by Cara Martin
Returning to the scene of her father’s death, Josephine fashions a sleeping bag out of two heavy blankets. She cuts a mouth-sized hole in the fabric. Then she and Walter stuff Henry Adler’s unconscious body inside. Finally, Josephine sews the fabric above his head closed. “No matter what he says when he wakes, we can’t let him go until the miracle’s taken place,” she instructs her brother. “It will be easier to resist temptation if we don’t have to look him in the face.”
“Untie him!” I urge, unable to do it myself. My fingers melt into air.
“Leave us, serpent,” Josephine replies calmly. “I will never heed you.”
I would gladly go, if I could. Instead I’m forced to watch as she fasts for days, waiting for her miracle, spoon-feeding Henry Adler through the cloth when he wakes once, distraught and shouting garbled words that don’t form sentences. There is no second awakening. Her father, Thomas, doesn’t stir either.
Josephine weakens rapidly, sliding in and out consciousness to the sound of her own half-uttered prayers. Meanwhile, the venomous black cloud oozes into every room of the house, its size multiplying with each passing day. The cloud’s inky vapors drip from curtains and the corners of ceilings, pooling on the mantelpiece and kitchen counter, swishing around the tips of my ears, teasing me with the promise of release.
In her last moments, Josephine kneels beside her father’s bed with her palms smoothed together. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,” she whispers. “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without …” Her eyes close fast, and don’t reopen. She slips gently forward, her head landing sideways on the bed, her knees still bent under her. Walter finds her in this pose when he pads into his parents’ bedroom with a tall glass of water his sister wouldn’t have drunk anyway, just as she refused all the glasses before it — waiting for a miracle, in a place doomed by a sickness transformed into evil.
Walter’s glass shatters on the floor. Into a thousand tiny pieces no one could ever hope to reassemble. His face collapses into ruin, his inconsolable cries piercing otherwise empty rooms. Slowly, he descends the staircase, wandering brokenly out the front door as if being led by a greater power, golden sunshine stealing him from view. Shantallow’s sole survivor, a nine-year-old boy.
Then I’m all alone. A shadowy, paper-thin sliver of myself left blinking at the darkness washing surf-like through the house. It plugs my ears and streams into my eyes, half-blinding me as I think I spy someone else — leaning in the doorway with an unlit cigarette between his fingers, staring back at me with a brazenness that curls his upper lip. A man out of place, out of time, and the darkness warm and heavy, like the air before a summer storm. Wrapping itself around me like the weight of a hundred ambivalent hands pulling me toward day.
19
BUT IT’S NOT DAY. Not remotely. Just the same grisly shade of night my eyes have been stumbling over since the lantern went dead.
“You’re awake,” Cal notes from the porch steps.
“Yeah. So are you.” Last thing I remember the tramadol had him down for the count.
Tanvi and I sat in silence for so long after she saw Alice — my mind running wild — that I must’ve dropped off against my better judgment. Now my neck wrenches to the right. Peering at Tanvi’s and Lauren’s sleeping bodies stretched peacefully out next to each other on the porch, my lungs chug oxygen and relief. The two of them are both okay. In the time that I was asleep, disaster didn’t strike.
“It’s been quiet for a while,” Cal confirms. “The rain’s stopped too.” Tearing something between his fingers, he slides a freed piece between his lips — the bread he took from the house. “We need a plan for tomorrow. We have to make damn sure we don’t end up back here. I say we forget the road and head straight through the woods.”
“Tomorrow isn’t coming. We can’t wait for that.” Memories from my nightmare poke holes into my consciousness. Not just a dream. A window onto the past.
I’m not sure I even believe in that. My maternal grandmother might. My father definitely wouldn’t swallow it. Not when I knew him. He would’ve fanned the air at the suggestion and rasped, “That’s some ripe bullshit.”
But it was so real. As horrifically real as anything else that happened tonight.
“What?” Cal chokes. “What do you mean tomorrow isn’t coming?”
I shake my head. Words won’t explain. We’re souls — or whatever you want to call us — stuck on a sheet of flypaper.
