The Dark Ones (24 page)

The streets of the neighborhood were quiet this time of day. All the little children were off learning useless things. Most of the fathers and many of the mothers labored elsewhere, endlessly performing dreary tasks that brought little joy but provided food and shelter. It was a safe and comfortable place. A place for good people to raise happy families.

At least that was the idea.

Andras had a vision. A glorious, crimson-stained vision.

These falsely idyllic streets awash in blood, the screams of the dead and the dying echoing in the night.

It was more than a vision.

It was a promise. A prophecy of things to come.

He left the street and crossed a well-manicured lawn to climb the front steps of a house his host had visited only once. He had access to all his host’s memories. The one time was enough.

This was the place.

He jabbed the doorbell and waited.

Colleen Wagner opened the door seconds later, her features drawing into an expression of confusion at the sight of the boy standing on her porch. A thin boy in jeans and black jacket, strands of long blond hair protruding from beneath the wool hat atop his head. A boy with a dangerous grin and eyes alight with demonic delight. Something primitive inside Colleen sensed she was in the presence of genuine evil.

She screamed.

Tried to shut the door.

Andras, laughing, kicked it open and walked on in.

The day felt like it dragged on forever. Natasha wasn’t in the habit of spending her days fretting over time or watching the clock, but this day was an exception. This day couldn’t end one second too soon. Ransom High was abuzz with gossip about the bowling alley fight. It seemed like the whole school wanted to hear what she had to say on the subject. Friends and acquaintances. Teachers and administrators.
Everybody
. A lot of them didn’t believe her when she said she didn’t know anything, but it was true. The first she heard about it was when she showed up at school in the morning. Chris Harknell intercepted her on the way in and told her all about it. What he knew of it, at least.

Mark was in jail. Under arrest for assault.

Ditto Jared and Kevin.

It explained the incessant buzzing of the cell phone in her tote bag. She’d figured it was Mark going all obsessive again and had been ignoring it. The first thing she did after getting the news was turn it off. All the unwanted extra attention would have been bad enough on its own, but it was made worse by how awful she felt. She felt bloated and tired, the way she did during a heavy period. But she was not having a period. She had a home pregnancy test kit in her bag, but she had not yet worked up the nerve to use it. She was afraid of what it would say. She did not want to be pregnant. It would screw up all her plans. She was too young. She wasn’t ready for it. She didn’t know who the fucking father might be. It was all that was on her mind in the moments when she wasn’t being hassled about Mark. By the time the final bell rang, her head was pounding. She got the hell out of there as fast as she could.

She made it home in record time, drastically exceeding posted speed limits and terrifying numerous other motorists the whole way back. After parking the PT Cruiser, she stumbled out of the car and puked in the grass beside the driveway, heaving and heaving long after her guts felt empty, her body straining painfully as tears streamed down her cheeks.

The sickness finally passed and the shaking mercifully began to ease.

At last, she was able to stand.

The garage was open, so she entered the house through the back door. After shutting the door, she stood very still for a moment in the short hallway next to the laundry room. Something wasn’t right. The house was quiet. Her mother always had either the television on or music playing during the day. A deep sense of unease settled inside her and gooseflesh pebbled her bare skin. Her heart was beating faster and her throat felt tight. She tried to tell herself she was being silly. There was nothing solid on which to base this . . . unease. Just the quiet. That uncharacteristic quiet. But maybe she wasn’t the only one with a terrible headache. Maybe Mom was just lying down somewhere.

She should have known better.

As soon as she entered the kitchen, that sense of something not right amplified. There was still no sound, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the adjacent living room. It only took a moment of intent listening to realize this wasn’t exactly true. There
was
another sound. It was intermittent and very soft. There was something . . . sneaky about it. It was a furtive and secretive sound. A very low and, well . . .
rhythmic
exhalation of breath. It was a sound she knew. A rhythm she knew. Someone was having sex somewhere in the house and was trying to be quiet about it. Her father’s car wasn’t in the garage and, anyway, he wasn’t due home for hours yet. The thought that her mother might be screwing someone else astounded and horrified her. So far as she knew, her parents were happily married. So what the fuck?

