by James Hunt
“So this person you saw murdered, was she a friend?” Pat asked.
Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed, picking away what remained of her nail polish. “No. But I knew the guy that killed her. He was my ex.” She looked back up at Pat. “And he was a cop.”
Pat exhaled and then ran his hand through his pepper-and-salt hair. “Shit.”
Sarah chuckled. “Yeah.” She crossed her arms, retreating inward. “He ran a little gang of crooked cops on the city’s north side. I didn’t find out until it was too late.” She leaned back against the wall. “We were heading out for drinks one night when he said he needed to make a stop. I didn’t think anything of it when he told me to wait in the car. But when he took a long time, I got out to go find him, and that’s when…” She finally looked to Pat. “He killed her. And it wasn’t just him, but it was a group of people… his gang.”
“A gang of crooked cops,” Pat replied, muttering the words to himself. “No wonder you ran.”
The memories replayed in Sarah’s head and became clearer the more she thought about them. “He found me the next day and tried to explain it wasn’t what it looked like. When I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore, he didn’t think that was a viable option. Told me that if I wanted to live I should keep him warm in bed at night until he was tired of me.” She squeezed herself a little tighter, the large jacket engulfing most of her body. “So I grabbed what I could carry and took off.”
Pat nodded and then walked over, joining her on the bed. “Listen, Sarah. Whatever guilt you’re feeling for running, I’m sure it’s misplaced. You were just trying to survive.” He put his hand on her knee. “I’ve seen a lot of bad people during my years as a barkeep.” He leaned close. “You’re not bad.”
“I’ve always considered bad to be more of a spectrum than black and white.” Sarah rubbed her forehead. “And I’ve been in enough foster homes to know that much.”
“You were an orphan?” Pat asked.
“My parents died when I was three.” Sarah reached for the photo of her parents in her jean pocket but didn’t unfold it. “I don’t have any real memories of them. They’re more… feelings, I guess.” She shook her head, shaking off the nostalgia.
Pat was quiet for a while and then slapped his palms on his thighs and stood. “I think the only option you have on the table right now is to get Dell to help you.”
“He can’t—”
“I’ve known Dell since he was little, and that boy has more gumption than you give him credit for,” Pat said, pointing at Sarah accusingly. “And the best way for you to help him is to tell him what we know.”
“We?” Sarah asked.
Pat stood and smiled. “You don’t expect me to sit out after hearing all of that, do you? This is the most excitement this town has seen since we were told Redford was getting a McDonald’s. And that’s not even in our town.”
“Let me go into the tavern and give Dell a call, let him know you’re here.” Pat walked toward the door. “I’ll be right back.”
“Pat,” Sarah said, causing him to stop. “Listen, I, um.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you. For helping me.”
Pat smiled, the same friendly grin he gave her when they first met. “Just sit tight.”
The door swung shut, and Sarah was alone.
Sarah stood and paced the room. She nervously chewed on her lower lip, the skin chapped and rough against her tongue.
So far, everything the redheaded girl had said was true. Sarah hadn’t been able to leave, and any attempt at escape from the town’s vicinity was met with more pain and icy frost that crawled up her leg. And she had a good idea of what would happen to her if it spread to the rest of her body.
With the room growing hotter, Sarah needed air. She stepped out into the night, her boots crunching the hard frozen grass beneath, and puffed icy clouds with labored breaths. She looked toward the north and saw the Bell mansion, and the anxiety worsened. Her muscles seized up, and she collapsed to her hands and knees.
Sarah thrust her palms out to catch herself, her bare skin slamming into the frozen ground, pain shooting up her arms and into her shoulders. She tried to ball her hands up, raking her fingers across the ground, and then pounded her right fist into the dead chunk of earth.
“This isn’t happening,” Sarah said, shutting her eyes and struggling to regain control of her breathing. “Wake up. Wake up.” She clenched her jaw, grinding her teeth until her head started to hurt. She pounded the ground again. “Wake up!”
