The Altar (11 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

-1-

The thing on Seti’s back was driving him crazy. It hurt worse than his bullet wound, which, fortunately, had turned out less severe that he’d originally thought. The bullet had passed right through him, and had miraculously missed any vital organs. Monique, who had been a nurse before she and her twin sister joined him, had been able to patch him up and stop the bleeding. But she couldn’t do anything about the monstrous growth that had appeared on the back of his neck.

The thing itched constantly with a stabbing pain that was worse than knives being driven into his flesh.

“It’s your own fault,” the thing had informed him. “Since you took the girl away too quick, I have to feed on
your
suffering.”

Seti vowed that he’d find a new victim immediately to placate the demon. If it didn’t drive him insane first. He’d also need to replace Tony to make up the twelve he needed to follow him. Tony’s death had been fortunate, he thought. He’d wanted to get rid of him anyway, so it couldn’t have worked out better. The demon had instructed him what to do; they’d carefully moved the big man’s body and left it beside the road on Route 102 where an early morning commuter would be sure to find it.

“The bullets will match those in the Indian’s gun,” the demon had said. “And he’ll be arrested and out of our way. Until we want him, that is.”

Seti had to admit, it couldn’t have worked out better. Now, if only he could get something decent to eat. Rhonda, the pregnant one, was supposed to be bringing him food. Where the hell was she?

He got up and looked out the window of his small camper. There she was, talking with Ryan. It looked as if they were up to no good. He didn’t trust Ryan anyway.

The pain in his neck flared up like a volcano, burning and hot and sharp all at the same time. He tried to rub the thing with his hand, but it was hot to the touch. The pain only made him angry. That bitch! Why isn’t she here with my food!

The pain died down just enough to fuel his fit of rage further. He stormed out the door and over toward her. Both Rhonda and Ryan looked suddenly very guilty, as if they’d been caught stealing from the cookie jar.

“Damn you!” Seti fumed. “Where’s my food? I’m hungry, damn it!”

“I...I have some soup here for you,” she said, nervously, holding up a small pot.

“Soup! It’s July and hotter than hell. I don’t want soup! I want real food.”

He lashed out and sent the pot flying. The hot liquid scalded Rhonda’s bare arms, causing her to scream. This only infuriated him further.

“Stop whining, you ugly bitch!” he screamed. Then in a moment of pure hatred, he forgot everything: who he was, where he was, and what he was supposed to do. He rolled his fist into a ball, wound up and punched the woman so hard in the stomach that he dislocated his wrist. The pain shot up his arm and into his shoulder blade.

Too late, he realized that he’d hit something else, too. He felt something pop inside the woman, felt her hard, pregnant belly suddenly go flaccid. She staggered backwards, holding herself and gasping for breath. Then her water broke, unleashing a putrid stream down her legs, a stream of blood-soaked liquid that suddenly reminded him of the child, and the reason he was here.

“No!” he heard himself scream, and then realized it wasn’t him screaming at all, but the thing inside him, the thing that was living in the growth on his neck.

He had killed the unborn child, all right. He’d felt it and known it as soon as it had happened. And the thing living inside him was not pleased. It had had plans for that baby. And for the second time in one night, its plans had been spoiled.

-2-

Erik had a restless night filled with bad dreams, then his wife woke him up early.

“Wake up, Honey,” she said. “Sheriff Collins is downstairs. He wants to speak with you.”

“Ok. Tell him I’ll be right down. Maybe you can offer him some coffee.”

“I already have, and I’ll fix you a cup too.”

“Thanks, Vic.”

He threw on a pair of jeans and a T shirt and went downstairs. It was a little after nine o’clock and Collins was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him.

“Hey, Sheriff,” Erik said. “What brings you out so early?”

Collins stood up and shook Erik’s hand.

“I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“Ok. About what? Did you find the missing girl?”

The sheriff looked down at his feet for a moment. “I’m afraid we did. We found her stabbed to death by the side of the road. Route 102. She’d been tortured and abused.”

“Oh, God. I am so sorry.”

“Yeah. We all are. We also found a man’s body a few feet away. He’d been shot.”

“Was he the killer?”

