by Mark Lukens
But then it was gone as quickly as it had come, and he couldn’t get it back.
There was something very important about that night that he had forgotten; there was something he didn’t want to remember. But what was it?
The other papers looked like copies of an official police report. How did Father McFadden have these? How had he gotten them from the police? Did the police give these out to family members if they asked for them? Had Father McFadden gotten them for Paul? Did the Church have friends inside the police? How deep did this whole thing go?
And another thought occurred to Danny; Paul had told him that the contents of this envelope contained instructions to the haunting of this house, their assignment. But that wasn’t true. The only thing this envelope contained was the accident report and the photos from it.
Paul had lied to him.
Danny was wasting too much time—he could ponder these questions later. Right now he needed to hurry. He needed to get Melissa and himself out of this house.
But he still hadn’t found the keys to the Bronco yet, and he was getting more and more certain that Paul must have them on him shoved down in one of his pants pockets. He would need to think of a way to get them away from Paul.
He slid the photos and accident report back into the manila folder and laid it back down on the clothes. He shut and latched the suitcase and shoved it back into the closet. He was about to shut the closet door when the dark coat caught his attention.
It was the same coat Paul had worn when they drove here.
Maybe the keys were still in the pockets.
He checked the pockets and found a set of keys. He pulled them out and held them in his hand, hardly able to believe that he had found them.
All he needed to do now was get Melissa dressed in warmer clothes, get her downstairs somehow without being seen, and get her out to the Bronco. And then they would be home free. Maybe he should grab a kitchen knife and slash the tires of the other two vehicles before he left, slow them down a little so they couldn’t follow him.
He would decide that when he got down to the kitchen.
Danny slid the keys down into his other front pocket and shut the closet door. He hurried across the room to the bedroom door, still as silent as a cat burglar.
He inched the bedroom door open and peeked out into the hallway, glancing in both directions several times.
No one was in the hallway and there were still no voices from downstairs. No sounds from anywhere. It was eerily quiet, like they were all hiding in the shadows and waiting for him.
He left Paul’s room and closed the door as quietly as he could. He darted across the hall to his bedroom and slipped inside.
Melissa wasn’t in the room. He ran over to the closet and opened the door all the way, but she wasn’t in there. He checked under the bed—no Melissa. He checked the window, but it was still locked.
He should’ve locked the door when he’d left the room, and he cussed himself for that mistake. Now she was gone, tucked away in one of her shadowy hiding spots again, and he would waste too much time trying to find her. But that was the way she wanted it—he supposed that she thought she would just slow him down. He was sure she wanted him to go without her and bring back help.
And that’s what he would do.
He thought about slipping a coat on over his sweater, but he was afraid it would make too much of a rustling noise as he snuck through the house out to the Bronco. And if they saw him with the coat on, they might question him about it.
Of course he could say that he was going outside for some fresh air.
But then Father Hopkins might say that Danny had just been outside not even an hour ago.
Danny shook his head, realizing he was paralyzing himself with possible scenarios. He needed to move, and whatever happened was just going to have to happen. He was going to have to wing it. He grabbed his wool hat and shoved it on his head. He grabbed a pair of gloves and stuffed them down into the back pocket of his jeans.
If they saw him downstairs, he would just have to act naturally, try to pretend that he hadn’t just had a conversation with a girl who had escaped from the basement, a girl with bandages on her face covering God knew what kind of wounds.
Hopefully Paul was still ignorant of the atrocities that had gone on here, but Danny now knew that he must have something to do with all of this. Paul had stolen his mother’s necklace from him and he had a copy of the accident report in his suitcase. No, he couldn’t risk confiding in Paul right now. He just needed to get out of here, get some help, and then he could sort it out with Paul later. He had tried to talk to Paul several times already and he had gotten nowhere. He couldn’t waste any more time with that.
Danny took a deep breath and then left his bedroom. He hated leaving the shoebox full of photos and memories behind under his bed, but he couldn’t take them with him right now. At least he had the necklace.
He would be back with the cops, and then he could get his shoebox back.
He left the bedroom and walked towards the steps that led downstairs. He had decided not to creep around, afraid that he would draw more attention to himself if he did. Father Hopkins and the others still believed that he didn’t know anything about what was going on here, so as long as he acted naturally they shouldn’t think he was trying to escape.
Danny shuffled down the steps to the first floor hallway, his heart thudding in his chest from all of the noise he was making.
Nobody in the hallway.
He paused for a moment, listening. He still couldn’t hear any voices or movement in the house. He walked to the sitting room, but no one was in there. He checked the formal dining room across the hall. It was empty.
Danny hurried down the hall to the archway that led into the kitchen. Surely someone would be in there. At least Miss Helen—she was like a permanent fixture in the kitchen these days, always preparing something or cleaning something or putting something away.
But the kitchen was empty. No food preparations on the counters, nothing laid out for dinner.
The house was still so eerily silent.
Danny could see into the mudroom, and no one was in there, either.
Where were they?
His heart skipped a beat. Were they outside waiting for him? Were they already aware of what he was doing? One step ahead of him?
