Escape

Permanent release...

Yes, I should have died long ago. I had already stolen more than twenty years. That was enough, more than enough... My gaze slowly lost focus, and my will gradually slipped away from my body.

Jason seemed to sense something. He held me tightly, a beastlike sound coming from his throat. He was immensely strong, the veins bulging on the arms pressed against my back.

Jason... Right, there was still Jason... What would happen to him if I died? This place would stay unchanged for another ten years at most. People would definitely come again, and Jason would definitely kill the intruders again. What if the police caught him? They would experiment on Jason, skin him, draw his blood...

No, I couldn't die yet. My consciousness snapped back. That voice fell reluctantly silent, but I knew he would find another chance to surface.

Think of something. But what could I do?

In the dark cellar of the nearby cabin, the face on the cover of the Necronomicon twitched wildly as though alive. Then the book opened, finally stopping on a certain page. It held a picture of a group of shadowy figures in tattered black robes. The next moment, those shadows emerged from the leaves, turning into an endless stream of black mist that rushed into the lone cabin in the silent night.

Jason sensed them immediately. With a low growl, he shielded me behind him. A second later, the black mist appeared around the cabin, claws flailing. They smashed through the glass and slipped inside, destroying every last trace of the once-cozy decorations. They soon reached the second floor and found the two of us, their skeletal claws stabbing straight toward my throat.

Jason lunged at them with his machete. The moment the blade touched the black mist, it turned into corroded scrap metal, but Jason still refused to let those things touch me.

He stood in front of me, shielding me. The skin on his arms kept rotting wherever it touched the black mist. His flesh sizzled as though roasting over a fire. I could even smell that sickening stench of decay. White bones kept emerging all over Jason's body, only to slowly recover.

But two fists couldn't fight off four hands. Those things in black robes, like grim reapers, found an opening, swiftly grabbed me, and fled through the window. The moment their bodies touched mine, agonizing pain tore through me. I screamed, instinctively calling for Jason. Jason raced after us, his furious roars echoing through the mountain forest.

They dragged me along, scraping my legs bloody. Like a rag, I was thrown into the basement with a dull thud.

I immediately pushed myself upright. A faint, flickering apparition hovered over the book, without boundaries or shape, like a puddle of rotting octopus. Terror-it was terror planted deep in my heart. My body shook uncontrollably, my teeth chattered, a shudder rising from the depths of my soul.

Uncontrollable whimpers escaped my throat as I curled into a ball, yet I could still hear the sounds outside. I knew it was Jason. Jason had followed, but he couldn't save me now.

The shadow laughed shrilly. Sarcasm, mockery, contempt-he relentlessly battered my mind with them.

He lunged at me, starting with my right foot. He seemed to be gnawing on something. Nothing looked wrong with my flesh, but that pain, that pain that pierced my soul-I had never felt anything like it. Even jumping alive into a meat grinder probably wouldn't have hurt a tenth as much, yet my mind remained clear enough to know that he was eating my soul.

I howled in agony, but something emerged through the cellar entrance?

It was Jason. Almost half his body had rotted away. One glance was enough to see every bone in his body. His muscles were still trembling. He could feel pain. He was still clutching something in his hands: one of those shadows. It struggled feebly, its sharp, skeletal claws raking bloody lines across Jason's arms, followed by relentless decay.

Jason tore those shadows apart. They turned into clouds of black mist and actually burrowed into his body. Along with the shadows, some of Jason's flesh seemed to grow back.

The apparition devouring my soul in great mouthfuls seemed a little shocked, then laughed shrilly again.

"You can actually... Let him go... Both of you are mine..."

"No... No."

"Yes... You stay..."

I knew nothing of what happened afterward. When I woke again, I was in a forest, my mind in a daze. I traveled for a day and a night before leaving the forest and reaching somewhere with people. They found me and took me to a hospital.

When I woke again, everything before me was white. Doctors and nurses moved back and forth around me, then shouted, "He's awake! He's awake!" My surroundings immediately grew noisy, but it was as though a thin layer of mist surrounded me. I couldn't see or hear clearly, as though none of it had anything to do with me.

