The Possession

by Michael Rutger

  We split two ways—Ken and Molly falling back, Val and I jumping forward. The cart went slicing through the gap and smashed into the wall. And disappeared, leaving only the sound of laughter spiraling up into the rain and mist. Then the sound of feet or paws running away along the roof.

  “We need to be faster,” I said. “They know where we are.”

  But Molly was blinking now. She staggered. Ken got his arm around her and kept her moving forward. “What’s the matter with her?”

  “She’s blowing out,” Val said. “Too many things, getting too close. We need to get her out of this. We all need to be out of this, or we’ll be next.”

  We kept plowing on. Molly got her shit together, and soon the four of us were double-timing forward into the mist, still trying to keep it close to the wall, in the hope that’d stop. We got as far as the liquor store before…

  “Christ,” Ken said. He stopped in his tracks, staring down at the tiles in front. “It’s a fucking leg.”

  A human leg, unclothed. It looked like it had been severed, none too cleanly, just below the hip. It was lying on its side and trying to bend at the knee.

  “I don’t want to know what that really is.”

  We started to run. The rain was now coming from the front, driving straight into our faces. The heavy, grinding thudding noise came from behind—once, twice, and then again, getting closer each time.

  It made you run faster. You couldn’t help it.

  After a few minutes I noticed Ken breathing hard behind me. I run a little, and I know Molly does, too. Ken doesn’t. He was starting to fall behind.

  “Keep going,” I shouted to Molly and Val. Molly turned, started to say something, but I shook my head firmly. “Just do it. We’re coming.”

  Val grabbed Molly’s arm and encouraged her to keep jogging forward. I dropped back beside Ken.

  “Don’t be a dick,” he panted. His face was red and blotchy. “I neither need, nor fucking want, your charity.”

  “Hell are you talking about? We’re the menfolk.”

  “Sexist, mate.”

  “Sue me. If something’s coming at us, it’s our job to be in the way. That’s the only reason I’m hanging back.”

  He was forced into a smile. “You’re a lying bastard,” he said. “But you lie nicely.”

  “Well, there is another thing. To outrun the monsters, you don’t have to be the fastest, remember. Just the second-slowest. You’re my insurance policy.”

  “Oi.”

  “Just keep running, you tool.”

  A couple more minutes took us to the top end of town and onto the highway—still a ribbon of incongruous tiles heading forward into the mist. Trees pressed in hard on the right, at the side of the road, but they didn’t feel like protection. Anything could be in those woods, and there was nothing to stop it coming out at us.

  “Head toward the center of the highway,” I said.

  Ken had no breath left to talk by that point, but nodded. Then he frowned, as if hearing something. “Wassat?”

  I could hear it too. Music. Except then I realized that it was the sound of the river, on the left of the highway. This made me remember the dark shapes I’d seen in it in the night and understand that this thing had already started then. And before, in fact…I no longer had any doubt that Molly had seen something in her shower—which knocked it back another day.

  And, even earlier…the homeless guy I’d seen outside the liquor store, on the very first night. He’d shouted into thin air. Homeless guys do that, sure. But why? What are they doing? And the way he’d reeled back, as if confronted with something much bigger than he’d bargained for…

  And just after I’d seen that…there’d been the shape in the window of Kristy’s apartment. The shadow I’d seen up there, despite it turning out that she was already in the Tap.

  This had been going on since the day we arrived.

  Had we helped cause it, somehow? Or at least frame it? Give it shape?

  Ken stopped. I assumed he’d finally run out of running, but—though he was now nearly purple in the face—that wasn’t it. “Can’t hear them,” he panted.

  “What? Who?”

  He gestured. Up until a moment ago we’d been able to hear Val and Molly running, not far ahead. Now there was only the river and rain pattering down on the tiles. Both sounded different, too—flatter, with an echo.

  I called out. “Molly?”

  Nothing.

  “Nolan—what if it came from the front?”

  “What if what came from the front?”

  “Whatever we thought was behind us. Moll!”

  Suddenly there was a scream. Two screams, in fact—at the same time. I started forward but Ken grabbed my arm.

  “Easy,” he said. “Not so fast.”

  Something came smashing out of the woods. It went so fast I didn’t even see it, but the beat of its wings was enough to nearly knock both of us over.

  Then it was gone. A moment later, the sound of two near-identical screams again—this time from behind.

  “That’s not them,” I said. “How did you know?”

  “The deep inner wisdom of the overweight and winded.”

  “If you hadn’t held me back…”

  “Sometimes the race goes to the slowest, mate.”

  The screams came once again—from behind us, and a lot closer. Ken and I turned.

  About thirty feet away, shrouded in swirls of mist, were the twins. Maddy and Nadja. They weren’t screaming in fear, however. They were screaming because they were fighting each other, slapping at each other’s faces as if oblivious to everything else in the world. The movements were odd, stylized—but the viciousness and anger wasn’t. It looked like they wanted to kill each other.

  Nadja slapped Maddy again. Maddy seemed to be trying to grab something off Nadja’s neck.

  Ken took a step toward them. “Wait,” I said.

