by JG Faherty
“Where’s Erika?”
Maria shook her head. “It’s too late, they have her.”
“Who’s they? Who has her?” He got to his feet, the dizziness fading as a throbbing pain took its place. He reached back and felt a sizable lump already forming behind one ear. He looked at his hand to see if there was any blood, and frowned. His palms were covered in scratches.
From climbing the boulder.
No. That was the dream. The dream within the dream.
He wanted to shake his head, but it hurt too much. Everything was so confused, so mixed up. He wished he could just go back to bed and wake up to a world where everything was normal again and his head didn’t ache.
Concussion. He’d hit his head at the carnival and that was causing the hallucinations. Or had he hit his head here and hallucinated the carnival? Did it matter anymore? His head hurt and the world was inside out.
A tear ran down Maria’s cheek. “The spirits of the dead. I warned you. Now they’ve taken your friends and your woman.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Where are they?” Anger surged through him, driving away the cobwebs in his brain. He clenched his fist, tempted for a moment to strike the diminutive woman.
As if sensing his barely controlled violence, Maria backed away before answering him.
“The professor’s room. He’s…he’s using them to bring back his dead family.”
“What?” The maid’s words were gibberish, nonsense.
“’Tis true. It’s magic, black magic. I told him he should stop with the first two, that he didn’t need another. Mister Burns and his woman, the children. That should have been enough. He didn’t need her. Besides…I would have…I loved him enough to volunteer. But he didn’t want me. He called to your woman in her sleep. You…they didn’t need you, just like they don’t need me. Not the way I need him.”
The maid burst into tears, holding both hands over her face. Jason didn’t understand what she was saying, or even if anything he was experiencing was real, but if it was real, then Erika was in trouble. He couldn’t take the chance it was just a dream. He wasn’t about to let anything happen to her.
Not this time.
He grabbed Maria by the shoulders and shook her. “Show me where they are.”
Still crying, Maria nodded. “Perhaps it’s best to put an end to this abomination.”
She took him down the stairs and then up the second staircase, the one that led to Osvald’s quarters. They passed by the second-floor landing and continued up the creaking steps to the third floor, where a single torch guttered, leaving the landing and hallway wrapped in blankets of gloom. It was colder as well, enough so that Jason caught glimpses of his breath.
Random flashes of lightning created a slow-motion strobe effect through the scattered windows. Thunder exploded outside, louder than before, as if the storm were angry at Jason’s impending intrusion into the forbidden chambers. The relentless din shook the castle and vibrated the floor, reminding Jason of the earthquake on the beach.
“This way,” Maria whispered, despite there being no one else around. She scurried down the hall, glancing behind her to make sure Jason was following. After passing several doors, she paused by one. A fan of flickering yellow light escaped from the space at the bottom.
“In there. ’Tis where he does his dark deeds.” She crossed herself and stepped back.
Jason didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the handle, flung the door open and charged inside. After only three steps he stopped, stunned and appalled by what he saw.
Two hideous forms, both smaller than adults, stood a few feet away, their backs to him. Wet, rotted rags draped their forms and their equally putrefied flesh showed through in ghastly shades of translucent blue, gray and green. Patches of hair sprouted in clumps from otherwise bald skulls.
“The spirits live,” whispered Maria from the doorway.
At her words, the two corpses slowly turned around, and Jason felt a scream rising at the sight of them. He held it back, afraid that if he gave it life it might never stop.
Each creature’s face was divided into two parts: the horrible visage of a long-dead child on the left, and healthy, pink, living flesh on the right.
The flesh of Charles Burns and Lilly Thorn.
“Oh my God.” Disbelief crumbled away like ash in a breeze. No longer did he doubt Maria’s words or refute the possibility of the supernatural. The evidence stood before him and he had to accept it as real, because no sane person could ever imagine anything so horrid, not even in their most fevered nightmares. Somehow Osvald had managed to bring his dead children back from their watery grave and meld their bodies with those of Charles and Lilly, to take the life force of the living and transfer it to the dead.
The Burns-son smiled, exposing a full set of teeth on one side and a rotted, yellowed jawbone on the other. Water dripped from their bodies and Jason realized that one or both of the creatures had been in Burns’s room earlier that night, had taken him away in the same manner they’d probably taken Lilly.
The way they’d taken Erika.
He pulled his gaze away from the two impossible beings and looked around the rest of the room.
For the first time, he noticed he was in a library. It was enormous, almost as large as the dining and sitting areas on the first floor combined. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves occupied two entire walls. Thousands, tens of thousands, of books lined the shelves. Between them was an oversized fireplace, its flames low and sputtering and offering no heat.
A wide desk squatted like a bloated toad against the fourth wall, its wood chipped and stained, its stout legs doing their best to hold up under the weight of the books and papers piled in precarious fashion atop it.
Scattered along the outside walls were tall stained-glass windows, which were presently enduring an assault by a downpour so furious Jason wondered how it hadn’t shattered the glass already.
All of this Jason took in with just a glance before turning his eyes toward the man in the center of the room.
