by Nick Scorza
Suddenly, the hand released its grip, and I fell to the ground. I took a deep, rasping breath, gasping for air. I felt my neck with my good hand, the flesh there bruised and raw. I looked over and saw Hector lying nearby. I crawled over to him, taking his good hand in mine, and we helped each other stand.
Hector’s arm was badly broken, I could tell he was in terrible pain, and my hand was still bleeding. I looked for my father, unable to see him in the gloom.
“The King . . .” Keith muttered, “The King of the Wood . . .”
“Clara!” I heard my father cry out from somewhere in the fog.
I ran to him, Hector and Keith following as quickly as they could manage. He was still propped against the pillar. His face was pale and his teeth were clenched against the pain.
“It’ll be all right, Dad,” I said. “The sheriff is here, which means the ambulance isn’t far behind.” Even as I said these words, I couldn’t believe them. I could still feel those hands on my neck. Any minute now, the King would make good on his threats. My father took no comfort in my words—he knew what we were facing better than I did.
“No,” he said through gritted teeth. “No, they don’t stand a chance.”
Elaine and the deputies were fanning out, searching the island for any sign of Mr. Redmarch. The island was small, but the fog made it impossible to see more than a foot in front of you. He could be lurking anywhere. I could only see the three of them because of the frail glow of their flashlights.
“Jonathan Redmarch, you’re under arrest,” said Elaine. “If you resist arrest, we will have no choice but to respond with force.”
“Show yourself!” Bill said, his voice quavering.
I could hear Bill walking, not far from where we stood. The beam of his flashlight swung frantic through the fog, little more than a glimmer. Then he screamed, a raw cry of shock and pain that was cut off as soon as it began. His gun fired wildly into the air, hitting nothing. The next thing we heard was the wet thud of his body hitting the ground.
“Bill! Oh God,” my father said.
“What the hell are you?” Elaine called out into the fog. So far, she had faced this nightmare with a level head, but even she was beginning to crack. We all were, if we weren’t cracked already.
Then we heard another voice from out of the fog. It was Deputy Harry, his lips trembling. His gun was pointed at Elaine.
“We should not have come here. This is not for us to see. You’re an outsider. The King will spare me if I give him your life.”
He raised his pistol, trying to aim through the dense fog. Elaine turned toward him.
“Harry, that’s insane! Let’s talk about this.”
“Don’t move!” Harry shouted.
A shot rang out in the darkness, and for a terrifying second, I didn’t know who’d been hit. Then Deputy Harry fell to the ground, a red stain on his chest. Elaine hadn’t had time to raise her gun. I looked over at my father. He had dragged his wounded body to Jonathan Redmarch’s discarded pistol.
We didn’t have time for a sigh of relief. Suddenly, a grim, haunting laugh echoed all around us.
“The first to die are lucky. I will take my time with those who remain.”
I scanned the mound, hoping to spot a trace of Mr. Redmarch, or whatever the hell he was. He would be shrouded in darkness, like he had been when he’d come for Ash. In this fog, he was all but invisible.
Elaine was getting frantic, spinning around to cover every direction. She spun to her right at a sudden noise, pistol raised, only to scream when an unseen force knocked her to the ground from behind. Slowly she hobbled to her feet, her left leg was slick with blood.
“You are in my place of strength,” Mr. Redmarch’s voice seemed to come from everywhere. “I have all night.”
As his grim laughter echoed through the darkness, I looked from Hector to my father to Keith, the same look of despair on all our faces. How could we have any hope against something we couldn’t see, or even understand? It would tear all of us apart, one piece at a time.
I had only one place left to turn. Zoe, I thought, you’ve been trying to help me all this time, trying to keep me safe. Zoe, if you can, help me now.
For an awful moment, no one made a sound. We just stood there, waiting for death.
