EVIL DEAD: DEAD OF NIGHT

Chapter 1

There are dark places in the world. Small, shadowy crevices and monstrous hollow caverns, all hidden away from sight—in the mountains, in the forests, in deserts and cities, and there are places full of darkness within each of us, lurking in our hearts and minds, waiting to swallow us forever into their hideous depths.

"Mia. Mia, we're here, sweetie."

The small, auburn haired girl had fallen into one of those dark places, and was on the verge of being lost forever in an eternity of lightless oblivion. So deep had her desperation become, before being carried off into sleep by the steady rumble of the Jeep's engine, she faintly caressed the morbid hope that maybe this time…she wouldn't wake up.

For a moment, she thought the voice that roused her belonged to her mother. Even as the impossibility of that thought dawned upon her, she still imagined opening her eyes to a picture out of the past, when her family was still complete and she wasn't a useless piece of junkie trash.

"Come on, Mia, wake up," Olivia prodded again, shaking her pale friend from slumber. "You should eat something. You've been out all morning."

It broke Olivia's heart to see her once best friend in such an awful state. The girl's skin was so white it was nearly translucent, and her eyes looked tired and yellow all the time. She had easily lost twenty pounds from her already petite frame, making her look as though even a slight wind could topple her.

"I'm not hungry," Mia answered, fumbling for the door handle and stepping out. Her friend Eric was already standing in front of the Jeep, stretching off the tension of the ride and scratching his scruffy blonde beard.

"Well," he said, "this is…nice."

He was as full of shit as ever. It had actually been a while since she had seen either one of her friends before they managed to track her down and force another awkward intervention. While his appearance might have changed with the growth of his long hair, he was still the same old geek she had always known.

As if seeing it for the first time, Mia gazed around the clearing. Grey clouds blotted out the sun overhead, making the surrounding woods feel closer, somehow more sinister. A sense of vertigo hit her momentarily. The world spun and it looked as if the tips of the trees were about to topple down around her. She exuded an almost conscious effort not to look at the cabin, but her gaze inevitably drifted toward its worn wooden face.

The windows on either side of the door looked like giant empty eyes.

Her arm suddenly started to itch at the joint. The few tracks she had accrued had largely healed and were almost completely gone, but they still burned for the poison she'd let herself come to need.

"Hey, you okay?" asked Olivia.

Mia nodded. "I'm fine. I think I'm going to go around back for a while. It's just…I haven't been here in so long. It's a lot to take in. Do you guys mind?"

"No, go ahead. We'll wait for David out here."

Mia grabbed her bag and started for the back of the house, stopping at the corner of the front porch. "Do you think he'll show?"

"Of course, honey. He's your brother. He wouldn't—"
"No, not…I'm not talking about David."

"Oh. I don't know. We'll see."

Unsatisfied with the answer but determined not to make it obvious, Mia nodded faintly and walked off. When she was out of sight, Olivia shot Eric a wicked look.

"What?" he said defensively.

"I still can't believe you invited him up here."

"He had a right to know. The poor guy was going crazy when Mia disappeared. Besides, he's our friend, too."

Olivia sighed. "I just don't know if it's a good idea for them to be together through this. The last thing she needs right now is extra stress. You haven't seen it when it gets really bad. One wrong thing and she could snap."

"What she needs is people who care about her, and nobody cares more than him."

"How do you figure that?"

"I figured it around the time when he was calling me every day asking if we had any news about her. When I told him she was back on that shit I thought he was going to lose it. So yeah, I think he should be here."

Defeated, Olivia crossed her arms and kicked the dirt. "Yeah, well, you better hope nothing goes wrong."

Eric was glad the argument had ended there, but the ensuing silence filled him with an unexplainable dread as the woods around them groaned in the wind.

XXXXX

"Shit," Rick Taylor said as he came to a stop where the road intersected with a rocky stream flowing down out of the hills to the west. For hours he'd been regretting his decision to ride his motorcycle on such a long trip, and the unfavorable roads were the least of his mounting unease. It was deep wilderness out there. Everything seemed inhospitable, and he couldn't get his sick worry for Mia out of his head. The farther into the woods he rode, the heavier the feeling in his gut became. The thought of her going through something so hard and potentially dangerous way out in the middle of nowhere seemed wrong to him. There was no cell reception or internet so far out, and the last working phone resided at a gas station miles back. Rick didn't like it one bit.

After making the decision to go, he'd jumped on his bike largely on impulse. Forgetting the fact that he would have had to borrow a vehicle, he still thought his motorcycle would allow him to travel faster. Looking at the sky, he wished he had thought about the weather. The temperamental bike was a handful even on city streets. He did not feel the need to test its limits on rough terrain. In any case, he was stuck with it.

He took one last look across the stream where the road wound up into the hills, disappearing into the darkness of row upon row of sharp green pine. The sky overhead was crowded with angry looking clouds. The last thing he needed was rain. For the moment, all he cared about was getting to Mia, so he cranked the throttle and started across. Thankfully, the water was barely heel deep, but it still splashed up as he rode across, soaking through his jeans.

Oh, this is real nice. Fresh air, the open road, a fifty-mile wedgie. Come on, what are we doin' up here Rick?

Once across, he picked up speed, wishing the roar of the engine and the hiss of passing wind could drown out the words bouncing around inside his skull.

And Mia…hmm, sweet, succulent Mia…

"Shut up," Rick said inside his helmet and accelerated until the handlebars began to shake. After regaining his calm and thinking better of it, he back off the throttle.