  At the sound of my voice the girls immediately stopped fighting. They turned toward us, smoothly. Smiled, at the same time—and tilted their heads in the same way.

  “Shit,” Ken said. “That’s not them…”

  And then they vanished—though they weren’t gone. The girls weren’t visible anymore, but movements in the mist showed they (or whatever they really were) were headed in our direction, so quickly that we had no chance to even start running.

  We stood frozen as one curled around Ken, the other around me. It felt like a very large cat rubbing itself against me, around my legs, up to waist height, and there was a smell like garlic and cinnamon.

  “Ken!”

  The voice was Molly’s. “Stay back!” Ken yelled.

  But she and Val came running out of the fog, each grabbed one of us and started pulling. “There’s more of them,” Molly said. “And they’re getting more solid. We have to get inside.”

  Trying to move against the things weaving around us was like wading through a heavy current. The smell was getting more acute, too—as if the garlic was burning, turning rancid and bitter. The sweeter note in the smell was cloying to the point of stomach-turning.

  “Stay.”

  The voice was quiet—and seemed to come from around my waist. There was nothing there—nothing visible at least.

  Val was getting greater traction with Ken, and he was now on the move with her toward the side of the road. I kicked at the thing moving around me as Molly and I backed away, but of course that made no difference.

  “Stay, Molly. You belong to me.” The voice was insistent. The voice of someone who loves you but is becoming unhappy. Angry. Who is growing willing, if you force them, to consider hurting you, really hurting you, to demonstrate just how big their love is.

  Molly could evidently hear it, too. “Go away,” she screamed. “Just leave me alone.”

  I grabbed her hand and yanked it, pulling her toward the abandoned bar I could now see looming in the mist. It was hard to get her moving, but I kept dragging until we made it to the parking lot—at w
hich point Moll dug her heels in and couldn’t be pulled any further.

  “Always mine,” said a voice. “Always.”

  Molly screamed into the mist where it’d come from—her voice so cracked and out of control that I couldn’t even make out the words—and then spat at it.

  “Moll—let it go.”

  But she kept screaming, fighting against me so hard that it was almost impossible to move her. It was inch by inch, and a wind was picking up now, slashing through the mist on the road—though I knew it wasn’t really wind, but things getting closer and stronger.

  Then Val was at my shoulder, panting. “Around the back—there’s a way in. Come on.”

  We each took one of Molly’s arms and dragged her around the back of the building, where Ken was squatting by a hatch nearly at ground level. Opening it revealed a basement area that was very dark.

  “Fuck knows if this is a good idea.”

  “Anything’s better than staying out here,” I said, as he and Val shoved Molly down onto the ladder.

  I was wrong, of course.

  Chapter

  50

  Kristy lowered herself to the floor a few yards from Gina. The other woman had drawn up her knees and wrapped her arms tightly around them, head down.

  As Kristy sat, the dresses disappeared. The space now looked as it had when she and Nolan and Ken broke in the night before. Dusty, old, populated with piles of rocks. That half-built wall, whatever the hell it was doing here.

  Real, in other words.

  Did that mean she was actually here?

  Maybe one way of telling would be to try the back door. If this was real, it should still be openable. Though of course that didn’t necessarily work…if this was a dream, she could have simply dreamed it that way, too.

  So how could you tell when things were real? Now, or ever?

  “Gina? How did you get here?”

  The woman whipped her head up disconcertingly quickly. “What?”

  “How did you come to be here?”

  Gina’s eyes were wild and red-rimmed. “I can’t remember. I was going to be something. People were going to know my name. And now it’s just ‘have you done the assignment? What’s for dinner tonight? Is it time to load the dishwasher, or unload it? What’s for dinner tomorrow?’ The fun never stops, right?”

  “No, I meant, here. Physically. In this store.”

  “I was…I was in our yard. Then Derek was there, and…I don’t know. I was running after that. And there were bees.”

  “Bees?”

  “Black bees. Coming after me.”

  “In the rain?”

  Gina frowned. “That does seem weird, looking back.”

  “I really didn’t take a picture of you, by the way. And I most certainly didn’t hack your Instagram account.”

  “I believe you.”

  “So who did? Who’d know how to be able to do that?”

  Gina shrugged. “No idea. Maybe one of the kids.”

  “Who?”

  “Only one I can think of would be Ryder. Dan’s son. He’s pretty much the only geek in town.”

  “Can you think of a reason why he’d do it?”

  “No. He’s a nice kid.”

  “Maybe somebody else had a reason, and got him to do it for them.”

  “I think he’s theoretically Maddy Hardaker’s boyfriend. Or hopes he is. But Maddy and I get on fine, too. Why would she do that to me?”

  “For the one thing, teenagers, and especially teenage girls, don’t have enough of. Power.”

  Gina shook her head. “I don’t see it.”

  “What was the big deal about the picture?”

  She didn’t answer. Kristy waited, listening to the rain drumming onto the road outside. Real rain? Presumably. Eventually Gina spoke quietly. “I did a stupid thing.”

  “To do with a guy?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “It’s the stupid thing people of our age do. I’ve been there. And the picture was evidence?”

