“What do you think they did in here?” asked Colleen.
“Obviously the Satan worshippers sacrificed their victims here,” said Chris matter-of-factly.
“Seriously?” asked Colleen warily, stepping closer to Nicky.
“Chris, stop trying to scare the girls,” laughed Nicky, putting his arm around Colleen’s shoulders.
“Well, what do YOU think happened here?” retorted Chris, clearly trying to get a rise out of his friends.
“I don’t care. Let’s go.” Nicky led them out of the room.
They discovered the entrance to the bell tower on the third floor, but decided against trying to climb the rickety ladder. Alex peered up into the dark space and thought he saw movement. He dismissed it as a trick of the light, or lack thereof, playing with his eyes.
“Well, there’s no Mad Monk. Nothing going on here. Let’s go back to the pool hall,” Nicky stated bluntly.
“Yeah this is bor-ing. I can’t believe we wasted so much time here.” Colleen looked at everyone expectantly.
As they walked back to the main staircase on the second floor, Alex, who was trailing behind let out a yelp as the floor gave way beneath him.
“Holy shit! Alex? Hey Alex, are you okay, man?” Chris yelled into the hole. They could see Alex in the faint moonlight but he was unresponsive.
“Ah, crap. We have to go help him,” said Lisa, apprehensive.
“Alright, let’s stay close together and get down to where he is. And step carefully,” said Nicky, taking charge.
Ten minutes later, the friends had found the room Alex fell into, but he was gone.
“Where the hell is he? Did we get the room right?” demanded Colleen, the anxiety evident in her voice.
Chris pointed up. “There’s the hole in the floor. Maybe he got up and went outside.”
Back in the darkened hallway, they began calling Alex’s name.
“Where the hell is he?” Lisa passed the flashlight around, her voice trembled.
“He’s probably hiding somewhere laughing his ass off at us. C’mon Alex, joke’s over. You can come out now,” shouted Nicky.
They heard laughter, a deep guttural laughter that didn’t sound like their friend at all.
“D-did you hear that?” stuttered Colleen.
“What the hell was that?” Lisa’s hand quivered as she attempted to put a fresh cigarette between her lips.
“What are we supposed to do? He’s our friggin’ ride,” Chris lamented.
“We can split up and look for him,” volunteered Nicky.
“Do you think that’s a good idea? It never goes well in horror movies when everyone splits up,” whimpered Colleen.
Chris rolled his eyes. “Seriously? This isn’t a stupid horror movie. Nothing is gonna happen.”
“Chris, stop being an asshole. We’ll stay together and look for Alex. He can’t have gone far after that fall,” said Nicky, trying to be reassuring.
They searched the first floor hoping to find Alex sitting somewhere waiting for them. The grating laughter came again and the group froze.
“Alex? Alex is that you? C’mon, man, this isn’t funny anymore,” anger now rising in Nicky’s voice.
Nothing.
They headed to the turn in the corridor when they heard someone moving further down the hallway.
“Do you think that was him?” urged Colleen.
“Has to be, there’s no one else here,” replied Lisa.
Aiming their flashlights, they made their way toward the sounds of movement and found themselves in a small chapel. The stained-glass windows were gone and the pews that remained were disintegrating under the weight of years and exposure to the elements. Looking up, they could see the bell tower shrouded in shadow.
“Shit! Something’s got me!” Nicky screamed from the doorway of the chapel... and then he was gone.
“Nicky!” shrieked the girls. Colleen’s hands tore through her red hair like two white spiders attempting to find purchase, muttering Nicky’s name over and over. She turned to Lisa who had wrapped her arms around herself to stop the shaking.
“Okay, this isn’t funny anymore. Alex, cut the crap!” bellowed Chris, fear and anger fighting for dominance.
A guttural scream reverberated through the building.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod,” moaned Colleen, tears weaving their way down her freckled cheeks.
