Blood Ever After, page 31
Tyler shrugged. “Nothing,” he said, handing the man the hammer, feeling the warmth of his hand once more time.
That night, Nelson held a scrap book, standing before the others at the dining table.
“So, what have we established so far,” he said, gazing over to the list they had compiled, “is that it may … the Deaija … be a form of ancient evil, that breaks through to the surface now and then, trying to somehow imprint itself onto this world.”
The planks over the windows blocked out the darkness and the penetrating red eyes. Tyler shuddered, thinking about who was out there, and all those other demons who stood, waiting, it appeared, for something.
Charlotte, standing also, held the history textbook, saying, “It’s says here that the Deaija breaks forth into the world, by possessing the minds of humans.” She looked up, eyes shadowed and tired. There appeared to be a lazy nature to her arms and legs, as though her entire body was about ready to fall down into a heap. And yet, the girl continued, and Tyler felt warmth in his chest because of that.
“In the past it has tried to spread havoc or caused great catastrophes. It has created famines, or even shifted mountains to harm lots of people in one day.”
Nelson shook his head, looking down at the list. “And what book are you getting this info from, woman?”
Charlotte closed the book, looking at the cover. “A History of Aboriginal Dreaming,’ she said.
“That answers my question,” he said, sighing.
“So what do you think it is, the Deaija?” Tyler said to the man. Nelson frowned, then looked over to Brett. He played the Switch on the sofa by the boarded-up window. Red light splayed over his entire body, the red coming from the screen as he stared at it.
“I think … whatever it is, it wants revenge on us all. And it hasn’t even started yet, hasn’t even started….”
They ate at the dining table that night.
“I guess everything is ready then,” Nelson said. The map sat before them. There were checkmarks on various sections, notes, circles. Tyler saw how they were going to go driving back to their hometowns, to gather his and Charlotte’s parents. Hopefully, he thought, with a small prayer in his mind to the Redeemer above, all would be well, and both he and Charlotte’s parents would be fine.
“Then we go get my cousins. I reckon me cousins are still alive,” Brett said.
Nelson nodded. “’Course, boy, why wouldn’t we.”
Nelson dealt the cards that night. If Brett beat Nelson, he’d lashed out at him with his leg. “You been cheating, you been cheating, boy.” He jabbed and jabbed out that leg.
Charlotte burst into giggles, thin, warm hands grasping Tyler’s arm, pulling him closer. “They’re so funny,” she said.
And come bedtime they lay there, a warm, deep smile upon Tyler’s face. And for the first time in a very, very long time, all was well. All was very well indeed.
Chapter 21
They lay in bed.
Tyler turned over, away from the girl.
“Just relax … forget about him. It’s not your brother. You know that, Tyler. It’s not your brother.”
But images of his brother ran through his mind, the voice sounding in his head also. Tyler, come down to the front door, open it up. Haven’t you wanted to see your brother for a long time? Don’t you want to come and see him?
Brett lobbed the ball off the edges of cabinets, doing rolls on the ground, jumping up, catching it again.
“Tyler, Tyler, play with me. Play with me, Tyler.” But Tyler ignored the boy. He was hearing those distant moans in his head, those cries for him to open the door, that someone was there to see him.
Throughout the afternoon, the crew placed bags, weapons, toiletries into the trailer on back of the ATV. While come night, Tyler stood looking out the window. A familiar face, skin rotten and greenish, looked up at him.
“Open the door,” the thing moaned, or at least appeared to, the way his mouth moved, but really Tyler was only interpreting its words, as no actual voice could be heard through the glass. Charlotte’s deep breathing reached him from where she slept. The sets of red eyes gleamed. Houses dark and shadowed behind them. “Open the door, Tyler, you know we are meant to meet again.”
Tyler groaned, “No …. No…!”
Saturday, Tyler hung in Hannah’s room. He looked at the jacket hanging in the cupboard. Held it for a moment, looking down. “It was nice to know you, Hannah. Nice to know you, pal.” He hung the jacket back up.
That night they played Medieval Madness.
