The Diablo Horror (The River Book 7) (5 page)

It’s an immaterial object right now,
Roy thought.
And we’re in a
similar state. He’s able to lift an ax; we should be able to lift the object
from him.

Steven moved toward the man, reaching out to his neck, but
the man was moving too quickly, pacing back and forth. The man turned and
walked right through Steven’s hand. He felt something hit his palm, but he
wasn’t fast enough to grab hold of it.

Maybe when he stops moving?
Steven thought.

They watched as the man moved into the living room,
continuing his pacing. He was speaking to himself in Filipino and English,
rambling on about faith and a test. He sat on a chair in the living room for a
moment, closing his eyes, and Steven thought he saw his chance. He moved forward
to the man, extending his hand and trying to wrap his fingers around the Agimat.
He could feel the object in his hand. It didn’t feel normal, like an object in
the real world, but something was there, there was resistance when he touched
it. He grabbed it and lifted, and it rose from the man’s chest. The man’s eyes
flew open, and seeing the Agimat floating a couple of inches off his chest,
immediately grabbed it and held it tightly in his fist, looking around the room.
He stood up and marched out a side door, toward the garage.

I think you probably accelerated things,
Roy said.
I’ll bet he took that
as a sign.

Poor dumb bastard
, Steven said.
I could feel it in my hands, but I couldn’t
stop him from pulling it back. I think this will only work if he’s still and
unaware that I’m trying to remove it.

The man came back into the room with the ax, walking with
confident steps toward the first bedroom. Steven and Roy followed him. The
scene played out as Roy had described earlier. Steven tried not to watch the
horrific display, concentrating solely on the Agimat, but the man was highly
animated and never still enough for Steven to attempt another removal. The fact
that he was swinging an ax didn’t help.

This isn’t going to work,
Steven thought.
We need him still.

You’re right,
Roy thought.
Drop out.

They found themselves back in the living room, sitting in the
dining chairs. Roy removed his blindfold.

“We’ll never get it from him like this,” Steven said,
standing up. “If we could immobilize him somehow, we might be able to remove it.
Maybe something in your book?” Steven was referring to his father’s journals,
which contained the writings of several generations of Halls. The book was
hand-bound with different sections added by each son to receive it. Although it
was written in English, Steven found it hard to understand. The words didn’t
make sense until he had an experience that gave him context for what he was
reading – then the passages within the book became clear and he was able to
comprehend what they were saying. Roy was familiar with much more of the book
than Steven.

“Maybe,” Roy said. “Never heard of anything like that, but there
might be something in there I haven’t come across.”

“Wait a minute – what about Winn’s gun?”

“The EM gun? I haven’t tried it. We don’t know if it even
works on ghosts up here.”

“Well, it didn’t destroy ghosts downwind, either. But it did
stop them long enough so you could get away from them. That’s all we need here
– something to stop the ax man long enough that we can get the Agimat off him.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Roy said. “It might work. It might not.”

“Did you bring it with you?”

“Of course not. It’s back in Seattle, at my house.”

“Let’s go back and get it. It’s our best chance. We can be
back here by midnight and finish things. I’ll wake Jason.”

“Let him sleep,” Roy said. “There’s no sense in all of us
driving down and back. I’ll go get it. Stay here and watch him. See if you can
figure out some other weakness in this ghost while I’m gone.”

“You sure you’re not too tired? We could switch off driving.”

“No, I’m fine. I’ll get going. The sooner we get this over
with the better.”

 Roy took the car keys from Steven and walked out the front
door. Steven heard the car start up and back out of the driveway.

Steven walked back to the bedroom to check on Jason. He was
still asleep.
This is the room where the ax man killed his sons,
Steven
thought.
While they slept.

He pulled the door closed so that there was only a small sliver
of space between the door and the door frame, then he walked back into the
living room. His stomach was rumbling, so he checked the fridge in the kitchen.
There were microwave dinners in the freezer.
Brett wouldn’t mind,
he
thought, popping the dinner into the nuker.

Once the food was done, he sat on the living room couch and
ate it, running the plan through his mind, over and over.
Dad blasts him
with the EM gun, he pauses, I move in and slip the Agimat off him. I’ll only
have a few seconds, and he’ll start moving again. Unless the gun does something
else to him, something we aren’t aware of. It was tuned to work on ghosts
downwind, so who knows how it will work up here.
If
it will work up
here.

He finished the food and sat the empty tray on the floor. The
lack of sleep the night before was catching up with him. He decided to lie down
on the couch.

What other options do we have?
he wondered, running through all of
the ghost encounters he had with Roy since the beginning, trying to recall if
any of them might suggest a solution. He couldn’t think of any.

Slowly his eyes closed.
We need a backup plan if Winn’s EM
gun doesn’t work,
he thought.
Maybe trap it somehow? Trick it into
remaining still?
From what he’d seen of the ax man, that was going to be a
tall order.
Maybe after he kills his wife,
Steven thought.
Roy said
he sits on the bed, waiting for the miracle to happen. Maybe then. No, that
won’t work either. He’ll notice the Agimat rising from his neck, like before,
and he’ll grab it. Or, maybe he’ll be scared of it and let it come off him.
Worth a shot.

As a backup plan, it’s shitty.

He tried to open his eyes, but his body didn’t want to. It
was shutting down, ready to sleep. His mind wanted to keep running, searching
for some alternative that might work, but his body was saying otherwise.

Another thirty seconds, and he was out.

◊

Steven awoke and walked into the first bedroom on the right.
I’m
dreaming,
he thought.
This doesn’t feel right.