Then I saw something move from the corner of my eye, but it wasn’t Mr. Redmarch. A figure stepped from behind the broken column, and all my breath left me. Standing ten feet from me was a girl that could have been my mirror image—anyone who saw us would think we were the same person, except the two of us. I was looking at Zoe. I wanted to run to her, throw my arms around her, I wanted to tell her all the ways I missed her, but those words died in my throat. She was trembling, pointing at something behind me. I looked, following her finger, and all of a sudden I saw it, a patch of darkness denser than the fog, moving toward Elaine. It raised a tendril of shadow like an arm, ending in long, wicked claws.
“Elaine!” I shouted, “There!”
In one motion, she turned and fired at the spot I pointed to, emptying her clip into the darkness. The staccato burst of the gunshots echoed off the ring of stones. Then there was another sound, a cry of unimaginable pain and rage. Slowly, the fog began to lift. We looked in horror to see Jonathan Redmarch standing in front of Elaine, his face contorted into an expression of unearthly malice, his outstretched arm like a gnarled black branch, ending in long, wicked claws. Dark, barbed growths protruded from his skin, warping and twisting his form. With a hideous bellow of rage, he took a step toward Elaine, clawed fingers raised. She drew back in fear. He took another step, before he stumbled, and finally collapsed to the ground.
I turned back to where Zoe was, running to the spot I’d seen her. There was nothing there. Not even a trace.
As the fog cleared, I saw Keith and Hector helping my father to his feet. Bill’s corpse lay mangled on the ground, his stomach torn open. I couldn’t stand to look for long.
Elaine was breathing heavy, both hands still on her gun. Jonathan Redmarch lay dead at her feet. He looked older in death, his hair streaked with gray and his face still creased with pain and fury, but now he was human again—not the thing we had seen when the mists parted. Then, as we stood transfixed with fear, something started to rise from his wounds. It was like black, oily smoke; like pure night, and it rose from every bullet hole in his chest.
Somewhere on shore, a high, keening howl began. It was soon joined by others, until we were surrounded by an unearthly dirge.
“My God, what . . .”
Elaine backed away, stumbling on her injured leg. We all fell back. Jonathan Redmarch’s corpse was deflating like an old balloon, collapsing until it was just a withered husk, like an ancient mummy. The dark cloud that rose out of him hovered there for a second, a mass of pure malevolence. Staring into it, I felt a stomach-churning tide of hate, of fear; it wanted all of us to suffer. It needed it. I felt the same nausea I’d felt seeing the Two Shadows figures, but a thousand times stronger. Beside me I heard Hector retching. Lights shone within the cloud, a thousand baleful eyes watching us. But it was weakening, parts of it evaporating by the second. I could almost see the lake through it on the other side.
Suddenly, the cloud surged forward, rushing like a flood wave directly toward Keith. He didn’t have time to run, or even move. It drove itself toward him, into him, coiling itself around him like a snake.
“No, Keith! Fight it!” I shouted.
It was too late. When Keith looked up, there was a familiar smolder in his eyes, like two burning embers. My father and Hector both saw, their eyes going wide with fear. They tried to hold him, but he savagely punched my father right in his gut wound. He collapsed, howling in pain.
Hector couldn’t do much with one good arm, but he tried, swinging wildly at Keith. He connected once, a solid blow right to the jaw, but Keith just shrugged it off and hit Hector across the face with a brutal backhand.
“Stop!” I shouted. “You don’t have to do this.
”
“Oh, he does,”
The voice that came out of Keith’s mouth was partly his, but with the same animal snarl I’d heard in his father’s. Behind me, Elaine raised her gun.
“Don’t!” I shouted, putting myself between her and Keith.
Keith reached down, picking up the curved knife he’d used to cut my hand. He gave me a single, hateful glare before he launched himself toward Hector, knife raised for the kill.
I raced toward them, watching in horror as Keith plunged the knife into Hector’s abdomen. For a second, everything seemed frozen, as Keith snarled, giving the knife a cruel twist. Hector screamed, and with strength I could scarcely believe, Keith threw him to the floor.
