Echoes (Whisper Trilogy Book 2) (31 page)

“I’m not listening to this,” Steve said, taking a cautious step back.

“Remember when I told you I was going to make you suffer, then I was going to fuck your wife and make her enjoy it?”

“Shut up!”

Isaac started to sob as Marshall went on. “I never got a chance to do that, but now I will. You must see now how strong they are, the Gogoku? They showed me how to take over a body. They gave me the power to finish what we started…”

“No.”

“I made a deal. You remember how good I was at that, don’t you Steve? How good I was at driving the bargain, closing the deal?”

Steve didn’t answer. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. His mind raced with the helplessness of the situation. Even a physical confrontation was out of the question due to the state of his body.

“I’m going to slit your son’s throat,” Henry said. “Then I’m going to make you watch me damage your wife in every way possible. I’m going to fill her every stinking hole with my seed and, last of all, I’m going to remove your skin, graft by graft and feed it to you.”

The blackened remains of Hope House groaned in agreement, sending ripples out through the hotel walls.

“And when it’s done, they will have what they want, and I get to live again in this body. No loose ends, just like I always promised.”

Just then, it hit Steve, a moment of absolute clarity. He recalled his conversation with Dane as they walked through the woods.

“Still,” Dane continued. “It must bring you some kind of inner peace.”

“What must?” Steve said, glancing at Dane in the near dark.

“To know. I mean it’s obvious to me you believe in these ghosts or spirits or whatever. You’ve seen them, correct?”

“Yeah, I do. What’s your point?”

“My point is, there must be a certain relief from knowing there’s more than this. When our bodies die, there’s somewhere to go.”

Ignoring the gnawing terror in his gut, Steve glanced at Melody, and took her face in his hands. “Do you trust me?” he whispered.

She nodded, glancing at Marshall.

“Don’t look at him,” Steve said. “Do you believe in me enough to do the right thing?”

She nodded again.

“Remember, no regrets. We finish this tonight.”

“Why are you saying this?” she managed.

He didn’t reply, instead he kissed her on the cheek, then leaned close and whispered in her ear.

Fresh tears spilled onto her cheeks as Steve began walking towards Henry. He didn’t speak, and held Marshall’s stare, the effort of ignoring his son’s pleading gaze almost proving too much to handle.

Fear, thick, heavy and living burned in the back of his throat while he slowly walked towards the splintered and burnt shell of his former home. He wasn’t religious, yet prayed anyway, prayed for the strength to do what he had to do. Prayed his wife and son would understand.

“It’s okay,” Steve said, smiling at his son via a mask which betrayed the absolute horror which raged inside him. “Everything will be fine.”

He turned his attention back to Marshall. “Okay, Donovan, you piece of shit. No more games, let’s settle this. What kind of pussy hides behind a child?”

Marshall twitched and relaxed the pressure on the knife.

“You don’t like that do you, Donovan, or should I call you Freddy?”

“Shut up!” Marshall grunted. The house creaked, the hotel walls shuddered. Two of the overhead spotlights exploded with a dull pop.

“Little Freddy Briggs,” Steve said with a sneer. “Oh, I read all about you. A loner who liked to cut up animals to see how they work.”

“You shut up, or I swear to god I’ll make you suffer…” Marshall threatened, the sweat on his brow growing heavier.

“Go ahead, do it, you fucking coward.” Steve raged, ignoring the instinct to flee, ignoring everything but Marshall. He looked through the windows of Henry’s eyes and was sure he could see Donovan in there, pacing around like some deranged animal.

Marshall held the knife towards Steve, who was now less than two feet away. “I’ll fucking gut you if you don’t shut up!” he screamed, spit rolling down his chin.

“I killed you once and went through hell to do it,” Steve said, forcing a grin. “I’m not afraid of you. This is just like the night at the house. You’re dead. You can’t hurt me. You can’t hurt my family.”

Marshall grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut as Steve took another step forward, gently grabbing his sons arm and guiding him towards his mother as the remains of Hope House started to shudder, dislodging a few loose bricks which tumbled to the ground.

