by Hamill, Ike
George’s expression grew very serious as he learned about the real fate of Jennifer, Aaron, Nick, and Riley.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me any of this,” George said, glancing towards the window. The lights from the cabin spilled onto a rectangular patch of snow. Beyond that, the woods were dark and deep. Anything could be lurking out there.
“I had reasons—that’s kinda where the Harpers come into the story,” Ricky said. “They won’t talk about any of this stuff around here, and they have a pretty good reason.”
George squirmed in his seat.
“I told you that they’ve been through something similar to what happened to us. Similar isn’t the right word.”
“In the same inconceivable genre?” George asked.
Ricky thought about it and then nodded.
“Yeah. That’s a better way to put it. Anyway, they’re convinced that the monsters that they were dealing with have this essence about them, so you can’t talk about them.”
“Can’t or shouldn’t?”
“You’re right—shouldn’t,” Ricky said.
“Intrusive attractors,” George said.
“Sorry?”
“It’s a thing I was reading about. There are people who believe that there are demons out in the world that will be drawn to them if they think or speak about them. It’s a delusion that’s really difficult to treat with talk therapy. The patient can’t express their concerns without exacerbating them, and it stymies therapeutic approaches.”
Ricky narrowed his eyes and tilted his head towards George—a look that was a decent imitation of their father—and said, “One day you’re going to lose the ability to communicate with us regular folk.”
George smiled.
“You’re saying that the Harpers won’t talk about their monsters because they’re afraid that talking about them will draw them back in?”
“Yes,” Ricky said. “That’s a good way to put it.”
“And that’s why you initially didn’t feel like you could tell me what happened at Aaron’s wedding?”
“Exactly.”
“But now…”
George gestured for Ricky to continue.
“But now I’ve done more research and I think that the things that attacked the hotel don’t follow that rule. Also, I’m convinced that they hibernate over the winter—at least around here—so even if they stray all the way to Kingston we’re safe for another couple of months.”
George nodded but still glanced at the window again.
“Relax,” Ricky said. “Tucker is here. If a squirrel moves outside, he will let us know.”
“You’re talking about the dog that didn’t wake up until I had come inside and taken my boots off?”
Ricky laughed.
“Let me show you what I found out about these things. I want to get your opinion.”
“Are you sure?” George asked.
“Am I sure that I want your opinion?”
“No, Ricky, are you sure we should go down this path?”
“Why?”
“You’re a curious person,” George said. “You like to muddle around with things and figure out how they work. You’re better at tinkering than you are at researching.”
“Thanks?”
“Lets not forget that your experimentation did nearly lead to the rise of a horrible techo-demon that tried to take over the world, starting with this town.”
Ricky furrowed his brow and tried to think of a rebuttal, but his brother continued.
“So, maybe there are some things that you should just walk away from. You went through another terrible event, and that sucks. Maybe you should just let that door close and keep walking, so to speak.”
Ricky shook his head. “That’s the thing, though. I think that because I went through it—and the Harpers, and a few other people—it actually puts us in more danger. When those things come back, if we’re still around, they’re coming for us. And worse, when they show up, they’re not just coming for me. They’ll come for Mom and Dad because of the time that we fought the ‘horrible techo-demon’ and they might even come for you.”
Three: Amber
Amber’s eyes opened and she stared at the glow of the streetlight on the wall. Without rolling over, she knew what time it was. She frequently woke up just before three, and it always took her at least an hour to get back to sleep.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Amber reminded herself that she was back in North Carolina, hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the Maine countryside where monsters roamed. Gently, careful to not make a sound, Amber swung her feet down to the floor and stood up from the bed. She used the flashlight on her phone to check the window. Her cousin was wrong—it wasn’t birdseed tonight.
Tonight, she had put a little line of rice on her windowsill. It was a tough habit to break. At worst, it was a waste of a tiny bit of food. At best, the rice could delay monsters that might try to creep through her window and…
“Stop,” she whispered to herself.
Amber picked up the wastebasket from next to her bed and brushed the rice into the trash. She rounded the bed to get rid of the other pile and then stooped to scoop what she had put in front of her door. This was a ritual she usually did after sunrise.
After she finished cleaning, she went to the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table. Her eyes just stared at the pages of the book in her hands. None of the words registered except for the occasional piece of dialog.
Cousin Evelyn got up eventually.
Amber started the coffee maker while Evelyn was in the bathroom.
“What are you doing up?” Evelyn asked.
“I can’t stop thinking about it. I promised myself I wouldn’t tell you what happened. I didn’t want to burden you with all that.”
“All what?”
“About what happened to Bill.”
“Honey, dead is dead. It doesn’t get much worse than that.”
“Maybe,” Amber said with a sigh.
Evelyn poured herself coffee. Watching her move around the kitchen, it would be tough to guess that she was blind. After forty years, her hand didn’t hesitate at all when she reached in the fridge and pulled out the cream.