I raced toward him, praying he wasn’t dead, wishing I could somehow reverse what had just happened. Keith turned to me. I couldn’t bear to see the horrible grin on his face. He lunged at me.
I acted without thinking, twisting my body as he came at me. Even without the creature inside him, he was much bigger and stronger than me, but he expected me to be easy prey. His hands grabbed for my neck and missed, but then his body collided with mine, sending both of us tumbling head over heels. His hands snaked out, frightfully strong, grasping for my throat as we rolled.
Then we plunged off the edge of the island, and our bodies broke the black surface of the lake.
XX.
I fell into darkness, darker than deep space.
I sensed things moving around me, shapes I could barely imagine. Strange lights appeared in the depths. I shut my eyes, thrashing in the frigid water, fighting to find the surface. I realized with horror that I no longer knew which way was up.
Once again, I felt the terrible weight of drowning as the water tried to consume me. I had never been so cold or so lost. Things brushed past me in the darkness. The lake whispered in my ears, words I was grateful I could not understand.
I saw a light above me, what I thought was above, and I swam for it furiously. My lungs were burning, and I fought to keep from picturing them filling with that black lake water, dragging me down to the bottom. I swam harder, panicked that I’d pass out before I made it. There was something strange about the light, something I couldn’t place, but I swam for it frantically anyway. I could feel pressure building in my ears, like I was swimming deeper into the water, but the light was all I could see now, a pale, eerie glow, and I swam for it with all the strength I had left.
Just as I thought my burning lungs would give out, I felt a hand take mine and pull me up.
I broke the surface with a gasp. It was harder than it should have been, like the lake was trying to keep me down or pull me back. Rising up out of that water felt like being turned inside out, and when I opened my eyes, I couldn’t believe where I was.
At first it seemed like I was back at the shore of the lake, near where we had boarded the boat, but something was very wrong. Everything felt hazy and indistinct. There was no moon. Instead, a pale, ghostly glow that seemed to come from nowhere infused the entire sky with dim, pearlescent light. I looked at the hand that held mine, seeing with a shock that it was identical to my own. I looked up to see my sister staring back at me, a mix of love and desperate fear on a face that was a mirror of mine.
“They . . . they told me you weren’t real,” I said.
“I’m real.”
I felt such an incredible surge of joy at seeing Zoe in front of me again that I couldn’t think of anything else. She seemed to share it at first, but her eyes were filled with terror and sadness.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “He won’t let you leave.”
Before I could embrace her, or even speak, a single, ferocious howl shattered the moment, answered by a chorus of others all around us. A dark shape suddenly loomed above Zoe, and her eyes went wide in a silent scream as her hand was wrenched out of mine. Faster than I could blink, she was dragged back toward the forest, whatever held her pulling faster than anything should have been able to.
I thrashed onto the shore, heaving myself up onto the bank. I could hear her screaming ahead of me—whatever had her was crashing through the underbrush. I followed as fast as I could, my chest heaving after my near-drowning in the lake. As I ran, the landscape shifted around me, hazy and half formed like in a dream. I lost sight of Zoe ahead of me, but I could hear her cry out in a voice identical to mine, and see the trail the thing that held her left.
I couldn’t explain it, but somehow I knew I’d come through the lake to the other side, where the King was from. I thought with panic of Hector and my father back on our side—praying they were still alive and help would get to them in time, if that was even possible. No one could help me here, and I was running straight toward a living nightmare, but I couldn’t let that horrible thing have my sister. I raced after it, knowing it could mean death or something worse for both of us.
Around me, I heard other howls from the forest, saw dark shapes running after me, and I ran harder. On the other side, I’d only known these creatures by their burning eyes, their forms half-glimpsed in darkness—barely able to enter our world. Now I could see pale, fearsome things coming toward me in the forest as I ran after Zoe. At first I thought they were wolves, but their legs were too long, and they moved wrong, sometimes on four limbs and sometimes on two. There was no path to keep them at bay. The only advantage I had was my small size, darting between trees and through the underbrush, hoping it would slow them down. My heart was hammering in my chest.
