Bailey
There’s so much blood.
Oh God, there’s so much blood.
I’m screaming, and I can’t seem to stop. My head swims at the sight of the nail gouged into Tanner’s hand. His agonized howls pierce through my skull in jagged bolts as he flails and fights against something I can’t see.
And then he’s gone, staggering out into the night with only incoherent shouts trailing in his wake.
I need to move. I need to get out of this fucking place.
Groaning, I struggle to my feet and assess the situation. Amos, using Tanner’s body, managed to fix a panel of drywall to the bottom of the small space, and it’s too high for me to simply step over.
I gather my strength and then kick out at the sheetrock. It splits with a sharp crack. At the same time, I cry out as pain shoots through my ankle and zings up my shin.
“Fuck!” I sob, bracing myself in the small space as my foot begins to throb.
But I don’t stop.
I can’t stop.
Somehow, Tanner must have broken Amos’s hold over him. I don’t know how he did it, but when I stared up at Tanner just before he put the nail through his hand, I was absolutely sure that it was the man I love looking back at me.
But how long can he hold Amos off for?
A shudder runs through me as I imagine the demon sinking his claws into Tanner again. And if he does, will he turn around and come after me? Would he try to destroy Tanner for defying him?
I can’t let either of those things happen.
Grimacing in pain, I drag myself out of the hole in the wall, through the hallway, and into the moonlit kitchen.
It isn’t hard to figure out where Tanner has gone. Blood has dribbled down from his wounded hand and left a blotchy trail for me to follow. The spots are almost black in the moonlight, starkly visible against the white tile of the floor.
I stagger through the house step by tortuous step. My ankle protests, and I think I can feel the bones grinding as I move, but I grit my teeth and force myself forward in spite of the pain.
The blood leads me through the backdoor and into the yard. I nearly slip on the damp dead grass but right myself before I can fall. I pause there, squinting out into the night.
Where is he?
A sloshing noise reaches my ears, the sound of somebody wading through the muck of the swamp. I turn toward the disturbance and am just able to make out the familiar shape of Tanner as he stumbles through the mud and waist-high water.
My heart sinks as I realize that he’s heading toward the cemetery. The crumbling tombstones beckon him, rising up from the hazy, humid darkness like the jagged teeth of a slumbering beast.
If he makes it to that island, the demon will consume him.
Ignoring the pain in my ankle, I fling myself into the swamp. I don’t know what I’ll do when I reach Tanner, but I know I have to try to stop him.
Water closes around my legs. Mud reaches up to pull at my feet as I wade deeper, coaxing me to stay. I feel like I’m in the stomach of something unfathomable, being slowly digested the further I go. And it’s true, in a way. Even if we make it out of this hellish place, the swamp has already taken me. I’ll never be whole again.
But it can’t have all of me.
I grab onto one of the gravestones and pull myself up onto the mossy clearing just as Tanner jumps into the deeper marsh beyond.
“No!” I scream, reaching for him.
But my fingers grasp empty air as the water rushes over him.
He floats there for a moment, his face bone-white beneath the surface. Then he jerks as though he’s been punched in the stomach. Mud churns around him and bubbles froth from his mouth as he struggles, blurring the scene.
“Tanner!” I throw myself down on my belly and plunge my arms into the water, feeling blindly for him, but I can’t figure out where he’s gone.
I pull back to watch and catch a glimpse of him a few feet away beneath the surface.
But he’s not alone.
He’s grappling with a shadowy figure, one I’ve seen in my dreams.
Amos, wearing a poorly rendered version of Dalton’s body, has his arms locked around Tanner. I can’t tell if he’s trying to hold Tanner down or drag him to the surface.
As if he senses my presence, Amos turns his ghoulish face up to mine and grins. In a flash, he pushes Tanner deeper into the brackish sludge and surges upward.
I barely have time to blink before he’s on me.
His hands, cold and slick, close around my throat. I flail against him, shredding the skin of his wrists beneath my nails, but instead of drawing blood, the greenish ooze of the swamp leaks out of his veins.
“Finally,” Amos crows, his face hovering only inches from mine. His breath is the stench of the marsh, of dead things returning to the soil.
I can’t fight this. I have no weapons, and the only person who could possibly help is somewhere under the water.
I’m powerless.
Amos’s fingers tighten around my throat, cutting off my air completely. Black spots erupt before my eyes. The throbbing in my head intensifies.
Help me. Please, anybody! Help me!
The silent plea plays through my mind again and again as my body begins to slacken in the demon’s grasp.
I’m going to die here.
My eyes flutter closed as I finally accept the crushing reality. Will anybody notice I’m gone? Will anybody come looking for me?
