Goblins (6 page)

Chapter Six

The goblin returned to the cave from which it had come, the same place it had once entered as a boy. No longer did the creature remember life as a human. The days of going to school, celebrating birthdays, hanging out with friends, playing ball and loving in the way people did were all gone. Erased as if they'd never existed. The small flame that held its humanity had been extinguished when it killed its former parents. This was part of the ritual and what the goblin king demanded.

Goblin birth was painful as the human in them died. The small, vicious creatures were born from pure evil and hate and with the need to prove themselves to their god, the goblin king. A small amount of human pain remained in the newborn. Killing its former parents was the only way to end it, which was why goblins always did such things with glee in their heart. The only time the monsters found pleasure and joy was in the pain of others.

The Jacob goblin hurried down the tunnel, an earthen pathway that existed for hundreds of years. It had been carved out when the goblin king was called. The cave traveled deep and the air grew hotter and more humid as the Jacob goblin went. Excitement coursed through its veins. The noxious odors of death and decay grew stronger the closer it came to the portal that led to its world. It walked by dens where goblin guards hid, many munching on human remains. The Jacob goblin could hear their razor-sharp bone knives and spears clanking together as he passed by. Any human or animal trying to make their way to the goblin king's lair would be met with a painful death.

Finally, the Jacob goblin came to the portal, a slowly spiraling sphere of hellion plasma derived from the essence of human pain and suffering. The creature held out its palm, revealing an eyeball from each of its former parents. The sphere pulsated and spun faster. It became concave in form, resembling a whirlpool. The goblin felt the pull and stepped through.

It came out the other side and continued along the cave, but now it was in its home world, a section of Hell ruled by the goblin king. The walls of the tunnel were no longer earthen but made of living human flesh that writhed and throbbed. The temperature was much warmer here and the goblin bathed in the heat as it periodically gouged the walls with its claws and felt the pain it caused ripple through its body like static electricity. Though the flesh had no eyes or mouths or ears, it was human and alive and felt pain. The rancid smell of putrefying corpses was ripe in the air. The Jacob goblin grinned and took in a huge breath, wishing it could sink its dagger-like teeth into a human again. Instead, it ran its wormlike tongue along a portion of the wall, tasting the salty goodness. Unable to restrain itself, it wrested out a handful of flesh and consumed the chewy portion before continuing on. It was good, but not nearly as wonderful as eating fresh, living human meat.

It turned this way and that as multiple passages opened up leading off to different areas of the otherworldly kingdom. Various smells of sex, violence, blood and decay wafted from each branching tunnel. The goblin had to navigate around its brethren, for none budged an inch for the newly made scum. The Jacob goblin had to make his way by getting on his hands and knees and crawling between their legs or moving aside to let them pass. No words were exchanged, merely grunts of dislike. A large notorious goblin named Crud, known to eat newborns, grabbed the Jacob goblin by his throat and threw him into the wall. It cackled and told him that if he wasn't heading to dinner, he'd eat him one limb at a time while the Jacob goblin watched.

The Jacob goblin didn't care; its mind was on one thing and as soon as Crud was gone, he made his way into the goblin king's lair.

The place was cavernous, with a ceiling that disappeared into mists above where winged serpents took up residence—pets of the goblin king that ate the useless ones the king no longer cared for. Hearths burned along the walls, many filled with roasting humans, some alive, others long dead. It took decades for a human to burn to death in goblin fire, the torture seemingly endless for the weak-fleshed beings. In the center of the cavern flamed a pyre made of human bones. Its fumes provided the goblin king's lair with magical energy.

The bones came from the lower levels after the meals were eaten. Goblins of all shapes and sizes carried them to the king's lair and placed them along the walls like rows of firewood. Mountains of bones took up corners of the room, the bones picked clean and readied to be added to the bone pyre, made into weapons or furniture.

The Jacob goblin approached the king, the giant demon seated on a gloriously hideous throne made of bone and flesh that overlooked the cavern. Two goblin guards—not that the king needed protection—decorated in armor stood in front of the king. One brandished a mace with a bone handle. At the end of the chain was a human head punctured with splintered bones that acted as spikes. The other goblin wielded an axe, the blade a human pelvic bone. The edges were sharpened and reinforced with goblin magic. The guards' flesh was riddled with battle scars and their eyes glowed fiery orange. Cockroaches scuttled along their skin, keeping it clean and healed, but the six-legged critters also gave them something to eat when they grew hungry.

