to his clothes and began pulling them on, while Talitha took a step toward the bed, had second thoughts and then went and sat on the floor against the wall. Will sat down heavily on the bed and told them of his dream, leaving off the part about Lisa and the flowers, as well as the frozen vomit and blood mixture he had seen in the tethered man's helmet.

  He tried to recall every important facet, still Talitha wanted more information from him, asking many insightful questions, few of which he could answer. Jim only sat glumly holding a towel to his face and didn't say a word.

  At first Jim's silence and haunted expression grated on Will; the man acted as if he was the one who had been raped. But it sunk in slowly that in fact, he had been raped, just not in the violent way that people generally think of when they hear the word. And what's worse, he'd been turned into rapist at the same time he had been raped himself.

  Will wanted to reach out to him and comfort him in some way, but he couldn't, not with his victim sitting right in front of him.

  For her part, Talitha refused to look anywhere near him, acting as if he wasn't even in the room. "So you didn't see Luke at all?" she asked. This wasn't one of her insightful questions, though it was the only one she had repeated.

  "The answer is still no."

  "Ok, so you try to dream into the future to find out what Luke is going to do and you see Ba'al Zubel instead...they have to be connected. One leading to the next...right?" She was unsure of herself. And Will was definitely unsure of himself and he only shrugged. "So where does that leave us?" she wondered aloud.

  She knew where it led, he could see it in her eyes, only she didn't want to come out and say it. And neither did he. There was now the old familiar pain, the toothache behind his breastbone. His fear made him ache.

  "I'm way too sober," he suddenly got up, heading to his room. To his dismay, he saw the bottle of Wild Turkey lying, keeled over on its side. It was like seeing a dog hit by a car.

  "Oh God!" He raced over and picked it up gently, and mournfully looked at the tiny amount of amber fluid left. He let out a long slow breath and then upended the bottle into his mouth.

  "Crap!" He was angry with himself for having spilled the bottle and he was angry with himself for being such a wuss. Mostly he was afraid. "I should've done this right when I woke up." This he said quietly and to no one in particular.

  Talitha came in then, followed a few seconds later by the now mute Jim, who seemed resigned to be hated.

  "I'm out," he held up his bottle to them, wagging it about but then he looked at it solemnly. It was like a totem to him, one that had lost its magic. Tears sprang to his eyes and he laughed with unconvincing gaiety. "Ha, ha, ha...oh jeez."

  Talitha sat next to him, making his side wet with her clothes. "You don't have to do this...maybe Luke and Ba'al are unrelated."

  "Right," he said sarcastically and then rubbed his face up and down vigorously, ending with hands covering his face. "I'm too afraid. It's like asking someone to jump off a building. I'm looking over the edge and I can't bring myself to do it." His leg started bouncing, jiggling a mad uncontrollable dance.

  "Of course you're afraid, only a fool wouldn't be," Talitha commiserating with him.

  Will gave her a look. "Wait, you've called me a fool like twenty times in the last week. Does that mean I should or shouldn't be afraid?"

  "Exactly," she agreed.

  He laughed out more tears. "Maybe I'm a stupid fool."

  "What can we do to help you?" Her sincerity was so genuine, that it made his heart break a little and he remembered then, how only a short time ago he had wanted to kill her. It took his breath away and he clutched her to him hugging her fiercely all the while crying.

  "Maybe you shouldn't do this," she whispered through tears of her own.

  "No. I'm doing it, I'm doing it!" He punched his fist into his left hand three times, trying to pump himself up and he took a couple of huge breaths. "Don't let me go over thirty seconds! Wake me or shake me, whatever you got to do, but no more than thirty seconds, ok?" He waited until she nodded and then continued, "Here we go, on the count of three...1-2-3!" He took another big breath in and...nothing.

  He couldn't bring himself to do it.

  "Ok this time for real, but I'm not going to count," he laughed, embarrassed and nervous and scared. "I felt like a kid doing it that way." Talitha smiled and nodded, concern infiltrating her eyes.

