The Dead House
Page 26
Torn-Out Page from the Diary of Carly Luanne Johnson
Undated
I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. Brett just… I don’t know… attacked me? He—he kissed me. Forced it on me. He cornered me outside the PE lockers this morning and said he knew why I refused to like him. He said… he said I was into Naida. And his face when he said it… like he was so disgusted. Like I was revolting. Then he pressed his kiss on me and touched me, and I shoved him away, and I know Kaitie would be proud. He was so manic. I didn’t recognize him. And the worst thing is… I can’t deny what he said. I can’t say for sure that I don’t like Naida, that I don’t love her, even. All I know is that I’m scared of Brett. How did that happen? BRETT. He’s not who I thought he was. There’s a darkness inside him that terrifies me, and no one can see it. They all think he’s this golden boy, but he’s not. It’s a mask.
It could be him. Carly sensed something. But I sense something too, and it could be John. I just don’t know, Dee. But I have the bind. I am going to find out who the viper is.
98
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Saturday, 29 January 2005, 11:13 pm
Roof
I’m really alone now, Dee.
Slipped into the diary on this page is a rumpled note.
Trust no one. Say nothing.
Find the door.
Good luck.
I only just saw him. Why didn’t he tell me he was leaving?
99
It is presumed that Haji Chounan-Dupré disappeared on 29 January 2005, however, he was not filed as missing until 30 January. The corpse of Brett [name omitted by request] was discovered in the south quad at 9:12 PM on the evening of 29 January—the same evening that Kaitlyn met with Haji in the Forgotten Garden. Reason for the fall is unknown, since the body was severely damaged by the impact. The coroner’s verdict: Accidental death.
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Sunday, 30 January 2005
Forgotten Garden, Crypt
This is my fault, this is my fault—
I hurt everyone, Dee. I hurt so many people. I’m sorry, so sorry, so very, very sorry. And the fact that I’m sorry is worthless.
Did I do this? Is it my fault? Should I have given him some kind of warning? How could I when I didn’t—I don’t—know anything for sure? Haji told me the Shyan was here. Haji told me not to trust anyone. Now Brett is gone, and he’s not the Shyan, but he still attacked Carly—but does that mean he deserved to die?—and Juliet is missing, and somehow I can’t stop thinking maybe I’m to blame for that too
Now there are only a few left, and one of them is a killer. One of them killed Brett. Who? Scott? Ari? John? Who can I trust?
Naida. Yes, Naida. Poor, mute Naida.
Dee—can you help me? Can you help me to see what I’m not seeing? Can you light a little torch?
I should talk to them.
100
3 days until the incident
Naida Camera Footage
Sunday, 30 January 2005, 9:00 PM
Basement
“Haji didn’t say anything to Naida,” Scott says in a low, rasping voice. He folds his arms. “It’s weird.”
Ari shakes his head. A new bowler hat stands atop it. He turns to Kaitlyn, who sits in the corner on the mattress, wearing a loose beanie. “Wasn’t he going to help you?”
She shrugs.
John clears his throat. “This needs to stop. I listened to the news. They’re saying you did this. They’re saying you killed—” He breaks off.
“His name was Brett,” Kaitlyn says softly. “Don’t be shy. His name was Brett, John. Brett.”
He looks at her with a pained expression, and his lips grow tight.
“All I know,” Scott says, voice unsteady, “is that Haji was called away. He said he had to leave right then for Fair Island and to give her the note, which I did.”
“What did it say?” Ari asks.
“I didn’t read it,” Scott says, looking towards Kaitlyn, who offers nothing up.
“I’m tired” is all she says. “I want to be left alone.”
“Are you sure—” John begins.
Ari cuts him off. “Let’s go.”
Scott frowns at Ari, who folds his arms. “We’ve all lost Brett; we almost lost Naida. And Juliet is still missing. Are we going to turn on one another as well?”
“And Kaitlyn’s had enough of this,” John adds.
“You’re not one of us,” Ari snaps. “Don’t talk like you are.”
“Yeah, well, maybe Scott’s right,” John says. “We should stop meddling before we end up dead.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Ari says, “but we’re in this already. Do you really think this Shyan guy is going to leave us alone now?”
Scott shakes his head. “We can try. We can try to put this behind us.”
“You’re a coward,” Ari says, his voice low. He turns to John. “So are you.”
“I’m trying to do what’s best for Kaitlyn, and I think you should be doing the same. She needs help.”
Kaitlyn looks up. “Get out of here,” she whispers. “Get away from me. Judas.”
John’s face falls. “Kaitlyn, please—I’m trying to help you.”
She gets to her feet and walks across the mattress, stepping down and standing before John. Her face is that of someone heartbroken and sick. She is pale and thin, her eyes huge in a sunken face.
“Are you?” she asks.
He lifts his hands to touch her arms, but she flinches, and Ari steps closer. “Yes, I am,” John says. “Please… Falcon…”
“I just don’t know,” Kaitlyn whispers, her eyes filling with tears. “What you said… I can’t afford to believe you.”
Ari steps up beside Kaitlyn. “Everyone out. Let’s let her rest. Come on.”