Danny didn’t take time to think about that, he forced his legs forward and practically jogged to the door that led outside to the parking area in front of the garage.
The vehicles sat in the same spots in the snow. The cold hit him right away as he shut the door to the mudroom and shuffled down the steps. He wanted to put his gloves on, but he decided not to because he wanted to be able to feel the keys with his fingers.
The sky was still deep blue with a few wispy clouds high up in the sky. It seemed even colder now than when it had been snowing yesterday.
There was no one out here anywhere.
He couldn’t believe his luck.
Maybe they were having a meeting somewhere inside the house.
Maybe down in the basement.
Oh God, maybe they had found Melissa and they had taken her back down to the basement.
Maybe he should go and check the door to the basement, see if the padlock was still in place.
He was torn for a moment—so close to getting away, yet wanting to make sure Melissa was safe.
But he couldn’t risk it. If they had Melissa, then they could get him too. He needed to get away and get help for Melissa. That needed to be his priority no matter how guilty he might feel.
Danny forced himself not to think about it anymore. He walked through the snow to the Bronco. He got to the driver’s door and looked around before he opened it. No one was at the kitchen window or at the door to the mudroom, watching him through the glass. No one was at the side door of the garage.
He couldn’t believe it. He was going to make it.
He thought of the kitchen knife and wished he h
ad grabbed one to puncture the tires of the sedan and the Durango. But it was too late to go back now, and he wasn’t even sure if he would be able to stab through the frozen rubber of the tires anyway.
The driver’s door was unlocked. He yanked it open and hopped inside the truck. He pulled the door almost all the way shut, not wanting to slam it closed and have the sound echo across the quiet fields that stretched way off to the trees. He stuck the key into the ignition and it slid in smoothly. He turned the key, expecting to hear the roar of the motor firing up.
But there was nothing.
He turned the key again and again.
Still nothing.
Was the battery dead? There wasn’t even a ticking sound. No lights lit up on the dashboard when he turned the key.
Danny looked out the windshield and saw Paul standing in the open doorway of the mudroom that led back inside the house. The same doorway Danny had just come out of only minutes ago.
His heart skipped a beat as he watched Paul casually shuffle down the concrete steps and step down into the snow-covered parking area. He started walking right towards the Bronco.
Paul didn’t seem angry—if anything, he seemed confused.
Danny took out the keys and shoved them into his pocket.
Paul was closer to the truck now, close enough that Danny could hear his voice clearly. “What are you doing, Danny?”
CHAP†ER †HIR†Y-FIVE
Danny tried to think of a lie as Paul stood in the snow only ten feet away from the truck.
“I … I … just wanted to sit in your truck.”
Paul stared at him for a long moment, standing very still in the snow, his breath barely pluming in front of his face. “I know you might be getting a little bored here, but you have to stay focused. We still have a lot of work to do in this house.”
Yeah, what kind of work is that?
Danny swallowed hard.
“Come on,” Paul said and gestured with a nod of his head back at the house behind him. “Let’s get back inside. The others are waiting for us.”
“Why?” Danny croaked out. He wanted to stay inside the Bronco. And for a moment he couldn’t make his legs work. He felt like if he got out of this truck he might be about to willingly walk to his own execution.
“I told you,” Paul said. “We have some work to do. They’re all waiting for us.”
Danny got out of the truck and stood up on numb legs.
Paul turned and began to walk back to the house like he expected Danny to follow him.
And Danny did. He could’ve started running. But where? There was nothing but square miles of open fields and the winter woods in every direction. How far would he get before Paul (or some of the others) ran him down in the snow and dragged him back to the house. To the basement.
Paul walked up the steps to the door of the mudroom.
As Danny followed Paul, he wondered if he should tell Paul about Melissa, tell him that she had told him to look in his room, in his bag. Maybe he should question Paul about the necklace he had stolen from him. Question him about the police report and photos in his suitcase.
Paul opened the door to the mudroom.
Danny stopped in the snow, right in front of the concrete steps.
Paul turned around in the doorway and stared down at Danny. He still didn’t look angry, there didn’t seem to be any kind of emotion on his face. He was giving nothing away.
“Paul.”
Paul waited in the doorway, frozen there for a moment.
“I saw Melissa again.”
Paul didn’t respond.
“She was in my room. She was hiding from Robert and Helen. They’ve been keeping her in the basement, strapped down to a chair. There are these … these kind of bandages all over her face.”
“Danny … you’re seeing visions again …”
“She’s not a vision!” Danny yelled at Paul, surprising himself from his outburst.
Paul glanced into the house like he was seeing if anyone else was close by and listening. And for just a moment Danny saw a strange expression on Paul’s face. Was it a moment of doubt? Was Paul possibly beginning to believe Danny’s story, maybe just a little?
Danny realized that this could be his only chance. He wasn’t going to be able to get away from this house without Paul’s help—he was certain of that now.
Paul walked through doorway into the mudroom. He turned and went into the kitchen without a word or a glance back at Danny.
