by Ike Hamill
It was too much for Sam. He broke free from his mother and father and spilled from his chair. As they knelt to help him back to his feet, the tall man started to advance. Sam screamed, looking past his parents and then squirming from their grip. A moment later, he sprinted for the door and disappeared.
Deidra and Henry looked at each other and then they both moved to follow Sam. Deidra caught her husband and spun him back around.
“Stay with Penny,” she said. She ran after Sam.
Deidra didn’t make it far. As soon as her rushing shape hit the doorway, she folded on herself, collapsing into a shrieking mess in the doorway.
“Help her!” Kate yelled. “Drag her back. It burns.”
Kate was halfway over the table when Henry managed to pull Deidra back inside.
June was already rushing around. She barely paused at Deidra and Henry. Instead, she kept moving for the door, shouting over her shoulder, “Everyone stay here.”
When his mom disappeared, Gus looked back to the tall man and the old man who had summoned him. They were both gone—they must have receded back into the shadows from where they had emerged.
He stood up to see what was happening with Deidra and Henry. His Aunt Kate had climbed over the table to drop down to the floor, next to Deidra. Jules came around the table and crouched there too. Henry put his ear to his wife’s chest while Kate gripped her hand and repeated her name.
Deidra sat up suddenly, surprising everyone back. Henry leaned in to hug her with joyful surprise.
“Are you crazy? Go find Sam,” she said.
“That’s a bad idea,” Jules said.
“June went after him, but I’ll go see if she needs help,” Henry said.
“Wait, Henry, be careful,” Kate started to say as he stepped around her. She barely finished when Henry jerked back from the door. He stared at his hand, clenching and stretching out his fingers.
“It burns,” he said.
“This is June’s task,” Allison said. “I thought you all understood that.”
Gus sat back down.
Chapter 34 : June
JUNE SAW WHICH WAY he had gone. Sam ran down the hall, through the kitchen, and then he had burst through the door to the far hall. She rushed after him, slowing a little to notice that the kitchen had changed. The calendar towel was gone from the wall. The mason jar and ammo case were no longer on the counter where she had left them. If she had to guess, those were stuck back in the kitchen of seventeen years ago.
“Sam?” she called as she saw the door to the drawing room move. It was standing open a few inches. On the other side of the gap, the room was perfectly dark. She couldn’t imagine Sam fleeing into that darkness, but she had to check.
June nudged the door open the rest of the way and darted a hand inside to flip on the lights. There were two overhead fixtures in the room. Only one bulb came on.
“Sam?” she whispered.
She jerked back and let out a surprised yelp when she saw movement from the dark side. June slapped a hand to her chest and tried to take a deep breath. The movement had just been the shadow of the door as it bounced back from its stop. It creaked and slowed down as June got ahold of herself.
She blinked several times, letting her eyelids stay down a little more each time until she got a sense of Sam.
She dropped into a crouch. He was there, beneath the small table that sat next to the padded chair.
“Let’s go back,” she whispered. “Your parents are worried sick.”
He stared at her with wide eyes and shook his head.
June reached a hand towards him, like he was a stray dog. Maybe if she let him sniff her hand first, he wouldn’t run away before she could get close enough to grab him. The idea would have made her laugh if she weren’t terrified that it was true. Sam looked so frightened that he had lost reasoning. He was running completely on instincts and fear.
In her crouch, June began to inch forward. She bobbed as she shuffled towards him.
Sam reached out a trembling finger and pointed.
June turned and saw what he was afraid of. At the other end of the room, on the other side of the bigger table, she saw two tall, skinny legs. The person they belonged to must have been enormous.
She caught her breath again and rose fast with tensed muscles. June backed into Sam’s table to catch her balance. There was nobody there. The legs must have been an optical illusion. June lowered back down to a squat. The legs materialized again.
“He’s not there, Sam,” she whispered. “It’s just a trick of the…”
Before she could finish, the legs started walking their direction.
# # # #
June’s eyes were locked onto the moving legs. She was frozen, waiting to see what would come around the table and reveal itself. Sam didn’t wait. He slid past her like a snake and darted for the door, leaving her there.
June started to rise again. For a moment, she saw the flash of something metal and then the figure was gone again. It had disappeared when she stood up. She left the light on and closed the door tight before jogging after Sam. He was in her room—the front room. June was relieved to see that it was no longer trapped in the past. Her room looked exactly how she had left it.
Sam was tugging at the doorknob, trying to get out to the front porch.
“Sam,” she said. “It’s freezing out there. You’ll catch pneumonia out in the snow.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. She reached over him and he only flinched a little as she clicked back the deadbolt. Suddenly, Sam reeled backwards as the door swung open. Wind battered the storm door. The snow was already a few inches higher than the bottom pane of glass, and that was under the shelter of the porch. There was no telling how deep it was in the yard. It always drifted deep on the stairs. Sam would probably be in over his head.
She caught his shirt as he tried to run past her.
“You’re not going out there without a coat.”
