314 Book 2 (7 page)

“What the fuck?” asked Jacker as he moved back, allowing Stephen room to get safe as well.

“Please help me,” said a boy from within. “She’s one of the dead ones! She’s with the red-haired woman.”

“Leave us alone!” The woman retracted her blade and started to close the door.

“Aw hell,” said Jacker. “Things are about to get bloody.” He threw his shoulder into the door, springing it from its chain, and knocking the woman inside to the floor. The knife bounced on the carpet and then onto a tiled space in front of the fireplace. She screamed in anger, and it sounded as if there were two voices within her.

“She’s going to kill me,” said the boy
as he stood on the stairs in his pajamas. His greasy hair was sticking up, a victim of bedhead, and his nose was red. He looked as if he’d been ill, perhaps sleeping upstairs when his mother had decided to attack.

“We’re already dead,” said the woman on the floor. The door had hit her on the nose, and there was a cut across the bridge. The thick, dark blood dripped from the tip of her nose, but she paid it no mind. Instead, she rose to a crouched position, her arms on the floor in front and her rear positioned higher than her head, like a cat preparing to lunge. Her right eye was bloodshot, and the left was wholly black.

She locked her gaze on Alma.

“You!”

A shock of fear stilled Alma’s breath.

“Look what you’ve done!” Again, the woman spoke with two voices.

“Kill her,” said the boy on the stairs.

“What?” asked Jacker, thoroughly confused.

“She’s one of the dead ones! Kill her before it’s too late.” The devilishness of the child’s words was worsened by the way he stood at the foot of the stairs, stoic and still as he held a stuffed rabbit in one hand. He couldn’t have been older than ten, but he was begging them to kill his mother in front of him.

“Too late for what?” asked Rachel.

The mother licked her lips, savoring the blood that dripped from her nose. She wavered in her odd, predatory stance, her bare feet perched on the carpet like a sprinter as she rose and fell on her fingertips. Her waist curved and dipped to the floor as if she had a serpent’s spine. Her eyes welled with bloody tears, and when she opened her mouth they saw that her tongue had turned black. It flicked at the air and then she fell to her elbows and started to claw at her face. Strips of flesh tore from her cheeks as she raked her nails across herself until they could see the bone beneath. She wailed, but not in pain. The woman was crying out in anger. Then they heard the crackle of bones breaking within her skull as her twisted body shook. Her legs shot out behind her, causing her body to fall flat to the carpet. She continued to pull at the skin of her face as her legs began undulating wildly, like the scrambling lower half of an ant whose head had been crushed.

“Kill her!” screamed the woman’s son. “There’s a demon in
her!”

“Come on, kid,” said Jacker. “We’re getting out of here.”

“You have to kill her,” said the boy as he clutched his stuffed rabbit against his chest.

“Get the
kid,” said Jacker. “And let’s get out of here.” He held his arms out to protect the girls, still facing the horror before them, as Stephen ran to grab the child.

“No,” said the boy as Stephen hefted him over his shoulder. “You have to kill her!”

The mother started to bash her arm on the floor until she dislocated her elbow. They heard the awful pop as it happened, and then saw the woman continue to relentlessly bash her broken arm against the carpet until the skin was ripped by a shard of bone that poked free. Then something stirred within the wound, like worms squiggling free from under the skin. Fingers reached out from the gash in the woman’s arm, gasping at the revealed bone and searching the flesh for something to grip.

“You’re letting her out!” The boy wept as Stephen carried him out of the house. “
The Skeleton Man can’t help us if she gets out.”

“Where’s the van?” asked Stephen as he ran outside.

“What?” asked Jacker.

“The van’s gone!” Stephen stood on the walkway and faced the street. Jacker’s van wasn’t there.

“Someone stole the van,” said Rachel, her voice trembling.

“This place has no memory of that,” said the boy on Stephen’s shoulder. He smacked his savior’s face until Stephen was forced to put him down.

“What do you mean?” asked Alma.

The boy ran from them and then turned to look back when he was a safe distance. “Run
to the fog. You’ll die quick in there. That’s the best you can hope for.” Then the child stumbled and fell to his knees before scrambling to get up again. He ran barefoot down the street, toward where the fog was thickening.

A bolt of green light flashed through the grey fog and illuminated the street. They looked in the other direction and saw that the mist had surrounded them. It appeared as if they were caught in the eye of a storm, and the walls were closing in.
Alma stared at the fog, and was struck by how it had changed. Then she looked at the grey clouds above and remembered that it had been sunny before. Or had it been? Was the fog always grey, or had it been white once, like a cloud descending over the town? She felt like her own memories were false, as if what she knew to be true had been distorted by lies.

“Look,” said Rachel as she pointed across the street at the house that Alma’s father had taken
his daughter to sixteen years ago. “The door’s open over there.”

“You want to go in there?” asked Stephen.

They heard the scream of the mother behind them as her body continued to break apart.

“I’m not going
back in there,” said Rachel. “And I’m not going into the fog either.”

“Let’s get in there and board up the windows,” said Jacker. “Alma, come on.”

She stood on the walkway as the fog crept in around them. Jacker came back to take her hand, snapping her out of her momentary daze.

“We’re being forced in there,” said Alma.

“There’s nowhere else to go,” said Rachel as she went with Stephen across the street.

None of them could remember what happened in Widowsfield at 3:14, on March
14th, sixteen years earlier. Alma had lost much of the memory of the cabin, but had watched her friends die on the same date, in the center of town. Now she was being guided by them, the very people she’d watched die, into the house that held her worst fears.

She pulled away from Jacker’s grip.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jacker as he looked back at her. The threshold of the cabin’s entrance seemed to frame him even from a distance, as if the house was larger than it should’ve been. Alma closed her eyes and shook her head, hoping to still the warped world.

