Voices (Whisper Trilogy Book 3) (32 page)

CHAPTER 42

The room was located directly underneath the clearing in the woods, and was the same size. What existed within it could only be described as an abomination. It was organic, and clearly alive, its gelatinous mass pulsing and flexing, its skin glowing a dull red. It was an unholy amalgamation of humanity. Legs and torsos, heads and arms. Countless in number. Some of the corpses were putrid and rotten, yet remained alive. Sightless, maggot-infested eyes stared out at their eternal torturer, and the air was filled with screams of everlasting agony. The thing was part of the walls, part of the floor, fused within them, embedded within the very makeup of the chamber. From the top of the giant mass, large tubes fed up into the ceiling.

The pulsing thing quivered, unleashing a furious roar from its thousand dead mouths.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Petrov said as he exited the tunnel, blocking Kimmel’s only means of escape.

The General wasn’t listening. He couldn’t help but stare at the unimaginable mass that dominated the chamber.

Putrescent fluid from the decomposing corpses flowed across the floor as the creature withdrew from the center of the room, giving them space. Small tentacles snaked from the mass and sucked the fluid up, reabsorbing what it had lost.

He turned toward Petrov, who was also watching the creature as it pulsed and quivered. The detective was plainly under the influence of the monstrous thing. His eyes were glazed, mouth open in slack awe.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Petrov whispered.

“You need to snap out of it, Detective. You need to fight it,” Kimmel mumbled, struggling to resist its insistent probing.

“I wonder if it was always here. Before man even existed? I wonder if it was always waiting in the dirt, growing stronger, waiting to be discovered.”

Kimmel headed over to Petrov. The creature quivered, and the detective raised his gun. “Can you hear them? I can hear them.”

“It’s not real. Don’t you know it’s not real?”

Petrov leveled the weapon at Kimmel. “Yes. It is.”

Kimmel flinched a split second before Petrov fired.

CHAPTER 43

Melody screamed. She thought she knew fear, thought she understood how far a person could be stretched by despair and horror, but it was nothing compared to what she saw now. Her son, eyes bugging out of his head, the tip of his tongue protruding from between his lips as Henry choked him. She knew she had to get to him, to do something.

“Don’t break the circle,” Mrs. Alma screamed, glaring at her.

“I need to help him!” Melody sobbed.

“This is the only way to help him. By keeping this circle closed.”

Emma glared at her as she said it, unable to believe the ease of Mrs. Alma’s lie.

“Promise me he won’t die,” Melody fired back, fighting to get the words out.

“The circle must remain closed no matter what happens, Mrs. Samson. It’s the only way to survive.”

The wind was a thunderous gale, and the enraged wails of the Gogoku were clear within it as they probed at them, entering their minds, trying to break their bond.

Each of them began to see visions, things designed to terrify them and break the link. Truman saw his ancestor, noose around his neck, tongue purple and bloated, eyes milky and white. In Truman’s head, he heard it telling him he needed to stop, that by continuing he was condemning his family to Hell.

“Ignore their poisonous lies,” Mrs. Alma said, still calm, still in control. “They can’t harm us while we’re bonded.”

Emma saw Annie Briggs, glaring and bloody from the knife wounds that killed her. She mocked and chastised, demanding Emma break the circle. Her friends were there too, bodies ravaged from where they’d been nailed to the tree. Carrie mocked, teased and whispered directly into Emma’s head, but she squeezed her eyes closed and blocked it out. Melody saw Donovan, leering with his crocodile grin. His words were eerily familiar, bringing back memories of her ordeal at his hands.

Teasing cunt bitch.

Her grip faltered, but Emma was there to maintain it.

Even Mrs. Alma wasn’t spared. She saw her demons too, her own connection to the clearing. She saw Michael Jones, his bloated, water-damaged face glaring as he gurgled at his last living descendent not to damn him to an eternity of suffering. She knew well enough that the words came from the darkness that resided there, and easily blocked it out, banishing both sight and sound while concentrating on the task at hand.

II

Dane was troubled by none of the same horrors inflicted on those within the circle. He was no threat to them or their task. Instead, he glared at his brother as he continued to choke Isaac’s limp body. Dane searched for anything, any semblance of the man Henry used to be, but saw only a monster; a foul, vile creature. There was no redeeming him. No stopping him. Dane’s hope of protecting his brother from death in a hail of bullets was gone. He knew now that death was the only release that could bring any kind of peace to his sibling. There was nothing else for him. Gritting his teeth, he strode across the clearing, flinching as the spirits darted around and through him.

He pointed the gun at his brother, hand trembling, and Henry laughed, throwing his head back. The wind echoed him, skittering leaves across the clearing.

“Let him go, Henry. This is over.”

Henry threw Isaac’s limp body to the floor. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s done,” he said, staring triumphantly at his brother.

“Don’t kill him, his part in this isn’t over yet!” Mrs. Alma screamed above the roar of the wind.

