“No!” he heard someone shout. Quickly gathering his wits, Scott realized that he’d been pushed to the ground by his date, Julie. Scott was not a large guy by any means, but feeling the force of the much smaller Julie Wright push him to the ground momentarily bruised his adolescent ego. He enjoyed Julie’s company. This was, in fact, his third date with her. Perhaps it was her sense of adventure; perhaps it was her strength, which, like his, was tempered by her own brand of disability. Scott had spent quite a bit of time staring into Julie’s crystal blue eyes over the past couple of dates. He studied them. He marveled at them – and he imagined he wasn’t alone in this one – he wondered at them. When she blinked, her eyes were moistened like any normal person’s eyes. Yet she could not cry. Doctors had searched for years to try and discover the cause of her infirmity. Test after test on her brain, her endocrine system and her tear ducts themselves revealed nothing. She did not blink any more or any less than any other person. When she got sad, she made wailing sounds. She sobbed openly. Her face would even contort and cover itself in a deep crimson veil. She cried in every sense of the word, except for the advent of actual falling tears. In the event her eyes dried out, Julie carried eye drops in her purse. Many times, it was the only thing separating her from temporary blindness and shooting pains in her eyes. Scott definitely liked Julie and he’d long wanted to kiss her or hug her or do something to ease the juvenile sexual tension that he felt. He was hardly satisfied when he found himself her unwilling tackling dummy. Lifting his head, he wiggled around, nudging loose from Julie’s restraining grasp.
“What are you doing!?”
“Look!” she answered, pointing in the direction of Paul and Rachel. To his horror, shock and awe, they had become encased in a sulfur-yellow glow, which, though brighter than most common light bulbs he’d ever seen, seemed to radiate very little light into the outlying area. Whatever it was, Scott thought, defied all the natural laws of science. Inside the light field, Paul and Rachel seemed to be gyrating, contorting in obviously uncomfortable fashion. With every gyration, the radiant encasement seemed to pulse as if desperately trying to fill the cemetery with its unknown intentions. Beside them, just outside of their spherical prison, the Ouija board, still half in its box, began to vibrate and shake as if preparing to get up and walk away. A couple of feet in front of them, the dusty marble sides of the cemetery’s lone tomb seemed to crack. The scents of nearby pine trees faded into the smell of rotting flesh, animal excrement and burning grass, causing Julie to spill forward retching. Scott watched as Julie pitched backwards and forwards, violently purging herself of the Mexican food they’d enjoyed earlier that evening. Scott shouted in the direction of his cousin and her date. Though there seemed to be little noise made by all the goings on around him, Scott’s voice somehow seemed swallowed up by the same night which allowed no light to radiate further than the bonds of Paul and Rachel’s luminous prison.
Turning his attention completely away from Julie, he heard her violent retching continue behind him. As the grotesque scents in which he felt drowned swam from thin air into his nostrils, Scott’s stomach turned and he felt, for the first time, in danger of losing his own enchilada dinner. Blinking back nauseated tears, Scott struggled to maintain a vertical base, only to find the ground turning to marshmallow beneath him. Scott began to look around him, searching for a focal point to steady his vision. As his eyes clouded over with evermore tears, the ground below him seemed to become less and less stable. His legs felt wobbly, like they were made entirely of Jell-O. His feet, usually numbed by severe nerve damage, began to prickle, as if a thousand invisible needles had suddenly found their way into his white and black Nike sneakers. Scott’s mind filled with paranoid visions of innumerable biting ants scurrying angrily across his toes and ankles. Payback, perhaps, for unknowingly disturbing their home while they slept. Unable to stand any longer, Scott collapsed to the ground in a heap of crippled flesh. Through his nausea, he found what he thought was Julie a short distance to his left. She appeared to be just out of arm’s length but, as he reached toward her, he found her to be much closer, mere inches away. He wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve, and with a few blinks, his vision began to clear. He could see Julie still retching, though a quick search of the ground revealed no vomitous contents.
