Thank you, Father, thank you, thank you, thank you…
Chapter 40
It was a gruesome scene that Robert wasn’t prepared for, despite the horrors that he had already witnessed on this day.
There were nearly a dozen men hanging from the rafters, crude nooses made of various materials from bedsheets to what looked like electrical cords wrapped around their necks. Their mouths were agape, tongues lolling, eyes bulging. The mess hall reeked something fierce, the bowels of the hanged having since let go.
“Oh my god,” the guard whispered. “All of them…all of the guards are dead…my friends…my…”
Robert couldn’t understand how this had happened.
How is it possible that every single guard in Seaforth Prison has been murdered?
“My god,” the guard whispered again.
Robert felt his stomach lurch, but then the tightness in his chest came again, pushing the former sensation away.
Trying not to look at any of the faces of the dead, Robert strode into the mess hall, his palms up in front and slightly to the sides, ready to do…to do whatever the hell he had done to the guard, had done to Quinn.
There was a gasp from behind him, followed by the sound of someone retching violently.
“Camera up! Get the fucking camera up!” Sean shouted.
Robert took another step forward, weaving out of the way of one of the hanging corpses. Eyes peeled, he continued to walk, slowly, tentatively, his eyes locked on the door at the far end of the room.
The tightness in his chest grew, and now he heard something as well. The familiar sound of rushing waves could be heard underlying their heavy breathing.
Robert didn’t know how, but Carson had done it; he had opened the rift.
“We need to hurry,” Robert shouted. “We need—”
“Quiddity!” Allan shouted. “On your right!”
Robert turned and saw a confused-looking guard with a purple face moving toward them, his gait awkward, uneven.
He stepped toward the man and held out his hand, concentrating as he had before. At first, nothing happened—the man continued to move toward them. But a second later, the man’s eyebrows furrowed, and he slowed. A few seconds after that, he came to a complete stop.
“Another! Behind him!” Allan shouted.
Robert looked over the first guard, and caught sight of another quiddity, this one walking in a small, tight circle. He was muttering something to himself, but with the sound of the Marrow rushing in his ears, Robert couldn’t make out the words.
Moving his hand slightly higher, the man’s circles slowed and then he too stopped completely.
There was a grunt from his left, but when he looked over, the only thing he saw was a swinging corpse.
“Human!” Sean shouted.
A burst of gunfire erupted and the corpse that was within three feet of Robert exploded like a bag of red paint. Through the gaping would in the man’s torso, he caught sight of a man in a white t-shirt stumbling backward. Another burst of gunfire through the hole, and the man disappeared in his own personal shower of red and white.
Shelly screamed, and he heard Cal cry out.
“Bogey!” Sean yelled.
Robert lifted his gaze in time to see another man rushing toward him. Sean’s pistol cracked off three tight rounds, and two red dots formed on his white t-shirt. The third bullet hit him square in the forehead, and his eyes rolled back before he fell face first onto the ground.
Robert’s chest had gotten so tight that it was getting hard to draw even a partial breath. Still with his hand out, he moved forward even further, cutting the distance to the door on the other end of the mess hall by a third.
But then he saw them. Six or seven lost, confused souls coming at him, blocking his way.
“Stop!” he shouted, raising his other hand. A terrible crushing sensation nearly crippled him, but the quiddity obeyed. Robert took an agonizing step forward. And then another.
“Robert!”
He ignored the shout.
Must keep moving…
He was holding at least eight quiddity at bay now, and he had nearly made it to the far door.
“Look out!” Shelly cried, but Robert, concentrating as he was, turned too slowly.
One of the hanging corpses was suddenly thrust into him, knocking him to the ground.
“Fuck!” he yelled, his elbows taking most of the impact.
He tried to scramble to his feet, but something struck him hard in the back, forcing him down again.
“You’ll never get to him,” someone whispered in his ear, the breath hot and sweet. A hand grabbed the back of his hair, pulling his head up. “Carson sends his regards.”
“Help!” he gasped, fearing that his face was about to be smashed on the hard ground. But just as he felt the grip in his hair tighten, he heard another scream and the fingers let go.
Robert quickly spun and scooted out of the way, peering up at his assailant.
The man had a narrow face with short, well-groomed hair. He looked more like an accountant—like Robert—than a murderer. But the look in his eyes…
Robert pushed himself backward, watching as the man’s eyes started to cloud.
And then he saw the guard, Quinn, behind the inmate, wrapping his arms around him. He looked frightened, which was saying something, given the fact that he had no eyes.
Thank you, Robert mouthed, not knowing if on some level the man could see.
He thought he saw the man nod before the inmate threw his head back in a howl and then the two of them started to fade.
Gunfire erupted from somewhere behind him—first Aiden’s weapon, then the distinct bap bap bap of Sean’s pistol. He wanted to go to his friends, to Shelly, to see if they were safe, but he couldn’t. He had to get to the rift.
That was his only goal now.
Cal had been right. This was bigger than him, than all of them.
Robert pulled himself onto his haunches and then tried to stand. Still feeling the pain from the tackle, he staggered, but eventually managed to maintain his balance.
