The Revenants

by Castle, Jack

Her arms. Her arms… why couldn’t she move them?

  “I’ll bet you’re wondering why you’re still alive.”

  (I know I am. I already had my coat on and everything. By the way, did you ever check that left front tire? No? Well it was nice knowing you.)

  The voice was Elaine’s, only deeper, resonating from deep within her chest, malicious, far beyond anything a human being could produce. “The others told me to kill you and be done with it, but I convinced them of how we have such a wonderful history together.” Holding a finger to her lips, “Why, I’ll bet you didn’t know it was me who first put the idea in young Abdul Salin Yasin’s head.”

  Wait a minute? What did Elaine just say? Abdul Yasin was the name of the boy bomber who…”

  Becca froze. She wanted to ask where she was, but she was more tired than she had ever been in her life. And that was saying a lot, as she had once worked a thirty-six hour detail straight, during a high threat level security alert. Becca shivered all over; a wonderful side-effect of being knocked unconscious. She considered herself fortunate she didn’t have enough food to vacate her bowels while she was passed out. She felt a lump on her forehead and her lip was bleeding profusely. Must’ve bonked my head and bitten my lip when Elaine took me out.

  Becca forced her eyes to open the rest of the way and found they were back in the seedy lounge next door; the one with all the cheap Christmas decorations and singing Kewpie Doll.

  A voice from nearby whispered groggily, “Becca, you’re awake.”

  Becca turned her head, following the sound of Wally’s voice. His face was badly beaten, his clothes were torn, and he had cuts and abrasions all over his skin.

  “Oh, look at that, Becca and Wally, together again. Don’t you two make the most wonderful couple?” CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP.

  The old crone, as Becca had come to think of her, like those old witches in the Brother’s Grimm stories--the kind that crawl up out of the swampy muck and lure wayward travelers to their doom, much the way Elaine, or the things inside her, had lured her and the others off the highway. Elaine was now only the merest semblance of her former self; most of her hair had fallen out, her eyes bulged from their sockets, and her skin was stretched so tight Becca thought it might break, and in some places it had. Elaine slinked over to Wally and licked his cheek with a blackened tongue that was impossibly long. “Poor Wally here didn’t think you’d ever wake up. Isn’t that right, Wally?” She whapped him on the back of the head when he didn’t answer. “Didn’t you?!”

  Wally grimaced when she pulled some of his hair out of his scalp and promptly ate it. As Becca took in more of her surroundings she realized they weren’t alone. Standing around them with their backs to the walls were other folks from the tour bus, the few that were left alive anyway. If you could call it living; most had blistering sores on their arms and faces. Their eyes were seeping with blackness like, how did Calvin describe it, smeared ink on a page? That seemed like a good description of what she was seeing now. Elaine was the only animated one of the bunch. At the moment she was drawing her finger through a pool of blood on the table. Overall, she seemed overtly pleased with herself. Then, Becca saw the gun. It was her 1911, lying in the center of the round table next to a large, serrated butcher’s knife stained with blood.

  Elaine appeared, almost as if by magic, behind her. Becca shivered from Elaine’s icy touch when the old woman rested her talon-like fingers on her shoulders. She recalled how Elaine had shoved those same claws into Calvin’s stomach and tossed him into that gaping red throat behind door number three.

  Massaging her shoulders in the most painful pinching motions possible, Elaine screeched once more, “As I was saying, you’re probably wondering why you’re still alive. You see, Wally here is, how do you say … a poor bouquet. Most of you are, really. But some of you, like you, dear Becca, are, for lack of a better word, a perfect fit.”

  “What do you want from us?” Wally asked.

  Elaine released a noise that sounded more like a farm animal being butchered than it did a human laugh. “From you, Wally, my dear-dear boy? Nothing. It’s Becca we really want. You see, we got all of these others,” she said this, gesturing mildly toward the tour bus people against the wall, “for less than a song.” She then squatted between the two of them, farted, and then belched heavily (lovely). The smell was overpowering to say the least. “And then there were two.”

  The large butcher’s knife on the table vibrated for a moment before floating up from the table and hovering in the air directly before them.

  “And our powers are only growing. Now. I really feel like stabbing someone, but who? Who-to-stab? Who-to-stab?” Elaine kept repeating.

