The Mark of the Damned Read online

  When Quinton opened his eyes, he was momentarily disorientated. He wobbled slightly, feeling a wave of light-headedness grip him. He was plunged in the darkness. The door shut behind him of its own accord. The only indication of which way he was facing was the milky yellow light which spilled around the frame of the door. A sliver of rectangular light in an otherwise dark room.

  Quinton tried to move but found his feet firmly stuck to the floor. His muscles refused to coordinate. The prickling sensation in his arm grew. Tingling. In the darkness he could imagine an army of green ants scaling up and down his body. Burying themselves between the dry, cracked crook of his elbow. Tiny needle-like legs scurrying as mandibles clicked and tested the flesh. He clasped his right hand over his left arm and felt the heat emanating from the skin. Disconcertingly, the locus of the warmth came from the center of the forearm. The place he had viewed the—

  pentagram

  —appeared on the floor. Vivid white and yellow lines appeared in front of him as though sketched by an invisible hand. Molten liquid forming the exact shape and outline that had now begun to glow on his own arm, as if one fed the other. Each stage a replica of the drawing on the floor. The feeling of a rusty nail dragged along his skin until the flesh surrendered, and the blood licked the iron point.

  Quinton had enough time to grunt in pain, his eyes watering. He wondered what the hell—

  hell

  —was happening. Was he still asleep? Was this all just part of an illusion cast by his own sleeping neurons firing at an alarming pace. His own fears of the presence of the tattoo manifesting inside of his head. He’d wake up soon. He knew he would, and he’d find the sun shining through his window, the chill October morning dampening the warmth from the rays.

  Quinton gasped, the light from the pentagram now bright enough to illuminate the room just enough to see by. As the lines finished their journey, joining together in a small shower of sparks and embers, Quinton felt a final white-hot throb of molten lead course through his arm. When he tried to scream, he found the sound silenced and was secretly thankful for not having woken his mother, who needed all the rest she could get.

  “You look pained.”

  Quinton froze, his eyes unblinking, staring at the floor. The voice familiar, but impossible.

  “Don’t worry, it gets easier. This is just a part of the induction process, I suppose.”

  Quinton hadn’t seen him appear. Had not even been aware of the fact that he was no longer alone in the room. But now the figure stood in front of him, the man faintly lit by the crackling image on the floor.

  “Dad…?” Quinton breathed.

  Now he knew he was dreaming. His father, the man who had given Quinton the best part of his evenings and weekends for over two decades, who had extracted glass from his palm following a fall at the skate park and took him trout fishing in the Spring. Who had been there for every triumphant moment of Quinton’s fleeting high school athletic career. Who had parsed advice on girls and given Quinton his first condom, handling a subject which should have made Quinton cringe, with tact and care. The man who had loved and shared and provided for a family in the outer limits of the city reaches, relishing in the quiet of the tiny village of Farside…

  The man who had died over six weeks ago, choking in the night. Hand clutched to his chest. Heart failing to beat.

  The man whose prognosis had been bleak and, though they had brought him back from the brink of death following the heart attack, had soon kicked the bucket when a second coronary starved his brain of oxygen and shut down his vital organs.

  Fifty-three. Fifty-three was too young for a man to die.

  But he wasn’t dead, was he? Not in the land where dreams could take wing and the impossible thrived.

  Quinton’s father gave a curt nod, a small smile on his face. “I know. It seems impossible, doesn’t it?” He looked around the room admiringly, as if appreciating the wonders of his own handiwork. “I honestly wondered if I’d ever see you again. They said I would.”

  “This can’t be… I mean… I’m dreaming, aren’t I? This isn’t real? It can’t be real.”

  “Oh, it’s very real,” Quinton’s father said. And, though his words were absurd, his gentile and reassuring nature came through in every syllable. “It just seems impossible. When, really, nothing is impossible if you know the right people.”

