by A. I. Nasser
Paula reappeared carrying a small box wrapped in brown paper. She briefly acknowledged Aley before sliding the package towards Kyle. A note was lodged between the thin threads holding the wrapping together, Kyle’s name scribbled on it in perfect cursive letters. Aley turned the box around, scrutinizing it with a frown.
“What the hell is it?” she asked.
“Only one way to find to out,” Kyle replied. He looked up at Paula who seemed not only disinterested but bored, arms crossed over her chest as she impatiently waited. “Would it be okay if we took a few minutes at the table over there?”
Paula shrugged and flipped on the lights over the dining area, illuminating the space with a warm glow that would have been soothing if not for the long shadows creeping up the walls.
“Be my guest,” she said, although Kyle could sense a hint of resentment in her voice. “Just ring the bell if you need me, and don’t take too long. I’ll have to lock up in about an hour.”
“We’ll be quick,” Aley shot her a weak smile that was not returned as Paula disappeared into the back room.
Kyle carried the package to the table. It was surprisingly light for its size, which made him wonder what Fegan could have possibly left behind before vanishing in such a hurry. Aley slid into the seat opposite him, folded her hands under her chin, and squinted at the box as Kyle slowly began to unwrap it.
The wrapping came apart easily as soon as the thread was severed, and Kyle eyed the velvet colored box that had been hiding underneath. It looked a lot heavier than it was, lined with ruby colored stones along the cover and decorated with symbols he had never seen before. Carefully, he lifted the top and put it to a side, frowning as he eyed the contents.
“What is it?” Aley asked.
Kyle shook his head, unsure of what exactly he was looking at. Frustrated, Aley pulled the box towards her, and her jaw dropped at the sight of what lay inside. A gold coated knife was nestled comfortably in between layers of velvet colored cotton and wrapped in a piece of white satin cloth. The satin had fallen away to reveal the hilt, etched with the same symbols that were on the box, with four perfectly set grooves carved for a proper grip. She pulled the knife out of the box and held it up to the light, the warm glow coming from the chandelier above her reflecting off its surface.
Kyle eyed the knife, confused as to why Fegan had left it for him, and reached for the envelope.
“It’s beautiful,” Aley sighed, turning the knife around in the light.
Kyle watched her as he slipped the single sheet of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. In case you change your mind. Nothing else. Just those six words, written in the same careful cursive that was on the envelope. No explanations. No directions. Just that.
“What does it say?” Aley asked.
He passed her the note, and she cocked her head to one side in confusion as she read the words.
“I don’t get it,” she said, gently placing the knife on the table between them.
“Neither do I,” Kyle admitted. A part of him wasn’t all too surprised, though. Nothing the man had said so far had made any sense to him, so it was only apt that Fegan’s last words to them would be just as enigmatic. Like everything else, they would have to figure this out on their own.
Kyle sighed and reached for the knife, frustrated at not being able to get the answers he had hoped for.
The second his hand wrapped around the golden hilt, a sharp pain burst inside him, and he slammed back in his seat. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. All of a sudden, he felt like he had been robbed of his breath. He closed his eyes against the searing pain, his head threatening to explode, and his heart slamming against his chest. The world around him seemed to morph into a vacuum that pulled at him from every side, threatening to tear him into pieces. A wave of heat slammed against him, and he gasped as he took in the putrid air, coughing violently.
When he opened his eyes, he gazed out at a world of fire, and rows upon rows of burning crucifixes.
***
No!
He was back in his dream, on his knees, staring in horror at the burning scene in front of him. Crucifixes lined the street on both sides, in flames, but devoid of any human sacrifices, as if the demon were still setting up the stage for Kyle’s midnight horror show. The flames crackled, and the heat closed in on him, wrapping him in dark smoke that tickled his nose and tried to crawl into his open mouth.
Kyle pushed himself to his feet, his grip on the knife tightening as he tried to make sense of what was happening. I’m not asleep. I’m not asleep. But no matter how many times he repeated that in his head, the vision before him remained, and he found himself feeling less and less convinced.
He looked down at the knife in his hands, the runes etched into it burning with a bright blue glow. Only the Hand can move between worlds.
Kyle shook his head, forcing Fegan’s voice out. This was absurd. Was this why Fegan had left him the knife? Was it some kind of talisman that would help him shift between the waking world and his nightmares? If that was the case, Kyle didn’t want to have anything to do with it. It was enough that he had to endure these visions in his sleep. He would not live through them voluntarily.
Turning around, he searched the fiery world around him for any way to escape. It had been simple before. All he had had to do was wake up. Now, though, he was not so sure. This was new territory for him, a foreign concept with inexplicable rules. He had no idea how to maneuver here.
He caught a slight movement to his right and turned just as a figure stumbled out of a burning building, swaying from side to side, falling on his knees and quickly pushing himself back up. The fire spewed around him, flames licking at him from every corner as he raced into the middle of the street away from them.
