46
Salem
The Nest
T he angel was going to eat me alive.
Its jagged teeth were embedded deeply in my leg, the pain reverberating throughout my body as I was dragged through the darkness.
Dirt filled my screaming mouth, my head knocked about on invisible obstacles as the creature moved with unnatural speed through its narrow burrow.
The seconds felt like hours as my flesh was torn and pierced, my bones splintering with unspeakable agony.
I wasn’t sure if I fell unconscious, or merely sank into shock. For a while, I was only aware of darkness and pain.
Slowly, the cold crept over me, and I became frighteningly aware that I was freezing. As if I lay on a block of ice, the cold seared through my flesh and ached in every muscle. Violent shivering spasms brought me hurtling back to reality.
I was alive, somehow, but I didn’t dare to open my eyes. I feared that if I did, I would see my own death approaching.
I took a deep breath—and gagged. The smell was putrid. A hundred different kinds of rot collided in my nose. It stuck in my throat like bile, too awful to swallow. A cough exploded out of me and I curled into a ball, frantically covering my mouth as the coughing continued.
The sudden movement caused sharp and splintering pain to shoot through my leg and foot, as if my bones were made of needles.
The pain made lightning flash behind my closed eyes, and I almost screamed. My head swam, and I lay there listlessly for a while, drifting away into semiconsciousness. All my willpower was devoted to remaining silent and blocking out the pain.
Finally, I opened my eyes just slightly, taking in my blurred surroundings through my lashes.
Red, black, and gray. The surface I lay on was squishy and damp, and the awful smell was emanating from it. Straining my ears for the slightest sound, I held my breath.
The roar of the ocean’s crashing waves echoed around me. Water dripped and the wind howled. But I didn’t hear the angel’s voice.
My heart beat a little steadier, and my head felt clearer. But with my return to reality, the pain also felt sharper.
Opening my eyes completely, I moved my head just enough to survey my surroundings.
It was a tower of some kind—filthy, dank, and dark.
There was a rusted spiral staircase, draped in moss and debris.
There were old crates, barrels, and rusting machinery, all covered in a thick layer of filth and grime.
I was lying on a compressed layer of putrid rot. It covered every surface, even the walls, as if plastered there intentionally. Like a swallow, building its mud nest...
But this nest was built of flesh and blood. A decayed collection of victims, both human and animal. I lifted my shaking hands; they were coated in the stuff. Mud, slime, and blood.
The smell was horrendous, but I forced myself to take slow breaths, as deep and steady as I could. I needed oxygen. I needed to get up . So long as I didn’t move my ankle too suddenly, the pain was bearable. A result of shock, I guess. My brain felt numb but my body was electric.
Slowly, I managed to crawl to my hands and knees, then to my feet. I could barely put weight on my leg without wanting to scream.
The boot on my injured foot was missing, and in the dim light I could see the damage the beast had inflicted. Deep lacerations curved around my ankle, which was swollen, red, and purple. My foot was stiff, two of my toes positioned at odd angles.
God, it hurt so badly I wanted to cry. But I sucked it up, biting my tongue as I shuffled my way toward the staircase. I didn’t even want to think about the amount of bacteria in this place. What if I made it out of here alive only to die of sepsis?
One fucking problem at a time, Salem.
Gritting my teeth, I lowered myself to the ground and crawled behind some old barrels near the stairs to hide.
Where had the creature taken me? This was clearly a human structure, but the angel had made itself at home since the building’s abandonment.
Sticks, twigs, bones, and leaves were piled in the corners and on the stairs.
Strange items were strewn on the stair railing and stuck on the gory walls. Jewelry—wedding rings and cross necklaces. There were torn and bloodied jackets, and random scraps of clothing. There was even a rusted old gun, and what appeared to be matted clumps of hair.
Like mementos, decorating a nest.
There was an old door, but mounds of mud and petrified gore were blocking it. The faint light came from above, and I suddenly realized where I was.
The old Blackridge lighthouse.
There had to be a way out of here. Cautiously, I crawled out from behind my barrels again. My hand squelched into something black and slimy, releasing more putrefaction into the air, and I choked down my gag.
I didn’t have to crawl far before I reached the jagged edge of a hole in the concrete floor: a tunnel, burrowed deep into the earth below. This was how the angel brought me in. If I was brave enough, it could also lead me out.
Or it could lead me straight back into the jaws of the beast.
I had to be cautious. I had to think . But God, my mind was racing. Panic was creeping up and I began to hyperventilate. I crawled back behind the barrels, squeezing myself into a corner and making myself as small as possible. I was too terrified to cry, to move, to act.
But if I didn’t do something, the angel would return to finish me off. I would become a part of its morbid nest. My family would never know what became of me, they wouldn’t even have a body to bury.
I thought of Rayne, of Rebecca and poor little Rachel. At least they were safe, at least it had taken me instead of one of them. I didn’t regret it. Even scared as I was and in so much pain, I would do it again. I would put my life on the line for those kids, and for the woman I loved.