Then I realized where the King was taking Zoe.
We had been running uphill for a while now, and every moment I was afraid I’d collapse, and the creatures chasing me would tear me apart. Then, suddenly, I burst out of the forest and into the vineyard by the Redmarch manor. I darted between the rows of grapevines—hazy and indistinct as the trees, more like the idea of grapevines glimpsed in a dream. I could hear the creatures following behind me.
When I saw the house, I almost couldn’t believe it. Every straight line was somehow bent or skewed, so the old colonial manse looked more like a half-formed ruin, a twisted child’s drawing brought to life. The door hung open, swinging in the wind. Behind me, I heard the creatures chasing me come to a stop and join together in an eerie chorus of howls. I realized they’d done what they intended all along—drive me right to the King.
They didn’t follow me inside, but I could hear them outside the door, pacing and howling. I had no way back.
I ran deeper into the house—or was it just a reflection of the house in this weird mirror world?—only to find an empty hall. There wasn’t even furniture in this shadow of the Redmarch manor, only the portraits of the Redmarch ancestors lining the walls. The pictures of their poor wives and husbands seemed to be screaming in pain, but every Redmarch descendent had their face blotted out by an oily black stain.
I raced through the empty rooms, looking for Zoe, but I found no trace. The upstairs was just as empty as the first floor. I ran to the back of the house, only to hear the creatures stalking at the back door, as well. Then I heard Zoe scream again, from somewhere deeper within. I retraced my steps, hoping to find something I missed. She screamed again, a horrible, keening wail, and a shudder passed through my whole body. I had to find her soon! I remembered Lyman Redmarch and the chamber of horrors they’d found under the mansion. And then, as if that thought were a key, I looked behind me to see an alcove I swore I’d never passed before, though I’d been up and down the same hallway several times. I opened the door and saw an old stone staircase leading down.
Zoe cried out once more, and I raced down the stairs, which kept going flight after flight, much longer than basement stairs had any right to. I couldn’t believe how deep I was going into the earth. The air got cold and clammy, and I could smell the fetid odor of the lake.
Finally, the stairwell ended in an old stone archway, etched with the same markings I’d seen on the column, and the Two Shadows artifacts. I hurried through, into a chamber dimly lit by flickering candles.
His voice had shed everything human about it; it was creaking branches and the rasp of falling rocks. Hunched over, his form scraped the low ceiling of the chamber. I could see him in full now, without the darkness obscuring him, and I wished I couldn’t. His limbs were long and thin, but gnarled with knotty muscle, the gray black of burnt trees. His fingers ended in claws like scythes. His head was something like a wolf, or a crocodile, but refracted through a nightmare lens, so that everything came out wrong. His head was crowned with thorny black antlers, which also sprouted from his spine and the bones of his shoulders. I could barely stand to look at him directly—the wrongness of it twisted up my stomach and filled me with an acrid, animal panic.
He towered over a rough stone slab, where Zoe lay, her face a mask of pain and fear. When she saw me, she shook her head slowly. She didn’t have to speak to tell me how she felt—I’m sorry, I wish you hadn’t come here. Below the slab, between them and me, was a black pool, as still and mirror smooth as the lake. I had no doubt that was where the water came from. I thought of my father and Hector, still on the other side of the lake, and wondered if I’d ever make it back.
The King brushed a cruel claw along Zoe’s cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. Zoe bit her lip but did not scream again.
“You know she lied to you,” he growled. “She isn’t your sister. She has been with me longer than your short life, always plotting to get away. You were just a means to her escape. But she has done me one service. She has brought you here to me. If I must lose your world for now, at least you will suffer for it.”