Until... | Book 3 | Until The End

by Hamill, Ike

  “Good. Now let’s convince your family.”

  Twenty-Four: Amber

  Amber folded her arms, looking around the house that she swore she would never return to.

  “The heat is working. Toilets are all good, and it looks like there was nothing wrong with this old refrigerator. I guess it just takes it time cooling down,” Vernon said.

  “Thank you,” Amber said. “I left in a hurry last year and had to find a handyman over the phone. I wasn’t sure what the state of this place would be.”

  “I’d say they did a fine job,” Mary said. “I like this place. It’s a little sparse, but there’s something warm about it nonetheless.”

  Amber smiled. It looked empty to her. When she had lived there, she had slowly been sending away all of her great uncle’s possessions to covetous relatives. In the end, it had been staged for sale and it barely felt like a home to her.

  They all turned as the kitchen door opened.

  George and Tucker came through.

  “No sign of anything out there. Sun’s going down in a bit,” George said.

  “Tucker see anything?” Vernon asked.

  “He was pretty interested in that place at the end of the road. Got his hackles up pretty good about it, but not for long.”

  “That’s my neighbor’s place. The one who…” Amber trailed off, not knowing how to finish the sentence. She didn’t really want to recount how the neighbor had broken into her uncle’s place after dark, or how she had stabbed him to death in the hallway. She was pretty sure that Ricky had already told his family about all that.

  “Looks abandoned now,” George said. “I couldn’t see any signs that anyone had been there this year.”

  “Good,” Amber said.

  “What about the Harpers?” Mary asked. “Are they safe?”

  Amber nodded and pulled out her phone. “They’re staying down in Massachusetts tonight. I guess they still haven’t figured out what they’ll do long term.”

  From upstairs, they heard the toilet flush and then the floor creak.

  Vernon clapped his hands together. “George? You want to help me down cellar for a moment?”

  “I was going to work on dinner,” George said.

  “I’ll help in the cellar,” Amber said. “I want to see what you had in mind anyway.”

  She led the way over to the cellar door. It was secured by an eye hook that always seemed to pop free when someone walked across the kitchen floor. This time, it stayed put and Amber had to lift it and really tug on the door to free it from the frame. The light was already on down there. Still, Amber pulled a flashlight from her pocket and added her light to what was coming from the bare bulbs.

  While Vernon made his way to the electrical panel, Amber scanned the beams overhead, making note of the cobwebs and looking for a spiderweb that was inhabited. She found a spider over near one of the tiny windows. It hunched and the scurried to a corner when she blew on it.

  “Can you hold this?” Vernon asked.

  He had fashioned a piece of wood to bridge against the circuit breakers and he was using tape to hold them in place.

  “We’re going to have to be careful tonight not to draw much current. Looks like a bunch of the wires in this place have never been updated, and what I’m doing here is not exactly safe. Remind me to dismantle all this in the morning.”

  Amber nodded.

  “And don’t let Ricky near the toaster. He uses the smoke detector as a timer.”

  “Got it.”

  “We should board up these windows, too. Any objections?”

  “Nope.”

  When they were done with the power, Vernon moved on to inspect the furnace and make sure it was still going strong. He explained everything as he went. Amber learned what to look for on the furnace and the water pump. Vernon kept claiming that he was no expert on such things, but he definitely knew enough to answer all of her questions.

  They found a box of scrap wood and Vernon picked up a couple of the planks and turned them in the light.

  “Looks like your uncle was way ahead of us,” Vernon said.

  “Oh?”

  “These are already cut to length and it looks like they’ve been used for just this purpose. See these nail holes? They match the holes in the window frames.”

  “Huh,” Amber said.

  “He lived here a long while, I imagine.”

  “Yeah. Long time,” Amber said.

  “During his years, I imagine he survived one of every type of crisis.”

  Amber nodded and frowned. The idea wasn’t comforting to her at all. The thing that had finally killed her great uncle was after her. If he had managed to survive all that time, what chance did she have against the thing that had eventually taken him out. Amber reminded herself that she had already lived through the threat more than once. She knew what to do, and had the strength to do it.

  “You kids are going to figure this thing out, I’m sure of that,” Vernon said. “There’s something about Ricky, and I see the same thing in you. There’s nothing out there strong enough to stop you.”

  “Thanks. I’m afraid that a lot of luck is involved too though. We lost good people at the hotel.”

  They finished boarding up the windows without saying much else.

  George called down from the kitchen to let them know that food was ready. Amber took one last look around before she climbed the stairs.

  # # #

  They had maps and books spread out on the table in the living room. George was reading “Unique Fauna of New England: A Field Guide and Memoir” and grunting occasionally at what he found in the handwritten pages.

  “So, let’s say we’re right about the train,” Ricky said. “That means they could have jumped on the one that went through the junction at about eight, that would have put them at the crossing on the Bartlett Road before midnight, which gives them enough time to walk to Alan’s and it puts them on schedule to cut down the tree back at our house.”

  “Moving with complete certainty,” George said.

  “Sorry?”

