The Harrowing (17 page)

Robin stopped at the last closed door and stared at the door frame. The mezuzah had been ripped off, leaving a slash of exposed wood.

Robin swallowed, then set her jaw and knocked hard. She jumped slightly as the sound seemed to echo through the floor.
Now it’s heard us
, she thought bleakly. She had a flash of swirling formless energy…chaotic malevolence…

“Martin?” she called softly. “Are you in there?”

The other three crowded closer to listen. There was only silence behind the door.

Patrick tucked the gun into the waistband of his pants and put a hand on Robin’s elbow. “Out of the way,” he ordered. Robin and Lisa shrank back against the opposite wall. Patrick raised his leg and kicked at the door below the knob. Robin saw a flash of a thigh as thick as a tree trunk; then the door crashed open against the wall inside.

Patrick pulled the gun out of his pants, cautiously stuck his head inside the black room, leading with the gun.

Robin peered around the side of him from behind. She could see no movement, no Martin, only shadows.

Patrick shoved into the room. The others followed with flashlights.

The curtains were drawn, but even in the thick darkness, the clutter was unnerving. Books were stacked in teetering piles; the bed was in chaos. Food wrappers and soft-drink cans were scattered everywhere, as if Martin had been living out of the snack machine for weeks instead of just a day and a half. Robin cringed at the rank, rotted smell.

Cain trained his flashlight beam on the mirror. Robin drew in a breath. Hebrew letters were scrawled on the glass and the wall beside it: thick, dark smears of something that looked suspiciously like blood.

Lisa gasped behind them and they all turned instantly. Her flashlight was aimed at a desk pushed into the middle of the room, with a chair in front of it.

The Ouija board was laid out on top of the desk, the planchette in the center of it. Martin’s miniature tape recorder was beside it, and fat candles were set up around the board, burned halfway down, hardened wax pooled around them.

Robin focused on a pile of books, open on top of one another, stacked on the chair, with more on the floor beside the desk. Half of the titles were in Hebrew. She glanced at Cain.

He moved forward, staring down at the board. He pulled out his lighter, lighted the candles. The flickering flames seemed to make the room colder, not warmer.

Cain switched on the tape recorder on the table. Everyone jumped as Waverly’s voice screamed out of the small speaker: “
You’re really going to stay here with these freaks?
”

Robin had a swift shock of déjà vu at the sound of her dead roommate’s voice, then she realized. “It’s the tape Martin made in the attic. He left it running.”

Patrick’s voice rasped from the tape, an ugly sound. “
Fuck off and die, you bitch
.”

Patrick blanched in the candlelight. “Turn it off,” he said thickly.

“Wait.” Robin fast-forwarded the tape past Waverly’s feminine twittering to find Martin’s voice again.

“
Come on. Let’s keep going
,” Martin was saying.

Then Cain’s voice, incredulous: “
You’ve got to be kidding
.”

“
Don’t let
her
ruin it
.”

Robin flinched at the obsessive intensity of Martin’s voice. They all stared at the tape recorder.

Cain’s voice cut Martin off curtly. “
I don’t know what you’re after, but we’re done
.”

Robin looked up at Cain. His face was tense, fixed on the tape recorder. Patrick shifted uncomfortably. “Okay, so—”

Cain said sharply, “Wait.”

They all stood around the desk uneasily, listening as the tape continued to play. There was the sound of people moving, footsteps on the wooden floor, a door opening, then closing.

Then silence…just the hiss of tape.

And then the sound of the tape being snapped off. But before anyone could even take a breath, the tape started again. Robin stiffened.

On the tape was the squeak of a chair being pulled out…and Martin’s determined voice, speaking aloud.

“
Are you still there?
”

The four of them stiffened at the familiar scraping sound of the planchette moving on the board.

Then Martin’s voice again, low with excitement: “
I’m here, too
.”

Patrick looked up. “Shit. He did it himself.”

On the tape, Martin spoke with a touch of longing. “
Are you really…Qlippah?
”

Robin jolted, whispered. “He did know. He knew what it was.” Cain met her eyes, tense.

There was a brief scraping on the tape, and Martin’s voice reading the message. “
’Yes
.’ ”

A pause. “
And you were there…at the beginning of creation?
”

There was a longer scraping, and Martin’s voice, reading out the reply. “ ‘
Before the beginning
….’”

Another pause, then more scraping. Martin spoke suddenly, so intensely that Robin flinched. “
I
do
want to know more
.”

The scraping came again, faster now. They could hear Martin’s breathing on the tape.
What do you mean, I could see?
”

The scraping.

