11 The Triquetra

"YOU DID what?" exclaimed Matt during lunch.

Jake explained to them how he used the book to hypnotise his brother.

They; Matt, Gabriel, Julia and Jake, were all seated at a table next to a window overlooking the Barnstable High's football yard.

"I'm serious,  guys," Jake went on, "it was like his own mind had snapped leaving him with no choice but to..."

"Smack himself in the face!" Gabriel finished, "you could've done better than that."

"Yeah," Julia chimed in, siding with Gabriel, "like making him drink out of the toilet."

Gabriel chuckled, hitting Julia's open palm with his own.

"You know I'm seating next to you, right?" Matt asked sarcastically, raising his brows at his sister.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Julia added, raising her hand and exposing her palm to Matt.

"So, how about we try that hypno thing you so claim you did," Gabriel said to Jake, "and I'm not it!"

"What?" Jake asked, reaching out for his bag set next to him on the form he sat on.

"I'm not the one getting hypnotised!"

"Not it!" Matt added quickly.

"Fine, I'll take one for the team!" Julia sighed.

Jake was  just opening the zipper to his bag when a loud thumping sound began to fill the school cafeteria.

"Oh boy, not this again!" lamented Julia  as a group of kids entered the cafeteria, dressed in what appeared to be large jack-o'-lanterns on their heads.

"C'mon guys, where's your Halloween spirit!" yelled one of the kids and his voice became easily recognizable under the large pumpkin head.

Cole.

He and his buddies had burst into the cafeteria, surprising everyone with a little charade of drumming which just like it had happened last year, they all broke into what could have been some serious dancing, with him and his crew jumping on top of the desks and doing all kinds of crazy.

Cole might have been the clown in Jake's class but he sure as hell was a freaking celebrity to the rest of the school—or maybe just very popular.

Yeah well,Who cares? Both of them sounded pretty much the same to Jake.

The 'Halloween Hype dance off'—as it was called, was way bigger than last year's, with more kids joining in the charade when of Cole's guys set down a Hi-Fi sound system which he had dragged in with him.

"Cole might be a jackass," began Julia, "but he sure does know how to throw a party!"

With that,  Matt's sister got up and left to join in on the fun.

"She's right, guys. Cole's even hosting a party back at his place, tomorrow!" Matt added, yelling while trying to speak over the loud hits of 'Welcome to the Party'  by Lil Pump and French Montana.

Gabriel went after Matt, leaving Jake who was zipping up his bag before someone knocked him from behind, probably an overly excited kid, resulting in the bag falling off from the form to the floor.

The big black book slid out and Jake was stooping to pick it up when someone else beat him to it.

"You really need to watch how you handle your books," came Nicole Parsons' voice as she grabbed the book.

"What?" Jake couldn't hear her from the deafening bass boosted music.

"You really need to watch how you handle your books!"

"What?"

"I said, you really..." Nicole saw this was not working and it's not like she had the mouth of a loudspeaker. "Here!"

Jake took the book from her after which Nicole gestured they move towards the window.

Turns out the music wasn't that loud over there.

"Hey," Nicole began.

"Hi," Jake started feeling cheesy but willed himself to control it, "you were saying?"

"Oh, that," Nicole smiled, "I was just saying how ridiculous you looked."

"What?"

"I'm messing with you!" she added, chuckling, "that's the same look you gave me back there!"

"Huh, it was that bad?" Jake sighed very slightly, turning his head away.

"It was kinda cute," she replied a little too casually.

"Well, you're not so bad yourself-I mean, not that I look better than you...no, you're more-you're like..." Jake's face began to feel hot as words mixed up in his mouth like his dental formula was juggling around everything he was trying to say.

Ah shit!  What are you doing?

Jake watched as Nicole began to laugh in response, making him wonder...

You've got a magic book that can be used in mind control. You could just say the magic words and she'd do whatever you want!

Nicole was still laughing.

Come on, Jake. Just whisper  the words to her ear and she'll be all yours. You have a freaking third eye, for crying out loud!

Submiterre...

Instead, Jake ended up saying...

"Would you like to come with me to Cole's party...tomorrow?"

"Are you asking me out?"

Jake felt a weird rush when he saw her eyes kind of flutter a little.

"I...I think so. Unless I'm overstepping..."

"Yes!"

"To overstepping? Or..."

"I'll go with you to the party."

"Alright, then," came Jake's response, not believing he had actually pulled that off and he didn't need to hypnotise her to do so.

