From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (166 page)

Preta's Realm: The
Haunting
By J. Thorn

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Acknowledgments
Other Works
About the Author
Copyright

Preta's Realm:
The Haunting
(Book 1 of The Hidden Evil Trilogy)
Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2011
by J. Thorn

All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a
work of fiction. The characters, incidents, places, and dialogue are drawn from
the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed
as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.

Edited by:
Talia Leduc
Katy Sozaeva
Laurie Love

For more information:

http://www.jthorn.net

[email protected]

For Andrew
R. and James D.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Acknowledgments

Other Works

About the Author

Copyright

Drew
slid his mouse across the desk with a flick of the wrist. One hundred seventeen
messages, an in-box bursting with digital text. He took a sip from a mug filled
to the brim with steaming Italian roast.

“Morning,”
came the call from the hallway as Brian floated past on his way to the restroom.

“Hey,”
replied Drew.

Brian
stopped with a smile on his face. “Got the best blowjob last night,” he said
through a toothy grin.

“Who’d
you pay to touch that diseased pole of yours?” asked Drew.

“Your
mom.”

Drew
laughed and threw his hands behind his head.

“What
did you do this weekend?” asked Brian.

“My
son had his first ice-hockey game on Saturday. He scored twice and laid a mean
hit on the other team’s defenseman. The kid knows how to forecheck.”

Brian
chuckled and dropped his shoulder. He feigned a crosscheck on the office door. “Coulda
been a center in the NHL. No doubt.” Drew shook his head and glanced back at
the monitor on his desk. “Can’t keep your eyes off that thing for more than one
minute, huh?”

Drew
shrugged off the question. “Each e-mail is a gift from the tech gods, bundled
full of excitement and possibility,” he said.

“Sarcasm?”

“Hardly.”

Brian
glanced into the hallway as two skirts pushed through the rows of cubicles. Spiny
coat racks covered with winter garments stood like buoys on an open sea of
business.

“Every
ten seconds,” said Drew. Brian turned back, his eyebrows drawn upward. “The
average guy thinks of banging every ten seconds. You’re probably closer to
three.”

“Ain’t
my fault marriage makes it ten years,” replied Brian.

Drew
smiled and shook his head in mock disgust as Brian continued his daily office
rounds. He faced his monitor again and noticed that three more bolded subject
lines had appeared in his in-box. Drew clicked on the first one and wondered
how penis enlargement offers had found their way through the company spam
filter. The next one was cc’d to his wife, and the subject line demanded an
RSVP to a child’s birthday party.

Molly
will handle that
, he thought
as his finger struck the delete key.

The
radiator next to Drew’s desk hissed and spat as the water from the boiler
invaded the pipes, reminding him of an air compressor at a gas station. Most of
the women on the floor envied his location and fought winter with electric
heaters stashed like stowaways under their desks.

The
thought trailed along like a fine vapor until it led him back to Virginia
Beach. Drew closed his eyes and could smell the cocoa-butter tanning oil on his
wife’s body, and his breath hitched when he remembered the night they had spent
on the sand behind the pool. Molly kept worrying that the kids would wake up or
one of the other members of the extended family sharing the house would catch
them in the act. As usual, Drew talked her into letting go of her inhibitions,
even if her mom was a light sleeper. They rolled in the sand until it mixed
with the salty smell of desire, sprayed off under the shower nozzle next to the
hot tub, and snuck back into the beach house with nobody the wiser.

Drew
felt his pants tighten, and he dropped the quarterly sales report into his lap
in hopes of drowning his growing embarrassment with numbers.

“What
time is the staff meeting?” a coworker interrupted. Drew shook and fumbled for
the coffee mug, feeling his cheeks flush. “Didn’t mean to scare you, Chief.”

He
rolled his eyes and grabbed hold of the mouse on his desk. Johnson never
remembered a name. “You didn’t. It’s at 11:00.”

“Like,
in ten minutes?”

Drew
glanced to the bottom right corner of his monitor at the time, reading 10:49. “Eleven,”
he replied.

Johnson
shrugged and walked toward the break room. Drew marveled at his own ability to
daydream. His teachers had warned his parents about his lack of attention. However,
in a time before every kid suffered from ADHD, and before the FDA jumped into
bed with Big Pharma, his parents treated his condition like every other parent
did. They told him to pay attention and then sent him out to play with the
neighborhood kids.

The
alarm on Drew’s computer shook him. He glanced back to the screen to see that the
time was 10:59, his one-minute warning to head to the boardroom for the staff
meeting. Johnson had a habit of making the latecomers the butt of the joke, and
Drew was tired of providing him with new material.

As
he stood and pushed the fauxleather office chair back from the
desk, Drew noticed a new arrival to his in-box. He placed both hands on the
desk and squinted at the bold subject line. “Tonight,” was all it said.

Incentive
to get me through the meeting
,
Drew thought as he hit the buttons on the keyboard to lock his computer from
nosy cubicle mates and office pranksters.

***

The rest of the
morning bled into afternoon with a constant cycle of texts, e-mails, phone
calls, and drop-in visits from the usual suspects. Drew wondered how any
business was done with the alluring siren call of social networking and
smartphones tucked out of sight but within reach.

“Heading out to
the Fox and the Hound after work. You coming?” asked Brian.

“It’s Monday,”
replied Drew.

Brian threw
both hands into the air and his mouth drew into a circle. “Can’t possibly have
a beer on a Monday.”

Drew rubbed a
hand over his forehead as three more messages jumped to the in-box. “I’ve got
too much work to do.”

“You could come
hang?”

“Billy has
hockey practice, and Molly’s been at me for weeks to snake the drain in the
bathtub.”

