Dark Halls - A Horror Novel

by Jeff Menapace

“Are you mocking us?”

  “Can you blame me? You’re accusing my girlfriend’s mother without any real proof.”

  “Yes. Yes, I can blame you. Whether or not you want to point the finger at Carol, can you deny what’s been happening to you thus far? Is that a laughing matter? All the people who’ve died—all the children who’ve died? Is that a laughing matter?”

  “Whoa, whoa—I am not making light of those tragedies one bit. I’m just saying your evidence towards Carol is—”

  “How about your friend Trish, son?” Karl said. “She seem the type to slash her own throat with a razor blade to you?”

  “Of course not. But it still doesn’t prove—”

  “Hell,” Karl went on, “after the accident she had earlier in the day, you’d think she’d never want to even look at another one of the damn things again, never mind taking one to her own throat.”

  Ryan flashed on the cut Trish had received the day of her death. How bizarre the accident was. And then Trish’s words: “I’d like to know how a stupid razor blade wound up in a stack of papers.” And then her need to constantly change her bandaged hand, the bleeding had been so bad. If Carol was responsible for Trish’s death, had she been the one who’d slipped the razor blade in between those stack of papers, cutting Trish’s hand prior to her death? What possible reason could she have had for doing such a thing? The cut was hardly fatal. If it had intended on being so, it was ridiculous in its design.

  (If your dream felt like a try at possession, then it’s already begun. Someone has already managed to take something from you.)

  Take something from me?

  (Your friend Trish was forced to take her own life because her blood was spilled earlier in the day and used.)

  “Ryan,” Stew said, “we need you to trust—”

  “Shut up!” Ryan slapped both hands over his ears. Shut his eyes tight. “Don’t talk to me!”

  Neither Stew nor Karl spoke. It was clear that Ryan was not resorting to childish behavior, physically attempting to block out words he didn’t want to hear. On the contrary; it seemed clear Ryan was trying to listen:

  So that razor blade in the stack of papers…that was placed there on purpose. It was no accident.

  Yes.

  Placed by someone who knew Trish could see.

  Yes.

  I haven’t spilled any blood.

  Neither did I. My urine was used.

  Your urine?

  My erratic behavior following my divorce led some to believe I was using drugs. I was made to take a urine test once a day. On one particular day, twice.

  Twice in one day?

  Yes.

  Why?

  Because the first sample was misplaced.

  Not misplaced, though, right? It was stolen.

  Yes.

  By whom?

  I don’t know.

  Ryan spun away from Stew and Karl, hands still pressed tight to both ears, eyes still shut tight. He was back at the school, sitting at the table in the faculty lounge. Sitting across from John Gray.

  Stew and Karl looked on, not daring to interrupt.

  The photo. The staff photo from Highland. Karl the janitor believes it was left on my car to help me. To help me recognize you and the others so I would start digging around for a way to stop all this.

  Yes, it was given to you to help you start searching, but the giver’s motive was not one of help—it was one of malice.

  Malice?

  Someone suspected you had the ability to see. The photo was a ploy to see how you might respond to it. A way to confirm their suspicions if you responded to that ploy in exactly the way you did. To confirm whether you were someone who needed to be dealt with. Someone has been keeping a very close eye on you, Ryan.

  Ryan broke away from the scene with John and thought back to Trish’s post-funeral reception, the conversation he’d had with Rebecca and Carol Lawrence:

  Well, why don’t you and Rebecca have a few more drinks, and then she can give you a lift back to our place? You can stay the night.

  Back to him and John again. Certain phrases being played over again:

  Someone has been keeping a very close eye on you, Ryan.

  I haven’t spilled any blood.

  Neither did I. My urine was used.

  In Rebecca’s bedroom now after they made love:

  What are you looking for?

  I can’t, uh…I can’t find the condom.

  What?

  The condom we used…I can’t find it. Here’s the wrapper, but I can’t find the actual condom.

  You didn’t flush it?

  Not exactly. I kinda just dropped it on the rug after. I was going to flush it after we came in from outside, but I guess I forgot. I’m sorry.

  Well, it’s got to be there.

  I’m not seeing it…Where the hell could it be?

  Just leave it. We’ll spot it in the morning when the sun is up.

  And then the next morning when the condom was found, practically in plain sight:

  Here it is…How the hell did I miss it last night?

  It was the middle of the night. We’d been drinking.

  Yeah, but it’s right here.

  Who cares? Pick it up and flush it.

  And when he had gone to flush it, how there had been hardly any semen in the condom, his thoughts at the time:

  Did I shoot a blank? Or nearly a blank? How is that possible? I haven’t come in days.

  Recalling the moment intently now, wondering whether the semen in the condom had dried overnight. Quickly dismissing the idea as it had shamefully not been the first time he’d tossed a used condom on the floor to be discarded the morning after. How there had been no shortage of semen those times. Worrying then, again with not a little shame, whether he’d actually spilled some on the rug when he’d so carelessly tossed it to the floor. Only to re-enter Rebecca’s bedroom and check the rug, finding no such spot on her dark rug, no dried substance beneath his feet when he’d nonchalantly tried to check with his toes.

