by Rysa Walker
But the voice is no longer talking casually about keys of the imagination. It’s screaming at full volume, even though he doesn’t really need the warning. Chase is already halfway to the door.
Ben snatches the Transformers blanket off the bed and begins moving toward the bird. “Get out of here. Both of you. It’s…sick. Rabies or something. I’ll take—”
“What the everlovin’…” Ralph’s voice, thick with sleep, is accompanied by lumbering footsteps in the hallway.
The bird flaps its way to the dresser, its head flicking back and forth between Chase at the door and Ben in the corner.
Chase pushes the button to lock the door a split second before Ralph turns the knob.
“What’s going on in there?” Ralph jiggles the knob again, then pounds the door with his fist. The flimsy wood shakes in the frame. “Whoever locked this damn door better open it right now.”
Chase glances toward Ben. They both seem to realize at the same instant that the bed is now empty. The sheets are still littered with glass, but Aileen is gone.
There isn’t much time to contemplate this fact, however. The crow swoops down from the ceiling, launching itself straight at the door. Chase dives to the side, expecting the crazy bird to fall to the ground, but it sails through the wood and vanishes. The door trembles under the weight of Ralph’s fist one more time and then opens inward, toward Chase, even though the hinges shouldn’t move that way. Of course, a bird shouldn’t be able to fly through a wooden door either. The laws of physics seem to have taken a timeout. At this point, he thinks they may be lucky that gravity is still working.
Ralph stands a few feet back from the now-open doorway. It’s hard to see around his bulk, but Chase tries, searching for the bird. It’s nowhere to be found. Maybe it flew into the living room.
The voice in his head disagrees, however.
No. The bird was just the shell.
When Ralph takes a step forward, Chase understands. White eyes stare back at him, but not from the crow. Whatever was inside the crow is now inside Ralph.
Ben must have missed the crow’s vanishing act, because he’s still holding the Transformers blanket, looking around the room. “There was a bird—” he begins, just before Ralph’s fist catches him in the jaw.
Ben stumbles backward, landing on the floor. What scares Chase most is that Ralph didn’t seem to have put much into that punch. He’d barely pulled his arm back at all. And now he’s casually strolling into the room, whistling that stupid song he always sings when he’s about to kick Ben’s ass.
Fear ripples across Ben’s face. He lifts himself up from the floor and moves in front of Chase, pushing him back into the corner. Chase’s foot catches on the basket of clean laundry. It topples over, and he lands next to the pile of clothes.
“Sorry we woke you up,” Ben says. “We just want to go to bed, all right?”
Chase isn’t sure why Ben is trying to reason with Ralph. It’s not a tactic that works even when the man is sober. Even when his eyes aren’t stark white. And it doesn’t work now. Ralph moves forward and cuffs Ben again. Harder this time.
Ben’s head snaps sideways, and he lands on the glass-strewn floor. He twitches once and then lies still.
Ralph barks out a laugh. “That all you got, boy? Not as tough as you were last night, are you? Get up and make this interesting.” He pulls back one foot and lands a solid kick to Ben’s stomach, but he still doesn’t move.
“Get up, Ben,” Chase whimpers.
Ralph turns toward Chase, his white eyes seeming to pin him in place. “You need to keep out of this, son. Ain’t none of your business. You and me will have our talk once I’m done here.”
It’s Ralph’s voice, and the words are ones Ralph would use. Has used, Chase thinks, although the Rey family fight nights are more something he knows about than something he remembers. But there’s an odd vibration underlying the voice. It’s almost an echo effect. Almost as if that white-eyed thing was talking through Ralph.
This doesn’t surprise Chase, because he knows this man can’t be real. Ralph Rey died two years ago, at the age of sixty-seven, from liver failure. Alone in a nursing home, somewhere in West Virginia. And good goddamn riddance, too, Chase’s dad had said at the time.
The man standing before him is a figment of Ben’s imagination. And who knows? Maybe this younger version of Benjamin Rey is a figment of Chase’s own imagination. He doesn’t know what to believe anymore.
