Dead Souls (30 page)

He stepped out of the room, and silently shut the door behind him.

He stepped to his right, into the tacky-wet blood—there was no avoiding it. Keeping his back pressed flat against the wall, he skirted along, taking very small steps, the floor creaking slightly beneath his shifting weight. He approached a closed door, presumably that of Elizabeth's dead brother. As he moved by, a wicked shudder gripped him, and he envisioned the boy's ghost reaching out through the wood, brushing cold dead fingers across the nape of his neck.

Despite being wholly terrified, he could move no faster—his legs were bloodlessly numb, his breathing shallow, his injured mind unable to act in any rapid form of response. All he could do was sidestep in a slow, feeble manner, and listen to the preternatural silence enveloping the house.

He crept to the corner of the hall, paused, then peeked around the edge, his eyes following the blood streaks as they angled to the left. The hallway was empty, apart from the streaks of blood that led downstairs.

Across the hall from the stairway was the baby's room. All was deadly silent. There was no whimpering, no crying spilling out from behind the closed door.

Eddie felt as though he'd missed his opportunity to save a life.

Dear God, I hope I'm wrong. Please, please, let the baby be alive.

Without hesitation, he gripped the doorknob, turned it, and opened the door just enough so he could slip through.

The room was smaller than Elizabeth's. Beneath the soft amber glow of the plug-in nightlight, Eddie could see a crib, the only piece of furniture here, situated alongside the room's lone window. On the floor before the crib was a white drawing similar to the one in Elizabeth's room. It too had a small pile of ashes at its center, plus melted candles, and a small brass censer.

Eddie walked to the crib, cautiously tiptoeing around the ashy mess—tracking this stuff around would certainly lead the minister to him.

He glimpsed into the crib.

And shuddered.

The baby was here…sleeping, thankfully. What'd made Eddie so disconcerted was the tightly-wrapped gauze around its chest, and he immediately came to assume that at some point today, a traditional family sacrament had been performed, one that had left the baby with a scar—a brand—upon its chest. He'd seen the mark on Elizabeth when he first found her wandering, had thought it to be a birthmark, but eventually shunned that theory upon sighting a similar marking on her mother's chest. And then there were the drawings on the floor. Eddie's stomach turned as the truth of the matter sunk in: this innocent little baby had been the focus of some sick gratuitous ritual.

And Eddie could only assume that something had gone horribly wrong, given the deathly results he'd witnessed.
What do they call this? Satanism? Black magic? Voodoo?
He peered over his shoulder, then reached into the crib and plucked the baby out. It lay motionless in his arms. Eddie estimated the baby to be roughly a year old, but the darkness in the room shrouded its face and sex, making it difficult for him to foster any individual attributes upon it. If it hadn't been for the ripe stench of urine rising up, and the slow rise and fall of its bare belly, he might've believed he were holding a life-like doll.

Clutching the baby under his arm like a football—a force of habit more than a protective move—Eddie stepped across the room and moved out into the hallway.

Now he had his legs back—and it was a do or die moment, escape or be killed. He told himself to listen for the slam of the screen door, as this would be his indicator, his cue, to immediately seek out a hiding spot.

The baby's diaper hung like a swing. He shifted his hand beneath it, the wet swell mashing against his fingers. Bitter acid rose from his stomach into his throat, and he felt a sudden urge to vomit. He swallowed his gorge, and moved across the hall to the staircase.

Stepping into the blood, he went downstairs, one hand gripping the iron banister tightly. He reached the bottom landing, paused. The front door was ten feet ahead, across the foyer. He could see a fastened deadbolt and chain, both suggesting impassability, the keyhole a mocking eye telling him to look elsewhere for escape.

The baby fidgeted, its head twisting, its eyes opening slightly, then closing. Looking at the baby, then toward the front door, Eddie decided not to trust his instincts this time. He moved across the foyer. Here, when he glanced around, he could see across the entire house: down the hall, through the living room, into the kitchen, and out the backdoor into the gathering darkness.

