“Hey,” he called, “are you okay? Are you lost?”
Her body suddenly shivered like a jolt of life was injected into her. Her eyes began to move rapidly, experiencing REM. Then her mouth opened and began to release rapid, jumbled words. Then she slowed and Gerry could make out the words “we shouldn’t have” and “it was a mistake”. She muttered those words so much it didn’t seem to Gerry that she was going to stop.
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, she raised the blade up and slit her throat.
“Oh…” Gerry cringed in horror as blood spurted from the gape in her neck and poured down her body, staining her dirty cloth from beneath. She fell forward, knees first and face twisted to the side, atop the ashes and stayed still.
“What just happened?” he said, using his free hand to grip the hairs of his head. He walked over to the lifeless body and squatted to inspect it. He saw the knife she’d used on herself and picked it. Blood stained its sharp edge.
Wondering why the woman had killed herself, he failed to notice the body that stood in the doorway. The loud thud that echoed the person’s entrance was what alerted him.
He turned sharply, pointing the light of the torch in the direction of the sound and the light fell on the brown uniform of a patrolman. His hands instinctively relieved itself of the knife. It slid to the ground with a weak sound.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he mumbled. He felt his heart skipping beats. Then the officer’s face slid into view as he took two steps inside and Gerry saw the blankness on the face; the same one the dead woman had displayed. He moved forward, same stiffness. Something was wrong.
The cop stopped. Gerry wanted to talk but chose to remain silent and see. The cop reached into his belt and removed a pistol. He turned it upside-down and placed its muzzle beneath his chin. Then Gerry noticed the rapid eye movements.
He sprang forward sharply. He knew he had to get that gun away. He didn’t make it three steps before Festus’ voice erupted in his head again, stopping him.
There’s nothing you can do for him. He’s going to find another way to kill himself even if you stop him now.
“What are you…?” Gerry started to ask before a throaty quaver made away with his attention. It’d come from the cop. He was shivering.
“Should’ve listened first…” the cop mouthed weakly and before Gerry could look away, pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunfire was deafening. Its echoes reverberated throughout the house. Blood erupted from the top of his head. Then the cop fell in the same way the woman had fallen. Blood seeped out of a misshapen hole on his head.
Gerry felt sweat pushing out of the goose bumps that’d broken out on his skin.
“What’s going on?” He barely heard himself speak. He collected his disjointed wits together and made for the door. He had to shut it. He believed that if people couldn’t come in, they wouldn’t feel so suicide inclined. Getting to the door, however, he stopped and his eyes ran white with fear.
Through the tangling masses of malignant weed and brushes of plant, the people advanced. He saw them coming; old and young, male and female.
It has started.
###
CHAPTER FOUR
PULLING the door shut was a wasted effort. The next person simply pulled it open as if he was full of life but whatever life he had, he relinquished at the door as he walked in. The man was on a shirt and denim shorts. He walked like a zombie to the fallen cop. He picked the gun on the floor and pulled it to his head.
Gerry had the time to look away before the sound of the gun ripped through his ears and sent a tremor through his body. The echoes carried on for almost a good minute. The soft thud of the man dropping was followed by a pressing silence that didn’t last. Heavy, sluggish footsteps cut through that silence.
It’s worse than I imagined it would be. Festus’ voice sliced into Gerry’s fear-stricken mind. Gerry kept quiet, egging him to continue speaking.
I never knew she could be… she could get this powerful.
“What’s she doing to them?”
The owner of the footsteps slipped into view. He was beefy. Sweat heavily stained his purple apron and he held a chopper. He must’ve been a butcher. Ugly choice for someone forced to commit suicide. Gerry tried not to pay him much attention.
As easy as she unintentionally manipulated the dead while she was alive, now that she’s dead, she’s controlling the living from… I’m not sure. She must have a carrier.
“You mean like me?”
A silent hum spoke an unspoken positive answer.
“How do I stop her?”
You don’t.