  “I mean, that leaves them absolutely no time for guesswork. They had to have known exactly where they were going and exactly how to get there.”

  “And they wouldn’t have moved on roads, would they?” Amber asked. “You wouldn’t make good time if you had to hide every time there was a car on the road.”

  “There are a ton of trails for snowmobiles and ATVs through there,” Ricky said. “Between those and logging roads, there are bunches of ways to get around.”

  “Do those trails cross moving water?”

  “Of course. There are bridges. Sometimes a trail will join a road to cross one of those bridges, and sometimes there are purpose-built bridges that are just big enough for a snowmobile.”

  “Jan said that he can’t cross moving water. It pulls at him or something. Maybe a tall enough bridge…”

  George looked up from the journal. “That’s actually pretty common with a lot of unearthly spirits. Water is a big issue.”

  Ricky sat back.

  “You’re missing the obvious point,” George said.

  “Which is?” Ricky asked.

  “Based on your calculations, it took them most of the night to get from up north down to harass Mom and Dad and the Harpers. Why are we going back north to look for them tomorrow? Don’t you think they might still be around here?”

  “We’re not necessarily looking for them tomorrow,” Amber said. “Just information and maybe to disrupt their home base, like we did with the mill.”

  “Okay,” George said, raising the book again. “Whatever.”

  “Don’t you have school work?” Ricky asked.

  George pointed to the sign on the wall and said, “Work is the curse of the drinking class.”

  Amber smiled.

  “There was something special about that place. I think Alan and I both sensed it. Actually, I’m pretty sure that Jan knew it too. The little graveyard was the resting plac
e for Prescott’s loved ones and there was freshly turned dirt. I think that he stays there in order to feel close to the family that he lost. It’s just a guess, but I really believe that his graveyard is sacred to him. If we want to hurt him, that’s where we need to start.”

  “Well, maybe we can learn more up there anyway,” George said. “I mean, even if they are down here, that could be the best reason in the world to go up there. As long as we’re back here by nightfall, so we can touch home base and tag up, so to speak, you know?”

  “You make less sense with every word you say,” Ricky said.

  Amber laughed.

  “Maybe we should all talk about getting some rest,” Amber said. “That was the whole point in delaying a day, right? Ricky, you can stay upstairs. I’m just as comfortable in the day bed down here.”

  “And I’ll take the couch,” George said.

  “The bed’s big,” Ricky said to his brother. “We can share.”

  “Ricky, you kick like a Rockette, and any space you don’t use is taken up by Tucker. I’ll be fine on the couch.”

  “I’ll get the blankets,” Amber said. She went to the hall closet, leaving behind the bickering brothers. Her great uncle had suffered from poor circulation and apparently he had been stingy with this heat. There was a huge pile of blankets in the closet on both floors. Amber had meant to box them up when she cleaned out the house, but she was glad that it had slipped her mind. She carried the stack back to the living room and Ricky had already gone upstairs.

  “You sure?” Amber asked. “I’ll flip you for the day bed.”

  “Seriously,” George said. “I’m fine.”

  Amber left some of the blankets and turned to go to the side room. The realtor had called it the dining room, but there was no table to legitimize that designation. Amber had put the day bed in there just so it wouldn’t look empty.

  She paused in front of the mirror.

  “The mirrors try to eat my eyes,” she said.

  “Graffiti?” George asked from the doorway. Amber nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice.

  “Sorry. You said you read that in the mill?”

  “What?”

  “The mirrors try to eat my eyes. It sounds like the beginning of a poem,” George said.

  “I think one of them wrote it,” Amber said. “They found mirrors in the cellar of my neighbor’s house. I think he knew something about mirrors. Maybe it was something important.”

  “The cellar?”

  “Yeah. Did I show you the letter?”

  George shook his head. He lowered himself into the chair near the door. Amber pulled out her phone and found the picture of the letter. She had marked it as a favorite so she wouldn’t lose it. Sometimes she had a dream that there was some information in there that she had missed. When she woke up and grabbed her phone, she liked to look at the picture of the letter to try to puzzle out the meaning. She almost had it memorized.

  “My eyes are hypnotic. Glancing at them can cause paralysis. That’s how the infection traps its next victim. Light is the antidote—it can diminish the mesmerizing effect. I killed thirteen, most with a wooden stake—through the eyes, not the heart,” she quoted.

  “Where?” George asked.

  “Through the eyes, not the heart,” she said again.

  “No, I mean where did he kill the thirteen?”

  “Oh. I assume in his house.”

  “Like, down in the cellar with the mirrors?” George asked.

  Amber turned up her hands and shrugged. She unfurled one of the blankets and stretched it over the day bed. George moved to the other corner so he could help.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Glancing at them can cause paralysis,” George said. “He said that glancing at his own eyes could cause paralysis. Did he live alone before everything happened?”

  “Yeah,” Amber said.

  “Then how did he know? Maybe he knew that glancing in his own eyes caused paralysis because he had glanced at his own eyes. Like in a mirror. Maybe that’s why he moved the mirrors to the cellar. Imagine this—you’ve got monsters in your cellar and you know that a mirror will paralyze them. Why not put a bunch of mirrors around, wait for them to get paralyzed, and then you can kill them without much danger to yourself.”

