Accidental Evil

by Ike Hamill

  Sarah didn’t answer.

  “Anyway, you shouldn’t have to worry about it. Ricky took care of the demon, so his minions will have gone too. They only existed to serve him.”

  Sarah looked at her and then looked away quickly.

  Eventually, Sarah asked her question. “What are you talking about?”

  “My book,” April said. “Ricky borrowed my book from my uncle. He wanted to make his magic act seem more engaging, so he borrowed a book I had. He was looking for the language of authentic rituals. He found it. The Ceremony of the King’s Flame calls a very hungry demon that feeds off of human flesh. Ricky was just looking for spooky sounding incantations, but there is power in language. It comes from within us.”

  Sarah didn’t say anything, but April knew she was absorbing the information. A teacher always knows.

  “When you say, ‘Stop!’ think about the sounds,” April said. “You grab attention with the S and T and then you bring everything to a halt with the P. You’re communicating with the shape of the word. In that same way, words can open portals to harness unseen energy.”

  Sarah frowned and nodded. At that moment, she had remembered that April was crazy. They walked in silence until they got to the edge of town.

  “I’m headed this way,” Sarah said. “You need me to walk you home?”

  “No,” April said.

  Sarah turned off. April kept going straight. As she walked, she examined each building, looking carefully for her house. She remembered what her uncle’s place looked like. The stairs to her apartment would be around the side. With no expectations, she walked by the place where it should have stood.

  April stopped. She almost couldn’t believe it.

  The house sat exactly in the right location. As she stood there, her uncle opened the front door.

  “April? What are you doing out?”

  He rubbed his head in the way that he always did right after he woke up from a nap.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m back now. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” he asked.

  She thought about telling him. If Ricky and the demon had stuck around, the demon would have ground up her uncle’s bones and sucked out the marrow. He would have used the his fat to grease his machines.

  April cocked her head at a new thought. She couldn’t remember if all that stuff about the marrow and fat was something she had read, or something she had made up. She glanced around her uncle’s house and remembered the good times there. She remembered sitting at that table with her mother while her aunt cooked dinner for them. She remembered her father coming through the door with the fish he had caught. He hadn’t even cleaned it yet. It was still flopping around and had squirted from between his hands.

  “You okay?” Uncle Harold asked.

  April smiled. “I’m fine.” She felt perfectly fine. It was sad that those people were gone, but she was home.

  Chapter 59 : Hazard

  [ Fresh ]

  BY THE TIME THEY got to the hotel by the highway, Lily’s parents were exhausted. They grabbed a couple of rooms and had dinner in the depressing restaurant attached to the place. Her mother picked at her shirt the whole time. They were too dirty to be out in public, but the hotel didn’t offer any sort of room service. After the meal, her father walked across the road and came back with a rented car.

  It was their own little struggle for survival.

  Shelter, food, and transportation were first. Before they let themselves sleep, they tracked down clothes and then got cleaned up.

  Everything was taken care of by the time Lily set her head on the pillow. She still couldn’t sleep. There were too many unanswered questions.

  Her parents wanted to forget everything that had happened. They talked of all the things they would have to do before getting on the plane. They needed passports, clothes, and luggage. They needed to change the tickets and adjust their reservations in Spain. Nobody talked about going back to the house and getting their passports or clothes. Her parents had their sights set on moving forward. Home was a detail they would sort out after they got back from Spain. Of course, that assumed that they would come back. Lily had a suspicion that after a month overseas, they might come up with an excuse to stay away from Kingston Lakes after everything they had witnessed on that strange day.

  [ Contact ]

  The next day, the guy at the cellphone store had wanted to argue with her father. He pointed at the computer monitor and explained that the phones were right there, at their house. Her father shook his head, repeated that the phones had been stolen, and asked to speak with the manager. By the time they left, they each had brand new phones and the old ones were deactivated.

  Lily started to text Sarah and then decided that she wanted to talk with her. She wanted to hear her voice. She called Sarah instead.

  “Hey,” Sarah answered.

  “Are you…” Lily started. She moved away from her parents. They were standing next to the rental car, trying to decide where to go for lunch.

  Sarah eventually filled in the silence. “Everything is fine. Wayne is fine. Shari is fine. They don’t even think anything happened.”

  “What?”

  “Nobody does,” Sarah said. “I mean, Ricky does, but I haven’t been able to talk with him. There was nobody at the ice cream stand today. Joey paid me out of pocket and sent me home. All the Summer People are so skinny that they look like ghosts walking around with their clothes hanging off of their bones, you know? Nobody talks about it.”

  “Is your father really your father?” Lily asked.

  Sarah lowered her voice to a whisper. “I think so. Most of the locals don’t look like they were affected much except that they can’t remember anything that happened. My dad’s clothes had leaves and sticks stuck them. So did Shari’s. When they weren’t walking around like zombies, I think they were hiding in the woods or something. I don’t know why they can’t remember.”

  Lily leaned against the side of the building and put her hand over her stomach. Maybe it was good that they were going away. It would be strange to live amongst all that uncertainty.

