Genesis of Evil

by Nile J. Limbaugh

  The team split up and moved off as Maurice directed. Gerhart set out at a fast walk, keeping one eye on the meter in his hand. At first the needle didn’t move, but as he went farther along the corridor away from the entry, it began to swing toward the lower end of its range. By the time he reached the anchor store at the north end of the mall the reading was barely in the low teens. Gerhart turned and walked briskly back to way he had come, still watching the needle. It started slowly toward the high end of the scale.

  It was difficult for Gerhart to believe everything that Maurice and the crew had told him. Gerhart raised his eyes from the meter for a moment and looked around. Hell, this place was nothing but a lot of steel, concrete, glass and plastic. Demons didn’t exist. Did they? Everything that had happened was nothing more than a weird bunch of coincidences. That’s all they could be.

  Gerhart shook his head and glanced down at the meter. It was nearly against the top end of the scale.

  As he approached the entryway, the walls suddenly seemed to move away from him as though on oiled rollers until they were no longer visible. He walked through an endless tunnel of green. He could hear monkeys chattering in the banana palms and toucans calling their mates. A big cat, perhaps a tiger, roared in the middle distance. The heat and humidity was oppressive. Gerhart’s shirt was soaked with sweat. It had to be almost a hundred, he thought. He pulled off his cap, wiped his brow and looked up.

  The sun was a white-hot ball hanging directly overhead, visible through the branches of the rain forest. In the distance, through the trees, he saw the mountains with their snow-capped peaks. It would be nice, Gerhart thought, to slide down one of those peaks through the snow. Something hissed nearby and he dragged his gaze down from the mountains.

  In the center of the path, some five feet directly in front of him, was a king cobra. Its hood was spread and it held its mouth slightly open. Sunlight reflected from the white fangs in its mouth. The serpent swayed slightly from side to side in order to get a definite fix on its prey.

  Slowly, gently, Gerhart inched backward away form the snake, easing his pistol from the holster as he moved. The snake slid silently forward, keeping the distance between them the same. Gerhart raised the pistol, steadied it in his left palm. When he had the head of the snake in the sights he slowly squeezed the trigger.

  The cobra’s head disappeared in a red mist. As Gerhart let out his breath something roared directly behind him.

  He spun around. The tiger he had heard a few moments before was crouched and ready to spring. Gerhart jerked the pistol up and emptied it into the tiger’s face.

  One of the monkeys that watched from a low branch screamed at him. “Stop, goddam it, before you kill us all!”

  The jungle dissolved. Gerhart stood once more in the center of the mall entryway. Archie was crouched to his left where the monkey had been. Maurice lay face down on the floor where the tiger had been with his hands wrapped over his head. Claudette peered cautiously from behind a pillar. Archie yelled at him once more.

  “Kable, can you hear me?”

  Gerhart’s head felt as if an ax was buried right between his eyes. He stared about and tried to focus his thoughts. He looked down and wondered why his pistol was pointed at Maurice. He shoved it quickly into the holster. Maurice stood carefully and walked to him.

  “What happened, Gerhart? I thought you were going to kill us all.”

  Gerhart shook his head. “I don’t know. One minute I was right here, the next I was in a jungle someplace. There was a snake. Cobra. I shot it. Then a tiger came up behind me and I shot that, too.” He took a deep breath and stared around the mall. “What happened?”

  “The demon got to you,” Archie said.

  “Got to me? What do you mean?”

  “It fed you a jungle scene. Like it fed something to those people who shot up the mall. And the rest of them. We’ve evidently got a mind control demon here, wouldn’t you say, Maurice?”

  “Yep. Ties in with what’s been happening, all right. In your mind, Claudette became a cobra and I was a tiger. Fortunately for us, you ain’t Quickdraw McGraw. Besides, you must have pretty good resistance to this thing, otherwise we’d be dead.” Maurice took Gerhart’s arm. “Let’s get out of here before it tries again and makes it stick.”

