Page 23 of Consumed
For no real reason, Con thought of the skeleton that had kept him company in the orc cave. As far as he knew, that person had never been identified. Con wondered what was worse: dead and anonymous in a cave, or dead and forgotten in a desert cemetery. It didn’t matter, did it? Not to the dead, anyway.
And musing on mortality wasn’t why he was here right now.
He walked slowly, swinging the flashlight beam from side to side, calling out Isaac’s name. Although there was no response, he had the skin-prickling sensation that something was listening. It was the auditory equivalent of someone staring at the back of your head, and it wasn’t pleasant.
Don’t spook yourself, he warned sternly.Won’t do either of you any good.And darn it, he was a well-armed, well-trained Bureau agent. Yes, somewhat the worse for wear, but he wasn’t helpless.
Of course, neither was Isaac, and he was nowhere to be seen.
Something darted across the path a few feet in front of Con, and he jerked back so quickly that he almost fell. But it was only a small rodent of some kind, and now his inner voice cursed him.
Standing in the darkness, heart racing, feeling helpless, Con remembered something the Bureau shrink had told him many years ago.If you see yourself as weak, you will be. If you see yourself as strong, you can be.It had seemed hokey at the time, just empty advice intended to make him act like a functioning adult. But maybe there was something to it. So now Con imagined himself steady of mind, hand, and foot; brave enough to face the unknown; tough enough to fight and survive. That was how Trish seemed to view him. And really, so had Isaac, who had behaved as if Con were as capable as any other agent.
He opened his mouth to call yet again but then heard a noise that didn’t come from his own mouth. It could have been a groan. Or an animal. Or a far-away engine echoing off the hillside. He headed toward it.
That meant leaving the pathway. Prickly plants tugged at his trouser legs and stones shifted under his feet. A few times he stepped on something smooth and flat and hard, and he realized he was walking over a fallen gravestone. Other times he had to skirt a bulky bush or the low iron fences that reminded him of old-fashioned bedsteads. He wondered if that had been part of the intent: a symbolic resting place for those beloved by the grieving family.
He heard the sound again, closer, and this time it sounded human. “Isaac?” he called. “Are you here?”
And there at the waning end of the flashlight beam was Isaac himself, half-hidden by a mesquite tree, staring blankly toward Con.
Stark naked.
Con’s first thought was that this was some sort of elaborate joke. But as Isaac walked slowly toward him, his gait was… off. So maybe he had gotten drunk for the first time in years and this was the result. Or he could have taken drugs, either purposely or inadvertently.
“What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?”
Isaac didn’t answer. That was wrong too, because he rarely seemed at a loss for words. If he were in his right mind, he would surely have something to say. Instead he simply continued to move forward, apparently heedless of the thorns and sharp stones under his feet.
Con realized that he was still rooted in place. He moved ahead cautiously, keeping the light directly on Isaac’s face. Strangely, Isaac didn’t blink or shield his eyes.
“Are you sick? Do you need me to take you to a hospital? What the fuck iswrong?”
The only response was a raised hand as if Isaac were reaching for him.
Con almost reached back. But by then Isaac was near enough for Con to get a good look at his eyes. And Con immediately realized two things.
This was not Isaac Molina.
And the thing haunting the Gerard cemetery wasn’t a harmless ghost—it was a deadly ghoul.
A brutal creature that took the form of its last devoured victim.
Oh no.
With the ghoul almost upon him, Con very nearly dropped his cane and reached for his gun. But he remembered that even the Bureau’s special bullets wouldn’t kill this monster.
Some people claimed that you could stop a ghoul with prayer, but Con couldn’t think of a single invocation. Salvation Becker, who’d spent eighteen years being trained by his parents to entreat God, couldn’t do so when he needed it most. He almost laughed at the irony.
And then the ghoul opened its mouth in a ghastly smile, revealing sharklike rows of teeth, and Con roared. “No, goddammit! No!”
The ghoul snarled back and attacked.
Con dropped the flashlight and reached for the knife at his waist. But all that was done with his left hand, his nondominant hand attached to the arm permanently weakened by the orcs. So although he stabbed and slashed at the ghoul a few times, he did little harm. The ghoul danced around him, making a grating sound that Con realized was probably laughter.
All of the fear drained from Con at once, replaced by rabid fury. “What did you do to Isaac, you fucking evil piece of shit? What did you do!” And he continued to swear as he came after the ghoul—a constant stream of foul words, none of which he’d ever said before, some of which he wasn’t sure he’d evenheardbefore. He scored several more strikes with the knife, none of which seemed to make any difference. The ghoul didn’t even bleed. It skipped around and laughed and showed its teeth, stained with Isaac’s blood.
And then, with all the casual ease of a playful cat, it batted the knife out of Con’s hand. He heard it clatter against stone, but he couldn’t see its precise location in the dark. When he bent awkwardly to find it, the ghoul was on him.
