Voices (Whisper Trilogy Book 3) (24 page)

Truman put his ear to Isaac’s chest. “Yeah, he’s breathing. He’s just… out cold.”

“Jesus, did you hear him? Did you hear the way he was talking?”

“Yeah,” Truman said, knowing it was a language he would never be able to forget.

“I don’t know what to do. We can’t phone an ambulance, we’ll be arrested.”

“He doesn’t need an ambulance,” Mrs. Alma croaked, pushing herself up on her elbows. Like Isaac, she too had a bloody nose, and her eyes remained closed as she tried to compose herself.

“What do we do, Mrs. Alma?”

“Kitchen.”

“What do you need?” Emma said, starting toward the door. Her mind was filled with concoctions and potions, secret remedies and incantations.

“Tea. I need a cup of tea.”

“What about Isaac?”

Mrs. Alma looked at him, almost as if she was seeing him for the first time. “He’ll be fine. Go put him in the spare bedroom. Let him sleep it off.”

“Sleep it off? You sound so casual. You were speaking—”

“In tongues? Yes, I know.”

“Mrs. Alma—”

“Please,” she said, holding up a hand. “I need to recover. It always takes a lot out of me.”

“And what about him? He’s just a boy. You shouldn’t have done that to him. We came here for your help.”

“And now you have it.”

“How?”

Mrs. Alma picked up her cigarettes. “Because he now knows the answer. We just need to wait for him to wake up.”

“There’s something else isn’t there? What is it you’re not telling me?”

Mrs. Alma looked at Emma, her face tight and frightened. “Before the end, the boy will die. It’s the only way this can be stopped.”

“No, there has to be something else.”

Mrs. Alma shook her head. “No. I wish there was, truly I do. If this is to end, the boy has to die. It is the only way to close the circle created by his birth.”

Emma put her head in her hands and the room fell into silence.

II

He was in a black room. In his dream, Isaac stood, or more accurately existed, floating in perpetual emptiness. He was everywhere and nowhere. Something and nothing. He saw a man. Cheap suit. Blond hair. He was standing by a car talking to two other people. Isaac wished he were closer. The second the thought registered, he was moving, drifting toward them. As he moved nearer, the scenery around the group started to take form, appearing out of the black, becoming more and more solid until he was floating in the physical world. The blond-haired man in the cheap suit was laughing with the couple, his body language awkward. Isaac saw the house, the thatched cottage in the woods. He realized two things in quick succession. This was something which took place before he was born. And the people talking to the blond-haired man were his parents.

What’s his name?

Isaac didn’t say it. He thought the question. Even so, the answer came back to him almost immediately.

Donovan.

Isaac watched his mother. She seemed full of optimism and happiness as she ran around to the back of the house. Isaac stayed with Donovan and his father, eavesdropping on their conversation. Donovan was speaking, leaning close, Jester’s grin wide. Too wide.

“Don’t worry about the trees. They just take a bit of getting used to,” he said, nodding toward where Steve was staring. “The last owners spent many happy years in this house before they decided to sell up and move to Australia.” He flashed his wide, salesman grin.

Only Isaac knew they hadn’t moved to Australia. They died horrible painful deaths in the forest. The woman screaming. The man cackling as he strangled her, squealing with delight as her face turned blue. Leaving her there to rot. Leaving her there for Donovan to have his way with again, and again, and again until the smell was too much even for him. Leaving her there to go back to the house. To hang himself in the bedroom, smiling all the while.

Isaac moved through time. He was still at the house, but now there were boxes everywhere. Isaac saw his father, sitting at the bottom of the garden, listening to Melody bark orders at the removal men. He saw his father first notice the path over the river, staring at it without knowing that its discovery would start everything unraveling for them all. He also saw Donovan again, crouching in the trees, watching the house.

Watching Melody.

Watching her shout at the removal men.

Watching her pick up one of the lamps they knocked over.

Watching her come to the front door to get some fresh air, fanning herself with a magazine.

Watching.

Watching.

Watching.

Isaac saw Donovan in his house, Polaroids spread out on the floor. Isaac didn’t need to see them to know what they depicted. He could feel the fear of every victim; the cold cut of every savage knife attack.

Donovan staring. Fantasizing. Imagining Melody as part of his collection. Donovan doing things to himself which Isaac knew about but didn’t want to see.

Show me something else,
he whispered.

Again he moved. Or maybe the scene around him did. He couldn’t tell. Either way, he knew time had shifted.

Once more, he floated above the house, watching Donovan drive up to the property.

Danger.

Isaac’s mother was home alone. How he knew, he had no idea. He just did. Nothing he saw appeared new to him. It was as if he were recalling vague memories, which was impossible. He hadn’t been born yet. Snapshots of what happened next came to him, flashing in and out of his consciousness.

His mother, disturbed from her bath, answering the door in just a towel. Donovan’s eyes, hungry with the thought of her becoming part of his collection. Thinking of that more than anything else. More than why they’d sent him.

Donovan inside the house, imposing but still friendly. His mother uncomfortable. Going upstairs to dress. Donovan sitting in the chair, rocking back and forth. Over and over again. Staring at the trees. Listening to the house creaking out its instructions. Telling him to make sure the secret place remains hidden. But Isaac knew Donovan was distracted by his own agenda. Thinking of his Polaroids. Thinking about adding Melody’s image to his gallery.

The house creaked with more urgency, the trees rocked with more bluster.

But Donovan knew they couldn’t reveal themselves just yet, and so he ignored them. He ignored why they’d sent him. All he could think about was Melody and her towel. Skin gleaming and wet. She would make a great picture, that much was certain.

Another flash forward.

Donovan unable to resist. Forcing himself on Melody. Her desperate fighting, scrambling to escape. A chase through the forest, the trees thundering in fury, not at Melody, but at Donovan for his defiance. But still he chased, the trees contracting. Not to stop
her
, but to stop
him
.

