Another woman is crossing the park toward Patricia. From this angle, it is impossible to get a clear view of the woman’s face because her back is to me. She’s too nicely dressed to have been one of the concrete truck drivers. I’m able to gather that she is brunette, white, and seems vaguely familiar. Upon slightly turning her head, the woman almost looks how I’d imagine Bridget’s profile if she spent some additional time in front of the mirror. Damn it to hell. Could she be meddling in my affairs? I brought up the wishing well in conversation. Would she make it her place to show up to get a peek? That would be a blatant lack of respect for her patient’s boundaries.
I zoom in to see if the woman is actually Bridget. There is no point getting my heart rate up if she is someone simply matching some of the same physical characteristics. Once entirely in view, she shifts to the left, slightly tilts her head, and looks up in this direction. It is Bridget! What the fuck? Even though Benny’s room is probably over a mile and a half away, I swear she is looking directly into my eyes. She smiles sinisterly as if she knows I’m watching from this window. From that far away, she couldn’t have any idea that I’m in this room. Upon panning down, my heart practically stops beating. She is holding a yellow and black polka dot umbrella.
“Jesus Christ! She’s . . . she’s . . .” I can’t even get the right words to come out. I toss Benny the binoculars. “Something bad is about to happen.”
I race out of his room and tear down the hallway. When I get to the large security door, one of the orderlies happens to be passing through. I push through the door. I rush down the marble steps to the first floor where the no-nonsense guard demands that I stop to sign out. It’s imperative that I get to Town Square, and they even have asinine safeguards in place for sane people to leave this fucking place.
Chapter 30
Patricia
“Young lady, was it necessary to be so inhumane to both of those McAllister kids?” Not that they didn’t deserve what was coming to them, but drowning them in gloppy cement seemed especially harsh.”
“Those two were spawned from abysmal blood and were a huge part of Benny’s problems,” Abbey states. “Ms. McAllister was trying to remove her end of the deal. In my business, I do not allow duplicity. No one will be able to rescind their wishes again.”
“But no one will be able to make wishes anymore.”
“I have many ways to influence the decisions of others.”
I don’t like the sound of what she just said, but her business is her business. She has to face herself in the mirror each morning so I can’t see any point meddling in her affairs. My only goal is for Benny to be freed from that horrible institution.
“Now that the wishing well is closed off, when will I be able to see Benny?”
“Not quite yet,” she says. “For your wish to be fully granted, you will need to shut your eyes, tilt back your head, and count leisurely to 20. Upon reaching 20, you can open your eyes, but not a second before! After carrying out your end, Benny will arrive safely. You’ll need to be patient. I will also need you to remember a few important details. Can you do that?”
“Do I have a choice?” I’m trying not to be difficult, but I hate all this delaying. I’m too close to those expired bodies down in that well for my comfort.
“We all have a choice, but for Benny to be free of an institution full of security, I will be required to make more than my share of adjustments. All I’m asking for is to remember some words accurately. Is that really too much to ask considering the freedom I am about to bestow onto your son? A passageway from all of his problems is a big ask, my dear.”
“You are right,” I say. “What you are asking of me is not much to ask at all. I will remember the words.”
“Tilt your head back, and I will whisper it to you. Then you can count to 20.”
I may tumble backward if my head leans too far back. I don’t have the balance I had back when I was doing cartwheels as a young girl. It’ll be worth the neck discomfort to finally see my boy free from those awful crimes he did not commit. I slant back my head while listening to her lengthy message. Suddenly, I’m not sure if following through on this wish is in my best interest. I count to 20 anyway. I sure hope Hell isn’t too humid.
Chapter 31
Derek
The instant I’m outside, I cut across the manicured lawn, running faster to my parked truck than my legs will practically allow. Whatever Patricia has bargained for, I need to get over there to talk her out of it. From the front gate, Town Square cannot be more than five minutes away. After Mandi’s reversal of fortune, who knows what calamity might take place with another wish circulating in the mix! What type of seductive temptation could have been placed before Patricia to get her to surrender all common sense? I believe those cement trucks were part of whatever mischance is about to occur.
Naturally, my damn vehicle is parked at the end of the employee parking lot. As I dip in my pocket to grab my keys, the vibrating increases to a deafening degree. Before I’m able to complete another thought, the pulsation in my head gets so unbearable that it feels as if blood may be seeping from my temples. As I reach my truck, I can no longer handle the pressure. I place my hands tightly over my ears, unable to dampen the force of the radiating waves.
I release my right hand and unlock the door. As I’m reaching for the door handle, the vibration halts all at once—like a loud sonic pop after a hydrogen bomb detonates. It sounds as if 50 bolts of lightning struck a tin roof simultaneously. The pressure is so intense that it involuntarily forces my eyelids to slam shut. Then, the rumbling in my head completely vanishes. It feels as if a big gob of wax was flushed from both ears.
With the annoying vibration out of the air, the relief is similar to how one feels when a thumping migraine finally subsides. The weight of the air changes within seconds and the temperature drops about 15 degrees. The cold air has a stagnant feel to it.