“You’re nothing,” Steve whispered, now close enough to smell the pungent odor from his sweating nemesis. “Nobody even remembers you anymore. Nobody cares about a loser like you.”

“Stop it…” Marshall gasped, taking a step back.

“Leave us, leave us alone. Go back to whatever hell you came from. Nobody wants you in this world, Freddy. Even your own mother didn’t want you. That poor woman did everything she could to deny you even existed.”

“She loved me!”

“No, she didn’t. She was ashamed of you. She hated you. You belong over there with them, with the dead.”

“Please, no!” Marshall whimpered, cowering away from Steve as the house shuddered again, dislodging more debris.

“This is over. It’s time to release your hold on this man and go back to whatever hell you came from.”

Henry’s lip started to tremble and he took a step back, Steve stepping forward at the same time.

“This ends now,” Steve whispered.

It was at that point when Marshall grinned, dropped the act of being in pain and took a quick step forward, plunging the knife into Steve’s chest.

II

There was no scream, no sound uttered by either Steve or Marshall. There was only a grating sound of bone on blade as the knife was withdrawn, followed by the dull thud as Steve fell to the ground, the blood welling out of the knife wound in his chest. His eyes stared at the Perspex roof, unblinking. Unseeing. That was when the scream did come, a harrowing, violent outburst which came from the very pit of Melody’s stomach. Her legs gave out, and she fell to her knees, holding Isaac close. He too was sobbing, wailing uncontrollably as Marshall wiped the blood off the knife onto his hooded top and walked towards them.

“That was his own fault,” Henry said irritably. “I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to experience pain like I did. He forced me into killing him quick. I tried to tell him how powerful they’d become. You heard me, right?” he said, grabbing Isaac roughly by the arm and putting the knife to his neck, just inches away from Melody.

“I was so looking forward to cutting this one out of you that day in the clearing. Better late than never. I want you to feel the warmth of his blood as it sprays you.”

“Please, don’t hurt him!”

She lunged for the knife, trying to wrestle it from Marshall’s hand. She was too slow and could only watch as he pulled the blade across her son’s throat.

White light.

The knife exploded into thousands of tiny shards, the resulting shock-wave sending both Melody and Marshall crashing to the ground. Melody slammed into the inner chamber wall, while Marshall hit a charred wooden beam and slumped to the floor. Only Isaac was unharmed, confused and staring at his mother, wondering what to do.

Melody shook her head, blinking away the white spots dancing across her eyes. She looked to her son, desperate to know he was safe. Her eyes locked onto his, and what she saw was enough to take her breath away.

Isaac was surrounded in a white glow, an aura which shimmered around the edge of his body. A wispy snake of undulating mist flecked with gold connected Isaac to Steve. He stood by his son’s side, one semi translucent hand on his son’s shoulder, the burns which had ravaged his body in life now absent in death.

Melody looked at her chest, and traced a lighter translucent connection back to the body of her dead husband. With his free hand he gently tugged at it, breaking the connection between them and in doing so increasing the protective bond around Isaac.

He caught her eye, making sure she understood.

Marshall got to his feet, his features a swirling mass of black shadows, his eyes bottomless wells of hatred. Whereas Isaac and Steve’s auras were pure white, Marshalls was an oily black, charged with crimson flashes. Marshall roared and charged for Melody, his hands clamping around her throat. She tried to fight him off, however the black thing inside him was strong, driving Marshall on to increase the pressure. Desperate for breath, she clawed at his arms, each scratch unleashing thousands of tiny black spiders which ran to the dark places under his clothes. Steve appeared in her line of sight, and smiled as he put a hand on Marshall’s shoulder. There was a shallow whumph as a black form was expelled from Marshall, a formless vortex which resembled a tornado, its tip spewing flashes of red as it attempted to reattach to its host.

Steve grasped it and drew it into himself, the black mass being consumed by his inner light. Free of Donovan’s influence, Marshall groaned and released his grip just seconds before the inner door burst open and the police charged in, tackling Marshall to the ground and handcuffing him. Melody cowered away from the chaos, coughing and gasping as she tried to regain her composure. When she looked back, the glow around Isaac had gone, as had the spirit of her husband.