Then Martin’s voice again, rising in disbelief. “
See
God?”

Patrick moved in the dark beside Robin, an explosive gesture. “What the fuck—”

Martin’s taped voice cut through his. “
Yes. I want to see God. How?
”

Robin felt faint with the sound of the scraping of the planchette. There was a long silence on the tape.
I’m going crazy
, she thought.
I really am going to go crazy
.

Martin’s voice came again. This time there was a distinct note of wariness.

“
I don’t know. What would you do…if you were in me?
”

Robin’s eyes leapt to Cain’s face. He stared back at her across the candles, jolted.

“Sweet Jesus,” Patrick mumbled. Lisa pushed in to him; he put an arm around her waist blankly.

On the tape, Martin was sounding out letters, stumbling over unfamiliar words. “ ‘
Nayah, horeh, yiyeh
.…?’ ”

The four looked around at one another, uncomprehending. Then Martin’s voice continued, full of longing as he read slowly over the scraping of the planchette.

“ ‘
I can show you all that was…that is…and that will be
.’ ”

Robin was frozen with fear. She whispered aloud, “No, Martin, don’t….”

Martin’s voice suddenly blasted from the tape.

“
All right, then—come inside me. I…invite you
.”

Lisa’s eyes were wide with terror. “No…” she choked out.

They all stiffened at a strange, strangled sound on the tape. Martin was choking, gurgling. Then there was a horrible, triumphant howl. “
Ahhhhhhhh. Ahh. Ahhh
.”

Robin felt her skin crawl. Her legs were so watery, she could barely stand.

Martin’s voice was purring with an almost sexual pleasure. “
Oh, yes…oh, the body…the body, now
…”

And now a savage glee, an alien voice, hair-raising. Robin felt her gorge rise. The others looked equally sick as the voice cackled on. “
In the body…in the body now…the body…in the body
…”

There was a scuffling sound on the tape and then the sound of the door opening and closing.

Then silence. Nothing but the hiss of blank tape.

Cain reached out and turned off the recorder. They all looked at one another in the wavering candlelight, deathly pale.

“That’s what it wanted,” Cain spoke thinly, and everyone looked to him. “A body. The bodies the Qlippoth were denied by God. It even said so. We just weren’t listening.”

“It was just playing with us all along—trying to get in somewhere,” Robin spoke aloud, realizing.
And it tried with Patrick first
, she thought, remembering the midterm.
And with Lisa. But Martin let it in.

Something clicked into place. “It was Martin in my room that night,” she murmured.

“He killed Waverly.” Patrick’s blue eyes were like ice.

Outside in the hall, doors began to slam rapidly, up one side of the corridor and down the other. They all spun in terror. A horrible, insane giggling echoed through the building, freezing their blood.

The doors slammed outside, the sound coming closer…

Patrick leapt at the door, bracing it closed with all his strength. Some incredible force began pounding on the door from outside; the knocks reverberated through the wood, shaking the frame. Patrick’s arms were jarred with the raps.

The knocking abruptly stopped.

Then the door slowly buckled inward, an enormous pressure caving it on its hinges. Lisa’s eyes widened; she began to scream.

Cain threw himself against the door, straining with Patrick to hold it closed.

The door suddenly thumped back into place.

Outside, the doors slammed again, a rapid staccato wave, angry and thundering. Robin was screaming with Lisa.

The slamming abruptly stopped.

Dead silence. The four stood frozen, Patrick and Cain still braced against the door, afraid to move. The front door, two floors below, seemed a continent away.

Lisa was trembling all over, her teeth knocking together. “God…God…what do we do?”

Patrick hefted the gun, grim. “We nail him.” He started to open the door.

Lisa shrieked, “No!”

Robin grabbed Patrick’s arm. “You can’t just kill him.”

“The fuck I can’t.”

They were all talking at once then, fast, their voices overlapping, charged with adrenaline and hysteria.

“Think.” Robin dug her nails into Patrick’s forearm. “And then what—you end up in prison for murder?”

“Better than dead,” Patrick shot back. “Kill the fucker before he kills us. He killed Waverly.” He towered in the dark; the veins were standing out in his neck.

“Not Martin,” Cain said. He sounded short of breath. “That thing inside him.”

Lisa’s voice was shrill, almost a scream. “He
asked
for it. You heard. He invited it in!”

Robin wheeled on her. “So did you, Lisa. You found the board…right?” Robin faced the other three, pale and resolute. “But we all wanted to play. We all kept going. We
all
called it.”

They were silent, the truth sinking in.

