by Rick Hautala
Elizabeth sensed that Graydon was doing something behind her, but her attention was riveted to the thing that had assumed her daughter’s form. The demon raised its arms high over its head, breathing rapidly in and out, its lungs roaring as they bellowed, continuing to expand.
“That’s not — it can’t be ... it never — was —” she whispered, but that was all she could say. Crashing waves of blackness swept up and over her. Even though she was positive her feet were rooted within the safety of the pentagram, she felt tossed and turned, buffeted about as though caught in the sickening whirl of a tornado. Would the pentagram truly protect her, as Graydon had said? she wondered. Why was he holding her? Did he want to prevent her from stepping outside the design ... or did he have other plans?
Graydon whispered something behind her, close to her ear, but it was lost in the steadily rising roar as billows of blackness, keeping time with the monster’s raging breath, tugged at her, threatening to throw her off balance and pull her under.
Elizabeth thrashed her head from side to side, trying to force her gaze away from the beast, but her eyes, like steadily tracking radar, couldn’t pull away from the hypnotically glowing green eyes. In their center, she saw a brilliant red flickering, and Elizabeth knew she was staring into the core of the Inferno.
Again, Graydon said something behind her. She still couldn’t make out his words; it was as if he was still speaking in Latin, mumbling something either to control or — she hoped — send the demon back to where it had come from. A glimmer of understanding rose in her mind when she sensed a quick motion at her side and then saw Graydon’s free hand rise up level to her eyes. In his grip was the gleaming silver blade of the knife she had seen earlier.
“Here,” he rasped. “Take this.”
For a heartbeat, frozen in fear, Elizabeth’s brain commanded her body to move but got no response. She had no idea what Graydon wanted her to do with the knife. Would it give her some kind of control over this demon? Would it give her the ability to command it? Then, with a soul-numbing coldness, she realized that he had lowered the blade and was pointing it toward her chest, directly at her heart.
“Take this!” he commanded, his voice ripping like the wind in her ears. “Use it!”
Looking up, Elizabeth saw that the demon on Caroline’s tombstone had ceased its growth, and now, at its full power, it crouched, hunching like a predatory bird as it stared at her expectantly. Thin, cruel lips peeled back, exposing glittering, pointed teeth. The face was a horrible combination of human and reptile, scaly and glistening. The red glow in the beast’s eyes flashed with steady pulses that matched the frozen pounding of Elizabeth’s heart.
“I said, take this and use it!” Graydon shouted.
Elizabeth watched, helpless to resist as her hands rose up from her side and gripped the leather-bound hilt of the knife. Every knuckle joint feit welded into place as she tightened her grip on the knife handle. She had no sense of breathing as she stared, long and hard, at the glittering blade. The metal caught the red glow of the demon’s eyes and shattered it into jagged tongues of lightning.
“Use it!” Graydon said. “He demands a sacrifice.”
The demon on the tombstone tilted its head back and stared up at the night sky. The wind high above the cemetery roared like a hurricane. Cold moonlight gave a harsh, blue outline to the beast’s ghastly, underlit features. Drawing strength from the surrounding blackness, the creature opened its mouth wide. Its teeth gleamed with the cold, bone-white light of the stars as it opened its throat and roared ... with laughter.
“A ... sacrifice?” Elizabeth stammered, her voice no more than a grating whisper.
“He wants you,” Graydon hissed, sounding almost desperate. “He wants you to do it!”
Elizabeth shook her head in short, sharp jerks of denial, but she couldn’t resist the pull of the knife. She stared in numbed fascination at the gleaming razored edge of the blade and knew that with it she could end all of her pain and grief. It was as if the blade were made of pure iron, and as if she — her heart — were a magnet, drawing it inexorably forward.
“No, I —” she whimpered as she tried to fight against the steady pull. The pointed end came closer and closer to her chest. Elizabeth had the insane impression that the demon was somehow controlling the blade, directing it, pushing it into her chest. She caught the reflection of the beast’s eyes in the shimmering blade and thought of the ring of fire she had dreamed surrounding Caroline’s face.
