Ultimate Thriller Box Set (21 page)

“Heeeeere comes the paaaaaaaain.”

Thrist felt Bub's claw sliding down his left leg. The demon grabbed it tight and slowly began to twist. There were cracking sounds, and then a loud pop when the knee gave out.

Thrist screamed, the first time he'd ever screamed in his life.

“Now waaaaatch.”

The priest felt a pressure in his chest, akin to suffocation. Then his body was enveloped in a fold of warmth, a warmth so complete that Thrist thought the Holy Spirit had rescued him.

He was mistaken.

“I just healed yoooooour leg”

Thrist was astonished to find the agony completely gone. He moved his leg and it felt normal.

“Here is cooooomes.”

Bub twisted the leg again, faster than before.

Again Thrist cried out, but this time Bub opened his toothy maw and a black tongue snaked out, slithering into Thrist's mouth and silencing the cry.

Tears streaked down the priest's face as Bub wiggled the broken leg this way and that way, his vile tongue raping Thrist's throat.

Father Thrist prayed for death.

It didn't come.

Just as he was close to passing out, Bub removed his tongue and allowed him to breathe again.

“Do you want me to heeeeeeeeeeal you?”
Bub whispered.

Thrist's face began to spasm, his left eye blinking uncontrollably. His facial tic had returned.

“Open the doooooor.”

The priest said nothing. The pain in his leg was overwhelming, but even worse was the left side of his face. Every twitch of his upper lip pierced his soul.

“What's wrong with your faaaaaaaaaace?”
 

Thrist's entire world was reduced to despair. The facial tic was proof. His God had forsaken him.

“I can make it wooooooorse,”
Bub said.

He gave the leg a twist and Thrist blacked out.

*

When the holy man awoke, there was no pain.

“We can do this all daaaaaay,”
Bub said.

He grabbed the same leg. Father Thrist gagged at the thought of the oncoming agony. He knew he couldn't handle it again. The very idea made his gorge rise.

“...please...”

“Where is your God nooooooow?”

Thrist’s eyelid was blinking like crazy. “...no more...”

“Pray to me, Faaaaaather. Pray to me to not to hurt yoooooooou.”

“I... I...”

“Kneeeeeeeel, priest.”

Thrist knew he was a dead man. The moment he'd stepped into the habitat, his fate had been sealed. But that was the fate of his body. The fate of his eternal soul remained unresolved.

Until now.

Father Michael Thrist silently asked God for the forgiveness of his sins, and thanked the Almighty for the privilege of his life and the opportunity presented to him. Thrist had come there today expecting a baptism, but it turned out he was the one about to be baptized.

The Church called it the Baptism of Blood. Dying a violent death in the name of the Lord.

Thrist embraced martyrdom like a gift.

“No.”

“Nooooooooooo?”

Thrist faced the demon. His facial tic had disappeared, and he stood proudly, without fear. Jesus died for mankind’s sins, and Thrist was honored to die in His name.

“I shall not kneel.”

Bub lifted the priest up and twisted each of his feet backwards. Thrist began to cry, and Bub held him on the ground in a kneeling position.

“Worship meeeeeeeee.”

“No,” the priest said through clenched teeth.

The demon took one of Thrist's arms and bent it back at the elbow. It snapped with the sound of a gun shot. Thrist screamed again.

“Proclaim your loyalty to meeeeeeee.”

There could be no worse death,
Thrist thought.
Or no greater death.

“I proclaim... my loyalty...”

“Yesssssssssssss.”

He looked up, past Bub, past the ceiling, past the two hundred feet of earth above them.

Thrist said it clear and strong, “To my Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Bub went to work on the other arm, but Thrist had gone to another place in his mind. He knew Bub was twisting and breaking his body, but he no longer felt any pain. He could picture heaven, as Bub had described it. Eternal bliss. His faith had been restored, and Thrist had no fear of death.

Not even when Bub pulled off his leg.

“Fooooooool,”
Bub hissed at him.
“Open the fucking dooooooooor.”

