The Bloodspawn

“He’s got some, uh, business to take care of really quickly and then we’re going to follow him to some bar or something.”

“Okay,” Harry said dryly, staring through the front windshield as the wet snow caked the glass in patches, their warm breath fogging it from the inside.

They sat in silence for several minutes; both of them too tired to try to force the conversation. The green digital display of the clock on the dashboard slowly crept by, fifteen minutes passing as though it had been thirty.

“How long did he say he was going to be?” Harry finally asked, breaking the silence dulled only by the heat blowing from the vents in the dash.

“Fifteen minutes,” Scott responded, staring down at the clock.

Movement to his left, across the street, caught his attention. Rubbing the steamed window with his elbow, he watched as the brunette who had led Shane into the office appeared through the front door. She turned her key in the lock on the glass door, giving the handle one final tug to ensure that it was locked. Turning back to the night, she lowered her head from the snow the swirled around her as she buttoned the top couple of buttons on her blouse and zipped her jacket up to right beneath her chin.

“Oh,” Harry mused. “I understand.”

Scott just chuckled to himself as with Shane that was how it had always been. Growing up, no matter where they had gone, be it the mall, a party, or the youth group their parents often used as a punishment, Shane had seemingly never left alone. It was apparently his gift. He had that certain mixture of confidence and cockiness that most seemed to find irresistible. He’d never been able to understand it, nor had he ever tried to emulate it.

The woman ducked around the corner and into the parking lot, walking out of view behind the corner of the building. A plume of smoke appeared over the flat roof of the warehouse; the dull glow of headlights appearing just before the car as it drove to the end of the lot, throwing on its right blinker. Pausing for a moment, the car turned onto the slick street, the rear end bucking back and forth for just a moment before gaining traction and heading off into the night, the red squares of the tail lights slowly fading into blackness.

Glancing at the clock, Scott stared at the edge of the building, waiting for any other signs of movement. Beyond the building, the foothills rose steeply towards the cloud covered mountains, the white capped masses of pines and other tall evergreens standing out sharply against the pinkish hue of the stone quarry carved into the steel slope behind them. One minute turned to five, and five to fifteen, as Scott and Harry took turns staring from the side of the building to the clock to each other. Finally, he shot Harry a somewhat concerned look and shoved the gears into drive.

Their headlights flashed across the front of the building, reflecting blindingly off of the front glass doors as the popped up slightly on the opposite curb before straightening out and heading in the opposite direction. He slowed at the entrance to the parking lot, staring through the waves of flakes that gusted straight towards them at the sole car in the darkened parking lot. It was clear in the back, nearly around the back of the building at the edge of the eight- foot tall chain link fence that surrounded the snow filled parking lot.

Climbing over the curb, Scott guided the car into the deserted parking lot, square patches of lightly snow- dusted asphalt lined either side of the lot from where the cars had been parked for most of the day, their tracks matting down the snow in criss- crossing lines.

A thin line of smoke plumed from the tail pipe of the snow covered 3000 GT. The front windshield wipers dredged back and forth, piling the snow into a thick frame around the window. The inside of the fogged vehicle was completely dark, though they would have seen little through the darkly tinted windows regardless. Hanging drifts of snow sloughed from the roof of the car, exposing small patches of the cherry red paint job beneath.

Flashing his lights a couple of times as he slowly cruised through the lot, Scott waited for a response. The packed snow crunching defiantly beneath the rolling tires, they stopped right next to the Mitsubishi, flashing the brights through the windows to verify what they could already tell: the vehicle was empty.

Scott looked over at Harry, who wore the same puzzled expression. “I’ll be right back,” he said, throwing open the door and hopping down into the snow.

Passing through his own headlights, he cupped his hands to either side of his face and peered through the passenger window of the 3000 GT. A series of red lights glowed from the dashboard within. There was what appeared to be a briefcase on the floorboards in front of the passenger seat, a pack of smokes and a pair of empty bottle atop it. But there was no one up there, or lying down in what passed for the back seat of the car.

Steering his gaze from the vehicle, he looked towards the side of the building, noting the small door to the side where all of the employees had exited earlier. With a nod back to Harry, he lowered his head and squinted his eyes against the wet flakes that pounded him along the fierce wind as he jogged across the matted snow along the walkway towards the door. Gripping the knob tightly in his right hand, he yanked on it, his shoulder nearly popping out of the socket with his more than adequate force, but the door wouldn’t budge. Turning the knob in the opposite direction, he tried again, this time with a little more subtlety, but it was locked.

Harry rolled down the window of the car and leaned his head out, cringing momentarily as the frigid air nipped at his bare face.

“Locked?” he called over the wind.

“Yeah,” Scott responded, jogging back over to the car, stopping just shy of the open window.

“What do you think?”

“He’s got to be here somewhere.”

“And you checked the car?”

“Nothing.”

“The back seat?”

“You couldn’t squeeze an adult back there if you tried.”

“Do you think he ditched us then?”

“The thought crossed my mind, but he wouldn’t have left his car, especially with it running.”

“Did you try the doors?”

“No,” Scott said, looking back towards Shane’s car. “But I guess I’d better.”

Turning, he could hear the whir of the raising window behind him as he loped around the front of the car and onto the curb, hopping back down on the other side of the car and standing at the driver’s side door. Giving one last look to Harry, he grabbed the handle and opened the door.

A wall of heat rushed towards him from the inside of the vehicle as he stared within. The windows were completely fogged now, making it nearly impossible to see out of the vehicle. Grabbing the headrest of the driver’s seat and using it as leverage, he leaned into the car, not sure of exactly what he was looking for. It was always possible that Shane was so doped up that he had forgotten his car and had just ridden of with the brunette. That wouldn’t be completely unlike the Shane that he had once known.

Shaking his head, as he saw nothing that would be of any help whatsoever, he pushed himself back to his feet. The fingers on his right hand innocently rubbed his damp palm as he stared down at it, innocently wondering what would have caused it to become wet. The thin patch of fluid on the tough skin of his palm was much darker than he had expected to see, figuring that it had just dampened from the falling snow.

Leaning back under the roof of the car, he inspected the seat, but the dark cushioning just blended into the darkness of the car. The dim rays of the overhead light did little more than just swell into a light globe around the bulb. Reaching towards it, he flipped the switch next to the light, turning it off before finding the third position that made it brighter. Looking back down at the seat, he could see it this time. Large splotches of red that nearly covered the entire seat, sloppy handprints of the dark fluid dripping from the leather steering wheel.

“Harry!” he shouted, slamming his the back of his head against the rim of the door before finally pulling his head out.

Harry just stared at him through the front window of the car.

“Harry!” he shouted again, this time flailing his arms.

Scott could hear the dim hum of the window as Harry rolled it down from the inside, so he shouted once again.

“Harry!”

The whirring of the window ceased as the door popped open and Harry clambered out of the vehicle, jogging over to where Scott still stood by the open door of the car.

“Jesus,” Harry muttered, slipping past Scott to get a look into the car.

Scott scanned the white ground, the only light from his headlights as it crept beneath the 3000 GT, dully passing through the tinted windows, but there was nothing. Walking away from the car, he had gone a good ten feet before finally finding what he was looking for.

There was a matted portion of snow that almost looked like a snow angel, the arms and legs floundering in the packed snow. There were droplets of red throughout the impression, and surrounding it on the pristine snow. Following the red trails, he headed straight towards the tall chain link fence, following the metal ringed surface towards the top. A coiled roll of barbed wire looped through the top rungs of the fence, the sharp points of the metal spikes glistening in the night.

Tattered shreds of clothing hung from the wire where the body had been raked across the jagged barbed wire.

Shedding his jacket, Scott jumped, throwing it over the barbed wire atop the fence and began it climb. Scaling it as quickly as he could, he threw his right leg over his jacket, using it as a shield between his privates and the sharp metal as he climbed over, hopping down to the frozen earth beyond.

He could hear the rattle of the fence as Harry hit it full tilt, climbing up and over just as Scott had done. Glancing back over his shoulder as he dashed across the snow covered field into the foothills, he made sure that Harry was over the fence. Hitting the first grove of pines, the ground beneath his churning legs rising more steeply with each successive step, he wove between the densely packed trunks. Darkness closed in from all around him as whatever dim light pierced the heavily cloud infested night sky was blocked by the thick mat of needles above his head.

There was nothing to go by; no red spotted ground or a channel carved into the crusted snow from the dragging of a body, just the ghost of a voice in the back of his head that urged him on. His legs burned as the cold night air rattled icily in his lungs. Frantically scanning from one side to the other, his eyes tried in vein to peel back the darkness enough to make out even the most vague outline of his vanished friend.

“Scott!” he could hear Harry’s muffled voice cry from somewhere behind him, but he didn’t have the time to stop, or enough wind in his heaving chest to respond.

He knew that if he had any hopes of ever seeing Shane alive again, he had to find him right now as he had seen first hand the speed with which Matt was capable of killing. Somewhere, deep down, he already knew that he was too late.

Throwing his hands in front of his face, he burst through a mass of scrub oak, the barren branches covered with a thick shield of ice. His clothing snagged on the sharp extensions, raking his forearms as he hurdled the clusters of thin trunks, nearly falling flat on his face in the pristine snow of the clearing beyond.

The wind whistled loudly all around him as he stopped in the center of the field. Yucca plants broke the snow covered plain, their long, green points standing high above the ground as the wind tossed the powder into swirling clouds all around. Branches rattled together, the sound of bark raking against bark the only other sound that he could discern from the night.

His heart rose into his chest, a damp layer of cold sweat matting his creased forehead. Each quick breath shuddered past his lips, the frozen air in his quivering chest turning to mist as it burst into the night.

The shrubbery rustled behind him as it parted as Harry suddenly appeared. He was wheezing loudly, barely more than stumbling through the deep snow. Doubling over, he placed his hands on his knees as he stood next to Scott, coughing. He stared down at the ground sucking in as much as possible as quickly as he could, before finally looking up, scanning the line of trees at the other side of the field.

“Where…?” Harry huffed, pausing just long enough for a couple of deep breaths. “Where did they go?”

“I’m not sure.”

Scott focused intently on the darkness all around, all of his senses poised taut as he searched for some clue as to where they had gone.

“We have to keep moving,” Harry said, finally able to stand fully erect, his shoulders still heaving.

“But where should we go? I see absolutely no sign of them anywhere.”

“If we just stop, you’re friend’s as good as dead.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that he already is.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” Scott said softly, his voice trailing off as the wind swept it from his lips.

The two stood in silence, side by side, as the dark night closed in around them.

A loud noise boomed from somewhere, sounding as though it came from all sides at once. It was a cracking sound, like a thousand branches being snapped in half all at the same time. Fading back into the night, the silence swelled around them as they scanned the tree line that encircled them. There was another booming noise, then another, and another. It was straight across the field from them, and it was getting closer with each successive sound. The tops of the trees ahead tossled visibly, the white snow shaking off to expose the green needles beneath.

Holding their breath, they could do little but watch as fear overwhelmed every inch of their frozen flesh.

The noise grew louder and louder as the forest itself sounded as though it was being ripped apart. Trees crashed to the ground just out of their range of view, the ground shuddering beneath their feet.

It was coming closer and closer, they could feel whatever it was there with them in the darkness, laying siege to the grove of pines straight ahead of them. Wide eyed, they watched in horror as the wall of trees straight ahead imploded. The center of the trunks seemed to implode from the core, fragments of wood no larger than toothpicks flying through the air from the suddenly halved trunk. The upper reaches of the trees toppled to the side, the heavily needled branches crashing to the ground with a thud.

“Sweet Jesus,” Harry muttered, quickly covering his eyes as the fragmented, sap- drenched shards of tree trunk rained down on them.

As silence finally settled into the forest around them, the last remnants of the booming explosion of the trees echoing high in the valleys above, the two surveyed the area. The trees had been cleared in what looked to be a large path leading straight ahead of them into the hills. Jagged, pointed stumps littered the snow- covered ground in the ten-foot wide path leading up the slope into the darkness. The remains piled against the still standing trunks to either side, the green and brown masses of the fallen trees pressed together to make it look like a half pipe. Tiny yellow wooden shrapnel peppered the snow all around them in the small clearing, sticking to their clothes with the sticky yellow sap as the smell of pine all around them was almost overwhelming. At the end of the channel carved through the trees, deep within the darkness that rolled down the face of the western slope of the Rockies, there was the shadow of a man.

“We need to go,” Harry whispered, tugging on Scott’s sleeve.

“What… who is that?” Scott asked, staring at the pitch- black shade of the human form from which all of the darkness seemed to resonate.

“Now!” Harry whispered forcefully, looping his arm around Scott’s and dragging him through the clearing towards where they had come from.

Scott stared back over his shoulder at the darkened figure as Harry fought to drag him back towards the car with everything that he had. Stumbling, but unable to steer his gaze, Scott watched in awe as the figure raised its arms out to either side and held them there, the trunks of the trees suddenly bending as though they were made of rubber. A pair of amber eyes glowed like small pinpoints of sunlight from beneath the figure’s darkened brow. His eyes locking on those of the massive shadow, those eyes helplessly entranced him, everything else fading to black around him.

“Come on!” Harry shouted, his voice dissipating beneath the loud siren of the wind as it howled down through the channel from the snow- capped peaks above. The shadow of the man grew wider; the tattered and shredded fabric that dangled from his shadowy form tossing and snapping about him like long thin flags as the raging wind rocketed past.

Scott could do nothing more than stare at the shadowy figure, feeling hopelessly drawn towards it.

His barely dragging feet snagging on the twisted and ragged trunks of the mass of scrub oak, Scott slipped from Harry’s grasp, crumpling into the mess of tangled branches which cut off the view of the image with its fiery ashen eyes. His whole body seemed to grow limp, a warm, pleasant sensation washing through every inch of his formerly frozen flesh. It was as though he was laying on a beach somewhere tropical, just he and the hot equatorial sun that shined down on him alone. There was but the vaguest impression of discomfort beneath his armpits as he could feel Harry’s hands gripping tightly, dragging him through the tangled array of branches and beneath the cover of the pines. His eyes lolled back beneath his only partially closed lids as a feeling more pleasurable than any he had experienced in what he could then remember of his pained life flooded through his senses and he felt nothing but the warming tingle that buzzed electrically through his veins.

A small line of blood rolled over his upper lip from beneath his right nostril, clinging to the chapped skin momentarily before running down into his slacken mouth, pooling on his upper teeth.

“Get up and walk, damn it!” Harry shouted down at him as his aching arms and back could no longer find the will to drag him.

Harry knelt on the ground above Scott, whose eyes finally rolled back from beneath his fluttering lids enough to give him the semblance of consciousness.