I open my eyes to find nothing but white balls of static racing through the air—almost like being in the middle of a blizzard with no visibility. None of the static seems to be colliding against any part of my body. I reach out and grab a little white ball in motion—no larger than a centimeter in diameter—and pinch it between my index finger and thumb. Upon letting go, the white ball continues in motion like it is soaring away.
The thick white air reminds me of those videos after the World Trade Center fell—minus the nasty dusty debris that choked anyone in its path. How could the matter in the air entirely defy gravity? Even against the most violent winds, snow eventually falls to the ground.
Nothing else seems to occupy the air. Nature must be retreating from all the spheres of static whizzing around. I’m reasonably sure a nuke didn’t detonate, but that ‘pop’ was unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. If a chemical bomb exploded, my neurological system would have been compromised, and I’m breathing normally.
When I look down, somehow I’m standing on dirt. Less than two minutes ago, my feet were firmly on the cement of the parking lot. Logically, I couldn’t have moved more than six feet following that loud crack. Out of the sheer terror of possibly ingesting some of these globules, I reach again for the handle of my truck. No matter how far I extend my arms, my hand will not connect with any part of the vehicle. I want the shelter of the cab of my truck. Nothing would look different from the windshield, but at least some regular air would be surrounding me.
Although I have hardly acclimated to the surrounding orbs, the shock of what is going on around me slightly fades. Suddenly, the moments preceding the snap in the air all come back into focus. How wasn’t I able to figure out that Abellina had been in disguise as Bridget—a counselor that seemed more than a little pushy? When she claimed that she was misanthropic as a child, suspicions should have risen. Most kids do not hate mankind. It sounded more like the pessimistic words of a bullied teenager that hadn’t gone through adequate counseling. Her looks and demeanor counteracted the words she used. Her silvery voice was so soothing
that she could easily seduce a man by slowly reciting her vowels. Mandi did not overstate her perfect beauty. Due to her stripped-back disguise, I always saw the “before” picture when I should have been looking deeper to notice the “after.” The devil will definitely come in the form of a beautiful woman.
I should have also put together that the vision of Abellina as a child was placed in my head somehow. Through misdirection, I bought into Bridget’s suggestion that it was my own mind’s manifestation caused by those documents about Bethalyn’s surviving baby. I was under Bridget’s hypnosis and didn’t put it together. She was like a magician using sleight of hand to trick a one-man audience. I was utterly blindsided by the cunning of my opponent. Why wasn’t I paying attention to what she said earlier? She clearly stated something about the people that make the wishes doing her bidding to get revenge. Was she dropping a hint about what was coming? The indicators were all there; I just didn’t catch them.
All at once, the white orbs of static begin to recede gradually. The spheres are not falling to the ground; they appear to be fading into a light haze similar to dense fog. Off in the distance, the tree line where we looked at the hummingbirds slightly reappears. When the trees come entirely into view, my lungs almost refuse to exhale. The houses below those trees are no longer there!
I turn around. I cannot see an outline of Franklin Hills or even the cars that were in the parking lot. What I’m seeing isn’t a mirage; the massive building that housed all the cuckoos is no longer where it stood just minutes ago. The cars belonging to the employees have gone away too. Are my eyes playing a trick on me, or did everything disappear within the perimeter of this property? I just dashed out of a structure that has stood in that location for over 130 years. Theoretically, it couldn’t have vanished into thin air.
I do a complete scan of the area to find nothing but yellowed grass and bare trees—similar to how it looks in February after the green is stripped away by snow and subzero temperatures. Every tree is completely void of leaves as if they’ve suffered from years of decay. Not a single leaf or frond is littered upon the ground. What could have caused such obliteration?
In addition to the buildings being gone, the sidewalks, roads, and the curbs have just disappeared. Even the silver water tower is no longer to the east. In the time it would take a Starbucks barista to brew a caramel latté, this part of Wilkinson Creek has dematerialized. Could all of those little moving white spherules have been tiny pieces of matter being carried away? I’ve never had so many burning questions at the same instant.
My truck has also mysteriously vaporized along with the concrete that it sat upon. Either an omnipotent force is clearly at work, or this is the result of a spell gone horribly wrong. Regardless of what I saw from Benny’s window, destruction this massive couldn’t possibly be the work of a witch standing at barely five feet. This feels more like a treacherous force that no human has ever witnessed.
I reach in my pocket to grab my phone. It’s gone. Perfect! I am in the middle of a desperate situation with no way to call for help. When I scramble around the same pocket for my keys, they have also disappeared along with my wallet. How is that even possible? I came to this godforsaken town as a way to bring Mandi McAllister back to safety. With empty pockets, I’m without the necessary tools to conduct a successful rescue attempt.
I can’t be of much help to anyone in danger without a weapon. With my truck no longer here, I can’t get in the glove compartment to retrieve my gun. On the other hand, carrying a firearm would most likely be the wrong move. A gun could be viewed as a threat. In Predator, the alien didn’t harm the Asian girl because she was unarmed—there was no sport in killing her. The lesson in most doomsday scenarios is not to fight fire with fire when dealing with an unpredictable adversary. Well, except in Signs—those green bastards had to be stopped.
