“Isn’t that…South Park?”
Angela didn’t know the program well, but she recognised it as the same crude cartoon that Sammie had been watching the day he attacked her for switching it off. What is it with that program?
Jessica called out. “Sammie, are you in here?”
There was no answer; only the sound of coarse-mouthed cartoon children. Angela rubbed at her shoulders. The room was freezing.
“Sammie must have been here recently,” Jessica said. “We need to find him quick. Mike, switch that television off.”
“But I don’t even think it’s switched on. The power is off.”
“Maybe it’s a power surge from the weather or something. I don’t know, just turn it off.”
Mike scuffled over to the television. He reached up to press the power button, but paused. His fingers hovered half-an-inch above the button.
“What is it?” Angela asked.
“I…I don’t know,” said Mike. He stared into the screen as if he was mesmerised by something. His face moved closer. “I thought I could see a…I don’t know…a-”
Something exploded.
The television screen shattered, splintered, exploded in a shower of wicked glass shards. Mike twisted and fell to the floor, letting out a muffled scream.
Jessica ran over to him. “Heavens, Mike. Are you okay?” She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and ushered him away from the litter of broken glass.
Tim held a candle in his hands and thrust it out to illuminate the scene. It was clear that Mike was in a bad way.
Tim’s face wrinkled in horror. “Oh, shitballs.”
Angela had the same reaction. Mike’s left eye was a jagged red slit, embedded with shards of glass. Blood ran down his cheek in grisly tears and dripped from his chin. Despite the horrific injury, Mike did not cry out or scream. He was calm.
“Jesus, what do we do?” Tim asked.
“I’m fine,” Mike said, trying to open his eyelid. “I don’t think it got my eye; just the skin.”
After a short bout of fluttering, Mike’s eyelid managed to open and revealed the watery orb beneath. He’d had a lucky escape.
“Thank Heavens,” Angela said. “I think your eye is okay. You should get yourself cleaned up, though. There’re still bits of glass that could get in there.”
Jessica told them she’d take Mike to the nearest bathroom. “But you two stay here,” she added. “I don’t want anyone wandering around.”
Angela folded her arms. “Fine.”
Tim took a seat on the room’s sofa opposite the broken television. Angela was shaken-up and decided to join him.
“The weird shit just doesn’t stop around here, does it?” said Tim.
“It certainly doesn’t.”
“Funny, but that’s the third eye injury in this house since we’ve been here – if you count Jessica’s blindness and my experience at the pond – and there was one before too: the gardener or something.”
“What’s your point?”
“Don’t know. Guess I’m just wondering if there’s any religious significance to eyes.”
Angela thought about it for a moment. “Well, God sees through all of us, so to injure a person’s eyes is to try and reduce God’s awareness of our sins. Serial killers sometimes gouge out their victims eyes for the same reason – so that God cannot see their crimes.”
“Hmm, interesting. Wonder if we’re being sent another message.”
There was a shuffling on the carpet in front of them. Angela flinched and pulled her feet up onto the couch.
God help me, I’ve dealt with a lot of things in the last forty-eight hours, but if that’s a mouse…
“Look at the glass,” Tim told her.
Angela looked down at the littered shards of the television screen. The moonlight caught their edges and made them glow. They were moving.
“Be careful,” Angela said. “They might fly up at us or something.”
Tim shook his head. “No.”
Angela looked down at the vibrating shards and watched them slither across the carpet fibres. They were slowly assembling themselves into separate piles. Those separate piles were beginning to resemble….
Letters?
Angela glanced at Tim then back at the glass. “What’s it trying to spell out?”
The glass kept moving. Eventually the letters formed words.
Help me.
Save me.
Kill me.
Angela looked down at the words and spoke to them aloud. “Sammie, is that you? Who is it inside of you? Is it Charles Crippley?”
The glass shards reshuffled. No.
“Then who is it? Chamuel?”
Yes.
“How does Chamuel know me?” Angela asked. “Jessica sent for me specifically because my name was written in a journal. Does Chamuel know me?”
Yes.
“How?”
Helped you.
Angela didn’t understand. “What? Chamuel helped me? How?”
Charles Crippley.
“I don’t understand.”
Help me.
Angela shook her head desperately. “I…I don’t know how.”
Stop the darkness. Bring back the light.
There was a shriek from outside and the glass shards suddenly scattered in all directions. The messenger was gone. Angela still understood nothing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Tim raced out into the hallway to see what the commotion was. He knew enough by now to expect nothing but the worst. This was a house where bad things happened.
“No way this can be happening,” Tim said, as he tried to make sense of what he saw. Jessica was on her rump, shuffling backwards while Mike was trying to drag her back up onto her feet. Pursuing them was an abomination – that was the only way Tim could describe it. An inhuman abomination.
Graham stumbled down the corridor towards them, colliding off the walls and lumbering like a zombie. In the dim glow of moonlight, the bloody streaks Graham’s hands left on the wallpaper appeared as black smudges.
Impossible. Graham is dead. I saw it with my own eyes.
Graham’s neck, twisted around and facing the wrong way, was proof that the man had met a gruesome end, yet his body defiantly eschewed the laws of nature and shambled towards them.
