John Saul - The Right Hand of Evil

The darkness below was pierced by a beckoning light. His heart still pounding, the terror of the impossible chimes still battering at him, Ted lurched down the stairs until he came to the bottom.

And still the terrible tolling found him.

"Stop it," he whispered, jamming his hands against his ears, but now the sound seemed to come from inside his head itself, throbbing inside his skull, falling into rhythm with his heart.

A stroke!

That was it!

He was having a stroke!

The pain in his head ballooning, he stumbled through another door. Once again he tripped, and this time when he fell to the floor an agonizing knife-twist shot through his right wrist. Screaming, Ted clutched at his wrist.

Another wave of dizziness hit him, and his belly heaved. As the contents of his stomach shot from his mouth, he dropped to the floor and felt the heat of his own vomit on his cheek.

The rancid fumes caused him to puke again, and then, rolling over onto his back, he began to sob.

"No-" he pleaded, his voice breaking and choking.

"Don't want to die. Don't want to."

But he was going to die-lying in the dark chamber with only a few rays of light leaking through the door. He knew it.

With Janet asleep upstairs, he was going to die.

Die alone, die drunk.

Dead drunk.

"No. No. Nooo." A whisper. A sob. "Help me… please, help me. Someone, please help me."

He retched again, and then again. He struggled to move, at least to slither away from the pool of vomit in which he lay, but any movement he made was pure agony.

Then, from somewhere deep in the darkness surrounding him, he saw something.

From somewhere hidden in the darkness a mist was rising. A mist that seemed to be illuminated from within, as if a thousand candles were burning unseen in the strange fog. As he stared at the fog, a face began to take shape.

A powerful face, with glowing eyes that bored into the depths of his soul.

A hallucination.

That had to be it-he was hallucinating.

Or dying.

That was it-his life was ebbing away, and this was a spirit come to lead him into the mists of death.

"Help me," he whispered once again. "Please help me."

The mist itself seemed to reach out to him, and he felt a touch-a burning touch-on his cheek.

A voice spoke. A whisper. Neither a woman's voice nor a man's, something unearthly yet distinct. "Will you give me whatever I ask?"

Ted stared up into the glittering eyes. "Yes," he whispered. "Oh, God, yes."

The terrible tolling in Ted's head eased.

The nausea in his belly calmed.

"Anything," he pleaded once again. "I'll do anything. Just help me."

Once again he felt the searing touch.

In an instant the pain in his wrist and shoulder were gone.

In the sudden silence Ted Conway fell into sleep. But just before he surrendered to blankness, he knew that something inside him had changed.

Nothing, he knew, would ever be the same again.

Jared?" The sound faded into the silence that surrounded him. At first Jared wasn't really sure he'd heard someone calling his name. But then it came again, faint, barely audible. "Jared!"

His father's voice.

Though he could barely hear it, Jared recognized it immediately, rasping with the anger that was always there, even when his father was sober.

Was he sober now?

Jared couldn't tell.

Then the voice came again, and this time it carried a note of command. "Jared!"

He sounded nearer now, and Jared tensed. His eyes flicked first one way then the other, trying to catch a glimpse of his father. But he saw nothing. Then, as his father called out to him yet again, Jared realized he was lost. But that was crazy-he knew exactly where he was: in the big house in St. Albans, in his room on the second floor. Except now he wasn't. He was in a room-a big room-but there was nothing in it. No furniture, no carpets, nothing hanging on the walls. One of the walls, though, was pierced by two windows. Jared moved close enough to the glass to look out.

Nothing.

It was as if a thick fog had fallen beyond the window, and when he tried to peer into it, his eyes found nothing to focus on. A weird disorientation fell over him, causing him to lose his balance. Staggering, he instinctively reached out to steady himself against the window frame.

His right hand plunged through it, disappearing into the gray morass beyond the boundaries of the room. Jared froze in shock.

He jerked his arm back, and for a single terrible instant thought his hand was gone. But no! It was there, and it didn't hurt, and-

What the hell had happened?

For several long seconds he stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the spot where his hand had disappeared. Then, as if drawn by some unseen force, his hand started moving once again toward the same spot.

"No!"

The word jabbed his consciousness like the stinger of a hornet, and Jared jerked back to life. He sprung around, certain his father was standing right behind him. The room was still empty.

He whirled around again. Now the gray fog beyond the window had vanished. Instead there was a blackness that seemed to go on for all eternity. But it was a blackness that was not empty.

As he gazed into it, his heart pounding, he felt something reaching out to him.

Something that wanted to touch his soul.

A strangled cry rising in his throat, Jared backed away from the window, then turned and fled through the room's single door.

He found himself in a corridor, a long, broad passage that seemed to stretch on forever in both directions. He looked one way, then the other. Which way should he go? Panic began to rise in him. One way looked exactly like the other.

But he had to make up his mi-

He stopped.

Something was close to him. Very close.

He held his breath, listening.

Silence.

Yet it was there. He could feel it; it was edging closer.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and a shiver passed through him.

Behind him! It was behind him, and now he could almost feel its touch.

If it touched him, he would die.

Die, and disappear forever into the terrible blackness he'd glimpsed beyond the window.

Then, once more, he heard his father calling to him. This time Jared followed the voice, racing down the hall, for a moment certain he'd escaped.

Then he felt it again. Still there-the unseen thing that had emerged from the darkness beyond the window crept across the room and reached out to him.

It was behind him again.

He tried to run faster, but no matter how fast he ran, or how far, the passageway stretched endlessly away. Then it forked, and forked again, and again Jared felt a surge of hope. He turned and started down a new corridor. Abruptly, out of nowhere, his way was blocked.

Sister Clarence, pointing at him accusingly, her eyes flashing with daggers of fury.

Turning back, Jared ran in the other direction.

But this time Father MacNeill blocked his path, screaming curses at him and holding a crucifix high, as if trying to ward off the Devil himself.

He whirled again, but now a huge black man, grinning wickedly at him, reached out to grasp his throat. Once more Jared spun away and ran. He dodged in one direction or another, but everywhere he turned the nun was waiting for him, or the priest, or the black man who wanted to strangle him.

Then, once more, he heard his father's voice. "This way! Come this way." Again he dodged this way and that, always following his father's voice, his unseen pursuer drawing ever closer. Urged on by his father's voice, Jared ran until finally he could run no longer. Lungs burning, heart pounding, he collapsed to the floor, his breath coming in gasping pants. Terror and exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he began to sob.