“He talked about realms. I don’t know anymore.”
Ferrin exhaled a frustrated breath. Whether it was because of him or the locks, Clark wasn’t sure.
“This realm is just a landscape he’s concocted. Think of it like a game board. And we’re all just pieces moving around.”
Clark thought of the Haunted Mansion game on the shelf downstairs, the one he had as a child. Playing it as a kid, he remembered moving his token around the board, trying to avoid the spooks and traps throughout the house. Wasn’t that what he was doing now? He looked down at Ferrin.
“Can’t you help?”
“What the hell do you think I’ve been doing all this time?” He huffed. “I’ve been challenging him from the beginning.”
Clark was confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“That damn chessboard!” Ferrin shouted. “How do you think he’s put all his pieces in place? And I’ve been trying to dodge him every step of the way.” He sank back into his chair, the chains rattling as they shifted on his pudgy frame.
“Pieces?”
“That’s all you are to him. Pieces in a game. I’ve been playing against him ever since I ended up here.” He shook his head, disgusted. “Every move I make on the chessboard, he counters. I always thought I could outsmart him, but he’s damned determined.”
“There must be a way out,” Clark pleaded.
There was a glint in Ferrin’s eyes. “Maybe for you. No real way out for me, but hopefully someplace better than this.”
Clark thought about the highway and how they had ended up on it. Was that really all Thayer Sledge’s doing? Did he really put everything in place to make them end up there? It was mind-boggling.
And now he had no idea where that highway was, or even where he was.
“The world,” Clark said. “The real world. It has to be somewhere.”
“Sure,” Ferrin said. “Somewhere outside of that damned snow globe of his.”
Chapter Twenty
Lewis Felker buttoned up his Salvation Army jacket as he staggered through the woods, a single expression sticking in his thoughts. It was an oft-heard phrase: A snowball’s chance in hell. And now he understood what it meant. Because he knew that was about the same chance he had of getting out of this alive.
That’s if he even was alive. After what he saw back at the RV, he was even more convinced he was in hell. And it had surely frozen over.
One gloved hand clung to the neck of the whiskey bottle and he raised it to his chilled lips. He drained the last swallow before tossing the bottle aside, where it landed in the snow with a soft plop.
Felker had no idea where he was going, just moving forward away from the highway. Light flakes still fell and morning had broken so his path through the woods was lit. The snow wasn’t as thick, so it made his steps easier.
He never looked back. No, he didn’t want to see if anything was following. What good would looking do anyway? He was in no condition to outrun anything. As it was, he felt he could collapse at any moment. The whiskey filtering through his thin blood oiled his joints and greased his gears as he kept going forward.
He did not worry about any of the others, was not even bothered by the fact he’d left the women alone, especially the one screaming. No one had cared to listen to him. No one considered anything he said. They all looked at him like some kind of monster. But now they all saw the real monsters. If any of it was real.
Felker still wasn’t sure.
It seemed to be brighter ahead and he saw why as he came to a clearing in the woods.
He stood at the edge of the trees, staring with disbelief at what lay in the clearing. But why shouldn’t he believe? Nothing should surprise him anymore.
It was a bar.
Oh, not your average dark wood bar that Felker was used to in most of the dismal dives he could afford to drink in.
It was an ice bar.
The morning sun glared off the smooth ice of the bar, nearly blinding him. It stood in the middle of the clearing, long and clear like smooth carved glass, its edges sharp. A bartender stood behind it, and behind him were shelves carved of ice holding bottles of liquor.
This isn’t hell, Felker thought. This is heaven.
He sauntered up to the bar, half expecting it to disappear as he approached. But it didn’t. He stood before it and placed both gloved hands on its surface, fingers splayed. It was solid.
Felker smiled. Even though he could feel the cold chill thrown off from the bar, the sight of it made him feel warm inside.
There was another customer, a man standing down at the far end of the bar. The bartender set a martini glass made of ice before the man. The bartender wore a black jacket over a red shirt, a craggy face beneath straw-like hair. Had he seen him somewhere?
The bartender took no money from the man (open bar?) and walked over to Felker.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked.
Felker thought a moment. He took his Salvation Army cap off and set it down on the bar. “Well, since it is morning, how about a Bloody Mary?”
“Good choice. Coming right up, sir.” The bartender turned his back and grabbed some bottles.
Felker glanced down at the end of the bar, watching the other man lift his glass. There was something familiar about the man’s face. He stared at him through bloodshot eyes. When the man turned to look at him, Felker saw the scar running down one side of the man’s face, under his chin and back up the other side.
Oh my God, Felker thought. It’s Brodie Kane. His old friend. He hadn’t seen him since the aftermath of the snowmobile accident. In fact, he had made sure to keep clear of the guy all these years, guilt-stricken by what had happened.
What the heck was Brodie Kane doing in his hell?
He hoped the man wouldn’t recognize him. Felker suddenly didn’t want to be here, but he needed a—
The bartender turned back around and placed an ice-carved glass in front of him filled with a pinkish liquid.
Felker looked at his drink, and then back at Brodie Kane.