Jake felt the book he was still holding in his hands begin to stir and immediately noticed the pentacle on the cover begin to glow.

Now what?

"Oh, I forgot I had to return this to the...library," he said before quickly overturning the book so that the cover was facing down, preventing Nicole from seeing the glowing star-shaped symbol.

"Okay, just don't drop it in your way there!"

"I'll try not to!"

Not bad for a kid with a third eye, huh!

With that, Jake turned and left the cafeteria.

The book began to flip its pages madly like it did the first time, once Jake had placed it on top of the table in the library.

He watched until the book settled down to a certain page.

Jake moved closer to the book after making sure nobody else was around. No one was, except for the librarian and not more than five students in his section.

At the very top of the page was a drawing. A sketch showing small reddish circle contrasting with the dark shaded background, making the entire thing look like the night sky and a red moon?

Moving his eyes from the top of the page, Jake studied the inscriptions below it, all of which were in English.

'The forces of darkness  prowl undetected and should man fall into their path or become connected to them in any way could lead in certain doom for them.'

'On the night of horrors so shall the forces of darkness unite to reign and unleash their wrath under the scarlet light with the purpose of destroying the Mirantibus vivlío  but one obstacle stands in their and always has.

el  tercer ojo'

As if the book understood that Jake was done reading, it then shut itself, with the pentacle glowing again.

"Okay, what are you trying to tell me, crazy magic book?" Jake asked, looking at the glowing symbol.

With his thumb and index finger, Jake flipped over the cover and was just about to peruse back to that page when he got that eerie feeling at the back of his neck again, like something was watching him.

He also realised that the music he could still hear coming from the cafeteria had suddenly stopped playing and everything else had turned silent, except for the low whirring sound coming from the glowing book.

Then, all at once, the eerie feeling drifted away but the book was still glowing and now he could hear the music again.

🎵I'm on the highway to hell,

Highway to hell!

The highway to hell,

Highway to hell!      

Led Zeppelin's song was the one that brought back that eerie feeling as Jake got up, stashing the book back in his bag.

"That's wrong," came a voice which made him turn around to find a boy, a student who he had seen earlier when he walked into that section of the library.

"What?" asked Jake, looking at the boy who was almost as tall as he was.

"Stealing," was the boy's weirdly calm reply—as Jake 'saw' it.

"Oh, this is mine, actually..."

"Well, let's see some tag, then."

Jake hadn't thought about scribbling his initials J F on the mystical book and was now starting to regret it.

"I just bought it..."

"Let's see."

The weird reply again.

"Okay, geez!" Jake slowly took out the book and was about to hand it over when it suddenly began to glow.

At the same time, Jake felt a strange sensation coming from between his brows and that's when he saw it.

The recoiling hand of the strange kid, which was no longer a hand but more of a slime-covered limb with sharp twisted claws projecting at the end of it.

Jake hit his back against the table after seeing what was standing before him.

From the slime-covered arms to the tall spindly legs, also slimy and clawed feet and then worst of all—the face.

The eyes were so tiny, they looked like two black dots but that wasn't the scary part. That award went to the mouth which was at first a regular hollowed out space until the monster charged at Jake and the mouth sort of projected from its original position and stretch out for like six inches, with teeth pointed in all directions pointing out all around the mouth as if the monster had a circular jaw.

Jake laid back on the table behind him, rolling towards the other side as the monster swung one of its spindly arms and the claws tore off a chunk of the table, missing Jake.

"Shit!" Jake cursed after landing on the other side.

He held on to the book and began to shift his head from left to right, trying to find the fastest way out of there with all his body parts intact.

The time to do that was cut short when the table behind him was suddenly thrust to the side and Jake watched it crash into the encyclopedia section, sending the entire shelf down.

The monster squealed, sounding like a pig, which sounded pretty ironic to Jake, given the situation.

Nope, running won't do shit here!

Jake turned to his book and was just facing it towards the monster before he was hit across the arm and fell to the side but quickly got up, the book still in his grasp. The monster squealed again and charged at him, leaping up onto a shelf then coming down on him.

Jake acted hastily and rolled over before hearing another shelf collapse behind him as the monster missed him again.

This was his chance. The monster was struggling to get up under the pile of books, madly lashing out its dangerous claws.

Jake got up on his feet and faced the book towards the monster.

Okay, so nothing was happening. The monster was still there.

Why isn't it working?

A couple of books flew past Jake followed by  more squealing as the monster arose from the pile.

He quickly turned  the book and confirmed it was still glowing.

