The Forsaken-Part III

The Forsaken — Part III

Mary Lou Jones had a secret she’d been keeping from Arthur, the local police chief. She lived in fear. Mary Lou was diagnosed with cancer years ago. They spent their life savings and money they didn’t have for her to fight the cancer, only for it to return a few months ago. She struggled with the idea of telling her husband that she was dying.

As a young girl, Mary Lou had been a dabbler of sorts. She tried her hand at many things, never finding her true self. One of those things was why she’d had to attend Catholic school as a young lady. Her parents were religious and wouldn’t have a daughter interested in the occult.

Mary Lou held onto the books she curated on the subject, keeping them hidden away from even the love of her life. She attended gatherings in Salem and frequented festivals celebrating the legend of Lilith. Working as much as he did over the years, Arthur believed his demur wife was traveling with the women from church.

Arthur was a deep sleeper, suffering from sleep apnea and being in his late fifties. It wasn’t hard for her to escape from home. She pretended to read. Only after she knew Arthur was in a deep sleep would she leave. That was how she kept the second most important secret of her life.

Mary Lou made her last middle-of-the-night journey a couple of months ago. She worked to prepare for the big night for two straight weeks. The conditions would never be better, and she knew success meant not having to tell Arthur the painful truth.

An ancient Pagan ritual was Mary Lou’s only chance. After weeks of studying, she had everything she needed for her big night. Mary Lou drove to the county cemetery. It had the perfect location.

The ritual was over a thousand years old and had to happen on hallowed ground. The ideal place was in the center of a crossroad, where nobody could claim ownership. Pulling up to the spot she picked out, Mary Lou nervously gathered everything to perform the ritual, not realizing what would happen.

She dug a small hole directly in the center. Once done, she had to prepare the offering. That was the hard part of the plan. She gathered everything, including the heart of a majestic bird. She put a picture of herself into the burlap baggie, tied it together, and pulled out a ceremonial dagger.

Sliding the blade across the palm of her left hand, Mary Lou let the blood flow, dripping onto the burlap sack. She repeated a phrase in Enochian. After the third time, she remained there, on her knees.

There was nothing sexy about the ritual. There were no scary lights or strange beings that appeared. It was simply a vision in Mary Lou’s head.

She was no longer at the old Scott County cemetery. Once surrounded by the grave sites of paupers and murderers from the state prisons, there was nothing but darkness. Still on her knees, Mary Lou heard the echoes in her mind, echoes of his voice.

“You have little time!” echoed the voice of a demon. “And you want more!”

Mary Lou was startled by the booming voice shaking the ground beneath her knees. Sounds of screams in the distance frightened her. They were the sounds of tortured souls shrieking in the void.

“Yes,” she finally answered.

“And you know what that requires of you, what you will have to do to prove yourself worthy?”

She knew nothing ever came free. The deals were pretty straightforward, requiring the promise of an eternity of service stretching from this life into the next.

She agreed to the deal, knowing the terms were as damning as the deal itself. The once good little Catholic girl now served chaos. For Mary Lou, it was the only way she wasn’t leaving Arthur alone in the world.

Because of the wicked deal, Mary Lou was now a servant of Aamon. Her anger over cancer, her deep desire to lash out at the world for being unfair, and her openness to practicing the dark art of witchcraft opened her to Aamon’s embrace. Aamon now controlled her and would use her to unleash wrath upon an unsuspecting world.

Being the wife of a Police Chief put her station beyond reproach. She was the perfect tool for what Aamon had in mind for the midwestern town. Aamon was going to reap souls and many of them. Mary Lou was going to bring them to her.

“Honey,” Arthur yelled, “Why’s the basement locked?”

Mary Lou speed-walked across the basement and up the stairs. She had locked the door from the inside. As Mary Lou opened the door, peaking through the crack, the woman smiled at her husband. He looked dapper in his uniform, and she always admired the class and professionalism he brought to the look.

“What are you doing down there?” asked Arthur.

“Well, I’ve been working on your birthday present, trying to get it wrapped up without you catching me,” she chuckled as she patted her hand on his chest. “And where are you off to?”

