The Four Before Me

by E H Night

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  Footsteps approached her from behind. Before she could react, she heard a loud crack. A large rock, about the size of a barn cat, fell down next to her, and landed on top of the bone. A tooth was knocked loose from the impact and it flew up toward her ankle before falling back down again next to the rock. Alice collapsed to the ground as well, landing beside it. Terrified, she rolled over with her hands raised in front of her face, and screamed as loud as she could.

  Will stood above her, giggling in a mocking sort of way, and pulled a large pair of garden shears from his back pocket. He had come prepared. He squatted down beside her and grabbed a handful of her dark hair in his dirt-covered paws.

  “Don’t move,” he said flatly, as he sawed through the hair with the dull blades, mumbling about his mother. “Mama will love this,” he repeated to himself. “Mama will be so proud of me this time.”

  Alice screamed and ripped into his arms with her long fake nails. One popped off from the impact, and another broke into pieces, creating a sharp edge. They sank into his skin like shark teeth, leaving long trailing marks all the way down to his wrists. Will dropped the shears and Alice’s hair fell into a loose pile, dispersing like sand upon impact.

  He grabbed the large rock once more, and brought it down onto Alice’s head without hesitation. “You’re too loud,” he said.

  Alice’s vision flashed on and off, as if someone were resetting the breaker in her brain over and over again. She thought of her basement, and how often she had to go down there to do just that. Sarah’s belongings crossed her mind next, and her silhouette suddenly appeared before Alice, running toward her through each of the flashes of light.

  In what seemed like only a few seconds, she saw that Sarah’s eyes were staring into hers. They looked absolutely terrified. Alice watched as her lips started moving, but was surprised to hear Betty’s voice come out from them. As she continued staring, she saw Sarah’s face age a few decades, until it ultimately became Betty’s as well.

  “We can’t keep doing this! We just can’t do this anymore, Will! Put it down! Put the damn rock down!” Betty yelped, sobbing as she fell to her knees.

  Will dropped the rock a final time, and the lights finally stopped flashing for Alice.

  ◆

  Several hours must have passed by, because Alice opened her eyes to see very little in the night’s darkness. There were cracks in between the pieces of wood. They let in just enough moonlight through to allow her to be able to see that she was inside of a shed. It took a few more moments for Alice to realize that this was actually the large shed that she had passed by earlier on her way down to the water. The odor was even more putrid from the inside. What had only smelled foul when she was out in the backyard, now smelled like blood and decay. She closed her eyes once again, hoping that she was just dreaming.

  She stayed in somewhat of a daze, fading in and out of consciousness for the rest of the evening. All semblance of time had been lost to her in the darkness and cold. When thin rays of sunlight slipped through the shed’s water-logged lumber, Alice was able to see her surroundings more clearly. She looked down at her sore wrists. They were tied to her ankles, forcing her to either fall sideways into the fetal position or to sit with her torso slightly slouched over her knees. Her joints ached in protest.

  “It’s already morning,” she thought, with stressful reality pouring over her like a cold shower. “I need to find a way out of here.” Fear filled Alice’s mind, and adrenaline kicked back into her bloodstream.

  She began searching the room for anything that she could use to cut the rope that had been keeping her restrained. She wobbled across the shed, inching her way over to a long table that was pushed all the way against the wall in the back. When she reached it, she realized that it held nothing other than chopped up pig guts and little bits of bone. Despite the evidence of a knife’s existence, there wasn’t a single one in sight. She looked underneath the table to be completely sure, but she saw something unexpected instead. Several dehydrated human toes were pushed back against the wall, as if they had been overlooked when cleaning at some point. They appeared to have been swept away quickly, and forgotten about. Their toenails were black, but not polished. They were colored only by death’s natural and more odorous lacquer.

  Alice panicked. She tried to scoot back as quickly as she could, but she fell to her side instead. With panting breaths, she brought her knees to her chest, and wailed loudly. In her entire life, she had never felt so afraid — not even on the night when Benji had put his hands around her throat. Just as a long and deep whinny came out of her mouth, the shed door started to shake and rattle. Betty appeared in the distance, with her shadowy silhouette looking menacing in front of the sun.

  “Oh, you’re awake now?” she asked, seeming surprised as she approached Alice. “That’s good.” She held onto a paper plate with some sort of noodle-filled slop on it. Squatting to her knees, she pulled a fork out of her back pocket, and scooped some of the mess in front of Alice’s mouth. “Sit up and eat this, or I’ll shovel it down your throat myself,” she said. She didn’t seem like she was joking either.

  When Alice leaned her head down toward the floor, hiding access to her mouth, it enraged Betty more than it should have. She threw the plate onto Alice’s back, scalding her neck with the hot noodles.

  Betty showed no sympathy when Alice cried out in pain. “I don’t like this either,” she said, pacing back and forth. “I can’t let you go, but I can’t have you starving to death either. At least not right now.”

  “Did — did you kill the other girls? Did you kill Sarah?” Alice asked with her voice trembling.