  Will became quiet and held his hands to his chest so they wouldn't shake so badly. He stared at the floor breathing, trying to relax and finally he closed his eyes, though it was still a few seconds before he allowed himself to look.

  ...She looked through the peephole, but there was a peach colored glow blocking it. However, it was moving and she guessed he was fingering the crest that the peephole sat within.

  "Who is it?" Terry figured it to be Father Luke, he had just called only an hour before. Still she liked to be sure especially at this time of night.

  "Father Luke," he replied pleasantly. He had been so cryptic and urgent on the phone that this pleasant voice caused her to pause for a second before opening the door, but it was a short pause and she undid the heavy bolt.

  "Hi, what's going on?" she asked cheerily as was usual for her, but upon seeing him, she became concerned. "Is everything ok? You look like, you got in a fight." The priest sported a number of small bandages about his face, and there was a very large one across his neck, which she eyed with a feeling of misgiving.

  "This is actually the reason I needed to see you so urgently. Can we talk inside?" She had only opened the door so much; she was a cautious girl.

  "I'd rather not, it's so late."

  He moved in a little closer and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, "These cuts...this has to do with your brother, Frederick. It's not something you would want overheard."

  "Rick?" Terry opened the door and took a quick peek down the hall, hers was a garden level apartment and kids sometimes hung out on the stairs, but no one was around and she let the priest in. "What's going on with Rick?" she asked once the door closed.

  He punched her in the side of the head. It landed so fast that she didn't see it coming.

  She didn't really feel pain, not then at least, she was too shocked and confused and numb. Her legs buckled and the next thing she knew, she was on the ground and he was on top of her, hitting her again and again in the head. How many times she hadn't a clue, but she knew she didn't pass out. However, it was a very near thing.

  After a while, he stopped and peered into her face.

  Her apartment swam in circles around her and she couldn't figure out what just happened. Her brain felt like mush and for a moment, she wondered if she had fallen off a ladder or a chair. She vaguely recalled being punched, but she couldn't connect it with anything, certainly not with the face leering over her. Her eyes started to focus on the face, it was full of concern or so it seemed, but he struck her again on the temple.

  Terry's head spun to the side, her cheek slapping the floor and now she could barely focus on the linoleum just in front of her. Her body felt miles away and far beyond her ability to control, though she did feel rough hands yanking hard at her pajama pants, pulling them down. For a second, there was a cool breeze between her legs and then she felt his fingers in her, wiggling about.

  Even then she didn't struggle or fight back; she was too weak and bewildered. The best she could do was to put her hands down there and push feebly at the fingers exploring inside her.

  "Good...good everything is still where it needs to be." The words floated into her head and she heard, yet did not understand.

  Father Luke, who befriended her over a year ago, who had always treated her with such respect, had a knife in one hand and a picture in the other and helped her understand what was going on. He tapped her lightly on the face a few times until she beg
an to focus again.

  "Can you hear me, Terry?" he asked softly. She was weak and could do little, but nod her head and that was when pain started to drift in on low thumping waves within her skull.

  "Listen carefully," he continued, "if you scream, I'll cut your throat. Do you understand?"

  It took a few seconds for the words to be interpreted and in those few seconds, she felt the pain washing through her head growing and she realized her fear. It had been there from the first punch waiting patiently to express itself and now it took command of her body and she felt it more than she did the pain.

  "Y-Y-Yes. W-What do..."

  "Sshhh, no talking. Just listen," he said, still calm and deadly. "When I show you this picture, you will want to scream, but don't. I want you to remember something. This is your fault. I wanted to meet at Roger's park, but you said it was too late. So now, since you couldn't walk five minutes..." he left off angry and cryptic again. Her terror grew even more intense and her brow knit in fearful expectation of what the picture would show.

  "If you do exactly what I say, nothing will happen to him. Do you believe me?" he asked. She didn't know what he was talking about, and she surely didn't believe him, but felt she had no choice but to nod and he continued softly, "Remember, no screaming." He showed her the picture. It was of a boy. He was bent over a high backed chair, tied to it with kite string, and the string dug deep into the boy's soft flesh. It was her brother Rick.