“Do it!” Graydon shouted. “Do it now!”
Elizabeth struggled. Her arms trembled, and her muscles twisted like snakes as she fought desperately against the relentless force that was pushing the blade nearer to her heart. She felt a stinging jolt of pain as the thin point lanced through her jacket and blouse, driving straight toward her heart. As much as she tried not to, she imagined her heart, slimy with fresh blood, sliding from a gaping wound in her chest and, still pulsing, dropping to the ground at the demon’s feet, where it would scoop it up and eat it in one quick swallow. She clearly imagined the fountain of blood — her own blood! — pumping out onto the ground to which she knew she would soon fall, lifeless.
And where will my soul go? she wondered frantically as the knife point pierced her skin. After devouring my heart, will this thing — this creature that isn’t Caroline — sweep up my soul and plummet with it down into the deepest reaches of Hell?
Every pore of Elizabeth’s body opened as sweat, hot and sticky, flooded out of her. Air burned inside her lungs as though she had inhaled the flames that blossomed in the core of the demon’s red eyes. Her muscles were strained beyond their limit; her bones felt like they were crumbling to powder beneath her skin. She watched as her own hands pressed the blade deeper into her chest, feeling the clammy trickle of blood running down inside her shirt. She let out a strangled, helpless whimper, but it was lost in the explosion of raging wind overhead and the cruel, demonic laughter that swept around her.
3.
Frank’s foot nailed the accelerator to the floor and never let up as the cruiser shot up Mitchell Hill Road to Brook Road and toward Oak Grove Cemetery. He didn’t even think to put on his flashers, sound his siren, or radio the station. All he could think was that something — something horrible, something that involved Elizabeth — was being acted out at the cemetery right now, and he either had to stop it or die trying!
The cruiser sliced through the dark night, as if pulled inexorably forward by the steady cones of light from its headlights. Trees and houses whipped past the windows, and the road unscrolled with rapid twists and turns, but no matter how fast he went, Frank couldn’t fight the impression that he was sitting still, getting nowhere. The only thought in his mind was, I have to get there before it’s too late!
Norton, still unconscious and handcuffed, was sprawled in the backseat behind the protective wire grill. His face was resting in a puddle of blood. Before tossing him in there, Frank had disarmed him of anything, even his belt and shoes, that he could use as a weapon if he came to before this was all over. But there was little pleasure in the thought of what was going to happen to Norton after tonight. Certainly, by what he had said, hc would be implicated in the deaths of Barney Fraser and Henry Bishop; but Frank realized he hadn’t read Norton his rights, and no doubt a sleaze-bag lawyer would get him free on some half-assed technicality.
Frank’s heart was hammering in his chest. He had the vague fear that he might be so worked up he would have a fatal heart attack before he could find out what was happening at the cemetery, much less do anything about it. His sweat-slick fingers gripped the steering wheel and jerked it roughly back and forth to keep the cruiser on the road. Finally, after what seemed like an hour or more, he saw the black bars of the cemetery fence up ahead on the left.
“Fuckin’-A,” he muttered, as he pressed down hard on the brakes. “Fuckin’ — A-straight!” The rear tires hissed loudly as they locked up and skidded over the sand at the side of the road. Wit
h a sickening, drifting feel, the cruiser fish-tailed as though sliding on ice. In an instant, Frank realized he was spinning out. He jerked the steering wheel in the direction of the slide but didn’t release the pressure on the brakes; he knew he was committed and would just have to pray for the best.