  When Becca drunkenly examined her own forearms tied to the armrests of her chair she could see where Wally had worked much of the rope holding him loose. (Hope) If Elaine saw this she didn’t act like it. Maybe she didn’t care. Maybe Elaine had grown so powerful she didn’t need to have them bound anymore.

  “Take me,” Wally said almost immediately.

  Elaine rested her eyes on him with almost a look of empathy. “My,” she began softly. “Aren’t you sweet?” Turning to Becca she announced loudly, “Becca, I’ll tell you what, give yourself over to me and I promise,” crossing her heart, pouting her lips, “precious Wally will be spared.” When Becca didn’t respond Elaine quickly moved over to the other side of Becca’s head. “Oh, I’m sorry. AM I SPEAKING INTO THE WRONG EAR!”

  When the echo of Elaine’s booming voice finally died down Becca managed, “Go to hell.”

  Elaine tilted her head back and released another bray of eerie laughter. She lowered her head and smiled knowingly. “Been there. Got the T-shirt. Oh well, guess I’ll have to kill you both after all.”

  With a cry of anguish Wally did the impossible and broke the rest of the way free from his bonds. In rapid sequence he scooped up Becca’s gun from the table, aimed it at Elaine, and squeezed the trigger three times until the weapon’s slide remained all the way back indicating the pistol was empty.

  Elaine’s body recoiled from the blows, stood for a moment longer, and then fell over like a felled timber. A second later, the floating knife clattered back down to the table.

  Worried the tour bus people were going to attack, Becca told him, “Quick, untie me. Untie me.”

  As Wally first finished untying his own bonds and then began working on hers, Becca continued to watch tourists standing against the wall For now, they merely stood there dazed, drooling and wondering what to do. But that could change at any moment.

  “Hurry up, hurry up,” Becca urged.

  “Almost there…”

  Just then Elaine stood back up but in the most unnatural way. Her clothes were bloodstained where Wally had shot her several times and she announced, “We have a winner.”

  In shock, Wally stopped what he was doing.

  “I’m curious,” Elaine began. “What part of immortal did you not understand? I mean the Big fella explained it to you earlier, right?”

  Elaine staggered backward into the wall, knocking a few pictures off.

  “We hurt it,” Wally breathed. Becca noted he called Elaine an ‘it’, not a ‘her’.

  Elaine regained her footing, straightened out her blouse, brushed off a few shards of picture glass, and composed herself. And in Elaine’s birth voice she said convincingly, “How could you? You just murdered an innocent old lady.” And then her face contorted with unadulterated contempt and she bellowed in a coarse and menacing voice. “I hope you’re proud of yourself!”

  Limping around the table with one shoe off and holding her chin up pridefully, she explained, “It doesn’t really matter though, does it. I think you know I’ll just jump into someone else,” and with a thought, she held Becca up by her chin. “Maybe even you.”

  “Leave her alone!” Wally roared.

  Elaine screamed until the room, and everything in it, spun madly around her. She screamed until the drywall on the walls began to
splinter and crack. Dust fell from the ceiling and several lights in the room spontaneously combusted.

  Wally dove for the knife but seeing this, the demon inside Elaine whisked it away with a mere gesture of her hand.

  “Ah-ah-ah, mustn’t play with knives. As a paramedic you should know that.”

  Everything circled the room in tornado fashion until it suddenly froze in mid-air, held for a second, and then abruptly dropped to the floor. Everything save the knife.

  Wally was at least twelve feet away. He didn’t know how a knife could fly across the room like that. There was no way Becca could have known but these were Wally’s last thoughts: First he felt the sharp pain in his left eye and the river of blood streaming down his cheek. Somehow there was a knife thrust into his left eye socket. Then he heard Becca cry, “Oh no…” Last, he felt his legs involuntarily shake, and as he stumbled backward, his flailing hands knocked over several of the chairs behind him.

  Becca watched him as he fell to the floor and began to cry for her friend. There was nothing left for her to do. She was all alone.

  And that’s when Big Leonard barged into the room.

  (hope)

  There was just one problem. It was his eyes. They were oozing the smattering of black.

  “No, Big Leonard,” Becca said softly, tears streaming down her face. “No. Not you, too.”

  And then, Wally faded away… to oblivion.