“Are you okay?” he asked, hoping for any response. Her continued spasmodic ritual answered his question far more loudly than could have any shouted reply. As Scott reached out to grab her, Julie suddenly – instantaneously – ceased all movement. She did not retch, she did not gyrate. She was not breathing. She did not pulse and, Scott realized, she did not blink. As if focused on an apparition only she could see, Julie’s eyes glazed over, but remained alive and – there was no other word for it – aware.
Scott shook Julie – gently at first then with more force – trying to rouse her from whatever trance she had suddenly entered. He shouted her name repeatedly but received no reaction. As Scott began to relinquish his grip, Julie’s head slowly turned in Scott’s direction. Her eyes had grown dark, almost black, though horribly bloodshot, and her face seemed as if it had lost all color, except a slight grayish tinge. As Julie’s eyes met his, Scott was stricken with an uncontrollable urge to get to his feet. Just as he was about to try and stand, Julie – or whatever it was that was in control of her – seized him by the arm in a supernaturally tight grip. Teeth grinding, her jaw inched side to side in the way a horse chews a mouthful of hay. But this was no benign horse satisfying the urge of a growling equine belly. This was something preternatural in origin. All around him, the wind picked up. The previously calm night was transforming into a calamitous turn of threatening chaos. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the Ouija board sitting unfolded on the ground. The pointer was moving rapidly, though without human assistance. Unable to squirm free from Julie’s eerily powerful grip, Scott began to flail his legs wildly, in the hopes of stirring something in Julie that would bring her back from wherever it was she’d been stolen. Her mouth opened slowly, widening against the restrictions imposed by human cranial bone structure. Gripping her fingers in his left hand, Scott felt as if he were bending an industrial strength rubber band – flexible but with little give to it. Her wrist and fingers seemed to contort to uncomfortably inhuman shapes. Still, her grip remained like that of a vice. As soon as he let go of her fingers, they snapped hard back into place, holding fast to his arm. Her mouth continued to open, to the sound of snapping jaws and tendons stressed to the point of near breaking. Death! Must! Come! He heard the echo, knew it was emanating from within Julie’s small frame though it sounded bigger, farther away. It sounded as if it was coming from all around him, as if simultaneously far away and near to him. The voice was deeper than the pit from which radiates the fires of Hades. It was loud, booming, and yet it did not cause him discomfort. The wind picked up, causing the night sky to let loose with the cry of a thousand tortured souls, yearning for freedom which they would never be granted. Scott’s own tortured soul cried from within. An endless supply of needles poked his throat and chest from the inside. He felt himself blacking out. His vision swam with incoherent images of which his brain could make no sense. Murder! Death! His own, but not his. For a moment, his vision cleared as he snapped a look at Julie. Her mouth was contorting wildly now, her face was pained, but the voice that radiated from within her seemed to be feeding on a malignant joy only Death itself can serve. Her chest heaved violently, her ribs giving way to whatever illimitable fiend had possessed her. Behind him, almost too quietly, the glowing prison surrounding Paul and Rachel seemed to be relenting to the power of Julie’s violent affliction. As the intensity of the light that enveloped them diminished, the prison itself seemed to grow larger, encompassing more of the graveyard, reaching out toward the granite tomb that began crumbling as if crushed underfoot of an unseen giant. Julie’s body began to shake more violently. Scott felt something inside his chest that he could only describe as a tugging. It was as if someone was reachi
ng inside and pulling his heart back and forth, like it was a racquetball, being shot from one wall to another. The air filled with ripping sounds, which, Scott realized, were the sound of Julie’s clothes crying out against the violence imposed against them. He could see her sleeves shredding themselves and saw one button snap off, under the stress imposed by her violently contorting chest. Her leg muscles seemed to be pulsing, as if her entire body was transforming itself into innumerable ethereal beings simultaneously. Suddenly, he felt himself thrown to the ground face first. He felt something of a slashing on his back, as though someone were making hesitation cuts in preparation of a suicide… Or a murder. White hot, acidic pain burned in his shoulder. He fought to raise his head, but the unseen force held fast, smothering his face in the dew-covered grass. The harder he fought, the weaker he felt. Blacking out.
