Bleeding Cross

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  BLEEDING CROSS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPILOGUE

  A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

  BLEEDING CROSS

  SECOND EDITION

  AARON DAWBOT

  Copyright © 2017 Aaron Dawbot

  All rights reserved.

  To my beautiful wife, the bless of a woman.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  * * *

  Aaron Dawbot is a fiction writer. When he isn't creating stories, he is working his day job as a cardiologist. currently residing with his wife and son in Bucharest/Romania, enjoying the green sceneries of the magical city, taking long walks on the weekends, listening to his endless imagination.

  Connect with Aaron Dawbot on:

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writeandforth

  Twitter: @aarondawbot

  My Website: https://writeandforth.com - to join the newsletter for upcoming offers and free giveaways.

  E-mail: aarondawbot@gmail.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  Right in the middle of a silent night, amid the crowded suburb houses. A window was lit from behind a blurred curtain screen. The soft pink barrier allowed for only the flitting motion of three young girls.

  A slumber party was going on in which they put their gossiping powers into full-flex. Without a hint for what was about to befall - an event that would forever char upon the memories of three soft-nailed teens.

  "Yeah, you should've seen his face when I made out with Billie Ekhart."

  Monica grimaced at the mental image, "You mean Billie egg-breath?"

  "Daah, gum," Shelly loosened out a pink tongue. Monica scoffed at the brute effort of her friend, "Who cares? Boys can't think any better than their wieners could."

  Shelly said, "They'd better not, for their own good."

  "Yeah, like my creep step-dad." Monica said.

  Hanna joined the verbal massacre, "You mean that drooling forty-year-old screwing your mom?"

  "I'd wish, or my mom wouldn't be a pure breed bitch." Hannah and Shelly chuckled at the thought of Monica's mother bearing resemblance to a wild hound.

  Monica, "Shut up, four eyes, no bust," she pointed to Hanna. Shelly initiated a truce, "Let's watch a movie, ladies."

  "Tatum or Efron?" Shelly's eyes flickered in delight.

  Hanna disappeared into a closet hidden in the wall. The hostess soon re-emerged from behind the slat-door. "Hey guys, look what I brought." The other girls frowned upon a tan broad box. It was rectangular with washed-out cardboard, and worn at the edges.

  Hanna pulled her long locks of jet black hair, collecting them behind her thin neck. Monica lifted an eyebrow, while Shelly held her silence.

  Hanna lifted the cover to reveal a painted wooden plank with etched English letters. The words "Yes" and "No" lay in two oblique angles mirroring each other on opposing sides. The words "Hello" and "Goodbye" wasat the top and bottom respectively.

  Shelly made a circle with her pink lips, "O.U.I.J.A."

  Monica held back a laugh. "Hanna, what the hell is this?"

  Hanna answered with a scowl, "You're dumber than I thought."

  Monica slapped her brunette host on the shoulder. Shelly withdrew from the bartering teens; she drew out a small booklet tucked under the board.

  "Hey, listen to this." Shelly's eyes oscillated along the fine print and her face lost its usual shade, turning paler by the second, her thin lips softly hissed the words.

  Shelly cast the booklet away, "Where the hell did you find this?"

  "I thought it'd be fun to try." Hanna said.

  "What does it do?" Monica said.

  "Haven't you heard of a spirit board?" Hanna picked up the booklet and started to read, "Beyond the veil of the visible, animated world, lurk so many tormented souls. There they endure the agony of the afterlife. Give them a voice to share their everlasting pain."

  Monica snatched the booklet. "Hold the eye with both hands and allow the voice of the underworld to reveal its secrets."

  Hanna lifted out a triangle with bulged borders, it housed a magnifying lens bordered by a metallic rim. The girl placed the lens in the center of the alphabet grid.

  The three anxious girls looked at each other's faces with mixed looks of anticipation and excitement.