“We have to get the hell out of here … go find some help!” Lisa entreated, her husky voice oozing with dread.
“Okay, calm down. We’ll go out to the street and see if we can find someone to at least call the cops,” reasoned Chris, unable to hide his terror.
Soft movement somewhere in the hallway caused them to start, waves of fear coursing through their bodies. They clung to each other, shining their flashlights into the murkiness, but could see nothing. Not even the moonlight could penetrate the veil of gloom that existed just outside the chapel where they now huddled together for comfort.
Both fear and the creeping penumbra confused the three teens so that they couldn’t find their way back to the window through which they entered the building. Chris opened a door, hoping to find the unblocked window, but instead found a stone staircase leading down into the bowels of the monastery.
“Oh, shit,” Chris mumbled, barely audible to the girls.
“What?” begged Colleen, clinging to Lisa.
Then they heard it.
“Help meeeee …”
“Nicky? Alex?” Chris’ voice echoed back up the stairway.
“Help … meeee …”
“What do we do?” Lisa repeatedly flipped her Zippo lighter open and closed, not wanting to go anywhere near the basement.
“We have to help them,” declared Chris.
“No, no, no, we have to get out of here and get some help,” said Colleen, wringing her hands as she backed away from the top of the staircase.
“We can’t just leave them down there,” Chris said flatly. “We’ll go down together, take a quick look. If we can’t find them then we’ll find our way out, okay?”
“B-but what if the Mad Monk is down there?” stammered Colleen.
Chris grabbed Colleen by the shoulders and gave her a hard shake. “ You don’t seriously believe that story, do you? Someone is messing with us, but it ain’t no stupid ghost.”
“Help … meeee …”
“C’mon, they need us.” Chris aimed the flashlight and started down the stairs. The frightened girls followed, gripping each other for dear life, Lisa igniting the Zippo for additional illumination.
The staircase led down to an area with damp stone walls. The air here was oppressive with a heavy moldy stench that made the teens gag. The flashlight Chris held out in front of him could barely penetrate the thick, inky blackness. He turned to the girls.
“Hang on to each other.” As they made their way along what seemed like a long corridor they could see scant patches of blue moonlight poking through holes in the floor above. They began calling out for Nicky and Alex, but got no answer.
Carefully picking their way down the long, dank hallway, they passed a few open doorways, but a quick pan of the flashlight showed these rooms to be empty. Eventually they reached a door that didn’t look like the others. It was metal, hanging askew, its top hinge having long since given way. A quiet moaning issued from the other side of the metal. Chris turned to the girls.
“Stay here. I’ll see if it’s Nicky or Alex.”
“No,” said Colleen. “We have to stay together.” She dug her fingers into the lapels of his jacket.
“I’ll just open the door and take a quick look.” Chris took Colleen’s hands and she reluctantly let go of him. He had to push hard on the door to get it move, but eventually it opened, enough for Chris to peek around the edge.
“Nicky? Alex? Are you in he—?”
The girls watched in mute horror as Chris was violently yanked through the doorway. There were sounds of a struggle and then a thud as Chris’ fla
shlight fell to the ground, its weak beam pointing to where the girls stood frozen in place. A high-pitched wail began to slowly issue forth from Lisa, but Colleen quickly covered Lisa’s mouth, hugging the other girl
“Shhh, you can’t make a sound. The Mad Monk will hear us,” Colleen breathed into Lisa’s ear, taking the lighter before Lisa could drop it.
When she saw Lisa had regained some measure of control, Colleen released her and retrieved the dropped flashlight. They would need it to get out.
A wet tearing sound came from behind the door.
Lisa grabbed Colleen’s arm. “We can’t leave the boys.”
Colleen could see the terror on Lisa’s face. She could feel her own scream building within. They had to get out of the monastery, but they couldn’t leave their friends behind. Lisa was already moving toward the door. Defeated and scared, Colleen took a deep breath and followed her into the room.