  The four were bent over a roll of blueprints in the office of the City Clerk. Maurice slowly flipped the pages as he scrutinized the drawings.

  “Okay, these on top are the architecturals of the mall. See? This is the floor plan and this one is a section through several of the walls.” He turned a few more sheets. “Let’s see. Electrical, plumbing, HVAC…”

  “What’s HVAC?” Gerhart wanted to know.

  “Heating, ventilation and air conditioning,” Archie answered.

  Maurice stopped turning sheets. “These are the structurals,” he said. “My, my. Take a look at this.”

  “What is it? Claudette asked.

  “The structural framing plan for the entryway.”

  “Explain,” Gerhart said.

  “This is a drawing showing the top view of all the steel beams and columns that go to make up the main frame of the building. There are five columns holding up the roof. Here, here, here, here and here,” he said, pointing out the items. “Now, at the top of the columns, just under the roof, are these horizontal members that tie each column to its neighbor. And these horizontal things beneath the roof are called wind or sway braces. They run diagonally from, for instance, the top of column number one across to the top of column number three, then to number five, to two and so on.” He took a red pencil from his shirt pocket and drew a bright line along the path of the sway braces. “Now look at what you’ve got just below the ceiling of the entryway.”

  They all bent closer to the drawing. Gerhart frowned, then stepped back a pace. “It’s a star,” he said.

  Claudette nodded. “In this instance, we’re going to call it a pentagram.”

  Gerhart looked up in amazement. “Don’t they use pentagrams in witchcraft?”

  “Yep,” Maurice said. “I think we’re in agreement that the strongest signals we’ve picked up are in the entryway beneath the pentagram. I think your Mr. Lucas decided to conjure up a demon in there. Right in the foyer, so to speak. Gerhart, didn’t you say he worked for the firm that designed the mall? Maybe he designed it with this in mind. Or maybe he didn’t and just realized what he had. Who knows? The shape was ideal. At least he thought it was. But he made a big mistake.”

  “How’s that?” Gerhart asked.

  “When you call up a demon,” Claudette said, “you’re supposed to draw a pentagram on the floor and get inside it. That’s your protection from the demon. It can’t cross over into a closed pentagram. But, Lucas made a mistake. He obviously didn’t understand all he knew about summoning demons, because the demon wound up inside the pentagram, which was on the ceiling, anyway. And now it can’t get out. Our demon is trapped.”

  “No wonder it’s pissed off,” Maurice said. “But what in hell do we do now? If you’ll pardon the expression.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  January 19, 2004

  The pentagram was in place. Once Lucas realized that he had inadvertently designed an entry with five equal sides, he knew how to use it to extract his revenge. He had watched since the beginning, since the first piece of steel was brought on to the site. Now it was time.

  He had been pure for seven days. He had eaten no meat and had stayed awake the entire night before the ceremony. He had purified the area by burning a mixture of the juice of laurel leaves, camphor, salt, white resin and sulfur.

  Now he picked up the staff and drew the magic circles. He drew them counterclockwise from the outside, the first nine feet in diameter, the second inside the first, eight feet in diameter. He lit the thirteen black candles, stepped inside the inner circle, closed his eyes and lifted his hands to the sky.

  “I conjure and command thee, O spirit Ashtaroth, to appear and show thyself to me,
here and outside this circle in fair and human shape without delay.”

  He held the staff in both hands and gestured about him in loops and circles.

  “By the Seal of Basdathea, by the name of Primematum, answer my demands and perform all that I desire. Come peaceably and without delay.”

  He whipped the staff around his head and whirled in a circle, extinguishing every other candle with the tip of the staff. He left two burning together at two tips of the pentagram.

  The sky darkened. Even the phosphorescence of the water lapping at the shore dulled and almost disappeared.