  Quinton shook his head, rubbed his eyes, pinched the small pouch of flesh at his waist, hoping the pain would shock him into wakefulness. Still the man persisted.

  “I know this is all very strange, Quin, but I want you to know that you’re going to be okay. Whatever may happen… What will happen. It’s all going to be okay. Although I can’t explain everything now, I will be with you every step of the way. They’ve assured me that I can guide you, get you started on the path so that you may continue my work here.”

  “Important work,” Quinton said, shocked by how easily the words slipped from his tongue.

  His father cocked his head to the side, an appreciable grin on his face. “Yes, important work.”

  Quinton’s mouth flapped open, then shut. He looked for the right words but couldn’t find any to fit the situation. A few moments ago (how long had it been? Ten? Fifteen? Thirty minutes ago?) he had been nestled up in bed, dreaming of—

  a bestial abomination

  —something which slipped his lucid mind, and now he was standing in an empty room talking to the ghost—

  ghost

  —of his deceased father. What words would come? What preparedness had there been for a situation like this?

  The pentagram flared, a pulse of white-hot light which hissed and spat, a trail of molten lava in a blacksmith’s workshop.

  His father’s eyes flickered to the floor, his own smile falling. He took a step closer to the light and Quinton’s breath caught.

  While softly cloaked in the shadows, it had been easy to miss. But in that tiny step forward he could now see the dozens of scratches which littered his father’s body.

  The material of his ethereal clothing hung off him in strings like crudely cut tassels. Parts of his pallid skin were exposed through the slashes, revealing deep wounds, the tissue beneath an angry crimson in the light. He spotted an almost exact replica of his own tattoo on his father’s left arm. In a gored section of his upper thigh he could see the white of bone shining through, a slick gooey trace of weeping pus dribbling around the wound’s mouth and sticking to the material of his trousers.

  And that wasn’t where the scratches ended. Quinton looked down in alarm to see that he was now stood in the center of the pentagram, once again having no recollection of moving or taking a step. The wood around his feet was scratched and clawed, like a kitten’s plaything. Deep grooves were etched into the boards, all splayed out from the center of the mark, as if some hole in the ground had swallowed a creature and the creature had resisted, clawing furiously for purchase before plummeting into the abyss from which it came.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Quinton managed, his throat now so dry his words had no substance. “Who did this? You… you had a—”

  “Heart attack? Don’t be silly, boy. I’m fifty years old and in the prime of my life. I didn’t smoke, I rarely drank, I kept myself in good physical shape. You really think I’d have suffered a heart attack at my age?”

  “You’re fifty-three,” Quinton smirked, unsure why it mattered.

  His father chuckled. “Right. Thanks for reminding me. Quin, there are a lot of things about to happen to you that won’t make much sense for a while. Some things that blur beyond the boundaries of what you believe to be true. The heart attack was a lie to cover up what really occurred here. A cleverly placed misdirection to hide the true nature of what has occurred—what will be occurring again. Over the course of the next few days you’ll begin to unravel the truth and, whilst I never would have wished this upon you, it is up to you to carry the mantel. You are my successor.”

  Quinton’s smirk
slipped. “When you’re done speaking in riddles, can you just tell me what the hell—

  hell

  —is going on? Out of nowhere I’m hit with a sudden throbbing attack in my arm and somehow inherit a tattoo and now strange things keep happening to me. The least of which is sleepwalking into your old study, finding myself in the center of a fucking pentagram, and staring into the shredded corpse of my recently deceased dad.”

  His father stared back with that same dumb admiring look.

  “What are you staring at?”

  “I’m proud of you, son. You never did take crap from anyone. You’ve got the heart of a lion.” He took another step forward. “Here’s the short version, considering that we’ve got about 60 seconds until She comes. But before I go into it, I need to say once more that you’ll be okay. When She comes, it’ll hurt at first, but it’ll be short. She’s only testing you. You got that?”

  Quinton nodded. What else was there to do?

