The Lurking Man (16 page)

Wiggling her way through the tight crowd, she stopped when she saw Beau sprawled on the ground with his hips twisted in such a way that she knew it was bad.

“Beau!”

She lunged forward to grab him. She intended on pulling him to his feet, brushing off his clothes, and scolding him for scaring her so. But powerful hands clamped down on her shoulders and kept her away from her son.

“Beau, get up!” she shouted. She turned and punched the person who held her. “Get your damn hands off of me!”

“No. Don't touch him. He can't be moved.”

“But that's my son,” she shouted. Rafi was lying on the ground next to him, just out of reach. “I can't just leave him there like that. I need to help him.”

“You'll help him more by not moving him.”

“No!” she said and tried to fight against his incredible strength.

“Look at me.” Hands grabbed her face and forced her focus. Emerson's stare was intense. “You cannot move him, do you understand me?”

Her fight went away and her eyes filled with tears.

“Here,” he said, and took the water bottle out of her hand. “Let's get you some more water.” He hesitated, brought the bottle to his nose and sniffed it.

She ripped the bottle from his hand. “You keep your mouth shut. This is none of your business.”

“No, it's not,” he said and pointed at the park facility building. “Go to the water fountain and refill your bottle.” He handed her gum he pulled from his pocket. “I'll look after your son while you get yourself together.”

She kept her shame hidden behind the tint of her glasses. Stepping past Emerson, she concentrated on walking a straight line to the fountain.

Chapter 19

 

 

WHAT'S INSIDE

 

 

Present day.

 

Cailean sat at the table and noticed Rafi remained in her firm grasp.

“The things you do, the way you are, it's because of what resides in you,” Sariel said.

Her heart was heavy from the events she just experienced. Having her suspicion validated that she was indeed responsible for Beau being in a wheelchair brought her to her breaking point.

“I don't care anymore,” she said. “There is nothing left for us to talk about. I will never be able to move past that event in death, as I wasn't able to in life. It's impossible.”

“The time has come for us to confront it and it knows,” he said.

An intense restlessness came over her and the rousing had become so powerful that it made her feel sick.

“Orthon,” Sariel said. “I know you are in there. Your hold on her must come to an end now.”

“Help me,” Cailean said, though she didn't know why. She found herself in a struggle with something on the inside. The compulsive urge that she should leave the light right now—that this might be her last chance to escape before a strict, unmerciful punishment was handed down—made her desperate and she looked for a way out.

“Cailean?”

It was hard to focus, but she looked at the darkness.

“You will not survive one moment outside the light,” Sariel said. “Resist what it is telling you to do.”

A shimmer around Sariel flashed and faded. Cailean comprehended that he had sent a message without words. She trusted him and gave up her fight.

“I wish to speak to Orthon. Alone,” he said.

Cailean trembled.

“Orthon?”

“Death,” Cailean said, but in a voice far more gruesome than Sariel's.

“So, you have come?” Sariel said.

“You beckon me by name when you have no authority over my kind?”

“The authority to bring death to all things living is mine and mine alone. I have the ability to bring an end to your kind, too,” he said. “Look around you, you have nowhere to go and you are at my mercy.”

“I know no mercy.”

Sariel laughed. “Neither will she once you come out and show her what you look like.”

Sariel's words had agitated the thing inside her and it relinquished control back to Cailean. She bent at the waist, grabbed her abdomen, and fell to her knees. Fighting what felt like a tug of war on her insides, a cavernous, pain-filled groan was interrupted by a diabolical laughter that sounded inhuman. Orthon had regained control over Cailean.

“Your laughter is how you express fear,” Sariel said. “You are vile and weak and you know that you have made a terrible error in coming here today, to my domain.”

It lowered her chin and gobs of drool spilled out of her mouth. A menacing, territorial growl warned of the contained aggression and it watched the darkness with wide, unblinking eyes.

“The noises you make are as pathetic as your idea to think you could hide in there and that I wouldn't notice,” Sariel said.

“I won't leave her body until she has departed from the living world. You have taken her here prematurely and I still have claim over her. I will tell her of your plan unless you leave me be.”

“If you knew what I planned, demon, then you would not have come here now. You are nothing but the dirt beneath everyone's feet. You feed off of the young and weary and make their lives miserable. I see no use for your kind. Now, come forth so she can see you for what you are.”

It attempted to smile. “No, I told you that she is mine until this body dies.”

“I can take her now and you with her. Maybe I will send you for judgment, too. Imagine what would happen.”

The smile disappeared and the low raspy growl returned.

“Release her of your control and I may have mercy on you.”

At that command, Cailean's body went limp and collapsed on the floor face first. A split second later, she arched back and teetered on her stomach. Her voice strained with a scream forced out by pure pain and her eyes bulged. Veins inside her eyes burst and her scleras turned red.

Like a puppet controlled by a puppeteer, she rose up, stood, and tilted her head back. Her mouth opened fully and she made a monstrous retching sound. Long, charred fingers reached out of her mouth and grabbed her upper and lower jaws and pried them apart.

She leaned forward and something abhorrent spilled from her mouth. It hurried to its feet and stood in a large pool of vomit. It had a skinless face. Sharp, menacing teeth snapped at the air, and red eyes smoldering like hot coals stared back at her.

She turned away from it, frightened and repulsed.

“Fear it no more,” Sariel said. “It knows it can no longer hurt you. It feels trapped like a wild animal and it knows it will be put down.”

Orthon belted out a ferocious growl and Cailean sidestepped it.

“I don't like it,” she said, her eyes wide with fear.

“Two chairs,” Sariel said. “Place them close and face them. This is your chance to confront it.”