  Sarah didn’t seem share her viewpoint. “I think it’s okay though. I mean I think everything is going to be fine. The little robots went away. I don’t know where they went. All the robots that had swarmed on your house are gone. Maybe they cleaned themselves up, you know? I don’t know. Are you coming home?”

  “Not right now,” Lily said. “I have to go to Spain with my folks. I should be back in the fall.”

  Sarah was silent.

  “Call me if anything happens, or if you need me,” Lily said.

  “Yeah. I will,” Sarah said.

  They talked about nothing for a minute and then disconnected.

  Her mother and father came over to where she was leaning.

  “We’ve decided to head for Boston,” her mother said. “We’ll eat on the road. It will be easier to get everything arranged down there.”

  “Yeah,” Lily said, nodding. “That sounds like a good idea.”

  Chapter 60 : Dunn

  [ Resolve ]

  “GEORGE, GO CALL YOUR brother,” Mary said.

  He was sitting on the bench next to the fan. The house was hot but the fan was off. George walked up the stairs quietly and stood in the doorway of his brother’s room. He looked down Ricky, who was fully-dressed and asleep on top of his covers. His skin was still a little pale. The bandage on his thigh poked out from the bottom of his shorts.

  George was startled when Ricky’s eyes opened.

  Ricky pushed himself up and propped his head on his hand.

  “Don’t look at people when they’re sleeping. It’s creepy,” Ricky said.

  George sat down at Ricky’s desk and turned the chair around to face his brother.

  “Are you normal?” George asked.

  “I’m tired. Everybody got ice cream today. Some people came twice.”

  “I thought the place was empty.
Mom said it was empty.”

  “That was two days ago. Now everyone is hungry again. They’re all skinny and they’re all eating as much ice cream as they can get. Joey had to make an emergency run for more tubs.”

  George sat there.

  “Can you still do tricks?” George asked eventually.

  Ricky shook his head. “I don’t do magic anymore.”

  When George opened his mouth to ask another question, Ricky cut him off.

  “Listen, I don’t want to talk about it. I did something stupid, but now everything is okay again.”

  George thought about that. Their parents always said that if they did something wrong it would be okay if they just admitted it. George had always believed them until now. Both his parents seemed like they didn’t quite trust Ricky anymore. Even though he had told them everything, they still moved very carefully when Ricky was in the room.

  “Mom says it’s time for dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Ricky said. “I’m tired.”

  “You know what she’ll say.”

  Ricky nodded. He started to get up. When he got to the edge of the bed, Ricky sat there, like he was waiting for his head to catch up to where his body was. His balance had gotten better each day, but sometimes he still looked like he was struggling to stay upright.

  “I’ll tell you something, George.”

  “Yeah?”

  Ricky looked at him. He put his finger to the side of his head and then pointed at George. That was Ricky’s customary signal—remember this because it’s important.

  “Sometimes you make a mistake and bad things happen. You have to live with it.”

  George shook his head. “Mom said that nothing bad happened. She said that everyone will heal. She said that even Mrs. Townsend was going to get better.”

  “People were affected. We might not even know how many until later,” Ricky said. “Nobody has seen Mr. Hilliard, and I heard that Jenny knows something but she won’t tell anyone. And you’re having nightmares. I heard you last night.”

  “I’ll be okay,” George said.

  “I know you will,” Ricky said. “You’re pretty tough for a little kid.”

  George smiled.

  Chapter 61 : Big Jack

  [ Ceremony ]

  OCTOBER

  JEFFREY CORMIER ADJUSTED his bag on his shoulder and walked quickly up the dirt drive. There were way too many people up on the hill. He began to wonder if he had been misinformed.

  Jeffrey had caught a ride all the way to Dawn’s and then had walked the rest of the way to the horse farm. Joey had said there was a ceremony for Big Jack up on the hill, but there were way too many people gathered. As he approached, a strange feeling washed through him. These were all people he knew, but they all looked different. They looked haggard. It had only been three months, but it appeared like the people he knew had all been through a decade of hell.

  The Dunns were all there, in a tight clump near the oak tree. They had never seemed to care much about Big Jack, but they were there. The Endicott women stood over by the barn. The Hazards looked very serious. Of the four, only Elizabeth Hazard looked healthy. She was trim and tanned.

  Everyone was focused on Renny Sutton, who was in the middle of an emotional eulogy.

  “After a decade of that, Big Jack found himself in a muddy field starving to death and nearly tripping over his own untrimmed feet. He went from a standing stall and working from dawn till dusk, to standing out in the muck, wondering what the hell he was supposed to eat. I like to think that his years here were something like what a horse might consider paradise.”

  Jeffrey saw nods and heard grunts of approval.

  “We fed him, pet him, rode him, and asked him to lead our parade. Big Jack was as good a horse as we could have asked for. And now there’s nothing left to do but remember him fondly.”

  Renny looked down.

  Everyone else bowed their heads as well.

  Jeffrey was confused. When the people lifted their heads again, Jeffrey saw his sister over near the edge. His father and Shari were there too. Jeffrey headed that direction as the crowd began to disperse.

