Burn the Dark

by S. A. Hunt

  Now that he was out of danger, Jo-elle seemed to favor his right foot, using the kitchen counter as a crutch as he left the room. Out in the hallway, he supported himself on the armrest of a chair. “Yeah, this most definitely Annie’s house. You mean you livin’ here? I didn’t even know it was still for sale. I figured it would be fallin’ apart by now.”

  “Is Annie Martine the witch that died here?”

  Jo-elle eyed him. “Where you hear that?”

  “My friend Pete told me.” Wayne stopped to rub his leg. The gauze wound around his left knee was so tight he couldn’t stand it, and his ankle felt plump, tender, like a big warm sausage. “He lives over in the trailer park. He said her husband pushed her down the stairs.”

  “I don’t know if I believe in witches, but I don’t speak ill of the dead. Annie was a good woman.”

  He sat down in the chair. Wayne grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back up. “No, we can’t stay here. It’s not safe. I told you, there’s a monster here.”

  “Just let me rest f’minute. I been upside-down for hours. My head is spinning.”

  “No!”

  “Little man, just cause I’m sittin’ here in a clearance-rack thong don’t mean I ain’t gonna slap you. I hurt myself falling on the floor, and you making it worse.” Jo-elle took his hand away, rubbing his wrist.

  Wayne scowled and headed for the stairs. “Okay, then … I’ll leave you here. You should—”

  Deep, guttural breathing rumbled along the hallway, grarararararauuuh, and the floorboards groaned.

  “You on y’own!” said Wayne, running for the foyer.

  As soon as he got there, the hulking green-eyed shadow reached out of the living room doorway with those long, hairy arms.

  “Oh!” shrieked Jo-elle. “What the Christ!”

  Halfway up the switchback staircase, Wayne paused to make sure he wasn’t alone, and he wasn’t, because the lamp-eyed creature was crawling up the wall and across the ceiling at him like some kind of huge horrible spider-bear. Wayne screamed and fought to get up to the second floor, slipping, clawing at the steps, banging his knees.

  Inhaling, the creature made a deep crooning foghorn noise—Hhhrrroooohh!—and crabbed over the edge of the landing.

  When Wayne reached the top of the stairs, it was already there waiting, crawling over the banister. “Oh!” he just had time to shout, and then the creature was on him, mumbling, wet, reeking of mold and garbage. The thing’s mouth widened, a pit cracking open a long head like a watermelon, and rows of slimy teeth glistened in that eerie sea-light from above. It leaned forward and took Wayne’s entire head in its jaws.

  A leathery tongue pressed against his eyebrow, hot breath washing his face. He could hear a muffled whispering-crinkling noise from deep in its throat, like a candy wrapper in a pocket.

  Clang!

  The monster straightened, growling at Jo-elle, who stood over it with the rotary phone in one hand. “It’s for you, bitch!” He brought the phone cradle down on that shaggy head again. Clang!

  Grateful for the distraction, Wayne clambered on his hands and knees across the landing.

  Since the monster had cut him off before he could reach the cupola door leading back to the hospital and Leon, he fled down the hallway to the upstairs bathroom. Flinging the door open, Wayne was surprised and dismayed to find only a bathtub and a toilet.

  He looked back just in time to see the deformed Sasquatch pin Jo-elle to the floor and rake fingernails across his bare chest. Blood splattered up the wall.

  Gathering his feet, Jo-elle leg-pressed the creature’s chest, almost lifting it into the air, and pried himself free, loping after Wayne on all fours. They crowded into the bathroom and Jo-elle shut the door, locking the knob, as if that would help.

  BANG! The thing outside threw itself against the door. A cup of moldy toothbrushes toppled into the sink.

  Mysterious night lay opaque against the windowpane like black felt. The window over the tub was painted shut. “Now what?” asked Wayne, on the verge of hysterics. He ripped open the mirror.

  Instead of a medicine cabinet, a dark room gaped inside, viewed from a high angle some ten feet in the air. Huge plate-glass windows to the left showered the room in soft gray moonbeams. The red numerals of a digital alarm clock burned in the black.

  Wayne climbed up on the sink and through the medicine cabinet. “Come on!”