“You’re awake.”
Sarah opened her eyes and looked up to find the redheaded woman floating in front of her. Startled, Sarah scurried backward and away from the floating apparition. But as the shock from the scare subsided, Sarah realized that she was no longer outside.
Sarah leapt to her feet, and the redhead floated toward her. “How did—” She spun around, examining the bedroom she was inside, then her excitement slowed, and she frowned. The floor, the ceiling, the windows. She was in a room at the Bell mansion. Finishing her spin, she landed on the ghost again. “How is this possible?”
“You’re connected to this place.” The redhead floated, circling Sarah. “You’ve been marked by the evil inside. It calls to you.”
Sarah reached for the door handle then grunted in frustration when she found it locked. She spun around and faced the redhead again. “Why did you bring me here?”
“You’re free to leave whenever you want.” The redhead shrugged with casual indifference and then floated over to hover above the nearby bed.
Sarah tossed her hands in the air. “What are you talking about?”
The redhead shook her head. “Your mind put you here. Right now, you’re just a projection. Like me.” She motioned her thumb toward the window. “Your body is still on its hands and knees on the frozen dirt outside the tavern.”
Sarah eyed the girl skeptically. “Bullshit.”
The redhead laughed, and Sarah noted its charm. She shook her head, tossing the long, curly locks of red back and forth. “Put your hand on the doorknob and see for yourself.”
Sarah turned, eyeing the doorknob, and then glanced back at the redhead to see if she was smirking, but she wasn’t. Slowly, Sarah made her way toward the door, and she suddenly felt lighter. It was as if she had just smoked pot without getting high.
Sarah stretched out her arm, afraid to touch the doorknob if the redhead was trying to play a trick on her. Less than an inch away, Sarah lunged forward, her hand going right through the door as if it wasn’t there at all.
Startled, Sarah jumped backward and landed hard on her ass. But instead of wincing in pain, she only winced out of reflex. She relaxed and then stood, staring at her body. She hadn’t felt a thing. “Whoa.”
Sarah wiggled her fingers, trying to find some missing detail on her hands to prove that this was just an illusion or a dream, but every line, freckle, and hair was accounted for. Even the chipped paint of her turquoise nail polish. She dropped her hands to her side and smiled. “Can I fly?”
Redhead arched an eyebrow. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. C’mon.” She floated toward the door and then through it, leaving Sarah alone.
Sarah walked toward the door, noticing that her footsteps were soundless against the normally fidgety wooden boards. She stopped just short of the door and then stuck her arm out. It went straight through the door. She moved it around and then pulled it back. She giggled to herself again and shook her head. “Fucking nuts.” She gulped and then took a breath before shutting her eyes and stepping through the door.
Slowly, Sarah opened her eyes and found herself on the first floor in the middle of the hallway. But it was different, newer. The walls weren’t chipped and cracked, and the tables and chairs that lined the hall glimmered under the lights.
Sarah spun to her left and saw the sun shining through the window. “That’s impossible.”
“The afterlife here is reflective of when we died,” the redhead answered, alr
eady sensing the question on the tip of Sarah’s tongue.
“So it’s always like this for you?” Sarah asked, walking toward the nearest chair and tracing her fingers along the golden square pattern imprinted on the evergreen velvet cushion. She knew that chair. She’d seen it when she had worked here, and the tear along the seat cushion had vanished. “What year is it?”
“I don’t know,” the redhead answered, a hint of sadness in her voice. “We don’t remember much.”
Sarah peeled her eyes from the cushion and toward the redhead, who looked pale even by ghost standards. “You don’t know your name?”
“All I remember is being here when I died.” She frowned, floating back and forth through the air as if she were pacing, and then stopped cold. “And I remember who killed me.” Her eyes grew big and wide, and her mouth went slack, her entire body sagging. But then she perked up. “But you can save me. You can save us.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that.”
