314 Book 3 (Widowsfield Trilogy) (23 page)

“Let’s call them and tell them to get out of there too,” said Jacker.

“You’ll never get away,” said Rosemary. “None of us will.
Right Alma?”

They all looked at the young woman tending to Rosemary’s wound, and she shrugged in response. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You never got away,” said Rosemary. “You ran and ran, but here you are, back in the nightmare you never left.”

“She got away,” said
Jacker. “It was sixteen years ago, right? Fuck it. I’m game for getting the hell away from here now and coming back in a decade or two. Sounds like a good deal to me.”

“It never leaves you,” said Rosemary. “
Widowsfield will haunt you for the rest of your life. You’ll dream of it, and of the creature that lives there. You’ll always feel him reaching out to you. Alma, tell them about your nightmares.”

“What nightmares?” asked
Alma.

Rosemary looked up at her as if her question was tiresome and annoying.
“The teeth. The black wires. I know all about them, Alma. I know how The Watcher’s been in your head all these years.”

“How do you know about those?” asked Alma.

“You gave me your bear, remember? I’m a psychometric. Every minute I hold onto that thing I learn more about you.”

“I can deal with nightmares,” said
Jacker.

“We have to go back,” said Rosemary. “We have to get Ben and Michael back there too. Then we can put an end to this.
If Michael’s there, then Ben won’t be able to help himself. He’ll want to try and get to Michael through The Watcher’s lies, and that’s how we can trap him back in there. We’re the only ones that can stop it.”

“Stop what?” asked Paul as he got more and more flustered.

“We have to stop The Watcher from getting out,” said Rosemary. “And we have to get Ben back there. We can’t let him escape either.”

“Why not?
What does it matter?” asked Jacker.

“Look at the man on the floor,” said Rosemary. “He came in here screaming about protecting your brother, but have any of you seen him before?”

“I have,” said Michael. “He was staying in the room next door.”

“The Skeleton Man hasn’t been here for more than a couple hours and he’s already affecting the guests.” Rosemary moved Alma away as she gripped the steak knife that was lodged in her stomach. She clenched her jaw and breathed in
as she tried to pull the knife free, but it was lodged in too deep.

“Don’t,” said Alma. “You’re supposed to leave it in.
They taught us that at a first-aid training we had to take at my school, in case one of the kids got hurt. You’re supposed to leave it in and go to a hospital.”

“No,” said Rosemary. “I’ll be fine. I just have to make it till tomorrow. Just get me back to
Widowsfield so that Helen can patch me up.”

“What happens tomorrow?” asked Paul.

Rosemary looked over at him, and then at the others who were waiting for an answer. “We end this.”

“How?” asked Alma.

“We go back to Terry’s house,” said Rosemary as Alma helped push the blanket against her wound. “And then we force our way into The Watcher’s world.”

“Wait, what?” asked
Jacker. “You mean back into that nightmare? No way, lady.”

“I don’t need you,” said Rosemary. “I just need Alma, Ben, and Michael.”

“No,” said Paul. “Not a chance.”

“If we don’t put an end to this, then The Watcher and The Skeleton Man will come for each of you.
They’ll start with you, and then they’ll move on to the people you love. They’ll take pleasure in torturing them. You saw what they were doing to the souls that were stuck in that town. Just look at how Ben was able to take over this guy’s mind. If we don’t get him out of here now, and back to Widowsfield where he belongs, then by this time tomorrow he’ll have an army on his side.”

“You’re all crazy,” said Michael. “If you think you’re getting me back into that house, you’re dumber than you look, sweetheart.”

“I’m not planning on giving you a choice,” said Rosemary with no patience for Alma’s abusive, drug-addicted father. “I’ll have my friends break every bone in your body and then drag you into that place if I have to.” She lay back down on the bed and took several breaths as she held a wadded pillowcase over her wound. “We don’t have time to argue. Go get Ben, and get him in the van. We have to get out of here. We’re running out of time.”

“She’s right,” said Paul.

“What?” Jacker looked at his friend in disbelief.

“We can argue about it in the van,” said Paul. “But we can’t stay here. With all the noise we’ve made, they’ve probably already called the cops on us. The last thing we need is to have to try and explain all this shit to the police.
Especially you, Jacker. They’ll haul you in.”

“I don’t know how much I care about that at this point,” said
Jacker. “Christ, man, this is fucked up.”

“Listen,” said Rosemary. “If you take me to a hospital, then the police are going to get involved. We can’t let that happen. The more people we get involved in this the more lives we’re risking. Everyone that learns about what’s happening in
Widowsfield will become a target. Our only shot is to put an end to it, once and for all.”

Jacker
groaned and ran his hands through his shaggy head of hair. “How the hell did I get mixed up in this shit? All right, damn it, all right. Let’s get that freak out of the bathroom and get the hell out of here. I’m too damn pretty for jail.”

The group glanced around at each other, knowing that one of them would have to accept the responsibility of opening the bathroom door and facing the man in there. No one wanted to do it.

“I’ll do it,” said Paul as he motioned to Jacker to come take the gun and keep an eye on Michael.

“No,” said Alma. “He’s my brother. I’ll get him.”

“Alma,” said Rosemary. Her voice had become weary and lethargic, a result of blood loss. “He’s not your brother. You have to remember that. Ben might be in there somewhere, but the man in that bathroom is a twisted mass of souls. He’s The Skeleton Man.”

Alma nodded, and then went to the bathroom door. She paused with her hand on the cold metal handle, and then took a deep breath to calm herself.