“That’s fucked up, man. You can’t put something like that out there and then clam up.”
Scanning Tanvi’s body in the dark, I will her to wake up. Cal won’t understand. It’s a bridge too far, even with the things that have happened here tonight. “Something tragic went down here a long time ago,” I begin, remnants of sleep bleeding into my voice, “and I don’t know how, but now it’s trapped us.”
Cal shakes his head. “Something happened, no doubt, but —”
“I saw it when I was asleep. The family who lived here. The daughter was insane. Delusional and violent. Sick with something. Her father too. But she killed at least three people.”
Cal exhales warily as he trains his eyes on my chin. “Listen, this place has been messing with all of us. But whatever you saw was just a dream — your head trying to make sense of all the craziness.”
“Maybe.” I only say it so he won’t write me off. We need to stick together. Trust each other. Form a united front. “How long has she been out?” I cock my head to indicate Tanvi.
“Not long. She was getting emotional. This night, you know … and you. Man, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to get into it with you, this isn’t the right place for that, but” — he straightens his spine and drops his voice — “I don’t know what you’re doing here. You were a complete fucking asshole to that girl, and then you come creeping around her house.”
I lower my head. “I know.”
“So when this is over you need to leave her alone. Have some respect. You understand?”
“Yeah.” The part of me that wanted to slam a fist into him earlier is mute and lifeless. “Coming from me, it’ll sound like bullshit, but I didn’t drive by to mess with her. I never thought she’d find out I was there.”
“Your unlucky day,” Cal declares wistfully. “Unlucky for all of us.”
“Do you think the cops know who took us?”
“I doubt it. If they start digging, certain people might suggest it was you.”
That never occurred to me, but he’s right. With no ransom phone call to guide the police the kidnapping could look like the work of a jealous ex-boyfriend with a history of posting revenge porn.
“Everybody who knows T.V. saw the photo,” Cal continues.
It always comes back to that. The things I shouldn’t have done. Like I’m some feral animal on the inside. Different from the people who would know better.
Something pinches the back of my neck, trying to get my attention. Something that’s not entirely here but doesn’t want to be forgotten. “Was it bad for her after the photo?” I ask under my breath.
Isn’t that what I wanted? For Tanvi to eat shit for breaking up with me? But if that’s who I am, why isn’t it less complicated? Why feel like I drowned a sack of puppies whose cries I still hear in my sleep months later?
“Bad enough. The dickheads came out of the woodwork. Could’ve been worse, but she’s tough.” Cal turns away, staring into the fortress of trees. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
I don’t know why I do anything, when it comes down to it. Is there any space inside me that’s only mine? Is every last piece of real estate either handed down from my father or a reaction against him?
I think of what Tanvi said last night about my life being fake like an airbrushed photo. That’s not what I want for myself. I want change to be as real as this ni
ght.
“My dad has surgery in the morning,” Cal says, jumping subjects. “Now he’ll have to reschedule. He hates that.”
“Your dad’s a surgeon?” The thing prickles at my neck. Not a bug I can swat away. Something that won’t be ignored.
“An otolaryngologist,” he replies. “ENT.”
Ears, nose, throat specialist. Cal’s dad probably bumps into Helena Mahajan at the hospital on a regular basis. They live in the same world. The one I only have a visitor’s pass for so far.
“My mom’s an ophthalmologist,” Cal adds. “They’re so cheesy together. Always referring to themselves as double trouble.”
Meaning his folks could’ve paid his ransom after all. Not as much as Helena’s parents could afford for Tanvi and Lauren, but the kidnappers would’ve netted a healthy bonus. I’m the one weak link.
Fingernails scrape along the side of my neck. Ruthlessly enough to break skin. I gasp, one hand flying protectively to my neck.
“What is it?” Cal asks anxiously, craning to stare at me. “Serpent.” His tongue curls spitefully around the syllables, suddenly feminine.
