by Ike Hamill
Les frowned at a cardboard box.
Someone had opened it just inside the door and left the styrofoam everywhere. It must have been the Cormier boy—nobody else had a key.
Les set down the bags and shut the door behind himself.
He heard a groan from over the balcony and wondered what was wrong with Evelyn. He figured that he would find out soon enough. Les turned down the flap of the box and saw the address of the A-frame on the label. The box had been shipped from Controlled Scientific Devices, Incorporated. A big red stamp told him that the contents were a PROTOTYPE.
“Huh,” Les said. “Hey, Evi?” he called.
She didn’t answer.
“Is this something you ordered?”
Still no answer.
Les moved over to the balcony. His nose caught something new on the air. It smelled like one of those scented candles. Evelyn didn’t like those. She said they were bad for respiration. Les started down the steps.
When he turned the corner, he saw something terrible.
His wife wasn’t alone.
The living room furniture was pushed to the sides and a big circle was painted on the floor. A boy knelt in front of his wife and four women held her in place in the center of the circle.
“Get off of her!” Les said. His brain worked quickly. He looked down at his feet, wishing they could move as rapidly. He had to get to his den. That’s where his gun safe was mounted. Les worked down the last of the stairs and turned to run for his den.
His feet left the floor. His hands went out to catch himself, but that was unnecessary. He wasn’t falling. Les spun in the air, gripped by invisible hands that held him aloft. The young man had turned around. The kid’s lips were moving, but no sound came out.
Les realized that he actually recognized a couple of the women. One was that Polhemus woman. Another was married to that Dunn character.
“What are you doing?” Les demanded. It felt like something was squeezing his chest. It was difficult to suck in another breath. Still suspended above the floor, he began to float towards the group.
One of the women looked familiar. She might be that woman who was always walking up and down the road—Les wasn’t sure. She pointed her hand towards the kitchen. A knife jumped from the butcher block and flew to her hand as if she had summoned it. She caught it by the handle and turned towards Evelyn.
“What are you doing?” he pleaded. She didn’t answer or acknowledge Les. She turned and dragged the knife across Evelyn’s throat. For a fraction of second, there was no blood. Les had a tiny moment of hope that his wife of nearly fifty years had not been cut.
It began to flow. Evelyn struggled in the arms of the women as the blood gushed from her neck and dripped down. The four women lifted his wife and tilted her head towards the floor. That’s when Les finally saw what the young man had been kneeling in front of.
It was a small silver box with three yellow lights on the top. The blood spattered at first and then really began to flow. It pumped out in time with his wife’s dying heartbeat. Blood drenched the device and then began to pool around it. The young man stood and started chanting aloud in some foreign language.
Les struggled against his invisible restraints. Meanwhile, he hovered closer and closer to the horror of his murdered wife.
Evelyn’s thrashing waned. The women lowered her towards the device. They released her lifeless arms. Les hovered closer to the circle and his arms were pinned against his body by invisible hands. As they dropped Evelyn on top of the device, they reached up to accept Les into their embrace. He was helpless to stop them. He couldn’t even scream—the force holding him had somehow cut off his voice. He saw the knife flash but didn’t feel the cut.
Below him, a cold purple flame was encompassing his wife’s body.
The next thing Les knew, they were tipping his body and his own blood was splashing down on Evelyn and the device.
He could still see the three glowing yellow lights under the blanket of fresh blood.
The young man started to chant again.
Watching his own blood flow to the floor brought an end to Les’s anger. His own life was slipping through his fingers and there was nothing he could do about it. His wife was already gone, and there was nothing he could do to prevent his very essence from flowing out of his body.
He wondered if Evelyn’s blank eyes could still see. When he blinked, the world came back at a fraction of the brightness that it should be. The light was flowing around his dying body. He hoped that Evelyn was beyond knowing the pain of this world.
