Dark of Night - Flesh and Fire

by Jonathan Maberry

  “I appreciate that, Katie.” She looked around, suddenly seeming frantic. “Has your father come home at all?”

  “No.” Katie looked behind her mother at the digital clock on the stove. It was almost eleven in the evening. She released her mother’s hand and felt whatever relaxation was left over from the marijuana she’d smoked that day siphoned out of her. Where the hell was he now?

  “Christ, I guess now I know what I put him through.”

  Katie flashed Anna a look, no longer feeling that sense of compassion. “Why’d you do it?”

  Anna slammed the rest of the wine and refilled her glass. Katie hadn’t touched hers.

  “I was selfish.” Anna sniffed. “I had needs and your father wasn’t available. He never was. He was always so wrapped up in work.”

  Katie pounded a hand against the island. “Yeah, he was trying to support us.”

  “And I wasn’t? We both worked very hard. I guess I’m partially to blame. Neither of us made any time for each other, but he was just so…” She wiped her eyes, and relaxed her shoulders. “Either way, I was wrong. He was always so distant, even early on but I guess I let him be that way.”

  Katie mulled it over. She hated to admit her mother was right. Her father had been distant. She felt like maybe it went beyond just being immersed in work. He’d always had a look in his eyes as if he were focused on something far away. His distance deepened severely after his father had died. After that, even work seemed to be of little interest to him.

  “Katie, it’s all over now. I’m ready to come home and work things out. There still has to be something left to repair, right?”

  “Hey, we’re family. Family’s always worth fixing.”

  Anna smiled and it looked genuine, brightening her face and making her look ten years younger. “You’re sweet. You always were.”

  “Maybe we should call Dad, see where he is.”

  Anna nodded.

  “This weekend we should all do something,” Katie said. “Maybe we can all go out to dinner on Saturday and Skype Dale together when we get home.”

  “I’d like that. Hopefully your father and Dale will too.” Her face darkened. “I guess this all depends on what happens when we call your father.”

  Katie got to her feet. “I’ll do it. You relax.”

  Katie crossed the kitchen and dug into her purse. She came up empty handed. “Shit. I left my phone upstairs.”

  “You can use the landline.”

  Katie nodded and shuffled from the kitchen to the living room where the nearest phone hung on the wall. She took the phone off of its cradle and turned to face one of the large bay windows that overlooked the back yard.

  Before she could dial a single digit, she screamed.

  ~Chloe~

  Chloe turned on the windshield wipers and stared ahead, hypnotized by the filthy rain that washed off the hood of the car. One of the wipers made a squeaking sound as it dragged itself across the glass. She had taken them on a back road in the hope that the more loops and detours she made, the harder it would be for Samael to pinpoint her exact location. At the very least she hoped that it would buy her enough time to find her way home.

  Since Todd had asked her about a place that had really felt like home, she tried to recreate memories from that time and place: sitting on the carpeted floor of the bare apartment with Todd, eating Lo Mein; the way they frantically kissed each other as if not doing so would kill them; and making sweet music with her DX7, his Gibson, and the sounds of their voices. She wanted to close her eyes and let the memories lull her into perfect, eternal sleep. Let them become dreams that would never end.

  Shadows filled the car. The squeak of the windshield wiper cut through the monotonous drone of the engine and the light drizzle of rain. She thought about making love on the side of the road, their bodies entwined in a dance of flesh and fire, and smiled. She tried not to think about his face as Samael held him by the hair, holding him in limbo between life and death. She hummed the melody of “Blissfully Damaged,” and willed the nightmarish image away.

  “Are you sure this is where you want to go?” Todd asked.

  “Yes. When I was with you there, it was so…”

  “Perfect.”

  “Yes.”

  “What about towards the end? When you were relapsing?”

  “It won’t be about that when I go back. All I’ll think about is you. That will be how I remember that place.”

  Todd’s expression hardened. The rain started to fall in sheets. Somewhere in the distance, lightning slashed a brilliant wound across the dark sky.

  “After this, if it works, I’ll never see you again."

  She let his words sink in. Part of her wanted to ask him to come with her, to cross over into the next world, wherever that was. In spite of the uncertainty, it still sounded nice. They could maybe even have things the way they were, before she died and sunk into the chasm and Samael’s vile embrace. Could she really ask him to do that? It would be entirely selfish. Even though he was dissatisfied with the world, she felt that he might still be too tied to it to let go completely. But he had taken her this far. That showed promise.

  “You’d have to give up everything you have. Everything you are.” She could’ve sworn that the rain started to fall faster, the drops growing fatter, as she spoke. “Could you do that?”

  He turned his eyes to the road and didn’t speak up again for a long time.

  ~Anna~

  The glass of the back door shattered and a naked man stepped into the living room. Glistening shards covered the floor and crunched beneath his feet, though he didn’t seem to notice. If anything, he seemed to enjoy it. His mouth stretched into a maniacal grin.

  Anna watched as Katie tried to run down the hallway. The man moved with incredible speed and caught her by her hair. Anna screamed as her daughter was thrown to the ground. The naked man turned to Anna. He was lean, but imposing, his extremities made up of ropey muscles and nasty scars. His penis grew hard between his legs. She looked him up and down, hot panic surging through her.

