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  The Devil’s Assassin

  Brian M. Holmes

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1999, 2013 Brian M. Holmes

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher and author.

  ISBN-13: 978-1484016541

  ISBN-10: 1484016548

  First Edition 2013

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  END NOTE

  About the Author

  Prologue

  If, to you, it seems like bad things happen only at night, then you, my friend, are clearly incorrect. Bad things happen at all times of the day, light or dark. That’s a fact. Evil may prefer the shadows but it is ready to strike twenty-four seven. This story, which takes place in May of 1993, begins at the time of day during which most people believe bad things happen … a time that is more nerve wracking and frightening than other times of the day, because when it is dark it is more difficult to see the shadow that’s about to pick your pocket or end your life. If, however, it’s night and you are sound asleep when evil creeps up to your bed – your nerves will only be wracked if you have the fortune of ever waking up again.

  The Devil’s Assassin

  Chapter 1

  In a dark, fog laden forest in Ontario, Canada sits a dimly lit cabin. Hundreds of crickets and as many tree frogs create a cacophony of noise in what should be an otherwise bucolic location. A couple of owls, one nearer and one more distant add their more baritone notes to a post-meridian symphony. A bat flies in irregular patterns around the perimeter of the cleared area where the house sits, dashing silently in and out of view. Fireflies wink on and off.

  The sound from a television in the cabin wafts weakly out into the noisy night and after a time disappears. A light in the house goes out followed by another. The house is plunged into darkness and silence as the nighttime symphony continues. A slim crescent moon rises over the cabin while the fog ebbs and flows around the cabin.

  Something has been lurking in the woods outside the cabin for a couple of hours, watching the moon’s rise and the billowing fog’s ebb and flow and now this lurker moves toward the darkened house. The fog billows as the lurker moves through it. It moves slowly and steadily toward a window which is slightly opened.

  Finally, it reaches the window and begins to try to push it up. It doesn’t move easily, but the lurker takes his time, working slowly and confidently. A couple of times the window squeaks and the lurker stops pushing to be sure it hasn’t woken the house’s sleeper. After about ten minutes of work on the window it is open enough for the lurker to climb through.

  Once inside and without hesitating, the lurker moves toward the bedroom. It is as if this prowler has prowled this cabin’s interior before this night.

  In her bedroom, a forty-seven year-old woman lies sleeping in bed, covered with a quilt. She is alone in the dark room and in a deep, restful sleep.

  A click disturbs the silence in the room, but the woman continues her slumber. The door knob, which is what made the click, begins to turn slowly, almost as slowly as the minute-hand of a clock. The prowler has a great deal of patience and caution, knowing too well the price of carelessness. In this bedroom, in this cabin, in these woods, the lurker has all the time in the world.

  Finally, the door begins to open. Again, to avoid door creaks and squeaks, the lurker allows the door to open very slowly. He can smell his victim long before the door is open wide enough to see her. When the door is open enough to admit him into the room, the lurker moves softly over the wood floor until he stands near the side of the bed.

  As he regards the sleeping woman, noting the position of the quilt draping her body, a white needle suddenly jumps into view, stiletto-like, in front of the lurker. He considers the woman for a moment more and then drives the needle into the sleeping woman’s chest. She shudders. The lurker draws the needle out as quickly as it was driven in and turns to leave the room.

  Before moving out of the room the killer pauses to lick the needle, cleaning it of the blood which now stained it. He then walks out of the room, closes the door behind him and finds his way to the victim’s kitchen. There he opens the refrigerator door and places all the fruits and vegetables he can find into a plastic shopping bag he finds on the kitchen table. The killer then stands up, leaves the kitchen and heads toward and through the window that he had entered the cabin through, closing it quickly behind him.

  He takes a bite out of an apple he had taken from the woman’s refrigerator as he disappears into the forest.

  ›

  It is a bright, sunny morning as a young woman leaves the front door of a farmhouse. The farmhouse is adjacent to a field of wheat. A couple of crows caw noisily to each other while a song bird sings. The young woman waves her hand at the door as she leaves.

  “Tsai jien,” Miss Sung says brightly, which means ‘goodbye’ in Chinese. She continues walking toward her car, gets in and then drives it away as she does every morning on her way to work in a nearby factory.

  After a few hours have passed at the same Chinese farmhouse, the birds are quiet and few other sounds break the peaceful day beyond the passing of an occasional diesel truck on the nearby road. Inside the house a radio softly plays Chinese music as an old woman sits sleeping in an easy chair with knitting in her lap.

  The doorknob begins to turn slowly. It is minutes before the door opens enough to let someone in the house. A small form steps through the door and advances directly toward the easy chair in the living room. The intruder stands in front of the woman’s chair watching her breathe and snore softly. He tilts his head to regard her face, matching the angle of her head. In the midst of this almost soft moment, a long white needle suddenly appears in the intruder’s hand and is immediately thrust into the sleeping woman’s chest. She shudders and dies instantly.

