Dark of Night - Flesh and Fire

by Jonathan Maberry

  She looked up from the book. “I don’t understand.”

  Todd tensed. He didn’t understand either, any of this.

  “Here’s what I know.” Les drained his glass with a grimace. For a moment, Todd thought that would be it, that Les finishing his drink was a way to say that there was no way of knowing anything. It was a scary prospect. Finally, mercifully, Les said, “Hauntings are believed to be ghosts that haven’t moved on because of some trauma that keeps them trapped in a certain place. In some cases that’s true. In others, the haunting is when a ghost returns home, someplace familiar, someplace where its happiest memories are replayed. The home becomes a personal paradise for the inhabiting spirit, as if the spirit has found a way to hang onto life.”

  Todd's nerves begin to settle. Though outlandish and far-fetched, it at least carried some positivity with it.

  “But where’s home?” she asked, handing the book back.

  Les met her eyes. The darkness in his face never left. Instead, the shadows grew longer, deeper. “I don’t know, but you will. You just have to make it there first. After that, you'll be safe. Samael won't be able to get to you there."

  Todd broke eye contact and turned to Chloe. Her leg jittered urgently. “We should go.”

  She nodded in agreement. They went to the door and Chloe embraced her father.

  “I love you,” she said. “I missed you so much.”

  “I love you, too, my sweet girl. No matter where you go, don’t ever forget that.”

  “I won’t, Daddy.” She planted a kiss on his cheek.

  Todd held his hand out to Les after Chloe opened the front door.

  Les took it. “Nice to see you again, old man.”

  “You, too, gramps.” They shook like old friends, keeping their eyes on each other, transmitting so much emotion and calling up years’ worth of memories with just one brief contact and few words. They broke and Todd caught up with Chloe outside. When the door closed behind him, there was a terrible sense of finality to it.

  ~Anna~

  Anna pushed open the front door and entered her home. As she crossed the foyer and went to the stairs, she noticed how quiet the house was. She guessed Katie was asleep. Otherwise, there'd likely be music on the stereo. Good.

  She crept past her daughter’s bedroom and stepped into hers. She pulled clothes off of hangers in her walk-in closet, careful to select the proper outfits and deciding on two nice dresses, a casual outfit, and a silky robe. In the middle of draping the clothes over her side of the bed, she stopped to notice Todd’s side, unmade and still holding the indentation of his body. The sheets on her side were neatly tucked in. Before her conscience could act up, she threw the rest of the clothes on the bed and dragged her overnight bag out of the closet.

  As she unzipped the bag and flipped it open, the image of Todd’s side of the bed returned to flood her mind's eye. A moment of honesty washed over her and she wondered how such a wedge had come between them. They’d loved each other once, hadn’t they? She thought about how they’d met, the first awkward date set up by their parents, and the sudden rush to marry that had been welcome but had come unexpectedly.

  Things moved at the speed of life after that. Both of them worked a lot. Between that they’d somehow managed to raise two children. When she thought about it, they’d never really taken the time to talk about what each of them needed, what their goals as a couple were. The truth was that she had liked the brash musician who stubbornly pursued his artistic dreams without worrying too much about the future. The man he grew into, overworked, with little rigid aspirations for himself and his children wasn’t a bad man, but he was boring, too much like her, as if he was trying to remake himself in her image. And they never talked about it.

  Too late to do anything now, she thought and started to pile the clothes into her overnight bag.

  Footsteps shuffled out of Katie’s room. She took a breath and held it, as if doing so would prevent her being detected. The footsteps got closer until they approached her bedroom door. Anna shut her eyes and tensed as the door opened and in popped Katie’s head.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Anna opened her eyes. Katie was fully dressed and Anna got the crazy notion that her daughter had been waiting for her to come home. Katie looked past her, at the suitcase on the floor and frowned.

  “Are you going somewhere?” she said, her voice razor sharp.

