6:4
Night after night the rituals continued. With each screaming, struggling victim that was dragged down into the reeking shadows, another lifeless body was heaved out the next morning.
A hundred yards behind the farmhouse was a small clearing in the woods. That was the gravesite for more than fifty. Most of them had been sacrificed prior to the complete rituals, when the circle was not yet complete. They were the lucky ones. Their souls had escaped into the cosmos. They were all far from the pain of that evil place.
But the more recent ones were there. They would always be part of him now. There would be no escape. The consciousness of each one had been snuffed out, like a candle flame in between his fingertips. They had entered the dark pitch of nothingness, and ceased to exist. It was like that point in deep sleep when one dream ends and another has yet to begin. That moment of pure black silence. No thought, no movement, nothing. He’d sent them to that place and locked them in. All of their feelings and perceptions had dissipated like a fading vapor.
The eight spirits he had devoured so far had given him more spiritual might than any other human had ever felt. The pure concentrated energy pushed against the mundane flesh. It was changing him. The ethereal pressure inside was causing his hair to fall out in large clumps. His teeth had begun to rot at an accelerated pace and his breath was horrible. He sweated all of the time and his skin had become pale and clammy. The physical strength of his body grew with his spiritual strength. He was thicker and taller. He imagined that he had grown at least three inches in height.
He scooped up the lifeless body out of the wheelbarrow easily. Standing at the edge of the large pit, he dropped it in. The mass grave was rotten with death. The putrid stench would soon reach the highway if he didn’t cover it over.
He picked up a shovel and got to work. A glaze of slick sweat covered his back, dripping onto the dry ground. Flies buzzed all around the pit, quickly zipping out of the way of the shoveled dirt. Half a foot of soil was packed down on top of them with his black leather boots. One more layer of bodies would be all he could get into the clearing without anyone being able to see.
He would need a new place to hide his efforts within a week. No one ever came out there anyway. They had no reason to. No trespassing signs hung on the fence out at the highway. It had been years since anyone aside from him or Linda drove up the driveway.
It appeared as though he would get away with all of it, that no one would ever know. But within two weeks time everything would change.
His carelessness would be his downfall. He would get caught. He would be convicted for 62 murders, kidnapping, rape, and other assorted crimes. All because of a very foolish mistake. A victim’s credit card used at the wrong place, wrong time. A cashier that recognized the name on the card but didn’t recognize Killien.
A report of a stolen VISA card turned into the lead law enforcement needed to solve the crime of the decade. The mass slaughter of a growing list of victims ended suddenly with the capture of one Howard James Killien. The media called him a killer, a murderer, a monster. The Gazette Telegraph headline would read:
THE BEAST CAPTURED
The beast.
They didn’t know how right they were.
6:5
The bright yellow nylon rope was cutting off the circulation in Jack’s hands. She had tied it tight. Very tight. The ends of his fingers had already begun to fell prickly. He could not risk her loosening them. Luckily they had bound him in time, before it came.
Jack was sure that it was almost there. If even one arm was loose when it arrived who knows what would happen.
If my hands go numb, so be it.
The rumble outside was louder now. The whole town heard it. People stepped out onto their porches and balconies to see what it was. Naturally they saw nothing. Mortal eyes could not see the spiritual thunder above that small shop. The winding lights would not illuminate the streets of Canon City in a kaleidoscope of blinding colors. The deep hum and the constant charge of static electricity were the only noticeable differences in the material world.
The power all over town blipped on and off randomly. Most thought the heavy snow was to blame. Gas stations started closing shop due to the blizzard like conditions. The Super Wal-Mart at the end of town lost power for five minutes, leaving their customers to try to maneuver their way through the pitch black isles. The Paradox book store lost electricity for three hours.
The blackout began just as Jack turned his arm clockwise, finding a position that allowed more blood flow into his left hand. Sally looked up at the darkened florescent tubes when the lights went out. She found an oil lantern on a shelf. She pulled a silver Zippo lighter out of her jean pocket and lit the wick. She adjusted the flame. The dim yellow light illuminated the room.
“What do we do now Jack?”
“Just wait. That’s all we can do. It’s coming, I know it.”
She continued to look up, as if to see past the ceiling into the sky. The humming was loud now. Right above them.
“Goddammit, what is that?”
His eyes went upward too.
“I don’t know. Some kind of a signal I think, calling him.”
“But who…what would call him?”
His vision found the glass enclosure. The place that Linda had disappeared behind to get the necklace. He remembered her eyes on him as he walked slowly through that store, scanning the bookshelves.
Linda.
“I told you a story yesterday.”
Sally was sitting on the floor now, leaning against the wall,
“Yeah?”
