Hollow House

by Greg Chapman

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Matthew Campbell saw the hole open up inside his parents’ bedroom, and his brother pluck a knife from the other side before closing the fissure with a flick of his wrist, he truly believed Zachary had been subsumed by an impossible force, and was being used to destroy, not only his family, but everyone in the street, and maybe the world.

  The way the boy moved, how he stared longingly at the strange weapon in his hand, there was no doubt in Matthew’s mind that Zac was no longer in control. Matthew Campbell looked at his mother’s and father’s corpses, and realised he would be next. Yet, he wouldn’t run, not until he was certain his brother couldn’t be saved.

  “What have you done with my brother?” His voice caused Zac to raise his head from the knife.

  “Oh, hello pussy boy,” Zac said. “I forgot you were there.” He stood over the body of Max and Carol, grinning.

  Matthew clenched his fists. The room smelled of his parents’ blood. He wanted to retch, but told himself to stay focused “Stop using his voice. I know you’re not my brother.”

  Zac tilted his head like a curious mutt. “You do, do you?”

  “You opened a portal and took that knife from the other side. My brother couldn’t even open a jar of pickles on his own. So yeah, I know you’re not my brother.”

  Zac’s smile grew impossibly wider. “You’re smarter than you look. But soon you’ll be as dead as Max and Carol here.”

  Matthew saw the glassiness of his parents’ unblinking eyes and silently begged their forgiveness.

  “Who are you, really?” Matthew said. “What do you want?”

  Zac popped out his bottom lip. “Oh, maybe you’re not so smart? I thought you knew—I’m from the house next door.”

  Matthew bit his tongue to stifle a gasp. “The Kemper House?”

  “The one and the same,” Zac said. “I’ve literally been dying to get out of there for a while, now.” Zac shook his arms, shivering the muscles beneath the skin. “It feels good to be free.”

  “But no one lives in that house.”

  Zac bent down to Max Campbell’s dead body and poked the tip of the knife in between his father’s lips. Matthew felt his own skin go cold as the creature who looked like his brother slid the blade inside, the steel clacking against Max’s teeth.

  “Wha… what are you doing?”

  Zac looked up as he worked. “Whatever I want.”

  Matthew swallowed. “Please… stop. Don’t!”

  Zac turned his wrist and there was a slick tearing of flesh. Dark, dead blood drooled from Max’s mouth and seeped into the carpet.

  Matthew wanted to close his eyes and scream, but he was hypnotised. The boy pulled the knife free and pushed his fingers into the open mouth.

  “Stop!” Matthew cried.

  Zac’s face became a scowl. “Do not impose your weakness upon me!” His brother’s bellow sent a jolt through Matthew’s body. “This is my time. My reckoning. His will!” Before Matthew could utter another word, Zac wrenched his hand from Max’s mouth, and a long chunk of flesh came with it. He dangled a blood-soaked length of meat in front of Matthew’s face like a prize fish. Matthew’s eyes took in every glistening contour of the tissue, his brain identifying it as a tongue—his father’s tongue.

  “You do not speak to me in that way,” Zac said. “No one speaks to me in that way. No one but the one I worship!”

  Blood from the tongue trailed a path down Zac’s arm. Matthew couldn’t look away, no matter how much he wanted to.

  “This is where Max’s power came from,” Zac said. He considered the appendage with a lascivious smile. “Every day of your life he belittled you, insulted you, even spat at you.” He pressed closer and Matthew turned a cheek. “I have taken away his power. The dark God I love has made it so. Here, see what I have reduced your tormentor to.”

  Matthew shook his head.

  “Take it!”

  “No!”

  Zac laughed, a long chuckle that rose from deep within the other soul inside him; the soul that found unbridled satisfaction in cutting grown men to pieces in the name of an unseen god. He tossed the tongue on top of Max’s lifeless form. The piece of muscle rolled onto the floor like a worm. Zac cut his laughing short and about-faced to point the knife at Matthew. “You didn’t know I was there, because I made sure you didn’t. But I saw you and your mommy and daddy and your stupid brother and all the other specks of shit living on the street. I’ve been watching since before you were born—before all of you were born. So many have lived and died, in this street, in this world and I’ve seen it all.”