He stood just inside the doorway, looking down at one of
three small beds that were crammed into the room. In the corner, between two of
the beds, was movement – a dark figure, crouched on the ground. The more he
stared at the figure, the better he could see it – wearing jeans, no shirt.
Holding something. A long handle. And a face – staring at him from the corner.
Watching him. Thinking. Smiling.

I feel rooted to the ground,
he thought, wanting to turn and
leave the room, but unable to control his feet. He looked down at them – he
couldn’t get them to move. He looked up – he was standing in front of a bed. In
the bed was a little girl.

More movement from the corner. He watched as the man rose from
the ground. The room was dark, but not dark enough that he couldn’t see the man
lift the ax as he walked. The man’s eyes, bright and wide open, focused on the
child in the bed, and his mouth twisted into a smile, wild, maniacal, contorted
in some sort of religious delusion and ecstasy. When the man raised his ax,
Steven wanted to shout out. He opened his mouth, but nothing emerged. He tried
to expel air from his lungs, but it was as though he was empty, with no breath
to expel. As the man swung the ax down, he saw the Agimat glowing in the dim
light, lifting slightly as the muscles in the man’s chest heaved.
Was the
man crazy?
he wondered.
Was the man really testing its abilities and his
faith? Or did the Agimat drive him to do it somehow? Was it his crazy religious
faith, or was it the Agimat’s fault?

The ax landed at the girl’s legs, severing one of them. Her
eyes shot open as the man raised the ax again. Steven saw blood begin to soak
the white sheets.
No!
he thought, but he knew he couldn’t stop it. It
wasn’t really happening. He couldn’t stop something that happened many years
ago, something that had been repeating in the house over and over, thousands of
times.

The girl opened her mouth to scream and her father brought
the ax down into her chest, silencing her before she could emit any sound. Steven
heard a sickening crunch as the ax pierced through her ribs. It looked huge,
buried in her small body. He looked up at the man – same wild smile, a complete
lack of reality behind his eyes, convinced he was doing the right thing.

He yanked the ax out of the girl and raised it again, but as
he watched the final moments of the girl’s life, he seemed satisfied and turned.
He walked to one of the other beds where another girl, this one barely older
than the first, lay in bed, sound asleep, completely unaware of the horror that
just occurred not more than ten feet away, and the murderer above her, about to
commit her to the grave.

Steven saw the death from behind, the man’s body mercifully
blocking the view. It was over within an instant, this time going straight for
the child’s heart. After a moment, he raised the ax from the girl’s chest and
was moving to the third bed.

Steven tried to wake himself from the dream, or the vision,
or whatever he was witnessing.
I’m asleep,
he thought.
The ghost is
replaying the events while I sleep. When I’m in the River, I can control
things, where I go, what I see. But this is a dream – as much as I want to, I
can’t control this.

The ax man raised his weapon once again, and Steven tried to
close his eyes as the ax fell and entered the third girl, but he couldn’t. He
didn’t have control over his eyes.
He’s making me look,
Steven thought.
He’s
forcing me to see it, to be part of it!

The man raised his head from the grisly death he’d committed
and turned to look at Steven. He smiled, as though he agreed with Steven’s
assessment – he wanted Steven to be part of it. This time through the loop, Steven
was a real witness, sharing in the man’s deluded fever. Steven would watch the
resurrection and testify of the man’s faith to others.

The ax came up, out of the girl. The window behind
illuminated the dark liquid that dripped from the blade. The man looked around
the room at his handiwork. Steven looked too.
Forced to look,
he
thought.
He’s forcing me to look.

The man turned and walked around the beds, past Steven and
into the hallway. Now Steven felt a greater sense of alarm than before,
something new, something more frightening than even the horrific deaths he’d
just been forced to witness.

He felt his legs move, following the man into the hallway. He
walked to the next bedroom on the right. The door was cracked open a half inch,
just as I left it earlier,
Steven thought.

The man walked up to one of the beds. A boy, maybe twelve,
was lying in the bed on his side. He had his hand up, covering part of his face
as he slept.
No!
Steven thought.
Don’t make me watch this!

The ax man brought the blade down squarely in the boy’s
torso, nearly severing him in half. Blood fanned up on the walls. Steven
thought he was going to pass out.
God, let me black out and end this,
he
thought.
Let this stop! I can’t watch anymore!

But he felt himself turning to face the other bed. The bed
where Jason slept.

The man raised the ax above Jason. He turned to look at
Steven before he brought it down, as though he was asking permission to kill
him. Then he stopped. He lowered the ax to his side. He looked at Steven again,
his freakish smile twisting in the moonlight. He handed the ax to Steven.

Steven’s arm went up, taking the ax from him.

What the fuck am I doing?
Steven thought. He tried to drop the ax, but he
couldn’t.

The man stepped back from the side of the bed, and Steven
took his place. He looked down. Jason’s eyes were open, watching him. His mouth
opened as he tried to speak, but couldn’t.

Wake up!
Steven thought.
Stop this dream!

Then he felt the thoughts, the irrational, crazy, deluded
thoughts that must have been racing around the mind of the ax man. He turned to
his left and saw the man standing next to him, lending moral support for the
task at hand, somehow possessing his mind.
My faith is more than strong enough!
he thought, not sure if it was the man’s thoughts or his own.
The Agimat
will save them all, and God will see what tremendous belief I have in him. And
we will be blessed. I won’t have to work so hard to provide for this family.
God will shower us with goodness and mercy and miracles, all because of my
faith in this moment. With God, nothing is impossible. Watch him heal them all!
Steven began to raise the ax.