“Stop it. Stop it,” Brett said, knocking Tyler’s piece out of the way.
“I win, I win!” Tyler said.
Soon they stood, Brett moving off toward his bedroom rushed, but before he disappeared, he walked back, gave Tyler a quick hug around his knees.
“See ya in the morning, loser,” he said. The kid with the large black shirt rushed off back into his room.
Nelson stood, held his hand out for Tyler to grasp. “Love ya, brother. Ready for the big move tomorrow? I reckon we try to leave about six o’clock, bruh, right after we set the fireworks off.”
Tyler nodded. “As good a time as any.”
He slapped the man’s hand.
Nelson went to walk off, then stopped, turning back. “Hey, boy.” His eyes twinkled as he stared at Tyler. “You helped a lot, fixing the bike, and all.” He nodded, that long, rough hair sweeping over his muscled shoulders. “I’ll always remember that, brother. Always remember that.”
He moved back, clasped Tyler’s hand again, then moved in to give him a kind of man hug. “Give it to me, boy, give it to me,” he said, and they hugged. “You’re like the little brother I never had, Tyler, the little bro I never had,” he said, giving Tyler a light swat on his sore ass. A slight tear sat in Nelson’s eye. “Now get outta here and get some sleep, weirdo,” he said, and Tyler felt his rough hair scrap against his shoulder as the man moved off down the hallway, yawning.
Charlotte and Tyler sat on living room sofa, and when the snores from the other two came from the bedrooms, they started kissing.
“Tyler, I’ve never met someone like you before, I really haven’t,” she said, starting to undo his shirt.
Tyler grasped something in his pocket, pulling it out in the dim light. A small silver ring sat in his palm. Charlotte gaped at it.
“Tyler? What the heck?”
Tyler shrugged, looking down at the ring, then the twinkling eyes of the girl across form him. The warm lights created a golden glow throughout the room, like everything had a sense of elegance to it.
“Promise me, that if tomorrow we make it away from this place, and back to safety … and we find out parents …” He looked down at the ring, a Blue Rays logo printed on it. He held it to her, staring her in the eyes. “Tell me you’ll marry me, in whatever form we will be allowed to marry. Tell me it’ll be me you wish to spend the rest of your life with. Tell me it’ll be me.”
She stared at Tyler. Soon her jaw trembled. “Oh, Tyler,” she said, closing her hands around his ring.
“What? What?” he was trying to say, except she pushed him down on the couch, kissing him, her warm tongue moving deep into his mouth.
“I love you…. I’ll always love you, Tyler … always have, since the moment I saw you.”
Tyler smiled, staring the girl back in the eyes. “So have I,” he said, closing his eyes again.
The two kissed, and did a lot more than that, well into the night.
Tyler awoke sometime that night.
He wasn’t certain why he had at that time.
But once he had awoken, he was aware of something.
A red glow.
And not from outside those windows. Not from where those things stood and watched and waited and haunted and provoked from outside. No, the thin red light came from somewhere downstairs in the living room.
Tyler and Charlotte had come upstairs earlier, and had since fallen asleep.
He looked to that bright reddish glow seeping up the stairwell. Red light … inside, Tyler thought. He felt Charlotte’s warm body against his. Had he known this would have been the last time in his life he would ever have touched her, maybe he would have kissed her on the cheek before standing. He didn’t, however, for he was thinking about that red light, and wondering who the heck—what the heck—would be making such a display at—he checked his watch—12.34 … 12.34 at night? He gazed to the organ. The hunter’s knife sat upon it, long, shadowed in the darkness, its handle over the edge.
He slipped from the covers, stepped to the knife, grasped it. He descended the stairs one, by one. His mouth dried. His chest throbbed, but all that felt very distant, in fact everything … everything to Tyler in that moment felt very distant.
He walked wide-eyed, like he had made some discovery he had been waiting to a make for a small lifetime. He licked his lips.
The stairwell became redder and redder the further he descended.
He is in the house…. He is in the house, Tyler thought, hand grasping the knife shaking. And he decided then that if the thing, the Deaija should be in this house, he was going to do away with it without a second’s thought. That thing which had separated him from his parents for so long now, that had caused the death of Brett’s mother and sister, and in the end, his friends and all his teachers.
