The Dark Ones (2 page)

Its mouth opened wide again and a stream of vomit blasted Frank’s face. He gagged and sputtered, coughed out the vileness even as more of it splashed his face and soaked the pillows and mattress beneath him.

He was wailing like a baby now.
“Please! Please! Stop! Oh, please . . .”

It wiped the vomit from his eyes with an almost tender motion before shoving one of its pendulous breasts into his open mouth, forcing him to suckle like a mewling baby at the erect nipple. It wriggled its nude body against him, making him hard despite the repulsion he felt for this thing and everything happening to him.

It pulled away from him.

Waited.

He coughed again. “I’m watching, damn you.”

The thing raised its left hand again, flexed the fingers, and made the nails pop out. But this time they didn’t turn into black, razor-sharp talons. It pinched one of the extended fingernails between the thumb and forefinger of its other hand and began to slowly extract it. Frank’s stomach twisted as he watched the fingernail slide all the way out of the finger. He grimaced when the thing popped the nail in its mouth and munched on it like candy. The crackling sound as it chewed was awful. It repeated the process with the next nail. And then the next. This went on until all the fingernails on that hand were gone. Then it held the hand in front of Frank’s face so he could have a good look at the tender, blood-rimmed flesh slots where the nails had been. The fundamental
wrongness
of what he was seeing was too much. His head snapped to the left and puked again.

When he was done retching, the creature wrapped its fingers around a length of Eleanor’s once-lustrous hair and ripped it out, pulling free a bloody piece of scalp with it. This bit of flesh went into its mouth. It chewed slowly this time, relishing the taste of the raw, bloody flesh.

Frank sniffled. “Please kill me. Just be done with it. I beg you.”

The thing didn’t reply. It just grinned and ripped another hank of hair and flesh off Eleanor’s head. But the fresh disgust he felt at this was overshadowed in the next moment as he heard the bedroom door creak open. A desperate, tremulous hope stole into his heart. Someone, some rare visitor, had at last heard the endless screams emanating from the house and had come to investigate. He hoped whoever it was had a gun. A big gun. A gun wouldn’t kill the thing inside Eleanor, but a few well-placed bullets could force it to vacate her body and end this obscene violation. He craned his neck to see past the thing and his suddenly soaring spirits deflated again.

Roger Campbell stepped into full view at the side of the bed. “Hello, Frank.”

Frank’s face turned stony. “You.”

“Yes. I see you’ve met my special . . . friend.”

“But . . . this is your doing? Why? How?”

“Oh, I think you know the why part of the equation.” He smiled. “As for the how . . . well, that’s more complicated. I plan to make my mark in Ransom, Frank. I’ll own this town before I’m done, every goddamn speck of it. But you’ve been getting in my way at every turn, blocking proposals and property acquisitions.” He glanced at the wild-eyed creature sitting astride Frank and smiled again. “I imagine you may have a regret or two about that now.”

Frank’s eyes glimmered with tears. “I’d kill you if I could.”

Roger laughed. “Oh, I’m sure that’s how you feel at the moment, but we’re going to have a long talk, Frank. A very frank discussion.” He grinned, flashing perfect white teeth. He was a handsome man, with his wavy brown hair and blue eyes. “The first thing you need to know is dear, sweet Eleanor was not the adoring, devoted wife you imagine.”

Frank stiffened. “Don’t you dare.”

“Yes, Frank, I had her. Often. Sometimes right here on this bed while you were at work.”

“You lie, you son of a bitch.”

“She told me she needed all the side action she could get because your tiny cock wasn’t enough to satisfy her. She also told me you like it kinky. You like to be tied up and abused. Me, I think that’s for perverts and godless commies, but whatever rocks your boat, Frank.”

Frank’s breath hitched. He sniffled. “No . . . you lie.”

But there was no conviction left in his voice.

The bastard was telling the truth. The thing straddling him leered again and waggled its tongue at him.