  Heat rushed into Anna’s cheeks. The lie came out almost involuntarily: “A business trip…”

  “Cut the shit, Mom. Dad said you didn’t even come home last night.”

  “He what?” The temperature of the heat in her cheeks rose dramatically.

  Katie raised an eyebrow.

  “Listen, honey, I don’t know why your father is letting you in on our business, but…”

  “Seriously, Mom?” Katie gave her mother a look that said they were two adults having a conversation, that this wasn’t a talk between a mother and her little girl where one was in a position above the other. Here, in this moment, they were equals.

  Anna wished that Katie would be that little girl again. Things had been a lot easier back then. She could just be a mother, not worry about the growing rift between her and her husband, or have to keep any secrets. Motherhood was a challenge, but a manageable one. This was manageable, too, but there was much more at risk. Could it end with anything other than heartache? She forced herself to loosen up and turned on her saleswoman persona. A little P.R. would do the trick, at least for now.

  “Katie, I understand this is all a little strange, but I assure you things are fine. Your father and I have both been working really hard. I’m sure you can appreciate that, with your workload from school. I’m hoping to put away enough so I can retire earlier than originally planned, so I’ve taken on a lot of extra work. Sometimes I stay late at the office. Sometimes I have to go away. That’s all. There’s nothing going on that you need to concern yourself with. Okay, honey?”

  She knew that was going to bite her if the truth ever did come out, but damned if she wasn’t somewhat impressed with herself.

  Katie nodded once. “If you say so…”

  Anna did something then that sealed the deal and thus made the guilt swell larger within her. She reached out and hugged her daughter, tightly, reassuringly, and closed her eyes against the regret.

  “Thanks for understanding, sweetie. Your father and I love you very much.”

  When Katie left the room, Anna breathed a heavy sigh, but felt no relief. She looked from the stuffed suitcase to the door Katie had just walked through.

  Just get through the weekend. After that… what?

  After that what?

  ~Samael~

  The roaring of the rapidly turning engine was the perfect companion to Samael’s frantic inner workings as he pulled into the town called Millville. Sensing that she was close, fire worked in his nerve endings. Hot blood rushed through his veins, making every capillary feel as if it could burst at any minute. The pursuit was nearing an end. As he grew closer to her location, he could almost taste her flesh on his tongue.

  According to the sign, the town’s population was over forty-seven thousand. These thousands were totally unaware of the events unfolding. Insects, oblivious to anything beyond the doomed corner of the universe they occupied. Too weak to explore anything else; too dependent on tomorrow to really live. As he drove into the heart of the town, he fantasized about pulling them from their homes, stretching their thresholds of pain and fear, making them forget about tomorrow and experience every agonizing moment of the present. But their faces all became Chloe’s. It would be all too easy to lose focus with the temptation of raining down new carnage, devouring the darkest secrets of new souls, showing these people the only type of love he understood, but she belonged to him and she’d run away. That was more important than playing with new toys, because he couldn't live without her.

  The sense of her proximity grew stronger and more rapidly. He checked to see if he�
��d increased speed, then realized that he hadn’t. No, he wasn’t just coming for her. She was coming toward him. He surveyed the road ahead, checked the sides of the street. Nothing. He drove on, her presence coming ever closer. With his left hand, he grabbed hold of his swollen genitals and tried to assuage the tension. He couldn't afford to lose focus.

  The car came down the road in the opposite lane. Sunlight reflected off of its slick black body, blinding him, but he knew she was in the car. He could feel her. His need for her throbbed and the coming release flashed before his eyes. First the violence, then the sex, and afterwards… Serenity: enveloping, sweet, tragically temporary.

  Only through this destruction could he feel anything. It brought the closest thing to love that he could experience. He bore this burden because of the covenant he'd made. The day he fell into the underworld's dank, ashen caverns he wandered out into Hades' always decaying landscape, broken and grieving the loss of Clare. All around him, bodies writhed in various positions of pain. Rotting, skeletal hands reached for him so that he may join their damned ranks.

