The Haunted

by Michaelbrent Collings

  “You’re leaving?” repeated the priest.

  Cap ignored him. Rude, but he didn’t think Dear Abby or Miss Manners would call him on it under the present circumstances. He stepped toward the edge of the porch. He could feel Sarah tense beside him, and knew she was ready to run. The car was just around the corner of the house, in a carport beside it.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said the priest. His voice was different. No longer surprised. It sounded ominous.

  “Well, you’re not us,” Cap shot back. “We’re leaving. And if you have any sense, you’ll get the hell out of here, too.”

  “I’m not leaving,” said the priest, his tone still dark as an oceanic abyss. “And neither are you.”

  “The hell we’re not.”

  “You won’t get far.”

  That statement caught Cap’s full attention. He glared at the cleric. “What is that, some kind of threat?” Was this just one more danger in the night, come to haunt and hunt and harry them?

  The priest was already shaking his head. “No threat.” He paused, then said with stony finality, “It’s a promise.” He moved to stand beside Cap and grabbed his elbow firmly.

  Cap tore his arm from the man’s grasp. “We’re leaving.”

  He broke into a jog, and Sarah kept pace with him. In a moment they were around the side of the house. The car was right where it should be: in the carport. Though the swirling mist made it seem like someone else’s vehicle, an unfamiliar mirage in the night.

  He unlocked the driver’s side door and all but threw himself into the car. He reached across and opened the passenger door. Sarah got in. She wasn’t moving as fast as he – her pregnancy prevented it – but Cap could tell she was going as quickly as she deemed safe.

  Cap fished the key out of his pocket. He hesitated for a moment. This was the point in any horror movie where the car wouldn’t start. Then the evil would surround them and they’d be trapped. Worse off than before.

  He shook his head. Inserted the key in the ignition and twisted. The car came to life without a hitch or stutter.

  He dared a smile at Sarah. “We’re going to make it,” he said.

  She nodded, but didn’t reply. Her eyes darted back and forth, constantly scanning the area in front of them for threats.

  None came. The mist was just mist.

  Cap put the car in gear and they pulled out of the carport. He drove around to the front of the house. The priest was still standing on the porch. He shook his head slightly, as though admonishing them one last time not to do this.

  Cap ignored him. They were leaving. This was over.

  The driveway – unpaved, just a path cut through the thick woods all around them – curved sharply in front of the house, so Cap couldn’t peel out of there like a Formula-One racer. But as soon as they got past the bend, his foot jammed down on the accelerator. The car kicked up dirt and dust, its tires spinning uselessly for a moment. Then they bit into the hard-pack dirt beneath the loose surface and the car lurched forward.

  Cap grinned, a full, wide grin. They were on their way!

  He could see the house in the rear view mirror. Could see the priest, standing there motionless. Watching them. But the house quickly grew small as they pulled away, and soon it was gone, blocked from his view by the trees that loomed over and around them.

  The mist thickened slightly. He thought about slowing down, but decided not to do that until they were off the long driveway and onto the main road. Maybe not until they were all the way into town. He didn’t know how far he would have to go before he and Sarah were free from the malevolent forces that had sought to destroy them this night, but he would take no chances.

  Sarah cried out. At first he was worried he was going to hit something that he had somehow missed seeing, but there was nothing. He glanced over at her. She was practically doubled over in her seat, hugging herself tightly. Her lips were almost invisible, as though she was biting both of them at once to keep from screaming in agony.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, looking back at the road. He wanted to help her, but to take his eyes off the road for more than a fraction of a second at this speed was tantamount to suicide.

  He saw her nod out of the corner of his eye. “Contraction,” she said. “Bad one.”

  He glanced at her again, and his thoughts must have been written across his face in large letters, for she smiled reassuringly and patted his arm. “Don’t worry,” she said. “The baby’s not coming yet. It’s just - look out!” Sarah’s arm popped up rigidly in front of her as she said this last. Pointing in front of them.

  Cap looked forward. He had only taken his eyes off the road for a second. Barely any time at all. But in that instant, something had appeared in the road before them. The path had been empty just a moment ago, Cap was sure of it. But there was something there now.

  The thing was small, and for a moment Cap thought it might be a large cat or a raccoon that had been run over, its carcass left to rot in the damp night. But then the thing moved. A small, misshapen head reared up. Cap couldn’t make out its features. And he was glad. So glad. Because the short glimpse he had was enough to assure the thing of a featured spot in his nightmares for the rest of his life. It was more an impression he had than anything. A feeling as much as a seeing. He had the distinct impression he was seeing something tragic and deadly. Something that was never meant to be, but somehow was. A misbegotten aberration that was an affront to every sense. It was red, but not with blood. Malformed, as though it had no skeleton, but only a soft putty framework that would allow it to twist and turn in ways that no human could do.

  Even though the thing was outside the car and even though the car’s motor was whining loudly under the pressure of Cap’s heavy foot, even through the noise of the blood that was suddenly hammering loudly in his head and body, Cap could hear it. It was mewling, a thin, dribbling cry that sounded like an entire existence of agony compacted into a single soft sound. The thing, whatever it was, was beyond terror. It was despair incarnate. Not the evil of the world, but the Evil of the devil himself – an evil that had only ever known woe, and so was devoted to insure that all life was miserable as it was.

