The Awakening (5 page)

Next he placed a mixture of powders and greases into
a meal bowl, lit the mixture with one of the candles, and placed the bowl in
the center of the circle. A foul, black smoke began curling around his fingers,
then twisted its way toward the low ceiling in a serpentine dance.

Richard motioned. His daughter rose and stood between
the altar and the bowl, her feet wide apart and her arms raised. The smoke
shifted its direction and began winding around her legs and hips, over her
torso to caress her small breasts, and then up her arms to disappear into the
gloom. Her hips began to move to her father’s chanting voice, sluggishly at
first, then faster, as if encouraged by the black hands of smoke.

He slipped the black handled dagger from its sheath
and knelt before her. With the razor sharp edge he touched one of her thighs,
then the other, then the soft flesh between her breasts. Thin ribbons of blood
slipped down her body and dripped to the floor. He smiled and stood, arms
raised.

“Hound of Hell, Spirit, precipitated in the abyss of
eternal damnation! Infernal powers, you who carry disturbance into the
universe, I call you!  I call you with blood! Leave your somber habitation and
render yourself to the place beyond the river Styx! I give blood, I give you
life! I command you to rise and do my bidding!
Exurgent mortui et veniunt
!
Azathoth! Yog- Sothoth! I’a Cthulhu…”

Suddenly, the walls around them groaned and
shuddered, the air filling with the sound of rending wood and showering glass.
Richard’s voice rose in triumph, then trailed off to a whisper of fear. His
daughter was rising into the air, screaming and clawing at some unseen thing.
He tried to move, but found himself paralyzed. He watched as she was twisted
into impossible shaped, then flung like a child’s doll against the altar. The
sound of flesh striking stone seemed to hang in the air. Catherine Jarman
screamed.

Everything was going wrong! A burning cold stung his
body; he tried to scream his protest, but a horrible foulness choked him with
searing pain. Wrenching his body to one side, he tried to move, to run, but his
body was no longer his to command. Yet he had shifted slightly, and could see
the door.

What little soul he had cringed.

Standing in the doorway was a vision from Hell, there
to claim its piece of living flesh. Around the small body was a greenish cloud
of light, a huge, evil aura that flowed and probed the wrecked room seeking a
new host. The monstrous head was thrown back in horrible laughter.

The blackness that descended was a blessing.

It had begun.

*          *          *

The light but persistent pounding rose Derek from a
shallow, restless sleep. He clicked on the bed side lamp and glanced at his
watch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. “Just a minute.” Derek
unlocked the door to find the sheriff waiting impatiently in the dim hallway.
“What?”

“Sorry, Mr. Hanen.” The apology in sheriff Dunns’s
voice was not matched in his eyes. “Mind if I come in?” Derek waved him in and
shut the door a little harder than was necessary. Mike glanced around the room
casually, then drew up one of the straight-backed chairs and straddled it
backwards.

“Won’t you sit down, sheriff?” Derek asked. It wasn’t
a sociable thing to say, but then getting rousted out of bed at one in the
morning wasn’t exactly conductive to sociability.

Mike chose to overlook Derek’s jab and lit a
cigarette. He held it out in the front of him, not smoking it, but watching
Derek over its glowing end indirectly. “You been here all evening, Mr. Hanen?”

“Yes, I have. I take it this is no social call.”

“Nope.”

“You pick odd hours for your questions.”

“Only when I have to.” Mike pursed his lips and blew
at the curling cigarette smoke, studying its moving pattern carefully.

“You mind telling me what this is all about?”

“Sure. When I’m ready to.” Mike paused and Derek
leaned against the door. “Where are you from, Mr. Hanen? And what are you doing
here?”

“Oh, I see. I’m from L.A., an unemployed pilot, and
I’m just passing through… I had car trouble. You can check.”

“I will. I don’t suppose you have any witnesses to
back your story about being here all night?”

“I didn’t know I was going to need any. I’m sorry.
And it’s not a story. Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

“There’s been a murder.”

“The boy…?”

“No. Another, little while ago.”

“And you think I might be involved.”