  Hanna bellowed a soft spooking howl. Monica gave her a kick, sending the girl sideways and laughing in a raucous manner. Shelly hushed the two and was furiously focused on the eye, cornering the letter G in the middle.

  Hannah asked, "Who should start?"

  "I'll start, wussies," Monica swiped away the golden strands from her round face. Her words barked with a sense of tenacity, yet her red cheeks betrayed her growing doubts. She lifted her head and took a deep breath as she was about to mutter her first question. Shelly interrupted the ritual.

  "You're supposed to take 5 deep breaths and close your eyes."

  Monica grunted, "Fine." She did as she was told.

  "O spirits of the night lurking in Hannah's filthy room." Hanna chuckled with eyes pressed shut.

  "Answer us. Give us a sign that you are among us."

  After a brief silence, the girls opened their eyes, "You see, I told you were full of sh.."

  Suddenly, the eye of the glass slid, yanking the girls' hands to the word, ‘HELLO’.

  All three jumped away from the board. Hanna was speechless. Shelly gulped a few throats full.

  Monica screamed, "You did that!" She pointed at Shelly.

  Shelly shouted back, "No."

  Hanna pled the girls to stop their squabble, "Guys, let's try again. No bullshit this time from any of us. Cool?"

  "Cool," Shelly hesitated. Monica rolled her eyes, "Fine. Cool!"

  Hanna was anointed speaker at the second attempt. "Spirits from beyond, are you among us? Say yes if you are listening."

  The small triangle moved with short budges, then wiggled a slow path towards the corner with the slant ‘Yes’.

  The three girls gasped at the sight. Monica gave a small laugh, but Shelly pulled her mouth wide apart, her breathing quickened with no words to spare.

  Then the small triangle circled with the three pairs of hands pressing upon its bulging eye. An astonishing unseen power then jerked the lens between various letters, formulating a string of words.

  "What is it saying?" Hannah asked.

  The three girls read out every letter; the sequence took form into a familiar sentence that revealed a terrifying presence.

  "W.E.A.R.E.E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E"

  Shelly uttered the formed sentence with a squeezed voice, struggling from her mouth.

  "We are everywhere."

  The girls looked around and saw bodies of swirling bright specks circling mid-air, coalescing into transparent human bodies.

  Within seconds, the room was occupied by a mob of semi-transparent people from all ages and sizes, different forms, and attires from this century and the many ones before. All had shared one unique daunting feature; their eyes were black and hollow.

  The girls screamed their lungs out and huddled in the middle of the bed hugging each other, screeching, with their eyes shut with all their might.

  The idle phantom audience kept their hellish gaze, each specter with two orbs of pure black, pale faces, and not a single motion.

  The Ouija board then moved on its own and levitated, spinning in thin air and ascending with an uncanny will. It steadied its lift, hovering a few inches from th
e bed. To fall back on the patchy colored blanket a few seconds later.

  The moment it touched the bed cover, all the translucent apparitions dissipated into nothingness.

  Shelly's eyes were red and swollen with her tears; Monica's golden hair was ruffled to a mess and her cheeks were slapped with a pinkish red. Hannah's chest moved in a fast pace. She crawled over to see what had happened to the board. The other girls gathered the courage to follow suit.

  In an instant, the board shook with inconceivable speed and was cracking into pieces, fissures spreading all over the inked letters. The board crumbled into countless pieces of wood and glass.

  Hanna dashed to the door, but her attempt faltered as it slammed just before she could reach the handle. Each of the girls sought refuge. Shelly leaped into the closet, while the other two crawled into each other, entwining into a shuddering weeping mass. Their backs were pressed to the far wall opposing the bed.

  Small drops of a viscous red substance oozed between the cracks, filling the crevices of the broken board. The drops rose, climbing on top of each other, conjoining to a dark red amorphous blob, which kept piling in a tall fountain of crimson blood.

