Maybe I should just…
End it…?
The heavy patter of feet out in the hallway drew his attention to the bedroom door. What the hell was that? He gazed at the door in the dark. Someone running down the hall? Johnathan, wandering around drunk, lost in the dark?
Another patter of feet, two sets, one lite, and the other not, as if someone small was being chased by something big.
Bobby slung his feet out of the bed on to the cold hard wood floors. He ignored slipping on a shirt and inched toward the door wearing nothing but his finest Walmart issued dark grey sweatpants. He stroked his shaggy beard nervously, listening carefully for anymore thumps or thuds.
Or screams…
Silence.
Bobby had almost given up and returned to bed when another round of pattering thudded down the hallway. Impatient, he swallowed and flung the door open hard and fast. Only the dimly lit hallway greeted him back. He peered down the hall in both directions. Near the stairs he spotted a figure, small, short.
Tabitha?
Faint laughter echoed from its direction. Whoever the figure was, it ran down the steps. Does Tabitha sleepwalk? He turned and then looked at his divine bed, the cool sheets, and the plush feathered pillows. He grumbled. Not like I was getting any sleep anyhow.
He quietly tread down the hall. Approaching the steps he stopped. Frozen.
“Hello doggy,” said the child’s voice from below.
That’s Tabitha all right. Doggy? I thought Maggie said something happened to Moxie? That Moxie was dead? Or…no, she ran away or something, right? Bobby peeked over the banister, confused, perhaps even a bit nervous, though he wasn’t sure why. The fireplace was nearly dead. Faint ambers of red and dark orange cast long and menacing shadows over the couch and armchairs. A little figure with long sandy hair stood just within eyesight below, reaching out for some unseen thing that stood near the kitchen door.
“No. No biting little puppy,” sang Tabitha, scolding, mocking in a semi-paternal voice, wagging her finger in a way most kids do when they discipline baby dolls.
Bobby slunk down the steps. Careful to not make a sound, he walked on the sides of his bare feet. Despite heat from the glowing, dying fire and the unusually moderate winter, the living room felt frigid, colder than upstairs. He felt as if he were walking on ice. His skin burned with each step.
“No, puppy. Come back!” whined Tabitha. She gave chase.
Bobby reached the bottom as the little girl took off after whatever it was she’d been following. Probably something from her dream, no doubt. You know, if Tabitha does sleep walk, I can’t believe Karen and Johnathan aren’t keeping a better eye on her. Making sure she doesn’t wander out of their room. It’s dangerous here. She could have fallen down the steps. Or…
Screaming erupted from the kitchen, mixed with a terribly familiar growl. A growl Bobby had heard before. Where? He could not be for certain. Perhaps from his own dreams; nightmares more like. He ran toward the kitchen where little Tabitha had disappeared. He flung himself through the door and found only the moon’s grey beams welcoming him there. And the door to the cellar was wide open, the blackness within deep and hollow.
More screaming cried out from below as he peered into the dark.
“Tabitha?” Bobby called after her.
Nothing. The screams were becoming faint, as if she was disappearing or fading off into some unseen world. He took the steps. The wood creaked under his weight.
Am I dreaming?
More faint cries for help.
Fuck it!
He took the steps two at a time. Below, Bobby searched the dusty basement. Shelves of jars coated with age. Old tools belonging to another era. Sacks of wheat. But not the little girl. Not Tabitha.
Where is she? Bobby’s mind raced. This is impossible. She was just here.
More cries and a howl.
Where is that coming from? Bobby pounded the dirt with his feet, marching back and forth. He slipped on something wet and thudded to the floor. Dazed, he looked at his toes and saw blood. And finally his gaze fell to the great seal, open, blood pooling together and leading down into…what?
What is this? Stairs?
“Pl—pl—please, no,” stuttered the little girl. Her voice sounded impossibly far away. Deep.
She screamed.
Bobby’s heart stopped.
Another hideous howl echoed up from the open seal—hungry and full of malice, familiar to him. He stood, looking at his blood stained toes. He clenched his teeth and followed the blood trail leading below the house, down the stone carved steps, down into the pit.