  Will split at that point.

  He had been Theresa "Terry" Brabec, age 19, catholic, freshmen at Boston College, and still a virgin.

  However now, Will was Fredrick "Rick" Brabec, age 11, catholic, 6th grade at Eastmore Elementary. Deceased.

  Rick woke up to the sound of a glass breaking and a crash of some sort from downstairs.

  It wasn't a clunk that you would hear if a chair had tipped over, but a crash. For a second he froze in bed, slightly nervous, however when no other sound came, he relaxed and discovered that he had to pee quite badly. He knew he'd never get back to sleep, trying to hold back this much pee.

  So he slipped out of his bedroom, heading for the bathroom that he once shared with Terry, but now thankfully, had all to himself. Sharing the bathroom was the one thing he didn't miss about her. She had been so messy, with her ten thousand cases of lipstick and her curling irons and her blow dryers and the rest of her girly junk.

  All Rick had ever needed was a bar of soap and a toothbrush, both of which he kept in pristine condition, using them as seldom as possible after the fashion of most boys.

  What he missed most about her, something he wasn't prepared for when she moved out was her reassuring presence, especially at night. The house seemed much, much quieter with her gone and in the last two months he had become a little afraid of the dark. Not a lot. Just enough to make him nervous.

  Therefore, it became his habit at night, to move a trifle slower, with a little more caution, to casually glance down a hall before moving down it. He made a game of it, playing of all things, secret service and that night, was no different.

  "Termite, this is falcon. The hallway is clear, but we have information, the Ruskies are after the president. Be advised," he said quietly into the imagined microphone attached to his pajama top. With that, he padded down the hallway, keeping to the wall, his gun: the fingers of his right hand, held out in front of him.

  The bathroom was at the top of the stairs, and as always he took a peek down them before going in.

  "Termite this..." He stopped in mid broadcast. His mom was at the bottom of the stairs, kneeling, looking out of a window—the low one that afforded a very good view into Tish Hannigan's back yard. She was an eighth grader and had recently been classified as "Hot."

  Rick Brabec had a paradigm of his mother, how she moved, how she talked, what she did on day to day basis, these things defined her in his world. However, her kneeling, sticking her head out of the window at ten thirty at night didn't fit into that pattern. And thus it was a moment before he realized her position was odd and that the window wasn't in fact open, but broken.

  "Mom? What are you..." A shadow moved across her body and Rick jumped back.

  "Hello Fredrick, I'm Father Luke." The man, a priest by his attire and introduction, had appeared from their dining room and casually stepped over his kneeling mother and started up the stairs toward him. The priest's face was bandaged in places and his blue eyes were hard as steel.

  Rick became instantly afraid, however he had been taught from a very early age that priests were to be respected. With that in mind, he didn't flee as every nerve in his body demanded, but instead forced a small smile onto his mouth.

  "What's my mom doing?" he asked attempting to peek around the priest.

  "Praying of course. Tell me, do you have a camera?" Father Luke had a nice voice.

  "Yeah, it's in my room, right...phoooo." Father Luke hit him hard in the stomach and all the air went out of him. Even as his eyes bugged and he doubled over, the priest scooped him up and set him on his shoulder.

  He was carried down the hall and thrown on to his bed.

  "Where the hell is it?" the priest demanded. However, Rick wasn't in any position to answer. His face was a terrible red and his chest was hitching in a jerking motion as he desperately tried to suck in air.

  "Fuck. Why does this happen to me?" He heard the priest say angrily.

  Rick, lying on his bed, had balled up in pain from the punch, but now the man yanked his legs down roughly and then laying over him, pulled his arms up, stretching him out.

