Snared

15

She woke up from a deep sleep, cold and aching. It was dark. Night had fallen. She reached out for Mark, but her hand found nothing but cool marble. Lindsay rolled onto her back and let out a small groan of pain. Her entire body felt bruised and stiff. Brushing a lock of hair from her face, she stared at the dark ceiling, unsure of the emotions colliding in her head.

She’d done it. They’d done it. They made love. It was hard to believe. It seemed like a strange, fluid dream to her. While it was happening, she wasn’t even thinking about the act, merely experiencing it. Oh, it was wonderful, but also frightening and painful and confusing. With so many conflicting thoughts, not once did she think about the fact that they hadn’t used protection. She was so caught up in the moment, the sensations.

It’ll be okay, she told herself. We only did it once. Next time we’ll be careful. But as she thought this, she felt a strange movement low in her body, a twitch, as if something already lived inside her. The feeling paralyzed her with panic. She breathed hard, in and out, telling herself it was just her imagination, her childish fear. It’ll be okay, she repeated to herself when the dread got too bad to manage.

Once the panic passed and she could again think clearly, Lindsay sat up on the floor and blinked. Mark stood at the window, the big glowing moon hovering just above his shoulder. He wore a pair of the shorts she bought him at the outlet mall. They fit perfectly, as she’d known they would. The muscles in his back flexed as he leaned forward on the window, pressing his forehead on the glass. The round wounds looked like black holes in his skin. Was he crying, or just relieved to be free at last?

“Mark?” she asked.

Something moved under the skin of his back. Low ridges bulged and writhed, distorting his badly scarred skin as if plump eels slid just beneath the surface of him.

“You don’t know me,” he said to the glass.

“I love you,” Lindsay said, growing more frightened by the moment.

“Do you?” he asked, his voice low and hollow as if he spoke into a vast cave.

Mark turned—but it wasn’t Mark anymore.

“This is what Ev saw,” he growled. “Do you love this?”

The face was distorted, as if covered in melted wax. It was thick with ridges and lumps. The eel-like movement beneath his skin grew frantic. His pectorals swelled to an impossible size while his waist shrank in so tightly that the shorts fell from his hips. The creature that was Mark stepped out of the shorts. He raced toward Lindsay, his entire body blurred by his speed.

Lindsay screamed as the terrible creature descended on her, clawed hands reaching for her face.

Then she woke for real.

Lindsay sat up on the marble, her scream still echoing in the vast, empty room. She clutched her blouse together in front and quickly buttoned it against the cold. The windows before her showed the shimmering blanket of night sea and night sky. The fat moon of her dream was still there, hovering high above the water.

But where was Mark?

“Mark?”

She climbed into her shorts and spoke his name again. Icy marble met the soles of her feet, sending chills up her legs. Why was it so cold? They wouldn’t just leave the air conditioner running—not for an empty house. Lindsay hugged herself tightly and wandered through the living room to the dining area. Here, too, she found a wall of glass with a spectacular view of the cove, but instead of finding the panorama beautiful, it frightened her, made her feel removed from the familiar and alone.

“Mark?” she called.

A noise rose behind her, merely a whisper like papers blowing down a sidewalk. She turned quickly, but not fast enough.

Jack’s square face, a red welt at the center of his forehead, rushed through the darkness, his hands already raised to grab her.

Lindsay screamed. She fought, slapping her fists down on Jack’s muscular shoulders as his hands locked around her biceps. She kicked at his crotch, but he lifted a knee, turned slightly and blocked the kick. Her shin collided with his and pain exploded along the bone.

“You can’t do this,” she cried.

“Quiet!” Jack snapped. With a blurring motion, he spun Lindsay and locked an arm around her throat. He covered her mouth with a palm and pulled her tight to his chest. “You foolish child,” he whispered in her ear. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What you’ve unleashed?”

Lindsay couldn’t breathe. Jack’s grip did not cover her nose, but she was too frightened to draw breath. It felt like her entire body was made of stone like the floor beneath her feet, except for her heart, which pounded frantically as if trapped inside her body and trying to escape.

Jack walked her forward, back to the living room. She saw Mark standing in the middle of the room. Her captor paused on the threshold, his muscles growing more rigid against her.

Thank god, she thought. Mark would save her. She looked at him hopefully, eyes wide. Dull moonlight painted the left side of his face.

“Jesus,” Jack whispered.

“’Fraid not,” Mark said with a smile. “Don’t think even he could save you now.”

“You have no magic,” Jack said. “You wear the binding signs. I know. I burned them into your back.”

“Yeah, about that,” Mark said, reaching for the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head. “I gotta admit that hurt.” He tossed his shirt on the floor and threw his arms out like he was surrendering. “But it didn’t hurt nearly as much as this did.”

He turned, slowly revealing his back.

Lindsay gagged, then felt her throat clamp shut.

The skin on Mark’s back was gone—torn away in long strips, leaving the glistening bulges of his muscles. Blood ran over the waist and butt of his shorts. Bits of flesh hung like thick threads at his sides. Lindsay couldn’t bear to see it, so she looked away into the corner, and there she saw the shredded strips of skin, which were piled up like a bloody old shirt. She swallowed hard and looked back at the boy.

Mark completed his turn, the smile still on his face. “I’m going to take my time with you, Little Jacky. I’ve got a lot of payback due me.” Mark stepped forward, his chest expanding with a deep breath. “Do you remember what I did to that girl in Denver? Oh, she had it easy compared to what you’ve got coming.”