John’s eye twitches, and he stares at Ari with a locked jaw before finally turning away. At the door, he hesitates and then he disappears into the main basement, heading for the broken window.
Scott glances at Kaitlyn. “I’m going to talk this over with Naida. If she’s strong enough. Think about it, Kaitlyn. Think about just giving up. Please.”
He exits via the stairs.
Ari releases her. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep watch outside for you.”
He makes to leave, but she grabs his sleeve.
“Ari—”
“Are you okay?”
She shakes her head. “No. But I can’t—”
“It’s okay. Here.” He puts his arms around her again, and she exhales into his chest.
“I think John’s the Shyan.”
The words seem to leave her mouth against her wishes and then she stiffens.
“John? Who told you that?”
She covers her mouth, shakes her head. “I’m tired.”
He kisses her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you have to go through this.”
Kaitlyn swallows. “Haji gave me a charm for protection.”
She walks over to her bag, pulls out what must be the bind from Haji—it looks like a knotted rope-braid, coiled with ribbon and clumps of wax—and tries to hang it from the edge of the door. Her arms are weak, however, and she isn’t tall enough.
She begins to cry, still attempting to hang the bind, but Ari gets to his feet and takes it from her hands. “I’ll do it. Kaitie, you have me. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not alone.” He hugs her to him tightly, and she continues to cry into his shirt.
I hate fucking crying.
He leads her to the mattress, and they sit down.
After Kaitlyn has cried herself into exhaustion, Ari looks down at the bind in his hands. “What is it?”
“It’s me.”
Ari’s jaw clenches. “What have you done?”
“What I had to.” And she slides the beanie off, revealing the damage. Her hair, once long and luminous, has been cruelly shorn, leaving a jagged crop behind.
“Kaitie… your hair?”
Ari looks down at the bind with a new expression. It is clearly made from her hair, though some of it seems to have been soaked in something, darkening strands here and there to amber.
“Let’s hope it protects you, then,” he says.
[END OF CLIP]
101
42 hours before the incident
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Monday, 31 January 2005, 6:34 am
Basement
He must have come while I slept, because now I know.
In a journal entry dated 31 January 2005, Kaitlyn practices several drafts of a letter, which she states she will give to Ari. It is evident by the confused writing that it cost her something to put down on paper all she thought. The bottom of the page has been torn off, presumably the version of the note she delivered to Ari.
dear ari
please come see me right away, something happened
i think i know who the shyan is
i don’t want to do this–i can’t believe it. i won’t.
i need to talk to you about john.
A return note is slipped inside the back of the journal beside the Claydon diary entries, and is presumed to be Ari’s reply.
IS IT HIM?
A reply in writing has never been discovered. Anyone under the age of eighteen should not read the rest of this report without parental consent.
102
26 hours before the incident
Naida Camera Footage
Monday, 31 January 2005, 10:57 PM
Basement
The basement camera clicks on as John throws Ari into the room. Presumably they have been arguing in the stairwell, but as Ari opens his mouth to say something, John yells, “You son of a bitch!” and hits him hard across the face.
“John—” Ari tries to yank free, but John hits twice more, and Ari spits blood.
Baring teeth smeared crimson, Ari knocks John in the stomach with his shoulder before landing two of his own punches across John’s face. He falls against the far wall, collapsing onto his left knee, and Ari kicks him hard in the stomach. John grunts but seems otherwise unaffected, and the two wrestle, landing blows and shoving back and forth.
Footsteps echo from some way off, but neither seems to notice because John’s large hands close around Ari’s throat.
Ari jerks and yanks at his arms, face bleeding red and then tingeing purple; John’s strength seems overwhelming. At that moment, Kaitlyn rounds the corner, saying “What is going on—” and stops, dropping her journal. She screams.
“John! John, stop it! Let him go!”
John doesn’t react—maybe he doesn’t hear—but when Kaitlyn launches herself forward, pulling on his arms despite her injuries, he grunts and shoves her back with one hand, the other still clasped firmly around Ari’s throat. She staggers, but tries again, this time jumping onto his back. Again, he throws her off, more forcefully now, so that she is, for a moment, winded.
Ari, foaming at the mouth, manages a startled choke, and his eyes roll back in his head. Kaitlyn moves onto her side, coughing, and then forces herself to her feet.
“Please!” she cries again, hitting John, her efforts futile. Panicked, she scrambles into the shadows. We hear metal scrape against concrete, then Kaitlyn runs towards John, yelling, her arms raised high, and brings down the object she is holding to strike his neck.
John jerks upwards, a tiny grunt escaping his lips, and stumbles away from the now-unconscious Ari. Kaitlyn jumps back as though shocked at what she’s done.
“I’m sorry, but stop it!” she cries. “Just stop!”
He turns to look at Kaitlyn, then reaches up to touch his neck. His hand comes away crimson.
He staggers.
He falls onto his knees.
Kaitlyn drops the knife. The same knife that took Naida’s voice. The sound echoes across the room.
John coughs, his lips rouge. Kaitlyn cries out once, then scrambles over to him.