“I don’t think so. But I need to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you see Johnny Dovecrest last night?”

“Dovecrest? What does he have to do with this?”

“We think he may be the involved. The bullet taken from the man’s body was shot from the type of gun that he owns. We’ll have to do ballistic tests to be sure. There aren’t many .45 caliber Beretta’s around here. And I know Johnny Dovecrest has one. I’ve seen him with it at the range.”

Erik swallowed hard. He didn’t know what to say. He supposed the truth was best—at least as much of it as the sheriff would believe.

“Well, actually Pastor Mark and I saw him at about nine o’clock, I’d guess. Where is Dovecrest? Have you spoken with him?”

“We can’t find him,” the sheriff said. “Tell me about last night.”

“Well, I was talking to Pastor Mark about some photos I’d found in the library. About an altar stone in the woods. A stone where they used to do human sacrifices, so it is claimed, anyway. We decided to go see Dovecrest and ask him if he knew anything about it.”

“Go on.”

“When we got to his house, he was gone. We heard gunshots in the woods, so we went to find him. He was coming back to his cabin when we found him. But I don’t think he killed the girl, sheriff. He may have shot that man, but if he did I’d say he was trying to help the girl. I think something is going on in those woods, something you should investigate.”

“Something is going on in those woods, Mr. Hunter. A teenage girl was tortured stabbed to death and a man was shot in the head with Dovecrest’s gun. And we definitely plan to investigate. We’re looking for Dovecrest right now. I know he knows something he’s not telling us. And I want to find out what it is. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“No, Sheriff. I don’t. But I’d like you to look at something. Just wait here a second.”

Erik went into his study and retrieved the pictures of the altar stone. He passed them across the table to Roy Collins.

The sheriff looked at them and snorted.

“I’ve heard about this kind of thing before, Mr. Hunter. I even believed it for awhile. But I’m telling you there’s no such thing as an altar stone in these woods. I’ve looked myself. And so haven’t the people from the university. This is just an urban legend. It doesn’t exist.”

“So you’re saying that there couldn’t be a cult group out there in those woods?”

“I didn’t say that. I have no proof one way or another about a cult group. I’m just saying there isn’t an altar stone. If it were there, I would have found it. Now as for a cult group—anything’s possible in this crazy world.”

“The pastor and I saw Dovecrest last night and he claims a cult group had the missing girl and killed her. He shot one of the members. They must have moved the bodies later.”

The sheriff made some hasty notes on a notepad. “Then why isn’t Dovecrest around? Why didn’t he call the police?”

“Because he knew no one would believe him. Sheriff, my son saw something in those woods a few nights ago. And my friend at the radio station told me there may be a Satanic cult in the area, a cult that’s been killing people. I think that needs to be checked out.”

“Thanks, Mr. Hunter. I will check it out. I’m on my way to see Pastor Mark right now. Then I may go back out into those woods one more time in daylight and see what I can find.”

“Thank you, Sheriff. If there’s anything I can do....”

“Just one thing. If you see Dovecrest, ask him to turn himself in.”

-3-

After he had spoken with Erik and Mark, Johnny Dovecrest had gone deep into the woods, to a small cave on the western edge of the reservation. He’d taken his guns, plenty of ammunition, and a week’s supply of canned food. If he had to, he could live off the land.

He knew the law wouldn’t understand what happened. They would assume that he was behind the killings. The demon would have no problem setting it up to look like he’d killed the girl. And the bullet from his gun would be linked to the cult member he had killed.

Besides, he would be the easy suspect. He was the Indian, the outsider. He knew how it worked. When in doubt, blame the outsider. He’d seen the same pattern over and over again for more than three centuries.

In some ways, it would be easy to let them catch him. He’d be put in a clean jail cell, given three meals a day and cable TV. What more could he ask for?

But for him a life sentence would be eternity. Besides, he couldn’t do anything to stop the madness from a jail cell.

He knew what had to be done. He had lacked the courage to do it the first time around, and had been content to merely imprison the demon. He thought the spells would hold it down forever, or at least until he could find someone to replace him as the guardian. But he had been wrong. The spells were temporary. And while they might have held for centuries, it took only a small disturbance to bring the demon back. And this time it had learned from its past mistakes. It would be much more difficult to defeat this time.

