The Realms of the Dead (25 page)

“Abigail,” Chuck tried again, “you don't have to do this.”

The girl stopped humming and when she spoke her voice was cold and devoid of emotion.

“Yeah, I do,” she reminded him. “When you're bad, you've gotta be punished.”

Then, as if on cue, her army of dead animals attacked.

The birds targeted Marilee. They dove at her with squeaks and squawks, talons plucking her hair while wings battered the sides of her face. The girl flailed her arms overhead, batting them away as best as she could. But when she actually managed to send one spiraling through the air, another swooped in to take its place.

Meanwhile, the first of the dogs sprang. Its body flew through the air and its rib cage flashed in the sunlight as its jaws sprang open. Chuck whirled to the side and caught its front paw mid-leap. Using centrifugal force to his advantage, he flung the animal in a high arc and it twisted and thrashed in the air until finally thudding back to the earth with a sickening squish.

There was no time to relish this small victory, however. The rest of the pack had learned a lesson from their leader and changed tactics. One putrid pup darted forward, snapping and gnashing its teeth in the hopes of finding purchase only to scramble away again. As it retreated, another dog lunged, repeating the process over and over. Chuck and Control kicked at the dogs, leaping and jumping in attempts to lessen the chance of being bitten.

All the while, Abigail swung in her tire swing, alternately singing and humming as she watched the attack. Her eyes twinkled behind a glaze of insanity and tiny flames raged within her pupils. Throwing her head back, she laughed and pumped her legs, propelling herself even higher.

“Marilee!” Control shouted. “We need that box working, girl!”

The child only answered with screams of pain. A decomposing crow had sunk its talons into her upper lip and blood welled around the wounds as the bones in what was left of its wings smacked her face. She spun in wild circles, one hand stabbing the bird repeatedly with her screwdriver while the other yanked at its body. The thing's curved claws had pierced deeply, however, mooring it to her face, and the screwdriver ineffectually sunk into decaying tissue only to be pulled out with a squelch.

One of the dogs had latched onto Control's pant leg and it shook its head violently, flinging gobs of congealed blood from its nostrils as it pulled and tugged. Emboldened by this success, another darted forward only to have the woman's foot connect squarely with its muzzle; the animal yelped as it tumbled to the ground and freshly broken bones rammed through its nearly hairless skin.

“Son of a bitch!” Chuck squeezed another dog's throat in his hand; its eyes bulged from its head and its rear legs kicked at the air, but its jaws continued scissoring, the teeth coming so close to Chuck's hand that cold spittle peppered his flesh.

With a grunt, Chuck sent the mutt flying. Its body bowled into two others that were charging toward him and they skittered around the ground in a tangle of paws and tails while the grass dissolved into clouds of dust.

Snarls and barks, yips and breathy whimpers, squawks, shrill tweets, and the fluttering of wings in the air: The battle sounded as chaotic as it truly was. Through the din, Marilee's screams rose in pitch, her voice hoarse and strained as she shrieked in short, staccato bursts.

The crow covering her face bobbed its head forward and its beak plunged into the girl's eye. Moving so quickly that it was nothing more than a blur, the bird pecked again and again, switching from the right eye to the left and then back again.

The forgotten screwdriver fell to the ground as Marilee slapped and clawed the beast in blind panic. Blood streamed down the girl's cheeks like crimson tears and she collapsed to the ground as the crow finally released its hold. The entire flock streamed across the sky, alighting on the branches of the tree that held Abigail's tire swing, and the vengeful spirit laughed.

She taunted Marilee from her swing, her voice rising and falling like the world's cruelest jump-rope rhyme.

“Blind girl, blind girl, can't do your job. Blind girl, blind girl, your eyes've been robbed.”

A second dog had seized Control's other leg, this one burying its canines into her calf. With both of his partners wailing in pain, Chuck kicked, punched, and throttled all the dogs he could. He was, however, wearing down. His muscles ached and he panted for breath as he fought; things were rapidly spiraling out of control and he knew it couldn't last much longer. Soon his reaction time would suffer and the dogs would be upon him as well.

