The Siren and the Specter

by Jonathan Janz

  David frowned. “It’s me, Ivy. Mr. Caine. Will you open the door for me?”

  An endless pause. Then a muted click.

  David opened the door in time to see Ivy scurrying around one of the single beds. Fleeing from him. Unexpectedly, he found a smile forming. “Hey, you don’t have to—” Twin lightning strikes lit up the long bedroom, and his smile vanished. The glimpse he’d had of Ivy looked like a child from ages ago. Centuries ago. She’d worn white old-fashioned nightclothes, a cotton dress that covered her limbs to the floor, with ruffles encircling the neck.

  Where the hell would she get an outfit like that?

  “Ivy?” David called, but the room had sunk into gloom. The rain seethed over the windows. He began to creep the length of the bedroom. “Kids? Where’d you go, Ivy?”

  He slid his fingers inside his hip pocket, aware not only of the preternatural silence of the old house, but of the drop in temperature in this hospital ward of a bedroom. It’s the rain, he told himself. You got soaked to the bone out there and now your clothes are clinging to you like icy barnacles. No wonder you’re cold.

  But that isn’t it, a voice insisted. It’s cold enough to see your breath in here. That’s not the storm, and it sure as hell isn’t from soggy clothing.

  The phone stuck in his pocket, the fabric clammy, but with a little more fuss David managed to yank it free, the whole pocket turning inside out, a pair of breath mints clacking to the floor and rolling under the third bed.

  A gasp from beneath the hanging coverlets.

  David stared at the shadowy pool between the second and third beds. “Ivy? You under there?”

  Ivy’s voice was faint. “Uh-huh.”

  Thunder rocked the house.

  “It’s okay, Ivy,” he said, stepping forward. “I’m going to turn the light on now.”

  “Power’s out,” she answered, her voice floating up to him as if from a deep well.

  “No, my phone light,” he said, powering it on and swiping the screen. He pushed the flashlight button and a spill of incandescence washed the shadows between the beds.

  A tiny arm jerked away as if stung by the light. The white pajama arm had been old-fashioned, frilly. The sort of thing worn by a kid during the 1700s. David’s heart marauded through his chest.

  It was the flashlight, he told himself. It’s pale enough to make—

  —a lace cuff? a dubious voice shot back. It was an old-fashioned nightdress, David. Not your goddamned flashlight.

  The cold was whispering over his shoulders now, its wintry fingers teasing his flesh. The silvery glow from his phone was wobbly, its edges a blur on the coverlets.

  “Please come out,” he said, but he scarcely recognized his voice.

  You’re the adult, he reminded himself.

  But I’m afraid, came the answer. I am afraid.

  “You promise you’re Mr. Caine?” the voice from under the bed asked.

  Relief trickled through him, but he recognized it as superficial relief, one that didn’t touch the core of fear still quivering within. He took a step forward, half bent, but didn’t lift the blankets that hung an inch from the floor. “Come out, Ivy.”

  A pause. Something bumped the coverlet from beneath the bed. Then a tiny hand appeared. Another. Bare, walking-stick arms emerged, bloodred ridges spanning their lengths from wrist to shoulder. The face that swiveled slowly up to leer at him was a crimson horror, the eyes vast and milky white. David dropped his phone and scrambled back, gagging. Facedown, the phone light disappeared. But the shape slithering out from beneath the bed, its skin a variegated network of leathery flesh and deep, valleyed scars, crawled forward, its white pupilless eyes fixed on him. David backpedaled and tried to spur his thoughts into motion, but there was only dumb terror, the mutilated, infernal figure clambering after him, its movements jerky, its milky eyes lambent. Lightning strobed over the room, the hateful shape crawling around the foot of the bed, its fleshless lips drawn back to reveal fire-blackened teeth, scorched and mottled with splotches of yellow. David was dimly aware of his surroundings, the first bed to his right, the door not far, but his legs threatened to betray him. Any moment they’d unhinge and then the leering horror would climb over him, would embrace him with its bacon-stripped arms—

  A hand darted from beneath the bed and clamped over his ankle.