  Matthew blinked, partly trying to understand what Zac was saying, but also to free his mind of the foul acts his brother was committing. It was pointless because Matthew couldn’t disconnect Zac from whatever it was that was talking through him.

  “I can see the cogs turning in your mind,” Zac said. “I used to be like you—oblivious. And then I opened my eyes.” He waved the knife dismissively. “Anyway, that was the old me. This,” he took a deep breath, “is the almost new me.”

  Beads of sweat fell from Matthew’s head to the rug. “So, what, you’re a ghost?”

  Zac chuckled. “You want to know what I am—fine.” He waved his knife at Max and Carol. “You’re going to end up like these two, anyway.”

  Terror settled in Matthew’s gut, but he tried not to let it show and concentrated on thoughts of escape as Zac paraded around the bodies.

  “This is just one stage of a process… a rebirth.”

  “But, why?” Matthew imagined that his brother would suddenly burst open like an egg sac, and larvae would emerge.

  “It is my purpose. It is His gift to me. He chose me to do his will.” He pointed his knife at Matthew once more. “I have to hurry and ready His house.”

  Matthew tensed, ready for the inevitable attack, but for once in his life he had to take a stand—if not for himself—for his brother. He looked at Zac’s sneering vile expression and tried to remember how his brother used to be, cocky and full of bravado.

  Matthew thought back to the times when they were little, before hormones kicked in and their father made everything a competition. The times when they were having fun just growing up, being brothers. He summoned those thoughts and rose to his feet as Zac approached, knife pointing in his direction.

  “Now stay still, pussy boy.”

  Matthew darted to the left as the blade came down in a savage arc. It missed him by inches. Zac’s mouth opened in surprise, but only for a moment as the demonic grin took hold again, the creature inside clearly enjoying the sport.

  “Well, this is new,” Zac said. “Your brother told me you were weak.”

  “You might look like Zac, but you’re nothing like him on the inside.” Matthew clenched his fists and gazed upon his dead mother and father. Despite their differences, they were still his parents, and if his stupid father had drummed anything into him, it was never to back down from a fight. “If you want to kill me, you’ll have to work for it.”

  Zac flipped the knife from his right hand, to his left, and back again. “Is that so?” Then he shrugged. “You’re not the first to threaten me, to try and subvert my cause,” He pounded his hand against his chest. “I am protected!”

  Matthew watched a trail of spittle run from Zac’s lips. The thing inside his brother was enraged with insanity. Matthew took a deep breath for courage and circled his brother, edged closer to the bedroom door. If he could get to it, he could make a run for it, out of the house and out into the street where he could yell for help.

  Zac lunged.

  Matthew moved to the left to dodge the blade, but in avoiding Zac he rolled his left ankle and fell to the floor. A shard of pain spiked up his leg. He quickly got to his feet, before Zac had the chance to get on top of him.

  “There’s no avoiding this.” Zac swiped the knife across the air, making it sing. “You’re going to feel this in your flesh, and I’m going to feel the warmth of
your blood on my hands.”

  Matthew put his back to the wall and kept his eye on the knife.

  Zac drew its edge across his own palm and then lapped at the blood with a greedy tongue.

  Matthew fought the urge to vomit.

  “You know I don’t even need this,” Zac said. “I could just snuff you out like I did your brother when he crawled inside my coffin.”

  Matthew swallowed, as he thought of his brother suffering at this creature’s hands.

  The house is bait, and once the hook goes in…” He pushed the tip of the knife right through his palm and out the other side. Fresh blood mixed with old on the floor. “I get your body. He gets your soul.”

  While Zac’s mannerisms continued to shift into darker territory, Matthew struggled to understand who—or what—was threatening him. Going by the fact it could inflict injury on itself and feel no pain, it must have been an alien creature or a ghost; an entity with human traits, but definitely not a child. This was a man—and a crazy one.