Smart. After all, what good would you be smeared all over the road?

It was a good question. An even better question was what good would he be at all? He hadn't seen her since the hospital, and even then they hadn't had much to say. There was nothing he wanted more than to finally set things right, but old ghosts made him question whether or not that was even possible. Outside his head, the road stretched onward, devoured mile by mile by his wheels, but inside…his thoughts shook.

XXXXX

Thirteen months ago…

Miskatonic University had one of the most famous and storied libraries in the United States. Experts, professionals, and scholars routinely traveled far distances to visit the historic grounds and see firsthand the vast array of knowledge housed within the campus walls. The occult section in particular was a dream come true for a student like Rick. For his admissions essay, he'd written a treatise on the historical connection between mental illness, demonic possession, and haunted locales, and even spent the night (illegally) at Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary to add credence to the paper. The work paid off, as he was admitted and even won the early esteem of Wingate Peasley, the school's leading psychology professor. Upon admittance, however, he quickly became acquainted with Dr. Henry Armitage, the Chief Librarian. With hard work, luck, and perseverance, Rick was eventually admitted nearly full privileges and access to all but the most restricted works kept under lock and key by Dr. Armitage himself.

When he would otherwise be considered dead to the world, Rick could be found somewhere in the myriad aisles, browsing various works of miscellaneous lore. Parapsychology had been something of a favored pursuit since childhood. Unfortunately, there was not much one could do in such a field, but the halls of Miskatonic had a way of collecting strange stories.

Rick was sitting in the light of a single lamp at one of the library's enormous wooden study tables, trying to translate an ancient Sumerian tome for one of his professors when a voice penetrated the fog of his concentration.

"Hey, Rick."

Rick looked up and slid aside a stack of books a foot high, exposing his face to his friend, Felix. "Hey, man," he said. "What's going on?"

"Not much." Felix set a large file box on the end of the table. "Just got some cool stuff here. Thought you might want to be the first to check it out."

"Sure," Rick said. "Whatcha got?"

"Some pretty interesting stuff. Have you ever heard of a guy named Raymond Knowby?"

"Yeah, sounds familiar. Archeologist, right? Professor Armitage showed me a few of his articles once."

"Well, apparently, he was a demonologist, too. Looks like he was researching some crazy stuff."

Rick stood up and joined his friend at the end of the table. "Was? I didn't know he died."

"Nobody knows if he died. He's missing. It's been a few weeks now, I'm surprised you haven't heard about it."

"Missing? Holy shit."

"Yeah, he was into some pretty heavy stuff. I guess Dr. West invited him to speak here a few years ago, but the guy never made it out. West said a few people in the academic community thought Knowby was losing his marbles. I thumbed through one of his journals and don't disagree."

"Isn't a few weeks a little soon for us to have his personal research?"

"This was all sent here from his office. Guess he wanted the university to have it. Anyway, I thought you might like to look over some of this stuff before I put it into the archives."

"Hell yeah. Thanks, man."

"No prob. Hey, do you know where that book on Philip Lemarchand is?"

"Yeah, I had it out the other day. It's in the back office with the Elm Street files. You want me to grab it?"

"No, I'll get it later. Doctor West was asking for it."

Rick pulled out a large but battered wooden box. "What's this?"

"Good question. I'm not going to try to open it. It's officially the property of the school now."

"What the…is it nailed shut?"

"Yeah, all the way. And get this—the thing was wrapped in razor wire."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, and not just wrapped, like…covered in it. They snipped it off at the post office. Look, don't mess around with that okay? You know how much trouble you could get into."

"Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I'll take care of it. I won't even touch it."

"I'm just saying, it would be your ass. Hey, I think your phone's ringing."

Rick looked up from the box and suddenly heard the vibrations of his phone rattling next to his notes. He looked over his shoulder and saw the picture on the screen. "It's my friend, Mia."

Felix's eyebrows went up. "Still just friends, huh?"
"Shut up."

"Ha! I'll catch you later," Felix said and turned away.

"Yeah, later." Rick picked up his phone. "Hey. What's up?"

"Not much," Mia said. "What are you going?"

"I'm in the library working on some stuff. You?"

"Just got back from the hospital."

"How's your mom?"

"She's okay. I think it's getting worse, though. If she just wasn't so damn stubborn."

"So that's where you get it from."

"Not really, I just like to get on your nerves. So, listen, you wanna hang out tonight?"

Rick's first impulse was to say yes right away, but he was painfully aware that he had been making himself unattractively available over the past year or so. Coupled with the heavy vibes he couldn't help but give off, it was no wonder he had been stuck in the friend zone for so long. "I don't know," he said. "I've got a lot of work to do."

"Cut the shit. Just come over later, okay? I've got something I want to show you."

"What?"

"My severed head collection! Just come over, okay? Please?"

"Yeah, okay. I'll see you in a little bit."

"Okay, bye."

Rick ended the call and let his imagination run wild. Mia had been one of his best friends for years, and they'd grown as close as two people could since her mother had gotten sick. To top it all off, he'd been falling hard for her for a long time, and every time he thought she couldn't get more oblivious, she said something or made some move that signaled every nerve in his body quite intensely that she was onto him. Things were too complicated to just come out and say it, though, and until she made it obvious that she felt the same way, or at least felt something, he wasn't going to be the one to say anything.
"Way to go," he said to himself, rubbing at his eyes.

What a pussy.

He looked up, sure that Felix had come back to give him a hard time, but scanning the room he saw that he was alone. "Hello?" he spoke into the empty space.

Only silence replied.