Scratch, page 28
“You be careful, too,” Holly said as his feet disappeared into the earth. She sat and stared into the dark opening, a silent prayer winging through her mind.
Billy crouched nearby, heavy club in his hand.
* * * * *
Adam crawled through the narrow tunnel, wriggling forward inch by inch on his belly. The rain had washed most of the mud off his clothes, leaving only the faint pink residue of his blood. Now, his wet hair and clothes picked up the dirt around him, once more leaving him coated in a thin sheath of sludge. The cave felt enormously quiet after the cacophony of the storm. There were places where he was hard-pressed to continue, small fissures where even Michaela would have had difficulty passing, but he squeezed his way through. He pushed the light ahead of him and periodically called for her. She must have been really afraid of Billy to crawl this far into the cave without the benefit of a flashlight. She had never been afraid of the dark. The painting of the guardian angel was better than any nightlight. Still, this was almost unbelievable.
But then, most of what Adam had experienced in the last hour or so fell under the category of unbelievable. When this was over, he knew he was going to have to spend some time redefining the world he lived in. Had that really been an angel that had touched him? He didn’t think so, at least not in the traditional, Christian sense of the term. But there was no doubt that she had been a magical creature of some sort.
But Gabrielle wasn’t the only thing. There had been his dreams as well, and now, crawling through a narrow tunnel into the womb of the earth, they came back to him with a harsh reality. He had done this, recently, while asleep on Carol’s couch. He didn’t believe in precognition, or visions; at least he hadn’t before. Now, he wasn’t so sure. He tried to explain it in terms he could understand, psychological jargon and symbolism. His mind had tapped into the collective unconscious, some field of information that served to prepare him for this moment. Even that sounded stupid in his own ears, yet here he was, with a bear tied to his belt, inching his way into the ground after being healed by an angel.
“What am I willing to sacrifice?” he said aloud. He had lost a finger already. What more was being asked?
It hit him then. What was being sacrificed was his entire understanding of the world and the way he had always believed it worked. His preconceptions, the realities he had taken for granted, had been stripped away from him, much like his flesh had been in the dream. Now, it was his job to reconstruct a new reality, for himself and for his family.
But first, he had to find Michaela.
He felt a breeze on his face from somewhere ahead of him. It was cool and smelled of contagion. He wrinkled his nose and assumed that something, probably an animal, had died in here. Even as he thought it he realized that was his old worldview asserting itself. There could be anything up ahead of him. After the surreal turns the night had taken he wouldn’t be surprised to find a giant tree that he would have to climb.
The tunnel ended in a small chamber that was just large enough to allow him to sit up on his knees. There was a crack in the wall in front of him, and the breeze he felt flowed from it. It was small, but he thought he would be able to fit if he had to. He shined the light through and was able to make out a large chamber on the other side.
“Michaela!” His voice echoed in the cavity. There wasn’t an answer, but he heard what sounded like a frightened gasp, made louder by the acoustics of the space.
“Mike?” he said, but there was nothing. He shook his head, and then began to squeeze through the crack, hoping not only that he wouldn’t get stuck, but that they would be able to make it back. He constricted his shoulders as much as physically possible and crammed his way through, scraping his flesh and ripping his already ruined shirt.
Just when he thought he wasn’t going to be able to fit he passed through. His teeth clicked together painfully as he fell onto the floor of the adjoining chamber. He sat up and scanned the room with the flashlight.
Michaela stood against a rock wall, shielding her eyes from the sudden light. He could tell by her body language that she was ready to run. She was covered in dirt and mud. Her blonde hair was brown and stringy. The skin around her eyes was swollen and discolored from crying, and there was snot running from her nose. Her pretty dress was ripped and she was wearing only one torn dirty sock.
She was the most beautiful sight Adam had ever seen, more so even than Gabrielle had been.
“Michaela,” he softly whispered. “Mike, sweetie, it’s me. It’s Adam.”
She lowered her arm and looked at him. Slowly her eyes adjusted to the dark until recognition painted relief across her face.
“DADDY!” she yelled, and ran across the rocky floor, flinging herself into his open arms.
They both cried then, from a mixture of relief and happiness, and on Adam’s part, from pleasure. She had never called him Daddy before.
“Shh, honey,” he comforted. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. Mommy is right outside. Everything is going to be okay. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“I… I’m… okay,” she said, words stumbling over her tears. “J-just some sc… scratches.” He stood with his child in his arms and attempted to wipe the dirt and tears from her face, succeeding only in smearing it worse.
“We’ll fix them right up when we get home,” Adam said. “We’ll get you cleaned up, and get some Band-Aids, and everything will be okay. Okay?” She nodded her head while sniffing.
“But…” she started, but her voice hitched over another sob.
“What is it, honey?” Adam asked.
“What about the little boy?” she finally managed. “I think he needs some Band-Aids too.”
“What little boy?” Adam asked, genuinely confused.
“The one over there.” Michaela pointed over Adam’s shoulder. He turned and shined the light toward the corner of the room.
“Oh my God.”