She was disappearing. The pool of blood was contracting instead of expanding. As the women held him upside down, he saw that Evi’s hand was gone, her leg was gone, and half of her head was gone as well. It was like she was being absorbed by the floor.
Exhausted of blood to pump, Les felt his heart flutter and then stop. Bright explosions flashed across his eyes as the women lowered him to the floor. Evi was almost gone. The electronic box was disappearing as well. As his eyesight finally dimmed and his thoughts petered out, one last idea flashed across Les’s brain.
“I belong to him now.”
Chapter 55 : Dunn
[ Demon ]
“DON’T!” A VOICE CALLED.
Vernon looked down from black pits of the thing’s eyes.
April was pulling at the grip that Ricky had on her wrist. She was leaning over the pool towards Vernon.
“Don’t talk to it,” April said.
Vernon looked at Ricky’s blank face. He looked at his wife and then down at his upended youngest. He reached back to the knife. When he felt the weight in his hand, he looked back up towards the monster.
“Don’t you do it,” April yelled.
Vernon glanced back to her.
“Maybe if I kill the thing, my wife and son will wake up,” Vernon said. He looked up to see if the monster was going to react to his threat. It didn’t. It merely lifted another handful of the yellow goop and wiped it on its own arm. Vernon realized that time was short. The thing was becoming more solid as it massaged the goop onto its liquid body. There was skin forming on the thing’s leg. The hand that spread the yellow stuff looked almost human.
“If you attack it, you’ll only make it stronger,” April said.
She wasn’t worth listening to. She was a crazy woman. They had removed her from the classroom because everyone was afraid of what she might do. There was certainly no reason to start listening to her now. But there was a confidence in her voice. There was a clarity that was hard to ignore. When nothing made sense, sometimes a confident voice was persuasive even if the message didn’t make sense.
Vernon rejected it.
He stepped up on the lip of the fountain and began to walk the circumference. The monster looked like it was ignoring him, but he might only get one chance to attack. He wanted his first blow to disable the thing. It was so tall—his best bet was to go for the lower leg. Once it toppled, he would strike somewhere more deadly.
Maybe it didn’t consider Vernon a threat. The thing wasn’t even watching him as he circled it.
“Mr. Dunn,” one of the girls said, “maybe she’s right. Maybe you ought to listen to Ms. Yettin.”
Vernon had a new thought. Maybe these hostages were being influenced by the monster. Perhaps they were trying to stop him because they wanted the thing to survive.
“Move, Vernon,” a voice called from behind him.
He turned and saw Trina. She was crossing the pavement and raising a shotgun to her shoulder. She advanced quickly and pushed the barrel into the gap between her cousin and the entranced Polhemus woman.
Vernon moved fast around the perimeter of the fountain.
The gun exploded with a roar.
The shot splashed into the monster’s lower back. Vernon heard a scream.
Trina fired her second barrel as the thing started to turn.
Vernon saw the second splash from the thing’s head as Trina’s pellets hit their mark.
It was smiling as it turned.
“No,” April moaned.
“Is that all you have?” Gerard asked her. “Please don’t tell me that’s all you have.”
Trina ejected the spent shells.
Vernon had a decision to make. He didn’t need much time. Vernon dropped down into the fountain. The yellow stuff was incredibly viscous and slippery. He waded towards the monster while its attention was still on Trina.
The thing lifted its foot as it turned. Vernon went for the tendon that connected its calf with the back of the heel. His knife cut through the new flesh easily. The monster’s leg jerked away and the thing roared. For a fraction of a second, Vernon felt hope. The thing’s massive hand whipped through the air almost too fast to see. It hit Vernon’s chest before he could even get his hand up to block the blow. Vernon flew backwards, out of the fountain. He plowed into Chelsea Hilliard, whose daughter screamed as she tried to pull away from her mother and Vernon.
Vernon got to his feet.
Trina raised the gun.
“Birdshot?” Gerard asked.