Furthermore, he didn’t have the support of the tribe, or of the colonists. They had believed back then. They had been able to see the truth and to band together to take action. The world had moved on now, though, and people no longer saw the truth. They were blinded by modern science and technology, and could no longer see the primitive struggle between good and evil.

Dovecrest found the old spells in their hiding place in the cave. He knew what he had to do. But he couldn’t act alone. He would need help, and he didn’t have much to go on.

Erik and the preacher seemed to believe his story, but even they were not sure. They would probably go searching for the altar themselves, hoping to find proof. That was the tune that the modern man sang. Show me. Give me proof. Nothing could be taken on faith alone. Everything had to have evidence and proof. And that was the demon’s strength. Dovecrest shook his head. If they only knew.

Of course, they wouldn’t find the altar—unless it
wanted
to be found. It had remained a secret for all of these centuries, and had ways of keeping people from finding it. No, they would look for it and come up empty, then they would discredit him entirely. Unless he could bring them to it and show them....

He moved to the back of the cave, sat down and began to meditate. He needed to gather his thoughts and formulate a plan.

-4-

Erik called Pastor Mark and they compared notes. They agreed that something weird was happening in the woods, and the Pastor had also urged the sheriff to check into it.

“Sheriff Collins is trying to trace the identity of the dead man,” Mark said. “I’d be willing to bet that he’s a member of some cult.”

“What do you think of the altar stone,” Erik asked.

“I don’t think the stone’s the issue,” Mark replied. “Maybe we should go and look for it, just the same, but even the sheriff said that the stone doesn’t have to exist in order for there to be a cult. As long as someone thinks it exists, they might be drawn to this place. And the legends of this stone have existed for years, according to the sheriff.”

“So what do we do now, Pastor?”

“For right now I think we need to wait—and pray.”

“That’s as sound advice as any I’ve heard,” Erik replied. “Let me know if you learn anything new.”

“I will. I’ll see you at services tomorrow?”

“You bet.”

Erik hung up the phone just as Todd walked into his office.

“Hey Dad. The girl is dead, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. They found her today.”

“They think the Indian did it, don’t they?”

“He’s a suspect. They’re not sure though.”

“It was the rock. The rock killed her.”

“It may be more than the rock, Todd. I think there’s a group of bad men running around in the woods.”

“Maybe there is, Dad. But it’s the rock that tells them what to do.”

“How do you know that, Todd?”

“Because it tried to tell me what to do. Only I wouldn’t listen. I fought back.”

“Todd, could you find that rock again in the woods? If, say, the sheriff and I went with you?”

Todd thought for a moment. “It depends.”

“What does it depend on?”

“It depends on if it wants me to find it or not. You can only find it if it lets you.”

-5-

Seti wore a loose shirt that only half-covered the nasty growth that was throbbing and bubbling on the back of his neck. He felt like Quasimodo as he drove through the small town. The place was Hicksville, he thought, with its tiny one-room library, a miniature post office, and a small greasy spoon restaurant lining what they thought of as “main street.” What a joke, he thought. The new plaza up the road was larger than this downtown. At least it had a convenience store and a dry cleaners.

He drove through main street and out onto Route 102, which would lead him to Route 6 and into Providence, less than 20 miles away. He had to recruit a twelfth follower, now that Tony was gone. But the voice in his mind—which now came from the growth on his neck, it seemed, had warned him not to take anyone from the town. Another disappearance would be noticed, and it wasn’t quite strong enough yet to have too many questions asked. Later, it wouldn’t be a problem—Seti was given a quick preview of what was going to happen to this town, and the sight wasn’t very pretty—but for now they needed to be discreet. There would be lots of fun later, but not until the time was right.

The thing had also told him to begin looking for another pregnant woman. It had chastised him severely for killing Rhonda’s unborn child. She herself had almost bled to death, and probably would have died if Monique hadn’t been able to stop the hemorrhaging. The monster had tortured him for hours after he’d done that, making the growth on his neck burn as if it had been set on fire with gasoline. The next time he disobeyed, it would be worse, it had warned him.