“Livin’ on the
edge,” replied Brian as he shoved his hands into pockets full of lint, change,
and scraps of paper.

“Someday you’ll
get it,” said Drew.

“Already do,
and got a prescription to keep it from spreading,” replied Brian as the fifties-era
wall clock crawled toward five.

“Hon,
can you help Billy get the hockey pants on? The suspenders aren’t staying on
his shoulders.”

Drew
looked at Billy and motioned over his shoulder with the nod of his head. “Will
you please tell Mom it’s fine?”

Billy
smirked and winked at his dad. “All fixed, Mom!” he yelled toward Molly, who
was upstairs working the knots out of Sara’s hair.

“Got
a scrimmage after practice?” Drew asked while Billy pulled the shirt over his
shoulder pads, releasing the musky fragrance of preadolescence on ice.

“Probably.
Coaches let us play if everyone does their best on the drills.”

“Remember
to—“

“Keep
my head up near the boards, and not every shot has to be top shelf. Got it,
Dad.”

Drew
tousled Billy’s hair and reached for the hockey stick lying across chapter
books on the Greek gods. He helped his son carry the hockey bag to the car and
lift it into the trunk before backing out of the driveway, turning right onto
Main Street and heading east. While the radio blared another “alternative” rock
song that was no longer the alternative to anything, Drew remembered the
subject line of the e-mail he did not have time to revisit.

Tonight
, he thought,
will have to wait until
tonight.

***

“Left wing,
left wing!”

Billy skated
toward the corner and unleashed a bruising hip check on the unsuspecting kid
hovering over the puck like a hen trying to hatch an egg. A collective sigh
oozed from the parents clinging to the glass. Drew shrugged and looked at the
parent next to him on the bleachers.

As the game progressed,
however, Drew and the other parents retreated into somber silence. The opposing
team filled the net with goals until the mercy rule came into play, and the
referees let the clock run in hopes of protecting the self-esteem of the losing
team, Billy’s team.

“Can you untie
my laces?” Billy asked Drew through wet eyes and a sniffling nose. Other
parents entered the locker room and helped the children shed their hockey
equipment.

“You gave it
your best out there, kid. I’m proud of you.”

Billy managed a
smile for his dad as the coach prattled on about the merits of losing and how
it builds character.

***

“Billy was
really upset about the game.”

“Losing sucks.”

Molly rolled
her eyes and let her toes crawl up Drew’s calf. “Don’t be so coy. Your opinion
means a lot to him.”

“Just doing
what fathers are supposed to do.” Drew struggled to complete sentences with his
wife wrapping her naked body around him underneath the warm bedding of a frigid
February night.

“Love you,
hockey Dad.”

Before Drew
could reply, smooth skin and flowing hair enveloped him.

***

The green LED
clock read 3:13. Drew smirked through the exhaustion as he thought of the signs
held up at sporting events. He then figured out that the verse quoted from John
was 3:16, not 3:13, and the realization brought him completely out of the dream
state.

He turned and
saw Molly’s dark hair fanned across the pillow, and her ample chest raising the
comforter. Drew slid his hand across the cool sheets between their bodies and
touched the soft, hidden flesh of his wife’s upper thigh. Molly moaned and
pushed his hand away.

The
bedroom door opened to the hallway. Drew and Molly’s room sat between Billy’s
and Sara’s, and directly across from the steps. The bathroom down the hall held
a night-light to help the kids find it in the middle of the night, especially
Billy, who struggled to hit the bowl between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.

Drew stood and
his toes recoiled from the icy feel of the oak hardwood. He curled his right
leg to fight off an impending cramp. The wood beneath his feet cracked and
protested as he trudged toward the bathroom. He heard Sara snoring, and saw
Billy’s right leg hanging through the Pittsburgh Penguins bedding and over the
edge of the frame. Drew’s dark reflection peered back at him as he passed the
vanity and emptied his bladder.

He crept down
the steps and into the living room, and picked up the remote, holding it for a
moment before putting it back down.

175
channels, 170 of them showing infomercials
, he thought.

The laptop sat
on the end table, the blue glow pulsing near the power switch. He ran a hand
through his hair and lifted the cool, metallic hasp at the front of the
machine. His finger depressed the round power button, and the screen flickered
from charcoal grey to black, and then to a blinding array of colors that forced
Drew to squint. His desktop wallpaper appeared, a photo from a trip to New
Orleans during Mardi Gras.

Molly
hated the picture. A woman, young and blonde, stood on the balcony of a hotel
overlooking Bourbon Street. Her sandy hair fell about her shoulders, tinted by
the red bulb of a nearby streetlamp. The woman’s eyes shone with glee, assisted
with a healthy dose of Hurricanes and Red Stripe beer. Her wrists were crossed
at the bottom of a tight-fitting tank top that struggled to contain two upright
breasts. Beneath the bottom of the shirt and the top of low-slung, hip-hugging
jeans, a strip of tanned, tight skin clung to a toned abdomen. The light from
the festival glinted off her naval piercing. Dozens of beads sat on her chest
in the traditional colors of the holiday: purple, gold, and yellow. Drew took
the picture because it was a perfect shot of Madame LeVive’s Voodoo Temple shop,
which sat underneath the balcony. While his buddies spent rolls of film on drunken
girls flashing boobs for beads, Drew was more interested in the story of voodoo
in the Crescent City. While it may have been the truth, Molly never bought the
story.

Once
his eyes adjusted to the glare of the screen and had passed over the well-known
intricacies of “slut on balcony,” as Molly named it, Drew used the track pad on
his laptop and placed the cursor over the Thunderbird icon. He hesitated,
somehow unsure as to whether or not it was a wise move. Years ago, Drew
promised himself that he would never again check his e-mail at night.