The Realms of the Dead (24 page)

With his eyes closed, Chuck Grainger awaited the inevitable. The swarm of bodies, however, never came. In fact, the field fell silent. Marilee and Control gasped for air and his own pulse pounded an almost tribal rhythm in his ears, but the clicking had stopped so abruptly it almost seemed as if the entire colony had simultaneously winked out of existence.

Angling his head over his shoulder, Chuck peeked through one eye as he held his breath. Far from being gone, the insects were still there. Their shiny, black bodies covered the field like a living carpet, but they no longer thronged. Instead, each one reared upon its hindmost set of legs. With pinchers raised skyward and fully opened, they stood motionless, calling to mind an image of supplicants at prayer, exulting their dark deity.

But why had they been called off? The end had been a foregone conclusion. He, Marilee, and Control had been defenseless and totally at the mercy of their pursuers. Mercy he suspected the insects did not naturally have.

As if an answer to this question, the creaking of a rope sounded and Chuck tensed. As often as he'd heard that noise, it had never before been this close; in fact, it sounded as if whatever made that noise was directly in front of him.

Lewis
.

That was why the insects no longer swarmed. In the shadow of he who had made them, they had no choice but to revel in the triumph of his will. The deranged lunatic had always considered himself a god. Why would it be any different in this place?

The rope creaked again and Chuck threw his shoulders back as he faced forward. Though on his knees, he would not grovel. He would meet his nemesis eye to eye and would die in defiance and insolence if it came to that.

Sunlight stabbed Chuck's eyes with pain and the brightness washed everything out in a blinding glare, but he did not flinch or blink. He kept his eyes open and squeezed his hands at his sides.

After several seconds, either the light dimmed or his eyes adjusted to it. Either way, he was able to see again. But what met his gaze was not what he'd expected.

Directly in front of him, a leafless tree was silhouetted against the sky. Its branches forked out like fingers from a gnarled hand and the creaking sound came again…only this time, Chuck could clearly see its source. A rope was looped over the tree's thickest limb, but dangling at its end was not the sun-bloated corpse upon which his imagination had previously insisted. Instead the rope terminated at an object that looked like a giant, shadowy donut, suspended a couple feet above the ground.

Beside the tree was a figure that seemed to be entirely formed of shadow. Though smaller than Marilee, it was obviously the silhouette of a young girl. Her dress fluttered in a breeze that seemed to affect only her and her hair whipped wildly as she stood with her hands on her hips. Where her eyes normally would have been two tiny flames raged, seeming to burn somewhere deep within the darkness of her skull. The flickering firelight reflected off something that hovered directly in front of her eyes, something that gleamed in the reddish-orange glow like glass.

At that moment, everything clicked into place and Chuck realized exactly how wrong he'd been. All along, he'd assumed that the spirit tormenting him was Albert Lewis. And it had certainly made sense at the time. But now, with the puzzle finally pieced together, he could clearly see the full picture.

Everything, after all, had pointed to a child: the creaking of a tire swing as it spun in slow circles; the girlish giggle he thought he'd heard just before Marilee had attacked in his office; even the locations the Bleedovers had been set in had given clues that he had simply been too shortsighted to pick up on. A dilapidated elementary school. A child's birthday party.

Part of him, perhaps his pride, insisted there was no way he could have pieced it all together. After all, no one would have suspected someone so young of harboring such malice. Nodens had been murdered, after all. And when the spirit had ridden Marilee, it had attempted to take his own life as well.

And the insects?
his ego demanded.
What about the insects? They were in every single Bleedover!

As soon as the protests emerged, however, Chuck saw the error in this reasoning as well.
Insects
was a word almost exclusively reserved for adults and the world of science. To a child, such creatures were simply
bugs
.

A voice flittered through his memory, confirming what he already knew to be true.

“All my friends call me Bug 'cause they say I bug them all the time and also 'cause my glasses make me look like one…”

Picking himself up from the ground, Chuck's eyes never strayed from the child's silhouette.