Amber watched her shuffle across to the table and set down her mug before she took a seat.
“I’m not sure how to get past this,” Amber said.
“And you think that telling me will help?”
“I don’t know what else to do. You’ve always given me such good advice.”
Evelyn sipped the coffee and set down her mug again.
“But you don’t want to burden me.”
“Exactly.”
“Then don’t,” Evelyn said. “I don’t have to know what happened in order to tell you what to do.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not. You don’t toss and turn and then get up in the middle of the night because you don’t know what to do.”
Amber studied Evelyn’s glass eyes. They moved back and forth like she was reading something that was written large on the wall behind Amber.
“You toss and turn because you know what you should do but you’re not brave enough to do it.”
Amber looked down.
“It’s not as simple as that.”
“Who are you trying to convince?”
“You’re assuming that this is a problem that I could try to fix. Not everything is like that. Some things are bigger than us. Some problems don’t have solutions.”
“Big, world-changing problems, you mean? Life and death stuff?”
“Something like that,” Amber said.
“Then why are you tossing and turning? If there’s nothing you can do, then why is your head torturing itself over it?”
Amber thought about that question until she thought she knew the root of the problem.
“I guess I’m afraid that they’re going to come back and kill again. Why wouldn’t they? I just barely escaped. They got U
ncle Bill, John, Jennifer, and the rest. What if they come back for Ricky?”
“And nothing is going to ever stop it?”
Amber thought again. She pictured the thing that had invaded her uncle’s house after the sun went down. It was John, but it was also not John. The thing that she had stabbed in the eyes was unrecognizable as a human being. As impossible as it seemed, she had grown to accept that the monster she killed had once been her neighbor, John.
“No, there’s something that can stop it. I’ve stopped more than one.”
Evelyn smiled and took another sip of coffee.
“Then that’s why your head is torturing itself. You care too much to let the world turn on its own. That’s a weakness, cousin. With any weakness, you either have to give in or harden yourself. I suggest you toughen up and forget about it.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“I thought for sure you were going to tell me that I should go off and face my fears.”
“Nope,” Evelyn said, shaking her head.
Amber waited patiently until Evelyn was ready to explain.
Eventually, her cousin said, “You just told me that you barely escaped. If you’re right, and the same thing that killed Bill nearly killed you, I don’t want you going anywhere near that place. Not while I’m alive.”
“So I just have to forget about it.”
“Yup. And I think I can help you do it.”
# # #
Amber was driving the next time Ricky called.
She pressed the button on the steering wheel to answer the call.
“Hello Ricky.”
“Hi Amber. You have a second?”
“I have fifteen minutes. I’m headed to work.”
“You’re working nights now? Or did you flee to another continent?”
Amber smiled.
“Working nights. My cousin suggested that if I couldn’t sleep at night, maybe I should change jobs.”
“Oh. Cool. That’s not a bad idea.”
“Fourteen minutes until I get to work. What’s up? Something concrete?”
“Still not concrete, no, but I’m working an angle. It’s something my brother suggested.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. I wanted to get your opinion on it. You remember what I mentioned about epigenetics?”
“Wait, before you get into that, did you do what I suggested last time we talked?”
“Yes,” Ricky said. “I pulled together a kind of support group for the families up here. I got a couple of people from town and I managed to get Liz and Alan Harper in the room as well. He held the meeting down in Portland. It was the only way I could get the Harpers to talk.”
“Makes sense,” Amber said. “They’re pretty cautious about divulging what happened to them.”
“Yeah,” Rick said. “Anyway, it didn’t go that great. It was really tough to get people to open up and I don’t think I learned anything new. I appreciate the idea, but I think it turned out to be somewhat of a dead end.”
“The point wasn’t just to learn what they already knew, Ricky,” Amber said. “The point was to set up a source of future information. If anything happens in the spring, you’re going to want to know as early as possible so you can get a jump on the action. This is the kind of thing that people aren’t going to discuss if they don’t already know they have an open line of communication.”
“Yeah. Right. Of course. I guess I’ll try to check back in individually with some of the folks and let them know to pass along anything that happens in the future.”
“Perfect,” Amber said.
“But about my brother.”
“Go ahead.”
“He had an interesting thought. He suggested that maybe we can set up a trap.”
“Oh?”
“If I’m right about them being attracted to paranormal trauma, then all I have to do is get attractive people in the right place and maybe I can lure them in.”
“To what end, Ricky?”
“To eliminate them.”
“We tried really hard to do that at the hotel, Ricky. It didn’t turn out so well.”
“That was with no planning though. If we can control the venue and the timing, we could be really prepared and I think we’ll have much better success.”