“Now I want you to tell me a story.”
“What?”
He stretched backwards against the thick rope across his chest.
“Tell me about your grandma.”
Sally seemed surprised at the question.
“You want to know about my grandma?”
“Yeah. I want to know everything there is to know about Linda.”
Sally couldn’t imagine how that would help them at all.
“Jack, I don’t think that…”
“Come on. She’s that one that sold me the necklace. She knows about its power. I don’t know how or why yet, but she’s in on this. She knew it would happen.”
Sally jumped to the defensive. She was angry and yet at the same time afraid that what he was saying might be true.
“Don’t say that. You don’t know her. She’s a victim in this, same as you.”
It was true that Jack didn’t know her grandmother. They had only spoken once in the shop. It was possible that she’d been as in the dark as he was. But the blaring question that shot to the front of his mind, what he wanted to ask her so badly but decided to hold back was this.
How well did Sally know her grandmother?
6:6
The thunder in the sky rumbled almost deafeningly now. Jack knew that it was time. The evil had arrived. He watched Sally with a fearful gaze. She was covering her ears with her hands tightly, trying to block the sound. The use of his hands was a benefit he wished he had but his suffocating wrists in the yellow rope were a precaution they both were about to be very thankful for.
The bright red astral power was filling the room. It settled in slowly, bubbling all the way. Violent little tufts of vapor popped as it faded from red to yellow to shadowy black and back again. Jack could feel it start to push against him. He quickly eyed out Sally.
His voice was straining, “No matter what I say, no matter what I do…” He paused to gasp for air, “…do not untie me.”
He wheezed another breath into his lungs and then went limp. His head dropped down to his chest. The tension in his shoulders fell away.
“Jack!”
He remained still, slumped over in the metal chair. Sally feared he was dead.
“Jesus, Jack. What’s happening?”
She stood up shaking, afraid to approach him.
“Please. I don’t know what to do.”
He didn’t move. She looked at him closely, trying to see if he was breathing.
She took a nervous step forward.
“Jack?”
Another step.
She bent down low to see his face. Shadow. It was too dark to see.
Another step.
The rumble above them had subsided now. Everything was totally silent.
No howling wind outside.
No breathing.
Only the creak of the hardwood floor under her foot.
Another step.
She was close now.
Right over him.
“Jack?”
The lights flickered on and then off again. The lamp sitting on the glass counter made a snap as the light bulb exploded into hundreds of tiny pieces. When the shower of glass rained on the floor it made a tinkling splash sound. Sally jumped turning her head, almost falling over. She watched as the lampshade fell down around the fixture. Her heart thumped so strong inside her chest she felt it in her throat.
A moment of light, and then nothing.
Once again the only illumination in the shop was the kerosene lamp she’d lit earlier.
Jesus Christ.
She tried to catch her breath and calm down.
“Please Jack, don’t be dead. Please…”
She turned back toward him. A pale face glared back at her. She screamed and fell backwards onto the hard floor. The face that had until recently been Jack’s was grayish in color. Except for the dark eyes. Thick rings of almost black flesh hung under the sockets. The drying lips were cracked and bleeding. Blood also stood in its mouth, flowing from the darkening gums. The face looked like Jack, and it didn’t. It wheezed at her, smiling.
Sally scrambled backwards on the hard wood. When it spoke, she knew that it wasn’t him. The voice crackled and hissed.
“Who the fuck are you, bitch?”
Oh shit, oh shit, oh fuck.
When the back of her head smacked the wall she realized she had backed away from it as far as she could go. It pulled hard at the ropes. They held tight against him, squeaking. What Jack had hoped for was true. Its astral might meant nothing here. It was limited by the body’s own strength. Its defiance raged in a growling scream.
“Let me loose you whore!”
Sally stayed where she was, crying. She didn’t want to look at it but she had to. It was disgusting, horrific, amazing. Her words finally came.
They shook off her tongue, “Who are you?”
It looked up from the ropes, “The new and improved Jack, and you are?”
“S-Sally.”
“The pleasure is mine, I’m sure. Now loosen the ropes, bitch!”
She clasped her hands together in an attempt to make them quit shaking.
“We’re gonna stop you, you know.”
Its laugh was thick and deep. A thin line of bloody drool hung down from its chin “Even your God cannot stop me!”
She remembered the scripture in the forbidden prophecy. She’d read much more of the story than Jack had heard. Linda had only told him part of it. It had all seemed so ridiculous yesterday. But now, looking into the blood-shot eyes of a killer who’d stolen Jack’s body, the unbelievable had become conceivable.
The fairy tale had become real.
copyright ©2002 Brian Holtz
All rights reserved