All Chase knows is that his father’s waking nightmare is staring down at the body at its feet—the body that might be his dad—with renewed interest. It seems to be ready to finish the job it started.
And he can’t let that happen.
He’s not sure what he can do to stop it, but he has to try.
Chase puts one hand on the wall to pull himself to his feet. And when he does, the Louisville Slugger that has been propped up in the corner for months slides down the wall and onto a pillow of spilled laundry, as silent as a snowflake.
The Ralph-thing crouches down and slaps Ben’s face. “Get up, wuss. It’s no fun if you don’t fight back.” It watches for a reaction, and when nothing happens, it heaves a sigh and reaches toward Ben’s neck.
Chase wraps both hands around the grip of the bat, exactly the way his mom—her name is Meredith, not Aileen—taught him. Grip it and rip it. But he can’t quite bring himself to swing. He’s scared he’ll miss. Or he’ll hit the thing just hard enough to piss it off.
Engage the dragon. Enrage the dragon.
If that happens, if he misses, the dragon will finish Ben and come after him.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. It would be quick. Easy. Almost as easy as the noose.
Then he looks down at Ben’s face. At the hand slowly squeezing the life out of him.
Something inside him roars to the front, pushing his own thoughts aside. This anger feels foreign. Alien. It screams inside his head.
It screams MINE.
Chase swings, and—
for a split second, he’s back in the graveyard. His hands, larger and several shades darker, are wrapped around the wires of a giant birdcage. He swings hard, and then the birdcage is gone, and his hands are his own, and—
The wooden bat connects with the Ralph-thing’s head so hard it nearly knocks Chase off balance. He finds his footing and swings again. The man falls. His legs fly out behind him and into the milk crates under Chase’s bed. The grinning mechanical monkey topples out, along with a box of Hot Wheels. A few of them land upright and go skidding across the floor.
Chase’s knees feel weak and shaky. He drops onto the mattress, now tilted at an angle, and stares at the bat in his hands. A red smear runs down one side. He feels sick even touching the thing and tosses it onto the bed.
Then the Ralph-thing groans. It’s a feeble sound. Almost a wheeze. It might even be a death rattle. But that tiny sign of life brings on another surge of anger from inside Chase. It’s bigger this time. Stronger.
His hand wraps around the toy monkey on the floor, and then he begins crawling toward the body. Although it feels more like he’s being pulled. He doesn’t want to go anywhere near that thing, especially without the bat in his hands, but he doesn’t have a choice.
Brass cymbals wink in the lamplight as Chase’s arm raises the monkey high into the air. “I will not be like you,” the voice inside him says as he brings the wooden base of the toy down squarely onto the back of Ralph’s head.
The voice rips through Chase’s throat again, louder this time. “I.” He bangs the monkey down again. “WILL NOT.” Thump. “BE.”
But you are, Chase thinks. You are. This is exactly like him.
His arm stops mid-swing. He can still feel the hot, tight ball of fury, but it’s no longer controlling him. Chase drops the toy and scuttles away from Ralph’s very clearly dead body. His hands and clothes—the entire floor, in fact—are spattered with blood.
I will not be like him, the voice says. But its confidence is
gone. There’s a tiny hint of question in the words, and it slides back where it belongs, deep inside the confines of Chase’s mind.
He needs to check on Ben, but every bit of strength has left him. The room is spinning, and all he wants to do is sleep. Curl up right here on the floor and not wake until the morning light spills through the broken window.
None of this is real. Not real. Everything will look better in the morning.
Every day a brighter day…
Chase closes his eyes, and the world falls away.
Two
TUCKER
He doesn’t even need to knock to realize that Julie Kennedy isn’t here. This house is nobody’s home. Much like the now-defunct-again Hart Theater, the small two-story is boarded up, and the front yard is choked with weeds. Two large NO TRESPASSING signs sit at either end of the archway on the front porch.
Tucker knows this is an illusion, just like what happened at the theater. He’s driven by Julie’s house countless times over the past weeks, even a few times today. The place looked completely livable, warm and friendly. Sure, the grass had needed a cut, but it was nothing like…this.
The only other explanation I have is a lot more unsettling, Daisy had said earlier. We can talk later.
