The Seventh Seal (3 page)

John sat back and took a deep breath as nicotine withdrawal
reared its ugly head.  He felt the burning itch to light up a cigarette and
considered searching his dead friends’ bodies for one.

He moved across the living room toward the kitchen and
walked down the steps to the mud-room landing.  The side door to Reggie’s
driveway sat ajar.  The scent of moldy leaves drifted through the opening. 
John stepped over the broken glass of the screen door and crouched low against
the side of the house.

As low as he could get on two feet, John sidled the length
of the driveway, stopping behind the trunk of a bare maple hanging over the
lawn.  He looked up and down South Belvoir and saw no movement for blocks in
each direction.  Not a single light shone from any streetlamp or deserted
window.

With the tools and supplies clanging in the duffel bag, John
sprinted across South Belvoir and behind the overgrown bushes of the neighbor’s
house.  He held his breath and waited for the crack of a rifle or the accusing
beam of a soldier’s flashlight to find him.  His cheek brushed the coarse
mortar crumbling from the old, red brick.  John tasted fresh spray paint
hanging in the night air.  He craned his neck above the bush and examined the
front door without revealing his entire body.  Slow, red drops appeared on the
brick to the right of the door.  John reached out and let one of them fall into
his palm.  When he brought his hand back toward his face, he recognized the
odor of spray paint.  Using his sleeve as a damper on the powerful beam of the
flashlight, John aimed it up toward the top of the door.  A crude and shaky
hand had sprayed a red circle on the brick, and a five-sided star filled the
space inside.  The hair on John’s neck rose as gooseflesh broke out on his
arms.

Chapter 7

John stood and slung the duffel bag around his head and over
his left shoulder to keep it from swinging into his legs.  He walked through
piles of leaves, kicking up the pungent odor of a dying autumn and forced out a
brutal sneeze that rattled his sinus cavity.  As he approached Reggie’s house,
he saw the pentagram inside the circle painted above and to the right of the
front door.  John flashed the beam toward the neighbor on Reggie’s left and saw
the same thing.  Reggie’s neighbor on his right owned a two-story colonial with
white siding, and it gleamed like weathered bone in the fading light.  John did
not see the pentagram symbol anywhere on the front of that house.  He walked onto
the colonial’s front porch.  Old, wooden planks bent under his feet and cracked
with protest as he moved toward the living-room window.  A deserted, two-person
swing squawked at him as the wind blew it in each direction.  John’s survival
instinct warned him at the same time his rational mind catalogued observations
of the house.  The glass storm door and first-floor windows of the white house
reflected the last rays of the sun.  He cupped his hands around his eyes and
peered through the living-room window.  The furniture remained upright and it
did not appear as though a struggle had ensued here as it had in Reggie’s
house.

When the beam of the flashlight lit the face of the young
man standing in the living room, John lurched back and held the porch railing. 
The boy, sixteen at most, wore shoulder-length hair that fell in greasy
strands.  A white shirt covered his torso, with spreading circles of darkness
under his arms and neck.  His blue jeans clung to his hips, and both knees
poked through the holes.  Bare feet kept him fastened to the living-room floor.

At first, John mistook the boy for a Halloween zombie like
those people put on their front lawn to scare kids – the decrepit Rust Belt
cities like Cleveland welcomed the opportunity to celebrate, even with the
macabre holiday of Halloween – but this boy was definitely alive.  Time passed
in awkward, loping increments.  John’s hand held the light on the boy’s face. 
The boy’s eyes reflected it back, giving him a feral quality.  With synchronized
movements, John stepped backward, toward the porch steps, as the boy advanced
toward the front door, and toward John.  In one motion, John jumped from the
top step and landed on the moist wood chips of the neighbor’s landscaping.  He
heard the tumbler of the front door and the hinges swing the door open.  A
deafening roar followed a flash of light.  John threw himself to the ground as
another blast rang his ears amidst the burning fragrance of gunpowder.  He
recognized the sound of the twelve-gauge shotgun from his time as a youth
hunter in the Pennsylvania woods.  Now another youth was doing the hunting, and
John was the prey.  John crawled through the hedgerow that separated the white
house from its neighbor, the red house.

