As I was about to rush to the backyard, I saw Ruth again; at the door, with her hand rested on the jamb. She had a bland look over her face. I wanted to walk down to her, take her hands into mine and thank her for helping me against their ruler. To tell her that I would try my best to repay her trust upon me. She wanted the freedom as badly as me; or perhaps, worse. Though pale, still her face looked so cute and adorable. I couldn't believe that just some minutes ago I had seen her in a gross condition.
I stood there blankly, staring at her face with the container in my hand. Her eyes were fixed upon mine. But then my perception started warning me. She's a part of The Warwick's. She's a part of the curse. The Devil's men are using her to allure you. It was all justified. I had to believe it. Nothing was more important than our goal now. Not even a small girl who had died years ago; and even if she had been alive she would be my grandma's elder sister's age. She shifted her gaze at the half-opened window. So did I. I could hear Father Richard grunting and digging the earth outside. As I looked back at the doorway, she was gone.
I gave out a sigh of relief and as I moved further, she appeared suddenly before me. I stopped and held on to the canister more tightly, trying not to make it fall. She had an innocent look over her face. Her eyes went down. 'Oh Edward... Opportunities can be so sinful sometimes', a monstrous voice spoke out of her. I was just staring at her, petrified, expecting her to leap at me any moment. The sweat over my eyes was starting to blind me in accordance with the darkness.
She didn't leap. She just raised her head up and gave me a grin. 'Still a mile left', she said and then disappeared as I blinked my eyes. I looked here and there in haste, while trying to hide the cure behind my back. No, you can't snatch it from me. You can play with my dreams, you can harm me, you can arrange this blood-game out here at your paradise... But I won't let you fuckin' snatch it!
Casting aside the fear of being dominated, I limped forward and crossed the doorway out to the hall. Nothing happened. The door to the backyard was through the living room past the hall. It was right in front of my eyes now. Just some yards to make a limping run for.
Juddering my injured leg, I prepared my run when suddenly the door to the backyard creaked. I thought it was Father Richard but then he came up from the digging site, perspired, and holding the spade in his hand. And then the door started swaying along its bolts. It was going to close.
'Oh, no, no, no, nooo....'. I ran towards the door; so did Father. The pain all over my body were screeching out to me. I had put in all of my left-over effort into my body. But as I was about to reach it, the door slammed shut itself and got locked. I crashed onto the door and slammed my hands at it. 'Liam, boy, you okay? We need to open this', Father asked from the other side.
'Yeah, Father. Let me try'
I kept the canister down, just by my side, and started banging and throwing myself on the huge door. It went on like that before I shifted to kick it and its bolts though my good leg. It didn't seem to budge; really hard for an old building like this.
'Fuck... Father, you must go. Just carry on with the digging. I'll make my way through'. He affirmed and I heard his footsteps running away before he started grunting and digging. He seemed more in haste now. I was feeling sorry for him to make him do such a hectic job at such an age.
Turning back, as I looked down, I found the canister missing. I yelled out in anger and started searching for some other way outside. I limped down to the front door and tried to open it. It was locked too. Getting back to the backyard door, I started pushing myself against it again, but to no avail. I checked on some windows nearby but all of them were jammed. I smashed the glass pan of one window and tried to make my way through, but it was too narrow for me.
Infuriated, then I hurried down to the centre of the hall. Standing under the chandelier, I called out to him, 'Hey Ed! Okay, you wanna face me, then come on you holy motherfucker. Just face me this time. I am tired of running now myself. Let's end it once and for all! The fuck you come before me! Come on, you filthy rat!'. I shoved a small table nearby upside down and then smashed my fist onto the wall. I was furious now.
Then suddenly a fat, old woman appeared before me, in a whitish-pink night gown. There was a deep bloody depression in her belly which displayed a gross look. 'You need to get rid of it, Liam', she said; her eyes fixed upon mine. I shook my head and said, 'Not in your hands, dear'.