Gerry was drawn to the sound of the large blade that dropped. The butcher was on his knees. His head had fallen to the side, drooping below his left shoulder. Blood gushed from his torn carotid. The chopper had been pushed so deep into his neck that the muscles lost their rigidity, all in a single chop. Bits of his cervical bones stuck out of the gape with pieces of torn muscles. Trust a butcher to do a good job.
“Why? I can simply stop her carrier.”
Then she finds a new one. You’ve forgotten how I got into you.
“What do we… what do I do then?”
Wait for the right time. Her carrier is nearby, close to these people so she can control them efficiently. I’ll sense her when she gets very close. But for now, we wait.
###
WAITING had been a horrible idea. Gerry had watched as first a boy, then a girl followed by a lady all felled themselves on the fat, square blade of the butcher’s chopper. Then an older woman actually went up the stairs and raised questions in him only for him to hear her body drop outside with a heavy, squelching dissonance. She’d fallen through the window upstairs.
A cop followed and killed himself with his weapon like his partner had done by shooting his heart. A girl entered next with a tiny breadknife.
When he was beginning to think there wasn’t much she could do, she proved him wrong. She jabbed the knife into her throat and withdrew it. Blood gushed from the hole but she did not stop there. She continued thrusting the knife into her neck and removing it till there was nothing left of it but holes and dangling flesh. Then she fell prostrate.
In minutes that warped into an hour, the place became filled with bodies. Torn flesh and black blood frolicked with the ashes. Bloodied weapons littered the floor: stained blades, guns, a cudgel (a man, then a woman, had bashed their heads in with it) and a bottle of spilt Botulin. Three other persons had gone upstairs and had jumped through the window. Their bodies were outside beside the woman.
Then they stopped. Nobody came inside anymore. No footstep fell upon the verandah. Was the bloodbath over? Or was that an introductory wave? If so, how was the next wave going to be like?
Gerry could only look at the bodies. What a waste there was. Pity welled within him. Even though the people had been merciless, they didn’t deserve… and then a second thought conflicted. He remembered the burning, the lynching… they probably deserved a little bit of the retribution that came to them.
“Why do you want to help them? I mean stop her,” Gerry asked, to be sure.
Because these people… they had no idea what was happening. Seeing the bodies of your long lost, loved ones on the streets, out of their graves could be very disquieting. I understand that they were scared, that they allowed that fear to control them.
But how were they going to stop Abigail? What if she continued until the entire town was wiped out?
She’s here!
Festus’ voice sent a jolt through Gerry once more.
“What?”
I can sense her now. And it seems to be getting stronger, like she’s approaching.
“Where?”
Close. The awareness is growing. I don’t know why she’s coming here.
“What’s the plan?”
Silence. Then…
I have to… need to take total control of you.
“Like you did with…”
J
oel Broker, yes. That way, I can talk to her, try to stop her from this rampage; or at least reach a compromise that can go a long way in preventing a recurrence. I hope you under…
“Do what you have to do!” Gerry decided.
Good choice, Festus said. This will be painless. In the end you won’t feel a thing. You probably won’t even feel an existence.
Gerry braced himself. It wasn’t up to a minute before he began to feel himself stepping out of consciousness. His vision began to squeeze, then blur, then generally went off focus. Everything went blank and dark, intangible. Senses dulled then died. He felt himself as tentacles, releasing hold of the inner shell of his body. He floated into a nothingness he’d never felt in his life.
###
CHAPTER FIVE
SENSATION spilled into his body like the first rain after summer. His fingers twitched. His eyelids fluttered. He was waking, he knew, but he was just feeling the body. He wanted to get into it, like really.
He breathed in and instantly returned a coughing reaction. Particles of dust and ash had gone in. He breathed out heavily and coughed again.
Tactility moved in. His fingers felt the dust particles on the floor. He deduced that he’d fallen and raised his face. Particles of ash and burnt remains clung to it. He rubbed them off.
The smell of smoke filled his nose. He was glad about the smell. It’d been a while since he smelled. Careful planning does take a lot of time.