Cain spoke more slowly now. “Even if we shot Martin, we don’t know that it would die.”

Patrick kicked the wall beside him savagely, caving in the thin plasterboard. Lisa flinched.

“Motherfucking shit. So what now?” He looked at the others, helpless. The candlelight flickered on the walls around them, playing over the crude Hebrew letters.

“Catch him,” Robin said slowly, looking at Cain. “Do the banishing ritual.”

“Catch him?” Patrick’s voice rose in disbelief. “He’s got a
demon
inside him.”

“And you’ve got a gun,” Cain said steadily. “Clip him in the leg and I’ll jump him.”

Lisa’s eyes leapt wildly from one to the other. “You got that ceremony off the
Net
. What if it doesn’t work?”

Cain looked grim. “Then we tie him, call the cops, and run.”

They all looked around at one another. It seemed an eternity before anyone spoke. Robin realized the silence was acquiescence.

Patrick shifted unhappily. “Don’t blame me if I miss and blow off his goddamn head.”

Cain turned on him. “You better not. I mean it, cowboy. Because we need
all five
of us for the ritual to work.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

The door of Martin’s room silently opened into the dark hall. Patrick’s bulk filled the door frame. Gun held to his cheek, he looked both ways down the corridors.

Empty. But there was a standing armoire halfway down the hall, where someone could be hiding, inside or behind. Patrick looked at the armoire, looked back at Cain. Cain nodded grimly, acknowledging.

The four of them moved out into the hall in a clump, Patrick in front, head swiveling.

Staying pressed together, they moved down the hall toward the armoire.

Patrick put out an arm to stop the others, eased forward himself, then darted around the armoire, gun at the ready. Robin held her breath as he stopped dead; then he relaxed slightly and turned, gestured the others forward.

They all moved ahead together, hovering at the stairway door as Patrick checked the shadowy stairwell, looking up at the stairs, then down to the next landing.

He motioned the others forward again and they moved silently into the dark stairwell, proceeding carefully down the stairs—Patrick leading, with Cain in the rear, his eyes trained warily up. Their breathing seemed harsh, unnaturally loud in the echo chamber of the stairwell.

Robin looked past Patrick, down the steep concrete decline. The door was closed at the bottom of the stairs.

Near the bottom, they paused as one. Patrick took a breath, and then kicked the stairwell door open. It slammed up against the wall in the hall outside.

Gun raised, he spun out of the doorway, swiveled around in the dim landing, eyes darting around him.

No one.

Patrick stepped back into the stairwell, whispered, “It’s okay.”

They moved out onto the murky landing. Ahead, the main staircase plunged down to the ground floor.

“Downstairs,” Cain whispered. “Make him come to us.”

He stopped, staring down at the floor. Robin followed his eyes, caught the glitter of shattered glass on the carpet. She looked up, barely registered the broken fire-emergency case on the wall

The door of the stairwell slammed open behind them. They spun in terror as a whirlwind of darkness darted out from the stairwell. Robin caught a glimpse of mad black eyes, the gleam of a raised ax flashing down.

The blade sank into Cain’s shoulder with a sickening thud.

Robin screamed, and kept screaming as Cain fell backward, tumbling down the stairs.

Patrick raised the gun and fired three rapid shots, but the shadow spun and darted back into the darkness of a side hall. The shots slammed harmlessly into the wall.

Patrick seized Lisa and pulled her into the stairwell. Robin was left frozen on the balcony. Her heart pounded in her chest, the sound filling her head. She stared down the stairs at Cain’s crumpled body on the landing below.

She jerked forward and scrambled down the stairs, fell to her knees beside him, sobbing.

In the stairwell, Patrick and Lisa huddled together against the door in the dark, choking on their breath.

Above them, a mocking voice boomed. The slithery alien sound of it echoed in the stairwell, through the halls.

“Are the children of light frightened? Are they afraid of the dark?”

Patrick and Lisa spun around, freaked, looking upward.

The voice reverberated around them in the gloom, a hoarse, raw giggling.

Patrick shouted upward, enraged. “You want to play, limp dick? I’ll play a bullet through your lame-ass head.”

“Don’t—” Lisa begged, a frantic whisper. Patrick looked down at her. She was shaking all over, her eyes glazed.

He took her chin, looked down into her face. “Get down to the others. If you don’t hear me yelling I got him, y’all get the hell out.”

Her eyes were wide, terrified. “Pat, no—”

He bent quickly, kissed her roughly. “Go on now.”

Lisa sank, trembling, against the wall. He lifted the gun and started back up the stairs.

