Riverwatch

by Joseph Nassise

  Judging from the frantic pressure the papers were putting on the sheriff’s department, Jake suspected that the authorities were no closer to catching the killer than they had been from the very start.

  Why?

  Because they were looking in the wrong place?

  Because the killer wasn’t human, as they so naturally assumed?

  While the logical side of his mind was telling him to knock off the bullshit and go back to bed, the other half, the one that loved to read horror novels and play Swords and Sorcerers, was saying, Why the hell not? Weirder things happen all the time, right? Take a look around. How many UFO sightings were there last year? What about the Loch Ness monster? Sure, and the National Enquirer is up for the Pulitzer Prize this year, the other half of his mind piped in, but, again, Jake ignored it.

  Suppose the creature did exist.

  That would account for the police having so much trouble finding the killer, wouldn’t it? A demon, or whatever you wanted to call it, wouldn’t leave the usual sort of evidence that police investigations relied upon. There’d be no motive, no connections between the victims. There wouldn’t be any fingerprints, or fiber traces, or paper trails for them to follow. There’d be no murder weapon; no pistol, no knife, no lead pipe or candlestick. Any blood or tissue samples the police recovered wouldn’t do them any good. What could they match them to? The same went for teeth marks on the victims.

  The creature could leave behind a trail of corpses and still be practically untraceable!

  This is crazy, he told himself, but he wasn’t quite ready to let it go.

  Not yet.

  His theory would also go a long way to explaining what it was that Katelynn was seeing in her "visions". Once he made the simple jump in logic that said such a thing might be possible, everything else fell solidly into place.

  Okay.

  Say it does exist.

  How could he prove that?

  Jake got up and poured himself some coffee. He had a hunch he was going to need it. He crossed to the junk drawer and dug around until he found a clean sheet of paper and a pen. He took them both back to the table.

  After a couple of minutes, he began writing.

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Connections

  While Jake was wrestling with the idea that something paranormal was happening around him, Katelynn was pacing her living room, lost in thought.

  Blake’s Bane, she kept repeating to herself as she moved about the room.

  Blake’s Bane…, Blake’s Bane…, Blake’s…

  She tried to sleep, but after lying in bed awake for half an hour she’d given up and gotten to work. The innate curiosity that had led her into a life of research assumed control and pushed her emotions back where they couldn’t interfere with her work. There they could simmer until she was ready to deal with them.

  For the time being, Jake was forgotten.

  Katelynn had bigger fish to fry.

  Blake’s Bane…Blake’s Bane…

  Father Castelli’s phrase had rung a bell somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind. Katelynn was positive she had heard it before. It didn’t even occur to her to doubt that the phrase was genuine; she was convinced that they had, indeed, been speaking to the deceased priest.

  But when had she heard it? And where?

  She had a hunch that if she could find the answer to either of those questions, then she’d also discover the answer to what had been happening to her lately.

  Back and forth…

  Back and forth…

  Blake’s Bane…

  With a sharp cry she dashed across the room to her desk and frantically dug through the stacks of books piled haphazardly on the floor, at last pulling forth a small, leather-bound volume that had seen better days. The book’s cover was torn, the corners bent, even the pages had taken on the yellowish-brown hue that belied old age.

  She seated herself behind the desk unconsciously and, after turning on the light, began slowly scanning page after page of the small work.

  I know it’s here somewhere, she told herself over and over again. I know it is.

  Indeed it was.

  On page 243, to be exact.

  The volume itself was the traveling diary of Edward Beckett, a circuit-riding minister who traveled from settlement to settlement in the country’s early years, bringing the word of the Lord to any and all who would listen. Beckett had passed through Harrington Falls several times in the 1760s and she had been using his first-hand observations of the area as a sourcebook for her thesis. Harrington Falls had been only a fledgling community then, slowly spreading out into the surrounding countryside as the Blake family’s wealth brought more people into the region. Beckett’s observations provided a clear and accurate picture of life on the frontier. He apparently rode several hundreds of miles a year, preaching as often as possible.

  A meticulous man, he recorded every little detail in the volumes of travel diaries he prepared along the way.

  As chance would have it, he arrived in Harrington Falls on a cold evening in October of 1763, the same evening Sebastian Blake was accused of practicing witchcraft and wizardry.

  The townsfolk had held an impromptu trial right then and there and passed judgment on their neighbor.

  The sentence: Death.

  Beckett had watched the trial and the punishment that followed, and, as always, had recorded his observations in his journal.

  He had been the one to coin the odd term, ‘Blake’s Bane’.

  Now, reading the words of a man who had long since turned to dust, Katelynn discovered some of the answers she’d been searching for.

  And something else, as well.

  She discovered that she was more frightened than she’d ever been in her entire life.

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Forest Green Revisited

  Having left Sam asleep on the couch, Jake now stood beside his Jeep, staring across the street at the entrance to the cemetery, forced by his own logic to see if his theory was true.