  On the other side, he stood on top of a refrigerator, in a room that smelled like cheap shrimp and burnt hair. He climbed down onto the counter, stumbling over some bulky kitchen-thing, and jumped down to linoleum. His new thong-bedecked friend leapt down after him and fell, swearing about his ankle.

  The crawlspace they’d escaped through slammed shut, becoming a painting. In fact, now that he’d noticed them, Wayne saw the wall was covered in paintings.

  Bleeding on the floor, poor Jo-elle had a mini-breakdown. “Mother of God and home of the brave, what in the hell was that?”

  The kitchen lights came on, dazzling them both.

  A blond man with a crutch under one arm and a pistol in the other trained his gun-barrel on them. A small, pretty woman with a Mohawk stood next to him. Wayne’s eyes trickled down until they came to rest on the blond’s left leg, which ended in a nub just below the knee.

  “Joel?” asked the man.

  Joel squinted. “Kenway?”

  “The hell you doing in my kitchen at—” Kenway glanced at the microwave, ejecting the magazine from the pistol and racking the slide. A bullet flipped out and he caught it in his other hand. “—Five in the morning?… Butt-ass naked? In handcuffs?”

  “What’s it look like, hero?” demanded Joel, panting and grimacing, his hand over the lacerations on his chest. “I needed to borrow a cup of sugar.”

  19

  “And that’s how we ended up here,” said the kid. They were all clustered around the island in the kitchen, wide awake. Robin’s camera still stood at the end of the counter, recording his tale. Kenway made them all omelets and coffee while Joel and Wayne told their stories. His eyebrows stayed high and his forehead furrowed through most of it, but to his credit he never challenged them or made any disbelieving noises.

  Wayne had traded his hospital gown for a sweater and a pair of jeans from Robin. They were feminine and a couple sizes too big, but they did the trick.

  With some alcohol, Neosporin, a bandage, and a bottle of breakfast stout, Joel was sore and whiny but otherwise good as new. He’d only been nicked by the nail through the door, and his cuts weren’t as bad as they looked—more scratches than anything else, not quite enough to need stitches. He was wearing one of Kenway’s shirts and a pair of his jeans—a pair of skinny jeans the big vet had received as a gift last Christmas and just hadn’t been able to bring himself to wear.

  Robin walked around the apartment, looking through the boy’s ring like Sherlock Holmes with his magnifying glass, trying to detect anomalies. No such luck. It seemed whatever the ring was capable of, only its owner was able to take advantage of it.

  An engraving inside the ring said, Together We’ll Always Find a Way.

  This was significant. Words hold power, and Robin knew from experience that text—whether engraved or printed—could absorb and retain, or channel, that power.

  “I need to call my dad and let him know I’m all right,” said Wayne. “If he’s awake now, he’s probably really worried. Probably wondering where I am.” He sighed. “I don’t have my cell phone or I’d text him.”

  Pouring herself a cup of coffee, Robin joined them at the island. She gave him her cell phone and his ring, and he typed in his dad’s number, pressing the phone to his ear. “What troubles me the most,” Robin said to Kenway, “is the Sasquatch-monster they saw in my old house is … well, I’ve been seeing it for a long time. It’s that thing I’ve been calling the Red Lord. Always thought it was a hallucination—a part of my psychosis and my PTSD. I don’t know what to think about three other people seeing it too.” Ro
bin sat there picking at an omelet, carving off little bites and eating them in a daze of deep thought.

  “Saw it?” squawked Joel. “Fucker tried to kill me!”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re not psychotic, or whatever,” said Kenway. “Psychosis doesn’t shit spiders all over my bed like some kind of Satanic slot machine.”

  “I’m with friends, Dad,” Wayne was saying, trying to lay down some damage control. They could hear the mosquito-buzz of Leon Parkin shouting through the phone. “Yes, friends. No, not Pete. I’m fine, I’m fine. Something happened in the room and I ended up somewhere else. I mean, I don’t know. It was weird. Yes.” His face scrunched up on one side and he screwed the heel of his hand into his eye sleepily. “Dad, I can explain it better when you’re chilled out, okay?” A tear rolled down his face. “Hey. Hey, I’m sorry. For making you worry.” The boy turned away from them, hugging himself, trying not to sob outright. “Do you forgive me?” Several quiet seconds passed. “I love you too, Dad.”