“Abigail?” he ventured.

Marilee's and Control's jaws both dropped as Chuck addressed the spirit. Neither, however, had to ask who she was. Report 2015367-LA, detailing the events of the Albert Lewis case, was the most requisitioned file in The Institute's history. Within those pages, the name Abigail Louise Peterson was considered a footnote, a spirit of interest only because she played a small role in the legend Chuck Grainger was to become.

Abigail Peterson, after all, had been Chuck's original assignment. It had been
her
Crossfade he'd originally projected into and his only mission had been to guide the little girl's soul across The Divide. That, however, was when things had gone horribly wrong.

“Abigail, sweetie, you have to stop this, okay?”

The sound of Chuck's voice whipped the wind fluttering the child's hair and dress into a fury. Her silhouette now seemed to stand in hurricane-strength gusts and the fires smoldering within her eyes whooshed as the flames were fed.

“You said you'd
help
me!” Abigail's voice quivered with rage and bordered upon shrill hysteria. “You said I'd see Mommy and Daddy! You said I needed to trust you!”

“Abigail, I know what—”

“Liar!”

Something rustled in the grass nearby, but Chuck dared not look away. Abigail's wrath radiated from her small body, shooting out in beams of unadulterated hostility that burned deep within Chuck's own soul.

“Look, I'm sorry, okay? But we can work this—”

“You left me!” The child's screech vibrated in his skull, causing Chuck to wince as needles of pain jabbed his eardrums. “You left me to
him
!”

Images of Albert Lewis's nightmare realm flashed in Chuck's mind, as vivid as when he'd actually Walked there. Condensation glistened on bloodstained stones by torchlight and the moans and screams of tortured souls rose and fell among the clinking of chains. Rats ripped sinew from victims who couldn't even count upon death to relieve them of their endless torment and ghastly monstrosities scuttled through shadows. A white-hot branding iron smoldered in darkness and scalpel blades gleamed as the screams of the damned reached a crescendo. All of this, however, was viewed from a low angle, as if Chuck was crouched on the floor and looking up: It was seen through the perspective of a child.

“You didn't even notice me! When you came, you came for
her
.” Abigail's head snapped to the side and the girl glowered at Control.

“No!” Chuck yelled. “Not her. Her sister. It was her sister!”

“Liar!”

In his peripheries, Chuck saw Marilee inching toward the Faraday Cage during the exchange, but with Abigail's attention focused in that direction she froze.

“Abigail.” Though he spoke rapidly, Chuck tried to keep his tone calm and even, to be the voice of reason in a world of madness. “Abigail, look at me, sweetie.”

Though he didn't see the child's head swivel, she was suddenly looking directly at him again, the flames in her eyes burning more brightly than ever.

“I can still help you, okay?” Marilee edged toward the Faraday Cage again and Chuck's pulse quickened. He had to keep the spirit's attention focused solely on him, had to keep her talking. “I can.”

Laughter swirled around Chuck on all sides, almost as if the girl's spirit looped and darted in the air around him. The giggling mocked and taunted at every turn and caused goose bumps to creep over Chuck's flesh. This was not the joyful sound of a child's merriment; no, it was the voice of a soul that had been pushed over the brink of sanity.

Abigail's voice cut through her own giggling, but her words were clearly orientated to her silhouetted form.

“Why? 'Cause you're my
friend
?” She spat the word as if it were a rancid nugget of meat. “You are, aren't you? My friend?”

The laughter churning in the air stopped and when Abigail spoke again, it was not in the voice of a small girl. In fact, the words coming from Abigail's silhouetted form were Chuck's.

“Well, I'm your friend…but I'm just going to call you Abigail because a little girl as pretty as you deserves a pretty name.”

Marilee had reached the side of the Faraday Cage and she fished four small screws from her pocket as she repeatedly glanced over her shoulder. Placing three of the screws between her lips, she held the metal box in place with one hand while she used the screwdriver on the fourth.

