The night was oddly silent, the usual symphony of tree frogs and crickets absent. The fact that she could no longer hear that earlier shrieking only served to heighten her anxiety.
She peered into the gloom ahead of her.
Lights from the neighboring homes occasionally pierced the thick foliage, causing shadows to dance on the edge of her sight. Several times she thought she saw movement, but when she looked directly at that spot, nothing was there.
As she descended the few steps to the stone walkway that led to the drive, a low, furtive rustling reached her ears. She stood still, listening.
After a moment she heard it again. It was coming from a stand of bushes off to her left.
Cautiously, she moved a few steps closer.
“Here, Kitty,” she called softly.
The bushes rustled again.
She stepped closer, to just a foot or two away, feeling the cool moisture from the dew-laden grass that had soaked through the material of her slippers onto the soles of her feet.
The rustling came again, this time accompanied by a plaintive meow.
The sound made Martha smile, and she lowered the broomstick in response as relief surged through her system. It had been one of her cats, after all.
Poor baby’s probably trapped in the hedges and can’t get out,she thought. Laying the broom on the lawn, she softly crept forward the last few feet, not wanting to scare the little darling, and reached out with both hands.
“Easy, baby,” she said. “Momma’s here to help you.”
Very gently, she parted the bushes and pushed her head into the space she’d created.
She didn’t even have time to scream.
When Moloch was finished, he hefted what was left of the corpse under one arm and turned toward the house.
His meal was not yet complete.
There was another human inside. He could hear the loud thumping heartbeat in his mind, and from its resonance could tell it was a male.
The sound made him eager.
As he started walking slowly toward the still-open front door, his body hunched so that the corpse’s heels dragged along the lawn after him, and he began to laugh.
A low, chilling laugh.
A laugh that would have sounded only partially human, had anyone been around to hear it.
11
LEGENDS FROM THE PAST
Later that evening, Sam found himself finishing his rounds at the nursing home earlier than usual. The patients were quiet that night, their requests relatively few, so that when he was done with his rounds he made his way down the hall to the last room on the left, eager to tell Gabriel the events of the morning.
Gabriel was expecting him and Sam quickly took his usual seat by the window. This time their roles were reversed as Sam told Gabriel of the morning’s events with Jake. Gabriel listened quietly throughout the telling, never interrupting, though he did lean forward with a surprising amount of interest when Sam was describing the condition of the statue they found in the tunnel. He shook his head sadly when Sam mentioned finding Kyle’s body, and for just an instant Sam thought he saw the wet glisten of impending tears in Gabriel’s eyes.
“Pretty amazing, don’t you think?” Sam asked, when he finally ran out of steam.
“Yes, indeed, Sammy. Quite a tale. Tell me, what do the police intend to do now?”
Sam thought about it for a moment and realized that he really didn’t know.Had the sheriff told Jake to stay away from the mansion, or was his friend intending to resume work on the renovations in the morning? He didn’t remember hearing any discussion about the issue, but figured that since it was a crime scene, the work would have to be suspended for at least a few days, and told Gabriel so.
“Seems you had quite an exciting morning, my young friend. So exciting that my story seems so dull and uneventful in comparison that I think we’ll just forget about it for tonight, don’t you think?”
Sam shook his head. “Not a chance, Gabriel. We have practically all night to talk, and there’s no way I’m going to miss one of your stories.” Every time Sam came to Gabriel’s room, the old man had a tale to tell, and they were always so incredibly interesting that Sam sometimes found himself looking at his own works with an air of resignation, his own story lines seemed so uninteresting in comparison.
Gabriel watched closely for a moment, as if gauging the sincerity of Sam’s reaction, then agreed with a smile.
“Tell me, Sammy, how do you think it was that man left behind the life of a wanderer and began to settle down in one location, changing from a society of hunter-gatherers to one of agriculture and domesticity?”
That was an easy one. Sam had learned the answer years before in secondary school. “As the great beasts began to die out, and man’s numbers started to swell, a more constant food source was required to survive. It became impractical to move large groups across such vast distances while following the herd animals, so they turned to a more stable food supply in the form of whatever crops they could grow.”
“And how did they learn to do that?” Gabriel asked.
“Well, ah, I suppose they just figured it out.”
It was a weak answer, and Sam knew it, but it was the only one he had. He’d never considered the question before, having taken the stock answer his schooling had taught him and leaving it at that.
He looked over at Gabriel, his eyebrows raised questioningly.
“I’ll tell you how they did it, Sam. They had help.”
“Help?”
“Yes, help. Help from a race of people who had come before them, and had learned to do it on their own. You see, your history books only tell you the basics. Of how man slowly adapted, leaving his ancestral ways behind. But that’s not really what happened. Did you really think humanity managed to do it all on their own?” Gabriel asked, and for the first time Sam heard something besides simple good cheer in his friend’s voice. For just a moment, he thought there was a touch of arrogance there, too.
“Long ago, before man ascended from his primal beginnings, there was another age, the Age of Creation it was called, and in this time other beings ruled the land. The wisest, gentlest of these were known as the Elders. They were the most important link in man’s transition from brutality to civilization. The Elders were human in appearance, so much so that if you were to pass one on the streets today you would see no difference. Your mind and your soul might notice something, for the Elderswere different. They were more civilized, more at peace with themselves and the world around them than any other race from then until now. If you were not completely anesthetized by the wonderless world in which you now live, you would recognize the differences between our races.”
Gabriel paused for a moment and in the silence Sam was struck by the odd notion that Gabriel was speaking of himself, that he had lived and walked among the Elders.
“They used harmony to create a vast civilization that spanned the globe. They raised cities of wonder, full of joy and light, whose sparkling towers reached for the heavens above with grace and spirit, and let all who saw them know that these were a people to be respected. A people to be loved.
“Some of the Elders took a liking to the apelike creatures that were man’s ancestors. Slowly their confidence was won with offers of food and other gifts. The Elders began to teach them, discovering early on that several of these beings had a rudimentary intelligence different from the other creatures of the wild. It quickly became a mission of the Elders to raise these creatures up from the level of the beasts around them and give them something more.”
Gabriel turned to face Sam, his eyes shining with intensity. His hand shot out from under the bedclothes and grabbed Sam’s wrist. “Think of it, Sam! A whole race devoted to bettering the lives of another. What hope they must have had! What joy! What a wonderful world to have lived in!”