Osvald stood there with a thick, ancient-looking book in one hand, as if lecturing to one of his classes. In his other hand, he held a wicked-looking knife with a black blade. Intricate patterns decorated the handle. He was facing away from Jason and reciting words in a strange language.
A spell. The same kind of spell that had brought his children back. No doubts accompanied the thought. The idea that magic and spells and time travel were not only possible but real no longer aroused any skepticism in Jason’s mind. And because he believed, he knew he had to stop Osvald, put an end to the man’s insane experiment, if he and Erika were going to have any chance of getting off the island alive.
“Osvald! Put the book down. This madness ends now.”
The professor paused in his incantation and looked back over his shoulder.
“You’re right, my friend. It does. But not for the reason you think.” His lips pulled up in a maniacal grin so unlike his usual somber expression. Stepping to one side, he exposed a scene straight out of Hell.
The final sacrifice to his dark gods.
Jason looked past the deranged professor and felt his heart stutter. Erika lay naked in the center of a circle drawn in blood, a human pentagram highlighted in crimson. As he fought through the shock of seeing her that way, more details became apparent. Her arms and legs were tied to wooden pegs that had been driven into the floor. Her head was tilted to one side, her hair in tangles across her face, but there was no mistaking her for anyone else. Long, jagged cuts, so fresh they still dripped red rivers onto the floor, ran the length of her limbs.
“Erika!”
Her name exploded from his throat, propelled by horror and anger and emotions he couldn’t even name. She didn’t respond, but Osvald laughed.
“You’re too late, boy.”
The idea of it was an ice-cold dagger to Jason’s heart, but then he saw her chest rising and falling.
She’s alive!
His body reacted insta
ntly. There was no rational thought in his head except an all-consuming desire to save the woman he loved. He lowered his shoulder and charged forward, ready to force his way past the two nightmares and the professor and free Erika. After that, he’d kill anyone who came near her. In his mind, he was ready to do whatever he needed to.
Instead, he found himself bouncing off Osvald’s demonic offspring as if they were made of stone. He landed on his back, gasping for air, unable to fight back when the waterlogged zombies grasped him with iron-strong fingers and hauled him to his feet. Their stench filled the air with the stink of death and rotten fish, and his gasps turned to a violent retching that left him even more helpless.
Maria screamed, drawing Jason’s attention. She pointed behind him, and he turned his head, already fearing he knew exactly what he would see.
Three people taken. But only two monsters made.
Which meant it was Erika’s turn.
His terror grew even worse when he saw he was right.
The third revenant was taller than the others, but no less grotesque. It shambled forward in awkward, hesitant steps, dripping water, slime and other foul fluids. Like the others, it wore the remnants of the clothes it had perished in. What was left of its hair hung to its shoulders; withered, slate-gray breasts dangled behind disintegrating cloth. Large portions of its face were missing, eaten away by sea creatures and rot. A stubby tongue peered eellike from a gaping hole in one cheek.
The creature opened its mouth and brownish-green seawater dribbled out, adding further insult to the already polluted air.
“Johannnn,” it said, its voice choked with phlegm.
“My darling.” The professor put down his book and approached the sea-hag, took it into his arms.
Kissed it deeply and passionately.
“Abomination!” Maria turned away. Jason felt his stomach twist as another spasm racked his guts and he doubled over, spitting out the last bits of vomit in his body.
Osvald took his dead wife by the hand and led her to a point directly in front of Erika, so that their feet almost touched.
Knowing what was about to happen, Jason struggled to break free, but his unearthly captors maintained their hold.
“Erika!” he shouted. Her eyes remained closed. “Erika! Wake up! Don’t let her touch you.”
“It is time,” the professor said, ignoring Jason’s cries. He raised the ebony blade and strode forward, placing himself between Erika and his corpse bride. Without being told what to do, the dead woman raised her arms, mimicking Erika’s forced pose.
Osvald placed the knife against the soft, white flesh of the corpse’s arm and drew it downward, parting the skin in a long line. He repeated the motion with the other arm and both legs. Yellowish-green fluids spilled from the wounds, filling the room with the rancid odors of decayed flesh and sewage.
Instead of showing pain, the creature let out a bubbling sigh of near ecstasy and knelt on the ground. Slowly, carefully, it leaned forward until its arms and legs were pressed against Erika’s.
Bits of his wife’s flesh hung from his lips and chin as Osvald picked up his book. He flicked them aside and resumed reading.
“Flesh to flesh, blood to blood, life for life, let two become one. Soggoth, Dagon, Hydra, hear my plea. Asmodeus, Astaroth, Mormo, hear my plea.”
Osvald raised his knife, the blade still dripping inhuman ichor, and waved it towards the entwined bodies. Erika’s eyes opened and a loud moan escaped from lips trapped by the mouth of the dead thing on top of her.
“Erika! No!” At the sound of Jason’s voice, her eyes turned toward him, filled with fear and pain.
Osvald lifted the book high and shouted.
“Leviathan, hear my plea!”
Erika screamed and the corpse echoed her, the two voices blending into one.
For a moment, Jason thought tears had blurred his vision. The outlines of the two bodies grew indistinct and then clear again. Osvald let out a triumphant cry.
The corpse rose to its feet and Jason knew he’d failed.