  “Jeffrey!” Sarah said. She gave him a smile and a quick hug.

  “You back?” his father asked. Jeffrey nodded. “Good,” his dad said.

  His father took Shari’s hand and the two began to walk down the drive. Jeffrey stayed there with Sarah.

  “What is this?” Jeffrey asked. “Why are they having a funeral three months later?”

  Sarah blinked. Her smile turned a little sad. “People needed it,” she said. “A lot happened, and I think once the Summer People all went away it felt like we needed a ceremony to put everything to rest.”

  Jeffrey studied her face to try to figure out what she meant. He wasn’t accustomed to having no idea what she was talking about. It made him sad to think that she had changed so much in a few short months.

  Jeffrey turned as someone joined their conversation. He recognized Ms. Hilliard. Her daughter, Jenny, was one of Sarah’s friends. He expected Ms. Hilliard to want to talk to her.

  Instead, she put her hand on Jeffrey’s arm.

  “Have you heard anything from my husband?” she asked.

  “Pardon?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Ms. Hilliard, I told you, Jeffrey was in Florida,” Sarah said. She raised her voice a little, like she was talking to someone who was hard of hearing.

  Ms. Hilliard looked at Sarah but then turned back to Jeffrey.

  “Did you see him?”

  “No,” Jeffrey said. He had no idea what she was talking about.

  Sarah turned Jeffrey away from her and led him over towards the barn.

  “A few people disappeared around the same time that you left,” she said. “She probably thinks you know something.”

  Jeffrey stopped. “Sarah, what happened?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said.

  Ike Hamill

  September, 2015

  Topsham, Maine

  [ ]

  About Accidental Evil

  If you’ve read my other books, you might recognize the town of Kingston from Migrators. It’s based on a real town where I spent a good portion of my life. With Accidental Evil, I wanted to understand how a crisis would affect the different families in a town. The strange events of that day became just one more part of their lives, folded into the narrative.

  Another thing I wanted to do with this book was to treat each person as their own main character. They’re each living through their own movie of the events in this book, so several scenes are repeated from different perspectives.

  I’ve included a few nods to the class system at play in Maine vacation spots. I’m sure these same differentiations happen all over the world. We have pretty areas here coveted because of their isolation and weather. Expensive houses are mixed in with trailers. People From Away live adjacent to families who trace their roots back centuries. The Summer People swarm for a few months and then flee before the snow falls. It’s always fascinating to watch people divide up and judge each other based on the circumstance of their birth.

  This book feels short to me. My goal was to keep it trim and reveal the plot like unearthing a suppressed memory. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I liked writing it. Please contact me with any questions, comments, or criticisms. I’d be thrilled if you would take a second and put a quick review up where you got this book. That is the best way to help spread the word about this book.

  Thanks for reading,

  Ike

  http://www.ikehamill.com

  http://www.facebook.com/IkeHamill

  @IkeHamill on Twitter

  IkeHamill@gmail.com

  The Claiming

  It wasn't her fault.

  It wasn't Lizzy's fault that she saw the cloaked people out in the yard. It wasn't her fault that she was drawn by the moonlight to watch them as they advanced on the house. And it definitely wasn't her fault when people began to die. Lizzy
didn't want the strange dreams where she saw how they were killed. Even her sister was starting to suspect her.

  It wasn't fair because it wasn't her fault.

  Lizzy was claimed.

  Inhabited

  They were looking for an adventure—a night of harmless fun. Miguel has a map. Kristin’s friend has the equipment. The mine leads to the cave, and the cave is where they’ll find their fortune.

  But down in the darkness, something waits.

  It needs them.

  The caves hold a secret. They’re Inhabited.

  Extinct

  Channel Two predicted a blanket of snow for Thanksgiving weekend—unusual, but not alarming for the little Maine island. What comes is a blinding blizzard, and a mass disappearance of nearly every person Robby Pierce knows. He and his family flee, trying to escape the snow and the invisible forces stealing people right from the street.

  Miles away, Brad Jenkins battles the same storm. Alone, he attempts to survive as snow envelops his house. When the storm breaks, Brad makes his way south to where the snow ends and the world lies empty. Join Brad, Robby, and the other survivors as they fight to find the truth about the apocalypse and discover how to live in their new world.

  The Hunting Tree

  For thousands of years a supernatural killer has slept in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. An amateur ghost hunter has just woken him up. Now that he stalks the night once more, he's traveling east. Although the monster's actions are pure evil, he may be the only thing that can save humanity from extinction.

  Migrators

  Do not speak of them. Your words leave a scent. They will come. Somewhere in the middle of Maine, one of the world's darkest secrets has been called to the surface. Alan and Liz just wanted a better life for themselves and their son. They decided to move to the country to rescue the home of Liz's grandfather, so it would stay in the family. Now, they find themselves directly in the path of a dangerous ritual. No one can help them. Nothing can stop the danger they face. To save themselves and their home, they have to learn the secrets of the MIGRATORS.