Return to Darkness

by Laimo, Michael

  “Oh God, Michael!” she cries, eyes welling with tears. Jessica stiffens up, clearly upset.

  I bullet my gaze toward the house and see a pool of red staining the white snow in the middle of the front lawn. In the center of the pool is a figure, what my…crumbled…mind interprets as the deer I left there a few nights back. But as I draw closer, slowing the truck to a crawl at the foot of the driveway, I see that I’m dead wrong. It’s not a deer.

  It’s Danny Washburn. Shea’s brother.

  “Stop the truck, Michael.”

  “Shea…”

  “Please…if you want me to help you with your wife.”

  Damn. I’d never even considered stopping here to help the rest of the Washburn clan; I’d come to assume that Shea had written them off—after all, she did murder her father. But now, with her brother laying bloodied and motionless in the middle of the front lawn, the first bump in our road to freedom has made itself known.

  Against my will, I stop the truck at the side of the road, wheels digging trenches in the snow-covered ground. Shea leaps out the passenger door, circles around the front to the truck, and races toward Danny’s prone body, frozen breath trailing from her mouth like exhaust from a tailpipe.

  Releasing a fatigued breath, I grab Jessica by the hand. “Stay close to me.”

  “Hold me, Daddy.”

  She holds her arms up toward me as we get out of the truck. I make a feeble attempt to lift her, but the pain in my wound is already starting to return, denying me any capacity to exert myself. So I squeeze her hand tightly and say, “Just stay close to me.”

  I walk as quickly as I can to Shea, who’s kneeling down alongside Danny. It crosses my mind that I shouldn’t let Jessica see this, but then I remind myself of what she’s already been through and figure this isn’t going to make matters any worse.

  “He’s dead, Michael. Oh shit…he’s dead.”

  Indeed he is. He’s laying face-down in the snow, head turned slightly so I can see his blue lips and ice-clouded eyes. His shirt is in tatters, bloodied from the huge gash in his exposed back. Portions of his spine glint whitely amid the sea of exposed flesh. A trail of red footsteps lead down from the front door to his final resting spot here in the snow.

  “He tried to escape them,” I said. He didn’t get very far. Damn them to Hell…

  From the house: a faint but clearly audible cry.

  Shea jerks her head up and glances toward the house. “Oh my God…my mother.” She leaps up and races to the front door.

  “Shea!” My call doesn’t stop her. She hurdles the porch steps and opens the screen door—as she does I glimpse a smear of Danny’s blood on the silver handle—and rushes off into the house. I pull Jessica with me. “Stay close, and do not let go of my hand. You hear me?”

  “Yes,” she whimpers. I can feel her trembling as we climb the porch steps; they creak noisily, adding to the nervous shivers assaulting my body.

  Get the hell out of here now, Michael. Take your daughter away from this dangerous house. Leave Shea behind to fend for herself.

  I pause and consider the suggestion of the little man in my head with a step toward the truck. Just run to it and get out of here. But…damn it…if it weren’t for Shea, then I wouldn’t have Jessica with me now. To abandon the one person who helped me get my daughter back—who promised to help me get back my wife—would be a travesty worse than every murder I’ve committed to preserve the lives of my family and myself.

  Plus…I love her. I cannot explain my strong feelings. Perhaps it was the dreams, perhaps it is something working on a higher level. But it is there, and it is undeniable. I have to remain with her.

  Inside the house, Shea screams.

  Holding Jessica tightly, I race inside and follow her continuing cries to the cellar steps. Jessica follows me halfway down. I make her stop where the solid wall gives way to the banister, keeping her view of the cellar blocked.

  “Stay there, honey. Don’t move, and whatever you do, don’t come down here.”

  Shea is standing near the bottom of the steps. She’s unmoving, both hands glued to her cheeks like a silent movie heroin, tears streaking down her face in rivulets.

  I let go of Jessica’s hand. “Shea…what is it?”

  One of her hands peels away from her face and points unsteadily toward the center of the cellar.

  I move off the stairs and turn to see what’s she’s looking at.