They hadn’t really gotten into it, though, and Tucker is pretty sure that whatever explanation Daisy has come up with, it’s not going to be a rational one. There isn’t any rational explanation for what happened at the Hart. Or at her place, with the stupid mirror. Or back at the Pinewood. Or Barb casually strolling back from the dead. How do you rationally explain an entire town sliding off into The Twilight Zone in a matter of hours?
He backs out of the driveway and heads over to check on Marybeth, as promised. As he approaches, he breathes a sigh of relief. MB’s house is the complete opposite of Julie’s. Every light seems to be burning.
Scott’s BMW takes up all of the comically short driveway, so Tucker parks on the street. The neighboring houses are silent and dark. Not shuttered, like Julie’s place, though. And it’s late, so they could just be asleep, but aside from this one brightly lit exception, the street looks abandoned.
The houses seem to leer at him, narrowing and stretching out as the earth tilts beneath his feet. He leans back against the car, closes his eyes, and takes a few deep breaths, in and out, and when he looks again, the street is just a street. Still dark, of course, but unmoving.
Sweet Jesus, this day needs to end so he can get some sleep.
A huge orange tabby slinks down the sidewalk. It pauses in front of the mailbox and eyes Tucker coolly. They stare at each other, both barely breathing. Finally, the cat blinks its amber eyes and darts across the Jenkins’ lawn, vanishing into the shadows of a hedge.
Something about the cat strikes him as odd. He can’t quite put his finger on it, though.
With one last look back at the street, Tucker makes his way to Marybeth’s front porch. He pauses on the top step, where a rotted pumpkin sits, the flickering light inside pulsing through a crooked smile and lopsided eyes. It’s unsettling, but Tucker can’t figure out why. Then he hears a whisper, a faint hiss on the wind—don’t let it go out. A chill slides down his spine as the candle inside the pumpkin shudders and almost extinguishes, before flaring back to life.
Tucker knocks, and Scott Jenkins answers almost at once.
“Evening, Mr. Jenkins.”
“Tucker. What brings you out here?” A ripple of worry crosses Jenkins’s face. The man glances over Tucker’s shoulder to peer down the walkway. “Did something happen with Marybeth?”
“Oh, no,” Tucker says quickly, hoping that’s true. “I was actually coming by to see if she’s home. But I’m guessing from your question that she isn’t.”
“No. Come on in,” Jenkins says, moving to the side. “It’s freezing out there.”
A huge grandfather clock catches Tucker’s eye as he enters. For a moment, he’s lost in the rhythmic sway of the pendulum. He can see his reflection in the long, narrow window of the clock. It almost looks like the pendulum is swinging through his body.
“You said Marybeth isn’t home,” Tucker says, pulling his attention away from the clock. “When was the last time you saw her?”
Jenkins scratches the ghost of a beard on his cheek. “A few hours ago. She was going to a party with that…boy. Ben Rey. I’m sure you know his family.”
Tucker doesn’t care much for the man’s tone. He’s never liked Scott Jenkins, and this kind of thing is precisely why. “I do,” Tucker says. “Ben’s a decent guy. He takes good care of his brother.”
Jenkins ignores this. “Why are you looking for Marybeth? Did he get her into some kind of trouble?”
“No one is in trouble. I just wanted to ask her a few questions.”
“Like what?”
Tucker sighs. “Your daughter is eighteen, Mr. Jenkins.” He’s not entirely sure that’s true, but Jenkins doesn’t correct him, so he continues. “And since she’s an adult, I’m not allowed to discuss her business with you. When do you expect her home?”
From the corner of his eye, Tucker glimpses movement inside the clock again. Not just the pendulum, but a reflection of something behind him. He resists the urge to turn around and look but keeps one eye on the clock as Jenkins talks.
“They were going to a party. At Sidney’s house. Or maybe it was Cindy.”
“You don’t know?”
The reflection in the glass moves again. Tucker does turn to look this time. The orange cat he saw on the lawn is on the porch rail, looking in through the window. It almost looks like the damn thing is smiling.
