Bleeding Cross Read online

  The priest was still dialing the long string of numbers written on the cards, whispering prayers, and asking the good Lord for any divine guidance.

  Blake and Sherwood were now at each end of the old dead woman. Sherwood pinched his nose. "What's that smell?"

  Blake pointed to the plumes of smoke coming out from the small woman's cream dress .

  "She's reacting. It won't be long now."

  There was a knock.

  The priest banged a fist on the van.

  Blake poked his head out behind the door .

  "I'm sorry, but no one answered. I'll have to call the Sheriff."

  Blake shouted, "No" He followed with beaming grin. "I mean, No, Father, it's totally out of his jurisdiction. No need to complicate things now."

  "What's happening back there?" the priest asked as the van swiveled on its wheels, the whole metal chassis waving from the inside ruckus.

  Blake pulled his head back and saw Sherwood wrestling with a convulsing, contorted body of a seventy-year-old woman.

  "Father, I think my associate requests my assistance. Now dial our center in Denver. Just change the last three digits with 250. Thanks, Father." he said, then shut the door.

  "Heaven have mercy," Blake mumbled in disgust.

  The woman was curled into a pile of cracking bones and limbs. Her eyes opened. Sherwood dropped her down and circled away to his friend.

  "This is new." Blake muttered. Sherwood was now panting from the strength of the reanimated body. "That thing's nasty," he pointed to the deformed body that was morphing in front of them.

  The old woman erected her back and stilted her small torso on crackling elbows, wiggling her elongated gray tongue and drooled green foam that slipped from her toothless mouth. Her eyes were full of bright yellow specks and green blotches.

  Blake smiled to his friend.

  "Well, ya know what they say about postmortem possession. You can't lose a thing."

  The two exorcists charged the old possessed body, spreading her body on the scattered papers. Blake placed his weight over the small woman, binding her with his sturdy thighs. He took out a silver cross and started chanting in Latin.

  "Momma, this is gonna hurt."

  He pressed the silver Cross on her forehead. The contact baked her skin with sparking faint flames. Branding her with the black fuming imprint on her wrinkled face.

  "Pater sanctus de caelo servandi exercitus benedic sacri corporis," the two were chanting.

  In that flaring moment, the priest opened the doors. His fury-suffused face rapidly turned pale. "What in God's name!"

  The old woman threw Sherwood with one hand, sending him somersaulting in the air. He landed with his back slamming on the dirt outside the van. Barely avoiding the priest who ducked in the last minute.

  Blake was next as she snatched his neck with two scrawny hands. The burly man couldn't match her supernatural strength; she hurled him like an old rag-doll, he landed beside his friend.

  The woman crawled with four spread limbs, hissing incomprehensible words. The priest was struck by what his eyes saw, yet his mind could not start to believe.

  Blake pushed the old man away from the decaying feral body. He held the priest's face with firm palms, "Father, wake up. Go hide in the church."

  Sherwood launched on the monstrous body, wrestling it onto the dusty ground.

  Blake then turned to the conjoined man and beast.

  "Ok, now I'm pissed."

  He rolled up his sleeves, revealing long twirling strings of tattooed glyph etched on his thick hairy skin. Blake resumed his holy enchantment.

  Sherwood kept struggling with the demon. "Keep going... Lonnie."

  Blake took the old woman in his muscular arm, locking her head under his forearm. His tattoos turned to bright blue.

  The senile priest was watching the ordeal before him. A nightmare clash urging him to cross his chest. His knees buckled, but the old man steadied himself with hands pressed on the hot sand. The priest was witnessing the ultimate proof he never wished to see in his life. Before this day, the Demons he knew were comfortably hidden behind cryptic lines of scripture. Never again, after what he'd seen today.

  Blake blasted one last shout, Sherwood still grappling her shaking limbs.

  "PUER DIMITTERE," the woman howled a foul sound, like a hundred crows and wolves all bellowing one twisted cry.

  Then she dropped like a soft bag of rattling bones.

  Blake could barely stand his own weight. Sherwood crawled to the priest, sand all over his perfect suit.

