Jack turned and ran down the opposite direction, hoping to make it to the stairs; but when he reached his bedroom, he thought he saw Mira there, standing near the bed, or someone who looked like Mira. He had to get her out of there. He couldn’t just save himself.
“Mira! Get out! Come on! Hurry!” Jack shouted, and ran into his room, but Mira was not there at all.
Chet stepped into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Jack went for the door to the bathroom, but it was locked.
“Harrow doesn’t want anyone leaving. Not now. Not when we’re only in the first inning,” Chet said.
7
Chet raised the bat against Fleetwood. “TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME!” he shouted.
Jack raised his hands, “No, Chet, come back, don’t give in, don’t let it have you!” He turned and went for the door, but Chet, sprang up and closed it, locking it behind him. He took the key and dangled it mid-air. “Woof,” he said. Then he put the key between his lips and swallowed it. “Ha ha,” he said. “Ha fuckin’ ha.”
“Please, Chet. It’s me. It’s Jack. Listen to me. Please. Try to think. Think about what you’re doing.”
“I am thinking,” Chet said, his teeth clenched, his bat raised. “I’m thinking, well, shit, if I can just hit one out of the stadium, I can run for home and then I’m safe. That’s the way the game goes, Mr. Umpire, right? That’s the way it goes!” He swung the bat through the air, nearly hitting Jack’s chin. Jack fell backward, landing on his back.
“TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME! TAKE ME OUT TO THE CROWD!” Chet cried out, swinging the bat downward, across the bridge of Jack Fleetwood’s nose. “BUY ME SOME PEANUTS AND CRACK”—and here another swing and hit—"ER JACKS! I DON’T CARE IF I NEVER GET BACK!”
And Chet Dillinger kept swinging that bat, and as he did, he imagined the homer he must be hitting because everybody was cheering.
Everybody was cheering, and somewhere, nearby, the Wolf came out to finish the game.
8
The bat smashed down. It had a life of its own as he brought it up and down and up and down against Jack Fleetwood’s skull. The Wolf—for that’s what he was now, a bonafide Wolf—was loose, and he felt fucking good and full of life and the need to spatter some more blood. He needed to take a leak badly, but he didn’t want to stop. Something surged through him—the energy, God, it was more than energy, it was a fire in his belly, and all those years it had been waiting to come out and he’d never let it go.
Up! Down! The bat went crunch-crunch-crunch, and the Wolf let out a big old howl as the rich red blood spewed upward and covered his chest and mitts. Damn good! Tasty red gobs of liquid, all hot and sweet. Oh, good God almighty, didn’t he want to pull out the bones and suck out the marrow of that pile of meat.
The hunt is on, sons of bitches, the Wolf said, and he kept beating the bat down on the body until there wasn’t much left there except for a river of blood and flesh and eye and bone and other soft, gooey things that just kind of slipped around in all the squishiness.
“Woo hoo!” he cried out and dropped the bat. It rolled across the rubbery flattened feet of the dead man, and as it rolled, it turned completely red with blood.
And then he saw himself in the mirror by the bed, and what he saw was not a wolf but a man, barely a man, a scared and shivering boy of nineteen with his naked body covered with blood, and his sandy hair matted down with the dark redness, and his eyes like pinholes from the smudges on his face.
Chet recognized himself. There was no wolf. There was no animal inside him.
He stood there for what felt like hours as an immense sorrow flooded his insides and hosed down the heat that had been burning there.
No. No, please, let this be the house’s dream. Don’t let this be real.
“The Wolf's at the door,” the dream-memory of his mother whispered to him.
But it wasn’t at the door, not in Harrow, Chet thought. Not outside the door, anyway. The Wolf was inside the door, the Wolf had him, and it was already inside the house. The Wolf was not outside in the wilderness because the fucking wilderness was within this place.
“Don’t let this be real,” he whispered to his blood-soaked reflection.
But, of course, it was real, for this was not a house of dreams or a place of visions.
Harrow was reality, and the reflection in the mirror felt more real to him than he himself felt.
He could not bring himself to look down at the mutilated body of Jack Fleetwood.
Chet’s shoulders slumped. He sat down at the edge of the bed. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” he prayed, his hands locking together. “Please help me. Please don’t leave me to this. Please let this not have happened.”
He felt a terrible hunger in his stomach, followed by nausea. He scrambled for the door, but the lock held. He angled backward and then gave the door a huge lack—the lock and knob broke, the wood cracked, and the door came open.
Chet ran down the corridor to the bathroom. When he got there he threw up in the sink, although not much of anything came up except for some blood and the key to the room.
Then he sat on the edge of the bathtub and ran the hot water.
9
In the tub, he let himself sink down beneath the water’s surface. It was so hot that it was nearly scalding, but he didn’t care. He wanted to burn the Wolf out of him for good.
As he lay there, eyes closed, beneath the water, he thought he would just let himself drown like that. Just let it go. Don’t live. You can’t live with yourself anymore. You don’t want to come back from this. You don’t want to face this. Drown now and go to Hell and let eternal Hellfire take you, but don’t face this, don’t let the Wolf out again, don’t let it...