  The girls furthered themselves from the bubbling cascade of blood, holding each other, weeping under the spell of pure fear. The mass grew in length, stretching in girth, reeking a hot metallic odor. It then shot small white fibers, each tendril gathering a small maelstrom of blood, solidifying into what seemed to become muscle and bone. The array of white and red made a tall humanoid shape. The sprouting members thickened and gained a more fibrous texture, with more fine details revealed every second.

  The white fibers developed into bone and sinew surrounded by red flecks turning into muscle and penetrating tubes of blood. The shape slowly morphed into a recognizable frame of a man. Sheets of steaming white poured out from nothing and enveloped the assembling carcass. The eyes were rolling into their sockets, teeth lowered from the budding gum line.

  And alas, a tall naked man was standing in Hannah's room, right on top of the drenched red bed.

  The girls could not have screamed louder at the sight of the newly born man. His eyes were closed and his whole body and face was frozen like a mummified corpse. The girls stood up. Monica tilted her head, her blond hair touching her shoulder. Shelly stepped out of the closet and pulled Monica's arm, tears pouring down her chin. She was sniffling the plea for her friend to come back.

  The man flashed open his wide green eyes and pulled a fresh gasp of air. The girls shrieked in terror, tumbling on their backs.

  The man's face jolted about, his mouth emitted puffs of hot steam and feral grunts. No words, only aggravated moans of agony. His skin had a light color and was mottled with dried strands of clotted blood. White plumes of vapor rose from all around his skin.

  He looked to his right, collecting deep breaths and appeared to hunt for something, but not showing even the faintest interests in the girls before him.

  He pranced from the bed and rummaged through the objects over the adjacent nightstand, tossing the table lamp and numerous multi-colored picture frames and scattering phone chargers on the red-stained carpet.

  The man gripped Hanna's flip phone and attempted to punch with sticky fingers on the miniature keypad. The phone liquefied into a thick sparking mess that spread on the parquet floor.

  His first words roared with a harsh husky voice, " God damn it." He shifted his gaze to the three frozen teens before him. The nude man's legs trembled to a jerked shuffle. A slow taunting approach to where the girls curled together.

  Monica wasn't all that courageous anymore as she erupted into sniffling sobs, hugging her friends. "Please don't kill us, Sir."

  The man stopped a few feet away, his heat almost touched their face. He lifted one hand, one finger straightened out in their faces, dripping a thin pink fluid. His lower lip tuck under his grinning teeth, eyes blazing open.

  Shelly pinned her cheek against the sky-blue paint, Monica didn't stop screaming, while Hanna collapsed to the side.

  "Spirit Boards are not toys!" He thundered.

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  A tall mahogany door creaked open. From behind the towering board of wood emerged an old man clad in a clergy robe. His old beady eyes winced against the invading rays rushing at him from the mid-July sun.

  Two visitors stood abreast in front of the church's entrance . One was a grizzled man with oily, slick hair, combed across his scalp. His face was marred with streaks of time with rough skin drawn down from angled cheek bones. His face was framed with a fierce square jaw. The man's mouth hedged with groomed black hair. The man's shoulders were wide like a concrete dam, blocking the light of day with his towering height. He cast a shadow on the terrified small priest.

  The second visitor appeared to be much younger, African-American ethnicity, and mystically gifted with a peculiar set of hazel eyes. He had short cropped hair and was slightly shorter in stature than the man by his side. Both were properly dressed in solemn respect to the sanctified shrine of Brookswood Church; the only place in the world that could show its living miracle.

  "Good afternoon, Father. Pardon us for disturbing your pastime. My name is Michael Blake, and this is my assistant, Mr. Sherwood." The tall visitor said.

  The young black man gave his partner a carefully hidden scowl.

  Michael continued his eloquent prose, "If you'd allow us to pay our respects to Mrs. Miller."

  The old priest frowned, his mind now muddled with their pious unexpected request. The unusual timing added to his unease.