  “My dear, you are even more beautiful in person,” he said. Anna couldn't place his accent, but it struck her as very old, and she shrank against his words.

  “Who are you?” she shrieked, trembling, inching backwards.

  He took a methodical step toward her. The thing that stood out the most to Anna as she backed away was the look in the man’s eyes. Within them was an animal presence, filled with anguish and burning lust. Spiritual pain afflicted him, but he seemed to derive a great deal of pleasure from it. His tongue ran across the pointed tips of his teeth. Every breath came out a hiss. He took his time, knowing that no matter where she ran, he’d catch up. In some deep, horrible place within her heart, Anna knew this too. His knees bent as he prepared to lunge forward. Anna braced, trying to plan an escape route as quickly as she could.

  Before he could spring, Katie wrapped her arms around his shins. He attempted to wiggle free, but she maintained her grip, closing her hands around each of her forearms. Exertion came alive in her face. She grunted against the man’s movements.

  Anna looked from Katie to the man to the pathway through the dining room. The front door was in sight, a single light in the foyer illuminating it like a beacon. She looked back at Katie and their eyes met for one frightful moment.

  “Mom, run!”

  Anna’s legs froze in place. She felt drunk and panicky all at once. The damn wine! “Katie…”

  “Go!”

  Anna turned and headed for the dining room. She pushed her way around the table, shoved a chair out of her path. She entered the foyer and nearly tripped over the edge of her suitcase. She stopped in front of the door. All of her maternal instincts told her that this was wrong. She couldn’t let her daughter make a sacrifice for her sake. She should be protecting Katie, not the other way around. Her hand fumbled with the doorknob as the indecision tore at her. Then something crashed and Katie screamed. Anna turned and looked back at
the kitchen. Another crash. This time no one screamed.

  “Katie?” The tremble in her voice rendered the name incoherent.

  The naked man staggered out of the kitchen and locked onto her with hateful eyes. Katie was nowhere.

  Before Anna could react, he descended upon her. A sting in her cheek corresponded with a hard smack and she fell back against the front door. Blood collected in her mouth and a tooth fell loose. When she opened her eyes, her vision was blurry, a smeared picture. The naked man stood over her, his fists clenched, his penis fully erect. She had a horrible notion that he meant to shove the member in her mouth and choke her with it. She squirmed in revulsion and moaned her protest. Even though she had read that there could be a sexual component to violent behavior, she had a hard time imagining how all this carnage could be arousing to anyone.

  He reached down and grabbed her around the throat. His face came to meet hers and he seemed to regard her with a sort of reverence.

  “Sweet woman, you remind me of my mother.”

  His tongue shot from his mouth. As he brought his face closer to hers, something awoke within her that she never thought she possessed. While she considered herself a brave woman when it came to closing business deals, giving presentations, and never backing down when she believed she was right, the sight of her attacker’s slimy tongue and sharpened teeth closing in on her mouth awakened a different nerve. She transformed into an animal with a need to survive.

  The inner beast awoke with a howl of rage and she grabbed the man by his testicles. He yelped in pain and instantly removed his hands from her throat. Anna dug her nails in and twisted, never silencing her primal howl. He flailed his arms around and tried to pull free.

  She gritted her teeth. “You like pain, you bitch!”

  Anna pressed herself up into a standing position, but made sure to keep a firm grip on his balls. Tears filled her eyes. She forced him back as liquid power scorched through her veins. Letting out the beast inside felt honest, empowering. She resolved to pull his testicles off and he kept screaming. She pressed against him, yanking his scrotum upwards in her tight fist. Words of hate and violence flew from her lips. Even in her heightened state, they surprised her. She continued to squeeze and pull as hot blood poured over her knuckles.

  Impossibly the man’s screaming turned to laughter. The pain went out of it. When his eyes met hers, she saw pure mad joy. He loved every minute of this and the sight of that masochism caused her to loosen her grip for a moment. He pushed her back against the door.

  “Come on,” he said. “Is that the best you can do to hurt me? I’ve felt hell’s fires upon my skin. Everything you’ve given me fails to excite.”

  She released his balls and brought her hands up, raking her nails across his face. Flecks of blood and skin tore loose under her claws, but he never stopped coming for her. He snaked a hand forward, through her offense and took a fistful of her hair. He yanked her to the side, twisting her neck so that she faced the ceiling of the foyer. The hanging lamp burned in her vision in the last few moments before her attacker raised his other fist and bludgeoned her into unconsciousness.

  ~Chloe~

  The skyline glistened in the darkness like a thousand beacons in the inky night. The highway groaned beneath the car as if they rode on the back of some great beast. Rain still fell in jerky bouts, but the storm had all but passed. Behind them lightning filled the clouds with pale flashes. Sanctuary was still a ways away, but much closer than it had been. Chloe could feel it in her blood. Soon she would sleep.

  She hoped.

  “Man, I really missed seeing this skyline at night,” Todd said.

  “It’s pretty.”