  “Why did you have to kill my brother?” Matthew’s chest heaved with tempered rage.

  “The old man I used to be was getting stale,” Zac said. “And once I’m done with Zac, I’ll move on to the next body, and the next, until I find the right one. Zac’s simply a means to an end.” He pointed the knife at his parents’ corpses. “Just like Mommy and Daddy, here.”

  “Shut up!” Matthew said.

  “Make me, pussy boy. Come on.”

  Matthew dug his heels into the carpet. But before he could move, Zac launched himself over the bed, bounded off the springs and landed directly in front of the bedroom door. His smile oozed with spit.

  “You think I don’t know what you’re planning? I know every path you could possibly take. I’ve walked them all. He has shown me all the paths that could possibly be.”

  Matthew had no choice, he had to run or die trying. He clenched his hands into fists, and took a deep breath. “You always treated me like shit, Zac, you know that?”

  “Why are you talking to him? He’s dead.”

  Matthew ignored the creature and spoke directly to his brother. “You called me pussy boy all my life. You taunted me, you hit me, and you were always Mom’s favourite.”

  Zac picked at his fingernails with the tip of the blade. “You’re wasting your breath. Your brother’s dead. I took his soul and buried it at the end of time and the darkness ate him up and shat him out like he was nothing.”

  Matthew gritted his teeth. “But I still loved you.” He feigned sadness and was grateful that genuine tears of terror ran down his cheeks, adding to the performance. He watched Zac lower his knife arm. He ran at his brother, crossing the space between them with two steps.

  Zac’s inhabitant was caught off guard, and was too slow to raise the knife and block his fist. Zac’s nose broke beneath Matthew’s knuckles and Matthew laughed as his brother fell back on his ass.

  “That’s for all those times you punched me, you asshole!”

  Matthew ran for the door, his hand reaching for the handle, when a stinging pain jolted across the back of his right leg. He toppled into the door and looked up to see his brother licking blood from the edge of his knife.

  “You taste good!” Zac said as he stood.

  Matthew scrambled to his knees, ignoring the open wound in his calf, and gripped the handle to wrench the door open. He looked over his shoulder to see Zac stabbing wildly, using the knife as leverage to pursue him.

  “I’m going to cut you into a hundred pieces, pussy boy!”

  Matthew opened the door and crawled along the floor, his calf screaming with each movement. He knew by the spreading warmth that the cut was deep, but he had to get to his feet. He lifted his good leg but came down hard. His right leg was useless.

  “Look at you,” Zac said, standing over him. “A pussy boy to the very end.”

  Matthew’s bloody leg sent sparks of agony through his entire body. His fingers, slick with sweat, found little purchase on the polished wood floor as he struggled to focus, dragging himself inch-by-inch towards the stairs.

  Zac laughed. “If you can get to your feet, I might let you live.”

  Matthew pressed his face into the floor, willing himself to rise, to defy his brother and the thing inside him. His leg was numb and cold, which he was grateful for, but he could also feel the cold spreading through the rest of his body. He was losing too much blood. He pulled his legs beneath him. The cut burned as it stretched, but Matthew clenched his teeth and pushed on.

  “That’s it pussy boy.” Zac crouched beside him. “Make a run for it. The back door is just down those stairs.”

  “Fuck you!” Matthew spat, but his brother only laughed.

  “That’s the spirit,” Zac pulled Matthew to his feet.

  “Don’t fucking touch me!” He swayed, and the hall swayed with him. Black spots burst behind his eyes.

  “Run, pussy boy! Run!”

  Matthew put all his weight on his good leg and skipped down the hall. His brother’s laughter taunted him with each pointless step. His body wanted him to give in, to fall to the floor and just die, but his mind screamed no.

  “Here, let me help you!” Zac grabbed Matthew by the arm.

  With the last of his strength, Matthew whipped his right fist around to catch Zac’s jaw, but his brother was simply too fast. He blocked the blow and twisted Matthew’s arm hard behind his back. Matthew arced beneath the fresh wave of pain.