“He’s a murderer. He’s killed people. Destroyed lives. Yours. Your families. Mine,” Dane said, the anger inside him growing and swelling with each passing second.

“Harming him would be a mistake. You’ll go to prison,” Alma yelled. The others in the clearing were still battling with their demons.

Dane looked down at Isaac. Skin so pale, eyes open and unseeing, ugly purple bruises on his neck. “The mistake would be letting him live,” Dane said, striding toward his brother and pressing the barrel of the gun into his forehead hard enough to turn the skin white around its edge. “I’d be doing the world a favor by splashing his brains across the ground right here and now.”

“Don’t harm him,” she repeated. “Not now. It isn’t time.”

“Look, lady. I don’t buy into all this witchcraft shit. This is between me and him.”

“Not witchcraft,” she said, eyes glittering in the darkness. “Forces. Forces most people don’t or can’t understand, but real nonetheless. Your brother still has a part to play before the end.”

“They speak louder than you, whore!” Henry spat. “They are already inside him. Nothing can stop them. Not now.”

Dane wondered if it were true. His intention hadn’t been to harm Henry when he first arrived. Now, however, the idea of killing him seemed like not only a good idea, but a natural one. It was as if something inside his head was encouraging him, spurring him on. He pressed the barrel harder into his brother’s forehead.

“Enough talk,” he barked.

“Don’t harm him. I’m warning you!” Mrs. Alma shrieked.

“And I’m warning you to keep your damn mouth shut!”

“They want you to kill me,” Henry whispered. “They want you to take my place. Do it. Finish it. My work here is done. The boy is dead. This can’t be stopped. Soon, I go to them. I take my place at their side.”

“Shut up!” Dane screamed. It felt as if there was a chalkboard in the center of his head with a thousand fingernails scraping down it. “Just be quiet!”

“Sacrifice me. You know you want to. You
need
to. They demand it.”

Henry pushed his forehead into the barrel, eyes glaring at his brother. “Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it,” he repeated over and over again.

In Dane’s head, the screech of the chalkboard intensified, building until it was all he could hear.

“I can’t!” Dane said, hitting Henry in the temple with the gun and knocking him to the ground. “I won’t let you manipulate me, Henry. Not again. You’re going back to the hospital.”

III

Silence.

The spirits of the dead faded into the ether and the trees stopped their violent commotion. Exhausted, those forming the protective circle collapsed, the mental energy required to resist the spirits draining them. Dane stood, blinking, ears ringing as he tried to figure out what to do.

A cry broke the silence. However, it wasn’t from one of the demonic things that had surrounded them, but from Melody when she saw her son. Dane dropped to his knees, checked the boy’s pulse and, finding none, started performing CPR. He compressed Isaacs’s chest, counting along as he went, doing everything he could to avoid staring into those lifeless eyes that told him they had failed to protect him. Slowly, the others approached, standing around Dane as he battled to save Isaac’s life. Emma and Mrs. Alma were with Melody, holding her upright so she didn’t collapse. Time in the clearing seemed to slow as Dane continued to work, alternating his rhythmic compressions with blowing air into Isaac’s lungs.

Two minutes passed. Then three.

They all knew the seriousness of the situation, however, none were willing to speak, not whilst Dane was still willing to work. He paused, looking into Isaac’s eyes. Isaac’s lifeless eyes. He knew it was over. There was nothing else that could be done. He turned, putting his back to Isaac, unable to look at the boy any longer. He cradled his head in his hands and stared at the floor, breathing heavily.

“It’s too late,” he gasped. “He’s gone.”

Melody did fall this time, landing hard on her knees, unable to breathe, unable to comprehend. All she could do was scream; an anguished sound that reverberated around the forest.

Isaac Samson was dead.

CHAPTER 44

As Isaac Samson lost his life aboveground, the creature below quivered. The tentacles sprouting from its body thrust toward the roof of the chamber, burrowing into the earthen ceiling, ready to claim its prize. With its energy focused on the world above, its grip on Petrov faltered. He blinked, unable to remember what had happened to him since touching the painting. He blinked again, his eyes growing wide at the beast in front of him, as if seeing it for the first time. He screamed, firing off the remaining bullets from his weapon and then, when it was empty, throwing the weapon itself. The creature carried on burrowing, unharmed by the ammunition. It was then, when he looked around the room, that he saw Kimmel, lying on his side, bullet wound in his stomach staining his shirt. Petrov ran to him, dragging him away from the smaller tentacles near the base of the creature that were already reaching out for him. Kimmel groaned as Petrov dragged him toward the tunnel they had entered by.

“Stop,” Kimmel grunted. “Stop, it hurts too much.”

Petrov set him down, still unable to keep from staring at the creature. “I have to get you out of here. God, what have I done?”

“You have to kill it,” Kimmel mumbled, a bubble of blood expanding in and out of his mouth as he spoke. “Kill it.”

“How do you kill something like that? It’s impossible.”