III

Police cars swarmed the building, illuminating the trees with flashing arcs of red and blue. Marshall sat in the back of a police car, eyes vacant as he looked at the chaos in complete bewilderment. Melody was perched in the back of an ambulance, blanket draped over her shoulders as she hugged Isaac, refusing to let him go. She was staring at the hotel, trying to come to terms with everything that had happened. Emma stood beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” she said as officers went about their business like determined worker ants.

“Was it you who called the police?” Melody asked.

“Yeah, I had to run halfway down the access road to get a signal.”

Melody nodded. “Is everyone else alright?”

“They found Marshall’s brother and his cameraman hysterical in the woods. Bruce is alive but critical.”

“What about your friends?”

“No sign of them yet. There’s a search helicopter on its way to look for them. It’s—” Emma stopped speaking as the blue body-bag containing Steve’s body was rolled out of the hotel entrance and loaded into the back of a waiting ambulance.

“I’m so sorry,” Emma said, finding no other words which were more appropriate.

“It’s fine,” Melody said, watching the paramedics close the ambulance doors.

“You should probably see one of the paramedics, you don’t look so good,” Emma said, glancing at Isaac who was pale and stared at his feet while Melody stroked his hair.

“I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet. I’m sure it will,” She mumbled, wondering why she couldn’t bring herself to cry.

“What happens now?”

“I wish I knew,” Melody replied, turning her eyes to Isaac “I really don’t know.”

IV

Creasefield Hospital.

Henry Marshall ate his breakfast with the plastic spoon, staring at the leafy car park beyond the mesh-covered windows. Deemed mentally unfit to stand trial for his crimes the moment he told the police the voices in his head were responsible, he was sent to Creasefield or ‘The Crease’ as its inmates called it. He had been held responsible for the murders of twelve people and the attempted murder of four others. Despite intensive questioning in the weeks following his arrest, he couldn’t remember committing the crimes, yet at the same time couldn’t say for sure he hadn’t done them either. All he could remember were the voices. As the police showed him the crime scene photographs of the dead to try and make him remember, he supposed he must have been guilty, and to everyone’s surprise confessed.

He scooped another mouthful of the tasteless cereal into his mouth and looked around the room at the drooling, gibbering idiots. If anything, time had given him the opportunity to consider his circumstances, and although it was still a hellish way to live, it was still better than prison.

“Henry, you have a visitor,” One of the orderlies said, approaching him.

Marshall looked at him with heavy eyes whilst he waited for his brain to catch up.

Eventually his drug-addled mind received the message and he set the spoon down.

“Come on now, you know the drill,” the orderly said, giving Henry a plastic cup containing two red pills and a second cup of water to wash them down.

Well trained to the hospital routine, he swallowed down the medication. He knew they were a mild sedative designed to keep the patients in a perpetual state of drowsiness, however he long since stopped fighting against taking them. The place they sent him to, a woozy, blissful euphoria, was the only time he could get without being plagued by half-snatches of memories, of thoughts of violence which were alien to him, yet felt as if they were once familiar.

He stood obediently following his escort towards the visiting room. He was inside and took his seat, scratching at the thick salty beard he’d grown since his incarceration.

Split down the middle by a reinforced window, the visitor room was small and cold, and yet better than having to spend another moment with the rest of the deranged inmates in the recreational room. The door on the visitor’s side opened and Dane entered the room. He was dressed in a sharp blue suit and had cut and restyled his hair. He looked professional, every bit the business man Henry had been before the days of walking the halls of the hospital in his state-issued pajamas. Dane sat and looked at his brother, his expression completely neutral. He showed neither pity nor remorse.

“How are you doing, Henry?”

Henry blinked, already feeling the effect of his meds. There was so much he wanted to say, yet all he could do was wish. Wish his tongue wasn’t so heavy, wish his brain wasn’t so slow, wish he could articulate the hundreds of things he wanted to say to his brother instead of sitting and drooling like an idiot all over himself.