He cursed, managed to mumble some incoherent protest, getting a mouth full of dirt for his trouble. His cry was scarcely audible over the screams of agony filling his mind. His mind? No. His soul. He heard voices. But these were not voices in the sense of two people talking to one another. His ears could hear nothing, save intense rumblings and the screams, heaves and gyrations of his friends nearby. His soul, however, felt as if it was tuned in to a frequency all its own, picking up voices from the past, voices of the present and voices, he could swear, of the future. Pained voices. Voices of spirits long dead and the voices of unsuspecting victims yet to meet their fate. He felt Evil, as if Evil were a person standing before him, laughing at centuries of misery imposed on the world by the irrevocable power of Death. A blinding flash of light filled the sky. White light, brighter than a thousand suns enveloped the entire area. Just as quickly as the lights had appeared, they were gone. Everything went black. Unsure of his companions, scared, nervous, and weak, Scott lay dying.
He smiled.
Chapter 1 ~
Alex Mendez stood perfectly still, almost breathless, poised to receive the attack of any adversary that might leap out of the darkness draped over the inner den of the rusted out warehouse. The place gave little light, forcing Alex to venture forth on the strengths of his other senses. Alex’s nostrils filled with a horrid mixed soup of kitty litter, rust, saw dust and various forms of dirt, pesticides and decaying concrete. Broken windows allowed a gentle breeze to stir the soup to a nauseating rancid boil.
When he had first chased the grungy would-be criminal into this warehouse, Alex was a picture of procedural management. He had his partner call for back up, just in case the guy had an accomplice. He’d scoped out the area before moving in. He moved quickly, but carefully, measuring every step as a jaguar might measure each step toward its prey. He had hoped the rookie detective would be nervous enough to stay with the car – at the very least, stay out of the way– so there’d be one less person Alex had to worry about, but no such luck would be afforded him. Now, with both of them after the unknown assailant, Alex’s insides were on edge worse than they had been in a very long time. Alex wasn’t sure if his nausea stemmed more from the scents of death and dirt filling the air or from the shear apprehension of having fresh academy fodder as his first line of defense.
He couldn’t recall the last time he’d had a situation with real eminent danger looming all around, but this one definitely fit the mold. Amazing what six short months behind a desk does to a cop’s senses. It wasn’t some insignificant Johnny Grunge thug invading his otherwise safe town that had him riding on pins and needles this night. Alex had a pretty good feeling the guy wasn’t armed, save maybe whatever makeshift bat he had found while holed up in his hiding place. Though he found no comfort in the greenhorn watching his back, Alex knew his trepidation went to something with far deeper, more personal meaning. While the place didn’t smell minty fresh, Alex knew there was a greater cause for his twinge of nerves. It was Lisa. His heart of hearts. When she had arrived on the scene as part of the backup, Alex wanted to cut his heart out, just so he wouldn’t risk being so terribly distracted. He thought for sure some street units would respond. Lisa was closer. Heck, she’d been with him at dinner. It was only by his “order” that she hadn’t followed him into the night when the unidentified woman’s scream had pierced the quiet ambiance of their first romantic dinner in years.
This was the first time since they had gotten married that Alex had been afforded the opportunity to once again be partners with Lisa Mendez, his wife and the mother of his child. Because of the department’s beliefs that a husband and wife team could not separate emotional attachments in high-stress situations, what few married couples there were on the force were not allowed to be partners. Even a person with rank and seniority such as Alex wasn’t able to skirt by and avoid the rules. For the first time since they were separated, Alex had an all too real understanding as to why that rule was in place. Facing the possibility of losing his very reason for living was a difficult pill for Alex to swallow. Facing the possibility of being a single father or, worse, leaving her to raise a daughter alone sent Alex’s heart racing. In that moment, he’d much rather have been facing down an army of terrorists with only his rookie partner than have Lisa anywhere near danger. When they were separated, each doing his or her own job, it was easy to forget she faced many of the same things he’d faced for so long. It was easy to get lost in the job. Training rookie after rookie seemed a fulltime job to Alex anymore. Until now, most of his role as a trainer had consisted of teaching them how to properly fill out paperwork, process a suspect, and of course the all-important task of taking out the trash for your superior officer. Suddenly, the babysitter he’d felt like had a new attitude.