Thinking of them brought back a little of my courage. I wasn’t dead yet; neither was my will to fight. I couldn’t allow myself to rot here until death came for me.
Still hidden behind the barrels, I examined the mass of fleshy webbing beneath the stairs.
It clung to the walls, forming what appeared to be a large cocoon.
Peering through thin gaps in the sticky, wet substance, I spotted something lying inside.
Believing it to be the branches or pale roots of a tree, I unsheathed the knife from my belt and began slicing through the webbing. Perhaps I would find a way out.
But it wasn’t an escape I found within.
It was a skeleton, perfect and complete down to every finger bone, surrounded by the melted remnants of six black candles.
“Oh my God...” I whispered. “Melanie...”
Her bones were completely stripped of flesh, intricately carved with row upon row of unrecognizable symbols. The amount of time it must have taken to carve this, I could only imagine—hours and hours, bent over these bones while they still smelt of the acid used to clean them.
She had lain here for years, cold and exposed, surrounded by the macabre nest of the angel she’d been used to summon. Abandoned in the very lighthouse she had once gazed upon from her window, entombed below the beacon she used to watch for in the darkness.
Suddenly, above the sound of the wind and waves, I heard scratching. A scraping, like something being dragged. An ominous, throaty clicking sound echoed around the tower.
It was coming from the burrow.
In a panic, and with no idea where to go, I dropped to my belly and crawled farther under the stairs.
Stretchy, sticky webbing was everywhere, and I slashed through it with my knife, wedging myself into the tightest corner I could, my back pressed to the wall.
I clapped my hands over my mouth right as a pair of long spidery limbs emerged from the ground.
The angel clicked and chattered as it entered the room. Random words, all uttered in different voices, fell from its horrid mouth. It passed close to the stairs, hooves squelching in the muck.
It came to the place where I’d been lying and paused, nose to the ground.
Its high-pitched shriek made me cover my ears, my teeth set on edge. It rose up on its hind legs, sniffing the air, its mouth hanging open. Then it began to scurry about with frantic speed, climbing over mounds of bones and rot.
It was searching for me. It was only a matter of time before it found me hiding here.
“Come out, sweetheart.” It tried Andy’s voice again, and my stomach churned as I thought of the poor man lying dead in his barn. “Where are you?”
Its voice was like a skipping record, repeating the same phrases again and again.
What could I do? The only way out of here was back through the tunnel.
But the thought of trying to crawl some unknown distance through that tiny space, with the angel in pursuit—I’d never survive.
I’d be killed before I ever saw the light of day.
Think, Salem, think .
I had to get out of here, and my only other option was up.
The angel continued its rampage, eventually scuttling through a narrow crack in the floor down to the cellar. Now was my chance. Maybe the only chance I’d get.
Keeping an eye on the crack, I crawled for the stairs. I tried to hurry, but when I braced myself on a blackened piece of wood, it snapped in half under my weight.
It wasn’t wood at all. It was a human arm.
Bile rose in my throat, but I forced myself to keep crawling. As I reached the stairs and cautiously put my weight on them, something brushed against my leg, and my heart nearly exploded from my chest.
Scrambling forward, I tried to drag myself upwards as my uninjured leg was grasped, pulled back, and suddenly as I was being grappled, held tight but gently. A familiar voice whispered urgently in my ear, “Don’t scream, it’s me, I’m here.”
“Oh my God! Rayne!”
Her face was streaked with tears as she held me. She was covered in mud, as dirty and cold as I was, both of us trembling as we wrapped our arms around each other. She kissed my hands, touching me all over as if in disbelief I was truly there.
My words barely audible, I gasped, “How did you—”
“I crawled.” She mouthed the words, pointing back toward the tunnel.
She crawled through the dark, into the unknown and alone with a monster, just to find me.
“You’re alive,” she whispered again and again. She kissed my face, regardless of the filth. She cupped my head in her hand and held me against her chest. “I’ve got you, Salem. We’ll get out of here.”
If only that moment of relief could have lasted an eternity.
Like a bolt of lightning striking down, the angel shrieked and we both flinched. It would return at any moment, searching for its lost prey. Our wide eyes met, a silent promise in her gaze: Whether we lived or died, we would go together.
Pressing my finger to my lips, I motioned for her to follow me. We crawled back under the stairs, toward the cocoon, and I pointed within. She frowned, and used her knife to cut a larger opening.
Her face went slack with disbelief. Her breath came faster, and she shot a worried glance toward the crack through which the beast had crawled. It was scurrying about below us, claws scratching, hooves clicking.
Silently, we crawled into the cocoon. Rayne knelt beside the bones, her eyes far away and glossy. She reached out slowly and reverently laid her hand on the skull, marred with etchings but perfectly intact. She touched the delicate finger bones and bowed her head over the hollow rib cage.
“Mom,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Edging closer, I wrapped my arms around her and laid my head between her shoulders, listening to the sound of her beating heart.
Her fingers squeezed around mine, and she whispered. “Let’s end this.”