Both hands shoot to his mouth. They scoop inside his lips, fishing for whatever grungy residue remains. Not his word, not his voice. Hers. Brittle and vicious.
Cal’s eyes pop with fear. He leaps up from the steps and bends at the waist, his head extending away from the rest of him like a garden hose nozzle, ready to vomit the presence through his mouth and eject it into the world.
Tanvi hurtles forward, thumping his back. “Cal,” she says starkly. “Cal. Cal.”
I stand too. Press my hands firmly into his shoulders to calm him down. “Fight it,” I tell him, squeezing one arm between him and Tanvi, edging her away. If we’re losing Cal to this place, he shouldn’t be anywhere near her.
Straightening, he chokes out a single word. Tries to. Help.
Beyond the steps something moves. My eyes collide with it full force, my body still restraining Cal.
A figure in black. Emerging from the woods. Mechanically dragging his injured foot behind him like he has no particular affinity for the appendage. His face reminds me of a tarp, giving nothing away about the contents it covers.
“Greg!” I shout.
He doesn’t break stride. There’s no hint he even heard me. His expression remains as emotionless as any major appliance you plug into a wall socket.
Tanvi’s gaze pans past Cal, connecting with Greg quickly approaching the steps. “Luke!” she calls. “What happened in the woods?”
Standing tall and wooden, he breaches the porch stairs. Edging Cal into the post and pushing me aside along with him. Tanvi leaps back, avoiding contact. Greg reaches for the front door. One of his feet thrusts inside as he hurls it open.
Stumbling forward, I heave my arms around his chest. Lock them into place like a deadbolt, trying to stop him. He’s not Luke or Greg anymore. Something else has slithered under his flesh and marched him out of the woods. It’s in control. If it succeeds in carrying him into the house, he might never come out again.
Greg’s head pitches back in revolt, struggling robotically against me. One of my hands clips his. Ice crystals crunch under my fingers — an obscene cold that shouldn’t be possible this time of year. My body recoils in shock.
Cal advances as I retreat. Our bodies plow headlong into each other, canceling each other’s efforts. Falling back onto the porch with twin wallops of misery. The door slaps shut behind Greg, the entire porch vibrating in response.
“We need to go,” Cal barks, regaining command of his voice. “Right now. We’ll send someone back for him.”
Tanvi screams from behind us: “Lauren’s missing!” Racing down the steps, she banks right, the wind whipping up her hair like a mainsail made of a thousand strands. Cal and I scramble after her. Three sets of eyes scanning a perimeter composed only of shades of black.
Tanvi reaches the van first. Drops to her knees and peers under its scarred remains. “She’s not here!” she shouts. Steps behind, I follow hot on her heels, sprinting back in the general direction of the house. Tanvi tugs futilely at the locked carriage house doors, their weight groaning and resisting as I catch up.
“There’s no way she could’ve gotten by the three of us,” Cal calls from several feet back. “We would’ve seen her. She must have gone back into the house right before Luke went in.” While we were distracted with Cal. Another dirty trick.
Tanvi whirls around in the darkness, the starless night oppressive and unshakeable, feeding on our fear. “Then I’m going in.” Her eyes snap to mine as I begin to run with her, our movements mirror images. “Don’t try to stop me.”
There’s no time to tell her what I saw in my sleep. It wouldn’t help anyway.
Cal accelerates out ahead, widening his lead. The telltale slowness from his injury has vanished. He hits the porch steps first, on fire with tramadol and adrenalin. “Wait for us!” Tanvi calls after him. Glancing over his shoulder, he pauses with his arm raised, deciding his fate. His fingers close on the doorknob. Pitching the front door open, he launches himself headlong into the house of horrors.
I speed after him, second into Shantallow. Inside, feeble light from the remaining living room lantern sifts into the corridor and lower half of the staircase. I hesitate in the entranceway, longing for the safety of a light in my hand. But Cal’s already nearing the top of the stairs. His feet scuffle noisily as they rise and fall, alerting me to his location before my eyes can find him.
Tanvi’s shoes scrape against my heels when she dashes in behind me. She’s not slowing for anyone or anything. I can’t either.