“Do you remember when I told you about that favor for the Diocese? I’m meeting him this morning to go over case notes.”

“Well, promise me you’ll be safe. This whole business of a serial case has me worried about you,” Mary Lou admitted.

Arthur gave his wife a loving hug and kiss and promised her he’d be back for dinner, even if it were a late night. Besides, she was making a meatloaf, one of his favorite dishes. His wife’s meatloaf was famous at the station, but it was all for Arthur tonight.

Mary Lou returned to the basement. She was in the middle of prepping for Aamon to take his recent prize. All she needed to do was finish the job.

His latest prize was the soul of a college freshman. She was a playful young thing who enjoyed torturing her fellow academics. Mary Lou targeted her after reading a post online. His pain was palpable and because of Vicky. Vicky was a perfect sacrificial lamb to Aamon.

Mary Lou understood who Aamon was and feared disappointing her new master. She hated herself for what she was about to do, but if it meant more time with Arthur, she would keep bringing Aamon more victims. She looked down at the poor cheerleader and comforted her.

“It’ll all be over soon, my dear,” Mary Lou told her.

Mary Lou lit the candle and dropped some bones into a ceremonial cup. She sliced her hand open and drizzled drops of blood into the cup. Chanting in Latin, she continued until a heavy wind shot through the basement of her home.

“He’s here,” she exclaimed.

Aamon, not only wanted the souls but insisted that Mary Lou torture the victims as punishment for their sins before dragging them with him. He taught Mary Lou how to torture a soul, starting with its fleshy, tastier parts. Despite not wanting to do such things to people, Mary Lou had a penchant for doing Aamon’s bidding. She enjoyed hearing him root her on and took his directions as she learned more and more about inflicting pain.

When Aamon arrived, he voiced his approval of the latest sacrifice. Vicky could only see him in the form he chose on earth. She tried to scream through the gag in her mouth, flailing around on the table as Aamon bent over her, his glowing eyes staring into hers. To Vicky, he was all smokey and haunting-looking. Mary Lou could see Aamon as a beast. He was a beast she hoped to keep appeased.

Picking up her blade, Mary Lou put it against Vicky’s shirt. She sliced up the middle, stopping to hook it beneath her bra. Vicky tried to cry out for her to stop, but her muffled begging resulted in Mary Lou shushing her. As Mary Lou cut through the fabric connecting her bra, she pushed the blade to the collar of her top, revealing her young, taut body to Aamon.

The first cut was across the girl’s lower ribs, and she made it shallow. Each one caused Vicky to wince in pain, and Mary Lou made dozens of shallow cuts. She carefully went over every inch of the girl’s body until most of her fleshy, tastier parts were a crimson mess. When she walked away, she heard Vicky breathe. It was a sigh of relief that would be short-lived.

Mary Lou came back with a pair of skinning pliers. She was quite adept at using them to peel the skin from flesh. Summers on the Mississippi meant catfishing, and she could skin a catfish better than most guys. She hooked the pliers onto a cut and gripped them tightly before she forcefully peeled away a layer of flesh.

Vicky screamed. It was loud enough that her gag did little to muffle the noise. She watched as Mary Lou held the torn-away flesh up to her master, tears streaming down the side of her face as she realized the hopelessness of her situation. Seeing Mary Lou licking the fleshy meat from Vicky’s body, Vicky knew the worst was yet to come.

The shock of the second, then third parts of her flesh being torn away nearly sent her into shock. The nerve endings felt like they were on fire. The torture she was enduring was becoming too much, and with the blood she’d already lost, Vicky was losing consciousness.

Hours later, the body strapped to the table in Mary Lou’s basement was a hideously disfigured corpse. There was little left of the girl that was Vicky Swartz.

Aamon had been satisfied, and Mary Lou was cleaning up after herself. She’d gotten particularly messy and worried that Arthur might find something in the basement that would ruin how he looked at the love of his life. Mary Lou was a meticulous woman and knew how to dispose of the remains, little bits at a time.

Over the next few hours, she carved up the remains into smaller lots of what was a college girl and took them out to her plants. Mary Lou carefully buried each part, making it appear she was doing her gardening and caring for her flower beds. Nobody needed to be the wiser as Mary Lou finished in the garden, ridding herself of the larger bones from the body of the cheerleader and then going in to clean up herself.