“Look at me!” Harry growled, grabbing Scott’s face between his two leathery palms and shaking it atop his flimsy neck. “You need to get up right now or we are both going to die out here!”

Loud, booming footsteps echoed through the foothills as the ground shook beneath them. The thicket of scrub oak they had just passed through rattled as the branches tossed against the line of snow beyond.

Boom.

Boom.

“Wake up!” Harry shouted, smacking Scott across the face as he frantically looked up towards the origin of the sound, his tensed legs poised in anticipation of their call to flight.

Scott’s mouth slowly closed, his dry tongue smacking against his dehydrated palate. His fluttering lids opened momentarily as his eyeballs rolled back completely into his skull before reappearing again as he fought to awaken from whatever trance had gripped hold of his physical form.

Boom.

“Get up!” Harry called through a wave of panic as tears spontaneously streamed from his eyes.

Boom.

Powdered snow cascaded through the air all around them in a sparkling crystalline shower of glimmering flakes from the tops of the trees where it had been piled nearly since the start of winter.

Boom.

Harry slipped his arm beneath Scott’s armpit and heaved him into the air, his back screaming in agony from the shards of white hot pain that stabbed into his brittle back like the searing blades of so many daggers.

Boom.

Turning, Harry could feel Scott’s dangling feet fighting through whatever possessed him, lightly kicking at the ground as they fought to find some sort of traction.

Boom.

The sound was so close he could feel the vibrations from the trembling ground clear up into his thighs. His eyes fixed on his winding path through the maze of the trees as the tears froze to his bright red cheeks.

Crash.

The scrub oak peeled back behind them as whatever was the source of that booming exited the clearing, slamming into the wall of branches, which peeled back and splintered into nothingness.

Boom.

Scott’s toes danced of the ground as something vaguely reminiscent of feeling coursed through the blood. The warm glow, which had dulled his senses, was slipping out through his pores into the night, allowing the waves of coldness to creep back along his flesh, chilling the skin before stabbing like sharp icicles into the flesh beneath. His eyes fixed on the ground as his head bobbed on his noodle of a neck.

Boom. Crash.

Branches were ripped from the trunks of the pines, the green needles filling the air about the shadowy form as it’s heavy footfalls pounded on the ground. Forcing its way through the forest, anything in its way was pulverized into powder.

Boom.

His feet starting to churn in an attempt to run, Scott’s feet sunk into the deep snow, wrenching him out of Harry’s grip. Landing face first in the packed powder, he closed his eyes tightly, pushing back the ice crystals that burned like fire against his bare eyeballs as he tried to get his arms beneath to push himself back up.

Boom!

“Get up!” Harry screamed. He whirled and grabbed Scott by the back of the shirt, dragging him along the ground as he watched the foliage behind them exploding in a cloud of green and white. He could see the black form in the center of the shrapnel, those eyes glowing like embers as they locked onto him.

Boom!

Bracing his hands against the frozen earth beneath the mat of snow, Scott dragged his legs under him and he was at least on all fours. Fighting against the wrenching on his shirt, he stumbled to his feet, lurching forward of his own volition.

Boom!

Harry let go of the sweatshirt, glancing back just long enough to ensure that Scott was on his feet. Turning back to the winding course through the irregularly spaced trunks, he barely had enough time to force his eyes shut as he ran straight into the low lying branch. The rough bark tore at the skin on his forehead, splitting it wide in a series on scrapes, the skin around it turning purple. The swelling began at impact.

Boom!

His feet flew out from beneath him as the next thing to land would be his shoulders as he watched his feet rise up into view against the dark canopy of the trees above. The back of his head slammed into the snow, which plumed into the air around him as his back crashed to the earth as well. Flopping helplessly at the ends of his flailing legs, his feet were the last to come crashing down.

Boom!

Scott scrambled onto his hands and knees by Harry, trying to slip his hands beneath Harry’s shoulders and hips, in hopes of, even in his severely weakened state, picking him up to carry him from the grove.

Boom!

The ground shuddered beneath them as Scott fought in vain to raise Harry from the ground as he rolled from side to side trying to regain the wind that had been forced from his suddenly collapsed lungs. It felt as though the earth was going to open wide and swallow them as it trembled beneath the thunderous footfalls that were now nearly upon them.

Boom!

The crashing was right behind him now, the echoing footfalls no more than a few feet from his turned back now. He could feel the cold breath of whatever it was that was following them raise the hackles on the back of his neck. The ferocious wind that ripped through the air, seeming to originate from the very core of their stalker, gusted painfully from behind, carrying with it the shrapnel from the leveled forest.

Boom!

Clenching his fists at his sides, Scott stared down at Harry briefly. His clenched eyes finally opened as his rolling stopped, that first wonderfully cold inhalation filling his lungs from the finally gasp. Knowing that there was nothing he could do for his new found friend other than watch him breath, Scott summoned the swell of adrenaline that pumped up from his chest, spilling out through his vessels into every corner of his being. His chest began to pound in anticipation. His bared teeth curled back his tightly sewn lips, his breath bursting from his nostrils like a wild bull.

Boom!

His legs tensed as he prepared to leap to his feet. His fingernails pressed crescents into his palms as his pulse throbbed within his tightly closed fists. He just needed it to get a little closer. Just a little more….

Boom!

Leaping to his feet, he whirled around. Facing the direction where the booming had come from, he led with his right, swinging it in a huge arc with all of the might that he could muster. It whistled through the air, landing on nothing but the thin night air as he stumbled forward, losing his balance. Toppling into the snow, he hopped back to his feet as soon as he hit the cold surface. His head snapped from one side to the other as he sought to gain a glimpse of whatever had been there only a second before.

But there was nothing there.

“My son,” a deep voice whispered along the breeze that streamed through the forest, swirling about them for a moment before finally being absorbed by the darkness.

“Where…?” Scott stammered as he whirled, trying to find the figure that had been right on their heels only a moment prior. It had sounded so massive, how could it have just vanished without a sound?

There was a loud crashing in the underbrush to the right as Scott whirled in time to catch the flash of the eyes of a large buck as it bounded through the foliage, its enormous rack of antlers blending in with the criss- crossing mass of tangled branches above it. Its eyes flashed like two yellow lights, their image lingering against the night as there was but a flash from the white patch on its hind end as it bounded off into the night.

“Are you all right?” Scott asked, turning as he noticed that Harry was now sitting up, sucking in the crisp air as though he had never done so before.

“Yeah,” he wheezed, take one long inhalation before allowing a long, thin sigh to creep from his lips, his shoulders finally settling into a slouch.

Scott caught movement from the top of his eyes and immediately looked up. There was a darkened shape hovering in midair against the line of trees in front of them.

“Help me,” a wispy voice whispered as the object dangling in midair came into focus.

It was a skull.

The flesh had been ripped from the exposed bone, severed muscles and tendons dangling from where they connected to the red stained skull. Two barren black holes stared at them from the center of the dripping face, the blood flowing in streams down the exposed bone, welling atop the stone cut cheek bones before falling in long lines to the snow.

“Please,” the apparition mouthed, its jaw clicking with the movement. “Help me.”

Scott stared at it, fighting his trembling legs as they wanted nothing more then to burst into a sprint, carrying him as far away from there as they possibly could. Slowly, a dark outline of a human form appeared beneath the skull, barely standing out from the darkened night. Perhaps he had at first mistaken it for one of the trunks of the trees that lined his view, or perhaps it hadn’t been there at all, but slowly it came into focus, barely discernible against the blackness that seemed to emanate from it, rather than from the night.

Tattered strands of fabric blew like tendrils from the form along the light breeze that had changed directions unnaturally so that now it was blowing right into his face. Two fiery embers peered forth from the blackness that surrounded the face beneath the shroud, burning straight through him with their blazing stare. A long arm extended from the form’s shoulder straight up into the floating skull, the hand disappearing within.

“Help me,” the meek voice cried again, the hand making the mouth of the skull move.

Scott just stared at the skull, which merely mouthed the words that floated on the sap- tinged air.

A loud, cackling laugh burst past the cracked lips of the figure that finally lowered the skull and turned it so that he could look into the hollow sockets where the eyes had only recently been. More laughter ensued as he moved his hand beneath the bone, causing the hinged jaw to open and close.

Even in the darkness and without being able to make out more than the outline of the shape, Scott knew that it was Matt.

“Help me Obi Wan Kenobi,” Matt uttered through the cackling, amusing himself with the lifeless skull. “You are my only hope.”

Laughter boomed from the core of the shadow as Scott was helpless to do anything more than watch.

“Here,” Matt said, his glowing eyes fixing directly on Scott.

He tossed the skull through the night, the darkened shape disappearing into shadows in midair before finally appearing right in front of him. Scott caught it against his chest, the damp, red fluid leeching into the fabric of his sweatshirt. He could feel the cold wetness of the rapidly drying skull on the skin of his palms. Holding it out on front of him, he could see clumps of blood stained hair matted to the barren skull, the seams in the plates of the bulbous head looking like sutures. As he watched it, the lower jaw cracked audibly as it lowered, the jaggedly broken teeth parting.

“It’s time,” a deep, hollow voice echoed from within the mass of bone in his hands.

Startled, he dropped the skull to the ground as though it had been a poisonous snake poised to strike at him. He eyes followed it to the ground where it sunk straight into the deep snow, only the reddened cap of the head visible atop the piled white powder.

Snapping his head up almost immediately, he looked back to where Matt had been standing, but he was already gone. There was nothing there but the rows of tree trunks, and the darkness trapped beneath the low- lying canopy of branches.

“Where did he go?” Harry asked from his right, where he was staring slack jawed towards the line of trees as well.

“I don’t know.”

“Figure that was Shane?”

Harry nodded towards the reddened lump that barely peeked up at them from the snow.

“That would be a safe bet.”

“Who do you think is next?” Harry asked as he tramped through the snow towards Scott, easing him by the shoulder away from the skull.

“I’m all out of old buddies,” Scott said, walking of his own volition through the maze of trunks, glancing down at the snow- covered ground only long enough to note what he already expected: there wasn’t a single track in the unbroken field of white.

“That certainly limits the options.”

“And then some.”

“So, the way I see it, there’s really only one thing left to do.”

“What’s that?” Scott asked.

Harry stopped, gripping Scott tightly by the shoulders and turning him so that he could look him directly in the eye.

“We have to go on the offensive.”

Scott just nodded.

“We have to track him down and kill him.”

“But he’s already dead.”

“Then let’s kill him again.”

“Do you think that will work?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Scoot looked down towards his feet, which were buried beneath the snow, noting that he couldn’t feel his toes at all. Like the rest of him, his body, his mind, he had become desensitized. All that he could feel was fear, which his mind shoved back into the darkened recesses of his brain as soon as it swelled up. There was nothing left after that. He had been reduced to a basic biological state. All that he could do was just the bare minimum necessary to survive, his instincts telling him to eat, drink and sleep. Any other less primal urges were stuffed back as anything of a more emotional base would always lead him back to the fear.

But there was something else deep down within him now, something that he hadn’t felt within before. It was like a fire, or at least the smoking kindling of what would become a fire. He could feel it welling deep in his chest, gaining strength as it fought to come to the forefront. It was the feeling that caused his teeth to grind, his eyes to narrow, and his breathing to slow.

It was rage. And with that emotion came the fire and determination with which he attacked every challenge. The fear and helplessness slipped from his consciousness as this new, powerful drive fought to the forefront.

Scott looked back up from the ground, his eyes locking straight on Harry’s. The kindling had been fanned to a full- fledged fire, which burned from behind his eyes, his trembling limbs suddenly gaining a newfound strength and stability.

With a nod of his stone chiseled, clenched jaw, his unblinking eyes turned back towards the night as they headed back towards the car, the shadows writhing in the blackness all around them in the lifeless forest.

XVII

Wednesday, November 16th

6 a.m.

“Excuse me,” Scott said, flagging down the man in the navy blue vest who walked down the aisle with a wrapped sandwich and a two liter bottle of Pepsi cradled against his chest.

“I’m on break,” the man said, nodding towards his food. “Try over there in electronics.”

With a pained grimace, Scott thanked him with a curt nod and headed towards the electronics section where he could hear the rustling of boxes from behind the stocked shelves along the wall that separated the section from the rest of the store.

Rounding the wall of jewelry boxes, he passed a long wall of nothing but film before coming to the entrance to the section. The cash register sat closed and locked down to the left of the entrance. Box filled carts littered the entranceway making it all but impossible to walk. Sliding between the closely packed metal carts, he looked over the tall stacks of boxes towards where he had heard the noise coming from. There was a tall, wild haired man with a shirt that read on the back in bright red letters: “Ski Naked.”

He was an incredibly large man. Not only did he have to be something like six foot five, but he had to be close to two hundred eighty pounds as well. The suddenly revolting idea proposed on the back of his far too tightly fitting shirt that rode up over his hairy, bloated stomach in the front was almost cause for something to be said to the man, but Scott needed something from him. Something that it seemed that not one of the hundred other employees he had seen in the store was able to do.

“Excuse me,” he said politely, craning around the mountainous stack of boxes full of video games.

The man looked up briefly, a contemptuous look streaking his face as he rolled his eyes. He had an enormous mane of fluffy dark hair and glasses that were tinted yellow. His fleshy cheeks jiggled as he tossed the pricing gun onto the shelf. Sighing loudly, he raised his eyebrows and took a step towards Scott.

“What do you want?” he grumbled.

“I need you to open one of these cases over in sporting goods.”

“I don’t have the time now. There should be someone over there.”

“There isn’t, and everyone I’ve talked to so far has been of no help whatsoever.”

“You’re just going to have to wait.”

“I already have.”

“Then wait some more,” he said, turning back down the aisle, his shirt creeping up from his hairy, exposed crack.

Scott smiled bemusedly; licking his upper lip as a smirk brought with it a quiet chuckle.

“I’m trying to be really nice here…”

“So am I,” the man interrupted.

Scott looked at the stacked boxes that covered nearly every available inch of the glossy, white tiled floor. An idea formed as the smirk widened.

“Oops,” he said, bumping into one of the towers of boxes with his hip.

The boxes toppled to the floor, the contents of the top box spilling out from where the tape had split along the upper seal. Wrapped video games covered the floor all around his feet.

“Hey,” the man said, whirling as his face turned bright red. “You just did that on purpose.”

Scott just smiled as he had grown weary of the banter. He hadn’t slept in what felt like a week. His entire body ached, his head pounded, and he most certainly didn’t have anything resembling the patience to deal with this asshole.

“I should come over there and make you pick that up.”

“Oops,” Scott said as another stack of boxes fell from a shift of his hips, crashing into another stack which fell as well.

