Stew was blunt. “Like you said, Karl; we put ourselves into her line of fire. It was only a matter of time before she found out.”
“So, what do we do? What do we do?” Karl begged.
“Like I said, we split up,” Ryan said. “We need to get to Rebecca’s to grab the urn, and then get to that school to stop Carol from doing whatever the hell she’s planning to do with Karl’s picture.”
“So who goes where?” Stew asked.
“Drop me off at the school,” Ryan said. “You and Karl go to Rebecca’s. Break the fucking door down if you have to.”
“Why should you go to the school?” Stew asked. “If anyone’s got a chance of having Rebecca let them in, it’s you.”
“I’m already screwed, guys,” Ryan said. “And, Karl—there’s a good chance you’re about to be screwed too.”
“First time I been screwed in thirty goddamn years and it’s got to be like this.”
Ryan went on. “I know where her altar is. I know where to find her. I’ve got to try something. Hell, I’ll kick the shit out of her if I have to. And weird as this sounds, maybe there’s something in the school that’s willing to help me—something you guys won’t be able to see, but I will.”
Stew went to say something, but Ryan wouldn’t let him.
“Stew, we can’t risk me having another psychotic episode on the way to Rebecca’s. Like I said, I’m already screwed. The heart is the most important thing right now. We need someone strong and reliable. That’s you and Karl.”
Stew silently digested Ryan’s logic. Then: “Fine—where does Carol live?”
“I’ll tell you when we get to the school. It’s not far from there. After you drop me off, do whatever you can to get that urn from Rebecca.”
“What if you’re wrong about the urn?” Stew asked.
“I’m not.”
Karl said: “Aww man…Am I gonna die?”
67
Carol was out of her altar and climbing the basement stairs when she heard the voices. People in the school. She froze midstep, listening intently. She recognized all three voices. Heard every word they were saying. Then the faint metallic sound of—coins? Keys?—hitting the tiled floor, followed by panicked shouts from both Stew and Ryan.
But not Karl.
Carol smiled.
***
Stew pulled into the school lot. No protestors. No cars.
“I don’t see her car,” Stew said. “Maybe she’s not here.”
“She’s here,” Ryan said.
Stew took a deep breath and let it out slow. Glanced over at Ryan. “‘Good luck’ too cliché?”
“I’ll take some luck. But you need to let me in first.” He patted his empty pockets. “No keys.”
His school key on the same ring that held his car key, Stew killed the engine and pulled them from the ignition. He then looked back at Karl. “Be right back.”
“Like hell,” Karl replied. “You two ain’t leaving me here alone.”
All three men hurried towards the front entrance. Once inside, Ryan gave Stew and Karl directions to where Carol and Rebecca lived.
“Go get the damn thing, guys,” Ryan said. “Do whatever you have to.”
“Do you even have a plan?” Stew asked.
Ryan looked around the dimly lit lobby. Dusk had arrived, and light was fading. To Stew, it seemed as though Ryan was gathering his nerve more than looking for anything in particular.
“The boiler room,” Ryan finally said. “If she’s anywhere, she’s down there. At least I hope.”
“The basement door to the boiler room will be locked,” Karl said, rummaging through his pockets and producing a large ring of keys. He pinched one of the keys between his thumb and index finger, worked it off the ring, and handed it to Ryan.
“Thanks. Get to Rebecca’s. Find that urn. Destroy that stupid heart.”
Stew stepped forward and hugged Ryan hard.
“Jesus, man,” Ryan said in his powerful embrace. “Why don’t you hit the gym once in a while?”
Stew let go and tried acknowledging Ryan’s levity with a smile. It felt all kinds of awkward on his face, the kind of reassuring smile you offered to someone on their deathbed.
Ryan turned to Karl, put a hand on his shoulder, and squeezed. Went to say something and stopped. Karl’s eyes had rolled back into his head. The old man then dropped his big ring of keys and fell backwards, planklike, onto the lobby floor, the back of his head ricocheting off the tile with a sickening crack.
Both Ryan and Stew screamed.
68
According to Carol, it couldn’t have been scripted any better—Karl’s aneurysm allowed her the precious time she needed to phone her daughter.
Carol crept back down into the boiler room, pulled her cell, and called Rebecca. It went straight to voicemail. She cursed lightly under her breath and dialed their landline. Rebecca answered on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Becks? It’s Mom.”
“Mom? Why are you whispering? Everything okay?”
“No, sweetheart, it’s not. I’m at the school. I came here to get some last-minute work done, and Ryan and two other men are here. They’ve gone crazy, Becks. I overheard them planning something really bad involving you and me.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have time to explain. I’m going to try to find a place to hide and call for help, but I had to warn you first. A man is on his way to our house, Becks—he’s coming for your father’s ashes.”
“Daddy’s ashes? Are you kidding me? What the hell is going on?”