  John Gray’s words now for a final time:

  If your dream felt like a try at possession, then it’s already begun. Someone has already managed to take something from you.

  Ryan turned back slowly towards Stew and Karl. Opened his eyes and lowered his hands from his ears. His face was lost.

  “Ryan…?” Stew said.

  “I spoke to John last night.”

  “John? John Gray?”

  Ryan nodded. “He told me everything but who it was. But…”

  “But what? Christ, Ryan, what?”

  “My God, it makes sense…” Ryan said in barely a whisper. “It makes sense...the photograph. The condom. Trish. It all makes sense.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Stew said. “Tell us what the hell you’re—”

  “She’s got me,” Ryan said, still distant, almost trance-like. “She’s got what she needs. I’m as good as dead.”

  “Ryan, what did you see in that boiler room?” Karl asked.

  Ryan’s behavior now was almost the total antithesis of his recall just prior. He did not suddenly spin away from Stew and Karl. He did not slap both hands over his ears in a bid to exclude all noise. Instead, he merely closed his eyes and remembered. And much like his behavior now, so too was his recall of the boiler room altar and the contents therein the total antithesis of when he’d first glimpsed it. There was no flash flood of atrocity to overload his senses. No fear or pain. Just simple recall, as though remembering a scene in a film.

  Better yet, Ryan recalled the altar’s location. “I know where it is,” he said, opening his eyes.

  “Where what is?” Stew said, all but begging.

  The words left Ryan’s mouth without pause, surprising even him. “Where Carol Lawrence carries on Helen Tarver’s work.”

  “And that is?”

  Ryan looked at them as if they should already know. “The boiler room.”

  “Impossible,” Karl said. “We search
ed for years.”

  “It’s there,” Ryan merely said.

  “What’s the connection with this Helen Tarver lady?” Stew asked. “How did Carol find out about this woman from over two hundred years ago when an entire town had no knowledge of her or what happened? How is she able to do what she’s capable of doing now?”

  “Maybe they’re related?” Ryan said.

  “Her last name is Lawrence,” Karl said.

  “She could have easily changed it,” Ryan suggested.

  “She used to be married,” Stew said. “Lawrence is her married name.”

  “Well, what’s her maiden name then?” Karl asked.

  “It couldn’t be Tarver,” Ryan said. “That would be too easy.”

  “Where’s her husband now?” Stew asked.

  “Dead. Died of a stroke several years ago,” Ryan said.

  “Well, how do we find something like this out?” Stew began. “Her real name, I mean. If the whole Helen Tarver thing was buried and nobody knows about it—”

  “Wait,” Ryan said, closing his eyes again. “Wait, wait, wait, wait…” He was back at the tavern with Rebecca, having their first drink together:

  How did he die?

  Massive stroke. I was in middle school.

  I’m sorry. Must have been hard on you guys.

  It was. To be honest, I think my mom is still in denial about it, even after all these years. She doesn’t like to keep photos of him around or anything. Just his ashes in a big urn in her bedroom. I have a picture, though. Wanna see?

  Sure.

  Ryan remembered the photograph well. Even remembered commenting on what a good-looking guy her father had been. That photo came back to him now, not as the one Rebecca slid across the bar table towards him to see, but as one that had been hanging on the altar room wall. He had absorbed it last night, but had not recalled it until just now. Mike Lawrence, Rebecca’s father, with a necklace of small needles lining the perimeter of the man’s throat, below the necklace of needles the word “stroke” written in something red.

  Ryan opened his eyes again. His look of revelation showed no satisfaction whatsoever, for there was no longer any lingering doubt in his mind—his girlfriend’s mother was the one.

  “She killed him,” he said at last. “Carol Lawrence killed her husband.”

  “You said he died of a stroke,” Stew said.

  Ryan shot Stew a disappointed look. “And John willfully hanged himself. Trish voluntarily cut her own throat.”

  Stew conceded Ryan’s point with a nod.

  “Why would she kill her husband?” Karl asked.

  “Why did she kill everyone else?” Ryan asked.

  “They were a threat,” Stew said.

  “Exactly.”

  “And the children?” Karl asked.

  “No threat there,” Ryan said, “she’s just an evil fucking woman who wants children to kill children for her own sick needs.”

  54

  Ryan had changed his mind about making coffee; he felt all three of them deserved a hearty cup. They sipped periodically as they spoke.

  “So why was Carol’s husband a threat?” Stew asked.

  “Maybe he could see things too,” Karl suggested.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Ryan said. “The people who claimed to see things saw them in the school only.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Karl said.

  “Okay, fine—but Rebecca said her father died when she was in middle school. That was what? Ten years ago, give or take? Carol’s been doing her voodoo shit twice as long as that. If this guy started seeing things, Carol would have sniffed him out immediately. I mean, she was married to the guy. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that Carol doesn’t take chances—she thinks you’re a threat; you’re dead.”

