UNINVITED

UNINVITED Part 7

Unable to maneuver my weapon out of the window in time, Miss Larson and I both backed away from the window frame as the reanimated corpse of Roger Price awkwardly climbed back into the room with us.

Seeing the thing's skull atop a bloody body grinning at us proved too much for Miss Larson. She curled into a ball next to the main door to the room I'd picked earlier, hid her head in her knees and began muttering incoherently.

"Mine." The unholy thing grumbled ominously.

Raising my weapon a second time, prepared to defend myself and Miss Larson. Holding my fire, I watched as the corpse ignored us, shambled over to "The Tome of Valmiki" I'd dropped next to the bookcase and picked the ancient text up.

It swiftly dawned on me the thing wasn't after the woman at all as I previously thought, the thing simply wanted that damn book!

Remembering what I read in "The Tome of Valmiki", I wasn't sure that was any better.

Clutching the ancient tome to its chest, the corpse began shuffling towards Miss Larson, me and the open door leading to the hallway.

"Don't move!" I shouted, aiming at the creature's chest. "Drop the book!"

Continuing to ignore me, the thing shambled passed me, passed Miss Larson and into the hallway.

I followed it.

"Arkham Police! Don't move!"

"Freeze!"

"What the hell is that?"

In the hallway, I found Miss Merritt, the landlady, and two policemen standing on the stairwell. Between the three astonished persons and me stood the shambling corpse of Roger Price.

The landlady turned and ran down the stairs screaming.

After Miss Merritt left, no one else moved.

After several heartbeats, the corpse spoke again in a guttural voice. "Kill."

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

THUMP!

Both police officers fired repeatedly into the corpse as I leaped back into the room, worried the law enforcement officers might miss the creature and hit me instead. As the firing stopped, I reentered the hallway to discover one cop laying against the far wall, knocked unconscious, the other fumbled with his weapon, attempting to reload it.

"Kill you."

Lining up my front and rear sights, I squeezed the trigger of my weapon and shot two rounds into the rear of the corpse's exposed skull.

BANG! BANG!

Bloody bone flew in different directions as the thing's head exploded. Dropping the evil tome, the headless corpse fell into a heap at the top of the stairs.

One of the police officers attempted to revive the other as Miss Larson joined me, having recovered her sanity. "You killed him?" She asked in a low voice. "You killed Roger?"

"No." I answered. "I stopped the entity. Roger Price died days ago."

"What do you mean?" Miss Larson asked, wrapping her arms around my non-firing arm and squeezing.

"Best I can tell..." I explained. "The man you knew as Roger Price, after some fantastical dreams, sought occult solutions to project his consciousness. During his search, he came across a dark magic way to enter the 'Dream Realm'. Unfortunately, the dark magic spell he conducted wasn't to astral project as he'd been told. It wasn't related to that at all. It was all a hoax. From what I read in that old book we found hidden in the bookcase, the ritual Roger performed was a trick to prepare his body so a previously unwelcomed, and uninvited, evil entity could inhabit it."

"What? How? Huh?"

"Sometimes evil beings are bound to objects like the 'tome' or maybe like that strange bookend you touched..."

Miss Larson interrupted me. "How do you know that?"

I paused before answering. "Unfortunately, this isn't my first encounter with the supernatural."

"Oh."

I continued. "Roger must've, while messing with black magic he knew nothing about and reading rituals I'm sure were never meant for mankind, unknowingly prepared himself to be inhabited. He inadvertently killed himself ritually so this foul being from his dreams could enter our world. Once here, according to what I read in the tome, this evil entity would become more and more powerful day after day. Price must've assumed it would be him gaining power by the day. Roger Price was lost long before we discovered his body. It's really only dumb luck we even discovered and stopped the horrible thing when we did."

"I can't believe any of this. Spells? Rituals? Evil entities? Black magic?"

"You saw it with your own eyes." I countered.

"What I saw, Nash. Was you risking your life to help a stranger and then again risking your life to protect me from that thing."

For the first time since Miss Larson knocked at my door, I smiled at the attractive woman with both her arms wrapped around mine. "Yup. That's what I do, ma'am."

"Nash?"

"Yes, Miss Larson?"

"Please call me, Rudy."

* * * * * * *

The CORSAIR will return!