“Servants of the dark one suffer to the revelation!”

John heard the words spew from the boy, but the ringing in
his ears made it difficult for him to focus on them.  He jumped up and ran down
the driveway of the red house into the backyard.  John glanced over his
shoulder and saw the boy walking toward him.  The young man did not run and he
did not stray from his course.  His bare feet sloughed forward over shards of
broken glass, penetrating his skin like miniature daggers.

Another shotgun blast.  John heard the individual pellets
lodge in the side of the garage.  Judging from the spray pattern, if the boy
advanced another ten yards John would feel the force of the weapon.  A six-foot
cedar privacy fence ran the length of the property.  John saw a chain-line
fence separating the white house and the red house.  He lunged for the top pole
and scrambled over the cedar fence.  John fell for longer than he expected and
winced as the weight of the duffel bag slammed into his ribs.  He stumbled to
his side and fought to keep from losing his wind.  An explosion rocked the
fence to the right of his head.

John ran through the backyard of the property behind the red
house and down the driveway to Winston Road.  Intellectually, he knew that he
could be running right into the raised barrel of another assassin, but his fight-or-flight
instinct moved him as far from the deranged teenager as possible.

He stopped where the driveway met Winston and looked over
his shoulder.  He did not see the boy and heard no other shots except the ones
still ringing in his ears.  John heard a familiar growl and knew he had no time
to stop and think.  From the far northern end of Winston Road came the glowing
eyes of a jeep.  The headlights and steel grill gave the vehicle a menacing and
sinister expression.  John saw the red pinpoints bouncing from tree to tree,
moving off of parked cars and overturned garbage cans.  If he stood still, the
red spots would find him and invite the machine gun rounds to follow their
lead.

John sprinted down the middle of Winston Road where it split
two blocks before reaching Mayfield.  East and West Winston looped in a semicircle
and met a block apart on Mayfield.  He dodged to the right, onto East Winston. 
John glanced back at the beast bearing down on him and hoped the distance
disguised his choice.  Night fell hard and the dead street lights aided his
escape.  He ran toward the third house and dove into evergreen bushes next to
the front door.  John’s ankle throbbed and he felt the warm, sticky blood
running down his side where the duffel bag had cut into his flesh.  John saw
the jeep’s taillights disappear around the bend on West Winston.

With images of the zombie teen flashing through his head,
John stood and peered into the dark living-room window, concealing as much of
his body as possible.  Furniture was strewn around the place, resting in heaps
of torn fabric and upholstery.  He covered the flashlight with a sleeve and shone
it upward toward the front door.  The running, red paint of the circled
pentagram crawled down the brick.  John reached up and touched it.  The paint
felt tacky, but the chill of the Cleveland autumn may have slowed the drying.

John kept his back to the house as he sidestepped toward the
rear.  Around back, he found a door clinging to its hinges.  He had stepped
across the threshold when a wall of odor almost knocked him over.  Motionless
lumps lay spread across the kitchen floor.  He jumped over one and bounded up
the steps toward the second floor, with his ankle protesting the rapid
movement.  When he reached the second level the smell dissipated, allowing for
a deep breath.  John stuck his head in each of the three empty bedrooms, and
entered the one with the least amount of scattered furniture.  A single bed
stood in the corner and a chest of drawers tilted to one side, spilling spare
sheets and blankets onto the carpeted floor.  John shut the door and threw the
lock into place.  He tossed the duffel bag to the floor and sat on the bed as
exhaustion pulled his thoughts askew.  As John struggled to remain awake long enough
to remove his shoes, a blinding beam of light cut through the sheer curtains
and danced upon the opposite wall.  He dove for the floor and inhaled a whiff
of antiseptic carpet cleaner and dog.  The light shot around the room one more
time and then departed.

John’s eyelids fell and locked into place.  His heartbeat
slowed as his tense muscles relaxed.  He climbed on top of the bed and yanked
the spare blankets from the floor.  With Bob the Builder and Spongebob
Squarepants as his protectors, John slid into a deep but fitful sleep.