The redhead circled Sarah, glancing around the house. “The orb is hidden in this house. It moves, but it’s always in the same place.”
“How can something be in the same place, but always moving?” Sarah asked.
The redhead shrugged. “That’s all I can remember.”
Sarah sighed. “Right.” She looked around. “So you’re the only person that can see or hear me?”
“Yes.”
“And I can go anywhere in the house?”
“Yes.”
After spending her time here in the house, Sarah knew at least one place she wanted to start looking, and that was the fifth floor. If the Bells were going to hide something anywhere, it was going to be up there. After all, it was where she found those letters.
Without a word, Sarah sprinted toward the staircase at the west end of the building and then leapt up the steps two and three at a time. While she couldn’t fly, she was light on her feet.
They ascended to the fifth floor, but when Sarah burst through the closed door, she found that the fifth floor was exactly how she had found it, in the same rotten condition it had been during her stay.
The floors were worn, cracked, and stained. Dust covered the paintings and candlesticks along the walls and furniture. The blinds at the other end of the hall were sealed shut, casting the hallway in darkness. It was just as barren and cold and deserted as she remembered.
Sarah made it one step forward before the redhead shot up through the floor with her arms jutting out and to block her path.
“You can’t be up here,” the redhead said, terror in her voice. “You need to leave.”
“You said I can go anywhere,” Sarah said. “And there’s something up here.”
Before the redhead could protest further, Sarah stepped through the woman and marched toward the door at the end of the hall.
The redhead sped up to catch her, trailing along her side. “Please, don’t go inside.”
“You said you wanted help,” Sarah replied, getting closer. “Let me help.”
The redhead continued to retreat until her back was flush against the door but not touching it. “I’m begging you to stop!”
But Sarah ignored the girl, ready to charge ahead, ready to end whatever was on the other side. She reached out her hand, prepared to go right through the girl, when all of a sudden the redhead belted an eardrum-shattering scream.
The pain split through the middle of Sarah’s head and forced her to stop. She shut her eyes and dropped to her knees. The ringing faded slowly, and then the pain stopped. But when she opened her eyes, she found herself back on her hands and knees outside of Pat’s house.
An immediate feeling of nausea overtook her, and Sarah vomited onto the grass. The hot bile was sour on her tongue, and she wiped her mouth with a shaking left hand. She looked around, finding the redhead gone, but she glanced back up to the mansion.
Quick as her legs would take her, Sarah sprinted toward Pat’s Tavern, finding the old barkeep with the phone to his ear.
“Tell Dell to bring the letters,” Sarah said, blurting out the words in a single breath. “I think they can help.”
14
The ride back to the station was quiet. Dell stole glances at Dennis in the backseat, who smiled vacantly through the window and at the woods they drove past. Each time Dell looked, it gave him the creeps.
The headlights illuminated the Redford Sheriff’s Department sign in front of a small building the city had graciously designated as their police headquarters. It had been previously used as an auxiliary building for the post office. But after they closed due to competition from UPS and FedEx, the city had allocated the building to the Sheriff’s Department. It was a definite upgrade from the basement in the city hall building, which flooded every time it rained.
Dell removed Dennis from the back of his squad car and ushered him through the front door, where a very surprised Faye lowered her magazine and removed her feet from the counter.
“Faye, will you grab me the keys to the interrogation room?” Dell asked, moving quickly through the office. He’d never really conducted an interrogation before, but Dennis didn’t know that, and he could tell the man was already starting to sweat.
“Um, yeah.” Faye retrieved the keys from her drawer and tossed them to Dell on his walk past, waiting until Dennis wasn’t looking her way to mouth, “What are you doing?” which Dell ignored.
Dell flicked on the lights and gave Dennis a little push toward the chair. “Sit down.”
“You’re not going to take the cuffs off?”