  As assumed earlier, the Isolates have come to reclaim their kidnapped brother…and in retaliation, have punished the Washburn family. Pops-Eddie had been the culprit, but his son and wife have paid the price.

  Danny Washburn, now preserved in the snow outside, had been impaled on one of the two suspension hooks, the hunk of flesh missing from his back still skewered on it like a piece of bait.

  From the other hook hangs Lisa Washburn; she clearly hadn’t had any opportunity to escape. She’d been strung up with huge hook going right through her chest and out the side of her neck, holding her six inches off the ground. There’s a thick pool of blood on the floor beneath her purple-black feet. Her eyes gaze emptily from bulging sockets, tongue protruding from a wide-open mouth.

  I grab Shea by the arm. “Let’s go. They probably know we’re here and are waiting to see what we do. C’mon.”

  She hesitates, clearly in shock.

  "C’mon!" My shout shatters her fear and wrenches her away from the grisly scene.

  We stagger together to the steps. Jessica still there, pressed against the wall, a heavy coat of fear painted on her sweating face.

  She looks at me and whimpers, “Daddy…”

  Looking down at us from the top of the stairs is an Isolate, its golden eyes glowing brightly.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Words alone cannot adequately describe the fear I’m feeling now. Having been surrounded by the Isolates all this time has filled me with the desire to escape, to get my daughter back and flee Ashborough once and for all. Now that my plan has been set in motion, the Isolates are keeping a tighter leash on me, as they would anyone making an attempt to leave—just as they once did to Dr. Farris, whose failed endeavor ultimately resulted in my coming here, damn him.

  Now, falling apart at the seams with barely any strength or resilience left in me, I’m at a loss now, cornered by their savagery, bleeding fear from my pores. My heart is pounding and my skin is rippling and my blood is racing and my breathing is shallow, and my head is spinning and my eyesight is blurring and there’s a tightness in my chest that forces me to claw at my breastbone with sweaty palms and I just cannot believe that it’s about to come down to this.

  I cannot press on…

  The Isolate takes a step down, and suddenly Jessica is screaming and she’s flying down the steps in one giant leap toward me, and then her body collides with mine and the agony in my wound returns full-force as her dirty sneakers kick into my midsection. She tries to scramble up into my clutching arms, her weight sending me flying backwards into the cinder wall with a heavy crunch that delivers additional pain throughout my tortured body and head.

  From somewhere in my distracted, muddled vision, I see a shadow moving. It’s Shea, and in defiance of the fear that’s undoubtedly riddling her like gunshots from a machine gun, she lunges across the cellar past her dangling mother’s corpse, to the wooden crate I saw her storing the suspension gig in. She opens it up and pulls out another huge deep-sea fishing hook.

  During this time the Isolate leaps down the steps, and once in the cellar, lunges toward me and Jessica.

  Jessica screams, arms and legs flailing as she makes a furious attempt to hide behind her helpless father. I scream out as the weight of the Isolate comes down upon our scrambling-to-nowhere bodies. Through the frenzy, I see Shea leap toward me…only to slip in the drifting puddle of blood. Her feet spread outward, pulling her legs into an awkward split before yanking her down to the cement floor. Her hand—the one with the hook in it—juts forward as she falls. Fingers s
pread, the hook sails through the air and clangs to the floor, inches away.

  I reach for it…and in this moment think back to the day we escaped the Old Lady’s house, how the Isolates leaped upon our minivan like jackals on a carcass, how one of them managed to make its way into the minivan, scratching and punching at us furiously, our moments seemingly numbered as it made a bid to claw us all to death. But then my little guardian angel had come to the rescue in the form of my little girl: Jessica, who’d at some point retrieved a scalpel from my medical pouch and plunged it into the Isolate’s eye…

  But here and now, I am not so fortunate. Jessica is hurt in her mind now as much as I am in body, her only action a repeated screaming and cowering against me, away from the Isolate, its drawn claws raised high, about to come down on her.

  With desperation, I pull away from Jessica, enough to latch onto the hook and perhaps enough to distract the creature—to make it believe that I would leave my daughter behind in a bid for escape.

