You've Been Warned--Again

by James Patterson

  With that, I’m left alone—except I feel anything but alone.

  The temperature dives fast enough to make me gasp. It’s not the air, but an inner chill, like frost in my veins.

  I have to get out of this stifling atmosphere, but there’s nowhere to go. Trish’s warning makes sense to me now. This house gets under your skin. It forces your mind inward, awakens your worst delusions.

  My dead brother, Alan, is seated across from me. His waxy hands rest on either side of his plate like he’s waiting for the meal to be served. He’s dressed in his funeral clothes.

  “Go away.…” I whisper. “You aren’t real.”

  There’s a noise like the ticking of a bomb. It’s the pendulum on the grandfather clock, swinging back and forth. I’m sure it was dead a moment before.

  Alan doesn’t disappear this time. He watches me with that empty regard. No recognition, no words of love, just a blank accusation of the dead against the living. Under the force of his gaze, I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t blink. My body temperature seems to dive, like every moment in his presence drags me deeper into the afterlife realm he comes from.

  The candlelight fails to illuminate his face. He casts no shadow on the wall. I could reach out for him, but I’m too afraid to discover that he’s really there, flesh and bone. Because then I’d know I’ve fallen into an abyss I’ll never be able to climb out of again.

  “Say something, then,” I tell him. “What do you want?”

  He says, “The only way out is down.” His voice doesn’t come from his mouth. It drifts in from that same other place where I heard Mother’s humming.

  And then Alan is gone, and I’m losing my mind for sure.

  Chapter 15

  Martha rests on the master bed. Carter has pulled back the sheets so he can see how perfectly death fits her features, like a queen in her sarcophagus. Her mouth is finally shut.

  “Dad?” Stella says. He hadn’t heard her come back in.

  “Is that man still here?” he asks her.

  Wrapped in a blanket, she approaches where he’s kneeling at the bedside. She’s shivering and her breath frosts the air. It will get worse, this cold. It will overcome them all.

  “He’s downstairs,” she said. “We tried to make him leave but the gate won’t open. I just wanted to come up here and check on you. I want you to know I’m here for you, Dad. Whatever you need.”

  Carter looks down at Martha again. Once, he was in love with how his wife could conquer anything, a business luncheon, how she’d kick the legs out from under men who were otherwise invincible. He’d forgotten all that until now.

  “You came to tell me how much you love me,” he says.

  Stella puts on a tender face, but Carter can see straight through to her soul. It’s in the eyes. The truth is, she’s always been a wooden actress. The poor girl’s only show-business asset is the beauty Martha passed down to her.

  That, and the favors Carter’s called in over the years.

  “I—I love you very much?” she asks.

  “Convince me, as if your life depended on it.”

  She glances around the room like she’s searching for an audience. “I don’t know what you want me to say. You’ve always given me everything I wanted. You opened doors for me.…”

  “You’re describing gratefulness. What about love?”

  “Dad, come on. I know—because of what happened—we’re just reeling. All of us. Maybe you feel like we don’t care about you, but…I’ve loved you more than I’ve loved any man.”

  Stella kneels beside her father and pulls him into an embrace. The muscles in her arms and her back don’t quite release their tension.

  Where did it go wrong?

  Whatever he gave his children, they lost.

  “What about Joanie?” he asks.

  Stella breaks away with a harsh intake of breath.

  “Joanie’s too busy throwing around accusations. Otherwise she’d be up here with us. She thinks that guy is like some deranged fan of mine trying to fleece us for money or something.”

  Joanie’s sharp like her brother. Either one of them might’ve found a way to stop this spiraling chaos, if Carter had known how to guide them. The way they turned out, it’s all his fault.

  Stella, she can’t even book her own plane tickets. She’s been blind to the truths that have defined her life. He’s let himself be blind, but that’s all over now.

  “The stranger came here to punish us,” Carter says.

  “Dad, what are you talking about? What did he do?”

  “Your mother tried to fellate him in the bathroom.”