“How have you done this?”

Roger reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a pack of Pall Malls. He lit one and exhaled a thick cloud of richly aromatic smoke. He made a sound of satisfaction. “That’s better. Doesn’t quite mask the demon stench, but it’s better. Yes, the thing inside your wife is a demon. A really nasty one, too. I summoned it.”

“That’s insane.”

“It isn’t. You believe your own eyes, don’t you?” Roger expelled another cloud of smoke. “My ancestors are mostly Romanian. The old country, as my older relations referred to it. Do you know that Campbell isn’t my birth name? It’s true. My real family name is Antonescu. I got rid of the name, but I’ve retained a knowledge of secret things passed down through centuries. Family secrets. Old-country lore. Including a working knowledge of basic demonology.”

“What do you want from me?”

Roger smiled. “Ah, you’ve hit on it, haven’t you?”

He had. And to Frank’s amazement, much of his terror had deserted him, even with the demon still astride him. “I’m more useful to you alive than dead.”

Roger pointed a finger at him and flipped his thumb down, miming the firing of a gun. “Got it.”

“Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything.”

He meant it, too. Eleanor was lost to him now. He wouldn’t have her back even if he could. That filthy, lying bitch. He listened attentively as Roger explained his plans for the town. He was only mildly surprised by how little any of it disturbed him. He hardly felt like the same man he’d been just a few days ago.

In many very essential ways, he wasn’t that man any longer.

A fact confirmed a little later when Roger commanded the demon to desert Eleanor’s body. He was freed from his bonds as his confused and terrified wife wailed and moaned in agony at the offenses done to her body.

Eleanor extended a shaky hand to him, her bleary eyes pleading for comfort and reassurance. “Frank . . . I . . .”

There was a bang and her head blew apart.

Roger Campbell lowered the gun.

Frank closed his eyes and listened to his new master’s smug laughter.

P
ART
I:

T
HEY
C
OME
O
UT AT
N
IGHT

O
NE

Something stirred in the darkness, a flickering of awareness after a long, long sleep. A weak fluttering of dormant power as the thing awakened, psychic tendrils reaching out to probe the edges of its surroundings, familiarize itself again with the shape of this place. This dark place. It was trapped here. Imprisoned. Locked down here beneath the earth, condemned to spend eternity alone in this miserable slice of hell.

Because it could not die. Not really. Not completely. It could not be permanently erased, the way, say, the life force of a crawling bug could be extinguished irretrievably with such delicious ease, ground to gritty, slimy pulp beneath a heel.

The thing in the darkness could not be extinguished, but it could be banished.

It could be contained.

As it had been contained in this dark place for fully half a century. A flare of rage brought it to a state of almost full consciousness for several moments. A human had trapped it here. A
human
. One of those pitiful, mewling little things. It had been fooled, tricked by a creature so infinitely inferior it was impossible to comprehend how it had happened. Humans able to wield the arcane black magic necessary to bind one such as itself were rare. Almost extinct. And yet one had done just that. First summoned it, then bound it in this deep darkness.

The thing in the darkness longed to be free. Away from the rot and decay of this place, able again to roam among the living things of the world. Its inability to make this happen sparked alternating feelings of despair and anger.

A human had done this!

A
human
!

The thing roared its rage one last time, making the air vibrate.

And then it began to drift back toward sleep. It might not stir again for a period of years, or even decades. And that was fine. Because it knew one day something would happen to break the spell chaining it here.

Someone would come. Some poor, curious fool of a human.

It was as inevitable as the eventual rise and dominion of its dark Master.

Out
, it thought.

One day I shall be . . . OUT
.

T
WO

The Dark Ones come out at night
.