An unseen nudge encouraged Cailean's feet into motion. She gathered the chairs and positioned them a few feet apart, unnerved by the close quarters.

“You belong to me!” Orthon said, and shoved the chair aside. It tumbled across the floor and the loud sounds startled Cailean. “You side with that thing out there?” It pointed at the darkness. “Look at all of the things I have given you.”

Sariel laughed and Cailean clamped her eyes shut.

“I don't like this!” she shouted.

“I want you to look at it!” Sariel said.

She opened her eyes to see the thing that stood before her and gasped. Sexless and naked it stood about five feet tall. Its body was fat and charcoal colored flesh was cracked and peeling. The arms and legs were different lengths and chewed meat clung to its sharp teeth.

“What do you see?” Sariel said.

She remembered the pain within her belly and the constant unquenchable thirst. She saw that the meat in its teeth was the lies and anger she fed it. Her face twisted into an expression of revulsion. “I see pure evil.”

“What you see standing before you now was much smaller and weaker when you were a child. But you chose to embrace it and nurture it, and it has lived and grown inside of you. This is what has encouraged you to make the decisions you have made.”

It didn't blink and it gave off a foul odor that reminded her of Mr. Hagen. She wondered if he was infected that day in the lily field and had somehow passed it to her.

“Daddy,” Orthon said, its lurid voice scorned Cailean.

“Stop it!” she said.

“He loved you but you loved me more.”

Now it mocked her.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and the shame and anger that battled within distracted her.

“And your mommy?” Orthon said.

“Shut up,” she said.

“I needed them out of the way,” Orthon said and tilted its head. “A suggestion here and there led to that very important lie. One that would allow me to get a hold of you and remove anything positive that influenced you.”

“Why?”

“Because you hated the man across the street. Hate and misery are what I feed off of. And because of you, I have eaten well.”

Cailean forbade the thought that what she saw before her now had lived inside of her since she was a girl.

“That little girl at the playground with your son is mine after I'm done with you.”

“What girl at the playground?”

“The girl and the fat father. What you didn't see was a push and no fall. It was all a lie and I saw it with my own eyes.”

It cackled in delight.

“Don't let it distract you. Tell it what you think of it,” Sariel said.

Her mind raced with the events Sariel had shared with her.

“Oh yes, have a hard look. You've fed me well,” Orthon said with its horrible discordant voice. It banged on its fattened belly with a wet slap. “And there are so many more like you.”

The personal torment she suffered at the hands of that thing and the insufferable hurt she put others through because of it brought out a feeling of raw discontent she had never known before and her humanity slipped away in an instant.

“I hate you!” she screamed and the veins in her neck bulged. Clenched fists were ready to lash out and spit flew from her mouth. She stood and went nose to nose with it and shoved it.

“What did you do to me?”

Orthon roared back and tried to grab her but his gooey skin gave him no traction.

“I gave you a purpose!” it said.

She shoved it again and it fell near the edge of light. Panicked, it tried to run away but Sariel grabbed it by its neck and picked it up. Flailing limbs and a hysterical scream came to an end in a fast, brutal flaying by Sariel's fingernails.

He dropped the mangled piece of meat to the ground and the wind kicked up, covering the body with snow.

Dumbfounded, Cailean looked at the spot where it had fallen, but all traces of it were gone.

Chapter 20

 

 

TIME TO STOP

 

 

The past.

 

“You said he has Rafi?”

“Yes,” Emerson said and drove his Jaguar hard.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure. I placed it beside him after they strapped him in the stretcher.”

He kept pace with the ambulance that rushed Beau to the hospital.

“OK,” Cailean said and tried to relax. The quiet growl of the engine hinted at its hidden power and the sleek interior was a great distraction.

“I saw the entire thing,” he said. His fat fingers and bloated palms wrapped the steering wheel.

Cailean's heart thundered and she really didn't want to know the particulars. In fact, she didn't want to go to the hospital with Beau, but she couldn't get herself to say so.

“I tried to help him, but I couldn't,” he said. “I was too far away, and by the time I even reacted it was all over.”

Emerson's focus remained on the road. The ambulance did most of the work clearing a path, and he did an excellent job of keeping up.

“He dropped his giraffe off of the top of the playground and he tried to catch it. He did everything he could not to let it fall.” He shook his head. “How could he not sense the danger he was in?”

The image of what happened next was clear in Cailean's mind and a chill coursed through her body. She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with what she was about to hear next.

“He fell from the side where the cutout is—the side where they have that firehouse pole.”

“Oh my God,” Cailean said and the sensation of falling overcame her. She shivered, sat up fast, and grabbed the dashboard. A few times in the past she had walked the
massive playground structure and felt dizzy by the height and wanted to get down.
 

“He landed on his head,” he said. “And I don't like the way his neck bent when he hit the ground.”

A tingle of disgust turned her stomach. She wanted to get out of the car and go somewhere far away. Desperate to separate herself from this moment so she wouldn't have to face it she pulled on the door handle, but it was locked.

“What are you doing?” Emerson said.

“I don't know. I'm freaking out right now and I don't feel well.”

“I need you to try and calm down and put your seatbelt on.”

“Please stop,” she said, and strapped herself in. “I don't want to hear any more.”Her pale face was coated with sweat and an obvious tremble coursed through her body.

“OK,” he said and glanced at her. “I'm sorry; I shouldn't have told you those things. I guess I'm kinda freaked out, too.”

“I should be in that ambulance with him.”

“No, you shouldn't. Clearly you are shaken and you need to let them do their work so your son can have the best chance possible.”

She turned her head quickly. “Best chance at what? What are you saying?”

Emerson opened his hands and his lips moved without speaking.

“What I'm trying to say is that if you let them work he'll have a better chance at a full recovery.”