  “Oh, God! Why did you—” Stella tosses her head like she’s tasted a bitter fruit. She throws off her blanket so she can free her arms to make sweeping gestures at her dead mother. “Why the hell did you tell me that?”

  “Because it’s the truth. She’s always been a whore.”

  “Don’t,” Stella begs. “Just don’t. Not now.” She gathers up one of Martha’s lifeless hands and lowers her brow against the knuckles.

  “I’m sorry,” Carter hears himself saying.

  “You can’t besmirch her and just take it back!” Stella shows him her tear-soaked face. For once, he isn’t certain whether she’s pretending, or not.

  “Somebody like her, you simply can’t tame,” he says.

  “Dad, don’t…”

  “Did she ever tell you who your real father was?”

  Stella winces, turning away her face. She absorbs the pain like it’s something familiar, something she’s been preparing herself against for years.

  “Did she ever tell you how he died?” Carter asks.

  As if to interrupt him, Martha heaves a ragged breath of air. Her hips lurch off the mattress. Stella flings herself away from this sudden horror, but Martha’s hand locks hers in its grip.

  Even Carter can’t believe what his eyes are showing him.

  Martha is alive.

  Chapter 16

  Martha’s eyes swell. She gags and grunts and coughs saliva, but her neck is broken. She can’t speak. She can’t sit up or do anything but desperately grab.

  Stella throws herself against Carter. She muffles her horrified wailing against the collar of his flannel shirt.

  But Carter can’t look away. He watches Martha with fascinated disgust. She’s reaching for him. Even from five feet away she’s grasping in vain. Her eyes accuse, and he is guilty. He feels her suffering like it’s his own.

  He draws his hand along the back of Stella’s skull, petting her hair. He shushes her gently, and her tense body begins to ease. Years ago, he had a black Labrador. It was just like this, waiting for the injection to take effect.

  He slips his thumbs along Stella’s jawline. He brings them together just under her chin. A miniature steeple.

  He knows he is her father. He believes it in his heart. Thirty years ago he fired a shotgun into a lawyer’s face, and that face ceased to exist. All its filthy claims were revoked. But that man was just a sperm donor. Just Martha’s indiscretion.

  Stella doesn’t fight against his tightening grip. His palms press into the flesh of her throat. It’s almost as if she understands why this must happen, why this was always meant to happen.

  Even Martha calms. She watches with a quiet reverence.

  Stella’s face swells red and her eyes swim in their sockets. She’s struggling, finally, tearing her fingernails into his wrists, grunting.

  If he were a stranger, maybe she’d gouge out his eyes, kick him in the crotch. But it’s like she doesn’t want to hurt him. It’s like she believes she doesn’t have to because he’ll relent. He’ll say he was only testing her trust in him.

  Her thorax crunches under his thumbs. The sensation makes him queasy, and he wants so badly to stop. This is so much worse than Martha. There is nothing more intimate than killing this way.

  Stella’s body slumps into a heap on the floor. His hands ache. His body shudders so intensely, he fears he’s havi
ng a seizure. Lightheaded, he braces himself on the footboard of the bed. But soon the clouds part again.

  “Did you really expect it to end any different?” he asks Martha. Her eyes keep darting. They see him, they don’t see him. The human part of her mind may not even be alive anymore.

  He opens the nightstand drawer. The only contents are a handful of dried rose petals left behind by the ones who died in this house, and a letter opener.

  He takes the letter opener by the hilt. The metal is cold like it’s been kept in the freezer. The blade is sharp. Etched on the hilt is the Fálcon Hotel logo, the only souvenir he’s kept from that godforsaken place.

  Martha finds her last ounce of strength. She grunts in some kind of frenzied code. Her fingers touch his shirtsleeve, but she’s too weak now to grab hold of him.

  It’s a miracle she survived her fall. She’s come around, praise God, and she deserves this moment of cosmic justice, another chance. Carter knows, of course he knows.

  He punches the blade into her heart.