  (Wow. I mean, wow. I did not see that coming. Wally the firefighter is dead? Wasn’t he and Becca supposed to ride off in the sunset or something?)

  Chapter 37

  Smashey-Smashey

  “Well that was fun.”

  When Big Leonard entered the room he was still wearing his hard hat, and now had a sledgehammer slung over one shoulder. Becca searched his face for any kind of recognition but nothing remained.

  Elaine suddenly began coughing profusely. Examining the blood all over her hand she exclaimed, “Ewww… gross,” and wiped it absentmindedly on Elaine’s blouse. “No matter, I’m fixing to put on a new meatbag anyway.”

  Elaine stared hard at her. Then, the arm Wally had freed before he died, move of its own violation. “That’s your cue, honey,” Elaine said. Against Becca’s wishes, she raised her hand up and laid it down on the table before them. Instinctively Becca tried to pull her hand back to her, but it was stuck fast. It might have well been superglued to the table. Further, her fingers were splayed apart so wide it was to the point of nearly breaking.

  “Big Leonard here,” patting him on the shoulder Elaine began, but then interjected, “Oh my, he really is a big fellow,” then facing Becca once more she finished. “Big Leonard here is going to take his giant sledgehammer and break every bone in your hand. Isn’t that right, Big Leonard?”

  He didn’t answer. Maybe there was some small part of him left inside. She had to try something, anything. “Hey Big Leonard. I know you’re in there. I know you would never hurt me.”

  “Oh, isn’t that sweet.” Turning her full attention to Big Leonard, Elaine commanded, “Okay, now.”

  It took Leonard less than a blink of an eye to swing his giant sledgehammer around the back of his head in a giant arc, swing it mightily overhead, and bring it crashing down.

  For the briefest of milliseconds Becca thought it was a bluff tactic and the ten-pound block of hammered steel was going to smash down onto the table next to her hand, but no…

  The pain was unimaginable. Every bone in her hand was smashed to kindling.

  She wailed in torment, and when she couldn’t do that anymore she cradled her hand and sat there sobbing. It was the most painful experience of her life. Even the explosion, the year in the hospital afterward, all the back pain combined, didn’t compare to the excruciating pain she was feeling now.

  “Oh my, dear,” Elaine said with mock concern, “You really should have that looked at. We should you get you some medical attention. Where’s Wally? Oh that’s right. I stabbed him in the eye. He is all kinds of dead.”

  When Elaine caught Becca looking up at Big Leonard and searching his eyes for any hope of recognition the old woman cackled and asked, “Do you still think he’s in there? Do you still he’s going to save you?”

  “You bitch,” Becca spat.

  Elaine tilted her head to the side as if to say, ‘Yeah, pretty much.’

  “Okay, time for the other hand.”

  “No,” Becca sobbed. “No, please.” Against her will, Becca raised her other hand. Snapping the bonds that held her arm, she placed it on the table. “No. Stop. Please don’t.”

  Elaine started another fit of coughing up blood, but after a time managed to get it under control. “I don’t really have a choice, dear.” She waved magnanimously to everyone around her. “All the other meatbags are occupado. You’re the only one left on the rack.”

  “It hurts so much,” Becca sobbed.

  Elaine walked behind her and began stroking her hair the way a loving mother might stroke her young daughter’s hair. “I know, I know,” she cooed soothingly. Dropping her head down next to Becca’s she breathed with that foul breath of hers, “I promise. Once you surrender to me, all this pain, all this suffering, all of it will stop. Won’t that be nice?”

  That was when Becca realized. The Thing before her, the one inside a poor sweet old lady (she wasn’t that sweet to begin with; trust me on this) couldn’t get her soul. Kill her, sure. But eternal damnation was off the menu. In fact, it sounded like if she died, the demon wouldn’t have a home to go to.

  Elaine half-skipped around the table. “I can do this all night. And tomorrow. And the next day and the next.” The effort caused her to volley into another coughing fit and she spit up more blood than ever.

  “Maybe you don’t have as much time as you think,” Becca said with baited breath. If she could trick this monster into killing her, it would all be over and she could be back with Mike, and Champ.