Ascending into rapidly fading light, my left hand clings to the railing, the other stretches out in front of me like a shield. “Lauren!” Tanvi shouts. “Can you hear me?”
“We’re coming!” Cal blares from the second-storey hallway. “We want to help.”
Bone-white arms lunge out of the dark inches in front of me. Aiming for my head. I duck instinctively, left elbow slamming painfully into the banister.
Something dark whips over my head, skimming my hair. It cracks into Tanvi behind me. A direct hit. She groans. Drops like a bowling pin.
Spinning to catch her, I’m too late. She falls backwards down the stairs. Thumpety-thump thump-thump-thump. Bones bashing against worn old steps. The large wooden cross from the mantelpiece slides down next to her, racing toward bottom.
“Tanvi!” I spurt downstairs after her. Snatch up the stone-cold cross with a hand that doesn’t want to touch it. Hurl the unholy thing into the hallway — as far away from us as my arm can force it — and then crouch beside her. Tanvi blinks dazedly up at me, blood trickling down the side of her face. Her hand reaches for it, feeling for the stain of wet. Wincing audibly, her fingers shift to her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” My throat chokes like engine trouble. “Let me —”
“I’m — I’m okay,” she lies, voice betraying her. “We have to find Lauren. Help me up.”
I slip one hand supportively under her back and grasp her right hand with my left. Looking her over in the murky light, I can’t see well enough to discern where she hurts the most. I pull her slowly up along with me, my ribs screaming silently in protest. “Did you break anything?” I ask. “Let me get the lantern.”
Tanvi shakes her head, wide-eyed with shock and determination. “No, let’s go.” She grabs the end of my shirt impatiently, lifting an ankle to maneuver herself back onto the bottom step with a fragility that stops me dead. Her left shoulder and upper arm scrunch in close to her torso like a work of human origami stomped under a steel-toe boot.
“Not in the dark,” I insist. “We need the lantern. We have to see what’s coming.”
“Get it, then,” she says grudgingly.
I dart for the living room, ears scanning for feet on the stairs the way the
y shouldn’t be if she listens to me and waits. But I’m no time at all. The instant I appear Tanvi begins to tackle the steps again. “Cal! Lauren! Where are you?” she yells.
We land on the second floor, Tanvi rushing to the right and me hurtling along with her, pushing the lantern out ahead of us. Light seeps along the corridor and into the same bedroom where we found John earlier. My heart rate spirals, my blood pressure vaulting sky-high as my mind shrieks, Freeze. Three shadowy figures lurk inside the illuminated room — two on their knees, hands pressed stiffly together as if locked in prayer. The third lingers just inside the doorway, watching the others from unblinking eyes.
Cal. Paused with fear or fascination. Our appearance breaks his spell. His gaze flips to Tanvi, eyes narrowing in the glare of more light than he’s been exposed to in hours. Greg and John kneel with their backs to him. Spines held perversely straight, eyes shut tight, and lips mouthing unspoken words that look like gibberish.
Puppets. That’s what they are.
If we could sever their strings somehow …
But Tanvi’s twisting on her heels, zooming in the opposite direction. I keep up, the pain in my nose and abdomen turning clear. Panic acting as local anesthetic, canceling out everything except what might be ahead of us.
Freeze. Run. Fight. The three stages of fear. My brain cycles through them repeatedly in quick succession, like someone skimming a dial through radio stations, unable to find the right one.
Behind me a door wallops shut. I gawk over my shoulder. Cal’s been sealed inside the bedroom with Greg and John. I hear him jiggle the doorknob, then pound the door urgently with his fist, hollering for help. My eyes snag on the nearest wall. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. There are too many to count. Long and deep. Misshapen. Like a network of irregular scars.
One wriggles frantically against the wall. Then a second. The swirling scars of the corridor walls twitch with life. Hundreds of rangy black worms writhing, trapped in the throes of desolation. My empty thumb and fingers jet to my eyes, rubbing reassurance into the closed lids.