  “O spirit Ashtaroth, who art wicked and disobedient, because thou hast not obeyed my commands and the glorious and incomprehensible names of the true God, the Creator of all things, now by the irresistible power of these names I curse thee into the depths of the bottomless pit, there to remain in unquenchable fire and brimstone until the Day of Wrath unless thou shalt forthwith appear before this circle to do my will. Come quickly and in peace by the names Adonai, Zebaoth, Amioram. Come, come! Adonai, King of Kings commands thee!”

  Sickly, yellow lightning flashed across the vast blackness of the gulf and thunder shook the ground. He slowly raised his face to the sky and held the staff aloft. Suddenly, a fierce wind shrieked and snapped at him like a rabid dog, threatening to force him outside the protective circle. He shouted in order to be heard above the screaming of the wind and crashing of the waves against the shore.

  “Thee I invoke, the Bornless One, Thee that didst create the night and the darkness! Thou art Asar Un-Nefer! Thou art Ia-Besz!”

  Something reached inside his head and tugged his eyeballs slightly toward the center of his skull. He shook his head like a dog throwing off water and concentrated harder. The fury of the wind increased as the lightning blinded him and thunder shook the ground he stood on.

  Directly in front of him a funnel formed, darkness within darkness, a vortex of wind and blackness such as he had never seen. And then he saw them burning through the foul blackness like lasers of death.

  The eyes.

  The terrible eyes.

  Red.

  Flashing.

  Evil.

  They seemed to be pulling the very soul from his body. The creature of the eyes spoke with a thousand voices that shook the earth with a language he had never heard, but still understood. The blood in his veins seemed to turn to ice and stop flowing.

  “Why have you summoned me, puny mortal? Think you I have nought to do but appear before you as if I were a slave?”

  He swallowed with difficulty and stood straight, mustering the appearance of strength. He pointed the staff at the apparition. “I have a command that you must obey, O spirit Ashtaroth!”

  The laughter struck like a poleaxe and he staggered slightly.

  “And what makes you think I shall obey you, mortal? You, who endeavor to protect yourself with scratches in the dirt, and tapers all around.” The laughter battered at the door of his sanity and he jammed his hands against his ears. “You cannot even stand my voice as it is, and I speak silently to you.”

  He gritted his teeth and waved the staff. “I command you to do my bidding!”

  “And what is your bidding, mortal?”

  “There is one I wish dead.”

  The laughter drowned out even the sound of the thunder that rolled constantly overhead punctuated with dazzling flashes of brilliant lightning. “One you wish dead? This is something you can undertake without my help, surely, or are you too weak even for that?”

  “You shall not mock me! You will kill for me whether you wish to or not. It is my command, O spirit Ashtaroth!”

  Rain lashed the ground sending torrents of water through the unfinished structure. Blinded by the lightning, deafened by the thunder and hellish laugher, he concentrated on the burning eyes that glared, unblinking, into his. He felt as if his mind was being crushed. His body shrank from the fury of the wind and rain.

  The voice roared at him from above.

  “Kill for you, mortal? You fool! I shall kill, but not for you. I shall kill because you had the stupidity to think you could command me with your foolish circles and candles, and your staff. You wish death? Behold! I give you death!”

  Suddenly the ground fell away as he was propelled upward through the open structure with horrifying speed. He flailed his arms and legs in a vain attempt to right himself. Pinpoints of light were visible intermittently as he whirled through the black night rising ever higher above the ground and the eye of the storm.

  And then he was hurtling down, faster and faster, the wind screaming in his ears and blocking out all other sound. He came to an abrupt stop inches above the ground and he felt his internal organs flatten themselves sickeningly against each other, against the inside of his body. And then he was lowered gently, almost lovingly, to the earth.

  Horrible pain engulfed his senses and blotted out all other sensations. It felt as though he was being torn limb from limb as his torso was ripped open by taloned hands and his skull was crushed beneath tons of rock.

  Just before he left his earthly shell behind, Zoltan Lugoj, called Joseph Lucas, knew that somehow he had made a terrible mistake.

  And this pain would go on forever.

