Wellington’s body was gone.
Aabir was gone.
Dr. Madison was gone.
Fishing out his cell phone, he again searched for a signal that wasn’t there. Then he unfolded his six-foot frame from underneath the piano, and practically cried in relief as his cramped muscles stretched and circulation returned.
Now I need to find the front door. If it’s unlocked, I can grab the others and—
Then the edge of his light beam caught something. Movement, behind a love seat ten meters away. Tom turned the focus on the flashlight, amplifying it, and seeing—
Wellington?
The man was behind the loveseat, his head peeking out over the backrest, the rest of his body hidden. He looked pale and in shock. Eyes wide and vacant. Mouth hanging open. Jaw opening and closing, as if trying to speak.
“Cornelius!” Tom spoke as loudly as the conditions warranted. “I’m over here!”
Wellington’s head turned toward Tom. The guy looked positively devastated. Tom had no idea how he was even alive, let alone still able to move. But the guy needed medical attention. Fast.
“I’m coming to you,” Tom said.
Wellington nodded robotically, and then stuck out his tongue.
No—
That’s not a tongue.
It’s…
Two fingers.
Wellington has two fingers in his mouth.
As Tom was trying to comprehend why the man was eating human fingers, another possibility sprang, fully formed, into Tom’s head.
Oh my god.
Wellington isn’t chewing on fingers.
He’s…
That’s when the burned ghost of Sturgis Butler stood up from behind the love seat—
—wearing Wellington’s severed head on his hand like a puppet.
Tom’s muscles locked. His mind couldn’t comprehend the horror of what he was seeing.
Sturgis continued to manipulate Wellington’s skull as if it was a ventriloquist’s dummy, making the jaw move.
And then he made it talk.
“Hello… Tom…”
The ghost’s voice sounded like he was gargling motor oil.
“I’ve… got… my… eyes… on… you…”
Incredibly, Wellington’s eyes began to bulge. Tom didn’t understand how that could be possible—then they popped out and two black fingers wiggled through the empty sockets.
That was enough to get Tom to move. He sprinted across the great room, heading down a hallway, and then he slowed when he smelled something.
Smoke.
A cigarette? Moni?
He swept the hallway with his flashlight, finding a half-open door with a wisp of fumes coming out of it. Knife in hand, Tom cautiously approached the room.
“Moni? Is that you?”
Tom stopped before entering. He listened, and was answered with silence. Sniffing again, he realized it wasn’t a cigarette. It was more like burning hair.
Tom gave the door a small push, and it squealed on its hinges, causing hackles to rise on his forearms. The room was brighter than the hallway, an orange glow from several candles.
Black candles. On a black stone slab, which was atop an old mortician’s gurney. Next to the candles was a tarnished silver chalice with a lid on it.
It was a portable satanic altar.
Behind them, on the wall, an ornate wooden cross, over a meter tall. It had been turned upside-down. A naked figure of Jesus hung on the cross, painted in exquisite detail. His face was contorted in pain, and rivulets of blood ran from his crown of thorns and the spikes in his hands and feet. A bloody pentagram had been carved into his chest. Despite the obvious agony, the Christ figure had an obscene, blasphemous erection.
Tom wasn’t religious, but he guessed he’d walked in on the unholy ritual of the black mass. Which wasn’t something he wanted to take part in.
He was about to get the hell out of there when he noticed movement next to the altar.
Something under a black sheet.
Something human-shaped. Just sitting there.
Tom continued to stare. Maybe it hadn’t moved. Maybe the shadows from the flickering candles just made it look like—
It moved again. A shudder.
Followed by a low moan.
Tom knew how important it was to act on instinct, and every fiber of his being told him to run away. His neck was gooseflesh. His hands were shaking. His tongue was so dry that it stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Tom did not want to see what was under that sheet.
But he had to.
It could be Moni. Or someone else who needed help.
So Tom took a slow step toward it, on the balls of his feet. Quietly, as if not to wake a sleeping baby. When he got within an arm’s length, the thing under the sheet twitched.
What are you doing, Tom? Are you insane? Get out of here.
But he didn’t get out of there. Instead, he pinched the sheet with the hand that held the knife.
Okay. Here we go…
He pulled, hard.
The sheet came off.
Aabir was kneeling there, staring up at him.
Her eyes were completely black.
It scared him so badly, he fell backward, onto his ass.
She smiled. Her teeth were black as well.
“Aabir, are you… are you okay?”
It was a ludicrous thing to say. The whites of her eyes were gone, and her teeth the color of coal. She was obviously in very deep shit.
So what should he do? Try to get her out of there?
“Aabir, can you hear me? Do you understand?”
Then Tom smelled it.
Burnt meat. Getting stronger. And footsteps, from the hall outside.
Tom quickly put Aabir’s sheet back over her head, and then crawled beneath the stone altar, hiding behind the coverlet and killing his flashlight just as Sturgis walked in. Tom could see him through a break in the fabric.
The ghost approached the altar, and stopped there. Then he yanked off Aabir’s sheet.
“Ready… for… the… sacraments…”
Aabir stared up at Sturgis and nodded. Then she turned her head and stared at Tom. Her eyes were so black they resembled holes in her head.
Don’t look at me, Tom willed. You’ll give away where I am. Stop it. Please stop it.
Then Sturgis placed his hand on her head, and she stared up at him again. He had a steak knife in his hand.
“Sanguis… satanas…”
Aabir opened her mouth and stuck out her black tongue. Sturgis jammed the knife into his palm and twisted it. Blood dribbled out, into Aabir’s mouth.
Sturgis took his hands away, and Aabir once again stared at Tom. She licked her red lips.
“Corpus… satanas…”
Sturgis now had the silver chalice. Tom knew what it was. A ciborium. Used in Catholic Mass to hold Communion wafers. The priest carried it to share the Body of Christ to his Parrish.
But when Sturgis opened the ciborium, it wasn’t filled with unleavened bread.
It was filled with cockroaches.
Sturgis snatched one, and held it in two fingers as it wiggled.
Aabir stuck out her tongue.
Tom squeezed his eyes shut. He could still hear the crunching. He felt his stomach flip-flop. Between the smell of burned meat, and the sound of eating bugs, he was very close to throwing up.
Then he felt a slight tickle on his nose.
His eyes sprang open and he saw Aabir holding the cup of roaches right in front of his face.
Tom knocked it away, then rolled backward, out from under the altar. His head hit the head of the upside-down Christ, and for a moment the world went wobbly. Then he slapped at a roach crawling on his cheek—