He tried to put himself into the shoes of the young recruit posted at the entrance to the warehouse. Unsure, untested, truthfully untrained – after all, there’s only so much you can learn shooting paper targets at the academy. Overly anxious to prove oneself. The Achilles heel of virtually every rookie. A burning desire to be the best. The concepts of protect and serve still remained foreign to most, if not all rookies with which Alex had recently acquainted himself. Almost with each breathe, each batting of his eyelids, Alex shifted from the role of police officer, pursuing his capture, to the role of husband and father, desperate to ensure the safety and survival of his family. Now, as Alex made his way up the stairs to the catwalk above, he caught hold of the first true sounds his conscious mind had registered since entering the warehouse. His own footsteps, but something else. Not his own. Whose? Behind him, too quick, he heard a gush of wind and knew instinctively that he was going to be hit. Reacting too slowly, he turned just in time to see Johnny Grunge swinging what appeared to be a metal pipe of some sort. Dim moonlight glinted off the silver-gray metal object as it came closer. It struck Alex flush in the shoulder and the force toppled him over the edge of the railing. Tumbling out of control, Alex’s mind barely registered the horrifyingly yellow eyes that filled with glee as Alex’s body sailed over the scaffold. Alex tried in vain to seize of the railing but his fingers could not grasp hold. Alex felt as though he was dreaming, sure that he would wake up before hitting bottom. His own voice echoed screams through his head as he crashed into the all-too-real cement floor below. The horrifically loud breaking of several bones only momentarily drowned out his screams, coughs and futile gasping for air as his helpless body fell heaped on the ground.
His back and legs bent and contorted in unthinkable fashion. In an instant, everything hurt. In the next he could feel nothing. Breathing became painful, labored, next to impossible. He tried to call out for help but he could not find his voice under the weight of impossibly-broken bones stabbing at his crushed lungs. He blinked tears away and tried to turn himself over, but his arms wouldn’t follow his commands. Alex’s throbbing shoulder gave him an almost strange sense of comfort the blanket of numbness under which he found himself had denied him. He could feel his arms, even if he could not move them. His legs were useless. His vision blurred, he thought he saw someone moving toward him, but who? He could not hear a sound, except the scre
ams from his own throat, which still echoed deep inside the recesses of his tortured mind. His head filled with images registering too late for any action other than helpless afterthought.
Those eyes!
Alex’s mind tried to grasp hold of any thought other than the demonic eyes from which there was suddenly no escape. Alex saw the metal pipe more clearly. He saw the moonlight glint off the swinging metal rod, seemingly just as it impacted him. His mind registered thoughts of cartoon comic book villains being beaten back as much with exaggerated interjections as with the force of any foreign object. Wherever Batman’s evil twin was now, Alex did not know. He could not see or hear anyone nearby. As his mind grew ever more cloudy, pallid, glowing eyes stared deep into Alex’s soul as if attempting to rip it from within. A faint trickle of blood made its way down Alex’s forehead, mixing with beads of sweat, dripping helplessly onto the cold concrete beneath him. He lay lifeless, perfectly still. Nothing worked.
Alex was helpless. Dying.
Lisa!
Chapter 2 ~
He sat at his antique oak table, sifting through the countless papers he’d collected in the past four years. The study was not huge, but it served his purpose. Bookshelves adorned the walls on either side of him, but unlike the opulent skyscraping bookshelves depicted in cinematic pictures, his shelves went no higher than arm’s reach. Above each bookshelf were paintings of various animals, mostly game birds such as quail and pheasant. There was very little color aside from the birds depicted in the paintings. Artwork was virtually non-existent. Simplicity was the key. Besides, he hardly had time to decorate with all the work that needed to be done. There were at least three newspapers he knew of that had printed the obituary and he’d managed to find and clip each of them for his own keeping. For some, this would have been an act of remembrance – perhaps an act of reverence or homage. For David Collins, however, this was as simple as keeping accurate and complete records – something he’d learned from the man immortalized in the three small paragraphs before him. Dave Collins was a man with common sense. He believed that everything happened for a reason. Sure, sometimes things happen that leave more questions than answers, but there was an answer to every question. It was up to the individual to decide for how long he would seek the elusive answer.
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