Using his right hand, he unhooked the chain. Then, gripped the knob.

The door didn't budge. He yanked on it more forcefully, but it was dead bolted.

Damn!

He would have to go out the back door. The same door the killer went through.
The same door
, Eddie ascertained by the blood streaks leading from the stairs to the kitchen,
that the minister dragged the bodies of his wife and daughter through.

Hinging on the stillness that seemed to offer safe passage, he secured his grip on the baby and staggered down the hall toward the living room, gazing across the length of the house toward the back door.

Which opened.

O
siris, I pray for your empowerment, your continued guidance in my quest for ancestral afterlife. Soon, I shall join my family—oh, my family, how easily their bodies were crucified, thanks to your guidance—in the astral plane. And like Jesus Christ, who employed your magic to rise from the dead and deliver the earth from evil, we shall summon your greatness and pass on to the astral plane where we will remain together as a family for all of eternity, under your spiritual guidance, forgiven of all our sins.

And then we, the Conroy family, will be known for an eternity as those who have risen in the spirit God's shadow. We will become Gods ourselves…

H
e emerged from the darkness, into the bright light of the house. The screen door, which rested on his hip, fell away with a jarring slam.

The baby flinched, and began to wail.

Eddie drew back. The thud of his heart rose into his ears, nearly drowning out the baby's cries…and the rising shout of the minister as his turbulent gaze pinned Eddie.

Eddie froze, his mind swooning with horror at what he saw…this grotesque image of a man—if you could call him that, although
monster
seemed a more befitting description of the thing staggering into the kitchen. He was tall and thin, with ragged hair that fell into his eyes…eyes that were wide and bloodshot amid swollen black/yellow bruises of flesh. The skin of his face, aglow beneath the kitchen light, was gore-streaked, lips spread into a ghastly grin baring dark, craggy teeth. His bare chest was covered in returned-from-the-grave filth, riddled with clotting injuries. His pants were dark with blood, and Eddie could see the familiar boots, now swathed in mud and severed blades of grass.

"Give me my child, boy," the man growled.

Eddie peered from side to side. There were two closed doorways in the hall, one on his left, the other to his right.
I'll take what's behind door number one
, he thought crazily, taking a step backwards and lining himself up with the doorknob.

"Give him to me!"
the minister barked, taking two steps forward, and it was here that Eddie saw the hammer gripped in his right fist, dripping with blood.

Hugging the bawling baby under his left arm, Eddie hurriedly tried the door on his right. It occurred to him in this defining moment that he might very well be uncovering a coat closet for refuge, but was exceedingly thankful to find a set of wooden stairs disappearing down into chilly, dank darkness.

"Come here!" the minister yelled. He reeled into the hallway, the pound of his boots sending vibrations into the floor beneath Eddie's feet. Eddie gripped the inside doorknob with his free hand and turned his right shoulder against the door, hesitating only a second before shoving his weight against it. The minister crashed into the solid wood with a painful grunt and skidded down onto the floor like an iron weight. For a moment he lay stunned, but then began thumping and sprawling, the hammer in his hand hitting against the wall as he struggled to his knees. The baby, eyes wide and terrified, squirmed and bawled in Eddie's arms. Eddie, grimacing from the burst of pain in his shoulder, hurriedly fled into the cellar.

As he raced down, his most immediate thought was to protect the baby—and the only way he could do this was to hide it somewhere and then distract the minister upon attempting to flee. Eddie reached the bottom landing and tripped over something hard and heavy that shifted gratingly upon the cement floor. He shouted out, not in pain, but from fear of nearly dropping the baby. He crumpled down on one knee. The cement floor dug a jagged hole through his jeans and bit into his skin—he could feel a warm trickle of blood on his leg.