At the same time, Control stepped forward. She tried to keep her movements casual, as though she was simply changing positions, but she angled her body in front of Marilee, effectively blocking the girl's work from Abigail's line of sight.

“
He
said I was pretty, too!” The spirit spoke in her own voice, but only briefly; when it changed again, it was the voice of a much older man and its words oozed with sadistic menace. “Look how pretty your blood is against such pale skin, child.”

Marilee tightened the second screw in the opposite corner of the inverter, her nostrils flaring with each frantic breath.

Chuck knew he had to keep Abigail talking. But in all honesty, he didn't know what to say. How do you comfort a child who's been in the clutches of history's cruelest mass murderer? How do you convince her to trust again when your own failings were what put her in that predicament to begin with?

“I'm…I'm sorry.” Though the sentiment sounded feeble, even to his own ears, Chuck's eyes brimmed with tears. “I should've looked out for you. I shouldn't have ever,
ever
let that happen.”

“Not good enough!” she screamed. “When you're bad, you gotta be punished!”

The shadows cloaking Abigail dissipated and Chuck gasped as he recoiled. The little girl's body was mottled with bruises and precise scars ridged her arms and face. The glasses perched on the bridge of her nose were slightly askew and the left lens was a web of cracks. Her blond hair was matted with dried blood and her dress was so filthy that it was impossible to tell what color it had originally been.

“Am I pretty now?” she demanded.
“Am I?”

With the third screw in place, Marilee turned her attention to the remaining one. The screwdriver felt warm and slick in her moist palm and she worked rapidly, grateful for the tool's textured grip.

“I don't know what you're doing…but I don't like it.”

Confusion wrinkled Chuck's brow as he tried to figure out exactly what Abigail meant. She'd stared directly at him as she spoke, ensuring he had no choice but to gaze upon her hideous disfigurements. But he hadn't been
doing
anything. He was just standing there…

Realization dawned on him and Abigail laughed as though his arched eyebrows amused her. The girl's spirit had been looking at him, true, but that didn't necessarily mean she'd been talking to
him
.

“Control! Marilee!” He shouted their names as a warning, but at the same time the rustling noise he'd heard earlier returned. This time it was louder and he noticed puffs of dust rising from patches of grass at irregular intervals.

“When you're bad, you gotta be punished,” Abigail repeated.

Chuck backed toward his companions as figures rose up from the grass, his mind reeling from what it witnessed. The decayed dog carcasses struggled to their feet as thick fluids slurped out of their wounds. With their snouts nearly shriveled away, their teeth were perpetually bared and they staggered forward with their heads lowered. Those whose haunches had deteriorated past the point of usefulness dragged themselves forward, their front paws digging furrows into the earth as grass disappeared in puffs of dust.

Elsewhere in the field, there was a fluttering of wings as birds that were more skeleton than meat took to the air. Loose feathers drifted lazily toward the ground as putrefied sludge rained down in their wake.

Chuck and Control shielded Marilee, who frantically twisted the screwdriver in her hand.

“Come on!” she shouted. “Come on, darn it,
come on!
”

The screwdriver slipped from her grasp and she all but dove after it as the cadaverous dogs closed in with throaty growls.

“
Abigail!
Abigail, you stop this right now, young lady! You hear me?
Stop it!
”

Chuck's reprimands fell upon deaf ears. The child skipped in circles around the base of the tree, laughing and giggling as her voice lilted in a singsong: “Dead birds fly again, a dead puppy ain't your friend, dead birds fly again…”

The snarling dogs formed a loose ring around the Faraday Cage and the birds of Abigail's song swooped and circled overhead. The stench of death enclosed them on all sides, as thick and pungent as it was nauseating.

Having retrieved the screwdriver, Marilee fumbled with a screw that seemed infinitesimally tiny in her trembling fingers.

“Last one,” she mumbled. “Last one. Connect the wiring harness. Through the breakers.”

Abigail slid into her tire swing and gripped the rope with both hands as she pumped her legs and built momentum. No longer singing, she hummed her chant and the rope creaked as she swung back and forth.