“Becks, please—they think Daddy was evil or something, and they want to grab his ashes and get rid of them. That’s why Ryan was asking you all those questions about your father and Aunt Samantha. I told you; Ryan lost his grip on reality. Didn’t I tell you? Please don’t let them take my husband’s ashes, Becks.” She feigned a crack in her voice, as though fighting back tears. “Take Daddy’s urn and go. Go somewhere—anywhere—and hide. Do it now, sweetheart. Please.”
“Okay, Mom, I’m going. I’m leaving right now. Do you want me to call the police?”
“No—just go, Becks. I’m calling them the second I hang up with you.”
“Okay. Please be careful, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
***
Karl was breathing but comatose. Both Stew and Ryan had rushed to his side after his collapse, Stew attempting to lift him after checking his vital signs.
“You sure you should do that?” Ryan asked.
Both men were breathing heavily, adrenaline flooding their veins.
“Why?”
“Well, what if he’s got neck trauma or something? Couldn’t we make him worse?”
They both looked down at Karl. His eyes weren’t open, but they weren’t closed either; they were slits that only showed white. His mouth hung open. His fleshy skin was the color of salt.
“I’m not gonna leave him here on the lobby floor, Ryan. Did you hear his head hit?”
“Exactly. He might have damaged his neck. We could make it worse.”
“I’m not leaving him out in the open like this.” He pulled out his cell.
“What are you doing?”
Stew looked at Ryan as though it was obvious. “911. We need an ambulance.”
“Hospital isn’t going to help this, Stew. You know that.”
“Well, then what the hell do we do?”
Ryan considered a moment. “Fine—we move him. Let’s take him to the nurse’s office. Lay him on one of the cots.”
“Christ, Ryan, we’ve got to do something more than that.”
“We are going to do something more than that. I’m going to find the psycho witch and knock her the fuck out, and you’re going to go to Rebecca’s and destroy that urn and whatever the hell’s inside.”
Stew motioned down at Karl. “You think that will undo what happened to him?”
&
nbsp; “Banging his head? No idea. What made him fall and bang his head? We can only hope. Come on.”
Both men gingerly lifted Karl and carried him to the nurse’s office, placing him on a cot in one of two rooms therein. Stew lovingly rubbed Karl’s bald head. “You’re not going yet, brother. You’re going to live to see it die. You are.”
Stew turned out the light and closed the door. Turned out the main lights in the nurse’s office and closed that door behind them as well. Stew immediately started for the lobby. “Find the bitch,” he said. “I’m gonna get that goddamn heart and feed her the fucking thing.”
The hair on Ryan’s arms stood. A pissed-off Stew was a frightening sight indeed.
69
The boiler room. Should he begin there as he had suggested to Stew and Karl? Common sense would say yes. Only if Carol had suspected he might be coming—a distinct possibility—she could be anywhere. If Ryan had learned one thing about Carol in the short time he’d known her, it was that she was crafty as they came. A world-class chess player always three moves ahead of her opponent. Just look at what she’d done to poor Karl. Checkmated the guy before he was even in the game.
Where then? While no high school, or even middle school, Pinewood was still a good-sized elementary school. So many places to hide.
If she’s hiding.
(Why wouldn’t she?)
Oh, she might be. But not for reasons of never being found.
(Reasons for an ambush.)
Boom.
The hair on Ryan’s arms stood again.
I can handle a woman.
(In a straight-up fight? Sure. But Carol isn’t the type to play fair, is she? And let’s not forget the whole black magic bullshit she has on you. For all you know, you could drop at any moment like Karl did.)
The hairs on his arms weren’t sitting anytime soon. He needed to hurry. Ryan started down the south wing towards the cafeteria.
***
Much as it killed him, Stew did not speed to Rebecca’s house. The last thing he wanted was to be pulled over and cause a delay. When he hit residential roads, where the speed limit was twenty-five miles an hour, his bladder taunted him for no good reason other than he was close and forced to go at a snail’s pace.
“Here we go, baby,” he soon said to himself, spotting the street sign Ryan had mentioned to him, turning onto the street and hitting his high beams without a care for any oncoming cars that might happen by. He cruised the street, repeating Ryan’s directions aloud: “Pass four mailboxes…fifth one is the one I want…number twenty-six…here we go…”
Number twenty-six was there. So was a white Honda Civic backing out of the driveway in one hell of a hurry.
***
Rebecca hung up the phone and ran into her mother’s room. Approached the mantel but did not touch the urn right away. It didn’t feel right. Several times she reached for it only to pull her hands away. It was about to be the very first time she’d held the urn that contained her father’s ashes. She felt the need to apologize.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Rebecca took the urn from the mantel and held it tight to her chest, keeping it there a moment, embracing it. She felt tears coming. Again she said: “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
She steadied her breathing, suppressed her emotions. Now was not the time. Rebecca hurried outside, placed the urn in the passenger seat first, made her way into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.
Where to go? Her mother’s panic had forced Rebecca to act without thought, but now she needed to formulate at least some course of action. Her mother had urged her to just take the urn and leave. Go anywhere. Just leave. Someone was coming for her. Someone her mother classified as crazy.
