The Sisters: A Mystery of Good and Evil, Horror and Suspense (Book One of the Dark Forces Series) (20 page)

September, 1890

Nagutu lies in a long row next to his brother, deep below decks aboard the Elizabeth Ann. He is seasick, lying chained by his feet in his own filth and that of his neighbors. It’s been a month since Willingham and his men collected Nagutu and the members of his clan. They have been held prisoner in the dark hold of the ship ever since, barely being kept alive on a bread and water diet once a day. They are allowed to sit up to take meals, but eating and drinking with their manacled hands in front of them is difficult.

He also cannot get to the bag behind his back that contains Bakka, the Shadow-God.

How he would make the whiteskins pay, Nagutu thinks, if only he could unleash his dark magic! He struggles to slip one thin wrist through the right manacle. Slowly, slowly and painfully the iron binding slips further up his hand in the dark.

“What are you doing, brother?” whispers the black man lying next to Nagutu.

“Shhh!” hisses Nagutu.  “Don’t draw attention to us.”

Slowly and painfully the cruel bracelet slides further up Nagutu’s palm until—there! It comes off. Ever so slowly he reaches underneath him to touch the bag at his back. He unties the rawhide thong that binds it together and reaches in. Carefully, his fingers grasp the wooden idol he has longed for, and brings it out from behind his back. He smiles, showing a row of very white teeth that glimmer like pearls in the darkness. His leg wound, which was only a graze, has healed now and the fever it had brought on has left him clear-headed now and full of purpose. He mumbles a few words in his native tongue. A prayer of sorts, and an incantation—

—and slowly a black mist begins rising over the row of men stretched across the wide beam of the Elizabeth Ann. It begins to take hideous shape, forming two arms and two powerful legs, and a massive head the size of a great English Mastiff. It has a huge, snarling snout, with rows of razor sharp teeth, and a red, lolling tongue. Its long, thick arms end in claws that can eviscerate a man with ease. And it stands on the oak planking between the rows of slaves now on its massive horse-like hind legs, awaiting further orders from its keeper: Nagutu.

“Go now and kill the whiteskins!,” he says quietly, and the beast shambles off. He finds the warder near the passageway to the top deck, half asleep. By some sixth sense, the sailor rouses in time to see Bakka rushing toward him and gives an inarticulate cry of alarm. But before he can get hold of his musket, the monster is upon him, roaring. He tears the man’s arms off and eats them, savoring them as though they were pieces of filet mignon. The warder screams louder.

Willingham appears in the portal and shoves past the beast, gaining entry to the hold while it devours the warder.

“Where are ye, ye worthless nigger? I’ll teach ye to cause trouble aboard my ship!” And he searches through the gloom for Nagutu, who is trying to hide behind his brother.

“Ah, there ye be,” cries Willingham and he fires a single pistol shot into the heart of Nagutu, killing him instantly. In a flash, Bakka disappears, leaving behind the half-eaten corpse of the unfortunate warder.

“That’s the end of that,” says Willingham in a loud voice. “And if any of the rest of you get any ideas, you’ll get the same.” He scans the dim hold for any sign of  resistance, but is only met with a sea of frightened white eyes.

He turns on his heel and leaves. And in the dark, the carved wooden idol falls from Nagutu’s lifeless hand to the wooden deck.

Nathan woke on Friday morning in Sarah’s parlor to find the power back on and himself tangled in a comforter with Sarah right beside him. He looked out the window and saw that the storm still raged on unabated. Quietly, he extricated himself from Sarah and the tangle of fabric and got to his feet. After pulling on his jeans and a tee shirt, and slipping into his Weejuns and a Duke sweatshirt, he padded off to the kitchen in search of coffee, thinking about the strange dream about his grandfather and about Moira and wondering if Sarah had experienced the same one. Why would Moira care if he and Sarah had children? And of course she had been adamant about her not killing the workman, even though Nathan was pretty sure one of the skulls in Moira’s secret room belonged to the man. Nathan shook his head as he measured out the Starbucks hazelnut blend into the filter.

While waiting for the coffee to brew, he ran over in his mind what they knew. Of the fourteen houses on this stretch of Ocean Avenue, Tipton now owned all but his and Sarah’s. Why had he not bought theirs? Of course, his ancestors would never have dreamed of selling the old girl, no matter how large the price. And he was pretty sure Sarah’s forebears had felt the same, quirky though they may have been. That was one missing puzzle piece. Second, Tipton could apparently put them into dream-states that transported them out of space and time at his whim—but to what purpose? He and his strange, horrific shadow had not actually harmed them yet—although there had certainly been the potential for that—but as of yet they had only been frightened. Third, there were the terrible whispering voices that could only be the houses themselves. Most of them were unspeakably evil—all except one, which seemed to be intent on helping them. But which one? And how could she help?

The wind pounded the snow against the kitchen window as the fragrant aroma of coffee began to fill the room. Nathan wondered again how long the storm would last and if the electricity would stay on. He sighed heavily and went to the refrigerator in search of eggs for breakfast.