Festus Bode pulled himself off the floor and brushed the filth away from his body, Gerry’s body. As he’d expected, Gerry Broker’s body was sharp, agile, healthy and very fit. It was going to serve him well. He was in control now.
He looked around him and noticed the self-lacerated bodies splayed about. They deserved what they had coming. He laughed at the various designs with which they’d taken their own lives. These pitiless beings, these unmerciful, remorseless beings. They really deserved what they had coming.
“Dad?”
His attention shifted to the entrance. A girl stood there in a long, white, silk dress. Her long-sleeved covered hands rested on both sides of the door. Her eyes glinted at him from pale flesh and her slick, long hairs poured down both sides of her face and rested on her shoulders. Though she looked eight, what with her diminutive stature, her eyes reflected the mid-teenager he’d grown to love with dearest passion.
“My sweetheart. My dear munchkin.”
“Daddy!!”
She rushed to him and he swept her up in his arms with gusto and was surprised at how long it’d been since he’d done that.
“I felt you, sweetie, I felt you.” He sensed his eyes secrete a hot trickle of tear and felt it roll down his face.
“I felt you too dad but I wasn’t sure,” Abigail responded, “So I came to check if my senses were misinterpreting?”
“Quite an impressive homecoming you organized all on your own.” He shot a prolonged stare at the bodies. “It’s the thing they say about giving a child freedom in excess.”
The girl cushioned in his arms drew her tiny arms around his neck in a babyish hug and rested her head on his shoulder. She was full of life, vitality. Energy flowed through her new body; much like his. He loved the warmth she injected into him. How he’d missed that warmth.
“I’ve missed you, dad,” Abigail said.
“I’ve missed you too. Words can barely describe.” Festus returned. “My, you really are a munchkin now. How come about the body?”
“It belonged to a girl. I wasn’t chanced to catch her name. She’d died of pertussis. I found it empty so I occupied. It was a few months after we were killed. I can still remember the look on her mother’s face when she saw me stepping out of the grave. It was hilarious.”
Festus laughed. “So the residents gave themselves a curfew because of that.”
Abigail nodded. “How about yours? It seems to still be in perfect health.”
“Oh it took a lot of planning my dear,” Festus replied. “I first occupied the body of the cop that’d tried to protect us. They’d killed him and his body had been in a sorry condition. I managed till I met his son and grandson.
“His son had a failing heart and his grandson became my candidate. It took a lot of time and planning and misdirections before he gave me the go-ahead to take over. Right before you walked in. Oh, he’s still in there but he’s lost. I’ll make sure I press him down completely. The guy wanted to be the hero. I mean, his old man deserves the revenge too.”
“Oh daddy.”
He walked out of the house, his face spoilt by a wide smile. The day was gone, replaced by a starless night. He spotted the stakes on which they’d been burned.
“We’ll live new lives from now on, away from this place. We will not be separated again. But don’t worry. This time every year, we’ll do this same thing; only with two, maybe three, locals.”
“What should we call our ‘haunted house’, because that’s what it is now, isn’t it?”
He looked back at it. It stood as a hunched, menacing figure in the backdrop of the night’s sky.
“Of course it is. It will name itself, sweetheart.”
Then they both disappeared into the dark, the dead stillness of the burnt house whispering up into the sky.
*****
EPILOGUE
JUDD Maxwell and Mark Tompson both glared at the girl through the midst of the ever-moving herd of drunken bastards. Their sloshed bodies swayed to and fro as they moved absolutely nowhere, just going back and forth; most bellowing in rasp, unsteady voices.
The girl sipped slowly from a wineglass, cautiously sending suspicious glances around. She wore a light-blue T-Shirt over denim trousers. She’d been checking her watch since the past twenty minutes she’d entered.
After studying her awhile, they both came to the conclusion that she was new in town. This was the first time they’d seen her around. They also came to the conclusion that she probably didn’t want company.
A challenge!
Judd loved challenges. Mark managed but he was more on the timid side. Judd loved living dangerously. It was that rascality that endeared Mark to Judd. With him, there was always a story to tell. That and the mother they shared.