  The pentagram sparked and pulsed angrily. The dark space in the center of the markings began to sag downwards, like toffee left to melt in the sun. He began to sink.

  His father sighed. “Thirty years ago, I made an agreement with a dark sort. A man who turned out to be far more than he appeared. I don’t have time to go into details, but I signed away my life in servitude of a dark purpose. At first, I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I later learned the glory of the task at hand. The beauty beyond the veil.”

  The pentagram hissed. Steam appeared from beneath Quinton’s feet. A sharp pain appeared in the center of his chest and he realized his father had shoved him backwards, out of the way of the mark. He examined his arm and saw that his flesh was steaming too. The pentagram bubbling and sinking inwards, although this time there was no pain.

  Quinton’s father’s voice grew louder as he took his own steps backwards, eyes now fixed on the hole appearing in the floor. The center of the pentagram dropped away. The wood bent and splintered, tossing itself into the void.

  “In exchange for my servitude I would be constantly provided for. All of my wants and desires would be granted, and I would want for nothing else. I would have the son that we so desperately wanted. I would never have to worry about money or health. I would have everything I wanted, in exchange for this.”

  Both sets of eyes were now fixed to the void which had opened in the floor. A low, grumbling growl came forth from the darkness, the sound reminding Quinton of a lion’s roar he had manipulated years ago on a decade-old laptop at Gabe’s house. He had slowed the track down, the pair laughing at the ridiculous bass of the lion’s deep and terrible roar.

  “What is ‘this’?” Quinton shouted, tears stinging the corner of his eyes. A waft of heat blew from the hole, a fetid stench like month-old meat and abandoned attics attacking his senses. “What’s down there?”

  His father’s eyes lit up hungrily, the sight of it turning Quinton’s stomach. Whether he had heard Quinton or not was difficult to tell, if he had, he chose not to answer.

  Quinton could hear the scrambling creature. He dared to lean forward, staring into the bottomless pit where two glowing lamps of eyes stared angrily up at him. The thing must have been a hundred feet below, desperately fighting for purchase and clattering claws against the wall which sounded like they were made of metal. The snarls and gasps as the thing exuded its effort were delirious. The ravings of a madman giving everything it had to escape the well.

  Yet, impossibly, it inched closer, the lamps growing to eyes the size of footballs. There was a glimmer of something that might have been teeth—was certain they were teeth when he heard them clap together. The sight reminding Quinton of his former neighbor’s Rottweiler who used to snuff and snap his mouth through a small hole in the fence every time Quinton went nearby.

  “Dad…?” Quinton said uncertainly.

  At his words, the eyes locked onto Quinton. The tingling returned to his arm. There was a pressure in his chest as though a hook had caught his rib cage and was pulling him down towards the void. He resisted, pulling against the weight with all of his might, feeling as though he should never be expected to hold that amount of weight from his sternum. The pressure almost too much to bear.

  And then it was over.

  The tug-of-war only lasted for a few seconds before the pressure eased and faded. He continued to stare at the thing below whose eyes now narrowed in frustration. There came an ear-splitting roar which echoed and bellowed around the chamber and the next thing he knew the thing was slipping. Its claws failing to find purchase as it tumbled back down into the chamber below.

  Quinton wasn’t sure how long he waited to hear the thing hit the bottom of the hole, but no sound came. Even long after it had disappeared from sight, there was nothing. No end to an endless abyss.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Quinton’s eyes snapped disbelievingly to his father. He couldn’t find the words to describe how he felt, though he knew that ‘beautiful’ wouldn’t have sprung to mind at all.

  His father crossed the room and placed hands on his shoulders which felt both cold and damp. The sickening smile still plastered on his careworn face. “You don’t need to speak. Don’t even try. I know it’s a lot.” He stared deep into his eyes, studying, scanning every iota of flickering, nervous movement. “You really have grown up to be such a strong lad. I couldn’t be prouder of you and how you’ve handled every piece of adversity life has thrown your way.