Cain’s face was deathly pale. Blue veins stood out in his forehead; blood oozed from a deep gash on the top of his shoulder. Robin touched him carefully, afraid to hope.

He stirred under her fingers. Her heart leapt. He opened his eyes and she gasped out in relief.

“Oh my God…”

“It’s not…so bad,” he managed. “I twisted away.”

Robin pulled off her sweat jacket, wound it tightly around his shoulder. She was shaking, barely able to speak.

“Got to…get you out of here…”

Patrick climbed the stairs. The alien voice floated down to him, around him, bizarre and mocking, a Southern parody in an insect tongue.

“Does the big boy have Daddy’s gun?”

Patrick flinched as if he’d been struck, a look of stunned recognition in his eyes. His gaze darted up the dark stairwell.

The voice dropped lower, gruff and guttural. “Come make Daddy feel good…Do it like Ah taught you…. Do it good, boy, or Ah’ll whup you raw.” The alien laughter rang in the stairwell.

Patrick snarled in rage and ran up the last steps. He burst onto the second floor, spinning wildly, the gun extended in both hands.

The laughter had cut off completely. The hall was dark, silent, just the neon EXIT light above the stairwell and the bluish glow from the snack machine in the laundry room.

Patrick shouted out. “Where are you, shit-licker?” He spat, gripped the gun, moved forward in the hall.

A sound came from the laundry room, a low animal-like whimpering.

Patrick turned and dashed for the laundry room—but stopped still in the doorway, stunned.

Martin was slumped in the shadowed corner, crumpled in half, holding his side. He was drenched in blood, crying. He looked up at Patrick, dazed.

“Patrick? It…got me.” Martin’s hands clutched the handle of a bloody ax sunk into his torso.

“Shit. Martin…” Patrick gasped, sickened.

“I’m hurt…I…think I’m dying.”

Patrick raised the gun, stepped toward Martin.

A floor below on the landing, Robin had Cain propped up against the banister. She tightened her jacket in a tourniquet around his shoulder. Her throat was raw from screaming; she tasted blood in her mouth. But she forced herself to breathe through her panic.
All I have to do is help him down the stairs and out. We can go out the door. We’ll be free.

But Martin.

Was there even a Martin anymore? She saw again the mad figure dashing out of the hall, raising the ax.

Her mind rebelled against the picture. But she knew that beyond the black eyes it had been Martin, brandishing the ax with mad glee on his face.

Robin was jerked back to the present as three shots rang through the dorm. She froze with Cain; both of them looking up toward the sound.

There was a terrible silence.

“Oh no…” Robin whispered.

In the stairwell, Lisa twisted around, and shouted up the stairs. “Patrick…”

Silence.

Lisa screamed, “
Patrick!
”

She stared upward in terror, unaware of the door opening slowly behind her…a hand reaching out…

Lisa spun, screaming, at the touch.

Robin grabbed her arm in the dark. “Shh…”

Lisa crumpled. “Oh Jesus—”

Robin dug her fingernails into Lisa’s arm to silence her. She looked up the stairs.

Patrick shouted from above them. “I got the mother.”

Both girls sagged in relief at the sound of his voice; then Robin’s pulse spiked with horror as she registered his words.
Did he shoot Martin? Is he dead?

Then something in her mind spoke clearly:
Trick
.

Lisa was already dashing upstairs. Robin followed madly on her heels, shouting, “Wait—”

She burst into the second-floor hall—and was greeted with silence.

The hall was black, murky with shadows. The blue light from the laundry room glowed faintly. She couldn’t hear a sound.

“Lisa?” Robin gulped. Her eyes focused in the dark passageway. It was completely empty.

She plunged across the hall to the laundry room—and ran into Lisa, who was stopped in the doorway, frozen. Robin stared past her.

Patrick’s body lay on the floor, the ax sunk into his side, blood pooling on the linoleum around him.

Martin crouched over the corpse, his eyes black. He swayed on his haunches, giggling, a mad thing, barely human, vacantly squeezing the trigger of the empty gun.

Robin and Lisa were frozen in horror.

That’s not Martin
, Robin’s brain managed, through her terror.
It’s something much more than Martin now
. She stared in paralyzed fascination. Darkness seemed to roll off it in waves.

The thing that was not Martin reared up, yanked the ax from Patrick’s body.

Lisa screamed as the ax flashed down. The mad thing inside Martin aped her scream, its eyes shining black.

Then Robin sensed a movement on the floor, and Martin’s body jerked backward. The ax blade just missed Lisa’s neck, slicing a thin cut of blood on her shoulder.