The door was only a dozen feet from him, if that.
Almost there…
But then two inmates stepped out from behind hanging corpses, blocking his path.
“You won’t get to him,” they sneered in unison.
Robert’s heart sank.
“Sean! Aiden!” he cried over his shoulder, but considering the chaos and gunfire, it seemed unlikely that they would have heard him.
The two men, one with his shirt off, revealing a series of blue and red tattoos that crisscrossed his muscular chest, the other with a scar that ran across his forehead and receded into the dark stubble on the top of his skull, stepped toward Robert.
This is it…I’ve failed.
“I’m sorry, Amy,” he said.
It wasn’t like him to concede, but there was nothing he could do. He wasn’t a fighter, and ordering these men to stop would accomplish nothing.
The man on the left, with the scar on his head, laughed.
“She’s comin’…she’s comin’ to set us all free.”
Just as Robert gave up hope, the door behind the two inmates swung open. Another man, a small, thin man with his hands tucked behind his back, half lunged, half tumbled into the shirtless inmate. The movement was so awkward that he actually managed to take the much larger man down with him.
“Fuck!” the other inmate shouted.
Uninspired last words, as they were.
His left side just above the hip bone exploded, and Robert’s hands immediately went to his ears. Another blast rang out and the man stared down at himself, confused as to what had happened.
The second shotgun blast cut him clean in half, soaking Robert in his blood and viscera and bits of bone.
A man stood in the doorway, a smoking shotgun in his hand, another wrapped across his chest. He was bald and looked in his mid-sixties, with the thick, muscular forearms of a much younger man.
Robert blinked, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Then he noticed the navy uniform that matched those that hung all around them.
One guard must have gotten away.
Robert’s relief was short-lived; the other inmate recovered from his fall.
“Get the fuck off me,” he said, shoving the other man off of him. Only now did Robert realize that the man’s hands were bound behind his back.
The guard with the shotgun turned his attention to the other inmate as the latter scrambled to his feet. But before he could open fire, Sean stepped out from behind a body and shot the inmate directly in the head, sending him falling back down again. He moved the gun to the other man, the one with his hands tied behind him, next.
“No!” Robert and the guard with the shotgun yelled in unison, but they were too late.
Sean shot him in the head, too.
Robert stepped forward, his mouth hanging open in horror.
“Sean! Sean, why the hell did—“
Sean Sommer’s eyes whipped up.
“He was gone, Robert. He was gone! Didn’t you see his eyes? Leland got to him…and when that man touches you, the poison spreads fast.”
Robert glanced down at the dead man with his hands tied behind his back. His eyes were vacant as they stared lifelessly at the ceiling.
Then Sean turned toward them, the all too familiar tight-lipped expression returning to his face.
“He was gone!” he shouted suddenly. “Go to Carson before it’s too late! Go! Go!”
Chapter 41
Robert, face and arms covered in blood and organ meat, veritably threw himself over the threshold of Carson’s cell.
And then he immediately backpedaled. He probably would have gone right out the door if not for the fact that the man in the guard uniform and Sean were standing behind him.
“Fuck,” Robert said breathlessly.
The man named Carson was sitting on the floor, his back to the door, as was a woman whom he had never seen before. In the middle, however, was what was left of Father Callahan.
His body had been split down the middle, and he was lying with his arms spread, each of his hands grasped in the laps of the two seated individuals.
Intestines spilled out on either side of the man’s torn torso, but it was what was in between that took Robert’s breath away. Instead of blood-covered floor, Robert was staring into the floor, through it, and into the Marrow. As he gaped at the Marrow, he could make out the burning sky and a figure on the beach.
One that looked familiar.
One with a large black hat and a faded jean jacket.
“No!” he yelled.
His shout drew the attention of Carson, who craned his head around to look at Robert.
Again, Robert tried to move backward, but the burly guard caught him and made sure he didn’t fall.
The man on the floor was thinner, with a narrower nose and wider set eyes, but there was no doubting it.
He looked like Robert.
“Oh, hey, brother. Long time no see. How you been, anyway?”
And then he laughed.
Robert blinked hard, unable to understand what he was seeing.
Brother? This is my brother?
Noticing the confusion in his eyes, Carson’s lifted his gaze to Sean behind Robert.
“You didn’t tell him?”
Robert whipped his head around to stare at Sean, whose eyes were locked on Carson.
“Oh, okay. Well then, Robert, did Sean tell you that daddy’s coming?”
Robert glanced back to the hole in Father Callahan’s chest. It appeared that the man was getting closer, somehow crawling upward.
“What the fuck is going on?” Robert yelled, grabbing at his hair.
He felt a nudge on his back, and turned in time to see Sean handing him the pistol. For some reason, he took it, and then immediately leveled it Carson’s head.
“Tell me what’s going on or I’ll blow your head off.”
Carson just stared at him, a confused expression on his face. Then his face broke into a grin.
“Sean? Do you want to do the honors?”
“Shoot him,” Sean responded simply. “Close the rift before it’s too late.”
Robert whipped his head and the gun around to Sean. Then he turned back again to Carson.