In the next block Jay Warren was also up early.

He had brought his family to the shore on a short vacation from Poughkeepsie, New York, where he worked as a grocery store manager. He had rented the big old Victorian house from a Mr. Thomas Tipton—a queer old bird. But nice enough, and the price had been reasonable. Upstairs, his young wife, Dora, slept in, but he could hear his two children, Jay, Jr., and Christopher, stirring. They had each claimed one of the large old bedrooms on the third floor and had delightedly gone about the business of strewing their toys and clothes around the night before, playing excitedly until way past their bedtimes. Meanwhile, he and Dora had watched a movie in the parlor and then, finally, when the power had gone out, they had all gone to bed under thick blankets and comforters. Jay had called Tipton, who assured him the power would be back on soon.

And, this morning, Jay had found the old man was right as he set about the business of making pancakes on the cast iron griddle he had found in one of the cupboards. He whistled as he flipped the pancakes, pleased with his good fortune at finding this nice retreat on the Jersey shore—even if it was in the middle of a big nor’easter.

In the attic of the big house, a shadow lurked. It had awakened at the urging of its keeper and was growing hungry.

that was how he did it, wasn’t it, darling?

did what, dear?

kept himself going all those years, by feeding on fresh blood. The shadow moved quietly down the attic stairs and turned the corner into one of the boys’ rooms.

no!

yes, and it crept up behind the boy, who was about ten years old and in his pajamas, and bit his head clean off. The shadow swallowed it whole, gulping it down while the poor child’s body fell on the braided rug like a sack of corn meal. Blood began to spurt from the boy’s neck and landed on the four-poster bed linens, quickly soaking them through. And the shadow gave a horrible burp and turned its attention to the rest of the boy’s body. Pretty soon there was nothing left.

did the boy’s brother come looking for him?

oh, yes! And the shadow was very pleased . . .

Nathan and Sarah were having breakfast when they heard sirens.

“I wonder what that’s all about?” Sarah said between mouthfuls of buttered biscuits. “Must be something pretty drastic to bring out the Cape May EMS during this big storm.”

“Yeah, and I thought we were the only ones on the beach,” Nathan said.  He sipped his coffee.

“Well, we can find out later when the storm lets up. I wonder which house Tipton is living in currently. Think the deeds records might show that?”

“I don’t know. If they don’t, the clerk might know. Tipton’s been here a while and it’s a small town. Were you thinking of paying him a visit?”

Sarah shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt. I want to ask him if he knew my Aunt Moira for one thing.”

“I thought you were afraid of him.”

“I am. But it’s funny; I think if he really wanted to do us harm he would have done so already. All we’ve seen so far are a bunch of cheap mind tricks.”

Nathan gave her a rueful smile. “I’d give him more credit than that. He’s got some pretty powerful ability to control our thoughts and I wouldn’t underestimate him.”

Sarah looked thoughtful. “You may be right. Still, it makes me mad, the way he’s covering up a mystery that must go back for years.”

“Got a point there.  All right. We’ll go find the old bastard and beard him in his den.”

“What?

“It’s an old Biblical expression, I think. It means we’ll try to corner him in his own house.”

“Oh. Well, that may be easier said than done, but let’s give it a try.” She looked at Nathan and gave a sunny smile. “I feel like I’m in an old MacGyver episode.”

Nathan laughed. “Yeah, one with a gothic horror twist. But we’ll figure it out if it kills us.”

Sarah shivered. “Don’t say that."

“You say you just came upstairs and the kids were gone and all this blood was everywhere?” The big detective looked down at a weeping Jay Warren, sitting on the parlor sofa. His hands were cuffed behind his back.

The house was swarming with forensics people, most of them concentrating on the third floor bedrooms where the grisly carnage had been found. Dora Warren had been found in hysterics and carried off by medics in an ambulance through the raging snow storm.

“I-I just don’t know what to say. I heard a commotion upstairs and came up to find the boys missing and all that blood everywhere. I don’t know what happened. I swear. I would never do anything to hurt my own kids!” Tears streamed down his face.

The detective stared stonily at the man. He’d seen plenty of crime scenes in his time, but nothing to compare to the raw violence he had seen depicted in the bedrooms upstairs. What had this guy done with the kids’ bodies—chopped them up and flushed them down a toilet?  A good lawyer would get him off without the bodies, though. It made him sick, just looking at the guy.

“Come on. You’re going to jail” And he pulled Warren to his feet and toward the door.

The night is one of infinite possibilities. Tipton has just closed the sale on the eleventh house on Ocean Avenue. The year is 2008. The deal has taken quite a long time to do because he hasn’t been able to find the owners. Finally, he has tracked them down in Abilene, Texas.

The scene is a dusty cow pasture behind a sprawling ranch house. A large man who looks like Hoss Cartwright—right down to the ten-gallon hat—bends beside a water trough, holding the lead rope of a bawling heifer calf.

“Good afternoon to ye, sir.”

The man jumps, pulls himself upright, and drops the rope. “Who the hell are you and where did you come from?” the man says.