  Two spotlights lit the concrete arch in a brilliant glare, making the darkness just beyond seem that much darker. It looked to him to be a solid wall of black, and as he strained unsuccessfully to see into it, Jake had the uneasy feeling that something was hidden within its swirling depths, hiding just beyond the range of his vision, crouched there in hungry anticipation of his arrival.

  You don’t want to go in there, an inner voice warned. There’s nothing on the other side of that arch; no grass, no graves, no cemetery. Just one great, sprawling nothing, and it’s waiting for you.

  Waiting to swallow you whole.

  "Bullshit!" he said aloud. The echo of his voice in the otherwise empty silence of the night made him jump in surprise. It’s just dark, that’s all. That’s why you brought the flashlight, remember? he told himself. Though he knew he was being ridiculous; knew it was just an illusion created by the contrast of the lights and the night’s darkness, he still couldn’t help but cringe when he passed beneath the arch, expecting in that instant to be sucked away into the void, never to return.

  Of course, nothing like that happened, and he emerged on the other side unscathed.

  "Nothing to it," he muttered beneath his breath as he wiped the thin sheen of sweat from his brow.

  Turning on the flashlight, its beam lighting the way before him for a good twenty feet, Jake set off, knowing if he hesitated he might lose his nerve and turn back.

  The darkness pressed in from all sides.

  It was a hungry beast waiting to pounce, and more than once he stopped in his tracks and swung the flashlight in a slow arc around him, assuring himself that he was, indeed, alone. On the last such pass, a sudden realization came to him, and it was one that did nothing to improve the state of his already frayed nerves. Seeing the glistening marble of the headstones that stood in silent rows on either side of the path on which he stood, Jake remembered he wasn’t alone.

  Not really.

  Not by a long shot.

  He had the d
ead for company.

  He imagined them in their holes beneath the ground, lying languidly in their coffins, their flesh rotting from their bones, their lips pulled back to reveal grinning teeth, their eyes open and staring. Eyes that were alive with unnatural life. Eyes that could see him despite the wood and earth that separated them. He pictured their grins growing wider at the sight, their arms slowly rising off their chests to reach upwards toward him�

  Jake shook himself violently, trying to dispel the images. He wasn’t entirely successful. The hair rose on his arms and the back of his neck. He had to force himself to keep moving. It couldn’t be much farther, he figured.

  If you go on, you might not be able to turn back, that disturbing little voice whispered in the back of his mind, but he ignored it and continued on.

  Five minutes later he turned off the path, his feet seeming to know the way on their own accord. Despite his unease, Jake really couldn’t believe he was doing this. Back home, with the night’s excitement still rampaging through his system and Gabriel’s voice echoing in his ears, the idea that some supernatural being was hunting in Harrington Falls had seemed possible. The strange coincidences that had been occurring around him had added fuel to the fire, seeming to add up to that conclusion as naturally as two and two make four. But here, in the depths of the cemetery in the heart of the night, Jake was no longer so certain.

  Jake wrestled with his thoughts for several more minutes, until he realized he had reached his destination.

  There, not ten feet away, was the tomb.

  Maybe it was the sense of evil which pervaded the place, or the nerve-jabbing feeling that all was not as it should be here or the perception of wrongness that penetrated to the bone like an ice-cold February rain, but whatever it was, Jake suddenly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his conclusions had been right. He could feel it in his heart, in his head, and in his soul. Where five minutes before he had come close to convincing himself that it was all nonsense, now, staring at the crypt, all his suspicions were swept away by a mental tide of profound certainty.

  The beast was real.

  As if in confirmation of that fact, the open door of the crypt creaked loudly.

  Jake felt his breath vanish in a sudden rush. "Oh, God," he said softly.

  Shining the light out on the ground before him, his feet suddenly unsteady, Jake cautiously made his way closer to the crypt until he stood only a foot or so in front of the door.

  He was sick with dread.

  Praying that his mind was right and his instincts were wrong, Jake lifted the flashlight until its beam shone directly into the tomb.

  He felt his mind tilt crazily at the sight before him, and his knees grew dangerously weak. He knew that if he fell here, this close to the tomb, he might not have the strength to get back up. That was the last thing he wanted right now. If he didn’t get away from here, he knew he’d go crazy. As it was, he couldn’t bear to look any longer.

  Try as he might as he slowly backed away, Jake found he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the sight before him.

  The beam of light shone directly on the rear wall of the tomb.

  The emptiness of the chamber seemed to mock him in return.

  As impossible as it was, it was true.

  The tomb was empty.

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Decision Time

  "Can I come in?"

  Jake nodded and stepped back slightly, allowing Katelynn just enough room to get through the door before he quickly closed and locked it thoroughly. He then checked the locks twice before peering out the keyhole into the night.

  Katelynn watched all this without a word.

  Jake didn’t look so good. His hair was uncombed and wildly tangled. A five o’clock shadow lay heavy on his face.

  Jake turned to face her. He put one finger to his lips and motioned for her to follow with his other hand.

