by Greg Chapman
“Margie?” he muttered.
He heard the sound of someone gasping, and on instinct, the former soldier dropped on arthritic knees in readiness for an impending attack. He swiped his palms along the floor desperate to feel some connection to the real world.
“Margie, I’m here. It’s Richard.” The coppery stink clung to his nostrils. He knew he was close. “Are you hurt?” His fingertips smeared against a cold and viscous substance. He gasped for breath. “Oh, God!”
He begged for some source of light as he reached out to grip the body lying before him.
“Margie… no!”
The old man frowned. The body felt far too muscular to be his wife, and the shocking realization made him withdraw his hands.
“Oh, God! Are… are you alright?”
The body gasped again, the gasps of the dying. The sticky pool of blood was wide, and Richard knew that whoever this person was, they were at death’s door.
“I’ll get help,” Richard said, forgetting he was still inside a dream.
The darkness withdrew with a snap, as a fireplace erupted with flame. The old man looked down, horrified at the sight of a teenage boy, a knife protruding from his back.
“Mother of God!”
“She’s not here,” a voice answered.
Richard saw another boy standing in the light of the fireplace. His hands were caked in blood; his smile was like an open wound.
“You’re back,” the boy said. “And I see you’ve found young Matthew.”
The old man looked from the boy’s hands to the dead boy’s wounds. “You killed him?”
“Technically, no…”
Richard recognised the Campbell boy—the one who’d appeared in his previous dream. Zachary Campbell. He lifted himself to his feet and stepped away from the younger boy’s corpse. He strained to remember the other Campbell boy’s name. “Matthew,” he said finally.
“My baby brother.” Zac put on a sad face.
Richard remembered the Campbell brothers riding their bicycles up and down the street during summer, their young voices carrying in the humid air. He recalled how seeing them made him long to be a father. “This is a dream.” Richard said, raising his eyes to Zac’s. “Why would I dream about you killing your brother?”
Zac cocked his head. “Are you sure it’s a dream?”
Richard looked around the room. “This isn’t my house, and I saw you before in my last dream.”
“Maybe you’re still having it. Or maybe you’re dead and this is the dream you have when you die.”
Again that lascivious smile; Richard straightened and puffed out his chest. “I know this isn’t real. It’s the Kemper House. I’m sick, and I’ve had that house on my mind.”
Zac raised a bloody finger. “The house made you sick? It certainly made Zac sick, and Matthew, and Amy.”
Richard frowned at the boy’s words; he didn’t speak like a teenager, nor did he act like one. “If you’ve got something meaningful to say, then hurry up and say it, because I’d like to go back to sleep.”
“If you say so, Richy-Rich-Rich.” Zac walked towards him, and yanked the knife from Matthew’s back. The blood on the tip of the blade was almost black. Richard took several steps back, which appeared to make Zac curious. “Why are you afraid if this is just a dream?”
“Isn’t that the point of nightmares—to scare?” He looked at the house with its peeling, shadowed walls. “Haunted houses are all the same.”
“This house isn’t haunted,” Zac said. “It’s empty, but soon it’s going to be full, and when it is, I’ll be made anew.”
Richard looked into the boy’s eyes. They were grey, and refused to refract any light, like they belonged to something that should have been dead. “Who are you?”
Zac smiled. “Don’t you want to know where Margaret is?”
Richard’s heart quickened. “She’s not here… because this is a dream.”
Zac shook his head. “She’s down the hall, back in your room.”
“This isn’t my house!”
“This is your house, but it no longer belongs to you. None of these houses do. They belong to the one I worship. The one I serve.”
“I’ve had enough! You don’t know where my wife is because this is a dream!” Richard started to walk away, but Zac blocked his path, the knife held firmly in his hand.
“Your wife is down the hall, sound asleep,” the boy said. “I’ll show you.”
Richard pushed Zac aside. He wasn’t afraid of a figment of his imagination any longer. “Get out of my way! Get out of my head.”