“John—John—”
He coughs again, and a spray of blood follows, then a bubble of crimson pops on his lips. He is breathing very fast, and each exhale spills blood from his nostrils.
“Oh, my God, John, please!”
Kaitlyn grabs him as he collapses, his weight on top of her legs. Her cries die away as she watches him breathe, her hand pressed to the wound she created.
“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay.” Over and over, she says it. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean to!”
His eyes stare as his breath quickens, and more and more blood spills from the wound in his neck. He twitches, twitches again, and Kaitlyn stifles a sob as she strokes his hair. It is a terrible, lengthy process, during which Kaitlyn watches, her face contorted.
Ari stirs, coughs, leaning over to gasp in desperate breaths. His eyes meet the scene in front of him just as John stops his desperate inhalations, seizes briefly, and then stills.
Kaitlyn’s lips tremble, and her eyes fill with tears.
Ari staggers to his feet and hurries over to the door. He swings it shut just in time to contain Kaitlyn’s scream, which lingers on and on, as she bends over John’s dead, bloodied body. When the scream ends, another takes its place, and another. She grips John’s shirt, now vividly scarlet, and Ari has to pry her fingers free.
She continues to scream.
One must wonder why, in all the minutes John lay dying, she didn’t call for help.
For several long minutes, Ari keeps guard at the door while Kaitlyn sits over John’s body, her whole frame a small, sunken heap. She is shaking.
“We need to do something,” Ari says quietly. He is hoarse. “Kait. We need to get rid of the body.”
Kaitlyn doesn’t stir.
“His body,” Ari says slowly. “We need to get rid of it.”
“I didn’t… mean to—”
“Kaitlyn. If they find him and see that knife—and your hand? They’ll lock you away for life.”
“Maybe they should.”
“Stop that. We’ll take him to the chapel. To the Forgotten Garden. We’ll bury him there with the graves. It’s more than five hours until sunup. We’ll make it.”
“I’m a… I stabbed…” Her words slur, and she begins to mumble incoherently.
Ari walks over to her and slaps her, hard. Her head is flung back with the impact, and she expels a tiny squeak.
“We—need—to—get—rid—of—the—body.” Ari enunciates each word. “The Forgotten Garden. We’ll bury him. I need your help.”
Kaitlyn peers up at him through her tears and nods. “The Forgotten Garden… okay.”
Ari helps her to her feet, and then they each grab one end of John; Kaitlyn takes his feet but drops them soon after, her arms shaking. It takes them five minutes to climb the stairs, Ari dragging most of John’s weight, at which point the motion-activated camera clicks off.
[END OF CLIP]
103
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Date, Time, and Location Not Noted
The smell is evolving—is that bad?
I closed my eyes to shut out the memories of my life, which now includes the hardest heartache ever experienced. I fell into sleep—sleep that still feels like falling. I fell into the dark, felt vaguely the moment when Ari left me to go to his dorm and clean John’s grave dirt from under his fingernails, and then I was fully asleep and in the Dead House, and all was silent. I sensed its emptiness like a weight—knew I was alone. Whatever darkness lingered before had now moved on.
Or maybe it only slumbered.
Or maybe it’s so much a part of me now that I can no longer distinguish it.
But the smell—that old mildew scent—had changed, deepened, turned into something like fine musk, and I liked it.
This was it, I knew. For if the house was empty, or sleeping, I had a chance to find the door.
Knowing that John was the Shyan did
n’t make this easier, but at least it cleared the path. For, without the Shyan to lead and contain it, surely the Olen would subside into the fabric from which it had come. The fabric of time and space and a universe I could never understand.
I was angry not to have fought harder to locate Carly while she was still there, still a part of me. But if I could find the doorway that Haji spoke of, the one Carly had been dragged through, then I could go beyond and have a chance of finding her—maybe we were still linked by some invisible thread. The thread we had always taken for granted.
I tried not to dwell too hard on the thought that, if the Dead House was my mind, and I found the door… was I then going out of my mind? An unwelcome sensation like cold water trickling down my back and into my shoes came over me. But I had to go.
I wish you had been with me, Dee. You know, you and Ari are now my sole comforts.
I searched and searched, quietly at first. Haji had said we’d know the door when we found it. But I didn’t find it. On the ground level, I roamed rotting parlor, abandoned hall, decrepit foyer, and endless galleries. Upstairs, I searched each sweeping bedroom, which stood empty and uninviting; the leaves shuffled and whispered across the floor under the tread of my boots. I ventured up another level and found the attic, but a sign of any door that did not belong? Nothing.
Then, at last, down to the basement, at last, down to the basement, the only place I hadn’t yet searched. I stood at the door, pressed my ear against it, and there inside, I heard the dreadful sound of some large beast sleeping.
I didn’t understand. Why was it still there?
I strained to feel around the thing, hoping I might sense whether he was guarding something. Guarding the door. But I didn’t feel anything beyond the giant’s sleeping form. What shape it took, I have no idea, but as I was going to suck in my courage and slowly open the door—possibly creep around whatever lay there—a sensation of someone watching overcame me so suddenly that I turned.