  The killer pulls his bloody needle out of his victim, leaving no visible wound on the old woman.

  As he turns, he licks the needle clean of the blood of his victim. He then finds the kitchen where he fishes around in the refrigerator, taking as many fruits and vegetables as he can find in a bag he finds there. After he has his unusual booty, he leaves by the front door.

  ›

  A campfire burns under a dark, star-studded sky on the plains of Argentina. There is popular Argentine music playing and two grizzled gauchos sit near the fire on camp stools listening to a boom box. Cattle can also be heard nearby and horses are tied up nearby, tents are pitched and Coleman lamps throw a little light on the campsite in addition to the fire’s light.

  Another gaucho is in a nearby copse of trees relieving himself. He hears a stick crack in the darkness to his left. He looks in that direction and sees something coming toward him.

  “Quien es?” he asks.

  His answer comes in the form of his brief surprise and fear as, in the moment before he dies, he sees his attacker driving a white needle into his chest before he can utter a sound. With his pants still undone, the gaucho crumples to the ground. The killer licks
his needle clean and escapes unnoticed through the grass and into the Argentine night.

  At the campfire, the other two gauchos are smoking and listening to the music. Hearing or sensing something, one of the men stands up and calls out, “Roberto!?”

  Chapter 2

  At the same moment that the gaucho is killed in Argentina, the sky over New Jersey is also dark and star-studded -- at least it is over the thinly populated rural area known as the Pine Barrens. A car travels down a straight road lined with scrubby pine trees. The radio in the car is playing a late night talk radio show called Coast to Coast A.M. that’s hosted by Art Bell. The driver of the car is listening intently.

  “I’ve had an out-of-body experience recently, or what I feel must be one. And that’s why I’ve called you back to my show, Dr. Zaruba.”

  “I’m happy to be back, Art. I was excited to find out that you had one. Let’s hear the details.”

  “Well, I had been asleep for a couple of hours the other day,” says Bell, beginning his story, “and I woke up and was having trouble getting back to sleep. There was a buzzing in my ear or head. I know because I wondered specifically what the buzz was from. But the next thing I knew that wasn’t the issue.”

  The driver looks at the radio, paying close attention to the radio host, and then back at the road ahead.

  “Yes, exactly,” says Dr. Zaruba.

  Bell continues. “I could see myself lying on the bed – no covers on me because of the Arizona heat. I went from my body over to the window, looked outside briefly and then went out through the closed window and up. I looked down at the house. I kept getting higher and the house getting smaller. I think I was afraid of getting too high because all of a sudden my foot twitched and my consciousness shot back into my body like a taught rubber band. Right down through the roof and into my body. I woke up and that was it.”

  “That’s classic, Art.” exclaimed Bell’s radio guest. “Many people describe out-of-body experiences in just that way.”

  “So, it wasn’t just a dream?”

  “No,” said Zaruba. “I doubt it very much. This happens to people much more often than they think. Most people assume that they’re dreaming. But our souls like to break free of their mortal bonds once in a while.”

  Linus Hather, the driver of the car, nods his head as if he is affirming Bell’s story personally. He switches off the radio as he pulls into the unpaved driveway at his humble, one-story house. A motion detector light comes on and lights up his house and the pebbled driveway. The house seems to be alone on a large, flat, and virtually treeless plain. The ground is very sandy and what grass grows is scrubby and coarse. He turns off the car’s lights and surveys the well-lit area.

  Linus gets out of the car. He is six foot four inches tall and somewhat burly, though not overweight by much. He still wears his prison guard uniform and his gun is also holstered at his side. He walks around the house looking for anything that might be out of place. An inspection he does routinely upon arriving home.

  Satisfied that nothing is amiss, he punches in the alarm code at the side door, goes inside, and immediately rearms it.

  At first glance the living room appears typical, with a couch, a side table on which sits a lamp and a phone and a model of the Nautilus, the submarine from 2000 Leagues Under the Sea. A boom box sits on the only shelf of a bookshelf that isn’t overflowing with science and paranormal books. A recliner and a TV fill out the room. But the room is actually anything but typical thanks to the fact that a large fake tree boasting a wide trunk and limbs takes up one wall of the room. It casts a Rain Forest Café aura over the living room. On another wall is a particularly frightening picture of the Jersey Devil (which is said to inhabit this same part of southern New Jersey). In a corner of the room, near the ceiling, is a small video camera.

  Linus walks through to the dining room which is adjacent to the living room. This is where he keeps Sava, his lemur. He opens the cage with a smile, gives the animal a quick pet as it bounces out of the cage, across the room and into the tree in the living room. Linus walks to the kitchen to get an orange juice.

