Jon Merz - Vicarious

But fear wouldn’t let her.

The closet grew colder.

Lauren began praying. In her head she began reciting every prayer she’d ever known. Over and over again.

The silence hung heavy.

Suffocating.

She wanted to draw a deep breath. She wanted to stand. To move. Adrenaline had flooded her system and she felt jumpy.

Stay still!

A thought occurred to her then. The sound the flashlight had made when it struck the wooden floor.

Bang.

Not a dull thud.

Not the sound she would have expected.

Bang.

Almost as if -

Her eyebrows jumped. Maybe?

There seemed to be no noise coming from the house. Maybe the old home was settling. Noises in old homes were common, even if for no real reason.

She smiled. No one was there.

She lowered the gun.

Slid the safety back on.

And set it down to her left.

Lauren turned back around to face the rear of the closet. Her fingers found the flashlight. She tried the switch.

Yellow light bit back into the dark. She sighed. Good, the bulb hadn’t broken at all. The switch must have simply gotten hit when it fell.

Lauren shone the light on the floor.

There!

She saw a cut in the floorboards. It made a square almost a foot and a half long by a foot wide. She took out her penknife and opened the blade.

It fit into the tiny opening and Lauren pried it back.

The floorboard came up.

And she saw them.

A series of black leather journals shrouded in plastic wrap to protect them. She removed the package; there must have been ten of them in total.

There were no marks on the cover. Lauren carefully slid them out of the plastic and then unfolded her legs, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the closet.

For some reason, she felt better about reading them in there than out in the open.

Did she feel safer there with the clothes tickling her head? Almost like being a little kid and hiding in the clothes racks at the department store again, she decided.

She took up the flashlight and opened the first journal. The light showed old yellowed paper, crinkling at the edges. On the pages, deep black ink flowed in cursive writing.

On the first page, she read:

A study of the minions of evil by Graham Westerly.

August 1939

Lauren flipped through the pages. His writing was tough to read until she’d accustomed her eyes to its massive loops and swirls. She could tell he’d been artistic as well judging from how he wrote.

But the first journal failed to produce anything interesting with regards to the Soul Eater. There was no mention of him at all. And it wasn’t until Lauren had pored through nine of the journals that she finally found it.

There on the final pages of the tenth journal that had been started in 1947, she found what she’d been seeking.

Few of the Devil’s children are as fearful as the Soul Eater.

For years, I could not fathom its purpose. I was only able to

trace its nefarious deeds back through the annals of history.

It seemed its existence was rumored only in whispered legends,

and yet, I somehow knew it was much more. Little did I realize

the truly awesome power with which its Dark Lord bequeathed it.

In truth, the Soul Eater is a more a demon than man — and yet it

may assume the guise of a man as easily as we draw a breath.

Indeed, it is by this form that the Soul Eater accomplishes his

task. For as a man he can walk among the peoples of earth

with no fear of discovery.

He is the Devil's emissary — the primary instrument for his

resurrection.

Lauren looked up from the journal and felt cold fear wash over her. My God, she thought, how will we be able to stop this? She took a breath and kept reading.

The Soul Eater is responsible for collecting evil, for it is through

the evil of others that he, the Devil, lives and lives best.

The words echoed inside her head. Sister Donovan’s last words. Here they were, in Graham Westerly’s own hand.

The Soul Eater steals the souls of those who are most evil

within our society. For years I felt confounded by this theory.

It was only after much research that I learned that the Devil’s

power was scattered on Earth by God as a way of keeping the

Dark Lord from ever coming onto this plane. Unable to

manifest himself here, the Devil languished long in the

netherworld, constantly trying but finding no suitable portal of

evil through which he could enter our world.

So he created the Soul Eater. He sent this demon to our plane

with the purpose of harvesting the souls of the most evil. The Soul Eater gathers these souls. And if he is able to gather enough of them,

he will be able to open a portal to Hell and enable Satan to enter a physical body here on Earth.

I know not how the resurrection would occur. Nor do I know

how many evil souls must be gathered for the resurrection to

occur. I know the Soul Eater has wandered our plane for

millennia. Always at work. Always gathering. Perhaps he

keeps these evil souls within him, but I think not. I think he

must have some means to contain them — be it natural or not.

In the guise of a man, the Soul Eater may be reasonably assumed

to be vulnerable to those things that all men are. In his true form,

however, the Soul Eater would be almost impossible to vanquish.

Of all that I have encountered, none has disturbed me as much as

The revelation that Satan is actively trying to gain access to our

World. I believe that if the Soul Eater were successful, his

Master would be impossible to banish again.

Lauren slumped back against the wall. Her breathing came in fast gulps. This is it, she thought. He’s trying to bring the Devil here.

To Boston.

I’ve got to tell Steve.

She glanced back at the journal. The next few entries scared her even more.

19 March 1947

Few die without leaving some indication of how they have shuffled off this mortal coil. And yet, the victims of the Soul Eater bear no indication of the manner of their death. It was by this means and this means alone that I was able to first pick up the trail of the demon.

I heard of a mysterious rash of deaths in Rio de Janeiro in early March. Four victims, all died without any signs of their death. They simply ceased to live. I’d studied the Soul Eater — scant though the information was — long enough to know his peculiar calling card.

I flew to Rio on two days previous, determined to find and kill the demon if I could.

21 March

Another body has turned up bearing no signs of death. The victim was well known to the police — suspected in over two dozen murders. Evil apparently found a home within him and thus he drew the demon without even knowing it.

This latest body was discovered roughly twenty miles to the north of Rio.

He is moving.

And I am on his trail.

29 March

Is there any time in our lives when we forsake logic in favor of intuition? I know not what draws me out of Brazil now. But I feel it deep in my soul that my quarry has left the country — his work here most likely done. But where will he go next? If he is wandering South America looking for evil, I must make certain assumptions and pray they are right.