Danny rushed up the steps and followed Paul into the mudroom. He slammed the door shut on the cold air, and he didn’t even bother kicking the snow off of his sneakers or wiping them on the mat.
Paul was already inside the kitchen, walking across the floor to the archway at the other side of the room that led out to the hallway.
Danny wanted to call out to Paul, he wanted to beg him to stop walking and just listen to him for a minute. He wanted to call him Dad, but for some reason he couldn’t even seem to utter the word, like his throat froze up every time he tried to say that word.
Instead, he croaked out the word: “Paul!” He shouted it louder than he had meant to.
Paul stopped in the kitchen, only steps away from the archway that led out to the hallway. Little by little, he seemed to be leading Danny deeper into the house.
Danny didn’t see anyone in the hallway beyond Paul. Where was everyone else? In the basement?
This is your last chance to run, Danny told himself. They want to strap you down to the chair in the basement, the one that’s probably bolted to the floor. They want to hurt you.
Danny tried to push the voice away, but it didn’t even sound like his own voice in his mind anymore.
It sounded like Melissa’s voice for a moment in his mind, Melissa’s voice whispering to him. But then it seemed to be more than just her voice. It was a cacophony of voices, a collection of whispers that buzzed in his mind like tiny insects, and the voices no longer formed intelligible words or sentences anymore, just white noise now.
“Paul, wait!” Danny yelled. “Just … just wait a minute.”
Paul waited near the archway.
Danny stumbled farther into the kitchen, and then he leaned against the counter. He suddenly felt weak and he needed the support to help hold himself up. The noise in his mind sounded like static from a radio between the stations. But in that static, he could still hear voices whispering to him and it was getting harder and harder to think.
“I want to know what’s going on here,” Danny demanded, his voice growing louder as he fought to hear himself over the white noise in his mind. “What’s really going on here?”
“I think you’re beginning to see what it is,” Paul said in a calm and even tone. His face was grim, his mouth a slit. But there was compassion in his dark eyes and those eyes were just beginning to glisten with tears.
“They’re keeping that girl down in the basement,” Danny said. “They think she’s possessed. They’ve been trying to exorcise this supposed demon from her, but they’ve been torturing her! Cutting pieces of her face off! Piece by piece!”
Paul shook his head no with a sad look in his eyes. “There is no Melissa, Danny. You have to see that by now.”
“We have to run …” Again, Danny tried to say the word Dad, but he couldn’t form the word. “Paul … we have to get out of here before it’s too late.”
“No, we’re not running,” Paul answered. “It’s time to face the truth now.”
Danny felt a sudden surge of strength, and he wasn’t sure where it had come from. He pushed down on the edge of the countertop and snapped a small section off in his hands like it had been Styrofoam. He let the pieces drop down to the linoleum floor and looked at his hands like he couldn’t believe he’d actually just done that. There was an energy coursing through his body that he could barely control, that he could barely stand. He spun towards the wood block of kitchen knives on the counter. He plucked the biggest knife out and turned back to Paul, gripping the
handle of the knife, pointing the blade at him.
“I saw the necklace in your bag!” Danny shouted.
Paul didn’t say anything.
“I’ve got it in my pants pocket!” Danny pulled out the keys to the Bronco and threw them on the busted countertop. Then he pulled out his mother’s necklace that was intertwined around the skeleton key now.
“You stole it from me!” Danny shouted, and his voice sounded so much deeper to his own ears. “I saw the accident report in your suitcase! I saw the photos of my mom’s car!”
“Yes,” Paul said. “I had to leave them there for you to find. I had to make you see things on your own. You’ve been resisting so hard … I had to make you see.”
Paul walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway, out of Danny’s view.
“Don’t walk away from me!” Danny roared and raced after Paul. “Don’t walk away from me, Paul Lambert!”
Danny ran out into the wide hallway and saw Paul a few feet away, closer to the front door. But then Danny heard a noise from behind him, from down the hall where the stairs went up to the second floor, and where the door to the basement was.
Turning towards the stairs, Danny saw Melissa standing down the hall near the foot of the steps. She was only twenty feet away from him. She still wore the same dirty white dress and droopy socks and scuffed black shoes. Her pale arms and legs still showed bruises. And the gray and grimy bandages still covered her face underneath her long scraggily hair.
“See?” Danny said, his face flushing, tears stinging his eyes. He looked back at Paul. “See? She’s real. There she is.”
“No,” Paul said. “That’s a demon disguised as a person. They want you to run from this house. They’re trying to convince you to run. They want to trick you. They don’t want you to see the truth.”
For a moment Danny’s world seemed to stop and he saw everything in a brief moment of clarity.
The night of the accident came back to him in a sudden moment of vivid memory.
Oh God, how could he have forgotten this?
“You back away, you unclean and foul spirit!!” Paul roared at Melissa as he took a step closer to Danny. He had pulled out his silver crucifix from underneath the neck of his black sweater and he held it in front of him. His face was a mask of rage, his eyes burning dark embers of fury. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave this boy alone!!”