'Yield your submissive self', another lady spoke out from my back. I turned around to see a woman in her early-thirties, standing there naked, with her ankle and hip badly disfigured. Her body had turned pale. I retreated back. Then, from Momma Warwick's room, came that old man who was trying to eat my leg, with blood on his teeth. For a moment I wished to smash the bottle on his face. Running down from the stairs came a girl, in a plain pink skirt. I was retreating back continuously. Another middle-aged man arrived from the living room. All of them were surrounding me slowly as I was now standing near to the wall of the hall. The horde was getting over me now.
Then suddenly a hand appeared from my back, across my neck, and nabbed me in a fit of choking. It was of a man with a strong, hairy arm. His grasp was strong enough to overpower me and even though I was trying my best to flee, his strength seemed unmatchable. He pulled me and lay me down as all the others retreated back.
'Valhalla not far now', a voice spoke out mockingly as I looked up in its direction. It was the scary apparition of Edward, hanging from the chandelier, giving me a grin. He leaped down and landed just before me. 'Here we are, Liam. It is the real cusp. My friend, all you needed to do was just to appease rather than some petty and crazy attempt of retaliation. But you know, I have a job. My errand is you and my wage is strength'.
'What you gonna do by grasping all the strength when you are all tied up?', I asked him. All the ghosts had stopped and had dropped their heads down.
'Ah!', he exclaimed mockingly and crouched before me. Then he started running his bony hand across my cheek. 'Sometimes you seem so worldly and sometimes, so sick of foolishness. I have my limits and I know how to fucking capitalize on that'. He ran his hand down to my chest and grabbed my shirt. 'You need to drop this shit', he grumbled to me. I was out of any fear in my mind.
'You know what, Ed, it was actually your fault that all of this happened. Rather than holding your patience, you let yourself be exploited'. The grin on his face was starting to disappear. I was talking to the good Edward hidden in him. 'You were depressed about your job, all right. But had you lost your religion and sanity? Had you lost your fucking mind?! Rather than searching for a job, who asked you to indulge in Satanism? Now say, who's worldly and who's... Fucking. Foolish?!'. I screamed at the top of my voice.
The phantom loosened his grip and let go of my shirt. Then he grabbed me by my temples and said, 'It's everyone who gets deluded by the lustre!'. He stressed his grip upon my temples and dug in the bones of his fingers. 'Now you're mine. You shall be the brightest trophy in my cabinet! After I have you, I will get that old bastard'. He screamed victoriously with his mouth wide open.
My eyes rolled with pain. Now it all seemed beyond my control. I started losing my consciousness. Hot blood started flowing from my temples. All the ghosts raised their heads up and gazed at me, with a faint smile over their faces. The cumulative effect of being choked and crushed by the temples were starting to blind me. I was slowly losing my consciousness. I had already lost a lot of blood. It was all happening again now.
The faces of my dear ones started flashing before the eyes of my mind. First, it was my mom and dad. I could see myself as a child, while we were in our old countryside home. I could see the incidents of my childhood one-by-one. I could see my elder sister. I could see my first day at school. Fred was the one whom I had got to know first. Larry used to live by my neighborhood and he joined my class two years later. Bob came a year after. I could see us all cycling together through the far countryside roads. We all graduated together. My sister got married. Two years later, she gave birth to my nephew, Rick. I still remember I had cried taking him into my arms. Four of us moved together to Reynburg, and then all of this began. I wish Larry had never picked up that coin. I could sense myself weeping.
My eyes were now closing forever when he stopped. So did the man nabbing from behind. My eyes opened. Both of them had loosened their grip upon me. Taking the opportunity, I fled away from them. The souls were starting to fade and reappear. There was no man at the place where I was being held. The corpse form of Edward was starting to twitch and struggle. I was astonishingly staring at him. One moment he is overpowering me and then the other moment he's struggling.