His old friend smiled at him and then raised his glass.
“Bottoms up,” Brodie said, and then reached one hand to the bottom of his chin, grabbed hold of the flesh there and pulled up, peeling his face off the front of his skull to his forehead, revealing red sinewy muscles. He brought the drink up to the opening of his mouth and tipped his head back, pouring it in.
Felker turned away with a shiver, looking down at his drink.
“Something wrong, sir?” the bartender asked.
Felker stared at the drink, not daring to look back at the haunting sight at the end of the bar. He didn’t want his drink, but oh how bad he needed it.
“It’s just,” he said, looking at the glass on the bar in front of him, “it doesn’t look right.” That was true. The drink didn’t quite look like a Bloody Mary. It wasn’t very tomato-like. That’s probably because it had more alcohol than mixer in it, and maybe that was just what he needed right now.
But still…. “I don’t think there’s enough tomato juice in it. It looks kind of pale. It should be much redder.”
“Of course,” the bartender said. “Let me take care of that.” He reached down beneath the bar and pulled out a large pair of ice tongs.
That was when Felker remembered the man he had seen when he was lost in the blizzard. But he had remembered too late.
Damn! he thought.
Everett Wick brought the prongs of the ice tongs up to either side of Felker’s neck and punctured both sides of his throat in one quick motion. The blood shot out of his carotid and jugular simultaneously, pouring in a stream onto the surface of the ice bar and filling his glass with the rich red fluid.
Felker pitched forward against the bar, gloved hands reaching up, trying to stem the stream from his throat. He saw the blo
od pooling around his Salvation Army cap and that was the last sight his eyes beheld before his life force drained out of him and he tumbled to the snowy ground, immersed in a red puddle.
Chapter Twenty-One
Morning light filtered through the trees, and Shelby was grateful as she followed the trail behind Tucker Jenks. It was much easier walking now that they were under the cover of the trees, not like before, tramping through the waist-deep snow. She was relieved she had convinced the trucker to accompany her, frightened by the thought of doing this alone. Of course she would have gone by herself if he had decided to stay behind. Her kids were out here somewhere, and they needed her, and she needed them. They were the only thing that mattered now. They were all that always mattered. Not their father, not Clark. Just Macey and Luke.
Who knew what that horrible creature had done to them? If they weren’t alive, she didn’t care if she ever got out of here. Let it take her too. She didn’t want to be alone.
She wondered if the creature lived here in the woods, maybe in a den or hollow. She cast her eyes around. The woods looked just as forbidding in the light of dawn as they had in the dark with only the beam from Tucker’s flashlight to illuminate the shadows. Now as she gazed at the pine trees, green limbs drooping, bowed under by the weight of clumps of heavy snow, she felt more frightened. The trees creaked and groaned, calling out to her, warning her…or were they toying with her, mocking her? She couldn’t tell.
Was the creature lurking behind those trees, stalking them? It had her children, did it want her too? Over my dead body. Of course, that might be what it took. If she had to die, she would die for her children.
A birch tree ahead bent over so its tip touched the ground, forming an arch. Tucker had to duck to get his large frame under it. Shelby didn’t. On the other side, there seemed to be more light ahead.
They reached the clearing at the edge of the woods and saw the house. Her toes inside her boots stung from the frigid cold and the muscles in her legs throbbed. She didn’t think she’d be able to go on much farther. If not for Tucker leading her along and the thought of finding Macey and Luke, she might have collapsed back in the snow somewhere.
The house in the early morning light shimmered from the snow coating its sides and roof and gables. Long pointed icicles hung down from the eaves along the edge of the roof and from the porch over the front stoop.
Leaning up against the wall beside the front door was an old wooden toboggan. It reminded Shelby of the one she and Kirby Decker rode down Tobin’s Hill that disastrous night so long ago. A chill ran through her body.
Light glowed from one of the windows on the left side of the house. Was this the light Clark and Graham had followed, she wondered? If so, what had they found? And why hadn’t they returned? She feared the worst.
But most of all, she worried about her kids, wondering what that beastly thing had done with them. If it harmed them, God help them all.
Though it was light enough, Tucker still held the flashlight and cast its beam around something in the snow in the shadows beneath a tall maple tree in the front yard. It was a broken and bent snowshoe. The trucker glanced at her with a grim gaze but didn’t utter a word. He stepped into the clearing and she quietly followed, heart pounding in her chest.
Tucker stopped beside the snowshoe, bent down and picked it up, examining its twisted frame.
“Do you think it belonged to them?” she asked in a whisper, as if afraid someone in the house would hear them. An aching creak drew her eyes upward at the massive branches of the maple tree. There was something odd about it, and she realized it was because there was no snow on the tree. She glanced backward at the woods, noticing that their branches were covered. Strange that this tree was bare.
“I don’t know,” he said, quiet as well. He looked down. “What about that?”
Embedded in the snow was a flashlight that Shelby recognized as the one Mr. Volkmann had loaned Graham. Her heart sank. Everything kept getting hopeless. She looked up at the house with the lamp burning in one lone window. The rest of the house was dark.