  They went through the living room, where Katelynn saw Sam asleep on the sofa, looking even worse than Jake. The large circles under his eyes were exaggerated by the pale, pasty color of his skin. One hand lay atop the blanket that covered his body, and Katelynn could see that it trembled while he slept.

  Jake took a seat at the table and with an unsteady wave of one hand indicated she should do likewise.

  "What happened to Sam?"

  Jake shook his head. "He showed up here a few hours ago but passed out before he could tell me anything. I haven’t bothered to try and wake him."

  "What’s going on, Jake?" she asked in a quiet voice.

  For several long moments she thought he wasn’t going to answer. He sat there without moving, silently staring at the table, a distant glazed look in his eyes. When at last he did answer, his voice was a low monotone. "Earlier, when I told you that you must have been dreaming, I was wrong. It’s real, Katelynn. It’s real, and it’s out there somewhere. Waiting to kill again." He told her everything that had happened from the time she left him in the Roost until he called her to come over.

  Katelynn didn’t say a word the entire time he spoke, she just patiently heard him out.

  When he was finished, she got up without a word and started out of the room.

  "Where are you going?" he called after her, then reluctantly got to his feet and followed.

  He found her in the living room, sliding the video back into the VCR.

  Watching it a second time, Jake felt the fear that had been gnawing at his gut for the last few hours come back for a second course. Knowing Gabriel was telling the truth gave his plea for help that much more of a punch. It was no longer the fanciful ravings of a lunatic; it was stark, cold reality. Jake shivered with the implications.

  Again, Katelynn didn’t say a word, only quietly got up when it was over and returned to the kitchen.

  Jake spared a quick glance over at Sam, saw that he was still asleep, and followed her.

  She was sitting at the table, waiting for him.

  "I’m afraid there’s more, Jake," she said.

  He looked at her, thinking he was about to get the second half of a one-two punch.

  "Does the name Edward Beckett ring a bell?"

  He shook his head.

  Taking a deep breath, she began her story. "Beckett was a minister, a traveling one, who spent a good deal of time around these parts in the late 1700s. He kept extensive journals of all he did and saw. I’ve been using some of his works as references on my thesis.

  "In October of 1763, Beckett arrived here in Harrington Falls just in time to witness the one and only witchcraft trial this town has ever seen. The man who was accused, and later convicted of the crime, was Sebastian Blake."

  "What’s that got to do with Gabriel and the thing you keep seeing in your dreams?" Jake asked.

  "I’m getting to that. It seems that Blake was practicing what everyone considered to be black magic. Among other things, he supposedly had a demon familiar, a kind of magical companion, that followed him and did his biding."

  Jake nodded that he understood. He was familiar with the concept of familiars from their weekly session of Swords and Sorcerers.

  "At the trial, several witnesses came forward and admitted to having seen this familiar. One of them even claimed to have survived an attack by it. The authorities took them at their word and searched Blake’s house, but they never found the familiar. They did find a statue of a demonic-looking creature carved from stone, so life-like in its appearance that they believed Blake had used a living beast as a model . That was all the evidence the authorities needed to convince the jury that the witnesses were telling the truth. For Blake, it was the final nail in his coffin.

  "Beckett recorded all this in his journal, including a description of the beast, and went so far as to name it Blake’s Bane. I believe the statue you found in Sebastian Blake’s tomb is the statue Beckett mentions in his journal."

  They sat in silence for a moment, digesting the implications.

  "What happened to Blake?" Jake asked.

  "They suppos
edly sealed him alive inside his tomb as a warning to anyone else that might be tempted to fool around with witchcraft," she answered matter-of-factly.

  Jake stared at her in surprise. "Are you kidding?"

  She shook her head.

  "Nice neighbors." said Jake.

  Katelynn went on. "It is my belief that statue was not a model of Blake’s familiar, it was the familiar itself, somehow transformed into stone. And by breaking into the tomb, Kyle unwittingly provided what the Nightshade needed to secure its release." Katelynn finished.

  They sat in silence, lost in their own thoughts.

  "What do you think happened to Gabriel?" Katelynn asked.

  "Something broke into the nursing home and ripped him to shreds."

  The Jake and Katelynn jumped in surprise. They looked up to find Sam leaning against the doorframe, wrapped in the blanket in which he’d been sleeping. On his face was a blank expression and his voice was utterly devoid of emotion.

  He’s in shock, Katelynn thought.

  Sam went on, "I went to the nursing home. I managed to sneak past all the cops and got to the third floor in time to see them photographing the scene. What was left of him looked more like raw meat than the remains of a human being."

  He shuffled into the room and took a seat opposite Jake, retreating into silence.

  Loki chose that moment to come wandering in, eyed them all, and then settled down on the floor at Katelynn’s feet.

  She reached down to stroke his fur in an effort to calm her rapidly fraying nerves. "So it was Gabriel who was trying to warn us through the Ouija board?" she asked.

  Sam nodded. "I should have known it was him. Only Gabriel called me Sammy. When that message came up, I was simply too stunned to act and then Dana’s seizure delayed us all. By the time I got to the nursing home, it was too late. Gabriel was dead."