The hinges squealed as the door slowly opened, and a spear of light invaded the darkness, illuminating the stark white tile floor and wall. Ben was revealed, shriveled in his chair with his right hand pressed to the wall. His glassy eyes stared out at his sister as his mouth was open wide with what looked like a t-shirt stuffed inside. Michael’s belt was tied around Ben’s head, keeping the gag in place.

Ben and his sister stared at one another, and Alma weakly said, “Ben, what did he do to you?”

Widowsfield

March 14
th
, 1996

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Oliver as he stared down at the crippled man on the stretcher.

Lyle
Everman’s skin had sagged to the point that he appeared more like a rotting corpse than a living man. The skin on his face was so thin that Oliver could see the ridges of the skull beneath, as if only a silk sheet had been set over the skeleton. He stared directly up, and if not for the noises coming from his mouth and chattering teeth, he could’ve easily been mistaken for dead.

“We’re not sure,” said
Vess. “After the original experiment, he fell into this state. It’s some sort of coma, although his eyes are always open and he experiences frequent muscle twitches.”

“Is that what’s happening in his mouth?” asked Oliver, unable to hide his disgust with the way the man’s tongue was slopping around.

“Yes, although he doesn’t do that often. He’s having a particularly bad episode today.” Vess put his hand on the side of Lyle’s face and thrust his thumb under his left eye hard enough to cause the lower lid to move and reveal a good amount of the bloodshot globe. The jelly that covered Lyle’s eyes got on Vess’s thumb, and the old man wiped it off on the cripple’s shirt. “After the experiment, he aged like normal, but then around forty his aging seemed to slow down, just like mine. He’s a freak of nature.”

“I won’t argue with that,” said Oliver as he stared down at Lyle. “He’s definitely a freak.”

“He might be,” said Vess, as if he’d taken offense. “But he’s also the key that makes this machine work. Without him, we can forget all about opening the door to the next dimension.”

“How can you be sure?”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve tried to do the experiment again,” said Vess. “The first couple attempts were absolute failures. We got new psychics, and they often ended up in the same condition as Lyle here, but we were never able to repeat our results.”

“And you think putting him back in there will do the trick?” asked Oliver.

Vess looked around the room, admiring the work that Oliver’s team had done to make it look like it had so many years earlier. “I think it’s our best shot, for the same reason we had you design the room like this; for the same reason we convinced Greece to sell us this boat. We want to do everything we can to recreate the original experiment.”

“Is there any chance I can get you to reconsider letting me stay here to
watch the experiment?” asked Oliver.

“I’m afraid not,” said
Vess. “But don’t worry, you’ll be taking the place of Einstein. I want you to observe from a boat out near the Eldridge. We have Einstein’s reports about what he and Major Groves saw during the first experiment, and I’m hoping you’ll see the same. If you do, then there’s a good chance the experiment has been a success. And if that’s the case, I might not remember what happened.”

“Don’t you think we should at least put a couple cameras in here?” asked Oliver.

“No,” said Vess with insistence. “The Accord has forced me to do this their way for years. Now it’s my turn to say how things are supposed to go. No cameras.”

“And The Accord is okay with this?” asked Oliver.
Vess didn’t answer, so Oliver asked, “You did speak with them, right? They know about what’s going on here, don’t they?”

“As far as you’re concerned,” said
Vess with a grin and a wink, “I’m the only member of The Accord that matters.” He looked at the guards and then motioned toward the open door of the CORD. “Put Mr. Everman on the floor in there.”

“This is a bad idea,” said Oliver as he began to get frantic.

“No it’s not,” said Vess. “Now tell me about this stopgap mechanism. Show me how to use it.” He walked over to the orange box beside the CORD. His two guards carried Lyle into the machine and set the stretcher down. Then one of the guards opened the backpack he’d been carrying and started to pull out folded clothes that were sealed in plastic. He opened them while the second guard carefully slid Lyle off the stretcher before beginning to disrobe him.

Vess
snapped his fingers, “Oliver, pay attention. We don’t have much time.”

“What’re they doing?” asked Oliver.

Vess looked in on the two guards and said, “They’re getting Lyle ready. We have the clothes he was wearing on the day of the experiment. I, unfortunately, never thought to keep mine. Hopefully that won’t matter. Now, tell me about the stopgap please. You said something before about it controlling the power to the CORD.”

“Not entirely,” said Oliver. “It’s just a failsafe. It’s running on its own power source, and if the
CORD is unable to sustain itself, then it can draw power from here.”

“So it’s just a battery?” asked
Vess.

Oliver shook his head and then pointed at a black, coiled tube, about three inches
wide, that snaked out from behind the stopgap and into the CORD. “It’s also where the uranium is stored. When you power up the CORD, you also have to cut it.”

“Cut it?”

“It’s just the phrase we use for flipping this switch,” Oliver knelt down and put his finger on a red switch on the face of the box. “The stopgap will regulate the flow of radiation, to prevent the machine from getting too much at once. That’s why we call it ‘cutting it.’”

“I don’t understand the reference,” said
Vess.

“It’s a drug thing,” said Oliver, slightly embarrassed.
“Like cutting cocaine.”

“Oh,” said
Vess with a disappointed frown. “So I need to flip that switch just after powering the CORD?”

“Yes.”

“Easy enough,” said Vess. “You’re going to go with my two friends here. They’ll lead you out to the tugboat we have waiting for you. Stay about twenty or thirty yards away from the Eldridge, for your own safety.”

“What am I supposed to be looking for?” asked Oliver. “I never read about what Einstein saw.”

“He and Groves both claimed that the ship crackled with green electricity, and then,” he snapped his finger and continued, “disappeared.”

Oliver gave a puzzled look.

“Then, just as suddenly, it reappeared in a burst of white smoke. But several of the crew members weren’t so lucky.”