The headlights revealed the side of the road as the night-drenched landscape swung past him in a slow, belly-flipping glide. The cemetery fence flickered by like the rough frames of an old-time movie. Tombstones jiggled and jerked with the illusion of motion, and then they spun out of sight. A loud crash filled Frank.’ s ears as the driver’s door folded inward. Glass exploded into his face like a shower of diamonds. There was a loud thump, but Frank wasn’t sure if it was the sound of Norton’s body hitting the backseat floor, or the underside of the cruiser as it dove into the gully. He was suddenly spinning upward, vaguely realizing that the car had flipped in the gully and was rolling over. His ears and mind filled with the shattering sounds of glass breaking and metal twisting out of shape. When his head slammed against the steering wheel, his vision filled with bright streaks of light that expanded rapidly and then were sucked back down into darkness. He wasn’t aware of it when the car door flung open and spilled him onto the shoulder of the road, where he lay in a heap, not more than twenty feet from the totaled cruiser.
4 .
... “Mommy! ... No!”
The voice came to Elizabeth from the darkness, wavering in and out like a distant radio signal gaining and losing strength. Elizabeth thought crazily of the voice she had heard coming from Eldon Cody’s tape recorder, only now it secmed to be coming from several directions at once.
“Help . .. Mommy ... “
Every muscle and tcndon in Elizabeth’s neck felt as if they were ripping as she turned to look behind her. She could still feel the presence of Graydon, standing close behind her like a solid wall, preventing her escape; but from the darkness beyond him, the whirling red flaming figures had thinned out, leaving behind only pulsating blackness as deep and quiet as starless space. But inside that blackness, Elizabeth saw something — a faint motion, a glistening blue light that darted in and out of focus like the light of a lighthouse, pulsating in thick fog.
“ ... Don’t ... do ... it ... “
The voice swelled, gaining strength, but then just as quickly it faded, leaving behind the impression of having been ... nothing more than the roaring wind overhead.
“Do it now, Elizabeth!” Graydon said. His voice was low and intense; it forced her to look back at her hands and the blade that was burrowing into her chest. “Do what I tell you! Do what he commands!”
The stinging pain centered above her heart radiated outward, spreading through her shoulders and down into her belly. A warm, gushing rush flowed over her stomach, and Elizabeth wondered with an unnerving detachment if this was her panic spreading through her, riding a cresting wave of adrenaline ... or if it was her blood, flowing from the self-inflicted wound? The burning memory of the nightmare with Graydon, transformed into a beast, chewing open her stomach, spilling out her guts, rose unbidden in her mind.
From the top of Caroline’s tombstone, the demon inhaled with a roar and swelled even larger into the night sky until it towered up against the stars like an ungodly statue brought to life. The beast’s breath bellowed rapidly in and out, slamming swirling eddies of wind into Elizabeth’s face. Everything in front of her was drenched with bright orange light, like a raging fire, as hammering blasts of heat washed over her.
“ ... Mommy ... “ wailed the glass-fragile voice from the darkness behind her. “Don’t . .. Don’t do it!”
The knife sank deeper, slicing cleanly, almost painlessly now, through veins and muscle until it met the hard resistance of bone. The blade twisted in her hand as though it had a will of its own and was seeking the space between her ribs. No matter how much she struggled to resist the inwardly pulling blade, it moved slowly. unrelentingly deeper.
“First her! ... And now you!” the demon roared, filling the night with hollow, booming laughter. “Your miserable soul is mine now! Forever!”
Huge hands and hooked talons reached for her from the darkness, but they didn’t cross the lines of the pentagram. Elizabeth knew, now, that all along Graydon had planned for her to die this way, as a sacrifice to the demon. But maybe, in spite of his plans, the pentagram actually was protecting her. This thought gave her the faintest hope to resist, even as the pain in her chest spiraled up the scale and drilled into her brain.
Elizabeth’s throat made soft grunting sounds as she pushed back against the pull of her own arms directing the blade which sought her heart. In frozen moments of horror, she imagined how it was going to look when her lifeless body was discovered, slumped over her daughter’s grave; Graydon would disappear, and the entire incident would be written off as a descent into black magic, madness, and suicide resulting from her despondency over her daughter’s death. Above the flood of questions as to how all of this had come about, though, there was one commanding question ...
Why? Why did Graydon do this to me?