The priest looked up at Bub and smiled beatifically through his veil of tears and blood.

“I forgive you,” Thrist whispered.

He didn't feel it when Bub bit off his head.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Rabbi Shotzen thought he heard a scream. He stopped his prayer and listened.

Silence.

He began again in earnest, intoning under his breath, “Kadosh kadosh kadosh...”

Another scream. This time he was sure he heard it. Moving cautiously, he approached the door and opened it a crack.

The Red Arm was empty.

He craned an ear to listen.

Nothing. Not a sound.

Perhaps it wasn't a scream. But he should check. He'd heard the gate open a few minutes ago. It had been Father Thrist, visiting Bub in full church regalia. But that couldn't have been Thrist who screamed. Even he wasn't foolish enough to go into the habitat.

Then again...

Rabbi Shotzen was overcome by a sudden burst of urgency. He grabbed his bag of Molotov cocktails and held onto the lighter, and then he rushed out into the hall and saw...

Bub was crawling out of Red 14.

“Jesus Christ,” Shotzen said.

The demon pulled himself through the tight fit of the door and cocked his head at Rabbi Shotzen.

“Shalom, Raaaaaaaabbi,”
Bub said.

Shotzen set down the bag and with shaking hands and took out the first bottle.

Bub couldn't stand erect because the ceiling was too low. He crawled up to the first gate, and to Shotzen's amazement, punched in the code.

The bars swung open.

Shotzen flicked the lighter. Once. Twice. Three times. No flame. He looked at it and saw he had the wrong one.

“Your friend Faaaather Thrist,”
Bub said, crawling forward,
“has something to saaaaaay.”

The demon opened his mouth and coughed. A red ball flew out of his throat and bounced before him, sticky with goo.

Shotzen took a closer look and saw it wasn't a ball.

Bub picked it up and held it out to Shotzen.

Father Thrist's head, slicked in gore.

It blinked.

Then it blinked again, and opened its mouth as if to say something.

“What's thaaaaaat?”
Bub asked, holding his other claw to his ear.
“You’ll have to speeeeeeak up.”

Shotzen gagged.

“He wants to talk to yoooooou.” 

The creature chucked Thrist's head at the Rabbi. On reflex, Shotzen dropped the bottle and the lighter and caught it with both hands like a basketball. The firebomb fell to the ground and shattered.

Shotzen stared at the head in his hands.

“Kill me,”
the priest's lips clearly said.

Shotzen yelled out in shock.

Bub laughed so hard he vomited out Father Thrist’s leg. It flopped onto the floor and wiggled like a fish.

Shotzen threw the head into the wall as hard as he could, hoping to end the priest's misery. He reached for the second Molotov cocktail and took another lighter from his pocket.

“Back to the pit with you,” Shotzen declared, shaking with rage. He flicked the lighter and the two inch flame jumped up to ignite the gasoline soaked rag. The Rabbi threw the bottle at the ground before the beast. It shattered, showering Bub with a wall of flames.

The demon screamed. The stench of burned hair and cooked meat invaded Shotzen's nostrils. Bub batted at the flames with its claws and rolled in the cramped hallway, trying to staunch the flames.

“What the hell?” Andy said. He'd come out into the hallway fifty yards further down, on the other side of the second gate. Sun appeared a moment later.

“Stay back,” Shotzen warned them.

Bub burned for almost a minute before the sprinklers came on.

The flames died down, and then smoldered out. Smoke began to clear. Shotzen stared in amazement as Bub's burned flesh seemed to wash away under the water stream. He shook like a wet dog and shed the scorched flesh. Underneath his skin was new and unharmed.

“Now it’s my turn,”
Bub said.

“Rabbi!” Andy yelled. “Come on!”

“Run!” Shotzen yelled back. “He knows the codes!”

Bub was on Shotzen in a single lunge, scooping up the holy man in a claw.

“Codes?”
he asked.
“There is mooooooore than one?”

He dragged Shotzen to the second gate and punched in a  code.

Nothing happened.