Kyle squinted through the blurry air around him, the heat and smoke playing tricks on his eyes. He couldn’t even be sure if the man was real until he turned and they faced each other. Kyle immediately recognized Jeffrey Gadge, and from the shocked look on the Sheriff’s face, knew at once that the man recognized him as well.
Gadge rushed to him, grabbed Kyle forcefully by the shoulders and shook him violently. “How the hell did you get here?” he shouted. “Quick, before it finds us!”
Kyle didn’t need to ask him who it was.
“Can you hear me?” Gadge asked. “Are you deaf?”
“I can hear you, Sheriff,” Kyle said, pulling out of the man’s vice-like grip. “How did you get here?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Gadge screamed. “That thing, it’s been chasing me through this inferno for hours now! Every time I think I outran it, it just pops up again. We need to get the hell out of here.”
Kyle felt waves of confusion wash over him, unable to come to terms with the fact that Jeffrey Gadge was actually here, in his nightmare, talking to him. It’s a trick.
Either that, or this really was the demon’s dimension, and the two of them were somehow trapped smack in the middle of it.
Screams started somewhere in the distance, and Gadge turned towards them quickly, shaking like a leaf. “It’s found me again.” He turned to Kyle and pushed at him. “Run!”
But before they could take a single step forward, Gadge was suddenly propelled into the air, lifted as if he weighed nothing at all, and slammed into one of the flaming crucifixes. Phantom flames wrapped around his hands and feet, pinning him to place as his clothes caught fire and he began to scream.
Kyle watched in horror as the Sheriff burned, his screams deafening even in the mayhem of the fires around him. Gadge writhed against his bounds, but that only made the flames burn stronger, and he screamed again as skin melted and flesh burned.
Gadge turned to Kyle, eyes wide, embraced in the flames that were consuming him. “Behind you!” he screamed.
Kyle whirled around just as a hand wrapped around his neck and hoisted him off his feet. He stared down into the burning eyes of the demon, grotesquely disfigured, its head covered in a mesh of
scales and rotten flesh. It opened its mouth, and from within came a gagging aroma of death and decay. It laughed, holding Kyle up higher, its grip tightening until he couldn’t breathe anymore.
“I have you!” the demon hissed.
Kyle gathered what remained of his strength, the world spinning around him and his vision darkening, and brought the knife up in a wide arc. He cut across the demon’s arm, feeling the monster’s grip loosen immediately and drop him in a pile on the ground. The demon screamed in fury, a sound so shrill that it pierced through Kyle’s ears and tore at his mind. The knife fell from his hands, and in a wash of heat and wind, he was thrust back into the dark vacuum as the world around him shifted into a thick coat of nothing.
***
“Kyle!”
Kyle’s eyes flew open, and he sat up straight, gasping for breath and clawing at his neck. Aley was holding his shoulders, trying to calm him down, and he wrestled out of her grip, toppling over and off his chair. He clawed at the hardwood floor, his eyes still watery, his lungs burning. He took in mouthfuls of air as his mind slowly registered where he was and he began to make sense of his surroundings.
Aley fell to her knees beside him, and from the corner of his eye he could see Paula rush out of the back room towards them.
“Kyle, are you okay?” Aley asked, her tone laced with worry and concern.
“What happened?” Paula asked from behind them.
“Water,” Kyle gasped. “I need … water.”
Paula disappeared from his field of vision, and he heard glasses clink against each other from somewhere in the shadows. Aley grabbed him by the arm and helped him to his feet, sitting him down just as Paula returned with a glass of water. He drank it hungrily, spilling most of it down his chin and soaking his shirt before he asked for more.
Outside, the night sky was alive with lights and the shrill sounds of sirens.
“What the hell just happened?” Aley asked.
Kyle drank the second glass and asked for more. His throat still burned, and he felt like the few minutes he had spent in the other world had burned away every molecule of water inside him. The image of Gadge burning on the cross and the demon’s open mouth of death played before his eyes. His body began to shake uncontrollably, and Aley had to wrap her arms around him to keep him from falling over again.
“Kyle, you’re scaring me,” she said, panic creeping into her voice.
“Gadge,” Kyle replied. “It’s in Gadge.”
“Gadge?” Aley asked.
“Sheriff Gadge?” Paula chimed in.
Kyle only nodded.
“What do you mean it’s in the Sheriff?”
Kyle looked at Aley, shivering in her arms, his teeth clattering against each other. “That thing we saw back at Maureen’s,” he said. “It was a possessed body. When you hit it with your car, the demon found another host. It’s possessing the Sheriff.”
“Demon?”
Kyle ignored the look of shock and confusion on Paula’s face, and slowly tried to push himself onto his feet. He swayed dangerously, gripping the edge of the table to keep his balance, while Aley supported him from the other side. He stared at the knife that now lay helplessly on the floor, then began to reach for it.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Aley said, kicking the knife away. “Whatever that thing is, it almost killed you. You’re not going anywhere near it.”
“I have to,” Kyle said. “Fegan was right. The only way to kill it is on the other side. I only hurt it the last time. I have to go back.”
“Over my dead body,” Aley said sternly.
