Dark Places of the Soul: Dark Soul Trilogy - Book 1 (14 page)

“
Can’t rape the willing…
can you?” Lonnie’s voice asked.

“
Leave her
alone…”

“
And the harlot’s boy
friend speaks. If I wasn’t so entertained by your feeble responses
I’d rip your larynx right out of your throat.”

Keri pressed her slender form against James,
trembling. “Please don’t respond to it,” she pleaded, “don’t give
it cause to act on its threat.”

She felt his hand caress the curls hanging
from her head. “You know what it wants… don’t deny what it already
knows.”

“
Are you going to listen
to Apathy, or are you going to join Pride in my loving
embrace?”

Keri watched the withered hand beckon
Candice. A trance engulfed the actress, causing her to move without
inhibition toward the horror before her. Noah made one effort to
interfere. The force of rejection propelled him with ease to the
floor.

“
Sometimes,” Lonnie’s
voice continued, “she is referred to as the prostitute in
Revelations. Is she not? She may not have committed fornication
with kings, but she would not be one to decline the offer… if the
price was right.

“
Interesting paradox we
have, you… blondie… have given your heart and your love, have you
not? Such an endearing emotion, love… will he still wish to hold
you tightly in his arms when he knows what you are? Love… Blondie
when it comes right down to the naked facts… it is simply hardcore
sex after all… nothing more, sex, purchased by kings and paupers…
and in your case the latter has taken its pleasure inside
you.”

“
Stop… please stop,” She
cried out. Heavy tears began to streak down her face. She turned to
look deeply into the spirit of Apathy and saw the love she
desired.

“
This would be so much
less interesting,” the voice of Lonnie Wilkerson cackled, “if you
hadn’t allowed her to seduce you last night, if you hadn’t…
honestly fallen for her vile seduction, the same talent used in the
past to bring men into her web.”

“
I love you,” Keri shouted
over the bantering, “you saved my life in more ways than one. Last
night… we made love… please tell me we… made love.”

Her eyes were completely filled with
uncontrollable emotion.

“
And we will again.” His
answer felt truthful and he sealed it by kissing her tenderly on
her tear-stained cheek.

She stepped back, leaving an arm’s length
between them. She’d never confessed any of her past. In Texas she’d
been arrested and charged, the enforcers of the law had been her
saving grace. Keri gathered herself and made an attempt to wipe her
eyes of their salty fluid.

“
I ran away when I was
sixteen,” she began. “I had issues at home… my issues.” She placed
the blame on her own shoulders. True confession does not pass the
responsibility to others. “I was rebellious… still am… felt I could
take care of myself, but I couldn’t.”

“
Get on with it girlie,
I’m bored already.”

Keri turned to stare at the hideous creature
who’d just spoken. Its body oozed yellowish fluid, a sea of mucus.
Human flesh melted away to fibrous muscle. White shards of bone
glistened through the red meat.

James touched her face with his hands. He
turned her toward him and Keri did not resist. Before he could form
a statement of encouragement she asked, “Do you believe God
forgives our worst sins… the one’s we see as most vile?”

The man who had held her naked body last
night nodded confirmation.

“
I could have gone back
home… I didn’t have to do what I did, drugs… alcohol… sex.” She
turned her face from his, not wanting to see his disgust. “I ended
up at a truck stop in Oklahoma, not far from the Texas border. I
sold myself… convinced myself that I did it to eat, but I could
have gone home anytime I wanted to. Sometimes,” she paused to seek
the words she needed, “I took drugs and drank… and willingly went
to bed with strangers for enough money to buy more drugs… more
alcohol.

“
I was arrested for
prostitution in Texas. I cleaned up my life, went home and put
everything in the past. Only,” Keri shook her head, wanting to
desperately wake in another time and place, “yesterday… when we
met… you not only saved me from the explosion… I was considering…
selling myself again.”

“
My dreams showed me only
the explosion… nothing else.”