  “Timing,” Amber said.

  “Huh?”

  Amber tossed George a pillowcase to go with the pillow that he was holding.

  “He figured out the mirrors because his own eyes were paralyzing, right? So why was he hunting them after he figured out the mirror trick? Seems like he must have hunted them first, got bitten, and then figured out the mirrors.”

  “Yeah, but he wrote you the warning letter,” George said. “That happened after he was infected, so clearly he went through a transition period where he was turning into a monster but he was still fighting them. So maybe he figured out the mirrors and used that knowledge against his fellow monsters.”

  “Come on,” Amber said. “I’ll help you make up the couch.”

  # # #

  While they made up the couch for George’s bed, they talked about nothing in particular. His classes were going well—maybe better than they had any right to. George said that he didn’t feel challenged in his schoolwork. He wished he had picked a subject that wasn’t something he was already adept at. Amber couldn’t figure out that sentiment. She couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to succeed.

  She took the stool behind the bar and George sat down in front, like he was the only patron.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to be good at it,” George said. “It just sometimes feels like a copout. I took classes that didn’t stretch me. I learned different ways to look at the world, but nothing that I wouldn’t have eventually come up with on my own.”

  “It must be a burden to be so smart and capable,” Amber said.

  George laughed.

  “If you only knew. Seriously, though, when I hear about the crazy stuff you’ve been through in the past year, it makes my whole life seem…”

  “Wait a second,” Amber said. “From what I’ve heard, weren’t you eaten and regurgitated by an otherworldly demon who was trying to take over the earth?”

  George waved a hand. “That was my brother’s fight years ago. I was a bystander.”

  She started to ask him something else, but his eyes were unfocused. His attention had wandered far away.

  “What?” she asked.

  “So, he killed thirteen of them. That must have been just down the road, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I don’t have a precise record of where each kill happened, but by the state of his house it was clear that something had gone on there. He lied to me and said something about the truck exploding. It looked like a war had taken place though. The whole house smelled of rot and the windows were blown in. The power was out. After I saw his letter, it seemed to me like they tried to assault his house. So, yes, I have to figure that he battled them there.”

  “So, if that’s right, that house has to be, like, the last place in the world that any of them would go.”

  George moved to the couch and found his shoes. He started to put them on.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want to see the cellar,” George said.

  “Are you crazy? It’s the middle of the night. What if it’s not true? What if they don’t care about the fact that some of them were killed there. You could be walking into a whole nest of vampires.”

  “Amber, they’re after us and they somehow know how to track you down. If they don’t care about previous killing grounds, then they’re coming here anyway. This place is just as dangerous as your neighbor’s house.”

  “Wait until sunrise at least.”

  “We’re going to be busy,” George said. “I want to see his cellar. Maybe we’ll learn something important.”

  “George, I was starting to think you were the sane one of the family.”

  “Sanest, maybe,
but none of us are really sane. Can I borrow that mirror?”

  # # #

  “I’ll be back in five minutes,” George said.

  Amber’s headlights illuminated the side of the house. The broken windows looked like deep, black holes. They had been boarded up or at least covered in cardboard before. Amber wondered who had been there to knock them out again.

  “You’re crazy,” Amber said. “Wait for me.”

  They got out together and she made George wait while she went to the trunk of the rented vehicle. From there, she pulled out stakes, handed one to George, and a box of powder. She began to sprinkle a circle of it around the car.

  “Grab that big bag of sunflower seeds and follow behind me,” she said.

  He put down the borrowed mirror so he could follow her orders. Once that was done, she looked to the house again. The last time she had seen it, the place had been messed up but it still looked like a place that someone might live. Now, it was clearly abandoned and decaying quickly. Yellow police tape fluttered in the cold night air. It was as silent as a graveyard.

  George stood there, holding the mirror and the stake in one hand and pointed the flashlight with his other. She thought that he had lost his nerve. Any second, she expected him to climb back into the car.

  Instead, he took a single step forward. His next step came a moment later and after that he gained speed. He was heading towards the bulkhead doors to the right of the broken kitchen windows. The doors were open, leading down into the blackness under the house.

  Amber followed.

  She turned back towards the vehicle as they walked across the dooryard. Her rented car, in the circle of seeds and Borax, was an island of safety and they were swimming out into open water. Far in the distance, down the road, she thought she could see the glow of light from her great uncle’s house on the other side of the hill.

  George whispered, “Take a look.”

  He set down the mirror against the bulkhead door. His light was pointed down into the dark. What she saw didn’t make sense until he moved his light a little. The beam was split into shards down there. When George moved the flashlight, she understood that it was bouncing off of multiple mirrors placed down there. His light was bouncing through the space and reflecting off of the dust. As he descended, George put out an arm and brushed away the cobwebs in his way. Amber picked up his stake—he had left it by the mirror—and she pointed the two stakes down into the darkness as she descended.