Hell Is Coming (The Watcher's Series Book 1)

by N. P. Martin

  What the hell did I hope to achieve by coming here, apart from dredging up a load of bad memories?

  Having just gotten the flashlight from the trunk of the car, I was walking back up to the house again when I noticed a figure in the house next door, standing by the living room window. The figure stepped back when I looked. I couldn’t tell if it was Mrs. Wheatley or not.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Kasey said when I returned with the flashlight. “This place is giving me the creeps. Seriously, I thought where I lived was bad.”

  “You can wait here if you want,” I said, hoping she would do the opposite.

  “I’m not letting you go in there alone. What do you take me for?”

  “Let’s go then,” I said, relieved that I wouldn’t have to this alone. Switching on the flashlight I stepped inside the house again, Kasey close behind. We stood in the kitchen as I moved the light beam around, illuminating the dark interior. Apart from the musty smell and thick layers of dust, everything was exactly as I remembered. Even the same table and chairs were in the dining area. “God this is weird.”

  “I’ll bet.” Kasey was holding onto my arm.

  Opening the kitchen door, we stepped out into the hallway and made our way past the stairs and into the living room. The room contained the same soft leather sofa my parents bought when they moved into the place. Looking at it, I got flashbacks of sitting up there with my dad watching cartoons, my dad laughing more than I did at the animated antics of the characters on screen. I tore my gaze from the sofa to look around the rest of the room. It looked like people had been hanging out in there at one point because there were empty bottles and beers cans everywhere.

  Probably local kids using the place as a drinking den.

  The widescreen TV that used to hang on the wall above the fireplace was gone, which was no surprise. So was the stereo that used to sit in the corner of the room. I stood for a few minutes, shining the light around, not really sure of what I was looking for, just anything that would grab my interest. Nothing did. Underneath the dust and grime and spider webs, everything seemed normal and painfully familiar.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” I said, my voice sounding weirdly loud in the heavy silence.

  The stairs creaked and groaned as I walked up them with Kasey bringing up the rear. My heart rate sped up and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise as I neared the top of the stairs. Fear didn’t feel very far away the moment I stepped onto the landing. I was afraid to even breathe as I shone the flashlight at my parents’ old bedroom door and held it there for a moment.

  “Was that your parents’ room?” Kasey whispered. I could hear the unease in her voice and I thought the nostalgia trip I had her on must have been weird for her as well, maybe more so.

  “Yes,” I whispered back hoarsely, my mouth dry and my throat tight. I almost decided to run back down the stairs, but I fought the sense of panic, pushing it down deep.

  I have to do this.

  I swung the flashlight across the landing, past the open bathroom door to my old bedroom. “That one was mine.” I expected some kind of reply from Kasey but she was just standing behind me, back to holding onto my arm.

  Slowly, I walked to the door, pausing for a second before opening it, swallowing hard as the door swung open to reveal my old bedroom. Apart from the dust and cobwebs, I could hardly believe that everything was exactly the same. Nostalgia mixed with heavy sadness came over me as I shone the light over the shelves above the bed. All my books and stuffed toys were still there, as were the drawings I had stuck all over the walls. A lump formed in my throat and tears ran down my cheeks as I remembered how my dad used to tuck me into bed at night, choosing a book from the shelf to read to me before kissing me goodnight, leaving the door slightly ajar because he knew I didn’t like it fully closed.

  Kasey must have heard me sniff back the tears. She rubbed my arm. “You alright?”

  “Oh god,” I said, sniffing back more tears. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

  “I don’t even know why you’re here. This is crazy, putting yourself through this.”

  I hadn’t even gotten to my parents’ room yet. “I’m fine.” I wiped the tears from my face and forced myself to get a grip. “Just one more room.” I slid past Kasey and walked back across the landing to my parents’ old room. Taking a deep breath, trying not to drag things out, I opened the door and shone the flashlight into the room.