CHAPTER 15
OF MONSTERS
Jake
For a moment, Jake really believed he was sitting on a pew inside the stone masonry walls of the convent, the quiet solitude of Oblates of Holy Cross Monastery, the one where he’d spent the holidays trying to find God again. Finding God, isn’t that a trick? I suppose as much sense as believing fulfillment could be found between a woman’s legs. Echoes of his friend’s words found him in this place, in the world between dreams and his conscious state. Johnathan had been sharp. But he spoke the truth, had he not? Jake still struggled, regardless of deciding a path. The pain and void lingered still, like a weight hung from his heart.
Will this feeling ever go away? Will I ever feel right with God again? With myself? It just doesn’t seem possible, anymore. Perhaps I just need more time…
Jake hunched as if in prayer. The Oratory inside the monastery that was built on the outskirts of Beaumont held a quiet charm. He looked beyond the altar where the abbot gave his sermons, upward at the painful, yet beautifully hand carved woodened cross. The Christ figure hung in eloquent simplicity. No gems or stained glass or bright purple paint. Just rosewood chiseled away with solemn contemplation and self-sacrificing patience. He remembered sitting here before, in this very pew. Clear minded, for the first time in years. Even more so than before the war, before his parents and their constant persistence he join the ministerial profession. Perhaps that’s why he was dreaming of the monastery now. Thinking. Pondering purpose. Of joining the Order. Performing the three novitiates. Taking the Vow. If he so chose. His parents would get a kick out of that, wouldn’t they? Presbyterian minister gone rogue, converted to Catholicism. Heaven knows there have been worse things to happen. At this point, Jake wondered why he even cared what his parents thought of him. It was their pain to carry. They didn’t see what he witnessed. The useless death, as Jake believed. He figured that perhaps it was best to hide in the convent.
I’m sure they’d love hearing about it. ‘Hey Mom, Dad, I’ve quit the ministry and decided to join the cloister. What’s that? I’m not Catholic? Oh, I think I can make the change. Huh? Didn’t catch that? I’m a disappointment? Yeah, I guess I am. Wouldn’t be the first time though, huh?’
Jake rubbed his arms, lost in thought. Though the stone held the cold winter winds—when was this memory, January?—battering the night, the Oratory was comfortably warm. Perhaps it was from the votive candles that lined the back of the chapel. There were so many, more than he remembered from his time here; hundreds of prayers glowing in the darkness. Jake recalled watching the silent monks lighting them during the day. Hands clasped, mouths moving without the utterance of word, only the utterance of heart.
God—if I could have that kind of faith. Complete surrender, the pouring out of self and doubt. Only if I could believe as they do. If only…
A strong breeze whipped the dancing candlelight. Shadows leapt as if terrified of the warm glow. The Chapel doors swung open, thudding the wall, echoing like a giant’s hammer. Jake turned, startled, but found no one standing there. The doors closed and the Chapel faded back into silence. His thoughts drifted to scripture.
“You belong to the light, who belong to the day. Not the night or to darkness…” he breathed, inhaling and exhaling as he uttered the words long memorized.
“I am born of God. The devil cannot touch me,” he
inhaled.
“I am an enemy of the devil,” he exhaled.
Laugher filled the Oratory, rolling off the stone walls. The candlelight flickered. The dirge filled the room and seemed to vibrate in a cruel and menacing tone of old anger and hate.
Jake spun in the pew.
Nothing.
Just the wind.
He resumed his posture. Hands clasped, eyes shut, head low.
More laughter, terribly familiar, echoed off the thick stone walls. The candlelight darkened, a few had burnt out. Prayers extinguished in the tempest.
“Who’s there?” Jake called out.
Only the howling laughter greeted him. The spectral fool giggled and chuckled, guffawing, piercing the air with his contemptuous raving, like a cranked music box doomed to play its eerie melody and dancing jester, laughing and blubbering never ceasing, forever cackling and cackling and cackling, bobbing back and forth on a rusted spring. Starving for respite; lusting for retribution like some circus treat or peanut for one of the elephants or those succulent red apples the donkeys liked to munch.
Jake stood, with his back to the cross, watching the dark corners carefully, glancing at the candlelight flickering in the sour wind.
