The Dark Ones Read Free

the demon still astride him. “I’m more useful to you alive than dead.”
    Roger pointed a finger at him and flipped his thumb down, miming the firing of a gun. “Got it.”
    “Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything.”
    He meant it, too. Eleanor was lost to him now. He wouldn’t have her back even if he could. That filthy, lying bitch. He listened attentively as Roger explained his plans for the town. He was only mildly surprised by how little any of it disturbed him. He hardly felt like the same man he’d been just a few days ago.
    In many very essential ways, he wasn’t that man any longer.
    A fact confirmed a little later when Roger commanded the demon to desert Eleanor’s body. He was freed from his bonds as his confused and terrified wife wailed and moaned in agony at the offenses done to her body.
    Eleanor extended a shaky hand to him, her bleary eyes pleading for comfort and reassurance. “Frank . . . I . . .”
    There was a bang and her head blew apart.
    Roger Campbell lowered the gun.
    Frank closed his eyes and listened to his new master’s smug laughter.

P ART I:

T HEY C OME O UT AT N IGHT

O NE

    Something stirred in the darkness, a flickering of awareness after a long, long sleep. A weak fluttering of dormant power as the thing awakened, psychic tendrils reaching out to probe the edges of its surroundings, familiarize itself again with the shape of this place. This dark place. It was trapped here. Imprisoned. Locked down here beneath the earth, condemned to spend eternity alone in this miserable slice of hell.
    Because it could not die. Not really. Not completely. It could not be permanently erased, the way, say, the life force of a crawling bug could be extinguished irretrievably with such delicious ease, ground to gritty, slimy pulp beneath a heel.
    The thing in the darkness could not be extinguished, but it could be banished.
    It could be contained.
    As it had been contained in this dark place for fully half a century. A flare of rage brought it to a state of almost full consciousness for several moments. A human had trapped it here. A human . One of those pitiful, mewling little things. It had been fooled, tricked by a creature so infinitely inferior it was impossible to comprehend how it had happened. Humans able to wield the arcane black magic necessary to bind one such as itself were rare. Almost extinct. And yet one had done just that. First summoned it, then bound it in this deep darkness.
    The thing in the darkness longed to be free. Away from the rot and decay of this place, able again to roam among the living things of the world. Its inability to make this happen sparked alternating feelings of despair and anger.
    A human had done this!
    A human !
    The thing roared its rage one last time, making the air vibrate.
    And then it began to drift back toward sleep. It might not stir again for a period of years, or even decades. And that was fine. Because it knew one day something would happen to break the spell chaining it here.
    Someone would come. Some poor, curious fool of a human.
    It was as inevitable as the eventual rise and dominion of its dark Master.
    Out , it thought.
    One day I shall be . . . OUT .

T WO

    The Dark Ones come out at night .
    So goes the obscure slogan most residents of the Wheaton Hills subdivision in Ransom, Tennessee, fail to ever notice. The words are scratched on utility poles, street signs, rocks, and tree limbs. The few who do note the multiple appearances of the slogan are mostly indifferent to its mysterious meaning. The one or two who do pause to ponder the meaning of the words ultimately chalk it up to harmless teen mischief. Some vague expression of youthful angst. Nothing really worth puzzling over.
    There are bigger things to worry about, after all.
    Ransom occupies a small corner of a mostly quiet rural community. It is a town on the cusp of fundamental change. New companies, respectably sized, have moved in, bringing with them an influx of