Abrasions and cuts covered my entire body, some fresh, some old, some even beginning to rot. Nearly half the bones in my body were broken, and I had severe internal bleeding. They simply couldn't understand how I had dragged myself out of that forest with such terrible injuries.

Yes, crawled out. My entire right leg, from the middle of the knee down, had become necrotic. That leg had clearly been one of the more intact parts of my body, yet it had died anyway, even showing signs of decay. They had no choice but to remove more of it to save my life.

They all agreed that I had been kidnapped and subjected to at least several months of abuse. They called the police, and officers came to question me, but something seemed to have gone wrong with my mind.

I had once gone to such lengths to have two intact legs, and now I had lost even more.

Faced with such a blow, my mind went blank, then seemed to explode like colored dots on a television screen. I laughed, sharp and grating.

Everyone's gazes turned pitying. This man must have gone mad.

Three days later, I left the hospital. Even though tubes were still sticking out of me, even though I had still been listed as critically ill just eight hours earlier, I signed a liability waiver and left.

What was there left for me not to understand? Jason had used himself in my place. Had he eaten Jason's soul? Would Jason hurt the way I had? But that kind of pain...

I had become a normal person, physically, at least. Yes, my body temperature had returned to normal. I would age normally. I could live out this life as a normal person. I also knew that if I killed myself now, I probably wouldn't come back. So just how great a price had Jason paid for this?

I wanted revenge. I absolutely had to have revenge. It was the only way I could go on living as a decent human being.

I frantically researched, but the thing might as well have vanished without a trace. The scant information left pointed me onward, and eventually I contacted Ash. Ash Williams, a... cowardly college student. After vacationing with his girlfriend Linda in 1987, Linda had died, and he had lost his right hand. My investigation showed that a Book of the Dead had once appeared there.

He must have had something to do with that book, and he had even... won.

I watched the man before me talking away, frivolous and boastful... Uh... He did indeed have that book, and it was right there in his hands. It just looked... very quiet? Not as viciously animated as that other one.

"Legend has it that this book was written by the God of Darkness. Its title is Necronmicom Ex Mortes, roughly translated as the Book of the Dead. The book is a gateway to an evil world. It dates back to a very ancient time, when the seas were blood, and that bloody water became the ink for this book. In 1300, the book disappeared..."

I interrupted him. "If you want to keep talking, please tell me something I don't know. I want to know how you defeated him. And I don't mean those old hags with stretching necks you mentioned, the demon trees that hit people, the mounted deer head that came alive, or your... What I want to know about is that book. I need to destroy that book."

Ash studied the man before him with the eye of someone who had been the top salesman for nearly ten years. The man seemed a little impatient. He looked young, and handsome, too. Asian... I don't discriminate against Asians. Maybe, possibly... a little.

It's the twenty-first century. That was a joke. All right, I'm actually a little afraid of people like this, a successful man with an imposing air... He doesn't even look thirty...

Seemingly noticing my impatience, he composed himself.

"There's probably no way. Back then, I tried throwing it into a stove and burning it, but the book was fireproof. I also tried blasting it with a shotgun, but the effect was... negligible."

"If he weren't as... sentient as you say, I could consider keeping him with my copy. After all, when it comes to harmful things like this, a second book wouldn't make much difference here. But as you said, if, as you say, that book can talk and recite spells on its own, there's nothing I can do."

Helplessness. Helplessness filled my entire body. The last time had been seven years ago, when I was dragged away, hauled before that disgusting thing. It wasn't that I hadn't investigated, but I had never found a way to destroy that book.

If that was the case...

I looked at the man before me, frivolous and comical. Yet this very man was still willing to serve as its keeper after that book had killed his family and girlfriend. I felt as though I could see through his sleazy exterior to the resilient heart beneath.

"How much? How much would it take for you to come with me?"

"There's no way I'm going. I'm telling you, I..."

The two assistants beside me opened two suitcases in front of him. Inside were neatly stacked American dollars, green, gray-green, all perfectly arranged...