Chapter 8

The rumble of an approaching jeep shook John out of his
sleep.  The morning sun crested over the trees and reflected spinning crystals
off the frosted window.  John’s nose felt like ice, but the rest of his body
remained warm in the bed.

John’s ankle had swelled overnight, and only his shoe had prevented
it from becoming the size of a volleyball.  The sounds on the street jarred
John from the concern over his ankle and snapped him back into the present.

As much as it pained his soul, he abandoned the idea of
getting home.  His injured ankle and the pursuers would keep him from reaching
Plainfield.  John’s car keys had vanished during the previous night’s escapades,
and he never could count on the Camaro starting in the cold chill of November. 
He thought of Jana again, standing in the window and smiling at him as he drove
down the street.  John grabbed some canned corn and an opener from the duffel
bag.  As he tipped the opened can to his mouth, the slimy corn left a salty
taste in his mouth, and silenced his stomach.

John dropped the steel can of corn when he saw the bedroom
door was open.  He fought to remember if he had used the bathroom in the middle
of the night, but could not.

John walked toward the open door and looked out into the
hallway.  He saw his footprints in the plush carpet, but nothing else out of
the ordinary.  John gathered his things and threw them into the duffel bag.  He
flipped open the Scream’s phone and read the “No Service” display yet again.  John
shoved the phone into a pocket and stepped into the hallway.

“How did you sleep?”

John jumped and turned toward the end of the hall.  A young
man sat in a folding chair at the top of the steps.

“Are you the owner?” John replied.

“Does it matter?”

John reached for the opening of the duffel bag in the hopes
of placing his hand on anything that could be used as a weapon.

“Don’t bother, Father.  If I had wanted you dead you’d be
bleeding out in that bed by now.  Follow me.”

The man stood and John followed him down the steps.  At the
first landing, the morning light gave John a better look.  The stranger
appeared to be in his mid to late twenties.  He’d shaved his head bald and wore
a black T-shirt and jeans.  A knife and a holster hung from a flaking leather belt. 
A full sleeve of tattoos ran down his right arm, while two portraits hung on
his left.  The sleeved arm cradled a twelve-gauge, pump action with a sawed-off
barrel.  The man’s black boots left deep impressions in the carpet on the
steps.

John followed the man into the kitchen, where red stains
replaced the bodies of the night before.

“I found it difficult to have breakfast with the dead.  How
about some eggs?”

“Who are you?”

“My name is William.  You, Father?”

“John.”

“Nice to meet you, Father John.”

William held his hand out, waiting for John to shake it. 
John did so, but without taking his eyes off of William’s.  John had forgotten
about the white collar under his black shirt.

“Is this your house?” asked John.

“No, this isn’t even my neighborhood.  I live in Shaker, but
happened to be drinking with my girl when the shit went down.”

“What shit is that?  I still have no clue what the fuck is
going on.”

“Hmmm. Well, you just confirmed my hunch that you’re not a
real padre and that I don’t have to cut your throat – yet.  I’m afraid I don’t
have much to offer,” William said while stirring the eggs on the gas stove.  “I
awoke from a drunken sleep, still groggy from screwing my lady, when I hear all
these explosions, like the Fourth of July fireworks.  Next thing I know, the
power is cut and the entire neighborhood goes black.  My girl, she starts
freakin’ out.  I had to slap her to get her to shut up.  I could see the
flashlights moving from door to door.  I thought maybe it was a drug raid or
something like that, but there were too many shots coming from too many
places.  My girl throws her clothes on and goes running out to ‘demand
information’.  I saw them gun her down right on the front lawn.  Some asshole
grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her inside.”

John grimaced and thought of Jana.

“I ran for the basement.  I hid in the coal room that most
of these old places have.  The previous owner had covered the door with a
moving blanket and I think that’s what saved my ass.  I hid in there for two,
maybe three days until the shots, screams, and cries ended.”  William stopped
stirring the eggs and did his best to maintain the tough-guy persona.  “When I
climbed out of that place, I walked the same street you did.  This place is my
girl’s neighbor, to her left.  I’ve only been here one night, but I won’t be
staying for another.  It’s a matter of time.”