'What the -? How's it -?', he seemed confused himself as he glanced up at the backyard door. I followed his gaze.
The doors opened ajar as I saw Father Richard standing down there, just by the burial. He had dug the place down to the bones, gathered up some bushes from the yard, stashed them down into the pit and had put them on fire. The apparition grunted and the hand of his dead-body from the pit erupted out and rose up.
'Watch out', I cried out as the hand was going to close in on Father's foot. He immediately removed his leg and got out of reach of the hand. 'Liam! The coin!', he called out to me. I turned back to Edward. He was now down on his knees and groaning in pain.
'If you think you're the remote accessor, then we are your fucking jammers', I said as I pulled out the coin from my pocket and started limping towards the door. 'Not yet, you filthy scumbag', Edward called out to me. And then I felt as if someone pulled me by the leg, thus resulting in me falling down with a thud. My head crashed against the floor and the coin jerked out of my grasp as I gasped and looked up at it rolling away. He used his telepathic force to pull me back to him.
'Didn't you think it was that easy?!', he mocked at me.
Father Richard tried to reach out to me. In the process, the hand from the pit eventually got his leg and crashed him down. I laid out my hand in desperation as Edward started cackling loudly behind me.
And then I noticed the coin's path. It was moving straight. Straight to the backyard porch. The cackle slowly came to a halt, also the pull, as all our eyes got fixed upon the coin. But then I got up and sprang at Edward. I knew he would use his telepathy again to stop the coin. I jumped and grabbing his head, thrusted my thumbs into his eyes. He roared and yelled out, simultaneously pressing his bony hand against my leg wound. I shrieked myself but didn't let the thumb away as he fell back down, with me on his chest this time. His eyes were hot like fire. I stressed my knee upon his chest and further increased the pressure on his eyes. His body was down and his hand on my leg as both of us were going on shrieking continuously.
Then I glanced back at the coin. It was on the porch now. Its speed has lessened though. It was about to wilt. Oh no, God, please. Please, O Lord, please! Then the coin descended down to the porch steps and that gave it its required pace. I had lost sight of the coin now. Also the sweat over my eyes had blurred my distant vision. But I could see the flames rising up. I followed the gaze of Father Richard. He was looking up at the coin as it descended all through the stairs, and must have rolled on its way. A sense of joy was coming over his face.
Edward yelled out louder under me and removing his hand from my leg, thrashed it against my cheek. I lost my hold this time and fell down on the floor. He got up and making a run towards the backyard, stretched his hands as if to work his telepathy once again. He had barely made it some metres when he screamed, 'No!!'
Then the whole ambience became silent for me as I just lay there and kept glancing at the door in anticipation. The hand had let go of Father and I saw him standing up as he thumped his fist in the air with a bright, victorious smile on his face. It was all which meant.
I started laughing and glanced at the horrifying apparition. His body started twitching fast now. His muscles started to wilt and his bones started to crack as he dropped down in despair. He knelt down and returned me a wild, defeated gaze as I went on laughing like a maniac looking at him. His eyes were starting to lose its flame when I took my glance away and started clapping as I closed my eyes and started crying.
I had broken down. We had all gone through a lot since our ominous visit here. Tears rolled down as Larry's face flashed before my eyes. I had loved him so much. We had spent so many beautiful moments together. I wish we never came here. But then I felt happy suddenly and my tears of grief turned into tears of happiness. I had done it now. I had demolished The Warwick's. I had conquered it. I had avenged my buddy's murder. Had we never have come here, no wonder how much more lives would have been wasted. It all needed the sacrifice of Larry for a glorious deed. His death had instilled determination in me and now I was successful.
I had a feeling of relaxation now. I had an urge to sleep. The adrenaline level was low now and I felt like my eyes were slipping. I put down my head and hands and relaxed my body. The world started darkening before me and the noises started fading. I could now faintly hear Edward screaming as I slipped into a peaceful slumber.