The room wasn’t very large and some small amount of moonlight emanated through a broken window set high in the wall. It contained a simple cot on one wall, and a rickety wooden table along another. The table held a large basin and a few candles. The boys’ bodies were tossed haphazardly into a corner. Colleen felt herself drop to her knees, vaguely aware of a high-pitched howl that originated from somewhere deep inside her. She could see Lisa next to her, hands over her ears, shaking her head. Her mouth formed an O yet she made no sound.
*************
The boys had been mutilated, hearts ripped from their chests. The room was filled with the coppery tang of blood and the fetid stink of death. Standing near the table was a bedraggled man dressed in rags and soaked in the life fluid of three healthy young men.
He looked at the girls and spoke in an unnaturally deep voice, “We’ve been waiting for you. The ritual must be completed.”
The man grabbed Lisa by the arm, yanking her to him. He slashed her throat from ear to ear and her lifeless body slumped to the floor adding to the carnage of the abattoir around them.
Colleen got up to run, but the door slammed closed in her face. She peered at the wall and saw it was covered in claw marks. This was the cell the mad monk had been locked away in. So the story was true. As though reading her thoughts, the man spoke.
“The monk has been dead for decades... but the demon working through him remained here, waiting. I stumbled in, looking for a place to sleep. The demon told me he could make my life better if I helped him get what he wanted. I needed to collect hearts for the ritual. Tonight we have enough hearts to allow the Dark One to enter this world.”
The man laughed as Colleen tried desperately to claw her way out, fingernails tearing off leaving behind ragged nails and bits of skin. He dragged her by her hair over to the table, which turned out to be a makeshift altar. Her eyes went wide seeing the hearts in the basin, her mind completely shutting down as she fully grasped the situation. She was going to die like her friends and they would be used to bring evil into the world. The man plunged the knife deep into her chest repeatedly, his maniacal laughter the last thing Colleen would ever hear as she drifted into the tenebrous embrace of death.
~~END~~
Remembering Peter
by Christopher Mancuso
Here I stand staring into the flame of a matchstick ready to burn away my sins. I can be somebody else. Somebody better than whom I’ve become. A new life baptized by fire. I’ll leave the past twenty-two years a smoldering heap of ash and start my life over. Somewhere without these haunting memories.
Sometimes my childhood seems so distant, fragmented nightmares of long buried secrets resurface in sleep causing me to wake to an irrational fear of the dark with a scream trapped in throat. Other times I feel like it was only yesterday that I was seven years old. I could practically still feel the soft, warm kisses from my mother on my forehead as she tucked me into bed after a good story. I could hear the strums of an acoustic guitar echo from the garage as the man I came to know as a father clumsily fumbled through chords on his Fender. If I close my eyes and really concentrate it’s like I’m immersed back in 1989. A better time. The only time in my life where I could recall true happiness. A time when I was innocent, when life was full of wonderment and the future was filled with endless possibilities. One year of joy was all I had, or rather it was all I allowed myself to have. It was the year before Peter was born. I was much too full of anger, envy and hatred to have enjoyed life after that.
I was such a fool.
Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, it seems as if much of my life was simply a continual string of regrets. Unfortunately, our life choices are not made with a pencil. There are no “do-overs;” there is no rewind button. What other alternative do we have but to live with our blunders, accept them, and hopefully learn valuable lessons? If that. And what about redemption? Is it possible to right a wrong? Or is there only the inevitable price to pay?
Where to begin with this story? Actually, in a sense, it’s more a confession at this point really. I need to keep reminding myself that this is not an autobiography; I have done nothing noteworthy with my life. This is merely a profession of my sins. Secrets so dark and so deep that I dared not tell a soul. Even now I am being selfish, relaying this for my own peace of mind, a pathetic attempt to alleviate some guilt. But maybe you can take a lesson away from all this. Perhaps it’s not too late for you.