  David bellowed in terror, pinwheeled his arms, and landed on his back. He heard a familiar metallic jangle, but this barely registered. The hand had come loose from his ankle when he fell, but any moment it would batten onto him again, drag him under the bed, and he fancied he saw the creature’s shadow at the foot of the bed, the leering thing almost upon him now, and just as he tensed to scramble for the door, he caught a glimpse of the face under the first bed, the frightened face of a little girl, the coverlet framing her panic-stricken eyes.

  Ivy.

  “Mr. Caine?” she said, her voice choked with fear.

  Without thinking, he pushed toward her, seized her by the shoulders, and dragged her from under the first bed. Her wispy muscles were tight, her skin cold. She trembled, but rather than resisting, she pushed away from the floor, came with him as they made for the open door. He spared one backward glance when they reached the doorway, but it was impossible to tell if the creature was following. The shadows at the end of the first bed were chaotic, jagged shards of pitch-black on a tapestry of gunmetal-gray. David thrust Ivy into the hallway – too roughly, he knew – but his body wasn’t his own, his movements that of a robot manipulated by a novice. His hands shook so wildly it was only with difficulty that he grasped the doorknob, drew it shut. It creaked back open. He seized it again and heaved it toward him, the brass knob icy in his grip.

  Ivy was saying something, but all David could think about was the creature on the other side of the doorway.

  Leave, he thought. Take the kids and race down to the Camry. Then peel ass out of here.

  David listened, his ear inches from the door. Thunder rolled over the house, but beneath it, beneath the rattling joists and the shivering of the clapboards, had he heard rustling? Something leathery and near the floor?

  “Mr. Caine?”

  David jumped, braced his palms on the door. “Jesus,” he muttered. “What, Ivy?”

  “Mike’s in the other bedroom.”

  He stared down at her. She was clutching some object to her chest – her stuffed animal, he realized – and peering up at him. Lightning flickered over her pale oval of a face.

  “What other bedroom?”

  She pointed across the hall. “That one, I think.”

  “You think?” he repeated. Far too sternly. God, fear had made of him some ruthless authority figure, a colonial schoolmaster who kept order with his fearsome glare and a stinging rod.

  “Did you see him go in?” he asked.

  “I think so. We ran different ways.”

  He tore his eyes from the base of the door and looked at her. “What was it?”

  Ivy didn’t answer.

  “What made you run, Ivy?”

  Tears began to glisten in her eyes.

  David took a shuddering breath, licked his lips. He nodded at the door across the hall, which stood open. “You think Mike’s in there?”

  A nod from Ivy, almost imperceptible.

  He stood debating. He didn’t want to leave the door to the long bedroom unattended. What was to prevent the creature from escaping?

  There is no creature, his rational side declared. Stop being a fool and take care of these kids. Can’t you see Ivy’s scared senseless?

  She and I both, he thought.

  Ivy crowded against him. Somehow, the press of her tiny body edified him, bolstered his resolve. With a mammoth effort, he let go of the doorknob, stared down at it for ten seconds. It didn’t turn.

  He rested a hand on Ivy’s shoulder, nes
tled her into his side, and started the slow walk across the hall. He didn’t glance over his shoulder, but he was listening for the deep groan of the door behind him, the insectile clitter of fire-roughened skin over oak flooring.

  “I’m scared,” Ivy said.

  “Me too. Shitless.”

  She pressed against his leg.

  They reached the doorway. “Mike? You in here?” Another step, Ivy moving with him. “Mike Jr.?” David whispered.

  A sulky voice: “Told you not to call me that.”

  David stepped deeper into the room and realized the bed had been stripped of blankets. Another step revealed where the covers had gone. A rumpled shape was crammed in the far corner of the room. Except for the twin arches of knee that tented the blanket, he’d have never guessed there was a child under there.

  David strode over. “Come on, Mike.” He reached for the blankets, started to lift them. “We’ve gotta go.”

