The nails gouged deeper. Pain jolted from nerve to nerve like an electrical current. High keening pierced his eardrums, but he couldn’t stop making the sound. Tears ran from his eyes, tracking molten trails down the sides of his face, dissolving the remaining effects of the rum.
Alan stumbled toward the bedroom… toward the closet. “Resist!” he begged himself. Resistance is futile, his mind replied. He pictured himself playing Tug of War. His will was the rope and it blistered his palms as it was jerked away from him. The rope shredded. He grabbed with both hands and yanked with all his might.
The itch let go. Alan lunged backward to slam into the dresser like a juggernaut. Flesh hit wood with a crack.
The voices stilled. Except for his contact bruises, his pain ceased.
Maybe they were gone.
Alan wiped a shaky hand across his face. Sweat stood to attention on his body. His T-shirt clung to him like a leech.
No sound now. They must be gone.
Don’t be an idiot, his mind cried as he walked to the closet. He took hold of the knob. Idiot, maybe, but he had to know. His palm met tarnished brass. Cold metal seared a circle into his flesh.
Menace seeped past cracks in the doorjamb to blanket his skin like a fog. His palm stuck to the knob. It turned of its own volition. Hinges made a haunted house screech as something pushed the door open, shoving him aside as if he were a small child.
The device hung in mid-air, darkness beyond night in the shape of a triangle, pulling light inside it like a black hole. The rational side of him said: Don’t touch it. Remember it’s dangerous.
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