“Jaaaake—” someone called. The voice was some distance away, as if it came from the hall or down towards the refectory where the monks ate their simple meals of unleavened bread and fish and vegetables grown outside near the cloister walkway.
He followed the voice. The candles went out as he left the small chapel. Darkness bred, except for the blue moon piercing in through the glass windows. His feet were bare. He wore robes, as he had before during the holidays. It seemed fitting that he wore them now, here between dream and his conscious state. He floated down the hall like a wisp caught in the gravity of irrefutability. Moonbeams gave him enough clairvoyance to make his way. The refectory door stood ajar. Carefully he went in. But there was no one there. Just row upon row of empty benches and tables, empty bowls and empty plates, empty cauldrons and empty cupboards. Desolate. Not a crumb or morsel left for even a mouse.
But there is someone here, I can feel them…someone…I know. Look! There they are! Jake floated toward someone sitting alone at a bench near the back. The shadow was hunched over a plate making strange slurping sounds as if it ate. It shivered with each bite. Wide-eyed and without heed, Jake approached. Why not? It’s just a dream, right? This isn’t real. Why not see who it is?
“Hello?” Jake called out, sounding more nervous than he’d like.
The stranger stopped and turned. He faced Jake with a terrible grin, his face rotten and waxy, and his body a mad lump of mass, misshapen and deformed. His ACU’s were unmistakable now, as was his face.
“Renfield?” Jake uttered, bewildered.
“Hello, Padre. Hungry?” offered the dead boy soldier, chewing as he spoke. He held out a spoon. Dark spittle ran down his boney chin and clung to his moldy uniform. There was some sort of viscous soup in the spoon. Jake did not want to look at it. He choked back bile as the smell of it stung his throat. His cheeks puffed. Lips pressed. Blood ran from his face. His skin crawled. Jake pulled back his hands and saw the crimson stain, shocked.
“I am born of God. The devil cannot touch me,” Jake prayed as he held his breath.
“Say it ain’t so, Jake,” the dead Renfield snickered, spilling the contents of the spoon on the floor.
“I am an enemy of the devil,” Jake continued, carefully drawing breath, fighting the urge to purge his stomach on the tile floor.
“You’ve gone pastoral, again!” heckled the dead soldier.
“The Lord is my Shepherd—”
“I warned you, choir boy.”
“I shall not want.”
“Told you to give it up, didn’t I?”
“He maketh me to lie in green pastures—”
“Utter bullshit.”
“—leadeth me beside still waters.”
“What makes you think the Big Ali’i’ is even listening?”
“He restoreth my soul—”
“You’re alone, Jake.”
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death—”
“I think He left the phone off the hook. Don’t you think, Jake? Ba-ba-ba-ba—”
“I will fear no evil—”
“You sure about that?”
“—for thou art with me.”
“I’m with you. I’ll always be with you, Jake. Always. Always. I’ll never leave you. Never. I’ll always be a part of you.”
“Thou preparest a table—”
“Can I pull up a chair, Jake?”
“—anointest my head with oil.”
“Well, that’s not going to wash out.”
“—my cup runneth over.”
“I’ve got a spoon. Is that good?”
“STOP MOCKING ME!” Jake snarled, gnashing his teeth. His arm shot out, finger aiming fiery contempt for the corpse that had been a soldier, once.
“Me?” Renfield mocked hurt in a shrill voice.
“This is just a dream. Just a dream.” Jake closed his eyes tight. Come on, wake up. Wake up! He focused hard, but all he could hear was the heckling rotting thing eating in the refectory.
“Come and see, Jake. Look at what you’ve done to me. Look at what has become of me!” it hissed.
Jake opened his eyes. Renfield began to convulse. Those hideous lumps of flesh bubbled and boiled beneath the waxy layer. His pale skin came apart, peeling away half of his face, revealing a dark wet mass beneath. And where his milky dead eye had been, a bulbous red compound eye swelled out from the discarded meat.
“You did this!” Renfield howled. He chirped. He clicked unnaturally as he spoke.