The Jacob goblin held out its open hand, revealing the eyes. The guards snorted and nodded, then moved aside. The Jacob goblin walked forth and up the stone steps. The goblin king sat straight-backed and proud. It was the largest of all the goblins, standing over ten feet tall. He was a specimen of muscle, sinew and fear. Hellfire blazed behind its clear orb eyes. It saw all that was in front of it, able to focus on everything. It had no peripheral vision. Its claws and teeth were living fire that could cut through the toughest steel. It ate the flesh of any and all beasts and had been made from pure evil. It was said the goblin king was an extension of the Devil himself, but no one knew for sure. Every goblin was a part of it, each creature made from its own essence. The green army it wielded was like a slow growing and powerful cancer, bred to destroy civilizations both large and small.

Though powerful in its world, the goblin king almost never set foot on earth. The demon needed its children to do its bidding, unless it was specifically summoned. The summoning spell set forth rules that had to be followed and allowed it time on earth. The spell the shaman performed allowed the goblin king to come to Earth for a period of six days, a number the devil gave all his high minions.

Though it mostly remained in its hellish dimension, the goblin king had found loopholes in the spiritual laws, ways that allowed it to experience its children's sensations. Every bite a goblin took, the demon tasted. Everything—animal, insect or human—a goblin hurt or killed, the demon partook in and enjoyed.

No matter how many times it experienced killing through its children, the sensations were nothing compared to when it actually got to partake in the slaughter. And it was thanks to the humans themselves, their greed and need for vengeance, that it and its fellow demon and goblin brethren were given power and the ability to torture and kill mankind. Death and pain were the reason for its existence. It had been born of such things so many millennia ago and would exist to spread its hostile religion.

The Jacob goblin, like all goblins, knew all of this. The goblin king gave his children the knowledge. The king wanted them all to know it was a god, their god. A god to fear and obey. A god that would reward them for spreading its misery, but would also strike down all that disappointed it. Failure was not tolerated. Those that failed were either eaten alive by the winged serpents, where they'd be digested for hundreds of years, or given to their brothers and sisters as food. Cannibalism was a much practiced way of life among the goblins.

The Jacob goblin headed up the crushed and melded bone-stone staircase and fell to one knee before its king. It lowered its head and held out the eyes it had taken from its former parents—the blue belonging to his mother, the brown his father. The optical nerves draped over his palms like thin, wet noodles.

The goblin king grunted, but the Jacob goblin heard pleasure in the sound. He was then commanded to stand, and he did. The eyeballs were snatched from his palm, the goblin king's fire claws gouging his flesh, the pain almost pleasurable. The king held the eyes up in front of its face by the nerves. The giant goblin grinned, many of its flaming teeth revealed. The Jacob goblin felt the heat and basked in its master's power. But it was still fearful, for the goblin king was a merciless and wicked beast that would kill without a moment's hesitation. Maybe he wouldn't like the eye color. Maybe the Jacob goblin had taken too long. Anything was possible. The goblin king was known to crush and devour new goblins that didn't satisfy it.

The goblin king opened its mouth. Its multiple wormlike tongues slithered out and coiled around the eyes, then retracted, taking the morsels with it. The king's eyes blazed brighter as it chewed, and the Jacob goblin knew its master was pleased. For such a small meal, the king took his time masticating.

Unable to control itself, the Jacob goblin raked a claw across its abdomen and drew blood, needing the pain to ground him. To celebrate or make a noise while the king ate was forbidden.

Finally, the goblin king's eyes settled back to their normal blaze and it spoke, telling the Jacob goblin he had done well. The king then handed him his reward, a necklace made from the bones of children, imbued with the king's fiery essence and proof that it had pleased its master.

The Jacob goblin groveled at the king's feet and thanked the demon repeatedly, then asked how it could serve its highness again.

“You shall bring me a child,” the goblin king said. “For soon my army will be ready and the humans will feel my wrath again.”

Chapter Seven

Because of the brutality of the crime and the missing kid, the FBI had been informed. According to the feds, the case was not unheard of. They would run the scenario through their database and see if anything similar came up. Off the top of Special Agent Howard's head, the man Hale had spoken to, there were no current cases related to the one on Roanoke Island. But the country was large and Howard wasn't familiar with all of them.

Hale didn't want another case like the Brown case to be found. He didn't want to know that another family had gone through something so horrific. But if it had happened before, if the killers had done this previously, hopefully the feds would find it and have more to go on.

In the meantime, Hale was told to go ahead with his investigation and would remain in charge of the case. Special Agent Howard wasn't going to send any of his people to the island, yet. Hale found this shocking, but figured the FBI had their hands full, and unless the situation worsened, he would be on his own.