  “I was trying to help you, pussy boy!” Zac shoved him forward. The stairs came rushing up to meet him. He put his hands out to protect himself but he still hit the steps hard. He felt the world spin, and each step on his back and shoulders, as he tumbled to the bottom. He would have lain there and breathed his last if Zac didn’t heave him to his feet one more time.

  “You’re almost there—come on!”

  Through a haze of suffering, Matthew saw the back door on the other side of the kitchen.

  “Last chance!” Zac whispered.

  Matthew hobbled forward, one step and then another. Zac’s breath was a constant companion in his ear. He reached out like a blind man, to steady himself on the dining table. The back door was a beacon. Moments passed like hours as he carried his battered body toward it. He felt sorry for himself, but mostly he felt sorry for leaving his mother behind.

  “You’ll let me go?”

  “Sure. Go on.” Zac snapped his fingers and pointed at the door.

  Matthew took one final rickety step and turned the handle. The door opened wide. Darkness seeped into the Campbell home like a wave of oil. The room, and everything within, decayed before Matthew’s eyes in moments. He staggered through the doorway, trying to understand how one house could be inside another.

  Cold steel slipped inside Matthew’s lower back. Zac’s arm wrapped around his chest in a queer embrace as the knife was driven all the way to the hilt. A geyser of blood filled Matthew’s mouth and he began to choke.

  “This is my house,” Zac said. “Do you like it?”

  Matthew slumped into his brother’s arms as the coldness of the blade spread. His breaths became shallow as he beheld the house next door.

  “No one ever leaves Eric Kemper’s house. None of you will,” Zac continued. “Soon, every house in this street will be shining temples to the dark. And upon innocent blood, I will build his church.”

  When he pulled the knife free, Matthew fell, and his blood—his soul—bled in between the floorboards of the Kemper House.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Richard Markham awoke to find himself alive.

  The room was pitch-black and the sheets around him were damp with sweat. He stretched out an arm to touch his wife, but Margaret’s side of the bed was even colder. Mentally, he felt much better, the feverish dreams and visions were gone, but now his Margaret was nowhere to be seen.

  He shuffled across the floor and felt for the nearest wall, trying to discern why it was so dark.

  Perhaps it was just an old
fool’s eyes, the same eyes that had earlier believed he’d been back in Iwo Jima fighting Japs, when instead he was at home, on good old Willow Street. Still, he could find no comfort without his wife.

  “Margie?” he called out. “Margie, are you in the kitchen?” His fingertips found nothing but the air around him. The wall should have been a few steps away. “Where’s the damn light switch?”

  Richard’s eyes adjusted, providing him shapes and the dull edges of objects. His house had never looked so foreign, so dark. He felt like he was in the dream again, inside that foul house where he’d seen the boy—

  The boy, one of the Campbell boys, yes, that was him. What on earth was he doing in his dream about that blasted house?

  Richard stopped and took a slow breath as an epiphany struck him. Was he dreaming again? Or was he back in his bed, still experiencing a fever dream? He needed to feel something to know. His eyesight was not enough. He needed all of his senses to discover where he was.

  His hearing had taken a bit of a beating during the war, but in the empty darkness, the sounds came to him. He heard his heartbeat and breathing. He heard the creak of floorboards under his feet. Beyond that, there was nothing.

  Richard took a deep breath. The taint of dust and mildew filled his nostrils. But there was something else that revealed itself in the murk. In the jungles he’d learned to smell for the enemy, to smell for cigarettes, or shit, and piss, and he smelled one of those distinct aromas at that very moment. He turned to his right and followed his nose. If he was dreaming, perhaps he would come to understand their messages and find a way back to Margaret.

  He followed the darkened trail, letting his feet map out the path. His sense of foreboding was the same fear-inducing, soul-weakening sensation he’d experienced on the battlefield. The only difference was on the battlefield he knew his enemy.

  The scent of blood slowly overpowered all other aromas, and his fear reached its threshold. He scanned the black with his old eyes, suddenly fearing the worst for his wife.