Alexandra Sokoloff - The Harrowing

The four looked around at one another, uncomprehending. Then Martin’s voice continued, full of longing as he read slowly over the scraping of the planchette.

“‘ I can show you all that was…that is…and that will be .’”

Robin was frozen with fear. She whispered aloud, “No, Martin, don’t….”

Martin’s voice suddenly blasted from the tape.

“ All right, then—come inside me. I…invite you .”

Lisa’s eyes were wide with terror. “No…” she choked out.

They all stiffened at a strange, strangled sound on the tape. Martin was choking, gurgling. Then there was a horrible, triumphant howl. “ Ahhhhhhhh. Ahh. Ahhh .”

Robin felt her skin crawl. Her legs were so watery, she could barely stand.

Martin’s voice was purring with an almost sexual pleasure. “ Oh, yes…oh, the body…the body, now …”

And now a savage glee, an alien voice, hair-raising. Robin felt her gorge rise. The others looked equally sick as the voice cackled on. “ In the body…in the body now…the body…in the body …”

There was a scuffling sound on the tape and then the sound of the door opening and closing.

Then silence. Nothing but the hiss of blank tape.

Cain reached out and turned off the recorder. They all looked at one another in the wavering candlelight, deathly pale.

“That’s what it wanted,” Cain spoke thinly, and everyone looked to him. “A body. The bodies the Qlippoth were denied by God. It even said so. We just weren’t listening.”

“It was just playing with us all along—trying to get in somewhere,” Robin spoke aloud, realizing. And it tried with Patrick first , she thought, remembering the midterm. And with Lisa. But Martin let it in.

Something clicked into place. “It was Martin in my room that night,” she murmured.

“He killed Waverly.” Patrick’s blue eyes were like ice.

Outside in the hall, doors began to slam rapidly, up one side of the corridor and down the other. They all spun in terror. A horrible, insane giggling echoed through the building, freezing their blood.

The doors slammed outside, the sound coming closer…

Patrick leapt at the door, bracing it closed with all his strength. Some incredible force began pounding on the door from outside; the knocks reverberated through the wood, shaking the frame. Patrick’s arms were jarred with the raps.

The knocking abruptly stopped.

Then the door slowly buckled inward, an enormous pressure caving it on its hinges. Lisa’s eyes widened; she began to scream.

Cain threw himself against the door, straining with Patrick to hold it closed.

The door suddenly thumped back into place.

Outside, the doors slammed again, a rapid staccato wave, angry and thundering. Robin was screaming with Lisa.

The slamming abruptly stopped.

Dead silence. The four stood frozen, Patrick and Cain still braced against the door, afraid to move. The front door, two floors below, seemed a continent away.

Lisa was trembling all over, her teeth knocking together. “God…God…what do we do?”

Patrick hefted the gun, grim. “We nail him.” He started to open the door.

Lisa shrieked, “No!”

Robin grabbed Patrick’s arm. “You can’t just kill him.”

“The fuck I can’t.”

They were all talking at once then, fast, their voices overlapping, charged with adrenaline and hysteria.

“Think.” Robin dug her nails into Patrick’s forearm. “And then what—you end up in prison for murder?”

“Better than dead,” Patrick shot back. “Kill the fucker before he kills us. He killed Waverly.” He towered in the dark; the veins were standing out in his neck.

“Not Martin,” Cain said. He sounded short of breath. “That thing inside him.”

Lisa’s voice was shrill, almost a scream. “He asked for it. You heard. He invited it in!”

Robin wheeled on her. “So did you, Lisa. You found the board…right?” Robin faced the other three, pale and resolute. “But we all wanted to play. We all kept going. We all called it.”

They were silent, the truth sinking in.

Cain spoke more slowly now. “Even if we shot Martin, we don’t know that it would die.”

Patrick kicked the wall beside him savagely, caving in the thin plasterboard. Lisa flinched.

“Motherfucking shit. So what now?” He looked at the others, helpless. The candlelight flickered on the walls around them, playing over the crude Hebrew letters.

“Catch him,” Robin said slowly, looking at Cain. “Do the banishing ritual.”

“Catch him?” Patrick’s voice rose in disbelief. “He’s got a demon inside him.”

“And you’ve got a gun,” Cain said steadily. “Clip him in the leg and I’ll jump him.”

Lisa’s eyes leapt wildly from one to the other. “You got that ceremony off the Net . What if it doesn’t work?”

Cain looked grim. “Then we tie him, call the cops, and run.”

They all looked around at one another. It seemed an eternity before anyone spoke. Robin realized the silence was acquiescence.

Patrick shifted unhappily. “Don’t blame me if I miss and blow off his goddamn head.”

Cain turned on him. “You better not. I mean it, cowboy. Because we need all five of us for the ritual to work.”

The door of Martin’s room silently opened into the dark hall. Patrick’s bulk filled the door frame. Gun held to his cheek, he looked both ways down the corridors.

Empty. But there was a standing armoire halfway down the hall, where someone could be hiding, inside or behind. Patrick looked at the armoire, looked back at Cain. Cain nodded grimly, acknowledging.

The four of them moved out into the hall in a clump, Patrick in front, head swiveling.

Staying pressed together, they moved down the hall toward the armoire.

Patrick put out an arm to stop the others, eased forward himself, then darted around the armoire, gun at the ready. Robin held her breath as he stopped dead; then he relaxed slightly and turned, gestured the others forward.

They all moved ahead together, hovering at the stairway door as Patrick checked the shadowy stairwell, looking up at the stairs, then down to the next landing.

He motioned the others forward again and they moved silently into the dark stairwell, proceeding carefully down the stairs—Patrick leading, with Cain in the rear, his eyes trained warily up. Their breathing seemed harsh, unnaturally loud in the echo chamber of the stairwell.

Robin looked past Patrick, down the steep concrete decline. The door was closed at the bottom of the stairs.

Near the bottom, they paused as one. Patrick took a breath, and then kicked the stairwell door open. It slammed up against the wall in the hall outside.

Gun raised, he spun out of the doorway, swiveled around in the dim landing, eyes darting around him.

No one.

Patrick stepped back into the stairwell, whispered, “It’s okay.”

They moved out onto the murky landing. Ahead, the main staircase plunged down to the ground floor.

“Downstairs,” Cain whispered. “Make him come to us.”

He stopped, staring down at the floor. Robin followed his eyes, caught the glitter of shattered glass on the carpet. She looked up, barely registered the broken fire-emergency case on the wall

The door of the stairwell slammed open behind them. They spun in terror as a whirlwind of darkness darted out from the stairwell. Robin caught a glimpse of mad black eyes, the gleam of a raised ax flashing down.

The blade sank into Cain’s shoulder with a sickening thud.

Robin screamed, and kept screaming as Cain fell backward, tumbling down the stairs.