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Devourer of Souls
Last Updated : 2021-09-06
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Welcome back to Clifton Heights. Sheriff Chris Baker and Father Ward meet for a Saturday morning breakfast at The Skylark Diner to once again commiserate over the weird and terrifying secrets surrounding their town. Sheriff Baker shares with Father Ward the story of a journal discovered in the ruins of what was once an elaborate koi pond and flower garden, which regales a tale of regret, buried pain, and unfulfilled debt: “Sophan” – Jake Burns has always been a bit...off. Rude, awkward, sometimes brutish, he's tolerated by Nate Slocum and his friends because he hits a mean line drive, and because they all know but don't discuss the abuse he faces at the hands of his troubled father, a Vietnam veteran consumed by his demons. But Jake is suffering something far worse than domestic abuse, and when Nate discovers what, he faces an impossible choice: help Jake and put himself in the path of evil, or abandon him, only to damn himself in the process. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing
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Devourer of Souls Coda
CODAThe welcome sign for Tahawus is up ahead on the right. A glance at the dashboard clock on my JEEP shows that, indeed, it is only about forty minutes away from Clifton Heights. I find that hard to believe. It feels like we’ve been driving for hours. Of course, I’ve learned in my few years in the Adirondacks that the back roads feel endless, surrounded on both sides by thick, seemingly impenetrable stands of Adirondack pine. A thirty minute drive to Old Forge feels like an hour and half, most days.As I slow for the turn-off, I glance at Father Ward in the passenger seat. He sits with Nate Slocum’s journal in his lap, staring out the window. He’s been quiet for most the trip. I don’t blame him. His encounter with Stuart Michael Evans sounded harrowing. Of course, he’s now telling himself that clicking sound from Stuart fleeing the confessional booth must’ve been his walker, and not . . . something else. That Stuart had suffered some sort of hysterical break instead of . . .Chang
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Devourer of Souls Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREENowFortunately not everyone in town was at church that night. A scattered few—those devoted non-attendees our faithful little town tolerated—had of course been at home. Some of them were volunteer firemen. They were the ones who found me in the basement the next morning.“Somehow I didn’t break my neck falling down those stairs. The heat and the smoke of course rose and enough of the floor held and didn’t collapse on me. I ended up spending only a week over at Clifton Heights General for mild injuries and smoke inhalation. I did, however, suffer ligament damage in my knees and ankles from the fall, exacerbated because of my CP. For several weeks I got around first in a wheel chair, then with a walker.”I sat back in the confessional booth, speechless, deeply concerned for the poor man’s soul, wondering about his sanity . . .Except.I distinctly remembered the burning of Tahawus Methodist Church, the summer after my senior year in high school. My father had helped o
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Devourer of Souls Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWOEver see the movie Backdraft, Father? By the summer of my senior year, everyone including me had. A good enough movie, it was mostly forgettable, except there’s this scene in which one of the fireman characters mistakenly opens a door without checking the knob for heat first. When he opens the door, his ass gets fried by a huge gout of flame. A backdraft, caused by the sudden rush of oxygen.Now, I’m not exactly sure if that’s what I was trying to accomplish. Point in fact, I didn’t end up causing a backdraft. For that you need a smoldering fire that’s used up all the oxygen in a room. But hey—I wasn’t a firefighter or arsonist. I was a scared and pissed off (but mostly scared) eighteen year old trapped in a room with no way out. The door was guarded and it didn’t matterby whom, because I wasn’t gonna be waltzing by them any time soon.That chanting was getting louder. Weirder. The words all jumbled and mixed together, like from my nightmare of what I’d seen in that clear
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Devourer of Souls Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONEThroughout his entire talk with me, the muffled sound of hymns had drifted from the sanctuary through the storeroom door. When he left, the hymns rose into a crescendo, exploding into a chanting the likes of which I’d never heard before. His voice boomed in that strange language I remembered from my dreams. I imagined him striding up onto the stage, arms spread high into the air, yellow suit blazing with unnatural light, the flesh on his face hanging loose as the thing that hid behind it got closer to finally coming out.I hauled myself to my feet, gasping at the pain exploding in my ankles and knees, gritting my teeth against a sudden surge of bile. Somehow I managed not to puke, leaning back against the shelf, gasping for air, trying to gather my resources for one last final . . .What?What could I possibly do? The man in yellow had covered all the angles. Had obviously planned this whole thing out long before he’d come here. Hell, he’d done it before, apparently, in
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Devourer of Souls Twenty
