Wicked Haunted: An Anthology of the New England Horror Writers
Page 15
too weak to reclaim her own body that sits
staring at nothing, while she floats so useless.
“Gram, can you hear me? It’s your granddaughter, Cass.”
They were careful enough so as not to leave
obvious injuries, so Cass can’t assess
the truth of dark magic; she only can grieve.
“I thought you’d be better...” Cass turns to hide tears.
“And I thought you might let them color your hair...”
Cass smooths away roots of grey—something appears!
A light, a glow, between them. A touch of care.
Terezia smiles. Dear, there’s magic in you yet!
You may shun the truth of your blood, but it’s there.
That moment of love, its own magic begets.
Terezia reclaims herself—ghosts beware.
Like before, it takes time to fully come back.
But Cass’s embrace heals the doctor’s damage.
Her arm, her hand... she waves, grasping at her neck.
“What’s wrong? Can you breath—Your necklace! Those bastards!”
Cass kisses her forehead. “I’ll be right back, Gram.”
Around her, the ghosts fight to take her once more.
Hurry, Cass, she thinks, bracing for a last stand.
Her granddaughter’s voice commands the corridor.
Cass returns victorious, necklace in hand.
Combined magic sutures back body and soul.
Terezia works out the last of her plan.
She coughs and wheezes, spits bile into a bowl.
“Water... please, bring...water...?” she begs her granddaughter.
“Of course, Gram,” Cass leaves, purse still on the bed.
She smiles again when Cass returns with water;
she’s got the last piece, lighter and cigarette.
Terezia now has more time to review,
recover her strength—she has only one chance.
Cass visits unknowing it’s her last “Love you.”
For the next day has scheduled a staff conference.
You’re not getting younger...why not choose your death?
Ghosts press against her; she’s not felt so alive—
even though with each step she struggles for breath.
Down the hall, down the stairs. It’s time. She arrives.
While taking a walk by the nurses station,
Terezia ambled close enough to view
the calendar notes, meetings and vacations,
a staff conference—her window she now knew.
The old woman stumbles to each hiding place.
She left the ghosts behind, yet their presence weighs...
What if her plan strips them of any last grace?
What of those who were trapped, who unwillingly stay?
She passes and releases each tank’s O2 hiss.
When all are open, she takes the doctor’s chair.
She thinks, she debates—is there something she’s missed?
No. Now finish before you can’t breathe the air.
She takes out a pen, she pulls her cigarette,
and she writes her spell out on the wrapping paper.
It’s time to end the pain at Pinehaven Rest—
From the stairs Doctor Audaire does appear.
Terezia fumbles, dropping the lighter.
Moving faster than she, the doctor attacks.
He pushes her down. “I know you’re a fighter.
I came prepared.” He puts a knife to her back.
With a chant, he begins his final dark spell.
Terezia struggles, but cannot break free.
Thud. A violent release. “You’re done with this Hell.”
“Nurse Emma?” Can she believe what she sees?
That nurse stands over that now-fallen doctor.
O2 tank in her hands, and blood on his face.
She swings again. And again. Once more.
She looks at Terezia. “Let’s end this place.”
Terezia prepares her last cigarette.
She lights up the butt, takes a drag from her smoke.
Nurse Emma snickers, like she’s just won a bet.
“What? You expected this place would just explode?”
“All you medical people told me to quit!
Just one fucking spark and my house would catch fire!”
“Can only you smoke that magic cigarette?”
She passes it with more annoyance than ire.
“Oxygen accelerates, but it doesn’t ignite.”
Nurse Emma puffs, then shows the butt’s now half ash.
“First, you need more of a fire. Now pass me your light...
O2 makes a small flame blaze up in a flash.”
Nurse Emma walks over to the doctor’s chair.
“What you wrote here—this...spell?—just what will it do?”
Terezia followed, one eye on Audaire.
“‘To an appropriate end’ once the fire burns through.”
Nodding, Emma turns to the doctor’s console.
She smacks the lighter until fluid drips out...
onto his seat, soaking through the fabric’s holes.
Hands the butt. “Last puff’s yours, before it goes out.”
Terezia inhales, nods, meets Emma’s eyes,
and drops the smoldering butt down.
The chair catches, but the flames don’t quickly rise.
A groan sounds; Doctor Audair moves on the ground.
“Fuck,” mutters Terezia, turning his way.
Lifting her own tank, she pommels him once more—
then sees the knife he dropped, and pulls it away.
One quick stab. The ghosts in his eyes are no more.
“Is that it? Did you kill him?” Nurse Emma gapes.
“Does that...undo the ghosts? Do we still have to—”
“We do. This place must burn.” Terezia states.
“He’s dead, yes, but magic’s not easy to ‘undo.’
It’s filled this house, each board, every corner.