  Both of us gasped when we saw the blood stains on the beige carpet. It was the first time I had seen the room since the night my parents were killed. My stomach tightened as panic gripped me.

  In my mind I was seeing my father lying dead on the floor, covered in blood, a huge dog-like beast hovering over him, its eyes red and burning as it snarled at me, baring its massive pointed teeth.

  Beside the beast was a scaly-skinned demon with glowing yellow eyes and two huge horns that curved over its head and down its back. The Hellhound’s master maybe? It was holding my mother in its arms as it stood in front of a circle of orange light on the floor, a portal of some kind.

  My mother was still alive. Her face was covered in blood, and she told me she was sorry. I remember thinking, Why are you sorry, Mommy?

  Then the demon stepped into the portal and disappeared into it. The beast followed the demon, the thick hairs on its huge back bristling as it gave me a final snarl before jumping into the portal, and then the light in the floor disappeared.

  After that, there was just me standing in the doorway, frozen, petrified, not knowing what to do.

  And my father lying dead on the floor.

  Daddy…

  I jumped when Kasey nudged me. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I think we should go. This isn’t good for you being here.” Kasey sounded frightened herself, her normal fearless demeanor gone, like my fear was rubbing off on her.

  “Just a second.” I willed myself to move further into the room as I swung the flashlight around, searching, but not sure for what. Almost everything in the room had been taken out by the cops as evidence. The only things left were an empty wardrobe, empty chest of drawers and the bed which had been stripped of the sheets. I spent a few minutes looking around while Kasey waited by the door and looked over her shoulder constantly like she expected something to grab her at any second.

  Nothing of interest jumped out at me. I shook my head and walked out of the room.

  A moment later we were outside and walking back to the car. “Waste of time,” I muttered to myself.

  Kasey said nothing. She was just glad to be out of that house. As we went to get back in the car, a voice called from the house next door. I looked up and saw a woman standing by the front door. I recognized her immediately. “Mrs. Wheatly?” I called.

  “Yes,” she said. “Leia?”

  I smiled. “Yes, it’s me, Mrs. Wheatly.” Kasey waited by the car while I went to speak with Mrs. Wheatly. She didn’t look like she had changed much, still like a typical soccer mom with her auburn hair tied up in a bun and dressed in a tight purple jogging outfit.

  “I can’t believe it’s really you,” she said as I stood in front of her.

  “It’s me,” I said awkwardly.

  She smiled, her warm blue eyes looking me over. “You’ve grown so much.”

  “Well, it’s been eleven years.”

  “Yes, it has, hasn’t it?” She smiled. “I have something for you.”

  I frowned. “For me?”

  “Yes. Just a moment.” She disappeared into the house and I looked over at Kasey, who was leaning on the car with her arms folded like some kind of scruffy rebel character. I shrugged.

  “Here we go.” Mrs. Wheatly had returned with a white envelope in her hand, which she handed to me. My name was written on the front. “Your mother gave me that about a year before she…you know.”

  I nodded. “Why would she give you this?” I was dying to open the envelope. Something hard was sliding around inside of it.

  “Sh
e never really said, she just told me to give you that if anything ever happened to her.”

  “If anything ever happened to her?”

  Mrs. Wheatly looked pained as she folded her arms. “Your mother helped with a problem I had once.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “That doesn’t matter.” She shook her head and a tight smile pinched her face. “She was a good woman, your mother. I never believed she had anything to do with…what the papers said about her at the time…that she…”

  “Killed my father,” I said bluntly. “I know.”

  “Well, anyway, she gave me that one day, said I was to give it to you if she ever…you know. But I never saw you again after that.” She smiled her nervous smile again. “Not until now.”

  I looked down at the grubby white envelope in my hands. The trip hadn’t been a total waste of time after all. “Thanks, Mrs. Wheatly.”

  “Catherine, call me Catherine.”

