Dark Side Darker (39 page)
Authors: Lucas T. Harmond
He realised he and Nickoloi were one and with that realisation he knew how to hurt him.
“
Diiiiieeeeeeeeeeee
!!!!!!!!!” He willed, pushing his rage at Rufus’ death towards him.
Nickoloi staggered backwards. He smiled and sent Josh flying backwards into the smoke.
Blind, he began to slow and then Josh lowered his body down to float a few feet above the floor. He covered his mouth from the smoke and floated towards its edge.
Nickoloi’s spidery hands seized his throat from out of the grey and then the two of them were struggling together, rolling through the air. They hit the floor still entangled.
“Get off me, you fucking freak!” Josh yelled at Nickoloi.
Nickoloi pushed his hand into Josh’s face and smacked his head on the floor. He did it again and again until Josh’s senses dulled. Satisfied, he let go and brought his face close to Josh’s. His voice was syrupy as always.
“I just don’t understand why you’re here? What did any of this have to do with you?”
Before Josh could speak, Nickoloi was heaved off him by Carthy. In his hands he held a machine gun.
He threw Nickoloi’s wiry frame to the floor and then aimed his weapon down at him, ready to send a burst of bullets into his torso, but his was gun jammed by Nickoloi’s thoughts.
“Josh, distract him!”
Josh punched him in the ear, but Nickoloi merely laughed.
“With your mind, fool!”
Uncertain of what to do, Josh tried directing his thought towards his enemy but nothing happened and slowly Nickoloi began to get up.
Carthy looked at Josh, his weapon still jamming.
‘Josh, we’re all just energy!!!!!’ Carthy yelled inside the boy’s mind.
It triggered some reaction at a deeper level than Josh could consciously understand, but it was enough.
There was one second of panic on Nickoloi’s face and then Carthy emptied his gun into him in one long sustained burst of fire.
Nickoloi slumped backwards, the lights above dimming. Carthy threw away his empty weapon.
One of the suits came staggering out of the smoke. They were visually stunned.
“
You
!!! It doesn’t matter, come on we’re pulling out! Now!”
Nickoloi’s spirit rushed up on him, sending him staggering back as his will took control of his body. He began to smile.
Before Nickoloi gained full control of his new host, Carthy held out his hand and with his mind wrenched the machine gun he held clean out of his hands. It flew effortlessly to him and even as he caught it, he was firing on Nickoloi’s new form. It was the bullet that went through his eye that killed him but even now Nickoloi was not dead.
Above them the ceiling shifted, lights exploded.
Josh felt the demon’s full presence fill the room and echo inside his mind. Despite the fire, the air around him grew cold and he fell to his knees, the pressure inside his chest of a rapidly approaching and unnatural heart attack. Carthy fought against it, trying to push the now released energy back into its own realm. Nickoloi released his grip on Josh, who then collapsed.
Josh felt the blood in his eyes, looked about, saw the last of the suits running scared through the broken doorway. They had never been prepared for this.
Carthy’s mind was clenched into deep concentration trying either to vanquish the alien presence or nullify it. He gritted his teeth and pushed harder.
The windows shattered inwards, for a second glass hung in the air and then showered down on them.
Josh stood in the smokey darkness, trying to breath. The only light was the flames and the obscured moon. Suddenly he was knocked from his feet, sent flying by a blow he couldn’t see until he scraped across the floor some ten metres back. He tried to get to his feet, but Zackeriah was already following up his attack. Josh’s body tumbled sideways across the floor until he hit with a metal storage shelf. He looked up and in the dim light saw the heavy crate above him begin to move. He watched it tilt, drop and then before it crushed him watched it slow till it hung a few inches above his face. Triumphantly, he hurled it aside.
A voice in his mind. ‘A new trick, hey boy?! Good, good, good! It’ll make the game a little more interesting.’
“Where are you!!!!!!!” Josh yelled into the smoke.
‘Everywhere and nowhere,’ came the reply.
Blinding pain hit Josh as a screwdriver darted into his upper arm. He felt rather than heard Zakeriah’s laughter. A hail of glass and small objects erupted out of the darkness and Josh ran away in panic.