  I wrap my fingers around the hook.

  Its silvery luster winks at me as I secure my grip.

  The Isolate leaps on me. Brown stumps for teeth bared, chomping up and down as they reach for my neck.

  With a growl—mostly to offset the pain billowing in my torn gut—I swing the hook around and drive it into the creature’s back.

  Hot black blood erupts from the wound, dousing my hand, which continues to twist and turn the hook, deeper into the creature’s writhing body. It leaps off me and staggers backward into the cellar, reaching for the weapon buried in its back. I see Shea roll aside as the Isolate skids through the puddle of blood into Lisa Washburn’s body.

  With a squeal from the hooks holding her up, her body swings back…then with a brutal ripping sound—like an old sheet being rendered into strips—her body tears away from the hooks and plummets down onto the flailing Isolate.

  Shea leaps up and grabs Jessica. With a multitude of cries, we all stagger back up the steps and quickly flee outside, back into the cold, desolate day.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “Oh God…” I tuck my hand inside my coat and feel what I’ve already feared. My wound. It’s gushing blood. Jessica’s kicking feet have done a number on it. It occurs to me now that I have no medical kit with me, nothing that can help aid me any further, and I laugh crazily to myself as I wonder how a few stitches and bandages can possibly help me now. I’m shivering up a storm as my fever begins to break through the veil of comfort created by the morphine.

  Carrying Jessica, Shea scurries around the front of the truck and opens to door to allow her in. “Michael…” she says, looking at me over the truck’s hood. “What’s wrong?”

  I shake my head, putting off the few numbered moments of life that just passed me by. “Nothing.” With a grimace, I get in the still-idling truck and close the door. The heat inside is a rush of welcome.

  “You all right?” Shea asks.

  I shake my head. “Not at all.” I put on the wipers, then shift the truck into drive and pull into the road. A light snow has begun to fall, frosting everything powdery white. It looks beautiful…and at the same time, threatening. Just like everything else here in Ashborough.

  “Daddy…are we going to get Mommy now?”

  It’s about all I can do, all I have left in me. “Yes, baby, we are. And then we’re gonna get out of here.”

  I take the roads a bit faster than what I would normally consider safe, but with my hours now numbered here on earth, I must hurry. Saving my little girl, and hopefully my wife, is the last thing I can possibly do without simply dropping dead from my injury, from the infection dragging my immune system into the gutter. I wonder if I’ll be able to survive any more of this. Something tells me I’m not going to.

  You will survive this, Michael. Just take it from me, your inner voice, you know, the one you call the little man in your head? I’m telling you, it’ll be a cakewalk from here on in. Just go to the Old Lady’s house, get Christine, and leave this town behind in a trail of dust. Remember this: Christine would not have told you to bring Jessica to the house if there was any chance of her getting hurt.

  What the little man doesn’t remember is that Christine has changed, and even if she is somehow released by the supernatural hold of the Isolates, who’s to say she won’t be different than she once was? Who’s to say she won’t be utterly devoid of understanding, her consciousness CRUMBLED in some deep, dark, unreachable corner of her mind.

  I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Won’t we, Michael?

  Just as I realize that my wandering CRUMBLED mind has silently eaten up the last few minutes of my life, I pull into the long, winding, dirt driveway leading up to the house that once belonged to Old Lady Zellis.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  I shut off the truck’s engine, then look over at Shea and Jessica. They’re hugging each other for comfort and warmth. In silence I open the door and step out.

  I am suddenly aware of sweat flowing over my body. Is this my fever breaking, or the result of something more deadly? Damn. I’m a doctor, I should know this. But all I can do at the moment is wince as the sweat trickles from my chest, over my dead flesh and into my bleeding wound where it stings me.

  I look around, taking in the scene with a hideous sense of déjà vu, creeping up on me like a tarantula on prey. The cloud-filled sky and dense clustering of trees around us sets everything into darkness, despite the late morning hour. The thin dirt driveway we’d just traveled veins into Remedy Lane perhaps a hundred yards away, thick pine trees on both sides crowding it, bent over and commingling overhead to form a canopy that insulates it from the few cars that pass by.