He allowed her to restrain him. June reached over for Auggie’s coat—it was the closest one. The smell of her brother’s deodorant, or maybe it was the laundry detergent they used, billowed out from the coat as she held it out for Sam.
“Before you go,” she said as she allowed Sam to slip his arms into the sleeves, “you tell me what you saw. I have to go back there. You need to tell me what to avoid, okay?”
“You didn’t see him?” Sam asked, turning his petrified face up to her.
“I think I did, but I’m not sure. I don’t think I see him all the time.”
“He’s super tall—like, he would hit his head on the ceiling—and he almost always has his scissors with him. He needs veins.”
“Veins?”
“Like, arteries, or whatever. He needs to cut them out of people. His own aren’t long enough, I guess. He will cut you up just for your veins.”
“But he hates the snow?” she asked.
Sam looked through the storm door, out into the night before he looked back to her.
“I don’t know.”
“But you’re going to be safer out there, out in the dark?”
Sam blinked as he considered the question.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know who knows this house better than me?” she asked.
Sam shrugged. He still seemed to be considering her previous question, so she went ahead and answered.
“Nobody, Sam. Nobody knows this house better than me. Just because I spend most of my time in this one room, don’t you believe for an instant that I don’t know every single corner of this house like the back of my hand.”
It was an obvious lie, so she tried to infuse her voice with as much confidence that she could manufacture. He seemed to believe it.
“So, if it’s the difference between going out into the dark and cold, or letting me show you where we can hide, I think you should stick with me.”
He searched her eyes and she held them steady.
“I might not see him,” she said, �
��but you can. Since you can see him, and I know how to hide, I think we should stick together.”
His mouth compressed into a flat line. He was giving serious consideration to her appeal.
“I can’t help you out there though, okay? So if you’re for sure going out into the dark and cold, you’re on your own.”
Sam began to wriggle out of Auggie’s jacket.
Chapter 35 : Auggie
“WHO WAS THAT?” HENRY asked.
“Earl,” Isla said.
“Yeah,” Penny said.
Henry thought about it and then said, “No, not the tall man. I’m asking about the little old guy. Who was it who seemed to bring Earl to the party?”
He and Kate helped Deidra to her feet and then over to a chair. She sat down gingerly and then patted her knee. Penny went to her and leaned against her instead of putting her weight on her mom’s lap.
“I’ve never seen him before,” Auggie said. “He’s family though.”
“Yeah?” Jules asked. He took a step towards the dark end of the room and then seemed to think better of it. Jules put his hands on his hips and stared at Great Uncle Travis. The old man smiled at him.
“You must know, Travis,” Auggie said. “Who was that?”
“Who?” Travis asked.
Even Travis seemed surprised when Uncle Tommy spoke up.
“Travis is so senile that he wouldn’t recognize his own face in the mirror,” Tommy said. “That was Poppa.”
“Mumma Peggy’s father?” Allison asked.
“Who else?” Tommy said, folding his arms. The gesture seemed to indicate that he was done with the conversation.
“It didn’t look like any of the pictures I’ve seen,” Allison said. “Then again, Poppa never really stood still long enough to have a good picture taken of him. There’s that one where he’s standing on top of the dead bull. He stood still for that one, but you can barely see his face.”
“Where is that photo?” Auggie said.
Allison waved a hand, dismissing the question. “Long gone. Vivian had it by her bedside for years and years. She was probably buried with it. If that was Poppa, or Poppa’s ghost, I guess, then he must have shrunk. The man in the photo with the bull was reasonably tall.”
“No. No,” Travis said. “My father? He was as short as a gnome. He only looked tall when he was holding a belt in his hand and he was getting ready to hide someone.”
Travis began to laugh at his own statement.
“He beat Sophia’s boy to death, if I remember correctly,” Travis said after his giggling died down.
“Cousin Bernard?” Tommy asked. “The albino?”
“Yes, that’s the one,” Travis said.
“He didn’t beat Bernie to death. He died of cancer,” Tommy said.
“You don’t remember Bernard. He was gone before you came along.”
“Cousin Bernie was three years younger than me, Travis. Your memory is shot.”
Allison interjected. “There couldn’t have been more than one albino cousin named Bernard, and I remember him too. He was so white that I thought he was see-through. I thought I could see the walls right through him.”
“You practically could,” Tommy said.
Auggie looked at his nephew, Gus. The kid was gripping the arms of his chair like he was trying to leave handprints in the wood. Gus jumped when Auggie patted the kid’s shoulder.
Now that she was in a chair and seemed out of danger, Jules left Deidra and came back around to take a chair near Allison. He stole back the conversation while he took his seat.
“So that’s the little guy—who was the really tall man I saw for a second?” Jules asked.
Isla opened her mouth to fill in the name. Jules beat her to it.
“Earl? Was that his name?”
Allison gestured down to Tommy, but he seemed to be done talking. Everyone turned to Travis.