“I dunno. Are you?”

“No. But I’d like to know why you think I might…” A
sudden fear flooded over Derek, and he felt a sickness in his throat. “It isn’t
Ann?” The words came out in a whisper.

Mike’s expression relaxed fractionally and he took a
first drag from his dying cigarette. “No, it isn’t Ann. It’s Doctor Hillard.”

“Doctor Hillard? How?”

“I don’t know how, but he’s dead. And the boy’s body
is gone. Found the Doc’s body an hour ago.”

Sheriff Mike Dunns sat behind his desk with a thermos of coffee and
blood-shot eyes, working over a thin pile of papers and reports. Three hours of
restless sleep had done little good; his stomach burned, his eyes hurt from
cigarette smoke, and the back of his neck was stiff with knots.

He stood, stretching his aching body.

The main part of town was visible from his office
windows. Usually it was a sleepy, good-natured scene, a little too warm and a
little too dusty, but not today. The drizzling rain had not stopped with
morning and showed no signs of breaking up. It was depressing, but it wouldn’t
have mattered much anyway. When he’s been out the night before to tell a man
that his son was dead, and had to stand there and watch that man curl up and
die inside without being able to do anything about it, he just didn’t need much
more of an excuse to be depressed.

And then he had to go back the next morning to tell
that same man that somehow or other, his son’s body had disappeared during the
night… that made him want to throw up.

He glanced at his watch and frowned; he couldn’t
decide if he wanted it to speed up or slow down. In a couple of hours, men from
the homicide division of the head department were going to show up to take over
the investigation. That would be a mixed blessing; at last it would relieve
some of the responsibility in this shitty situation.

Oddly, that didn’t make him feel much better.

Mike sighed, poured himself another mug of coffee,
and prepared to attack the reports with grim determination. He had a lot to do
before the press arrived.

*          *          *

Derek had just finished breakfast and was savoring
his coffee when Parker stomped into the diner. The old man shook some of the
water off of his raincoat and hung it on the coat rack, then joined Derek at
his table.

“Weather sure turned bad in a hurry,” Derek said.
Parker sat down and ordered coffee.

“Yup, sure did. I figure we’re in for some heavy rain
pretty quick. Gonna play hell with the roads.”

“Isn’t it kind of strange to get rain here this time
of year?”

“Yup.” Parker paused while the waitress brought his
coffee. When she had gone, he gave Derek a slightly uncomfortable look. “I pointed
out your place to Mike last night, hope it’s alright.”

“Sure. He woke me up to ask some questions is all.
All he told me was that the doctor was killed last night, wanted to know if I
knew anything. I don’t. How would I?”

“You being a stranger and all, I guess he had to ask.
I talked to Mike and a few other folks this morning, and it sure is a nasty
mess. Got some people really spooked, too.”

“How so?”

“Have you heard anything about it?”

“No. Just what the sheriff told me, which wasn’t
much.”

“Well, one of the farm hands was leaving Sam’s bar
last night, and he stepped into the alley behind the Doc’s place to… call of
nature, you might say. He said he saw a light on, and he noticed there was a
window was all busted out. There’s glass all over the ground in the alley, too.
Anyway, he went to look in the window, and that’s when he saw the Doc, all tore
up and bloody.”

“He got the sheriff?” Derek asked.

Parker grinned. “Yup. Mike said it was almost funny
at first, when this kid comes bursting into his office with his eyes bugging
out and waving his arms, with his doodle hanging out in front of god and
everybody. The poor kid was scared shitless. Mike couldn’t understand nothing
he said until he got him calmed down some, and that took a while.”

“Then what?”

“Well, Mike let the kid in his office and went over
to the Doc’s place, and boy, what a mess. I saw it this morning. Papers and
busted bottles and stuff all over the place, with the Doc lying right in the
middle of it, with his chest and neck tore up. There was a smell, too. Not real
strong, but bad. Like something that was dead for a long time.”

“The sheriff said last night that the boy’s body is
missing.”

“Yup. Not a trace of him, except for his clothes.”

“And the sheriff doesn’t have any ideas about who did
it?”