Crazy. Someone might be coming for her, but someone was already with her mother,
(Ryan?)
and they too were crazy. Rebecca suddenly knew one thing: she needed to help her mother. To protect her in any conceivable way she could.
She said she was calling the police. Do as she said; take the urn somewhere safe and hide.
And if the police didn’t show in time? Or if perhaps she never even managed to call the police? What if the crazy people
(Ryan??)
got to her before she could make the call?
Rebecca put her car into reverse and gunned it out of the driveway. Her foot, heavy with panic on the accelerator, caused the car to swerve onto the lawn, and she found herself hopping the curb before screeching to a halt, instantly reaching for the urn with her right hand like a parent bracing their child before a potential accident.
And there was, Rebecca would suddenly discover with near paralyzing fear, a potential accident. A car was coming straight for her, high beams inexplicably on.
One of the crazy people. They were here.
70
Ryan stopped every few feet down that south wing towards the cafeteria to listen and look. The majority of the classroom doors were shut and dark inside, giving him nothing. Could she be hiding in one of them? Crouched and ready to pounce as he strolled by? No—that would mean a straight-up fight, giving him the advantage. Unless she had a weapon, of course.
A thought then hit Ryan. Should he turn around and head to his own classroom? If Carol, in her chesslike way of thinking, had predicted Ryan clever enough not to head immediately to the boiler room in his search, would she then assume he might head somewhere familiar in a place that was still largely unfamiliar to him?
What sense would that make? I’m here to find her, not to hole up somewhere safe and familiar.
(Maybe you’ve only got it half right, then. Perhaps she’s the one holing up somewhere safe, expecting your classroom to be the last place you would look for her. After all, we’ve already established that she doesn’t need to lay any hands on you to do damage. Christ, for all you know, she’s there now, clutching that canvas with animal blood and your own freaking cum spiraled all over your name, casting one of her stupid fucking spells.)
Yes. Such a prospect held merit. His journey towards the cafeteria was, after all, somewhat random. Was in fact, in all honesty, an aimless start just to get his feet moving at a time when his feet felt leaden.
He would do it. He would head to his classroom. His gut told him something was there—she was there—waiting for him.
Ready or not, bitch; here I come.
71
Stew dove out of the way of the oncoming car, his huge body thudding onto the lawn, momentarily stealing his breath.
He had exited his car with the intentions of talking as rationally as possible given the bizarre circumstances, and he was halfway towards the car when he heard the engine roar and the tires screech, and he knew that the driver of the Honda meant to hit him if he didn’t move.
The driver had to be Rebecca, and Carol had apparently gotten hold of her first—it was the only explanation that made sense. He would also bet his life that Rebecca had the urn with her in that car.
Stew rolled onto all fours and inhaled deep through his nose to regain his breath. The Honda was already turning out of the development, and Stew knew he was seconds from losing her. He found his feet and sprinted towards the driver’s side door of his still-running car. In seconds he was speeding down the same road the Honda had turned onto, unsure of what his next move was.
***
Rebecca sped down the road, steering with her left hand, her right still bracing the urn. Her mother had been right. A man had come for her, and the thought of ramming him with her car in order to escape did not even give her a moment’s pause.
She needed to get to the school. She needed to make sure her mother was okay, help her in any way that she could. She entertained the idea of calling the police en route. She would say she was being followed. Was she, though? Had she lost him? She looked into her rearview mirror and saw darkness. No headlights. Should she call the police and tell them to go to the school? Her mother had told her that she was calling them. But what if, as Rebecca had feared earlier, her mother hadn
’t managed to? What if the crazy people had gotten to her first? And suppose Rebecca did call the police now? What would she say that didn’t make her sound crazy herself?
You don’t have to give them any backstory, girl. Just tell them to go to the school—its history is infamous to local police; ominous goings-on left and right—and that your mother is there and in danger.
But how long would that take? For the 911 operator to take down the report and for the police to show? And lest she forget, the school’s history was infamous to police and locals. It was almost guaranteed that the police received more than their share of crank calls from those outraged locals after Pinewood had been erected, many understandably unstable from grief and loss, claiming who knows what? It would all be so time consuming. Her mother needed help now.
“Shit!” Rebecca cried out in frustration. She stomped the accelerator. She was nearly there.
***
Stew had grown up in the area surrounding Pinewood. Lived there all his life. This helped immensely as he followed Rebecca’s car with his headlights off.
He did not attempt to pass her. The girl had tried to run him over, for crying out loud. If he sped up alongside of her, urging her to pull over, the girl might damn well try to run him off the road. To Stew, the best course of action was a stealth approach, hoping to follow her unobserved.
So far he had kept up well, but she was moving fast on roads not designed for such high speeds. A few sudden turns on those compact roads—she of course was not using turn signals—made his tires screech, and he feared such a sound might give him away. But after a few more of those sudden turns, it became glaringly obvious to Stew as to where the Honda was heading. He breathed easier as he knew he would not have to follow so close. Stew could make it to Pinewood with his eyes closed.
Dark Halls - A Horror Novel Page 20