TWENTYWhen I awoke I found myself lying face first on a thinly carpeted floor. My head pounded, feeling about twice its normal size, throbbing behind my eyes. I licked dry, cracked lips and felt my stomach heave.I felt enormously tired. Fuck it all, right? I didn’t understand any of this. Didn’t understand why it was happening. How it could happen so fast. How apparently a quaint little Adirondack hamlet had turned into a compound full of crazed cult members in just several days . . .Of course, you’re assuming it didn’t start quietly, long ago.. . . I barely understood what was really going on beneath the surface of things . . .We’re going to be over into His Unknowable image.. . . and I wasn’t sure I cared much, anymore. My best friend or what remained of him was good as gone. My preacher Dad had not only gone full-on religious-nut-loony, he’d apparently set Bobby and me up as targets or even (fucking unbelievable) sacrifices to invite the man yellow into our town. If the
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Devourer of Souls Nineteen
NINETEENBobby’s front door slammed shut in the wake of my frenzied escape, a sharp crack disrupting that quiet July morning. Not caring if anyone saw me, I stumbled to a stop on the front walk, covered my face with my hands and breathed in deeply, trying to quiet the pounding in my head.What the hell had I just seen?In all respects, I’m thankful that to this day only distorted, fragmentary half-images remain of what I saw flopping in that water-filled bathtub. Those fingers, fish-belly white and slimy, had sprouted from a hand and arm of the same color. It had reached up from a body the same as it. Huge, bulging and reptilian-fish eyes had glared unblinkingly from beneath the water, and . . . and . . .Gills.Several rows of them, slits on either side of that . . . thing’s neck, from its ears to its collarbone. Gills, puckering in white skin, pink around the edges, fluttering open and shut in rhythmic pulses, bubbling . . . breathing underwater.Thankfully I remembered no more
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Devourer of Souls Eighteen
EIGHTEENIt didn’t take long to figure out why Dad hadn’t heard me scream, if indeed I had. The house was empty. Six-thirty in the morning—way too early for VBS to start, but the house was empty. I had no idea where Dad was. I assumed the church. Where else would the pastor of the town’s only church be during VBS? He’d left no note, however, and I had no idea when he’d left. For all I knew, he could’ve gone two hours ago, thirty minutes ago, or maybe he’d even snuck out last night after I’d fallen asleep. He always made his bed in the morning, so that didn’t offer much in the way of evidence.All these things tumbled through my head as I sat at the den table, staring into nothing. I didn’t know what to think or feel. Three days ago, Bobby and I had skipped the opening Sunday night services of our annual VBS to get snacks from the gas station and to chill. On the way back to the church we stumbled across those two dead dogs and that weird alter with the symbol carved into it. Both of
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Devourer of Souls Seventeen
SEVENTEENAmazingly, Dad didn’t wake when I screamed. In fact, I’m not sure whether or not I did scream aloud. All I really remember is jerking upright, heart banging, head pounding, sweating bullets and what sounded like a scream fading in my head.After about fifteen minutes—during which my heart hammered like I’d just finished a marathon—no sounds came from Dad’s room next door. No stirring of bedsprings, no creaking of floor boards, nothing.Eventually, my heart slowed down and my hyperventilating faded. I managed a shaking breath and ran a hand through my sweat-damp hair. I tried to piece together my second nightmare that week. Like last time, only blurred fragments remained. I’d been on the path in the woods heading toward that clearing, from which had come a strange and unsettling but also arousing medley of growling moans, grunting, hissing and yowling . . .The man in yellow.He’d been there. His face had looked different, however. Like a loose-fitting rubber mask. I reme
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Devourer of Souls Sixteen
SIXTEENIn the dream I was walking down the path again, this time at night. I shouldn’t have been able to see much, but the moon above seemed strangely large and bright. It cast an odd luminescence that filtered through the trees, bathing everything in an eerie yellow glow. The path seemed different. Alien. As if I didn’t belong there. It looked like the path running through the woods from the gas station to the church, but it also looked like it led elsewhere, somewhere different . . .Somewhere beyond.Up ahead on my left, I recognized the break in undergrowth leading to the clearing where Bobby and I discovered those two dead dogs and that weird altar. As I quickened my pace, compelled toward that clearing, I felt myself moving along the path smoothly, quickly, with purpose, strength and ease. I was walking with a rhythmic, even gait. I felt no pain in my extremities or my lower back at all.I didn’t look down at my legs, however, just marveled at how fluidly I was moving down t
Last Updated : 2024-10-29
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The Skylark Diner
THE SKYLARK DINERSaturday MorningWhen Father Ward enters I can tell by his expression that something heavy is weighing on his mind. In and of itself that isn’t unusual. As priest at All Saints Church and Headmaster of All Saints Academy he’s got a pretty full plate. Preoccupied seems his constant mental state these days. If he didn’t love his work so much I’d worry about it a little, honestly.Truthfully, in spite of how much he enjoys both his vocations, I do worry, but not about him burning out. Father Ward’s got a good head on his shoulders and a healthy dose of common sense. He knows when and how far to push himself, and when to relax. Plus, he served time in Afghanistan as an Army Chaplain. He saw some pretty rough action (though he’s never shared the exact details) and he survived just fine. You don’t manage that without some serious steel in your spine.No, it’s not Father Ward’s busy work schedule that concerns me.It’s this town, and the strange things that hide here.
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