Then she heard a sound like a whimper.

Something in the timbre of that sound confirmed it was her mother. The sound cut off, as if it had been suddenly stifled. A hand slapped over a mouth, maybe? So maybe her mother wasn’t banging some other guy behind her dad’s back. Maybe she was in trouble. The back door had been unlocked. Which meant nothing in and of itself. It was usually unlocked. It was something they never thought about. This wasn’t the city. Homes didn’t get invaded in Ransom. Unfortunately, the lack of caution meant anyone could get inside the house during the day.

A murderer, for instance.

Or a rapist.

Her mind flashed on images from that night in the basement.

Or worse.

She grabbed a carving knife from a cutlery drawer and set her tote bag on the kitchen counter. She then began a slow, cautious exploration of the house, holding the knife in front of her in a shaking hand as she edged up against the frame of the archway leading to the living room. She peered around the frame and saw that the living room was empty.

The sound came again.

That slow, slow rhythm and shuddery exhalation of breath, accompanied this time by a very faint squeak of bedsprings. This time she was able to follow the direction of the sound.

Upstairs
.

She stepped out of her shoes and began to ascend the stairs to the second floor, moving as quietly and as lightly as she could manage. The sound was coming from her own bedroom, the door to which was standing open. She paused as she reached the top of the stairs, unable to decide whether she should beat a hasty retreat or press ahead to see what was what. The thought that got her moving again was knowing her mom wasn’t stupid. Even supposing she was fucking some dude in her daughter’s bedroom, she would be aware, at least vaguely, of the time. She would know Natasha was due home and would likely catch her in the act.

Which brought her right back to the most logical conclusion.

Something terrible was happening.

She had to help her mom.

She edged up to the door to her bedroom and peered inside.

They were on her bed, naked and rutting. The sheets were a tangled mess. The black comforter had spilled off the bed onto the floor. They were positioned facing the doorway, Colleen Wagner on her back, her head hanging off the edge of the bed. Derek McGregor was atop her, his pelvis grinding slowly as he thrust in and out of her. The air was thick with the stench of sweat and sex. Their bodies glistened. Her mother’s grin was apparent even with Derek’s hand over her mouth.

Natasha dropped the knife and staggered backward.

Her back thumped against the wall behind her.

Derek removed his mouth from Colleen’s neck, glanced through the open door, and smiled when he saw Natasha. “Hello. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Colleen twisted her head around to look at her daughter, dislodging the hand from her mouth. “Come here, baby. Mommy wants to undress you.”

She cried out as Derek thrust into her yet again.

Natasha listened to her instincts this time.

She couldn’t save her mother. Nor did she have the words to coax her out of whatever dark magic was keeping her under the spell of the thing inside her friend’s body. She knew it wasn’t really Derek. One look into those strangely glittering eyes was enough to confirm that.

She ran at top speed back down the stairs. The only thing that mattered now was getting gone as fast as she could. She had to get to Mark and let him know what was happening. Maybe have that meeting with Clayton and hope like hell the old guy actually knew a way to fix this fucked-up shit.

The demon caught up to her just as she reached the back door and dragged her screaming back into the kitchen. The demon pressed her to the floor and ripped open her T-shirt. She screamed and flailed at him. He backhanded her, putting nearly enough force in it to knock her out. The world went gray. When everything came back into focus, her tattered shirt had been removed. The demon’s face was closer now. Its hard-on pressed against her belly, the length of it still slick with her mother’s vaginal secretions. Her stomach knotted and her throat filled with bile. She tried again to shove the demon off her, but it didn’t budge. Everything went black for a time. This time consciousness was slower to return. When it did, she was completely nude and the demon was positioned between her spread legs. She could feel the hard-on prodding her again. Her mother was kneeling next to her head, her heavy breasts hanging near her face. She was stroking her daughter’s hair and giggling.