There was a sharp thud—the sound of the hammer slamming onto the floor. Eddie shot a glance up the stairs and saw the bloody fingers of the minister grasping the edge of the partially open door.

Eddie climbed to his feet and limped toward a stack of boxes, knocking into a standing lamp base that tottered back and forth. He circled around the boxes, then moved deeper into the cellar.

Here the room grew a bit brighter, caught beneath the dusky light trickling in through the small windows. It was packed tightly with a wide array of shadowed clutter. boxes and lamps and dusty pieces of furniture. Rafters and pipes crisscrossed on the ceiling, swathed gauzy webs.

He scampered to the farthest corner and hunkered down, listening with apprehension as the pounding footsteps of the minister,
the same damn plodding monster steps that had come up the stairs to murder his family
, made their way down.

"I want my son!"
the madman shrieked.

Eddie became vaguely aware of a cool draft behind him. He spun. Looked. Here, coated in dust and cobwebs and a few greasy cloths, was a crawlspace.

"Give me my baby boy!"
The minister was in the cellar now. Eddie could see his head over the maze of boxes, bobbing as he lurched toward a large oil tank in the opposite corner. The man swept aside a stack of books, leaned down, and peered beneath the tank.

Eddie scanned the immediate area. There was a burlap bag on the floor a few feet away, laying against a box like a dead possum. Keeping to his knees, he scooted over to it and grasped it, scowling at its stiff, rough condition.

He peered at the baby; it was breathing
raspily
, wet eyes swollen and contemplating Eddie's unfamiliarity with intense yet trustful inquisitiveness.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry…" Eddie whispered, tapping a gentle finger over the baby's lips.
I'm sorry.
Quickly, he shrouded the baby in the bag, stood up, and tucked it deep into the dark crawlspace.

"Bring me my boy, you son of the devil!"

Head down, Eddie immediately raced back toward the stairs. The minister launched across the cellar toward him, hammer raised high. Quickly, Eddie stepped aside and pushed the standing lamp down. The minister tripped over the iron shaft and staggered into a stack of boxes. There was a loud shattering noise as both minister and boxes crashed down to the cement floor.

Eddie, instead of fleeing—because fleeing would simply give the crazed murderer an opportunity to seek out his baby boy unhampered—fell to his knees and groped for the hammer. It quickly settled into his grip, fingers closing around the iron claw; blood spread across his palm, sticky and warm. He rose up on one knee, pulled. The minister tightened his grip on the handle and yanked back.

They struggled. The minister managed to climb to his knees. Now both of them were kneeling, eye-to-eye, grimacing madly. The minister jerked and bucked and yanked; drops of blood flew from his torso and spattered a cardboard box. Eddie saw a window of opportunity and let go of the hammer, which caused the minister to plummet back down against the crushed boxes.

Eddie scrambled to his feet. He glanced about, looking for something he could utilize as a weapon. The standing lamp was the only thing at his disposal. In one fluid motion, he grabbed it and swung it around. The exposed socket tore into the minister's wounded chest, like a knife into an ripened pumpkin.

With a scream of both pain and exertion, the minister grabbed the end of the lamp with his free hand, and before Eddie could jerk it back, levered himself to his knees; black blood, glistening in the pallid light, fell down his chest in a stream.

Eddie let go of the lamp. He made an attempt to plant a foot into the minister's chest, but lost his balance and missed. The minister dropped the lamp, and with a grunt, swung the hammer. It struck Eddie's shin with a sound like a firecracker going off.

Eddie screamed. He collapsed to the cement floor and immediately started pushing with his good leg in an attempt to crawl away. The minister lurched forward, panting and growling like a dog. Eddie rolled sideways. His hand came in contact with the heavy thing he'd tripped over. He felt out a thin wire handle and the circular weightiness of a full can of paint.

The minister screeched and leapt forward. The hammer's claw swept down over his head. Eddie grabbed the can of paint with both hands and held it up just as the hammer came down.