  “Don’t!” Mike Jr. gasped.

  David compressed his lips. “We’re going into town. Now get up.”

  The blankets slipped over Mike Jr.’s head, but he snatched them back, covered himself from the neck down. “I had an accident.”

  David scented the urine. He crouched before the boy. “I’ve had accidents before.”

  “Bullshit,” Mike Jr. answered, but there’d been a flicker of hope in his eyes.

  Lightning flashed through the windows. David flinched.

  “I’ve even gone number two before,” David said.

  “On accident?”

  “Right in my truck,” David agreed.

  Mike Jr.’s eyes narrowed in the gloom. “You don’t have a truck.”

  “Used to,” David said. “A Dodge Ram. Patriot blue. I called it The Patriot.”

  “The Patriots suck,” Mike Jr. said.

  David fluttered a hand. “Not the New England— Dammit, we’ve gotta go.” He took hold of the blankets, ripped them away despite Mike Jr.’s protest. “Now come on,” he said, hauling the boy to his feet.

  David glanced sideways to make sure Ivy was still there. She was, but she was ramrod-straight, motionless.

  “Ivy?” he asked.

  Slowly, she raised an arm, leveled a forefinger through the doorway.

  The door to the long bedroom hung open.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Oh God,” David whispered.

  “I don’t see nothin’,” Mike Jr. said, his voice plaintive.

  David didn’t either. The view was a straight shot all the way to the opposite wall of the long bedroom, and absent of a few shadows, there was nothing to evoke terror.

  Except the open door.

  Ivy seemed to read his thoughts. “The storm?” she asked.

  He nodded irresolutely. “It could’ve blown the door open.”

  “You shut it?” Mike Jr. asked.

  “Let’s go,” David said. Ivy came willingly, but he had to drag Mike Jr.

  He looked down, saw the boy had drawn up the blankets around his waist and was trailing them like a bulky white umbilicus. “Come on,” David said. “Let go of the covers.”

  Mike Jr. sounded on the verge of tears. “You’ll see how I pissed myself.”

  “Oh, for goodness—” David reached down, seized the blankets, and jerked them out of the boy’s hands.

  “Hey!” Mike Jr. said.

  David hauled the kids toward the doorway. “Keep your voice down.”

  “How come?” Mike Jr. asked.

  “Close your trap, Mike,” Ivy said.

  “Listen to your sister,” David said.

  They emerged from the bedroom and neared the stairs, David’s eyes never leaving the doorway of the long bedroom. Nothing crawling toward them. Shadows, yes. Flickers of lightning. But no leering creatures.

  He turned the corner and started down the stairs, unaware of how roughly he was dragging the kids until Mike Jr. said, “You’re gonna make me fall.”

  “Walk faster then.”

  Somehow they reached the bottom of the staircase, and despite the way the wind rattled the house, David ripped open the front door, towed the children onto the porch.

  “You’re gonna drive in this?” Mike Jr. asked as they hustled down the steps. Rain pelted them when they reached the yard, the wind powerful enough to swerve them off course.

  “It’s fuckin’ crazy out here!” Mike Jr. yelled.

  “I can see that,” David said, but he could scarcely hear his voice above the maelstrom.

  “We’re gonna get ’lectrocuted,” Mike Jr. said.

  “We’re not gonna—” Lightning whipcracked the forest, the thunder instantaneous. “Fuck,” David gasped.

  They dashed forward. Almost to the car. Ivy clung to his hip like a parasite. They reached the Camry, the rain blinding them, and when David stopped at the driver’s door, Mike Jr. went stumbling past and landed on his hands and knees. David hardly noticed.

  The door was locked. Rain pummeled them.

  He thrust a hand into his hip pocket. Empty. He patted his other hip pocket, the lower pockets of his cargo shorts. Nothing.

  David froze. He remembered falling in the long bedroom. The way he’d sprawled on the floor.

  The jangling sound.

  Son of a bitch, he thought. I dropped the keys.

  “Mr. Caine?” Ivy asked.