To ‘undo’ this evil, it all has to burn.”
Nurse Emma coughs, sobs “...done something sooner...
Wait here. If it must burn, I’ll make sure it burns.”
Terezia says nothing; it’s getting hard to breathe.
Flames engulf the chair, smoke gathers, filling down.
Blood pools from the doctor...one more spell to weave.
She coats her hands in blood, crawls close to the ground.
Between the two tables, she writes one more spell.
Nurse Emma comes downstairs, dragging wet linens.
She looks at Terezia. “What the hell?”
“To harm just evil souls... Magic insurance.”
“I hope you’re right. I don’t really want to die...”
“Oh, we’ll still die. But the good souls will be free.”
“You take confessions?” Nurse Emma sadly sighs.
Terezia pauses. Smoke and fire she sees.
“A quick one, if you must. Or we won’t end this.”
“I’m older than you... He gave me...what he stole...
“I didn’t say no.” Emma coughs and confesses.
“My fam’ly died. They never knew what I know.”
The flames on the chair have lessened in the smoke.
“Terezia,” Nurse Emma says. “I’m sorry.”
“Then finish this, now. Before our fire gets cold.
“Help me up to the console... over here, hurry.”
Nurse Emma leaves the linens draped up the stairs,
helps Terezia move—so close to the fire!
“Now... I need you to move the chair in there.”
Nurse Emma shakes her head. The chair is burning!
“I’ll join you shortly, but I must do this first.”
Terezia moved dials, flipping and turning.
Nurse Emma grasps the chair; the pain is the worst.
Lightning crackles above, a buzz fills the room.
Terezia grabs Emma’s hand with a yell.
Her necklace dangles between them. And boom.
8.
She watches. She watches. She watches her eyes.
She watches. She watches. In silence, she sighs.
Penance and silence, end the ghosts in their eyes.
Cass sits in her car. The police tape still sways.
In her hand, Gram’s necklace—charred, blackened rust.
In front of her smolders the burnt bone remains
of the mansion once known as Pinehaven Rest.
The cul de sac’s empty, police and fire gone.
Two days ago, it burned—burned down to the ground.
They collected the remains, little more than bones,
identifying bodies with items they found.
Cass gets out of her car. Twilight falls darkly.
In her hand, Gram’s necklace burns like it’s on fire.
She moves closer, eyes narrow, trying to see.
I saw something. Something. I’m not crazy, I swear.
The fire and smoke still stain the air that she breathes.
Like an unfiltered cigarette’s smoking taste.
She crunches over crisp wood, inside she seethes.
What are you doing here? This is just a waste—
“Cassandra.” She stops. What did she just hear?
“Cassandra.” Something. Something is just there!
“Cassandra.” She knows that voice on the air.
“Cassandra.” “Gram, I hear you. Tell me where—”
Terezia stands in the very center
of the smoking wreckage, holding someone’s hand—
Nurse Emma. Fading and edged with cinders.
Cass freezes and stares. “Gram, I don’t understand...”
The two spirits look at each other, at Cass.
Terezia releases the nurse; she rises.
Embers dance inward from her edges consume
till only a spark, like a star, entices
more ghosts to rise from the mansion’s burnt ruin.
Breath stops in her throat. Cass clutches at her chest.
The necklace twines hotter around her fingers.
Each spirit lifts, lined in sparks of unrest.
Edges burn inward on spirits who linger.
Up, up, each ghost flies, flickering souls burning,
disappearing among stars starting to shine.
Watching each ghost’s leaving, Cass feels a yearning.
Gram’s necklace glows in her hands. This gift is mine.
She looks to the place where her Gram was standing.
Light shines so bright, she must cover her eyes.
When she can open them, a pyre enchanting
of fiery sparkles twirls up, into the skies.
No more words are spoken. Cass wipes tears and goes.
The truth and the story, the meaning of lies.
Love, guilt, pride, penance, fear—all this she now knows.
She puts on Gram’s necklace. Ghosts live in her eyes.
She watches. She watches. She watches her eyes.
She watches. She watches. No longer she cries.
Penance is over, through the ghosts in her eyes.
They Come With The Storm
Dan Foley
The night was filled with the howling wind and thunder of breakers beating against the eroding beach. Ghostly figures rode within the waves. They came with the first winter storm when cold winds from the north signaled the death of summer and the coming season of darkness. They emerged from the waves crashing upon the shore. The sea passed over them, around them, through them. Their groans and shrieks entwined with the wind as it assaulted the land. They were white as the seafoam they emerged from, light as the spray that surrounded them. They wore the fog like a shroud as they approached the village and the warm bodies that awaited their arrival. In the morning much of the sand would be gone, swept away by an angry ocean. But more than sand would be lost this night.
