HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (37 page)

"Take her
through it, Mentor," Dell's mother pleaded at his side. "Don't
let her be lost to us."

Mentor looked up at
the mother, a handsome woman with blonde hair and dark skin, her eyes
shiny with tears. If she shed them they would be her blood and weaken
her. He took her hand for a moment. She was as strong now as when
he'd helped her through her own change. "Go and pray," he
said.

"God doesn't
listen to me. I prayed that neither of my children would ever get
sick, and my prayers went unanswered."

"You merely
prayed for the wrong result," Mentor said. "God does not
bargain."

Dell's father
approached the bed and behind him in the shadows came Eddie, Dell's
younger sibling. The rest of the family gathered together in a corner
of the room, standing close, holding a silent vigil. The elder
Cambian said, "I would give my soul if this could be stopped."

Mentor knew his job
included the family, not just Dell. He could not have any more
mention of sacrifice. That simply created shame, when the sacrifice
could not be given. Even now, he could see how the father's hands
shook in rage and how the mother's face belied her pain, and even the
boy child had bared his teeth, the incisors growing of their own
accord, as if he might rip open a vein in his own arm and feed his
sister to hurry her back to the world.

Mentor did not know
if prayer helped, of if God even existed, but he encouraged his
people to believe. Believing might create truth. It was written in
Romans, in the Bible, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature, shall be
able to separate us from the love of God." If a man believed,
then he always had God on his side.

"Go with your
wife, take your son, and pray for Dell," he said, gesturing them
away. He turned to the assemblage and commanded, "Leave us
alone. Let me save what I can. We need to be alone for the journey."

When they'd left
the room, Mentor placed his hands on each side of Dell's temples and
turned her sweaty face toward him. He leaned in dose. "I'm
coming, Dell. I won't let you walk through the dark without me."

She was alone,
dreadfully so. Not just alone as she had been at home before, when
her parents were out and her brother not yet home from school. Not
alone the way she'd felt one day at the mall with her friends when
they shopped for clothes and she discovered that she hadn't any
interest in fashion.

This time, she was
alone in a terrible place, a reality she never had known existed. It
was a barren, scraggly wood where the moon was an improbable blood
red and there was no path, no starlight, no hope. She had been here
recently, she knew, and thought it a dream. Mentor had brought her
out and in an insane way she had been momentarily furious with him.

Now she called his
name, at first softly, "Mentor . . . Mentor," then louder,
and louder, until she was screaming his name, frantic to find him or
someone, anyone, to rescue her. The moon, escaped from a Salvadore
Dali painting, was melting now and oozing down the sky like thick red
paint. When it touched the horizon, she knew something would happen,
something unforeseen and quite fearsome. The trail lengthened, the
trees pressed in on all sides, their bare limbs almost touching her,
and she found she could not breathe. It was as if all the air had
been sucked from this surreal universe, forgetting her, leaving her
to suffocate, to fall to her knees gasping.

"We must turn
back," came a voice.

"Mentor! Where
are you? Why can't I see you? Get me out of here, please. Mentor, I
can't breathe!" As she said it, it was true. She grabbed at her
throat and opened her mouth fish-wide, sucking, finding nothing to
breathe. I'll die now, she thought. So this is how it happens? My
lungs burst and fill with the blood-red moon.

Someone had her
hand and was dragging her back the way she had come. She could not
see who it was, could not bend her neck and try to see behind her,
but it didn't matter anyway; she was blacking out from lack of
oxygen. Stars that had not been there before lit the Dali sky,
flaring just at the back of her brain. She thought her mouth was
working, gaping, and she was still struggling, but a small voice in
her mind whispered in a childlike singsong, "You're dead, you're
dead, you're dead now, you're dead."

"Don't
listen," Mentor said, and she knew the voice belonged to him.
"It's not really the truth. Only listen to what I tell you,
Dell. Try to get to your feet."

Get to her feet.
She had always been obedient, at least almost always. But how could
she stand if she could not catch her breath? She gasped and tried to
turn her head so he could see for himself that she was losing the
battle.

"Up! Get up,
get to your feet, it's coming!"

She wanted
desperately to comply. Something was coming, and maybe if she could
ascertain what exactly that was, she would be motivated to climb to
her feet, air or no air in her poor scalding lungs. Whatever it was
it had produced panic in Mentor's voice. He jerked at her arm, and
she flipped over onto her back. It was then she could see the thing
that frightened Mentor so.

Her mind raged
against it.

"Dell, you
must help yourself. If you don't get up and move, all is lost."

He must be a
Predator, but more bloodthirsty than any she had known on Earth. He
stood so tall his cape blocked the bloody sky and the moon's melting
curves seemed to be red wings attached to his back. He swept down
toward them from a hill, his face set against any plea for mercy.

Suddenly the world
filled with his thunderous voice. "In order to wreak revenge,
you must come with me!"

No, I can't, she
thought, I won't.

"Don't listen
to him," Mentor said, drawing her away from the approaching
demon.

"I will give
you the power of a god," boomed the Predator's voice. "You
will be ruler over the Earth, if only you'll come with me."

And I will kill and
take innocent life the way you do, she thought. No, no, that's not
what I want.