“Couldn’t you just take a fraction of that effort and use it to move far away from the issue? You don’t know the scope of the infestation. What if there are ten thousand of the things crawling around and you attract all of them at once. Do you think it’s possible to prepare for that?”
Ricky was silent for a few seconds before he said, “I don’t know. I can’t ask everyone I care about to move away though.”
“The other side of the coin is that you’ve been safe your whole life with no knowledge of any of this. One could argue that your town is not on their regular route. Maybe just don’t spent the night in the mountains, and you’ll be fine.”
“Yeah. That’s a good point too,” Ricky said.
“I’m pulling into work,” Amber said. “Gotta run.”
“Take care.”
“You too.”
# # #
Evelyn was up by the time that Amber got home.
The coffee smelled wonderful, but Amber had to get to bed before she collapsed. The last thing she wanted to do was wake herself up with more coffee.
“How was your first week?” Evelyn asked.
“Good, actually. Not as intellectually stimulating as the law firm I was working at up in Maine, but ten times better than being a receptionist. So I think it’s a good step up in the world.”
“You haven’t found your real work yet,” Evelyn said. “It’s a good thing to move around until you do. You need to taste from a bunch of different plates until you figure out what’s going to sit best in your stomach.”
“I guess. I need to get to bed. Night.”
“Morning,” Evelyn said with a laugh.
Amber pulled all the shades and peeled off her clothes as she yawned.
She was just slipping between the sheets when the phone rang again. Amber moaned when she saw the display.
“Yes, Ricky?”
“I’m sorry. You weren’t asleep, were you?”
“I was very close.”
“I was trying to figure out how long it would take you to get home after work. I didn’t want to call while you were still there. I thought that would be rude.”
“What is it, Ricky?”
“After we talked last night I realized that I hadn’t told you the most important thing.”
“Which is?”
“I may have tracked down someone else who came in contact with the things but who didn’t die.”
“Yeah?”
She put the phone on speaker and closed her eyes.
“Yes. It’s a man who lives up in the middle of nowhere. He was written off as a lunatic after the newspaper interviewed him, but one of my co-workers says that he’s perfectly sane. The only problem is that he doesn’t leave his house at all. I have to go up there to get a sense of him.”
“And this is important because?”
“I was hoping you could come with me.”
“No.”
“I looked up airfare, and I can get you up to Boston for pretty cheap. You could come and be back home in a couple of days. I’ll split the cost with you. I mean, I guess I could pay for the whole thing because you would be doing me a favor, you know?”
“No.”
“Will you think about it?”
“Ricky, no. I won’t think about it. I’ve already told you no. Call me again and I’m going to block you, okay?”
“Just… Can you just not decide right this second and let me know? I sent a book to you. You should get it in a few days.”
“You’re turning into a stalker, Ricky. How did you even get my address?”
“I looked up your cousin. Just check out the book and then think about the meeting. I’m tentatively planning on go
ing up there in two weeks. I’ll pick you up at the airport and drop you off after. You won’t have to lift a finger.”
“No.”
She reached over and stabbed the display to disconnect. For a minute or two, she was convinced that he was going to call back. She drifted off to sleep still expecting the phone to ring again.
It didn’t.
# # #
Amber woke up when the sun was still up. After only a week of working all night and sleeping during the day, sunlight was starting to fade into memory. To take advantage of her day off, she sat out back at the picnic table and looked up at the sky while she ate her breakfast.
This time, she heard Shawn’s approaching footsteps.
Amber turned around, already frowning.
“I asked you not to come around here.”
“I saw a package on your doorstep. I didn’t want anyone to steal it. The porch pirates around here are fast and stealthy. You can’t just leave something out like that.”
She pointed at the far end of the table. “Set it down.”
He took the command as invitation for him to sit. Amber rolled her eyes.
“Do I have to take out a restraining order on you?” she asked.
He looked genuinely sad at that question. Amber had spent their entire relationship trying to figure out how to tell when Shawn was putting on an act. The conclusion that she eventually drew was that he was never putting on an act. That’s why he was so dangerous. He was actually convinced that he was a genuinely nice person.
“Amber, I know you don’t want to go out with me ever again. You told me that in no uncertain terms. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t continue to be a friend to your cousin. Maybe, eventually, you and I can be friends as well. I’m not pushing for that and I don’t think that you should rule it out.”
“Shawn, there are billions of people in this world. Go find one of them to be friends with.”
Anger flashed across his eyes. It was so quick that most people would have missed it, but Amber was adept at reading Shawn.
“I’m going to check in on Mrs. Evelyn. If you don’t want to visit with us, I suggest that you avoid going inside for ten or fifteen.”
“Whatever.”
She kept a close eye on him until he was climbing the stairs. She didn’t really relax until she heard the door close behind him. When he was gone, Amber slid down and grabbed the package. It was postmarked from Portland Maine. She sighed. Her life was full of knots and she couldn’t seem to untie any of them.