It took a day before Howard got back to him. The feds came up with no similar crimes within the last twenty years. The closest ones were all gang, cartel and mob related. Based on the preliminary findings, the Brown case was not one of those cases. They found no criminal activity associated with the Browns. No sour business dealings either. No money owed. The Browns had no criminal records and weren't known or suspected to be involved with the drug trade. Kidnappings were kidnappings. Some violent, some not. But according to the FBI, the one thing none of them had was the green slime. There was no record of such a substance in any files, kidnapping cases or any other crime scenes. This further differentiated the Brown case from any others.

After the call from Special Agent Howard, Hale got on the line with the coroner's office. He'd been waiting on the results of the green substance, hoping it would be the break he needed, but it still hadn't been identified yet. Frustrated, he barked into the phone, saying he needed it ASAP, then slammed the receiver down.

He leaned back in his executive leather chair and pounded a fist on his desk. He hated not being able to do anything. He felt useless. There was nothing to go on. He needed those results. If the green slime was chemical in nature, they could use that to get a lead. Find out where the stuff was made and go from there.

For now, at least the Amber Alert was still active. News stations were still showing Jacob's picture. The story was national, which would help. But there was nothing to go on. The crime seemed random, as if the Brown family had been stumbled upon and targeted for no other reason than convenience. The kidnappers were simply passing through and having fun, as sick and demented as that fun had been.

Chapter Eight

Kaley lay on her bed with the covers pulled up to her nose. Her blue eyes stared across the room. Every time a vehicle drove by, her room flooded with shadows that flittered over the walls and ceiling like ghosts. Her stuffed animals resting on her dresser and shelves—for she had many—appeared to shift in unison. Their faces became menacing and their bodies grew grotesque for a moment before the darkness swallowed them up again. They'd never bothered her before. In fact, they had always brought her comfort—especially Charlie Bear. But now Charlie Bear was scaring her, the plushy's eyes seeming to watch her with malice. His smile was now a devious grin, like the teddy bear in the horror movie she watched earlier that night. It was only a thirty-minute film, made by Mindy's brother—Mindy being her best friend.

Mindy's brother, Daniel, was in film school and had made the movie and sent her a copy. His professor had given it an A and he was going to play it at festivals, including the big one in New York City. It was a huge deal. Mindy said her brother was going to be famous one day. She told Kaley she'd watched it “like a hundred times.” Kept playing it over and over ever since he sent it to her. “It isn't that scary,” Mindy had said, “so you can watch it.”

Kaley didn't like scary movies. She didn't like anything monster-related at all. She wasn't allowed to watch anything above a PG rating. For Halloween, she'd dressed up as a princess, a clown, a cowgirl and other types of costumes that had nothing to do with monsters or violence.

Mindy sent a copy of the movie to Kaley's email. As curious as Kaley had been, she hadn't asked her friend to do that. It sat in cyberspace for a whole day, seeming to bug her like a nagging itch until she finally downloaded it to her tablet. Of course, her parents would never let her watch it, so she said nothing about it to them. The movie wasn't officially rated, Mindy told her, but Daniel said if it had been rated, it would be rated R. It had some swearing, but not much. The blood factor was minimal, too.

“I don't want to watch it,” Kaley had said over the phone.

“Don't be afraid,” Mindy said. “I told you it really wasn't scary. You'll love it. It has a teddy bear that talks. All our friends are going to watch it. Don't be the only one who doesn't.”

After saying good night to her parents, Kaley pulled out her tablet and watched the movie while under her covers, with the sound low. She figured it would be less scary on such a small screen, if it was even scary at all.

As the movie unfolded, her blinking decreased along with her nerve and ability to breathe. She had become glued to the screen in a petrified and shocked state, unable to shut the video off. The movie hadn't only been frightening, but downright gross. The kill scenes would remain in her mind forever.

The film started out with a woman—her mother's age—getting strangled to death by a group of men who had broken into her home. The woman's daughter, who appeared to be around Kaley's age, had been hiding under the bed and witnessed the whole thing.

The men were witch hunters and killed the mother because she was a witch.

“The little girl is gone,” one of the men said.

“She must've run off,” said another.

“She's young,” said yet another man. “We'll find her when the time is right and kill her too.”