  “And now,” his father glanced once more to the floor where the hole had suddenly disappeared, only scratched floorboards in its place, “now you will be paid bountifully for your servitude. You will never long for anything ever again. Anything you wish will be yours, and everything you want will be obtainable. As long as you serve Her, she will pay you in kind. As long as you are here for Her.”

  Quinton studied the floor, still trying to process what he had seen. “Who is ‘She’?”

  “A story for another time. Just know that She is the stuff of legend. A creature long forgotten within the contemporary zeitgeist.”

  Quinton felt himself growing angry, wanting more answers. Everything he asked, his father diverted. “And what if I don’t want to serve? What if all of this is too much? What if all I want to do is break free of this shitty town and get as far away as possible. To forget all this and find a way to mourn you?” Tears began to return. “What if I can’t do what is asked for?”

  His father sighed, shoulders relaxing. “You will, because you can. It has already been decided. You are of my bloodline, and my bloodline serves Her, for as long as it exists in the world, what’s ours is Hers, and what’s Hers is ours.”

  The outline of the pentagram began to fade from the floor, replicating the fading glow from the marks on his arm. Quinton’s father nodded and smiled as his body began to fade alongside it.

  “Remember: I love you, boy. I’ve always been proud of everything you’ve done.”

  Quinton wanted to reply. Wanted to ask his father a thousand more questions but didn’t get the chance. Before he knew it, his father was gone.

  Quinton wasn’t sure how long he stood alone in that darkened room. Only knew that the starlings announced the dawn and that soon his mother would awake. Eventually he found his way back to bed, although sleep wouldn’t come. All he kept thinking about was the discomfort along his arm, the creature in the pit, and the ghost of his father’s smile which had hung in the air.

  5

  For the first time in as long as he could remember, Evergreen’s was quiet.

  A typical megamart with vibrant green branding and a smiling patron sporting a thumbs up over the entrance, Evergreen’s had been Quinton’s second home for as long as he could remember. The manager at the time – a heavily mustached man with a dazzling row of whites buried in his blood-red gums – had scrutinized every word Quinton had uttered in his initial interview, eventually confirming with a small nod of his head that he would give the kid a chance.

  That
had been five years ago. Now, at twenty-two years of age, Quinton had reached the pinnacle of his career so far: Store Supervisor.

  “Doug, can you just have a quick sweep of aisle twelve?” Quinton murmured into his overhead radio. “Mrs. Freeman has complained about the loaves of bread littered on the floor.”

  A tinny response.

  “I don’t know how it happened, just clean the damn—

  damn

  —thing up.”

  Quinton sighed. Every day of every week of every month since he had started working at the megamart, the store had been crowded and busy. A steady stream of customers filing through the door. He couldn’t count on one hand how many times he had wished for the custom to lessen. For a quiet day. A day in which he would have time to breathe and not run from till to till checking up on cashiers and sending his minions across the floor to retrieve clones of items because the ones the customers had picked just happened to not have a functioning barcode.

  How the hell can you break a bar code?

  But now that the store was quiet, he was fast growing bored. It was a little past noon, a time when customers usually flocked through the door for their lunchtime snacks and deals (£2.30 for a bag of crisps, a snack, a sandwich, and a drink of choice – oh my!) However, today there had been hardly anyone. Twelve out of the fifteen cashiers sat at their counters twiddling their thumbs, complaining about the lack of things to do.

  Quinton soon put a stop to that, setting the cashiers with idle hands to stocking shelves and helping out with the deliveries in the back. Yet, even then, there just wasn’t enough work to be getting on with.

  “Call it quits,” his store manager, Claire, called down his radio at 2pm when the store showed no signs of gaining any more custom. “I don’t know what’s hit us today, but this apocalypse is freaking me out. Another day like this and we’ll have regional down to flame us over the grill.”

  Quinton fought with the notion of protesting the decision. If he was sent home early, his wages would be less this month. That would mean slower progress towards his and Sarah’s house in the city.