The fog drifted over and around the homes of the town, small cottages mostly made of stone. If any had dared to peer closely into it, they would find specters of the dead, drowned in the sea, staring back at them. But no one did. Instead, they huddled in their homes, shivering behind closed doors and shutters, waiting for the night and the storm to pass.
“Do you think it will be enough?” Manda asked her Da as they huddled in their darkened cottage.
“Of course,” her Da replied to reassure her. “It always has been.” There was doubt in his response. He had barred the door, shuttered the windows. A fire roared in the fire place barring entry there. Just because it had always been enough in the past didn’t mean it always would be.
Outside, the bleating of the sheep tied to the sac-pole fought to be heard through the howling of the storm. Then it was suddenly cut off, leaving only the sound of the ghosts and wind to rule the night. Their offering had been accepted. In the morning, when the storm passed and the dead returned to the sea, they would see how their neighbors had fared.
Manda was out the door when the first ray of sunshine filtered into the kitchen through the thickly leaded glass of the room’s single window. Da and Ma followed on her heels. Soon, others emerged from the protection of their homes. There were no celebrations, however, the terror of the night was too fresh.
The sheep, an old ewe that had been tied to the sac-pole was gone. The rope, which had held it tethered, lay slack on the ground. The loop that had been around its neck was unbroken. The animal had been torn from it in pieces, but not a drop of blood marred the ground. The shades had taken everything. They always did.
Relief, then apprehension, surged through Manda. She had made it safely through the reaping, but what about William? Had he been as fortunate? She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw him coming down the lane toward her. She didn’t know what she would do if he was ever taken. Her elation died when she saw the look on his face. Someone had not made it through the night.
“Who?” she asked when he reached her.
“My brother, Sean,” he answered, his voice cracking in grief.
The elation she had felt at seeing him safe evaporated. “Oh, William. I’m so sorry. What happened? He had sheep to spare.”
“He was tired, and with Jenna gone, he felt he had nothing to live for. He locked his sheep in the barn and left his door open. When the sun came, he was gone.”
Manda shivered in his arms. Leaving his door open was as good as suicide. If the legends were true, he was with them now. The next time they came, Sean would be among their number.
“We should leave this island. Go somewhere safe,” she told him.
“We can’t leave. You know that. We have nowhere to go, and they would never let us,” he answered, nodding at the men and women who were staring at them.
Manda looked around at the knot of villagers and knew he was right. They would never be permitted to leave. They were part of the island’s future. Already there were whispers that they should be married and that she should be pregnant, heavy with the next generation. Without children, the island would die.
What of it? she thought. Maybe it should die. Any children she might have would be doomed to the same fate as all the island folk. The men would fish the angry sea. The women would till the earth and breed. The lucky ones would die on land and be buried in the rocky soil. The rest would drown or be taken by the dead that came with the first winter storm.
William took her hand and stared into her eyes. “Marry me,” he said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Sean’s cottage and sheep are mine now. He left a note, leaving them to me. We can be married and raise a family there.”
She just shrugged and slipped her hand from his. In another place she would have fallen into his arms and kissed him with abandon. But here, on this island of the doomed, she would not
. She would not conceive a child only to feed it to the insatiable appetites of those that came with the storm.
* * *
“I saw you with William,” her Da said that night at the dinner table. “Has he asked you to marry him yet?”
“Of course he did,” her Ma said. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing,” Manda admitted.
Her Ma frowned and her Da shook his head. “You should marry that boy before he finds another. He has a cottage now and can provide for you. If you love him you should take him for your husband. He won’t wait forever. Justine has flowered and she has eyes for him. She would take him in an instant.”
She knew they were right. She did love him . . . and he wouldn’t wait forever. Like all things, even love will die if left unfed. If she wasn’t willing to accept his love, Justine, or some other girl would. The next time he asked, she would accept.
But he didn’t ask the next day, or the next. Manda was tempted to ask him, but that wasn’t the way things were done. She would be patient. But, as the days turned into weeks, William drifted away from her. They spent less time together and she sometimes found him in the presence of Justine. William seemed uninterested in the girl, but she was obviously infatuated with him.
Finally, when enough was enough, she approached him. “You’ve been a bit distant lately? Is something wrong?”
William shook his head and stared at his hands before answering. “You’ve made it clear we have no future together. I can’t go on that way. I hope we’ll always be friends, but I need to be with someone who wants to share their life with me.”
Manda was dismayed by his answer. “Oh, William . . . I do want to share my life with you. I was foolish to deny you all the times you asked to marry. Ask me again and my answer will be different.”
William glanced around nervously, but didn’t answer. Then Manda saw Justine watching them from across the lane. “Fine,” Manda told him. “Decide which one of us you want. Just don’t take too long. I could change my mind again.”