  Terror overwhelmed Rick, the instinctual terror of suffocation and he would've screamed if he could, but his lungs were closed to him. He struggled to breathe, trying to force his lungs to pull in air, but he only managing a tiny repetitive hih, hih, hih, sound high in his chest. The man produced a knife; it appeared out of nowhere and like a magic trick it had the amazing effect of relaxing the muscles in Rick's diaphragm.

  He forgot for the moment that he couldn't breathe; his whole focus became the knife.

  It was a familiar knife, one that he'd handled many times. It was one of their three remaining steak knives, part of a set that his family had from before his earliest memory.

  It was a dull knife. It had lost its edge years before and when Rick ever had to use it, it would be with a saw like motion, even on tender meat that still bled warm juices. However, it still had a fine point. It was a dull silver-grey and just then, it took up most of the vision in his left eye.

  The priest had it extremely close, and Rick pushed his head back into his mattress as far as it would go, but the knife still seemed horribly near.

  "This may sound odd, but I hate lying," the man said, and Rick could make out his face, beyond the point of the knife. The face didn't look angry as he had expected, but seemed blank, emotionless.

  "I didn't lie, it wasn't me, it wasn't me," Rick began blubbering, crying without moving. He held perfectly still as the tears ran down his face and his chin quivered uncontrollably.

  "Sshhh," the man hushed him, but it wasn't his voice that shut Rick up, the knife came closer and when he blinked, Rick felt the blade with his eyelashes. He had a new panic flash through him then. His neck was straining, pushing his head into the mattress, but it was weakening, and he feared that he wouldn't be able to hold it back much longer and that when he couldn't, he would drive his own eye onto the dull silver-grey point.

  "You said you had a camera," the man interrupted his dreadful thoughts. "Do you have film?"

  Rick almost nodded, almost sending the point of the knife into his own eye, instead he whimpered high, but weak, "Y-Yes, it's in my desk...in one of the drawers."

  "Good. Now, I meant what I said about lying. If there's no camera, this is going in your eye and if you scream..." he left off and Rick had no intention of screaming.

  The man went to the desk. "Excellent." He seemed happy as he pulled the camera from the jumble of the second drawer. Rick felt a few seconds of relief
and laid there on his bed trembling, and hopeful that this was all over.

  "Say cheese," the priest pointed the camera at him, but saying cheese was beyond Rick and his only reaction was for his eyes to widen as his relief left him. The priest no longer resembled anything like a priest. His clothes were the same, but it was the eyes. They were the eyes of a dangerous creature. At eleven years old, Rick only partially understood the concept of insanity, but he was still new enough in this world not to have unlearned the concept of evil.

  And those eyes were evil.

  The flash of the camera blinded him for a moment and when he could see again, the man was right above him staring down, looking at him in a way that made Rick begin to pant in fear.

  The man looked for a long time.

  But then he smiled, shook the Polaroid a few times, and glanced at it. "No, this is all wrong." The man knelt down and showed the picture to Rick. "Can you work with me here? You barely look afraid."

  "I am afraid. Please don't..."

  "Shut up!" Luke yelled savagely and Rick cringed back, fresh tears adding to the ones wetting his pillow. The flash went off and he let out a half scream and suddenly the knife was back. He closed his eyes hard, but his left one was rudely peeled open and he was forced to stare up the serrated edge of the knife, the line of dull metal teeth echoing in sameness along its length.

  "I told you not to scream! What's with you and your family? First your dumb ass sister won't leave her apartment and then your idiot mom wouldn't..." He gave a little laugh. "You know, your mom wouldn't give me the camera. I thought she was being so stupid, trying to protect it, as if it was sooo valuable. But she was trying to protect you. Good for her."

  The knife withdrew, as did the fingers holding his eye open and Rick closed them, hard. He didn't move, except to ball up again and he felt a sudden urge to suck his thumb. His hands were tucked just under his chin and he gave into the urge.

  The man moved about the room opening and closing the drawers of his dresser and desk, searching his things, and all the while Rick laid, rolled into a ball, unmoving, save for the shaking of his arms and legs. He kept his eyes shut tight, afraid to open them, afraid of what he would see when he did.