My name is Daniel. In 1982, I was born to a fourteen-year-old girl named Danielle O’Donnell. As for my father, his identity was never confirmed. Although there were several possible candidates from a high school football team, none of which wanted to claim responsibility for my conception. From my understanding, my mother came from a strict Irish family and was forced by her parents to give me up for adoption. Mommy’s little mistake. I never met the girl who gave birth to me; by the time I was old enough to seek her out, she had been dead for three years from a drug overdose.
Anyway, my biological mother is not part of this story, but if she had raised me as her own, things would have surely been different.
Like many abandoned children, I spent the first five years of my childhood bouncing around in foster homes throughout the five boroughs of New York City. A few months here and few months there. Never long enough to plant any roots, or develop a real relationship on a human level. I was little more than a check to cash for these “families.” There was no love in these homes and very little joy. I will spare you what few memories I have of those experiences, because for the most part they are not pleasant ones.
After my fifth birthday, I was lucky enough to wind up in the home of Patrick and Eunice White, a Staten Island couple in their mid-thirties who had been informed by a conclave of the best fertility doctors in the state that they were unable to conceive children of their own. They were the exception. If ever there was a case of love at first, this was it. Eunice and I had immediately fallen in love with one another. Looking into her eyes for the very the first time, we made a connection. It wasn’t like meeting a stranger; it was like finding family. The feeling of our first embrace is ineffable, but I do know that I never wanted our hug to end. For the first time in my life, I had felt wanted. I had felt safe. I felt at home. When we finally did break our embrace, we were both in tears.
After six months, they decided to adopt me and soon we officially became a family. Mom and I were practically, inseparable. I was the son she was always wanted; she was the mother I never had. This woman was so sweet, so tender, so caring that I believed she must have been and angel sent by God to watch over me. I gave her my heart and in turn, she gave me hers. No one would ever love me or understand me the way she did.
That first year was probably the greatest of my whole life. I don’t mean that it was great to have my own room, new toys, new clothes and all the attention I could stand... don’t get me wrong, that was a definite plus. But it was just being loved and having parents— that was enough for me. They took me everywhere with they went and proudly said, “This is our son, Danny.” You don't
know how good that made me feel.
Shortly after I turned seven, only about a year after the White’s had adopted me, my new mom unexpectedly got pregnant. I still remember the day I heard the news that I was going to have a baby brother or sister; it shocked me. It frightened me to my very core. I went up to my room and I cried for hours. As terribly selfish as this sounds, I prayed everyday that my new mom would have a miscarriage: a bloody trauma so bad that would never even want to try to conceive again. If they had a child of their own they wouldn’t need me anymore, they wouldn’t want me anymore. I would become as useless and undesirable as chewed bubblegum.
My prayers went unanswered and nine months later Peter was born, a seven-pound, nine-ounce turd. I hated him from the second I laid eyes on him.
“Looks just like his Daddy,” people would say. And what could they say about me? I didn’t even know who my real father was, much less what he looked like. Yeah, every time the grandparents came over I got a buck and a pat on the head, then they’d rush to see the baby. They’d hover over him, staring down with adoration, cooing into his crib like he was the fucking messiah.
I didn’t realize that as new parents, Patrick and Eunice were just learning how to deal with the responsibility of caring for an infant. Being rookies at the parenting game, suddenly raising two children of drastically different ages, Patrick and Eunice were overwhelmed. Despite their assurances that they wouldn’t love me any less once the new baby arrived, I got significantly less of their attention. My losing teeth didn’t seem to get as much attention as Peter getting his first teeth. And my winning the school Spelling B was just a shadow compared to little Peter saying “Mamma,” “Papa,” and “Caka.” Patrick and Eunice clapped when I learned to ride a bike, but they went ape shit when the little puke took his first tottering steps. From the moment of his birth, I saw myself as doomed to be second best.
DarkTalesfromElderRegionsNY Page 15