If he asked for any further clarification, the question was cut off by the next explosion from the gun. The thing was reaching for Trina when the shot rang out. The splash burst from the back of the monster’s hand but it kept reaching. Before she could trigger the second shot, it snatched the gun by the barrel and threw it.
Trina took a step back with her mouth hanging open.
The monster smiled at her.
“Feed me your gifts,” the thing said.
At the command, the entranced people all took a step forward until their legs were pressing against the lip of the fountain. They raised their hands, thrusting their captives towards the beast.
“No!” April screamed. She turned to Vernon. “Please—you have to do what I say.”
[ Orders ]
“What, April?” Vernon screamed. “What exactly are we supposed to do?” He didn’t expect an answer. He wanted the crazy woman to shut up so he could think.
The monster stood. It seemed unharmed by the shotgun and the knife. It was walking towards Mary. She remained oblivious to what was happening. In one hand George was trying to lift himself up. In her other hand, a little girl was cowering, trying to make herself as small as possible.
“I remember now,” April said. “It was in my book. Someone called this thing and only the person who called it can control it.”
“Who? Who can control it?” Vernon screamed.
The monster lowered itself to one knee and held out a hand, palm up, like he was asking Mary to dance.
Vernon knew what was going to happen next. It was a horrible thought, but he prayed that she would offer the girl first. If she did that, maybe Vernon would have enough time to think of what to do.
Mary pushed a hand forward towards the creature. It was the hand that held George’s ankle. Their son yelled and struggled in his mother’s grip.
“Help me, Dad! Help!”
“No, no, no!” Vernon said, his voice rising. He was on the opposite side of the fountain. He threw himself forward, intending to climb the monster like a tree, hacking off pieces as he went. His foot slipped in the yellow goop and the world went out from under him. Vernon slammed down on his hand, barely keeping his face out of the disgusting slime. As he struggled back to his feet, April was pleading to him to listen.
“It was one of the five,” April said. “It must be.”
As the monster reached for George, Vernon drove his knife into the back of the thing’s thigh. No flesh had formed over the muscle yet. His knife plunged easily into the swirling blood and met no resistance until it collided with the bone underneath. The monster turned and clubbed Vernon in the shoulder. He flew to the other side of the fountain again and then rolled to a stop.
“Vernon!” April shouted. “There?”
She was pointing right at him. As he began to stand, Vernon realized that he was wrong—April was pointing above him. Vernon turned and looked into the dead eyes of Peg Polhemus. She was holding the limp form of Louise Townsend.
“Listen to her, Mr. Dunn,” Lily’s small voice said.
“On her chest,” April shouted.
Vernon looked away from Peg’s dead eyes and saw what April had spotted. Just below the skin on Peg’s chest, he saw three glowing yellow lights in a triangle.
“Dad!” George screamed. Vernon whipped around and saw that the monster was lifting George from Mary’s grip. The monster was impossibly tall, like it grew every time Vernon blinked. As it held the squirming boy high in the air, the thing tilted its head back and opened its mouth. The bloody form stretched wide, like a snake unhinging its jaw.
Vernon didn’t allow himself to think.
He turned and plunged his knife right into the center of those three lights in Peg’s chest.
[ Damage ]
The knife went in too easily. Vernon expected to hit sternum, but the knife slid a good inch into her skin and stopped with a pop and a shock. For a second, Vernon couldn’t let go of the knife handle, though he wanted to. Electricity coursed through his hand. The three lights flickered out. Peg Polhemus sucked in a startled breath and blinked rapidly. Her vacant eyes filled with pain and she fell backwards. The knife pulled from her chest as she fell away. Vernon was still holding it.
Vernon spun. Hope lit up his eyes.
It hadn’t worked. George was banging his hands against the monster’s face as his head began to disappear into the thing’s mouth.
Vernon ran for the thing again. As he slogged through the yellow liquid, he realized that he was only as tall as the thing’s knee. It had continued to grow. Skin was forming like bark on its lower legs. Vernon realized the source of the monster’s power. It was pulling its energy from the yellow slime that it was standing in.