Scott gives Tucker a smug look. “Marybeth is an adult. As you noted a moment ago, Officer. ”
“Right. Do you have a last name for this Sidney or Cindy, Mr. Jenkins? Because, I know pretty much everyone in Haddonwood, and I don’t think—”
“My daughter is at a supervised party, Officer Vance.” Scott Jenkins’s tone, which had already bordered on snide, takes a turn toward livid. And his eyes are now flashing.
Literally flashing, from a normal hazel to the bloodshot white of the crow.
“Maybe you should focus on the fucking bonfire?” the man says.
Tucker takes a step back and reaches for his gun. If the eyes hadn’t given away that this isn’t Scott Jenkins, the language would have.
“Underage drinking, sex, and a fire in a cornfield,” he continues. “We’ll be goddamn lucky if the fire doesn’t burn the town to ashes by sunrise.”
Scott’s eyes go a brilliant, almost blinding white this time, bright enough to light up his entire face. For a split second, Tucker could swear he sees the skull behind the man’s skin.
He begins backing away, but before he’s taken more than a couple of steps, the window at his back shatters. Cold air rushes in, and something agile and furry sails past his arm, launching itself straight at Jenkins. A howl fills the air as the man rocks back and forth, fingers dug in between the orange tabby’s soft underbelly and his face, trying to free himself from the creature’s claws.
Tucker’s shin bumps a table as he takes another step toward the door. Something shatters onto the floor, but he doesn’t pause to investigate. The doorknob is at his back, and he turns it, escaping onto the porch. He doesn’t pause but runs toward the cruiser. By the time he reaches the car, the howling inside has stopped. A streak of orange and white flies through the door and around the corner, and the street is once again eerily silent and still.
Tucker’s hand is on the button to start the engine when Scott yells from the porch. “If you see Marybeth, tell her to come straight home, okay? I’m worried about her.” His eyes are now normal, as far as Tucker can tell. He gives Tucker a little wave, then steps back into the house and shuts the door.
Tucker heads toward town, holding the steering wheel in a death grip, and fights the urge to turn on the interior light of the cruiser. He isn’t worried about distracting other drivers. The road is empty. And he’s not worrie
d about what anyone might think. He no longer gives a single fuck about that.
In the end, he doesn’t turn on the light for the same reason that he doesn’t look in the rearview mirror. Absolutely anything could be in the back of his car or following him down the road—giant ants, people with eyes that glow brighter than his headlights, dead bodies that vanish without a trace.
He keeps his eyes pinned to the road in front of him and tries not to think.
By the time he pulls into the station, his heart has slowed to normal. Marty’s car is in the lot, and for a second, he’s able to convince himself that everything is normal.
But only for a second. A steady pulsing glow is visible through the glass doors of the station as he gets out of the cruiser. Flickers of yellow and orange. Darkness and shadow.
What the hell are you up to, Marty?
The lights are completely off inside. Candles, hundreds of them, are positioned throughout the foyer and office. Wax drips onto the floor, onto cluttered desks and loose sheets of paper. The air is warm and heavy with the scent of burning wick. Merry phantom-shadows dance wide and tall on the walls.
“Marty?” Tucker’s voice cracks slightly. The room is so smoky that he considers propping open the front door, but he’s also a little worried now, so he keeps moving. “Marty, where are you?”
The door at the back of the office is standing wide open. Candles are positioned on the landing, heading down to the basement and the holding room.
By process of elimination, since Marty isn’t in here, he must be downstairs.
But Tucker really doesn’t want to go check. Every nerve in his body is telling him that’s a truly bad idea.
Walk out. Get back in the car and go home. Forget responsibility. Forget Marty. You know that’s exactly what he’d do if the situation were reversed.
But he can’t, damn it. Marty’s car is outside, which means he’s here. And he might be in trouble.
Tucker draws his gun. The memory of Scott Jenkins’s blazing white eyes fills his mind, and he wonders why he didn’t pull the gun there. He reached for it, but that was as far as he got. Could he have actually pulled the trigger? If he had, would he have been firing at a man or a hallucination? And should someone who wonders if he might or might not be having hallucinations even be carrying a gun?