  “Barely. But whoever took it could only have done it because they knew what was going on.”

  “Who was the guy?”

  “Kurt.”

  “That bartender?”

  “I know. I know.”

  “Was it a real thing?”

  “You’ve met the guy, and you ask that question?” Gina shook her head. “Just dumb, dumb, dumb. And he’s already bailed. Run out of town.”

  “As in, permanently?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Because it sounds like you already know what it was worth.”

  “And the truth will set me free? Please.”

  “No. The truth may fuck you up. Believe me—I know. But at least it doesn’t own you anymore.”

  Gina stared at Kristy. “Yes, it does.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because somebody else knows. You know, for a smart woman, you’re not very smart.”

  “I understand that. Which is why you have to get out ahead of the story. It won’t fix everything, but—”

  Gina blinked. “Alaina,” she said.

  “God,” Kristy said, as the pieces dropped into place. “Yes. Nolan texted something about them earlier. If Alaina had a huge crush on Kurt, then somehow found out about the two of you…you said she got distant before she disappeared…Jesus. That’s it.”

  But Gina was staring over Kristy’s shoulder. “No—she’s behind you.”

  Chapter

  51

  The cellar was dank and smelled of earth and dust and something else. A low reek that was meaty and ancient. The odor seemed to exist deep in your head rather than coming in through the nose, though, so perhaps wasn’t really a smell after all, but something hiding in there. It wasn’t good, either way.

  “This looks old,” Ken said, as we headed to the ladder on the other side.

  “Probably from the original dwelling. The cellar of a witch’s house.”

  “I don’t like this place,” Molly said. “At all.”

  Ken gestured her toward the ladder. “Me neither, love. But it’s better than being outside.”

  She climbed, holding her phone up. As she raised her head into the space beyond, she gasped. “Christ, Nolan.”

  I quickly followed. The ladder emerged into a kitchen storage area lined with empty shelves, shadows, and the smell of rust. Molly was crouched in the corridor beyond.

  Kristy was sprawled along it. Her eyes weren’t entirely closed. Molly had her fingers on her wrist. “Pulse is fine,” she said. “Fast, but strong. She’s not unconscious. Like she’s awake, but just…not here.”

  Ken looked at Val. “What’s happening to her?”

  “It’s similar to the trances mediums go into,” she said. “If you’re trained, or an actual witch, you can keep control. Remember where you really are, and be in both places at once. Anybody else, if there are too many of these things around…the mind bails on the real world. Retreats into the closest picture it can make instead.”

  “Real-time confabulation,” I said.

  “I guess.”

  “There were a ton of other things out there just now,” Ken said, dubiously. “But we kept it together.”

  I lifted Kristy’s head gently. Her skin felt cold. “Barely,” I said. “And there’s safety in numbers. We shore up each other’s reality. Kristy was alone.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Nothing,” Val said. “If you try to shake her out of wherever she thinks she is, it’s going to break her mind. It’s better to let her—”

  There was a loud crashing noise on the roof. Then the sound of tiles sliding off to smash onto the ground outside. “That was real,” I said. “As in, an actual impact.”

  “They know we’re here,” Molly said.

  There was another crash—but from the other end of the building. Silence. Then something that sounded like huge wings, beating above our heads, before heading away.

  “Going to fetch more of them.”
<
br />   “Shut up, Ken,” Molly said.

  A rattling sound from the front of the building. All heads turned toward it. Rattling again.

  I moved cautiously along the corridor and into the area at the end, which had once been a restaurant. All the windows were firmly boarded over. The rattling sound was coming from the front door. The handle was twisting back and forth.

  It stopped, then started again—even more violently.

  Then a series of thumps along the wall, moving from the door, along the building, toward the end wall. Then along that wall, past the chimney. As if something was banging a fist against it. A fist, or something else.

  “It’s looking for a weak point,” Ken said.

  We followed the sound as it traced around the building. Something strange was happening with my right eye. It seemed to be going in and out of focus, though the left remained clear. This made it hard to judge distance, especially with so little light. Yet when I glanced at my hand it looked sharp. My brain knew what my hand looked like. It wasn’t sure how to process everything else.

  The knocking turned the corner and continued along the back wall, toward where we stood, changing from intermittent thumps to a consistent rapping sound.

  “Nolan,” Ken said. His voice was slurred. He pointed into the storage room. Tried to say more, but couldn’t get the words out. Instead he pointed more vigorously.

  “Christ,” Molly said. “The hatch we came up through. The entrance to the cellar is back there. Outside.”

  Val ran through into the storage room and slammed the hatch shut. The rapping in the walls stopped, suddenly.

  She made a face. “Should have done that quietly, huh.”

  The rapping started again, now coming from all around the building. And then there was the sound of footsteps on the roof.

  Ken was leaning against the wall now, and looked as vague as I felt. “Secure that hatch.”

  “How?”

  “Put something heavy on it.”

  We looked around. A few chairs, none substantial enough to stop anything determined from pushing its way up. I heard the sound of the hatch outside, the one which gave access to the cellar from the parking lot, creaking open.