“It ends now,” he breathed, eyes widening further as he reached the bottom stair.
He stepped into the reddish glow of the living and dining rooms. And saw him.
The Deaija.
Sitting on the sofa by the window. His face was dim, the red glow coating his entire body. The rooms lay dark and dim, other than that hellish, radiation redness.
Time to end it … time to end it, he muttered. He felt something at his side, the dog, grasping at his bedclothes, but he kicked it off, and when the dog went to bark, to alert whoever was in the chair, Tyler held the knife down toward its neck. Not now, stupid dog…. Not now or I’ll kill you where you stand. This finishes now.
So it stayed there and glared at Tyler and pity shone in its eyes, but it made no other sounds.
Tyler crept further and further toward the figure. It was laced in that red glowing light, the figure tall, a formless figure. Long hair ran down to its shoulders, legs strong and wiry. Just like Tyler had imagined. Like everything he imagined it would be in person.
Tyler stepped up toward it, the room silent other than some maddening plasticky sound coming from deep within its being.
And now it ends, he thought just before he reached it.
He brought the knife up from his side, lifted it. It also shone red, the jagged edges harsh and deadly in this light. He intended to delve the blade in the middle of the thing’s neck, to get it right in the jugular, and end it fast.
He breathed in. Struck.
The figure, however, at the last second, heard Tyler, and ducked his head out of the way. Never mind. The knife slunk down through the flesh of the man’s neck, running through tendons, small bones, nerves, severing two main arteries.
The man let out some strange wail, and Tyler’s eyes lit with excitement, jubilation.
Winner. Winner. He had done it. And the man stared up at Tyler, and it was Nelson.
Tyler stood, staring, the dripping knife still clasped in his hands. “Nelse?” he said. Silence for a few seconds. Blood pulsated and pulsated from Nelson’s neck, high up, some even spraying against the roof.
“It looks like a rainbow,” Tyler said, maybe out of shock, maybe something else he’d never quite understand. The dog now yapped. Too late. The warning had come far too late.
“Arrrgghhhhh.” The man was screaming, grasping at his neck. Blood squirted from between his fingers. Tyler gazed down to see the prosthetic, the long hair, the two frown lines. The Switch sat in on his stomach, a red glow shining from the screen. “Arrrghhh,” he cried again, shutting his eyes. Tyler stepped back. Blood pulsated form between Nelson’s fingers, staining his hands, spraying into Tyler’s eyes time to time.
The man roared, standing, the blood shooting out toward the dining table. He stomped over to Tyler, like there was a leak in him, and all the blood in his body was pouring out of it. Blood had seeped all down his neck, down his shirt, some even splattering on his prosthetic.
“Nelson, I’m—”
Tyler didn’t get a moment to finish. Nelson’s right hand—the one not holding his neck—was balled up, and whacked Tyler square in the jaw, once. This broke Tyler’s jaw, sending two teeth ricocheting throughout his mouth. Stars flashed. Tyler opened his mouth to apologize, to say something, but when he did a second punch went flying into his jaw. If the first had broken the jaw, the second shattered it. Tyler’s head whammed against the wall. He saw blackness for a few seconds, and upon waking found himself lying on the ground.
Nelson started booting and booting his metal prosthetic into Tyler’s face. Tyler felt his nose snap, heard the shattering of bone, the foot stabbing into one of his eyes, shoving it in so he would never see again from that eye. Nelson kept kicking and kicking, and when Tyler was about to lose consciousness again, he was dragged up, dragged up by the man with the broad shoulders and wiry long arms. He stared at the younger boy.
“You die.”
Thwack, thwack, thwack. Nelson, using those large laborer’s hands, rammed Tyler’s head back into the plaster wall, over and over. The sound of cracking and shattering filled Tyler’s ears. Nelson booted at Tyler’s leg, and Tyler heard one of his knees pop. Tyler cried as he hung there now, but still the man punched and banged him back. When Tyler once more dropped to the carpet, Nelson drove his prosthetic into his arm, a snap sounded deep within that arm as something broke. Tyler now gurgled blood, eye burning, arm aching. And the kicks continued.