So goes the obscure slogan most residents of the Wheaton Hills subdivision in Ransom, Tennessee, fail to ever notice. The words are scratched on utility poles, street signs, rocks, and tree limbs. The few who do note the multiple appearances of the slogan are mostly indifferent to its mysterious meaning. The one or two who do pause to ponder the meaning of the words ultimately chalk it up to harmless teen mischief. Some vague expression of youthful angst. Nothing really worth puzzling over.

There are bigger things to worry about, after all.

Ransom occupies a small corner of a mostly quiet rural community. It is a town on the cusp of fundamental change. New companies, respectably sized, have moved in, bringing with them an influx of upper-middle-class families from larger cities. Many of these newcomers wind up in sparkling new Wheaton Hills. Their offspring are predictably bored by their new surroundings. There is nothing to do. No movie theaters. No malls. Most adjust and find new ways to have fun and fill time. These are the regular kids. All-Americans. Preppies. Jocks. Geeks. And the just plain average kids existing between the stereotypes.

Then there are the Dark Ones.

It is their name. The label they have chosen for themselves.

The Dark Ones come out at night
.

They do not fit easily into any of the usual categories. They are not part of the cool crowd, but the cool kids know to be wary of them. Say you’re one of the cool crowd. A star quarterback or head cheerleader. Everyone adores you. You get everything you want, most of the time, and everything is easy. As one of the privileged ones, you sort of see yourself as royalty, a king or queen, and the other students are your subjects. The unlovely ones are peasants and you treat them fittingly, as royalty would in medieval times. They exist only for your occasional amusement, and it
is
fun to mess with them once in a while.

The Dark Ones come out at night
.

You live in Wheaton Hills.

But
they
live there, too. Maybe the adults don’t notice, but you’ve seen that slogan and you remember it. And you know them. Not to talk to, but you know them. You share classes with some of them. They always sit in the back, wearing those dark sunglasses the teachers have given up telling them to take off. Strangely, you see them there more often than in the neighborhood. You do see them at home sometimes, just not during the day. Just now and then when you’re feeling restless at night and you get up to take a peek out your bedroom window. You stand there and you watch the empty street, and everything is utterly still, the way any small-town neighborhood should be as the hour passes midnight. But you keep watching, waiting, knowing they will come. And they do, eventually they always do. Sometimes alone. Other times in groups of two or three. Slipping like shadows through the night, clad in black as always, somehow always avoiding the direct glare of the streetlights. It freaks you out. It unsettles you. You would never admit it to your friends, but they really sort of
frighten
you. It’s a shameful thing. There aren’t that many of them. Your crowd outnumbers them by a large margin. Many of your friends are athletes. Large and physically powerful.

But it’s true. You’re afraid of them, and you can admit it to yourself.

Here in the dark. Alone.

The Dark Ones come out at night
.

Trip a geek in the hallway between periods and maybe you get to laugh at a quivering pile of terrified blubber scrambling to pick up the textbooks you’ve knocked out of his arms. But if you decide to tangle with a member of this other set of misfits, you won’t be laughing for long. If you’re lucky, you’ll only wind up with a black eye. But you might not be lucky. You might be like the jock who was stomped half to death in the parking lot one morning before school. A handful of incidents like this have taught the bullies to steer clear of the Dark Ones. And yet there is an ongoing tension, a slowly simmering potential for violence. There is talk. Hallway gossip. A fight is coming. A war. Some of your friends are fed up with the intimidation.

But it’s so hard to get around just how damn creepy and
weird
they are.

The Dark Ones come out at night
.

Every night.

Tonight.

Now
.

I’ll kill him
.

This is what Mark Bell thought as he stared up at the dark ceiling in his bedroom. Every now and then he glanced at the muted television atop his dresser, where a
South Park
episode was playing on Comedy Central, but mostly his mind was occupied with the fury he felt.

I’ll really do it. I’ll slit that motherfucker’s throat from ear to ear if he ever says that shit about her again
.

Pushed far enough, he could really do it. And he was close to that point. Those fuckers simply could not talk about her that way. She was better than any of them.