  “That means he was a threat in some other way,” Stew said.

  “Most likely. My guess is he found out what his wife was up to.”

  “Well, then, using your own logic back at you, Ryan, how could he be married to Carol for all those years and not suspect something sooner?” Stew asked.

  “No idea. As we well know, Carol’s not exactly blatant about what she gets up to.”

  “Maybe the husband was into all this crazy stuff with her,” Karl offered. “Maybe after a while he had a change of heart. Wanted to stop or something.”

  Stew and Ryan looked at each other and shared a shrug. Stew said: “That could make sense.”

  “I’ll call Rebecca,” Ryan said. “She’s supposed to be here at four. I’ll tell her to come now so we can talk to her.”

  “Whoa, whoa, Ryan—slow down,” Stew said. “You can’t do that to the girl.”

  “Do what?”

  “Sit her down with the three of us and tell her we suspect her mother is responsible for mass murder. That she killed her own father.”

  “Fair point. Suppose we don’t say anything about Carol then? We just ask about her father.”

  “Ask what? If our theory about her father being in on everything with Carol is true, there’s simply no way that child would know anything about it.”

  Ryan splayed a hand. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  Ryan’s cell phone vibrated on the coffee table. Ryan snatched it and checked the incoming call.

  “Speak of the devil,” he said. “It’s Rebecca.”

  55

  Rebecca had held her cell phone in her hand so long before dialing that her palm was now sweaty. Was she really going to call someone she liked so much and tell him she didn’t want to see him again?

  She played her mother’s words over and over again in her head. The more they played, the more they continued to make sense. He was prone to hallucinations. He sleepwalked. Check that—sleep-drove. He was unstable. She would only be hurt in the long run. It made sense. Her mother was right. But over the phone? Tell him over the phone? What would school be like, seeing him every day? It would be so hard. So awkward.

  Should she go over as she had planned? Tell him face to face? Her mother’s words continued to echo inside her head, frustrating her. Such an impact those words had. Why? Past words of advice over questionable men weren’t regarded this intently. Hell, often she ignored them completely, preferring the classic thrill of defying her mother in favor of the “bad boy.” Why did it all feel so different now?

  Don’t think, just dial. Don’t think, just dial.

  She dialed.

  56

  “Hey,” Ryan answered his phone, “I was just thinking about you.”

  Stew and Karl listened intently from their spots on the sofa.

  “Hey,” Rebecca said.

  “You still coming over?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What? Why?”

  Stew and Karl leaned forward.

  “I don’t know, Ryan…after what’s been going on lately…I don’t know—I think maybe we should just lay low for a while.”

  “Lay low? What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know…the school incident last night, your behavior in the past—you just seem so…out there sometimes. I don’t want to end up getting hurt, you know?”

  This isn’t her, Ryan instantly thought. This isn’t her decision.

  “I don’t believe you, Rebecca. I don’t believe you mean that. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I think I better go.”

  I’m going to lose her. I can’t let her hang up.

  “Wait! Please don’t hang up just yet.”

  A pause.

  “Hello?” Ryan said.

  “I’m here.”

  Just ask it. You can win her back later, but not if you’re dead. Just fucking ask.

  “Tell me about your father,” he said.

  Karl leaned into Stew’s ear. “Boy’s not one for foreplay, is he?” he whispered.

  Stew hushed Karl with tight lips and a frown.

  “What?” Rebecca asked.

  “I know it sounds rand
om, and if you really want to stop seeing me, then I have no choice but to accept that. But I want to know about your father.”

  Rebecca seemed at a loss for words, and Ryan bet it was only her curiosity towards his odd questioning that kept her on the line.

  “What do you want to know?” she finally said.

  Ryan closed his eyes. Thank you.

  “What was he like?”

  “This is weird, Ryan. Why do you want to know?”

  How to sell this? She wants to break up. Can’t exactly say I want to know more about her to further the relationship, et cetera. Go for the cryptic angle and hope her curiosity keeps her on the line? “Just some stuff I’m trying to work out.”

  “What stuff?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. What was he like?”

  He could hear her sigh. Whether it was from Ryan’s insistence or her having to recall the loss of her father, he couldn’t be sure. Nor did he care, to be honest. As long as he kept her talking.

  “He was great,” she finally said. “I loved him a lot.”

  “You mentioned he passed away from a stroke, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had he had any strokes leading up to the one that took his life?”

  “No—just the one.”

  “Did his behavior change at all leading up to his death?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know—was he acting unusual in any way before he died? Did he ever say anything to you that you felt was out of the ordinary? Do anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Ryan, this is really—”

  “Come on, Rebecca; it’s just a question.”

  Another sigh. “He became born again. I guess that was a little unusual.”

  “Born again?”

  Stew and Karl looked at each other.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not really sure; he didn’t talk about it much with me. If I had to guess, I would say it was because of his sister. She became born again shortly before he did. Maybe she talked him into it.”