With a hoarse battle cry he charged forward, swinging and kicking as ducked, bobbed, and wove through the snarl of attacking dogs. His jaw was set in an expression of grim determination and though his eyes tracked only his adversaries, there could be no doubt where his planned trajectory would lead him.

“Come and get me if you can,” Abigail mocked. “But I'm gonna win this game.”

Forgotten until now, the multitude of bugs began clicking again as they scuttled forward, swarming toward the man who fought his way past dog after dog.

“Abigail,” Chuck shouted, “you know this isn't right!”

The girl gazed up at the birds above her, as if to imply that Chuck and his companions were of no more consequence. She swung higher and higher as her insects scrambled over one another in their haste.

If she'd been paying attention, perhaps she would have noticed the way Marilee's teeth clamped down on her lower lip, biting back the excruciating pain in her ruined eyes. Perhaps she would have seen the girl's hands groping around on the ground until they finally found the screwdriver by sense of touch alone. But Abigail's focus was purely upon her birds now and she pursed her lips as she tried to imitate the smaller ones' songs.

Marilee rose and she staggered to the Faraday Cage, her outstretched hands telling her when she'd reached it. Her fingers then danced over the inverter box until they happened upon the remaining screw, half-buried in its slot. Despite not being able to see what she was doing, the girl worked deftly. Within seconds, the box was entirely secured and her hands plucked a bundle of wires and expertly slid the twenty-pin connector at their end into the inverter's receptacle. Once complete, the girl pulled the handle of a switch that looked as though it had once been a prop in a Frankenstein movie and a low hum resounded from the machine.

Chuck heard this hum, but had no clue what it was. His entire existence now centered upon fighting his way to the swing. The hum, Control's screams of pain as yet another dog sank its teeth into her flesh. All of this was secondary. He had to stay on task. Had to keep his focus.

If he hadn't, however, he would have remembered something that Marilee had bragged about when she's first begun assembling the box: that for her field certification tests she'd had to assemble a complete Faraday Cage in twenty minutes or less…while blindfolded.

As it was, he drove an elbow into the snout of a leaping dog. Its teeth scratched his forearm deeply enough to draw blood, but its body flew to the side without finding purchase. Now standing in the shadow of the tree, his shoulders rose and fell with each breath and sweat stung the myriad abrasions crisscrossing his arms and legs.

“Abigail!” His voice boomed like thunder. “Call off your dogs! If it's me you want, come and fucking get me!”

Chuck stretched his arms out like a mock crucifixion and angled his head slightly back.

“Take me! I'll be your damn juju horse. Just leave them the hell alone!”

Abigail's head snapped downward and the flames in her pupils flared. As the tire swing swung forward, she released her grip on the rope and her body slid through the center ring so smoothly it almost looked as if she were going down a slide feet-first. As she flew through the air, she twisted and contorted in ways not physically possible, transforming her leap into a headlong dive.

With her hands pressed together and arms stretched before her, the little girl hit Chuck's chest with a force that caused him to careen backward. The child, however, hadn't simply slammed into the man. Her body disappeared into his torso and his arms and neck jerked with spasms.

He felt the spirit force her way into his head, its essence seeping into his brain cells as something that felt like burning tentacles spread throughout his body. Memories and thoughts flashed erratically through his head, some his own, others belonging to the little girl who now shared his physical form.

Chuck tried to summon his wall of numbers and equations, the same mantra he'd used to keep Marilee from prying into his thoughts. But quotients that had once made perfect sense to him now felt overwhelming and alien, like a language he once had spoken fluently but had long since forgotten.

He hadn't expected her to be so strong. He'd thought that with Marilee's implant out of commission, he'd be able to control Abigail once he'd invited her in. But second by second, Chuck felt himself being pushed back further into his own head. He fought for control of his arms and legs, demanding that they do his bidding. This, after all, was
his
body, damn it. It
had
to obey his commands. But he couldn't so much as wiggle his pinky finger. Trapped inside his own mind, Chuck Grainger released a scream that never made it past his own lips.