“You think you can just walk back to your room and wake up? Things don’t work like that anymore. Come on, let’s go wake up Margie and see what she has to say about you being out of bed.”
The boy smiled and then broke into a run, his knife-wielding arm whipping through the air. The hallway seemed to swallow him up, but his laughter carried long and loud back to Richard, who shivered with doubt. The old man gave chase on aching knees, until he tripped on his slippers and slammed against the wall and its ancient paint, which crackled into a thousand pieces. The paint crumbled to dust on his fingertips, and he tried to fathom how it felt so real. Had he truly smelled the other Campbell boy’s blood? Was this still his house?
Richard ran as fast as he could down the hall. When he reached the doorway he was shocked to see his bedroom on the other side—and Zac leering over his sleeping wife. The boy held his bloodied knife against one of her closed eyelids.
“Don’t you hurt her!” Richard said, stepping into the room. His wife never even flinched at his outburst.
Zac pressed a finger to his lips. “She’s sleeping.”
Richard moved closer, torn between rushing in and not escalating the situation. Yet his mind kept trying to convince him it was only a dream. “Move away from her!” He looked at Margaret, silently praying for her to stay asleep.
“She thinks you’re going crazy, do you know that, Richy?” Zac said, looking down on the old woman.
“You shut your mouth. You don’t know anything about her!”
“Oh, but I know everything about Margie. She’s frightened you’re going to hurt her. She doesn’t understand why you won’t go to the doctor.”
“Get out of my house!”
“I told you—you’re in His house now!”
Zac raised the knife above Margaret’s rising chest and Richard leapt in. The old man summoned some hidden strength and pulled the knife free from the teenager’s hands. He dragged Zac onto the bed and held him down.
“I’m going to kill you, you little shit!”
Richard drove the knife into Zac’s chest again and again, until a torrent of blood escaped from the boy’s lips. The veteran could almost feel the stock of his rifle, the length of the bayonet driving home to twist the enemy’s innards until they ruptured. His chest heaved with satisfaction as the boy breathed his last.
“Ri… Richard?”
He looked down at the face of his victim and screamed. Margaret gazed up at him, mouthing wordlessly as her blood spread onto the bedding. Her eyes were wide with disbelief and betrayal.
“Margie!” Richard cried. “Margie!”
He recoiled from what he’d done and searched the room for proof he was still dreaming. But all he saw was Zachary Campbell, standing at the foot of the bed, smiling.
The old man’s heart stopped.
~
Darryl Novak snapped the lock shut and felt the cold caress of the bunker against his skin and it helped ease the fear that had gripped his heart.
He’d never run so fast in all his life, but he was so relieved to be back home, safe and sound. He didn’t know why he’d gone to stare at that woman, Megan at number 70. It was if he’d awoken and just found himself there. Darryl never did that. He never looked through windows. When he “worked,” it was always on the street at night, from the safety of his car. She wasn’t even his type, so what the hell had he been doing there?
The shape he’d seen in the backyard—and the voice—had put him off his game and it showed. His hands trembled and his upper lip was heavy with sweat. He didn’t like to feel afraid. Not being in control was his one true weakness, one that he thought he’d conquered. Since his mother’s death he had been the one in control, taking what he wanted, when he wanted it, and never worrying about the consequences. The thing in the backyard—whatever it was—had reminded him otherwise.
There was no denying what he’d seen and heard, but he’d put it down to stress. It wasn’t that the kind of stress his dear mother had put him under, but rather the stress of not being able to indulge. In the half-light of the bunker, Darryl squeezed his hand into a fist, so tight the skin flared white. When he released his fingers the trembling was gone, and this made him smile. He could get back to doing what he did best, and the vision he’d experienced in the yard would trouble him no more.
He walked down the narrow concrete hall and switched on the overhead lights. They flickered on and off like a strobe and then reached full intensity, casting his raggedy doll’s naked form in a sickly light. He gave her a quick glance; smiling at how she slumped in the chains, admiring the way the crude make-up belied her defeated expression. He approached a table where his tools and iPod dock sat. He swiped through the iPod to his favourite playlist and pressed play. Trumpets began to blare, and the girl awoke with a scream.