What appeared to be a ten-year-old boy sat on a shelf of rock. Bruises and bleeding wounds covered his naked body. There was a deep gash in his side, just where Adam had been stabbed. His limbs were twisted into unnatural shapes; bones, broken and jagged, poked through his ripped flesh. His face, Adam could tell he had been beautiful once, was contorted in agony.
Chains secured the boy to the wall. A pile of moldy feathers lined the floor around him where they had been thrown when they were ripped from his back.
“What the?” Adam began.
The boy held his misshapen arms up to Adam in supplication. Though wretched with disuse, he spoke in a voice that the residents of Canaan would recognize.
“Heal me,” the voice of Scratch pleaded.
CHAPTER SIX
Raz sat before the open book and recited the opening prayer of the binding ritual. April held his right hand and he could feel Nellie’s bony fingers in his left. Across the table from him sat Jack, also holding the women’s hands. Candles illuminated the room; their flames quivered and cast dancing shadows on the walls. Water stood an inch deep on the floor and rose with each minute that passed. Once the stream overflowed its banks it hadn’t taken long to spread from one side of the valley to the other.
The churchyard was still aflame. The magic circle held the water out, the same as it had held Gabrielle in. The church itself had begun to collapse. The roof had fallen in and rested in the shattered pews. The hardwood floor was on fire and holes in its surface revealed the dark basement below. Burning bits of paper, the pages of hymnals and Bibles, lifted like prayers toward the heavens on an updraft of heat, only to be snatched down again by the pounding rain and turned into sodden pulp.
Raz began to chant. His voice rose in the ululating drone of ancient words of power. The air around them became charged with energy and the hairs on their arms stood. Lightning struck again, and Raz knew the general store had been hit. He continued the chant without interruption.
* * * * *
Outside, the town of Canaan began to take its last labored breaths. The people there knew something was wrong. This was no ordinary storm. The unnatural flames that surrounded the church were proof enough of that. While they didn’t know exactly what was happening, they knew they were in trouble.
The store and the laundromat were both on fire. Muddy water covered the street, the same water that had already crept into most of their houses. Candles and flashlights provided dim illumination of the damage being done. Small outbuildings had collapsed and were quickly washed away, absorbed by the hungry body of water. Tree limbs, strewn across yards and driveways, joined trash and parts of porches as floating debris.
For once in her life Rita Halliwell didn’t have a clue what the fuck was going on in Canaan. The storm was the worst she had ever witnessed. She had seen Jim lead Gabrielle out of the church and drive her away. Neither of them had returned yet, and Rita would know; she had been watching. The Tolands had come back though. She had never seen Raz drive so fast or recklessly. She would have to mention it to him next time she saw him. She had watched Jack carry that old drunk, Mrs. Claremont across the footbridge, and then the church exploded. Rita screamed and jumped back from her curtains. Not two seconds later she parted them again and saw the unnatural circle of fire around the church.
That was when she decided that God must be angry with Canaan, and was visiting his punishment upon it. She dropped to her knees and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer, though she occasionally opened one eye and peeked outside.
Next door to Rita, Davey Moore, the younger of the brothers who had nailed a cat to a tree just a few weeks ago, ran out into the backyard to save the bicycle he left out in the rain. He was quickly in water up to his waist. He grabbed the handlebars and tried to pull the bike back toward the house, but the current swept his feet out from under him. He still had one hand on the bike when his father grabbed him by the belt and yanked him up. The bike swirled away.
They didn’t have time to register relief as a floating log crashed into them from behind. It knocked them both into the surging water where they were quickly separated and washed down the valley after the bike. Jason Moore, the elder brother, and his mother watched, helplessly from the back porch.
* * * * *
Raz’s part of the invocation was done. His voice trailed off into a steady hum, providing an obscene undercurrent as April took up her part of the chant. Water licked at their calves now. Pieces of their furniture floated by. Another bolt of lightning shattered the windows of the parsonage. Cold wind blew out the candles. April flinched, but didn’t stop the chant.
The air grew thick around them. The force of their magic pressed outward, forming a bowl-shaped depression in the water around their feet.
In the clouds Gabrielle felt a tug at her being as something tried to pull her back to earth, back to the circle and the chains.
* * * * *
The Tennant house, home of eight-year-old Emily, who was still in mourning for her cat Socks, had been in desperate need of repairs for years. It was an old house, one of the oldest in Canaan. But something kept coming up that took the money that would be needed to do a decent job. There were cracks in the foundation, and several of the walls canted to one side or another.
There was no way it could stand against the torrent. It started as a low pitched creaking noise, then swelled into a screaming groan. The Tennant family, huddled together in the living room to wait out the storm, was frightened by the strange sounds their house was making. Then, suddenly, the groaning stopped. Even with the storm raging outside, the silence seemed complete compared the wracking screech of their home’s death cry.
A moment later, the house collapsed.
Farther down the street, in the last house that could claim to stand in the actual “city limits” of Canaan, Sam and Mary McDougal were fighting. It was nothing new. They always fought, though it usually ended with Mary getting a black eye or a fat lip from Sam. Tonight however, she had had enough. When he drew his fist back to strike her she surprised him by drawing four bloody scratches down his cheek with her fingernails. He stood, absolutely surprised at this turn of events. Even in the dark she saw the look that came over his face then. She knew she was going to die before the night was over. She was right, but not in the way she expected. When Sam leapt for her she ran out the door and plunged into water that reached above her knees. It slowed her down enough for Sam to catch up. He wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up. He turned to carry her back into the house, ignoring the pain in his face and her crying apologies.