A shrill siren filled the air as lights flashed outside, then quickly disappeared. The sound receded to join the distant symphony of mayhem. Kyle looked towards the door in confusion.
“The police station’s on fire,” Paula explained.
“What?”
“My cousin’s a fighter in the Kent Fire Department,” she continued. “I called him when the sirens broke out. He said the police station’s on fire, and so are a few houses along Elizabeth Street. They’re racing all over town trying to stop it from spreading.”
“The Sheriff,” Kyle said, looking at Aley with pleading eyes.
“No way,” Aley replied, quickly shaking her head. “The car’s outside. We get in it and get the hell out of here.”
“We can’t leave,” Kyle said.
“This isn’t our fight,” Aley protested.
“Apparently, it is,” he shot back. “Listen, I don’t like this any more than you do, and I’d be damned if I understood half of it. But what I do know is that there’s something demonic out there, and it’s burning Kent down. And the only way to stop it is with that.” He pointed at the knife.
Aley met his gaze for a few seconds, frowning in frustration and anger, and he could see in her eyes as she struggled with what to do.
“Aley, please,” he said. “I need to go back there.”
She opened her mouth to reply, hesitated, then closed it again. She looked at Paula, as if somehow the woman would be able to help her, then turned back to Kyle.
Aley sighed. “Fine,” she said. “But we need to get you somewhere safe. If that thing knows you can hurt it, it’s going to come for you.”
Kyle nodded and turned to Paula. “You got any empty rooms I can hide in while I finish this?”
Paula nodded. “Are any of you going to explain what’s going on here?”
“No time,” Kyle said. “Aley, I need you to find Gadge and distract him.”
“Excuse me?”
“Take the car,” he said. “Follow the sirens. Make sure the Sheriff never finds his way here until it’s over.”
“And how the hell am I supposed to fight a possessed Sheriff?” Aley almost screamed at him. “You wouldn’t happen to have holy water lying around somewhere, would you? Or do I distract it with my friggin’ charm?”
Kyle shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said, wrapping the satin cloth around the knife before he picked it up. “Just keep him as far away from the inn as possible until I’ve figured out what to do on the other side.”
“And how do I know you’ve figured it out?” Aley asked. “How can I be sure it didn’t devour you over there?”
Kyle hesitated. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
***
Felix Johnson didn’t particularly like working at Davis’s grocery store. But at the age of twenty-six and still living in his parents’ garage, a job was necessary if he didn’t want to look like a complete fool. His father had lost all respect for him years ago, and his mother still asked him where he was going and when he would be back every time he left the house. He even had to ask them for gas money every now and then, his father once joking about how he’d have to start giving him an allowance soon.
What they didn’t understand was that finding a job wasn’t as easy as they thought. He couldn’t help it that his old man had started a wealthy online venture that made it convenient for him to sit on his ass and click a few keys on the computer every night, making money out of thin air. Felix found it impossible to understand why he was expected to compete with that. He wasn’t even supposed to be in Kent. He had been promised a football career, one that had quickly died with his knee injury, leaving him very little time to make up for grades he had never cared about to begin with. Which meant college was a bust, and so were his future prospects.
And the fact that his classmates were all posting about their achievements online didn’t make him feel any better.
“Hurry up with that.”
Felix winced as his manager walked past him and tapped the brown paper bag he was packing with groceries. There was little respect for him here, especially since he had burned a lot of bridges back when he thought he would make it as a star athlete. Now he was just your average Joe, packing groceries for people who couldn’t care less about who he was or what he was doing with his life. He could almost hear them thinking, There’s Felix Johnson who thought he was better
than everyone else. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
It was part of the reason he had chosen to work the night shift. Solitude. A part of him wished he could just wake up one day, hitch a ride out of town and just disappear.
He finished packing the bag in his hand, folded the ends and handed it to the burly man who was waiting impatiently for him to finish.
“There you go,” Felix said with his best fake smile. “All packed and ready.”
“Sure,” the man replied, taking the bags and shaking his head at him.
Felix watched the man leave, a part of him wondering what it would be like to jump on him and strangle him to death. The automatic doors slid open, the man walked out into the night, and Sheriff Jeffrey Gadge walked in.
The Sheriff stood stoically at the entrance of the supermarket, his head ticking ever so slightly as his eyes darted back and forth rapidly. They finally came to rest on Felix, and the Sheriff smiled. A wide smile. A disturbing smile that made Felix shudder.
“Heya, Sheriff,” Felix greeted. “How can I help you?”
Sheriff Gadge’s smile widened even more, and Felix could have sworn that parts of the skin around his lips cracked and split, revealing nothing but rotten flesh underneath.
The Sheriff’s eyes bore into Felix as he chuckled slightly. “Where do you keep your kerosene?”
Chapter 11
Aley followed the sirens.
Her mind raced, voices in the back of her head screaming at her to turn the car around, forget about this whole mess and just get the hell out of dodge. She was still convinced that this wasn’t her fight, and despite the need to help Kyle, this inexplicable desire to be by his side through whatever was going on, the drive to run away seemed to be pulling just at the end of her mind.