  (Spoiler alert, all dogs go to heaven. Cats? Eh, not so much)

  “Oh this?” she asked fingering Elaine’s blouse and letting the fabric drop. “This is nothing. Haven’t you figured that out by now? We’re everywhere.”

  Ignoring the old woman Becca focused on Big Leonard. “Hey Leonard, you really going to let this sour bitch push you around? I thought you were tougher than that?”

  “Oh please. You’re wasting your time.”

  “C’mon, Leonard, I know you’re in there. You can fight this. I know you can.”

  “Fine,” Elaine screeched, exasperated. “Another hand it is.” She nodded to the giant lineman.

  Big Leonard raised the hammer high over his head. Hesitated for only a second and brought the sledge down. Only this time, in mid-swing, his eyes changed back to normal and he yanked hard on the handle swinging it in a wide arc so the hammer struck Elaine full in the chest.

  Elaine made a WHOOFFFF sound as the sledge slammed into her and propelled her body back into the wall behind her. Her broken form lay by the baseboards and did not stir.

  Two of the other possessed tourists lunged forward and grabbed Big Leonard on either side, but in a furious rage he made short gruesome work of them with his hammer.

  Becca immediately felt her good hand on the table release and pulled it back to cradle her injured hand.

  Big Leonard stood over Demon Elaine’s still form and raised his sledgehammer high over his head once more.

  Seeing this, Becca cried out, “No, don’t kill her, we have to bind it,” but it was too late. Big Leonard brought his hammer down on Elaine’s face.

  Elaine, although it was actually the demon, was smiling ear-to-ear just before the hammer caved in her skull.

  Work done, Big Leonard tossed the blood-stained hammer to one side.

  He held his hands to his head and said aloud, “Becca, I can feel him. I can feel all of them, rooting around in my head. You don’t have much time.”

  Becca moved over to him.

  Big Leonard fell to his knees and held both fists
to his temples now. “Please, Becca. You have to go now.”

  “I’m not leaving without you.”

  For a moment a sense of lighted peace seemed to wash over him. He turned toward her. “Becca, you saved me. Saved me from eternal damnation. And for that I thank you, but I can’t keep them out much longer. I have to go now. You need to run.”

  “Please Leonard,” she cried, slipping her one good hand under his arm, trying to tug him to his feet. As her face was close to his she noticed his expression changed once more, and when he spoke it wasn’t quite him anymore but she sensed nothing malevolent about it. “Becca, find the boy,” and with a sense of gravity he added, “Save the boy, Becca.” And then he surprised her when he yanked his arm violently out of her grasp, turned to her and roared the words in a demonic voice, amplified a thousand-fold, “I SAID… GO!”

  In shock, Becca stood up, backed away from her friend, and ran for the door.

  Grinning madly, eyes ablaze with total seeping darkness, Big Leonard was already reaching for his sledgehammer.

  As she reached the exit of the lounge she flinched at the sound of his voice…

  “I’M COMING FOR YOU!”

  Chapter 38

  There’s a Knife in My Eye

  Wally woke up with a knife still protruding out of his left eye.

  He could feel that he was lying on his back on the thinly carpeted floor. When he opened his one remaining good eye he could see the blurry image of the knife’s handle in the extreme foreground. From his current vantage point he could see that he was still in the lounge area, although he couldn’t tell if anyone else was in the room with him. By the sound of it, he was fairly certain he was alone.

  (Care to bet your life on it, Wallster? Oh right. He can’t hear me. YOU’RE GOING TO DIE BEFORE THIS IS OVER, WALLY!)

  Where did everybody go? Although painful, he would’ve thought a knife in your eye would’ve hurt a lot more. ‘Must be the shock’ he thought to himself. ‘Okay Wally, think. You’ve got a knife penetration in your left orbit, and most likely stuck into the bone behind the eye. What do you do?’ In a normal first response situation you would leave the knife right where it was, wrap it in place, stabilize the patient and get advanced care. But this went way, way, way beyond a normal situation. Not only was advanced care never coming but the others might desperately need his help. If there was a silver lining to this situation (yeah, right) the bone behind his eye was the one thing that stopped the blade from penetrating his brain. So, the only thing to do was pull the knife out. He’d lose the optic nerve for sure, but once he got it out, all he had to do was slap a compress on it and he’d be fine. Yeah, piece-a-cake, right as rain.