  Worst of all, there was something terribly familiar about the thing. As though as alien as it was, Cap also recognized something of himself in it.

  Cap took all this in in a single instant, his mind not merely noticing these facts but seeming to absorb them. The moment was imprinted indelibly on his mind, seared upon every neuron of his cerebrum.

  Somehow, in some way, it was the most important thing he had ever seen.

  Then instinct took over, and reason and thought fled. “Shit!” he screamed, and spun the wheel. The car veered sharply to the right, and even though the tiny thing in the middle of the road was too small for Cap to see below the level of the car window, he could swear it was reaching for him as the car passed. Reaching not to destroy him, but to do something far worse. To make him a part of itself. A being of eternal torture. A thing whose only existence hinged upon tragedy and blood and death.

  Then they were past it. But Cap couldn’t relax. A tree appeared directly in front of the car, and Cap realized that they must have skidded into the woods that lined the mile long path that led to their home. He yanked the wheel again, and barely missed the tree. Another huge trunk loomed in front of him, and he pulled the opposite direction and jammed his foot on the brake pedal at the same time. Again they missed colliding with the tree, though this time it was an even closer call.

  The car’s tires rasped as they bit into the earth, scrabbling for purchase, trying to slow them down. A double bump signified they had hit something. A jolt of fear ran through Cap and he felt his testicles draw tight against his body, his gut clenching so hard that the breath was forced out of him. Had they hit it? Had they run over the… the thing?

  A horrific thought sprang fully formed into his mind: the image of the thing in the road, a tiny, half-formed hand reaching out and
somehow grabbing the axle as the car ran it over. Holding on as the car shuddered to a stop. Then making its way hand over deformed hand along the chassis, pulling itself up the side of the car, sticking to the smooth metal like a bloody maggot on rotted meat until it was on the window, where it would shatter the glass and then be in the car with them. To do with them as it wished. To play with them for an eternity of torment.

  But it was only a thought. It wasn’t real. If any of this was. Cap realized that the bump must have come as the car thudded back onto the path through the woods. Which was good news, because it meant they were no longer going to crash. Were no longer going to die. They could still get away.

  The car shuddered to a stop, grinding to a halt with the dry crepitation particular to rubber grinding along dirt.

  Both he and Sarah looked behind them. The road was dimly visible even though it was only illuminated by their taillights and the luminous moon. Mist swirled, but did not hinder his ability to clearly see what was behind them.

  Nothing.

  The thing was gone. Disappeared as though it had been but mist itself, vaporous and ephemeral. Which was impossible, because Cap had seen it. Sarah had seen it. It was real and it had wanted them. He knew it. The thing wanted to possess them, to keep them for its own.

  But it was gone.

  He turned back around, facing forward in his seat. They could still get out of here. They could still….

  The thought dried up in his mind like a drop of water cast into the sun. Beside him, Sarah also turned, and uttered a word he had never heard her say before, and never thought he would hear her say if they lived to be a million years old.

  The house.

  It was right in front of them. The priest was still standing on the porch, unmoving. Staring at them as though they had never left.

  But they had left. They had driven away. They must have been at least three-quarters of a mile down the dirt road. He had seen the house disappear in his rearview mirror, dammit!

  And yet here they were.

  “I told you,” said the cleric. He looked downcast, as though he had been genuinely rooting for them to escape.

  Cap looked behind them, as though doing so would somehow reveal an explanation for the impossible thing that had just happened. No such answer yielded itself. Instead, the mist thickened around them like a gray wall. Then it parted, and Cap felt a thrill as he saw the cloaked figure. Right behind them. So close that the frail beam of the rear brake lights tinted the fog around it with crimson, as though arterial blood had been vaporized and spread around it.

  But even though the red light was hitting it directly, the thing remained dark. It was as though something had cut a vaguely man-shaped piece out of the very fabric of existence, leaving behind a hole of darkest void.

  It was coming closer. And the chanting, that painful sound, that hissing in a language whose words he could not understand, but whose meaning was nonetheless totally clear, returned with it.

  “Quick!” screamed the priest, waving at them to move. “Inside!”

  Cap grabbed the keys and the car stopped, its engine coughing to a halt. He and Sarah jumped out of the vehicle, neither bothering to close the car doors behind them as they sprinted back to the porch.

  Once beside the priest, he turned. The dark shape was still there, still behind the car. The chanting continued, low but piercing at the same time.

  “How did we…?” said Cap in a dazed voice. “We left. How did we get back here?”

  The priest’s face was grim, his voice more so. “The house has you,” he said. “It has you, and it won’t let you leave.”

  17

  The Third Day

  3:06 am

  ***

  How did we get here?

  The thought kept repeating in Sarah’s mind. She of course was wondering how they had ended up parked before their front door when they had driven so fast in the opposite direction. But there was also more to it. A deeper question. Why here? Why this house?