  Betty stopped pacing. She squatted back down and grabbed Alice by the hair that grew from the nape of her skull, and lifted her head so she could get a better look at her face. With the grimy fork still in her hand, she shoved it into Alice’s cheek, as if she were checking the tenderness of a steak. She pulled it back out, and dropped it to the floor, seeming to be shocked by her own actions. Her grip loosened from Alice’s hair, and she stood up once more.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” she said, in absolute disbelief. Anger came over her just as quickly as the shock had, and she began kicking the walls. “Don’t look at anything! Don’t ask any questions! Just stay quiet, and mind your own business!”

  Alice cried softly into the floor, and tried to stay very still. Her heart beat with such intensity that it caused her body to ebb and flow involuntarily like a tide. She rocked herself into a dazed sort of stupor. Tiny beads of blood decorated her swollen cheek.

  Something changed in Betty’s demeanor again as she stared at the scene before her. Her moods and sanity were as inconsistent as Wintersburg’s weather. Her knees grew weak, and she fell to the floor beside Alice. In a moment that seemed maternal, she began petting her head. Her voice became soft, as if she were speaking to a small child.

  “Why are you crying, sweetheart? Did my baby get hurt? Did you fall?”

  Alice stayed silent.

  “Sarah? Honey?” Betty continued. “Tell Mama what happened. I won’t be mad. I promise.”

  Alice’s vision went black once more, and she passed out with her head in Betty’s lap. She spent her next days in and out of consciousness like this, with Betty visiting her, bringing her food, and forgetting reality for moments at a time. After a while, she completely stopped responding to the madness, and ate the food as quietly and quickly as possible. She let Betty rant, panic, and dissolve into her safer memories, over and over again.

  But, much like Betty’s moods, things changed abruptly one day.

  “Will would like to keep you inside with him from now on. I have too many things to do, so I can’t keep visiting you out here. Besides, it’s only a matter of time before someone comes out to snoop around. Those deputies already brought their canines by here once. Fortunately, they thought the dogs were freaking out because I had the smoker going.” she laughed lightl
y, and snorted even lighter. “They even stayed for a couple pulled pork sandwiches from the crock pot. Oh, if only they knew.”

  “Cook me dinner,” Will said bluntly to Alice.

  Betty stopped laughing and wiped her eyes. “Will, you know that’s a bad idea. I’ll make you something to eat instead,” Betty said before turning back to Alice. “We’re going to bring you inside and get you cleaned up a bit. There’s a room in the basement. It should be better than the shed at least. I don’t think it stinks as bad.”

  Will nodded to Alice, agreeing with Betty’s statement. “It smells like Mama’s things down there. You’ll like it.”

  “You’re right, Will. She’ll like it a lot. Good then. Let’s get going.” Betty reached for Alice and lifted her arms into the air for Will to snip the ropes from them. She moved down to her ankles, and they were freed as well. “Damn… that’s a really bad rope burn. It looks like it might be infected. Hmm… it’s probably because you’re covered in shit and piss. I guess that’s my fault for not giving you a toilet, huh?” she laughed again, as if she was delivering the punchline to some kind of a dark joke that only she understood.

  Alice continued with her silence and obeyed the orders with a zombie-like state of emotional absence. She barely winced from the discomfort of her joints being used for the first time in days. Her face showed no expression as she walked, even though one of her ankles had started oozing and bleeding from the weight of each step. She was led all the way into the main bathroom.

  When Betty failed to check the temperature of the water before pushing her into the shower, Alice showed no signs of resistance to the cold pouring down onto her flesh. She simply shook and waited for the next command.

  “You’ll do whatever Will wants. If he wants you to play dress up, you play dress up. If he wants you to be quiet, you sure as hell better be quiet. Don’t worry though. He won’t touch you. He’s not a pervert.”

  Chapter 18

  “Perfect Strangers”

  Will walked down the stairs and into the basement of the lake house. It was filled with old decorations, broken Christmas trees, boxes of smashed ornaments, and expired canned goods, among other even less interesting things.

  Anything that Betty couldn’t bare to part with over the years had been shoved down there, to be stored indefinitely. She had intended on going through all of it and organizing everything, but other tasks had taken priority of her time. The last thing on her mind was where the Easter decorations or Valentine’s Day cookie cutters from 1970 were.

  Plywood shelves lined the painted brick walls, and were absolutely covered with cobwebs and dust. Sticky ball canning jars were busted on the floor, with their lids rusted and warped. Dead and dried spiders littered the corners, forming a poorly knitted scarf of fibrous matter across anything that had been stacked nearby the walls.

  While he was pushing webs out of his face, Will walked toward a small side room, and shoved a long skeleton key into its lock. Once inside, he made his way over to an old creaky rocking chair. Its waxy finished showed its age from the years of sticky dark grime that had settled in between the pieces of wood that formed its shape. Decades of heavy use and improper cleaning had left the whole thing warped and discolored. A thin hand sewn cushion rested in the seat, tied by strings to the backing. Its floral pattern was yellowed, stained from nicotine, and partially moth-eaten. The entire room smelled like mildew and mothballs, but the bugs must have grown used to the repellent over the years, because they’d clearly been feasting on all of the exposed fabrics.