  He met someone that day, a creature made of bone and magma, its hard body swathed in fleshy robes upon which organs hung from hooks and nails. The creature regarded him with red eyes that smoked like embers and spoke in a voice like the collective hum of a thousand wasps.

  "Like everyone else here, there is something you desire," the beast said, pointing a twisted, smoldering finger at Samael. "Unlike the others, you have something that I desire. You have deep rage in your soul that could be very useful to me. If you do as I ask, you will see your love again. She'll be reborn of fire and her mother shall be consumed in it. This is how you will know her. All you have to do is let me make use of your talents."

  Now, as the black car passed beside him he saw her, his dark angel, his slave, his lover. Another man sat in the car with her, some poor bastard that had agreed to help. Samael wondered if the fool knew exactly what he was getting into. The odds weren’t good, and neither were the odds that the poor fool would live to talk about it. At least not in this world. Samael toyed with the idea of bringing the man with him and Chloe to the other world. Chain him up and force him to gather up the pieces of Chloe after every mutilation. Perhaps that would be fitting for the infidel who dared to come near what didn’t belong to him.

  As they passed, Samael stared right at them, and they drove on, not noticing. The tires of Farnsworth's red machine screeched as Samael jerked the steering wheel around and continued his pursuit.

  ~Todd~

  The sign for Millville grew smaller in the rearview of Todd’s Cadillac. His mind and heart raced, vying for the winning spot. Their meeting with Les had been so unlike a reunion with an old friend. He still had tons of questions, but another part of him didn’t want to know. Maybe he’d had enough revelation for one day. Maybe he’d be better off after he took her home and she left his life for good.

  He looked her up and down, wondered if he really meant that. Back when they were kids, he’d loved her unequivocally, would’ve done anything for her. He’d run away when shit got bad, but even then, he knew he was taking the coward’s way out. The truth was that he’d loved her too much and the possibility that he couldn’t save her had torn him to pieces. Could it be the same love now that made him want to let her go? If he saved her this time, would he truly be free of her?

  He stopped at a lonesome intersection in the middle of grassy farmland, looked both ways and turned left, back toward the highway. The sun made a golden halo around Chloe. She caught his stare and granted him a smile. At first, he couldn’t understand how she could smile under their circumstances, but then its warmth melted him, made him feel a little more at ease. He relaxed his hands on the wheel and looked back at the road ahead.

  A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed a red sports car gaining behind them. He ignored it, directed his attention back to the road. At the end of the fields on either side, walls of trees bathed the road in shadow. Todd kept his foot on the gas, driving for the black ahead. He drove without music. Only the hum of the engine kept the silence at bay. He stared into the darkness, hypnotized, letting the focus on the road ahead drown out his doubts and anxieties. The highway below seemed to carry them forward. If he couldn’t have heard the tires rolling over the asphalt so clearly, he would’ve sworn they were gliding through the air. He flexed his hands on the wheel, listened to the hum, recalled the route to Chloe’s old hometown.

  A loud crash reverberated in his ears and control slipped from his hands. In less than a second, his car went from being a sanctuary to being a death trap. The steering wheel slid from between his fingers and the car swerved to the right. He vomited up a slew of curses. Chloe screamed beside him.

  He snatched the wheel and steadied the car, but the anxiety didn’t subside. A glance in the rearview mirror showed the same red car from before, this time right on his ass and coming closer.

  “Oh, God, it’s him!”

  Todd took her word for it. He slammed the accelerator. The engine’s hum became a groan as the speedometer needle climbed. Before he could gain a lead, the red car rammed them again. Todd held on as the car swerved back towards the side of the road. Countless tree trunks waited, hungry for a meal of flesh and metal. In the nick of time, he got back on the road, veered into the opposite lane, then back into place.

  He gritted his teeth. “Fuck! Goddamn it!”

  “Jesus, he’s coming up beside us!”