“You die. You die.’ He thought he could hear.
He awoke sometime later.
He didn’t know how long it had been.
His body was in so much pain he felt like he had been hit by a train. His eye was bleeding, and he was aware he could only see just a little out of his left one.
“Nelson? You okay?” he said. He tried to get up, but his knee gave way. When he put his arm on the ground, he felt the paralysis, the vengeful pain erupting though it.
“Arrrrahhhhh!” he screamed. He blinked that eye open. He saw he sat in the basement, everything dark. He scrambled to his feet, staggering to the door. He couldn’t move his arm, and felt the bone wobbling about in there. “Let me out, let me outta here!” Tyler screamed. He wrestled with the door handle, the door locked from the other side. With his good hand, he yanked, and wobbled, and wrangled that handle but still the door would not open.
“Nelson. Bastard. Let me out.” He softened his voice. “I’m sorry, Nelse. I thought it was someone else. Let me outta here. Let me outta here.”
Still no calling returned. Tyler stayed there for some time. He moved back. Then ran at the door, ramming it with his one good shoulder. The door shook, but the lock didn’t break.
“Let me outta here. Let me outta here, you pricks. You bastards,” he screamed.
And yet they didn’t come. And never would.
Tyler lay on the ground, writhing, pain bursting throughout his arm. His knee felt like it was on fire, and arm as though some shark had risen from the ground, pressing dozens of teeth through his skin, clenching down and remaining in that position for eternity. His eye bled, the blood dripping into his mouth. Tyler couldn’t speak much, being that he felt bone pressing against the bruising in his jaw. He went to yell out, but sounded more animal that anything else.
It had been several hours.
Tyler stood, ramming his shoulder against the door. “Let me outta here, you pricks. Let me outta here.”
But still they did not come.
Tyler stood behind the door, staring at it, his only remaining working eye wide open, his broken arm hanging askew. Tears came down from his now blind eye and his one good one. “Brett? Brett? Brett? Hey Brett? You guys there? Hey. You trapped me in here. Her guys, hey—”
He heard it then. Some deep, low, guttural moan. Tyler turned.
A face pressed up against the window which faced the side of the house. From outside, large yellow eyes glared in.
Tyler folded his arms, whammed his one good shoulder over and over against the door. “Let me outta here, you pricks! Let me outta here, you pricks.”
And yet they still did not come. No one came, and never would.
Tyler sat on the carpet, sobbing, tears somehow streaming from an eyeball which no longer saw. “Nelson, I’m sorry. I thought you was someone else. I thought …” Except he couldn’t finish his words. His jaw hurt too much. And the recognition of what he had done, the evil had had enacted upon his friend, and callousness of his behavior, all weighed on his chest, so instead he just sat there, sobbing, saying over and over and over again, “I’m sorry … I’m so sorry … I’m so sorry.”
And all was quiet upstairs.
Tyler stood. Daylight shone outside the small high-up window, but it would be always darkness in Tyler’s heart from then on. And anyway, seeing the difference between day and night at that moment, with his vision blurred the way it was, was significantly difficult.
He stumbled up to the window, keeping his distance a moment. The green hue of the skin shone in the daylight. The window fogging as the monster breathed against the glass. It was presumably crouching over, in order to look in, being that the window was nestled just above ground level. Step, by step, Tyler walked to the glass and stared out, and if someone was watching they would have seen no difference at all between the monster who gazed in, salivating from outside, to the boy who stood there, drooling, his pants wet from having pissed himself, a strange smell coming from his pants, the boy staring back out the window.
He peered at the ghoulish yellow sickly nature of the eyes, and pungent green rot dotting the entire face, the balding, pockmarked scalp, and muttered, “What are you? What have you become? What have you become?” He placed his hand against the glass, and once more that thing snarled, and the glass fogged up and all he could see was a reflection of himself, and he looked worse than the thing which had been in his vision only moments ago.