They guided her, leading her toward the clearing. Toward
that
place. Light as she exploded out of the forest, fear slamming into Donovan as he knew he no longer had the strength to deny them. Enraged, they chastised him, speaking their vile words into his head as he stalked on the edge of the clearing. They wouldn’t allow him to enter. Wouldn’t allow him to kill her as punishment for his defiance and for not ensuring the secret place under the house remained hidden.

Under the house.

Show me
, Isaac said.

He was whisked forward again. This time to Donovan breaking into the house, terrified of the Gogoku, heeding their final warning that they would tolerate no further disobedience. His instructions clear. Tie up loose ends – those who know about the secret place under the house. Kill the Samsons to ensure it stays a secret. Loose ends. The malevolent things are afraid of the seed the woman carries.

For a while Isaac didn’t understand they were referring to him.

A simple task, but the woman wakes and leaves the house, lost in a daze, heading across the river in a trance-like state. Donovan’s plan to butcher the Samsons while they sleep ruined. Steve Samson waking, hearing the intruder.

A scuffle.

A fall.

A fatal wound.

Donovan unaware he’s dead.

The house burning as Steve and Donovan fight, his body worn like a glove by those forces who will stop at nothing to protect their secret.

The Gogoku in the clearing, doing the job Donovan failed at. Like him, pawns to a bigger game. Servants to a darker power. They try to destroy Melody and her unborn child by the will of their masters, but Steve’s destruction of Hope House to forces them to stop. The house burns, but the secret place remains.

Under the house.

Suddenly Isaac was moving again, flying at breakneck speed. Down into the ruins. Down into the pantry, through the hatch beneath the rug, into the catacombs, to the place kept secret for centuries, the thing that dwells there as old as the earth itself. An abomination. A sight that defies words.

It was clear to him then. Donovan was the chosen guardian. And when he died, Henry Marshall took his place. Images of the hotel being built in fast forward appeared next. Henry changing plans, arguing with the architect who wanted to bulldoze the remains of Hope House. Telling him he couldn’t, knowing the secret couldn’t be revealed. Giving specific plans for the building foundations, specifying where they had to go in order to keep the secret safe.

Isaac knew where they had to go, what they had to face to do it. The demons in his brain continued to probe and manipulate, refusing to leave now they’d gained entry. Already they were speaking to him, trying to convince him to join them or suffer. Worse, telling him if he didn’t do as they said, everyone he knew would suffer with him.

He opened his eyes, drawing breath. Taking in the room in Mrs. Alma’s house, relieved to be back to normality. Back to the world of light and smell and touch. He listened inwardly, trying to feel if anything was different, and realized it wasn’t just one thing. Everything had changed. He got out of bed and went downstairs. He needed some air, anything to rid himself of the image of the thing he had just seen.

CHAPTER 29

Rachel sat on the ground, wrists tied behind her. She was pinned to the trunk of a tree by the tow ropes Henry had taken from the car. She could barely breathe, the cord digging into her chest and stomach. Soon after restraining her, he’d disappeared into the forest. She’d screamed of course, screamed until her throat burned and her voice broke. Nobody came. Nobody could hear. Although she knew it was useless, she squirmed against her restraints, her wrists rubbed raw from struggling, the dirt at her feet displaced where her heels dug into the ground in an attempt at leverage.

“That won’t help you.”

The voice came from over her shoulder, deep and throaty, somewhere out of sight amongst the trees. The crunch of twigs and leaves heralded his arrival. She looked up at him, squinting against the sun. A desperate need to get away overwhelmed Rachel, and she renewed her struggles, violently kicking in a desperate effort to be free. Henry watched, and she noticed that even his smile was devoid of any semblance of human emotion. She waited for death to come, for him to attack her. Instead of doing so, Henry sat cross-legged on the ground a few feet away, staring at her.

“Please, let me go, I promise I won’t tell anyone I saw you,” she pleaded, pulling at her restraints.

“I can’t do that.” He looked into the trees as he said it, then turned back to her, a flicker of a smile on his lips.

“You need help, please let me go.”

“Nobody can help me. Only them,” he whispered, staring back into the trees.

“Please, there are people that can help if you just let them. I won’t tell anyone.” She was crying, which seemed to further increase Henry’s enjoyment. He leaned close, his face inches from hers.

“You sound just like them. The doctors and the psychiatrists. They didn’t understand what lives inside me. That’s why the voices told me not to speak to them. Not to share their secrets.”

“There are no voices. They’re not real. Please, my family has money, they can pay to help you get better.”

“No,” he said, rearing back and plunging his hands into the earth at her feet, digging furiously, his eyes burning into her as he did. “I’ll show you. I’ll prove it.”

“Please, stop! What are you doing?” she shrieked, pulling away from his furious movements.

He didn’t answer, just kept digging deeper, gasping for breath, sweat dripping off the tip of his nose from his exertions, the manic grin never leaving his lips as he tossed handfuls of earth from under him like some kind of rabid dog. He pulled something up, something white and smooth. Rachel pushed herself back against the tree trunk, whimpering as Henry dragged the human skull out of the earth and tossed it toward her, its sightless eye sockets staring into the sky. Still not finished, he scrambled a few feet to his left and repeated the process, digging with his fingertips, ignoring the pain and blood as his nails were torn off by the ferocity of his actions. A second skull was uncovered, this one complete with a broken ribcage. Like the first, he threw it at her, the bones breaking up as it hit the tree. Still he went on, moving from spot to spot, digging up fragments of lives that had been extinguished over the centuries. When he was done, he sat back, panting and staring. Around her, bones of the dead littered the ground, some half out of the earth, others just fragments.