  “Hey,” said Kenway. “Tell him we’re gonna take you back to the hospital as soon as we get done eating.”

  Wayne did so. “I’m sorry for making you worry,” he reiterated, his voice breaking. “Are you doin’ okay? Dad, you ain’t drinkin’ nothin’, are you?… Don’t worry about me if that makes it harder. Yeah. I just don’t want … y’know?” He hung up and gave the phone back to Robin.

  She took a sip of coffee and asked them, “So you said the walls were green when you went into the old Underwood house?”

  “The kitchen was burnt slap up,” said Joel. “And your mama’s old diner table was in there, too.”

  “My mom painted the walls green when I was a kid. When they prosecuted my dad and I became a ward of the state, the city fixed it up and painted it blue.”

  “Other than it bein’ burnt, it looked like it did when we was kids.” Joel gingerly explored the bandage taped to his chest, an adhesive combat bandage from Kenway’s old combat medic supplies, like a big square Band-Aid. “Man, this makes me glad I shave.”

  Wayne made a face. “You shave your chest?… Do you shave your legs and everything?”

  “I don’t really consider this an appropriate topic for breakfast conversation.” Joel winced in mock offense and he tossed one leg over a knee, sitting back with his beer. “You always this rude?”

  “So weird.”

  “Little man, don’t be sassing your elders.”

  Kenway scoffed. “You just got away from a blood-stealing serial killer and fought off a monster in a nightmare version of your house, and you think a guy that shaves his legs is weird?”

  * * *

  After gulping down breakfast, they loaded into Kenway’s truck and headed to the hospital. Robin rode in the back, wearing a thick jacket with the hood pulled over her head to protect her from the wind. It was a little after six in the morning, according to her phone—and the autumn air bit her face.

  She squinted in the gale, holding the GoPro out, filming the scenery as it blew past. This would make good B-roll. She wanted to monologue, but the snapping of the wind would make it impossible to hear.

  As they pulled into the parking lot of Blackfield Medical, Leon Parkin came striding out the front door, followed by an old woman in a raggedy petticoat that seemed to be made out of old potato sacks and swatches from the clearance fabric section of Walmart. Kenway was barely out of the driver’s seat when Leon marched up and started raining blows on him, cornering him inside the truck door.

  Everyone exploded into movement, shouting, running to stop him. Joel and Robin got them separated and Leon threw his elbows, trying to shake them off. “Y’all motherfuckers take my son?” he raved, seething in the middle of their circle. White vapor coiled from his mouth. “Who are you? What is this?”

  “Now wait a minute—” Kenway began, putting up his hands. Blood trickled from his nose. Leon charged him again and Joel and Robin wrestled him away.

  Wayne got out and ran to his dad. Leon clutched him against his side. “Get inside, son.”

  “But Dad—”

  “Get your ass inside and I’ll be in there in a minute.”

  The boy looked up with a stern face that belonged on a grown man and pushed away. “Dad, I left on my own. It was an accident.”

  “What did I tell you?”

  “No!” said Wayne, clenching his fists and shivering. He was limping again, his left foot a faint shade of purple. “I been helping—I’ve been dealing, with you, and things, you know, for long enough, Dad, and you owe me. I’ve always been there. Always. Even when you weren’t.” They all stared in amazement at the boy’s near-shouting tone. “So right now, I need you to listen!”

  Stunned, Leon’s face softened as he seemed to see his son, really see him, his eyes wandering up and down Wayne’s outfit.

  “We both lost her, Dad. I hurt too. You know that?”

  Leon nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, man … yeah,” as if he were coming out of a trance, and he stooped to gather Wayne up in a huge hug. The old woman clutched the collar of her heavy patchwork coat, her stringy hair whipping around. Her face was pinched into a vapid smile until she caught Robin’s stare.

  Recognition flashed in the old woman’s eyes. “Why don’t we all go inside and sort this out somewhere warm, yes?”

  * * *

  “My name is Karen. Karen Weaver,” she said to Wayne, leading them to a back corner of an isolated waiting room. “Believe it or not, I actually live right across the street from you, in the big Mexican church-house. Me and my friend Theresa were out hunting mushrooms by the old fairgrounds when I heard your friends screaming you’d been bitten by a mean old snake.”