  Blake collapsed on his hind, with his hands planted on the soft dirt beside the bewildered man of God. He took in few gulps of air.

  "That...is called a demon."

  In shock, the priest turned his head to the man.

  Blake stared right in the priest's eyes, "There's evil in the world that good men should never know about." He gave a soft tap to his partner and the two climbed in their van.

  Blake looked at the festering decay that what was once Mrs. Miller.

  "Preach the light, Father, and leave the darkness for us," Blake (Lonnie) said. Father Jake rushed to Blake's window, "What's your name, Child?"

  "My name is Lonnie, this bad boy here's Fitz. To you Father we're better be gone and forgotten." he patted the priest’s hand and the two headed off in the dusty trail leaving the priest with a steaming heap of rot and bones.

  A few kilometers ahead, Lonnie howled in happiness. "Damn, Baby Shark, I knew you had it in ya, boy." Fitz (Previously called Sherwood) wiped his face, "Call me boy again and I'll smack ya to next Sunday."

  "Holla! my boy, the great hunter. Lonnie told ya."

  Fitz responded with an approving look. "Thanks, Lonnie."

  Lonnie grinned from ear to ear, "How did it feel?"

  "Sweet as peach pie," the teenager said and lifted his chin in well-earned pride. Lonnie wiggled the back of Fitz's neck.

  The phone rang. "Hold on, it is an unidentified number.” Lonnie's face turned at the first word he heard. The voice from other side bolted down through him.

  "Yeah, sure." He shifted back to Fitz, "Press on it. The boss is back!"

  CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  A torrent of people were bustling by a mosaic line of gift-stores and boutiques. People from all walks and ages of life, loitering along in a slow shuffle. The stacked stores encircled a spacious bright disc; A pedestrian-square of grey brushed concrete, radiating out the heat of the afternoon blaze. In the center, the square had a miniature urban fountain, with water squirting from the rugged lips of the cast-stone boy as it posed dancing on top of a shallow green pool.

  The collective mood of joy and serenity soon changed as the walkers fled the path of some steaming specter. A figure of a man draped in a flower-colored cloth. Burning holes gaping wide and long trails of smoke scattered in his wake. The cloaked man grunted as he wedged through the thicket of disgusted bystanders.

  "Make way," he said in husky voice.

  The hooded figure leaned to catch a breath on a pole. His hand imprinted on the steel shaft with long stains of sticky red. He didn't have time to examine the skin peeled from his body, when his cover abruptly caught on flames. Several screams erupted from around the throng of terrified bystanders.

  The man dropped his cover - now a smoldering pile of ash - And revealed his naked body baked alive with a mysterious source of heat. An unsettling sight of skin bubbling in blisters, oozing yellow serum from the dark cracks in his flesh.

  Lonnie shouted from behind the wheel, "Hurry up."

  Fitz dashed inside a convenience store and started hauling huge packs of ice into his cart.

  A grumpy old man poked his head above his counter.

  Fitz raced back to the cashier pushing a full cart of bloated packs of ice, "Twenty, Sir." The old man stooped from his seat and was muttering numbers from cracked dry lips.

  Another shout came from outside the store, "Hurry up!"

  Fitz threw
a fifty at the old man. "Keep the change, old man." The two hunters shoved the massive bags of ice inside the van. Lonnie took on the shredding of the ice packs with his teeth and poured the cubes in a small metal tub. Fitz landed behind the steering wheel, "Where to?"

  "Anderson square at Melbourne Street. We've got a few minutes left."

  Lonnie washed the piles of ice inside the old rusty tub with several jugs of water. He pulled a small black cross and dropped it in the mix. Fitz collected speed, while Lonnie was preparing the cold holy mixture in the back. All they needed now was a man burning alive.

  The naked man on fire became darker in color, his skin turned to streaked leather. Further flames erupted from dilating pores opening in his body. With deeper layers of flesh exposing for the fires to feed. His screams were barely audible among the roaring flickers that enveloped his face.

  People fled from the fiery apparition, while some joined in the screaming.

  Fitz hollered back to his friend, "Where is he? I can't see him."

  "Try the fountain," Lonnie said.