  “Thanks, Catherine. I really appreciate you holding on to this all this time.”

  “It was the least I could do, and your mother was very adamant that you get that.”

  I said ‘bye’ to Catherine Wheatley and went back to the car where Kasey was still waiting.

  “What was that about?” Kasey asked as we got into the car.

  I tore open the envelope. Inside was a piece of paper with an address on. There was also a key attached to a plastic keying, with the number 101 written on it. I handed the piece of paper with the address on to Kasey. “You know where that is?”

  “Sure,” Kasey said. “It’s a storage facility. It’s a few miles from here, I think.”

  “A storage facility?”

  “Yeah. That woman gave you this?”

  “It’s from my mom.”

  “Your Mom? Holy shit, really?”

  I nodded. “Yep. Weird, huh?”

  “Also awesome. Your mom must have left you stuff. Are we checking this out?”

  Kasey was more excited than I was to find out what was in the storage facility. While I was definitely interested in finding out, I also felt a sense of dread as I wondered why my mom would leave me the key to a storage facility of all things. What was she hiding there that she wanted me to see? It must be important or she wouldn’t have asked Mrs. Wheatley to hold onto the key.

  I got a text from Josh, reminding me to have the car back by seven. It was five-thirty. Enough time to check out the storage facility.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Kasey said excitedly, waving the piece of paper with the address on it. “Let’s go, let’s check this out. Don’t you want to know what’s in the lockup?”

  “Course I do, it’s just weird is all.”

  “But this is why you came here, right? To see what you could find. Well, you found something. You should be happy.”

  “Nothing about this makes me happy,” I said, starting the car and pulling out on the street. “It’s just more mystery on top of mystery.”

  “But in a cool way,” Kasey said. “You have to admit this is cool. I mean a lockup, who knows what we’ll find there.”

  “That’s my point.”

  Chapter 3

  About twenty minutes later, we arrived at the storage facility. It was just a single long concrete building in need of a coat of paint with a neon sign on top and a small parking lot out front. There was only one other car in the lot: a beat up old Ford. I parked the Mustang in front of the main entrance to the building. A sign above a set of double doors read WESTLAND STORAGE. Through the glass doors I could see an old guy behind a reception counter. Kasey and I climbed out of the car and went inside the building.

  The old guy at reception was sitting in a chair, his feet up on another as he stared at a small TV on a counter next to a bowl of hardboiled sweets. I was frowning at the bowl of sweets when the old guy turned his attention to us, or rather to me. He smiled with broken, yellowed teeth.

  “What can I do for you?” he said in the sleaziest voice ever.

  I had to stop myself from shivering. The old guy was wearing a red and black checkered hunting cap and his beady blue eyes were sharp and piercing. Looking at him, I was reminded of a serial killer I had once read about—Ed Gein, an old man who had killed and skinned numerous women so he could make his own ‘woman suit.’ Kasey ignored the old guy, helped herself to one of the boiled sweets and stood sucking on it beside me.

  “I have this key,” I said, holding up the key that was in the envelope. “I think it’s for one of the lockups here.”

  The old man removed his feet from the chair and slowly stood. He was taller than I expected when he finally straightened up. He also smelled of booze and stale cigarettes. He held out his hand. “Let’s see, shall we?”

  My skin crawled as I dropped the key into the old man’s gnarly hand. He kept his eyes on me for a second, a pervy smile on his face. The smile disappeared when he looked at the key.

  “Is it one of yours?” I asked him.

  “It is,” he said nodding, grim-faced like the key was some sort of talisman that had found its way back to him. “I know this number. How’d you get this key?”

  “It belonged to her mom,” Kasey said, loudly sucking on her candy.

  The old man narrowed his eyes and nodded like something had suddenly dawned on him. “She told me you might show up one day. Forgot all about her since she hasn’t been around in over ten years. Where is she?”

  “Dead,” I said. “How well did you know her?”