“I watched you do that!” he shouted, his eyes growing as wild as his hair.

“You could have averted this by just opening the case for me when I had asked.”

“So you’re admitting that you did that on purpose.”

“If that’ll get you through the day…”

The electronics troll popped out of the aisle, holding in his gut so he could squeeze past the piles of boxes. His meaty ham- fists clenched at his sides, he walked right up to Scott and grabbed two handfuls of his shirt.

“What’s going on over there?” a suddenly panicked man wearing one of the navy blue vests beneath his down winter jacket gasped from where he stood at the entrance to the electronics section.

The chunky worker immediately released Scott’s shirt and took a rapid step backwards, his mouth falling slack.

The man set the briefcase he had been carrying, along with the brown paper bag full of what could presumably only been his lunch onto the counter by the register and proceeded to walk straight towards them, his face growing increasingly redder with each step. Passing Scott, he stopped right in front of the suddenly cowed wild haired worker, his teeth clenching as his jaw ground from side to side.

“Go wait for me in my office,” he growled, his eyes narrowing to mere slits.

He stood with his back to Scott watching as the electronics guy weaved between the stacks of boxes and out into the aisle, heading towards the back of the store. Scott could hear the man sigh as he paused just momentarily before turning back to Scott.

“Please accept my apologies, sir. My nephew has a tendency to be a little antisocial. Hence, we try to keep him here in the middle of the night as much as possible to keep him away from the customers.”

“Your nephew?”

“When your sister calls and says her son needs a job so that he can help her pay the bills now that her husband of twenty- five years has decided to flat out split on them, what are you supposed to do?”

With a reassuring smile, Scott nodded. “I completely understand.”

The man paused, inspecting Scott. His dark mustache twitched as his narrow brown eyes scanned every inch of him. The long line of fluorescent tubes mounted high above in the ceiling reflected off the shiny skin atop his head under his thin comb- over.

“Now,” he said, still wearing the same uncomfortable expression. “Is there something that I can do for you.”

“I need something out of one of these cases over here in sporting goods.”

“All right,” the man said through a feigned smile, pulling a mass of keys from his hip where they had been clipped to his belt. “If you will please follow me then.”

The two walked through the maze of boxes and out into the main aisle while the man tossed through the pile of keys one by one, finally pinching one of the smaller silver ones between his thumb and index finger.

Rounding the corner, they passed the limited costume jewelry section and beneath an archway formed from hip waders. There was a counter straight ahead, a small register bolted in the front left corner. Behind the counter was a large glass case filled with a vertical row of shotguns and rifles. Beside the case on the shelves that ran the length of the wall were boxes upon boxes of ammunition, stocked from the floor clear up the nine- foot wall.

“This case?” the man asked somewhat hesitantly as he nodded towards the wall of guns.

“Yes, sir,” Scott said politely. “I need that Remington twelve gauge and the Winchester right below it.”

“Doing some hunting?”

“Something like that.”

“What are you going for?”

“Deer,” Scott muttered, having not expected to have to justify the purchase.

“With shotguns?”

“They’re for the geese, it’s a combination hunt.”

“Oh,” the man mused as he opened the small circular lock on the bottom of the case and slid back the large pane of glass.

He pulled the Remington down first, lifting it off of the plastic hooks that held it in place. Setting it on the counter, he pulled down the Winchester, laying it next to the other. Closing the glass door, he replaced the metal lock and reached beneath the counter. Producing a large book of forms in triplicate, he opened it to the next available form and turned it, handing it to Scott so that it would be right side up.

“I just need you to fill this out for me really quickly if you please,” he said with a curt smile, handing Scott a pen from atop the register.

“Thanks,” Scott said as he brought the pen to the page and began to fill it out as quickly as he could. He wrote down his name and address, his social security number and his driver’s license number. He filled in every bit of information from his date of birth through his mother’s maiden name. They wanted every bit of information about his life that he was able to provide, which he filled in just as quickly as he could. Affixing his signature to the bottom line, he handed it back to the man whom, of course, needed to verify all of the information with every piece of plastic that Scott had in his wallet.

After several minutes of comparing the driver’s license to the page, he handed it back to Scott, coyly comparing the face on the plastic to his current stubbled visage.

“Is there anything else we can get you?’ he asked, tearing the top form off and setting it to the side of the register.

“I need about six boxes of twelve gauge shells.”

The man, who had unzipped his coat so that his managerial badge was now visible, stepped to the side and grabbed one of the boxes.

“Any preference as to brand?”

“Nope, just grab whatever.”

The manager pulled down one box at a time, stacking them in two sets of three on the fake white marble countertop next to the shotguns.

“Can I get you some licenses to go with that?” he asked with a smile.

“No thanks,” Scott said, pulling his gold card from his wallet.

The man stared at him somewhat dumbfounded for a moment.

Intercepting the look, Scott elaborated.

“We’ve already got the licenses, I just figured it was about time to replace that old gun of mine before we left for the mountains, but I couldn’t decide which one to go with so I figured I’d just buy them both and see which one I was more comfortable with in the field.”

“Will that give you enough time to have the stock modified to fit your reach?”

“I’m lucky,” Scott said wishing for nothing more for the man to just end the conversation and hand him his damned shotguns. “My reach is the same as the standard factory stock. It makes it easy.”

Shaking his head, as he really had no idea what he was talking about, he forced the credit card into the man’s face as he began to ring the transaction into the register. After a moment of hammering keys and scanning bar codes, he turned back to Scott with a far more sincere grin.

“That’ll be nine hundred eighty dollars and thirty-two cents.”

He pulled the electronically generated receipt from the printer in the register and handed it to Scott. As he signed, the man placed the heavy boxes of shells into a plastic bag, slipping it into two other before finally taking the signed receipt from Scott and stapling his copy to the bag.

Tucking the shotguns beneath his left arm, Scott grabbed the bag and with a polite nod headed towards the front of the store. Every one of the worthless employees who stood by the main aisle pretending to sweep or mop or stock shelves stopped what they were doing to stare, open mouthed, at him as he walked towards the sliding doors at the front of the store. He could feel their eyes on his back clear out into the parking lot as he headed across the sand covered ice that covered the lot towards the Cherokee.

Popping open the trunk, he laid the gun on the carpeted floor, setting the bag beside them. Hurrying around the side of the car, he hopped into the driver’s seat and pinned the pedal to the floor as he turned the key. The engine roared as he dropped the gear into reverse, the tires spinning on the sand as they tossed a cloud of the minuscule grains into the air. He backed from the parking place, pausing long enough to throw it into drive, and headed out of the enormous parking lot towards the flashing red lights of the street beyond.

Heading back towards the highway, his mind couldn’t help but revert back to the one thing that was bothering him more than anything else. Sure, the one thing that bothered him more than anything was the fact that everyone he knew was dying at the hands of a former friend who appeared to be more of an unnatural apparition than a man. But taking it at face value, there was a part of the story that seemed to be missing. Everything that he had learned from pouring through that dead nun’s diary, and everything that they had read and reread in the faded yellow trappings, pointed to the number two hundred as the number of deaths associated with the coming of the bloodspawn. And in every single one of those cases, all of the deaths had happened at once, not spread out one by one over a great number of days as these had been so far.

The killings were lacking the same MO.

Perhaps the nuns had been wrong from the start and what they had found here wasn’t the scenario that that thought it was. Maybe, and while this most definitely had something of a supernatural undertone, it wasn’t the maturation of the bloodspawn as they thought it would be. But then explain the child Harry rescued from the nuns before they killed it. Explain the presence of the dark figure that had shredded the forest with his mere will, shattering the trunks of so many trees as though they had been made of glass. All of the secondary signs seemed to be there. Could that all have just been coincidence?

Scott pulled into the driveway and pressed the garage door opener. A grip of long icicles fell from where they dangled from the roof, shattering in front of the door on the snow covered concrete as it rolled up against the ceiling of the garage. Rolling in slowly, he parked next to the mass of unpacked boxes and killed the engine. Leaning back over his shoulder, he stared at the two shotguns as they lay on the floor in the trunk. Their mere presence inspired power as he knew that with a single shot from one of the black metal and wood creations and a spray of the tiny steel bb’s, he could snuff out a life in a heartbeat. That seemed of little comfort as he had watched Matt do the same with his bare hands in as little time.

Shaking his head and sighing loudly, the sudden weight of the daunting task ahead settling into the knotted muscles of his shoulders. He shoved the keys into his pockets and closed the car door, walking around the back of the car and walking past the boxes to the garage door. Pressing the buttons, he climbed up the pair of cement stairs and into the house.

“Harry,” he called from the family room as he crossed the plush carpeting and bounded up the stairs.

“In here,” Harry’s voice echoed from the vaulted ceiling in the living room.

Crossing the tile floor and stepping into the living room, Scott leaned over Harry’s shoulder staring down at the massive pile of newspaper clippings that had been arranged chronologically on his work desk.

“Anything new?” Scott asked, but Harry’s response was cut off before it even passed his lips by the ringing phone.

“Just a sec,” Scott said as he walked through the living room and into the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Ramsey?”

It was a deep male voice, and sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it right off.

“Yes…”

“This is Bob Goode with the People Network again.”

“Oh.”

“I just wanted to call to let you know that we’ve found a great lead on the location project that you requested.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ve got this one figured out by now.”

“Regardless, Mr. Ramsey, you’ve already paid for our services and we guarantee results. Do you have a fax number so that I can fax you the information as soon as I get it?”

“Yeah,” Scott said. “But really, I don’t think it’s necessary…”

“How so?”

“I’m fairly confident I’ve already figured out the child’s identity.”

“Who?” the man asked, suddenly quite intrigued.

“A childhood friend of mine, Matt Parker.”

“Well,” the man said, pausing as he took Scott’s answer as something of a challenge, to see if he could prove him wrong. “We’ll just have to see if the information that I found supports your assumption. Now, the fax number?”

“Area code 719, 590, 2644.”

“Thank you very much. You should have the information that you requested faxed to you within, most likely, the next twenty four hours, but I guarantee it within forty- eight. And once again, Mr. Ramsey, on behalf of the People Network I would like to thank you for choosing our service and hope that we will be able to help you again in the future.”

There was a click on the other end of the line and suddenly Scott wished that he had not chosen the People Network. The man had grown too pushy and it was quite obvious that he wanted nothing more than to prove to him, and the entire world for that matter, that there was no greater detective when it came to doing what he did in the entire world. But, in his eagerness to see if Harry had found anything new while he was gone, he pushed the conversation to the back of his mind and it was only a matter of time before he forgot about it completely.

“Who was that?” Harry asked as Scott entered the living room.

“Oh, that was that guy I told you about that I hired over the Internet to track down the identity of the child.”

“Seems kind of a moot point now, huh?”

“That’s what I told him, but he seems hell bent on doing it. What can you do?”

Harry turned back to the table and grabbed a smaller stack of newspaper clipping from the right side of the table.

“You see,” Harry said, transferring the smaller stack, which could have been no more than three sheets thick, to his left hand as he gestured to the others with his right. “I’ve grouped these according to content. This thick stack on the left here is the actual newspaper clippings detailing the two hundred deaths. We’ve already looked at most of them, but what I found here is quite interesting.”

“Go on.”

“Shuffled in the middle of all of those articles, I found these three. Now granted, they are nothing more than mere blurbs, and really don’t give that much information at all, but listen to this. Do you remember that Article we read about the mass graves in Germany?”

“Sure.”

“Well, listen to this. I found this one folded and stuck to the back of another one of the clippings. I don’t know which paper this is from as the top has been torn from the page, but let me read it to you.”

Scott sat down in the armchair nearest the desk, turning it slightly so that he was looking directly at Harry.

“This is from Schlossberg,” Harry started. “It must be from some American or western European paper as it’s written in English, but I digress. Here we go.

“The third horrible, disheveled body in as many days turned up today on the bank of the Rhine in this war abandoned rural town. State officials have declined comment. Locals fear the killings may have been by some sort of animal as there are no wounds consistent with bullets or stabbings. Local farmers are in the process of combing the heavily vegetated hills in search of what they presume to be a pack of wild dogs.”

“That could be just coincidence. It could have nothing to do with, what was it again, a mass grave?”

“True, but then again, what if it does?”

Scott just sighed and nodded, leaning back in the chair as suddenly the lack of sleep crept up the base of his spine and settled into the back of his skull, making it feel hollow. His heavy eyelids drooped half way over his dark, red rimmed eyes. Stifling a yawn, he batted his lids fiercely, fighting back the swell of sleep that threatened to swallow him beneath a wave of darkness.

“There’s another one here,” Harry said, tossing the small clipping he had just read onto the desk. “And while I have no idea what paper this actually came from, I can see that it’s an AP release. Listen:

“Johannesburg, South Africa. Half a dozen unidentified bodies have turned up over the last few days, presumably victimized by revolutionary forces in the nearby countryside outside of Johannesburg. And while, uncharacteristically, no one has taken credit for the slayings, authorities believe they are close to apprehending the culprits. The condition of the bodies resembles that of being drawn and quartered, the bodies having been gruesomely ripped limb from limb. A thorough search of the surrounding area is being performed as authorities are unable to rule out the possibility of more similar casualties."

“That’s where this nun was before she came here,” Scott said, leaning forward and rubbing the small balls of crust from the corners of his eyes.

“Exactly.”

“So perhaps there were more than two hundred deaths.”

“Possibly.”

“Possibly?”

“Or maybe these deaths were just a harbinger of things to come.”

“You’re suggesting that what we’re experiencing now is nothing more than the prelude to the actual event?”

“That’s the way it looks to me.”

“So we need to end this right now or we’re going to end up with two hundred more bodies.”

“I think so.”

The two sat in silence for a moment as Scott chewed gently on his lower lip. Harry tossed the clipping back on the desk with the other in its small pile and looked questioningly at Scott.

“There’s one thing that’s puzzling me a bit, though.”

“Hmm?”

“Where around here could one go to find exactly two hundred people at the same time to cause some sort of mass casualty?”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Think about it. There are far more than two hundred people in a mall at any given time. Air Force and Colorado College Hockey games draw more fans than that, and

The football games are always sold out. There are countless youth league games where the numbers would approximate that, but it doesn’t fit the profile to exterminate largely children. What does that leave? Businesses, movie theaters on a slow day?”

“Restaurants? Dormitories?”

“Sure. You see where I’m going with this.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t narrow it down very much at all really.”

“Think about it this way, though. What do we have right around this area, near to these hills where you will find anything resembling one of those things?”

“Nothing.”

“Right. Nothing.”