Sweat and tears streamed down her face as she twisted her head to one side, trying to catch a glimpse of Graydon standing behind her. She could feel his cold, evil presence, but all she could see of him was a red-infused blur.
“Mommy! ... I want to help you, Mommy!” the faint voice wailed from the darkness.
Elizabeth had the mind-numbing realization that this was not some other demon, calling to her from the darkness of Hell, luring her to destroy herself. No! This had to be, in fact, the soul of her dead daughter, struggling to manifest itself in the physical world to warn her ... to help her.
“Car-o-Iine!” Elizabeth gasped, wincing with pain. She felt Graydon tense when she called out her daughter’s name. His dark presence urged her to plunge the knife deeper and deeper toward her heart even as the hope that Caroline was untouched by such supernatural evil as this demon or human evil such as Roland Graydon gave her hope to live and strength to resist. Rippling pain crashed through her, both from the knife point and from the effort she was making to resist it.
“Mommy! ... “the voice called, sounding hopelessly feeble against the ear shattering bellows of the beast. “I can help you, Mommy! ... “
“You ... lousy, rotten ... son of a ... bitch!” Elizabeth snarled as she glared over her shoulder at Graydon. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
Graydon leered over her shoulder at her, his face resolving in her vision. His mouth split into a wide grin even as his eyes reflected his own stark terror of the demon perched on the tombstone, clawing out of the darkness at them.
“Because of what you did to my life,” Graydon said. His voice was low and raspy, fighting for control. “Because of what happened that night your daughter died! You and you alone killed my nephew, and with your suicide — your sacrifice now — I’ll get what I’ve wanted for the past year and a half!”
“What — ? You’re crazy!” Elizabeth stammered. She barely understood his words. She thought he was still muttering nonsense, but then it hit her. “Do you mean — ?”
“That’s right,” Graydon said. “The man driving the snowplow, the man who ran into your stranded car and died the same night your precious little Caroline died was my nephew, my nephew, Sam Healy! You never once spent a second of thought on the other person who died that night!”
“I ... never knew,” Elizabeth said, her voice breaking.
Graydon sneered. “For the past year and a half, I’ve been waiting for this! I’ve been carefully sowing the seeds of my revenge. When you moved back to Bristol Mills, I couldn’t believe it! And then, what luck that your therapist in New Hampshire actually referred you to me. To me! But it wasn’t just luck or chance. Oh, no! I planned it! I worked for it! I made vows and I performed certain rituals to make absolutely certain that it would all work out this way.”
His laughter rose, a high, cruel note that pierced Elizabeth’s ears.
“I used your un
cle’s hand — the Hand of Glory! With it, I got what I needed from Caroline —”
Elizabeth made a raw, tearing sound in the back of her throat.
“Oh, yes! Yes! I came out here to the cemetery one night and used the Hand of Glory to raise the spirit of your daughter. I spoke with her and got what information I needed to make sure I could control you. Unfortunately, I was interrupted by the police. But anyway, the Hand of Glory isn’t powerful enough to bring the dead back to life. Oh, no!” Graydon trembled wildly with excitement. “No, for that, I need a human sacrifice! I need the blood and life of someone who truly believes. So now you will die — by your own hand! And with that, I’ll get what I bargained my soul for. I’ll get my nephew back from the dead!”
“Mommy! ... No!”
“You ... can’t ... !” Elizabeth muttered. She twisted to her left, but even as she did, the knife sank deeper into. her chest. Pain, searing like fire, zinged along her nerves. From the darkness behind her, she clearly saw the glowing blue figure shimmering, resolving into focus and approaching her, drifting over the ground like a wisp of smoke. In disbelief and horror, she saw her dead daughter reaching out toward her, her arms outstretched as though grasping for someone who had fallen overboard, reaching ... reaching with hands as insubstantial as fog.
Graydon followed Elizabeth’s gaze, and his eyes widened with surprise when he saw Caroline’s ghost drifting toward them. His lips peeled back in a vicious snarl.
“No! She can’t help you now!” he shouted. “She’s too late! She’s too weak to resist us!”