  “Dead, huh?” He thought for a moment. “Seven years she came and went. Mysterious type. Didn’t talk much.”

  Like my mom would ever talk to a creep like you.

  “She was a good looking woman, though. Sexy.” His eyes ran up and down my body.

  God, I thought as his eyes fell to my tits. Is he mentally undressing me? “Which way is the lockup then?” I said, barely able to keep the disgust from my voice.

  He pointed down a hallway. “Down there, turn left, keep going. It’s near the end.”

  “Right,” I said nodding and then waited. “Key?”

  “You look just like her,” he said handing me the key. My fingers latched on to the metal, but he held it tight as I tried to take it. “Scared me, that woman did. Something about her. You have her eyes.”

  I pulled the key from his gnarly grip. “Thanks for your help.” I walked off down the hallway, glad to get away from the old man. Kasey helped herself to a handful of sweets before jogging after me. “Seriously?” I said to her.

  “These things are awesome.” She offered me one of the sweets.

  I shook my head. “Don’t think so.”

  God knows where those things have been.

  Kasey shrugged. “He was a fucking creepazoid, huh?”

  “A lovely man indeed.” We turned left down the dimly lit hallway, our footsteps echoing, steel shutters on either side of us. On the wall between the shutters there were painted numbers. I kept looking until I found 101. “Here it is.” I stood in front of the shutter.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  What the hell is wrong with me? After all this time I may just get answers to some of the questions that plagued me and all I can do is stand like a dummy, afraid to see what’s inside.

  I knelt down and slid the key into the lock, turned it, hesitated for a second and then pulled up the shutter. The room before me was in darkness until I found the light switch.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Not what I was expecting,” Kasey said. “Not by a goddamn long shot.”

  We both stepped inside the room and I quickly pulled the shutter back down. If anyone saw what was in that lockup they would call the cops immediately. “I can’t believe this.”

  The lockup wasn’t so much a lockup as an armory. On the back wall of the room, resting on brackets, were a number of weapons, including various types of guns, swords, knifes and other barbaric looking things I didn’t immediately recognize.

  Was that a mace?
And a club with spikes on it? What the hell did my mom need those for?

  There was also stacks of old books all over the concrete floor, wooden crates filled with boxes of bullets, and on one wall, various jars and bottles of different sizes containing God knows what.

  The room was small, but it was packed with stuff that I didn’t recognize as ever belonging to my mom. The smell of musty old books, mildew and a sharp metallic smell hung in the air, like the shutter hadn’t been opened in years, which it probably hadn’t, not since the last time Mom had been there. It had a lost tomb kind of feel to it, a place filled with dangerous and mysterious items.

  Who was paying the rent on this place if my mom was dead?

  “Jesus,” Kasey said, looking around the room with wide eyes. “What the hell was your mom into? Was she like a domestic terrorist or something, one of those survivalist nutjobs? That would maybe explain some of this stuff here.”

  “My mom wasn’t a nutjob.” Not that I knew off anyway.

  “Sorry,” Kasey said and quickly changed the subject. “Is that weed?”

  I looked to where she was pointing. There was a bench that ran the full length of the back wall where the weapons hung. On the bench there were more weapons and ammunition, some dusty looking books and various glass jars with weird stuff in them that wasn’t immediately identifiable, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to classify half that stuff. Kasey picked up one of the jars. “This looks like weed, man.” She opened the jar and recoiled at the smell. “Holy shit that is definitely not weed. Jesus…” Her eyes were watering. “What the hell is this stuff?”

  “Don’t mess with it,” I said. Something told me that whatever was in those jars and bottles could be dangerous. My mother didn’t store them away in secret for nothing.

  Why did she store any of this stuff away in secret? Apart from the obvious of not wanting anyone to find it. But what did she use it all for?

  “There’s something else here.” Kasey handed me a manila envelope which I opened. Inside there was a book and a CD. The disc had my name written on it.