She felt his hand reach out for hers and she
offered a weak grip in return. Never had she opened up to anyone
about her past. Even the police who arrested her in Texas knew
little about Keri Jacobson. Her parents knew even less when it came
to the life of the truck stop prostitute.

She felt relieved, even if James Lansing
were to curse her and move away in disgust. A weight lifted itself
off her shoulders, a repulsive blanket of shame. “He does… forgive
us… I feel it right here.” Keri sniffed as she placed a hand over
her breasts. “Do you?” Another tear broke loose from confinement
and made its way down her cheek. “Can we go on from this point,
feeling what we felt last night?”

His answer crept gently into her heart,
without the use of words. He pulled her back into his embrace. She
wanted to be absorbed into his being without ever needing to face
the world again. His heart beat against her ear, a soft rhythm she
listened to in the quiet of their previous night together. Still,
she doubted if he would embrace her for much longer.

***

Candice’s scream brought reality back to any
who had escaped its hold. The mucus covered thing held her forearm
in a grotesque grip. She fought against the strength pulling her
closer. The placid eyeballs, Lonnie Wilkerson had once visualized
the world through, focused anger on Keri Jacobson and pleasure on
Candice Goddard. The actress belonged to its hunger, frightened by
the horrible fate she faced, still unable to accept her shallow
existence.

“
Feed me Pride,” the
foaming voice of a decaying larynx commanded.

Candice’s only defense came forth from her
lips as a spine-shattering scream. James moved and his reward was
to be thrown back with rib cracking force against the rear wall.
Keri felt hatred reach for her flesh. She shivered and pulled away.
The master of denied sins brought her to her knees.

“
You are no good to me
whore,” Lonnie Wilkerson bellowed. “Forgiveness and love defile the
core of my being.”

Keri moved, but it took only a thought, from
the horror refusing her, to send her sprawling toward her
lover.

Candice reached for her nightmare, screaming
unintelligible fears. Twice Candice Goddard had starred in roles
where she depicted a damsel in distress, a woman forced by her fear
into a weakness foreign to her personality. If she could have
packaged this fear and used it on film the critics would have
drooled over her. At this moment she didn’t act, at this moment her
career meant nothing. Her ability to accomplish anything other than
to escape the grip of Lonnie Wilkerson’s decomposing hand no longer
bore any importance.

It received her with both arms, accepting
the gift of its new life, coating her flesh with the sticky
substance of its own decay.

“
You can’t save her,”
Abner’s voice croaked as he tried to get Noah’s attention. “Listen…
to me, it has taken her already… there’s nothing you can
do.”

“
Nothing any of us can
do,” Stephanie added, moving over to check on the fallen old man,
“not to save Candice Goddard. She gave herself… willingly, to avoid
facing the truth about her life.”

Noah turned to face Abner. “Then what good
is this?” He held the broken crucifix in the old man’s face. “What
good did any of us do by coming here? We have no chance to take
down something of this nature.”

“
It is at its weakest
now,” Stephanie said, “I feel no effect from it.”

“
As it absorbs new energy…
a new life… force, its resources become limited,” Abner’s breath
came in shallow spasms after forcing out his words. Stephanie
touched the dying old man with hands caring deeply for his
spirit.

“
You knew,” Noah accused,
“you knew this is what it would take… a sacrifice. That’s why so
many of us came, so one could be a sacrificial lamb while the
others attacked.”

“
That isn’t true,”
Stephanie intoned.

“
Then tell me what is?”
Noah turned away from the young girl at Abner’s side. He intended
to eradicate fear from his perception of himself and strike the
mass, which had once been two separate forms.

“
He intended himself as
the sacrifice,” Stephanie said. “You would have all denied your
darkness to it, leaving it no choice but to take him. He offered
himself.”

