Brian Keene - Ghost Walk

“You told your parents when they came home. Your father hollered at Mr. Nincetti, but nothing ever happened. The police did nothing. His parents did nothing. Pete wasn’t punished.”

“I…I never told anyone.”

“Wrong. You told Clarissa Thomas, your roommate during your freshman year in college. But what you never told anyone was that three months later, it was you who wrapped the rat poison up in a piece of bologna and fed it to Pete’s dog.”

“Shut up,” Maria sobbed. “Just stop it.”

“The dog vomited blood and died. Pete cried. So did you.”

“Are you some kind of stalker or something? Have you been following me?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know this? Tell me!”

“ I just know .”

She buried her face in her hands. “You son of a bitch.”

“I’m sorry that I had to do this,” Levi said, “but I needed to get your attention. I had to show you proof that this isn’t just the ramblings of a crazy man. I need you to listen to me, Maria. More importantly, I need you to believe what I’m saying.”

“But you just—”

“If it’s any consolation, you might like to know that, years later, Pete was shot in the head by two men named Tony Genova and Vincent Napoli, after he ran afoul of the mob. Despite the severity of the wound, it took him a long time to die. He suffered. His body is buried in an unmarked grave near Manalapan.”

Maria opened the console between them and pulled out a tissue. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, then tossed the crumpled tissue on the floor.

“How the hell do you know all this?”

“The methods don’t matter,” Levi said. “What matters is that you’ve seen incontrovertible proof that I can do things like that. Things that you don’t believe in. Except that now you’ve got no choice but to believe in them. This was no parlor trick. It’s real. Do you believe?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Good. Because I’ve got a lot more to tell you, and if you’re going to help me, then you can’t have any doubts.”

“Help you? I’m not involved in anything, Levi. I’m just researching a book.”

“No,” he said. “You’re involved. Whether you realize it or not. It feels…right, to me. You’re a part of this. Not by your own hand, but because that’s what God wants of you.”

“I may believe you’re some kind of mind reader, but I definitely don’t believe in God. I was raised to believe in Allah, but I’m not even sure about that anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter. God. Allah. Yahweh. These are all just different names for the same being.”

“Whatever. I’ve heard that before, too. Still doesn’t mean I believe in any of them.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate.”

Maria smirked. “Is this the part where you tell me that’s okay because God believes in me? If so, save the clichés for somebody else. I’ve heard that one before.”

“No.” Levi shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you that. Because by tomorrow night, if we don’t stop what’s about to occur, you’ll have your disbelief resolved whether you like it or not.”

“How?”

“All souls, whether they believe in Him or not, stand before God after they die. And unless we act soon, there are going to be a lot of people dying—us included.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The end of the world.”

“Okay,” Maria agreed. “You’ve got my attention, at least. Let’s hear what you have to say. Should we go somewhere more secluded or are you comfortable here?”

Levi glanced out the window and checked the parking lot. While his attention was diverted, Maria reached down and quickly turned on her digital voice recorder, which was sitting in the console’s cup-holder. She sat back up and smiled as Levi turned back to her.

“We should be okay here,” he said. “I’m sure it will put you more at ease.”

“Whatever you prefer.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled. “Much of what the human race thinks it knows is actually wrong. The history of our planet—of our past—is full of inaccuracies. This is especially true of our religions. The primary texts of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Shinto, Satanism, Wicca, and all of the others are fundamentally flawed. They’ve been tampered with and rewritten by man so much over the years that much of them are now filled with falsehoods. It takes many years of study and searching to learn the real truths.”

“And that’s what it means to be Amish?”

He snorted. “No. We’re just another Christian denomination—and we’re just as flawed. Perhaps more so. I no longer believe what they believe, because I’ve seen the bigger picture. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, one of his sons.”

“I remember that from the times I went to church with my Christian friends. I thought the mantra was, ‘His only son’?”

“So do a billion other people, Maria. And they are wrong. All of them. That’s my point. The Bible isn’t the inspired word of God. Nor is the Koran or the Torah or any of the other holy books. They are the words of man. Of many men. Edited and changed to reflect their will, not His. To truly know God and to seek His will, you’ve got to look beyond the Bible. Read between the lines. The book we know today as the Bible is not the complete text. It’s not the inspired word of God. It is made up of a number of scrolls and tablets that men decided should be in it. Men, not God. But there are other texts, and they are just as valid. Texts from the same time that give us true understanding. The Bible we know speaks of Heaven and Hell, but it never mentions places like the Labyrinth or the Great Deep or the Void. The Bible tells how God created our universe, but there’s nothing in it about the universe that existed before this one. Or the enemy that came from that other universe.”

“You’re talking about the devil?”

Levi shook his head. “Which devil? There are more than one. Do you mean Lucifer, the Morningstar? Or maybe Satan? The old serpent? The dragon? The Beast? All of these appear in the Bible, and we’re told to believe that they are the same entity—but they aren’t. In any case, I’m not speaking about any of them. I’m talking about the Thirteen. They are far worse than any devil.”

A car alarm blared across the parking lot. Maria jumped. After a minute, it faded.

“To create this universe,” Levi continued, “God destroyed a universe that existed before ours. Think about it—the act of Creation must have required an unimaginable amount of energy. Where did He get it?”

Maria shrugged.

“He tore down the old universe and used its material as building blocks for our own. The old universe ceased to exist down to its last atom—except for the Thirteen. Somehow, they escaped the destruction. And they’ve been the enemies of God and all of His creations ever since.”

“Demons?” Maria asked. She tried not to sound skeptical. Levi obviously believed what he was saying, and it seemed important to him.

“Not demons.” Levi shuddered. “Although mankind has often mistaken them for demons. And gods. Entire—incorrect—mythologies have been created around them by foolish people who didn’t know the true nature of what they were worshipping. No, the Thirteen are much worse than demons. They have nothing to do with Hell’s legions. And each one of them is more terrifying than the next. Kandara, Lord of the Djinn. Ob, the Obot, who commands the Siqqusim. His brothers, Ab and Api. Leviathan, Lord of the Great Deep. Behemoth. And others—all terrible. But the greatest among the Thirteen is one who can’t be named. Simply speaking its real name out loud causes unimaginable destruction. It is the reason mankind has such an unreasonable fear of the dark, for this thing is darkness incarnate. It sits in the heart of the Labyrinth and infects world after world.”