Helen will, I think. I’d promised to call her once we made it to Layla’s. She’ll know something’s wrong.
Wait.
Helen.
Helen had told me something important, hadn’t she?
My oxygen-starved brain struggles to dredge up the memory of us sitting in the kitchen, a piece of paper in front of us.
Words, strange words. A spell.
A weapon.
I can’t speak, but I picture the paper in my head. My mouth moves soundlessly as I trace the curves and sharp edges of the letters, willing them to be heard by something, anything.
My nerves, dulled by the lack of air, errupt with sudden electricity. Energy whips through me, crackling over my skin and churning my blood as I chant silently into the night.
“What…?” Amos gasps. His hands loosen around my neck.
Greedily sucking in the heavy night air, I take the opportunity to speak the incantation aloud. The syllables slide out in a coarse whisper, echoing across the water in terse ripples.
“From light to shadow, from stone to bone,
I send you back to the void you’ve known.
By earth, by sky, by sea, I proclaim,
Be gone, demon, in darkness remain.”
“No.” Amos is staring at me, his face lined with incredulous hatred. “No!”
Power builds inside of me. I feel incandescent as the words flow out of my mouth and into the darkness. The branches of the cypress trees shiver. Insects buzz in a feverish frenzy as the creatures that call the swamp home cry out in a hellish cacophony of sound.
In that moment, I realize that what Helen had said about this place is true. The swamp is ancient, unfathomable. Amos, Asmodeus, whatever it calls itself, might be old, but the power I tap into now is eternal.
Not even a demon can withstand the call of time.
“No!” Amos howls as his body is drawn backward. To my horror, I see that cypress roots have tangled around his legs and are pulling him back toward the dark water. Mud trickles upward in veiny rivulets, creeping across its pale skin in brackish tracks.
There are a million things I want to say in that moment, but I just keep chanting, my voice wailing above the roar of the marsh. The power gathers to a peak, and I feel myself teetering on the edge of something huge and beyond my understanding.
“From light to shadow, from stone to bone,
I send you back to the void you’ve known.
By earth, by sky, by sea, I proclaim,
Be gone, demon, in darkness remain.”
“Fuck you!” I scream, unleashing the tidal wave of energy in one terrible, devastating tsunami.
Wind whips through the cemetery. Amos lets out an inhuman screech as the roots and the mud suck his form down into the water. I watch as his wild, pale face disappears into impossible depths, something beneath the swamp itself.
And then it’s over.
The trees shudder into stillness. The insects and animals are silent once again. The muddy water ripples out to a smooth, matte plane.
Tanner!
His absence strikes me hard as I realize that he hasn’t surfaced. How long has it been? Seconds? Minutes?
“Tanner!” I call desperately, scanning the water for him. “Tanner?”
There’s no sign of him. Fear wells inside of me as I imagine him on the bottom of the swamp, gone forever.
I don’t stop to think about what to do next. I simply throw my aching, spent body forward into the water, toward the man I love.
Brackish liquid seeps into my mouth and nose. I force my eyes open against the grit. There’s barely any visibility down here, so I reach out and grope blindly through the mud. My fingers catch roots and rocks and things I can’t even identify, and then finally I brush the fabric of Tanner’s shirt.
Without hesitating, I grab his arm and kick up off the slimy bottom, propelling us upward.
We breach the surface in a surge of mud and water. Spluttering, I heave him toward the cemetery, using one of the gravestones to leverage him onto the mossy ground.
“Tanner?” I drop to my knees beside him, my hands coming up to frame his face.
He’s still, so still.
I feel for his pulse and find nothing.
“No,” I sob. “Tanner, no, you can’t. Don’t leave me, please!”
I want to break down, but there’s no time for that. I’m a nurse. I’ve treated drowning victims before. I know I need to act fast if there’s any hope of bringing him back.
Steeling myself, I pinch his nose shut and lean down to breathe life into his lungs. Then I pump his chest like I’ve done so many times before, chanting the beats out into the night.
“One, two, three, four, five.”
Another breath, another set of palpitations.
“One, two, three, four, five.”
I think of the power that had surged through me earlier. Was there any of that left? Would it answer if I called again?
“One, two, three, four, five.”
Please.
Please!
“One, two, three, four, five.”
On the final pump, Tanner’s body spasms as muddy water erupts from his mouth.
He retches again, and I roll him on his side so he doesn’t choke. Tears of relief flow down my face as his eyes flutter open.
“Tanner?” I ask, gently cupping his face in my hands. “Baby? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he coughs weakly.
It’s the best sound I’ve heard all day.