“Suit yourself. But now that we are in the mood for a little storytelling, did Sean tell you what he did? Hmm? What he and this so-called ‘priest’ did?”
Robert looked to the man splayed out on the ground, hot white light spilling from his eyes and face.
“Shoot him,” Sean repeated.
“Shut up!” Robert shouted back.
“Yeah, that prick that you’ve been following around like a lost puppy? And this priest that you’re here to save? Well they hunted once too. They hunted down our father, Robert—hunted him down and killed him. But Sean didn’t tell you that, did he?”
Robert’s brow narrowed.
“What’s he talking about?”
“Ignore him and pull the trigger, Robert.”
“Fine, listen to Sean. Shoot me, I don’t care. It won’t close the gate now, Robert.”
“What’s he talking about?” Robert asked again, the gun in his hand wavering slightly. “Did you kill Leland, Sean?”
“Robert…”
Robert whipped around, and took a step away from Sean. He pointed the gun at his chest. The man’s expression didn’t change.
“Is it true?”
Sean pursed his lips defiantly.
“Fucking answer me!” Robert demanded. “I’m sick of your fucking games, Sean. Answer me or I swear to—”
“Yes,” he said simply. “Yes, we killed him.”
He offered no reasoning. He said it just like a Jeopardy answer.
Yes, we killed him.
“Fuck!” Robert squeezed his eyes tight and gritted his teeth. The hand not holding the gun went to his hair and he pulled once more. Then his legs gave way and he collapsed to the ground.
“Come with me, Robert,” he heard Carson say over the roaring waves. “Come with me and be reunited with our father.”
“No,” Robert whispered, shaking his head back and forth. “I can’t—I don’t—I—”
Then someone else in the room finally spoke up.
“Best I shoot him, then.” The man’s voice was hoarse as if he too had been crying not so long ago. “I don’t know what the fuck you did to Father Callahan, but you’re gonna pay.”
Robert opened his eyes and stared at the large, bald guard.
“We can’t shoot him…if we kill Carson like this, the rift will stay open forever.”
Carson laughed.
“Oh, so you got the brains of the two of us, Robert. That’s good. We can use your brains.”
“Fuck this,” Ben said, stepping forward. “I’m—”
“No,” Sean said softly. “He’s right. Killing Carson will keep the door open. The only way to close the rift now is to—”
“—to kill the priest,” Robert said quietly. He slowly rose to his feet and moved the gun sight from Carson to Father Callahan’s glowing head.
For the first time since entering the room, the smile slid off Carson’s face.
“Don’t do it,” Robert’s brother growled. “Don’t even think about it.”
Robert ignored Carson and stared into the priest’s chest cavity. Leland was close now, he was right near the surface.
Tears filled his eyes with the realization of what he had to do.
But before he could act, the warden of Seaforth Prison spoke again.
“Now that definitely ain’t happening.”
Robert turned around and was shocked to see that Ben had his shotgun out again, but this time it was aimed at his chest.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but I’ve been through a lot of shit today, and it all boils down to this: I’m not letting you kill this man…my friend, Father Callahan. No
way, no how.”
Chapter 42
Cal Godfrey didn’t dare move. At some point during the melee, someone had fallen on him—he didn’t know if it was one of the hanged guards or an inmate that had been blown away by Aiden’s assault rifle—and while he tried to get up, to wipe the blood from his face and rise, another had fallen on him.
Before he knew it, three or four more or less complete bodies had piled on top of him and he couldn’t for the life of him get up. So he did the next best thing.
He lay there, cowering in his dank, foul-smelling pile of corpses, and waited.
For nearly six minutes, he lay completely still, listening to the sound of gunfire and shouts from somewhere high above him. And then, out of nowhere, it stopped completely.
Cal’s breathing was shallow, partly because he wanted to remain hidden, and partly because he was trying to avoid breathing in too much of the blood and other fluids that seemed to cover his entire body. He felt shame, shame for being such a coward at leaving Allan and Shelly with Aiden.
The man seemed capable, surely, much more so than Cal himself, but he had brought Allan here. He was the one who had acquiesced to Sean’s request to come to Seaforth Prison. The man had said that they were needed, required, to purge the quiddity, and yet he had simply left them there to die.
Or worse.
Cal shook his head.
At the time, the strangeness of Sean coming to him, especially given the fact that all previous encounters had only been with Robert, had dawned on him. But his pride had forced him to gloss over that fact.
But now, cowering as he was, he understood.
Cal hadn’t been recruited to purge any ghosts, not in the least.
Sean had asked him to come here just in case Robert refused the offer. Cal and Allan were bait.
“Get up,” a muffled voice instructed.
Cal, uncertain who was speaking, and who the person was speaking to, froze.
“Up,” the voice repeated.
Cal still didn’t move.
A sliver of the dull gray light suddenly hit him in the eye as one of the corpses was peeled off. He squinted as another body was tossed aside and the intensity of the light increased.
Then a familiar face peeked in, a wad of dip still tucked into his lower lip.
Seaforth Prison (The Haunted Book 3) Page 15