But in less than a minute he had pushed his face above the steamy surface again, gasping for air.
And everything around him had changed.
You’ve sacrificed to us, someone said. You’re in our world now.
10
Mira felt as if she was the most beautiful woman on earth, and she admired her form in the mirror, with the crown of nature on her head and the robe of purity around her shoulders. She had torn the robe with her own bare hands, and with the help of the others, the people she had seen in the dark, all of them helping her, bathing her in blood, baptizing her. Her mind had short-circuited briefly, but now she knew that she was a goddess and, as such, she demanded a sacrifice.
She knew who would be her first human sacrifice.
Her handmaiden to do with as she wished.
To torture as she wished.
And the lucky person was: Cali Nytbird.
11
The hunt began using her new heightened abilities. She had learned from those in the shed that when one makes a sacrifice and drinks the blood, one takes on the skills and talents of the victim. Mira had noticed immediately her heightened sense of smell from her first victim, and she used it to track Cali. It led her to a bathroom, and then to a bedroom, but neither held the victim. Then she saw the open door leading to the other end of the house, a part of the house she had known well.
When she entered it darkness was everywhere, but she followed the scent in the dark until she found her victim cowering in a corner, hands over her mouth as if trying to keep something from getting inside her.
“Bitch!” Mira screamed, bringing her fists down on Cali’s face. “Gonna scrape the skin right off you!”
12
Break through this, Cali told herself. She felt invisible fists corning down, smashing at the flies that covered her, blinding her, the flies that were crawling into her ears, into the small holes at the edge of her eyes, trying to find entry into her body, but she had to stop them. She had to keep them from getting inside her, because she knew if they did, it would be over, over for her just as it must have been for her brother. My brother. My Neddy. My twin.
Please help me, Ned. You never died within me. I never stopped caring for you or loving you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you,
the way we helped each other when we were younger. I’m sorry we weren’t the team we should’ve been.
Someone seemed to be clawing at her now, and the flies were biting.
And then Cali felt it.
Ned. He had died, but he was still with her. Somehow he was with her. Somehow he was not just a painful memory. His strength must be there, too. Must be.
It must be within me. The source of this. If Harrow is opening, it’s because of me, Frost, and Chet. It’s not because of Harrow itself. We are the keys. We are the keys.
With all her might, she focused on the flies. She focused no matter how hard they bit or tried. Fighting them, I give them power. Fight, and I lose. It’s within me.
Then Cali opened her eyes and her mouth to the flies that swarmed across her.
She whispered, her throat nearly choking, “Poor old lady, she swallowed a fly.”
At first she felt as if she was going to vomit and then choke on the wriggling mass that invaded her.
And then she thought of Ned, and her love for him, and her love for that little boy that Gloria Franco had murdered, and she knew that the power of love, the power of perfect love was her own strength and always had been.
It was not in the objects she held.
It was in her. She was the vehicle for the power, and its source was even greater than she.
Doves or devils, she thought, remembering the white birds as they had descended from the rafters.
And then the flies were gone.
But a girl of sixteen clawed at her, and Cali found that she could not use whatever inner strength she had to get the girl off her.
So she went for outer strength.
13
This is where her brief police training came in handy. She fought against Mira, and Mira seemed as powerful as a bull, but Cali felt that she was not going to die in this house, she was not going to give Harrow her power and the power that her brother had left within her, not today, not now, not ever.
When Cali managed to knock Mira away from her, she crawled and then stood and loped—for her left leg was covered with scratches, her slacks torn up—in the darkness, avoiding putting her foot down on torn floor, hoping that a plank full of nails would not be in her way, and as she went, something about the walls seemed to shimmer.
And when she reached the other side of the house it had all changed.
It seemed to have flesh covering its walls, flesh stretched as tight as a drum over it.
And it was breathing.
Harrow was alive.
Get your gun, you stupid idiot, she thought, and then laughed at herself in a way that felt as if she were insane now, as if she were seeing and feeling what Ned must have felt, what had brought him to write on the walls with his own shit, as she stepped down onto a floor that was smooth and wet like just-flayed human skin.
In front of her, Frost Crane, only not quite Frost Crane. He held a pitchfork in his hands, and his body was soaked red, with blood gushing from his own wounds.
“Snapping jaws!” he sang.
14
“Here comes the God of Snapping Jaws!” Frost sang as loud as he could, his voice so beautiful as it joined the chorus of Voices within him. “He’ll take you up between his claws! He’ll chew your face and scrape your innards, Oh, Snapping Jaws just wants his dinnards!” It was the most beautiful song he had ever heard and it was completely off the top of his head, but its loveliness echoed down through the flesh of Harrow. “We are one in the Body and Spirit of Harrow. “We are the dove from Hell and Heaven’s sparrow!” It was the BEST SONG EVER WRITTEN as far as he was concerned, and he composed the soundtrack to it at the same time, and all the instruments were playing like the London Philharmonic.