The demon’s breath was hot on Natasha’s mouth.

“I smell the life stirring inside you. It’s mine. It belongs to me. I put it there.”

Natasha’s eyes filled with tears. “No.”

“Yes.”

Another adamant shake of her head. “Fuck you. No.”

The demon laughed. “Deny all you wish. You feel the truth of it. I know you do.”

Natasha began to sob.

“I’ve come to claim you as my bride. To take possession of what is rightfully mine.”

Natasha squeaked out the words between sobs: “Y-y-you c-can’t . . . do this. It’s w-wrong.”

“Oh, but I can do anything. Watch this.”

The demon flicked its right hand. The fingernails elongated, becoming sharp, black talons. It whipped the hand at Colleen Wagner, raking the talons across her face, tearing the flesh to bloody ribbons.

Natasha screamed.

The worst of it was that her mother wasn’t trying to defend herself. She fell onto her back, but did not retreat. The demon pounced and raked the talons across her throat. Blood pumped from the wide gash. The demon lowered its head to the wound and drank deeply of Colleen’s life force. The older woman’s body began to convulse. Still, the smile never left her ruined face.

Natasha found the strength to turn over and get up.

She tried to run.

Only her feet weren’t moving.

She dropped to her knees next to Andras, pressed her head against his as she was filled with an all-consuming need to imbibe the still-gurgling blood. It wet her face and filled her mouth. The taste was wonderful. She raised her face from the wound and grinned at Andras, blood dripping from her lips.

The demon grinned back at her.

And then it pounced on her.

T
HIRTY-TWO

She shoved the gun back into his mouth and said it again.

“Say you love Satan! Say it, bitch!”

The middle-aged fat man trembled and wept as he tried to speak around the cold steel wedged against the back of his throat. Carrie yanked the gun out and whipped it across his face, eliciting a shriek followed by yet another plea for mercy. Greg wanted to tell him not to waste his breath, but what was the point? Nothing he could say would ease the poor bastard’s suffering and it would just piss Carrie off again. And he absolutely did not want that. Before Andras, he never would have imagined she possessed such a deep capacity for sadism. But she did. She loved hurting people. It was obvious in the way her face lit up with every scream. And it wasn’t just the influence of the demon driving her. That had merely been the trigger. This need to hurt had been inside her all along, just waiting to be brought into the light.

She pressed the barrel of the gun against the man’s forehead.

“Say you love Satan, you fat fuck.
Say it!
”

The man’s head sagged against the gun barrel as he started in with the sobbing again. He was tied to a chair in his kitchen. The house was across the street from the McGregor house. It had been Carrie’s idea to come here after hearing from Suzie that the man who owned it lived alone and was a shut-in due to poor health. The dude was short but enormous. He wore gray sweatpants that looked stretched to the snapping point and a white T-shirt big enough to double as a tent. The clothes stank, as if he hadn’t washed them in weeks or months. The house was a mess, with trash and debris everywhere and huge piles of dishes in the sink. The nightstand next to his bed was crowded with pill bottles. Also in the bedroom were several large oxygen canisters in a rack. Whatever was wrong with the guy, it had to be something pretty severe. Life-threatening, maybe. The possibility made what was happening here marginally less horrible. You could almost see it as an act of mercy.

Almost.

Sort of.

One thing he had to admit. And it was sort of shameful, but it was the truth. The new wildness in Carrie had transformed her in more than one way. Before she’d been pretty but demure. But the way she carried herself was different now. She was freer with her body, with the way she moved. This insolent pose she was striking right now, for instance, with her hip cocked out and her pointy chin jutting forward, the big gun held so confidently in her small hand. She wasn’t cute anymore. That wasn’t the right term at all for a girl like this. She looked hot. Almost literally
hot
, as if just touching her would scorch your fingers.

She thumbed back the hammer on the revolver. “Last chance. You should really say it.”