Erika’s cuts gaped open but no longer bled. Her chest no longer rose and fell. Her skin, which had held the last of its summer tan only hours before, had paled to grayish-white.
The creature turned around and Jason wished he were the one who’d died.
The left side of its face was still a skull, with only shreds of flesh hanging on the bone. The right side, though, was a perfect duplicate of Erika’s beautiful features. Like her face, half the sea-hag’s body had acquired Erika’s human form.
“My love, you have returned to me.” Osvald held his arms out to the loathsome thing.
“As you promised me,” it said in a voice still thick with unearthly fluids. She stepped into his embrace and Jason had to look away, unable to bear the sight of the Erika half eagerly meeting the professor’s lips and tongue with her own.
“No!”
Maria’s sudden shout brought Jason’s eyes open. She was running across the room towards Osvald and his terrible creation, a large carving knife in her hand.
“I won’t let you take him away from me, you monster!”
Osvald let go of his reanimated wife and caught Maria by the arm before the blade reached its target. The force of her charge pushed them back several yards, their feet sliding as they struggled to keep their balance on the wet floor. Although Osvald was easily stronger than the diminutive woman, Maria’s wildly flailing arms and the deadly blade she held made her his equal, at least temporarily. With both of his hands busy keeping the knife at bay, it left her other arm and legs free to attack him. She continued to thrash about, kicking and clawing and screaming like a madwoman, causing him to retreat farther and farther, until he found himself pinned to a wall between two of the ceiling-high windows.
Maria lashed out with a foot, catching the professor in the shin. He shouted in pain and his grip on her knife hand loosened, allowing her the opportunity to bring the blade down in a fast arc. It made a meaty thump as it sliced into the side of his neck, right over his collarbone.
Osvald let out a bellow that turned into a bubbling gasp. Bloody froth spilled from his mouth and his eyes bulged from their sockets. He grabbed at the maid but she gave him a hard push, sending him into a nearby window that flew open when the weight of his body hit it. Osvald had time to choke out her name—“Maria!”—one time, his hand still reaching for her, and then he was gone, lost in the blackness of the night and storm.
“Professor!” Dropping the knife, she ran to the window, ignoring the heavy rain pouring in.
At the same time, the two zombies let go of Jason and he crossed the room, joining Maria at the window ledge, his hair and shirt instantly soaked as he leaned out and looked down. More than a hundred feet below, the storm-powered waves crashed brutally against the rocky shore, barely visible but loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the rain.
There was no sign of the professor’s body.
Remembering the three monsters behind him, Jason turned away from the window and stepped to the side before they could send him on the same path as Osvald. There was no immediate danger, however, as the creatures were still standing in the center of the room, the woman flanked by the two children.
The thing that wore Erika’s face stared at him, her single eye alive and filled with sadness rather than evil.
“Jason?” it asked, its voice half Erika’s and half something else, something not meant for the human world.
“Erika?” he responded automatically. “Is it really you?”
She shook her head, then nodded. “I… We’re both in here. Mary and I. It feels so…strange. She talks to me. She’s…nice. She’s not angry with you. All she ever wanted was to be with the man she loves.”
“’Tis truth,” Maria said, her words drenched in sorrow. “The professor tried other spells, ones that would return Mary completely, but nothing worked. Until he found this one. He was going to try it on his daughter first. Josephine. A lovely young girl. He’d s
teal a girl from town, that was his plan. But the storm came in. And then…then the four of you showed up and changed everything. Soon as I saw you, I knew what would happen. He kept to his plan. The children first. It was always the children first with them.”
She paused, shook her head again. Jason wanted to shout at her, “Why didn’t you warn us?” but all he could do was listen, caught up in the tale of just how far a man would go for love.
“When…when he saw what happened, what she looked like…after, I thought he’d give up. An abomination against God, that’s what his spell brought about. I told him so. ’Twas the devil’s game he was playing, and nothing good could come of it. But he said ’twas better to have them this way than not at all.”
Maria lifted her head and stared hard at Jason. “Them, not her. That’s what he said. And I knew he’d made his decision. He would bring them all back, no matter what the cost.”
A tiny whimper pulled Jason’s attention from Maria to Erika/Mary. A tear ran down the Erika side of the creature’s face, but somehow both halves managed to look grief-stricken.
“I’m a monster, aren’t I?” Its voice was soft, but Jason still heard it above the roar of the storm.
He wanted to deny it, tell her that she could never be a monster, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t lie to her, not with her looking at him like that. He’d already lied to her too much, lied about them going home, about being safe in the castle, about not worrying, about taking care of her.
Except he hadn’t.
He hadn’t kept her safe, not here, not on the beach, not at that damned carnival. He’d failed her.
The woman he loved, the beautiful girl he’d planned on marrying, wasn’t even human anymore. She was a monster, there was no denying it. The corpse half of her proved it each time he looked at her, with its rotting skin, bleached bones and missing eye. With its stench that not even the wind gusting in from the broken window could drive away.
She was a monster, and so were the two children standing next to her. The best thing, the most humane thing to do would be to kill them again, for good this time, and then burn down the castle and all the dreadful secrets it contained.