That was when lightning struck them.
* * * * *
April’s voice wound down and joined Raz’s in a disharmonic relationship. Nellie hesitated. For just a second she forgot the words. Her stomach roiled with bile and alcohol, her hip hurt where she had fallen on it, and her head was fuzzy. Her hands… well, her hands always hurt. Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth and dry, so very dry. Just a little drink would help, but there was no time for that now. She straightened her back as much as her arthritis would allow.
Her speech was low pitched at first, barely audible, but as she spoke, the words and her confidence returned. The volume and speed increased until no one who knew her would have believed this could be her voice. The bubble of force around them grew, pushing back the tide.
* * * * *
Larry Miller, his wife Susan who baked really good buns and their son Larry Jr. had gotten out while the getting was good. Larry didn’t have any idea what was going on, but once the church caught fire he decided that it was time to leave. They grabbed some money and a pistol and ran out into the rain and got into Larry’s truck. It started immediately. Thank God he had Ed replace his spark plug wires and distributor cap not too long ago, what with this rain and all. He pulled out of their driveway and onto the street.
Fans of water sprayed the sides of the road as they carved their passage out of Canaan. Susan cried, and Larry Jr. treated it like an adventure, at least until Larry told him to shut up. He folded his arms over his chest and folded his lower lip down almost to his chin, a pouting expression that was guaranteed to make his dad go nuts.
Larry slowed down to make the turn off the main road and up over the little rise that led into the covered bridge. He’d had a bad feeling about things ever since the day they had to get rid of those movers. Larry had known that sort of thing had happened in Canaan. He knew about Gabrielle, after all. But that had been the first time he had participated. True, he hadn’t actually killed the two men, but he still felt guilty for some reason. He’d liked those two fellows from the moment he met them, right here at the bridge when he helped them unload their truck.
Well, it was over now. He was leaving. He might come back to get their stuff, but he had had enough of Canaan, thank you very much.
The creek brushed across the bottom of the bridge. The planks splashed as they lifted and thumped under the wheels of Larry’s truck. The stone foundation of the bridge, built many years ago with fieldstones and cheap mortar, had been eroded for decades, and tonight had been the worst.
They almost made it. The front tires slid off the bridge and onto the blacktop on the other side, but the rear tires, the ones that moved the vehicle, broke through the boards. The foundation buckled, and like the much fabled walls of Jericho, came tumbling down. The bridge collapsed in on the truck as it fell backward into the creek.
* * * * *
Shelley woke up surrounded by smoke, and for a moment she was thirteen again, just a little girl who had stashed a cigarette and accidentally burned down her house and killed her parents. She huddled up into a ball on the barn floor and screamed.
Piles of hay burned all over the barn. Some of the rafters had caught as well, and the fire was moving fast. The plastic that covered the Mansfield’s couch had melted, shrink-wrapping the now smoking fabric.
She coughed. She couldn’t believe she had gone to sleep after everything that had happened. The last thing she remembered was sitting here, crying. Sheer emotional exhaustion must have taken her away. Had she lit a cigarette? She didn’t think so, but she wasn’t sure. Lightning had probably struck.
The rising heat lifted some of the sheets of tin on the roof. They banged loosely, torn between the high temperature beneath and the cooling rain and wind above. The air cleared a little, but Shelley had already taken in a lungful.
She knew she had to move. Jim wasn’t going to show up and carry her to safety this time. She crawled along the floor, skirting the edges of patches of fire, trying not to panic. If she could just get out she would run to the house, or hide in Adam’s car where she would be safe.
A burning support beam of the hayloft above gave way. An avalanche of wood, hay, and various items that had been stored there over the years came tumbling down in an explosion of sparks and flame. The horse-drawn buggy in the center of the floor was smashed to splinters. Shelley felt the impact through her hands and knees. She dropped flat on her stomach and covered her head. A loose bunch of fiery straw wafted down and set her hair on fire. She screamed again and beat at her head to put it out. She jumped to her feet and ran for the door. She pushed it open just as another bolt of lightning was thrown from the heavens. The flare seared her retina, so she didn’t see Billy’s car explode in a flash of light and gasoline. Rubber tires were no protection from the unnatural lightning that lanced from the sky. It flipped over. Twisted metal, burning upholstery, and bits of Suede splattered the night. The barn door was ripped out of Shelley’s hand by the blast. Part of the windshield ripped that hand from her arm. The steering wheel column slammed through her chest, throwing her backwards into the barn.
She barely felt the pain. Blood poured from her mouth and her breathing was difficult. She lay on her back and watched as the flames got closer.
* * * * *
Nellie completed her portion of the ritual. She could feel Gabrielle, out there somewhere, resisting their efforts to bind her. The angel was unchained, and outside her circle. But the other one, Scratch, was still where he had been buried when this had first begun. His chains were secure. His circle was unbroken.