  The burning man dove into the murky water of the fountain . His only chance in saving what was left of his body. But the paranormal heat wasn't about to abate, turning the shallow depths of greenish water into a murky bubbling broth.

  A tan-colored van shrieked to a halt by the rim the pool. The burning man heard from under the water a muffled shout,

  "Get in, get in!"

  The man emerged from the water, surrounded by columns of steam. No trace of skin, just a black gaunt figure with red lines crackling across his body.

  Without touching an object or person, he jumped head-on in the salty cold water-tub. Within seconds, Lonnie jumped in the passenger seat and slapped the metal carapace.

  The van soon disappeared with a plume of white trailing from behind. The masses were left with lingering shock and bewilderment that claimed the rest of their beautiful day.

  Fitz found an abandoned land slot hidden among a small grove of old crooked trees. Lonnie and Fitz couldn't get themselves to look back at their crisped passenger. Moments later, the passenger stopped his splashing wail. Lonnie ran outside and opened the back doors.

  One last shriek of pain was heard deep from within the dense smoke. Seconds later, a young man appeared, grimacing as he went out from the wall of grey smoke. He had black jet hair, with two piercing green eyes. His skin was all anew, no burns whatsoever. He hopped out of the van and waddled over weak knees.

  Lonnie's lips started to tremble.

  "Is that you, boss?"

  The new man smiled, "Who else would it be, Lonnie?"

  The old grizzled man jumped at the naked man, taking him in with his muscular tattooed arms.

  Thomas laid out his arms, "Easy, old man, I'm still baked as a fresh cookie batch. Don't crack me, alright?"

  Lonnie released the man, and laughed with tearing eyes.

  Fitz lent the naked man a hand, "Good to see ya back, Tom."

  "It sure is. Thanks, Fitz." Tom yanked the young boy toward him and the three were huddled together in a sloppy group hug with coils of steam floating from the van behind them.

  ***

  "It's time to get your beauty sleep, Mr. Tuttle," the nurse rubbed the back of the old man as he levered his heavy build from his seat.

  "Don't belittle me, child, I might’ve dated your Mom."

  "That I'd pay to see." She said with a suppressed chuckle. Mr. Tuttle shuffled along with his nurse bracing his arm. They soon arrived to his makeshift luxury suite. It was a small linen white room, equipped adequately for those with the meekest desires. So was almost every room in Still Water Home of Mercy; The place for people who can afford to be forgotten, till fate would call their names.

  Mr. Tuttle settled on the edge of his bed, hunched towards the starry vista that his bedside window provided.

  A seventy-year-old veteran with a mottled head brimmed with stories and vague recollection of his rich eventful life. Only now, he only relished the private calming session of his day as he waited for sleep to come brush upon his drooping eyes.

  "Want me to stay a little longer, Mr. Tuttle?" the kind nurse said.

  "No thanks, child, I'll just stay up for a while. You head on now."

  "As you wish, sir. Goodnight."

  The old man waved her off.

  Later that night, the nurse was well beyond the first half of her night-rounds. The clock struck three when she had shifted by Tuttle's room. Another fast check wouldn't alarm the grumpy old man. She thought as hand squeezed around the handle.

  At the very moment she set foot in the room, the nurse blared a strident scream. Several seconds later, a male caregiver rushed after the shriek. The nurse's unconscious body blocked the wide-open door. He checked on the fainted girl, only to be immersed in immobilizing fear when his gaze wandered to the resident's bed. An unimaginable nightmare occupied Mr. Tuttle's bed.

  Two other nurses came running to the door, the third was a night guard.

  "Call someone. Hurry!" one of the nurses shouted without precise direction. Only that no one dared to flinch a single muscle. A new level of frosting fear petrified the bodies of those who watched.

  Mr. Tuttle was slain in his bed. One of his legs was missing, leaving a mid-thigh stump still gushing a pulsing stream of blood. His arms splayed apart in the form of the crucifix. His abdomen gouged and hollow like a gaping crater with a wide uneven mouth.