Angel started praying. “I…I…Jesus Christ, hallowed be thy name…”
Jessica, and even Mike, stood there whimpering.
Tim tried not to piss himself.
Graham continued towards them, his body facing backwards, his head pointing forwards. His clumsy backwards steps thudded on the carpet while a river of blood pooled behind him. The wound on his genitals was gaping open like a wet mouth.
“We’re in hell,” gasped Jessica.
Mike dragged her up off the ground and ushered her away. Tim shook his head in despair. For the first time in his life, his anger was actually equal to his fear. As much as he wanted to hit the floor and become a gibbering mess, he also wanted to turn his head upwards and rage at the Heavens. I am so fucking sick and tired of this place. First it was House On Haunted Hill – with a little bit of The Exorcist thrown in – but now it’s the goddamn Evil Dead. When will it end? “Come on,” he said, grabbing a hold of Angela’s arm and hurrying down the corridor.
Jessica and Mike were up ahead. Jessica was screaming, once again the emotional mess she’d been when Tim first arrived at the house.
“What happened to him?” Jessica cried. “You all told me Graham was dead!”
“I think he is,” Tim said bluntly. “In fact, I’m pretty goddamn certain he is.”
“Then how is he walking around?” Mike asked, huffing and puffing as the group scurried down the dark hallway. Graham moaned and hissed from the shadows behind them.
“I have no freaking idea,” said Tim. “But I’m guessing he came back even more unfriendly than before."
Angela skidded to a stop on her heels. “Tim, did you find any basil earlier in
the kitchen?”
“What?”
“The basil? I sent you to the kitchen to find some.”
“I totally forgot about it,” he reached into his pocket, pulled out a spice jar full of basil and held it out. “Yeah, I found some.”
Angela took the jar.
Mike scoffed. “Can we think about the ratatouille later? We have more important things to worry about.”
Angela sprinkled the basil flakes across the carpet in a line from wall to wall. There was just enough inside the jar to complete the full length.
“What is that supposed to do?” Mike asked in a tone so mocking that Tim felt like punching him. He probably would have if the guy weren’t capable of beating him to a pulp.
Angela seemed to ignore Mike’s ignorant tone as she explained. “Basil has been used for centuries to ward off evil spirits – even the Church itself uses it. If it works, Graham will not be able to pass.”
“You hear that, Balrog?” Tim shouted into the darkness. “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”
Angela shoved everyone back and stood before them, facing down the dark hallway like a sentinel. Everybody waited behind her in silence. Tim could hear his own heart beating.
Graham’s moans continued in the shadows. The noise got louder, closer.
Eventually the shadows parted and Graham appeared. His head was still twisted around the wrong way but it had started to go limp as the cartilage in his spine weakened. A viscous meld of fluids dripped from his nose and swung in front of him like a sickening bungee cord.
Angela stood her ground, but Tim couldn’t help but shrink away. The sight of Graham made his stomach clench in revulsion. He could feel his heat beat faster as absolute terror took a familiar hold; he and it were well-acquainted, old friends. “Angela, come on,” he urged. “Let’s just get out of here.”
Angela ignored him. She held up a crucifix around her neck and began quoting the Bible – several passages over and over – so fast that she was almost speaking in tongues. Graham kept coming. His blood covered everything. His smell filled the air. “I sentence you to Hell,” she growled. “You will approach no further.”
To Tim’s surprise, Graham stopped at the line of basil on the carpet. It was almost as if there was a string attached to his waist that had just reached its maximum slack. Angela’s plan is working.
Then Graham reached across the line and grabbed Angela’s throat.
Maybe not.
Angela squirmed and tried to break free, but she was caught in a vice. Graham’s arms had dislocated from their sockets and rose up behind his back at an unnatural angle. His bleeding face grinned.
“Help her,” said Jessica.
Tim didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
He stood and watched as Angela struggled with Graham, watched as her face went red and her eyes began to bulge. In his mind, Tim saw his brother, the old woman, the hotel room. His heart froze in his ribcage. His knees turned to cement.
“I said, somebody help her,” Jessica cried out.”
Reluctantly, Mike ran forward. He barrelled, shoulder-first, into Graham and managed to knock his former colleague back down the corridor. The fact that Graham’s body was facing the wrong way meant that his legs tangled up and he tumbled to the floor. Angela was dragged to the floor with him.
Mike raised his boot, brought it down on Graham’s head. There was a vile crack as hard leather met skull bone. The blow was enough to make Graham release his grip on Angela. She scurried away quickly, choking and spluttering.
Mike brought his boot up again. And again. Stamping on his former colleague until there was barely anything left of his head but pulp.
Angela clambered to her feet. Her cassock was twisted and dishevelled. Tim could see the anger in her eyes as she glared at him. “Got my back, huh?” she said.
Tim averted his eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry.”
Angela sighed, took a breath, and some of the anger seemed to leave her face. “Don’t worry about it. No harm done.”
“No harm done?” Jessica echoed. “A member of my staff is dead.”
“I had no choice,” said Mike.