George gave one last scream as his head disappeared into the thing’s mouth.
“Do all five, Vernon!” April shouted.
“Vernon!” Trina screamed.
“Shut up!” Vernon screamed back.
He stabbed at the leg again and rammed his chest into the monster, trying to knock it off balance. It wavered but didn’t topple. A giant hand made of swirling blood reached down and grabbed Vernon under the shoulder. It raised him up as he slashed with his knife. He saw his son’s arms pinched back against his little body as his shoulders were pulled into the monster’s mouth.
Chapter 56 : Prescott
[ Gun ]
“FEED ME YOUR GIFTS,” the giant said.
Ricky raised his hands and moved forward, dragging Gerard upwards by his arm.
Vernon and April shouted back and forth. The giant went for Vernon’s youngest son. Trina’s hands went to her face as the little boy cried for help. It was almost too terrible to witness. But she had to watch as Vernon tried to stab the thing and was thrown back.
“Go get the gun,” Gerard said. His mouth was stretched in pain.
“That’s all the ammo I had,” she said. “All I could find were those shells.”
“Wait,” Gerard said. They saw Vernon taking a new approach. He was stabbing at Peg Polhemus.
“Do that!” Gerard said to Trina. “Stab this kid in the chest. No, wait!”
Gerard tugged at the boy’s shorts, exposing the top of his right thigh.
“Do all five, Vernon,” April yelled.
Trina realized what Gerard was talking about. Ricky had the same triangle of lights glowing through the skin on his leg.
“Vernon!” Trina yelled. She needed the man and his knife. Maybe April was right.
“Shut up!” Vernon yelled. He attacked the giant and was swept into the air in its grip.
[ Blade ]
“Get a knife!” Gerard yelled. “Quickly.”
Trina looked up and saw that the giant was holding Vernon aloft with one hand and pushing the little boy into its mouth with the other. She looked back towards the clubhouse. She could find a knife in there, but surely that would take too lo
ng. She patted her pockets. All she had was her keys. She fumbled them out and dropped them.
Trina fell to her knees, retrieved her keys, and stabbed them into the boy’s thigh. The skin was disgustingly soft in the triangle between the lights.
“George!” Vernon cried out.
Trina didn’t look. She kept hacking at Ricky’s skin. It tore away in patches and didn’t bleed. She saw metal wires under the spongy flesh. Trina drove her keys into the center, where the electronics were clustered. It took several hits, but she saw a plastic piece begin to splinter. The keys dug into her hand as she slammed them down again. It sputtered and smoked. The lights blinked and went out.
Gerard fell on her as Ricky slumped backwards.
“No!” Vernon cried. Trina looked up and saw that only George’s feet were sticking out from the giant’s mouth.
“Get Mary,” Trina said to Gerard. “I’ll do Wendy.”
Gerard got to his feet and ran. He sprinted away from the fountain.
“Damn it,” Trina said.
April was climbing over the lip into the fountain.
Trina scrambled over to Wendy. Lily and Sarah had figured out the idea and were pulling Wendy’s clothes this way and that, looking for the yellow lights. They were struggling since they only had one hand each to work with.
“No!” Jenny yelled. “Do me next.”
“Here!” Sarah shouted. Trina looped around back to where Sarah pointed. The lights were in the small of Wendy’s back.
Trina had to use a different key. The first one was bent. Her own skin tore as she dug into Wendy’s. Her blood splattered on Wendy’s flesh as she exposed and then destroyed the embedded electronics. Wendy fell, releasing the girls.
Lily ran to help Jenny.
Trina began to work her way around the circle to get to Mary Dunn. She looked up at Vernon. The fight seemed to have gone out of him as he watched George’s feet disappear. His hands went to his face. Trina realized what April had already seen—Vernon had dropped his knife.
April was down in the yellow liquid. She came up with a dripping knife and a smile.