Darryl swayed and danced as Dean Martin sang. He was light on his feet despite his heavy build. “Everybody loves somebody, sometime,” he crooned, almost as well as Mr. Martin. The woman recoiled and let out a series of shrill cries, but Darryl just kept on singing. “Everyone falls in love somehow…”
The girl’s painted eyes widened in their sockets. She screamed and sobbed at his display. Darryl gripped her chains and swayed her from side to side to the music. He savoured every sliver of her terror. “Something in your kiss just told me… that sometime is now…”
He tried to press his lips to hers. She wrenched her head away. “No!”
A wave of heat flushed across Darryl’s chest. He looked at her and imagined her real mouth all bloody and broken, and saw himself stitching it back together again. Scowling, he strode to the table and paused Dean, just as the singer entered the second chorus.
“You’re ruining the song,” he said through gritted teeth. The girl whimpered and he felt his cock harden. He knew she knew what was coming. “I’m only trying to set a mood here,” he said. “Why do you have to make such a fuss?” He ran his eyes over her simpering form, admiring the purple and yellow blotches on her ribs, the bite marks he’d administered on her breasts days before. “Are you going to be quiet and listen to Dean? Hmm?”
The girl’s whimpering faded.
“That’s better.” He reached for the iPod and pressed play. Mr. Martin continued to tell the world about how everybody loved somebody sometime.
A pounding on the bunker door froze him to the spot.
The girl looked up. “Help!” she cried, but before she could utter another word, Darryl cracked her across the jaw with the back of his hand. She went limp in her chains.
He looked to the steps leading to the bunker door. His heart pounded in his ears. Who would dare knock on the door? Who would dare trespass on his property? He snatched a rusty wrench from the table and tip-toed to the door, when a shard of fear twisted in his head.
What if it’s that thing, again?
BANG-BANG-BANG!
Darryl swallowed his fear and tightened his grip on the wrench. He knew he was stronger than this, and his mother had always told him not to be a coward. He decided to stay quiet, with the hope that whoever it was outside would go away.
BANG-BANG-BANG!
Every beat sent a jolt through him.
Don’t be so weak! His mother screamed in the back of his mind.
He yelled and ran up the stairs. With the wrench raised in one hand, he opened the door with the other. Moonlight poured in, but it failed to illuminate the trespasser. Darryl took a deep breath and stepped into the backyard, his wrench still at the ready.
“Who’s there? I’ll call the police!”
“If you do that, they’ll find out about your lady friend.” It was the voice, the same one he’d heard earlier in the evening; a boy’s voice.
“Get off my property!” Darryl yelled back.
The voice let out a derisive snort. “Your mommy’s house, you mean.”
“Don’t you talk about my mother!”
Laughter filled the air and whisked by him like a passing bullet. Darryl whirled, and realised he’d left the bunker door wide open. He looked inside and saw a shape bundling down the stairs.
“No!” He gave chase and almost tripped. The wrench felt loose in his sweaty palm. “You’re not allowed down here!” Down the hall, his rag doll screamed anew, but it wasn’t Darryl who was imbuing her with a fresh wave of fear. When he rounded the corner, he saw the boy, standing behind his prized possession. He had a tooth-filled grin on his face.
“You’ve been naughty, haven’t you Darryl?” the boy said.
Darryl held the wrench out, wishing he’d grabbed his knife instead. The boy was unmoved, and was highly amused, going by the look on his face. The teenager’s hands were covered in dried blood and more of it was spattered across his shirt.
“Get out of here—whoever you are!”
The boy produced a bloodied knife from behind his back. He poked the tip of it into the girl’s neck. She squealed, her eyes so wide they could have popped from her skull. “I’m here to help you Darryl—to give you a little push,” the boy said.
“Shut up!” He stepped forward but stopped when the boy’s knife drew blood from the woman’s filthy skin. Darryl felt his face flush and his blood quicken. “Stop that! She’s mine!”