Judd looked at Mark and nodded his head in the girl’s direction. Mark returned a positive nod and both of them stood up and stealthily walked to the counter and sat two empty chairs from her.
The plan was still the same. Whichever of them the girl was more interested in, the other would be his wingman. She didn’t look like the type to be interested in both of them, if even any of them.
Stealthily too, they drew closer until they were sitting on both of her sides.
“You want something?” the barman, Stanley, asked in a rough voice. He was wiry and carried knuckles that Judd believed would crush his bones were he to get on its wrong side. Judd knew he didn’t want to and had no reason to fight him but did he just talk like he’d found the babe first?
“Just beer, thanks,” Jude responded. That should smooth things.
Stanley turned to Mark.
“Whatever the lady’s just had,” Mark answered.
Always fast, Judd thought. Mark never had a problem approaching. The problem was he was poor in subsequent communication. It was where his timidity usually poked in and it was where Judd came in.
“Sorry, excuse me,” Mark said, drawing the girl’s attention to himself.
No Mark.
The girl turned to him. Judd loved her black hair. It was wavy, long and silky. It reflected the poor lighting of the bar and bettered it.
“Did it hurt when you fell?”
There he goes!
The girl’s plain face drew into a question. She didn’t understand. “Fall… from? Sorry I don’t get.”
“From heaven?” Mark tried to explain but his voice exhibited his lack of confidence.
Tears it!
“Hello,” Judd moved in to the rescue. She turned to him. Judd gave Mark a look he understood as ‘let m
e do the talking, okay?’ Mark looked away.
Stanley passed them their drinks, eyed Judd sheepishly and moved to the next customer.
“I haven’t seen you around before. Did you like… just move in…”
“Ah, yes,” she replied openly. “I and my dad, about last night ago.”
“Thought so. I… we couldn’t help but notice you from across the room. Where did you come from? Tennessee?”
She suddenly looked surprised. “How did you know? Do I have one of those faces?”
“’cause you’re the only Ten I see,” then he smirked and paused. “Sorry that was some lame joke I heard in a high school movie.”
She laughed.
“We’re tourists. Well sort of. My dad is a… paranormal investigator and I help him out occasionally. I’m like his wing-girl.”
“Ha… wing-girl. So you did fall from…”
Judd shot him the look again. Mark fell silent. The girl was smiling as she returned to Judd.
“Is he usually like that?” she asked. Her eyes twinkled with that smile. They were beautiful, hazel eyes. He loved them.
“Yeah,” Judd said. “That’s Mark. He’s my brother, what can I do? He tends to go off sometimes but he’s really…”
“I think he’s charming,” she interrupted.
“You think he’s…” Judd sounded surprised. Mark turned. He tried to hide the blush. He did well.
“I think he’s cute”. She said whisperingly to Judd and she batted Mark a coquettish look.
“Nice to hear,” Judd said. “Well I’m Judd.”
She turned to Judd again. “Brothers? I mean you might be pretty close but you’re quite different from each other.”
“Same mother, different fathers,” Judd said. “Don’t know the details.”
“Wow,” she smiled. Her twinkles again. “I’m Gail.”
They both let the name sink in.
“So what’re you in town for? Visiting?” Mark asked. Judd didn’t interrupt.
“It’s dad,” she answered coolly. “We heard there used to be a haunting ground here in Queening so dad came to investigate. You guys don’t happen to know anything about it, do you?”
“The old Bode’s Abode,” Mark answered immediately, “legendary.”
“So there is,” Gail said. “What’s the story?”
Mark calmed and tried to sound cool.
“They say two witches used to live there, that they used to summon the dead from their graves in the dead of night. The people found out about their dark rituals and burnt them in front of the house. This day, the following year, no less than half a dozen turned up dead there. No one knows what happened but rumors are the ghosts of the witches are haunting that place, trying to take revenge on the town for brutally murdering them.
The Burnt Refuge Page 3