Jake watched. If he had been convinced this was not a dream, he would have run. Or, he’d like to think he would have run at such a horrifying thing. No, he swore it was all just a dream, a terrible dream, yes, but a dream all the same. He refused to flee from the impossible thing before him. Instead, he watched with his mouth agape. What had been intended to be a scream froze in his throat in a raspy gurgle. He looked in horror at the dead soldier transforming before him, at its hideous red eye. And at the arm Renfield held up toward Heaven, the skin sliding off exposing a dark fibered tarsus stretching out, aiming its black claw-hand, prodding him toward doubt that this was clearly nothing more than a bad dream.
Nothing more.
Oh, God, please. Nothing more.
“Come see, Jake,” Renfield chirped. His throat rattled. His head twitched. And as he spoke, mandibles protruded from his mouth, kneading the waxy flesh, shattering teeth on to the floor. He reached out with his still human hand, as if gesturing for some sort of warm embrace. Renfield’s human eye looked somehow sincere. The other…the bug eye, looked hungry.
Regardless if Jake believed what he saw was real or not mattered little now. He knew the thing before him meant him harm. If this was a dream or not, he had no desire to experience whatever It had in store.
As two short antenna cut through the forehead of the dead boy soldier in a sickening crunch, Jake turned on his bare heels and ran, no longer a wisp in a mystical out-of-body place, but normal again, normal and afraid. He ran with everything he had, his feet making a loud slapping sound and robe fluttering behind him, sprinting down the corridor. His lungs burned, but he would not stop. He would barricade himself in the chapel and hopefully somehow find a way to wake up.
“Come on, Jaaaake! Sing Us a hymn,” the Renfield thing chirped, stuttering on the words, clicking wildly from the refectory.
Jake reached the Oratory and turned to close the doors, shoving with all his imagined weight. Clicking followed him, booming down the hall. Scratching, clawing, the dreadful chorus echoed from the shadows. He could see the black fur covered tusk-like tibias of the creature scraping against the stone. Renfield scampered across the ceiling, like some monster fly dashing toward him, his mandibles exposed and ready to feast. Jake held his breath and slammed
shut the door. The insectoid thudded against it, knocking Jake down on the cold floor. The smell of candle smoke was still strong in the chapel.
Jake crawled backwards on his hands and feet. Watching the door. Watching the wood splinter as the beast, as Renfield, pounded the thick oak.
“Go away!” Jake muttered. “Please, just stop. Go away.”
“Come on, Jake,” the thing clicked behind the door in an even stranger lisp. “Let me show you—” it chirped, its voice rattled like bone-dry teeth in a jar.
“No…no…”
“Yessss,” it hissed.
This can’t be happening…this can’t be happening! Wake up, Jake, wake up!
Something hard touched his shoulder. Jake spun, eyes wide with terror and stared in hypnotized horror at the wooden Jesus figure kneeling beside him. Its rosewood hand rested upon his shoulder. He searched its sculptured face. The wooden Jesus’ hollow eyes held the entire cosmos, darkness that could be felt with every glittering star known and unknown. Of moons and rings and comets and quasars and gamma-ray bursts and supernovas and galaxies far beyond the furthest realm of comprehension all tucked within those hand carved hollowed eyes pulling Jake with some great and phenomenal gravity…and its sullen smile.
Jake trembled, his voice lost.
The wooden Jesus spoke for him.
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice…”
CHAPTER 16
MASQUERADE 1885
Jillian
Jillian Swan had never been to such a grand festival. The farm over Juniper Hill, where she labored sixty hours or more a week, offered nothing of eloquence. She was a farm hand, not an aristocrat. She congregated with sheep, with swine, with mops and brooms and sewing needles. Not elite. Yet, here she was, dressed in the finest dress she could borrow (steal more like with the silent promise to return) from her mistress, dancing the night away behind a golden feathered trim mask. She ate cheese she had never tasted before and tasted of wine and savored glances she had only heard of in fairy tales and gossip. Nothing her mother would approve of, for certain, nor her father. But they’re not here, are they? She smiled, pleased with her own cleverness, for snatching the strange envelope addressed to her benefactor. ‘By invitation only,’ she had read. Why not, the old windbag doesn’t even know what day it is.
Emerging (Subdue Book 2) Page 12