The steel bracelets clamped around his wrists were uncomfortable, and the longer Dennis wore them, the tighter they became. It wore on a person, both physically and mentally, to not have the simple freedom to scratch one’s nose when it itched. It was enough to drive most petty criminals to a confession.
“No,” Dell answered. “Sit.”
Dennis did as he was told and was forced to maneuver himself to the end of the chair’s seat to make room for his arms pinned behind his back.
Dell took a seat opposite Dennis and rested his arms on the table between them. Heat pumped through the vents, banishing the cold they had walked through outside, and Dell removed his jacket and laid it on the table off to the side. He took his time, letting Dennis sweat it out.
Finally, Dennis showed his first signs of cracking. “Well? What do you want to ask me?”
Dell repressed a smile and shrugged. “Whatever you feel like talking to me about, Dennis.”
“You said you wanted to ask me questions about Sarah,” Dennis replied, a hint of irritation in his voice. “That’s why you brought me here, right?”
Dell hadn’t had a lot of experience with interrogations, but from what he recalled with his training, he remembered that once a suspect started talking, it was best to let them work themselves into a corner. You did it by plucking at the threads that they gave you while maintaining control of the narrative. “You said that you and Sarah talked a few times. What did you talk about?”
Dennis cast his eyes down at the table and shrugged. “We talked about the chores and the different responsibilities of taking care of the house.”
“Why?” Dell asked.
The follow-up threw Dennis into confusion. “Wh-What do you mean, why?”
“Why didn’t you talk about other stuff? Didn’t she like you?”
Dennis frowned. “I don’t know. I guess we didn’t have a lot to talk about.”
“But you said you did talk, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you never talked about anything other than work?”
Dennis hesitated a moment then answered more slowly, unsure of himself. “Yeah—I mean no.”
“So you lied to me?”
Dennis’s eyes widened in trepidation, and he shifted in his seat, rotating his shoulders. “No!” Dennis shouted. “I didn’t lie, I was just telling you what… What…”
“What Mrs. Bell and Kegan told you to tell me?” Dell asked, pushing
it further.
Dennis shut his eyes, muttering something to himself, and then lifted his face, snarling. The anger streaming off Dennis was like that of a child that wasn’t getting his way.
Dell stoked the anger. “Is that what happened? Did Mrs. Bell and Kegan make you lie?”
Slowly, Dennis produced a smile followed by a giddy laugh that escaped tight lips. It went on for some time, and then tears leaked from his eyes. “You can’t stop it.”
Dell leaned forward, trying to remain calm despite his eagerness. “Stop what?”
“He’s almost here,” Dennis answered, relaxing as if the burden of secrecy had been lifted. “And he’s going to reward those that have been faithful to him.” Another spate of giddy laughter spewed from his lips. He lowered his face slowly, all the while his eyes locked on Dell. “I have been faithful.” He leaned forward. “And I will continue to be faithful.”
Dell’s heart rate spiked. “And who is this man you’ve been faithful to?”
“My master is no man,” Dennis answered. “And when he arrives he shall embrace the world to his bosom and let us suckle from his nurturing strength. The dark lord will be freed from his prison of hell and walk the earth for all eternity.”
If Dell understood what Dennis was saying, then—“You’re talking about Satan?”
Dennis smiled, exposing his yellowed teeth, and then stood, leaning over the table with his hands still locked behind his back. “People will burn, consumed in the eternal flames of the damned. Millions, no, billions!” The shadows beneath his face darkened as he maneuvered himself directly under the light in the center of the room. “They will burn forever.”
Confusion had been replaced with anger, and Dell stood, towering to the same height as Dennis, who backed down. “A lot of talk for a man who hides behind a big house and an old lady.” Dell leaned forward, and Dennis turned his face away. “What was the plan, Dennis? What did you do to Sarah?”
“She was being difficult!” Dennis said, the muscles along his neck flexing as he screamed, “She didn’t understand what she was! She didn’t understand that she was the last!”