  One look into his side mirror confirmed her warning. The car’s black grill filled the glass. He pressed the pedal to the floor, tried to push it farther. The engine growled in protest. The speedometer climbed higher, but the red car came right up beside them. The driver looked across at them, grinning like a madman. Then Todd saw the damnedest thing he’d seen all day: the man’s eyes ignited with orange red fire, turning his face into the mask of a demon. The sight of their pursuer’s true face forced Todd’s body to seize. He released the gas pedal, hoping to outmaneuver the other car. Not a second after they started to slow the red car sideswiped them, sending Todd’s Cadillac off the road towards an obstacle course of trees and rocks.

  * * *

  For the second time that day, Todd sat dazed behind the wheel of his car. Silver specks exploded before his eyes and adrenaline stampeded through his veins. Somehow he was still alive. The front bumper of his Cadillac had collided with a stump of a long ago fallen tree, deploying the airbags and filling the atmosphere with the screech of tearing metal. The coppery taste of blood played on his tongue as he reached across the center console and felt Chloe’s form beneath his hand. Soft and warm, she trembled with the aftershock of impact. Apparently the undead weren’t immune to trauma. He opened his eyes and turned to look at her.

  “You okay?”

  She regained composure and frantically jiggled the seatbelt. “We have to get out of here.”

  He cast a nervous glance back towards the road, elevated from where his car sat disabled. Trees shaded the air around them, choking the sunlight. He turned the key in the ignition, got no response from the car.

  “Todd, come on!” She already had her door open.

  He let go of his key and grabbed the driver’s side door handle. As he maneuvered, he saw the gaunt, naked body of the red car’s driver reflected in his side view mirror. Samael.

  The pursuer moved in confident strides. A knowing smirk spread across his face, as if the man knew that he’d won, that the hunt had been too easy for him. A competitive animal awakened inside Todd, choosing fight over flight. He pushed his door open and got out of the car. He set his sights on the man, clenched his jaw and his fists, prepared to fight.

  “No, Todd, don’t!”

  The man, the demon, came closer. The cocky smirk grew bigger, its mockery all too clear. Todd couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a fight. It’d probably been at least before high school. He’d grown out of fighting earlier than most kids he grew up with, but now, the urge to knock the s
mile off the face of Chloe’s pursuer burned within him. The man seemed to be looking forward to the confrontation, curling and uncurling his fingers, hunching forward as if ready to charge. Chloe’s voice continued to plead, to protest. Todd barely heard her.

  The man came forward and his eyes caught fire and reminded Todd that he was facing down something otherworldly. At the sight of those eyes, the urge to fight shrank. Todd's shoulders slumped. He backed off and turned away from the fiery eyes, unable to look at them anymore without feeling insignificant and weak. Finally hearing Chloe’s cries, he picked up his pace.

  Samael maintained an arrogant speed. Above the noise in his head, and his and Chloe's frantic running, Todd heard the slow crunch of the man’s footfalls on the forest floor. It was a hopeless situation; that was the only thing of which Todd could be sure. The woods stretched for miles. They had no car. The man in pursuit was no man. A demon, maybe. Or something worse.

  A voice cried out behind him. At first he thought it was the demon, but it sounded too human, too vulnerable. Todd looked over his shoulder, saw another figure standing behind the man with the fiery eyes. The figure stood at the side of the road, hunched over and gripping a shotgun. In the sunlight that lit the edge of the woods, he recognized the features of Les.

  “Dad!” Chloe cried out.

  The monster of a man’s smirk became a full-on grin and he turned towards Les. “So… You’re her old father.”

  Les kept his eyes on the man, showing none of the fear Todd felt. The man took two steps, then Les leveled the shotgun and fired. The shot tore through the air like the voice of an angered god. The exit wound exploded out of the man’s back, showering red chunks of flesh onto the forest floor. The man fell clutching at the air, then at the wound in his chest, and then lay still. Apparently even demons couldn't stand up to a twelve gauge.