Okay, time to run!

Jake turned and dashed towards the column closest to him, with the monster taking one huge leap and flew over him before landing in front of him.

He resorted to throwing books at the monster by grabbing a big dictionary and hurling it—like that would work!

The monster ripped the book into shreds and squealed before charging.

Jake had a close call when the monster got him by the shoulders after leaping towards him, tearing his sweater and almost getting his skin. He jabbed the monster with the mystical book, sending it falling over to the other side behind him and Jake also fell.

The monster was squealing way louder this time and it looked like the book had actually hurt it.

But Jake couldn't count on that. There had to be some other way.

Well, the book was a book and he began to figure that he hadn't actually read that much from it.

More squealing.

Jake began flipping the book's pages, desperately looking for something he could use.

He landed to a page filled with sketches on diagrams. Symbols.

This might work! Please work!

Recalling Mr. Henry's earlier account about the symbols of protection, Jake's eyes fell one particular symbol.

The monster was already up on its feet.

The symbol was of a circle in the background and a curving line in the centre, extending a little from both sides of the circle with two more lines  extrapolated from either ends of the curved line—both of which curved downwards and inwards to meet up vertically through the circle.

Triquetra

A word was inscribed next to it. One of the protection symbols.

The monster was now charging and leapt into the air after which Jake turned the book, the page with the Triquetra  facing the monster.

Jake saw white bright light suddenly shoot up from the book, engulfing the monster and he watched on as the monster squealed—the action being way more appropriate at that moment while its body turned into flames until it was burnt down to ash in a matter of seconds.

He was still sitting there on the floor, staring down at the ashes of the monster when he then realised how much time had actually passed.

The time on his phone's screen revealed that it was almost quarter to five.

Wow! I've been here that long?

Just as he stood up to leave, Jake looked back at the fallen shelves, with book strewn all over the floor making him start to wonder.

Wait, if this actually happened and not just my third eye, how come nobody...

He left that section of the library and was heading towards the entrance when he noticed something peculiar at the librarian's desk.

Where was he? Surely he must have heard something.

There was a door behind the desk which Jake saw was almost half open and there was something else on the floor. Something dark like a liquid, spread out at the base of the door.

Curiosity took over and Jake found himself approaching the door. He laid a hand on the door which was tagged,Loyd Bowers and slowly pushed it open and his fears became confirmed when his eyes traced the dark liquid on the floor until he stopped at the face of the librarian.

"What the...?"

Jake stepped back and almost slipped from stepping on the liquid on the floor which was the librarian's blood. His face looked was torn off from the left side such that flesh was hanging down his right jaw and Jake could see what looked like worms. Thousands of them, feasting on the insides of his flesh. The eyes were filled with those worms as blood stained his neck down to his torso.

Jake felt like throwing up but willed himself not to.

For an insane moment, Jake actually saw the librarian's arm suddenly jerk out towards him before he let out a ghastly hollow sound from his mouthless face with the teeth loosely hanging in his bloodied jaws.

Jake hit his back against the wall and quickly dashed out of the room.

Did the monsters do that? Of course they did! They fucking killed the librarian!

What about the other kids he'd seen earlier in the library? Were they killed too.

Then he remembered the monster he had fought with earlier. How it had been disguised as a student.

Maybe the other kids were also monsters, waiting for a chance to take me down and get the book.

Well, the library was empty apart from the ashes of a slime-covered monster, a worm-infested librarian and a kid with a third eye!

Jake decided to evacuate the premises for his own good, getting out through a back fence to avoid being spotted leaving the school at that time, which was already deserted.

As soon as he got home, Jake quickly walked through the front door, passing the living room and didn't catch his dad saying something to his brother. He assumed his mother wasn't back yet and walked into his room, locking the door behind him.

Retrieving the book from the bag, he placed it on his desk and let out a deep sigh, passing both of his hands through his hair.

"Shit, shit! What's going on?"

He paced paced back and forth in the room until he turned to the book.

"Okay, there's only one plausible way to do this!"

With that, he went and sat behind his desk and took a moment to look at the pentacle before opening the book from the first page and began to read...

                                               ***

Later that night, he was already asleep when the itching began. Again.

Still sleeping, Matt's hand went to that spot on his right arm where the monster had grazed him with its claw. It was still covered with a band aid as he scratched around it. The itching stopped and Matt resumed his uninterrupted sleeping thus he did not feel the thing that slowly creeped out from under the band aid and crawl up his arm before disappearing in his ear.