  On the kitchen table are Science and a nature magazine. Drink in hand, he makes his way around the rest of his house, checking out each room and closet to make sure there is no one in the house. In his room, he even bothers to check under the bed. When the in-house inspection is done, he relaxes on the couch. He talks to Sava, who drops down out of the tree to accept a scratch on the back.

  “I don’t know why I go through all this every night. You’d let me know if anyone was in the house, wouldn’t you, Sava?”

  The lemur coots at the sound of Linus’s voice and Linus smiles as he scratches the animal behind the ear.

  ›

  An hour later it is deep into the night, three a.m. Linus is on the Internet and listening to music on his boom box. He has an almost empty bowl of popcorn next to him.

  “Well, Sava, I guess it’s bedtime.”

  He shuts off the computer monitor, puts away his snack, and collects Sava to be placed back into the comfortably nested cage. He then grabs the boom box and carries it still playing to his bedroom. He sets it down on his dresser and goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth and get ready for bed.

  ›

  Outside Linus’ house, about 100 feet away, someone sees the bedroom light go out and hears the music go off. Crickets chirp and a wind chime chimes.

  The full moon casts a shadow of the lurker’s form on the sandy ground as he moves silently toward the house. He stays outside the area around the house that he knows will trigger the automatic lights. This still allows him to approach his chosen window with sufficient stealth. At the window a needle comes up and he slides it in between the window frames to move the lock. Then the lurker opens the window slowly and silently. He is patient, and after 10 or 15 minutes of slow work the window is open and the intruder climbs through it and into Linus Hather’s dining room.

  The intruder pauses at Sava’s cage and contemplates the still sleeping animal for a brief moment. After a short time he considers the animal as no threat to his mission and turns away making his way quietly to the bedroom.

  In the hallway in front of Linus’ bedroom door, the intruder pauses before proceeding. The door is closed and has a normal round door knob on it. His fur-covered right hand moves toward the doorknob. When his hand touches the knob and begins to turn it, the floor which had been under his feet is suddenly no longer there. The instant the floor drops away, an electric shock jumps from the doorknob to his hand so that in surprise and pain, he shrieks, releasing the knob and falling into the pit below.

  At the same time, an alarm begins to sound.

  ›

  Linus is in bed sleeping and upon hearing the alarm, he springs up from the bed, grabbing his gun from the nightstand at the same time. He moves slowly through the dark room along the walls and out of possible line of fire from the door. Soon he is standing to the right of the door, at which his gun aimed. The switch for the blaring alarm is near the door and he turns it off. He flicks on the light and squats down to avoid possible gunfire, readying himself to open the door.

  “Throw down your weapon,” he shouts. “I’m armed and trigger happy!”

  Linus pauses as he listens for a response. After a deep breath, he turns the door knob and swings the door open. The bedroom light illuminates the hallway and the wood floor in front of the door. It doesn’t look any different than it did when he went to bed. Is it a false alarm? The trap had never captured anything before, but it had been triggered - once through an electrical surge and once by Sava who had been sufficiently frightened and stayed away from his room for three days as a result. And once every month or two he tested the trap to make sure it worked properly.

  There is only silence at the moment. Maybe it was a misfire. Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to go down into the basement and see if there is someone in the cage.

  There is a light in the basement, but to be sa
fe Linus grabs a flashlight from the kitchen junk drawer and carrying that as well as his gun he makes his way to the basement door which is closed and locked. He unlocks it, carefully opens the door and switches on the basement lights with the switch at the top of the stairs. He listens but doesn’t hear anything.

  “Hello?” he says. No reply returns from the bottom of the stairs. More and more he is becoming convinced that the trap has probably misfired. At any rate he figures that he still needs to proceed with caution and he does so by slowly making his way down the wooden steps to the basement with his gun leading the way, his finger a quarter of an inch from the trigger. He is not being quiet as his feet land on each step down but he is being cautious.

  Finally, he is on the last step. Off to the left of the stairs is an open area of the basement filled with boxes of books, Christmas tree ornaments, and college papers. To his right are a wall and an open doorway to another room of the basement which holds the water heater, furnace, some more boxes and a cage in the middle of that room which sits under the hallway near his bedroom.

  Linus takes a breath, girding himself, and turns the corner, his gun out before him.

  The cage is occupied. There is plenty of light in the basement from the single, bare one hundred watt bulb screwed into the ceiling, so there is no mistaking what he sees. Linus finds himself looking with surprise at something he did not expect to see. What he had been expecting to see was a thug, an escaped prisoner from his nearby prison, or a thief. He blinks his eyes a couple times half expecting the hallucination before him to be gone as a result. What he sees in his basement jail does not disappear.

  “What the hell?”

  Linus couldn’t be more dumbstruck by what stands shaking in the cage. At first glance it is an animal. It is hairy and short, probably of the ape family. But it has a long, thin, gray beard – like a dwarf, and a face more human-like than ape. Something like a Bigfoot creature in the size of a Hobbit.