Noah saw James Lansing out of the corner of
his eye, the schoolteacher held the attention of the monstrosity at
the room’s center. It could hold off an attack from Apathy, leaving
Greed with an opportunity to strike. Noah possessed the weapon
Abner had fashioned. Candice was dead, she no longer screamed, she
no longer felt pain, or had form reminiscent of humankind.

He moved with speed, a minister who tasted
violence as a bitter fruit, regretting his own involvement in a
selfish act of his youth. The broken icon made in China poised in
his fist for a strike, to stab, to imbed the crucified form of his
God on a Roman cross into the thing of darkness.

He beat James to the target, driving his
sacred spear into soft mucus coated tissue. The form, which had
once appeared as Lonnie Wilkerson, absorbed the broken cross
without resistance. The molded body of Christ filled an open
chasm.

Noah expected a cry of pain, instead
laughter permeated forth from a mouth without shape. Candice
Goddard fell free from her union, her female remains separating
from the shapeless mass. Not a single breath escaped her melted
lungs. Noah felt death was better for her, than life without
beauty.

“
I have reborn myself…
have I not… preacher… one known to me as Greed?”

“
It’s over,” Noah said.
“You’ve taken your last life.”

“
Ahhh, but so many swim
within my being. I wanted one more and you have taken from me what
was within my grasp.”

Neither Lonnie’s form nor Candice’s took
complete control of its features. If it cried out in pain and
agony, it did so without sound. In a brief instant Noah saw the
face of the prideful actress, followed by images of each previous
victim, each horrified expression gaining a stage to view the world
through.

“
No more… lesser demon…
leave us,” Noah commanded with faith strengthened by the heroic
act.

“
The old one is dead… his
spirit has passed through me. His soul directed your weapon to the
un-beating heart… of this carcass. I praise your victory and look
forward to being with you all… in hell.”

The voice silenced and gradually the form,
which had pulled Candice Goddard into its embrace, took shape. A
decayed human body fell to its grave, beside its final victim. Noah
figured the carcass to be as Lonnie Wilkerson would appear in the
grave, minus the icon made in China. He rose to his feet and met
the eyes of James Lansing. Candice Goddard embraced death, as did
Abner Hollis, yet today so many more lived.

***

The fog dispersed. On the horizon a new
morning began to gently filter into the dark sky. Stars and the
moon, shielded by the night’s murkiness, battled for one last
moment’s dominance. A new day would soon be offered. The survivors
would accept the morning’s light as a sign of victory.

In the vision Keri remembered last night,
when standing at the water’s edge, James held her while the
brunette named Stephanie stood nearby. She hadn’t seen Noah, but
now she realized he was at the Jeep’s rear. Her dreams focused on
the two people who were touched by her past, deep in the core of
their being. Stephanie forced to feel a prostitute’s arousal and
shame. James, embracing a harlot with an emotion she hadn’t felt
worthy of, until now.

“
I would have told you…
before our relationship went much deeper,” Keri said. She backed up
against James as he wrapped her in his arms. She felt his desire
for her and knew they’d be making love again tonight.

“
Doesn’t really
matter.”

She felt his breath against her head when he
spoke.

“
It pried at the sins we
wanted most to hide,” she reasoned. “I might have strived to never
fall in love… completely, and taken my secret to my grave…
especially if love meant the risk.”

“
Risk?”

“
The risk of loosing love…
once gained. I always imagined being desperately in love with the
man of my dreams, having him find out about my past and having him
leave me… ashamed… vulnerable. You have no idea what you’ve saved
me from.”

“
The evil thing didn’t
necessarily bring bad things,” Noah interjected his opinion as he
passed.

“
How so?” Stephanie asked,
deciding to involve herself in the conversation. “Abner is
dead.”

“
So is Candice,” Keri
added.

“
Abner… rest his soul was
an old man. He was more than ready to go to his maker. We have all
emptied the darkest portions of our souls, that which kept us from
doing what our creator calls us to. Candice would not have ever
changed. Death couldn’t make her cry out to God for forgiveness…
I’m sure life wouldn’t have forced her to… either.”