  The caretaker approached the desecrated body. "Oh, my Holy heavens." His lips shivered not from the cold of night, but from what he witnessed as he peered inside the hole in Mr. Tuttle's body. His backbone was clear as a glistening ridge, an unhindered view into the man's mid cavity, void from most of his visceral organs. The caretake notice a scattered trail of two-inch tracks - resembling that of a scurrying animal - came down from the body and fell in a wavy line. It appeared that the small footsteps headed for the nearest exit, and escaped at the window.

  Just under the window sill lay the severed foot, carefully propped against the wall, atop a growing pool of blood.

  The caregiver silently begged his acting memory to remember his words of prayer. His lips wouldn't obey.

  How could one utter anything holy in front of such evil?

  *Salina, Kansas*.

  Three ice-cold showers later, Thomas dropped on his leather carmine recliner and leaned back with closed eyes. He allowed the seconds to pass without any form of motion. His senses needed to wane from the immense exhaustion. It was a feeble act to block his memory from recalling the toll his body had suffered.

  After a couple of minutes, his hands crawled on the warm flaking red leather. A quaint object that brought him back to a more serene chapter of reality. It was his favorite chair in the world; the centerpiece of his crowded study; a room occupied with more silent memories than the objects it contained.

  All over the room, lay years of hung and stowed items from times lost and forgotten. Decades of collecting objects endowed with more virtual worth than their actual material could provide. A tall hardwood cabinet, made of dark paneled plywood. It displayed several brass and silver daggers and guns with decorated rosewood grips sorted in different divisional arrays. The weapons' colors faded under thick sheets of dust.

  By his chair was a broad pine desk blemished with a disorienting count of half-open books, pens lying here and there, papers shoved and scattered over old journals. A pattern of frozen chaos occupying the brown expanse of the table.

  There wasn't a single corner that wasn't spared from the aging disarray. Uneven piles of books, crowned with dusty sheaves of paper. The room had a tall window guarded by two green damask drapes that allowed twilight rays of the dying day.

  Thomas enjoyed the fading light from his spot of perfect comfort. At last, his body stopped screaming from the insurmountable pain.

  Lonnie came in, Tom's presence froze Lonnie's body, "Sorry to bother ya, Boss." He said before winding back to the door.

  "Lonnie, you know I
hate it when you call me that."

  "Sorry, Tom, it's been a while."

  Tom gazed over to the side and scanned the headlines of a newspaper fold lying on the coffee table beside his chair.

  "Holy shit! Six months!" Thomas said, it was remarkable how time could fly.

  Lonnie frowned, "It's like fire burns your time faster."

  Tom stood up, and leaned against his desk, he leafed through the paper cut-out from different newspapers.Undying miracle, swamp menace, voices in June-grove.

  "You've been busy?" Thomas looked at his friends with the slung eyebrow.

  "We had to be," Lonnie mumbled from under his bushy mustache. "and I took the kid on the last one."

  Thomas's felt the concern in his friend's voice.

  Lonnie's eyes fell to the ground, "He did well. The boy's a natural Vile gusher." He smiled.

  "How did it go? Tell me all about it," Thomas said and resumed his seat.

  Lonnie knotted his brows. "Later on, Boss. It's been a long day. There's food and beer in the cooler."

  Lonnie was one leg out of the door when Thomas called back.

  "Lonnie, you can say it already."

  Lonnie stopped, still holding the door wide open.

  "You can hear me say it, can't ya?"

  "Might as well get it over with."

  Lonnie turned around, revealing a hard-cross face. Tom a saw a hard cord lashing down Lonnie's neck.

  "It's been six months and you come back like a fried bat , then you bear the nerve to act as if it was the Regent Caribbean Cruise. What did you expect me to say? Gee Tom, quite a tan you have on ya. Were you aiming for that sizzling bacon look?"

  Thomas glowered away speechless.

  Lonnie continued his litany, "Spare me the crap cake. At least, tell me it was worth it."

  Thomas glared back at his furious old friend. But no words could temper rage of his friend, like bouts of hot acid crossing the short distance between them.

  "Don't give me that look, I took the kid because I needed him. I sure as hell ain't looking any younger and it ain't getting any easier. So, I had to take him."

  Thomas turned back to his accuser.