  For a sudden instant she knew the answer. It was all about The Before. It was all about –

  Then her own mind severed the thought, cut it off and threw it back behind the high walls of her mind where it had stayed for so long. It was in the past. It was a memory; it was The Before, and it could never again be a part of her.

  The thing that wore the night like a shroud was standing. Just standing. But even in its stillness she could sense its hatred. It wanted to destroy her. Not just kill her, for then a part of her might continue into the afterlife. No, it wanted nothing less than her absolute dissolution, body and soul.

  “Inside, quick,” whispered the priest.

  She and Cap backed away from the shadowed figure. Back into the house. Prisoners recaptured. As soon as she stepped back over the threshold of the house, she shivered. And what frightened her most about her return wasn’t the way it had happened, but the tiny part of her that was glad it had happened. After all, she deserved this, didn’t she? She was burdened by The Before, by the tragedy she herself had wrought. She knew Cap would never say it, but a part of her – the part that was locked deep within her – felt like she belonged here. Belonged in agony forever.

  Stop it.

  The voice in her mind sounded like Cap, rebuking her for letting herself think such a thing. She smiled. He was determined to save her, even in her mind.

  The priest came inside after them. He swung the door shut, and locked it. Sarah immediately went to the window and looked out. The dark thing that had been watching them was gone as fast as it came. But she could see other things in the mist. The man with the stovepipe hat. The ghost with the noose around its neck. The gunshot boy.

  And a low, creeping shadow that was much smaller than the others. But worse. So much worse. Her stomach tightened in revulsion and fear. Then the fog twisted over itself like a vaporous serpent, and the thing was lost to her sight.

  She turned and saw the priest wandering down the hall.

  “Very bad,” he said. “Very bad indeed.”

  “What is?” said Cap. “What’s happening? And who are you?”

  “My name is Father Michael,” said the priest. He half-bowed, a gesture which Sarah found at the same time to be both anachronous and charming. She couldn’t help liking this man almost immediately. “As for what’s happening,” he added, “well, I think you already know. Or at least suspect. It’s this place.” He looked around, taking in the whole of the house with his gaze. “This evil place.”

  Sarah looked back out the window. This time Cap joined her. They watched the deep mist and the shadowy wraiths that walked along its fringes.

  “What are they?” asked Sarah.

  “The dead,” said Father Michael. “The ghosts.”

  Ghosts. That was the first time the word had been uttered in her home, but she knew it was the right one. Ghosts. The man with the stovepipe hat, the thing with its eye carved out, the boy with the gunshot wound, the gray specter with a gallows noose around its neck. They were spirits made somehow flesh, wraiths from another, darker world come unwelcome into her own.

  At the same time, though, she knew the term wasn’t completely descriptive of all the things that had come to the house. The creature in the cloak of black, the featureless monster who swam in shadows and was darker than the night, was something else. Something different and, she felt instinctively, worse. And what about the most recent apparition? That tiny mass that they had almost run over during their aborted flight from this place; what could it be?

  Curiouser and curiouser, she thought, feeling like Alice fallen through the rabbit hole, or like Dorothy tossed by a tornado into a strange and alien place. But unlike Dorothy and, to a lesser extent, Alice, Sarah had fallen into a place where the dark magic was not countered by a corresponding brightness. She was in a realm where shadow ruled alone, holding sole dominion over this world on the other side of a blackened looking glass.

  She glanced into the living room, feeling like she was
searching for solace in her possessions. She found no comfort there. Everything was scattered and alien-seeming, as though she were looking at someone else’s house, at someone else’s things.

  “What are they waiting for?” asked Cap. Sarah wondered that too. They had been moving in closer and closer since the first moment she started unpacking, she realized. So why had they withdrawn now?

  “Gathering strength,” said the priest. “For the next attack.”

  Sarah turned away from the window in time to see Father Michael cross himself and then kiss his fingers, as though even the thought of such an event was too terrible to contemplate without celestial protection.

  “I’m sorry,” said Cap. “Can we back up? Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  “I’m the local priest,” said Father Michael. “I’m sorry I didn’t come any sooner, but I just found out that you had moved in.”

  Cap’s brow wrinkled with confusion. “What does it matter that we moved in?”

  “Because this house is haunted. And now, so are you.”

  Sarah felt her stomach turn at those words. She tasted acid in the back of her throat. “What do you mean?” she said.

  “I mean you can’t leave here. Ever,” said Father Michael. Then, as though they were discussing nothing more important than the weather, he added, “Do you have any tea?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he padded off to the back of the house. Sarah hurried after him, Cap close behind. When she entered the kitchen, she felt bizarrely embarrassed. As though her current priority shouldn’t be survival, but the fact that a first-time visitor was here and her kitchen, like every other room in the house, looked like it had been hit by a force-five tornado.

  Father Michael was looking around in the dark kitchen. He ignored the cabinets – most of which were hanging open with their contents dashed to the floor – and peered around the debris at his feet. He picked up a teapot from the detritus and filled it with water, then set it on the stove. He turned the knob but the burner didn’t ignite for a moment. Then it did, enveloping the teapot in a blaze of blue fire before the excess gas was burnt away and the flame settled down to its regular size, a tight circle of heat below the burnished pot.