Christopher Golden - Ararat

The demon was here among them, and Walker could practically feel it relishing their dread. Each of the survivors knew it was only a matter of time. He watched Adam and Meryam up ahead, wondering. On edge, afraid, but also ready.

“Slow down, Walker!”

Startled from his reverie, he realized he’d nearly caught up with Adam and Meryam. Snow had gathered on his goggles, as if for several minutes he had been sleepwalking. A hot jolt of dread ran through him. Sleepwalking, or not in control of himself?

He stopped and turned. Reached up and wiped the snow off his goggles, letting his hand come to rest on the lump beneath his thick layers of clothing, the hunk of bitumen rock on the twine around his neck. Anger flashed through him. They had relied on Olivieri. Even Father Cornelius had bought into the scholar’s logic, but obviously it had been no better than a guess. A guess we all wanted to believe.

The curtain of snow parted and Kim emerged, Father Cornelius holding her arm to steady himself. A gust of wind embraced them, a squall of white that obscured them again, as if the storm were reluctant to reunite them. Then Kim was there, her eyes narrowed with frustration at being left alone with the priest.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just got into the rhythm of it.”

“Do not leave us behind,” Kim replied with such emphasis it was nearly an accusation.

Walker stood aside and let them pass. “I won’t. I swear.”

Father Cornelius had been watching his own feet with determination, as if unsure of his steps. Perhaps he couldn’t feel his feet touching the ground. Walker swore silently. That would be very bad.

“I need to talk to you about the charms,” Father Cornelius said.

Walker thought he heard a cry behind him. His pulse quickened and he turned, holding up a hand to block the wind as he tried to peer through the storm. The other three members of the group had fallen back farther and were nothing but silhouettes in the storm. He cursed himself for not noticing, for getting so caught up in his own fear that he’d forgotten the people depending on him.

“Walker?” the priest called weakly.

But as Walker glanced back again he saw one of those silhouettes stumble, saw it fall, and then another began to hurtle through the veil of snow toward him. The third followed, running and sliding along the trail, moving with silent strength and confidence, and Walker knew. Just knew.

Irritated by his lack of response, Father Cornelius pulled away from Kim and turned around, starting to berate him for his rudeness. Then the priest saw the figure springing along the trail with agility none of them could have duplicated.

Kim shouted that it was back.

It emerged from the storm, figure solidifying enough that Walker could make out the familiar shape of Armando Olivieri. But Olivieri had never moved like this, never been graceful or powerful or fearless, and this thing was all of those and more.

Walker reached for his gun, drew it out with numb fingers, and those same numb fingers fumbled with it. The weapon bobbled, seemed almost to dance away from his grip. Reaching after it, he knocked it into the snow at the edge of the path, and then all of the calm he’d mustered fled him. Flushed with fear, heart seizing in panic, he dove after the gun and hit the ground, scrabbling in the snow. The gun had made an imprint but vanished into it. Father Cornelius and Kim shouted at him and at Olivieri even as Walker dug around for the gun, and he knew he was about to die.

The thing came at him and he heard it laugh as it grabbed his head, ripped away the hood and the fabric of the balaclava that covered him. With the other hand, it tangled its fingers in his hair, got a fistful, and yanked backward in the same moment that his own fingers found the gun.

As it hauled him back, he twisted in its grasp and spun, aiming the gun at Olivieri’s face. The professor’s eyes gleamed with that internal fire, the glint of tainted orange light, and the demon grinned. Olivieri released Walker and stepped back, raising his hands as if in surrender. With Olivieri’s mouth, the demon laughed.

“Shoot him!” Adam called, rushing up now to shove between Kim and the priest. “You can’t give it a second to—”

“Oh, yes,” the demon said with Olivieri’s lips. “Shoot me.”

Walker stared at it. For a moment his vision had shimmered and in the billowing snow he had thought he’d seen another face, a misshapen thing with horns and a mouthful of black needle teeth. Then still a third face, his little boy’s. Charlie’s.

Shoot me, he heard inside his head.

“What’s the point?” he snapped. “It’s only going to jump again!”

The orange eyes flared brightly and Olivieri snarled. Then, abruptly, the professor’s face changed. The light went out of his eyes and he stumbled forward a step. Walker nearly pulled the trigger, prompted by that step forward, but then he saw Olivieri’s sorrow and confusion and he understood that the demon had left him.

He only had a moment to wonder where, and then he felt it slide into him. A shudder rocked him, a mixture of pleasure and regret and a sorrow so deep that he yearned for the release of death. The filth spread through him and he imagined it as a kind of poison or infection, a stain seeping deeper and deeper, so that the urge to peel away his skin gave way to the desire to dig deep into the flesh, to drain the marrow out of his own bones. Anything to be rid of the filth inside him.

In that moment, Walker understood insanity. He opened his mouth to scream, but the screams were only silent things that echoed inside his mind, because his mouth was no longer his own.

Neither were his hands.

Walker could see out through his own eyes, but he felt the evil inside with him. He felt his arm move and tried to fight it, but the demon had control. The intruder violated his flesh and his heart, the core of his soul, and he could feel its glee. Its jubilation.

“No,” Professor Olivieri said, arms out, moving through the blizzard toward him.

Walker’s right hand lifted the gun. He felt the twitch of his finger as the demon pulled the trigger twice. The shots rang out, echoed by his own screams, lost inside his head… and then he fell forward, dropping to his knees.

The demon had left him.

“—it, Walker!” Kim was screaming. “Fight it!”

You can’t fight, he thought, not sure if his voice would be his own.

Olivieri lay on his back on the snow, hands over his chest. Blood welled up through holes in his coat, steam rising as the bright red spilled down the fabric and began to melt snow, a vivid pool of color.

“I’m sorry,” Walker said. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.”

Olivieri coughed and blood sprayed from his lips, then began to drool from the corner of his mouth. Meryam and Adam went to him, kneeling on one side while Walker stared in mute horror on the other, his flesh afire with shame that he had been so easily used, his body perverted for such evil purpose.

Kim stood behind him with Father Cornelius, who had begun to say the prayers that accompanied the last breaths of the dying in his church.

Walker bent forward, eyes pressed shut, cradling his own gut as he fought to hold on to some sense of himself.

When he opened his eyes again, Olivieri had stopped coughing. The dying man stared at him, but it wasn’t Olivieri anymore. The demon grinned up at him, eyes gleaming, and it laughed softly, a wet chuffing almost lost in the whistle of the wind.

“Poor Ben,” the demon rasped, blood bubbling out of its mouth. “You thought you could fight me, but how easy it was to cast your will aside. I can’t wait to meet Amanda. I can’t wait to get inside Charlie. The things I’ll make him do.”