The demon roared. It was the most horrible sound Shotzen had ever heard. Like the thunderclap of a terrible storm.

“What is the code for this dooooooooor?”
Bub demanded.

The talons were digging deeply into Shotzen's body. If he'd been skinnier, it might have killed him. As it stood, they were only imbedded in fat, causing excruciating pain.

“Race!” Shotzen called to Andy. “The bombs!”

Andy nodded, grabbing Sun by the hand and disappearing into Red 3.

“The coooooooode,”
Bub said. He tightened his grip.

It was like being prodded with hot pokers,
the Rabbi thought. The pain was worse than anything he'd ever known.

“Shema Yisraeil, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad,” Shotzen gasped.

“Ah, the Shemaaaaaa,”
Bub said.
“Deuteronomy six four. Rabbi Akika, riiiight?”

Shotzen thought of Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph, the man who compiled the Mishna in the first century. He suffered a horrible death, tortured by the Romans, but still proclaimed his love for God as he died. His last words were the Shema.

“How did Rabbi Akiba die?”
Bub asked.
“Remembeeeeer?”

Shotzen remembered. The thought of it had given him nightmares as a youth.

Bub said,
“I want the doooooooor code.”

Shotzen shut his eyes and prayed. “Barukh Shem k'vod malkhuto l'olam va-ed.”

Blessed be the name of his glorious kingdom for ever and ever.

“Rabbi Akiba was skinned aliiiiiiiive.”

Shotzen quaked with fear. Bub pinned the rabbi to the ground and ripped away his clothing.

“Paaaaaaainful,”
the demon said. He sunk two claws into Shotzen's shoulder and began to pull.

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might!” Shotzen screamed.

He'd said the words a thousand times. Ten thousand. They were the words in his mezuzah on his doorway, the words in the tefillin he strapped to his arm and forehead for morning aleinu.

“The cooooooode,”
Bub ordered.

Shotzen thought of his life. Of his parents. Of Reba. Of the congregation that didn't want him and the children he never had.

“Give me the code and I'll make yoooooooou better.”

Bub had healed Race's wife. He had seen them together, in the Octopus, laughing like children. Shotzen had no doubt that Bub could heal him now. Perhaps even fix his sterility. Shotzen could live through this, maybe even start a family. He knew that if he gave Bub the code, he didn't have to die.

Bub began on his leg, pulling and ripping. Shotzen fought against the agony and continued to pray.

“And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart!”

Perhaps fifty thousand times he'd said the Shema in his life. He'd meant it every time. But he'd never truly understood what love was until that moment. Loving G-d with more than heart and soul and might. Loving Adonai with your life.

Shotzen's eyes were somehow forced open.

“Seeeeeee this?”
Bub held up what looked like a bloody rag.
“This is your faaaaaaaaaace.”

Shotzen could no longer form words without lips, and an animal cry came from his throat. But his thoughts were focused.

And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.

“Foooooools,”
Bub spat.
“Stupid religious foooooools.”

The light was dimming, things became blurry. Shotzen was in incredible pain. Yet he was happy. He knew even though he hadn't killed Bub, his life was not in vain. Bub wouldn't get out. Race would set off the explosives implanted in Bub's body. Shotzen hoped to live long enough to hear the boom.

“You won't die until I get the coooooode. I’ll keep resurrecting you, ooooover and ooooooover.”

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes.

Shotzen could no longer see. His own blood had pooled into his eye sockets.

Angry at the lack of response, Bub began to rip the rabbi in half.

You shall write them on your doorposts of your house and on your gates...

Shotzen finished the prayer. His very last thought was his love for his Lord.

Bub cast aside the body of the holy man. Then he shook the titanium gate and howled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Where the hell is he?” Andy swore. He had the phone in his hand and had tried Race's room, the Octopus, the Mess Hall, the rec room, Helen's room, the library, and even the pool, all the while trying to remain in control while Shotzen screamed in the hallway.

“Use the intercom,” Sun told him.

“How? What goddamn button? Was it star something?”

“I forgot too, dammit!”