Carthy began to condense Nickoloi down into a single point. Now that Josh had Zackeriah distracted he was able to deal with the disembodied enemy on more level terms. He focused in on him with his mind, Nickoloi pushing back all the way, until he hung as a single sphere of blinding red light. The ball began to flash about, swerve violently through the air, shrinking all the time and then, it vaporised out of existence. Nickoloi was gone.
Carthy punched the air in celebration and then searched for Josh.
‘Josh, where are you?!’
In his mind came the muffled reply. ‘Here.’
In Carthy’s mind’s eye he saw the boy crouching in some distant corner, choking on the ever-increasing smoke. He also saw Zackeriah stalking towards him with his eyes ablaze.
‘Boy, I’m coming to kill you,’ he bellowed as he used his third eye to navigate through the blinding smoke. ‘Your fear is all the path I need.’
Around him the building was beginning to fail. Its timbers were creaking and popping and the roof was swaying violently.
Masking himself as best as he could Carthy rushed Zackeriah, but he anticipated the move and ducked sending him flying over him to land near Josh.
Zackeriah stood over them against a wall of fire and smoke with his eyes ablaze with intense white.
He looked them over and then let out a mad bellowing laugh. “Before I kill you, I just want to know one thing—why?
Who are you and what the fuck did any of this have to do with you
?”
They never got chance to answer as the section of roofing Carthy was focusing on gave way and Zackeriah was crushed under tonnes of concrete, steel and burning timber. Instantly the white-noise that had been buzzing through their minds and nervous systems stopped and they knew Zackeriah was dead.
Josh was awed. “
Is he dead
???”
Carthy looked doubtful. “Maybe—if it was quick enough—wait.”
The torrential storm which had started was spilling in through the swirling blackness, hissing as it met with the flames.
The rubble that had crushed Zackeriah exploded outwards. Carthy shielded them from the impacts, knocking them aside.
Zackeriah’s crushed body flew up into the air and then was shook like the toy in a mouth of a dog.
‘A toy, fools!!!!!!!!!’ came the hiss in their minds. ‘But can you stop me?????’
Zackeriah’s presence hurled his now dead body at them.
There was a sharp pain behind Josh’s eyes and in a few muddled seconds he realised Zackeriah was trying to take his body as his own.
“Push him back, Josh,” yelled Carthy, and then the two of them were forcing the entity back.
They watched the smoke swirl and take weird patterns, saw the flames dance more wildly than they ever had before.
Above them came a cracking sound and they realised the entire roof was in danger of coming down.
“He’s gonna’ bring it all down!!” yelled Carthy. “Come on, we gotta’ get of here.”
The two of them ran without sight through the chaos, guided by their advanced intuition until they broke out into the wet night. Around them was a line of police cars and cops held steady at the road, all too afraid to advance, but as of yet unwilling to disobey their orders.
Behind them there was insane intense laughter and a single column of fire streamed up into the black clouds before dissipating with a boom.
“
Is that him
??
Is it dead
????”
Carthy shook his head. “No, just gone. My guess is he will just bide his time and break back in to this world on some other occasion.”
“What about the creatures?”
“All dead.”
Josh sat there numbly with the rain slapping over his skull before plastering his lank hair to his chalky face. It was over...
but Rufus was dead. So were his parents and Karen’s father and for what
? All for Sarah.
Carthy’s smoke-smeared face had broke into a grim smile and casually, oblivious to the destroyed warehouse and watching cops, he pulled out a fine cigar tube and unscrewed the top.
“The cure!!” Josh yelped fighting back the tears. “We didn’t get the cure!!!!! Oh god...”
Carthy laughed and lit his cigar. “There never was a cure. No more than what I could have done at any time.”
Josh punched the wet earth. “What do mean!? Do you mean she’s fucking dead?!”
Carthy sucked on his cancer then exhaled. With an amused look in his grey eyes, he shook his head once more. “Hardly. I took care of it before I came to get you. It didn’t take much to expel it. I could have done it at any time, but it worked best for me to keep it there for a while. Gave me some control over you and your merry band of idiots!”
“
You fucking bastard
!!” Josh yelped and punched him on the shoulder.
Carthy let it go and just laughed low. “She was never in any real danger.”
He looked at the line of flashing blue lights and troubled faces.
“As for you,” he said with a smile. “I think you’ve got one hell of a lot of explaining to do.” And with that, he walked off into the rain.
THE END
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