So dazzlingly blinding was Sam’s pain, he wavered in and out of consciousness, visions and lights dancing in the far reaches of his peripheral vision. He could hear everything going on around him—Georgia’s incantations, Alex’s weak moans, Trey doing his best to keep up with all that was asked of him. Even with pain as his filter, Sam could feel every molecule of Trey’s frustration.
The Dark Man was there, too, haunting him. Cognitively, he understood the spirit wasn’t real, but it sure as hell felt real. And he didn’t know which was worse—the physical pain they were about to feel or the very real fear of the Dark Man’s wrath, even if that wrath existed only in his mind. Sometimes, your brain was your worst enemy of all.
Sam felt the evil spirit circulating the room from person to person, screaming without words at the incompetence, hurrying and pressuring Georgia and Trey to let him through. Sam kept telling himself it was a drug-prompted hallucination, but if it looked real and felt real, who said it wasn’t?
When he did manage to open his eyes, his vision was a blur. His head was battered. His arm was numb from a compound fracture. He was broken in multiple places, but it didn’t matter. The five of them were solidly tied up, about to die anyway, only a miracle capable of saving them now.
One of the five guys had escaped; Alex had replaced him. He knew that much. He could hear Alex whispering apologies for having allowed himself to be tricked by these two whack jobs, heard his silent tears, and as much as Sam tried not to care, hearing Alex brought him to tears. He could also hear Colby pleading with Trey, who stood a couple feet behind Colby’s bound wrists.
Georgia continued her incantations. Her voice was shrill, a whole level up from the tone she’d used over the last few days. “Dark Lord, do you hear us?” She was screaming now. “We are your servants! We have carefully laid the foundation for your renaissance…”
Sam pried open his eyes.
He spotted Colby wiggling his hands to get Trey’s attention. “Hey…Trey, listen to me. I remember the party. To be honest, I’ve always remembered it. Okay? I remember the conversation you and I had. You talked about going to college, not knowing what you wanted to do in life. You made college out to be the best decision for everyone, and yeah, I was put off by that, because clearly, I took a different route. But I remember. Trey, you listening?”
Colby was trying to delay Trey, make him remember the good days. If Sam had known those L.A. parties would’ve been “the good days,” he would’ve paid closer attention. Now here they stood in Death’s driveway.
“I even remember what you were wearing, bro. Ripped jeans and that big smiley face in the middle of your shirt. You remember?” Colby laughed. Sam admired him for trying.
Above him, Trey gave the weakest of smiles. Still, a smile was good. “My ex-girlfriend gave me that shirt. I wore it that night because I missed her. I was wallowing in the pain of our breakup.”
“And she probably missed you, too,” Colby said, running with it. “In fact, she’s probably not mad at you anymore. If I were you, I’d try and reconnect with her. All you have to do is get out of here. Get us all out, and we can take you back home with us. Come on, Trey. Georgia doesn’t give a shit about you. She’s using you.”
Georgia turned on a dime in the middle of her ritual, stared straight at Colby. “Why isn’t he gagged?”
“You forgot to…you didn’t—” Trey stammered.
“I didn’t?” she snapped. “Just gag him. Now. And stop listening to him. You were a different person then, weak with no future.”
“But is it true?” Trey asked timidly. Sam had yet to see him talk so frightfully with Georgia. What happened to the confident older-man swagger?
“Is what true?”
“That you’re using me? That you don’t give a shit about me?”
Sam watched as Georgia took a step toward Trey, and he stepped back as if to avoid her lies and more pain. “Of course not, baby. My life changed when I met you.”
“Yeah, because she saw a weak sucker who would do her bidding,” Colby muttered and got a swift kick to his head from Georgia’s bare heel. He cried out, flinched, his eyes filled with agony. “It’s true, Trey. Don’t listen to her. A good woman will share her life with you, not make you serve her every whim. The world is filled with good ones. Let’s go find them together, you and me.”
Georgia drew back her foot, let it go hard, and kicked Colby in the ribs. A loud snap made Colby cry out and Sam brace in vicarious pain. He wished he could add a thing or two to say to take the brunt away from Colby, but the gag was tearing into his bite.
But Trey kept taking several steps back until he stumbled into the desk, struggling to put distance between himself and Georgia, who pleaded, hands toward him, “You know it’s not true. You know I love you, would die for you.”
Colby kept on, encouraged by Trey’s newfound doubt. “She thinks you’re an idiot. That’s why she picked you. Are you an idiot, Trey?”
Georgia cornered her lover, pinned him between the desk and the side wall. “Think of all we’ve been through together. Are you going to let one fool ruin everything for us? Because that’s what he’s trying to do. Here…” She yanked a long knife from the desk and handed it to him, along with a stack of wooden bowls. “It’s 11:04. Time to place the bowls by their hearts. We’re almost done.”
“It’s 11:04, Trey!” Colby bellowed, as if he knew they’d be his last words. He had to make them count. “Time to kill your girlfriend!”
From next to him, Sam heard Nate chuckle softly.
Trey wrenched the stack of bowls from the witch’s hands and resentfully circled the room, placing one on the left side of each guy, as Georgia returned, with a satisfied grin, to the center of the circle. She knelt, arms up in the air. Sam stared at his bowl, flecked with old dried blood from whoever used it before him. He tried to imagine some poor dude in the last moments before his death, helpless to help himself, much like the five of them. At once, all of them began groaning, screaming through their gags, as Trey finally shoved a gag into Colby’s and Kalani’s mouths.
“11:06…” Georgia sang with joy. “Dark Lord, as we prepare to receive thee, please bring with you the fruits of our dedication to you. Fame, riches, restored youth and beauty, everlasting health, and immortality for me, for my beloved, Clint…”
“My name is Trey,” he muttered to himself.
Sam’s eyes flitted to Trey standing near his hands. Even though it killed him to move his neck, Sam nodded up and down, as hard as he could, to encourage Trey. YES… he tried talking through his gag.
Georgia hadn’t heard him and continued on. “Dark Lord, we thank you for everything you have given us, this land, this home, this paradise by the sea. Thank you for guiding us all these years…” She held up her athame, pointed it straight to the center of the ceiling. “As the new moon brings new life, new opportunities, we prepare for a new cycle, rebirth in your name. Oh, dark angel, I draw down the moon, hold its boundless power in my hands, and prepare to make the first sacrifice.”
Why couldn’t she figure out there was no dark angel? There was only her damaged mind, like Charles Manson, and five more senseless deaths ahead of her. She would never find what she wanted in life, because true happiness wasn’t delivered by a demon spirit. True happiness came from within. Even Sam knew that, and he wasn’t a spiritual guru.
Tears dripped off the sides of Sam’s cheeks into his hair. This was really it. The end. He had so much to do still in his life. Maybe the universe had given him so much success early on because it knew his life wouldn’t last long. Oppressive gloom surrounded Sam again, as Georgia’s prayers built upon each other, grew louder in volume, until she was screaming them at the sky.
Sam heard a whirring sound, a ringing in his ear, blood rushing faster and faster through his arteries, as his adrenaline peaked. Colby’s gaze caught his. In them, Sam could see a lifetime of good times, of goofing off, of videos made, of stories told, of secrets shared, of teamwork, of sorrys and thank-yous.
No need to apologize, brother. I had a great life with a great friend by my side.
The whirring grew louder, choppier, blades beating in time with his heart. It wasn’t the blood in his veins. It was a helicopter outside. Maybe I did do something right. It was hovering over the house, as Georgia screamed the last of her incantations and ended with, “As above, so below, so mote it be. Blessed be thy name. Clint, prepare for the hearts.”
“I said…my name is Trey.”