He raised the pitchfork like a conductor’s baton, and he led them all in another chorus of the Snapping Jaws hymn, and the fleshy floor rippled, and the veins along the ceiling pulsed as blood flowed through the house. There was Snapping Jaws' next meal: scrumptious Cali Nytbird, and behind her, delectable little Mira Fleetwood, and how Snapping Jaws wanted them both for his dinnard (hardy-har-har, it’s dinnard time, boys and ghouls! Come and get it!).
15
Cali glanced back for a second: Mira stood there, blocking her way. She looked like some pagan goddess—the deer antlers on her scalp, the war paint of blood around her face—and some kind of cloak of animal fur. Dear God, she killed Conan, Cali thought. Dear God, there is no escape from this, is there? Please. Please, Someone.
God. Anyone. Help me.
16
“Wanna know what happened to Ivy?” Frost asked. “I devoured her! I DEEE-VOURED her! I et her and she was good!” he shouted, his voice echoing. He glanced to the others—there was the large soldier with the great and bloody beard, little sad-faced boys surrounding him, all of them torn and ragged; and the beautiful woman with the golden hair who smiled just for him and had told him exactly which parts of Ivy would taste the best, and now she gave him the recipe for devouring Cali, as well; he was sure he even saw someone who looked like a saint standing there, blessing him in his feasting.
It’s the damn Feast of All Saints! That’s what this is! The body and blood sanctifies me into the Church of Snapping Jaws!
The Voices whispered and sang his praises, and Frost plucked a last bit of Ivy that had gotten stuck on the pitchfork tine and dropped it into one of the pulsing wounds along his stomach.
Then he went running at Cali with his dinner fork.
17
Cali made an attempt to run past him, but the pitchfork grazed her arm and hurt like hell. She dropped to the floor and felt what might’ve been some kind of fatty tissue—this has got to be an illusion. The house could not have changed. It has to be us. Giving it a psychic charge. It has to be.
Ned? Are you here? Are you inside me? Can you give me your strength? Can you let me have it? I don’t care if I go insane, Ned, I need you—is this what happened to you? Did the world go haywire and you saw things like houses that were covered in human skin? Please help me.
And then the door to her room opened.
Mira was nearly upon her, and Frost had turned about, with his pitchfork.
Cali crawled quickly through the doorway, into her bedroom.
The door slammed shut behind her. She raised herself up and touched the knob. A brief electric shock went through her.
The doorknob turned, but the door did not open.
They’re out there.
Waiting for me.
Oh, Christ. They’re waiting for me. The bed itself seemed to have changed, for it was bowed and rippling slightly, as if something heavy and alive lay beneath its covers. She had a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach and went to get her gun, wondering if it would be effective on Frost or Mira at all, or if she would have to use her Sig Sauer on herself.
And then a sound like ripping flesh came up from beyond the door, and the door crumpled in on itself, and the wall tore apart, and the flesh of the house opened itself to her, to them, and that terrible whiteness streaked across it, the whiteness of bone.
Cali turned, the gun shaking in her hands, and pointed it at Frost as he came to her with the pitchfork raised. Tears flowed down her face and she felt as if she was burning up from fever. “Please, Frost, please don’t make me do this. Don’t make me do it. I don’t want to. Just stay where you are. Just don’t move.”
But even this did not stop him.
18
Mira leaped into the room like a panther and crouched at Frost’s feet.
Frost grinned and said, “You can’t stop the Infinite once it’s inside you. Cali. I guess it got in me a long time ago, but just a little bit of broken glass from it, just like you have, and just like Chet has, and maybe just like Mira has. too, although maybe she didn’t know it because sometimes you don’t know you have it in you until you get a little older. And maybe Harrow is the doorway of the Infinite and we were all meant to be here and to be part of it, using our flesh to open it, to le
t it loose here, to let it breathe in the human realm. Let it into you, too. It loves us, Cali. It loves what we can do.”
And then Cali looked down at Mira. “I know you, Mira. You don’t want to be part of this. You don’t have to be. I fought it. I fought it and it didn’t get me. It tried to get inside me, but I overcame it.”
Mira looked up at her and licked her lips lasciviously, as if she didn’t comprehend.
“Somewhere inside you,” Cali said. “Somewhere, you have the strength.”
Frost stepped forward with the pitchfork and jabbed it at Cali, who took a step back but tripped and fell. The floor was soft and inviting, and Frost stood over her with the tines of the fork pointed at her neck.
“I’m sorry, Frost,” Cali said, and then pressed her gun against his heart and shot twice until he dropped the pitchfork and fell.
Perhaps dead, perhaps not.
She didn’t intend to stick around to find out.
19
In Frost Crane’s last moment of consciousness, he didn’t see Snapping Jaws or the beautiful woman with golden hair, but instead he saw the farm he’d grown up on, and he was being called with his pitchfork to come clean out the stables, and then come home to supper.
Harrow: Three Novels (Nightmare House, Mischief, The Infinite) Page 58