“This entire area is almost completely residential. The nearest restaurant capable of holding two hundred people is a fifteen- minute drive. The nearest businesses of that size are just as far. All of the killings so far have been in this exact area.”

“That could be nothing more than coincidence.”

“Maybe, but I inclined to think not.”

“What do you suggest then?” Scott said, rising from the chair and placing his hands in the middle of his back. Leaning backwards, the vertebrae in his back popped audibly.

“I suggest we don’t wait around long enough to find out.”

“I’m with you there.”

The phone rang again.

Rolling his eyes, Scott lumbered to the kitchen and grabbed the headset from the receiver. With a beep, the green LED display screen came to life.

“Hello?” Scott answered impatiently.

“Scott?”

He recognized the voice immediately.

“Oh, hi Sharon. What’s new?”

“I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“We just signed the contract on the last lot in the project. We’re now officially full.”

“That sounds great.”

“That’s it? Sounds great? I expected a little more enthusiasm than that. Are you all right?”

“Just having a hard time sleeping is all. I’m a little under the weather and just need to take a little time off.”

“Must be the stress. Well, don’t take too much time, with all of these plots commissioned, we’re down to your part of the deal. You’ve suddenly got a whole lot of houses to build.”

“But that’s a good thing,” Scott said with a smile.

“That’s what I like to hear. So get some rest and get yourself back up to one hundred percent.”

“Thanks for the call, Sharon.”

“You’re coming to the mixer on Saturday still, aren’t you?”

“That’s the plan.”

“It wouldn’t be the same without the builder there, and it sounds as though we’re going to get a really good turn out.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“And you know, I was thinking, maybe the two of us could go out for drinks when it’s through?”

“That sounds nice,” Scott said with a genuinely pleasant smile.

It was the first time in the last three days that he had forgotten about the current situation, if just for the few seconds it took to be asked out.

“Then I guess I’ll see you Saturday,” Sharon said, her voice positively bubbling.

“Yeah, see you Saturday.”

“Buh- bye.”

There was a click on the other end and Scott hung up the phone with a twinkle in his eye.

Walking back into the living room, he caught the sullen look that wrenched Harry’s face into a concerned knot and remembered the conversation that they had been having before the phone rang.

“You want to go in there, don’t you?” Scott said, the faded remnants of his smile fading into the creases in his cheeks.

“Yep.”

“When?”

“Do you have any plans now?”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

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THE BLOODSPAWN

Michael McBride

© 2004 Michael McBride. All rights reserved.

PART THIRTEEN

SECTION 13

Chapters 18 and 19

XVIII

Wednesday, November 16th

3 p.m.

Scott closed the trunk of the Cherokee, and took a step back, breathing a heavy sigh. He had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

“Is that everything?” Harry asked as he bounded down the two short steps into the garage from the house.

“I have no idea,” Scott responded from beneath raised brows as he shook his head.

“Well then, let’s take a quick inventory and see.”

Scott walked to the edge of the garage beneath the overhanging roof and stared out into the street. The snow was coming in waves now, sheets blowing one after the other from side to side on the rapidly blowing wind, which howled through the trees all around them. The streetlights flickered as the dark cloud cover triggered their light sensors. Everything was white, from the densely covered ground to the snow- crusted branches of the trees and roofs of the houses.

“Shotguns?” Harry queried as he stood beside Scott, huddling his arms around himself as protection from the wicked wind.

“Check.”

“Shells?”

“Check.”

“Hatchets?”

“Check.”

“Knives?”

“We’ve got the two heavy handled hunting knives with the serrated edges, and each of us has a pocket knife.”

“Good. Rope?”

“Check.”

“Gasoline.”

“We’ve got a gallon.”

“Flame?”

“Matches and a lighter.”

Harry paused momentarily. “Anything else you can think of?”

“I’m at a loss. If none of this stuff works, we’re as good as dead regardless.”

The two stood in the quiet garage listening to the snow fall. They both knew that Scott was right, and more than likely, after having seen what Matt was capable of, it was almost a foregone conclusion regardless.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Harry asked in a muffled whisper.

“Do we have a choice?”

“You could walk away right now, catch the next flight to somewhere tropical and never have to think about this ever again.”

“Could you do that?”

“I’ve been preparing for this my entire life. Since that one night where I stumbled upon those nuns slaughtering those children in that little house, it’s been the sole focus of my life. And while I didn’t choose to have to take responsibility for any of this, it was thrust upon me, and I’ve had no choice but to deal with that. If you want to get the hell out of here right now, I’ll wish you no ill will and we’ll part as friends. Heaven knows this is about the last place in the world that I want to be right now. But this is my burden, my cross to bear, and regardless of whether you’re coming or not, I have no choice but to face him… and kill him.”

Scott looked at Harry as he surveyed the storm. He looked a lot older than he had even a few days ago when they had first met. His skin somehow seemed more pale, the wrinkles more heavily defined. And there was something about the way he carried himself that had aged as well. His face was permanently affixed in an expression of pained discomfort, his weary eyes barely more than slits between the bright red rims of his eyelids. The light gray, short- cropped hair atop his head was matted and messy.

“There’s nothing like planning to kill an old friend to get an evening started.”

Harry looked at him and nodded, obviously relieved that he wasn’t going to have to do it alone. He rested a hand on Scott’s shoulder and then patted it several times before turning and walking to the side of the car.

“There’s something that you need to remember, though. And while he may look and sound like your old friend Matt, the man that we will be facing is someone completely different. Your friend died that night in that lake, maybe even sometime before. And whatever humanity he once possessed died with him. What we will face tonight in an incarnation of pure evil, a soulless monster hell bent on not only our deaths, but the eventual deaths of two hundred others. And should we fail tonight, you and I both know that it’s just a matter of time before he comes for us, and when he does we’ll die an ugly death just like the others.”

“I know,” Scott whispered from beneath the overhang.

“But I need to know that if and when that time comes that you’ll be able to pull the trigger, or drag the serrated edge of one of those big hunting knives across his throat.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“If you can’t do that, you realize you could kill us both.”

“Of course I know that,” Scott said as he turned back towards the garage, walking across the cement pad and around the front of the car.

“Then I can count on you?”

“Of course.”

Scott opened the driver’s side door and climbed in, fishing the keys from his pocket and shoving them into the ignition. Harry clambered in beside him, slamming the door as he reached for the seat belt, strapping it across his chest and buckling it into the clip. Belting himself in, Scott scanned the rearview mirror and backed the car out of the garage and into the driveway.

Enormous flakes of snow buffeted the car from all directions, swirling around it like a frosty tornado. The windshield wipers hammered from side to side as fast as they could, brushing the snow aside into two long arcs atop the windshield. The wheels grabbed for traction, skidding momentarily as Scott thrust the car into drive and headed down the icy road.

“How much time do we have?” Scott asked, his eyes intently fixed on the road which seemed to vanish behind the swirling snow that coated the windshield, blocking the light from the headlights.

“Sunset’s at 6:08. That gives us nearly two and a half hours to set up.”

“Is that enough time?”

“How long could it possibly take to bring a shotgun to your shoulder, stick a knife in your pocket, another beneath your belt and grab an ax? I think time, if nothing else, is definitely on our side at this point.”

“But what if we’re wrong? What if he’s already there, waiting for us? What if we don’t have that small amount of time to gather our stuff? What if we never even make it out of this car?”

Until he actually said it out loud, the possibility of his own death on that day had never really sunken in. What he now faced was the distinct reality that he may never see the sun rise again, he may never see his own home again, he may never get married or have children or go to the Super Bowl. His life may be relegated to nothing more than the next few hours.

“There are definitely a lot of ‘what ifs’,” Harry said, turning the blower in the dash so that it blew atop his rubbing hands. “But let’s look at the facts as we know them. We have never seen anything during the day. Each time we have seen Matt…”

“I can’t do this if we use his name,” Scott interrupted.

“Would you prefer the bloodspawn?”

“Anything but his real name.”

“All right then,” Harry continued. “Every time we have seen the bloodspawn, it has been not only dark, but later in the evening. No one has died during the day…”

“Yet.”

Harry stopped talking and stared over at him. His furrowed brow and projecting lower jaw betrayed his sudden and overwhelming sense of frustration.

“Sorry,” Scott muttered as he turned out of the development and headed towards the cloud- blanketed mountains.

There were no other tracks in the deep snow that covered the road, nothing but the lines of thick trees to either side to even signify where the road was. He just stayed to the center of the channel of trees, the tires knifing through the virgin white surface. His mind raced so fast, and through so many different topics and ideas that none of them lingered long enough for his conscious thought to catch up with them. It was a jumble of concentrated fear and the onset of panic that raced by so fast that it was all he could do to grip that steering wheel as tightly as he possibly could and keep that car on the icy road.

Harry just stared straight out the window at the rows of trunks as they drove past. It reminded him of sitting in his father’s truck as they drove past cornfields when he was a kid. He could remember vividly just leaning his head against the passenger’s side window of the old, beat up truck, watching the rows of golden stumps as they extended back as far as he could see. He had tried to look for the bright red and green heads of pheasants between those rows, making something of a game of it in his own mind. But as he stared between those quickly passing trunks, watching the gaps between them, he was looking for something far different. He was looking for the harbinger of his own death, the monster who he knew that, be it today, or years down the road, would bring him to his ultimate demise.

Silently they rode, each of them lost in their own minds, struggling with their own demons, as the trees peeled back to either side, revealing the lone white house in the middle of the meadow. The towers of the old convent loomed over the tops of the snow- covered trees on the horizon against the mountains.

Scott slowed the Jeep as the wind pummeled them from the side, the snow blowing parallel to the ground. Fighting for traction, Scott coaxed the car across the white sheet towards the house, driving it right up onto the lawn next to one of the barren, dead old deciduous trees to the side of the house.

He stared past Harry through the window at the side of the house for a moment before finally killing the engine.

“Well,” he said, taking a deep breath. “We’re here.”

His heart already racing, his trembling hands tugged on the handle to open the door. The wind raced up to greet him, blowing masses of frozen flakes at him as he climbed down from the car and into the deep snow. Having learned from the slipper episode, he had worn snow boots, the fake fur rising from the tops of the tan gortex covering.

Staring up into the sky, his eyelids batted at the racing flakes, as he sought to see the sun one final time through the thick, dark clouds to no avail. Every muscle, every tendon in his body was taut with anticipation causing his whole body to ache. Each step he took through the deep snow on his way back to the trunk felt like a thousand. Every fiber of his being cried with a voice of its own for him to get back in the car and take Harry up on his idea of a trip to the tropics.

It wasn’t a matter of whether or not he would be able to live with himself if he turned tail and ran like a coward, because he knew, deep down, that he would have no problem living with that decision. He was still there because of one fact alone. It wasn’t just that he had a tendency to take responsibility for everything around him; that was in his nature. It was that he had been unable to take responsibility for Matt. He had failed to be a friend when Matt had needed one the most, and he had failed to save Matt’s life when the time had come to do so. He had been forced to see Matt’s face, his arm reaching out for him, as the car sunk beneath the frozen waters, every night in his dreams, and it was permanently engraved in the backs of his eyes so that it was there every time he closed his eyes. Matt was now his responsibility. It was because of his failures that they were there today. And in his mind, he knew that if he had found the courage to stand up to his friends for Matt so many years ago, that they wouldn’t be here today.

“None of this is your fault,” Harry said softly, placing a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “Don’t even think that for a second. I’d like to think that this would have happened regardless. What we’re dealing with here is something far beyond our limited understanding and comprehension.”

“I know,” Scott said as he opened the trunk, pulling out the Winchester and handing it to Harry. “Deep down, I know that. But I can’t help but feel in some way responsible.”

Harry pulled out his jacket from the trunk, slipping his arms into the navy blue down jacket. He grabbed two boxes of the shells and shoved one into both of the front pockets of the jacket.

“You have to push that out of your mind now. You have to focus solely on the task at hand. Think about nothing but what you are going to do when we come across the bloodspawn. If you can’t do that, then I can assure you that neither of us are ever going to come out of this house again.”

Scott just nodded in silent agreement as he donned his own dark blue jacket and tried to shove one of the boxes of shells into his pocket, but it wouldn’t fit. Opening the box, he dumped the contents into the front left pocket of his coat. Grabbing another box, he filled his right, tossing the empty cartons back into the trunk. Pulling out the Remington, he held it in his hands for a moment. The wood on the stock and the pump were both damp with the pine oil that he could smell all the way in the back of his sinuses. It was slick with the oily coating, and he had no choice but to wipe it off as much as he could on his faded jeans. The sweat from his hands alone would make it as difficult to grasp as he knew he could bear.

Harry didn’t even look up as he grabbed both of the pocketknives from the storage cubby on the side of the trunk, handing one to Scott before shoving the other into the pocket of his pants. Producing the other pair of much larger and far more intimidating blades, he held them out in his open palms, feeling the sheer weight of the deadly instruments. Scott snatched one out of his hands, staring at it only briefly before slipping it into the inside pocket of his jacket as Harry loosened his belt and slipped the end through the slots in the leather sheath.

“You grab the rope, I’ll grab the gas,” Harry said as he pulled the can from the trunk and immediately turned to head towards the front of the house.

Bundling the rope beneath his left arm, Scott closed the trunk and shoved his keys back into his pocket as the little voice in the back of his head questioned why he would take the time to do so knowing that he may never get to use them ever again.

By the time Scott rounded the front corner of the house, Harry was already clambering up the rickety front steps, the wood creaking loudly beneath his footfalls. Glancing to his left, he studied the bowed wood of the panels on the front side of the house, the faded, stained wood appearing from beneath the chipped and peeling white paint. The plywood sheets that covered the windows had enormous water stains on them and they bowed and buckled as they tried to peel back from the rusty nails that held them in place.

Gripping the wobbly black iron railing, Scott ascended the shaky front steps to the rotting wood porch, nearly bumping into Harry who stood motionless outside the front door.

“What…?” Scott started, but the question choked in the back of his throat.

He stared past Harry at the open entryway, the door standing wide open. The hardwood floors in the entryway of the house were damp from the snow that had blown in and melted there. The lock box lay on the floor in the middle of the small puddle. Dust swirled in the dim light that issued into the room from the thin cracks around the seal of the plywood on the boarded windows. The crumbling walls were stained with the fading letters of years of graffiti, enormous holes revealing the decomposing wiring and warping studs.

Harry turned around and looked back at Scott, who feigned a short smile and nodded. With a deep inhalation, Harry stepped across the threshold and into the house, his damp feet squeaking on the floor as the mounds of snow atop his boots fell to the floor to mark his footprints. His knuckles grew bright wide as he gripped the shotgun so tightly that it looked as though they might split open. Reaching into his left pocket, he opened the box of shells, producing three that he loaded into the bottom, shucking one into the chamber. The wooden stock twitched noticeably in his trembling grasp.