“My name is Tipton, sir. Thomas Tipton. I flew in this morning and drove out to your ranch. Your wife said I might find you here, Mr. Smithfield, is it?

The old rancher smiles slowly and extends a hand. “Yeah, that’s me. What can I do for you, Mr. Tipton?”

“Well, sir, it’s more like what I can do for you, if you take my meaning, sir. I’d like to buy your house in Cape May, New Jersey.”

Smithfield’s smile fades. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr. Tipton.”

“Why ever not, if I may ask?”

“My great-grandmother left that house to me in her will with the proviso that it never be sold. We have to keep it in the family, to be passed on from generation to generation.”

“Why, I’ve not seen ye nor yer family in Cape May, I don’t believe.”

“That’s true. I haven’t visited the old place in years. I have a caretaker who rents the place out short-term for me. We don’t much have any inclination to go up east. I’m sorry, Mr. Tipton, but the answer is no.”

Tipton looks at the man and smiles pensively. “And I suppose if ye died, the same stipulation would pass to yer heirs?”

The man gives him a hard look. “It would.”

“Then I’ll not trouble ye any further. Good day to ye, Mr. Smithfield.” And with that Tipton turns and strolls out past the battered fence gate, leaving Smithfield staring after him with a clenched jaw.

The same night a fatal fire savages the Smithfield ranch home, incinerating the man, his wife and his youngest daughter.

It takes Tipton only a few days to track down all of Smithfield’s closest relatives. He simply attends the funeral and steals the guest book. He finds two older sons, three cousins and a nephew. They are scattered across the country, but that doesn’t matter. He has plenty of time to travel. Contesting the will takes longer, of course, and a lot of money, but the stakes are high and he eventually gets what he wants.

The storm had returned in full force to Ocean Avenue, sending swirls of snow gusts into the already frosty faces of Nathan and Sarah as they fought their way along the sidewalk’s drifts.

“Which house do you think he’s in?” yelled Sarah over the screaming winds.

“Let’s try the one next to yours, where we found him yesterday by the elevator. He may not live there but it’s a good place to start,” Nathan yelled back. They turned onto the brick front walk leading to the house over the speakeasy and within a few minutes were standing on the house’s elaborate white wood front porch. Nathan knocked on the door three times. He tried the knob and it turned. The door swung open.

“Think we should go in?” Nathan asked.

“Might as well. If he’s here he’s probably deaf as a post and didn’t hear us knocking.”

“My thoughts as well. Come on then. Let’s get in out of the cold.”

But the house itself was also cold, although not as much as outside. The chill was palpable, however, and it gave Nathan goose bumps.

“Mr. Tipton,” he called. “Are you here?”

The silence was complete. They stepped into the dining room, which was furnished impeccably with a Chippendale table and chairs. Fine oil paintings hung on the walls, which were covered in a rich, light green fabric wallpaper. Dim daylight shone in through the sheer curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows. They stepped through the dining room through a butler’s pantry and into the kitchen, which had been updated. It was commercial-grade now, with a huge side-by-side refrigerator and two large ovens. On the stove a cookpot was simmering.

“What do you suppose that is?” Sarah asked, moving closer. She took the lid off the pot and looked inside, It was nearly boiling, whatever it was, and it was red, with thick, ropy tendrils of white running through it. She bent to smell it.

“Ugh!” she cried. A putrid odor drifted from inside the pot up to her nose. She dropped the lid with a clatter and backed hurriedly away from the stove.

“What is it?” Nathan asked.

Sarah made a face. “I don’t know and I don’t want to know.” Suddenly she wanted to throw up. She fought the urge and wrapped her arms more tightly around her body,

“Come on. Let’s look around some more. The old man must be in here somewhere,” said Nathan.

They moved from the kitchen past the door to the elevator where they had met Tipton a few days before. It was covered in brass plate and ornate wood molding. A red velvet rope was swagged across the elevator door.

“Guess that’s to keep the riff-raff out,” Nathan said with a laugh as they hurried by into the broad hallway. They swung around the broad oak banister and started up the stairs. They had only gotten half-way up when they heard a familiar voice.

“Welcome to my house again, young people.”

At the head of the stairs stood Tipton.  And behind, looming over him, was the dark shadow of a beastly horror.

we haven’t had this much fun in years, have we, dear!

no, darling. But remember the time we

took the baby and put its head underwater for five minutes. That was fun, wasn’t it?

yes, it was. And when her mother came into the bathroom to find out why there were no noises we

let the creature loose in the middle of the pajama party! Well, those silly, shrieking girls couldn’t get away fast enough. And didn’t, of course. The shadow chased them all down and feasted on them, shaving the very skin from their bones. That was all that was left. The police didn’t know what to make of it. Made national news, that one did. Almost exposed us. They even brought in a medium to see if we were haunted, but we clammed up, tighter than little sister’s business, to coin a phrase.

yes, darling, but one house almost opened up to the woman they brought in and we had to be harsh, didn’t we?

yes, we did. Very harsh, indeed . . .