Here Be Monsters - By M T Murphy Page 0,28

better I’m sure I would have laughed.

We made it to Louisiana though, unharmed and still no barking to be heard. I knew the dogs would be closing in. I was down under the three week mark of time left on my pact, surely they would be coming to collect. But Tyler was here now, and when he was around I didn’t hear the barking. That alone restored my faith that everything would be all right.

Tyler got me settled in the hospital which wasn’t really a hospital, and my voice still wasn’t strong enough to ask him the burning question: Why, after I had lived in the slums of New York for almost ten years attending meetings and rehab on my own, did I now need to be hospitalized?

It wasn’t until my second day in Jericho Hills that I realized not everything was what it seemed. There was no reason for me to be there. I was not even close to being as bad off as what these other patients were. This was a psychiatric hospital and I didn’t have any mental disorders that I knew of. This was protection. It reaffirmed my belief that Tyler was what the prophet had spoken of. He’d said that Angels would come to protect me when it came time; that they would be the ones to take the dogs captive.

The prophet had told me that they needed one of the beasts of hell, a pack of their rabid dogs. That all I had to do was offer my soul in exchange for something I wanted and when it was time to collect, the dogs would come and the Angels would grab them. He had described them as being bigger than wolves and that I would hear them before I’d ever see one. He hadn’t been wrong so far.

One day in the gardens, while watching the other patients around me and waiting on Tyler, I noticed one particular man who seemed even more out of place than I did. Everyone else was a mess, and while he made no sense when he talked, Jamie Sullivan looked at me and it was easy to see he comprehended everything going on around him. He would watch the others, his eyes taking them in and I noticed the smiles that occasionally tugged on his lips in reaction. The nurses spoke of him being autistic or something—a term I wasn’t familiar with—but I enjoyed watching him wander around the gardens.

Jamie was in his thirties, but had a cherub face with big blue eyes and sandy brown hair, flecks of gray already shading his hairline. I had watched him every time I could, intrigued that he spoke in riddles. All of them rhymed and made no sense to anyone who heard them, but I found it rather endearing even if some of the rhymes were completely morbid.

“Is your voice any better today?” Tyler asked as he sat down across from me.

“A bit,” I managed to croak out as I grinned.

“Do you feel up to telling me more about this prophet?”

“Sure but don’t you already know all about it?” Something was spinning in my stomach, making me feel uneasy.

“Well of course. We just needed to,” he paused, flashing a wide grin, “make sure he told you everything you needed to know.”

“He just gave me the information of how to summon Leviathan. He told me that I was needed and my soul was pure, which I thought was nuts because I was a junkie.” I took a few sips of water, my throat screaming at me for straining it.

“Yes, but he told you why it had to be Leviathan?” Tyler asked.

“No, not really. He said the chances that there would be more of these dogs come after me in the end were higher if it was Leviathan.”

“And he fully explained all of the conditions of what you were offering in return?”

“Yes Tyler,” I chuckled. “I thought I was having a bad trip, I didn’t believe him.”

“But you did it anyway.” Tyler pulled his lower lip between his teeth in an odd sort of grin.

“Did he explain why they need the dogs?” Tyler asked.

“Two of four, three of three, five of one,” Jamie said in a panic and gripped my arm, his eyes fixated on Tyler as he tried to pull me from my chair.

“Jamie what are you doing?” I said, trying to free myself.

“Two of four, three of three, five of one. Two of four, three of three, five of one. Two