Following suit, Scott loaded his gun as well, placing his finger atop the safety button several times to make sure he knew exactly where it was so that he could press it in just a split second and begin firing when the time came. It felt heavy in his grasp.

“How do you want to do this?” Scott whispered, standing beside Harry as he stared through the doorway into the kitchen.

“We need to try to seize the element of surprise. We’re only going to get one shot at this.”

Scott cocked his head and winced as he peered towards the kitchen. There was a thin breeze, as cold as ice, blowing straight towards them from the gap beneath the door leading to the basement. It was barely enough the stir the piled and balled dust that littered the kitchen, blowing it like miniature tumbleweeds across the plywood floor, but it stabbed straight into his flesh, cutting deeply within to the very core of his being. It resonated in his bones with an expanding throbbing that felt as though it would snap the brittle calcifications like icicles.

“He already knows we’re here,” Scott rasped in barely more than a whisper.

Harry, who he could see was visibly chilled as well, nodded in silent agreement, his breath bursting from his lips in damp pillars of steam.

The two stood there in silence, both fighting the urge to turn tail and flee as the bitter wind rolled across the floor and up their flesh to their faces where the tips of their noses chapped, turning red and threatening to snap right off of their chilled faces. Beneath the door, in that thin crack merely more than a half inch tall, they could see the darkness. It called to them and pushed them away all at the same time. It had a life of its own as the blackness seemed to move, swirling and exploding on the arctic air that gusted from beneath the door.

“I think we need to set up down there,” Harry said, his voice dry from the growing lump in his throat.

Scott just stared beneath the door at the darkness. Somehow, he knew that Harry was right, but he also knew that going through that doorway was going to be like stepping straight through the gates of hell.

With a will of their own, his legs started for the door. His mind tripped over itself as it tried frantically to stir him to head the other direction, to go anywhere else in the world other than towards that cellar door. But in the end, it settled for forcing his finger to release the safety on the shotgun and slip his finger beneath the trigger guard and atop the cold steel trigger.

Gripping the chipped brass doorknob in his hand, the rust rubbing off in the palm of his hand, Harry twisted it until it disengaged. With a quiet click, the door popped open. Glancing back over his shoulder to Scott, who clutched his shotgun in his white knuckled grasp, his pale white face fixed in a look of extreme tension, he opened the door to the cellar.

The overwhelming scent of damp earth and mildew gusted up from the darkness, swelling all around them. There was something else buried beneath that scent. It was nothing that either of them could put their finger on, but it was something of a muffled combination of copper and sulfur, just the merest hint of their presence clinging to the backs of their tongues as they could taste it more than smell it.

Stepping from the edge of the plywood board over the peeled edge of linoleum that was still pinned to the top of the stairs, Harry led the descent down into the cellar. The air grew increasingly cold around them with each successive step down the wobbly, rotting wooden stairs. Freeing a hand from their shotguns, both grabbed hold of the thin railing that ran down the wall, shuddering in its loose brackets as they placed weight upon it.

Scott heard the hard scrape of gravel being ground atop stone as Harry stepped from the last stair onto the small cement landing.

There was a sharp sting in the knuckle of his left forefinger as it snagged something along the railing. Fighting the urge to shout his frustration, he rubbed at the peeled flap of skin, resealing it to the wound with the fresh blood that seeped from beneath. Running his fingertips along the wall, he grasped hold of the object that had torn his flesh, yanking at it until he freed it from where it had been pinned between the wall and the railing.

It had a long, thin wooden handle nearly a foot in length. Atop the handle was an oblong, heavy wooden cylinder, almost like the head of a mallet, but either end was capped with a metal surface covered with jagged, sharp pyramids of metal. Turning it over in his hand just once, he replaced it between the railing and the wall and crept down the rickety stairs to the floor.

There was but the smallest line of light that trickled into the room on a thin beam from the side of the boarded window, a pinpoint of light resting on the dirt floor. Harry stood beside it, his form a shadow barely standing out from the darkness, the light reflecting from the polished steel surface of the barrel of his gun.

“Can you feel it?” Harry whispered. “It’s all around us.”

“Feel what?” Scott answered as the words tore at the parched membranes in this throat.

“Evil.”

Scott fidgeted as the cold wave of darkness embraced him from all sides at once.

“It’s all around us,” Harry whispered in a thin, cracked voice. “It’s in the walls and the floor and the air, so thick I can hardly breathe.”

“All I can feel is the cold.”

“The cold is just the start. It feels like it’s crawling across my skin, shoving daggers through the flesh as it fights to take hold of me from the outside. And it’s tangible, like you could just reach out and grab a handful of the air as it crawls towards you.”

“Then this is where we need to set up,” Scott said through the dryness in his mouth as he stared at the thin line of light as it slowly dissipated. “And we’d better do so quickly because we’re running out of time.”

XIX

Wednesday, November 16th

9 p.m.

Time meant nothing as Scott crouched in the blackened corner of the frigid cellar. The moist earth was covered with a thin layer of crystallized frost, hardening it and melting beneath his knee, soaking into his jeans. His eyes had struggled to acclimate to the darkness, but all he could see was the diffuse outline of the hot water heater and the furnace against the earthen wall beyond. His own breath moistened his chapped and stinging face as he fought with his weary eyelids, knowing that closing his eyes even long enough to blink could spell his demise.

His heart pounded somewhere between his chest and the enormous lump in his throat, his trembling finger poised atop the trigger of the shotgun that rested atop his right thigh. His back pressed against the crumbling wall behind him, chunks of earth fragmenting into small cascades of sand and scraping down the surface of his jacket at sporadic intervals. His whole body trembled from the combination of the intense cold and the nearly crippling fear that raced up and down every inch of his skin, the goose bumps painfully erected along his flesh. And while he was uncertain which of the two factors caused the waves of shakes that seized hold of his body every few minutes, he knew that it helped to keep him attentive, helped to keep his focus on the nothingness upon which he gazed.

Harry was in the corner of the room completely opposite his own position. He was sitting on the ground to the right of the hot water heater; his back wedged into the corner. He had to know that. He had to know exactly where Harry was as the last thing he wanted to do was to raise his gun to fire and end up blowing a hole in Harry’s chest. And Harry needed to know the same thing.

Over the light whistle of the breeze through the seam of the window, he could hear Harry breathing, the cold rattling in his lungs from his hiding place in the darkness. And that sound was comforting, for he knew as long as he heard that he was not alone down there in that cellar. That was something that right now was worth its weight in gold as the smell of the rotting earth and the wisps of death that rolled through the darkness across the frozen floor seemed to sap the life from him. All he could do was sit there, trying to peel back the blackness with his eyes and listen to the barely audible wheeze from across the room: his only connection to life.

Occasionally, the floorboards overhead would creak as though from the weight of unseen footsteps, but that would pass. Initially, they had both bolted up the staircase, which nearly crumbled each and every time beneath their weight. They would burst into the kitchen, the muzzles of their glistening weapons flashing in every direction as they sought to line up the final shot, but there had never been anything there. After the fourth trip to the top of the stairs, they had been forced to reckon with the fact that it was nothing more than the settling of the house. And that what sounded like footsteps was nothing more than the house itself as it continued on the long and somewhat eternal journey back into the earth from which it had sprung through the hands of man.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

There was the sound on the floor above. Scott flashed a glance across the room to where Harry crouched in the corner, hoping to see something comforting in his face that would allow him to rationalize the sound, to chase the fear that had crept into a ball at the base of his spine. But there was nothing, nothing but the darkness that encased Harry in the shadows. Biting at his lip, a trickle of blood spilled past his clenched teeth from the split in his chapped lips.

And just as it had the previous four or five, maybe more as he had lost count, times, the footsteps faded into a hollow resonation above, dissipating into the sound of the breeze that trickled through the poorly sealed window.

The house, it seemed, had come alive around them after they had settled into their positions, the walls around them seeming to pulsate with a life that was almost sentient, alternately feeling warm and then cold against his back. The air that slipped through the window sounded like the impeded breathing of a sick man, eerily reminiscent of a death rattle as they hid deep within the heart of the house.

In addition to what sounded like footsteps above, they could hear the house swaying in the wind atop the crumbling foundation. The creaking and groaning had at one point gotten so loud that it sounded as though a tornado was passing over head, trying to rip the house free from the rusted bolts that held the walls to the cracking cement ring beneath. There were so many noises around them at times that he feared they wouldn’t even notice when Matt entered the room.

He quickly forced that thought from his mind. While he was making a conscious effort to convert the name Matt to the bloodspawn in his own mind, he knew that was going to be impossible while he was still able to put a face to the name. There was still so much guilt surrounding what had happened so many years ago, so much pent up longing to make things right, that he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to dissociate the two. But when the time came, he knew, or at least he hoped that he knew, that he would be able to raise that gun and stare right down the muzzle over the sight at his former friend’s face and pull the trigger. Shucking back the shells over and over until he had released every ounce of the hot spray of steel pellets that the gun would offer. Deep down hoping to stand over the bloody, splattered remains and know that he had… what?

Had what? Saved the lives of two hundred people? Maybe. But the real problem was that even if he killed Ma… the bloodspawn, he would never truly know if he had saved those lives. All he would know for sure was that he had saved his own. And would that be enough, even within his own mind, to justify murdering his best friend, even after having watched him tear apart several people, stealing their lives from them in the briefest of seconds.

Only he would know the answer, and he knew that it would be the last thing he thought about at night, and, should he even be able to sleep, the first thing that entered his mind when he awoke.

But that was a moot point for now; as first he needed to do nothing more than survive the night. Come what may after that, it was only academic if he never made it out of the tomb- like cellar.

Thump. Thump.

There were the noises on the ceiling again. Not that he had gotten used to them yet, but at least the muscles in his legs no longer tightened to the point of launching him to his feet. Trembling as he sat there, waiting for the footsteps to pass, he could hear his own heart beat within the confines of his head, echoing, as his trembling finger ran up and down the sloped trigger of the weapon.

His chest shuddered with each quivering breath as he looked to the darkness for Harry, finding only the silence that cloaked them for a response. Slowly, the footsteps faded into that same silence, and he was able to hear Harry release a long breath that had been cooped up in his chest to grow stale.

There was a scraping noise now, like small pebbles being dragged across the ground. It was muffled at first, but grew louder with each passing second until it sounded as though those pebbles were dragged into the very room.

His left hand gripped the oiled pump of the shotgun so tightly that he could feel his bitterly cold, chapped knuckles split painfully as tiny globules of blood formed at the jagged seams. He could sense it all around him, taste it on his dry tongue and smell it in the cavities of his sinuses in his head.

They were no longer alone in the room.

At first, he hadn’t heard it, but now, beneath the whistle of the raging wind through the crack around the window, he could definitely tell it was there. It was a rasping wheeze, not unlike that which had comforted him from across the room as it had passed Harry’s lips, but lighter, barely audible.

Frantically, Scott tried to see anything that stood apart from the darkened room, but there was nothing at all.

There was a click from the far corner of the room as Harry disengaged the safety on his shotgun, the pump rattling slightly against the steel tube.

So Harry had heard it as well, or sensed it maybe, at least that verified what Scott thought he knew. Every muscle in his body tensed uncomfortably as he slowly slid up the face of the wall behind him, the crumbling wall giving way to a clattering avalanche of dirt that came to rest in the backs of his shoes.

Slowly, he raised the shotgun so that he was staring straight down the barrel into the center of the room. Holding his breath, he waited, listening for any sound at all that would give away the location of the presence that was with them in the room.

There was a loud boom, and the bright yellow flash from the muzzle of the shotgun straight across from him in the darkness, lighting the room like a single strobe. And in that brief fraction of a second, he had seen it: a shape darting across the room and then disappearing back into the suddenly more intense darkness that surrounded them.

Without hesitation he fired his own weapon, the butt of the gun kicking into his shoulder as the flash of light momentarily blinded him. There was the loud metallic ping as the spray of pellets ripped through the hot water heater, peeling back the metallic cylinder and exposing the hollow tube within. But there was no other sound, no whimpering or screaming as he had expected, or at least hoped, to hear. Nothing but the almost painfully loud silence that swarmed his ear drums.

With the suddenly heavy shotgun still poised against his shoulder, he stared into the darkness, as every muscle in his body began to tremble almost uncontrollably. There was a quiet click, and then another as Harry replaced the spent shell in the chamber with another that he had pulled from his jacket. Scott had forgotten to do the same, but with his body nearly convulsing through no choice of his own, he feared lowering his muzzle for even a second as that might prove to be just enough time for whatever was down there with them to tear his through clean out.

He could still hear the breathing echoing lightly in the small cellar, a distinct third addition to their ensemble of hoarse rasping. But it was light as the breeze that swept across the floor, coming from all around them at once, making it so there was no hope of pinning down a location.

There was another flash and a boom, followed quickly by another, and then another as Harry emptied the contents of his gun into the room. The pellets slammed into the wall to Scott’s left, tearing chunks of the crumbling earth from the wall, exploding them into a cloud of debris that littered the room. Dust swelled all about them, choking their lungs as the air found itself a texture.

He had seen nothing in the flare from the muzzle that time, nothing but strobe images of the hot water heater he had opened like a can and the large metal box of the furnace. There had been no image streaking through the flash as there had been before.

There was the clatter of shells falling atop one another as they landed on the floor, rolling across the ground as Harry frantically tried to grab at them. The loud sound of the pump being drawn back quickly echoed through the room as the shells clacked against one another in Harry’s hand as he forced them into the bottom of the gun as quickly as he possibly could.

Scott advanced towards the center of the room, his shuffling feet barely inching across the dirt floor. His eyes fixed intently on the corner where Harry fumbled with the gun trying to load it more quickly than his frozen fingers could accommodate.

A muffled gasp issued from that corner, then the choking sounds of a picked throat fighting to gain air. The gun clattered to the ground in the darkness, the muzzle striking first, before the heavy stock finally swung to the ground. With an ear-shattering boom, the gun discharged with the impact from the landing, the cloud of pellets singing past Scott’s ear before slamming into the wall behind him.

His breaths coming more quickly in pants from his shuddering chest, Scott stepped with more authority through the room, intently fixed on the tip of the barrel as he crossed. Finally, in the midst of the wave of choking sounds, he lowered his barrel, knowing that if he fired the weapon into that corner he would shred Harry like the hot water heater.

Lowering the gun to the ground, he allowed it to fall from his hands to the earth with a clatter. Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, he grabbed tightly onto the handle of the thick hunting blade. The jagged, tearing edge ripped a line through his jacket as he pulled it out and clenched it tightly in his hand.