“Should we try the door?” she asked.
Tucker raised one eyebrow. “I don’t like the look of this.” He dropped the snowshoe onto the ground. “That is one uninviting-looking house.”
She had to agree.
“Those icicles look like a set of jaws that want to eat me,” he said. “And if you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a lot of meat on me. Let’s go around back, see if we can find a different way in. I’d feel a lot better about that.”
He took her hand and led her around the side of the house, keeping a safe distance from it. If someone’s in there, she thought, they’ve probably already seen us. She kept watching the dark windows as she walked, trying to penetrate their emptiness. There seemed to be nothing behind them, like soulless eyes.
On the backside of the house she saw a glass extension that looked like an attached greenhouse, the glass frosted over by ice. A couple of panes were shattered. Tucker walked up to a wooden door and tried it. Locked. He poked his flashlight into one of the broken windows, peering in.
“Do you see anything?” Shelby said behind him.
“Someone definitely doesn’t have a green thumb,” he said, looking back at her. “Mostly dead plants and sticks in pots.” He reached an arm in between two jagged shards of glass.
“Careful,” she said, nervous.
She heard a click and he pulled his hand out and then opened the door. He looked back at her with a worried grimace.
“Let’s be awfully quiet in here,” he said. “Okay?”
She nodded, almost holding her breath. Please God, she said. Let them be in this house and let them be all right. She was almost too nervous to enter, but followed the big man inside.
It was dark. He shone the beam from his flashlight around.
There were tiered black wrought-iron shelves on either side of the door. Wilted plants in terracotta pots lined the shelves. Shelby noticed poinsettias, their leaves brown and shriveled, and some Christmas cacti, brittle and emaciated. Climbing up a black trellis by one wall was a holly bush, its leaves crisp, its berries a deep red. In one corner stood a tall balsam, leaning in its stand, its needles brown and drooping.
“Guess nobody’s been watering the plants,” Tucker said. He grabbed something off a shelf. It was a small piece of lead pipe about a foot in length.
“Might come in handy,” he said. “Come on.”
The floor of the solarium was tiled, and their boots clicked on it with an echoing sound. Shelby heard a creaking noise and looked up at the glass ceiling. A layer of snow covering the glass screened out what sunlight tried to filter into the room. She worried the weight of the snow would cause the glass to cave in on them, raining shards down like knife blades.
To her right was a small kidney-shaped artificial pond. It was frozen over, the head of a turtle embedded in the ice, its mouth agape in a silent gasp. She shook. She’d always thought of solariums as warm, comforting rooms, not so much like this place.
A glass table was surrounded by white wicker chairs. On the table was a cornucopia, with fruit spilling out from it. Grapes, clinging to their vines, were shriveled and well on their way to becoming raisins. Maize displayed rows of crooked kernels, like misshapen teeth in an old man’s mouth; several gourds were blackened and split open with rot.
If this was an indication of what this house offered, Shelby thought, heaven help them all. She wanted out of this room, but dreaded what awaited them farther in the house. They reached a door at the end of the room, and Tucker gripped his piece of lead pipe tight before opening it and stepping through.
They were in a dining room; empty chairs surrounded a dining table shrouded in shadows. They crept quietly into the nearby kitchen. Dark pots and pans hung from a rack over a central island counter. Shelby spotted the knife rack at the same time as Tuck
er and he briskly walked over to it. She stayed right behind him. It was amazing to watch how lightly such a big man could step. She imagined an old house like this would be full of creaky floorboards. He pulled a knife out of the rack and handed it to her.
“Take this,” he said. “Just in case. And don’t be afraid to use it.”
“What about you?” she asked.
He brandished the lead pipe. “I can do a lot of damage with this.”
They scanned the room and the several doors leading in different directions.
Shelby looked at Tucker and shrugged, as if reading his mind. He shrugged back and started toward one of the doors. He opened it slowly and they saw steps leading down into a dark cellar. The beam from the flashlight showed dusty steps. It didn’t look like anyone had been down them in a very long time. Tucker closed the door just as softly and walked toward another. This time it opened on steps leading up. The big man let out a worried sigh.
“Shall we see what’s up there?” he asked.
If the kids were being held here, upstairs was just as good a place to look as anywhere. She nodded, afraid to speak. Her heart was in her throat. Her hands in her gloves felt sweaty, but she didn’t want to take them off. Last night had been the longest night of her life, and this morning things didn’t feel like they were coming to an end.
She followed the big man up the enclosed staircase, holding the knife tightly.
His large frame blocked out the stairs as she ascended behind him, the glimmer from his light causing shadows to dance along the walls. The top ended at a long hallway.
The air felt chilled up here and for the first time she realized the house held no warmth. They hadn’t tried any light switches for fear of alerting whoever resided here, and she now wondered if the power was out. Probably, she thought. And that meant Clark hadn’t been able to send help.
So where was he?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Clark heard footsteps down the hallway when he left Ferrin’s room and thought it might be Sledge or Wick searching for him. He tried another door and ducked inside.
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