  "Forgive me, child, you'd have to pass by another time. It's my hour of solace with the Lord, and I'd be much obliged if you'd respect that."

  Michael cleared his throat and cast a fast check on his sheen glossy leather shoes. "Father, I'd hate to insist. We've come a long way, so I'd have to ask you to understand." He gave the small old man an ominous grin, drawing back his streaked skin.

  The priest's chin wobbled under his gray bearded mouth. He pivoted back to open the yellow brass handle barely lifting his eyes off the two intruders. After three cumbersome pushes, the door succumbed to his efforts.

  The priest scuttled down the brushed tiled floor leading to the far and high altar of Brookswood Church. His visitors followed with a relaxed pace.

  Michael and Sherwood arrived at a white casket with silver rims, ornate with glinting braids and vines. The beautiful box lay against the base of the bronze Pieta statue hovering a few meters high. Father Jake turned the lid on its hinges and assumed his usual place behind the white box. "Well, here it is, gentlemen - the very miracle of the sleeping faithful herself."

  Michael approached the casket and gave a subtle nod to Sherwood who stood at the foot-end of the ornate coffin. "Oh Lord, have mercy, it's true, just like in the papers. Sherwood, do you see this?"

  "I see it alright." Sherwood muttered his first words of the day.

  The two men were no looking at an old woman's body, still flush and warm, as if she was still alive. The fact that her chest didn't rise was the only proof that she wasn't asleep.

  The priest interrupted the cold silence. " A modern-day miracle, Mrs. Miller had died alone in her shack deep in the woodlands. There was no possible way to find out the time of death."

  "No one ever touched her, father?" Blake asked.

  "Not one finger had been laid on her holy body. She looks exactly as we found her; no pulse, no blood pressure. She gave our doctor a heart attack himself. May the Lord have mercy on us," the priest said and crossed his chest.

  Blake loomed over the seemingly dead woman, "How many days?"

  The old priest almost laughed at his question. "Days? Two months, son. Didn't you read about it?"

  Michael stretched his arm and placed the back of his hand across the woman's closed mouth.

  Michael cleared his throat twice. Sherwood nudged his chin.

  Michael Blake stared in the priest's face with a new wild look. It start
led the old priest out of his wits. "Excuse me, fellas, but it's er...really a bad time,"

  "Oh father, I sure agree, and no worse time had there ever been! We will leave, but not without the specimen."

  The priest was perplexed by the sudden change in demeanor of his guests. "Specimen?"

  "Yes, father, allow us to fully reveal our identities. I'm agent Blake and this is special agent Sherwood,"

  The young black man curled one corner of his mouth.

  "This body poses a massive health hazard to your community, maybe even the whole state."

  The old priest turned frantically from one face to the other, "What? What do you mean? I don't understand."

  Michael placed a soft hand over the small shoulder of the trembling priest.

  "Mrs. Miller had contracted a virus that could threaten every living soul near this premise. We have to secure the carrier and head immediately back to HQ."

  The priest shifted his gaze at the dead woman and asked, "How bad is it?"

  "Try Walking Dead bad," Sherwood said.

  "Walking what?" the old man fumbled for any proper words.

  Blake and Sherwood struggled with the hefty casket, each man hauling one end and barged out like two elegant thieves out of a bank.

  "Call HQ on the numbers mentioned. They'll confirm our credentials." Blake said.

  The old man rushed back to his ancient dial phone. The man puckered his eyes over the agonizing fine print.

  Sherwood opened the back door of their tan-colored van. Inside, there was a prearranged array of pages written in ancient scripture.

  The two men pulled the small woman from her cushioned coffin and hurled her in, tossing her flaccid body with its back laid on the scattered papers.

  Sherwood adjusted her head and asked, "So, what do you think?"

  "Full blown immersion?" Blake replied. Sherwood hissed a curse and crossed her shriveled hands over her narrow chest.