  “Yeah, I don’t leave the suburbs much these days. I hope the old place is still there.”

  Her heart dropped. She hadn’t thought of that.

  He took her leg and squeezed. “I’m sure it still is. Those old buildings usually stick around forever, even if no one figures out what to do with them.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She breathed. He had to be.

  Behind them, in the distance, another burst of lightning covered the sky in a white sheet. Below them the highway groaned.

  ~Katie~

  Katie awoke to pain. Every extremity throbbed, but she felt the biggest hurt in her head. As far as she could tell, she was in the back seat of a car. From the tightness in her wrists and ankles, she ascertained that she was bound. The smell of leather mixed with blood filled her nostrils. She was dizzy and wondered how long she’d been out. At this time, she only knew these sensations. Memories of how she’d gotten here came with great difficulty. She tried to remember where she’d last been. She recalled sitting out in the woods, on top of Jake’s car, smoking pot and discussing her family. Her mother… A pang of sadness… Her heartbeat quickened. She glanced around.

  Her mother sat on the seat beside her. Similarly bound, she stared ahead, her eyes haunted and full of tears. A closer look showed Katie that her face was bruised. She turned her head and saw another face in the rearview mirror. The face’s scarred features brought the memories rushing back and Katie sobbed.

  Anna jolted at the sound of her daughter’s cries. She took Katie’s hands in hers. She told Katie to be quiet, that everything was going to be okay. Even as Katie heard it, she knew her mother was lying. Stories like this never ended well. You heard about it all the time on the news, men kidnapping women. They never get found. Not until it’s too late.

  “What do you want?” Katie screamed. “Why are you doing this?”

  The man in the driver’s seat ignored her. He started to sing. She didn’t recognize the melody, but it sounded old. It was in an eerie minor key and it made her think of death. Katie kept screaming.

  “Katie, honey,” Anna said softly, “screaming won’t do us any good.”

  Katie fell silent, but her fears hummed loudly inside her mind. This man had to be on drugs or just plain crazy to punch through their back door and walk across that glass. And he was full of hate. She could tell that just from looking at him, the way he moved, the ghostly stare of his cold eyes. She knew how this would end, but she wanted to know why. She wasn’t ready for this. Her life would be stolen from her before she had a chance to do anything with it. The least her killer could do was tell her why. But he didn’t. Instead, he continued humming that deathlike melody, staring ahead at the dark road, only occasionally looking back at her and her mother in the rearview mirror.

  He’s not human. The thought came from nowhere, but it had such certainty to it. She considered herself rational. While she didn’t rule out spirituality, she always saw it as a positive thing. Evil, to her, was a creation of humanity. But now, facing evil, she rationalized that it had to be otherworldly because the idea that a human being could be so cold, so full of violence was just too horrible to comprehend.

  She squeezed her mother’s hands. A sob escaped her lips.

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I wanted better for us.”

  She collapsed against her mother’s shoulder and closed her eyes. She lacked the vanity to hope that she and her mother would be saved. Instead she prayed this would be over quickly.

  ~Todd~

  The buildings lining the streets of the warehouse district stood mostly empty and in various states of dilapidation. The yellow glow of the street lights revealed a bunch of broken windows and crumbling bricks, rusted bay doors closed forever, words spray painted in bubble letters, and patches of grass growing out of cracks in the pavement.

  Thirty years as a suburbanite had made Todd fear streets like these. He couldn’t help thinking that at any moment, him and Chloe would be tailed by a suspicious car or jumped at one of the intersections. The assailants wouldn’t be beings from a spiritual world. They’d be thugs looking to pocket Todd’s valuables and have their way with Chloe. Yet so long ago, Todd held none of these fears when he traveled these streets. Long ago, he’d called this place home.


  Chloe cut the wheel to the right and drove down a dimly lit alley. An old station wagon with four flat tires was parked along the curb. Movie posters that had mostly peeled away covered one building’s wall. A crumbling shell of a building that might have been a church stood on the corner, its brick remains scarred with ashen fire damage. A chain link fence stood loosely around the ruins. The end of the street forced them to turn left. Beyond the turn, a development of brightly lit apartments lined the streets.

  Todd marveled at the scene before him. “It’s weird to be coming home. Really weird. I can’t believe how much I’ve missed all of this.”

  “Yeah, you totally sold out.”

  Todd’s laughter immediately broke the tension that held him. Her joke reminded him of something she would have said in happier times. He put his hand on her leg and squeezed. Her flesh was cool under his fingers, soft. When she pulled up to his old apartment building on the right he released her and put his hands on his knees. He sucked in a deep breath and asked her if she was afraid.

  “I am.” She looked across him at the stairs leading up to the front door. “I don’t know what will be waiting for me when I open that door. I mean, I have my hopes, but there’s really no telling. I may just drop dead. Maybe I’ll become a disembodied ghost. Or maybe I’ll just fall right back to Hell. There’s always that.”

  Something that felt like an icy set of fingers tickled their way down Todd’s spine. “Maybe I should go with you.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “What if I told you that I wanted to?”

  “Would you really want to give up your life? What about the people you love?”