“He’s figuring that it might have been one of them
perverts that do sick things. At least, that’s what I think.” Parker shook his
head. “I liked Doc, he was good people. Whoever did it should be shoved in a
hole with a bunch of snakes.”

Derek’s coffee had gone cold while they had been
talking.  He flagged the waitress and had her refill his cup, then sat turning
over in his mind the events of the last two days. Occasionally Parker would say
something more, but Derek only half heard him.

The thought of Ann had been with him constantly, and
he was worried. Not with the panic he had felt during the sheriff’s midnight
visit, but enough to make him want to call her. Just to make sure. After all,
it was just possible that some maniac was responsible for the doctor’s death;
in fact, it was probable. And the thought of someone getting to Ann was
unthinkable.

*          *          *

The Commers’s farm was smaller than most of those in
the area, and the livestock was limited to a few chickens and two cows. An
automatic sprinkler system watched over the fields of vegetables, doling out
moisture as needed; still, Ann had her hands full.

To Ann the animals were pets, and like pets, they
followed her around while she made sure they were fed and watered. They were
part of the family, her father always said, and she treated them as such. Until
her folks returned, they were her responsibility.

She was dumping the last load of firewood into the
wood box by the fireplace when the telephone rang. She pulled the bandanna from
her head, shaking her hair loose, and answered it. “Hello?” The line sounded
scratchy from static.

“Ann? This is Derek.” He paused, not sure what to
say. “Are you busy?”

“No. I was, but I’m all done now. Why?”

“I thought we might get together this afternoon, if you
want to. Watch it rain or something.” He paused once more before continuing. “I
want to talk to you about something, too.”

“What about, Derek?”

“I’d rather wait until I see you.”

“Okay. Where are you going to be?”

“I’m at the hotel, now. How about here, whenever you
can make it?”

“Fine. In about a half-hour?”

“Sounds good. See you later.”

Ann hung up the telephone with the feeling that
something had Derek worried, but she couldn’t think of what it might be.
Without realizing it, she twisted the brightly colored bandanna into a hard
knot around her fist until her knuckles turned white.

*          *          *

The investigation didn’t take long. If there had been
any evidence outside of the small clinic, in the nature of footprints or tire
marks or the like, the steady drizzle had long since washed it away. Witnesses
or suspects were as non-existent as the motive. Everything inside the clinic
was examined, photographed, classified, and removed for burial in red tape. And
Mike was left frustrated.

The detective in charge had seemed only mildly
interested in the case; in fact, he acted more disturbed about the weather than
the doctor’s death, or the missing body of the boy. One of the more inspired of
his crew said something about the possibility of the doctor having been attacked
by some animal. That would have explained the mutilating of the doctor’s chest
and throat, perhaps even the disappearance of the boy’s body, but it still left
far too many questions unanswered. Such as, how did there come to be a wild
animal inside the clinic, at midnight, with all of the outside doors locked?

Mike had suggested a search to comb through the
county-side, thinking the guilty party might still be around. The head
detective had chewed his cigar and shook his head, claiming that nothing could
be found in such weather. Then he had gathered up Mike’s reports and left,
muttering something about being glad to get out of such a piss-ant burg.

Back in his office, Mike slumped behind his desk and
stared at the growing drizzle through his front window. After a while he bent
to open the bottom drawer, and after a moment’s fishing laid a pistol wrapped
in a zip-lock bag on the desk. Even through the plastic, it had a metallic,
vicious appearance.

He didn’t like it, usually, but at this moment it gave
him an odd comfort.

*          *          *

Derek was in the hotel lobby reading a tattered
magazine when Ann came in. He smiled and shoved the magazine back into the rack
beside his chair.

“The troops have arrived, rain or no,” she said,
smiling. “Want to go surfing?”

“That’s not a bad idea, but I forgot my Coppertone.
What do you do around here for entertainment, anyway?”

“Watch other people go nuts with nothing to do.”

“I believe it. No, really, don’t you have a movie
house, or a barn dance or something? Surely people don’t just work and sleep?”