“I don’t know you,” said Alma.

“What are you talking about?” asked Jacker. He was standing in the same spot, but seemed suddenly further away, as if the space between them had stretched.

Alma lost her balance and had to take a step backward to steady herself. Stephen and Rachel had gone into the cabin, leaving Jacker and Alma in the street. The fog was edging closer, and the mother was still screaming behind her.

“I don’t know how we met,” said Alma.

“This isn’t the time for a memory lapse, babe,” said Jacker.

“The first time I remember seeing you is when you busted down my door.”

“Okay, fine,” said Jacker. “I was there protecting you from your dad. Can we talk about this in the cabin?”

“Do you remember meeting me before that?” asked Alma, determined to get an answer before going with him.

“Your boyfriend and I knew each other,” said Jacker, but she could tell he wasn
’t sure. “You know who I mean: Your boyfriend.”

“What boyfriend?” asked Alma as a chill ran through her. It felt like the temperature had changed as the fog came closer
.

“Alma, look out!” Jacker pointed at the house behind her.

Alma saw a familiar woman standing on the stoop of the home they’d just left. It wasn’t the mother, but a girl that Alma recalled from years ago. She had red hair, pale skin, and dark circles under her eyes. The twenty-something looked frail and haggard. She was nude, and her body was covered in red hand marks and bruises, as if someone had been holding her down. Water dripped from her and struck the cement where it disappeared, leaving no evidence of its existence.

“Terry?” asked Alma, recognizing the woman as the owner of the cabin. This was her father’s mistress.

“You little cunt!” Terry’s expression turned to fury as she saw Alma in the street. The thin woman raised her hands, fingers pointed down, like a bird of prey streaking through the sky to snatch up a field mouse. She ran down the walkway, screeching as she went.

Alma turned to Jacker for help, but he was gone. When she looked back at Terry
, the red-haired woman was nearly on top of her. Alma knew she had a butcher knife in her hand, though she didn’t know why, and raised it in front of her as she closed her eyes and whimpered, like a frightened child hoping the hell around her would disappear if she wished hard enough.

Terry ran into the blade, and Alma was knocked back by the force as a gust of wind pushed at her face. Her butt hit the pavement, sending a shock of pain through her spine, and Terry’s cries of anger seemed to dissipate with the swirling wind.

Alma opened her eyes and saw that Terry was gone, but the fog had moved in closer. It was swirling around the cabin, filling the air above her as if she was in a shrinking dome. Green lighting crackled in the cloud, illuminating black shapes within that writhed and moaned, as if she’d glimpsed the carnal pleasure and pain of the devils hiding beyond. Undulating shapes, claws piercing loose skin, teeth biting into lovers, all revealed as the stench of her father’s drugs permeated the scene. Then the black wires began to reach out from the sky, sliding down from the fog like vines in a rainforest.

“Alma!” A deep, male voice called to her from within the cabin. It wasn’t Stephen or Jacker, but she recognized it anyhow. “Can you hear me?”

“Hello?” Alma crawled toward the cabin’s door. “Who are you?”

“Come back to me, baby,” said the voice, and Alma felt a sense of comfort when she heard him. “
What can we do for her?”

“Hello?” Alma was walking now, drawn to the cabin’s open door.

“I love you, Alma,” said the man from somewhere within the cabin. “I love you so much. Please don’t leave me.”

Alma stood at the door,
too terrified to enter. Lighting struck a streetlight nearby, but sizzled instead of boomed as the green energy coursed along the metal. She felt the hair on her arms stand up as the electricity crackled so close. Above her the dark shapes in the fog continued to swirl, tentacles sliding in and out of one another, forming spirals that twisted like ropes being tied into knots. The black wires stretched further, nearly touching the top of the cabin now.

“Alma,” said the man within the cabin. “Come back to me.”

She stepped inside.

Being lost inspires fear. All of us have experienced it, both as children and as adults, and I’ve never met anyone that enjoys that feeling.

The fear that comes with being lost is different than terror, which is an instinct brought on by survival. If you’re frightened of dying, you experience terror as a way to urge your
body to react to the situation: Adrenaline floods your veins, your concentration tightens, and your body prepares to do whatever is necessary to keep you alive. The physical reaction you’re experiencing is designed by evolution to help you survive. In fact, terror is intoxicating. Lots of people become addicted to the adrenaline rush that comes with terror, and seek it out by attempting dangerous stunts, or sports. However, fear is a different animal all together.

No one craves fear. Some people think they do, but they’re wrong. For instance, people in line at a roller coaster might say that they enjoy the sense of fear they have before boarding the ride. They’ll claim that they enjoy fear, but what they’re really enjoying is the anticipation of a moment of terror from which they have an underlying sense of safety. True fear is different from terror, and it is far too disconcerting to be sought.

A child lost at a mall is experiencing fear. A woman that has found a lump in her breast knows what fear is. Alzheimer patients experience fear when they realize their most precious memories are decaying, and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. Fear haunts you, it demeans you, it precedes most of the worst experiences we’ll ever have.

We have fear of death, not terror of it.

The demons in Widowsfield are less interested in terror than they are in fear. Every fracture they crafted was an attempt to recreate fear, and once terror took over they lost interest. They would rather murder a man in terror, but are happy to toy with his fears.

Chicago, Illinois

January 18
th
, 2007

Nia smiled at the man that had greeted them at the door, but her grin turned to a grimace as he ushered her inside. Mindy went first, undeterred by the creepy atmosphere, and Nia followed reluctantly behind into the room in the nearly abandoned building on Ashland, past the trail of blood on the floor behind them.