Even without a gun, I’m not wired to back away from what might be waiting beyond the tree line. The withered grass and the lack of a standing neighborhood should be enough to keep any sane person from proceeding, but I’m too startled by the disappearance of everything to turn away. Whatever altered the landscape could clearly squash me regardless of moving to a new location.
Abellina may be at the root of what happened. That cockeyed grin told me she was gearing up to do something, but this is quite the immense “something.” Removing Franklin Hills would take a lot of effort just to make a point.
When I look at the land where Franklin Hills once stood, hundreds of wooden crosses are spread about with large gray rocks huddled at the base of each marker. I should have noticed these crosses immediately, but they were slightly camouflaged and overshadowed by the insipidness of the stark landscape. Some of the markers are in large clusters; others are positioned alongside each other in perfect symmetry.
“I’m officially creeped out,” I whisper to myself since no one other than me seems to have survived this catastrophe.
I cautiously walk toward the mass collection of crosses assembled where Franklin Hills stood just minutes ago. Granulated dirt surrounds the pile of rocks at the base of each cross—similar to how a cemetery plot looks shortly after a body is freshly buried. I reach the first cross, bending down to take a closer look. Burned horizontally into the wood is “John A. Hedberg.” The next marker is labeled with ‘Daniel J. Hightower, Jr.’ I would wager that this is the grave of the orderly that escorted me to Benny’s room. Any parent that takes the time to name a child after them will characteristically go out of their way to keep from raising a crackpot.
I’m too much of a humanitarian to read any of the remaining markers. Graveyards without gates are not my thing. Sometimes, it’s better not to know all the facts. What I do know is that this place has changed from a psycho ward to a cemetery in nearly the blink of an eye. I swallow hard, trying to fight the proliferating anxiety.
There isn’t another person in sight. Am I actually dead and this is my welcome party to the afterlife? Maybe the buildings all just go away when you die. It makes the most sense at the moment. Maybe zombies aren’t always the flesh-eating sort that you see on The Walking Dead and those George Romero movies! Maybe zombies just walk through an empty world with no other humans or structures in sight.
Without a single object around to check my reflection, I’ll assume that I’m still alive and what is happening here is directly related to the wishing well. The only sounds permeating the air is my pounding heartbeat and the crunching of my shoes upon the dead grass as I weave between dreary burial mounds.
When I glance down at three wooden markers positioned side-by-side, the design of the cross is as crude as the ones belonging to Abellina’s mother and sisters from my vision earlier. What was labeled a “manifestation of my mind” held more answers than I realized at the time. It’s possible that Abellina wanted me to understand the torment she endured. She apparently wanted to get even with the inhabitants of Franklin Hills—possibly due to its direct association with the Society of Franklin. This may be why I heard that intense juddering coming from this direction all day. Whatever was going to happen must have been building up—like a cat swishing its tail back and forth before lunging at its prey.
“Is anyone there?” Off to the right, the booming male voice breaks a weighty rationalization. I rush over to find Benny Jackson huddled in front of a group of grave markers like he’s ducking from an unseen attacker.
“Benny, are you hurt?” I ask.
His face looks as blank as I’ve ever seen on another human. Poor Benny is incapable of fully comprehending the situation.
“These are all my friends and the doctors from my floor,” he says. “Why’d they get taken away? What did they do?”
“I’m trying to put it all together. I have no clue why these people were taken away.” The question poking at me is wondering why the two of us were spared from this mass burial of the faculty and inmates.
“Benny, I ran out to the parking lot as this all happened. Do you remember how long it took f
or the building to vanish?”
“I don’t know,” he says, scratching his head. “Maybe ten seconds. I was lookin’ for you in the hallway, the windows started to shake, and then I was surrounded by all the scary white snow. When I closed my eyes, I was back here with all these crosses.”
“Did you fall three floors to the ground?” He doesn’t look to have a scratch on him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t enduring some pain below his clothing.
“I don’t remember falling. I was just down here. I’m getting really scared.”
Since he claims not to have fallen, it’s hard to imagine how he got transported three floors down without some visible lumps.
“Being a little frightened is natural under these circumstances,” I explain. “You can stay with me until we find someone that might know what is happening.”
In some disaster situations, it’s best to remain in the same location until help reaches you. Without a siren wailing in the distance, this feels as if no one will be looking for us anytime soon. Walking seems to be our best option. I cannot just glance at a tragedy from a distance; my job has made me an active participant in everything from fatal car crashes to murdered clerks. None of what came before has prepared me for a neighborhood and asylum ceasing to exist without the help of a demolition crew.
“Hey, we should get walking towards Town Square,” I suggest. “There’s no point hanging around all of these graves.”
“I don’t want to leave,” he says. “The scary snow might come back.”
“That wasn’t snow,” I explain, realizing that Benny will not be able to comprehend a complicated explanation used to illustrate what happened. I’ll keep it simple. “That white matter was something that materialized right after that loud bang, but now it’s gone.”
In Dark Places Page 33