WALLS OF THE DEAD Read online

  The wind howled like a mad dog frightened by a full moon. Furniture in the living room where the priest lay imprisoned by invisible chains on the floor, began to move. All the pieces of furniture scooted at first, and then the sofa, the tables, the chairs all began to walk, using their wooden legs, stomping out slow rhythms as they came toward the epicenter of the storm. The vase of flowers spun in the air, faster and faster. The cushions from the sofa rose and danced in the air maniacally then slammed against the wall and began to creep up toward the ceiling.

  It was all alive.

  Linda tried to get to the priest to help him from the floor, but the wind held her back with wide hands.

  It's happening all over again, Linda thought. It's what was going on in my parents' bedroom the night they died.

  She saw then the smoky columns of figures in their infernal rags, their faces blank and indistinct, their arms outstretched toward her, their fingers ending in talons.

  Where are your weapons? she asked of them. She was quaking with involuntary spasms, her back screaming from the odd positions her body twisted into from the waist. She was a stick figure, a pretzel person, her feet lifting off the floor, her arms pinwheeling, her head turning back and forth on her neck until it was a blur. She struggled to keep her mind whole.

  We don't need them this time. There will be no bodies left to be found. You're coming with Us.

  "I won't go with you! You don't have the power to make me! I cast you out. Be gone!" It was all she knew to say.

  The smoke-filled creatures laughed, the cacophony rising like the herald of trumpets. They paced towards the old woman. She was weak and disoriented and lost as she spun and twisted in the air. Others rose up from the floor then bent down and covered the body of the priest making him shriek.

  The girl stepped from her hiding place in the hall and stood in the living room entrance. She pointed at Linda and said, her voice large and louder than the wind of chaos whirling throughout the house, "They granted you the gift of knowledge. You've talked with the sun, the moon, the earth. And still you didn't reach understanding. They gave up on you six years ago and brought me forth. You're not the One. I AM THE ONE!"

  Linda cried out knowing in her heart that the girl was right. She had but a few scant moments to review her life from age six to sixty. Why had she not questioned how she could communicate with what a human was not allowed communication? It had been granted her, given to her. She had been spared death so long ago in this house because she'd been chosen to bring forth the minions of Hell.

  And you failed. We tried so hard with you. This time we gave all the gifts at once to the child. She will lead us out of the darkness and into this world at last. YOU, we have no more use for.

  The priest lay wailing on the floor, dozens of taloned hands piercing his flesh. His eyes were popped from their sockets. His arms, legs, and torso were gripped by hard claws and torn bit by bit, the pieces flying off into the windy maelstrom that swirled madly all around.

  Linda, seeing truth, recognizing everything at once and how it had been planned for her, cried out weakly.

  We sacrifice You. We sacrifice Him. We Come Forth...

  There was a rending that spelled doom, a sound that could break eardrums and make them bleed. The house convulsed along with its dying human inhabitants--the woman, the priest man.

  The room filled with bloody flesh. With bone and cartilage. With blood and feces and portions of intestines. Brains broke into particles and dusted the air. Blood splattered and dripped from the walls.

  When it was done, when the house had been baptized this final time, the wind died, the smoky demons slithered back into the walls, and Diane stepped back with a happy sigh. Outside she heard the beginning of the end. Sirens wailed. Trees split and cracked, sending limbs and trunks to the ground. Houses toppled in upon themselves, imploding. Cars slammed into other cars, into curbs, into houses and buildings. A cry was rising, a human cry of great suffering.

  The walls of the dead had brought about the catastrophes that had been waiting since the beginning of the planet to take it down.

  The child who helped make it so went to the door and, opening it, stood looking out into a sky that was scarlet streaked with ebony. She saw that chaos held dominion.

  And it had only begun.

  THE END

  Please look for Billie Sue Mosiman's other stories and novels from the dark at her KINDLE STORE.

  Her web page/blog is at: The Peculiar Life of a Writer