  Ah, damn. It’s one of the Lazenbury coven. Robin followed them, her GoPro clipped to a jacket pocket, recording the conversation. Children’s books and old magazines littered an end table, and behind them an aquarium burbled peacefully.

  “What kind of snake?” asked Joel.

  Weaver smiled. “Well, that big kid—Peter, was it? He did a real number on it with that mallet, but from what I saw it looked like a copperhead. Anyway, I put a special salve on you, a poultice, I suppose, that worked to nullify and draw out most of that venom, and then Theresa carried you out to the road.” With a giggle, she added, “For an old lady, she’s as strong as a warthog.” She bent to watch the fish darting back and forth in the aquarium, talking to the glass. “One of your friends got your cell phone and called 911 for you—Johnny, I suppose his name was.” Weaver wagged a finger at Wayne. “A very dear little boy, you ought to thank him, and Peter, for their heroics. They’re quite exceptional for children these days.”

  Turning to Kenway, Leon rubbed his head. “Hey, look, man … I’m sorry about the whole, you know, punch in the face and all—”

  The vet had produced a paint-smeared handkerchief from somewhere, and was holding it to his nose. “Unnerstandable,” he said, checking the fabric. His nose had stopped leaking. “Enh, I been through worse, trust me.”

  Kneeling to get eye-to-eye with his son, Leon said, “Now, tell me what happened. You said you would explain everything. I want to know the truth.”

  Wayne’s eyebrows scrunched. “When have I lied to you—”

  Leon smirked dryly.

  “—in the last week?” Before his dad could answer, Wayne took out the ring and showed it to him. “It was this.”

  Leon took it in his thumb and forefinger, at the end of the chain still around the boy’s neck. “Your mother’s wedding band?” His features softened, his eyes wistful. “I didn’t know you were wearing this.”

  “I been wearin’ it for … well, ever since Mom. I found it in the cupholder in your car and I took it.” Wayne held it up to his eye. “I woke up in my hospital room, got up and got Mom’s ring out of my stuff, and when I came back to my bed I looked through it and saw a door in the wall where there wasn’t one before.”

  Karen Weaver’s eyes darted over to Wayne’s face, and narrowed, and she seemed to be paying
much more rapt attention to him. The old woman twitched as if she were about to reach for the ring in his hand and ask about it, but she hesitated—out of fear, or propriety, Robin wasn’t sure. But there was no mistaking the look on the witch’s face as Weaver stared, eyes bouncing from ring to boy to ring—tense, poised interest.

  Greed, almost, glinting underneath her bushy eyebrows.

  The boy went on to describe the strange past-version of the Underwood house, and the bizarre owl-headed Sasquatch, and rescuing Joel from the Serpent.

  “A killer?” Leon stiffened. “You saw a dead guy?”

  Joel spoke up. “I was chained up in a garage somewhere next to a dude with a cut throat. This red-headed guy had knocked me out and I guess he was drainin’ people for their blood. Said something about ‘blood for the garden.’ He was about to stick me like a pig too, until y’boy here showed up outta nowhere and saved my sexy ass.”

  “And you saw this weird dark version of our house too?”

  “Yes sir, I did.” Joel peeled back the lapel of the jacket he’d borrowed from Kenway, exposing his bandaged chest. “And that monster damn near opened me up.”

  The old woman coughed once, twice, then started hacking into a lacy cloth and struggled to breathe.

  That ring, thought Robin. Does she sense something about it?

  Is it supernatural?

  “You okay?” asked Kenway.

  “Oh, yes, yes,” choked Weaver, waving him off. “It’s getting that time of year when it gets dry outside. And I’ve got a bit of congestion. Nothing, really. I’m going to get some water, if that’s all right with you-all.” She tipped her hat deferentially and sauntered out of the room.

  I need to find out what she knows. Robin got up and excused herself as well, following the old woman. The Parkin family could be in danger if she wants the kid’s ring.

  Still crouping and wheezing into her napkin, Weaver glided down the hallway and around the corner. Robin followed, striding into a small hallway that contained a drinking fountain and the doors leading into the three restrooms—a men’s room, a women’s room, and a gender-neutral family restroom.