After the men left, the little girl hurried over to her mother and tried waking her up. She cried and hugged her, begging for her to get up. When she realized her mother was dead, something in the girl changed. Her tears stopped and her face deadpanned. She stood fast, eyes narrowed, mouth but a thin line, and went over to the closet where she pulled out a large, leather-bound spellbook and a book of matches. She then went to her bedroom and grabbed a teddy bear, Binky Bear, from her bed and headed into the basement. Metal shelving with a variety of forgotten and unused items—paint cans, jars, hedge clippers, toolboxes—stood against the far wall, partially hidden by old bicycles, furniture and other junk. The girl made her way around the obstacles and over to the shelving. She grabbed on to the right side of it and pulled. The shelving swung open like a door, revealing a passageway in the wall.

The little girl entered a room shrouded in darkness except for the minute amount of light coming from the dull basement bulbs. She lit a few candles that were set around the room, using the matches she'd taken from her mom's bedroom. The place blossomed with flickering light, revealing a small earthen cave complete with a stone fireplace. A large, black cauldron hung within the hearth. Old, slightly warped, wood shelves ran along the walls. Jars of various sizes rested on them. The glass containers were labeled and held such things as frog toes, spider legs, unhatched spider eggs, fish scales, fish tails, rat eyes, rat tails, rat intestines, pigeon eyes, crow eyes, crow beaks and numerous other ingredients.

The girl placed Binky Bear on the floor next to her. She then opened the book and found the spell she wanted, one her mother had taught her, but told her never to use unless she was in mortal danger. She gathered up the ingredients the spell required, then said the magical words as she tossed each component in the cauldron. She added water from a jug that had been sitting on the floor and a vial of fox blood. Next, she held a candle to the wood in the fireplace. Flames bloomed as if the wood had been doused in gasoline—no crumpled newspaper or kindling was needed.

Moments later, the candles flared and black smoke wafted from the cauldron, but in the shape of a serpent seeking out prey. It meandered around the room, flying through the air before it shot into Binky Bear's single-thread drawn smile. The plushy trembled, then sat up. Its shiny, button eyes turned crimson and claws sprang from its pawless arms. It faced the girl who said, “Kill them all.”

The scene switched to a cut of Binky Bear running along a backcountry road, and then up a driveway and into the woods before a small cabin came into view. It had found the men responsible for its master's mother's death. The bear's eyes narrowed to slits as it marched toward the domicile.

The plushy hopped up onto one of the windowsills and took in the interior of the place. All four men were present, sitting at a round table, playing cards and drinking alcohol. They looked scarier than any monster Kaley could ever imagine. They had scars on their faces and along their arms. One had a shaved head; the rest had long hair that fell past their shoulders. They each had multiple facial piercings—hoops through noses, ears with enough metal in them to build a small car, and eyebrows lined with silver studs. Their skin was decorated with multiple tattoos of snakes, spiders, daggers, guns and ancient-looking symbols. Weapons, including swords, knives and an assortment of firearms, hung on the walls around them.

Satisfied, the bear jumped down, went over to the Jeep parked in the driveway, and set off the alarm by throwing itself into the door.

One of the long-haired men came outside. He held a shotgun in his hands, eyes darting around. He seemed tense at first, then shook his head and lowered the weapon. He killed the alarm using a remote control, then headed to the rear of the vehicle.

Binky Bear rolled out from under the Jeep and sprang to its feet in front of the man. The man shook his head and looked confused. That moment of hesitation was the man's downfall.

Binky sprang into action. He leaped onto the man's face and sank his claws into the sides of his head. The man screamed, but it was a muffled scream—Binky's soft, rotund belly pressed against his face like a pillow. Blood squirted out of the man's head in lawn sprinkler-like fashion. His body jerked and he collapsed to the ground, legs in spasm.

Binky hopped off the dead man, his claws and arms drenched in crimson. The bear grinned, his red eyes glowing brighter as his eyebrows lowered.

From there, the living plushy headed over to the front door and waited off to the side. A moment later, two men exited the cabin, one holding a sword, the other a rifle. One of them asked, “Where you at, you drunk bastard?” and Binky swiped at his left ankle, severing his Achilles tendon. The man screamed like a frightened child and went down fast. The rifle he'd been holding went off and the man's head next to him exploded. The scene reminded Kaley of the time she'd watched videos of kids blowing up watermelons with M80 firecrackers.

The man with the severed Achilles tendon had lost his gun and was crawling to it. The man looked back and saw Binky coming toward him. His eyes went wide with terror and he crawled faster. Binky grinned, clanked his claws together and dove, landing between the man's shoulder blades.