Robin seized Lisa, pulling her away from the blade. Martin lunged at them again, snarling, then staggered again.

Patrick lay on the floor, blood pumping from his side, one big hand locked around Martin’s calf.

He opened his eyes and looked up at Robin. “Go,” he whispered.

Martin spun, raised the ax.

Robin and Lisa bolted as the ax flashed down again. They stumbled into the hall, ran into each other, righted themselves, and dashed into the stairwell, both hyperventilating with sobs.

The door slammed against the wall behind them and Martin shoved through, blocking the downstairs route.

In a split second of decision, the girls scrambled up the dark tunnel of stairs, powered by adrenaline, breath rasping in terror. The creature’s laugh echoed in the stairwell. It followed them up with shocking speed.

Robin and Lisa burst out the third-floor door into a long hall of rooms: the boys’ wing. In the narrow corridor, they tugged each other in opposite directions, whispering frantically, terrified.

“Stairwell off the kitchen,” Lisa choked out, her eyes black, pupils dilated to the edge of her irises. Robin could actually see her heart knocking against her chest.

“What if it’s locked?” Robin hedged, but Lisa jerked free and was running down the hall.

Robin froze at the sound of clattering footsteps on the stairs. She looked around her frantically at a hallway of locked doors. The kitchen seemed an eternity away. She turned instinctively for the bathroom door, ducked in.

She shoved the swinging bathroom door shut on its hinge, then her heart plummeted as she saw there was no lock. She glanced around her and pulled the trash can in front of the door.

He’ll shove through that in a second
, she realized. She surveyed the mirrored bathroom in a frenzy, looking for anything that could work as a barrier.

At the end of the hall, Lisa ran into the kitchenette and threw herself at the door to the back stairwell, twisting the knob.

Locked.

Lisa yanked at the door, clawing at it like an animal, sobbing. “Shit shit shit…”

The alien voice came from down the hall, taunting. “Lisa. Lii-saa. You
know
you want me.”

Lisa whirled, eyes glazed. She lunged for the counter, pulled open a drawer, and pawed through it, searching for a knife.

Nothing but plastic spoons and spatulas, tangled twist ties.

The voice was closer in the hall, crooning. “I looove how you think of your brother when you come.”

Lisa screamed and pressed her hands to her ears.

A shadow appeared in the doorway. Lisa jerked back against the counter.

Martin stood swaying, holding the bloody ax, He grinned at Lisa wolfishly, lifted the ax to his mouth, and licked the blade.

Lisa grabbed the coffeepot from the counter and hurled it at him. It bounced off his head, splitting the skin. Blood spilled down his face, but he started toward her as if he hadn’t felt a thing.

Lisa threw herself at the counter, grabbing for anything loose, flinging the toaster, a coffee can, the silverware rack. The objects bounced off Martin with sickening, pulpy thuds, but nothing stopped him; he was almost on her.

She was backed, cowering, trembling, into the sharp corner of the counters…trapped.

Martin’s eyes were black as he smiled. He raised the ax.

A voice called out behind him.

“
Martin
.”

Martin jerked around, bobbing slightly on his feet, as if he didn’t quite have control of his body.

Behind him, Robin hovered in the hall, pale as ice.

Martin grinned slowly. “Martin who?”

Robin swallowed, sickened by the vacant look on his bloody face. She was so light-headed, she was afraid she would faint.
Just get him away from Lisa
, she thought.

“Zachary, then,” she suggested, her voice low, inviting. “Whatever you like.” She forced a smile, then ducked teasingly into the hall.

Martin appeared in the doorway, a swaying shadow. He held the ax loosely in both hands, stared down the hall toward Robin. They both stood still for a moment, eyes locked.

Robin was hit by a wave of terror so primal, she felt her mind loosing from its moorings. The thing in front of her was nothing like human. There was an emanation from it of pure evil. It was like chaos barely contained in a thin sheaf of body, like a swarm of angry black insects loosely held by a bubble of skin.

She fought down nausea and panic, lifted her eyes to its grinning face, trying not to show her fear.

Don’t think. Talk. Do it
now.

He took a sudden step forward and she flinched back.

“Afraid, sweet Robin?” the thing purred.

Robin lifted her chin, looked straight into its eyes. “Afraid of what? You won’t kill me. It’s something else you want.”

She took a slow step back, raised her hands to her neck, and started to unbutton her shirt.

Martin licked his lips, moved forward.

Robin eased her way backward as she fumbled to open her shirt. Martin stared, mesmerized, at the loosening buttons.

“You were in my room that night. Waverly came in and saw you and you pushed her out the window.”