Dell found the last
bit of air in the bottom of her burning lungs and drew strength from
it. She scrambled to her feet and, turning her back to the marauding
creature, clutched Mentor's hand. They ran swiftly, barely touching
the ground, and she knew Mentor was supernaturally speeding them
away. They moved so fast past the blackened trees that the trunks
were but a blur to the right and left of her. The light glowed red
all around and from out of the clouds it dripped like liquid to cover
the earth. Mentor led her into the clouds, which were more mist than
anything else, the moisture cool against her skin. If she were dead
and being pursued by a devouring vampire, then she must find some way
through this death dream and back to her parents where they might lay
her to rest. She would not be taken.

The clouds parted,
and Dell stood alongside Mentor at the edge of a great cliff. Below
she could see for miles, and across a chasm there appeared to be
numerous dark-mouthed caves yawning.

"Come back to
me," screamed the creature at their backs. "Be one of my
children. I will give you all the power of the universe."

"Hold tight to
me," Mentor said. "Don't listen to his promises."

She clutched at his
hand. Suddenly, Mentor stepped off the cliff and pulled her with him
into clear space above the canyons. Behind her, she thought she could
hear the frenzied footsteps of the Giant Predator, thought she could
smell his fetid breath at her neck. She would not look back, never
would she look back. And she would not look down, knowing if she did
she might collapse and lose touch with Mentor, to fall forever into
oblivion.

They crossed the
chasm through thin air, air that was without air, and settled on the
lip of a cave opening. Mentor drew her inside.

She did collapse
now, falling to her knees in a near faint. She realized with a shock
that she had not taken a breath since she first heard Mentor's voice
back in the red forest. Could she speak, without air in her lungs to
voice the words?

"I . . . I . .
."

"Yes," he
said, sitting beside her on the cold, damp earth of the cave floor.
"You can speak. And you have no need of air here. This is the
place where the soul lives once the body's heart has stopped
beating."

"I don't
believe all this. Am I dead?" She clutched at her chest, feeling
for a heartbeat.

"The disease
has taken you away, Dell."

"Dead, then?"
She had her hand flat against her rib cage, and there was silence
beneath it.

He nodded. He
reached out and touched her face tenderly. "Don't be afraid.
You'll live again."

"And breathe
again? Just like my parents and Eddie?"

"Yes, like
them. But you must understand you will never need breath again.
You'll have to learn to breathe only to pass through the world
without arousing suspicion."

"It took them
hours to learn how to breathe again. It was awful watching Eddie like
that."

"I'm afraid
that's part of the learning process."

"What was that
… that thing back in the woods? I know he was evil, but what
was he?" she asked.

Mentor gazed over
the gorge to the far side and the red, misty clouds there. It was as
if he could see through it to the heart of the haunted woods. There
was no sign of the large Predator. "It was The Maker. He isn't
the only one. There's one more."

"The maker of
Predators? That's what I saw?"

"Yes."

"And if I
hadn't run, he'd have made me one, too?" She knew the answer,
but she had to ask it. "Yes."

Dell thought it
over. "And the other one … somewhere in this place is a
Craven Maker?" She shivered at the thought of the Craven and
what it might be like to meet the one who made them all. They weren't
as scary or ferocious as the Predators, but their lives on Earth were
full of suffering and loneliness, which seemed to her just as
horrible a fate.

"This cave,"
he said, "is the place of the Mistress."

"Then why did
you bring me … ?"

She never got to
finish her question. From out of the vast darkness at the back of the
cave came a shuffling sound, and into the red light spilling from the
chasm into the mouth of the cave came a creature that could stir pity
in the hardest soul.

She was ancient,
far older than Mentor, Dell knew it from the depths in her eyes. Down
those blank corridors lay a million years of anguish. She was stooped
and dressed in tattered layers of soiled white cloth. She shuffled
rather than walked, and her mouth hung open on empty gums, her chin
almost touching her chest.

Dell pushed back
along the ground, heading for the void. "Get her away from me,"
she cried, flailing her arms to ward off the presence. "Oh, dear
God, save me."

Mentor was again at
her side and said quietly, "This time you do not run away. The
Predator would have made you one of his had he caught you, but the
Craven one comes as a supplicant. She begs your sympathy and asks you
to join her. You must find a way to deny the request."

Dell turned wild
eyes to Mentor. "Can't you help me?"

"I am helping
you. It was your own will that propelled you away from the red moon.
It must be your will to turn away from the Craven's cave. Use me as
your staff, lean on me when you feel weak."

Dell hardly
understood what was being asked of her. She faced the apparition. The
devastation, the blasted landscape hidden behind the blank eyes made
her weep. Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked. She nearly reached out
to take the ancient woman's frail hand. But she felt Mentor strong
next to her and knew she could not do it or she would be giving
permission. She would return to herself in the real world weak and
nearly blind, hiding from the sun, unwilling to walk free ever again
among humanity. If she gave in now, she would forever be tormented
and tortured by illness and despair.

"If you are
mine," said the Craven, “you will never kill. Others will
care for you. You will seek the darkness that comforts. You will
leave behind comradeship of mankind so that you won't envy him. All
things of the world will fade away and mean little to you."