“Stay back,” Jack said, his voice like a loudspeaker in Lindsay’s ear. “Paralyze,” he muttered. “Freeze muscle and bone and blood and breath.”

“Knock it off, Jacky,” Mark said, taking another casual step forward. “You don’t have any of your pills and potions now. Word magic isn’t going to do a damn thing against me, and you know it.”

Lindsay didn’t understand what she was seeing. Mark’s back was gone. How could he even stand up?

She mumbled his name against the thick palm covering her mouth.

“Oh,” Mark said, fixing his clear blue eyes on hers “you still don’t get it, do you? I’m the monster of this story, little girl. Lester Krohl knew it. Barbie sure as hell knew it. I’m the Big Bad Wolf, the Boogeyman, and the Wicked Witch all rolled up into one.”

No, Lindsay thought, her eyes filling with tears. No, it isn’t true.

“Tell her, Little Jacky,” Mark said, seeming to take absolute glee in the moment. “Tell her how very bad I am.”

“He’s one of Lucifer’s spawn,” Jack whispered. “He is evil and darkness manifest unto man. He is a moral disease.”

“And you and your buddies tried to break my groove,” Mark said, now only five steps away. “How long’s it been? Ten years? Twenty?”

“You have been under the brotherhood’s guard for thirty-two years.”

“Well, time flies,” Mark said.

Jack pulled Lindsay back a step and then another. Her head was growing light. She tried to keep from fainting, but already, the room behind Mark’s back spun and blurred, though he remained in focus, unchanged.

“Now, where’s that buddy of yours?” Mark asked. “We can’t have a party without him.”

“I’m here, boy,” Doug Richter said from the open doorway at Mark’s back. He held a shotgun against his shoulder and sighted down the barrel.

“Well, what have you got there?” Mark asked. “A pop gun?”

“Yes,” Doug said. He pulled the trigger, and Mark was lifted from the floor. He crashed into the wall with a sickening thunk and slid to the floor.

Lindsay screamed against the palm, only to find it hastily removed. Jack’s arm left her throat and his hands were clutching her shoulders, pushing her forward.

“We don’t have much time,” Jack said, ushering her away from Mark’s body toward Doug. “Come on. You can’t be here.”

Doug lowered the shotgun and threw out an arm, blocking Lindsay and Jack. “She can’t leave. Not yet,” he said.

“She isn’t safe here,” Jack said.

“What’s happening?” Lindsay cried.

“We have to finish this,” Doug continued. “He has to be bound. We can’t just leave him, and I can’t do this alone.”

Lindsay looked from Jack to Doug. The two older men now appeared heroic to her, not frightening.

“Yes,” he said. Sweat covered Jack’s face, and his burly torso trembled. “Yes. But we have to protect her.”

“The icons,” Doug said. “Do you have them?”

Jack nodded. He drove a hand deep into his pockets and pulled out half a dozen of the strange corner pieces Lindsay first saw framing Mark’s window. She remembered their placement. Mark had said they were meant to keep evil out, but he lied. They were meant to keep evil in, meant to keep Mark trapped in his room. She understood that now. But what difference did it make? Mark was dead. Doug shot him.

“Put her in the coat closet,” Doug said, jabbing his finger at a door on the far side of the foyer. “They won’t protect her from all sides, but it’s all we can do now.”

Jack latched on to Lindsay’s biceps again and dragged her painfully across the foyer to a simple-looking door.

“I want to go home,” Lindsay cried. She wanted to see her parents, wanted to hold them and know they were okay. “Can’t I just go home?”

“There isn’t time,” Jack said. He pulled open the closet door and flung Lindsay inside. She hit the back wall hard, and her legs nearly went out from under her. “If we don’t stop him, he’ll come for you, because you know what he is. He won’t let you or your family live, and he will make you suffer.”

Jack flipped one of the icons into the air and caught it with his right hand. With a powerful thrust, he drove the metal spike into the corner of the doorframe. With a violent twist, he screwed it into position. Another icon flew into the air, and this one also found itself buried in the wood. He knelt down, intending to affix additional metal pieces to the lower corners of the door, but paused.

The floor was marble.

Lindsay watched with mounting panic. She didn’t want to be a captive of the two old men. She lunged forward, but Jack threw a palm toward her, struck her chest, and sent her back against the wall.

“I’m trying to protect you,” he growled.

“Let me go!” she screamed. She didn’t know what they were trying to do, but she didn’t feel safe, and she wanted to leave! Again she charged for the opening.

Jack sprang to his feet, and she hit his chest. It felt harder than the wall at her back. She shrank away. The man returned to his knees.

Seeing no other choice, he drove one of the icons through the grout separating the wooden frame from the marble. He twisted it deep, but it stuck out at an odd angle, not nearly as even as the ones higher up. Jack repeated the action with the last icon.

“Those won’t keep me in here,” Lindsay said.

“They aren’t meant to keep you in,” Jack said, standing up and rolling his shoulders as if trying to break tension out of them. “They’re meant to keep him out.”

“He’s dead,” Lindsay said.

“No,” Jack told her. “He isn’t. He can’t be killed, not by metal or magic or any other weapon of man. He can only be contained. His influence is eternal, from the beginning of time until the sun burns dark.” He looked away toward Doug, who stood over Mark’s body.

The tall man held a round piece of metal like a massive coin in his hand, and bounced it on his palm.

Jack turned back to Lindsay, his face set in an expression of deepest sorrow. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “You’re going to see some terrible things.”