  He wasn’t going back upstairs for the keys. Not for anything. He glanced toward the woods, beyond which was the Shelby house. He didn’t relish the prospect of returning there. Besides, Honey had spoken like someone else was arriving soon, the bacchanal growing a few shades more decadent. He couldn’t expose the kids to that.

  Mike Jr. was holding his arms out and staring down at his sodden clothes. “You threw me down, you dickhead!”

  David barely heard him. He turned and peered through the storm-swept night at Ralph’s property. Not only would getting there require a more than two-hundred-yard dash through a dangerous electrical storm, but it appeared to David that Ralph’s house was as bereft of power as his was. Granted, there were trees screening Ralph’s house from view, but David believed he would still catch glimpses of house lights if they were on.

  The entire peninsula was steeped in darkness.

  The rain intensified, as cold as sleet and just as biting.

  “Why don’t you open the car?” Mike Jr. demanded.

  “You see any keys?” David snapped.

  “Should we go back inside?” Ivy asked. She was shivering against his leg and when he looked down at her, he saw her teeth were chattering. Her tank top and shorts were paltry defenses against the increasingly frigid wind and rain. She was sickly to begin with. He imagined her wasting away of pneumonia.

  He reached down, lifted her, and placed her on his hip. She came willingly, burrowed her face into his shoulder.

  He started toward the Alexander House.

  “You ain’t goin’ back in there?” Mike Jr. demanded.

  David didn’t answer, drew nearer the porch.

  “You know how stupid that is?” Mike Jr. asked. “Ain’t you ever seen a scary movie?”

  David grimaced, pushed ahead more rapidly.

  “Somethin’ spooked you,” Mike Jr. persisted. “What’d you see in there anyway?”

  “Nothing,” David said. He hurried the kids through the den, into the master suite, and closed the door behind them. “I didn’t see anything,” he said, turning the lock and dragging the heavy birch dresser over to block the door.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They spent the night huddled in the king-sized bed, all three of them dressed in David’s clothes. He’d loaned Ivy and Mike Jr. a T-shirt each. David slept in sweatpants.

  At a little after eight the next morning, the kids were still asleep.

  In a movie, David w
ould have made them both a hot breakfast and maybe mussed Mike Jr.’s hair as they sat eating like a makeshift nuclear family. But the atmosphere of the house was poisoned for him, and he needed to sort things out. He left the doors ajar so the kids would know it was okay to come out of the bedroom when they awoke, made himself some coffee – the power was back on, thank God – and sipped it while he walked the property inspecting the storm damage.

  The trees between the river and the house were intact, save a score of downed branches and a couple ill-fated birds’ nests. He didn’t see any eggs, broken or otherwise, in the nests.

  David ended up at the tip of the peninsula, staring out at the island. He’d stood there for perhaps a minute before he realized he was leaning forward, listening for the woman’s voice.

  Are you losing your mind? his rational side asked.

  He sipped his coffee. What he’d seen last night wasn’t an illusion. Something…unnatural had crawled toward him in the long bedroom.

  The morning haze, the dark waters of the Rappahannock, the coffee mug in his hand, it all faded away, and in its place came that leering abomination, those staring white eyes, that salt-cured body, the dripping, scorched incisors—

  “Hi, Mr. Caine,” a voice said from his side.

  David spasmed, his coffee sloshing, and discovered Ivy peering up at him.

  “You’ve got to warn someone….” He switched the coffee mug to his other hand, snapped the brown droplets off his fingers. Ivy watched him, smiling a little. She wore his Stephen King ‘Gunslinger’ T-shirt, which said, ‘Go then. There are other worlds than these.’ The shirt hung all the way to her bare toes.

  “You want something to eat?” he asked.

  Her face clouded. “I better get home. I don’t want them to take my coloring books.”

  “That’s how they punish you?”

  Solemn-faced, she nodded.

  He extended a hand, which she took without hesitation. “I’ll walk with you.”

  They were halfway to the house when she said, “Mike already left.”

  “Ah,” David said. “Should we get your clothes?”