“I know,” said Jessica, shaking her head and grinding her teeth. “But that doesn’t make the situation any better. We need to call the police, or go for help, or…something! I feel like I’m going insane. I need a drink.”
“I don’t think that will help,” said Angela.
“Right now, it’s the only thing that will help. Mike, try the phones again.”
“Sure thing.” Mike took off down the hallway and disappeared. Tim was uncomfortable to see him go. He still didn’t trust the guy, didn’t like the thought of him sneaking around, but he also didn’t want Mike to leave in case there was another situation in which he froze. If Mike hadn’t been here to deal with Graham…. Even after all these years I’m still nothing but a coward.
Angela rubbed at her throat and looked at him. “The dead are walking, the night is eternal. I don’t like what’s happening here.”
“Me either,” said Tim.
“No,” said Angela. “I mean that this is more than just possession. No demon has this kind of power.”
“No poltergeist either,” Tim added. “So what the hell are we dealing with here?”
“I don’t know. The Devil? Or one of the other fallen angels? Only the princes of Hell themselves could affect the world in this way.”
“You sound like a mad woman,” said Jessica. “You’re talking utter nonsense.”
“I think the time for scepticism is over,” said Angela. “It’s clear we’re dealing with ancient evil here.”
“Ancient evil, the Devil, poltergeists – I’m stuck in a somebody’s paranoid delusion.” Jessica rubbed her palms against her eyes and then looked at them both. “So…what do we do?”
Angela smiled at Jessica reassuringly. “We find Sammie, and then you let me perform another exorcism, but this time we go all the way.”
Jessica swallowed. “What do you mean, all the way?”
“I mean whatever it takes to end this. We cannot let this evil remain.”
“I won’t let you hurt Sammie.”
Angela shook her head. “Jessica, sweetheart, your son has already been hurt. The only chance he has left of living a normal life ever again is for me to take this as far as it needs to go.”
Tears fell from Jessica’s eyes, but despite them she nodded.
Angela patted the woman on her arm. “There’s one other thing we need to do first.”
Jessica wiped the wetness from her cheeks and straightened up. “What?”
“We need to find out what Mike is hiding from us.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Sitting in the piano lounge, Mike didn’t intend on trying the phones. He knew they still wouldn’t be working, but he wouldn’t have tried them even if they were. Mike’s function at the house was as a recruiter. That meant staying around to ensure that his employer’s predictions were correct, that Sammie really was who they were relying on him to be. Sammie was changing and it was Mike’s job to make sure that the boy knew where his destiny lay. So why the hell am I being hit in the face by exploding television screens? I’m here to help the little brat.
His wounded eye stung, but Mike tolerated it. He’d been cleansed by pain as part of his initiation into the Black Strand – a secret, off-the-books organisation including all of the most powerful individuals from Black Remedy’s numerous sub-divisions. Mike was just a cog in a very large machine, but he took his membership very seriously. It was a rare honour bestowed on very few. Even Joseph Raymeady had known nothing of the Black Strand. His father and grandfather had been key figures, but they saw weaknesses in Joseph and kept him in the dark. Joseph’s morals would have only caused the group problems. Which is why it had posed such problems when Joseph’s father passed away.
With Joseph inheriting controlling interest of Black Remedy, he’d quickly begun an ethical crusade, turning over every one of the company
’s rocks to see what lay beneath. It would have only been a matter of time before Joseph discovered the existence of the Black Strand and their purpose – and the true purpose of Black Remedy Corporation itself.
Joseph had never seen it coming when Mike strung a rope around his neck and hoisted him over the balcony. The execution had been quick and clean – professional. Mike’s employers had been pleased. But where has it gotten me? I’m beginning to feel like a lamb at slaughter. Sammie was never meant to be any danger to me, but nearly being blinded disproves that. Not to mention the never-ending night and Graham getting up and walking around like a member of the living dead. None of this was supposed to happen. There’s something I don’t understand.
Mike poured himself a drink from the nearest bottle, which turned out to be rum. He filled up a low-baller glass halfway and then downed the contents, enjoying the pleasant burn at the back of his throat.
“Drinking is bad for you, Michael. The body is a temple and it is a sin to defile it.”
Mike jolted, dropped the glass. It smashed on the floor. “Sammie, shit, where did you come from?”
Sammie stepped out from the shadows and grinned. His teeth seemed even more crooked than usual. “I’ve always been here, Michael. What are you doing here? Little early for a drink isn’t it.”
“Usually, yeah, but in case you haven’t noticed the night’s gone on a little longer than usual.”
“Yes, I did notice that. Beautiful, isn’t it? Everything seems so much more…intimate…in the dark, don’t you think?”
“If you say so.”
“What’s the matter? You seem irritated, Michael.”
“Are you surprised? You almost blinded me earlier.”
Sammie giggled. “Not me. My friend.”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Michael, making himself another drink. “You know I’m here to help you, right?”
Sammie tilted his head like a confused puppy. “Help me with what?”
“Help you realise who you are – what you are.”
Sammie stepped closer. The shadows seemed to flee from his presence, like antelopes fleeing a lion. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m just a boy, nothing else.”
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