  Chapter 17

  The kitchen’s no help for my nerves. Smoke still lingers in the air, and when I twist the faucet to splash water on my face, liquid sludge coughs out instead.

  Also, I’m hearing voices. A low mutter and a childish chirrup of a laugh. This is all too much to bear. I rush through the mudroom and the doorway, out onto the back deck, where the blizzard is causing whiteout conditions.

  The icy snow drives against my face. The air feels as frigid as the atmosphere of a distant planet.

  I’m outside, free of that madhouse, but there’s still nowhere to run. The deck hovers over a sloped beach of jagged rock stretching down toward the sea. It’s a fatal jump—or at least bone-crushing.

  The only way out is down, I think.

  So this is where Nate has been. He’s leaning over the wood rail, watching the waves crash, kicking tufts of snow over the edge. Like he’s deciding whether he wants to make the leap.

  “Dude, what are you doing out here?” I ask him.

  “Sorry—got a little crazy in there, you know?” He’s acting weird. I figure it’s the cold, but he keeps throwing shade at a potted arborvitae bush in the corner.

  No, it’s not the bush he’s eyeing. It’s Chloe, hunched against the cedar plank wall behind it, her sweatshirt hood draped over her head.

  Now I see. The voices I heard in the kitchen were theirs.

  “Want some?” She offers me the roach she has pinched between her fingers. “Had to smuggle it on the plane.”

  “That’s the last thing I need right now.”

  Chloe shrugs, takes another toke of her weed.

  Nate’s eyes are bloodshot. He winces like I’m going to slap him, even though I’ve never done anything like that. This crap doesn’t even deserve my anger. I’m just…disenchanted.

  I don’t know why I brought him here today. He was meant to be the bright side of a dark day, the antidote to my father. But it’s all twisted around now. Nate just wanted to meet the family, but now he’s been pulled into the black hole of tragedy I’ve tried so desperately to escape. How stupid of me to think we could be freed from it.

  It’s almost like my mother died to spite us, to ruin us. I hate to think like that, but it’s the only way I can wrap my head around how quickly and irrevocably we’ve been damaged. I came here to tell them I was starting my own life, with Nate. But we’ve scared him off forever. I can sense it, even if Nate himself doesn’t realize it yet.

  The wind whips into my face, and Nate turns to me. “We’re not, like, partying,” he explains. “We’re just chilling. Just decompressing, you know. I’ve never—never dealt with anything like this before.”

  “It’s fine,” I tell him. “I don’t care.”

  “By the way—congrats, you two,” Chloe says. “Just make sure you get a pre-nup, Auntie Joanie. This guy strikes me as a shyster.”

  “You told her?” I ask Nate.

  He makes a show of being guiltless. “I swear,” he says. “I didn’t breathe a word. She just…”

  “Figured it out,” Chloe brags. “Wise beyond my years.”

  The wind’s so vicious, the three of us have to huddle together to be heard. I don’t want to be this close, but Chloe shivers and tucks herself against me. I put my arm around her.

  “How’s Dumba holding up?” she asks. Dumba’s what she started calling her grandfather back when she was two years old.

  “He’s upstairs, sitting with Grandma.”

  “Aw, man,” she says.

  Looking at her, I can almost see the kid through all that snark and mascara. This girl has just lost her grandmother, yet everybody wants to harp on her lies and alleged pickpocketing. It doesn’t seem fair.

  There’s hope for Chloe, and from now on I’ll make sure she knows it. I’ll do all I can to rescue another soul from this family.

  “I’m sorry you had to be here for this,” I tell her.

  She takes another drag and shakes her head. “I’m not surprised, to be honest with you. It’s this house. This house is out to get us.”

  Nate presses a fist to his mouth. I don’t know if he’s unnerved or if he’s trying not to laugh. Even now, the house looms around us, its sharp gables jutting every which way like an impossible puzzle.

  “Have you—felt something—in the house?” I ask Chloe.

  “Hell, yeah,” she says. “How can a history like that not leave a stain, you know? A psychic residue?”

  “What do you mean, Chloe? What happened?”