His breaths quickening with a fearful determination, Scott lowered his shoulder and threw his arms out to the sides and charged into the corner with as much speed and ferocity as he could muster. Slamming into something soft, he left his feet, pinning whatever he had run into against the wall with enough force to knock the wind out of whoever it was he had hit.

There was a loud gasp from beneath him as he floundered around, trying to get off of whatever he had ferociously tackled. The body below him slapped at him in a panic, trying to toss him from atop it. Landing on his back, Scott quickly leapt onto all fours, grabbing a hold of whatever he could on the flopping body.

“Get off!” Harry choked out, fighting to fill his lungs with the dusty, dank air.

Scott hopped back, whirling back towards the room as he could feel whatever else was in there with them was close. Laying both palms on the floor, he rapidly ran his hands in arcs across the frozen dirt, trying desperately to find the gun he had laid down. The hunting knife was pinned between his open palm and the dirt, scraping loudly across the rock- encrusted surface as he dragged it.

And then he felt it.

Something grazed the back of his hand, barely touching the skin but rifling through the hairs that stood on end. It was a cold touch, as though he had raked the back of his hand across a line of icicles. Allowing the knife to stay exactly where he knew that it would be on the floor, he turned over his hands and attempted to feel whatever it was that hung in the air above the ground.

There were five distinct swellings at the base of whatever the object was. Five frozen, rounded digits, the tips of which were adorned with a sharp, hard coating, rested atop his open palm as his fingers traced the backs of what Scott knew instantly were the callused pads of the bottoms of toes.

Still cradling the end of the foot in his right hand, he slowly reached with his left for the knife he had laid down only a moment prior, gripping it tightly in his clenched fist. With a loud groan, he raised the blade into the air, driving it straight through the top of the foot. Warm fluids spilled out into his cupped right palm, slipping through the gaps in his fingers, trickling in streams onto the dirt floor.

His hand slipped from the handle of the awesome weapon as he tried to quickly pull it free in preparation of another rapid strike. The jagged edge had apparently locked onto the array of bones within the center of the foot, lodging itself there.

There was no sign that he had inflicted even the slightest amount of pain as there wasn’t a howl or a cry, just the wave of blood that cascaded into his hand as the foot finally rose further into the air to where he could no longer feel it. Now, he had absolutely no idea where whatever he had stabbed had gone.

Flopping back onto his belly, he pawed at the ground, searching violently for the shotgun that he knew had to be somewhere close by. His fumbling fingers traced the frozen earth, searching in vain for the weapon that suddenly felt as though it would never again rest against his shoulder.

There was a sudden tug on the back of his jacket as he felt himself cleaved off of the floor. His dangling arms and legs flopped helplessly above the cold turf, what little he could grasp peeling back the tips of his fingernails and lodging itself deeply beneath the nail. Something resembling a growl pierced the silence from somewhere just above him as the sudden feeling of weightlessness overwhelmed his senses.

He flew through the air for what felt like close to a minute before finally slamming shoulders first into the wall of the room, a shattered layer of dirt falling from the wall and into his hair. A bolt of pain rocketed through his shoulder blades as the back of his head snapped back, slamming into the wall before slumping forward atop his limp neck onto his chest. His legs lay flat on the floor, stretched out in front of him across the dirt. Fighting against his eyeballs as they wanted nothing more than to just roll back into his skull and embrace but the momentary darkness of the oblivion that beckoned from the unconscious, he pushed himself from the ground, sliding against the wall to his feet.

His head lolling slightly on his neck, he peered through the darkness, flashing dots marring his vision, hoping to catch a glimpse of either Harry or whatever it was that had pounded him against the wall.

There was the thunder of footsteps, racing up the wooden stairs towards the kitchen. Whirling, he caught but the briefest of glances of Harry’s darkened form as it raced diagonally up the wall. The door opened with a bang, slamming backwards into the wall as the footsteps were immediately above his head on the plywood floor.

Trying to shake off his sluggishness, Scott lumbered towards the stairs, grabbing hold of the railing and using it as a crutch to pull himself up the stairs. The spider webs finally beginning to clear in his jumbled mind, Scott stared around the kitchen, looking for any sign of movement, but there was none.

There was a sudden whistling sound in the air, like some large object knifing through the air towards him.

The object slammed into Scott’s chest, knocking him clean off of his feet and into the air once more. He landed squarely on his back, the weight of the heavy object slamming down atop him, forcing the air from his lungs. A sharp pain issued through his back as he tumbled backwards down the stairs and into the cellar once again. His body flopped like a rag doll as he rolled down the stairs, finally slamming onto the small, square cement pad as the bottom, the heavy object again landing squarely on his chest.

Rolling out from beneath the unmoving lump, Scott wallowed on the earth fighting for even the smallest gasp of air. His eyes rolled to be back of his head, his fingers bent into wicked claws at his sides as he raked at the dirt, clawing for just a single breath.

Harry moaned from beside him from where he lay in a heap at the base of the stairs. There was no other sign of movement, but at least a moan meant that he was still alive.

“So you came here to kill me,” a voice said from the darkness, echoing all around them in the small room.

Finally, choking a gulp of air past his dry trachea, Scott rolled onto his hands and knees, trying to find the strength to stand.

“I expected better from you, Scott.”

Finally, stumbling to his feet, Scott looked frantically around the room for the origin of the voice. He knew, as he had recognized from the first syllable uttered, that it was Matt’s voice.

“I thought that even after all of this time that there was still a connection between us, a bond that we’ve shared since long ago. But I guess I was wrong. I guess there’s nothing left for us to share but this brief moment.”

A dim pinpoint of light appeared directly overhead in the center of the basement, the small ball swelling larger and larger until it finally took on the pear shaped form of the old light bulb dangling from the ceiling. The M- shaped tungsten filament snapped and popped as it glowed bright yellow, filling the dust coated globe.

While it was barely enough light to see his swaggering shadow on the floor, it was more than enough to allow him to see the shadow of the enormous form that floated in the air nearly directly in front of him. Stabilizing himself, he fought with his aching chest, trying to summon a few words of rebuttal, but nothing would come.

He watched as the immense outline of the form glided over the earthen floor beneath the light, finally coming to rest right in front of him. He could feel Matt’s warm, damp breath on his face, could nearly taste the carrion that festered between his yellowed teeth. Staring into the darkened face, he could see nothing but blackness. Clenching his fists at his side, he waited for his opportunity.

“There’s something you need to know,” Matt whispered, his rasping voice still seeming to come from all around the room.

Scott just stared blankly into the black pits where the eyes should have been.

“Shane cried like a little girl before I snapped his neck, begging through the tears for his life.”

His lips tightening against his teeth, Scott raised his right fist and swung, striking Matt right in the center of the face. And before he even knew what he was doing, his left followed, slamming just to the other side of where the last blow had landed. Then his right rose again and then his left. Again and again his swung, the soft tissue of Matt’s face feeling like nothing more than a side of beef as he hammered at it, the skin splitting wide as blood raced to the surface.

“Stop it!” Matt cried in a voice that sounded as though it was ten years younger, like the voice of a teenager.

Scott staggered backwards, allowing his tightened fists to fall to his side, blood dripping from his knuckles onto the ground. His mouth dropped as he stared towards the face once again; this time the shadows peeled back to allow him to view the bludgeoned face.

It looked nothing like he had seen it look over the course of the last several days, the yellowed, decomposing flesh on the face appeared flush with color. The eyes, which had been little more than dried orbs, cracking and blistering had been replaced by softer, whiter eyes that seemed to glimmer beneath the dim light with a coating of tears. The cracked blue lips were now fuller, engorged with blood as they fleshed out. To either side of the bloodied, broken nose, blood ran in streams down the pink cheeks.

His right ankle rolling as he stepped atop a rock, Matt fell to the ground, landing on his rear end. Still moving backward, he dragged himself across the dirt, his eyes unable to look away from the face that hovered above him. His back met with the wall as he still fought to drag himself further but to no avail.

“Matt,” he gasped, the cloud of dust he had stirred clinging to his darkened lips.

“Please, Scott,” he sputtered through the blood in his mouth, still in the voice of a child. “Please help me.”

Scott just shook his head, unable to vocalize the sudden swarm of thoughts that raced through his barely comprehending brain.

“Oh, God, please. You have to help me.”

Slowly, Scott slid his back up the wall; both hands pressed to it as he shied away from the overwhelming image that hovered just a few feet away.

“Don’t listen to it,” Harry whispered from across the room. He had just now been able to clamber from the floor to his knees. In the dim light, Scott could see that his forehead was covered with blood, matting his light gray hair. A thin stream of red ran straight down the bridge of his nose before rolling to the side and clinging to the edge of his split lip. He cradled his right arm against his chest, the bone protruding straight through his ruptured flesh. Wincing, he staggered to his feet, each pained breath bringing with it a wave of pain that rippled across his face as tears burst from his eyes.

Scott whirled back to the apparition, staring intently into the face of the friend that he had known as well as he had known himself so many years ago, and for an instant, he was once again that same child as well.

“Please help me, Scott,” Matt whimpered.

“What can I do?” Matt choked through the tears that ran down his dirt- covered cheeks from his shimmering eyes.

“Don’t listen!” Harry shouted. “That’s not Matt! That’s not your friend!”

Matt’s young eyes locked tightly on his own as Scott felt himself step from the wall towards the cloaked figure.

“Don’t do it!” Harry screamed from the other side of the room, but his words appeared to fall on deaf ears as, entranced, Scott took another step forward.

“I never wanted this to happen,” he whispered, staring into the familiar eyes of his old friend. “All I wanted was for all of us to get along.”

“But you abandoned me when I needed you the most,” Matt said, the corners of his lips bending into a snarl. His arms raised to either side, his fingers bending into claws.

His face soaked with tears, Scott took another step forward, his face now less than a foot from Matt’s.

“It’s all my fault,” Scott whispered as the tears clung in drops at the line of his chin.

But as he watched, the light in the eyes that had been there but momentarily faded. Where there had briefly been life, there was now nothing more than the promise of death as the eyeballs faded back to the cracked, yellow marbles that had been there before. The formerly fleshed face reverted to the tautly stretched, dried face that resembled the mummified remains of an unearthed Egyptian.

Feeling his jaw drop to his knees, Scott could do little more than watch as the clawed hands were raised even higher, peaking briefly before whistling through the air towards his head.

“No!” Harry shouted as he lunged through the air, tackling Scott at his midsection like a blitzing linebacker.

The two slammed to the ground, kicking up a huge cloud of dust. The jacket tore away from Scott’s shoulder as it was the first to land, bearing the brunt of the load. His head bounced off the ground twice as they slid before finally coming to rest.

Matt roared from the center of the room as the house rattled atop its foundation.

“Get up,” Harry sputtered through the blood that filled his mouth, clinging to his teeth.

Grabbing Harry by the collar of the jacket, Scott clambered to his feet, stepping backwards into the dense shadows as he dragged Harry along the ground. Turning from the enraged apparition he yanked on Harry, trying frantically to pull him from harm’s way.

“Do you think there’s any prayer for you!” Matt shouted in a voice no longer his own. It was demonic in its tone, resonating from every molecule in the room. It was a combination of what sounded like a thousand damned voices all crying out at once through the one mouth.

The shadows sprung to life, the darkness twisting and writhing in pained ecstasy as it tugged at their flesh.

The slick collar of Harry’s down jacket slipped from his hand, his head landing on the hard ground with a fierce crunching sound. Scott immediately bent over, trying to grasp onto anything with his hands, but before he was even close, Harry was gone.

He slid across the ground towards the center of the room on the waves of shadows, his right ankle caught firmly in the tight grip of the bloodspawn.

Scott was helpless but to watch as Harry was heaved feet first into the air, where he dangled in front of the black cloaked monster. Blood seeped from his open mouth, running along his upper lip and over the rim of his nose as his face reddened with the sudden rush of blood towards the gravitational pull. The look on his face betrayed the pain that he was in, but there was something in his eyes: a glimmering look of understanding that almost brought with it something of a smile.

“No,” Scott whispered as he reached out desperately with both arms.

Harry closed his eyes, a peaceful look of bliss trickling across his face.

“No!” Scott shouted, lunging through the air towards Harry’s dangling body.

A clawed fist burst right through Harry’s chest, sending a spray of fluid throughout the room. Bone and tissue littered the floor as a wave of crimson fluid poured from the hole that had been punched straight through his lungs and ribcage.

Smiling, the bloodspawn grabbed hold of Harry’s spinal cord, ripping it straight out the back side and allowing the mere pile of spent flesh to slough from the bone, falling into a heap on the floor. He stood there, triumphantly holding the red length of clustered bone above his head into the air.

Scott slammed into him, right in the hips, but before he even knew what was going on, he had been clubbed on the back of the head several times with the remnants of Harry’s shattered spinal column. Feeling the tight grip on the back of his jacket, he was suddenly hurled through the air. There was little more that he could do than just throw his arms out in front and prepare for the impact with the furnace that was coming directly at him.

There was a loud boom and a metallic crunch as he slammed into the furnace, the sheet metal buckling against his momentum. Slamming to the ground, something heavy, with a sharp edge, fell atop his head from where it had rested in the dust atop the furnace, tearing a seam beneath the hair in the flesh on his head.

Wincing in pain, Matt grabbed the object as it bounced to the ground, the bloodied edge still damp with his own viscous filling. He stared down at the red, rubber- coated handles, the blackened, dust- covered cutting blade of the garden shears dripping in red. Slipping his fingers into the prefabricated loops, he held it out in front of him as the bloodspawn floated above the ground straight towards him, its toes barely an inch from the ground.

Scott’s fear widened eyes, stained by lightening- like red streaks, fixed on those of the bloodspawn, pinched tightly beneath the lowered brow as the face curled into a snarl. Swinging the clippers through the dank air, he succeeded in slicing through nothing but air, caught in his backswing by a hooked claw that grabbed him by the center of his chest, seizing hold of a handful of shirt and cleaving him into the air. Raising its bloody fist into the air, the curled fingers dripping with the dark blood from Harry’s core, it prepared to drive that same hand straight through Scott as well.

There was a sudden shift of the thin breeze in the room, growing in ferocity as it swept from one side to the other, circling the center of the room as though on the verge of creating a cyclone. There was a whispering on the wind, quiet at first, but growing in intensity as it whistled across the breeze. It wasn’t a single voice, more like a combination of several that all spoke at the same time, not one standing out above the others.

The bloodspawn turned frantically in the direction of the blowing wind, cocking its head so that its ear was directly in the path of the growing breeze. A look of confusion dripped down his face as his cracked lips mouthed words that Scott could no more decipher than the words that whispered through the cellar.