“You got it. The only night life in Cider Springs is
Sam’s bar or television. If you want to see a movie or do anything exciting,
you have to drive into Altura. You want to?”

“What about the rain? Parker said the roads get pretty
bad when it rains like this.”

“I guess you’re right. I’d hate to get stuck in the
middle of nowhere. By the way, what was it you wanted to talk about? You
sounded worried on the phone.”

“Well, I am, a little. You heard about the doctor,
didn’t you?”

“You mean about him being killed? Yes, but that’s all
I’ve heard. Why?”

“There’s a possibility that whoever did it is still
around. You said that your folks were gone, and you were alone at your place,
right?”

Ann paused, looking thoughtful. “I see what you mean.
You think it might not be too safe out there alone.”

He smiled at her tone. “What I mean is that you might
stay with some friends or something, until this is over or your folks get back.
It’s none of my business, but I would feel better.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said, sighing. “I hate to
think of being out there alone if… do you really think it’s that serious?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t believe in taking chances
when you don’t have to.”

*          *          *

The transition between the gloom of the day and the
total darkness of the night was quick and definite, and the blurred light from
the town and houses fought futilely, dying only a few feet from the windows.
The rain beat an ancient chant on the soaked ground.

John Tomalo’s body went mechanically about the
nightly routine chores while his brain lay numb, lost in a world of despair
that his mind refused to accept it, denied that Tony was gone. He couldn’t be.
It was impossible.
Someone was playing a nasty trick and it would soon be
over. Ha, ha, if you do it again I’ll kick your ass, bastard.

The big barn held ten prize cows, each with its own
stall and name plaque. Normally he fussed over each one in turn, petting and
talking to them like good friends; tonight they were just stupid, staring
mounds of flesh that required tending. A spark of hatred for them flared
briefly, then faded back into the muddy depths of his brain.

He closed the barn door and turned into the rain,
beginning a slow, blind walk towards the house. The rain poured over his face
and the mud sucked at his boots, but he didn’t pay any attention. They were
part of another world, one he didn’t care about anymore.

The sound of scraping drifted through the sizzling
rain, finally seeping further and further into his mind until it reached his
consciousness. He paused for a moment, listening, trying to locate the sound.
The lantern in his hand hissed angrily as he held it up in the rain.

He began slowly retracing his steps towards the van,
holding the lantern high and peering into the gloom. Parked next to the barn
was an old Studebaker truck, one of the obsolete military six-wheel types. He
had used it for hauling feed at one time, but a bad engine had brought it to an
abrupt retirement years ago. Now it sat rotting, two tires flat and the paint
peeling off. A large tarp covered the back, the bracing sticking out sharply
like the ribs of a starved animal. There was nothing in the truck but trash and
several rusty fifty-five gallon fuel drums.

And whatever was making the noise.

The sound stopped at his approach. He glanced around
the ground, looking for a weapon of some sort, then picked up a fist-sized
rock, capable of dispatching any varmint or foraging dog. Armed with a rock and
lantern, he treaded to the back of the truck and flung aside the canvas flap.

A biting cold mingled with the odor of rotted flesh that
swarmed around him, but he stood rooted with shock. A small, naked boy huddled
between two barrels, his face hidden by shadows.

“Who’s there?” John’s brain balked, reason fading
into a madman’s dream world of unreality. Sane thought ceased to exist. “Tony,
is that–” The face turned out of the shadows, its red bulging eyes gleaming
in the light. Huge curved teeth clicked in a hideous grin, the long, pointed tongue
darting in and out.

John Tomalo backed away from his son, the lantern and
rock falling from his nerveless hands. He felt the weight land on his chest and
he knew blackness.

His scream ended suddenly.

*          *          *

Parker, Derek, and Ann had given up trying to watch
television because of the impossibly bad reception, and were sitting in the
back room of the store playing Crazy-Eights with a dog-eared deck of cards.
Parker was winning with a regularity that indicated a more than passing
familiarity with each card’s particular defect. He had just won another hand
when the front door rattled, warning of someone’s presence. Parker frowned and
looked at his watch.