  “You seriously don’t know?” She pulls back her hood to show the ominous cast of her face. I sense the trap, but I can’t wiggle away from it now.

  “I can’t believe they didn’t tell you,” she says. “It’s the whole reason Dumba got this house for a steal, why no other suckers wanted it. The same blue bloods owned this place for like fifty generations until ten years ago. Thorpe. Stephen Thorpe was the guy’s name. Family massacre—I read all about it. Wife, two kids. That room where you two were snuggling earlier? That was the little girl’s room. Her daddy killed her in there.”

  For effect, Chloe slowly draws her finger in an arch along her throat, from one ear to the other. The gesture’s so vivid, I feel like I’ve witnessed the murder firsthand.

  “Are you serious?” Nate asks.

  No, she isn’t. She’s spinning a tale to get a rise out of us, just like before. This whole scenario sounds like an imagined riff on the murders at the Fálcon Hotel, those dark spots on our own family history.

  But I don’t have the nerve to confront her outright. Not now, after everything. So I ask, “Why—why would Dumba buy a house like that?”

  “Right? What the fuck’s going on in his head?” she asks.

  I can’t even look at her right now. My eyes are drawn instead to something no less disturbing. A darkened window on the second floor. The little girl’s room, according to Chloe.

  I could almost convince myself I see a child staring back at me from behind the glass. For a moment, I’m gripped with a paralyzing horror.

  There is someone there, but it’s just my sister.

  For once, I want to feel relieved, but a fresh dread sets in as I look at her. Stella isn’t moving. She’s just displayed there, arms at her sides. There’s a disturbing emptiness in her stare.

  Just like with Alan.

  Chapter 18

  I’m back inside, but the stranger is nowhere to be found.

  There’s only a pile of smoking ash in the fireplace. Suddenly, the house feels like a labyrinth with a hundred hidden turns for the monster to hide behind.

  My jaw shudders, even when I try to hold it tight. I’m much too wary now to hope he just walked out the door. Getting rid of him won’t be that easy.

  Nate and Chloe are still outside. I came back in to check on my sister, who was supposed to be sitting vigil with our father, but was instead chillingly looming in a window, staring at us.

  Now I’m sidetracked by the stranger’s d
isappearance. Should I call a warning out to the others? Should I scream into this grief-stricken silence? What would I even say? The Thanksgiving Day Strangler is loose in the house?

  The grandfather clock still ticks in the dining room, but I hear nothing else. My weird vision of Stella has got me dancing on the brink of a meltdown already. I’m convinced the stillness around me is poised to give birth to something awful.

  And I think I know where it will come from.

  Because a flickering light bleeds through the open crack in the library door. There shouldn’t be a light in there at all.

  I really want to ignore every stupid impulse to push that door open. You don’t go exploring in a place like this. You don’t invite evil with open arms. But that’s a point of no return that I already blew straight past.

  The doorknob is warm to the touch. It brings life back into my near-frozen hands. As I push, the room reveals itself to me. The candelabra I left in the dining room is now on the desktop in here. Melting wax has maimed the candles out of shape.

  Someone moved it here. Someone is baiting me. That sudden clutch of the stranger’s presence makes me want to run away.

  But the room is empty. Nothing but the candelabra and the cordless phone unit. Its wire loops down and snakes across the floor toward a wall jack, but it never arrives. The other end lies severed next to the baseboard.

  Before I can stop myself I’m kneeling down to inspect the frayed end of the wire. There’s no doubt it was ripped from the wall. On purpose, to cut us off from the world.

  A cold blade of fear stabs my heart. I want to reverse this discovery, I want to forget it, escape it, because now that I know, I’m marked.

  And there is someone here with me.

  I bolt upright so fast the blood doesn’t quite reach my head. Woozy, I brace myself against the desk and let this new hallucination take over. I can’t resist anymore.

  It’s Mother. She stands beside an empty shelf, still as a marble statue, and her eyes are just as solid white. She’s barefoot and wearing a plain white nightgown from some long-gone era.