“Oh, this one’s just a play-thing. You and I both know that,” the boy said. “She’s just like all the others you’ve brought down here. But I’m here to tell you that the real prize is just down the road.”
Darryl could hardly think. “Stop it! Just stop talking!”
“Darryl,” the boy sighed and walked around the other side of the girl. Terrified, she couldn’t take her eyes off him, as if Darryl was no longer in the room. “I know all about you,” he said. “You see, I’ve been watching you ever since you were a boy living with your mother in this little cottage, and I’ve seen you grow, fed on a daily diet of verbal and physical abuse. It made you the man you are today.”
Darryl shook his head. How could this child know a thing about him? “You shut your mouth you little shit, or I’ll bash your fucking head in!” He raised the wrench, but the boy simply tut-tutted him with a wagging finger.
“That’s not your style, is it? Besides, you won’t kill me, because you’re intrigued by what I have to offer.”
“You’re just a kid. What could you possibly have to offer me?”
“Years of experience—literally hundreds of years,” the boy said. “This is just the small stuff. It barely scratches the surface of the kind of power you could wield.” The boy held up his blood-caked hand and clenched it into a fist. “You dream of holding one soul in your hand—imagine if you could hold all of them. All that blood. All that flesh.” He gripped the girl’s hair and she whimpered. “This is just a taste of what you could have.”
Darryl ogled the boy’s sweaty face, and his wild eyes. But he didn’t see conviction; all he saw was insanity. The kid was obviously high on something. Darryl spat on the floor. “Enough talk. I don’t fucking care who or what you think you are. You come into my home—you die!” He moved in, but the boy only shook his head in disappointment.
“It looks like it’s time to teach you a lesson.”
The knife slid into the girl’s throat and a spurt of blood followed, redder than any lipstick he could ever hope to smear. It sprayed across Darryl’s shirt and trousers, hot and wet. He let out a high-pitched cry as his raggedy doll choked on the flow of it. All he could d
o now was watch, as the girl’s bruises were covered in red, and his pleasure was stolen by the rapidly-fading pumps of her terrified heart. “You took her from me! She was mine! Fucking mine!”
The spreading pool of blood ignited the monster in Darryl and he launched himself at the boy. The pair crashed onto the concrete in a flail of limbs, and it took him no time at all to find the boy’s throat between his fingers. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”
The boy smiled and wheezed. “That’s… the spirit.”
Darryl’s knuckles burned as he squeezed the boy’s throat, but his exertions, his rage, had no effect. He tightened his grip until he could feel the contours of the boy’s vertebrae. Still, the boy laughed.
“Come on Darryl. You have to want this.”
“Just fucking die!” Darryl’s spittle fell on the boy’s cheek and trailed down into his grinning mouth. He couldn’t understand why his voice remained unaffected.
“You first!” The boy stared up at him, his face carved with macabre glee.
Darryl’s fingers flexed open and he knew he was longer in control of his own body. Every muscle in his body became rigid. His back arched inward like he’d been struck by lightning. A stream of piss ran down the inside of his trouser leg. Paralysed, he could only watch as the boy reached up with his blood-caked hands, plunged his fingers deep into Darryl’s mouth, and pried his jaw apart. The boy’s mouth spread open. Black smoke wisped out like a cobra; it smelled of charred flesh. Darryl would have gagged if his guts weren’t as hard as rock.
He felt the smoke crawl down his throat, invading his insides. And when it found his soul, the last thing Darryl saw, in his feeble, narcissistic mind, was his mother swimming in a sea of darkness, her finger crooked to summon him like she used to when he was about to be punished. And this time, the punishment would be eternal.
~
Megan had her bags packed; all she had to do was walk out the door. So why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she take the next step?
She grabbed her phone off the kitchen counter. She dialled for a taxi and realised it was the second time she’d made the attempt. Maybe it was the memory of her neighbour, screaming for help. Losing a child—Megan could barely imagine the pain, whereas not having one at all was something she knew all too well.