Seeing his opportunity, Scott capitalized as the breeze had provided the distraction that he needed, opening the shears as wide as he could get them and clamping them down on the exposed wrist of the bloodspawn at the end of the hand that held him in the air. With all of the strength that he could summon, Scott squeezed his hand together, the sharp blades slicing straight through the dried, yellow skin that extended from the frayed edges of the decomposing shroud, crunching audibly into the brittle bone beneath.

With a howl of pain, the bloodspawn dropped Scott to the ground before he was able to complete the cut. The hand dangled limply from the wrist, which pumped out blood in spurting arcs. The wrist was visibly bent; giving no support to the hand that twitched and fidgeted as nothing more than bone fragments and the few tendons that hadn’t been completely severed held it to the rest of the body.

His lips peeled back from his yellowed, jagged teeth, his head snapping away from the wind so that he could stare directly through Scott as he scurried backwards along the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust in his wake. That intense, cold stare knifed right through him, chilling him to the very bone as he scrambled to his feet behind the furnace, trying to use the giant metal box as a shield between them.

“I’m going to rip you in two!” the bloodspawn growled as he suddenly shot through the air at Scott with a speed and ferocity never before witnessed.

Lunging backwards, Scott slammed into the wall behind him, banging his already stinging scalp against something hard projecting from the earthen wall. The bloodspawn ripped through the furnace with its bare hand, shredding the metal casing on the front as though it were nothing more than tissue paper.

Taking his eyes from the bloodspawn only long enough to turn to face the wall, to see what had jabbed him in the back of the head, his heart began to race so quickly that everything else seemed to be in slow motion. Scanning the darkened wall, he caught the briefest of reflections from the powerful steel blade that was buried in the wall. The white, ivory handle was coated gray with dust. Without a single thought as to how or why there was a knife sticking out of the wall, Scott grabbed the handle. Squeezing it tightly in his right hand, he leaned a shoulder against the wall to use as leverage to pull the wide blade out of the wall that had apparently encased the blade for quite some time.

He fell backwards as he finally pried the knife free from the wall, slamming into the furnace with a loud bang. Whirling, tears bursting from his eyes as the pain in his back blossomed from the tear in his flesh from the corner of the unit. Scanning the dimly lit room, he tried to find the bloodspawn, who had apparently just vanished.

There was nothing there but the settling dust and the thin breeze as Scott stepped out from behind the furnace, his vision frantically tracing the room from one side to the next and then back again, but there was absolutely no one there. He stepped slowly towards the center of the room, the sound of his footsteps as the raked the sandy floor echoing throughout the hollow cellar. His pulse exploded through his body, beating so loud that he could hear it throbbing in his temples, could feel his heart in his chest, pounding so fiercely that he feared his ribcage may no longer contain it.

His rapidly panting breath plumed in white clouds from his parched mouth, dissolving into the dust that hovered in the room like a thick fog, masking the shadows that clung to the corners of the room. Reaching the center of the room, he stopped and spun in a circle, trying to see anything that resembled a human form hiding in the blackened corners.

With a thin crackle, the light bulb that dangled nearly directly overhead slowly faded, the filament glowing orange momentarily before fading into the darkness that swelled from all sides.

As his eyes had grown accustomed to the light, there was absolutely no way that he could see anything, other than the faint impression of the glowing filament that scarred his vision no matter where he looked. Holding the knife straight out in front of him, he tried to compensate with his other senses, listening as intently as he possibly could to the muffled sound of the breeze that filtered in from around the window, hoping to discern even the slightest sound from the dim whistling.

Pressing forward, he inched across the floor, his right foot colliding with something lying on the floor. Kneeling, he kept his head facing forward in case any movement were to somehow catch his eye. With his left hand he felt at the floor, his fingertips running over the soft, fleshy surface of the object that had nearly sent him sprawling to the ground. As his fingers rifled through the dampened, sticky hair, he knew right away what he had encountered and leapt into the air to get to his feet. Panicking, he wiped the wetness from his hands on his jeans, trying hard to fight back the wave of nausea that gurgled from his stomach, the sudden smell of the disemboweled innards that coated the floor rising up, accosting his senses with its putrid stench.

Cackling laughter filled the air all around him as he choked back his body’s inherent, automatic response.

Cringing, he stood perfectly still, his frightened eyes flashing through the darkness praying for something, anything to stand out from the blackness.

The laughter continued, mercilessly booming from everywhere at the same time until it seemed to surround him, closing in on him as he flashed the blade from side to side, trying desperately to slash through anything that may come close.

“Don’t have the stomach for this, I see,” a deep voice said from the darkness that surrounded him.

“Why are you doing this?” Scott whispered through the tears that poured down his cheeks.

More laughter echoed through the room.

The sound of raking gravel came from the side of the room just to his right. Whirling, he stared into the darkness trying to peel it back if only for a moment as he held the shaking blade out in front of him in his trembling hand.

The light sound of falling sand landing on the ground was barely audible over the hum of the wind, but Scott could tell it was coming from the same direction. Focusing on nothing but that side of the room, he eased forward, the sound of the cascading sand trickling down the face of the wall still in his ears. Slowly the sound changed. The falling sand was still there, but it no longer bounced down the face of the wall, it just fell straight to the floor as the sound came closer to him, growing louder and louder in his ears until finally and without warning… it stopped.

Scott stood there towards the middle of the room, his head cocked towards the wall where the sound had come from.

He could feel someone in the room with him, could sense the heat from their body in the cold room. Opening his mouth, he tried to quiet his own breathing in an attempt to silence everything that he possibly could. Trying to calm the heavy rising and falling of his pounding heart in his chest, he breathed very slowly and deliberately, becoming in tune with each of the waves of shadows that rolled from the walls, swirling like the onset of a fog all around him.

The knife quivered at the end of his outstretched arm, reflecting the small line of light that crept into the basement from the cracked seam of the window, flashing as he jerked the blade slightly from side to side.

He could taste the decomposition on the bloodspawn’s breath on his lips, his tongue, could feel the warmth of the acrid breath on his bare flesh, but he couldn’t see it. Barely able to discern the outline of his own arm in front of him, he stood motionless, surrounded by nothing more than his own dry wheezing.

There was a dull splat, like the sound of a drop of water that had been clinging to a faucet finally falling to the basin. He looked around, fighting with the darkness for even a fleeting glimpse. But there was nothing.

Shivering, his knees began to knock, his arm growing weary from being held straight out. Inching closer to the wall, all of his senses in tune for even the slightest movement, or the softest of sounds.

There was the splat again, somewhere close to him in the darkness.

Creeping even closer to the wall, he held his breath, the sound of his own hammering heart pounding in his ears. He licked the dried dust from his parched, cracked lips, fighting back the tremors that crept up his spine.

Something hit his face. It was warm and wet, and slowly running down his cheek. His mind churning with the onset of panic, his instincts took over, seizing hold of his body. He brought the knife clenched tightly in his right hand towards his body, wrapping his left hand over his right to solidify the grip. With as much force as his body could generate, he leapt into the air, slamming the tip of the blade upwards towards the ceiling.

There was a sickening crunch as the blade met with soft resistance, a waterfall of the same warm fluid falling straight down on his head from above. Batting his eyes against the wave of blood, he held his breath and closed his mouth tightly so as not to inhale any of it.

Landing back on the floor, he could feel an enormous weight on his arms, the blade still sticking within the limp form that he had pinned to the ceiling.

His legs buckled beneath him as the weight bent his arms, landing squarely on the top of his head. Releasing the handle of the knife, he thrust his arms behind him in a futile attempt to catch himself as the weight of the body slammed down on him, crumpling him to the floor.

Trying frantically to scramble out from beneath the squirming pile of bleeding flesh, his right hand caught on the ivory handle, latching on tightly. With his left, he followed suit, grabbing that knife so tightly that his fingers felt as though they might break from the pressure that they supplied, he yanked upwards, all of the muscles in his arms tensing uncontrollably. Grunting, he tugged, and tugged, ripping the tearing edge of the blade through the flesh, cracking through whatever bone dared to resist.

There was a fluid filled gurgle from the cold lips of the face that was pinned atop him, right next to his ear as gushes of the warm fluid issued forth, splattering across the side of his face. Yet still he cranked that knife upwards, tearing through the all too frail humanity until one by one he could both feel and hear the thin ribs as they snapped. The soft tissue of the lung beneath tore to the tune of the breath whistling through the hole on the chest rather than from the lips that no longer drew life near his ear.

With a crack, the knife met with the clavicle, knocking the blade out of his grasp as with a groan, the inside of the creature poured out all at once, covering the entirety of his clothing and spilling out across the floor.

Gagging from the rotten stench of the innards that rested atop him, Scott flopped out from beneath the body and rolled across the floor, the dust and dirt clinging to the crimson fluid that soaked his skin and clothing. He lay there for a moment, exhausted, his heart beating so fast he feared it might rupture as he stared through the darkness at the outline of the form that lay strewn across the dirt. There was but the slightest of glimmers from the mummified eyes, the fluid seething across the floor more than eager to soak it up.

No sound came from the body, not the slightest sound of air being dragged into the open chest. The fingers twitched to either side of the body, rattling momentarily against the ground before curling into the throes of rigor mortis.

Crawling closer, his hands and knees thickening with the bloody mud atop the floor, he lowered his head, staring intently into the rapidly bluing face of the cooling corpse. The eyelids were fixed back beneath the sockets, the marbled eyeballs drying and splitting. The open mouth gurgled slightly from the settling of the organs.

Closing his eyes, Scott rolled onto his back, exhaustion having taken its toll on his weary body. His breath slowed, his pounding heart returning to something resembling the more regular fearful thundering as he seemed to melt into the ground, the tension that had literally tied him in knots slowly seeping out from him tensed muscles.

Scott opened his eyes and stared up at the blackened ceiling for a moment before rolling onto his stomach and pushing himself up to his feet. Wiping his muddy hands of his wet jeans, he realized the futility and just shook them at his sides as he limped across the dirt floor towards the stairs. Hitting the landing, he grabbed onto the railing and prepared to pull himself up the rickety old stairs.

The stairs wobbled beneath his weight as he advanced, creaking and groaning as he worked his way towards the kitchen. Pausing, he glanced back over his shoulder towards the dark lump that lay in the middle of the floor below, cloaked in the shadows.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, a tear creeping from the corner of his eye.

Sniffing, he clambered into the kitchen and crossed the plywood floor towards the open front door. The rubber soles of his shoes squeaked on the hardwood floor, which was still damp from the snow that had blown in from the storm. Crossing the threshold, he stepped out onto the porch and lumbered down the stairs to the lawn.

He stopped and stared up into the night sky. The thick mass of clouds overhead had parted just enough to allow for the dim light of but a few stars to shine down from the night sky. The enormous flakes had dwindled to tiny balls of ice, slowing from the blizzard rage with which they had once fallen to a mere trickle of flakes.

Lowering his head, he rounded the corner of the house towards where he had parked his car, his eyes catching on movement at the line of trees far across the open field of white straight ahead. Walking around the wide trunk of the dead maple, he stared towards the start of the forest as a shadowy form stood as but a silhouette against the darkened trees. His eyes fixed on the shadow as it just stood there, watching him in return. And then, with a flash of movement, the form was gone, replaced by the crashing sound as the underbrush was hammered beneath pounding feet.

A large buck bounded from the wall of trees, prancing into the field for just a moment, its eyes reflecting the starlight with a golden glare. Its large rack cast a long shadow across the white snow, as it stopped, its eyes flashing one final time before streaking across the field and disappearing into a grove of pines.

Nodding, Scott turned to the vehicle and slowly fished his keys out of his pocket. Turning them over and over in his hand, he stepped to the driver’s side of the vehicle and looked into his open palm for the key to the door. His flesh was stained deep red, dirt and dust crusting the fluid into a caked mess on his skin. Glancing down at his clothing, he debated for the briefest of moments whether he really wanted that on the seats of his car, but that logic seemed more than a bit silly to him as he popped the lock and hopped into the car. Bringing the engine roaring to life, he flipped on the headlights and stared at the yellow rays of light that flooded the field from the car.

Slowly, he shoved the gear into drive and gripped the wheel, turning out into the field and heading back towards the road. Finding the groove in the road from his tracks from when they had driven here earlier in the night, he pressed the gas, gaining momentum as the car headed for the forest on route back to his house.

A bleak look was etched into his pale face that was splotched with the quickly drying blood. His eyes fixed blankly on the road ahead as his dry lips slowly sealed shut. Unblinking, he watched the two lines from the tire tracks in the snow- covered road in the glow of the headlights. The only thought in his head was of grabbing a shovel so that he could come back and bury his friends.

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THE BLOODSPAWN

Michael McBride

© 2004 Michael McBride. All rights reserved.

PART FOURTEEN

SECTION 14

Epilogue

Saturday, November 19th

10 a.m.

Scott stared out the second story window from the bedroom across the hallway from his own. He had converted it to an office long ago when he had first moved in, but rarely used it. Most of the time he spent working at home was at the drafting table he had set up in the living room as it felt far less confined beneath the vaulted ceiling and with the light from all of the windows all around. This room was more of a professional looking storage area.

There was a small desk, the same one that he had used growing up with his parents, in the corner of the room. Atop it sat an outdated computer, which had been state of the art only a few years ago when he had upgraded, but since had fallen far behind the cutting edge. A printer, with a combined fax and copy function, rested on top of a small silver filing cabinet next to the desk, the drawers stuffed full of building contracts. The majority of the business paperwork was kept at his office downtown, but it had been quite some time since he frequented that locale. He did the majority of his dealings by phone as he had an accountant to deal with the finances and a great set of managerial assistants to deal with the day to day maintenance.

Scott had brought the cordless phone up into the study with him as he was expecting a call. He had just tossed it onto the paper tray in front of the printer atop the small stack of faxes he had accrued over the last week but hadn’t yet bothered to look at.

There was a tall oak bookcase in the corner, filled with old textbooks he had been unable to sell back at the end of his final term in college. At least five years of architectural digests lined the shelf beneath. There were all sorts of books he had saved from his youth, hard- bound tomes that his parents had read to him growing up, along with the four thick volumes of old yearbooks from high school, and the thinner ones from junior high. Aside from the sparse furniture, and the stacks of unopened boxes in the corner of the room, it was quite barren.

Scott craned his neck so that he could see all the way towards the park. The real estate agency had set up the circus looking tents next to the large gazebo, a row of smoking grills burning in a line in front. People filled the street, clustering into small groups as they inhaled their hamburgers and hot dogs from paper plates. The snow had been cleared from the basketball court, the baskets only recently having been added, as groups of small children tried with all of their might to get the large balls even close to the net.

