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John managed himself out the window, but in his frantic hurry down
the porch steps, he rolled his already-injured ankle over and fell onto the wet
sidewalk, hurling the shotgun through the air in front of him. He cursed in
agony and anger. No sooner had he tried to get up, Sandy was at his side, and
she helped him to his feet. After retrieving the now mud-bathed shotgun, the two
doddered behind the large oak tree in the front yard together.
John was in obvious pain. Even so, he did his best to stifle a
dull moan as he leaned the twenty-gauge up against the tree, sat in the mud with
his mamed foot stretched straight out in front of him and dug a shotgun shell
from his pants pocket.
“Is it broken?” Sandy asked as she knelt down and began a
quick examination and tenderly felt the area around his ankle.
“Ow!” John retracted the foot in pain. “If it’s not,
it’s twisted pretty damned bad, but right now that’s the least of my
worries.”
Sensing worries of her own, Sandy then stood up and peered around
the tree to the house. Through a veil of rain, she saw a shadow flicker in the
splinter of living room she could see beyond the table-barricade. “What do you
think he’s going to do?”
“I don’t know,” John replied as he grabbed the shot gun and
loaded the round, “but I hope it works.” He leaned it back up against the
tree.
“What if it doesn’t?”
“I don’t know,” he said grudgingly. “I don’t know.”
She turned her attention back to him. “We need to do something.
We can’t just sit here and watch. That priest may need our help.” She wiped
soaked strands of hair from her face. Her voice rose from her lips like a
departing soul in the cold air “There’s got to be something we can do.
He’ll die in there without our help.”
And we’ll die in there with him if we try, John wanted to
say, but he didn’t voice that opinion. He just thought for a moment, putting
his head between his hands then wiping away a sheath of rain. He agonized for a
solution that just would not come. Finally, he said, “That priest is
infinitely more equipped than we are in dealing with that mutant demon. We
should let him do his work.” He could not look Sandy in the eye, for he knew
how apathetic that statement must have made him sound.
Sandy disregarded the comment. “We need to help him, John.”
“What would you have us do? March back in there and end up throw
rugs like Bill? I don’t want my children to grow up without a father.”
“If that thing isn’t stopped, your children won’t have the
pleasure of growing up.”
That reality sucker-punched John in the gut, making it difficult
to breath, and a cold hand wrung the blood from his heart. It was a reality that
he found difficult to face, but she was right. If the priest failed, then the
fate of the entire human race would rest entirely on their shoulders.
“Well we’re only of any help in stopping that thing if we
remain alive,” John said reluctantly. “Listen, the creature can only kill
one person at a time, but with that key, the entire world is gone in only
moments.” He looked down the black, washed-out driveway to his right. “We
need to get that priest and that key and retreat, regroup, plan some other
course of action.”
“How do we get out of here? Your car is junked and the big truck
is out of gas?”
“Yes, but John’s pickup has to be nearby. He couldn’t have
made it all the way to the house with that thing behind him unless his truck was
close.”
“Unless it wanted to let Bill get all the way to the house,”
she interjected. “Remember what the priest said about it liking to toy with
us. Maybe it wanted us to see what it was going to do to him.”
Pondering that thought sickened John.
She continued, “Anyway, what if the keys aren’t in the truck?
We can’t start it without the keys.”
“There’s a chance that the keys won’t be there, but I’ll
bet that he probably wasn’t in the state of mind to bother taking the time to
shut the truck off and pull the keys from the ignition. It’s only a hunch, but
I’ll bet I’m right.” He tried to get up from his sitting position, but his
painful expression showed that he was ill-prepared to jaunt down the driveway in
search of a pickup.
Sandy knelt down again and helped stabilize him as he got back to
his feet. “You’re in no shape to find the pickup but I am. Let me do it.”
“No, no, I’ll manage.”
She gave him a stern glare. “Look, do you want to live, or do
you want to be macho? Which is it?”
He was surprised at her brashness but she was right. She was
better able to find that truck quickly and get it back here.
He shook his head said, “Okay, you win.” Then he peered up at
the house as he reached for his weapon. “In the mean time, I’m going to try
and get that man and that key out of there, if it’s not already too late.”
Sandy started to dash off but stopped herself after a couple of
strides and went back to John. She kissed him long, tender. “I’ve wanted to
do that since I sat next to you at the Mediterranean,” she said. She then
winked at him. “I wasn’t sure if I’d get another chance.” Then she ran
down the driveway and disappeared into the night.
Ian stood in the middle of the living room facing the beast, the
crackling fire to his left and the window to safety on his right. He teasingly
held out the black key once more in his hand for the Watcher to see.
It tried to form words, but its impossibly wide mouth and over
abundance of barbed teeth impeded success which seemed to make it even angrier.
But the ferocity of its cry more than made up for any spoken word it could have
managed to utter.
The slight smell of gas finally permeated Ian’s nose. Not
quite yet. A little longer. Must stall a little longer.