  I limp to the passenger side of the car. Shea rolls down the window. For a moment I struggle with the decision as to whether they should come with me or not. The bitter truth of the situation is that Shea is the strongest of us all, someone who could help me should the coming events in the house take a turn for the worse…just as they did in the Washburn cellar when the Isolate showed up. But I also need her to watch over Jessica, to remain in the car with her and get the hell out of here should I not return. It’s a very confusing and complicated state of affairs, given my…CRUMBLED…mind. I’m not sure what to do.

  Then it occurs to me that I have no weapon—nothing to protect me should one or more of those filthy bastards come after me. Not that a scalpel or a knife would prove a worthy injury-afflicting implement in my weak, trembling hands. But to have something with me right now could prove useful in drumming up the guts to get me inside the house.

  Like the angel from heaven she has become, Shea reaches into her leather jacket and produces another hook from her gig, the fourth and final one I saw through her basement window.

  “Be careful,” she says, handing it to me.

  I hold it up, noticing for the first time that the barbs on it have been shaved off, presumably to avoid getting caught up on one’s flesh during a suspension. Squeezing the cold steel in my hand, I grin and say, “Thanks.”

  Seems as if I’m taking this journey by myself. And as I look past Shea into Jessica’s innocent (and quite dirty) face, I know my decision to leave them behind is the right one, if only for the safety of my daughter. There’s no way the Isolates can get into the car if it’s locked. And they’re not strong enough to shatter the glass. I’ll just go into the house, look for Christine, and if she’s there, get her out of there.

  With a faint smile, Shea rolls up the window, mouthing good luck to me. I take a step back, wondering if this will be the last time I ever see my daughter (and Shea) again.

  I turn away from the truck, pull my jacket up around my neck, and limp to the wrought-iron fence marking the perimeter of the property. Staring at the abandoned structure within, I pace alongside the fence to the partially open gate. There’s an old oak tree watching over the gate like a sentry, its branches groaning restlessly in the cold wind. A sudden gust ripples my jacket and chills my bones, adding to the tide of fever an
d fear gripping me.

  It’s here, through the gap in the squeaking gate, that I stare at the house and begin to relive the horrible memories it brings.

  The single-story dwelling has a rotting porch with a railing lacking more than half its supports. Shingles hang crookedly from rusty nails, the shutters mere skeletons of their former selves. On the porch before the front door is the hole caused by my foot when I plunged through it upon my escape from the Isolates. This, following the murder their half-breed leader, Old Lady Zellis...

  …and in a quick, calculated thrust, I slammed the splintered broom handle into her throat. A moaning, gobbling noise came out of her mouth, her lips twisted in a continuous attempt to scream, golden eyes bulging horridly…

  Peering up at the fancy cathedral shape running eight feet high, I push the gate open a bit more so I can fit through. It creaks anciently as it moves, not unlike the wind. I slip through it into the front yard of the house.

  For a moment I turn and look back at the truck. Both Shea and Jessica are staring back at me through the dirty window. A split second passes where I think it’s Christine looking at me from the truck, just as she did when I went back into the house to retrieve the keys to our minivan…

  …I felt the ignition. No keys. I glanced around and saw Christine curled fetally against the seat, shivering against her nakedness, goose bumps lining her pregnant body like Velcro. The sight of her made me feel sick and defeated. "Where are the keys, Christine?"

  "In my pocketbook...in the house." she said with dismay.

  I slammed the steering wheel hard enough to make it vibrate, sending a piercing pain into my hand. I had no choice. I had to go back into the house.

  The wind picks up, jarring the pines and making a harsh respiratory-like noise that fits with the cold, dismal setting. I turn away from the truck and walk unsteadily to the house, frozen earth crunching beneath my footsteps. The porch steps, four in all, are rotten and slanted, littered with holes. I giant step to the third one, holding the loose railing for support, and pull myself up. The step creaks and dips, and I quickly leap up, skirting the large hole in the porch to a more stable area.