The snow, which had been close to knee deep only a few days ago was now completely melted from the streets and sidewalk, with only glistening patches remaining on the lawns and the recently laid sod of the park. As far as Colorado weather went, that was the norm, snow one day completely out of the blue, and the next it was gone leaving but a small reminder of the ferocious storm that had brought it. And today, they had lucked out with the weather. The sun shined brightly from directly overhead as just a few white, fluffy clouds dotted the sky.

Sparrows chirped madly as they foraged the bare spot in the lawn, plucking out seeds and then darting back into the masses of pines where they had been weathering the storm.

It was the perfect day for the picnic. And while the heat was only in the high 50’s, he knew that he couldn’t have asked for anything more.

All of the lots had been contracted, and even without hiring additional help, which during the winter months never proved to be very difficult anyway, they should have the entire neighborhood completed within six months. The bank was happy, the Realtors were extraordinarily happy, his new neighbors were happy, and given the circumstances that surrounded the last chaotic week of his life, Scott was contented with being all right.

He had spent the entire night burying Harry and Matt, side by side, in the earthen floor of the house. It wasn’t as if he could have just shown up at the cemetery with two bodies asking for burial. There would have been far too many questions, most of them involving the police and questions that he couldn’t answer, at least not in a way that they would understand. The way he saw it, Matt’s life had ended in that house so many years prior, that it was only fitting that it be his final resting place, and Harry had devoted the majority of his life to fighting the evil that they had banished from within. He did feel badly about not giving Harry the proper burial that he deserved, but he knew, deep down, that Harry would approve.

Laughter filled his ears, even through the closed window as more and more cars lined up, one behind the other along the curb near the park, as more families strolled down the street, pushing strollers, holding hands, on their way to the barbecue. From his vantage, it looked like there had to be close to a couple hundred people filling the street. It was a smashing success, and even from afar he could feel a genuine sense of community from the revelers.

At some point, he was going to have to make an appearance over there himself; after all he had to get back into his normal, everyday life. What better way to do that than with a group of people who all at least liked him momentarily, as none of their walls had begun to crack, none of their foundations settling. And there was a certain young Realtor over there that he really looked forward to getting to know a little better.

For the first time in what seemed far too long, a smile crossed his lips. With the guilt over what happened to Matt and Harry, he wondered if he would ever be able to smile again, but he had reached at state of equilibrium with it. He had never asked to be involved with that situation, but he knew that he handled it the best that he could. In his mind, that thing that stalked the woods wasn’t Matt, his friend had died more than a decade ago in that lake. And while he still wished that he could go back in time and somehow change the past, to actually free Matt from that sinking car, he knew that he couldn’t. Wherever he was now, Matt was surely better off.

In the final moment of his life, Harry had looked at peace, and that was how Scott chose to remember him. While they had only known each other a matter of days, there had been something of a kinship that he knew he would always remember, and would honor Harry with that memory for as long as he lived. But now the time had come to move on. He had taken measures to provide himself with a semblance of closure, something that would allow him to just push the whole thing to the back of his mind and insert himself back into his normal, everyday life.

The ringing phone startled him from his trance.

Giving one final, almost sentimental glance out across the street towards the park, he turned from the window and walked around the desk, snatching the phone from where it rested on the printer. A few of the white pages fell from the tray onto the floor as he brought the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Scott?”

“Hey, Greg, how’s it going?”

“I was just calling to let you know that everything is in place and we’re ready to level this sucker.”

“Thanks a lot for taking care of this on such short notice.”

“Just remember that you owe me. You know how much trouble I could get into for not running this through the City Planner’s office.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, you had said that you wanted me to call you when everything was in place and ready to go, so…”

“Thanks, man. When you think of how I can repay you, you just let me know.”

“I think we’ll start with a couple of rounds for me and my boys.”

“You got a deal. Just name the time and place.”

“Did I say just a couple of rounds, what I really meant was the first twenty or so rounds.”

“You’re pushing your luck now.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, I guess I’d better prepare to do this thing. If you need anything else, I’m at my cell phone. Seems a shame to demolish this old beauty, but you’re the boss.”

“Thanks, Greg. I really appreciate it.”

“No prob, man. Catch you later.”

There was click as Scott held the phone out in his hand with a look of satisfaction on his face. Pressing the “Off” button on the phone, he dropped it onto the desk and sat down in the folding chair that had been pulled beneath the desk.

The retirement home had jumped at his offer to buy the Cavenaugh house as apparently they were having some sort of financial troubles. He had offered far more than the house was worth, and had asked for very little of the land in the process. They had been all right with the fact that his sole intention was to demolish it as he claimed he wanted the land for a potential retirement home of his own. Moving fast, so as not to give any of the historical preservation societies time to formulate their actions, he had hired an old friend who he had worked with once before back when he had first entered the business to demolish it.

Truthfully, the easiest option would have been to drag out a wrecking ball and just hammer it to the ground, but that would take more time and coordination. And time was something that he was short on. There was also a part of him that felt that house was better suited going out with a bang in a big ball of fire. That was the one thing that was going to help him put this whole thing behind him. And whether that house was the source of the evil or not, it was certainly a physical representation of it in his mind, and he knew that once that house was nothing more than a pile of rubble that he would be able to move on.

Greg Danson, who worked in demolitions for a living had to be one of the nicest most well adjusted people he had ever met in his life. He was just like a little kid when he lined up those charges. A sparkle would come into his eye and he was once again a ten year- old kid shoving an M- 80 into an anthill.

The only time he had been available had been a Saturday morning, which he generally never worked, but he had made an exception and called it a personal favor. But Scott knew that he just loved his job so much that he would look for any excuse to prolong his workweek. In fact, he hadn’t charged him the overtime rate, settling on half- rate with a favor to be named later. And any favor that he should require down the road would be well worth it.

All Scott wanted right now was to see that house burned to the ground.

Smiling once again, he could feel a swell of peace rising in his chest. As soon as this was over he would be able to move on.

Bending from the chair, he grabbed the small stack of papers that had fallen from the tray on the printer. Sorting them so that they were all face up, he glanced down at the top one. It was from the People Network.

His brow furrowing slightly, he began to peruse the pile looking for the cover letter. Snatching it from the middle of the pile, he moved it to the top and read it aloud.

“Mr. Ramsey: Is this your idea of a joke? It doesn’t matter, I guess, since we’ve already billed your credit card.”

Scott’s brow furrowed as he reread the cover letter, making absolutely no sense of it at all.

Tossing it aside onto the desk, he grabbed the faxed transmission and began to read what appeared to be an adoption form.

“Subject: baby boy,” he mumbled as he read. “City: Colorado Springs. State: Colorado.”

He scanned past the information pertaining to the issuing agency as well as the preparer.

“Father: Unknown. Mother: Unknown. Status: Orphaned. Description: Child was taken into custody as a ward of the state under extreme circumstances. Hair Color: Blonde. Eye Color: Hazel.”

He paused.

“But Matt’s eyes were light,” he mused, before reading the form once again. “Distinguishing Marks: Birth mark on the right forearm.”

He immediately glanced down at his exposed forearm, staring with intent scrutiny at the small scar from where he had once had the birthmark. His heart began to pound as he turned back to the paper.

“Adoptive Parents: Dean and Susan Ramsey.”

The stack of pages fell from his hand, fluttering to the floor, as his jaw dropped. Thousands of conflicting thoughts raced through his brain all at the same time as he struggled to come to grips with what he had read.

“It can’t be,” he stammered.

There was a creaking sound behind him as the door to the study slowly opened. A dark shadow moved across the floor as a darkened form appeared in the doorway against the light from the hall.

“You have to accept it,” the deep, cracking voice said. “Embrace it… my son.”

Scott whirled and stared at the shadowy form as it breezed into the room across the floor. A wild mane of matted hair was pressed beneath a dark hood, the face shielded in shadows as the figure approached. His arms were folded across his chest, his hands disappearing into the wide sleeves of the tattered shroud, which danced about him on an unseen breeze. Slowly, the figure stopped right in front of him, the bare, cracked and blistered feet floated inches above the ground.

Slowly, the man raised his head as the light from the room crept beneath the hood.

His eyes were yellowed and cracked, as though in one of the furthest states of decomposition. There were no retinas, no irises, just the faint swelling where they had once been. The skin was stretched tightly over his skull, all of the muscles and tendons protruding through the taut flesh. His lips were peeled back from his yellowed teeth that looked to be made of wood, his nose nothing but an almost skeletal looking triangle in the middle of his face. The neck bulged and swelled as he spoke, the tight skin constricting against his prominent Adam’s apple.

“Now you understand,” he growled.

Scott just shook his head, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Who… who are you?” he stammered, scooting the chair backward until he ran into the desk.

“You already know.”

“You’re the devil.”

“In a way.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am one of many who have walked the earth since the dawn of time, since long before the conception of your religions. We have been relegated by what you would call your God to eternity on this rock until we have collected enough souls to finally end this life, to die, if you will. But we can not take them by our own hands, as we are powerless to do so. We can merely stand by and watch.

“Once we have sent the required number of souls to our master we will finally turn to dust, and our days on this earth will be at an end. There are more of us than I can count, all of us competing for enough souls to release us from our infernal damnation. Wherever you find death, you will find one of us, standing in the shadows waiting to claim the souls of the departed.”

“But what about the number two hundred. Where does that fit in?”

“That is my trademark, if you will. I do not have the patience of the rest of these demons, to wait contentedly at the side of the road for a traffic accident, or to bide my time for a century waiting for a decent war. My dealings are of a higher profile. They attract attention. Having competition from an opposing force makes things… more entertaining.”

“What about Matt?”

“He gave his soul willingly for vengeance, and got just that.”

“What do you want from me?”

The figure just laughed, a loud booming recourse that filled the entire house.

“I wanted to congratulate you.”

“Congratulate me?”

“On achieving your destiny.”

Scott stared down into his lap as his stomach churned with each passing second looking at the abomination that stood before him. He feared what might happen if he were to look up.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The two hundred souls you are bringing me.”

“I don’t know how you could possibly think that I would ever do that!” Scott shouted, leaping to his feet and stare the demonic creation directly in the yellowed eyes. “How in the hell do you think that I could possibly…”

He stumbled backwards, his legs feeling like wobbling noodles beneath his weight. Everything became fuzzy as he swayed from side to side in the midst of a dizzy spell. His mind fought to grasp what he already knew to be true as he finally fell to the ground.

The monster’s loud, booming laughter echoed throughout the room, settling into Matt’s skull where it seemed to linger eternally.

Breathing heavily, he hopped to his feet, his heart thundering in his chest as he dashed towards the window, slamming his forehead into the glass as he stared off at the group of people gathered for the barbecue.

“Get out of there!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, unlatching the window and sliding the glass back to reveal the screen covering. “Get away from there!”

But there was nothing but the sound of happiness and laughter from the frolicking group of party- goers.

“You have to stop this!” Scott shouted, whirling and sprinting towards the devil, taking hold of a mass of the cloth that covered his chest in either hand and shaking it violently.

The man just smiled, his graying gums spreading from his yellow teeth in a menacing grin.

His eyes widening as a sense of panic set in, Scott whirled and grabbed the phone off of the desk. Bringing it to his face in his trembling hands, he pressed the “Caller ID” button and then the down arrow. The last number to call showed up in the middle of the screen and he immediately pressed dial, praying that it wasn’t too late to stop Greg.

The phone rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

The voice mail picked up after the fourth ring as Scott spiked the phone into the wall, breaking through the drywall with a cloud of powder.

“Help!” he shouted, whirling around the room looking for anything at all that might be of some assistance.

Snapping back to the creature, his teeth bared ferociously, he growled, “Stop this.”

“I cannot do that,” the deep voice answered.

“Fuck!” Scott shouted as he brushed past the monster and dashed into the hallway, hurdling the stairs into the entranceway. A chorus of laughter filled the house as he burst through the front door and out onto the lawn.

The wet snow that still coated the lawn in patches seeped up between his bare toes as he raced across the wet grass, bounding over the curb and onto the street. Pebbles and grains of dirt dug into the pads on his feet, stinging as they pierced the flesh, but he had no time to even notice.

A block away, he could see the herds of people milling in the street, oblivious to what was about to happen.

“Get away from there!” he shouted at the top of his lungs as he hopped over the curb on the other side of the street and onto the muddy mess of yard in front of the skeletal house covered with tarps.

His feet sunk deeply into the mud that seethed between his toes as each step became labored, his balance tedious.

“Get away from there!”

There was a loud explosion that echoed down from the hills above. The ground rumbled beneath his feet as a cloud of smoke appeared above the trees that lined the foothills, against the blue colored Rockies.

“No!” he shouted, as the ground seemed to drop out from beneath him.

Falling to his face on the muddy ground, he scrambled forward, clawing at the thick mud in a futile effort to regain his feet. The ground still trembled, a loud groan filtering his way from the explosion.

Scott was helpless to do more than watch as the street ahead split wide open, starting at the entrance to the development, heading straight down the middle of the street towards the park where the groups of people all stopped what they were doing to stare up at the cloud of smoke billowing from the distant trees. They swayed on their feet against the rumbling earth, some of them starting to run, others frozen in time as they felt the earth split open between their feet.

The asphalt crumbled atop the fragmenting earth as the street fell into the old mine shafts. Bodies that had once been in the center of his view slipped beneath the earth amidst a chorus of screams.

Smoke and dust filled the air above where the street had once been, blocking his view of the park, which had suddenly fallen silent. The shuddering ground subsided as Scott was finally able to push himself to his feet.

Sprinting as fast as he possibly could, his heart hammering through his pained lungs, he raced to the edge of the sidewalk across from the park on the edge of the crumbled street. Falling to his hands and knees, he stared down into the canyon of broken asphalt at the mess of twisted and shattered bodies that littered the smoking ground.

The spray from a snapped water main doused the whole area in a heavy rain, wetting down the clouds of dust as the brown droplets of water settled to the earth. Tears streamed from his eyes as he clenched them shut as tightly as he possibly could. There was a hollow ache right in the center of his being.

Forcing his eyes open and fighting a wave of choking sobs that burst from his quivering lips, Scott climbed over the lip of the canyon in the road, lowering himself to the ground to begin to sort through the corpses to see if there were any left alive.

A shadow crossed over him from above as he knelt by the first badly twisted body. He looked up just in time to see the big, brown eyes of the large stag beneath the heavily forked antlers atop its head. The eyes glimmered momentarily in the midday sun before the animal finally whirled and bounded off out of sight.

Turning his attention back to the piles of rubble that he now sorted through, Scott wept as he searched for any sign of life.