“I’m too old to reliably remember anything,” Travis said. “I remember how Poppa used to swing his legs though. When he sat in his chair, at the head of the table, he used to swing his legs like a little kid waiting for dessert to be served. He hated being short. Poppa used to talk about making himself a big body that he could live in when his tiny body finally gave out.”
“Like Frankenstein?” Jules asked.
Travis laughed. “No, not out of dead people. He was going to construct himself a body out of living things. He would piece them together and make them work in concert. Then, to coordinate the whole monstrosity, he was going to transfer his own head and heart into it. The man was a genius.”
“Genius?” Jules asked with a laugh of his own. “It didn’t work, did it?”
“We’ll see,” Travis said.
Auggie watched the back and forth between GUT and Jules. They were stubborn in a similar way. Auggie supposed that he had some of that same trait himself. At least he was able to recognize it.
“Uncle Travis,” Auggie said, hoping to squeeze additional information out of the old man, “did Poppa ever finish Earl?”
“You just saw him, didn’t you?”
“I’m not sure. They were together. If he is finished, then why was Poppa still in his own body. He didn’t transfer his heart and brain?” Auggie asked. The whole topic was bizarre, but maybe the only way to get Travis to spill what he knew was to go along with it.
Travis folded his arms and appeared a little irritated by the question.
“He was mostly finished. There was something or other about the veins. I don’t know. Maybe he’s still working.”
“So if that’s not Poppa’s brain controlling Earl yet, what is?”
That question made Travis smile.
The old man waggled his finger as he answered.
“There are some instincts that live in the flesh.”
# # # #
Auggie moved down closer to Jules, so Gus wouldn’t hear him whisper.
“I’m a little worried about June on this one. It feels like a trap,” Auggie said.
Jules looked him over. “You’re worried that she might actually succeed.”
“No, you’re twisting my words. I didn’t want her to start this whole thing, but now that she has, I’m absolutely hoping that she pulls it off.”
“She did fine with the first test, right? Why are you worried about this one?”
Auggie looked down at the far end of the table. Travis was still wearing his evil grin.
“GUT is up to something. He always hated us, and now I think he has cooked something up to sabotage June.”
Jules turned up his hands.
“What are we supposed to do about it? It’s too late now, right? She is taking the test and we’re trapped in here. The only one who could help her is Sam, and he was scared out of his mind when he ran out of here.”
Auggie nodded and sat back for a second.
“Allison said that her third test was masterminded by GUT, right?”
Jules nodded.
“And he’s the one who seems to know everything about Poppa and Earl.”
“He didn’t even recognize him,” Jules said. “It was Tommy who recognized Poppa.”
“That’s what he says, but the old man is slippery,” Auggie whispered. “Stay with me—if GUT came up with this test, then it may not be as simple as it appears. June thinks she has to go save Sam, but it could be a trick. Allison’s test with the bearded man was a trick, right?”
“The trick was that she had to choose family over an interloper. Sam is family,” Jules whispered back.
Auggie looked across at Deidra and Henry.
“Is he?”
# # # #
“Come on,” Jules said. “You don’t think that Deidra knows her own son?”
“There was a question,” Auggie said.
“They put that rumor to rest,” Jules whispered. “Didn’t they have a test or something?”
“As far as I know,” Auggie said, “they decided to stop talking about it. I’m not sure they ever had a re
al test, because they decided that they would rather raise the wrong baby than mourn the right one.”
Jules sat back.
They had been talking about Deidra so much, and making so many glances in her direction, that they had drawn her attention.
“What?” Deidra asked. “What are you talking about?”
Jules leaned forward and spoke before Auggie could stop him.
“What happened in the maternity ward when Sam was born? I never did hear the whole story.”
Across the table, Henry reached over and put a hand on Deidra’s arm.
He spoke for her. “We’ve been through too much tonight already. Do you have to dredge up that bullshit?”
“I’m just curious,” Jules said. “I’m worried about Sam and it made me curious.”
“Save your fake sympathy,” Deidra said. “I know what you’re asking.”
Her tone hung the room in silent tension until Henry broke it.
“This is difficult enough. We don’t have to complicate things further by…”
“No,” Deidra said, glancing at Henry and then turning her focus back on Jules and Auggie. “They’re worried about Sam and they want to pass the time with learning about how he came into the world. I can’t believe I’ve been so selfish that I never told them everything.”
“I’m sorry, Deidra. Please…” Auggie started.
She cut him off.
“Sam was born on September 4, which was a Sunday. It was a pretty quick labor, all things considered. We decided that I would stay one night. Sam spent the first few hours in my arms and then went to the nursery so I could get some sleep.”
Deidra kept her head up but lowered her voice a little for the next part.
“The fire was caused by a faulty piece of equipment. It was just supposed to keep the batteries charged for trackers they used to make sure that nobody walked off with a baby. The inquest showed that one of the batteries leaked, the acid corroded the wires, and then the charger caught on fire. The fatalities were quick. Hopefully, they were painless. No more oxygen, and they went to sleep.”