“Oh geez, Arthur will be home in a few hours. I better start cooking,” she told herself.

Arthur and Lucas Shaw were viewing tape from a recent abduction that Lucas believed might be connected to the case the church sent him to investigate. Watching the tapes, the cameras only captured a black, shadowy appearance. Chief Jones didn’t know what to make of the problem and called it a technical error.

“Six different cameras on four different systems,” commented Lucas. “That’s one convenient technical error.”

“How do you explain it?” asked Chief Jones.

“Interferrence,” answered Lucas.

“What kind of interferrence only blocks out the suspect and nothing else in the image? That’s nothing I’ve ever heard of.”

“That would be why I’m here, Chief, because there are things that most of you have never faced, witnessed, or learned,” explained Lucas.

Chief Jones didn’t understand the lack of transparency in Lucas’s visit and didn’t sign up for a secret investigator in his office. He needed to know what Lucas’s assignment was and why he’d received the request for assistance from such a high position in the church.

“That’s a discussion that if we have it, you won’t be able to unhear what I’d tell you,” advised Lucas. “Suffice it to say, the cooperation of local law enforcement is necessary to fulfill my mission. So, I’m willing to share if you truly want to hear the truth.”

Lucas sat there, looking at the nearly retired chief as he contemplated demanding answers. Chief Jones was a believer, but was the church as deeply ingrained into him as it was in others? Lucas was about to learn how much Arthur Jones wanted to know about evil.

At the point when Chief Jones started to speak, an officer opened the door to his office.

“What the hell?”

“Sorry, sir, but you said you wanted to know if there were any missing persons reports filed. A lady just filled out a report about a Vicky Swartz. She’s been missing for two days,” explained the young officer as he handed a copy of the report and the photo to his boss.

“Thank you. Let me know if there’s any updates.”

“That’ll be number seven,” sighed Arthur. “And we haven’t found a single one, not even remains.”

“You won’t find them,” Lucas said. “Not soon, anyway.”

There was a knock at the door. Chief Jones opened it to a young officer who looked panicked.

“What is it, Walt?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I think you should come outside and see it yourself.”

Arthur and Lucas looked at each other. They both exited the office, heading toward the front of the station. People were standing outside, many of them in the streets. Lucas felt the tension before they made it through the door.

“What the hell’s going on out here? Get out of the street you damned fools,” ordered Arthur, seeing dozens of people staring at the horizon.

Lucas saw it first, a thick fog rolling in over the horizon. It was eerie and daunting.

“Chief Jones,” Lucas called out, pointing in the air.

“What? We live along the river. It’s not that uncommon,” replied the old cop.

“Sir, the river’s behind us,” sighed Lucas. “If that’s not a fire, it’s the strangest cloud bank I’ve ever seen.”

Chief Jones realized he had never seen such a thing. Whatever was coming was quickly descending upon them all, and people were scattered all over.

“If you don’t get people off the streets, they’re going to vanish into the mist. You’re chief of police. How about an annoucement over the radio stations. Get people to shelter in place,” suggested Lucas.

“That’s a great idea,” admitted Arthur.

Arthur ran inside, alerting one of his men to sound the civil disaster alarm. He contacted the radio station and arranged to make a public announcement. Arthur let them record his voice to play over the radio and promised more information when it was available.

“Thanks,” he said. “When you go home drive carefully, this is the thickest fog, or mist, or whatever it is I’ve ever seen.”

At the Jones house, Mary Lou watched as the dense fog surrounded the neighborhood. She smiled as she put her hand against the window.

“Yes, my lord. I can hunt more in this fog than ever before. My husband won’t have anymore evidence of the offerings.”

Standing in front of the police station, watching scared people as they disappeared into the misty fog, Lucas held the crucifix in his pocket and prayed. Somehow, he knew this was a sign of the power located in the area. His phone rang.

“I need anything you have on mysteriously thick mists or banks of fog rolling into areas connected with the princes,” he explained. “Give it time. I’m sure you’ll see this on the weatherchannel, if not the nightly news.”