Suddenly, with a bullet’s quickness, the beast traversed the
open space between them. It panted its hot, fetid breath onto Ian as he stood
his ground and looked up at it, trying to keep his fear hidden. It then reached
down with one grotesquely large hand and latched onto his head. It slowly began
to pick him up off the ground and squeeze. With its other hand, it grabbed
Ian’s wrist which somehow still managed to hold onto the key. With great
effort, the demon finally managed a barely comprehensible string of words as its
clutch grew tighter. In a mucousy growl it said to Ian, “Key, key, m-my
key!
T-timmeee . . .to . . .sssufferrr!”
The pain was severe and instant. Ian almost lost his grip on the
key and his consciousness, but he had to hold on, had to concentrate with all
that was holy remaining within him.
The demon-seed didn’t seem nearly as interested now in wresting
the key from Ian’s grip as in the torture it was inflicting. It was as if it
knew the key’s final resting place would now be in its monstrous hands, ready
to open the gates of Hell, so it took time for what pleased it most before
opening that cell of damnation.
A steely laughter issued from it as it squeezed Ian’s head
tighter. Its tentacle-like fingers cut deep into his scalp, and blood blurred
his eyes. The demon wanted to make him languish before his eyes closed for good,
but that was what Ian had hoped for.
That’s right, Ian thought. Make me suffer long before
killing me, enjoy it, savor it because it’s all you’re goin’ t’get.
As if the pain it inflicted was conduit for its wretched thoughts,
and to show off its superiority over a mere human, this human, all humans, the
creature somehow burrowed its way into Ian’s subconscious and taunted to him
as it continued to squash his head in its grip. It said to him subliminally, Do
not think by dying your suffering will be over, priest-man. For when you open
your eyes, you will be right where you stand in this pathetic little room with
Hell, not Heaven, surrounding you. Your suffering will be eternal. Eternal!
Gas--strong, pungent. Now was the time! One chance!
With what energy he could muster, Ian expeditiously reached over
with his free left hand, grabbed the hankied key from his right and flung it to
the fireplace. The key and handkerchief landed squarely into the flicker of
fire, sending dancers of red-hot embers up into the flue.
Realizing what Ian had done, the Watcher threw him up against the
wall where the entertainment center had once rested, rebuking him venomously,
then went to the fire to retrieve the key.
Woozy, throbbing, bleeding, in agony, Ian crawled like a mamed dog
to the window. He managed himself between the table and window pane, one foot
almost through the hole, ready to tumble out the window--
But suddenly, there was an intense flash of heat and light that
engulfed everything in an instant.
John hobbled across the patch of quagmire that used to be a front
yard, putting as little weight as possible on his injured foot. His twenty-gauge
was loaded and ready for another shot. He knew that the shotgun had no affect
but, like Linus with his blanket, he felt safer with his fingers firmly planted
around its stock and butt.
He looked up the drive. Partially hidden in the rain and night, he
could barely make out Sandy’s shadow as she dashed toward Deep Hollow Road. In
a few moments she would turn left at the end of the driveway and look for
Bill’s truck.
He was glad that she, at least, was away from immediate danger.
He’d half-wished that when she found the truck, she would get in and just
drive away as fast--
The priest cried out in torment.
Crazy ululations, like a pack of ill-fed hell hounds, rang out
from the living room.
Then, a loud THUD!
John quickened his pace to get to the house, but he was woefully
slow. Finally, he resorted to just hopping one his good foot; it was faster than
his Igorian limp.
The priest appeared at the window, trying to cram himself through
the opening. One foot partially out, almost there.
John knew he’d not make it to the porch so he readied himself to
cover the priest with gunfire if the beast pursued.
“You can make it!” He yelled.
Suddenly, the house exploded with a loud, bellowing whoosh,
starting from the kitchen and instantly filling the entire first floor with
fire. Windows blew out, and John tumbled backwards from the force as he was
showered with shards of glass and splinters of wood.
Sure enough, John had been right. The Ram was about a hundred feet
down the roadway, parked but still idling at an angle across the median line
with its headlights shining into the wet shadows on the other side of the road.
Beyond the pickup, Sandy could just make out the one good tail light of John’s
car.
On any other road, someone would have surely come across these two
deserted vehicles by now, no doubt causing alarm. But Deep Hollow Road was
rarely traveled by anyone but those few individuals that made their homes along
the steeply sloped hill, which the road followed. Left unchecked, the Ram and
the smashed Nissan would probably stay right where they were until the next
morning when, being found by a neighbor going into town, the State Police would
certainly be notified.
Well Sandy was going to at least take care of removing one of the
vehicles for now. But before she traversed half the distance between the truck
and the driveway entrance, a muffled blast skirted through the woods and rain,
almost making her slip and fall. Her heart sank as she looked back and saw
flames through the darkened spikes of trees. Something terrible had just
happened.
She ran the remaining distance like a sprinter after a gold metal,
climbed into the truck, slammed it into gear and spun its overgrown tires over
the slick blacktop.
“Please be okay, John,” she said to herself.
“Please.”
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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