The Awakening by Rain Oxford Read Free Book Online Page A

thighs,
then the other, then the soft flesh between her breasts. Thin ribbons of blood
slipped down her body and dripped to the floor. He smiled and stood, arms
raised.
    “Hound of Hell, Spirit, precipitated in the abyss of
eternal damnation! Infernal powers, you who carry disturbance into the
universe, I call you!  I call you with blood! Leave your somber habitation and
render yourself to the place beyond the river Styx! I give blood, I give you
life! I command you to rise and do my bidding! Exurgent mortui et veniunt !
Azathoth! Yog- Sothoth! I’a Cthulhu…”
    Suddenly, the walls around them groaned and
shuddered, the air filling with the sound of rending wood and showering glass.
Richard’s voice rose in triumph, then trailed off to a whisper of fear. His
daughter was rising into the air, screaming and clawing at some unseen thing.
He tried to move, but found himself paralyzed. He watched as she was twisted
into impossible shaped, then flung like a child’s doll against the altar. The
sound of flesh striking stone seemed to hang in the air. Catherine Jarman
screamed.
    Everything was going wrong! A burning cold stung his
body; he tried to scream his protest, but a horrible foulness choked him with
searing pain. Wrenching his body to one side, he tried to move, to run, but his
body was no longer his to command. Yet he had shifted slightly, and could see
the door.
    What little soul he had cringed.
    Standing in the doorway was a vision from Hell, there
to claim its piece of living flesh. Around the small body was a greenish cloud
of light, a huge, evil aura that flowed and probed the wrecked room seeking a
new host. The monstrous head was thrown back in horrible laughter.
    The blackness that descended was a blessing.
    It had begun.
     
    *          *          *
     
    The light but persistent pounding rose Derek from a
shallow, restless sleep. He clicked on the bed side lamp and glanced at his
watch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. “Just a minute.” Derek
unlocked the door to find the sheriff waiting impatiently in the dim hallway.
“What?”
    “Sorry, Mr. Hanen.” The apology in sheriff Dunns’s
voice was not matched in his eyes. “Mind if I come in?” Derek waved him in and
shut the door a little harder than was necessary. Mike glanced around the room
casually, then drew up one of the straight-backed chairs and straddled it
backwards.
    “Won’t you sit down, sheriff?” Derek asked. It wasn’t
a sociable thing to say, but then getting rousted out of bed at one in the
morning wasn’t exactly conductive to sociability.
    Mike chose to overlook Derek’s jab and lit a
cigarette. He held it out in the front of him, not smoking it, but watching
Derek over its glowing end indirectly. “You been here all evening, Mr. Hanen?”
    “Yes, I have. I take it this is no social call.”
    “Nope.”
    “You pick odd hours for your questions.”
    “Only when I have to.” Mike pursed his lips and blew
at the curling cigarette smoke, studying its moving pattern carefully.
    “You mind telling me what this is all about?”
    “Sure. When I’m ready to.” Mike paused and Derek
leaned against the door. “Where are you from, Mr. Hanen? And what are you doing
here?”
    “Oh, I see. I’m from L.A., an unemployed pilot, and
I’m just passing through… I had car trouble. You can check.”
    “I will. I don’t suppose you have any witnesses to
back your story about being here all night?”
    “I didn’t know I was going to need any. I’m sorry.
And it’s not a story. Now will you tell me what’s going on?”
    “There’s been a murder.”
    “The boy…?”
    “No. Another, little while ago.”
    “And you think I might be involved.”
    “I dunno. Are you?”
    “No. But I’d like to know why you think I might…” A
sudden fear flooded over Derek, and he felt a sickness in his throat. “It isn’t
Ann?” The words came out in a whisper.
    Mike’s expression relaxed fractionally and he