A fourth man emerged from the cabin. He was the bald-headed one and the largest of all four witch hunters. He wielded a double-sided axe, his arms bulging with muscles. His mouth dropped open at the sight of the carnage, but his shocked expression turned angry at the sight of the killer bear as it tore the back of his companion's head clean off with a single swipe of its claws.

Binky Bear wasn't finished with Severed Achilles yet, and raised his arm for another strike when the bald witch hunter swung the axe down and lopped off Binky's left arm. The axe sank into Severed Achilles' back with a dull thwack, stilling the man. “Demon,” the remaining witch hunter yelled.

White stuffing bloomed from Binky's shoulder where his arm had been, the appendage now a few feet away on the ground. He spun around, undeterred, and growled at the witch hunter who yanked the axe free with a sickening sucking sound.

“Devil spawn of hellion wrath,” the man said, spittle flying from his lips. “I'll send you back to where you came and kill the one who summoned you.”

The witch hunter swung the axe again, but Binky was ready this time. The bear lunged forward ahead of the axe as it plunged into the corpse's spine. Binky sailed toward the man's crotch, but instead of inflicting some kind of clawed action, the bear's mouth widened, opening to the size of a Frisbee and closed on the man's reproductive organs. Binky bit through everything, coming away with a mouthful of clothing and flesh, leaving the man with a gaping hole between his legs. Blood exploded over Binky in a shower of glistening cherry red. The hunter howled and grabbed at the area, finding nothing to hold.

Binky chewed, his cheeks full, as the man fell backward, dead. The bear swallowed, then let loose a thunderous burp.

The movie cut back to the witch's daughter's bedroom. She was fast asleep, but woke when Binky climbed up the covers and nuzzled against her chin.

“Thanks, Binky,” she said, and a moment later, the bear looked like a cute plush toy again, the life that had been flowing through it gone. The girl smiled and her eyes turned black and then the credits rolled.

Kaley hadn't realized the harm she'd done to herself until the movie had ended and she was alone in her all too quiet room. During some nights, she could hear the television from down the hall in her parents' bedroom. But not tonight. They were still downstairs in the living room, so far away.

She thought about getting out of bed and telling her parents what she had done and that she was scared to be alone, but she didn't want to get in trouble for watching the movie. It was too early to say she'd had a nightmare.

So Kaley did the only thing she could do and pulled the covers over her head and drew her feet in close, keeping them away from the end of the bed.

She knew monsters weren't real, but no matter how much she tried convincing herself of that fact, she couldn't help but wonder if one was under her bed or in her closet or standing over her at that very moment.

She lay there shivering and hoping to fall asleep, but tiredness never came. It seemed like hours had passed. She listened to her breathing and felt her heart thump hard every time she thought she heard movement in her room.

Then, she had to pee.

Besides not daring to lower the covers, she wasn't about to risk placing a foot on the floor next to the bed. Crap, she was in a terrible place and wanted nothing more than to tell Mindy what a great big jerk she was.

Mindy was smaller and weaker than her, so how had she not been afraid after watching the movie? Kaley wondered if she was wrong and that maybe her friend was scared after all. Home in bed and under the covers like she was—just as frightened. Mindy could be devious at times. Get people to do things they didn't want to do, like the time she got Dawn Fairly to put a worm in Belinda Daniels' lunchbox. Both girls were her friends. Then there was the time she tricked Kaley out of her lunch, trading her for her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but it turned out Mindy's sandwich had been made with strawberry jelly not grape. Kaley hated strawberry jelly and Mindy had known that. Kaley went hungry that afternoon, unable to eat the main part of her meal.

Kaley grew heated as she lay in bed thinking about her supposed friend. Mindy had tricked her again. Mindy knew the movie was scary and knew Kaley didn't like such things. Kaley nodded to herself and for the second time since they'd become friends, wondered if Mindy was really a friend.

Still scared but angry too, Kaley decided she'd suffered enough. She'd spent how many nights in her room and had never been attacked by a monster? All of them. Watching a movie wasn't going to change that fact. She'd also gotten up multiple times to pee with nothing bad happening, except for the time she tripped over one of her toys, but that didn't count. She realized how silly she was being and threw the covers off and bolted upright. Her head swiveled from side to side as her eyes scanned the room, including her rows of stuffed animals. Relief flooded through her when she saw there were no monsters or boogeymen waiting to snatch her, and that all her plush toys were present and in their correct places.

Without wasting another second, she sprang from bed, making sure to get a good push-off so she'd land a decent distance from the underneath of it—just in case the boogeyman was hiding there. Why take a chance, she thought.