  Chapter Nineteen

  November 21, 2004

  When the mayor called Norbert Hicks and told him that Gerhart wouldn’t open the mall for several days at least, Hicks came close to panic. But then he forced himself to think rationally about the problem, forgetting for the moment that Birrell was fully capable of making him disappear permanently. After thinking things through he went out and bought a copy of the National Query and took it to the police station where he laid it in front of Gerhart and asked how much of the story was true.

  Gerhart gave Hicks the answer he suspected all along. Nothing much except for the location of the mall and, presumably, the writer’s name. Then Hicks went home and called Birrell. He told him he had it on good authority that the newspaper article was, for the most part, a fabrication, the mall was closed due to the possible presence of radon and the investigation was proceeding with all possible haste. The Chief of Police was most cooperative and would open the mall as soon as the experts gave it a clean bill of health.

  Although not particularly overjoyed with the news, Birrell relented. He told Hicks to keep him informed and admitted that perhaps he had overreacted. The National Query was hardly the Wall Street Journal and there was nothing concerning the mall in any of the reputable newspapers.

  Hicks hung up, took a deep breath and poured himself a stiff bourbon. He hoped fervently that the problem would right itself within the next few days as there was absolutely nothing he could personally do to rectify it.

  Otto Klein didn’t know shit about running a newspaper. He didn’t have to. He had inherited the paper from his father, Heinz, who had made a small fortune with dirty clothes before selling his chain of Pittsburgh cleaning establishments and retiring to Trinidad. He had founded the paper primarily to have somewhere to go in the morning so he didn’t have to listen to his wife bitch about the heat.

  Heinz had the innate ability to make a buck with anything he touched and it wasn’t long before the Trinidad Probe turned a tidy profit, mostly from the advertising. But Heinz hated selling. He hired a kid named Leander Whippet to drive around and try to talk the local merchants into buying space in the paper. That way, Heinz could concentrate on newspaper writing, which he considered easy and fun. Leander Whippet, who was only three weeks out of high school when Heinz hired him, turned out to be one hell of an investment.

  The Whip, as Whippet came to be called despite weighing slightly less than a pregnant moose at full term, was about as bright as they came. In addition to being a natural salesman, he learned the newspaper business in his spare time and became better at it than Heinz, who eventually got pretty good at it himself. When Heinz died, Otto inherited all of the old man’s money, the Trinidad Probe and The Whip.

  The Whip was
managing editor, political editor, medical editor and business editor. He wasn’t the social editor. That was the exclusive domain of Shirley, Otto’s wife. But since Shirley tended to spell words of more than two syllables incorrectly, and leave out a great deal of punctuation, her stories passed through The Whip’s hands anyway. As the Trinidad Probe was so small, it fell to the various editors to double as their own reporters. For all practical purposes, Leander Whippet was the Trinidad Probe.

  Otto Klein spent four years at Georgia Tech trying to set records in beer drinking and sex, knowing all along that he would never have to turn a wheel in the real world. Heinz had taken care of that with the dry cleaning business. When Otto went in to the office it was usually because he had found a cause he wanted to champion and the Trinidad Probe was the best way to go about it. At the age of thirty-three, he had enough money to keep himself in excellent Scotch and Camel Filters for the next 173 years, if he didn’t screw up too badly. He had few vices, save the occasional piece of strange. In his own mind he was a pillar of the community and his newspaper was a tribute to Truth, Justice and the American Way. He considered rags such as the National Query to be unfit to wipe the collective ass of humanity.

  Shirley had no such reservations.

  But she knew how Otto felt about such things so she kept the copies of the supermarket rags away from him as a matter of course—in most instances.

  But when he was forced to take her new Buick to work one morning, his Infiniti being laid up with some sort of electrical gremlin, he was hardly in the driver’s seat when he saw part of a headline sticking out from under the front seat.

  NEW SHOPPING MALL A KILL

  Otto yanked the tabloid from beneath the seat and scanned the story. Then he tossed the rag over his shoulder and broke several traffic laws getting to the office.