  He looked over to Alice. She was crumpled up like a ball of paper on the floor, bound again by her wrists. Her ankles remained free this time, so she was able to walk around the small space. It didn’t look as if she had moved in a while though. Will had forced her to wear one of his mother’s dresses, and she hadn’t seemed to enjoy it. When she frowned, he had smacked her across the head.

  She’d been resting in the corner ever since.

  Will grinned and sat down carefully into the chair, with each creak of the weakened wood sending chills of pleasure up his body. He shuddered happily, and leaned far back into it. Both of his palms rested onto the arms of the chair, and he rocked back and forth, gently. For several minutes, he stayed like that, moving rhythmically and slowly. But completely out of nowhere, he picked up speed. The chair started to rock violently, with Will’s knees practically jumping from the floor for several seconds.

  But, then he stopped just as abruptly.

  His mother’s voice filled the safe space in his mind, and he heard her speaking to him.

  “William! You’re going to break the damned thing if you keep treating it like that! Calm down, or I’m going to spank you good again!”

  “Yes, Mama,” He said out loud to the basement room.

  “Now come here and give me some hugs. You know I hate yelling at you, boy.”

  Will lifted his arms, and stood to his feet. He hugged the air, and then he hugged himself, too. “I love you, Mama,” he said, before relaxing back into the chair.

  More memories if his mother came to mind. He saw her combing through her dark hair, with small bald patches revealing themselves after each pass of the bristles.

  ◆

  The Lake House, 1985

  Will had been noticing that his mother’s head was becoming more and more bald with each treatment of chemo that she had been receiving. He didn’t quite understand that the nurse had actually been trying to help, so when his mother yelped in pain during the poking and prodding of needles and other things, he had jumped up, and shoved the nurse down to the floor. That woman never came back to their home again, but Mrs. Noe didn’t have more than two weeks left on the earth anyway.

  Three nights before her passing, Will had sneaked into his mother’s room to watch her from the closet, which was something that he did quite frequently. He enjoyed watching her sleep. Her small relaxed snores made him feel safe and calm, as if nothing in the world was capable of hurting him.

  Only, his mother didn’t go to bed right away that night. Instead she leaned forward, and removed a soft knitted cap, and placed it down beside her on the bed. She slowly lifted one of her hands to the side of her head, and ran her finger tips across the bare and tender skin that covered her skull. With shaking bones, she picked up her hairbrush from the nightstand, and combed the air around her face, passing it through the ghosts of her brunette locks. Tears streamed down her cheeks and they fell into the dips of her collarbones — a place that was once tickled by the length of her hair.

  Will understood her loss. He, too, missed brushing through every single strand that grew upon her head. She used to let him pin it all up in curls, poorly, but she wore them around with pride.

  “What is going to happen to you when I’m no longer here to keep you safe?” she had once asked him.

  He hadn’t understood what she really meant by that question. Mothers didn’t just leave their sons behind. “I’ll be safe,” he had replied. “You always find me when I get lost.”

  “That’s not what I meant, my little bread loaf,” she’d told him, through tear-shined eyes. “One day, and very soon, I won’t be able to come home anymore —” She choked on her words momentarily and cupped Will’s stubbly gray chin. “You’re going to have to be strong for me, okay? Listen to your brother and sister. You need to be a good boy for me, Will.”

  He smiled. “Okay, Mama. You know I’m always behaved.”

  “But, we know how you can get, sometimes,” she’d said, with concern on her face. “You need to focus. I need you to try to stay present.”

  “I’ve been doing better.”

  ◆

  After Will’s mother had been in the earth for a few months, he still hadn’t come to terms with her death. One September morning, he was making his usual rounds throughout the town, pulling his red wagon behind him. It had a few soda cans inside of it, but not much else. He left it outside and walked into Medley’s. While he was standing in f
ront of the bread section, his eyes caught sight of an attractive brown haired woman. She looked nothing like his mother, but in that moment, she’d become a younger version of her to Will. He peeked at her through the stacks of loaves while she stood off in the distance, deciding on which type of chips she wanted to buy that day.

  After she had picked up a bag, he followed her all the way over to the checkout, and then waited for her outside of the store. As soon as she walked outside and went around the corner to go to her car, Will stepped out, directly in front of her, and caused a collision of their bodies.

  He fell to the ground and started crying into the gravel.

  “Oh my god! Are you Okay?” She asked, panicked.

  Will cried louder.

  She crouched next to him, and grabbed his hand. “Here, let me help you back up. Where does it hurt?”

  Will stood up and walked to the bench by the bulletin board. He sat down and sobbed loudly into his palms. The woman sat beside him, and patted him gently on the back.