Abigail's hatred surged through his veins and his consciousness viewed the world as she saw it. Around every turn, under every rock, and lurking in each shadow was some nameless danger. Something that stalked her every step and infused her with a sense of fear and loathing that ate at her soul like an excruciating acid. Burrowed somewhere deep inside was a cold lump of condensed loneliness, a longing for the parents she would never see again. All of this was wrapped in a perpetual tantrum, a fit of inner rage for all the suffering, pain, and deceit she'd been subjected to. All due to the actions of one man…

Mr. Grainger?
Marilee's voice formed in his mind, her psychic fingers reaching out to verify what her eyes were no longer capable of seeing.
Mr. Grainger, are you okay?

Chuck's body spun around and a growl rattled his throat. Looking out through his own eyes was like watching a movie play out in the darkened theater of his mind. He saw what the spirit controlling him saw, but filtered through a sense of detachment.

The dogs had all fallen back into the grass, as lifeless as when they'd first entered this realm. Control was lying on the ground, her clothes ripped and tattered and stained red from the wounds covering her body. She lifted her head weakly and looked in his direction, her trembling lips trying to form words before strain and exertion caused her to collapse again.

Marilee stood in front of the cage's open door and her eyes were two puffy slits amid bruised and swollen flesh. Her face was covered in streams of blood and one pigtail had worked free from its bands during the struggle, lending her head an unbalanced, lopsided look. She held her hands before her, blindly feeling the air.

Resentment tightened Chuck's muscles as his body glared at her. This dark-skinned, blinded girl…what made
her
so special? Why did
she
get to play and laugh? Why did
she
get to be tucked in and kissed good night, why had
she
never been so terrified that she peed herself again and again?

Hatred shot through him like molten lava from a volcano, spewing into his mind and burning away all traces of compassion and reason. Someone had to pay. They
all
had to pay for what had been done to him. They needed to suffer as he'd suffered, to know what it truly and really meant to be afraid.

With fingers hooked into claws, Chuck's body charged. He shouted instructions, demanded that his legs just
stop,
that his nerves and muscles rise up against their new overlord. He begged and pleaded with his own body, but it was entirely beyond his control.

Marilee loomed closer, her hands still searching the air, completely unaware of the evil bearing down upon her.

He would claw out her throat with his teeth and fingers, would pin her shoulders to the ground with his knees and spit her own blood back in her face as she struggled and screamed…

No! No, Abigail, no, damn it!

They would pay, they'd all pay…

His hands stretched toward the girl's neck as wave after wave of hatred crashed over him.

“Now!” A raspy female voice close to the ground called out and the blind girl leaped to the side as a hand snatched his ankle. With as much strength as she could muster, the bloodied woman yanked back on his leg.

Thrown off-balance, Chuck's body stumbled forward, no longer running but tripping over its own feet in a drawn-out, headlong fall. It crashed into something hard and unforgiving, cold metal that vibrated with the low hum that seemed to emanate from everywhere.

Chuck's body whirled around and flung itself toward the opening just as the cage's door slammed shut. A latch slid into place, but he could see the blinded girl through the window and he threw his body at the door, kicking and screaming as his fists pounded against the metal walls.

Marilee and a buzzing sound filled the chamber, rapidly raising in pitch as the air seemed to grow heavier. Tears of frustration streamed from Chuck's eyes and his mouth twisted into a feral grimace as he screamed at the girl on the other side of the glass, his fingernails raking the door as if he could claw his way through.

The buzzing sound resonated through every bone in his body and he banged his head against the window with all his might, hoping that the glass would shatter, that he'd be able to snake his arm through the opening and snatch the girl's remaining pigtail.

I'm sorry, Abigail
.
I really am. So very, very sorry.

The wordless scream burned his throat as Chuck's body thrashed within the Faraday Cage's interior. His palms pressed against his ears as if he could somehow keep the buzzing from vibrating through his skull and an ozone-like scent wafted in the air.

Suddenly there was a crackling sound accompanied by a burst of light so brilliant that everything was washed out in its glare. He collapsed to the floor and curled into fetal position, gasping for breath. Shivers racked his sweat-slick body as the buzzing lowered pitch, growing fainter and fainter until only the hum of the contraption's power supply remained.